Category Beer, Wine and Alcohol

Europe 2022 – Innsbruck, Part One

June 23 – 24 Knowing we had a long day on the train ahead of us with multiple stops, we left the apartment early enough to grab a bite to eat at Café New York near the train station.  Being familiar with the town now, we opted to walk to the café instead of taking […]

Europe 2022 – Lucca, Part Five

June 20 – 22 As we resume our time in Pisa, we left the Baptistry and walked across the property to the two long buildings known as the Camposanto Monumentale or Monumental Cemetery.  This walled cemetery is said to have been built around a shipload of sacred soil from Calvary, brought back to Pisa from […]

Europe 2022 – Lucca, Part Three

June 20 – 22 After relaxing at the apartment for a while, we walked the couple of blocks it took us to arrive at Trattoria Da Giulio Surl, where we had made our reservations the day before.  The restaurant abuts the outer wall of Lucca and most of the seating is outside.  We arrived just […]

Europe 2022 – Lucca, Part Two

June 20 – 22 After breakfast the next day we set out to discover all we could about this charming walled Tuscan city of 89,000, with a provincial population of 384,000.  Lucca is known as one of the Italian’s “Città d’arte” (Arts town), thanks to its intact Renaissance-era city walls and its very well-preserved historic […]

Europe 2022 – Lucca, Part One

June 20 – 22 Today would be a long and somewhat complicated day of travel, with three stops, Nice to Ventimiglia, then to Genoa, then to La Spezia Centrale, connecting to Viareggio and finally landing in Lucca.  We chose this route primarily because it didn’t require any seat reservations and wasn’t any shorter a trip […]

Europe 2022 – Nice – Re-Posted

June 18 – 19 Happy New Year to all. I inadvertently posted this last Monday, a full week ahead of schedule so am pushing it today per my usual time table, that is one post a week until we do so much traveling that I’ll need to start posting more than once per week. So […]

Europe 2022 – Montpellier, Part Two

June 15 – 17 We left Montpellier’s train station, bags in tow, and made our way through a construction zone to the tram station at Opera Comedie, the town’s main square.  Picking up a book of 10 rides for 10-euros ($10.49) we boarded the tram for the ride to Francois’ condo.  Once there, we settled […]

Europe 2022 – Bordeaux

Blog Post 12-11-22 June 14 Breakfast the next morning was as good as we anticipated with fresh baguettes and croissants upon which to spread different flavors of that house made jam, fresh goat cheese, local pork Rillettes, fruit salad, yogurts and more.  As we were beginning to come to appreciate, it was well worth the […]

Europe 2022 – Loire Valley, Part Six

June 9 – 14 As Joanna needed to leave early the next morning to catch the one bus that would take her to the town where she could get on the train to our final stop in Chinon, I enjoyed the breakfast at the hotel for a reasonable 10-Euros.  When I first arrived downstairs, it […]

Europe 2022 – Loire Valley, Part Five

June 9 – 14 At 34 miles and about 600 feet of climbing, this would be the longest day of the three of riding.  Our destination would be the small town of Villandry, chosen simply because the distance was just about right for the day and there is a chateau there that Joanna could visit.  […]