Burlaki on the Thames

You realize that you have a problem of Babylonian proportions when you address a waitress at a Paris café, “Mademoiselle, un peu plus de pain, por favor“. With throaty ‘r’s , no less.

Leaden skies, low temperatures, long intervals of drizzling rain, intermittent gusts of cold wind. I could be talking about your boilerplate British weather of late autumn. In fact, it was the weather that accompanied our weekend in Paris.

As if that matters! We love Paris too much to let such trifling circumstance as uncooperative weather detract from our enjoyment.

And enjoy it we did, with walks along routes both seen and unseen before, a couple of museum stops, and plenty of good food and drink. Our hotel room, on a quiet street near Marché-St-Honoré, - a location as central to Paris sightseeing as I can think of - saw us for barely more than the eight hours of sleep. The rest of the 30 hours between our arrival and departure was spent on rediscovering one of the greatest cities in the world again and again.

We explored museums that we have not managed to include in our previous visits to Paris. At the Musée de l’Orangerie, the mesmerizing wall-size murals of Monet’s Les Nymphéas were almost impossible to turn away from.

We went to the still relatively new business district of La Défense, home to a number of contemporary architectural delights, including the fantastic La Grande Arche, which turned out to be an actual office building, rather than a purely celebratory edifice. We rarely bother with steel-and-glass skyscraper jungle of the modern financial centers, but the spacious and monumental area of La Défense duly impressed us.

We perused the Christmas Market at the foot of the Great Arch. It may have been lacking something in spirit and exuberance as compared to its German counterparts, but it was very nicely organized, with many eye-catching craftsmen stalls and plenty of wares of all kinds.

We listened to an organ performance at the church of St-Sulpice. Listening to a classical music masterpiece while taking in the splendor of a masterpiece of the building art takes me closer to a spiritual state than anything else.

We ate at two restaurants recommended by Fodor’s forums and at one café picked randomly as we walked by it. All three provided memorable experiences with great food and great atmosphere. Funnily, the arbitrary choice of establishment was probably the top of the three food-wise, but we never find French cuisine disappointing anyway.

All in all, we had fantastic time. Then again, when was the last time that we hadn’t? There’s something to be said about being mobile and free of special accommodations hang-ups. Being in love with the destination helps, of course.

Getting back was the only component that went slightly awry. We were stuck in the middle of the Channel Tunnel for close to two hours on account of the disabled train in front of us. Fly, ride or drive - transportation problems will find a way to make a perfect little trip somewhat less perfect. A small price to pay, on balance.

A pretty interesting observation from our regular drives in and through France are the “nearby attraction” billboards on French freeways. These are normally positioned some distance ahead of their corresponding exits and pictorially depict the most important stuff that you might want to check out if you suddenly decide to turn off there. I don’t know whether many people actually do that, but as a welcome distraction on long monotonous drives these signs are invaluable.

The format of the signs varies from one région to another. We found the most colorful ones in Alsace/Lorraine and in Provence. Below is a selection.

The French are very fond of the summertime practice of producing light shows at their famous landmarks. I cannot fault them for it: Every time we come across one such, it is a great spectacle.

On our return journey from the big summer trip we stopped overnight in Strasbourg. The kids were tired after a long day’s drive, but Natasha and I could not pass an opportunity to explore a new locale even for a short time. To our delight, we chanced into not one, but two light-show displays, first on one of the main town squares and then on the façade of the magnificent Cathedral. A few pictures from the latter, that I decided not to make into a separate album in the Gallery, are below (all clickable for larger views).

One of the hotel associations that Natasha occasionally checks out in her travel planning routines was holding an anniversary online sale a couple of weeks ago. The promotion offered tremendous discounts on short stays at upmarket member hotels. Even though I do not have vacation days left this year, a weekend trip is not out of the question. So, we gave some thought to possibilities.

Among the destinations with hotel nights on sale, there were several of our big favorites - Rome, Barcelona, Venice, Florence - as well as a few cities that are high on our must-see list: Stockholm, Budapest, Lisbon. The problem with every one of those is that getting there requires a couple of hours of flying, which brings a one-way door-to-door trip to somewhere around 6-7 hours (an hour+ to get to the airport two hours before the flight on one end, getting through customs and baggage reclaim plus however long it takes to get to the city center on the other end, in addition to the actual flying time). I am very averse to spending 12 or more hours related to the air travel for a one- or two-night stay anywhere.

One destination, though, was only about 5 hours away door-to-door - and that by either car or train.

Paris!

(Ok, Amsterdam is almost within the same timescale - if by car - but in a toss-up between Amsterdam and Paris, the French capital wins easily for us.)

Yes, after several sessions of debating possibilities, we thought to ourselves: Why fight it!? We love Paris and we can get there easier than to most other places. Paris, on y va!

Alas, the online sale was a disaster. It was advertised much more widely than the membership in the association, and the deal was so attractive that the number of people trying to log on at the proscribed time easily overwhelmed the server hosting the association website. The group later sent us - and I assume everyone else - an email, apologizing for their ineptitude in managing that promotion and promising to make it up to us - and I assume to everyone else - in some unspecified ways at a later date.

We are not holding our breath for that. But we can’t let the decision to go to Paris expire in the shuffle. Natasha and I are booking a short visit independently. With my Mom expected in London in a few weeks, we can even book a trip for just the two of us.

Mmm, a couple of days in Paris for just Natasha and me! That will be heavenly!!

I have been fairly brief so far in my descriptions of the places that we stayed at during the big summer holiday. A more expansive overview is likely due. So, for those interested, here is an entirely subjective comparative look at L’Estartit on Costa Brava in Catalunya, Roquebrune-sur-Argens on French Riviera, and Montespertoli in Tuscany.
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One stat that I omitted in my previous post was the number of gelato flavors sampled by the family. The exact count, in fact, escapes me, and likely cannot be extracted from Natasha’s travel diary, since she must have omitted some of the less enthusiastically received flavors. But an intelligent estimation, including les glaces in France and helados in Spain, puts the number at around thirty.

Here are a few:

Kimmy is not adventurous about her ice creams, always sticking to vanilla and chocolate. But cioccolato was probably the most disappointing flavor of all, and vaniglia was no more than ok. She liked fior di latte (cream) better, but at some point discovered stracciatella - fior di latte with chocolate bits - and it became the only flavor that she ever wanted.

I have very recently explained how I don’t particularly like sweets and therefore largely stay away from ice creams, but on a couple of occasions that the family roped me into trying a flavor, I stuck to stracciatella as well. It’s fantastic!

Becky kept to fruity flavors, such as her favorite banana, as well as pesca (peach), passiflora (passion fruit) or melone. She also tried limone and menta (mint), but was not much impressed by it.

Natasha was the most inquisitive, trying a different flavor almost daily. She was lukewarm about tiramisu or pannacotta flavors, liked caffè and noce (walnut) ones, enjoyed spania (wild cherry and raspberry) greatly, and was rather graphically ecstatic about fragola (strawberry), which Becky liked as well and which contains bits of strawberries inside, frutti di bosco (wild berries) and bacio (chocolate with hazelnut). Her hands down favorite was nocciola (hazelnut).

All of that sampling left us with a question: How come gelato tastes so much better than almost any other ice cream in the world?

All good things come to an end. Unfortunately, life is not fair that way. And our big summer holiday is now over.

It was grand by any measure.

Total distance driven: 5106 miles.

Countries whose license plates we encountered along the way: 29.

Airports used on my hops to get back to London or to rejoin my ladies: 6.

Snapshots taken: 1085 (an average of only 25 shots a day, which shows that [a] we are awfully selective in what we photograph and [b] there were many lazy days spent entirely by the pool or on the beach with not a single photo being shot; the quality control will leave less than 40% of that number remaining, I’m sure).

Bad weather days, out of 44: 2 (on account of the mistral on the Riviera).

Bottles of various local wines imbibed: … sorry, I lost count after the first few days.

England welcomed us back with - what did you think? - leaden skies and a drizzle. There is a certain dose of relief in being home after a long adventure (notwithstanding the fact that we now firmly view this home of ours as “temporary”), but it is greatly tempered by the realization that I have no more vacation days left for the year. And not a single planned trip in our future.

As yet…

Man, I seriously hate England right now! It is becoming a nagging refrain this summer, but sunny skies and hot but bearable temperatures see me off at our latest stop - this time, in Tuscany, - and overcast and cold weather is what greets me in the Blighty. Heavy rain started when I was literally 50 meters away from the house. It must be a not-so-subtle hint of something…

Actually, I am told that so far it has rained every day in August in England.

Tuscany, as I noted in the past, is a strong contender for the top spot among my most favorite places. And the villa near the not-very-remarkable town of Montespertoli appears to be the first “hired” lodging (business trips excluded) that we purposefully returned to in our travels. Everything there is just as we remembered from the last year. The view. The weather. The people. The food. The wine…

A proprietor of a nearby family restaurant greeted us with “Ritornato!” (”You’re back!”). I can’t imagine that this is how he greets everyone, so we took it at the face value that he truly recognized us from the couple of meals that we’d had there last year. All the more surprising - and delightful! - given that the restaurant fills up to the seams every night of the week.

The Tuscan sea shore is too far away from Montespertoli to make beach-going practical, but the villa has a large pool shared with just one other neighboring house. The French family which is renting that villa keeps mostly to itself, so we have virtually a private pool at our disposal. Lounging by the pool - with occasional breaks to watch some of the excellent Italian Olympics coverage - occupied most of our days so far; in the evenings, we have been making leisurely excursions to nearby towns, from the familiar favorite of San Gimignano to the not previously visited Greve-in-Chianti.

Good times are going to get even better, with the arrival of a family of friends from the States. The kids are good friends, which should allow the parents relative freedoms.

With that in mind, I am changing my plans again, just as I did on the Spanish leg. Instead of re-joining the family for just the latter half of the next week (which would basically mean vacationing for just two more days and then driving home for the next two), I am re-joining them this Saturday. When we planned the whole trip months ago, we neglected to account for the Summer Bank Holiday this coming Monday; the original plan, therefore, would have me in office for just two days next week after spending the long weekend by my sad lonesome. I’d rather use my remaining vacation days on Tuesday and Wednesday - which means not a single vacation day left this year as of end of August. Oh well, what it is that they say? Carpe Diem!

I’m told that the weather in London has been its customary gloomily rainy for the last week that I’ve been away. On the Mediterranean coasts of Spain and France, conversely, clear skies and balmy temperatures prevailed throughout my latest jaunt.

We spent the last few days on Costa Brava just as we started, alternating between beach, pool, strolls around picturesque villages and lengthy repasts with friends. We squeezed in one bit of “true” sightseeing, by visiting Dali Theater-Museum in Figueres. While I do not count Dali among my favorite artists, I have to admit that he possessed incredible imagination and inventiveness. The museum puts that to the fore, and more; among the things that impressed us most, for instance, was the jewels collection made according to Dali’s designs, displayed in a separate wing of the museum.

The first leg of the grand tour eventually came to an end, and on Saturday we made the supposedly easy 500-km trek to the French Riviera. Except, it took us much longer than we had expected. When the traffic slows to a standstill on a 3-lane motorway every 50 kilometers or so, you tend to lose a lot of time… The problem is one that we noticed a long time ago: While French motorways themselves are built to handle vast quantities of vehicles easily, the interchanges are not; they are often manifested in a single lane exit leading from one motorway to another, and when half the cars on the road aims for an exit to another motorway, the traffic tends to back up for miles.

Anyway, by the end of that day we moved into the villa with sweeping views of the coast below, and picked up Natasha’s brother and his family from the Nice airport.

In the next couple of days we again alternated between the beach and the pool, with some light sightseeing thrown in. We explored some of our nearest environs in Roquebrune-sur-Argens, gawked at the gazillion-dollar yachts in St-Tropez marina, walked the narrow streets and small leafy fountain-adorned squares of Aix-en-Provence… I am out of superlatives by now to describe our holidays - it is magnificent in every way.

But a separate praise is due for the sea. I have not swam in such warm and calm waters in a long time (which partially is a function of my choice of holiday spots). A tad fewer people on the beach and it could be heaven!

… you see exposed breasts of various colours, shapes and sizes.  From perfectly toned ones to amorphic sagging what-letter-in-the-alphabet cups.  And that’s just men’s.

About one in five women, by my estimation, goes topless at the beach these days as well.  The Germans are at the forefront of the movement, having long branched out from their communal no-swimsuit-necessary bathhouses.  But I also heard Italian, French and Spanish spoken by topless female beachgoers.

Leering and ogling from behind sunglasses is great entertainment, but in truth, the shapelier the woman is, the less likely she is to go topless.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve noticed quite a few nice bodies in the last several days.  But for each one of those, I’ve seen several of the shapeless whale kind, who insist on exposing their bosoms with not a hint of self-consciousness.  I realize that it would be downright undemocratic to restrict toplessness according to some attractiveness scale, but I can’t help but wonder why the least attractive are often the most uninhibited.

I am also a bit amused with seeing groups of friends that include both topless and more traditional sunbathers.  I figure that keeping the top on, in general, has a lot to do with some ingrained standards of modesty; so, when two couples go to the beach together and only one of the women goes topless, it is not a stretch to surmise that the other gal is more of a prude.  That should make for some curious interpersonal dynamics.  To say nothing of one guy having advantage over the other in terms of checking out each other’s girls.

Other than those observations, I find sunbathing to be an utterly boring activity.

Spent the day in a bustling and vibrant Barcelona, went to sleep in the God-forsaken Mottingham… Fun life I lead sometimes!

The big summer holiday took off splendidly, the long two-day trek from London to Costa Brava notwithstanding. We arrived to a beautiful setting, gorgeous weather and, most importantly, the company of friends whom we count among our oldest and closest. The kids on both sides instantly re-established rapport and, more or less, left adults to their own devices, which is something we have been decidedly lacking on recent holidays.

So, our friends and us had plenty of time to catch up, go for local explorations and culinary adventures, or just sit on the beach. Their house on the mountain has sweeping views of the town and the beach below, so we also hang around on their veranda in the evenings. Wine, cheese, a guitar, a pleasant conversation - what else to ask for?

I finally acquired an adequate Mediterranean swimming experience (all of my previous visits to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea happened during less than ideal conditions for a dip).

On the night of our arrival, the town held the annual musical fireworks, which we had the pleasure to observe from the aforementioned veranda.

There is an excellent communal swimming pool right in front of our rented house. Kimmy has gotten into a habit of going for a half-hour swim before retiring for the night.

There are incredibly beautiful and well-preserved medieval villages within a twenty-minutes drive radius from where we stay, full of unexpected treasures and remarkable restaurants. Barcelona is not within a daily driving distance, but still manageably close.

Those are just a few things that make me rue the necessity of flying back to London to go to the office. But here I am, plotting a quick return. Just as soon as I deal with some things that I find hard to deal with remotely…

Despite my self-sustained image of the world traveler, I have only been to 37% of European countries. Natasha is actually one up on me, in a way that I fear will keep forever, - she has been to Belarus as a child.

The map below outlines the gaping chasm of Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Baltics, and the Mediterranean, that remains to be explored (the link in the middle, Hungary, is included only via the “airport rule”). The question is: When?

create your personalized map of Europe

One of my new UCF friends, Jeri, has reminded me with one of her recent posts of a topic that I wanted to expand on since that huge “about me” meme (see #39 on that): Which of the 50 US states I have visited so far. This list is bound to remain static for at least a couple of years, so now is as good time as any to elaborate.

First - a visual.

create your own personalized map of the USA

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I was looking through our Antwerp/Ghent pictures today for purposes of using one or two in the Travelog, with Kimmy looking over my shoulder.

Suddenly, she says: “Daddy, remember when we were in Mini-Europe, there was this square with a fountain that did not have a pool around it?”

At that particular moment, we were looking at the picture of Antwerp’s magnificent Grote Markt.

The remarkable Brabo fountain on this square indeed does not sit in a basin; water is allowed to seep through the cobblestones into the underground reservoir.

A light bulb goes off in my head, I look through our Tulips album (we stopped on the way back in Brussels for a quick tour of Mini-Europe, if you recall) and find this picture.

When I took it, I did not register the fact that the fountain was blocked from the view, but it is certainly the same Grote Markt, in its downsized form.

I was speechless for a while. Considering that a) Kimmy has never been to Antwerp and b) our visit to Mini-Europe lasted all of 45 minutes, during which time we saw over 50 models of towns and sights, I find it pretty amazing that an 8-year-old child recalled seeing a model of something upon encountering the photo of the real thing.

Let’s put it this way: I had no recollection of the little fountain whatsoever, even though I knew that Antwerp was represented at Mini-Europe and that we even took a picture of it there.

Wow!

There is also some deep thought in here on the value of travel photography, but it escapes me at the moment in my awe-stricken state.

My loving children will forgive their old man for saying that it is infinitely nicer to travel without them. Our weekend getaway to Belgium was neither a dream trip nor even a particularly fascinating one, but it allowed Natasha and I, for the first time in ages, to spend time just as we wanted, not as our occasionally capricious offspring demand.

The weather gods decided to rain on our parade, quite literally, and while that managed to dampen some of our impressions, it also played a perfect foil to a well-deserved intermittent downtime for us kids, wink-wink…

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Southernmost part of continental Europe turned out to be not warm enough for a dip in the Mediterranean Sea at the end of May. That was the only negative about our week on the Costa del Sol. The weather was sunny, the resort that we stayed at provided all possible amenities for a lazy holiday, and we had a tremendously good time.

We spent two active days exploring Cordoba and Granada, went to a large market in Marbella, and also took a trip to Ronda, ostensibly for dinner, but with a good hour of walking around thrown in. The trips, while somewhat taxing (about 120 miles one way to each of Cordoba and Granada), satisfied my wanderlust to the point of making the rest of doing-nothingness bearable. And doing nothing was what my ladies indulged in otherwise, lounging by the pool with a book (Natasha) or holding court at the impromptu “Jacuzzi Club” (Becky). Kimmy was constantly in the water, moving from a quite cold main pool to the heated family indoors pool to one of the warm jacuzzi.

We also took walks on the beach, watched a flamenco show, enjoyed good food, etc, etc, etc. Pictures and Travelog entries are forthcoming as always.

The return leg of the trip coincided with me getting a year older, so I’d like to say thank you to all who called, wrote or sent a card. I sincerely appreciate it.

Becky presented me with a “Control a Kid” remote. The instructions say 1) point the remote at a kid, 2) press a desired button, 3) hope for the best. Among the buttons are directives to tidy the room, do homework, stop screaming, and so on. To my chagrin, the device does not seem to be working on my particular brand of children…

I don’t particularly like “lazy” holidays. You know, the kind of vacations where all you do is lie on a beach or by the pool and limit your intellectual stimulation to reading a mass market paperback yarn that caught your eye at the airport bookshop. Yes, I am all for a swim in azure waters, but I much prefer spending my holidays exploring new fascinating places, admiring architecture and works of art, observing everyday life of the locals - you get the picture…

While Natasha largely shares my preferences, she is a lot less avert to the approach of occasionally doing absolutely nothing while on a holiday. Once in a while, I happen to agree that we are overdue for a lazy trip.

It should be noted that the last such “once” was three and a half years ago, when we went to Riviera Maya with our friends Natasha and Art. Since then, we went on two skiing trips (which cannot be considered “lazy” on account of, well, skiing, even though they do not normally involve active exploration), rented a villa in Tuscany as a base for day-trips (we did make it semi-lazy by spending a couple of days on the villa itself), and covered vast swathes of Western Europe with sightseeing focus, but we have not given ourselves an opportunity to kick back and do nothing for a week.

Hence, our upcoming holidays on Costa del Sol. Hopefully, the Mediterranean Sea will be warm enough for an occasional dip; otherwise, we’ll avail ourselves of the pool. Me being me, we plan to make day trips to Cordoba and Granada (and, possibly, to other nearby attractions if the weather decides to be difficult), but for most of the time, we expect to do precisely nothing.

I’ll let you know how well that turns out.

I leave you with one of Becky’s favorites, a fun clip called Evolution of Dance that we first came across via my aforementioned friend Art several years ago.

Hasta luego!

Ahh, Paris… There is nothing like it in the whole wide world. Not for us, at least. I don’t know what it is, honestly, but we always feel entirely at home in this most romantic of cities.

This time around, we benefited from exceptionally bright skies and warm weather, which was a great and welcome change to the customarily rainy and drab London week prior. We could not exactly take it entirely slow, given that we were trying to play guides to my parents on their first ever visit to the city, but we worked a leisurely afternoon at the Luxembourg Gardens and several unhurried strolls into the proceedings.

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It is the most basic and universal of any advice that an international traveller can get: Never forget when your passport expires. My parents, who leave the shores of the U.S. of A. about once a year on average, were going for a tour of Paris, followed by a stay with us in London. Our resident travel agent - my lovely wife - has figured out their lodgings, meals, transfers, their entire itinerary in Paris including a day with a personal guide, etc. She even synchronized their one-way trip on Eurostar with our return leg. What neither of us thought to ask Mom and Dad is to check their passport expiration dates. (I tend to ascribe that to my own obsessive approach to documentation; it does not occur to me in the normal course of events that some people - my own parents, especially, - may be less anal about knowing what shape their papers are in.)

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