The Briar Patch

 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...

 We landed at Fiumicino "DaVinci" airport. This one was slightly more stressful, trying to find the correct baggage terminals, and unlike landing in Paris, we were not VIPs, so our baggage did not come out first; it did come out, though, and it was fine. We also had no problem finding our driver, which was more convenient than in Paris, and the driver was much better than the French driver earlier in the day. He didn't speak much English, but he was a cheerful old guy. It is only 22 km to the Hotel Midas, where we stayed, so the commute wasn't long, but this gentleman got a tip. I did not know that it was owned by the Barcelo Group, but I was not surprised. I stayed at a Barcelo in Mexico, which was rather nice. So is the Midas. We were staying there, honestly, because it was easy. Our official tour group was starting here, so when we arrived a day early, staying in the same place was much easier than changing hotels. Midas is a hotel I would recommend. No, it isn...

  The next morning started out very similar. My wife was up before me, or at least active before me. I watched music videos and news clips of the protests the day before. Again, the only news from the Americas was the Trump trial, and yes, everyone thought it made the USA look dumb. Our breakfast again was a Parisian breakfast, which I still love. Meat, cheese, fruits, and coffee. This morning was a lesson in being early. We had a tour of the Louvre that morning. Google Maps said it was a 20-minute car ride to the Louvre from the hotel. We had a cab called 45 minutes early, 5 for the cab to get there, 20 for the drive, and 20 for safety. Tours don't wait for you. To be fair, they MAY give a tiny grace period while they get organized, but they aren't about to wait too long. We got in the cab and watched the clock. A pro tip is to check drive times when you are actually going, not the night before. Rush hour is going to be a lot slower than nighttime. In the end, the 20-minute gr...

Sticking with blogs around 3000 words this one cuts off half way through the day. The full day would be too long a blog, so that one will come out next week. Or something like that, either way with these blogs sorry for some random ends. I will try to keep them fluid. My traveling companion, my wife, is much different than me when it comes to getting ready in the AM for travel. I could hop in the shower, brush my teeth, slap on pitstick and cologne. Then clothes and a ball cap and I am ready to face the world. She, on the other hand, loves to take pictures. She also wants to look her best. So, almost every day, she is in the bathroom getting ready at least an hour before me. I caved and, most days, at least combed my hair rather than a cap. Of course, once she is awake, though, I am. So that was my time to read, write, or just lay and do nothing. Well, actually, some mornings, I did yoga stretches for my back. The shitty thing was grabbing that bag before it fell really did hurt me, an...

I recently read that the average blog should be 300 - 3000 words. In fact 3000 is almost too long. On average that is a 12 minute read and people move on. Adding these words to an already too long blog. I am changing my strategy, my travel entries are going to be shorter than I wrote. Maybe more entries and a bit more frequently. I am babbling and already making it longer.... When I left off we were just in line at the Calgary airport to board our flight to Paris. Months before we flew, I was offered to upgrade our seats. We could put a bid on premium seats. I have never flown anything but economy; that is what we booked in. My wife convinced me to place a bid. I said OK but the very minimum, which was $750. Months passed, and honestly, I forgot all about it until one morning, I opened my credit card app to pay, and there was $1500 on it. We got our seats, but it was $750 / ea seat. I wasn't 100% prepared for that; this is a prime example of having extra cash when you travel! We bo...