Weather in Salt Lake City has been odd this year. It remained Winter up until April, became Seattle until the end of May, and now has turned incredibly hot for the past week in particular.
My family is not blessed with an air conditioner - I'm far too cheap to replace which, up until this time, has been a perfectly functioning furnace to add AC. Since the blower has now gone out on that furnace, I may decide to drop the C-Notes for proper ventilation in the house (I doubt it, but the possibility exists).
Since it was 85 degrees today - and humid - we decided to take a drive up into the cool mountains for a little hike around Silver Lake. The elevation at our house is a little over 4,400 feet. The elevation of Silver Lake is 8,800 feet. We looked forward to the drop in temperature as well as the clean, fresh mountain air.
The drive from our house is about 50 minutes over freeway, with 25 minutes of that being through canyon territory. Once we arrived where the lake was, at the summit, we were surprised still see snow on the ground. In speaking with the park ranger, he informed us that it had snowed nearly two feet the previous week, so he was extremely interested to see how much it had melted in just one week. All of this water had made the stream down the canyon into a careening luge of white rapids.
Arriving in the parking lot of the lake, first signs of dirty snow.
View of the Village of Brighton from the parking lot.
The area around the lake is one of the easiest walks, with a boardwalk most of the way making nearly the entire lake wheelchair accessible. We had wanted to take the two mile side trail to the "Twin Lake" reservoir, however, much to our chagrin, the entire trail was still covered in snow the depth of at least four feet - though much, much deeper when you climbed the additional 2,000 feet to the summit of the mountain.
The kids were in heaven. They loved being in snow and feeling warm at the same time. In fact, the weather was so nice that even I was happy with seeing snow.
Side story, yes, that is a cast on Katelyn's arm. She fell and broke her Radius. You would never know it, though. She even fooled the doctor who thought that she was the victim of over protective parents, but came back surprised when we "forced" him to perform an x-ray.
It wasn't all snow, however, there as mentioned before, there is a very nice boardwalk around the lake, we had a snow free walk for most of the trek.
When I was a kid of about 10 years old, my mother used to take me to this lake to fish on weekends. Now, I don't recall ever catching a fish here, but it wasn't for lack of trying or patience. I used to spend my allowance money purchasing fancy flies, and even "Power Bait" in order to ward off the "Gilbride Curse" that I have spoken of in prior posts.
At that age the lake was much larger (or at least seemed much larger). One thing is for certain, there were no grass lands, except in areas where the inlet and outlet traveled. The rest was a sandy or rocky beach area. There also was no boardwalk at that time, you just...walked.
Being a kid, fishing, I was able be near many fortunate men over the weekends who all caught fish. They would see that I was not so lucky and impart some of their wisdom - but alas, it availed nothing.
One such man has held a place in my memory all these years. I do not recall what he looked like - I don't remember the sound of his voice - but what I do remember was how nice he was.
He noticed that I was using a hook with bait. He told me to reel in, and while he was working on my line he gave me a fisherman's lecture about when to use bait, and when to use flies. He released my line and then I found that he had given a fly with a shiny lure. He taught me how to cast properly and how to slowly reel the line in so I could entice a fish to bite.
We fished side by side for most of that morning. We talked. He caught many fish, even let me reel in a couple of them. But in the end, I still didn't catch a dang thing with mine. Seeing as I had all the gadget and gear, he felt bad when it was time to leave. I was sad as he was cleaning up his area and was just looking on, but once he said goodbye and was a little ways away, I looked down at my tether line which remained in pristine condition due to the fact I never had a fish to tether - at least up until this point. He had tethered two big rainbow trout for me and my mother, all without telling me.
I felt very special and I recall continuing to fish as though that hadn't happened. I had a plan that I would "fake" catching a fish, reel it in, and then show my mother one of the gifted fish as my catch. This was all in the hopes of looking like a man.
I did as I had planned, and my mother reacted as I had hoped. It wasn't until a week or so later that she confessed to me that the man had spoken to her on the way out informing her that he had given me a couple of fish. Specifically, he mentioned that he had never seen anyone go that long without a bite. She explained the "curse" to him.
About this time, my mother and I were watching America's Most Wanted, a frequent weekend activity of ours. They were dramatizing a robbery turned murder case and when it came to display the actual mugshot of the killer on TV, both my mother and I gasped in shock at the same time. It was the man who was fishing with me at the lake!!!! We were certain of it. So certain, that she called the hotline and reported his last sighting.
I don't know if it really was him, but the resemblance was uncanny! The crime took place in the Wyoming/Utah border area and these mountains are pretty much that border. Strangely, I felt very famous after this and went around my 4th grade class telling the story to anyone that would listed. After a few disappointments, I was sad to learn that not many kids my age actually watched the show, so they had no idea what I was talking about.
I recollecting that story during this visit, I was sad to see that the sandy/rocky beach which I used to walk on was now a grassy marsh that no doubt provided life and refuge to many creatures, but it made for near impossible fishing.
The water is alive with bacteria, that's for sure.
The area where I used to fish is now just a swamp!
Since we were unable to embark on the hike we wanted, we decided to walk around the rest of the lake. I turned on my phone's GPS tracker to map our walk. Below are some of the best shots of our time.
You see the red line jetting into the water on the South side? That's real - there was so much snow that we walked out on the lake pretty dang far!
The lake was so smooth during the early morning hours. This looks like a Bob Ross painting.
I liked this shot since the outlet of the lake had remained frozen when all the snow started to melt - this caused a flood, looking a bit like a bayou.
Look at how much snow there is!
Snow and ice still on the lake.
Family coming through some large trees. Our kids are perfect hikers!
The trail was flooded at this point, we had to trek through the snow. The kids didn't mind, but my ankles did.
Final shot looking back at the opposite side of the lake.
I must warn all readers in advance that story telling is one of my finest points - indeed something that I take very seriously and feel I am dang good at. With any story, the idea is to tell it with enough detail so that the reader envisions what you saw (or what you want them to see). This can lead to a very long diatribe in many instances.
You may find yourself unable to complete the reading of this post on the first time around. If that should be the case, no worries. Though I do ask that you finish it. I took the time to write it - for you, you could at least take the time to read it.
Now that that's out of the way.....
June 2011 brought the occurrence of my company's yearly incentive trip, the time when we "repay" our top performers for their contributions to the continued success of our company. This year, we chose a Greek Island cruise departing from Venice, Italy.
I was thrilled.
The embarkation of a cruise was on both Kathy and I's Bucket List, so when the opportunity came to cross an item off of that list at virtually no expense to us, we were very excited.
I'm not going to wait until after the obligatory display of pictures to state that the position of a cruise on our sacred Bucket List was sorely misplaced. We have made this decision based on the following. A cruise is perfect if:
you are over 60
you are under 25 (particularly under 21) and wish to do nothing but drink booze and party
you are too lazy to plan your own international trip
you are too scared to leave the confines of the "feel" of the United States while traveling through foreign countries
This might sound a bit pessimistic and even flippant, but I assure you, the list above came as a real bubble buster to us - one that made me in particular rethink my Bucket List (should I remove witnessing a taping of The Price is Right?).
Our trip began on Friday, May 27th when boarding a plane in Salt Lake City destined for New York. The day was perfect: not a cloud in the sky; perfect temperature; children left behind (no offense kids - I love you, but sometimes Mom and Dad need to get away to be reminded why we actually got married in the first place...and to discuss something other than...you). I knew from my years on this earth that no kismet perfection can withstand the "Gilbride Curse". SOMETHING had to happen.
Then something did.
The lovely automated voice from Delta called to inform us that our plan had been delayed, not bad at only one hour.
True to their word - the plane was late to board an hour, though we didn't push off for another 30 minutes past door closing. The captain's voice over the intercom then explained that the reason things were running behind schedule was due to a broken plane in Seattle - so another (the one we were on) had to be carted in from Florida. However, the pilot who flew the plane in was a ferry pilot, not a commercial pilot, so a new flight crew had to be assembled on the spot. The two men piloting the plane were out with their families enjoying their day when they were told that they needed to report for work. They rushed in as quickly as they could, though the extra time was needed because neither of them had flown this route before and they had to familiarize themselves with the charts prior to takeoff.
As he explained this, he also explained that he knew the problems the airline had caused people and he was going to do everything he could to make up the lost time in the air. I was happy to have a person in charge who actually cared that 250 other people had plans today. At wheels up we were almost 1 hour 30 minutes behind schedule. Our connection time was exactly 1 hour 47 minutes.
Make up time in the air - don't they always say that? It doesn't seem to mean anything anymore. Somehow, this day it did. That hour-thirty he magically made up. It looked like we were going to be alright!
This isn't a big enough something - something ELSE has to happen. Damn Gilbride Curse!!!
We began to circle over Poughkeepsie, then Long Island, then Long Island again....slowly the time began to creep back up on us. We went from being "on time", to now being 15 minutes late; 25 minutes late; 35 minutes...
We landed slightly before being 50 minutes late. However, the really poor design of the JFK airport left us straddling two active runways waiting for traffic to have a large enough break to allow our plane to cross (a few minutes lost). Then somehow the airport seemed to lose track of the fact that we were coming, so they had no ground crew or even a GATE for us to pull into. After waiting a very long time we finally pulled into the gate and the deboarding process began. Oh how long it takes to get off a plane person by person.
In short, the 1 hour 30 minutes we made up in the air was consumed by circling, parking, and deboarding at JFK. We luckily only travel via carryon (I refuse to check baggage since my bags have gone to Santiago Chile (twice) more times than me (none)). Being such a light packer has its exalted virtues but does tend to slow you down if you actually have to run. While carting it, and my overweight self through the long terminals of JFK I was pondering if part of the Gilbride Curse is to always be on the connecting flight at the furthest possible end of the airport. Why can't I ever have one that's right next door? You would think that would happen at least once...
Alas as we step foot onto New York Port Authority soil, we have 7 minutes to get to this distant location and make our flight. A quick check of the status board for gate location and we were off!
A few seconds later I was out of breath - so we turned it into a rapid paced walk.
Very quickly my shins started hurting - so the rapid paced walk turned into a long stride hip movement.
I began to wonder if my years of neglecting this novel activity known as "exercise" was really the good idea I thought it was at the time...my heart is beating in my ears - I am sweating so much that my socks are wet, and my feet are slipping in my tennis shoes.
Is this really supposed to happen after only 4 minutes of movement?
We get to the gate - the very last one on the terminal. I want you to understand that this gate is so far away from everything that the LIGHTS ARE OFF! They don't even want to waste the money lighting the dang place, but they'll throw the occasional plane over there that's carrying other poor saps who are unfortunate enough to suffer the same curse.
I will say the crowning moment was seeing the time and the gate so close, we broke into a sprint much like the Griswold's Chariot of Fire scene when they went to Wally World (only to learn that it was closed for renovation). I'm dripping sweat - carrying a large backpack - sprinting (though if observed I may have more likely been slowly walking). I hand my wet ticket to the gate agent and place my hands on my knees trying to catch my breath.
*pant* *gasp* *cough/weeze* "did we...did we make it?"
"Oh hon, you've got plenty of time. The flight's been delayed."
*stare at agent, but remind myself to still breath....*
The flight was indeed delayed, but not by much. We finally broke free from the gate, but just...sat there.
"Uhhhh, Ladies and Gentleman....Uhhhh, this is the captain...uhhhhh...we are currently the 47th aircraft in line for takeoff...uhhhhh...but there are also landings that need to take place in between."
Did he just say that we were at minimum 94 planes away from taking off?
"uhhhhh...we should be OK as we have scheduled over one hour of taxi time prior to take off...uhhhh. we'll keep you posted on our progress."
You know the rule about switching off electronic devices once the cabin door is closed until you reach 10,000 feet? Yeah - screw it.
The wheels of the plane eventually made it off the ground - I must admit that I don't have much recollection at this point because I was in a self induced coma with some left over pain medicine I had from getting my gall bladder removed. The flight could have been horrible, but I certainly wasn't around to witness it. I don't recall any dreams - the time is really just....gone.
I woke up in a stupor (yet amazingly refreshed) a hour or so from landing.
When we deplaned at the Venice airport, it was a matter of following all of the Norwegian Cruise Line signs to get on the appropriate bus to the port.
I love Italy - it is absolute chaos. The way they drive; the way they live; the way they talk with their hands. It all kind of works, but there is something very appealing to me about how unorganized it is there given the intense structure of my life.
Here is a short clip of the drive on the bus from the airport to the ship port.
After making it to the ship, all I can say is that it was simply amazing. I have never seen such a spectacle with the deliberate intent on boarding the thing. The ship itself was over 1,500 feet long (over 1/4 mile) and 150 feet wide (half a football field).
Just to give you some perspective on the size of this thing. The little specs below are humans. The size at that point would be manageable, however, the dock is already 15 feet above the water.
The view of the bow - again, this thing was huge!
The boarding process was quite a...well...process. It made me actually appreciate the organization that the airlines employ when boarding the planes (now boarding Zone 2....).
We were dropped off at this location next to the ship and told only to enter the yellow building next door. This building was responsible for central processing on the ship. The first desk we encountered was a health check. Here you fill out a small card asking you a few questions:
Are you sick now?
Have you been sick within the past couple of weeks?
Are you more than 24 weeks pregnant?
Do you promise not to sue us should you be lying with the previous answers?
Having checked the appropriate boxes we were then left to determine what turnstile to now enter. After an incorrect assumption, we found the correct line and began the passport and sundry item payment service.
You are not allowed to pay cash for anything aboard the ship. It is all done via your room card (which is linked to a credit card you place on file at this stage). I am notoriously cheap, so there is no way that I was about to purchase anything on a traveling gift shop.
We were given a boarding card number of 7 - which was essentially the "zone" on an airplane.
Kathy waiting for our number to be called. Between she and I, she's the only photogenic one. While you may see more of her, I promise, I was there. Someone had to hold the damn camera.
Once aboard the boat, we found our, how shall I say, "cozy" stateroom. I was given the opportunity to upgrade to a much nicer room at a discounted rate from what the company provided me for free. Please see my my comments above regarding my shrewdness if you haven't already guessed that I declined the invitation.
One thing you don't think about when you've never gone on a cruise is the fact that if you don't have a balcony or window, when the door closes to your room there is nothing but absolute darkness. I mean absolute darkness.
Another thing you don't think about (but should) is the placement of your room within the ship. See the illustration below for what I mean.
On the left is deck 11 (where our room was), on the right is deck 12. Please note the two pools to the South and North of deck 12. Now look at the placement of two rooms directly in the center of those pools. Yeah....we were room 11537. The blank spaces between us and other rooms? Water filters and heaters for the pools. Noisy? Yes.
However, the best was the fact that during late afternoons there was the daily live band Neil Diamond revival. I love Neil as much as the next guy, but we wondered if the ceiling was going to come crashing down due to all the dancing.
Other than that lovely oversight, the room itself was rather nice.
Here is another view of that same pool area. Directly below where that green and white canopy sits is our room.
Many times while the ship was at sea, we went to the theater to watch live performers.
Leaving Venice
The Ship left Venice at 5 PM Saturday. The process is not at all like watching the movie Titanic - I had hoped for a dock full of people who were wishing us well, and wishing they were on the boat with us. No such luck, it was desolate at the dock.
We floated through the Grand Canal until we were officially in the Adriatic Sea.
Taken after we had pulled away from the dock. We traveled down the Grand Canal in front of us.
The typical picture of a chapel in Italy.
Once in the Adriatic, we sailed in open sea for the rest of that day, the entire next, and finally arrived at our destination Monday morning.
Corfu, Greece
Suffering from Jet Lag has its advantages. Among them are eating at the breakfast buffet when it is first opened, giving you first pickings. The other advantage is that you see a sunrise in a foreign land that somehow looks so different than all the sunrises you witness at home.
Corfu is a small island on the West side of Greece, bordering Albania to the North.
The island itself is useful for naval strategy more than real living, however, the capital city, also called Corfu, is itself a major tourist attraction. The city is rather pretty, but strangely lacks much history pre-British Colonial times given that it's been inhabited since the mid 8th century.
Below are my favorite shots of our time there.
A street - for a Monday at 9AM there was no one going anywhere.
The promenade looking North to "old" Fortress
The same promenade, looking South
A high view of the bazzarr
I loved this perspective shot with the rod iron, doors, and laundry.
My rendering of the dichotomy of the Old Town. I chose to use the shadow cast as the line to separate color from black and white.
A fine morning in the cafe. No rush.
A view from the "new" Fortress towards the old town. You can still see that the buildings on the periphery have retained the outline of what was at one point the city wall.
Our first Greek meal of the trip - a gyro platter. Wonderful lamb steak meat, and look at those tomatoes!
One of the things that took some getting used to was the curfew of the cruise boat. After all of that time lost motoring to Corfu, we only had from 9AM until 3PM to spend in the city. Once we finished the lunch above, we began the walk back to the ship. In all, we walked over 7 miles that day according to the pedometer on my iPhone.
Once we headed back to the boat, we were off to the next location.
Santorini, Greece
We traveled all night and much of the next day to reach Santorini which does not allow docking, but rather "tenders" into the harbor. Because of this, you have to get up extremely early (or send your spouse out extremely early while you catch a few more z's) to get a tender ticket. Essentially, this ticket gives you a place on a boat that is leaving the ship for shore. We were number 1 (Thanks Kathy!) which meant that we were on the very first boat which left the ship. We were on the tender boat by 1PM. By 4PM there were still people in line to get off the boat. Poor saps.
We are on the tender boat getting ready to head for Santorini.
Location of Santorini in the Aegean Sea. Athens is to the North-Northwest.
Santorini is a very unique place. It was a normal circular island formed by a volcano which blew it's top off sinking the center of the island, leaving only the outer rings. The city is considered a very realistic candidate for the lost city of Atlantis since an entire people became extinct on the island when the explosion occurred.
Kaboom.
What you were left with around the inner circle are sharp jagged cliffs which extend 850 - 900 feet almost 86 degrees vertical.
The town on the edge of the cliffs.
The outline of the walking path.
Once docked at shore, there were three ways of getting up to the city.
Take a cable car gondola
Walk 600 steps up 850 feet
Ride a donkey up the same 600 steps
Number's two and three were out of the question given my inability to move myself rapidly at the airport, so we purchased tickets for the gondola car.
Once up on the top of the top of the city, there were sights that no camera can adequately capture, but no memory will ever forget.
Water so blue that seemed more fit for a story book than real life.
Buildings so white you would think that they were painted on a daily basis.
Streets so narrow and winding that you wondered how they actually receive inventory shipments for the stores.
Santorini is one of those places that you come to, get a cute little hotel on a cliff relax by the pool and never leave for two days.
We found a cute place to have dinner overlooking the sea (it is impossible to not overlook the sea as you can see from the terraced picture above, however, it makes me feel special to say it).
Along the way to dinner I stopped and got a gyro. Wow. It was delicious.
I ordered upon the recommendation of our waiter. I honestly don't remember what this was called, but it is a very simple "tinfoil dinner" of lamb meat, potato, pepper, and cheese. It was delicious!
Kathy got the Moussaka - a type of Penne Lasagna. I didn't care for the cinnamon in the white cream sauce, but she loved the flavor.
We had until 10PM on the island before the ship left us, however, you had to catch the same small tender boats to get back to it. We didn't want to risk it, so we planned to be on board no later than 9PM.
Rather than deal with the absolutely insane line to catch the gondola down the cliff. We decided to walk...
A view of the steep steps down to the waterfront - the donkeys - and the wonderful poop which we had to dodge each and every step.
Once back on the ship, I took a final picture as dusk was descending. Santorini is certainly a place we will be back to someday.
Goodnight Santorini.
Mykonos, Greece
We sailed the short distance from Santorini to the island of Mykonos. The location is in the same sea area as Santorini. You can see Santorini in this map directly center at the bottom of the photo, with Mykonos directly North of it (past a few more islands...).
Because this was an official work trip, I felt obligated to spend at least one day with the people we were thanking. Thus, I had to put my cheapness on hold for one day and pay for an official tour. I am not one to normally like scheduled tours preferring instead spontaneous travel, however, this tour was extremely worth it.
Kathy managed to get a portion of our Greek tour guide in just about every shot she took. I can see why, the hair, coloring and proportions of his body are strikingly similar to mine.
At first, we boarded a bus which took us to the furthest southern tip of the island to show us the (lack of) diversity of the landscape.
Mykonos in Greek literally means "Pile of Rocks". That is what this place is - a gigantic pile of rocks. The island is almost 100% composed of granite and has very little vegetation. Access to water is a huge problem and prevents farming on any scale necessary to support local life. As a result of this water and nearly everything else consumable must be shipped in daily.
Here are some of my favorite photos of our time there.
At this southern tip, there is a chapel and dock. Unlike Italy, the church's in Greek Orthodox are privately owned edifices. It was quite different to not be able to actively tour a chapel since the "owner" was not there.
This is a view across the harbor from the chapel seen above. I loved the emerald water and overall beauty of the place
The obligatory "it looks Greek to me" pun.
The emerald sparkling water. It was so clear it was amazing.
I loved this scene - a fisherman tending his net, getting ready to set off for the daily catch.
After we toured this section of the island, we got back into the bus and headed to a local monastery which was inland.
The doorway to the monastery.
The bells of the monastery.
Flowers inside the courtyard of the monastery.
I loved how the morning light reflected off the white walls to make it look a bit orange.
After touring the monastery, we were to head to the capital city, also called Mykonos. This town was a literal labyrinth of streets, dead ends, false roads, houses, elevation changes all in the name of protecting it from pirates.
The Venetians at one point owned the island (along with most of the islands of Greece), but finally gave up trying to protect it from the blasted pirates of the Mediterranean. Around the turn of the 14th century, the town would prosper, the pirates would loot the town, the town would rebuild, then the pirates would sack it again.
Finally, the residents grew tired of this and decided to rebuild the city to a much different layout. The outside buildings of the city were built like a normal city so as to serve as a "honey pot" enticing the pirates to come and sack the city. Once they were inside the city, however, the roads narrowed and became so maze-like that the pirates would get lost. This allowed the residents to kill or imprison the trespassers. The plans of the city worked so well that the pirates stopped invading over a short amount of time.
A view of the "honey pot" buildings across the harbor.
One of the quintessential images you will find of Greece is that of the windmills. The island/city of Mykonos has the largest standing museum of them left in all of the country.
Since Mykonos was at one time governed by the Venetians, they felt more comfortable with houses on water. So, they built what is called "Little Venice" which still exists to this day.
Katakolon, Greece
When we boarded the ship in Mykonos, it was dinner time. Being very bored with the selections of food on the ship, I decided to branch out and try something new. I am not normally a fan of Asian food or sushi at all, but I just wasn't looking to eat any more undercooked spaghetti.
I loaded my plate with mussels and other sea food delights and headed to the table to make their new (temporary) home in my tummy.
It happened quickly as I ate the second mussel - something just didn't taste right. I didn't know exactly what about it wasn't right, after all, how do you know if fish has gone bad? I mean, it smells like fish!
Within two hours my stomach started twitching and hurting. I went to bed in the hopes that I would wake up after whatever had to be done, was done. But, I woke up multiple times in the night to a sour stomach and even more sour taste in my mouth. Multiple trips to the bathroom ensued at this point.
Yup, something was wrong.
Being the brave soul that I am, I decided that perhaps the best way to get over this sickness was to sweat it out. We got off of the boat that morning in Katakolon and walked the city. All the while, my stomach is hurting more and more deeply - and I'm getting further and further away from a toilet.
Katakolon is not a Greek island, but is rather connected to the mainland. It's main point of existence is to provide a gateway to Olympus where the first Olympics were held. Of course, we didn't really know this until after we had already left for the day.
I am not shy when I say that the city of Katakolon is by far the most disappointing place that I have ever spent time in. It actually beat out the disappointment of my teenage years subscribing to "JET" magazine thinking that it was about airplanes, only to realize it's a black man's periodical. I still get adverts for Afro-Sheen to this day.
It wasn't all bad - the beach/harbor/main street (yes, street) in Katakolon.
The ONLY remotely nice looking part of town, built specifically for the tourists.
A picture of a church, because I didn't feel right only taking two pictures at a place I had never been to.
Between my sickness, and both of us suffering from sheer boredom in the city, we boarded the boat two hours after we had left.
I went straight to bed at 11AM that day, without eating breakfast, slept the majority of the day (when I wasn't in the bathroom), slept all that night, was in bed the complete next day which luckily wasn't lost since we were sailing the complete time back to Venice. It wasn't until nearly 47 hours later that I finally got out of bed and decided to take a walk. Poor Kathy was on her own with the boat - eating by herself (I still wasn't eating) and trying to find herself things to do to keep her busy.
The only thing that got me out of bed was a mandatory closing reception sponsored by my company. I still didn't eat. The first meal after the blasted mussels was in Milan - a great picture to come.
The end of the cruise, disembarking, and moving on to vacation phase II
Saturday, June 4th arrived, and it was now time to get off the ship and head out for the second portion of our trip. This was the non-work portion of our trip which allowed us to cut loose and actually sight see.
After loading our luggage on the bus, we started our journey back to the Venice airport where we would pick up a rental car and drive across Italy into the French Riviera with friends from work.
Let me discuss these friends: Tom and Suzette. Among the nicest and most sincere people I have known; also the most easy going people you could hope to travel with.
There is a downside to this easyness - Suzette's incessant ideals that she travel with her complete home. I so wish that I had snapped a picture of the amount of luggage, but suffice it to say, the scene below was an accurate reflection of what she carried.
Remember that Kathy and I only had one small carry-on bag each, so this was a bit unreasonable. However, I felt this way prior to seeing the car that we had rented. It was a Peugeot 207 - quite a beautiful car, but made a Mazda Miata seem like a Cadillac sedan.
The rental process itself was quite easy, though time consuming. There were no gotchya's or anything remotely close to making me twitch an eyebrow. In all, it took about 40 minutes to get the keys to the car and be on our way.
We were able to fit Suzette's large suitcase in the trunk, however, she had two other bags, plus Tom's bag, then we still had Kathy and I's bags to fit in. Hmmmmmm. With some very smart packing and stacking bags in the center of the back seat we were ready to finally get IN the car.
Then it hit me - it's a stick shift. I haven't driven a stick shift since I was 18 years old. Granted, it's not something that you readily forget, but still, it takes some getting used to again, more especially in a foreign country.
Luckily, I purchased the European version of the iPhone GPS I use here at home. Since I had time, I was able to pre-program routes and destinations so we were able to directly get where we wanted to go.
Kathy's request was that she be able to say we had breakfast in Venice, lunch in Milan, and dinner in Nice, France. So off we went.
The drive to Milan was roughly 3 hours - interstate highway the entire time - nothing really to look at outside, but yet still remarkably beautiful. Since the car was moving at such a rapid speed, there was no way to get many useful or otherwise good pictures to share of that time.
Our route from Venice to Milan
When we arrived in Milan we drove directly to a random parking garage with the intent of getting lunch. We asked the garage attendant if he could recommend a good eatery nearby and he directed us to a pizzeria a few blocks away.
Kathy's pizza - prosciutto and salami. It was the perfect level of saltiness.
My penne with a creamy tomato sauce. I honestly believe I had the best meal at the table.
Tom and Suzette across from us at the restaurant.
The view of Milan outside of the restaurant.
I have been to Italy multiple times and love it - even treat it as my second-home country, however, I have not ever wanted to go to Milan. It's just a city - no real history. Lots of fashion and shopping, but no real reason to be there outside of this. After we all concurred, we headed straight back to the parked car to complete the final 3 1/2 hour drive to Nice, France.
Our route from Milan to Nice, France
We got back on the interstate and headed South towards Genoa where we were to turn sharply to the West. I chose this route because it was a seaside view and what we wanted more than anything was to drive the Pacific Coast Highway of the Mediterranean.
One thing that I didn't realize - that I don't think I even remotely could fathom - was the fact that this highway with a seaside view was actually a very constrictive highway with literally 80 tunnels to drive through. I don't believe that there are 80 tunnels in the whole of the United States, let alone on a 50 mile stretch of road. Below is a video of one such tunnel as we were driving.
Our main purpose in heading to the Riviera was to see the following cities:
Beaulieu Sur Mer
Menton
Monaco
Nice
Cannes
The common thread stitching all of these locations together was the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - frankly one of the more impressive works of cinema released in the late 1980's.
The first filming location that we needed to see was the Grand Hotel, where Freddy and Lawrence meet Janet Colgate.
The GPS had us exit at the country of Monaco in order to get down to the cape. When we were driving the short distance in Monaco, I heard a low rumble of an engine next to our car. When I looked to my left, a Lamborghini passed us and got in front of me. As if that wasn't enough, three Ferrari's passed me on the same stretch of road.
Monaco - nearly the smallest country in the world, but absolutely the richest. The people who live in this country are the most wealthy per-capita in the entire world. There are no taxes here, the country is supported solely by the profits from gambling.
Past the country of Monaco, you reach the town of Villafranche. You might remember this harbor as the Beaumont Sur Mer harbor in the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. The sun was in the absolute worst place at the time I took the photo, so I apologize for the poor color.
The view to the East of the same harbor. They water was so lovely and very inviting. Looks a lot like Malibu.
We continued on our drive to the city of Nice to check into our hotel. We found the architecture of the city so charming. There was no way to photograph even remotely the beauty of the buildings, but the shot below illustrates one such building.
We checked into our hotel - a two star little place at the end of the main boulevard in town. No frills, but it was clean and an great place to drop for the night.
We started walking into town in search of food.
It bears mentioning that French food in Nice was very difficult to come by. All we were able to find was Spaghetti, Pizza, and more Spaghetti. The rare time we could find a restaurant of French cuisine it seemed to be placed there more for the tourist than for actual eating.
A local Nice favorite dish called Nicquios. The four dishes from Left to right clockwise: a stuffed tomato (don't know what it was stuffed with; the stuff that was stuffed in the tomato without the tomato; radish; white fish with pesto sauce. Center - grilled tomato, stuffed tomato, stuffed celery stick and some pastry made out of and garnished with anchovies. Yeah - it tasted like it looked....
Kathy ordered a wonderful olive pizza - she said it was the best pizza she's ever had. I was envious of her meal.
While eating dinner it rained, but let up as once we were ready to tour the town. Here's a shot of the central square of Nice
The famous promenade of Nice - looking East
Another good example of architecture that really impressed me.
Early the next morning there was a farmer's market - they were still getting it ready around 7AM.
Below are just some of my most favorite pictures of our time spent in the South of France.
A view down the "old town" section of Nice - even here, you can easily find Pasta.
The occasional saint in an alcove.
A private chapel in a mansion that has been turned into a free museum.
A lovely view of Nice. The chaotic portion in the foreground is the "old town". You can see the literal distinction where the new city starts.
The same view, this time in video form. You can see the entire panoramic.
Okay, this was my best meal of the entire trip. Hand made pasta noodles, and fresh bolognese sauce. I was in heaven.
The following three shots were taken at the cutest candy stores that I have ever seen. I couldn't resist taking some photos of the colorful displays.
On our final day with the car, we drove to Cannes. The film festival was just recently completed so the city was cleaning up from the events. Honestly, we were not impressed with Cannes. It was almost another Milan - shopping was there, but no real soul. We were happy we went, but there was nothing encouraging us to stay or even come back.
The main drag.
In all, Nice was our most favorite place in the small area of the South we stayed in. We could easily come back for a special vacation. The city is so beautiful, calm, romantic. There was a special pull there that definitely makes us want to return.
Paris
We boarded a train on Tuesday afternoon bound for Paris. Kathy and I had never been to the city, so we were both excited about what to expect. We had only 40 hours there, so we had to be very selective in how we spent our time. I asked the group to come up with the top three things they wanted to do while there - that if we did nothing else they would feel satisfied.
The list was compiled as follows:
See the Eiffel Tower
See the Mona Lisa
Eat a very expensive and tasty French meal
It was very odd how difficult #'s 2 and 3 were to complete.
We arrived after 10:00 on Monday night. It was late and we just wanted to get into our hotel.
The room was very nice and recently renovated. We would easily stay here again.
Along the way from the train station to our hotel, there it was....the Eiffel Tower. Having never seen it before in real life (outside of Las Vegas) I was stopped in my tracks. The thought came to me, "I could die right now and be the happiest man alive". I was so taken aback by this beautiful building that once we checked into the hotel we headed out for a night view of Paris.
My little camera on my iPhone cannot accurately capture the majesty of this structure.
After we grew tired (not of the tower, but of the lateness of the hour) we walked back towards the hotel when there was a unanimity among the four of us that we were hungry. So here we are, in Paris, at midnight. What do you eat? Amazingly enough, all they have around are pizzerias.
The empty plate should tell you how delicious this pizza was. We ate it before I could even think of taking a picture.
We had effectively crossed item 1 off of the list. Now we needed a plan of attack for the next two. With only one full day in Paris we needed to spend it seeing the sights, not walking from location to location. Both Tom and Suzette suggested that we take an open air tour bus on which you can hop on/hop off when you get to a location you want. It was truly brilliant. Here is the Route Map. I suggest you view it if you ever want a fantastic way to see as much as possible as quickly as possible.
The bus picked you up directly in front of the Eiffel Tower. Here are some of my favorite photos of the stops along the way.
It just never gets old....
The Louvre. Mona Lisa - YEAH!!! Except, it's closed on Tuesdays. The only day we were in Paris....
Notre Dame.
Closeup of the intricate stone work on the nave of the cathederal.
Another closeup of the stonework.
A perspective shot of the cathedral.
The Arc d'Triumph.
I just loved this door - it was a beautiful color and the light was hitting it perfectly. I don't know or care what was behind it, but the stories that the door could tell of the era's past would be interesting. What wars had it seen? What death and poverty has it witnessed?
With seeing the Mona Lisa out of the question, the next item on the list was to find a fantastic French restaurant in which we could have a fabulously expensive meal. This proved to be extremely difficult. None of us could understand it. You would see a restaurant - it would serve English food, or American food. The majority of the places served pasta and pizza. What in the world was going on? I didn't realize that so much research needed to be done to find an actual French restaurant!
While walking around, we found this one place nearly at the end of our rope. They had Au Gratin potatoes - I have always deemed those French, so this was the closest we would come to fulfilling objective #3.
Our final meal in Paris - I ordered lamb chops with Au Gratin potatoes. Again, I think I ordered the best.
Kathy ordered an eggplant dish with salad. She loved it, I thought it was bland.
For dessert, I ordered the chocolate crepe.
Kathy ordered the creme brulee.
The final sunrise from our hotel room the morning we departed for home.
Home
It was now time to head home. The greatest thing when flying back from Paris to Salt Lake City is that it is a non-stop flight. Oh the wonderful feeling of wheels up in a foreign land, wheels down at home.
There were no gotchya moments on the flight. No drama. Frankly, there was no more energy. We had walked at least 5 miles a day each and every day. We had not seen our children in almost two weeks. We had taken over 700 pictures between the two of us.
If I could do the trip differently, I would not drive from Venice to Milan - I would not drive long distances at all. I would instead take the train and rent the car at the destination for putting around the extremities. Also, it goes without saying that I would ensure that there was more than 40 hours to spend in Paris.
On the flight home we were crossing the Hudson Bay. Up until this point the blinds had been drawn and I was watching The Shawshank Redemption on my iPad when I took a quick break to look outside. I had never seen ice on the ocean before and quickly snapped this picture. It was amazing to me the stark contrasts of landscape and culture that exists in this world. There is no shortage of places to see, people to meet, ideas to espouse. Living a life of cultural comfort is very limiting and every now and again you need to go someplace that frightens you, that makes you realize what it is you love about what you have and where you live.
I hope that this travel log has entertained you and has made you feel like you were a passenger with us on our journey.
