EuroCircle 2004

This is both by request and off the top of my head, so apologies in advance and/or blame the folks who asked for this!

Geri and I hit the beaches in Cuba (usually but not always in Cayos, CSM being our current fave) 2-3 times a year and have been doing so since 1990 or 1991. One of our claims to fame is the fact that were were at the first hotel on the Cayos (then Guitart, now Blau) the year it opened.

In any case, while we would never pass up our 'arrive, lie down on the beach, get up two weeks later and fly home' vacations, we also have a secret life as more active tourists. This year's project was a mix of western and Central Europe on the fly. We deliberatley booked only two spots to stay: a B&B for our arrival in Amsterdam and a hotel in Paris as we were to be there for Geri's birthday and two of the kids were able to get time off from work to join us for dinner on her 60th!

Amsterdam was a lotta fun. I lived there for a while in my teens and it was fun, if strange, to go back and see so many changes...and so many things the same. We enjoyed the 'coffeeshops' a great deal! And looking at the Netherland's (and most other European countries except France) experience with legalizing marijuana was instructive given the debate here on de-criminalization. Ie., much as what happened here and in the States when alcohol was de-criminalized.

Food was another matter. I have always found Dutch food on the bland side, and even trying to get a spice fix by hitting an Indian or Indonesian restaurant didn't do it. Everyone seemed to think the food was hotter than hades. Even Geri, not one for the tangy, found it bland. Lonely Planet (our bible) says it's a matter of local tastes watering down imported food prep techniques.

Mmmm...there's a lot of stuff about food in this report. That should tell you something about me!

Funny, I think the best Dutch restaurant I know of is in Oxford (UK). And the best food we had in Amsterdam was at a Greek restaurant!

Geri will have to provide the name, but we spent a day at a tulip farm/gardens/amusement park (if you can imagine such a thing - I'm not a gardener so I couldn't, but there it was. All 100 hectares of it!).

We usually just walk around a place, and we did lots of that for the week we were there. We did everything we wanted to exept for a couple of out-of-town day trips which we didn't get to. But as we quickly after arrival agreed that we'd be headed back, a lot of the urgent need to see and do everything on our list disappeared.

Our B&B I would highly recommend for all but the coldest time of year. It was a small house at the bottom of our host's garden. Like having our own little house in the inner suburbs. We quickly made friends at the corner pub and it was like our old neighbourhood in Toronto all over again.

Next on our list was the Czech Republic, Prague to be exact. When we started to slow down in Amsterdam we spent an hour in an internet cafe and came up with a 14th convent that has been converted into a small (20 room?) hotel. It came recommended by Lonely Planet, and as always we weren't disappointed when following their advice.

Wonderful time in a pretty city. Wonderful architecture and the city centre has been very well preserved. Interesting seeing a post-communist society too. I'm sure there are up sides of a material and other nature, but pretty clearly there are down sides too.

One of my nicest memories of the entire trip is sitting on the patio of a bar out over the river, drinking some wine and watching the sun go down behind Prague castle...

Vienna was the next spot when we got...not exactly bored....just ready to move on. Spectacular architecture from the imperial period. Magnificently laid-out city. Between the bicycle lanes on all major roads in the centre and the wonderful (even by European standards) public transit system.

Viennese street food a hoot. No surprise: it features lots of different sausages. The local fave is something stuffed with cheese and called a 'hunchback full of pus.'

Yum. :)

Viennese hotel again small, but LP-recommended and only a 5 minutes stroll from the old city centre and museum quarter.

Zurich: what can I say, there really is a bank on every streetcorner...and in the middle of every block. And above every bank is another bank. And underneath the streets are the bank vaults with, reputedly, billions in gold and black market money.

Very neat, very tidy, all the things you'd expect, but also a lot more interesting than I would have thought. Much more multi-cultural. We were there on Mayday and joined the march, wound-up as the festival in a local park, sampled all kinds of food and bought t-shirts in support of group sending medical supplies to Cuba!

Very interesting dance club and music scene. Wish we had spent more time there, but it was a last-minute decision. We had originally planned to zip from Vienna into Venice just for the trip through the Alps and because we spent a lot but too little time (if you get my pasta and seafood-loving drift) at a restaurant there a couple of years ago.

But as that would have taken us further from Paris, where we had to be on 5 May, we went to Zurich instead.

Paris I must admit to not liking much prior to this visit. But as Geri has never been and it was her birthday...

Actually, it has always been Parisiens I had trouble with. But then the latest of my previous 3 visits was 20 years ago. And it was the best, I had thought because I had had the forethought to be there during August when most Parisiens take their vacations.

I was pleasantly surprised. Had a great time, ate way too much very good food (the Atkins diet was not invented in France, nor are sales of the book doing well in the land of the croissant).

I am also invertedly-snobbishly am pleased to say I have now been to Paris 4 times and have yet to get close to the Eiffel Tower!

Paris hotel was basic (the way we like to pay if not live while travelling), but right across the street from the main building of the Sorbonne in the Latin Quarter. And not, as we discovered, much of a walk from the Abbey Bookshop, an overstuffed wonderful Canadian bookstore that's doing a booming business and where you can get a free cup of coffee with maple syrup while you browse.

On the Great Day, the kids arrived late morning after changing planes in Amsterdam, and we had a wonderful dinner on the left bank looking out on Notre Dame. Lots of champers and news from home.

After Paris we hopped the TGV (normally we travel 2nd class on the milk runs) to Amsterdam and 4 days of decompressing in a spot that felt almost like home before taking the final leap and heading into Pearson. We liked the B&B we had the first time there that we booked it again on our return.
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