All of 2024
2024 started out with us at Brickhouse RV Resort in Kemah, TX. We found the park much less occupied this year compared to previous years. We chose a spot facing west instead of east for the first time. Our giant windshield is like a greenhouse, so this way, we aren’t getting full morning sun, and in the afternoon, the sun is blocked by the neighboring apartments. This may sound trivial, but in the winter here, we find that on a sunny day we may have to run the air conditioning during the day, and the heat overnight. Think about how much a car heats up in the sun. The RV isn’t much better, especially with all the windows we have. As we drove around the area and saw other RV parks, we found that the reduction in occupancy seems to be area-wide. Since in the past, many of the residents were traveling workers, I’m guessing there must be a reduction in the number of projects that employ that type of worker. We also found that our park’s management seems to be laxer than they used to be in enforcing rules. I’m guessing they want to keep the residents they have, even if they are a little less than perfect.
As usual, the highlights of our winters center around our participation in several music events. In January we went to New Orleans for Pardi Gras. In the past, we have left the RV in Kemah, and driven the car to New Orleans. However, the parking charge at the hotel has gone up to $50/day plus tax. This makes flying a more cost-effective option. At the event, we worked the registration room, making sure everybody got their badges and t-shirts. During the no-work hours, we were able to enjoy lots of our favorite musicians at the three main venues in the French Quarter. We returned to Kemah just in time to prepare the bus for a cold snap which gave us some freezing temps, but nothing like the 2021 snow/ice event.
At the end of February, we went to Port Aransas to attend the Pirates and Poets Songwriters event. This used to be the last of our three music events, and marked our departure from southeast Texas. However, the Lone Star Luau, which used to be in mid-February, has moved to mid-March, keeping us in southeast TX a month longer. So, instead of just booking the weekend in Port Aransas for the music, we booked a whole week. We enjoyed the music event, which not only was the main listening room evenings, but a house concert, and a return to afternoon shows at Shorty’s. Shorty’s is the epitome of dive bars. Two years ago, we were informed that Shorty’s was closing because they lost the lease on the land. Instead of simply closing, the owner had the building (which is an old house of questionable value) moved to a new location not too far away. Last year it was still not open, but this year it is. Remarkably, not much changed with the move other than the bathrooms no longer being a scary place to go. After the event was over, we spent the rest of the week hanging out around Port A. We found an RV park at the beach where some friends stayed. We may have to look into this place for next year. And, we took a ride to Corpus Christi, where we visited the Lexington, an aircraft carrier turned museum.
After a week in Port Aransas, we moved about sixty miles up the coast to Port O’Conner. There was no specific reason to go to Port O’Conner, other than it is near the water, and we had never been there before. What we found was a decent sized town, with hardly anybody there. The majority of the homes seemed to be vacation rentals that I can only imagine must be primarily occupied in the summer. The RV park itself looks brand new, and sparsely occupied. The weather was good, other than the tendency for there to be sea fog in and out every day. The highlights of the week turned out to be some of the meals. We had pizza one evening and breakfast one morning at Mama’s Pizza, Café, Bait Shop & Charters. Both meals were surprisingly good. We ate Mexican food once at a tiny place in Port O’Conner, and once in the neighboring town of Seadrift. Again, both were very good. In Seadrift, we also found construction going on building/rebuilding the waterfront and marina. I suspect this was a recovery from prior hurricane damage.
After the week in Port O’Conner, we headed inland a hundred miles to Green Dickson Municipal Park in Shiner, TX. This is a large city park that has twelve RV sites with electric and water hookups. We were the only ones there after a few weekenders left. The site was atop a hill overlooking a small lake created by damming Boggy Creek. The primary reason to stop in Shiner was to visit the K. Spoetzl Brewery, home of Shiner Beer. The tour was very interesting, and it includes two pints of beer in the tasing room afterwards. Additionally, they were giving away pints of their peach-wheat beer and, if you followed them on Facebook, they gave you a twelve-pack of the peach-wheat beer. There is a BBQ restaurant on-site, and there was live music under a large tent on the lawn outside. We enjoyed a meal with our free beers while listening to a local singer. One day we took a ride which included a stop in Gonzales, home of the “Come and Take It” canon. It was here that the war for Texas independence from Mexico began.
From Shiner, we traveled about eighty miles northeast to Rocky Creek COE Park on Lake Somerville near Brenham, TX. The park is a large Corp of Engineers park, but only about half of it is open since the busy season is summer. We had a nice large spot overlooking the lake. The primary reason for this location is its proximity to Brenham, the home of Blue Bell Ice Cream. One day, we drove into Brenham and stopped for lunch at LJ’s BBQ, a small but very busy place. We had a good BBQ meal, and then went to the Blue Bell factory. We found the parking lots full and traffic backed up waiting to get in. We hadn’t accounted for the fact that it was the end of spring break for many local schools. Since we are in the area for a week, we elected to come back another day, after the kids were back in school. When returned a couple days later, we found a much more manageable situation. It was still busy, but not packed. They don’t have a tour per se, but rather a viewing area from the tasting parlor overlooking the packaging area. The ice cream parlor isn’t free, but it is only a dollar a scoop, and the scoops are generous. The selection of flavors included lots of old favorites, and also four flavors not available in stores. Another day we drove all the way around the lake, sticking as close to the shore as we could. On this drive we found The Spot, a place for lunch that we might have mistaken for abandoned had it not been for the cars in the parking lot. Inside was a no-frills room with a bar, a pool table and several mismatched tables. The meal was good and the beer was cold. On my birthday, we drove a loop that included College Station, home of Texas A&M, Independence, and Navisota.
From the lake, we moved to Lake Conroe, where Lone Star Luau is being held at the Margaritaville Resort. As with previous years, we are dry camping in an unused parking lot near the hotel. We got to the venue a day early to help Thom & Coley setup, and worked all day Thursday setting up decorations and sound equipment. Thursday night, while running the bus generator, it’s fan belt snapped. While I carry a spare, it is not a trivial task to replace, and not something I wanted to do when I should be enjoying the weekend. So, we made a call and moved to the KOA a few miles away. We got to the KOA after the office was closed and found our paperwork taped to the door. We found our reserved spot, but the neighbor’s pickup was parked in it, and they were not home. I called the after-hours number on our paperwork, and was told a different spot to go to, which was a better spot anyway. We enjoyed the rest of the weekend listening to some of our favorite musicians and a some new to us. Sunday after the morning show was over, we helped in the teardown of everything and then went to dinner with Thom & Coley.
After LSL, we headed to my son’s house outside Dallas. It has been a very wet spring there, so we were a little nervous about parking in the yard where we normally do. When we got there, I started backing in and got to a point where the tires started to spin. Before digging in, I stopped to assess the situation. We were just far enough in where we wouldn’t impede on the driveway, so that’s where we’ll stay. Within the first week, I tackled the couple of pressing issues with the bus. This included replacing the generator fan belt and replacing the fresh water pump which was sometimes not running when a faucet was open. I had the parts for both on hand, and after a few hours of grunting both jobs were done. The big project I am helping my son with on this visit it building a bathroom and kitchen sink in the man-cave building. Although the bathroom had always been in the plan, we hadn’t pre-pulled enough wires from the power panel, so I ran some new ones in conduit. We had run water to the building when it was built, so I uncapped that and plumbed the room for the toilet and both sinks. Since there is a small risk of water getting in the building, we framed the bathroom with metal studs, which was a new thing for me. The lower half of the walls were made with corrugated steel, with the upper half sheet rock. I put a deck on the room so that stuff can be stored above it, and installed a sliding barn door. The “kitchen” consisted of installing the sink and putting together a stainless-steel counter with metal framing from IKEA. I did most of the construction myself, and then left the “pretty” part of taping the sheetrock, texturing, and painting to my son.
We had a bit of excitement on evening when we heard a loud noise outside. It was after dark, and we had been watching TV. We ran outside to find a six-person golf cart on its side at the end of the driveway and the mailbox on the ground by it. A couple of teenagers were standing near it. We quickly ascertained that nobody was significantly injured and then asked what happened. Of course, there was hemming and hawing about what happened, and who was driving, and where they were coming from, etc. We suggested they call their parents and they said they didn’t have a phone. When I said that if we used my phone it was going to be to call the police, they suddenly found their phone and made some calls. Eventually parents showed up and righted the cart and collected the kids. Apologies and an offer to fix the mailbox were made.
We made a side-trip to Texas Motor Speedway for a NASCAR race. As with most races, camping is open the week prior to race weekend, so we went early in the week. When my son bought the camping tickets, the website wasn’t real friendly in picking your spot. We ended up about as far from the track as you could get, which wasn’t a big deal because on race days there is a tram, but we also were near a group who makes a huge, loud party of the weekend, with live music late into the night Friday and Saturday. The races themselves were good, and overall, we enjoyed the week.
The other big event that occurred during our stay was the total solar eclipse. We were directly in the 100% path, and had our glasses at the ready, but the weather forecast didn’t look good. As the day got closer, the forecast went from bad to 50/50. The day started cloudy, but when the time came, the skies cleared, we had a perfect view of the eclipse, and then when it was almost done, the clouds came back. It was a first for me to be where it was 100%.
In early May, we left TX to head for New York. Our first stop was in Louisiana at our favorite Alfa repair facility. The fix to the heat pump last fall didn’t last and they’re going to take another shot at it. We got to Ronnies late Sunday afternoon and first thing Monday morning he was busy pulling the unit out so they could replace one of the compressors. By afternoon it was working as it’s supposed to. We are making tracks to my brothers in NY over just a few days, with evening stops planned at Harvest Host locations along the way. The first stop was about 250 miles at the Simmons Wright General Store in Kewanee, MS. This is just what it sounds like. It’s an old general store with a restaurant inside. It’s like browsing an antique store while waiting on your food to be prepared. We were just in time to have a late lunch before the kitchen closed for the day. The parking is on a little lane that is primarily access to a small cemetery. Being next to a cemetery should be a nice quiet place to spend the night, except that across the highway is a busy railroad. There had been a warning in the description of the stop on the Harvest Host website, and it was accurate. We were off early the next morning to go 350 miles to Sweetwater, TN, where the Harvest Host is actually a small RV park. They have about ten spots and offer Harvest Host members one night free, with à la carte utilities for a small fee. We got there a little before the predicted heavy rains. There was a tornado warning near us, causing us to sleep in our clothes in case we needed to get out in a hurry, but nothing materialized. In the morning, we left for 330 miles to the Stonebridge Equestrian Center in Natural Bridge, VA. We have stayed here before and enjoyed a quiet night. We left early in the morning for a long day of 465 miles to my brothers. This last travel day was pretty much in the rain all the way, so we were glad to get there and be parked.
Of course, no trip to my brother’s would be complete without a to-do list, but this year isn’t too bad. There was lawn mower belts, blades and a couple of tire replacements, electric fence repairs, and an attempt to remove a wad of fence wire that was wrapped around the front driveshaft of his pick-up truck. The last task was not successful and a trip to the real mechanic was required. I did do a large project on the bus. I had purchased new suspension airbags and had them shipped there. The originals are 20 years old and if one goes out you are parked until it’s fixed, so this was preventative. The job turned out to not be as hard as I had feared, and it only took a few hours to change all four.
There are two primary reason we are in New York this summer. One is that I plan to get my right shoulder replaced. My daughter’s brother-in-law is the surgeon, so I get the friends and family level of care. Shortly after we had arrived in NY, we went down to my daughter’s on Long Island to visit her and have my initial appointment with the doctor. With x-rays and CT scan complete, a date of September 10th was set for the surgery. The date is a few months out because of the second big reason we are in NY. We are here because we are leaving the bus and traveling to Europe for ten weeks. On June 14th, my brother drove us to the airport and we were off to Iceland. If you followed our trip on Facebook, the you already know what we did. If not, keep on reading.
Europe - Day 1 - The trip started out on a positive note. We boarded our flight from Newark to Reykjavik right on time. But, as departure time came and went, the pilot announced that a woman had left the flight at the last minute (for reasons unknown), and her bag had to be found in the belly of the plane and removed also. Forty-five minutes past the planned departure time, we were finally on our way. We didn't think this was a problem, because our ticket for the bus from the airport to the Blue Lagoon said 7:30 - 8:00 on it. We arrived at the bus about 7:40 to a locked bus with nobody there. At 08:00, a driver finally came out, but he told me that this bus (parked under the "To Blue Lagoon" sign BTW) wasn't going there. He said the next Blue Lagoon bus was at 9:30. Our reservation for Blue Lagoon is at 09:00, and it's a 45-minute drive, so.... I went into the desk in the terminal and the girl there was no more helpful than the driver. She looked at my e-mail and simply smiled and said she didn't know why it would say that since the bus left at 07:30. So, a $200 taxi ride got us to the lagoon right at 09:00.
The Blue Lagoon was neat. the weather is cool (in the 50's) and it's overcast, but the water is hot and steaming. We spent over an hour in the water, and then after showering, we had a light lunch in the restaurant overlooking the lagoon. Our bus from the lagoon to our Airbnb in Reykjavik was scheduled for 1:15, and this time we were plenty early, and we had confirmed with three other sources that we were in the right place and had the right time. The ride from Blue Lagoon to Reykjavik is about twice as long as it should be since the bus has to double back almost to the airport due to the road being damaged by the lava flow. We had just left the first party off at their hotel when the bus decided to take a crap. Right in the middle of an intersection. Wouldn't go into gear (it's an automatic). After several calls back to the home office, he was able to left the bus roll backwards to the shoulder so he was no longer blocking the whole intersection, and he had two small busses coming for us. Since this little excitement cost another 45 minutes, we decided to blow off our other afternoon planed stop, and reschedule that for tomorrow.
We were dropped off at our Airbnb and got settled. Even though we are dragging, we went out about five for a bite to eat. We found a cool building a couple blocks away that has eight or nine food/bar businesses. We had a pizza and beer, then found the neighborhood grocery where we picked up some coffee and cream for morning.
Europe - Day 2 - Reykjavik, Iceland. Today went much smoother than yesterday, After our long travel day, we were asleep about 7PM last night, and slept until almost 6AM this morning. We have a whale and puffin watching trip scheduled today at 9AM. We left the room and went to a convenience store a couple blocks away and got coffee and croissants. From there, we took about half an hour to walk to the old harbor area where the tour leaves from. There were only 35 people on a boat that could easily take twice as many, so we had plenty of room. The tour is three hours long, and we encountered whales only about half an hour from the harbor, so that left plenty of time to hang around watching them. The sea conditions were very calm, and the forecast rain held off until we were on the way back to the dock. We saw three different humpback whales dozens of times, several minke whales, gray harbor porpoises and white-beaked dolphins. Our guide was quite excited by the success we had, and said it doesn't get any better than that. Once back at the dock, we waited about thirty minutes and then boarded a different, smaller boat for the one-hour puffin trip. The puffins are on a small island not far outside the harbor. The reason for the smaller boat is so we can get right up to maybe 20 feet from the shore. There were thousands of puffins there, along with some gulls and some other ducks. The puffins are cute and fun to watch fly, since they have to flap their wings very fast to get their solid (by bird standards) bodies airborne.
After the boats trips, we taxied to Perlan, which is a combo museum/planetarium/ice cave/eco education/restaurant/observation deck place. Reykjavik is a pretty flat, but Perlan is atop the one hill in the city. We enjoyed all the exhibits on volcanos, glaciers, the northern lights show in the planetarium, and the ice cave, as well as lunch at the top-level rotating restaurant. We spent about three hours there and then were ready to call it a day.
Europe - Day 3 - We awoke to a light rain and about 45 degrees, I took a cab from the apartment to pick up a car from Budget. I drove back to the apartment and picked up Barb and our luggage. Our tour today will be east from Reykjavik around the Golden Circle.
The first stop was at Helgufoss Falls. From the small parking area you can't see the falls. Since it was raining, Barb elected to stay in the car while I checked out the hike to the falls. I found a nice crushed lava path going towards a valley. I walked down this path about a quarter mile to the top edge of the valley. From here I could see the falls, and the narrow muddy trail down the steep side of the valley. Pictures from this point would have to do.
Next stop was Þórufoss Falls. The rain had almost stopped for a bit, and the walk was very short, so we both got to see this one.
We then traversed the Þingvellir National Park on our way to an area of geothermal pools and geysers. The largest geyser, appropriately named Geysir has gone dormant. Conveniently a slightly smaller geyser named Strokkur is a shorter hike, and is still active with eruptions every 8 - 10 minutes. It went off once as we were walking up to it, and then we waited to see it again, but the next one was barely a burp. As we headed back to the car, it went off big again. Since I didn't get my own good picture, I stole one off the web.
From Geysir we went to Gulfoss Falls. This was the largest and best of the ones we have seen.
Next stop was Skálholt Cathedral that used to be the largest church in the country. Next to the church they have dug the remains of some of the previous churches and houses that started in the area centuries ago.
Next stop was Kerid Crater Lake. This was believed to have been the crater of a long ago explosive type of volcano, but they could never find any evidence of ash anywhere near the location, so now they have decided it had been a magma pool that collapsed after all the magma came out.
We have not really seen any towns since leaving Reykjavik, until now, when we came to Selfoss. Selfoss is a town of about 10,000. We found the recently (2022) developed new city center which includes a food hall where we had burgers and beers before heading out of town to our Airbnb for the night.
After eating, we went about 7 miles east to our Airbnb for the night. The listing was described as a tiny house. We found it with no problem and settled in . The place is a cute little cabin just a little bit away from the host's home. It is nicely appointed and quiet.
Europe - Day 4 - We enjoyed a quiet night in our cabin in the country. The forecast for today is rain all day, but as of 09:00 when we left the cabin, it was not raining. We started the day with - what else? A waterfall! More accurately, several waterfalls. The stop for Seljalandsfoss Falls incudes at least five other small falls within the same walking path. The largest, Seljalandsfoss, has a path that takes you around behind the water, but we declined to do that since we didn't have real waterproof rain gear. We walked the path that took us below four of the falls.
Next stop was waterfall #2, Skogafoss Falls. This one is wider but shorter than the first ones. Based on the size of the creek/river leaving the area, this one moves much more water. Again, due to lack of raingear, we didn't go all the way to the base where the mist was very thick.
After the falls, we went just down the street to the Skogar Folk Museum. The museum has three parts; a building with lots of artifacts from the area, an outside area with recreations of several buildings, and a technology building. Iceland was, until not that long ago (less than 100 years) mostly rural. Most of the population lived on farms, spread out from one another and not centered around a common community. Each family had to be very self sufficient. Each farm would have generated it own electricity from a generator and a stream. Any tools were probably made on the farm. Clothing was sewn from leather or cloth and yarn from animals on the farm. Since it was "only" 100 years or less that this was still the case, there was lots of stuff preserved in the museum.
Next stop was Reynisfjara Beach. The rain finally caught up with us on the way to the beach, so when we got there we walked down, took so-so pictures and boogied back to the car. The beach is black sand, since it is from the lava of the island. A short ride from our first stop, took us to Dyrhólaey View which looks at Reynisfiara from the other end of the beach. Again, because it was raining, we got pictures and then headed back to Reykjavik, with a stop in Selfoss for dinner.
Tomorrow comes early, as we have a 7:30 flight to Dublin.
Europe - Day 5 - Today was half a travel day and half a sightseeing day. We had a 07:30 flight from Reykjavik to Dublin. The airport is about an hour from the apartment, so we were up at 03:30, and on the road by 04:00. Why I didn't book us a place closer to the airport for last night, I don't know. There was almost no traffic and we were at the car return in 45 minutes. So early that they weren't open. Not a problem except it meant walking a quarter mile to the terminal since they didn't have a shuttle running yet. We self-checked our bag, breezed through Passport Control, and the only slow down at Security was that I had to get the full pat-down treatment due to my hip. They don't have the newer x-ray scanners like in the US. Even with that, we were sitting down to coffee with two hours to go to flight time. We could have used that time for sleeping if we'd known. The flight itself was ok except for being one of the hardest landings I've experienced in years. Getting through fetching the luggage, and Customs & Immigration on this end was easy. We grabbed a cab and were at our Airbnb by 12:30. Even though check-in isn't supposed to be until 14:00, the owner met us and let us put our bags in the apartment early.
After dropping the bags, we walked a few blocks to the first stop of the DoDublin Hop On/Off double decker tour bus. We sat up top in the open-air portion and enjoyed that it wasn't raining, and the temp was about 65, instead of the rain and 40s of Iceland. Since we only have the afternoon here, we rode the bus around it's entire loop, taking pictures that we won't be able to match with the narration.
When we got off the bus, we were just a couple of blocks from Mooney's Pub, so of course we had to go in for a pint. It was about 16:00, so we had dinner there. We ordered fish & chips, and bangers & mash and shared them both. We tried, but didn't get any discount for having the name Mooney on the credit card.
We walked back to the apartment and will probably crash early due to the early start this morning.
Europe - Day 6 – We started the day walking to a coffee shop and enjoying coffee and pastries. We then checked out of our Airbnb and took a taxi, with our bags to the Guinness brewery, where they have a place to store bags. Unlike some brewery tours, this is a well-designed exhibit that explains the process of brewing and what makes Guinness different than other beers, and includes a history of Guinness marketing over the years. Of course, it ends five stories up from where you start in the tasting room. It was almost 11:00 by the time we finished the tour and got to the tasting room, so we didn’t feel too bad about having beer in the morning.
From the brewery, we took a taxi to pick up a rental car
for a week. I have driven on the left before, many times in the islands. I
have driven both left-hand and right-hand drive cars on the left. I have driven
plenty of stick shift cars and trucks. But I have never driven a right-hand
drive stick-shift car on the left. Turns out it isn’t that hard. We did get
turned around a bit between the rental place and the highway, but that was just
because there are hardly any street names or numbers on signs, so matching the
correct turn to the voice of the navigation was not always easy. But we finally
found the highway and were on our way out of Dublin headed for Limerick. Once
out of town, we commented how the countryside looks a lot like maybe
Pennsylvania.
We had originally planned a few stops between Dublin and Limerick, but after
only one of ten weeks, we are realizing that perhaps I planned too much. So, we
skipped the castles along the way, but did stop about midway in Portlaoise at
Kavanaghs Pub. This pub had been mentioned in a tour planning guide I read, so
it had to be good. It’s history is that it has been operated by the same family
for over a hundred years. Along the tiny narrow street the pub is on, we found
a parking space right in front. Inside, we took seat and ordered beers. There
were quite a few people in there, most attentively watch hurling on the TV.
What is hurling you say? Well, it’s an Irish sport that is only amateurs, but
it gets TV coverage. And it has nothing to do with drinking too much. While
there we were tickled to watch a group of ten ladies, almost all older than us,
enjoying their beers and cheering on the game. We also enjoyed a chat with a
local couple who thought our plan of a 10-week vacation was “brilliant”.
After our pit stop, we pushed on to our VRBO for several days in a little town west of Limerick called Kildimo. Our cottage is a stone building set in a nice garden. It’s a two-story affair, with the bed/sitting room and bathroom downstairs, and the kitchen/dining area in a loft upstairs. We met the owner who ran over things with us and told us some options for food and groceries. We took him up on his dinner suggestion and went to John Quinn’s for dinner, and then on to a small grocery to pick up a few things since we won’t be on planes for a week.
Europe - Day 7 –
Our plan today is to drive The Ring of Kerry. The Ring of Kerry is a scenic
drive around the Iveragh Peninsula in southwestern Ireland. This trip is a very
popular tourist trip, with lots doing it in big tour buses. Apparently, the tour
buses are required to do the loop counter-clockwise. So, the website we relied
on to plan the day recommended driving it in a private car clockwise, so you
never got stuck behind a bus. This plan seemed to work well. The first leg of
the day was to get to Killarney from our Airbnb near Limerick. The shortest way
to do this meant taking some country roads for about 15km to get to the main
highway to Killarney. When I say country roads, I mean narrow roads with no
shoulder. No shoulder means right at the edge of the road is about a
four-foot-high wall of green. What is inside the green varies from stone, to
hedge, to dirt mound/hedge. You just can’t tell because of all the growth.
Fortunately, we didn’t pass anything big on this leg.
Through Killarney, we headed south to our first stop, Muckross Abbey. This is
an old abbey, started in the mid-1400s. The building obviously fell into
disrepair a long time ago, but the adjacent cemetery has headstones as recent as
2022 right next to ones from the 1800s.
The next stop was Ladies View. Besides a great view, there is a coffee shop at
Ladies View. The name Ladies View comes from Queen Victoria’s visit in 1861,
when her ladies in waiting admired the view so much. We went in the coffee shop
and got coffees and a pastry and then sat on the rooftop terrace to admire the
view.
The next official stop is the village of Kenmare, although we stopped at a couple of turnouts for pictures. When we came into Kenmare, we lucked out with a parking space right away. We spent about fifteen minutes walking around the cute town looking at shops and people, and then carried on.
Another hour around the ring took us to Caherdaniel where we stopped for a late lunch at The Blind Piper. This pub had been recommended in the guide we were following. We were not disappointed, with a sandwich for Barb and very good fish & chips for me. From the pub, it was a short drive to Derrynane Beach. We were tickled to see people actually in the water, since the air temperature is only in the low 60s, and the water has got to be cold.
From the beach, we climbed (in the car) to Coomakista Lookout, which looks down onto the beach from high above. Then it was back down to sea level and Ballindkelligs Beach. This beach was smaller, but still had lots of people visiting.
From the last beach, we pretty much drove all the way back to Limerick. There was more traffic heading back that way by then. It was mostly a good wide two-lane highway though. Many of the roads around the ring have been barely wide enough for two small cars to pass. I did pretty well with the driving until we were almost home when I almost turned in front of an oncoming car. I was going to make a right turn, and was so focused on making sure I turned into the correct lane, that I forgot the you cross the oncoming traffic in a right turn. Fortunately, Barb yelled and the other driver swerved and disaster was averted.
Europe - Day 8 – Today was another driving day based out of the Limerick area. Today we headed south towards Cork. The first stop was Blarney Castle. The grounds of Blarney Castle are very large. We immediately headed for the castle itself where the Blarney Stone is located. The castle is quite tall, and we could see people way up on top. We had no intention of actually kissing the Blarney Stone, because sanitation aside, we have seen pictures of how you have to contort yourself to get to the stone. Neither of us thought we’d be able to get in that position, and certainly would need help getting back up. But we thought we could get inside the castle and just skip the stone. That isn’t the case. As we approached, we came to the end of a line waiting to get in. Nearby was signage that made it clear that the line was to get in AND get to the stone. And from where the line ended, there was a marker that said to expect 90 minutes from there. No thank you. So, we continued our walk around the grounds, enjoying the Poison Garden, the Fern Garden, the Blarney House (private), and the Bee Sanctuary.
From Blarney, we continued south to Cork. After getting turned around in the heart of the city, almost pulling the same bonehead right-turn move I did yesterday again, and navigating some two-way streets that were barely one lane wide, we found a car park. That’s a parking garage to us ‘Mericans. We then walked a few blocks to the English Market. The English Market is a collection of vendors stalls, selling mostly fresh meats, poultry, fish, cheese, and baked goods. There are some non-food vendors also. We had no intention of buying anything, but it is a sight to see even if you aren’t buying. Looking at all that food made us hungry, so we found Quinlan’s Seafood Restaurant just a block from the market and had lunch. When we ordered Guinness to drink, the waiter politely informed us that we were in Cork now, so it was Murphy’s instead. I had fish & chips again, and Barb got a bowl of their seafood chowder and a half of an open-faced salmon sandwich. I think I’ve had fish & chips three out of four days now, and the fish just keep getting bigger! We were told to try the chowders at various places, so this was our first, and it was wonderful.
Our next planned stop was a Titanic Experience in Cobh, about twenty minutes east of Cork. We got there and found convenient parking, but then found that the next available tour was at 17:30. (It was only 14:00.) This was the first day I didn’t have pre-paid tickets for anything. So, we looked into the Cork Heritage Museum, only to find it also didn’t have any available tickets left for today. I had not realized that Cork was a cruise ship port, and there was a ship in town, so that probably affected the availability.
We headed back north towards Limerick, but instead of navigating directly to the VRBO, we navigated to Limerick itself. We haven’t been in town, as we skirted it the afternoon we got here. We found some more amazingly narrow streets, and despite being able to see a very tall church spire, we never could quite get to it to see if it was open to tour. Two of the big grocery stores here are ALDI and LIDL, both of which are in the States too. We have been in a LIDL in Charlotte, NC once, but were curious what one here was like. Checking out grocery stores is an activity we developed during our Caribbean years, when you never knew what you might find in a “grocery”. We found this store to be pretty big, but at least a third of it is non-grocery. I think like ALDI, they have everything you need, but not twenty different brands of each item. We picked up some rum and Coke (which Barb hadn’t had in a week, since traveling with it on planes is a hassle) and some snacks. If you’ve never been to Europe, you may not know that ice is a premium. The VRBO had two ice trays in the freezer that looked like they came from a Barbie play house. So, on our way back to the VRBO, we stopped at the convenience store just down the street for some ice. I wasn’t sure that convenience stores even sold ice, since it’s not used like in the US. There was no big ice machine out front, but inside, in the same freezer as their limited frozen food selection, I found cute little 1-kilo bags of cubes (that’s 2.2 pounds). Perfect for one night! Tomorrow is a travel day, and ice won’t travel.
Aside from today’s travels, there’s a few random thoughts
I’ve been keeping notes on:
Circle K convenience stores – they are everywhere here. Having lived in
Phoenix, where they are headquartered, I got used to seeing more than one within
the same couple of blocks. They are nearly as dense here.
Sports – we learned about hurling a couple of days ago, and yesterday we learned
about Gaelic Football, which is kind of like soccer but using hands is ok. And
there are a whole bunch of guys on each team.
Birds – we were surprised to see Magpies here. We saw lots of them in Idaho.
We also spotted a new large bird, Whooper Swans. They are a little larger than
a swan in the States. Are usually on land, not the water, and keep their
head/neck straight up, not curved.
Driving – I already covered driving on the left, sitting on the right, and
shifting with the left hand. And twice I’ve almost tragically covered making a
right-hand turn, which equates to a left-and turn in the US. But also, there is
pulling out of a drive, or even a side street, with the crazy hedges
everywhere. You can’t see squat as you try to pull out! And, I added a new
skill yesterday and today – left side parallel parking.
Europe - Day 9 – Today was a travel day. We left our little cottage outside Limerick and headed north towards Galway. We are making one stop along the way at Bunratty Castle & Folk Park. This castle is right off the highway, so an easy stop. The property has the restored castle as well as a folk park with many examples of Irish country life around 1900. The buildings have all been salvaged from somewhere else and rebuilt and furnished as they would have originally been. There were several different styles of farmhouses, each representing a different size and success of farm, a blacksmith shop, and a whole little village with the businesses you would expect, like a post office, bank, grocery, and of course a bar. Many of the buildings had hosts in them dressed in costume. We spent quite a bit of time talking to one of the ‘farmers” and the “blacksmith”. We then got to the castle itself, where we timed our entrance perfectly with the start of a narration. We listened to the story of the castle and its restoration in the 1950s and 60s, then explored the four towers on our own. We did a lot of narrow stone uneven stairs up and down. After the castle, we strolled through the rest of the buildings and the village. They have a few animals there, including goats, mules, horses, Irish red deer, turkeys, ducks, chickens, a peacock, and two huge Irish wolfhounds. There is a very pretty carousel that turns clockwise. I’m pretty sure every carousel I’ve ever seen spun counter-clockwise. Kind of like driving on the left, I guess. Of course, after all that walking, we needed to sit and relax for a bit. What better place than to do that than the working pub in the recreated village? While sitting at picnic tables outside the pub, we were engaged in conversation by the “constable” and the “post master”. It was a fun way to spend a few hours.
After the castle stop, we traveled a little more than an hour more north to Galway. Our Airbnb is in what’s called Galway’s Westend, which has a high concentration of bars and restaurants. We can’t check in until 15:00, so we parked the car and found a place for lunch. We finished lunch right at 15:00, so we walked to the apartment and checked it out (it’s self-check-in). Barb then stayed there while I went and got the car. I drove around the block and parked (illegally) right in front of the unit. The streets are very narrow, so I was half on the sidewalk. I got our bags upstairs (2nd floor) and then went to park the car in a lot where it can stay until Thursday morning. I went to great lengths to make sure that every ten days of so, we had a place with laundry facilities, and this is the first of those places. Unfortunately, while we found the apartment to be quite nice, there is a sign on the washer that it is out of order. So, instead of doing laundry this afternoon, we just sat around. The street outside the apartment gets closed at 18:00 so that the bars and restaurants can expand their tables to the street. This ought to be interesting come (our) bedtime.
Europe - Day 10
- Today was an excursion day. We took a ferry, the Saoirse Na Farraige, to
Inismor, one of the three Aran Islands. The ferry holds 400 people and was
nearly full. It's one of three similarly sized ferries that descend on this tiny
island each day from three different ports.
The Aran Islands are off the west coast of Ireland, about 26 miles from Galway.
While much of our trip thus far has been pre-planned, including the ferry, I did
not have a pre-plan for what to do on the island. The options are: 1. Rent
bicycles, 2. Hire a horse and buggy tour, or 3. Join a small bus tour. I was
worried about not having a plan, in case everything was booked, but I shouldn't
have been. We had pretty much ruled out bicycles from the start. So that left
buggy or bus. As soon as we got off the ferry, we were confronted with several
bus drivers hawking their tours. (It's a small island and the tours are all
going to the same highlights.) The driver who spoke to us first had a nice
looking bus, so the decision was made. It also was forecast to rain in the early
afternoon, so the bus seemed prudent.
We hadn't been on the narrow road long when it became quite evident that not
being on a bike was the right decision. In one of the pictures this should be
clear. Because of the forecast rain, our driver took us immediately to the far
end of the island to Dun Aonghasa. Dun Aonghasa is the remains of a fort
originally built around 1000BC. There isn't much of a fort left, but it's a hell
of a view from there. The bus lets you out at the visitor's center and a cluster
of shops. The walk from the visitor's center to the top is about 20 minutes,
uphill on gravel for about 2/3, then really uphill on a rocky path. Barb elected
not to take the hike, and browsed the shops and had coffee while I hiked. The
guy who sold the tickets said it should take 20 minutes up, so I glanced at the
time and did it in about 15. When you think you are almost there and about to go
through the opening in the stone wall at the top, you see that there is another
football field to go - but it's flat. The pictures show that the view was a
reward. Unlike any similar attraction in the States, there are no handrails, no
signage, and nothing keeping you from doing something stupid. There's also no
ambulance on the island, nor helicopter standing by to rescue you. The pictures
should show what I mean. After the picture taking I took my time going back
down, which is harder on the old knees than the up is. Back at the bottom, I
found Barb and sat for a bit visiting with another lady who was waiting for her
family to return from the hike. We then browsed the shops a little while waiting
for our bus to reappear in the jam of busses all doing a dance to get their
people and move on.
The next stop on the tour was called The Seven Churches, although there never
were seven churches. The site is the remains of two small churches and some
monastery buildings and a cemetery. Similar to the cemetery we visited outside
Killarney, there were headstones from the 1800s and some from the 2000s.
From here we drove along the north edge of the island past the beach, and the
seal colony, and then back to the village where there are more shops and
restaurants and The Bar. This was about a 10 minute walk from the dock itself,
so after a beer, we headed for the boat. BTW, we had really lucked out with the
rain, which had turned into just spitting a few drops until after we were back
on the ferry.
The return trip was to include a side trip to the Cliffs of Mohr. Since the
weather was going downhill, the trip southeast across the open water was a bit
rough. The crew was very good about circulating and handing out barf bags where
needed. (Which did not include us.) Once at the cliffs, the visibility was only
fair because of the rain and overcast. We were not amongst the people who went
outside on the upper deck and got wet just to get crummy pictures.
The trip from the cliffs back to Galway was not as rough since the seas were
coming from behind now. Personally, I find that squirrely motion worse than
bashing into rough seas, but I made it with no barf bag. When we got back to the
dock, we found that there had not been any rain in Galway. We walked back to the
apartment and stopped at Mona Lisa, a small Italian restaurant across the
street. They had about an hour before a table for two would be available, so we
gave our name and went to the apartment. In an hour, we went back and enjoyed a
great meal.
Europe - Day 11 – Today was a travel day, so only a small amount of sightseeing. We left Galway and headed northeast towards Belfast. About an hour in we stopped at Athlone Castle. Just before parking for the castle, I made my first go-the-wrong-way error driving. I only made it ten feet or so into the wrong lane and was able to back up and correct without too much fanfare. The castle has been turned into a very nice history display about the castle and the importance of the town in the various conflicts over the ages. It was thought provoking to read of the Catholic/Protestant conflicts then (the 1600s) and some of the current events.
We drove another hour and stopped at Belvedere Gardens. This place isn’t a castle, but rather a large estate that has some of the looks of a castle. The big main house is closed for renovations, but the grounds are all open. The first sight you see looks like the remains of a big castle. In fact, this was always just a big wall, called a “jealous wall” intended simply to give an impression of grandeur. There was another big structure that looked like a gatehouse, but it too was just for show. The walled garden was the highlight of the stop, with tons of plants and trees from all over the world.
From Belvedere we had about two hours left to Belfast. More than half of that was on a twisty, narrow two-lane road. I would call it a country road, but it was used by lots of big trucks too. We got to Belfast and despite some very interesting intersections, we found the Airbnb apartment on the first try. We loaded in our stuff and then took a walk a few blocks down to a laundry service to drop off a bag of laundry. I have planned every ten days or so to have a place with a washer dryer. Our Galway stop was supposed to be the first of those stops, but the washing machine was broken. The host offered to take our laundry and do it herself, but we decided to just take care of it this way. On the way back to the apartment we stopped in Ryan’s Pub for dinner. Of course I had, yes, fish and chips!
Belfast is in Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK. That means we now use Pounds instead of Euros, the speed limits are MPH instead of KPH, although distance between places is still marked in kilometers, and the road signs are only in English, not Gaelic and English. The weather forecast tomorrow is for no rain. Today we got lucky and while it rained much of the driving time, it stopped both times we stopped to see things.
Europe - Day 12
- Today will be a short post because we only did two things. We walked from the
apartment to a stop on the Hop On/Off bus route and waited for the first bus of
the day. We listened to the tour until we got to the Titanic Experience stop.
The Titanic Experience here revolves around the fact that the ship was built
here. While the whole thing was quite informative, it did not lend itself to
taking pictures, so the only ones are of the outside. The exhibits tied together
the various industries in Belfast that all worked together when it came to
building a ship like Titanic. It then went into the building of the ship itself,
and then into the departure and voyage.
After about three hours there, we hopped on the next bus and took it back to
near the apartment, where we picked up our laundry and then went to dinner at
another excellent Italian restaurant.
Europe - Day 13 – After I posted yesterday an unexpected thing happened. We were watching TV and I started to hear a drum beat like a marching band. I thought maybe there was a school nearby and they were practicing or something. I muted the TV and opened the balcony door only to find a parade just starting to go by our apartment. It turns out we are in “parade season”. If you care to know more about this, check out this Wikipedia article. We got to listen to five different fife & drum bands march by.
Today we traveled from Belfast to Liverpool. This involved driving from Belfast to Dublin, where we returned our car and got an education in checking in and checking bags totally self-service. We then got through security where I enjoyed another very thorough pat-down because of my metal hip. In the States, the hip is no problem, because you just tell them before going through any scanner, and they make sure you go through the one that uses x-ray, not the old walk-through metal detector. In both Iceland and Dublin, I told them before walking through that I had the metal hip, and then when I set off the detector, I got to be rubbed down. Today included being swabbed for explosive residue. Once through security, we walked a long way to the vicinity of our gate before stopping for lunch. We had a couple hours to kill, and then the flight was delayed an extra hour. We were flying Ryanair, which is like the Spirit of Europe. On both ends, the flights used outside stairs instead of jetways, and it was lightly raining, so we got a bit damp. Once in Liverpool, we collected our bag and grabbed a taxi to our hotel.
We are staying at a regular hotel here, in the Queen’s Dock part of town. Kathy, an old friend from BMC days just happened to be getting here for a visit today too, so we met her for a drink at the Hobo Kiosk, a little eclectic bar she knows from when she spent a year here. Since she had traveled from Houston overnight, we made it an early evening and planned to meet up tomorrow.
Europe - Day 14 – Our full day in Liverpool was a full day indeed. We started with a quick breakfast at the McDonalds across the street from our hotel, and then walked along Kings Dock to the Beatles Story. We spent about two hours walking through the museum listening to the audio tour on headsets. It was a good exhibit, bringing back lots of old memories from their first coming to the US, and lots of facts I hadn’t known.
After we finished the museum, we met our Houston friends Kathy and Claire for coffee in The Botanist, a bar/restaurant right next to the Beatles Story. Our plan for the day is for Kathy, who lived here for two years while getting her Masters in Beatles Studies, to give us a personal Beatles inspired pub crawl/tour. We started by walking to the street where The Cavern is. The Cavern was the Beatles first regular gig before being “discovered”. The original Cavern was taken over in the construction of a ventilation shaft for the subway system, but a new, very similar location was established nearby. We first went in the Cavern Pub where we had lunch, and then went to the Cavern Club which is the recreation of the original club. We had a beer here and listened to a guy performing. Next stop was White Star, where we didn’t go in, but Kathy explained it’s connection to the Beatles. Next stop was Ye Crack, where the owner/bartender remembered Kathy. We had a beer here and joked with the owner that between us and another couple of guys, all the patrons were from America. Next was the Philharmonic. The Philharmonic is across the street from the actual philharmonic hall. This bar just exudes “old English”. There are several rooms with a few tables each and couches and fireplaces and a feel of old money. Next, we walked by where John, Paul, and George went to school and Kathy told us lots about that. Next was the Hobo Kiosk, the little basement bar we visited last night. It was quieter today and we enjoyed visiting with the owner and a couple other regulars that Kathy knew. From there we went to dinner at an Italian restaurant nearby, and then closed the evening out (about 11PM) at the Baltic Fleet, where they also remembered Kathy. At Baltic Fleet, we sat in a little area away from the main bar area, and enjoyed bantering with a few locals who had probably already been a little overserved. We could only understand about a third of what they said (even though it was English) but we all had some good laughs.
Our late night is my excuse for the late posting of the day’s activity. We are blaming the late night on the fact that it was just getting dark at 11PM and we didn’t realize how late it was. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.
Europe - Day 15
- Today will be a short update, as we spent most of it driving. We had a lazy
morning, with breakfast at McDonalds again. We had arranged for a car to take us
to the airport where we are picking up a rental car for the week. This time we
are renting from SIXT, which we have never done before. Private drivers have to
drop people in the parking lot, so we started to walk towards the terminal
assuming we would go to a counter as if we had just gotten off a plane. But,
then we saw a sign that said car rentals had moved, and asked a security guy. He
pointed us to a parking lot about 500 feet away and we could see some rental
company signage there, so we started to walk there. Once in the parking lot, we
didn't see any signs for SIXT. So I asked the AVIS kid, and he told me we had to
go down the street to the next red light and turn left. Well, it turned out to
be more than half a mile to the SIXT counter. I had seen their building on the
way in, but it wasn't obvious that it was a public building and not just their
service center or something. Once inside, the lady was very pleasant and got us
on our way in another stick-shift car.
We had planned to make a stop just north of Liverpool at Crosby Beach, where
there is an art exhibit called Another Place. It consists of 100 life-sized
bronze statues of a man looking out to sea. Unfortunately, it was raining hard
when we got there, so we didn't get out to see it.
From there we drove north to Glasgow. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive, but once
out of Liverpool it was all on a "Motorway" which is like an interstate. Once in
Glasgow, we found the Airbnb apartment, after getting turned around a few times,
I finally found where to park and where to find the keys in a lockbox.
We got our stuff into the apartment and then went to find dinner. We went right
downtown and found The Citizen. Their website promised authentic Scottish fare.
The place was a neat looking old two-story place, with the restaurant seating
upstairs and the bar down. Since we didn't have a reservation, we sat at a bar
table. Barb had the Citizen Steak Pie, and I had a steak sandwich. Both were
very good. Before leaving downtown, we found a convenience store and picked up
some stuff for breakfast.
Europe - Day 16 – We awoke to another drizzerable day. I haven’t complained about the weather, but we are into our third week, and we haven’t seen the sun for more than a few minutes here and there. Our plans for the day are to take the hop on/off bus to see the city, and we have a 13:00 tour booked at the Wellpark Brewery, makers of Tennent’s Lager. When I bought the tickets for the bus tour, there was only one route in Glasgow. Now that we are here, there are two. We were planning on walking to a stop on the bus, getting off at the brewery, then finishing the tour. But with two routes, we now figured we could do one route entirely, then take the second route for one stop, do the brewery, then finish the second route. The rain had almost stopped by 10:30, so we walked about half a mile to the start of the bus tours. We found that it would be a £5 upgrade each to do both routes, so we took care of that. We got on the yellow route bus and in the course of an hour and a half, we did the whole route. We got off the yellow route bus and got on the next red route bus, but that took about twenty minutes out of our schedule. Once underway, the first stop put us near the brewery and we hopped off.
The delay meant we were cutting it pretty close to our 13:00 scheduled tour, so I hustled ahead to get us checked in for the tour. Turned out they were waiting for us and as soon as I walked in and gave them my name, they were happy we were there. There were only a dozen of us on the tour, and the tour guide was a fun guy. He gave us a brief history of Tennent’s, then we headed off into the brewery where we saw the typical brewery stuff, like the mash tun, the filtering system, the fermenting tanks, and the lagering tanks. We saw the bottling line, but unfortunately, they were not bottling anything today. Finally, the reward at the end of the tour was the tasting room, where we each enjoyed a pint of Tennent’s Lager, and small glasses of three other brews; an IPA, a Scoth Ale, and a stout.
From the brewery, we walked towards the next bus stop, but stopped in an area called Merchant City where there are lots of restaurants and ate. The restaurant we picked was called Mharsanta and was billed as a” Scottish restaurant and bar”. Barb played it safe and ordered a bacon cheeseburger, but I went Scottish and ordered Traditional Crofter’s Pie. What is Crofter’s Pie you ask. On the menu it was described as “Scotch minced beef and Macsween’s haggis in a rich gravy, topped with puff pastry. Served with Clapshot and seasonal vegetables.” Notice there was haggis in it. I can now say I’ve eaten haggis, even if it was only part of the dish. And Clapshot is basically mashed potatoes. It was very good by the way.
After lunch, we caught the next red bus, finished that part of the tour and walked back to the apartment. Back on the road tomorrow, heading for Edinburgh.
Europe - Day 17 – We awoke to a drizzly day again. We are traveling to Edinburgh (actually Dunfermline near Edinburgh) today. We have a few stops planned along the way, although one has been cancelled. The first stop was to be the Falkirk Wheel, which is a one-of-a-kind method of moving boats from one level to another. It was built in 2002 to replace 11 locks that hadn’t worked since the 1930s. This was part of an initiative to reopen Scotland’s canal system. We had booked a boat ride where you get lifted up from the lower level, to the top, where you then travel down the canal a way, turn around, come back, and ride the wheel back down to the starting point. They operate two boats for this tour, and we had received an email yesterday that since one boat was down, they were adjusting our tour time. That was ok, but then this morning I got another email that said BOTH boats were down so they were cancelling all tours today. Since there are other boats that use the wheel, we figured we’d still stop there and see if we could catch it turning. As we walked up from the parking lot, the wheel was about half way through its rotation. I took a video of it, but I screwed up and turned the camera while recording, so if you watch it, forgive me. We went in the café to grab a coffee, and while we were enjoying that, we got to see another rotation of the wheel.
Next stop was The Kelpies. The Kelpies are two huge horse head sculptures not far from the Falkirk Wheel which were built in 2013 also as part of the plan to make the canal system part of the parks system. The canal from the Falkirk Wheel comes to the Kelpies where it joins a river. We walked around the sculptures and checked out the boats in the little marina, most of which looked like it had been quite awhile since they last moved.
Next stop was Stirling Castle, in Stirling. This castle was actually still used by the military until 1964 when it was turned over to be preserved as a museum. The whole thing was very well done, and we enjoyed it. There was a great hall where events would have been held, a chapel, the kitchens, the king and queen’s residences, and a large beautiful garden. We spent a couple hours here before looking for lunch.
Down the hill from the castle (everything is downhill from the castle) we found a little pub called Nicky-Tams Bar & Bothy. It was almost 15:00, and we were the only customers except two regulars drinking beer. Barb played it safe with fish & chips, but I got adventurous again and had Whisky Mac & Cheese with black pudding crumble on top. It was very good, and although the black pudding crumble was very sparse, I can now say I’ve had black pudding in addition to the haggis yesterday.
After lunch, we finished out journey at a Holiday Inn Express in Dunfermline, which is north of Edinburgh, on the other side of the River Forth. We’ll be here for three nights while we explore Edinburgh.
Europe - Day 18 – Our hotel includes breakfast, so we ate there and then headed to Edinburgh. I had pre-paid for parking at a large parking garage, because somewhere I read that Edinburgh parking is terrible and the garages get full, so reserving in advance is a must. There was a way though the parking website to add the rental car’s plate number, so when we got to the garage, it recognized the plate and just let us in. We found our way out to the street and walked towards the hop on/off bus stop. The problem with Google Maps, is that you have no sense of terrain. There are several places in Edinburgh where two streets cross on bridges several stories different in elevation. See the pictures to understand what I mean. When I got the feeling that we weren’t in the right place, I realized we should have gone uphill where we went down, and now we were pretty much underneath where we needed to be. Once we found the busses, we got on the next one and started the tour.
The weather today started with a bit of sun, but there are scattered showers blowing through and it is cool and windy. For that reason, we stayed on the lower level of the bus. Most of the people on the bus were planning on getting off at the castle, and we had heard the employee at the start of the tour say that when the bus starts uphill and rocking back and forth, it’s the next stop. We have tickets for a 13:15 guided tour, and it a little before 11:00 when we got off the bus. We were afraid that if we rode the bus all the way around its loop, we might not be back in time, so we went ahead and got off and went to the ticket office to ask if we could go in early. The guy told me that since they were sold out today, we had to stick to our scheduled time.
So, we set about killing two hours. We walked down the street from the castle and ducked into a couple of souvenir shops when short rain showers came. About three blocks from the castle, we came to St. Giles Cathedral. We went inside and walked around the perimeter checking out the stained glass, the stonework, and the ceiling. It also provided shelter from another shower.
We headed back up the hill to near the castle entrance, where we sat down at some outside tables and got a pint of Tennent’s. Just a few sips in, the rain came again, so we moved inside to the bar. This took us to about 13:00 and we headed in to the castle. Once inside, we waited at the gathering point for the guided tours. You can just stumble around on your own, and/or get audio tour things, but I had sprung for the guide. As crowded as the whole place as, I expected the tour group to be maybe 50 people, but there were only sixteen of us. The guide gave us each a little device with an earpiece, so she didn’t have to yell, and she could be talking to us as we walked. The guided tour is only about 30 minutes, and it basically gives you some history, and explains which buildings are which and then you can go on and explore where you have interests more on your own. The rain only spit on us until near the end, when it started to rain hard. The guide took us in a door and up some stairs to a balcony overlooking the Grand Hall. This wouldn’t normally be where we went but it allowed her to finish the tour and collect the radio devices out of the rain. By the time we went back out, the rain had stopped. We explored several of the buildings and all the grounds including the Dog Cemetery, and then decided our legs had enough and we had enough of the crowd. Compared to Stirling Castle yesterday, this one was more focused on museum type exhibits instead of recreations of actual rooms. It was also way busier, and the crowd wasn’t appealing.
We made our way back down the hill to the bus stop and got on the next bus. This time we went up top, but stayed in the covered front half. This proved to be a good move because near the end it rained hard. We finished the tour and started back towards the car. It was almost 16:00, so we decided to eat before leaving. We looked at a place or two that didn’t grab us, and then went into a multi-level mall that had lots of restaurants. After perusing the mall directory, we went that old Scottish stand-by – Five Guys.
As we walked to the car inside the garage, we noted that the garage had not been nearly full. I guess the warning was just to get you to commit early. Once in the car, we joined rush-hour traffic getting out of the city. There was quite a bit of creeping before finally breaking out of the city and across the bridge to the north.
Europe - Day 19 – We have a light day scheduled today. After breakfast, we drove into Edinburgh to visit the Royal Yacht Britannia. Britannia was the Royal Yacht from 1953 to 1997. She was used for the royal family’s vacations and special events, as well as to entertain. Since her decommissioning in 1997, she has been docked in Edinburgh as museum. The tour was a self-guided audio tour, and it was laid out very well. Unlike most tours of ships where sooner or later you have to climb up or down some steep stairs, each level of Britannia is connected to a shore-side stairway that had normal steps. Made it much easier for us old folks. Since we were there just after it opened for the day, the crowd was not bad and we spent almost two hours aboard. I have captioned the pictures with detailed explanations of what we saw.
We decided that we could use an afternoon off, so we went back to the hotel and just relaxed for the afternoon. Heading south tomorrow.
Europe - Day 20 – Today is a travel day with a couple of fun stops along the way. We were up and packed, fed and on the road by about 8:30. The destination today is Leeds, just for an overnight stop on the way to London. Leeds should be about a four-hour drive.
One hour into the trip brought us to our first stop – The National Museum of Flight. You would think such a place might be near a large airport, wouldn’t you? No, this museum is out in the country, east of Edinburgh. The East Fortune Airfield was an RAF station in WW-I, and was reactivated during WW-II. After WW-II, it was sold to be used for general aviation, but never got developed. The runways are no longer suitable for plane use, but are partially used by a company that lets you drive supercars (think Lamborghini, Ferrari, McClaren) on a course with a professional driver riding shotgun. For a fee of course. As fun as that would have been, the reason we stopped here was that they have one of the Concordes here. Since the runways were long past usage when the Concorde was retired in 2003, it had to be brought from Heathrow by barge and truck. They removed the wings and the tail fin, loaded it on a truck to the River Thames, loaded it onto a barge to go down the Thames to the sea and then north along the east coast to Edinburgh, back to being trucked on a highway to near East Fortune, and then the final few miles on a temporary road through fields built with heavy decking used in construction. The plane was then reassembled in the hangar at the museum. The exhibit was very well laid out. There were displays around the room, two video presentations, and then the tour of the plane itself. Back in the 70s, Braniff Airlines had a code-share agreement with British Airways, and the Concorde flew from London to JFK, then a Braniff crew flew it sub-sonic to Dallas. I remember when this first happened and I lived in Dallas, two Concordes arrived at DFW and landed in tandem on the two parallel runways. I had also seen a Concorde at DFW once when I just happened to be flying somewhere while it was there. But of course, I had never been in one, so it was pretty cool to be able to walk through the plane while listening to an audio explanation of what you were seeing. I have captioned some pictures with details of the plane.
We spent almost two hours at the flight museum, so it was time to go. Next stop was almost another hour away. Since my brother is a beekeeper, we had to stop at the Chain Bridge Honey Farm. It was not too far off the route to Leeds, and it was just a quarter mile or so from the Union Chain Bridge. We parked at the honey farm and walked the rest of the way to the bridge. The name comes from the style of construction of the suspension bridge with long steel links, thus the name “chain”. The bridge was originally built in the late 1800s, but was totally rebuilt between 2020 and 2023. It was quite a sight, and the surrounding countryside was beautiful. We walked back to the honey farm, toured their little visitor’s center, and bought some honey. Outside they had a little café in an old London double-decker bus where we stopped and had coffee and shared a piece of honey sponge cake which was delicious.
We were back on the road for the longest leg of the trip, which was ok except for heavy traffic in Newcastle upon Tyne. (The “upon Tyne” part of the name means it’s on the River Tyne.) The heavy traffic was to get through a toll tunnel under the river, and Google maps suggested a quicker toll-free route over a bridge. Well, between me screwing up at a couple roundabouts, and one lane of the bridge being closed, I doubt we saved any time, but we finally got across the river and back on the big road. When we got into Leeds, finding the apartment was a little challenging also. Similar to the apartment in Glasgow, the narrow streets through the neighborhood are hard to navigate, even with Google Maps. We finally found it and got the last parking space on the street. The apartment is on the second floor, so Barb packed us this morning so that we can leave our big bag in the car overnight.
After getting our bearings in the apartment, we looked for a place for dinner. There wasn’t anything within walking distance that grabbed us, but we found The White House, about two miles away. Google billed it as a pub, so I was a little taken aback as we turned into the drive and I saw the building. It looked a lot nicer than your average pub. But it was fine and the meal was excellent. We went full traditional, with a steak pie, and a chicken and leek pie for dinner, and sticky toffee pudding for dessert. While we were there England won their quarter-finals game in the UFEA Football Championship so everybody was happy.
Tomorrow, on to London.
Europe - Day 21 – Driving again today. We based our day around when we could check into the hotel in London. So, we left about 10:00 and headed south. The whole trip today should be on a “motorway” which is a limited access, multi-lane highway, like a US interstate. The weather forecast is for off and on rain again, and that was the case. The speed limit on a motorway is 70 mph, but there were several long construction zones where it was lowered to 50 mph. Unlike the US, where construction zone speed limits apply only when there is actually work going on and people present, here the speed limit is all the time and camera enforced. There was one place where we came to a stop and were creeping along. Google Maps suggested an alternate, faster route and I accepted it. It took us off the next exit, down several narrow country roads, through a small town, and back on to the big road – where we were still creeping along. I don’t know if it saved us any time or not. It was funny to see several other cars obviously make the change with us. Eventually we got into London and started zigging and zagging to our hotel, where I was lucky to find a parking space right in front. Our check-in time was 14:00, and it was about 14:45 by the time we got there. But our room wasn’t ready, so we hung out for about ten minutes until it was. As soon as we got our bags to the room, we left to return the car. The SIXT return is at Victoria Station, which is only three miles away, but thirty minutes. We found it with only one missed turn, and parked in the well-marked spaces. When I picked the car up, I paid the fee so that I could return it empty. And empty it was. I hope they made it to a gas station. We dropped the keys inside at the counter and then plotted our way to The London Eye. Since we were at a train station, we opted to try The Tube (aka the subway). It was a pretty straightforward trip, with two stops on one train, then switch and one stop on the other. As with everything here, you paid by just tapping your credit card as you entered and left the station. (I haven’t used any cash in England at all.)
The London Eye is a huge Ferris wheel type thing that rotates slowly so each revolution takes about 30 minutes. Each car holds about twenty people, but it isn’t crowded and you can move about to take pictures and see every direction. When you purchase tickets, you have a specific time when you can join the line. We were almost two hours early for our time, but I thought I would inquire about boarding early. A nice woman at the ticket office told us to go ahead, since they were not as busy as they sometimes are. The wheel never stops, and you load and unload as it is slowly turning. We were lucky in that the weather was clear for the time we were on the wheel and the views were great. The pictures are so-so, since you’re taking them through the glass, but they’ll do.
While on the ride, I spotted what looked like a beer garden type of place, so after we unloaded, we found it and sat for a drink. In addition to several food options, and two full bars, there were girls handing out free Reese’s peanut butter cups. What more could a guy wish for? The seating area for this place was large, with at least twenty picnic tables outside and twenty more inside. We saw a black cloud coming and moved inside a few minutes before everybody else did as the skies opened for about ten minutes. After the rain stopped, we walked about ten minutes back to a pub we spotted when we first came out of the tube station. The Wellington looked like a traditional old English pub so we went in for dinner before figuring out how to get back to the hotel.
The hotel is about six miles away, so walking is out of the question. Looking at the Tube map, the closest station to the hotel is still a twenty-minute walk. So, taxi or Uber were the choices. It appeared that the taxi stand for the train station was on the other side of the building, so I arranged an Uber. Our car showed up and it was nice to not have to be worrying about paying attention to Google and not running over a crazy delivery guy on a bike.
Our hotel is a large old building that was probably a single-family home when built. It’s four stories and has a total of fifteen rooms. This is the first place we’ve been on the trip that I would consider the room to be a typical European hotel room. That is to say, it’s tiny. Finding a place to put our giant duffle bag where we can still get around it and the bed was a challenge. But it will do.
Europe - Day 22 – Today started out with breakfast at the hotel, and then a quest to do laundry. Breakfast is in a little café in the basement level and was a typical hotel “free” breakfast. The hotel’s website said they had available contract laundry services, but when we checked in, the Eastern European girl at the desk didn’t seem to understand what we meant when we asked about laundry. So, we spent some time last night researching laundromats in the area, and expected to have to walk or Uber to one this morning. Just for the heck of it, we thought we’d see if a different person was at the front desk and ask again about what the hotel might have. There indeed was a different lady, and when we explained what we needed and that there was only one load, she said she would do it in the hotel’s machine. We made sure we understood her correctly, and then brought the bag down to her.
Since we didn’t need to spend the morning doing laundry, we headed off to find the Hop On/Off bus. The closest stop to the hotel was a little less than a mile away. We took our time walking down Kensington High Street until we came to the bus stop. There was a lady there in a Big Bus Hop On/Off jacket just looking for customers. We bought the two-day bus ticket that includes a boat tour also. She was very friendly and made sure we knew what route (there are three here) we were on, and the stop number for our return. A bus came in a few minutes and since we are enjoying the first sunny day we’ve had, we went up top to get the best view. Barb had worn her jacket, since she thought it was going to rain later, but I had not since the forecast wasn’t for rain until 8PM, and mid 60s was warm enough for a long-sleeve t-shirt. This bus tour is much longer than the other cities we have done them in, and we were almost two hours in by the time we got to the stop where we could catch the river boat. We got off the bus and walked a little way to the Tower Pier where we got on the open upper level of a double deck tour boat. Much to my chagrin, there was a black cloud moving towards us, but I double checked the forecast on the phone and it still said nothing about imminent rain. The river tour wasn’t long, between the Tower of London and Westminster, but it included a live narration by one of the crew that was informative and funny. I should have known I was in trouble when the narrator guy put on his rain coat before he started. Sure enough, just a little bit after we started, it started spitting rain. Ever optimistic, we stayed on the open top deck. Barb, of course, had her jacket on and just pulled her hood up. The light rain continued for almost the whole tour, and I was pretty damp and chilly by the time we got off at Westminster.
From the boat we walked a block to a pub that looked warm. Of course, the rain had stopped by now, but I warmed up and dried out while we had a beer. We decided to find the blue route again and finish its route and get off back where we started. The stop we were at is served by both the blue and red routes, so we were looking at each bus to see which it was. We let two red busses pass and then a blue one came and we boarded with lots of other people. After a few stops, a family was talking behind us and they though they were on a red bus, so they got off. We joked with some other passengers that we all saw the sign said blue when we boarded. But, then where the shared blue/red route diverged, we seemed to be going the way of the red route. I went downstairs and asked the driver if this was a blue bus, and he looked at me like I had two heads. He said it was a red bus. I explained that we and others upstairs clearly saw the sign that said blue when we boarded. When we got to the next stop, he got off to look at the sign, and now it clearly said red. He didn’t seem to believe us that it said blue when we boarded and that we weren’t the only ones. He said to stay on for a couple more stops and the blue/red lines crossed again. But if we got back on the blue route there, we would repeat the whole route, not just the last four stops before we would be getting off anyway. So, we walked back almost a mile to where we could get the blue bus back to our starting point. Along the way we ducked in a pub and had dinner. When we got off the blue bus at our starting point, we decided we didn’t want to walk that last mile, so we tried the regular city bus that took us to within a bus of our hotel.
The pictures I’ve posted today are from the tour of sights around London. Facebook won’t let me go in and add captions for some reason, so I guess you just get to enjoy them as is.
Europe - Day 23 – We started the day with breakfast at the hotel again. While there, another couple came in and the woman asked the ladies who prepare the food what was in the sausage. Seems to me to be one of those questions you never want to ask. Now that we know more about the local busses, we walked only a block and caught the local bus about a mile to where the Hop On/Off bus stop is. We have a two-day ticket, so might as well use it. Our plan today is to take the Hop On/Off to the Tower of London and do the tour. I bought the Tower of London tickets online before we left the room.
We went up top on the double decker bus, as the forecast is for rain to hold off until this afternoon. Our Tower ticket times are for noon, and we got on the bus about 9:30. The bus should take about three hours for its whole route, and we are only going about halfway. The traffic really sucked all morning, and then it started to lightly rain, making it worse. The rain came about 11:00, but we both had our jackets today. The bus was full, so going downstairs wasn’t an option, but soon after the rain started, the people in the very front row went below. We quickly jumped up and took those spots, so we were shielded from the front and partially overhead. It was 13:00 when we finally got to the Tower of London. We went right through the check-in without them caring that we were an hour late.
Inside the Tower of London, we picked up our pre-purchased audio tour units. We were just getting started, when the rain started to pick up from a drizzle to a steady rain. We made our way into the complex, getting closer to the building where the Crown Jewels are on display. Once in the main courtyard, we saw the queue for getting into the building with the Crown Jewels. It exceeded the organized back-and-forth area and then the line went down past the next building. We opted to go into the building that houses the museum of armor and weapons instead. We followed the herd through the museum and popped back out into the courtyard where the other queue had not diminished at all. Now it was raining hard, and our jackets had soaked through. We decided that between the weather and the crowd, we didn’t really need to see any more. We started towards the exit and briefly took refuge under an archway while it poured. When the rain slacked a little, we made a break for the exit.
Once out of the Tower of London premises, we spotted an outside bar that had huge 10’ square umbrellas. Looked like a good place to pause and lick our wounds. We were the only people there except for the lonely bartender. While enjoying a beer, we plotted our course back to the hotel. We could walk back to the bus stop where we got off, and ride for a couple hours if the morning’s experience was anything to judge by. Or, we could go just across the street from the bus stop to the Tube station and take a train back. Train it was. And, we found that the train station we could go to, was closer to the hotel than even the bus stop. It was just in the other direction and we hadn’t seen it. After about 20 minutes on the train, we were at the hotel.
For dinner, we found a pub just around the corner from the hotel where we enjoyed out last dinner in England. So yes, it was fish & chips and mushy peas again. Tomorrow we take the Eurostar train to Amsterdam.
Europe - Day 24 – The day started, as we have a 08:00 Uber pickup. We were first to the breakfast buffet and out the door a few minutes before 8:00. Our driver was already there waiting, and he took us to St. Pancras International train station. It was about a 35-minute drive, getting us there way too early. After yesterday’s traffic, I wasn’t taking any chances. As soon as you come in off the street, you have to scan your train ticket to get through the main turnstiles. We found a coffee shop and sat for an hour.
At 09:30, they started letting people for our 11:00 train and a 10:30 train to Paris into the check-in area. Having never done this before, we just followed the herd and read signs. The first thing we did was go through security. This was similar to airport security, except we still had our huge bag and it went through the screening machine too. There was no mention of my artificial hip, nor did it set the detector off. We collected our bags and proceeded to Passport Control. First you go through UK Immigration for them to check you out of the UK. Then you go about twenty feet to the EU people and they look at your passport and stamp you into the EU. Then you go to the much too small waiting area to sit. All this has happened one level down from the train platforms. They don’t announce the platform and start boarding until twenty minutes before departure, meaning we had at least 45 minutes to kill. Fortunately, we had found seats. The Paris bound train boarded before us, which cleared out half the people. When it got to be twenty minutes to go, they made an announcement that due to a technical difficulty, our train was delayed. The delay was about twenty more minutes, and then we finally got to board. We followed the herd again, up an escalator that stays flat like a moving ramp to the platform level. We are in coach 12 of 16. Keep in mind, we were still dragging our huge bag, as was everybody else. Once you board the train, which means lifting the huge bag across the gap and up two steps, there are luggage racks for your huge bag and you have an overhead rack for backpacks and smaller bags. We found our seats and remarkably quickly they announce that we were ready to roll. It was funny to feel like we were in an airplane, but there was no seat belt, no restriction about even being in your seat, no “turn your phones off”, etc. Unfortunately, our view was half blocked by the window pillar, but pictures at 180 mph aren’t great anyway. The trip took about 4 ½ hours, including stops outside Paris, in Brussels, and Rotterdam. We got to Amsterdam at 16:45 and we lost one hour to a time zone change.
Once off the train, we had no idea which way was the exit to the front of the station, so we followed the herd again. Unfortunately, that took us out the back where we were facing the water. As you exit the controlled area, you scan your boarding pass again, so we couldn’t go back that way, and had to walk around the long way to the front. As we were about to hit the street, Barb realized she didn’t have the plastic bag she had been carrying which contained some food stuff we’ve been carrying between places, and more importantly our rolled up puffy jackets. I left her with the bags and I retraced our steps back to where we had exited the controlled space. As I got near the exit gates I saw a security guard with our bag. I ran up to him and told him it was mine and what was in it. He asked why we left it there. I told him we set it down while looking at Google Maps to figure out where to go and forgot to pick it up. He begrudgingly told me not to do that and gave me the bag. Barb was very relieved when I appeared carrying it.
Our hotel is walking distance from the train station. The streets were busy with people, bicycles, trams, and cars, but we navigated (with Google’s help) to the Old Quarter Hotel, which is also a bar and restaurant. You gotta love a hotel where you check in at the bar. Similar to the last place, this is a boutique hotel with less than twenty rooms. We are on the third (of four) floor in the back of the building overlooking a canal. After parking our stuff in the room, we went back to the bar for a beer.
We have a 19:00 canal boat tour scheduled, so after ne beer we walked about twenty minutes to the start of the tour. We timed it perfectly as we only waited a few minutes before they boarded the boat. The boat was not one of the big glass covered boats often seen here, but rather a medium sized open boat. There were only 14 of us on the tour, so it wasn’t crowded. We had an hour of cruising in a big circle around then canals while the tour guide explained things about the canals and the houses.
After the tour, we looked for a place to eat. We haven’t eaten since our early breakfast, so we stopped at the first place we came to, which was a small Italian place called Momenti. We had nice meals and finished it off sharing Fungamisu, which is their take on tiramisu, but it’s shaped like a mushroom. It was different, but very good. We walked back to the room and turned on the England/Netherlands semi-final game of the EUFA Championship. With our window open, we can hear crowd reactions from the streets as we watch it on TV. England won just as I was finishing this post.
Europe - Day 25 – We had a laid-back day today. We started with breakfast at the hotel, which again, was about what you’d expect from a hotel breakfast buffet, except this time it wasn’t included with our room and we actually paid for it. We’ll find something better tomorrow.
After our Tower of London experience, we decided not to do any of the big tourist attractions today. I have seen them before, and Barb isn’t so keen on seeing them to deal with big crowds. Instead, we found the Hop On/Off bus and bought a combo ticket that includes the bus route and a Hop On/Off canal boat route. We took the bus around to a stop where we transferred to the boat and went one stop to something we noticed yesterday evening on our boat tour. It was a houseboat museum. Museum is perhaps a misnomer. It was one of the large old canal freighters that has been converted to an example of how these boats are used now as houseboats. There was an audio tour to follow through the boat, from a restoration of what would have been the entire two-room living quarters when it was a freighter, to how the cargo hold would have been converted to living quarters now. It was quick, but interesting to learn about some of the rules and costs that are associated with being one of the 2500 houseboats in Amsterdam.
After the houseboat, we took the Hop On/Off boat back around to the stop nearest our hotel. We got a late lunch at an Italian place near the hotel, and then went to the room where I took a nap and Barb relaxed. Later in the early evening, we went for a walk that took us to the Dam Square, then east to the New Market, then through a bit of the red-light district to the Old Church where we sat for awhile and had a beer. From there it was back to the hotel where we sat in the bar for a bit and visited with the bar cat. Before retiring to the room, we went across the street to a shop where we got stroopwafles for dessert.
Europe - Day 26 – Today was low-key. We started by having breakfast somewhere other than the hotel. There are many pancake places here, one of which is just around the corner from the hotel. We walked there in the rain and found all their inside seating full and people waiting. So, we went back to our street to a place across from the hotel and had omelets. The food was ok, but they got extra points for having a café cat. Like our bar cat, it seems to ignore the hustle and bustle around it and just watches. Although when a dog walked by and barked, the cat chased it away.
Since it is raining and forecast to all day, we decided to do our laundry at the laundromat next door to the hotel. Having only six working washers and five working dryers, it was busy, but there were empty machines. We figured the machine out pretty easy, and by the time our wash was done, Barb was giving instructions to a young man on how to operate the machines. There was a funny vending machine there that contained drinks, snacks, and detergent all in one. I was surprised that all the people there seemed to be travelers.
Later in the afternoon, we met my ex, Barb, and her niece at the train station. They are in a nearby city for a conference and joined us this afternoon to tour the Anne Frank house. Since it was raining, we took a tram from the train station to near the museum. We had reservations for the museum at 19:00, and diner reservations nearby for 17:00. We got to the restaurant early and had great steaks for dinner. We then went to the museum to see if we could get in early and since it was starting to rain again, they said sure. We spent about an hour in the museum which tells the very sobering story well.
After coffee in the museum café, we walked (it had stopped raining) back towards our hotel, taking a bit of a long way through Dam Square and the red light district. At our hotel we went in to the bar for drinks, where we found the bar cat asleep upside down in a chair, even though the place was pretty full and loud. After drinks I walked the ladies around the corner to where they could see the train station and said our goodbyes.
Europe - Day 27 – If yesterday was low-key, today was even lower. It was again an off and on rain all day, so we didn’t plan anything specific. We had breakfast at the pancake place that was full yesterday. We both had Dutch pancakes, which are very thin. Barb had a sweet one with cookie crumble and syrup, and I had a savory one with smoked salmon, spinach, and crème fraiche. They were both very tasty.
Mid-morning, during a break in the rain, we walked over to the train station and hopped on a tram to the Leidseplein neighborhood. I remember this area a bit from when I was here on business more than 25 years ago, because there is a hotel there called the American Hotel. We found this one little greenspace that had about twenty little iguana statues. I have no idea why but there they were. As with everywhere in the city, there are also restaurants, bars, and “coffee houses” everywhere. (A coffee house here is a place to buy and/or smoke marijuana. A café is a place to get coffee.) The Bulldog is one of Amsterdam’s more well know coffee houses, and this one had a large bulldog state in the window. We walked a bit, then stopped at an Irish bar for a beer and a sit. We timed this perfectly as it rained while we were there but stopped when we were ready to leave. We walked around some more and then stopped at a different place for another beer. After that, it was mid-afternoon and we were getting hungry again. There are lots of Italian places amongst the restaurants, so we browsed a few menus and picked one. Once seated, we realized we had picked the right one, because they had a cat. The “Carnivore” pizza was quite good, as was the tiramisu we split after. We have been trying the tiramisu at every Italian place we’ve stopped at, and found a wide variety of styles. All good, but very different.
It rained while we were eating, but stopped before we finished. We trammed it back to our hotel area, and stopped in our hotel bar for one last beverage before going up to the room. Our bar cat didn’t seem to care that I had recently pet another cat.
Tomorrow we train to Steenwijk, east of Amsterdam, to join friends Kim and David on their canal boat for five days. I may or may not post each day we are there, so don’t fret if there is a gap in coverage.
Europe - Day 28 – Day 33 – Our train trip from Amsterdam to Steenwijk went very well. It involved two trains, but they were both exactly on-time. Our friends Kim & David were just arriving in town in their boat Compagnon about the same time we did. Kim sent me a pin to where they were docked, and we started walking that way. It took us about fifteen minutes to get to the canal where we found them. We stowed our giant duffel down below in the forward cabin, and Kim gave us the quick tour of the boat. We spent a couple of hours catching up and then took a walk through Steenwijk. Being Sunday, there was only one restaurant open where we stopped and had a couple beers and a snack. While there, a guy came driving through the square in a nice looking 1972 2-door Lincoln Continental. It was very out of place in a world of little look-alike cars. We stopped at the grocery on the way back to the boat and picked up ingredients for David to make us a nice dinner later. It isn’t dark here until about 22:30 or 23:00, so we stayed up too late talking.
In the morning, we got a slow start over coffee. Our destination today is Vollenhove. This is a new town for Kim & David also. I drove about half the distance, including docking us in a slip in the marina. We walked around town and found the ruins of a castle from about 900 AD. This area fished for eel and we found a smokehouse where they smoke it and sell it, including in a vending machine. That was a first. There was also a very large Dutch Reformed church, that looked way larger than the town warranted. As we were walking through town, most everything was closed for reasons unknown, but we passed an antique store with the door open. We stepped in and were greeted by an old man who said to look around and call to him if we needed anything. The place was several rooms packed tightly with old large furniture and stuff everywhere. The guy came back from an interior door, and we asked if he lived there. He did, and he invited us upstairs to se his home. The second floor was he and his wife’s home. It had a large room that was the living area, dining room, and kitchen. He explained how the house was built in 1627 from timbers that were considered inferior to be used in shipbuilding. It was very cool to spend a little time with this gentleman.
The next day we moved on to Blokzijl. We docked near some friends of Kim & David’s and were immediately greeted by the little local cat that we think belongs to a girl who lives across the street. Kim met this little girl and her cat a couple weeks ago. The girl is about ten, and is apparently a child actor. We didn’t see her on this visit, but the cat hopped right on the boat to say hello. We walked around town a little, checking out the old church and the honor self-service candy store. We hit the grocery and Kim made chicken enchiladas for dinner. The evening entertainment was watching late-arriving boats try to find places to dock. Some things are common no matter where the boating is taking place.
Wednesday, we started slowly and finally left the dock a little before noon. To leave the town basin we need to go through a lock. We were the seventh boat in line, and the lock only held six, so we tied to the waiting area while those boats went through, and then a batch came through towards us. The lockmaster waved us in, and then told us that since he would be closing for lunch as soon as we passed, to just go when the lock doors opened, without waiting for the light to turn green. After we were through the lock, Kim turned the driving over to me and I drove all the way to Ossenzijle. In Ossenzijle, we simply tied up to the side of the canal for the night. Other folks Kim & David know are tied up here too, and we said hello to them as we walked in to the tiny town. This town isn’t much more than a crossroads, and our walk didn’t take long. Stopping along the canal like this gets very quiet after 20:00 when the bridges stop opening. Any boats that need the bridge opened (most of them) have to be parked by then, so traffic is very light.
Thursday, we continued north to Sneek, where we turned west a bit and found a spot in the marina in IJlst. I drove all day, including through part of Sneek where there are a couple of interesting bridges. At one of the bridges, the canal tees into another canal right after the bridge, and you can’t see traffic in the other canal until you are coming through the bridge. I got lucky and there was no traffic, so it was simply a matter of making a three-point turn after the bridge. We also encountered a toll bridge. At these, the bridge tender has a wooden shoe on a string on the end of a long pole. He swings the shoe out to the passing boat where someone on deck grabs it and deposits the required toll. Barb did the honors and got it perfectly. We also crossed a highway. The highway goes under the canal just like any old overpass. We also went under an opening bridge that required stopping a busy four-lane highway. I always got a feeling of power whenever we stopped car traffic to open a bridge, but stopping a freeway was a first. In IJlst, we docked right by a working windmill that drives a sawmill. Barb and I paid the €2 each to climb up in the windmill and see how the sawmill works. Unfortunately, there was no wind today, so no work happening, but it was still cool. We walked into town and found a restaurant where we had beers and bitterballen for a snack. On the way back to the boat we stopped at the grocery to pick up a few things for dinner. We had planned on David making something for dinner, but when we got back to the boat, we saw the Pizza Boat down the dock, so we got two pizzas instead.
Friday, we moved from IJlst, through Sneek to Grou. The trip through Sneek can be a little tricky, so Kim drove today. Besides the bridges, there are solid boats on both sides of the canal, and heavy traffic. We caught all the bridges except one without having to wait at all, so it turned out less stressful than expected. The rest of the way to Grou was very busy with traffic starting the weekend early. We got to Grou in plenty of time to get a slip, but the marina was full by evening. We had a beer in the nice restaurant right at the marina and then walked into town checking out a couple of shops. Later we went back to town for our final dinner together. We have thoroughly enjoyed the relaxing time on the boat after a month of go, go, go through the first half of our trip. It was great to experience a different type of boating, yet also see the similarities with our cruising years. We can’t thank Kim & David enough for the week.
Europe - Day 34 Our week on the boat has passed, and today we travel to Germany. The trip should involve a taxi, three trains and a subway. The plan started to unravel when we were waiting for the taxi at the marina, and he wasn’t there. There is only one taxi in Grou. Kim has used him before and called him a couple days ago to setup our pickup. Since he was late, she called him and he said he’d be right there, but by the time he finally showed, we were already mentally planning to catch the next train. The taxi driver raced as best he could through town to the train station, where the train was coming down the tracks as we took the bags out of the trunk. We were trying to pay him, but his machine didn’t work the first time, so he threw it in the car and said to follow him. We ran as best we could with our bags, while he ran ahead to the train and held the doors from closing until we got on. We were on! First scare averted. (Kim will pay the taxi man and I’ll Zelle her the money.) The first train was from Grou to Zwolle, and it was perfectly on-time. We had sixteen minutes before the next train, from Zwolle to Arnhem, departs. There was a train already at the platform ours was supposed to be at, but the destination city on the overhead display did not say Arnhem. The train conductor was standing there and I asked. She explained in fast, heavily accented English that there was a “disruption” on the tracks, and that we needed to get off at blah-blah-blah and take a different train to blah-blah-blah, and then a bus to Arnhem. So, totally unsure of what to do, we got on the train. After a few stops, we got to Deventer and lots of people were getting off. There seemed to be several other train transfers here, so we followed the crowd. Unfortunately, there was no clear herd to one place, and we ended up wondering where to go. There was no manned information booth, but a nice lady who worked at the convenience store spotted the lost look on our faces and offered to help. She looked online and thought we needed to get on a train to Apeldoorn, where we could then get the bus to Arnhem. So, we got on the train to Apeldoorn thinking we knew what we were doing. In Apeldoorn, we found the queue for the buses and waited for the next one to Arnhem to pull in. The bus driver explained that if we were looking for a bus that the railway was running, we needed to go to the other end of the parking lot. He was just a regular regional bus. We thanked him and walked across the parking lot to where there were a couple of railway employees sitting talking. They told us the only bus they were running was to somewhere not Arnhem and the only bus to Arnhem was the public bus. I should mention that fortunately, we had time to spare. Our train from Arnhem to Cologne required seat reservations. We have reservations on a train from Arnhem at 19:37, which gave us a two-hour window. We had hoped to maybe get on an earlier train, but now we are just hoping the two-hour gap is enough. We walked back to the public bus ramp and found a different bus to Arnhem and boarded. This bus ended up costing us $11 each, and took over and hour and nineteen stops to get the last thirty miles to Arnhem. In Arnhem, we now had about twenty minutes to stop in a store to grab sandwiches and waters, and then get to the platform. Our train pulled in on time and we boarded. This train is a new high-speed one, with only one stop in Dusseldorf before getting to Cologne. We found people in our seats, but they moved when we pointed out we had those reserved. We now could relax and enjoy the smooth ride to Germany. It was a two-hour plus trip at speeds up to 125 mph. As we got close to Cologne, it started to rain. We had decided that given the start to the trip, instead of learning the subway system now, we would just spring for a cab to the Airbnb. It was raining hard as we got our bags in the trunk of the cab and jumped in. I gave the driver the address, and we took off into heavy stop and go traffic around the station. The driver was going on in German about the traffic and obviously expected me to comment. I told him I only spoke English at which point he said something about a bridge being closed causing the mess in traffic. It took us about twenty minutes to get to the area of the apartment, where we got out of the cab without specifically seeing the address we are looking for.
The address we are looking for is Bismarckstrasse 38. We saw 33 across the street when we got out of the cab, so we thought we were on the correct side of the street. We figured out which way to go and walked past a couple of busy sidewalk cafes looking at the numbers. We found 46, then 44, then 42, then 40, then….. No more numbers. There were a couple of unmarked doors and then some businesses. We walked back to review the doors and were looking for any sign of 38 when a voice from above got our attention (after several hellos). An old lady was hanging out of her window and told us we were a couple doors away. We walked and stopped when she yelled “stop”. Did I mention it was dark now? Using my phone’s flashlight, I found the lockbox with the key to 38. But I still wasn’t sure which door was 38. I tried the key in an unmarked door, and it seemed to unlock the deadbolt, but when I turned it in the handle lock, it sounded like it unlocked, but I couldn’t get the door to open. As my frustration grew, a young man came out of the next door. He saw our confusion and offered to help. He showed me how to properly jiggle the door a little as turning the key and presto we were in. Our thanks go to the two strangers, and I will be mentioning the lack of a clearly marked door in my Airbnb review.
We got our stuff inside, found the light switches and air conditioning, and then decided a couple of beers were in order. We walked back a few doors to the first sidewalk club where we found a table for two. I went inside to see if there was wait-staff or if we ordered at the bar. Ordering at the bar was ok, but there was service outside too. I didn’t realize until going in, that all the seating is outside. We were definitely out of place here, with most of the clientele being younger than my grandchildren. I actually looked up the legal drinking age in Germany, and found that 16-year-olds can legally drink beer in bars. Even though we stood out, we enjoyed winding down from the semi-stressful travel day with a couple of beers, then went back to the apartment and crashed.
Europe - Day 35 Given our hectic day yesterday, we didn’t want to jump right into today. Visiting the Cologne Cathedral is the one must-do on our list, but since it’s Sunday, we thought perhaps that should wait until tomorrow. We also found out that today is a huge Pride parade which is impacting traffic all over the city, including canceling the Hop On/Off tour buses. So, I researched the subway system and found the station nearest us, and the route to get closest to the Chocolate Museum. We walked a couple blocks to the Friesenplatz Underground station and took the train to the Huemarkt station. From there, we walked a few blocks to the Lindt Chocolate Museum. The Pride parade route apparently goes right by both of these areas, and there were large crowds of people, but nothing impeded our trip.
The Chocolate Museum was very interesting. It went through how and where it is grown, how it is shipped, and of course how it gets from beans to candy bar. There is a small-scale working production line there that makes little chocolate bars that are given out at the end of the tour. There is a place where you can push a button, and the robot picks a bar off the line and puts it in a little chute to you. You can’t get more fresh-off- the-line than that. While we were in the museum, a heavy rain shower came through, but it had ended by the time we were through. We went and sat down at a nice outside bar overlooking the Rhine and had and got off our feet and had a beer. Once rested, we went over to the large Ferris wheel in front of the museum. A ride on it is included in the museum ticket, and there was no line, so we were loaded in just a couple minutes. While not as large as the London Eye, the ride still gave a nice view of the city and the Rhine. We went around six or seven times before coming to a stop. From the ride, we could see the Deutzer Bridge to the north where the parade was crossing the river. There were 18-wheelers pulling large trailers with bands and people as far as we could see. The movement over the bridge seemed to be very slow due to congestion at the western end where the main crowd was.
We walked back to the Huemarkt Station and to take the train back to Friesenplatz, only to find that the trains had taken a pause during the parade. We waited about 45 minutes for the next train and loaded up. When we got to the Friesenplatz, we found that the parade was still going strong there. We walked towards our apartment (away from the parade route) and stopped at an Italian restaurant for dinner. We had pizza and beer and watched as people were starting to make their way from the parade back home. There were some very interesting sights to be seen.
Europe - Day 36 – This morning, we plan to see the Cathedral. We were going to take the Hop On/Off bus, but decided instead to take the train on the same route we did yesterday. We got to the Huemarkt and walked through Old Town to the Cathedral. There were people everywhere, but surprisingly, they weren’t in line to go in the Cathedral. We walked right in, with a friendly reminder from the nun at the door to remove our hats. I visited the Cathedral more than twenty years ago, but was still in awe of the size of this building. Its towers are over 500 feet tall, and inside it is over 150 feet. The amount of stained glass is astounding. We walked all the way around the inside, but declined the opportunity to take the 533 steps up inside the south tower. After touring inside, we went across the street and sat down at a café where we had a drink and just stared at the front of the building noticing more and more detail.
In addition to the Hop On/Off bus, there is a little tram that looks like an old steam engine that loads right in the corner we were sitting at. We decided to take this tram around to the zoo, where we can walk a block to the Kolner Seilbahn, which is a cable car ride across the Rhine. We found that the cable car was taking cash only for some reason, so we had to walk back to an ATM at the zoo and get cash. (We have only spent €100 cash in a month, and half that for a tour in Ireland that was cash-only. Everywhere takes cards, and many places ONLY cards.) Cash in hand, we went back to the cable car and got our tickets. There was hardly any wait, and we were off. At the far end, they asked if we were one-way or round-trip, and since we were round-trip, we didn’t even get out of the car.
From the cable car, we took the tram back to the Cathedral area and walked towards Old Town looking for a place to eat. We found a little restaurant off the main drag where we both got pork schnitzel, one with mushroom sauce and one with Hollandaise. They were both excellent. Now full, we found the train back to the apartment. Tomorrow we move to Frankfurt.
Europe - Day 37 – Today was primarily a travel day. Our train from Cologne to Frankfurt is scheduled for 11:17, but we had nothing to do except watch the same crap over and over on CNN, so we left the apartment about 9:30 to see if we could get the next earlier train. We walked the couple of blocks to the Cologne West station, stopping in the station for to get a couple of chocolate croissants and a water. We found our platform and waited about fifteen minutes for the 10:17 departure to Frankfurt. When the train pulled in, we had to boogie further down the platform to get to the second-class cars where we are ticketed. (On the ICE trains, second-class is still better than any airplane seat.) We boarded the first second-class car we got to and walked back looking for two seats together. I stowed our big bag in the luggage rack just past our seats, and we settled in. The train left exactly on time and we enjoyed our croissants.
The train’s conductor started making an announcement in German and the people who understood him laughed several times. He then repeated the announcement in English. He explained that the journey would be a little longer than usual due to track maintenance on the most direct route. That meant we had to take a route along the Rhine River, which he really sold as a very beautiful route. We all laughed, but he was right – it was a nice view. About 45 minutes in, we came to a stop. After a bit, the conductor announced that there was an “unspecified defect” on the tracks ahead, but “don’t worry because we have two very qualified train drivers in front”. We started and stopped a couple of times, and the conductor announced that the problem was with the signal system. Eventually we picked up speed again, and he announced that we were through the problem area and the total delay was about 20 minutes. Since we are just going to Frankfurt and have no connections, and, we left an hour early anyway, we don’t really care about the delay. Later, the conductor and the ticket lady came down the aisle selling drinks. We bought a coffee and a beer, and when we asked to speak English, he asked where we were from. We chatted for a couple minutes and he gave us a tip of something to see when we get to Munich.
When we arrived in Frankfurt, we need to get from the central train station to the south one. I tried to find the local transportation by reading signs, instead of just consulting the new app I have thanks to Kim last week. This resulted in a lot of extra walking to find the #16 tram. We had already purchased tickets for the tram online, so we hopped on and rode six stops to Frankfurt Sudbahnhof (the south train station). From here we walked about 15 minutes to the Airbnb.
At the Airbnb, we were met by the hosts and given the keys to the third-floor apartment. I don’t recall if I hadn’t paid attention to the third-floor part, or if I thought “I can carry our bag up two flights”. At any rate, I drug the bag up the stairs to the largest place we stayed at so far. Most of the “apartments” we have stayed at would be considered a studio at best. This is a full-blown apartment with lots of room. We took a bit to cool down (relatively since there is no a/c in most places here) and then walked about fifteen minutes to where there are several restaurants. We found Apfelwein Wagner about a 15-minute walk away and enjoyed some of the apple wine they are known for and schnitzels. Barb had a plain Wiener schnitzel, and I had a cordon blue one. They food was good and the wait staff was fun.
We were back at the apartment about 17:00 missing the forecast rain by an hour. Our host here gave us a list of suggestions for things to do, so we’ll be sorting that out.
Europe - Day 38 – We started the day walking to the Sudbahnhof and catching a tram across the river, where we switched trams and went to St. Paul’s church. We are starting the day with a city tour bus, but before boarding the bus, we strolled around the Old Town area, where we saw two couples celebrating just getting married at the City Hall, which is in an old historic building. We also saw what has to be one of the stupidest street people we have ever seen. They were going from dumpster to dumpster looking inside for treasures. The only problem was they were literally 100 feet behind the garbage truck that was emptying the dumpsters.
At 11:00 we boarded a Grey Live Hop On/Off bus. They are they only company offering tours here, and after using them, they are not up to par with CitySightSeeing which has been in every other city we’ve been to. We got on the upper level of the bus and started off on the tour. Immediately, we were stuck in traffic that seemed to be held up because of some fire department activity at a high-rise on our route. We finally cleared that activity, and continued around the tour. The one place we wanted to hop off was the Main Tower Observation Deck. However, the bus stop for the tower was closed due to construction. So, we rode the whole bus route around and then started walking. We first walked through Old Town, towards the Catholic Cathedral. We went inside the cathedral and looked around. After the one on Cologne, it’s hard to be impressed.
We stopped to sit for a while, and enjoyed a beer and a pretzel near the cathedral. After the break, we caught the subway for one stop, then walked the rest of the way to the observation tower. The wait was short and we took the elevator to the top where we were treated to a beautiful view of the city. From the tower, we retraced our route back to the Old Town and found a place to have lunch/dinner. The place we stopped was right on the river, so we were able to watch the boats go by as we enjoyed our food. I had another schnitzel, this one with the locally acclaimed “green sauce”. The green sauce is like a chimichurri and it was quite nice.
The lunch place was right by the Eiserner Steg (the Iron Bridge), which is a foot bridge over the Main River known for all the padlocks that couples have attached to the bridge to declare their love. We walked across the bridge and then continued to walk back to our apartment. It was about a mile and wore us out.
Europe - Day 39 – Today we took a boat cruise on the Main. We left the apartment about 9:30 and walked a few blocks to a bus stop. We caught a bus across the river and got off at the first stop on the north side. We then walked a few blocks along the river to the ticket office for the boat cruise. There was almost an hour before the first departure at 11:00, so we bought our tickets and then strolled into Old Town to a café for coffee and a croissant.
About 10:45, we boarded the boat and found seats on the upper deck. It would have been a real good day to have remembered my sun glasses and Barb’ hat. Even though it was sunny, the temp was in the 70s, and with the breeze from the boat movement it was quite pleasant. The tour goes one way from the dock for half and hour, then comes back and goes the other way for half an hour, then back to the starting point, for a total of two hours. It was interesting to see the city from a different point of view. There were a few things that stood out, like the power plant right in the middle of the city, that was not a case of the city grew around the old plant. The plant is relatively new (less than forty years) and is clean and quiet and co-exists nicely with its neighbors. We saw some industrial areas along the river too, and commercial barge traffic. Interspersed with the barge and tour boat traffic were some rowers who weren’t fazed by the larger traffic.
After the boat tour, we meandered back into the city, eventually stopping at a sidewalk restaurant where we both had large salads for lunch. It was a switch from three days of schnitzel. After lunch, we walked a couple blocks and caught the bus back to our neighborhood. Our apartment has a washer/dryer similar to the one in the bus, so Barb is learning how to use it to keep current on our laundry.
Day 40 – Today will be a quick update. We stayed in the apartment all morning while it drizzled outside. In the afternoon, we took a bus and walked a bit to meet old friend Rudi Heinemann. Rudi work for BMC in Frankfurt and I dealt with him regularly when I worked for BMC. We spent a couple of hours at a restaurant in Old Town and had lunch while catching up. After that, we walked and bussed back to the apartment for the evening. The only picture today is of an Egyptian Goose. We thought these were a kind of duck, but they are Egyptian Geese who seem to enjoy hanging around the river with their Canadian cousins.
Europe - Day 41 – Today we travelled to Munich. It rained a lot overnight, and was still raining at 10:00 when we needed to leave the apartment. So instead of walking to the tram, we called an Uber to take us to the Central train station. Our train was scheduled to leave at 10:53, and we were there at 10:15. It has become apparent that unlike airports, you don’t want to get to the train station early. There is no place to sit, and they don’t even announce the train platform until maybe 30 minutes before departure. We waited by the main departure board until our train showed up, except it appeared our train had been combined with another. We went to the platform listed, where I found an employee answering traveler’s questions. I confirmed that our train number had changed, and we were at the correct platform. He did say to keep watching the signage though, because it could change. It did change, but only to the adjacent platform, so we started walking down the platform. The trains are quite long, and we wanted to get far enough down to get seats without being crowded. The train arrived as we were walking, and we barely got to the second-class cars when it stopped. We got in and kept walking until we saw two seats together and open space in the luggage rack. The departure time came and went, and we ended up leaving about fifteen minutes late. They never said why, but it seemed to be a matter of traffic.
The trip was good, with three stops between Frankfurt and Munich. The speed of a “high-speed” train varies all the time depending on the track, going through towns, and the number of turns. On this train though, we hit 300km/h twice for a few minutes. That’s about 186 mph. Most of the time we were cruising under 100 mph, but still cooking along.
In Munich, we walked from the main train station to the local underground station where we got a train to Rosenheimer Platz, which was just a few stops away. From there it was a few blocks walk to our hotel here, a Holiday Inn. It’s not a Holiday Inn Express, so we won’t be any smarter when we leave.
After getting settled in, we walked back to the train and took it back a couple of stops to Marienplatz, which is the edge of the Old Town area. We walked a few blocks to the Hofbräuhaus for beer and dinner. The Hofbräuhaus is very much a tourist thing, but we had to do it. We found a table in the large main room and ordered beers. By the time the beers came (mine a full liter and Barb’s a half) we had decided to get a sausage plate to share. The food was ok, but the reason to come was the people. You sit at large picnic tables here and share your table. We had an empty table to start, then two guys from Cincinnati joined us. We introduced ourselves, but they ate and left quickly. Then a German guy sat down and eventually asked where we were from. He already had a head start on us for alcohol consumption but he was fun to chat with. He was not from Munich, but was here with his wife and her friend for a Taylor Swift concert tomorrow. We weren’t aware, but Taylor Swift is here tonight and tomorrow. We’ll avoid that part of town. Before the German guy left, another couple from San Antonio sat at the table and we enjoyed chatting a bit with them before we left. While we were there, the musical act for the evening arrived and started playing making our Hofbräuhaus tourist experience complete.
We made our way back to the hotel, with a stop at a grocery just down the street where we got a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. It was good (what ice cream isn’t) but not the same as Ben & Jerry’s in the states. Using Google Translate to read the container, it is made in the Netherlands, not imported from the States. It was not as rich & creamy, and it had whole mini-Reese’s peanut butter cups instead of broken up ones. Still good, but not the same.
Europe - Day 42 – I started the day a little different. We had gone to bed early last night at about 9:30. I woke up and looked at my phone and saw 5:30, so I went back to bed after going to the bathroom. I wasn’t falling back to sleep, so after a while I looked at the phone again and it was about 7:15, so I got up and went to shower. When I came out of the shower, Barb asked me what I was doing, since it was 01:45. My phone displays both local time and Eastern time, and without my glasses on I had confused them. Oops. Of course, now I was wide awake, so I quietly sat and read on my phone for awhile before finally getting tired and going back to bed for a couple of hours.
We re-started the day with the quite expensive hotel breakfast buffet. We’ll only do that once. Our plan today if to tour Schloss Nymphenburg, the Nymphenburg Palace. It has rained overnight, and there still a high chance of more this morning, so we took our time getting ready to head to the palace. To get there, we took a subway train to the main train station where we switched to a street tram to the palace. The tram stop is almost half a mile from the entrance to the palace, so of course it started to rain a little as we started walking. We had brought an umbrella, so we were good.
We did a self-guided audio tour that took about ninety minutes. The rooms that you get to see are a fraction of the building. They contain lots of art, and have been restored with exact reproductions of things like wallpapers and fabrics. After the main palace portion, we also toured the Carriage and Sleigh Museum. Here we found several huge ornate carriages and sleighs and all the decorative tack that went on the horses that pulled them. It was quite impressive.
While in the museum, the rain had stopped and the sun was out. We walked to the tram stop and headed back. We stopped in the Marienplatz where we had lunch and watched the people. Now that we are aware that Taylor Swift played here last night and will again tonight, we are more aware of all the people with TS t-shirts and bracelets on. They were everywhere. I’m sure glad our hotel is not anywhere near the concert venue. By mid-afternoon we were back in our room relaxing for the evening.
Europe - Day 43 – Back on our trip from Cologne to Frankfurt, I mentioned that the train conductor gave us a tip about something to do while in Munich. In fact, he had said that Frankfurt sucked and that we should cancel a Frankfurt day so we could extend our Munich stay. Well, we didn’t change any travel plans, but we did allot one of our Munich days to his suggestion. We were up early to get a train from Munich to Garmisch-Partenkirchen which is near the southern border of Germany. In Garmisch-Partenkirchen we walked a couple of blocks from the regular train station to the station for the Zugspitze Cog Wheel train. This train will be the start of our round-trip to the summit of Zugspitze.
Zugspitze is the highest point in Germany. The border between Germany and Austria passes over one of the peaks at the summit. From Garmisch-Partenkirchen the train is a regular electric train that climbs to the town of Grainau. In Grainau you switch trains to the cog wheel train. A cog wheel train has a third rail in the middle of the tracks that engages a cog wheel on the train. This is to pull it up the steep incline from Grainau (758 meters or 2486 feet) to Zugspitze Plateau (about 2000 meters or 6560 feet). The last 4.5 km of the cog wheel train is in a tunnel. At the top end of the tunnel, the train enters the building that makes the base station complex on the plateau. You never see the train from the outside on the plateau, which isn’t really clear until you are looking down on the building from above.
On the plateau, there are a few things to do. You can hike out onto the Schneefemer or Hallentalferner glaciers, or a little higher to the Zugspitze Chapel. Some crazy people will actually hike from here to the summit. We saw some of these as we rode the cable car up. The Gletscherbahn cable car goes from the plateau to the summit in just a few minutes. At the summit, there are three restaurant options, a museum dedicated to the cog railway, views of four countries, and the golden summit cross. The website says “it’s only a few meters to the golden summit cross”. It doesn’t mention that those few meters are steep and include a ladder. So, we touched the golden cross via the magic of photography instead of in person. After walking all around the summit platform taking pictures, we got a sausage and pretzel snack and beers and sat in the sun on the less windy side of the building.
After our snack, we began the trip back down the mountain. To go down, you take a different cable car from the summit down to Lake Eibsee which was a stop on the cog railway on the way up. This cable car is unique for several reasons. It boasts the longest span between the top station and the first tower (3.2 km), it has the tallest towers of any cable car at 127 meters, and it has the largest difference in elevation between it base and summit stations (2 km). In the summit station boarding area, there are several spaces in the floor that are glass. You can look through the floor and see the gondola coming up at you. In the pictures, you will see that one of the glass squares was cracked. It still was apparently safe, as people were walking on it. We rode the gondola down and walked to the cog wheel train station where we caught the next train to Grainau. Once again, we had to change trains in Grainau to the one that took us back to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. In Garmisch-Partenkirchen we had to wait almost an hour for the next train back to Munich.
The trip from Garmisch-Partenkirchen to Munich is about ninety minutes, and then we walked to the S-Bahn part of the station and caught a train to the stop near the hotel. We grabbed a pizza from a place right by the hotel which we took back to the room for dinner.
All-in-all it was a great day. Our thanks go out to the friendly train conductor who gave us the suggestion that we visit Zugspitze.
Europe - Day 44 – Today is a trip to the BMW Museum. I would have liked to do the factory tour, but I didn’t try to get tickets early enough, and they were sold out. We did get tickets to the Museum. We took a subway train to the Olympic Park, which is right next to the BMW facilities. There was still lots of activity going on tearing down from the Taylor Swift concerts that were there over the weekend.
The museum was very well laid out. It covered their entire history, starting with aircraft engines and progressing through motorcycles and cars. Like probably many large German companies, they were nationalized by the National Socialist party in 1933 and forced to focus on building aircraft engines. During the peak of WWII, they employed forced labor to keep up with the demand for engines. In 1980, the company acknowledged the wrongs that had happened under their watch and have been very active in social activism to try and make sure things like that don’t happen again. It was interesting to read how they acknowledge the wrongs of the time period instead of glossing over it.
After the museum, we walked through the Olympic Park to a beer garden, where we had a beer. After sitting a while, we walked back to the subway where we caught a train back to Marienplatz. We got off there and went to Restaurant Ratskeller which is in the basement and courtyard of the City Hall building. We sat in the courtyard and had a late lunch. Then it was back to the hotel where we watched some Olympic coverage.
Europe - Day 45 This will be a relatively short update today, because we were traveling. We took a local train to the main station in Munich where we caught a train to Vienna. Some of the long-distance trains require seat reservations, and some don’t. When I looked at the schedule yesterday, I saw that the train without reservations took half an hour longer than the one that did require reservations. So, I bought reservations ($10/ea) on the quicker train. Unfortunately, the seats the system gave us were in the “family” section, which meant we were two rows from a kid that never shut up for the first leg of the trip from Munich to Salzburg. Oh well. At least we had seats, as the train appeared to be full.
The train took us from Munich, through Salsburg, Austria, through Linz and into Vienna in just under four hours. I love the fact that they display the train’s speed on the screens in each car, so you can see how fast you are hurtling through the countryside without seat belts. We hit 230 km/h a few times, or about 146 mph. Barb got a few nice shots of the countryside whizzing by as we went.
Once in Vienna, things got a little less clear on getting to our apartment. I knew we had to take another train from the main train station to Traisengasse Station, but I was not clear on what train. I was getting my info from the City Mapper app that I have used in other cities, but I wasn’t matching the train number from it with any signage. I finally went to the information booth and asked there. The lady wrote down a track number and departure time in about ten minutes. We went to that platform and boarded the train. I wasn’t really convinced this was the train we needed, and as soon as we were underway and they announced the next stop, I knew we weren’t because that didn’t match the first stop on the planner. So, we got off at the first stop, and started the planner over. From here, it was clear to go downstairs to the Underground (subway) and use two trains and a surface tram to get where we needed to be. Once off the tram, we were about a 10-minute walk to the apartment.
The apartment is ok, but not as nice as the one we had in Frankfurt. It is on the first floor, which is a good thing, but it doesn’t have a TV or microwave. It’s all good though, as we have been watching Olympic coverage on the computer in the evenings anyway. Speaking of that, if you have never been out of the US during a major sports event like the Olympics or the Super Bowl, things are different. The only English language TV we have been getting is either BBC or Sky News (also British). So, they cover British athletes. Or, we could watch the German coverage and ignore the audio, but again, they cover the German athletes. So, I paid for a month of a private VPN, which makes the internet think that I am in NY. That way, we can stream NBC coverage as if we were in the States. Another thing that is lacking in most European apartments is air conditioning. Today was the first real hot day of our trip, hitting about 89, so it was a little stuffy, but we opened the windows and it has cooled down in the evening.
Since it was already mid-afternoon when we got settled in the apartment, instead of sightseeing, we did the “find a laundromat” trick. Barb found one, one stop away on the subway, and off we went. It was a pretty new, clean, very automated place. You loaded the machine, then paid with a credit card and started it from a central terminal. It all worked well and we were on the way back to the apartment in a little over an hour. On the way back, we stopped in the grocery store than is a couple blocks from the apartment and picked up some cheese, sausage, and crackers for dinner, as there are no restaurants very close to the apartment.
One last thing to note today involves bicycles. We are getting better about paying attention to the bike lanes that are adjacent to the sidewalks, and not strolling out in front of them. Today though, as we were waiting on the laundry, we were at a busy intersection of a street and a busy bike path and sidewalk. There was no signal here. I was puzzled trying to figure out the hierarchy. Sometime a car would see a pedestrian or bike waiting to cross, and stop for them. But sometimes, if a bike or pedestrian was crossing as a car came, they got the horn blown at them. Oh, and there was a tram line on that street too. Nobody got run over while we were there, but there were a couple of close calls. I also got a picture of a style of bike that we have seen all over The Netherlands, Germany, and now here. It’s kind of like a bicycle pick-up truck, except the bed is between the rider and the front wheel. We’ve seen them used for carrying dogs, kids, and all nature of stuff.
Europe - Day 46 We started the day by taking a tram into the city center where we got on one of the Hop On/Off tour busses. There are two different routes here and we have tickets that will let us take both routes for two days. Our plan is to start with the red route, ride it all the way around, then switch to the blue route and do the same. Then, we can determine what points of interest we want to see more and ride tomorrow to those. The weather today is supposed to get hot, but it is overcast, so being on the top level of the bus isn’t bad. The whole red route is supposed to take a little less than two hours, and with traffic it was a little over that.
After completing the red route, we walked a few blocks to Café Schwarzenburg, which is famous because it looks pretty much the same now as it did when it opened in the late 1800s. We had a light lunch and then went back to start the blue route of the tour bus. This route is also supposed to be under two hours, but was over that because of heavy traffic. Once we got off that bus, we immediately went the block to the tram and back to our apartment. It has gotten up to about 88 degrees, and the sun came out, so the last hour or so in the sun on the top of the bus was tough.
The apartment does not have air conditioning, as most European places don’t, but we had left the windows open, so it wasn’t too stuffy. We relaxed for a little over an hour, and then called an Uber to take us to the dinner cruise on the Danube that we have scheduled for Barb’s birthday. The car was here in just a couple of minutes and took us to the docks. We boarded the ship (which I neglected to take a picture of) and found our table. We were seated with two other couples, one from Germany and one from Oxford in the UK. The cruise was three hours long and included a buffet dinner and a Viennese band. Overall, it was a nice trip. The food was ok buffet food, and we didn’t know the music, but it was nice chatting with the other couples and telling them about our trip. It turned out the guy from the UK was also a retired mainframe guy who had a lot in common with Barb & I.
It was almost 11PM by the time we got back to the apartment. A late night for us old folks.
Europe - Day 47 We started the day by taking a tram and a subway to the Prater Ferris Wheel. The Prater Ferris Wheel was built in 1897. It was the tallest Ferris wheel in the world until 1985. It originally had 30 gondolas, but after being severely damaged in WWII, it was rebuilt with only 15. The gondolas look like little cable cars and each can easily hold a dozen or more comfortably. It takes between 10 – 20 minutes to make a revolution, depending on how many times it stops to load/unload. Since we were there on a weekday morning, it wasn’t at all busy and we got right on with a couple other people. The view from near the top was outstanding.
The Prather also includes lots of other amusement rides, a Madame Tussaud’s, and lots of other shops. We stopped at an ice cream shop right outside the Ferris wheel exit for a scoop (or two). From the Prather, we boarded the subway again and made our way to the Stadtpark (City Park). The park is about twenty-eight acres and is split lengthwise by the Vienna River, which was made into a canal for flood control purposes. There are lots of paths through the park, with lots of nice benches for breaks. There are twelve statues scattered though the park of famous Viennese people, the most prominent being Johan Strauss II. We walked all the way around the park and found all twelve statues, many benches, and a beer garden for a break. There were lots of people walking dogs, working on tans, having picnics, and a few possibly homeless guys sleeping on benches.
We exited the south end of the park a few blocks from the Opera House where the Hop On/Off bus routes start, so we were sort of familiar with the area. We strolled towards the opera house looking for a restaurant with outdoor seating (almost all have it) to have our afternoon/evening meal. We almost considered McDonald’s, but the urge passed quickly. We found a nice Italian restaurant where we had pasta dishes and tiramisu. We have had outstanding Italian food in just about every country so far. Better than even what we can get in NY.
From there it was back to the apartment via tram, with a stop at the local grocery store to pick up a couple of things for later and in the morning. The apartment is just off a small city park that has summer concerts. There was band setting up yesterday as we left for our dinner cruise, but they were gone already by the time we got home. Today, as we got home, another band was setting up. Since we don’t have TV, and there doesn’t seem to be any Olympic events this evening that I care to stream, I guess we’ll listen to the band from the comfort of our room. We have to have the windows open anyway, so it’s kind of unavoidable but to listen to them. If last night was an example, they shouldn’t play too late. They just started as I finish writing this, and it’s about 6:30.
A few random thoughts from Austria:
There are a lot of statues in Vienna.
It’s impossible to take pictures without overhead wires, signposts, or strangers
in them.
Whereas almost everyplace we’ve stayed had tankless on-demand water heaters,
here they have regular tank ones, often precariously mounted.
Every place prior to Vienna has used contactless card payments almost
exclusively. Here, several places have still required inserting the card to
read the chip and signing the receipt.
There is nothing at all unusual about walking down the sidewalk or boarding
public transportation with luggage. (This has been true on the whole trip, not
just Austria.)
Tchuss!
Europe - Day 48 Today was a lazy day. We didn’t leave the apartment until after 10, when we took the tram and a subway to Danube Island. Danube Island was formed when the main channel of the river was diverted into a concrete/stone canal for flood control reasons. The island is a long skinny piece of land that was created by the digging for the canal. It is now a big park, very popular as a way to feel like you’re out of the city, even though the city is right there.
There is a subway line that stops on the island, so we walked from there along the shore until we came to a boat rental place that also was a café. We stopped there for a drink and watched as city people showed up to rent the little electric boats. We thought about renting one, but it was quite windy, making enough chop on the water that we probably would have ended up wet from splashing. Barb was drinking a Shandy (beer and lemonade mix) and a yellow jacket took interest in the bottle since it had sweetness on it. When it finally went just inside the neck, I trapped it with the ash tray on top of the bottle. A bit later a second one came and I got him in there too. Damn things seem to show up everywhere we sit and eat or drink. Usually just one, and if you ignore them, they are just annoying, but today I accidentally caught one between my arm and my body and it stung me. Good thing I’m not allergic.
We walked some more before turning around and walking back along the other shore and back to the subway station. We took the subway just one stop back into the city where we walked back towards the river looking for a place to eat. Our criteria for a place to eat was that it has a nice outdoor area, and a bathroom. We stopped at the first place we found and started looking at the menu. While most places have the menus in German and English, we found this one didn’t look like German, and only had a few English words scattered here and there. We did find Weinerschnitzel, so we both ordered that. After we had used the bathroom and were waiting for our food, I looked the restaurant up with Google and found that it was Serbian. No wonder it didn’t look familiar. The schnitzel was large and good though.
After lunch, we walked a bit more, then caught a subway and trams back to the apartment. There is music in the park again tonight. Last night it ended at 21:00, so it wasn’t a problem.
Europe - Day 49 Today was a travel day, and it was raining and/or uninteresting out the windows, so the pictures are limited. Somebody asked about the size of our travel bags. We have one rolling duffel bag that weighs less than 50 lbs., so it is good on airplanes except Ryanair, who has a 44 lb. limit. For that reason, we have a collapsable smaller duffel that we can put some stuff in and carry-on if needed, but it has remained stowed in the big one except for our Ryanair flight from Ireland to England. Then there is the backpack, which has the computer, meds, and other miscellaneous stuff that we don’t want to possibly be separated from. Although, with us traveling primarily by train, we are never away from either bag.
Today’s timing was screwy since apparently, we have a sucky travel agent. Oh! That’s me. We have to check out of the apartment by 10:00, but our train to Prague isn’t until 13:10. There is an earlier train, but we needed seat reservations on this leg, and I already have those for the 13:10 train. The trip from the apartment to the train station should take about 35 minutes, so that leaves us with about two and a half hours to kill. I thought maybe we could just go sit in the City Park and people watch, but the forecast is for rain to start right about 10:30. So, we left the apartment a little before 10:00 and walked to the tram stop. The trip to the main train station involves one tram and one subway train. On the tram, it started to rain lightly. We walked from the tram to the subway station quickly and didn’t get too wet. When we got off the subway, the subway station connects to the main train station underground, so I don’t know if it was still raining, except that we saw other people with wet umbrellas, so I would say yes. I think I have mentioned before that there are no places to sit in the train stations. I can only assume this is to keep people from sleeping there. But for us crazy people who are there hours before their trains, it is a problem. This train station does have a number of restaurants though, so we camped in one of the two McDonald’s for two hours. We first bought a McCafé and a Coke. Then a little later an order of fried mozzarella. Then another Coke. Then an Oreo McFlurry. All stretched out to not make it too obvious that what we were really buying were seats. At 12:30, we left McDonald’s and went into the station as far as the first big display of train platforms. Our 13:10 train wasn’t displayed yet, so we stood there about fifteen minutes waiting for it to come up. When it did, we walked to platform nine and found where our car should stop along the platform. The train didn’t pull in until after 13:00, and we got on and found our seats.
The trip is four hours today. There are only four stops between here and Prague, but the train never went over about 160 km/h (99 mph). On the first leg, the conductor came through checking tickets, which means scanning a QR code on our phones. Imagine my surprise when he said our tickets were for yesterday! We have Eurail passes, which means we can travel as much as we want on any 15 days within a 60-day period. I had apparently gotten the wrong date when I scheduled this trip. Although, I had the right date for the seat reservations (which are done totally separate from the tickets). So, I had to redo the tickets for today, which meant we wasted one of our 15 travels days. Fortunately, we have a couple extra days on the pass, so it shouldn’t matter other than feeling stupid for screwing up.
The weather was gray and raining most of the way to Prague, and the scenery just wasn’t there, so we didn’t get any pictures. The scenery was mostly farm fields, but noticeably browner than the nice green fields we saw in Germany. Also, once in Czechia, the towns were not as cute. So, the only pictures are the starting railway platform, the first stop in Czechia, and disembarking in Prague.
Our Airbnb in Prague is a relatively short walk from the train station, so there was no opportunity to get mixed up like we did in Vienna. Unlike many of the Airbnbs we have used, this one does not have a lockbox for the key. Rather, someone meets you to give you the key and show you the place. I had sent a msg when we were 30 minutes out, but we still beat the guy to the address because he hit traffic. We had a little trouble finding the correct door on the busy street, but did, and waited for him. The apartment is on the third floor, with no elevator again, but the host guy took the end of the bag so I didn’t have to drag it all the way up this time. The apartment is nice, and while not air conditioned, it has a fan, unlike the last one.
As soon as we got acclimated, we went out for dinner. There are lots of restaurants right near the apartment, and most have outside seating. We picked the one with the largest canopy over the tables, since it looks like rain again. We had placed our order and gotten our drinks, when the rain came. Unfortunately, it also came with big wind, so the canopy wasn’t helping much. The place doesn’t normally have inside seating, but they do have a cabaret-like place in the basement. People who didn’t have food coming already were told “sorry, we only serve outside”. But a few of us who already had our orders in were allowed to go to this cabaret seating area and eat. Even though the setting was a little unusual, the food was good.
It was still raining a little as we walked back to the apartment, but not too bad. There is a convenience store right under the apartment, so we grabbed a couple things and went upstairs. Hopefully the weather will move out overnight and we’ll explore Prague.
Europe - Day 50 We started the day without a plan. Back in TX, we love Kolaches from the Kolache Factory. Kolaches are a breakfast pastry that originated in the Czech world. They can be very different depending on where you get them. In fact, the Texas ones from the Kolache Factory are not much like authentic Czech ones, but they are really good. We thought we had to try the real thing, so we went looking for a place recommended on Google. It was about 8:45 when we left the apartment, and you would have thought it was still the middle of the night. These people don’t start their days very early. We passed several cafes, including the one we were looking for, and they weren’t open yet. What kind of coffee/pastry shop opens at 10:00? So, we kept walking into Old Town and found the Kolacharie, where we each got a savory and a sweet kolache and coffee. Now we can say we’ve had authentic kolaches, but I still like the Kolache Factory’s more.
We kept wandering through Old Town, past one of the original city gates that is being restored, and numerous other buildings with amazing ornate detail. When I say “wandering”, we really were. Even with the aid of Google Maps, we were just turning here and there, moving more or less towards the river on the narrow cobble stone streets. Once we got to the Vltava River, we turned southwest and followed the river until we got to Charles Bridge. Charles Bridge is a pedestrian bridge now, with big towers at each end and thirty statues along the sides. On the other side of the bridge, is the Mala Strana area. Up the hill is the Prague Castle which we may tour tomorrow. We found a restaurant where we sat and had a beer while people watching.
There was a tram stop right by where we stopped, so we took a tram back across the river where we switched to another that took us right to our front door. The trams here are funny because there are very new looking ones, and very old looking ones. The line that stops at our front door usually goes further, but they are redoing the tracks in the intersection just past us. Before we went to the apartment, we wanted to stop at the grocery. Google Maps said there is a grocery right around the corner from us, but we couldn’t find it. It turned out to be in the basement, under a large lady’s accessory store. There was one little sign at the door that we finally saw.
We were back in the apartment mid-afternoon. Barb put a load of laundry in the machine that this apartment has while I took a nap. Later, we ordered stir-fry dinners from a place right across the street from us and ate in. We’ll watch more Olympics tonight.
Europe - Day 51 – Today we went to Prague Castle. Or Prague Palace. Same place, different name depending on where you look. Even on the map they give you when you buy your tickets. We walked a few blocks from the apartment to the #22 tram that will take us all the way there. That is if you get on the tram going the right direction. The one time I don’t have my phone with the City Mapper app in my hand because I think it’s an easy trip, I blow it. After about half a dozen stops, I started getting suspicious because we hadn’t crossed the river. So, I got my phone out and confirmed that we were taking a nice tour of Prague. We got off and crossed the street and immediately hopped on a #22 going the right way. We have no set time to be at the palace, so no harm, no foul. It’s especially no foul since seniors ride the public transportation here for free!
There are two different tram stops for the palace complex. The first one, which most people seem to know, requires you to walk uphill to the main palace and cathedral. The second stop is level or downhill. Of course, we took the second stop. The outside of the whole complex is open to the public. You purchase tickets to go inside several of the buildings. This might have been the first venue I didn’t pre-purchase tickets for since all indications are they don’t limit the number of tickets per day. We found the ticket office, although there was not an abundance of signage to help. We bought tickets and audio guides, not opting for a more expensive guided tour. I was glad we made this decision since the guided tours were large groups that it seemed would have been hard to hear. There are four interior areas that the basic ticket gets you into: The Old Royal Palace, St. George’s Basilica, Golden Lane, and St. Vitus Cathedral.
We started with St. Vitus Cathedral. After the cathedral at Cologne, it will be hard to impress me more, but this one came close. The crowd control flow didn’t always match the audio tour, but it worked out. We found that the majority of people don’t have the audio tour, nor are taking the guided tour. Since there are no written descriptions displayed for anything, those people are just walking through, looking and moving much faster than those with either audio or guided tours. Seems to me you wasted your money to look but have no explanations. Those with guided tours stop and clog the movement while they listen to their guides, and those with audio tours tended to step to the side and listen because the audio tour seemed to talk longer than the guided tours. The only downside to the audio tour for me was that I couldn’t hold the guide thing to my ear and take pictures at the same time. Hopefully some of the pictures will convey what we saw.
One thing we saw in the cathedral really caught my eye. We all have heard about how automation has changed things in our lives. Well, in the cathedral and the basilica, there were typical stations where you could donate a buck and light a candle for someone. Except, these weren’t your typical candle stations. You inserted your coin and a fake candle would like up. I didn’t catch the amount of money, nor the amount of time your candle would “burn”, but I thought it was the ultimate cheesy replacement for the real thing.
After the cathedral, we went into the Old Royal Palace. The descriptions of the Royal Palace included the phrase “home of the Crown Jewels”. Since we didn’t stand in line to see the Crown Jewels in London, I thought this might make up for it. Well, when they say “home of the Crown Jewels”, they don’t exactly say that you can see them. The real Crown Jewels are kept locked up in the Treasury of the cathedral. It takes seven different people to unlock separate locks to get them out. This happens once a year, and today wasn’t the day. You do get to see replicas of the crown itself, but I thought it was a little misleading advertising.
After the palace, we went to St. George’s Basilica. This is a much smaller church and much more of it is the original building from hundreds of years ago. It is not at all ornate like the cathedral, but there were faint remains of frescos on the ceilings that were painted in the 1300s.
From the basilica, the only part of our ticket left to see was the Golden Lane. This was where little homes were built into the original wall of the complex. The explanation on the audio tour about how these homes kept expanding and eventually almost blocked what had been a street until they were cleared out and restored to the originals was interesting, but walking through them was disappointing, as most of the homes are now shops trying to sell you stuff, and it is all downhill on rough cobblestones.
Since the Golden Lane took us downhill, it would have been better to keep going downhill to the tram stop that we didn’t get off at. But, we are obligated to go back uphill to the ticket office where we got the audio tour devices in order to get our CASH deposit back. Let me talk about cash a bit here. Even though the Czech Republic is part of the EU, somehow, they have managed to avoid switching their currency to Euros for thirty-two years. They still use Koruna, pronounced “crown”. The exchange rate for crowns to USD is about 1 USD = 22 Koruna. So, the prices sound outrageous, like dinner costing 1200 crowns. But that’s only about $50. Since we are only in Prague for four days, I have tried to avoid getting any Koruna, because I don’t want to be stuck with it. So, when the girl said I need to leave 350 Koruna cash deposit for each of the audio devices, I said I didn’t have any local cash. She politely pointed to the ATM in the corner, which I’m guessing would have had a big-ass fee and lousy exchange rate. But then, we notice that the sign on the counter said they would also take 20 Euro each. I have a 50 Euro bill (for which she had no change) so I left that for the deposit. Which brings us back to why we need to walk back uphill to return the devices. As we walked back through the whole complex, we noticed a huge lines to get into the Old Palace, the Cathedral, and the ticket office. We were glad we came early this morning. When we had gotten the audio devices, they made a big deal about not waiting in the line to return them. So, I excused my way through the crowd to the front, getting a few looks along the way, to the girl whom I had gotten the devices from. She quickly found my receipt in her little box and gave me back my 50 Euro bill.
We now were at the top of the hill, so we walked back to the same tram stop where we had arrived. We rode a few stops downhill and got off at the Malostranske stop, where we went to U Svatého Mikuláše, the same place that we stopped for beers yesterday. This time, we had lunch and drinks. I had a rack of baby-back ribs that were fall off the bone good, while Barb had risotto with shrimp. Across the street from the restaurant was a shop that sold coffee, gelato, and macrons. While I’ve seen many people fail while making macrons on various Food Network shows, I don’t think I have ever eaten any. We picked six different flavors and took them back to the apartment with us where they got consumed as soon as we were there. Yum.
I mentioned earlier that seniors ride free on the public transportation here. All the public transportation we have dealt with in Germany, Austria, and here, is basically done on the honor system. You are supposed to buy tickets, but there is nothing to check that. We have known that if you get caught without a valid ticket the fine is not worth the risk. In Germany once, we saw two uniformed people get on our car and they went opposite directions checking tickets. But today, two women who looked like any other tourists, boarded with us at the palace stop. Once we were underway, they started checking tickets. The funny thing was, the one that came by us, never even asked us for tickets or our age. I guess we just look over 65.
We were back at the apartment about 2:30 and were both tired. We (I) napped a little despite the noise from the tram construction outside our windows. The evening was Olympic watching and writing.
Europe - Day 52 – Today we are going to Petrin Hill. Petrin Hill is mostly a park, with a few attractions on top. The primary attraction is an observation tower, which was built in 1891. It stands 208 feet tall, and looks like a smaller version of the Eiffel Tower. The tower was totally rebuilt between 1999 and 2002, so it’s probably ok to go up. Other attractions include a mirror maze, an observatory, gardens, a café, and a nice quiet park above all the sounds of the city. Oh, and there is the getting there; you can walk up the steep hill, or you can take the funicular. It’s probably the main attraction.
We took our favorite tram (the one right outside our door that makes noise until 00:30 every night) and switched to another to ride to the stop for the funicular. If you don’t know, a funicular is a steep railway, driven by cogs or a cable. This funicular was built in 1891, but it has been totally rebuilt twice since then, the latest being in 1985. It is driven by a steel cable that looked to me to be about a 1” diameter. It is only a quarter of a mile long, but goes up a 29% grade. The funicular is operated by the city’s tram department, which means being old guys, we ride for free. Others had to pay about $2.50 each way. Again, we didn’t have to prove our age – they just let us in with no question. I’m not sure I like people just assuming I’m a “senior citizen”.
When we disembarked at the top of the hill, we were surrounded by rose gardens. We walked a little way towards the tower, debating about going to the top or not. From the outside, it looks like the 299 stairs are the only option. I really wanted to go to the top, but Barb wasn’t going to do the stairs (and I would probably regret it if I did). We got to the entry to the ticket window and saw that there was a “lift” option. And a senior discount for both the entry ticket and the lift option. So, we bought tickets and got in line. The line wasn’t extremely long, but the elevator only took 4 adults (and the operator) per trip. The door to the elevator looked more like something you would find on a prison solitary cell instead of an elevator. We finally got our turn and ascended to the observation deck. The small deck was crowded, but we were able to make our way all the way around, taking our turn at each side’s open windows to look out at the city below. There was no wait to go back down in the elevator, except waiting for it to get there.
At the bottom, we strolled through the park and gardens, slowly making our way to the café at the observatory. As we were going through the gardens, a couple approached us asking we had change for a 2 Euro coin. They said she needed to use the bathroom, and you needed a 1 Euro coin for it. I said I had no change, which was true. When they realized we were American, he produced a US $5 bill and asked if I had five ones. I didn’t think I did, but took out my money clip to check. All I had was a 5 and several 20s, but he got close to me and wanted to see that I didn’t have ones. While this was happening, the woman had kind of separated Barb from me talking about our trip. The guy kept pressing me and I finally put my money clip back in my pocket and said we couldn’t help. The more I thought about it, the more I think they were trying to scam us, either pickpocketing, or trying to get us confused with money handling. Thinking back on the original premise, the public toilet wouldn’t have taken Euro. I think we escaped a close call.
We made our way back to the funicular station and waited for it to come and take us back down the hill. We then got on the tram back towards the apartment, but got off early at the Palladium shopping mall. This “mall” just looks like a fancy storefront from the street, but inside there are five floors of mostly high-end stores. The reason for stopping here was that Barb wants a new purse. The strap broke on the one she has, so she has been carrying a cloth bag that we picked up in a t-shirt shop a couple days ago. I can’t believe she wants another purse. I mean, this will be the third purse she has had in twenty-five years! We found several designer stores with price tags much higher than she wanted, but then found H&M, which had some more in the price range we were looking for (under $30). New purse in hand, we walked the rest of the way back to the apartment, where we are enjoying a couple of hours of quality jack-hammer noise as they work on the tram rail project on our street. Dinner tonight will be finishing up the cheese and crackers we bought when we got here, as tomorrow is a travel day.
Europe - Day 53 Today should have been a short update, because all we did was travel. How much could happen on a couple of trains? Well, our plan was for three trains to get us from Prague to Nuremburg. We started with the tram at our front door to the main train station. That part went ok, and the short walk from the tram stop to the station was shorter than walking all the way as we did when we arrived.
The first train was Prague to Dresden. As soon as we boarded the train, we encountered something we had not before. Instead of rows of seats, there are compartments with six seats each. We have seat reservations for this leg, so we found our seats and were the first ones in our compartment. Unlike the ICE high-speed trains, there was no luggage rack at the ends of the car. Each compartment had two racks over the seats for luggage. Well, this old man could barely get our almost fifty-pound duffel up over my head and onto the rack. But, with Barb’s help, we got it. We were soon joined by a young man who sat across from me, and then just before departure, three young women traveling together came to fill out the compartment. We left right on time, which was good since we only have eight minutes between trains in Dresden. A little way into the trip, we slowed down and came to a stop. We waited until a freight train passed going the other way, and then we switched tracks and relatively slowly went through a construction area where they were working on the track on our side. After we got back on the original track and back to cruising speed, I figured we had lost about three minutes of our eight-minute window. There were three stops between Prague and Dresden, and when we pulled into Decin, the last stop in Czechia, we seemed to be sitting longer than the few minutes one would expect. I thought maybe they were changing from the Czech crew to a German crew, but that wouldn’t have taken this long. After we got rolling again, two policemen made there way down the aisle, looking at each person in each compartment as if they were looking for someone specific. This might have had something to do with why we were now about ten minutes late. So, I started revising our plan to catch the next train out of Dresden, because our original one will be gone.
The cool thing about traveling on the Eurail Pass that we have, is that once you use a travel day of the pass, you can travel anywhere. They don’t really know what train you are on. So, if you miss one, you just catch the next. We didn’t need seat reservations on the trains other than the first today, so we planned for the train an hour later out of Dresden.
We got off the train in Dresden and went down to the main area of the station to await the platform assignment for our next train. From Dresden we will travel to Leipzig. In Leipzig, we will have about twenty-two minutes to catch our last train to Nuremburg. We left Dresden about five minutes late, but that still leaves us seventeen minutes to connect. There is only one stop on this train, and we were still running five minutes late when we pulled in to Reisa. Most stops are only a couple of minutes, but this one seemed to be stretching out. Eventually, there was an announcement made in German, and some grimaces from the people who understood it. I was watching our transfer time slipping away. After ten minutes or more, there was another announcement, and more grimaces. I finally asked the guy sitting across from us what the announcement was, and he said there was some kind of police activity holding us up. After almost thirty minutes sitting, we started to roll again. And I started making the next alternate plan.
Our next train to Nuremburg was long gone by the time we got off in Leipzig. I had already found the next train, about an hour later, but this one required us to change trains again, instead of being straight to Nuremburg. In order to not change trains, we would have to wait two hours. Another twist was that on these two trains, the Eurail app says seat reservations are not required, but the Deutsche Bahn app (the company that actually operates the trains in Germany) says the train is “Sold Out”. So, I was concerned we were not going to find unreserved seats once we got onboard. We went ahead and boarded the train from Leipzig to Erfurt, and immediately found two seats together that were not reserved. We left on-time, and there are no stops before Erfurt. We pulled into Erfurt on-time and we found the platform for the last train to Nuremburg.
The last train from Erfurt to Nuremberg was running about fifteen minutes late getting into Erfurt, but since this is the last one, we don’t care. We were still worried about the train being full, but once again, we found two seats right away that were not reserved. We sighed a sigh of relief knowing we were on the last leg. With no stops between Erfurt and Nuremburg, it was pretty certain we would get there.
When we got off the train, we found the connection to the subway without leaving the station. We took the subway one station and then walked about ¾ of a mile to the apartment. The walk was a little more than I had expected, but we made it to the cute apartment. We dropped our stuff inside and immediately went out to find dinner. We had passed lots of restaurants on our walk to the apartment, but we just went back to the closest one and sat down. We had a nice dinner and then back to the apartment.
Europe - Day 54 – We are going on a road trip today. We walked/subway/walked to the local Hertz office to pickup up a car I have reserved for the day. I reserved the car through Auto Europe, which is a third-party that finds you the best deal. My confirmation from Auto Europe said that I was getting a Dollar Rent-A-Car, and that I had pre-paid $79 dollars for it. My first confusion was that the e-mail from Auto Europe said to pick the car up at “Dollar Downtown Office”, but there is no “Dollar” listing at all locally. Even on Dollar’s website, they don’t list a Nuremburg location. But I knew that Hertz owns Dollar, so I figured the Hertz location was where to go. When I went to the counter, the young lady asked my name and typed on the computer and then looked puzzled. Uh-oh. She enlisted the help of the other guy at the desk and together they tried to find my reservation, to no avail. They looked at my e-mail and voucher from Auto Europe, and then got on the phone. It probably took fifteen minutes, but they finally found me somewhere in the system and got us a car. I was very happy with the local employees for working it out and not just telling me to call Auto Europe myself. But I think I may avoid these third-party brokers I the future.
We headed west out of Nuremburg towards Rothenburg. Rothenburg ob der Tauber is a walled city, dating from the thirteenth century. In WWII, much of the city was spared from destruction by Allied bombs. Of about 950 buildings, about 600 we not damaged. Those that we damaged or destroyed were rebuilt in the 50s and 60s to look exactly as they had. So, to look at the city inside the walls today, you wouldn’t be able to tell originals from reconstructions. The city today has become a tourist attraction, with tons of shops and restaurants. We parked outside the walls in one of the five municipal parking lots. You can drive and possibly park inside the walls, but it’s tight. We walked in the gate and stopped at the first restaurant with outside seating that we came to. We both ordered beers, but in reality, we are paying to use the bathroom. Since paying for public toilets is common here, I figured we might as well get more value for our money. We strolled through the town, stopping later at another restaurant where we had a light lunch on the patio overlooking a busy pedestrian area. After lunch, another stop at a ice cream/pastry shop got us two Schneeballen which are kind of like a thin cookie dough that is rolled into a ball, fried and then coated with powdered sugar or cinnamon.
About 2:30, we headed back to Nuremburg via a different route just to see different scenery. There is no “big road” between Nuremburg and Rothenburg, so the route was mostly two-lane that went through lots of little villages. We got back into Nurenburg a little before 4:00. The car is ours for 24 hours, but since I would have to pay to park it overnight, we just went to the Hertz office and turned it in just before they closed. The guy was surprised to see me back and thought something was wrong, but I assured him all was well and we walked to the subway.
Between the subway and the apartment, we stopped at a grocery and got some snacks for later and pastries for breakfast tomorrow.
Europe - Day 55 – Today was a slow, no plan day. We left the apartment about 10:00, and walked just downstream to where we could see the dam that is just down from our windows. We hear the nice sound of the water going over the dam as we sleep at night with the windows open. Speaking of the windows open, for those who have never traveled to Europe, air conditioning is pretty uncommon. Even in high-rise office buildings, they have opening windows for when it is hot. The windows either open on the side, like a door, or they tip in from the top a few inches. We leave the windows tipped open from the top all the time, and there are no screens. There are no screens, because there are no bugs. The only bugs we have seen are yellow jackets at every outdoor meal, honey bees on flowers, and the very occasional house fly.
Back to the day’s activities, we walked along the river and crossed on a cute little wooden covered bridge. On the other side there was a nice park that ran along the river for further than we walked. We crossed a different bridge and walked back into the busier part of town. Being Saturday, there were a lot of people out walking. We found a sidewalk café and stopped to have a beer.
Barb decided she needed another pair of shorts, as she only brought one pair. We stopped in an H&M, but didn’t find anything suitable. Being August, summer clothes are already on clearance, which is good for price, but bad for remaining selection. We walked some more and found another department store called Karstadt. We looked around and were about to give up when we found a rack of nothing but shorts and a sign that said 50% discount. There was one pair on the rack that Barb liked and we got them for $13. More than the last pair she bought at a thrift shop six years ago for $7, but ok.
We walked some more and decided to have street food for lunch. There was a kiosk selling several different sausages on brötchen. I got one with bratwurst, and Barb got one with three small sausages. After the sandwiches, we went a little further and stopped at an ice cream shop for dessert.
We wandered some more and crossed the river again where we stopped and sat along the water for another beer. People watching is a favorite pastime. We eventually made our way back to the apartment and watched the last day of the Olympics.
Europe - Day 56 – Today will be a real short update. We are traveling to Berlin on a train leaving at 10:01. After our last train adventure, I joked that today would be a piece of cake since it was one high-speed train with only four intermediate stops. We left the apartment about 8:45 and walked to the subway station. We took the subway a couple stops to the main train station where we stopped at the big board that displays departures as you walk into the station. It was only 9:15, and the trains on the board only went about twenty minutes into the future. So, we watched and waited. I have been using the Eurail app to find the train schedule, but since I recently found the Deutsche Bahn app for train status, I thought I would check it and see if the platform number was there before it went on the big board. What I found was that our train was cancelled! So, I started reviewing options for other trains. The DB app had another train listed at almost the exact same times, but it also said that it was “heavier than normal” demand, and it was too late to get seat reservations. We went to the platform listed and found a sign there that clearly said that this new train replaced the train number we expected. I figured as long as we got on the train, we would get there, even if we had to sit on the floor at the ends of one of the cars. They can’t throw you off enroute. As soon as the train stopped, and we let a few people off, we boarded. The cars looked pretty full, so I stayed in the vestibule at the end of the car while Barb went down the aisle to see if she could find even one seat.
***RANT*** Ten percent of men of European descent are what’s called “red green colorblind”. That doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t tell if something is red or green. It usually means they have trouble with shades of colors, or seeing words on a background if the color combinations are wrong. I am in the ten percent, and the most noticeable problem I have is not being able to see red on black. Red LEDs on a black background usually might as well not bet there, especially in daylight. On the trains, there are several different ways that they indicate if a seat is reserved depending on the vintage of the car. On most we have been on, there is a display that is about 1” x 4” that says either a city pair that indicates a reservation, or words to the effect that It may be reserved, in German of course. Also, at the end of each car, there are large signs that tell the next stop. These signs are also red LED letters on a black background. In the daylight, I wouldn’t know these signs are even on. Designers of things, especially important signage, should know this. Make the letters white, or even green. The contrast would be much better. ***END RANT***
Back to the train, Barb went down the aisle and found a single seat. I left the big bag in the vestibule and went to help her get the backpack off and stowed on the overhead rack. The seat was half of two pairs that faced each other with a table, and the girl opposite realized we were together and indicated the seat next to her was empty too. So, I went and got the big bag and was able to slide it behind the row of seats and got seated across from Barb. The little signs have the indication that the seats “may be reserved”, but they don’t have a city pair, so we hope we’re good to Berlin.
We stopped at Erfurt and Halle, where only a few people got off and a few more got on. Each time a new person came down the aisle, I was afraid they were going to say we were in their seats. But it worked out, and we stayed seated throughout the trip.
Once in Berlin, we found the tram stops outside the station and boarded the M10 for about a 25-minute ride to our stop. From the tram stop, it was a flat several block walk to the apartment. Some Airbnbs let you in with a lock box, but at this one, the host met us to give us the key and show us the apartment. I had messaged the host with our approximate arrival time, and she pulled up exactly as we walked up. Unfortunately, this is once again a third-floor apartment with no elevator. At least the stairs have a hemp runner on them so the clunking of dragging the duffel bag up them isn’t as noisy as it might have been. The apartment is quite nice, with a little balcony over the street where we can enjoy our morning coffee.
As soon as we were done checking in, we walked a few blocks to where there were several open restaurants. Being Sunday, much is closed, but we found a place where I had a great schnitzel and Barb has cheese spaetzle which is like mac and cheese. We stopped for ice cream on the way back, and found a small shop open to get a bottle of wine.
Europe - Day 57 – We started the day with breakfast at a little café down the block from our apartment. Barb had a spinach quiche, and I got adventurous and went more local with something described as “pancakes with salmon and salad”. Barb’s quiche was as expected, and my meal came in a bowl that was four 3–4-inch pancakes layered with a generous amount of smoked salmon and some greens on top along with a light amount of a sauce that purportedly had horseradish, but I didn’t taste that. It was actually quite good. The woman who waited on us was the owner, and when she came to collect the dishes, she asked where we were from. We told her and she then told us about spending a year in the US to study back in the 80s. She went on to tell us she was from Turkey, but had moved to Germany at 15 for her father’s work. She said Americans were much more friendly than Germans. She also wrote down a few places for us to go while here.
We walked to the tram line and took one a few stops to the subway station where we then took the subway twelve stops to where the Hop On/Off bus routes start. There are several Hop On/Off bus companies here, and we plan to use City Sightseeing, which we have used in several other cities. There are usually guys at the stops to sell you tickets, and we saw one and approached him. I confirmed with him that we were at a stop for the City Sightseeing Red Route, but it turned out he worked for Big Bus Tours and not City Sightseeing. He said, of course, that his tour was better, and that he would give it to us for the City Sightseeing price. I figured their prices were all the same so I said ok and we bought the tickets and got on the bus. Looking at the prices later on the map we got, it looks like he did give us $6 per person better price than what their normal price was.
We rode a few stops and got off at the stop for the Berlin Wall. The wall was mostly torn down but a few sections remain and have been turned into memorials and museums documenting that period in Germany’s history. This particular section has a long display of pictures and newspaper articles detailing the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party from the late 1920s through the end of WW II including how Berlin was divided up between the Allies and Russia which led to the wall being built in 1961. The whole display was quite sobering, and it was scary to see the similarities between the Nazi’s rise to power and events in today’s world.
From that display, we walked a couple more blocks to Checkpoint Charlie. Along the way we stopped and wet our whistles at an Irish Pub, where I had my first Guiness since leaving the UK. I remember always hearing about Checkpoint Charlie in the news as a kid and a young adult, but I was too busy living my own life to really understand what life was like in Germany, and specifically Berlin during those days. What was once the main crossing for those able to move between East and West Berlin, is now a tourist photo opp. It’s funny to watch the people trying to get their pictures in front of the sandbag barrier, forgetting that they are literally in the middle of a city street. We snapped a picture safely from the sidewalk and moved on to find the pick-up stop for the bus.
Back on the bus, we traveled for several stops to the Brandenburg Gate. Again, a name I knew from the news, but never really understood. The Brandenburg Gate was built in the 1700s as the main gate to the city. It was badly damaged in WW II, but was restored in the late 50s. It just happened to lie in the path of the Berlin Wall which was built around it, leaving it just in East Berlin and closed until the wall came down in 1989.
From the Brandenburg Gate, we walked a couple blocks to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe a.k.a. The Holocaust Memorial. This memorial was opened in 2005. It is an almost five-acre lot with 2700 concrete slabs of varying heights in rows. The floor of the lot is not level, so there are rises and falls along any given row as you walk between them. There are no words in the monument itself, leaving it to one’s own interpretation.
From the monument, we crossed the street and walked through the Tiergarten park to the Reichstag building. The Reichstag houses the German parliament, known as the Bundestag. It had this function before the Nazi era, but then was badly damaged by a fire shortly after the Nazis came to power. It was further damaged in WW II, and was almost torn down after the war. It was however, rebuilt/restored with some modifications, including a large glass dome on top. Since German Reunification in the 1990s, it has once again become the home of Parliament. The public can climb into the dome, but it requires registering in advance which I had not done.
We reboarded the next Big Bus that came along and rode it back to where we started the morning. Right near the bus stop is the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. This church was built in 1891, and badly damaged by bombs in 1943. In the 1950s, there was much debate over how to rebuild the church. The winning plan finally built a whole new church next door and stabilized and preserved the remains of the original building as a memorial. The inside of the first floor has been turned into a nice display of the history of the church.
By now, we were hot, tired, hungry and thirsty, so we found Ferris Ristorante across the street and sat down for pizza(s) and beer. Pizza here is thin crust, and comes in one size which is about twelve inches. We got two and ate them both. Then it was back to the subway and trams for the ride back to the apartment.
Europe - Day 58 – Today we are going to ride the other route of the Hop On/Off bus. Our tickets were good for 24 hours on both routes, so if we are there for the first departure, we can use the same tickets. We took the tram to Alexanderplatz where the tour starts. We got there well before the 10:15 first departure, so we found a coffee shop in the nearby train station and got cappuccinos and pastries.
The Blue Route only has four stops. One of them is the East Side Gallery, which is a 4300 ft. long piece of the Berlin Wall that has been painted with murals on one side. This painting was done by 118 different artists from 21 countries. It was not intended to become a permanent exhibit. It was planned to be shown for a while, then taken down and sent around the world in a traveling show, then sold. But, after it was done, the government decided to protect it with landmark status.
We got off the bus at one end of the wall and walked the entire length of it as well as some along the adjacent river bank. Many of the pictures meant nothing to us since most captioning was in German, but many had English translations and we got the artist’s intent. The wall at this point runs along the western bank of the Spree River. The river had a major bridge crossing here, but they blew it up to prevent people from getting out of East Berlin. We took a break to sit in the shade along the river and watch people go by. In this part of the city, it was easy to see, still today, the old blah East Berlin side of the city compared to the more modern West Berlin side.
After the gallery, we caught the bus back to the tour starting point. We walked into Aleander Platz to find food, drink, and bathrooms. We found a Five Guys burger place where we had lunch. From there we walked over to the Bierbar Alkopole just outside the train station, where we had our last beers in Germany while people watching. After that it was on to the tram and back to the apartment to relax on this warm afternoon.
Europe - Day 59 – Today will be a real short update because all we did was travel from Berlin to Copenhagen. We left the apartment in Berlin a little after 10:00. Our train doesn’t leave until 12:38, but we know the host has another guest coming later today so we’ll give her a head start on the turnover. We took a tram to the main train station and went to McDonalds, where we bought a seat for about an hour and a half. About noon, we went to our platform and waited for the train.
The schedule when I first setup our plans was for today to require three trains. But, somewhere along the line, the schedule changed so that the second train now goes all the way to Copenhagen. What I didn’t know was that the time also changed on the first train. Normally, this wouldn’t matter much, but we actually have specific seat reservations on both of these trains. So, when we got aboard and found a guy in one of our seats, he showed us his paper that said he had it. I whipped out our paper and he pointed out that our reservation was for the train in another hour from now. Fortunately, there were a couple of unreserved seats a couple of rows away, so we just sat there. At first, I thought I had screwed up, but then we saw that while our reservation had a different train number, it had this time. So, they changed the times (maybe because of daylight saving time) and there was no notification. On to Hamburg, where we are changing trains. We have thirty minutes between trains, so there was no rush. Our new train pulled in and we found our seats with no problem this time. This train is not an ICE train, which are all pretty new and comfortable, with restaurants and bars. This one is a little long in the tooth, has no bar or restaurant, and once we started moving, we heard that it had a bad wheel under our end of the car. By a bad wheel, I mean it sounded like maybe it has a flat spot. It sounds like an MRI machine, and gets faster and faster as we get faster. There was also a loud sound between the cars whenever we turn a bit. This is a five-hour train. It’s going to get old.
We survived the train ride, including the stop in the first town inside Denmark, where we were boarded by a bunch of cops doing a “passport check”. This obviously isn’t a routine thing, because there is normally only three minutes scheduled here. We were stopped about fifteen minutes as they passed through each car looking at passports and other IDs for EU residents. They did take a guy off the train, but it didn’t appear he was someone they were specifically looking for.
We got to Copenhagen about ten minutes late and instead of figuring out the local subway and then walking, we just grabbed a cab to the new apartment. We’ve been spoiled by the last two apartments in Germany. This one is not as nice. It’s on the fifth floor of the building (which in Europe would be the sixth floor to an American) but at least this building has an elevator. We have been to two places now that required me dragging our big bag up two flights and I’m tired of that. We dumped our stuff in the apartment and went back out to the street to get something to eat. There are several bars on our block, but they don’t have food. We found a pizza place and a burger place, but they were both just closing. What the hell? It’s 8:30. Well, there is grocery on the first floor of our building, so dinner became chips and a guacamole dip that would be banned in Texas. Life tough sometimes.
Europe - Day 60 – This apartment is a little weird. I don’t know if it’s typical of Denmark, or Copenhagen, but it is different. In some ways it looks like it was originally a hotel that was converted to apartments, but even that doesn’t make sense with the floorplan. It goes entirely through the building. That is to say, you walk down an outside corridor to your front door, and if you go through the apartment, you come out the other side of the building on your balcony. When you come in the front door, you are in the kitchen, with the sink and a small counter on the left, and a counter with the cooktop on the right. The fridge and washer are behind doors under the counter. Moving in next, you have a counter on the right with a microwave, and the bathroom on the left. The bathroom looks like it belongs on a boat. Our boating friends would recognize that to shower, you pull a curtain around that keeps the toilet and sink dry, but the shower floor is the room floor. Common on small boats. Next in, you have the bed on the left and shelves on the right. The bed is against the wall, so the inbound person either has to climb in and out the bottom, or, as we did, you pull the bed away from the wall before sleep time. The bed is part of the same big room that has a small table and chairs, the couch, and the TV. It’s not bad, and may be common here, but it doesn’t compare to our last two stops in Germany.
The day started with a trip down the block to a little café recommended by our host. We had lattes and pastries for breakfast. Then it was back to the apartment to do laundry. As with most places, there is only a washer, no dryer, so doing it on day one of the stop allows plenty of dry time. After the laundry was done, we went out for a walkabout.
We took the subway to Nyhavn, which is the old port area that is now the departure point for all the canal cruise boats, and home of dozens of restaurants. There was a big black cloud forming to the northwest of us, so once again we picked the restaurant for lunch based on it having a table under a good sturdy looking umbrella. Barb had a large smoked salmon sandwich and I had a traditional smørrebrød, which is an open-faced sandwich. I had thin sliced roast beef with horseradish, pickles, fried onion crispy bits and a sweet relish. The rain came, but just sprinkled a minute and didn’t amount to anything.
After we ate, we walked the length of the harbor and back checking out the boats and buildings. We got back to Kongens Nytorv which is the big square (that is round) where one can find the Royal Theater, the huge Magasin du Nord department store, and a statue from 1688 of Christian V wo was king when the area was laid out. We peeked in the Magasin du Nord store and quickly headed down the escalators to the subway level.
Speaking of the subway, here as in everywhere we have been, ticket purchasing is on the honor system, with sporadic checks onboard. We have been checked once before today. Every city has a different app to download and purchases your tickets, or you can buy them at machines in the stations. I have been unable to get the app here to recognize my payment card, so we bought single-trip tickets on both legs of today’s journey from the machine in the stations. We joked about skipping it, but good thing we didn’t as there was a guy coming through our train back to the apartment.
Back at the apartment, we found that it had rained considerably more here than where we were. There are puddles everywhere, but it is gone for now.
Europe - Day 61 Toady started out damp and gray with a chance of rain all day. So, we decided to do an inside activity and I went online and bought tickets for Rosenborg Castle. The timed arrival window I got was for 11:40, so we left the apartment about 11:00 and walked to the subway station. One stop took us to the station close to the castle. At the castle, we found a line easily 200 feet from the building. Barb stood in line while I went to the front to make sure it was the right line. At the front of the line there was a sign that said if you already had online tickets, come on in. I walked back enough to where Barb saw me and waved for her to come in. We went right to the castle door where we just had to wait about six minutes until our 11:40 window. If all those people in line are really buying tickets on the spot, they’re going to have start times well into the afternoon.
We started our tour and in the first room we found a QR code that linked us to a room-by-room description of what we were seeing. The first room is under renovation, but the rest was quite interesting. Some of the stuff in the rooms was original, and some was stuff that came from other castles over the years. There were several places where they explained how the castle had been “renovated” in the 1700s. Lots of the original stuff was from that era. As with most of these tours, I was struck by the opulence of the times. There were two floors of rooms to tour, and then we went to the basement where the royal treasury is. The good stuff was down there, including lots of gold things, armaments, and the crown jewels.
We finished the tour and came back out into the cool air. (The castle was quite warm.) We walked back towards the subway stop looking for a place for lunch. Just past the subway we found The Midwest Diner. They bill themselves as a taste of the US Midwest in the heart of Copenhagen. It was still spitting, but we were able to sit outside just enough under their canopy to not get wet. Barb got a pastrami sandwich and fries, and I got brisket, coleslaw, and cornbread. Sounds risky, doesn’t it? It actually was pretty good. It wasn’t as smoky as good Texas brisket, but it wasn’t bad, and the BBQ sauce was good. They had milkshakes too, including what they called “Boozy Freakshakes”. I had to have one of those for dessert and got one called a Mudslide that had Baileys and Kahlua in it.
We took the subway back to our area and walked to the apartment making an early day of it. The rain seems to be gone, but it’s still gray and chilly. The high today was 69 and the jeans came back out.
Europe - Day 62 – Today was forecast to have a good chance of rain again, but it turned out nice and cool (about 70) with mostly clear skies. We took the subway into town and found the start of the Hop On/Off bus tour. We had purchased tickets online, so we avoided the very long line of people at the ticket office, and just waited for a bus. The first bus that came was pretty full already and not many got off. It had a rude driver anyway, so we waited for the next one which was only a few minutes behind.
We rode a few stops and got off at the waterfront stop for Gefion Fountain. Gefion Fountain was donated to the city by the Carlsberg (beer) family in 1908 to celebrate the brewery’s 50th anniversary. Nearby, we found Seaside Toldboden, a bar and restaurant, right on the waterfront and sat down for a drink before continuing. From this bus stop, we walked north along the waterfront to the Little Mermaid statue. The Little Mermaid is arguably Copenhagen’s best know landmark. It has been moved out into the harbor a little in the past couple of years so it isn’t quite as accessible as it was on land. It was donated to the city in 1913 by another Carlsburg who had seen a ballet of the story at the Royal Theater and loved the performance so much that he wanted to immortalize the ballerina. It has been vandalized many times over the years, from simple painting to decapitation, which contributed to making it a little less reachable.
We reboarded the bus and finished the round-trip back to the starting point. Three of the bus stops were closed today because of the annual Pride parade. The streets are very busy, and all the canal boat tours and bus tours seem to be full. Perhaps it’s the combination of August in Europe (when everybody is on vacation), two cruise ships in town, and Ironman competition this weekend, and the Pride parade being today. It was probably the largest crowds we’ve dealt with.
We found a restaurant called Cocks & Cows which served burgers and wings and had a nice sidewalk seating area for lunch. Barb had fish & chips, while I ordered a burger. While we were waiting for our food, I noticed that every other customer who had gotten a burger was eating them with a knife and fork. I was not aware of this custom until reading about it after the fact, but I gave it a try as I didn’t want to stick out as the stupid American. I found it very hard to accomplish. Apparently, it’s not just a Danish thing, but most of Europe, that you don’t eat with your hands. Even pizza here is usually served unsliced, and you are supposed to eat it with a knife and fork. We’ve failed that one a few times on this trip.
We were back to the apartment by mid-afternoon. We are definitely slowing down a bit in our ninth week.
Europe - Day 63 – This will be a short update. We traveled today from Copenhagen to Gothenburg, Sweeden. The tram stop closest to the apartment is a pretty good hike on cobblestones, so we opted to schedule a taxi to the train station. There is no Uber or Lyft in Copenhagen, but the regular taxis have an app to call them. About 08:00, I had scheduled the pickup for 9:45. We were at the curb about 9:30, and at 09:35 the app sent me a message that the taxi was on the way and would be there at 9:39. At 9:45 we got a message that said the taxi was there. I thought we were going to have a repeat of our experience from Reykjavik where the app said the cab was there but he was a no-show. Just about when I was going to get upset, a cab stopped at the corner just down from us. It was our cab, but he couldn’t figure out how to go around the block since our street is one-way. We walked to the cab and headed for the train station. The driver didn’t seem to be the sharpest crayon in the box, but we got there.
Our train left Copenhagen right on time at 10:30. Unlike most of our other trains so far, this one is not a high-speed express. It has 18 stops before Gothenburg. So, we were on the train for just under four hours, with a constantly changing group of people. We weren’t sure if this train had a restaurant car, so we picked up a couple of sandwiches and chips at a 7-11 in the Copenhagen station which we ate on the trip.
Once we got to Gothenburg, I had scouted getting to the apartment from the train station by tram, but we were not finding the trams outside the station. But we did find the taxi stand, so we took the easy way out and got a cab. I was a little worried when the driver obviously didn’t know where the address was, but said his GPS would find it. I followed along on Google Maps (which was “his GPS”) and we got there fine. Ironically, as we left the train station in the cab, we spotted the tram area, and as we drove, a #6 tram that we should have been on paralleled us for a bit.
We found the apartment with no trouble and followed the instructions to get the keys from a lockbox. This is a better apartment than the last one, with real separate rooms that you could actually live in long-term. We found a huge grocery store just around the corner and went to pick up a few things.
Europe - Day 64 – There were two reasons to stop in Gothenburg. One, it is about halfway between Copenhagen and Stockholm, breaking that trip up. Second was because it is the home to Volvo. I had always heard that the Volvo factory tour was good, and I owned two Volvos years ago. Back when we first started planning the trip, I had looked into the factory tour and saw that it got booked a couple months in advance. However, I forgot to set myself a reminder to check into it a couple moths ago, so the tours are all sold out. Volvo does have another attraction here though, called World of Volvo. It is a combination museum and exhibit of technology innovation. So that’s today’s excursion
We figured out how to get from the apartment to Volvo, using two trams. The tram/bus system here is similar to Ireland & England in that you can just tap your credit card as you board instead of having to buy tickets in advance. When we got off the tram on the Volvo end, Google Maps said we had to walk a couple of blocks. The neighborhood didn’t look like the kind of place for this type of thing, but we followed the walking route down a small street between a canal and an old brick building. At the end of the block, we turned the corner and there was this huge, round, new glass and wood building.
We were twenty minutes early for our timed entry to the exhibit, so even though it didn’t seem at all busy, the turnstiles wouldn’t let us in before our window. So, we went to their café and had a cup of coffee while waiting. Once inside, there are several exhibits about how technology innovation has come into our lives over the years. One of the things they recall was that Volvo was the first company to put three-point seat/shoulder belts in cars, starting in 1959. I remember when I was a teenager, some Volvo owners grumbling about those damn seatbelts. Now of course we take them for granted. Further along the exhibits, you finally get to some cars. The first Volvo was produced in 1927, and their first truck came soon after. They had one of each of those on display. The two Volvos that I owned were a 1966 and a 1972. It was fun to see examples of both those vintages there too. One outstanding car there was the first P1800 sold in the US. The P1800 was their sports car in the 1960s. A 1966 P1800 was delivered to a high school teacher on Long Island, and he drove it 3.2 million miles. It now sits in the museum, complete with its 2019 New York registration sticker and personalized plates MILNMILR. Another very cool car is the Iron Maven, built by Girl Gang Garage in Phoenix. It is a purple 1961 PV544, that has been put onto a 2019 S60 hybrid chassis. There was also their first all-electric prototype car – from 1976. All in all, it was a cool visit.
We took the tram back into downtown, where we got off to find a place to eat. After walking a few blocks, we picked a place. Like most European cities, they have sidewalk seating, but most of the places here have some kind of glass enclosure over the outdoor seating making it usable more than the two-weeks of summer they have. (It is a high of 65 today.) We walked in unsure if we should pick our own table or wait to be seated (there is a mix of that here). A girl handed Barb a lunch menu (just one) and grunted to sit where we wanted. After maybe ten minutes, a guy came to take our order. We hadn’t seen a drink menu, so had no idea about their beer options, so he went to get one. After we had the menu, he didn’t know anything about any of the beers, so I guessed, and Barb got a Stella Artois. The lunch menu was your choice of three meals, instead of the full menu they had outside on display. Had we known that we might have passed, but we’re here now. The menu choices were filet mignon, a fish dish, and pasta with chicken and pesto. Of course we figured this out via Google Translate. We ordered one filet and one pasta and figured we’d share. When the meals came, he plopped them down and took off. The filet was not a filet mignon. It was two thin pieces of something under a brown gravy, with French fries. None of the selections had fries in the descriptions. What the waiter hadn’t brought was silverware or napkins. So, we had to wait several minutes to get his attention and get that. When he brought the silverware, he said the meals come with a salad bar and they expect you will have picked up silverware there. Nice time to tell us about the salad bar dude. I didn’t say anything about my food because I didn’t want to wait for another meal. Cutting into the meat, it appeared to be thin, tough pork. It tasted ok, but was pretty chewy. The French fries were excellent. When we were finished and the guy came by and asked if he could take the plates, we asked him what my meal was. He confidently said “filet mignon”. We had noticed the three guys next to us had what looked like filets, so we asked him what they had. He said that was the beef, and that filet mignon is pork. I laughed and told him that filet mignon is not pork, but beef. He disagreed. After he left, I Googled it to see if perhaps this was a Swedish thing, but it’s not. I feel a Google review coming.
We trammed home and relaxed for the evening. The TV in the apartment only does streaming and I figured out how to get my laptop talking to it, so I’m going to get to watch some NASCAR this evening since yesterday’s race was postponed to Monday morning in the States, which is still awake time here.
Europe - Day 65 – Our trip today was to the Gothenburg Maritime Museum. The museum consists of several boats. One is HSwMS Småland, a destroyer used between 1952 and 1979, another HSwMS Nordkaparen, a submarine in use between 1960 and 1988, and another HSwMS Sölve, a monitor ship built in the 1870s and retired from military use in 1919. In addition to those ships that you can tour, there is an old fireboat, a lightship, and several other old boats.
We got there by tram and walking. Along the way walking to the waterfront, we saw a couple of statues and lots of old buildings. We got to the museum just as it opened, so there were no crowds. We toured the destroyer first. It was your typical old military boat which had carried a crew of almost 300. As with any of the military boats we’ve toured, it’s hard to imagine how crowded it would be when full of its crew. Sort of unrelated to the boat directly, there was an exhibit inside about Ukraine and what life has been like in Mariupol, their port city. It was a sobering exhibit.
After the destroyer, I was going to tour the submarine. However, there is a limit of ten people at a time inside. I was third in line waiting to go in, and I hadn’t seen anyone come out. I waited about ten minutes and then gave it up. I’ve been in subs before, although this one looked smaller than any I’ve been in.
Next, I went to the monitor. This was a funny ship, because most of it is underwater. The hull only comes above the waterline about a foot. Inside was very basic and the displays in this one were not in English, so it didn’t take me long to look through it.
From the museum, we walked to Nordstan, a large mall where we breezed through looking a,t but not in, the stores. One thing we saw was a sales store for Zeekr, a car company I hadn’t heard of. Turns out Zeekr is a new brand under the same Chinese parent company as Volvo. They’ve been sold in China for a couple of years and just became available in Sweeden recently.
We stopped for lunch at a place by the mall called Bastard Burgers. The name got me. When the guy who may have been the manager on duty noticed me using my phone to view the menu in English, he went out of his way to bring us two English meus and said just ask if we needed anything explained. We decided on what to get and placed our order at the counter with the same guy. Again, he went out of his way to make sure we knew options and what was on each burger to make sure the order was correct. Since he knew we spoke English, he assumed we were from the US and asked what state we were from. When I told him Texas, he laughed and asked why I ordered a Los Angeles burger instead of a Texas burger. After we were finished eating and were still finishing our beers, he came by the table to make sure we enjoyed our meals and took our garbage. He was the exact opposite of the guy we had yesterday.
Europe - Day 66 – Travel day today. Our last city-to-city train. We were at the train station a little early since we walked to the tram and wanted to beat the rain. This train is a high-speed train with only two stops between Gothenburg and Stockholm. It’s just over three hours. The train itself was pretty nice, with good leg room, reserved seats, and it wasn’t full. We left and arrived right on time. No drama.
In Stockholm we were a little challenged to find the correct subway track to get us near the hotel, but once we did, it was just two stops. We then walked a few blocks to the Aiden Hotel. We were a bit early for check-in, but the guy at the desk was happy to go ahead and get us in. This reservation was made through hotels.com. When he found the reservation, he said it was for a single (one-person twin bed) room. I got out my phone and showed him the e-mail from hotels.com for a standard queen room. He took care of it with no hassle, but once again we have a problem with third-party reservations.
After getting our stuff in the room, we immediately went out to find a late lunch. It is supposed to rain this afternoon, so we want to eat and get back to the hotel before that. We found a Bastard Burgers a couple blocks away, and since we enjoyed it yesterday, we’ll do it again today. We were the only customers there at 2:30 in the afternoon, so the guy who took our order was happy to have someone to chat with. He was interested in our trip, and also how we liked the food and how it compared to burger places in the States. We told him it was very good compared to the chain burger places in the States, but that we had our favorite non-chain burger place, and they were still better.
We made it back to hotel in just a sprinkle and vegged for the rest of the day.
Europe - Day 67 – Today we took a Hop On/Off Bus/Boat tour. We took the tram downtown and found the Hop On/Off bus stop. We timed it well as a bus came by in only a few minutes. We took the bus for about half of its route and then got off to switch to the boat tour. On that first bus, we had trouble hearing much because there was a group of Italian tourists behind us who insisted on conversing loudly instead of paying any attention to the tour. Why did they spend $35 on a tour they weren’t going to listen to?
We walked just a little bit to the boat dock and waited maybe ten minutes for the next boat. The boat had an old guy who looked like a boat captain checking the tickets as we boarded, and a young woman driving. At first, we thought he might be training her, as he had been standing right by her as she approached the dock. But, after watching for a few stops, I’m not sure the “training” was official. I think he was just cool with letting her drive some while he ate his lunch. When we got to one of the busy downtown stops where there were a lot of people waiting to board, they switched back to their real jobs. We rode the complete eight-stop loop and disembarked where we had gotten on. As I stepped off, I said to the young lady “Good job driving”. She gave me a big smile and said “Thanks”.
We walked to the bus stop and rejoined the bus tour. From the boat, I had spotted a place along the waterfront where there were several restaurants. So, when we finished the bus route, we started to walk to that area for lunch. After walking a bit, we realized that we weren’t where the restaurants were. We realized where we should be and turned around and headed there. Stockholm is built on fourteen islands, so there are multiple “waterfronts”. We found the place I had been looking at from the water and stopped at the first of many restaurants for a late lunch.
From the restaurant, we walked to the nearest subway station and made our way back to the hotel.
Europe - Day 68 – Today’s entertainment is the Vasa Museum. The Vasa is a wooden warship launched in 1628. She made it less than a mile into her maiden voyage when she sank. It doesn’t take a trained naval architect to look at the design and see that there was way too much boat above the water in comparison to the amount below the water. She was a sailboat, and with the first gust of wind, she basically heeled over enough for water to pour in the cannon holes, quickly capsizing her. Even though she was still in Stockholm’s harbor, she was about 100 feet deep, so salvage methods of the day were not up to the task of recovering much except the cannons. Since she had just left the dock on her maiden voyage, most of the people aboard were on deck and survived. They estimated that up to thirty souls went down with the ship, although when they did raise it, they only found seventeen skeletons.
The ship was “rediscovered” in 1956. It took from then until 1961 to slowly raise and move it to a dry-dock. It had survived all that time in the water partly because the water is cold and brackish so the worms that destroy wooden ships in warm salty water weren’t present. Also, Stockholm’s harbor was so polluted for years that not a lot of other microorganisms that would deteriorate the wood could survive. Once the ship was in dry-dock, they had to figure out how to keep the wood from deteriorating. They came up with a method of spraying polyethylene glycol on the whole thing for seventeen years. Even with that preservation, the ship is still slowly deteriorating, and they are currently working on replacing the cradle that supports the hull as well as building an internal skeleton. The museum is kept cool, damp, and dark to slow the deterioration, but while we were there, two guys had to go underneath to do something related to the new work being done. While they were under there, they turned on a rope light that illuminated the side we were standing on, so we could see some of the old and new support system.
After the Vasa, we went about a block to the Museum of Wrecks. This is a small museum that covers several wrecks that have been discovered and details their stories. The presentation was really slick with a lot of neat audio/video technology. One of the wrecks it talked about was that of the Estonia. The Estonia was a car/passenger ferry between Stockholm and Estonia. It had over a thousand people on board, of which almost nine-hundred died. Part of the exhibit for the Estonia was a recording of the radio traffic between the stricken ship and several other nearby ships. It was really eerie to listen to this exchange, as we heard radio conversations like this (not to the same tragic extent of course) several times during our boat years. What was even more strange to both of us was that neither of us recalled this disaster.
After the museums, we hopped a tram for a few stops back to the waterfront area where we ate yesterday. We picked a different restaurant, with outdoor but well-covered seating, where we had a nice late lunch. We then hopped the tram to the subway and made our way back to the hotel. The expected rain today held off until after we were back, so it was a good day.
Europe - Day 69 – This is the last play day of the trip. Today we are taking a three-hour boat tour. Cue the Gilligan’s Island music. We are traveling on a large boat named the S/S Stockholm. It is S/S because it was originally a steam ship. The tour is through the Stockholm Archipelago. The archipelago is an area of 25,000 to 30,000 islands, fanning out about 40 miles east from Stockholm. While lots of the islands have people living on them, there are only a few large towns. One of them is Vaxholm. The Stockholm runs twice-a-day round-trips from Stockholm to Vaxholm. We were on the first departure at noon. This trip also includes an optional brunch. We did not opt for the brunch, as I would rather be able to spend the time paying attention to the scenery instead of eating.
We took the subway/tram to the waterfront and were at the boarding place at 11:00. We were the second in line behind a group of six women. We boarded the boat about 11:40 and went immediately to the upper outside deck. The upper deck was only designed to seat about twenty-five people. Of course, there were a lot more than that who wanted to be up there. Guess they should have been in line an hour early. As it was, several people stood, or sat in places that weren’t meant for seating, making it a little tight. As with one of our bus tours, there was a group of people who were yakking loudly making it hard to hear the tour guide guy at first. They did shut up after a while. There was also one lady who was going to great lengths to take selfie videos of herself with the scenery in the background. She had a tripod for a little remote camera that she controlled with her phone. She just kept moving the tripod around oblivious to people’s feet or if she was blocking someone else view. Oh well. We still enjoyed the hour and a half ride out to Vaxholm. When the boat stops in Vaxholm, you have the option of getting off and returning on the second round-trip. Quite a few people departed, leaving the upper deck not quite as full. Unfortunately, the selfie lady wasn’t one of the departures. The boat only stays at the dock in Vaxholm for about five minutes and then begins the return to Stockholm. We took a slightly different route back, weaving between a few different islands.
When we disembarked from the boat, we caught the tram/subway back to our neighborhood, and stopped for a late lunch at an Italian restaurant a couple blocks from the hotel. We had two pizzas (the pizza here are very thin crust and about 12”) and then headed back to the hotel.
This concludes the marathon trip to Europe. Tomorrow we will be flying all day. We will leave the hotel about 10:00, fly to Iceland, then Newark, NJ, and catch the family taxi for another hour plus to my brother’s. It will be a long day but good to be back in our own bed on the bus.
Europe - Day 70 summary – The trip is over and we are back at the bus at my bother’s house in NYS. Our travel day was long, but everything worked. We started in Stockholm by taking the subway to the central train station, where we boarded the Arlanda Express. The Arlanda Express in a high-speed (130 mph) train from Central Station to the airport. The airport is about 25 miles outside of the city, but the high-speed train makes it easy. We got our big bag checked and through security with almost no wait at all. Our experience with international airports has been that boarding is a little different. One difference is that there isn’t much seating in the gate areas. That means the gates and their associated groups of people are close together. Then when it’s time to board, they call priority people (first class and those needing assistance) and then they call everybody else. There is no calling by row numbers or any other granularity. It also is very common for the plane not to actually be at a jetway. You may be walking across the tarmac or boarding a bus to go the plane parked away from the terminal. We only had this once on this trip.
Our flights themselves were both on-time and full. We flew Icelandair again, which means stopping in Iceland. Stockholm to Iceland was just under three hours on a 757. There were two families with screaming babies in the gate area before we boarded. Lucky for us, one family was seated near the front, and the other was all the way in the back. We were near the rear, but far enough away that it wasn’t too bad. In Iceland for our hour-and-a-half layover, we got a bite to eat and then found our gate. Something Icelandair does in Iceland, is they don’t post the gate number until about 45 minutes before the flight. So similar to the train station experiences we had, people were gathered near the big display boards waiting for their gate to be posted. We got our assignment and headed to the gate where our group and a couple other gates were all crowded together. We were a little late boarding the 767 for the five-and-a-half flight to Newark, but we made it up in the air getting to Newark at 6:45 Eastern time. That was after midnight Stockholm time, so we were a little tired. Barb got a little nap on the plane, but I didn’t even dose. While flying over Greenland, Barb got a couple of cool pictures. We were sitting over the wing, so they were only partial frames, but still good.
Once we landed in Newark, we breezed through Immigration with almost no waiting and headed to baggage claim. It wasn’t too long before bags started coming out, but they stopped after maybe 25 bags. After maybe fifteen minutes, the horn beeped and the conveyor started again. The first thing up the conveyor was a maintenance guy who hopped of and watched as bags following him started coming out. He was satisfied that the problem was fixed, and the rest of the bags came out. Bags in hand, we breezed through Customs and met my brother at the curb for the ninety-minute trip home.
Here are some stats from the trip:
Planes – 5
Trains – 20
Rental cars – 3
Boats – 10
Ubers – 5
Taxis – 4?
Subway/Tram systems – 12
Cities – 22
Countries – 11
Airbnbs – 13
VRBOs – 2
Hotels – 5
Currencies – 6
Cash (vs card) 200 Euro
Laundry – 2 service, 3 laundromats, 3 self in apt
Miles – roughly 11,000
Days70
Back in the real world, we took a few days to just slow down and get adjusted to local time again. We got back on August 25th and on Sept 10th, I was on Long Island for my surgery. We actually went down a day early and spent the night with my daughter. In the morning, we were at the hospital bright and early. The surgery went fine and I was back at my daughter’s late in the afternoon. We stayed at my daughter’s several days until after I had my first follow-up at the doctor’s office. Once we were back at my brother’s, I started PT locally and went twice a week for eight weeks, making good progress in that time.
A bonus to staying in NY so far into the fall was that we got to watch the laves changing. While it wasn’t a banner year for color due to the lack of rain all summer, it was still nice to see. We took several long rides into the nearby mountains to try and catch some of the display.
A few weeks before we left NY, Barb’s brother in VA passed away. We drove the car down for a weekend to visit the family and had a nice day with her sister-in-law, her sister, and her nephew and his wife and kids.
On November 9th, we headed south. This was the latest we have ever stayed north, and we were lucky that we only saw a couple of frosty mornings. The first day we made 465 miles to a Harvest Host called Halcyon Days Cidery. We got there in time to enjoy a couple of glasses of cider before they closed. The next day was 485 miles to a winery in Gaddsen, AL. The winery was closed because it was Sunday, but they still allowed parking there. Next day was another 445 miles to Ronnie’s repair shop in Louisiana to replace one of our leveling jacks. Ronnie had the jack replaced in a couple of hours on the 12th, and we were on our way to Kemah.
Home for the winter is Brickhouse RV Resort again. Similar to last year, the park is maybe half full. We got a spot just two away from where we were then.