Tag Archives: travel plans

holidays

Milking MLK weekend for all it’s worth…

I can’t believe we’re already in the middle of January 2023. Time sure is flying. Ordinarily, we would have used Martin Luther King Day weekend for a short trip somewhere. But we haven’t been living in ordinary times for awhile now. Last year, we had COVID to deal with. This year, it’s Arran’s cancer.

Actually, we probably could have gone somewhere. He’s not so ill that he can’t be boarded. All he needs is Prednisolone every other day, a vet visit every other week, and Endoxan twice a week, every other week. This week, he just got the Prednisolone, which would have been easy for our regular boarding facility to manage. I just don’t want to board him if I can avoid it, because I know he’d rather be with us.

Noyzi loves being boarded, but I don’t want to drop him off and take Arran with us. That’s a hassle. Taking Noyzi with us is also difficult, because takes up the whole back end of our car. It’s better if he gets boarded. It’s hard to shop when the dog takes up all the cargo space. At this point, we have plans to go to Stuttgart at the end of March. The dogs will be boarded for that.

It was a lot easier to travel when we had Zane, as he and Arran could share the back seat. Zane also didn’t mind going to the potty on the leash. We did manage to get Noyzi to poop on the leash when we took him to France, but it took awhile. On the other hand, Zane was a lot louder and naughtier than Noyzi is. We were more likely to get yelled at by locals when we traveled with Zane.

The weather in Germany was pretty gloomy this weekend. We’ve had rain every day. While it’s not super cold, it is pretty windy and blustery. I still have a touch of cabin fever and would like to get out and do something fun. Then I look at the depressing weather and decide to hibernate.

It’s not all bad, though. I used the fireplace last night, which is always nice. I wish we had seating in the living room that makes the fireplace easy to enjoy. I like this house a lot, but the downstairs layout could be better. The living room is like two rooms that open into the dining room.

I was thinking the other day… I’d like to turn the dining room into an extension of the kitchen. Put in a pantry and a wine fridge, and move our spare fridge upstairs. Maybe install a kitchen island. and more counter space, and put in a door to block the kitchen from the living room. Too bad this isn’t my house and I don’t have tons of money. 😉

Bill and I spent the weekend watching movies, listening to music, drinking wine, and talking. He tried out making calzones with the empanada makers I got him for Christmas. They tasted good, although his presentation technique needs some polish. I’m sure he’ll get a chance to practice. He also tried a couple of new recipes from one of the cookbooks I got him.

I have been giving some thought to places we’d like to visit this year… I know Bill wants to go to Spain and/or Portugal again. I’d like to go to the Baltics, or maybe Finland. I’d also like to visit Brno in the Czech Republic. There are more exotic places we’d like to go, as well. They would require flying, which I’m still not sure I want to do unless I have to. I do know, however, that I’d like to venture out beyond the usual countries… France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and the like.

For now, though… we’re at home. At least Bill got lots of sleep, which he really needs. Below are some photos… The first, second, and fourth are of the calzone experiment. The fifth is of some Bearnaise Sauce Bill tried to make using a new recipe out of a Michel Roux cookbook I bought him.

The last photo is a bottle of wine a friend bought that comes from Bauerwein.de, a winery in the Pfalz. They have lots of wines with funny names. There’s one called Bullshit, and another called If You’re a Terrorist, Racist, or Just an Asshole, Don’t Drink My Wine. I could list more, but some of the names are really long and I have another blog post to type. I’m thinking of ordering a bunch. If we’d had nicer weather, maybe we would have paid them a visit. Their outfit is about 80 minutes away from us.

I’d really like to kick the travel blog back into gear in 2023, although I don’t have plans to publicize it much. I can see there are a lot of people who are better at this than I am… and make YouTube videos, and shit. I just put songs on YouTube. 😉

Standard
Uncategorized

Spring lunch at Villa Im Tal, and more travel plans!

Bill decided he wanted to go out to lunch again this weekend. Villa Im Tal, one of our favorite restaurants in Wiesbaden, was closed last weekend, so we went to Landhaus Diedert. This weekend, however, Villa Im Tal was open. Bill noticed that their menu appeared to be leaning more toward Italian cuisine. We are planning a big trip to Italy at the end of this month, so we made reservations for 1:00pm. Villa Im Tal is easily booked on OpenTable.de.

Some readers might recall that on April 2, Hesse dropped most of its COVID rules. However, I remembered that last weekend, when we dined at Landhaus Diedert, everyone was wearing masks in the restaurant. Although I threw out all of the masks in my purse, I made sure to carry a new one for today, just in case. On the way down the country road where the restaurant is, we passed a lady on a beautiful piebald pony who looked like he was about to start shedding his winter coat. He was still fluffy, like a teddy bear. SIGH.

We showed up right on time and donned masks, since the hostess/server was wearing one. She checked our vaccination statuses, which I understand that a lot of places are no longer doing, since it’s no longer required by law. Once we proved that we are up-to-date on our shots, she led us to our table. We noticed people were a lot more casual about masking this week. Some people wore them, but most people didn’t. The dining room is very spacious and there was plenty of room.

We usually sit in the front dining room when we visit Villa Im Tal. The one exception was in 2020, when we ate outside on a beautiful spring day. Today, it looked like the front dining room wasn’t set up. We were seated in the back, which was kind of interesting. It has a different ambiance, and offers a nice view of the lovely meadow that made me long for the days when I still had a horse and could go trail riding. Or, barring that, I would just like to hang out in a meadow with horses and smell their intoxicating aroma. Maybe someday…

In any case, Villa Im Tal is in the thick of “Spargel season”. It’s time for fresh asparagus, and they offered plenty on their menu. They also had their own version of the wonderful wild garlic soup so prevalent in Germany in the spring. Bill decided to have an asparagus heavy lunch, while I went with surf and turf. And we both had the garlic soup for our starters. Dessert consisted of a strawberry rhubarb tart with white chocolate ice cream for Bill, and an almond “cannelloni” filled with chocolate mousse and a small scoop of blood orange ice cream for me. The ice creams were house made.

Total damage for today’s lunch was about 215 euros, but it was well worth the cost. Service was, as usual, excellent. We were enjoying the space with a number of happy locals and a couple of very well behaved dogs. One dog was so good that we didn’t even notice her until the end of the meal, when her people led her out. Maybe someday, Noyzi will be good enough to go to a restaurant.

Below are some photos from today’s lunch. It’s always a pleasure to visit Villa Im Tal. It was funny, though, because the young woman who waited on us wished us a “pleasant journey”. I kind of laughed and said, “You mean, back to Wiesbaden?” She was surprised to find out that we live here. I guess they don’t get a lot of Americans in that part of town.

The bread was delicious!
The couple in the corner brought a very well behaved dog. We didn’t notice her until they left.
Wild garlic soup! It was served with smoked quail breast. This version was milder than last week’s.
This week’s wine… from the Piedmont region of Italy.
Bill had Spargel with ham and Hollandaise sauce, as well as new potatoes.
I had “surf and turf”– Sirloin with a tempura fried shrimp, ratatouille, and potatoes with bacon.
It’s nice to be out.
Almond cannelloni with chocolate mousse and blood orange ice cream.
Bill’s rhubarb and strawberry tart with white chocolate ice cream.
Another view of my tasty and satisfying dessert.
I was so jealous of this lady. She also brought her dog.
Bill sure does enjoy being retired Army. 😉
Outside…
Spring has sprung.
Villa Im Tal is a beautiful restaurant.
Wiesbaden is so pretty.
Train station in Wiesbaden.

This week, we also made some decisions about our upcoming vacation. I hadn’t been really wanting to take this deal, offered by a member of my wine group on Facebook. He’s a sommelier in Florence who offers tours and sells wine. We’ve bought a number of his monthly boxes, which don’t come cheap, but are of excellent quality. He hit Bill up for a trip to Florence. I had originally said no, but then in the wake of the loosening COVID rules, decided what the hell. So, on April 23, we will be off on our next trip.

So far, our itinerary is this: One night in Andermatt, Switzerland, on the way down to Italy. Three nights in Torrechiara (near Parma) for three nights. Three nights in Florence, with one night incorporating the wine tour we’re taking. We will get there early because Bill wants to go to the Uffizi, a very famous art museum. He had wanted to go during our last visit, back in May 2013, but we weren’t able to arrange it. This time, we will make a point of making a visit happen. The third night, we will be having dinner and a wine tasting, and the weekend will consist of the rest of the tour, which will include visits to wineries and castles, and lots of wine tasting and probably a fair amount of wine buying. We will spend a night in Cortona, then come back to Florence, where we’ll spend another night before heading northward to Vaduz, Liechtenstein, where we will spend two nights before coming home again.

I had originally planned for us to go to Lugano, but I realized that it was too close to where we were coming from, and the timing might be tricky. Also, I have a feeling that we’ll be kind of ready for some quiet and decompression. Lugano will probably be a little too happening for us at the end of the trip, when I know I’ll be anticipating coming home. Vaduz is very beautiful. We went there for a few hours in 2009, with Bill’s mom, and we ended up literally getting trapped in Italy later. In any case, Vaduz is closer to home than Lugano is, and it’s not so close to Florence that we have to kill time before check in.

We WILL get to Lugano at some point. I do still want to visit there. I just want to do it at the beginning of the trip instead of the end. Maybe we’ll spend my birthday there in June.

We still need to nail down the hotel situation in Florence, but that will be sorted out soon. I hope to come home with lots of cheesy comestibles, wines, hams, olive oils, and pasta. I always look forward to Italy, so I think this will be a great trip. This will be my third time in Florence. The first time was in September 1997… and in fact, I was there when I heard that Princess Diana had died. I actually saw her picture on an Italian newspaper with the headline that she’d died. I thought I was looking at a tabloid. I am probably one of the few people in the world who heard about her death on September 2, 1997, rather than the day it happened. Ahhh… the days when we weren’t plugged in all the time. I remember listening to her funeral on French radio while riding a train through the South of France, en route to Spain.

Anyway, I think it will be a great foodie trip, and I look forward to writing it up. Stay tuned.

Standard
Uncategorized

An overnighter in France with dogs…

We’ve got one planned this weekend.  I have a terrible case of wanderlust and our dogs’ usual hotel is fully booked until September.  Yesterday, while I was ruminating about how much I’d let to get away for a night or two, it occurred to me that we live in an area where dogs can go places.  My dogs are hoodlums, but they can’t learn to behave in public if they never go anywhere.  Besides, I want some French wine.

So… we are headed for Riquewihr and Ribeauville on Saturday and we’ll stay a night.  If all goes well, we may start doing more quick overnights so I won’t have to feel so cooped up.

Wish us luck!

Standard
anecdotes, rants

Why do people question my travel plans?

I usually save my rants for my main blog, but I’m going to put one here because I’m ranting about a travel issue today.  Bill and I are headed to Vienna this afternoon.  We will be flying on Germanwings.  This will be our fourth Germanwings round trip flight, but the other three were before the tragic crash that happened last month.  Although logically I know the chances of us crashing today are slim to none, I made a little crack on Facebook about how I hope the crew on our flight is feeling stable.  If not, it’s been nice knowing everyone.

Again, it was just a joke.  I am positive we’ll be fine and, later today, I’ll be enjoying a nice meal in a Viennese restaurant.

Most all of my friends wished us a good trip.  Some said they looked forward to photos.  A few reminded us to see the famous Lipizzaner stallions at the Spanish Riding School or learn to waltz.  And then it happened.  Two guys, both fairly opinionated, questioned our decision to fly to Vienna.

One guy, who has told me before that he is not as well traveled as I am, suggested that I take the train because it might be more convenient and fun.  Given what happened to a Germanwings flight last month, I did consider the possibility of taking a train.  However, we soon found out that it would be more expensive and take longer than flying.  Using the train involves going either to Munich or Nuremberg.  Having recently gone to Regensburg by train via Nuremberg, we know that there is no high speed ICE train that goes to Nuremberg, so we’d be on a slower train for a couple of hours.  There probably is an ICE train to Munich, but it would still take longer than flying.  And again, it’s not that inexpensive, though I do find train travel to be less irritating than plane travel is.

Another guy, who has lived in Germany and tends to be a do it yourself-er, suggested that we drive because “Vienna is only four or five hours away.”  I wanted to ask my friend to take a look at a map.  Vienna is on the extreme Eastern side of Austria.  If we encountered no traffic and didn’t need to stop anywhere, it would take about seven hours to drive there from Stuttgart.  And we don’t actually live in Stuttgart.  Stuttgart is nicknamed STAUgart for good reason.  Traffic around here is terrible.  So add another hour for that and perhaps one for lunch, vignette buying, gas, and what not.  Then you have to find a place to park.  Besides, Bill hasn’t yet gotten his international driver’s permit.  Chances are good that he’d never be stopped, but the one time you do get stopped and don’t have one, you get a big fine.  No thanks.

It just boggles the mind, though.  I mean, do people not think I’ve considered other ways of getting to Vienna other than flying on Germanwings?  I could have taken another airline, but that would have involved layovers and in most cases, more money.  I’m going to throw caution to the wind and fly today.  We have beautiful weather.  And God willing, I will live to tell about it!

In fact… I already have an invitation to karaoke tonight…  ðŸ˜€

Standard