Arrived in Nice

We made it to Nice late Friday.  Had a chance to walk around and grab a late dinner.  The city has a wonderful promenade where you can walk around along the water, it goes on for about 3 miles.  Fortunately in France, showing up at 10:30 pm for dinner is no big deal.  Anne did a great job of booking another wonderful hotel.  Below is the view from our patio.  We are off for a bike tour this morning.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

When you travel as much as Anne and me, you know that on rare occasions, the wheels may come off completely and they did for Anne on her way here.  She made it, but two missed flights and one extra country later, she landed.  Her original itinerary was Sacramento-LA-Atlanta-Milan on Delta.  Unfortunately, when she hit Atlanta, there were terrible thunderstorms and they would not let them off the plane and she missed the flight to Milan.  They re-booked her that evening through Madrid and then on to Milan.  Again, unfortunately, the flight came in late and she missed her connection to Milan and had to wait for another flight.  She eventually showed up at Milan about 8 hours late and doing everything in her power to remain positive.  The drive to the French Riveria helped and definitely when we arrived in Nice she was fine.  Long, tough trip, but she is finally here.

3 weeks down and ready to meet Anne

I have been on the road 3 weeks since I arrived Istanbul and made it to Milan today.  I pick up Anne tomorrow morning and we are heading south to the coast.  I am excited and it should be fun.  Checking in on my goal of 20,000 steps per day, I am pretty much right on so far for the total trip, but have to admit I was a little disappointed when I got my weekly Fitbit report.  For those who don't have one, a Fitbit is a band you wear that tracks your steps, miles, floors climbed and heart rate, and links to your computer.  You can look previous days up and it sends you a weekly report. 

I am happy overall, but admit when I saw I was 140 steps a day short of the 20,000 for the week, I really wish given I was that close I had hit it, but I tried to convince myself it was close enough

Sirmione and a long drive

Today is one of the few days I was not looking forward to on the trip.  I drove from Slovenia to Milan.  Five and a half hours if all goes well, unfortunately it took me about seven and a half.  There was major road construction, but overall, I haven't spent that much time on the road.

I looked for a place to take a break along the way and found Sirmione.  It is a very unique town near Milan that is on a slice of land that goes into a lake.  As you get near the end, it's all castle structures.  Sure makes a good moat when you are out into a lake.   Look it up on the internet if you get a chance.  All I really did was park and walk around for an hour, but it was very nice.  Felt very tropical and was packed with tourists.   The water was shallow so it was very blue/green.

Ljubljana

Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and only an hour from Lake Bled.  It was nice to have a short drive and I arrived before noon.  I dropped my stuff and headed to the Tourist Information office where I had seen they have a walking tour.  I went in, asked for the noon walking tour and was a little surprised it was more than I thought it would be ($30 euros instead of $15 euros).  What I didn't realize was, I was expecting the normal 2 hour walking tour, but on Wednesday only, they do a 3 hour taste of Slovenia tour.  I didn't find out until we were ready to leave and figured, hey, I haven't eaten lunch, this sound like fun, and it was. 

It was 5 of us and a guide.  She took us to five different restaurants around town, each having an appetizer size serving and discussed what Slovenia was known for.  It was very nice and I am glad I inadvertently signed up for it.

First stop, a traditional wine and local sausage.  Slovenia is known for

it's sausage and it was very good.  Wine was from when they made wine

centuries ago to turn un-drinkable water into something safe to drink.

Unfortunately, it tasted like it. 

During the first stop, birds would land on the table and "peck"

at peoples arms to try to get a piece of bread (look by his elbow)

Beef tongue and horse radish.  I tried it, but it was not my thing.

We didn't eat here, but notice horse on the menu on the left side.

Apparently, it's common in Slovenia, but not on our menu today (thank god)

Traditional chicken and potatoes.  Potatoes were great.  They were boiled,

pealed and mixed with caramelized unions.  Very good.

Dessert breads and walnut brandy.  Served at a rooftop

restaurant in the center of the city.

View from the restaurant

Poker in Slovene

I had not planned to play poker on the trip, but at my hotel in Lake Bled, there is a small casino across the street that has a poker tournament on Tuesday night.  I figured, what the heck.  It was only a 30 euro buy in, so I was not too worried that I didn't speak the language and was curious how it would be to play poker at a place where you don't speak the language.  The national language is Slovene and I understand very little.  As it turned out, it was not that big a deal.  All the key terms (ante, bet, call, raise, flop, turn, river, etc) were the English terms.  It ended well though, I tied for first and won 200 euros.  Not my biggest win, but I'll take it.  I am off to the capital of Ljubljana this morning for one night and then on to Milan to meet up with Anne.  I am very excited to see Anne and also stay at a hotel for more than 1 or 2 nights. 

Hiking in the rain

Weather has been pretty good overall on my trip, but it did rain much of today.  I am ashamed to admit I pondered for a minute this morning deciding if I should go in the rain and my inner Washingtonian convinced me that 3 years in California had made me soft, expecting the sun so shine every day.  Thus, I headed out in the rain and it was a good call.  It stopped after a while and was a nice hike, just over 10 miles to the towns of Selo and Kupljenik.   It had a lot more hills than I expected, but going on a hike that is a circle is a great motivator, even if you are tired half way, the only way home is to walk.

View from the room before my hike.  There were crew practices

View back at Lake Bled.  You can see the castle behind

the haze on the hill in the distance.

A cow that was clearly unimpressed by me walking by. 

She continued to stare at me the entire time I walked past.

Painting on the outside of the local fire department.  You can see

 the person pouring a bucket of water on a house on fire.

Interesting way they dry hay

The rivers running through the valley were gorgeous, very

clear and a green hue.  I caught a fly fisherman in the river.