Disembarkation and our trip to Barcelona

by | Sep 27, 2022 | Food Experiences, Photography

When we cruise, the first thing the real cruisers want to know about is the food. But the second is the embarkation/disembarkation. It’s been my experience after more than 30 cruises that if things are going to go wrong, one of these two times is when that will happen.

With this disembarkation, I am happy to say that nothing went wrong…except to say that they made us get off the ship (this is every cruiser’s lament). Pretty much everything went off without a hitch getting off the ship. We got up, had breakfast, and were asked to be out of our stateroom by 8:00 am. Sat for an hour in the Atrium, got our tag colors called, grabbed our luggage, took it to a van (since we were doing Viking’s post-cruise two-day extension), it was loaded into a van that followed our “luxury motor coach” into Barcelona from Tarragona.

That’s where thing kind of went bad. Viking now had to do something with the 35+ people on the “luxury motor coach” from 9:30 am when we got on until 1:00 pm when the Nobu Hotel in Barcelona would be ready to check us in. So they arranged a “luxury motor coach” tour that would drive us from the ship to Barcelona and then drive around Barcelona, showing us some of the sights. This started with them getting us lost before they even got the “luxury motor coach” out of the port (Seriously!).

Then they sent us a guide who admitted up front that he usually worked with Japanese tourists, so his English was not very good. On top of that, he also (like other guides we had previously toured with) felt like they had to fill every moment of the three-hour sojourn with the sound of his voice. He even started singing at one point. I overheard another passenger say, “I thought the guy with the flute yesterday was bad, but this guy is so much worse!” I had to agree. And since he was not confident in his English, he seemed to be much less confident in his directions and tour facts.

It took us about 70 minutes to get from Tarragona to the outskirts of Barcelona. He talked about 90% of the time. Mostly gibberish to us because his English was so poor. Our first stop in Barcelona was at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. This gorgeous art museum we thought was built high above and far from the city and not near anything. I took the header photo I am using today from in front of it.

We later learned that we were less than a mile from our hotel but that it would take almost three full hours to get there. And we didn’t stop to see the museum, just to use the bathrooms. Viking had bought tickets for us to get into the museum, but then we had 15 minutes to use the bathrooms and get back on the “luxury motor coach”…so we could be driven around and mumbled at while seeing the sights through a “luxury motor coach” window. As a photographer, this is my idea of torture. Seeing things I want to shoot but not being able to shoot them because the reflections in the “luxury motor coach” make it impossible to get a good shot. I did take a few when we got off at the museum. Here’s what they look like. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Once we arrived at the hotel around 1:15 pm, we were told to go up to the second floor and that we would be checked in at a special desk just for Viking cruisers. When we got to the second-floor room they were using, there was about an hour’s wait to get registered. This is because they had planned well by sending the first “luxury motor coach” off and then not sending the second one for about 30 minutes. That way, we should have been staggered when we reached the hotel and able to check in without any lines. But this was not to be after our “luxury motor coach” driver got lost getting out of the port, and by the time he figured out how to get out, “luxury motor coach” number two was ahead of us, and we were not that far ahead of “luxury motor coach” number three. That meant we all pretty much got there at the same time. Viking had close to 250 people staying at the Nobu Barcelona. It was very much like the Marriott where we had done our pre-cruise extension in Athens. Both of them were four or five-star, high-rise hotels that were well outside (not in easy walking distance) of the main attractions of their respective cities. The rooms were nice, and the included breakfast at both places was delicious, but I would have traded that for something a little closer to where I wanted to shoot pics.

So instead of standing in line to register, we left our bags with the bellman at the front desk and took a taxi to a wonderful restaurant that Kathleen and I had eaten in when we were here in 2007—La Rita. The restaurant had been there for about 10 years before that and is still going strong. The menu was exactly as we remembered it. I made reservations almost a month in advance because when we go to Spain, we make our main meal, our lunch. People in Barcelona eat dinner around 9:30 pm, and we just can’t eat that late. So we have our main meal at lunch (around 2:00) and then grab some tapas in the evening.

After lunch, we came back and were able to check in easily, with no lines at all, and our rooms were ready. We unpacked, I did some posting on this blog and some photo processing, and we hit the hay for a very busy day on Sunday, our only full day in amazing Barcelona.

I had thought I could wind up the entire cruise with two more posts, one about Barcelona and disembarkation and one to sum up the cruise. But once I started talking about disembarkation, this one got too long to include our awesome day in Barcelona, so you will have to read two more. See you tomorrow. (BTW: we are home in Redmond after a hellacious day of flights and being up for 26 hours straight.)

You’d have a hard time finding anything better than Barcelona for food, as far as being a hub. Given a choice between Barcelona and San Sebastian to die in, I’d probably want to die in San Sebastian.  —Anthony Bourdain

 

Pisa and its Tower

by | Sep 23, 2022 | Photography

This one will be short and sweet as I am still high as a kite about a photographic experience I just had in Tarragona, Spain, today (it’s Friday, September 23 as I write this). Besides, our visit to Pisa was not the best day of our trip. Not because the Tower wasn’t leaning, but because it was just kind of a ho-hum experience. After so many days of getting on a “luxury motor coach,” testing our Vox earsets (so we can hear our guide while we walk around), driving to wherever, getting off the bus, having the guide rush away like a madperson, having to go and ask them to slow down, listening to them tell you the history of everything while wearing the headsets, then going from place to place quickly and standing while the guide talks (you would think the guides are paid by the word), it was getting really old.

This was another of Viking’s “included” excursions, so we were on the bus to Pisa at 8:30 am. We are glad we went in the morning (we had a choice of the afternoon as well) because those who went in the afternoon said it was a total zoo with huge crowds. We were able to at least move around the square.

Today’s guide was a speed demon. She went so fast that the people at the back of the line lost track of her leading the group. And worse, there were numerous other groups from bus tours who had parked where our bus did, and we were mixing in with our crowd and we with them. It was horrible. And this was the day the Vox system that we bring from our rooms (headsets so we can hear the guide) decided to fail. We knew it wasn’t our headsets but the guide’s microphone because no one could understand about 80% of what she said—too much static.

So there we were in the square in Pisa, with the Tower and the basilica right in front of us and not able to understand a word the guide said, so we ditched the tour. We just took off on our own, went at our own pace and made our own plans. The guides kind of know you are going to do this because they tell you in advance where to meet to go back to the “luxury motor coach.”

So I shot some pics; it started to rain; we sat by the church and then decided to take refuge at a sidewalk cafe with huge umbrellas and have a cappuccino. It was delightful just to sit and people-watch. After a while, Steve and Jamie joined us, and we started walking back to the “luxury motor coach.” Then we found out that we were just going back to the same place to meet the “luxury motor coach.” If they had told us that, we could have turned the almost mile-long walk into something where Kathleen and Jamie could have rested every so often instead of their version of the Bataan Death March. These guides just do not get it. Usually, I tip our guides quite well. So far on this trip, I have tipped two. Just two. The others have either been rude, in a huge hurry, rambling or worse. Of course, we all tipped Luigi and Alessandro in Cinque Terre, but they weren’t Viking guides.

After the march, it was back on the “luxury motor coach” and back to the ship where I wrote you another blog post and processed my photos, which you can see below. Hope you enjoy them. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

That was our day in Pisa. Pretty boring, to be honest. I could have done the entire thing in an hour instead of the two-and-a-half that Viking thought we needed. But I truly think that’s because the guide was paid by the word. Too bad we couldn’t hear more than twenty percent of them.

I’ve been to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It’s a tower, and it’s leaning. You look at it, but nothing happens, so then you look for someplace to get a sandwich.  —Danny DeVito

Let’s Split

by | Sep 11, 2022 | Food Experiences, Photography

Well, it could be worse; I could have made a banana joke. We are back from our three days in Venice, and now I can resume our story.

When I last wrote, it was Thursday, and we were in Split, Croatia. It is a truly beautiful walled city. Those Romans certainly knew how to build. We had a great time on Kathleen’s first day out after her time in food poisoning jail.

We both got off the ship and had a nice walk around the center of the old town. Of course, I took a lot of photos. You can see all my Split photos below. But before I post them, I want to mention our day onboard. We had a great room service breakfast (because Kathleen was still in food poisoning jail). But right after breakfast, the doctor called her and set her free, and we were off to see Split.

That evening we decided to give The Restaurant dining room another chance. We were given an excellent table in the far aft of the dining room where we could see the wake of the ship. It’s like the best place to eat in the place. But again, our service was sporadic. At the start of the meal, things went as usual. Not offered a wine list, one bread basket for six people until we finally got more. Then I made the mistake of saying I liked the breadsticks, and all of a sudden, we had three baskets of nothing but breadsticks. We asked for more “regular” bread, but that never did show up. We asked for more butter, but that didn’t show up either. But when my brother asked for olive oil and vinegar, it appeared in less than five minutes. They went all the way to the buffet to get it. Do you see what I mean about sporadic? It just went from good to bad service and back again all evening.

We got our appetizers in a hurry, and then the entrées took a while, followed by dessert a few moments later. I should add that the desserts were excellent, but not so much the entrées. The prime rib I had was close to raw, even though I had asked for medium rare. Since I had seen people at the tables near us getting it before we ordered, I specifically asked for much closer to medium. But that was not to happen. And a number of people at the table ordered the lobster thermidor because they saw the HUGE lobster tails coming to the tables nearby. But when they got theirs, they found a huge lobster shell with about three tablespoons of Thermidor in it. Once again, the dining room kind of failed us. They provided an adequate meal, but as my brother pointed out on our last, if this were a restaurant we went to at home, we would probably not go back.

The same cannot be said for the buffet. We love pretty much everything we have had from that venue. It has been amazing. This is very unusual for us because we can’t remember a previous cruise when we have eaten dinner in the buffet more than once or twice in a cruise, and then only when we were returning late from a shore excursion. This buffet is the epitome of class. You never have a second when your glass gets less than full, or they are whisking away your dirty plates. Just a fabulous experience.

We also tried Mamsen’s, which is a great little Scandanavian snack bar (but so much better than a snack bar). We have had breakfast there twice. They make extraordinary, ultra-thin Norwegian waffles that come with yogurt, berries, and some very interesting Norwegian cheese. Put it all together; it is wonderful.

I went there for lunch a few days later and had a superb open-face smoked salmon sandwich. It was truly delicious. Kathleen had open-faced roast beef that she liked just as much.

Enough about food, here are the Split photos (below). Come back tomorrow for my Venice pics and report. My pre-dawn photo walk around Venice was everything I was hoping for and more! Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

 

Amsterdam and northward…then on to Greece

by | Sep 2, 2022 | Photography

This time I am writing from Athens, Greece. But first I wanted to post the last pics from our day north of Amsterdam with our outstanding guide, Hans. I found Hans (as well as our guides in Athens and Barcelona) through Tours by Locals. We have used this company before and they are all over the world. The reviews on the site are usually right on and can be trusted. We have found you get some great local insights you would not get from a ship tour because these are the people who live right there. You learn so much.

Hans met us right on time at our hotel and we were off. Since we had already toured Amsterdam on a prior visit, we were looking to see the outskirts of the city as well as some of the countryside. Hans did a great job of doing just that. See the photo captions for some of what we saw. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

On to Athens

We had dinner the night of our northern Netherlands tour at a place Kathleen and I had eaten at on our last trip that Jamie and Steve wanted to try—Restaurant Zaza. It’s a short cab ride from the Banks Mansion. It was just as good as it had been in 2016, it both service and food. Had a great time.

The next day we had a flight to Athens at 12:20 pm. The hotel as well as every post we had seen online suggested we get to the Schipol Airport no later than four hours before we flew. So off we went at 8:00 am and check my previous post for how we did at the airport. The flight itself was “fine” (you know what that means) and they gave us an actual sandwich…not really, it was just two pieces of VERY stale bread with a single slice of the worst cheese in The Netherlands between it ?. But they got us (AND OUR LUGGAGE) there almost on time and as soon as we got to baggage claim a rep from Viking Cruises met us and whisked us and our luggage away to a waiting coach for our almost hour-long trip to our hotel, the Athens Marriott. You should know that this hotel was not our choice, but Viking’s as we are now in their care on our pre-cruise extension. I will say that it is a very nice Marriott, it has the best water pressure EVER (I took too many long showers) but it is located in a very non-photographic part of town. The first night I tried taking a photo walk and you will see what I came up with below. Then in my next post I will show you shots of the Athens you were expecting.

Watch the next post for my report on a very HOT but rewarding day in Athens.

I like the look of a windmill. —Jeff Duncan

The Worst of 2021— From My Point of View

by | Dec 30, 2021 | Uncategorized

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way today and I will come back New Year’s Eve with the Top Ten of 2021. So here’s the bottom five worst things about 2021. We experienced some of them personally and I know some of you have experienced them as well.

Number 5: The political divide in my country

I don’t think I have ever been political in these posts but I have had it. Not with anyone in particular but with the extremists on both sides of politics in the country I live in who continue to drive us apart. From science to religion, from insurrection to health care we are so divided. Talk of civil war is all the rage on social media. I am at a point where I just wish that all the red states would become one country and all the blue states another and we could live happily ever after—but in my heart, I know that is crazy. And sadly there are plenty of good, reasonable people who are either red or blue who live in the opposite type of state so that won’t really work. I don’t know what the solution is to this and to be honest I am kind of glad I won’t be around in 40 years to see what happens (I’m being optimistic ?). But I worry for my kids and grandkids.

Number 4: The pandemic drags on

This is one of those things that we have all had to experience. Will this damn thing never end? I remember coming home from our Mardi Gras cruise in March of 2020 and we were discussing how long it would last. At that point we had major travel plans in May 2020, August 2020 and December 2020. We pretty much gave up on May immediately. We knew that trip wasn’t going to happen. But we had high hopes that COVID would turn out to be another version of the flu and could be contained so we felt pretty good about our August 2020 trip to the Galapagos. In hindsight, I laugh at myself thinking that. How naïve we were. But surely we would have no trouble doing our Viking River Cruise in December 2020? There would be a vaccine by then? Everyone would take it and we could move on? That would work right? Not a chance.

And now here we are, a year later and we have had a darned good vaccine that has been pretty widely available since early 2021 and we just cancelled our second Viking Christmas Market Cruise. I am not sure why, but when we thought of that vaccine a year ago we automatically assumed that everyone would rush to get jabbed so we could all move forward with our lives. But no! There is no accounting for stupidity and ignorance so here we are, in the last month of 2021 and we are back in full-blown COVID crapdom. Get a damn shot people. Science is real.

Number 3: The deterioration of my beloved Seattle

I wrote about this in depth about two month ago. You can see that post here. But at least things might improve in the new year as the voters decided that the people running Seattle had gone too far in the wrong direction trying to be “good people” (I am a firm believer that no extreme viewpoint—either right or left—is a good one) voted in some who have some logic. I will keep you updated as things progress but for right now, avoid Seattle. Cruising buddies—if you want to sail to Alaska this summer, leave from Vancouver (if Canada allows it—not even sure of that).

Number 2: Falling off a five foot berm in Oregon

This one is just a personal thing. Back in August on our annual beach trip with our kids and grandkids, I took a fall. I was walking in some high grass on a berm at the beach. There was about a 5-6 foot straight drop off to the beach itself. I was going to find a place to slide down on my butt until the part of the berm I was standing on (pictured from the top of the berm) collapsed underneath me.

Thankfully, I wasn’t badly hurt but I did screw up my good knee (still hurts from time to time), I landed on my Nikon (that repair bill was almost $500) and I think I scared the grandkids who had never heard Grandpa use that kind of language before. Suffice it to say that while I am pretty much fully recovered (as is my camera), there was about a three week period that I had to give up taking my long walks…one of my favorite things to do.

Number 1: We have to cancel our December European trip

You may have read about this a few short weeks ago but the biggest disappointment of 2021 was cancelling a trip we had been planning for more than a year. You can read about the cancellation by going here. And you can read about all the things I had to cancel, get vouchered or refunded by going here. I guess the best thing I can say about having to do this is that in hindsight, we did the right thing as Omicron showed up a week after we cancelled and Europe shut down for travelers. The river cruise that was the centerpiece of the trip turned out to be a bust with most ports missed, passengers who went complaining about it and worse. As I told someone who cancelled a cruise today (for January 22) on FB, better a postponed vacation than a lousy vacation.

Unless you have bad times, you can’t appreciate the good times.

Joe Torre