HERE HARE

About 10 million years ago the enzyme in our bodies used to detoxify alcohol, dehydrogenase or ADH4, underwent a single mutation that left it 40 times more efficient.  The mutation occurred in the last common ancestor we shared with gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos.  Without a modified ADH4 even small quantities of alcohol are poisonous.  With…

We had a leisurely morning at our luxe digs, then checked-out midday.  Took an Uber to the Park Hyatt.  We moved hotels because a) our gift certificate money for the Fairmont ran out and b) the Hyatt is way closer to the airport.  Also, all in, including tax, we got a room for $190 Canadian. …

Cesar Baldaccini made a cast of his thumb in pink translucent plastic in 1965 for a Paris gallery.  It ended up selling at auction for over a million euros.  So he made more.  Bigger thumbs.  In all sorts of materials.  And they ended up in cities all over the world.  This version, in the centre…

Aside from enjoying the pool, and the summery weather, we didn’t do much during our layover in Qatar.  This was mainly for two reasons.  One, it’s Ramadan; Muslims fast during the day for a month.  Not an ideal time to be a western tourist.  It is illegal to eat or drink during the day in…

We were up early and out of the Gemini Lodge in Rotorua by 7 AM.  Tony was up to say goodbye; he knocked on our window while Stephen was dressing and I was in the shower and then he woke up Annie (“Hey Annie”, Annie, groggy, “What’s going on?” “You want a cup of tea?”…

The reunion was scheduled through Monday, but our flight out was Monday afternoon, so Sunday was the final full day in NZ.  And it was glorious.  Sunny, warm, technicolor greens and blues, much like the last three weeks.   Some of the group were repeating things we’d already done, or going river rafting, or just…

Out of our little AirBnB by 10 and onto Route 2.  The first half of our (sort of) four hour journey was along the unbelievably scenic and often breathtaking view drive through Waioweka Gorge: a hilly, winding, and sometimes perilous route up to and along ridges, down into valleys, most following the snakelike Waioweka River. …

It rained during the night.  We woke up to clouds.  29 days no bad weather, we thought, well, this is it.  Au contraire.  Cloudy, yes, windy, yes, but it warmed up, t-shirt was sufficient, and by late afternoon it was sunny, clear and 20.   For the morning we did a short forest walk on…

Another sunny day.  Another beautiful drive.  Another spectacular beach.  We finished up breakfast, packed the car, completed essentials (Wordle, Movie Grid, Spelltower, etc.) and were on the road north before 10.  We aren’t carrying on up the East Cape after this stop, so today was our one chance to explore north of Gisborne.  Gosh was…

East Cape, Cape East, Young Nick’s Head.  All good names for a pub.  But they are in fact just descriptors for the easternmost points of New Zealand, our destination today.   We had a leisurely morning at the pavilion.  I took a final walk along the river path which abuts the acreage. After we’d packed…

What a glorious day.  It had rained during the night.  Sun out this AM.  Puffy clouds.  Hit 22.  No humidity.  First week of autumn and it could be mid-July in Vancouver.   We set off after breakfast deep into the wop wops; like super deep.  We drove south and towards the beach for about half…

Excellent day, not much to blog about.   In the morning we set off for the Hastings Farmer’s Market which was in Havelock North, walkable for us (because Horse of the Year was in Hastings occupying the space!  See yesterday’s blog post!).  Great market; farmers, ranchers, walnut and fig growers, beekeepers, bakeries, the lot.  We…

What a treat to wake up and make your own fresh breakfast.  Fruit.  Granola.  Organic milk.  Eggs from the hens on the property.  Homemade bread and jam.    After we ate too many calories for “the most important meal of the day” or, alternately, the one you can skip and it makes no difference, we…

Five times!  Once again I am flummoxed by how many diverse, inconsequential and esoteric awards there are on the planet.  But more on who won that coveted award (five times) in a second.   This morning we rose in the WONDERFUL and MUCH LOVED and NOT HATED AT ALL North Palmerston.  Checked-out by 10, were…

“If you wish to kill yourself but lack the courage to do so, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick.”  John Cleese   “Residents [in North Palmerston] fed up with burnouts, speeding and crime on their street are asking local authorities to step up and help before someone is killed.”  stuff.co.nz…

We checked out of our seaside hotel at 10, ran a few errands in New Plymouth, then drove down the Surf Highway, route 45, a couple of hours from New Plymouth to Opunake.  It’s a little holiday town with a lake, a loop trail, and a nice black sand beach.  Although not too much else.…

We did some gardens.  After coffee and a scone, we set off to the outskirts of New Plymouth for a visit to Tupare.  The gardens here were, in the 1930s, part of a private residence of a local industrialist.  By the 1950s the family was opening to the public on certain days for tours.  Nowadays…

So, yes, we spent a day hiking Mt. Taranaki, a dormant volcano which lies due east of New Plymouth (named, by Cook, Mt. Egmont, so it depends on how old your atlas is as to what it’s called).  Given the sacredness of it and the limited access points, the drive from the coast is roundabout,…

First full day in New Plymouth: it was cloudy, it was warm and humid, it was windy.  We walked the west coast.  There is a seawall here that runs from the working port in the south, through the city, to a beach called the Bell Block in the north.  Starting from our hotel, we walked…

A new dawn: We Go Bi-Coastal.  With all due respect to Peter Allen.  We got up early, we took an Uber to the Christchurch “International” Airport, and caught a flight to Auckland, then rented a car, and drove southwest to the Taranaki region in the southwest of the north island.  So from the bright lights…

So I went from nearly 34,000 steps on Wednesday to less than 10,000 on Thursday due to, of course, several hours of sitting on a train.  I woke up Friday and the tracking app gave me a novel message after the two day “sprint and sit” if you will.  It read: “Call an architect! Your…

Another big travel day.  We were up and out of the hotel by 7 AM; we had mapped a walking route to Addington, where the KiwiRail station is.  Arrived by 7:30; busloads of tourists being dropped off.  We checked-in and boarded Car B; there were “scenic” class cars A, B, C, a café car, an…

Or five.  A lot of waterways and tributaries.  It’s a flat expanse Christchurch is, a grid system of streets offset by a meandering Avon river which intersects at random and, well, a lot of other meandering things.   Our hotel sits to the west, next to an expansive, lush and well-manicured jewel, Hagley Park; which…

Next travel day: Wellington to Christchurch.  First, the Interislander Ferry across the Cook Strait (about 1.5 hours) then it turns east down the fjord leading to Picton (about 1.75 hours).  Keeping in mind yesterday’s blog post, with the sinking ferry in 1968 (not every passenger survived!), and keeping in mind it’s open ocean, and knowing…

Sunny.  Again.  Will it ever end?   Stopped for coffee and calories at a bakery called Dough, then took the funicular up above the city.  Not much flat land in the city, so in an effort to expand in the hilly suburbs the locals built a cable car.  Started construction in 1899, opened to the…

We woke to grey skies and down below could see cars with their wipers on intermittent; but it was short lived.  An hour later the sun was out in full force.  We were saved, however, by zero humidity and a lovely sea breeze from the south.  Yet another gorgeous day.   To start we wandered…

Alarm went off at 5 AM!  Up and showered and organized and out of the room just past 6 AM.  Sorry to say goodbye to our luxury digs.  In a taxi and at the Strand KiwiRail station by 6:30.  Checked luggage at gate.  Checked-in at 6:45.  Boarded at 7 AM.  Departed 7:45 AM.  Trip to…

OK, so first: Certs aren’t candy Will Shortz, NYT Crossword editor.  Last week the NYT crossword ran the clue “discontinued candy” and the answer was Certs.  Certs were never candy.  They were  a mint.  If someone offered you candy, and you said “what are the choices?” and they said “Snickers or Altoids” you would say…

The ludicrous title of this blog is what The Guardian wrote, in a book review, on Animal, Vegetable, Mineral (an informative book with a exceptional sense of humour).  When the left can finally get a joke, send me a telegram. Gorgeous morning.  Hot.  And, yes, humid.  Took public transit to the zoo, which lies in…

First full day in another sort of down under.  It takes some getting used to.  Once you remember that “not even” is not true and “wop wops” are the boonies and “she’ll be right” is another of way of saying OK, you adjust.  But how can you tell the difference between bear and beer? We…

We were up early for a travel day; checked-out, walked the 700 meters to the train; 6:40 AM Skyliner to Narita—and it was packed!   Checked-in with Singapore, fast track security, then headed to the lounge.  We had access to three lounges.  We started with ANA, which was modern, elegant, spacious, and with an excellent…

Sunday. Sunny day.  Clear, but not cold.  It hit 17!  We started out at the national Science and Nature Museum, always a barometer for how a nation views its environment.  All the English placards in Latin.  Huh. Japanese fun fact: Before the country adopted standard time, it used a clock which divided a day into…

Saturday.  Sunny day.  Clear, cold crisp.  Could have been Friday.  Who knows without a phone?  Could have been 1962 for all I know.  We had a light breakfast, included in our rate at the hotel, then set out to Roppongi (a tony section of Tokyo akin to NY’s Upper East Side, limos, elegant shops and…

Flight YVR to Narita left at 1 p.m.  That’s an exceptionally low-stress and decent time to fly.  Regular morning, no early morning panic, coffee, get out after the traffic rush, check-in, smooth sailing.  Except for one small detail; I misplaced my phone.  So there was no blog.  But really, there was no email, there was…

No, really, not a metaphor, it’s like so grey it’s dark at noon. It was time to say goodbye to London (Cricklewood) and say hello to London (Heathrow).  But AF had cancelled the Thursday flight and bumped me to Friday.  So that meant two days at LHR in an airport hotel.  Disruption.  Welcome to travel.…

Super Tuesday.  (Not an election post!)  Met Simon’s friend Michael in South Ken, who’s a member of several galleries/museums, so he took me (free) as a member’s guest to three different shows. The first show we went to was a retrospective of Naomi Campbell’s career, from being spotted by a talent agent to becoming a…

A lovely autumn day.  Took the tube south to Kensington Gardens.  It’s an obligatory tourist thing.  They ask you at immigration upon departure.  If you haven’t been to Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens they fine you.  I just didn’t want that on my record. From Kensington Gardens swung up north into the Notting Hill neigbourhood. …

Today I headed out to Greenwich.  It’s both a wonderful and a manic choice for a Sunday.  Families, dog-walkers, couples, locals and tourists throng there.  But there’s space, almost 200 acres, it’s spread out, and whether it’s museums, architecture, the market, walking the commons, or just an opp to people (and dog) watch, it’s magic.…

Friday it was time to say goodbye to the comfort of service–the well-to-do families whose children spoke in unequivocally perfect English (they all seemed German) and businessmen with loud, curt voices that seemed to declare authority even when ordering a coffee (they were all men and they all seemed to be American) and the occasional…

Breakfast is included at the hotel.  Not a buffet, you order off a menu.  I ordered the vegetarian.  Jeesh what a lot of food. Mid-morning I set out to walk to the Isle of Dogs, along the Thames Path.  Don’t know how many more trips I’ll ever make to London, but I made a commitment…

The Day Today: That’s Armando Iannucci.  I wish I had come up with that play on words, because the day today, how brilliant is that, but I didn’t.  I put it on par with Bob Loblaw on Arrested Development, and then to cast Scott Baio as Bob Loblaw, and for Baio to agree, Mitchell Hurwitz’s…

Last day in Nice.  I’m going to miss France; but not le smoking or the merde de chien… Another stunning Cote d’Azur October day.  A tad hazier than yesterday but plenty warm, 22 plus humidity.  Wanted to enjoy the weather, without intent, so in the morning, from the hotel, wandered through city streets, into the…

What a gorgeous day.  What an insanely beautiful day.  What a nice day.  I set out for a coastal walk. Clear blue skies, hot.  October 28! Although I’d scheduled the Chagall museum today there was no way to justify spending such glorious weather indoors.  So I took the train east to Cap d’Ail.  There is…

This morning I took an early commuter train to Menton, which sits on the Italian border and, architecturally, seems much more like northern Italy than southern France.  The plan was to visit the Jean Cocteau museum, then spend some time exploring the town. In 1981 I stumbled upon a private gallery on the left bank…

Because France. The cover photo is Entrevaux; a medieval city in the Alps with a citadel that I did not go to or take a picture of. Sigh. Because France. A day like that. You know? Today I scheduled the Train de Merveilles (“train of marvels”) which is a local journey through several alpine villages.  I’d researched…

I like Nice; you can take a bus to Monaco.  Leaves a few more euros in the pocket for the baccarat table.  In keeping with that spirit I took the tram to Port Lympia then hopped on a #15 bus to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.  First stop, the Villa & Jardins Ephrussi de Rothschild.   Weather was forecast…

Headed to the eastern fringes of Nice today.  Passed a spectacular bakery and hit real estate agents advertising villas where the elite, meet. First stop the Terra Amata, site of a dig which found human remains (dental fragments) from 400,000 years ago.  As museums go, it was a bit dull, but it was a nice…

Fall colours.  Could be Vermont in October.  No, wait, Cote d’Azur on the cusp of Halloween.  Go figure.   Flight over was perhaps the best ever YVR to Europe; smooth boarding through two skybridges, boarded early, departed early, really efficient and friendly crew, dinner service excellent (they even came by to offer cracked pepper, take…

I read that ludicrous line, “without historical intent…” on a museum explanatory sheet today, about a curator.  It’s not that I don’t care about modern art, it’s that I don’t care…  Plus, look at that turbine above.  That’s some historical intent and totally exhausting reality. OK.  Be positive!  It was a spectacular day, best day…

After breakfast we walked uphill past the National Pantheon (which house’s Portugal’s “major historical celebrities” I kid you not, that’s what it is, not a place of worship, and that’s the language used to describe it) to a Saturday market at the Campo de Santo Clara Square.  The market is called the Feira da Ladra…

A beautiful warm morning in Lisbon.  Friday in mid-November so all the tourists are off to the Pena Palace.  Why not join them?  After breakfast we headed off to Sintra; we walked to the Rossio station where we caught a commuter train (four euros return!).  After about 40 minutes, disembark.  Caught a local bus up…

We said goodbye to Porto shortly after breakfast.  We took a taxi to the train station, about 15 minutes drive, then caught the “express” to Lisbon; three hours centre to centre, a few stops, hit 220 km/h a couple of times but mostly around 150 km/h.  The views at the start, along the coast, were…

Wednesday rain.  Drizzle, then a lot of drizzle, then wind, then rain and wind, then drizzle again, back and forth and up and down and just consistent enough to make tourism miserable.   We walked from the hotel across the Douro to the “wine spot” with all the port houses, and to a complex called…

“Can I have it on the good foot?”  Woof, what a day for walking this was… Breakfast is included so we had one of those elaborate hotel breakfasts usually served buffet style, but served to us, fruit and fruit juice, charcuterie and cheese, bread and croissant and jam and honey, eggs (or pancakes), coffee, and…

Bright and early out of the hotel to CDG.  Terminal train transit two stops to Terminal 2.  Checked in at 2F.  Boarding pass, processed luggage, went to pass security, then informed I was meant to check-in at 2G.  If it’s not one thing it’s another.  Exited 2G, took the bus to the outer limits of…

Sunday I had 2 PM checkout; that’s like adding an extra day to the itinerary, no cost.  Had breakfast, packed, then took a long walk to get the steps in.   Oberkampf to the Marais is about 20 minutes by taxi but 12 minutes, tops, walking.  Veered down some narrow streets towards the Seine, stopping…

Or “uspekh” as they say in Sofia. Saturday morning, before the tennis, was caustic; rain like Hollywood, in sheets.  Then “torrential drizzle” then just flooding, puddles in the Metro, pools that overlapped the street and sidewalks.  I ventured out, but it was a dog’s breakfast, so I returned to the hotel and lounged.   As…

I quote the NYT.  Only an American would refer to Paris that way.  That said, whether your first time in Paris or your tenth, the initial 48 hours is all eye candy.   But to get to that, to arrive, to witness the “millefeuille” was considerably stressful.  First, there were the torrential rains Wednesday night…

Wednesday was stormy upon departure from Cricklewood, sunny upon arrival on the South Bank.  In the AM did a quick skinny in the Tate modern, lunch at Wagamama, then a matinee at the Young Vic. The plays, the first a two-hour no intermission politically charged matinee, followed by a predictable drawing room comedy regarding family…

Tuesday was clear.  Tuesday was cloudy.  It was dry, it was drizzly.  There was a breeze, then still.  In short, Tuesday was an autumn day in London. In the morning I took the train down to Richmond and walked the Thames path towards Hampton Court.  A few years back I did this walk, Hampton Court…

BA 84 overnight to Britain.   Westminster, Elizabeth Tower (aka Big Ben), the Eye.   Kensington Gardens, back yard of Buck House, and a plane from Iran; something you don’t see everyday (or, you know, ever in Canada). The fly in Sunday afternoon was a dreary autumn sepia but it was clear and thrilling to…

We did not have a Cole Porter moment on our last day but it did rain on and off.  Pretty good I would say: Two weeks in Europe in mid-November and one wet day and even that was sporadic. So long Hotel Orphee garrett view: Today was our last full day.  We checked out of…

A few days ago we posted a picture of a stork laying eggs (a stuffed stork, laying fake eggs).  We weren’t sure what that was all about so Nina took us back, to Deyrolle, to show us that in fact that’s exactly what it’s all about: Taxidermy, the French version of the natural world, books,…

Sunday morning brought the dawn in.  We met up with Michelle at breakfast, but she then took off for the Eurostar (with cheese and terrine in tow).  We headed into the 5th, first up Rue Mouffetard (referenced in Trois Couleurs: Bleu where Juliette Binoche is “haunted by her grief”), past the local fruit and veg…

Seville is lousy with orange trees. Every “calle” and every courtyard and every plaza.  Could there be a lime tree?  Oh no, just a bunch of lemons masquerading as oranges.  They are coming into fruit just about now.  While notoriously “non-edible” I decided to test the theory and brought a ripe volunteer back to the…

One week in and we have more of it all: Moorish architecture, religious art, ample tapas, and spectacular November weather. Today we started at the Museum of Fine Arts or Museo de Bellas Artes, housed in what was once (a rather grand) convent.  We had anticipated “spillover” from the Prado but in fact it was…

It’s possible to take the train from Seville to Granada, 2.5 hours each way, so we did.  We took the direct.  It stopped at Cordoba.  Then it stopped at Puente Genil-Herrera.  Then it took a short stop at Antequera-Santa Ana.  And, yes, another stop at Loja.  Then we arrived at Granada. Translation has a wide…

Castilian Christians: You rock.  Peter the Cruel started it all (or Peter the Just, history has some “elasticity”), but the tourist brochures refer to him without commitment as Peter (aka Pedro) I.  In a very modern and counter-intuitive decision given it was the 1300s, he commissioned “Moorish workmen” (which the guidebooks might want to revise…

You’ll be glad you got ‘em…  There wasn’t a whiff of gothic, baroque or neoclassical in Fats Waller but there was a theme, consistency and something called joy.  Not quite so much Seville’s gothic masterpiece.  This blog has some serious religious diversions; the iconic byzantine mosaics of the Chora in Istanbul alongside the Blue Mosque…

As well as Peter O’Toole, Tom Cruise & Cameron Diaz; plus we visit The Chapel of Flagellations.  More to follow. On rising we did a wander through the old town.  Sunday, most shops were closed but tourists, locals and street vendors were in abundance.  We started out by heading up to Las Setas, large mushroom…

That translates to Spanish Fly.  Er… Spanish flyers. We were out to YVR early, through security and to the AF lounge which, in terms of outlook was lovely, although the made to order noodle bar was a bit of a non-starter.  The Frankfurt YVR Lufthansa 747 taxied in during our stay; the epitome of a…

Early Friday morning we left our hotel for the airport. We had planed two days in Dublin, starting with a short morning flight from Edinburgh.  And wouldn’t you know it, the sun came out. Unfortunately our morning flight became a midday flight, then a late midday flight.  And, get this, it was on a twin…

Seriously: The sun came out.  I mean not for long, not all day, but still.  No wonder it inspired The Proclaimers. We decided to make it a non-museum get our steps in final day in Edinburgh; we walked the Waters of Leith path, which is a park like route of about three miles each way…

It drizzled, then it rained, then it pounded; it was June, it was Scotland. It baffled me that thousands of tourists, post-C19, had wilfully chosen Edinburgh for a vacation this summer.  But they had, us among them.   Not a lot going on before 10 a.m., wo we headed up to the Supreme Court, of…

Despite the two hour time change, we both got a good sleep.  We woke up to Edinburgh summer: Freezing.  The sun was poking out but the wind was swift and unrelenting.  Our efficiency suite has a small bedroom, but nicely dark and quiet, and a larger “sitting” room with quite a lot of efficiencies, so…

We parted ways with how the other half live and rejoined our tribe: In economy class, sardined inside funnel tubes that aren’t far removed from the Central Services supply ducts of Gilliam’s Brazil.   We had an early flight, but in Greece nothing is truly early.  We took carbohydrates and caffeine on site, checked-out (they…

Stephen discovered a Milos travel guide on his iPad.  On our last day!  Some good that does us.  Interesting to note, I guess, that the island has been inhabited from around 2300 BC. After yet another top-heavy breakfast we went out for steps.  First stop was Plathiena Bay, yet another beach we hadn’t visited and…

So it was like that, you know?  Just Dusty (geddit?!).  Windy, fiercely windy, a lot of dust. And then it all died off and turned ambient and Conrad Hall caught the setting rays like in Day of the Locust. (So, obviously, these posts are written after the wine at dinner…) OK, so: Breakfast, a huge…

Anyone remember Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom?  Marlin Perkins stayed well back and would say things like “watch Jim as he approaches that lion.”  And Jim Fowler would do something theoretically dangerous.  Today I could have taken Marlin’s job.   The only thing missing in today’s adventure was the suspension bridge in The Wages of…

It was Thursday.  On a Greek Island.  So we went to a beach. We started at Papafragas, a rock beach eroded by time and surf into caves, arches, and eerie outcrops. It’s virtually an Instagram outpost, and if you don’t arrive early it’s awash in shapely women draped in flowing beach wear and floppy hats,…

Our plush luxe digs are owned by a local family who have “rooms” geared for locals immediately next door.  Instead of advertising them “on the beach” they note each “hardly abstains so much as five meters.”  Oh to abstain so little. Open Season: June 1 marks the beginning of the tourist season (and the last…

Instagrammers make everything The Top.  In a cheap and self-serving attempt to miraculously enhance my influencer status, we decided to do the Instagram-Tik-Tok-Facebook-My Space (!) Top Three Beaches on Milos. Our day started early.  The cock crows at 4:30. 4:30 a.m.  I mean you will hear them, with abandon, at 4:30 p.m. as well.  The…

Monday morning.  24 degrees. Or 27.  Something hot.  We were out of the hotel early, 6:40 a.m. or so, and the airport was HOPPING.  Crazy busy.  We navigated through check-in, then fast track security, then duty free (Schengen zone duty free, I think that’s illegal, no?), had a coffee, yogurt, and to departure gate.  Delay. …

To withstand relocation successfully. Is that a subtle lexicographer’s dig at airports? Although everything has changed nothing has changed.  The harried scheduling, the packing lists, the gels in small sizes in Ziploc bags, the packing, unpacking, dressing, undressing, the lining up, the lining up, the lining up.  Did you know the feds contract out security…

Should that Lou Reed quote read instead “I don’t like nostalgia (unless it’s mine)”? But it is sort of this trip,it is sort of this travel diary blog. I wonder if he said it sober? I mean, I’d like to think he meant it. This morning, the coldest day so far; 39 degrees Fahrenheit, whatever…

The picture at top, Florine Stettheimer’s Cathedrals of Broadway, 1929, (cropped by WordPress, I’m not clever enough to know how to prevent that irritating preset), part of four “cathedral” paintings, I only came across by accident: In the interest of thrift I took advantage of the Metropolitan “three day” attendance and walked up to 79th…

What a glorious fall day. I cut through Central Park to the Upper East side; my ticket to the Met Cloisters yesterday gave me three days of visits to the Met. Today, en route to the Breuer at Madison and 75th. I have a soft spot for the monolith that is the brutal modernist Breuer.…

Tuesday morning started dull and grey, warm to almost muggy, eventually clearing.  After breakfast I walked over to the NY Public Library for the J D Salinger exhibit.  Never before seen artifacts and paraphernalia: family photographs, candid Polaroid snaps, typed letters to his editors, the first typescript version of Catcher as well as the galleys…

The Bronx is up. The Battery is down and the Bronx is up. I was thinking about that days ago. I was thinking about that when Criterion streamed a restored version of On The Town (Frank Sinatra bored, Comden and Green jealous at Lenny Bernstein for stealing their thunder, Gene Kelly itching to dance with…

I’ve never arrived in NYC on a Saturday evening.  That was a trip.  But I’ve definitely never arrived at Penn Station, which is the Madison Square Garden subway stop, on a Saturday, with a UFC fight on tap, for which Donald Trump is attending.  And I’ve never had to wheel luggage through a mob of…

So it goes; another spectacular trip down. Spettacolare. Didn’t ever post any pics of the Yard hotel, bar and restaurant common areas. Bric a brac meets shabby chic meets a reactionary aversion to minimalism meets hoarding meets collectible obsession. Yeah, so it’s a design hotel. We had a very civilized travel day. Up not too…

We didn’t go to a church today, literally, but we did go to the high temple of opera. More on that later. First, let’s go to a museum of a church! Three great things about the Duomo Archaeological Museum. First, you have to pay extra over and above going to the church so not that…

It was all art, all day.  All art baby.  Cans of Love in Preserve art. You might not even see a church in today’s post. We did a tour of the Museo de Novecento, which sits in the Palazzo dell’Arengario (begun in the Fascist era, bombed in the war, finished in the 50s, renovated as…

We checked into a quirky hotel in Milan. Make of it what you will, it’s not run of the mill. Rooms have a theme; ours is hunting lodge. Go figure As with most tourists, we set off to the centre. One of the first things tourists do is take pictures of the (very impressive) duomo.…

That’s the thing with ciao, isn’t it? Only less confusing than I Am the Walrus. Worse is prego. If you bother to say thank you, grazie, you are virtually forcing an Italian to say prego; often you can hear the resentment… In the alternative, you can walk into a shop and be welcomed with prego–and…

We decided to go to the beach.  But which beach?  SS found a decent lido nearby with a website; they had a bar graph which showed typical client traffic, hour by hour, in real time.  At 8 a.m. on a Sunday the bar graph was throbbing.  Throbbing!  Ain’t that kick in the head.  It is…

When you really think about it, nothing happens when the guards change; the same uniforms, the same job descriptions, the same duties, one sentry called Oliver is replaced by another called Charlie replaced by another called Archie.  Yet there is a big half hour to-do about it and somehow it becomes picture worthy.  Which is…

Who knows.  Who knows?  Was yesterday’s post two days ago?  Is today the fourth day we went to the beach or the seventeenth day we looked at a church?   Was it 36.5 degrees yesterday or was that the day before, and how much hotter is 45 in France to 36 in Puglia?  In Memento the…

That’s French Baby. I mean, That’s Latin Baby. I got my Marvin Gaye mixed up with my Quintus Horatius. We walked Lecce for the last time after breakfast.  What a beautiful morning (if a tad hot; 28.5 at nine a.m.). After check-out we drove the ridiculously short distance to Nardo.  Free parking.  Public toilets, no…

Twenty years ago a guy decides to open a trattoria with his sons.  They’ve got this nice piece of property in the Lecce old town perfect for the tourist trade. Minor thing, the toilet keeps backing up.  So they decide to get a plumber in.  They dig down to replace the sewer pipe and low…

…does Lecce have a lot of churches.  Mama Mia Cher and Meryl a lot.  90,000 people and 40 choices in the old city alone.  We set out to discover them all.  Not.  However, we did the rounds, and it was a lot of round and round.  But today was only 28, 28.5, with some breeze,…

My late friend Giuseppe had a unique and lovable take on English grammar.  He inadvertently created spoonerisms, usually by perfectly mimicking pop music then purposely twisting the inane lyrics, often used the definite article wonderfully inappropriately (my favorite was “the disturb”) and had a very Italian take on the absurdities of British behaviour.  The finest…

Our first Saturday here, which we spent in Naples (and even at 2 a.m. on a Monday is noisy, busy, chaotic and unpredictable) was noisy, busy, chaotic and wound down around Sunday mass.  Our second Saturday, in Matera, resembled the cruise ship hordes which flood Venice during summer; teeming with day trippers, women in unsound…

Our longest drive of the holiday, just under 300 kms, was today: From the coast through mountain passes and snaking along valley floors, merging onto the autostrada north, then veering east on the E847.  For all the driving on all the continents over all the years I don’t think we’ve ever driven over so many…

Another hot sunny day.  Since we were toast from the beach yesterday we opted to drive up the coast to Paestum, a Greek ruins that has some spectacular temples in not bad repair.  I refused to trace our steps along the coast so we trusted Penelope to guide us through another route.  Either she forgot…

Woke up very early and couldn’t sleep so threw on yesterday’s clothes and went out for a 6:30 a.m. walk; got 7000 steps in before the day had started.  The air was ripe with oleander and jasmine, which litter the roadside, there were myriad bleating goats on the adjacent farm, swallows were up, dive bombing,…

More words than pictures today; we were mostly in transit.  We checked out of our hotel just after nine, took a cab to the central station.  Seat belts are optional in Naples (they constrain the body, which must be free to wildly disrespect all other drivers), scooters and motorbikes rule, nudging bumpers is the order…

Go to Capri or stay in town? We were torn. I voted stay. We started uphill towards Capodimonte, to see the largest catacombs in southern Italy, which are under the church of Madre del Buon Consiglio. En route, we passed a tiny shop selling Setaro pasta. Score! Not available in Canada. Giada “can’t live without…

So today a couple of things: An amazing experience seeing both Pompeii and Herculaneum.  Stupendous.  And then something else: Getting there and back. At our age we could have hired a driver; pick us up at the hotel, drop us off on site.  We could have done what zillions of tourists do and taken a…

Air conditioning and insulation; modernity is heaven.  We took breakfast in the hotel, included in the rate, then set out to explore.  Hazy to begin with it was hot from the get go.  A welcome breeze off the water did nothing to dry the sweat. We headed towards the harbour to a tonier area than…

Here’s a pleasant diversion: Nearly a month in Italy. Everything went pretty smoothly at YVR, the magic of leaving an Evo at Park N Fly and avoiding the hassle (and the meter) on a taxi brings some minor joy to the stress of check-in.  International was teeming; incoming and outgoing.  The lounge was packed, excitable…

Four days in the city that never sleeps.  Sort of a cultural exchange.   Well I guess the first thing is that getting out of YVR wasn’t so easy, the perks of “Diamond” status with Aeroplan somewhat elusive and then the “arbitrary” selection for luggage inspection, then the huge queue at Starbucks and the staff…

It’s going to be two flights up to get away home: Japan Airlines 736 Hong Kong to Tokyo, Narita, then transfer to JL 18 Narita to Vancouver, overnight.  We were packed and showered and out of the W shortly after seven.  The walk to the airport train was about three minutes.  Seamless trip out; HKG…

It’s red knots, red balloons and miniature orange trees everywhere you go; Chinese New Year is just days away.   As for us, it’s the end of the road less and more traveled.  No more turndown service with pillow chocolates…   The plan today, our last, was a day trip to Macau; you can get…

      Saturday was quite beautiful (as the hazy weather in HK goes) and I was able to get a few decent view pics from the room, day and night.   The mish-mash above is the ludicrous design in the W foyer bar and a shot of the see-through elevators that connect the hotel…

I shaved this morning and my Australia tan disintegrated into the sink.  Ditto SS.   This morning we woke up on the 33rd floor of the W Hong Kong.  It’s an uneven brand, as hotel chains go, but by gosh did they get it right in HKG.  We don’t have a suite or anything but…

This morning SS woke up, took a shower, walked out of the hotel, across the street, checked in at Cathay, had breakfast in the lounge, takes a seat up front, and then around five in the afternoon arrives in Hong Kong; he takes the airport train and a couple of stops later he checks in…

  Great picture.  I forgot to post that the day after MONA in Hobart.  I can’t recall the artist exactly, my recollection is he was into “architectural modelism” but had no architecture training.  There were beautiful modernistic renderings of towns and town centres.   Nothing much to blog about today.  The ginormous Celebrity Constellation and…

I neglected to write about our ferry trip yesterday (vis-à-vis BCF).  There was one ferry employee at the island on departure (it’s a pay on the mainland free return like Salt Spring Crofton).  There was one deckhand directing traffic on the ferry; the captain helped (the captain helped load traffic!).  The captain ran into a…

We did art Sunday so it was only suitable to do nature Monday.  And we did nature as far south as, I guess, we’ll ever be.   Antarctica isn’t on the bucket list.  Although we’ve done Argentina and Chile we took a pass on Patagonia.  So, short of an exile, I think we’ve gone about…

We took breakfast at a really authentic bakery (in the Jim Lahey style ) called Pigeon where they made the most delicious Eccles cakes.  We passed a restaurant on the pier playing contemporary jazz to keep the boarders and ne’er do wells away, and, hand on God, witnessed a seagull doing the moonwalk.  Then, more…

  Gorgeous morning.  Spectacular.  Low 20s, light warm wind, just heavenly.  Pic above is view from the living room deck.  We had some breakfast then walked the beach barefoot for about an hour.  I was going to take a full on swim but having seen blue bottles (small blue jellyfish) on the beach, did more…

Friday morning, February 2, looked a little bleak; cloudy and mild and looking like it might rain; but we are only here for a couple of nights so it was onwards and upwards.  Outside it turned out warm.  And, in fact, hit 23.  Plus the cloud cover probably kept us more active than if it…

Thursday AM, February 1, we did a little green grocer shopping and, just down the street from where we were staying was a Roman making fresh pasta, so we bought one of his lasagnas, then headed out to the east coast.  We drove south first, through central Tasmania, farm after farm, cattle and sheep, mainly…

  We spent a big chunk of the day walking/hiking at the Launceston Gorge.  The Gorge is to Launceston what Stanley Park is to Vancouver, not just spectacularly beautiful but right in the heart of the city.  In the late 1800s the British took what was essentially a swamp and glorified it into a local…

There is a wine route, a mere two-and-a-half-hour loop drive from Launceston, but once you factor in all the stops and deviations it’s a full day.  We started out early, in the clouds; it went 39 degrees Sunday, 31 degrees Monday, then in the teens this morning hitting a high of 24.  Needless to say…

    Yesterday when I was at the tennis SS went to the National Gallery of Victoria which had a free evening at the current show titled Triennial Extra.  There was art, DJs, bars, food, ideas, dance, design.  He saw a lot of cool stuff.    But none of what he saw was better than…

In 2017 Nadal was up a break on Federer in the AO Final.  It looked like he would close the gap to one slam apart.  A year later it’s a done deal; Nadal will never close that gap and it will take someone very special to get to 20 slams.    Our last full day…

I was going to call this post Hot Pants and a Unique Sweet but then Caroline Wozniacki made history and it seemed flip.   We dropped off laundry first thing.  You know how vacation plus humidity plus staying in a hotel goes.  I remember when Brad Gilbert was Andy Murray’s coach and on ESPN he…

So said the tabloids; the movement to reject Australia Day as a testament to European presence was dominating social media.  Happy Invasion Day some were calling it. Celebrating Australia Day. Celebrating Australia Day. Flowers laid at State Parliament to celebrate Australia Day. Or protest Australia Day.  It’s open to interpretation.   The parade passes by.…

  The food at the Australian Open is an affront: to taste, the senses, nutrition and satiety.  All the fried stuff of an exhibition midway, $14 sandwiches made with white foam and coloured paste, more fried items, stand alone chip kiosks, and more offers of salt than you can shake a stick at.  There is…

There’s so much to like about Melbourne.  So much.  But I guess not the traffic.  So I walked for a while.   Spent the morning getting exercise by walking Fitzroy; it’s a mish mash of heritage buildings, gentrification, lovingly restored terrace homes, terrace homes much in need of restoration, cool shops and quaint streets and…

Caught an Uber to the airport.  It took a mere 17 minutes at the speed limit.  Central business district to the suburban airport.  There is a tunnel that virtually skirts the city, the traffic, but is also a vortex in its never ending arc to nowhere.   First time ever flying Qantas.  Extravagant, I know,…

Started with a four lap swim in The Johnson’s 50 meter fifth floor swimming pool.  Nearly died!   Hot and alternately cloudy and sunny and overall wonderful in Brisbane (which, to be fair, I expected to be more crass, flash and glitz than it was.  Architecturally it was actually more interesting than YVR).  Re-connected with…

You know your flight leaves in the witching hour when the airport looks like this.  AC flies Melbourne direct followed by Sydney direct followed by Brisbane direct.  Long flights. First time in the newly renovated AC international lounge; during renos you had to go upstairs to a small and pretty drab space.  The reinvented downstairs…

It’s about an hour SE of SFO on the 280. Sunday, November 19: We had to wrap it all up by early afternoon for the flight home.  Awoke to another spectacular sunny mild perfect fall morning.  We took an Uber into an undeveloped section of Mission where there was a (well worth it) 30 minute…

Saturday, November 17, 2017: Up pretty early, Nespresso in room, snack from Starbucks, then Uber to Golden Gate Park to visit the de Young Museum.  The Teotihuacan show was spectacular.  Spectacular.  Objects from an unearthed tunnel, unseen for 1700 years, pillaged reliefs never displayed for the public, chunks of pyramids and relics from the long…

November 17, 2017:  A weekend away in San Fran. Passing through US Customs at seven in the morning at YVR. Agent asks me why I’m going to San Francisco. I say there’s a show on at a museum I want to see. He says, and I quote, “Look at you Mr. Intelligence.” A half decent…

Well the last day was a long one but not much to report except several hours in the Galleries First and then a pretty smooth flight home.  An early check-out unfortunately, an uneventful cab ride to Paddington, a delayed express to LHR, an easy fast track through security, then several hours in the BA lounge. …

An empty platform midday.  Imagine that.   First thing, in the blaring sun, I went to Camden Town to run an errand.  The 46 gets there in about seven stops from the flat.  I had to see someone about a parcel; a long, convoluted, Royal Mail, eBay story that is too tiresome to relate.  Then…

It was the second double double header of tennis.  The morning crowds were not as thick and testy as Tuesday: Monfils had dropped out of the tournament due to his lingering rib injury.  But at the year end event, they replace injured players.  So David Goffin (not next in line, Berdych would have been, but…

That was my favorite random sign of the day, Wednesday, November 16, maybe the week.  Most of the day I spent walking anyway; no lifts required.  It started sunny, like Tuesday it was mild, 15 or something.  I stopped at an outpost of Bill’s (sort of the Australian Jamie Oliver) for scrambled eggs and bacon…

I had an affair with a tennis pro once.  Love meant nothing to him. It took me 45 minutes to walk to Waterloo, 15 more minutes to walk to the Jubilee line, 12 minutes to walk from the arrival platform to the 02, and another 47 minutes to get through the two security gates and…

A trip to London without a stop at the V&A is criminal.  So I waded through the Theobald’s Road traffic towards the West End and took the tube to SW10.  Of the three current exhibitions, two appealed to me: A Brief History of Underwear (geddit?) and You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels…

And just like that it was Monday. The weekend was positively somnolent.  I put a load of laundry in and accidentally somehow entered in a code for the “childproof lock” which I solved after an hour on Google (and now that brand of washers keeps popping up in my mail ads; how boring these algorithms…

Remembrance Day: Friday was set to be glorious.  I dragged my sorry jetlagged ass out of bed and did something I’ve never done in London: Took the train to Hampton Court, then walked the Thames Path to Richmond.  I was under the impression this would be a seven and a half kilometre walk, a breeze. …

…didn’t get to bed last night.” Flying is a drag.  It doesn’t matter where you sit or what they feed you the human being is not meant to spend much (if any) time at 39,000 feet, let alone nine hours.  Although seamless, and with a German crew that was so friendly and helpful it seemed…

“Walking out” was one of the customary amusements of society life in Madrid…  It’s also what we’re doing today.  Last day of the last leg of Euro 2016. The pic above, a few steps from our hotel, is the Palacio Longoria, an Art Nouveau building that verges on Gaudi.  It currently hosts the Spanish Society…

This morning was lovely but Vancouver cold, around 14 degrees, I felt like a Parisian at Roland Garros; sunny skies with fair weather clouds and a wicked wind.  But it did mild up as the wind died down. We walked through old Madrid to the Royal Palace.  I was feeling sort of palace-d out, and…

Yesterday 29 degrees, today 21; beautiful weather but mainly a wind of “mistral” proportions keeping it temperate.  Pleasantville in the sun, coolish in the shade.  We didn’t add on (or need, at this point) a hotel breakfast, so were two Nespresso’s ready to hit the road well before nine.  We did what many, most, or…

Our last day in Prague.  We were packed, then down to breakfast, then running up the Fitbit steps before nine, to get to the Old Jewish graveyard.  It was used for over 300 years, 1439-1787, but the land allotted to the Jewish community was never big enough.  In fact, the area was so small it…

This morning we picked up laundry.  Sooner or later on vac you have to suss out a drop off laundromat.  Then we headed out to the southwest of the city, to an area called Vinohrady.  The weather was crazy: First it was mild with a breeze, then it got hot, up to 21, warmer in…

This morning started mild, but quickly turned hot and humid.  We took a very long walk to the south; in fact, we exceeded 10,000 Fitbit steps well before noon.   Along the way we walked through Wenceslas Square, the largest and most central and most commercial square of the city, replete with any number of…

This morning dawned cool, under 20 degrees (!), with a light drizzle; not enough to get wet, but enough to irritate anyone who wears glasses.  By noon it was dry and humid and by late afternoon back to summer, blue sky, warm.   We were going to start our day with the Spanish Synagogue and…

We started our day as many tourists do, at the Prague castle (Prazsky Hrad).  But unlike most, we walked there, which is mostly uphill and something of a trek from our hotel.  There are ten different sites to see, you purchase “combo” tickets for a selection or go individually to whatever site hits your fancy. …

Our driver met us just before 10 a.m. in “CK” as he called it.  He was an interesting guy, with two degrees, one in civil engineering and another in psychology.  We had an unusually in-depth and considered conversation en route, considering the language issues, including Terence Malick, meditation, psychiatry and rural life.  With nothing but…

Can you tell it was a beautiful day? Our pension put on a nice breakfast spread, toast, jam, fruit, yogurt, eggs, meats, cheese, cereal, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, crudités (?), salad and, for what reason I don’t know, dill pickles.  On the way to CK I asked the driver (he turned out to be the…

Well, so long Vienna: with your cool retro cars in mint condition… your ludicrous deserts, especially your ice cream pasta… your every second store selling chocolate… your literal translations… your cafe signage… …your naked people running through the streets. This morning we hired a private driver to take us to the UNESCO heritage town of…

An absolutely priceless weather day: hot, but not scorching, a light breeze and a few fair weather clouds which offered periodic relief. We had some strawberries, cherries, yogurt and Nespresso at the apartment, then wandered into the centre. We stumbled across St. Peter’s (Peterskirche) by accident. It has an austere exterior, but inside it’s over…

Six statues? Six statues? I asked for eight statues. This is a disaster!   If there’s nothing to do in Vienna there’s a museum you haven’t seen. There is even a Third Man museum (which, alas, is open once a week or, and I quote, “any day for 120 Euros” so, sadly, we’ll miss it).…

The Valens Aquaduct: Goodbye Istanbul. IST to VIE, TK1885: We were checked out of the hotel at 8:30 without breakfast. It was sunny and steaming up but the city doesn’t really come alive before noon. We had booked a comfortable van and traffic was light, all things considered, so the trip took less than 40…

Why did Constantinople get the works? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks. Of course I’ve been waiting a week to write that. Above: Christ healing the paralytic at Capernaum.  What parable is that? A shout out to Jarome for recommending the Chora church aka Kariye Museum. We made our way there this morning. The plus…

An inscription which means “I am the city of learning and Ali is its gate.”   Part of an exceptional collection of Islamic scripts we saw in the afternoon. The one above, a long elegant scroll, painfully detailed, is simply a land lease renewal.   But those are shots from the afternoon.  Here’s one from the…

June 1 already! Feral cats are to Istanbul what vending machines are to Tokyo. Today after breakfast we returned to Sultanahmet to the Topkapi Palace, the royal residence of sultans for over 400 years from the mid-1400s to the mid 1800s.  SS steered us well, avoiding the crowds at the main entrance by starting in…

It was very hot in the sun, 27 plus, but lovely in the shade, with an uplifting sea breeze.  After breakfast at the hotel we navigated transit (not without difficulty), taking the tram to the tourist zone of Sultanahmet.  Here we are arriving at the Blue Mosque (built 1609-1616).  Fun fact: The Blue Mosque is…

Why are we flying Montréal Istanbul, a five hour flight and a nine hour flight with a four hour layover? The cryptic rules concerning how additional costs are levied. The sweetest part is that two biz class tickets on points cost us $41.60. Seriously. Nearly halfway around the world. It’s $450 in taxes and surcharges…

On the afternoon we arrived in Banff there wasn’t a lot of time until dinner so we climbed Tunnel Mountain, a sort of local “Grouse grind” in the late day heat; 4.8 kms but only 260 meters.  Gorgeous views and not a cloud in the sky.  Views east toward Calgary and west towards BC. West…

Or so says the NYT.  We found he handled them quite well. As for the four day weekend, I could get used to this. In 1927 the entire cast (all 57) of the Mae West production The Pleasure Man was arrested for indecency between the first and second act On our final day SS braved…

Happy Valentine’s Day!   Pier-ing across to Jersey We scheduled four sessions of sitting for today so first thing we headed out to the High Line, the re-purposed elevated spur of an old railway, now a 2.5 km park, for a winter walkathon .  It was cold, but not blustery, so slightly better than yesterday;…

  Helluva, used on Broadway, was changed to “wonderful” for the movie as Comden and Green’s lyric was too racy for Hollywood.  New York is many spectacular and awe-inspiring things, but, truthfully, wonderful “honk honk” isn’t one of them.  Still, where better for a quick weekend away On the Town?  SS got a nice Valentine’s gift. …

I have no idea what that title means but it’s the title of a garden SS went to this morning.  Although it was our most beautiful day in Hong Kong, mostly blue sky, warm but not too hot, no humidity, I just couldn’t get my act together so SS headed out on his own early…

  Don’t let the pictures below fool you: It was gorgeous today.  A fair bit of cloud, and only intermittent blue sky, but 24 degrees, a light breeze, zero humidity. It always gives me a thrill to be somewhere outside in a t-shirt in November and find it hot. The humidity has been playing havoc…

Our hotel is in Sheung Wan, the end of a subway line, a transitional mix of massage parlors with cutting edge galleries, cool shops and cafes and old school market stalls with remnants of a colonial past.  It’s a wild confluence of the decrepit and revitalized, old and new, happening and over. It’s incredible.On Friday…

Except we’re old men. (If you remember the Elvis song.) Most boring blog ever.  Wake me up when there’s a Kalli Wag in site. At any rate, early rise on Friday, out of the hotel at seven, wheeled our baggage twenty meters to Central Station. Then, I kid you not, it was almost a kilometre…

My transistor radio comes from far away And when it’s night over here over there it’s breaking day Buck Owens, Made in Japan                               Nourish twist.  What’s the nutritional info on that?     “Yes, what you have heard is true.…

We did not have the Healthy Breakfast at $34, nor the American Breakfast at $35.  After a bit of lounging we went downstairs to Starbucks and had a reasonable facsimile for $6.  Typhoon Nuri, which passed Japan, was supposed to leave behind a minor squall of precip, so we winnowed down the dozens of museums…

That’s an Oscar Wilde quote.  Still: Stephen got a very nice Christmas gift last year–two night’s at the Shangri-La Tokyo. So we packed up the bags and took the train two stops down the tracks then 28 floors up to the lobby (yes, another hotel which sits on the top of a skyscraper).  We have…

When I arranged for our Kamakura guide we emailed quite a few times to sort out the itinerary and lunch.  The tour is free but you pay for your guide’s lunch.  She asked if we were vegetarian and what type of food we wanted to eat.  I said anything but, jokingly, including the smiley emoticon,…

Or so it seemed, one shrine following the next. A day away in Kamakura, the ancient Edo capital about an hour away from Tokyo where, arguably, many of the defining moments of Japanese history occurred.  A military coup of sorts crushed the Imperial Court in Kyoto and, in the 13th and 14th century Kamakura the…

Another spectacular November day, sunny, occasional clouds, up to 20 degrees, light breeze.  No complaints. SS in front of a water lily lake     We headed up to Ueno, a large park with almost a dozen museums, a zoo, a children’s theme park, a couple of Shinto shrines, a faux lagoon, and umpteen diversions. …

There, you can see it in the distance from our hotel room just over top of the skyscraper, underneath the clouds.   What a beautiful morning. Sunny and bright.  It clouded over but remained warm.  At one point my phone read 23 degrees.  Everyone in fall clothes, down vests and overcoats, and it’s 23 degrees!…

And L’As, alas.  Worst wordplay ever.  My apologies. Foie Gras Sandwich This isn’t a foodie holiday but we did have one splurge up our sleeves at a modernist take on French cuisine, tucked away in a leafy ward, called L’As (which is French for ace, which means something neither of us understood).  The chef is…

This is, I kid you not, the map of the rail and subway lines of Tokyo.  Tourist version.   We had another early morning at the buffet table.  SS had what I thought resembled a Rubenesque egg white omelette.   The Strings atrium looking down at the glass bridge and cafe   Pritzker Prize for…

Shinagawa Station.  I did not take this highly retouched pic! Everything has its place. Everything has its order.  This is the first hotel I’ve ever stayed at with a seismic activity warning in the room (“Tokyo sits on the Kanto Fragment Plate.” Not to be confused with the Mikasa plates Nan owns).  And red lights…

A Weird Selection of International Toys on Display at YVR In a sea of rain the clouds parted on Wednesday, October 29, and we embarked on the 11 hour trip to Narita.  Which is about as close to Tokyo as Yokohama, but there you go—a goodly distance from your arrival point.  For savvy travellers, Haneda…

Monday, November 11, 2013 On Monday morning, upon arrival at Heathrow, headed to the AC arrivals lounge for a shower, then to Willesden Green via Paddington on the Express.  A little disoriented and not sure which bus was the right bus so pulled the luggage about 1.5 kms from tube to Cricklewood.  A cool clear…

  There was a significant birthday leading to a significant trip so, since it all has to come to an end sometime, I thought we’d end it with something significant: The first time either of us has ever flown first class.  Maybe the last time?     As with Santiago, there was a separate area…

Midtown.  Plus: Close to everything.  Minus: Close to everything. Think of the Tony.  Tony, Tony, Tony, Tony….   Friday night we had tickets to Roundabout’s The Big Knife.  This is an old Clifford Odets play about a Hollywood star coming to grips with commercialism, selling-out, integrity, etc.  Big cast, stunning set, great to see the…

It never feels like NYC until you see the ESB   Gateway to one of the greatest avenues in the world; it’s always a bit of a thrill to walk from Washington Sq to Central Park down Fifth   Where you went before Amazon   Getting newer Despite the fact that we were both hugely…

The W has a noon checkout.  Sweet.  We had a relaxing morning, coffee out, packed, and checked out just before noon.  Spent a lazy afternoon on the roof by the pool, had a sandwich, swam laps, read.  One other guy came up for an hour and at lunch three business men had a sandwich.  Otherwise…

But it looks natural   Cloud cover.  Haven’t seen that in a while!  It warmed up on Tuesday but never cleared and only to around 21, more humid than hot.  The hotel was abuzz.  Well, the whole time it’s been crazy busy.When we arrived on the weekend Lollapalooza was on.  The hotel was filled with…

It was a gorgeous morning. Sunny but cool, around 14.  By mid afternoon 27.  Evening a light breeze, down to 21.  Absolutely perfect weather. Jacqueline Kiplimo, female winner of the half marathon   Feral dog, thought people running was the best thing ever.  The runners had to shoo him away.  He kept ahead of the…

On departure we were heading down the valley at 7:30 a.m.  It was a glorious day, again, and traffic was light.  With only two gas stops and keeping to the (generous) 120km/h speed, we hit Santiago at two.  But then we hit the poor signage ritual, as in all dense areas, the detours, traffic, etc.,…

View from our room, east Maddening morning.  The start of two days in the driest region of Chile.  We checked out of the Sheraton quite early and were on our way when I made an accidental right turn instead of merging left. With the rush hour traffic of Vina, the one-way system, and the inability…

Spoiler alert: They used more than one Herbie The architecture of Vina del Mar is, how can I put it?  Like being on a backlot.  And not Universal Studios. Warner Brothers   Steamboat Willie Disney       Princess-y Disney     Hanna Barbera Dr. Seuss   Pixar Wayne Mansion Looney Tunes We woke up…

We returned to the coast after lunch, stopping at Pablo Neruda’s Valparaiso home.  He wanted a place to escape from Santiago to study and to write in peace and quiet.  He wanted a view, but privacy.  Friends of his found him a place begun by a Spanish architect who had built five floors on a…

Dawn from our deck, Valparaiso in the distance   Pelicans on a rocky outcrop about 30m from the hotel The Casablanca valley lies between Santiago and the coast.  Most of the finest wines in Chile are grown in the dry, hilly valley.  We decided to explore a bit.  Rather than visit a number of vineyards…

It was overcast first thing.  I thought we´d left the sunshine in Buenos Aires.  We walked 10 minutes to Starbucks for coffee, then picked up the car and drove into Valparaiso, where the sun came out and we enjoyed a gorgeous day.   Valparaiso is hilly.  Reall, really, really hilly.  Think San Francisco then double…

  We were up very early for our morning flight to Santiago. Although akin to flying Vancouver to Calgary, it`s an international flight and they are apparently strict on check-in; not strict on fluids, of which it was easy to pass through with, or ID, which they only checked once, just particular on early check-in….…

Another spotless sky, hot and lovely.  We headed into Recoleto, parts we`d not been to, Retiro, and the edges of the centre.  On the walk up we heard a demonstration in the distance.  Last week was the 30th anniversary of the last military coup.  (Last as in since, not final.)  Then the teachers demonstrated, and…

We have another day here but decided to have our last big dinner the night before at Hernan Gipponi`s restaurant in the Fierro Hotel. We were going to spend our last four nights there but it was much easier to use the left luggage facility at the Glu.  Gipponi is another local chef who was…

Not much to report.  We walked around.  It was a great day but didn`t involve any culture or sport or shopping.  The only crisis was that my laptop died, probably from the heat–I was on the roof, surfing–and ever since I`ve had to use the hotel laptop with a Spanish keyboard (an apostrophe is CTL…

So during our morning in San Telmo we spent a few hours antiquing.  The best antique market ever.  Ever!  I’m not so much about the chandeliers and crystal and jewellery and furniture, of which there was plenty, including some egregious examples of old school safaris (e.g., tables with elephant tusks for legs).  But everyday items…

The Casa Rosada, or red house, once Argentina`s White House   View from the balcony where Madonna, er Evita Peron, made her famous speeches   Interior Courtyard (one of many)   We did a tour of the Casa Rosada.  The once upon a time seat of government, now mainly for ceremonial use. From the Hall…

Our left luggage was in the room, waiting for us.  We unpacked, organized, and took off for a dinner at Casa Saltshaker.  Buenos Aires has a tradition of what they call “closed door” restaurants; these can be nightly or irregular events where a chef cooks at his home, someone else’s home, or an undisclosed location…

Two days in Iguazu, nothing about the (silly lyrics but extremely catchy) TLC song…   SS got up as if it was a workday: 6:30!  Just over an hour later we were in a cab to EAP, one of two BA airports (their waterfront is an expressway, an airport and another expressway…).  It was a…

Um…maybe you should see someone about that?   Again with the clouds and remnants of rain.  But I’ve wised up.  SS said I’d be sorry to not bring a jacket but by early afternoon it was 23 although hotter with the humidity and it stayed hot and lovely right until evening.  I would say the…

Fall.  Last of the jacaranda. What a spectacular gorgeous day.  Clear blue sky.  And so darn hot!  I had to sunscreen my head to avoid burning in those pesky spots where the hair has stopped reproducing… We took a lovely walk towards Recoleta, past the botanical gardens and zoo, to the Evita museum.  It was…

  That’s the high end restaurant.  Seriously. Ten course dinner at El Baqueano.  You say it like it’s written.  But first, the cab ride.  It was way, way, way far away, in San Telmo, the other side of the centre, and although there are wide boulevards and most of the city is on a one-way…

The Papal flag outnumbers the Argentinian flag about two to one right now   Old meets new.  It’s a motif…   Obelisco, the “iconic eyesore.”  Next on Gregor’s list for English Bay? The one on the left is dreaming In a land that’s never heard of HVAC comes the dream of AC for everyone.  It…

  Hatted maneki-neko Day one: Despite a decent arrival time, the luggage and customs and finding our driver then a 55 minute drive to the hotel took up a chunk of the afternoon.  Our hotel is nestled on a narrow street, just 12 rooms on three floors, but the neighbourhood is particularly vibrant, not a…

The blorbs are an online award for creative blog post titles.  We’re aiming high.   The start of a very long and mediocre dinner service     The Toronto departure was late; if the departure board was accurate, we were the last flight to leave the gate, the last flight to get de-iced and, very…

Missing a connection at gate 50   SS ensconced   Front of from back of the Airbus   Meal: beef or chicken or salmon or pasta   Top Chef finalist   Appetizing…   Layover     Last.  Like John Daly on the leaderboard. Of course up front on AC isn’t good enough for some Canadians. …

  I realize London may be a great metropolis, but it’s not very nice to people.  We’re not friendly.  Not that we’re rude, like the Parisians with their theatrical and frankly risible haughtiness; nor do we have New Yorker’s shouty impatience. Londoners are just permanently petulant, irritated.  I think we wake up taking offense.  All…

  Gorgeous final day. Clear blue sky, sun out in full. I had the intention to walk from Holland Park to Kensington Gardens, the Serpentine Gallery, then through Hyde, Green and St. James Park, and then take in the original Tate.  But the crowds around Knightsbridge were ludicrous, worst at Duke of Wellington’s place across…

  Up late.  Was it any wonder? Another cool windy day. It had rained but was dry A.M. Didn’t hear from my friend Jean Paul so decided to see about tickets for the theatre.  The two shows I was pining to see were Berenice at the Donmar and Allan Bennett’s latest, People, at the National. …

  [The title is stolen from a wonderfully acerbic YouTube site.  Pregnancy: It get’s betterish.  Karaoke: It gets betterish.  Drag Queen: It gets betterish.] Friday another day of sunny breaks, cloudy periods, London overcast and chilly, but never wet. James Bond drove one. Into St. James, Regent St, Liberty, Soho.  One shoppe was selling the…

    Thursday AM I made the trek to Cricklewood to see Diana, Simon’s mum.  She is still her old self in many ways, but in other ways lost in a bit of a fog.  I also saw a young woman who claimed to be his daughter but I truly couldn’t believe it. Midday to…

Although it’s spelled haight (the t is silent, the Welsh is hwcyntha).   And someone said fashion was dead… Wednesday.  The best part of the morning was that no one knew who won the election.  Oh, and it was sunny.  Colder than Vancouver, proper November eight degrees cold, and, weirdly, all the leaves are not…

Patsy and Edina go Shopping   Given that I was going to be out of the country a whole week, Nan took it upon herself to make sure no one went hungry.  She roasted a turkey, and served it with cheese cauliflower, baked carrots, Brussels sprouts, a turnip casserole, corn, roast beets, mashed potatoes, gravy,…

Easter in Chicago.  Checked into the Fairmont Airport.  Last time we lucked out with a north facing suite, view of the mountains, bathroom bigger than Michael Fassbender’s business if you know what I mean, shutters you could swing back from the bathtub and watch TV or take in the view, double sinks, two-person shower, the…

Wednesday, August 24, 2011: 500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles… We were up early (six) and packed and out by seven.  Some high cloud but very warm.  Drove SS to the Charles Schulz airport (aka Sonoma County Airport).  Was on my way by eight.  So it began. The most complicated part of driving…

Lake Benoist, Riverfront Regional Park, Russian River Valley, west   NE towards the Alexander Valley   Tuesday, August 23, 2011: A mild 70 or so on rising, crystal clear sky, quiet.  Checked in on the world (Libya, dollar OK, earthquake, the usual) then drove down to a Riverfront Park, a 300 acre regional park on…

  Monday, August 22, 2011: Woke up to 59 degrees, cloudy, mist like rain in the air; Mendocino had followed us east!  SS went across the street for coffee to a bakery connected with the DuChamp, the hotel for swells also with Cyrus, the Michelin starred spot; coffee and baked goods are included in the…

Point Arena porch; say goodbye to Mendocino Sunday, August 21, 2011: Today we left Mendocino and turned east towards the heart of Sonoma, a sort of sharp left turn.  We had three options to accomplish this: Backtrack north to connect with the 128 which runs SE down the scenic Navarro River valley into Sonoma; drive…

Saturday, August 20, 2011: Wake up, eat, walk, eat, walk, eat, watch a movie.  Some life.  The “poor man’s sentinel” gave us an important warning first thing though: Donkeys in the adjacent field had wandered over the hill and were leaning against the wire fence outside the west deck hopeful for, I guess, an apple…

Irish on Irish Beach Friday, August 19, 2011: We are staying in a community, if you could call it that, called Irish Beach (which is essentially about three dozen homes with nary a service for miles).  There is access to a private beach, which runs for miles, so that’s where we spent our morning.  It…

Morning sun breaks over the beach near Brookings, Oregon   Thursday (so I’m told), August 18, 2011: A glorious morning dawned, as the hymn goes, but we were a bit out of joint.  SS was kept awake by the neighbouring room, who were awake until two, as well as the tsunami siren going off in…

Guess.  Then scroll down.   Wednesday, August 17, 2011: Our “resort” serves a “continental” breakfast: individually wrapped muffins, bread in the shape of a bagel, hard boiled eggs, Tang (I swear, confirmed by an RV-er), “coffee” with whitener, bananas and yogurt.  I stuck with the latter two.  We tried coffee from the drive through hut…

  Tuesday, August 17, 2011: Cannon Beach to Manzanita, Nehalem, Rockaway Beach, Tillamook, Hebo, Neskowin, Lincoln City, Depoe, Otter Rock, Newport, Seal Rock, Waldport, Yachats, Florence, Gardiner, Reedsport, Winchester Bay, Lakeside, North Bend, Coos Bay, Bandon, Langlois, Sixes, Port Orford, Gold Beach.  Also, Smith Lake, North Bay Rd, Glenn Ave, Lois Lane and, my favourite,…

  Monday, August 15, 2011: On an endless, trans-continental, ultimately fruitless quest, for the ideal Americano, SS served me a delicious freshly roasted cup from the roaster across the street; I sat up in bed and said thanks but half an hour more sleep would also have worked instead.  So, again, early start.  Off to…

  Sunday, August 14, 2011 No reason for an early start but we had an early start nonetheless.  Tempurpedic bed.  I’m of mixed opinions—but if you sleep on it like the body in the logo it is perhaps wonderful.  SS got coffees and we read (“read”) the Oregonian.  Still printing Tiger in the colour comics;…

August 13, 2011 Dog trip.  Sooner or later it had to happen, no swooning like Harlow in Monte Carlo.  Very early start and zipped through the border, brief stops in Bellingham (Starbucks) and Seattle (Pete’s—91 point Piper Heidseck Brut NV at $31—less than half the price in Canada.  Less than half the price! Don’t get…

On hiatus; thanks for the traffic. Speaking of which, here’s a post-mortem for the die hards… Up early, out to Charles de Gaulle.  Light rain and dark.  The trek to CDG never ceases to amaze me, traffic at all time of the day/night/week, the route a confusing, cryptic maze of on and off ramps, merging,…

The entrance to the Musee D’Orsay, a “retired” train station Today a sunny start then clouding over but mild, about ten degrees warmer at this end of the week than when we arrived.  A relaxed morning down to the Musee D’Orsay.  I’ve never been (it’s all impressionism and post-impressionism not my strong suit, which wouldn’t…

1979-2010, politically incorrect but much loved Gee our old LaSalle ran great: First, a moment of silence for the passing of the Walkman.  Sony has announced the Walkman will go the way of the Edsel.  I owned the very first model, sleek aluminum and bright orange ear muffs with a mute button that hung on…

SS said it was a housewares shop.  Wrong.  Chocolatier.   …and nougat and caramel   Women’s shoe shop (apparently)   Oh oh ladies, look out: Stockings are back   Bear made of bears in a bag shop window   70 Euro ($100 CAD) pair of galoshes   Very expensive “magazine” wallpaper   Very, very expensive…

Tom Cruise proposed to Katie Holmes here At eight it was bright and sunny and October cool.  I got SS a hot croissant (he favours one boulangerie over the other as we have two on our doorstep to choose from), an IHT (which reported that the Chilean miners were at one point visited by some…

The TGV train station at Avignon; very cool Blue sky, sun shining, and the famous Provence wind, the mistral, pounding.  You could feel it in the car and when we dropped it off at the TGV it was almost impossible to get inside.  Our hair looked like the Bride of Frankenstein, the heavy steel doors…

Did I ever give the update on the Tate Modern sunflower seeds?  Despite taking thousands of Chinese villagers years to create and paint, the porcelain wasn’t lacquered.  The seeds “opened” for one day.  When people began to walk on them porcelain dust filled the air and created a health hazard.  The exhibit was closed.  It’s…

It’s stop not arete and parking not stationnement and shopping.  The Quebec sign police would have a field day. We took the lawnmower on the motorway SE to Aix (as in extremee or excusez or X the LA band from the early 80s) home of Paul Cezanne.  It was getting exhausting being retired in St.…

Even the graffiti has je ne sais quoi Any more culture and we’d be yogurt. Today, all day, in Arles.  It was sunny, then overcast, but mild, up to about 18C.  We started with a coffee in a brasserie on the square, where I read in the IHT that Sarkozy has fast-tracked the pension reform…

Morning sun looking west from Les Baux   Vineyards and olive groves in the Val d’Enfer   The limestone outcrop which is Les Baux         Part of the remains of the fortified castle at Les Baux Stupendous day.  Early to Les-Baux-de-Provence, an ancient settlement on a limestone “mountain” overlooking the Val d’Enfer…

Awesome gardens at the hotel Bastide de Boulbon   It rained hard all night but we woke up to a beautiful day, occasional clouds, lots of sun, around 8C, but no wind.  Our tourist world looked wonderful.  Of course still lots of protests, some gas stations out of gas (although we keep being told that…

We had an early breakfast—as early as you can have it, it starts at nine; the Germans were leaving, four hour drive to Frankfurt, pretty sweet. Mild but overcast.  Drove south to Cluny, meandering along a two lane highway through farms and forest.  Passed over a mountain on the way, fog and rain, but at…

Closed for the season Chateau (maison de garde at the dam) in decline, Lac des Settons We had a wonderful, lively breakfast, one UK couple regaling us with stories about friends of theirs who were caught in the Eurostar tunnel fiasco last winter, and another telling us of the zoning nightmare trying to renovate a…