All posts by cl@rks

Europe, Italy

Travelogue Italy 2: Sicily – Palermo

SICILY | PALERMO

18 June 2017

We arrived into a damp Palermo on the bus after an almost 3 hour ride from Catania. It’d been drizzling a bit as we approached and we were fearful we were in for a rainy day, which we could ill afford since we only had the afternoon to explore Sicily’s capital before moving on to Naples the following day.

Our fears were unfounded and even the small puddles the drizzle had left had already started to dry up.

With only a few hundred metres to our hotel from the bus depot (and, probably more importantly, not a taxi in sight), we moved swiftly on foot, our trolley cases clattering on the stone pavements.

Trying not to ruin the walking tour we’d planned for the day, we rushed past the few places of interest we passed en route, and arrived at the Eurostar Centrale Palace hotel.

Walking into the plush reception, we were pleasantly surprised at the calibre of hotel. We’d booked on the Emirates Rocketmiles website, which claimed the hotel to be 4*, but we’d assumed it to be an oversell based on the price. It was not! Heavenly high ceilings, shiny marble floors and glimmering chandeliers welcomed us as we waited to check in.

We were given our room key; the most impractical massive brass keyring with our room number embossed on it, adorned with a bunch of maroon rope tassels like you normally see on curtain restraints.

Our room was just as nice. And quite different to the Albatro Rooms that had been our home in Catania the previous three nights!

Being midday already we were keen to get started… With lunch.

Stepping out of our hotel we found we were located in a vibey shopping street and bee-lined for the first café for a traditional Palermo experience – a panini and arancini (crumbed and deep-fried rice balls, stuffed with mince and ham & cheese respectively). I would have had the baked pasta but *everything* has aubergine!

With a clearer head, having eaten, we were able to get our bearings and map our route.

Our hotel was indeed in prime position, on Via Vittorio Emanuele (the same name as the street the travel agent was in in Catania; mental note to look him up and see why he’s so famous), and we were sandwiched (in more ways than one, thanks to the lifesaving panini) between 2 of the sights on our map, the Quattro Canti and the Piazza Pretoria (there’s a sign for you!)

The Quattro Canti (4 Sides) or, officially, Piazza Vigliena is an octagonal crossing built in the early 1600s made up of four sides being streets and the other four near-identical curved facades of 4-storey Baroque buildings which contain fountains with statues of the seasons and the four Spanish kings of Sicily. The resultant effect is quite spectacular… And was complemented by the horse-and-carriage vendors stationed there looking for patrons.

Piazza Pretoria had a less grand reputation. In the late 1500s, the Senate of Palermo bought a fountain that had been intended for Florence. It was so big that they had to demolish some local homes to make space. Adorned with sixteen nude statues of nymphs and mermaids, the fountain earned the nickname “the Square of Shame”.

Quite the contrary, the epically impressive Cathedrale Di Palermo, consecrated in 1185, dominated a massive block and was really a sight to behold! With lava inlays, it was a very dramatic, magnificently adorned piece of architecture and we were starting to realise that if there was to be one word to describe Palermo, it was to be “impressive”!

Using a very simple tourist map, it was easy to negotiate the city and impossible to miss the landmarks on account of their scale. Those Romans didn’t muck about when it came to putting together a church / theatre / piazza – and there were several of each.

We’d round a corner and see an impressive building, consult the map and it was just the lowly local church. And when I say local, I mean micro-local since there was a church on just about every corner!

It worked very much to our benefit that we were touristing on a Sunday. The roads were quiet and there was ample opportunity to take good pics of the famous buildings that must be swamped during the week seeing as they are still in functional operation. Plenty of shops were still open though and the roads were buzzing with shoppers and socialisers out enjoying their Sunday, and the pleasure of the closed off pedestrian streets free from the crazy drivers.

We did accidentally happen upon some sort of major religious ceremony, with scores of groups parading in procession – with each having a heralded flag thing in front and everything – in front of a magnificent church with a sermon and hymns being belted out from loudspeakers mounted on the lamposts. There were even Scout and Girl Guides groups in attendance, so we knew they meant business.

We’d discovered the church parade while looking for our dinner restaurant – another reservation through The Fork – but we were disappointed to see that it was shut tight. Perhaps because of the parade, perhaps not, but it left us without a plan, so we took a seat at a sidewalk Café and – with the sun still high in the sky – did some people-watching, rich with content from the droves of passersby.

The benefit of our vantage point was observing the restaurant’s menu in real-life and, despite ourselves (since the only thing we’d agreed earlier on that we wouldn’t have for dinner was pizza), ended up ordering a 3-pork pizza (bacon, sausage and salami) that turned out to be quite delicious.

Europe, Italy

Travelogue Italy 1: Sicily – Catania

SICILY | CATANIA

16 – 18 June 2017

Having done the short hop from a very relaxed first half of the trip in Malta, we had a skrik of a start to Sicily, with our taxi driver having torn through the dark Catania town – including what appeared to be a pedestrian shopping street – and dropping us off in front of a very large, very closed wooden door. We pressed the intercom for “Albatro Rooms“, but got no response.

Checked the booking form, but there was no phone number. Checked for free WiFi (having not yet bought an Italian SIM card) to Google for a number, but there was none. Pressed the button again. Repeatedly.

The door opened. A bewildered woman glared at us, swatted past us to put her garbage down, being careful to block the doorway with her body. We tried to ask her for info on Albatro, but got the blank eyes of someone who really truly doesn’t understand you.

She closed the door. With us on the outside.

Christian had seen a Vodafone sign on our drive in, so we figured if we could get a SIM card then we’d be back in business. Suitcases ‘n all, we trundled down the road.

Obviously the shop was closed (it was 22h30 after all).

A lady walking past noticed our obvious distress and stopped to offer us help. She Googled the hotel and got a number; called it, but there was no response.

She asked where the hotel was and when we pointed, she offered to come there with us to see if she could broker entrance (or information) for us with our future neighbours. It was very kind of her because, by now, we were several blocks away from the hotel.

We made our way back, Christian and I on either side of her to make sure she didn’t attempt to lose us. She managed to get the attention of the night desk and, after thanking her profusely and repeatedly, we were soon being led by Antonio up into the building and to our room (which, although very basic, was massive).

It was nearly midnight and although we could hear from the music and laughter leaking in through the windows that the city of Catania still had lots of life left in her for the night. We did not.

FRIDAY

The Albatro Rooms hotel provided breakfast in the form of a voucher for a coffee shop down the road. It was a simple but deliciously light and fresh pastry (custard for me; jam for Christian) and juice or coffee.

Having no wi-fi in the hotel and too-weak-to-be-useful wi-fi in the coffee shop, first order of business was to get connected. A great decision and €20 later we were 10GB richer… And on our way to the Tourist Office, passing the ruins of Roman Amphitheatre on the way.

We firmed our choices as down the coast to Siracusa (by bus) on the first day and up the coast to Etna (on a private tour) for the second day.

20 minutes later we were on the bus heading South when I got a message from an old friend from home, saying she was currently living in Siracusa and we simply must come and visit. Kismet seeing as we were on the way already!

We agreed to meet on the bridge between Siracusa and the Old Town, Ortygia, at midday. And we did.

Lynne-Marie had moved to Siracusa 2 years prior, so was well-versed to show us around, point out the sights and filling us in on life in Sicily in general, including her very interesting job processing refugees from North Africa who apparently arrive on the Sicilian shores in their droves in summer.

We talked as we walked into Ortygia, the small island historical centre of Siracusa (Syracuse in English), which contains many historical landmarks.

Lynne was our kind of tour guide, starting with a mandatory visit to what she termed The Best gelato shop, so how could we not? The cold, creamy gelato was welcome on such a hot day, which we were told was mid-thirties degrees and could flirt with 40 later on! Plus, we were in Old Town Square with the magnificent Cathedral in front of us, so the gelato surely doubled as a cultural experience??

We wandered around the outline of Ortygia Island, taking in the picture-perfect sea, appreciating even the mildest breath of breeze that came from it and absorbing the buzz that came with the cafe lifestyle on our left and beachlovers on our right.

Almost at the end of our walk we came to Castello Maniance, which usually allows tours but they turned us away because they were closed for a film shoot.

We’d worked up a thirst so ended off refreshments at a sidewalk cafe close to where we’d met earlier, with a great view of the ruins of a Roman Amphitheatre that had once seated thousands of people (in the baking heat) watching gladiators fight wild animals to the death (in the baking heat) which, beyond gruesome, all sounded quite exhausting!

Lynne had other existing plans for the later afternoon so we parted ways, grateful for the couple of hours with our personal tour guide.

We’d skipped lunch (disinterested because it was so hot) but there was an oasis of a fruit juice stand at the bus stop where we got a freshly-squeezed fruit juice slush that was pure heaven!! The kiosk owner was so tickled at my delight that he gave me a frozen melon as well!

An hour in the bus back to Catania wasn’t as labourious as it might usually have been, thanks to the comfy coach and air-conditioning and soon we were entering the city limits again, with the sun still high in the sky so there would be plenty of time to explore our homebase.

With our trusty tourist map in hand, we worked through the list of sights. With most clustered on our road (Via Etnea) and around the tourist office (Via Vittorio Emanuele II), we were comfortable with our surrounds and ticked off the essentials at record pace – church, university, palace, church, fountain, monument, church, piazza, cathedral, monument, Basilica sort of thing.

Very sweaty from our day out, we decided to go home to clean up before dinner so ambled up our road, browsing and shopping as we went (in no hurry since shops only shut at 20h00). At the one shop we bought where we actually bought something, the cashier gave us a brilliant free gift; a beach towel that folded into a zip-up bag. We were so delighted with the ‘present’ that we gave her one back – the melon the juice guy had given us. She was beside herself at our gesture (although must surely have wondered why we were walking around with cold melons on us).

Dinner was as yet undecided so we consulted a few sources and discovered that there was a concentrated pocket of options in a few square blocks in the Old Town. Less than a kilometre’s walk, we decided to take our chances.

We walked up and down a few streets consulting menus, but our final choice was made at first sight when we spotted some activity down an alleyway.

Following a group in, the alleyway opened onto a courtyard where a couple of restaurants had chairs and tables set up, that were near full already.

We got a cosy table at the back and proceeded to be served incredible food. Unsure of portion sizes, fearing that pasta might be a course rather than a main (based on the prices) we had hedged our bets with ordering 2 pasta entrees (€7 each) and 1 main course (€4) and proceeded to be served a mountain of pasta!

Christian’s seafood pasta was teeming with mussels and calamari and topped with an enormous prawn; my carbonara was easily the best I’ve ever had. Our main course extra, which the waiter automatically served as a savoury dessert was pork, thinly sliced and rolled with onions and cheese, crumbed and deep fried. Superb!

Having sat down to dinner after 22h00, we were grateful for the walk home to shift some of the feast so that we could get rested for the big day tour the next day.

 SATURDAY

Our tour was starting at 09h00 from the travel agent next to the tourist office so, comfortable that it was only a short walk, we had time to get to the coffee shop up the road for our complimentary breakfast. Christian had the same jam Danish, but I switched to the pain au chocolat… Which was crammed to bursting with creamy chocolate filling! Unbelievably good!

We trotted down the hill and, seeing as we had 20 minutes to spare, took a turn past the morning fish market, which took place in the area behind the palace and adjacent to the bus terminus – 2 points that had seemed so far from each other the day before when the turf was still foreign and two-dimensional on the map.

The Catania fish market is exactly what you’d expect – damp, noisy and smelly. Fishermen peddling reams of silver shiny sardines and anchovies, while butchers were carving up enormous tuna and swordfish. The resultant blocks of tuna on display were so big and richly-coloured that they could easily be mistaken for sides of beef! And the swordfish cuts were unmistakable with the head and the tail book-ended on their display.

We met back at the travel agent and were introduced to our travel mates for the day: a group of 4 French people and an Aussie couple. Our driver arrived and we all hopped in the Mercedes people-carrier; Christian and I sitting up front with the driver, an Italian who spoke fluent French (we understood his explanation to the French contingent that he’d lived in Cannes for 4 years), but little English.

It was a picturesque drive (after the nail-biting exit from the city – Sicilian drivers were every bit as aggressive and crazy as their reputation!) with an audio soundtrack telling us all about the places we were visiting.

We could see Mount Etna almost all of the journey, being such a large and distinctive landmark at 3346 metres high, making it the biggest in Europe and one of the biggest in the world.

Formed over hundreds of thousands of years with construction and destruction, it was humbling to realise that the gulf that became the volcano that we know today was only defined in the last couple of thousand years – so is as much a part of our “modern” history as all of our stories of our human civilisation.

There were 59000 hectares of park around Etna to protect the fauna and flora, all within the province of Catania, so it was a pretty, scenic drive to where we would be visiting the Silvestri craters; 5 craters formed from the 1892 eruption.

Etna emitted more energy than a nuclear bomb, expelling lava rocks bigger than a car for hundreds of metres and flowing lava that covered everything in its path. The Sicilians at least have been making use of the lava to make stone blocks for roads and buildings, which gave the buildings a gritty greyness that could be mistaken for needing a wash. We stopped at a house that had been excavated from the lava; frighteningly well-preserved, exactly as the lava had instantly set it.

There were already scores of cyclists making their way up the mountain. Very brave with the exuberant and very aggressive drivers that even put our South African taxi to shame in the ‘hazardous’ stakes!

Back in the bus, we wound our way upward and were soon at the craters with an hour and a half to explore.

Our timing was a bit off because we were told short on time to catch the cable car up to the next vantage point (2500m) and we’d just missed the sightseeing train that ran between the 5 craters at Silvestri.

Fortunately, we’re not afraid of a walk, so we set off towards the first crater and were soon at the bottom of it looking up at the rim and imagining what it must’ve been like when it erupted (and hoping it had no intention of a repeat performance today!)

The second crater was much of the same, but deeper and blacker so a bit more sinister.

The trek from crater to crater was a bit of a mission with the sides quite steep and the lava gravel quite slippery, so we bypassed the other craters in favour of a walk to the viewing point to take in the panorama.

Peckish from all the walking, we took the opportunity to sample arancini, rice balls stuffed (ours were mince and cheese), crumbed and deep-fried. Delicious!

Being first back at the van, we opened the back and swapped our sneakers for slops. While we were doing so, the Aussies returned and, wordlessly, moved our things from the front into the back where they’d been sitting, taking the front seats for themselves. While not a problem, it seemed like an odd thing to do.

The next stop was a couple of hours beachtime to swim and have some lunch. The driver gave us the option of bigger, busier sandy Naxos or smaller, prettier pebble-beach Isola Bella. The group chose the latter, but the driver still stopped at Naxos for us to take some snaps, where it looked like we’d made a good choice seeing as every inch of the beach was covered in loungers and umbrellas and the sidewalk the same with cafe tables and chairs.

Isola Bella was busy too, clearly catering directly to the needs of the upmarket resorts that nestled in the steep hillsides surrounding the cove, but very pretty with a little island in the middle of the bay that you could access by crossing a section that had slightly less than ankle-deep water.

We had a wander around, lazed in the water and then appreciated the relief from being in the open sun when we took up a table at the most modest of the restaurants, a little courtyard cafe with pleasant music and great panini.

When our time was up we made our way up the stairs, back to the road and our meeting point… To find we’d once again been re-seated. The Aussies had moved our bag back to the front and were back in their old seats! We exchanged a chuckle with the driver, who made up for his lack of English with a shrug and a smile.

It really made little difference as the next stop was a short hop up the hill to Castelmola, a medieval castle and citadel so named because of the molar shaped big rock on which it’s built.

We enjoyed a wander around its old stone alleyways, trying to find the viewing points that offered spectacular views of the panorama on all sides. We marvelled at how the 2000 odd locals nowadays coped with getting up and down the hill, let alone the poor slobs who had to build the place all those hundreds of years ago considering the medieval city only got steps in 1928 to make it accessible!

The last stop was Taormina, a famously beautiful town set on the hillside overlooking the coast, where the who’s who come to enjoy the NINE 5* hotels this small town boasts!

We were given a couple of hours to experience the historical sights (the Greek Theatre ruins and the Roman relics that were engrained in the town itself) and do some (in our case, window-) shopping. We enjoyed a wander around, took the pics that needed taking and settled at the town’s Irish Pub to log a pint on our Guinness Index.

Returning to the van at the 18h00 meeting time, we’d once again been re-homed and my bag was neatly placed where the Aussies wanted us to sit. So we did. And enjoyed the comfort of the bigger seats in the back while they crammed in the front (where the middle seat was slimmed to accommodate the gear lever).

We were back at the travel agent by 18h45 and delighted to see that the city was a hive of activity, clearly come to life after siesta and ready to rock Saturday night.

We made our way up the hill towards our hotel, stopping to buy a few things – made attractive even in Euros thanks to the summer sales, and made more delightful thanks to their unwavering commitment to ‘gift with purchase’.

We got back to our room with an hour or so to rest and refresh before our 21h00 dinner reservation at a place I’d found on an app called The Fork (run/endorsed by TripAdvisor) that was near to the area we’d enjoyed the night before.

The restaurant was great and we flipped our strategy from the previous night and shared a broccoli and pork sausage pasta to start and then a tuna steak and stuffed calamari for mains, washed down with a lovely Sicilian red. When the bill came, we’d gotten a whopping 50% off (€28) for booking through The Fork! Would definitely be looking into more of that for the rest of the trip!

The whole town was alive on our walk back to our hotel and even though approaching midnight, there were still families with children socialising and relaxing in and around the square. It seemed a shame to call it a night, but we were *finished* from our long day’s sightseeing.

SUNDAY

Having decided on the 09h00 bus to Palermo, we had time in the morning for a run.

Our position on Via Etnea was perfect for it and we started with running up the hill to the end, then the entire downhill to the fountain/palace/fish market piazza (which was deserted so would have made for perfect photos if we weren’t so sweaty and unsightly) and then back up the hill to our rooms. Almost 5km and 30 minutes on the nose.

Showered and packed, we enjoyed our last pastry at Misterlino (the most magnificent custard croissant!) before rolling our cases all the way back down the hill (cursing the Romans and their relentless cobblestones) to the bus terminus to go to Palermo.

Europe, Malta

Travelogue Malta 2: Gozo

GOZO

12-15 June 2017

We’d pre-arranged with our Sliema Airbnb hostess, Rosella, to get us a taxi for 09h00 to drive us to the port to catch the ferry to Gozo.

The 40-odd minute drive tohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gozok us up the coast through several villages which had all but met to make a continuous thread of habitation. While the houses are generally attractive (or at least interesting, with decorative doorways, balconies and bay windows), there is a distinct lack of grass in these towns and suburbs. As we’d noted in Sliema, besides being largely apartment living, everything was paved so there was little to no greenery anywhere. While understandable in a city like Sliema or Valletta, it was surprising that this was also the case in the rural and small towns.

Arriving at the ferry in perfect time, we grabbed our tickets and waited to board.

The ferry was a lot bigger than we’d expected – a bit like a poor man’s cruiseship – obviously to cater for the hoards of daytrippers – and we were lucky to get a window table in the canteen for the short 20 minute journey, to the destination we could already see from our departure point.

Our host, Frank, was waiting for us and was hard to miss in his fluorescent green shirt. He took our bags, armed us with a pack comprising island map, tourist map, map of Victoria and a bus timetable and packed us onto the 303 bus for a few hours exploring the island while he finished evac’ing the current tenants and readying the place for us.

The bus journey to Victoria (the capital, in the middle of the island) took longer than anticipated, with a 45 minute standing transfer in a crammed stuffy bus, and deposited us at the bus terminal in the centre of town.

The main attraction in Victoria is the Cittadella, which was an easy walk and, as an imposing yellow building that dominated the skyline, impossible to miss.

The Visitors Centre revealed that 12000 years ago a land bridge stretched from Sicily to North Africa. When sea-levels rose after the last Ice Age, this land bridge was submerged leaving its high points to form the islands of Gozo and Malta. Natural forces shaped a flat hilltop on which the Citadel was built.

Our timing was spot-on and as we finished reading the neat collection of exhibits, we were able to walk straight into the English version of the video presentation (quite serendipitous since it rotates in 6 languages), which told the story of the Citadel in a dramatic 9 minute narrative with visuals that flashed around all 4 walls of the small square room.

We then wandered around the rest of the Citadel, enjoying spectacular views of all of Gozo and the sea surrounding it as well as the exhibits and ruins within the walls, postulating on what the various sections might have looked like and what functions they performed all those centuries ago when this was the civilisation of the island. And imagining the Napoleonic invasion – and predictable ensuing French concession. The poor Maltese and Gozitans had certainly had their fair share of pillage and plunder and it was no wonder that Malti was such a mix of so many influences.

There wasn’t much else open in Victoria since the signs in most shop windows indicated that they observe siesta and were shut from 12h30 to 16h00, to reopen until 19h00.

Hungry and lazy, this was no problem. We used the opportunity to sample the pastizzeria that all the tour guide books had recommended. As a quick grab-and-go option, the mini cheese pies and peas pies did the job and worked well with the setting; the lush little park across from the bus terminus (that seemed to be the only grassy patch in Gozo from what we’d seen!)

The return bus journey was much more comfortable, with enough seats for everyone, and deposited us almost at our doorstep.

Frank was ready and waiting for us and showed us around our apartment, starting with the very impressive ground floor level that housed a washing machine and a generous selection of holiday accessories and equipment, including bicycles, snorkel gear, beach gear (brollies, boards, buckets, spades…), games, shopper bags… You name it, Frank had thought of it (and it was all included in the price!)

Starting all the way at the top, Frank showed us around the 3rd floor, which was to be mine and Christian’s flatlet; a double en-suite room with a kitchenette/lounge and a huge terrace off the room and another off the kitchenette, leading to yet another on the rooftop. Frank’s detail was painstaking, down to lifting the sheets to show us the brand of mattress, showing us the stock of pillows (that included down, hard, soft and memory-foam) and even a tutorial on how to use the mixer taps.

We finished the tour with the middle floor, which was home to the lounge, another terrace, the diningroom, kitchen, 2 more bedrooms and a bathroom.

Frank, bless him, had some pies (the same ones we’d just had in Victoria) and traditional ftira in the oven and had laid the table in the kitchen for us to sit and sample his wares, washed down with a bottle of Gozo Rosé.

When we were done, he called us to the dining-room table to work through a selection of maps and timetables to help us plan our time in Gozo. There was so much to do and see and he’d worked through everything in such detail that by the time he left we all just flopped in the lounge to catch our communal breath!

Being a Monday, both of the restaurant options Frank had recommended were closed so we decided to make use of our lovely home and considerable leftovers from the second lunch Frank had surprised us with, with dinner in. This would require a visit to the supermarket, which we’d been told was on the road down to the Harbour so, being Sundowners-o’clock anyway, we made our way down the hill to see what we could see.

No more than a 10 minute walk, we were delighted by the nest of restaurants and pubs that lined the crescent of the Harbour opposite the ferry building.

We ambled past, reviewing a few of the menus on display outside, but got lured into the Gleneagles, busiest by far with a full row of patrons occupying the single row of benches lining the gallery balcony looking down on where we were walking and surveying the harbour and general activity.

The inside was equally charming with an garish fishing theme, complete with massive fish and crabs and lobsters and eels and propellers and such decorating the walls, and fishing nets hanging from the double-volume ceiling.

Across the road from the supermarket, Alex and I made a quick satellite mission to grab our dinner supplies without losing our prime people-watching position at the bar, taking in locals and clearly not-so-locals alike while we wiled away the evening with the sun still in the sky, and it still felt too early for dinner.

Which was worth the wait, with a new appreciation for the pastries, having given them a few hours between sittings and combining with a crunchy green salad.

TUESDAY

The next morning we got up later than planned (just after 8) so adjusted our original thinking of catching a ferry across to Comino Island – a small sister island that we can see from many of our terraces. The island is a big tourist destination with its perfectly clear-water lagoon and azure caves, so we had been told that if you’re not there early, the sea becomes people soup and ruins the experience.

We thought instead we’d catch the bus up to the North of Gozo and explore the many beaches, snorkelling spots and the famous traditional salt pans.

Easier said than done. On the cusp of the busy season, the buses were still operating on shoulder schedules and we were awkwardly between the bus options from ferry port and the bus stop outside our house.

It was also, although only 10h00, already searingly hot, so our short wait at the bus stop motivated us to consider renting a car (to avoid future searingly hot bus stop waits during the day). A quick Google and Alex was on the phone with Jamie, arranging to collect a car from the ferry port for a very reasonable €35 a day which, seeing as there were 3 of us, wasn’t much more than we’d have spent on bus rides with the amount of adventuring we intended to do.

Jamie met us and took us to collect the car, a compact little Hyundai, and we were soon on the road, relying on dodgy maps and you-can-see-where-you-are-and-where-you’re-going-from-almost-everywhere good sense to head in the direction of Ramla Bay.

The beach lives up to its name, with a distinctive red sand (“Ramla” is Malti for “red”). We set up camp (with the beach towels and brolly from our holiday home) and headed for the water, which was welcome and refreshing in what was now the midday sun.

It was great to flake on the towels in the shade and watch the day (and a little Yellow Lab puppy 2 brollies down from us – a real cutey called Max) go by…

It was really (really really) hot… Even for a beach day, so an hour or so of lounging later, we picked up the roadtrip and drove over to Marsalforn for lunch.

Yet another beautiful spot, Masalforn’s harbour with its idyllic crystal blue water and bobbing yachts was a brilliant backdrop for a feast and our seafood pasta was worthy of the scenery, in which we were virtually engulfed since we were sitting at the very edge of the dock with water on 3 sides of us.

After lunch we wandered into a dive shop and set up a dive for the following day at 11h30. While details were short on where we’d be doing the dive or what we could expect to see, our hopes were high that everything under water was as spectacular as what we’d seen above.

The rest of the afternoon was then launched with snorkelling at Xwejni Bay, a delightful shallow sheltered bay, perfect for having a flop around and stalking the little fish that inhabited the mossy, grassy bits on the sea floor.

We could see the famous salt pans from the bay, so headed on foot to see them up close.

Salt production has been a thing in these parts since Roman times and there are still families that farm and harvest salt in the traditional manner. The pans are basins carved into the soft limestone cliffs on the water’s edge. Varying in size and shape, the majority seem to be no more than a foot deep and the premise is that each pan is filled with sea water and left to evaporate, leaving the salt behind. The salt is then swept up (literally, there were people with brooms sweeping the salt in each pan into heaps) and collected to be bagged and sold. For a princely sum too, with tourists lapping up kilo bags at €8 a pop!

We returned to the car, intending to drive to the next recommended bay (Wied Il-Ghasri) for another refreshing snorkel, but we got a bit lost and ended up in a fjordlike inlet called Naghag Il-Bahar instead. It was a narrow strip of pebble beach with several people already so we gave it a skip and continued the search to Wied Il-Mielah, a natural rock arch that had risen suddenly to fame since the much more famous and spectacular Azure Window collapsed into the sea. Such is life with limestone I guess; easy come, easy go.

We struggled a bit to find it since all the narrow roads look the same and some looked unlikely to be roads at all. Google Maps was even having a little trouble getting us there. In the end it was as private Segway tour that lead us to it. We’d crossed paths a few times on our mission and when we saw the group off their vehicles and posing at the edge of a cliff, we figured they knew something we didn’t. They did. And we too were soon happy-snapping picture of ourselves with the impressive natural arch over the bluer-than-blue sea.

Feeling accomplished after all our adventuring, we headed home for much-needed showers and, redressed and refreshed, adjourned to our roof terrace to watch the sun go down from the comfort of our swing chair, with the Gozo wine we’d left chilling in the fridge.

Of course it was still light when we left home for dinner at Ta’Philip – as recommend by Frank – a hundred or so metres down our road.

A stunning restaurant and clearly a local legend by all the awards and photos on the wall in the entrance, Ta’Philip also only offered a 0km menu, meaning everything served was sourced super-locally and consequently the entire menu was only 1 page.

Still, we each chose something quite different and all were ridiculously good! Alex’s suckling pig was enormous, Christian’s swordfish buttery and my Bragioli (beef olive of sorts) super-duper. The owner came to check on us and gave us a sample of his homemade sambuca, which was very aniseedy and smoother than most but, well, still sambuca. It was a good thing we were stumbling distance from home!

WEDNESDAY

We’d booked our dive for 11h30 to give us enough time to do something beforehand and to be underwater for the worst heat of the day.

The thing we chose to do beforehand was a bike ride east through Qala to Hondoq Beach, which Frank said was his favourite. Christian passed, so Alex and I helmeted up and hit the road.

It was already quite warm, but fortunately it was a relatively easy ride into Qala along a flat road with little built along it so we could enjoy the magnificent views of the sea as we pedalled.

After Qala, the road became quite steep downhill so, figuring that what goes down has to come up again (at considerably more effort), we turned around and repeated the return ride home.

Shortly we were off again, hopping in our little car to hightail across the island like seasoned pro’s to get to the dive shop for our 11am briefing. It was quite a laboured process with a DVD, a quiz, a recap by the dive master and then a test (underwater) on our skills, so we only set off on the main dive at around 12h30 in the end.

To our disappointment, the dive was around Marsalforn Bay itself, probably because our dive companion, Audrey from France, was a first-timer, who seemed quite nervous (no doubt because all the instructions had been in English!).

It was pleasant enough. Even though there wasn’t whole lot of exciting stuff to see (random fish, grassy sections on the ocean floor etc), the fact that the water was crystal clear and we could see a good 30 metres was remarkable in itself.

With a Maltese dive under our belts, we headed over to the South Coast of the island for lunch in Xlendi. Quite different to the other places we’d seen, this bay was a harbour with no beach per sé, but loads of little step ladders into the water from the rock walls that formed the harbour’s basin.

We ate ourselves silly (again!) and then took a walk to the end of the bay, finding a smaller offshoot channel which we first crossed using the bridge at the end so we could get to the mouth of Xlendi Bay proper to take photos of the incredible cliffs and beautiful harbour from its source.

Then we returned to the inlet and scaled down the rocks to where a handful of people had had the same idea as us. One of the couples was very friendly and pointed out where the ladder was to get into the water and where we’d see the most fish.

We had our snorkels and masks with us so we descended into the water and paddled about a bit, admiring what there was to see since it was very deep but still very clear.

I even took an uncharacteristic leap from one of the high rocks and, thanks to Christian’s masterful capturing of the moment on camera, I never have to do it again!

Since we were halfway between home and what we’d planned for sunset – the Azure Window / inland sea / Fungus Rock combo, as per Frank’s suggestion – and it was already 5pm we figured we’d get ahead of the game and go straight there.

A good call because there wasn’t as much to see as anticipated.

The Azure Window was a magnificent natural arch that had stood 28 metres high. It was formed by raging waves crashing against a jutting out section of the cliff face and wearing away at the soft(ish) stone, leaving behind a column in the sea with an arch joining it to the land. Until it collapsed last March.

There is still a stump of the arch visible in the sea and many happy swimmers were clustered on the stump having their photo taken on the relic of what was, clearly blissfully unaware of what we could see from our vantage point – a massive boulder barely clinging to the raw edge where the arch had separated from the land, which we mused, based on the length of the crack, had minutes before it fell to the sea, but in geological terms probably had decades.

Fungus Rock, as underwhelming as its name, was a short walk across a series of (what looked like) natural salt pans and was quite an unremarkable lump of rock just off the coastline.

The Inland Sea was a bit more exciting and was a small shell-shaped bay which at first examination seemed to be enclosed. Boat garages (some with boats inside, some furnished and one serving as a cafe) along the crescent of the shell were the clue to looking on the cliff face that formed the rest of its border and revealed a cave inlet that we found out opened into a 26 metre cave that joins to the sea. Apparently you can swim through it, but we settled with sitting on a jetty and dipping our feet into the cool water.

We returned to our house and in a rush of ambition Christian and I decided to take a run (to clock the Vitality points for the week). I recommended the road to Qala, on the premise that I knew it was flat and, mostly, because it was supposed to be 3 km to Hondoq and it would be nice to see the beach that had evaded our bike run in the morning.

We set out and found it relatively easy-going, thanks largely to leaving it until almost 19h00 before we set out. Unfortunately though, I got us lost by taking a wrong turn and in a misguided effort to rectify the route, we got stuck in a maze of unkempt allotments, earning a few minor scratches and a full side of blackjacks for our trouble. We abandoned the mission and turned to head home, adding on an extra bit to run into our little town centre to the church we’d seen as a landmark on one of our drives (not that churches make a good landmark on Gozo usually since there are SO many of them!)

Arriving home, a welcome shower and fresh unblackjacked clothes later, we set off for dinner, to the other place Frank had recommended, Country Terrace.

It was a bit fancier than anticipated, but the view of the bay and Comino beyond was breathtaking! And the fresh local calamari and medium rare tuna steak were out of this world. A worthy Last Supper indeed.

THURSDAY

Making the most of our short stay, we’d itineraried down to the very last second. With intentions of catching the first ferry to Comino at 08h00 and Jamie coming to collect the rental car at 11h00, we called Frank on Wednesday evening for a powwow on how to manage our morning in conjunction with his plans.

Although he was expecting his next set of guests on the 11h15 ferry he was, as always, very accommodating and suggested that we pack up before we went to Comino so that he could clean while we were out, leaving only what we’d need for a shower and change before our departure, for which he would leave the upstairs bathroom at our disposal. Great plan.

We got up before 07h00, packed up, cleaned up and used all our leftovers to make epic bacon, egg and cheese breakfast rolls for our excursion.

An hour later we drove down to the ferry, well in time… Except for the fact that there is no parking at the harbour. Alex and I got out the car to get the ferry tickets and were very concerned that Christian was going to miss the boat… Until he came hurtling round the corner at the very 11th hour. He’d found a spot in the reserved section for ferry management and had disregarded the warnings of clamping in the hope that we’d be overlooked in the couple of hours we planned on being away.

The ferry from Gozo is a short hop and no more than 10 minutes later we were alighting at the jetty on Comino, Gozo’s little sister island.

Although about 3.5 square kilometres, the action on Comino all happens around 2 microscopic beaches. Right from the jetty, there are blue and white striped sunchairs wedged side-by-side on every inch of the flat sections adjacent to the little golden sand crescents no more than a few metres long. The rest of the beachfront is very rocky crags; not amazing for sitting on, really lousy without shoes on.

We went to the farthest point and ate our breakfast rolls, surveying the beautiful Blue Lagoon, and then hobbled down to try it for ourselves.

The water was crystal clear and you could see to the bottom, with more white golden sand. The lagoon forms a channel between Comino and its tiny twin, Cominito, which is an easy swim across so we paid it a visit. A very rocky outcrop with a small pebble beach and a few caves (that you can access from a boat tour, which we’d passed on).

We’d been there barely an hour and already the day-visitors were streaming in, so we decided to keep our memories pure and caught the 09h15 ferry back.

With some unexpected time on our hands, we finally got to visit Hondoq! A small and secluded bay at the bottom of a hill after Qala that would have been a challenge had we made it that far on either bike or foot.

The bay offered a large concrete jetty with stepladders into the water or, as we chose, a wedge of pebble/sand beach accessing (yet another) wonderous stretch of azure water. This island never ceased to amaze!

After a good half hour’s dipping, we had to return to fulfil our obligations and catch the 12 o’clock ferry back to Malta to begin the next instalment of our adventures.

Africa, South Africa

Travelogue: Drakensberg

DRAKENSBERG

12-15 May 2017

We were fortunate enough to be invited by our friends Vern and Kaya to his family’s sharehold on a house in the Drakensberg for a long weekend. Being beyond fond of a ‘local is lekker’ South African getaway, it was an invitation which we grabbed with both hands!

Vern’s family had owned their stake in the cottage for decades – since his early childhood – and he spoke of it so animatedly that our only concern was that there wouldn’t be enough time to do all the cool things he told us were on offer at our destination.

Getting together for a planning session (and a curry) 2 evenings before departure helped enormously as we crafted both an itinerary and a grocery list so, with everything in place, all we had to do was bide the 2 sleeps and 2 long work days until our roadtrip to the ‘Berg.

FRIDAY

Friday eventually came and Christian fetched me from my office a little later than planned, thanks to the commencement of a fine drizzle that heralded both the start of a much-publicised coldfront and the inevitable traffic chaos that comes with the slightest sign of any weather interruption. Within half an hour the route that Christian had taken to get to me that we were retracing to begin our journey was already fraught with traffic light outages and bumper-bashings. Ah, Joburg. There’s no place like home… but we were quite happy to leave the carnage behind us for a weekend!

It wasn’t so bad and about another half hour later we were on the open road, with Christian expertly juggling the challenges of the rain and a team telecon (on mute, so they couldn’t hear my tiktiktik on the keyboard of my laptop while I finished up my Friday).

The weekend forecast of a coldfront was not a word of a lie and we’d gone from a literally short-sleeve start to the day to a very chilly, very early sunset, pitch black by 5pm.

We made good time and hit Harrismith by 6pm for the ritual refresh and rewater. That pitstop sure has changed since my first memory of it (in the 80s); it boasts a better restaurant selection than many shopping centres in the Big Smoke now! But we weren’t shopping – and the raging fireplace in the bathrooms reminded that we were headed for our frosty mountain adventure.

Back on the road, our progress was slowed by chevrons guiding us through the perpetual upgrades in the Harrismith interchange and onto the magnificently improved R74 (that had been a colander of a road when we’d travelled to Spioenkop for a wedding in 2011). Unfortunately all good things come to an end and the last section of the journey was on tarmac pocked so badly along both sides that Kaya had already advised us to stick to the middle of the road wherever possible.

Arriving into the ‘Berg we used the major resorts as our guide and were soon at the Drakensberg Sun, our neighbour for the weekend. The “cottage” (as Vern modestly referred to the 4 double-bedroom home) is in Bergville Estate, a quaint little suburb behind the Drakensberg Sun with traditional family-style bungalows on old-school suburban-size plots winding up the mountain from the valley on tree-themed roadnames. Ours was Bottlebrush.

With only an overnight bag each, there was little settling-in to do, so after the “R2 Tour” (as Vern called it) of our home for the weekend, we focused on helping with the finishing touches on dinner.

A little drizzle had not deterred our hosts from pushing the proverbial boat out on the evening meal and there was a mammoth stuffed chicken on the Weber under the covered patio with oven-baked veg and more pork sausage stuffing in the oven making the house smell heavenly! Kaya whipped up a brown onion gravy while Christian was tasked with manning the roast potatoes and I laid the table, and we were soon clinking glasses with an epic roast meal to celebrate our arrival.

Half an hour later we were in a similar situation to the poor bird that was no longer. Stuffed to the hilt!

With a crackling fire on the go, we retired to the lounge with red wine, Lindt balls, a pack of cards and a new game that Vern taught us (“Knock Knock”) for entertainment.

Mountain life was going to suit us juuuust fine!

SATURDAY

We woke on Saturday to a chilly Drakensberg morning (that was apparently, ironically, nowhere near as cold as home, thanks to the killer coldfront that had hit Joburg in our absence) and stuck to the  programme, heading out to Valley Bakery in Champagne Valley for breakfast and to procure the baked goods and treats we’d mapped on our weekend plan.

It was easy to see how this eatery had earned its place as top restaurant choice in the Drakensberg, with mingling aromas of strong coffee and fresh bread and the option to browse, sample and buy all sorts of sweet treats – and the reserve some Pasteis de Nata (custard tarts), which Vern and Kaya had had before… and had missed out on on a previous visit where the fresh tarts were being put on display when they arrived, but were all gone by the time they finished their breakfast!

Revitalised (and 8 more Pasteis in hand), we ticked off the other “admin” item; we restocked our firewood. Well, more accurately, the boys sorted the firewood while us girls snuck in a cheeky homemade chocolate-tasting and browsed the local craft store which, in my case, lead to the purchase of the world’s softest scarf.

Back at the house, we took advantage of the break in the drizzle to investigate our surrounds. The valley is gorgeous and the estate immaculately maintained – presumably by the hotel, that trades access to its facilities in return for use of the estate’s roads for more convenient access to its timeshare chalets.

We were exploring the hotel’s lakeside paths when the rain returned so we caught solace in the Drakensberg Sun hotel bar, The Grotto Lounge, to grab a cocktail (also on our To Do list). We were in luck to not only get a comfy table for 4 in the quite-full bar, but also to have stumbled across the hotel’s afternoon indoor entertainment – quiz and bingo.

Naming ourselves after our cocktails, The Bloody Marys swept up first place in the quiz and picked the bottle of red wine as our reward.

We passed on the ensuing game of Bingo since our quiz round had been more of a test of patience than trivia with just 10 questions being draaaaawn out by the quizmaster to fill an hour! He was fond of prefacing every question with pointless things like “I would love to know…”, adding superfluous dramatics onto the questions (“what is the shortest element on the Periodical Table evaaaa?”) and then consulting with every person in the room before revealing the correct answer. Our sweeping victory on 7/10 (the nearest contester was 4/10) was a great note to leave on, so we headed back to our cottage.

Even with the intermittent drizzle, the afternoon was moderate, so we made the most of the scenery, taking to the (covered) patio to continue the afternoon’s theme, cracking open the cottage’s copy of Trivial Pursuit. The challenge of it being the 1982 UK edition didn’t concern us at all and we rehashed the excellent quizmaster skills we’d learnt earlier on to turn what can be a serious boardgame into a marathon giggle!

Between our inability to roll exact dice and the taxing questions – jogging non-existent memories of the likes of life in Yugoslavia and Rhodesia, arbitrary connections to the Royal Family and impossibly detailed entertainment questions about TV shows that haven’t aired in 40 years or more – the game took us through dinner preparations.

As another slap-up affair, with bacon-wrapped fillet prepared on the Weber and served with Kaya’s (now) famous mushroom sauce, it was nothing short of WOW! And with that we were into the evening, with a crackling fire to keep us company.

SUNDAY

Sunday morning started the way every great Sunday morning does, with a giant fry-up. Christian had woken up motivated and hit the kitchen so the rest of us roused to the delicious aroma of frying bacon. And eggs. And sausage. And mushrooms. And beans. There was so much food, we didn’t even have enough space on the plate to bother with toast!

Feeling a little guilty after the extravagant feast and spurred by the fresh, clear morning, we decided to take a walk to the Blue Grotto, which is easily accessed from walking trails signposted from the lakeshore in the gardens of the Drakensberg Sun. It was an easy walk with well-marked tracks through the indigenous forest and we were soon admiring the waterfalls and rock pools. Way too cold to enjoy them in the water, but pretty to look at nonetheless.

The trail wasn’t circular so we retraced our footsteps and were ejected from the hike back at the same starting point… which was also the launch point for another, shorter, walk around the lake. Since the weather was still good and we were still (moderately) fresh, we kept going and circumnavigated the lake, over the dam wall and back up through the hotel gardens.

Not a bad effort, with about 10km all in all. And it clearly shifted breakfast since we were unanimous that our dinner plan – an outing to Winterton – was definitely going to have to move forward to Late Lunch territory. The idea was to do a short drive to absorb the countryside and eat at a place Vern and Kaya had enjoyed many times previously, a place called Bingelela just outside Bergville.

Heading out to dinner at 3 in the afternoon (!) allowed us spectacular views of the fields and snow-capped mountain backdrop… and softened the blow of the restaurant being shut when we got there! Being Mothers Day, it seemed as if they’d done a big event for lunchtime and were not  opening for dinner trade.

It wasn’t a problem though, having seen a few worthy contenders on our roadtrip, we returned the way we came and pulled into the Thokozisa Lifestyle Centre, a small collection of shops in a brightly decorated thatched complex – clearly the Drakensberg’s warm and rustic interpretation of a mall.

The restaurant was happy to seat us and we welcomed the cosy table close to the fire. Kaya and I went for a gander around the shops while our food was being prepared and returned with a(nother) scarf and a big bag of syrupy koeksusters, which would serve nicely as a dessert around our own fireplace later on.

Another upside to the (very) early dinner was that we could return while it was still light and have some visibility of the pocked roads. And still have time for a few rounds of card games before our early night in advance of our 5am departure.

It had been a very shrewd decision to leave Drakensberg on Monday morning instead of Sunday afternoon as we’d managed to squeeze in so much more in just the few extra hours!

Europe, Malta

Travelogue Malta 1: Sliema

SLIEMA

10-12 June 2017

Dab hands at Friday departures, a carless me was fetched from the office by an unfettered from-home Christian and we were on the road to ORT by 15h30; an easy feat from my office, which is conveniently located for little but the airport hop.

With our routine of checking the car into a valet service for the duration (which means being met at Departures by a driver) and spending our waiting time at the Emirates lounge, the only wildcards were the check-in and Passport Control queues, both of which were surprisingly civilised for a Friday afternoon.

The flight was packed so we got little more than a couple of hours sleep on the leg to Dubai, and welcomed the short transfer time to take the opportunity to shower and refresh (ie salmon and Moet) in the brand new lounge in Terminal C where we were to catch our connecting flight.

The connection to Malta made another stop for an hour in Larnaca (Cyprus), which was actually worth it as we let off considerably more people than we took on, so ended up with a full row of 4 seats each to stretch out and get a good solid hour’s deep sleep.

We arrived 35 minutes early to a perfect sunny day in Malta. Blue skies, not a cloud and that just-right temperature where you’re basking but not sweating. This holiday was going to be exactly our sort of thing!

Alex had arranged a driver to collect us from the airport so we just had to get our bags and then find the guy holding the board with our name on it.

And there he was, waiting front and centre, so a quick stop past the ATM and we were on the road.

A big jovial fella, Rainier gave us the basic need-to-knows about Malta as he drove, mixing tourist and sightseeing info with historical and economic insights to give us quite well-rounded introduction to this tiny (316 square kilometres) island and its 460,000 odd indigenous Maltese people.

No more than a 20 minute journey into town, the roads became quite narrow as we twisted down toward the seafront where our apartment was. Shops and homes lined the streets, with front doors straight onto the pavement, often with cars lipped onto most of the sidewalk. Sliema was clearly a city built in a different time where traffic and parking had no bearing!

Rainier pulled up at our door and we were welcomed by our friends, Alex and Robbie, who had arrived as an advance party on Thursday night.

Our apartment was clearly a basement conversion leading from street level to a – very glamourous marble – flight of steps down to an entrance hall offering the first twin bedroom and a passage to the rest of the house.

The house was entirely sandstone so it was cool and slightly, but not unpleasantly, damp. There was a warm glow to it from a combination of the yellow stone walls and clever lighting from uplighters dotted along the skirting and natural light filtering from alcoves in each room that had a grating from the pavement above as its roof.

Moving into the main house, we discovered another twin bedroom, communal bathroom, kitchen with table and chairs, large living room and master en-suite bedroom, where we put our bags down and immediately changed into shorts.

Enjoying a welcome ice-cold Cisk (pronounced “Chisk”) with our friends, we languished the comfy corner couch and marvelled at our surrounding while catching up on the last few months, and roughly planning the next few days.

Our first excursion was a cultural adventure of sorts, which involved heading down our street, the half block it took to spit us out at the harbour where, conveniently, the ferry from Sliema to Valletta docked just across the road.

With the Valletta ferry port only a few hundred metres away across the water, the wait was longer than the trip itself, but well worth it for the short ride across Marsamxett Harbour, past Manoel Island, named after the Grandmaster of the Knights who fortified it, and towards the wonderous backdrop golden sun-lit picture of Baroque splendour and robust fortification that makes the Valletta skyline.

We wound our way through the town, taking in buildings and statues that looked consequential… But not allowing them to distract us from our mission. The Pub on Archbishop Street, which was where actor Oliver Reed (who was staying in Malta while shooting Gladiator) saw his untimely demise on a notorious drinking spree that saw him clock 8 pints of lager, 12 double rums and 14 whiskeys before collapsing and dying of a heart attack.

We had no such ambitions, so had a couple of pints of Guinness (logging #20 on the Index) and made our way back to Sliema for dinner.

It was still light as day when we got back to Sliema at around 19h30 so we stopped for a sundowner at the lively strip of bars facing the harbour, before making our way down a side street to find the restaurant that had been our choice of the options we’d researched online.

It didn’t disappoint and we shared a platter of traditional Maltese nibblybits to start, before the main event seafood pasta and Maltese sausage pasta (with tasters of Alex’s veal and Robbie’s lamb to make for a rounded experience).

Stuffed to the hilt, we followed the sound of cheering to find a political procession of sorts on the road along the waterfront. There were big flatbed trucks with merrymakers and flag-flyers cavalcaded by scores of cars hooting and flashing in support. One little hatchback had about 20 youngsters standing out the sunroof and hanging out the windows cheering and waving!

Blissfully unaware of why, but totally in awe of how passionately everyone was celebrating, we stepped into the Labour Party Bar and asked the bartender what was going on. While he poured us Jagerbombs, he explained the Labour Party had won some sort of election last Sunday and everyone was still celebrating! There was even a celebration concert being held in town, and he turned on the TV so we could see.

The Prime Minister – a friendly looking chap in his mid-thirties – was giving a quick speech (in Malti, but obviously about their win) and encouraging the celebrations. It was heartwarming to see how politically engaged the young people were – probably because their leaders seem to balance the Labour and Party in their name.

After a long journey, we were happy to head back to have a nightcap in our comfy holiday home and leave further adventures for the next day.

There’s little better than a good, long night’s sleep, waking up with natural light rather than a buzzing alarm clock!

SUNDAY

Such was Day 1 (proper) of The Malta Experience.

We were to catch the Hop On Hop Off bus to do the South route, primarily to visit the Sunday morning fish market and to see the Blue Grotto. This gave enormous flexibility as the buses departed every hour on the quarter-past, so we didn’t stretch ourselves too much, aiming for the one at 10h15. This meant leaving the house at 09h45 in order to grab a traditional Maltese Ftira (elaborate sandwich on a disc-shaped semi-flatbread, similar to a ciabatta) at the kiosk directly opposite the bus stop, which ticked all the boxes nicely.

The bus arrived perfectly on time, which seemed like an obvious… But was destined to be a moving target over the course of the day.

The first leg took us on the North Route bus around the bay to Valletta, where the driver recommended that we alight at the stop before the usual crossover of the 2 routes at the Valletta Waterfront stop, because there was a docked cruise ship so we’d have 5000 contenders for our seats.

Seemed like good advice – especially since that stop was opposite the square where the Labour Party concert had been held the night before and was next to a garden that housed a series of busts dedicated to all sorts of influential Maltese people (most of whom we’d never heard of), which kept us entertained on the 15 minute wait.

The next bus indeed took us to the Waterfront, but the previous driver had miscalculated the shrewd plan as we were instructed to get off and change buses on arrival at the Waterfront stop as our particular bus was relieving of its HOHO duties to go and act as a shuttle.

Of course, there was a very long snaking queue waiting to get on the bus we were needing to, so we caught the attention of the man organising (a strong word to use to describe how he was going about it), the increasingly annoyed and very high maintenance queue of people. He instructed us to stand at the front of the queue, much to the chagrin of a vocal Australian couple, who were intent on complaining about everything.

To further complicate matters, another North bus arrived before our South Route bus, so there was much hostility as people from the back of the queue who wanted to get on the bus ahead of people waiting for the South bus were mistaken for queue-jumpers.

We also realised the people have an infinite capacity for not listening and for asking stupid questions because no matter how many times the poor organiser man said “This is the Blue bus going North to Mdina”, someone would walk up and ask “Is this the Blue bus?” / “Is this the bus to Mdina?” / “Is this the bus to the fish market?”. Over and over. Thankless job.

Eventually our bus was ready and we got in (just after the Australian couple). We took seats at the back, which turned out to be an error since the audio ports didn’t work. No matter. We were headed for the Sunday Market at Marsaxlokk.

The Aussie couple were having a field day of the trip, bossing people around on the bus and the wife having a cadenza when the bus driver let more people on at the next stop, defying the prescribed number of standing passengers allowed on the bus. “NO. MORE. PEOPLE.” She shouted at him. “I’m on the bus to see the sights and all I can see are people!”. A trifle dramatic.

When we got off the bus, we heard someone asking them if they were getting off. “Hell no,” Husband said, “I’m not leaving this seat until we’re back at the ship!” Poor bus driver.

The market lined the arc of the harbour and was home to all sorts of bric-a-brac. We were expecting more of a fish market with local crafts, so were at the outset a bit disappointed which, combined with it being lunchtime, made for a good reason to adopt a table in the square (in the shadow of a very impressive looking Church) to grab a beer and some snacks.

This was to be our first poor service experience on Malta. Alex and Robbie ordered a calamari starter to share and a burger each for mains, with Christian and I sharing chicken nuggets and chips to be social since we’d had the huge ftira already (and because I’d just seen them delivered to the table next to us and the chips were proper homemade and looked amazing!). First our drinks order was completely wrong and then the burgers never came.

The menu at Restorante dell’Arte was at least more helpful than the staff, revealing on the prose on the back:

Marsaxlokk is a traditional fishing village. The name comes from Marsa meaning port and xlokk, the local name for the south-east scirocco wind that blows from the Sahara. Most of Malta’s fish supplies are caught by fishermen coming from this port. The bay is memorable for the many colourful, traditional fishing boat called Luzzu. The painted eyes on these Luzzus are believed to protected the boats from danger.

The starters had been really big portions and delicious, so we abandoned the unserved food, paid the bill and went to have a closer look at the market and the famous luzzu boats.

And a longer look than intended since somehow the girls got separated from the boys and we missed our bus, which had come and gone 10 minutes earlier than scheduled.

Fortunately there were lots of options to keep us entertained so we took a table at a pavement cafe… And struggled to order anything since a waiter told us it was self-service and the bar sent us outside to the waiters. We accidentally double ordered but still only ended up with one round of drinks!

Back on the bus we traversed the island to the southernmost bit to the Blue Grotto.

Again sitting at the back of the bus, I managed to highjack an audio jack on what might have been one of the less interesting bits of narrative, all about the quarries and mining.

It did answer the (unasked) question about why all the buildings were made of the yellow stone.

Malta is basically a lump of limestone in the Mediterranean and, being a rocky lump, it has stone absolutely everywhere. It boasts what is reputedly the world’s oldest free-standing dry stone temple, Ggantija on Gozo; dry stone walls everywhere; and a plethora of active and disused quarries, dating back to Roman times. Most of the quarries (including more modern ones) are little more than rectangular holes (deep, but small coverage) carved out of the rock, and the number has to be seen to be believed. The stone is drilled – up to 80m deep – with the powder residue from the drills being the base that’s mixed with water to mould building blocks. Modern law requires quarries to fill their holes with landfill and top with top soil.

The Blue Grotto stop was well worth it. For an extra €8 we took the short boat trip into the caves to see the pink coral and blueblueBLUE bits that earned the spot its name. Unfortunately we were seated at the back of the boat so our pictures aren’t the best, but the memories are good.

The sea was clear and warm which made for a refreshing dip – and a thrilling jump off the cliff in Christian’s case – before moving on.

The last stop on the bus route was the Hagar Qim and Mnadjdra Temples… But we have them a skip because Sundowners were calling.

Literally.

Christian’s soccer buddy from home, Nick, happened to also be in Malta so we’d made arrangements to meet up since it was their last night. They were staying in St Julian’s, an adjacent suburb to where we were, so it was the perfect opportunity to go there to combine a meet-up with a new location.

Jumping off the bus early in Valletta to catch the much-quicker ferry across the bay to Sliema, we dropped off unnecessary items and cut over the hill to St Julian’s.

It turned out to be a longer walk than anticipated, but allowed us to witness firsthand the beginnings of what looked like it was going to be a thumping night in Paceville – the bustling (and quite seedy) entertainment hub wedged between our homebase and our destination.

Fortunately the sun sets very late in Malta so it was still apt to call our drinks “Sundowners” by the time we got to Nick and his friends – at the very lovely pool terrace bar of their very lovely seaside hotel – a little after 7pm.

They didn’t seem put out by our belated arrival and members of their group (there were 10 of them holidaying together) came and went over the next couple of hours as they went off to refresh and redress for dinner.

Having had a tactical Burger King en route, we were less urgent about dinner and so wound our way back along the waterfront, stopping in for a few pints along the way, intending to eat closer to home.

We stopped in at Surfside Café, which looked festive even though it was now very late for dinner.

What a mistake! The festive crowd was the waitering staff preparing their staff meals and, again, we got a mish-mashed drinks order as well as food we didn’t order (a massive toasted ciabatta thing with goats cheese, sundried tomatoes, olives, capers… Everything we don’t eat) which we were told was on the house, but could not have been a more inappropriate starter for our pizza order… Which eveeeentually came… After we’d ordered the bill, which our waitress (who’d been sitting at the table behind us for almost the entire duration since delivering the random order of drinks) told us to collect from the counter!

The chap from the table across from us came over to commiserate since he’s also received barely-there service and the wrong food.

Luckily the pizzas were passable and we were soon in a taxi headed home, probably a lot later than we should have seeing as Robbie’s taxi was fetching him at 05h45 for his morning flight home.

We three, however, would be off to Gozo.

Brazil, South America

Travelogue Brazil 2: Iguassu Falls

FOZ DO IGUASSU

26-28 April 2017

Being devout about the pronunciation of my own often-mispronounced name, I’ve many times had the debate (with myself) about whether to refer to countries by their English name or the name that the country’s people themselves go by. For example, are we in Brazil or, rather, Brasil?

You can imagine how traumatised I became when visiting a place like The Triple Frontier, that sits at the meeting place of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, where two major rivers converge with magnificent Falls.

So where am I? Iguazu? Iguaçu?? Iguassu?!

In Portuguese, it is Iguaçu (with a c-cedilla and no accent on the second “u”, though putting an acute one on it is apparently a very common spelling mistake even among Brazilians themselves). In Spanish, it is Iguazú, with an acute accent (that is, slanted to the right; “ù” apparently does not currently exist in either Portuguese or Spanish). The Portuguese c-cedilla is to be pronounced as an “s”. Likewise, Spanish, with the letter “z” also pronounced as an “s”. There are 2 Spanish-speaking countries versus 1 Portuguese… but Brazil is the biggest. And we’re staying on the Brazilian side, but intend to visit both other countries while we’re here.

So, should the English spelling (or at least my spelling) be with a “z” to mirror the Brazilian spelling? Or with an “s” to make it more phonetic?

In my hour of turmoil I did the grown-up thing. I turned to Google for help.

Apparently, it is commonly felt that “Iguassu” would be the most appropriate spelling for English, according to Wikipedia. In fact, allegedly there’s even mention that the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguaçu is considering changing its official name to “Foz do Iguassu” because of the foreign tourists who come to see the falls, but is meeting some opposition from upstream towns with no tourist traffic which don’t want to change for the sake of tourism efficiencies. Proper battle of wills between pragmatism and patriotism… but it would be kinda convenient if there was a standard.

So, all that aside, we landed in… um… Foz. Stopped in at the travel agent to book our Falls tours (a half day for the Brazilian side and full day for the Argentinian side). And caught a taxi to our hotel.

From the taxi ride alone we could see that Foz is *nothing* like Rio de Janeiro. It’s got a far more obvious “developing economy” feel to it (bearing in mind that we were fortunate enough to be staying on Copacabana when we were in Rio de Janeiro). There was little pretty about our entrance into town nor the streets through the centre that took us across town to our hotel. And, bizarrely, everything looked shut, which is odd for midday midweek when you’d expect restaurants and shops to be in full swing.

Our hotel was nice though; our first foray into booking with Emirates Rocketmiles where you get Skywards miles bonuses on top of discounted prices for your booking. We’d paid half the rate published in the reception AND got 1000 miles for the pleasure! And we were even more pleased to see that our room had a lovely view of the pool area, which had to be better than our Rio hotel which looked onto the central service quad that obviously housed the kitchen’s extractor fan since our room had been teased with the aroma of baking bread and frying bacon from 5am!

We’d decided in our travel agent session that since we were in Brazil and putting aside a whole day for Argentina, it would only be right to nip across the border to Paraguay for the afternoon while we were in the neighbourhood. A few enquiries and some polite and guarded responses later, we were confident that the right plan was to catch a bus across the border since the International Friendship Bridge that connects Brazil and Paraguay is apparently not safe for pedestrians, who frequently fall foul to muggers.

All was told to be hunky-dory on the other side though, where Brazilians often go to shop in the mega mall complexes infamous for their brand name goods, the legitimacy of which we didn’t question seeing as this was not our intended mission. We planned to grab some lunch, hit Mclaren’s for a quick Guinness (for sake of completeness on our Index) and get back on the bus and be home in Brazil well before the sun went down.

We walked down to where we were told to catch the bus, conveniently a few blocks down on our road. The landmark was the bus terminus, although we were told that we’d not be catching the bus from in the terminus, but rather just outside it. Marked with a big pen squiggle on the map had been all the encouragement we’d needed to head off… but as we got closer we realised we had no idea what a bus stop looked like!

We overshot the terminus by a block and saw nothing so crossed the street and u-turned back up the way we’d come, seeing something that looked like it had potential, but that turned out to be a taxi stop.

Turning around again we saw a bus paused in the side road we’d just crossed that looked different to the ones in the terminus – white instead of yellow – and caught the “Cuidad Del Este” on the sign in the window. Our bus!

Hurtling down the road towards the bus, we screeched to a grinding halt as a police van – siren wailing – did the same in front of the bus, blocking its path. Three armed policemen jumped out of the car and onto the bus as another police vehicle pulled up alongside the bus to surround it.

We were frozen in our spot, metres away from the excitement.

The bus driver looked nonplussed with his arms folded above his head while the policemen moved up and down the central aisle looking for who knows what. We couldn’t see beyond to how the passengers were reacting, but can’t imagine they were having much fun (for the inconvenience of the delay if nothing else).

The police got off the bus, back in their cars and screeched off again. We wordlessly turned around and headed back the way we’d came. Paraguay was not going to happen for us.

Rounding the next corner we spotted not one but two kebab shops. Exactly we needed to stave hunger, process what we’d just experienced and make a new plan for the arvie.

A lovely crunchy, juicy chicken kebab later, we decided to take a turn past the main bar street to assess its potential and then walk back to the hotel to get our stuff  (we’d stripped all jewellery and left wallets and bags behind for our trip over the border) to head out for the evening.

Bar Street was dead. As was almost everything else we walked past. There were a number of clubs, bars and foodtrucks that all indicated opening time of 6pm and mostly open through the night.

Made the choice simpler. We grabbed a taxi and went to Marco Das Tres Fronteiras – the place where the borders of the 3 countries meet on the crossing of the Parãna and Iguassu Rivers.

Having received a pamphlet about the Frontier Crossing, we anticipated a whole complex of things to do there. It was not so. With a massive mock castle entrance, you emerge at the Frontier to a green and yellow monolith monument in a fountain marking the Brazilian Frontier, a restaurant and a few stands selling popcorn, ice-cream and knick-knacks. Over the rivers you can see Argentina’s matching blue and white monument across the Iguassu and Paraguay’s red, white and blue one across the Parãna.

With little else to do but sit and take in the sunset, we ordered a couple of Brahmas and did just that.

THURSDAY – Iguaçu Falls from the Brazilian side

Normally we would have done a single visit to something like a waterfall, but in this case had been advised that it was imperative to visit the Falls from both Argentina (where we’d always intended to tour the Falls) and Brazil.

We had planned on using Thursday, our only full day – for the Argentinian side, but the travel agent convinced us to move the full day to Friday so that the driver could drop us straight at the airport, relieving us of a homeless afternoon having already checked out of the hotel as well as the time and expense of another taxi to the airport. Hard to fault her logic; we signed our lives away and booked the half day to Brazilian falls for Thursday and full day in Argentina for Friday.

Our driver,  Claudio, collected us at our hotel at 08h30 and welcomed us into the van with our only other travel mates, a couple from Cuba (who didn’t look as though they’d be anywhere near as amusing as the Peruvian Princesses).

Claudio shared the planned sequence of events for the morning, advising we’d be visiting the Bird Park en route to the Falls to give the morning mist (it was pretty nippy) a chance to lift. After the Falls tour was an optional add-on to the Itaipu dam and hydro-electric plant, which we passed on, not even vaguely tempted.

Once on the road, Claudio pointed out landmarks of interest – mostly hotels and turnoffs to other places, like Argentina and the airport – and was nice enough to stop at the “best and most inexpensive souvenir shop in town”, should we wish to buy keepsakes to remind us of the day we’d not yet had.

Empty-handed, we were back on the bus 15 minutes later and at the Parque Das Aves 10 minutes after that. Dubbed the most spectacular bird park in Latin America, the park houses birds from the Atlantic Rainforest in their natural habitat alongside species from around the world, many endangered and most rescued from mistreatment or animal trafficking. Those that are rehabilitated to the point of release are returned to the wild; the rest homed in large enclosures in the park where they can be used for reproduction and the funds from entrance fees used to develop conservation projects and efforts in the wild including reforestation and environmental education. Helping over 1100 animals, 140+ species and preserving 16,5 hectares of rainforest, they really are making a meaningful difference.

Our highlight was a very sociable Toucan who swooped down from his perch high in the enclosure as we passed on the path below and fidgeted up and down the handrail, almost willing us to take a photo with him. Unfortunately our flash was on so we freaked him out a bit and he may reconsider a repeat performance for other people.

The tour progressed from the bird park to the main event. The largest waterfall system in the world; higher than Niagara Falls and twice as wide, most of the Iguassu Falls are located in Argentina but provide a better view from the Brazilian side.

They are located in Parque Nacional do Iguaçu, which was opened in 1939 and been a UNESCO Heritage site since 1989. The park is also home to over 300 species of birds, 40000 types of butterfly and 40 species of mammals including Jaguars and pumas in the subtropical jungle. With who know what other creepy-crawly and slithery friends. Claudio told us that there is option to walk / cycle through the jungle to the Falls, but that seems a bit too close to nature for my liking.

The viewing for the Falls is a 1.5km trail that winds from the road down along the riverbank to the water, with viewing decks protruding way into the water so you can see up and down the length of the river that catches the falls. It is an awesome sight as mammoth amounts of water throws itself over cliffs and create curtains of mist that dissipate into the jungle!

Expecting to get soaked, we kept to the outer edge of the metal jetty and moved as quickly as we could, using the slothing poncho’ed tourists as human shields against the water that misted or pelted towards us depending on the wind. It wasn’t so bad and we ended up with spectacular views, lifetime pics and little more than dripping faces and damp shirts for our trouble.

Ironically, what they don’t tell you is that the best pictures are to be had from the walkway away from the viewing decks and back towards the road. With most of the visitors waiting in the long queue for the lift to avoid the alternative couple of hundred stairs, we had relative solitude at the landing half way up which had unimpeded view of the major bowl where most of the Falls action is, was really close to the heaviest part of the Falls and allowed a host of photo opps sans plastic hunchbacks (what backpacks under ponchos look like) photo-bombing.

The Cubans were a ways behind us (no surprise there; we are very efficient tourists) so we had time to laze and dry in the sun.

A quick look around the hospitality options had told us that we would rather return to town than spend an hour in the overpriced restaurant that didn’t even have a view of the Falls and fortunately Claudio and the Cubans were amenable to we made our way back to Foz. The Cubans were going to see the Itaipu hydro-electric station from there so we parted ways as soon as we got back to town.

Being mid-afternoon following a rather athletic morning, we were quite peckish so went up to the local mall to forage at the food court before spending well-earned leisure time at the hotel.

Rested and ready for action, we went out around 6pm to see if the town had come to life.

It had.

The roads were busy, the restaurants opening (only just, as in still setting up and pulling chairs off tables) and there were hawkers flogging all sorts of stuff from tables on the pavements.

We made our way down the few blocks to a pub that Claudio had pointed out as we drove and, as the first to arrive, took a non-committal cocktail table at the entrance so we could beat an easy retreat if we chose not to stay.

Once again, nobody spoke any English (hardly surprising since Spanish, as spoken by the rest of their continent, is their second language and we’d encountered very few English speakers through our stay) so we muddled through a drinks order and got the wrong size beers.

The place started to fill up quickly and by the time we finished our first beer we were engaged enough in our people-watching to need to stay for another. By the third, we’d seen enough people eating to want to try some of the food ourselves, so we got a table and ordered the pork barbecue.

Served on a hot skillet mounted on top of a bunsen flame, succulent pork strips were nestled on a bed of boiled potatoes that were sizzling on the skillet. Served with toasted herby slices of baguettes and salsa, it was delicious! And a bargain at R$28 (ZAR140) compared to the food prices we’d experienced so far.

As we made our way back to the hotel, we were pleased to see that the restaurants were open and trading. The clubs though, had turned their neon signage on but still weren’t yet open for the evening. There must be a hell of a nightlife in Foz that we were missing out on!

FRIDAY – Iguazu Falls from Argentinian side

Claudio fetched us from our hotel at 8am. It was – for a holiday day – very early! And barely enough time to get through our usual multi-course breakfast, with fruit (we’ve eaten more this week than all of last year!), cold meats and cheese, hot buffet (scrambles and a variety of sausages) and pastries and cakes (how can you not have chocolate cake when it’s served with breakfast?!)

First order of business was to make sure our group (6 of us, with a French couple and 2 girls from London) had admin in order. We obviously had passports with us since we were taking everything to be dropped at the airport directly after the tour, but were caught a little short with the revelation that we needed 500 pesos to enter the Argentinian park and 25 pesos to pay our tourist tax on the return journey. And all had to be cash.

Claudio took us past a Cambio to change cash but, stupidly, the exchange desk didn’t accept credit cards (?!) and we were 41 Reals short of what we needed, with not an ATM in sight (or that we could recall seeing anywhere, now that the thought arose). Kindly, Claudio lent us a 50 so we were back in business.

The border between Brazil and Argentina is in the centre of the Iguassu River so the only indication of change of country as you drive over the bridge is the colour of the bollards on either side transitioning from green and yellow to blue and white.

We entered the Parque Nacional Iguazú  – all 67000 hectares of it – and set off on the eco train that took us from the entrance to the first walking trail, 1.7km to Devil’s Throat to view the top of the waterfall that we were at the bottom of the day before. Most of the walk was on a steel grating catwalk so you could see the water beneath you, babbling excitedly and hurrying off to throw itself over the cliff like a sort of liquid Thelma and Louise.

Again we walked into the mist, applying skills from the day before to prevent getting drenched in the name of the perfect view and a great photo. It was well worth it. A magnificently fierce river and explosive waterfall, showing off the power that has earned the Falls its place in the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.

Having gained some perspective relative to the experience the day before, we were ready to take on the Upper and Lower circuits that provide contrasting and often up-close Falls along a trail circuit almost 10km long.

The Upper circuit gave us panoramic views of the giant arc of the 200+ waterfalls that make up the curtain and following the catwalk all the way around allowed all different angles, from in front of, within and behind the Falls and the tributary river – or sometimes rivulets – that feed them.

The Lower circuit is an even more integrated experience with 1.7km of catwalks leading through the jungle forest and viewing points that are as close to the water as is safe and manageable.

The Lower circuits also leads to a jetty for adventure boat rides that take passengers right up to the Falls in the water. Judging by the shrieks of delight carrying across the water, it was a thrilling experience!

Claudio walked us around and talked us through everything we were seeing, including some birds and trees of interest. My interest was more captivated by the Coaties; racoon-like furry creatures that were so used to people that they’d walk freely on the catwalks, unperturbed by us. Scavengers, they are known to dig in or steal handbags in their search for food and while they look cute and cuddly, if the warning signs were anything to go by, they had a mean bite!

We rounded off the day with a visit to the market near the park exit. It’s a pity we didn’t have the Peruvian Princesses from Rio with us – they’d have had a ball with the wide selection of tops with bedazzled logos and felt fur patches in the shape of animals!

Brazil, South America

Travelogue Brazil 1: Rio de Janeiro

RIO DE JANEIRO

22-27 April 2017

We landed into a rainy Rio de Janeiro with a runway ride so long we thought we might be getting door-to-door service to our hotel!

Among the first to disembark (we were in the first cabin behind Business Class), a hot-hoofing to Passport Control had us walking straight up to the counter for a quick stamping and on to collect our luggage… which was already waiting for us on the carousel. Never have we ever!

The chap at the Info desk was very helpful and scoffed at the taxi companies heckling for our business, saying that the bus ride was only 10 minutes longer for a quarter of the fare. Obviously reading our skeptical indecision, he came out from behind the counter and chaperoned us outside to the bus stop where, as further luck would have it, the bus (actually a luxury coach) was already waiting. We welcomed the return to aircon after the handful of steps in the wall of humidity that hit as we left the airport building.

A few minutes later we were off on what turned out to be a 45 or so minute ride along the highway from the airport and then through the docklands on the coastline that winds around to our ultimate destination – Copacabana.

First impression of Rio was that was massive and had more than its fair share of grimy buildings and graffiti. Lots and lots of graffiti, everywhere. First impression of Copacabana was that it was a holidaymaker paradise; a 4km concave crescent of perfect golden sand with circular take-out shacks and cheerful cafe tables splayed periodically. You easily could get sustainably fed and watered without ever having to leave the beach. Lined with palm trees on the beach side and towering apartment and hotel blocks on the other and with hawkers peddling hats and crafty jewellery from mats on the promenade, it was not dissimilar to old world Durban.

The bus dropped us right at our door, at the Orla Copacabana at the very end of the beach, which we’d chosen for its location. With Ipanema Beach a mirrored 4km concave crescent to Copacabana’s, the 2 side-be-side formed a sort of wide “m”; our hotel was on the beachfront just off to the Copacabana side of the middle stalk, with easy access to both  beaches.

Our hotel was also nice enough. The room had space for little more than the double bed and ergonomically-shrewd en-suite… which was really all we needed. Rooftop pool and fitness centre (with sauna!) and breakfast in the dining room from 6-10 a.m.

Dying to get out to See and Do, we did the bare minimum and exchanged jeans for shorts so as to get out to make the most of the setting sun.

Passing the Copacabana Fort, we headed to Ipanema Beach and were soon on the trademark black and white zigzag pattern sidewalk that runs the length of the wide promenade.

The beach was busy; prime time with both day-timers calling it a day and night-timers coming out to play. With the searing sun starting to cool, the footvolley (hybrid of football and volleyball) players were out in full force on the permanent volleyball courts set up on the beach sand. We sat at one of the many beachside cafés and watched them play, sipping on an ice-cold Itaipava beer (while most around us were enjoying cocktails from straws extending from the inside of fresh coconuts).

Having acquired a local sim card at the airport, we used our sundowners time to start planning the next few days. In among our research, we discovered not one but two Irish pubs in the vicinity so thought it best to tick off the Guinness Index sooner rather than later.

That took us to Shenanigans (2 roads inland from the beach strip). Which had no Guinness, on tap or otherwise! We stayed for a beer (Brahma) to be polite – mostly because you have to check in, where you give your name at the door in return for a barcoded card, which is reconned when you leave to make sure you’ve paid your bill. Very clever.

On our way back towards the beach we passed a very lively local pub/restaurant/café, so decided to try our hand at local fare. First surprise was that beers are served as 600ml bottles, in a wine cooler sort of thing, with caña-style thimble glasses. The menu was quite difficult to navigate, even with the English translations, but we settled on a Bacalhau (cod) balls and a meat pie and a cheese pie to share. All to the dulcet soundtrack of about 30 locals’ ups-and-downsing to a local football game on the telly. Very festive.

With a long day of travel and our bodies thinking it was 3am, we ambled back to the hotel to get a shouldn’t-be-taken-for-granted 8 hours horizontal in an actual bed!

SUNDAY – Copacabana

We awoke to a rainy Rio. This was not on the agenda but, fortunately having checked the weather report before we left, we had our travels brollies so it wasn’t a game-ender.

On the upside, the hotel breakfast was far better than we’d anticipated so, after a leisurely multi-course of yoghurt & fruit, pancakes & bacon and cheeses, cold meats and bread, we were well fuelled to take on the miserable day.

We shimmied past the large cluster who had gathered in a forlorn group under the large awning at the hotel entrance, staring into the rain and at the sea beyond, willing the rain to stop… smug that we had packed our Baltic umbrellas and could brave the elements.

It was more of a drizzle than actual rain and it was clear that it didn’t dampen the locals’ spirit at all. Copacabana had triple car lanes in either direction with the dividing island dotted with petrol pumps. There was then also a dedicated cycle/skate/running lane that was the same width as a car lane, also with the painted line in the middle to regulate movement in either direction.  And the pavement was a good 6 or so metres wide, also with the same distinctive vibrant black and white brick pattern and Ipanema’s.

Rain or no rain, there were people walking, running, cycling and skating not only on the dedicated areas but also the car lanes closest to the beach were closed off for pedestrian use as well – possibly a Sunday measure to cope with the swells of people that must flock to the beach in good weather.

There were also swarms of people utilising the numerous beach sports setups; footvolley courts, soccer goalposts, Muscle Beach style permanent gym equipments. And we caught a parade of sorts with a singer belting out what sounded like a Portuguese version of “Heal the World” from a slow-moving stage truck, cavalcaded by hundreds of bikers. Quite a spectacle.

We ambled along the length of the beach, stopping to take pictures of some of the many fun statues, to grab refreshments and to put brollies up… and then put them away again as the drizzle stopped and started. The fanciest hotels look to be in the middle of the beach while the end of the beach, a section called Leme, appears the most modest, catering for bus loads of locals migrating for a day at the seaside. There is a walkway carved into the rock wall at the end of the beach that protrudes into the sea which homes the local fisherman.

For our walk back, we moved a block in for a difference experience.  We’d no sooner mentioned that we should look for a local soccer jersey for Christian and a pair of Havianas for me than we found a shop on the left for him and the right for me! Another block down and we realised that it was less serendipity and more that we were after local commodities, available almost literally everywhere!

There were also (more) bars and restaurants along the inner road, all quite buzzy and busy; Sunday must be a big day for socialising in Rio.

With the rain starting up again we thought, still being full from breakfast, we’d hunt down The Clover (the other Irish Pub that had come up on our search) to find the elusive Guinness to add to our Index. We found that there was an Irish Pub near to where we were looking, but called The Lucky Screw.

No Guinness on tap, but they did have cans so we ordered one anyway. When seeking a second round, the bar lady revealed she only had one can left, which we ordered anyway to share. Good thing too because when we settled the bill, we found to our horror that the Guinness was $R56 a can… ZAR266!!! …making it the most expensive Guinness we’ve had anywhere in the world – a full ZAR110 behind 2nd place, which we had had on our adventures in Copenhagen.

Reeling a bit from the shock, we moved back to the shopping street to find somewhere cheap and cheerful to numb the pain. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around, pub-hopping as we found places of interest and absorbing Rio’s famous snacking culture in some of the more “authentic” places we tried.

We’d snacked so much in fact that we’d eliminated the need for dinner, so when we’d had our fill of the nightlife, we retired to our hotel to relax, watch telly and order room service.

Not in the mood for anything fancy or too filling, we ordered from the extensive “Sanduiches” menu (a staple on all Rio menus, from what we’d seen) and I was delighted with my open steak (“contra-filé” which we surmised to be sirloin) sandwich, a lightly peppered juicy piece of medium rare steak on a bed of two slices of toast completely hidden beneath a generous layer of melted yellow cheese. We were both pleased to see a half plate of golden fries as the accompaniment as we’d noticed that in all the menus we’d seen over the course of the afternoon, chips are hellishly expensive, averaging ZAR90 a plate, which is the same – or in some cases more – than the burger / sandwich!

MONDAY  – Centro

The plan for the day was a walking tour that was to depart from Carioca Square at 10h30.

With plenty of time to get there, we decided to try public transport instead of getting a taxi. The front desk of the hotel guided us to the nearest Metro station; an easy walk down the road that ran next to the hotel and then right at the last road before Ipanema Beach, with the Metro entrance unmissably positioned next to a small park.

Getting a ticket was easy enough since the options were very limited – a single or a  reloadable card. We got a single, popped it into the turnstile, panicked when it wasn’t returned, appreciated the assuring head-nod from the security attendant, moved through the turnstile and were greeted with our train already at the platform waiting for us.

The train was packed – probably not unusual for a Monday morning – but not unpleasant. All those people but no BO and surprisingly little noise. Perhaps the locals are resigned to public transfers because it was one of the longer short journeys we’ve been on, with the train making several inexplicable stops which gained no expression from the locals so we concluded must be the norm.

We surfaced at Carioca Station onto the Square where the walking-tour guides were already waiting at the statue with the clock, exactly as expected.

We were introduced to our guide, Eden, a 25 year old Israeli girl currently living in Rio with her fiance, a Brazilian native. The first thing she explained to us was the meaning of the word Carioca which literally translates to “house of the white people”. This was so named by the indigenous Amazonian descendants for the Portuguese who moved to Rio and built white houses. But more colloquially now is used with reference to anything to do with the inhabitants of Rio  (so covers those not originally from Rio, like Eden).

She then went around the group members, asking them to introduce themselves with their name and where they were from. The girl just before us was from Cape Town; the rest a combination of European (Germany, Denmark, Switzerland), England and a lone other Southern Hemispherean from new Zealand. As we began the tour, we quickly distanced ourselves from the Capetonian after hearing her excitedly telling one of the other group members that she’d just come from Argentina and it was so different to Brazil that they were like 2 separate countries. DOH!

Eden’s narrative for the tour was one long Story of Rio, which began with the Portuguese landing at Guanabara Bay on 1 January 1502, hence the name Rio de Janeiro, meaning “River of January”. The irony of course is that there is no river, just a bay. But they weren’t to know that when they first arrived.

The story unwound the complicated tale of Johns, Pedros, Isobels and Marias and how they back and forthed from Portugal, initially settling in Salvador in the North (since it was closer by sea to Europe) but then moving down to Rio when coffee and gold were discovered.

The Portuguese royalty sounded like a high maintenance bunch. John XI packed up and left Portugal to escape Napoleon and arrived in Salvador with his 60,000 people entourage without telling anyone he was coming. The mayor was so mortified that he hadn’t prepared any welcome that he asked for 24 hours grace to throw something together… and, on deadline, kicked off a grandiose party that lasted a month!

By way of gratitude John thanked the mayor for his hospitality by packing all his people back into the ship and moving down to Rio instead. Being very early 1800s, the whole population of Rio was only about 60,000 people so it doubled overnight! No flies on the newbies, being royalty, the Prince Regent staked the Governor’s house for himself and instructed his family and friends to follow suit with whichever houses in town they’d like. These houses were simply stamped with a PR, indicating the residents were to move to make space.

His mother, Maria, refused to live in the Governor’s house, paranoid that someone there wanted to kill her, so she holed up in the Convent of Saint Carmen across the road. She earned herself quite a reputation – leaving behind her title in Portugal of “Maria the Great” and becoming “Maria the Loco” (crazy) in Rio. It is now thought that she suffered from Schizophrenia, but of course that wasn’t a thing back then so she was just garden-variety crazy.

The locals were clearly also (the other type of) mad with this influx and insult was added to injury when the royalty claimed the Church of St Carmen as their own and forbade common people from using it. No flies on the locals, they built another church right next door (literally) and called it Church of St Carmen as well.

Sounds like royalty took a turn for the better with Dom Pedro II who was lot more forward-thinking.

Having been abandoned in Brazil at the age of 5 when his father abruptly abdicated and returned to Portugal, Pedro was raised in relative isolation, being groomed to be Emperor as soon as he turned 18. Somewhat a savant and understandably eccentric all considered, he was committed to all sort of liberal ideas and in his 58 year reign pursued abolition of slavery. He showed zealous commitment to freedom of speech and pursuit of technology that saw him the owner of the first home telephone in Brazil.

In fact, anecdotally, he is credited with the phone making it into existence at all, having met Alexander Graham Bell when he exhibited his invention outside convention where it debuted; Bell hadn’t made it into the convention but Pedro saw him outside and thought it too good an idea not to have an audience so escorted Bell inside with him.

Despite his enormous popularity, Pedro was overthrown by a surprisingly watery coup d’etat that saw his Empire replaced by a dictator-headed Republic. He didn’t resist and returned to Portugal, where he lived out his last days humble and penniless.

We, in the meantime, had visited the grandiose Confeitaria Colombo bakery and sampled the famous Coxinha de Galinha (teardrop shaped croquettes stuffed with chicken) and Brigadeiro (a very very very sweet bitesize dessert ball made of chocolate and condensed milk with signature vermicelli coating). While Pereira Passos, the mayor of the city at the turn of the 20th century is credited with transforming Rio from the City of Death (because it was so grimy and dirty) into the (as it’s still known) Marvellous City in the early 1900s because of his vision and commitment to marvellous architecture (including the elegant Central Avenue shaped after the boulevards of Paris, as well as the famed State Theatre) am sure he’d have caught just as many flies with a good clean-up and some solid publicity on these marvellous Brigadeiros of theirs!

Our tour concluded with a visit to Lapa, which we were warned is even relatively unsafe by day. It is apparently just as unsavoury by night, but its popularity as a pubbing and clubbing destination earns a visible police presence which ironically makes it safer at night.

The suburb is fringed with a boundary wall of white arches which originally served as an aqueduct, until more efficient water delivery methods were introduced to the city and it was in 1896 transformed into a viaduct for a tram between Centro and the hilly suburb of St Teresa instead. It is the only tram still in operation in Rio and Eden advised us that it is disproportionately expensive (R$20 = R70) and only charges for the uphill journey, so many catch a taxi or an Uber up to St Teresa, have a lovely lunch enjoying the scenery of the cityscape and then ride the tram down for free.

The last sight of interest was Selaron Steps, 125 metres of mosaiced stairway connecting Lapa to St Teresa. Jorge Selaron, a Chilean artist, moved to Rio in 1983 into a tiny house on the then-desolate staircase. He started decorating it with tiles collected in the area and as his work gained attention, people started bringing him tiles from all over the world to include in his piece of living art.

So passionate about his renovation that it almost became all-consuming, Selaron often ran out of money and would then work on commissioned painting to raise money to return to tiling his beloved steps. He placed over 2000 tiles, mosaics and mirrors through his 20 year dedication to his love of Brazil.

Selaron was found dead on the steps in 2013 and it is still undetermined whether it was suicide – he was rumoured to have impregnated a lady who died and lost their baby – or was murdered, since he’d reported getting death threats from someone and his workshop. A sad story either way as he was legendarily friendly and jovial, with a comically large handlebar moustache and a quick smile for photos with visitors to his steps.

We ended the tour with a late lunch, where we sampled the most traditional fare on offer: Feijoada (black beans and pork with rice, kale and cassava flour) and a Moqueca (salt water fish stew in coconut milk, tomatoes, onion and garlic).

Now having a reasonable grip on the lay of the land, we jumped on a Metro back to our neck of the woods for a spot of shopping and to book our tour for the next day.

With 20 or so kilometres under our belts for the day so far, it was time to lose the shoes and socks in favour of slops for some beach time.

But there’s no rest for us it seems; we ended up carrying our slops and splashing along the shoreline all the way along Ipanema Beach to Leblon.

The beach was really busy. Besides our fellow amblers enjoying the sunset, there were several Footvolley Schools in session, as well as personal trainers getting their victims to do crunches and lunges in the soft sand.

It was quite rewarding watching the last of the day go by, from the comfort of our vantage point at one of the Krol cafés on the wavy black-and-white promenade.

TUESDAY – Sightseeing

Having lost time thanks to Sunday’s rainy day, we thought it best to can our DIY sightseeing plan and rather do a full day planned tour to ensure we got to see everything.

The minibus collected us from our hotel at 08h30. Our group consisted of a mixture of English (us and Norwegians) and Spanish (South Americans) people so our guide repeated everything in both languages. We were also accompanied by a videographer, whose job it was to create a “documentary” of our day out, as well as to take pictures of and for us (with our own cameras, when desired).

First stop was a biggie: Sugarloaf Mountain.

Rising 396m, Sugarloaf is a granite and quartz monolith on the peninsula that juts into the Atlantic at the mouth of Guanabara Bay. The name was coined by 16th Portuguese in the heyday of the sugarcane trade in Brazil because the peak resembles the shape of the conical moulds that blocks of sugar were placed in to be transported on ships.

We were issued our cablecar tickets for the 2-phase ride and ushered towards the station. Being quite early still, there were no queues and we went straight up to the first station, which is a viewing deck allowing panoramic views of the Centro, Guanabara Bay, Botafogo and Flamengo Beaches, and of course Sugarloaf Mountain itself.

Moving up to the top deck on Sugarloaf itself we were able to see the views that Sugarloaf had blocked; Copacabana and Ipanema beyond.

Fortunately the view included the local domestic airport so we were able to pass some of the half hour viewing time watching the planes manoeuvre on and off the miniature airstrip that jetted into the ocean.  Every plane looked like it wouldn’t make it; every plane did. Sounds obvious, but seeing as we’d already seen a pedestrian run over as well as a car and motorbike collision in the short time we’d been there, anything was possible with transport in Rio.

Next stop was San Sebastian Metropolitan Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro, which has capacity for 20,000 people and is one of the most recognisable Catholic monument thanks to its 75 metre high conical structure. Inaugurated in 1979, the cathedral also features the Sacred Art Museum and the Archive of the Diocesan Curia.

Not much to look at from the unadorned outside, the Cathedral is famous for its 4 roof-to-floor stained glass murals.

Our 3 Peruvian tourmates inexplicably each did a costume changes for this part of the tour, one a minor one-vest-for-another switch, another into an eye-wateringly short skortsuit and the last into hotpants so short and tight that had she been wearing an even vaguely modest top (or, heaven forbid, she might bend over), her pants would have disappeared entirely. They were having a field day with the videographer! Posing in front of the Cathedral like they were at a photoshoot for a magazine cover.

It was starting to get quite hot by this point so it was good to have them for entertainment while we waited in the shade of the bus for the rest of the group to finish doing who knows what they were still doing in the Cathedral.

Back on the bus, the next stop was the obligatory “best, most inexpensive souvenir shop” in Rio. All the same stuff at all the same prices. Every possible tacky plastic Jesus anyone might possibly need for their collection… and fridge magnets and Havianas of course.

We were amused that The Vest had bought herself a new yellow vest in the store and already changed into it.

We were even more amused when the other 2 Princesses alighted from the bus at our lunch stop in new outfits! Skortsuit was now shorts and a Brazilian flag turned into a toga top and Hotpants was now in a pelmet of a ruffle dress. Both teeter-tottered off the bus in their wedge heels towards the restaurant.

Lunch was at Caretão Churrascurria, which is a traditional barbecue restaurant that serves meat off skewers directly to you at the table, like Rodizio’s at home.

Having dropped off the half day tour people, our table had shrunk to a party of 8. Being rare meat fans, sitting at the end of the table wasn’t our smartest move, because we got the crusts of everything. But everything was searing hot and fresh off the grill so hardly a complaint when we sampled sausages, chicken, roast beef, roast pork, brisket, fillet, roast lamb etc etc… even buttery garlic bread served off the skewer! This with mountains of accompaniments (chips, croutons, onion rings, cod balls, pastels, cheese croquettes…) served to the table AND a full salad bar.

At the end of the meal, the maître d’ brought a fancy cake with a sparkler to Hotpants and everyone sang Feliz whateveritis to her. The birthday must be what the pomp and ceremony was about! (Although a little less glamorous when the sparkler was out and the waiter tucked the cake under his arm. It was a – very convincing – plastic model cake!)

After dessert, we hit the road again in our trusty minibus for our city tour, driving past some churches of note, the first university, the town hall and all 700m of the famous Sambadrome, which I hadn’t realised is an outdoor structure, assuming it to be an indoor arena. Each year all the Samba schools parade in the world-famous Rio Carnival spurred by the energy of the fans on the grandstands on either side, fuelled by Caipirinha, which they say if you have…

1, You feel happy.
2, You can dance the Samba.
3 and You start to speak Portuguese!

We stopped for a photo opp at Maracana Stadium (officially called Mario Filho, but nicknamed for the suburb in which it is located) and true as nuts Brazilian Toga tTop was now swapped for a simple white t-shirt with espadrilles in place of the wedges; Pelmet Dress was now hoisted into the waist as a flouncy top over the barely-there stonewash hotpants.

The drive took us through the Tijuca rainforest – at 32 square km contesting Joburg for the title of world’s largest urban forest – up the hill towards the world famous Christ the Redeemer statue (which we’d already begun affectionately referring to as CTR).

Built on the peak of the Corcovado Mountain in 1926, and inaugurated in 1931 to celebrate 100 years of independence, to welcome people to Rio de Janeiro. CTR is a hefty 1145 tons of concrete and soapstone standing 38m high with arms spread 28m wide. Being so tall (and wide) adds to the challenge of taking photos with the whole statue in frame, so the curators have kindly provided padded mats so you can lie down and take photos facing upward from the ground.

The Peruvian Princesses had hired one of the many private photographers and were posing like there was no tomorrow!

All in all, the full day tour was well worth the money since we would not have managed to get the far-flung sights packaged into a day so efficiently if we were relying on finding our own way. And with the distances between sights and the number of entrance tickets that were included there would likely have been little economy to be had for our troubles.

We got the bus to drop us off at the Copacabana Palace hotel which looked really fancy from the outside so we thought we’d conclude our stay with a fancy cocktail at the pool bar or something… but it was dead quiet, so we went to the beach instead and settled at a Brahma bar with a beer instead, watching all the people on the beach do their sunset things as usual.

Baltic Sea, Europe

Travelogue Baltic 3: Day at Sea

BALTIC CRUISE |  DAY AT SEA

18 June 2016

There was no chance we were going to get cabin fever on our day at sea aboard the Serenade of the Seas on our Baltic Cruise. While we only had one standing engagement (pun intended) in the acceptance we’d made to the by-invitation-only Honeymooners party, there was LOTS to do on board.

Each evening a printed notice of the next day’s arrangements – called The Cruise Compass – was delivered along with the turndown service. The sea day one was a bumper issue, with all sorts of activities arranged throughout the day covering everything from dance classes to rockwall climbing to bingo to pop quizzes to gambling lessons and an array of arty crafty things like napkin folding art and cutting and sticking things to other things. Something for everyone – and some hard to picture for anyone.

Equal parts exciting and daunting was the mealtime daily planner, which showed that everywhere was offering extended hours so our 3 favourite restaurants’ serving hours were overlapping and we could get a good feeding on our Baltic Cruise literally any time day or night! Not that we’d been starving by a long shot. We’d been very well taken care of by the Windjammer buffet dining, Reflections 3-course table-service and Park Café for the in-betweener quesadilla  / roast beef slices / chocolate chip cookies to see us to mealtimes.

The breakfast buffet was so extensive that we’d had to make some tough trade-offs. I’d even bypassed bacon in favour of gammon and declared “sausage of the day” to be turkey, which was surprisingly satisfyingly porky! We also tried American ‘biscuits and gravy’; a heavy scone with delicious creamy slightly peppery white sauce, which worked well with my hashbrowns.

Fed to bursting, we made our way to the Honeymooners party, held in the Castle & Crown pub. We hadn’t been there before and it was a whole new world to venture through the casino to find yet more entertainment awaiting us, including the cinema that flighted a new film 4 times each day.

We were welcomed, ushered to a table, offered champagne and mimosa and served canapés and chocolate strawberries. We were also given a ticket for a lucky draw. There were 11 couples in total on the guestlist, so we were left to ourselves while the last few arrived.

Aysy, the cruise activities director, did a charming welcome and “live, love and laugh” speech before unveiling a magnificent giant cream cake dedicated to all of us! The cake was delicious… but it was impossible to do justice to the wedged we were served on top of what had already been a morning of straight eating!

We didn’t win the raffle (1st prize a bottle of champagne; 2nd a hamper of branded Royal Caribbean merch), but thought that maybe our ship had come in when on our way out through the casino we spotted a pokey machine with 24 credits still on it. Two spins of the wheel and we were (back to) broke. A very good thing neither of us are gamblers because we’re clearly not naturally talented!

The next pressing item on the agenda was pool time.  It was a bit chilly at the main pool so we settled in the Solarium, a cosy indoor pool with fountains, glass roof and loungers facing inwards toward the pool and outwards against the floor-to-ceiling windows for an unfettered ocean view.

This did nothing to work up a lunch appetite so we did the responsible thing and visited the gym. Impressively decked out, it was surprisingly busy (especially since the ship was so big that it was easy to do 5,000 steps a day just moving between meals!). The gym also had a spa and sauna attached; this ship really had *everything*.

The work-out didn’t do much to create appetite, but fortunately we were driven more by taste than hunger so enjoyed a lovely pasta lunch nonetheless before progressing to bingo in the Safari Club lounge. We needn’t have rushed; we found out that bingo was $50 each when we got there, which was too rich for our blood!

In between all of this excitement, Guest Services had contacted us to say that my suitcase handle was irreparable. Hardly surprising since having the exact right handle in stock was unlikely to say the least and it was still unclear how the carpenter intended to whittle a plastic replacement. They instead gave me a whole new suitcase, which was very nice of them. Otherwise, I wasn’t quite sure how we’d get all our things from the Baltic Cruise back to Jo’burg!

We had decided to skip the Captain’s Dinner in the main dining room for the sake of avoiding having to get all dolled up, and the Windjammer having a Turkish themed evening entrenched our decision as sound. There was just enough time to grab a kebab and a curry and still get to the 7 o’clock movie at the cinema, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot with Tina Fey (who will play me in the movie of my life, but not in as serious a way as she portrayed this Kim Baker war journalist person in the film).

As ridiculous as it may sound, we went out for dessert after the movie. The intention was to go for a waffle since there was a full scale station set up with The Works. It was only when standing in the queue did the magnitude of this decision hit. There simply was no more room in the inn!

Well, there’s never NO room, so we made our own softserve cones and retreated to our lounge where room service delivered us a soothing coffee and green tea nightcap. Not very rock ‘n roll, but tomorrow was another day – and we would be spending the day in Estonia!

North America, USA

Travelogue USA 3: Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS

12-15 October 2016

Our day didn’t start out very well. We left our printed travel pack on the plane from LA, in which was all the paperwork we needed to check into our hotel, claim our prepaid excursions and, most importantly, the tickets for our Billy Idol concert that evening – the entire reason for the trip in the first place!

Fortunately the hotel accepted the digital copy of the booking form I was able to access thanks to the hotel’s free wifi. And the concierge offer to reprint the pack for us… at $5 a page!! We passed, knowing there had to be a better plan.

We checked into our room, which was a really lush suite on the 20th floor on the Carnival wing, one floor down from the Penthouse. We had a spectacular view of the popular LINQ Skywheel; a huge circular viewing ride akin to the London Eye. I’d lucked out with this bargain, cashing in on Las Vegas’s willingness to lure (potential) gamblers by subsidising their stay. I’d joined a rewards programme and taken up their “first time stay” offer and paid motel prices for Harrahs, right in the middle of the Strip! They didn’t have to know that we had less than no intention of putting a cent into a machine or on a table.

Christian nipped off to the UPS business centre in the adjacent building and again lucked out when the chap working at the store spotted the music folder on the flash drive we’d used to save the documents we needed printed.  Fortunately, some of it was to the clerk’s liking and he waived the printing fees in return for the music swap.

Meanwhile, in the room, I had found on closer inspection that the airline had ripped the zip off my suitcase. It hadn’t been noticeable until this point as it was only the outside part of the zip that was missing so my suitcase was perfectly intact for the time being, but the minute it was opened it couldn’t be closed again.

The hotel was quite helpful, providing a phone so I could call the airport and report the damage. 20 minutes later the report was logged and the best advice I could be given was to present the broken case at the Baggage Claims when we return to the airport on Saturday for them to replace it. A gamble (fitting for Las Vegas, I suppose), but the only option since the alternative given was a $75 Southwest Airlines voucher for my next flight, which was neither practical nor desirable after this poor first impression.

Determined not to let the sub-optimal start ruin our day, we hit the Strip to do something we knew we’d enjoy: have lunch.

We went across the road to Caesar’s Palace and grabbed a burger at Planet Hollywood, an offer which came with our GO Card. Cheesy as it was (the burger and the venue), it was a good spirits lifter and once done we were far more ready to face the slow amble down the south of the Strip.

Our timing was good and as we exited, we were able to catch the Bellagio Fountains show with water spurting up into the air, timed to music. Along the lines of the show they used to do at Randburg Waterfront, but obviously bigger and way more impressive.

The Strip isn’t as big as we’d imagined. Granted, everything on the Strip is outsized and larger than life – including an Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty – but the Strip itself is far more compact than we’d thought it would be.  We’d been concerned about how we’d get from our hotel in the middle of the Strip to the Mandalay Bay at the very south end of the Las Vegas Strip which is where we needed to be – at the House of Blues, hosting the Billy Idol concert – in a couple of hours time. It was undue concern; we could see the Mandalay Bay quite clearly and while a decent walk, it was walking distance nonetheless.

It’s also much easier to negotiate Las Vegas on foot than Hollywood had been, thanks to its wide pavements and smattering of skywalks and pedestrian bridges that save the endless wait for the red “don’t walk” hand to become the white (not green, like at home) “walk” man.

Of course the layout of these paths is designed to guide you smoothly into casino and malls, because Vegas is all about getting you to spend. It is unashamed that you’re faced with slot machines as soon as you walk through any doors. There were even slot machines next to the conveyor belts in the Baggage Claims at the airport, and embedded on the counters at the breakfast bar and no doubt must be some installed in toilet booths somewhere in this town.

Unfazed by the influences, we only veered off our meander once: into Miracle Mile shopping mall to book our tickets for a show for the following evening. Given a choice between all sorts of variety / comedy / hypnotist shows, we’d opted for The Mentalist, which I seemed to remember reading about somewhere when doing the research for the trip and seem to remember it being quite famous and popular. A long-running regular in Vegas.

We got to the Mandalay Bay around 6pm. There was already a short queue at the VIP entrance even though the ticket had suggested an hour before the show, which was scheduled to start at 8.

A few minutes into our wait we made our first new friend, a lady in the queue in front of us who was bouncing with excitement. She thrust her forearm at us to reveal a squiggly tattoo. Turns out the last time she attended a Billy Idol meet-and-greet she’d smuggled a marker pen in and got him to autograph her arm – when autographs are expressly forbidden – in bold letters! – on all the literature and even the tickets themselves. Apparently Billy had conceded graciously in the moment, pleased as punch with her plan. She was now returning to show him her handy work.

Clearly popular, it was only minutes later that the lady behind us sparked a conversation with us based on the “Weiner Dog” print on my holiday bag. Turns out she has a Sausage too – and of course that now meant that we were instantly bonded.

Shelley was a nurse from Cincinatti, travelling with her mom who had suggested they do a girls’ getaway trip to Vegas  together, which Shelley had initially snubbed because she’d been to Vegas with her boyfriend earlier in the year for a Billy Idol concert… and then she found out he was doing a residency with meet and greet and all of a sudden it was mum’s the word.

Shelley’s experience was a little more useful and she advised us on what to do as the door opened to get the best spots with the best views. Had it not been for her, I hardly think we would have rushed the doors and placed ourselves perfectly front and centre against the rail directly in front of the stage.

We had an hour’s wait, which always brings the battle of wills between the desire to drink beer versus the very harsh reality that beer leads to bathroom breaks… and that is as complication that front row folk want to avoid! Fortunately the decision became a much easier one after we ordered our first beer and found out they were $13 each! R200 for a single beer?! One time wonder indeed.

The price tag didn’t seem to be deterring the rest of the patrons and House of Blues was an excellent venue for a very relaxed rock concert with highly spirited fans. Small open floor (where we were) which made for a comfortable crush for an authentic concert feel. Lipped around the floor was a slightly raised platform with cocktail tables and beyond that, on an higher level, big bar counters on all sides. For the more spectator-focused, there was a U-shaped gallery upstairs with rows of cinema seating.  Possibly 1000 people in total max. Really intimate venue to contain and amplify the excitement of its inhabitants. Perfect.

The band came on stage to a roar from the fans. The lights flickered and flashed, guitars screamed and the drum beat provided the rhythm for the fans’ clapping… as Billy Idol himself hit the stage belting out “Shock to the System”.

Oh my word. Finished.

The stage was set with a big speaker in the front that Billy jumped on and off of, alternating standing directly in front of us with brief stints for the audiences on either end of the stage. All in all though we had the better part of 2 hours with Billy Freakin’ Idol about a metre away from us!

Nearing 60, he’s in perfect shape and still as trendsetting as ever, with his bleached hair, several costume changes and more than a fair share of bare-chestedness. His voice is album-perfect and his style as impassioned and captivating as any video you might have seen of his performances over the last almost 40 (!!) years.

Over the course of the concert, the band threw several collectibles into the audience. Being as strategically placed as we were, we managed to get an autographed paperplate (which was thrown like a frisbee), an autographed drumstick and a branded guitar pick! This added to the collectible poster and branded bag and Zippo lighter (odd choice) that we were given with our VIP tickets made for a quite a load of loot! And yet another bonus of being in the front? We were able to store this bag of treasure on the far side of the barrier in the passage between us and the stage, so it remained intact and safe from the enthralled masses.

And us, of course.

The set was incredible. They played all the songs we liked, none of the songs we’re less charmed with and in between Steve Stevens did some pretty impressive guitar solos, with tricks like playing the Guitar behind his head as well as using his teeth to strum the strings. He’s quite a contrast to Billy Idol. Where Billy did multiple costume changes, all perfectly tailored black pants / shirts / jackets with accents like tasteful riveted silver skulls and whatnot, Steve only had one outfit and it was a strange combo of purple stretch velvet bellbottoms, silvery sheeny shiny pointy-toed platform heeled  shoes and what can only be described as a black blouse with big gold link pattern on it. Quite comical with his skinny legs, potbelly and teased black Robert Smith hair.

When we met them afterwards (!!), we were surprised at how short they are. Looking up at the stage, even a metre away as we were, gives no perspective and the massive personalities that had rocked the stage and enthralled a theatre full of people for a couple of hours turned out to be my height (Billy) and a good few inches shorter (Steve). And, even though they were lovely and warm and polite, it made them no more human and us no less starstruck… to the point that all we managed was a garbled introduction and repeat adulation on their incredible performance. They were awesome about it, smiling and handshaking and repeating gratitude on our compliments.

Unfortunately we were not allowed to use our own cameras for photos or videos, so our fate is sealed in the agent’s hands as to which photos they send us from the few that they took for us. We also had to wait “2 to 3 days” for them to process the pics and post them for us to download. We are very unthrilled at having to wait, but I ‘spose they want flattering pics of the artists in circulation.

Hopped and high on the once-in-a-lifetime night we’d just had, we were grateful for the walk along the Strip to calm ourselves and work off the latent energy simultaneously.

We must’ve been exhausted from the excitement of the concert because it was a case of “head hits pillow; eyes open again 8 hours later”. Literally. Not a stir.

THURSDAY

We woke up with 2 hours to spare until our 11am walking tour of Downtown Las Vegas, so we decided to walk to the Circus Circus hotel further north up the Strip to catch the Big Bus to Freemont Street, Big Bus being Vegas’s equivalent of LA’s Hop On Hop Off bus (but, as we found out, not as good because there’s a live tour guide instead of a recorded one, which makes for a very uneven experience).

The Big Bus took us past the wedding chapels, including the drive-through one where Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian tied their respective 24-hour knots! We also passed Las Vegas Grammar School which is in a charming original hacienda building.  It’s hard to imagine kids having a normal childhood amongst all the smut and neon on a road that’s even described as a “Strip”!

We had little time to spare so grabbed an “authentic New York pizza slice” in lieu of breakfast and met up with Kelly from Las Vegas Walking Tours at the Plaza Hotel on the corner of Main and Freemont, built on the site where the town started as a train station in 1904.

The train station was established by a copper mining mogul, the Clark after whom Clark County is named, because of its ideal location halfway between Salt Lake and LA, to act as a refuel and service station if needed on the long journey between his source and destination points. Ironically for a town with this much history, nobody has been able to take a train to Las Vegas since 1997 since there are no passenger trains servicing the route (although there are still freight trains).

Kelly is a downtown local and very passionate about his town. He told us that the Strip isn’t actually within the Las Vegas city limits; it’s actually in Clark County.  It’s clear that there is strong sibling rivalry between downtown and the Strip – but only about 70% of people visiting Las Vegas venture to downtown, which is such a shame because it is awesome. (Although 70% of the 40 odd million people that visit Las Vegas every year is nothing to sneeze at).

It has a far more classic feel, still with the casinos and the neon, but nothing more than a few stories high with a very 50s feel. Even though Freemont Street, which runs perpendicular to the Plaza, has now been converted into a pedestrian walkway with the world’s largest video screen (12,5 million LED lights! 550,000 watts of sound!) acting as a canopy, you can still easily imagine the red and white Cadillac convertibles pulling up outside the Pioneer casino with the enormous Vegas Vic neon cowboy swinging his arm, ushering you in.

Freemont Street has had quite a colourful history (with more than its fair share of mob activity). It has undergone more facelifts than can be described without doing the walking tour, but what is fascinating is how the city has morphed and adapted to survive and how there’s always hope that the history beneath the facades of these current businesses might be revealed again when fashion turns and the layers come off again, as has happened with the Golden Gate which is restored to its original glory.

The are lots of peculiarities to get your mind around in a gambling town (that, peculiarly, doesn’t have a lottery). The no clocks and lack of natural lighting are obvious ones, but Kelly pointed out to us the lack of patios and that the hotel pools all close at 5pm… in a desert town! The point is that everything is focused on getting people to the tables and keeping them there. And anything that impedes that is curbed. The one exception is the Golden Nugget pool where they have a glass shark tank island – with 5 sharks and some other really big fish swimming around – in the middle of the pool with a supertube that runs through it! They’ve made it a commercial feature and charge $20 to use the pool – and have poker tables in the pool area.

Other than that there are slot machines literally everywhere.  Even in the grocery stores. It’s crazy.

We saw some other crazy stuff too, like Heart Attack Grill, with a massive industrial scale outside with huge neon display for everyone to see, offering that anyone who weighs over 350lb eats free. They have waitresses in nurses uniforms, serve wine in IV drip bags, have their smallest burger (the “Single Bypass”) weighing in at 3000 calories and their biggest, “Quadruple Bypass”, 2 pounds of patties with everything you can think of, tallying the burger up to 10000 calories! What do they offer as Vegetarian options? Cigarettes!

Moving to the newly uplifted East Freemont, Kelly told us the heartwarming story of how Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, decided to convert the area into a thriving tech hub. He’s bought up literally city blocks of property and created incubators and “crashpads” and invites anyone with good ideas to bring them there, where he would at the very least provide the environment and infrastructure for people to set up their start-ups but also might potentially provide funding as well. He’s put his money where his mouth is and co-owns countless businesses in East Freemont (including in Container Park, a mall he set up made of shipping containers), giving people the leg-up without which they would never be able to launch. His only conditions for partners are that they provide high speed internet and have tolerance for entrepreneurs who want to squat for hours, as Tony himself is known to do.

Needing to get off our feet for a bit we took Kelly’s advice (and the coupon he gave us) and went to 777 Pizza Lotto for a beer and a cheese slice. While the pizza and beer were both good, we were drowned out by a busker belting out the blues. Freemont Street, as much as it feels like a mall of sorts, is still a public place so there are buskers and entertainers dotting the walkway. Add that to the 3 stages with organised line-up day and night, and the ziplines shooting people up the street just below the roof, and the bar counters outside most of the casinos serving the passersby (in an attempt to lure them in) and the road is a circus!

Las Vegas apparently, according to Kelly, also invented the shrimp cocktail, so we sampled one of its finest at Du-Pars (in the Golden Gate hotel) to line the stomach for our next stop, back on the Strip at Senor Frog’s, where we had a ticket for an hour free open bar.

The paper place mat at Du-Pars was a wealth of information, reinforcing that it was actually Golden Gate in 1959 that brought shrimp cocktail to life, starting a Vegas tradition that continued to having sold 25 million of them by 1991. It also told us that the Golden Gate hotel got the first phone in Las Vegas. The phone number? “1” of course! But who was going to call them if they had the only phone?!

Clearly nourished in body and mind, we were ready to move on.

Senor Frog’s is a fun bar/restaurant in the Treasure Island hotel and casino. It’s decorated in bright colours with witticisms emblazoned on boards and signs affixed to the ceiling. The drinks menu is more extensive than the food menu (which is mostly burgers and Mexican), comprising sections like “Frozen” and “Rocks”. We started with a daiquiri and a margarita, which were served in our dedicated plastic pint cup.

Ice-cream headaches led us back to beer and we passed a relaxed hour sipping our sundowners and people-watching.

Our timing was spot-on and we were able to catch the last Big Bus to get us down to Miracle Mile in time for our show, The Mentalist.

On our way into the Mall, Christian spotted none other than Steve Stevens, heading into Lush, a Body Shop sort of store, with a lady friend.

Of course we stalked him.

We followed them in, circled the store and doubled back to where Steve and Lady were loading a little basket with their chosen bath salts and soaps. I sidled up to Lady and asked her if I could get a whiff of the soap bar she was holding. She was very pleased at my interest and told me enthusiastically that they were definitely taking it. Steve stood holding the little basket with both hands, seemingly numb to the whole experience.  I gave him a “hello” and got a little nod by return.

It was obviously quite an unremarkable exchange because The Mentalist starts his show with selecting members of the audience and providing some tidbit of info about them that nobody could know… and he picked out the chap sitting next to us AND a woman sitting directly 2 rows behind us!

There was no more time for mingling with the stars after the show because we needed to be ready for collection for the Grand Canyon trip at 6.30 am, so it was early(ish) to bed for (very) early to rise.

FRIDAY

It was a struggle to get up and out on Friday… but we did it. And were at the bus stop spot on time.

It’s a proper trek from Vegas to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We napped through the first section of the trip and woke up at the 9.30 pit stop In Kingman, a 1-horse town… and fastfood wonderland. Almost every chain was represented in a semi circle around the service station – McD’s, BK, Pizza Hut, Arby’s, Wendy’s, Denny’s, Jack in The Box. If this was the main artery into town, it was a clogged one no doubt!

BK on board, we were a bit perkier for the  next stretch of the journey, which was 2 hours and felt shorter thanks to the driver putting on a movie that displayed on the little screens suspended from the overhead storage units like they had in planes in the old days.

The tour included lunch in a town called Williams at around midday. It was a buffet of mostly Mexican food; all the ingredients to make up tacos, burritos, nachos etc.

Finally we arrived at Grand Canyon.

It was a welcome to be able to hop off the bus and stretch legs at Mather Point. Fortunately there are kilometers of walkways around the rim of the Grand Canyon, so a better place to leg stretch one could not ask for!

The views are spectacular! The mere magnitude of the mountains stretching from the rim where we were standing, rippling strata all the way to the bottom, glowing with the characteristic red.

The info boards gave us the lowdown on what we were looking at.

Although the Grand Canyon’s origin is complex and not entirely certain, the simple answer is that it’s the result of erosion; the incision of the Colorado River carving the depth of the Canyon as it cut its way through the Kaibab Plateau. Side canyons, scoured by summer thunderstorms and winter snow melt produced much of its width. Compared to the rocks exposed in its 1500m (!) walls, the excavation of the Canyon is relatively young, occurring within the last 6 million years or so.

The paths are unrestricted by boundary rails of any kind, so you’re free to move as close to the rim as you’d like. We made an effort to inch out on Mather Finger to get one of those pictures with the panorama unobscured in the background but, to be completely honest, it’s not my kind of adrenaline rush, so for the most part we kept to the path, stopping to take pictures where the view looked a bit deeper or more vast (but I anticipate all the pictures will look the same).

We had an hour at Mather Point and then moved down the rim to Angel Lodge, where we had another hour and a half. We probably didn’t need that long (you seen one rim, you seen ’em all), but it was probably to balance out the travel time; ‘spose most people aren’t keen to travel 5 hours, hop out to take a few snaps and then turn around to get back again.

We of course were quite motivated to do so since Yellowcard was playing at the Brooklyn Bowl right next door to our hotel at around 9 and we were hoping to catch them.

No dice, leaving the Canyon at 4pm and with a 40 minute dinner stop in Kingman at Carl’s Jnr (with a burger with 3 types of bacon on it!) we were only back at the Strip around 10pm.

No matter though, that was a big bucketlist tick!

North America, USA

Travelogue USA 5: Napa Valley

NAPA VALLEY

19-21 October 2016

Yet another bucketlist item on our US tour (after epic experiences in Las Vegas) was a visit to Napa Valley to do some (more) wine-tasting in this world-renowned wine-growing region.

We hadn’t pre-planned any of the transport arrangements and, after some debate, decided that a ferry/bus combo was a great way to combine form and function. This meant we only had to be at the ferry port at a very reasonable 10h40 for the hour’s commute to Villejo from where we’d catch the VINE bus for the remaining hour or so journey.

We do love a good ferry commute; old hands thanks to Shawn’s worthy induction at Gulf Harbour in Auckland earlier in the year. As per tutorial, we got ourselves a table and – thanks to having brought killer fresh turkey, gammon and mayo sarmies from a deli at the port – settled in so comfortably that we might as well have been on a fancy brunch cruise, with very pleasant landscape view unfolding as we left the city behind.

The bus-stop to catch the VINE bus to Napa was just across the road from the ferry port. On the bright side it was only $1.60 each for the entire hour-long journey. On the downside, we needed exact change because the bus drivers don’t handle cash at all. With my “spending money” (ie the coins Christian had discarded along the way) still sitting at less than a Dollar, we were lucky the  ferry ticket office was nice enough to break a ten to make up the difference.

The VINE runs a North-South route along Highway 29 all the way through the Napa Valley so you can take the same bus  (for the same fare) all the way to the end in Calistoga. It’d take a while getting there though – maybe a little over a couple of hours – with the number of stops along the way since the Napa Valley is just over 35 miles long (but only 5 miles wide and home to almost 300 wineries!).

We were very pleased when we arrived in the town of Napa. So much info available on the internet brings the FOMO that comes with making a decision among so many options. We’d considered Calistoga, St Helena and Yountville, but ended up choosing Napa simply for the authenticity that came with its name. It is a pretty little town and felt like a great decision from the moment the bus pulled in at the Soscol Transit Centre (a very unglamorous sounding name in the planning phase!!)

The short walk from bus stop to the hotel – 3 Palms Boutique Hotel and Resort – took us on the 3rd Street Bridge over the river, past the Waterfront and along Coombs to 2nd Street. No more than 10 minutes and meant we’d already walked almost the entire one end of town!

Our check-in was unusually spirited thanks to a very animated welcome by the frontdeskman, Pablo, who it turned out was equally enthusiastic about EVERYTHING. And punctuated almost every sentence with “RRRIGHT?!” so you couldn’t help but be an active participant in what was actually a dialogue, but made to feel like a conversation.

Pablo magically produced maps from drawers and brochures from racks as he spoke so we ended up with a solid pack with circles and squiggles showing where we were and where we were headed, like one of those old animated Disney cartoons where dance moves unfold as a series of dotted lines, footprints and numbers.

Conveniently, Napa town itself has its own wine route, which Pablo suggested was perfect to fill what remained of the afternoon and then we could tackle the Valley the next day.

As advised, we began by going to the Tourist Office to get “Taste: Downtown Napa Wine Tasting Card” that for $30 each allowed us access to 8 profiled tasting rooms in a walking tour around town.

Chuffed with our purchase (for both value and the clear direction it provided), we emerged from the Tourist Office into the glorious sunny afternoon – and got as far as the corner when we realised that the first tasting room was actually IN the Tourist Office! … so back in we went.

Being a big shop with lots of commemorative items on display and an equally large area dedicated to olive oil (for which the area is equally renowned apparently) info and tasting, we hadn’t even noticed the big bar along the left hand wall, which constituted Square One Tasting Bar.

The hostess was chatty and gave us a detailed account of her background (she was originally from Philadelphia, moved to Napa with her parents, returned to Phili only to find out she was pregnant, then baby-daddy came to lure her back to Napa, all spelled out in graphic detail) and some very scant, could-have-been-deduced-from-the-label info on the wine we were tasting. Between her long stories and heavy-handed pouring, we feared this was going to be a short tour!

To keep us fresh and lively, we decided to do the least practical route for the wine route, crisscrossing town rather than ordering by proximity so that we could get a bit of a walk in between each venue. While this may sound masochistic, you have to realise that 4 of the wineries were on 1st Street, 3 on Main Street and the last on the intersection of 1st and Main so we’re talking no more than a couple of hundred metres even doing the drawn out way!

The second stop, Napa General Store, was a bit more high end than the first and was also a huge long bar counter set to on side in (as the name would imply) general stuff; souvenirs, BBQ accessories, cook books, branded clothing, some go-well-with-wine foodie items etc. The lady who served us was all business so we were in and out in less than 10 minutes, even with all the swirling, holding up to the light and comparative sniffing we did of the selection she poured us.

Next was Capp Heritage which was more  relaxed. The old gent behind the bar set a more gentle pace, talking through what he was serving more than just reciting the description on the label.  In the attached lounge was a group of ladies that were making an afternoon of their tasting, so this was obviously Capp’s hosting style. He served us a variety of St Vintners wines and chatted intermittently, leaving us to enjoy the wine and our own company in between. The painting featured on the wine’s label – a blonde cowgirl – hangs on the wall in the tasting room and apparently had just been a painting the vineyard owner’s daughter liked. Since it has hung on the wall, one visitor to the tasting room has recognised the artist and another had named the lady depicted in the painting!

We then moved on to Bounty Hunter, which was our undoing. Not only did they have a menu of 21 pages of wines (and only 2 pages of food), but also a Happy Hour with 2-for-1 Guinness, which we had to buy to log on our Guinness Index.

The wine tasting rooms close anytime between 5.30 and 9 but even though there were some still open, we were done for the night.

Dinner was predetermined from our afternoon’s scouting: Filippi’s Pizza Grotto on 1st Street. The Feast offer gave us a small pizza to start with a half ‘n half lasagne / spaghetti main. Could not have asked for better!

A solid dinner and a reasonable bedtime helped return our vigour by morning for the long day ahead.

THURSDAY

We awoke the next morning with plan in hand.

Certain growing regions are certified as American Viticulture Area (referred to as AVA or “appellation”). Napa Valley is an appellation with 16 sub-appellations. Each has distinct meso- or microclimates (functions of wind, rain, temperature and time in the sun) as well as terrain factors  (hill, valley, type of soil etc) that combine to influence the grapes that are grown there. With more than a passing idea of which appellation grows what, you should be able to do food and wine pairing from the AVA details on the label.

On Pablo’s advice, we planned to do most of our tastings in St Helena, which is a flat plane cooled from Northern winds, giving a high intensity and concentration, producing Cab, Cabernet Franc, Syrah, Merlot, Zin and Chard.

We began at Beringer, on the far side of St Helena from us, figuring we’d start at the farthest and work our way back home.  Having just missed the VINE bus by 4 minutes (we didn’t have a timetable so it was just really lousy luck) and with another hour until the next, we sucked it up and caught a Lyft so we were there 20 minutes later (and $27 poorer).

The Beringer estate feels like a country club with its meticulous landscaping, restored building and shaded walkways. There are various tour and tasting options but we were neither keen to be cooped up (excuse the pun; winebarrel-makers are called “coopers”) nor spend the annual budget, so we opted for a simple 3 wine tasting, which was still a notable  $25 each! (Plus tax. This tax on top of quoted pricing had gotten quite, well, taxing and we were oddly looking forward to the transparent world of VAT!)

Our sommelier welcomed us with “The dead of winter and you’re in shorts!” We took it in the good humour it was intended and pointed out that it was already 25 degrees and forecast to reach 29, so hardly what should be described as winter. He was friendly and helpful and talked us through the “flight” (as the fancy tastings are called), not only recommending different wines for each of us so we could taste twice as many, but also adding in a bonus Merlot for the hell of it because he “had a bottle open” (a common occurrence in his industry, one would think). He also told us that one of Beringer’s claims to fame was the brilliant marketing on the part of its owner who cashed in on the end of prohibition in 1934, inviting people to come and experience the vineyards. Obviously wine isn’t made overnight, but still 4000 people turned up just to celebrate the rebirth of wine.

On the outskirts of St Helena, we just walked into town to grab some lunch. Thoroughly enjoying the abundance of Mexican food in California, Villa Corona was an obvious choice. Burritos and tacos with the complimentary chips and salsa lined the stomach quite nicely!

Following Pablo’s dance card, we walked through the other end of town to Sutter’s,  where we were delighted to find that the tasting was complimentary. Not an amazing flight though with 2 very sweet, 2 very dry, a pink and a white sparkling.  Still, no looking gift horses in mouths from our side.

Heitz Vineyard was across the road from Sutter’s… but easier said than done, remembering that this main road was a highway with steadily flowing traffic. In a game of human Frogger, we stayed on the side of the road for ages looking for a gap on both sides, before deciding to try our luck at one side then the other. Fortunately the road planners were smart enough to put a third central lane between the flowing traffic ones, which is designed for lane-crossing turners. Not sure how this strategy would be received by motorists since there is a strictly enforced (and abided by) no jay-walking policy everywhere, we were relieved it worked out well when motorists slowed down and flashed for us to cross in front of them.

Heitz was a bit snooty and since the hosts were too busy with their current patrons to even acknowledge us, we took some pics of their pretty vineyards and didn’t spend a cent on their experience.

Right next door was V. Sattui, a bigger, more commercial vineyard that Pablo had described as “The Disneyland of Napa”. Only selling its wines on site and having been nominated best vineyard in the valley for 4 years running (at various prestigious wine competitions in America), it does a roaring tasting and sales trade.

Being known for its outdoor acreage, we decided to forego the tasting and buy a bottle to enjoy at leisure in the shaded picnic area, overlooking Vittorio’s Vineyard, named for the founder who established its more than 125 year-old-tradition of producing excellent wines. This was a popular choice with most tables having secured for themselves a picnic mix-and-matched from the charcuterie, Italian deli and Marketplace inside the winery. With a generous selection of breads and over 200 varietals of cheese to choose from, no 2 tables were eating the same thing. Even though we’d had lunch, we sampled what was on offer as we walked through the Marketplace and it was all exceptional.

The VINE bus stop being outside V. Sattui’s was as good a reason as any to return homeside – and get a gander at what the towns of Rutherford, Oakhill and Yountville offered en route.

Our welcome home was a flight at Stonehedge because it closed earliest.  The lady was a bit curt and the store a bit short on atmosphere, so it was a quick one.

We had better luck at Wines By Mark Herold, which appealed to Christian from the outset with a “Hippies use the back entrance” sign on the door. It was a far vibier store, so we not only completed the flight but also got a glass of our favourite while we mingled with another group of tasters and chatted with the hosts.

Somewhere along the way we realised that Bounty Hunter hadn’t clipped our tasting card the previous evening, which was too good an opportunity to pass up redoing since they had such a wide selection… and it was Happy Hour. Their faux pas paid off for them though because (free) wine-tasting turned into Guinness… and turned into dinner when I saw in real life signature dish: a full beer can roast chicken.

We’ve seen it done at home on Webers, but this was a beauty. A big bird, perfectly roasted with golden crispy skin and served still perched on its beer can, the beer from which had made the chicken tender beyond description.  We sided with mac ‘n cheese, bacon beans and crisps. So so good. The poor lady next to us looked at our feast and then her hummus and low cal, low carb, low taste dunky things and her face dropped.  No mind, we’d walked town flat – which got the same jaw-drop expression when we told people so obviously isn’t commonplace – and machines must be fed!

FRIDAY

We had less of an excuse with our final morning’s mammoth Subway brunch… but we needed somewhere to put the (quite modest) leftover chicken and a mixed pork sandwich seemed like a brilliant place!

Soon we were checked out, on the bus and headed for El Cerrito to catch the train to San Francisco International Airport, where we would be welcomed by the Emirates Lounge as part of our new Skywards Gold benefits, so could freshen up and chingching with a spot of champers to celebrate another epic holiday well done.