On The Road with Jim and Pat

Hello from Nimes, France (Part 3)

Wednesday evening – June 1, 2016   (tenth post of this travelogue)

As I have mentioned, the city of Nimes is a jewel and we are so fortunate to have lucked into this stay.  As noted in the last post, our apartment is right in the middle of historic Nimes and I do mean historic. Some of the history is described in this link.  Quoting from Wiki:

Nîmes has a rich history, dating back to the Roman Empire when the city was home to 50,000–60,000 people. Several famous monuments are in Nîmes, such as the Nîmes Arena and the Maison Carrée. Because of this, Nîmes is often referred to as the French Rome.

The quote above mentions the Nimes Arena which is very much like the Coliseum in Rome.  Some details are contained in this link.  Here is a quote from Wiki:

The Arena of Nîmes is a Roman amphitheatre, situated in the French city of Nîmes. Built around AD 70, it was remodelled in 1863 to serve as a bullring. The Arena of Nîmes is the site of two annual bullfights during the Feria de Nîmes, and it is also used for other public events.

We took a walking tour on Monday and got some great photos of the arena:

Tuesday we hung around the area and just enjoyed a leisurely day.

Today we walked to both the Maison Carree link and the Cathedral of Notre Dame and St Castor.

The Maison Carree (see photo) was built in 7 AD (over 2000 years old).  It is said to be “one of the best preserved Roman temple façades to be found in the territory of the former Roman Empire”.

The Cathedral of Notre Dame is quite a bit newer than the other two structures.  Various sites give different dates, but it seems to have been rebuilt in the 1600s after being destroyed by various “wars of religion”.  The exterior is not all that impressive, but the interior is incredible (see photos). 

That is all for this post.

Hello from Nimes, France (Part 2)

Tuesday afternoon– May 31, 2016   (ninth post of this travelogue)

Well, we have a change in plans.  We are going to stay in this apartment for 4 nights and then travel to Karlsrhue to visit Irina and her family.  This apartment is shown in the map below and in this link for our email subscribers.

{google_map}43.837786 4.359010{/google_map}

I publish our location maps primarily for our reference, but I would love to have the readers study this map a bit, as it shows that we are right in the middle of the historic part of Nimes and the streets are like a maze.  You can zoom in and out and switch from either map or satellite to get a better perspective with either the above map in the blog or the map link from the email version.

My guess is that the buildings in our area are couple of hundred years old.  The “LA Chapelle Sainte-Eugenie” which is in the same group of buildings as our apartment was first mentioned in 956 and much of the church was rebuilt in the nineteenth century (see photo).   My guess is that our building is of the same era as the rebuild of the church.  The walls are over a foot thick.

La Chapelle Sainte Eugenie

Now let’s talk about this quirky and fun apartment.  As noted above it is right in the middle of the historic part of town and in the center of some great shops and squares.  To give you a feeling of our building, the following photo of the damsel in the window (Pat) gives you a preview.

We are on what they call the second floor, but in Europe the floor count begins after the first floor.  To get to our apartment you need to climb two flights of a very narrow spiral stairway (photo). 

Once you get to the apartment it is really quite nice and “fun” (see photos).  It is spacious and built on two levels with the bathroom and bedroom being down three steps.  Some of the comments about the place give a negative rating to the bed.  It is very low to the ground (perhaps 6 inches off the floor) and that makes it difficult for us to get out bed with our knee problems.  In addition, the mattress is very thin which makes for a hard bed.  I thought it would be terrible, but you get used to it – too some degree {grin}.

View out our window

We are within a block of a little square that has a great bakery, small grocery, and a good place to get coffee and beer!!!!

Neil Diamond had a song called “Beautiful Noise” that I love.  It describes the wonderful noise of the streets of Brooklyn where he grew up.  While I love the song, I could not relate to the lyrics – street noise being beautiful.  Well, now I can.  The street we are on does not allow cars, so that is not a part of the “beautiful noise”.  But the tower bells and kids laughing, and folks speaking in a language that we don’t understand is really beautiful.  It is so fun to sit in the square, having my morning coffee or in the afternoon with Pat having a gelato (ice cream cone) and me with my beer, and watch the people and listen to the sounds – magical.

I wanted to go back to our visit to Pompeii and recall the cobblestone streets.  The photo below was posted by a SU demonstrator to reflect on the fact that her daughter (guessing about 16) fell and broke both bones in her arm.  Frenchie and her daughter had to fly home from Naples so that she could have surgery.  The photo shows sidewalks beside the street, but many of them are not always available and walking on the stones is unavoidable.  I can’t believe that we did not have an accident as our balance is not what it used to be.

We chose Nimes mainly as a function of train routing/schedule.  However, we have discovered that it is a very picturesque and historic city.  More in our next post.

That is all for this post.

Hello from Nimes, France

Sunday afternoon– May 29, 2016   (eight post of this travelogue)

Well, I can’t figure out if I am ahead or behind on this post.  The title would suggest that we are in Nimes already, but we won’t be there for about two hours.  We are on a high speed train from Barcelona to Nimes.  We have reservations for two nights in an Airbnb there.  Once we get to the apartment I will upload this post.

I thought this might be a good time to catch up on a bunch of miscellaneous subjects.

As I have mentioned, the ship’s internet was slow at best (a bit faster than dialup) and virtually non-existent many times.  At certain times of the day it really slowed to a crawl.  On Monday it was non-functional and we got a small rebate.  I was very glad that we got the unlimited plan.  The other plans are based on time and when the internet is so slow that really chews up the minutes for little production.  During the faster times, we were able to explore and secure our Airbnb in Nimes.  We tried to plan further, but the system just frustrated us.

Not only does Stampin’ Up! pay for all the expenses of the cruise (including airfare), it also gives the cruise achievers great daily gifts in the hospitality suite and a great “pillow gift” each night.  One night the gift was a hat for me!  One of Pat’s gifts was a Dooney and Bourke purse!!  In total we would guess that the gifts had a value of close to $450 (see attached photo).

In addition, SU took Pat and I to a dinner in one of the fancy restaurants so that we could meet with one of the board members.  This was an invitation dinner for a limited number of folks and we were fortunate enough to be chosen.  The board member who took us to dinner was Paula Critchlow and her husband Jay.  She has a great personality and we really enjoyed the evening.

SU also paid for two shows.  The first was a dinner show called “Cirque Dreams”.  This was a show in the round.  The acrobatics and skills of the performers were astounding.  We had been warned ahead of time that they pick members of the audience as a part of the show.  We went early and got a seat in the upper area where we had great views and did not have to worry about being chosen.  The second show was “Burn the Floor”.  It was a great music and dancing show.

On our own, we went to a free show called “Priscilla”.  Well, two out of three is not too bad {grin}.  This was a show that was about three drag queen “men” traveling in a bus in Australia.  It was very blatant and “in your face”.  The description in the ship paper did not mention the nature of the show.  Several folks left fairly early.  We would have, but we were trapped in middle of the row.

To briefly review the logistics of the cruise, let’s look at the ports: Barcelona, Naples, Civitavecchia, Livorno, Cannes, Marseilles, and return to Barcelona.  The first day was at sea and the rest of the time we sailed at night and were in the port early the next day.  We only did two tours:  Sorrento and Pompeii in the port of Naples and Florence and Leaning Tower of Pisa in the port of Livorno.  Both were great tours and we are glad that we did not miss them.  The fact that we did not do additional touring was fine with us.  It gave us a chance to “recover” and relax.

The ship is huge and that is a mixed blessing.  At times the noise and crowds were almost overwhelming.  One day I sat in the coffee lounge to work on the blog (and enjoy my $5 latte) with my Bose noise cancelling ear buds in and the noise was still annoying.   The Bose system makes a plane almost perfectly quiet, so you can imagine how loud the ship was.  Those of you who know me very well, know that loud noises and crowds drive me crazy, or as Pat says crazier.  On the plus side, the ship is beautiful and the staff could not have been more pleasant.  As with any cruise, the food is great and plentiful {groan}.

Most of the ships we have been on have formal dining where each night you dress up and sit at the same table with the same folks in a very lavish dining room .  That has some advantages.  The service is impeccable and the wait staff really get to know you.  The menus on those cruises were remarkable.  Norwegian uses a “FreeStyle” system where you choose from about four free restaurants/cafeterias and about the same number of “exclusive” restaurants that you pay for the meal. You dine where you want, when you want. With the exception of the meal that SU paid for, we chose to eat in a great free restaurant called Taste.  It could be compared to a fairly fancy restaurant in the states with great menus and excellent food.  It was fairly quiet and the wait staff really pampered you.  Dress code for the restaurants is fairly lax and you don’t need to pack fancy clothes.

So far, the trains have been great.  We have had to pay a relatively small reservation fee (in addition to our Eurail passes), but that gets you first class seating on a high speed train.  I have glanced up occasionally and have seen speeds as high as 282 Kph or about 175 MPH!

Well, we are at our apartment and it is great.  I will  give you more detail in the next post.  I am on the apartment Wifi so that I can post this blog and it is heaven to have a normal speed connection.

That is all for this post.

Hello from Cannes, France

Drafted:  Friday afternoon– May 27, 2016   (seventh post of this travelogue)

Uploaded:  Saturday afternoon – May, 28, 2016

We are “anchored” in the port of Cannes (see map below) link.  I put the term “anchored” in quotes since I don’t think they actually drop the anchor.  I suspect they use a GPS system combined with the bow and stern thrusters keep the ship in a stationary position.

{google_map}43.5477636 7.012937{/google_map}

To visit the city, the ship uses its tenders (life boats) to transport folks to shore.  We chose not to go the town or take a tour.  Instead we are having a relaxing day on the ship and catching up on some internet stuff.

Wednesday we were docked in Civitavecchia which is the port from which the Roam tours depart.  We had chosen not to take a tour, since we had spent a week in Rome in 2008 and a one day tour was not worth the money (tours are well over $300).

Thursday we were docked in Livorno, Italy link (see map below):

{google_map}43.539653 10.2553066{/google_map}

We had a great shore tour, but one that just about killed us. 

Our bus took us first to Florence which is a spectacular city link.  Here is a quote (edited) from Wiki:

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 382,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1,520,000 in the metropolitan area.

Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time. It is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has been called "the Athens of the Middle Ages". A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, and numerous religious and republican revolutions.

It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. It has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Our first stop was the museum where the Michelangelo statue of David is housed.  The statue has amazing detail and is very large (about 17 feet).  I have included one photo.

From there we took a long walking tour of the historic center of town.  I have included a few pictures that attempt to show the beauty of the structures.

We had lunch in the plaza and it was great.   We again had Italian pizza and I had a beer (see photo).

We gathered after lunch and walked to the bus – more than half a mile I would guess.

Our last stop was the Leaning Tower of Pisa link.  We debated on walking there (another half mile walk), but we could not miss the opportunity – and it was worth it.  The Tower is a part of Cathedral Square which includes the Baptistery of St John, Pisa Cathedral, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa – all incredible structures.  The tower was started in 1173 and completed in 1372.  The structure is marble and is much more beautiful than shows in the pictures.  Here is a quote from Wiki:

It is situated behind the Cathedral and is the third oldest structure in Pisa's Cathedral Square (Piazza del Duomo) after the Cathedral and the Baptistery. The tower's tilt began during construction, caused by an inadequate foundation on ground too soft on one side to properly support the structure's weight. The tilt increased in the decades before the structure was completed, and gradually increased until the structure was stabilized (and the tilt partially corrected) by efforts in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

 We were amazed at how great the tilt was.  We have all seen pictures of it, but to see it in real life really drove home the fact.  I have included photos of each structure.

Baptistery-of-St-John

Pisa Cathedral

Leaning Tower of Pisa

Like our tour of Naples, our Fitbits got a pretty good workout  For this tour mine registered over 10,000 steps

That is all for this post.

Hello from Civitavecchia Italy

Drafted:  Wednesday afternoon – May 25, 2016   (sixth post of this travelogue)

Uploaded:  Friday afternoon – May, 27, 2016

As you can see from the dates above, I did not get the post finished and this is the first time I have had to get back to finalize the draft.

Our ship is docked at the port of Civitavecchia Italy link. 

{google_map}42.096185 11.777539{/google_map}

Well, we have some catching up to do.  Sunday 5/22 we boarded our ship – the Norwegian Epic link.  We were on this ship the first year it sailed (2010) for a destination wedding of our niece Shawna and her husband Bryan.  That cruise was to the Caribbean.  The Epic is among the largest cruise ships link.  It has a passenger capacity of over 4,000 people and a crew of 1700.  It is over 1000 feet long.

Monday we were at sea and it was pretty relaxed.  Stampin’ Up! had a general meeting, but that was the only scheduled activity.

Yesterday (Tuesday) we docked in Naples Italy (see map below) link and took a wonderful bus trip

{google_map}40.8444189 14.2555366{/google_map}

The bus took us around Naples link.  Quoting from the Wiki site:

Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Bronze Age Greek settlements were established in the Naples area in the second millennium BC

Naples was the most-bombed Italian city during World War II.

We then drove perhaps 50 miles south down the Amalfi coast.  The road itself was spectacular.  In places the narrow twisting road was hanging off the wall of a cliff several hundred feet about the sea.  The bus was a full size bus that was probably 35 feet long.  To make many of the turns, it had to swing well into the other lane.  At one point our bus and an opposing bus got into a very tight area and our driver had to move the outside mirror out of the way so that we could pass.  Cars and motor scooters were darting everywhere and the motor scooters often passed the cars with very little room to spare.  We were in the front passenger seat and I was sure glad that I was not the driver.  I have attached a  picture to give you some idea of the beautiful, and at the same time, scary ride

At the end of our drive down the Amalfi coast we approached a beautiful town that was built into the hillside: Positano (see picture).  We turned around (no small feat) on a turnout in the road before we went into the town.  Positano is a very expensive tourist destination.  Our guide said that some rooms go for over 1000 Euro.

We then drove back north to Sorrento.  In Sorrento we toured a large shop that specialized inlaid wood.  The shop gave us a short demonstration of the intricate work involved (see photo of some of their work).

For lunch went to a restaurant and had a very traditional Italian lunch of pizza, wine and desert.  The pizza was marvelous and was quite a bit different from our pizza.  For one thing, the area is a large producer of “real” mozzarella cheese (and we got the good stuff).  Also the tomato sauce (and parts of tomatoes) were very fresh (see photo)

Our last stop was the ruins of Pompeii.  From what I can tell, the town is spelled Pompei and the ruins are spelled Pompeii link.  The following is quoted in part from Wiki:

Pompeii was an ancient Roman town-city near modern Naples, in the Campania region of Italy, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area, was mostly destroyed and buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

Researchers believe that the town was founded in the seventh or sixth century BC by the Osci or Oscans. It came under the domination of Rome in the 4th century BC, and was conquered and became a Roman colony in 80 BC after it joined an unsuccessful rebellion against the Roman Republic. By the time of its destruction, 160 years later, its population was estimated at 11,000 people, and the city had a complex water system, an amphitheatre, gymnasium, and a port.

Pompeii has been a tourist destination for over 250 years. Today it has UNESCO World Heritage Site status and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with approximately 2.5 million visitors every year.

The ruins are stunning.  I have attached a few pictures, but they simply don’t do justice to the site.  Walking in the ruins is very difficult.  The roads were made with very large stones – most were well over 1 foot in diameter as shown in one of the photos.  There was a lot of walking – Pat’s Fitbit registered over 8000 steps (my battery was dead).  In addition the walking had a fair altitude gain. 

Pompeii with Naples in background

Pompeii ruins — note large cobble stone road

Our Tour Guide

Our tour bus had to park away from the boarding area by perhaps a fourth of a mile and by the time we got back to the ship we looked like we should be in the rehab ward {grin}.

That is all for this post.

Hello from Barcelona Spain (Part 2)

Sunday afternoon – May 22, 2016   (Fifth post of this travelogue)

First of all, my apologies – I messed up both the link and the code for the map of our apartment in the last blog post.  The link was an operator error thing (doesn’t happen often {grin}), while the blog map code was an honest error.  It turns out we had crossed the prime meridian and instead of entering the normal negative value longitude, I needed to make the value a positive number.  Here is correct map link

Our tour Saturday was to the Sagrada Familia.  We had booked tour reservations on the internet a few days prior (can be several hours wait in line if you don’t).  This is a very famous structure that can almost be described as excessive.  That said, it is a startling structure link.  Construction was started in 1882 and continues today.  The structure is massive, so massive that it is very hard to capture with something like a phone camera.  The following two photos were repurposed from the internet.

After our tour, we had lunch at a small sidewalk cafe.  Pat had a cheese sandwich and I had what we often refer to as a “mystery meat” and cheese sandwich.  I also had a beer.  The two photos below show us having lunch and a second picture of Sagrada Familia in the background with our sidewalk café in the foreground.

From the Sagrada Familia, we caught our “hop on hop off” bus and made most of what they call the blue route.  We then transferred to the red route that we had done the day before so that we could get to the World Trade Center and catch a taxi home.  In the typical Shepherd fashion, our tour bus broke down.  We got on another bus and finally got back to the apartment.

We have mentioned our meals and the challenges of finding a place to dine out.  Instead, we often chose to make sandwiches in the apartment as shown in the photo below.  Bear in mind that this is not all bad, since the bread is wonderful and nothing like you would get in the typical store in Denver.

I have mentioned finding coffee in various locations surrounding our apartments.  I never saw a coffee pot in the many places I visited.  Instead, all coffee was freshly brewed with espresso machines.  I always ordered “Café Americano” which is espresso with some hot water added.  It is a bit strong, but tastes great.

Again repeating, both of our Airbnb apartments have been in the middle of the local “hustle bustle”.  They locations were a mix of businesses and apartments.  The photo below shows the street that our Barcelona apartment was on.

We were amazed at the number of dogs we saw in both Madrid and Barcelona.  We had noted that in the past and had commented on the owners not cleaning up after their dogs.   That has improved quite a bit, but you still have to watch where you walk.  Every imaginable breed of dog was observed.  Most were of the smaller variety, but we saw some rather large breeds as well.

As I finish this blog, we are on the ship.  I will use the internet on the ship to post it.  The ship internet is provided by satellite and is a bit slow.  In the past it was quite costly.  This time we paid for unlimited and the cost was about $200.  Still costly, but at least we will not be fighting the terrible “use meter” when we are on line.  Part of the reason for getting the unlimited is that we need to do some research for the rest of the trip.  We have quite a bit of the itinerary nailed down, but there are gaps that we need work on.

Speaking of internet and research, that has really changed since the last time we were in Europe.  I had mentioned that internet connection was pretty readily available now, and that has made it possible to better document our travels, arrange tours, arrange Airbnb reservations, schedule taxis, etc.  Probably the best resource is the online train schedule.  That really lets us look at our options and select the best routes/stops to maximize our enjoyment.

That is all for this post.

Hello from Barcelona Spain (Part 1)

Friday evening – May 20, 2016   (Fourth post of this travelogue)

Well, Pat is batting a 100% on the Airbnbs.  Our apartment in Barcelona is great (see photos).  We even have a wonderful private patio with lots of plants.  Both apartments, so far, have had washing machines and that is helpful.

As was the case with the last apartment we are in the middle of the older part of Barcelona, experiencing the lifestyle of folks in this area.  Here is the link to the map of the location of apartment: link.

[[editorial note:  5/20/2016 Neither the map link above nor the map below are working correctly.  I am too tired tonight to resolve the issue.]]

[[Editorial update:  5/21/2016  I have now corrected both the link and the map]]

{google_map}41.376963 2.162601{/google_map}

Today we bought two day pass on a “hop on hop off” bus that lets us tour the city.  There are two of these systems in Barcelona.  We used the “Barcelona Bus Turistic” link.  As you can see from the picture they are modern double decker vehicles.  They have ear phones with tour information in several languages.  We stayed on the lower level (AKA handicapped level {grin}- but not really).  One of the sites was the historic bull fighting stadium that has now been converted to a shopping mall (see photo).

The main event on this tour for us was the cable car ride to Montjuic Castle link.  This is a majestic castle overlooking all of Barcelona.  It was built in the mid 1600s.  The cable car ride takes about 8 minutes and is spectacular.  I have included a few pictures from taken from the castle.

Dining in Spain is strange.  We are told that folks eat their main meal in the early afternoon and then they have lighter meal after 9:00 PM.  That would explain why all the restaurants are closed when we try to eat at our normal time.  In Barcelona we don’t have a great place to buy our breakfast sandwiches and get coffee.  So, we went to the small grocery store (there are many within a block or two of where we have stayed) and got some cheese and ham.  BTW, these stores are not much bigger that a two car garage.  I then went to a great bakery (no coffee) and got a baguette (a roll that is about a foot and half long) and a big loaf of bread (they sliced it for me).  The rolls and bread in Europe are absolutely out of this world.  We were so tired from our trip today that we made sandwiches for dinner and will have them again for breakfast – can’t wait.  I can go to a small bar for a cup of great coffee in the morning.

That is all for this blog.

Hello from Madrid Spain (Part 3)

Thursday afternoon – May 19, 2016   (Third post of this travelogue)

For those of you who are new to our blog, you will find that I have a habit of starting a blog in one city and finishing it in another.  That is the case here.  Actually, I am writing most of this blog on a high speed train between Madrid and Barcelona.

I wanted to catch up on some items relating to Madrid.  The first item is the “flea market” that we encountered when we arrived.  It was a great experience.  They closed down many of the streets around our apartment and there were a huge number of “booths” with folks selling all kinds of different products.  One of the specialty items seemed to be collector cards.  We saw perhaps 10-15 vendors selling these cards.   Some of the cards seemed to be Poky man cards, while others were sports “hero” cards and even Star Wars cards.  The card folks seemed to be doing a brisk business.

Our apartment was in the center of Madrid with rather old buildings.  It was really fun to be exposed to that atmosphere.  We never did figure out the restaurant situation.   The few that were close to us seemed to close in the late afternoon and did not re-open later as expected.  We did find a great bakery a few blocks away that served great sandwiches and I went there for breakfast each day (see photo)

In my early travels to Europe, I fondly remember the breakfasts which were mostly cold cuts, cheese and fantastic bread.  The bakery I had breakfast at had sandwiches that reminded me of those long ago breakfasts.

We did manage to have a great lunch at a restaurant just across the street – Allioli.  They specialized in Valencian cuisine.  We had Fideua which was small noodles with various types of seafood.  It was served in a large pan as a meal for two.  While it was sort of OK, the atmosphere and experience was great.

Tuesday we cooled our jets at the apartment to give our knees a rest.  Wednesday we walked to Plaza Mayor (about 1.2 miles round trip).  The Plaza is very large, much like the Grand Plaz in Brussels.  The buildings are not as picturesque, but it was well worth the effort.  See pictures below.

The weather in Madrid could not have been better.  We had a quick sprinkle the first day and the remainder of the time had high temperatures in the mid 70s and the evenings were in the 50s.

The country side between Madrid and Barcelona is mostly agricultural.  The farms appear to be very small.  We saw vineyards and what we think were olive orchards but the majority of the area appeared to be pasture or hay.  I am not sure about it being pasture as we never saw any livestock.

When we travel in Europe we always buy Eurail passes.  That allows us to have virtually unlimited train travel.  The train system in Europe is incredible.  They are one of the main forms of transportation in Europe and almost every town has a rail station.  The trains are very punctual and always clean.  Eurail passes are for first class service (if available).  Some of the trains require reservations.  Some reservations do not have a fee, but many do.  The train we are on had mandatory reservations.  We are on first class and the normal fee for each of us would be $230.  However, with the Eurail passes, our cost was $57 for the two of us. 

First class on most of the trains is very much like first class on a plane.  There is plenty of room in the seats and they often serve a great meal.  Our meal on this train was breakfast and it was great (see photo).

Now for the big announcement:  Pat just earned the next Stampin’ Up! trip.  This one is a destination trip to Thailand!!!  I had been checking the flight routes to Thailand and most have transfers in Japan.  In the past, SU has not allowed folks to stop in route, but we sure hope that we can somehow arrange to visit both Japan and Thailand in one trip.

I will upload this blog when we get to the apartment.  Spoiler alert:  the apartment is fabulous (subject of next blog).

That is all for this blog.

Hello from Madrid Spain (Part 2)

Wednesday afternoon – May 18, 2016   (Second post of this travelogue)

[editorial note:  I had a huge problem posting pictures, but have now resolved the problem and I am sending again]

We have some new readers, so I thought I would review some details about our blog.  The goal of this blog is to detail our travels.  It started many years ago as a group email to our family and a couple of friends.  We then started a blogspot hosted blog and posted to that for a few years.  Then we migrated to a blog that is hosted on our website and uses WordPress software.  That gives us better control of the format of the blog.  For the most part, I write the blog for our benefit.  We often go back and re-live some of our trips.

There are two ways you can read about our travels:  1)  visit our blog site and/or 2) subscribe for an emailed version (see right hand column on the blog to subscribe).  The only downside of the emailed version is that you see the first version posted and not the corrected version that appears on the website.  With the website version, I use an app that inserts a Google map of our location.  That only shows as code in the email version.  I will try to remember to post a link so that those reading the email version can call up the Google map.  Yesterday I posted a map of our apartment location in Madrid.  Here is the link to the map for our email readers:  map link

Now, back to our travels.  Tuesday we did a fairly lengthy walking (hobbling) tour from our apartment to the Palacio Real de Madrid (Royal Palace of Madrid) link.  The palace is the official residence of the Spanish Royal Family at the city of Madrid, but is only used for state ceremonies. King Felipe VI and the Royal Family do not reside in the palace, choosing instead the more modest Palacio de la Zarzuela on the outskirts of Madrid.  The original Palace burned to the ground in the early 1700s and this building was constructed in the mid 1700s.

We have been in some magnificent buildings (including the Sistine Chapel) and this ranks one or two on our list.  We took the walking tour of the Palace and you go through about 20 rooms on the second floor (three story building) – each of which can’t be adequately described in words or photos.  That said, here are a few photos (interior photos are prohibited, so I used some I found on the internet):

Just prior to reaching the Palace on the tour, we stopped at the Cathedral de la Almudena (link).  It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Madrid.  It is adjacent to the Palace.  Here are some photos:

On the way to the Palace we stopped at a beautiful church that is not well documented:  Iglesia de San Andres.  From what I can tell, the church was built in the mid 1600s.  Some pictures:

The walking trip was over 3 miles.  Almost all of the streets and walks were cobble stone.  In addition, there were a ton of stairs.  By the time we got back to the apartment we must have looked like we had been run over by that infamous Mac Truck {sort of a grin}.  Pat is due for two knee replacements and now my bad knee has flared up again.  For the most part, I have mine under control with what I call my John Elway brace (like the one he used to wear in the games), but towards the end of our walk I thought I was in trouble.  This getting old is not for the faint of heart.  Lest you feel sorry for us, we are still having a great time and have been able to see some incredible sites and experience a different culture in our first few days.

Now for some general observations.  I have been fortunate enough to travel to various parts of Europe several times – mostly on company business.  My first trip to Europe was around 1978 when I worked with a team negotiating on a technology exchange with Bulgaria.  Pat has been able to accompany me on some of those trips.  In the early days, one of the biggest challenges was trying to deal with all the different currencies.  For the most part those trips were arranged/scheduled by the company and I did not have to be responsible for trip details, plus I was always in the presence of someone who spoke English and could keep me out of trouble (mostly).

As the need for computer communication increased it was always a challenge to find an internet connection.  Many hotels did not have internet in the early days and I would have to rely on internet cafes or the company computer system.  Even the company system was a challenge as the keyboard was not the same as the US computers.

On our last trip over (2008 with Pat’s cousin and her husband), it was still a challenge to find internet connections.  So far on this trip that does not seem to be a problem.   I see lots of WiFi signs in most restaurants and our Airbnbs all claim to have WiFi.  The WiFi at this apartment is very good.  That makes researching our trip details very easy and we even scheduled a taxi for tomorrow on line without having to deal with a language barrier.

It is interesting to do Google searches here.  Most of the sites listed are in Spanish.  When you think about it, that makes sense, but it sure is a challenge to find pages in English.  However, Google has an amazing ability to translate most pages.

That is all for this post.

Hello from Madrid Spain (Part 1)

Tuesday afternoon – May 17, 2016   (First post of this travelogue)

As you can tell from the title, we are in Europe.  Pat earned a Mediterrian cruise through her activities with Stampin’ Up!  This is our tenth SU trip.  Most were cruises but some were destination trips (Hawaii and Fiji).  Stampin’ Up! covers all the cost of the cruise and airfare part of this trip.  The cruise is 5/22-29.  We are spending a total of four weeks in Europe.

Before we left Evergreen, the elk and deer came to say goodbye {grin}:

We are fortunate that our Grandson Thomas is staying at the house while we are gone, as he has another internship with Antero Resources.  This internship will be a bit shorter than the last one, as he has to leave the end of July to begin his Masters program at the University of Idaho. 

We left Denver Saturday (5/14) and flew to Madrid via Atlanta.  Both flights were Delta and we paid a bit extra on the Atlanta to Madrid flight to get more leg room (plus a few more benefits).  Neither of us slept all that much on either flight.  We arrived in Madrid around 8:00 Sunday morning.

Pat did quite a bit of reading about Europe travels and found out about Airbnb (link).  While they are also in the USA, they are very big in Europe.  The accommodations vary all over the place, but they appear to be clean and comfortable.  Better yet, they are very affordable (we are paying a bit less than $60 per night for this location).

We took a taxi from the airport to a stop that was close to our Airbnb.  I say close, because on Sunday they have a huge “flea market” in the area.  They close all the streets and we had to pull the suite cases about 3 blocks up a rather steep cobble stone street – lots of fun with hundreds of people shopping.

Our Airbnb is a great place.  It is a small apartment that is nicely decorated and has pretty good WiFi.  Our location is in a rather old part of town (see map):

{google_map} 40.408456 -3.708321 {/google_map}

 

I have attached some pictures of our “apartment”.

Pat with luggage at Airbnb entrance

 

In the next post I will describe our walking tour of some historic locations relatively close to our appartment.  When I say walking tour, that is a bit tongue in cheek.  It is more like a hobbling tour.  Pats knees are in terrible shape and now one of my knees is giving me fits.  While that limits us a bit, it is still fun to be exposed to amazing sites and different cultures.

 

That is all of this post.