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 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...

Again, this is in a series of travel blogs; if you read this, you may want to read the others first. Have already put up travel basics and a few days in Paris.   Religion is possibly the best and the worst of all of humanity's creations. I am sure I could do some Google research and find out when the first noted religion existed, but I am not about to do that. The first caveman that made up a story about why the sun rises and sets was probably a religion. I am sure an all-mighty god of some sort did it. In the beginning, religion was great; it still can be. It gives people a reason for why things happen, and there is mental security in that. It can be all wrong, but it still provides what people need: reason, belief, faith. It also gave meaning and support. When a Viking died, he went to Valhalla to sit with his ancestors, not just rot in the ground. There is a beauty in that. I used Vikings because that really isn't a mainstream belief anymore (except for online weirdos that ...

This is in a series of blog posts; if you haven't read the others, you might want to give them a read first. Started in Canada and have been to Paris already.                                                       Florence Villa Hotel   Before I carry on, we should get into the travel tour bus lifestyle. Not Motley Crue wasted for weeks, but first-world tourists travelling Europe on a slightly less luxurious bus. I think we had a good handle on it, so that's how I will break it down. My day typically started at 6. Again, like Paris, my wife started before that to do hair and makeup for pictures. It was 50/50 on the trip who did that. Some women, it was every day, others never, and others sometimes. I assume it was based on the day's itinerary. Anyways, she was pretty much up every day around 5. 6 is enough time for me to read...

 There is an AMAZING website called with locals. My wife looked into a bike tour through them. To be honest, I was slightly worried it wasn't going to be good. Not the tour, I was sure that would be, but the day before we got a phone call, our guide asked if we could change our 11 – 2 tour to 2 – 5 or something. We couldn't do that as that time would be right when we were to meet up with our actual tour. We told him no, and that worried me. Did we screw up his day, and he wouldn't care about giving us a good tour? I should learn to be more optimistic, I guess. We met with Claudio at 11, and he was perfectly on time, got us hooked up with everything we needed, and started the tour. Claudio was amazing! I want to thank him again and feel bad that I ever doubted. Also, I highly recommend With Locals. If they are all as good as he was, you will get a fantastic tour with someone who knows the city. Once we got on our tour bus, everywhere we stopped, we had a guided tour, and I w...