July 27, 2023 - Monza, Italy

Another fantastic day. The weather was absolutely amazing today, sunny and mild. We were up early and caught an 8 AM train from the Monza station to Como. We also bought tickets for the boat at Lake Como at the train station. The station a stop after Monza was the one nearest where Rose's cousin, Elena, lived and she boarded there, met us on the train, and became our guide for the day. The train station is Como is on a hill and there was an enormous flight of steps in front of it down the hill toward the lake front and it crossed my mindd that those steps were going to be murder at the end of the day... Lake Como is nestled in the Italian alps and the region is absolutely stunning. The lake itself is enormous (third largest in Italy) and there are several small towns around the lake, of which Como is just one. The surrounding mountains are dotted with, I am sure very expensive, vacation homes (George Clooney has a place on Lake Como). Because we aleady bought tickets, we were able to skip the queue and get right on te boat. The boat service on Lake Como serves two purposes. First, it is a great way to appreciate the beautiful environs and secondly it serves as public transportation between the various towns on the lake.

Aperol spritz

We got off the boat at Cernobbio. At a cafe with outdoor seating (did I mention the weather was splendid?) not far from the waterfront we tried Aperol spritzes. This is the summer drink of northern Italy. People were drinking them everywhere we went at all times of the day. Aperol is an Italian bitter apertif made from gentian root, rhubarb, and cinchona (also the source of quinine). The spritz is made combining the Aperol with Prosseco (an Italian bubbly wine) and club soda. It is poured over ice, garnished with a slice of orange (did I mention that Italy was citrus heaven?), and served with salty snacks (they brougt us complimentary chips and delicious complimentary olives). Not my favourite cocktail, but enjoyable and well-suited to the warm and sunny weather. We all tried one, except Rose who was afraid she wouldn't like the Aperol (she probably wouldn't have) and decided to get an afogato (espresso poured over gelato) instead.

Elena wanted to take us to a botanical garden in Cernobbio, but we walked there only to find it closed.  We returned to the waterfront and sat in benches that were shaded by trees but afforded a great view of the lake while we waited for the boat back to Como.  I could have sat there all day watching the boats, the waterfowl, and even the fish in the shallows at the water's edge. Glorious.

 

Elena (back left), Me (back right), Rose (middle left),
Lisa (middle right) and Maria (front) at Cernobbio

Once back in Como, we walked to the other side of town where there is a funicular that ascends the mountain and offers fantastic panoramic views of the lake.  I think initially we planned to eat at one of the restaurants at the top of the funicular, but the line for the funicular was so long, we decided to have lunch before ascending - well except for Elena, who has boundless energy, and who stood in line for funicular tickets while we went to the restaurant nearby called Ox Grill and Pizza.  I was hoping to find some local fish (trout, pike, and perch are all caught in Lake Como) on the menu and concerned we might have another Bruge (Belgium) experience (a disappointing and overpriced meal at a tourist trap).  Neither turned out to be true.  While they did not have any local fish, the food was quite good.  Lisa had a pork cutlet sandwich, which she thought was OK.  Maria's pizza looked great (and Elena had some of that when she joined us after securing funicular tickets) and I had an entree salad with romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and smoked salmon that was wonderful.  Rose ordered a stuffed zucchini appetizer that, unfortnately, was not quite what she thought it was when she ordered it.  Basically, it was pieces of zucchini, stuffed with cheese, then breaded and deep fried.  I don't think she liked the cheese that it was stuffed with, but I tried one and thought it was tasty.  Oddly there was no wine on the menu, but they had imported craft beers. I had the Maisel Weisse, a wheat beer from Bavaria.  Very nice.  I did not expect to a have a German beer in Italy...

The funicular was fun (pun intended) and the views were amazing.  Beyond words to describe, really, so I'll just share a picture:

View of Como and lake from top of the funicular

After coming down the funicular, we walked back across town to the train station.  Yes, those steps were brutal at the end of a long day with lots of walking, but one step at a time we made it.  When we got off the train in Monza, we decided to take the opportunity find a restaurant in Monza city center for dinner rather than try to find a place by the hotel (we had already eaten at the one restaurant twice and the hotel restaurant menu was not appealing to Lisa or Rose).  We decided on a Neopolitan restaurant that was supposedly a short walk from the train station.  The area around the train station was a little sketchy, but it quickly got nicer the closer we got to city center.  We had to stop at a department store for Maria to buy a replacement purse as the strap on hers broke while we were walking.  According to the GPS on my phone, the restaurant was only a few blocks from the store but when we got to that location, it wasn't there.  Maria was able to find it on her phone and it was a bit farther than we anticipated and tucked on a side street that was hard to find.  Tired and hungry, we nearly gave up looking for it, but we found it at last.  Nice place.  I capped dinner off there with meloncello - like limoncello only made with cantaloupe instead of lemons.  Where has that been all my life?

After dinner we were faced with the challenge of getting back to the hotel.  None of us wanted to walk back to the train station now that it was dark to catch a cab or get the bus from there.  We did pass a taxi stand on the way to dinner.  We found it again and waited, but no cabs seemed to be coming. We tried Uber again but it could not find a driver (I am not sure it's a thing in Italy) and finally, faced with the choice of walking, I called the cab company (the number was on the taxi stand sign) and they were able to send us a car.  It was from this driver that we learned that the lone cab company in Monza didn't have enough drivers....

July 26, 2023 - Monza, Italy

 The Springsteen concert marked a real turning point in the trip.  After two days of plans falling apart and despite the threat of cancellation and all the logistical challenges of attending the concert, somehow we pulled it off.  After that, our plans for the rest of the week went smoothly.

For today, we booked a guided walking tour of Milan.  We booked ahead of time to guarantee access to see Lenardo da Vinci's Last Supper at the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie.  Fortunately, we weren't scheduled to meet the tour group until 2.45 in the afternoon.  So we were able to rest and sleep late and rest after the exertions of the concert last night.  We did manage to get down to breakfast before it closed up just before ten, but did most of our grooming after eating and basically just relaxed at the hotel until we were ready to go for our tour.  We decided that just taking a taxi to the Visitor's Center where we were to meet the tour would be easier than bus to Monza train station,train to Milan, and then cab or metro from Milan station to Visitor's Center and that even though that would likely be cheaper, it would be four fares and splitting a taxi four ways wouldn't be that expensive.

We arrived at the meeting point for our tour over an hour ahead of time and, therefore, had time for a late lunch before the tour.  We found a small cafe, with an all-important gelateria, just around the corner.  Near the Sforza Castle in Milan, it was called Bar Castello.  We sat outside, but in the window near our table were several model castles and figurines depicting Templar knights.  I had a glass of the house white wine (I think everyone else had soft drinks) and Lisa and split a large and delicious turkey panini.  Rose had a pizza that was really good.  Of course, we had to get gelato.  I had the lemon flavour.  Citrus gelato is really more like sorbet than ice cream, but this was about the best lemon gelato//sorbet I have ever had.  A little tart and not too sweet.  Italy really is citrus heaven...

Teatro alla Scala

The tour was great.  Our guide was very knowledgeable about the history of Milan and had amusing anecdotes to tell, although Rose thought he was a little curt with people who had questions.  We were a group of 25 and he did a good job of keeping us all together crossing the busy streets of Milan and, later, riding the metro!  We all had radios and headphones on which frequency he broadcast, so we could hear him and follow directions even if we lost sight briefly.  The first stop was La Scala Opera House - arguably the most famous opera house in the world.  Built in the 1770's, Verdi's first opera was performed there and Toscanini was the music director for a long time.  We actually got to see the seating gallery, which is usually impossible due to the rehearsal schedule.  The museum at La Scala contains a number of paintings of composers and performers.  Two of the most memorable things were a sword Napoleon gave to a diva after being enamored by her performance and a piano that once belonged to Hungarian composer Franz Liszt.

Lisa and I at the Galleria

On the way to the Duomo (cathedral) in Milan, we passed through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuale II.  Built in the 1860.s and decorated with some beautiful mosiacs, it is the oldest shopping gallery in Italy.  It is packed with restaurants and high-end stores.  Even today all the shops have the same, uniform facades.  

The Duomo is the largest church in Christendom, second only to the Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican.  Just inside the entrance, there is a meridian line.  When a ray of light shining through and aperture in the roof hits the line, it is solar noon.  It is still an active house of worship and decorum in a Church in Italy is a bit more conservative than in the U.S.  Knees and shoulders must be covered to enter.  If they are not, then you have to purchase a paper drape to wear while in the building.

Rose, Maria, Me, and Lisa
at Duomo di Milano

From the Duomo we had to take the metro to Santa Maria delle Grazie to see da Vinci's Last Supper.  The trains were crowded as, by now, it was the end of the workday.  With the headsets, though, we could hear the guide telling us where to get off the train and no one got separated from the group or missed the stop.  We arrived around 6 PM and had an entrance time for the painting of 6.15.  The painting itself is a fresco on the wall of what was the monastery's refectory, where the Dominican brothers took their meals.  It takes up most of the wall and is enormous. You have to show your passport and be on "the list" to get into see the Last Supper and even if you don't do it as part of a tour, some sort of pre-booking is a must as during their open hours, they only allow 25 people at a time in the refectory for no more than 15 minutes.  This is to protect the painting from heat and humidity.  In fact, not only is the room humidified and temperature controlled, but you as a guest have to spend several minutes in an antechamber that cools you before enter the refectory!  The number limit is, of course, to limit the aggregate body heat and the fifteen minutes is to get you out again before you are radiating as much body heat as you would have before cooling.  Fifteen minutes sounds brief, but it was enough time for our guide to give a brief spiel about it and to have several minutes to sit and contemplate the majesty of the work in relative quiet and solitude.  Because only our tour group was in there at the time and because the painting is so large, there was plenty of space to spread out, plenty of space for taking pictures (allowed so long as you don't use a flash), and it was easy to see the entire work.  In many ways it was a much more enjoyable experience than standing packed like sardines in sea of people in the Sistine Chapel straining your neck to look at Michelangelo's ceiling.

Of course, everyone has seen pictures or reproductions of da Vinci's Last Supper.  Growing up, my grandparents used to have a relief of the Last Supper on the wall in their hallway in which the configuration of the Apostles was modelled after da Vinci's work.  In the five centuries since it was completed, it has become the standard image of Christ's last meal on Earth.  It is hard, therefore, to put into words, the majesty of seeing the work in person.  The best way, perhaps, is to contrast it with the other painting in the room.  On the opposite wall of refectory is another contemporary fresco depicting the Crucifixion.  It's very good (certainly better than I, or most of the readers of this blog, could produce) and the artist who painted it was obviously very talented.  However, the style is more medieval in appearance with inconsistent scale and lack of depth perception.  By contrast, da Vinci's work is precise in scale and symmetry.  Despite the conceit of having everyone sitting on the same side of the table, it employs perspective well, with the window at the back of the room smaller than objects in the foreground.  Every detail of faces, posture, muscles, the rippling of cloth, light and shadow is perfect and so real that if you stand close to da Vinci's painting you feel like YOU are in the upper room and YOU are seated across from Jesus and the Apostles.

The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci

Without getting into all the conspiracy theories about hidden sacrilegious messages in the work, one thing I find fascinating about the content of the work is what da Vinci chose to depict.  Most depictions of the Last Supper depict the consecration of bread and wine (even Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali was conventional in this regard), but Leonardo chose to depict the moment at which Christ announced to his Apostles that he was about to be betrayed.  The chaos of the scene is the compilation of varied human reactions to such a shocking pronouncement that range from anger to denial, to disbelief, to confusion.  This milieu of responses adds to the realism of the work.  It truly is a masterpiece.

Unfortunately, our tour guide sort of ushered us out of Santa Maria without the opportunity to look in the gift shop.  Although we had taken our own photos, Rose wanted a postcard depicting the Last Supper to have a better quality image.  Our plans for the following day entailed an early start, so we decided that rather than hang out in Milan for the evening we would take a cab back to the hotel and have dinner somewhere near the hotel.  Our guide had pointed the way to a taxi stand not far from Santa Maria and one difference between Milan and Monza is that taxis actually show up at taxi stands in Milan.  We did not have to wait very long for a ride.  We had decided to eat at Villa Realle again (Rose and Maria had not been there because they were not with us the first night in Monza) and took the cab straight there.  It was a lovely cap to the day.  As much as Lisa and I travel on our own, there is something to be said for shared adventures with friends and I really enjoyed the evening at the restaurant.  I think I was the only one who enjoyed the meal, however.  Lisa had a sausage and pasta dish that was different from the one I ordered on Monday and in more of a cream sauce.  Rose had pizza, but at that point I think she was getting tired of eating it.  Maria and I had the mixed grill, which was a little bit of a mixed bag.  The sausage was only OK.  The beef, however,was delicious - similar to the amazing beef Lisa and I shared in Florence over a decade ago.  And the chicken practically fell off the bone.  Limoncello and espresso again provided an excellent nightcap before walking back to the hotel.

July 25, 2023 - Monza, Italy

 Concert Day.  The entire trip was organized around the Bruce Springsteen concert scheduled for tonight, but we woke up in the morning not even knowing if it was going to happen due to trees down and other damage in the park where it was to be held from yesterday's storms.  Lisa and I were heading down to breakfast when we received a call from Rose and Maria explaining that they had heard the concert was still on and they were on their way to Monza (their friend in Milan was driving them to the hotel).  

We also learned, that the concert was a much bigger event than we realized.  Monza has a large walled park (actually the largest walled park in Europe, encompassing 2 and 2/3 square miles) that contains the Monza Circuit, a Formula One auto racing track.  Initially, we thought the concert was going to be at the track, but it was actually in a large open field adjacent to the track.  The park, however, opened at 8 in the morning and they had decided to make an all-day festival of it with food trucks and such just outside the concert venue.  While we didn't want to be there all day, we realized that we should go in the afternoon because with a concert of this size, you can't just show up ten minutes before the event and walk in.  I really got the sense that in 2023, Bruce Springsteen is even more popular in Europe than he is in the United States.  He was playing to enormous crowds all over Europe and the best estimate we saw of the attendance at Monza was about 70,000.  Every time we mentioned the show to people in Italy, their pupils would dilate and they would exclaim with awe, "The Boss."

First, we had to get there.  The concert area as about a mile walk in the park from the entrances to the park and our hotel about 2 miles from the entrances.  As the concert venue was in the middle of such a large park, I don't think it was possible to stay much closer.  The hotel had no shuttle to the venue (we thought they might as they advertised an airport shuttle and we figured many of the hotels in Monza probably had shuttles when there were races, but then again maybe not).  There were supposed to be shuttles from the Monza train station to and from the venue.  The Monza train station was about a mile and a half from the hotel.  A long walk, and not ideal, but doable if need be.  However, we learned at the desk at our hotel that there were no shuttles.  The additional complication was that in addition to the four of us, Rose's cousin Elena (who lives not far from Milan/Monza) was going to the concert with us and we had to figure out not only how we were getting there, but how to meet up with her.  Elena was coming into Monza by train (so initially, of course, we thought we'd meet at the train station and catch one of the shuttles to the concert together).  Rose and Elena were exchanging texts to coordinate our rendezvous as the situation evolved (or rather, as it turned out, Rose was sending texts that Elena was neither reading nor responding too) and ultimately decided that we would get a cab from the hotel to the park and meet Elena there.  The front desk at the hotel called a taxi for us and it was still early enough in the afternoon that was not too hard to get one.  After a few minutes in the lobby, we stepped outside to await the imminent arrival of our taxi when, as we stood there chatting, up walks Elena!  She had not looked at any of Rose's texts and had walked to our hotel from the train station.  Our taxi arrived very shortly after Elena and she very nearly missed us entirely.  Now that we had become a group of five, instead of four, the cab couldn't take all of us.  The cab driver left in a huff while we pondered what to do.  There was apparently a bus stop near the hotel, but the reliability was unknown.  Ultimately, Elena decided to walk to the park and the rest of us would take a cab and meet her there.  Crazy, in my opinion, since Elena had just walked from the train station, but what else were we to do?  The hotel was able to provide maps of the park and Elena showed us on the map which entrance to meet her.

Oddly enough, this plan worked reasonably well.  I was amazed at how quickly Elena caught up with us. There was a small snack bar just inside the park with shaded tables where we decided to grab a bite (Pretty good paninis) before entering the concert venue area.  There was an area called a, "comfort zone," outside the concert ground itself where there were all sorts of different food trucks.  You had to exchange euro for tokens to buy food or drink either there or inside the venue, although there were much more limited options inside.  Supposedly this area was going to be open for additional revelry for a couple of hours after the concert.

The only word I can use to describe the event from here on is bedlam.  Complete and utter bedlam.  In the comfort zone there were lines for the tokens (which we bought some of), lines for food and beverages and horrifically long lines to get into the concert venue.  Having just eaten and seeing the lines to get into the concert, we decided to get in line.  People were just joining the line randomly at any point rather than find the end, and ultimately we followed suit.  There were no seats or chairs in the venue, it was just an open field.  There were sections - Pit A, Pit B, Pit C1, Pit C2, and Pit C3.  Perhaps the lines for A and B pits brought people out on the field closer to the stage, but once we entered there no staff directing anyone to their proper section and it just seemed to be a complete free-for-all to find as spot of grass to stay on.  I think I have attended my last concert without a seat.  I simply couldn't sit on the ground comfortably and had to stand the entire time.  My legs and feet were sore by the time the show was over.  I wasn't even sure I could make it through the whole thing and at one point, Lisa and I discussed going back to the comfort zone where there were some picnic tables to sit down.  I really didn't want to do that, because I didn't want to miss the show and I was afraid we would never be able to find the rest of the group again if we separated.  At one point, I left the group to get food.  Finding them again in the crowd was challenging, and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to.

Despite the endurance required, the concert was fantastic.  Springsteen puts on a great show.  His voice still sounds great, even in his 70's.  I suppose the key of some songs was lowered, but not so as you would notice.  The band played tight and sounded great.  While I have never been the biggest Springsteen fan, his music is good, solid, rock and roll and very listenable.  Springsteen himself has great stage presence and is a charismatic performer.  It is easy to see (and hear) why he draws such big crowds.  Most of songs that I was familiar with he played toward the end of the show, which rejuvenated my weary legs and the end of the set and encore were amazing.  Of note, he did not play, "Born in the USA," in Italy, but so many classics were in the set: Glory Days, Born to Run, Dancing in the Dark, etc...

Lisa (lower left), Rose (lower right),
Maria (middle left), Elena (midde right),
and me (back) ready to see The Boss

Leaving the concert proved more difficult than getting there.  It must have taken an hour or more just to get out of the concert area.  Everyone was funneled out of a single exit, all 70,000 people, which created a horrendous bottle neck.  I have never walked (spent most of the time standing) so slowly in my life.  Normally, I don't panic in crowds and initially this was very orderly but I started to get a bit nervous when fans, who had been drinking, began getting impatient and yelling.  Things could have gotten very dangerous very quickly if pushing or shoving had started, but fortunately things remained orderly.  I Have no idea if the "comfort zone," remained open as they didn't allow us to exit back that way.  On several occasions we asked staff about transportation and were told simply to walk back to the hotel.  Elena's husband had driven to our hotel pick her up but he couldn't pick us up at the park because they had closed streets to regular traffic to reduce congestion!  We sat for a bit just outside the park, some used the restroom at a nearby pub.  We had already walked two miles across the park and back and had been on our feet for hours.  At the end of the day (and it was the end of the day) there was nothing to do but walk the two more miles back to the hotel.  We tried Uber and waiting at a bus stop for a bit without success.  After about another mile hike, maybe slightly further, we ran into Elena's husband Luca, who had driven as close as he could and was looking for us.  So, we were spared walking the last mile or so.  Still, but the time we got back it was, think about 2 in the morning and we were exhausted.  I don't know how Elena did it because she not only walked what we walked, she had also walked from the train station to our hotel and from the hotel to the concert!  Fortunately, our only plans for the following day weren't until late afternoon!

July 24, 2023 - Monza, Italy

Today we traveled from Naples to Monza in the north of Italy.  Monza is a separate city or town, but it is so close to Milan, it blends nearly imperceptibly with it.  There we will meet up with and spend the rest of our trip with our Italian friend Rose and Rose's friend/cousin, Maria (Maria is the daughter of a close family friend that Rose always thought of as an aunt and they grew up like cousins to each other).  Rose and Maria both came to Italy almost a full week before Lisa and I and had been visiting family in southern Italy (where it was even hotter and less air conditioned than our experience in Naples!) and flew into Milan this evening.  We were renting a hotel room for four in Monza.  We were staying in Monza instead of Milan because it was close enough to Milan to still sightsee there but this trip began when Rose, who is quite possibly the world's biggest Bruce Springsteen fan, started talking about seeing Bruce Springsteen in Italy.  Lisa and I had a great time in 2007 seeing Genesis in England and thought that sounded like fun.  We had been to different parts of Italy before and both really liked the idea of seeing different parts of the country with Italian friends (both Rose and Maria speak Italian, which was very helpful), and so we agreed to come along!  The concert is scheduled for tomorrow night.

It's about a five-hour train ride from Naples to Milan and they left about every hour.  From there we still had to get to our hotel in Monza (options included changing trains for Monza, but the Monza train station was still a mile and half from the hotel or 20-30 minute cab ride from the Milan train station to the hotel).  Although Rose and Maria weren't scheduled to land in Milan until 8, we wanted to get in more around dinner time and check into the room (the reservation was in our name), so we really wanted to get a train around midday.

We had planned to go to the archaeology museum in Naples this morning.  It opened at nine, but we agreed last night that we probably didn't need to be there right when it opened.  We didn't set an alarm and didn't really sleep that late, but perhaps a little later than ideal due to exhaustion after yesterday and some residual jet lag.  Anyway, by the time we finished breakfast, we started to feel like we'd be a little rushed at the museum and we decided to just go to the train station and figure out the train to Milan.  Fortunately, we were now familiar with the main train station and tickets for the national rail lines can be purchased from machines that can be switched to English, so it wasn't too difficult.  We bought premium class tickets, rather than standard, to be in a car with some space for luggage and were able to get seats on the 11.30 train.  I had read that there would be snack and beverage service on the train and Lisa and I bought ham and cheese panini sandwiches at the train station to take with us for lunch on the way to Milan.  The train was spacious and comfortable and it was a pleasant ride.  The snack service included a small bag of potato chips and water that complimented our sandwiches well and the latter were quite tasty.  We also later bought soft drinks at the adjacent bar car.  

Lisa and I on the train to Milan

We got into the train station in Milan around 4 PM.  The train station in Milan was gorgeous, evoking the style of old European train stations and with some decor using ancient Roman imagery.  It was immense, chock full of stores and, we would find out later, attached to an amazing food market.  We figured with our suitcases it would be easier to catch a cab to the hotel in Monza right from the Milan train station rather than transfer to what was probably as smaller commuter train without luggage space only to still have to get a cab from the Monza station to our hotel.  This turned out to be a good decision on multiple levels. The first being that severe storms had rolled through the area a couple of days prior to our arrival and another one just prior to our arrival.  There were trees down all over the region.  Our cab driver had to detour around a closed road due to fallen trees and we had no idea whether or not trees might have impacted train service.  We would also learn later that cabs are much easier to come by in MIlan than Monza and we had no trouble getting a cab.

The difference between northern Italy and Naples is large.  In the north, traffic is orderly and behaves established laws and norms.  Busy crosswalks have signals.  Milan, in particular, feels like any central European city.  It is the financial capital of Italy.  Its city centre is clean, it has a metro that goes everywhere, and cabs are plentiful.  By contrast to Milan, Monza seems a little sleepy - there is one cab company, but not enough cabs to make it easy to get one.  There are buses in Monza, but we did not use them.  The area around the train station in Monza seemed a little sketchy.  It was also about 10-15 degrees (Fahrenheit) cooler in northern Italy and very comfortable.

The hotel (Hotel Helios) was nice.  Very modern and the staff were wonderfully nice and helpful.  The included breakfast was a fantastic continental breakfast (freshly cut ham and tomatoes were among the most savory items) and I discovered another delicious beverage: ace (pronounced Ah-Chey) juice.  Bright orange in colour it is a combination of orange juice, lemon juice, and carrot juice.  It is called ace because it is rich in vitamins A, C, and E.  Both the cappucino and the cafe americano were fantastic.  The room was a little funky.  We knew it would have one double bed and two twins.  However, without paying attention to photos online, I thought it would have a room with a double, which Lisa and I would use, and a room with two singles, that Maria and Rose could use.  Instead, there was a small room right inside the door with one twin and a back room with the double and another twin, so we decided I would have the front room and the ladies could stay in the back room.

We learned on arrival that because of road closures and house damage from the storms, several of the restaurant staff for the hotel did not come in and the restaurant was closed.  We also learned that more storms were expected later than night, but weather for tomorrow, the day of the concert, was expected to be good. 

Specials at Ristorante Villa Realle

The hotel was not near city centre (we chose it for proximity to the concert venue as well as the availability of a room for four - most Air BNBs wanted to us to rent for the whole week, Saturday to Saturday) and without much obvious nearby and the hotel restaurant closed, I wasn't sure what we would do for dinner.  I asked at the desk for a recommendation and the gentleman at the desk asked if we wanted pizza or something else.  After pizza on two consecutive nights, we wanted something else and he recommended a local restaurant about a ten-minute walk away called Villa Realle.  It was a real rustic restaurant for locals, but very good.  The fresh Italian bread they served with the meal was amazing.  They did have English menus, although the specials board brought to our table (pictured left) was only in Italian.  I had sausage and pasta in a tomato and black pepper sauce that was really good.  Lisa ordered the spaghetti on the specials menu presuming the, "ragu di polipo," was some kind of red sauce although neither of us knew what polipo meant.  Her dish was very good.  I really liked it, although not as well as mine.  When I tried it, however, it had a little bit of a briny taste, like seafood.  I asked Lisa if she liked and she said she thought it was good, but I am not sure she was enthusiastic about it.  I didn't want to trade entrees entirely, but I gave her a fair amount of mine and ate a fair amount of hers because I wanted to make sure she had enough to eat if she really didn't like hers that much.  We found out later that polipo is octopus, which was used as a flavouring for the sauce!  As other diners filled the place, many got various grilled meats, which looked and smelled wonderful and which the restaurant was known for.  We capped the meal with some excellent limoncello and espresso.  As I paid for the meal, we learned from the owner that he used to have family that lived in Baltimore!  Small world.

We had heard from Rose and Maria earlier that their flight into Milan would be delayed about an hour.  Around 9 we were walking back to the hotel and were no more than two minutes from making it back before the heavens opened up and in a torrential downpour and we were completely drenched!  We didn't envy Rose and Maria trying to land in that mess.  We learned later from Rose that their pilot had to circle above the storm for a bit, but when he landed that it was not very rough.  Unfortunately, once they landed in Milan they were told they couldn't get to Monza that night due to road closures from the storms.  They called to let us know and they were also hearing the concert might be cancelled due to trees down and storm damage in the park where Springsteen was supposed to play.  They were going to be staying with a friend in Milan that night and in the morning we would figure out whether they would come to Monza or we would all find another hotel in Milan since everything else we planned to do for the week was basically in Milan.

So, if your keeping score: Pompeii tour nixed.  Museum in Naples nixed.  Springsteen concert questionable.  Vacation not getting off to a great start so far.

July 23, 2023 - Naples, Italy

 Author's note: First trip overseas in four years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and I forgot to take a notebook to journal my impressions in.  Jotted a few notes and figured I would just blog it electronically upon my return.

Lisa and I arrived in Naples late yesterday afternoon.  We flew out of Dulles in Northern Virginia and had a long layover in Paris, pushing our arrival back to late in the day yesterday.  Naples was complete chaos.  Riding in the cab to our hotel, there did not appear to be any traffic laws (and very few traffic signals) whatsoever.  The streets had no lanes and our driver frequently pulled over to the far left to pass in the face of oncoming traffic!  In our two days in Naples, we only found one pedestrian crosswalk that had a signal, the rest were a bit of a free for all.  Naples is old; in a rundown sort of way, not in the preserved historical way of Rome or Florence; and dirty.  Other than an immaculate and modern train station, there was trash everywhere.  Our hotel (B and B Hotel Napoli) was right on the Piazza Garibaldi, a large concrete covered public space that was active with people all hours of the day and night and smelled of urine.  However, the location served our purposes as it was right near the train station and the hotel itself was nice enough.  Clean and the staff were pleasant.  Bathroom, and particularly the shower, were a bit claustrophobic, but sometimes that is par for the course in Europe.  Breakfast wasn't included in our booking, but it wasn't very expensive and it was serviceable.  The hotel did have a pretty cool roof top deck that afforded good views of the city.  Naples was also HOT.  Temperatures in the mid-90's (Fahrenheit) with head indices in the 100's.  It was pleasant enough in the evening when we checked in to our hotel, but during the day it was brutal.

Last night, we had dinner at a 100-year-old pizzeria called Trianon.  What else were we going to eat in

Pizza and Lacryma Christi Rosso

Naples, besides pizza?  It was invented there.  Trianon is right across the street from a more famous pizzeria called L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele, which has apparently become quite a tourist destination since Julia Roberts filmed a scene from, Eat, Pray Love, there.  Many online reviewers (and Rick Steves, apparently) describe Trianon as just as good and with less wait.  Both were about a 15 minute walk from the hotel and, sure enough, people were lined up outside L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele and we walked right into Trianon and sat down.  The pizza did not disappoint.  Even in the United States, Neapolitan style pizza is my favourite - thin in the center, thick but airy around the edges, simple sauce of crushed San Marzano tomatoes, lightly topped with just enough cheese.  The pizza at Trianon was amazing, and easily the best pizza I have ever had.  We ordered a margherita (tomato, cheese, basil) and added some Italian sausage (which was fantastic).  We both drank the house red wine, which was a local varietal that I was not familar with called Lacryma Christi.  I believe that translates as, "Tears of Christ," and it is made from grapes grown in the volcanic soil on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius.  It was quite good.  There is a white variety too, but I did not have a chance to try it while we were in Naples.

Old and rundown, dirty, chaotic, hot; I haven't painted the prettiest picture of Naples and one may wonder why we went there at all.  It wasn't just to have the best pizza in the world, but also because it was convenient to the archaeological site of Pompeii.  Pompeii was about 45 minutes away by train.  We had booked for today with a tour company to have an archaeologist guided tour of both Pompeii and Herculaneum, the two ancient Roman cities preserved for centuries under the ashes after the eruption of nearby Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D.  This turned out to be a bit of a fiasco, mostly of our own making.  We had booked the tour for 10 AM this morning.  We told the concierge at the hotel last night that we were doing this today and he concurred that taking the train would be easy.  He informed us that the entrance to the archaeological site was only about 100 meters from the train station and he looked up train times to let us know what time we should catch the train to be there in plenty of time.  

So, this morning, we set off for the train station.  It was a bit hard to navigate not knowing Italian (and, it turns out we were never in the main part of the train station that morning), but we managed to find a stand where we could buy train tickets to Pompeii (they were only 3,80 euro) and were directed to the proper platform. The train came more or less when our hotel concierge said it would and we boarded.  It was actually a very nice train with comfortable and spacious seats, luggage space, and air conditioning.  Seemed more like a passenger train than a commuter train.  After we arrived in Pompeii and as soon as we left the station, we saw signs pointing the archaeological site.  Easy.  It was a bit further than 100 meters, perhaps a half-mile or so, and it took about ten minutes to walk there, but still we arrived in plenty of time.  At the gate we passed through a metal detector and a security check but then in front of the entrance I didn't see our tour group.  As it got closer to 10, I started to get nervous that we were in the wrong place.  I opened my confirmation and it stated we needed to be at the Porta Marina entrance to Pompeii, across the street from a restaurant called Hortus.  That's not where we were.  We asked the security guard where that entrance and were told that we needed to exit and turn down to the right, "ten minute walk."

At this point, we are going to be late so I sent a message through the booking app, with my mobile number that we went to wrong entrance but were heading to the correct one now (I never received a call or text back and it was only that evening I discovered I had an email from the company).  We figured we'd only be 10-15 minutes late and if they knew we were coming, they might wait that long.  Well, it was not a ten minute walk.  It was more like a 20 minute walk.  The correct entrance was all the way on the opposite side of archeaological site and, as we would learn later, the ancient city of Pompeii was large - a city of 20,000 people.  It was about another mile walk from the wrong entrance we went to first to the correct entrance.  On top of the half-mile from the train station.  The temperature was already 94 F with a heat index of 103.  And it wasn't even noon.  By the time we arrived at the correct entrance we were tired, I had already consumed half of the bottle of water I had bought, and we were now 20-25 minutes late for our tour.  

Ruins of Pompeii

At the proper entrance we saw people holding signs for our tour company.  Needless to say, by now our tour had started without us.  But, the people outside gave us our passes to entire the park, a picture of our guide, and a map of the site.  They should us on the map where they thought the group would be and told us that in the event we didn't catch up to the group that we should meet back at the main gate at 12.30 to catch the shuttle that would take us to Herculaneum for the second part of the tour.  Just beyond the entrance it is all uphill until you reach an initial ancient piazza.  After walking a mile and a half just to find the right entrance and then up the hill inside the entrance, in the heat, I was exhausted.  It was the closest I had ever felt to heat exhaustion.  I needed to sit down and wasn't sure if I was going to be able to continue.  We never did find our group.  We did explore a little bit on our own, maybe for about an hour or so, and then decided we needed to get out of the heat.  While not the archaeologist guided experience we wanted, seeing the ruins at Pompeii was still pretty cool.  The stones you walk on up the hill are pumice - likely they have been there for

The mountain (Vesuvius) is out

almost 2,000 years since Vesuvius erupted.  The rooves of houses are gone (as we learned from a passing tour group, they collapsed under the weight of rock and ash, but otherwise the city was totally preserved after being buried in ash.  In addition to the initial piazza with its statues, we saw private residences and a small amphitheater (there is a much larger one at the other end of the site where we initially tried to enter, but we didn't make it down there).  Most of the residents tried to shelter in their homes to wait out the eruption, but by the time the rooves started to give under the weight of the ash, there was too much ash barricading their doors and they couldn't escape.

After our brief survey of the ruins, we exited the site and walked across the street to the aforementioned Hortus restaurant to hydrate.  The seating was outdoors, but the combination of natural shade from trees, cover from a tarpaulin, and fans and mist-machines, it was quite cool and comfortable.  We made too important discoveries at Hortus.  The first was spremuta mista - a Neapolitan beverage consisting of freshly squeezed orange juice and freshly squeezed lemon juice.  Where has this been all my life?  So refreshing on a hot day!  Anyway, after two of those and a bottle of water, I was feeling much better.  After sitting and chatting for a while, I asked Lisa what time it was.  It was 12.15.  Time to head back across the street to meet up with our group and go to Herculaneum for the second part of the tour.  We talked about whether or not to bail on the tour.  Neither of us wanted to as we paid for an archaeologist-guided tour, but the heat was really oppressive.  Herculaneum is a small site, but it is closer to the mountain and likely hillier.  My biggest concern was trying to keep up with a tour guide in the heat. Ultimately, we decided to forgo the rest of the tour.

Which brings me to the second discovery.  While we sat recuperating, a train went by just behind the restaurant.  When I googled how to get back to Naples from there, the directions were to walk to a different train station that the one we came into and that was only 100 meters from the restaurant (so about 100 meters from the archaeological park entrance that we were supposed to go to (matching what our hotel concierge told us).  As it turns out, the train we caught at this station was a completely different train.  The price was similar (3 euro) but this was more like a city metro train, not a comfortable passenger train.  As best as I could tell, the metro didn't go to the train station we arrived at and that train didn't stop where we picked this one up. In other words - two different trains to two different stops in Pompeii, one of which (the one we took back to Naples, but unfortunately was not the one we took in) would have taken us right to the entrance we needed and we would have shown up there on time and not having exhausted ourselves prior to even starting the tour!

The other thing we were planning to do in Naples was tour the archaeological museum.  It was open until 7 PM, so we thought about going this afternoon (Sunday) since we were heading back early.  It looked like we could transfer to the metro once back in Naples to ride out to the museum.  But, the train ride back was hot and the train station was hot.  We were still hot, tired, and a bit jet-lagged, this being our first full day in Italy.  So, once we got back to the main train station in Naples, which was by our hotel, we decided to stick to our original plan of going to the museum Monday morning before catching an afternoon train to Milan.  Coming off the return train we did walk through the main train station and realized this was where we needed to go to get out train to Milan, not wherever we were in the morning.

After chilling (literally) in our hotel room for a bit and checking out the rooftop deck, we sought out another pizza place for dinner (when in Naples).  After walking to two different places reasonably close to the hotel that were well reviewed on Yelp that were closed, we happened upon a place right next to the hotel that had just opened (Ristorante Pizzeria Aladin).  The owners were middle eastern and they had Neapolitan pizza and kabobs.  Despite not being a purely Italian restaurant or one of the the classic Neapolitan pizzerias, the pizza was still excellent.  I am not sure there is a such thing as a bad pizza in Naples.

Lisa and I on the roof of our hotel in Naples

Unfortunately, our plans went awry today.  It made me wonder if we were, "off our game," not having done international travel in four years.  The situation could have been avoided if: 

1) I had paid more attention to the confirmation and researched how to get to the right entrance - which might have led me to realize we needed a certain train to a certain station.

2) We had paid the extra to include transportation from your Naples hotel when we booked the tour

3) We had stayed in Pompeii itself rather than Naples.  I didn't think there was anything in Pompeii other than the archaeological site, but there is a sizable modern town of Pompeii and we could have stayed in a hotel more convenient to the tour rather than try to get there from Naples.

4) We had been smarter about not trying to do things in southern Italy in the summer heat and had either gone somewhere in northern Italy (Bologna, Torino) or Switzerland before going to Milan...

March 22, 2013 - San Diego, California

AUTHOR'S NOTE: 2013 found us back in San Diego for the American Academy of Neurology Meeting.  As always, it gave us the opportunity to catch up with some residency friends - Dean, Dan, and John.  Unfortunately, it was the first Academy Meeting since residency that our friends Billy and Amy were unable to attend.

Dinner at Roy's with Dean Tuesday night (3/19) was nice (AUTHOR'S NOTE: Roy's is a high end chain founded by Hawaiian chef Roy Yamaguchi.  With locations in San Francisco, San Diego, and downtown Los Angelos, it was a pretty common dinner spot for West Coast conferences - although they now have one right here in Baltimore).  I had the usual Ahi tuna.  Lisa had the halibut.  I don't remember what Dean had.  Very nice to see him again, he is an interesting guy

On the deck of a Soviet Foxtrot class sub

Wednesday (3/20), I had a class in the afternoon (that Dean was in!) on the history of neurology, about lessons we have learned about neurology from war injuries.  In the morning, Lisa and I went to the San Diego maritime museum.  The museum isn't a building, but rather a flotilla of historic ships that you can tour.  We went on the three main ones - HMS Surprise, a replica of an 18th century British warship that was used in the film Master and Commander; The Star of India, which is the oldest merchant ship that still goes to sea; and the B-39, a Foxtrot class diesel-electric Soviet submarine.  The Star of India was built in 1863 and began life in the tea trade.  It was converted to a passenger ship to take emigrants to New Zealand.  Later, it was used in the lumber trade between California and Australia.  Finally, it was sold to an American company who renamed it Star of India (original name was Euterpe) and used it in the salmon trade between Alaska and San Francisco.  By far, the most interesting of ships was the Soviet submarine.  I was 18 when the Berlin wall came down, signalling the beginning of the end of the Cold War.  Never in my wildest dreams as kid could I have imagined standing on the deck of a Soviet submarine and touring the inside.  Although bigger than the USS Torsk, the WWII era sub in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, it is still cramped.  The enlisted hot bunk and an area where the officers can meet, play cards, or eat also doubles as the ship's surgery!  We got some great pics of the torpedo room and on the deck.  Amazing.

Torpedo Room

The tour was self-guided.  In the Russian sub and on the Star of India there were lots of placards explaining things.  There were also guides on the Star of India that were available for questions.  We chatted with them for a while as they were quite pleasant full of old stories of ships and local celebs.  They seemed impressed that we were at their museum, all the way from Baltimore!

After the museum, we had a lovely lunch at Anthony's Seafood Grotto, which was right next door and written up in one of the guide books as a nice place.  The dining room was stunning, with a wall of windows that looked out over San Diego Bay.  Even though we weren't seated right by the window, we could still appreciate the view well from our table.  Our server, named M and M, was one of the most delightfully pleasant people I have ever met and the service was wonderful.  The food was excellent.  Hot rolls came with a dried tomato and garlic flavoured butter.  They had some smaller plates that were perfect for lunch.  Lisa and the grilled fish taco with cole slaw as her side.  The cole slaw was very good and had a mango dressing on top.  I had the tortilla-crusted tilapia with a side of steamed vegetables, which was lovely.  Washed it down with a draught of the local Karl Strauss Red Trolley Ale.

For dinner that night (after my class), we went to an Indian restaurant in the Gaslamp District called Royal India.  Quite good.  Excellent vegetable samosa (with fantastic mint chutney) and good naan.  I had the chicken tikka white wine curry (which turned out to be similar to chicken tikka masala) and Lisa had a coconut pineapple curry, which she was able to order mild.

Yesterday (3/21) I took the the day off from the conference and we rented a car and drove to La Jolla for the day.  The weather was gorgeous and it was an easy drive, although the rental car set us back $100.  After parking the car, we walked down to the water at La Jolla cove, also called the Children's Cove.  It is an inlet protected by a man made sea wall that serves as a refuge for what were either seals or sea lions (not entirely sure, but think seals).  There must have been 50-60 sunning themselves on the beach or on the rocks as we looked down from a park bench by the side of the road above the cove.  We hung out there for a bit before moving on and, frankly, the weather was so nice and view so relaxing, I could have sat there all day...

Seal sunning himself at La Jolla Cove

After the seals, we walked a half-mile up Girard Avenue and back, which seemed to be the main drag in La Jolla.  It is filled with shops and cafes.  The shops are as eclectic as Boston's Newburg Street - from high end to antiques to souvenir shops.  We browsed two book stores, one before lunch and one after.  The first bookstore was called Warwick's.  It sells new books but had an interesting selection.  Lisa nearly bought a book by a local author, but decided not to.  She couldn't find any San Diego set mysteries.

For lunch, we went to Rubio's!!!!  Rubio's is a west coast chain, but it originated in San Diego.  They serve fast, fresh Mexican food (same concept as Baja Fresh, a west coast chain that has spread east) and their fish taco is amazing.  It is the standard by which I measure all fish tacos (at least all fried fish ones).  We first had them at the baseball game in San Diego the last time we came (and a couple of other times on that trip) and I had one the last time I was in San Francisco as well.  Battered and fried Alaskan cod, cabbage, white sauce, and a squeeze of lime juice...  Wonderful!  I had the two fish taco platter (with chips and black beans) and washed it down with a Stone IPA, brewed in North San Diego County.  Lisa had one fish taco and a side of chips.

After lunch, we went to the second bookstore, D.G. Wills.  Mr. Wills (D.G.) was there and was quite a character.  Although he didn't talk to us much, he chatted up a storm with a couple from Chicago.  The bookshelves extend all the way up to a high ceiling and, although I missed it, there was even a secret room.  He had a mixture of new and used books with an emphasis on antiques or collectible editions (vintage, first edition, and/or leather bound editions).  I did manage to find a bargain copy of Fulton Sheen's Life of Christ.  He had a lot of the Gryphon Editions classics of Medicine series (leather bound), but no good neurology titles in that series.

After D.G. Wills, we had a cup of tea next door at a place called Pannikin Coffee and Tea, which I gathered was one of the few remaining locations of what used to be a local chain.  The tea was quite nice.  Lisa had an English breakfast tea, I had a Ceylon tea, and we sat in glorious California sunshine on a large outdoor patio while listening to 80's music they had playing overhead.

After tea, we walked the half-mile back to the car, browsed a t-shirt shop and stopped for gelato (Lisa had strawberry and I had tiramasu - good, but we've had better), before driving back to downtown San Diego and returning the rental. All in all, a delightful day.

Last night we went to a microbrew pub called Karl Strauss Brewery in Little Italy with Dean, Dan, and John.  The food was average, but the beer was good and the camaraderie excellent - really great to see those guys!

Today I had a class in the afternoon, but we booked a whale watching tour for this morning.  Again we had beautiful weather.  A local aquarium provided guides and our guide, Stephanie, was very knowledgeable.  Apparently grey whales migrate from the Arctic to lagoons in Mexico to spawn- a 10,000+ mile migration!  The San Diego whale tours take advantage of this migration (tours run from 12/26 to 4/14) to see whales and they issue you a voucher for a return trip if there are no sightings.  The grey whale is a baleen whale but actually a bottom feeder, filtering mouthfuls of arctic sea mud with its baleen for shrimp-like arthropods.  They spend six months feeding and growing and six months in the migration, mating, and birthing, during which they fast.  They are also covered with parastic barnacles and symbiotic whale lice.  The whale lice eat dead skin and reduce the itching caused by the barnacles.

While a few passengers experienced some moton sickness once we got out of San Diego Bay and onto the open ocean, Lisa and I found it quite pleasant.  We saw sea lions in the bay as well as the Coronado Navy Base.  Lisa got some shots of the USS Midway (a retired aircraft carrier we toured on our previous trip to San Diego) and the San Diego skyline from the water.  We saw a juvenile grey whale early in the tour, but a couple of hours later we were rewarded with getting a very close look at about 5-6 grey whales together (grey whales are about 40-50 ft long and weigh about 60,000 pounds).  We also saw several pods of dolpins and a kelp forest off Point Loma.  All in all, we had a very enjoyable cruise.

USS Midway

After the cruise and before my 3 PM class, we had lunch at the Fish Market (we ahd eaten there with Dan after touring the Midway on our last trip).  We sat outside on a narrow deck overlooking the bay, which was nice, but I think Lisa thought it was too much sun.  Lisa had a lobster roll and I had very tasty teriyaki mahi mahi sliders (2) with a side of excellent homemade cole slaw.  I washed mine down with a draught of Ballast Point Pale Ale (we learned on the cruise that Ballast Point was once the center of the whaling industry).  It was quite good, but I'd give a slight edge to Anthony's Fish Grotto.

September 30, 2012 - Quebec City, Canada

The weather today has been abysmal.  The wind has been ferocious, but we are making the best of it.

Breakfast is included in our hotel and it was a nice continental - toast, cereals, hard boiled eggs, croissants and, reminiscent of our hotel in Prague, ham and cheeses.  There were also fruit salad, apples, and oranges.  Coffee was good, but no good tea selection.

Funicular connecting upper town and lower town

 

After breakfast, it was overcast, cool, and very windy, but not yet raining.  We walked over, through the lower town, to the funicular.  I can't say enough how picturesque a little city Quebec is with its old cobblestone streets lined with shops, restaurants, and cafes.  For $2 CAD the funicular takes you up to the upper town (there are steps too, but it is well worth the $2 to avoid them) to a wide promenade in front of Quebec City's most recognizable landmark, the Victorian Era Chateau Frontenac hotel.  The view of the St. Lawrence, dotted with cruise ships, was stunning, even with the clouds and wind.  Although I think Lisa was getting frustrated with the picture taking because her hair was blowing everywhere.  I wore a hat, but I was constantly tightening the adjustable size, afraid in would blow off!

We wanted to tour the hotel, but with steady rain in the forecast for the afternoon we decided to tour the Citadel before it started to rain.

Fortifications at the Citadel

The Citadel was built on Cap Diamant (so named for the quartz deposits that Cartier initially thought were diamonds), the highest point in Quebec City and the narrowest point in the St. Lawrence river (from which Quebec derives its name, from the Algonquin word kebec, meaning where the river narrows), making it an ideal location for a fortification.  There are some 17th century French buildings on the site, but the current fort was constructed as a British fort in 1820 - out of concerns that the U.S. might try again to invade Canada.  It has the same "star" design with corner bastions as other forts of the era, such as Baltimore's Fort McHenry.  It is still an active military base, of sorts, as it is the headquarters of the Royal Canadian 22nd Regiment (although the whole regiment is no longer barracked there), a French-Canadian regiment formed in 1914 to fight in World War I.  The motto of the regiment is the motto of the province of Quebec, "Je me souviens," or, "I remember," - specifically, for the soldiers, that they remember their fallen comrades.  A cross from Vimy, France, stands as a memorial to the regiment's first victory and the thousands that lost their lives achieving it.

View of the St. Lawrence from the Citadel

The tour of the Citadel was very good and again the views of the city, the river, and the Chateau Frontenac were spectacular.  We were also there for the firing of the cannon, which happens every day at noon, so that was pretty cool.  It replaced a ball, visible from the river, that used to rise at noon and descend at 1 PM.  Both were originally to communicate to ships docked there accurate local time to which to set clocks to subsequently be able to find longitude at sea.  Unfortunately, the only do the changing of the guard ceremony in the summer (through mid-September).  After riots in the 1830's, internal defenses were built to fall back on, in case they (British soldiers) were attacked by Quebecois!  This culminates on a long promontory overlooking the river with an absolutely stellar view!  One the two official residences (the other, I presume, is in Ottawa) of the Governor-General of Canada (the British monarch's regent in Canada as officially the reigning monarch of England is still the head of state in Canada) is also in the Citadel.  You can tour this, but we did not.

View of Chateau Frontenac and Promenade from Citadel

There are a couple of museums about the regiment in the Citadel.  One had a display about the regiment in Afghanistan.  They were the last Canadian combat unit to leave Afghanistan last year (AUTHOR'S NOTE: U.S. and Allied Forces had invaded Afghanistan in 2002 for harboring the Al Qaida terrorists that planned the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.  As of this writing, U.S. Forces still occupied Afghanistan).  A large parade area in the center of the Citadel is used for ceremonies, including remembrance of the Battle of Vimy on April 9.

After touring the Citadel, we walked back toward Chateau Frontenac and found a lovely little place for lunch on Rue Saint-Louis called Restaurant Le Cavour.  They had Quebec beers from the Unibroue brewery - I had the Matilde, a red been which I had also had at dinner last night, and Lisa had their white beer.  Both were very good.  For lunch, Lisa had a cheese crepe in white sauce and I had the filet of sole lunch special which, in addition to the fish (which was tasty), included a delicious carrot soup and a small amount of carrots, mashed potatoes, wonderful stewed zucchini, and tea.

We finished lunch around 2.30 PM and by then it was starting to rain (and it has rained continuously since then).  We decided to save Chateau Frontenac for tomorrow because we paid for a pass to the Museum of Civilization when we went to the Museum of New France yesterday and it closed at 5 PM, wasn't open on Monday (tomorrow) and, although it is right across the street from our hotel, we probably wouldn't have time Tuesday morning before going to the airport.

The Museum of Civilization, like the Museum of New France, is visually stunning and engaging.  The emphasis is on Native American culture and the land and people of Quebec, but there is also a Japanese exhibit, an extra admission Samurai exhibit (which we did not see), and even a Nigerian art exhibit.  The Native American exhibit was very interesting and featured some wonderful artifacts and reproductions- including a 30-foot birch bark canoe!  The exhibit on the land and people of Quebec was visually the most spectacular.  As you walk from display to display, the display on the floor is the St. Lawrence and you are flanked on both sides by illuminated curtains depicting scenery of the landscape.  In the middle of each section is a round table with a video screen in the center and picture scenes around the edges with text information in both French and English.  No real museum pieces in this section on the land, but visually engaging displays.

After the museum, we chilled at the hotel for a while before finally deciding on a plan for dinner - which got nixed!  After much deliberation, we found a place that sounded good, was casual, had great reviews on Yelp and Travel Advisor, but most importantly was only 100 m from the hotel - a short walk in the nasty weather.  But, alas, it was closed.  Whether it was closed on Sundays or only open for lunch, I don't really know, but I think the former because some of the reviews sound like people went in the evening. 

Anyway, from there it was a short walk to the bistro next to the Asian place where he had dinner the night before (tasty, but not exactly what I would call Thai curry...  Had the same beer as I had at lunch today.  However the owner's daughter was running the place last night and she was delightful.  Came and chatted with us for a while and made us feel right at home!), which I had thought was the Belgian bistro we saw on the way to the hotel from the airport, but it was not.  It was called Bistro Brigante and was essentially a gastro pub.  Reminded me some of The Three Muses in New Orleans, although it had traditional table service (rather than order at the bar) and no live music.  It wasn't very crowded, so it was small, quiet and cozy, and really quite romantic - in fact there was a young French speaking couple there on a date.  The menu was eclectic with appetizers ranging from nachos to a real Greek salad and a local cheese plate.  We shared a cheese plate to start and, other than the blue cheese which neither of us like, it was quite good.  Then we both had the salmon, which was wonderful.  Topped with capers and olives and served on rice with some zucchini on the side.  There was some sauce on it, but not much, and the fish was delightful.  Lisa had another Cheval Blanc and I had the pilsner from a Quebec brewery called Innobrou, which was excellent - arguably the best beer I have had on the trip so far.  We did really well for meals today despite picking places at random!