May 15
After canceling this trip due to COVID restrictions in 2020, we are now preparing to embark on our Europe vacation. The bags are packed, mostly, all accommodations and train tickets purchased, and my pill box is filled to the brim. I thinks its a go. My daily, time permitting, updates will soon begin. My blog may be extremely limited with bird names this time, but overflowing with culture, no doubt. Oi!
May 18
It was a short night when one does not go to bed before 1AM, even when having to get up at 4:30. Our travel went smoothly enough. We joined a few Winnipegers who were in mourning for their hockey team, which was eliminated from the NHL playoffs the night before. Winnipeg is a delightful place to visit and we had a bowl of soup for a very early lunch before boarding our next flight to Montreal. There we had just enough time for a few of my travelers to satisfy their alcoholic needs. There were many Toronto Maple Leaf fans glued to the TV sets watching as their team succumbed to another playoff breakdown. At the gate for our flight to Lisbon there were more people than all of those at Winnipeg airport. Unfortunately, very many of them had major learning disabilities, as the lineup for those in zone 1 was filled with people with zone 3, 4 and 5 tickets. I never understand the need to line up long before your zone is called. We all got to Lisbon at the same time. The six and one half hour flight went smoothly enough except my plan to use a padded strap that would go around the top of my seat and hold my head, preventing it from dropping down and waking me up I fall asleep failed. It quickly became apparent that this would not work as there was no way to relax and fall asleep with your head jammed against the seat. With not being able to hold any position without soon feeling uncomfortable, I did not sleep at all.
May 19
Our flight arrived in Lisbon at 9:00 in the morning. The airport was old and large. Our line to the Customs officers snaked back and forth for miles, but did move well. We were asked no questions and proceeded to find our luggage. Exiting the restricted area we quickly found Wingbuddy reps, the tour operators for our Portugal bus tour. We were soon on our way to the hotel. I sat up front and asked the driver how the weather had been. I knew but wanted to make conversation. He looked very confused and went to the AC dial, thinking I was complaining about the temperature in the van. I tried to explain that I was referring to outside but quickly gave up as it was apparent that he spoke little English. We never spoke again.
After checking in and having a vary early lunch and beer in the hotel bar, we were the only clients, we walked around a little and then walked around Parque Edwourd VII near our hotel. We were all feeling groggy for lack of sleep so returned to our hotel by 2 o’clock. I lied down for a short rest and in no time slept for two hours, as did Joanie. After that I thought about getting up frequently, but every time I found myself nodding off before I could. The same happened several time doing anything else.
We discovered tonight that dinner does not begin before 7PM, with restaurants serving only drinks before this. Noted for next time. We had some wine, since it was only 6:30, and had some wonderful Portuguese wine recommended by Joanie’s brother. We also made note to take a jacket to dinner. It was in the low 20’s today, but by 7PM the breeze was feeling uncomfortable. Well, if none of what I wrote today makes sense, it is because I am still struggling to stay awake. It’s 10:50 at night, 2PM Vancouver time, but I can’t wait to get in bed. Good night!
May 20
What a wonderful sleep last night. I hit the pillow before 11o’clock and was out like a light until after 6. The alarm was set for 6:30 so we could have our complimentary buffet breakfast and be ready in the lobby for our first tour outing. We began by driving across the city to the waterfront along the Tagus River to see Belem Tower. This 16th century fort tower was one of two defending the city from enemy ships. The second tower was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in 1755. We also stopped at a monument to the Discoveries nearby, commemorating important figures, including explorers, in Portugal history. A short walk away was a needed visit to Pasteis de Nada, where our guide claimed the best famous custard tarts are made. There was a lineup out the door but we were able to pick up the tarts in reasonable time. They were still warm and were delicious. I see many more of these in my immediate future. We were not as lucky with the nearby monastery dos Jeronimos which had over a 90 minute wait. We skipped this and made a viewpoint stop before driving to the downtown area where we got a short tour before going on our own. It was now 29 degrees out so beer was far more important than lunch. The downtown area was beautiful, with 200 year old classic buildings, (the previous area was completely destroyed by the 1755 tsunami) and layers of buildings going up the hills. A castle overlooked the area. We eventually had lunch which was nothing to write home about. I ordered a meat croquette which was cold and nothing like my Dutch favourites. After a little shopping we walked back to our hotel.
For dinner we went back to the same restaurant as yesterday, not because it was so good, but we walked out of another restaurant once we saw the menu and figured out how much it was going to cost. The entree was about 20 euros, but that was just the meat. You then ordered from side dishes like potatoes and vegetables, another 10 to 15 euros, so a total of perhaps 35 euros, or about $55, without drinks. What they do here as well in some restaurants is put a bowl withs buns, a dish of butter and in this case a dish of olives on the table with a bottle of water. If you use any of these you are charged for them. Even the butter is a separate charge. When you hear that things are cheap in Portugal, don’t believe it.
Overall though, a fabulous day!
May 21
We experienced a few more clouds to and it was about 20 degrees in Sinatra, where we were heading, but Lisbon was 25. We took the coastal highway along the Atlantic Ocean. Traffic flowing into Lisbon was crawling from all directions, which was not unusual. We passed along a few beaches and very expensive real estate along the waterfront before stopping in Cascais, a nice beach town. There were many nice water view houses, (most residential areas are high rises), and a nice little beach beside a marina. Russian yachts used to be moored everywhere until they were ceased from the oligarchs after their war with Ukraine started. Now there are none. Unlike many Mediterranean beaches we have seen, covered with pebbles, the beaches here were fine brown sand. We spent some time exploring the town and beach. In Portugal, almost all sidewalks, central shopping area streets, etc. are made of cobblestone, with many dips and bumps from tree roots and age. Our guide, Goncalo joked that Lisbon is the sprained ankle capital of the world. The pattern of the cobblestones by the beach gave the impression that the ground was wavy. It could almost make you a little dizzy.
We carried on along the coast to an area with long stretches of sandy beaches with sand dune on the other side of the road. People never shovel snow but frequently shovel sand after big wind storms. We stopped at Cabo de Roca, the westernmost point of continental Europe. A cross marked the spo. It was very beautiful, with dramatic rocky coastline, fields of wild flowers and green forests. Goncalo (pronounced Gonzalo) was extremely knowledgeable and prideful of Portugal history, politics and many other things. We got a lesson on how Portuguese names are derived, how names compare to other languages and peoples, etc. He was also gave us lessons on how Portugal was the leading influence in many areas and were the first at many things. One of those was reforestation. Several hundred years ago, the King at the time wanted to restore the forests in the area we were in, after much was destroyed by hurricane winds. Leading botanists were brought in to study what trees were best for this climate and soil conditions. Then assorted trees were planted to restore the forests.
Our destination was Sintra. This was a favourite vacationing place for medieval nobility and is also where a royal palace is located. Several castles dot the mountainside. After lunch and exploring a little, we took a tour of the palace which has been occupied for over a thousand years. Tiles are a big thing in Portugal, and this palace was filled with many different types of ceramic tiles. We did not return to our hotel until after 4:30, just enough time to write this blog and have a little nap before 7PM dinner. Dinner in our hotel restaurant was probably the best so far in Lisbon. We had great service, the waiter offered us free buns with dinner and gave good recommendations.
May 22
We had our buffet breakfast, which was good as always, and checked out of our hotel. All luggage was stored under the bus and we took to the highway for Tomar. Traffic coming into Lisbon was again at a standstill. During our drive we passed the local bull fighting arena and we got a deep lesson on the art of bull fighting and elegance of it in Portugal vs. The more barbaric fights in Spain. Spanish fights end in the bull being slaughtered in the area, while in Portugal, the bull is “teased” until it is fully exhausted, and then led out of the arena. The bulls are special, expensive breeds so they are not killed but will fight another day. The drive to the city of Tomar passed through farmland and cork trees. Portugal is a major producer of cork. In the city, we went to tour the Convent of Christ, which was the headquarters and training quarters for the Portuguese knight of the Templars. This was a monk order that trained monks to be knights. In the 11th and 12th centuries sought to do God’s work by fighting against evil regimes, providing safe passage for people for a fee, lending money for usury with blessings of the Pope, etc. They lived frugal lives but got very wealthy. They answered to the Pope. Eventually the Pope and many European rulers became jealous of them and stirred up false rumours to put an end to them. Most were murdered and their wealth stolen, but they still had protection in Portugal, and set up this residence in Tomar in the 11th century. Eventually they were rebranded to work for the Portugal king as sailors in the Portuguese armada under a different identity so their ties to the Pope were gone. It was another beautiful day but very windy in Tomar.
After Tomar we proceeded to Fatima. Here the story goes the Virgin Mary appeared to some children, warning of the coming of a Great War, WW1, and then appeared 5 more times, with further warnings from on top of an acorn tree. Today Fatima has the third largest square in the world, built for Catholics coming here to commemorate the appearances on the location of where the tree once stood. All around the square shops sold religious souvenirs. We had an 90 minute stop here for lunch. We figured we had plenty of time. We found a patio restaurant and put in our orders. 80 minutes later we were still waiting for our bill.We went inside to pay but there was a line up of people all waiting to order or pay bills because their bus was leaving. We did manage to get back to our meeting place with a minute to spare. Some only paid for drinks because they could no longer wait for the food to arrive.
At another town we visited the chapel of another extremely old church in Batalha. Our guide loved explained the details of these places. Our spiritual journey ended in Porto, where we checked into a new hotel with indoor and outdoor pools. We ate in the hotel restaurant, which didn’t begin dinner service until 8:00PM.
I should mention that we get up at 5:30 every morning and I have trouble keeping my eyes open beyond 10:00 PM. Sounds like some other people I know. It is now very, very late, 11:25 so good night.
May 23
We had a leisurely buffet breakfast which had an amazing assortments of food. Those that went to Faldo last night got back late so our start was delayed until 9:00. Faldo is a dinner and musical recital where generally a woman sings slow, deeply emotional music. It only took one line of a sample song to realize this would more like torture, so we passed. The morning involved a walk through Porto beginning with an open market which was not much different that the market area of Granville Market in Vancouver. Like little children we were told to go to the bathroom and then shop for about 30 minutes. Of course one of the oldest women in our group was early at our meeting spot with Goncelo and wanted a picture of Jo and I, my sister, and Goncelo. I have no idea why but have stopped asking that question. When it was time to go, she was missing. She decided to wait til then to go to the bathroom. Goncelo was in a bit of a panic. Like Lisbon, Porto is on a series of hills. We walked mostly down as we made our way to the riverside. There was still complaints by one woman that downhill was harder than uphill. Her husband announced the first time he met the group that he had only one kidney and suffered from extreme car sickness, so had to have the best seat in the bus at the front. He complained later that the walk was long and the pace too fast. With a group of 45 people trying to stay together while negotiating through huge crowds, we could hardly be going fast. Some people just should be wise enough not to do these trips.
We walked across the bridge crossing the Douro River to Gaia, the city on the other side of. There we went for a wine tasting. We had two middle eastern people who chose not to join us I think because it involved alcohol. We tried a white port wine and a red port wine. Not a fan of the sweet flavour. After the wine tasting we had a choice of going back to the hotel with our bus, or staying downtown and arranging our own transport back. We chose to stay. We tried to book a ticket to see the famous Lello Bookstore in Porto at a Info Center but couldn’t because they only dealt with Gaia attractions and with my phone on airplane mode, my phone could not receive the authentication code sent my messages. We crossed back into Porto and had lunch along the river. I had a wonderful lasagna with half containing white sauce and half having standard red sauce. We then then tried to find the bookstore using a city map, but couldn’t find it. We did find an info center and they booked tickets for us for 4:15 today. I discussed as well the best way to get to a botanical garden which we saw near our hotel. They suggested a bus and gave us the bus numbers and location to get on. We saw the bookstore which was packed. We were allowed in shortly after our requested time. I could hardly move. It reminded me of a pack of rats scurrying and running over each other in their excitement. The big thing was the beautiful design with the stairs to the open second story and the stained glass ceiling. There were many classic books for purchase in several languages. After the bookstore we tried to follow the map to the circled location of the my map. However, street signs are difficult to find, and street names we looked did not seem to exist. I thought I was on a rol land we hiked up and down hills. When I could not find the next street, I asked at the local cannabis store. They said to go up the street for one block, then turn left on the next block. We did that and soon found ourselves going down a big hill, back to the info center. We were walking in a huge circle. We went back in to the Info and got further directions, which seemed different to what was drawn on my map, but we did find it, a bus stop, not the bus station as we were told. For days now we have heard about Portugal’s exploring feats and cartography skills, but they need to go back to school for drawing accurate city maps. We caught the bus still very uncomfortable about where we were going and how it related to our hotel location. We found ourselves passing places we had walked after the bookstore, not realizing we could have caught this bus across the street of where we were several times. We did see the gardens and got off. The gardens included a rose garden, hedges etc. but nothing was maintained. We soon decided this was not worth our time and people’s feet were getting sore from all the walking. After a few large blocks past the gardens, we saw our hotel with a bus stop in front where our bus could have taken us. Everyone was very happy to get back and put up our feet, even Fitbit. I got a warning that I might be exercising too much and I should take it easy tomorrow. Despite this, a great day.
May 24
Today we headed to the Douro Valley, an area where vineyards produce most of Portugal’s wine. Our giant bus somehow negotiated the very narrow mountain roads. We stopped at a lookout for a great view of a portion of the valley and the Douro River. Most of the slopes on either side of the river had terraces created over many, many years with rock retaining walls. The rows contained the grape vines. It was a beautiful sight to see. We then took a short 60 minute boat cruise down river and back to see the vineyards from the river perspective. I even saw a few birds. Finally we went to a vineyard high up in the hills/mountains. Here we sampled their signature muscatel wine. Then we were treated to an authentic Portuguese meal. It began with salad and bread dipped in oil and vinegar. There was red and white wine on the tables and we were welcome to have as much as we wanted. Empty bottles were replaced quickly. After this we had the meat portion of the meal, with braised beef, pork and fish cakes. The beef was excellent, very tender. I passed on the pork. It was chunks of meat with at least 50% pure fat. I could not even fathom that being on my plate. The fish cakes were ok, not much flavour. We also got potatoes and cooked cabbage. For dessert we got a pastry, a piece of chocolate cake and a cooked pear. Finally we got espresso and a small paper cup of grappa, an extremely potent liquor. And lots of wine. The noise level rose substantially as more wine was consumed. It was fun but I could not rave about traditional cooking here. The meal took about 2 hours. Then we stumbled into the bus for a 1.5 hour drive back to our hotel. The noise level dropped to nothing as most dozed off. A fun outing with stunning scenery.
We got back at about 6:30 and were not hungry for dinner. We went to the dining room at 8:30, but left because we just weren’t interested in the menu. Instead we went to the rooftop bar where I had a toasted ham and cheese sandwich and Jo had nachos with guacamole. That is literally what it was. Some nachos from a bag and a dish of guacamole.
Time to pack as we return to Lisbon tomorrow.
May 25
After breakfast we clambered onto the bus as usual, except we had a new driver and a different, smaller bus which created some confusion for the creatures of habit. After the first day, everyone had their claimed seats and any attempt to sit in a different seat would have caused chaos. However, some people had to find new seats but it was soon sorted out. We also had to take our luggage as we were heading back to Lisbon. Our guide was now onto the group. He would not provide details about the day until needed, because he found himself repeating things over and over because people either were not listening or had trouble comprehending basic information. We drove over an hour before reaching the town of Aveiro, advertised as the little Vienna of Portugal. This town had some canals and produced salt and the blue and white ceramic tiles found on so many houses. We were encouraged to take a gondola boat ride for 15 euros. We did. Not a good call. The 45 minute ride went up and back on two short canals and I can assure you that Vienna does not look like this at all. We did try the local pastry specialty, a round little morsel with an egg yolk filling. Again ok but nothing to write home about, like I am doing. We had a picture stop in a waterfront village called Costa Nova where many of the houses were painted in stripes. A cute sight. Then we had what seemed like a very long bus before reaching Nazare. This is a beach town popular for surfing parts of the year, but not now. It had a gigantic beach and a cliff at the end with luxury houses that seemed to hang over the edge. We had lunch here and did a little shopping in the shops along the beach street. I am so impressed with the beaches compared to what we have seem along the Mediterranean. Here the sand is powder soft with no rocks or pebbles and they are very wide. Often there are plank walkways so you don’t have to walk on the hot sand.
Following this we went to Obidos, an old castle with walls surrounding the city. The merchants were protected within the castle wall. Here they had a cherry concoction called ginja, a potent drink that you could sample in a chocolate cup. Not to my liking. It was a very interesting town. Following this we arrived back at the hotel we had stayed in before and parted ways with Goncelo our guide. It was late so dinner wasn’t until 8:30, followed by a nightcap. To be honest, the day seemed like a bit of a dud until we reached the beach town and castle city. Tomorrow we embark on the southern part of our North to South Portugal tour.
May 26
Today we got our third bus and driver. Each change has been a downgrade. Unlike previous drivers in uniform, today’s driver was quite dressed down. The bus looked nice enough from the outside but inside it looked very outdated and dumpy. Some seats had cracks, arm rests that did not work, plastic plates on the sill with chunks broken off and drab curtains that would not clip together so you could see properly out the window. This bus should have been if it was not already, retired. A number of people had left the group as they only booked the northern part of the tour. Wingbuddy also had a bus full of French-speaking people, almost all from Quebec. They too had lost people so the two were joined together in this contraption. This mean some long history lessons in both languages. Our guide, I never did understand his name, was also very knowledgeable able Portuguese history, industry, etc. and he said he trained Goncelo. The sound system was not great so I often had trouble understanding him. So far, a disappointing start. Our drive to Albufeira took over four hours including a pee break at a rest stop with a restaurant. We crossed over the bridge that was constructed like the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and past the monument of Christ the King, very similar to the statue in Rio. The passed through an area where VW has major factories. These are the leading makers of auto parts in Europe. We also passed through cork tree areas, rice paddies and pine trees that were used to stabilize the sandy soil and produce pine nuts. We crossed through the “mountains “ that marked the Algarve region of southern Portugal. We arrived in town and were again disappointed to see that our hotel seemed too far away from the old town area or the lively restaurant and bar streets that keep the area hopping until the wee hours of the morning. The hotel itself looked like a step down from our previous hotels, although it did have a grassy court with swimming pool. After lunch in the hotel, we found our way down to the local beach, a cove with that fantastic Portuguese brown sand and beautiful orangy cliffs. It was only a 15 to 20 minute walk. Very beautiful. As the afternoon wore on, the place grew on us. For dinner we went to a local Italian restaurant. Like previous nights, I doubt I could have lasted for a noisy pub scene so being tucked away here was probably fitting. Are we getting old or what!
May 28
Our final outing began with a new bus and a new local driver and guide. On the bus front, this one was an upgrade from the last one but still lacked leg space. The seats worked though. We drove to Ponta da Piedade, a little peninsula with great views of the rocky coast. It was gorgeous. Then we went to Lagos, pronounced “Lagos”, the capital of the Algarve region. Here we first walked the shopping street to the city walls and heard some history of the region. We had almost three hours to shop and have lunch. By one o’clock the local temperature was 31degrees. It didn’t bother me, but Jo and my sister were having problems with the heat. In fact, my sister nearly fainted. The sun does strange things to people, and I found myself ordering a mango and shrimp salad for lunch. That’s right, a salad! A lot of chewing.
From Lagos we went to a beach were we caught a boat for an exploration of the coastal area and the highlight, the Bengali Cave. The coast was lined with little beaches beneath orange cliffs and separated by rock outcrops that had little caves and grottoes. We popped in and out of some of these. The main cave at the end was amazing, with a big hole in the middle, reaching up to the sky. A definite highlight.
May 28
This was a free day with nothing planned. That meant sleeping in and breakfast at 8:30. At the recommendation of the front staff, we took a taxi to the old town. It was definitely too far to walk, especially with the hot weather. It cost the three of us 10 euros total. We walked along the water’s edge down the long, beautiful beach, getting caught once or twice with rouge waves that licked the bottom of my shorts. There were people swimming but it was far too cold for me. The cliffs and the white buildings above were a dramatic backdrop. After the beach we stopped for a cold beer, after all, it was now just past noon. Some wandering in and out of shops eventually brought us back to the first bar and restaurant for lunch. There were a lot of pizzerias and Mexican restaurants in town, it we chose a regular fare place for sandwiches and more beer. Taxis lined the main street so catching one was easy. After we got back Jo went for a swim while I sat in a cool bar area to write this blog. For dinner, contrary to my usual resistance, I agreed to go out to a Thai restaurant nearby. We shared three dishes and it was quite good. When we got back at 9:45 and went to the lounge there was only one table open because a women and two guitarists were performing “Fado”. This is the musical genre of Portugal that I had avoided in Lisbon last week. It is almost always sung by women and generally involves emotional stories that somehow I should feel despite not understanding a word of it. Stories of lost loves, men leaving for was, etc. Not my bag, but here we found ourselves at the table in front of the singer. Jo suggested I swing around so I was not sitting with my back to the performers. Now I felt like I was along and getting a personal performance. She would sometimes sing at me like she was imploring me for something. Very uncomfortable. It did not help the Jo and my sister were splitting a gut because they could see how awkward it felt. I was glad when it was over, and we proceeded to close the bar.
May 29
This was expected to be an uneventful day. We were to be picked up at 9AM and return to Lisbon. We were going to the same hotel we stayed in the previous two times. Some, including my sister were to go to another hotel down the street called Tulum Boulevard. There was also a Tulum hotel a few doors down from us. The bus arrived early and right away people were rushing to get their bags stowed and pick seats on the bus. Our driver had trouble keeping up. A number of couples were leaving the tour, either to stay in the Algarve longer or to fly from here to some place else. Therefore the bus contained what was left of the English and French tour groups. Before we left our guide from checked off the names of the people who should be on board and then explained that we were going direct to Lisbon, but we would stop for a 20 minute break along the way to use washrooms, buy a coffee or something. In Lisbon the bus would stop only once, Since the Tulum hotel and our hotel were almost next to each other. Then she left. We were now completely in the hands of a bus driver who spoke no English or French. When we stopped at a rest stop with facilities an a restaurant, there was no announcement. They group continued to be good getting back on time. The driver counted the number of passengers several times and then we left. The only words he spoke was when we crossed a bridge and he said “Welcome to Lisbon.” He then drove to the Tulum Boulevard hotel several blocks passed our hotel, and we all got out. We kind of helped ourselves to unloading our luggage and the group from our hotel hiked uphill in the 30 degrees weather to go to the hotel. There was a lot of grumbling and threats to let the organizers know that this was not acceptable. Most of these people were in their 70’s and 80’s. While we were waiting to check in, we noticed people who were going to the Tulum hotel lugging their bags up the hill and past us to the other Tulum hotel. I can only imagine some of these people discussions they were having.
This was now the third time checking in here. Each time, like the bus, we seemed to be demoted. Our room was similar in size to the smaller room we had last time, but this time we had only one armchair instead of two, no complimentary water, and no box of Kleenex. We checked out my sister’s room and found this hotel was a grade fancier than ours, in fact we ran into a bellhop dressed in a fancy uniform with a top hat. 🎩
After lunch at McDonalds we walked down to the waterfront and downtown area to see the “pink street”. It was now over 34 degrees and despite staying in shady areas as much as possible, my sister seemed to be struggling with the heat and heat rashes, so we of course had to stop for a cold beer in a quaint alley. There was pink street was as advertised, a street painted pink, along with a pink building. It was a little messy but the sidewalk restaurants and bars were busy. It was not worth a 40 minute walk but it gave us something to do.
The main shopping street in downtown has patio eating establishments down the middle of it, with aggressive staff encouraging people to stop for food or drinks. We ended up at one and ordered our first paella. Mine was with shrimp, chicken and salmon. Jo’s had clams and mussels. The prawns were whole with heads still on. What a mess dissecting the beasts. The chicken too were chicken wings so you had to take the meat off of the bones. The taste was ok but nothing to rave about, but it was way too messy. I will leave it to a good friend to deal with this stuff.
On a final note, I would never want to live in Lisbon. Restaurant staff with some exceptions were not friendly. Traffic is horrible. People often ignore walk signs and run in between traffic. There is a constant sound of horns honking. If traffic isn’t moving, you honk. If cars are being directed by police because of an accident, you honk long and loud. It drove me crazy, or crazier perhaps. Tomorrow we see what Barcelona Spain has in store.
May 30
Chapter two of our trip. My sister left us as she was flying home in the afternoon so we were now on our own. A bus picked us up at the hotel just after 8AM and brought us to the airport. Things went fairly smoothly. We stood in a long line thinking that since we checked in online, we would get to the front and they would print out luggage tags for. However, as we made our way closer to the end, we realized everyone already had tags. Fortunately the machines were close, so I popped over and got tags while Jo kept our place n the line. Security went fast and in no time we were finished. Our flight was less than two hours to Barcelona on Tap Portugal Airlines, but we lost an hour due to time zone change. People were very helpful today. This was the first day of actually wearing my full backpack and day pack so that was interesting. A staff women at the airport explained that border to catch the train into town, we needed to shuttle from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2. Ok, that worked. Then a long walk in the terminal to get to the train area. Again a staff member stepped in as I looked blankly at the ticket machine that asks a lot of things in Spanish that Duolingo did not help me with. He helped get the tickets and said to get off at the 5th stop. The stops were far apart, but we were entertained by a senior gentleman who pulled up near to us. He had a cart which carried what looked like a like a modified car battery and a violin. He even had a little chain and clip so he could secure the cart from rolling away. He plugged in the violin and a small recorder with background music. Suddenly his violin was screeching out a tune that hurt our ears. He played a number of songs, some even acceptable then walked the aisles looking for money. Fortunately he got off before we did. My google search showed that from the station we got off at, it was a 35 minute walk to our hotel, a Holiday Inn Express. We haled a taxi and enjoyed the ride with a very friendly taxi driver.
If you want to rub shoulders with the locals, go to a laundry mat. On the other hand, you may not want to. Our clothes were now past due and the La Wash was less than a block from our hotel. There was a couple there doing laundry. He was a big dark dude with a huge bottle of beer. His wife was a large woman to who wore a dress and apparently no underwear garments. She nursed two cans of beer. They played bingo on their cell phone with the volume up, so you could hear the calls, “Under the N, 5”. They would yell at each other in Spanish, and a minute later they were laughing together. We had no idea how to operate the machines so luckily an English speaking fellow stepped in and showed us. The big dude tried but Jo couldn’t understand him. We did get through this and pilled our clothes into a suitcase, to be folded back in our room. The big couple, who was finished almost 20 minutes before us was still sitting on a bench outside, after all, who wouldn’t want to hang around a laundry mat. There was a boulevard a block from where we were with huge trees down the middle, creating a wonderful canopy. Along the middle for many blocks were restaurants from every ethnic community with patio tables and limited indoor dining. We found a Mexican restaurant. The food was alright but I ordered a quesataco which turned out to be a taco prepared with meat and cheese and then deep fried. A little odd. But here’s the exciting part, twice a pair of parakeets swooped by. Okay, so you don’t get the excitement.
After dinner we walked along the street which ended at the beach just after sunset. A very nice, sandy beach with lots of volleyball courts and lots of people hanging out. It was a pleasant evening. We were surprised to hear that the locals were complaining about the heat. It was 30 today but that is, even here, high for May.
May 31
Barcelona is hopping today due to a formula 1 race in town. The hotel was full of guests at breakfast wearing racing garb, families and a lot of fathers with sons. We walked to the Barcelona cathedral, called Sagrada Familia, which was started in 1882 and is still under construction. It is the number one tourist attraction. The hike took 35 minutes and I bit the bullet and paid the roaming fees to take my phone off airplane mode and use google maps rather than wandering around going in the wrong direction. We had a tour booked for 9:30 and it did not disappoint. The construction is amazing but also unconventional, because the architect, Gaudi, is very different. His building jobs around Barcelona are often quite “gaudy”, with colourful mosaics, odd shapes, etc. there is still much work to be done including completing the main central spire, and a number of lower spires. The cathedral does hold mass every Sunday. After the tour, and a cold drink on another hot day, we took the hop-on-hop-off bus to see the city. It can be a painful process. I have never seen so many traffic lights for intersections and pedestrian crossings. We would drive 20 meters and stop for a long time, proceed another 20 meters or so and hit another red light. Here too, pedestrians don’t bother waiting but go when the coast is clear. In fact both pedestrians and car start moving forward as soon as they see an amber light. Our taxi driver nearly hit a guy yesterday when he stepped out early. We got off the bus near the harbour to see the gothic style buildings and enjoy the cooler weather along the water. Barcelona’s waterfront goes for miles and is very popular. We hydrated some more than “hopped” back on. It took forever between the traffic lights and the lengthy delays at each drop off stop. Not sure I would do it again, although it was not like this in Boston when we did it there. We not only sat on the bus, but did get in 20,000 steps today. Overall, it was nice seeing things, but with another day tomorrow, there is not much I really need to see. Jo doesn’t agree, as she still needs a Pandora store.
In Portugal they joked, or so they say, about not being fond of Spaniards, as did Costa Ricans. They do seem less friendly and their history is full of internal conflict. Even today, Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, an area considered autonomous from Spain. Their soccer teams, Real Madrid and Barcelona FC or Barca, hate each other. On a side note, I did see a garbage can on the restaurant street that said “Tourists go home”. Not sure all restaurant owners would agree.
For dinner we returned to the restaurant street and Jo ordered cold soup and a plate of mussels. Weirdo! I think the waiter/manager agreed. She also asked if they had limoncello. He arrogantly replied that limoncello is an Italian drink and this is Spain. I wanted to ask how this explains all the Lebanese and Greek restaurants on this street., but I didn’t because I already lost major points by ordering Bolognese spaghetti. He asked, “You don’t want something Spanish.” We won’t be back here tomorrow.
June 1
Today we slept in until 8 o’clock. That would be getting up early at home. We were going to take a walk to the beach and hang out for a while. Jo wanted to go to a store, but they only open at 2:30 on Sunday. We had barely a care in the world. We discovered that most of Barcelona did not go to church on Sunday. If they didn’t go to the Formula One race, they were at the beach. The waterfront is a series of beaches that go on for kilometres. And they were all full by 10:30. On our stroll we did come across a section designated “Nude Beach”, but the effects of this spilled over to other beaches as well. We saw many brown boobies, and these were not of the bird variety. The most likely participants were those built like sumo wrestlers. And stripping down to shower was common. Volleyball is a common beach activity here. Many young people playing, and playing well! (And all volleyball players were clothed, for safety reasons I think.
What amazed me was the number of sailboats out on the Mediterranean. At one time I counted 85 sails but the number grew. At times, from a distance they seemed to come together like a large school of fish.
After lunch and a rest in our room, we headed to a mall about a kilometre away for Jo and then returned to the cathedral area since I still had no shot glass from here. I guess not everybody went to the beach. By the time we got back to our hotel, I had over 21,700 steps and we still need to walk to go for dinner. So much for relaxing.
June 2
Barcelona stinks! I mean it. When you walk around, as we are prone to do, you frequently get whiffs of what smells like sewer. It reminds me of when we used to come off the Golden Ears Bridge on the Surrey side, and you could smell the waste processing plant. Other things stink too. Today we were on our way by train to Geneva. Tickets were purchased long ago for the three legs of the trip, Barcelona to Vallence, valence to Lyon, and Lyon to Geneva. Our first train was at 9:30 and Google told me we could drive there in 6 minutes. I allowed about 35 minutes. Every day taxis are parked beside the hotel waiting to pick up fares. Today, I guess because Spanish Grand Prix fans were leaving, there were no taxis. In fact, there were four groups ahead of us waiting. It took until 9:20 for a cab to be available for us. Then, with heavy Monday morning traffic, it took until way long than 6 minutes. We did not get to the train station until 9:40. Our train had left, not even checking to see if we were on our way. We went to the ticket office and explained our dilemma. He checked the schedule and the next train to Vallence, our first connection was not until after 4pm. He suggested we go online with Rail Europe where I got the tickets to see if there were other options. The website did not connect to a human body, but you could try different searches to see if something worked. No luck! Meanwhile Jo did a general search on getting from Barcelona and the only option for today was to take an 11 hour bus ride, leaving at 9:45pm tonight. While we would not get our hotel today, we would arrive in Geneva at about 8:45 am. We had no choice, we wanted to be able to spend at least the day in Geneva. I contacted the hotel to let them know we missed our train and wouldn’t check in until Tuesday morning. They said no problem, our room would be available when we arrived. It was no around 10:30 am, so we had over 11 hours to kill. We were still at the train station with our luggage so we did the next sane thing, we grabbed our bags an hiked across Barcelona to the bus station. Jo found it difficult sometimes to roll her suitcase because the sidewalks had grooves, rough tiles, etc. I admit I had a little difficulty felling too much sympathy with my large backpack on my back and a full day bag on my front, digging into my shoulders. However, we took it easy, trying out the few benches that were actually located in the shade on a warm day. We stopped for lunch downtown in a plaza I had on my “to see” list. Barcelona has perhaps the second most number of pigeons in the world, and many of them were here. We ate the buns we had prepared at breakfast while watching pigeons fly around and land on people, especially those who gave in to buying a few grains of seed from an old woman. Jo succumbed too. By 2:00 we arrived at the train station. It was dirty and dingy and we quickly discovered that with a few exceptions, like ourselves of course, the clientele for overnight train rides are quite different from train and plane clientele. We knew immediately that we had no desire to hang around this station. We found lockers to store our suitcase and large backpack and then headed through the Arc de Triomph and found our way towards the waterfront, in a most indirect route because we were blocked by the zoo. Unlike me, Jo is always thirsty, so we found a sidewalk restaurant by the marina and she ordered a large beer, while I ordered a small one. They served us two large ones instead. We still had hours to kill so we took it easy. Since we paid for a hotel room were were not using, and paid over $300 for bus fare while having paid and unused train tickets, we decided to cheap out and eat at Burger King. It was the worse BK experience ever. They place looked a bit run down and attracted loud people who wanted to use the washroom. They were denied. I am not sure why. It is not like they would make the washroom dirtier than it already was. My whopper was very thin, with Swiss cheese, patty and European style bacon. Yuck. We sat in the park where the Arc was until near dark, then went to the bus station. I thought I would try going to the bathroom before the bus came. I went in a cubicle but just couldn’t do it. The toilet had it’s seat removed and it was dirty. I washed my hands good and left.
We left the station at 10 o’clock and after about 45minutes we were already stopping at a restaurant stop for a bathroom break. This time the bathroom was clean. Sleeping was a chore for us, although I know one person who would have slept the whole trip. Leg space was not great, and after Jo traded seats with me half was through the night, the girl in front of me de died to put her seat all the way back. Despite this we did get little cat naps in. We were happy to finally get to Geneva and be only a few minute walk from our hotel.
June 3
We arrived at our hotel in Geneva at around 9:30. When I said my name they immediately recognized that we were the ones coming late. This was a wonderful, quaint old European style hotel. They quickly checked us in and said it was not too late to get breakfast. We got eggs made to order. It was very personable, especially compared to the sterile environment at the Holiday Inn Express. The staff took our bags to the room so we could eat right away. They were so helpful. What was creepy was when we left to explore the city. I left the teeshirt I was wearing on the bed. When we got back, my shirt was nicely folded and left on my backpack. Joanie had hauled out a nightie and that was folded and put on her pillow. Jo had taken a shower and the bottles of shampoo and body wash were replaced.
We began by taking a boat ride on the lake. Then we discovered that all the items I had listed to see based on research I had done were all close by. At 3pm we had done everything we planned on. After enjoying a drink while looking out over the lake and the water feature, a fountain that shot high in the air, called Jet d’Eau, we searched high and low for a simple souvenir store. The stores in the main part of town are all fancy, high end stores. There is a very business like vibe unlike Barcelona’s party vibe. Women and men are generally much finer dressed than at home, and sleek dresses for women and shirts and slacks for men are common, but here the clothes are more business oriented rather than dress up to party like. My quest for a Geneva shot glass was eventually successful in a less fashionable part of town. We closed the afternoon with me updating this blog while Jo slept and tried reading her book. Dinner is next. See wanted to try a Swiss fondue for dinner but soon changed our minds. The average fondue costs about 35 Swiss Francs, which translates into $108.65 Canadian PER PERSON, and you probably want to add a side dish and maybe even have something to drink. One of the waterfront patios was half taken over by a bank, and all the men were in white shirts and suits. We did find an outdoor eatery, a crepe restaurant. We had savoury crepes for only 19.50 SF, $32.50 CAD. Cheap. Delicious but we will go broke if we stay in Switzerland too long.
June 4
After a nice ham and cheese omelette and that divine freshly squeezed orange juice in our quaint hotel, we discovered we could have stayed in bed another 45 minutes. Our train to Lucerne was leaving at 10:54 and the walk to the station took only about 6 minutes. Everything is in French here, which is a problem when you keep saying “gracias” to people but we were able to figure out our train, even though the train number on my ticket did not match the number used at the station. We were able to keep our luggage with us at our seat. The train ride was almost 4 hours. Maps and I have had our issues but I had taken a screenshot of the route from the station took our hotel, and even though street names did not show, we walked straight to the hotel without one wrong turn in less than 10 minutes. It was difficult to stay focused on not stopping to take pictures every few feet on the way, especially if you were not being choked by a day bag that really wanted to slip off my shoulders. Our hotel looked like a hostel. (This was a last minute booking when the nice hotel we had cancelled our booking). It required self checking on a computer, including creating a key card for the door. After some frustration because I could not find the booking number, it eventually all worked. The room was a basic room with two beds and a comforter folded up on each. Everything was extremely basic but functional. After dropping off our bags we took a million pictures of every building, mural, fancy sign, etc. because there was so much cute stuff. We missed lunch so we found one empty table by the river overlooking the iconic covered bridge and I ordered minestrone soup and Jo ordered bruschetta, along with her now regular aperol spritz. I cannot remember the last time I ordered a soup, perhaps years ago in Boston, but it went down great. We then did half a self-guided walk. Suddenly, the skies opened up. We took shelter in a doorway in our T-shirts as the rain came down in waves. Several times we began walking because it slowed down, only to wait until you were in an open area to slam down again. The rain did stop before we were back in our hotel. After living in shorts in Portugal and Spain, I was now in jeans and a rain jacket.
For dinner we returned to the restaurant by the water because it looked good, and the pasta was reasonably priced for here.
June 5
I managed to sleep quite well after cleaning up from my bathroom incident. This bathroom is quite small and has a narrow sink under a shelf. While bending over to brush my teeth, I hit my forehead on the shelf, causing my toothbrush to shove toothpaste in and on my nose. We have no sheets on the bed, only the comforter to crawl under. I still zonked out quickly. We had no alarm so took it easy. We headed out just after 9:00 to look for a bakery for an economical meal. Switzerland has a big shortage of benches to sit on unless you are at a restaurant, so we could not find any place we could pick something up and sit down somewhere to enjoy it. We finally broke down and went to one of the few restaurants serving breakfast at 10:00. The choices were made for people with wee little stomachs. Eggs bennie looked good but instead of the egg coming on an English muffin, it came on a small hash brown potato patty. We chose the 3 little hot cakes with itty bitty fruit pieces. It eliminated my hunger but was far from making me full. We also had the fantastic freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee. Final bill for two, $87.00.
After our little golden meal we continued exploring the city and we did find several souvenir shops that sold cheaper items, shot glasses, besides diamonds, 1 to 2 thousand franc cookoo clocks, etc. we had a very nice stroll along the lake. We had a few rain drops but we’re back at our hovel before a short downpour.
June 6
It was one of those days, you know the kind. You getup thinking, “Boring blog tonight. Get on train, get off train. Go for dinner and pay way too much, then fall asleep watching BBC News.” We decided to not take a chance with the local restaurants but walk to the train station and pick up breakfast at McDonalds across the street. Not so. McDonald’s here doesn’t open until 9:00. I guess commuters here don’t grab a quick McMuffin and a coffee. We found a place in the station where you could grab something and sit at a table. Most of the choices included foods that should never be consumed before noon. I had one choice, a croissant with an omelette and green leaves in the middle, heated. It was not good, and somehow made me gag when trying to take my daily pills.
The train went well, mostly. We took a train to Zurich and then another train that went from Zurich to Budapest, with Innsbruck being one of the stops. We were able to put our suitcase and backpack on a luggage rack and sit nearby. It was odd that for the entire trip, no one ever came to check tickets. 25minutes before reaching Innsbruck a fellow came storming into our car telling everyone they had to get out. He had 56 boys coming behind him and they had all made seat reservations from here to Vienna. We, like obviously everyone else in this car had no seat reservations. Most accepted that they may be entitled to the seats, but had nowhere to go. The aisles were filled with the boys who got on, plus people who got up to give up their seat, but couldn’t move anywhere. We took a train were stuck so stayed in our seats, knowing we were getting off in a few minutes. When we got to Innsbruck, it was difficult to get off because you had to squeeze, with luggage, past people waiting to sit and others waiting to find a spot in another car. We did manage. We caught a taxi to our hotel, which seemed far from the main part of town. When we got to our rooms, Jo and I agreed that we didn’t need to do much exploring here, since we did not see much interesting. Our hotel cost double our hostel in Lucerne and had a fancy lounge, etc. However, our king size bed had those same weird duvet like covers with no sheets, a costly hostel?
It was now close to 3 o’clock so we asked where some restaurants might be, and found everything was about 10 minute walk away. We turned a corner and walked into a courtyard which was the start of old town. Many gold-gilded buildings, fancy hanging signs, amazing mountain backdrop, etc. And we were surprised at the lack of souvenir stores in some of our previous cities, but now know they all moved here. Ok, I think we can do Innsbruck. The one think Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and now Austria have in common is that there is construction everywhere, roads being redone, buildings being torn down and new ones going up. Try to take a picture without part of a crane in it.
June 7
Today had some challenges. CFL football started yesterday, or was it two days ago, and for the next three weeks I have to avoid learning the scores of all the games I plan to watch at 3 AM every morning after we get home and I have not yet adjusted to the 9 hour time change. But, there are other challenges in my life. I have already reported on some breakfast experiences so far. This morning we slept in and went into the old town where every outfit is either a restaurant or a souvenir store. Almost every one was closed until 10 or 11 o’clock. I enjoyed a nice apple strudel and tiny cup of coffee. Before you judge, The Strudel Cafe offered several kinds of fruit strudels and I did pass on the ice cream or whipped cream. There were really no other choices.
We planned to take a cable car up the mountain overlooking the city, but the forecast called for rain developing just after noon. It was cloudy but there were good sunny periods, so we decided to chance it. To begin, you ride a funicular, which began about two blocks from our hotel and went to a first level, where there was a little town and an alpine zoo, which we passed on. From there you transfer into a cable car which takes you to an area near the top of the mountain. There was a restaurant there and alpine trails. Another cable car went from here to the very top of the mountain. Given the weather forecast, we did not pay to go further because we assumed we would be in the clouds most of the time. There is also a trail that winds up the mountain from the bottom to the top, and we saw a number of people going up.
At the top, we enjoyed views of the city and surrounding valleys during openings in the clouds which were now building up. The temperature dropped from 21 in the city to 5 degrees here. We walked along a narrow path into the alpine. There were steep drops so we had to be careful. There were many delicate alpine flowers. Ibexes and chamois roam these slopes so that drove me on for a while. I told Jo I wanted to see something exciting with four legs. Then high on the slopes we came across a large flock of sheep. They had bells on which rang through the valley. I settled for that and we turned back before one of us stumbled and fell. It’s ok, there were several huge gates for holding back avalanches and rock slides, so we would not have tumbled all the way down. The clouds moved in and out, and at times you could only see perhaps 50 feet. We made it back and both enjoyed a goulash soup with bun. This was my favourite lunch of the entire trip. By the time we were finished, it was pouring rain. I went outside for a minute and saw not far from the path we had taken, a herd of Dutch-looking cows. On an outcrop above them was a flock of sheep. By now I was getting soaked and the clouds soon obscured my view. We returned back down to the city, did a little more shopping and returned to the hotel to relax. It was dry in the city. So far a great day. Dinner is yet to come. Yesterday we searched until we found a restaurant that served schnitzel. Jo and I both read in the menu that it came with mushroom gravy. We ordered it and were surprised when there was no graveyard and the potatoes were a dilly potato salad. Jo asked the waitress about it and she seemed a little put. Schnitzel does not come with gravy here, doomcoff. Later she asked again to see the menu and it turned out what we thought was schnitzel was something else. The schnitzel was listed somewhere else on the menu, sans gravy. What are we in for tonight. Actually I still enjoyed the meal. Entrees here average about 18 euros. At $28 that is still expensive but far less than what the Swiss were charging.
Just before we left to go for dinner it started pouring. Luckily our hotel supplies large umbrellas. We got to the restaurant area and started checking out menus. All the restaurants here have some indoor seating but also outdoor under umbrellas. Many did not have dry seating left. We finally found one and sat down. The waitress came to take our drink order. When we asked about food, she said the kitchen is closed tonight. On a Saturday night? Who does that. We did finally find indoor seats and had a delicious Italian dinner. The rain stopped by the time we were done.
June 8
Our train trip to Salzburg was wonderfully uneventful. Saltzburg was a little cool for my liking. It had rained before we arrived but since then I only felt one or two drops. Tomorrow promises to be sunny and the week ahead appears to show increasing warmth. Our hotel, near the train station, looks old, but has been renovated. Even the outside finish is fresh and clean. The door felt a little short but I did not have to duck. After settling in, we walked a few streets and found a few restaurants. Everyone was sitting inside because it was still cool and damp. After a ham and cheese crepe and a coffee, (Jo had a toastie), we headed towards the river and the old town across the water. The first thing that strikes you about Salzburg is the fortress that sits on a hill, overlooking the city. We came across the house Mozart was born in. Along the river, being Sunday, there was a long row of tents with people selling their crafts. Obligingly walk past, looking at all the things we did not want to buy. Then we found the Getreidegasse, a long pedestrian only street with art deco facades and hundreds of rod iron and gold shingles, or name plates hanging in front of just about every shop. It was packed! Being Sunday, the regular stores were closed so no Prada this time, but bars, restaurants and souvenir shops were open. Everyone was sitting building and sign was a work of art although some might consider the sheer volume of it a little gaudy. Having reached 14,000 steps again, it was time to put our feet up.
For the next two days we have breakfast included in our hotel. So here, I saw many restaurants enticing us to come try their breakfast.
June 9
A 5-star day, so far. We did take it easy and had the free breakfast to start. Pretty basic and perhaps disorganized. There was a toaster but the only brea options were croissants and buns. They were behind cleaning up dishes so we drank orange juice from a coffee cup. There were no bowls so Jo ate yogurt from a flat plate. There were some slice meat and cheese and of course scrambled eggs. The price was right though. We returned to the old town area where we found St. Peter’s church. We peeked inside the sanctuary but a mass was going on. Since it was now a beautiful clear sunny day, there were some retakes of photos that looked more dull in the overcast weather yesterday. We found the cemetery behind the church where the von Trapp family hid in the movie “The Sound of Music” and we visited the catacombs. Beside the cemetery was the funicular which we took to go up the hill to the fortress. There were some great views of the city. When we finished exploring it was past noon, so that meant aperol spritz and beer plus apple strudel for lunch. The rest of the day was uneventful with some shopping and people watching on a park bench. We were disappointed when we got back to our room that it had not really been cleaned. The duvets were folded up and our one garbage can was emptied, but it looked like the bathroom had not been touched. The tap still had water marks, the counter under the drippy soup dispenser still had soap residue, and dirty glasses were still dirty. We have also had issues with bathroom odours. Not my fault! There are no bathroom switches. The lights and fan go on automatically when you enter, but also go off a few seconds after you leave. That means odours hang around. Also, when you sit on the toilet, the lights and fan goes off after a minute if you don’t move a little. And yet, the price for this place is by no means cheap.
One final note until tomorrow or if something unusual happens tonight at dinner, we facetimed with our kids last night. I have told them I do not want to know anything about the football games because I am taping them and will watch them when we get home. One of the first things my youngest grandson said to me was that the BC Lions won their game. We stopped him from saying more and the poor kid looked shocked. He had no idea not to mention the game. I suppose it would have been worse if the news was that they had lost. Now I am still looking forward to watching it.
June 10
Our free breakfast this morning included bread for toast. This was good because I was feeling a little lightheaded and needed substance. Perhaps it was due to last night’s dinner. I had goulash. It was very good but it barely eliminated my hunger pangs. We needed an ice cream cone to give me enough energy to walk back to our hotel. I am on a fifteen day streak now for exceeding 18,000 steps.
Our travel to Ljubljana, Slovenia was uneventful but long. We needed three trains and it took from 10:15 to 5:30. Since we began taking the train until now, we were only asked to show our tickets once. Today, on the last 3 hour ride, we were asked 3 times. Also, we transferred trains in Graz, Austria. While walking through the station, a lady rode over one of the straps of my backpack and I bent down to untangle it from her suitcase wheel. As I stood up I came face to face with a machine gun wielding police officer who was standing there. I learned later while checking the news that there had been a mass shooting at a school in Graz that morning and 10 people had died. That may have explained the armed police presence.
Psst, you want to know where our hotel is tonight. It seems it might be a secret. I had the address and knew it must be just down the street, but here in Ljubljana street names are hard to find, and do not seem to be posted at all intersections and address numbers only appear now and then. Most establishments do not show an address. We passsed our hotel, The Premier Best Western Slon Hotel because we could not find the address, No 34 posted anywhere. We saw a hotel, but it had some fancy stores attached to it. It was not until I went in to the registration desk that I saw a sign with the hotel name on it. We did discover that the name was on an overhang that could not be seen from the street and trees obscured much of it from people across the street. So I am not telling you where it is. I don’t think they want anyone to know.
After checking in we decided to try the sidewalk restaurant next to the hotel for dinner. It served traditional Baltic food. Jo asked for an aperol spritz but she was told they only serve traditional things and Aperol did not make the list. We looked at the menu and even after reading the English descriptions, we had no idea what anything was. Jo asked what a meat roll was. The waiter, who had an attitude to go with his teardrop and assorted other tattoos, looked a little disgusted and said it was meat rolled inside bread. A picture seemed to show a bunch of wieners with some kind of pita bread. She asked about another item that listed a number of items. He said it was pizza. She picked it and chose potato as the topping. Then it was my turn. I was caught off guard and had no time to process al this, so I just said I’ll have the same. After all this time, you would think I would learn, but no. When the dish arrived the only resemblance to a pizza was that it was round. It was like a phyllo pastry with poorly cooked hash browns inside and came with a little dish of sour cream. It even the sour cream had any flavour. The more I ate the less I liked it, but I was scared of getting in trouble with the waiter if I didn’t finish. The only good thing was that this was by far our cheapest dinner of the trip. We saw some of the other dishes being served like giant pita pockets filled with wieners of assorted meats and decided we didn’t need to explore the local food.
After wandering around for a while we went to a non-traditional bar in our hotel and Jo had a limoncello spritz while I had a milkshake!
June 11
We are in Ljubljana because we heard it was beautiful and the local tour bus says it’s the most beautiful city in the world. I beg to differ. After a very good free breakfast at the Premier Best Western, we headed off to explore the must see sights. Being on the edge of the old town district, they were all close by. We saw the three bridges, literally three similar bridges only feet apart that crossed the river to the Preserven Square, another must see. The only thing unusual about the bridges was that they were built so close together. We were excited to wander a little farther down river past the farmers market to the Dragon bridge. It was an ordinary street bridge with old dragon statues on each corner. Then we took the funicular up to the castle fortress overlooking the city. Apart from the views of the city it was very disappointing. This castle has a very long history but much has been destroyed and is being restored. Pictures of before and after restoration shows that it is not being restored to its old glory. On top of that, many main features have now been converted to restaurants, wine shops, etc. Not worth the effort to see. I also would like to know who the genius was that decided that instead of seating young students at their desk and teaching them things like history with textbooks and government propaganda films, they should get out in groups of 30 and noisily invade sights us tourists want to visit in peace. This has also impacted quiet train travel in recent days. In my day…
By noon we had exhausted our short list of things to see. There are many outside restaurants along the river so we did take advantage of that. A non-local chicken quesadilla was in store for lunch. While there are many old churches, and riverside bars and restaurants, they do not match the quaint and cozy atmosphere of some other cities we have visited. Outside of old town, they do not city looks like any city in the world, which I suppose is true of most places. I would rank Ljubljana on par with Geneva at the bottom of my list of cities from this trip.
To fill out our afternoon we went to The House of Illusions. At first the place itself was an illusion. We easily found the street it was on and the brochure said its address was 13 Kongresni. We found 10 and 11 Kongresni, but then there was a boulevard and a new street name and numbering system on the other side. We asked the staff at the pizza place at 11 Kongresni where 13 Kongresni was. The woman working there didn’t know but a staff member said to go up the street, perpendicular to this street and go to a flower shop there and ask. We found the place two down from this shop. How can addresses run west to east on a street continue on a street some distance away running south to north. Another one of those secret locations? We did enjoy our time there. It was a “museum “ showing different illusions created in the past, using mirrors, lour variations, etc. to distort what we see. E,g. Background colours that make one line look much longer than another line, even though they are in fact the same length.
By 4pm we were done and ready to put our feet up, at least those of us who have a bed to lie on while their suitcase is open on the other bed!
June 12
Another long travel day. We got to the train station with 10 minutes to spare are, only to find out our train, which was coming from Belgrade was 9 minutes late. We were taking this train to Villach where we had 7 minutes to change trains for the rest of the way to Vienna. We could be in trouble. I think, because we arrived at each station late, the train left as soon as everyone was aboard, rather than for a specific length of time. He made up the lost time and when the conductor checked our tickets, he said we would need to get on another train, but that train was on the same platform on the other side. We ended up only a few minutes late and ou r new train was still there. We crossed the platform got on, and by the time we sat down, the door closed and we were off for another over 4 hour ride. There were several delays along the way so we did end up in Vienna about 15 minutes late. We got a taxi because walking to our hotel was too far. Traffic was terrible and we seemed to go in circles a little. By the time we got to our hotel, the fare plus a few euros tip ended up costing 50 euro's ($79) . The driver said last week a fare that usually took 20 minutes ended up taking an hour, and cost over 100euros, a new record. We saw lots of buses and trams. I need to investigate before we go home.
I have to admit that our hotel was a disappointment again. The street it was on had a lot of renovations going on and our room looked at scaffolding across the street. The place was rustic and we needed to air out our room. The hall lights are off and automatically go on as you go forward. Strange when the elevator door opens and all is dark. The room was very basic with those stupid comforters instead of sheets and one not so comfortable chair. Oh well, we are richly blessed so this just means getting out into the city more. We did wander around and marveled at the huge, old steepled churches, the charming residences and fancy building facades. We enjoyed time in “The People’s Garden, filled with people enjoying the roses everywhere and just sitting on the chairs and benches enjoying the last rays of suns. We have two full days to relax, enjoy the city and go to a concert tomorrow.
Our ritual each night is to try and get some news before bed from the only English station, BBC and CNN. The problem is we are seeing afternoon coverage. They both seem to take the same two news items and analysis them to death. We rarely hear about more than this, except there may be a scroll at the bottom with one or two other items of significance. We know about the shooting in Austria, LA protests, plane crash in India and Israel and Iran fighting each other, but nothing else seems to be happening.
June 13
This post is late because we are so busy. As of June 14 I have taken 1,443 photos and Jo probably a similar amount. The one thing you will seldom see except for in Innsbruck, are clouds. Every day except that one have been sunny, clear skies with temperatures ranging from 25 to 30.
After a leisurely breakfast, I checked with the manager at the desk about how to get to our concert at the Schonbrunn Palace. I said I had checked online and thought we could take the tram. As a typical Austrian, his response was “No.” Then there was silence as he continued to clean his glasses. Finally he said, “That will take far too long.” He then advised us to walk to a U station and take the U6 train to a particular station, where we would transfer to a U4 train for two stops. We would be at the palace in about 40 minutes. (We followed his instructions and it worked great. I found out the U is a light rapid transit system like Vancouver’s skytrain and the routes each train takes is numbered. ) We hit the cobblestones, revisiting some of things we saw last night. Today we saw the inside of the first church we saw near our hotel. It was quite elaborate inside. We also Found a number of new plazas with museums and other building bedecked with stonework, statues, etc. All a work of art. We ended up in the Michaelerplatz, a plaza from which shopping streets with modern, very often high end stores. We have been awestruck by the beautiful buildings and old steepled churches. We returned to our hotel early to rest our feet and get ready to go to Schonbrunn castle, which included a large garden area. We allowed plenty of time. 😀 The concert was at 8:30pm and with transit working so well, we were there at 4:30. After a drink to cool off, we checked out where to go, because the palace is a huge structure that is many blocks wide. We were told that if we had tickets, we should go to around the right side of the building where we could access the gardens and fin out where we would be entering after 7pm. We, along with many others took the long trek, only to arrive at a gate and take a long trek back along a different path. There we were told the ticket entrance was at the front, so, after looking at some bloomed out roses, we returned to where we had come from. We ended up back at the bar we had our drink at, and, given we still had 2.5 hours to spare, we had a dinner of goulash soup with bun. It was excellent. We noticed more and more couples coming, all dressed up. Ladies all wore fancy long dresses and many me had sports jackets. We felt very underdressed. I had slacks and a button down shirt on and Jo had a nice, knee length dress on. We showed our online ticket we had bought weeks ago from Viator. They said the tickets were not valid and directed us to the info tent for help. There we discovered that our tickets were good, but not for the big concert here. There are often several concerts on the go here in this huge facility. Ours was in the Oranjie, a venue at the very left end of the castle front end buildings. We had another long walk to get there but things worked out there. The only disappointment was that the hall was very plain, not the grand ballroom like setting we had imagined. The markings on the ceiling we light projections. However, the concert was very good. There were two opera singers as well and I didn’t understand a word they sang, except one. I call it “The Cartel” song, because I think she kept singing about stolen drugs. The second half included very familiar pieces like The Blue Danube, etc. and the audience really got into it. This night was for Jo anyway, but it was good. We had a great time. Outside the castle there were many armed police and four drones flew overhead. Perhaps more tightening of security. The ride home on the train was much like going home from a sporting event in Vancouver on skytrain. We were herded in like cattle, with little room to move, but that soon improved. Walking back to our hotel, we stopped at a pizza place to see about getting some wine to take back to our room. We ended up with a 29 euro merlot that hopefully was the best we have ever had, because it certainly was the most expensive.
June 14
We had no strong plans today except to visit Stephan’s church and plaza. We started our usual route but then started going wherever we saw something interesting. Every turn brought new senses of amazement at the beautiful, historic buildings. We saw St. Peter’s Kirche, a dizzying array of sculptures, gilded gold , etc. Without trying to, we found our was to Stephansplatz and the St. Stephen’s church, built in 1578. We have heard many church bells ringing. In Ljubljana it seemed the bells rang at random. Here in Vienna, they at least seemed more time. It was noon when we arrived at the plaza, and the bells started ringing. They rang continuously for 15 minutes. It was deafening. Did I mention that Gay Pride seems to follow us. We once stayed in Amsterdam and the center for the gay pride weekend was across the street from us. This was gay pride weekend, and some protest was going on in the square trying to complete with the bells. We enjoyed drinks right beside the church. We then headed east, hoping to see the Danube River or at least an arm of it near here. We walked aimlessly, but did find a trickle of water and a park filled with locals picnicking. Trying to find our way back into the heart of the city we were confronted with the gay pride parade. Semi trucks pulling wagons with people gyrating to the deafening beat of what some might describe as music. Following each vehicle were hundreds of people bouncing along in all manner of questionable attire. I can’t see the entertainment of watching this for hours but that’s just me. I prefer football. We had to wait for little openings in the crowd of walkers to try and cross the street like salmon swimming upstream. The parade seemed miles long as it wound through the city. Having gone off course by the river, it was difficult to find our way back to where we wanted to be, Michaelerplatz. We stopped for lunch, winner schnitzel, and using wi fi, I was able to get a route back using the map app. The beauty of modern travel, where maps show you where you are and how to get somewhere is that it doesn’t eliminate the joy of guesswork. Once we were off of wi fi and walking towards what the app said, we found the street was not the street on my map. Thinking I had my compass wrong, we turned around and went the other way. Still not the street I was expecting. Decided to use my instincts and headed to the right. In no time we stumbled onto the platz. The route back to the hotel, through the People’s Garden and then up the street, was across the street from the Gay Pride Event Center, or headquarters. This is where there was a stage, music, various tents, etc. It also seemed to be where the parade ended. As we stepped out of the garden area, we were in the middle of a throng of pride celebrants. The street was blocked off and it was difficult to move. We slowly made our way to the main intersection, with the parade still going on, where we found a cop leading people through the crowd to the other side. We jumped in and followed. The crowds dispersed as we made our way back to our hotel. We vowed not to return to this area this evening. I have seen enough sparkling men in mesh shirts, skimpy leather underwear, thongs and other strange garb, and girls/women pretty well naked with pasties, underwear, etc. to last a lifetime. It was a relief to get to our room. For dinner we thought we would just go to McDonalds, but it turned out the nearest one was right in the busiest area, so we settled for an Italian place two blocks away. We tried to overlook the near naked clientele and the strangest costumes we have ever seen. The food ended up being very good though.
Despite the crowd challenges today, in my opinion this is the most beautiful city we have seen thus far.
June 15
Yesterday I bought two tickets online for the Vienna metro so we outdoor take the tram, (only travel mode not yet used). The ticket cost 4.80 euros for two and got us from the station, a few blocks away, right to the main train station. Way better than the 50 euros for two taxi ride. We were early for our 12:42 train to Budapest so Jo bought me a pastry to celebrate Father’s Day, in addition to a meat and cheese bun for lunch. I was so full from the delicious but heavy treat that I didn’t eat my bun until about 3 o’clock. Our train was an old intercity train resembling a cattle car. The economy class seats were subject to someone reserving them but most of these had tags so we took seats without a tag in the name slot. It was a very hot day and there was no A/C. Each car had only two windows that opened. Things progressed fine until we reached the Hungary border. There was an announcement that the train staff were getting off and Hungarian staff would take over. The effect was immediate. We sat there for some time before starting up again. We never heard one peep from the staff, not even announcing stops. The TV screen which relayed upcoming stations and other related info stopped. For the next few stops people came on board and claimed seats they had reserved, causing passengers to move and try and find new seats, never knowing if these too might be reserved. This happened to us two times. Everyone was hospitable but finding new seats and storing luggage was a problem since the only storage was overhead bins. We ended up at the very back of the train. Frequently the train would roll to a stop for some unknown reason and after a while, it would start up, crawling along at a snail’s pace for several minutes. With no announcements, we never knew why. The crew was invisible. The train was stifling. At one point we thought we reached Budapest and got down our luggage, only to realize at the last moment that we were still on the outskirts of the city. When we reached the train’s final stop, there was still no announcement. Even though we arrived 30 minutes late, not a word of apology. You had to figure things out yourself. It seems this country still has a long way to go. It was hot and I thought the hotel might be farther than Google said, so we decided to take a taxi. The problem was, Hungary, while being an EU member, had still not adopted the euro and continues to use the Hungarian forint, known as HUF. I didn’t have any so I asked a cabbie if he or any other taxi took Visa. He said they only take cash. After I showed him the hotel address, he said he would bring us there for 25 euros cash.That’s half the cost of Vienna so I jumped at it. I figured he probably was getting a good deal but I was in no mood to negotiate. Getting out of the train parking lot took 10 minutes. It took a while to get there and I was nervous about what we would find. This was the cheapest hotel of our trip and the only photo I saw made it look rustic. When we drove down we the street, a narrow road with old buildings on both sides, my concerns rose. The address I had was the address of another hotel. We went inside. It looked pretty good and the guests checking in looked quite respectable like myself. The woman at the front desk said we had to go to the hotel next door. Oh, oh. We did. This was also a hotel with a different name. The desk clerk said that this was the right place. They managed the check in for the hotel, but our rooms would be in the building next door, called “Next to the Hotel”. We got our keys and went apprehensively up the elevator. There were lots of other gusts arriving so that always seems like a good thing. Our rooms was great. It was spacious, had three beds, free drinks in the fridge, a balcony and A/C. I was sure relieved.
With the currency issue and being here three day, I decided to use the ATM to get some local cash for small purchases , taxis, etc. The machine asked how much I wanted. I said 300, meaning 300 HF. Suddenly huge bills started coming out, 300,000 HUF! Oops. To be clear, a HUF is not worth very much but this still amounted to some $1,130. If you are going to Hungary soon and would like some HUFs, please let me know.
We wandered around the city until we found the Danube, and picked a sidewalk restaurant for dinner. I was still not hungry after my late lunch. I decided to just order soup in a bread bowl. Before you know it the waiter had convinced Jo to get the traditional glass of white wine as an appetizer along with two bottles of water. She asked him about two choices she was debating and of course he strongly suggested the more expensive one. We discovered this was a pretty high end restaurant. We should have known by the six man band playing classical music for us.
June 16
We made a revelation yesterday. When using a city map, allay decide which direction to go in, and then do the opposite. That seems to especially hold true in Budapest. I think the map works best when held upside down. I am used to maps with North on to. Here I have lost my sense of where North is, but I do know now that the map shows the Danube to the left of our hotel, but when I head to the river, I need to head to the right. This has helped us not get lost today. Prior to going out for dinner and a walk to the river, we put on 20,000 steps already. Incidentally, we noticed that very few people wear fitbits or Apple watches here, except the western tourists. Almost all have regular watches or none at all.
We started our day by going to McDonalds for takeout breakfast since we never eat enough to justify the high cost of the hotel buffet. We ordered sausage McMuffins. They were gross. They came with lettuce and some kind of sauce used for Big Macs at home. No egg and only French fries were available. Lesson learned. We did a substantial walk to the Square of Heroes, a semi circled monument in a huge cobbled square, with statues of local people dating all the way back to the 900’s. Most were warring leaders and below their statue was a scene often of them leading a massacre. Beyond the square was an old castle with a large pond of water in front. This was now a museum, but you could still enjoy the exterior features. It was a hot day so we stopped for refreshments before heading back. We went to the shopping district near the river thinking we could find a light something for lunch. This is becoming a challenge. After 30 days you get tired of restaurant fare and it is hard to find a little something that is not a full blown meal. We ended up at an Italian restaurant with patio seating. Jo had bruschetta and I had a piece of apple cake with cream. While we were sitting there the winds picked up. Soon gusts were blowing things off of tables, moving empty patio chairs, etc. since it was a hot day, the winds picked up felt good. Later we went to the riverside walk where every now and then there would be huge clouds of dust blowing across the walkway. Sometimes it hurt to be pummelled by the sand, and your mouth got gritty. We found the shoe memorial, a place where there were old, weathered looking shoes bronzed and scattered along the riverside wall. In 1944-45, the Nazis would tell the local Jews to take off their shoes, them line them up and shoot them, letting their bodies fall into the river and float away. It was moving to see. Many buildings also had square brass markers giving the names of Jews who lived there and were ceased and shipped to concentration camps during the war. This is common throughout Europe.
We walked around the parliament building and then made our way back to the hotel to rest our feet. A while later the clouds moved in and there was some drizzle. The temperature also dropped significantly, which was good because our A/C stopped working all of a sudden. The rain did hold off and after dinner, we went to the riverside walk where and walked across the Lion’s bridge to Buda, where we, and many others, got across from the parliament building for a photo op of the building lit up in the dark. Most of us that is. There was a very strong Asian contingent who used the parliament merely as a backdrop for posing like models for the camera. There are few things more vane than young women with a camera. By the time we returned to our hotel we were now over 32,000 in steps. My Fitbit will be mad at me.
June 17
A sudden change in plans today. We were going to go down to the Danube, a 20 minute trek we have done a lot, walk across the bridge to Buda side, take a funicular up the hill, and explore the outside of the Buda Castle. However, we got a suggestion last night from my brother that we should go to the Szechenyi Baths if we had time. Given how much walking we did yesterday, we decided another long walking day might cause a rift between me and my Fitbit. The thought of just relaxing in warm mineral pools was appealing. However, I kicked myself, which isn’t easy to do, because the baths were in the park that we visited and spent time in yesterday, but I had forgotten about it and never looked up where the baths were. So, after breakfast we walked back to the park and went to the baths. There were a large variety of pools with different temperatures inside the building. Outside there was a large pool with 26 degree mineral water. Of course, like everywhere else, the second and third outdoor pools were under reconstruction, we we could enjoy a backdrop of fencing, scaffolding, tarps and assorted construction materials lying around. We spent 4 hours there just relaxing in the pools. The weather was quite overcast, but 26 degrees so quite comfortable. We tried some of the indoor pools but preferred the outdoor one. There was the usual array of young women strutting and posing provocatively in skimpy bathing suits for their “This is me, aren’t I gorgeous “ photo albums. Not all of them were model material either. There was one glitch, as there always seems to be. We had small lockers with the lock activated by a wristband we received. When we were ready to go, Jo’s wouldn’t open. We had to wait a while for a manager to come.
We came back to find the A\C was still not working but we now had a small fan. Jo was not a fan, but it definitely helped.
June 18
And we’re off to our final city, Prague. We only had a short walk to our train station, different from the one we arrived at. We made sure to pick seats that had no paper in the slot above the window. Most seat did, Erich meant at some time on this trip, some reserved it. Our departure was 9:30 and we arrived in Prague at 4:20, a long ride. My first impression of Prague was not a good one. At the train station we could not find any sign saying where to get a taxi. There was a metro information booth so I asked the fellow where to go to catch a taxi. He said this was a metro booth and they only deal with metro questions. I said fine, but where should I go for a taxi. He acted very arrogant and said they do not provide that type of info. Well thanks a lot for nothing. We went outside and the sidewalk ran into a park. No cabs any. Then I saw scribbled on a cement walk in chalk, “Taxi” and an arrow pointing down the path. A guy came up to us and asked if we needed a taxi. I said yes, and he led us to his car, parked along the side of the road. No markings. Clearly a guy trying to money on the side. The Czechs have their own money and given my experience with HUFs, I was not about to buy any Czech money. This fellow said he would drive us for 20 euros. Even though I figured he was not allowed to do this, I accepted. Prague was not offering me quick taxi service and I was happy to be able to use my euros. Our hotel, close to the Old Town, was very old and quaint. It was very cramped, it was difficult to pull up your pants in the bathroom and again, one chair. A/C consisted of a fan. This is home for four days but I think it will be fine.
We rested up for a bit before going out to find dinner and wait for dark to take the iconic Charles St. Bridge with the castle lit up behind it. Apparently all of Prague had the same idea. For dinner I had a potato dumpling stuffed with wild boar ragout on sauerkraut. I now know that potato dumplings are not something to get excited about but the ragout was delicious.
June 19
Europeans eat the strangest breakfasts. Our hotel included breakfast so we ate here. There were all sorts of dinner items to choose from. There were short sausages that looked like uncooked regular wieners, cooked mushrooms and potatoes among other things. They did have cereal and yogurt as well as boiled eggs and eggs pre-made sunny side up but with the yolk now having no runnyness left. I didn’t recognize the butter, which was a big glob. It still beats the stress of trying to find a restaurant that serves breakfast and has standard breakfast food. I still have bad memories of the coffee I had yesterday that looked like dirty water.
We continued to struggle with city maps that don’t seem to accurately reflect the actual streets. Several times I found the street we were on, followed it where we wanted to go only to find the street we were on suddenly had a different name and direction. A street shown as running straight suddenly had a bend in it. However, this also led us to new discoveries. We ended up doing a 14,500 step loop around the city, leading us to the national museum, and a view up the boulevard which by now is customary, had fencing, cranes, excavating equipment, etc. ruining what would have been a beautiful sight. Prague is known as the golden city and it is easy to see why. So many old buildings have golden edgings, statues with gold, etc. the buildings along the boulevard which by, mostly hotels and high end retail, are stunning, like a perfect postcard if you can crop the fences out of it. For lunch here I had a monty christo sandwich while Jo had a large sausage with horseradish bread and mustard. We both enjoyed our choices, although mine is still with me and Jo’s only stayed with her 30 minutes. Our goal was Wenceslas Square, which was at the end of the boulevard. Again, the architecture was stunning! We carried on through some narrow streets and passages until we spilled out onto Old Town Square. It was a mass of people. We were in awe of the buildings, including several churches. One was ringing its bells. The other had a tower on which was the world famous astronomical clock which at the top of the hour does a routine. People packed the square to see it. A chime rang and two doors above the clock opened. This was the March of the apostles and each passed by the windows. Even a skeleton in one corner got into the act, raising its glass several times. It ended with 15 peels from the bells, because it was 1500 hours. We thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful sights but left the Jewish District for another day. We headed to the river for a scenic spot to have beer and lemonade before going back to our hotel to relax. The weather was slightly cooler today, and at times was even a bit chilly in the shade when the wind picked up.
June 20
We were fairly familiar now with where the places were that we wanted to visit so it promised to be a day with less extra walking due to bad mapping. First we went to the Power Tower, the entrance way to the big square we visited yesterday. The archway in this tower was used for centuries for coronation processions. We then headed for the Jewish district to see the old new synagogue which dates back to the 13th century. While we didn’t do the tour or buy entry tickets, we could over hear from the guides at the site how Jews were restricted on where they could go. For many centuries, they buried their dead in a building, deep to the ground with new graves going on top. Later, some restrictions were removed, and there was a city lot with gravestones. These were squeezed together due to limited space. After exploring the Jewish district we cut across the Wenceslas Square like we knew exactly where to go and found the street that lead back to our hotel . Along the way we stopped at the Louvre Cafe, which started in 1902 and was the place to be in Paha, as Prague is called here. They boast Albert Einstein as one of its frequent customers. Our hotel had given us vouchers for two free coffees here and no good Dutchman would pass up an offer like that. It was a fancy looking place on the second floor of a building, but the clientele was quite diverse. We also had an apple strudel with whipped cream and custard cream. Very delicious! We put our feet up for a while in our room, then headed across a very busy Charles Bridge to explore the other side featuring many interesting buildings and of course, above it the castle. We were shocked at the crowds. The bridge and the street on the other side was jam packed with people. (The bridge is pedestrian only.) We started up the hill and soon found the stairs, 287 steps, that lead to the castle entrance. We were surprised at the expanse of the castle which also included a huge basilica. We got tickets to tour five buildings, including the basilica and the old little street that housed the people who serviced the castle. One of these was the shop that made the armour suits the army wore. There was a huge collection of armour, helmets and weapons dating back to the 11th century. There was also a storage of torture equipment. By the time we got back to our hotel, and went back to the Charles Bridge to find a restaurant for dinner, we were at 30,000 steps. We were done for the day. So much for less walking. Maybe tomorrow, our last day.😒
June 21
We got up late today, with nothing on our agenda. Then I struggled with Swiss Air for over an hour. I went to check in and noticed my booking, done by our travel company, showed 0 checked bags. I tried to change it on their website but was kicked off several time. I used the chat help feature but got nowhere. Then I tried live chat and got a person, who was equally unhelpful. In the end it seemed we had to go to the airport and deal with the airline staff there to pay for adding extra luggage. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.
We took a stroll, or at least tried to. For years Jo scurried up ahead and I tried to keep up. Now she keeps pulling me back as I am focused on getting in the openings amid the busy crowds. It is tiring to walk slow. We had a few things we had to do. One was get a funnel cake, which is popular here. The other was to get an ice cream. I gave control over to Jo and she led us onto a small island where they rent out paddle boats. Then we did our frequent stroll along the river, past Charles Bridge, sitting in the shade on a bench for a while taking in the scenery, and then to the next bridge. There we crossed and made our way back to Charles Bridge which was packed as usual, and got a funnel cake filled with cinnamon apple and cream. We had to stand by the sidewalk to eat it because there was nowhere to sit. We were full, but soon it was time for a cold drink, so off to a waterside restaurant to watch the tour boats and paddle boats go around. We explored some more as the afternoon wore on, but we were both too full from the funnel cake for ice cream. We returned to our hotel to relax, think about packing, etc. We went for a relatively early dinner at 6:15. We found a table in a restaurant by the water just before Charles Bridge and enjoyed a drink before dinner, seeing as this being our last in Europe. A little sad. Then we got serious and polished off a bottle of wine during dinner. I had the goulash. It was good, but every time I have had it, it was served differently. This one had four chunks of beef in a gravy with thin white bread on the side. Since our quest for ice cream had failed, I had to order the ice cream with hot raspberry sauce. Check list completed. One last stroll through the crowds back and forth on Charles Bridge after sunset and it was back to the hotel for the night.
One observation Jo and I both made was that Czechs were not generally friendly except if they were serving food and hoping for a tip. We noticed this often. They could be very short and abrupt. When having breakfast at the hotel, the staff working there never said hello or even smiled. I understand there could be a language barrier but smiles and nods cover all languages. And they too liked to yell at each other, even when standing side by side.
I have to say this trip has been a wonderful experience. Many would find it too busy and opt for going to fewer places and staying longer, but realistically, I doubt we will keep coming back here so this was an overview and was good. Most cities we managed to see the main sites within a day and a half. We enjoyed some amazing cities, differences in culture and scenery. I got a better appreciation for places I knew little about. We got exposed to how differently some people eat and enjoyed awesome weather. In 36 days of travel, we experienced only two days of showers. That’s some cold weather clothing packed around for nothing. As I soon go into a bathroom I can barely stand in, I am also reminded of the good things of home.
June 22
As we wrap up this trip, all that’s left is to get home in one piece before military conflicts increase and affect the stability of many regions. We got up at 5:30 am and when we got down to the lobby, our uber driver was already there, waiting for us. It was a very quiet ride to the airport. I have learned from previous experience not to try and engage in conversations with drivers whose English language skills are limited. It is awkward and does not go well. We arrived at the airport at 6:40 for our 9:50 flight to Zurich. We were the only ones at the Swiss Airlines check in counter as staff stood around. Therefore we were helped immediately. I explained that we were checking in one piece of luggage each but our booking did not show any luggage. The man didn’t ask any questions but checked in the luggage and we were done in less than 5 minutes. going through security also went very quickly. That made for a bit of a wait but that is far less stressful than rushing around a strange airport. Then Jo wanted to but a bottle of water. Yesterday I paid for something with a euro bill and received 80 Czech Koruna in coins in return. I figured they would be souvenirs of our Czech visit, but the bottle of water cost 79 Koruna. I was left with only 1 Czech Koruna, about six cents. This day was going great. Our plane, operated by Edelweiss Airlines arrived at the gate on time and boarding began on schedule. Half way through boarding we saw a significant number of police cars, sirens blaring surround the aircraft. Police jumped out decked in flack jackets and armed with machine guns. Boarding was stopped and everyone how were now on the plane had to return to the terminal. Members of the bomb squad were there. While the plane was being searched, everyone in the seating area of the gate were told to move away to the centre of the building. En with machine guns stood guard. When all the seats were cleared, there was a large paper shopping bag left on a seat. No one claimed ownership of it. A policewoman with a sniffer dog came to check to bag. After about 30 minutes we were cleared to board. We hear one woman not wanting to take this flight and wanting to have her luggage retrieved. I must admit you feel a little leery about the flight it on the other hand this plane was checked over better than on your average flight. There were extra passport security checks in Zurich but our 10 hour flight to Vancouver went without a hit. What was surprising was the level of service. We received two meals but they seemed to come around frequently in between, offering hot and cold drinks, lots of water and several snacks, including a wonderful piece of Swiss chocolate soon after we were in the air.
In Vancouver, clearing Customs was very quick and it was a treat to be greeted by our grandkids excited to see us again. The kids had dinner prepared for us at our house and by 8:30pm, I could no longer stay awake. As much as we love travel, it also makes you appreciate what you have at home more.
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