Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The (Almost!) Bottom Of The World: All Good Things Must Come To An End

January 7, 2026: Where We Have A Few Hours Before Our Flight Home, And We Manage To Get Lost, As Is Tradition

After breakfast, we go back to the room and cram everything into our suitcases. After we check out and store our bags for the day, we venture out to spend just a little more time exploring Buenos Aires.

At the front desk’s recommendation, we take an Uber to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. It is a delightful little museum – all of 2 and a half floors, with a wide range of exhibits: from antiquities, to Impressionist and Modern art.

This guy reminded me of George Burns (z”l)

I liked the iridescent quality of this painting

Hermenegildo Anglada Carnarasa “Los opalos” 1904

These are hair combs – they are HUGE.

Spotted this Dega from across the room.

I felt bad for Jesus in this carving – he’s missing his nose and a few fingers.

Anonymous (Spain 13th Century) “Virgin with the Child”

Here’s the Modern Art

Antonio Berni “Pesadilla de los injustos” 1961

Luis Felipe Noé “Introducción a la esperanza” 1963

And another one that was easy to spot.

Amedeo Modigliani “Bust of a Woman” 1920

I’m not familiar with this artist.

The best thing about this museum was how ramps were built into the design of the entire building. There was no need for any steps at all – ramps were everywhere! Unfortunately, the elevator door had some kind of psychological problems – it always started to close as soon as it was fully open, even if you were standing in the doorway.

When we were done with this museum, we decided to find another small museum. Andy had a reference to a “design” museum that was open 24 hours. We suspected it was an open-air museum. Trying to follow Google’s walking directions, we randomly came across interesting things.

A better view of the monument to Evita Perón

After a while it became clear we had no idea where we were nor any idea where this “museum” was. A kind passer-by stopped to ask us if we needed help. Andy showed her his phone and what we were looking for. She studied it for a couple of minutes and then announced: “This is not a real place.”

So whatever that was, it didn’t seem to exist. We gave up.

We found a place to have lunch. At that point it was time to head back to the hotel, but we had *just* enough time to squeeze in one more stop at Freddo’s for ice cream!

This is the last photo I took in the cab on the way to the airport.

Hasta la vista, Argentina! It’s been a blast!

Coming in April, 2026: Tulips and Windmills river cruise in the Netherlands

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Part 2: To The (Almost!) Bottom Of The World: Buenos Aires City Tour

January 4: Where We Spend Six Whirlwind Hours Racing Around Buenos Aires To See All The Things

We had the first of our three tours scheduled for this week. Today’s was a 6-hour tour of Buenos Aires. Our tour guide’s name was Juan. Very knowledgable about Buenos Aires. He told us about the many courses he had to take to get a degree and certification as a professional tour guide. He was terrific – speaking for 6 hours in a language that is not his native tongue.

First stop – The Floralis Generica. A giant mechanical sculpture that used open and close. Unfortunately, the mechanical parts are broken and somehow a city with a huge college of engineers can’t find an engineer to fix it. Two of the petals were restored to their positions just a couple of weeks before we arrived.

Next photo op: the law school of the University of Buenos Aires.

Faculty of law building at the university of Buenos Aires

And then the seat of the Jose San Martin Institute. San Martin was the founder of Argentina, akin to George Washington for the US.

Jose San Martin Institute – he was the George Washington of Argentina in 1820

Next stop was the Paseo El Rosedal – a huge rose garden. It was too much for me to walk, so I enjoyed the sunshine while Andy and Juan went looking at roses. Here are some of the photos he took.

Here is the monument to Eva Perón – first lady of Argentina in the 1970s and 80s. She is still greatly revered in Argentina

It was fitting that our next stop was the Recoleta Cemetery that is the final resting place for the rich and wealthy in Buenos Aires for the last 200 years. The cemetery is complete – the only way to get buried here is to have a family mausoleum or be somebody incredibly important. In other words – most people don’t rate.

A couple of notable mausoleums:

Tomb of Admiral William Brown, founder of the Argentinian Navy

I forgot to make note of who these people are. Juan says this is typical of the interments in this cemetery – the coffins are above ground. The only exception: Eva Perón.

And here she is. Evita is buried underground. Other family members are housed in the mausoleum.

The Recoleta cemetery was endlessly fascinating, with all the different designs

Tomb of Liliana Crociati de Szaszak – killed at age 26 in an avalanche while she was on her honeymoon

The next few stops were quick ones.

Next up: the beautiful Catedrál de Buenos Airs, where Pope Francis was the archbishop before he became pope.

Randomly, Juan asked us if we were religious. We told him we were Jewish, which triggered a surprise: an exhibit memorializing Jewish victims of the holocaust and terrorist attacks in Buenos Aires. It is the only memorial of a different faith in any Cathedral. The normal requirement to remove your hat inside the cathedral is waived in this nave, because it is Jewish custom to keep your head covered, even inside.

Our next stop was the Plaza de Mayo, the main square in Buenos Aires, created in 1884.

Monument to General Manuel Belgrano, creator of the Argentinian National flag

On our way to the neighborhood of Caminito, we stopped by the market of San Telmo. We had a fleeting thought of getting lunch in here, but that quickly evaporated. We were crushed from all sides just trying to move forward. We didn’t get very far at all before we gave up, turned around and came back out.

Caminito is my new favorite city neighborhood. Home of past generations of immigrants living by the docks, it’s now a lively food/arts/party scene, with colorful buildings, fanciful cartoon figures on the street, street side cafes, and plenty of great shopping. The only problem: the streets are all cobblestone making it very painful to walk, and my transport chair can’t function.

People line up to take their photo under the “Messi” with the World Cup

On our way back to the hotel, Juan pointed out two more interesting landmarks.

Puente de La Mujer – a rotating footbridge built in honor/tribute to women

It was 3:30 p.m. by the time we were back in our room. Juan and his driver had done a masterful job of showing us as much of this beautiful city as can be seen in six hours!

We ended up having an early dinner or maybe it was a “linner”, since we never did manage to squeeze in lunch in those 6 hours.

Tomorrow: Super crazy day – up to Iguazu Falls and back.

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

Day 2 Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2024 Part 1

Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Where We Had Hoped To Go To Burano, But The Weather Had Other Ideas

The marvelous idea of spending the day wandering around Burano was literally drowned out by rain showers alternating with downpours. Somehow the thought of walking around in the pouring rain did not sound attractive at all.

Stefania suggested the Ca’ Presaro International Museum of Modern Art. In theory, a short bus ride away with only ONE bridge. Sounded good! Since we had the time, Andy and I went to their bus stop, because my other favorite European chachke shop, Pylones, was right there at the entrance to the stop. I first saw this store in Avignon in 2023 – somehow managed to not have enough time to shop there.

We had sufficient time for me to find all the items I had hoped to get the last time, without having to pay shipping by ordering online from home.

Our group found us right on time, and we hopped onto the water bus for one stop.

In theory, this museum was almost without spitting distance of where standing. BUT, Venice had other plans in store for us. Off we went following our gps (which works erratically in Venice at best). Toddling along, we come to something that looks like a hole in the wall. The directions said to make a left turn into the hole in the wall. Stefania went first, the rest of us behind her like ducklings. She gets to the end and all she sees is water. Oops. So we all back our way out of the cleft. Then we thought, maybe there was a way to make a right turn? Below is the photo of Tom going down to check. He thinks it’s possible, so we all go back down the cleft. Uh oh, nope, that was wrong. No way to turn left. We back out of the cleft again.

Since this happened yesterday and I didn’t get a chance to write it up, the details of what happened after that are now fuzzy. I do know it involved wandering around, asking a couple very confident sounding people for directions that we tried to follow exactly, but somehow we just kept finding little bridges to climb that took us nowhere.

Such is the magic of Venice – we suddenly found ourselves at the museum! Really not clear how we got there, but it didn’t matter anymore.

It was now late enough for lunch. Of course! We ate in the museum’s cafe. Unlike American museum cafe food which is almost universally horrible, our lunch was great. It’s possible our server might have been a little frustrated with us? But then again, her English was better than our Italian. There was great potential for complete and total miscommunication.

After lunch we finally started seeing the exhibits. The good news is: this museum is only 3 floors. We covered the whole thing in a couple of hours.

Forgot to make note of the artist’s name

I dunno what this was about, but there were elephants involved

This was the view of Venice from the 3rd floor

Before we left the museum, we went back to the cafe to have what was labeled “chocolate gelato”, but there are differing opinions on the accuracy of that statement.

When we exited the museum, we saw a little bridge that looked like it might be the way we SHOULD have arrived earlier. Sure enough, up and over the little bridge, down a cleft, a left turn and we popped out right at the bus stop. Even for those of us taking a little longer on the bridge, it was under 5 minutes.

This is Venice’s charm – getting lost and getting unlost is all a part of the fun!

We hung out a while at the others’ hotel, and then toddled down the street to find a place to have dinner. After dinner, we had to have some REAL gelato at the gelateria in the piazzale. Unbelievably good dark chocolate for me! YUM!.

Even with the rain and the getting lost, it was a marvelous day.

BTW, this is what the entrance to the bus stop looks like. You will notice that there are zero indications that there’s a bus stop down that alleyway. Everybody just knows where it is.

Ciao, Venice, till next time!

Tomorrow: The Ship