A day in San Francisco

San Francisco is a fun place to travel. The people there are generally nice and laid back.If you are a tourist, there are plenty of things to do. On one of my last trips to San Francisco I played the tourist. I started off the day with a nice walk across the Golden Gate bridge.

From the bridge one can get a great view of alcatraz if the weather is right.

Coming back from walking across the bridge, you can take a jog down the San Francisco Bay Trail to Fort Mason to get another view of the bridge and end up in Fisherman’s Wharf.
The Fisherman’s Wharf can be quite crowded most of the year and it is really not my favorite part of town. However there is a gem in fisherman’s wharf, it is called the Musée Mécanique. This museum contains hundreds of old-school coin operated games and mechanical instruments.They are constantly refurbishing and adding new things. I loved spending time in this place.

After spending a couple hours in the museum, you can take the street car up to the top of Lombard Street. You can spend time watching cars maneuver the steep and curvy turns. There is also some spectacular views from there.

Coit Tower in the distance.

At some point you can go to the park where the famous Victorian homes used in the show Full House reside. Now you got the song stuck in your head, don’t you??

One last architectural gem in the city is the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre. I only got to drive by it. One day I stop and check it out in person.

London: British Museum

A visit to London is not complete without a visit to the British Museum. The museum has an impressive collection of antiquities, is free, and usually quite busy. We only scheduled a couple hours here but to do it right one needs to come multiple times, ideally when it is slow.

Just another day in New Orleans

I traveled to New Orleans in January 2010 for a wedding. It was a fabulous wedding that I will talk about in another post.
One thing that is for certain in New Orleans is that you will either run into a parade or party or both. While we were there one of the parades we got to see was Buddy’s Brawds. That year the Saints finally made it to the superbowl. A local celebrity so frustrated with the Saints never making it to the superbowl proclaimed that he would wear a dress if the Saints ever did make it to the superbowl. Unfortunately Buddy Diliberto (1931 – 2005), the voice of the New Orleans Saints, died before he had a chance to make good on his promise. In January 2010 the Saints did make it to the superbowl and thousands of other men made good on that promise in his honor. It was a fun parade to watch.

Kids played along too.

Always a large crowd in the french quarter.

Sporting the “Golden Girls” look.

Pigs are flying

Wait – Is that Johnny Depp?

Nice jewels

This guy was fun. We stopped to talk to him for a while.

Santorini Day 2

Our second day at Santorini we decided to do a tour organized by our travel agency. We started the day with a boat ride to the caldera on Nea Kameni.

We got to walk around on top of the volcano. Notice the volcanic rock.

There is Fira off in the distance.

After our visit to the caldera, we visited some hot springs on Palia Kameni – but only after you jumped off the boat in freezing cold water and conquered a pretty long swim to the springs. Once there, you were rewarded. Unfortunately there was another long swim back to the boat.

Little church by the springs.

We finished our tour with a visit to the island of Thirasia. It is a sleepy and scenic town away from the bustling of the mainland.

Our path up and down Thirasia.

When we arrived back to the mainland I made Carlos take donkeys instead of walking up another steep path.

Lots of lazy dogs live on Santorini

For our last night we decided to watch the sunset from the famous Oia. It was unbelievable. Even the dogs couldn’t help enjoying the sunset.

These guys below were rounding up their friends.

Tuscan Towns : Cortona & Chiusi

During my last trip to Italy I was able to spend a few wonderful days in Tuscany. I shared a villa in Foiano della Chiana near Cortona with some girlfriends (and Carlos). We were required to rent a car to get from town to town to explore. We had to get one of the larger cars with trunk space due to the the requirements to hold luggage for 4 women (and 1 guy’s backpack). It proved challenging at first to try to maneuver the car around the roads but we soon got the hang of it. We made sure that enough of us got international driving permits so the driving was distributed among us and not one taking the brunt work of driving everywhere.
Trying to find our villa was very difficult. The directions were vague, and in kilometers (we are not used to the metric system). After a detour down a bumpy dirt road through someone’s farm (my friend swears we were supposed to turn down that road) we eventually find our villa. I wish I had taken more pictures, it really was a great and relaxing villa to return to after sightseeing all day.

Our first night this happens.

This guy is staying with us as well.

The villa contained 3 bedrooms and 2 full baths and a full working kitchen that we used a few nights to make our own dinners. The weather was perfect for open windows and outdoor dining. Out by the resort style pool was a magnificent view and rows of rosemary and lavender bushes in bloom. It really was blissful lounging by the pool, hearing the sounds of bees and nature in the background, and smelling lavender and rosemary while you are reading a book. I can’t think of too many better things in life….except maybe food. Food is kind of great too. I would say my only complaint was the washer that took took 2 hours to wash clothes. I didn’t mind hanging them to dry (I prefer more environmentally friendly) except we did have rain one day and all our wet clothes got more wet.
Exploring near by town of Cortona was fun.

Cortona

Chiusi

One of the day trips we took was to Chiusi. Chuisi has some of the best Etruscan tombs. Unfortunately I did not take any photos but I do have video that I will hopefully upload one day. During our visit to the city center we got to witness a day of games from the bell tower.