This year’s tour was not set up to include a tour of any of our cities as our two east coast tours were, but rather simply to do six games in a week in six different ball parks in six different cities and visit two great grandmothers.  We’ve done six games twice but those times included multiple games in New York City.  So no opinion here on downtown Cleveland but the skyline does not begin to compare to Pittsburgh.

So we were merely in and out of Cleveland on Sunday.  I have to say that Progressive Field is probably my least favorite of the new era of ball parks we have visited.  First and foremost is the lack of modern food selection.  It is hot dogs and hamburgers at every single concession stand plus an occasional one offering pizza.  So the perfect reason for me to fast at the ball park.

But most of all I think it is the most over commercialized of the over commercialized sports facility era.  The scoreboard is a disaster.  The left field foul pole is sponsored (but not the right).  They play music in between innings that is all about Pizza Hut and Taco Bell and on and on.  And, of course, the endless promotions.

On a day with a forecast of a 60% chance of thunderstorms, we did see a fine game with great weather including getting to see the young phenom Stephen Strasburg pitch a one hitter over his five innings before the Indians prevailed 2 to nothing.

Tomorrow night its Baltimore at Detroit.

I attended a game at Forbes Field here in 1967 but don’t remember anything other than that.  Then I brought my father to a game here in 1999 at Three Rivers Stadium but didn’t see the city because of his phobia about staying above the third floor in a hotel, so we just passed through for the game.  So what a nice surprise Pittsburgh has been as I complete the cycle of having been to all three of their baseball venues.  They have many fine buildings, both old and new, incredibly active river fronts, a vibrant downtown, abundant dining, the bridges, a beautiful baseball park and that’s just what I took in during our brief visit.  I was particularly intrigued by PPG Place with the many buildings’ unique design, the tallest of which makes an appearance from almost anywhere in the city.  I plan to bring Konnie here for a long weekend trip.

Oh yes, we saw a fine game on a perfect day for baseball.  Ryan got one baseball, came close on some others and we had the most entertaining five year old girl in front of me.  Fortunately she also got a ball courtesy of another entertained fan.  The Dodgers prevailed 5 to 3 in 11 innings with plenty of drama, including the Pirate pitcher Brandon Cumpton striking out the first four batters he faced in his major league debut and a game tying homer by the Pirates in the bottom of the ninth.  On to Cleveland for a Sunday afternoon against the Nationals where there is a 60% chance of thunderstorms.

Our fourth annual Baseball Tour began June 14 with a flight from Denver to Pittsburgh.  We moved the trip ahead by a month this year to see if we could avoid the brutal heat we had to deal with during the first two trips.

We originally expected to arrive late into Pittsburgh so no game was scheduled for today.  But on Saturday we will visit PNC Park to see the Dodgers take on the Pirates followed by games in Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Kansas City.  A whirlwind week.

So tonight was merely a pleasant evening enjoying downtown Pittsburgh including dinner at La Vela on Market Square, the fabulous PPG Complex, Three Rivers Art Festival, beautiful Point State Park where the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers join to form the Ohio River and a stroll up the Allegheny to view PNC Park from across the river.

Tomorrow its Play Ball!

The long slog is over.  Today Chelsea Kancilia, the daughter of my wonderful wife Konnie and my step daughter for the past nearly fifteen years, graduated from the Seattle University School of Law with Honors.  We could not be more proud of Chelsea’s accomplishment.  Most of Konnie’s family joined us in Seattle along with Chelsea’s great Seattle friends and her fiance Kyle Banner for this memorable event and we are grateful for their participation and support of Chelsea’s endeavor.  She now heads to Austin with Kyle where she will try to conquer the Texas bar exam.  Here are some of the highlights of Her day.

One week.  Bang!  It’s over.  The speed at which a week goes is why Konnie and I try to take three week trips when traveling this far.  But since the time available is merely Isabelle’s spring break, we do the best we can.  I think we hit the highlights except for Saint-Chapelle which continues its restoration.  So our visits included the Eiffel Tower neighborhood and to the top of the Tower, La Madeleine, Opera Quarter, Notre Dame, The Marais, Trocedéro, Musée d’Orsay, Musée de l’Orangerie, Place de la Concorde, The Liberty Flame (which has been confiscated as a Diana Memorial), Fountaine des Innocents at the Pompidu, Montmartre, Sacré-Coeur, the Arc de Triomphe, Marmottan, Champs-Elysées and the Metro all over the City.

And today we visited the Louvre, a visit that went much better than I expected after our crowded visit to the Orsay.  We purchased advance tickets (a must!) and walked right in.  The Louvre is better equipped to handle the large crowd with less security, more seating, and snack bars where you can just walk up and purchase a bottle of water.  Oh yes, they also allow non-flash photography.  Thank you very much for that.  We saw the highlights including the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and Winged Victory.  And Isabelle spent the rest of the time exploring the antiquities including the beautiful sarcophagi and her first mummy.

So au revoir Paris.  And now its time to search for next year’s location.  Can’t wait.

Finally two places with no line to get in.  We started our heavily overcast, snow spitting day walking to the Arc de Triomphe and were able to go right up.  The weather was acceptable and we could see Montmartre and the Eiffel Tower so the visibility was adequate if very drab.  After picking up our Louvre tickets for Friday at the Virgin Megastore, we headed to Musée Marmottan.  Marmottan was an art historian who donated his house and art collection for a museum.  Then Claude Monet’s son donated 65 of his father’s paintings to the museum and it became principally a Monet museum.  The collection is beautiful.

So those two sites with about five miles of walking in between consumed our day.  To the Louvre on Friday to wrap up our trip.

On Wednesday we managed the Metro system and headed to Montmartre.  Montmartre is highest point in the city with great views and historically has been the home of artists, writers and poets.  It remains a major tourist destination with its street artists, shops, restaurants and the beautiful Sacré-Coeur church.  Unfortunately Sacré-Coeur is among the growing list of institutions that now forbids pictures inside, even with no flash.

We roamed the streets, visited the church, shopped, had lunch and then headed back down the hill where Konnie and Isabelle explored more of the small unique shops of Paris.  We then headed to the Marais area for more exploring including the Pompidou Museum area.  Then we headed back to Alfio for dinner.  This is the place that seats twenty but should seat about fourteen.  But in spite of being table to table, the food is great, servers friendly and they fill the olive oil bottles with chili peppers.  If you like hot food, then add chili infused olive oil to your must try list.

Today we headed for the Musée ď Orsay which has always been one of my favorite spots here.  Not too big, great impressionist collection and a beautiful building (an old train station).  But holy mackerel.  I don’t know whether to skip spring break or Easter week travel in the future.  There were way too many people and that kept it from being an enjoyable experience.  While still a great collection for us amateurs, the line (which Konnie fortunately figured out how to skip with our multiple museum tickets) and their being part of a new trend to not allow pictures of the building put a damper on the day.  The crowd was especially disruptive to it being as enjoyable a day as it otherwise would have been.  Since one guard gave me permission to take some shots, I did manage a few before being shut down by another.

But our walk home was also interesting.  Isabelle found some good shopping for both herself and others.  Then we met a gentleman on the street who thought we needed help and turns out he used to work for a biking operation in Boulder.  He started rattling off names of people he worked with in biking, including Lance Armstrong.  I said I didn’t know you could still say “Lance Armstrong” in France.  He proceeded to tell us how there were three things you couldn’t talk about in France…what happened to the Jews and Armenians and Lance Armstrong.  So Lance Armstrong’s sins were so bad he manages to fit in with two massive ethnic cleansings.  Talk about a fall from grace.

Anyway, it was time for school to be out with many children being escorted home by their Moms (very old fashioned here).  What was fascinating about this was that ALL the bakeries along our route (and they were numerous) were full with lines of Moms and kids extending out of the front doors.  Then there were little children hanging out on the streets like gang gatherings while eating their pastries.  I assume they have this routine most school days but none were obese.  So I guess it is the sugary drinks after all.

About a week before we left Denver, i.e. mid-March, I attempted to purchase advance tickets to visit the Eiffel Tower.  There were no tickets for March and but a few for April.  I reviewed various tour company packages, finding no March tickets.  Finally I found tickets for Sunday afternoon for a three hour walking tour of Paris that included direct access (meaning skipping the two hour line) to the Tower.

Boy was it cold.  Brunch at Ribe again and a visit to Champs Elysses for warmer clothes for our Arizona girl.  Then it was a nice walking tour with Sandemans (http://www.neweuropetours.eu/).  Professional, knowledegable guide and we did skip the line at the Eiffel Tower.  But it was an ugly day making for mediocre pictures and a frigid trip to the top of the tower resulting in no attempts at scenic pictures and only a couple of fast attempts at pictures of ourselves.  It was quite unpleasant.

We did venture out after warming up and stopped at a tiny Italian place called Alfio for dinner.  Seated 20 but should have seated 10.  It was outstanding, especially the chili infused olive oil.  I was pouring it on everything.  Hopefully Konnie will be trying to duplicate it when we get home.

Monday saw much better weather and after our daily brunch at Ribe we hit the Orangerie Museum, which is a terrific small museum with mostly impressionist work, and then Notre Dame.  My favorite place, Sainte Chapelle, is still undergoing a long-term restoration so we skipped it for now.  A stop at a fascinating nut store called La Pistacherie then dinner at the so-so Donia, an Armenian place where the food turned out to be not particularly interesting.

If we can survive the Passover celebration going on upstairs tonight, we’ll be ready for more adventure tomorrow.

We’ve headed to Paris for the fourth annual Isabelle version of the “I Never Knew My Grandfathers So I’m Taking My Grandchildren Anywhere I Can While They’ll Still Go With Me” tour.  The first three years with Isabelle were to NYC, London and Madrid.

Our trip over went smoothly as in no missed connection and bags arrived with us.  Getting through immigration took about five seconds versus the up to two hours I have witnessed in the US.  That’s two hours for Americans to get back into their country and five seconds to get into France.  Also no customs check.

I found our apartment online as usual but have been wary of the claim that it had a front row view from all of the windows of the Eiffel Tower.  Well, our landlady did not lie.  This century plus old Paris apartment looks at it nose to nose.  Spectacular.  And at night…even more so.  A very lucky find.

We walked the general area for our time zone adjustment day, breakfast at a brasserie called Ribe, lunch at Bistrot de la Tour Eiffel and back to Ribe for a surprisingly good dinner.  Then our catch up night of sleep.  New activities tomorrow but for today, enchanted by our view of la Tour Eiffel.