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Travel Diaries: Europe 2024
The European family trip was fully planned – Paris, Milan, Tuscany, Rome. Hotels and airline tickets were booked, and only train tickets remained to be put in place. This will be a great trip. July 2020 was shaping up to be a great time.
Yes, you read it correctly. July 2020. The month that never happened. along a few years. But the desire to have the family trip to Europe never went away. The original idea behind the trip was to celebrate two important events in the youngest kids’ lives – graduation from university and high school. 4 years later, that was the time to celebrate another university graduation – and as Covid became history, we could get back to planning the European trip again.
Everything in life has its silver lining, sometimes we just can’t see it. With our trip, there were a few advantages. First, the trip was moved to May instead of July. I’m sure both Paris and Rome are beautiful in July, but July is a very hot month for both cities. Going in May saved us from the heat torture. The second advantage was that my original plan (Paris-Milan-Tuscany-Rome) over the 10-day period would create way too much stress. Going directly from Paris to Tuscany evened out the whole experience, making it more relaxing.
So what is this all about? I’m writing this post while sitting on the plane flying back from Rome. We had a great trip – we saw a lot, ate a lot of tasty food, drank delicious wines, and were able to relax at the same time. I want to share this experience with you including a few of the good learning points in the hope of simply helping and encouraging someone to take that trip you’ve always wanted to take and feel good about it. Here I plan to share some general thoughts about the trip – the things we either did right or learned. Then I will inundate you with lots and lots of pictures and details about food and wine in the subsequent posts.
Few of rationales behind this trip planning. The kids (grown-up, yes, but still) had never been to France and Italy. They have never experienced European trains. My wife and I have never been to Tuscany. These were important points that I wanted to cover in my trip planning.
We started our trip in Paris, where we spent 3 nights. Then we flew from Paris (Orly, nice and easy) to Florence on Sunday morning, using one of the budget European airlines, Vueling. Got to Florence, got our rental car, and drove about 1.5 hours down south to stay at the agro farm for four nights. After that we drove back to Florence, but now to the train station, and took a high-speed train from Florence to Rome. Three nights in Rome and back to where we started, New York.
While in Tuscany, we visited Siena, where we had a walking tour with the guide. Same in Rome – we had guided tours of the Vatican, the Colosseum, and a bit of Rome itself.
In retrospect, the whole schedule and trip logistics turned out quite well, allowing us enough time for sightseeing and relaxation. Here are a few learning points and suggestions based on our experience.
Plan ahead
I started the planning at least 9 months out. Of course, not everything can or needs to be done so far in advance, but if you want to have specific flights (schedule/stops/airline), and specific hotels, do start as early as you your made the decision to go. Double that effort if you plan to use award points and miles.
Book your tours to the popular attractions online/as early as possible
I don’t know about you, but lines are one of my most hated things – and you should’ve seen the line going round and around the Vatican with all the people who want to see it – this was one long line. So timed tickets are the way to go, whenever they are available. Here are the links for booking the timed tickets (these are the current links at the time of this writing – I can’t guarantee you they will not change.)
Booking a timed tour of the Vatican (60 days in advance)
Booking a timed tour of the Colosseum (30 days in advance)
Use tour guides!
I know, the tour guides cost money. But they also help you to create deeper, longer-lasting memories, and they make your “walking around” interesting and worthwhile. I also believe that it is best to get references for the tour guides, as I’m sure they are not all the same. Both of our tour guides in Siena and in Rome were incredible and if you are interested, I will be happy to facilitate the connection.
Remember, people live there
This might sound banal and “duh”, but remember, while you are a tourist, not everyone is around you – especially when it comes to the cities. You will be competing for the same attractions and especially, the restaurants, with the people who actually live in those “tourist attractions”, so when you are out and about Friday night or Saturday, so are the locals. Plan accordingly.
Reserve ahead
I already suggested that you should reserve your attraction tickets as early as possible. But you have to also do the same with the restaurants. Of course, you will always find a place to eat. But if there are any specific restaurants you want to try, start making reservations 30 days in advance, and possibly even earlier. Trust someone who’s spent lots and lots of time trying to find a reservation at one of the recommended restaurants about 3 weeks before our trip – with literally no availability in sight.
Trains in Europe are not what they used to be
Sure, it is my age talking, but about 20 years ago, you could rely on the schedule of the trains in Europe to be rock solid. Now, there are strikes, and your trains can be delayed or canceled, the same as airline flights. When we came to the Florence train station, my heart literally sank – two of the earlier trains to Rome were delayed by 100 and 70 minutes and I heard the word “strike” over in the announcement. At that moment, I regretted not driving directly to Rome from the place where we stayed instead of going in the opposite direction just because I wanted to provide a European train experience to the kids. We got lucky and our train was delayed by only 5 minutes, but keep the possibility of a strike in mind.
Don’t overextend
I can’t speak for Europeans who often have 6 weeks of vacation. When your typical vacation is only 7 to 10 days, obviously you try to do as much as possible, see as much as possible, and experience as much as possible. But converting your vacation into a race is a mistake. Accept that you will not see everything you want at once. Allow for a slow time. Let life happen around you without hurrying it up. Spending 4 lazy days in Tuscany after 3 full days in Paris and before fully embracing Rome worked absolutely the best and in my opinion, made a very good vacation into a great one.
Lastly, keep in mind that planning is great but you also need a little bit of luck. We were lucky with the weather (not too hot, not too cold, and not a day of rain), we were lucky with our flights, we were lucky with our train ride. Just remember that things might happen, whether you want that or not.
That’s the end of my uninvited advice. Now, get ready to be inundated by lots of pictures and tidbits of our travel escapades.
2020 – A Year in Blogging
2020 was a unique year – don’t think anyone would try to dispute that. Let me acknowledge this by doing something I have never done before – a look back at what happened here on the Talk-a-Vino pages during the past year.
It is interesting that in terms of the number of posts, 2020 was about the same as the prior 3 years – I averaged about 70 posts throughout the whole year or about 6 posts per month on average. Might be a decent amount, but in my most active years, such as 2014, for example, I had about 200 posts in the year, which would average close to 17 per month. Yes, the numbers are a stubborn thing.
Leaving stats aside, a couple of things happened for this blog for the first time. This blog made it to the two of the Top 100 wine blog lists – Top 101 wine writers of 2020 at Corked Wines, and Top 100 wine blogs at Feedspot. Unique and quite happy developments, I have to say – it is nice to be recognized even in the 11th year of blogging.
Many things were “much less” during 2020 – for example, I attended only 3 wine tasting events in person – Union des Grand Crus de Bordeaux, Georgian Wine tasting, and Tre Bicchieri. Since the beginning of March, there were, obviously, no trade tastings of any kind. The samples still kept coming, albeit in much smaller amounts compared to the previous years. Delicious discoveries were still made such as wines of Casarena and Mythic from Argentina, amazingly drinkable California Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays, superb Oregon finds from Alit and Utopia Vineyard.
Then, of course, there were zooms. “To Zoom” became a new verb, meaning to “see each other in the videoconference”. In the old days, “to Skype” was the thing, but 2020 was the year of Zoom. Zooms with wine lovers stuck in their houses, zooms with winemakers equally desperate for the conversation, zooms with friends. A very unique year. There will be more zooms in 2021, at least in the first half of the year, whether we want it or not.
I decided to bring back some of the old series, trying to instill some timing and order into my blogging – I’m talking about continuing Wine Quiz and Wednesday’s Meritage series. Wine Quiz was exactly as the name says, posts with a set of wine-related questions. when the series was active, those were weekly posts on Saturdays. I now realized that I can’t run those on the weekly basis, however, once every two weeks or so should be possible, so the series is back. I used to have a good number of responders for all the quizzes, which is not the case now, but hey, I still have fun writing those posts, so the series will continue.
Wednesday’s Meritage posts were born without any connection with #WineWednesday – the idea was simply to compile interesting wine news and articles and offer it in a concise format to my readers, keeping them informed of interesting happenings in the wine world. Again, by design, those were supposed to be weekly posts – now they are “best effort” – once I accumulate enough of the good newsworthy content, the post is coming out – but the series is back.
I still managed to produce traditional posts such as April 1st Wine News and Updates, a summary of my best wine experience of 2020, and even snuck one of the most memorable tastings ever before the quarantine was besieged upon us – the OTBN 2020.
That about sums up the year 2020 here at Talk-a-Vino. There were lots of great wines back in 2020 which didn’t make it – yet! – to the blog posts – I will do my best to rectify that, as good wines are always worth a conversation.
That’s all I have for you, my friends. How was your 2020? Cheers!
Looking Back and Looking Forward
I’m sure you guessed from the title and the timing of this post that I want to talk about past year 2015 and freshly minted 2016. Yep, I’m predictable like that, you are correct.
So how was 2015 for 2015 for Talk-a-Vino in my own eyes? Great, but challenging. Very challenging. 2016 will be equally difficult, with great potential to be even more challenging, a lot more.
Sure, I will explain. Nothing happened with my love of wine or passion for blogging – both are as strong as ever. What I had (and will have) a problem with is time – my main line of work (the one which pays the bills, you know) is incomparably busier than two years back, and finding quiet time for the labor of love is now not easy at all. No, I’m not complaining, just explaining the change in cadence of the posts coming out.
Talking about 2015, there were few new things which I started doing. During the year, I was offered a few opportunities to meet with the winemakers, and was unable to find time – this is how the concept of virtual interviews came to life. I realized that even when I can’t sit down with the person in the same room, I can still ask questions – and get great answers. I also offered to profile wine apps for any of the app producers who would be interested, and so far had 3 posts in that series – by the way, the offer still stands if anyone is interested.
From the things which I didn’t like so much, but they still happened in 2015, was stopping the series of the Saturday wine quizzes. I had lots of fun creating those, but reached the point when it became very difficult to create challenging, but fun questions, so I had to stop the series, at least for the time being.
What should you expect in 2016? I definitely will continue the virtual interviews – as a matter of fact, one of them is coming out very shortly. I also have good number of posts which I really should’ve written last year, but did not. There were wine dinners, there were tastings, there were winery visits which never made it into the posts. However, the subjects are still worth taking about, so you should expect to see some of those “posts from the past”. I don’t know if I will make a series out of those posts (as an engineer, I like to organize things, may be even more than necessary), add short intro to those posts, or simply put them out without any regards to the “past” – no matter, they will still appear on Talk-a-Vino pages.
2016 is on, so let’s raise the glass to all the fun things which are ahead of us. Cheers!
Reflecting on the Beautiful Fall Colors
Fall is most beautiful time in New England – people often plan special trips from around the country to embrace that Fall beauty, when leaves take on unimaginable colors. This year, though, I was worrying that we will not get to experience that beauty fully. September was way warmer than usual, and by the end of the month most of the trees were as green as in June, so my fear was that the leaves will go from green to brown, depriving us of the breathtaking exuberance of colors.
This had been challenging year so far. While the work had been exciting and interesting, it required a lot bigger investment of time, as we are trying to get into the new areas – and time is not something which is easily scaling or expanding. The end result is a great reduction in time left to spend on this very blog. The year also happened to be extremely emotionally challenging, but of course this is simply part of life.
Beautiful, sparkling, unstoppable abundance of colors arrived in October, delivering endless “eye candies” with every look outside. I found time for a slow walk around the neighborhood with my daughter and my camera, trying to capture myriad little moments mother nature always ready to share with us. Now I want to share that beauty with you, just in case you need a little sparkle in your life. Cheers!
Finish Versus The World
This post is an entry for the 16th Monthly Wine Writing Challenge (#MWWC16), with the theme of “Finish”. Previous themes in the order of appearance were: Transportation, Trouble, Possession, Oops, Feast, Mystery, Devotion, Luck, Fear, Value, Friend, Local, Serendipity, Tradition, Success.
Ahh, the deception of simplicity. When the theme “Finish” of the new Monthly Wine Writing Challenge was announced by Jim Van Bergen of jvb uncorked, the winner of the previous round, my first thought was “great!”. Finish plays directly into the wine world, as one of the technical terms. The finish is so simple and self-explanatory as a concept, writing a post will be just a breeze… Or is it?
Deceiving simplicity started daunting on me. Yes, finish might be simple. But to finish something, you have to start it. And start is not simple. Start is difficult. Almost every time, presented with new challenge word, the brain says “I don’t like this word! why is it this word? It should’ve been that other word. Go away, I’m not helping you”. You have to turn that negativity around and gently convince the brain to do his magic and come with something a good story that will have the start, the substance, and the finish. Only what you do if you have to come up with just the finish? Yeah…
Well, if you thought my writing is disjointed and disorganized as it is, this will probably be the most disparate, most blabbering, most rumbling post so far in this blog. Oh well. Either pour yourself another glass of wine and try to make sense of this epistolary exercise for yourself, or simply close this page and spend your time with something more coherent (you can still pour yourself another glass). You go make up your mind. Meanwhile, I will just let my mind to flow freely…
When it comes to the wine, Finish is an important technical term. It is usually defined by the duration of flavors still playing in your mouth long after the wine is swallowed. Not the exact time, but an approximate feeling of time the aftertaste, the flavors are still present – short, medium, long. Finish is also identified with prevailing flavors and how those are changing. The finish can start as fruity, and slowly change into tannic. Or it can be only acidic, for instance, or only tannic (think of a young Barolo). The winemaker doesn’t have direct control over the wine’s finish – a lot of this simply a mind game. Same as for the taste of wine, there is no universal truth to the duration of the finish – some people don’t like the lingering aftertaste, and some are quite opposite. Which side are you on?
Like Whiskey? Which do you prefer – Sherry Cask Finish or Port Cask? Or may be Burgundian? In the world of whiskey, Finish has yet another technical meaning. It is not only an aftertaste. After an aging process in some standard type of casks, let’s say an American oak, Whiskey is often finished in the specific types of casks to impart the additional complexity – old Sherry casks, or Port, or Madeira, or Burgundy… Balvenie Doublewood, anyone? Or do you prefer Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban?
Bored to death with that technical stuff and can’t wait for it to finish? No problems. The wine is simply one of the most important life’s beverages, so let’s just talk about life.
Let me actually put you, dear reader, in a spotlight, and ask you a simple question – is finish a good thing, or is it a bad thing? Yes, we can’t wait for the useless meeting to finish. We can’t wait for the uncle Jack to finish his visit and leave, as he is so annoying. We can’t wait for the boring performance to finish, so we can go home. We can’t wait for the baby to finish crying, so we can finally get a moment of solitude. We can’t wait for the pain to finish and disappear, any pain.
But then on another side, raise your hand if you ever wanted that exciting Hawaiian vacation to finish? Yeah, sure, especially if you get a week at a time, as most of us do in the U.S. No way! Or do you actually want the great evening with a dear friend to finish? No! We don’t want the great book to ever finish. We don’t want a great TV series to finish.
The finish is an enigma. We both want it and we don’t. The finish never comes on time. The finish never comes fast enough. And finish comes so unexpectedly early. Think of that bottle of 1982 Bordeaux or 1964 Rioja – can you believe we already finished the bottle? What do you mean that was the last bottle??? We already finished the case? What do you mean “today is the last day of our vacation”? I can’t believe it is finished!
“Finish” often means the opposite of what we really want. In many cases, we don’t want for things to finish. We prefer the journey, not the end of it. After finishing something big and important (not, I don’t mean that Big Mac sandwich), have you ever felt empty inside, emotionally drained? We like the pleasure of finishing, but we don’t like the pain of losing that sense of focus, the driving force which got us to that finish. And we don’t like the pain of thinking about what’s next.
And so we arrive at life’s basic virtues – pain and pleasure. We would do whatever it takes to avoid pain. And we would anything we can to gain pleasure. There is essentially nothing else to the life outside of these two basic concepts of pain and pleasure – no, unfortunately, I didn’t come up with that, some other smart folks did.
After the pleasure of finish comes the pain of the start. But start we must, as standing still we will not gain us any pleasure, and this is not what we want, aren’t we? Okay, I hear you – it is time to finish this post. And I will let you ponder at the simplicity of a beautiful thing called life.
To the finishes and starts of our lives! Cheers!
Pairing Life’s Happy Moments with Wine
When you have happy moments in your life, how do you celebrate them? Of course Champagne is a choice number one for all happy events – marriage proposal, wedding, birth of the child, major promotion at work – all good causes to open a bottle of Champagne. But those are more of a major happy moments. And then there are other, smaller scale happy moments, which don’t call for major celebration but still need to be acknowledged. Like the one I had today. I passed yet another Taekwondo tip test, inching very close to becoming the 4th degree black belt candidate. 4th degree in Taekwondo is very special – this is the first black belt when the person owning it is called a “master”. No, I don’t have an amazing martial arts skills, like Bruce Lee, or Jet Lee or anyone like them. Nevertheless, I love Taekwondo, and becoming the Master is definitely a dream. And I’m one tip away from becoming a candidate for the 4th degree black belt. It is very close now.
So, for the simple happy moment like this, what would you pair it with, especially when your test just ended at around 9 PM? Somehow, I didn’t even think of Champagne. As I mentioned many times before, I don’t have any kind of lists for my wines, so finding the wine to drink is always fun. Especially when you are looking for the wine for the special occasion. So I went through many shelves in the wine fridge, until I saw the bottle which just clicked – this is it. 2003 Neyers Cabernet Sauvignon Neyers Ranch – Conn Valley, Napa Valley (14.5% ABV). Probably the last bottle I had. The reason this wine worked with the happy moment? Sheer exuberance. On the nose, it had beautiful dark fruit, fresh berries and the touch of barnyard. The palate was even better than the nose – lots of stuff happening, eucalyptus, herbs, sage, bell peppers, cassis, blueberries, truffles, dark chocolate, espresso – just beautiful, beautiful wine. Perfectly balanced, perfectly complementing happy moment, and becoming a happy moment on its own. (If you care to know, I would rate Drinkability at 9).
There you have it. What is your choice of wine for the happy moments in your life? Cheers!
Instant Gratification, and Arrival of the Spring
You know, when the winter is like the one we had in New England, you get to the point when you sort of stop believing that the spring will come. You wake up in the morning, your thermometer shows 20F, and your mind doesn’t even comprehends the concept of spring, flowers, grass – no, those leftovers of the snow are going to stay forever. Only a few days ago I was explaining to my daughter about the flowers called snowdrop in English, which are usually showing up as soon as snow melts, and I was lamenting that this year we probably will see no snowdrops as the winter was so brutal here.
Then today was the first official day of spring, and while it was still cold outside, it was definitely more palatable (read: warmer), and the snow was almost gone. And walking around the house all of a sudden I saw… flowers! It was simply magic, the magic of life happening right here, right now. No matter how brutal the winter is, the spring will come no matter what – and I was looking at the proof. Don’t know if this is exactly a snowdrop or simply a similar flower, but I was definitely happy to see it.
Okay, so spring is here. And for the instant gratification part? Easy. Here I’m talking about wine (wow – total surprise, huh?). You know, I can define the instant gratification as a sequence of a few very simple steps – twist, pour, sniff, say “ahh”, sip, roll your eyes towards the ceiling – have a moment of bliss. The wine which gave me this moment of blissful instant gratification – 2006 Mt. Difficulty Pinot Noir Central Otago, New Zealand. I wanted to have a good glass of wine, and as I only have a vague idea of what wines are in the cellar, I was simply looking through the wines on one of the shelves – and when I saw this bottle Mt. Difficulty, I thought – yes, that will do it – and it delivered. Beautiful classic Pinot Noir on the nose – a little smoky, a little earthy – and perfectly fresh, full of juicy cherries and herbs, harmonious palate. You know, the one which gives you an instant gratification. I loved that wine so much that I simply had to connect the first flowers with this wine – as you can see it in the picture below:
The spring is here! Let’s drink to Life! Cheers!
Words of Wisdom For All The Bloggers Out There – Seth Godin: Writer’s Block and The Drip
How many of you heard of Seth Godin? He has done (and continues doing) a lot of things in this life – he is an entrepreneur, a marketer, a consultant, an author, but I think above all, he is The Mentor. His books, his blog posts, his seminars are teaching, motivating, pushing, pulling, making uncomfortable, touching hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people around the world (quick example – Seth Godin is in 98,000+ circles on Google+).
I’m subscribed to his blog, and every day a get a little snippet of wisdom. Sometimes it is 2 lines. Sometimes, it is 20 lines. It resonates 99 times out of a 100 – for me it does. Unfortunately, I act upon what I read about 0 times out of a hundred, but this is a whole another story.
Seth’s Godin’s post of couple of days ago stroke a cord again – and this time it is about blogging. I know that many of my readers are also passionate bloggers, so I want to share this with you. Enjoy!
Thanks, Giving, and Connection
As we set the plans to celebrate Thanksgiving next week, I want to share with you this post by SAHMmelier – we can all do something to share the holiday with those who needs it, even if it is a little bit…
At this time of year, many of us are rushing around, trying to decide on the perfect appetizer,on table settings and decor, and pairing wines that will fit the budget but still impress our guests. And some are trying to figure out where they will get their next meal. Or how to pay the electric bill. Or wishing they had an electric bill to pay. Between the destruction in the wake of the hurricane and the current unemployment across the country, the needs we see around us can be overwhelming. How can we help? How can we possibly make a difference when the need is everywhere and so much bigger than us?
Fourteen years ago, there was one man, in a dark place, with no home and very little in his pocket. He saw a family and recognized a need. A need he deemed greater than his, and he chose…
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