Santa Margarita

Today was our final day on our European Vacation.
We took some pictures from the balcony of our hotel in Santa Margarita before heading home to Munich.


Our hotel had a great balcony facing the harbor full of boats that survived the previous storm.
As we asked the kids their favorite memories, David liked the sausages in Bern, Brian liked the big boats in Cannes and Monaco, and Julia said she was happy to go home to Munich.
Daphne missed out on eating in Provence but her health improved enough to let her enjoy Italy. We had some wonderful, home cooked meals in small restaurants in Italy. Daph concluded that the food is much better in Italy than Germany, but everything else is harder.

We also concluded that life on the cote d'azur requires:
1. waking up late and drinking great coffee
2. driving your scooter into oncoming traffic without hesitation
3. smoking at all possible times, such as while passing traffic on your scooter, while on a cell phone
4. looking fabulous - this is a stereo type that is true. They look good 24/7


We had fun - we tried to do too much - but we had fun.


Thanks for enjoying it with us. It was my wife's dream and now we did it.

As a family, we all are happy when Mama is happy.

Italy

Waking from the storm, we found the harbor to be more quiet although the skies were still gray and stormy. We decided to try and see the towns of Cinque Terra. These are towns perched on the edge of the sea that are incredibly beautiful but impossible in their construction and not accessable by road until recent times.
We headed down to the ferry dock to try and see them be boat but the seas were too rough. Since it was noon, Daphne said we should try and drive and, "see how far we get before the drive becomes too difficult."

This drive was murder.

Picture roads wide enough for 1.5 cars, with mountain straight up the right side and no discernible land on the left. If you dare to let your peripheral vision peek out the corners, you will see there is a 1000 foot drop to rocks before you bounce into the sea. But you don't need to worry because there is a fence made of wire the size of fishing line that will protect you in case you have a problem. Did I mention that it began to storm again? Wet roads are fun.

When I said I was ready to turn back, Daph suggested we go to one of the small towns to have lunch. This proved to be the worst drive possible according to the internet. We needed to turn off the main road, toward the sea, and drive straight down. There were some switchbacks that we needed to slow to 5 mph as you turn 250 degrees.

I was not enjoying this. Daph said her hand hurt from grabbing the handle so tightly. The kids stayed dead quiet - likely a survival instinct from thousands of years of evolution. (Mom and Dad are stressed - stay quiet!)

Anyway - it was fine. Views were great. Hard to understand why people built houses here. Munich doesn't have the view but is still pretty great.

Monaco

We left Nice early on Wednesday to see Monaco and travel to Italy for the first time.

We woke up and took a picture from our rooftop pool (too cold to swim) of the beaches of Nice. In season, this would have been fabulous.

My father suggested that Monaco doesn’t have too much to see and we should try to visit a small medieval town called Eze. As the navigation system took us from Nice to Monaco, we saw a sign for Eze and made the stop for a late breakfast.

The town is at the peak of a stone cliff. Buildings are perched impossibly on the steep edges of the mountain, ready to slide into the sea. It always seems that there is a church with three sides on the edges.

Pictures cannot capture the steep drops you experience from these perches.

I don’t like these edges. Fear of my own clumsiness is really the issue. David has no fear and was reprimanded several times for leaning over iron fences with his feet off the ground.

Even Daphne was taunting me with her arm.

Next we pushed on to Monaco / Monte Carlo. This was tough to explain to the kids. We were visiting a city/country built on tax avoidance (if not evasion) and gambling.

The boys seemed to only see the bigger boats. Here is a picture of the gang in front of the Lady Moura which is the 11^th biggest private boat in the world. On the right.

We visited the oceanic museum where Jacques Cousteau set up his foundation. King Albert I of Monaco was a big believer in protecting the ocean (while hunting ocean creatures) in the beginning of the 20^th century.

We also visited the palace where the prince lives and the church where Grace Kelly was married. The boys were very impressed. Not really.

We ate at a place called Gaston’s and we asked them if they knew who Gaston was in history. Julia said he was a character in Disney’s Ratatouille movie. When we asked if anyone had heard of Monte Carlo, David said there was a Scooby Doo episode with a ghost that haunts a building in Monte Carlo. We are fighting an uphill battle.

Late in the day we left Monaco for the 2-3 hours drive to Genova (birthplace of Christopher Columbus). Considered one of the most beautiful drives in the world, the road follows the coast from small town to small town along the Mediterranean. We had the misfortune to have a driving rainstorm and high winds. This meant that the towering vistas and high bridges were a bit more scary then enjoyable. It was a white knuckle ride with the trucks and scooters flying around in the bad weather.

When we got to our hotel, we were across the street from the harbor where the local town’s men where watching the storm knock the boats about and sink one or two. The hotelier said it was a “typhoon” but that might be a language issue. We watched the storm shred some canvas covers and pull some of the boats from their docks.

Good fun.

Day 4

Brian says this is what it feels like to sit three across in the back seat.
I guess I should blame myself for exposing him to billion dollar metaphors.

This was the end of our day in Cannes. Wow. If the kids have to ask, they cannot afford these boats. (David did see a for sale sign on a small 80 ft. boat and ask if he could approach the owner.)

but let's start at the beginning...

We started the drive up the cote-d'azur from Marseille, through the beautiful fishing town of Sanary-sur-Mer, to the naval port of Toulon, up to Saint-Tropez for lunch and finally into Cannes.



The day was nice as warm versus our earlier adventures. While Daph is still not feeling well, she is trying to be a trooper. The kids actually seemed to look out the window now and then and enjoy the views of the Mediterranean.

Lunch was in Saint-Tropez at Pizzeria Bruno. David asked to order the mussels. Daph thought he wouldn't like them (and she might throw up) but we allowed him and, to his credit, he ate them.

After lunch all except Daph had ice cream on the docks. We did not see Bridgit Bardot.



We did see several large boats like this one. A mere 130 ft. long, none of the children was ready to put down the deposit on the $225K per week instead of our time in Sunset Beach next year. It does only sleep 10.



Finally, we pulled into Cannes and the previous boats looked average.
When we went to park the Volvo to walk around, I pulled into a garage with many openings. We parked and saw an impressive line up of cars with license plates that had the same markings.
Clearly, one person owned the Lambo, 2 Ferrari's, Bentley, 3 BMWs, 7 Mercedes, Maybach, and the Austin Martin. All with German plates from Hamburg and not a single Porsche in the group.

Day 3

We left Geneva and traveled to Lyon for lunch before heading down through Provence to Marseille.
We passed through downtown and saw the water spout that was closed the previous day due to high winds. The Jet d'eau shoots water almost 500 feet into the air and is very impressive.

It was too impressive to get a good picture.

Best to check online.

We drove onto to Lyon.


Some have noted that we seem to be only discussing food on the blog. This is because:
1. Daphne has always loved cooking food, entertaining friends and family, and the idea of food in France and 2. we now realize that our children have no hope of appreciating this trip for the culture, history, or landscape.
We are able to recognize the obvious and move on. We are.
So - - we are making the kids try food that they may love or hate, but are sure to remember.

Yesterday, I asked them to try traditional croque-monsieur.
Brian and Julia said yes and they brought a tennis raquet sized sandwich with a salad. Both tried it and did a good job. Here is the pictures of the restaurant.

The problem was that Daphne has caught a bug and her stomach cannot handle anything. This is really sad. I would love to insert a personal joke here, but even I cannot.


We did some sightseeing in Lyon before going to Marseille.
The highlight of the day: the novotel hotel in Marseille had a PS3 in the lobby for the kids to use.

Geneva

Day 2.
Locked and loaded!

Finally - it stopped raining. We set out today to explore Geneva on foot. We had breakfast this morning near the hotel with Nutella crepes and Cokes. (no pictures but believe it. The kids were sleepy. Cheap fix.)

Daph had a cappuccino that she claims was the best of her life. Mine was tasty.

We walked down to the lake and it was bright and windy. With temps in the low 40's, the lake felt even colder but we loved the sunshine. It was pretty and the kids loved walking along the rock walls with a good chance they could fall in the water.

Loads of boats and lots of people enjoying a nice, sunny and cool Sunday morning.


We walked out on a barrier wall that marks the harbor and David posed for me. He then noticed the tai-chi group exercising out in the fresh air. Another pose from out dramatic son. He is his biggest fan.



We took a "solar powered trolley" ride along the banks and everyone got to learn some history and see the huge houses along the lake front.

We walked old town which was mostly closed on a Sunday but was still very pretty and fun. David wanted to try "real Swiss" food so we stopped into a small restaurant. It turns out it was pretty nice and we all had traditional food including Rosti. The kids tried creme brulee for the first time. 2 loved, one not.

We walked outside and noticed the sign that said Bill Clinton ate at the restaurant as President in 1994. Daph and Julia posed for the picture figuring Poppy Joe and Megan would be proud.

The afternoon included a walk to the UN and the Red Cross Museum. A full day.

Tomorrow is Provence. The kids are SOOOO not appreciating this. (a bit like Daph in Germany, I guess....) David wants to get home to play the Wii. Brian suggested we cut the Red Cross short to get back to the hotel to watch High School Musical. Why are we trying.....

Vacation - day 1

We are taking a week's vacation by driving around Europe - Clark Griswald style. We are doing 4 non-German countries in 7 days.

Day one was a drive from home to the city of Bern, Switzerland. (We go through Austria to get there.) The idea was to have lunch in Bern and then end up in Geneva in the evening.

We had more traffic than expected and did not get to Bern until about 3pm which cut our sight seeing short. Bern is named after the first animal killed there (the bear) and bears are the city symbol. They even have a huge bear den for visitors.

We had lunch including Rosti and Fondue (later we drove through the town of Gruyere which was very neat.)


The weather was terrible. We had driving rain with intermittent wet snow and ice. The rain stopped long enough for us to take a few pictures in the town center.


The kids seemed to be bored by the drive along lake Geneva with the mountains rising up along the lake. Daphne seemed to like the whole day - likely a ploy to allow future trips outside of Germany.
We arrived tonight in Geneva safe and sound ready to explore tomorrow (Sunday).

Visiting the Zugspitze

Today we took our visitor, Chris, to the Zugspitze. The Zugspitze is the highest point in Germany at 3000 meters. It has a glacier on the top and we saw loads of snow. You will notice we had on winter coats at the base.



Daphne arranged the trip - we would drive to the base at 1000 meters, take the cablecar to the summit and then take the train down from the top.

The cable car goes up 2000 meters with only two towers. Speaking for those of us who don't love heights, this was the most uncomfortable 20 minutes of my time in Germany. Please click on some of the pictures to get a feeling.

The picture from the base shows the cables disappearing into the mountain/clouds. What you don't see is that the car goes straight up to the summit. Straight up.

I also have a picture of another cable car going up to the Austrian side.

Once we were at the top, we walked around and took pictures. Chris took a picture of himself looking out at the mountains.
The picture of Daph and Brian is in the cable car.



The ride down was the train. It is more than a mile tunnel (to avoid avalances and rock slides) that decends over 1000 meters. It was much better for me.

Later we drove to across to see where Daphne's Mom spent time in Mittenwald. On the way we stopped and saw an alpine amusement ride where you ride carts down the mountain on toboggen tracks. Imagine a cement and metal bobsled track and each of us on a little car that only has a break. It was fun.

The kids loved it. Here is a picture of Julia on the cart.

Daphne adds: no safety equipment like seatbelts or helmets.