Travel Time

Travel takes time. That is, getting from point A to point B takes time. In days of yore, travel time was measured by how far one could walk or paddle a boat in a day. In those days, the journey itself was a story. Now, instead of weeks or months, it takes hours by airplane. We spend our time positioning ourselves to get to airports early, then waiting. The journey itself has fewer stories.

The beach at Glyfada

Of twenty-nine days dedicated to our European odyssey, seven were devoted to getting to airports and waiting. I will not count the day in Reykjavik. That was by choice. But there was the night in Seattle beforehand. The flight to Paris still left a half a day to cruise the Seine. The flight to Athens pretty much took up that day. I am not sure why. All I  know is we left early and arrived in time only for dinner. I could blame it on losing an hour to a time zone. Twenty minute flights to and from Naxos do not count, but still, one has to arrive at the airport early. From Nafplio to Budapest was two days: one to position ourselves in Glyfada for the night; the next to fly to Budapest. Leaving Hungary we again positioned ourselves by the airport the night before, but that day was well spent with family so I can't write that it was all devoted to travel. But the next day was devoted to positioning ourselves by De Gaulle airport the night before we caught our return Icelandair flight to Seattle. Then we spent another night in SeaTac to position ourselves for the morning flight to Tucson, but again, that day was well spent with family so it doesn't fully count.

Our view from Bomo Club Palace

Glyfada is a nice suburb spread out on the beach east of Athens. It is also relatively near the airport, which is why we spent our last night in Greece there. Unfortunately, we were unable to enjoy the beach or a last swim in the Aegean because the beach was closed. A few days before our arrival, a rust bucket ship sank off of Athens and its oil slick reached as far as Glyfada.

The beach wasn't as bad as we feared. "The oil smell depends on the wind," said the desk clerk at our Bomo Club Palace Hotel situated between the beach and the highway, next to an ugly vacant lot with views of a rather industrial looking marina.

Bomo Club was on the city end of upscale Glyfada. Shari dubbed it the Russian hotel on account of the Russian language brochures and magazines in the lobby.

The Mycenean Arkadiko Bridge

To get to Glyfada, we had time for a leisurely drive along the north coast of the Argolid Peninsula. On the main road from Nafplio to Epidavros there is a brown road sign (brown is the color to demarcate something of touristic interest) announcing the existence of "Mycenae Bridge". We turned onto the side road and about a kilometer later saw the stone, corbel arch bridge. Once part of a military highway for chariots, the Arkadiko Bridge had survived 3,300 years of history. Further along our route, we drove the rugged coastline and occasional beaches of the Saronic Gulf, good for a couple of frappe coffees and watching the local sunbathers. Then we proceeded to the toll road in Corinth and circled around the north of Athens to get to Glyfada.

Temple of Poseidon, Sounia

The next day we had time for a leisurely drive the coast to Sounia, on the eastern point of Attica, where we saw a temple on a promontory. The small site had a nice restaurant, good for a couple of frappe coffees and watching the local tourists. Turns out it was the Temple of Poseidon, the god of the sea and sailors. In addition to worship, I reckon it must have served as a signpost for ancient mariners on their way south from the Black and Aegean Seas. "Head south until you get to the Temple of Poseidon, then make a right turn to get to Athens. You can't miss it."

View from the Novotel towards Roissy-en-France

We spent a final night in Paris because our Icelandair flight back towards Seattle left early in the morning. We stayed at the Novotel, one of a score or so large hotels clustered around a jumble of restricted access ramps surrounding Charles De Gaulle Airport. We arrived at the hotel early enough for lunch in the lobby cafe. We spent a sobering €60 for a burger, a club sandwich, and two beers.

The Novotel is a short walk from picturesque Roissy-en-France, a medieval village with a park and a stone church built in the 16th Century. The walk is short, once one navigates the jumble of hotel fences and limited access ramps. But the village is pleasant and the prices at its convenience store quite reasonable. That night we dined in our room on apples, baguette, Camembert, ham, and wine.

It is good to plan a little extra for travel time just in case something goes wrong. It did in Athens. We dutifully arrived at the airport early for our flight to Budapest, but our scheduled airplane arrived an hour late at Gate B-9. We boarded and waited. Technical difficulties. Some twenty minutes later, all passengers were told to disembark and take their carry-on baggage with them. We did. We waited by Gate B-9 for about an hour. I could see mechanics fussing around one of the wheels under the right wing.

We boarded again. The airplane taxied on the tarmac ready to turn for the take-off when it started making a horrible grinding sound. The pilot taxied off to the side where all passengers were told to disembark and take their carry-on baggage with them. Busses took us back to Gate B-9 in the terminal building. Amazing to us, Aegean Airlines had an extra jet available. It pulled into the gate, loaded our baggage from the first plane, and we boarded a third time.

As the attendant scanned our frayed boarding pass for the third time, Shari joked that it might have worn out. The attendant smiled. As our neighbor in the aisle seat sat down (we typically surged in early; he was more deliberate) we joked, "Nice to see you again."

Shari is a master at working the self-serve check-in machines.
Arriving early at Athens for our flight to Budapest.

We flew to Budapest some three and a half hours late.

It was on the plane that we checked the paperwork for the rental car that Shari had reserved at the Budapest Airport. The plan was to drive the car in the afternoon across town to our hotel on Castle Hill. We noticed that on Mondays, the U-Save office closes early, at 8 PM. It was Monday. We got really nervous. The flight pulled into the gate at 7:50 PM. Shari and I executed our a plan. She stayed by the baggage and I ran outside to the arrival hall to find the car rental desk.

Now the curious reader might wonder, why didn't we just make a phone call? We still had one smart phone in operation. (See Gamers Warehouse.) It was not just because the call would have cost $10. We tried, only to discover that we did not know how to dial the number, country code and all that.

In a previous post I have already mentioned my skepticism regarding out-of-local-context business names designed to attract tourists. They were the Nemo's and Flamingo named restaurants in Naxos. I could add Orange Car Rental at Keflavik Airport, Iceland. I am adding the name U-Save which certainly is not a Hungarian name.

Like Orange, U-Save does not have an office by the arrival hall. One has to connect with a person carrying a placard bearing your name or that of U-Save. That person gives you a ride to the car rental office hidden somewhere in the airport environs, but not near enough to walk and drag baggage. The arrival hall was crowded with placard-bearing Hungarians and tired and mournful looking tourists hoping to find their connections.

There was an information counter. I had my first opportunity to try out my Hungarian. The young man at the counter was a bit surely. Poor fellow had to deal with throngs of impatient and concerned foreigners trying to figure out how to connect with their car rental, or how to get transportation to the city, or how to find a toilet. Turns out, the young man spoke English and disliked struggling with his basic knowledge of Hungarian. When I slipped in some English words, he complained about the difficulty of Hungarian (actually, he used a strong word to describe his frustration with the language) and suggested we stick to English. "Call them" he suggested. I said we were unable to phone. "Okay, since you made the effort to speak Hungarian." He made the call, spoke with someone at U-Save, then announced the girl would meet me there shortly. "Don't worry. They should be happy getting paid overtime."

I figured I had time to return to Shari. I ran back inside the airport, down long corridors, and in through the "no entry" exit to the baggage claim area. Fortunately, there was no guard to prevent me. I found Shari and we rushed back to the information counter and waited.

A regular queue of distraught travelers attended the information counter. They struck me like penitents waiting for their confessions to be heard. I could see the same young man at the counter, his name was Zoltán (there must have been a story there, but I didn't ask), rolling his eyes in disgust at some query he regarded as silly.

The crowd thinned as an hour passed. I asked Zoltán to telephone again. By this time, he had long forgotten who I was. Reminded, he made the call. Turned out that the young girl had been there a long time before but could not find me.

The good news was we ended up driving through the center of Budapest at night when traffic was less. We had been concerned about finding our way. I worry about driving in any unfamiliar big city, much less in the dark. Shari worried because Hungarian is completely foreign to her. We only made one wrong turn and arrived at our hotel at about twenty minutes before ten.

But I am ahead of myself because this post is about travel time. Budapest is a different subject.

Naxos

If the criterion is simply vacating then our favorite place was Naxos.

Naxos is a twenty minute flight from Athens to an airport the size of a small bus station. It is a Greek island in the Aegean known more for growing its own food than rowdy nightlife. It has long, sandy beaches and a long waterfront, both lined with outdoor restaurants, cafes and taverns. It has sunny warm weather and bright blue warm seas. Naxos has artisan shops in narrow, winding and steep footpaths in old Greek and Venetian sections of town, and in the mountain villages of its countryside.

We stayed four nights in the four-star Nissaki Beach Hotel where we joined our good friends who had inspired our European odyssey in the first place: Ron and Jane. Both are old hands in Greece. Ron's mother is Greek and he speaks the language fluently, from what I could observe. So we have a great place, a great hotel, great companions, and very friendly and sympathetic local guides.

I could easily show some photos and write "nuf said" and end this post. You would get the idea. But it's too much fun to reminisce, savor, and rub it in.

The island town (the hora) is its harbor, a marina crowded with pleasure boats and fishing boats. Large island-hopping ferries take turns pulling to the end of its large pier to deliver and pick-up vehicles and baggage-toting tourists. At the far end of the waterfront is a rocky promontory with the ancient ruin of a temple that was dedicated to Apollo. Two columns and a cross piece have been stood up to serve as a sort of romantic symbol for the town.

Over the harbor and its old Greek town looms a steep hill. On its slopes is the old Venetian town. On the top is what is left of the Venetian fortress and, somewhat of a rarity in Orthodox Greece, a still functioning Catholic church. Both old towns are labyrinths of streets too narrow and too steep for anything but pedestrians and, in times of yore, probably donkeys.

I saw one man, in his late thirties or early forties, huffing, puffing and perspiring as he walked uphill carrying a shopping bag. "Tourist," I thought to myself, "not used to the climb." The man made a sharp turn, up a few narrow steps, and into his home.

No map, Google with GPS or otherwise, can help a person navigate streets with steps and houses built over them. It is a matter of taking paths that go up to get to the fortress, or down to get to the waterfront.

I love walking, so Naxos Hora is ideal.

The routine was simple. We woke up early and enjoyed a cup of strong java from the "individual coffee maker" in our room — the kind that injects small plastic tubs of coffee with a lever that could serve as a fire alarm pull. We would take a quick sunrise dip in the calm Aegean.

We loaded up plates from the generous buffet that included all manner of Greek main courses and desserts in addition to a broad array of more traditional breakfast items. We carried our plates to the outdoor, beach-side tables where the hostess would bring us glasses of freshly squeezed sweet orange juice. I waked the beach south, and Ron and I walked north by the marina to the causeway leading to temple of Apollo. We admired the older locals who had left their towels and clothes on the rocks and were bathing in the sea wearing white hats and gossiping.

Late morning was sunbathing time by the hotel swimming pool, taking occasional dips in the pool to cool off. There was time to read a guidebook or catch up on the internet or order a drink. Lunch was light — if we hadn't saved a dessert from the breakfast buffet and taken it to our room, the maid did.

Ron checks out the Catholic Community Center

Daily we made plans for an excursion, then executed the plan.

Our first night we dined on the beach, literally. Stretches of outdoor restaurants extend north (the hora waterfront) and south (the beach) from our hotel. On the beach, restaurants, cafes and taverns have tables and chairs set out on the sand. Whether eating at a small beach place or at the considerably more upscale restaurant in our hotel, it's all good, and not just because of the preparatory ouzo.

Ron and I walked up to the old Venetian town to locate the place where we planned to see an outdoor screening of Zorba the Greek. Turns out it was at the Catholic church on top of the hill. Meanwhile, Shari and Jane went shopping. As one indication of how much Shari eased into Greek island life, she bought not one but two bikinis.

The Venetian church has a large hall, the Cultural Center, which has an equally large deck with commanding views of the harbor and nearby islands. The Cultural Center has periodic screenings of movies (Zorba, Casablanca, and Mama Mia) and hosts classical and folk concerts. For the admission fee you get your choices of complimentary wine, ouzo, juice and soft drinks. The screenings take place in the large courtyard in front of the hall. A wall hides the spacious courtyard, hall and deck from the narrow walkways that serve as streets. Stepping from the tight spaces through a narrow wooden door, the hidden generous spaces come as a surprise.

Nemo's and its picturesque "fisherman" restauranteur

Obviously, the Venetians who ruled Naxos and much of coastal Greece for three centuries did not have automobiles or their streets would have been wide and blessed with parking lots.

For our Zorba evening we dined at Nemo's, one of the many restaurant-tavernas that line the waterfront. Ordinarily, I would not chose a local place with an imported name obviously chosen to attract foreigners, but our food was typical Greek, meaning fresh and excellent.  The movie Zorba was even better than we remembered, but I always have a very hard time when the Cretan villagers murder the Irene Pappas character.

Apeiranthos village on Naxos

Ron drove us to a mountain village where we admired the ceramics, snacked on "toasties" (grilled sandwiches), then admired the sunset as we headed back down to Naxos Hora.


Our last night we had dinner at a bouzouki restaurant. Situated in a shaded courtyard a little up the hill from the waterfront, just below a local Orthodox church, it features a duo of bouzouki and guitar players and what struck us as a resident Greek folk dancer. Despite its name, Flamingo, which violates my rule against tourist-named local venues, the restaurant served excellent Greek food. The duo played and sang local songs.

The dancer, a middle aged, balding, lanky framed man, and very charming, was adept at numerous dramatic movements timed to the exotic beats of Greek music. It was this planted dancer who coaxed several women into getting up and line dancing with him. Actually, two women needed little coaxing. I think they were regulars. Others also joined in the circles, Shari and Jane included.

Dinner on the beach

The best part for us, and I suspect others, was when the duo slipped into playing a well known, old and very traditional Turkish song, Mustafa. Shari, joined by a small crowd, got up for the familiar rhythm. Shari slipped into some belly dancing moves that the dance leader admired, and even I got up and shook my booties.

The next morning, we bid farewell to Ron and Jane. Our turboprop puddle jumper returned us to Athens where we picked up our rental Beemer and navigated our way over toll roads to Nafplio. We enjoyed the Peloponnese, its history, old Venetian towns, sunny weather, gentle Aegean, shopping, and food. But in terms of sheer vacating, it's tough to beat Naxos with friends.

Gamers Warehouse

I have new found respect for gamers.

My smart phone died a month ago on Naxos. It just crashed. Attempts to reboot it were hopeless. Only wearing out the battery stopped it from a hopeless and continuous reboot cycle. I used Shari's iPad to research the web. The technical term for my problem was "brick". That is, my smart phone was as useful as a brick; or a paperweight.

Occasionally it did boot up so I managed to do a factory reset. That's when you wipe out all your data and the Android operating system is re-installed. It seemed to work, but then it crashed again and the reboot never again worked. I figured it was a hardware problem that had to be fixed back home.

We made it back to Tucson and I looked up smart phone repairs. I decided to use a local outfit called "Quick Fix". Almost two weeks later and me having to call Trevor almost every day, he gave up. First they blamed the battery. A new battery did nothing. Then they blamed software and Trevor was their software man, a very busy software man. Hence the need to call him regularly. I had to remind him that I already did a "factory reset" with no beneficial effect. I asked him to swap out hardware parts to see if that was the problem. He insisted upon re-installing the operating system anyway, then admitted he had no access to the Verizon version of Google Android so he gave up. Neither Quick nor Fix.

This morning I took my "brick" to Verizon, not a Verizon franchise, but the Verizon-owned store itself where we bought my top-of-the-line Motorola Droid 2 for $624 less than two years ago. They are very helpful in that store. Andrew fiddled with my phone and concluded it was a software problem. We explored options of replacing my "brick" with an upgrade. Andrew spent a good fifteen minutes on the Verizon website looking for good deals. Have you ever tried to price smart phone service off a website? It's about as user-friendly as interpreting a phone company invoice. His conclusion was that I was looking at $500-$800 for a comparable phone after every discount that Verizon corporate permitted him.

What about just getting my "brick" fixed? Andrew didn't recommend sending it back to the factory, and I didn't ask why. His discouragement was enough. "Got any recommendations locally to get it fixed?" Andrew gave me three: All Mobile Matters (a local place inside Tucson Mall) and the national chains Best Buy Geeks and Batteries Plus Bulbs. Each one, Andrew assured me, was certified to reformat my phone and reinstall the Verizon version of Google Android.

Among the last photos my Droid 2
took on Naxos before its
motherboard failed. It now serves
as my wallpaper.

The young man at All Mobile Matters scoffed at the idea of doing any software work. They only replace broken displays. Ditto for the Geeks at Best Buy. Nobody does software, she said. Ditto for Batteries Plus Bulbs, but the manager did call Gamers Warehouse and recommended that I try them.

I figured Gamers Warehouse was my last hope before returning to the Verizon store with Shari to pick out a new iPhone. The business name did not inspire much confidence and its Tucson Mall location is hidden on the second floor behind Dillard's in a corridor where no one goes. But it had a sign advertising smart phone repairs, and its window display consisted of a pile of many hundreds of discarded, disemboweled smart phones.

All this time, my "brick" kept trying to reboot and failing. The guy at Gamers Warehouse saw the pathetic reboot recycle, heard me explain that I had done a "factory reset" myself, and quickly concluded "motherboard". He explained that the labor for anyone to reformat and reinstall would be expensive, but a new motherboard would cost $112 including his labor. Bargain.

"Wait a minute, I may have one in back." He reappeared with an open Droid and explained he had cannibalized it for the camera. Its motherboard would fit just fine. I didn't ask questions.

An hour and a half later, I returned and the phone has been working ever since. I have new found respect for gamers. I also have a restored confidence in my own hunch, having done the factory reset and the damned thing still crashed, that it was a hardware problem.

Αθήνα και Ελλάδα (Athens and Greece)

Dinner at the Divani Palace Hotel

For our trip to Greece, Shari invested seven months of weekly two-hour Greek lessons. She can read Greek letters, she knows polite phrases that bring smiles to Greek faces, and we made a good friend in her Greek teacher.

Shari did a lot of preparation, planning and organizing. We both enjoy reading history. But when you come down to the fundamentals of traveling to a famous part of the world for the first time, it's different. One can read about Attica, Lacedaemonia, Argos, and the rugged Aegean coastline, but until actually seen, their reality is not fully realized.

The Corinth Canal

Shari had been to Greece before. As a seven year old she cruised on the San Marco through the Corinth canal on the way from Naples to Istanbul. As a nine year old she and her younger brother made connections for Libya at the old Athens airport near Glyfada. So she had some actual memories on which to hang a sense of Greece. The only connection to Greece I had was knowing my dad left my sister and me twice in 1967 in order to drive to Athens and visit his girlfriend.

We travel not just to vacate, sight-see, shop, eat and visit girlfriends, but to sense what it is really like in a different part of the world.

The Acropolis of Athens is amazing, especially seeing it for the first time from your hotel room balcony. That evening we dined at the hotel's rooftop restaurant, a full moon rising and the Parthenon is all lit up. It was a short walk away.

Greek honor guards

The next morning, we walked the few blocks, many paved with smooth marble, to be ready at the Acropolis entrance when it opened. Our reward, in addition to a smaller crowd, was to witness the Greek army honor guard ceremonially marching down the steep slope.

Greeks take independence and their history seriously. The following day we walked to Syntagma (Independence) Square and witnessed the changing of the guard before the monument to the unknown soldier. These are the guards wearing skirts and pom-poms on their shoes, but if you ever see them march, you will be greatly humbled before their severe discipline — and love of country. I was fighting back tears. My father was in an army. He was one of the few who survived. Boys and young men have willingly fought wars for millennia. Old men are more apt to think of the human destruction.

Syntagma (Independence) Square, Naflpio

Turns out that many Greek towns have a Syntagma Square. In Nafplio, a former capital of Greece where we stayed five nights to explore the Peloponese, Independence Square and some of the narrow streets leading to it are paved with polished marble and all reserved for pedestrians only. Locals and tourists came out in the evenings to spend time or celebrate birthdays in the outdoor restaurants, or just promenade in the huge open space, or window-shop in the narrow streets. Local children played games in the Square as parent generations watched, and a few vendors displayed battery-powered toys that they sold. An older man played a small piano for tips.

Turns out music is popular in Greece. The benefits of a mild Mediterranean climate include street music. By the time we walked down from the Athens Acropolis, there were several musicians along the marble street. One woman was folk-dancing with her young daughter to the sound of a bouzouki player. He was handsomely rewarded. As was another man playing traditional tunes on a violin. Later, as we lunched outside on Athens' main pedestrian concourse, Dionysiou Areopagitou, a band of some six college-aged musicians and singers toured the various outdoor cafes for tips.

We did not see much evidence of the failing Greek economy, but I did think it would be good for a Greek to learn to play a musical instrument and some songs, just in case.

Mycenae

Turns out many Greek towns have an acropolis. It simply refers to the highest place in a town. Understandably, the highest place is often fortified. Athens, owing to its wealth and hubris of its classical grandeur, adorned its acropolis with temples (and a treasury). From Nafplio, we could see Argos and its acropolis, a castle used by Geeks, Byzantines, and Venetians.

The old Byzantine city of Mystras

Mystras itself is an acropolis of sorts. According to the tour guides, the Byzantines liked to build their cities on heights. Mystras overlooks the fertile valley (a rare commodity in the rugged and sometimes mountainous Greek geography) once dominated by ancient Sparta. Unlike the Byzantines, the Spartans built their city brazenly in the open plain. Their protection was brawn and discipline, not fortified heights. Seeing the verdant plains of the Eurotas River is to understand why Sparta existed where it did.

View of  Sparta from Mystras

Ancient Sparta has reincarnated as the modern city of Isparta and the Eurotas valley today is still rich in agriculture. Argos, home of Jason and his Argonauts, and ancient Mycenae are also situated near plains that, even today, are green with farmlands, olive groves, and orchards. Time has been less kind to a bucolic Attica. The megapolis of Athens sprawls all over the plains, limited only by hills too rugged to develop or the protection of designated parks.

The ancient agora (marketplace) of Athens is only about 10 km. from its harbor at Pireas. By comparison, it is about 45 km. from ancient Sparta to its port at Githio. No wonder Athens traded far and wide across the Mediterranean and Black Seas while the Spartans pretty much kept to themselves.

No wonder Western civilizations are rooted in ancient Greece. It has a mild climate, rugged terrain sheltering the occasional fertile plains, and a long coastline on a sea once abundant with fish; and excellent yogurt.

Your basic Greek salad

Dinner at Mani Mani
in Athens

Which brings me to the subject of Greek food. Turns out it lives up to its reputation. Flavorful olives and olive oil, excellent produce, thick and mild yogurt, generous portions of feta cheese, pork, chicken, seafood, and wine, all laced with generous helpings of Mediterranean influences, make food in Greece a pleasure. As for the ouzo, despite daily doses before dinner, I confess I cannot distinguish between good, bad or, for that matter, between Greek ouzo and Turkish rakı.

Oh, it also turned out that driving in Greece was not as bad as we had feared. Slow drivers were much more common than the insane risk takers. The roads are generally good, albeit with little in the way of shoulders. Shari's ability to read Greek letters proved invaluable on side roads. Rugged areas have their switchbacks. Driving from Argos over the mountains to Tripoli was particularly rugged and scenic, if a little tough on the stomach.

The Greek motorways (freeways) are well maintained. Driving on them from the Athens airport to get to Nafplio, or from Isparta to get back to Nafplio, involves stopping at five or six toll booths that together collect about ten euros. But stay in the right lane or you will see the driver of a BMW up close in your rear vision mirror.

Paris: Medieval and Corsican

It is true that one could spend many days in the Louvre and still not take in everything. However, according to web reviews of the Louvre, "People typically spend up to 1.5 hours here." An average of up to one and a half hours?

Neither the lack of many days nor the short attention span of the typical tourist stopped Shari or me from enjoying most of Monday, our last full day in Paris, exploring the three wings and five floors of the famous museum.

Opening time is nine in the morning. We were an eager twenty minutes early to queue up with a small crowd before the main entrance. In pictures, I never really understood the glass pyramid. In context, the grand glass-enclosed entrance centered within the three wings of the Renaissance style palace works very well.

Once inside the large entrance hall on -2 Floor, almost the entire crowd rushed upstairs. Perhaps they were the "up to 1.5 hours" set. Others lingered by the amenities and gift shop of the entrance hall. Shari and I went downstairs under the Sully wing and below -2 Floor. That basement is where one can see the medieval foundations of the fortress that Philip II Augustus had completed in 1202. Shari and I like medieval stuff.

We also like antiquities. We spent several hours in astonishment seeing ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, Assyrian, Near Eastern, Etruscan, Greek, and Roman art and artifacts. Somehow we missed the Islamic and the arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas.

We did not miss Le Café Mollien, a delightful place for lunch. At least, it was delightful except for a clumsy gesture on my part that knocked over the glass mineral water bottle. It shattered on the bricks of the old Louvre fireplace by which we were sitting. The servers apologized to us as they swept up the broken glass.

Shari wondered if the disturbance related to an event from a prior life. Maybe there are ghosts in the Louvre. Maybe our visit or the old fireplace triggered a poltergeist.

Da Vinci's Mona Lisa in context

Refreshed and sated, we continued with a few more rooms of antiquities before ascending to the two upper floors that are stocked with paintings and other decorative arts: French, Italian, and Spanish. We skipped Great Britain/United States and the rooms with Northern European paintings were closed.

To be honest, we simply walked through crowds past many, many fine paintings. After several hours of looking at antiquities, the paintings were too much to take in.  Hence the advice that it takes many days to take in all of the Louvre.

Veronese's The Wedding Feast at Cana

But we did go inside the big room that featured the Mona Lisa. Shari remembers her previous Louvre visit when Da Vinci's portrait was just another painting on a wall. Now it has a wall to itself. The petite portrait is framed by a blank wall to permit excited crowds and tour groups to gather and take selfies without blocking access to other works.

As if an intentional contrast to the comparatively tiny 2½x1¾ foot smiling Giaconda, the opposite wall is taken up by a single gigantic oil painting, the 22x33 foot Wedding Feast at Cana by Veronese

Well, having seen and photographed the Mona Lisa, what else is there? It was time to leave the Louvre and rest.

Spritzes on the way

Restaurant L'Alivi

We got dressed for dinner at a Corsican restaurant in the Marais. Our hosts were Brigitte and Paul. Brigitte is Shari's step-sister. Paul is Corsican. The evening was only one of two opportunities for me to wear my dress coat and slacks. It was well worth packing the clothes.

Paul and Brigitte met us at our hotel. The Corsican restaurant was located in the Marais district, about a half mile away. Paris cafe culture being what it is, our walk was interrupted by stopping, probably randomly, at one of the sidewalk cafes that lined our pedestrian route. We had aperitifs: a spritz made with Apérol or another bitter, champagne or prosecco sparkling wine, and sparkling water.

It was dusk by the time we sat down for an outdoor table at Restaurant L'Alivi, named after the Corsican word for olive. Paul, who speaks no English, immediately got into a conversation with our waitress who was also Corsican. Both spoke the largely Italian-based language that is native to Corsica. Shari and Brigitte spoke in English. Paul and I could communicate a little in Spanish. The German couple sitting at the table next to us were increasingly amused at the polyglot of languages coming from our table.

Paul (Shari's "mon frère Zorba") and Tom

Brigitte, Shari & Paul

Actually, the Germans, who spoke English fluently, were finishing their meal when the four of us arrived and raised the decibel level. They had been a bit unimpressed by their restaurant experience, but they lingered to enjoy our enthusiasm over our plates of traditional Corsican cold cuts (thin slices of smoked wild boar and ham, cheeses and olives) and Paul's conversations with the waitress. We would bring the couple into the conversation occasionally, and, as the couple were making motions to leave, Paul bought them glasses of a traditional Corsican digestif, myrte — a red myrtle berry liqueur. They were smiling heartily as they left.

We were smiling heartily from our conversations, the wine, and having filled ourselves with cannelloni stuffed with Corsican cheese, my plate of shredded lamb with potatoes, and our own glasses of myrte.

As the snapshots taken by our telephones suggest, we were in high spirits after L'Alivi. Brigitte had us walk by the brightly lit Hôtel de Ville, the Paris City Hall, a great Parisian backdrop for our brightly lit foursome.

Paris, Third Time Is a Charm

Paris is beautiful, wonderful and incomparable. What can be written about Paris that doesn't read trite? Yet there is nothing trite about Paris. It is so exhilarating that I wish it were possible to preserve and bottle Parisian impressions, feelings and inspirations in order to be able to savor them, like photographs, for years to come.

I had been in Paris thirty-eight years ago, in 1979. It was only for one night. We were in transit, having arrived on the Chunnel train from London to meet my father and his rental car the next morning, then immediately drive to Hungary. There was time only for one evening and sleep. Our hotel was below Montmartre where I walked that evening, past the Moulin Rouge, to see the Sacre Coeur and hear French hippies sitting on sunny steps playing guitar and singing the Lynyrd Skynyrd song, "Sweet Home Alabama", with a sweet French accent.

The time before that was in 1967. I was thirteen. All I remember from that occasion is overcast weather, driving through the Place de la Concorde, driving by the Invalides and the Arch de Triomph, and taking a ride up the Eiffel Tower. My Dad had a car and an agenda, so to see places, we mostly just drove by them.

This third time around was magical. It began with a pleasant taxi drive from the airport to our hotel on Rue de Pont Neuf. Shari chatted with our driver, Rashid, of Moroccan Berber heritage with a degree in architecture. Shari joked about "no Trump", a disclaimer we quickly made anytime we spoke with a local. I mostly watched and video-recorded the street in front of us, increasingly mesmerized as Rashid drove deeper into old Paris. Rashid noticed me video-recording. He pointed to the small arch in front of us (the Porte Saint-Denis) saying it was the Arch de Triomph. He was pulling my leg and I fell for it, remarking it was smaller than I remembered. There is so much to see in Paris.

Our hotel, the Best Western Ducs de Bourgogne, was two blocks from Pont Neuf. I think the rooms had recently been remodeled because ours was very nice. Its elegance included USB ports intergrated with every electical outlet, a Keurig-type single cup espresso machine, and a Japanese toilet with an electronic console to adjust the built-in seat warmer and the various directions, strength and temperature of bidet showers (i.e., whether from fore or aft). The hotel's downstairs dining room was closed for remodel so our petit déjeuner arrived with room service in a paper bag, but that was a minor inconvenience. “Ducs de Bourgogne”? Any hotel named after the Dukes of Burgundy — I mean, how bad can that be?

Aboard the Seine cruise before we got up and changed seats
to get away from the insane, incessant, juvenile and
irrelevant prattle of the cell phone toting girls behind us.
Why travel and stay in Paris if you are not going
to actually be in Paris?

Shari and I settled in, locked valuables in the room safe, then walked to the Pont Neuf. We gazed at the view of the city upstream and downstream. Shari noticed a dockside sign by the quay advertising the next Bateau Mouche Seine River cruise. Somewhat spontaneously for us, we decided to buy tickets, then enjoyed an exhilarating hour of exquisite riparian city sight-seeing. We stared not just at buildings, but at people relaxing, enjoying the sun, and celebrating by the river. It was Saturday. People were sunbathing in folding deck chairs, and sitting, sipping and eating in cafes. There was even a couple in wedding dress and tuxedo posing for their wedding photographer. Several of us on the tour boat waved and hooted. The couple smiled back.

We enjoyed a simple dinner at Cafe le Zimmer founded by Alsace-French immigrants after the Franco-Prussian War, all furnished and decorated in elegantly ornate late 19th Century style. Its website states, "The Zimmer has always been popular with artists and writers, its clientele has included legendary figures such as Jules Verne, Emile Zola, Sarah Bernhardt, Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Richard Strauss, Arturo Toscanini, Edmond Rostand, Marcel Proust, Serge de Diaghilev, Guillaume Apollinaire, Igor Stravinski, Vaslav Nijinski, and Pablo Picasso among many others". It has menus in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Russian.

Shari had a hamburger and I ordered the "Layered Manchego": "Spanish cheese, artichoke heart, cured ham, all lightly seared and served on a bed of lettuce." It was still early. Even so, I enjoyed my caipirinha, marveling at how the traditional Brazilian sugarcane cachaça spirits and lime, a cocktail I had enjoyed in Brazil three decades before, had become universal in Europe. The caipirinha was faithful to the original.

After dinner, still antsy with enthusiasm, I walked to the Notre Dame for sunset and moon-rise, but it was too late to go inside. The church was closed for the night. The open space in front of the church spaciously accommodated scores of evening tourists with selfie-sticks taking portraits of themselves with the church in the background. Who can blame them? I indulged in a couple of selfies myself.

Still antsy the following morning, I again walked to Notre Dame so I could go inside and take pictures of its famous rose windows. It was Sunday morning and the faithful were hearing mass, politely cordoned off with ropes from the circling crowded flows of somewhat hushed tourists.

Shari and I also took an early stroll through the north end of the Marais district. We noticed, in addition to the usual urban homeless, several sleeping Roma families tucked beneath and between niches of buildings, resting on cardboard and comfortable bedding. Many children were sound asleep on top of their parents. (Later I, Shari asked about the street sleeping Roma from her step-sister Brigitte who manages a large charity for Cambodian children. She told us that most of them have homes in Eastern Europe and prefer to spend their summers in the streets of Paris where they can make more money begging or whatever else they do in Paris.)

That Sunday afternoon we had lunch in Montgeron. Armed with written instructions on which metro train to catch, carrying our trusty smart phone with a downloaded map of Paris and environs, carefully interpreting metro maps and ticket counter directions at the Châtelet station, but mostly relying upon Shari's innate sense of purpose and her ability to fearlessly ask strangers for directions, we successfully rode some 35 km. on two trains to reach Montgeron, a village that has remained a somewhat rural and still quiet suburb to the southeast of Paris.

We were the guests of Thibaud and Virginie Houdiniere. They are family. Shari's stepmother is Thibaud's grandmother. Shari had met Thibaud on a previous visits to Paris and Florida — but those are long stories. Suffice it to write that we were very eager to spend some time with Thibaud and his family. He and his youngest daughter, two and a half year old Apolline, were waiting for us at the Montgeron train station. Thibaud wanted to show us the short walk to their home. Apolline, sitting safely in a stroller, was eager to be with her dad to greet us.

Virginie had prepared an excellent picnic lunch served over elegant courses for which the French have so much . . . je ne sais pas . . . panache. Several kinds of sausages and salamis, pâté stuffed figs, a Thai rice, pastries, an assortment of cheeses, all accompanied by famously French baguettes. We ate on a picnic table in their walled backyard. Their two older children, Madeleine and Lysandre, alternated time riding bikes around the table, swinging on swings, and feasting on the various dishes. Thibaud took Apolline upstairs and disappeared for a few minutes. She had became tired and Thibaud read to her long enough so that she could take her afternoon nap.

It is tough to imagine a nicer Sunday afternoon.

We located a laundromat near our hotel. Unbeknownst to us at the time, it was the one and only opportunity we ever had on this European odyssey to use a laundromat. All our other laundry was discretely washed in hotel sinks.

The coin box is hidden far right, by the back counter
and behind the machine that dispenses soap packets.

Operating the coin machines presented some personal challenges similar to my struggle with keyless ignition rental cars: the setup was different. Unlike every other laundromat I have used where each machine has its own box that accepts coins, there was one central coin machine, hidden by the back counter. The ironing lady in back who also served as an attendant had to point it out with a certain amount of surely abruptness as if to communicate, "It's a laundromat. It's not rocket science." Once we noticed the central machine and read its instructions, we loaded and fired up our washing and drying machines with no problem. We got so good at it that we gave instructions to the next two sets of customers, both English-speaking tourists. The attendant did not have to be bothered.

Laundry washed and folded, we returned to our modern-appointed hotel room where Shari took rest. I wanted to see what my Dad had only driven by fifty years earlier. I walked to the Place de la Concorde, then halfway to the Arch de Triomphe before returning via the Tuileries. Not surprisingly given recent history, I saw lots of police armed with automatic weapons. They were present, but not intrusive. More surprisingly given recent history, people were out in droves on the Champs-Élysées, tourists and Parisiens alike. They were sitting on benches, enjoying a promenade, taking selfies, coming out from stores carrying shopping bags, and, of course, sipping and nibbling in sidewalk cafes. The Tuileries gardens were equally crowded, although more restful. People had brought their own folding chairs to sit around the water features and enjoy a Sunday picnic. I walked over ten exhilarating kilometers that day.

Restaurant-cafes lined the streets from our hotel on Rue du Pont Neuf to the streets around the Jardin de Nelson Mandela. We decided upon the Hippopotamus, a French steakhouse. It had begun to drizzle so sitting at tables on the sidewalk was not an option. The Hippopotamus menu of cocktails included several different martinis, one of which was entitled Americaine. I bit the bait. I should have ordered the caipirinha. What was delivered as an American martini was reddish with sweet bitters that overwhelmed any suggestion of gin. The steaks with elegant pomme frit went down better with tap beer. We turned in early, eager to sink into our large bed and rest in anticipation of one more full day in Paris: the Louvre and a Corsican dinner.

Reykjavik

Reykjavik, Hallgrimskirkja,
the "Tourist Church"

The post is entitled "Reykjavik" because, pretty much, that town is all we saw of Iceland. Plus, I now know how to spell the name.

A day in Iceland turned out to be critical for our European odyssey, but not because of what we had planned for sightseeing. It was critical for the warm clothes we had packed for our one day in Iceland. Most of what we packed — and we packed a lot — was suitable for the warm, sunny Greek climate. We were unprepared for cold rain in Hungary, and the continuation of cold autumn weather in Paris on the way home. After Greece, the few warm clothes we had packed became standard wear.

Our flight from Seattle arrived early in the morning. The plan was to pick up a rental car at the airport, drive a bit around the southwest coast of Iceland, then check into our Reykjavik hotel. Now Reykjavik airport (actually, Keflavik International Airport, which confused me until I got there) is a bit of a mess. It is quite busy and under expansion. It has very few jet bridges: the enclosed walkways that extend to meet the aircraft door. Quite charmingly, on most flights, stairs and busses are used to disembark and board passengers off the tarmac. I guess Icelanders are used to their inclement weather and visitors ought to adapt. Fortunately, it wasn't raining much when we landed. So between the tarmac, crowds, and construction, the airport was a bit challenging. But hey, we were up for the challenge. It's Iceland!

We proceeded out the doors from the baggage carousel area to the arrival hall, a huge room crowded with mournful travelers sitting on their baggage. They were waiting for their rides.

Here is a bit of travel advice. If you decide to rent a car from a discount outfit, plan on waiting in the arrival hall for a significant amount of time. For Shari and me at Keflavik, that was over an hour. Here is the explanation. Unless you rent from one of the big name outfits (Hertz, Avis, Budget, Eurocar, Enterprise, etc.), your car rental company does not have an office in the terminal. Its office is a few kilometers away. You have to connect with someone at the airport arrival hall who will drive you to the off-site office. That someone is one of any number of men and women staring at passengers as they exit the baggage claim area. They hold up signs identifying either their company or the names of the tired travelers who are their customers.

We were unprepared for this system. Our flight came in late, so it took forty minutes of hopelessly wandering around checking hand-held placards, a phone call by the lady at the information desk ("The man just left. He will be back soon."), and another twenty minutes for the owner of Orange Car Rental to show up.

Just the name "Orange Car Rental" should have warned us. The same thing happened at the Budapest airport where we had rented a car from the very un-Hungarian named "USave" outfit.

View of Reykjavik from our room at Radisson Blu

By the time I sat in the driver's seat of our Icelandic rental, a Nissan Versa diesel, I was pretty flustered. The owner turned out to be very gracious and even gave us the use of a Garmin e-navigation thingie without charge, but we had no idea how to use it. (Sorry, Irene. We use paper maps, the Google Map app, and the GPS on our smart phones.) The owner gave us directions to get to a buffet breakfast (we were hungry) and advice for the roads to take to do some nearby sightseeing on the island. Then he got called to return to the airport to pick up his next (perhaps equally tired and impatient) customer.

Now in Europe, it seems that all cars, at least cars for rent in the "intermediate" category, are keyless. I have seen a car like that here in Tucson, but I am clueless about keyless use. We have two old cars with regular keys. I have been inserting keys into the ignition for five decades. I sat in the driver's seat of that Versa with scattered thoughts bouncing around my fatigued head: the papers we had just signed, the owner's instructions about diesel fuel only, how to return the car, the emergency alarm button above the windscreen ("just so you know because if you push it, the police will come"), and his directions where to drive. I realized the my habits to start a car were useless. The fob that I held in my hand had no key, only a small pop-out rod. The owner had explained that the pop-out had some arcane application that I would not need, so I hadn't paid attention. I had to survey the unfamiliar dashboard loaded with LED screens and buttons, in the dark and without reading glasses. All the while I felt like I had to act as if I knew what I was doing. I was afraid to give the owner cause to worry that this idiot would crash his car. On that dash, instead of the familiar ignition keyhole, I located a button labeled "start." I pressed it. It wouldn't. Naturally, I blamed the car.

Fortunately, the owner hadn't pulled out of his parking lot. He reversed and rolled down his window. I fumbled rolling down my window. "Car won't start," I complained.

"Put your foot on the brake." I did and the Versa diesel started up.

The owner's directions to get to Viking Village and its buffet breakfast were,"Drive through about five roundabouts. Just keep going straight. You can't miss it." I did. My flustered mind heard "Viking House" so I drove by the sign and we got lost.

Things were not going well. Shari and I decided it would be a sufficient accomplishment to find our way to Reykjavik and locate our hotel, the Radisson Blu. That we did, thanks to Google Maps and the GPS inherent in smart phones nowadays. (Had we plugged in "Viking Village" when we downloaded the Iceland map in Tucson, we would have found it, too.)

It was in this way that our experiences of Iceland were limited to Reykjavik.

Fortunately, our hotel room was ready. Unfortunately, there was a lot of construction going on so the elevators on our wing of the building were out of operation. Moreover, it was too late to get any breakfast at the hotel, nor could we make a reservation for dinner at the hotel. It was all booked up. We looked at the Asians crowding the lobby with jealousy. We suspected they probably had dinner reservations.

Our hotel was close enough to the city center that we donned our warm layers and coats, walked there, looked around a bit, and became confused by the strangeness of cuisine options: Italian, Punjabi Indian, Japanese, English, Irish, and American (Tommi's Burger Joint, Ruby Tuesday, Subway, and American Style, among others). Why eat foreign food in Iceland that we can get in the US? We spent a lot of time looking at different posted menus, humbled by Icelandic prices. We walked up the hill to the iconic landmark of Reykjavik, the Hallgrimskirkja (or, as one local called it, the "Tourist Church"). The $12 entrance fee per person to ride the lift up the tower was too much, the line of tourists too long, and our hunger too great. We decided upon lunch at a bistro.

Shari ordered a hamburger. I got the fish and chips and a local beer. The food was great, the beer always goes down well, and we were $65 poorer.

We had lunch at this place, Hressingarskálinn Bistro & Pizzeria.

We returned to our room apprehensive about dinner. Shari rested as the cold, damp, dark environment triggered her aches and pains. Restless, I went for another walk, this time to check out the old harbor (not much to it) and scout out more restaurants. I walked by a neat town square complete with skate-boarders, Reykjavik's oldest building (the house at Aðalstræti 10, built in 1772), and generally enjoyed the town's narrow, dark grey cobble stoned streets. Actually, the underlying canvas in Reykjavik, and certainly the dreary, treeless, flat, 50 km. drive from the airport, is dark grey, almost black. Near black is the color of the lava that makes Iceland stick out from the northern Atlantic. The bleak canvas is completed with overcast weather and drizzle.

Reykjavik's oldest (the short dark one) built in 1772

As it turned out, there were great restaurant choices in the old harbor area, unlike the commercial area where we had wandered earlier in the day. We returned by car. I had to back-up a few times on account of driving into one-way streets the wrong way, and I also mistakenly entered narrow dead-end streets in our search for a parking space. We parked in a pay-lot where we waited until 5:55 PM because parking was free at six. I would have gladly paid the parking fee, but the ticket-dispensing machine was labeled in Icelandic (a Germanic, Old Norse language fraught with odd combinations of strangely accented letters) and, in my defense, even a local was unable to get the machine to accept his money.

We decided upon a place with outside seating, partially protected by mold-stained plexiglass, where local tattooed hipsters smoked vapes and sipped coffee or beer. We sat inside and ordered a Caesar salad and a traditional Icelandic fish stew — a thick potato-based chowder with tiny pieces of different fish. Overall, the stew was a bit bland, but satisfying.

That night, the stress of that day took its toll on me. In addition, I worried about the need to wake up early in the dark morning, find a gas station to top up the Nissan, and drop off the car at the congested and confusing Keflavik Airport so early in the morning that Orange Car Rental would not be open. "Just park the car in P-one and leave the fob and the parking ticket inside," the owner had explained. I couldn't get back to sleep. I hit a wall. I worried about making it through the almost one-month European itinerary. I worried about the money we had to spend. I worried about getting to Keflavik Airport on time, whether we could find "P-one" in the dark, and whether the rental would be stolen and our credit card charged. I worried about airports and rentals to come. I worried about pretty much everything we had planned.

After an hour of sleeplessness, I rationalized, "How bad can it be?" I fell back to sleep. Such anxiety did not plague me for the rest of the trip. In this sense also, Iceland proved to be critical for our European odyssey.

Our one day in Iceland also served as entry into the European union. It was the only immigration we had to go through, and that was a breeze. The lady at the Icelandic immigration counter simply asked Shari, "How long are you staying in Iceland?" Shari replied only for the one day. The officer stamped our passports and that was it. We walked through. Everywhere else, in France, Greece and Hungary, we never showed our passports. We just walked in.

Shari insists we include praise for Icelandair and Saga business class, and that praise is well deserved. We don't know how it was in the cheap seats, but Saga class was extravagantly comfortable. We enjoyed our segregation from the crowded economy area. Entering a Boeing 757-200 from the jet bridge, economy passengers turned right. Saga class passengers turned left. The flight attendants were as efficient as they were stunningly attractive. We had cloths to cover our trays, cloth napkins, tableware more solid than in most restaurants, menus and excellent food, and our choice of aperitifs, wines, beers, spirits, and digestifs.

We never did ask why scores of Icelandic girls
were dressed in white smocks and nurse caps.

Oh, it turned out that the "P1" parking lot at Keflavik Airport was clearly marked and located right by the airport entrance, and there is virtually no crime in Iceland. We breezed onto our flight to Paris, but not before feasting in the Icelandair Saga lounge. That's a spaciously large living and feasting room for business class passengers. Its buffet was loaded with hearty goodies and equipped with a self-serve espresso machine. Open bottles of brandy and expensive liqueurs were posted by the coffee machine, unattended. Though I was tempted, it was a bit early.

Shari has a final observation about Reykjavik. Pretty much the only older people we saw were tourists. The locals were all young adults and teenagers. Maybe the older Icelanders and their young children stay indoors. We didn't ask. But I must add the Icelanders we saw were pretty hip and friendly, and they spoke English very well.