Travel & Leisure – Robust Retirement ®

Scandinavia Trip Mixed Cities & Scenic Fjords

My wife and I traveled to Scandinavia in late August 2019. The trip combined visits to Copenhagen, Oslo, Bergen and Norwegian fjords. We flew direct from Washington, Dulles to Copenhagen, where we spend five days. We took an overnight ferry from Copenhagen to Oslo, where we spent four days. We used trains and ferries to visit Sognefjord and Naeroyfjord, spending one night in Flam and one night in Balestrand. We then took a ferry from Balestrand to Bergen, where we spent one day and two nights before connecting with a flight in Copenhagen back to DC.

We were very impressed with Scandinavia. Clean, well planned cities with less income stratification and homelessness than you find in the U.S. The fjords are very picturesque and easy to visit with the Norway in a Nutshell route. Temperatures ranged from the mid-50s to low 70s, with very little rain, less than typical for late summer. It was already past the solstice but it was still light until after 9 pm in late August.

Like a number of our recent trips, we had our travel agent work with a local tour company to plan a trip just for us, with tour guides and outings scheduled throughout the trip but also free time for us to do as we liked on our own schedule. We stayed at very good hotels and enjoyed some excellent meals.

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is a city of 600,000, where a third of the residents reportedly bike to work. Flat terrain, abundant dedicated bike lanes and bikes everywhere make that figure believable. The city is located on a body of water connecting the North and Baltic Seas, covers several islands and has a number of canals. It is connected to Sweden by a bridge/tunnel and, together with Malmo, Sweden across the bridge, is part of the largest metropolitan region in Scandinavia – the Oresund.

We arrived in Copenhagen on Monday morning, August 19, 2019 and had a boat tour of the city on our first day, which is an easy and pleasant way to get an overview of the City. A number of castles and important institutions, such as the opera house and national theatre, are located on the water.

On our first full day in Copenhagen we took a guided walking tour that brought us to a number of historic sites. Our hotel, the Skt Petri (Saint Peter) was centrally located in the historic core of Copenhagen, convenient to pedestrian shopping streets, a transit hub and many historic sites.

Our Copenhagen Guide in front of National Museum

On our second full day in Denmark we met a guide/driver to take us to the Fredensborg Castle, the largest Renaissance residence in Scandinavia when it was built, and the Louisiana Art Museum, which are both located north of Copenhagen. Fredensborg is impressive, despite having been sacked on at least one occasion, and has very attractive grounds. The private Louisiana Museum has a great setting overlooking the straight to Sweden and a large permanent collection and interesting temporary exhibits of modern art.

Calder sculpture at Louisiana Museum with Sweden in backgound

For our remaining time in Copenhagen we were on our own, equipped by our tour company with the Copenhagen Card that provides free train and transit travel and free admission to most attractions. Over our remaining three days we visited the Great Synagogue, the Jewish Museum designed by Daniel Lebeskind, took a day trip to Roskilde to see the Viking Ship Museum and Roskilde Cathedral, and explored the city, its parks and museums.

We enjoyed both the upscale and everyday food scene in Copenhagen with some of our favorites being Restaurant Barr by the famous Noma operators, Kodbyens Fiskebar in the now trendy meatpacking district and the modest Cafe Halvvejen located near our hotel.

Oslo

We were unable to book one of the large staterooms on the overnight DFDS ferry from Copenhagen to Oslo but our cabin had two lower berths with a window and we managed to fit in us and our luggage. Our Oslo city tour guide met us at the pier, helped us get a cab to our hotel and waited while we checked in and freshened up before beginning our tour. Because we arrived in Oslo Sunday morning, the city was quiet and some attractions were closed. Rather than take us to some of the major museums and tourist sites, our guide showed us parts of the city we might not have seen on our own including the increasingly trendy Gruner Lokka neighborhood. She also showed us a nice sweater shop, one of the few stores open Sunday.

Aker Brygge waterfront with new modern art museum, apartments, offices and hotels

Our hotel in Oslo was the Continental, was very nice and in a great location near City Hall, the National Theatre, Royal Palace, a major transit up and Aker Brygge, a portion of the harbor with many restaurants and tour boat docks. The tour company provided us with an Oslo pass providing free transit access and admission to many museums and tourist sites. We also discovered that the Apple Maps App connects to the City’s transit system and provides information on which bus, tram and metro routes to take to reach specific locations including arrival times for metro trains and trams. This makes using the transit system in Oslo a breeze.

We planned our touring in Oslo around museum schedules, since some are closed on Monday. We visited the Holocaust Center and Norwegian Folk Museum, Munch Museum, Botanical Garden and City Hall, Vigeland Park and Museum and explored parts of downtown and the waterfront. Oslo is hillier than Copenhagen so using transit is easier than walking or biking.

Out tour guide directed us to some traditional Norwegian restaurants in Oslo. The Stortorvets Gjaestgiveri near the Catholic Cathedral had good food and is in an historic building with an interior courtyard.

The Fjords

Norway in Nutshell is a group of rail and ferry connections that allow visits to Sognefjord and other fjords ranging from a day trip to multi-day stays out of Bergen or Oslo. We opted for a train from Oslo to Myrdal for a connection to the Flamsbana train that descends steeply into the Sognefjord at Flam, a private boat tour of Sognefjord and Naeroyfjord out of Flam, a ferry from Flam to Balestrand and a ferry from Balestrand to Bergen. We stayed one night in Flam at the Fretheim Hotel and one night in Balestrand at the Kviknes Hotel. This allowed us time for a more extensive exploration of the fjords via our boat tour and multiple ferry trips and a chance to explore both Flam and Balestrand to get a feel for village life on the fjords. The Fretheim and Kviknes are both interesting old hotels but truthfully there is little to see or do in Flam and Balestrand other than look at the fjord.

Kjosfossen Waterfall on Flambana train route

Sognefjord from Kviknes Hotel, Balestrand

Bergen

Bergen has less than half the population of Copenhagen and Oslo and is located on steep slopes on a North Sea fjord with water on three sides. It has been an important trading center since the 15th century when it was part of the Germanic Hanseatic League and has some remaining buildings dating from this period. Due to its location near the north sea and the surrounding mountains it gets the most rain of any city we visited on we experienced everything from heavy showers to bright sunshine during our one full day in the city.

In Bergen we stayed at the Opus XVI hotel, which is in an attractive former bank building close to the harbor. The hotel was redeveloped by the family of composer Edvard Greig.

Hanseatic Warehouses Converted To Shops & Restaurants, Bergen

Skin Fried Mountain Trout at Bryggeloftet & Stuene

Customized Tour of Northern Italy Was Great Experience

My wife and I spent nearly three weeks touring northern Italy in September and early October 2018. As was the case with several of our recent vacations, we used a travel agent working with a in-country tour operator to design a customized tour for the two of us rather than joining a group. The Italian tour operator we worked with was Olive Tree Escapes, which has an office in Chicago.

This was our third trip to Italy and was designed to allow us to see parts of the county we had not visited before, see great art and have some time to relax and immerse ourselves in Italian culture. We visited Venice, Bologna which we used as a base for a number of day trips, Lake Como and Milan. Our day trips from Bologna included Ravenna, Florence, Ferrara and the Emilia Romagna countryside.

Logistics

We flew direct from Philadelphia to Venice on American Airlines and returned from Venice to Philadelphia on another direct flight. If we had returned from Milan, we would have had to take a connecting flight to reach Philadelphia. For travel between major cities in Italy we used the excellent high speed rail service, the Frecciarossa, that travels up to 185 miles per hour with a much smoother ride than Acela service in the U.S. For shorter day-trips out of Bologna we used slower but still comfortable and efficient regional train service. It is possible to reserve trains and get tickets from the U.S. over the Internet. We used the national rail service, Trenitalia. A private rail company, .Italio, now offers competitive and sometimes lower priced service on some routes and it may be worth checking on this option. Our tour company arranged for transfers to and from the airport and the major inter-city train stations in cities we visited.

Venice

There are no cars, buses or taxis in the central parts of Venice. Getting from Venice’s Marco Polo airport to the old city included a car service from the airport terminal to a water taxi and porter, a water taxi ride up the Grand Canal to a dock near our hotel and a walk from the dock to our hotel with our porter. We stayed at the Londra Palace located on the waterfront promenade facing the Canale di San Marco, a few blocks from Piazza San Marco, the center of Venice. This is an ideal location, close to the main tourist sites with canal views and vaparetto (Venice’s water bus) docks located just across from the front of the hotel. Even though we booked well in advance we were unable to get a deluxe room with a canal view but our room was comfortable, big enough for two and well appointed. Our room came with complementary breakfast served on the first floor with the option of eating outside facing the canal. Service at the Londra Palace was excellent and we would definitely recommend the hotel.

On the day we arrived in Venice we walked through Piazza San Marco and explored parts of central Venice on foot, visiting Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari Church, which feature altarpieces and artwork by Titian, Bellini and Tiziano. Our first full day in the city we toured the Basilica San Marco and the Doge’s Palace, for which a guide that can help you avoid the long lines is a worthwhile investment. Other highlights of our visit to Venice included a guided tour of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection of modern art, touring the Academia museum, a visit to the Jewish ghetto where we toured several synagogues and visiting a European Crafts Fair at San Giorgio Maggiore. Our tour company arranged a gondola ride for us one evening in Venice, which was very short and a bit of a disappointment. If I was doing it again, I would find and negotiate my own gondola ride. We ate well in Venice but favored small, local restaurants recommended by our guides or hotel. We did splurge on aperitifs at the Caffe Florian on Piazza San Marco.

Bologna

We picked Bologna, which is much less of a tourist destination than Venice, Florence or Milan more for its location as a base from which to explore Ravenna and Florence than for any other reason. But we found Bologna to be a delightful city featuring great food, the oldest university in Europe, attractive streets with covered arcades and good shopping options. We stayed for a week in an apartment in Bologna located mid-way between the train station and the main square just off Via dell’ Indipendenza. We took a walking food tour in Bologna with stops at a chocolate shop, charcuterie, pasta restaurant, bakery and gelateria, which were all great. We also did a food tour of the Emiglia Romagna countryside to see Parmigiano Reggiano, Balsamic Vinegar and Parma Ham being made, with a stop for lunch at a vineyard restaurant. When planning the trip we thought two food tours were excessive but we very much enjoyed them both. We also explored the center of Bologna including historic buildings of the University of Bologna, founded in 1088.

One of the nice things about staying in an apartment versus a hotel, in addition to having a washer and dryer, is the ability to have meals on your own. The owner of the apartment we rented directed us to groceries and salumerias. We ate simple breakfasts of yogurt and coffee and had two dinners in, one of fresh pasta with pesto and salad and one of cheese, charcuterie and bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Restaurant near our apartment in Bologna

Florence

We took a day trip from Bologna to Florence, only 35 minutes by train, to visit the Uffizi Gallery, the Bargello and Pitti Palace. We had spent time in Florence on a previous trip to Italy, so it was an easy choice for us to focus on the art rather than exploring the City. It is essential to make reservations in advance to tour the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace and at the Uffizi you will still wait in a long line to enter near when your timed-ticket indicates. The Uffizi is one of the world’s great museums and it is well worth putting up with the large crowds to see its collection. In Florence, we had cappuccino and breakfast at an outdoor cafe, a nice lunch in wine bar overlooking the Arno River but ended up having dinner in the train station because our train back to Bologna was 90 minutes late. Due to a problem with the tracks north of Rome, all of the trains running south to north were delayed.

Ravenna

Ravenna dates to the 2nd century BC, when the Romans colonized the Po River Valley. It served as a major port and naval station for Caesar Augustus, was the capital of the western Roman empire and the capital for barbarian kings Odoacer and Theodoric. The magnificent mosaics found in Ravenna today combine Byzantine, Arian and Roman Christian influences.

Ravenna is a flat, compact and very walkable city and we toured the city and a number of its churches with a private guide. It was a highlight of our trip and a place you could spend more than a day. Ravenna was a high priority for my wife, who is an art museum docent, but both of us really enjoyed the mosaics and the city.

Ferrara

Ferrara is only 20 – 30 minutes from Bologna by trains and was recommended to us as a pleasant city with a strong Jewish heritage. The city seemed pleasant enough and has a very interesting castle but all of the Jewish sites were closed for renovation when we visited and we we were a bit disappointed. We did not have a guide in Ferrara, which may have also caused us to miss some things.

Lake Como

Lake Como is simply gorgeous. We stayed in Varenna on the eastern shore of the lake, which is only a little more than an hour’s very scenic drive from Milan’s central station. We chose Varenna because Rick Steves recommends it as a base and were very pleased with our choice. We stayed at the delightful Villa Cipressi hotel, which is right on the lake, features it own botanical gardens and is only a short walk to the main square.

While on Lake Como, we took our own private boat tour of the Lake that included stops at Bellagio and Villa del Balbianello and cruising past a number of towns and villa’s including George Clooney’s. We also spent a day exploring Varenna and one day lounging on the grounds of our hotel and the Villa Monastero, which is right next door. We had meals at restaurants overlook the main square with its historic churches or overlooking the lake.

Sunset over Lake Como from our hotel window

Milan

We really had only one reason to visit Milan – to see Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper. This requires advance booking and usually booking with a guided group. Seeing the Last Supper was a great experience but it is a highly regimented and short visit. At your appointed time, your guide gives you background while you wait on the plaza outside the refectory of the Santa Maria della Grazie Church, where the painting is located. You then enter an anteroom where the humidity is adjusted before you enter the room housing the painting. Each group only gets 15 minutes to view the painting and for this year preparatory sketches for the Last Supper from the collection of the British Royal Family. While the Last Supper began deteriorating from almost the moment it was completed because of the technique da Vinci chose to use, has suffered through bad and good restoration and has very muted colors today, it is still a painting of immense power and a masterful work of art.

While our focus in Milan was the Last Supper, we spent a day and a half and two nights in the City. Our hotel, the Sina Hotel de la Ville, was nondescript but pleasant and well-located. While in Milan we visited the La Scala opera house and museum on our own and did some shopping in and around the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping arcade, a 19th century high-end mall that remind us of GUM in Moscow. We also took a guided tour of Milan’s Duomo, which is a grand while lace-like Italian Gothic Cathedral.

We also ate two very good meals in Milan, one in the restaurant hotel and one in a restaurant called Restaurante Da Bruno, which is located in a brutalist Fascist-era building a couple of blocks off the main Piazza del Duomo. The waiter did not speak English so he brought out a large basket of freshly harvested porcini mushrooms to convey his recommendation and the pasta with mushrooms were great.

History, Nature, Art & Good Food In The Hudson River Valley

In the second week of July my wife and I spent 5 days on vacation in the Hudson River Valley. It is a place several friends and family members have visited and recommended and it is reachable from our home in Baltimore in a 4 – 5 hour drive. Our primary interest was in visiting Franklin Roosevelt’s home, museum and library in Hyde Park, NY near Poughkeepsie but there are a broad range of attractions and accommodations on both sides of the River between Westchester County north of New York City and Albany.

We found very attractive accommodations on the west side of the river in Milton, NY at the Buttermilk Falls Inn and Spa. The Inn is located on a 75 acre site overlooking the Hudson bisected by a stream with a small waterfall and several ponds with ducks, geese and swans. Accommodations include a main house dating to 1764 with 10 rooms and a number of houses and cottages. Breakfast is included and there is a very nice farm-to-table restaurant on (Henry’s), as well as event space, including a great outdoor wedding venue overlooking the Hudson. A farm and animals provide food for the restaurant and another diversion for guests. There is an exercise room, indoor pool and spa. We stayed in the Sage Right room in the main house, which comes with a queen bed, gas fireplace, refrigerator, patio with views of the Hudson and bath with combination whirlpool tube and shower. The room was attractively furnished with antiques but a bit cluttered with limited closet and drawer space. There was no way to control the air-conditioning temperature in the room and we ended up having to run the gas fireplace to maintain the room temperature as a reasonable level – nothing environmentally conscious in that.

We ate at Henry’s, the on-site farm to table restaurant, our first night and liked it so well that we ended up having light suppers two additional nights during our stay. Both the food and the wait staff at the restaurant were excellent and the menu offers lots of appetizer/small plate options as well as substantial entrees and different white, red and rose sangria nightly. The owners of Buttermilk Falls also own a bakery and cafe, called Frieda’s, a few miles from the Inn on Milton’s main street. It provides the baked goods for the Inn and Henry’s and also offers good breakfast, lunch and take away/picnic options.

We maintained an active but measured pace during our trip, blending visits to historic, natural, and art attractions and the Culinary Institute of America with time at the Inn for afternoon tea, reading and relaxation. We spent more than half a day on our first full day visiting Franklin Roosevelt’s home, Springwood https://www.nps.gov/hofr/index.htm, and the adjoining Presidential Library and Museum https://fdrlibrary.org. The house is large but surprisingly modest and comfortable compared to other Gilded Age mansions. The library and museum, the first Presidential library, were designed by Roosevelt himself and have excellent exhibits chronicling Roosevelt’s life as well as housing his personal study and being a repository for Presidential archives. The museum exhibits are very well designed and many are interactive.

Day two we parked on the western approach to Walkway Over The Hudson and crossed the world’s longest elevated pedestrian bridge spanning 1.28 miles over the Hudson River http://walkway.org/visit/. The bridge is a converted rail span built in the nineteenth century. The walkway is free of charge and provides great views up and down river with the east end landing in Poughkeepsie, which offers some restaurant options. You can enter and exit the walkway at-grade on both sides of the River and there are also elevator and stair options on the Poughkeepsie side but the elevator to the Poughkeepsie waterfront wasn’t working the day we visited. Information panels along the walkway acquaint visitors with the River and the history of the bridge and the area.

Mid Hudson Bridge From Walkway Over The Hudson

Day three we drove south to Storm King Art Center, a 500 acre sculpture park located in Cornwall, NY https://stormking.org/about/. Storm King offers a vast array of monumental and smaller sculpture on an attractive rolling site. We very much enjoyed and were impressed by the art but believe Storm King should offer more tram service options to help visitors get around. A tram circulates through the site but only about once an hour. We walked more than two miles and by no means saw all of the sculpture. More frequent tram circulation and shuttles between parking, dining, and shop/museum locations so you can concentrate your walking to see the art would make Storm King much more accessible to visitors. There is a bike rental option that you may want to try but we did not discover it until we were on our way back to our car. If you visit, be prepared to walk and bring water and sun protections with you.

Day four we returned to Hyde Park to tour Val-Kill https://www.nps.gov/elro/index.htm, Eleanor Roosevelt’s cottage home and we also visited Top Cottage, Franklin’s personal retreat https://www.nps.gov/hofr/planyourvisit/top-cottage.htm. The Roosevelt home, Springwood, Val-Kill and Top Cottage are all administered by the National Park Service. A visitor’s center and the Roosevelt Library and Museum adjoin Springwood but Val-Kill and Top Cottage are located on separate nearby sites. You can drive yourself or take a shuttle bus to Val-KIll from the visitors center but Top Cottage is only reachable by a strenuous 1.5 mile hike from Val-KIll or by shuttle. Val-KIll was acquired by the National Park Service at the time of the bicentennial and is dedicated to Eleanor Roosevelt personal accomplishments, not her role as First Lady. Val-KIll offers attractive grounds, a small gift shop and welcome center, an orientation film about Eleanor’s life and a tour of several rooms in Val-Kill and the adjoining Stone Cottage, which also houses some exhibits. We very much enjoyed our visit to Val-Kill but it’s offerings are much more modest than those of Springwood and the Roosevelt Library and Museum.

Top Cottage was designed by Franklin Roosevelt to be his retreat after completion of his second term and only saw limited use as he went on to serve a third and a portion of a fourth term as President. It has almost no original furnishings and the volunteer docent who we toured with had only limited information to offer on the property. Top Cottage is only open limited hours and should not be a high priority for a visit. We got there by hiking a somewhat steep and rocky trail from Val-Kill but arrived in time to catch a tour and were able to return to Val-KIll on the shuttle.

Two nights during our visit to the Hudson River Valley we dined at restaurants operated on campus by the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). Advanced reservation, best made exactly 30 days in advance, are a must and can be done on OpenTable.com. The CIA operates five restaurants, four of which are open for dinner – American Bounty with a focus on the seasons and products of the Hudson Valley, Bocuse a French restaurant named for the most famous chef in France, Paul Bocuse, Ristorante Caterina de’ Medici and Al Forno Trattoria offering authentic regional Italian cuisine and Post Road Brew House http://www.ciarestaurantgroup.com/new-york-restaurants/. We tried both American Bounty and Bocuse but preferred Bocuse, which is a bit more upscale and where we had a table next to the glass enclosed kitchen. A signature item at Bocuse is lavender ice cream made fresh at your table using liquid nitrogen to deliver hand-churned ice cream in only about five minutes.

Desserts Accompanying Ice Cream At Bocuse

There is a lot more to see and do in the Hudson River Valley including wineries, local farms, cute small towns, cruising the river and West Point but we intentionally did not try and squeeze too much in so we had time to relax and enjoy the picturesque setting as well as tour some sites.

Costa Rica – Great Vacation For Active Travelers & Retirement Option for Many

My wife and I visited Costa Rica from January 6 – 15, 2018. It is a remarkable country both politically and naturally. A stable democracy surrounded by countries that have gone through political upheaval, dictatorship and civil war, Costa Rica abolished its army in 1948 and put the money into education and healthcare. Only slightly above the equator, with long shorelines along the Caribbean and the Pacific and with diverse typography, Costa has a remarkable diversity of climates, habitats, flora and fauna, with more species of birds in this tiny country than in all of North America. After clearing much of its rainforests for grazing land and agriculture, Costa Rica began to restore it natural environment decades ago and is now a prime location for eco tourism, with much of the country designated as nature preserves.

Costa Rica also offers a very nice lifestyle and very friendly people, almost all of whom speak English. The universal phrase is “Pura Vida”, which means pure life in Spanish but is the way Ticos live. Costa Rica has been named one of the happiest countries in the world, mostly because its inhabitants don’t stress about things the way most foreigners do. Ticos have a very relaxed, simple way of life. The phrase “Pura Vida“ can be used as a response to “How are you?” but also as hello, goodbye and great.

Our goals for the trip were to experience Costa Rica’s diverse ecology and have time for rest and relaxation. We planned the trip through our travel agent, Louise Kemper of Travel Experts, who worked with local tour company, Rico Tours. Based on our travel agent’s advice, we split our roughly 10 day trip between two locations, one near the Arenal Volcano, in the north central part of Costa Rica in the rainforest, and Guanacaste on the Pacific Coast. Average temperatures in January are in mid-70s in the rainforests near Arenal, with almost daily chances for a little rain, and in the mid-80s on the Pacific coast with little chance of rain.

Logistics – We were able to fly from Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) airport directly to San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, via Southwest and returned from Liberia in the northwest of the country to BWI via Houston, TX on Southwest. Our tour company arranged private drivers and vans to get us from the San Jose airport to our resort new Arenal, Nayara Springs, from Nayara Springs to our second resort on the Pacific Coast, the J.W. Marriott Guanacaste, and from the J.W. to the airport in Liberia. The drive from San Jose to Arenal takes you over the continental divide and through cloud forests and rain forests and is quite a scenic trip.

We considered some in-country air options for the trip from Arenal to the Pacific coast but were glad we elected to use vans because a charter flight crashed in Costa Rica the week before we arrived. Costa Rican roads are a mixed bag but probably better than remembered by visitors who have been there a number of years ago. Most roads are well-paved, well maintained two lane highways and not very crowded outside population centers. We traveled on one stretch of new four-lane divided limited access highway near Liberia and hopefully there is more of this to come. Side roads, however, can be heavily pot holed and partially washed out, making for a slow and very bumpy ride. We were warned about bad roads and the need for motion sickness medicine for the car from others who had visited but only encountered relatively short stretches of really bad roads, and we survived without motion sickness medication. It might be a bit worse if you were traveling on a big bus instead of a private van that is able to maneuver around some of the pot holes.

Nayara Springs Resort – The Nayara Springs Resort is an exclusive boutique hotel with only about 60 individual villas, each featuring a large bedroom, living room, two dressing areas, a large indoor and an outdoor shower and a patio with queen size lounge, hammock and 6 ft x 10 ft private soaking pool fed from a natural hot spring. Daily laundry, twice daily maid service, a private concierge and option of breakfast in room are all included. There are three restaurants, a coffee bar, fitness center with yoga sessions daily and a spa on site, as well as additional restaurants and a wine bar on an adjoining property operated by the same company. The resort offers once daily shuttle service into La Fortuna and now offers its own private tours to nearby attractions. We found the private tours offered by the hotel to be only modestly more expensive than group tours offered by others and Nayara Springs’ tours included a wonderful picnic lunch with wine and beer. Nayara Springs is one of the nicest resorts in which we have ever stayed and the lush grounds and on-site nature trails give you the opportunity to experience Costa Rica’s beauty without even leaving the hotel.

Soaking Pool Nayara Springs Fed By Hot Spring

Arenal Volcano – We did two excursions near the Arenal Volcano, one was to the Mistico Hanging Bridges Park and the other to the lava flow from the 1969 eruption. Mistico Hanging Bridges Park offers a hike along well tended mostly-paved trails over a series of fixed and hanging bridges through the rain forest. With an attentive eye and the help of a good guide you can see an amazing diversity of plants and animals in a wonderful environment in the canopy of the rain forest. There are some steep patches on the Hanging Bridges Park trail and you have to be comfortable crossing hanging bridges, some at pretty good heights above the ground, but on the whole the hike is not too rigorous. Much better seeing animals and birds with a private guide, hopefully carrying a spotting scope, than with a group. The lava walk is interesting but with much younger (post 1969 eruption) vegetation, a less scenic natural setting and more strenuous hiking conditions.

There are a number of other areas for touring from hotels in the Arenal volcano area but we choose to avoid those with multi-hour van rides and full day itineraries so we could enjoy some R&R at our hotel. Both our hotel and our tour company, Rico Tours, offered lots of touring options that you can review before you go.

J.W. Marriott Guanacaste – The J.W. Marriott is a much larger property than Nayara Springs with good-size but traditional hotel rooms, five restaurants, an oceanfront bar and a large pool complex and beach. It is located within a large private golf and beach community know as Hacienda Pinillia on the Guanacaste peninsula south of Tamarindo. Both the community and the J.W. Marriott Resort were very nice, but not as nice as the Nayara Springs Resort in terms of accommodations, amenities or service. The large pool complex, with plentiful lounge chairs and pool side drink and food service, is the best feature of the J.W. Marriott. The biggest negative to the J.W. Marriott is that it is somewhat isolated and the road between the highway and Hacienda Pinillia is a couple of miles of potholes. We ate all our meals at the J.W. Marriott. The food was good and there was enough variety among the restaurants for our four night stay. Our room came with a buffet breakfast and our favorite restaurants were the pool and beachside Azul Grill for lunch and the Sabanero Steak House for dinner. Portions were very large and we shared entrees, salads and sandwiches for most meals.

Coast Near Tamarindo – We did two outings to coastal areas near Tamarindo and the J.W. Marriott. One was a boat tour of a mangrove forest along Estero de Playa Grande where it meets Tamarindo Bay and the other on the beach near Parque Nacional Marino Las Baulas. On the mangrove forest tour we saw a crocodile and many different birds and on the beach we saw sea turtles laying their eggs. According to guides the crocodiles do occasionally pick off surfers who chose to swim across the relatively narrow Estero de Playa Grande that separates two beaches on Tamarindo Bay despite warning signs and numerous shuttle boats. Our tours to the coast near Tamarindo were group tours with multiple-hotel pickups in small vans but featured good guides and attentive staff. We arranged these tours through Swiss Travel, which has an office at the J.W. Marriott. The walk to and from the beach at night to see the sea turtles was fairly rigorous and requires you to traverse the beach in total darkness.

Costa Rica As A Retirement Option – On many lists, Costa Rica is ranked among the top overseas locations for Americas looking for an affordable retirement location. While we did not inspect retirement housing options during our vacation in Costa Rica, I can see its appeal, particularly for those living in the West and Southwest for whom it is a relatively short trip. What makes Costa Rica stand out is its stable democracy, good healthcare system and diverse and pleasant climate. Everyone readily accepts dollars and almost everyone speaks English, making it a particularly easy place for Americans to live. Our sense is that U.S. retirees favor the Pacific coast where communities appealing to such people abound.

Portugal – Europe’s California With Castles

My wife and I spent two weeks in Portugal on a self-guided road trip for which we had https://www.toursforyou.pt/ arrange our hotels and rental car, suggest sites we might visit and arrange select guided tours, wine tastings and a boat ride along the way.

I call Portugal, Europe’s California because it is west coat, has fine beaches, great wine and food, a diversity of landscapes north to south and very mellow people, most of whom speak English. Portugal is a good deal smaller than California, only about the size of Indiana, and you can see a lot of it in a two week visit.

What, of course, differentiates Portugal from California is a rich history that goes back thousands of years with a native Celtic people who were in turn overrun by Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans and Moors. Portugal fought with Spain for many years to win and keep its independence and was, for a time, a major maritime power with colonies in South America, Africa, India and Asia. It seems as if each major city and almost every small hill town has a castle or castle ruin.

We were able to fly direct from Philadelphia to Lisbon on American. The flight is a bit shorter than most to Europe because, at Europe’s western edge, Portugal is closer to the U.S. than much of the continent. In two weeks we saw a good deal of Portugal, with the notable exception of the southern coast and resort area of the Algarve.

Our itinerary began in Lisbon(3 nights), where we picked up a car and drove southeast through Evora to an excellent hotel near Monsaraz called Sao Lourenco do Barrocal located on a large wine estate and farm that has been in the same family for over 200 years (3 nights). From Monsaraz we turned north traveling to Belmonte where we stayed at a posada hotel created from a former convent – Convento de Belmonte (2 nights). We then continued north to the Douro Valley where we stayed at the Wine House Hotel on a high-quality, small-production wine estate – Quinta da Pacheca (2 nights). From Quinta da Pacheca we drove west along the Douro River and over the mountains to Porto, where we stayed at Flores Village Hotel & Spa (2 nights) before driving south, stopping at Coimbra, and heading back to the Lisbon airport where we stayed one night at Hotel Tryp Aeroporto before catching our flight home. All of our hotels were quite good, with Sao Lourenco do Barrocal and the Wine House Hotel standing out above the rest (See Trip Advisor reviews for more details).

Portugal’s two main cities, Lisbon and Porto are both located on major rivers (the Tejo or Tagus in Lisbon and the Douro in Porto) at the point were they enter the Atlantic Ocean. Lisbon, the capital is a city of about 500,000 people in a metro area with about three million.

Lisbon is a city of hills with enough elevation changes that there are elevators and funiculars to get you from one neighborhood to another.

The center of Lisbon was destroyed by an earthquake and tidal wave in 1755 and was quickly rebuilt with new housing, shops and offices and wider boulevards. While the City center (Baixa) is attractive, the older hillside neighborhoods of Alfama and Barrio Alto retain their smaller scale buildings with whitewashed walls, orange tile roofs and narrow winding streets.

Lisbon has a cathedral, numerous churches, some good museums (notably the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum) and a wide main boulevard with upscale shopping (Avenue Liberidade) but much of its charm is found in the neighborhoods, small shops, some very good restaurants and the surrounding communities of Sintra, Estoril and Cascais, the latter both fronting the Atlantic.

Among the things we most enjoyed in Lisbon were the fanciful Pena Palace in Sintra, the coastal cities and outstanding sea bass we ate near Cabo da Rosa, Europe’s westernmost point, our evening listening to Fado (Portuguese blues) and the Gulbenkian museum. We had a car and driver to take us to Sintra and the coast and for a half day tour of Lisbon but could have used one more day in the city for sight seeing and shopping.

We had our rental car, a Vovo V40 diesel hatchback delivered to our hotel to save us having to come back to pick up our luggage after getting the car. Portugal drives on the right, using standard international road signs and Google Maps on our phone worked well. I order a GPS with the rental car because I read cell phone coverage might not be good in rural Portugal but the Garmin GPS that came with the car was useless outside major cities and cell coverage was fine everywhere. Stick with Google Maps and order enough on your international data plan to cover using your phone as a mapping tool.

Heading southwest from Lisbon we visited Evora, the largest city in the dry and hot Alentejo. We found Evora to be a bit over-hyped and the large free parking lots that reportedly ring the old city to be very poorly marked. We ended up driving into and parking in the old part of the City – just remember to pay the meter. Evora does contain some well preserved Roman features include a temple, a bath being excavated under town hall and an ancient aqueduct. The cathedral and its museum are also worth seeing.

From Evora we continued southwest past the walled town of Monsaraz to Sao Lourenco do Barrocal, an outstanding resort on a large wine estate and farm. Monsaraz is a well preserved walled town and castle with some nice shops, including a very good pottery and painting gallery called Galerie Monsaraz operated by a husband/wife team of local artists. We enjoyed our dinner at Restaurante Sabores de Monsaraz, which is a quirky locally owned restaurant where we had black pork with pearl onions and cod Bacalhau à “Sabores de Monsaraz” (see Trip Advisor for review). While the staff struggles with English and it is a small, authentic Portuguese restaurant, Sabores de Monsaraz does have a slick website on which you can make reservations.

We enjoyed the pool, cafe and restaurant at Sao Lourenco do Barrocal and took day trips to nearby sites such as Monsaraz, Villa Vicosa, where we highly recommend the Ducal Palace, and Sao Pedro do Corval where the locally made pottery is plentiful but pretty mundane.

From Sao Lourenco do Barrocal we traveled north to Belmonte, stopping along the way at Castelo de Vide. Both Castelo de Vide and Belmonte were interesting to us because of their once significant Jewish populations and the history of these communities documented in museums. The Portuguese Inquisition began in 1497, five years later than in Spain. No meaningful Jewish population remains in Castelo de Vide but it features a large former Jewish quarter and what is reported to be the oldest synagogue in Portugal, now housing a small but well done museum. Belmonte also had a large Jewish population. Its Jewish museum was being renovated when we visited in July, 2017 but had some exhibits set up in a nearby storefront. What’s remarkable about Belmonte is its community of Marrano, or secret Jews, that survived from the Inquisition to today, only emerging from secrecy in 1989 and building a modern operating synagogue. We liked our hotel in Belmonte (Convento de Belmonte) which is a wonderful renovation of an historic convent but the hotel seemed a bit understaffed (See Trip Advisor).

Heading north from Belmonte to the Douro Valley we stopped at the now abandoned walled town of Marialva, which we enjoyed but is only worth a visit if you are passing by. As you head north toward to Douro, the land becomes more mountainous and greener and the Douro Valley itself is one of the most attractive landscapes you will see anywhere.

The Douro Valley is all about wine, is the only place you can make port wine according to the EU and is the oldest officially recognized wine region, predating those in France. In the Douro we stayed at the Wine House Hotel on the Quinta de Pacheca wine estate and we highly recommend the hotel, its restaurant and the wine at Quinta de Pacheca. We also enjoyed a boat ride on the Douro by FeelDouro Yaatch Charters and a tour and tasting at Quinta do Seixo, a large commercial wine estate operated by Sandeman. We enjoyed the tour and the wine much more at Quinta da Pacheca.

We traveled from the Douro Valley to Porto by taking small winding roads along the river and over the mountains, a beautiful but somewhat harrowing ride, and the only place I thought Google Maps let us down since there were major highways options. Porto is a wonderful old city of about 215,000 (less than half the population of Lisbon) but with a metro area population of 2.4 million, which is closer to Lisbon’s size. Navigating Porto’s warren of narrow streets is a chore, so you want to get out of your car as quickly as you can. We liked our hotel in Porto, Flores Village Hotel & Spa, in part because it was on a delightful pedestrian only street very near City center. However, that meant after 10 am we had to leave our car in a nearby parking garage and transport our luggage to the hotel.

In Porto, we had a half day guided tour and also time on our own to explore the city and enjoy its character, shops and restaurants. We had two excellent meals in Porto at DPO Porto by chef Rui Paula and Cantinho do Avillez by Michelin star chef Jose Avillez. Porto, like Lisbon, is a very hilly city with some magnificent churches and vistas, particularly the view of Porto from Vila Novo de Gaia, across the Douro.

Before leaving Porto, we took a full day tour to the Minho or Costa Verde, which is the portion of the country north of Porto. This is beautiful country and we particularly enjoyed the ancient city of Guimarães, where Portugal was founded, the magnificent shrine at Bom Jesus do Monte and the city of Braga. If you get to Porto, take at least a day and explore theses areas (See photos).

We return to Lisbon via Coimbra with its university dating from 1290 and a library that looks like it belongs in a Harry Potter novel. The Hotel Tryp Aeroporto is just an airport hotel but did its job with quite good service and surprisingly good food, so I would use it if I needed a stay at the Lisbon airport.

We found Portugal to be an interesting, charming and thoroughly enjoyable vacation spot and would highly recommend it.

Machu Picchu & Peru Exceeded Expectations

It has been almost two years since I wrote about a vacation. In the interim we have traveled to the Pacific Northwest, visited Hilton Head twice and done a Midwest Road Trip that took us to Pittsburgh, Chicago, Lake Michigan, Detroit and Niagara On The Lake Ontario for the Shaw Festival. While each of these was enjoyable, none seemed novel enough for a blog post.

In February 2017, my wife and I took a 10-day guided tour of Peru. The trip was sponsored by two universities, my alma mater Johns Hopkins and North Carolina State University, and was operated by Odysseys Unlimited, well known for its small group tours featuring very good hotels and excellent guides. While the tour was limited to 24, we only had seven in our group, perhaps because others realized February is the rainy season in the Andes. The name of our trip was Treasures of Peru and you can find the detailed itinerary and hotels listed on the Odysseys Unlimited website https://odysseys-unlimited.com/tours/central-south-america/treasures-peru .

The tour covered five parts of Peru – Lima, Cusco, The Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca, along with less significant sites along the road from Cusco to the Lake. Machu Picchu is obviously the big draw and, as described below, it did not disappoint. But the beauty of the mountainous country of Peru, the colors of its abundant textiles, fruits and vegetables, its ancient art (what’s left that the Spanish did not carry off) and architecture, and the character and warmth of its people were benefits we had not expected. The photo below at La Raya Pass is the one that I believes best captured the color and physical beauty of Peru.

Peru is the third largest country in South America, with a population of 30 million, a third of whom live in Lima. The country has an amazing range of climate and topography, from coastal desert along the Pacific Coast to the high peaks and plateaus of the Andes to Amazon jungle.

The Andes are the second highest mountain range in the world behind the Himalayas, with a number of peaks ranging over 20,000 feet. Many cities and towns in Peru are at 8,000 feet above sea level or higher. The climatic and topographic diversity within Peru is great for crops and scenery but complicates packing for travel because in the summer the temperature can be in the 80s or higher in Lima and in the 40s or lower at night in the highlands with bright sun at altitude during the day. As noted above, winter in the northern hemisphere is summer in the southern hemisphere, which means warmer weather but more rain in the Andes highlands. We packed rain gear every day but were very fortunate to have only a few instances of daytime rain affecting our trip.

Reaching Peru is relatively easy from the U.S. with 6 – 6.5 hours direct flights to Lima from Miami and other southern cities. Our tour used Latam airlines, a Peruvian carrier, from our flight from Miami to Lima and for flights within Peru from Lima to Cusco and Lake Titicaca back to Lima. Latam flies modern Boeing and Airbus planes with fine service in coach but connecting to Latam in Miami requires travelers to exit the domestic airline terminals and go through security again to check in for Latam. If going to Peru again, I would consider using American Airlines, which also has multiple flights to Lima, to fly from Miami to Peru in order to eliminate one very long walk with luggage and a second security screening in the Miami airport from the trip.

Lima is a large, diverse city, with a road network and transit system that has not kept pace with the city’s growth. Lima was developed beginning in 1535 by the Spanish after their conquest of the Incas. Today, you will see a lot of gritty one and two story concrete buildings around the city along with some very attractive upscale neighborhoods (Miraflores) near the Pacific, and historic areas with attractive colonial era buildings and parks.

Lima is a great food city and has a number of historic buildings and museums worth visiting but everything takes time to get to because of the congested traffic. We particularly enjoyed the Museo Rafael Larco Herrera, which features an extensive private collection of Incan and pre-Incan art including a large ceramics collection. The museum also has lushly planted grounds, a very nice restaurant that opens the its gardens and two high quality museum shops (See photo below). We had hoped to try one of Lima’s world-class restaurants while in the City but just did not have the time or energy between our late night flight in and very early flight to Cusco on our second morning.

Cusco is a city of nearly 500,000 people that was the historic capital of the Inca Empire. It is located near the Urubamba Valley of the Andes mountain range at an elevation of 11,200 feet. To ease our acclimation to high altitude our itinerary moved us quickly through Cusco and onto the Sacred Valley formed by the Urubamba River, which is below 10,000 feet, and returned us to Cusco after our tour of the Sacred Valley and visit to Machu Picchu.

We took Acetazolamide/Diamox starting a day before we were flying to Cusco to ease our transition to high altitude and did not have any significant problems. Most hotels also offer supplemental oxygen for guests that request it, which I used one night, and coca leaves and coca tea are freely available, which is also supposed to help with altitude sickness. Coca leaves are used to make cocaine but it takes a very large quantity of the leaves to make a small amount of cocaine, so you are getting only trace amount of cocaine and mild stimulant by sucking on the leaves or drinking the tea. Our travel doctor warned of one patient who had a heart attract after drinking coca tea but most of our tour group use leaves or tea in limited quantities with no ill effect.

The historic core of Cusco (see below), which is likely where you will stay and tour in the City except while entering or exiting, is quite charming and includes colonial era scale and charm, in many cases built over earlier Inca foundations and first floor walls. Notable sights in Cusco include: the Church of Santo Domingo built on the site of the former Inca temple called Qorrikancha (Golden Courtyard), Sacsayhuaman (an immense Inca ruin of religious and military significance, and a number of churches, museums and shopping areas in the City center.

We had an excellent dinner in Cusco at restaurant called MAP, which is located in the courtyard of the Museo de Arte Precolumbina just a few blocks off the main square. A neighbor who lived in Peru for nine years recommended MAP. In Cusco we visited and had lunch with a local family and during the meal we tried guinea pig (cuy), which is consider a delicacy in the Peruvian Andes and tastes a lot luck duck.

The Sacred Valley (see below), less well known to tourist than Cusco or Machu Picchu, is very scenic and contains a number of sites including Ollantaytambo and the village of Chinchero with its women’s textile cooperatives. We particular liked our hotel create from a former monastery in Yucay, the Sonesta Posada del Inca, which has extensive gardens. We also found the textile making demonstration at one of the woman’s cooperatives in Chinchero to be both interesting and fun and a good place to buy right from the makers (See below).

Both the train and inca Trail to Machu Picchu leave from Ollantaytambo and run to Aguas Calientes at the base of Machu Picchu. Belmont operated the train we took, the same company that runs the Orient Express, and the ride on the narrow gauge railroad along the Urubamba River is very picturesque. We stayed over one night in Aguas Calientes at the Inkaterra Machu Picchu, an excellent and eco-friendly hotel. The advantage of staying over is you get two opportunities to visit Machu Picchu, one in the afternoon and one in the morning before most of the tourists arrive by train. Because the site is crowded and the weather and fog can be very different day to day, two opportunities to visit the sight are much better than a few hours one crowded afternoon.

No matter how many photos you have seen of Machu Picchu, it is much more impressive in person than in the photos. The site is reached by a 20 minute bus ride on a switchback road from Aguas Calientes or by a hiking trail up 1,600 feet from the river valley floor. Separated by surrounding peaks by steep ravines, Machu Picchu itself includes two peaks (Machu Picchu – old mountain and Huayna Picchu – young mountain and fills a saddle of land between the two. The site itself includes agricultural terraces, religious buildings, a central plaza for ceremonies and a residential portion. It is best to see it with a guide because it is something of a warren of trails and stairs and individual buildings with the site are not marked or interpreted for visitors.

After leaving Machu Picchu and doubling back to Cusco, our tour took us by bus from Cusco to Puno and Lake Titicaca. There are a number of sites along this seven hour route including: Andahuaylillas featuring a remarkable church (Inglesia de San Pedro), Raqchi featuring interesting Incan ruins, and the 14,330 feet high La Raya pass shown in the opening photo above. We saw little of Puno, or the even grittier and more congested city of Juliaca. We stayed at the very nice Hotel Liberator that sits on a peninsula jutting into Lake Titicaca and has its own boat dock. The Floating Islands of Uros are a popular stop for tourists (see below) and we also visited Isla Taquile. Lake Titicaca is interesting but less so than many other sites we visited.

Barcelona and Basque Region Vacation

My wife and I vacationed in Barcelona and the Basque region of Spain in October 2015. We had previously visited Madrid

and southern Spain but had never before been to the northern part of the country. Our itinerary took us directly to Barcelona, where we spent three days, followed by five days in San Sebastian and another two days back in Barcelona before flying home. We planned the trip and traveled on our own without any difficulty.

Logistics – If you live in Baltimore, or its northern suburbs, flying internationally from Philadelphia can be an attractive alternative. The Philadelphia airport is only 93 miles from my home in Baltimore and, while further away than either Baltimore Washington International airport (26 miles) or Dulles (65 miles), offers many more international flights than BWI and, if you time it right, is an easier drive than Dulles. It also happens to offer a direct flight to Barcelona, which Dulles did not. At the Philadelphia airport, since we don’t know the facility well, we pre-booked parking at PreFlight, which offers both indoor and outdoor parking options and quick shuttle service to the terminal.

Our hotel in Barcelona was in the city center, a 30 to 45 minute drive from the airport. For our arriving flight we pre-booked a car service online for 39 euros, which was only a bit more than the 33 – 35 euro for the taxis we used for our other trips. While many guide books recommend train travel in Spain, which is fast and efficient, a friend with relatives in San Sebastian recommended we fly from Barcelona to the Basque region, which only takes an hour and is cheaper than the train. We flew Vueling, a discount airline active in Spain, from Barcelona to San Sebastian for about $94 per person each way, paying a bit extra for preferred seating and the ability to check luggage. The plane was a modern Airbus and flights were fine. The San Sebastian airport is about half an hour from San Sebastian in Hondarribia and there are only a few flights per day. Another alternative is to fly to Bilbao, which has more flights but is about an hour drive from San Sebastian, or to fly to Biarritz in France, which is actually slightly closer to San Sebastian than Bilbao airport. On the ride from the San Sebastian airport to our hotel, the cab, which did not have a meter, over charged us by about 10 euros. The proper fare should be about 33 euros.

Barcelona – is a city of 1.7 million people, the second largest in Spain, and is the capital city of the autonomous community of Catalonia. Locals prefer to speak Catalan rather than Spanish but understand both and most also speak some English. Barcelona is a charming, very walkable city with wonderful food, shopping and architecture. The city is organized by neighborhoods, with the two most important for tourists being Barri Gotic (the old walled city or Gothic Quarter) and Eixample, the fashionable district north of Barri Gotic with amazing Art Nouveau / Modernisme architecture (as the Catalans call it). These districts are linked by Placa de Catalunya, a main square in an area with many tourist hotels. We stayed in El Born, which adjoins Barri Gotic and also has small lanes, lots of shops, restaurants and bars, the Picasso Museum and the large Citadel Park.

We felt very safe in Barcelona, even when out late on the street. The guidebooks all caution you about pickpockets in Barcelona and we did take precautions for this using money belts, anti-theft purses and bags and keeping my wallet in my front pocket with two rubber bands so it could not be easily removed. But we never saw or noticed a pickpocket incident.

We really enjoyed Barcelona. The city itself and its architecture and food are the main attractions. Most guide books suggest you start with Las Ramblas, a street with a wide pedestrian-only median that runs along the edge of Barri Gotic on the line that was the former old city wall. This walk gives you a glimpse of the people, the lower edge of Eixample if you start at Placa de Catalunya, and the Barri Gotic but is increasingly filled with chain stores and tourists so not the most interesting perspectives on the city. We much preferred strolling through the windy lanes of Barri Gotic where more local shops, restaurants and many historic sites, including the main cathedral, are located. Eixample and areas north house the Modernisme architectural gems of Barcelona, which include:

La Sagrada Familia church, which is one of the largest and most magnificent religious buildings and architectural achievements anywhere. Started in 1882, it blends some Gothic elements with the Modernisme style of Antoni Gaudi. Be sure to book timed tickets in advance and, if you can, try to come in later in the day when the sun streams through the stained glass windows (see photo). We did this by accident and were delighted we did.

Park Guell, also designed by Gaudi, which started as an exclusive residential development on a high point north of the City, and has evolved into a park featuring fanciful designs and landscaping highlighting the Modernisme style. Timed tickets purchased in advance also a must here.

Casa Mila, a Gaudi designed apartment apartment building whose interior courtyard, attic, roof and top floor apartment are open to the public while the rest of the building remains a fashionable

Barcelona residential address. You can view the exterior for free but the paid tour including the former owners apartments was well worth the price of admission for us. Timed ticked in advance essential.

Block of Discord, which features three prime examples of Modernisme architecture designed by Gaudi and two other Modernisme architects. While one of these building is open for tour, viewing the facades for free from the street is probably sufficient here, particularly if you tour Casa Mila.

We found two art museums to be really special, the Picasso Museum and the Fundacio Joan Miro. Collections in both were created with works donated by the artists and their families and both present a broad range of work from the artists student days, in some cases, to very late in life. The Picasso Museum is more centrally located in three interconnected historic buildings in El Born, just outside Barri Gotic. Advance reservations are a must for the Picasso Museum to avoid long waits and this Museum has the stronger collection of the two. We would rate it a must-see for anyone with even a mild interest in art and it explains the historic and cultural influences influencing Picasso’s various periods. The Fundacio Joan Miro is located in a modern building on Montjuic, a tall hill west of the city center. In addition to a strong Miro collection, Fundacio Joan Miro has temporary exhibits by contemporary artists. We found the audio guides temperamental and the directional signage and organization of the building a bit confusing but still well worth a visit.

We ate some great meals in Barcelona and particularly enjoyed two restaurants in El Born, near our hotel – LlAmber and SABoC.

Basque Region – The Basque region includes parts of Spain and France where the two countries meet on the Atlantic

Ocean. The Basque people have a long history, a distinct language and culture and are know for excellent cuisine. We stayed in San Sebastian, which is a very attractive modest-size waterfront resort with an charming old town. We really enjoyed San Sebastian, with walks along the beach and the two hills that frame the main beach and harbor, exploring pintxo bars in the old town and shopping. Biarritz in France offers a more upscale beachfront option and St-Jean-de-Luz in France and Hondarribia in Spain both offer smaller, more intimate places to stay and all are within an hours drive of San Sebastian.

For food in San Sebastian, we mostly relied on pintxo bars, finding the full, multi-course Spanish lunches too heavy for us. Favorite pintxo bars included La Cepa, and Taverna Gandarias. We also have a very good full lunches at Branka, which overlooks Concha Beach in San Sebastian and at Txoko in Getaria overlooking the harbor, where we had a memorable white and green asparagus salad and terrific grilled fish.

The Basque region of Spain and France offers hilly, very green scenery, like Ireland or the Pacific Northwest in the US, great beaches and wonderful food. We hired a guide and driver in San Sebastian online for visits to see the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the coastal towns of Geteria and Zumaia in Spain and the French Basque region. Our guide was very good and we we would recommend Basque Tours (info@basquetours.com). The Guggenheim museum in is an amazing architectural work that we thought worked less than ideally as a art museum but absolutely worth a visit. We also enjoyed visiting the French Basque region, which offers from dramatic scenery and charming towns. We particularly liked St-Jean-de-Luz which we visited on market day and where we shopped in small stores on a pedestrian-only street.

Galapagos

Our 2015 trip to the Galapagos was my wife’s choice. While I had an interest in the ecology and evolutionary history of the islands, my preferred vacation would have been more urban and more culturally focused. But both my wife and I found the Galapagos to be a spectacular trip. Never before had we been immersed in a natural environment where the animals were so oblivious to your presence and the range of geology, plants, animals, marine life and sheer beauty of the islands were spectacular.

The Galapagos Islands are located about 1,100 kilometers/600 miles west of Ecuador and are easier to reach than most people realize. You will need to look at a map to believe this, but Ecuador on the west coast of South America is south of the U.S. east coast and in the Eastern Time Zone. The Galapagos are in the Central Time Zone. Travel time from Miami to Guayaquil, Ecuador (its largest city and a port from which many Galapagos trips depart) is about 4.5 hours and the flight time from Guayaquil to one of two spartan but relatively modern airports in the Galapagos is about 2 hours on modern 737s.

The entire Galapagos Islands group and all of the waters surrounding them are a national park and marine reserve administered by Ecuador, of which they are part. From what we could see, the park is very well managed despite pressures from a booming tourism-based economy which accommodated about 220,000 visitors in 2014. Since 1998, when Ecuador passed a constitutional amendment giving the government greater power over the Galapagos, the number of ships visiting the islands have been monitored and the visits to individual islands and islets by each ship is controlled on an hour by hour basis. This limits the number of visitors on any given island at any given time. The Park Service limits visits to certain islands, requires all visitors to stay on designated paths and requires well-trained licensed guides to accompany all visitors on land. Fishing around the islands is largely limited to what is needed to support the local population and immigration to the islands of foreigners and Ecuadorians from the mainland is controlled to prevent over-population and over-development. Several of the islands are inhabited with the largest city having a population of about 25,000.

Fees paid by tourist to visit the islands are used for research and breeding programs, to improve tourist facilities and to eradicate non-native species, such as goats and donkeys, improving prospects to unique native species to survive. Special efforts are taken to limit contamination from additional non-native species to the islands and from island to island.

There are both land-based and ship based options for seeing the Galapagos but since the land-based options require day trips by ship to see the diversity of the Islands, the ship-based options allow you to see more and seemed generally more attractive than the guest houses and hotels on shore we saw during our visit. There are a wide ranges of ships, from one’s accommodating a dozen or fewer to one’s with about 100 passengers.

We visited the Galapagos on a National Geographic tour on the Islander managed by Lindblad Expeditions, which operates ship-based tours for National Geographic. The Islander can accommodate up to 48 passengers, comes with a tour director and three guides/naturalists who lead excursions and the ships crew. It is a well-appointed ship that you can see on www.expeditions.com.

We found the Lindblad/National Geographic tour to be very well done, with comfortable accommodations, good food, excellent tour staff and crew. However, it is important to understand that this is an active tour, with twice-a-day hikes sometimes over hilly and rocky terrain, snorkeling and transfers to and from shore on zodiac boats. You don’t have to do everything and in a number of instances there were less strenuous options for those that did not want to do the full hike. But if you are not at least an active walker, you will miss much of what the tour has to offer.

One travel magazine recently indicated visiting the Galapagos is the number one bucket list trip for tourists worldwide. I would definitely have it on my bucket list and as a near-retiree when I took my trip to the Galapagos I was glad I did the trip sooner, rather than later, while you I was still able to handle the physical demands of the trip. Ages of those on our trip ranged from about 8 to 80 with most in their 50s and 60s.

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