Last March I wrote a teaser to all of you about our upcoming river cruise from Amsterdam to Zurich. It was to be a wine oriented cruise lead by the well known wine maker Ed Sbragia on our favorite river cruise line AMA. We flew to Amsterdam for some pre-cruise festivities, checked into our beautiful hotel, and were upgraded to the Louis XIV suite. We dropped our bags in the foyer of the suite, said wow and then promptly zipped out the door, boarded a tram and headed for the largest outdoor street market in Europe and directly into a downpour. That downpour was to be the best weather we had on the trip until we reached Zurich twelve days later.
From that Amsterdam market until we arrived in Zurich, we experienced wind driven, horizontal rain, torrential rain, freezing rain, plain old continuous rain, sleet, snow, cold, white caps on the Rhine and total lack of sun. Not only that, part of the trip was over Easter weekend. As secular as Europe is they still celebrate Easter with zeal, not by going to church, but by closing everything from Friday to Monday and taking a holiday. No shops, no museums, few restaurants were open and few people were on the streets. The cities were deserted.
To make up for the weather, lack of cultural diversions, and general malaise of the trip, we thoroughly enjoyed every drop of wine poured by the Sbragia’s and food prepared by the ship’s chef. It did not lend itself to creative writing pursuits.
Today, I am writing from the Caribbean Princess as we sail out of the harbor at St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, into the Bay of Fundy on our way to Halifax, Nova Scotia. We’ve always wanted to do an East Coast to Canada trip and with our travel consisting of many short trips in the US this year, we booked ourselves and John on this one hoping to see some fall foliage, the Maritime Provinces of Canada, and to revisit Quebec City and Montreal.
We have never sailed out of Bayonne and thus we had high hopes of seeing the Manhattan Skyline at night, sailing past the Statue of Liberty and a well lit lower Manhattan, before gliding under the Verrazano Bridge into the Atlantic. It turns out, however, that Bayonne’s Harbor is located well past mid-town Manhattan and to the right of the Statue of Liberty, so all the ship needs to do is turn right and head toward the Verrazano Bridge: no passing by the magnificent Manhattan Skyline. I was able to get some good shots from our stateroom, but that was it.
While Bayonne was a slight disappointment, our good friend Baxter Graham took us for lunch that afternoon at his newly renovated club Canoe Brook. We’d spent many a happy evening there with Baxter and his wife Carol, she was in London this time, when we lived in Summit, and there are few things more pleasurable than catching up with longtime friend and the old place looked spectacular, especially on a bright, sunny, fresh fall day. It made us a little homesick for Summit, until Kathy reminded us that days like we were experiencing were rare in New Jersey.
Our first stop was Newport, Rhode Island. Known primarily as a repository for some of America’s finest mansions from the “Gilded Age” as well as it’s fine harbor, serendipity struck and after we toured the Vanderbilt Mansion, the Breakers, we were treated to real Americana by literally running into Newport’s Columbus Day parade. The Mansion was an architectural masterpiece, sadly no interior pictures allowed, but the parade told the story of what makes this country so great: local people proudly celebrating their heritage and local pride.
We watched the parade until the fire trucks arrived and then rushed away to meet our friends Tina and Milton for lunch and our first “chowda” and lobster of the trip. Tina and Milton are lucky enough to live half the year on a neighboring island and when not in Rhode Island, they live in Scottsdale. Unlike seeing Baxter for the first time in almost a decade, it’s only been months since we broke bread with the Richard’s, but time doesn’t matter and friendship does. It was great catching up, getting local information and looking forward to good times when they return to Arizona.
Friends also played an important part in our next stop, Boston. Having loved the Italian food in the North End, we asked Paul and Patti LaPierriere for a recommendation and they said Tratorria Il Pannino. It was fabulous and I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. The first is the lasagna I had and the second the mushroom ravioli’s Kathy ordered. John dove into his tortellini so quickly we couldn’t take a picture. Then we went to Mike’s Pastry shop for cannolis. Twenty-eight varieties are made daily along with many other Italian pastries. I had an amaretto one. Again, the picture speaks for itself. (In case you are wondering, eating will play an important part of this trip. Exotic ports and new cultures are not on the schedule.)
After a thoroughly satisfying lunch, we walked some of it off by going to the Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market area and then headed for our scheduled Duck Tour. Frankly, while packed with history, I don’t find Boston an aesthetically pleasing or a particularly photogenic town. It’s dark and filled with lots of squat buildings on narrow streets. There is little of architectural interest unless you are into the Federalist style. San Francisco it’s not. The highlight of the Duck Tour was John getting to drive the Duck Boat, otherwise it was constant narration, but then we became stuck in one of Boston’s famous traffic jams and did not move an inch for over half an hour.
The window of time I had given us to return to the ship was quickly closing and we were miles away and no traffic was moving in any direction. The Duck driver was kind enough to somehow maneuver over to the curb to let us off and we started walking as fast as we could to the ship.
As the clock ticked, the traffic stood gridlocked in all directions and we, despite the best intentions of Siri, became disoriented as we walked toward where we thought the ship was, and a little angst began to settle in.
As we started crossing a bridge, we yelled over to a cab driver asking if we were going in the right direction, but he thought we were hailing him. Somehow he managed to make a U-turn on the crowded bridge and we then felt obligated to get in, but first we had to climb over the barrier separating the sidewalk from the road. John made it over easily, but Kathy and I had to sit on the top of it and swing over. It must have made quite a sight for the gridlocked drivers.
Thanks to the driver we made it with time to spare and after all the commotion, we were heading in the right direction, but we did get one last surprise. Our backsides were covered with a thick coating of a vile mixture of black grease that had formed on that bridge girder for who knows who long. I worked on my jeans for an hour to get it out, Kathy’s ended up in the trash.
Boston had the last laugh….
From that Amsterdam market until we arrived in Zurich, we experienced wind driven, horizontal rain, torrential rain, freezing rain, plain old continuous rain, sleet, snow, cold, white caps on the Rhine and total lack of sun. Not only that, part of the trip was over Easter weekend. As secular as Europe is they still celebrate Easter with zeal, not by going to church, but by closing everything from Friday to Monday and taking a holiday. No shops, no museums, few restaurants were open and few people were on the streets. The cities were deserted.
To make up for the weather, lack of cultural diversions, and general malaise of the trip, we thoroughly enjoyed every drop of wine poured by the Sbragia’s and food prepared by the ship’s chef. It did not lend itself to creative writing pursuits.
Today, I am writing from the Caribbean Princess as we sail out of the harbor at St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, into the Bay of Fundy on our way to Halifax, Nova Scotia. We’ve always wanted to do an East Coast to Canada trip and with our travel consisting of many short trips in the US this year, we booked ourselves and John on this one hoping to see some fall foliage, the Maritime Provinces of Canada, and to revisit Quebec City and Montreal.
We have never sailed out of Bayonne and thus we had high hopes of seeing the Manhattan Skyline at night, sailing past the Statue of Liberty and a well lit lower Manhattan, before gliding under the Verrazano Bridge into the Atlantic. It turns out, however, that Bayonne’s Harbor is located well past mid-town Manhattan and to the right of the Statue of Liberty, so all the ship needs to do is turn right and head toward the Verrazano Bridge: no passing by the magnificent Manhattan Skyline. I was able to get some good shots from our stateroom, but that was it.
While Bayonne was a slight disappointment, our good friend Baxter Graham took us for lunch that afternoon at his newly renovated club Canoe Brook. We’d spent many a happy evening there with Baxter and his wife Carol, she was in London this time, when we lived in Summit, and there are few things more pleasurable than catching up with longtime friend and the old place looked spectacular, especially on a bright, sunny, fresh fall day. It made us a little homesick for Summit, until Kathy reminded us that days like we were experiencing were rare in New Jersey.
Our first stop was Newport, Rhode Island. Known primarily as a repository for some of America’s finest mansions from the “Gilded Age” as well as it’s fine harbor, serendipity struck and after we toured the Vanderbilt Mansion, the Breakers, we were treated to real Americana by literally running into Newport’s Columbus Day parade. The Mansion was an architectural masterpiece, sadly no interior pictures allowed, but the parade told the story of what makes this country so great: local people proudly celebrating their heritage and local pride.
We watched the parade until the fire trucks arrived and then rushed away to meet our friends Tina and Milton for lunch and our first “chowda” and lobster of the trip. Tina and Milton are lucky enough to live half the year on a neighboring island and when not in Rhode Island, they live in Scottsdale. Unlike seeing Baxter for the first time in almost a decade, it’s only been months since we broke bread with the Richard’s, but time doesn’t matter and friendship does. It was great catching up, getting local information and looking forward to good times when they return to Arizona.
Friends also played an important part in our next stop, Boston. Having loved the Italian food in the North End, we asked Paul and Patti LaPierriere for a recommendation and they said Tratorria Il Pannino. It was fabulous and I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. The first is the lasagna I had and the second the mushroom ravioli’s Kathy ordered. John dove into his tortellini so quickly we couldn’t take a picture. Then we went to Mike’s Pastry shop for cannolis. Twenty-eight varieties are made daily along with many other Italian pastries. I had an amaretto one. Again, the picture speaks for itself. (In case you are wondering, eating will play an important part of this trip. Exotic ports and new cultures are not on the schedule.)
After a thoroughly satisfying lunch, we walked some of it off by going to the Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market area and then headed for our scheduled Duck Tour. Frankly, while packed with history, I don’t find Boston an aesthetically pleasing or a particularly photogenic town. It’s dark and filled with lots of squat buildings on narrow streets. There is little of architectural interest unless you are into the Federalist style. San Francisco it’s not. The highlight of the Duck Tour was John getting to drive the Duck Boat, otherwise it was constant narration, but then we became stuck in one of Boston’s famous traffic jams and did not move an inch for over half an hour.
The window of time I had given us to return to the ship was quickly closing and we were miles away and no traffic was moving in any direction. The Duck driver was kind enough to somehow maneuver over to the curb to let us off and we started walking as fast as we could to the ship.
As the clock ticked, the traffic stood gridlocked in all directions and we, despite the best intentions of Siri, became disoriented as we walked toward where we thought the ship was, and a little angst began to settle in.
As we started crossing a bridge, we yelled over to a cab driver asking if we were going in the right direction, but he thought we were hailing him. Somehow he managed to make a U-turn on the crowded bridge and we then felt obligated to get in, but first we had to climb over the barrier separating the sidewalk from the road. John made it over easily, but Kathy and I had to sit on the top of it and swing over. It must have made quite a sight for the gridlocked drivers.
Thanks to the driver we made it with time to spare and after all the commotion, we were heading in the right direction, but we did get one last surprise. Our backsides were covered with a thick coating of a vile mixture of black grease that had formed on that bridge girder for who knows who long. I worked on my jeans for an hour to get it out, Kathy’s ended up in the trash.
Boston had the last laugh….
No comments:
Post a Comment