Europe Trip 2016

Our Whirlwind Tour of Western Europe

In December of 2016, my (now hubs) “Q” and I took a 3 week trip through western Europe. For Q, this was his first time out of North America (he’s been to Mexico and Canada). For me, I’ve been to several of the cities we hit on the tour when I traveled with my family in 2004, but revisiting them was fantastic because I got to share those experiences with Q (whom I’d only just started dating at the time of my first trip) and I was also able to see new places and try things for the first time.

Summary

As mentioned in my previous post, we went on Trafalgar’s European Whirl Tour, which featured 7 countries in 14 days:

(1) London, England

(2) Amsterdam, Netherlands

(3) Heidelberg/Munich, Germany

(4) Innsbruck, Austria

(5) Venice/Rome/Florence, Italy

(6) Lucerne, Switzerland

(7) Paris, France

We then went back to London and up to (8) Glasgow, Scotland on our own.

We added a few days before the trip in London to get acclimated and do the zombie thing, and of course several days afterwards in the UK to have our ‘vacation from our vacation.’ All in all, we spent 21 wonderful days abroad right before Christmas.

By the way, if anyone reading this is interested in planning their own trip, here’s how I planned mine…my mother had a good laugh because I would made jokes about her ‘travel calendars,’ at least until I realized how friggin’ useful they are to visually plan your time. By the way, any time we look like dorks in the picture (including sleeping pictures), it’s on purpose, I swear!

(1) London – The First Time

Notable Eateries: Thai Square  – fabulous panang chicken curry;  Spaghetti House – charming downstairs seating. We ordered something with meatballs and inadvertently were served spaghetti carbonara — they obviously offered to resolve it, but I was actually hankering for a white sauce (alfredo sauce is NOT Italian, by the way) and that is where my obsession with eating carbonara started. You’ll see.

Hotel: Cumberland at Marble Arch; we were downgraded and moved to their building across the street, with not much of an apology or offer to compensate due to our booking through a tour company. The rooms were clean and cozy, even the internet was terrible. Breakfast bar was big and diverse.

Day 1: The City

One of the best things about traveling in the winter (other than loving the cold, if you’re a weirdo like Q) is that everything’s less crowded–and clearing customs in London was no exception. We breezed through it and had 40 minutes to spare from the 2 hours we were given by the travel agent before our driver picked us up.

Now, I’ve hosteled before and done the whole public transit schtick, but I wasn’t interested in doing that this time around. I wanted Q (and me, but more so him) to have the least stressful vacation possible, and that meant booking private cars to take us to and from airports at all points. This desire wasn’t totally selfless–if Q enjoyed the trip, then we’d most likely travel again and again. While we’ve visited other U.S. states for a week at a time before, we’ve not done any international traveling together. As such, I wanted things to go smoothly, even if it meant ponying up for hotels rather than trying to fight for private rooms in hostels that may or may not offer a private bathroom.

It’s your first hour in a new country…what do you do?

Yep, we had alcohol to shrug off the long plane ride. Hey, it was technically past 5pm locally, so that was fine! We also had a purpose after the drink: get me a jacket. As you can see in the picture (or maybe you can’t), I’m wearing a puffy vest over a very thin jacket that I brought as an emergency layer to go under my rain/warmth jacket…which I left on the plane because I moved seats and forgot it was in the overhead compartment. Doh.

We asked the concierge if there was a place to buy a jacket and the guy chuckled like he thought we were joking. Once he realized we weren’t, he said to ‘turn left outside, then left at the end of the street’ and we’d find places to shop. Long story short: we were located within a 2 minute walking distance of Oxford Street, the city’s most popular and prestigious shopping district. No wonder he’d thought we were joking.

The place was packed. I’m talking Comic Con-packed. So packed, in fact, that once we did find a jacket for me (for only £16!), we couldn’t find anywhere to eat that wasn’t packed or required long-standing reservations. We walked around for nearly two hours, eventually going down side streets too, but they were just as full of people as the main drags. Finally, we found a little hole-in-the-wall Thai place. Since everyone knows that England has the best international food (because their own is rather lackluster to travelers), I was overjoyed to see food I recognized. I later learned that Thai Square is a large chain and quite popular, but it was nearly empty when we arrived so there was no way to tell, seeing as the walls in London are made of internet-kryptonite.

The First Night

As I mentioned, we were downgraded from a king to a double. At home, we sleep on a king because eeeew, who would want to actually touch each other as they slept? I’m joking, we’re just both bed hogs and like the space. We haven’t slept on a double/full bed in years, and those nights in London were a very stark reminder as to why: you don’t sleep well when you’re that squished.

We followed all the travel blogs out there in waiting until about 10pm local time to go to bed, even though we were exhausted. The windows had black-out shields on them so it was easy to get the room dark, even if getting to sleep in the cramped quarters wasn’t exactly a breeze. Still, we drifted off as we watched Big Bang Theory and had ourselves a much-needed rest. We awoke later feeling quite refreshed. But, since the windows were blacked out and the only outlet to charge our phones was on the other side of the room, we had no idea what time it was. We knew at least it wasn’t 8AM because we’d set our alarms for that to prepare for the Zombie Experience we had planned for the day.

Finally checked the time…it was only 1:30 AM. F***. 

After that we woke up about every hour until, thankfully, it was 5:30 AM and we could get ready for the breakfast hall to open at 6. After that we didn’t care because we’d just walk around town until we had to catch an Uber for the zombie thing.

Day 2: The Zombie Experience

Q had a wonderful time. I was a chicken and ended up (needlessly) not going through with it. So, I walked the banks of the Thames and got some hot chocolate.

I hate horror, utterly and completely. I can deal with fantasy creatures (vampires, werewolves, demons, etc), but I cannot deal with zombies. I even had nightmares after Warm Bodies, for Pete’s sake, and it was a romantic comedy! Anyway, I got through the initial military lineup and run down of zombies 101, but as soon as they took us through the “lab” where thy had a zombie on a chain as well as the “cadaver” room where they were working with “cured-ish” zombies, I lost it. They were too realistic for me. Obviously I knew they were actors, but knowing that fact has never helped me. I was a film major in college–believe me, I know they’re not real. Doesn’t matter, though, because my imagination is only too happy to get involved and play pretend.

While the bunker facility and acting was well done to that point, my imagination was making it far worse than it was. In my mind, they were going to have those kinds of high-quality of interactions throughout the entire run; something to the level of as if a big studio funded it and could afford to have dozens of well-trained and well-costumed actors jumping out at the most frightening points of the excursion just to terrify me.

Q told me that, after I left, they essentially did an hour of target practice with different guns, played some paintball, and ran around as a large group with very minimal jumping out by zombies and otherwise not very frightening activities. Ugh. So I walked along the Thames (pronounced ‘tems’) for 3 hours for nothing. Live and learn. Okay, enough of that.

Day 3: London Bus Tours

One of the few laments I have about the Trafalgar tour (other than the bus itself) is that there wasn’t much in the way of guidance for the days in London. We only found the local representative for Trafalgar in our hotel by accident as we were on our way up from breakfast to ask the front desk about the bus tour I booked.

The morning tour included going by Westminster Abbey, Royal Albert Hall, and the changing of the royal guard (they do it every 48 hours, not every day, except for during peak summer tourist times because otherwise it would be unsafe with the amount of tourists lined up). It was interesting, but I agree with the tour guide in that it’s nothing spectacular. There is no fancy footwork or gun work, it’s literally a group of 20 men that march down the street and switch places with the men already there. While they do stop traffic, there’s not a lot of pomp and circumstance.

he Christmas tree is from Norway, and here’s why.

The afternoon tour included St. Paul’s Cathedral (I’ve seen a lot of churches in my travels, and this one is quite impressive), the London Tower, and Big Ben. The design of the cathedral was interesting to learn about because of two major issues: (1) it was the first Anglican church built and so couldn’t adopt most of the Roman Catholic things like mosaics, stained glass, etc.–basically things that make churches so pretty…and also things that the church currently has (they were much later additions); (2) the patrons paying for the building were like “NO DOME!” and the architect was like “Uh huh, riiight…pst, builders, we’re totally building a dome, but don’t tell anyone.” Thus, there’s a dome.

You can’t take any pictures inside, but know that, like most churches of its class, it is huge inside and beautiful. The picture below is under an open government license.

We moved on to the Tower of London. There are so many cool factoids about this place that I can’t list them all, which is fine.

What I find the most amazing about London–and really about any city with such lengthy history–is the dichotomy of modern and historical in the same place.

Here are the obligatory London Tower Bridge, London Eye, and Big Ben pictures:

Fun Facts We Learned About London:

• How to understand the zip codes: SW 1 means you are within 1 mile of Trafalgar Square, to the south west. Trafalgar Square area is basically the heart of downtown London, and the post codes are all based on their distance from it.
• Church Labels: An abbey = monastery people (monks etc.); a minster = education + monastery (like Westminster); a cathedral = just the church/religious ceremonies.
  • Called a “cathedral” because of the big, velvet chair in the quire, which is the seating for the choir, is called a “cathedra” which is where the bishop would sit during ceremonies when they weren’t talking.
• Tower of London: the tower itself originally had nothing to do with England, other than its location. It was built by the French who’d invaded with imported French stones. So…built by the French, for the French, with French materials.
  • It’s also not very tall (4 stories, I think), but given the time period in which it was built, and the number of floors built out of stone, it was a pretty big building at the time.
  • There is a renovated wooden staircase, much like what would’ve been there when it was constructed. The door is set on the second floor because they could burn the staircase to prevent invaders from getting in easily, thus giving them a better defensive position.
  • Also, they discovered that cholera was water-borne by draining the moat, essentially, to see if people stopped getting sick. When the disease slowed down and then stopped, they confirmed that cholera was not air-borne. To this day the trench hasn’t been refilled with water.
• The Park No One Will Build On: There’s a park we passed on the tour that is little more than a court yard that the surrounding buildings clearly use as a smoking/greenery area. It’s remained undeveloped all this time because back when the city was hit with the plague, the actual city didn’t extend that far, so the plague survivors dumped the masses of plague victims into a deep hole and buried them there, figuring it was far enough away to not harm the remaining citizens. To this day (according to her), no one will build on that plot of land because they’d have to disrupt the ground below to build the foundation, and no one wants to stir up that sleeping dog.
• “Big Ben” is the bell, not the clock or the tower.

(2) Amsterdam, Netherlands

We woke up only an hour before the wake-up call this time, so we were well prepared for the start of the day. The tour company told us that we would be provided with a boxed breakfast since we would be leaving before the hotel’s breakfast hall opened. The concierge looked at us and the others requesting the meals like we were crazy. They pointed us to a desk of croissants and shrugged, saying that’s all they had. Seeing as I’m a total breakfast person, that would not do. So, I sucked it up and went full stereotype in being an American ordering McDonald’s–something I don’t ever do in my own country, lol.

We met our tour guide, Richard (tall, from Florida, & sounds like Jeff Bridges) and took the bus to the Eurostar train station, took the Chunnel to Brussels, picked up our actual tour bus (and awesome driver, Kris).

At a bus break, Q got an espresso (the first of many disappointing, non American coffees) and I got some gelato for us just because. We tried out the Google translation app for Dutch on the receipt and the translation for the phrase at the bottom, according to our phone, was “enjoy your snake corpse meal.” Needless to say, we asked the bus driver, who speaks a billion languages, what it said. He said it was just “enjoy your meal” and we shared a laugh.

We arrived quite late in Amsterdam, in that the sun had already set (at like 4). Still, the city center is frigging amazing. The canals, old buildings, and winter light displays were beautiful and cohesive. I love the history you can feel walking around cities like this with building materials we wouldn’t dream of seeing in the US. Sorry the pictures suck, Q didn’t bring his camera, lol.

Richard offered us some free time, and we could either go to the main shopping district and shop, or we could follow him through the red light district. It’s a “thing” you go and see when in Amsterdam, so why not? 95% of the people there are tourists anyway, according to Richard.

We walked around and I was surprised that the smell of weed wasn’t more prevalent, but for that I was grateful. We saw a lot of pornography, sex shops, sex theaters, and other kinds of shops for sex but didn’t go in. We eventually did get to the ladies in the windows, but they were thankfully not as explicit as I thought they might be. Nor, of course, are they as attractive as Hollywood makes them out to be, which was also fine. Prostitution is legal there, obviously, but the girls are in a union of sorts, are checked out by doctors twice a month and once a month are given career counseling by social workers, who let them know there are other options for work than their present situation. They typically charge 50 euro for a half hour or satisfaction, whichever comes first (lol things you learn on a tour).

What was interesting was their rooms. They obviously had the full windows, and they sat or stood in them, clothed in lingerie and most of the “windows” were actually sliding doors through which a patron could enter. The girls would then close the curtains and that indicated she was with a client. By this time it was only 5 or so, so a lot of the windows were empty. Richard said that while prostitution and weed are legal in Amsterdam (pronounced Ahm-ster-dam), most of the inhabitants do not partake. Their philosophy is that while it might not be for the, who are they to prevent others from doing it, so long as it’s properly regulated? As such, most of the people ever in the red light district are tourists, so there’s no particular shame in walking around the district because everyone is there for the same reason you are, rather than locals gawking at tourists.

Fun fact: there are green metal stalls throughout the canal district, over 100 of them in total, and they are essentially private areas where guys can pee in the canal in public, but without being seen directly. The reason for their construction was that Victorian men would pee in the canal, but that would irritate the women because the men were exposing themselves in public to do so. As such, Amsterdam built the stalls so the men could pee without offending those around them. However, the pee just runs from the stall to the canal, so…smelly. And still in use today by drunks or homeless.

We walked back afterwards and had about 30 minutes until the dinner cruise so we looked to have a drink. We discovered a bar-and-barber shop, so we had some drinks there.

The dinner cruise was on a squat little boat with a glass windowed top. Dinner was a several course meal with food from the 12 provinces of the Netherlands, which included interesting sausages and cheeses.

There are a lot of house boats along the canals, although most of them and a lot of the apartments lining the canals didn’t have their drapes closed at night. The tour guide said this was because the church, a long time ago, said that they wanted everyone to keep their drapes open, otherwise the church would think they were doing bad things with the drapes closed. As such, the culture in Amsterdam is to typically not close your drapes at night, which meant we got to see the inside of a lot of the house boats. Now, when I say houseboats, I mean both the platform kind that have a mini, single-story apartment on them, as well as actual boats that have been converted into houses. Many of the house boats were very posh with modern interiors and sunken living rooms, and there were usually people in them, living their lives without regard to the fact that we could see inside. Obviously nothing bad, just eating dinner and watching t.v., not caring that strangers were peering in.

During the 70s, there wasn’t much housing and the canal ended up getting inundated with house boats, so the city put a limit of 2500 boats on the canals at any given time. As such, it is expensive as heck to get the license/buy the house boat and live there. On the other hand, you don’t pay for sewage because it goes directly into the canal so the fish have something to eat, apparently.

Another fun aspect of Amsterdam is the fact that there are parking structures for bikes—like, 3 stories tall, and that’s still not enough space. The canals don’t make driving or parking easy in the city central, and most of the Dutch ride bikes anyway because it’s easier to get around. The tour guide said that the Dutch typically own 3 bikes, all of which tend to be the same style of 1950s lady’s bike handles, but of those 3 bikes each, one is usually stolen, one is lost, and one you ride. Bike theft is a big issue, given the ease in which it is to steal and transport, but it’s also reported more frequently. As a result the 9 meter depth of the canals, the guide estimates, is filled with 1 meter of water, 1 meter of bikes, and 1 meter of mud. Basically, if you steal a bike and see the police, you just toss it in the canal and no one is any wiser because now you’re just a person on foot. Also, drunk people tend to toss or lose their bikes in the canal.

Our hotel (the Mecure) was SUPER swanky, by the way.

(3) Heidelberg, Germany (& Rhine River Cruise)

[read more=”Click here to Read More” less=”Read Less”] We traveled by bus to the Rhine River boat dock and took a relaxing, if really friggin’ cold, cruise down the Rhine River to Heidelberg Castle. I’d been to Heidelberg before and was excited to share the castle (and gigantic keg) with Q. There isn’t much to say about the cruise that pictures can’t describe, but a few interesting facts:

• The river’s current is 7 knots. For reference, an Olympic swimmer can swim about 4 knots on the top end. Therefore, you literally could not swim against this current if you fell in.
• Many of the castles were originally built as tolling stations. While it seemed like Oprah was giving out castles (there were a LOT of them), most merchants weren’t taxed as frequently as what we passed because they were often towed by oxen going up the river, so they paid taxes less frequently than we would’ve, had the system been the same.
• About 1/3 of the castles along the river are privately owned, 1/3 by the local townships in which they’re located, and 1/3 owned by the country’s government.
• The Loreley statue is a depiction the fabled siren that lived on the river who killed people by crashing their ships. Some towns, back in the (mythos) day, decided to hire 3 assassins to kill her, but Father Rhine (river god) saw what they were about and wiped them out just before the reached her.

We hiked up to the Heidelberg which was a LOOOOOOOONG walk up an absolutely vertical cliff. In fact, I’m pretty sure we rock climbed up it…that’s the out-of-breath photo. Anyway, as expected, the castle did not disappoint. This was also our first Christmas market that Germany is so famous for, and it was quite enjoyable. We didn’t try Glühwein but did get some cocoa and coffee. I also bought what I thought was a gingerbread cookie shaped like a star, but was essentially cardboard with caulking-for-icing (tasted inedible, but at least I learned my lesson).

(4) Innsbruck, Austria

Before getting to Innsbruck, we stopped off for about an hour in Munich. We tried out the Hofbräuhaus, a 1500 era beer hall that’s well known for it’s Bavarian charm. We found a table to share with some other people already sitting there and tried to use our translation app to read the menu. We didn’t see how to flag down a waiter, and we didn’t have enough time to really sit there and wait to order and then pay, so we left and found an Irish pub across the street where we were served immediately.

Once in Innsbruck, we stayed at the Grey Bear near the historical district. I took a short walking tour of the area with the group but I’m afraid to say I didn’t pay as close attention to the information as I usually do. Ah well, we all have our limits  I just know that the Golden Roof was important. Our excursion for the night was to have a Tyrolean Evening with dinner, where we enjoyed a delicious meal of traditional Tyrolean cuisine before a lively folklore show, where singers, dancers and musicians dressed in national costume provide an evening of entertainment and fun (as stated by the Trafalgar excursion description–it was a hoot and a half, I just couldn’t remember any of those words, lol). No pictures were allowed, but Q did drink a full 3 liters of beer (plus a few more), of which he was very proud and not terribly hung over for it thanks to Reinheitsgebot, the German (beer) purity laws.

Oh, I finally tried Glühwein. I’m sure it would taste not…vomitous…if better wine was used, but I was definitely not a fan. I apologize for the low quality pictures, but Q didn’t come out with me that night so we don’t have pics from his camera.

(5a) Venice, Italy

[read more=”Click here to Read More” less=”Read Less”] We arrived in Venice via water taxi, and the excursions for the city was a gondola tour and a grand canal private taxi tour. I wasn’t particularly jazzed about a gondola ride, but I really only thought that because it was so touristy and you don’t see all that much that you can’t already see on the bridges. Plus, it was close to freezing out, even though Google promised a high of 40, it was in the 30s. Still, Q and most of the group wanted to do it, so why the heck not?

Oh, right, because it’s terrifying, lol.

We got into groups of 4-6 and filed into the fleet of boats they’d reserved for us. Along with the gondola ride, we also got a singer for each set of 5 boats. Our singer was near the front of our fleet and we were in the last boat—we were glad for that because while the singer was excellent, if he were any closer it’d feel like a Mariachi band right in your ear.

Some information about the gondolas first, though, before getting into the ride:

Gondolas are taxis, and you have to have one of the limited taxi badges to operate a gondola. In the city of Venice, all gondola drivers are male except one, and the women of the city definitely feel the ‘ole boys club’ for that. The reason for this is because all of the testers are male, and so there’s various reasons they fail women, but it’s obvious that sexism is the major issue. That being said, gondola drivers go through extensive training in learning to operate a gondola (2+ years; it’s subjective, one guy took 21 years to pass the test), and from our ride, we realized that a lot of the issues revolve around managing weight distribution. The metal part on the front of the gondola has six arms for the six (something) of Venice, with one on the opposite side to show unity of all within one city of Venice. The top and sloping down side are an imitation of the then-ruler’s hair cut.

When the water table rises (usually due to too much sand/mud in the water ways because the canals limit the effect the tide has on taking out the sand, which causes the city to “sink”), the metal fronts of the gondolas sometimes scrape the underside of the bridges they travel under (I looked and indeed saw there were scrapes on several of the bridges).

Gondolas are designed to lean to the right, with the gondola driver serving as the counter balance. They lean to the right so that the drivers can mostly avoid scraping the tops of the bridges by leaning the boat as they go under bridges. Fun fact: if you sit in the “love seat” in a gondola, supposedly you’ll have children or grandchildren within a year. Also, gondolas are flat bottom boats.

Now to the Gondola ride itself:

Anyway, so we team up with the Aussies to have our six people. I was the first to get into the gondola and originally didn’t want to sit in the love seat (some nonsense about being married or having kids within a year…plus I just didn’t want to get on first), but the driver told me to sit in the back on the left, so I did. Q was next, sitting next to me, and we faced the front of the boat. We are expecting to have some fur babies within the year :D. Nick and Leah were next, in the benches facing perpendicular to us, so they each faced the opposite side of the boat. Theresa sat in the little wooden chair, and her son John sat on the front of the boat, facing us.

We were told very strictly to NOT MOVE. Ugh, I still get a little queasy thinking about the ride. Our tour guide swore up and down that it is incredibly difficult to flip a gondola. That may be so, but that doesn’t make the feeling of tipping to either side any more fun, especially when you’re told not to move and counterbalance, since that’s the driver’s job. Q got some good pictures, but I think I managed only a few and a video so we can remember what the singing was like. Out in the open water on the way to the canals was the worst, since it was all new and there was a lot more turbulent waters due to the bigger boats. Theresa and I were in the same boat (lol) of disliking the tipping, and Q and I groaned every time it tipped too far to either side. I know what’s in the water and didn’t want it anywhere near me, and Q had all his camera equipment with him (which I was carrying because I suggested the good idea to carry it all in a backpack to save his back…lol no good deed goes unpunished).

As a result, what was supposed to be a relaxing, romantic ride down the canals of Venice was in fact a quite stressful ride of undetermined tippiness and while we could appreciate what the ride was supposed to do, we were all glad it was only a 15 minute trek. Unfortunately, that also meant that once it was over, we would have to debark, and those of us in the back had to suffer the joy of the others inadvertently shaking the boat as they got off. I was ecstatic to be back on dry land, but was also looking forward to the taxi ride down the Grand Canal. The taxi ride was much easier, and Q got a ton of great photos, but at the cost of his hands because it was so cold out in the wind.

After that was the trip to St. Marc’s square (red/green tall tower), at which point the light was fading fast, which was why we did the boat tours first, so we could get better pictures than after walking around the city. Through St. Marc’s square we made our way to the glass blowing demonstration.

We walked past the beautiful, huge green glass horse to use their toilets (never pass up a free pee in a clean toilet is pretty much the motto of this trip). The first glass blowing demonstration was a flower vase made to look like a flower at the top and was very impressive. It wasn’t the same place we went last time, because I recall going to an actual factory, but this was essentially the same thing and I’m glad Q got to see it.

We ended the glassblowing demonstration with a tour of the proprietor’s glass shop, where he discussed how they get color in the glass, why certain colors cost more (amethyst and red because of the manganese and something else) and how they do the gold designs on their artwork. They basically have the glass warm and molded, and they roll it on a very thin piece of paper made of 24 carat gold, then file off the pieces they don’t want so as to finish the design. They then bake it because the gold is already absorbed into the glass, so it won’t ever wear off, no matter how many times you wash it. Some of the other decorations, like the glass flowers, were also baked on, so some of the items were baked 3 times and are actually quite hard as a result – he banged them together roughly to show us how sturdy they were. While thy were undoubtedly beautiful, I was not remotely interested in paying several hundred Euro for each glass/goblet.

We had about 3 hours left until we had to meet up to leave, so we decided to walk around for an hour and then get some pizza. We went in several shops, all of which sold the same things, of course, so I picked up some beads for my Viking apron garb, and I wanted a mask of some sort. I didn’t have a specific one in mind, but I liked the crackled look of some of them and figured I’d know one I loved when I saw it, so I kept going around. I liked the idea of a skull mask, but didn’t see many of them—any beyond the first ones Q and I saw were just painted to look like skulls a-la Day of the Dead.

After a few shops, however, Q rolled his ankle, HARD.

So badly, in fact, that he was sure he’d re-sprained it, and so we tasked Nick and Leah with finding a nearby pizza place to sit down. I went into the nearest mask shop and ended up buying a Casanova-style mask that was black, red, and gold, because I figured I wouldn’t have another chance with Q’S ankle being what it was. The woman in the shop explained what the various masks were modeled after, that they were hand made from paper mache.

We ate at a restaurant that was charming in look, but the food was meh. We asked the waiter if there was a pharmacy around (they spoke English at the restaurant, nicely enough), and he said that there was one about 5 minutes from there, if you knew where you were going. We ordered and I decided to go find the pharmacy to grab an ankle brace for Q, because walking was really painful for him. The walls of the restaurant had kryptonite in them, however, so I had to leave the restaurant to get signal—thank goodness Italy had great internet, because in most other countries I would have “E” which I think is worse than 1X.

Google maps said that the pharmacy was indeed a 5 minute walk away. So, I hustled to follow directions and tried to keep an eye out for landmarks to make my way back. I did take a picture of the shop next to the restaurant as an emergency measure in case I got lost on the way back (I couldn’t tell if the restaurant had a name—obviously it did, but I didn’t take the time to figure out what it was). I still remember the notes I made because I chanted them as I jogged to the pharmacy—Right at the St. Marc’s snack bar; right at Swarovski, down the alley.

Oddly enough, google maps really did get me there. I was amazed by that fact because it’s not like the “street” names are always easily visible on the buildings, nor are they exactly “streets” in the sense that we think of (water instead of concrete).

Inside the pharmacy, indicated by a blinking green + sign, I walked in and saw a few things that looked first aid-y, but the rest looked like a beauty shop. A woman in a white lab coat appeared at the desk and I asked for a moment to type into my translation app if they had any ankle braces. I was initially going to walk out, but since that was the only pharmacy in the area, I couldn’t waste the effort by not making sure.

She looked at my phone and asked if it was for me and I replied in terrible Spanish( because it’s the closest I could get to Italian), “no, por un hombre.” Then she asked for the size and I finally realized she was speaking in English. I said as much to her  and laughed at myself and asked her to repeat what she said. She needed the centimeters for his size and I shrugged and said, “large?” Because what else was there to say? I have no idea and was in too much of a rush to try and guess the inch-width and then translate that into centimeters.

Fun Facts We Learned About Venice:

• The flooding that occurs is not from the outside water coming in; it’s from the sewage pipes below that are hundreds of years old and broken that fill up when the water table rises and water comes out of the pipes into the Square and other places.
• They’ve been working for over a decade to lower the water table and clean out the sewage pipes to address the issue of the sinking
• Venice, for a while in 1200-1250 was the richest and most powerful country in the world because everyone during the crusades would stop there on the way back from looting to exchange for money and things, so Venice had a ton of money and valuables.
• Venice is in a lagoon and used to just be a fishing area. When the crusaders made their way south with their armies, the population on the main land moved to the islands of Venice to wait them out, and then eventually settled there.
• Living in Venice is not for the young at heart because there’s not a lot of work outside of tourism and glass, there’s not a lot to do (no clubs, no theater), and it’s generally a pain in the ass to get around, on top of being incredibly expensive.
• “proper Venice” is the part we think of—some of the other islands are considered part of the mainland.
• There is a yearly holiday of remembrance for a saint (I think) where the city will create a line of barges across the islands from proper Venice to the church on the island they don’t consider proper Venice, and the mayor will walk across the barges (walking across water) and lay a wreath down in honor of the saint.

(5b) Rome, Italy

Since Q rolled his ankle, we passed on the first few outings in Rome which included the Spanish Steps, fountains, and the Pantheon, as well as a tour through Ostia Antica. Since I’ve been to most of those and Pompeii, I figured it was as good a time to take a rest as any, seeing as I REALLY wanted him to see the Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum. So…what do you do when you’ve got free time in a new city but can’t walk anywhere?

Yup. It was a good night. I also learned that lemon-cello is utterly disgusting.

We had a walking tour of the Colosseum at 1130am the next day and Q was feeling much better by then. The arena was just like I remembered from 2004. At 18, with a film camera (OMG HOW DID I SURVIVE THAT?), my pictures are terrible, but Italy is forever among my favorite cities. I thought I remembered the steps as being uneven in depth and length, but instead they were merely steep. They changed the wooden platform over the underfloor to a half circle platform on the one side, and we actually got to go on that platform with the group thanks to our lovely guide, Christina.

Some fun facts about the Colosseum that may or may not be true:

• The wooden floor to allow for trap doors for animals to jump out
• Sand was used on the arena floor to soak up the blood
• It took maybe 20 min to seat and let out 50k people
• Order of sitting, closest to the nosebleeds: VIPs, regular men, women, then slaves was the order of sitting from closes to the arena to the nose bleed section
• The big cross is where the Emperor used to sit
• The only reason it’s still standing is because some bishop or religious figure (have pictures of the guy’s dedication) begged the pope to preserve it because of its historical aspects. Until they did that, there was essentially a free for all for the marble and other building materials (the Trevi Fountain is built from marble of the Colosseum)

To end the day we had a lovely dinner with our group’s own Italian singer (a great showman and very talented–takes requests!) and then drove/walked to the Trevi Fountain, where Q and I had our first Italian gelato of the trip. Some of the images are sideways and I’m too fed up with WordPress to deal with its mobile phone photo issue.

We went to the Vatican Museum & St. Peter’s Basilica the next day.

(5c) Florence, Italy

Florence was one of my least favorite cities the last time I was here. This time it was far more enjoyable, although I can’t really quantify why. We arrived near dark and had some time to ourselves before the walking tour and dinner. Q and I wandered around, got lost, managed to find a random tourist information booth and got back in time for the tour…which took us essentially along the same route we just took. There is so much history in the city that  I can’t possibly share it all, but the Renaissance started here, modern Italian came from here (and Dante, the author), Michelangelo and Leonardo are from here and so much more.

(6) Lucerne, Switzerland

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We drove through the Gotthard Tunnel, which is 11 miles through the base of a mountain and took them about 18 years or so to complete.

We stopped for lunch in Switzerland and were warned that the Swiss make more money than the average European so everything costs more. As in, the average European person makes about 25k (or w/e) a year whereas the average Swiss person makes 70k a year. They have higher taxes, higher cost of living etc. so they make more money and charge more for their goods. We spent a heart-stopping $55 for lunch, which was essentially stir-fry chicken with white rice, two egg rolls each and a drink each. Then another $3 for a cookie, but it was an awesome cookie and totally worth it. We were at least glad for the change in lunch food because for once it wasn’t just slimy meat (salami has a different texture than the super lean stuff I buy) and more bread.

In Switzerland, they speak Italian (near the Italian border), French, Swiss German, and regular German (they are definitely different languages, lol). But, unlike the Belgians, they don’t tend to fight over language issues because the national government is weak, and therefore no one language or culture is favored. The local governments are the ruling power in Switzerland, and they are obviously run locally, so there’s no strife there. The title of president is mostly ceremonial and I think Richard said the President changes every year.

We started the actual trip to Lucerne via boat—Hogwarts style (not really, but it’s a fun image to think of). It was just above freezing, which is actually unseasonably warm for Lucerne in mid December. After dinner we took an early night because the next day was expected to include a train ride up Mt. Rigi and then a horse carriage ride to a local farmer’s dairy farm. For anyone considering this tour, both of these excursions are well worth it.

If you’re going to be in the Swiss Alps, then you may as well see the Swiss Alps! Note the lack of snow in our pictures, however, because there was an unseasonably warm week there and it all melted before we got up there. It was actually way colder in Lucerne than it was on the mountain.

As for the horse carriage ride, it’s beautiful, a great change of pace from the cities, and the food and company are just wonderful!

• We got off several times, once for a quick trip over a frosty bridge, once to look at the local church and cemetery, and once to get off at the farmer’s house for some food.
  • In the more rural (possibly all) parts of Switzerland, they don’t have large graveyards. Nearly everyone is cremated to save on costs, and you can rent a grave for 5-15+ years, after which your remains will be removed to a communal grave, and someone else gets your grave site. This is because the Swiss don’t have a lot of room to waste on dead people, and, practically speaking, no one really visits a grave after 5-15 years, so there’s no point in letting people have that space unless they pay extra for the longer time period.
  • The church was a little interesting because although they didn’t have the money or resources for marble when it was built, they had someone paint the columns and other parts of the church to look like marble.
  • I was the last to join the wagons because of the bathroom queue, but you never pass up a free pee when you’re traveling so…oh well.
    • There were a few brief stops to let cars by and clean up horse poop (literally a steaming pile of sh*t)
  • The farm house was beautiful and typically Swiss with its building and decorations. The interior that some of us ate in was a cheese storage building, wherein Hans and Hermione lived in the main house.
  • The food was delicious – a broccoli-based herb soup, meats, very sharp cheese, and some pear/chocolate/croissant things that were pretty delicious. We had several bowls of the soup, and the cheese was made much easier to eat when put into the soup.

We toured around the city for a bit, and checked out the historical wooden bridge (apparently most of it burned down a few decades ago, so it’s not all original).

(7) Paris, France

The Moulin Rouge was awesome – jaw-dropping talent. Obviously, due to the risqué nature of the show (and other reasons), we couldn’t take any photos inside the theater. At this point in time, Q hadn’t finished editing/sorting his pictures from Paris and Glasgow, so the rest of the post is limited to my pictures only.

We really enjoyed Paris. Or, rather, Q loved it and the city eventually grew on me. I initially thought it was quite ugly, but that’s mostly because it was a lot more metropolitan than I expected. For some reason, despite its fashion focus, I thought it would be more like Rome and less like Manhattan. We visited the Palace of Versailles (gorgeous and we only saw like 1/8th of it).

We then walked around the city a bit and had some lunch. The Eiffel Tower was closed for strikes but we still went to see it and then saw it from the top of a sky scraper.

We also had a traditional French dinner as our tour farewell dinner and then a boat ride alone the Seine that made pictures somewhat difficult. We’ve decided we’re going to learn French this year and come back soon!

Notable Eateries: Casa Luca; most of our tour ended up here and I had yet another fantastic carbonara pasta.

Fun Facts We Learned About Paris:

• Champs de Elysee (shom de eh-lez-eh): means Elysian Fields (Greek mythology’s heaven)
• French traffic flow is crazy (see below)

(8a) London – The Second Time

Hotel: Cumberland

Notable Eateries: Sandy’s (Italian); I had the carbonara pasta and Q had a pizza…can’t remember which one. They were both excellent. We also ate at the Red Sun (Chinese), which was delicious. I wasn’t sure about it because the reviews on Yelp weren’t great, but the food & service were great and the portion sizes were just fine. We had kung po chicken, chicken fried rice, and beef chow mein.

Originally, we were going to take the Trafalgar bus back to London because it was a free ride. It would’ve taken 8-9 hours depending on traffic and driver breaks and we would’ve arrived sometime after dark (then again it got dark at 4:30pm, so that’s not saying much). It turned out, however, that two of our fellow trip mates wanted to go directly to Antwerp from Paris because it was much cheaper and faster than from London, but they’d already pre-purchased a Eurostar (train) ticket to London. They also had taxi rides booked to the train station in Paris and to the hotel where we (Q & I) were staying in London.

Unfortunately, they weren’t able to sell the tickets to anyone on the bus (no names on the train ticket) so they offered them to us, and we VERY gladly accepted. The train ride was just over 2 hours, rather than 8 or 9, so Mr. & Mrs. “Clarke” got to London around 11 am instead of 4 or 5 pm.

We had extra time to do laundry (thank God), had some lovely Italian food across the street from the laundromat, and otherwise chilled out. I don’t know that we left the hotel the next day except to eat because we were just zonked out from all the rushing around the previous 2 weeks. We did manage to see Rogue One, which was awesome.

Fun Fact: When in London, be aware that at the movie’s “start time,” there are 20 minutes of advertisements and THEN 10-15 minutes of previews. Lol, we didn’t need to rush to get there on time, apparently. Also, for you Americans, the cinema food/drink prices are exceedingly cheap compared to what we’re used to ($3 for a bottle of water rather than $10).

Other than eating, we pretty much used our days in London to do some R&R. Not much to report.

(8b) Glasgow, Scotland

Notable Eateries: Wagamama (Japanese); Nippon Kitchen (Italian)

Hotel: Park Inn

I picked Glasgow instead of Edinburgh out of preference of wanting to see a different Scottish city (visited before in 2004). Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland, but still has the feeling of a smaller town like we’re used to at home, which was great. They’re also serious foodies over there–tons of gourmet burger restaurants, among others. We took a hop-on-hop-off bus tour around once, got some great ramen, then took the bus tour again and got off a few places before darkness fell. We saw a church whose name I have since forgotten (didn’t keep my journal up in Scotland), the People’s Palace/Greenhouse, and the Glasgow University. We then took ourselves on a self-orchestrated pub crawl (2 pubs total, lol). The second pub featured a very charming and chatty bartender who had us try “square sausage” which is apparently a breakfast staple. It both looks and tastes like tire treads. We also saw the movie Passengers and that’s about all the highlights of the trip. Oh, Q got himself a fancy pea-coat and British boots, of which he is very proud.

Final Thoughts

If you have the time, and you have the money–even if it might be a little tight–travel. Just go–you won’t regret it and you won’t always get to go back. Do what you can afford while you’re there and live in the moment.