Here There and Everywhere

Expat wanderer

Wandering in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter

We return to Place Cataluñya. We got off at La Rambla (now you can see it in the daylight, above) and we need to figure out how to get to the Barcelona Cathedral, in the Gothic section, where I had thought we might have lunch.

We’ve had three years to research this trip and there aren’t enough hours or days to do all the things we want to do in Barcelona. And every now and then, something happens that no amount of research might have prepared you for.

When we got to the cathedral, there was some kind of elder celebration. There were big circles of people dancing, having a wonderful time. It was unexpected. It was joyful!

I love that this was some kind of church-sponsored activity, not for tourists, not for us, but for them! And they were having a wonderful time, dancing!

The famous Not-Roman arch . . . not even old, not antique, more a seasoning.

We wandered, then found a little tapas place, not one of the places we had so carefully researched, but at this point, we are REALLY HUNGRY. It is cute, and full of antique Spanish antique pieces. AdventureMan, full of courage, did the ordering. I had a plate of thin jambon and cheese and he had a bowl of sausages with bread. This is not the kind of food we normally eat, but this place had nothing resembling a vegetable. It did have olives.

The beer was Estrelle, really good and cold.

And here, AdventureMan ventured to have a glass of vermouth. I wish you could have seen his grimace! He did not like it at all. We were glad we hadn’t picked up a bottle from the Carrefour to take on the ship. It would have been wasted on us!

Now that we are not urgently hungry, we have time to look for the place where AdventureMan wants to have Barcelona chocolate with churros. He knows exactly where we need to go.

On the way, we run into a large demonstration for a separate Basque nation. It is peaceful. I guess we all have our divisions.

The Gothic quarter is fascinating, full of unexpected messages and art, so we wander, but with purpose and direction. We find Petritxol Barcelona, for hot chocolate and churros for AdventureMan. I had some kind of coffee and chocolate heaped with non-sweetened whipped cream, chocolate overload. We’ve done 10K steps today, 11K yesterday. I feel no guilt eating this decadent, lucious chocolate. Later, I only wish I had bought more chocolate to take with me.

The sidewalk and street surfaces are very hard and after the chocolate, we were ready to wander back to the hotel for an afternoon snooze. My husband is talking about taking it easy tomorrow – breakfast, packing up suitcases for delivery to ship, bus to ship, checking in, leaving again for lunch in Barcelonetta, then reboarding. I am eager to get unpacked, check the wrinkling of my clothes, and get acquainted with the spaces on the ship. 

The walk back is full of interesting sights, places, were we not so tired, we might linger, have a glass of wine and watch people, buy some local cheese.

A modern take on a Spanish penthouse. You can almost guess how elegant it must be inside.

I’ve worn the same navy striped linen dress for three days – with a T-shirt while we flew and a different t-shirt in Barcelona. It goes everywhere. It has no nationality. I had put on the green French terry dress to wear today, but when we went to breakfast, I discovered it was too hot, so I changed back into my linen dress. Very comfortable. Tied my navy hoodie around my shoulders, and was glad to have it riding on top of the bus. It is sunny, but cool in shade or breeze.

Back in the hotel by mid-afternoon for a rest, my husband snoozing. So far I have felt no effects from jet lag. I will try not to nap so I can sleep tonight. Sleeping on the overnight flight worked well for me. 

January 14, 2023 Posted by | Adventure, Aging, Arts & Handicrafts, Cultural, Food, Photos, Political Issues, Restaurant, Travel, Weather | , , | Leave a comment

Barcelona to Abu Dhabi: We Revel in Barcelona

We know we are getting old, no matter how young we feel. We delight in our hotel room, modern, not the kind of hotel I would normally choose, but this was chosen for us, and . . . it has a young vibe, a modern vibe, and Barcelona has that same vibe, so we decide we are going to be just fine. It is ALL done with electronics. Dim the lights, use a remote. Close the curtains, use a touchpad. Call the desk on a mobile phone provided. It’s a little intimidating because it’s not the way we do business.

The artwork was all very abstract, but the next day after we visited Sagrada Familia, the abstract became concrete, as we recognized details of that exquisite, imaginative structure.

This little couch cracked us up. Just about a foot off the ground, very low, we couldn’t imagine it was comfortable or how we would get up once we sat down. Actually, it was both comfortable enough and easy to get up from.

Once we would have headed straight out to begin our Barcelona adventure. Now, we settled into our hotel and took a brief nap, then headed out around sunset to explore a little of Barcelona. Our hotel, the Hotel Almanac Barcelona, is very modern and wonderfully located near many of Barcelona’s attractions. Tonight, a Saturday, we headed to La Boqueria, a huge market on La Rambla, a major pedestrian street, full of nightlife. 

We knew we needed to stop at the Carrefour on La Rambla; Carrefour carried just about anything, and we found what we needed – manicure scissors, a corkscrew, and three bottles of wine. We resisted Barcelona chocolates and other delicacies; our cruise ship is said to cater to foodies. Carrefour was full of local people grocery shopping, so much fun to see what they were buying. The check-out line went almost the full length of the store, but it moved surprisingly fast and we were out, with everything we needed, in no time.

I don’t have a lot of regrets, but I regret not buying a few little boxes of chocolates to sample, and to share with family on our return. The boxes were so interesting and could be used in a lot of ways.

I’m sure there are Spanish supermarkets that will do the job, but we have a comfort level with Carrefour from several other places we have lived and knew we could quickly find what we needed. I got such a grin out of the children’s games on sale – we know these games, AdventureMan has played all of these with our Grandchildren – Connect 4, Battleship and Monopoly. We love strange Monopoly sets, and have them from the WWII Museum, from Pensacola, and from Doha (!)

There were crowds of people in the streets, from the language we could hear, mostly local (it is November, a wonderful time to be here.) It was girls-night-out, guys night out and date night, with families and friends’ gatherings thrown in – Barcelona was one big party. 

La Boqueria, a large open market with booth after booth of specialties,  was colorful and exciting. There are a few places with chairs and tables, a few with bars, but mostly there is a lot of takeaway food. One was a paper cone of the famous jambon Iberica, a very tasty, thinly sliced ham.

AdventureMan bought a fruit drink with coconut, then I bought a spicy meat empanada, which we shared and decided it was delicious. Then we both bought raspberry-blueberry-(something) drinks, which were also wonderful, blended but full of pieces of fruit and it felt like drinking vitamins, only delicious.  Then AdventureMan bought a mixed vegetable empanada, which we both found boring, and I bought a pumpkin empanada, which we both thought was also boring. So much fun, so colorful, noisy, and exciting. 

We were amazed at how many delicious foods and drinks we tasted, and how little it cost us. When you travel, you aren’t always so hungry at the appropriate meal times, so we were delighted to be able to sample and snack for our first meal in Barcelona.

We loved the look of these delicately sliced potato snacks, below. Aren’t they beautiful?

We wandered and got a little lost on our way back.

We don’t speak a lot of Spanish, or Catalan, so we would ask “La Rambla?” and throw out our hands with a look of “Where is it?” on our faces and people would point us in the right direction.

Once back at La Rambla, we quickly found our way back to the hotel, and headed up to the roof bar for a drink and to look out over the city.

This was a perfect way to end one very long, exciting day.

Now that we don’t have to pack for the airplanes, we are reorganizing our bags and looking forward to Monday when we will go aboard the Nautica and unpack for the next three weeks. 

Somewhere, in the next twenty-four hours, I lost / misplaced / or someone took my little AirTag, tucked in an outside pocket on my duffel bag. I never missed it until we were almost home, and I discovered it is traveling the world without me!

January 14, 2023 Posted by | Adventure, Cultural, Food, Hotels, Photos, Travel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Moonlight Over the Bayou Texar

October 23, 2021 Posted by | Beauty, Florida, Living Conditions, Pensacola, Photos, Quality of Life Issues | Leave a comment

Into The Great Wide Open, Day 2

Bozeman to East Glacier

Nice breakfast, then back to Walmart looking for a couple more layers; it is cold. We’re on the road to East Glacier Park by 0900, with the luxury of time to talk and catch up. 

The major topic, as it will remain throughout the trip, is demographics. Many of the businesses we have interacted with don’t have enough people working for them. It is a constant topic. Hotels aren’t renting out all their rooms; they can’t get them cleaned and serviced fast enough. Restaurants have to limit the number of people, they don’t have the staff to cook and serve the meals. Many restaurants are closed altogether, with signs saying “we will re-open when we can find people to work.” 

Some people feel very hostile about this. I believe it has to do with demographics, and my age group is greatly complicit. For years people have worked well beyond retirement age, not just out of need, although that has driven some, but also because they loved working. COVID changed a lot of that. COVID made having a lot of public contact more risky. People who might still be working have retired, decided to live on less and to enjoy life more. OK, Boomer, you have that right.

COVID also impacts on young families, what mother or father of a young child wants to take a job which could expose their vulnerable children to the ravages of COVID? And, who is going to take care of the children? COVID had made parents reluctant to use child care centers, and child care centers are nearly non-existent because caretakers are also vulnerable, physically and financially. 

In Bozeman, there are a lot of people happy to work outdoors. Not so many willing to work in the service industry. Some believe that the end of federal employment subsidies will make a difference. I imagine it will, for those with the fewest choices, but will not make the difference people expect. Is not one of our inalienable rights the right to protect our own health and that of our children? Montana, like Florida, has a governor who does not allow mask mandates. To me, that is insanity. We know masks plus social distancing work to lower the rates of transmission. Why would we not choose this rational, proven formula which works? 

AdventureMan and I wore masks in public places. We also spent a lot of time in wide open spaces where there were few people. That was part of the whole point of choosing Montana and Wyoming. 

It is also raining, and rain is a big topic of conversation. Montanans tells us they are thankful for this rain, there is been a huge drought which has been hard on the cows and hard on the crops. The rain dampens the forests, and helps the fire fighters. 

Because the roads are nearly empty and we are driving kind of fast, we also have a long raucous discussion of embarrassing speeding tickets we have earned over the years.

My most embarrassing traffic ticket was presented to me by a German policeman who delivered it to my house. He gives me a photo. I am sitting in the front seat, driving my Volvo with a big smile, and chatting with my cousin, who is visiting me. It is taken just outside Heidelberg, in a notorious speed trap. I am well over the speed-limit, and oblivious. When the policeman sits down on the couch I have been working on re-upholstering, the leg falls off and he jumps up very embarrassed and apologetic, which saves me from a very uncomfortable lecture. He delivers the fine, I accept and sign, and he is too embarrassed at “breaking” my couch to even scold me or warn me not to do it again. It was a hefty fine, but I am an expat, and I was thankful just to pay the fine. 

A couple hours into our drive, we come to Townsend, a town we didn’t know we were going to like as much as we did. It started with a restroom in a gas station which was also a town True Value Hardware store. The restroom was beautiful and very clean, and the store was wonderful, with really cool useful things. They had barrels of nails and screws and farm items we could not begin to identify. People stopped in to pick up what they needed, but also to exchange news of what was going on in Townsend. 

We decided to take a look around, and liked the neatness of the place, some old houses, some new. AdventureMan spotted a bakery, his weakness, and found a parking spot. 

Often mentioned in C.J. Box Montana Mystery series

I laughed. “Do you see where you have parked?” I kidded him, and he saw that he had parked in front of the Quilt shop, and it was open. Sometimes fate just works that way. 

The quilt shop was full of wonderful fabrics. I restrained myself; my suitcase capacity is limited, but I allowed myself a little, and a James Lee Burke novel from the used book shelves in the back that I had read before but knew I would love reading again. I could see that this shop was also a great Townsend gathering place, and a good place to learn what is going on with your neighbors. We really liked Townsend, and we liked that almost every town and city we visited in Montana had a bookshop.

We arrived in Augusta around lunch time, and found a place we couldn’t resist. There was a horse carrier out front. Inside, yep, were real cowboys who kept their cowboy hats on while they ate lunch, and one of them ordered GIZZARDS.  I had a crispy chicken salad, which was really pretty good, and AdventureMan had a Ham and cheese sandwich with salad, also pretty good. It was a welcome surprise to find more salads and more vegetables in Montana than we have found on previous trips.

The entire restaurant is decorated with antlers, mostly from elk, but maybe a Moose and some smaller deer, too. What I liked, in addition to the very courteous service to people who clearly “aren’t from around here” was that they had tiny bottles on every table with fresh wildflowers, a nice touch in a very masculine restaurant. 

Many times I might ask people if I can take their photos, but I didn’t ask the cowboys and I didn’t take their photo. They did not seem to be people who would like to be thought of as local color, and I did not want to offend them. 

Montana has a lot of long rural stretches.

We arrived at Traveler’s Rest and our cabin was ready. We’ve stayed here before and really love that the owners built these cabins themselves. They are beautifully crafted, and well thought out. This time we are staying in the cabin they call Two Medicine (also one of our favorite drives) which is in the back. All the cabins are somewhat together, but the porches all face in different directions, and none looks on each other’s porch or into another’s windows. There are poplar trees between and amongst the cabins, and a wind which blows through them and makes the leaves quiver and whisper. They have metal roofs, so when it rains, you can hear the drops hit the roof. 

View from Traveler’s Rest toward Glacier National Park and Mountains

We unpack, and drive to the East Glacier Trading Post for fresh milk for our breakfast and for my coffee. It is half a mile down the road, and full of just about anything you could need, and some fun stuff you don’t need but can’t resist. In front of the store is the first time we see the notice that masking is required on Blackfeet Nation property, and what is really cool is that there is a box of masks on a table in front of the store free for people who do not have masks to use. The Glacier Trading Post also sells ice cream, and ice cream cones.

We take a quick drive on Two Medicine Drive to the lake.

We also take a quick hike to Running Eagle Falls, greatly reduced from when we visited them in the Spring, a year and a half ago. Then, they were double in height. I just love the story of Running Eagle, and it’s a quick, easy hike.

For dinner Friday night, we choose Serranos, a Mexican restaurant that wasn’t there the last time we stayed in East Glacier. We both ordered Devil’s Stew – WOW. It was mostly pork, stewed in some fiery concoction. I had a bowl, AdventureMan ordered a cup but got a bowl, and he also ordered a tostada. The stew was out of this world, although we are usually a little cautious about eating fiery dishes near to bedtime, oh well. (LOL yes, we suffered, but it was worth it.) We ended up with boxes, and the waitress, who was inexperienced but very kind and a very good server, gave us an extra bag of fresh hot taco chips to take with us.

This was Flathead Cherry cider, not the same as cherry juice. Packed a punch.

It’s little things that people remember. I remember that waitress, and how attentive she was, and how caring, even though she told us she was new on the job. 

September 13, 2021 Posted by | Adventure, Community, Cultural, Customer Service, Eating Out, Hotels, Photos, Restaurant, Road Trips, Travel | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Early Morning Walk in Apalachicola

We’ve been married almost 48 years, so AdventureMan and I know how to travel together with minimal friction. We are not alike, but we are flexible (unless, of course, we are tired, or hungry, or need a nap, and then all bets are off.)

We are on holiday. AdventureMan likes to sleep in. I am an early morning creature; I don’t even need an alarm, I just wake up. I can see the fragile pink of the early morning sky and I can’t wait to get outside and take a walk.

Have I told you lately how much I like pelikans? These ancient birds remind me of pterodactyls, beaky, angular, survivalists.

Colonial mansion, we toured it once.

A beautiful sunrise, and bringing a cold but clear and sunny day, great for heading to Saint Mark’s Wildlife Refuge near Wakulla Springs.

Sometimes my camera captures something spectacular and I am humbly in awe; I didn’t make this happen, it just happened.

Time for my coffee 🙂

February 4, 2021 Posted by | Beauty, Birds, Civility, Cultural, Marriage, Photos, Quality of Life Issues, sunrise series | | Leave a comment

Settling In to Apalachicola

Prior to Hurricane Michael, Apalachicola had a long history as home to some of the most delicious oysters in the world. Mountains of oyster shells like this were iconic Apalachicola scenes.

Apalachicola is a great little town for walking. There is a downtown with cute shops, there is a grocery store, there are several good restaurants, and lots of parking. We check in to our hotel, we take a long walk, we decide to eat early. Yes, another restaurant, but it is early and nearly empty. We find another isolated table.

The focus is definitely on drinks.

The food was OK.

We left as more people started coming in.

You can rent these houseboats for an Apalachicola stay right on the water.

I am losing the light when we come across a large pick-up full over the brim with duck decoys. The next morning, I could hear shots going off all over the estuary as hunters brought down the migrating ducks.

February 4, 2021 Posted by | Arts & Handicrafts, Cultural, Eating Out, Food, Hotels, Living Conditions, Photos, Restaurant, Road Trips, Travel, Wildlife | | Leave a comment

Yellowstone: Early Morning on the Travertine Terraces

 

The sun is shining, and we slept wonderfully. The cabins have no heat, and no air conditioning. We slept with the window open; it is very quiet in the cabin area. It is early – maybe 6 – when we get up and go to walk the lower terrace while the sun is rising.

It is COLD! We are all bundled up and I even wore socks with my sandals; fashion faux pas maybe but I don’t care, my toes are toasty and I take the socks off when we have finished the hike – it’s warmed up considerably.

Here is a photo from inside our cabin of how people toured the terraces back in the day.

This is the famous “Liberty Cap.” I see a grumpy man’s face under the cap, do you? Look for the downturned mouth.

The sun is rising, and in the hour we spend hiking from view to view and up to the upper terrace, we see only two other couples, and one single.

 

 

Did I mention it was cold? Really cold?

I want you to see how close we are to the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel; you can see it at the top of the photo. I remember counting these steps, a lot of steps, going up and up and up, but now I can’t remember how many there were. It was daunting looking up, but exhilarating looking down.

 

 

Much of the boardwalk is still covered in frost, but the sun is bright and warm, and there are places with no frost at all.

 

Some of these photos I am putting in so you can see the variation in colors depending on the minerals leached, and the amount of time exposed to the elements.

 

 

This part really reminds me of Pammukale, in Turkey. In Turkey, people bathe in the hot springs. I can’t imagine. You could get really badly burned in some of these springs.

 

 

 

 

 

On the upper terrace we came across this: a boardwalk viewpoint is now off limits; it is sinking. We contemplated how difficult it must be to install these boardwalks to allow visitors to safely walk these terraces, and how difficult it must be to repair, maybe impossible. The ground is constantly shifting and reforming. How to balance the need for the tourist dollar to preserve and protect the park with the costs of keeping the visitors safe and amused.

 

 

 

I am just a sucker for this terrace formation process. It is endlessly fascinating. Does anything like this exist anywhere else in the United States?

 

 

 

It is barely 0730 and a few other visitors are arriving. We feel so blessed to have had this beautiful morning on the terraces.

June 25, 2019 Posted by | Adventure, Environment, Exercise, Geography / Maps, Photos, Road Trips, Travel, Turkey | Leave a comment

Yellowstone: Roaring Mountain

Mostly I don’t give an attraction a post all it’s own in a travel article, but of all the sights I saw in Yellowstone, Roaring Mountain struck the deepest chord. It was a beautiful morning. We were mostly the only ones there. A couple RVs pulled up and didn’t even bother getting out.

I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. I imagine the earliest explorers coming across it and wonder at the wonder they must have felt. Although there was a breeze, the springs and steam were so continuous that they never fully blew away. You hear a constant rush of steam, a sizzle, bursts.

Sometimes, on this beautiful earth, you get a feeling you are truly standing on Holy Ground. I felt that way at Saint Simeon’s in Syria. I felt that way at sundown on the desert of Sossossvlei in Namibia. And I felt it here. It i beautiful, and eerie, and if you are not filled with the awe of the great Creation, I can’t imagine what will move you.

 

 

 

And here is where Roaring Mountain is located:

 

We joke about Disney-does-Yellowstone, which is sort of what it’s like in some of the more commercialized and traveled places, but there are moments and locations when all the Disney-esque goes away, For me, Roaring Mountain is one of them.

Just north of Roaring Mountain, en route to Mammoth Hot Springs, is an Obsidian Cliff, where you could hike for many years, but the visitors and hikers kept taking obsidian home as a souvenir, and now the site is unmarked and closed to visitors.

June 24, 2019 Posted by | Adventure, Beauty, Faith, Geography / Maps, Photos, Road Trips, Spiritual, Stranger in a Strange Land, Travel | , | Leave a comment

Yellowstone National Park; Bear En Route to Mammoth Hot Springs

I’m posting this Yellowstone National Park map again to help you orient yourself on today’s adventures. We go from Canyon Village to Artist Paintpots (at last!), stop a lengthy time to watch a sedate mother grizzly and her cubs, view an awesome mountain, arrive in Mammoth Springs, have lunch in Gardiner, Montana, outside the North gate to the park, visit the upper Terrace at Mammoth, and spend the late afternoon once again in Lamar Valley, our happy place. This evening, my husband gets attacked by an irate Mama elk.

Yellowstone is so do-able. We did all the above, and never felt rushed.

 

This is an easy day, and our plan is to get up when we feel like it, but we are both awake by seven, and in fifteen minutes we are ready to go. We shake the dust from our feet!

From Canyon, we take the road directly going West. When we get to the junction, we turn South, just to get us to Artist Paintpots. We’ve tried twice before, and the parking lot was jammed and overflowing. This time, we are the first car in the lot. It’s only about 7:30 a.m. and the long weekend is long passed. There are fewer visitors, and even fewer who are out and about this early. (We are still early in the park season, once the summer rush starts, even early may not be early enough.)

 

 

Yep, you guessed it, Artistic Paintpots is so named because of the wondrous colors created by the variety of minerals leached into the boiling hot water, and the bacteria that thrives in the steaming springs.

 

I cannot even imagine a caldera this big, but as we drove, we tried to identify the ridges. The floor of this caldera thinly covers molten lava and the geysers and springs are caused by the heating of water in the ground which expands and comes out with varying degrees of force. This is how I understand it; someone with a more technical background can give you a more thorough explanation. So Yellowstone is a super volcano, and last erupted 700,000 years ago. It could erupt again. We were constantly aware of how very thin the crust of the earth is here, and now we obliviously walk over the possibility of instant, painful death.

But oh, the combination of heat, and minerals creates some magnificent colors and an eerily beautiful landscape.

 

 

 

 

 

It is a beautiful hike, one of the best on our trip. It is worth finding a serene time to visit the Artist Paintpots.

Back in the car, we see a big jam of cars on the road, and people running. Anywhere else, you would think someone had a car accident, but in Yellowstone, a jam like that with people parking anywhere – sometimes just leaving their car in the middle of the road (!) means that some kind of game has been spotted. This time, it was a Mama Grizzly and her two cubs.

So many people! Many of them had powerful, huge lenses, and tripods. They were all set up to take photos when the bear would be in clear view. I just use a little Lumix with a big telephoto, and it takes surprisingly sharp photos, considering it has a very light and easily tucked-in-a-purse kind of body.

There was an empty place where no one wanted to be. We really just wanted to watch. (Yes, we had backed up to a real viewing point and parked legally. The rule is – or is supposed to be – that you are supposed to be outside the white line delineating the outer boundary of the road.

We watched the very placid sow dig up some roots, keeping an eye on the playful cubs.

 

 

 

 

I just got lucky. The bear and her cubs moved to directly in front of me. It’s . . .well, it’s like a God thing, if the photo is put right in front of you, you are meant to take it, right?

More and more people came. They were quiet and respectful of the bear, and of one another, but their parking was not respectful of the trucks and RVs that needed to get through. Soon, the park rangers arrived. We were told they can ticket anyone not parked outside the white lines, and that the fine is HUGE, but this is a tourist attraction, and the rangers we saw used good humor and persistence, and cajoled people into moving along and parking legally. We never saw anyone ticketed, and we also never saw anyone argue with a ranger.

June 24, 2019 Posted by | Adventure, Beauty, Civility, Customer Service, Geography / Maps, Law and Order, Lumix, Photos, Road Trips, Travel, Wildlife | , , , , | Leave a comment

Aachen – Christmas Markets on the Rhine

That this trip would go to Aachen is one of the reasons I eagerly wanted to take this trip. We visited Aachen around twenty years ago, and the minute I walked in the church, I was stunned by this candelabra:

It is huge. It is glorious. This was the church of Charlemagne, and it is a very very old church. I don’t know why it is so special to me, but I love this church. Now I can recognize all the Moorish elements; that could well be a part of its attraction to me.

Wikipedia says the Aachen cathedral was consecrated in 805 AD, and is the oldest cathedral church in Europe.

“It is claimed as one of the oldest cathedrals in Europe and was constructed by order of the emperor Charlemagne, who was buried there after his death in 814. For 595 years, from 936 to 1531, the Palatine Chapel, heart of the cathedral, was the church of coronation for thirty-one German kings and twelve queens. The church has been the mother church of the Diocese of Aachen since 1802.”

 

I knew from previous visits that you had to buy a ticket to take photos in this church. You have to find a policeman selling permits, and he puts a permit on your camera. There were a lot of people taking photos and being told they had to pay. There were signs, but they were small and not very visible. I felt sorry for the people who were scolded and told they had to pay.

 

 

 

Looking up int the dome. The black and white arches remind me of the Alhambra in Spain. So simple, so elegant.

 

Guess I really have a thing for those arches, LOL.

Outside view of the Aachen cathedral / church. What is really funny is that it looks like blue sky, and maybe, just maybe for a few minutes, it was. Mostly what I remember is a very cold day and a very chill rain, so chilly that we only wandered around the Market for maybe half an hour and then found a cozy cafe where AdventureMan could get some hot chocolate for his sore throat.

 

The Winter Specials!

Hirschsteak! (Deer steak) Gänsekeule! (Goose leg) Muscheln! (Mussels Alsatian style)

Shops full of the Aachen special spice cookies. Love the way they decorate their windows.

 

People beginning to gather for their shopping, and for drinking Gluewein with their friends.

 

I love this statue. I think it is called Greed, or The Love of Money.

Here is Didi’s Chocolate Shop where we found our tour guides, also having a hot drink and comparing notes while the tour guests shopped. I ordered Mint Tea and got a huge pot of boiling hot water and a bundle of mint leaves. It was lovely, so fresh, so fresh. AdventureMan also loved his hot chocolate.

 

When we left, we were all to gather at the tourist info stop. We were all there, and nothing was happening so a couple people went inside the tourist place, and then the guides showed up and hurried us down a street. Fortunately the people inside could see the end of the line far off down the street and hurried to catch up with us. We know they would have sent people back for them when they were discovered missing . . . or we think so. It felt like a disaster narrowly averted.

We speak the language. Still, we would not want to be left behind in a strange city and have to find some way to get back to a boat that we don’t really know exactly where it is.

March 19, 2019 Posted by | Advent, Arts & Handicrafts, Faith, Germany, Hot drinks, Photos, Travel | , , , | Leave a comment