by Jim Bellomo | Oct 15, 2024 | Uncategorized
So far on this trip, I have been a very frustrated photographer. It’s not that I haven’t been able to take any photos. On the contrary, I have taken more than 1,000. But what is frustrating is that I have been unable to do my early morning photo walks and get pictures when the light is at its best. Regular readers know I love to shoot during the “blue hour” and the “golden hour.” Well, those barely exist in Madrid or in all of Spain because of a little-known time anomaly. It seems that sometime in the past, the Spaniards were trying to make peace with the British and one of the things they did to show how much they loved all things British was put themselves in the same time zone as Great Britain when actually they should be about a time zone and a half further east. So, if you fly straight north from here, you would be in Warsaw, Poland, but the time here correlates to London. This means that sunrise today was around 8:30 am. That’s too late for me to be out shooting photos when we have to be heading our on tours at 9:00. Yesterday, I was about a mile away and thought it was still around 6:30, and it turned out to be 7:50, and I was supposed to meet the rest of the group for breakfast at 8:00. YIKES…so I walked really fast and barely made it back—only a little late. Let me toss in the early morning shots I did get right here. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
The Four Seasons Hotel. According to their sign, one of the top 50 hotels in the world.
Another building with horses on top.
And a street scene
And another street scene
And another.
And another.
The place for the best hot chocolate and churros in Madrid
A clothing store for the Wicked fans.
The bear and the strawberry tree. Our meeting place for our tour later on.
After we finished the breakfast that I was late for; it was time to leave the hotel for a one-of-a-kind Madrid experience—churros and chocolate. We had heard (YouTube videos) that there were two places famous for their churros and the hot chocolate you dip them into. The oldest and most famous is Chocolatería San Ginés. I found it on my early morning walk, so I led the gang down to try out the churros dipped in what is pretty much melted chocolate. It was awesome. But on the way down, Kathleen’s knee and neuropathy started giving her problems, so she and I walked back up to the hotel (the nearest Uber or Bolt was 20 minutes away) while the rest of the group walked ahead to find our guide for the day.
Speaking of walking, I did a lot of walking yesterday. My Map My Walk/Run app shows that I walked more than ten miles. Some of my walking was for exercise and photography reasons, but we had also booked a walking tour of Madrid through a company called The Tour Guy.
The Tour Guy company is a tour broker who books tours with different companies worldwide to do tours in a particular place…in this case, Madrid. Mike had used them before in other locations. Those who have read my posts in the past, you know that I am a massive fan of Tours by Locals, but since Mike had booked with them before, we went with them. I made the booking because if you are booking with The Tour Guy for the first time, you get a discount.
Our tour was assigned to a company called Touring Pandas. Even though we got a local guide, I did some checking this morning and the tour company we were brokered out to is based in Korea. That in itself is interesting.
I say all this to preface that we had a good tour guide. Her name was Taylor, and she is from Newcastle, England. She spoke with a beautiful British accent and has lived in Madrid for four years. She knew all about the city and shared great tips with us for food and drink after the tour.
The two anchor spots of this tour (places you really want to see and learn more about) are the Royal Palace and the Prado Art Museum. So we started by walking around, catching fun and exciting parts of Madrid between our meeting spot in the Puerta Del Sol and our big morning stop, the Palace. Everything was great right up until that point.
Then, the big surprise. Taylor told us that after we got in (with our pre-paid tickets—buy yours before you go because otherwise, the wait is very long), we could rent audio guides that would take us through the entire Palace. Mike said, “Well, we won’t need those since you will give us a live tour.” Taylor said, “No, I don’t come in with you. I’ll leave you here to tour the Palace and then have lunch on your own. I will meet you in a park on the other side of Madrid at 3:00 pm. We will tour the park, and then I will take you to the Prado, where you have pre-reserved tickets, and you will tour The Prado on your own as well.” You could have knocked me over with a feather. I know Mike was surprised as well. We had paid for an eight-hour tour (it says that on our reservation), but this meant we were getting about a three-hour tour.
That’s different from what we were looking for. We wanted what we had the day before with Fernando in Toledo: a guide who was with us from the time we got out of our van until we finished at the end of the day, who took us into museums and cathedrals and didn’t just drop us off outside of them.
But when Taylor arrived on time, she told us a lot about the Plaza del Sol, where the tour started, and the Bear and Strawberry Tree statue where we met. Then we left the plaza and headed towards Plaza Mayor, The Mercado, the Basilica, and finally winding up at the Palace, where we had tickets to the tour that I mentioned above. At this point, I was feeling bad about Kathleen being stuck in the hotel all by herself, and I knew she wouldn’t want to go out to lunch alone, so I decided to buzz through the Palace fairly quickly and head back to the hotel to take her out to lunch somewhere near the hotel while the rest of the group took a leisurely stroll through on their tour. Here are my photos from the morning part of the tour and my zoom through the Palace (the photo at the top of this page is the Spanish throne room). Enjoy, and you know the drill.
A very happy cow on a door next to our hotel.
The Tio Pepe sign, a Madrid icon.
And a statue in the square. Or should I say that every plaza has a statue?
There were signs like this on many buildings, indicating that a famous person had lived there once.
Loved this hotel, one of Madrid’s oldest.
Taylor, our guide.
Street signs in Madrid have related art. This is Elbow Street.
Not sure what kind of business this store does but all they sell is statues of people doing this in various sizes.
Restaurants with a plaque on the sidewalk outside of them have been there for 100 years or more.
A dog outside the Palace.
A great view of the Basilica.
And lion with attitude that I liked.
Inside the Palace, a statue of the inbred king. Too many married cousins in his lineage.
The massive staircase in the Palace.
The grand dining room
Palace Art.
Palace Room.
Another interesting Palace Room.
The Royal Family portrait a few years ago. The older man was the king. He has now abdicated to his son, the tall man on the right.
I should say that it was INCREDIBLY difficult to buzz through the Palace because it has a lot of choke points where the thousands of Asian tour groups just seemed to stop to listen to their guide in their earpieces…but at least they had a guide.
After I finally got out of there, I was off to the hotel and surprised Kathleen by taking her to an Italian place just down the block from the hotel so she didn’t have to walk very far. We had a nice lunch, and then after I got her back to the hotel, I walked off to meet up with Taylor and the rest of the gang at El Retiro Park, which is Madrid’s answer to New York’s Central Park. It is truly a beautiful place, as I hope you will see in my photos. By the way, the weather yesterday was hit or miss. It started out OK, switched to cloudy and cool, the sun finally came out, and within 20 minutes, it was threatening rain again. Go figure.
When I got to El Retiro Park, Taylor walked us around, saying she would take us to the Prado and drop us off there. To be honest, at that point I had been up since 1:30 am, I had walked more than nine miles and I am not that big a fan of Spanish art. So I bid my farewells and walked my way back to the hotel. The other four of our group had a very nice time seeing the Prado and made it back in time for all of us to go out for tapas at another place down the street. They have excellent food and what has become a favorite drink, vermouth on the rocks with lemon. We are sitting on our bed at the hotel (after our day—today—in Segovia—more about that tomorrow), drinking two of them. Let’s finish up our day in Madrid with my afternoon photos. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
Saw this group of street musicians on the way back to meet the group in El Retiro Park.
And this lion.
And these cherubs.
They each represent a different virtue of childhood.
Darned if I can remember which virtue.
But they are kind of cool.
Taylor told us this is the “Galapagos Fountain” because the famous Galapagos turtles are in it. Except it’s Galapagos tortoises.
A beautiful, man-made created by a king to hold mock naval battles.
A lion protecting the lake.
Another view.
This musician plays music by rubbing glasses. He was playing the theme from Harry Potter.
But he sneaked a look at me when I tipped him. Always tip your models.
The artichoke fountain.
Another great Spanish statue with attitude.
I used to have friends who owned a store called The Black Swan. I thought it was a myth.
Madrid’s version of the Arc de Triumph.
And the statues around it.
And lastly…the Metropolis Hotel.
That about did it for our day in Madrid. Today (I am writing this at about 8:00 pm on Tuesday), we were in Segovia, and it was AWESOME! We fly to Lisbon tomorrow to start our Viking portion of the trip tomorrow. More about all of that soon.
I never heard anyone say anything bad about Madrid. —Antonio Ruddier
by Jim Bellomo | Oct 13, 2024 | Uncategorized
I know. How can anyone be transfixed by Toledo? When it’s Toledo, Spain, that’s easy. Yesterday, that was our destination. Mike had arranged a tour through Destina Toledo for a full day excursion to Toledo, including round-trip transportation to and from our hotel here in Madrid and one of the best guides we have ever toured with (and that’s a lot of guides!).
We were waiting at the door of the hotel’s breakfast room when it opened at 8:00 a.m., had another excellent breakfast, got our stuff, and our driver met us right outside the hotel. It’s around a one-hour drive without traffic to Toledo, and since it was fairly early on a Sunday morning, we didn’t have any traffic at all. So quick as a flash, we were pulling into Toledo, where we met our incredible guide, Fernando.
Fernando and our driver did a wonderful job mixing touring in our luxury Mercedes van with walking. This really helps in a city built on a hill. Kathleen told me that when she first saw the city from far away, she was sure that she would be spending most of the day in the van. But it worked out reasonably well, and her knee was able to handle the walking that we did. It was pretty sore when we got back, so she iced it up and took her pain pill, and hopefully, she will be OK for today’s tour of Madrid.
When we met Fernando, he first suggested we hop out of the van and take photos of the entrance gate to the city. That’s the photo you see at the top of this post. Then it was back in the van and up the hill to two incredible viewpoints. One that showed us the Tagus River as it wound around the outside of Toledo, forming a natural moat-like boundary that repelled many a historical enemy of the city. Then, it was to a hill where the entire city was visible. Of course, Fernando was also willing to be our photographer by taking the whole group’s photo with this amazing city in the background. 
Here are a few more photos I took at these first two stops. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
Our first stop was below the city along the Tagus River
There was an area below the parking spot where I went to get his photo of the group.
The amazing Fernando relates some Toledo history to my little brother.
Looking down the river from this viewpoint.
And back up to the city again.
And again.
And again.
There are so many different ways to view the city from this point.
Then, we headed up to the overlook above the city.
Where the views were spectacular.
We would later tour this cathedral.
Looking down at some ancient Roman ruins.
Fernando told us that this section of the city was the most important because his mother-in-law lives there.
People fish in the river, but swimming is prohibited due to pollution. Not sure I want to eat those fish.
But even though the water is muddy, it is still beautiful.
Fernando explains the geography to a rapt audience.
Of course, we had to take an usie.
After our viewpoint stops, we headed back down the hill on the opposite side to begin our walking tour through the Jewish Quarter of old Toledo. It included some pretty interesting stuff: a Jewish synagogue, Jesus playing with his hula-hoop, a statue in white face, the world’s largest (as verified by the Guinness Book of World Records) marzipan statue and an art museum with a single painting by Toledo’s native son—El Greco. I think I can say this part a whole lot better in photos. You know my spiel. No phones! Slide show…etc.
Our next stop was further down the river next to a very old bridge.
It leads into the upper part of the city.
Very picturesque!
In many ways.
While on the bridge, the sun hit this building on the hill next to us just perfectly.
After crossing the bridge it was back in the car and further up the hill to a church where we saw these shackles depicting free slaves on the outside of a church.
We also saw an unusual statue of Jesus playing with a hula-hoop.
And a repaired statue in white-face.
The walls of the old Jewish synagogue were painted in this pattern.
And the ceiling was simple but complex.
Further up the road we stopped at another church.
This was above the altar.
The dome was beautiful.
This one had some interesting decorations.
Including this captioned saint on what looks like an old billboard.
Some interesting statuary.
As well as an ancient tablet.
Hiking down on our way to lunch, we passed this villa that I took a liking to.
We visited a bakery where we saw this Don Quixote sculpture, made completely from marzipan.
And this long bricked street (yes, street!)
El Greco’s “The Burial of the Count of Orgaz.” A single painting in a one-painting museum.
After all that touring, we were getting pretty hungry, and to our total amazement (and Fernando’s skill), we wound up standing in front of the restaurant where I had made our lunch reservations at exactly 1:00 pm when they opened. The place is called Clandestine. We were quickly seated, met our server Jamie, and began a lunch that I will rank among this year’s top ten dining experiences. The eatery had come from a recommendation the tour company had sent us before, so we were still determining what to expect, but we got more food, wine and laughter than we deserved. There was so much food that no one ate again for the rest of that day and night. We were too full. We started with a beautiful Spanish rioja. The wine, which we intend to look for at home, was perfect. It was so perfect that we had to order another bottle. They then brought us a bowl of some of the best Spanish olives we have ever had and some whole-grain bread that we could dip into their incredible olive oil (at that point, the olive oil was the star of my meal). Jamie (the waiter—not to be confused with my sister-in-law Jamie) made some great recommendations, and we wound up with some superb entrées. Check out the photos below. Feel free to look at any of our food shots on your phone. That’s how we took them. Oh, and the desserts (which we split) were also excellent.
It’s an amazing wine. If you are serving Spanish food, you must find this wine.
Steve and Mike had the Boar Cheeks.
Kathleen, Jamie and I had the pork. OMG—that sauce.
Then, Steve and Jamie’s dessert, which the restaurant called french toast, was like eating a single piece of bread pudding.
Mike, Cathy, Kathleen and I tried the Manchego cheesecake. I have never had anything like it.
After lunch, it was down the hill to visit our last stop, the main cathedral of Toledo. This was the highlight for Mike because he loves taking pictures of churches. My other best friend (hi Bob) and I love kidding him about all the church photos. If you don’t believe me, wait until we are back and he posts his review/report of this trip, and you will see what I mean. I promise to come back and tell you when he does so you can see more of this incredible church. In the meantime, here are a few photos from your humble photographer ?.
On the way to the cathedral we passed…
this beautiful sculpture at the top of a building…
these three beautiful women standing in the street…
…a nice view of a another church…
a very cool street musician…
another lovely Toledo street…
…a really cool but really BIG door.
How big? My brother is holding the knocker.
And finally the square where we can see the capitol building and if we turn around…
…the processional entrance to the cathedral.
With some interesting sculptures.
With my long lens, I like doing close ups of interesting parts of the sculptures.
For instance, this depiction of The Last Supper.
With Judas and his bag of money.
And these two bishops…doesn’t the guy on the right seem surprised by what’s in the book?
And a beutiful bell tower.
Andems. the church to go along with it.
And some really fun lions.
And then we were inside.
With the many religous artifacts.
Some incredibly impressive.
Stained glass everywhere. This one above the ceremonial door.
Other beautiful art.
Maybe the most beautiful monstrance I have ever seen.
The main altar was behind locked gates. Mike will have a better photo.
This was above the choir loft.
A close up of it.
Also above the choir loft was this immense pipe organ.
Inside the sacristy.
Where there is also a huge El Greco painting.
This is an incredible window with sculptures all around it, letting in light to shine on the back of the altar area.
Truly amazing.
This is where the light from that window shines.
After we were done inside (we were there for more than an hour), we went back outside to the square behind the cathedral to wait for our driver to pick us up. While we were waiting, there were throngs of people all around us, and with nothing better for me to do, I engaged in one of my favorite things—street photography. So here I present random shots of people who, one day (long after I am gone), my kids will wonder, “Who the hell are these people?” ?.
Sorry, no captions. Just the faces of Toledo visitors. Some I liked more than others, but all were good subjects. I took about three times as many as you see here. And one fellow perfectly typified how we all felt at the end of our very long day in Toledo. And here he is. 
We got back to Madrid between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m., and I made the mistake of trying to work through all my photos and then falling asleep before 7:30 (I think we are all still adjusting to the time change). However, that turned out OK because I woke up at 2:00 a.m., finished the photos and wrote this post.
In summary, if you come to Madrid, go to Toledo, be guided by Fernando, have lunch at Clandestine, ask to sit at Jamie’s table, drink the right rioja, and take some great photos, you will (as we did) have had an awesome day.
Spain is a fascinating mix of people, languages, culture and food, but if there is one thing all Spaniards share, it’s a love of food and drink. —Jose Andres
by Jim Bellomo | Oct 12, 2024 | Air travel
This is just a quick note this morning because I have some free time while Kathleen sleeps in. I am writing this in a small sitting area on our floor at the Hotel Preciado in downtown Madrid. Yesterday was an interesting flying day for the six of us, coming from different directions.
First, we are all on a group text we started about three months ago to plan and discuss tours and other stuff. And on flight days, it gets hectic. With Mike and Cathy flying out of Miami and Hurricane Milton hitting to the north of them, our group text got a lot busier, and we talked about flights a lot earlier than usual. Yesterday alone, we sent each other 297 texts between 5:15 AM Pacific time Thursday and 11:52 PM Pacific time Friday. I know. I just counted them.
We spent the first half of the day tracking our flights and planes. We used various websites and apps to see how our flight was doing and where the aircraft that would be flying our flight was at the time. If you have yet to use one of these websites, it’s worth it if you’re worried about missing connections or want to know when you should be able to get going.
Mike and Cathy started the day with their incoming flight being two hours late. On FlightAware, you can see your flight and its predicted departure time, but they also have a feature that you can click that says, “Where is my plane?” That shows you where the plane is that the airline has scheduled you to fly on. In Mike’s case, he tracked the plane and found it was two hours late leaving Lisbon (they were flying on TAP Air). This did not present a real problem for them as they were connecting through Lisbon, and if they missed their connection, they had a plethora (I love using that word) of choices on TAP to make the quick jump to Madrid. The end of their journey to Madrid got them in while we were in London, and Steve and Jamie were in Frankfurt.
Steve and Jamie, coming from LAX on Lufthansa, saw that their flight would be an hour late. This made things a little dicey for them as they were flying LAX to Frankfurt and had only about 90 minutes between their flights. They were flying the furthest as well because they were coming from Southern California, going east of Madrid and then coming back west and south. Things really went south for them when they taxied out for takeoff at LAX and had to return to the gate due to a medical emergency on board. BTW: Did you know that when they remove someone from the plane for medical reasons, they have to search the cargo hold to find their checked luggage and get it off as well? I can’t even imagine crawling into the cargo hold of a 747, trying to find just one or two bags.
I just wanted you to see a shot of our texting. At this point, Mike and Cathy are in Lisbon, and Steve and Jamie just missed their connection in Frankfurt. We were in the air about to land at Heathrow.
When they finally arrived in Frankfurt (I am sure that Steve will comment if I mess any of this up—I am just working off our texts), it looked like they would make it to their connecting flight. They got to the gate of the connecting flight with five minutes to spare, but the plane had already closed the doors, and that was it.
The last we heard from them was that they had just boarded their flight from Frankfurt to Madrid. Mike and Cathy had just finished dinner and were headed to bed in Madrid, and we had just landed in Madrid. It is 7:45 am here in Madrid as I write this, and we are still not 100% sure they made it. But I am pretty sure they did since we would have had a text to the group if they hadn’t.
We were flying from Seattle to Madrid via London Heathrow. Our flight left at the latest. British Air has two flights a day from Seattle to London Heathrow, one in the afternoon around 2:00 and the other leaves at 7:45 in the evening. We last did the late one a while ago, but it worked better this time. But, strangely, you have your entire day before you even think about going to the airport. I got up, had a leisurely breakfast, drove into downtown Redmond for my weekly injection, walked six miles through Marymoor Park, went home, and had lunch with Kathleen. Then she went off to get her haircut, and I cleaned the kitchen and vacuumed the house. We had waited to shower until that afternoon because we knew it would be our last for probably 48 hours or so. We were finally picked up by our Welcome Pickups driver for our trip to SEA at 3:30. I know that’s early, but we like to be at the airport for an international flight at least three hours early. Due to a Seahawks game in Seattle on Thursday night, the traffic was HORRENDOUS, and our usual 45-minute drive to the airport turned into 90 minutes, but we did make it.
I have kept this a secret from our group text, but it must come out eventually. While Mike and Cathy were slightly inconvenienced and Steve and Jamie had massive scheduling problems, we had what might have been our best flying day ever. And a lot of it was in our control.
We (OK, I) had decided that since we were flying at around 8:00 p.m., I would stay on my usual schedule as much as possible. That meant that I would not eat dinner on the plane. You pay for Business Class, so you should at least get to eat the meal. So we ate dinner in the Business Class lounge at SeaTac. It was snacky-type food, but they had a nice salad bar, some good sandwiches…and cold water. You see, another thing I had decided not to do was drink alcohol on this flight. I have been reading a lot on the best ways to avoid jetlag, and one of the biggies is no booze. We ate dinner at our usual time (around 5:30) and boarded at 7:45. I had a very nice mocktail and told the flight attendant I was skipping dinner to wake me for breakfast, and I got out my Kindle and started reading my current book. Please note that I did not turn on the plane’s entertainment system. I knew that if I did, I would find a movie or TV show I would get hooked on, and that would prevent me from sleeping.
And it worked. I reclined the seat to flat, pulled on a blanket, read my book until I felt tired, pulled on the provided eye mask and went to sleep. The next thing I remember was six or seven hours later when the flight attendant woke me for breakfast. I got to sleep for a good six hours, and that’s about as much as I usually sleep at home. Kathleen didn’t quite do as well, but she did get some sleep.
Another thing that was different on this trip is that due to Kathleen injuring her knee (she is going to physical therapy) and the size of the airports we would be traversing, I asked British for a wheelchair for her. She didn’t need it (and we didn’t use it) at SEA, but it was a godsend once we got to Heathrow. Moving through any airport can be a pain, but it is a total slog at Heathrow. On the plane, we were met by a very lovely young lady who got Kathleen off the plane and up to the gate, where she was transferred to a cart-type conveyance that took her and six other wheelchair flyers to passport control. I got to walk an entirely different route to meet up with her at the other end of the trip through the airport just before we got to passport control. The only hold-up was that we had to stand (Kathleen sat) through the regular security line, but once we were through that, we were dropped off in the Business Class lounge for our terminal. Before he left, our wheelchair attendant wrote down our table number in the lounge so they would send someone with the chair to that table when it was time for our next flight (to Madrid). That lovely person came and got us and took us to the plane, where we were the first people on board.
When we got to Madrid, the experience was truly unusual. As we were about to deplane, the flight attendant motioned us to wait in the first row of seats. A few minutes later, they opened the door on the other side of the plane, and there was a lift truck with ten seats in it pulled up right to the plane. We got on (with another party needing assistance). They lowered us to the ground and drove us about 100 yards to a door where we were met by another man with a wheelchair who took us through a bunch of doors to another place where we could get a different attendant. Then we went through passport control and a short walk again and got into another van. That van took us on a 20-minute ride around the airport, driving all over the runways, behind planes up and down tunnels. If you had asked me to find that route again, I could not have done it in a hundred years.
But the end was great. Our luggage made it, our driver waited, and after a 40-minute drive, we were at our hotel in downtown Madrid.
I took a break there for breakfast, and everyone was there! We all made it. Now for a leisurely day in Madrid. Lunch will be at Boudin, the world’s oldest restaurant. I will let you know how it is tomorrow.
I hate everything about airports, from getting there to taking off. —Honor Blackman (the woman who played Pussy Galore in Goldfinger)
by Jim Bellomo | Oct 3, 2024 | Uncategorized
It’s been a while, but I wanted to let you know to get ready for a plethora of posts as we leave for Europe a week from today. I know—we are going to Europe again. In our defense, when we were there in June, we were just up north in Scotland, England and Norway. This time, we will be heading south to Spain and Portugal.
Last October, we sailed on Oceania’s Vista from Montreal to Miami. On that trip, we were joined by our good friends Mike and Cathy from Wellington, Florida, my brother Steve and his wonderful bride Jamie from San Juan Capistrano, California and our good buddy Jocelyn Hartwell from Chelan, Washington. Sadly, Jocelyn won’t be joining us for this adventure, but the six of us (Mike, Cathy, Steve, Jamie, Kathleen and I) will all be back together. (Just an aside, Mike and I were talking about three months ago that we should always vacation together in October, so next year, we are cruising the Columbia River, and in October 2026, we will cruise the Great Lakes.)
As I mentioned, a week from tonight, we will board British Airways flight 48 from here in Seattle, non-stop to London Heathrow, where we will have about three and a half hours to either rush or relax (depending on how late our flight from Seattle is) before we head south to Madrid, Spain. Although we have been to Spain before, all our visits have been on the Mediterranean coast, where we have visited Tarragona, Barcelona, Málaga and Valencia. But this will be our first time in Spain’s capital.
We are in Madrid from October 11 until the 16th. During our stay, besides seeing Madrid, we will go on day trips to Segovia and Toledo. Since we are traveling with the king of shore excursions and tours, Mike Preisman, we will be on some of the best tours in all of the Iberian peninsula.
After five full days in Madrid, we will catch a plane to hop over the mountains to Lisbon, Portugal. From the time we land there and for the next ten days, we will fully enter the world of Viking River Cruises. We will spend two nights in Lisbon and then board a “luxury motor coach” for a ride north to Portugal’s second city, Porto, where we will board the Viking Torgil for a six-night cruise up and then back down the Douro River. From the riverboat, we will do excursions to Salamanca, Spain, as well as Regua, Barca d’Alva, Pinhão and Lamego, Portugal. (See the map above–you can click on it to enlarge it) We are sure to have fun, food and a great time!
After we are off the cruise in Porto, we are taking a private airporter-type coach south and back to Lisbon, where we will spend another four days at one of our favorite hotels—Hotel Portugal (really original name ?). On the 29th, we will board a flight back up to London Heathrow, where we will spend the night at an airport hotel before flying home the next day. So this means we are gone from the 10th to the 30th! It will not be quite as long as last June, but it will still be long enough for us to have a great time.
This post tells you only a bit because I plan to blog as often as possible. So get ready for another bunch of posts with photos. Of course, as always, my posts will be totally dependent on Wi-Fi. That means good coverage when we are in hotels and, who knows, what we will get on the boat.
In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world. —Federico Garcia Lorca
by Jim Bellomo | Jul 1, 2024 | Uncategorized
This is the last post of a 30-day trip. It is going to be written over a very long day or two. I am starting this while sitting in the lobby of the Hilton Garden Inn at London Heathrow. It is 6:08 a.m. here in London. We flew in here from Copenhagen on SAS yesterday, and we will fly home at 12:45 p.m., arriving at SeaTac in Seattle at 2:30 p.m. this afternoon. So it is going to be a long day.
The worst part of any vacation for us is flying…and airports—just the total hassle of them. As we have gotten older, it becomes more and more of a hassle every time. I do my best to make it better, and some stupid thing (like yesterday’s screwup on Passport Control in Copenhagen) screws up the entire plan. I will let you know how the whole day went before I finish this post.
Air travel is also strange. It messes with my head. For instance, I sit here now in London at 6:00 am, knowing that before I go to bed tonight, in my own bed, in Redmond, I will have boarded a plane, flown nine hours, gotten off the plane, cleared Passport Control again, been driven home, unpacked, gone shopping for groceries, grabbed takeout Mexican food from Ooba, eaten it and watched a few TV shows we have to catch up on. By the time my head hits the pillow in Redmond, it will be 5:00 a.m. here in London. When is Scotty going to invent the Star Trek Transporter so they can just beam me up and beam me down? That’s what I want.
I should also add that we have those miserable Virgin Atlantic Upper-Class seats to contend with on the way home. No recline unless you flip them into a bed. And while I can usually sleep on the way out from the USA to Europe, going back is much worse as it never gets dark. When we arrive, it will only be a couple of hours before my usual bedtime, but at the same time, the middle of the afternoon and there will be lots of stuff I need to do…one of them is getting back on schedule for PDST.
So, let’s get this review of our Viking Venus cruise on the way. To sum it up in one sentence, although there were tiny things that irked us just a little bit, this may have been the best overall cruise experience we have had (other than Celebrity Flora in the Galapagos—but that’s a yacht, not a cruise ship) so far. And this is our 39th cruise. That says a lot.
What we loved
- Our Stateroom. I detailed that with photos on this page you will find by clicking here. Stateroom 5030, our home for the last two weeks, is ideal. Big enough that I am not stubbing my toes to get around the bed, it has plenty of storage, a great verandah and, as far as I am concerned, the perfect spot on the ship. Deck five on a Viking ship means only two flights up (I never take elevators on a cruise except to bring luggage on or off the ship) to the buffet and Explorer’s Lounge (my favorite place on a Viking Ship) and only three flights down to the specialty restaurants, the Living Room and to get off and on the ship in most ports.
- The ship. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And to my eye, Viking Ocean ships are just about perfect when it comes to appearance. Nothing ever jars my eye. The color palette for the entire ship just works for me. Some folks say it’s just Viking and IKEA getting together to design a ship. Well, if that is the case, that’s fine with me. But it is a really high-end IKEA. Just think of Scandinavian design. Clean, muted, nothing jarring. No flashy colors. No Las Vegas at all! See photos of what I mean in a previous post by clicking here.
- The quiet. Even though there is music in some venues sometimes (I wished the pianist in the Living Room had played a little softer the night we had drinks there), it is a very quiet ship. There is always someplace I can go and sit in silence to write, process photos, read or have a conversation. But the one place that breaks this for me is The Restaurant (a Viking ship’s main dining room), which I find to be VERY loud. Other than that, I love the quiet.
- The crew. I mentioned in a previous post. They are the best overall crew we have ever sailed with.
- Itinerary. This was a good one. Some of my closest friends would have disliked the temperatures. They prefer warmer weather. We like the cold. That’s why we live in Washington State. It’s cold but not too cold, wet but not too wet (Seattle averages 37 inches of rain a year/Bergen 88 inches of rain a year), and perfect for us. I always prefer cold over hot. You can always put on another sweater or jacket if you get too cold, but once you are naked, you can’t get any cooler without AC ?. I would have picked Norway as the most beautiful place on earth if we hadn’t been to Scotland before the cruise. We loved every port we stopped in (I will forgive Bergen for one teen’s actions), and we have already told others they must do this cruise. Kathleen said to remind you that the weather changes by the minute. We didn’t get snow, but our full day in Bergen is a great example. We went up the funicular in beautiful sunshine, barely a cloud in the sky. An hour after coming down, the rain was also coming down…horizontally. A deluge we had to take shelter from for an hour (with lunch), and then it was back to sunshine.
- Embarkation and disembarkation. Smoothest ever! Less than 20 minutes from car to ship on the front end and 10 minutes from ship to car on the back end. It doesn’t get much better than that unless it’s during a pandemic and no one else is getting on or off. OK, river cruises are easier but I am talking ocean here.
- Cruise Director Andre Gaffney and his activity staff. He does outstanding port talks—lots of info. And for us, the best part was that his port talks were televised live every afternoon (before a port day), so we could have a cocktail from our included mini-bar while we watched the port talk from our stateroom before dinner. It became our routine. His announcements during the cruise were also excellent. His assistant (I am so sorry that I can’t remember her name) runs the best trivia game at sea. She is excited, in control and asks questions that are just hard enough to challenge you but not too hard so that she stumps everyone. I just wish the trivia had been at a different time. They were either at noon or 8:00 p.m. At noon, I have lunch, and at 8:00 p.m. I am in bed.
- Entertainment was perfect for us ?. I put the emoji on there because, for us, on a Viking ship (river or ocean), the entertainment means watching Downton Abbey on our stateroom television. We just don’t do shows anymore. I guess we are old or just jaded—they all seem the same. So after dinner, it was back to the stateroom where I would process photos, Kathleen would read, and we would watch an episode of Downton. Of course, we have already seen the entire series (and both movies) when they first came out, but it’s nice to catch up with old characters we love again. And we only watch it on Viking ships. So, on our 3-week Med cruise in the fall of 2022, we watched seasons one, two and a little of season three. On our December 2023 Christmas Market River cruise, we watched the rest of season three and a little of season four. We finished four, five and the first three episodes of season six on this cruise. Guess what we will watch on our October 2025 Douro River cruise ??
- Shore excursions. Every single Viking-included excursion (even the one on Orkney) was better than any of the included excursions on our 2022 Viking Sky Mediterranean cruise. My favorites were our guides in Greenwich, Tromsø and Geiranger. We did feel a little short-changed in Lerwick when our excursion was cut from 2.5 to 1 hour. Not cool. But the rest of them were great. And all the “luxury motor coaches” were pretty nice.
Let’s talk about the food
We ate in the following spaces (in order of the number of times we ate there), and this is what we thought of them:
(Before we start, a word about the Steve Test. My brother Steve created this test about six cruises ago. It works like this: If you eat in a restaurant while traveling, and that restaurant is near you once you get home, would you go there again?)
- The Restaurant/Main Dining Room. We ate there once. For lunch. On a sea day. When the sea was at its worst, rocking and rolling. We figured we should go there then because no one else would be there and because it was close to the water and much less rocking than the buffet on deck seven. We were right about the rocking and the emptiness. We were four of about 30 people there. Still, it was a little louder than the buffet, and the food was basically meh. I had a dry Rueben sandwich that was not on rye bread, had little Russian dressing and came with almost cold fries. The service could have been more consistent as well. See why we don’t eat there? That’s a fail on the Steve test.
- The Chef’s Table. This is one of the ship’s specialty restaurants. It features a fixed menu. They rotate three menus throughout the cruise. You can see the menu on the Viking app or on your television and know what menus are coming up. The only problem is that you can’t see them three months before the cruise when making reservations. We had reservations for two nights. When we got on board and looked at the three menus that would rotate through our cruise, we canceled our first reservation. Three people in our party of six could not (allergies) or would not (preference) eat anything in the first three courses. We did keep our second reservation, and when we got there, the menu did not match what was on the app or our TV. Thankfully, the menu had turned to a Mexican meal, and everyone could and would eat all of it except the first course. It was very good and restored my faith in The Chef’s Table. The food was excellent. The molé sauce was a LOT better on Oceania Vista but the rest was great. That’s a pass on the Steve test, but only for this menu.
- Manfredis. This is Viking’s Italian specialty restaurant. We ate here twice on our previous 21-night Viking Ocean cruise, and once Kathleen got food poisoning, and the other time was just meh. This time, there was no food poisoning, but it was still meh—just not great Italian food. Maybe I say that because I am half Italian, love to cook Italian food and love a great Italian restaurant. We went to one in Glasgow (Banca di Roma), and on a scale of 1-10, the one in Glasgow was a nine, and Manfredis is barely a three. This does NOT pass the Steve test—FAIL! Come on, Viking, you can do better.
- Mamsens. This is a small deli-type place just inside the door of The Explorer’s Lounge. They serve amazing Norwegian waffles with fruit, sour cream and brown cheese for breakfast, which I love. You can also get substantial pastries there. Actual Norwegian bakery goods. YUM! At lunch, they have great open-face sandwiches that I also like a lot. When we were on Viking Sky, there were usually three choices: two meats and one seafood. On Venus, there were just two choices (one less meat), so we ate there less as Kathleen couldn’t eat the seafood choice. But they still pass the Steve test with flying colors. I could eat breakfast there every day.
- The Pool Grille. I love this place. It’s out by the pool with delicious hamburgers, hotdogs, a few salads, fries and onion rings. It’s in the open air when the weather is good (it has a roof that opens and closes). I ate a few lunches there and loved the food. It’s a big fat PASS on the Steve test. I would eat here once a week if it were near our house.
- The World Cafe/Buffet. As you know, if you have followed along, we ate here for most dinners, about half of our lunches and breakfasts. We thought the food was of high quality and well cooked, and the hot was usually hot, and the cold was usually cold.One of the nicest surprises was the new Asian counter, where you could get some excellent Asian food prepared in front of your eyes. And the two guys that worked that counter were great! What we didn’t like (compared to our Viking Sky cruise in 2022) was that there seemed to be less selection. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying there weren’t plenty of choices every day. It was always a completely full buffet. But the same food was often repeated over and over again. For instance, on the first night, Steve and I were thrilled to find a massive seafood display with ceviches, seafood salads, salmon, marinated octopus, and so much more. There was also an outstanding selection of sushi on the opposite side from the fish…but it was exactly the same EVERY NIGHT! I mean, in 14 days, how often can you eat the same fish dishes or the same sushi? At lunch, that seafood spot was the salad bar. But at night, that went away. That means if you just wanted a salad for dinner, you better like seafood because that’s all there was.There was too much red meat. I mean a lot of red meat. Beef, venison, veal, lamb…all stuff we love, but too much of it. Kathleen said, “It was like your choices were red meat or seafood. If you want to eat vegetarian for a night, good luck.” There were always steamed veggies but very few vegetarian entrées. We loved the red meat dishes but we are going to have to go full vegan for a few weeks to get over this cruise.Lastly, pizza on Venus was the WORST I HAVE EVER HAD on land or sea. I am a pizza lover. I make the best pizza I know of. Of course, I am a little bit prejudiced. During the entire cruise, they only had three kinds: Margherita, cheese, and one night, they even threw some mushrooms on one. It was just awful.
Overall, the food was as good as any cruise we have ever been on, except last year’s cruise on Oceania Vista. It just needs a little bit of improvement. We ate too much. Here are some food pictures to make you hungry.
The Asian station…
…in the World Cafe.
Our Chef’s Table. An octopus amuse bouche.
The appetizer…a very good tamale
A wonderful granita to cleanse our palette. z
Ribs in molé for our entrée
A very chocolate dessert.
One night there was a HUGE cheese presentation in the buffet
Just some great food…
…to look at…
From entrée to…
sides….
…to desserts.
And of course gelato.
What we DID NOT love
Nothing. I can’t find a single thing I really disliked. It was just as we expected, except that the ports were so much better than we thought they would be. As you all know, I was unhappy about the speed of the internet, but that wasn’t Viking’s fault. The problem lies with Elon Musk, Starlink and a lack of satellites at the poles. Get with it, Musk.
x
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. —Seneca
