Croatian Birthday for Katherine, Katy, Kate

Last year, Mark and I went to Oregon to celebrate my birthday with Jane and Erik. You may recall we got engaged just a few days before my birthday, so we were definitely talking about the future as the four of us hiked through the Colombia river gorge. Actually, Erik was trying to give Mark some how-to photography lessons while talking boy-talk... and Jane and I talked about what the future might hold for Mark and me. At the time, I certainly had no idea that I would spend the following birthday on a Croatian island in the Adriatic. And yet, if someone had said that's where would be I certainly wouldn't have thought it a crazy or far-fetched suggestion. I like that. And I liked my 33rd birthday.
The four of us (remember my mom and dad joined us for this bit) took a ferry from Split out to the island of Hvar in the Adriatic. The scenery was beautiful, but I cannot tell a lie. The best part of the ferry was the fact that they had an iced blended coffee that was the closest thing I've had to a Starbucks frappucino in months. And at this point in our travels I would gladly trade every birthday cake I could ever have in the years to come for a venti mocha frap. When we got to the island, mom and dad set themselves up with some lounge chairs for an easy afternoon at the beach while Mark and I hopped on a scooter to zip around the island.

As every girl knows, the best part about a scooter ride is getting to hold on to the cute boy driving the scooter... and the worst part is helmet hair. But like fraps... it has been months since a blow dryer or a flat iron so bad hair is the norm anyways and didn't phase my good spirits.
We even found a secluded little beach for a birthday swim! I could tell you about the post swim discovery of our scooter knocked over and one of the mirrors broken off. But I didn't let it ruin my birthday nor will I let it ruin the blog! That night, mom and dad treated us to a nice dinner out to cap off the big day.
Mark has a big job ahead of him, this will be a hard birthday to top.

Bleeding, not good. Bled, good.

I know I'm a total dork. More like, a nine year old dork who thinks it is funny that we went to a place called Bled. Especially since we were going to a place called Split afterwards. And especially, especially since I want Mark to take me to Middlefart, Denmark later this summer. I can think of at least one 6 year old I know who would be impressed if I tell him I went to Middlefart.
Back to Bled.
Bled, is beautiful. All of Slovenia that we saw was very picturesque, unspoiled, lush green mountainsides capped with leftover winter snow. Bled is known most for its pristine sub-alpine lake and castle perched on a cliff overlooking the lake.

In the middle of the lake is a small island with a church where visitors are invited to ring the bell for good luck. Manly-man Mark rowed us out to the island in no-time flat. Mom rang the bell with gusto on behalf of our group. And manly-man JP would have rowed us back fast as well, had I not asked to try, since I hadn't done anything for the group yet like ringing or rowing. Let me just say it is harder than it looks to row right. That so-called rowing machine at the gym is not even close.
I did better on our hike to a nearby gorge and glacial river. None of our pictures really do this really stunning area of the world justice. Slovenia strikes me as a photographer's paradise. I'm afraid you've got the amateur pictures here, but hopefully you can still tell Bled is pretty darn good.

Ahhh, Venice

Venice is kitsch. Venice has more American tourists than Trafalgar Square has pigeons. And yet... when you're riding down the grand canal you can see the attraction... ahhh, Venice. When I tune out my fellow north Americans (excluding the three I am traveling with of course) and blur my vision slightly to make the mass of people just look like colorful ground cover, I understand why people love Venice. It may be cheesy, but you won't see anything like it anywhere else in the world either. And besides, while I like going to out of the way places where you find lots of locals, I also don't want to become one of those snobby travelers who looks down my nose at other travelers either.
I think I also have a soft spot in my heart for Venice because it is the home of my earliest shopping experience that I remember. I was five and had the equivalent of one U.S. dollar, so I'm told by my mother, I don't actually remember that part. But I very clearly remember choosing my first big girl purchase, a necklace of small Venetian glass blue hearts. I'm also told I spent "A LOT" of time deciding on my purchase, considering other options, looking for just the right thing. I still have the necklace.
But it is true of even the most touristy of places, that if you look hard enough you can find non-touristy spots. We had dinner on a side alley where all the other patrons except a French couple were Italians. The only problem of course, is when we actually do get away from the other tourists and are surrounded by locals, it means we're also surrounded by cigarette smoke. Ahhh (cough, cough) Venice.

Italy is not Spain

We were in Spain for approximately a month. You often hear that the languages of Spain and Italian are related. Tell that to a non bilingual English speaking Canadian with no formal education in Spanish, and even less in Italian. Hola, hablo Englais, Gracias Senor. Not only was it obvious I couldn't speak Italian, I spoke to them as though I thought they were from Spain. I should be dragged into the streets and beaten with an Italian dictionary. Denada.

The train from Pisa to Roma was nice, you can see the beginnings of tuscany, but are taken south along the coast for awhile. It was only a few hours so we were in Rome before you knew it. We spent the first day wandering around some of the more familiar attractions, the Spanish steps, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain - I have a great ghost story about trevi fountain and it has to do with the window (or is it ) in the top right of this picture. We made sure we steered clear of The Vatican, because Sandy and JP had a special request in with Pope B for a tour. Rope a Pope, Popesical, Pope on a Rope, I'm Poped, Poper Scoper, as he is affectionately known may or may not have informed us that we could choose to wait in line with the rest of the vatican riff raff. So while JP Sandy and Katy all went off to sit at cafe's, seek air conditioning, enjoy iced drinks, I slugged it out in the line for hours days even so we could get a peek at the Sistine Chapel, and St Peter's Basilica. What a good son-in-law/husband I am.

Pisa

For the second time now, I've been to Pisa and didn't see the leaning tower. We have no pictures of Pisa, because what else is there beside the tower.

Andorra

What do you do when you've got a few more days before you leave to Italy, and you're looking for a change of scenery from your current location (Girona)? You go for the little tiny international boundary called Andorra, famous for hiking, skiing, and smuggling. To get there you're presented with a really nice drive through the Pyrenees mountains, keeping in mind that the road has lots of hidden corners to dodge death wish motorcyclists that lean a bike over while passing a bus and just assume that you won't touch them. As you arrive in Andorra, its basically one long valley with steep mountains on each side of it. With such an attractive place to put a town, it is too bad they concreted the hell out of it, and put up a million shops, with duty free, tax free signs everywhere. Cigarettes, booze, gasoline, it's all cheaper there. Needless to say, you have to get out of town and up in the hills. For any hiking book it is common to rate the difficulty of trails. If that hiking book is published by a country that knows only mountains, and to get anywhere you need to go up and over them... be warned what is classified as an easy hike. And bring a helicopter and set of ropes if you plan to tackle something difficult. For our easy hike we went up for about 2 hours above the tree line but it was worth it.


This was our 6 month anniversary hike. You'd think we lived in the southern hemisphere. Married on a beach in December. Hiking snow capped mountains in June. But hey, we are the gongshow.

Girona, A Little Spanish Gem

Myles had a ticket back to Dublin leaving from Girona. Frankly, we didn't expect much from the town and figured we'd use it for the last couple days of his time with us as a jumping off point to the northern coastal beaches. Afterall, that's what the books kept saying.. "Girona is a good jumping off point for the northern coastal beaches." But, we were pleasantly surprised by the old town of Girona and ended up skipping the coast. That's how good it was. We found a great little apartment (actually little isn't the right word it was quite spacious) right next to Girona's cathedral and enjoyed our first night with cava (Spain's champagne) and fresh strawberries.
One of Girona's charms I think comes from the fact that all the guidebooks describe Girona as a good jumping off point, it meant there were not a lot of tourists, at least English speaking tourists. A nice change from Barcelona where it was impossible to walk down Las Ramblas without hearing other north American accents besides our own. Girona had a little mini Las Ramblas of its own, where we enjoyed morning cafe con leches and afternoon grub. Girona like many other Spanish towns has a walled fortress surrounding the old city, that used to keep out invaders and now provides great views of the city.
All in all Girona not only exceeded our admittedly low expectations but easily charmed us.

Barcelona

From Sitges I grabbed the wheel of our little car cabin, and repeated one word.... Gaudi.
You can't go to Barcelona or "Barthelona" without seeing Gaudi. 7 years ago I made it to the underground stop of La Sagrada Familia - but the egg salad sandwich I had about 6 hours ago said...turn around, go back to your hotel, sit and think about what your doing, maybe grab a couple of newspapers while your at it. This time I was not to be stopped! After a morning stop at a fresh fruit market Mylie, Katy and Flee, grabbed some fruit and fiber and hit the day. Started in 1882, the massive cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi is expected to be completed by 2082...(maybe?). Days earlier we had a conversation about the buildings that modern man builds, and if we rush it, or put non-sustainable architecture in place that looks good but would topple in a stiff wind. (katy - adds "modern woman")...(Mark adds .. great my wife is a feminist)..(katy adds - "you're only just realizing this now?") ... (Mark orders more beer). Anyway my point being that when you see this place its the most interesting building I've ever looked at in my life!! and I could spend hours or days even looking at the intricacies held within. An example, the faces of the statues on the outside are plaster casts of some of the workers that began construction on the building and will now be forever remembered, not as bob the builder, but as some angel or child or even one of the 3 wise men. Not bad for bob the builder.
Anyway here are some pictures that don't even come close to doing the building justice.


Gaudi has other interesting buildings to see, but you have to leave time for a few other points of interest and that would be Las Ramblas.

Return to Spain

It is nearly the end of June and we haven't blogged in a month. And boy have we covered a lot of ground in the last month. Mark, my big-time-planner-husband actually wrote about Spain not long after we were in Spain but we never got around to actually posting it.
Crikey.
Oh well, gotta start making up for lost blogs sometime... here is what he wrote upon leaving Morocco and returning to Spain:
We’re getting tired of the “ ‘ello welcome, where are you from? come into my store, please…come ‘ello ??” Outside of the markets in the medina, the hustle and anything to keep you in the shop for a possible sale, Morocco is an incredible place for the senses. Anytime we took a train we ended up talking with our fellow passengers at great length, some in English, quite of bit of franish of spench where we substituted francais for espanol when the words couldn’t come to us, and the occasional Arabic word to show that we were trying. Everyone taking great interest in what we liked about morocco, how long we would be staying and what we really must not miss before we leave. For those with the curiosity to visit the country – take at least 2 weeks. It is bigger than you think, and the north far different from the south. The Atlas mountains much different than the Mediterranean.
Anyway we’re in Spain again – only this time we’ve added my cousin Mylie to the gongshow.
After just missing the 7pm boat back to Tarifa, we waited 2 hours and caught the last one for the day. Myles met us having just arrived from Dublin the same day, and we all shared a few pints / vino blanco’s. Katy is thrilled about the chance to change from long sleeves and pants back to skirts and a t-shirt that shows the riskee bit of skin above the elbow. Retired at 2pm and then it was off to Cadiz on the coast, a round of beers and bocadillo’s for the 3 Fleetons and then inland, destination Ronda. Ronda is a town that has been built on both sides of a 100m deep gorge, with a bridge that while short in distance is incredible just for the sheer amount of stone work involved. Views are absolutely spectacular. We booked into a cheap hostel, which when you’re traveling on a budget is sometimes a curse but often (at least for me) is a blessing. Why? Because we’re looking over the cliffs near a 5 star hotel for free with a bottle of vino tinto, pretzels, a jar of olives, a bit of cheese and nuts from the mercato. We ate, drank and chatted on the top of a 100m gorge watching the sun go down with a couple of locals playing bad acoustic guitar. Ronda is a little gem in Spain.

Mountains – A New 7th Wonder of the World, and more Mountains.
It’s near the end of May and the snow capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada’s are the backdrop to what is Granada, home of one of what may be one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. The Alhambra. Alhambra is the palace built in the 13th century atop the tallest hill in Granada that was the last Moorish stronghold and residence of Sultans when Spain began to reclaim the country had been invaded several hundred years ago from the north of Africa. (This is Mark by the way ☺ ). We spent a few hours walking the grounds and snapping unbelievable pics of really good moorish architecture.

It was good to be sultan. Then we had a Major hike to the top of the hills assisted by about 250 hoursepower… though you wouldn’t know from the pic.
Four more hours of windy roads and you’ll find yourself in Alemeria – Spains largest green house for tomatoes and what not. Impressed? Not really. So we settled on San Jose, a little beach town on the coast. We amused ourselves driving by listening to a books on tape by Bill Bryson “A short History of Nearly Everything” – at least I think that’s what its called – Monkeys, Glaciers, Atoms, and … well … it was a long day. Informative. And well that’s about it.
Alicante is awesome – the beach is huge, the water warm, it’s a city in the desert so the climate is warm and perfect for the beach much earlier than the rest of Spain.
And then there is Paella. The Spanish rice dish of seafood, saffron, slow, slow, slow cooked and brought out on a family sized skillet for a communal plate. Put a couple of bottles of vino blanco or was it tinto? or maybe both, plus a Spaniard on the harp, in a square far away from the sound of any car, and it’s a combination that is pretty hard to top. I could go back. But since we’re on a trucker schedule of a delivery of Myles to Girona by the 3rd of June we’re gone tomorrow. But you can see why it’s tough to leave.
Sitges was our next stop... and is as gay as a picnic. Of course the street where everyone is out people watching, I found myself being dragged up and down by my wife. Myles, as always a good sport, tagged along. We tried not to watch the sailors, and bikers dancing in front of the bars they were trying to hustle people into. I’ve lived in SF and I’ve been out in the Castro but let's just say you need to be in the mood and surrounded by a bunch of buddies or chicks that are certain on what side of the fence you stand on. What we did do here is eat sushi, a nice break from the jamon/chorizo y queso bocadillo tradition we started since…. well pretty much every time you want some lunch in spain, you get a bun pork and cheese. And I’m talking about the pig pork here people. Okay this blog is done. “Katy – your turn.”