Mamson’s for Afternoon Tea
It’s late in the afternoon, and we are back on board. We don’t want to nap; we are trying to get on local time, which keeps changing, put the clocks ahead an hour here and back an hour here. We love the Explorer’s Lounge, so we head up there for “tea”. They have lovely not-too-sweet pastries at Mamsen’s that we adore.
More of the Explorer’s Lounge:
Our tea:
Our location:
Back to the room for sunset on our way to Dubrovnik!
This night we checked the menus for all the restaurants and decided to try one called: The Restaurant. They seemed to have some really nice choices. No reservations. So we headed up around seven, and were seated. Other people sitting close; one party of seven having a good old time, and very loud. I can’t even remember what we ordered. Once again, no control over how much was coming, no control over timing. When we said we wanted to split a creme brûlée, the waitress brought us each one, and said “I know you really want to have your own.”
No. No, we didn’t. We don’t like waste, and we love good tastes, but we like them in moderation. Clatter and clanging of the dishes and flatware, too much noise, too little privacy and we don’t even get our say over dessert. One time in this restaurant was enough.
We walked off the creme brûlée – no, we didn’t eat the whole thing, but the evening is so lovely and we love the walks around the decks.
Zadar Lunch At Konoba Dalmacija
We’ve been roving the back-streets, because, as you know if you have read other travel articles on this blog, what gets our blood going is learning how other people live, what we have in common, how we differ. As we roam the backstreets in old Zadar, we start to get hungry, and AdventureMan sticks his head in an unlikely doorway and finds a treasure: Konoba Dalmacija.
Inside the wall is a hidden restaurant, full of trees and outdoor tables, perfect for today.
We are in the center of several low rise apartments, and some have hung out their laundry. This is really a local’s restaurant.
Local beer for AdventureMan:
Local wine for me:
The waitress was wonderful. The first thing we asked was if they would accept Euros; we had been told that in Croatia some places only accepted Croatian money. We never had any problem using Euros. She said yes, of course they took Euros, and we placed our orders. There was a fish we used to buy and fix in Tunisia, D’aurade, and they had this fish in Croatia, called Dorada, meaning golden eye. I had a Croatian salad and D’aurade, AdventureMan had the pork tenderloins with mushroom sauce, which tasted a lot like a German Jaegerschnitzle.
My salad was very good, my fish was yummy, but the oh, pork with mushroom sauce was OMG! OMG! OMG! Delicious.
As we were waiting and eating, local people came in to eat, and one old man who had salad and soup, and it seems he must have the same meal every Sunday after church.
Then, in rushed a young Japanese man shouting “Warning! Warning! I am coming in five minutes with fifty people!”
And, sure enough, following closely behind him was a very large group of Japanese who followed him to the inside restaurant.
We quickly signaled for our bill, paid, and left. They were going to have their hands full!
Zadar on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon was a treat. Entire families came out near the ship, playing in the park, having coffee in the park cafe’s, visiting the Sea Organ and Salute to the Sun and taking photos of the Viking Sea. We were delighted to be in Zadar.
Viking Sea First Port: Koper, Slovenia, “Koper is a Very Small Town”
AdventureMan looks out our sliding glass door and says “We’re already here! I can see Koper from here!” We’ve signed up for a tour, and we aren’t scheduled to meet for an hour or more, so we head for breakfast, find a quiet, sunny table near the stern and then get ready to head into town.
We haven’t found a lot of information on Koper, Slovenia. It wasn’t on our original itinerary. Actually, the whole reason we signed up for this tour was because it ended in Istanbul, in a country we love and have visited several times. Months after we booked, the itinerary changed, after the coup and bombings in Turkey. Probably a good bet, our better instincts tell us, but all the same, we are sorely disappointed to miss out on Istanbul. Our first trip to Istanbul was in 1975, and we were enchanted. It influenced later choices. We still hope to be able to visit again.
But Viking needed to come up with some other options, and Koper was one of them.
One thing Viking does really, really well is destinations. They give you a lot of background, and I love the way they group us. First to sign up get the earlier tours. As you get off the ship, they give you a group number, and they warn you that if you want to tour with friends, make sure that group shows up together. It is a very efficient system – once a group is formed, off they go.
So off we went.
We should have caught on a little sooner, but we didn’t. The guide was charming, but we stayed by the ship for about 15 minutes as she told us a little about Slovenia, and then we spent 10 minutes by an olive tree while she told us how very small Koper is, and how small Slovenia is, and how Slovenia looks like a chicken. Then we walked past a very old church, not much information, then we walked to a school where Italian children attended and she told us a little more about how small Koper is and how small Slovenia is.
Have I mentioned before that AdventureMan and I are not very good at being herded?
By this point, AdventureMan and I are trying to figure out how to make a get-away. We let the group go ahead, and peel off down a small little alley (Koper is very small.) We find some delightful sights; Koper reminds us of a very small village we loved in Germany, Neuleiningen). We walked a little and found ourselves on the other side of the peninsula, and walked back to the big town square. (Koper is very small.)
There are some quaint sights in Koper, which is a lot like Germany thirty years ago.
The town square
We are back on the ship by lunch time – Koper really is a very small town. We head for the spa, and have a wonderful time soaking and enjoying the sauna, the cold tub, the churning big pool and the hot tub, the snow room, and again, the sauna. Soooooo relaxing.
The sun goes down.
This is our night to eat at The Chef’s Table. We figure it is a little dressier, but we figure wrong, people on this ship are not dressing. That is fine with us. But once again, we are seated very close to other people, so close we can hear every word of their conversation, and, if we talk in normal voices, they can hear every word of our conversation. Portion sizes are small, which we don’t mind, but maybe a little precious, which we do mind. Like a tiny thimble full of very icy pieces of raspberry. Sorry, I don’t get it. In addition, there was once again the clattering and clanking and the talking among people serving and the odd spacing of the courses and sorry, get me out of here. It was noisy, it was not relaxed. Not special, for us.
Once we finish, we take a walk around the ship, lots of decks, then back to the cabin to listen to the waves slosh against the ship as we head for Zadar.
Dinner at La Palanca, Giudecca
There is a freedom to being retired, a lovely freedom, you begin to care a lot less about “should.” Like, “OMG, we’ll only be in Venice for three days we SHOULD ________” and there are a million things to fill in the blank. We’ve actually been in Venice before, and that takes off a lot of pressure. When we feel, in late afternoon, like a nap before dinner, we don’t feel guilty, we take that nap.
After napping, we know where we want to go, we’ve read about it on Trip Advisor and passed it several times, La Palanca, right by one of the vaporetto stops. La Palanca does not serve dinner, but they do serve little snacks, and after our wonderful lunch at Rosa Rossa and our Tiramisu at the cafe, we aren’t interested in eating a big dinner, a snack is fine with us.
This is the only photo I could take; this is the bar where people are gathered. There is a party of ten or so back where we are sitting, all old friends and neighbors, drinking, eating snacks. Just after I took this photo, more and more people come in, almost all standing around this counter where wine, beer and little open faced sandwiches are served continuously. We were there a couple hours, we never felt out of place, although everyone else knew each other. One man had his little dog with him, and the dog was a big hit.
If we were going to live in Venice, I think we would like living in Guidecca, where there are not so many tourists, and life seems to be more normal. We like the neighborhood feel, and we don’t mind the vaporetto rides.
We shared a grilled caprese (tomatoes, basil and mozzarella di bufolo) sandwich, then, later, saw a tray of shrimp with onion coming out, and AdventureMan got a couple of those. The onions and the shrimp were pickled; it was a small treat, but memorable.
La Palanca does a great lunch time business, and had we not gone to Rosa Rossa, we would have tried to eat a lunch here. They get great reviews.
After leaving, we took a last vaporetto ride by night, and by the time we returned, the neighborhood party at La Palanca had spilled out onto the large sidewalk along the canal. It was a Thursday night, maybe they are all celebrating that the weekend is near.
“You Will Eat Every Bite, and You Will Smile”
We wander the streets, following Guido Brunetti’s path, and then wander back towards San Marco and our shuttle back to the hotel. We’ve spent the day wandering, on foot and on vaporetto, and we are beginning to feel a need for a nap before dinner. Wandering in Venice is sheer delight:
When we get to where the shuttle is supposed to be, there are, literally, hundreds of touristy looking people, and fortunately, several Viking people. We ask about the shuttle back, and they say it will come in half an hour. We head for the nearest cafe and check to make sure it has a ladies room, which it does, but oh-my-goodness, no seat, no lid, and a pull thing to flush, just like the old days when we lived in Germany when I was a kid. These people know the value of location – take a look at the prices.
The waiter was shocked! Shocked! when we asked for ice cream. No! No! Never in October! (LOL, we didn’t know!) I ordered a coffee and AdventureMan ordered a Tiramisu.
The Tiramisu was fabulous, everything we have dreamed of so long. It had liqueur in it! It had that unforgettable taste!
We tell a story in my family of our first trip to Italy, when I was 15 and my sisters were younger. It was my Mother’s birthday, and at the hotel where we were staying, they presented her with a surprise birthday cake. It was all so lovely and so gracious. My Mother cut the cake and the waiters brought pieces of it to us, and then, as my mother bit into her piece, she grimaced – the cake was soaked with liqueur. She told my father in a low voice, and he looked at us girls, with a fixed smile that told us he meant business and said “You will eat every bite, and you will smile.”
We were raised to be gracious, and to have grateful hearts. I don’t remember being so all-full-of-gratitude at the time, but I grew to like the Italian style. and didn’t realize how much I had missed it until I tasted this REAL tiramisu.
I remember that also, very graciously, after we had each eaten our piece, even my little 6 year old sister, choking down that liqueur soaked cake, my mother asked the management to please share the joy of her birthday by sharing the rich cake with all the employees and guests (it was a large cake).
“Guido Brunetti Sent Us” (Rosa Rossa Restaurant)
AdventureMan and I read a series of detective novels set in Venice by author Donna Leon, who lives there. Commissario Guido Brunetti is a patient, thoughtful and smart detective, working under a lazy, corrupt and greedy boss in a country rife with corruption. Each book has a social issue in Venice as its topic, and not lightweight topics – the arrogance of dumping trash, boatloads of trash, off the coast of Somalia (had you ever heard of that before? Neither had I. But it is true, and it has ruined traditional Somali fishing), big pharma and tainted drugs, sex tourism and human trafficking, governmental bribery – Donna Leon fearlessly tackles them all.
Guido Brunetti loves Venice, and he loves his family. His solace in life is his wife, a professor of literature at the university, and his two children. His wife cooks meals that make the reader’s mouth water as they read, or Guido and one of his lieutenants will stop at a restaurant for lunch.
In one of the books, “Blood From a Stone,” American tourists give evidence to a stabbing they witness on their way to dinner. To thank them for their help, he directs them to a GOOD Venetian restaurant, and tells them to say Guido Brunetti sent them.
We don’t say that. No matter how real Guido Brunetti has become to us, we know he is not real, and we don’t say he sent us. But we do take the tiny winding back lanes to find Rosa Rossa, and while we order familiar salads, we also order Venetian specialities for our main courses.
Rosa Rossa on a tiny but busy street:
AdventureMan’s favorite salad; he loves Caprese:
I had a garden salad:
I love black spaghetti, or Pasta Nero. It is made with squid, and squid ink, and I first had it at a lovely dinner a long time ago in Damascus, Syria, served by a beautiful Italian who swore t me that this dish is Southern Italian. If so, I ordered it anyway, in honor of Beatrice, and it was delicious.
AdventureMan ordered Pasta with Squid and pepperoncini, and he said it was very piquant, and that he has never eaten so much squid in his life at one time.
We passed on dessert, knowing we still had miles to walk, and possibly a gelato toward the end. We had such a short time to enjoy Venice, searching for and finding Rosa Rossa was a lot of fun, and a great adventure. They took good care of us, and the food was delicious.
China Town, Fan Tan Alley and I Get Some GOOD Chinese Food
We try to limit what we attempt, when we travel. If we try to do too much, we sometimes fail, or we get so busy trying to accomplish that we don’t really get to enjoy what we are doing. Or worse, we get cross with each other, crabby! On our vacation! So we make choices, AdventureMan wanted the Victoria Butterfly Gardens; I wanted GOOD Chinese food.
Our son knows us. When we decided to settle in Pensacola, to be near him and the coming grandchild/ grandchildren, he sat us down and told us things we needed to know about Pensacola. The first thing he told us was that there was no really GOOD Chinese food. Honestly, for me . . . well, I don’t want to say I thought twice, but no good Chinese food? Chinese food is my comfort food!
We asked the concierge at the Grand Pacific for a recommendation for GOOD Chinese food, and she, with great delight, directed us to the Fan Tan Cafe in China Town, just a short walk down Government Street. It was an easy walk, past the grand historic Empress Hotel (we didn’t stay there because the views, in my opinion, are not as good), and down one of the most fun shopping streets in the world to China Town.
We know we are getting close 🙂
The entrance to China Town on Fisgard Street
Fan Tan Cafe – it’s small, and crowded. You are bottom to bottom with the chair behind you and you are almost sitting next to the next table. It’s fun. You get to see what everyone else is eating. We were hungry, we were early and that was a good thing because we got a table. There are maybe 16 – 18 tables at the Fan Tan Cafe, and some of those are for two people. They do take reservations.
This was the absolute best. AdventureMan chose the Spicy Shrimp appetizer, and it was delicious, top to bottom. Even the bedding vegetables were delicious. This was the highlight of the meal.
We didn’t intend to order deep-fried pork. It was good, very General Tso kind of taste.
The scallops and shrimp in black bean sauce was too delicate for us. We decided everything about it was beautiful, and the problem is probably more our palate, which likes more intensity.
All in all, it was a very tasty meal. If we were to go back, which we will the next time we are in Victoria, I would try the Cantonese Chow Mein, or one of the noodle dishes for which they are famous. We saw them all around us, glistening and gorgeous, and they looked divine. Cannot wait to go back 🙂
I still miss the Taiwan Tourismo, in Jordan, where we had authentic, amazingly tasty Chinese food and never even knew how extraordinary it was. I miss the China Queen, later the Great Wall of China, in Mahboula, Kuwait, a little hole in the wall where the Chinese workers ate and I could point and say “I want that, please!” Real Chinese is different from North American Restaurant Chinese.
Just a Little Drama To Spice Up Our Trip to Tofino
I think I may have mentioned that occasionally I am a little OCD. In our family, I am the trip planner. I get an idea, I run things by AdventureMan, he gets a veto even if I make a strong recommendation. He also does research, and asks to have things added in. That’s how we ended up doing two separate trips to Alaska; we realized with all our good idea, we couldn’t do them all in one trip.
This time, our trip was centered on two things, Mother’s Day in Seattle and three days at Ucluelet, during which we would whale watch and bear watch. We booked our reservations, months in advance. The night we left Qualicum Beach, we got a nice e-mail from our guide, with devastating news – he had a severe injury and would not be able to take us on either tour.
AdventureMan and I looked at each other in horror. “What are you going to do??” AdventureMan asked, and we are in a bad position because our phones don’t work reliably. “He recommended another agency,” I said, “I will e-mail them now and see if we can get on with them.” It’s still early in the season. There is hope. I e-mail them telling them what we wanted, and that we are flexible as to which one we do first, and as to morning or afternoon.
Before we left to drive across the mountains, I checked my e-mail. No response. The drive was quicker that I thought, and we arrived too early to check in, so we decided to drive to Tofino, about 30 minutes away, and see if anything is possible.
I took some mountain photos for you on our drive from Qualicum Beach to Tofino.
The day had started cloudy, but by the time we reach Tofino, blue skies are breaking through.
We go straight to Meare’s Landing, where Remote Passages organizes and sends out expeditions to see whale, to see bear, to kayak, to see remote hot springs.
We are in luck! They have already tentatively booked us on our desired trips, we just need to pay and be read in on the safety instructions. We ask them their favorite places to eat, and they say “Sea Shanty in Tofino.” Then we ask if they have been to Ucluelet, and their eyes go all big and shiny and they say “Go to Zoe’s! We love Zoe’s!”
So we walked to the Sea Shanty, where an amazing waitress, Brianna, took care of us. You may think that I exaggerate when I say she is amazing, but Brianna was really good at making customers happy AND she boats to work from the island where she lives. We were so impressed, because while we have had wonderful weather, we know wonderful is not how weather always is, and in a boat you are exposed to weather, and to weather related sea changes. She didn’t seem in the least bit proud, she just took her bravery as something normal. Wow.
This is the view of the Sea Shanty from the sea.
This is an interior wall at the Sea Shanty.
This is the fabulous Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse Brianna brought us, divided into two bowls. It had Alaska crab, local clams and mussels, local salmon and fish. It was lacedd with saffron threads, the way a truly good Bouillabaisse should be. It was purely awesome, and accompanied by a Shanty salad, also huge, also divided for two. Even divided, we waddled out of the Sea Shanty, convinced it is one of the best meals we have had on our trip.
We did save a little room, though, for Zoe’s, a bakery in Ucluelet. We had INTENDED to buy croissants for breakfast the next morning, but there were none. We ended up buying cookies and pie. The next day we ended up buying more cookies and more pie. The third day, we went in early for breakfast before a hike. Zoe’s has magic. The crusts are really light and flaky. The berry pie was full of berries; I don’t know what they were held together with, but the pie was almost entirely berries. The gingerbread cookie was chewy, and gingery. AdventureMan’s chocolate-caramel-something else bar (twice) was so rich that you had to nibble at it through the evening, it was too rich to eat all at once. Oh my. Go to Zoe’s.
Shady Rest Restaurant in Qualicum Beach, Vancouver Island
It was lunch time in Qualicum Beach. We knew we wanted a view of the water, and we wanted some choices.
The Shady Rest appeared to have the view situation all locked up, but what about choice? We took a look at the menu posted outside, and we knew we were going to be fine. There was a wide variety.
We had a lovely table outside, with a view from north to south of the beach, the sea and the mountains. The weather was warm, barely a cloud in the sky.
AdventureMan ordered the Salmon Chowder and a Spinach Salad, I ordered a pretzel crusted cod because I have never heard of such a thing before. One bite, and I was glad I did. It was a WOW. In fact, I was enjoying my bites so much I almost forgot to take a photo.
A group of Chinese tourists came in. We always have a lot of sympathy for people who are traveling in lands where they are not fluent in the language. This group had done some really smart things. They had photos on their smart phones of food they have tried and liked. They already had some idea of things they did not like, like they did not like salmon. Even with the language problem, they ended up with food they liked, because they had gone to some trouble to be able to know how to tell the waitress what they wanted. (Fish (Halibut) and chips, Clam Chowder, salad, oyster po’boy and I couldn’t see what else.)
After lunch, we stopped to pick up some stuff for dinner. We are staying in a cabin tonight, with a kitchen, right on the beach, and we don’t want to be bothered having to go out looking for dinner. AdventureMan spotted Qualicum Foods, and it is just like Whole Foods. We found everything we needed – and more. It’s nicer than any supermarket in Pensacola.
Campbell River, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and Quay West
“What brought you here?” our waitress, Robin, asked as we sat in one of the most glorious restaurants in Campbell River.
“My wife,” said AdventureMan.
“I don’t know why,” I started, “I just felt drawn here. I needed to see it. I like hunting and fishing, and I knew this was hunting and fishing country, and the gateway to the north of Vancouver Island.”
It’s true. I like remote places, and I like hunting cultures. I grew up among people who fished for a living and hunted for food to eat through the winter. You respect food more when you have to grow it or hunt it.
Campbell River is beautiful. You could live anywhere, and wake up every morning to water and mountains and 180 degrees – or more – of sky.
Our room is in a brand new hotel, it is clean and beautiful as only a new hotel can be. We have a balcony overlooking the BC Ferry as it shuttles cars and trucks back and forth across to the islands.
We are trying to decide where to go for dinner, and I am reading to AdventureMan from Trip Advisor. The first review at Quay West features a couple who split a Ceasar Salad and a Pork Schnitzle with a Mushroom Peppercorn Sauce. I didn’t even get to finish reading; AdventureMan said “That’s where we are going!” and five minutes later we were out the door.
Quay West has more than great food going for it. It also has location, location, location. Here are the views:
Our waitress was fantastic, and fun to talk with. She brought us a Ceasar Salad to split, then a huge plate of Pork Schnitzle (remember, we have lived almost 20 years in Germany, not continuously, but in segments) with the mushroom peppercorn sauce. It was everything the reviewer had said it was, and we relished the meal, every bite, even the beautifully cooked vegetables, surrounded by natural beauty. AdventureMan had a Steam Whistle IPA which had the crisp pilsner taste, and I had a Pinot Blanc, dry, flinty, just the way I like it.
We passed on dessert, but Robin brought us two huge strawberries, coated in chocolate, and we did not resist.
Back at the hotel, I discover that I can pick up texts and messages as long as I am connected via the hotel Wifi. Woo HOOOOO! We are not totally out of communication!
A perfect ending to a great day.
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