The Briar Patch

No food or drink is as tasty as airport food and drink on the departure side of the airport.... Unless it is departing towards home, it is slightly less tasty then. Ah, ready to go again! I guess this is kind of a travel blog, but not in the series I was doing. I am almost done with that one, and soon enough, I will have all new things to write about. Doing a very similar trip to the last. A weekish on a tour and then a weekish on our own. This might be the new norm for my life. Every two-ish years, do a big trip somewhere. Hoping I got at least 30 more years, so 15 more amazing places?? I have done more looking into things this time. Last trip, I knew I wanted to see Paris, Italy, and parts of Greece, so I didn't dig too much, just let it come. Spain and Portugal, which we are doing with a tour group I don't know much about. So yes, I did some googling, and it did get me excited. Spain looks pretty damn nice. We will see Barcelona, Madrid, Toledo, and Seville. Then some time i...

 So this is another in a long line of blogs about our trip to Europe last year. It might be worth reading the others before diving into this! We had just arrived in the heart of Florence for our day there.  Our very first stop was a gold store. The owner gave us a brief history, but nothing that stuck with me, and then they let us browse the gold. There was a divide, for sure. Some of us had a quick look and knew we weren't buying. Others looked at less expensive pieces, and some looked at the top shit. The one thing that did catch my eyes was stretchy gold. You want to make a mint bring this to Canada, I only want 15% as a finders fee. It is genuine gold, but it pulls apart and comes back together tightly. Think of a woman's scrunchy, but made of gold and in bracelet form. I can see it taking off, so there you have it. I only want 15%, and if you have the funds, you can be a millionaire. In all seriousness, though, it was a lovely shop, and they do want you to buy something. ...

The Castello is at the top of a hill, and in every direction you look, there are lush green hills; it is incredible. The Castello itself does look like an old stone castle. Not a massive fortress a king might live in, but an old greyish brick building a lord might sit in overlooking his countryside. It looks like it has ramparts running around it, but I am not sure, as we never got up that high. When you come in through the iron gate, you step into a large and open courtyard. A few trees, different doors headed off in different directions, but not much else. We were greeted by the host for the evening, who told us the tale of the Pazzi, also pointing out that this courtyard is home to the only remaining legitimate Pazzi coat of arms. Then he started the tour of the Castello. One of the first rooms is the "conspiracy room," where all the planning of the failed plot was done. See my last blog for details of what I mean. The failed Pazzi plot. It is a large, drafty, old wooden r...

 So this is another entry in a long series of travel blogs. We went to Paris, then Italy and Greece. All these entries are about that. You may wanna read the others first but up to you. This one is a bit shorter, I didnt really have a good place to break things off that made sense. So I am going to wrap up Rome and get us to our hotel in Florence.                                                                    Where Caesar met his end I don't know how bus drivers manage to wedge themselves in, down by Vatican City, but they do. The lane ways are very narrow; you can tell they were made hundreds of years ago, or at least laid out before tour buses were invented. Here, we need to make things large enough for oversized trucks to maneuver; however, it does not seem that was a concern wh...

So I just went on a fantastic trip. Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, Verona, Athens, Kalambaka and Delfi. While it wasn't a life-changing trip, it was eye-opening. It is a vast world out there, and there is much more to it than we have here in North America. So I don't know how long this will be, maybe two entries. I have a bit of memories and thoughts about my trip. We in North America are not nearly as big a deal as we think. Over in Europe, unless the states are starting a war, they don't think about North America. Mostly, they are just laughing at Trump and his trial. Canada doesn't even come up. Most of us know about Rome, Paris, and Athens. All those places might know in Canada would be Toronto or Vancity. Barely anyone had even heard of Edmonton or Alberta. I didn't expect them to know much, but not even knowing of Edmonton blew my mind. So we flew to Paris. Charles De Gaulle Airport is a shit show. First, the people are rude and rush you through. As a North Am...