We left on 26 May in the evening and returned on 11 June in the afternoon. Our departure was delayed a couple of hours because of an engine oil leak. They had to wait for another plane to arrive. I cut in a little on our plans in London. I'm just glad we made it. But, we wouldn't have wanted to see oil streaming out of the engine mid flight.
We had made plans for the cruise some time ago. But, we waited on committing on airfare and tickets. The prices were always in the $1400 range. Then we finally saw a direct flight from SLC to London that was $750. We went for that and although we spent less than a day sightseeing in London, at least we got to see and experience some of the town. After long layovers on my Feb trip, the direct flight was much appreciated. It was an overnight flight so I used a sleeping pill and Lenore made sure I didn’t do anything weird.
I had pretty much everything planned out as much as I could stand. That was helpful. But, there can still be hiccups. We took the tube from Heathrow into right near the British Museum and then left our bags at a bag deposit for a reasonable fee. Rather than just dedicated bag deposits, you now see shops that offer it as a service. They put tags on our luggage and had us take a picture of them with our phones.
Riding around the tube and the buses they had PA announcements to be aware of pickpockets. I thought the announcer's voice sounded like PC Penhale from Doc Martin. It might not have been an accident.
We only got maybe a couple of hours? at the museum before it was shutting down. So, we only got to scratch the surface. But, it’s pretty neat. Then we went to Piccadilly. We had to buy something at Lillywhites so I could present the saleslady with my credit card. We also took the mandatory picture outside.
From there we made our way to Trafalgar then back to pick up our bags and find our apartment.
We had found online a small AirBnB place on Brick Lane in White Chapel. It was near the intersection of Brick Lane and Chicksands Street in a slightly sketchy part of town I would call little Bangladesh. I had all sorts of info and maps and stuff. Still it was difficult to find because once we got off the bus we had no idea which way to go or which way we were facing. We asked a couple of people and then Ailsa found she did have data on her phone and was able to use Maps, thank goodness. We walked close to a half mile, schlepping our bags. But, found the Bell Boi rental office at the intersection of Sclater Street and Brick Lane, and dealt with the nice clerk. Then walked another half mile to the apartment, passing along the way such sites as the Jack the Clipper Barber shop.
Our apartment was one of these along the top floor:
We had one of Jensen's friends, Jaycie McLeary (a companion from her mission) come with us on this trip. At one point Ameer was considering being our #6. But, he decided to spend his money on other things and Jaycie was great company. We probably would have had local ethnic food this first evening. But, Jaycie wasn't up for spicy. And anyway, there was a very nice pizza by the slice right across from our apartment.
In many touristy places there will be "stringers" who stand in the street and try to sell you on their restaurant. I found it somewhat amusing there was one near our apartment, only one. I got the impression he was also keeping track of activity on the street, and he assured us we were safe, despite that, I was on a raised level of alertness just because of the mild sketchyness of the street.
The pizza at this place was quite good. We couldn't get the internet working in our apartment. But, had to get to bed anyway because of the early morning.
The rental office arranged for a cab to pick us up barely after 5am. As I fell off to sleep, I was just slighty concerned, "what if the taxi wasn't there in the morning? Or we sleep in too much?"
It was, prompt and early. And,.. the sun was up. London is pretty far north (further than Calgary, Canada). I've only been further north when I was in Dublin.
The cabbie took us to Victoria Station where we boarded a bus for Gatwick. All of these major bus and train tickets were booked and reserved ahead of time. They weren't terribly expensive and were pretty convenient.
So, we used London as our main ouvre into Europe and then paid $180 total each for flights into Rome and out of Venice. So, we got our open jaw "round trip" airplane tickets for $930 total.
Security and check in at Salt Lake were pretty slick and easy. (Except, we all had our boarding passes on our phones, Laney was at the back of our group, and her battery died just as she got to the checkpoint. And, she hasn't done this before, ever??...
We got through security and looked around and said, "where's Laney?' We are daft. Good thing the airport wasn't very busy and the people were very nice and helpful with Her.
When we got to Gatwick, though, the security was quite a bit more of a pain and the people were not nearly as helpful. Granted we got Lenore's bag of liquids mixed in with my bag and I had a clandestine container of Apple Juice from the previous flight I had forgotten about and we had stuff everywhere trying to show them everything. But, do we fit the profile?
Once again, on most occasions we were able to check in online and use etickets and stuff. That aspect was pretty slick and convenient.
In Rome, we took a taxi to the apartment. It was more than we were expecting because of the six of us, about $100. But, that's only slightly more than each of us buying a train ticket.
The apartment in Rome was booked through Booking.com and it was the nicest place on our trip. The street view is here:
The hostess walked up to us as we descended from the taxi. She was super nice and accommodating. The locale was convenient and quite nice. Not necessarily upscale but, nice. it was near to the Ponte Lungo Metro stop on the A line of the Metro. It's called All in Rome and the address is Piazza Dell'Alberone 10.
We settled in and then got ready to go visit the Temple and the Visitors Center. We decided to take the metro and the bus. We weren't exactly sure on everything and got very confused transferring from metro to bus. Mainly, it's hard to know which way to go if you can't get oriented. It made things a little tense on occasion with the whole group. But, we survived. We had family file names to be able to do an endowment session. But, in the end, Lane did baptisms and confirmations and I went with her and got to officiate, also for another girl who arrived at the Temple the same time as us.
The adults took a little time and did some initiatory. Lane and I met a nice couple named Gundry from Idaho and basically had a very nice spiritual time for our visit. We spent a good amount of time at the Visitors Center, especially talking to Sisters Bressan and Hatch. I had met Sister Bressan back in February.
I had done nothing but rave about the Carbonara they served at the Domus Urbis, so we took the bus there and walked into the restaurant. It was slightly awkward because we weren't guests at the hotel and I guess that's a thing in Italy. It could also have to do with the Rome City tax they have to charge at Hotels. But, they asked if we were with the Mormons and they got special permission to serve us. I think the problem stems from how to settle the bill. It wasn't the same nice waitress as back in February. But, this one did sweeten up a bit when I left her a nice tip for accommodating us.
The Carbonara was just as good as I remembered and in retrospect, after four other offerings at other restaurants, it was the best. The family thoroughly enjoyed this restaurant.
It was late now and we took the bus and metro back to our apartment. We had gotten little sleep and walked a lot and were a bit bedraggled from schlepping from London and then all over Rome. Poor Ailsa is carrying a bit more weight than fits her frame. Her feet were terribly swollen and a nice young couple on the metro, who we are sure thought she was pregnant, graciously gave up their seat on the train for her. So, we have that to tease her with for a while.
The next day we saw the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, and Piazza Navona, pretty much following the same route that I took with Michelle Young in February. We then headed for the Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini (the "Bone Church"). After we boarded the bus at Piazza Navona, one of the passengers on the bus told me to be aware of pick pockets. (I often wonder in these cases if the person is just trying to deflect attention away from themselves.) There was a fellow who I thought looked a little suspicious. Duly noted.
The Bone Church is right near the metro stop at Piazza Barberini. So, we got on the metro and headed there. The train went past the piazza without stopping. We got back on the other way. Same thing. I think we did this three times. We figured it was not stopping there because of the crowds. We ended up ?walking? or taking a bus from a nearby metro stop. I think it turned out that there was construction going on at Barberini and that stop was just closed.
At any rate, we enjoyed the Bone Church. Lenore was completely thrilled. We walked around a lot and saw the Altar of the Fatherland and then made our way to the Colosseum. We decided not to do any paid tour. We just walked around and saw some of the other things nearby from a distance. We ran into the Gundrys from the day before at the Temple. We were tired so we went back to our apartment earlyish and bought groceries and take out dinner at a very nice shop nearby, and of course gelato at the shop just a block to the south. The take out place I thought was quite good considering, and had very tasty food. They were also very cordial and accommodating.
The next morning we had made arrangements with our AirBnB hostess to leave our bags at the apartment until we came back after the morning sightseeing. We went down to the Vatican to see Saint Peters. We didn't do the tour, mainly because the line is very long. We walked over to Castel Sant' Angelo and then across the Tiber. But, then we made our way back toward Castel Sant' Angelo to eat lunch at a restaurant we had noticed. We had their Carbonara, not as good (ranked fourth or fifth).
We then had to retrieve our bags and get back to Termini for the train to Florence.
High speed trains have been gaining more ground in Italy since the late 70's. Although I had never ridden one. We did use the InterCity trains when we visited in 2002. But, for the most part, our train experiences were only slighty more modern than WWII trains.
We had booked train travel ahead of time between Rome and Florence and then from Florence to Venice. It was very easy and convenient and inexpensive to do this online ahead of time. The tickets were about $26 each. I didn't realize they were high speed trains and quite nice. Our trip to Florence was quite fast reaching speeds of 155mph. Ailsa was seated next to a young woman who had her pet cat in a carrier. His name was Klimt and he was sedated.
Even though our apartment in Florence was pretty close to the train station (and very close to the main square), it was still about a half mile schlep to our lodgings. It was in Via dei Tosinghi 40. Here is a street view: When we got there we had to wait about 5 minutes, while also trying to get in touch with the host, before he showed up and let us in. The apartment was nice enough and the building itself was about 600 years old. If you craned out of the windows, you could see Giotto's bell tower over the roof line.
We got settled and then we went to scope out the locale. We found a gelato shop that we quite liked, La Strega Nocciola. It had Lavender as one of its signature flavors. We loaded up on some groceries at the shop nearby and then went back to our apartment to rest, and watch Ryan Hamilton (Happy Face) on YouTube.
In the morning we scouted out the environs and then started making our way to the Ponte Vecchio. Along the way we stopped and looked around the Piazza della Signoria, bought tickets for the Uffizi Gallery for the next day. We found a really yummy sandwich shop at the Signoria called Vinaino. I think we went back there two other times.
We made our way back to the Piazza Duomo and had a relaxing lunch at an "Irish Pub" located on the south side of the plaza. We had wanted to eat at a pub in London. But, didn't get the chance. So, this had to do. It was our third sample of Carbonara which was probably the second best of the five samples we had during our trip. We bought tickets for the bell tower and the baptistery and the cathedral. We toured the baptistery (very lovely) and walked up the bell tower. We planned to see the cathedral in the morning before the crowds.
I thought the walk up the bell tower would be more taxing than it was. I'm glad I wasn't huffing too much. Lenore stayed at the first opportunity to stop and relax. The height was freaking her a little. We proceeded on and right when we arrived at the bell level the bells started sounding. It was pretty cool. But, very loud.
That evening Lenore and I spent a good couple of hours on the internet using mostly Ancestry debunking a guy who claims to know of the lost 116 pages or have them in his possession and also to be the rightful heir of one of Joseph Smith's brothers. But, it's pretty obvious the dates and math and the connections don't work out. Another one of the “fun” people she occasionally interacts with on her message board. But, we had fun.
After the Cathedral the next morning, we went to the Uffizi Gallery and toured that for a while. It really is best to spend a lot of time at this place. But, it's also tiring. Maybe best to break it up between a couple of days. We had a late lunch at the Osteria dell Olio near our left luggage place where we had our fourth sampling of Carbonara (pretty good also, maybe the third best) and then got on the train for Venice.
Nearly everywhere we went we were almost assaulted with people vying for your business as soon as you debark the ship or, in the case of Venice, step out of the train station. We almost got persuaded to hire a porter to take our bags to our apartment. On second thought, it probably would have been a good idea. A side note: I know I don't look Italian. But, is it so obvious that I am American? or at least an English speaker? I would think someone on occasion might assume I was Scandinavian. But, 99% of the time they would just automatically start talking to me in English even before I opened my mouth. Perhaps I should make a habit of hiding my Italian language until I know they aren't talking about me behind my back in Italian.
Also, Lenore says that I would often have a whole conversation with someone in Italian and not realize that the rest of the family were completely oblivious to the content of the conversation. It's a little hard to realize that for me sometimes. She says I would finish speaking with someone and then just turn to the family and say, "Okay?" expecting that they had followed the gist of the conversation at least.
We had an AirBnB in Venice before the cruise and also one for the couple of days after. I was pretty well organized with everything. But, when we got to Venice I was mixed up on which one was the first one. And, of course I had Ailsa lead us there first when we were already very tired and frazzled. Fortunately, they were both in the same area of Venice, the north part called Cannaregio. We were sort of in the "Ghetto" of Venice, in that it was one of the predominantly Jewish sections. We walked right by a Bris celebration and saw a man wearing a Shtreimel.
Our first apartment near Ponte Tre Archi was very nice. The address was Calle del Forner 2978. Street view is here: We always had a hard time organizing wall plugs and adapters and chargers. But, it usually worked out. We settled in and Ailsa and I went for pizza at a shop nearby, "Very Good Pizza" and it was.
The shop had asked if I wanted the pizza cut. I told them yes but they forgot. Back at the apartment we searched all over trying to find utensils. We couldn't find them anywhere. We did find a spatula and hacked away at the pizza. Later someone noticed that the dining table had drawers that held the utensils. We felt pretty dumb.
We did Church at home in the morning because it would have been a lengthy and somewhat costly trip out to the chapel and then back to pick up our bags. And it would have been difficult to make the noon deadline to pick up our bags and vacate the apartment. We left before checkout and then made our way to the cruise port. Gondola prices are ridiculously high. But, the vaporetti are fairly cheap and quite convenient. We took one to Piazzale Roma and then walked to the cruise port, which was a mistake. It was quite a bit longer (about a mile) than we expected and there is a very inexpensive "people mover" system that cuts out most of that walk from Piazzale Roma to the port. We used that on the way back after the cruise.
As we were walking we fell in with a couple from England who had just disembarked from a river cruise and were transferring to our cruise. They told us their river cruise boat "River Countess" had been struck by an MSC Cruise ship "Opera" as they were disembarking. It was quite a news item and sparked anew the debates about tourism and cruise ships in Venice.
It's pretty ironic that any place that thrives on tourism would be so negative against it. Their standard of living would drop precipitously without tourism and then what would happen? Richer people would move in and the old inhabitants wouldn't be able to afford it. On our last day in Venice, after we left our apartment we took a vaporetto to Piazzale Roma to drop off our bags. The craft was quite crowded. There is a special place in the middle of the boat for baggage. It was filled with bags AND people. So we went down the aisle as far as we could and kept our bags with us. An Italian lady started to complain loudly to the conductor. I'm not quite sure if she was complaining about us with our bags or the people who were seated in the baggage area. At any rate I rebutted her twice quite forcefully that there was no room for us to put our bags where they were supposed to go.
In the cruise port we stopped into a pharmacy to get some Tylenol. I asked for Tylenol and Acetaminophen to no avail and then said the magic word “Paracetamol” which they recognized. It's a good thing we watch British shows on TV. We negotiated the cruise port without problem, got on the Norwegian Star fairly quickly and easily and checked in to our staterooms. One note: in the past we have usually gotten our embarkation photo. This time as we passed that checkpoint, I asked Lenore and she said don’t bother. So I kept going. But, then all of the rest of them went ahead and had their picture taken. They say they tried to get my attention to no avail. So, we have a nice picture with just the five girls.
This was our first time on any boat other than Carnival. We've had people tell us they liked Carnival the best. We liked Norwegian as well. They are just different. Norwegian might cater to a slightly nicer clientele. One of the nice things, especially for this cruise, was there are no formal nights in the restaurants. So, we didn't have to concern ourselves with bringing “elegant” clothes that might not do well in a backpack or carry on. On Norwegian you don't have any set dining place or schedule. But, we were pretty much always able to eat when and where we wanted. The food on this cruise was probably a little nicer. Although, there was no Guy Fieri's burgers. We also didn't have to endure a Carnival crew singing and dancing for us at dinner time.
Walking around Italy we had gotten used to hawkers and businessmen soliciting our patronage. Our first cruise stop, Kotor Montenegro, was a whole different level. We mananged to make it through the gaunlet unscathed and quickly found one of the most charming destinations you could hope to visit. The main attraction we visited was the surprisingly interesting Cathedral of Saint Tryphon. The guys selling entrance tickets were particularly enthused about the Utah Jazz basketball team.
The museum and reliquary were interesting and not too involved. We bought gelato on the main square for about 70% of what we paid anywhere else and saw the first of many local cats. The rest of our time there we mainly just walked around the small (very small) streets and footpaths and were greeted with quaintness everywhere. Near the end we saw a museum dedicated to the cats of the town. But, we didn't enter. At that point we were about done with our adventure for the day.
The next day in Corfu, we had considered finding a beach to hang out at. But, once we got into town and talked to some locals about it, we were persuaded not to. The nice beach was about a 45 minute one way ride away on a not very dependable and crowded bus. We were told it is very common to wait a long time for a bus and then when one arrives it would be too full for more occupants. We didn't want to hire a taxi. So, we walked around the town center and enjoyed a very nice day.
I bought some candied kumquats and now I think about trying to find them here at home every once in a while. Very similar to candied citron or orange peel. We got a light drizzle of rain here and there, just a little.
Our third day was spent in Argostoli. We definitely wanted to go to a beach. It was really the best opportunity. It took a little while to find our bus and for it to come. We almost hired a taxi. But, since there were 6 of us, it was a little more difficult and costly than normal. Most of the taxis are for 4 passengers only. Anyway, we got to Lassi beach and had a great time. It was nearly as nice as a Caribbean beach. We hung out near the Costa Beach Club. We did a little swimming/snorkeling (with only a mask) and walked the length of the beach. At the far northwest end I happened upon some nude sunbathers. So, we made a u-turn at that point.
When we debarked in Santorini the next day we took a “fast” boat to Oia in the north end rather than go up the cliffs to Thera. This way we were to avoid some crowds by going against the flow of tourists. The boat wasn’t really fast. But, that’s alright. Oia (still don’t know how to pronounce it) was of course spectacular. It was a clear sunny day. We mainly just walked around. At times the little vicolos were very crowded with people. I could see that there are some amazing “hotels” and apartments to rent there with spectacular views of the caldera.
During the bus ride back to Thera we encountered some tight curves with lots of traffic and witnessed a couple of women on a scooter who it appeared were going to get sideswiped by our bus. They screamed in terror as the bus narrowly missed them. We bought quite a few things in Thera, mostly clothes. And we were open to the idea of riding the donkeys down to the port. But, they were long in coming. So, we took the cable car down and enjoyed that a lot.
Our last destination on the cruise was Dubrovnik (our taxi driver pronounced it with very little of the “V” sound, so more like Dubronik). The driver first took us on a bit of a tour of the city before dropping us off in the old part of town. This was a very nice, clean, and neat city. I know war is terrible. But, I can’t help but think the town wouldn’t be so nice if they didn’t have to rebuild after the destruction of war. There was no graffiti and no decrepit buildings or slums.
The old town was very quaint a picturesque. It’s not hard to see why it was used for King’s Landing in Game of Thrones.
When we all returned to Venice we planned some sightseeing for the last day and a half. We ran into one problem though. Traffic on the canals was closed for most of the first day because they were holding races for all sorts of watercraft on the canals. So, we wandered our way to the Ponte Rialto and did some shopping.
When we went to our AirBnB we didn’t have instructions for checking in and no way to communicate with the host. So, I eventually went to the bar nearby and pleaded my case with the barkeep. He lent me his cell phone to call the host. But, he seemed a little annoyed. Or, I was having trouble picking up on his sense of humor.
This last apartment was the least accommodating of all of our apartments. It was old and a bit rundown and we got eaten alive by the mosquitoes. But, it was right off the canal and it wasn’t horrible. Here is the Google street view:
Lenore saw a newspaper flyer for a market nearby. So, we set out to buy groceries. The store was called Prix and wasn’t far. But, finding it was VERY difficult. We walked up and down looking for it. We even asked a couple of people and we just always seemed to be missing it. Finally one nice man walked with us and showed us how to get there. It was down at the very dead end of the tiniest vicolo off the canal walkway with no signage at all until you got right to it. And a very small sign. The path was maybe a meter wide, easy to disregard. So, you have to know EXACTLY where it is, or your probably not going to find it.
At any rate it was a good find because we bought food for three meals for six people for 30 Euros.
The last day in Venice the vaporetti were in service so we took one to Piazzale Roma to leave our luggage again. I was in dire need of a bathroom and luckily one of the few public toilets was nearby. We made our way to Piazza San Marco by way of a vaporetto.
We loved Piazza San Marco. The Cathedral there was my favorite. We went out on the balcony and took some fun pictures. We had a very nice lunch at Tratoria Canonica just to the side of the square and then strolled and purchased trinkets and fripperies.
We had a long wait in the Venice airport, a bus ride from Gatwick to Heathrow and then another long wait for our departing flight.
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