We will be disembarking from Regent Seven Seas Splendor tomorrow morning, and heading to an airport hotel in Copenhagen. Originally, I had planned to book a stay in town, but decided it would be easier to base us near our airport and take Copenhagen’s handy public transport into town. I think I was having trouble deciding which hotel would be best for us and finally just said “fuck it”.
Overall, we’ve had a really great trip! There have been a few minor annoyances, but in the grand scheme of things, this has been a wonderful Scandinavian holiday. I just wish I hadn’t gotten sick. I’m mostly better now, but I’ve had a cough and congestion all week, and there’s a scab under my nose from all the nose blowing. I’m certainly not the only one who got sick, though. I’ve been hearing people hack and wheeze all week.
Now that I’ve tried Regent, which is regarded as a true “luxury” cruise line, I’m ready to do a comparison of our cruise experiences so far. In some ways, this cruise was very luxe. In other ways, it wasn’t so much. No matter what, we’ve done a lot of eating, enjoying of adult beverages, discovering new places that need further exploration, and crossing off bucket list items. I feel relaxed, and ready to get back to everyday life. I especially look forward to seeing Noyzi.
Today, we’re on an island off of Denmark called Ronne. Our excursion starts at 4PM and runs until about 8. I kind of want to skip it, because I’m a little toured out, but that would probably be a mistake. So we’ll check out Ronne, then come back and finish packing up so we can move on to the next hotel. In retrospect, maybe it would have been better to go home tomorrow, since it’s not so far. But, I hate to pass up the chance to see Copenhagen. I don’t know how enthused we’ll be about it, but maybe I’ll get some pictures.
On Thursday, Bill said he thought he’d probably be done with his conference early. I decided to go to the pool, where I started reading another fascinating book. This one is about a guy who has visited every single country on the planet. After a suitable time allowed for the housekeeping staff to clean our room, I did some blogging. I got tired of fighting with the terrible internet in this hotel, so I decided to go have some lunch.
This duck was fantastic… I actually had to sit and bask in the afterglow after this meal.
I had given some thought to walking back to the Centrum and maybe picking up a souvenir or two, but it turned out to be chilly and windy and I was afraid it might rain. So for the third time this week, I went to De Heerlijekheyt, the delightful restaurant next door to the hotel, where the male waiter on staff– who bears a passing resemblance to a young Kirk Cameron (before he turned into a religious wackjob) immediately recognized me from Sunday night. I was seated at a nice window table and enjoyed a delicious duck entree with vegetables and a couple of glasses of wine.
When I got back to the room, I felt strong enough to fight with the Internet again. I finished my blogging. Bill got back at about 3:00. We enjoyed one of the bottles of wine we brought and watched TLC as Bill told me about the conference. Then, at about 6:00, we visited De Bon Vivant, a local French inspired place that didn’t seem all that French to me. I had been curious about it since our arrival, but we finally got around to visiting last night. Apparently, asparagus is a specialty. They even had asparagus inspired desserts. We made a reservation for six o’clock, but that wasn’t really necessary.
Bill checks out the menu.
Bill tried the asparagus soup with smoked salmon while I had a soup called Grandma’s Sorrow, which was mustard based with smoked salmon. They looked identical, but had wildly different flavors. Both were excellent.
I had steak and asparagus. Bill had a game stew. Our waiter made our eyebrows raise when he said the game was fresh because it was just shot on Monday. Good to know. We also had frites and spinach with boiled eggs on top. My steak came with a small dollop of mashed potatoes and Hollandaise sauce. It was all a bit much, though very tasty.
We weren’t going to have dessert, but were talked into it… I had an Irish coffee and Bill had a D.O.M. coffee, which was made with some liqueur whose name escapes me right now. I think it might have been B&B.
A very pleasant female waitress came in a little later than her colleagues and talked to us. She asked if we were there for business or pleasure. We explained that we were in Apeldoorn on business and headed to Haarlem and Amsterdam for my birthday. She said Apeldoorn will seem rustic in comparison. Not so many trees as you head west. I am very impressed by how pretty Apeldoorn is. It’s been a nice place to spend the week. I wouldn’t mind coming back.
Outside the restaurant.
The tree lined main drag.
I guess some Dutch folks don’t like the police, either.
Before we go to Haarlem, we will stop by Apenheul, which is a primate zoo park where monkeys walk freely among the masses… should be fun.
I know we should have made a point of visiting all the museums and ancient historical sites in Athens. I think by the time we got to Athens, we were just really exhausted by all we had seen in two weeks. Vacations are supposed to be about relaxing, though, and we’re not at all like Clark W. Griswold when we take trips. We really enjoy just being together, so that’s pretty much what we do when we go on trips. If we feel moved to go to a museum, we go. If we don’t, we don’t. I like to people watch when I travel. I can get just as much out of sitting on a park bench watching people interact as I can moving from exhibit to exhibit in a museum.
On our second day in Athens, we did actually look at a few of the ancient sites… the ones that didn’t involve hill climbing, anyway. We also saw some very entertaining street performers. There was one guy playing jazz saxophone and several young guys dancing on a street corner. We saw yet another one of those performers in heavy costume, sitting as still as a statue. The statue performers don’t interest me that much, with the exception of the guys who do the invisible man acts. But after you’ve seen a couple of those guys, even they become less interesting. I do wonder how they can stand being so still, especially when it’s hot outside.
Dancers near the Acropolis…
Ancient stuff…
Eating
We stopped at lunch at one place and I had an unfortunate vantage point of seeing the woman behind the counter who was preparing the food. I noticed she picked up fries with her hand and caught her eating behind the counter. When my gyros arrived at barely room temperature, I got kind of nervous and remembered all the food handlers’ courses I had to take when I was working in restaurants. Then I remembered the epidemiology course I took when I was studying public health. It occurred to me how much it would suck to have food poisoning while on the plane back to the States, so I ate very sparingly and hoped for the best. Luckily, I didn’t get sick. 😉 The rest of the afternoon, we wandered more around the city, running the gauntlet of aggressive restaurant hawkers looking for customers.
View of the Acropolis from the Peacock Restaurant and a juicy steak!
Later that evening, we had dinner at the hotel’s Peacock restaurant, which offers a great view of the Acropolis. The food was very good and plenty hot, but I got just as big of a kick from the hilarious bartender, who was cracking jokes the whole time. I had the opportunity to play with my camera’s settings and got some interesting shots of the sunset.
Scamming
On day three, I got accosted by an old Romanian woman who was trying to force me to take some roses from her. When I declined to take them, she insisted, telling me they were free. When that didn’t work, she said I looked like Angelina Jolie. Talk about ridiculous. I finally shouted “No!” and moved away from her. I later found out about a common scam some people do in European cities in which they try to give you something, telling you it’s “free”. Then, when you do take whatever it is they’re offering, they claim you robbed them and demand money. No thanks.
Kidding
Day three is also when we picked up most of our souvenirs. I usually like to buy a mug and a magnet when I go places. I’m running out of room for the mugs, but my refrigerator still has plenty of room for more magnets. I went into one very touristy shop when the proprietor beckoned me inside. I found a couple of magnets as well as some very pretty tiles. As we were paying, the proprietor joked about the price, giving us a much higher price than what we actually owed. Then he laughed at my suddenly shocked expression. It was at that point that I noticed that some Greeks apparently like to kid a lot, especially when money is involved. That kidding happened several times when we were in Athens.
Haggling
Another thing I noticed is that Greeks like to haggle. But when we bought stuff, they haggled against themselves. For instance, when I bought my blue opal and silver necklace, the lady named a price, then immediately lowered it by about ten percent. I never said a word about the cost… I just hesitated slightly. The same thing happened when we bought art in Athens. I spotted a really interesting painting and expressed interest in it. The shopkeeper priced the painting at 85 euros, then immediately lowered the price to 75 euros. When I liked another painting, he priced it by itself at 250 euros, but then ended up giving me the first painting and the second for a total of 230 euros. They are keen to cut a deal, but they don’t seem to ask tourists to haggle… they do it for you!
We did sort of get scammed… but not in a really bad way. On our last full day in Athens, we were lured into an outdoor cafe. I was looking at the dorada, which is a tasty but expensive fish prepared in Greece. I was also looking at more pedestrian menu choices. The proprietor came over and took the menus from us before I had actually made up my mind, basically deciding for me that I wanted fish. Bill was also looking at something cheaper, but the guy offered him lamb. He thought he had decided on lamb, but it turned out the proprietor ordered fish for him too. So we both had expensive fish for lunch… and lunch took about two-and-a-half hours!
Yummy fava and salad…
The fabulous fish we were tricked into ordering…
Bill tries to figure out the bill written in Greek…
That night, we came back to the hotel and I heard Kate Bush playing over the sound system. I’m a big fan of Kate Bush’s music and mentioned it. The desk clerk and I shared a moment over that, since she was also a fan. I’m always excited when I run into someone who likes Kate Bush… she can be kind of an acquired taste for some people.
Cats!
The sun was setting as I took this with my new camera.
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