Vacation is over, and xpcdoojk is back. hee hee

[wallie5446]

```Welcome Home {I Hope} JC !

[xpcdoojk]

Here is the next section, I am kind of sickening myself, so I may have to go shoot myself after lunch.

 

jc

 

Section 2 England, Andrew Lloyd Webber, London, and our English friends.

 

 

We met a couple on our first RCI cruise on the Majesty of the Seas in 1996, Michael and Kay who live just outside of London near the town of Chelmsford. They have become our dear friends ever since, as we did the 2000 Celebrity Millennium cruise with them and we have vacated together with the rest of our group, except Gary and Kathy. In fact, in 1998 Susie and David got married and they joined us along with Sue and Shelby in Key West for their honeymoon as we rented a pair of condos in the Truman Annex for 10 days. They have visited us a couple of times at our home, and we just never had found the time to come visit them. So we decided to drop in on them before we went to Italy and, unfortunately, for them we did.

 

 

They picked us and Sue & Shelby at the airport around noon Wednesday 9/15 and drove us about an hour and a half to their home, where they fed us and over served us champagne, whereupon, my wife (Krystal) decided it was nap time and she went to sleep at 4pm London time and slept until 9am the next morning. Not being a nap person, I suggested that we take their dogs (a pair of Irish Setters) for a walk. We went down to a cute little canal that has a small ancient lock and was just loaded with the classic long and flat English riverboats that I had never seen in person before. Mike is an independent engineer and they had settled in this area to be out of London and to be in a beautiful pastoral setting. They certainly live in a neat spot. We, also, visited the parish church which, according to the lady minister (I don’t know what you call a female Anglican priest) this church is where the pilgrims came from and showed us the secret church they built nearby before they fled to Massachusetts. That is kind of a neat bit of history.

 

 

Day two was the day we planned on going to London. Our friends had no desire to visit London, and took us to the train station where we rocketed in to Liverpool station and to the Kings cross station where we stored our small bags at the Alhambra Hotel (a two star hotel, that was adequate for a single night, but was very Spartan. We quickly went back to the underground or tube and shot down towards Piccadilly Circus and then went to Harrods and other nearby shopping venues. We ate lunch at Harrods and shopped. We didn’t buy very much because of the next portion of our trip started with a flight on Easy Jet which limited us to 1 checked bag of 20 kg per person. Krystal bought a beautiful scarf and I bought a box of Shag (the artist – another of my odd favorites) mints. We then walked down by Parliament, Big Ben, visited Buckingham palace, and Westminster Abbey. In other words, we visited all of the typical tourist spots. Finally wearing out we headed back to our hotel for a shower and a change.

 

 

After dressing for the evening we took the tube to Piccadilly, ate at an Iranian restaurant (that was a first for me), and went to the Palace theatre to see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new production, “The Woman in White”. I am a huge fan of contemporary big musical productions, and when we started thinking about a visit to London, I knew we would go to the West End to watch something. Luck was on my side because this show was scheduled to open right before our trip and they had cast Michael Crawford (the original phantom) in the play. As soon as tickets went on sale I bought four tickets. The theatre had been hosting Les Miserables for the last several years, and the new production incorporated the big wheel on the stage in a novel way. In fact, the entire production was done in a fashion that resembled a motion picture as much as a stage production. The stage was circular and the back walls were used as a projection screen for the video backgrounds, very cool. I recently saw a production of Miss Saigon that did away with the traditional old Huey helicopter and replaced it with a video projection that was very effective in the climatic scenes that production, and in this production it was even more dramatic. I really haven’t read any reviews of the production, yet, or much of anything else for that matter. This was the first AWL production that I did not know intimately before I actually went to the play, as there is no soundtrack yet available due to the newness of the production. So it was weird for me to not know the songs and the general plot. This meant that I could never anticipate the next song or high point. This gave me the impression, that could easily be wrong, that there was never a single great song like in most of the other AWL productions, but the music was lovely. The production itself was as moving as anything I have attended, including Miss Saigon, Les Miz, or even Old Yeller. The story is very melodramatic, and dated, but it was in my opinion a marvelous event. Following the play we trundled off to the tube and went to bed in our tiny London hotel.

Day three in London we took the tube to the Tower of London in the morning. Then went to Selfridges and ate lunch at their champagne bar, and then the girls went shopping, again. Then we were off to the tube to get back to the train station to return to the countryside with our English friends. We did Chinese takeaway for dinner combined with wine. I hated to tell my English friends that there Chinese restaurants are not close to as good as ours.

 

 

Day four our friends took us to Canterbury Cathedral about an hour away. I love those old European cathedrals, and the quaint little walled city there. We bought a few trinkets and the like and had a fun lunch in a little pub, where I had a San Miguel beer on tap. I know it is a Spanish beer and not British at all, but I am not a big fan of English beer, and I really like San Miguel. That night for dinner they took us to the favorite local pub for dinner. Somebody at the table had the whitebait appetizer. I said is it so bad here that you eat the bait instead of the catch. I am almost always a sarcastic smart bottom not just here at CC. They were actually pretty good, kind of pointless, but tasty. Proving one of my small beliefs that if you batter and fry anything it will taste good. I ate the traditional British food. I ordered the Hotpot, and then, I provided the comedic relief for the night, by ordering a “spotted dick” for dessert. The girls giggled and snickered about that for the rest of the evening. Of course, some know I am reading the Aubrey/Mauturin (Master and Commander) and I am quite infatuated with the puddings and such that they are constantly eating in the books (I draw the line at blood pudding though). The spotted dick was decent, but nothing I can’t live without. It was a charming evening all told.

 

 

Day five was our last, and we had a barbeque in their backyard and some more champagne. It is always sad seeing old friends for the last time for a while, but all good things have to come to an end sometime. On the bright side they are booked with us and Sue & Shelby for our 2004 HAL South America trip so in a little over a year we will be back together for a couple of weeks. They took us to Stansted airport and it was a madhouse. We had our first Easy Jet experience, and it wasn’t bad. The plane was packed, new, and typical.

[celtic selke]

Andrew Lloyd Webber made a musical of "Old Yeller"? How did I ever miss that!!!??:confused:

 

 

 

celtic

[xpcdoojk]

smart seal, I was talking about moving theatrical experiences not just AWL experiences.

 

your friend

 

jc

[celtic selke]

Moving??? Old Yeller???? Gave me nightmares when I was 10 years old. Have not watched that tearjerker again to this day.

Now back to Italia please----

 

celtic

[vossjemi]

Sounds awesome!!! Can't wait to read more! I'm waiting with bated breath to hear about the villa!;)

 

p.s. You are right....noone has as good Chinese as we do here in SGF!

[xpcdoojk]

operative word tearjerker..... seal

 

I am tired and want to eat, so no italia for a little while longer....

 

jc

[xpcdoojk]

Section three Venice

 

 

 

Day five we land at Marco Polo airport on approach we fly across the lagoon at night and the lights of the Venetian islands are pretty spectacular, and the anticipation is intense. We gather our bags and buy tickets for the ATVO bus 3 euros per person. A short bus ride later and we are schlepping our rolling suitcases over the bridges from the Piazzale Roma where the bus drops you off. Fortunately we are staying at a hotel directly across the grand lagoon from the St Lucia train station and it is only about a five-minute walk. The hotel was the Antiche Figure and was a nice little hotel with a very convenient location to the vaporettos and the train terminal. It is late and we are hungry around 10pm so we ask for a good close by restaurant, and they recommend an osteria that is just a short walk in the little narrow alleys from the hotel. We go and amazingly we found it. We ordered a couple of pizzas with salads and the first Amarone of the trip (yum yum). We ate some fresh bread with olive oil and balsamic which was our regular appetizer for the next two weeks. Interesting thing in Italy bread is always billed to you per person as a separate entry on the bill. At first I couldn’t figure out what the typical 1 to 2 euro charge was that kept showing up on the bill, but after reading a few menus I figured it out. We finished our wine had a little tiramisu and went back to the hotel to go to bed.

 

 

 

Day six in the morning we go across the bridge and buy tickets for the vaporettos for the next 3 days at 21 euros per person. We hopped the next boat the direct boat to San Marcos (St Marks) and we spend the morning walking around taking photos and looking in all of the neat shops. Multo Bene! My wife bought more scarves. For some reason that was the thing she kept buying on this trip. I am very happy with this because usually the usual thing is jewelry! We finally start wandering thru the back alleys and we find a neat little pizzeria, and have lunch.

 

 

 

Venice is simply a unique place, and everyone can find something different about it to like. It has history, it has unique architecture, it has style, and it has gondolas. They are everywhere, and they are right on top of each other in the canals. We had visited the Venetian in Vegas in January, and for some reason we did the gondola ride while we were there, and it was kind of silly. I was disappointed that the gondolas were just as silly in the real Venice. They are on top of each other. If I were going to pay somebody to serenade my wife, and me I would prefer a private more intimate experience instead of a short canal with gondolas end to end with each other. JMHO.

 

 

 

We spent the day wandering the little streets and shopping it was a most pleasant day. I made an interesting discovery that someone needs to franchise here in this country. I found a wine shop that had an amazing collection of Amarones and Barolos, but more interesting by far were the copper tanks with a tap in them. You could buy a one-liter jug of Cabernet Sauvignon for like 4 euros straight from the tap as a takeaway item. This led me to the daily consumption of vino rosso delle casa. The house red wine was pretty yummy for lunch and the price was always right. Of course, Italy has a wine consuming culture and our country is unfortunately a beer consuming country. Still, done well I think someone could become rich with this concept properly executed by a good grocery store. Of course, the ATF probably has a ban against this concept now.

 

 

 

In the afternoon we were buying trinkets at the Rialto Bridge and while my wife looked at the knockoff Louis Vuittons I noticed a man about my age looking exasperated by his wife, also, buying trinkets for kids. I realized that he looked extremely familiar, and I just couldn’t think of his name. Unfortunately, I had plenty of time to cogitate on his identity because the same cheap trinkets at the same stall fascinated his wife and my wife. Finally, it hit me, John Elway, duh! I don’t think he enjoyed Venice as much as I did. Hee Hee!

 

 

 

We ended up with dinner at a recommended restaurant and found it to be good, but not exceptional, and the Amarones were over priced so we had another local wine that was a better bargain. This lead to our first Italian Gelato of the trip of which my wife generally had a minimum of one gelato each day. We had wandered all over looking for a restaurant that had a good dessert menu, and not just the tiramisu or the torte delle casa of which we had already pretty much tried. We ended up at the Rialto Bridge and after checking out the restaurants along the canal we went to a nearby gelateria and had an average gelato. This lead to another discovery, which was that Venice, has no nightlife. When dinner is over Venice is a very quiet sleepy place. We caught a vaporetto and motored back to our hotel, where we could listen to the gondoliers serenading their customers till about midnight. The downside to that was the mosquitoes are pretty thick in Venice, and they don’t generally have screens on the windows. So a compromise has to be made if you want to listen to the singing. I shut the window.

 

 

 

Day seven and we set out for the islands of Murano and Burano. The biggest industry seems to be the glass blowing and selling of the hand blown glass. This means that the factories work with the hotels to arrange private water taxi rides for their guests so that they will end up in their showrooms buying thousands of dollars worth of hand blown glass treasures. While I admire their creations, I just wasn’t in the mood to haggle over the price of these treasures that I would love to have, but just wasn’t really able to justify the huge outlay of funds to acquire them. The stuff is amazing, but it has amazing prices on it. I was even more amazed to find that the prices were higher in the factory than in some of the shops lining St. Marks Square. Of course, the answer is the price on the object is higher, but the whole process was designed for maximum negotiation. A good friend of mine had told me of her day long process to acquire a couple of very beautiful statues a few years earlier. I just didn’t want to buy anything that much, and, fortunately, for me my wife agreed. So we spent an hour in a couple of the factories and wandered the town. The downside to not leading a salesman on was that they weren’t offering a water taxi for me like they did my female lawyer friend before she bought her statues. She got water taxi rides to the other islands, dinner, and a much better price at the end when she prepared to walk away from their final offer. So we caught the next vaporetto to Burano.

 

 

 

We entered Burano on the wrong street and we wandered thru town and were amazed at the lack of any kind of commercial enterprise. Other than the colorful houses, I was thinking to myself why do people come to this cute little island there is very little here. Then we found the first little shop. My wife found a lady who hand made exquisite silk lace scarves, we spent a small fortune buying one, and I thought maybe jewelry shopping isn’t so bad after all. Fortunately she directed us to a nearby osteria (restaurant) since the first one she recommended we had already tried, and some glass factory had all of the good lagoon side tables reserved for their high dollar customers who were leading them on, what an idiot I am! Well when we found the osteria, we found the lace shopping central, which was on the parallel street and the girls were so excited they left Shelby and I to pay the bill while they went for handmade lace treasures. By the time I got the check and paid, Krystal had bought my mother’s birthday present, handkerchiefs (does anyone still use those?), and a few other goodies for friends back home. Then we went into another store and they had a hand knitted silver/gray silk dress with murano glass beads that certainly would look nice for formal night on a cruise. She tried it on and it was a little too big, but it still looked stunning on her. So they ladies in the store are trying to convince her to buy it and they say that they can get a smaller size for her and they run off to get it. So we are stuck in the store for 15 minutes and now my wife starts getting cold feet, because the dress was way above average expensive. They get the smaller size, and it looks even better on her, and I am resigned to the purchase. She haggles with them they cut it a tad, but they know they have it locked up, and shockingly she walks out. Women are much better and meaner negotiators than men was my conclusion and I negotiate for a living. So we start going thru all the shops looking for this dress in her size and in this color for the next hour and a half. We find it in a smaller store and they start at the price the other shop had grudgingly cut it to. My wife took 20% off that and they agreed in the middle. Next thing I have a small bundle in my hands and no cash, because they wouldn’t take a credit card. Oh well, they are a lot of ATM machines in Venice. The funny thing about the dress was when we joined up with the rest of the group in Amalfi, they wanted her to try it on, and Susie told Krystal that it would be perfect for Susie’s upcoming charity ball. There is zero possibility that Susie will be wearing that dress to her ball. Like I said women are much meaner than men. We buy a new driver and immediately offer it to our buddies on the first tee after we hammer a great shot.

[xpcdoojk]

You know it is strange how you can't post over 10000 characters, and even stranger if you folks read all of this!:D Here is the rest of the Venice section.

 

 

Finally, we escape Burano after a beer, and catch the giant slow vaporetto back to St. Marks Square. We meet a nice South African couple celebrating their belated honeymoon 10 years and 2 kids later, and spend a charming hour talking to them on the ride. The views of Venice from a vaporetto are delightful. After reaching St. Marks we go sit at one of the outdoor bars set up in front of one of the bandstands that circle the square, and listen to a group covering Sinatra, and we ordered two Gin and Tonics with Bombay Sapphire and two Champagne cocktails after the waiter said he didn’t know what a cosmopolitan was and a bowl of crisps (potato chips) as my English friends call them. I knew this was a bad place to have a cheap drink, and I wasn’t disappointed when they showed up with a bill for 60 euros. Yikes! We head back to our hotel and out to another good, but unremarkable dinner. Gelato afterwards walking back to the hotel a definite gelato pattern was emerging.

 

 

Day eight and the last day in Venice began like the others, but this morning we checked out and had them store our bags until the evening when we were leaving Venice by train. We were shopped out, almost, so this was a cultural day. We viewed several churches and several galleries; we walked all over the islands and ate a very good lunch at a small neighborhood pizzeria. It was actually one of the best meals we had in Italy and, also, one of the cheapest. We stumbled upon it when we were hungry, and we were pleasantly surprised. In the evening, we went to a small bar that was touted as being one of the best cheap places to eat in Venice by one of the books and we ate with the owner and his dog, as we were the last customers of the evening showing up after 7pm. The town goes to bed early. We then went back to and found a restaurant near our hotel for desserts, and were disappointed and from that point on we gave in to the inevitable gelato is dessert. About 10:30pm we get our bags say goodbye to our nice hotel and lug our suitcases over the steps of the bridge and go to the train station to set off for Rome on an overnight adventure.

 

 

[hstrybuf]

Bravo jc! What a trip! About that ALW production, I love Michael Crawford and have since he was a skinny kid singing in "Hello Dolly" with Barbra Streisand. :)

[Merion_Mom]

Be assured that your labors are appreciated, jc. I am really enjoying your travel stories. I look forward to Rome!

 

Carol

[Elizanessie]

wonderful jc heck I am glued to the computer more more please.

 

Oh who is John Elway?

 

Liz

[Ocean Boy]

It was great reading about Venice. I will never forget the first time I went there. As much as you hear about it being a city on the water nothing, absolutely nothing, can prepare you for the first time you step out of the train station and take your first look around.

 

What an incredibly unique and beautiful place it is.

[mammallama]

Enjoying the read. Rome, please.

[Host Karen]

jc, I know you were looking forward to this trip for quite a while and put a lot of planning into it, so I'm glad to hear you had a great time. We will be visiting parts of Italy on our Med cruise next year, so I look forward to hearing about your experiences in Rome and the Amalfi coast. Welcome back!

[xpcdoojk]

Well, I hope you all are not thinking what a freak I am at this point, and I will get back to this later, after I get some work done. :p ;)


How about those Cardinals? I have had to listen to my employee telling everyone all about the game that I decided to skip this morning. Ouch.

jc

[xpcdoojk]

I missed your question.

Who is John Elway? That is a question like Reggie's regarding me. All American men know who John Elway is just like all RCI posters at CC know who xpcdoojk is.;) :p :D

John Elway was the quarterback of the Denver Broncos during his Hall of Fame career playing American professional football. As a Scot, you are to be forgiven for not knowing this bit of trivia.;)

jc

[Elizanessie]

Well shucks thanks for the info jc :D

Was starting to think you couldn't read my writing-haha

On a personal note.....emmm.....tipping.....in UK ????? did you or did you not??
You can tell me.I won't tell anyone.....honest.....I won't breath a word :rolleyes:


Liz

[xpcdoojk]

Liz, I am conditioned to tip, therefore I tip. I tipped in England despite the fact that my English friends tell me they never do and they are generally offended by this American concept. I tipped the entire trip until we got to Venice the first night, and I tried to add the tip because we really had a great waiter dealing with us at 11pm hungry and tired, but he said "no signor it is easier for me if you just sign the bill and do not add a tip onto it." Many restaurants in Italy had no space on the bill for a tip when charging so we didn't tip others did and we tipped. I actually wish that I had a forum that specifically outlined what we are supposed to do like they do here because it is hard to figure out the proper procedure country to country and even restaurant to restaurant.

Anyway on with the story, and then I am off to eat lunch and then to donate blood.

[font=Times New Roman][size=3]Section 4 the night train to Roma[/size][/font]

[size=3][/size]

[size=3][font=Times New Roman]The end of day eight and the beginning of day nine were a painful blur. We stupidly, decided to catch the earlier train to Mestre station from St Lucia station, and this was a mistake of not understanding. Our tickets implied that we were going from Mestre to Roma Tiburnia, and that we needed to go across the lagoon and not catch the train from Venice proper. So we ask a couple of the train station people and received no useful answers. So we see a train heading to Mestre and we jump on with our luggage. We get off after a very short train ride across the lagoon and wait the 45 minutes until the train was scheduled. Guess where it finally came from St Lucia, doh! Crapola! Of course it was in the station for 20 minutes in St Lucia it was in Mestre for about one minute. I knew we had a private sleeping car for our trip and I had sat in the train station while waiting for our train trying to figure out which end of the train had the sleeping cars. I kept seeing sleeper cars at the front so we headed to the front of the train, turns out those were the second-class sleepers and ours was at the back of the train. The man who told me this information said to me they are looking for you at the first class car at the back of the train. Thirty seconds of my one minute have now expired. Double Crapola! Running now we start down the station towards the back of the train. I don’t think they will leave without us, but I am not quite confident enough to brave it when my wife starts to panic as a door on one car behind us closed. So we are about 5 cars short of the last car when we get on, I actually went one car farther than the others because I had both of our big suitcases, and my backpack. So I jump on the train. I am banging thru each of the cars, sweating up a storm, having to wedge myself thru the doors separating the cars, and generally, disturbing the heck out of everyone already comfortably on the train that came from St Lucia. I got to our car first; as I opened the door only then did the train begin to roll out of the station. I am cursing quietly at myself. The steward spoke zero English and I speak just enough Italiano to get into trouble outside of a restaurant or a bar, so that made for some difficult conversation. [/font][/size]

[size=3][/size]

[font=Times New Roman][size=3]The train ride was uneventful, if sleeping is not a priority for the rider. About the time I would fall asleep, the train would slow down for a station and wake me up. The bunks are pitifully tiny, and I am not a big man, but I could not get quite comfortable the entire night, and when 6am and our wakeup by the steward was supposed to occur, but didn’t due to our poor communication the night before; I just looked at my watch and got out of my bunk. Needless to say I was quite knackered (an English expression I picked up in London). We got to the station at Rome in about 45 minutes and made a connection to the Termini station, which was about 3 blocks from our hotel and the place where we would pick up our rental car in a couple of days. Bottom line, the only advantage of a sleeper car for me was privacy and security I could have slept in one of the overnight coaches just as well or in this case as poorly. I had never done an overnight on a train before and that is checked off the list now.[/size][/font]

[Ocean Boy]

Things could have been worse. It is very common for Italian trains to "split" when they stop at a station part way through the journey. If you are not aware of it and are in the wrong section, the train splits and part of it goes to one destination. They attach an engin to the remaining cars and they go off somewhere else. It almost happened to me once. I awoke and decided to take a look around. Fortunately they were deviding the train between my car and the next one up and I saw what they were doing.

It pays to not sleep too well on an italian train!

[xpcdoojk]

[quote name='Ocean Boy']You may have been gone but you were not forgotten. I recall your name being thrown around on a post here and there.

I am so glad you were on vacation. When you weren't showing up here I wasn't sure if you had been locked in the "cellar" again. Hmmm, I bet you and I are the only two here who remember that thread. :D[/QUOTE]
OB, I have been slammed so many times over the years that I have forgotten who it was that said that to me. It wasn't you was it?:p

jc

[CASkippr]

[quote name='Elizanessie']Well shucks thanks for the info jc :D

Was starting to think you couldn't read my writing-haha


Liz[/QUOTE]

Liz, don't feel bad...JC is right, it is a American guy thing. :) John Elway and his wife were on a recent flight of ours from JFK to LA and I didn't recognize him at all. He was in the row in front of us and was talking to me about traveling with kids. About halfway through the flight my husband tells me who the guy is. If not for my husband, I never would have had a clue!

JC, I'm enjoying your review. Sounds like you had a wonderful time.

Leah

[Ocean Boy]

[quote name='xpcdoojk']OB, I have been slammed so many times over the years that I have forgotten who it was that said that to me. It wasn't you was it?:p

jc[/QUOTE]
I can't remember the guy's name any longer either. But your reply to him was very funny. And, no it wasn't me. I don't think I've ever said anything mean to you, have I? !:confused: :confused: :o

[mammallama]

Did it have to do with the word [color=#a0522d]MAROON[/color][color=black]? ;) [/color]

[xpcdoojk]

[quote name='Ocean Boy']I can't remember the guy's name any longer either. But your reply to him was very funny. And, no it wasn't me. I don't think I've ever said anything mean to you, have I? !:confused: :confused: :o[/QUOTE]
I was just teasing you OB. I remember that quite well, but I be danged if I have a clue who my special buddy was that day. Too bad all of the good old stuff like that are gone in the mists of time!:D

jc