Alaska 2026: The Ocean House Inn in Homer, Alaska
This is the Ocean House Inn overlooking Kachemak Bay.
This is the view:
Homer Spit is in the background. The first time we came to Homer, we came by the Alaska Maritime Highway System, by ferry. The ferry, the Kennicott MV, landed out on the spit, and we shared a taxi with another couple getting off in Homer. It was a long hike into town; we were glad to have a taxi.
We stayed at the Driftwood Inn, where we have stayed every time we come to Homer, but this time they were already full. After a long search, we found the Ocean House Inn. This place was perfect for us.
Small. Quiet. A view that goes forever. And a suite we love.
We had so much left from lunch that we just stayed in for dinner, eating outside on our deck/patio. We met our next door neighbors – from nearby Louisiana. We were not watching the sun go down – I don’t even know when it goes down; when we go to bed, it is still bright as day outside. The room has great blackout curtains.
This is a place we could come back to.
Alaska 2026: Wonders En Route to Homer, Alaska
We awake to a different day, warm, with fog rising off the water.
We have a sweet farewell breakfast up at Northern Lights B&B (Sarah manages several allied B&Bs in the same area as Front Row B&B) with Sarah, and we pack up for our short drive to Homer.
We have a couple of errands to run as we leave town, and AdventureMan indulges me, I want a photo of the big new cruise ship that has arrived in Seward.
Seward is tourist-friendly, with its train terminal, trolley, good restaurants, and lots and lots to do and see. They recently built a much larger dock, with which to welcome much larger cruise ships. It has caused some controversy, as when a big ships come in, the tourists outnumber Seward residents. Just after we left, the Celebrity Millenium arrived, and sadly, an endangered whale was caught in her propeller, and died, stuck there. Seward loves their whales, visible from most homes and businesses lining the channel. It’s a sad circumstance.
We also need to stop on our way out of town at the Safeway; my lips are dry and I’ve used all my Vaseline. My pens are all leaking on my hands, my purse, ruining anything I write by hand, so I need to pick up some pens I can leave behind. And the local grocery stores are just fun.
Driving past the entrance to Exit Glacier, we get back on Alaska 1S to Homer, spotting elk along the highway and fervent fishermen heading to the salmon-rich rivers and through Cooper Landing and Soldotna.
Heading south from Soldotna, we start to see the far-off beginnings of the volcanic mountains heading down a long chain to form the Aleutian Islands. The day is sunny, and the view is stunning. Every new perfect snow-clad mountain is showing off for us on this gorgeous day.
We keep trying to find a good spot to stop and take a photo – the frustration of trying to capture the wonder of a chain of perfect mountains is a challenge. AdventureMan spots a Russian Chapel and says “Let’s try here!”
We drive down to a church, an onion-domed chapel, and a much larger church overlooking an old village. As I walk out to a vantage point, another group drives up in a van, from one of the cruise ships, to have a picnic on the church grounds. We stroll around, loving the old cemetary surrounding the old Russian church, and the new military veterans cemetary under creation. We’re not that far from Homer, so we head on, gassing up in the roadside version of Ninilchik, at one of the Three Bears (Shell gas) stops we see so often selling gas, groceries, and the variety of items people living in relative isolation might need.
As we come into Homer, still a little early for our hotel, we spot Fat Olive’s. We’ve never eaten at Fat Olives, but we’ve tried, and it has been too full too many times. This time, we are in luck. We are eager for some Tomato Basil Soup. I have something called The Trio, and AdventureMan has the meatball pan, sizzling hot out of the oven. It’s all served with more sourdough bread, so much food that as good as it is, we pack up enough to take with us for dinner.
Welcome to the Ocean House Inn; we can’t get out of the car because there is a moose crossing the parking lot to get to the roses.
The Ocean House Inn is on a bluff, high above the water, looking out at the Homer Spit.
It is small, and beautiful. We love our room, which has a small refrigerator, microwave, and a coffee maker, with some cups and utensils – enough that we can work with. Life is sweet.
We settle in, sit outside on our deck, enjoying not-driving. The sun is shining – this is something to celebrate in Alaska. The mountains across Katchemak Bay are gleaming. We have neighbors, but they are all very quiet.
On our way into town, we got a call from the people we are going on a bay Wilderness Game tour the next day, asking if we would like to be moved to an afternoon tour, they have room. Oh no, we respond, we prefer the mornings. “Uh, OK,” they say. I can worry about anything; I am a little worried the boat is overloaded or something.
We take a quick drive to 2 Sisters Bakery, only to find it closed about ten minutes before we got there, and we hit the local Safeway to pick up some milk and granola. The Homer Safeway is a happening place on a Friday afternoon, and lots of fun.
So late Friday night that it is actually two Saturday morning, I get up to check if I can see the aurora borealis; reports say with sun activity, the borealis should be very active. Alas, at two in the morning, it is not dark, just a glimmery grey and no aurora borealis is to be seen.
You can still see the bay and the mountains. No aurora borealis.
Alaska 2026: Seward AK Front Row B&B
This is the view we woke up to from our suite at the Front Row B&B.
These are the spaces we were privileged to inhabit. We felt so blessed to find this exquisite place to stay.
The bed in our room – incredibly comfortable and also a work of art.
The common areas: uncommonly beautiful.
We had an all-day exploration and fishing trip, and when we returned, salt-soaked, sunburned and exhausted, a guest we had met was waving to us from the balcony saying, “Come on up!” We quickly cleaned up and went up to join all the other guests. The man, who stays at Front Row often, had prepared an impromptu cocktail party with some very fine wines and charcuterie boards.
His generosity of spirit blew me away. We guests didn’t know each other, but all the wine and good bites broke the ice, and we ended up having a very good time, or so the happy noise level informed me. Of all the times we have stayed in B&B’s, this was exceptional and memorable.
The common space is lovely for relaxing, perfect for dining. for entertaining, and is equipped for the pickiest, most needy guests. You can watch whales in the bay from this room, or the attached balcony.
The view of Mount Alice:
AdventureMan was so smart. He took the photo of the wine served at the cocktail party, a dry, complex red wine we both thoroughly enjoyed.
And no, I took the photos when the other guests were not around! 😄
If you want a hot breakfast, you walk a very short walk to a partner B&B where the property manager, Sarah, prepares your dream breakfast.
I needed an oat-y cereal, and Sarah went to her living area and brought out her personal stash – just exactly what I needed – oats, seeds, nuts, dried fruits, and there were fresh bananas to cut and put on it. She made this graciousness feel effortless, and she took her time with us, answering all our questions and giving us the information we needed to make our time in Seward most productive. Conversations with Sarah substantially improved our understanding of the quality of life and current issues in Seward.
Our last morning in Seward, we still had some wonderful smoked salmon spread from our meal at Highlight, so AdventureMan asked her if she could put it in an omelet. She said she could, and whipped up one of the most beautiful and tasty omelets ever, using fresh-cut chives from her garden.
Sarah oversees a variety of rentals and has a keen eye for important details. I cannot imagine a better place to stay in Seward.
Alaska 2026: The Tundra Wilderness Expedition
(Maps are courtesy of the U.S. National Park Service)
We get a great night’s sleep when we fall into bed around 6 pm local time – a combination of our bodies still being on Pensacola time and the body cost of a full day’s drive following a full day’s flight to get here. We were wide awake before 6 a.m., a really good thing because we had reservations on the Denali Tundra Wilderness Tour and needed to be at the pickup point by 7:40.
Denali Park Village is just across busy Alaska Highway 3, which is not busy on a Sunday morning so we get there, get a parking place and AdventureMan asks me if we have our paper with the confirmation. No. As we left the cabin, we were busy unplugging all the heating devices – fireplace, radiator, and the coffee maker and the microwave, washing up the breakfast dishes.
No, I had left it on the table, where I had put it, so I wouldn’t forget. We got back in the car, drove back to our cabin, I ran in and got the paper, and we were back in the same parking place in five minutes, still early so we would be on time.
The lobby was packed! There must have been two hundred people there for tour pickups. The first pickup was the Denali Raft Trip. It’s 40 degrees outside, and the rivers are formed from glacial runoff. Still, a group of hardy twenty-somethings is headed out on the waters for an Alaskan adventure, and a part of me momentarily forgot I am not a twenty-something and longed to be going on that trip.
We discovered that many of the guests to be picked up were from cruise ships – the Princess Line and the Holland America Line maintain their own hotels just up the road at a busy, very tourist-oriented center with lots of shops and fast food restaurants. A group of Windstar people arrived and were being given their instructions when our tour bus drove up, stopping in front of AdventureMan and I. We got on, and sat a few rows back from the front.
AdventureMan said “This is a Blue Bird bus!” We used to see them all over Doha, old school buses with names of American schools in cities that had long since updated their buses. It was not roomy or luxurious, but it was heated and had windows that you could pull down when we spotted bear, or moose, or other game.
Our guide, Mike, was excellent. Without sounding the least bit authoritarian, he laid down some routines which would make our next few hours together more civilized – he formed us into a working team.
“If you see something,” Mike said, “Yell ‘STOP!’ and I will stop. Don’t yell ‘BEAR!’ or anything else, just yell “STOP.” Then he explained about the clock system of pointing out a location, like twelve is the front of the bus and three is 90 degrees to the right, etc.
“And even if it turns out to be just a log in the field and you think it’s a bear, yell STOP! Don’t be embarrassed if it’s just a big rock or something, that just happens. If we all work at spotting, we’ll have a great day.”
And he was right. The people on the bus went up and down, and we spotted. It was a grand day.
I probably should tell you that it was a cloudy day, and then we had some heavy showers, and then we had an hour or so of snow. Truly! And between all that, we had some great game sighting, and heard some wonderful stories of the founding of Denali Park, and even had a Ranger get on the bus briefly and quote from a poem by a poet named Abby, a poem about the magical transformation we experience surrounded by the natural world. It was a lovely moment.
One of the funniest things that happened right off the top was one of the Windstar passengers talking about the hotel he had stayed in in Anchorage coming in a day before meeting up with his cruise.
“It looked good on paper,” he said. “It had all the bells and whistles, on paper,” he said. “But it was like a Motel 6 that was really a Motel 3.” I laughed along with everyone else, very happy that I was not the only one horrified by the hotel I had chosen in Anchorage.
Even before we entered the park, we saw a Mama Moose and her baby, and then another Moose. We stopped for photos for the first, but not the second, as it was on the railway tracks and Mike did not want to stop on the tracks, as there are trains arriving in Denali all the time.
Soon after, we saw Ptarmigan, the Alaska state bird, and little rabbits, and then, out sleeping in the tundra, a Mama Bear and her cub, maybe a year old. Mike had special equipment, a large camera connected to monitors throughout the bus, so even those not on the left side of the bus (us) could see the bear. We thought it was one big bear until the cub raised its head. Mike was also very patient every time we saw something, we could spend a lot of time until everyone was able to take photos, and the group worked together very politely.
Finally we reached a potty stop, with lots of potties, but thanks to Mike, we were the first bus to arrive, and even as we were walking to the potties, other buses, many many buses, began pulling up. We ran into some people we had met at the Mt. Denali North Overview, and had a delightful, if short, reunion before having to reboard our separate buses to continue our tours.
More bear. Dall Sheep. Ground squirrels, which Mike described as “Denali fast food for bears.”
I had no idea! Because tundra is a thin layer of soil atop permanently frozen soil, bear eat a lot of roots (we saw them digging furiously for roots) until berries and nuts begin to ripen. A bear will eat about 200,000 berries a day. But their most efficient protein is ground squirrel.
At the turn around point, a raven’s nest on the support of the bridge we had just crossed. We got out and stretched and walked at every opportunity – it is a long tour.
On the way back, more bear, and this time, they walked right up to the bus and alongside without seeming to be aware we were there.
And a fox! I didn’t think I had caught him; he moved so fast. It wasn’t until I uploaded my photos that I saw I had captured him:
I did tell you, didn’t I, that it was snowing once we got to the second set of bear, and the Dall’s sheep?
The raven’s nest on the bridge at Mile 43, where we turned around. The white stuff is snowflakes falling.
All in all, it was a lovely day, a great wilderness tour, and a lot of fun. We were bundled up, and we had heat in the bus, but we had so much fun we forgot it was drizzly for a short while, and then we also had snow. It was more than six hours before we got back to the drop-off point and back to our cabin. It was a long, exciting day.
Time for a nap. After a day so full of learning, exploration and the excitement of spotting different game, we needed quiet time just to soak it all in.
We had dinner at the Denali Park Village, and it was a combination of the divine and the ridiculous. I ordered the Halibut, and it was really good. It had a crisp, tasty coating, as cooked perfectly, and had a delicious sauce. It was served on a bed of wild rice, and had corn and peas with it – simple and simply delicious.
AdventureMan ordered a charcuterie platter, and when it came, his face couldn’t hide his dismay. He just laughed. His first charcuterie board ever was at the Lake Restaurant in Glacier National Park, where the server showed him which was elk, which was venison, and which was wild boar – all locally sourced and processed. Even the mustard was local, with local jams, fruits; it was an abundance of delicious flavors and textures – at the Lake Lodge. At Denali, he had expected something with Alaska specialties. Not at Denali Park Village.
What he was served on this night was the equivalent of Ritz Crackers and store bought cheddar cheese, something that approximated blue cheese and supermarket cold cuts. Worse, the meats were very fatty. It had some really nice grapes, lots of grapes.
We laugh at things others might not find funny. We laughed at that dismal charcuterie board. I shared my halibut with AdventureMan. The halibut was really good.
We had gotten chilled on the Wilderness Tour, and even with the fireplace and the radiator, we couldn’t seem to get warm enough. We took hot showers, piled on every blanket, and snuggled under them until we fell asleep. We slept wonderfully.
Alaska 2026: Denali, Grizzly Bear Lodge and Hunter’s Cabin
Grizzly “prints” at entrance to Lodge
Thermometer on Hunter’s Cabin Deck:
Arriving at Denali Grizzly Bear Resort, I was hoping the cabin I had reserved didn’t have an old musty smell and was clean enough. We enjoyed the check-in with two young women from Jamaica who love working in Alaska, who were very helpful. They showed us on the map where the Hunter cabin was and how to get there.
When we got there, we were thrilled. It is a sweet cabin, well thought out and well prepared for visitors. As we walked in the door, we were met with an electric fire place all turned on and heating up the cabin.
The cabin has a full kitchen, with a fridge and microwave and coffee maker, a sink and running water and even a few basic cooking supplies. a table and chairs, cupboards, a separate bed room with a separate toilet and shower area and a sweet washing area with plenty of counter space for both of us.
There is another radiator to provide heat if we need it, extra blankets, and hooks to hang our jackets and outerwear. It also has thick dark blackout curtains, a definite must in a state where it doesn’t get dark until very late and starts getting light very early.
View of Nenana River through the trees.
We took a quick trip across the street to figure out where we will meet our Wilderness Tundra Tour tomorrow morning, and picked up some Seafood Clowder at the Denali Village Lodge for our dinner.
Back in our cozy cabin, we ate dinner and got ready for bed. The three hour time difference is breaking our routines; we are exhausted and ready for bed way too early. But this is a vacation! We can sleep when we want! Routines are not dictators! So we are in our nightclothes and AdventureMan is snoozing on and off, now up and running through his bed time routines while I joyfully write up today’s adventures. I can’t wait to show you the photos!
Morocco Malta and the Med: Our First Lucky Day
Everything had gone so smoothly. All our preparations, packing, the taxi driver lined up. And then, just before we are to leave home, a text from Air France, cancelling our flight with them and putting us on a Delta flight. Not a tragedy, but a disappointment; we always try to book Air France because their service is so welcoming, the food is delightful, and we just feel like the vacation starts as soon as we step aboard. So we know we will have to deal with it when we get to the airport.
We are checking in, and explain to the Delta check-in lady that we had the text, which had not yet shown up on her machine. She started poking around, and said “Mind if I make a phone call?” and we said “no, go ahead” and she talked with someone somewhere and looked at us and said “How would you like to fly directly from Atlanta to Barcelona?”
“YES!” we chimed together! We had wanted that direct flight, but Viking Air had said it was not possible. With just a few flicks of her fingers on the keys, it was entirely possible. Wow! We were blown away. We would get in several hours earlier than we had thought; more time in Barcelona!
What we didn’t know at the time was that we would not be sitting together, but it didn’t matter. We had a great flight, got some sleep and landed hours early in Barcelona.
For some reason, the bags took forever to get from the plane to the baggage delivery, like a full hour. We picked up my bag (AdventureMan did his entire trip out of his carry-on and backpack) and headed out to meet up with the Viking transport.
Two people with clipboards looked for our names – and we were not there! Finally a third person said “Oh! I’ve been looking for you; you are on our bus and we are leaving now!” so we went with a very small group to the bus. It was a small bus, filled mostly with elderly passengers with mobility issues, and us. We got to the Nobu hotel very quickly, and checked in.
“We’ve given you a very large room,” the porter said, and it was. We had a large sleeping area, a separate sunny sitting room, a dressing room/office, and a generous bathroom. It felt very spacious.
We settled in, took a brief rest, then headed out to get to know our neighborhood. AdventureMan had spotted a circular something, a mall, on the map near the Plaza d’Espana and wanted to go see what it was. I was actually not enthusiastic, but once we got walking I perked up and was glad for the exercise and the fresh air.
This was the circular “thing” on the map, and it was a mall, it had an elevator to the top, and we later learned that it was once a bullfighting arena, turned into a mall after years of neglect. They really did a great job; this was a fun place to explore.
We never felt unsafe on this trip. In Barcelona, police and emergency people were everywhere. This was a car and motorcycle collision, and they were there within minutes.
This is the arena / mall, and the round thing is the elevator to the top floor. As we were digging for change to pay for the trip we spotted a sign that said something like over 65 is free. There was a couple in front of us (I think also American) who were trying to insist on paying, so she just waived us through and continued trying to explain to them that they could go for free while we went straight to the top.
Inside the mall, things were happening. There were all kinds of stores you would find very familiar – American food chains and coffee shops. The place was packed with young people having something quick and fried at the end of the day. These kids were playing some kind of game where you step on clouds that form and reform in some kind of computer-generated way.
At the top, you could walk entirely around the whole arena, viewing the whole city. In the center of the circle were all kinds of restaurants. First, we had a great view of the Plaza d’Espana.
Just behind the very tall blue building in the center is the Nobu Hotel. To the left, off the busy main street, are quiet, bustling side streets we also got to explore.
Sagrada Familia is continuously under construction. Every time we visit, the date for completion has slipped further into the future.
I love seeing how people live. Imagine having this penthouse apartment with this little lap pool high above the city.
What tourism people will tell you is that Mount Tibidabo is an amusement park, but I can’t wait to get back to Barcelona and to visit this place – the tower on the right is part of the early Barcelona water system, and is supposed to be elegantly beautiful as well as functional. Guides in the area tell us that the church can be visited for free, and the art inside is stunningly beautiful, and the views from the top of the church – yes, you can go up there – encompass all of Barcelona, and too, are stunning. Worth a trip. (So many good reasons to visit Barcelona.)
We walked right by this park going to the arena and returning to our hotel, a park with installations by Miro’!
This is what the walking path on the top of the arena looks like, and on our right is the top of the elevator from base to top. To the left you see a couple of the restaurants – there are many – at the top.
So it’s 4:30 in the afternoon and we are starving and tired. While normally we shun touristic places, tonight we are ready for any port in the storm. We find A BrassaMe (I haven’t a clue what that means) which is open and already serving people, and they welcome us inside. And they have wine, and a view of the setting sun.
We are surprised most of the customers are Spanish and maybe local. Our waiter is very kind. We ask him to help us with choosing a good wine. We know we want to try some of the common tapas – bread with tomato, patatas bravas, I want to try fidua, a noodly disk kind of like paella, and he suggests a couple others, one a “bombe” (a potato filled with highly spiced ground meat) and something which we cannot identify but we think might be a deep fried fish of some kind. Doesn’t matter. It was a lot of fun, we ordered way too much food and it didn’t cost near what we pay in Pensacola for far less.
Bear with me, interiors interest me. I love the way this restaurant has capitalized on the view and the sunset. I love the sort of Miro-esque pipes in the ceiling.
I like the quiet elegant seclusion of this private dining room.
I love this bathroom. In modest, modern Spain, none of this silliness about bathrooms. Adults share the same room, doors are marked sort of ambiguously and people use whichever is free. How very grown up.
Our waiter is from Argentina, came here to find work and loves his life in Barcelona.
This is found everywhere – bread with tomato. He tells us that everything has to go on in a particular order.
This was the delicious spicy bombe.
These are another Spanish favorite, Patatas Bravas, kind of deep fried potatoes with tomato sauce or garlic sauce.
We’re pretty sure this was fish. Have you noticed how much food there is? We thought tapas were SMALL plates. We never saw a small plate of tapas in Spain.
I really liked this – Fidua. It’s kind of like rice-a-roni, little thin noodles cooked in a seafood broth, so tasty and delicious.
l love sunsets and sunrises and am more than a little uneasy about the sulphuric haze we found in most Mediterranean seaports.
Well-fed and well-wined, we rolled our way back to the hotel and managed showers before we fell, exhausted, into bed after a day full of good surprises. We slept straight through to morning.
Boarding the Ms. Sapphire
The ride to the pier took us through a part of town we hadn’t visited this trip, and in no time we were boarding the Ms. Sapphire. While we settled in, K took off to do some quick shopping; she is familiar with Paris and it was smart of her to grab some time where she could find it. Orientation would be at 5 and dinner at 6, so we unpacked and explored our new surroundings.
The curtains are closed because we are tied up next to another ship, AND because it is still really hot in Paris. And yes, it is temporarily chaotic while we get our clothes hung in the closet and our bags stowed, have a little patience!
We had packed just enough to get us through the trip; we had so much more space than we needed. In this bathroom, every mirror has a cupboard behind it, and there are additional electrical sockets in the little cupboards. The shower is luxuriously spacious.
We all got oriented, heard the plan for the next day (Classic Citroen Car Tour, a virtual tour through the ages of Notre Dame under construction, and a walking tour of the Left Bank, whew, and lunch on the Left Bank, yay!) and sat down to dinner. We were ushered to a lovely table for six, and spent most of the trip sitting at that table.
It takes a special crew to be so good with a wide range of ages. The waitstaff was excellent. Our primary waiter, Peter, was good at explaining how things worked and helping us find our way through it. No, they made explicit, French law would not allow serving wine to anyone under 18. You could order a starter, a main course, and a dessert, or three starters, or just a main course or even just dessert, which is up to you. They had wonderful desserts, and an ice cream stand in the back where any combination of ice cream and sauces was possible. Just how good can it get? They kept adult wine glasses filled unless you firmly said no.
It’s a new culture, new foods, and also familiar foods, up to you. The young people learned customs and etiquette very quickly. Yes, you can get your Caesar salad WITHOUT anchovies. (I love anchovies, and it’s how Caesar salads come in France, wooo hooo!) There are several choices at each meal and at least two soups from which to choose. Portions are normal-sized, and you can get more if you need (lots of teenage boys on board.) There is also a buffet with lots of favorites for American young people.
Just after dinner, our son’s family took off for the Eifel Tower to take one last stab at going up.
Success! Although it is close to 10:00 at night, there remains enough daylight to climb up and enjoy the view!
Bravo to parents who help their children achieve their goals!
Christmas Markets on the Elbe: Prague Day One
Bags outside the door by 0645, down to breakfast, back to the room to brush teeth, and get ready for the bus ride to Prague. It was a longer ride than I had anticipated, through snowy, icy roads and I regretted having both orange juice AND coffee with breakfast. I was eager to get off the bus in Prague quickly and find the nearest ladles’ room, and thanking God for getting me there in a timely fashion.
The Prague Hilton is huge. I am so thankful it is mid-winter, not even the peak of winter travel, and that it is not crowded. There is a large poker tournament going on. The Viking people have their own desk and helpers, we always know where to go with a question or a problem.
We set off immediately for our Prague tour, briefly on the bus which dropped us off near the Charles Bridge.
Our guide uses a Quiet Voice system, so we have ear-pieces on. We can hear her from about thirty feet or less, so while we are having our picture taken, we are also listening to her tell us stuff. Mostly to stick together as a group. There must be a hundred groups crossing the Charles Bridge.
So many tourists! You can’t imagine! We have crossed this bridge before, other years, even on New Year’s Eve Day, with our son – never like this. Prague is discovered.
We walked, crossed a small portion of the bridge with lots of tourists, walked a little around Old Prague – not going inside, and then, just around when the Astrological clock would be striking, then the guide took us down in the basement of the Bethlehem church for some kind of exhibition – we were free to use the restrooms and warm up, but we had hardly been out long enough to get cold. As we left the church, we told the guide we would leave and make our way back to the hotel on our own.
We eat the Bulgarians lunch
Ah! Free at last! We love roaming, and we were hungry. We found a wonderful restaurant, Deer, just about full, but room for us.
It was beautiful, and the beer was good, and we ordered deer, a consommé, and deer ravioli for me and a “fallow” deer for my husband. My consommé arrived, and it was light and delicious. Then our meals arrived, (sorry, we were hungry and forgot to take photos) and my husband’s was right and mine was not, but it looked great so I figured we might have been misunderstood and we ate our meals with delight.
As it came time to pay, the waitress brought our bill and AdventureMan looked it over – it was the original order, AdventureMan told her I had received, and eaten the more expensive meal, and would she adjust the bill so we would pay (more) for what we had eaten.
With some confusion, she went away, came back with the corrected bill – and told the people at the next table that there had been some confusion, and we had received their meal. We apologized profusely, and we were all laughing. They asked the waitress to please hurry the same meal to them and we had a great conversation, as we waited, them asking us if it had been a good meal and us assuring them it had been delicious. So much goodwill. They didn’t hate us for eating their lunch!
We found the main market, at the Clock Tower, and wandered around.
I checked Google and there was a bus from right at the market directly to our hotel, Bus 194, and we caught it. How cool is that? Equally cool is that in Prague, public transportation is free if you are 70 or older (some say 65). You MUST have ID with you to prove your age, but you ride FREE!
It took us through the narrow back streets of Prague, past interesting hotels and restaurants way off the beaten track. At one point the driver had to get out and move a garbage can in his way – the streets were VERY narrow. It was great fun and dropped us near the Prague Hilton.
We rested – we had already done 15,000 steps. We wanted to head to another Christmas Market. Confident we now understood the bus system, I asked Google Maps how to get to bus 135, but every bus that arrived with that number said (something in Czech) and DO NOT GET ON THIS BUS so we figured out they were going out of service. After waiting over an hour for one in service, we were really cold so we came back and ate a thoroughly mediocre expensive meal at the Hilton. Another day with over 17,000 steps – it has become routine on this trip 😁.
Christmas Markets on the Elbe: Berlin to Potsdam
We spent so many hours planning our time in Berlin, only to realize no matter how many hours we stayed up, we could never do it all. We looked at each other and laughed, knowing a great part of the fun of this trip had been the anticipation and the planning. We actually did the most important things to us in Berlin; we visited “The East” freely. We visited the repaired and restored Reichstag. We saw Checkpoint Charlie, only a relic now, signifying nothing to fear. You can breathe in an open society. Everyone can breathe.
Our bags had to be in the hall by 0630 to be transferred to the ship, which meant packing them the night before and having what you needed to get through the day to the 1600 boarding. None of us got it really right, but it was a lot of fun.
Breakfast was a rat race, with all the Viking passengers needing to be fed and ready for an 0820 departure. Most of us were on the bus, but others straggled, and one couple didn’t make it at all. They overslept, and I don’t know if they made it onto the second bus or were driven to the boat.
GLIENICKE BRIDGE
We had a lovely guide again, very good, very thorough, Lothar. We toured old neighborhoods in Berlin, on our way to the old corridor from the island of West Berlin towards the West, on our way to Sans Souci, the summer palace of King Fredrick II. Lothar shared with us being a young boy in Berlin, taking trips out to Italy in the summer, going through this corridor, and receiving terrible treatment at the hands of the East Germans. We had a wonderful surprise, a stop a the Glenicke Bridge, the old “Bridge of Spies” where Frances Gary Powers was exchanged for a Soviet Spy, each crossing the bridge to freedom. We got out of the bus and walked across.
Here is where I realized a big mistake. I was planning a walk through Sans Souci Palace, and rather than wear my wonderful but clunky walking shoes, I was wearing my tights – and sandals. It’s a palace, right? To get to the palace, we walked about half a kilometer on ice with a thin coating of snow. My feet were not cold, but my sandals were not good at gripping, and it was slippery. I made it, with feet just a little damp. No big deal, we also walked in the snow once we got to Sans Souci, and I was not the only one who had made a bad call on footwear. We all survived. From this day on, however, I wore my clunky walking shoes, which have miraculously sticky soles.
We had audio phones to guide us through the palace, and AdventureMan and I laughed. We listened to the whole lecture in room 1, but with each room, our attention span got shorter and shorter. The palace is spectacularly decorated – as you will see. Each room has a theme. There are many more rooms – I never saw a kitchen, for example, or a water closet. But the decor was spectacular.
I lived in Germany off and on for many years. As I walked through this sumptuously decorated castle, truly exquisite, I couldn’t help but think how most of the poorest families in the Western World live better than the lords of old. Almost every house now has indoor plumbing and some kind of heat. Those beds, to me, look small, and lumpy. Frederick II who built this little escape hideaway lived a lonely and circumscribed life, with a manipulative, brutal father and heavy expectations on his shoulders. I think of how many people it took to maintain this palace, mostly for one man who entertained little. I think of the lives of those who served him, and wondered what they ate, how they slept at night – the tour did not include the back areas of the palace.
Then on to Cecilianhof, where the Potsdam Conference was held to negotiate the end of World War II. Lothar led the group on a tour outside the building, I walked around the other way, just in need of some quiet and some time by myself. The grounds were covered with snow, snow weighted down the boughs of the trees and coated the bushes – it was beautiful.
The sun came out and gleamed off the snow. It was quiet, so quiet. We had been privileged to visit Cecilianhof with friends many years ago; we have a photo of our son behind the desk where the documents were signed. It was an impossible private visit, only possible because of our friends, and such moments cannot be repeated, only appreciated.
From Cecilianhof we were dropped off in Potsdam, at the Christmas Market. AdventureMan and I went off looking for a place to eat and found it within minutes – a Sicilian restaurant, Assoggi, sunny and bright, where we had amazing food and a delicious white wine, and still had time for a walk through the market before we had to be back on the bus for our drive to board the Beyla in Wittenberg.
Above is planked salmon. We saw it once before, four years ago at the Strasbourg Christmas Market, but rarely since then.
We were glad to board the bus when it showed up. After our wonderful Italian lunch, we were a little chilled by a brisk wind as we looked at the Christmas Market. We were ready to see our ship!
Chilly sunset on the way to Wittenberg.
Waiting for us on board the Beyla:
We were shown to our cabin, we quickly unpacked and headed to the lounge for the Welcome Aboard briefing and directions for the next day.
Our Cruise Director, a soul of amazing patience with the cats she has to herd, introduced us to the crew and staff and filled us in on what to expect on our tour of Wittenberg.
We also learned there would be a mandatory safety drill at 2:30 the next day where we all needed to show up at our designated stations in our life jackets, although the Elbe is a very shallow river and if we were sinking, we could walk to shore, so there were hoots of laughter.
There is a couple we have run into frequently, Don and Janice, and we always have good conversations, so we joined with them for dinner. Don was a cautionary story to us all – his bags did not arrive with him in Berlin. Every day, he would ask and Viking would check, and the bags could not be found. He had one extra set of clothing with him and would wear one set of clothing while each day Viking washed and pressed his other set. He was a great sport about the whole thing, and on the very last day of the trip, he was reunited with his bags.
Dinner on board the Beyla the first night was heaven. Roasted Duck Breast was one of the meals I had most looked forward to while planning this trip. The chef is awesome and did a great job on the duck and the wine reduction. It was a wonderful memorable meal.
We gave the tree-trimming party a pass – long day, once again, and we needed to get to bed.
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.
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