While in Europe this time, I gave some thought to a question that has been nagging me for some months. One opinion piece in the paper criticized President Obama and his administration for trying to Europeanize the United States. Have traveled in Europe several times, and enjoyed each trip, I did not see what was wrong with some Europeanization, but decided on this trip to be looking at what was different and making a comparison. There are some ways that Europe differs from the USA that are not capable of being changed. 1. It is far more compact, making nearly universal [View Full Entry]

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After a busy two weeks of eating, drinking, and traveling, we crashed last night and slept over 8 hours, very unusual for me (less so for Jennie). Making a late start, we toured around a small area of Milan with our friends Kristine and Mike. Unusually for us, it was a slow casual stroll. We started at the Duomo, more properly Santa Maria Nascente, a beautiful cathedral in downtown Milan. It is the fourth largest cathedral in the world (if you somewhat erroneously include St. Peters basilica as a cathedral), the second largest Catholic cathedral in the world after Seville (if [View Full Entry]

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Most of the day was spent with me in a meeting and Jennie shopping. Without Dean, her usual shopping companion, her efforts were somewhat lackluster. We closed the day with dinner at Al Pont de Fer restaurant, with wonderfully original dishes such as baked ham Spanish style with sea urchin, fried tiny rabbit kidneys, and pigeon breast with crunch rooster combs. We actually ate an appetizer platter of cured meats, wonderful thick spaghetti with a thick tomato sauce, and pork that had been marinated in balsamic vinegar for two weeks and then braised. We left the ordering of food and wine [View Full Entry]

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Unfortunately, we had to bid a very reluctant farewell to Chuck and Lucie this morning, because my business meeting in Milan on Saturday required us to move on. We flew on Lufthansa to Milan from Barcelona. There were no fees for three bags, no overweight bags on our heaviest bag, and no enforcement of their one carry-on rule. The ticket for BOTH of us was $132 including taxes. After an uneventful flight, we arrived and headed immediately to our hotel near the Duomo in Milan. The taxi ride from the airport to the hotel cost more than our plane flight. We [View Full Entry]

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I am pretty sure that is not correct Spanish. But the idea of spending the day touring the creations of Antoni Gaudi is. I don't think I have seen a city so dominated by a single architect. Not only did Gaudi design several structures, you can see his influence in many others. When Gaudi received his architect title, Elies Rogent (who signed it) declared, "Qui sap si hem donat el diploma a un boig o a un geni: el temps ens ho dirà" ("Who knows if we have given this diploma to a nut or to a genius. Time will tell.") [View Full Entry]

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The beginning of two days touring in Barcelona, a city we greatly enjoyed. Barcelona is the capital of Catalunya, one of the autonomous districts of Spain. I am totally unsure of how this "autonomous district" thing works. I perceive it as being analogous to states in the USA, but I am not sure it is the same thing, or even similar. Barcelona used the vehicle of the 1992 Summer Olympic Games as a means of city enhancement and renewal. It is a warm, vibrant city with broad avenues and boulevards, interspersed with rabbit warrens of narrow streets and alleys, and punctuated [View Full Entry]

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Today largely consisted of a driving day from Lourdes to Barcelona, driving part way through Andorra and over and through the Pyrenees along the way. The term "Through the Pyrenees" is well chosen, since we went through several tunnels more than kilometer long, several kilometers in some cases. Grades of 6% to 11% were not uncommon, up and down. Our visit to Andorra was mostly just to briefly see it and say we had been there. Andorra is the 6th smallest country in the world, and has a fairly unique form of government derived from historical precedents. It has an elected [View Full Entry]

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Our original intention was to have a very short driving day to Pamplona, stopping at a couple of Rioja towns in the process. But after a chance remark about Lourdes, we looked and saw that we could detour through France, see Lourdes, and proceed through the Pyrenees, seeing Andorra on the way (we realized it was unlikely that we would get another chance to visit that country). It meant visiting Pamplona without spending the night, but that turned out to be a good choice. We started our day with a tour of the Marques de Riscal winery. Our hotel was the [View Full Entry]

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Definitely a "highlight reel" day. We toured the Guggenheim Museum at 10, but did not tarry long. I have trouble finding much interest for collections of airplane ashtrays linked by a loosely arranged keychain. We then drove up into the mountains. We are by now well accustomed to using our GPS to find our way. But the GPS requires being able to locate your destination. Today, we were not only off the beaten path, but the beaten path could not even be seen from our vantage point in the mountains. Our goal was Asador Etxebarri, a restaurant known to "foodies" but [View Full Entry]

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A somewhat longer driving day. Leaving Santiago de Compostela, we initially headed inland for some time, then turned northward toward the coast again, hitting the coastline at Ribadeo. From there to Bilbao, it was mostly driving along an interstate-type highway, albeit not yet complete, to Bilbao. Along the way we stopped frequently to see views of the rugged coastline of Galicia, Asturia, and Cantabria, before entering Basque Country. A brief note on languages in Spain. There are a number. Galician is closer to Portuguese thanto Spanish, and in fact is considered by many to be a Portugu [View Full Entry]

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