Spectacular South Africa!

/ Ryan / 3 Comments

Jenn and I went to South Africa for the last week or two of November. Jenn had a work conference in Cape Town so I followed her a few days later. The trip was absolutely incredible!

Cape Town is a large city, not unlike many others we’ve seen. There is quite a bit of beautiful old Dutch architecture alongside more modern skyscrapers. Naturally, one can see a large income disparity in the city, with parts being beautiful and clean and other areas pretty sketchy- not so different from Chicago or any other large, bustling city.

On my first morning in the city, I walked to the V&A Waterfront. It’s a lovely part of the city along the docks. I’d guess it’s pretty new and wealthy part of town. The aquarium is here, along with a massive ship repair yard. The Watershed Market has many merchants with handmade goods. Later in the day, Jenn and I took a ‘Three Bays tour’ helicopter ride from the Waterfront. This took us south past Hout Bay and back north behind Table Mountain.

The next day we took the cable car up Table Mountain. We were lucky to visit on the only clear day we were in Cape Town. We also stopped by Signal Hill to hear the noon gun (canon firing at noon) before passing through the Bo Kaap neighborhood, known for it’s colorful houses. For dinner, we went to Gold Restaurant and enjoyed a fantastic dinner comprised of dishes from many different countries in Africa. They also performed traditional dances and sang during the meal. It was a really neat experience.

On Saturday we did a driving tour to the Cape of Good Hope and Hout Bay. We managed to see baboons not far from the cape! After the cape, we went to see an African Penguin colony.

The following day we spent at Kirstenbosch gardens. The botanical gardens were incredible. There were so many different types of flowers and trees (and even birds!). I never remember in the planning stages of our trips how much I enjoy botanical gardens. Thankfully Jenn makes sure we see them. Near Kirstenbosch was a Sunday market in which we spent a few hours browsing.

Monday, we headed to Hermanus for whale watching. Sadly, the weather was against us and none of the boats went out. We walked along the shore at Hermanus for a bit, before heading to another penguin colony and Monkey Town (where a monkey stole Jenn’s phone!) before heading back to Cape Town.

On Thursday, we left Cape Town and flew to Kruger National Park for our Safari. We were very excited as we’d not yet experienced a Safari. It was everything we could have hoped for. The lodge we stayed at, Klaserei Sands, was amazing- the accommodations were great, the food was incredible and our Tracker and Ranger were a fantastic team that lead us to every animal we’d hoped to see and much, much more. Over the next four days we were able to see a dizzying array of animals including Elephant, Giraffe, Kudu, Impala, Wildebeast, Buffalo, Hyena, Zebra, Spitting Cobra, Lion, Leopard, Painted Dogs, Hippo, Rhino, Duiker, Cheetah and more, as well as countless different birds.

It was an amazing trip! We would love to go back some day.

A few days in Valencia

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We spent a few days in Valencia and met up with one of our friends, Alexis. It was nice to see Lexi again and Valencia was a fantastic spot to spend a few relaxing days enjoying Spanish culture (and cheap prices!)

Valencia is a beautiful city with all the charm you’d expect from an old Spanish city. Gothic, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Modern architecture all shine in this unique city; from Mercat Central, the Cathedral, to the Silk Market and the City of Arts and Sciences.

Naturally, there is much more to Valencia than architecture. The city has a unique crest that includes a bat. Once we realized it, we started seeing the bat all over town.

Valencia has a lot of green space and parks. We visited the Royal Gardens and Walnut was really intrigued by the aviary.

Of course, you can’t miss the amazing street art in Spain!

Valencia was fantastic and I would really like to go back. It reminded me a bit of Madrid, with it’s museums, architecture and green space. More relaxing than Barcelona, with all the good food, great prices and chill vibe that makes Spain what it is.

Plaffeien Alpabzug

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This past weekend we went to Plaffeien for the Alpabzug. It’s a festival celebrating bringing the cows down from the mountains for winter. Plaffeien is a small town not far from Geneva. I was surprised how many people showed up for the festival!

The cows are given floral hats and decorations to wear (and of course they have their deafening bells!) The hats seem to be made of small pine trees or branches with a floral arrangement.

After the festival, we stayed at an airbnb about a mile out of town so we had to do a bit of hiking to get there. We’d hoped there would be some nice hiking trails near the airbnb but the trails we hiked were not our favorites. Maybe it just wasn’t our weekend for hiking.

All told, the festival was interesting and Jenn is planning for us to see it in another town next year!

Milan and Cinque Terre by train

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Walnut and I rode the train from Basel to Milan while Jenn flew in a day later after a work conference. I went down early to spend a day at the Science and Technology Museum of Milan. The museum was huge- I couldn’t get through the whole thing in one day. They had a great display regarding particle accelerators and another regarding materials (plastics, rubber, aluminum, steel) It was really excellent.

  • Leonardo da Vinci
  • early generator at Museum

After Jenn arrived, we did a half day walking tour that included the Milan Duomo and a visit to the Last Supper. The walking tour was very good- we were fortunate and it ended up as a private tour. Jenn managed to book us for a special once-a-month viewing of the Last Supper which gave us 30 minutes with a small group rather than the typical 15.

After Milan, we spent several days in Cinque Terre. We’d been looking forward to this trip for a long time. A travel blog we follow https://www.gocurrycracker.com/ suggested three places that would be fantastic to retire to and we’d already been to two of their suggestions and loved them. Unfortunately, though Cinque Terre was beautiful and quaint…. it is a hilly motherf@#$er. Part of the draw to the region is the cliffside hiking trails- and the 3 major ones were all closed due to damage. Walnut and I did one hike that was recommended. It was 7 km with 700m of elevation change and where there were steps, they were big ones. Great views but tough on the knees (and puppy legs!).

Cinque Terre was lovely but with the trails closed, it left some to be desired. The views were incredible, but it was very touristy even though we were there so early in the season.

On our way back to Switzerland we stayed a night in Varenna to help split up all the train rides. Varenna was an incredibly beautiful little town. We both said we may have been happier had we spent our time here rather than in Cinque Terre. Varenna was by the water and very flat- this might be why we were a little happier.

We took the poor man’s Bernina Express home (not express!). It’s a train that takes a specific path that crosses the Swiss Engadin Alps. It was a great trip! We even managed to get Super Saver tickets for our ride.

All told, it was a great week in Italy and we found we could take the train the whole way. It was a little long, so it was nice that Jenn broke it up into smaller train rides with an overnight here and there. Varenna was amazing, Milan has so much to offer that we didn’t get to, and Cinque Terre would be great to visit once the trails open back up. We’d love to go back and spend more time in some of the pretty little villages in northern Italy/southern Switzerland.

Cerfs Volants: Berck-sur-Mer Kite Festival

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We went to Berck-sur-Mer, France this year for the kite festival. The weather was a little cloudy and only windy near the sea (English Channel). It seemed it wasn’t windy enough for the largest kites, nevertheless it was a pretty incredible sight. When we first arrived (Friday night; the festival started on Saturday) the beach was devoid of kites.

But the next day, there were tons of kites, in spite of the seemingly kite unfriendly weather. We only stayed through the weekend (and one day would have been enough to enjoy the kites) but it was a relaxing weekend. There is a nice path along the beach that paths by a seal colony as well. What really astonished me was how the beach went on forever. It’s always a joy to visit France, though the train ride out here from Basel was something like 7 hours. We stayed in a nice airbnb a few blocks from the sea. I highly recommend seeing the festival if you get the chance!

Nice, Monaco and Menton, Oh My!

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We went to Nice for the first day of Carnival, Menton for the Citrus festival and Monaco, because it’s a whole other country! (Monaco is quite small)

We started out in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Walnut and I walked around town up to the Prince’s Palace to see the changing of the guard. It also happens to be a great viewpoint over Monaco.

  • view from the hotel in Monaco
  • building new land on the coast
  • changing of the guard
  • view from Prince’s Palace
  • Jardins de la Petite Afrique
  • Fairmont Hairpin of the Monaco Grand Prix

After Jenn’s conference wrapped up, we headed to our Airbnb in Menton, France. We could see some of the structures for the Citrus Festival already up in Menton, but we wouldn’t really see the festival until later in the weekend.

The first event we attended was the flower parade in Nice on the first day of Carnival. There were a lot of people on stilts, crazy costumes, streamers and even a few balloons!

That evening we went through the ‘garden of lights’. It was pretty neat. I didn’t know what to expect and we had been to the Rabechilbi festival last year, so my expectations were not super high. I was pleasantly surprised! This years theme was ‘Des Mondes Fantastiques’.

Our Airbnb was only a block away from Creperie Fleur de Sel. We went there several times over the few days we had in town.

The next day was the Golden Fruit Parade. We had seats in bleachers for both parades we attended. It was great! Now I want seats for every parade!

There were huge, mechanical floats in the parade. The first was a giant grasshopper. At the rear of the machine, they had a pair of women playing electric violins. It was fantastic! The had a huge sound system in the guts of the grasshopper blasting out modern tunes but being played by these two on violin.

Many of the floats going by had people throwing out huge clods of confetti. They do this in Switzerland, too. However, in Switzerland it is taboo to ‘reuse’ the confetti- there is no picking up already thrown confetti. Not in France! All confetti is in play here.

Later in the parade there was a huge mechanical dragon. Even the drivers wore costumes to match the theme of their floats. There were a lot of really great costumes.

We also did a driving tour of the region. It gave us a bit more of an overview of the area. Lots of money in the Cote d’Azur! The water off the coast is beautiful. The weather was nice, and it seemed the sun was always shining. With the nearby mountains, I’d bet there is nice hiking not far off. From the lookout point near the end of our trip, you could see three countries- Monaco just below, France a stone’s throw away and Italy in the distance.

It was really beautiful and it’s hard to beat the food in France. We had great weather but it wasn’t warm. It’d be nice to go back when it’s warm and jump in that beautiful blue water.

  • fort near Monaco
  • Mimosa
  • Monaco, France, Italy

Magnificent Malta!

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Over Christmas this year we went to Malta. Malta is a small island country in the Mediterranean Sea not far from Italy. We started out on Gozo, the 2nd largest island in the Republic of Malta. We landed really late as our flight was significantly delayed, but we managed to catch a taxi to our hotel (on Malta) for our first night. We thought we’d get in too late for the ferry to Gozo- we just didn’t expect it to be quite so late.

At the ferry terminal in Gozo we met the agent from whom we rented a car for our week on that island. It turns out, they drive on the left in Malta- and worse – we could only get a manual transmission car. This meant the shifter was on my left side as I drove around town. I did fair, even though I hadn’t driven a manual in 25 years (and when I had, it was on the right!) That evening, we walked into town to find a restaurant for dinner. We didn’t find much open so we settled for a little pizza place in Gozo across from this church.

The following day we did some hiking around the island. Gozo is very dry and sunny. Being December it was cool, but we got pretty warm hiking up the massive hills from the coast. After out hike we took a drive to visit a recently completed church. They had a beautiful mosaic piece that wrapped around the outer patio.

We also visited the Ggantija Temples. These temples are the oldest freestanding manmade religious structures in the world- older than the pyramids. The monoloithic stones used to build the temples were enormous and were likely moved around on spherical carved stones. The visitor center for Ggantija was minimal but the temples on Malta had much more information about how they were built and why. Near Ggantija was the windmill museum, which was far more interesting than I’d have guessed. The man that maintained this windmill was instrumental in maintaining all the windmills on the island after WWII as most had not been cared for. With food shortages and lack of power due to severe bombings, the windmills became necessary for survival.

After our week in Gozo we dropped off the car and took the ferry back to Malta. We visited Valetta and the Order of St. John or the Knights Hospitaller. There are a lot of Game of Thrones filming sites in Malta, and we saw several in Valetta.

  • view from the hotel

We also went to Popeye’s village. This funny little movie set has been rebuilt over and over again (due to loss by fire) but is a strangely large draw for tourists. It really is a beautiful little place. After that, we went to Mdina where we rode the horse drawn carriage through town. Walnut went ape over the horses and was trying hard to climb up front to be closer to the horse.

The blue grotto had clear blue water in spite of the wind and waves. It’s hard to tell in our photos, but the walls were shades of pinks, greens and blues. If only the water had been tranquil! We also visited the monolithic temples on Malta, which were not quite as old as those on Gozo. In Malta however, they were better preserved and were under cover to protect from rain and weather.

Finally, we visited St. John’s co-cathedral. It was very ornate, with paintings and sculptures all over. The floor was wall to wall tombs of knights of the order. For a short time, Caravaggio was a Knight Hospitaller. He painted St. Jerome Writing and The Beheading of St. John the Baptist for the order.

We had a great time in Malta and we’d love to go back someday. It was nice to hike around and lounge on the rocks on the coast. The sea was beautiful and everyone was very friendly (and spoke English!). Gozo was a more pleasant stay than Malta, probably because there were fewer tourists out and it felt like we were virtually alone when driving or hiking.

Incredible Istanbul!

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This past weekend Jenn and I went to Istanbul, Turkey.  She had a work conference and I flew over for just weekend.  We had a friend watch Walnut for those few days.  It’s hard to leave him behind, but I wasn’t sure if Walnut would be well received in Turkey and I was pretty sure he’d be stuck in the hotel all day.

We hired a guide for the day on Saturday to show us some of the major sites and give us some history about them.  We started by heading to the Old Bazaar so Jenn could pick up a scarf to wear for our many mosque visits.  A short walk further and we were at the Blue Mosque.  Unfortunately for us, we could not see much as the mosque is undergoing restoration.  After the Blue Mosque, we walked through the area that was the Hippodrome of Constantinople where there are obelisks from an ancient era.

Next we went to the Basilica Cistern.  The cistern was really interesting.  Of course, it’s underground so it’s very dark and a bit spooky with the Hen’s eye column and Medusa heads.  This cistern is huge, and could hold 2.8 million cu ft of water.

Afterwards, we went to Hagia Sophia. It was huge!  But it, too was undergoing renovations.  The Hagia Sophia has been both a mosque and a cathedral in it’s history but was converted to a museum in 1935.  We also visited Topkapi Palace. After which we went to the Grand Bazaar.

Sunday, we visited the Suleymaniye Mosque.  We arrived during prayer so we sat at a cafe terrace across the street for awhile.  This mosque was most recently restored in 1956 and was really beautiful.  We also walked through several graveyards (which are near many of the mosques).

Before catching our flight back Monday we saw the Little Hagia Sophia Mosque.

Though we were only in Istanbul for a few days, we saw a lot of amazing, ancient architecture and tasted many different incredible foods.  Istanbul was great!

Weekend trip to Lauterbrunnen

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This past weekend we went to Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland.  It was great!  The weather forecast was rain, so we were concerned we wouldn’t get to do the hiking we wanted but we were lucky and it rained very, very little.

We took the train from Basel to Lauterbrunnen and only had to change trains once.  It took about 2 1/2 hours to get there.  Once there, we climbed up the hill through town following the directions from our rented apartment (booking.com this time)  It was a hilly trek and we had to cross the cog train tracks but we found it, dropped off our stuff and headed back to town for some lunch, groceries, and a stop at the tourist information booth.

We hiked the Panoramaweg from our apartment (I’m guessing it was 1.5-2 miles) that evening while it was still nice out (expecting rain).  It was a lovely trail through the valley and along the Weisse Lutschine river.  The stony cliffs, green trees and grass, white river, and blue sky were quite a sight.  There is just something exhilarating about hiking in Switzerland.

Saturday, we hiked most of the Panoramaweg again on the way to Trummelbachfalle, picking up the Wasserweg trail which led to the  falls.  Trummelbachfalle cuts it’s way through the mountain, and they’ve dug caves into the mountain so you can see the falls at different elevations.  It’s amazing to see the shapes and paths the water has cut into the stone.  It’s really impressive and definitely worth a visit.  Afterward, we had lunch there at Trummelbach before hiking back to the apartment.  All told, we did about 7 miles and 700 feet on that hike .  Walnut loves hiking in Switzerland because he has a thing for large animals like horses and cows.  At one point, a half dozen cows walked over to the little ribbon of a fence to check out Walnut.  The animals are all vying to get a sniff of one another and Walnut sneezes.  The nearest cow, which had to be at least 700 pounds, jumped in the air in surprise.  He did most of the hike under his own power, maybe 6 miles before he needed a ride in the backpack.  Sadly, the pack wasn’t very cool so it was only rest for his legs at first.  Later, I filled a poo bag with near-freezing water from the Lutschine and plopped that into the bag with him.

We rested a bit back at the apartment and hit the trail again after dinner.  This time, we walked the opposite direction and hiked the Alpweg, which climbed up an opposing butte.  This trail was more forested than our previous hike.  This time we got a little rain but it was short lived.  This trail crossed a mountain bike trail several times and we glanced down those paths- they are quite steep!  From the elevation we climbed to, we had a birds eye view over Lauterbrunnen- beautiful green grasses interrupted here and there by the brown swiss houses or chalets.  Further down the way, we found a newly built reservoir just before the trail led us back into town.  This trail was about 5.5 miles and 800 feet.

We loved it.  It was great hiking with some elevation.  Beautiful scenery and fortunately great weather.  I look forward to going back to Lauterbrunnen, though I’m sure we will visit the surrounding towns on the next trip to that region.

Happy to be home again!

Christmas 2017 – Cologne and Budapest

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For Christmas we visited Cologne and Budapest.  We like visiting the Christmas markets found all over Europe.

In Cologne we saw 4 different markets, including one at the base of the Cathedral.  All were lit and decorated a bit differently.  Our favorite was the brownie forest.  (brownies are said to aid in tasks around the house) There was a lot of street food available- Jenn especially enjoyed Glühwein.  I liked the Rösti.  The Cathedral was really impressive; we probably should have made more time to explore inside.  They were doing work on it so there is scaffolding around it in places, even attached to the side very high up.  Overall, we enjoyed our few days in Cologne.

The bulk of our trip was spent in Budapest, Hungary.  We both really loved Budapest.  The city has an old world feel, reminiscent of Prague or Vienna.  The architecture is beautiful, while still showing the scars of it’s past (unlike the aforementioned cities).  In general, Budapest was very affordable.  I went to my first Michelin star restaurant here (Costes) on this trip and it was fabulous!  A bit expensive, but it was quite an experience.

We took the hop-on hop-off bus, as we frequently do, to help get an overview of the city and a little bit of history.  The bus was ok, the audio was low content and the wait for the bus to arrive was rather long.  We took the BigBus tour, and I would try the other company if we were to go back.  We really enjoyed the chamber music concert we attended.

We like to take food tours, and Jenn found a great one in Budapest.  We got lucky and were the only people on the food tour the morning we’d booked.  The guide, Nora, gave us more history about Budapest, going back to the Magyar.  And of course, we had a lot of really good food on the tour.  Jenn and I both found the food in Budapest to be quite good (not just on the tour or at Costes!)

On our last full day we took the Hammer and Sickle tour .  The tour was very informative, going into what daily life was like 20, 30, 40 years ago in Budapest.  It’s interesting to take tours like this because the history classes in my education glossed over these parts of history, and when it was mentioned, it was always in a negative light.

Our trip was fantastic, and I’d really like to go back.  Though we stayed several days, there was a lot more we could do in Budapest (so many restaurants we missed!)  The people were friendly and it seemed the majority spoke english so it was very easy to get around.  They have good public transit, and it was generally inexpensive.