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4/2026 Capitols of Eastern Europe Cruise

Our next stop was in Bucharest, Romania to start a Viking River cruise to the capitols of Eastern Europe on the Danube. This was our first river cruise. It met the goal of getting to some cities we probably would never have flown or trained or bussed to. Will we do another river cruise? Probably not – too short of time in each city, too rigid of a schedule, and too many group activities. We were lucky that the water levels were still high so no disruption there.

We flew from Amsterdam to Bucharest. The terminal in Bucharest was a construction zone everywhere but pales in comparison to the traffic in Bucharest which is Abysmal! Took about 7 lights to get up to the Arc de Triumph roundabout which has traffic from 4 directions (4 lanes each) merge and circle and create utter chaos!

Lots of “grand” architecture – symmetric buildings at intersection. Construction going on for a new Metro stops and water pipes.

The People’s Palace in Bucharest, built by Ceaucescu. It is the 2nd largest goverment building in the world after the Pentagon.

The Romanian Orthodox National Cathedral in Bucharest. It’s not finished so we could only admire it from outside.

What used to be the National Bank of Romania.

We were in Bucharest a few days before the cruise and booked a driver to take us to Transylvania through the Carpathian Mountains. Visited Peles Castle, Brasov, and Bran Castle with lots of scenery thrown in. The ski hills still had snow! Many of the drivers are a bit reckless – passing in the mountains where we wouldn’t think of it!

Peles Castle in Romania. It is spectacular!

Mark and Susan at Dracula’s Bran Castle in Transylvania

Funnel cake – no idea what the Romanian name is.

Let the cruise begin!

**Yes, the Danube has some locks to navigate.**

Pleven, Bulgaria- one of the many Orthodox churches we saw along the way.

At this church we learned a little about the arrangements of altar screens in Orthodox churches. Usually there are 2 rows of saints and apostles. This one had only one row – apostles. Then the center row has the patron saint of the church on the left, Mary, Jesus and ??? on the right. I didn’t take very good notes!

The day we went to Pleven, Bulgaria, the second stop was in the center of town to either wander around or go to the mausoleum where many who died at a famous battle are buried. Before we headed to the church, our guide told us where and when to meet – at the Pleven sign at 5:10. Some lady couldn’t understand those directions and asked the tour guide several times – “Do we have to meet at 5:10 if we’re not going to the Mausoleum?” YES!!

Loading supplies onto the ship in Vidin.

This is a modern artwork along the Danube

Made an overnight stop in Belgrade which we really liked. It was a holiday so lots of people were out and about. The Serbs are quite tall and we saw a group of teens that we would have guessed were basketball players even if their jackets hadn’t identified them! Everyone in Serbia knows where Colorado is because of Jokic who plays for the Nuggets.

The cyrillic alphabet makes reading parking regs more complicated!

I added to my sign collection on this trip.

At this port town, the walkway to shore wouldn’t match up – the last small ramp wouldn’t go down. They tried jumping on it but it just popped up. Passengers were on both sides – wine tour peoples trying to get back on and Included tour trying to get off. Sue and I watched from the ship. Finally had to use a crane to put another ramp above the first one.

Roman Necropolis in Pecs, Hungary. Beautiful little city.

Our next stop was Budapest. Mark and Susan were first there in 1990, right after the wall came down. It certainly looks better in 36 years and no Russian soldiers with guns wandered around. We skipped all the first time visitor sites and went hunting for various monuments and memorials to WWII and the Russian invasions.

Another Hungarian sign for the collection!

The radishes were huge in Budapest and in Serbia.

Bratislava is not far up the river from Budapest.

**Beer in Bratislava, another nice city.**

After a walking tour of Bratislava, it was time for a Slovenian beer!

Vienna was the last stop on the cruise and the last stop on this 6 week trip. We’ve been to Vienna a few times so we passed on the usual tourist stuff and made it our shopping day for the things we didnt want to lug around for the whole trip – shoes for Mark, shampoo and bath stuff for Julia (The idiot’s tarriffs made the company stop shipping to the U.S.).

Always on the hunt for interesting microbrewed beer. This one was in Vienna.

All the shopping was saved until Vienna. Mark went on the hunt for some Birkenstoks.

The end! Off to Frankfurt and Denver and home to spend the summer in Fort Collins – planning the next adventure, of course!

Sorry … not good funny stories on this trip!

4/2026 – Road Trip – WWII and bicycles!

We had to do the laundry! This was in the ALDI grocery store parking lot and worked great!

After a few days in Spa with a German friend – good food, good wine, and a day at the Spa Thermal baths, we headed off to explore WWII sites. We’d done some research so we knew that both of us had uncles who served in the Battle of the Bulge. We had a long day driving on back country roads looking for various villages, hills, cemeteries, etc. It’s pretty clear why the Germans and the Americans wanted to control these hills. If you were on the top, you controlled the countryside for miles.

Susan’s great uncle fought with the 2nd Infantry Division in this town, Krinkelt, Belgium. The town erected this monument to them.

Margraten U.S. Military Cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands.

We finally found the Margraten US Cemetery. We stopped in the Visitor Center where they asked if I had a relative – Yes, Paul McDade buried there. While we looked at the displays and used the toilet, the worker looked Paul up and put together a nice packet for us. Then he took us to the grave site and sanded the tombstone with Normandy sand to make it more readable. Placed a NL and US flag on the site. We could take them with us. He also told us the unit Morning Reports are available on the Archives website. If we wanted to visit for Memorial Day, we just had to let them know and we could have a seat reserved.

Susan’s 3rd cousin is buried in Margraten. He is a ball turret gunner in WWII and died over Germany.

Last stop of the day was Valkenburg, Netherlands where the Amstel Gold Professional bike race takes place. We parked the car for the weekend and explored on foot!

Saturday, we walked around town to the Cauberg (famous climb) and up the hill to the cemetery. We watched the Citizens’ ride people go by – slow, fast, walking the bike, riders being pushed on the bike. Lots of expensive bicycles. 15000 people ride this and particiaption is decided by lottery.

Since we weren’t sure how the Amstel race would effect the city roads (closed, open, what times), we checked with a very nice Tourist Info lady on how to get out of town in the morning. She gave very detailed directions – go UP the hill …. Keep going UP the hill … Up Up UP the hill.

Valkenburg – Amstel Gold pro bike race was on Sunday. On Saturday, the citizens ride took place with about 15,000 riders!

5 of these “people” sculptures are scattered around Valkenburg, Netherlands.

Time to end this part of the adventure and go to the next part. We left on Sunday; managed to figure out to pay at the parking garage. No problem getting out of Valkenberg and to the Autoroute using the Tourist Lady’s directions. Followed various autoroutes – the first was not busy. They got busier as we got closer to Amsterdam. At least trucks can’t drive on the Autoroute on Sunday.
Lots of accidents with long backup changed our routing a bit – took a national road cross country to avoid a 25 minute backup. Plus the A2 was closed for construction in 2 long stretches. Traffic was heavy as we got nearer to Schiphol. We found the gas station just fine at Schiphol but Google failed trying to direct us to Car Return. It should have told us to do a U-turn – we ended back on the autoroute and had to use the LONG approach ramp again!

3/2026 – Road Trip Time

From Lisbon, Portugal, we flew to Amsterdam for a 2 week road trip after Easter weekend in Amsterdam and a visit to the famous Spring flower display at Keukenhof. The flowers are spectacular but the traffic (We took the bus.) was not fun. Easter Monday makes it even more crowded!

We watched lots of pictures being taken in and around the gardens so we took our obligatory pictures to prove we actually were there!

We picked up a car and started our driving trip to Belgium to see WWI sites, tour the Spa F1 track and meet a German friend for a few days before we headed out to find WWII sites from the Battle of the Bulge. Both of us had uncles who had to fight in that war.

We learned that trucks can’t drive in the left hand lane on autoroutes in the Netherlands (good) but they can in Belgium (not so good). We figured out how to buy gasoline in Belgium. The secret is that the CC controller is at the end of the gas island, not in the pump! We got one or two to accept our Google Pay credit card when they didn’t like our physical US credit cards. Who knows?? We will never complain about U.S. gas price either. A gallon in the Netherlands was roughly $8.00! Belgium is cheaper but not by much.

Market Square in Ypres. It was completely flattened during WWI and rebuilt.

The Menon Gate in Ypres. Last Post is played there every night.

St. Martin’s Church in Ypres. What are those lights/bulbs for?? We never found out.

Bastogne Bois Jacques – woods used in Band of Brothers with fox holes still from WWII.

3/2026 – Next stop – Portugal

In 2002, we spent 3 months in Evora, Portugal while Susan taught at the University of Evora on a Fulbright Fellowship. We decided a few weeks in the Algarve would be a great way to warm up after Norway and see how much it’s changed in 24 years – LOTS!

We flew from Gatwick to Faro before just hanging out for 2 weeks near Salgado and Almancil. The whole EES process of clearing passport control started in February so we had our pictures and fingerprints taken twice in Norway, once in Faro, and then once in Frankfurt when we left the Schengen. The Faro process was a bit chaotic, taking about 30 minutes of standing in one spot in line. Four booths were open (Good) and we picked the wrong one (Bad). The machines couldn’t process one guy who we think is a resident of Portugal with a UK passport. We stood in line for 2 phone calls, 2 supervisors before they told him to step aside while they cleared someone else. We had our picture and fingerprints done again! We’re guessing the Norwegian ones didn’t get shared or who knows why??

The Algarve now has condos everywhere, more restaurants, a much better supply of laundromats, good wine, excellent pork dishes, some unknown number of water parks, and at least 15 different golf courses for you golfing fans. Some of the roads have improved but we drove on our share of narrow streets and roads. Many Portuguese still cannot park between the lines in a parking lot@

The grocery stores still sell lots of dried cod.

The beaches are wide and long in the Algarve. It was bit cold for swimming and wasn’t school holidays.

Evora was the next stop in Portugal. We had to see how it’s changed or not in 24 years. The sidewalks are still cobbled and inside the wall is pretty much them same. Outside the wall, though, the city has added stores, hotels, some restaurants. The parking garages still are extremely, extremely narrow. Parking on the street or an outside lot is still a better idea!

Evora is a walled city on a hill with cobbled sidewalks.

The dried cod is in every grocery store.

We had a beer here on the praca (Central square) where we had many a Friday beer in 2002. Everyone was enjoying the sunshine.

This is the 18th century convent we lived in for 3 months by the Vet School and Engineering. Yes, it is in the country surrounded by cork trees.

3/2026 – In Search of the Northern Lights

In 2024 we had a Northern LIghts cruise on Hurtigruten cancelled. (That story is here. ) This is our rescheduled cruise and we chose Viking Ocean cruises for this one. It was great and not very cold. Yes, we saw the Northern lights on the 12 days we were on the ship. The cruise began in Bergen, Norway and headed UP the coast to Alta, Tromso, inside passage, and Narvik before making stops in Ijmuiden, Netherlands and ending in London (sort of). The scenery was spectacular. We learned a lot about WWII history in Norway and we tried to find out why Norwegians don’t think they should shovel their sidewalks!

Blue sky in Bergen – the rainiest city in Norway

I continued my search for the best mussels with Norwegian mussels in Bergen.

Alta was where we discovered that Norwegians don’t clear walkways, parking lots, etc. “We just expect to fall” was the answer when we asked.

We made a stop in Tromso for two nights. Tromso prides itself on being FAR north. Every business wants to be the “Northern Most whatever”. We had an excellent visit to the planetarium where we learned lots about the Northern Lights science.

Downtown Tromso has heated sidewalks that businesses pay for. We loved them!

Tromso Cathedral on the other side of the bay.

Inducted into the Order of the Blue Nose after crossing the Arctic Circle.

The ship called our room, if we opted in, any time the Northen Lights were spotted. A few times we pulled on clothes to go to the top deck to look for them. A few nights we discovered the lights could be spotted from our cabin balcony – much shorter walk!

Best story of the trip … On the bus from Ijmuiden to Haarlem for the day, Mark talked to the ship’s captain’s wife (an American from San Diego). Told her we’d been on the Silver Dawn in January with a Norwegian captain. It turns out he is a cousin of the Viking captain we for Norway. Small world, isn’t it??

1/2026 – Next Stop, French Polynesia

After a total of 10 days at sea, we arrived in French Polynesia. Several of the crew we talked with told us that 10 days (this 10 days!) was the longest they’d ever been on a ship without getting on land. The cruise stopped at five different islands, all of them hot, humid, gorgeous water and scenery.

Lots of volcanic stone sculptures on the islands

Dolphin viewing area. After a 30 minute walk we never did see any dolphins.

This is the view of the stone road from the bar in Fakarava. If we could find a little place with A/C we could hang out on this island for a few weeks.

The Catholic church on Fakarave. The lights were made out of shells.

After the cruise we flew to Bora Bora for a week. It was downpouring when we landed!

How to deliver building materials in French Polynesia

Sunset on Bora Bora

My favorite food! Poisson Cru which is marinated raw fish in lime and coconut.

We found this is in the local store – not in a Costco.

Our part of the World Cruise ended in Papeete where we intentionally spent the weekend so we could watch the Super Bowl. We joined a bunch of local (Steelers fans) and some other cruise friends to watch it outside at the local microbrewery bar. The next day we flew back to Bora Bora for a week of more relaxation which happened to coincide with Chinese New Year. The resort was quiet for half the week and not so quiet for the other half.

Getting back to FC was a long 36 hour trip – not planned that way!

2/17 – 7 AM Awake – breakfast on the patio in the shade
1 PM – in pool and get notice from United that our flight is delayed.
2 PM – get another notification about additional delay. Now we need to change the connection. We changed the SFO-DEN flight.
7 PM – went to airport; 10:10 PM flight is now 1:15 AM on 2/18; go to restaurant for dinner and beer in the A/C along with other people from the delayed flight.
1:50 AM – boarded flight
2:30 AM – departed
1:20 PM – land and get to gate at 1:35 PM; Rush to Immigration – pretty quick
Get luggage and recheck it. Have 13 minutes to get from recheck luggage to our flight in E concourse using the train and our feet.
TSA Precheck – people don’t even know the rules about shoes and belts, etc.
Got to the plane with 5 minutes to spare. Mark got a text that United was holding the plane for us and the rest of the late people, including a flight attendant.

We made it home 36 hours after we woke up! Yes, we were ready for bed.

Soooo …. why did we decide we’re not World Cruise people?

Too much time with lots of people even though it was a small ship.

Too little variety in food and places to eat. That being said … SilverSea was wonderful about fixing special meals. We got to know the Indonesian chef in The Grill. He fixed us Indonesian food 3 times, Thai once and even Mexican once (Not that great). We also didn’t enjoy having a sitdown meal every night at dinner. SilverSea does not have any buffet option.

Not enough time in ports that are interesting to us. We like to stay at least 3-4 days in each location.

Off to our next adventure after 10 days at home.

1/2026 – Ecuador, Lima, Pitcairn Island

The crew on the ship was from all over the world and very interesting. The only German was Anthony, a waiter in the pizza restaurant. Anthony was born in Germany, raised in Nice. Dad was not happy when he went to a cruise ship after finishing his degree at uni. He wants to tell his dad that he met an Asian woman, they are having a baby and he’s moving to Asia. Said his Dad will explode.

We met interesting passengers, too. Susan from Naples, FL. This was her 4th WC and she has #5 booked. She had some great stories from previous ones.

• 6 nights of blackout when they were near Somalia. Had a Naval cruiser with them and they could see guys in boats nearby.
• Some lady on one cruise had 2 suites – one for her shoes!

Nacham and Stephen from Pittsburgh who we saw quite a few times in the Salt Bar before dinner. Then there was the lady who “held court” every day. She’s sailed about 1000 days on Silver Sea and was Elton John’s Australian publicist at one time. We only watch her!

First stop after Panama was Manta. Ecuador.

When in Ecuador check out the Panama hats!

After 2 sea days, we docked in the port for Lima. Our boat expedition to Palomino Island included the opportunity to swim with the sea lions. Susan passed but Mark took them up on the offer! Sea lions love toes for some reason and love to lick them. Yes, Mark felt their whiskers!

Both of us have colds by this time! We get the announcement that the ship will not dock at Easter Island because the water is expected to be too rough to tender in. Booooo …. Now we have to plan another trip just to get to Easter Island.

We had 7 sea days before we got near Pitcairn Island. One day the Captain’s noon announcement – “400 miles from nowhere”. He told people to go to Dolce Vita if the rocking bothers them since that is a lower deck and to eat something. Neither one of us gets motion sickness so we were good. I played Bingo everyday and Mark made his way through “Mutiny on the Bounty”.

In case you don’t remember where Pitcairn Island is – middle of nowhere!

Arrived at Pitcairn Island about 8:30 AM and circled to the other side of the island by Adamstown. Locals came on board with arts and crafts and t-shirts.
Had a nice talk about living on Pitcairn by a Brit who moved there with a U.S. wife.
Notes about Pitcairn:
• 37 people live there
• 7th day Adventist Church is the only church
• PO, store, Treasury for banking and paying workers
• Christmas day dinner together at the square
• Museum has artifacts from HMS Bounty
• Doctor and nurse full time; doctor comes for varying length contracts
• No kids at school currently 2 kids in NZ finishing education
• Brit overseas territory – governor is not on island
• Banana, pineapple papaya taro grow there
• Diesel and solar mainly
• Everyone has Internet via Starlink
• Septic tanks for waste
• No taxes … Don’t own enough to tax
• Babies are born on island or NZ or Papeete; most women go to NZ because they have relatives there.
I bought 2 postcards with stamps for us and Ellen from the ex-postmaster. The supply boat to NZ just left about 2 weeks ago so the mail won’t leave again for 3 months or so. Supply boat comes every 3 months from NZ and orders have to be placed at least 3 weeks before it sails. They have a ship to Mangareve, FP that goes about every week.

NOTE: It’s now the middle of July and I have not seen the postcard yet!

1/2026 – Cruising from Fort Lauderdale – Papeete

This cruise was booked back in 2024 when our Northern Lights cruise was cancelled. Silver Sea had a 132 day World Cruise but we could book select segments. We booked segments 1 and 2 that included the Panama Canal from North to South and Easter Island. About 189 people booked the entire cruise; the ship about 440 passengers total. For many of the World Cruisers (WCrs), this was not their first. One lady did her 6th WC and quite a few were on # 2, 3, or 4. Needless to say ir was an interesting group of people.

We met Bryan and Laura on the first day. He was the cruise Rabbi from Canada. Mark found another Iowan, of course! Jay was one of the gentleman hosts to dance with the single women. Ellie from England was the WC Concierge and had some interesting stories from previous cruises. Walker and Gillian from Ireland stayed on the cruise until New Zealand.

Welcome sign in Fort Lauderdale in the port

One stop was in Costa Rica for the day and we did a rain forest walk with great guide. Susan melted by the time we got to the 3 bridges – 37m, 42 m, and 67 m with metal grating flooring. Susan didn’t see much of the treetops while she looked UP and held on to both rails. The bridge shook quite a bit as more people walked along it.

Our next stop was Colon before we sailed through the Canal. The tour we did visited two locks to give us quite a lot of information about the Canal – building it, running it, enlarging it. They were great! The next morning we crawled out of bed about 6 AM to watch us start through the canal which takes all day and the Silver Dawn was the first ship of the day.

The Silver Dawn was S1 for the day – Ship number 1 going south. We went through all the locks with these 2 boats. The left one is for sale for $13 million if you’re interested.

This is the first gate in the Canal as we left the lock.

This is not even the largest container ship! The largest ones have a new set of locks to use.

Panama Canal Webcam of the Silver Dawn going through the canal.

10/2025 Almost the end of the trip

After Shetland we still had a few places on the itinerary. We picked up a car in Aberdeen for some lefthand driving and headed back to the Highlands for a few more ditillery visits. We were honestly pretty burned out of tasting whiskey and only visited 3 more distilleries, one of which was just for a bathroom stop!

The lovely Ladies Toilet at Glenfiddich Distillery.

Walker’s Shortbread Cookies were founded in Abelour. No tour of the factory, unfortunately, but we visited the company store.

The whiskey comes after you finish the run.

We couldn’t figure out why all (about 3) of the hotels in Ableour were full. Then we heard about the Dramathon – running with whisky at the end. We REALLY wanted a t-shirt from the event but that’s not part of the swag. If you want to run it, beware. This area is NOT flat!

Glasgow was the next stop for a few days. It’s a much “grittier” city than Edinburgh and parts reminded me of Brooklyn. The food was good, though, and we visited two art galleries along the way.

The BEST scallops at a tiny place in Glasgow. Thanks to Darcy for the recommendation.

A bicycle locker by the university in Glasgow. Does this tell you how much it rains??

This is the Glasgow version of sticky toffee pudding.

Back to Edinburgh, for the 4th time, before we took the train to Cambridge for a weekend with Mark’s cousin, Darcy, and husband, Kelly. They are always fun to spend time with. They like whiskey so we found a home for all the driver’s drams and half of the tasting glasses we’d accumulated.

Cambridge was packed because it was a graduation weekend. It took us 4 tries before we found a coffee shop with seats. We shared an elevator with a Thai student dressed for graduation in the morning. He’s graduating with a Ph.d in Engineering – Computer Science and AI. Has a position at Stanford already and just came back for graduation. We ran into him later in Cambridge and he showed us the huge framed diploma each graduate gets at graduation. How will he get that back to Palo Alto?

A visit with Kelly and Darcy in Cambridge with the required stop at a pub.

These are the little driver’s drams we collected along the way. Kelly and Darcy got all of them after we had a little tasting at their house.

This was in the WC at the Polar Museum in Cambridge.

Last stop was London for a few days before we flew back to Denver. We visited the Tate – Britain, went to see “Wicked”, did a little shopping for whiskey, met an Iowa friend for drinks, and had one of those amazing small world travel encounters. We were in a very crowded Kings Cross train/tube station on a Friday evening, looking for the exit we needed when we hear “I know you.” It was Richard from the Islay whiskey tour. He recognized us.

We saw “Wicked” in London at a Sunday matinee with all the kids. Susan had a broken seat! It was time to switch after intermission.

We met Sam, a U of Iowa friend, in London.

I had to eat mussels one more time before flying home.

10/2025 – A few days in the Shetland Islands

After overnight in Edinburgh, we took the train to Aberdeen to catch the overnight ferry to Lerwick in the Shetland Islands. After watching all 8 seasons of “Shetland” on Britbox, we had to see what Lerwick really looks like. Well …. exactly like it does on the show!

We had a tiny cabin on the ferry, complete with a little shower. The crossing was nice and smooth until 2 AM when it became very rolling. Not much sleep to be had for the rest of the night.

We rented a car in Lerwick where the lady told us it’s covered for all damage except the door. If the wind blows the door off, we have to pay! What does this tell you about the weather??

We stayed in a nice little B&B in Lerwick and drove around the island for 2 days. There’s only one numbered highway which runs the length of Shetland. October is definitely the off season! Restaurants and museums were closed and we answered “Why are you here?” several times. It is a gorgeous island even if I wouldn’t want to live there with all the wind.

This is the police station on “Shetland”.

Mark had to find a cake fridge that we saw on “Shetland”.

The road crosses the airport runway. We were scolded for stopping to take a picture.

Jarlshof Archeology site at the end of the road.

The Atlantic Ocean from the Mavis Grind.

The North Sea from the Mavis Grind. This is the only place you can see both bodies of water from one spot.

Sheep roam wherever they want – fields, roads, sides of roads.

Lerwick Brewery tasting room is run by an American from San Diego.

After 4 days in Lerwick, we took the overnight ferry back to Aberdeen to begin the next adventure.

10/2025 – Four days on Islay

After 3 days in Edinburgh – more laundry – we joined our second whiskey tasting tour. The tour group had 11 people in it – 4 Canadians (2 women and one couple), 1 Chinese (Richard), 2 Swiss/Macedonians (Vlad and Maja), us , 2 German guys (Policeman and food inspector from Hamburg) with David as the tour guide. This tour was 4 days long.

The sun came out the next day after Storm Tracy roared away!

The Kelpies in Scotland. Nice rest stop, too.

The rain started at the Kelpie rest stop, falling harder the further west we drove. By the time we reached the standing stones, it was a downpour. Mark and I passed on trudging across flooded fields to look at the stones up close! We finally made it to the west coast and took the ferry from Kennacraig to Islay.

Day #2 – The guide did not want us to complain that we didn’t get our money’s worth. First stop was a walk up the street to Bowmore Distillery for a tour and tasting with a “breakfast dram” at 9:30 AM. Stopped at the Whisky Vault for a tasting and then to the Islay Woolen Mill for a 15 minute stop. Number 3 tasting was at Kilchoman Distillery, delayed by about 15 minutes as we waited for a funeral procession from the distillery to the cemetery. The actual service was held in the malting room since this is “Silent Season” – no production. At least 175 cars drove past us, including Search and Rescue people. The dead guy worked on the farm that the distillery is on AND he liked whisky!
After lunch, we stopped at Bruinladdaich for a short stop. Stop 5 for the day was Brunnahabhain but Mark and Susan shared one tasting. We liked this one. Everyone had bottles for “Drivers’ drams”. They are little bottles that the tasting fills up. We could drink it at night. Most places gave us at least 3 different whiskies to taste. You can understand how we accumulated so many! Last tasting of the days was at Ardenhoe, another new distillery. 4:45 for a tasting.

We stayed in a little cottage up the street from this distillery.

Kilchoman Distillery. We had to wait for a funeral procession of at least 175 cars to leave here.

Bowmore Distillery. We got to keep the little tasting glasses at each stop. We had so many by the end that we gave half of them to Mark’s cousin in Cambridge along with about 10 drivers drams.

Day 3 – We had a 9:15 start to head across the peat bogs to Port Ellen and all the distilleries there. First stop was Ardbeg Distillery. Ardbeg had the brilliant idea of making poster tubes to hold the drivers drams. Jennifer, our tour guide for the visit, gave us an extra!

Mark owns a tiny plot of Laphroaig land. His plot was underwater so no visit for us.

Laphroaig Distillery was the tour after lunch. Mark joined Friends of Laphroaig before we left CO so he now has a certificate with the location of his 1 sq. foot of land. Got a bottle with a stamp on the box. They did this to stop a water dispute with Lagavulin.

Lagavulin was the last stop for a tasting. The entire group was burned out from tasting and just wanted to go back to our rooms and get dinner. We had a yummy dinner at Bowmore Hotel with its huge whiskey collection ehich we did NOT sample.

Mark at Lagavulin Distillery. Yes, it was cold in the wind.

I’m trying not to blow away by this tiny castle ruin.

We saw Ronnie’s name on 2 of the plaques on the mills. He’s one of the 3 millwrights left in the UK.

He is one of the last 2 millwrights in the UK who work on the grain mills for all of the distilleries.

Day #4 – Off to Port Ellen to wait for the ferry. Because of Storm Amy last week we’d been bumped to the late ferry (12:15 PM) but David managed to get us on the earlier ferry at 10. The waiting area looked like mass chaos with cars and truck everywhere. Vehicles were packed in and we watched a loader give a driver directions on how to park the car in the last little bit of room on the ferry. We were last on, making us last off when we arrived at Kennacraig.

The vehicles are jammed on the ferry. There was quite a backup caused by delays due to Storm Amy cancelling ferry operations for a day.

10/2025 – Whiskey tasting in Speyside

We took a Rabbie’s Speyside tour from Edinburg. 15 of us on the tour – 7 Germans from around Stuttgart, Gary and Sara from Kent, David and Matthew (Father and son), Lorett from Isreal, and us.

Lindore Abbey was the first distillery we visited – no tour, just a tasting, a friendly dog, and a good toilet

We love mussels! We ate mussels at least 8 times on this trip. Some were better than others but none were bad.

Day 2 started with 9 AM pickup after breakfast at Ravenscourt B&B in Grantown-on-Spey.

Day 2 – Stop #1 -First stop was at Cardhu – 4 whiskies from the cask. Cardhu makes Johnny Walker and is owned by Diageo.

Mark volunteered to draw some whiskey from the barrel for the group’s bespoke tasting.

We had an interesting visit to the Cooperage. Four year apprenticeship, we watched them them testing the repairs they’d done to the barrels. The used barrels are shipped intact from the US bourbon distilleries and then repaired; Some distilleries have the barrels taken apart in the US and reassembled in Scotland. Coopers are paid by the piece.

Our last visit was to Speyburn Distillery. The tour went all over the distillery with a retired whiskey maker with a very strong accent. I could have used subtitles for him and the Germans in the group couldn’t understand him at all.

Day 2 – Tasting #3 – Speyburn Distillery

On Day 3 we wandered our way back to Edinburg, keeping our eyes on Storm Amy that had a direct aim on Scotland. Our first stop was Dalwhinnie Distillery with very white buildings, also owned at Diageo. Tasting had whiskey with chocolates to accompany them with an older guide. Whiskey was OK but chocolate was better.

Day 3 – Dalwhinnie Distillery, also owned by Diageo.

Storm Amy’s rain really started after lunch. We all voted for NO WALK because we didn’t want to get that wet. Adam stopped in Dunkeld at the oldest church still having services. Mark and I walked back to the bus in the parking lot through the tiny town, used the public toilet for 50p each at a manned office in the parking lot. I assume they get lots of visitors in better weather. Does he really collect enough money to pay his salary?? The toilets were clean, though.

The tour threw in a few historical stops including the Dunkeld church.

Adam drove back to Edinburgh in the wind. The old Firth bridge was closed due to wind. A few events have already been cancelled. Gary and Sara on our tour had a train to catch if it wasn’t cancelled due to the storm.

10/2025 – Scotland

We flew to Edinburgh from Munich where we did the laundry, got pedicures and met up with two different whiskey tasting tours. The first one was 3 days in Speyside while the second was 4 days on the island of Islay. both booked through Rabbie’s Tour. We highly recommend both of these tours! We had a driver/tour guide who knew exactly where to go. We could sample all the whiskey we wanted and someone else drove!

One good story from this trip – On the flight to Edinburgh, the guy in 1A (Susan was in 1 C) threw a fit because there wasn’t room for his bag in the Row 1 reserved bin. Tried to put the bag behind his legs. No go! The captain had to come out for a word. The passenger had to be first off so he could catch a bus in Edinburgh. Pilot told him we would be on the apron at Edinburgh, taking a bus to the terminal, but the passenger was welcome to could sit in the very back of the plane and be the first off at the back exit. That made him happy and gave Susan more room. Of course, when we landed, the busses didn’t leave the runway for the termninal until the entire plane had deplaned. He left at the same time as the rest of us. Oh, well!

9/2025 – Munich and Salzburg

We made a 2 week visit to Munich and Salzburg with friends, Steve and Christina. Munich and Oktoberfest was the first stop – fun as always!

This is a surfer on the river in Munich.

My favorite city in Europe, Salzburg, was the next stop. We took the train from Munich to Salzburg; we spent 4 days visiting some favorite locations including the Augustiner Monastery for their beer and a picnic in the garden. One day we all took a tour to a salt mine – not the same one we visited 35 years ago. The city was celebrating St. Ruppert’s festival with music, crafts, beer, sausages.

The Hohensalzburg in my favorite European city.

We visited a salt mine in our lovely miners overalls!

2025 – Six weeks in Maui

What could be better than 6 weeks on Maui in the sun and wind? We hung out, read books, did water aerobics every day (Susan), used the gym every day (Mark) and just relaxed. We’ve been to Maui enough (Well, it’s never enough.) that we didn’t do any typical activities – no luau, no whale watching trips, no snorkeling. The 2 weeks before spring break were pretty quiet with lots of “old” people. Then 2 weeks of spring break brought all the families. The last 2 weeks were a bit calmer.

Lahaina has made remarkable progress since the tragic fires last year. All of the debris has been cleared and house rebuilding has started. We saw a few houses that are finished, about 2 dozen under construction. It’s going to be a while until Lahaina is back to “normal”. The government has started issuing permits for businesses to rebuild.

We happened to be there for a full lunar eclipse.

Sunsets and champagne on the beach just go together.

11,12/2024 Christmas Markets and Home!

From Venice we flew to Vienna where we met a German friend, Jutta, and spent 4 days in Vienna visiting Christmas markets, the Spanish Riding School (Great tour), Belvedere Palace to see the Klimt paintings. If you want to see a city dressed up for Christmas, Vienna is for you. The streets, stores, buildings were all decorated with lights and ornaments. Vienna hosts at least 14 different Christmas markets all over the city. We think we visited seven.

What are the markets like? Do they sell things? They’re each a bit different and vary in what’s sold. Food and drink (Mainly gluwein which is mulled wine, wine, champagne), a variety of local snacks, and then there are the non-food products. Some of them have local craftsmen products, jewelry, pottery, ornaments, Nativity pieces, not much clothing. At night they are beautiful and tend to be the most crowded then. Lots of residents meet friends at the markets to wander, eat and drink. One or two had ice rinks.

Vienna City Hall at the Christmas market

Best thing about Christmas Markets – gluwein!

Yes, we visited the Belvedere Gallery so we could see the Klimt paintings.

After a weekend of too much food and drink, we flew to Berlin for Thanksgiving, Christmas markets, a few museums, and colds! These were the first colds we had in about 3 years – no fun!

One of the Berlin Christmas markets at night

This dog clearly knows how to ride the Berlin S-bahn.

A gluwein stand at a Berlin Christmas Market

Brandenburg Gate on a cold night in Berlin

Our last stop was Barcelona before boarding the Viking Sky to Fort Lauderdale.

La Sagrada Familia done in Legos, complete with crane.

We spent a few days in Barcelona walking around to find Gaudi buildings but did not go to La Sagrada Familia – been there, done that; visiting their Christmas market; checking out the very large city market with yummy empanadas, fruit, and interesting looking fish and iberian ham; visiting a few pharmacies to stock up on paracetomol. In the U.S., we buy bottles of 500 Tylenol. In Europe, not so much! Their “large” packages have 20 pills for about $3.

The last leg of the trip was a 2 week Viking cruise to Madeira, St. Maarten and Ft. Lauderdale. The seas were a bit rolling but it was nice and warm! We really enjoyed Viking – no one under 18, lectures, lots of room in the public areas to read or play cards or watch the ocean, only 900 passengers. The food was good and Mark learned all about Sambal from our Indonesian waiters. We met very interesting people and just chilled out.

The Viking chefs built a lovely gingerbread village.

The ship stopped for a day in Funchal, Madeira, a very mountainous island!

I knew we were back in Portugal when I saw the tiles.

Yes, Funchal has a Christmas market, too. This one only food and even beer!

The last stop was Fort Lauderdale where we flew back to Denver on a very uneventful flight!

10, 11, 12/2024 Cruises and Christmas Markets!

We’re blaming Sue for this trip. She finds cruises that look interesting, tells us about them and we end up signing up! This cruise was on Windstar, starting in Athens and making its way around the Mediterranean to some smaller ports. One of the stops was Dubrovnik which has been on our list to visit so we said “yes”!

We really liked Windstar for its size – only 235 passengers. It can dock much closer to cities because it is so small. The stops were good. In Catania we’d planned to take the city bus to Siracusa (we’d been there) to visit a few places but rain put an end to that! It bucketed down for about 24 hours and the officials closed the roads due to flooding.

Mark and I flew to Athens (Start of the cruise) a few days early to do some exploring. The last time we were in Athens was in May and the temps hit 100F+ EVERY day! October is MUCH nicer!

The cruise started in Athens on the morning after the U.S. election, headed to Gyphia, Corfu, Crotone, around Italy to Catania, Naples, Civitavecchia, Naples again, Messina, Dubrovnik, Zadar, and ended in Venice. No great stories for this trip but we did love Cindy, the coffee queen, on the Windstar ship. She knew exactly the kind of coffee we wanted every morning!

This cat liked to hang out in the window in Corfu and watch the people go by.

In Dubrovnik, we hired Marko, ToursByLocals tour guide to give five of us a 4 hour tour of the city. We met him on time by the fountain and while he was giving us the intro, a guy walked up and said “Marko” so Marko thought he was with us. Then two women came up looking for Marko, their tour guide. He checked their reservation – Nope, not him! Then we told him we are a group of 5, not 6, so the lone guy needed to find some other Marko. On the way to enter the walls, two guys came running up “Marko?”. Nope! Marko told us that “Marko” is one of the most popular names in Croatia and, obviously, for tour guides! He hid his name tag in his coat after that!

Marko did a great tour – fountain, graffiti, told us some things about “Game of Thrones” filming in Dubrovnik. One lady was offered by the producers 500E per window in her building (9 total) per day to keep her shades closed. She accepted! They paid the restaurant Marko worked in 10000E per day to stay shut and them hired them to do the catering for the movie.

We highly recommend November as a time of year to visit Dubrovnik. Unlike the summer when it’s overrun by visitors, we had the city to ourselves. Hardly any visitors, except our ship, and a few small tour groups.

We had to get the mandatory picture outside the Dubrovnik walls.

Even the cats in Dubrovnik know where the churches are.

The ship stopped twice in Naples – once at the end of a 7 day cruise and again at the beginning of a 7 day cruise. 1/3 of the passengers were only doing 1 week; the other 2/3 did both weeks. Naples has a bad reputation but it’s an interesting city to wander around. There’s even one street lined with shops that only sell items for your Nativity set – pizza ovens, veggies, loaves of bread and the baker. Even the church Nativity sets are elaborate with entire villages set up. And we watched some truck driver back into an alley – maybe it’s a street”?? The entire neighborhood watched the process!

We have NO idea what a French taco is in Naples.

Venice was the last port – one whole day to visit before disembarking in the morning. One highlight of the cruise was sailing into the Venice lagoon about 6 AM that can dock right in Venice. We wandered around all day and managed not to get too lost on the way to St. Mark’s. Again, November is definitely less crowded than summer, especially in the out-of-the-way neighborhoods,

Entering the Venice lagoon

This is where Part One of the trip ended. Off to Vienna next!

2024 Signs

We can never pass up the chance to take pictures of funny, strange, whatever signs. Here are some from Australia and NZ.

Coming out of Hobbiton – drive on the left.

Then there are the toilet signs.

4/2024 A month in New Zealand

From Sydney we flew to Queenstown, NZ, on the South Island. Qtown reminds us of Colorado mountain towns – lots of winter and summer activity tourists (Think skiing, hiking, and biking), lots of temporary young workers from all over the world, lots of outdoor equipment and clothes stores. They also have a YUMMY Patagonia ice cream store.

We wandered around for a few days, did the laundry, took a boat ride across the lake, and found a very high tech toilet in the park:
• Button to open and close the door
• Message that I had 10 minutes to use the toilet.
• Music played.
• Autoflush and the sink water started running with soap and a dryer.
• Button to open the door.

The last night in town, I was all ready for bed when the fire alarm went off at 9:15; threw on clothes and evacuated using the steps from floor 5 to floor 3 which put us on the side of the hotel. We waited outside for about 30 minutes until the fire department cleared us to go back. When we went inside, Susan and a few other people waited for an elevator while Mark took the steps. However, the walkers couldn’t find the steps on floor 2 so they pushed the elevator button and made us wait on floor 1!!

The plane flew over on the approach to Queenstown.

We did the laundry at this little lakeside laundromat.

From Queenstown we headed north to places we didn’t see 30 years ago on our first visit – Wanaka, Taupo, Franz Joseph, Blenheim. From there we flew across the water to the North Island for Palmerston, Hobbiton, Rotarua, Auckland. And the rain started to follow us.

The Wanaka Tree made famous by some TikTok’r

At Franz Joseph Glacier overlook, some Asian tour group posed for pics with the cut out ranger who was telling everyone not to go any further!

We spent a few days in Franz Joseph catching up with laundry, diary, and watched the rain pour all day and night, hard at times! We actually drove 3 blocks to Snake Bite Brewery for a beer and chips on the patio watching wet people and people park in a “no parking” spot – long yellow dashes. The local police could make a mint in parking tickets. The Meteo still called for rain through Friday (We were in FJ on Sunday-Tuesday) along with flooding.

On Tuesday night the rain eased up a bit about 4 AM. At breakfast we learned that the road heading south between Fox Glacier and Haast is closed, as well as between Fox and Franz Joseph due to a bridge being covered by a landslide. We planned to head north, thank heavens! We started the drive at 9:08 AM in a bit of hard rain, driving through some standing water on the road.

The last 2 weeks were on the North Island. One question we get is “How’s the driving on the left in NZ?” I think Mark agrees that it’s not hard since there’s not much traffic until you get around Auckland. The worst part is that the MAJOR National Highway – HW 1 from one end of the North Island to the other is only 2 lane everywhere except Wellington and Auckland. This road carries all the truck traffic from the various ports. There are pull outs and passing lanes if people are so inclined to use them.

How many stop signs do you need at this intersection in Taupo??

Feijoa fruit – sort of tart and sour. They are like zucchini – everywhere!

The “funnest” activity we did was visit Hobbiton, used making “Lord of the Rings”. Neither one of us has read the book nor seen the movie but the movie set visit was SO much fun! The props are amazing in detail. There’s even a 70% scale Hobbit house to visit.

We finally made it to Auckland after driving in the rain in road construction and dropping off the car at the Auckland airport. We visited the WETA Workshop studio special effects tour, The All Blacks Experience, The Auckland Art Gallery, ate yummy mussels and Indonesian food, did the laundry with the best dryer of the trip!

It was time to fly home on the Day that Never Ends.

Wake up at Monday 8 AM NZ time; 1 PM SUNDAY SF time
LWe landed at 7 AM Monday in SF – before we left NZ

Trip Summary: Fun train ride, great to visit friends; excellent scenery. We’ve decided that road trips where we stay only one or two days in one location are great in our 20’s but not our style any more when the trip is several months long. We like staying in one place longer – at least 3 or 4 days at a time. BUT if you’ve never been to OZ or NZ, put them on your list.

3/2024 Australia Road Trip

We picked up a car in Adelaide and started our road trip along the Great Ocean Road, Geelong, Phillip Island, Lakes Entrance, Canberra, and, finally, Sydney in time for Easter.

Twelve Apostles of which some have fallen in the ocean.

The first day from Adelaide, we drove through lots of vineyards to Naracoortes. After we checked in at the hotel, the low tire pressure indicator went off on the car. Our left rear was low but we found an automatic air compressor at the gas station. It beeps when the tire reaches the set pressure.
Naracoortes is VERY small. We stopped at Foodland to pick up potato chips. The checkout lady wanted to know where we’re from. When we said “U.S.”, she said, “What are you doing here?” (Reason: there is a National Park nearby with caves.)
The next morning, we left the motel to go to McDonalds (Makkas) for breakfast; the low pressure indicator was back on. Avis has an office, allegedly, in Naracoortes so we found it – Cappas Auto Repair. Hayden was super nice but he couldn’t do anything even when he called Avis. Avis told Mark to fix it at our expense. Hayden found out that Avis has a tire repair place in town so he sent us to “Trident” tire which turned out to be Bridgestone. They were super nice, found a very long nail and fixed the tyre. Said they’d just bill Avis. Thank heavens for such nice people!

The wind howled when we walked down to the grotto.

Meat pies at the bakery are always good for lunch.

We followed the Great Ocean Road from Warnambool to Apollo Bay to Lorne to Geelong. Little Creature is Mark’s favorite Australian beer and they just happen to be located in Geelong. Made a perfect overnight stop along the way.

The next day we took the ferry to Phillip Island for a penguin visit and a Wild Animal park visit. They’ve both been updated a bit in 30 years.

Fairy penguins returning home every night.

Australia has a “thing” about big things – pineapple, sheep, potatoes, avocados. We stopped in Goulburn, NSW, for a toilet, coke at Subway at the Big Merino. Very busy town and stop! Not much traffic until we got to within 50 km of Sydney airport. The tunnel into Sydney drops you right at the airport without a gas station in sight and Google wasn’t much help! We drove to the Avis return and asked “Where’s a petrol station?”. He directed us to a 7-11 outside of the airport. Google Maps finally got us there via Wickham St. The very busy station is at the point of 2 streets and seems to have a monopoly on rental car fill-ups!

We made it to Sydney in time for Easter Weekend which is a long weekend in Australia. Good Friday is a national holiday. Mark and Gayle and friends put together what is called “long lunch” on Good Friday with lamb and wine and other assorted food. They invited us for what turned out to be a VERY LONG Lunch. We arrived about 12:30 and left at about 8:30 PM. Excellent wine and a few experimental gin smashes.

We needed something to do on Saturday; microbreweries called our name. We took the Fast Ferry to Manly to 4 Pines. Beer but no t-shirts. They told us their other brewery in Brookvale has shirts. We found the bus to Brookvale and visited 3 breweries all in the area – 7^th Day, 4 Pines (no shirts there, either) and Buckettes. Tasted their beer, chatted with a few people, ate pizza at 7^th Day before we took the bus back to the Manly Ferry which was packed but we made it on the 2^nd ferry. All the beach people were going home.

View of Twelve Apostles along the Great Ocean Road

In case you’re wondering, we mainly stayed in small motels along the way. They are relatively inexpensive and 100% of them have a kettle, tea bags and a pint of milk because, if you’re Australian, you are sure to want a cup of tea at the end of the day. Many had a microwave and small fridge along with dishes, glasses, cups, saucers for proper tea.

The Ghan – will it really go??

We flew to Darwin a few days ahead of time and were amazed at how much it has improved in the 30 years since we first saw it. The day the train was scheduled to leave (It has been raining for several days by now.) we crawled out of bed at 5:30, met in the lobby at 7 to be collected by bus to go to the Convention Center before going to the Ghan station outside of town by about 17 km. The process in need of a bit of change:
Hotel – give them all the bags – checked and carryon. Get to convention center, stand in line again so they could put the Bus # on our lanyard cards; watch a little show drinking bad coffee; hang out waiting to go to train about 9 AM. At 9 AM we got on Bus #4 to the train. At the train station we claimed our carryon bags and boarded K4 cabin; got organized. After Lincoln (cabin attendant) gave us the rundown, we went to the lounge car and had a glass of champagne.
“Why are we still sitting here at 10 AM??” Heavy rain flooded the tracks near Tennant Creek and the company was meeting to figure out what could be done. Served lunch and finally decided that we would leave at 4 PM and we’d be on the train for an extra night, getting into Adelaide on Saturday morning instead of Friday afternoon. Mark and Gayle thought Saturday was the original schedule!

If people could not do that, they could get off and get a refund. We would not do any excursion at Katherine because the roads to the gorge were flooded! We should arrive in Alice Springs on Friday AM for our excursions. We got $300 AU for the missed excursions.

Thank heavens for Wifi and TMobile. We changed the hotels and waited and drank champagne. The train finally pulled out at 4:37 PM, more than 6 hours late.

Mark posed in front of the engine while we waited to leave.

The couch turned into a lower bunk and the top folded down into an upper bunk.

The closer we got to Alice Springs the drier it got.

2/2024 – Plan B

This trip needs a prologue! Way back in July 2023, Mark asked Susan what she wants to do for her 70th birthday. This first idea was a cruise through the Panama Canal from end to end, not into the middle and back out. When we couldn’t find one that operated during the birthday, the next idea was to see the Northern Lights. After all, if I have a winter birthday, why not just go from cold to colder?
We found one on Hurtigruten, the Norwegian company that Per and Lise told us about. We booked a cruise leaving from Amsterdam to Bergen and up the coast of Norway to the Arctic Circle and back again. It was on the MS Maud. I even signed up for the various Facebook pages for Hurtigruten trips. This becomes important about December 22!
We start preparing for the trip – plane flights, hotels, etc. We found an excellent price on a Singapore Air flight from JFK-FRA Business Class which we booked, adding a weekend in NY and tickets to see “Book of Mormon” on Broadway. Mark bought us some North Face coats so we are all ready to be cold in Norway and see the Northern Lights!
The drama begins as Christmas approaches. A serious storm hits the North Sea on December 22. The MS Maud sees this coming and changes a port stop so they can beat the storm across the North Sea to get back to Tilbury, UK in time for their Christmas cruise. The ship doesn’t make it! The MS Maud is hit by a rogue wave, breaking the bridge windows. The ship cannot navigate; calls for help. The passengers put on their water rescue suits and spend 8 hours at the muster stations in wild weather. Finally, 3 ships arrive from Norway and Denmark, the Maud gets some power back, and everyone heads to Bremerhaven, Germany. You can Google to read the whole story.
I know all of this thanks to Facebook! At this point, Mark and I start betting our cruise will be a no-go. However, Hurtigruten trades out the Maud for the Spitsbergen. Once again, we learn about this from Facebook. We finally get an email from Hurtigruten about the trade off and the Spitsbergen being a smaller ship – no room for us! We’re offered a refund, rebooking, or a voucher. We chose the refund and actually received it in just a few days. Since we have flights and NYC and hotels, Plan B is the next option.
That’s where the trip starts – Plan B!

We flew to NYC for a long weekend.

We did a tour of the hospital on Ellis Island. It’s very interesting. This is the view the immigrants had from the hospital beds.

We visited the Museum of Modern Art. Once in a while, we need some culture.

The “Book of Mormon” is one of the best musicals we’ve ever seen. We laughed our way through the entire production.

After NYC, we flew to Frankfurt and on to Amsterdam. Mark didn’t want to take Deutsche Bahn to Amsterdam which was a good decision since DB had a strike the day we flew to Amsterdam. The original trip had us spending a few days in Amsterdam before we took the tram and bus to Ijmuiden, where the ship sailed from. Jutta, a German friend, was meeting us there for the day. Rather than undo all of that, we went to Ijmuiden for the night.

Fun brewery on a chilly Sunday afternoon in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam wants to make sure everyone understands the rules.

Ristafel dinner – Indonesian food. It’s yummy! The waitress asked if we had any food allergy. We said “no” and she told us “Boomers never have allergies”. Guess it pays be older.

Ijmuiden, Netherlands has spectacular beaches along the North Sea. In January, the wind howls, making it a hot spot for wind surfing and kiteboarding.

The MS Spitsbergen – the ship we were supposed to be on.

2/2024 – Brussels

We took the Eurostar to Brussels – only 2 hours. We’ve been to Brussels several times; just spent the day walking around the city. Stopped at Mannekin Pis, 2 churches, renovated Bourse that houses the Beer World Museum (We skipped that.).

The obligatory visit to the Mannekin Pis. If you get to Brussels, find the city museum where all of his costumes are displayed. He wears various clothes to celebrate different holidays.

Waffles that look like frites decorated with candy. We did NOT try them.

The Corne beer was pretty good even if Susan wasn’t too sure how to drink from the glass.

La Villette has yummy food and beer to go with each one. They are beer experts rather than wine sommeliers.

There’s a proper glass to accompany every Belgian beer. This was the recommended beer for my filet.

We woke up to rain and more wind. After breakfast, we took an Uber to the Centraal Station to catch the train to Bruges.

2/2024 – Birthday in Bruges

February is a great time to visit Bruges without crowds but the weather is a bit iffy. Rain was the theme of our 6 days in Bruges. All activities occurred between rain showers! We wandered in and out of the streets and along the canals, stopping at various breweries (Half Moon, Bourgogne de Flandres, Le Garre) to get out of the rain. Mark has a favorite chocolate shop from our first visit to Bruges in 1990. It was not where we thought it was, resulting in a multi-day hunt. It moved but is still owned by the same family. The granddaughter runs it.
We continued the art theme and visited the St. Jan Hospital Museum where they have a Hans Memling exhibit of paintings owned by the convent. They clearly were not poor nuns!

A lonely street in the evening. Bruges is pretty much deserted in February after the work day is finished. Very few tourists wandering around.

Men have it so easy. These urinals are at the Saturday market. Women have to search for a bathroom!

We had the laundromat to ourselves until 3 American teenage guys came in. They were in Bruges with a group of soccer players and needed to wash their sweaty clothes. They had no idea how to use a Belgian laundry. We came to their rescue after watching them for a few minutes – sent them to the store up the street to get change, showed them which detergent to buy from the machine and even gave them a 10 cent piece since the laundry detergent machine only took exact change. We left them waiting for the washing machine to finish and figured they could figure out the dryer on their own!

Yes, this is a chocolate purse dyed to look green.

Le Garre brewery. This place is TINY. We’ve tried 3 times to have a beer here – one time it was closed, another time it was SO smoky we didn’t even go in. Third time’s a charm – open, 2 chairs and it’s non-smoking now.

One day we spent on a WWI tour with a great tour guide – Lucas. He picked us up at 9 AM and we visited Passendale, Hill60, Tynecot Commonwealth Cemetery, Dr. John McRae memorial, Ypres Salient, a farm with ammunition collection, Yorkshire Bunker in the middle of an industrial park, and a German Cemetery.

Ypres was demolished by WWI and completely rebuilt in the medieval style.

Tynecote Commonwealth Cemetery. British bodies weren’t repatriated but buried in Belgium or France where they died.

2/2024 – Ghent

We camped in Ghent on our first Europe trip in 1990. Since it’s close to Bruges, we spent 3 days here to see what we missed. 80,000 college students and the Ghent Altar Piece make Ghent a fun city – lots of places to eat, beer to drink, canals, art history. It’s been added to our Favorite Place list, despite the rain.

The castle is the only thing we remember seeing 30 years ago!

The Nazis hid the Ghent Altarpiece in a salt mine with other looted works, and it was saved from destruction by the Monuments Men and others. It’s now in St. Bavos Cathedral in Ghent, being restored. This art made the whole visit to Ghent worthwhile. We highly recommend a visit; winter is perfect! We were the only people in the room with it and walked all around it – no crowds and no tour groups.

The Ghent Altar Piece in St. Bavos Cathedral. The bottom panels have been completely restored. The top ones are place holders while the originals are being restored in the museum. We visited that, too, to watch the restoration.

In St. Bavos – the Bishop’s confessional. You started in the Priest’s Confessional. If your sins were too serious, you were sent to the Bishop for Confession.

2/2024 – Haarlem, Netherlands

The French rail conductors went on strike but our Eurostar train wasn’t affected, thank heavens. The rain theme continued in Haarlem. We had a lovely time with Michelle and a few of her colleagues – a brewery visit, walk through red light district, checked out the market.

An ex-jail De Koepel in Haarlem. It houses offices, a small uni, a theater, coffee shop, student dorms. Very innovative way to repurpose a building.

Flowers in the market – very inexpensive!

The urinal has a TV on it. Wouldn’t want to miss any of the match when you need to use the toilet!

After we dinner, we had our first trip disruption from a strike! Sunday night, Lufthansa texted to tell us our flight on Tuesday to Frankfurt from Amsterdam was cancelled because of a Lufthansa ground staff strike. We both immediately got on our phones and computers to talk to their chatbot to get a rebooking. Mark finally got thru first and we were put on a KLM flight. The reservation showed up on the KLM site so we felt pretty good.

2/2024 – FRA, NYC and home!

KLM did have our reservation and flew us to Frankfurt. Thank heavens, we planned to spend the night in Frankfurt anyway; the strike ended the next day at 7:15 AM.

Frankfurt airport when the ground crew is on strike. It’s like a ghost town.

We spent a day in New York City before flying back to Denver.

QR codes for everything at St. Patrick’s in NYC

All types of credit cards accepted at St. Patrick’s

10/2023 Last stop in Nepal – Bandipur

Driving Day from Hell #2! The roads are explained on the next post so hold your breath.

Bandipur is a historic, restored town (Think Williamsburg, Virginia) and no cars are allowed in the center. After winding up the mountain past the National Goat Research Center, we were dropped off and hotel staff came to get the luggage while we walked to the hotel. The hotel is a historical building with tons of steps, no shower curtain in the bathroom and questionable hot water. Great view of the mountains from here.

Morning view of the mountains and fog in the valley

View from our room window in the morning

Mark and Jutta left at 7 AM for a hike with Bhaskar to Ramcot village. Mark and Jutta walked up to Thani Mai – lots of steps. Off they went to Ramcot – beautiful scenery, lunch at a local woman’s house of hot soup. Mark got a 200 rps. discount for keeping the chickens out of the house while she cooked.

Mark after surviving the 7 hour hike to Ramcot and back.

Having Bhaskar as our tour guide for 2 weeks was great since we let him order food during dinner/lunch that we never would have tried. Spicy peanut salad and chili paneer were 2 of our favorites. He even hunted down some local beer for us to try.

Spicy peanut salad. The exact taste varied by who the chef was.

11/2023 Rome and Home

Nepal is exactly halfway around the world from CO (12 time zones) so we could go east or west to get home. We found a repositioning cruise from Rome to NYC for cheap; that made the decision. We finished the Nepal tour and headed to Rome for 5 days before boarding the cruise and setting sail for NYC with planned stops in Naples, Livorno, Cannes, Barcelona, Cadiz, Lisbon, the Azores, Bermuda before finally disembarking in NYC.

We awoke to news of an earthquake in western Nepal around midnight. Mark and Susan slept thru it but Jutta felt it, heard the building creaking, and couldn’t go back to sleep. We headed out at 7 AM to beat the early morning Kathmandu traffic. Kathmandu International Terminal might win for the most chaotic airport we’ve been in.

The airport – where to begin?? Bhaskar dropped the three of us off and we couldn’t even figure out where the lines were to get thru security to get into the terminal building to check-in. We finally found the screen to tell us we needed the B line but Jutta needed to go to the A line. The line was huge! We figured it would take forever but only took 15 minutes. The one long B line broke into 2 security lines just to get into the terminal. After we showed our tickets to prove we were flying, we went through security. The mass chaos is partly caused by people seeing their friends off at the terminal.

After #1 security line, we were in the terminal and had to find the correct Qatar line – flight 649 or flight 653? Thank heavens Mark is tall enough to see signs over everyone’s head! We found the correct Business class line, checked in, got boarding passes, wound our way through the other lines and gaggles of people following the “Immigration” signs and rode our first escalator in 2 weeks after showing our boarding pass at the bottom of the escalator. The disorganized Immigration line at the top of the escalator took 13 minutes.

No gate yet but we went to security #2 which took 16 minutes in a very illogical set up. This one was belts and shoes off, computers, etc. After we cleared security #2 and put our shoes back on, we had our boarding pass stamped to prove we’d been through security #2 and then showed it to some guy 10 feet away in order to get into the gate area. Full employment! 4 people in front of us missed the stamp and had to return to the stamp guy.

Still no gate. We hung out by the TV monitor and met an American woman who was also looking for the gate. She’s from Fort Collins – Police department in Homeless Intervention. She’d done a trek to Everest base camp for 14 days.

We finally had a gate right where we were standing. When the boarding process began (no microphones, just loud voices that were not loud enough), no busses showed up to take us to the plane. We finally got to the plane and even that wasn’t organized. Told us all to line up at the steps at the back door but when we got to the bottom of the steps, that guy saw our Business Class seat and sent us to the front door. Then the flight left about an hour late because of heavy traffic. Huh?? Only one runway at this airport made for a short taxi to takeoff.

The flight landed at Doha about 45 minutes late. We went through security again to move from the A gates to the C gates but only belts taken off. They didn’t care about computers or phones. BTW … there is no one in Doha airport at 2 PM in the afternoon. Rome … here we come in search of a laundromat!

Not everyone can do their laundry with Italian columns along the wall.

What did we do in Rome? Visited 8 different churches, ate gelato at least 5 times, bought Mark new tennis shoes after he tore the soles on the Nepal hike (Finding large sizes is hard.), did the laundry, bought toothpaste and visited the Italian version of the dollar store. John O and Sue from FC joined us in Rome before we all set sail on the Norwegian Cruise Line Breakaway.

We had perfect weather for the port visits until we got to the Azores. The wind was too bad for the ship to dock. This resulted in 6 sea days in a row from Lisbon to Bermuda.

Cafe lattes are a great way to use a cafe toilet and get a caffeine fix at the same time.

Cadiz, Spain waterfront. I was enjoying the sun on our walk.

Monkfish! I have no idea how to cook one.

On our stop in Lisbon we took the city bus to Belem just to buy Pasteis de Belem – custard tarts. The cafe has redecorated and gotten way more organized since 2002.

La Sagrada Familia might be completed by 2030.

Watching the port activity was almost as much fun as seeing the cities. This crane pulled up containers about every 3 minutes.

Port tasting in Lisbon. We didn’t know we enjoyed good port until we lived in Potugal for 3 months.

Our port of disembarkation was New York City. We crawled out of bed at 3:50 AM after the captain said we’d sail past the Statue of Liberty about 4 and joined other passengers whose cabins were also on the wrong side of the ship. It was COLD and WINDY!

First, the ship passed under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in New York harbor at 4:30 AM.

Lady Liberty at 4:45 AM. We can only imagine what immigrants felt when they finally saw her after a long, uncomfortable trip.

Everyone asks – How was the cruise? Our answer: This was the first large ship we’ve sailed on (4000 passengers) and it is the last large ship we’ll sail on, voluntarily. Too many people, not enough space to find a quiet place. This particular sailing for NCL was understaffed, food was average at best, the buffet coffee was undrinkable, but it was cheap for 16 days at sea with unlimited drinks (part of the package through Costco). The port stop in Barcelona was long enough to figure out we want to return for a week or so, we tasted port in Lisbon, and we arrived back in the U.S. safely. One of the day tours reminded us that we really don’t enjoy touring with groups of people.

Summary – great 2.5 month trip with only 1 severely delayed flight, good friends, fun places, and a few stories to tell.

10/2023 Nepal – Chitwan NP and the “bumpy jumpy” roads

After we left Lumbini, we had good roads for a bit before we got to the Mahendra Highway over the mountains with the abysmal conditions. (More on the roads later.)

The tiny bar owned by owner of the chicken that the snake wanted for a meal.

Bhaskar got us to go see a python! He was attacking a chicken at the Little House; lady yelled and they got a sack to scoop him into; brought him over to the NP buffer zone to release him. He wanted to go in the direction of our rooms.

One of the elephants needed a snack during our walk.

We walked with the elephants in the afternoon to the river for drinks at sunset.

Happy elephant after a walk and a bath before we had a gin and tonic along the river at sunset

Mark and Susan with the elephants after our walk.

The highlight of the Chitwan NP safari was seeing rhinos up close and personal.

Now about the roads … abysmal is an inadequate description for them. The government goal is to widen and improve the Mahendra Highway, major east/west highway connecting India with Kathmandu. Great idea BUT their execution leaves a lot to be desired. It appears that they cut a new lane on each side of the entire highway, building retaining walls along the way, have put in some of the concrete supports for the needed bridges along the entire way or are working on it. BUT as they did this, the existing road has been destroyed – holes, no pavement, dust, dirt, it’s a disaster and no section is complete, The construction has been going on for 5 years with nothing complete. Even the village roads are damaged. Some of the bridge pieces that are “stored” in the towns next to the roads have trees growing out of them. We average maybe 20 miles an hour.

We don’t know who is managing or paying for this but I’m sure I’ll be dead before any of this road is done. Given the amount of traffic, I’m not sure why they even need to widen the road.

We started keeping track of who uses the highway. Here’s the list.

• People walking
• Cows, goats, dogs in the road
• Monkeys on occasion
• Bicycles with and without loads and carts
• Tuk-tuks
• Children in street
• Motorcycles with and without passengers and loads (passenger carrying bicycle with training wheels)
• Scooters
• Ox carts
• Busses that stop wherever
• Trucks
• Overcrowded tourist vans
• Private cars
• Farm equipment
• Calming devices and police checkpoints for licenses, taxes, registration

Mark and Susan wander the world