We left Prague early this morning, when our driver, Lenka, arrived in a drizzly rain to transfer us to Passau, with a stop in Cesky Krumlov, which deserves an entry of it's own (as does our last day in Prague yesterday so I see where I am already behind, sigh). This is just a brief dropby if you while, since we found out at our welcome reception that as expected the wifi will be spotty along the river and that the Facebook access is blocked to allow more travelers to access the wifi. So my "postcarding" will be on hiatus until Budapest I am thinking, and I will miss my FB friends, too.
I know that the river cruise experience is going to be wonderful. The ship, registered to Uniworld, is elegantly appointed, and with only 143 passengers (out of a 180 max) there will be no crowded feeling. There are Amerians, Brits, Canadians, a family from Hong Kong and I think a few Aussies aboard. Many are an older demographic, who knew we might feel young at our ages. There will be many excursions when docked, and definitely time just sailing the Danube. We are docked in Passau. Germany; tomorrow we will have a morning walking tour, before sailing off on the river. Tuesday our option is a bus trip to Salzburg. And after our noisy nights in Prague (fyi the hotel discounted our rooms for the inconvenience of the scaffolding and loss of double windows), I am really forward to the quietness that is our cabin.

I wanted to leave our Prague visit largely unstructured, in part because we would need to get over the jet lag, and in part because the river cruise has its own agenda of tours. But I knew also that there is a fascinating story of the Jewish community in this Central European city, and so we engaged a private guide for a 3 hour walking tour. Olga met us at our hotel yesterday morning, and since the hotel is a mere 5 minutes from the Josefov area of the Jewish quarter, it was a short walk over to begin the tour. Nestled in the blocks of an area now given over to elegant shops are several synagogues of an earlier time. Olga was a wealth of information, and it was both fascinating yet not without poignant reminders of a community decimated by the horrors of the Final Solution. We will be taking a similar journey in Budapest, and it was a morning well spent in history.

Rachel told her father he would only need one Czech word for his stay in Prague: pivo, which means beer. Given his language abilities, we are going to stick to this.

First morning in Prague means finding our traveling crew (old friends Dana & Ned, Rhonda and her sister from Iowa, Emilie) at breakfast, and as 4 of us had just arrived, there were some housekeeping chores to do when we set off for the day. Luckily for us there was a tourist office just across the way in Old Town Hall (we see brides in white several times a day), and we purchased a Prague Card for museum/sites entrance, then walked to a Metro station to get a 3 day transportation card. From there it was a lovely stroll across the Charles Bridge to get to the tram stop for the Prague Castle. Tram 22

The last part of our long journey into Prague was relatively easy, even though it involved a shuttle bus to the tarmac for our flight and a bit of rain delay; the flight was short and we were rather charmed to be served a proper British tea. No lines, luggage or immigration at the airport, and the hotel driver was waiting for us. From touchdown to check in was under an hour, and the sun was just setting.

We are a bit dismayed to find our hotel, the Grand Hotel Praha, chosen for its charm and location in Old Town Square, is under construction: scaffolding covers the front and obscures our view of the Astronomical Clock. As I type this in the early morning there is a worker perched outside my window, and he is not exactly quiet. Profuse apologies from management; apparently they have no control as to when the government allows them to do this, or so the oddly translated note in our room states. We knew the square would be noisy, but we have one of the layers of window glass removed and we know we are going to hear the noise from the square as well. The hotel itself is charming, our room spacious and the bathroom newly remodeled. It's going to be an "ah well travel" experience.

We are really tired at this point, but I take a quick shower and we go out in search of dinner. We decide to walk off the square, and to my surprise, find a place that I recognize from my notes. It's small, and full, but there is one table left, lucky us. Pilsners, schnitzels and salads later, we walk back to the hotel as it begins to rain. We have yet to see one set of traveling companions and know the others are still in the air; plan to find everyone at breakfast in the morning. In spite of the cafe noise outside, we sleep.

We have made it to London and are currently in the Concorde Lounge, BA Terminal 5, waiting for our flight to Prague in two hours. The Concorde Lounge is courtesy of David deciding to splurge on First Class FF tickets, and while it is quite nice, I know I cannot get used to this. I think Business is a splurge, seriously.

We seemed to have either learned a few travel tricks or have been very lucky so far; perhaps it is the bonus of both of us being able-bodied, err knee, this year. Car pick up was on time, no line at LAX, and a fairly smooth crossing of the pond to London. Certain things in First were
interesting, besides the flat bed: FA's offered pj's to wear as well as a bed make-up, turn down sort of service. Service was excellent, food was ok (expected better), wines were fine. Between boarding, dinner, and lights out, hardly time to read, and no movie time either.

Tomorrow we start another travel adventure, but it was definitely with mixed emotions that we chose another path for our journey this year. And it has been a whole year since I have written on these pages, a year filled with family excitement as we embraced the engagement of our youngest daughter, welcomed a new grandson and spent wonderful time watching the older grandbabies grow into toddlers. So where are we going this year?

At the end of two weeks, we are ready to go home. David has been a trooper with his knee, yet I know that if AA had been able to change our flights, we would have cut a few days off the trip . It's been fun, but hard and painful for him at times. So we are ready.

Having scoped out the departures terminal at Malpensa yesterday, we know where we are heading when the shuttle drops us off, and more importantly, we know where the luggage carts are. The person at BA check in insists that we get a chair for David, and she is so right, it is a very long walk to the departure gate. We have a last Italian caffe; my first in a 'take-away' cup.

2 airlines (BA/AA one world alliance), 3 countries and 4 airports later, we arrive at LAX - it's been 24 hours and counting since we woke up in Italy. I know I made a comment earlier that I thought the AA food service had slipped since our last trip, well not on the London to Boston run, it was far better than our trip over, so I guess, as with any airline, it is variable. The mobility services that we used in all airports were again gracious and necessary; at Logan Airport in Boston there was even an immigration line reserved for wheelchairs. We got a few glances and pauses as the officer considered our declaration of 10 bottles of wine, but in the end he stamped us on our way. All our luggage arrived home with us, nothing broken, nothing missing.

So it was a good adventure, yes, a different one, but am glad we went. Now to start planning next year's vacation; at the moment, for me, a river trip somewhere in Europe sounds very relaxing.

Arrivederci.

Villa La Favorita gardens

In the original game plan we had let this last day in Italy be fairly unstructured. We have a car to return to the Malpensa airport by 6 pm, and we are spending our last night at the First Hotel as we had our first night two weeks ago. Oh, and I had planned that we would eat dinner at the recommended La Quercia next door to the hotel.

So with an unplanned day, we could have done any number of things: visited a town or two that we had missed, take a drive to one of the lakes not far from Malpensa or . . .
But then the mobility issue kicks in, and by breakfast our last morning at La Favorita we know we are done – tired, sore (David), in need of some rest before our long flight day on Sunday. So our decision is to pack (or repack), load the car, drive to the hotel, leave the luggage there while we either take a drive, have lunch, or just return the car.

First Hotel Malpensa

Kitchen at La Favorita

Waking to the morning after our winery day with Paolo, it is apparent to me that all of these wine bottles are not going to fit in our two suitcases and one small duffle bag, the duffle having been brought for 'overload'. And we all know that wine bottles are not going to be carried on, and today I miss those days.

After another delicious brunch breakfast under the pergola (photos of that below), I asked Roberta where in town we might buy an inexpensive suitcase; she gave us two suggestions, and that became our first order of business.

I have written about our day in Bologna with the Bluone Cooking School, today we have had the Paolo Ferrero tour of Piemonte. Paolo was recommended by our friends Shannon and Kim, who spent several days touring with Paolo earlier this year. We told him we wanted to visit wineries, and he put together a day for us that not only included 3 winery visits, but also visits to an artiginal pasta maker, a goat cheese farm, lunch in Barolo, a tour of Asti at night and for a grand finale, he cooked dinner for us at his home (with some of the artiginal pasta). It was a 14 hour day, covering Piemonte from Alba to Asti and parts in between on beautiful rolling roads that I was happy to be seeing from the back seat of Paolo's car. David was beside himself with the wine tastings.

Front of villa

Today we are making a visit to Eataly, the famous food emporium (think Whole Foods on steroids) outside Turin was on the list when we were originally spending a few days in Turin. But it is only a hour or so away from the Villa Favorita, and since rain is forecast for this morning, we decided to make the trip to see it. And I am very glad we did.

First the drive - decided to take a back road, which led to back roads, and while they were very pretty, really, I was doing the driving. David is not happy with my gear shifting, which means I am not thrilled to be driving. I am sure that a) he would rather be driving this nice car and b) he thinks I am not worthy of driving this nice car.

Anyway we do arrive at Eataly without any major difficulties, the little I see of Turin on our way in does make me want to return when walking is no longer the difficulty it is on this trip. Eataly is relatively quiet before noon, and we are awed at the various areas, the cheeses, the meats, the fishes and this is just the main floor. It appears that each area has it's own ristorante, with a few tables and bar area, and we decide to come back later and choose one for lunch.

We go downstairs and find the wines and the beers. I have never seen so much beer, in single bottles, stacked in rows of rows. David is equally impressed with the wine selection; we sit down for a glass of wine, rest stop time. When we go back upstairs, the store is definitely more crowded for lunch time, and we have to wait for a table in the pasta/pizza area.

Today we are leaving Bologna and driving to Alba; a few years ago we stayed in another part of Piemonte and I wanted to return and see another part of the region. Well aware that one does lose time in the travel process, we have a final breakfast at the Hotel Paradise, pack up and take a taxi to Europcar.

Front seat/back seat driver

What should be a relatively simple process is somehow not; paperwork seems endless in spite of the reservation, and then we are driven to a lot away from the office in a car that barely holds our luggage – I am thinking renting at the airport may have been a better idea. The car on the lot that is supposed to be ours has a trunk that does not fit our luggage and a missing piece on the front. I am starting to feel like that ugly American because this is not going to work out, at least not for me. The driver gets the office on the phone, the office person says he can have another car for us maybe in the afternoon, when are we leaving? We are leaving now, I say. Long pause, he says there are no cars at the airport, I repeat that this car is not going to work. Another long pause, he finally says well he supposes he can give us the BMW that is parked in front of the office. So we squeeze ourselves and the luggage back into this 2 door car and drive back to the office. The BMW parked in front of the office is the same car we drove to Bologna a week earlier; I decided not to ask him why he did not just give us the car back in the first place, especially now that it will be returned to where we picked it up. Guess it makes for a story, but I am happy to be driving out of Bologna.

Santo Stefano

One of the things that you have to accept when traveling with certain physical disabilities is that plans will change. For the most part, I think we have done this gracefully, and are just really happy to be here on vacation in Bella Italia.

Our original plan for the last day in Bologna was to take public transportation to the Basilica di San Luca, in part to see the Basilica and in part to see the views of Bologna from high on top. We had already acknowledged that walking even part of the 666 porticoes were not an option. We also planned to have lunch at the renowned Meloncello.

Plans change; we decide that even the last part of the walk up to the church will be too demanding for David's knee. We are going to return to Bologna one day and do this properly.

So after breakfast, we have a taxi take us to the Piazza Santo Stefano, to see the quartet of churches, the cloister and the chapels that are part of this 8th-12th century religious complex.It is even more interesting to note that that Santo Stefano was built over the site of an ancient religious sanctuary, a temple of the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis. It is a very interesting walk through the various churches for us.

Basilica di San Vitale

Try as we might to take an early train to Ravenna, our vacation habits have kicked in, and after breakfast, we get a taxi to the train station for the 10 o'clock train. 90 minutes of rolling through Romagna farmlands, we arrive in Ravenna; the sky is clear, but it is hot and humid. We save the walking for the mosaics and take a taxi to the Centro Storico, visit the information center and get a walking map of the town.

We walk up to the Basilica di San Vitale and buy the combination ticket for several entries to sites with mosaics. The mosaics are simply stunning, the blues, the golds, the reds, I know my camera does not do them justice. While up there we also visit the Mausoleo di Galla Placidia for more mosaics.

A few pictures of mosaics:

Open air weekend market

Which is Italian for slowly, slowly. I am seeing that it is not so bad to take things a bit slowly, tho I know that David would really like to be walking normally. We are seeing less, perhaps savoring more. One thing we are not doing is eating a lot of gelato, as I realize that most of our gelato breaks come as we are walking around - ah well, piano, piano.

Because we are hoping to go to Ravenna on Sunday, which will be a long day involving trains, taxis and walking, today we are taking it easy. The humid heat helps that feeling. We say good-bye Jan & Ken at breakfast, and witness a charming scene of a formally dressed groom taking pictures with his momma (elegantly dressed in suit and wide hat), then leaving for a wedding outside of town with the bridal flowers. The knowledgable Monica tells us that is Italian tradition, the groom brings the bride's flowers.

David and I take a walk to the Bancomat to see if our Capital One card works, nope, still not. Our new credit card with them does, but there is a problem with the debit card. We had an inkling this could happen so we do have access to our other funds. There is a large weekend open-air market in the piazza just north of the hotel; after walking one aisle with me, David decides he has had enough and returns to the hotel for A/C and Wifi - I tell him I will do one or two more, but many aisles later, and some shopping (lovely, lovely new blue leather purse), I finally come up for air and wander back myself. I think I have now met the whole of Bologna's immigrant population shopping for clothes and sundries, so many beautiful languages floating in the air, families with strollers everywhere.