Olympia to Monterosso

October 15-20

So due to Helen's sore leg, I went on the bus tour to Olympia solo.

The ride there took about half an hour through interesting countryside, depositing us at the site about 11:30am. I was very glad Helen had let it go, as the walk from the bus to the ticket booth would already have been more walking than she would have been up for.

The archeological site was more-or-less a square one kilometre across. It was packed with tour groups. As my trip left me on my own to wander, I circled the entire site, snapping heaps of photos. The signage was almost all in Greek, and therefore unreadable to me.

After the site, I wandered through the museum, again photographing like a madman.

With time left, I walked to town, bought a tshirt, and sat in a cafe for a much-needed coffee. I like the European style of always bringing a glass of water with the coffee. On the way back to the bus area, I found a super cute owl statue for Helen. It's about the size of an aspirin bottle, so maybe calling it a statue is a bit grandiose.

Half an hour later, I was on foot headed up the gangway to our ship. Helen had been mostly resting while I was gone, and shooed me off to get some late lunch, which I did.

Then we scrolled through the pictures so she could almost do the tour. Her rest day seems to have helped, and her hobbling was much smoother. Slow, but easier on her. The next day was at sea, and continued restful for the wound.

On any typical day on board, I get up early, at maybe 6 or 6:30am. I get dressed, and slip out so that Helen can sleep longer. Then it's a search for coffee and someplace nice to sit. I return to the room to get her for breakfast at an appropriate time. We eat lunch either in the Windjammer buffet, or in the dining room. Dinner is at 6pm in the dining room, at the table we share with five either guests. After dinner, we catch the show and usually dance.

Having a cruise smack dab in the middle of our time in Europe was a wonderful vacation within a holiday (or is it a holiday within a vacation?). Everywhere else there have been hotels and sights to find, and food, and transportation networks to decode and learn. It is all great, but stress is involved. On the ship there is far less of all that. After the ship we had couple of weeks of on-our-own travel to go, but with freshly recharged batteries.

Following the ship time, we had three more nights in Venice, staying at our same Murano hotel. We found more areas with less tourists, and also visited the Doge's palace.

Helen got a little misty over the thought of our leaving. We had a week there altogether from our two stays, and that seems to be the length of time it takes for her to attach to a place.

The train trip out only had one connection, about halfway through the journey, at Milano. Our destination was Monterosso in the Cinque Terra region. We got out train tickets right after the cruise; three days early. I don't think locals ever do that. They get their tickets on the way to the train. We did get window seats, perhaps by booking early, so that was some kind of reward.

The downside of this was the heavy blast of air conditioning coming out of vents below the windows.

Milano is where we changed trains, peed, and grabbed snacks. It is the biggest city of our trip, but all we saw was the massive train station.

The second train ran us down the coast to our next home in Monterosso.

Trains and Ships and No Cars

October 7-15

Our 8:12am train departure had a 2:01pm scheduled arrival at Venice's Santa Lucia station. We only had a single connection to make. The only worry was that the connection had to be accomplished in 7 minutes. Several other non-Europeans were tense about this as well.

We arrived in the station, darted off pulling our wheelie bags, down the escalator, hurried across, up an escalator, found our car, got on and sat down. It all took 2 minutes; nothing like air travel. Smooth sailing.

Venice is like nowhere else. It is a maze of islands molded into a city. The lack of anything like automobiles makes it special enough. Boats make up the system of transportation. Everything is brought in that way, and moved on carts by human muscle.

We were staying on the nearby island of Murano. This cut our costs in half, and put us in a very quiet neighbourhood each night. As in Salzburg, we stayed for three sleeps.

We wandered over bridges, through open piazzazs, and down tiny, narrow alleys. I don't get disoriented easily, but in Venice I met my match.

St. Marks square was packed with huge bunches of tourists. I shudder to think what it would be like if we were not there in the off season. Helen does her photography; willing to wait a minute or two for a break in the crowds. If you ever get to see her pictures, they lie. Add about a billion more people.

When our time in Venice ended, we had one last breakfast, and headed to the Vapporato bus. We took line 4.2, walked the waterfront, and caught a private boat over to the cruise ship terminal.

Our ship was the Splendour of the Seas, and would take us through the Adriatic, Mediterranean, and Aegean Seas for seven days. Our cabin was a windowless one down on deck two; the lowest passenger deck. She is an older vessel, having been built 19 years ago. She will soon be sold out of the Royal Caribbean fleet.

Cruising was a way to add Croatia, Turkey, and two Greek isles to our trip without any of the hassles that doing so on our own would have entailed.

Boarding was very relaxed. The ship is still well kept up, and very pretty. She is 70,000 tons which is small for us these days, but nothing is wanting.

The first port of call was Debrovnik in Croatia. It is a gorgeous, walled town set between the sea and high, steep hills. It is remarkably preserved. We walked the town, and then the wall.

It was about this time that our room issue started to matter. The temperature was very low, and continued through the first night. It was uncomfortable. We mentioned it, and somebody came while we were out, and got the heat on. The problem now became an inability to turn it off. The thermostat was pretty useless. It was like sleeping in Vegas, in summer, outside in the sand. Another night and a few more complaints and technician visits got the heat off again.

We had a restful day at sea, mostly eating. This was followed by a visit to the Turkish town of Kudasaki. The draw here is some Greek ruins at Ephesus, nearby. We stayed and poked around the town, and shopped a little, and ate back on board after a morning ashore.

Technically, we were in Asia. According to the usual Canadian reckoning of continents, that was our third out of seven.

Santorini is one of a kind. In ancient times, a volcano exploded there, killing everyone and causing area-wide devastation. What remains are a few little islands, and one big one. The villages there cling to the top of very-high cliffs. The dominant colour of all the buildings is white.

Our ship anchored early. Helen and I were on the tender and halfway to shore before 8am.

There are three ways up the cliff-side. One can walk, or ride a donkey. We opted for the cable car.

We grabbed a local bus tour for a fraction of the price than what the cruise offers. It ran us over to Ioa, the cutest town, and also the most tourist-packed, and to a scenic vista, and back.

We walked a great distance in both Ioa and Fira before catching the cable car back down. This time there was a bit of a wait. Moments after reaching the bottom, disaster struck.

Walking on flat, paved ground, Helen hurt a muscle in her leg. At the time she said she had a charlie horse, but it was much more than that. She made it the short distance to the tender that took back to our ship. She was moving very slowly and unsteadily getting to our cabin, which was luckily very close to the entryway.

During the rest of the day she took it easy; soaking in the hot tub, and taking a muscle relaxant that she carries for her back. She went for supper, which is nearby, but nothing else. The heat in our room, luckily, was finally repaired by the installation of a new thermostat.

The next day we had a tour booked to go from the port of Katakolon to Olympia in Greece. As she wasn't significantly better, we popped down to the deck-one medical facility just before it opened at 8am. We like being first in line. The nurse said take it easy and not to overdue things, and asked if we wanted to see the doctor. We did.

He asked a lot of questions in his Italian scented English, and manipulated and measured Helen's legs. He said to take it easy and not to overdue things, and gave Helen some anti-inflammatory pills for the next few days. Back at our cabin, Helen wisely decided not to go on the tour. I would liked to have stayed with her, but she wanted me to do the trip for her, carrying the big camera.

Therefore, I went on the tour solo.

Impressions and Sound of Music

September 27-October 7

Vienna is very efficient.

The people are the same, but it isn't a smiley place; at least not for strangers.

Things are expensive, but the pricing is more honest than at home. Any taxes are inside the price. If a price is e4.5 then you pay 4.5.

Viennese people are slender, and dress well. Jeans are somewhat rare on locals. Pants are worn close to the leg, both by women and by men. No guys walk around showing off boxer shorts here. No tattoos, either.

Hairstyles are generally short as well. For men, similar to what a young Canadian lawyer might have. For younger women in Canada, 95% wear it long. In Vienna, 95% wear it short; many as short as the men, but with feminine flair.

Scarves are everywhere as a stylish accessory.

They identify us as tourists before we say a word. Our pants are baggy, or we're wearing runners, or a baseball cap, and have no scarf in sight. We could pick out tourists just as easily. Helen could pass, as she is sharp, but I certainly did not.

The only thing that detracts from the Viennese stylish presentation is the overuse of makeup by women in their twenties and thirties. It isn't heavy eye shadow or garish lip colouring. It is a heavy slathering of flesh tone material all over their faces in general. Even the most perfect colour matching of such products does not reproduce the semi-transparency of real skin. They look like they have pealed the faces off of store mannikins and glued them over their own. They look quite lifeless as a result. This is nor present in Viennese men.

Phones are everywhere, just like back home, but they seem to use them more for voice, not for texting. I don't think I saw anybody thumb typing.

We arrived on a Sunday, and left on the next. We Rode the Ubahn to the Westbahnhoff, and hopped right aboard a Salzburg bound train; paid for tickets on board.

It was an ordinary train for these parts, but still went licketty split and was smooth as silk over the perfect rails. I think it took about 2.5 hours. We had wifi on board, and I watched our progress live on Google Maps.

We got a little lost walking from the train to our hotel, but not bad. Once settled into our room, we did the kilometre or two walk to the old town.

Salzburg is nothing like Vienna, except that most of it is very old. We wandered the old town a lot over the next few days. Including the date of our arrival, we slept there three times.

The movie Sound of Music was set here, and much of it filmed on location. A minor industry exists catering to film fans. We took a Sound of Music bus tour. It was very well done, with a very happy guide-and-driver team.

Not understanding how the train system all works, I popped over to the station one morning ahead of our departure to sort it out. When we'd arrived, there were a number of Syrian refugees being housed there. I saw maybe a hundred boarding a train, leaving their little camp empty.

Old Imperial Capital

September 27-October 4

The Vienna elevator was very cool. There was exactly room for Helen, me, and our two tiny bags. People with bigger luggage would have to travel one-at-a-time.

The front desk was on the top floor, which was the 8th by European counting, or 9th by North America. Our room was a floor down, and was number 22. Travelocity didn't give any details, so we didn't know what to expect. The room was cute, and big enough, with a small washroom containing a sink and modern shower. No toilet. That was just down the hall to be shared with the rest of the floor. Some rooms do have toilets, and we never saw anybody using the hallway one during our entire stay. This makes me wonder is something other than wash water was going down the sinks and shower drains.

The key was a small disk that electronically opened the street door, hallway door, and room door by being placed next to the lock. Like everything in Austria, it worked flawlessly.

As at all pensions, breakfast is included.

So we got to our room, unpacked, and conked out.

We spent six full days in Vienna, not counting arrival or departure. I didn't keep track of the days in any sort of journal form, and so the descriptions will be of everything mushed together.

We did tours of both the Hofburg and Schunbrun palaces. It's fun to see how Emperors used to do things.

The Hofburg is where the emperors lived when in Vienna. We saw the collections of dinnerware and cutlery and such, and went through the Imperial private suites of Franz Josef, and his wife, Elizabeth. We were given portable audio tour machines where you punch in numbers for different displays. We also did a guide-lead walk through of the apartments in English.

Outside the front there are lots of little, horse-drawn carts to take the tourists for short spins? There are also just as many in the dead centre of the city, at Stephansplatz. They provide an overpowering sense of the city atmosphere from long ago; they also seriously stink of horse urine. They rinse it off every night, which helps a lot.

Schunbrun is an even larger palace, that used to be out of town when it was built in the 1700s, but is now just a few stops down the Ubahn, or subway line. It was considered the Summer Palace. You know; a thousand room cottage. The grounds there go on forever. The tour shows off 40 of the fanciest rooms, and some of the private Imperial suites as well. Some horse pee smell, but not bad.

They have museums dedicated to things unheard of in Canada, like clocks, dolls, and papyrus. We only did a few, and only the big ones. We saw the Wein City Museum at Karlzplatz. I visited the Military Museum, and the Arms and Armour Museums. Helen sat happily outside using their wifi.

All of the museums and Palaces supply little machines, that you can punch room or display numbers into and so provide a self-paced audio tour.

We saw Stephandom Carthedral, and popped our heads into another church or two. Somehow it seems wrong to wander around active places of worship to gawk.

Helen wanted to see the Vienna Boys Choir, and to perhaps watch a practice of the Lippazaner horses. How lucky was it to score tickets for a show at the Spanish Riding School that featured both?

There are millions of scenic streets, and squares, fountains and statues, buildings and gardens.

We also wandered the shopping streets. Travelling as light as we were, there was no space for collecting stuff. We resisted many urges.

Helen was in heaven when we found a three-story deli. Restaurants sold drinks with meals incredibly inexpensively; water at least $3 a bottle, and Coke $4.50 or more. The deli had 2 litres of Coke for $2.70, and similarly-sized bubble water (they call it prickled) for just under $.40. We stocked up in our room.

We ate a number of schnitzels, mostly fast-food. Helen likes pickled herring buns, and I had a few boxes of chow mein-like food from Happy Noodle. Our pension fed us breakfast everyday.

We also found many fine pretzels and pastries.

Flying there

September 26 2015

We fly a bit to the States, which uses one section of the airport. Canadian flights use another. Today we were "International," which we haven't done for almost 30 years. That part of the airport is gorgeous.

The flight was full. Helen and I had seats A and B. She got the window. Next to me was an isle, then 4 centre seats, another isle, and 2 seats by the far window. We had both a view and easy access for bathroom breaks.

I used to like flying, but hate it now with all the cut corners. This time we were with a European carrier, KLM, and I was interested to see how it compared to the abuse we get flying domestically or to the US.

It was wonderful. As we boarded, every seat already had sealed packages containing a pillow and a blanket. As they don't charge extra for luggage, there was plenty of storage for our carryons. Next they handed out FREE headphones to use with a huge selection of FREE movies and TV.

In no time the FREE drink carts were around handing out juice, water, pop, beer, and wine. Then they brought us dinner, and more drinks. It was delicious. At the exact appropriate time they picked up the trays again, and offered more drinks, now including coffee, tea, and COGNAC. We're used to airlines trying to sell us crappy sandwiches. I love KLM.

The flight is still very long. It took us across northern Canada, above Churchill Manitoba and Hudson Bay. We skirted south of Greenland as we averaged 1000 kph across the world.

It was time then to wrap up in my complimentary blanket, with my nice little pillow, and to polish off my cognac, and shut off my free movie, and try to catch some sleep.

The crew kept making periodic rounds, quietly providing water and such to the people not asleep. I caught an hour or two, but Helen did not. Over all the hours, my knees started to hurt, likely from restricted movement.

They gave us breakfast over Ireland, and we entered Britain directly over Blackpool. I had the in-flight tracking maps up on my screen pretty much the entire flight.

The Amsterdam airport sprawls on and on. We were shunted through another security check as soon as we were off the plane, which was weird. We wandered a bit to find our gate number, and then walked a marathon or two to reach it. Lots of stores and such on the way. In what what seemed a totally random location in the middle of the airport, we went through Passport Control, and got stamped. Hello, European Union.

Almost everything is one story up, at the level of the airplane doors. Our gate was all alone down on ground level. It was deserted except for a couple of airport employees on their breaks, hiding out. There were power outlets, so I charged up my ipad using our European plug converter. It worked as advertised.

There were also big puffy benches. Helen stretched out and got her first sleep of the trip. Plenty of time for that, as the layover was almost 7 hours.

Later, we did a very long walkabout, but only covered a fraction of the airport. We split a schnitzel with fries and mushroom gravy. Stuff here is expensive.

Back to our gate, and people started slowly arriving. They have free wifi here, so I texted a bit with Bernie, once his morning began back home.

When it was time to board, they funnelled us out and onto buses, that took us to our plane. Even on this short 1.5 hour flight, they handed out sandwiches and drinks, including beer and wine, at no charge. Yes, I like KLM. They did come through the cabin once with a cart full of watches and small electronic stuff, and had a credit card machine, but they didn't try and push the items, and nobody bought anything.

The flight was nice and short, under two hours. Vienna airport is any old airport, but they have an express train that runs lickitty split to a station right next to the ringstrasse in the centre of town. From there we walked a short ways to the inner stadt, and through some winding narrow passages to find Post Gasse; our own tiny alleyway. We found the pension, rang the intercome, and were buzzed in.

On Our Way: September 26

September 26 2015

I haven't been blogging much recently. This is because Helen and I were in Europe from September 26^th until November 1^st. Just no time to organize my thoughts to put on the web. I have been keeping a log of sorts and will be publishing from there now that we're home. On each I will have a title and an appropriate date.

So back in September....

The bus came right on time, and zipped us to town, where we climbed off, and then onto another that did the longer drive to the ferry. As always, Helen ran into somebody she knew and enjoyed a lovely conversation.

There was a short wait for the boat, but nothing major. On board we picked up a hot breakfast. Again, Helen found friends for us to chat with, and to catch up with; very pleasant.

Off the boat, and into a huge line that couldn't possibly fit onto the double-length city bus it was loading into. The line didn't fit, but we did, as we'd hurried off the boat with just this in mind. The doors closed on a standing-room-only crowd, leaving many behind. We had seats due to our rapid transfer.

So how does one move from ferry to bus so quicky hauling a month's worth of luggage? Simple, we are travelling ninja-light.

We each have one carry on, wheeled bag that fits all of the current, very-restrictive rules. Sometimes bigger ones get ignored by airlines, but sometimes not. Fully regulation bags are darn tiny.

In addition, passengers are allowed one other “personal item.” This is supposed to be things like purses, or laptop bags. We each take small luggage totes that fully exploit the allowable dimensions, and that latch on top of our wheelie bags.

It still isn't much luggage space, so we don't take much. Not counting what was on my body, I took 3 underpants, 4 pairs of socks, 1 pair of pants, a pair of shorts, 2 shirts, a hoodie, and a pair of sandals. As our trip was 35 days, it means that my shirts would all have to be worn and washed 12 times each.

All of the clothing except the socks and hoodie were made of fancy, quick-dry fabric. The usual procedure was to sink-wash everything before bed each night. Some items would be dry the next morning, but most required a second day to be ready to wear.

Turns out that next time I'll take even less. I like my sandals, but the high-quality runners I wore onto the plane got worn 90% of the time. Next time the sandals stay home, as will a few other things.

Our Vancouver-side bus hit construction in the city, but we were plenty early. We got off at the Burrard stop, and walked a half dozen blocks to catch our airport train. I love the train. I also love our tiny bags.

No airport hassles at all. With just small bags, we don't have to visit any desks or their lineups. We just headed straight for our gate with our home-printed boarding passes.

Changes and Rhythm

Change is scary, and it can be about anything.

Take the local restaurant called the Old Boot. That place had a location smack dab in the middle of our little town. They served the best food in town, and it was always jam packed. By any definition, it was a great success.

To accommodate all of this, they moved to a larger location just across the street. Absolutely everything remained the same. They still serve wonderful food, have great people, and a more attractive physical setting.

They are still doing just fine, but nothing like the level of business that they had before.

Or take our Jiu-Jitsu school. We used to be in an over-crowded location. There were not change rooms to speak of, and the mats had to be put out and removed every night. Sometimes there were scheduling mix ups with the owners, and we lost training unexpectedly.

A few years ago, we moved into our current, much-better location. It is all under our control, so no scheduling issues. The mats are permanently installed. Everything is much cleaner, and there is lots more room. The training mat area is easily 50% greater.

We were a success in the old location, and an even bigger one in the new. However, a significant number of regulars from the old place never made it to the new one successfully. Most came over for at least a while, but for some unexplainable reason they drifted away. I think there are only three survivors still training who remember the old place.

Somehow, any kind of change can invisibly change the rhythm of a thing just enough to cause damaging ripples.

There are a whole big pile of changes that have recently happened in my Jiu-Jitsu training. I sure hope that my rhythm holds true. This is especially dangerous for me, as I have been off travelling in Europe for over a month. That much time off in itself might be enough to mess things up.

The absolute biggest change that can occur in martial arts is the loss of a valued instructor. Shawn is mine, and he has just left for a very long time. His replacement is a good guy, but totally different in style.

There have also been changes in training partners. I have been away from things long enough that a great deal of this has happened. There are a bunch of new people who have moved up the advanced group, and some that are gone. Some of the White Belts that I knew will likely be gone, and bunch of new ones that I don't know at all and who don't know me.

Anyhow, there are all these changes piled one on top of the other.