Ecuador bound

After a brief three weeks back in the States the passport is back out and my bag is packed. Next destination… Ecuador and the Galapagos. Iguanas, tortoises, seals, and all of Darwin’s creatures, here I come! I am quite sad that Lonesome George is no longer alive!

Let’s be honest though, I basically unpacked and re-packed immediately in San Francisco and only spent a few days there cramming in friends, new babies, Halloween, and enough glimpses of the Golden Gate Bridge to hold me over for a little while. From there on to Minnesota and Philadelphia for more friends, kids, soon to arrive babies, and Mom time. Between trying to figure out how on earth to re-enroll for 2016 health insurance (and take advantage of this whole no income thing to get a subsidy), working on actual life plans for the start of next year (planning ahead but still with a healthy dose of procrastination), and watching the horrific events unfold in Paris and wanting nothing but love and hope to come out in the aftermath I’ve kept myself occupied for the last week. Time now for one last adventure before the end of the year.

While in San Francisco at the start of November I debated between a few different locations in which to spend Thanksgiving and these few weeks before Christmas. Warm weather was definitely driving the decision but so was cost. After a slightly more expensive October than I planned I figured I’d try and head somewhere where the dollar would go really far. With the exception of the Galapagos (the flight alone was almost as much as my US to Quito flight!) I think that three and a half weeks in Ecuador will do it. And to go with my attempted more budget friendly travels I’m going solely with my backpack. Having it with me for two months in Europe after Mont Blanc I think I grew attached to it. I figured I’d challenge myself to pack lightly and be really mobile. Let’s see how I feel about the bag in a few weeks!

The Galapagos has been on my dream destination list for a long time and one that falls into the category of ‘I need to get there before it’s ruined or doesn’t even exist anymore’. While most people plan months in advance for a trips to the islands, and pay an arm and a leg, I have no plans other than a hotel in Quito for a few days and then a flight to the Galapagos. The approach is to wing it and see what last minute boats are available for relatively cheap. After reading up a fair amount on different blogs this seems like a reasonable plan. I’ve given myself eight full days in the Galapagos and hope that’s enough to be fairly flexible on boat options. If getting on an overnight boat for three or four days doesn’t work out I’ll visit a few of the different islands on my own and take a few day trips. There’s more than enough to occupy myself with.  

After the Galapagos I have no specific destinations - there’s a lot highlighted in my Lonely Planet book from surfing the beaches of the West Coast to hiking and cloud forests in the Highlands. With two weeks I figure I can get a lot done if I so desire. So for now I’ll attempt to revive my rusty Spanish (I’ve been brushing up and practicing with the Duolingo app with hope that it will be better than earlier in the year) and see what Ecuador and it’s people have to offer.

Adios los Estados Unidos, hasta pronto!

Greek Sun & Relaxation

Greece was not part of any initial plan during this European leg, but then again I knew I had a month or so with zero plan after Iceland and Mont Blanc so anything was possible. While in London, and spending quality time in the travel bookstore, I was set to head to Turkey. I’d bought a flight from Budapest to Istanbul and was going to figure the rest out. Well, then there were bombings in the Turkish capital and additional State Department travel warnings that I thought it best to re-direct my course. However, I was still determined to find nice warm weather and beaches. Enter Greece. 

 

As it turned out the week in Greece was just what I’d wanted it to be - relaxing, a bit of sight seeing, and best of all mostly sun for shorts and flipflops rather than jackets and boots. The unfortunate piece was that my last minute changes and plans following made it so my friend Joanna couldn’t join. Next time! I also ended up with some unnecessary costs of hotel and flight changes but oh well, that’s what I get for being indecisive.

For this post I considered just using photos and letting them speak themselves but I needed something to pass some of the 10 hour plane ride from Frankfurt to San Francisco. Also, that little speck of dust in my camera (that was removed with one blow of an air can at the camera shop yesterday, ugh) has caused annoying black dots in my perfectly blue sky pictures so I'll need to do some editing outside of Google Photos for some of them. For now, please ignore and pretend it's a bird ;)

If you want only a pictorial view here are the photos: Athens, Santorini

From Budapest I flew to Athens with the plan to stay a few days to see the sights and then head to an island. Initially I was going to do three nights and two days and then head off but I decided to cut that down to two nights and a day and a half. This was more than enough to cram in many of the major sights, wander a few of the neighborhoods, and start my feasting of Greek salads, delicious meats, and cheap local wine.

I found a Greek travel website run by an American guy living in Greece so I started to do some reading and actually emailed him to get some ideas of what given my time frame might work island wise. He came back with a few suggestions and after some further research and changing my mind twice I settled on Santorini. This is definitely somewhere that I’ve always wanted to go and just had magical romantic images in my head. Given those images I’d pretty much always planned that I wouldn’t want to go by myself. I was saving the Greek islands for some far fetched future vacation. But at the end of the day after a few people were like ‘you must go to Santorini’ I decided to go for it - if I have the opportunity I might as well take it. The initial island of Kea that I was looking at would have likely been great and a short ferry ride away but oh well… Santorini was totally worth it!

Santorini is far from Athens though - it’s an 8 hour ferry ride (5 if you’re on the high speed one) - so I just sucked it up and bought a plane ticket. It worked it out such that I left at the crack of dawn on a Sunday and could get an equally early return to Athens on the Thursday in time to get my bags and re-check in for my already booked flight from Athens to Nice. Perfect, four full days to enjoy!

Let’s go back to Athens and Greece in general for a bit though. First and foremost I can see why Greece is in trouble. It just seemed to be so incredibly disorganized everywhere. I got off the plane and had planned to take the train into the center of the city to my hotel, seemed like a relatively painless two train trip and a short walk. Well, what do you know I get to the trains and they’re on strike - or at least for the few hours around when I wanted to leave the airport that section of the train was on strike. Really, jeez! So I took the bus. Dear lord, yes it was cheap at 5 EUR but it took forever and it was pretty much impossible to know where along the route we were. Luckily I figured out that I was going all the way to the end so that made things a little easier. Standing on a crowded bus with people’s massive suitcases rolling around wasn’t really my ideal afternoon. Then back at the airport when I was getting on flights and whatnot it was ridiculously chaotic. Perhaps flying RyanAir exacerbated it but it was definitely like herding animals and no such thing as a proper queue or for some just a complete disrespect for anyone who might have been in a line.

Considering the number of tourist who I imagine come through Athens each year their infrastructure seemed fairly weak. The nice thing is that you can get a single ticket for 12 EUR that lasts for four days and covers six or seven of the major sites/ancient ruins - sweet deal. But there’s not really much signage, description, or maps so I was just winging it with the map I got from the hotel. I suppose if I’d actually planned ahead on going to Greece and purchased a guidebook I might have been better off and use that to know what I was looking at. The sights were pretty awesome though and everything is very close in a condensed area so it’s super easy to pop between them.  

Lastly on my rant cash is key. Greeks can only take out 50EUR in cash at a time where as foreigners have no limits so locals are just hoarding all the cash they can. I get it and especially on smaller few euro purchases it’s expensive to deal with cards but more expensive things I was just annoyed. Many places won’t take credit card or will just tell you that their machine is broken. I also found that prices were totally variable and likely depending on who you asked you got a different answer. My taxi back to the airport at 5AM when heading to Santorini was like 10 EUR more than what I thought was the flat rate. The guy was trying to tell my why it was more and of course I didn’t understand what on earth he was saying so I just gave him the cash and got out in a huff.

Anyway, while in Athens I had a nicely situated hotel right near the Acropolis so I was right in the heart of it. I was able to easily check out a few different old neighborhoods and the key archaeological sights and the Acropolis Museum. With my 12 EUR ticket I saw:

The Acropolis (Parthenon, North and South Slope, Theater of Dionysus) 

Ancient Agora

Hadrian's Library

Kerameikos cemetery

Olympieion (temple of Zeus)

As I saw the sights I also I wandered through the nearby neighborhoods of Plaka, Monastiraki and Psiri. Lots of shops, vendors, restaurants, and bars. While the streets are quite dirty and there's a lot of graffiti and rundown buildings there's also some pretty great street art as well. Some very fun stuff to look at. 

Through the dirty and congested streets I checked out an amazing local market that should definitely not be visited by vegetarians! Along the way to the market there were loads of shops selling spices, teas, and other goods and then when you arrive at the market itself it's meat, meat, and more meat. There’s all sorts of meat, poultry, and fish for sale just hanging or sitting in the various stalls - refrigeration and whatnot somewhat questionable.

With enough ancient ruins seen and photographed Santorini was calling! As I discovered Santorini is a fairly large island with a few different towns with a variety of hotels and whatnot. I decided to stay in the town of Oia which I would soon learn was the home of picture perfect sunsets, cruise ship day excursion bus drop off, and a zillion stairs.

I’d debated whether or not to have the hotel arrange for an airport transfer and boy am I glad that I did. I would have definitely struggled to find where I was going because the town is really just stone alleyways and my hotel was down about 30 or 40 steps perched on the cliff side with no sign. Luckily the transfer also included someone to carry my bags!!

I definitely got a steal of a deal on my hotel room at Caldera Villas thanks to my last minute booking. I essentially had a massive apartment with kitchen and best of all fantastic patio looking out over the sea. It was a fabulous spot to sit any time of day. Not sure how I lucked out on the room but I was certainly happy with it. I’d usually sit for about an hour every morning on the hotel’s main patio enjoying the views and my breakfast while deciding what I might want to do for the day.

Once I’d explored a fair bit of Oia on the first day I decided that I’d venture out on the local buses to the main town of Fira and then off to beaches the following days. The buses were a hoot and the first time riding seemed to be very confusing for everyone! Once you had one ride under your belt you were a pro. They’re mostly older and well used coach buses and a guy just walks down the isle during each route to collect the fare. Every bus goes through Fira so regardless of where I wanted to go I always had to stop there and stand in the middle of the parking lot waiting to see which bus was going to your next destination. The schedule seemed to be just a guideline of when a bus might appear, I don’t think I got on one that actually left when it was apparently supposed to. But never having anywhere to be at any specific time it was never a bother.

The black sand beaches of Perissa and Kamari were quite nice and the water was nice and clear - a little chilly but felt good once you were moving around. Being that I was there at the end of the season the beaches were pretty quiet. Some of the restaurants and beach clubs were closed but plenty was open to serve my needs - a lounge chair and someone to serve me food and drinks :)

I discovered that there was a 10k coastal path connecting Fira and Oia and it went along the cliff sides with awesome views throughout. On my last day the weather wasn’t great so I figured this would be a perfect activity. I took the bus to Fira and then began to make my way back to Oia. When I’d first talked to the lovely lady at my hotel she made it seem like it was going to be really long and take like five hours. Once I’d done research on TripAdvisior and people raved about it and I realized it was only 10k I knew I had to do it - it took me about two and a half hours with a few little detours along the way. It was a perfect way to spend a few overcast hours still enjoying the views but not sweating profusely as I imagine I would have been if it was the height of summer!

The sunsets of Oia were indeed fantastic. There were loads of tour groups arriving throughout the day to Oia but usually between 5 and 6 at night was madness. The buses would arrive, the tour leaders waving their sticks or whatever item was being used to identify them, and the small alleys of the town, especially those heading towards the western edge, would be packed. I took to heading out some time shortly after six each day and either just finding a spot along the walkways or a table at a bar with a glass of wine to see what the sunset had to offer.

I was seeking relaxation, sunshine, and warm temperatures and Santorini scored on all! It was absolutely fabulous even by myself. Having now been to one Greek Island I know I need to see more - next time I hope to be able to do it from a boat and hop between them. I’d love to be able to do more swimming in the sea and finding small beaches and spots away from main towns.

I say Buda you say Pest

I'm a little behind on my tales of Budapest and it just comes down to shear laziness. I've spent the last four days in heavenly Santorini and just decided to soak it all in and not sit in front of the laptop too much. More on my Grecian detour in another post, for now Budapest.

While in London I spent quite a while wandering and reading in the amazing Stanford's Travel Bookstore. I could have been there all day but after an hour and a half I figured I'd spent enough time for one afternoon. While there I picked up pocket sized Lonely Planet books for both Prague and Budapest. These turned out to be great and best of all not bulky to be carrying around. They obviously didn't have all of the detail but enough of the major must-dos and some good other suggestions of walks and whatnot. After the few days in Prague I put that one away and moved on to Budapest. Seeing as I had done no reading up on what to do while there I figured my seven hour train ride from Prague would more than suffice.

I was originally going to spend five nights and four days in Budapest but the weather wasn't great and I was itching for some warmer temperatures. So in the end I cut it short by a day but still got to see a good amount of the city and didn't have to cram too much in each of the three days. The grey skies, patches of rain, and cool temperatures lent itself more to picking a few things to see and then enjoying some time in one of the fancy old cafes that are all over the city. Definitely some of the fanciest locations for an afternoon coffee - New York Cafe at the Boscolo Hotel and the Cafe in the Alexandra Bookshop were beautiful old spaces. The coffee is unnecessarily expensive, but you're paying for the fancy experience.

All of the photos from the three days are here.

Budapest's Castle area with Matthias church and the Fisherman's Bastion are fantastic and have great views looking across the river from the Buda side to Pest and the massive Parliament building that sits just across. The detail and paintings on the inside of St Matthias church, and numerous others, was beautiful. Floor to ceiling there was something to look at and admire.

The Old Synagogue in the Jewish quarter is stunning. I think I went in more synagogues over the week between Budapest and Prague than churches for once. Definitely shows that I was in a different part of Europe and for me quite fascinating since the last time I was in a synagogue was probably someone's Bar or Bat Mitzvah in 7th grade and certainly at that time I was not interested in looking around an admiring the space. I would have been more interested in when the party was starting!!

The Parliament in Budapest is a stunner of a building. It's got so many spires, details, and is just massive along the river front. In addition to admiring the outside I also did one of the tours to get to see the inside - for me it was totally not worth the money at all. It might have been the day that I did it on (they said it was unusually busy with actual activities within the building) but it was less than 30 minutes and two of the main things we didn't get to see. I was quite disappointed to not see the grand entry staircase which is supposed to be fantastic. It was also incredibly disorganized to begin with and trying to figure out where to be and what group to follow and attempt to listen to didn't lead to a good starting impression. Oh well!

Just down from the Parliament building along the water is a memorial called 'Shoes on the Danube'. It is simple pairs of shoes along the river bank as a memorial to Jews who were executed there but told to remove their shoes before being shot and then their bodies falling into the water. Seeing something as simple as shoes and of all sizes, men's, women's and children's makes for a memorable site.

One very small museum that I did seek out was the Miksa Roth House. Miksa Roth was a well known stained glass and mosaic maker in Budapest in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The house that he and his family lived in before the war is now a small museum and best of all they have a number of his pieces on display and then a rotating temporary collection. Looking up close at the stained glass and seeing not just the glass work but also the painting that he did over the glass to provide the details was amazing. I've seen a lot of stained glass throughout the various churches and what not but seeing it up close was quite different.

Last but not least I couldn't leave Budapest without taking in the local culture of Turkish style baths. There are numerous ones throughout the city and based on my research they range from feeling like a water park to much smaller traditional spaces. I was going to go to one of the larger ones, mostly to take in the architecture and see what they were all about, but I ultimately decided to head to a smaller one - not to mention that it was like half the price. Kiraly Baths was definitely no frills and seemed to be mostly locals (read seniors!) enjoying an afternoon of relaxation. There were numerous pools of varying temperatures, including a freezing cold dip(!), steam room and sauna. You just pop between them as you like. It was quite relaxing for my last afternoon there just before I then got an hour long Thai foot massage. I couldn't resist that either given that it was quite cheap - not Thailand cheap but way better than SF prices for the quality that I got!

With my bath experience complete, successful massage, and full belly from hearty Hungarian dinners each night I was done with the cold weather and looking to trade my boots and coat for flipflops and tank tops. Off to Greece I headed - 36 hours in Athens and then 4 days in Santorini.

Lost in Prague

I normally consider myself to have a pretty good sense of direction and if I go somewhere once I usually remember fairly well how to both return back to my starting point and find it again later. Well, walking around certain parts of Prague threw all of that out the window! Any time I found myself in or near the Old Town section of the city it was totally dependent on Google maps and in most cases full on navigation mode. I did well with the multiple maps that I had but in the twisting winding streets and alleys of the Old Town I was SOL. One evening I was certain that I knew where I was going and it turned out to be completely the wrong way and I felt like I was walking in circles around the Astronomical clock forever. It's cool that it was the 605th birthday of the clock and all but I was hoping to get back to my hotel!

Also, one of the spots on my list to check out, Wenceslas Square, I didn't realize that for two days I'd been walking through it after leaving my hotel. It was totally underwhelming and one less sight to seek out :) The same was true when I wanted to check out the old building art as forms of identification prior to using numbers along Nerudova Street - I didn't realize I was on the actual street until I got to the end. I'll say in this case I was so distracted eating my delicious trdelnik that I couldn't see anything else. I had to backtrack up the street filled with people to take time to look up and see the various images above the doorways.

After three full days in Prague I think I did pretty well to see most of the sights and wander around the neighborhoods and took lots of pictures. There's still a few more things that I'd like to go back and see but for the first time I'd say I did OK. While I didn't have any rain, just chilly temperatures, I certainly did not have beautiful skies until Sunday (my last full day) and Monday morning before catching the train. But that was OK, I attempted to plan my sightseeing around getting clearer skies for nice elevated views across the city. I also attempted to get to major sights early in the day and I was semi-successful with that but I should have been even earlier. The crowds and tour groups at the castle were a bit much.

All of the pictures are here. Don't mind the dang spot appearing in a fair number of them, apparently there was something on the lens and Google photos doesn't let me really edit it out. Ugh!

The Jewish Quarter and Jewish Museum sights I did on my first day and found them all to be incredibly interesting. Seeing the synagogues, old cemetery (where apparently there are potentially 12 layers of bodies buried), Holocaust history and memorials was all very interesting. Walking through the Pinkas synagogue and looking at the almost 80,000 names of Jews killed during the Holocaust written on the walls and then the drawings from children done in the Terezin camp was quite somber. The interior of the Spanish Synagogue was stunning. I was going to go back there for a concert on one of the evenings but decided on another venue.

Prague Castle and the surrounding areas were packed with people but still fairly enjoyable. Even with all of the people I experienced I couldn't help but wonder what it's like in the height of Summer - eeeek! St Vitus cathedral was very reminiscent of Notre Dame with it's Gothic style and massive stained glass windows. This was probably my favorite sight, in addition to wandering the gardens, at the Castle. Golden Lane was very cute but so packed with people the charm was gone.

When I knew the sun was going to be out and the skies a bit clearer I sought out some viewpoints where I could overlook the city. Sunday was the sunny day so I started with heading right for the Charles Bridge and the Old Town Bridge Tower. Luckily I hadn't gotten there any earlier than I had because upon my arrival a few minutes after 10 I realized that it had only just opened at 10AM. Perfect timing, there was hardly anyone up at the top and not nearly the crowds of the afternoon along the bridge itself. Great views across the river to Prague Castle and over the rooftops of Old Town. Petrin Hill and its mini Eiffel Tower provided spectacular views over the city as well. The walk up the hill was quite pleasant and helped keep me warm when it was quite chilly. I attempted to stay off the main winding pathway once I realized that it was the main Segway route (more on those later!).

Funky and fun art is all around the city. I would love to go back and just try to take in as much of that as possible. I did see the statues of two guys peeing, one man hanging from a pole over the middle of the street, babies climbing the TV tower, and figures hanging beneath a bridge appearing to be flying over the water. Despite numerous Segway tour groups the Lennon Wall, with Beatles cover singer included, was one of my favorite sights. I love to see places where people are leaving notes, drawings, and graffiti to what has become art in it's own right.

And what is it about the Segway tours anyway? Can someone please enlighten me. I see them offered in pretty much every city (San Francisco included) but never have I actually seen so many people actually taking them. Seriously people?!?! I am curious to know whether or not it's a combined ticket with a club or some type of after party because the age group on them was usually quite young. I don't want to be on a Segway to begin with but certainly don't like to idea of being on one in a line of people down cobblestone streets.

Live music abounds throughout Prague. I discovered this quite quickly and thought that it would be a great thing to do one evening. I happened upon a music shop when I was in the Old Town square that had information about numerous different shows going on each night and a map of the various venues. Apparently this is how many of the churches make money - they have classical or otherwise music concerts a few nights a week and charge admission. I thought the Spanish Synagogue was so beautiful I thought about going to see a symphony concert there but I ultimately decided to go for a husband and wife guitar duo playing a small art gallery. Not quite the same setting but a mix of music, mostly Spanish and Flamenco but also some Bach, and a nice small crowd.  

And they even have a dancing building...

Thanks Prague for a lovely three and a half days with lovely sights, lots of walking and best of all cheap food and drink! Off to Budapest now via train with the latest installment in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, The Girl in the Spider’s Web, book in hand thanks to the Gatwick airport. At some point I need to make a decision on the next move. My planned adventure to Istanbul and some Turkish beaches may be on hold til tensions (both local due to elections and given the proximity to Syria) and bombings settle down.  Probably should have bought that refundable ticket as I'm no Carrie Matthison.