Peru Part II - Cusco

Okay, back to the blogging...

After Lima, we were off to Cusco for a couple of days before making the trek up to Machu Picchu. Cusco is possibly to most popular tourist city in Peru, and it was easy to see why: Around 3400 m (over 2 miles) above sea level, Cusco is a beautiful place with crystal clear skies and none of the pollution seen in Lima down on the coast.

We had an early morning flight into town, over the Andes, and when we arrived in Cusco, we noticed pretty much right away how the difference in altitude affects your breathing in the thin mountain air. It probably didn't help that the elevator in our hotel (an nice little place right off the main town square) was out and we had to lug our bags up 4 flights of stairs.

After getting settled in, we met up with a tour guide for a tour of the Incan ruins above the city. This started out with a bit of an adventure, as the guide we arranged our tour with sent someone else in his place, and the guy he sent didn't speak any English. After about a half an hour we sorted it out and our original guide arranged for another woman to come and give us a tour. Everything worked out, but it was another lesson on being careful what you buy in foreign countries... you never know what you're going to get.

Anyways, we toured the ruins, including Sacsayhuaman, (pronounced like "sexy woman"), Qénqo, and the temple for Pachamama, "Mother Earth". It was all very impressive; the structures will built with giant stones that fit each other perfectly, with no mortar used to hold the stones together, and they've stood for hundreds of years, through wars, earthquakes and weather, and they're still there. Not only is the durability of the structures impressive, but when you think that they didn't really have any tools other than maybe chisels, it's amazing to think the amount of work required to make them.

We had two nights and one more day in Cusco, and we used that time to eat some nice local food, including grilled alpaca (tastes like chicken) and more ceviche, and see other sights in town like the old cathedral, the main square and the Temple Of The Sun. When the Spanish arrived in the 1500's, they tried to tear down the Temple Of The Sun, but found it was too well made and the stones were too difficult to move, so they just built a catholic church on top of it. During an earthquake in the 1960's, most of the church was destroyed, but the Incan temple remained entirely intact, except for one corner of the structure, which was only damaged when part of the Spanish church collapsed on it.

Our time in Cusco was really nice, and while we were sad to go, we were also excited to be off to Machu Picchu for the next leg of the trip. More on that next....

Here are a couple of pictures for now. We'll post some more soon.

Lima Pictures

Here are a few pictures from our time in Lima. Sorry for the delay. Busy living, I guess...

Peru Part I - Lima

One of the benefits of working for a big international company is that sometimes you get to travel to some pretty cool places for work. So when Erin found out she would be going to Lima for a 2.5 day conference, we thought it would be a perfect time to build a quick vacation around the conference and spend some extra time in Peru.

Our first (and last) stop was Lima, the capital and largest city of Peru. With a metropolitan population of over 8 million people, it is a huge city. We didn't see a ton of it, and to be honest, I don't think there is much to see outside of a few nicer touristy areas. There is a lot of poverty, and despite some nice areas, it isn't the most beautiful city.

We arrived on Sunday night for Erin's conference, which ran Monday through Wednesday morning. Erin's company set us up at a nice hotel, the Marriott, a beautiful high rise right on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. Since we arrived pretty late and would be in Lima until Friday, we decided to rest after a long, long day of travel and just head to bed without seeing any of the town.

One nice thing we got to experience while in Lima was meeting up with a good friend. Our friends Shane and Colleen are currently spending a year travelling around the world, and their time in South America coincided with ours. Unfortunately for them, they had some problems with their camera during their travels, but because of that, we were able to arrange a meeting with Colleen, as we brought a replacement camera down for them and she needed to pick it up. So Colleen flew into Lima on Monday morning and spent the day with us. While Erin was in her conference, Tim and Colleen toured the Miraflores district of Lima. And that night we all went out for dinner and drinks together. Colleen headed back out to (I believe) Bolivia early the next morning after a short but nice visit. If you're interested in following their adventures, you can see them here.

On Tuesday, with Erin still in her conference, I went on my own to visit "Lima Centro", Lima's downtown, which is home to Lima's main cathedral, the main town square, another old church which holds the catacombs of Lima, and the city's main shopping district.

Once Erin was finished her conference on Wednesday, we had plenty of time to see the city on Wednesday and Thursday. We spent more time in Miraflores and Lima Centro, and visited the Mercado Indios, a public market filled with dozens if not hundreds of stalls featuring arts and crafts from the Incan Indians that populate Peru.

We like Lima, but we were happy to be moving on to Cusco on Friday morning. We saw some nice things in Lima, and sampled some great local food like ceviche (raw fish "cooked" by marinating in citrus juice and serviced with cold corn and sweet potato), but it was time to move on.

Check back soon for pictures from Lima. Our computer is running really slowly right now and won't load photos. But some will be up soon, as well as more updates on the rest of our trip.

New York, New York

Over Thanksgiving, we were invited to spend the weekend in Morristown, New Jersey with our friends Jodie and Adam, as guests of Jodie's parents Ed and Maretta. Morristown is only about a 1-hour train ride from New York City, so we took the opportunity to spend a couple of days in the city while we were there.

We piled in the SUV with Jodie, Adam and their Border Collie, Duncan for the approximately 7-hour drive from Cleveland to Morristown Wednesday afternoon. After a relatively uneventful drive, we arrived around 11:00 PM to some great hospitality, and a house full of dogs as Jodie's brother and his girlfriend, also staying at the house, had brought their two labs as well. Erin has been talking about having three dogs one day, and this gave us an idea of what it might be like (a little crazy, but not too bad).

Thursday is, of course, Thanksgiving in the States. It's a stroke of genius if you ask me. They get a four-day weekend out of it, while we only get a three day weekend with our Thanksgiving on a Monday. It was pretty much as advertised in TV and the movies: an entire day dedicated to nothing but lazing around the house, gorging yourself, drinking too much, watching football, and passing out from the turkey. A good time, but not something you could do every day.

On Friday, our hosts had plans to attend a concert in Morristown, so we headed out on our own to the Big Apple. Black Friday crowds meant the city was incredibly crowded, but it was still great. We arrived at Penn Station, and from there walked around mid-town, seeing sights like Times Square, the Empire State Building, Broadway and Rockefeller Center before hopping on the Subway down to Greenwich Village and the East Village. We did a little bit of shopping, stopped at a café and later a small pub before having a very nice dinner at a steakhouse in the area.

Our hosts were free on Saturday, so they took us on a little tour of more of Manhattan. We again took the train into the city and headed downtown. This time we saw Chinatown, Canal Street, Little Italy, the World Trade Center site, and the Brooklyn Bridge. Another great day in New York.

A big thanks to our hosts Ed and Maretta for welcoming us into their house for Thanksgiving, and for the Saturday tour of the city. New York is an amazing city, and not one you can do in a few days, so we're definitely planning on making a trip back, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Croatia Part III - Dubrovnik

Our last stop on our trip through Croatia was "The Pearl of the Adriatic", Dubrovnik. We had heard nothing but good things about Dubrovnik, and it didn't disappoint.

We stayed at a waterfront hotel in the Dubrovnik suburb of Lapad, just north of the old town. It was too far to walk into town, but luckily the bus stop was right in front of our hotel, so we were able to commute easily between our hotel and the old town each day.

We arrived too late on Wednesday to head into town, so we just spent an hour or so at the hotel before going to bed. In the morning, we went for a swim off the rocks on Lapad Bay right by our hotel. As in Split and Korčula, the water was great. After our swim, we cleaned up at the hotel and took the bus into the old town of Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik's old town is surrounded by a huge wall that dates back centuries. The entire old town is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was quite a sight; marble streets, narrow side streets, houses stacked up side by side and one on top of the other. It was great seeing another city so well preserved (despite the fact that 2/3 of the buildings were damaged during the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990's -- when doing the repairs they made sure to do the repairs in the original style they were constructed in).

Despite being a major tourist city, Dubrovnik is quite small, with a population of only around 40,000 people, so we were able to see a lot of the city in our 3 full days there. On Thursday, we walked around the city walls, which offered great views of both the city and the Adriatic Sea. On Friday we went to a beach just outside the city, and afterwards enjoyed a nice dinner on a patio overlooking the old harbour before having drinks at one of the coolest bars we've ever seen. Dubrovnik has two bars outside of the city walls, located on the rocky cliffs above the Adriatic. Having drinks on these rocks, with the city wall behind us blocking out all sounds of the city while we looked out over the sea was a great time, and a great memory we will have for years.

Saturday, we intended to make a day trip to the nearby island of Lokrum, but a huge thunderstorm thwarted our plans. We would have been happy to go to the island despite the rain, but the boats that take tourists there weren't running. So instead, we spent a bit of time running around in the rain looking for a decent restaurant to eat in (only to be disappointed with the one we found... oh well), before heading back to the hotel and exploring the area of Lapad a little. After a nice dinner in Lapad, we headed back into town (now that the rain had stopped) for another drink at one of the cliff top bars outside the wall. Despite not getting to do everything we wanted this day, we learned a valuable lesson: if it starts raining in Dubrovnik, get inside ASAP. In a town where everything is made of marble and stone, there is nowhere for the rain to go except on you. The streets became rivers and we got absolutely soaked.

We had an early, early flight on Sunday, which of course was delayed 2.5 hours. Luckily they held our connecting flight in Zagreb for about 40 minutes to let us on, and we were able to get back into Zürich only about 30 minutes late. Despite the minor troubles our last couple of days, we had an amazing time in Croatia, and it was a great final vacation to have before we leave Europe for the USA.

Croatia Part II - Korčula

The next stop in our trip was the island of Korčula, about halfway between Split and Dubrovnik on the Dalmatian Coast.

We arrived in the evening and checked into our hotel, which was possibly the worst hotel we've stayed in in Europe. Apparently many of the hotels along the Croatian coast were built by the communist Yugoslavian government during the 1970s. This one probably hasn't been updated since then. The accommodations were pretty dingy and the staff was incredibly rude, but the hotel did boast a nice location right on the water, just a 5-10 minute walk from Korčula's beautiful old town.

The old town of Korčula is a walled city dating back to I think the 13th Century or so, and has a small population, only about 5,000 people. It is designed in an interesting way, with tall (for the time) buildings and narrow streets, and if you were to look at it from above, a map of the city streets would look kind of like a big fishbone. There is one main street down the middle, with side streets fanning out along from it. The sides streets were angled in a certain way so that cool summer winds would blow through the streets in the hot summers, but strong, cold winter winds (coming from the other direction) wouldn't penetrate the city. We went into the town, had some dinner, then went back to the hotel for some sleep.

In the morning, we decided to go to the beach right after breakfast. When we booked the hotel, we were under the impression it had its own beach. We wouldn't really call it a beach, it was more a bunch of rocks along the water, which wasn't what we had hope for, but was still alright. We walked along the rocks for a little while and found a quiet, semi-private spot where we could go swimming. The swimming, as in Split, was great. Perfect temperatures, nice and calm, all you could ask for.

For dinner that night, we followed a recommendation from our guide book and went to a really nice family-run seafood restaurant. We had some great fish, caught that very day, on a nice sidewalk patio along one of the narrow side streets looking down to the water. It was probably the nicest dinner we had on our trip.

When we got back to our hotel at about 11:00, we were not-so-pleasantly surprised to find out that there was an outdoor rock concert going on right next to our hotel. This was something our hotel neglected to tell us, both when we booked the hotel and at any other point during our stay. It kept us up until after 2 AM (and this was on a Tuesday night too), which made for a pretty miserable night. The hotel of course didn't care at all, and brushed of our complaints.

However, we didn't let it ruin our time in Korčula. The next morning we went for another swim off the rocks, and had a nice lunch at a pizza place along the water in the old town. Later in the afternoon, we had our next ferry trip, this time to Dubrovnik. Korčula was great, despite the awful hotel. It made us wish we had more time and were able to see more of the Croatian islands.

Croatia Part I - Split

Our final vacation in Europe before we move to the States took us to Croatia. We flew from nearby Friedrichshafen, Germany to Split, Croatia. We spent two nights in Split before moving on to the island of Korčula and Dubrovnik. We'll start off with Split.

We arrived in Split early Saturday afternoon. We were met by a girl from the company that we rented an apartment from, and after taking us to our apartment, gaves us some recommendations for places to check out. The apartment was in a cool part of Split's old town, right next to Diocletian's Palace. Diocletian's Palace was built around 300 AD. It was abandoned by the Romans some time after that, and in the 7th Century, nearby residents started residing within the palace, and it eventually became the main part of Split's old town. It was really cool walking around in a town where the buildings are 1700 years old and still intact.

On Sunday we went and toured the basements underneath Diocletian's Palace. The basements had been forgotten for centuries, and it wasn't until something like 50 years ago that they were rediscovered. Apparently back when people first started living in the palace, they lived above the basements, and looking for somewhere to dispose of their garbage and human waste, just broke holes in their floors and threw their trash into the basement. Eventually the basements filled up with garbage and people just forgot the basements were there. Anyway, they've now been emptied of the garbage, and they are preserving the basements the way they originally were, which was interesting to see.

We headed to Korčula on Monday afternoon, but before the ferry ride we had time to kill in town, so we headed to Bačvice Beach for a swim. Despite being a "city beach", which a lot of Croatians apparently thing aren't all that nice, we really like the beach. The water was crystal clear, the sand was soft and white, and you could walk out what seemed like 100 yards before the water was up to your shoulders. A really enjoyable beach.

Dieppe

Early in the morning of August 19, 1942 almost 5000 Canadian soldiers stormed the beach at Dieppe, France, hoping to temporarily seize and hold the port town, while destroying coastal defenses and gathering intelligence. As almost everyone in Canada knows, it did not work out this way. By early afternoon, over 900 of those Canadians had been killed, and almost 2500 captured by the Germans. Less than half of the Canadian troops that headed out from England that morning made it back safely that night.


As we walked along that same beach 67 years and 4 days later, it was hard to fathom what had occurred here. Despite the fact that there are reminders of the Dieppe Raid all around the town of Dieppe, its hard to believe that so many people died not that long ago on the beach where people sunbathe and swim today.

We ended up in Dieppe on Sunday evening, as Erin had to go there for work for Monday and Tuesday. I tagged along to see the sites and pay our respects at the Canadian memorials in town.

Today, Dieppe is a relatively sleepy beach town in Normandy. It has a nice enclosed harbour with a number of waterfront restaurants, the aforementioned beach on the English Channel, an old castle/chateau on the cliffs overlooking the town, and pretty nice, if somewhat run-down old town right off the beach. But as Canadians, there were some other things in town that held a lot of interest as well: The Dieppe Canadian War Cemetery and the Mémorial du 19 Août 1942, a museum in town dedicated to the raid.

The Canadian War Cemetery is actually a few kilometres out of town, in some farmland in a small village outside of Dieppe. It is very peaceful, and is quite attractive as well. There are soldiers from France, England, Australia, New Zealand, and Poland buried here as well, but the vast majority of the graves belong to Canadian soldiers. Most have names, but there are a number hat just say something like "a soldier of the war of 1939-1945", which is quite sad. In addition, you see some tombstones where the soldiers died as young as 18, which, as trite as it may sound, gives you pause to think, and thank that we didn't have to go through anything like that in our generation.

After visiting the cemetery, I walked back into town and visited the Mémorial du 19 Août 1942. This is a small, but moving museum. They have a 40 minute video with film and pictures of the raid, as well as first person account from Canadian and British soldiers, as well as a doctor and nun from Dieppe that helped wounded Canadians on the day of the raid. In addition, they had newspaper clippings from Canada, Britain and Germany from the time of the raid, as well as memorabilia from the raid, such as Canadian uniforms and things like that.

One other tribute to Canada that they have in Dieppe is the "Square du Canada", a small park-like square right below the Château de Dieppe. Its quite nice, and right in the heart of town. It's nice to see that Dieppe has remembered the sacrifices Canadians made to make them free.

After Erin got off work the two full days we had in town, we just explored the town a bit and tried to find nice places for dinner. The walk along the harbour is quite nice, but unfortunately the restaurants were quite touristy, and the food wasn't that great (which was a shame, as we were looking forward to some good seafood, being on the sea and all). We also got a taste of the legendary French customer service, which we had thus far avoided for the most part in our earlier visits to Paris and Strasbourg. Let's just say that most waitresses in Dieppe won't be winning any awards for congeniality.

On Wednesday morning, we left Dieppe and spent some time on planes, trains and automobiles (train to Paris, flight to Zürich, car to Konstanz) getting back home. Dieppe was another valuable historical trip for us, and one we're glad we made.

Coming up this weekend is our final vacation in Europe, a week long trip to Croatia, where we will hopefully soak up some sun on the Dalmatian Coast of the Adriatic Sea. After that, it's back to Konstanz for not quite three weeks before we move to Ohio.

Prague

With our time in Europe running out quickly, we have been trying to travel as much as possible lately. Our latest mini-vacation was a weekend trip to Prague.

After finishing work early on Friday, we took the train to Zürich and flew out to Prague in the evening. After checking into our hotel around 9:30, we rushed out to get a quick dinner before exploring the town. Our new friends from the USA, Chastity and Mark, also went to Prague this weekend, and after dinner we met up with them.

The four of us explored the old town of Prague, including the Old Town Square, which includes the Týn Church, Old Town Hall and Astronomical Clock before walking down to the world famous Charles Bridge. The Charles Bridge crosses the Vltava river and offers great views of Prague Castle, the biggest castle in Europe. The bridge also has about 30 statues all along it, dedicated mostly to religious figures. The bridge was built in the mid 1300s, and the statues date back to about 1700.

Saturday and Sunday we spent just touring the town during the day, and then meeting up with Chastity and Mark for dinner and drinks at night. Prague has a lot of tourist attractions, like the bridge, the castle and the town square, but really, the town itself is a tourist attraction. It is absolutely beautiful, and it has done a great job of becoming a modern city while still having a look of an old European town. Walking through the streets, you can imagine that the way the street looks today is almost the same as it would have looked one or two hundred years ago.

So we spent a lot of the weekend just sort of strolling around town. We saw sites like the Prague Castle, some old churches, and a relatively new attraction, the John Lennon Peace Wall. The wall is a section of wall in the "Lesser Town" across the bridge from the Old Town, where when John Lennon was murdered, people in Prague, which was still under communist rule at the time, went to spray paint messages of peace and freedom in spite of government orders to not do so.

While in Prague, we of course also sampled some of the local beers. The Czech Republic is where the Pilsener style of beer was invented, so it is of course prevalent here, and often dirt cheap. It was also very good.

We had to head back on Monday afternoon, so Monday morning and early afternoon we took the opportunity for one last walk around town and one last drink on a sidewalk patio. Prague was definitely one of our favourite places we've visited, and it was nice to soak it up a little more.

Next up is a short, last-minute trip to Dieppe, France. Erin has to go there for work, and Tim will be tagging along. Dieppe is probably best known to Canadians as the site of a battle where Canadians were decimated by the Germans in WWII. There is a large Canadian War Cemetery there. We will definitely visit it and pay our respects.

I'm the Buda, She's the Pest

After Vienna, we hopped on the train for the 3-hour trip to Budapest. We arrived Sunday night at about 7:00 PM. After checking into our holiday apartment, which was in a great location one block from the Danube in between Parliament and the Chain Bridge, we headed out for dinner.

Budapest is a beautiful city. It is split into two parts, Buda and Pest, by the Danube River. Buda is on the west and contains the Royal Palace and some old parts of the city. Pest, where we were staying, is more modern, and despite that, possibly more beautiful.

For dinner, we headed to a Kosher restaurant we read about, and after searching around a little, were finally able to find it. When we walked in, however, we were the only customers there, and the waiter told us it was vegetarian food only. This surprised us, because the guide book mentioned a number of meat dishes, but we thought "what the heck" and ate there anyways. We found out later that our trip to Budapest coincided with The Nine Days, a Jewish period of mourning where meat (and apparently bathing) is forbidden. The food was okay, but nto what we had hoped for. After dinner we discovered a little more of Pest beforeheading back to the apartment after a long day.

On Monday, we went out for a nice breakfast at a café in Pest before crossing the Chain Bridge to Buda, where we checked out the Royal Palace and the castle district for much of the afternoon. After that, we checked out a Communist-themed pizza restaurant in an area of Buda where it kind of looked like they were still stuck in the Cold War. It wasn't the most beautiful part of town, and we definitely preferred the more upscale Pest side, but it was interesting to get a glimpse at what life may have looked like in Budapest under the communist regimes of the 70's and 80's.

On Tuesday, we checked out a couple of tourist attractions, the Terror House, the Great Market Hall, and St. Stephen's Basilica. The Terror House is a building in Pest that served as the headquarters for both the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party (basically the Nazis of Hungary) and the communist State Protection Authority. Both of these groups used the building to interrogate, torture and imprison people that got in their way or disagreed with their way of life. It was interesting to learn more about this, since internationally, you don't often hear much about what happened in Hungary during those times.

The Great Market Hall is Budapest's largest public market. Picture Granville Island, only bigger and with every second stall selling Hungarian Paprika. It was pretty cool. Later in the afternoon we checked out St. Stephen's Basilica, and we were wowed. It's one of the more beautiful cathedrals we've seen in our travels, with a huge interior, a beautiful dome, and mostly marble walls and columns inside. It was something.

Our night concluded with a nice dinner on a patio in Pest, where we finally got our first taste of authentic Hungarian Goulash, as well as the Hungarian digestif "Unicum". Let's just say the Goulash went down easier.

We headed back to Vienna on Wednesday for our flight back to Zürich. Budapest was a beautiful city that we really loved, and wished we could have spent more time in. Our next planned trip is a weekend in Prague. If its anywhere as nice as Budapest, it should be a great time.

Just a Couple of Wieners

Last Wednesday, we headed to Vienna and Budapest for a one-week trip. We had four nights in Vienna and three in Budapest. Part of the time in Vienna was taken up by a lacrosse tournament for Tim, but the rest of the week we were free to tour these two beautiful cities.

We arrived in Vienna on Wednesday evening, and after checking into our hotel, headed to a restaurant recommended by a co-worker of Erin, that allegedly has the best Wiener schnitzel in all of Vienna. We had made reservations at this restaurant, named Figlmüller earlier in the day, and it was a good thing, as there was a lineup out the door when we arrived. The schnitzel didn't disappoint. In addition to being delicious, it was bigger than the plate it was brought out on. We had an Austrian potato salad with it, and washed it down with some local white wine, a traditional Austrian meal for our first night.

On Thursday, we checked out out local sites like the Naschmarkt, St. Stephen's Cathedral and the Hofburg Imperial Palace, before having a nice, albeit incredibly filling dinner at an old restaurant located in a hundreds of years old cellar in the old town.

On Friday, we started the day off with a nice breakfast at a Viennese coffee house, and then went our separate ways for most of the day; Tim playing lacrosse with the Swiss National Team in the Austrian Nations Cup and Erin checking out more of the city as well as seeing Schönbrunn Palace before catching the last lacrosse game of the day and heading out for dinner together.

Saturday was more of the same; Tim playing lacrosse and Erin touring the city during the day before we met up for dinner together at the end of the night. Tim's lacrosse team managed to make it to the tournament final with an overtime win over the Slovakian team in the semifinals, and was set to face Team Austria in the finals early Sunday afternoon.

Since we had to leave for Budapest pretty much right after the lacrosse game on Sunday, no touristy stuff was done. Erin came to watch the game (the only person cheering on Switzerland, compared to a decent sized crowd cheering on the hated Austrians), and despite falling behind 4-0 early, Tim and Team Switzerland managed to come back and win the tournament 11-9, the first time Switzerland has ever beaten Austria. It was a nice way to end our time in Vienna, but we didn't get to celebrate for too long, as we had a train to catch to Budapest. More on Budapest to come soon!

Back to Paris

Last weekend we took advantage of affordable train tickets and some local connections and went back to one of our favourite cities: Paris. Early Friday afternoon we hopped on a train for Paris with our friend Laurence, a colleague of Erin's whose boyfriend, Fred, is a Gendarme living in Paris. Fred lives on a Gendarmerie base in the Paris suburbs and we were able to stay with him for the weekend, making Paris much more affordable.

Our inbound train had to be re-routed due to a tree on the tracks somewhere, and thus we were a little late arriving. Because of this we decided to stay in and take it easy, and cram our Paris adventure into Saturday and Sunday.

We got up relatively early on Saturday and had a nice French pastry breakfast before heading out. We had wanted to go see the Catacombs, but the line to get in was literally around the blocks, so we went with Plan B and checked out Rue Daguerre in the same neighbourhood, and fun street with some cool shops and cafés. After that we went to the Grande Mosquée de Paris, which has a café/restaurant attached, and had a really nice lunch. We had various Moroccan dishes, with a sweet mint tea, and some great pastries for dessert.

Afterwards, we walked through the Latin Quarter, Île Saint-Louis, and Le Marais before heading back to Fred's to get ready for our evening event, a dinner cruise along the Seine. While the dinner cruise may be a little touristy, it was still really enjoyable. We boarded the boat right near the Eiffel Tower, and the boat then goes upriver through all the main sights along the river, turning around on the eastern edge of the city before turning and heading back downriver, finishing up right by the Eiffel Tower, which at this point is all lit up in the night sky.

The meals were very good, and despite being on a boat, it felt more like we were in an elegant restaurant. There was live music from a jazz band, nice wine, and expensive dishes with portion sizes half of what we would get in a regular restaurant... yep, we're in Paris! After the cruise, we strolled around the city a little more before heading home.

On Sunday, Fred and Laurence took us to one of their favourite places for brunch in the city. It was this place in a very nondescript neighbourhood in the 19th or 20th Arrondissement, where we can't imagine tourists would ever go unless they were specifically looking for this place. The brunch has two parts. The first was an all-you-can-eat buffet of delicious pastries, baked goods like brownies and cookies, fruit and beverages. That would have been easily enough food, but they then offer you a choice of one of five or six prepared dishes, with things like an English Plate (with eggs, sausages, bacon), lamb or salmon. It was all very good, and filled us up for the rest of the day. We'd highly recommend this place, which is called La Bellevilloise, if you are ever in Paris.

Having to head back to Konstanz late Sunday afternoon, we didn't have too too much time to do much else, but we were able to head back to one of our favourite streets in Paris, Rue Mouffetard, where we spent another nice afternoon.

We arrived back in Konstanz late Sunday night, appreciating Paris even more. Every time we go there, we find something new which makes us love the city even more. And it definitely helps to have some local guides like Fred and Laurence to show us around!

Lausanne

The first week of June, Erin had to go to Lausanne for work for a few days, and I decided to tag along. Lausanne is one of our favourite places we've been. On the hills above Lake Geneva, it's one of the most picturesque places in Switzerland, and that's saying a lot.

We arrived tuesday night and stayed until Thursday evening. While Erin was working I was able to explore the city a little. Having already been here a few times before, there wasn't much left for me to explore, but it's still nice wandering around the steep, cobblestone streets of the old town, and along the Quai d'Ouchy along Lausanne's waterfront.

On Tuesday, I spent some time checking out the city before heading down to the lake, where I walked along the Quai until I found a quiet little pebbled beach to read and go for a quick swim. The weather was great; mid-20's and sunny. After Erin got off work, we had a nice dinner at the Thai restaurant in our hotel and walked the meal off with a hike through town at night.

Wednesday, Erin was stuck working again, so I made a visit to the Olympic Museum. I've visited the museum a few times, and always find it enjoyable. They have a permanent collection with memorabilia from athletes past, as well as all the torches, medals, etc. used from every Olympics.

Unfortunately, that was it for this quick trip, and we were back to Konstanz that night. Lausanne, as usual, was beautiful, and hopefully we can make it back there again soon.

Portugal Part III - Lisbon

After a couple of relaxing days in Porto Covo, we hopped on a bus early Thursday morning and arrived in Lisbon around noon. We took a cab to our rental apartment, where we were met by Deb, a transplanted American, who along with her husband Jordan rent out a number of apartments in the heart of Lisbon through their website Visiting Portugal. She was really great, and after letting us in the apartment, she gave us a little food to keep in the fridge, and then gave us a tour of the neighbourhood around our apartment, which included some nice restaurant recommendations that we took her up on during our stay.

After our tour, we decided to hit up a local grocery store, where we bought some fresh fruit, and ate that along with some fresh Portuguese buns and cheese from Deb for our lunch. We washed it down with some green wine, or Vinho Verde, a Portuguese wine that we quite enjoyed.

We spent the afternoon wandering around the city, and did a little shopping for Portuguese potteries. Airline luggage restrictions stopped us from buying too much, which may have been a good thing, because there was so much beautiful pottery around that we could have easily bought enough to fill up 5 suitcases. For dinner we went to a Nepalese restaurant that Deb recommended, and it did not disappoint.

On Friday we went to see the Castle of São Jorge, which dates back hundreds of hundreds of years, and saw a number of important battles before eventually being used as a palace for Portuguese royalty. The castle was very cool, and offered great views of Lisbon as well.

To get down from the castle, we hopped on one of Lisbon's street cars for the ride back down to the old town. Riding the street cars through the old neighbourhoods is supposed to be one of the best tourist attractions in town, but we found it not as enjoyable. Instead, it was just like being stuck on a hot, crowded street car in rush hour, barely moving, and really, we could have done that anywhere...

For dinner we took another one of Deb's recommendations and went to a nice restaurant called Café Buenos Aires, a tiny little place that puts tables out on the stairway overlooking the main square of Lisbon. It was really nice, and much to Erin's delight, offered a number of dishes filled with vegetables, which is rare in meat & potatoes Portugal.

On Sunday, we ventured out of the city center and took a 15-20 minute street car ride to the historic suburb of Belém. There, we toured the Belém Tower, a fortification built in the early 1500's, which was built to be both a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon and also for defensive purposes.

Afterwards, it started to rain (fortunately the first rain we saw all trip), so we rushed over to the town of Belém and found the world famous Casa Pastéis de Belém pastry shop, and had some delicious Pastéis de nata, which small custard tarts that are very popular in the area. They are served fresh and warm and were very, very good. While we were inside, the rain stopped, and we headed back into Lisbon's old town.

For dinner that night, we went to a tiny little hole in the wall that we'd seen the night before, and had one last traditional Portuguese meal (i.e. meat and potatoes) before heading home. After 9 days of travel, and with an early flight the next morning, we were pretty beat and just went back to our apartment for a somewhat early night in.




Portugal was great. Porto, Porto Covo and Lisbon were all quite different from one another, but there was a definite similarity between these towns as well. The Portuguese seemed quite laid back and friendly almost everywhere we went. The weather was great, the food was great, the and the beaches were great. Hopefully we will get to go back one day.

Portugal Part II - Porto Covo

Our next stop on our trip was a small beach town called Porto Covo in the Alentejo region of Portugal. Porto Covo is about 3/4 of the way down the Atlantic Coast of Portugal, about an hour or so north of the Algarve. It's a tiny town, with only about 1,100 people, so there wasn't much to do there other than enjoy the beach, check out the sunset, and have some nice dinners at the few restaurants in the town.

We arrived just after sunset on the Monday, and after checking into our hotel (which was a bit of a nice surprise -- we actually had a small apartment with kitchenette, and we had expected just a basic hotel), we did a quick tour of the town and went for dinner. Our travel book only listed a few restaurants, and after seeing the town, we could see why. The town, as mentioned before, was tiny, and there were maybe a dozen restaurants in the whole town. So, we went to one of the recommended places and had a ncie seafood dinner. We wanted to order a Cataplana, a fancy seafood concoction cooked in a copper pot, but you had to pre-order it, so we had a similar dish instead; a big pot full of rice, crab, clams, prawns and assorted other goodness. We liked it enough that we decided to pre-order the Cataplana for Wednesday night at the same restaurant.

Tuesday morning we woke up, had ourselves a little fresh fruit breakfast, and headed right for the beach. Most of the coast in the area consists of very scenic rocky cliffs, but there are a number of beautiful little sandy beaches among the cliffs. We found a great one, and almost had the thing to ourselves for most of the day. I don't think there were more than 6 or 8 people there at a time, including us. While the water was still quite chilly, we spent a fair amount of time in there, relaxing in the cool water, exploring some caves in the cliffs, and having violent seaweed throwing wars.

Unfortunately for us, we got a little too excited with the beach, and spent a little too much time in the sun, meaning sunburns and limited beach time for Wednesday. Tuesday night we sat on the cliffs to check out the sunset. It's pretty cool seeing the sun set right into the ocean, a luxury we don't have here in Germany, or even in Vancouver with all the mountains there. The sunset was beautiful, and we followed it up with another nice dinner. This time we tried another regional dish, Black Pork. Erin was a little skeptical at first, but it turned out to be really good, so were very happy about that.

Wednesday, due to the over-sunning we gave ourselves the day before, meant no time lounging on the beach, but we did have a nice walk along the cliffs, and spent some time at a cafe (in the shade) at another really nice nearby beach. At dinner, we finally got our cataplana, and it didn't disappoint. It was quite delicious, and there was probably enough food for 4 people.

Porto Covo was really nice. We wouldn't recommend it if you're looking for excitement or nightlife or tourist attractions, but for a quiet few days at the beach, it was a great destination. One more than one occasion we discussed the idea of buying a little house there, so we could spend our days sunning at the beach and avoiding the rest of the world.

Thursday morning, we hopped on a bus up to Lisbon for the last 3 days of our trip. More on that coming soon...

Portugal Part I - Porto

The first 10 days of May were great for us. We were able to escape from an unfortunately cool and rainy Konstanz spring and head to Portugal for 10 (okay, 9 -- it rained on our last day) days in the sun. Our trip consisted of three stops: Porto in the north, the small beach town of Porto Covo in the south, and finally Lisbon, about halfway up the coast. First stop was Porto.

We arrived in Porto early afternoon on May 1, which unfortunately for tourists like us was a holiday, meaning a lot of shops were closed. That didn't matter too much though, as there was still a lot to see.

Porto is Portugal's second largest city, and lies on the banks of the Douro river. It's old downtown is considered a world heritage site, but it is probably best known as the area where Port Wine comes from. I don't think we had been big Port drinkers before this trip, but by the time it was over, we'd had a lot, and even bought some bottles to be shipped home for us.

On Friday, we explored the old town for a little while, found a nice restaurant for lunch, and then crossed the Dom Luís Bridge to Villa Nova de Gaia to check out some of the Port Wine makers. We got there too late for tours, but managed to sample a couple of Ports at a company called Taylor, and liked it enough to buy a couple of bottles. For dinner, we chose a nice restaurant recommended by our Lonely Planet book, and had a nice Portugese meal (a giant baked cod for Erin, a steak for Tim).

On Saturday, we explored the town some more. We visited a large farmers' market, did some window shopping, and went back to Villa Nova de Gaia for more port wine, and this time a tour of the wine cellars. We toured the cellars of a company called Offley Forrester, and while it seemed they kind of rushed us through a little bit, it was still cool to see the cellars and all the barrels filled with aging Port, and also learn some about how port is made. We finished off with a fun tasting, where we were able to sample 5 different types of Port. Maybe drinking a bunch of Port in the mid-afternoon isn't the best idea, but we had a good time. The Port tasting was followed up with a really nice dinner at a restaurant right over the river.

On Sunday, since most things in town were again closed, we decided to head out to a nearby beach for some sun. Swimming didn't happen, as the water was still too cold to swim in, despite air temperatures of about 30 degrees. We relaxed in the sun for a few hours, and when we got back to town, went for dinner at a tiny little hole in the wall restaurant we found on one of our previous wanders around town. The restaurant was about the size of a living room, and had some good food, and great chocolate cake for dessert. Be sure to ask Erin how much she enjoyed her tripe stew!

Late Monday morning we left Porto for a train to Lisbon, and then a bus to Porto Covo. Check back soon for our posts about those stops!