Roofing error in your favor- collect $200

Wahoo! Yipee! Yeah!

Imagine you select a hotel for two nights in the beautiful resort area of Zermatt, Switzerland that fits within your budget by skipping the niceties. Not horrible, but not great. 16 rooms for which the description mentions such amenities as heating. Continental breakfast described as a choice of drinks and a bread basket with jam. Got the picture? When the train got to Zermatt, after a stunning afternoon spent watching gorgeous mountain villages go by, we stopped at the information office for a map. I also asked for directions to our hotel. The information office staff told me that our hotel had a leaky roof and was closed so all of the guests were being diverted to the Butterfly Hotel. Not an auspicious start to the trip. We have been diverted to hotels in other cities like Venice and we usually had some surprises (like the bathroom is in the hall in Venice). So, he drew the map and told us we were even closer, as the Butterfly is just around the corner.

You may know that Zermatt allows no cars. Cargo and passengers are carried in electric carts. The taxis are electric carts as are the hotel conveyances, not that we have stayed in any hotel offering any conveyance but an elevator. When I gave Mike the news that we were changing hotels at the spot where he was waiting for me outside the information office, he turned around and pointed out a Butterfly Hotel vehicle waiting in the plaza outside the train station. We walked over, passed over our luggage, and enjoyed a FREE ride to our hotel. The Best Western sign outside was the second indication that life was looking up. You may not think much of Best Western, but from our point of view after staying at these family run independent places, a Best Western is a huge step up.

We were welcomed at the front desk with the story of the leaky roof and the comment that we were getting a "huge upgrade". No kidding. The lobby has carpet and silk drapes! There is an elevator up to our room. We have a small deck (well, we are not on the view side, but what can you expect?) The room doesn't have a refrigerator, but it has most of the other amenities you would expect in a nice hotel. A comfortable queen sized bed rather than two twins pushed together. TV with a few English speaking channels (CNN and BBC). A safe! This is absolutely wonderful and we are very appreciative of the fact that when you are tired, sometimes fate delivers a little luxury to make your life easier. We haven't figured out the monetary difference between the hotels, but it is probably safe to say we are saving at least $100 per night with our "huge upgrade". Yahoo.

So, we are two very happy campers who feel like we ought to stay indoors for the next two days just to enjoy our digs!

More about Zermatt in the next writing- including photos.
Deanne

Even vacations need a weekend

We have figured out that life on the road, while as wonderful as you imagine, is tiring. We have found through a few months of experience that we need a "weekend" rest day about once a week. On that rest day we don't walk more than a few miles. We might catch up on CNN, but we are more likely to curl up with a book and read. Yesterday was our weekend rest day. After the meager pickings of our hotel breakfast we took a walk. This weekend the town of Lugano was having a cancer fund raising 5K and 10K which involved entertainers on stage in the main town square. We saw an Elvis impersonator who sang in English and spoke Italian between songs. The act following his was a traditional folk singing group of senior citizens, and he worked a nice little dance with the skirt and apron frocked, wooden shoed old ladies into his act. Mike and I sat in the plaza courtyard sipping some wine watching the show even though we had no idea what they were talking about. We watched the runners from the square when they ran by twice during the race and on a huge screen TV in the square that captured photos from various spots around town as they ran. In addition to our "participation" in the cancer run, we went for our own meandering walk through the civic park and along the waterfront. It was a glorious warm day to be out.

Mike is missing football. In fact, he is sitting beside me right now using the free internet time to check the scores of the games he missed yesterday. We called the boys about an hour before the game and were able to reach Jonny. He is so happy to be using his Dad's ticket for the season. He was with a group of his college friends who all collectively yelled, "We love you Jonny's Mom" to me on the phone. Of course, I loved hearing from my son and his friends. Jonny's Mom loves them too. He just read that the Seahawks won after being down with two minutes to go, so he is sure wishing he had seen the game. The price we are paying for this lifestyle....

Today we head off on the trains at 10:15 to Zermatt. We change trains several times, so it is a grueling train day. Zermatt should be lovely, though, and the train ride to get there is wonderful. I made this trip the summer I traveled alone to Europe after graduation from Cornell. It will be fun to see it again.

Later, Deanne

A repeat hotel feels like home

We soo enjoyed our night at the Dante Hotel in Lugano. A guilty splurge the first time we stayed here a month ago, this time it was a welcome luxury. Those little things we took for granted when traveling in the past- comfortable bed with crisp linens and down duvets, hot showers, free mini-bar and free internet- feel so good after deprivation. We had a massive breakfast- their buffet is undoubtedly the best of our trip. Eggs are rarely served in Italy for breakfast, so the Swiss tray of scrambled eggs and the bowl of hard boiled eggs was welcome. Over time we have tried to cut back out the croissants at breakfast, but in Italy their version, the Cornetto is ubiquidous. The Dante has a big table of cut up fresh fruits and grilled vegetables. We had crusty whole wheat bread (the Italians haven't heard about whole wheat yet) with our eggs and fruit, and delicious Swiss yogurt. It was hard to leave the life of luxury, although during our free internet access we were able to book a cheaper room next door and the decidely less luxurious hotel sitting adjacent to the funiculur tunnel. We will save 50 swiss francs per night, and once we get used to the exchange rate, I'm sure that will be a welcome economy. We also have free internet, tapping into somebody that is providing us a chance to upload the photos (finally I got it to work) and update the blog.

It is about noon, and we are off for a walk. I will check in later.

Love, Deanne

We are heading north again

After four days of healing Mike's lag in Orvieto, we woke up this morning and decided to head north rather than south. Who is to explain the whims of travel? It was one of those magical fall days in which the air is clear and crisp and the colors of the sunshine are warm and inviting. We had been toying with a visit to the Amalfi coast, but the descriptions of stairs and hills were too much for the freshly rehabilitated leg, so we instead headed north to spend more time in some of our favorite places. So, southern Italy waits for another trip.

The first train out of Orvieto (the 10:33) was a local that took us back to Florence, where we put aside a big urge to call and check on Caitie and instead caught the 13:14 to Milano. In Milan, with a few minutes to spare, we caught the next train to Como. Dare-devils that we are, we arrived in Como at 5:30 PM with no hotel reservations and started phoning. We had been on the road since leaving our hotel at 9:00 for the walk to the Orvieto train station, so the resounding "completo" (Italian for full up) calls we heard was disheartening. finally, we decided to hop the next northbound train (6:30 PM bound for Zurich) and ride the half hour back to Lugano, where we were able to get a single night at the wonderful Dante hotel which we enjoyed so much the last time through Lugano. So, here we sit enjoying our free internet at the hotel. We are in Switzerland again, although it is a bit further than we expected. We had anticipated a few days in Como and then on to the Italian Dolomites, but instead we are in Switzerland. It feels comforting to be in such a nice hotel (this was our overall favorite for the entire trip) in a city and country that we enjoyed.

We had dinner at the same restaurant beside our hotel and relaxed for the first time today. Overall pleasure. Running out of time, so I am off. I will write again soon.
Love, Deanne
P.S. I am having some difficulties with photos that I have not figured out yet, but they will be coming shortly.

The Pleasure of small things

What makes a wonderful day?

-Clear, fall sunshine on your chilly face when you are out for an early morning walk with your freshly recovered, no longer limping, husband
-Finding a cheap hotel (65 Euros) that caters to young travelers BUT is remarkably quiet allowing you to sleep all night with only church bells as interruptions
-A great meal (last night's dinner of steak and porcini mushrooms and wonderful bottle of 8 euro local red wine)followed by the obligatory (and how will we survive without them) espresso
-Free wifi internet which we are currently using at a nearby cafe to download our e-mail and upload our photos to the blog, things we have been unable to do for weeks
-washing all of the dirty clothes early and knowing that when you are finished for the day you can pack mostly clean clothes
-finding the grocery store that has eluded you for the first three days in this town (the locals must buy their toothpaste somewhere) so that you can buy 35 cent bottles of water instead of the 2 euro bottles that look exactly the same but are sold to tourists
-clean, rain refreshed air after the brutal rain we experienced our final morning in Venice and the light sprinkles we have had every day since.

We are enjoying our stay in Orvieto. Tomorrow we take the train to Naples, then on to Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast. I will check in then. Now I am going to upload all of the photos I have taken in the last week and have been unable to post.

Deanne

Orvieto- quiet rest

After leaving hectic Venice we headed south on the train to Naples. Four hours later we got off at the walled city of Orvieto. Mike's leg still hurts so we took a cab up to our hotel. For 90 Euros per night we ended up in what seems like a palace. A Bathroom, a good bed and peace and quiet. We have been here for two nights and if you can believe it, Mike had trouble sleeping last night because he could here a television in the distance. Compared to the racket we have slept through in previous places, this was a real treat!

Orvieto is a quiet little town where even the tourists don't seem to ruin the place. The streets are narrow and uncrowded. The churches are beuatiful, if not as spectacular as some of the previous cities we have visited. The food sure beat Venice though! I loved Venice but Mike didn't. The crods and high prices were a big turn off to him. For me, the life on boats and bridges was quaint and romantic. I saw a funeral by boat, saw garbage being picked up in a hand truck (since there are no cars or trucks in the city) and saw boats and water everywhere. It was like our life on the houseboat. Yes, the food was outrageously expensive, but it was my type food (as opposed to Mike's). Where I would start a meal with mussels marinara or mussels in garlic and end with spaghetti in clam sauce, picking happily through the clam shells, he would eat his spaghetti marinara without much pleasure. In Orvieto, the hoof takes over for the shell, and Mike had tried several different steaks, most of the time very happy with the results.

Our hotel was expecting a big tour group today, so after two pleasant nights we moved to a cheaper and much less nice place this morning. Described by our guidebook as a place that your wild aunt with hoop earrings would have decorated I have to say that no aunt of mine would have been caught dead decorating this place. The tourqoise bathroom tile and the granite floor tile in the bedroom give you a sense for the clash of styles. The bed is a giant hammock. Oh well, it provides another home base for two more days of exploring this pleasant little town.

Internet access is more challening here. It is such a surprise to find access difficult. After traveling numerous times through Europe for work without difficulty, I expected that internet access was everwhere. But, here there are signs advertising access, but when you go inside they tell you it doesn't work. We are sitting in the newspaper covered basement of an eating cafe working on two of the four computers here. We tried working on the other two computers without success, so it is quite possible we have the only two working computers in the place. We just had salads for lunch, and we are off for a walk after computer time. Mike is still walking slow and carefully, but he is recovering nicely.

So long, Deanne

Venice - better than anyone ever described

We love Venice. It is a magical city. It is like an entire city is living on houseboats! We tried describing our houseboat community to some Italians and they just couldn't understand. For those of you who have never been here imagine a city made up of 117 islands all connected to each other by quaint bridges that all involve steps up, then over then back down. The steps provide the height over the water for boats. Boats are everywhere. Families are out in boats, DHL delivers packages in boats, ambulances are boats, basically everything that would be a car or truck is a boat. There are bus boats called vaporettos that cost 6 euros per ride (yes $8) that take you on the main water boulevards. There are taxis which apparently put the meter in to gear at 50 euros. Many of them are quite luxurious, with polished teak and fine leather seats. We took a budget buster ride in one yesterday and thought it was great fun.

Our hotel is virtually around the corner from the train station. It requires no bridges to get there and is only three flights upstairs. The wonderful receptionist, Claudio carried the bags for us, after apparently assessing our state of energy as exhausted. We had arrived in Venice from Verona at about noon. We walked from our Verona hotel to the train station which was a longer hike than we normally take with the bags. Then, when we got to Venice and hiked over the tall bridge on the Grand Canal, and over several streets to our hotel, we found that the hotel had a plumbing problem which required them to move us to the new place. All of that bragging about having a bathroom was for naught, as the new place only had a room with the bathroom across the hall. They provided us with a 10 Euro discount because of the lack of an en suite bathroom, so the room now hits our 100 Euro per night budget. We don't have to share the bathroom with anyone. In fact, we have an ancient skeleton key to open the door to our own private bathroom. So, we do have to dress to use it, but there is no old dude in his bathrobe coming out the door when we go in.

We probably haven't mentioned the noise you hear inside some of these hotels. I know we have mentioned the street noise which seems pretty common in most of the places we stay. We are in inner city hotels with tourist traffic out on the street, so there is almost always street noise. There is also sometimes the noise of other guests. We have overheard somethings we would prefer not to overhear- especially in the places where you eat breakfast with the other guests....always looking around at the other couples as they sip their coffee wondering who the moaning rabbits are. Last night it was snoring that woke us up and kept us awake. Thank heavens for the iTunes on my computer. We whipped that out at 2:00 in the morning and set it to play New Age meditative music all night. Far better to listen to moaning of your own choosing than snoring.

We are learning to do our errands in cities that are new to us. Early this morning while we were both mostly sleeping but sort of awake I glanced at my watch to see that it was 6:40. Ten or fifteen minutes later when Mike opened his eyes I asked him the time to find it was 7:40. My watch had stopped. We were standing at the jewelery store when it opened at 9:00 and by 9:10 my watch was working. Venice was another tough city to find a grocery store, but wandering around eventually led to one, and now we have replacement toothpaste. Dental floss is a tougher problem. Apparently they don't have Dr. Wendy, our family dentist for the past twenty years who would freak out if we tried the excuse that we couldn't find dental floss in Venice when it ran out. After traipsing through several farmacias, we finally found some. While we were backtracking from our original hotel to the one we ended up in we passed a laundramat which I went back to later to treat ourselves to soft, dry clothes that don't smell like hotel shampoo. We use the hotel shamposs for laundry soap and when the clothes have hung for a day, we put the stiff, sometimes damp clothes on and wear them again. Some of our errands are less critical than running out of dental floss or toothpaste. Like finding pretzels. Mike really misses his pretzels and they just don't sell them anywhere in Italy. In fact, it is hard to find the bags of nuts and raisins we ate on trains when we were in Spain and Portugal. In Italy, the only nuts we see are in their shells in bags at the open air markets. Not conducive to snacking tourists. The open air market did provide us with our lunch today, though... bananas and grapes. The big purple grapes are huge, with seeds that crunch when you chew them down.

Take care- I'm off to wander Venice some more. I tried to find the Jewish quarter today which is somewhat near our hotel. It is the site of the original ghetto, and the word "ghetto". There are several synagogues there dating four hundred years back. Instead I ended up with lots of wonderful dead ends, each one a reminder that when you are retired you are never late no matter where you are going. I am sitting in an Internet cafe at the Piazza San Marco which is about as far from our hotel as you can walk without doubling back, so I have at least another hour to get back to the hotel. So, I'm off.

Love, Deanne