Christmas Markets on the Elbe: A Magical Journey
“Best Trip EVER!” we have whispered to one another so many times since returning from this trip. When I tell you the details, you might wonder – an airport horror, a fire on board, and not one, but two times boarding flights and having to de-board and later reboard. You will think “how can this be the best trip ever?” but adventures are made of many details, and on this trip, the magic far outshines the disastrous.
Our trip started wonderfully, with our son picking us up and taking us to the airport. This is not a blessing we take for granted, as both he and his wife have busy lives, and we never want to be those parents who feel entitled to inconvenience them. Our flight to Miami was inconsequential.
I have never been through Miami Airport before, but we had taken a look before we left and saw that the tram was out of service due to structural issues in the airport. That’s not good. But carts are coming on a regular basis to transport us the long walk to our international gate, so that sounds good, doesn’t it?
Once you arrive, signs tell you where to wait for the carts. We arrived around six pm so maybe they were all off for dinner. We waited. We waited. And we waited some more.
We have made a conscious decision, at least going to the cruise departure, to carry our baggage with us. After waiting, we decide we have no choice but to walk, so we do. We manage. It wasn’t all that bad. (I will NEVER, if I can help it, fly through Miami again.)
Miami International Airport is crowded. It is also hot, more than 80°F and we are wearing our heavy winter coats. They have adequate signage.
I find it very passenger-unfriendly. It is not beautiful. It is not intuitive. When we get to our gate area, there is a food court with long lines – and few tables. We grab a couple of (actually very good) Cuban sandwiches and go to the seating area to eat. It is awkward, to balance food, water, and baggage. There are passengers surrounding us speaking all kinds of unidentifiable languages. It is an opportunity for a good conversation, but everyone is grumpy and self-absorbed.
Our gate, we discover, is actually downstairs, and (again, counter-intuitive) there are lines to board on both sides of the very large room. You really have to be paying attention to figure this out. There are limited restrooms, and a lot of people, and more coming every minute. This is going to be a very big plane.
OK, so now I will whine. We board. This is a British Airways flight. The crew members are delightful. The business class is AWFUL. It was business class for sardines. It is like an open hostel. The layout is designed to squeeze the maximum number of lie-flat seats in the minimum space. So there are two seats on the outside of each aisle and four seats down the middle. My husband and I traded with a single guy to be together, but to get to restrooms, you have to step over a sleeping person’s legs. These are the skinniest lie-flat seats I have ever been in, and – worst of all – there is NO storage but for the overhead compartment. No place to put your purse! No place for your shoes! No place to hang your coat! No place for a personal item of any kind! And NO PRIVACY!
I know I am in charge of my own attitude, and I am not happy. I decide to skip the meal entirely, not even a glass of wine, and go to sleep. It was the right solution.
Transiting Charles de Gaulle Airport used to be a thorn in our sides, but this time, as we exited our plane, we saw a red-jacketed woman holding a sign with our names on it (!) and her job was to get us through the transit and to the right gate. We had experienced some anxiety about making this transit, and we got a miracle – Brittany knew just where to go and had us to our gate just as our plane started boarding. Thank you, Viking, for anticipating this tight connection and shepherding us through it.
Getting through Charles De Gaulle was a miracle. Now, magic continues to happen as we near Berlin and see the ground covered with snow. The pilot tells us this is not normal for this early in the season, but oh, it IS beautiful!
More magic – because we have our baggage with us, suddenly we sweep right through with our carry-ons and Viking is there to meet us on the other side of the door.
We have received notification that our international plan with Verizon is in place, and we are good to go with calls and messages and data for the trip. It is a little expensive, but every time we travel, we have had an issue of some kind come up, and then, such coverage is priceless. During this trip we had to make calls about a dental emergency and a suspected credit card fraud, so having this plan in place was worth every penny.
It is maybe a half-hour ride to our hotel, the Grand Hyatt, located on the edge of the old East Zone, and central to everything we want to see. We are so excited. We check in, clean up, organize and rest a little, and are ready to hit the streets. Just up the street is a small local Christmas Market, and a brewery with good traditional German food. It is snowing, but not messy snowing, just little flakes that drift and gather and never exceed a couple inches. It is slick. We have to be careful, but it is so much fun.
Making a snowman for our granddaughter:
This is Potsdamer Platz, where locals gather to drink the traditional hot Gluhwein, and eat a hot pretzel, or gingerbread, or a long sausage. Nearby are major transportation hubs for busses and for trams and for trains, and a very large mall, which we did not visit. We found a smaller mall, very near us, where we could use the ATMs, find quick meals, and an outstanding bottle of Saxon white wine, which we took with us on the boat to have in our room 😁.
It’s been a long time – since before COVID – since we have been in Germany, so we decide we would rather eat in a sit-down restaurant nearby, the Paulaner brewery.
My husband has the large beer, I have the dark beer. We no longer drink a lot of beer, but oh my, we enjoy this beer.
I have a Nurnburger sausage and a salad.
My husband has a lot of little sausages, and a lot of potatoes!
This is the small mall near our hotel. The funny thing is, it has a very Arab feel. I would bet it is Arab-owned. There is a food court, and many options are Arab, and other options we have seen in Doha and Kuwait. It makes us feel at home.
Interestingly, we find our hotel is also Arab owned.
The rooftop pool is lovely – and has a killer view out over the city.
The fresh air, the walk, the good German food and beer, and the lovely swim to end the day have given us a great day, and an even better sleep, sleeping all through the night on our first night in Berlin.
And Just Like That . . .
And just like that, the temperatures have dropped and I feel like a different person. I joke about being Alaska girl, unable to handle the high temperatures, but the truth is, it is the truth. I have adapted by doing everything I really need to do early in the morning and mostly staying in air-conditioned locations – my car, a restaurant, a well-cooled grocery store, my house – when the temperatures go above 80 something F.
Yesterday, we tried a food truck our son had recommended, The Brown Bagger at Alga Beer (2435 N 12th Ave Pensacola ) for smash burgers. That place was hoppin’! I had the Hoppin Jack, a burger with jack cheese and jalapenos, with a side of brussel sprouts (Brussel sprouts!) and for the first time in months, we sat at a table outside and ate in comfort. While the burger was delicious, it was too much meat for me, and I loved the brussel sprouts, which I think were deep-fried. Does that take away the nutritional virtue of eating Brussel sprouts?
Getting up in the morning to cooler temperatures just makes me happy, it makes my day start right. I was wondering if climate change was going to make the hot mornings drag on into October, or November. The breath of coolness as I do my morning steps gave me hope that the winter season is truly coming.
It’s a Matter of Taste
“Would you like a biscotti?” AdventureMan says as he pops by my workshop, checking in.
“Np, but thanks,” I usually respond – I am less vulnerable to sweet than to salty, although neither are good for me, a diabetic. Even some fruits you would think are healthy are too sweet for me in more than a small amount, showing up in the blood sugar count the next day. I am careful.
But salty – oh bring it on. Chicken Chongqing, anchovies, popcorn, pretzles – those, too, I can eat in moderation, and have a harder time resisting.
So this morning, I found this wonderful article on scientists finding that we perceive salty in two different ways, at least, “salt!” and “too much salt!” It’s long, but fascinating.
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Salt taste is surprisingly mysterious
Too much sodium is bad, but so is too little — no wonder the body has two sensing mechanisms
By Amber Dance
9.13.2023
Salt taste is surprisingly mysterious
Too much sodium is bad, but so is too little — no wonder the body has two sensing mechanisms
By Amber Dance 09.13.2023
We’ve all heard of the five tastes our tongues can detect — sweet, sour, bitter, savory-umami and salty. But the real number is actually six, because we have two separate salt-taste systems. One of them detects the attractive, relatively low levels of salt that make potato chips taste delicious. The other one registers high levels of salt — enough to make overly salted food offensive and deter overconsumption.
Matching meals to metabolism
Exactly how our taste buds sense the two kinds of saltiness is a mystery that’s taken some 40 years of scientific inquiry to unravel, and researchers haven’t solved all the details yet. In fact, the more they look at salt sensation, the weirder it gets.
Many other details of taste have been worked out over the past 25 years. For sweet, bitter and umami, it’s known that molecular receptors on certain taste bud cells recognize the food molecules and, when activated, kick off a series of events that ultimately sends signals to the brain.
Sour is slightly different: It is detected by taste bud cells that respond to acidity, researchers recently learned.
In the case of salt, scientists understand many details about the low-salt receptor, but a complete description of the high-salt receptor has lagged, as has an understanding of which taste bud cells host each detector.
“There are a lot of gaps still in our knowledge — especially salt taste. I would call it one of the biggest gaps,” says Maik Behrens, a taste researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology in Freising, Germany. “There are always missing pieces in the puzzle.”
A fine balance
Our dual perception of saltiness helps us to walk a tightrope between the two faces of sodium, an element that’s crucial for the function of muscles and nerves but dangerous in high quantities. To tightly control salt levels, the body manages the amount of sodium it lets out in urine, and controls how much comes in through the mouth.
“It’s the Goldilocks principle,” says Stephen Roper, a neuroscientist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Florida. “You don’t want too much; you don’t want too little; you want just the right amount.”
If an animal takes in too much salt, the body tries to compensate, holding on to water so the blood won’t be overly salty. In many people, that extra fluid volume raises blood pressure. The excess fluid puts strain on the arteries; over time, it can damage them and create the conditions for heart disease or stroke.
But some salt is necessary for body systems, for example to transmit electrical signals that underlie thoughts and sensations. Consequences of too little salt include muscle cramps and nausea — that’s why athletes chug Gatorade to replace the salt lost in sweat — and, if enough time passes, shock or death.
Scientists in search of salt taste receptors already knew that our bodies have special proteins that act as channels to allow sodium to cross nerve membranes for the purpose of sending nerve impulses. But the cells in our mouth, they reasoned, must have some additional, special way to respond to sodium in food.
A key clue to the mechanism came in the 1980s, when scientists experimented with a drug that prevents sodium from entering kidney cells. This drug, when applied to rats’ tongues, impeded their ability to detect salty stimuli. Kidney cells, it turns out, use a molecule called ENaC (pronounced “ee-nack”) to suck extra sodium from blood and help maintain proper blood salt levels. The finding suggested that salt-sensing taste bud cells used ENaC too.
To prove it, scientists engineered mice to lack the ENaC channel in their taste buds. These mice lost their normal preference for mildly salty solutions, the scientists reported in 2010 — confirming that ENaC was, indeed, the good-salt receptor.
So far, so good. But to truly understand how the good-salt taste worked, scientists would also need to know how the entry of sodium into taste buds is translated into a “Yum, salty!” sensation. “It’s what gets sent to the brain that’s important,” says Nick Ryba, a neuroscientist at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in Bethesda, Maryland, who was involved in linking ENaC to salt taste.
And to understand that signal transmission, scientists needed to find where in the mouth the signal started.
The answer might seem obvious: The signal would start from the specific set of taste bud cells that contain ENaC and that are sensitive to tasty levels of sodium. But those cells didn’t prove simple to find. ENaC, it turns out, is made up of three different pieces, and although individual pieces are found in various places in the mouth scientists had a hard time finding cells containing all three.
In 2020, a team led by physiologist Akiyuki Taruno at the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine in Japan reported that they had identified the sodium-taste cells at last. The researchers started with the assumption that sodium-sensing cells would spark an electrical signal when salt was present, but not if the EnaC blocker was there too. They found just such a population of cells inside taste buds isolated from the middle of mouse tongues, and these turned out to make all three components of the ENaC sodium channel.
Scientists can thus now describe where and how animals perceive desirable levels of salt. When there are enough sodium ions outside those key taste bud cells in the mid-tongue area, the ions can enter these cells using the three-part ENaC gateway. This rebalances the sodium concentrations inside and outside the cells. But it also redistributes the levels of positive and negative charges across the cell’s membrane. This change activates an electrical signal inside the cell. The taste bud cell then sends the “Mmmm, salty!” message onward to the brain.
Too salty!
But this system doesn’t explain the “Blech, too much salt!” signal that people also can get, usually when we taste something that’s more than twice as salty as our blood. Here, the story is less clear.
The other component of salt — chloride — might be key, some studies suggest. Recall that salt’s chemical structure is sodium chloride, though when dissolved in water it separates into positively charged sodium ions and negatively charged chloride ions. Sodium chloride creates the saltiest high-salt sensation, while sodium paired with larger, multi-atom partners tastes less salty. This suggests that sodium’s partner might be an important contributor to the high-salt sensation, with some partners tasting saltier than others. But as to exactly how chloride might cause high-salt taste, “Nobody has a clue,” says Roper.
One hint came from work by Ryba and colleagues with an ingredient of mustard oil: In 2013, they reported that this component reduced the high-salt signal in mouse tongues. Weirdly, the same mustard-oil compound also nearly eliminated the tongue’s response to bitter taste, as if the high-salt-sensing system was piggybacking onto the bitter-tasting system.
And it got odder still: Sour-taste cells seemed to respond to high salt levels, too. Mice lacking one or the other of the bitter- or sour-taste systems were less put off by extremely salty water, while those lacking both happily slurped down the salty stuff.
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Not all scientists are convinced, but the findings, if confirmed, raise an interesting question: Why don’t super-salty things taste bitter and sour too? It could be because the too-salty taste is the sum of multiple signals, not just one input, says Michael Gordon, a neuroscientist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who coauthored, with Taruno, a discussion of the knowns and unknowns of salt taste in the 2023 Annual Review of Physiology.
Despite the mustard oil lead, attempts to find the receptor molecule responsible for the high-salt taste sensation have so far been inconclusive. In 2021, a Japanese team reported that cells containing TMC4 — a molecular channel that lets chloride ions into cells — generated signals when exposed to high levels of salt in lab dishes. But when the researchers engineered mice without the TMC4 channel anywhere in their bodies, it didn’t make much difference to their aversion to extremely salty water. “There’s no definitive answer at this point,” Gordon says.
As a further complication, there’s no way to be sure that mice perceive salty tastes in exactly the same way that people do. “Our knowledge of salt taste in humans is actually quite limited,” says Gordon. People can certainly distinguish desirable, lower-salt levels from the foul, high-salt sensation, and the same ENaC receptor used by mice seems to be involved. But studies with the ENaC sodium channel blocker in people vary confusingly, sometimes seeming to diminish salt taste but other times to enhance it.
A possible explanation is the fact that people have a fourth, extra piece of ENaC, called the delta subunit, that rodents lack. It can take the place of one of the other pieces, perhaps making a version of the channel that is less sensitive to the ENaC blocker.
Forty years into investigations of salt taste, researchers are still left with questions about how people’s tongues perceive salt and how the brain sorts those sensations into “just right” versus “too much” amounts. At stake is more than just satisfying a scientific curiosity: Given the cardiovascular risks that a high-salt diet poses to some of us, it’s important to understand the process.
Researchers even dream of developing better salt alternatives or enhancers that would create the “yum” without the health risks. But it’s clear they have more work to do before they invent something we can sprinkle on our dinner plates with abandon, free of health worries.
10.1146/knowable-091223-2
Amber Dance, a science journalist in the Los Angeles area, enjoys experimenting with her collection of fancy finishing salts.
Taos, So Beautiful, We’ll Be Back
Some places, when you arrive, you just feel at home. We felt that way arriving in Taos. Our active-aging demographic went hand in hand with the young skier/snowboarder/rafter athletic demographic, and the two seemed to co-exist well.
We met a man in town who loves petroglyphs as I do, knows the secrets of where to find them and also has a vibrant and active mind. We found great walking, and beautiful spaces. We can’t wait to go back to Taos.
Cortez to Lake Powell
“Why Lake Powell?” asks AdventureMan. “The North Rim of the Grand Canyon isn’t open, and we haven’t seen Lake Powell,” I respond. “Have you looked at Lake Powell on the map? It’s man-made, and it goes on for miles. We might want to see it before it all dries up.”
Last year, on the Colorado River in May, the river levels were already desperately low.
“And it’s also a road we like, not interstate, gorgeous formations, and featured in Dark Winds and Outer Range,” I add.
Our last breakfast is the organic eggs and the last of AMs chicken mole, a delicious combination, as we pack our gear, strip our beds, wash the dishes, and load up the car. We say goodbye to Cecilia as we are leaving and head out back down the highway toward Kayenta, heading for Lake Powell.
Once again the scenery changes dramatically. We leave behind the high mountains and head down into red cliffs and huge dramatically sculpted free-standing flat-topped monuments in the desert. The clouds are dark and equally dramatic, making for some great contrasts.
We stop at Basha’s in Keyenta, a grocery store we love, and discover it has seriously modernized in the years since we last visited. The first thing we see when we enter is a Starbucks, just in time for me to get a mid-morning caffeine fix. All the different sectors of the grocery have signs in two languages, English and Navaho for produce, meat, bakery, delicatessen, etc.
While waiting for my coffee, a toddler came running in, wearing a dress and glasses almost as big as her face. She was so cute! The lady next to me showed us a photo of her granddaughter, equally cute. We, grandmothers, are all the same, so proud of our grandchildren.
We stopped at an overlook where I thought I saw a coyote, but AM said it was just a dog, and then there were two. I hope they hadn’t been abandoned there, I hope there was an unseen residence nearby where they lived.
Coming into Lake Powell was another dramatic shift in scenery, bleak and deserted, but contrasted with the bright blue waters of Lake Powell. We stopped at Big John’s Texas BBQ and ate at long picnic tables surrounded by tourists from many nations.
We then headed on to the Lake Powell resort, where we have reservations, and fortunately they have our room ready. It is a pretty standard kind of hotel room, except that it has a panoramic view of Lake Powell, and that makes all the difference.
When we go to confirm our boat ride for tomorrow, the concession clerk tells us we are lucky to be on tomorrow morning as the one for this afternoon was canceled because the boat had a problem. Evidently, it wasn’t pretty. She had all these people seriously disappointed they weren’t going to get their boat ride, they were only here today, their bus would be leaving and she had had quite a time trying to unruffle all those feathers. We gave her our utmost sympathy.
I had a good swim for about half an hour at the pool, it felt so good, and then a few drops of rain – well I can handle that.
And then lightning and thunder, and that is a good time to get out of the pool. We head back to the room and I catch up on documenting our journey. Soon we need to get ready for dinner; the restaurant here has a famous Cioppino which we intend to share with a couple salads.
The Cioppino was delicious, as was the Caesar salad I had preceding it.
We were lucky to have reservations, people were being turned away, and all around us were tables of tour groups, eating their meals. We could see they had choices, an appetizer, soup or salad, and an entree. They all got dessert. They were having a great time, and getting them in and out is clearly the hotel’s bread and butter. Lake Powell is a great stop between places like Zion and Bryce Canyon and Mesa Verde, or Canyon de Chilly or Santa Fe, and what we saw now, in late mid-May is just the beginning.
What puzzles me is that the restaurant is at full capacity, and people are being turned away, what will they do when the high season hits? Our waiter tells us there is a real problem finding enough people to work there, and the resort is several miles from Pace, the nearest city, so there is nowhere else for the people on bus tours to eat.
Hidden Gems in Pensacola: Update 2023
It’s July in Pensacola, hot, humid, and lazy. The beaches are crowded with vacationers, mostly from landlocked Southern states; most of the international visitors head for Miami or Tampa/St. Pete where there is a more active beach life. Pensacola is more laid back and likes it that way. The boat launch parking lots are overflowing. The bridge to the beach is at its busiest. The Blue Angels flew this weekend to thrill the hearts of thousands of viewers.
Things change slowly in Pensacola, but they DO change. One of the things that change is restaurants. In the midst of COVID, in 2020, I wrote Hidden Gems; Restaurants We Love in Pensacola. It still gets a lot of hits from beach-goers, but it needs to be updated.
These are our go-to restaurants in Pensacola, for people who love eating out. Even our dearest friends and family have other preferences, restaurants they like that we find are not for us, so there is no objectivity whatsoever in our choice of these restaurants, only that we find ourselves choosing them over and over – mostly because their food tastes really good, and that matters to us. Most of them are very very casual.
My all-time favorite, Siam Thai, is closed until later this month so the staff can “honor their ancestors”. I love the freshness of their food, as well as the tastiness of each and every dish. Some days it will be their Steak or Chicken salads, another day it will be chicken and basil or Swimming Rama. It’s all good. They expect to re-open on July 23, 2023 but check online because they are family owned and operated and not always open just because we expect them to be.
Our next very favorite is Kingfisher. Again, not fancy. Pensacolians tell us it used to be a famous sandwich shop. Now, they have some of the best, most creative food in town. I would call it a Michelin red R, good local food at reasonable prices. You can’t go wrong with their chowder or their gumbo. Their hamburger is astonishingly memorable. Their fish platters are always good, and they do a winter squash salad that I cannot resist (in season). Our son loves their Alabama White BBQ chicken (so do I). You can have sandwiches, or you can have salads, or you can have full platters; they are all good. (Edit: To our horror and grief, Kingfisher closed in October 2023. We can only hope it’s because they are negotiating another location.)
Sometimes Kingfisher gets really busy and we can’t get in. Our next choice is nearby, Nick’s Boat House. It has a great location, right on the water, with pelicans, herons, and an occasional Blue Angel flying by. Their food is standard Pensacola fare, Oyster or Shrimp Po’Boys, seafood platters, gumbo, a really nice lobster bisque, several main course salads, and a dynamite Salmon Piccata that draws me to Nick’s every time.
Also on the map above you will see Jaco’s, also good for seafood, and charcuterie, and is probably the best restaurant location in Pensacola. Outdoor seating is available and gives you time to spend with the gorgeous view. Jaco’s is a happening place. We love their salmon burgers.
I love the tuna at Fin and Fork, probably the only place in town where I eat mashed potatoes, because I shouldn’t, but the Fin and Fork mashed potatoes, served with the seared tuna, are too delicious to resist. They have really really good oysters, and a creme brulee, also irresistable. Their gumbo and bisque are exquisite.
Hard to describe, quirky, and in the heart of Old Pensacola is Juan’s Flying Burritos. It’s not Mexican, or it’s sort of a Mexican food format gone wild. If you expect Mexican, you will be disappointed. I have two great favorites, The Three Little Pigs tacos, and the Vietnamese Tacos. The Three Little Pigs are small tacos, filled with three different kinds of pork, each so delicious I cannot pick a favorite. It’s very creative, and if you order the right thing, you will love it.
Pensacola is blessed with some very fine Middle Eastern cooking, code-word Mediterranean so no one gets goosey. Zeytouna makes our hearts sing, especially the stuffed vegetables, the moussaka, the salads, oh my the grilled halloumi. Sister to a favorite restaurant we love in Baton Rouge, Al Basha, a meal at Zeytouna yields two or three more meals at home, so while it can be a little pricey for Pensacola, it dollar cost averages out to be very reasonable – as well as delicious.
When we gather as a family, it is often at Ichiban, on North Davis, because there is something for everyone. Recently, we have also started going to Kalbi Ichiban, on West Garden. While the menus are similar, Kalbi Ichiban has a younger vibe – a bar area, larger spaces, harder surfaces, and more options on the menu. Last time at Kalbi Ichiban, I had their bulgogi, which was very good, so much it served for several meals. At Ichiban, we usually have a bento box, because we love the variety.
For sheer comfort, for the best Vietnamese Pho and noodle dishes, and when I am sick, Tudo’s is our go-to. Always full of local Vietnamese residents, UWF students and faculty, and medical staff from West Florida Hospital, Tudo’s has great summer rolls (sometimes called salad rolls; the uncooked rice paper wrapped noodle and shrimp rolls served with peanut sauce) and huge bowls of noodles with barbecued chicken, pork, shrimp, egg rolls in any combination you want. I swear that if I start to feel sick, their chicken wonton soup, which we buy by the quart without the wontons, heals me almost immediately.
For quick but delicious sandwiches, and for a great choice of salads, soups, and desserts, there is our old favorite, the New Yorker Deli. On Tuesdays, they have Crayfish Etoufee’ which they also might have on Wednesday if there is any left. They always have the irresistible Double Lovin’ Spoonful chocolate cake, The Best Reuben in Town, and other thick, satisfying sandwiches and pizzas. The place is usually packed with locals and their families and all their best friends, so get there early. If the weather is nice, eat out on the deck.
On this same map above, you will also see the Publix Supermarket at Gulf Breeze and one on Cervantes in East Hill. Publix has a huge selection of take-away foods, all prepared, and also makes great sandwiches. You get to choose your own bread and toppings to go with the sandwich you order, and the ladies who make these sandwiches do a really great job.
Shoreline Deli and Joe Patti’s are both along West Main. Shoreline Deli has a great Deli which will make hot and cold sandwiches, and huge delicious salads while you wait. Waiting is the fun part – Shoreline Deli has the best olive oil in town, a huge spice selection, local honey, imported snacks and specialties, and a huge variety of chips and sweets. Joe Patti’s is a self-advertised foodie destination – and it really is. The best time to avoid the long lines waiting for fresh seafood is early in the morning, unless it is Christmas Eve Day, and there will already be a long line when the store opens. They make a lot of great specialties – Spicy Tuna Dip, seafood salad, fresh hot gumbo and chowder, really nice French, Sourdough, and Ciabatta. We all shop at Joe Patti’s!
You will also have noticed on several of these maps the Palafox Market on Palafox Street, which is open on Saturday mornings with featuring local farmers, craftspeople, old folk singers, freshly baked bread, pastries and pies, fresh coffee and homemade mustards (and other condiments) – a great place to browse on a Saturday morning, to people watch and to get a little feeling for the Pensacola Parade Culture – be sure to look up at those trees overhead to see how many beads you can see stranded there from a plethora of parades. Both Saint Michael’s Basilica and Christ Church Episcopal are often open for tours when the Market is open, giving you a chance to take a peek at these two historical Pensacola churches.
El Asador, one of our nation’s best food trucks is still semi-permanently located at the Shell Station at 7955 North Davis Highway. It’s worth the drive, and it’s worth the stand in line. The smell of the grilling chicken is intoxicating. We like to order the chicken platter, but we also love their tacos and burritos. This is some of the best Mexican food in Pensacola.
The restaurants we have told you about above are not the ones you will find written up in major American travel magazines, but they are the tried and true local places where Pensacolians eat on a daily basis. There are some great higher-end places to eat, also, and below I will share our favorites. True classics – they were on my first list of Hidden Gems, even though they are not so hidden :-).
For steaks, you can’t beat McGuires Irish Pub for a reliable great meal and great service, every time. Be prepared to wait – McGuire’s sometimes has wait times of an hour or more. A local secret – go for lunch on a day when there is a parade or a Blue Angels show, and you can get right in.
Flounders, on the beach, is also a McGuire’s restaurant and has the same kind of high-quality reliability. We go there often; we love their chowder. For a Gulf-coast restaurant, they also do a great job of searing salmon to top a Caesar salad. I love their Baja tacos and just about anything they grill.
For a great night out, for us, it is still The Grand Marlin. We’ve never had a bad meal there, nor had bad service. I go for their TGM New Orleans Shrimp, or for Cioppino or Bouillabaisse when they have it. They do everything right.
For a quiet, private celebration, or when we have special friends in town, we drive out to Fisherman’s Corner; you make a right turn just before the Theodore Baars bridge going over to Perdido Key. There is a huge apartment – or condo (?) complex going up on your right, then a Dog care salon, and then a place that looks like a bait shop, except there are cars parked everywhere and people holding drinks waiting to get in. The food is always fresh. If they haven’t been able to find it fresh, they’ll tell you when you sit down that it is not available. We have never had a bad meal here, and we have had some good wine.
If you took a look at the previous hidden gems, you will see that these last four were on that list too. A classic is a classic. These four restaurants thrive because of their focus on the entire experience. They make people feel welcome and they take pride in serving the best food.
Bon appetit!
(Suggestions and recommendations are always welcome 😊)
Jazzy BBQ, a FAO Adventure in Pensacola
We are driving up Davis, because AdventureMan wants me to see a new Halal Market he has found (you can get some wild ingredients in these specialty stores in Pensacola) when he spots Jazzy Bar-B-Q. We continued on to the market, where I found all the exotic and wonderful spices and legumes I used to find in the LuLu and Family Food Stores in Doha, but AdventureMan was still thinking about Jazzy Bar-B-Q, and so today when it came time to think about lunch, he knew just where he wanted to go, and the adventure began.
AdventureMan was a Foreign Area Officer when we were in the military, and to be that sort, you truly have to have a spirit of adventure.
We got to Jazzy Bar-B-Q around noon, but the door was closed and a lady laden with deliveries was just leaving.
“Don’t leave!” she called out. “He’ll be right back. He’s just making deliveries! He’s my son!”
We drove around the block for a better parking spot and she was just about to leave. “Here!” she said, thrusting one of the delivery sacks in our direction, “I want you to have this to nibble on while you wait.”
“Oh no, oh no,” we said, but this dear woman insisted, gave AdventureMan the container, and drove off saying she was calling her son to tell him we were there.
Ribs, chicken wings, greens and mac ‘n cheese. All very tasty! AdventureMan held off, but I had a wing and a rib while we waited.
Very soon, Phil arrived, unlocked and invited us in. In reality, he is a noted musician, and the restaurant was started by his Mama, who also does some of the cooking. For example, for tonight he has jumbo shrimp in an Alfredo sauce for his dinners. He has a lot of customers who aren’t able to get out anymore, and the food he creates is more of a ministry than a business. He cooks with love.
We were the only ones there, and as Phil fixed our meals, he told us about his family (originally from Pritchard, Alabama, then many years as New Yorkers, then to Pensacola) and his customers. It reminded me of the kind of hospitality we often received in the Middle East, listening to stories as food was created.
Phil sent us out with so much food, and a green pepper that after we eat, we are to salvage the seeds and use them in our garden. We brought it home – it was all delicious. I was especially glad he had greens, and they were amazing.
I ordered the rib plate, and I got enough ribs for a week! AdventureMan ordered the pulled pork sandwich, and got two!
(Sorry, we had already tucked in when I remembered to take a photo.)
Long story short. Jazzy Bar-B-Q is more than just food; it is also about those who prepare it and those who are eating it. We loved this experience, and we will be going back.
Barcelona to Abu Dhabi and a Day in Haifa We Didn’t Expect
We had scheduled a full-day trip to the Golan Heights today, sort of a sentimental journey for our curiosity. We often visited a site in Jordan, Umm Qais, overlooking the Golan Heights from the east. We thought it would be fun to see it from the west side.
After our trip to Acre, we decided the last thing we wanted to do was to spend a full day on a bus with largely unmasked people who were coughing and sneezing, and it was not a location that mattered a lot to us, so we canceled.
We felt really good about our decision. I slept well and I got up early and had the laundry room all to myself, got a load started, then went up to the Horizons Lounge to have some hot coffee and watch the other passengers depart.
I put the clothes in the dryer and went back to the cabin where AdventureMan is awake and ready for breakfast. He is coughing and sneezing a little now, too, and we both drink pots of mint tea at breakfast.
I grab the rest of the laundry as it finishes drying, we quickly fold and put away and head for our happy place on board, the spa. Most of the passengers seem not to be early risers, so when we go, before we start our day’s activities, we have it all to ourselves. My old turquoise swimsuit balloons when the jets of air hit, but no one is there to see and I will toss the suit when we start packing for our return and will never miss it. I hang on to old swimsuits just for this purpose, to get rid of them and not have to worry about transporting a damp suit. This time, hmmmm, I actually wish I had brought a newer suit that’s not saggy! I tell myself it’s OK, no one else is around this early in the morning, but – I live in fear.
After our spa time, we take our time getting ready to catch the shuttle for Haifa. The crew emergency drill begins, and we head for debarkation and wait for the shuttle. I meet a couple from near Bruges, Belgium. He is 59, and had a stroke. He has all his facilities; hears and understands but cannot communicate except by facial and hand expressions. His wife tends to him in his wheelchair and is taking him into town for the day. We have a great conversation; I am reading a book from a series right now about Bruges during the commercial explosion of the late 1400s as Bruges and the Netherlands led the way in international trading.
The Shuttle drops us off in front of a hotel just by the main street through the Colony.
We explore the old German Colony of Haifa, and look for the Arab Market, which we discover is not open on Sundays because most of the Arabs are Christian. I do find pistachios, for which I have been searching, in one Arab quick shop which is open. They take Euros, and the nuts are very inexpensive.
Look at these wonderful old trees!
This large cathedral is St. Elias, in the center of the Arab Quarter, where everything is closed because it is Sunday.
We find a restaurant, the Gardens, for lunch and have a delicious lunch with freshly baked bread and cheese, lemon mint iced drinks, and a baked eggplant dish with tahini, finishing with Arabic coffee. We were definitely in our happy place.
The bread is still too hot to touch, full of a salty cheese, fresh out of the oven. We can hardly wait.
As we sat there, a photographer was preparing foods and photographing them for the tablet menus they are using to show their very international clientele what the dishes look like. A hungry cat and her adolescent offspring wandered the restaurant looking for handouts, and avoiding dangerous feet.
My eye is caught by the patterned fabric they are using on the table 😊.
After lunch, we caught the shuttle back to the ship, went through the facial recognition process, and put our goods through the inspection machine, very TSA like, to get back on board. We also had to turn our passports back in as they will need them to get our Egyptian visas for the upcoming Suez transit and visit to Sfaga and Luxor.
As we boarded the bus, we talked with a New Hampshire couple who had been visiting with old friends overnight and had so much to tell us about their very different way of life but similar challenges, with children fighting old expectations and grandchildren underfoot. She also shared a cracker made with all kinds of seeds that was delicious. I’d love the recipe.
We got back at ship around 2:30.
We took a snooze. That’s what cruises are all about, sleeping, eating, (for some, a lot of drinking) and a little bit of touring. Many passengers took long day tours to Jerusalem or Masada or the Dead Sea and are not back yet, so we made a last-minute decision to go to tea at 4:00 while there isn’t such a crowd. Great decision. Very low attendance, most tours were not back, and our friends Ed and Alan were there. We chatted with them, had some tea, listened to a string quartet, and spotted a submarine monitoring the harbor. Yes, really.
I can’t believe what I think I am seeing:
We stroll along the walking deck. I had thought this would be a place full of runners, but runners are few, and most of us are walking at various paces. We go back to our cabin and read. Time to read is such a wonderful luxury.
We love ordering dinner in our cabin. Ashok brought the fois en croute with a reduced port sauce AdventureMan loves so much, and a French Onion soup. I had Thai soup and some chicken. It was quiet and so private – and so wonderful. Another luxury – privacy!
We split a Creme Brulee for dessert. Ashok wants us each to have one, but I have diabetes, and AdventureMan helps me stay on track by splitting desserts with me.
We hear groups of our passengers returning, and we watch another cruise ship depart:
It’s Sunday. On some cruise ships, they have religious services, but not on the Oceania Nautica. At one point, AdventureMan asked me about this man named Bill, who has a group that meets every single night in a part of the restaurant. I explain to him about Friends of Bill W and the meeting for recovering alcoholics, and how glad I am to see that like-minded people can meet and strengthen one another on a ship where every day the cruise director tells us to “Grab a drink and make a friend.” I wish there were an Episcopalian group.
I feel great during the day, but when I lie down at night I get all stuffy and it sticks in my throat. I wonder if it is the cleaning supplies they use? I am constantly waking up, and have fevered dreams, although I have no fever. Finally, around three in the morning, I applied a hot towel to my sinuses and moved to sleep on the little couch, so I would be more upright. It was the right thing to do – I slept until seven thirty in the morning.
Taormina! and the BamBar!
As we were waiting – and waiting – and waiting to actually take this tour, the three long years of COVID, we spent time doing research on various aspects of the itinerary. One of our very favorite resources was Gary Bembridge’s Tips for Travellers, and his amazing cruise ship videos.
Gary Bembridge and his partner really like Oceania for it’s passenger service and care, and for the dining options they offer, and he says that for people who are destination serious, the line that has the best tours and onboard lecturers for content and information is hands down, Viking.
My Mother had a great sense of humor; she once said “have you ever noticed that people with good taste seem to have tastes that agree with your own?” I’ve never forgotten that. As I recommend Gary Bembridge and his videos, it is my OPINION that his opinions are really great, but it is probably because I agree with most of what he says.
He says it is important (I am paraphrasing here) to know who you are and to know what you like and know what is important to you as you choose a cruise line. Do you want entertainment? Do you like casinos? Do you want to take your children?
He compares ship packages – tours, drinks, ship credits and helps you find what is right for you. He advises on choice of cabins, cabin locations, and cabins for people inclined to sea sickness. If you have never cruised, or if you have had a disappointing cruise but are willing to try again, Gary Bembridge and his videos can help you make choices that will be a great choice for YOU.
We also watched a lot of YouTube videos about Taormina (and Barcelona, that’s how we narrowed down our choices for our short time there.)
We are the bane of a tour director’s life, AdventureMan and I. We prefer to wander off on our own. I like to take photos not crowded with people. I have some attention deficits; I can only listen for so long, and I can only absorb so much.
So we signed up for a tour called Taormina on your Own, and it turned out to be very right for us.
It was getting close to 1:55 and we headed for our bus. Our friends Alan and Ed came on board, too; we had met them in Barcelona and they sat behind us and we got to know each other a little better. They said mostly they had been eating and catching up on sleep.
Before we got out of Messina, we got stuck in the middle of a very cultural moment; school got out and parents, drivers, and taxis were all very aggressively picking up students from their schools. There was no regard for lanes, and there were cars coming straight at us in our lane! There were students stepping in front of the bus, knowing we would stop! It was chaos, and it happened every single day in Messina.
Here is a policeman, doing nothing.
Our guide, Julia, gave us all sorts of great information on Messina and Toaramina as we drove the twisty roads en route to Taormina.
The day was already fading as we arrived at a giant parking lot and Julia explained how to get into town and where we would meet to return to the ship. She said we would meet at 5:30, but we were supposed to be back on board at 5:30. She said, oh no, that the ship wasn’t leaving until seven, so we had plenty of time. OK.
AdventureMan and I headed out, and it was familiar territory from all the YouTube videos we had watched. We found there were not too many tourists, and the light was beautiful.
We had learned, from YouTube, of a Taormina legend dating back to early times where a princess had a lover who was unfaithful. She cut off his head and used it as a planter for her basil, which thrived. If you know the legend, you see the planters commemorating this legend everywhere,
Pomegranates! And a pomegranate juice maker! I wish I could stop, but we are headed for the BamBar, and their famous Granitas.
We quickly found the Twin Set where we headed right and strolled down to the Bam Bar. There was one empty table waiting for us.
We ordered granita; chocolate for me, pistachio and brioche for AdventureMan, and hot tea for me. The chocolate was divine, thick and intense, probably full of calories, but how often are we in Taormina?
We continued down the main road and went outside to look at the old Roman Ruins.
On the way back, we headed to see the Greek Theatre, but the gates closed just as we arrived.
It wasn’t a great loss to us; we’d seen it so often on YouTube we felt like we’d been there, and we had other panoramic opportunities to view Toaramina.
These musicians were very good. I can imagine they made good money from tips from appreciative tourists.
Back in Pensacola, pre-trip, a not un-typical conversation:
AdventureMan, hollaring from his office “Hey, there’s an airport up on the hill. We could hike up!”
Me: (thinking why would I want to hike up a hill to the airport? Looking at the map – I can see that it is not an airport. It is an old fort.) “It’s NOT an airport!” I holler back.
AdventureMan, coming into my office with a very confused look on his face: “What do you think I just said?”
Me: “That we could hike up to the airport on the top of the hill.”
AdventureMan, laughing so hard he can barely stand up: “Arab Fort! Arab Fort! Not Airport, Arab Fort!”
We still laugh about that one. We had a great view of the Arab Fort from the BamBar.
We also got to see Mount Etna spewing lava in the distance.
It was another gorgeous day on our trip. We met up with our group, getting to know some of our fellow passengers a little better, then headed to the bus.
As we departed, the moon came up, giant and blood-red in the distance, truly glorious. Arriving back in Messina, at almost 6:40, there was a long line to get back onto the ship, but they had facial recognition programs that identified us and allowed us to process quickly.
We got to our room, changed our clothes, and took our dinner and a bottle of wine out to our balcony.
We were eating and chatting and watching the passengers straggle back, and at some point, the ship silently pulled away from the dock and it was so gently done we didn’t even notice until we were about ten meters away. We still have a full moon!
What a lovely way to make a departure. The temperature was so warm that we were perfectly comfortable out on the balcony watching as we departed Sicily, faced toward Italy until we lost the view and we retreated back into our cabin.
At Sea On U.S. Election Day
It is wonderful to be at sea in the turmoil of this year’s election. No one is talking about it onboard. What a relief.
We are told there are passengers from 39 nations on board, and crew from more nations. The entire day, we hear not a word about the American election.
The demographic is very much our age group. If anything, we are younger than most. Hard to say, but we see some very old but still adventuresome travelers, which gives us hope for our own future travels.
We were wide awake before seven. I got up and went to get some coffee. We can have it delivered to the room, but on these relaxed days at sea, we don’t like to commit to a time and it is just as easy to go get my own cup at the dedicated coffee bar. Actually, coffee is available in many places on the ship, and the smell of coffee early in the morning wafts everywhere.
We had decided to try The Grand Dining Room for breakfast, wanting to be less formal in a very formal environment.
The waiters are all white-jacketed and very pleasant. The menu is lovely – the tastiest item was smoked salmon with cream and capers and white onion, a great way to start the day. AdventureMan shared with me. The fruit platters were large enough for two; I cut most of mine into small pieces to stir into my virtuous oatmeal. Don’t you think smoked salmon is virtuous too? I think I prefer virtuous tasty smoked salmon to virtuous oatmeal.
I am not complaining. I eat oatmeal every day at home. As a diabetic, it is great for keeping my blood sugar levels down. The Nautica had really nice oatmeal. And oatmeal just pales in comparison to all the lovely choices available for breakfast, all the beautiful pastries, croissants, breakfast breads, all the lovely foods with a lot of fats and sugars. Yes, even on a cruise, I pay attention. I will try not to whine again.
After breakfast, I grabbed some of my hotter weather clothes to iron – the compression bags puts some serious wrinkles into linen clothing.
The laundry room is much smaller than it appears on the ship map, but the iron was hot and efficient, and there were other passengers doing small loads of washing and drying. It is handy that it is all free. There is a laundry on board, and although we have laundry service I prefer doing my own laundry. We have a line in the shower where we can hang items we have hand laundered in the sink, and we found little detergent slips on Amazon that are very compact and efficient for hand laundry.
Then we walked the walking track, windy, invigorating; we have a lovely sunny day, warm enough but sometimes the wind was so strong it blew me into AdventureMan. I am happy we packed some of our cool-weather gear; when we are at sea, it can be windy and chilly. We checked out the gym, where AdventureMan found mats available for stretching as I look eagerly at the outside spa overlooking the bow of the ship. Heaven!
Back in the room, AdventureMan naps as we wait for the eleven o-clock enrichment lecture on the Origins of the First Crusade, in preparation for our time in Sicily and Israel. I am excited we will be going to Acre, the old Crusader stronghold, the day we arrive there.
The lecture was well attended, probably four hundred or so passengers.
And then off we went to lunch at The Terrace restaurant.
We have found a table we love; sheltered by a small wall but still with a good view out over the aft of the ship. The Terrace is the ship’s buffet restaurant, except that it is not like a buffet where you dish up your own portions. There are very pleasant wait-staff every few feet who put food on your plate. You can say “a very small portion, please” or “could I have a little more of that?” and they will give you exactly what you wish. Don’t you love having choices?
It all feels so indulgent.
After lunch, I read while AdventureMan attended an afternoon lecture on How Man Learned to Navigate by the Stars, which he said turns out to be very complicated. Here is the truth, I will admit it, I needed a nap. I am not yet fully adapted to the time change. The little couch is a perfect size for me, and there is a soft sea-green throw I can cover up with and I am out like a light.
Dinner this night is at the Polo Grill, and, sadly, while these reservations are greatly coveted, by dinner time I don’t care. I don’t much want to dress up; I wish they would just deliver the dinner to the room, but this is part of the Oceania experience and so we dress and go up for dinner. The code is “country-club casual.” There are many interpretations of what that might mean. Here is ours.
I had a shrimp cocktail, tomato salad, and lobster, AdventureMan had the Lobster Bisque, Fois Gras en Croute, and the lobster, and we split a Creme Brûlée. The Creme Brûlée was very good.
It is a lovely kind of evening, and we enjoyed ourselves because we do this so rarely. The night is sweet and warm, the moon is full, and we can’t resist a lap or two around the walking track before we go to sleep.
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