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3/2020 Our worst days in 28 years of travel

As COVID-19 dominates the news, we are in Hawaii hanging out in Maui and Kona in the sun, avoiding any possible snow and not really too concerned about the virus. Once in a while I realize that I’m in the age group of “old” people (older than 60) who are being urged to stay home – not that I’m not going to do that!

Everyone seems to freak out about travel right now and it made me start thinking about what some of the “worst” travel experiences we’ve had since our first trip together 30 years ago. We’ve certainly had some “adventures” but none of them have been too terrible.

Mark and I had the excitement of two Metro strikes in Paris. We camped (in a tent) in a Paris suburb and took the RER into Paris. The two strikes started in the middle of the day as Paris strikes are prone to do. We were in the city and needed to get back to the campground. The Parisians were VERY helpful and pointed us in the correct direction. We learned a few things along the way:

The Metro and RER share some lines in Paris and the Metro controls the RER signage within Paris. No Metro, no RER signage for which train is approaching.
Every train has a sign in the front window with a 3-letter code designating its final destination. The locals all know the codes and helped us get on the correct train.

We haven’t really had that many cancelled flights along the way. A May hailstorm in Denver made us miss our connection in DC to Frankfurt on our 25the wedding anniversary. Our dinner was United Snack boxes! In case you’ve ever wondered, the Sheraton by Dulles has a bar but it closes at 11 PM so we didn’t even get a glass of wine on our anniversary! Who would ever think a bar in an East Coast hotel would close at 11?

Susan had an extra night in Hong Kong compliments of United after a fan blade shattered on the runway.

We had a REALLY long day in Australia trying to get from Port Macquarie to Tasmania. What should have been a 4 hour trip ended up taking 14 hours! Hobart is another city with no restaurants open after 10 PM. Dominos Pizza was pretty tasty!

Tasmania was lovely after we finally arrived!

Oh, yeah! Don’t fly from Berlin if there’s a chance of snow. At Berlin Tegel the de-icers have to come to the plane. Our flight (1 inch of snow caused this) was so late leaving Berlin for Munich that we arrived in Munich after EVERY flight to the U.S. had departed. It took a bit of negotiating to get on a flight to Frankfurt and a rush through the Frankfurt airport to the gate with only enough time for a toilet break and grab a sandwich. Ten hours after leaving our hotel in Berlin, we were still in Germany! The only good thing about this was that we got home at 1 AM so had no jet lag the next day.

Then there was the direct flight from Denver to Maui that wasn’t! We landed in Los Angeles for a faulty radio and waited for a replacement plane, landing in Maui about 6 hours late. Lesson learned – Beer sales stop at 11 PM in Hawaii in grocery stores but there’s no line at the rental car office in Maui at 10 AM and no traffic driving across the island.

We were in London one day and learned that Londoners who ride the Tube aren’t really very good at figuring out the Bus. The Tube was shut down for a bomb scare and no one appeared to know which bus to take!

Another nature-related travel adventure was in Maui. One Spring Break in Maui began with a night on the floor of the Civic Center after the earthquake in Japan triggered a tsunami warning for Hawaii. Listening to the Hawaii Tsunami alerts all night long was educational to say the least. Be sure to take a pillow with you if you ever have to evacuate your hotel room.

Then there was the bad traffic day in Chattanooga, TN on a road trip around the U.S.. First, the interstate was backed up for miles with a truck accident. After we picked a random exit, we drove through the middle of Chattanooga using only a tiny square AAA city map (This was before cell phones.) and came across a torrent of water in the street. 10 minutes later the radio reported a water main break exactly where we’d driven and they shut that road!

In about a month, we’ve booked a cruise from Miami to Barcelona with some time in Barcelona and then in London. The corona virus news is everywhere but we’ve decided that we’re going on the cruise unless they cancel it. After all, we went to England for Thanksgiving in 2001 after 9/11. The English were quite happy to see some tourists. We flew home from Portugal on July 4, 2002 and the news was full of commentary about blowing up planes on 4^th of July.

So, follow along and we’ll keep you posted on the cruise adventure during COVID-19 in 2020. We’re sort of wishing we were in Rome right now to see it without too many tourists.

3/2020 Observations about shopping at Costco in Kona on a Sunday during the coronavirus

We’re in Kona for a few weeks, arriving yesterday afternoon. We’ve rented a condo and needed to visit Costco and Safeway to stock up for 2 weeks before we return the car later today.

Costco in Kona on a Sunday is always chaos but today was worse. We can safely report that buying toilet paper for the coronavirus is a “real thing”. 90% of all the carts had at least on of the BIG Costco packs of toilet paper; many had cases of bottled water (Why do you need bottled water in Kona where the water is perfectly drinkable?) and quite a few had cases of beer.

Costco is restricting the number of cases of bottled water and TP you can buy but I didn’t venture to that section of the store to look for signs or information.

My new research project if I were a Consumer Science prof would be to find out the average number of rolls of TP a home stores at any one time.

11/14 The rest of the trip!

The overnight ferry from Palermo went pretty well. Lots of people use the ferry with their dogs and we met quite a few dogs as we wandered the halls. We headed to Pompeii via train to Naples from the port.

Pompeii is a HUGE site. We highly recommend NOT visiting Pompeii in the summer. Even though the temps were only in the 70’s, the humidity was high and there’s not much shade. According to our B&B owner, at least 2 people die every year from heart attacks. Mark and I are pretty sure more people than that break or sprain an ankle on the site.

All of the devastation was caused by Mount Vesuvius exploding. Only about 2000 people died from the heat and ash that buried the city. Excavations keep lots of archaeologists busy!

The forum where everyone gathered. This is the most visited part of Pompeii and walking around here is pretty easy. Mt. Vesuvius is in the background

A city street. You can see why walking is quite interesting!

The frescos are amazing. You find them in a variety of houses just wandering around.

Mount Vesuvius in the background framed by one city gate.

After Pompeii, we headed off to Capri right at the end of the season (ends on 10/31). Many shops and a few hotels were already closed, not to reopen to around Easter. Restaurants and bars also close for the winter and workers head off for 3-4 months of holiday. Several waiters and owners told us they work 12-14 hours every day from Easter until the end of October and are more than ready for a break.

Closed for the season. Capri is full of high end shops which we did not patronize!

80% of visitors to Capri are day trippers and we can believe that! Cruise ship tour groups and “regular” tour groups crowded the center of Capri every day; when evening came, we pretty much had the island to ourselves.

On Halloween, the local kids went trick or treating to the local businesses. This King Charles spaniel helped greet the children.

The streets are VERY narrow in Capri. Special trucks pick up garbage, deliver goods. This one is a medical ambulance.

St. Michele Church in Anacapri with a tile floor painted with the story of Adam and Eve. It’s now a museum and not a church. You can see the walkway around the floor to walk around the floor.

We think the apple tree in Adam and Eve became a lemon tree in this floor. Lemons are all over Capri!

Rome was our last city. How do you get to Rome from Capri?? Not easily, if you’re not with a tour group.

Walk from your hotel to the funicular in Capri to get to the port.
Buy a ticket and take the ferry to Sorrento (about 30 Minutes).
Walk or take the elevator (1 euro) UP from the port of Sorrento to the main town. Best 1 euro you can spend!
Walk to the train station, dodging tour groups.
Take the local train to Naples – think 24 stops and 50 minutes, standing the whole way unless you luck out and find a seat.
Take the highspeed train to Rome and figure out how to get to where you’re staying once you’re in Rome. We opted for a taxi to our AirBnB.

We arrived in Rome on November 1, All Saints Day, and a holiday in many countries. Rome was packed with people for the weekend but calmed down come Monday.

Sunday, we went to St. Peter’s to visit the church and ended up seeing Pope Francis giving his blessing – in Italian!

One of the many churches we saw. We met an Italian TV personality in Palermo (She does shows about important houses in Italy.) and she told us to stop in any church when we see it open. You never know when it will open again! So many churches are plain and boring on the outside but when you walk in – WOW!

To get home, we flew from Rome to Frankfurt, spent the night, and took the direct United flight to Denver with the crazy lady sitting directly in front of Mark. Other than punching the call button ALL the time, ignoring her lap baby and 5-year old, and yelling at the flight attendants, she was your normal passenger. Denver’s finest met her when she got off the plane and United supervisors were everywhere! Mark told the flight attendants to call him if they need any backup for her behavior!

11/14 Palermo

Our month in Sicily ended with 3 nights in Palermo before we took an overnight ferry to Civitavecchia, the port for Rome. We weren’t really expecting much from Palermo, having never read many great stories about the city. It’s the largest in Sicily with about 700,000 people and is supposed to be quite dirty and chaotic. Even the other Sicilians (not from Palermo) we met didn’t speak highly of it and warned us that traffic in Palermo is the worst on the island – mass chaos!

We enjoyed Palermo overall but have to agree that stop signs and red lights appear to be optional; park wherever – if your flashers are on, you’re legal!

We met some lovely people, ate some good food, and visited more churches, of course!

Best granite we had in a month. Granite is like a slushy but made with fresh fruit and some sugar. This one just used fresh lemons and ice. It was very tart and yummy!

Palermo twist on aperol spritz – limoncello, prosecco, tonic water, and a scoop of granite on the top. This was the best one!

It’s hard to see but the sign on the left side is a Water Closet sign. First time we saw it, we thought it had been moved. Second time, we figured out the sign points to a WC BEHIND the altar! We saw a few people coming out from there.

The Royal Chapel covered in mosaics on all walls and floors. It’s spectacular but small when we compared it to Monreale the next day.

Translation – horse meat. We didn’t go check out the various cuts you can buy.

We needed a beef burger after all the pasta and pizza that dominate most Italian menus. This restaurant let us choose between donkey, buffalo, pork, horse, chicken , veggie. Yes, beef is on the menu but didn’t make the picture.

Mark found this ingenious cat perch one day.

11/4 – A day in Erice

Erice is a tiny village perched on a mountain top above Trapani. You can reach it either by road or by cable car. We opted for cable car and spent a nice day wandering around the little town, losing our way in the lanes and streets with no names. Why would you want to know where you are??

We visited the obligatory church. This one had an amazing carved ceiling.

The truck fit, but barely. The streets were all paved in stones of various patterns. This was an easy one to walk on. Some of the others – not so much!

Police station working hours. I guess you can’t report a crime any other time of day.

11/4 Sicilian questions

I’m so far behind updating our trip. Can I blame it on slow connections? Or maybe just having too much fun??

We spent 8 days in Trapani, just hanging out at a really nice AirBnb with a balcony overlooking the sea. We had the best hosts EVER! They supplied us with some Trapanese food specialties so we’d try them. After we asked for a recommendation for the best cannoli, they stopped by the next day with 2 fresh cannoli for us! “The best place was too far for you to walk.” They even gave us a ride to the bus station when we checked out.

View from our balcony while we had a little Happy Hour.

This is the bay by Trapani. Lots of sailing, fishing, snorkeling goes on here. Our apt. was across the street from the bay

This is businate pasta, a regional specialty. The pasta is twisted and is a bit chewy but is yummy with sauce and garlic and seafood.

Salt is a product of the area. These salt pans are flooded with sea water and after the water evaporates, the salt is harvested. Harvesting season was over for the year.

Yes … that is harvested salt sitting at the dock waiting for shipment but we don’t no to where!

As we’ve traveled around the island, we’ve made some observations. Here goes!

Low to the floor beds! 5 out 6 beds have been ridiculously low to the ground. Why?? Only one bed has had box springs – just fairly good mattresses. We wonder what someone who grew up here thinks the first time he/she sees a U.S mattress and box springs on a high bed frame?? Mark says all the pillows are flat, too!
“Transition” coats – We learned this term from a German friend who says there’s no good English translation for the German word but it amounts to a light Fall jacket. We see people in puffy coats all the time; meanwhile, Mark waers his shorts and Susan wears capris and no jackets.
Sicilians don’t seem to be very fond of A/C or draughts either. Scarves are everywhere and not for decoration. One of the ladies working in the Poste had a heavy scarf around her neck. We couldn’t even tell any A/C might be on!
Signage in National Archeological Parks or the lack thereof – After visiting 3 of these sites, we’ve determined no extra money is spent on signage to guide visitors around the sites in a logical – or even illogical order. One site had a pretty good map; one had a barely useful map; and one had none at all! The ticket guy just shrugged when I asked for one. Why would I need a map?
A few arrows along the way would help visitors decide if the track leads someplace – like to a temple – or if it’s just a track made by visitors? When they do have a “path”, let’s just say some of the paths would never quite be approved by the U.S. NPS!

Laundry … just typical European washing machines – The wash and rinse process takes a minimum of 90 minutes. Why do our clothes need rinsed and spun 3 times??
Toilets – our grades for public toilets are based on 4 things: toilet paper, soap, water, and a hand dryer/paper towels. We haven’t found many that score 4/4. We carry TP and a hand towel with us along with hand sanitizer.

10/22 – More ruins in Selinunte

We booked a driver to take us from Agrigento to Trapani because we wanted to stop at Selinunte ruins and it’s impossible to do with public transport. Salvo picked us up about 9:30 and off we went through olive groves and vineyards. Salvo was full of good info about olive oil industry and answered our various questions about schools, olive oil, bridges, etc. in Sicily. Did I mention he looked like George Clooney, too?

Selinunte is on the coast and is packed with visitors in the summer when tourists come to spend a week or 2 or 3 at the beaches here. In October, not so much! We had the grounds pretty much to ourselves except for 2 tour groups who used a bus to move between the 2 majors parts of the park. We walked down the long hill and back up the hill to the Acropolis.

Our walk started here at the only rebuilt temple on the complex.

Every archaeological park seems to have piles of extra “parts” just in case you need to build another temple.

The temple at the Acropolis was destination #2. It wasn’t as far as it looks to walk.

View from the Acropolis toward the Mediterranean Sea

Use of a spell checker would go far. Another place I could spell my proofreading services.

10/19 – Agrigento

As we’ve traveled around Sicily, we’ve made some observations. Here goes!

Low to the floor beds! 5 out 6 beds have been ridiculously low to the ground. Only one bed has had box springs. We wonder what someone who grew up here thinks the first time he/she sees a U.S mattress and box springs on a high bed frame?? Mark says all the pillows are flat, too!
“Transition” coats – We learned this term from a German friend who says there’s no good English translation for the German word but it amounts to a light Fall jacket. We see people in puffy coats all the time; meanwhile, Mark has his shorts on and Susan is wearing capris and no jackets. Sicilians don’t seem to be very fond of A/C or drafts either. Scarves are everywhere and not for decoration. One of the ladies working in the Poste today had a heavy scarf around her neck. We couldn’t even tell any A/C might be on!
Signage in National Archaeological Parks or the lack thereof – After visiting 3 of these sites, we’ve determined no extra money is spent on signage to guide visitors around the sites in a logical or even illogical order. One site had a pretty good map; one had a barely useful map; and one had none at all! The ticket guy just shrugged when I asked for one. Why would I need a map? A few arrows along the way would help visitors decide if the track leads someplace – like to a temple – or if it’s just a track made by visitors? When they do have a “path”, let’s just say some of the paths would never quite be approved by the U.S. NPS!

Laundry … just typical European washing machines – The wash and rinse process takes a minimum of 90 minutes. Why do our clothes need rinsed and spun 3 times??
Toilets – our grades for public toilets are based on 4 things: toilet paper, soap, water, and a hand dryer/paper towels. We haven’t found many that score 4/4. We carry TP and a hand towel with us along with hand sanitizer.

Agrigento is known for the Valley of the Temples, a large complex of important Greek/Roman/Byzantine sites. We walked all over the complex for about 3.5 hours and 4 miles in the sun!

Walking up the hill to Temple of Juno. Toilets and a snack bar were at the bottom of this hill.

Must need a snack back in town after the Temple day. The cannoli shells are baked but empty when you order. The baker fills the shell when you order to insure freshness.

Later in the day, we visited the Cathedrale which was magnificent. The path we chose involved walking UP about 200 steps to wind our way through town to the top of the hill because where else would a cathedrale be built?

Mark walked up the inside of the church to get the view from near the painted ceiling. He didn’t go higher when he heard thunder and saw black clouds.

Sure enough! It poured while we had a drink on an outdoor patio. Thank heavens the umbrella over the table kept us dry.

Some steps with a few local cats hanging out!

10/19 – Ragusa

Ragusa is another hill city. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1692; rebuilt up high but the aristocrats liked the lower part better. They rebuilt there, separated by a valley. Lower Ragusa is the most scenic part as far as tourists go.

We took the bus from Modica to Upper Ragusa (only place the bus goes); found the local bus to Lower Ragusa, guessing where to get off. The streets are narrow, winding, and all UP or DOWN. Lots of houses appear abandoned. You could buy one if you’re in the mood to deal with Italian bureaucracy for the sale and then all the workers to renovate it.

Of course, to return to Modica, we did the whole thing in reverse. Riding buses in Sicily would be MUCH easier if any of the bus stops happened to have a posted schedule on it or even show the bus numbers. In Ragusa, the bus route number was handwritten on white cardboard and placed in the bus window. The schedules must be passed from generation to generation!

Lower Ragusa from the bus as we drove to upper Ragusa

Duomo dome above the buildings in the narrow street — Narrow street to walk up to the Duomo.

For some reason, the duomo doesn’t sit flush with the piazza. It’s at an angle to the piazza which is on a hill! Notice the steps UP to the entrance to the church.

Table with legs on a block to level the table — When the tables sit on a sloped piazza, the only solution is to use blocks to make the tables level. Quite clever!

10/19 – Modica

Modica is a hill town in Sicily, famous for making chocolate! When the word “hill” is used to describe anything in Sicily, you can count on MANY hills and steps to move around the town. Modica is a lovely town; if you visit, make sure you check the location of your B&B or hotel. You could find yourself lugging suitcases up MANY steps to find the correct street!

Panorama shot from the overlook at the top of Modica. We took a little train around the city to get up high.

Upper and lower Modica with the cathedral. All the buildings are approximately the same color.

Church of San Pietro – 23 steps to get to the door. These steps are a popular place for local teenagers to hang out in the evening.

“Steps to nowhere” or up to the next street through the arch.

Modica chocolate tour factory. They make it without any added milk products. It’s pretty yummy! The tour had plenty of samples including a small sample of Italian hot chocolate. It tasted like melted chocolate to me – quite thick.

We saw some amazing bridges! This is the view from the balcony of our AirBnb in Modica. The train station is below the bridge and only entailed a short uphill walk pulling our carry-on sized suitcases.

The other great part about our balcony was watching the parking adventures below. Lines are optional and turning on the blinkers seems to make parking OK wherever you put the car.

10/14 Siracusa

Sicily is an island – check. Sicily has LOTS of cactus (prickly pear, cholla) growing – check. So what’s the climate like?? The island would make you think humid and the cactus makes me think dry. You are correct on both counts. The land is pretty dry, supporting the cactus, but lots of citrus orchards dot the island. The air on the other hand is quite humid, at least by Colorado standards.

We’ve had great weather with very little rain, lots of sun, and some major wind thrown in. My hair has been pulled up many days because the air is so humid that when we’re in the sun, my hair is wet from all the sweat! I’ve given up on curling the hair and just use tons of hair spray to keep it out of my face!

We spent 5 nights in Siracusa, staying on the island of Ortygia. At this time of year, abundant tour groups appeared every day in the narrow streets. By night, we had the streets pretty much to ourselves and were on a first name basis with the owner of Gusto, a gelateria!

View from our apartment in the Jewish Quarter of Ortygia.

Greek walls in Duomo walls — The duomo was built on the site of a Greek/Roman temple and incorporates the columns into the church walls.

A column or two are visible on the outside of the Duomo.

In contrast to the Duomo, this Basilica was built to our Lady of Lacrime in the 1990’s, I think. This pointy roof is visible from all over the city.

The archaeological park is the big attraction in Siracusa with a Roman theatre and a Greek theatre (this one). We wandered all over, up and down, waiting for the rain to come. The sky looks blue here but it quickly turned to black!

The day at the Greek theater Garmin told me I walked 37 flights of steps!

This board is the Funeral announcement board for Funeral masses and memorial commemorations.

As far we can tell, Michelin is a sponsor of this church – maybe some renovations??

Susan holding a wine galss. — I needed some prosecco after we got caught in a rain storm!

10/10 Blowing away on Mt. Etna

We wanted to see Mt. Etna and booked a day trip with a driver and guide, John Franco. He was knowledgeable about volcanoes as well as about local food. Mt. Etna has multiple calderas. We went to the South side which is set up for tourists – parking lot with shops and food, a cable car to the top which stopped a few times on the way up; a bus at the top to take us farther up the volcano where the guide walked us inside the caldera. He tried to educate us along the way but the wind was slo strong no one could here the guide.

All the guys working up on the mountain looked like they could be employed in Colorado ski resorts – down jackets, ski hats, scarfs.

Etna is rarely not windy; the day we went the wind was howling! The mountain guide cut the walk short when he decreed the wind was too heavy to walk safely. I’d been thinking the same thing for about 15 minutes!

The mountain was in the clouds when we got to the top. This rock is indeed helping to hold the little building in place!

Lava fields inside the caldera. The lava was warm in a few places and we could smell the sulfur when the wind blew in the “correct” direction.

Large boulder holding building down. — The wind was still howling at this point but John Franco snapped a picture. Thank heavens I had a hood to keep my ears relatively warm. Mark passed on the shorts for this excursion but lots of guys had them on and did not look very happy!

10/10 On to Taormina

Stop number 2 in Sicily was Taormina and we took the Interbus from Catania – not a bad ride for about an hour and only cost $7.50 each. Taormina is a very touristy town set on a hill with beaches below. At this time of year, it was crowded during the day with cruise ship gaggles and tour groups. At night, it was a little more calm. We stayed in a VRBO right outside the old town, making for a nice walk every day. Yes, we got at least 10,000 steps every day and many of them were on hills and actual steps to move between levels.

This was the view from our patio. They guess it was a bath but no one can find the source of the water. Watching traffic go by on a hill, stop on a hill, double park, blow horns was good entertainment.

Aperol spritzer and an arancini (rice ball with various fillings mixed in)

Seafood is huge here, given that Sicily is an island. We ate seafood risotto and seafood pasta one night. Yes, it was yummy!

Italian breakfast – granite (crushed ice, lemon and a bit of sugar) and a brioche. The pink one is a strawberry granite

Panorama of the Greek theater, a mere 2000 years old, with Mount Etna looming in the background

We were at the top of the Greek theater where you can see Mount Etna really well on a clear day. It’s not very far away!

10/9 – Bus riding lessons in Sicily

We’re in Sicily using public transport to get around the island. Sunday, we needed to go from Taormina to Siracusa and decided to use Interbus again. With no direct bus except at 8:15 AM, we had to take the bus from Taormina to Catania and then take another bus to Siracusa. Well, we learned one thing! Check where the FIRST stop is for the bus on a busy route and board the bus there, if possible.

We took Bus 1 all the way to the aeroporto in Catania, knowing that a bus goes to Siracusa from there. Little did we know that the bus route actually starts in the middle of Catania. By the time Bus 2 arrived at the airport, it was very full on a Sunday at 12:40. (We knew this was possible since the bus lady said the bus was full when I asked about a departure time.) Given that the next bus to Siracusa didn’t leave until 2:40 PM, we REALLY wanted on this one – didn’t want to hang out at the aeroporto for 2 more hours.

We did our best European/Italian “what’s a line?” act! Mark took the bags to put them under the bus in the luggage compartment – it’s all self-service – while Susan stood as close to the curb as she could when the bus approached. She was the third person on the bus when the driver muttered to the lady in front of her something in Italian. I could tell by her expression it probably translated to “The bus is full”. I asked him in English and the driver replied, “I have only 2 seats”. (The lady needed more than 2.) I quickly said, “We are 2” and motioned to Mark to push through the crowd at the door and get on the bus!

It worked! We were a bit squished for the 1 hour ride and Mark had to make some young lady move her purse out of a seat but we had seats and left everyone else to curse the Italian bus ticketing system and maybe us, too.

We could see Mount Etna spewing smoke while we waited for a bus at the Catania airport.

10/9 – Catania, Sicily

We flew to Catania from Munich on an uneventful flight. The luggage people were as slow as Denver getting our bags! We figured out the Alibus, took it to town and walked to our B&B on narrow little sidewalks along streets with no street signs. Google maps was our friend at 7:15 PM as it was getting dark!

Catania is every stereotype you’ve heard of Sicily – old, lots of graffiti, and garbage in the streets – but it is pretty inexpensive to eat and drink in the neighborhoods and we had some good food during our 2 days here. Aperol spritzers were 4 euro and beer was 1 euro!

One day we went to the WWII Museum to learn about the British, American and Canadian invasion of the island. I would not have wanted to be one of those soldiers dealing with all the hills/mountains, heat and humidity.

Duomo square in Catania — The Duomo in Catania. We gave up counting how many churches we passed walking around the city.

Fish head with lie in fish market — Catania has a large fish market near where we stayed. This guy still had the fishing line attached to him while they cut him up.

Plates of oyster and half lemons — We’re not oyster fans but, if you are, you can buy plates fresh at the market. These are large oysters and there were also plates of smaller ones.

Pasta and seafood in a paper wrapper — This was dinner one night – seafood and pasta cooked in a paper wrap. It was yummy – and we assume fresh!

If you don’t want fish, you can always buy a chicken to cook.

Greek theater in middle of Catania — Greek theatre in the middle of Catania. Houses are built into the walls and the Church of San Francis of Assisi is just behind it. The numbers and directions to follow on the walking tour left a bit to be desired. This time of year is pretty slow for tourists. We had it almost to ourselves.

Screen on a window attached with concrete — This is one way to have screens on your window! The top one is a “real” screen fitted in the window. The bottom screen is attached with concrete to the screen and wall.

10/2 – On to Munich and Oktoberfest

THEN it was off to Munich! We decided to take the train, Deutsche Bahn. Trains are, after all, more climate conscience and scenic than flying. We bought the ticket a few months ago and we had a seat reservation from Essen to Munich.

When you think of Germany, what do you think? Efficient, great engineering, cars, beer. You certainly expect the train system to work, right? Let’s just say, DB did not have a good day on Monday! Our train arrived in Essen, missing half the scheduled cars (about 8 cars total missing), including the one we had a seat reservation on. The DB conductor said, “Sit anywhere”.

“But there are no seats” …

Oh, well”, he shrugged!

We found seats for about 2 hours before two people showed up with reservations in those seats. We gathered up our backpacks and joined the gaggle of people standing in the aisles. About this time, the train arrived at Frankfurt Airport station; announcements told passengers (in German, of course) to use a different train to Munich and what tracks alternative trains could be found on.

Mark and I decided to get off the train and see what we could find. I went to visit the ticket office and managed to find 2 seat reservations on the 2:38 PM train in about an hour. Nope! The ticket agent discovered that train was cancelled! Like I said, DB was having a bad train day!

We grabbed the next train to Munich with no reservations and managed to find 2 unassigned seats to Munich and chatted with two businessmen – a German and a Belgian. The German said DB doesn’t do very well in the opinion of Germans. It’s late, equipment problems, rude employees. If Germany is serious about climate change like they profess, DB needs to get their act together in increase train use and reduce flying and cars!

We arrived in Munich only about 1 hour late so all was well.

One note … we stayed in a Sheraton Westpark in Munich using points. Great hotel in a convenient location. For the first time ever in 29 years of visiting Germany, the breakfast breadbasket did not have any German brotchen! These are yummy crispy rolls and we have NEVER not seen them on the breakfast table. They’ve been on small B&B tables, brand name hotels, campground bakeries. What was I supposed to eat my cheese and ham on for breakfast??

We’ve had 2 enjoyable days here with friends from University of Iowa, Sam and Josh. Good weather for Oktoberfest, English Gardens, a bit of sightseeing, and visits to 3 tents to compare the differences – Marstall, Spaten, and Hofbrau.

Marstall serves Spaten beer in their test as well as champagne and wine! We opted for beer and pretzels at 11 AM.

We both did some shopping and bought some Bavarian clothes to wear. The dirndl was pretty comfortable but needs a little work done to it when we get home. We are not carrying these around for the rest of the trip. We mailed them home with DHL.

Oxen cooking in the tent — This is one of the oxen being cooked in the Marstall tent. They go through about 97 of them during Oktoberfest, according to last year’s stats.

Jutta showed up on Thursday after work in Munich. We spent Friday afternoon at Marstall tent enjoying the food and beer. A table of French guys near us provided the entertainment as we watched them break 2 glasses (one handle and on big chip out of the top of another one); got told to stop after they danced on the table top – not allowed! They also spilled a glass of beer on the shoes of a Lufthansa flight attendant and she was NOT happy! She flies to Denver all the time and had just flown back from DC that morning before coming to Oktoberfest.

Mark, Susan and Jutta at the entrance to Oktoberfest. Susan has bright orange shoes on because her other ones fell apart after 20 some years of serving their purpose. Guess I’ll have to do some show shopping in November!

platter of cheese, ham, radishes, pickles on a wooden platter — This was a yummy food platter to go with the beer. No chickens for us this year!

10/2 – First stop – Kettwig, Germany

We had a lovely weekend in Kettwig, Germany, with Jutta who we met in Tanzania in 2017. She was on our flight from Istanbul to Kilimanjaro, landing at 2 AM, and then in the same hotel before our safaris started. This was an “0”th birthday and Jutta invited us to her party! We had a great time meeting her friends and celebrating her big day.

Kettwig is on the Ruhr River but was largely undamaged during WWII. Now, it’s a quiet place about 15 km. from Essen where lots of people commute to work.

Window boxes of flowers hanging on slate walls. — First time I’ve ever seen slate used for wall tiles but it’s all over the old town of Kettwig.

9/9/2019 – Birthday visit

Our first stop was in Frederick, MD for overnight and a quick stop at Monacacy Battlefield (Civil War) and Francis Scott Key’s burial site. It was a quick 130 miles to Cumberland, MD and a visit with mom for her birthday. Just by dumb luck, Susan’s high school class had a 65th birthday party that weekend so I managed to catch up with a few old friends.

We took Mom for a drive and visit to the 1812 Brewery in Cumberland, MD. Mainly open on the weekends. Of course, Mom knew 3 people there!

6/2019 – Road Trip time!

It’s been a while since Mark and Susan have planned a “real” road trip so when a wedding invitation appeared in the mail, we decided it was time! We headed off to Des Moines – about 630 miles. We’ve done the drive in one day but, being retired has its advantages and one of those advantages is spending the night in the middle of the drive! We stopped in Lincoln, Nebraska, for the night and squeezed in a visit to Boiler Brewery.

If you’ve never driven across eastern Colorado and Nebraska from west to east, you haven’t missed anything except about 500 miles of rolling plains covered in corn while your car passes and is passed by LOTS of trucks.

After a walking tour of the University of Nebraska in the morning, we drove on to Des Moines where we spent the weekend with our niece and her husband while we went to a wedding. Iowa is much hillier than Nebraska and the scenery changes, adding soybean fields and windmills to the corn fields. For those of you who have thought about riding RAGBRAI, be ready for hills.

Next, we headed south to Creston, Iowa, for 3 days with Mark’s mom. We admit it … we’re spoiled! The humidity was too high for us (95% on the day we left).

Time to head back to Fort Collins taking a less-than-direct route. We zigzagged our way northwest across the back roads of Iowa to get to Sioux Falls, SD.

Susan FINALLY ate a Maid-Rite sandwich, invented in Iowa. I’ve heard about them forever but never ate one. They are nothing more than a “loose meat” sandwich (another Midwest term). This translates to ground beef cooked and put on a hamburger bun but not made into a patty. Ketchup, mustard, onions and the rest of the usual condiment suspects are added to the bun. The best way I can describe a Maid-rite is a sloppy Joe without any spices or tomato sauce added.

We visited a friend in Sioux Falls, SD, spent the night and then headed to Mitchell, South Dakota, home of the famous Corn Palace.

Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. The building is covered in colored corn cobs. The theme on the building changes every year. Inside the Palace are clean restrooms, popcorn, displays about the history of the Corn Palace and a gift shop housed in the basketball arena when no games are played.

From Mitchell, it’s a pretty much straight ride north on US Highway 181 across the South Dakota plains to the North Dakota border and on up to I-94. I-94 is also straight with the only difference being that it heads east/west instead of north/south!

We were both missing North Dakota in our quest to visit all 50 states. We had to stop for a selfie to prove we made it to North Dakota!

A flat cornfield in South Dakota. This one was dry enough to be planted.

South Dakota and North Dakota were inundated with rain and snow this year causing river floods and flooded farm fields. We passed lots of fields with standing water and no hope of planting a crop this year. To add misery to the farmers a strong rainstorm battered us for about 30 minutes, limiting visibility and adding to the wet fields.

Mark loves the South and North Dakota interstates with an 80 mph speed limit. Even the backroads have 65 mph speed limits.

Salem Sue lives at the top of a hill in Salem, ND. It’s only about a 5 minute drive off the interstate.

North Dakota loves BIG things including Salem Sue and Sandy the Sandhill Crane.

Sandy, the large sand hill crane, is off I94 at the Steele, ND exit. Susan stood by the leg for a quick picture before the rain started!

Theodore Roosevelt National Park makes a good one day park if you’re not into hiking when the wind is gusting at 40 mph constantly. This is the North Dakota region of the badlands and is the only National Park we’ve seen with an interstate running through the middle of it.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park Badlands in the South Unit. The wind was howling so no one was in the mood for a hike.

Yes, that’s I-94 winding its way across North Dakota and the middle of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. My Senior Pass came in handy!

A few buffalo grazed along the side of the road creating a traffic jam.

If you’ve never driven across the western part of the U.S., this gives you a pretty good idea of how open and HUGE this part of the country is. North Dakota is 340 miles from east to west, not as big as Texas but big enough.

We spent a few hours at Devil’s Tower National Monument in northeast Wyoming and it was packed with visitors, including a large group of boy scouts. Went for a nice 1.3 mile hike/walk around the Tower before we headed to Gillette, Wyoming to spend the night and have some tasty Mexican food.

Devil’s Tower National Monument, Wyoming

The last day took us from Gillette to Fort Collins. Since this was Wyoming, the wind must be blowing! Signs were posted all over the interstate warning of 40 mph wind gusts. By the way, I-25 across Wyoming is not very exciting either … miles of not much scenery but as least the traffic was light and the speed limit is 80 mph.

A few bluffs decorate the Wyoming landscape.

Straight road in North Dakota. — The roads can be pretty straight in this part of the country. The bugs plastered the windshield and Mark cleaned the windows at least once a day after he determined that Susan doesn’t use the proper technique.

12 days and 2300 miles later, we drove back into Fort Collins and Mark drove all 2300 miles! This road trip was so much fun, we’re thinking about where the next one should go. New Mexico and Arizona, maybe??

3/31 – Ireland, part 2

After Julia flew back to Iowa, Mark and I headed north to Belfast, Northern Ireland. It’s certainly not as big as Dublin and not as prosperous but the visit gave us an opportunity to try to understand more about The Troubles over the years.

A high cross at Monasterboice. We stopped along the way to Belfast.

We took an interesting and educational Black Taxi tour of The Troubles area in Belfast. The “wall” – really a 70-foot high fence that’s been made taller since the Good Friday agreement was signed – still exists as well as gates between the Roman Catholic and Protestant areas in the Falls Road area. The gates are closed and locked every night at 11 PM.

This memorial is on the Catholic side of the fence. These houses have fencing over their backyards to keep rocks from damaging windows. The fence is now about 70 feet tall to prevent more damaging items from making it over the fence.

We’ve been listening carefully to all the Brexit coverage here where the BBC has pretty much non-stop coverage. It’s a new surprise every day! The border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is a huge sticking point. Personally, I can’t see any solution to the open border of Good Friday agreement and the closed border of the EU/non-EU country. At the moment, there’s no border – just a sign saying “Welcome to Northern Ireland” on the M1 that’s been covered with red paint! When we left NI, we saw no signs at all.

These signs are everywhere in Northern Ireland – at least in Nationalist areas.

After Belfast, our next stop was Bushmills and Giant’s Causeway way up in the north. We lucked out with the first truly nice day of the trip – blue sky, sunshine, relatively warm. The scenery was spectacular for Giant’s Causeway visit and a drive along the coast. Bushmills is a tiny village with Bushmills Irish Whiskey distillery and not much else.

Since the sun was out, we walked 2.5 miles to the Giants Causeway and back. The path followed the tram line and wound through a golf course. Later we drove on the Causeway Scenic Drive. This is a view along that.

You’d better be good golfer to avoid the roughs.

A geologist can explain the details of the rocks that make them wear away into pillars.

Mark and Susan in front of the pillars at Giants Causeway. — We’re getting better with the selfies. We didn’t scramble all over the rocks like the group of French high school students did.

Sunbathing, Irish Style, when the sun decides to come out!

On the drive back down to Dublin, we drove through one town that’s clearly a Unionist town. The curbs and bridges were painted red, white, and blue and the British flag was flying high.

If you look carefully, you can see Scotland as a shadow in the very back of the picture. It was clear enough to see the mainland of Scotland!

Our last stop before we head off to London is south of Dublin to visit friends David and Celia Drane, their 3 children, 2 dogs, one cat, sheep, horses, cows, and chickens for the weekend.

One note about Google maps … I had a paper map with me that we used in conjunction with Google maps. Google maps is great in the cities and towns but needs some human intervention in countries like Ireland where there aren’t many motorways (interstates). When you ask for directions from A to B, it seems to choose the shortest route, without any knowledge of whether those roads are big roads or little roads. In Ireland, a little road can end up being a 1.5 lane road where the speed limit might turn out to be 20 mph due to sheer width of the road! After the first day of this, I started planning out a route on the paper map (making sure I used major roads) and then using Google to take me on that route.

Google maps also has a small problem with roundabouts in Northern Ireland. Many of their roundabouts require you to get in the correct lane ahead of time if you don’t want to be forced off at the wrong exit. Google maps can’t tell you to be in the 2nd lane from the left. Their database doesn’t contain the lane markings painted on the road!

Google is good at winding you through back streets if you take a wrong turn. It never told us to turn around in town! And it does know the tiny lanes to use to find ruins and churches out in the country.

3/31- Update from green Ireland

We’ve been in Ireland for about 19 days now checking out some sights alone and with Mark’s sister, Julia for 10 of those days. Mark and Susan got a few extra days because a lovely winter storm decided to show its head in Colorado on our scheduled departure date (the bomb cyclone of snow and high winds). We proactively called United and convinced them to let us change the tickets with the same exact routing to 2 days early. I must have been super nice because they agreed – we packed, left the next day and spent 2 extra days in Dublin, arriving just in time for a winter wind and rain storm.

Julia arrived on March 15 and the adventure began with overnights at Navan, Liscannor, Killarney, Kilkenny, and Dublin. High winds and rain continue!

You can tell how windy it was at the Hill of Tara. This was the end of the winter storm in Ireland.

Burial passages at Newgrange. The rain poured down here while we listened to the tour guide. We were glad to be the first group in the passage because the rain had mostly stopped by the time we came out.

Newgrange burial passages — Wind was blowing straight into my face. It was bit chilly!

Newgrange stone building — Part of Newgrange. You can see why Ireland is called the Emerald Isle – caused by copious quantities of rain including the rain drop on the camera lens.

Mark drove while Susan navigated, and Julia enjoyed the scenery from the backseat. We visited Newgrange in a downpour and the Cliffs of Moher in 40 mph winds. The rest of the days were typical spring weather – grey, cloudy, off and on rains.

On the drive from Navan to Liscannor (north of Dublin across the country to County Clare in the west), we stopped in Tullamore to tour the Tullamore Whiskey distillery. Google maps had a problem with this one. It got us close but put us on the opposite side of the canal from the factory on a one way street (we think) with no parking. Old fashioned direction guessing led us to a city parking lot by the distillery.

What distillery tour would be complete with a tasting?

Liscannor is a TINY village on the west close to Cliffs of Moher. Every village has a parade on St. Patrick’s Day, including this one – 10 minutes long. It’s also close to the Cliffs of Moher and makes a great location for exploring the area.

View of the Cliffs of Moher. The wind blew about 40 mph while we were there, making the walking less than ideal. When the weather is better, a path goes along the cliffs for miles.

Everyone bundled up for this excursion. The wind was howling!

Ring of Kerry drive. This drive took most of the day even in low season. We can’t imagine doing this one in the summer with all the tour buses fighting for parking space along the way.

The fog rolled in and out all day long along the Ring of Kerry.

The Skellig Ring is a peninsula off the Ring of Kerry. We made a stop at the Visitor Centre for a toilet and this picture of the harbor.

Sheep everywhere! It is lambing season and the babies are pretty cute!

A man blowing glass in the Waterford factory — Julia wanted to visit the Waterford factory. When we visited before, the plant was on the outside of town. Now it’s in the middle of Waterford! We honestly thought we were in the wrong place. The tour is good; like all good tours it ends in the gift shop. They will be happy to ship your purchases home for you!

3/2019 A few pics of Ireland

One of many ruins we found along the way. This one is from the 8th century – a collection of churches and a round tower where the monks took refuge when they were attacked.

We spent St. Patrick’s Day in Liscannor along the west coast in County Clare. They had a parade like the rest of the country. When your population is about 100, the parade only lasts about 10 minutes.

After the parade, we drove to Cliffs of Moher where the wind was whipping at about 40 mph. Julia and Susan (and everyone else) bundled up before venturing out to see the scenery. Mark took the pictures!

We drove from Liscannor to Killarney today on mainly good roads. It was a bank holiday so not much traffic. Surprise! The Killarney Brewing Company was 4 buildings from our hotel so we HAD to try their beer! Great beer and we ran into a couple who had lived in FC when he worked for Anheuser-Busch.

Hawkeyes are everywhere! This one was shopping in Killarney with his wife. Mark chatted with him while Julia shopped.

2/14 A Valentine’s Day in Hawaii

Happy Valentine’s Day! Since it’s raining, we have some time to work on pictures (deleting many) and post some on the blog. Maui is always good in February – no snow to shovel – but it’s been a wild weather two weeks, so far. If one of these weeks was your only week in Hawaii, you would not be happy! We’ve noticed, though, that rain does not keep children from the pool.

The rainbow greeted us this morning for Valentine’s Day. You can see the wet boardwalk at the bottom of the picture. It’s been raining for the past few hours which is why there’s a new blog post!

A huge winter storm ran over Hawaii this week bringing heavy winds, big surf and rain. The west shore of Maui, where we are, didn’t get huge waves like the North Shore of Oahu but we had a prime view of 5 and 6 waves lined up at a time waiting to break on shore. This wave pattern was caused by two wave patterns colliding or so the weather people reported. The wave report said these colliding patterns also kept the waves on Maui pretty small. Normally, waves are pretty mild around here and come only one at a time.

This is what the water normally looks like around here.

The storm caused a tree at the Honolulu Zoo to fall over and take out a fence which released 2 African Ground Hornbill birds. One has been recaptured but the other is still on the lose. http://honolulufamily.com/news/missing-african-ground-hornbill-at-honolulu-zoo/

My birthday was the day of the storm. I had some champagne while trying to capture the waves in pictures but the wind was blowing too hard to venture out to the beach, some of which was washed away by the storm.

The wind blew popcorn out of a bowl I had on the porch so I held onto the champagne tightly! The birds enjoyed the lose popcorn.

My birthday cake at Hula Grill, an outdoor restaurant on the beach. They had to put down the canvas sides and even that didn’t block all the wind. We highly recommend it for dinner.

The hibiscus are in full bloom so I have to take pictures of them!

These plumeria (my favorite) were on a tree by our balcony. The storm blew them all away!

When the rain falls, you have time to play around with photo editing software.

There can never be too many sunset pictures!

Feb. 2019 – An ice maker in paradise

We’re off on our next adventure! It’s actually a pretty mild adventure – a month on Maui to escape cold weather and snow in Colorado although Winter had actually been pretty easy in Fort Collins when we left. This week the temps hit -5F for a few mornings in FC. It’s days like this I really enjoy retirement – no 8 AM classes to get to!

The flight over was very uneventful – left on time, arrived 45 minutes early to not have a gate available until the American flight finally left the gate! We picked up the car, made a Costco stop for groceries, and headed off to Kaanapali. For a Friday evening, the drive was easy with no traffic jams and a gorgeous sunset.

Sunset was gorgeous driving from the Kahalui airport over to Kaanapali. And the traffic was light!

Saturday was rainy off and on, but we picked up the rest of the groceries and returned the car to Avis. We only rent a car for a day and then just use the shuttle or walk for the rest of the trip.

Here’s where the icemaker story starts. We thought we’d dropped an ice cube on the floor, resulting in a small puddle as it melted. We dried the floor and headed to bed. When I woke up in the middle of the night and walked to the toilet, I realized we had a bigger problem when my feet got wet!

We called maintenance on Super Bowl Sunday and Richard magically appeared to fix the leaky icemaker. That fix lasted for 26 hours when the leak reappeared on Monday afternoon, bigger and wetter! Visit number 2 from maintenance and another fix.

Now it’s Tuesday afternoon when water once again made its way under the fridge and across the floor. Visit number 3 from Maintenance involved Richard from visit number 1 along with his supervisor. Take the entire ice maker apart, install new parts, add a part … OK … it should all work now!

We walked to the beach to watch sunset just to find MORE water on the floor when we returned to the room, resulting in call number 4 to maintenance! This time, no fix to the ice maker! They brought an entirely new fridge to the room! We hoped try number 4 would be the magic one so we can make ice for our gin and tonics and not find water on the floor!

Plumeria in its natural environment – my favorite!

The island of Lanai across the water. It has a nice State Park for snorkeling. This is whale migration season but none of them chose to make an appearance in my picture.

Update to the icemaker… the new fridge works great and we have plenty of ice.

The wind is blowing today. The North Shore of Oahu is expecting 40-60 foot waves and road flooding! No big waves here since we face the wrong way.

We’re starting week 2. Here are a few sunsets we captured last week. Sunsets are a beautiful part of Maui since where we stay faces west looking at Lanai and Molokai islands.

A purple sunset with the help of the camera!

12/10/18 Beer Along the Way

We’ve been back in Fort Collins for about a month now and are getting ready for Christmas. Since we’ve been back, we’ve heard that some people missed the link to our stories about breweries and beer. I’m writing this post with a link to the beer page. Check it out! It might inspire you to visit a new brewery or just enjoy a Christmas beer for the season.

Visits to breweries along the way … Read all about them.

11/2 Just forget the dryers and give us a drying rack!

If you’ve read my blogs, you know that one of my pet peeves is European dryers! I KNOW electricity is expensive in Europe but that’s no excuse for the totally inefficient dryers that are used around here. We have used everything from industrial dryers at laundromats (hot air + no vents = hot wet clothes) to the washer/dryer combination machines (Just hot wet clothes after 3 hours!) to stand alone home dryers. Forget it! It’s way more efficient to just get out the drying racks and hang the clothes on them! I guess wanting soft, fluffy towels is a first world problem.

The latest dryer fiasco was in Munich at the Aloft Hotel. We like this chain; this one is super convenient and it has free washing and drying of clothes for guests – 2 washing machines and 2 dryers. The washing machine works fine although this one again has a 2-hour wash cycle on it for who knows why?? We opted for the 15 minutes cycle.

The two dryers, though, are another issue! These are two Siemens machines with about 13 different cycle selections (nicely translated on a sign into English). The problem??? NONE of the cycles get HOT and the machine is not vented in any way. I tried about 6 different cycles, including “towels” and “cotton” and “warm”. “Warm” did get warmer than cold but not by much. “Towels” had a running time of 1 hour and 34 minutes but was always COLD. After 45 minutes of drying, I gave up and have clothes hanging all over the room.

Germany is very ecologically minded. My suggestion for their dryers – manufacture them to produce HOT air, vent the machines and everything will dry in 20 minutes and, actually, be dry! I need to compare the energy use of my dryer at home that I use for 20 minutes and have dry clothes with the energy use of the dryer I just used for 45 minutes and still have wet clothes! It’s my new research project.

11/2/2018 Les Chats de Geneve

You can meet the most interesting people while traveling! We met Ben and Belinda, the cat parents, last year in Rwanda when we spent a day trekking with the Golden Monkeys. They (B and B, not the monkeys) are Australians, living and working in Geneva. They have been to some amazing places! When they travel, they need someone to take care of their cats. Since we were already in Europe, we volunteered. (All of you with pets understand the problem.) That’s the story of how we came to spend 2 weeks in Geneva, Switzerland with Dunning and Kruger, two sister cats. You can do some Googling and figure out who the cats are named for.

Kruger was enamored with chasing and jumping for light reflections on the walls. She’s pretty good at jumping!

Kruger can jump into the coat tree, too, and hang out above.

Dunning’s favorite place in the house is the basket by the couches.

We watched American college football on Saturday and tried to teach the cats the rules. The games were projected onto the wall from a projector connected to the laptop.

Geneva is a beautiful city although without much to do for tourists. We had a nice time just being “locals”, visiting the markets in Carouge and at PlainPalais. With the UN and numerous other NGO’s, it’s a very international city. I’m pretty sure we heard dozens of languages other than French and we noticed that if a group needed a common language, it was always English spoken with lots of different accents.

The Fall colors were out. This was along the river path we took one day over in Carouge.

Cheese from the Carouge Saturday market. We can never get too many cheeses to try.

The apartment was in the center of the city, close to grocery stores, bakeries, an easy walk to the Old City and to the lake. We used an “old-fashioned” elevator every day to get the 7th floor. It’s a wooden elevators with a cage that goes up through the middle of the building. Think of old spy movies you might have seen.

Mark joined a local gym and worked out every day, stopping at the local bakery to pick up bread or pain de chocolate (croissant with a strip of chocolate in the the middle) on the way home. He was friends with the bakery ladies by the time we left. Susan worked on genealogy and went walking around the area.

One day we had an excursion to Annecy, France, with Jean-Marc. Mark worked for Jean-Marc at HP. He was kind enough to pick us up and take us over the mountains to see Annecy, a beautiful little city.

Lake Annecy and the mountains around. The lake was VERY low from a hot, dry summer.

Castle in the middle of the river in Annecy

Another day we had a tour of CERN with Bruce who we met at Ben and Belinda’s. He’s British, a Ph.D. physicist with a specialty in particle physics and lasers. He gave a fun tour of his laser lab where researchers wait for 2-3 YEARS for some “beam time”. Bruce and Ben are climbers. We promised we’d find them a climber among our friends if they come to Colorado!

This plaque is in a CERN hall commemorating where Tim Berners-Lee developed the idea for the WWW. A copy of the paper is in the Museum at CERN with the comment “Vague, but exciting” on the top. This blog wouldn’t be possible without him.

The weather was great for 2 weeks until the last day when the temperature dropped, and rain came pouring down! Mark finally had to put the shorts back in the suitcase and drag out his jeans. Oh, no!

Halloween has a small representation in Geneva. This candy display was next to the Christmas candy already for sale before the end on October. Some shop windows displayed Halloween decorations.

Christmas tree decorated in store window

End of October Christmas decorations in the shopping street. This one was in a big department store.

10/16 Updates to the Trip Statistics page

I updated the Trip Statistics page so you can see our “lists” of everything. One of us loves to make lists!

10/16 Malta – land of hills and churches

After spending 4 days in Gozo, it was time to take the ferry and head back to Malta for 8 days. (The ferry is free FROM Malta to Gozo but they collect 4.75 Euro from everyone on the way TO Malta.) This turned out to be the worst weather day in a year of traveling. The rain started while we waited for the bus to get to the ferry, bucketed down on the way to the ferry and while we waited for the ferry, letting up only when we actually rode the ferry. By the time we landed at the terminal in Cirkewwa on Malta, the downpour returned!

What happens to taxis when it rains? They disappear! With no taxis in sight, we huddled under the bus stop with everyone else, complete with suitcase of all sizes and shapes. Since we arranged to meet our AirBnb host at the apartment, I texted to tell him we were waiting for buses to appear. James was stuck in traffic, too, and said he’d just pick us up so “hang out”! What a great guy!

We spent 8 days in Melleiha on the west end of Malta. It’s a “real” town – only 3 things listed in Lonely Planet to see and very quiet at night. We met 2 Americans who live there when we were in Scotland last year at the Whiskey Experience in Edinburgh and enjoyed two dinners with them in Malta. Sorry – no pictures! They’ve lived in Malta for 3 years so gave us the scoop on what it’s like – inexpensive services and health insurance, inexpensive food, lots of hills to walk, traffic if you choose the wrong time of day to drive ….

Malta was heavily bombed during WWII by both the Italians and Germans. They dug air raid shelters all through the islands. This one can be visited in Melleiha. It was damp and chilly and very small.

This is the Grotto of the Madonna. It was at the BOTTOM of 80+ steps.

The parish church in Melleiha. One day we had a beer at the restaurant next to the church with all the old men waiting for their wives to finish up with Mass. We learned that the 2 parties in Malta each own a “club” on this street where you can buy a beer or wine. Tourists are welcome.

If you stand in exactly the right place, you see this piece of art. If you walk down the steps from the top, the art piece is a random collection of paintings on the steps and walls that look like graffiti, but from the bottom it’s lovely.

The hills surprised us in Malta – they are everywhere! Melleiha has hills and steps connecting different streets on the hills. One day we walked up 43 flights and down 47 flights, according to our Garmins. After a little arithmetic and geometry, we figured out one block we walked has about a 13% grade. If Malta residents don’t have great legs, I’m not sure why!

If you look carefully, you can see the steps down (with plants on them), the cars crossing on the street, more steps down, cars parked for one block in front of the balconies and then another set of steps going UP the other side

These are the 80 steps down and, hence, back up from the Grotto . Yes, we counted them!

This is the view of the Mediterranean from our Airbnb. You can see how many buildings are clearly DOWN from our apartment.

Malta is fairly cheap as far as Europe goes, including the wine they produce and import. We tried some Malta wine – 4 Euro for a bottle and it was perfectly drinkable.

The bus system covers the island pretty well and we used the bus to get from Melleiha to the capital city of Valletta one day and visit . Valletta is a port city with lots of cruise ships stopping. The day we went, three cruise ships were in port, crowding everywhere! One recommendation (We clearly didn’t do it.) is check what cruise ships are around if you’re going to a port!

Inside of St. Paul’s Church of the Shipwreck. This was just one of 3 or 4 churches we checked out in Valletta – all Catholic.

We ended up walking along the port where the cruise ships dock. That’s where we discovered where old cruise ship mattresses go to die.

Another day we took the bus to Mdina, a walled city next to Rabat. This bus ride took an hour with stops, narrow roads and streets, hills, and traffic to go 11 km. It’s a beautiful city, though, after we finally arrived.

St. Peter’s and Paul’s Church in Mdina. We passed on paying 5 euro each to visit this one.

View from the city wall of Mdina

An example of the architecture in Mdina with a few colorful flowers thrown in .

On the way back from Mdina to Melleiha on the bus, we made a 20 minute stop to see the Rotunda Church in Mosta since we’d ridden past it on the bus at least 4 times. It’s round and is copied from the Pantheon in Rome.

This WWII bomb landed in the Mosta Church as people waited for Mass to start. By some miracle, it didn’t go off and they have it on display in the church.

Sunday, we went to the Melleiha Beach along with the locals and had lunch on the beach.

guy on the beach with a Coke bottle for a pillow

This guy uses a coke bottle to prop his head up so he can see his cell phone.

Ghadira Bay at the bottom of the hill from Melleiha. It’s reportedly the favorite beach for families. Lots of Brits come to Malta or live on Malta. The sun was shining this day and lots of the Brits forgot to put on the sunscreen.

10/9 Potato chips!

You might remember that Susan started buying, tasting and recording different potato chip flavors when she was in Bhutan. Who can resist “weird” flavors?? Here are 3 we found in the grocery store up the street in Malta.

Another contest winner .. Smoky bacon! One winner was Marmite. We didn’t get to try this since they weren’t in the store – too popular or not popular at all??

This one tastes like ham – not so much like cranberry

Worcester Sauce potato chips. These weren’t too bad! Walker’s is owned by PepsiCo, is British brand, and has the same crowd-sourcing contest every year that Lay’s has.

Mark and Susan wander the world