wanderingbishops.com

The last time we were in Barcelona was 2009. At that time we were traveling with friends, Ron & Marlene Massa, who are on this cruise with us. The highlight then was certainly touring the Sagrada Familia (designed by famous Spanish architect, Antoni Gaudi) church which was still under construction (which began in 1883). I do recall we were able to tour inside but it was nowhere being finished. We vowed to return to see the completed church, which was hoped to be done by 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death. Well, it is 2022 so we are a few years too soon but were eager to see the progress made since our last visit. Good news and bad news:  Construction progress has been made BUT because the church is funded only by private money and Covid has limited visitation by paying tourists so the 2026 date will not be met. Hopefully we will live long enough to see it when it is completed.

Backing up a bit.  Because it has been 13 years since we last visited Barcelona we opted to take the 7.5 hour tour called:  “Barcelona’s Iconic Landmarks” which will hit the highlights of the city (and includes lunch!).  Again it was a modest sized group (~ 25) but we were again disappointed that the local tour guides did not have those “whisperers” listening devices that makes it so much easier to hear what the guides were saying. (Many of us did subsequently complain to Regent about them not being available). Perhaps Covid has impacted the ability of local companies to have them.  We managed to hear most of the conversations by staying relatively close to the guide. We first went to the site of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics where there was a grand view over the city.

After some picture opportunities we were next driven to El Poble Espanyol, a recreated traditional Spanish village built for the 1929 International Exposition. This was new to us. Think of it as a Spanish version of EPCOT without rides. Each section of the village was built using architecture from the main regions of Spain. In these areas were artisan shops and restaurants and in some places there was live music. It was interesting and a lot of fun. It was here we were treated to a leisurely, classical Catalan Spanish lunch and had free time to shop (yes, Yvonne and Gael found

handmade scarfs that called out to them) before re-boarding our bus for the continuing tour.

 

We drove past the famous Gaudi apartments/homes that he designed:  Casa Batllo (1904-1906) and Casa Mila (1906-1910). They were certainly outrageous designs at the time, and probably would be considered that even today. He was WAY ahead of his time.

We then abandoned the bus for a walking tour by the UNESCO World Heritage Sagrada Familia (Holy Family), a Catholic minor basilica still under construction. Because of Covid restrictions and huge demand for tickets to view the inside we were only able to view the church from the outside.  We did walk completely around the exterior and received a detailed explanation about what the design is trying to portray. The church is bold; it is exotic; it is beautiful! It is typical Gaudi!

 

The last portion of the tour was a walking tour of old Barcelona and the gothic quarter, including the Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulalia.

Tired after the long day (12,096 steps!) it was back to the ship for much needed refreshments, dinner and a production show by the singers and dancers.

We vowed to return for a more leisurely visit to Barcelona and hopefully to see the completed Sagrada Familia. Tomorrow is a day at sea.  Hooray, a chance to relax!

 

Observations:  Virtually no one is wearing masks here. I have seen very few masks when outdoors in any of the cities.  Also the day we boarded the ship we were told we would have to wear masks when in public areas; however, the next morning we received a memo stating that mask wearing was no longer mandatory on the ship! Hooray!  Unfortunately the poor staff still do wear masks. We also learned that staff members, when they first board the ship, must quarantine for 5 days before interacting with the guests.

Our first stop on this journey is Marseiile, France. The problem is that this is the nearest port to Provence, France where there is simply too much to see and do. One of the benefits of Regent is that most of their escorted tours are free, with only a few offered at an additional cost to their customers. For example 16 tours are offered when we are in Marseille, of which only 3 require extra cost. They range in time from 3.5 to 8 hours in length. It is an almost impossible task to pick which of the offered tours we wanted to take. Our group guideline is pick what interests you;  do not worry about what others are doing. Yvonne kindly lets me do most of the picking and I selected the trip to visit Avignon (and the Pope’s Palace) and the mountain town of Les Baux. It leaves at 8 AM and lasts 8 hours-a long day, but hopefully well worth it.

The disembarkation for tours has been running smoothly. We are asked to go to the theater at select time to receive our bus boarding passes. We wait until our tour is called and we proceed off ship to our bus. The process for leaving and returning to the ship has changed. They now are using facial recognition rather than scanning your room key. Seems to work quickly. The tours have not been overly crowded-less than 25 people per bus. The buses are new and modern.

Our trip to Avignon was about 1 hour but it was pleasant with some commentary provided by the local tour guide who was leading our group. I expected Avignon to be a sleepy little mountain town. I was very wrong! It has a population of 93,000 people of which about 15,000 live in the old district. Its place in history revolves around the fact that from 1309-1377 it was the seat of the Catholic Church, rather than in Rome. This happened because a French pope was elected (Pope Clément V)in 1309. The new pope, fearing Italy was too dangerous, moved the papacy to Avignon, where he could enjoy a secure rule under a supportive French king. He, and six subsequent popes, built a huge palace during their residency and that is one of the main reasons people visit Avignon today-to see the Palais des Papes (the Pope’s Palace). It is the largest gothic palace in Europe according to Rick Steves. As a result of their efforts Avignon grew to become a city of 25,000 people in the 14th century! The other main attraction in the area is the remains of a 12th century Bénezet Bridge on the nearby Rhône River.

We toured the huge palace which is mostly empty now. I was awed by how large it was. You have heard the phrase ” it is good to be king”, well, it is also good to be a Pope. They lived well, even back in the 14th century!

From there we drove to another famous medieval city, Les Baux-de-Provence, situated on a rock outcropping where the remains of a fortress built from the 11-13th century stands. It is one of the most visited medieval towns in France. The views of the surrounding valleys from this village is stunning; it is certainly understandable why forts were located at locations such as this.

Returning to the ship in late afternoon we met for cocktails and formed a team to enter the daily trivia contest. We started strong but faded in the end only getting 10/15 correct answers- not enough to win “Regent points” which can later be used to win prizes, like a coveted ball point pen or even a tee shirt! One of questions we missed was what do the numbers on a roulette table add up to?  Answer tomorrow!

Since we are in the main dining room yesterday we decided to have dinner tonight at the Italian “pop-up” restaurant which occurs every evening at the site of the buffet. Given all the fancy dinnerware it is hard to imagine how this location normally serves as the buffet area for breakfast and lunch.

The entertainment this evening was English vocalist, Karl Loxley, who had appeared on The Voice(UK) and was coached by Tom Jones. He sings both opera and popular tunes and was quite good.

Tomorrow we will be in Barcelona, Spain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our ship does not leave until 9 PM so we have a day to explore the area before boarding later this afternoon. As is our common practice we booked an all day tour with a local person to see the area. I have used “Tours by Locals” on some of our past trips and found a promising tour offered by Pierre, who is obviously a local. (An aside: I also have used the services of “Get your Guide” when booking local tours).

Tour description:  We”ll start this tour with a short visit of the Principality of Monaco, where we’ll see the old town called the Rock, and Monte Carlo, the fancy Casino square. We’ll stop in the charming villages of Eze and La Turbie and as well as the city of Nice, which is the “capital” city of the French Riviera.  We’ll discover as well one of my favorite villages, the last home for the painter Marc Chagall, the village of St Paul de Vence. This is the provencal heart of the French Riviera. And we’ll have spectacular photo stops above Nice, Monaco and Villefranche. We’ll have eventually time to sit for a little lunch somewhere!

Pierre agreed to take us to the ship after our tour.

First surprise of the trip. The Euro value has declined significantly since our last visit. Currently it is valued at 1.05 versus US dollar. It’s a good time to visit Europe!  Our money will go farther while we are here.

We checked out of the hotel before 8:30am and delivered our luggage to the Regent staff located at the hotel (who assured us the luggage would be delivered to our room on the ship), eliminating the need for us to store them while on our local tour. As promised Pierre appeared at the agreed 8:30am pick up time. He spoke excellent English so that eliminated another concern one sometimes runs into-would we be able to understand him.  His vehicle was a large Mercedes which easily accommodated the six of us, and off we went.

Driving along the coastline with constant narration we viewed the Monaco region. The Formula 1 Grand Prix is scheduled to be here in a few weeks so there are grandstands and fencing being erected all along the route of  the race. That race is probably the biggest event held yearly in Monaco.

The Monaco harbor is crowded with the mega yachts of the rich and famous. Pierre rattled off the names of past and current owners of Monaco property- David Niven, Sean Connery, Bono, Elton John are a few of the names I recall him mentioning.There are more billionaires in Monaco than anywhere else in the world. As expected, property values are astronomical here.

We drove to nearby Nice where we parked the vehicle and leisurely strolled through the flower and vegetable market- one of the marvelous activities that is part of daily life in Europe. I could not resist buying a small basket of marvelous strawberries which we shared as we walked with locals doing their daily shopping. Pierre bought us a local, popular snack called “Socca”, a pancake made of chickpeas.

Returning to our van we were driven to Saint-Paul de Vence, a small medieval village of about 3200 people located above Monaco & Nice. We walked through the narrow streets, absorbing the history and attempting to fathom what it might have been like to live there. It is a popular spot for famous people and painters. The town is loaded with small galleries featuring artwork by local artists. Picasso, Jean-Paul Sartre and Ives Montand once visited here.  Painter, Marc Chagall lived and is buried there.

After paying our respects at the grave of Marc Chagall it was time for a leisurely lunch at an outdoor cafe overlooking the valley.  Refreshed, it was time to move on.

The next stop was at the village of La Turbie where we stopped to see the Trophée des Alpes, or Trophy of Augustus, a Roman monument that was built c. 6 BC in honor of Augustus to celebrate his definitive victory over the 45 tribes who populated the region.

Heading back to Monaco we parked the van and did a walking tour that included a visit to the church that contains the burial site of Prince Rainier and his famous American bride, Grace Kelly. We also viewed the royal palace, which is not all that impressive compared to other palaces in the world.

By this time we were eager to get to the ship and in a few moments we were boarding our home for the next two weeks. By arriving so late in the day (5PM) we avoided the usual mob of other arriving passengers. There were no people or lines so we walked right onto the ship after passing security and providing our health data to the staff.  When we arrived at our rooms we found our luggage had safely been delivered so all was well!

Fellow traveler, Ron Massa, had been on this ship last fall so he was our official tour guide to show us the ins & outs of the beautiful new ship (launched 2020-not the best timing!). The ship is modern, glitzy and is of modest size, holding a maximum of 750 passengers (the same as most of the Regent fleet). I was told there would be about 525 passengers on our cruise.

We quickly unpacked in our HUGE cabins with so much storage space we joked we might not be above to remember where we have stored items. As on other Regent ships the is a large walk in closet, a massive bathroom with dual sinks, tub and separate shower.

 

We barely had enough time to unpack before it was time for our first official cocktail hour and dinner in the signature Compass Rose Dining room. We are on our way!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is now early morning ,May 5, in Paris. We did arrive on time. We had about a 90 minute wait between flights but it went quickly as we had to transfer terminals and go through security and passport control as part of the process. Luckily there were no lines anywhere so the process went smoothly and quickly. The flight to Nice was 1 hour, 10 minutes and went smoothly.

In Nice we had our first pleasant surprise. I had expected to have a Regent representative there, which there were, two in fact. The pleasant young ladies quickly gathered us up, along with another couple from Atlanta who were on the same plane, and shepherded us to baggage claim and a porter gathered up our bags and prepared us for our transfer. Normally my experience has been that tour companies gather up many people arriving on multiple flights and board them collectively onto a bus for transfer, resulting in lots of waiting around for others to arrive. Regent does not do that. The young lady personally walked us out to a waiting high end Mercedes sedan/driver who would be taking us to our hotel! Needless to say we were impressed. Transfer time was about 40 minutes.

Because of our room selection for this cruise we receive a free pre-cruise hotel stay as part of the price.  We normally come a day early anyway when traveling internationally so this worked out well. Regent uses the upscale Fairmont- Monte Carlo hotel so we expected nice accommodations.

We arrived around noon giving rise to the next potential “early arrival” problem one often encounters when traveling- your room is not ready and you must figure out how and where you can hang out for 1-3 hours waiting for it! Fingers crossed, I started the check-in process with a smile and the friendliest “Bon Jour” I could muster. I filled out the paperwork and was about to ask if perhaps our room might be available when the clerk said “your room is available”  Alleluia! I had heard that Regent was a big customer of theirs so maybe that worked in our favor. Our day was complete!

A three hour nap, followed by a rejuvenating shower and a light meal in the hotel lounge completed our day. Our travel colleagues got caught up with canceled flights and will not be arriving until later this evening.

Our trip actually began yesterday as we had to take a proctored Covid antigen test 72 hours before boarding the ship. Regent made the process relatively simple by partnering with an on-line test firm. We were provided with a link to the testing organization and were able to order the required required kits ($45 each) and schedule the monitored test on Tuesday afternoon. Luckily all went well; we passed the required test and received the necessary paperwork to proceed.

Cruising with Regent Seven Seas is not cheap, but….as Yvonne now says: “we have more money then time” at this point of our lives. One of the perks of sailing with Regent is that the cruise price includes business class air on overseas flights which is something we have been treating ourselves to since retirement.

Our flights today are on Delta, flying to Paris then to Nice, France where we will be met and taken to our hotel in Monaco where we will join the ship.

The Seattle airport was surprisingly quiet today when we arrived at 9:15. Check-in was smooth and Delta has a very nice business class lounge where we were able to grab a bite and relax before boarding our 12:45 PM flight to Paris. The flight was delayed by 20 minutes but that was not expected to pose a problem as our flight time to Paris was scheduled at 9 hours, 13 minutes which would actually get us there on time.

Observation: Probably 90% of people were not wearing masks in the airport or on the plane.

Spring time in Europe! What can be better, especially after these past two years of going nowhere? Originally this trip was scheduled for 2021 but we all know how that went. Since we leave next week  (May 4) I assume that it will be a “go” unless we fail our Covid antigen tests scheduled before we leave for Europe.

Where are we going?  We are scheduled to sail with our favorite cruise line-Regent Seven Seas with two fellow retired AO Smith colleagues (and wives) on a 16 day cruise that begins in Monaco and finishes in England, weaving our way along the coast of France, Portugal, and Spain. We were also supposed to visit Casablanca, Morocco but a last minute switch had to be made and we will dock in Ceuta, Spain. Never heard of it but learned it is a small Spanish colony on the north coast of Africa, next door to Morocco.

Yes, we have already visited these countries, multiple times so I do not get credit for a new country added to my “Countries Visited” bucket list. However, many  of the stops we will make will be new to us and those we have visited in the past were often so  long ago that they will seem like first time visits to me.

Past blogs were super time consuming to create because I used a camera to take pictures which I then had to upload to incorporate into this blog. Recently I have experimented with simply using my iPhone to take pictures (turns out they take marvelous ones) which automatically end up on this iPad, hopefully making selection and incorporation a much faster process. Time will tell!

So onward! The wanderingbishops are on the road again (cue the music)!

 

There are many flights from Las Vegas to Seattle and I chose a late morning departure so we would not be rushed. Another interesting observation about changes in Las Vegas. Our hotel room was located over 300 feet from the elevator and it was a good block walk once you left the elevator to get to the hotel entrance. Yvonne suggested we call a bellman to handle the luggage but I pointed out to her that I had seen no evidence of such a person since we arrived here. We later learned they disappeared many years ago. Needless to say we managed our own luggage.

The flight home was uneventful and we even managed to catch the ferry without an extended wait. The trip was fun and we are glad we made it. A visit to the Grand Canyon in the winter was certainly the highlight but a revisit to Las Vegas also added to the experience. Where to next?

Christopher Kyte, the owner of Uncommon Journeys, who happened to travel with us on this trip offered to buy us brunch today at Sadelle’s Cafe here in the Bellagio. Luckily he had made reservations as the place was surprisingly busy. The restaurant is located right adjacent to the lobby and conservatory which is normally decorated for the season with flowers and artistic displays. It is always a place that people want to see as they do a spectacular job of decorating. Unfortunately today the area was a shambles as workers had already removed the Christmas decorations and were now building a scenario featuring the upcoming Chinese lunar New Year so there was nothing to see except workers constructing the new scene. The hotel was nice enough to post pictures of what the area will look like when completed.

Later that afternoon we walked the strip past the old classic hotels like Caesars Palace, Mirage and Treasure Island which still advertised the volcano but the famed pirate ship battle is no longer! The famed Flamingo is still there, celebrating its 75th anniversary recently. Also Circus Circus is here and according to the locals is still as it was 50+ years ago!

Rather than eating at the hotel we decided to revisit an old favorite outdoor venue, Mon Ami Gavin, the French bistro in the Paris Hotel located right across the street from the Bellagio. Its lure is its French bistro menu and outdoor seating with first row seats to view the Bellagio fountain show. It was on the cool side but there were plenary of heaters to keep us warm as we dined on French onion soup, salad, shrimp  cocktail and bananas foster accompanied by some good French Sancerre, while watching the music & water display across the street. Not quite as nice as eating in Paris but a good second option!

More strolling on the boulevard after dinner including a mandatory visit to the M&M store to see all the goodies they offer. Located next door to a Legoland store both places were busy with families late in the evening.

Since our last visit to Las Vegas years ago a new complex has emerged south of the Bellagio called “City Center” which consists of several new hotels and, of course, more casinos, restaurants and shops. We elected to wander over in search of something different for breakfast and settled on a place called District: Donuts in the Cosmopolitan Hotel. It was one of several specialty, high end grab & go restaurants in a food court setting. We opted for breakfast sandwiches (with a side of a cinnamon roll) not knowing that the breakfast sandwiches would be made using a donut as the bread portion. Only in Vegas! They were somewhat messy, certainly different and fun.

We wandered through several of the hotels in the area, looking at the decor. I liked the Cosmopolitan because it had that old school classic look but not the Aria which had a more modern look. With more time to kill we wandered into the new shopping mall in the area and found that one of the immerse Van Gogh exhibits now playing around the country was located there. We had wanted to experience one so decided this was a good opportunity to do so. It was as good as reviews have said it was. Located in a large space where images of Van Gogh’s painting were projected on all the walls with a musical score to accompany the slide show. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

The farewell group dinner was held at the local version of a famous (founded in 1938) LA chain, Lawry’s The Prime Rib Restaurant. We met up with our fellow travelers for one final get together. Lawry’s is one of those restaurants that has remained true to its origins. The decor is Art Deco with lots of wood and muted lighting. And the food is the same-mostly prime rib served from huge rolling carts with classical side dishes, including their famous “spinning” salad bowl, served by waiters dressed in classic fashion. It was a treat that everyone seemed to enjoy.

Before retiring for the night we made one more attempt to at least dent the bank at the casino but with typical luck. Maybe next time. Oh, by the way maybe we should have known better as my $10 Powerball investment had resulted in only 1 of my 36 numbers being picked. That should have given my some warning about my gambling luck.

---

The environmental part of the trip was over. We are now heading to the bright lights and decadence of Las Vegas with a surprise stop along the way. No one had a notion of what the surprise might be. Oh, by the way no one won the previous night $400 million plus Powerball so we had to make a stop before we left town to load up for the Monday night drawing. Against my better judgement I invested $10 of my hard earned retirement funds for 5 chances to win something. We shall see what Lady Luck has to say about it.

As soon as we hit the road our tour guide, Dino, inserted a 30 minute documentary video about a now famous person from the area- a barber named Angel Delgadillo of Seligman, Az. Never heard of him. Turns out Seligman is a small town on Route 66, the now famous US highway that runs from Chicago to LA. When Interstate 40 opened in 1984, Seligman, along with virtually all the other small towns on Rt 66, began to die. Angel is noted for founding the Route 66 Association of Arizona, which resulted in the highway being named as a historic roadway. His actions gave new life to the area. Now people from all over the world stop to see his barbershop although the focus is now on Rt 66 souvenirs.  Angel is still alive (94) and occasionally visits the shop although he no longer does barbering. His family now runs the souvenir shop.

Well, the surprise stop was a visit to Seligman (population 776) and Angel’s barbershop. He was not there that day but we had a great time seeing his barber chair, reading newspaper articles about him from around the world, and shopping for unique Route 66 souvenirs. I decided to support the local economy by buying a long sleeved tee shirt with an Angel’s Barbershop logo prominently shown on the front. The Selgman visit was a fun stop-seeing his shop, some of those old 1940-50’s motels, ma & pa shops that lined the streets and Route 66.

Our lunch stop was a throwback in time-Cracker Barrel! We used to take our moms to one in northern Indiana when we lived in Wisconsin, but there are none in the state of Washington so it has been 15 years or more since we ate at one. And even better was that there was a Culver’s custard shop right next door. Again we have none in Washington so while others were shopping at the Cracker Barrel I went and had a double scoop of the flavor of the day-blackberry crumble!

We reached Las Vegas around 4:30 after passing Hoover Dam on the way. Wow, were we shocked to see how low the water level currently is. The news of droughts in the west are no joke. Joe said that they are forced to modify the turbines in the dam because there is not enough water pressure to properly operate at current water conditions.

 

Our home for the next three nights is the famed Bellagio hotel & casino. We had visited it on previous trips to Vegas but this will be first time we stay there. It has been over 15 years since we last visited Vegas. It would be interesting to see how it has changed since our last visit.

Normally we like to see shows when we are in Vegas, but most of the shows have shuttered now that the holidays are over. The one show that was available today was one featuring acts from the America’s Got Talent(AGT) TV show which we watch. I had purchased tickets for the 7PM show at the Luxor. It was a good show! An interesting aside: The host for the show was a comedian named Preacher Larson. He had appeared on AGT a few years ago and came in 2nd in the competition. The interesting part of the story is we had seen Preacher here on Bainbridge Island a few years before when he was competing in a Seattle comedy competition, which he ultimately won. He was hilarious and I was glad to see he has gained some fame and hopefully, fortune.

We quickly learned that Uber/Lyft, rather than taxis, now dominate local transportation service. There are even special designated areas at each hotel where ride share pick up & drop off. Hotels have done a nice job labeling those areas. All of our rides were quick and inexpensive.

Before retiring we did have to see if Lady Luck was smiling on us so we “invested” some money in the casino. One of the immediate changes I saw from early times was the minimum bets on tables was now $25!  And they go up to $50 and $100 a bet. Whatever happened to the $3-5 tables? Slots have gone high tech and are larger with incorporated videos and more audio. And I suspect they have cranked down the odds of winning to make up for Covid losses.

The other observation is people are suddenly showing up in casinos with dogs-not service animals, simply pets! And the dress code no longer exists. The Bellagio is no longer home to the “beautiful people”. Oh, yes, the ultra high end stores are still there (not many people in them) and prices for food and drink have sky rocketed: $18-20 glasses of wine, $20+ salads, $5.25 for bottled water and $70 entrees. Sadly the 99 cent shrimp cocktails are long gone.

Tomorrow will be a day of exploring the new areas of development in Vegas.