Last Days in the West Indies

Sunday, January 14, 2018

We docked today in Phlipsburg, St. Maarten, the Dutch section of the island of St. Maarten/St. Martin, St. Martin being the French section.  Even though they are two seperate countries there is no formal border crossing like you would normally  see between countries.  There is just a sign, similar to driving from Michigan into Indiana.  Instead of going on another tour of an island as we have been doing, today we opted to take a cooking class.  The class was held at La Terrasse Restaurant in St. Martin. As our bus took us to the restaurant we saw considerably more hurricane damage then anywhere else on our cruise.  Just outside our dock we saw piles of mangled box car like containers that you see on container ships.  We also passed many builds still in total ruins.  La Terrasse was closed this morning and a long table had been set up in the main dining room providing individual work stations for the 10 of us on this tour.  There was a work station at the head of the table for the chef.  The class was very hands on with all of us participating in the preparation of the two dishes on our menu: Shrimp and Mango tartar (salsa) with tomatoes and balsamic reduction, and Puff Pastry stuff with goat cheese and roasted mix nuts mixed with honey.  The two dishes were easy to prepare and the chef was very pleasant to work with.  After the prep work was done and the puff pastry baked we were able to sit with a glass of wine and enjoy our creations.  As we were enjoying our small meal we discovered that this was the first time our chef and this restaurant had hosted a cooking class.  Not everything went as smoothly as we are sure the chef and restaurant owner wanted, but they went out of their way to make this an enjoyable experience.  We brought home recipes for both dishes that we are anxious to try.  The class lasted about three hours after which we returned to the ship and read while enjoying the wonderful weather.

Monday, January 15, 2018

Our final port of call was Charlotte Amalie, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  We took a bus tour that passed through lovely scenery on the way to the top of a mountain 2100 feet above sea level to visit the Mountain Top gift shop.  Mountain Top's main claim to fame is being the place where the banana daiquiri was invented.  Who are we to argue the point?  Of course we both sampled said invention and thoroughly enjoyed them. While drinking our daiquiris out on the gift shop's deck, we enjoyed scenic vistas.  Our tour guide pointed out a beautiful white sand beach that was once lined with cabanas and bungalows but were now gone, casualties of the hurricane.  We were also shown the location of a large house further down the coastline where President and Michelle Obama had vacationed.  Fittingly, the house was white.  When we returned to the ship we spent the rest of the day packing for our return home tomorrow.

We chose this cruise because all of the ports of call were new to us.  Unfortunately,  there were very few "Wow" moments on the various excursions that we took.  This many have been the result of hurricane damage. In our minds it is more that these are wonderful islands to visit if you are beach fans and are at an all-inclusive resort.  Still, we enjoyed the cruise.  The temperature was in the mid 80's everyday and the food and service as well as the entertainment on board were excellent.  It was way better then freezing in snowy Michigan.

Lazy Days in the Caribbean

Friday, January 12, 2018 The last several days have been wonderfully relaxing days, luxuriating in the 80 degree weather, reading, and occasionally glancing at the lousy weather back home. Wednesday morning our ship ship docked in St. Lucia. In the morning we took a break from the busy work of relaxing to walk about the town of Castries, the capital of St. Lucia. The market was a short walk from our pier and was a typical market with a mix of souvenirs and food stalls. The food stalls were of interest as there were a wide variety of fruits with which we were not acquainted.

We did have an interesting encounter with a clerk at the post office. Tim asked for a stamp to mail a post card and was told it would be 80 cents. He handed the clerk 3 quarters and a nickel which the clerk handed back saying they only accepted West Caribbean dollars. Tim explained that he had no West Caribbean dollars at which point the clerk handed Tim the stamps and said it was okay. Rob - would a clerk at a U.S. Post Office be as generous with a visiting foreigner?

View from Stoney Hill

In the afternoon we took a two and a half hour tour of the island. The tour included a visit to a place called Stoney Hill. This was a private residence high on a hill that had a beautifully commanding view of the Caribbean as well as gardens around the house that were much more impressive then the botanical gardens we had visited in St. Kitts. There was also a small orchid house on the property that had a small but stunning collection of these lovely flowers. The owner of Stoney Hill, a proper Englishman, personally welcomed us to his home. We were offered punch and a kind of fish cake that is local delicacy. Bananas are a major crop in St. Lucia, so when we were offered Banana Catsup to put on our fish cake it would have been rude not to accept. It was actually quite delicious. While enjoying our snack, we were serenaded by a young man playing a steel drum. It was actually a steel pan according to our host but sure looked and sounded like a steel drum to us. If it walks like a duck.....etc., etc. The fact that it rained the whole time we were at Stoney Hill did nothing to diminish the beauty of the home and surrounding gardens. The rest of the tour was a scenic drive around the island with frequent stops to point out fruit trees. We know that sounds a bit boring but was, in fact, quite interesting.

Orchid House

Thursday we were in Bridgetown, Barbados. We had booked a morning tour of Bridgetown and surrounding area that Tim hoped would include a drive by of Sandy Lane, an exclusive golf resort where Tiger Woods wedding with Elin Nordegon took place. However, Tim was not feeling well Thursday morning (he may not have needed the extra glass of wine or the Tiramisu dessert the night before) so we skipped the tour. In the afternoon, with Tim feeling more up to speed, we took a taxi from the pier into Bridgetown. Bridgetown, at least the part we walked about, was not particularly attractive. There seemed to be few shops of interest although we did venture into an art gallery where a painting caught our eye, but not enough to buy it. Wrong color of blue! It did not help that the temperature was 86 and very humid. As we write today's blog we are in Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe. Guadeloupe is a Department of France, which means it comes under the direct rule of France, probably having a Governor General that oversees the government in Guadeloupe. It also means Guadeloupe is a member of the European Union and the Euro is the official currency. We took a tour this afternoon that took us through the city center of Pointe-a-Pitre, a truly ugly city center, out to the eastern end of the island. The first stop was St. Francois, an ocean-side resort town according to our guide. We would disagree. The purpose of our stop was a city market. This was a market for the tourists, unlike the city markets we like to visit where you see many locals. It had the usual touristy stuff: jewelry, clothing, crafty stuff. Evidently, we were the last bus of the day because, as we left, vendors were already taking down their booths.

City Market

Next stop was Pointe des Chateaux at the very eastern tip of the island. There was a castle nearby and a cross stood at the top of a hill overlooking the ocean. This is where Columbus landed in 1493. Apparently he stayed about a year and there were no other visitors for nearly 200 years. Again here the original settlers were Indians from South America who arrived by canoe before Christ. Beautiful scenery and a beautiful beach. Our last stop was Pointe a Cabrits, another beautiful beach, this one with a bar. Then it was back to the boat. The guide told us that there is a Club Med and a Scandals resort on the island. From our perspective, the beautiful beaches are the best thing to recommend about Guadeloupe.

Pointe des Chateaux, Guadeloupe

St. Kitts

January 9, 2018 The pier where our ship docked this morning may be one of the ugliest piers we have experienced in all of our travels. As we left the pier in our excursion transportation we were surrounded by containers either waiting to be loaded on a container ship or having already been off loaded. Our excursion vehicle was a small bus but without any windows, although it, fortunately, did have a roof. We were on our way with 10 other passengers to a Botanical Garden located on the Romney Estate, named after the British Earl of Romney. At one time this was one of the largest sugar cane plantations on St. Kitts. However, as the price of sugar went down over the years the sugar business in St. Kitts went into decline to the point that it is pretty much now nonexistent. The garden was not particular large but did feature many lovely bromileads, bougainvillea and even some poinsettia growing as a large shrub. The centerpiece of the garden was a huge 500 year old tree, fondly called "the tree" by the locals. The original house on the plantation now contains a studio and shop for the making of Batik. Batik is a process of dyeing cloth which is used for all manner of clothing as well as art work. The process starts with a whole piece of cloth on which an artist sketches the design for that particular piece. Then one of the workers puts wax over everything on the cloth that is not to be dyed. After drying the wax is removed and the whole process repeats in preparation for a different colored dye. This is done up to 5 times for different colored dyes. The resulting product is really quite beautiful. The next part of the tour was a walk through a tropical rain forest. When our guide started passing out walking sticks and suggested the walking stick was our new best friend on the walk, Lynda decided to stay on the bus. (Actually is was the sandals I was wearing - never thought about needing closed toe shoes but the locals near us told me I'd be crazy to try the walk with the shoes I had on. Lynda) It was a good decision on her part as the walk lasted an hour and a half and was quite rugged. The narrow path we followed was up and down fairly steep hills. It followed a stream most of the way. There were several brief rain showers during the walk but because of the canopy of the trees we did not get wet. We saw several very impressive ficus trees, one of which was at least 50 feet from the stream with a root that reached the stream. It was a gorgeous but exhausting walk. Our guides thoughtfully provided us with a fruit punch with a shot of rum at the end of the walk. (They included me in that! L.) The garden/rain forest was about a 25 minute drive from our ship, which took us by a university-level nurse training school and a veterinarian college. We also drove through several villages, most looking rather poor. We did have spectacular views of the ocean. Tomorrow it is on to St. Lucia.

Greetings from aboard the S.S. Viking Sea

January 8, 2018 As we write this we are located in Frederiksted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands on the third day of our 11 day cruise through the West Indies. We booked this cruise last summer and then in the fall watched the coverage of Hurricane Maria with our itinerary in front of us checking off each island on the itinerary as it was reported to be destroyed by the hurricane. We received periodic emails from Viking Ocean Cruises assuring us that our itinerary was still good to go. Two weeks before the cruise Viking announced that our first port of call after leaving San Juan, Puerto Rico had been changed to Frederiksted in the U.S. Virgin Islands from our port of call in the British Virgin Islands. Flying into San Juan on Saturday, we observed from our plane a significant number of houses with blue tarps covering damaged roofs. The driver of our bus from the airport reported that almost 50% of the country was still without power. He also told us his was one of the "blue roof" houses. He had been told power and water repairs would be done by April but seemed unsure that that was going to occur. The Viking representative on the bus indicated that repairs were slow because of both a lack of contractors and materials. On our Sunday tour our guide pointed out the main power station that provided power for San Juan and reported that it had come on line just 3 weeks ago. He gave no indication of where power came from before then. Our tour was in the old town of San Juan and suffered less damage then other parts of the city because of the type of construction used during the building of this area. All of the Puerto Ricans we encountered thanked us vociferously for still choosing to come to their country for our vacation. In Frederiksted, Lynda stayed on board our ship while Tim did a walk about. There was little to see in this village. Tim saw palm trees that had been damaged. He walked through a veterans park that had small obelisks for each branch of the military serving as memorials for those who lost their lives in service to our country. Several of the memorials had lost marble panels. In one of the shops Tim visited, the shopkeeper told him that she was still without power but crews were working in her neighborhood so she hoped to have power soon. She did say that 90% of the island did have power and that overall the island had recovered from the storm much quicker then they had originally been told. That's enough serious news. Let's get on to the fun stuff. Saturday was long travel day for us. Our flight out of Detroit left at 6:00 a.m. so we chose to stay at a hotel near the airport Friday night. We left our hotel Saturday morning at 4:00 in below zero temperatures. After a short layover in Atlanta where it was 18 degrees, we arrived in San Juan at 2:15 with temperatures in the mid 80's. By the time we collected our baggage and bused to our ship it was 4:00. We spent the rest of the day unpacking and exploring the Viking Sea. Some of you may remember that we sailed this same ship last January on our cruise from Rome to Barcelona. Sunday morning we took a two hour walking tour of the old town area of San Juan. We saw an interesting mix of architectural styles from fortresses that were built 400 years ago to a church whose facade looked strikingly like the facade of the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, to a beautiful art deco building from the 1920s which was the first skyscraper built in San Juan. One of the highlights of the tour was visiting the Cathedral of San Juan, the 2nd oldest Christian church in the western hemisphere. It also is the resting place for the explorer, Ponce de Leon. This cathedral was not as massive as those we have visited in Europe but it was equal to these cathedrals in its beauty. We were there during mass and were surprised by the informality of the service. The singing of hymns was accompanied by several musicians playing mandolins. It had the feel of what we would in the states call a contemporary service. Our guide explained that this music was actually played only during the celebration of Christmas. As mentioned on a facebook posting, the Festival of the Three Kings, Epiphany back home, is as important a celebration as Christmas day, with gifts exchanged on both days. In the gift shops we visited we saw more small statues of the Three Kings than we did Manger Scenes. One of the statues actually showed the Three Kings playing bongo drums!

Sunday night we dined in one of the specialty restaurants, the Chefs Table. The menu is a five course fixed meal with a different wine pairing for each course. We had dined in this restaurant on our last cruise and had not been particularly impressed but decided to give it another try. We were glad we did. Our sumptuous meal included tomato and watermelon gazpacho, grilled scallops with beet root and passion fruit, prosciutto and cantaloupe granita as a palate cleanser, veal tenderloin with pumpkin sauce and red onion marmalade, and a strawberry and basil delight: Grand Marnier bavarian cream accompanied by basil jelly and strawberry sauce. It was a delightful meal. After dinner we arrived at the theater in time for the Captain's welcoming party. The Captain introduced the senior staff and then we all joined in a champagne toast. After the toast we were presented with a sample of the entertainment that would be appearing in the theater during the cruise. We had been impressed with the entertainment on our Viking cruise a year ago and from what we saw last night it should be equally as good on this cruise. Today's (Monday) port of call, Frederiksted has already been covered earlier in this blog posting. Thanks for reading. More later.

Our Alaska Adventure begin

Friday, May 26, 2017

Having celebrated Tim's birthday in Paris, Lynda was asked to decide where she wanted to celebrate hers.  She decided on an Alaskan cruise and wanted to include her brother and two of her cousins.  When all was said and done the cruise was booked and it included her brother, Gerry Brown and his wife Cathy, and her California cousin, Beverly Drury and her husband, George. The plan was to meet Gerry and Cathy in Seattle the night before our cruise began and Bev and George would fly into Seattle from San Diego the morning of the cruise and meet us at the ship.

We have been very lucky in all of our travels to have very few problems. Our luck seems to have changed with the beginning of this trip.  Our flight to Seattle out of Detroit was delayed by an hour and a half due to a brake problem. We were all asked to deplane with all of our carry-on luggage while the repairs were made and then we had to go through the whole boarding procedure again. Instead of arriving in Seattle at 5:30, we arrived at 7:00. In the grand scheme of things probably a minor problem. It meant that we met Gerry and Cathy for dinner at 8:00 instead of 7:00.

Our hotel in Seattle was located about 5 blocks from the Space Needle, an iconic Seattle landmark. We were not interested in the Space Needle itself but rather the Dale Chihuily Glass Garden at the base of the Needle. Chihuily is a world famous glass artist whose work we have seen and admired in other locales.  This display included several typical art gallery type rooms of his glass works as well as a small but lovely garden that had his glass creations interspersed among the flowering plants.  We also were able to watch one of the glass artists, not Chihuily, working with an apprentice, showing her how to create a small glass bowl.  Very interesting.

We scheduled with the hotel a 12:30 shuttle bus to the pier for our 1:00 embarkation time. The whole checking in process went smoothly until we arrived at a large lounge just outside the ramp to the ship where all the passengers were being held.  There was no announcement as to the cause of the delay of actually going aboard the ship but there seemed to be some unrest among the passengers who had arrived earlier. We had a relatively short wait which was not a problem because this was where the Browns and the Crandalls met up with the Drurys. Once on board the next problem was that our luggage did not arrive at our room. When the steward for our room stopped by we asked him to look into this. He later reported that the original scanning of our luggage showed something that would cause that piece of luggage to be rescanned which would not take place until after the life boat drill.  We did finally get the luggage in time to change for dinner. There was no explanation as to the source of the problem but we suspect it was the bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream we had purchased the night before and had put in the suitcase.

The major problem was Lynda discovering about 90 minutes before the ship was to leave port that she had lost her cell phone. We retraced our steps in the terminal and talked to the personnel in the terminal but they had not found the phone.  We also called the hotel and they checked with the shuttle driver who also reported finding nothing. So, much to Lynda's consternation, she is without a cell phone for the rest of the cruise.

Finally, to mercifully end this litany of problems, once the ship left the safety of Puget Sound we encountered rough seas which lasted all the first night and the entire first day of the cruise which was to be a day of tranquil sailing. Walking about the ship was a challenge, particularly when going through the buffett line at breakfast or lunch.  We all felt like drunken sailors. Fortunately, by Friday morning the weather had calmed and we had reasonably calm seas. Throughout all of the rough seas the sun had been shining and we were able to observe spectacular scenery.  Friday morning as we approached the port of Wrangell, Alaska, we observed a large number of what we were told were Black Sided Porpoises cavorting along next to the ship.

Wrangell, Alaska, our first port of call is a small village located on one of the many islands along the coast of Alaska.  There may be 2800 residents in Wrangell and this village turned out to be the least touristy of all of our ports. None of the ship sponsored tours were of interest to us so we left the boat and strolled about town, stopping in a local department store and a hardware store.  It was great fun chatting with the locals who were all exceedingly friendly. The main point of interest in Wrangell was a lovely little park that contained three authentic totem poles as well as a cherry tree in full bloom as well as a gorgeous rhododendrum. Before returning to the ship we made one more important local discovery: Alaska Amber Beer.  It is delicious.

Saturday morning we arrived in Juneau, the capital city of Alaska.  We had some time before our tour to walk about Juneau. Our goal was to find the capitol building. It is without a doubt the most unassuming capitol building of all 50 states, nothing more then a 7 story brick office building. There are some things that don't change in state capitals however.  Our tour bus driver told us that Juneau's average temperature was higher then any other city in Alaska because of all the hot air coming from the capitol.  Before leaving home we had booked a local tour company tour that included a two hour whale watching cruise and a visit to Mendenhall Glacier.  The whale watching cruise was incredible. Within 10 minutes of leaving the dock our captain stopped the boat for our first sighting.  We were observing humpback whales. These whales will stay submerged for 5 or 6 minutes and then surface two or three times to expel the salt water they had swallowed while feeding before diving again. You know they are diving again when their fluke (tail) comes out of the water. They are initaily spotted by the plume of water that comes out of their blow hole. We watched this whale make two seperate surfaces before moving on to find another.  While watching a second whale, a third come a bit higher out of the water and then proceeded to spend the next five minutes or so slapping it's fluke against the water. We were about 100 yards from this whale and could easily hear the sound of the fluke on the water. We had a naturalist on board our boat as our guide and both she and the captain told us that it was highly unusual to observe this behavior.  To add to the excitement, a fourth whale rolled on its side exposing one of its flippers. We saw 5 whales in total and at the end of our cruise our guide told us we had been particularly lucky on this cruise.  We agreed, especially since Tim was convinced we wouldn't see any whales at all.

The next stop was the Mendenhall Glacier.  We were not able to get very close to the glacier  but we were able to see how much the glacier has receded in the last 50 years. While very interesting to see, the trip to the glacier paled in comparison to the whale watching.

Sitka was our port of call Sunday. This city claims to have the highest remaining population of Russians in Alaska. There is still a Russian Orthodox Church with a Russian bishop in Sitka. The first stop on our tour in Sitka was the Alaska Raptor Center. This center specializes in the rescue of raptors, mostly Bald Eagles and the re-introduction of them back to the wild. The injured birds are brought to the center where they are treated for their injuries and a determination is made of their future.  About 40 percent of the raptors brought to the center are released back to the wild. The remaining are placed in zoos or trained for visits to schools and the like. As part of our visit a handler brought a juvenile bald eagle into the room we were in.  The eagle was tethered to her arm so it was unable to fly but still.  It was a magnificent sight to see that up close and personal.  From the Raptor Center we took our bus to the Fortress of the Bears. This turned out to be a very zoo like experience.  There were five brown bears, a species that is larger then grizzly bears, in two very large open air pens. There  is a smaller pen containing three black bears. As we arrived  one of the zookeepers began feeding the bears. This was particularly exciting because almost a dozen eagles came swooping in trying to steal the food from the bears. We had been told at the Raptor Center that eagles can be rather lazy birds, perfectly willing to eat the leftovers of other animals' food. Tim had the opprotunity to talk to the zookeeper and discovered that these bears were all orphans that the State of Alaska would have killed if this facility had not taken them in. The Fortress of the Bears is lobbying the state legislature to allow for the re-introduction of these bears into the wild much like the Raptor Center.  Our last stop on this tour was a National Forest Park that is home to over 60 totem poles. It was fascination to read about the preservation efforts of these totems. Restoration specialists clean the totems, do any necessary repair work and then coat them with a water repellent. The totems are then reattached to a pole so that the original is not touching the ground, again to protect the totem from moisture. Many of these totems were located along a path the wound its way through a beautiful pine forest.

Memorial Day was spent in Ketchikan, Alaska. As in Wrangell, we had no tours booked in Ketchikan but instead enjoyed a leisurely stroll around town.  Other then Wrangell, the other ports, unfortunately, featured the exact same jewelry stores so that you had the feeling that if today is Sunday, this must be Sitka. The one distinguishing feature to Ketchikan was Creek Street so named because it went beside a picturesque little creek. Up until 1954, Creek Street was the Red Light District of Ketchiken.  Prostitution was outlawed in Ketchikan in 1954 but, according to signs on some of the houses on the street, a few of the women continued to ply their trade as best they could. Most of the homes have been turned into gift shops, although one did offer a "Red Light Tour". A sign on the side of this particular house advertised Creek Street as the place where salmon and men come to spawn.

While we have had excellent meals on board our ship the meal that deserves special mention happened off the ship in Juneau. We stopped at a small trailor, think food truck, that was offering fish and chips, the fish being fresh caught halibut. We ate at a picnic table with no silverware, just the fish and chips and an Alaska Amber beer.  Nothing better.

Tomorrow we will be cruising the Inside Passage completing our cruise in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Cemeteries and Champagne

February 15, 2017

Monday morning with left the beautiful town of Clervaux, Luxembourg for a scenic two hour drive to Nunkirchen, Germany. Nunkirchen and the surrounding environs is where Lynda's maternal side of the family is originally from. We found a cemetery here and actually found two grave sites with the name Johanntgen. Lynda's mother always spelled Johanntgen with one "n" but we figure an "n" could have been lost in the shuffle of emigration.  After the cemetery we found the local church, a beautiful church dating from 1886. Next door was a community center for the church. Unfortunately, the only women we found spoke no English and had not heard of any Johanntgen's in Nunkirchen. The local postmaster was of no help either.  We drove on to nearby Wadern.  Here we lucked out. In a bookstore we found a women who spoke English and she looked up JoHanntgen in the phonebook and found two people listed, both in nearby villages. Next was a visit to the Wadern cemetery but it  did not have any gravestones of Johanntgens.  We did driveby's of both addresses we were given but saw no sign of life. We did find a third cemetery which had two more Johanntgen gravesites. We checked into a Wadern hotel and rested a bit before going out to dinner.  On the way to dinner we stopped again at Peter Johanntgen's house where there was no answer, but Marlies Johanntgen answered her door. Again, the language barrier reared its ugly head but it seemed that Marlies denied being related to the Johanntgens of Nunkirchen, about 4 miles away!  As frustrating as that was Lynda enjoyed seeing the hilly country around Nunkirchen and realizing how her JoHantgen family must have been amazed by their new home in flat Ohio.

Nunkirchen cemetery 

Nunkirchen church

Tuesday morning we drove around the area outside of Nunkirchen on the off chance we might find another cemetery. No luck, so we headed for Riems, in the middle of the Champagne region of France.  As is often the case, we got sidetracked and ended up in Verdun, famous for the longest battle in modern military history.  During WWI the Battle of Verdun lasted from February to November and resulted in the highest number of casualties in a single battle. Of the 300,000 soldiers from both sides who were involved in this battle, over 100,000 of them were either killed or injured. We focused our visit on two American facilities, the first being the American Memorial. This impressive memorial stands over 190 feet tall and sits on a hill with a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside. Next was the American Cemetery. This cemetery is the largest American Cemetery in the world with 14,246 gravesites as compared to Normandy where there are over 6,000 gravesites. We never cease to be moved by the beauty of the many American Cemeteries we have visited.

American Memorial Verdun

American Cemetery Verdun

The rest of the day was a comedy of errors. We drove on to Riems from Verdun and while we were driving Lynda searched for a hotel on line. She did not want to stay in a chain hotel, even a European chain. She found a small hotel in a small village outside of Riems that was right in the center of Champagne country.  The hotel turned out to be farther outside of Riems than Lynda thought so what was to be an easy hour drive into Riems ended up being a two hour drive. On our arrival we found the hotel closed.  We then stopped at a nearby hotel we had passed but it, too, was closed. At least at this hotel we found people who were able to direct us to a hotel that was actually open. It ended up being a cheap chain hotel with small rooms and no charm. To rub salt in our wounds, the hotel restaurant was doing a very tired looking buffet. After some quick research, Tim found a nearby restaurant that was getting good reviews.  When we arrived at the restaurant they were fully booked for their Valentine's special meal. We were disappointed because it did look really good. Next we found a pizza place right next to an Asian Buffet restaurant.  The Asian restaurant had a long line of people waiting to get in so we tried the Pizza Restaurant.  It was also fully booked. We made one more last attempt following signs to a restaurant that turned out to be in a very impressive hotel on a gated property.  Also fully booked. Evidently Valentine's day is a big deal in France for going out to dinner.  We headed back to the hotel planning to make a meal of the cheese left over from our last night in Paris. When we drove into our hotel parking lot we discovered a kiosk next door selling fresh made pizza out of their booth. So we bought a pizza and a bottle of wine and went back to our cramped room to celebrate Valentines Day.  Tres Romantique!

This morning, Wednesday, we drove into Champagne country and found a winery that was open. Michel Fallet Champagne is being produced by the fourth generation of the Fallet family. Mrs. Fallet was nice enough to give us a brief tour. The Fallets produce about 38,000 bottles of Champagne each year. She explained which variety of grapes were used for each of the different champagnes they produce and went through the whole process of producing champagne. When the bottles are first filled and the yeast is added to the wine a metal cap, similar to a pop bottle cap, is placed on the bottle. The wine sits in the bottle this way for a minimum of 15 months. Next the wine in the bottle passes through a chiller that freezes the yeast particles so they can be easily removed from the bottle. Sugar is then added and the bottle is corked. At this point the champagne is ready to be labeled, sold and drunk. We were particularly interested in the corking process. Mrs. Fallet showed us a cork before it goes in the bottle. It is a perfect cylinder. The corking machine compresses the cork to fit into the bottle. Once it is in the bottle the cork expands to the shape of the bottle giving it the distinctive shape we have all seen when a cork is removed from champagne. It was a bright, cloudless morning as we drove through acres and acres of vineyards thinking about the bottle of champagne we had just purchased directly from the winery.

Wine storage vats. Beige vats are 2nd
generation and stainless steel are new. 

All of these crates contain bottles of
champagne before the yeast has been removed.

Cork before being used (right) and after removal
from a champagne bottle.

Vineyards in Champagne country.

Both of us have been a bit under the weather the last day or so so we decided to find a hotel with more room then last night's so we can repack our suitcases and rest up for our flight home tomorrow.  This is our last posting from this marvelous trip.  As always we hope you have enjoyed reading our blog as much as we have enjoyed writing it.

See you all soon.

Froid Paree (translation: We're freezing our butts off in Paris

February 12, 2017

As we write this posting we are sitting in a hotel room in Clerveax, Luxembourg after a wonderful weekend in Paris.  As the title of the post indicates, it was cold all weekend. As a matter of fact, there were snow flurries both Friday and Saturday.

We left Barcelona Thursday morning on a high speed train to Paris.  As we expected, it was a smooth, comfortable ride.  There were monitors in our carriage that gave pertinent information including the fact that at times our train was traveling at close to 300 kilometers an hour. That is roughly 180 mph.  Traveling by train in Europe is a joy, although Lynda did complain that the train never goes through the nice parts of the cities we traveled through. Our Paris apartment was not nearly as nice as the one in Barcelona, but, in all fairness, the Barcelona apartment was one of the nicest we have rented.  Thursday night we strolled along Blvd. St. Germain loving being back in Paris.  Paris is Tim's favorite city in the world; for Lynda it is 2 or 3. We found a nice brassarie and had a typical french meal of Boeuf Bourguignon and red wine.  We did not do any actual sightseeing in Paris on this trip. Rather we visited Galeries Lafayette and Bon Marche, both high end department stores similar to Bloomingdales or Marshall Fields in the states. We did not buy anything but it sure was fun wandering through the different departments. Part of Bon Marche is the La Grand Epicirie du Paris, a food market, that we had not heard of.  Lynda's California cousin, Beverly, had suggested we visit it.  We are glad we did. The highlight of the weekend was Tim's birthday dinner at L'atlier du Joel Rubochon. See the preceeding posting for more details.  We spent a lot of time in the apartment just reading and relaxing. Saturday, while we were out and about, we picked up a baguette, cheese and wine and stayed in Saturday for a light dinner.

Sunday morning Tim picked up our rental car, drove to the apartment to pick up Lynda and the luggage and we headed to Bastogne, Belgium, the site of the Battle of the Bulge during WWII. Tim had been there in 2009 with the Holland American Legion Band and thought Lynda would enjoy visiting the museum there. Unfortunately, the last admission to the museum had occured before our arrival.  We did see the impressive Memorial nearby and found the plaque for the 35th Infantry that Tim's Dad was attached to during the war. The 35th Infantry was a part of a number of units involved in the Battle of the Bulge.  From Bastogne it was a short drive to Clervaux. Tim had stayed in Clervaux on the 2009 Band tour and had always wanted to bring Lynda here because it is such a picturesque city. Lynda registered for our room while Tim brought in the luggage and was suprised when she was informed that Tim's name was in the computer as a former guest.

Tomorrow we head to Nunkirken, Germany to visit cemetaries where some of Lynda's relatives are buried.  You won't want to miss that blog posting.☺