Europe 2013 - Heading out Tomorrow

Across the Ocean We Go

Hello Friends and Family!

Linda and I are heading out for our trip to Italy and Germany.  On this trip we will be revisiting some places that we have been in the past, but they were great and worth another visit.  In the case of Rome and Berlin, you can visit them many times and see something new each time.  The bike riding in Tuscany is very nice as well, it doesn’t get old to pull into a village and take a break after riding down a country road and enjoying magnificent scenery.  Because the hotel in Tuscany is right on the beach, we can take a dip in the Mediterranean each day after the ride.

Rather than write a summary of how the trip over to Rome went after we arrive, I will just go over how it is supposed to go.  When we get there, we will be pretty groggy and incoherent from the flights and the time zone change, so we will probably be more focused on just going to bed.  We will catch up with you again after our first day of touring Rome.

We will be flying on an airline we have never used before, "Air Berlin", but since one of our destinations was Berlin, and the rates were very good, it seemed like a natural choice.   It will be interesting to see how they stack up against the airlines that we are more used to, I am hopeful and optimistic that it will be a pleasant flight.  We both have plenty of reading material, so we are not relying on any type of inflight entertainment, between reading and napping we should do OK.

Our flight over is from LA (LAX) going non-stop from LA to Berlin, we take off at 2:55pm on Friday the 6^th, and land at 11:00am on Saturday the 7^th (European time).  We are actually landing at the smaller airport in Berlin, but that is kind of nice, since smaller airports usually mean shorter times waiting for just about everything.  At 2:40pm we take off from Berlin and land in Rome at 4:45pm, this flight being just about 2 hours.

The Rome international airport is outside of Rome in a small town called Fiumicino.  The ‘Aeroporti di Roma’, actually has a rather brief name, considering that it is Italian, “Aeroporto Internazionale Leonardo da Vinci di Fiumicino”.  It is, buried within the name of the airport, that the name for the next phase of our journey is the “Leonardo Express”.  I am sure that many English speaking people landing at the Rome airport and wanting to go to downtown Rome bypassed the Leonardo Express as an option, because Rome is mentioned nowhere in the name, only to take a taxi ride they will regret for years to come (expensive and completely nuts).

We already have our tickets for the Leonardo Express in our backpacks, so all we have to do is pick up our luggage (oh please, please let it be there), scurry through the airport to the train terminal (you can walk from your plane to the train without getting wet if it is raining), and hop on the Leonardo Express.  No worries about which stop to get off of the train either, there is only one, Roma Termini, the other end of the line for the Leonardo Express.

From the Termini train station it is a couple of blocks walk to get to the Bed and Breakfast where we will be staying.  It is in an old building, actually in this part of town they are all kind of old, but the floor with the B&B (BBQueen) has been completely renovated and it is actually a pretty modern style.  We stayed here a couple of years ago and it had all of the things that really mattered, a comfortable bed, clean floors, a bathroom of your own, breakfast in the morning, & a coffee machine that you can operate on your own in case your body is insisting that 3:00am is the time that you should be waking up.  You get over the 3:00am wakeup in a couple of days as long as you are careful not to take a 2 to 3 hour nap in the afternoon.

So once we get to the BBQueen, we may or may not get a bite to eat if the local grocery store is open, and go to bed for the night.  Sunday is our first day of getting out and seeing Rome, we are pretty excited about it.

We should have some access to internet and email throughout the trip, but not through our phones.  Text messages and voice calls cost a lot, so we are pretty much internet only until we get back the first week in October.  Will try to keep you all posted on what is going on with the blog.  We will be checking and answering our email.

We hope you have a great week ahead, with any luck the next post will be from Italy!

Stephen & Linda

(No pictures on this post)

Visiting Washington DC

Hello Folks,

Since we have been back in the United States we have been visiting Washington DC with Roze and Steve. They flew out from CA and we flew in from France. It worked out pretty well, they arrived about a half hour before us, and although the weather was cold with misty rain, that was the last of the rain for the rest of the week. We had a few clouds, but most of the time we had sunny blue skies.

Hail to the Chief

We had a chance to tour the White House, the Capital, and the Supreme Court. We didn't actually get to see any always being made, but we got to see where every stage of the process takes place. It was a lot of fun.

Linda and Roze at the White House

We spent quite a bit of times seeing the great monuments of the town, some of by walking from place to place, and the rest using a hop on – hop off bus. The bus got us farther out to places like Arlington, which would have been kind of a challenge by foot alone.

At Arlington we saw the Kennedys and the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. I think the most moving part of the visit at Arlington is gazing out at all of the graves of people who served the country and protected us over the years. There are lots and lots of them.

Arlington

Changing of the Gaurd

We did of course go to the Smithsonian a couple of times. It is one of the greatest collections of cool things anywhere. Any building that has a huge steam locomotive, Archie Bunker's chair, and Kermit the Frog is pretty incredible.

Smithsonian

We will be home late Saturday night as long as the airlines cooperate.

Until we see you again, we hope you are doing well.

More pictures at this Picasa Link.

Stephen and Linda

Finished Our Bike Trip

Hello Folks,

We completed the bicycle portion of our bike trip, and we are now in Toulouse, safe and sound. All 25 riders in the group I led, made it back without accidents or incidents and are for the most part on their way back home or off to their next destinations.

Since the last blog entry, we got into the heart of the Pyrenees mountains, climbing some of the well know 'Cols' or mountain passes featured in the Tour de France. Linda and I have now ridden over the Col du Tourmalet, the Col du Solour, The Col d'Aubisque, and the Col du Portillon. It was quite a bit of work, but the scenery was great and it gave us quite a sense of accomplishment. It wasn't bad for a couple of old farts.

On the way up the Tourmalet

On the Soulor

On the Aubisque

We had a chance to see many things other than the mountain climbs as well. We spent about four days in the National Park of the Pyrenees, and were able to see some of the scenic highlights of the Park and the French Pyrenees. We spent our rest day hiking along a mountain river with countless waterfalls and ancient stone bridges. The next day we walked into a huge mountain formation called the Cirque de Gavarnie, a spectacular cliff rising thousands of feet to the ridge line that is the border between France and Spain.

Cirque de Gavarnie

We finished our trip with a visit to Lourdes, which is where St. Bernadette had her vision of the Virgin Mary. It is a major tourist destination, in particular for those wishing to be healed of some affliction, by the waters of the spring. Since we were there during a festival or processional week, we were able to see the candlelight procession in front of the Basilica.

Lourdes - Candlelight Procession Below

Setting up this trip for a group was a lot of work, but I think that everybody had a good time.  Also when you are the one planning the trip, you get to see exactly what you want to see.

Now we are off to Washington DC for the portion of the trip that Linda has planned. Hopefully all of the issues with airline strikes will be resolved by the time we need to fly home.

There are more pictures from the last several days at this Picasa Link.

We hope you are all doing well.

Stephen and Linda

First 5 Days of Riding Into the Pyrenees

Hello Folks!

We have been having a good time riding with our group.  We haven't been writing as often, being a little busy leading the bike tour.  I was very lucky to get a great group of folks, it makes it a lot easier when everyone is still pretty cheerful even after a rainy day.  Our ride started out pretty flat and has getting hilly as we approached the Pyrenees Mountains.

At a Castle Ruin at Lagarde

We had pretty high winds on our first day of riding, and some rain yesterday, but other than that, it has been pretty good.  We have seen some beautiful castles and cathedrals, visited interesting towns, and had some pretty nice places to stay.

View from the Castle at Foix

Saint Vincent's Cathedral in Foix

Our Room in St-Girons

We are in the Pyrenees now.  Today we road our bikes over one of the 'Cols' (mountain pass) from the town where we are staying into Spain.  It was a nice cool day, so it was perfect for an uphill ride, although we did put on our jackets for the ride back down.

There goes Linda

At the top and in Spain

Back down to the village where we are staying

You can see where we are scheduled to be, and have been on the itinerary page that I made for the trip at this link on the tour web site.

More Photos at this Picasa Link

We hope you are all doing well,

Stephen and Linda

A short Warmup Ride

On Friday, we had a little extra time and sunny weather, so we went for a short ride down the Canal du Midi for a little warm up ride.  Happily, everything on the bikes worked just fun, and once we got out of town the foot traffic on the bike trail dropped down to an occasional pedestrian.

The Canal

Linda, Jerry, Susan, and Frank

House Boats

We rode for about 20 miles with the only thing slowing us down being the wind.  On our way back we had the wind at our backs so we made it back to the hotel with pretty good speed.

In the evening, Linda and I went to have dinner with our friends Gilbert and Odile at Gilbert's home on the outskirts of Toulouse.  It was a wonderful dinner and it was great to unwind for an evening.  This morning we are going to start out with a walking tour of the Old City portion of Toulouse.  It is kind of overcast, I hope it doesn't rain .....

More Photos at Picasa

Stephen and Linda  

The Second Day of our Trip

Our first real day in Toulouse has been a fairly lazy day, recovering from the Jet Lag.  We met one of the ladies from our trip and did a short walk around the old part of Toulouse.  We had a chance to see a protest march and walk around the city.  It was nice seeing the pretty and interesting architecture and the Toulouse Cows.

Toulouse Cow

We also met several of the folks for my bike tour today, nine folks showed up today.  We walked to supper with a couple of them.  After supper we took a nigh time stroll around the town.  The city is pretty well lit up often with colored lights setting off the architecture. 

Pont Neuf at night

We are off to bed trying to shake off the last of the jet lag.

There are a few more pictures at this Picasa Link.

Hope you are all doing well.

Stephen and Linda

Our trip Across the Ocean

Hi Folks!

We made it to Toulouse!

From LA:

Our trip from the house to the airport began as you might guess with a few surprises. We had called ahead for a van, and even his notes indicated that we would have a bike box and that we needed a van, but instead the driver showed up with a car. It could have been worse, it could have been a smart car. We were happy to find out that a bike box actually can fit in the trunk of some cars. The ride was tight, because the suitcases had to ride with us in the passenger compartment, but we made it just fine.

Heading down the freeway was kind of a deja-vu experience, the driver was just like Linda, hit the gas, swerve right, swerve left, hit the brakes and repeat for an hour. Linda hated his driving.

The check-in process went so smooth and fast that we had plenty of time to spare. They took our bags so fast it reminded me of air travel 15 years ago. Dare we hope the rest of the flight will go this well? We will soon see.

From London:

The trip over was one of the best I can remember for years.  Everything at the seat, like the audio, video, and reading light worked.  The staff was nice, the meals were good too.  We landed basically on time, so all in all it was a really nice flight.  We made our connection to our next British flight with as much efficiency as you can get at Heathrow.  The Heathrow Airport is absolutely beautiful, it has a modern look, there is a lot of light and glass, is is spotlessly clean, but the people who figured out crowd control must have been in an asylum.  To transfer from one flight to another, we took a train ride, took a bus ride, went through security again, had some people look at our paperwork again.  They have lines to wait in the next line.  After we got onto the plane it all went smooth again.

Toulouse:

We arrived about on time.  Our luggage made it as well.  Our friends Gilbert and Odile met us at the airport, and we are now in our hotel.

The temperature outside is perfect and the room is real nice.  We are pretty tired and hope to sleep well tonight.

Good night for now.

Stephen and Linda