A Random Walk through Venice

In Venice you can get lost very easily, but not for long. There are signs everywhere point you toward to major landmarks, the Rialto Bridge and St. Mark’s Square.

After a small breakfast in our hotel we set out to take the tour of the Grand Canal. From the St. Romana Vaporetto stop we listened to the National Geographic tour of the canal as we headed around the S curve toward St. Marks. It is hard to follow as all the buildings along the canal are similar in many ways.

After we finished to tour we walked around St. Marks for a while. Josh wanted to spend one euro to buy some corn to get the pigeons to perch on his arms. I would not let him as they are so dirty and gross. We were supposed to meet up with Ulring’s outside their hotel we waited for a while before leaving a note that we were headed to lunch. We just missed them by a couple minutes.

We had a delicious lunch at one of the places recommended by our hotel manager. Jane had ravioli, I had gnocchi, Josh had tortellini soup and Kaia had spaghetti and meatballs. Jane and I also had a small pitcher of prosecco, which turned out to be a sparkling wine. It was all very good, but the cost was a surprising 63 euros. Each of our lunches on the menu listed for about 7 euros but they charged more since we were having them as our only course.

About halfway through lunch the Ulrings caught up with us and sat down to eat as well. So we added dessert, which was very good. We split an order of Tirimisu and an icream truffle. The truffle tasted like a layer of angel food cake wrapped around a core of mocha ice cream.

After lunch we just started walking around parts of venice we had not explored yet. We didn’t know where we were going or what we were headed toward but it was fun and we saw a lot of interesting shops and lots of interesting people.

We made two stops for snacks during the afternoon. One for gelato and one for pizza and a sit down. The pizza place was good and it was fairly close to our hotel. It looked like rain so we stopped to pick up umbrellas and rain gear. We asked if we could sit in the lobby of our hotel and play cards but we were told that the tables were for breakfast only and playing cards there was not possible. So we decided to walk toward the Londra Palace. About halfway there it started to rain pretty hard. But with our Umbrellas in hand we kept going.

When we arrived at Londra Palace we were all wet, but just minutes after we sat down in the lobby the skies opened up and it POURED. So we ordered a couple bottles of wine and played some five hundred. Jim and I soundly beat the women three games to one, even though I had really crappy cards again.

Over cards we looked at the really expensive menu for the hotel and decided to go elsewhere unless it was really raining. Since it was clearing up we headed out to find something. We ended up at what turned out to be a really bad restaurant. Everything was very forgettable and my crab must have come from a can. As we say, every vacation must have a worst restaurant. We thought it was L’Arche (the french version of an Oasis on the tollway) but I think this was worse.

Road Trip to Venice

This was a long day of driving. First we went back down the mountain, and then we moved a ways to the east and went back up and over the mountain. The drive through the mountains was pretty. Lots of great long bridges and many many tunnels. The nicest tunnels were not really tunnels but rather covered roadways. This protects the cars from landslides as well as snowfall.

Once we got into Italy we drove around the outside of Milano. The traffic was “intenso” and the going was rather slow. About 1:00 we were hungry enough that we decided to check out the next town for some food. We saw a mall off to the side of the road so we checked it out. We decided to have some pizza at a restaurant called “Pizza Pause.” This was fine except that the young man waiting on us did not speak a word of english. We nearly ended up with twice as much pizza as we wanted. In the end it worked out fine and the pizza was pretty good.

It was pretty confusing getting into the parking lot in Venice called Tronchetto. And once we got there we had to figure out where we were going to get to the Vaporetto and where we were going to get our tickets etc. It all worked out just fine and we ended up on the right Vaporetto to our stop and San Ste. From there it was a tricky but short walk to our hotel, the Hotel San Angelo.

The room is not too big, but it has two nice beds and a couch to sit on. The bathroom has a toilet and Duvet along with the tub/shower. All the lights in the room go out if you take the key out of the slot next to the door. The Internet service does not work like it should. there is some problem getting it to accept the security password for the wireless.

After getting settled we decided to take a walk before we headed down to meet Ulring’s at their hotel. Venice has thousands and thousands of little shops to look at and walk through. Of course now that we were in Italy Josh was on full alert for a Totti soccer shirt. We saw a couple of stalls selling soccer shirts and we managed to get by the first couple. But, once we got to the Rialto bridge they had a store that was selling genuine Soccer shirts and that was pretty much the end of it. 69 euros later Josh had a genuine italian soccer shirt. They print the name and number on the shirt once it is chosen, so we had 20 minutes to kill.

We found a restaurant at the base of the Rialto bridge that had a nice view of the water, so we sat down there for a beer, wine and soda. After watching the people for 20 minutes Josh and I walked back to pick up his shirt. As promised the shirt was ready and waiting for us and Josh was one happy boy.

Just as we were crossing the top of the Rialto, we saw the Ulrings! Who would have thought that we would just randomly find them here in the city. They joined us for a little refreshment while we planned our move for supper.

In addition to the recommendations from our hotel manager Jim and Nancy had found an Indian restaurant and a Thai restaurant not too far from our hotel. After some walking around we decided on the Indian restaurant called - - We had an excellent meal. The kids all had Lashkis (sweet yoghurt drinks) along with Naan (bread) and several different curries. I had the chicken Vinaloo, Jane had Chicken Curry, Jim had a shrimp dish and Nancy had Chicken Khorma. The chicken Khorma proved to be very popular with the kids as well. Josh even said he liked the sauce on his rice. We also had a variety of tandoori food as part of an appetizer plate. It was all good, and the total for all nine of us was 190 euros.

After dinner we walked some more until we all decided to split up and head for our hotels for the night. The plan is to meet the next day at noon at the statue in front of Ulring’s hotel, the Londra Palace.

Klein Matterhorn

This morning we were greeted by a perfectly blue sky, without a single cloud. We had two main choices for our main activity today: Take a gondola up to the highest point where we could see the mountains of Switzerland, France, and Italy, or take a train ride up the valley. We decided on the first option.

The trip was actually composed of three gondola rides to get to the top. And we were really truly at the top. We walked through a tunnel in the paradise glacier and then took an elevator up a little bit to a platform that was at 13,300 feet. From there we had a panoramic view of three countries! There are not enough adjectives to describe the view from this place. Not only could we see that Matterhorn but we had a crystal clear view of Mont Blanc in France.

The Paradise glacier also features a set of tunnels that have been constructed to display various kinds of ice sculpture. From the lift area we had to hike down through the snow a bit to get to the entrance. After the entrance we continued down on a path until we reached an area where the tunnels leveled out. There were a few interesting sculptures and some history on the glacier itself. Josh was a bit nervous about going inside a glacier so he did not enjoy it as much as others.

This day’s sights are really more about pictures than words. We all agreed that it was cool to visit the Matterhorn and see the great sights.

Back down in the village we dropped off our gear and extra layers back at the hotel and then went to walk around the city of Zermatt. Josh had been in search of sunglasses since the beginning of the trip so we hoped to find something cheap for him. In the end we couldn’t find any sunglasses for less than 39 swiss francs so Josh got Jane’s and Jane got a new pair

We had a mid-afternoon snack of bratwurst (6sf) and ice cream (3 sf for a single scoop). Along the way we ran across a couple of interesting looking restaurants including an asian fusion restaurant and one that Jane had read about called GramPi’s. So we made a reservation for 8:00pm. After a bit more walking and looking we decided to head back to the hotel to enjoy a rest in the pool.

We thought the pool had a jacuzzi but when we got there we found a permanently attached sign that indicated that the jacuzzi was out of order. So we just had to swim around and play frisbee for a while. The water was not hot tub temperature but it was warm enough for swimming and playing in comfortably.

We had a delicious dinner at GramPi’s. Josh had a Hawaiian pizza, I had Lasagne, Kaia had tortellini stuffed with cheese and basil in a basil cream sauce. Jane had a pepperoni pizza. Cost was about 75 swiss francs. We think Kaia had the best meal. Jane described the tortellini as heavenly.

After dinner we went back to the hotel. The cheese fondue smell in the lobby was really good. We decided to give Josh and Jane another chance to beat Kaia and I at 500 but it was not to be. The score for vacation so far is B,K 3 J,J 0!

We all went to bed about 10:00 hoping that we would get a good night sleep, with a plan to have breakfast at 8 and leave for the banhoff at 9:00.

Driving to Zermat

Breakfast this morning was continental style in the chateaux. Cereal, cheese, bread, tea, yogurt. It was good. We could have ordered some Saucisson or Jambon but we didn’t. It was 14 euros each for breakfast. After breakfast I called Dwight on Skype to let him know we were on our way to Geneve. The plan is to meet him at the departures bridge at the airport.

This morning it is still quite cool (7 C) but the sun is shining and the clouds look like they might be breaking up. We are on the road at 8:30 headed for Geneve to have lunch with Dwight.

We met Dwight at the airport as planned and let him take over the driving. Laurance was not able to join us as she was not feeling well. Dwight said she had been having some bad morning sickness. He took us to downtown Geneve and we walked around the old walled city and past the giant fountain out in the lake. The fountain shoots a hundred feet into the air and the wind makes it look like the sail on a boat as it comes back down.

We had a wonderful lunch at a small restaurant in the old part of town called Brasserie du Bourg-de-Four. Jane and I had Roesti with Jambon, Ouefs (eggs), and fromage. It was delicious!! Kaia had some bowtie pasta with parmesan cheese basil and ham. Josh had a ham and cheese omlette. We were stuffed. Cost for lunch for 5 of us was 123.70 Swiss Francs. Dwight reminded me that I did not need to leave a tip, that throughout europe gratuities were built into the price. For exceptional service you might round up and leave a couple extra euros. This means that a couple of people have really gotten good tips from me along the way! While we were eating lunch Laurance called to see if we wanted to stop by their house for some dessert.

We had a very short visit and some desert with Dwight and Laurance and then took off toward Zermatt. The drive was very scenic, especially the last 30km. There were lots of waterfalls along the way and we began to suspect that they had had snow here recently. We drove the car to Tasch and parked it in the lot. Then we took a 20 minute train ride into the town of Zermat. There are only electric carts in the town. A porter from the hotel met us at the train station and drove us to the hotel.

The Park Hotel Beausite is spectacular, really, really spectacular! We have the center suite with a little cupola that sticks above the rest of the hotel with a 360 degree view of the mountains surrounding us. For all the clouds and bad weather we have had the last two days we are in luck today. All the clouds have dissipated and left us with a spectacular view of the Matterhorn! We are all really excited about the room and the wonderful views. I wish we could stay here several days just to relax.

At dinner we learned that while we were visiting castles in the Loire Valley, Zermatt was getting 15cm of fresh snow! In fact we learned that many of the roads leading to Tasch were closed the day before, so we were lucky we didn’t try to come a day earlier! Today there is still snow on many of the rooftops and in their gardens. Everything has greened up and so the snow looks very clean and white against the spring green.

Dinner at the hotel was a five course feast! It was barbecue night so the menu went as follows:

1. Cream of vegetable soup
2. Fish course, they had a wide assortment of fresh fish to choose and then they grill it for you. (Josh: John Dorry, Jane: Red Mullet, Brad: Blue Marlin)
3. Salad course
4. meat course, again they had a huge assortment of meats beef, veal, ostrich, wild boar, rabbit, pork, turkey, chicken, etc. to choose.
5. Cheese course
6. Desert course including Creme Caramel, A Citrus ice cream with vodka, a fuit plate, or a banana split.

Dinner took from 8:45 until almost 11:00. So we went back to the room, and looked at the mountains some more. We played a round of 500 and then took some long exposure pictures of the matterhorn. I think they turned out pretty nice.

Castles

This morning we left Paris for the Loire Valley. Our agenda includes two castles to visit (Chambord and Chenenceaux) and an overnight stay at the Chateau Malmont. Unlike Versailles, these castles are all considered to be pleasure palaces, not palaces of governance. They were designed as hunting lodges and entertainment centers for the royalty. Chambord was absolutely huge. Construction was started by Francios I and continued by Louis XIV (the Sun King) and was finished by the people of France for Henri, the grandson of Charles X who never actually assumed the throne or lived in the restored castle.

After touring the castle we bought some supplies that were locally made and grown. This included some farmers cheese, Saucisson, and two loaves of bread. I would have bought the Chevre but I was not sure what to do with the moldy crust! I made sandwiches for everyone with my trusty swiss army knife.

Chenenceaux was much smaller, it was built for the mistress of Henri but taken back by his wife Catherine Medici when Henri died. It is built out over the river Cher and has wonderful views. The best thing about Chenenceaux was the kitchens!

After visiting the two castles we had another 3 hours to drive to Chateaux Malmont where we stayed the night. We were really glad to have the GPS this afternoon. From the freeway the Chateaux is really in the middle of nowhere. I couldn’t believe the little roads we were on were even part of the map database! We were actually a little paniced when the GPS ran out of batteries just after we got off the freeway. Luckily josh had a partially used pair from his gameboy that had enough juice to get us to the castle.

Malmont was also a hunting lodge and was much smaller than either castle we visited earlier. It was realy nice inside and they had an indoor and outdoor pool. Since the weather was quite cold (8 C) Josh took full advantage of the indoor pool which was in a barrel vaulted room that used to be the guard room. While Josh was in the pool, Kaia went for a 4 mile run and Jane rented a bike to follow behind her. The bike wasn’t very good so Jane got a tougher workout than Kaia!

Our suite was two bed rooms with big high ceilings, a WC and a bathroom. Jane and I had a double bed and the kids had single beds.

The chateaux had a restaurant and a tavern. The restaurant was closed on monday nights so we ate in the tavern, which was still quite formal. The menu was three fixed price options based on how many and which courses you had (17.50 - 24 euros). In fact the wine was cheaper than the meals. That does not happen very often back home! The best quote of the day came at dinner when we were sitting at the table and Josh just blurted out: “We’re in a castle!”

Jane, Kaia and I had the entree of Guinea Fowl in puff pastry, for the main course Jane had Duck, and Josh, Kaia and I had the steak. Next up was the cheese course with a variety of different cheeses and finally desert which included a small layered cake that tasted like it had a rhubarb middle. Along with the cake we each had a scoop of ice cream. We were all trying to figure out what kind of ice cream it was so we tried to ask the server, who spoke no english that we could tell. Kaia deciphered that it was green apple ice cream.

The best part of the trip is... * Dad: Chenenceaux * Mom: Chenenceaux and Chambord * Kaia: * Josh:

Rain, Rain, go Away!

The goals for today were... See Rodin’s thinker in the Rodin gardin, visit the Musee D’Orsay, Visit the Versailles palace, and go up the Eiffel tower. When we left the apartment it was nice although a bit cool. We went to the marketplace again and got pain, gruyere fromage, jambon, and cherries. We carried our breakfast thinking we would eat it in the garden, but the garden was not public and we didn’t want to spend any time in the musee so we continued to the Orsay. We ate our breakfast in front of the musee and then went in.

Once again the Rick Steve’s commentaries were really good. I learned more about realism, and impressionism than I ever knew before. Renoir, Monet, Manet, Whistler, Rodin, it was really good. D’Orsay used to be a train station and the huge high arching ceiling is still preserved.

When we finished we noticed that it had started to rain, so we decided to take the train straight out to Versailles. On the way, we passed the statue of liberty, it looks just like the one in New York except it is on the river here in France.

By the time we reached Versailles the weather was really cold and rainy. We dashed across the street to get some food at McDonalds! The bacon on the burgers was excellent! After lunch we tried to start walking but it was so cold and rainy we turned right around and ran back into the mall. We found a souvenir shop that had some sweatshirts, we bought 4 sweatshirts and 2 umbrellas. We have vowed that we will do better at checking the weather forecast for the day in the future.

The Versailles palace was moderately interesting. Admission included an audio tour but it was not nearly as interesting as the Rick Steves guides. The rooms were interesting but the commentary most mostly about who made the furniture when, and how many coats of laquer were applied. Not so intersting unless you are a furniture maker. We did learn more about the history of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI which was good. We stayed through 2/3 of our tour but the line to get into the kings chambers in the main hall was just too long to stand in during a cold rain so we headed back and took the train back to town.

Once back in town we came to the apartment to rest and relax a bit.

Dinner tonight was at a Bistro down the road. Kaia and I had Chicken Shishkebab with curry sauce, Jane had Duck with honey sauce, Josh had Beef rib, which was a ribeye steak. Again it was all good. After dinner we had a chocolate crepe and a crepe with sugar, almonds, cinnamon and citron (lemon juice). A great desert.

So far the best part of the trip is.…

• Kaia: Notre Dame, the food in general
• Josh: Notre Dame except I had to pee really bad, and the crepes
• Mom: Notre Dame
• Dad: Musee D’Orsay

Walking, Walking, Walking

Yesterday morning we got up and walked down to the marketplace for breakfast. Josh really wanted to buy a box of raspberries, so we did and they were the best raspberries anybody had ever had. A little further down the street we discovered a bakery. So we had a baguette, and chocolate eclair, and a doughnut. All very fresh and good. Decorah really needs a market area like this... (perhaps as part of the Kellog grant proposal Brenda could do this)

After our little breakfast we walked, over the bridge to the grand palace, down the road to the obelisk, onward to point zero, further still to the Louvre. In the Louvre we walked. The Rick Steve’s iPod tour was really helpful and interesting.

Our family seems to have three speeds when going through a museum. Josh and Mom lead the way, Dad is in the middle, and Kaia wants to savor every work of art. In the Louvre we saw many classic greek and roman works of art.

the Louvre was very interesting we saw the Mona Lisa of course, along with many other famous works including Winged Victory, and the Venus DiMilo. It was a good learning experience as we learned how the greek artistry influenced the romans and other artists for many years to come.

Lunch was at the Cafe Beaux Arts, just a random place we picked as we walked by. Josh had a cheeseburger, can you believe it? Kaia had Penne with fresh basil and red sauce. Jane and I both had a hot ham and cheese sandwich (Jambon avec Fromage) on toasted bread. The sandwich was delicious. In keeping with French tradition we had a small glass of wine. So far the idea that wine is cheaper than pop does not seem to be true.

After lunch we continued walking, walking, walking down the the island in the Seine. We went to Notre Dame cathedral, and the center point which is right out front. The center point is the place that all other distances in France are measured from. The cathedral was amazing. When we got there the line to go in to the main cathedral was long so we went around the corner and got in line to go up the tower. This turned out to be a good decision, as the views were just great. In addition once at the top you get to go into the bell tower itself to see a GIANT bell. The radius at the bottom must be a good 10-12 feet and is so heavy you can’t really make it move back and forth by pushing on it. After the large bell we were able to continue even farther up the bell tower for even better views of the city. The weather was a little cloudy so the Eiffel tower was in a haze in our picture.

When we got done with the tower tour the line was nothing to get into the cathedral. So we went inside. Mass was in progress but tourists were still allowed to wander around the perimeter. The rose window and the organ were both beautiful.

By the time we finished the cathedral we were getting pretty tired, so we decided to get a quick snack. We had a crepe chocolate to split. Very very good. We continued down to the last little island called Isle St. Louis. Here there were many nice shops and restaurants. On the way off the island we stopped to watch a street performer for a while. He was an acrobat and had a fun show.

By that time we were really tired and wanted to catch a boat ride back up the river. But we couldn’t seem to find the right one so we gave up and walked, walked, walked back to the apartment. We were all very foot sore by the time we made it to the apartment. I think none of us thought we would walk that far and we were sorry we didn’t have the pedometer to keep track. We do know that we climbed 400 stairs in Notre Dame!

After a short rest, and some consulting of Rick Steve’s we decided to find dinner somewhere close by. Dinner was at La Arcade. We tried to get in at several of Rick Steve’s recommended places but they were all quite busy. Josh had Duck, Kaia had Chevre in Phyllo Dough, I had rack of Lamb, and Jane had Prawns.

The Long Road to Paris

A long day! We drove through some rain and thunder to get to the airport in Cedar Rapids. Unfortunately it was also windy in Chicago which was a bad omen for us. Our flight was delayed getting to CR and once we got out to the end of the runway the dreaded ground stop announcement came. Chicago was not allowing us to take off because they had no landing slots. So we sat at the end of the runway for 45 minutes and one more rain squall before we could finally take off.

As we began our descent into Chicago we watched helplessly as the time ticked closer to 4:30, our scheduled departure time. Our only hope was that our outbound flight was as delayed as everything else. This was not to be. We got off the plane and ran across 2 concourses to get to our gate only to find out the plane had left without us. We were told to go to K6, the rebooking gate. The line there looked 2 hours long at least. Jane tried to talk to the gate agent for the paris flight but they told us there was not enough time to get our bags on the flight.

So there we were standing in line, using Kaia’s cell phone to call the rebooking number with a hold time of more than 28 minutes. Finally I was able to flag down a manager (Shawn ) and I asked him why we couldn’t get on the Paris flight. When I explained that it looked like we were going to miss an entire day of our vacation I think he felt sorry for us. So, he looked on the computer and said we could fly to Frankfurt and then back to Brussels. That flight left at 7:00. When he went to change our booking he discovered that we had already been rebooked on a flight to London connecting to Brussels. How we were ever supposed to discover that is a huge mystery.

On the flight to London we were given the very back row of seats in the 777. This means we were even behind the bathrooms. The flight attendant told us he would move us up because it was a very smelly place to sit. He was a really nice guy and moved us to bulkhead seats in row 20, which made for a pretty comfortable flight.

We had five hours in Heathrow to kill, so we tried to get some sleep in the international lounge. Once on our plane to Brussels we were seated in front of three obnoxious women (kind of like the nightmare version of Bridget Jone’s Diary)

Once in Brussels everything went very smoothly, all the luggage was intact, we zipped through customs and didn’t even have to wait at the car rental counter. We had a little fun trying to get our first tank of gas since I went to the Belgium card side of the gas station and none of my credit cards would work. I finally learned that we need to go to the other side of the gas station to fill up.

Now we are enroute to Paris! So far the GPS has been working and have not gotten lost yet. We hid major rush hour traffic in Brussels and were zooming along toward paris until just a moment ago when we hit a big slowdown. Josh is enjoying our drive to Paris by looking at all the cars he would like to drive.

As I write this in the car, we are all tired and hungry so are very much looking forward to getting to our apartment and having an evening meal.

After Jane and I left the kids in the apartment and parked the car we all went for a walk to check out the eiffel tower at night. Beautiful.

We had late night pizza at La Gourmandise. A little Pizza shop that seated about 16 people max. Josh and I split a Pizza Margherita avec chorizo and Jane and Kaia split the four fromage pizza. Very good.