Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2026 Part 2: Eating Our Way Through Spain – August 8 (Train Transfer To Barcelona)

Where We Did The Dumbest Travel Mistake,

Manage To Salvage The Situation,

And Realize We Really Didn’t Ask The Tour Company Enough Questions

The timing this morning was tight: we had a driver coming to pick us up at 8:30 to take us to the train station for our 9:27 train to Barcelona. We got up extra early, and made our way to the dining room for breakfast, only to discover that breakfast started at 7:30. Oops. I guess we knew that? This was an omen.

Nonetheless, we figured it out, and we were ready at 8:30 when Abel our driver showed up, and off we went.

Part of the challenge with the train was that we each had one large suitcase. Andy had our big backpack, and his computer bag. We also ended up with TWO wheelchairs: we brought my transport chair for the airports (airport assistance is unpredictable at best, and horrible most of the time), but the tour company had also rented a better wheelchair for the duration of the trip. We wanted to use that one for the daily stuff, because we knew it would handle the sidewalks, streets, and cobblestones better.

As we’re driving along, it is dawning on us that we have no idea how we’re going to get our stuff to the train. I’m googling away as to whether there are carts available at the station – NOPE. There is assistance available, but you have to request it in advance. I’m beginning to wonder why our tour company contact didn’t tell us any of this stuff? And also it’s obvious we didn’t ask enough detailed questions about this train business.

As I’m googling away, Andy suddenly gasps and says: “WE LEFT THE PASSPORTS IN THE SAFE IN THE HOTEL”.

HOLY SHIT

Excuse us while we take a moment to freak out.

We ask the driver to take us back to the hotel – it’s all of 10 minutes, but now the chances of making the 9:27 train has dropped dramatically. As we’re heading towards the hotel, Andy calls our emergency number for the tour company, and explains the situation. The tour guy says, don’t worry, we’ll figure this out. He will put us in contact with a local tour contact, who will call us back. The guy assures us that all will be well. Worst case scenario, we take a later train, it’s ok, it’s all good.

For some reason that doesn’t really help. But we did ask him if he could arrange for assistance for when the train arrives in Barcelona. He says he will take care of it. Ok good, at least maybe that will make it easier once we get there.

We get to the hotel, Andy gets the stuff out of the safe, and the front desk person says,”Well, at least you thought of this before you got on the train!”.

We are now racing back to the train station. The driver lucks out catching a couple of green lights, and we get there more quickly than the first time.

The clock is ticking, but we think we have a shot at making that train. It’s a matter of getting our stuff TO the train.

Andy has the backpack on his back, his computer bag on his shoulder, and is toting two big suitcases. I have the small wheelchair precariously balanced on the bigger wheelchair. This is not great, but we’re doing it.

We have to go through security first. I think I may have cut in line. Not sure, didn’t care.

Once past security, I head straight towards platform 2. It is 9:25. I am toddling as fast as I can, with the smaller wheelchair, once precariously perched, now starting to slip out of my hands.

We get to the gate. At first the gate staff tell us we have to use the escalators (WHAT!?!), and then rethinks that. She uses her keys to open the door to the elevator, and – even more importantly – calls down to the staff waiting down by the train to hold the train, because we are coming! Bless that woman’s soul.

The train staff is waving us on – “YOU HAVE TO GET ON NOW!”

Like, no kidding.

They finally decide that watching us flailing around trying to get onto the train is not helping anybody, and they finally pinch in to haul bags, chairs, and me onto the train – noticing that one of the footrests from the small wheelchair is missing. That’s the least of our worries.

And then the train staff tells Andy that Barcelona is the last stop on this line, and we will have 5 minutes to get off the train or be stuck going back towards Madrid. Oh, goodie.

At last we are settled in our seats. Andy is able to get ahold of the local tour rep and confirm that we are on the 9:27 train. And the local tour rep confirms he has set up assistance.

Apparently breakfast was ordered for us! So second breakfast it is.

These are some photos of the scenery and one of our train car.

At some point during the ride, a staff member stops by to confirm that we requested assistance. It occurs to me that we really don’t know what we’re supposed to do – get off the train? Wait for somebody?

But we decide that we’re getting off the train within that 5 minute window, because we’re not taking any more chances. We pack up and position ourselves by the door at 12:55, about 10 minutes before we’re scheduled to arrive. Which was a good thing, because a long line of people has formed behind us.

As the train pulls into the station, an announcement blasts over the speakers: “MIND THE GAP BETWEEN THE TRAIN AND THE PLATFORM”.

When the train comes to a stop and the door opens – YIKES – that gap is HUGE. Andy manages to get me off the train, and then all our stuff. We still don’t know what the story is with the assistance, when a guy randomly shows up and asks if I’m Amy Sheldon. Yes, indeed, I am.

“I’ve been looking for you!”

I told him that we didn’t know what to do, so we got off the train to make sure we didn’t end up back in Madrid.

With his help, we make it up to the main lobby, and there is our driver! Woohoo!

Amazingly enough, we made it, with all our stuff, including our passports!

Our hotel is in the heart of old gothic Barcelona, with a similar “I’m going to get lost in these alleyways” feel like Venice. Our hotel staff is simply marvelous, overflowing with helpfulness. Our room is fantastic.

After we’ve dropped off our stuff, it’s time for lunch. We go to a place recommended by Fajad – tapas with a Belgian twist.

Not pictured: mushroom croquettes

According to our schedule, we had tickets to a flamenco show at 6:30, so we had a little time to organize ourselves in the hotel and maybe take a nap.

We asked Fajad for a recommendation for dinner after the show, and he made reservations for us.

We walked over to the venue for the flamenco show. They can’t find us anywhere in their reservation system. Andy called our tour rep, again, but spoke to a different person who didn’t seem particularly helpful to me. She talked to the ticket guys, but everybody seems to be scratching their heads. We’re about to just buy the tickets anyway and get reimbursed, when the ticket guy just hands us the tickets. He said that he didn’t know what happened, but here you are.

We are in the front row

The dancers were marvelous. It was also very loud.My only disappointment is that the woman didn’t dance with her castanets.

It’s a bit difficult to capture their motion in stills, but this interface won’t let me upload videos.

For dinner we went to another place recommended by Fajad. Fabulous, just like the first one.

Tomorrow: We accomplish Goal 1 of this adventure: The Sagrada Familia

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2026 Part 2: España!

August 7: Where We Take A Side Trip To Toledo, Where It’s Even Hotter Than Madrid

We’re beginning to realize that we didn’t ask enough questions when we set up this adventure. We didn’t pick up on the fact that we would not have one tour guide with us: we had Myte for the first two days in Madrid. She was our guide for two tours. There actually wasn’t any flexibility to stay longer at the Prado. Yesterday’s “half day tour” was 5 hours, and then she was gone and we were on our own – which is perfectly fine, especially in Spain where we can get around on our own and somehow communicate when we need to.

So, we said good-bye to Myte yesterday. This morning a young man named Abel came to pick us up to take us to Toledo. It was about an hour drive.

When we arrived in Toledo, we picked up our local tour guide, Ricardo. Another thing I’ve noticed so far is that none of these tours have any bathroom breaks built in. Ricardo wasn’t expecting to need a break as soon as we arrived (sorry, Ricardo), so he had me walk into a restaurant to use their bathroom. The people behind the counter gave me the stink eye. I kind wish he has talked to them before telling me to go in.

We quickly noticed that Ricardo remembered Andy’s name – and used it repeatedly. “Andy, Andy, look at this…” or “Andy, Andy, do you know the history of…”. What was also obvious was that he couldn’t remember my name for anything. I was, “Lady, lady…”. I told him my name at least 3 times during the tour, but he couldn’t pronounce it (it came out as “ah-mee”, or remember it. After a while I just gave up.

We drove to the classic Toledo panoramic photo spot:

We drove through some of the streets of the old city until we came to one of two old synagogues. Neither synagogue functions as a synagogue anymore; Ricardo said there was only one Jew left in Toledo.

You can see the Islamic influences in the architecture and decorations.

This was the curtain in front of the ark – it was donated in memory of Mordechai Chadidah (or Chadirah)

There were some headstones from the old Jewish cemetery. One of them I was able to pick out a little bit of what it said: “This is the grave of Mr. Shmuel son of Mr Sheltiel…” and then I kind of lose it.

These are the wedding outfits from a young couple a few hundred years ago. I really like her Star of David.

According to Ricardo and Google search, this is a bookcase of some sort, even though it has symbols of the Holy Inquisition on the top.

Can’t seem to find any info as to what this means

After the synagogue, we started walking to the cathedral. The streets were narrow, steep, and cobblestone.

That’s me toddling my way up this super uncomfortable cobblestone street

The offical name of the cathedral is Primate Cathedral of Saint Mary of Toledo. It took 300 years to complete. It is a classic Gothic style church. The cardinal of the cathedral has been a powerful political figure in Toledo’s past. King Philip II moved it to Madrid partially because Madrid is almost dead center of Spain, but also to move some of the political power away from Toledo.

The inside is just amazing. This is the choir.

This is the altar – each section is a bible story to help explain the bible to ordinary people, most of whom could not read or write.

I always love stained glass – especially rose windows.

The Great Monstrance of Toledo is made of mostly gilded silver and is encrusted with assorted precious stones. It is carried in the annual pageant of Corpus Christi

Perhaps saving the best for last, we went into the Sacristy, which is full of some of the most famous paintings in the world.

One room has paintings of all the cardinals of Toledo, past and present.

The last guy on the bottom is the current cardinal. I forgot to ask what his name is

More amazing masterpieces:

With this the tour was essentially done, but before I got in a car for an hour, there needed to be one more bathroom break. I think I was starting to annoy Ricardo, but such is life. A five hour tour needs some breaks!

Though I guess we were cutting it close for time – we needed to be back at the car by 1:00 p.m. Ricardo took over pushing my transport chair – he began fairly racing through the streets, dodging people like obstacles in a gauntlet, never bothering to say “Excuse me!” or anything, just dashing here and there, literally running over one woman’s foot in his haste. I wondered if he was rated as to how prompt he was.

It was time for lunch when we arrived back at the hotel. We didn’t go far – just a block or two up the Gran Via and then down Montera St, where we had tapas as Tapa Tapa. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of all but one. We had chicken skewers, vegetable rice (which they didn’t want to call a paella), croquettes, and….something else.

We were a bit wiped out from the 5 hour tour, so after lunch was nap time

For our last dinner in Madrid, we went back to Mercado San Anton to have dinner at the restaurant on the top floor. We shared the sea bass and a grilled cookie with ice cream. YUM.

Tomorrow: Barcelona! Where we will accomplish the first of two objectives of this adventure.

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure Part 2: Spain – Where The Tapas Are

August 4, 5, and 6, 2026 – We Arrive, We Eat, We Tour, We Eat, We Go Shopping, And – You Guessed It! We Eat!

August 4 & 5

For once, not much to say about the flight. It was almost on time leaving, got very little sleep, and arrived a few minutes early. We were totally confused as to what was happening with my gate-checked transport chair. Normally the airport staff brings the chair to the airplane, but this time a guy came with an airport chair and wheeled me to a van (with Andy coming up behind). The van drove us to some spot that looked a bit like a construction zone, but it was an entrance to the terminal. The same guy helped us get our bags and find our driver from the tour company, who was waiting for us.

We were not 100% clear how this tour was going to work. This is our first time booking a private tour with a company. We weren’t sure if one person would be with us the whole time or what. Turns out it’s “or what”. Which is fine; it just wasn’t clear.

Our first tour guide, Myte, was waiting for us in the lobby of the hotel. Myte ran through a bunch of stuff. She gave us a packet that was an update to one I had downloaded from the portal. This version had times of departure, which was new info. I have very little memory otherwise of what she said, since my brain was running on about 90 minutes sleep. Not much of anything was registering.

We had a few hours to kill before our room was ready for us. We sat in the lobby and dosed off repeatedly. Eventually it was lunch time. We walked over to the Hyatt a few blocks away that had a restaurant called “Diana” that Myte recommended. I really meant to take photos of the food while we were in Spain, but I didn’t think of it at the time, because my brain wasn’t keen on thinking. Writing this I’m trying to remember what I had, but it’s not coming to me. It was good, whatever it was.

Here are some photos of views from the restaurant.

It wasn’t much longer after lunch that our room was ready. This is a “boutique” hotel – I’m not exactly sure what that means, but it’s interesting. We have this maze-like path to get to our room from the elevator. The hallway lights automatically turn off and on. It’s a bit like walking through a haunted house attraction.

We were able to get a couple hours sleep and shower before meeting Myte at 6:30 for a walk through the old part of Madrid and a tapas crawl.

The first stop in out tapas crawl was a tapas bar than has been in operation for over 100 years. We had a “Croqueta de bacalao” a croquet made of cod and bechamel cream. Sorry, no functioning brain, no food photo.

Myte took this photo of us looking exhausted in front of the tapas bar

It’s very possible this sequence is jumbled a bit.

Our next stop was in the Plaza del Sol (Note: it’s pronounced Platha del Sol; the castellano accent takes a little getting used to). It’s harder to tell how exhausted we were in this photo.

I think the next tapas bar brought us something called a “Russian Salad”. It’s not 100% clear why it’s called that, but it’s fabulous: very light tuna, potatoes, carrots, peas in mayo,.

The next place we had a “Spanish tortilla”, which is actually an omelette. In Andy’s wine is a frozen grape; it’s purpose is to keep the wine cold.

This is a photo of me looking extraordinarily exhausted with the “tortilla” and Andy’s glass of wine.

We passed by Botin, which – according to Guiness Book of World Records – it is the oldest operating restaurant in the world. It has a miniature/dollhouse version of itself in the window.

I believe our last stop was at a place that kept bringing us tapas we couldn’t eat because it had either shellfish or ham. The last one was a winner – a roasted artichoke. You can see the remains of two other attempts – one had ham, olives, and tomato (we ate the tomato), and the other had tuna and peppers (that one was fine).

We were kinda done after this. Myte sent us back to the hotel in a taxi, because this entire walking tour was downhill.

August 6

A full night’s sleep and we were good to go this morning. We met Myta in the lobby at 10:00. We had a driver today, who took us first to the Prado.

When we booked this tour, we didn’t realize that we’d only have 1 hour in the Prado, where we could easily spend the whole day. Myte took us on a “highlights” tour, a lot of which were paintings of Spanish kings (mostly named Charles or Philip) and queens (mostly Isabella with random Maria’s thrown in for good luck).

Most annoyingly, we were not allowed to take photos.

The first painting we stopped to look at was Hieronymus Bosch’ “Garden of Earthly Delights” that you can see at the link. I remember seeing this painting the first time I was ever in Madrid in 1978.

The rest is a bit of a jumble – if we had been able to take photos, the timestamp would have been very helpful.

We spent some time looking at “The Washing Of The Feet” by Tintoretto that changes perspective as to walk by it. Take a look at the video at this link.

There were A LOT of paintings of the Spanish kings and queens. Keeping them straight was impossible. The Hapsburgs married each other like crazy, passing along all sorts of genetic abnormalities, including the famous Hapsburg chin.

We spent time looking at Velazquez’ “Las Meninas”. Myte pointed out all the techniques used to show depth and perspective, and how Velazquez inserted himself into the painting in the background.

For more info, take a look at this link.

And then we came to El Greco, whose paintings are still as vivid as if they were painted yesterday. We looked at The Pentecost and the Adoration Of The Shepards, noting how he elongated the bodies of the people in his paintings.

Last, but not least, were the paintings of the royal family in the 18th century by Goya. By this time, all the royal names were thoroughly jumbled up.

This was an outside sculpture that we could photograph.

No time to stop in the gift shop, we were next on our way to the Royal Palace, where apparently nobody actually lives there anymore. The current king and queen of Spain live somewhere else.

These are the outside grounds. It was very, very warm out there in the sun. Fortunately, we didn’t need to stand out there for very long.

King Philip V built this palace between 1738 and 1755. It reflects how much King Philip V admired Versailles – much of the interior decoration is very familiar if you’ve ever been to Versailles

There were many clocks in the palace. All of them have some kind of movement, but it didn’t seem like any of them were allowed to work. Myte sent us a this video of all the clocks.

Some photos of the clocks:

The room with the Atlas clock has walls that are “wallpapered” with porcelain.

Other interesting rooms and historic items:

At the end of the palace tour, we said good-bye to Myte. Tomorrow we will have a different guide taking us to Toledo. The driver took us to a tapas restaurant Myte recommended. The lunch special was a great deal – for 16.50 Euros, we got 1 cold tapa, 2 hot tapas, and a dessert tapa.

ALL THE FOOD WAS FABULOUS (Not shown: the “catonese burger”, because I forgot).

We went shopping for a bit in the afternoon, took a break, and then went to dinner at the Mercado San Aton, which is sorta like a food court, maybe?

Finally done for the day, and it’s late.

Tomorrow: Toledo, and I hear it’s going to be very hot.

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2026 Part 2 – ¡Vamos a España!

We Haven’t Left Yet – That’s Tomorrow (August 4)

Where We Will Accomplish Two Goals:

(1) Visit The Basilica de la Sagrada Familia On Or About Anton Gaudi’s The Yartzeit

(2) Add Another Total Eclipse To Our Collection

This adventure is a 100% land trip. It will be the first time we have used a tour company to create a private tour just for us. It starts in Madrid (where it is currently G0d awful hot and possibly smoky/hazy), then Barcelona (where it is somewhat less G0d awful hot), and end in Valencia (still somewhat less G0d awful hot).

In Madrid we will visit the Prado, the Royal Palace, tour the city in search of tapas, and have some time on our own. The last time I was in Madrid, the now retired King Juan Carlos was a very young man.

The highlight of Barcelona will be the Sagrada Familia, finally sorta/almost completely finished after 140 years of construction. The architect, Anton Gaudi, died in 1926, when he was literally run over by a tram. He left behind plans and models, but they were all lost during the Spanish Civil War. Construction resumed after Franco died in 1975, but the design is based on what people thought Gaudi had in mind. When we visited this church for the first time in 2010, we decided that we would make sure to come back in 2026 when it’s complete. There are some odd-n-ends to be done (that we would never notice). Pope Leo visited a few weeks ago to declare it the tallest church in the world.

Our visit to Valencia will include a day trip to Castillon de la Plana on August 12, where we will hopefully be able to see a total eclipse. It doesn’t rain much in Spain this time of year, so theoretically that won’t be a problem. The challenge is that the eclipse will take place very close to sunset.

This is the path of totality on August 12, 2026

Totality happens just a couple of minutes before sunset, and the official end of the eclipse will actually happen after sunset, which is kinda weird.

The eclipse glasses are packed and ready to go! Happy thoughts!

¡Hasta la vista!

Amy & Andy’s Adventure 2026 Part 1: In Search Of Tulips & Windmills: May 2 (Antwerp and Brussels)

Where We Have A Very Long Day, Experience the Joy Of Cobblestones (or not), And Successfully Buy A Haul Of Our Favorite Chocolate.

We needed to on the bus by 8:00 a.m., so it was a super early morning. Plus, the river Scheldt is a tidal river at it was low tide. We had to climb up to the sundeck (deck 4) by stairs, because the elevator is only between decks 2 and 3. Andy had to schlep my transport chair up that flight of stairs and down the ramp.

The drive from Antwerp to Brussels is about 45 minutes, and we had a lot to see. Fortunately, because it was Saturday the traffic was minimal.

The first part of the day was a panoramic driving tour of the city.

First we saw the surroundings of the Royal Family. Belgium declared its independence in 1830, followed by the establishment of its constitutional/parliamentary monarchy, when Leopold I became the first King of the Belgians.

Here are some photos of the area around the Royal residence.

This is the Cathedral to St Michael and St. Gudula, which is a mere 800 years old.

Cathedral to St Michael and St Gudula. We didn’t have the opportunity to go in

One thing I noted when we started our walking tour – frequently there will be a “leisure” option for people who need ot or like to take things more slowly. However, that doesn’t usually happen on the optional (paid for) excursions. This Brussels excursion was no exception. When we got off the bus, and the tour guide saw my transport chair, she immediately asked if we would be able to keep up. Yes, yes, we will.

We started walking towards the city center and the central square. There were modern sidewalks before we entered Gallery; the cobblestones started soon after on the other side.

We arrived at the Grand Place – Brussels’ central square. The buildings around the town square included the Town Hall and Guild houses.

Central Square – that’s our tour guide, Kristin, with the red lollipop

Before we had our free time, we went to see the most famous tourist site in all of Brussels: Manneken Pis. I’ve heard about this statue for many years. My expectations were very low. And yet, apparently, they were not low enough. This photo makes the little boy look way, way, way too big. He’s maybe 18″ tall. Apparently he’s sometimes dressed up in costumes, but not this day.

But we had a more important task to do: buy chocolate. We’ve known for many years that the best chocolate brand is Leonidas (pronounced lee-OOH-nee-dahs). We found the nearest Leonidas store and bought a LOT of chocolate.

Then, of course, right after that, a bathroom break was next up on the priority list. We were able to back track to the public bathroom we had stopped at on our way to the Grand Place. By now, it was getting close to the time to meet our tour guide. We figured that the group would have to pass by this particular spot on the way back to the bus. We tried texting the tour guide to let her know, but she didn’t respond. A couple of people from our group were there sharing a Belgian waffle, and they said they would let the tour guide know where we were. And then of course we had to have a Belgian waffle, too. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a photo of it before we pretty much inhaled it.

We saw a few more interesting buildings as we continued our panoramic drive around Brussels before we headed back to the ship.

This trash bin has the image of St Michael fighting a dragon

We drove by NATO; the last time Andy was there was over 35 years ago. Since then, a new building was built.

Before we returned to the ship, we did a short drive through Antwerp. This is the Antwerp Law Courts building. The structures on the roof represent the paper cones that French fries are served in – even though French fries were really invented in Belgium.

When we returned to the ship, the tide has started to rise, so we were able to board the ship on deck 3 and avoid the extra flight of stairs.

Because our tour of Brussels overlapped the included walking tour of Antwerp, a separate walking tour of Antwerp was set up just for us starting at 3:00 p.m. But – the cathedral would be closing for the day at 3:00 p.m. for mass. Emily said that people who wanted to see the inside of the cathedral could walk with her at 2:00 p.m. We arrived back at the ship at 1:30 p.m.

This extra walk would be too much for me, but Andy went. He spent about 15 minutes (tops) in the cathedral, taking as many photos as he could before he had to leave to come back to the ship to get me to start the walking tour. Apparently there are several paintings by Paul Rubens in the cathedral, but it doesn’t look like he took photos of any of them.

The original floor of the cathedral down in the basement

When Andy came back from the cathedral, we joined the tour guide to begin the walking tour of Antwerp. This was not a “leisurely” version – keeping up was quite a challenge.

It had been arranged to meet some people who went to see the cathedral at a building called The Stone. It’s a medeival fortress and the oldest building in Antwerp. It’s now a visitor center.

This guy is the Lange Wapper Statue, depicting a legendary giant and trickster from Flemish folklore.

As the tour continued, we were climbing up and down stairs and encountering cobblestones before we hardly went anywhere at all.

This is the Butcher’s Hall building. The Butcher’s guild was a very powerful one.

We continued along more cobblestone streets on the way to the city center’s main square. Our tour guide told us the story of how Antwerp got its name:

The myth says Silvius Brabo killed the nasty giant, cut off his hand and threw it into the Schedlt River. The name “Antwerp” is derived from the Dutch phrase “Hand werpen,” which means to throw a hand. So now you know. The statue in the photo below doesn’t look like it’s in very good shape.

There was another statue of Silvius Brabo throwing the giant’s hand into the river. This one made Brabo look like Lord Farquarh from Shrek.

The myth about the giant said that the only way to escape the giant was to run to stand under a statue of the Virgin Mary, of which there were many scattered on the sides of buildings all over Antwerp.

Antwerp doesn’t lack for churches. This is the Jesuit church.

I think our last stop was in front of the Cathedral of Our Lady, which we don’t seem to have a photo. Maybe this was one too many churches.

However, in front of the Cathedral of Our Lady was this statue in honor of a famous Belgian story, Nello & Patrasche. It’s a very sad story about a boy and his dog, and the boy dies. I’m not clear why this makes for a great story, but here’s the statue.

Fortunately, the walk back to the ship was quick and without cobblestones, except for the very last yards back to the ship. It was amazing, but we had been able to stick with the tour the whole way.

We were exhausted.

Tomorrow: Middelburgh and Bruges

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2026 Part 1: In Search of Tulips and Windmills In The Netherlands (April 24, 25, and 26)

Which All Could Have Been One Very, Very Long Day, As Far As My Brain Is Concerned

April 24 Getting Ourselves To Amsterdam

It was all going extremely well – we arrived at the airport, checked out bags, with plenty of time to spend in the Unite lounge. Scooted to the gate, picked up the tag for the gate check of my transport chair. We even made it as far as the door to the plane.

And then the crew came out of the plane and told us we needed to go back to the gate.

Yada, yada, yada, apparently the anti-skid brakes were not working and could not be fixed. Good news! United found us another plane. Not so good news! It was on its way back from Paris. Our flight was originally supposed to depart at 5:30 p.m. The new plane wasn’t even going to arrive at Dulles until 7:30 p.m.

Which it did, but then it had to be cleaned/serviced/checked out.

At one point we were taxiing around the tarmac so long, I thought we were going to drive all the way to Amsterdam. Yada, yada, yada, we finally took off somewhere around 11:00 p.m.

Fortunately, the flight itself was easy, and I managed to get a little sleep. We landed at about noon.

We were hoping to get a glimpse of tulip fields as we came in for landing, but no such luck.

April 25

We found the Viking rep, who found our driver to take us to the hotel.

Months ago I bought tickets to the Rijksmuseum with an entry time of 1:00 p.m. for the special exhibit. By the time we were ready to leave the hotel, it was 1:45 p.m. We arrived at the museum right after 2:00 p.m. So no special exhibit for us (it was free anyway), but we had 3 hours before the museum closed to wander around. I had also purchased the audio tour, which had a “highlights” version. Sounds like a plan.

The last time we were in the Rijksmuseum some eternity ago, everything had been under tarps and scaffolding for renovations. This time, everything was open and tarp-free. In the 3 hours before the staff started shooing us out of the building, we managed to see just about everything on the tour.

The photos below are not in any kind of order, other than whatever my macbook wanted to do.

Though possibly my favorite is this one. This guy saw me hold up my phone to take the photo and stepped right in front of me.

We had dinner in the museum’s coffee shop, for expediency more than anything else.

When we got back to the hotel, we knew we had to stay awake just a little longer, so we went downstairs to one of this hotel’s many restaurants and had some ice cream.

April 26

We got up Sunday morning feeling a lot better. We were scheduled for a walking tour with the Viking group. For long walks like this, Andy drives me around in a transport chair. The only time we have issues is when the streets and sidewalks are all cobblestones. We had already talked to the Viking rep about this, and she seemed to think we would not be able to go at all.

By 9:30 there were 4 groups set up. The first 3 tour guides said absolutely not, we could not come because of the transport chair. The fourth tour guide said, “Well, if it reaches the point where you can’t continue, you can always stop and take an uber back”. This sounded like a reasonable plan.

Spoiler alert! We made it all the way for the entire walking tour, because there were almost no cobblestones. I’m beginning to think that the tour guide and the Viking rep think “cobblestones” means something different from what we’re thinking. The sidewalks were no problem at all.

We walked along the streets of Amsterdam, noticing assorted interesting things along the way.

The tour ended at Museum Square behind the Rijks museum. Before heading back, there was the pre-requisite bathroom break in a public bathroom, which of course was down two flights of stairs.

Anybody who follows my blog knows there’s always a few stories about bathrooms in our travels. I didn’t think to take photos, but when I finally toddled down the last step and paid my way into the women’s bathroom, I noticed that the doors on all the stalls were crystal clear glass.

Though slightly alarmed, there wasn’t a choice anymore.

Good news! When I clicked the lock closed, the glass frosted over.

When we got back to the hotel, we asked the Viking rep about places for lunch near the Portuguese synagogue. She didn’t have much, so we decided to uber to the area and find something. Which turned out to be a little harder than we expected, but eventually we did find a cafe.

We bought tickets to enter the Portuguese Synagogue. The ticket lady was asking all the men to wear a kippah. Andy had his own with him – she then warned him not to wear it in public (not that he normally does) because of the rampant anti-semitism in the city. Kinda sad.

The Portuguese synagogue was built in the 17th century and is one of the oldest synagogues in Europe. There is no electricity or heating, yet it is still used on a regular basis. It is a Sfardi synagogue, which means the configuration of the sanctuary has the Torah reading table in the middle of the congregation, as opposed to up front like in Ashkenazi synagogues.

Downstairs were the Treasures that were hidden and saved from the Nazis during WWII

We were given free audio guides, but Andy’s wasn’t working and mine was talking to me in French, so both of us missed the descriptions of the treasures, and google wasn’t helpful.

These photos are of the sanctuary. Since there is no electricity, the room is lit with thousands of candles in huge candleabras.

There were more rooms to investigate around the perimeter of the main building.

This is the funeral room, where bodies were brought for the tahara (washing and dressing of the deceased). The sign says “No entry for Kohanim” – men who are a kohen (an inherited priest role) can’t come in contact with the dead, because there is currently no way for them to spiritually purify themselves without a Holy Temple

We sorta ran out of time, again – the synagogue was closing soon. For sure we didn’t have time to visit the Jewish Museum today.

For dinner we went to an Indonesian restaurant recommended by a friend of ours. Getting there and back was a challenge, because the King’s Day celebrations have begun.

Tomorrow: King’s Day and we board the ship.

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025: Alaska Revisited Edition – Day 1 and Some Of Day 2 (July 21/22 2025)

Where We Mostly Sat At Airports Or On Airplanes For 22 Hours

As is tradition, the first day of the current tradition is endless travel. To add to the fun this time, Alaska Air experienced a major IT network outage on July 20, grounding all of their planes for 3 hours.

And it probably would have made sense to check to see the status of our first flight on July 21, but we didn’t. So we got up at 4:30 a.m. to arrive at the airport by 7:45 a.m. for our 9:00 a.m. flight, to find out that our 9:00 a.m. flight was now 11:30.

Which turned out to be 12:15 p.m. The flight itself was a bit bumpy from all the storms in the atmosphere covering the eastern half of the US. It smoothed out a bit once we were over the western US. The pilot did their best to make up some of the time – the flight was 5 hours instead of 6 hours.

Fortunately, I had booked the two flights with an intentional 5 1/2 hour layover, so the 3 hour delay had no impact on our connecting flight at SeaTAC. When we walked off the plane, the Alaska Air app said our gate was D3. We had deplaned at gate N13. So we found our way to D3 – left-right-right-left-take a train-left-right-left – where we sat for a bit until we noticed the change to the departure time and the gate: now the flight was delayed an hour and the gate was N14, literally right where we had been when we landed!

So back we went. The N gates were a complete zoo. Nary an empty seat to be found and extremely noisy. We could not hear the announcements from the gate. Which is how we missed the start boarding announcement.

The second flight was a bit smoother than the first and we landed shortly after 10:00 p.m. Alaska Time.

An airport employee called our hotel to bring its shuttle to pick us up – something that the hotel’s website nor the cruise line mentioned.

We had booked a room for one night in this hotel, because it’s the same one where the land/cruise adventure will begin. This was the view from our window:

Our view of Fairbanks, AK. Notice how bright the sky was at 11:00 p.m.

In the morning (July 22), we checked out of the room and checked back in to the room assigned to us with the group. We have zero instructions as to what we’re supposed to do to find the group. Fortunately, the front desk staff was a little familiar with this drill. They suggested checking the common area around 3:00 p.m., which apparently is the typical time they are there.

The rest of today is a blank. Soon we’ll go to lunch and maybe we’ll check out the stores across the street.

Tomorrow: The Adventure Begins {whatever that means}

The official greeter at Fairbanks International Airport

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2024 Part 3: Frozen Edition (Grand Finale)

Days 9 (12/24/2024) and 10 (12/25/2024)

Where We Have A Lazy Day In Linz And Then Freeze On A Short And A Bit Uninformative City Walk On Day 9

Followed By A Wonderful But Frozen Day In Salzberg

Day 9 Linz (December 25)

December 25 was a lazy day for us; other people went into Linz to attend church services at one of the two old churches. Spoiler alert: the services were in German, so the people who did attend didn’t necessarily get a whole lot out of it.

We had originally booked a private walking tour of Linz, because there was nothing offered by Viking. But just a few days before we sailed, suddenly there was an included (“free”) walking tour, so we decided to do that instead.

The challenge was: the tour started at 3:00 p.m., and it starts to get dark at about 3:30 with sunset at 4:15 p.m. The high for the day was around 35, and would soon start to plummet as the sun went down.

Ok the other challenge was getting off the ship: there was another ship between us and the dock, and it wasn’t a Viking ship. Therefore, we had to first climb up to Deck 4/sun deck via a flight of 13 outside steps (the elevator is only between Decks 2 and 3), and THEN walk across to the other ship and walk down 19 steps, and THEN walk down a steep ramp to the street. This was not fun at all.

But we did it, and met our tour guide on the pier. I don’t think we ever got his name. He was a little odd – his English was ok, but he spoke quickly and maybe a little mumbly. Even with the ear pieces he wasn’t 100% intelligible.

We were in the “leisure” group, so we were walking slowly. That was great, but we were also seeing not much of anything, mostly office buildings. I suspected that we were missing out on the actual interesting stuff because we were the “leisure” group. It looked like Linz was falling into the same situation as Bratislava: a 2-hour late-afternoon tour that did not do the city justice.

We stopped in the town square with the remnants of the Christmas Market:

In front of the Cafe Glockenshpiel, we were served mulled/heated wine in souvenir mugs – while standing outside. I had really hoped we’d be inside while doing this, but alas, no. The warm wine did little to defrost my toes; since I don’t like wine anyway, it basically went to waste. Janet had a better idea – to ask for the keepsake mug without the wine.

We now had “free time”, but considering everything was closed, it was getting dark, and we were all completely frozen, most people just headed back.

Side note: Tom sent me his photos of the Holocaust memorials that he saw in the not-leisure tour. In this photo you see a square delineated on the pavement. It’s the footprint of a house once owned by Jews who were murdered in the holocaust.

This is a memorial to the Linz Jews who were murdered.

Continuing on our way back to the ship, our tour guide did tell us that Linz was known for steel (manufacturing) and art:

Steel artwork along the road to the ship

Of course, we had to retrace our steps to get back onto the ship. It was even harder to climb the 19 steps up and 13 steps down while totally frozen.

We warmed up for a bit, and then it was time to get ready for dinner. Since it was also the first night of Hanukkah as well as Christmas Day, we wore our Hanukkah shirts/sweaters. Mine blinks! I had brought along a tiny electric hanukkiah. A couple of our new ship friends asked to be included when we lit it.

To our delight, our ship’s chef remembered our request for latkes for tonight’s dinner. We had asked about it back on Monday, and had no clue whether he’d actually do it or not. He did! and they were great latkes! We shared the 3 huge latkes between the 5 of us.

Day 10 Passau/Salzburg (December 26)

The Salzburg excursion originally was an optional (not-free) tour, that I don’t even remember seeing listed when we were signing up for excursions. For this cruise, Viking decided to convert the optional tour to an included tour (people will be refunded), because the Christmas market in Salzburg was still open.

It was a 2-hour drive through freezing fog:

The countryside and small towns were still scenic:

And then there were the Alps:

There was no “leisure” option for the 2 1/2 hour walk through Salzburg. Amazingly enough, this became a challenge for us to keep up.

First we walked through the Miriable gardens, where scenes from the Sound of Music were shot:

Down the street was the house where Mozart lived with his family until he moved to Vienna at the age of 25. This house was partially destroyed during WWII; it was carefully reconstructed after the war. The photo next to it is the house where Mozart was born. No surprise that Salzburg promotes itself basically as “Mozart-Central”.

If you look carefully, you can see the pale white vertical line just to the right of the door. To the left of that line is original house; to the right is reconstructed.

Salzburg also lays claim Christian Doppler (of the “Doppler Effect”)

Salzburg is just an incredibly scenic city. You could easily spend several days here to see everything.

Church with Christmas Market that we didn’t get to visit after all

Stumbling Stones commemorating Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust

The tour ended at the restaurant where we had lunch. The restaurant was located in the monastery, and reputed to be the oldest restaurant in Europe.

Of course, this meant that there was a full flight of stairs to climb, which was mighty painful after a couple of hours of toddling on cobblestones.

We were treated to a short review of Sound of Music songs – pretty much the same performance we saw on the ship the other night, even with a couple of same people.

After lunch, we had about an hour before our meeting time with our tour guide. First, we needed to buy more Euros, and then we were determined to buy original “Mozart {chocolate} balls”. We had to find our way back to the store that sold it. The store is so tiny, only a couple of people can fit in it at one time; therefore there’s a line. Luckily it moved quickly.

Any German readers out there, feel free to translate this.

At this point we knew we needed to get ourselves to the meeting point – Google maps to the rescue!

After another 2 hour drive back to the ship, it was time for our final cruise dinner, and pack up.

I don’t yet have the traditional photo of our table with our wonderful wait staff, but when I do, I’ll update this blog.

Thus concludes Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2024 Part 3: Frozen Edition. I am sitting across from our gate at the Frankfurt airport. Our flight doesn’t leave for another 2 1/2 hours. In retrospect, I don’t know why we didn’t have a non-stop back from Munich to Dulles. I booked these flights so long ago, I have no clue. There must have been some reason?

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this blog. I don’t always finish them, but this layover gave me a great opportunity.

G0d willing, there’ll be another Excellent Adventure on the Danube in May, 2025. Stay tuned!

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2024 Part 3: Frozen Edition – A Bit Of Day 7 and All Of Day 8

December 23 and 24

Where We Heard A Wonderful Concert And Had No Issues With The Elevators At The Melk Abbey

Day 7 Part 2 December23

When we arrived at the concert venue, there was a bit of confusion. Mario told everybody who was taking the elevator up to hit the button with the biggest number. A bunch of us landed on the 4th floor, which was obviously wrong. At some point Mario appeared and apologized – he should have told us floor “2”.

We were still seated in plenty of time. Very nice program – a flute, piano, 3 violins, a bass, and a cello. The first half was Mozart, the second half, mostly Strauss waltzes.

I did manage to get lost after the program – I found a bathroom on the 2nd floor with no problem. It was all the way down the hall on the other side of the building. But when I came out of the bathroom, the hallway I came from was blocked by a closed door. I ended up taking the first elevator I found and exited the building – around the corner from the bus. Eventually Mario found me and the bus pulled around. Always something.

Day 8 December 24 Melk

The morning was scenic sailing until we arrived in Melk at about 11:00. Mario told me that the abbey had reported to him that the elevators were all working!

When we docked in Melk, we were ready to go – it was a 10 minute walk from the ship to the bus parking lot.

When we arrived at the Abbey, the elevator was indeed working – but there was still quite a bit of walking to get to the Abbey entrance. Most of the surface was either small cobblestone, which was not suitable for the transport chair, so I did my best to get myself there.

The Melk Abbey is about 1,000 years old – one of the first abbeys established in Europe. There are 21 monks still living in the abbey.

We were not allowed to take photos inside the abbey museum or the abbey itself. The museum exhibits showed items from baroque to modern times, including an example of a reusable coffin that Franz Joseph I instituted as a cost saving method. I found this photo out on the interwebs:

There was a 16-paneled painting – 8 on one side telling the story of the crucifixion, and the other 8 telling the story of Jesus childhood. Below is a post card of one of the baby-Jesus panels

A postcard image of one of the panels of the 16-paneled painting

At some point we were outside on a terrace, where we could take photos of the view.

The Abbey library is stunning. It’s still an active library. There is one book that is almost 1,000 years old.

The room where Maria Theresa did her entertaining had a trompe l’oeil ceiling that looked differently depending on where in the room you were standing and the angle.

In this postcard photo, if you follow the marble columns up into the ceiling, the painted columns on the ceiling appear foreshortened. When you stand in the middle of the room on the grating, the columns on the ceiling appear much taller

The Abbey’s sanctuary is beyond stunning. Here’s two postcard photos.

One of the side walls with the sarcophagus of Saint Coloman, the patron saint of Melk

Once we were done with the abbey, we retraced our steps back to the bus.

On the way out through the gift shop, I took a photo of this thing that I’ve not been able to identify. Looks like a clock.

We were back in time for lunch, where we were able to watch a lock go by.

We had more scenic sailing for the rest of the afternoon. The sun sets around 3:30 in this part of the world.

Dinner this evening was a celebration of Austria! Which meant: mostly pork. Fortunately, there were alternatives. I had the char (a salmon relative), and Andy had the “taste of Austria” minus the pork sausage.

After dinner, there were assorted Christmas Eve activities. The best part (for me) was Mario showing us his ventriloquist talents!

Our Motley Crew. Doe we look cold? We’re cold.

Tomorrow: Linz

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2024 Part 3: Frozen Edition

Days 5, 6, and most of 7 (December 21, 22, & 23)

Where I Ended Up With An Accidental “Day At Sea” (But Still Had Strudel), We Froze In Bratislava, And Saw A Snippet Of Vienna

Day 5 (December 21) – last day in Budapest

Originally 4 of us were booked for the 8:00 a.m. Budapest city tour. Andy was booked on a castle hike excursion. When Susie, Janet, and I thought about it, we realized the Viking excursion was almost the same as the tuk-tuk tour we took the other day. So we decided to skip it to avoid having to get up at oh-dark-thirty. Plus, Susie and Janet had the thermal bath excursion scheduled for the afternoon, and we were all booked for the included 2 hour walking tour to the Christmas Market at 5:30 in the evening.

This was all fine. It was a nice relaxing day.

To make a long story short: when Andy and I were all bundled up and ready to go to the 5:30 Christmas Market tour, we found out that there were many, many steps involved, making it impossible for me to go. Would have been nice to know that.

So Day 5 for me wound up being an accidental day “at sea” (at river?). Not the end of the world, just a little annoying.

Janet and Susie enjoyed the baths.

Here are some highlight photos of excursions I did not go on (from Andy):

View of the Chain Bridge from the Buda side – the ship is our ship, the Viking Tor

View from Castle Hill/Fisherman’s bastion

Lady of our Buda Church / Matthias Church

The good news is that Mario, our Program Director, brought me back a cheese strudel that I would have gotten if I’d gone on the excursion. Sorry, no photo. It’s already long gone.

Day 6 December 22 Bratislava

Unfortunately for us and Bratislava, we had a weird time slot. We docked at 2:00 p.m. with all-aboard for 11:00 p.m. Considering the sun starts to set at 3:30, we had all of an hour of daylight.

The weather was already threatening when we started our walk into the old part of Bratislava – it was very cold and felt like rain.

Also unfortunately, none of us really remember much of what the tour guide said.

Bratislava is old
It’s had many names (it still does)
Earlier generations spoke multiple languages because Slovakia has been shuffled around assorted empires
There are some Jews left in the city, but not many (we couldn’t find the big menorah she talked about).

There was this guy:

We stopped by a church to listen to a Christmas organ concert. Somehow in our minds, we were picturing a huge pipe organ with magnificent sound. It was a small church with a small organ. I was on the wrong side of the sanctuary to get a photo of the organ.

Church Altar. The organist and singer were off to the right

The organist and singers performed for about 20 minutes maybe? Their CDs were available for sale for 10 Euros or $15 (the exchange rate Euro –> USD is not 50%). It was pleasant enough, but somehow not what we were expecting.

When we came out of the church, it started to rain – at first just a drizzle. We started our walk around the Christmas market.

As we walked around the market, it started snow/raining harder. Even with my umbrella, I was getting pretty wet.

It was raining hard enough that we just toddled as fast as we could back to the ship. Andy did go back out in the rain to do some (successful!) shopping. I’m sure Bratislava has a lot more to offer than 2 hours in the cold, rain, and dark.

In the evening on board ship after dinner, we watched a performance of a local (male) chorus singing Christmas carols – from traditional Slovak to modern/familiar tunes.

December 23 Vienna (part 1)

We still have a Mozart/Strauss concert this evening, but I figure I can tack that on to the next blog.

We were on the bus by 9:00 a.m. We were in the “Leisurely” group, which meant that we missed St Stephen’s cathedral. G0d willing we’ll be back in Vienna on our next cruise in May, so we started a list of things we know we need to see.

It was gloomy and cold, but at least it wasn’t raining!

We drove around “the ring” road that circles the inner city. Many impressive buildings, many of them built by Franz Josef, who ruled as emperor for 68 years (out done only by Queen Elizabeth II). A couple of his fun innovations: reusable coffins (bodies were put into a coffin, taken to a cemetery, then the body dumped out the bottom into a mass grave), which is why nobody really knows where Mozart is buried; and all plays had to have a happy ending – re-written as needed.

Truly impressive buildings:

We walked through the courtyard of the Hofburg Palace, originally the seat of the monarch, and still used as a seat of government.

We passed by the stables of the Lipizzaner stallions. A couple of them stuck their heads out to say hello!

Many impressive statues as well.

Our tour guid gave us a brief intro to Hitler’s early life, and showed us the balcony where he announced the completion of the Anshluss. An unsettling feeling, if there ever was one.

The statuary in Vienna is amazing. This is Maria Theresa, the last empress of Bavaria. She had 16 children, 10 lived to adulthood, all of them in arranged marriages for political purposes. I’m sure some of her children married some of Queen Victoria’s children.

Unfortunately, we didn’t take any photos of the market as we wandered around.

Originally we thought we might take the shuttle bus back, thinking there’s probably a shuttle every hour or so. So we walked back to a big square that had a souvenir shop where we could get the requisite items. It was about 12:20.

And then we looked at the shuttle schedule and saw that the next shuttle wasn’t until 2:45! Oh no, that was too much time to be wandering around in the cold.

In a mad dash, we “zipped” back to the bus that was literally pulling out as we caught up to it – luckily, Janet asked them to stop, and we were spotted by Mario and our tour guide. Phew! Leave it to the Austrians to be so prompt – it was exactly 12:30!

We came back to the ship and had lunch. We’ll be having an early dinner so we can attend the Mozart/Strauss concert at 7:30.

Good thing we have plans to be back in Vienna in May 2025. This was barely a glimpse!

Tomorrow is Krems/Melk. The issue of the 65 steps up to the abbey has not yet been resolved.