At The Butchart Gardens

As much as we enjoy traveling with Isabelle and witness her seeing the world, I’m not a fan of the one week trip to Europe.  Because here we are, done already.  It has been another great trip climaxing with a gorgeous day today after a week that was a bit chilly, though warmer than either Madrid and Paris the past two years.

Since our visit to Pisa on Tuesday, we have been enjoying sites in Florence as well as dabbling in the retail marketplaces.  We have visited Santa Croce (very lovely) where the bodies of Marconi, Dante, Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli are entombed.  Re-visited the Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo) to the extent they now allow which is minimal without climbing the 463 steps into the Dome, the Galleria dell’ Accademia (home of Michelagelo’s David), Santa Maria Novella around the corner from our apartment (lovely), Palazzo Davanzati (very interesting), and San Lorenzo (disappointing).

We thoroughly enjoyed repeat dinners at L’Osteria Giovanni and Osteria Pastella where the hospitality is second to none and on our last night stumbled into a place called Neromo in the Oltrarno area of the city and it turned out to be terrific.  We were the only English speakers we heard.

And I should mention that we had an excellent apartment around the corner from Santa Maria Novella that we secured through Windows on Italy.

All for now.  Off to Victoria British Columbia in about a week.

On Tuesday we headed to the Hertz facility and rented a car so we could take Isabelle’s chosen side trip to Pisa.  We found the site of a few dozen cats, all of which looked exactly alike, apparently warming themselves on the hoods and tops of the darker colored vehicles to be humorous.  Anyway, Pisa is a little over an hour’s drive from Florence on a nice divided four lane highway.

Construction on the tower began in 1173 and it almost immediately began to shift as the foundation only consisted of a ten foot deep stone pad.  Apparently all the buildings in the complex are leaning.  In the European tradition, construction continued for only another 167 years.  In 2001, engineering support was added to assure the tower would remain at its current angle, thus assuring the main attraction that supports the Pisa economy.

We spent time in the Cathedral, Campo Santo (cemetery with fabulous frescoes) and the domed Baptistry (built 1260) where we witnessed the amazing demonstration of the dome’s perfect echo production.

We returned to our favorite wine bar from 2008 when we visited it every afternoon but lo, management had changed and it just wasn’t the same.

I am having camera issues as my most versatile lense hit the pavement for the second time recently and is no longer performing at all settings.

We decided to fit in our longest walking day on Monday given the forecast of rain for the rest of the week.  So we visited the massive Pitti Palace, construction of which began in 1457 by someone named Luca Pitti, but a century later when it bankrupted the Pittis it ended up in the hands of the ruling Medicis who made it their official home.  The close up versus the far away picture of Isabelle will give you some perspective on this “home.”

On this trip we spent our time visiting the Galleria Del Costume which Konnie and I had not done before.  As usual, we spent significant time in the eqully overwhelming Boboli Gardens which are lovely and intriguing, even when the flowers are not yet showing their colors.

From there we headed up Mt. Everest (or at least that’s Isabelle’s impression of the hike) to visit San Miniato al Monte.  The walk takes you along narrow medieval streets and city walls dating to 1260 including the home of Galileo.  The church was built in 1018 and with its geometric patterned green-grey and white marble marble facade, is magnificent.

We dropped in to a place called L’Osteria Di Giovanni for dinner.  How lucky were we tonight?  Wonderful food, service and people.  We received more off the menu treats in one evening than we do at our most frequented restaurants in Denver in the long history of our patronizing them.  And not the first time we have had that experience in Italy.  Actually it is the second time on just this trip.  The restauranteurs here are magnificent.  Their service is second to no one.

Konnie, Isabelle and I left Denver the morning of March 21, 2014 as we headed off to Florence Italy for the fifth spring break trip with Isabelle.  Our first four trips took us to New York City, London, Madrid and Paris.

After an uneventful trip over that took us through Chicago and Frankfurt Germany, we’ve been experiencing less than desirable travel weather with our first full day consisting mostly of a pelting thunderstorm and chilly temperatures.  We have managed to see some of the city with the highlight being a visit to Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine.  There one can view The Life of St. Peter frescoes commissioned by the Florentine merchant Felice Brancacci around 1424.  The work by Masaccio and others is considered groundbreaking for the time and an important source of study for the great Renaissance artists to follow.  The work was finished in 1480.

Sunday lunch with locals at Ristorante Alla Griglia and an outstanding dinner at Osteria Pastella where the pasta is made in full view at the front of the restaurant.

Thanks to those who followed our 18 days in Europe this month.  This blog is mainly to help us remember where we’ve been and what we’ve done but hopefully it also might benefit anyone else wanting to travel to these places.

To recap our stay in London, we stayed at Flemings Mayfair.  Flemings is a conglomeration of six London townhomes that were tied together beginning in 1851 resulting in hotel rooms and apartments connected by a narrow maze of hallways.  Mayfair is a fine neighborhood with access to shopping, dining, Hyde Park, Green Park, Knightsbridge, Piccadilly, and the West End.  But with the public transportation here, most is easily accessible anyway.

Our dining during our short visit here was all repeat, Patara (Thai), Zayna (North Indian & Pakistani) and Tamarind (Indian).  And if you are ever here, I should mention not to miss Stanfords, the most amazing travel book store (the size of the old Tattered Cover for you Denverites).

A few shots, mostly of us,  on our final day around the town.

On Thursday we left Brussels’ Midi train station on the Eurorstar to head under the English Channel to London for the final four days of this trip.  It was a bit depressing zipping across the Belgian and French countrysides at 180 miles per hour, viewing the huge windmills and the many solar panels while reading an article about the political situation in the United States that has resulted in reduced funding for science and medical research.  Oh well, one of the costs of living in the greatest country in the world.

As previously reported on Facebook, we had dinner on Friday evening with our favorite Brits Gail Hammond Edwards, Jacquie Martinez and Robin Edwards at Patara on Beauchamp in Knightsbridge, a place we have now eaten over 15 times since 2010 and where they treat us like frequent dining locals even after a year’s absence.  In fact, we get treated better at this restaurant than ANY restaurant we frequent in Denver, one of which we have been to hundreds of times.  In addition to giving us a discount EVERY time we are there, they squeezed us in in our emergency of our original restaurant having to cancel on us due to a cut power line.

At Robin’s suggestion, we headed to the Borough Market on Saturday which is located in the London Bridge area of the city.  Great idea Robin.  Make us want to live here even more!  We inspected and we ate and we thought about how great it would be to have access to this breadth of food selections where we live.  Dream on.  I’ll let the foodie pictures show our day.

We ventured off for a day trip from Brussels to Brugge (Bruges) Belgium.  Brugge is a lovely medieval town with winding streets and lovely canals.  The city is well preserved with many roughly four centuries year old buildings for several reasons including that the city escaped major damage during both wars to end all wars.

We enjoyed a lovely lunch at De Gastro on Braambergstraat and would not hesitate to return here.  I’ll just let the pictures try to speak for the architectural beauty of the old city although the haziness of the day did interfere with my getting very good definition.

We headed to Brussels from Strasbourg and, as we did on the trip to Strasbourg, tried to find an interesting location to stop for lunch.  That time it was Hagnau Germany on the shore of Lake Constance.  This time it was Luxembourg City Luxembourg which ups this to a six country trip.

Brussels has some amazing buildings, especially those surrounding  the Grand Place, some of which date to at least the 15th century.  There are probably too many shots of them in this post.  It has a zillion chocolate shops, their waffles and lots of beer.  Now none of these things do we normally consume and we didn’t here either.  We had some very nice meals including Bocconi, Kasbah and a family Italian place called Gabbiani Reali.  We even stumbled upon a Turkish patisserie called gulluoglu where we were introduced to a pastry called borek and had the best cappuccinos of the trip.  And we stayed at the lovely Hotel Amigo which is just one block off of the Grand Place, so a great location.

But in the end, Brussels did not click with us.  Not a bad time but not motivated to return.  Whether is was the over the top aggressiveness of the restauranteurs in the Rue des Bouchers, that it seemed dirtier than other cities, was definitely much stinkier in numerous spots (we just kept getting hit by an unpleasant smell), their archeological ruin site only being open one morning a month, some unkempt gardens or their focus on the  their little urinating statue, the Manneken Pis, we just didn’t fall in love with Brussels.

Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in Eastern France and sits right on the German border.  It has been the possession of both Germany and France over the centuries, is where Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and is home to Strasbourg Cathedral on which construction began in the twelfth century.  For awhile, it was the world’s tallest building.

They speak French here but the combination of German and French influence is most obvious in the food with many dishes in restaurants combining a part of each country’s historically significant cuisine.

We are fond of Strasbourg and hope to return, both for the city itself and as a jumping off point to beautiful and interesting areas of both France and Germany.  It is a medieval city with beautifully preserved Rhineland black and white timber-framed buildings and the intelligent use of its waterways, something I’ve wished they had done in Denver ever since I first visited San Antonio Texas.

We stayed at the Regent Petite France Hotel in the Petite France district of the city.  We dined outside at Lohkas Winstub on Rue Du Bain Aux Plantes and twice indoors at La Petite Alsace on the same street.  Unfortunately, they still allow smoking in the outdoor areas of restaurants on the continent and that generally kept us indoors to dine.

Lots of pictures as it is a beautiful town with a beautiful cathedral.  Off to Brussels.