Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Total trip
TRIP COST AT THE END
We are off on another trip. We thought of going to Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily for a week each. We had planned this trip for several years, but the time had never been right. I had wanted to go to Corsica in the late spring and smell the MARQUIS. This is the blooming of the shrubs and trees. It is said it can be smelled 60 miles out to sea.
First, I found a cheap one-way ticket to London for $251 each on 25th May. I could not find a cheap airline ticket to the south of France. Then I looked for plane or train tickets on to the south of France. Everything was expensive. I learned that England was having a “bank holiday” weekend on the same weekend we would arrive. Second, also I remembered we were going to have several days of jet lag. Third, I remembered, we had a $900 credit with NCL cruise line and they had a cruise to Russia leaving on 17th May. So I booked the cruise using CRUISECOMPETE.COM. The cost was $701 each. But, we only got credit for $720 of the $900 credit. The agent said it had to do with him losing some commission - BUT WHO KNOWS. Just rooked out of $180. Then, Orbits and Virgin Atlantic Air rooked us for $185 each for the date change from the 24th to the 16th.
Then, we had to figure out how to travel the 110 miles from Heathrow to Dover, considering the 9:05 airplane landing and the 4:00 p.m. cruise departure. Limo was $250. Hertz plus gas was about $150. NCL transfer was $80 each or $160 total, but I was told we were too late to book it. Cheaper methods involved changes of trains and/or bus and/or taxi. The prices went down from about $50 each to $15 each on the National Express bus. The only thing with the bus was that we had to catch the 10:30 bus at the airport to London to make the next bus to Dover.
Very long story - short, we missed the bus to London at the airport by three minutes. We were able to join the NCL transfer group and ended up paying the $160 fee. The good news was that we got to the ship in plenty of time. The bad news is that when we got there, so did everyone else! We had to wait in several long lines to check in and get our luggage delivered to the room. We finally settled in around 4:00 p.m. and the ship set sail.
“HELL HOLE”
We checked into our cabin #7039 and thought we had a nice one. We had been upgraded to a cabin with a real window, not a porthole and it seemed somewhat spacious. Additionally, we proceeded to ask for an additional room, which we were given at a cost of $400 for the entire cruise. This was an inside room and Nancy moved to this room. It was so quiet and everything worked! However, over the next two days we encountered the following in our original cabin: the toilet would not flush properly, the TV did not work (but, was eventually fixed), and there was a very loud noise that occurred on a regular basis. We later learned it was the opening and closing of a service room door below us that the staff used all day and all night. Doug talked with the staff and exchanged the “hell hole” for another interior room near Nancy’s room. Now, we had two quiet rooms in which everything worked and life was good!
We ran into an old friend on the boat, Anna, from Transylvania, Romania. Anna was a hostess in the dining room on our NCL South American cruise in February, 2006. She is still working with NCL, but has since married an old boyfriend from Romania. She works on the boat for 5 months, then gets 2-3 months off and makes much better wages than she could in Romania. She is a great hostess and always gets us a quiet table for two when we show up at the dining room. It is so nice to see a familiar face on board. We have met a few folks from North Carolina-Garner and Gaston County. The world really is small!
May 18. We sailed through the Kiel Canal today on the way to Warnemunde, Germany. It was very beautiful on the canal, with trees and forest on both sides, along with elegant homes and restaurants along the way. People were biking along the canal and groups of people greeted the ship with music and flags along the shore as we sailed by. Hey, it looked just like Germany.
May 19. Warnemunde, near Rostock, Germany. We explored the small town of Warnemunde in the morning and then took a train to Rostock, about 20 minutes away. It is a larger town and we explored the city on foot, stopping at a large shopping center and a small outdoor market. The G-8 (with leaders from all over the world) met there a week later.
May 21. Tallinn, Estonia. This town is very beautiful, with a new town and an old town. We walked all around and enjoyed a pretty spring day in Tallinn. There is a ferry link from Helsinki, Finland to Tallinn and folks from Helsinki travel to Tallinn to party and enjoy the nightlife because it is cheaper in Tallinn than in Helsinki. We went to a local market to see what the “ordinary folks” are eating. They had some different cheeses and different kinds of breads.
May 22-23. St. Petersburg, Russia. Doug found a Russian travel agency on the internet that offered tours with a personal car and guide. The only way you can get off the ship in St. Petersburg is with the ship tour groups or on a pre-arranged tour you have chosen and arranged. US citizens and most other foreign visitors must have a visa to visit Russia. We paid $550 for a car, driver and our own personal guide for the entire day from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. In addition, we tipped the guide and driver $70. We also bought tickets to the ballet at the famous Marinsky Theater for Tuesday evening, which cost an additional $125. We also bought lunch and snacks for us and the guide for an additional $40. We had lunch at the Hermitage and evening snacks in a small restaurant where they served pirogis. We have had pirogis in the Ukranian restaurants in NYC and they are potato dumplings with fillings. Here they were different. They were like a cake with different fillings. Nancy had cabbage, Doug had meat and the guide had salmon filling. We also had a strawberry pirogi for dessert. We spent almost $800 for the day and it was worth every penny!
We spent several hours at the Hermitage Museum, drove all around the city, stopping at several landmarks. We even rode the subway one stop. The subways are very deep, deeper than any we have ever seen. You go down an escalator for what seems like forever at a very sharp incline. We went into a local grocery store to check out what kinds of food the Russians are eating. Our guide, Dimetrie, was very knowledgeable and provided a very informative tour of St. Petersburg. It is a beautiful city with lots of canals and bridges, not unlike Venice, Italy. There are large shopping areas and fancy shops as well as smaller shops. It was sunny when the day began, but we also had rain later in the day. Russians cannot visit the USA without visas and they are hard to get. However, they can visit most EU countries, but cannot stay for long periods of time outside of Russia. We learned from Dimetrie that there are not enough jobs for everyone and young folks feel somewhat hopeless because they don’t make a lot of money and there is no other place for them to go except Russia. We will probably not go back to St. Petersburg, but we are glad we went and would like to go to Moscow sometime in the future. The ballet at the Marinsky Theatre was very nice. It was “Romeo and Juliet” and had a very large cast. The theater is very old and quaint, although they are attempting to add a new wing that will be more modern and up-to-date. We were not able to go ashore the second day in St. Petersburg as the agency that set up our first day could not get us visas for a second day. We had arranged this tour on very short notice. In fact, the woman who met us at the ship and got us through customs said she had one person who worked for two days just on getting our visas cleared for that day and it was impossible to get another day processed for us at this time. Bureaucracy is alive and well in Russia, but the people are very nice and generous. Most do not speak English, but Dimetrie spoke excellent English and majored in several languages in college. Next time we go to Russia, we will get our visas ahead of time and make our arrangements a bit farther in advance. If we had taken the private tour offered by the ship, it would have cost just as much and would not have been as long so we were glad to spend the $800 for a wonderful day in St. Petersburg, Russia.
May 24-Helsinki, Finland. We walked off the boat at the harbor and it took about 40 minutes to get to the center of town. Helsinki is surrounded by water and islands and is very pretty, but somewhat boring. We walked through the tourist markets and on to a smaller outdoor market. We found some cheap stores along the way and bought a few souvenirs. However, most everything in Finland is very expensive. We looked for a traditional sauna, but did not find one. Most Finnish people have saunas in their homes. We walked all around town for several hours and headed back to the ship, exhausted! When we returned, the ship experienced a “blackout.” We had no electricity for 5 hours. Once the electricity was restored, we left for Stockholm a few hours late. They offered everyone a free glass of wine or soda at dinner for the inconvenience of the blackout. For awhile, it looked like we would have cold cuts for dinner, but once the electricity was restored, hot meals were soon available.
We brought along our new laptop computer, but so far, have not been able to use it on-line. The charges for using the Internet on the ship, whether using their computers or your own, are astronomical-75 cents a minute or $100 for two hours. So, we are typing our travel stories in Word and will transfer them to a data stick and load the information into our blog site once we get to an inexpensive internet café or we are able to access the internet with our computer with a wireless connection.
May 25-Stockholm, Sweden. Today we explored Stockholm for the second time (we were here in 2001). It is a beautiful city with beautiful people who are very tall. We went to the Nordika Museum which housed many different artifacts-Swedish furniture, dollhouses, dishes, tapestries and much more. We walked all day, but did manage to figure out how to ride the bus and subway to get back to the ship. We walked off the boat, but it was quite a distance to the main parts of town. We stopped in a big department store called NK, which had a wonderful food court that sold all kinds of cheeses, breads, chocolates, and other goodies. They had a sample meat to taste in the meat department and Doug decided to try it. It was after he ate a small piece that he asked what it was. The answer was “horse meat.” It looked like salami. We bought a small pastry at NK that cost 40 Kroner or about $3.00. The pastry was good but $3.00! Sweden is very expensive. We spent 20 Euros ($27) while in Stockholm and got very little for our money.
We have been eating most of our meals on the boat. We have a choice of four restaurants and an all-day pizza area with snacks. Also, there are ice cream cones available from noon to five everyday near the Jacuzzi’s, of which we have two on the ship. And, we have a heated swimming pool. We like to Jacuzzi most days and soak our aching feet! We have been doing a lot of walking at the various ports.
May 26, 27-Copenhagen, Denmark. We docked around 6:00 p.m. and went to a nearby tourist office to see what cultural happenings might be going on this Saturday evening. We found out there was a ballet at the Opera House. We took a bus to what we thought was the Opera House, but found out there was a new Opera House across the channel from where we were. We took a water taxi to the Opera House and got in the “cancellation line” for tickets as the event was sold out. When Doug got up to the ticket agent, he said he had only one ticket left. We decided to buy it for 188 Danish Kroners (about $30) and each of us would get to see one act of the performance. Doug went in for the first act, while I sat in the lobby waiting for my turn at the performance. About 5 minutes before the first act was to end, one of the ticket takers came up and gave me a free ticket. She said someone had given it to her as they entered the theatre at the last minute and told her it was an extra ticket. So, both Doug and I got to see the second act together. There was space for Doug to stand behind the seat I had. The Copenhagen Opera House is very beautiful. The performance was very unusual in that during the first act, one of the ballet dancers brought a chain saw on stage and actually sawed a fake tree in half. The name of the performance was “Rite of Spring” and the music was by Stravinsky. After the performance, we took a bus to an area near Tivoli Gardens. Since we had an early and somewhat light dinner, we were hungry. So, we split a “bacon hot dog.” This was a hot dog put into a bun that had a hole bored through it-the bun did not open like a normal hot dog bun. ($5 ) It was very tasty! We took a bus back to the ship and rode with some fellow ship passengers who had spent the evening at Tivoli Gardens. We had been to Tivoli Gardens the last time we visited Copenhagen and felt so lucky we were able to get tickets to the ballet in the beautiful Opera House on the water.
May 27. We left Copenhagen around 12:00 noon today. We are at sea, sailing in the North Sea, headed back to Dover, England. The Captain came on the intercom today and told us we might have some “rocking and rolling” on the boat tonight as a gale storm is ahead of us. He assured us our boat has seen worse storms and we would be just fine. But, he also told the crew members to “batten down the hatches” and secure any objects that might move around. We will stay in tonight and watch movies on the TV. We have several current and good movies to watch.
May 28. We sailed all day and night to Dover, landing there at 5:00 a.m. on the 29th.
May 29. We got off the ship and took a taxi to the Dover-Calais ferry port from the ship In Calais, we got a nice Peugeot car for the month from Hertz and drove all day. We stopped at Carrfour, our favorite big discount store (like Walmart) and stocked up on sodas, water, and cheese and crackers for the car. Doug tried a sample at the store in the meat department. It was “hogs head” and looked like a pate. It costs about $60 to fill up our car and we are getting 39 miles to the gallon and a cost of about 14 cents per mile. Luckily, we got a diesel engine as diesel fuel is somewhat cheaper. We drove to Dole, France and stayed at a Logis De France hotel just outside town. We had dinner there and the meal and room cost 92 euros. Logis hotels are all over France and are very nice and reasonable in price. We also bought a new Michelin Guide for France to find lodging and restaurants as we travel in France.
May 30. Today, we stopped for lunch at a beautiful restaurant in the French Alps, near Grenoble and Annecy. The mountains are so beautiful and the place we ate called Chalet La Pricaz, near Montmin was high (about 3,500 ft.) and there were several people para-sailing near us, just gliding through the air. Doug had seen an article in the NY Times about this restaurant and the special dish they serve called “tartiflette.” We ordered the dish and it was fabulous-scalloped potatoes using a special cheese with chopped ham and onion and other spices baked in a pryex jar with a lid on it. We also ordered wine and dessert. Our bill was 69 euros, but we could have had just two tartiflette entries for 34 euros. The wine was more expensive than we expected. And, their credit card machine did not work so we had to pay cash. This meal equated to about $100. We learned the way to order wine is by the carafe, not the bottle and ask for a house wine. This was really a wonderful meal in a beautiful setting outdoors among the snow capped mountains. We actually talked to another couple from Boston who were enjoying a meal at the restaurant because they too had seen the article in the NYTimes. We drove on to Gap, France and stayed in a local chain hotel for 52 euros (about $75).
May 31. Today, we drove to a small town on the Italian Riviera called Diano Marino and found a hotel for 45 euros. We had lunch at a wonderful restaurant in LaGarde, France called Auberge Du Teillon. We had an 8-course meal of which the most unusual item was lavender ice cream with liquor before the entree and figs with marscapone before the dessert. We have found we enjoy a full lunch and a lite dinner. We stopped in a small Italian coffee bar for a Panini sandwich for dinner. The owner insisted we try a pastry of spinach and cheese made from his wife’s favorite recipe. He brought it to us free of charge and it was very good but too filling! We also visited the Foundation Meight museum in St. Paul De Vence. The museum has several Picasso’s, Matisse’s and many sculptures by Giacomenti. It is high on a hill and we had to hike up the hill to get to the museum. It was OK but not worth the trouble of getting there and the high admission charge.
June 1. We drove all day and stopped at a ferry station in northern Italy to check on ferries to Corsica. We decided to drive on to Naples and Sicily. We will take the ferry from Palermo to Sardinia and a ferry to Corsica after spending time on each island. We stopped at a huge grocery store called Intercoop and bought some wonderful fresh roast pork and Italian bread and made sandwiches for lunch. We encountered a traffic jam around Genoa that lasted for almost two hours. We were stuck in a tunnel. We will never again be upset with the traffic around Washington, DC when we travel up that way!
June 2. We drove into Naples, which was very busy and full of traffic. The Italians are aggressive drivers and it is very challenging to drive here, but Doug is a very good driver. The most challenging thing is paying for the tolls on the roads. You drive up and there is usually not a person, but a machine that takes your credit card or money and there are no English instructions. Needless to say, we have had some folks honk at us when we took longer than they liked to pay our toll. We went to the National Museum of Archeology in Naples. They have a wonderful collection of Italian archives from Pompei. Like many museums in Europe, it is run down. The Greek section was not open. We drove along the Amalfi Coast most of the day, getting caught up in traffic jams on a small two lane road high in the mountains. And, it was raining very hard, but still so beautiful. Doug was stopped by a cop for not wearing his seat belt. But, he begged and pleaded and they did not give him a ticket. There are cops all along the roads just stopping people, sometimes it seems for no reason. We stayed at a hotel with an adjoining restaurant. We had a nice dinner and danced to a band playing at the restaurant. We asked them to play a “jitterbug” song and they did. We danced, the only ones on the floor, and everyone in the place clapped for us at the end of the song. It reminded us of our trip to Italy 10 years ago where we stayed at another hotel south of Naples and danced to a band and everyone clapped for us then too. Italy is so romantic!
June 3. We drove toward Sicily, heading down the toe, not the heel of Italy. The road tracks the Mediterranean and is very beautiful. The mountains are very big and beautiful in Italy and southern Italy is no exception. We stopped at a beautiful hotel we found in the Michelin Guide, which we arrived at by driving down a two lane road with goats in the road, over a dirt road that went through a marsh. It is very remote and beautiful. People are very friendly.
June 4. We took the ferry to Messina, Sicily from the "toe". We drove to Palermo, a big city on the island of Sicily. We also bought a ferry ticket to the island of Sardinia leaving from Palermo in about a week. We stayed in Monreale, a beautiful old town, high up on a mountain, just outside Palermo. We paid 90 Euro ($125) for room with a beautiful view, but you had to put your leg/foot in the shower to use the toilet because the bathroom was so small! We had a good Sicilian dinner -risotto and briolle.
June 5. We visited a beautiful duomo in Monreal and drove to Agrigento in the southern part of Sicily. Along the way, we had lunch in Corleone. It had no real connection with the "Godfather" movies but it sounded cool. We also went to "Prizzi". It didn’t look like “Godfather Country,” but we got some free pecorino cheese, which was delicious. The man at the cheese shop would not accept any money for the small amount of cheese we wanted. Just outside town, we had a good lunch at the local establishment. The local sergeant policeman was eating with his deputy and the 20-somethings. We imagined they were talking about food, sports and women! The owner of the local hotel was eating there and he appeared to get the most respect. We enjoyed veal scaloppini in lemon sauce for our main dish. As with all meals recommended by the Michelin Guide, the food was excellent, but expensiveIn Agrigento. We walked around the Village of Temple, a large area of Greco Roman ruins from 8-4th century B.C. They are as well preserved as ruins we have seen in Athens and Rome. We stayed at an apartment directly on the Mediterranean Ocean. We had a two-bedroom place and had our laundry done. We also had a home-cooked meal on the patio, all for only 95 Euros. The family who rented us the place were Italians, but had lived near Vancouver, Canada in their younger years. Their daughter, Julia, spoke very good English.
June 6. We drove to Calascibetta and thought we were going to Emme. We stopped for coffee and pastry and had the best chocolate croissant (made with Nutella). The food we have eaten in Sicily has been so good. Simple ingredients, seasoned with olive oil and seasonings. Wonderful fungi (mushrooms), cucumbers, and tomatoes. We drove to Siracusa next and had a lunch of salomi and fresh bread with pecarino cheese and fruit. The local bread we ate was in the shape of an “s,” perhaps for Sicily. We went to both Greek and Roman theatre ruins. It was very hot and Nancy bought a cold can of Coke for 2 Euros, about $2.60! Before visiting the ruins, we had a beautiful ride around the island that was the original part of the city of Siracusa. We drove to Mt. Etna on a scenic route through lava fields where beautiful flowers grew. Mt. Etna is a huge, high volcanic mountain that frequently erupts. We spent the night in Taormina, high on top of a mountain. The town is beautiful, but “tourist hell.” We found a pension for 65 euros ($100) with a terrace and a beautiful view from atop the mountain overlooking the Mediterranean. The town and every restaurant was full of tourists and the prices and quality of food reflected that. We ate at what we thought was a local restaurant, Lecchio’s, but it was not. We ordered two appetizers, two pastas, no main course, no wine-38 euros ($50). We felt the other patrons were silently saying “look at those poor Americans.”
June 7. We got up and toured the ancient Greek Theatre in Taormina and had lunch in the town of Randazzo at a restaurant in the Michelin Guide. We had Tartuffe dessert, but it did not have nuts like our favorite Tartuffe at Café Roma in NYC. We stayed in Trabia at a cheap place recommended by an “expensive” hotel clerk. Our door was 6ft. from the bay and we heard the waves lap at our door all night long. The reason we did not stay two nights was because the room filled with mosquitoes during the night. Doug got lots of bites. We drove into Palermo, hoping to see a Sicilian dance performance. After finally finding the theatre, it was dark-no performance. Nearby, on the next block, restaurants had tables set up on the street and were grilling seafood outside. The owner of one of the restaurants insisted on serving us a special plate and said it would be cheap! It was delicious, but as usual, it cost about $60. We had grilled octopus, shrimp, swordfish, and a grouper-type fish. Of course, pasta, antipasta and bread. While eating, we noticed a motor bike going by with Mom and Dad and a six-month old baby between them, sucking on a pacifier. No one had a helmet on!
June 8. After leaving “mosquito Ville,” about 10 miles down the road in St. Flavia, not far from Palermo, we found another cheap hotel for 50 euros, 5 euros more than the mosquito place, but very nice and no mosquitos! We spent most of the day ambling around the western tip of Sicily with another 50 euros ($70) lunch in Tramani. We ate fresh fish again, one pasta w/eggplant and swordfish, another with shrimp. We hope the pounds are dropping off on this Mediterranean diet! We have eaten a lot more different shaped pastas than we see in the U.S. One reason for the different shapes is how the sauce adheres to the pasta. We attended an outdoor tango music performance in Palermo, a summer night festival held in an old palace ruins in the city. The music was Argentina tango music. Lots of fashionable people were there-the young, chic, bohemian crowd. Locals from the Tango Club danced in the back so the crowd could watch them and listen to the music at the same time. It was a fun and interesting event.
June 9. We drove the coast highway back toward Palermo and stopped in a beautiful port city called Porticello. We had coffee and a croissant at a small café on the water. We would like to go back to Porticello sometime and rent an apartment for a few weeks. Regarding the driving in Italy, we have observed that people who drive fast cars, Mercedes, BMW’s, Audi’s, drive faster. Those who drive small cars, go slower. Traffic jams are everywhere in Italy and drivers are extremely aggressive. Streets are narrow and there are motorbikes everywhere to watch out for. Driving is very challenging, but Doug is doing an outstanding job of keeping us safe. Lanes don’t count and if there is not enough room for another lane, they take the space and make one. Stop signs don’t count either and everyone runs them. And, they double park on two lane streets or any street for that matter. People pass you on both the right and left, at the same time! We took an all night ferry (12 hours) from Palermo to the island of Sardenia. We had a very small cabin (about the size of our bathroom at home) with bunk beds. The cabin cost an additional 57 euros ($80). The ferry passage for us and the car was 208 euros ($300). We slept pretty well, but the family of three next door sounded like they were in our room when they talked and used their bathroom. The accoustics in second class cabins is not very good! But, why pay an additional 23 euros for a 1st class cabin for only 12 hours. The ferry was full and Italians like to talk. They seem to never be quiet. But, that is part of their charm. They are gracious and giving. Often, in small food shops, we are offered samples of food or even given food as we usually only want small amounts. Italians seem to dress up all the time-very stylish, especially the women. Women rarely wear shorts, only slacks, even in hot weather. They like to window shop in the evenings in the towns, dressed up to see and to be seen! Shops close every day from 12:30 to 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. There is no shopping during this time. And, shops are only open until 8:00 or 8:30 p.m., even grocery stores. I don’t imagine these hours would go over very good in the U.S. where we are used to shopping 24-7. But, it seems to work for the Italians and it is pleasant to window shop in the late evening and see families out together walking around the towns.
June 10. We got off the ferry in Cagliari, Sardenia. We stopped at a huge flea market that was nearby and bought some good local cheese. We drove to Dorgali, on the east coast, past beautiful Mediterranean beaches. Being Sunday, everyone was at the beach and the beaches were very crowded. We spent the night at a beautiful place in the mountains recommended in the Michelin Guide. Sardenia is very mountainous, like Sicily, but more Alpine and rocky terrain. Our meal at the hotel was very good. They served us a pasta filled with a puree of potatoes and cheese, like a filled dumpling or perroggi. We paid 50 euros for the supper. At the next table, the help were having supper, for free! Their supper looked just as good as ours. For an appetizer, they had fresh cantelope and proscuitto ham. For pasta, they had rigatoni with fresh tomato sauce. And, for their entree, they had cut-up sausage. For dessert, they had fruit, like us. The most outstanding thing about our meal was the bread. It was a thin-crisp, flat bread as big as a 10” pizza, with olive oil drizzled on top. You just snapped off a piece and popped it in your mouth. We don’t know if it was baked like a pizza or griddled like a crepe, but it sure was good!
June 11. We drove up the east coast and cut across to the west coast. We stopped to swim at a beautiful rocky, beach. We only went calf-deep because of the plethora of rocks. Nancy was scared, but after crying and moaning, she overcame her fear and sat down in the water. We stopped again to swim at a sandy, public beach in Alghero. The town was touristy, but nice. On the beach, Doug admired several topless female sunbathers. He admired one so much that she and her boyfriend moved their blankets further away from where we had put our shoes and towels to go for a swim. We spent the night in Isolo Rosa, at Hotel Gabianno, a very nice place. The town is very scenic, on the water-a lazy beach town. Struggle for supper: we decided on pizza for our last night in Sardenia. The place on the next block from our hotel had a coal-fired oven. We ordered two pizza’s and two coke-lites. They said “no coke-lites. We asked if we could bring our own coke-lite into the restaurant to enjoy with our pizza. They said “impossible.” We went back to our room and got our own coke-lite and brought it back to the restaurant anyway and Doug offered the waiter 5 euros (the cost of two sodas) to let us drink our soda with our pizza. He said “impossible.” Doug asked again and asked the owner and the owner said “impossible.” So, we left defeated, but not for long. We went back to our hotel and found out from an English speaking clerk that we could order take-away pizza from the restaurant. We got permission from the hotel owner to eat our pizza at their sidewalk table. The clerk called in our order to the restaurant, Doug went and got it and returned. It was the best pizza we had on the whole trip. Nothing is impossible! For a final touch, we went by the restaurant and told them how good the pizza was.
June 12. We took the ferry to Corsica, France, a 50 minute trip, for 60 euros. We drove to the central point on Corsica to find a place to stay as we planned to make day trips from there each day to explore the island. We stayed near the town of Aleria. We stopped at a property rental office (mobilier) and they had nothing in our price range, but we had a sheet of paper showing private rentals we had gotten from the tourist office. The agent was kind enough to call one of the private rentals, a two bedroom apartment for 40 euros per night. The owner met us at the mobiler and led us back to the apartment, through the woods! We were met by the entire family and shown the apartment. The son’s friends had been sleeping in the apartment and they had to move to the main house. The apartment had two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom, and toilet room-perfect for us. There were even chickens outside, with grapevines and vineyards surrounding the property. The only problem we encountered is we almost couldn’t find the place after returning from dinner around midnight, but we did! We enjoyed living like French country folks.
June 13. Today, we drove through some magnificent mountains and toward the southern part of the island. We had lunch at a nice restaurant, sitting outside on a balcony in the town of Levie. The restaurant was called La Pergola and was in our Michelin Guide. Everyday, we have at least one meal that costs $50, and some days, two meals for that price. We are truly poor Americans as compared to Europeans. We appear to be “poorer” as the prices seem to not bother them. We stopped at a “big box” store (bigger than a Super Walmart in the U.S.) and ran into two sets of young people we had seen earlier at the restaurant and on the ferry the day before. It appears that times are changing in Europe-no more shopping at specialty food stores and farmer’s markets and no more $25 per person, two hour lunches, at least for the younger folks. We cooked dinner at the apartment and enjoyed eating in for a change.
June 14. Today, we drove to the heart of Corsica, the town of Corte. We drove on to Ajaccio, the largest town on the island with 50,000 people. The whole island of Corsica only has 250,000 people, plus tourists. We ate another $50 lunch and saw Napoleon’s home. We drove back from Corte through some very high mountains on a one-lane road-no trucks or buses, thank goodness! It was beautiful, and luckily, we didn’t go over the edge of the mountain!
June 15. We drove to the most northern point on the island-Cap Corse. Again, high mountains and narrow, winding roads. The $50 Michelin lunch recommendation was closed so we stopped in the next village at what we thought was a pizzaria. It turned out to be a local “hang-out” restaurant. Kids were playing fuzball, adults were playing cards, and we were the last seated for lunch. There was no communicating with the staff in this local place so we ordered “plat de jour” (plate of the day). What came out was a skewer of lamb with peppers, salad and the best, damn French fries we have ever eaten. They were not crispy, but fully cooked and oily and tasted like baked potatoes. Also, we had the best ice cream for dessert-”store bought” chocolate noir-very dark chocolate-yum, yum!We checked on the internet for possible passage back to the USA, but the airfares are somewhat steep. We will take the ferry to Nice from Calui, Corsica tomorrow and will check our options, once we’re on the continent again.
June 16. We drove to Calui to take the ferry to Nice, France. We stopped at L’Isle-Rousse, on Corsica, for lunch. If you ever get there, we had our heartiest and cheapest and maybe most delicious meal at LeGrillon. The wine and coffee were only 4 euros and each of the meals were only 13 euros. We had excellent cannelloni casserole and steak with mushroom sauce and scalloped potatoes. The dessert of the house was a firm cream with bits of coconut and raspberry sauce-delicious! We were stuffed! We rode the ferry and it turned out to be 7 hours instead of 5 ½ hours long. After two hours, we knew Doug had made a mistake for not paying 25 euros for a cabin for us to take a nap in. Upon arrival in Nice, we rode down the beautiful Boulevard of the English and drove further down to Cannes and saw some late Saturday night activities, people walking about. We couldn’t find a place to stay and finally, at 1:30 a.m., we found a motel chain called B&B where you check yourself in automatically with a credit card. There is not a human on site to assist you. We followed a “flashing light” fire truck through the gate of the motel. After we checked in and were charged 46 euros on our credit card, we found out there was a possible fire at the motel. All the guests were told to leave their room, including us. It was after 2:00 a.m. when we received the “all clear” to go to our room. After that, the room was a good deal for the price.
June 17. We drove to the Marseille airport and changed the rental car we had for a new one. We had worn the tires down on the old one due to the car being out of alignment. We now have a Renault Clio, a bit smaller than our Peugeot, but okay. We drove to Aix- En- Provence and had lunch at Saigon restaurant, a recommendation in the Michelin Guide. It was 47 euros for lunch, but very good. The best tasting Asian food ever! We forgot where the car was parked after lunch and it took more than a mile of walking to find it. Then, Nancy left her jacket at the restaurant after we left our parking space. We had to find a new parking space, find the restaurant again, and find the car again. Aix is filled with tourists and narrow, winding streets. It would be enchanting on a first visit, but too busy for a seasoned traveler or a person looking for the “real” France. We continued on to Sete, a beautiful, but touristy beach community. We began our second day of long searches for a night’s lodging. We turned up our nose at three hotels on the beach for 80 euros. We ended up buying a room for 32 euros near Sete at a chain hotel called “Premiere One.” After check-in and payment, we discovered we couldn’t’ stay there due to road noise and dripping water from the bath. We packed up and moved on to the town of Beziers. After checking 6 or 8 hotels, we finally found a B&B motel chain like we stayed in the night before. Doug did the automatic check-in and didn’t read the instructions. He ended up paying 36 euros for a room with a double bed instead of twins. Doug tried to void the transaction with someone on an intercom who was not at the hotel, but she said “too bad, so sad, you’re stuck.” We had now spent 68 euros, but no room to sleep in! Getting supper at 10:00 p.m. was even more of a fiasco, but too long to explain. Finally, we purchased a nice room for 68 euros at Campanile, a nice, chain hotel.
June 18. We drove the “blue highways” to Lacoune where we had lunch at Calas, France, at a four-generation run hotel and restaurant. The meal was 30 euros, plus wine and was delicious. We have found meals on the “blue highway” to be at least 5 euros cheaper than the tourist towns. We traveled on to the medieval town of Conques where we purchased a room, supper and breakfast for 96euros at Auburge St.-Jacques. Conques is a big tourist town because it is a stop on the way to Compostolle, Spain. All of the tourists left town before sundown and we had a real medieval experience. No cars are allowed in the town so we had to park on the outskirts and walk in after dropping off our luggage at the hotel with the car. At 9:30 p.m., the priest came out of the central cathedral and talked a0bout the history of the church and in particular, the lentil above the front door, which depicts judgement day. Then, we went inside the church and listened to organ music. We are traveling in south-central France where there seems to be less tourists than other areas, and no Americans. The owner of the restaurant where we ate lunch said she never has any American customers. The terrain here is very hilly, rolling, and green with beautiful forests and flowers.
June 19. We have a new French book which lists regional food specialties by department and region, along with restaurant recommendations. We stopped in a small town and bought two cheeses of the region-Cantal and a soft cheese, similar to aged brie. Next door was the bread shop (bolangerie) and we acted like real French and asked for a demi-baguette. The lady broke a full baguette in half and gave us half. In the next department/region, we had lunch that consisted of two regional specialties. One was limosin beef steak, served with a dark, wine sauce. The other dish was creasis fondue (of the region). Unlike the U.S., you spoon the fondue over an omelette, ham and French fries. It was a 52 euro lunch, but worth it. We drove an agricultural, country route (route of the frommages) to Richelieu, the home town of Cardinal Richelieu, a prime minister during the 16th century. We had a different supper with the local working folks at a local bar in Richelieu. Good pizza, diet cokes and dessert and coffee for 21 euros. Those folks hadn’t seen an American in a long time, if ever!
June 20. We drove along the Loire River for several kilometers and enjoyed the beautiful countryside. We had lunch in the car-a fresh demi-baguette, yesterday’s cheese purchase and an apple. We visited the Chateau in Angers. They had an 800 year old tapestry depicting the book of Revelation. There were 75 panels, each one about 6 ft by 8 ft. We then drove on to LeMans, where the famous car races are held. It is definitely a car town with an auto dealership on every corner. After LeMans, we made a management decision to end our France holiday and have a two day England holiday before heading home from Liverpool on Saturday, June 23. We headed to Calais on the toll road to return the car and catch the ferry to Dover. We didn’t find a room in Calais until 2:00 a.m. All rooms were sold out, but we finally took a “flea bag” that had a double bed with a bunk bed over the top of it. We didn’t think about putting the bunk mattress on the floor so Nancy crawled into the bunk off the ladder. The next morning she awoke to find that she couldn’t get down off the bunk bed. But, with Doug’s help, she finally made it down. The flea bag cost 40 euros.
June 21. We went to the Calais ferry port and purchased our tickets. Walk-up foot passenger price for Calais to Dover is 25 euros on P&O, but only 17 euros on Seafrance Ferry Line. It is worth checking the various ferry lines to save money. We arrived in Dover (off the ferry) and secured a Hertz car for two days. We headed out to see East Anglica, the Fen, the Wash, and the Yorkshire Dales. East Anglica is on the east side of England, in the middle of the country. The towns on the coast were reminiscent of old northeast, USA coastal towns-CT, New Hampshire, Maine. We had lunch at a Subway and had local fish-n-chips for dinner. We stayed at a B&B guest house in Cromer for 50 lbs ($100). The seaside was beautiful at night., but the weather was cool and we encountered some rain. We knew England was expensive, but we were shocked at $100 and $200 rooms in old houses!
June 22. We drove through many coastal towns where the RAF fought the aerial battle of Britain during WWII. The scenery looked just like the movies depicting the battle. We also drove through York, a beautiful alled city. We had a traditional “carvery” lunch for around $10 each. We especially enjoyed the bacon at breakfast and ham at lunch. We also enjoyed the town of Mablethorpe on the coast, which reminded us of the honky-tonk beaches of the 1950’s. They were playing bingo and eating fresh, cooked donuts. We drove on to Layburn in the Yorkshire Dales and stayed at “The Secret Garden,” a beautiful B&B. We saw ring-necked pheasant while driving down the country roads.
June 23. We drove through the Yorkshire Dales and the towns were full of tourists on hiking trips. We got to Liverpool Airport and found out that our normal baggage weighs just below 20 kilos-44 lbs.. This is the baggage limit allowed for low-fare airlines before they sock it to you for extra baggage weight charges. We flew “Flyglobespan” for $330 each, one-way to JFK. We rode on a 757-200 jet. It was enjoyable, but odd. The interior markings in the plane were “Icelandic Air.” Guess they bought the plane from them. At one point, the pilot announced we were flying some other airline. They had to change the tires on the plane before we could leave Liverpool. But, the good news we had “John Lennon‘s face” on the tail of our plane. The Liverpool airport is named Johnn Lennon Airport and they have a bronze bust of John in the lobby and several photos of the Beatles and other rock legends scattered throughout the airport. A real plus was the plane was only 1/3 full and we could each take a full row of three seats and lie down. Another odd thing was you had to pay for everything, including a glass of water. However, they did serve us a simple, hot meal, with a glass of free water! Doug had walked around the Liverpool airport picking up discarded newspapers so we had lots to read on the plane. We had our own earphones so we could watch the movies. Of course, they were selling earphones for $5. Also, they didn’t have a gate at either airport so we had to walk on and off the plane on the tarmac using metal stairs. The plane staff was especially courteous and accommodating. As Globespan is a Scottish airline, the staff seemed like country, Scottish folks.
The car rental and ride to Beulaville was uneventful, except that once again, flying out of Newark or Washington, DC is far superior to JFK or LaGuardia due to extra travel time, extra tolls, extra gas, and extra cost of car rental.
END OF TRIP.
p.s. We never smelled the MARQUIS in Corsica!
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Cruise:
Rooms and tips $2,043
Bus transfer to ship 80
St. Petersburg Guide 620
St. Petersburg Ballet 127
Pocket Money 200
Total $3,150
About $265.50 per day
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Land tour of France and Italy:
Food $2,026
Rooms 1,854
Admissions 265
Pocket money 800
Transportation:
Airplanes 1,580
Car rentals to planes 510
Ferries 710
Car rental - France/Italy 836
Fuel 900
Tolls 253
Total $9,744
About $360 per day ($80 for food; $80 for room and $160 for transport)
We are off on another trip. We thought of going to Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily for a week each. We had planned this trip for several years, but the time had never been right. I had wanted to go to Corsica in the late spring and smell the MARQUIS. This is the blooming of the shrubs and trees. It is said it can be smelled 60 miles out to sea.
First, I found a cheap one-way ticket to London for $251 each on 25th May. I could not find a cheap airline ticket to the south of France. Then I looked for plane or train tickets on to the south of France. Everything was expensive. I learned that England was having a “bank holiday” weekend on the same weekend we would arrive. Second, also I remembered we were going to have several days of jet lag. Third, I remembered, we had a $900 credit with NCL cruise line and they had a cruise to Russia leaving on 17th May. So I booked the cruise using CRUISECOMPETE.COM. The cost was $701 each. But, we only got credit for $720 of the $900 credit. The agent said it had to do with him losing some commission - BUT WHO KNOWS. Just rooked out of $180. Then, Orbits and Virgin Atlantic Air rooked us for $185 each for the date change from the 24th to the 16th.
Then, we had to figure out how to travel the 110 miles from Heathrow to Dover, considering the 9:05 airplane landing and the 4:00 p.m. cruise departure. Limo was $250. Hertz plus gas was about $150. NCL transfer was $80 each or $160 total, but I was told we were too late to book it. Cheaper methods involved changes of trains and/or bus and/or taxi. The prices went down from about $50 each to $15 each on the National Express bus. The only thing with the bus was that we had to catch the 10:30 bus at the airport to London to make the next bus to Dover.
Very long story - short, we missed the bus to London at the airport by three minutes. We were able to join the NCL transfer group and ended up paying the $160 fee. The good news was that we got to the ship in plenty of time. The bad news is that when we got there, so did everyone else! We had to wait in several long lines to check in and get our luggage delivered to the room. We finally settled in around 4:00 p.m. and the ship set sail.
“HELL HOLE”
We checked into our cabin #7039 and thought we had a nice one. We had been upgraded to a cabin with a real window, not a porthole and it seemed somewhat spacious. Additionally, we proceeded to ask for an additional room, which we were given at a cost of $400 for the entire cruise. This was an inside room and Nancy moved to this room. It was so quiet and everything worked! However, over the next two days we encountered the following in our original cabin: the toilet would not flush properly, the TV did not work (but, was eventually fixed), and there was a very loud noise that occurred on a regular basis. We later learned it was the opening and closing of a service room door below us that the staff used all day and all night. Doug talked with the staff and exchanged the “hell hole” for another interior room near Nancy’s room. Now, we had two quiet rooms in which everything worked and life was good!
We ran into an old friend on the boat, Anna, from Transylvania, Romania. Anna was a hostess in the dining room on our NCL South American cruise in February, 2006. She is still working with NCL, but has since married an old boyfriend from Romania. She works on the boat for 5 months, then gets 2-3 months off and makes much better wages than she could in Romania. She is a great hostess and always gets us a quiet table for two when we show up at the dining room. It is so nice to see a familiar face on board. We have met a few folks from North Carolina-Garner and Gaston County. The world really is small!
May 18. We sailed through the Kiel Canal today on the way to Warnemunde, Germany. It was very beautiful on the canal, with trees and forest on both sides, along with elegant homes and restaurants along the way. People were biking along the canal and groups of people greeted the ship with music and flags along the shore as we sailed by. Hey, it looked just like Germany.
May 19. Warnemunde, near Rostock, Germany. We explored the small town of Warnemunde in the morning and then took a train to Rostock, about 20 minutes away. It is a larger town and we explored the city on foot, stopping at a large shopping center and a small outdoor market. The G-8 (with leaders from all over the world) met there a week later.
May 21. Tallinn, Estonia. This town is very beautiful, with a new town and an old town. We walked all around and enjoyed a pretty spring day in Tallinn. There is a ferry link from Helsinki, Finland to Tallinn and folks from Helsinki travel to Tallinn to party and enjoy the nightlife because it is cheaper in Tallinn than in Helsinki. We went to a local market to see what the “ordinary folks” are eating. They had some different cheeses and different kinds of breads.
May 22-23. St. Petersburg, Russia. Doug found a Russian travel agency on the internet that offered tours with a personal car and guide. The only way you can get off the ship in St. Petersburg is with the ship tour groups or on a pre-arranged tour you have chosen and arranged. US citizens and most other foreign visitors must have a visa to visit Russia. We paid $550 for a car, driver and our own personal guide for the entire day from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. In addition, we tipped the guide and driver $70. We also bought tickets to the ballet at the famous Marinsky Theater for Tuesday evening, which cost an additional $125. We also bought lunch and snacks for us and the guide for an additional $40. We had lunch at the Hermitage and evening snacks in a small restaurant where they served pirogis. We have had pirogis in the Ukranian restaurants in NYC and they are potato dumplings with fillings. Here they were different. They were like a cake with different fillings. Nancy had cabbage, Doug had meat and the guide had salmon filling. We also had a strawberry pirogi for dessert. We spent almost $800 for the day and it was worth every penny!
We spent several hours at the Hermitage Museum, drove all around the city, stopping at several landmarks. We even rode the subway one stop. The subways are very deep, deeper than any we have ever seen. You go down an escalator for what seems like forever at a very sharp incline. We went into a local grocery store to check out what kinds of food the Russians are eating. Our guide, Dimetrie, was very knowledgeable and provided a very informative tour of St. Petersburg. It is a beautiful city with lots of canals and bridges, not unlike Venice, Italy. There are large shopping areas and fancy shops as well as smaller shops. It was sunny when the day began, but we also had rain later in the day. Russians cannot visit the USA without visas and they are hard to get. However, they can visit most EU countries, but cannot stay for long periods of time outside of Russia. We learned from Dimetrie that there are not enough jobs for everyone and young folks feel somewhat hopeless because they don’t make a lot of money and there is no other place for them to go except Russia. We will probably not go back to St. Petersburg, but we are glad we went and would like to go to Moscow sometime in the future. The ballet at the Marinsky Theatre was very nice. It was “Romeo and Juliet” and had a very large cast. The theater is very old and quaint, although they are attempting to add a new wing that will be more modern and up-to-date. We were not able to go ashore the second day in St. Petersburg as the agency that set up our first day could not get us visas for a second day. We had arranged this tour on very short notice. In fact, the woman who met us at the ship and got us through customs said she had one person who worked for two days just on getting our visas cleared for that day and it was impossible to get another day processed for us at this time. Bureaucracy is alive and well in Russia, but the people are very nice and generous. Most do not speak English, but Dimetrie spoke excellent English and majored in several languages in college. Next time we go to Russia, we will get our visas ahead of time and make our arrangements a bit farther in advance. If we had taken the private tour offered by the ship, it would have cost just as much and would not have been as long so we were glad to spend the $800 for a wonderful day in St. Petersburg, Russia.
May 24-Helsinki, Finland. We walked off the boat at the harbor and it took about 40 minutes to get to the center of town. Helsinki is surrounded by water and islands and is very pretty, but somewhat boring. We walked through the tourist markets and on to a smaller outdoor market. We found some cheap stores along the way and bought a few souvenirs. However, most everything in Finland is very expensive. We looked for a traditional sauna, but did not find one. Most Finnish people have saunas in their homes. We walked all around town for several hours and headed back to the ship, exhausted! When we returned, the ship experienced a “blackout.” We had no electricity for 5 hours. Once the electricity was restored, we left for Stockholm a few hours late. They offered everyone a free glass of wine or soda at dinner for the inconvenience of the blackout. For awhile, it looked like we would have cold cuts for dinner, but once the electricity was restored, hot meals were soon available.
We brought along our new laptop computer, but so far, have not been able to use it on-line. The charges for using the Internet on the ship, whether using their computers or your own, are astronomical-75 cents a minute or $100 for two hours. So, we are typing our travel stories in Word and will transfer them to a data stick and load the information into our blog site once we get to an inexpensive internet café or we are able to access the internet with our computer with a wireless connection.
May 25-Stockholm, Sweden. Today we explored Stockholm for the second time (we were here in 2001). It is a beautiful city with beautiful people who are very tall. We went to the Nordika Museum which housed many different artifacts-Swedish furniture, dollhouses, dishes, tapestries and much more. We walked all day, but did manage to figure out how to ride the bus and subway to get back to the ship. We walked off the boat, but it was quite a distance to the main parts of town. We stopped in a big department store called NK, which had a wonderful food court that sold all kinds of cheeses, breads, chocolates, and other goodies. They had a sample meat to taste in the meat department and Doug decided to try it. It was after he ate a small piece that he asked what it was. The answer was “horse meat.” It looked like salami. We bought a small pastry at NK that cost 40 Kroner or about $3.00. The pastry was good but $3.00! Sweden is very expensive. We spent 20 Euros ($27) while in Stockholm and got very little for our money.
We have been eating most of our meals on the boat. We have a choice of four restaurants and an all-day pizza area with snacks. Also, there are ice cream cones available from noon to five everyday near the Jacuzzi’s, of which we have two on the ship. And, we have a heated swimming pool. We like to Jacuzzi most days and soak our aching feet! We have been doing a lot of walking at the various ports.
May 26, 27-Copenhagen, Denmark. We docked around 6:00 p.m. and went to a nearby tourist office to see what cultural happenings might be going on this Saturday evening. We found out there was a ballet at the Opera House. We took a bus to what we thought was the Opera House, but found out there was a new Opera House across the channel from where we were. We took a water taxi to the Opera House and got in the “cancellation line” for tickets as the event was sold out. When Doug got up to the ticket agent, he said he had only one ticket left. We decided to buy it for 188 Danish Kroners (about $30) and each of us would get to see one act of the performance. Doug went in for the first act, while I sat in the lobby waiting for my turn at the performance. About 5 minutes before the first act was to end, one of the ticket takers came up and gave me a free ticket. She said someone had given it to her as they entered the theatre at the last minute and told her it was an extra ticket. So, both Doug and I got to see the second act together. There was space for Doug to stand behind the seat I had. The Copenhagen Opera House is very beautiful. The performance was very unusual in that during the first act, one of the ballet dancers brought a chain saw on stage and actually sawed a fake tree in half. The name of the performance was “Rite of Spring” and the music was by Stravinsky. After the performance, we took a bus to an area near Tivoli Gardens. Since we had an early and somewhat light dinner, we were hungry. So, we split a “bacon hot dog.” This was a hot dog put into a bun that had a hole bored through it-the bun did not open like a normal hot dog bun. ($5 ) It was very tasty! We took a bus back to the ship and rode with some fellow ship passengers who had spent the evening at Tivoli Gardens. We had been to Tivoli Gardens the last time we visited Copenhagen and felt so lucky we were able to get tickets to the ballet in the beautiful Opera House on the water.
May 27. We left Copenhagen around 12:00 noon today. We are at sea, sailing in the North Sea, headed back to Dover, England. The Captain came on the intercom today and told us we might have some “rocking and rolling” on the boat tonight as a gale storm is ahead of us. He assured us our boat has seen worse storms and we would be just fine. But, he also told the crew members to “batten down the hatches” and secure any objects that might move around. We will stay in tonight and watch movies on the TV. We have several current and good movies to watch.
May 28. We sailed all day and night to Dover, landing there at 5:00 a.m. on the 29th.
May 29. We got off the ship and took a taxi to the Dover-Calais ferry port from the ship In Calais, we got a nice Peugeot car for the month from Hertz and drove all day. We stopped at Carrfour, our favorite big discount store (like Walmart) and stocked up on sodas, water, and cheese and crackers for the car. Doug tried a sample at the store in the meat department. It was “hogs head” and looked like a pate. It costs about $60 to fill up our car and we are getting 39 miles to the gallon and a cost of about 14 cents per mile. Luckily, we got a diesel engine as diesel fuel is somewhat cheaper. We drove to Dole, France and stayed at a Logis De France hotel just outside town. We had dinner there and the meal and room cost 92 euros. Logis hotels are all over France and are very nice and reasonable in price. We also bought a new Michelin Guide for France to find lodging and restaurants as we travel in France.
May 30. Today, we stopped for lunch at a beautiful restaurant in the French Alps, near Grenoble and Annecy. The mountains are so beautiful and the place we ate called Chalet La Pricaz, near Montmin was high (about 3,500 ft.) and there were several people para-sailing near us, just gliding through the air. Doug had seen an article in the NY Times about this restaurant and the special dish they serve called “tartiflette.” We ordered the dish and it was fabulous-scalloped potatoes using a special cheese with chopped ham and onion and other spices baked in a pryex jar with a lid on it. We also ordered wine and dessert. Our bill was 69 euros, but we could have had just two tartiflette entries for 34 euros. The wine was more expensive than we expected. And, their credit card machine did not work so we had to pay cash. This meal equated to about $100. We learned the way to order wine is by the carafe, not the bottle and ask for a house wine. This was really a wonderful meal in a beautiful setting outdoors among the snow capped mountains. We actually talked to another couple from Boston who were enjoying a meal at the restaurant because they too had seen the article in the NYTimes. We drove on to Gap, France and stayed in a local chain hotel for 52 euros (about $75).
May 31. Today, we drove to a small town on the Italian Riviera called Diano Marino and found a hotel for 45 euros. We had lunch at a wonderful restaurant in LaGarde, France called Auberge Du Teillon. We had an 8-course meal of which the most unusual item was lavender ice cream with liquor before the entree and figs with marscapone before the dessert. We have found we enjoy a full lunch and a lite dinner. We stopped in a small Italian coffee bar for a Panini sandwich for dinner. The owner insisted we try a pastry of spinach and cheese made from his wife’s favorite recipe. He brought it to us free of charge and it was very good but too filling! We also visited the Foundation Meight museum in St. Paul De Vence. The museum has several Picasso’s, Matisse’s and many sculptures by Giacomenti. It is high on a hill and we had to hike up the hill to get to the museum. It was OK but not worth the trouble of getting there and the high admission charge.
June 1. We drove all day and stopped at a ferry station in northern Italy to check on ferries to Corsica. We decided to drive on to Naples and Sicily. We will take the ferry from Palermo to Sardinia and a ferry to Corsica after spending time on each island. We stopped at a huge grocery store called Intercoop and bought some wonderful fresh roast pork and Italian bread and made sandwiches for lunch. We encountered a traffic jam around Genoa that lasted for almost two hours. We were stuck in a tunnel. We will never again be upset with the traffic around Washington, DC when we travel up that way!
June 2. We drove into Naples, which was very busy and full of traffic. The Italians are aggressive drivers and it is very challenging to drive here, but Doug is a very good driver. The most challenging thing is paying for the tolls on the roads. You drive up and there is usually not a person, but a machine that takes your credit card or money and there are no English instructions. Needless to say, we have had some folks honk at us when we took longer than they liked to pay our toll. We went to the National Museum of Archeology in Naples. They have a wonderful collection of Italian archives from Pompei. Like many museums in Europe, it is run down. The Greek section was not open. We drove along the Amalfi Coast most of the day, getting caught up in traffic jams on a small two lane road high in the mountains. And, it was raining very hard, but still so beautiful. Doug was stopped by a cop for not wearing his seat belt. But, he begged and pleaded and they did not give him a ticket. There are cops all along the roads just stopping people, sometimes it seems for no reason. We stayed at a hotel with an adjoining restaurant. We had a nice dinner and danced to a band playing at the restaurant. We asked them to play a “jitterbug” song and they did. We danced, the only ones on the floor, and everyone in the place clapped for us at the end of the song. It reminded us of our trip to Italy 10 years ago where we stayed at another hotel south of Naples and danced to a band and everyone clapped for us then too. Italy is so romantic!
June 3. We drove toward Sicily, heading down the toe, not the heel of Italy. The road tracks the Mediterranean and is very beautiful. The mountains are very big and beautiful in Italy and southern Italy is no exception. We stopped at a beautiful hotel we found in the Michelin Guide, which we arrived at by driving down a two lane road with goats in the road, over a dirt road that went through a marsh. It is very remote and beautiful. People are very friendly.
June 4. We took the ferry to Messina, Sicily from the "toe". We drove to Palermo, a big city on the island of Sicily. We also bought a ferry ticket to the island of Sardinia leaving from Palermo in about a week. We stayed in Monreale, a beautiful old town, high up on a mountain, just outside Palermo. We paid 90 Euro ($125) for room with a beautiful view, but you had to put your leg/foot in the shower to use the toilet because the bathroom was so small! We had a good Sicilian dinner -risotto and briolle.
June 5. We visited a beautiful duomo in Monreal and drove to Agrigento in the southern part of Sicily. Along the way, we had lunch in Corleone. It had no real connection with the "Godfather" movies but it sounded cool. We also went to "Prizzi". It didn’t look like “Godfather Country,” but we got some free pecorino cheese, which was delicious. The man at the cheese shop would not accept any money for the small amount of cheese we wanted. Just outside town, we had a good lunch at the local establishment. The local sergeant policeman was eating with his deputy and the 20-somethings. We imagined they were talking about food, sports and women! The owner of the local hotel was eating there and he appeared to get the most respect. We enjoyed veal scaloppini in lemon sauce for our main dish. As with all meals recommended by the Michelin Guide, the food was excellent, but expensiveIn Agrigento. We walked around the Village of Temple, a large area of Greco Roman ruins from 8-4th century B.C. They are as well preserved as ruins we have seen in Athens and Rome. We stayed at an apartment directly on the Mediterranean Ocean. We had a two-bedroom place and had our laundry done. We also had a home-cooked meal on the patio, all for only 95 Euros. The family who rented us the place were Italians, but had lived near Vancouver, Canada in their younger years. Their daughter, Julia, spoke very good English.
June 6. We drove to Calascibetta and thought we were going to Emme. We stopped for coffee and pastry and had the best chocolate croissant (made with Nutella). The food we have eaten in Sicily has been so good. Simple ingredients, seasoned with olive oil and seasonings. Wonderful fungi (mushrooms), cucumbers, and tomatoes. We drove to Siracusa next and had a lunch of salomi and fresh bread with pecarino cheese and fruit. The local bread we ate was in the shape of an “s,” perhaps for Sicily. We went to both Greek and Roman theatre ruins. It was very hot and Nancy bought a cold can of Coke for 2 Euros, about $2.60! Before visiting the ruins, we had a beautiful ride around the island that was the original part of the city of Siracusa. We drove to Mt. Etna on a scenic route through lava fields where beautiful flowers grew. Mt. Etna is a huge, high volcanic mountain that frequently erupts. We spent the night in Taormina, high on top of a mountain. The town is beautiful, but “tourist hell.” We found a pension for 65 euros ($100) with a terrace and a beautiful view from atop the mountain overlooking the Mediterranean. The town and every restaurant was full of tourists and the prices and quality of food reflected that. We ate at what we thought was a local restaurant, Lecchio’s, but it was not. We ordered two appetizers, two pastas, no main course, no wine-38 euros ($50). We felt the other patrons were silently saying “look at those poor Americans.”
June 7. We got up and toured the ancient Greek Theatre in Taormina and had lunch in the town of Randazzo at a restaurant in the Michelin Guide. We had Tartuffe dessert, but it did not have nuts like our favorite Tartuffe at Café Roma in NYC. We stayed in Trabia at a cheap place recommended by an “expensive” hotel clerk. Our door was 6ft. from the bay and we heard the waves lap at our door all night long. The reason we did not stay two nights was because the room filled with mosquitoes during the night. Doug got lots of bites. We drove into Palermo, hoping to see a Sicilian dance performance. After finally finding the theatre, it was dark-no performance. Nearby, on the next block, restaurants had tables set up on the street and were grilling seafood outside. The owner of one of the restaurants insisted on serving us a special plate and said it would be cheap! It was delicious, but as usual, it cost about $60. We had grilled octopus, shrimp, swordfish, and a grouper-type fish. Of course, pasta, antipasta and bread. While eating, we noticed a motor bike going by with Mom and Dad and a six-month old baby between them, sucking on a pacifier. No one had a helmet on!
June 8. After leaving “mosquito Ville,” about 10 miles down the road in St. Flavia, not far from Palermo, we found another cheap hotel for 50 euros, 5 euros more than the mosquito place, but very nice and no mosquitos! We spent most of the day ambling around the western tip of Sicily with another 50 euros ($70) lunch in Tramani. We ate fresh fish again, one pasta w/eggplant and swordfish, another with shrimp. We hope the pounds are dropping off on this Mediterranean diet! We have eaten a lot more different shaped pastas than we see in the U.S. One reason for the different shapes is how the sauce adheres to the pasta. We attended an outdoor tango music performance in Palermo, a summer night festival held in an old palace ruins in the city. The music was Argentina tango music. Lots of fashionable people were there-the young, chic, bohemian crowd. Locals from the Tango Club danced in the back so the crowd could watch them and listen to the music at the same time. It was a fun and interesting event.
June 9. We drove the coast highway back toward Palermo and stopped in a beautiful port city called Porticello. We had coffee and a croissant at a small café on the water. We would like to go back to Porticello sometime and rent an apartment for a few weeks. Regarding the driving in Italy, we have observed that people who drive fast cars, Mercedes, BMW’s, Audi’s, drive faster. Those who drive small cars, go slower. Traffic jams are everywhere in Italy and drivers are extremely aggressive. Streets are narrow and there are motorbikes everywhere to watch out for. Driving is very challenging, but Doug is doing an outstanding job of keeping us safe. Lanes don’t count and if there is not enough room for another lane, they take the space and make one. Stop signs don’t count either and everyone runs them. And, they double park on two lane streets or any street for that matter. People pass you on both the right and left, at the same time! We took an all night ferry (12 hours) from Palermo to the island of Sardenia. We had a very small cabin (about the size of our bathroom at home) with bunk beds. The cabin cost an additional 57 euros ($80). The ferry passage for us and the car was 208 euros ($300). We slept pretty well, but the family of three next door sounded like they were in our room when they talked and used their bathroom. The accoustics in second class cabins is not very good! But, why pay an additional 23 euros for a 1st class cabin for only 12 hours. The ferry was full and Italians like to talk. They seem to never be quiet. But, that is part of their charm. They are gracious and giving. Often, in small food shops, we are offered samples of food or even given food as we usually only want small amounts. Italians seem to dress up all the time-very stylish, especially the women. Women rarely wear shorts, only slacks, even in hot weather. They like to window shop in the evenings in the towns, dressed up to see and to be seen! Shops close every day from 12:30 to 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. There is no shopping during this time. And, shops are only open until 8:00 or 8:30 p.m., even grocery stores. I don’t imagine these hours would go over very good in the U.S. where we are used to shopping 24-7. But, it seems to work for the Italians and it is pleasant to window shop in the late evening and see families out together walking around the towns.
June 10. We got off the ferry in Cagliari, Sardenia. We stopped at a huge flea market that was nearby and bought some good local cheese. We drove to Dorgali, on the east coast, past beautiful Mediterranean beaches. Being Sunday, everyone was at the beach and the beaches were very crowded. We spent the night at a beautiful place in the mountains recommended in the Michelin Guide. Sardenia is very mountainous, like Sicily, but more Alpine and rocky terrain. Our meal at the hotel was very good. They served us a pasta filled with a puree of potatoes and cheese, like a filled dumpling or perroggi. We paid 50 euros for the supper. At the next table, the help were having supper, for free! Their supper looked just as good as ours. For an appetizer, they had fresh cantelope and proscuitto ham. For pasta, they had rigatoni with fresh tomato sauce. And, for their entree, they had cut-up sausage. For dessert, they had fruit, like us. The most outstanding thing about our meal was the bread. It was a thin-crisp, flat bread as big as a 10” pizza, with olive oil drizzled on top. You just snapped off a piece and popped it in your mouth. We don’t know if it was baked like a pizza or griddled like a crepe, but it sure was good!
June 11. We drove up the east coast and cut across to the west coast. We stopped to swim at a beautiful rocky, beach. We only went calf-deep because of the plethora of rocks. Nancy was scared, but after crying and moaning, she overcame her fear and sat down in the water. We stopped again to swim at a sandy, public beach in Alghero. The town was touristy, but nice. On the beach, Doug admired several topless female sunbathers. He admired one so much that she and her boyfriend moved their blankets further away from where we had put our shoes and towels to go for a swim. We spent the night in Isolo Rosa, at Hotel Gabianno, a very nice place. The town is very scenic, on the water-a lazy beach town. Struggle for supper: we decided on pizza for our last night in Sardenia. The place on the next block from our hotel had a coal-fired oven. We ordered two pizza’s and two coke-lites. They said “no coke-lites. We asked if we could bring our own coke-lite into the restaurant to enjoy with our pizza. They said “impossible.” We went back to our room and got our own coke-lite and brought it back to the restaurant anyway and Doug offered the waiter 5 euros (the cost of two sodas) to let us drink our soda with our pizza. He said “impossible.” Doug asked again and asked the owner and the owner said “impossible.” So, we left defeated, but not for long. We went back to our hotel and found out from an English speaking clerk that we could order take-away pizza from the restaurant. We got permission from the hotel owner to eat our pizza at their sidewalk table. The clerk called in our order to the restaurant, Doug went and got it and returned. It was the best pizza we had on the whole trip. Nothing is impossible! For a final touch, we went by the restaurant and told them how good the pizza was.
June 12. We took the ferry to Corsica, France, a 50 minute trip, for 60 euros. We drove to the central point on Corsica to find a place to stay as we planned to make day trips from there each day to explore the island. We stayed near the town of Aleria. We stopped at a property rental office (mobilier) and they had nothing in our price range, but we had a sheet of paper showing private rentals we had gotten from the tourist office. The agent was kind enough to call one of the private rentals, a two bedroom apartment for 40 euros per night. The owner met us at the mobiler and led us back to the apartment, through the woods! We were met by the entire family and shown the apartment. The son’s friends had been sleeping in the apartment and they had to move to the main house. The apartment had two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom, and toilet room-perfect for us. There were even chickens outside, with grapevines and vineyards surrounding the property. The only problem we encountered is we almost couldn’t find the place after returning from dinner around midnight, but we did! We enjoyed living like French country folks.
June 13. Today, we drove through some magnificent mountains and toward the southern part of the island. We had lunch at a nice restaurant, sitting outside on a balcony in the town of Levie. The restaurant was called La Pergola and was in our Michelin Guide. Everyday, we have at least one meal that costs $50, and some days, two meals for that price. We are truly poor Americans as compared to Europeans. We appear to be “poorer” as the prices seem to not bother them. We stopped at a “big box” store (bigger than a Super Walmart in the U.S.) and ran into two sets of young people we had seen earlier at the restaurant and on the ferry the day before. It appears that times are changing in Europe-no more shopping at specialty food stores and farmer’s markets and no more $25 per person, two hour lunches, at least for the younger folks. We cooked dinner at the apartment and enjoyed eating in for a change.
June 14. Today, we drove to the heart of Corsica, the town of Corte. We drove on to Ajaccio, the largest town on the island with 50,000 people. The whole island of Corsica only has 250,000 people, plus tourists. We ate another $50 lunch and saw Napoleon’s home. We drove back from Corte through some very high mountains on a one-lane road-no trucks or buses, thank goodness! It was beautiful, and luckily, we didn’t go over the edge of the mountain!
June 15. We drove to the most northern point on the island-Cap Corse. Again, high mountains and narrow, winding roads. The $50 Michelin lunch recommendation was closed so we stopped in the next village at what we thought was a pizzaria. It turned out to be a local “hang-out” restaurant. Kids were playing fuzball, adults were playing cards, and we were the last seated for lunch. There was no communicating with the staff in this local place so we ordered “plat de jour” (plate of the day). What came out was a skewer of lamb with peppers, salad and the best, damn French fries we have ever eaten. They were not crispy, but fully cooked and oily and tasted like baked potatoes. Also, we had the best ice cream for dessert-”store bought” chocolate noir-very dark chocolate-yum, yum!We checked on the internet for possible passage back to the USA, but the airfares are somewhat steep. We will take the ferry to Nice from Calui, Corsica tomorrow and will check our options, once we’re on the continent again.
June 16. We drove to Calui to take the ferry to Nice, France. We stopped at L’Isle-Rousse, on Corsica, for lunch. If you ever get there, we had our heartiest and cheapest and maybe most delicious meal at LeGrillon. The wine and coffee were only 4 euros and each of the meals were only 13 euros. We had excellent cannelloni casserole and steak with mushroom sauce and scalloped potatoes. The dessert of the house was a firm cream with bits of coconut and raspberry sauce-delicious! We were stuffed! We rode the ferry and it turned out to be 7 hours instead of 5 ½ hours long. After two hours, we knew Doug had made a mistake for not paying 25 euros for a cabin for us to take a nap in. Upon arrival in Nice, we rode down the beautiful Boulevard of the English and drove further down to Cannes and saw some late Saturday night activities, people walking about. We couldn’t find a place to stay and finally, at 1:30 a.m., we found a motel chain called B&B where you check yourself in automatically with a credit card. There is not a human on site to assist you. We followed a “flashing light” fire truck through the gate of the motel. After we checked in and were charged 46 euros on our credit card, we found out there was a possible fire at the motel. All the guests were told to leave their room, including us. It was after 2:00 a.m. when we received the “all clear” to go to our room. After that, the room was a good deal for the price.
June 17. We drove to the Marseille airport and changed the rental car we had for a new one. We had worn the tires down on the old one due to the car being out of alignment. We now have a Renault Clio, a bit smaller than our Peugeot, but okay. We drove to Aix- En- Provence and had lunch at Saigon restaurant, a recommendation in the Michelin Guide. It was 47 euros for lunch, but very good. The best tasting Asian food ever! We forgot where the car was parked after lunch and it took more than a mile of walking to find it. Then, Nancy left her jacket at the restaurant after we left our parking space. We had to find a new parking space, find the restaurant again, and find the car again. Aix is filled with tourists and narrow, winding streets. It would be enchanting on a first visit, but too busy for a seasoned traveler or a person looking for the “real” France. We continued on to Sete, a beautiful, but touristy beach community. We began our second day of long searches for a night’s lodging. We turned up our nose at three hotels on the beach for 80 euros. We ended up buying a room for 32 euros near Sete at a chain hotel called “Premiere One.” After check-in and payment, we discovered we couldn’t’ stay there due to road noise and dripping water from the bath. We packed up and moved on to the town of Beziers. After checking 6 or 8 hotels, we finally found a B&B motel chain like we stayed in the night before. Doug did the automatic check-in and didn’t read the instructions. He ended up paying 36 euros for a room with a double bed instead of twins. Doug tried to void the transaction with someone on an intercom who was not at the hotel, but she said “too bad, so sad, you’re stuck.” We had now spent 68 euros, but no room to sleep in! Getting supper at 10:00 p.m. was even more of a fiasco, but too long to explain. Finally, we purchased a nice room for 68 euros at Campanile, a nice, chain hotel.
June 18. We drove the “blue highways” to Lacoune where we had lunch at Calas, France, at a four-generation run hotel and restaurant. The meal was 30 euros, plus wine and was delicious. We have found meals on the “blue highway” to be at least 5 euros cheaper than the tourist towns. We traveled on to the medieval town of Conques where we purchased a room, supper and breakfast for 96euros at Auburge St.-Jacques. Conques is a big tourist town because it is a stop on the way to Compostolle, Spain. All of the tourists left town before sundown and we had a real medieval experience. No cars are allowed in the town so we had to park on the outskirts and walk in after dropping off our luggage at the hotel with the car. At 9:30 p.m., the priest came out of the central cathedral and talked a0bout the history of the church and in particular, the lentil above the front door, which depicts judgement day. Then, we went inside the church and listened to organ music. We are traveling in south-central France where there seems to be less tourists than other areas, and no Americans. The owner of the restaurant where we ate lunch said she never has any American customers. The terrain here is very hilly, rolling, and green with beautiful forests and flowers.
June 19. We have a new French book which lists regional food specialties by department and region, along with restaurant recommendations. We stopped in a small town and bought two cheeses of the region-Cantal and a soft cheese, similar to aged brie. Next door was the bread shop (bolangerie) and we acted like real French and asked for a demi-baguette. The lady broke a full baguette in half and gave us half. In the next department/region, we had lunch that consisted of two regional specialties. One was limosin beef steak, served with a dark, wine sauce. The other dish was creasis fondue (of the region). Unlike the U.S., you spoon the fondue over an omelette, ham and French fries. It was a 52 euro lunch, but worth it. We drove an agricultural, country route (route of the frommages) to Richelieu, the home town of Cardinal Richelieu, a prime minister during the 16th century. We had a different supper with the local working folks at a local bar in Richelieu. Good pizza, diet cokes and dessert and coffee for 21 euros. Those folks hadn’t seen an American in a long time, if ever!
June 20. We drove along the Loire River for several kilometers and enjoyed the beautiful countryside. We had lunch in the car-a fresh demi-baguette, yesterday’s cheese purchase and an apple. We visited the Chateau in Angers. They had an 800 year old tapestry depicting the book of Revelation. There were 75 panels, each one about 6 ft by 8 ft. We then drove on to LeMans, where the famous car races are held. It is definitely a car town with an auto dealership on every corner. After LeMans, we made a management decision to end our France holiday and have a two day England holiday before heading home from Liverpool on Saturday, June 23. We headed to Calais on the toll road to return the car and catch the ferry to Dover. We didn’t find a room in Calais until 2:00 a.m. All rooms were sold out, but we finally took a “flea bag” that had a double bed with a bunk bed over the top of it. We didn’t think about putting the bunk mattress on the floor so Nancy crawled into the bunk off the ladder. The next morning she awoke to find that she couldn’t get down off the bunk bed. But, with Doug’s help, she finally made it down. The flea bag cost 40 euros.
June 21. We went to the Calais ferry port and purchased our tickets. Walk-up foot passenger price for Calais to Dover is 25 euros on P&O, but only 17 euros on Seafrance Ferry Line. It is worth checking the various ferry lines to save money. We arrived in Dover (off the ferry) and secured a Hertz car for two days. We headed out to see East Anglica, the Fen, the Wash, and the Yorkshire Dales. East Anglica is on the east side of England, in the middle of the country. The towns on the coast were reminiscent of old northeast, USA coastal towns-CT, New Hampshire, Maine. We had lunch at a Subway and had local fish-n-chips for dinner. We stayed at a B&B guest house in Cromer for 50 lbs ($100). The seaside was beautiful at night., but the weather was cool and we encountered some rain. We knew England was expensive, but we were shocked at $100 and $200 rooms in old houses!
June 22. We drove through many coastal towns where the RAF fought the aerial battle of Britain during WWII. The scenery looked just like the movies depicting the battle. We also drove through York, a beautiful alled city. We had a traditional “carvery” lunch for around $10 each. We especially enjoyed the bacon at breakfast and ham at lunch. We also enjoyed the town of Mablethorpe on the coast, which reminded us of the honky-tonk beaches of the 1950’s. They were playing bingo and eating fresh, cooked donuts. We drove on to Layburn in the Yorkshire Dales and stayed at “The Secret Garden,” a beautiful B&B. We saw ring-necked pheasant while driving down the country roads.
June 23. We drove through the Yorkshire Dales and the towns were full of tourists on hiking trips. We got to Liverpool Airport and found out that our normal baggage weighs just below 20 kilos-44 lbs.. This is the baggage limit allowed for low-fare airlines before they sock it to you for extra baggage weight charges. We flew “Flyglobespan” for $330 each, one-way to JFK. We rode on a 757-200 jet. It was enjoyable, but odd. The interior markings in the plane were “Icelandic Air.” Guess they bought the plane from them. At one point, the pilot announced we were flying some other airline. They had to change the tires on the plane before we could leave Liverpool. But, the good news we had “John Lennon‘s face” on the tail of our plane. The Liverpool airport is named Johnn Lennon Airport and they have a bronze bust of John in the lobby and several photos of the Beatles and other rock legends scattered throughout the airport. A real plus was the plane was only 1/3 full and we could each take a full row of three seats and lie down. Another odd thing was you had to pay for everything, including a glass of water. However, they did serve us a simple, hot meal, with a glass of free water! Doug had walked around the Liverpool airport picking up discarded newspapers so we had lots to read on the plane. We had our own earphones so we could watch the movies. Of course, they were selling earphones for $5. Also, they didn’t have a gate at either airport so we had to walk on and off the plane on the tarmac using metal stairs. The plane staff was especially courteous and accommodating. As Globespan is a Scottish airline, the staff seemed like country, Scottish folks.
The car rental and ride to Beulaville was uneventful, except that once again, flying out of Newark or Washington, DC is far superior to JFK or LaGuardia due to extra travel time, extra tolls, extra gas, and extra cost of car rental.
END OF TRIP.
p.s. We never smelled the MARQUIS in Corsica!
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Cruise:
Rooms and tips $2,043
Bus transfer to ship 80
St. Petersburg Guide 620
St. Petersburg Ballet 127
Pocket Money 200
Total $3,150
About $265.50 per day
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Land tour of France and Italy:
Food $2,026
Rooms 1,854
Admissions 265
Pocket money 800
Transportation:
Airplanes 1,580
Car rentals to planes 510
Ferries 710
Car rental - France/Italy 836
Fuel 900
Tolls 253
Total $9,744
About $360 per day ($80 for food; $80 for room and $160 for transport)
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