I’m making a small mini-site in the style of Paul Stamatiou’s travel mini-sites, coupled with 40 Days of Dating‘s split screen format, but in the compromise to not inundate the actual site with too much irrelevant detail (mostly related to my logistical struggz and persisting headaches that I’ve been getting lately, also in the style of 40 Days of Dating), I’m dumping it here as personal record. I’m even going to intersperse a pretty picture for each day, though the full version will definitely be more accessible…. whenever I get around to making it.
Day 1 Flight from New York
- Couldn’t fall asleep. Watched Book Thief instead, and was disappointed that it didn’t carry nearly the same weight the book did.
- Entertained myself by taking a million selfies on Dean’s camera.
Day 2 Milan / Firenze
Milan airport: ~7am (40 min early)
- entire airport totally dead/empty
- only knew “scusi” and “grazie” and used both in airport
Took train in (to Milano Cadorna), got off at Milano Nord Cadorna
Italian people are very well dressed
Felt good, not tired from flight – baby started crying only at last second
Almost lost a screw to my suitcase, but found it buried in my clothes and put it together on the train (almost a horrendous moment, then saved by miracle)
Walked past a few coffee shops, resisted urge to get a ton of espresso (I was pretty dehydrated)
Went to Santa Maria delle Grazie, saw The Last Supper’s original fresco on the wall
Struggled to walk to Duomo – in theory, very close but made much harder by lugging 30 lbs of suitcases and banging it on the cobblestones
Saw the mall across from Duomo, Ten and Dean got the first gelato of the trip! Dean and Lulu got pizzas. I felt sick from eating sandwich from last night that went bad without me noticing until too late (bad luck)
Hopped into metro, went to Centrale FS subway station
Train to Firenze Santa Maria Novella, totally passed out all the way through
Firenze
- Took cab to booking.com apartment office, turned out they moved to a new office, which was impossible to find even though it was a block away
- Found it 20 min later, had to walk another 5-10 min to apartment, was almost about to pass out
- room was at top of 4 stories, passed out for 2 hours
- Florence is way nicer than Milan, small streets with lots of small places to eat sandwiches or get gelato
- Walked around and went to 4 more gelato places, first one randomly b/c i was starving, second one Perche No? because it was well reviewed, fourth one Venchi along Ponte Vecchio, last one was the 7 Brothers one that we first passed b/c it was self-serve and dean found it interesting
- Saw a lot of cool stores, walked along Santa Croce, got to Uffizi area, crossed the bridge and onto the other side, saw the Palazzo (pretty empty), walked back
- Passed a cool guy who used to live in BK, but moved back home to Florence to make old style marble paper
- Ate delicious meal at Osteria dei Benchi thanks to Dean’s friend’s recommendation – salami/proscuitto was great, carbonara was amazing, also had really interesting strawberry rice, carpaccio was cooked and the most disappointing
- Also had a mezzo glass of wine, pretty dry so not as much of a fan, but Dean liked it and we were both quite tipsy by the end (a little sad)
Day 3 Firenze / Venice
- Woke up around 7:30AM, felt kinda bad (stomach discomfort) – the same thing that’s been bothering me for a while
- Someone from the apartment came to help pick up our stuff and carry it to the office to store for the day – SUCH a difference; carrying all our stuff around all day yesterday really wore me out
- Went to Uffizi, where Signoria Apartments made reservations for us the day before: buying online opted us into the special exhibition that we couldn’t figure out how to turn down, so this was perfect and saved us a good deal of time waiting in line
- Uffizi is interesting: main hallway very warm, some painting rooms very humid but some rooms with statues very air conditioned
- Everything is so intricate and detailed — I was tired and worn out and uncomfortable from my stomach, so I sat down for a bit, and because I did, I looked up and noted all of the portraits of famous Italians – I was right under Machiavelli
- Our timing worked out perfectly as we were in Uffizi during the only shower in Florence we’d catch that day, and it was sunny by the time we walked out. We managed to avoid all rain in Florence!
- Popped into Museo de Vecchio
- Walked past the main Duomo, which is so grand that it’s hard to believe you can walk right up to it
- A lot of guys selling selfie sticks
- Made our way to Grom, along the way passed by an Eataly – living in NY spoils you!
- On the cab ride there, passed by a bunch of people in line outside Grom, like it was in NY. When walking by this time, turned out it was just one big Asian tour group there, which maybe what we saw the first time?
- Got Yogurt and Caffe flavored, yogurt was nice and tart
- Walked towards San Lorenzo leather market, searching for a leather jacket for Tina, and a bag/wallet for my dad
- Unable to tell what was real and what wasn’t – some were pretty cheap, but was disappointed to find from the first store I went into that the “fire” test doesn’t really work or telling real leathers. Heard a bunch of different tricks to “tell” – it doesn’t smell a certain way, or it doesn’t scratch, etc. I did my best and talked down one that was 390 to 100
- Also bought 2 wallets – one for me, one for my dad. Also bought a belt. Dean bought 3 wallets. Looking for stuff for my mom and brother in Paris, maybe.
- Walked into Eataly even though we were short on time and got a Focaccia sandwich and this onion flatbread that was maybe the single greatest thing that I’ve eaten. Dean also bought a pack of salami and proscuitto, as well as a trio of cheeses and 2 packs of chocolate, all this for ~15 euro. The flatbread was only 1.30, that was the cheapest/best thing I’ve eaten so far (maybe tied with last night’s carbonara). Grabbed all the stuff to eat on the train, had a total feast
- The trains are so convenient – when you make a reservation online, you just need to show it to the conductor on the train, you don’t need to get there much in advance, way chill
- I loved Firenze!! The small narrow streets, cobblestones, and tons of small little coffee shops and gelaterias to pop into at any time. You can get a taste for this city in 2-3 days (1 is cutting it close), or you could spend a whole year here slowly eating your way around. I wish I had the opportunity to eat more Tuscan food and keep gorging myself on smoked meats, cheeses, wines, and coffees
VENICE
- Beautiful weather when we pulled into Venice Santa Lucia – immediately you could tell it’s more touristy, especially more Asian touristy
- Streets are much smoother/more easily paved, so we could walk the 45 min it took to get to our Airbnb on the other side of the island (lots of bridges to cross over)
- Canal wasn’t that smelly, maybe because it wasn’t so hot – later at night, stood by the Grand Canal and it was kinda bad (Christina says it is filtered)
- Walked through most of Venice during Golden Hour, which was great because we didn’t make it back through that area again (stayed down SE near St Marks/Rialto bridge), took some amazing golden hour photos
- Met up with Airbnb host near Arsenale water bus stop, walked into this tiny alleyway to find the apartment
- Everything was damp, sort of like in Zhangjiajie: the bathroom was the gross kind where it just pours right onto the toilet (like in China), no AC and no Wifi but was still so expensive ($178 + over 30 in taxes)
- Walked to San Marco while waiting on Katherine and Christina, who had made it to Venice but were having connectivity issues. Took some photos in a twilight San Marco, which was super crowded with tourists. Had to practically rip me away from the waterfront, there were so many gorgeous photos of the pink sunset. The Gallery in the distance made for a really beautiful backdrop.
- Met up with Christina and Katherine, who are in Bologna this year for SEIS, an international relations program. It was fun hearing about their program and all the characters in it (lots of international kids); the student life is definitely very different. Dropped off our stuff, and started walking around.
- Walked through San Marco again, and then went in search of dinner. Tripadvisor reported an Osteria Barababao that had free prosecco and good food near the Rialto bridge, so we walked there, saw the bridge from the side (via Grand Canal) and on top (not as nice as Ponte Vecchio in Florence, I think), and went to dinner. It was pretty empty. They had balsamic and olive oil, but the bread was sadly not very good – except for the foccaccia I had at Eataly, we struck out every time with the breads served at dinner. Ended up having carbonara again (not nearly as good as in Firenze), and also had a porchetta, which was not the crackled bits of pork including the slabs of fat that Dean was looking for, but it was all lean meat sliced thin (similar to the weird cooked carpaccio we had yesterday) – yet another surprise and not that good. Did get the free prosecco that Tripadvisor promised, though.
- Skipped on dessert, though Dean got a tiramisu nearby (cream was kinda melty) – there’s not any sort of takeout culture I think, they just put it on these paper plates. Also very little recycling culture
- Walked to another Osteria (Osteria All’arco), where we got a drink. Christina got a gewurtz traminer (good white that’s a little sweet/fruity but not so overly sweet like riesling — I remembered that from Napa trip, and liked it a lot), Dean got a drier red (Valpolicella), Katherine got Amaretto mint, and I got this strawberry prosecco (rossini) that was perfect, fruity but not sweet and a good amount of tart. 5 euros each.
- Started walking back; Venice wasn’t that lively at night. Stopped at San Marco again and watched two restaurants’ quartets take turns playing on and off, and the crowd would follow back and forth. Theorized about how this practice started.
- Went to sleep at midnight, but was plagued by a mosquito (or a few mosquitos) that would swarm us all night and bite us over and over again. Woke up in the middle of night and couldn’t fall back asleep, was so haunted by the buzzing sound, found out later it bothered everyone all night long
Day 4 Venice / Fira
- Woke up kinda late in Venice (9:30), no natural lighting in the Airbnb and all slept poorly (Dean was reading Christina’s Saudi Arabia book for 3 hours)
- Slow start, walked back to San Marco (not much else to do here) and wandered into a side alleyway in search of breakfast and cappucinos, found a few subpar looking sandwich shops and ended up on Rossi, which had pizza (yay! got pizza in Italy!) and great cappucinos. Had a leisurely breakfast, noticed that people weren’t nearly as friendly here as in Firenze, must be tired of all the tourists
- Wandered back to San Marco in search of a gondola ride, and also did some research trying to figure out which bus to take to the airport (still confusing, debating between the Arsenale and San Marco stops)
- Found a gondola guy eventually, 80 euro for 30 min, a friendly dude with round blue glasses
- Started out by the outside of the water, grand canal, and made way into smaller alleyways. Kind of seasick, a lot of rocking back and forth, took a bunch of photos but didn’t get quite “the shot”, maybe because by this point I felt so full and “face fat” that I didn’t like any of my pictures
- By the time finished gondola ride (12:45), had to rush back to Airbnb and get bags. Said our goodbyes, and struggled to figure out how to use the vaporetto (water bus, aka just a ship that comes and picks up from these docks/stations), stuck in line behind a bunch of Aussies for a while. Eventually bought a ticket for 7 euro each only to find out it was the wrong ticket for this mysterious Aliguna boat that came to get us for the airport. Not really sure what happened here or why, but bought a ticket on board for 16 euro and an hour later, finally showed up at Marco Polo airport. Venice is a bitch to get to.
- Stressed out because we apparently checked in extremely late; there wasn’t even a line at the Volotea ticket booth and the ticket lady was throwing us shade, telling us they were closing the doors. Also, our suitcases were too big for the European small size.
- Got held up in security with everybody having to rescan our things a million times (kept forgetting to take out tablets, computers, liquids, etc) – both of us having TSA pre check have spoiled us
- Finally bolted to the gate, only to find they were only halfway done boarding (we totally had time!) – also, we got to bring our bags on board! So many times where something really bad could’ve happened, but turned out totally okay
- On the plane, realized that didn’t book the last night (10/21) in Santorini. Dean was getting antsy and didn’t want to stay in Greece for the whole time, so was really selling going to another island – this ended up playing into the schedule well
- Also reconciled expenses in Santorini, got to practice my mental math
SANTORINI
- walked right through the gates, absolutely no customs (I want my greece stamp!!)
- debated taking a bus or a cab, ended up taking a cab which was a good idea because Galatia Villas was really hard to find
- settled in, much nicer than the Venice place (the power of relativism…), and there was also a private jacuzzi on top! (We couldn’t figure out how to use it later in the night, so no jacuzzi that night :( going to ask them tomorrow)
- Walked through the darkness to Fira proper, it was a little creepy since I was used to so many people being around in NY/any other city
- Fira is really small but so pretty and very iconic Greek city: sloping hills, buildings built on top of other buildings, winding alleyways
- Had a delicious dinner at Mama’s (4 appetizers: grape leaves, stuffed peppers, fava bean-type hummus, fried white eggplant, as well as lamb kebabs), and a house white wine. Falling over on the way back, so full
- Good thing we got lost for 45 min, wandered around in the dark
- Passed by a bunch of cute small food places, didn’t see any traces of the “night life” in Fira, but felt more like the place cindy took me to in San Jose (people chilling outside, eating dessert or having wine)
- Stayed up late at night doing research on how to fill the rest of Santorini days, since this was the least researched part of the trip for me
Day 5 Santorini (Fira / Imerovigli / Oia)
- Woke up super late!!! Stayed up too late watching Video Game High School. It got really cold late at night yesterday, so hung out around the hotel and ended up watching the first 2 episodes, and got kinda hooked. Woke up at 10:30AM to a perfect day… until I stepped outside and it was SO windy (30 mph winds)
- Went to bakery in Fira, got a spinach/cheese roll, also got a latte
- Went to center Fira, and got some greek yogurt with chocolate and hazelnut
- Stopped by Lucky’s Souvlakis, got a delicious pork gyro (Dean’s), swore to come back later (and we did)
- Bought some water and started along the caldera-side road towards Imerovigli, beautiful views and took about 300 photographs
- Got to Imerovigli 2 hours later, and took a bus to Oia
- Wandered through Oia’s winding passages – there are more steep steps here
- Walked into the coolest bookstore ever, Atlantis – there were puppies running around, books in multiple languages, and run by a shopkeeper and their friend, who was a Scottish art history student living in Germany (but was in Santorini for 2 months). If I were to ever open a bookshop, this would be the dream. The puppies were so incredibly cute, debated between buying Reza Azran’s Zealot book and Jeffrey Euginedes’ Middlesex and chose the later (was expensive, but really wanted to buy something from here)
- Stopped by a cute small cafe where dean got this delicious zucchini with yogurt – now I have an appreciation for yogurt on things
- Wandered through rest of Oia, which is very charming but mostly focused on the environment. I can see how sunset pictures here are nice, but we decided to go back to Fira for the sunset.
- Took the long bus back – there’s such a stark contrast between the towns on the cliff facing the caldera, and the big stretches of nothing (farmland?) underneath. All the houses are so distinctive because it’s made with white stone, and I realized that the shape of Santorini is this interesting moon crescent that looks like it’s dipping into the ocean on the east side. It felt strange to think – like all these islands were just upturned plates and saucers in a big sink, and were living at the edge of one of them. That’s how it felt, and also at night, since it was pretty empty and slow season, I started feeling claustrophobic/this weird loneliness, as if I had this phobia of being so remote/isolated/the last person on earth. Even though I was traveling with Dean, I still felt this, and was thinking that I’d still feel it with 3 people, but maybe at 4, there’s enough to be a “party” and I wouldn’t feel so alone. But then thinking of just traveling with my family on our roadtrips, where we’ll go for hours without seeing anyone else.. whenever I am in this kind of “unit”, in a big open space, it is so refreshing during the day but a little scary at night. Like that very human feeling when you look up in the sky and think, “Are we alone out here?” and the fear is not that we are not alone amidst other hostile civilizations, but rather that we are.
- Walked along the northern edge of Fira, where the elevation slopes up and you can get dramatic pictures of the down below. All the architecture pays so much attention to the slopes and builds many corners and edges into the buildings, so there are many “best views” of the caldera and the town below. The volcano is like a little circle in the middle of this enveloping crescent. We had a snack at Kastro, where I had really tasty strawberry tea (what is the flavoring they use here? just a simple syrup flavoring?), dean tried ouzo (the local spirit), which was way too medicinal and tasted too terrible to have more than a single sip, as long as some really damn good moussaka. Greek food is the bomb, how did I not know about this?
- Stopped at home afterwards to take a break; the plan was to go to Kamari for the open air cinema. Got to bus stop and realized that the last bus back was at 10PM, and that everything ran on a slower schedule off high season (in fact, most things were closing down by end of October, like our villa, and most shops would be down by November), so we decided to pass on the cinema (was a random Denzel Washington movie anyway) and went back to the hotel room, where I continued watching the rest of Video Game High School on Youtube (lol – the ads in NY were actually effective for me). Stayed up too late again. Went and got more gyros on the way home (ate so many!!!) – Lucky’s chicken gyro was actually juicier than the pork, but that might be because the cut was good when we ordered it. Also stopped at various little stores to find some wine, but gave up and I got a cider and dean got a Santorini black lager. all the bottles were dusty, the flip flops he bought were dusty, it was like no one had sold anything at these stores for a while.
Day 6 Santorini (Santo Wines / Exo Gonia / Red Beach / Kamari)
- Started the day late again; it’s been hard to get up early and not much motivation to do anything. Decided to rent an ATV yesterday for today, so we rented one for 20 Euro (125 cc) near Galatia Villas. It comes with the helmets, and we just filled it up with 10 Euro gas, which was more than enough for zipping around the island. It was still chilly, so I needed a sweater and a windbreaker and a scarf. It’s only 65-70 degrees, but the 30 mph winds were killer.
- First went to Santo Wines, beautifully decorated winery where we had a “self-guided tour” (the door to the wine manufacturing warehouse was open, and there was no one in sight), and then went to the well lit main room, where we decided to do a tasting of 12 wines. For the two of us, they gave us way too much; in terms of volume, the 6 option would’ve been great, but it was 17,50 euros for 12 and we got more options. 7 whites, 2 reds, and 3 dessert wines (1 white dessert wine, 2 that were Vinsanto wines, which is Santorini’s famous wine). Vinsanto tastes like the kou sou tang jiang stuff my mom used to give me when I was sick – thick, syrupy, and very very sweet. It seemed that the longer it was aged, the sweeter it got, but we were told that wasn’t necessarily true (it just gets more flavor). I’m not very good with wines and telling all the qualities (“smoky”, “acidic”, “mineral-like”); I can only tell if I like it or not, but it is nice to taste the floral afternotes on some of the lighter whites. Also got an excellent latte here. I’ve been on the hunt for strawberry tea since I had it yesterday at Kastro, but they didn’t have any here. Also ate some light appetizers as “palate cleansers” – barley husks (looks like really dry, hard pretzels), tomato paste, and cheese with olives. Did a terrible job cleansing the palate, but was very tasty.
- Drove on the ATV afterwards to Metaxy Mas in Exo Gonia, which was recommended to us. It was just opening for lunch at 2PM. Dean got a feta baked in honey filo dough, and we also had a lamb shank, which was super tender. They gave us more olives, cheese, and this really strong Greek spirit (Kaki?) that I couldn’t even stomach. Too much alcohol.
- Nice and drowsy after lunch (~3PM), rode the ATV down to the southern tip of the island, where Red Beach was. It only took ~30 min. The beach itself is really small, and you have to hike up this pebbly slope to see the beach, which is this little cove on the bottom edge of the island. Everything around it is so high that I wonder if the entire beach vanishes sometime under high waters. The rock face around it is very sandy and red, but the pebbles on the sand itself were black like I’d expect out of a volcanic beach. Not a swimming beach. Apparently there was a real “black beach” in Perissa, but we guessed that it looked the same in Kamari, the supposedly livelier town right above it, so we gambled to go straight to Kamari and skipped Perissa.
- Along the way, I drove the ATV for a little bit and totally hated it. I’m really bad at Mario Kart, and it felt like I was driving in Mario Kart, except I had no desire to plow off the cliff in real life. The accelerator is a little weird, and there’s very little momentum that keeps the cart moving forward, and the brakes aren’t smooth like a car at all. Of course, to be expected, as the ATV is light enough to be pulled by hand (we asked how to reverse, and the answer was “There is no reverse, you pull the car backwards”), so the mechanism can’t be so complicated, but the steering was also really odd to me. I think it might be because I was caught in between my mental model of a car and a bike, except a bike is a single front wheel, so my turns were really ungraceful. I turned the ATV back over to Dean, just as we had to wind downwards on a mountain slope, and passed by Art Space, an art gallery/winery we were trying to find earlier after lunch.
- Art Space is an old winery with cave-style architecture (lots of sloping, arched ceilings), and an old-school winery for tours up front, along with a gallery of various Greek and international artists throughout the winery. They also showed us the modern winemaking facilities, but in general, they produce only small batch. Unlike the “self-guided” tour at Santo Wines (read: no tour; wander around at your own volition), this lady was charming and started giving us the tour right after the “Hello, welcome”. I really liked some of the art they had in the back of the building. We did a small, quick tasting of 3-4 wines here for 2,5 euro, but I skipped out on the kaki and ouzo (more Greek spirits) – so strong; can’t handle that stuff.
- It was getting to be sunset, so we drove to Kamari to scope it out and see if we wanted to move here tomorrow. We were originally thinking about doing the volcano tour or going to Ios, but I wasn’t that into the idea of the tour (I strongly suspected the volcano would be similar up close, and Ios seemed like it’d be similar – an emptied out beach town), so we were maybe thinking about moving to the other side of the island tomorrow night. It was good that we did, because Kamari was emptied out. Total ghost town. The black beach is charming, and you can tell that in busy season, it must be packed with tourists on the unique black sand. (It’s more like lots of little black rocks than sand, so not quite as unique as New Mexico’s White Sands National Park.) But most things were closed, and I think I saw more dogs and cats wandering around than people.
- It was getting dark by the time we were heading back to Fira, and it was getting a little chilly. It turned out to be pretty simple to navigate around the island, since there are only so many roads and lots of signs. At night, it was even easier to navigate back to Fira – go uphill, and follow the lights. We passed by a Carrefour at the edge of Fira, which made me irrationally happy. Grocery stores are so blasted with light that I think I feel very safe and suburban there. In traveling, I’ve been in a lot of dim and dingy restaurants and hotels, but here was my sterile grocery store. I bought some strawberry cupcake green tea (tried it later – it’s remarkable; tastes just like a cupcake but isn’t sweet at all), and Dean got some kefir/milk (intense). We were both a little over all the eating, but still went to Naoussa, the nice caldera-view restaurant recommended to us by Galatia Villas’ owner George, and got lemon chicken and these Greek tomato balls (keftedes) that we had been looking for. The keftedes were delicious, and the chicken was tender, though not super special. The rice wasn’t the lemon rice that was at Greek Lady at Penn :( I didn’t find that anywhere in Santorini, actually, so maybe that wasn’t really any particular Greek food.
- ATV’ed back home, watched more VGHS on Youtube. Episodes are getting long! Internet always slows down at night. Maybe someone else is out there gaming.
Day 7 Santorini (Fira Town Center)
- Had to move this morning since I didn’t book a hotel night for this day. Ended moving to Hotel Tataki in the center of Fira, which was only 5 Euro more per night and had a hot tub. We couldn’t figure out how to use the hot tub, but didn’t end up doing much this day. Rolled around until 10am, moved over to the new hotel, crept into the hot tub of the room next door (this hotel has “private hot tubs” per room, but it’s in the public space and so easy to sneak into), couldn’t get it to work, and hung out. I drew a little, since we have a nice view.
- Took bus to Oia around 3PM and hiked all the way back — ended up taking 3:15 hours, and got to Fira at 7:15 (missed the most scenic parts of the sunset, as we were making it into Imerovigli just as the sun was setting and didn’t get to overlook the city). Having seen the whole stretch of the island there, I think the Fira view where we were at (Kastro) for dinner is still the best, though parts of Oia would probably rival it at sunset. The middle part (Imerovigli) is a good view of the sunset, literally, but not as good for photography since the buildings are more sparse there.
- Had dinner at Elia, pretty much the same Greek menu that is everywhere, though I had stuffed peppers AND stuffed tomatoes (new thing). Still no lemon rice. I wasn’t very hungry at all after the hike, surprisingly, but was physically full after dinner that I couldn’t get Greek yogurt or gyros. I think those are the last things i have a pankering for, and I’ll pick them up tomorrow. Snuck into the neighboring room’s hot tub again (didn’t see anyone in it all night, actually), except by night time it was heated and AWESOME, and finished watching VGHS season 2. Fira town was much more lively than Galatia, and it was much nicer to see everyone milling about. Going to Paris tomorrow! (Though, late in the day.) Probably stayed 1.5 too many days at Santorini, though I guess it was nice not to be running around with luggage all the time.
Day 8 Santorini / Paris
We’ve reached the halfway point of this trip!
- Didn’t do much today at all – moved around from hub to hub in search of wifi. Moved from Hotel Tataki to a greek yogurt place to a breakfast place (where we extended a single cafe latte to 4 hours) to Mama’s again for lunch to Aegle, a very charmingly decorated small cafe facing the caldera. Tried to start catching up on this log, soak in some sunlight, and read the news. Learned that the markets are doing better, and read more about ebola.
- Took the bus to the airport (definitely the cheapest way to get there, and not very inconvenient), but to my surprise, got my 150 ml hair conditioner confiscated. It exceeded 100 ml, but had managed to make it past probably 10 flights before getting thrown out. The Santorini airport is hilariously small. I think there were 2 people working there, max. When we arrived, there wasn’t even anyone at customs, so we just kind of walked through the doors… and kept going…
- Paris next! Quite excited; I have always wanted to go!
- Checked in at Courtyard, Marriott feels so much more relaxing, slept well
Day 9 Paris (Quartier Latin, Marais)
- Moved to Ile Saint Louis, cutest Airbnb apartment ever, hosts are in advertising/architecture, the place is spacious and well-designed and central
- Got an exorbitantly priced but apparently very nice breakfast at St Regis (juice, chocolate viennoise, a really good croissant, dean also got espresso), but wasn’t enough food so got a tartine at a bakery nearby
- Walked past Notre Dame, wandered into Latin Quarter since we are right there, watched calm scenes along the Seine
- So enraptured by the neighborhood – it’s such a famous area and occasionally there are swaths of tourists, but it’s so empty at night
- Wandered through Latin Quarter’s main streets, got a crepe, saw all of the bookstores Courtney recommended, went shopping at this cheap place called Cote de Cote where Dean got a sweet jacket he wore every day after that and I almost got sweet leather kicks for way cheap but they only had size 38+ it seemed and I needed a 35 :(
- Met up with Anne-Sophie, Dean’s ballroom friend, had a leisurely 2.5 hour Parisian lunch (got French onion soup)
- Wandered to keep going shopping in Latin Quarter, burned out
- Wandered north into the Marais, past Les Halles/Centre Pompidou, started going towards Bastille/Jewish quarter and almost made it (stopped at Fromager, got some cheese) when we doubled back to meet Ten and Lulu for dinner in Latin Quarter (for fondue and raclette)
- Really fun and super French dinner experience, with escargot, lots of bread, fondue, and raclette and lots of really (overly salty) cooked/smoked ham. Ham isn’t as good here as in Italy but the bread is WAY better!!!
- Took subway to Eiffel tower, saw it at night
- Took a cab to Experimental Cocktail Club, the first one apparently opened in Paris before going to NY. Bouncer didn’t even ask for IDs, just let us go in. Bartender was SUPER friendly, and the DJ was spinning old school hip hop beats. So awesome. Drink was good too (had pampelmousse, my one new french vocabulary word!) but also anise seeds, which Dean had some PTSD over since the ouzo
- Super tired!!!! Walked home, was quite chilly
Day 10 Paris (Quartier Latin, Marais, area east of La Defense, Montparnasse)
- Slept way in, got up at leisurely hour, Dean got baguette/croissant/milk, I made some tea and coffee (airbnb host provided some really great tea and Illy coffee! and they also gave us jam) so we had a nice relaxing breakfast while chilling. Headed out around 1pm.
- Went back to Les Halles area to finish shopping, passed by a bunch of cool but also some gross stores, walked by an interesting thrift store where you buy clothes by the kilogram
- Lots of urban clothing around Les Halles, including a Citadium across from the Vans, which had great streetwear (very pricey though)
- Couldn’t find much but bought a knit super thick cardigan at Zara, still looking for comparable shoes :( Maybe won’t find it here, though Paris style is generally very amenable to my tastes
- Walked back to Centre Pompodou, bought a museum pass to activate tomorrow
- Took the train way out to Pont Maillot, trying to find Foundation Louis Vuitton, a new museum with interesting Frank Gehry architecture that our host the architect Quentin recommended, but it took forever wandering through a very scenic Jardin (garden) before finding out at the doors that while free, you needed to book a reservation online. Started sprinkling, so we had to turn back and drag ourselves back, only to find out we got out prematurely (Google maps has been giving us bad directions in Paris)
- Went to Montparnasse, walked around and got a crepe (super tired today, not really sure why) at a mediocre place
- Walked and got a ticket for Tour Montparnasse, but decided to loop around the mall because there were 100 Chinese tourists swarming the place. Came back 30 min later but didn’t manage to dodge many of them, and we found that they were more annoying to us than they were probably to other tourists, maybe because we feel the need not to be grouped in with them. The group rate to Tour Montparnasse is way less though (6 euro instead of 14,50 euro)
- Went to the top, even though it was very chilly, took a few quick photos
- Liana sent through a list of recommended creperies, apparently all around us, so we went to Le Petit Josselin and got one, intending to go somewhere else for dinner. It was so good, got 2 more – got one with spinach, cream, cheese, egg, and bacon; one with egg, bacon, and onion; and one with nutella and chantilly cream.
- Super good! Went back home via subway
Day 11 Paris: Museum Day Attempt #1 (Marais, Notre Dame area, Latin Quarter)
- Woke up, got baguette, and headed towards Les Halles (later start than intended)
- Walked through Centre Pompidou, loved the exhibits
- Coat attendee guy looked like Shane (my old Australian boss, now somewhat jokingly revered as a god amongst remaining ADO team members)
- Walked back towards Notre Dame in an attempt to climb up, but the line was too long. Looked for wifi to find Mariage Freres, the excellent tea shop that Jeremy and Quentin had provided at the airbnb stay
- Had a mediocre lunch at L’Arcole (something of that variation), a touristy restaurant near Notre Dame
- Line was no better after lunch, so we went back to Ile-Saint-Louis to find Liana’s favorite ice cream place, Bertillon
- With the wifi, we went to Mariage Freres, a little out of the way in Marais
- Picked up the wedding imperial tea for 8 euro, but sat down to the tea room where we each had a pot of tea for 12 euro (way too much tea), and 1.5 hours later, it was 5pm and too late to go to most of the places on our museum pass
- At lunch, the Canadian couple dining next to us passed on their Batobus waterbus tour hop on/hop off tickets to us, so we spent an hour waiting for the Batobus (kept missing them barely) – popped into Shakespeare & Co bookstore, but was wondering why it was such a touristy destination (the one in Santorini still takes the cake for best bookstore)
- Finally got on Batobus after chilling on the Seine for a bit, next to a few street performers, but took the long way around until finally finding the Louvre
- Louvre was closed at night, so we were able to take an iconic picture, but the Jardin (Toulleries) was closed at night. Really needed to pee from all that tea, so blew by Musee D’Orsay and took subway to go find a restroom and (dejectedly) go find dinner
- Passed by the Starbucks near Cote a Cote, which was disgusting, but did the trick and went on to find Le Petit Prince for dinner (down near Pantheon, which we didn’t get to see)
- Dinner was super cute! Dean got a duck plate with everything he’d possibly want (pate, foie gras, margette, confit, etc) for 32 euro, I got a prix fixe for 24 euro that had salmon carpaccio in lemon sauce (with blue lemon sorbet), and young pork cheeks in red wine sauce/scalloped potatoes. HUGE portions; everything in France has been huge portions
- Went back to Ile Saint Louis to move our luggage to the Marriott
Day 12 Paris: Museum Day Attempt #2 (Touristy areas along Seine, Montmartre)
- Woke up early for real (~8:30am), took the train to Champs-Elysee, and walked the famous road to Arc de Triomphe
- It was early on Sunday, so no lines anywhere, including at Laduree! Got a bunch of sweets for only 10,85 euro (chocolate/pistachio au pain, palmier, 3 macarons, and a madeleine)
- Climbed up Arc de Triomphe, a nightmare of steps but excellent view at the top of all of Paris (and great circular roads leading to it)
- Took train to Louvre, only 11:30! Found the Mona Lisa first, then spent 2 hours winding through various antiquities and French/Italian paintings
- It was sunny by now, so took a walk through the Jardin des Toulleries, which was beautiful in the sunny afternoon
- Neat row of trees at the end, very well groomed
- Passed a cute bridge, where an organization had installed a series of public art works/public engagement things (mazes, tee-pees, walls that encouraged writing, etc) in a section
- Wandered into D’Orsay, which featured a lot of Rodin statues, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, etc.
- Beautiful cafe and clocktower at the top of the museum
- Feet so tired at this point, feet aching, took the train to Abbesses to visit Sacre Coeur
- Walked up a MILLION steps to go to the top of the Butte Montmartre, it was a beautiful golden hour Sunday afternoon at the foot of Sacre Coeur
- The whole Montmartre area was nice, full of small shops and high potential looking restaurants. Initially thought to go to Haussman for some shopping, but I got a bad migraine and we decided to stay in the area and try to go to Le Potager, a cute 4.5 star restaurant we found randomly.
- Went up to Sacre Coeur, toured around the church, but got some moment of magic outside the church looking down at the hill, where a few hundred people had gravitated to the steps to listen to some street performers sing. These angry looking guys were hawking beer everywhere, but the performers were very jovial and pretty good at getting the crowd to donate. So many people. Someone spilled beer on the steps and soaked my butt, but I barely noticed. My headache was getting worse at this time, but we stumbled into a tapas place to have our first food (besides laduree) at 6pm. French daylight savings time got implemented, so the sun was setting super early. Had some chorizo, patatas bravas, and an aubergine/tomato “mille-feuille” (not really one, just layered), and some rose sangria.
- Headache was worse, but wandered to Moulin Rouge to see the original theater. Ducked into the Starbucks across the street to warm up with a chocolate viennoise, and after an hour, wasn’t feeling any better so went to the Pharmacie next door and got some water-dissolvable aspirin.
- Aspirin kicked in 15 minutes into dinner – thank god for aspirin! Le Potager was totally booked for 8pm, so we ate dinner at the cute place next door (Le Vache et Le Cuisiner), really friendly waitress. I got lentils with sausage adn poached egg, Dean got a ratatouille/goat cheese dish as well as an entrecot steak and really tasty fries (great spicy pepper). We sat next to a film director who’s working on a film that will be out in 2016, Bastille. He was living here in Montmartre until December working on the filming, and had apparently also worked at Babel.
- I was recovering by the end of dinner, but we went back to Marriott and gratefully passed out!
Didn’t get to go to: Bastille, Jewish quarter, any of the chinatowns, or Haussman
Day 13 Paris / Reykjavik
- Did the Marriott 7 euro breakfast buffet, checked out and went to airport, subject to pretty intense, strict, micromanaged screening at Charles de Gaul airport
- We were taking WOW Air – budget airlines are so confusing. Always seem to board/depart late, but the security/check in took forever (long lines). The airline itself is super cute, very well branded, like some of these other European budget airlines we took
- European carry on sizes are smaller – had to sneak our baggage on board (after check in, no one really said anything)
- 3 hour plane ride to Iceland
- It’s freezing; took all our effort just to get to the Geysir car rental place (which had a sparkling water fountain AND a coffee machine! I am easily impressed)
- Immediately hit the road bound for Blue Lagoon. My Garmin GPS was super clutch here, though driving in Iceland is pretty easy, sort of like Santorini driving – there are only a few main roads
- Blue Lagoon is out of this world!!! It’s 35 euro + around 3-4 euro for towel rentals per person, and gets you access to the lagoon, which is 35-40 degrees celsius and pretty much the most awesome experience. It’s so freezing outside of the water, but so warm inside, and you can also buy some cold drinks at a lagoon-side bar. The water is very light blue from the mixture of deep blue water and white sediment, which forms along the edges of the rock. There were supposed to be mudpots with silica gel too, but couldn’t find it. They also sell algae masks, but I overheard a few British schoolgirls (there were a lot of them, maybe in Iceland for a school trip) saying that it dried out their skin. First of all, I never went to Iceland for school trips in high school – what am I missing out on? (Probably a $50,000/year private school education, thank you very much public school system)
- Spent 2-3 hours at the lagoon, just swimming around, experiencing extreme warmth on my body but finding my hair and face freezing over. Going to need a lot of moisturizer after this. Apparently, the sulfur really makes your hair very natty, so they provide tons of conditioner to help you smooth it out.
- It was dark by the time we got out, so we drove to Reykjavik, initially in search of VOX, a restaurant that Shawn recommended for brunch. The dinner menu didn’t look very appealing for the price (~$30 a dish), so we found another place on a combo of Tripadvisor/Foursquare. (Yelp doesn’t seem to have any presence in Iceland at all.) The place was called Lauga-as, known to be a local Scandinavian fish place, but the special felt a little like diner food – fish prepared au gratin, drenched in some really creamy sauce. Soup was “asparagus soup” but tasted like melted down cream with one piece of asparagus. I don’t think I’m very used to Scandinavian food.
- We were tired and SUPER COLD by then (was maybe -4 to 4 degrees celsius) so we drove to Selfoss, where our Airbnb was, passing a small town along the way that was super brightly lit amidst a basically dark road. Turned out all the lights were from a patch of greenhouses, which we could see miles and miles away. Dean hadn’t really driven in such dark roads before, and in general it’s pretty unnerving to be pummeling through the darkness.
- Our Airbnb in Selfoss was a “guesthouse”, but turned out to be the actual house of an elderly Icelandic couple named Bjarney and David, who are the cutest people ever. Bjarney, the wife, didn’t speak much English, so her husband David did most of the talking. He was very excited to engage his guests in conversation, and though we were the only group there that night, they had enough capacity in the house to house 10-12 people. David is a policeman who’s set to retire next year, and has 5 kids and 12 grandkids, most of whom live in Reykjavik. We talked to him a lot, actually, after making a quick grocery run to get some food for the next day (a ton of yogurts, some gravlax, and a sandwich for the road). He built most of the areas of his house, including a really BALLER kitchen with beautiful modern appliances, an island with a drop-down vent, and all sorts of fancy gadgets. He had two bathrooms, one of which had a shower that looked like a space machine — it was a rainfall shower. He also built an in-house sauna and outdoor jacuzzi, where apparently some of his guests sometimes lounge and catch the northern lights. Talk about paradise. He’s one of 630 police officers in Iceland, though I’m honestly not too sure what they have to police – reporting fallen bridges and trees, maybe. It was an entire atmosphere of super trust and comfort, and felt like we were being welcomed home by warm Icelandic grandparents (one of whom kinda looked like Santa).
- We got to Selfoss by 10pm, made a grocery run by 10:30, but ended up staying up talking to David and Bjarney until midnight. Super exhausted, and set our plans for leaving early the next day back a little, but worth it!
Day 14 Reykjavik
- Woke up at 8:30am, but ended up lounging about eating breakfast, talking to David some more, making coffee, packing, etc and so we didn’t leave the house until 10AM. David hooked us up with some toast for our gravlax, and it turned out one of the yogurts that Dean bought was 18% full fat cream, but he ate it anyway (haha, typical). The Skyr yogurt we bought was DELICIOUS — super thick, even thicker than Fage, to my preference. I’ve got to check this out in the US. I also kind of want a fancy coffee maker. Both Jeremy in Paris and David in Iceland had great coffee machines, and in general a very high appreciation for coffee that makes me instant coffee or even the Keurig combined with my shitty Duane Reade coffee look like I’m drinking swill. But in both Paris and Iceland, I’d have to pay up the butt for all the Illy and Lavazza and fancy coffees (and that’s probably the more economic of what I consider “fancy coffees”). Anyway, we said our goodbyes to the two of them after signing their guest book. They’ve had over 700 people come in the past year – what a crazy record! It’d be great to come back one of these days and stay here again. Major good feelings with Airbnb this trip. The place in Venice was shitty, but I suspect most things in Venice are shitty, but Paris and Iceland were out of this world.
- We set out with the plan to hit up Kerid (the crater), then Geysir (a town with a geyser called Strokkur, a little confusing), then Thingvellir national park, wrapping up by checking out the church in Reykjavik and getting a famous hotdog from the place that Bill Clinton was super into. We ended up spending ample time at Kerid and Geysir (hyperlapsing some geyser eruptions), and having to speed through Thingvellir without stopping, ploughing into Reykjavik, and having to do some drop off action for me to grab some hotdogs before we sped to the airport. Hotdogs were acquired, though.
- Kerid: massive volcanic crater with water frozen on the bottom. A nice view, though shouldn’t have spent as much time as we did walking the perimeter of it. This was Ten’s favorite though.
- Geysir was so much fun! There were little mini bubbling geysers, as well as a big one, Strokkur, that erupted about once every 5 minutes. Something about the sun and the grass and environment in Iceland makes my Ricoh very happy, so every photo made it look like this weird filmy heaven on earth. I guess it’s the angle that the sun hits the ground – it’s like perpetual golden hour. We spent at least 45 minutes here trying to slow mo and hyperlapse the eruptions, which set us pretty far back in schedule.
- We had to speed-drive through Thingvellir and into Reykjavik, but those were unfortunately the things that took the longest time (45 min each leg of the trip). Thingvellir is gorgeous, and driving through the park reminds me of driving through the Canadian rockies or even the American southwest, except it’s in a tundra environment instead of dessert so instead of sand, you have black volcanic rock and some lichens growing on it. And, it’s cold as shit outside.
- We were really pushing up on time when we got into Reykjavik (2:30, we had to return the car by 3), but got stuck in some traffic and had some trouble finding the little hot dog stand. It was in the middle of downtown, so we got to see a little bit of the city of Reykjavik, which is more or less like any… midwestern city? Weird how modern it is, but I don’t think we found any real “city center” just yet. The hotdogs were really simple: a small dog with natural casing (intestine), on a bed of ground onions and covered with honey mustard and some sort of tartar sauce. It wasn’t really my taste palette, again, but fairly tasty. The “Mexican” sandwich we got at the grocery store yesterday (“Nordic Deli”) had a lot of mayo and margarine on it, as did our breakfast this morning with David – Scandinavian food seems to be pretty creamy. (Also, David talked to us a lot about eating whale and horse, which I don’t think I could ever do, but he swears it tastes like beef. Our Lauga-as waitress said that mink whale tasted more like liver though. Either way, not partaking.)
- We were late at this point, but the car rental guys were super chill and didn’t charge us for pulling in 45 minutes late. (Had to stop and make a detour for gas, including struggling with paying when the screen only used Icelandic. Travel tip: Iceland accepts card almost anywhere, even Amex and even at the hot dog stand/for public bathrooms, but the gas stations required a debit card with a PIN.) Also, gas was expensive too – $60 for half a tank. Dinner last night (some random bacon pasta, styled beikonpasta, and the haddock au gratin was $60, crazy). Iceland in general is an expensive place, especially Reykjavik. (And it was a good idea getting some food for the road – flying budget Icelandic airlines means no free airplane food.)
- Got into the airport with no problems, smooth sailing! Geysir car rental guys dropped us off at the airport, which was great because I lost feeling in my fingers. My hood kept my head warm, but my fingers were basically goners. It was nice finishing off this Eurotrip with a nice drive through such a scenic place, though. We’ve seen so many different things on this trip – small urban cities, little bucolic towns, bustling Venetian canals packed with tourists, a vacated Greek island in tourist off-season, the gigantic and marvelous city of Paris, and seeing the Icelandic countryside with all its glaciers and fields and chubby horses chilling by the side of the road made it feel like multiple trips in one. The amount of sights and indulgences are almost crazy for me to imagine having done; I don’t think I’ve done so much exploring in one packed time period my whole life.
- When I get back to Newark, I don’t even have time to leave the airport before I have to board a United flight to DC for work, but this was a pretty mind-blowing trip, so much so that I can’t believe I did all that. Feels like another lifetime already.
This whole trip… Ricoh was A++++
Filed under: Miscellaneous
