Food – Page 2 – RV Travels in Europe and North America

May 15, 2019 Reichenau GE

We have been enjoying Lake Constance so we decided to spend another day on the lake at a UNESCO World Heritage Site on Reichenau Island. Yesterday we visited “Flower Island” and today we are visiting “Vegetable Island”.

The drive over was quick and uneventful except for a diversion to the ferry terminal as Greta Garmin decided that was the quickest way to Reichenau, she was probably right but we decided to skip the ferry fee, and after some resetting of Greta, we were on our way by road.

World Heritage Sites are usually pretty spectacular, so when we pulled on to Reichenau it seemed that the emphasis was on vegetables and not memorable architecture. For our friends from Oregon think of Sauvie Island with three small churches. After settling in to the Stellplatz we decided to walk on over to the Abby which is the largest of the three churches that make up the UNESCO site. The walk was thru a bunch of vegetable fields where we played guess the vegetable, Ton won.

A field of different types of Lettuce on Vegetable Island.

We arrived at the Abby and it was a nice enough church but nothing spectacular. We finally figured out that the smaller church called St. George Church had the paintings that were what caused the UNESCO designation, and we had a couple of hours to wait until the next tour.

Part of the Abby which was the center of the religious order on the island in the middle ages.

The island this time of year is really very quiet and peaceful, and we spent quite a bit of time just wandering aimlessly around the streets enjoying the views of the lake and enjoying the ambiance and the greenery, it really reminded us of Oregon. We visited the museum to try to understand the history of the Abby as the tour was in German so we needed to prep.

A reproduction of some of the art that we would see later in St. George Church.

Finally what we thought would be the highlight of the day was the tour of the interior of the church which has artwork from the 10th century that was rediscovered in the 1880’s when the white wash that had covered them was removed. The paintings are in the process of being preserved, access to the church is limited to help minimize the humidity in the church.

An example of the paintings from the 900’s that are being preserved at the entrance to the church.

Some of the art inside the chapel, this type of painting is very rare and this is the northern most church in Europe that this style is found.

The explanation of the on going work to preserve the paintings and the meaning of the paintings was quite extensive, but we did not understand much as it was of course in German. But the guide was quite obviously proud of the work and very knowledgeable.

The exterior of St. George Church, sometimes modest structures hide real treasures.

We had planned on taking the bus back to François after the tour, but I was unable to figure out the bus system, and the bus guide we had did not match the one at the bus stop. So being unsure whether the bus was going to take us home, or into Konstanz I talked Ton into walking the 2 miles back. On the way she saw a sign for a grocery so we detoured down a side road where we saw a small brewery.

Being a little curious we crossed the street and were peering in the door when a man waved us in and welcomed us in German. We were a little shy as we do not speak any German, but the man switched to English and asked us where we were from, when we told him Oregon he laughed and his wife smiled. He said he got his Masters Degree from Southern Oregon University! They have been operating the only microbrewery in the region for about 3 years. Thomas insisted on giving us a tour of the facilities and a couple of beers to taste. His beers are excellent. We were also invited to a special event the brewery is having on Saturday including beer making, bands and food. It looks like we may be staying in the far south of Germany for a few more days.

Thomas the owner of Insel Brewery on Reichenau Island.

We ended the day by walking down to the beach for a romantic sunset over Lake Constance.

May 7, 2019 Colmar FR

Colmar is by far the largest city we have stayed in so far on this trip while it is only 65,000 people most of the places we have been staying have populations less than 2,000 so it felt quite big. The camp site we are staying at is about 2km’s from the center of the city so we even wimped out and bought day bus passes. It turned out to be a good idea as by the end of the day we had walked 10 miles despite taking the bus into town.

We really enjoyed Colmar as it had a lot to see and do in a pretty compact area. We started at the tourist office and picked up a map for the walking tour of the town. Colmar is the home town of Frederic Bartholdi who is the artist who sculpted the Statue of Liberty.

The metal pointers used to guide you as you follow the walking tour of Colmar.

Colmar also had a great selection of half timbered buildings but on a little grander scale than the smaller villages we have been visiting. After a week of touring towns and villages of these half timbered towns we are still enjoying them.

Some more of the beautiful architecture of Alsace. They do a nice job of decorating them also.

Colmar also has a section called little Venice with some small canals with homes built on the canals. It is a pleasant area that they maximize the tourist value of the canals.

Some photos of the little Venice area of Colmar.

Up to now on the trip we had not eaten out except for our Chinese the first night. There were two Alsace dishes we wanted to try. The first was Bretzel, which is a pretzel with toppings. For our mid-morning snack we had Bretzel with Munster Cheese which is a local cheese. It was very reasonable at €1.50 and made for a nice snack.

Many variations of Bretzels on display. We recommend the Munster.

The other dish is called Tarte-Flambeê in French or Flammakueche in Alsatian, we decided to go with the French as we could pronounce it. It is flat bread covered with cream, onions, and other toppings. It is very similar to pizza but quite a bit lighter. We decided to split one for lunch and choose a simple one of cream, onions, cheese, and ham. We were both very happy with our Tarte-Flambeê. Ton says Trader Joes has frozen ones at home so we will be looking for them in the future.

After covering our 10 miles on foot we decided to head back to François for a little break. Ron took a little nap, and Ton made a nice dinner of sausages potatoes, and Choucroute which is Alsatian sauerkraut. Something we will be looking to stock up on before we leave France as it is quite good and now a super food that helps our digestion.

After dinner we went for a little walk and watched some canoes in the river next to our campsite. It was a nice way to wrap up a good day here.

January 27, 2019 San Diego CA

Today is Dylan’s birthday so we planned a big day around town to celebrate. We started out with a seafood brunch at Point Loma Seafood. It is part fishmonger and part restaurant, definitely a laid back California experience, but the food was really exceptional, and was a good start to the day.

Our next stop was Cabrillo National Monument on a bluff overlooking San Diego harbor. This was the first day it was open after the government shutdown and a lot of people were coming out to use the facilities. It is an interesting place located on former military property with stunning views of the harbor and the ocean. The monument has exhibitions on Spanish explorers, as it is believed the monument contains the landing place of the Spanish explorer who was the first European to land in San Diego. It also has a whale watching platform, some nice tidal pools, and exhibits on the military uses of the area. We really enjoyed it.

The Cabrillo Monument to the first European to see San Diego Harbor.

Next we headed over to another San Diego brewery located right next to Point Loma Seafood. We had a couple of rounds of really excellent Lagers and IPA’s and were quite impressed with Epigg Brewing. Our next stop was going to be Pariah brewery for Pizza and beer. When we got there Pizza was not available so we headed down the road for a great Mexican meal to wrap up the day. Thanks Dylan for a fun week in San Diego.

The shore line at Cabrillo National Monument.

January 21, 2019 Las Vegas NV

Today we spent the day with our son Alex. He wanted to have Korean food for lunch so we had our second Korean barbeque in three days. It was also good and Alex really enjoyed it.

After that we headed out for some shopping and then went to watch the local hockey team on TV as Alex has become a big fan. Who would have ever thought of Las Vegas as a hot bed of hockey. Unfortunately the home team lost.

Ton was looking for some Mexican food and had a place in mind. When we got there though the restaurant was closed. We just drove randomly down the road after that looking for a Mexican restaurant and found a place called Pepe’s. It turned out to be both the cheapest and possibly the best meal we had in Las Vegas. Ton really loved their salsa.

November 4, 2018 Gron FR

The weather is definitely going towards winter. No frost this morning but very dense fog. Over night we were joined by 4 other RV’s so it was not the quiet night we had expected.

We had two main chores to accomplish today, wash our clothes and particularly the sheets and towels, and give François a bath inside and out.

Of the two chores the most dicey looked to be getting the laundry done. We normally do our laundry at campgrounds as they usually have washers and dryers, but as the camping season is done, none of the campgrounds are open. Last night we googled laundromats in Sens and only got one response and it is right in the middle of the old city. We decided to head in there early to see if it did exist and if we could find a place to park reasonably close to the laundromat. It did exist and after a small adventure down one way roads we found a place to park only 10 minutes away. The first chore done, we headed over to Auchan and gave François a bath. The next trip Ron is going to have to lay on some proper vehicle washing supplies.

Today is Sunday so by the time we finished those two chores everything was closed. We headed back to Gron, and spent the afternoon cleaning up François’ interior and packing.

Gron, the small village where we are spending the night.

In the evening we took a quick stroll around the park next to the aire. The village has planted some apple trees in the park. Each tree is a different variety, and they all still have fruit on them. We were poking around looking at the apples when a couple from the village began encouraging us to eat them. They were all delicious much to our surprise and you could really tell the differences in the varieties.

This fellow really encouraged us to take all we could. Note the different varieties on the ground.

Ton’s favorite variety based on a taste test of the different apples.

October 30, 2018 Barcelona SP

Today we planned a second trip into Barcelona. The primary purpose was to visit the interior of the Sagarda Familia, much like the Alhambra visitors are limited per day, and you have to register in advance to get a time to visit. When we returned to the campground on Sunday we signed up for the next available spot and it turned out to be at 4:45 PM today.

Today was by far the nicest day of our visit to Barcelona with clear blue skies, though it was still on the chilly side. We took the first bus into town as we wanted to spend some time in the markets at Barcelona. They have two markets and we (particularly Ton) really enjoy poking around in the markets to look at the different food products. We also used the time to look around the old town. We pretty much just wandered around looking at churches, stores, and people. Barcelona is now the third or fourth most visited city in Europe, depending on who is counting, so there is quite a lot to see. The shopping is diverse and interesting.

A fruit and vegetable display complete with jack o lanterns, here in Spain they attach tape to the exterior of the pumpkin to make the face.

We have become addicted to Pinxos which is Basque Tapas, and had them again at lunch. In the past we had been eating mostly seafood, so today we went more towards meets and sausages. They were also delicious, Ton also had her new favorite drink at lunch, a good Spanish Vermouth.

Finally we headed over to the Sagarda for our tour. They are really serious about the time on your ticket, we got in line at 4:30, and when we got to the door they turned us around and told us to come back in 15 minutes.

While we were waiting to get in Ton took this shot depicting Judas kissing Jesus before betraying him. The numbers on the left add up to 33 in all directions, Jesus age at his death.

We have seen a lot of cathedrals in our last two trips. Ron thought the exterior of the Sagarda was a little overwrought for his tastes, and preferred the more traditional gothic cathedrals. Ton thinks you cannot compare the Sagarda with a traditional cathedral. However, Ron was wowed with the interior of the Sagarda. While the exterior is extremely busy, the interior is magically elegant, and the use of light is masterful. His vision of the columns of the cathedral as a forest of trees is stunning. The soaring ceilings are really something, and seem much grander than the large gothic cathedrals. Ton was impressed with the stained glass windows, and the way the colors effected the mood of the interior. The Sagarda is an extremely moving place, and we think Gaudi’s genius came thru on the interior, and his madness comes thru on the exterior.

The columns divide at the top to look like canopies of trees and also to support the roof.

One of the few statues inside the cathedral, this one is of Mary.

October 22, 2018 Valencia SP

Our campsite is located outside of Valencia about 40 minutes by train. Ton has been looking forward to Valencia for a couple of days particularly the market which is the largest in Europe. The downtown has a new and old feel simultaneously that we liked. Once again the old town is great for walking with very few cars in it.

We started at the market which is immense. It is an old iron building which seems to have been popular for markets in Spain and France during the late 1800’s. We spent quite a bit of time just walking from stall to stall enjoying the sights and smells of the different foods. We ended up buying some spices at one of the stalls.

A whole piglet for sale in one of the meat shops.

After shopping was done we decided to have a Spanish specialty that we had been seeing, Churros and Chocolate. We found a street food stall that was highly recommended by the spice lady in the market. It was an interesting variation of the churros we have in the US and Mexico. The churros are designed to be dipped in the chocolate, and the chocolate is quite a bit thicker than we serve it at home. They were delicious.

We then walked around the old town and took some pictures of the usual suspects. Valencia has a nice large cathedral, but they were charging an admission fee so we passed. We also looked at a couple of nice churches and some remnants of the old fortifications.

The symbol of Valencia is a bat. This is from the city hall.

Having walked around a bit we decided it was time to have some Paella. Valencia has its own version of Paella that includes chicken, rabbit and chick peas. We wandered past 15 or 20 restaurants before settling on a place. We did good in picking the restaurant, there was some confusion as we understood that we would get to pick a first course each from a list of 3 first courses, and one of the main courses. We had decided to go with a seafood paella and a Valencia paella for the main course, but when Ron went to pick the 1st courses the guy explained in his best English that we did not get to pick. We were a little confused until he brought out all three 1st courses, we did not get to pick because we got them all. By the time we were done we were completely stuffed.

On the way to Valencia we had met an English couple Patrick and Jessie. They had given us some good tips. We happened to meet them walking back to the campground, and ended up joining them for drinks at the campground bar. One thing led to another and we ended up in their RV where they filled our brains with information about Spain, and Ron tried to convince them to come to the US for a vacation. It was a great way to end a good day.

October 18, 2018 Torre del Bengalbon SP

The weather today was supposed to be very poor all day. There was a large storm that passed thru overnight complete with lightning and high winds. As a result our plans to visit Malaga were put on hold.

We did shift up the coast about 150km to the town of Torre del Bengalbon which is a “suburb” of Malaga. We are staying in a private aire which while small is more like a campground than an aire, but is priced like an aire. We met the owners who are planning a trip to the US and promised to spend some time discussing camping at home. You can tell from the layout that they are RV’ers themselves as everything is laid out exactly how you would like it to be.

Since we did no proper sight seeing today we thought we would talk about Ton’s second favorite thing to do in Europe which is wander thru supermarkets. In general any town of over 2 or 3 thousand has a supermarket of one of the major brands. Several of the brands cover both France and Spain. In general they are similar to the US in layout, but there are always local touches. In France you are guaranteed to find a huge Cheese section or Fromaggerie full of interesting cheeses. In Spain you will find huge hams made of the legs of the pig. You can buy a 20 kilo (45 pound) ham leg for around 60 Euros. If you do not have space for a 20 kilo ham leg you can have the butcher in the restaurant carve you chunks of ham from a selection of 4 or 5 different kind of ham legs. Even the Costco in Seville had a section for ham legs. In both countries you will also find a huge wine section with a wide selection of wine. We are still sticking to our €2.99 or less rule and after about 30 bottles between the two trips have only had 3 bad wines.

A selection of legs of ham. Every grocery in Spain has these on display.

If you do not have room for a whole ham, you can get some sliced for you.

A small shop in a village which is not large enough to have a grocery. Note the fresh peppers hanging on the shelves.

Most groceries have a large seafood section. Unfortunately we do not have the ability to do fresh fish.

October 17, 2018 Gibraltar UK

Today is a day of three currencies. Last night Ton thought that we should take care of our laundry on the Navy Base at Rota. We had a fair amount of laundry and the sheets and stuff in the van could do with a washing. The Navy Base has big American washers and dryers, they take US currency so we dug around in our wallets and came up with a few dollars. They were a great bargain compared to what we usually pay for European washers. After we finished our laundry we drove over to Gibraltar which was our destination for the day. When we arrived we used Euros to pay for our aire which is on the Spanish side of the border. Since we were in a hurry to get here we were famished when we got thru customs, so we went right to a proper British Pub for lunch, and paid our bill in Pounds. So to sum up today we used three different currencies in their native environments, (US Bases overseas always do all transactions in dollars).

The Rock of Gibraltar from the Spanish side.

Today was also Ron’s first visit to the United Kingdom. Gibraltar is an interesting British enclave in Spain. It has been British since 1704 when it was ceded to them after some complicated and boring negotiations between Spain, Britain, France, and Austria. While you hear more Spanish being spoken than English, it does feel quite English.

After our proper British lunch of Fish and Chips for Ron and a Steak and Ale Pie for Ton. We decided to head to the top of the Rock. They have a cable car that takes you up there, but when we got to the office the line was quite long and we were running out of time. Luckily for us we ran into a tour guide who was looking for two people to fill out his group for a van ride to the top. This allowed us to cover a great deal more than we would have been able to cover once we got to the top on foot, with a knowledgeable and professional guide, and in the end it only cost us €2 more than if we had done the trip on our own.

The first stop was St. Michaels cave a natural cave that has been in use back to the Roman times. As the rock is mostly limestone, the cave was full of stalactites, and stalagmites. It was really unexpected for us. During WWII the cave was expanded to serve as a military hospital, but was never used. After the war it was converted to a concert hall.

The next stop was near the top of the rock, where we met the Macaque Monkeys. There are about 250 of these monkeys on the rock, and they are allowed to run free, though they are fed and periodically given shots by the government. Adrian the guide was very familiar with them, and was able to get them to pose for photos.

Ron and Ton and two Macaques. A second or two after this photo the one behind Ron jumped the one in front. The mountain across the water in the background is in Africa.

The last stop were some man made caves facing Spain. These were military emplacements, though they have not been in action since 1760.

One of the caves drilled during WWII by Canadian engineers.

Our last experience was watching the restaurants all closing up for the night around 7pm in Gibraltar. This is about the time the Spanish restaurants one mile away are opening their doors for dinner.

While we were on top this plane took off, they only get about 5 flights a day, and it is considered one of the most difficult commercial airports in the world to fly into.

Sometimes François spends the night in a storage yard under a train track, and sometimes in a beautiful marina with the Rock of Gibraltar behind him.

October 13, 2018 Seville SP

After breakfast we decided to head into town a little early for a coffee, and to use some indoor plumbing. As we were walking into town in the morning it was a little quiet but starting to stir. The sun was shining and there was an air of freshness to things, Ton looked up and said “I like this town”. Seville has been everything we hoped it would be and more. We have really enjoyed ourselves.

Ton’s hometown in Thailand is famous for it’s horse carriages. Ton said the sound of the horses hooves reminded her of home.

The highlight of the day was a guided tour of the Alcazar. It is the royal palace of Seville and dates to the 12th century as a palace. It is claimed to be the oldest royal palace still in use, though the British on our tour thought that Windsor Castle was older. After some discussion between the British and the Spanish guide, they decided it could be both depending on how you counted.

The palace consists of three buildings, two of which were built by Christians after the reconquest and one by the Islamic Caliphate that fortunately was left largely intact . They each have there own unique style, but for us the most impressive building was the one built in the Mudejar style. The palace also has extensive gardens that are also quite beautiful. Ton just about ran the battery out on her camera taking pictures. We ended up spending over three hours on the tour and then retracing our steps to look at places that we really liked.

Blue has a special meaning in Islam associated with being transported to heaven.

The plaster work was incredibly intricate, and covered a huge area in the palace.

In addition to the plaster work, there was intricate tile work on both the walls and floors.

It is hard to capture the scale and detail of the rooms in the palace.

By the time we were done with the Alcazar we were ready for a nice lunch. We went to a place that has been in business for 75 years Bodega Gongora, and we understand why. The street seating and the good seating was all taken, and we were about to leave when we found a small room in back by the bathrooms that we had to ourselves for the meal. We had a grilled seafood plate that consisted of Octopus, Tuna, Anchovies, Sardines, and a white fish we could not identify. The fish was delicious, though we decided that in the future we are going to have our Sardines and Anchovies fried as you can just crunch the bones with the fish.

We spent some time walking around town and people watching. The city is incredibly pedestrian friendly, and the people of Seville seem to really enjoy just going out for a stroll and to eat. It really is a city to love.

October 9, 2018 Tordesillas SP

Today we left the land of Pintxo (Basque) and entered the land of Tapas (Spanish). We stopped in two towns today. The first town was a planned stop to see some things we were interested in, and the second was picked based on it being a good distance to drive, with a decent place to sleep.

We spent a noisy night in the parking lot of a Leclerc grocery store in Soria. The store was located in a kind of industrial park, and had a lot of truck traffic going by. Both of us have a bit of a bug so neither one of us slept very well between being sick and the noise of the traffic all night.

Our plan for the day was to head for the town of Aranda de Duero. It is another old fortified town with a bunch of caves under it that were originally for defense of the town, but have recently been converted to wine production. The drive from Soria was easy, in general the roads in Spain are a little wider and a little straighter than France, and this results in quicker and easier trips between towns. We arrived a little before noon, found the aire and headed into town to check it out. After a quick stop at the visitors center we headed off to a Bodega that also had a cave under it that we could tour. We arrived at the Bodega at the same time as a Danish couple so we went on the tour together. When the tour was done we walked around town, and decided we had seen enough of Aranda. As it was still early we decided to drive a couple more hours.

After some research we picked the town of Tordesillas based on it being the distance we wanted to drive with a good place to sleep for the night. Our intention was to get to the campground early, and take it easy for the rest of the night. But as we pulled in the town looked interesting, and the restaurant was offering a great deal on a Asada (meat) platter for two. So we ended up walking into the town to admire the churches, and having probably our best meal so far in Spain. It was a very nice ending to the day. During the meal we ended up talking to a Dutch/English couple who raved about Portugal. We are getting really tempted to visit.

Ton really likes these trees, we think these are Spanish evergreen oaks.

October 6, 2018 Pamplona SP

Today was an almost day. We were both very much looking forward to Pamplona. It had a great reputation. Ron is a huge fan of Hemingway who loved Pamplona, and Ton had read a lot of good things about the town, we were both excited.

It’s not that there was anything wrong with Pamplona, it is a very beautiful and interesting city, but our expectations were very high. Yesterday St. Sebastian wowed us because we had no expectations and it was a great city. I think today was the opposite.

The day started with a quick drive over the mountains to Pamplona. We crossed the highest pass we have seen yet in Europe at a little over 2000 ft. The road was good and we were in Pamplona before we knew it. That was the first problem as we had planned to stop at a grocery on the way into town, and we were in town before we knew it, so we missed the grocery stop. It should have been no problem because the aire was supposed to have a grocery next to it. It turned out the grocery was a Carrefour Express which is like a 7-11. The cupboards were bare so we needed a real grocery. Google told us there was another grocery about 1/2 mile a way. Ton is a little under the weather so Ron went on a reconnaissance and it was indeed a real grocery and closer than a 1/2 mile. So the groceries are taken care of for a couple of days.

A cute cartoon showing the highlights of Pamplona.

We then headed into town to see the Citadel, Cathedral, and the old town. The citadel was another fort and quite a large one. It is quite well preserved and we took a quick walk thru, but decided to move on.

The Citadel, impressive and well preserved. Except for the modern apartment building.

We walked thru the old town near the end of Siesta so it was pretty quiet, and while it is the old street layout, it was for us a weird combination of grimy and modern. The streets are quite wide to allow for the running of the bulls which is what Pamplona is known for. The Cathedral was again ok, but we did not see the inside as they wanted €3 to get in. We ended the day with a visit to the Bull Ring to see the statue of Hemingway next to it. We almost visited the ring but they wanted €6 to walk thru.

Outside the bull fighting arena. Did not want to pay the entrance fee as there was no bull fighting, and we would not want to see that either.

We finally decided to have a dinner as the food is supposed to be good. Again the food was ok, the service was ok, and the location was good, with an amateur Basque band playing local music with some interesting wind instruments. All in all not awful, but not a memorable meal or visit.

Some Basque musicians waiting outside a church.

October 5, 2018 Donostia-San Sebastian SP

While François did not move today, we did. Today we did the trip to San Sebastian-Donostia that we had planned for yesterday. After a late start to the day we walked down to the train station in Orio and took the 30 minute ride into downtown San Sebastian. San Sebastian is the Spanish name and Donostia is the Basque name for the town. In the city Donostia is used much more prevalently than San Sebastian.

Donostia is not an old city, everything but a couple of churches dates from no earlier than the mid-1850’s. There are a couple of reasons for this, the first is the British pretty much burned the city to the ground in 1813 after they captured it from the French. The second reason is that the Spanish seem so far, to be a little less enamored with old buildings, and have less of a problem knocking down old buildings and replacing them with new buildings. Our sample size is small on this, but that is our observation so far.

A statue of Jesus overlooking the town from the top of the old fort.

The city has a very prosperous air to it with lots of upscale shops, and very nice pedestrian promenades thru town. It is an easy town to move around on foot. Eventually we made it to the old town, which was the original footprint of the town dating back to the 1200’s and corresponds to the area within the old fort. We climbed the hill above the old town to the remnants of the fort, where we had a very nice view over the town. The climb was probably a couple of hundred feet in elevation gain, but was worth it when we got to the top. From the top of the old fort you have a great panorama of the two harbors that make up San Sebastian-Donostia.

The Urumea River entering the Bay of Biscayne, the beach past the river is the surfing beach.

At one time San Sebastian was a major port and ship building site. Today its main industry is tourism, and it excels at that. We climbed back down to the old town to look for a tapas lunch. We wandered into a tavern where lunch is laid out on the bar, and consists of different miniature sandwiches and tapas. You grab a plate and wander up and down the bar picking the food you want, when you have your plate full you grab a beer from the bartender, and head to a table. At the end you tell the bartender how many pieces you took (they pay attention), and how many beer you had, we had 8 pieces, and 3 beers. Ron was a little dehydrated from the climb.

The food is laid out across the bar, and you wander up there and help yourself.

Close up of a couple of the options at the bar.

After lunch we strolled around town for a while people watching, and having another stop at a local coffee shop. On the way back we stopped at the Cathedral, though we are getting a little jaded with Cathedrals. It was another fun day.

The surf beach up close. It is the same beach as the one above.

When we got back to Orio these guys were practicing, Orio is famous for it’s boat racing.

September 27, 2018 Mont St. Michel FR

There are two iconic images of France for tourism. One is the Eiffel Tower and the other is Mont. St. Michel. Since we were close by and it is off season we decided to head there and cross it off the bucket list.

Before we left the campground in Bayeux Ron had a touching conversation with an English lady. She came up to Ron and said that she recognized him from yesterday at the American Cemetery. She told him how moved she was by the sites there and the sacrifice of the young men who came to another continent to help. I told her that they were honored to do it, and explained to her that the families had the choice of burying them here or having the body transported home for burial. She teared up and said that she was honored that so many chose to be buried here. I am bad with tears and did not know what to say, but thanked her for her kind thoughts.

The Garmin had been choosing pretty easy routes on nice wide roads, but decided to test us today by sending us off on small D Roads for the first 30 km, including one that turned out to be closed for construction. After some wandering around on back roads we came out to a pretty major road and the next thing we knew we were on a nice freeway for the last 60km.

Mont St. Michel is a spectacular site and that is why it is an icon. We had a pretty good walk to the free shuttle to the island. The bus was packed, and the initial impression was of a big crowded tourist site, but it won us over. The site on the outcropping surrounded by mud flats is right out of any movie. The abby is both beautiful and a marvel of construction. Expecting something sterile and packaged we came away impressed.

A shot across the Knights Hall which was the dinner place for the Knights.

On the way back we had a nice snack of mussels with some Normandy Cider. We guessed that it was about a Kilo of mussels. The coffee style cups are for the cider.

We wanted to cap the night off with some pictures of the Mont at night. We walked down to the river to the bridge as we thought it would be a nice shot. Tonight is warm and there is not a breath of wind, and we are basically in a big swamp so the mosquitos were swarming. We fought them for about 30 minutes waiting for the lights to come on, but the mosquitos won and we headed back to François for the night with no pictures.

Not the shot with the Mont lit up like we wanted, but the mosquitos drove us home.

August 21, 2018 Las Vegas NV

Alex had to teach so we had a day to kill in Las Vegas. We are not gamblers so we decided to have an easy day taking in a movie and doing a little shopping in Costco and another Mexican Supermarket.

Later we met Alex for dinner at one of his favorite place in Las Vegas Nacho Daddies. As you can guess from the name they are famous for their Nachos. They have been featured on one of the restaurant shows on the Travel Channel. Alex and Ron had big plates of Nachos while Ton ordered soup and ceviche.

Afterwards we did our favorite thing in Las Vegas which is watch people. It is a great place for people watching, and our favorite place is the outside arcade in the old town. We enjoyed a nice walk and the people did not let us down providing great free entertainment.

The Fremont Arcade our favorite place to people watch in Las Vegas.

August 19, 2018 San Diego CA

Our final day with Dylan on this trip was the San Diego Zoo. Dylan is a member of the zoo so we were able to tag along for free using his membership. The San Diego Zoo is world famous and rightfully so. We spent 5 hours going from exhibit to exhibit. We hit all of the big animals and really enjoyed ourselves.

Impressive big cat at the San Diego Zoo.

The San Diego Zoo specializes in taking care of elderly elephants. This one is over 40 years old.

Our other priority for the day was to find a fan. Our roof fan has decided to stop working and probably needs a new rain sensor, as it seems convinced it is raining and will not open. After the zoo we went to Costco and Ikea and they were both out of fans as it has been unusually warm here. Finally we found a fan at Target.

Dinner was another great meal at a seafood market and restaurant. It is an old part of town, but the food was really outstanding and the line to get in never ended while we were there. San Diego has really been a good food experience on this trip from the unexpected Thai Hamburger to the great sea food. It was good to see Dylan and we really enjoyed ourselves here.

August 18, 2018 San Diego CA

Dylan swung by to pick us up about 930. After a breakfast of noodles prepared by Ton we headed off to our first stop of the day the Tijuana Slough Wildlife Refuge. It is one of the areas that the office Dylan works in manages. He took us on a nice walk through the slough and he explained some of the challenges of managing wildlife refuges in a metropolitan area of nearly 3 million people.

The next stop was some shopping at the Navy Exchange and Commissary in San Diego where we saw a food cart advertising Thai Hamburgers. Of course we had to go see what Thai Hamburgers were. Well they are not hamburgers at all. Dylan actually guessed that the “rolls” would be sticky rice and he was right. The meat is barbeque pork that Thai call Meu Ping, and it was delicious. The three of us split a “hamburger” and pronounced it a messy but delicious meal.

The final stop for the day was to join the Timbers Army San Diego group to watch the Timbers. They were going to meet in a pub downtown so we headed downtown but were quite early. We wandered around for a while and blundered into one of Ton’s other items on her list, Oscars Mexican seafood. We each had an excellent Fish Taco, and some ceviche.

The game was a huge disappointment as the Timbers looked listless, and were never in the game. We left a little early to head back for the night.

August 12, 2018 San Francisco CA

Today we played tourists in San Francisco. We headed into the city early to beat the traffic and headed to the Embarcadero area. We lived in the “Bay Area” in the late 90’s so had done the San Francisco tours in the past with visitors. We were trying to convince our friends that they did not need to do this. Luckily they insisted as we really enjoyed ourselves.

We covered the Embarcadero area in detail, and hit a couple of the big tourist sites along the water front. It was a beautiful day so we had nice views of the bay. As we kept walking we visited the Ghiradelli chocolate factory for an ice cream sundae.

Ton liked this painting from a small museum on the Embarcadero.

We ended the day at the palace of fine arts which Ton and I had never visited. It was built for the world exposition in 1913 it is quite impressive and fortunate to be still around. Originally it was built to only last for the exhibition, but people loved it so much they decided to keep it. Over time some of the love faded and the maintenance deteriorated, during World War II the army took over as it was located on military property, and used it as a motor vehicle maintenance area. After the war it had deteriorated to the point where they considered tearing it down, but fortunately did not.

Tourists. Alcatraz on the horizon in the background.

All of our touristing around resulted in a new step record for our friend of 30,000 steps in one day, so we decided to reward ourselves with some Chinese food for dinner. It was a really nice day.

May 3, 2018 Paris FR

Today we planned to spend at the Louvre. Of all of the places in Paris Ron wanted to spend some extra time there as he had never been.

It is an overwhelming place in many ways. The building is huge, but the vast majority of people are there to see the two or three must see things, the Mona Lisa, David, and the Italian art. Those things are clustered in one area of the museum, and that area is packed. We did see all of those things, but the crowds were a little too much for Ron. The other wings of the building are nearly empty and there is a lot of good art.

This is not the crowded part of the Louvre.

After about 4 hours we had enough and decided to get some lunch. Ton was interested in getting some Moroccan food, and we found a good restaurant. We had our most expensive meal in France, and the meal was good. After lunch we decided to head back to Montmartre, and grab a couple of last minute things we wanted to take back to Oregon with us.

I think we enjoyed walking around Montmartre nearly as much as we did the Louvre for the day. We made a couple of trips to grocery stores in the area, as well as taking one last stroll (Ton would say climb) to the cathedral. We had our final dinner at an African restaurant across from the hotel that Ton had her eye on since we checked in The meal was excellent and the spices were really interesting. Ton’s fish was delicious.

May 1, 2018 Paris FR

Today is labor day in France. We decided to stay in Montmartre for the day as we were not sure what was going to be open in the center of the city. Also, there were some marches planned, and there was a rumor that some people were going to use the marches as a pretense to cause some problems.

Our hotel is very centrally located in Montmartre. We started the day by heading to the cathedral at the top of the hill. Montmartre is located on a pretty good sized hill, and it is a decent climb up to the cathedral. The views of the center of Paris from the cathedral are expansive.

The Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Montmartre.

Montmartre is famous for it’s cafe culture, so after spending about an hour deciding which cafe to eat in, we settled in for a lunch and to do what everyone else is doing, people watch. It is an interesting combination of tourists from all over the world, and locals. We enjoyed the lunch, though we had high expectations, and were a little disappointed with our food.

The streets of Montmartre full of tourists and locals.

After lunch we took another turn around the area, looking at the sites, and mostly the people. We did a little shopping and went back to the room to drop off our purchases, and take a siesta. Instead of a siesta, we were entertained by watching the riot that had broken out in the center of the city live on TV. A McDonalds was sacked and a it was not a good day to park your Mercedes downtown as it looks like the rioters specifically targeted them for burning.

After we got our fill of watching the TV, we decided to go back up to the cathedral for sunset, and dinner. At the cathedral we saw that we were not the only ones ignoring the riot going on a few miles away as there were several hundred people up enjoying the sunset.

Another thing Paris is famous for are pickpockets, and we noticed a gentleman suddenly confronting a younger man quite loudly. It turns out he noticed that the young guy was trying to get into a woman’s purse, and intervened to stop it. The young guy took off, and the lady rewarded the good samaritan with a couple of kisses on the cheek, and then sat down on top of her purse to finish watching sunset.