Andorra

I'm doing a very bad job of keeping up with our blog posts.

On Friday, October 10:
From Bilbao, we drove to the small principality of Andorra, which is governed by co-princes -- one from Spain, the other from France. It was a 6 1/2 hour drive, largely in the rain with a LOT of tolls. We did get to drive a bit through the French countryside on a very narrow, winding road. Scott would have loved to have had his Lotus on those turns. Fortunately, we had a break from the rain during that stretch of the trip.

Andorra is beautiful. We both think it looked a lot like the Argyle Forest in Scotland on the drive in -- steep mountains, Scot pines, and a few trickling waterfalls and brooks. There were a number of cows on the sides of the mountains, some right along the roadside. I think it's the first time I've seen cows actually wearing cowbells.  

Once we were amidst the small towns sprinkled along the mountainside, it was typical ski-towns with buildings made of stone and timber. It's all very pretty!

We're staying in the very small town of Erts, which is in the northwest part of Andorra -- very near the Spain and France borders. The capital (Andorra la Vella) is a big shopping mecca. We did lots of walking and looking but no shopping. Most of it was brands we could get back home and wasn't worth the exchange rate or lugging it back in our bags. It's tough to compare prices with those at home since I don't shop a lot, but they were supposedly discounted and I believe tax free.

We left on Sunday -- staying in each city/town on our trip just 2 nights -- and exited through Spain to Barcelona. That drive was pretty as well although not as dramatic as the one to Andorra from the French side.

I haven't downloaded photos from this part of our trip yet, but will update the posts with photos at some point.

Today, we arrived in Seville -- after Barcelona, so I have at least 2 more posts to complete before we return home. 

Bilbao

It rained much of our drive from Madrid to Bilbao yesterday and was still drizzling when we went out to explore last night. But today was very nice -- mostly sunny and highs in the 70s.

The Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao

We slept in late and went to the Guggenheim Museum. The entire 2nd floor and one exhibit on the 1st floor were closed as they prepared for new installations, so tickets were discounted. The famous Puppy out front was also covered with scaffolding as they replaced the previous flowers covering the sculpture with pansies.

And, of course, we walked, and walked, and walked as we often do when on vacation -- exploring Bilbao street by street. We stopped in one of the many bars/restaurants along the street for the obligatory tapas (in Basque: pintxos -- pronounced pinchos), a beer and glass of red wine. 

Then we went to the grocery store for a few drinks and snacks for our drive to Andorra tomorrow. It's a 6 1/2 hour drive. We'll go along the coast of northern Spain through San Sebastian and through France to get there. 

We'll begin our nightly quest for dinner soon. It's currently 8:22 p.m. here, and no one eats before 8 -- although some articles say not before 9 or 10 p.m. It seems mighty late to us, but I'm sure we'll get used to it by the time we leave Spain. :-) Here's an interesting article about it from the New York Times earlier this year.

Beginning our vacation in Spain

We arrived in Spain yesterday - taking a direct flight from Atlanta to Madrid. I wasn't able to sleep on the plane at all; the flight seemed to go quickly even though it was approximately 8 1/2 hours. So, we spent much of our 1st day in Spain napping.

We did go out and walk around a bit, grabbed a quick snack and drink at Starbucks to take advantage of the free wifi. Then had dinner at an Italian restaurant just down the street from our hotel. It was just what we needed -- simple and casual. Neither of us felt like dressing up or waiting for a table.

Granted we didn't see much of Madrid, but I wasn't overly impressed. Nice, metropolitan city, but nothing really stuck out about it.

Today, we took a taxi to the Hertz rental car location nearest our hotel and drove to Bilbao. With traffic, it was almost a 4 hour trip. That's almost 2 hours shorter than the train because the train makes so many stops along the route from Madrid to Bilbao. That was the biggest factor in our deciding to rent a car.

It rained on us a good bit of the way. Most of interior Spain was dry, brown and dotted with rocky mountains. It reminded me of New Mexico. The closer we got to Bilbao, the greener it got -- more like the Argyle forest of Scotland.

We haven't ventured out to explore Bilbao yet. Scott's resting after the drive and I'm catching upon email, online news, etc.

Hopefully we'll have photos to post tomorrow.

Mount St. Helens & Mount Rainier

A stop along the drive

From Portland, we drove out to Mount St. Helens. It was a 2 1/2 - 3 hour drive because we chose to go all the way out to the Johnston Ridge Observatory. There were other visitors centers that were closer to Portland and closer to our final destination (Packwood, Washington), but we couldn't resist the view Johnston Ridge offered.

For those who do not know: At 8:32 Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted and blew down or scorched 230 square miles of forest.

At the observatory / visitor's center where you can start you hikes

We didn't hike much around Mount St. Helens. We just went up the trail a bit to a higher view point - taking photos of some of the wildflowers along the way. We watched the 15-minute movie and meandered through the exhibitions.

After a couple of hours, we started our drive to Packwood, Washington where we were staying for our visit to Mount Rainier. It was another 3-hour drive to get there. As a crow flies, it's less than 60 miles away, but because of all the mountain ridges and rivers / streams, we had to drive almost twice that. There is a shorter driving route that takes the exact same length of time because of the winding roads -- all "forest roads." We had hoped to take that scenic route, but it was closed.

Packwood is a tiny town -- with 2 gas stations, 2 coffee huts, a grocery store and a few restaurants to accommodate the "tourists" but not much else. After checking into our motel, we went to the local pizza place. It was pretty good. After dinner, we went to the grocery story to get some drinks and snacks for the room, our drive and our hikes.

The motel was really nice. The Mount Rainier area was the only place we had a hard time finding a vacancy since we were booking so close to our actual trip. So, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the room. The complimentary breakfast was okay. The eggs and sausage were blah and the sausage gravy was pretty horrible. But they had a make-your-own waffle station, so that made up for it!

Mount Rainier - near Myrtle Falls

After breakfast, I had a quick work conference call. I was surprised to have such clear phone service because we didn't have service in most of the areas around Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier. It certainly teaches you not to rely solely on technology (i.e. Google Maps on my phone), but we were prepared.

We got to the main visitor center and trailhead at Mount Rainier via a lovely drive through the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. We stopped at a number of scenic viewpoints along the way and then opted to hike some of the "easy" trails around the Paradise area. Perhaps I'm out of shape, the altitude was getting to me or we accidentally ventured onto some more strenuous trails...or all three, but the hike certainly got the better of me. The mountain ascends to 14,410 feet above sea level; our hike started at about 5,500 feet and seemed to be straight up.

The mountain was beautiful though along with the waterfalls, patches of snow and newly bloomed wildflowers. And it was a nice warm, sunny day although it started out a bit breezy. It definitely paid off to dress in layers. Despite putting on sunscreen, Scott and I both ended up with slight sunburns on our face and necks. Fortunately, it wasn't too bad.

After hiking for a few hours, we hopped back in the car, drove west through the remainder of the national park and forest area. It was another 3-hour drive to our hotel in downtown Seattle. We arrived at rush hour, but it wasn't too bad, especially since we could use the HOV lanes once we got close to Seattle.

I'll post soon about our time in Seattle -- perhaps tomorrow evening.

Two Days In Portland

For this year's vacation, we're largely staying in the U.S. -- gasp! We figured it was about time to see more of our own country, and with our varied schedules, we weren't able to find a time frame when our calendars aligned until less than 2 weeks ahead of time. So, planning for a mainly U.S. vacation made the most sense. Our journey started in Portland, then takes us through Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier before heading on to Seattle. From there, we spend the weekend in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (not to be confused with Vancouver, Washington). And finally, we spend a few secluded days on Orcas Island in Washington before taking a red-eye back to Atlanta.

So, here's a summary of our time in Portland:

Day 1 -- Our 5-hour flight landed in Portland around 3 or 3:30 p.m. We picked up our rental car and drove to our hotel in the city center. After getting settled into our hotel, we walked just across the street to the river walk. We had an early dinner at Little River Cafe. Scott had a burger with blue cheese and caramelized onions. I had a burger with brie and apples. We ate outside looking over the river with a beautiful view of Mount St. Helens [correction: Mount Hood] in the distance. It was a gorgeous, sunny, warm day. Very little humidity and a high in the upper 70s. 

Believe this was Peaches and Cream

The food gave us a bit of fuel, and feeling more energized than we expected after a long day of traveling, we explored the walking path along the river and ended up at the Oregon Brewers Festival, which we hadn't planned on attending until the next day.The Festival is an annual event (the last weekend of July each year), and it was only by coincidence that our trip coincided with the festival days. There were more than 80 different craft beers from around the country. Purchase a glass ($7) and you could buy a full glass ($4) or sample ($1) from the ginormous selection. The festival area was huge! And there were tons of people there! I'd love to see the attendance numbers. It was crazy...almost overwhelming. I wish we had taken a picture of the crowds, but we were too busy trying to get in the right lines. Over the 4 days of the festival, they had more than 80,000 people from around the world. I'm not sure how they were counting. If it was just by the # of bracelets they gave out, there are likely some doubling up going on because of people like us who got a bracelet on Saturday and another on Sunday. There was no price for admission, and they just gave you a bracelet to make it easier for the beer pourers to know your ID had been checked.

After trying a few beers, we walked back to the hotel and vegged.

Day 2 -- We were up early (still on Eastern time). It was a very overcast and chilly morning. We had a great late breakfast at Mother's Bistro & Bar. The wait time was about 40 minutes. From what I understand, that's pretty standard at this popular place -- especially brunch time on a Sunday. Fortunately, they take your cell phone number and text you when your table is ready, so you can walk around if you'd like rather than idling around in the crowded waiting area or outside. 

So, we did opt to walk around a bit while we waited, which is a good thing, because after all that we consumed we certainly benefited from walking off a few calories first. We started with a large pecan cinnamon roll that we shared. Then, Scott had one of the daily specials -- eggs benedict with a phenomenal homemade hollandaise sauce. I had a pork apple sausage and cheddar cheese scramble. Both came with incredibly delicious roasted potatoes. Yum, yum!

From there, we walked off more of our breakfast and went to the Portland Saturday Market, which takes place on Saturdays and Sundays. It was okay, but not particularly impressive. A lot of booths, but most of the crafts weren't that high quality. We didn't buy anything, but it was fun to amble about.

The sun came out around noon just as we were headed to the Brewers Festival again. There was a MUCH lighter crowd on Sunday. When we first arrived, there weren't ANY lines, and while we only stayed a couple of hours, the lines didn't get very long at all. Really only 2-3 of the most popular choices had any lines.

What we tried over the course of the two days:

• Swill by 10 Barrel Brewing Co.  - This was voted the favorite at the festival and was ours, too. We didn't taste it until the end of the 2nd day we attended. Otherwise, we might not have even tasted anything else. It was that good, and I'm not a beer drinker.
• Traverse Cherry Wheat by 13 Virtues Brewing
• Raspberry Wheat by Cascade Brewing
• Oddland Spiced Pear Ale by Elysian Brewing Co.
• Peaches and Cream Ale by Fearless Brewing Co. - Another of our favorites. Ranked #2 by festival goers. It smelled even better than it tasted.
• Grandma's Pecan Brown by The Dudes' Brewing Co. - Scott really liked this one, but I'm not a fan of dark beer anyway, so this one was much too bitter for my taste.
• Copperopolis by Lucky Labrador Brew Pub
• Portmunder by Old Town Brewing Co.

Voodoo Doughnut sign
(original location) 

After the festival, we went to Voodoo Doughnut, which has a bunch of crazy toppings. There was a long line, which is typical, particularly on Sundays. The Anthony Bordaine show "No Reserversations" and a number of other travel and food shows has made it famous. They have opened a couple of other locations in Portland and will open one in Denver later this year. It was worth it for the entertainment value alone. But the doughnuts were yummy, too. We got half a dozen so we could munch on them for a few days and try as many varieties as possible.

After a couple of long days of walking, we chilled for the rest of the day and had a light dinner at Chipotle.

Day 3 - (This morning) After a couple of doughnuts for breakfast, we checked out of our hotel and started early with a walk around the International Rose Test Garden. Probably not the best idea for Scott's allergies, but I enjoyed it. There were lots of roses, of course. They all started to look the same after a while, but there were a few standouts -- in appearance and smell. Photos below. Apologies for the wonky formatting.

Rock n Roll

Chris Evert

By 10 a.m., we were off to our next destination -- Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier. More about that tomorrow. 

Last night we had a little adventure. As we were preparing for bed, I tried to turn off one of the power switches and apparently flipped a breaker. Instead of just the one main light going out, all power went out including the plugs running the TV, everything (at the time, Scott also thought power was cut out to every room on the floor). It was around 11:15 or 11:20 p.m., and of course, the hotel and restaurant staff leave at 11. After trying to switch the light a few times, Scott went downstairs to see if he could find anyone still around, but they were gone. We tried to dial the emergency contact number for the hotel. When someone answered, Scott started telling her how our power was out only to discover that we had apparently dialed someone’s home phone number. Needless to say, the confused lady was unable to help resolve our dilemma. Eventually, after a bit of looking, Scott found the breaker box outside in the hallway. All was well, but it was an eventful 30 minutes.

Heidelberg Castle in the background.
Our hotel is the yellow building, second from the right.

Today was a relatively mundane day – a nice way to wind down before our return to the U.S. We started with breakfast at our hotel, something light for a change: no eggs or sausage. (I’m so over sausage.) We did have a Berliner (a ball-shaped doughnut – think: an extra-large Munchkin from Dunkin Donuts – with sugar coating and raspberry filling) along with our fruit and cheese…and Scott’s daily yogurt, of course.

After checking out of the hotel and putting our bags in the car, we spent the morning walking Heidelberg again. We bought a couple of trinkets, pretzels and gelato, of course. We probably walked for 2 hours before deciding to leave for Frankfurt. As we were leaving the market square, we saw a couple that had just married and were about to head off in their decorated convertible. A wedding on a Tuesday afternoon seems a bit unusual to me, but we’ve seen brides and grooms several times during the week while we’ve been here.

Side note: We looked into some potentially short sidetrips to fill more of a day, but ultimately decided that we’d just go on to our hotel and prepare for our return flight – mainly repacking our bags in a better manner. It will be interesting to see how much weight the bags have gained during our trip. So far, Scott and I seem to have maintained our weight on the trip, balancing out all the rich food and excessive amounts of German sausage with plenty of walking. I probably shouldn’t get my cholesterol checked any time soon though.

So, off we went to Frankfurt after a little misdirection. I apparently selected the wrong airport in the GPS, but fortunately, it wasn’t far off base. All in all, we tallied more than 1,200 miles by car and approximately 125,000 steps on foot while in Germany. Returning the rental car was pretty easy as was our walk through the airport to the hotel. We opted to return the car tonight so we didn’t have to deal with that in the morning before our flight. We had to return our car to Terminal 2, then took the Skyline train from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 and walked past the long-distance train station to the Hilton we’re staying at. It’s very conveniently located for airport travel, along with a newly opened Hilton Garden and an older Sheraton. The building is called The Squaire, and there are a number of restaurants, shops and at list one business (KPMG) here. The Squaire building looks like a glass boat / space ship. It’s neat to think that if you work at KPMG, you can hop downstairs to take a regional or long-distance train or flight so easily.

Well, that’s enough of my ramblings. We’re off to bed and should land in Atlanta by 3 p.m. Eastern U.S. time on Wednesday. A couple of days of rest, then off to Auburn for the Auburn – Arkansas football game.

Auf wiedersehen!

Rothenburg ob der Tauber & Heidelberg

It's been a great vacation. Since we last wrote, we've visited two more cities -- Rothenburg ob der Tauber (not to be confused with Rothenberg) and Heidelberg.

A walk around the wall

First, we backtracked to Rothenburg ob der Tauber -- known as the best preserved Medieval town in Germany. You can walk around the city wall -- it's sort of an elevated covered sidewalk; the whole loop takes about an hour and a half, but there are a number of places where you can climb up and down, allowing you to walk only small sections if you want.

Our hotel room

Our hotel (herrnschlösschen) here was probably one of the best of our visit. Each place we've stayed has had some superlative about it (from our perspective anyway) -- best location, best breakfast, etc. Our hotel in Rothenburg definitely wins the prize for best service. Beyond service, the room was very spacious and pretty.

One of the many pretty windows
around town

Rothenburg o. d. Tauber almost verges on Disney-like within its walls; it's so surreal, yet charming. It's definitely worth a visit and we heard good things about the Nightwatchman tour, but we were too tired to participate in that one. In fact, we're quickly fading -- a good sign that it's about time to come home.



The town square
and some "typical" German buildings



The view from our room in Heidelberg
Over Marketplatz

This morning, we drove to Heidelberg. It's less than a two-hour drive from Rothenburg. This hotel (Goldener Falke) wins the prize for best location--although it has some tough competition with our hotel in Boppard and Prague. It's located right on the Marketplatz (the old town square). A public parking garage is close by, and it's practically at the foothill of Heidelberg Castle.

Tomorrow, we'll hang out here until afternoon, then head to Frankfurt. We may find a small town to stop in between; we'll see. We leave Germany Wednesday morning (local time), so we're staying at an airport very close to the hotel.