A Cautious Optimist

Another uneventful and pleasant trip by train.

Vienna in a day! What to do? We arrived to Vienna later than expected. So after a short time to settle in to the absolutely wonderful Hotel HENRI, and freshen up, we went in search of some much needed nourishment! Quite close to the hotel we found 7 Stern Brau which served good food, in a great  […]

Most of one day in Nuremberg was spent visiting the Nazi Rally Grounds. This is the area that was developed, largely from1933 to 1939 and where annual Nazi party rallies were held those years. The main museum and interpretive center is closed for renovations, but an interesting and informative  […]

We got an earlier start and walked a total of 17 km! We’re used to consuming coffee by the large (by Paris standards) cup - but that’s not the way here. We have found a ‘cafe long’ in one location. That was cafe Americano in a tall water glass. Yesterday we started with a tiny espresso from a little  […]

Relaxed. Sipping red. Happy. All around loud, serious, happy, chatting, quiet, reflective, beautiful, 20-somethings. Noise. Traffic. Horns. Voices. Amazing. Leaves fall on Paris streets. I am un-noticed by them. Culturally polite or generationally indifferent? Another arrives. Like them, he is  […]

We decided we’d have to wait until 8am (when the cafe opened) so that we could get our final capacinno and crema filled croissant before departing Avigliana. The car needed to be back at about 12:30 and our train departed at 1pm so an 8am departure was fine. There was a bit of fog and a good deal of  […]

This morning we set out with our host, Francesca, for what was to be a wonderful day of learning, eating and laughing! Along the way we learned about an earthquake that struck the region 5 years ago.  Some buildings sustained considerable damage.  In some cases (Francesca and Paulo’s local  […]

We are relying heavily on Google maps to get us around through the many roads in this area, and - so far - it’s doing amazingly well!  However the funniest instruction is “... then, go straight.”  There is no opportunity to go straight here for more than several meters! This picture shows the road  […]

We swam in the Mediterranean yesterday - it was a pretty warm day.  Today there was a chance of rain predicted for the area. We knew we would be driving for several hours but rain wasn’t a big deal... right? We left Menton, FR later than hoped (when driving in a different country everything  […]

If you saw this sign, you’d likely imagine that dinner was being served.  Makes sense really. We arrived in Lyon this afternoon and easily found our way to our residence for the next two days (more on that gem later). Once we got settled it was around suppertime and we were hungry.  So we  […]