Travelogue

Planning on Spain

2010-01-06T11:03:00.000-08:00

I'm knee deep in planning our upcoming trip to Spain and finding it all very difficult. This country frustrates all my attempts to plan out a logical route. It doesn't help that we are flying into and out of Madrid which lies smack in the middle of the country.

The distance between some places makes some travel times prohibitive. I've all ready had to make the decision that Santiago de Compostela is just to far away to logically fit in. That does frees up a couple of days for other places though.

Also, my parents are meeting us there for the first week or so, which means I have to coordinate with their schedules as well.

I have never had this much trouble trying to map out a route before. If anybody has any suggestions, please feel free to pass them along.

New York

2009-09-04T08:24:00.000-07:00

We're heading out on a red-eye flight tonight for our trip to New York. I plan to update my twitter account from the road and possibly a photo or two as well. If I get ambitious, I might even do a blog post or two.

Trolley

2009-06-28T15:26:00.000-07:00

This is one of my shots from our trip to Yakima. There is an old trolley that is still running as a tourist attraction, but it has a lot of history behind it. And it was a lot of fun.

Google City Tours

2009-06-26T14:56:00.000-07:00

Google has come out with a seriously cool new tool called Google City Tours.

You enter a starting address (or even just a city) and it finds points of interest and maps out a three day walking tour. You can add and subtract sites, but can't seem to change from walking to driving directions. Still I think this has great potential.

Now if they could combine this with the custom maps feature in Google Maps we'd really have something here.

Wine-soaked Weekend

2009-06-22T14:24:00.000-07:00

We are freshly back from our wonderful weekend in the Yakima Valley. We spent three days there and went to 13 different wineries and that was but scratching the surface. We will definitely be returning before too much time has passed.

And when we do we might just stay again at the Birchfield Manor. It was a little pricier than the places we normally stay, but we had a large jacuzzi tube in our room and the outstanding breakfast was included.

We also ate dinner there on Saturday night, and if you are in the area, I highly recommend the experience. The food was outstanding.

We took a short ride on the Yakima Valley Trolley as well, which was a lot of fun.

Our favorites of the wineries we visited were: Sagelands, Gilbert Cellars, and Windy Point. Although we bought some good wine at a few others as well (particularly the Grenache at the Alexandria Nicole Cellars.

I'll be posting pictures from our trip soon, so check back often.

Tripit.com

2009-06-10T11:20:00.000-07:00

I'm constantly on the look out for new tools to help me organize our travels both before and during a trip. And I've posted about my love of the iPhone and the many apps that make it useful on trips (here and here). Not to long ago I came across the site TripIt.com and instantly knew I would be adding it to my arsenal.

It's great for organizing all the different pieces of information that go into the make-up of a successful trip. And the best part is how much of it is automated. For example: after booking a flight, I forward the email confirmation from the airline to tripit.com and it formats it and adds it to my itinerary. The same with hotels if you are staying at a somewhat major chain (which we rarely do), otherwise you can add reservation information using a template. You can add notes, web site links, articles, events, car rentals maps, directions and more.

They also have a free app for the iPhone so you can access your itinerary on the go. And if you don't have an iPhone, you can print out your itinerary at home.

So if you are planning a trip, I recommend checking it out.

Update: I meant to say that as much as I love the web site, for viewing your itinerary, the iPhone app is actually better. It's easier to see where one day stops and the next starts. The web site could do with a little more definition between days.

More new pages

2009-05-25T15:55:00.000-07:00

I added pages for Portland and San Francisco.

New Pages Added

2009-05-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

I've slowly been working on the resource pages and will bring them online as they are complete.

So far I have the General, France, and Yakima pages done.

Also I have opened an Amazon store with books and products that I have read or used for our trips.

Washington Wine Country

2009-04-22T10:54:00.000-07:00

So I've just started planing our next mini vacation for June. We're planing to go to Yakima to tour around wine country. My main resource for this trip right now is the Wine Trails NW web site and book.

I really can't think why we have been there yet, it's only a two and a half hour drive from Seattle.

Cherry Blossoms

2009-04-15T13:20:00.000-07:00

We had a great trip down in the Bay Area as usual. I'm starting to clean up the photos and get them posted on Flickr.

The Mostly New aTravelogue.com

2009-04-03T08:31:00.000-07:00

As you can see I've updated the design of this site. It's not completely new, it's more an evolution of the previous design. Which is why I've given it the 3.5 designator instead of a 4.0.

I had to work pretty hard to get the new design up before we leave for San Francisco, so consequently, the resources pages are not yet available. I also added a "Breaking News" section to the top of the page which will feature the occasional Tweet while we are traveling. I will attempt to post a few times while we are in California so check back often.

I have done my best to insure that this site works on most browsers, however if you are still using IE6 it's long past time you updated to Firefox or IE7.

What's That Behind You?

2008-12-18T08:38:00.001-08:00

2008.10_Italy_1211

Originally uploaded by fauxbro.

The last few pictures from Rome are up. That's probably it for now, I'll reevaluate some of the ones I didn't put up later to see if they're worth cleaning up.

Rome

2008-12-08T10:48:00.001-08:00

2008.10_Italy_1089

Originally uploaded by fauxbro.

Put up the first batch of photos from Rome.

A few more to come and then fini!

Siena

2008-11-30T19:26:00.001-08:00

2008.09_Italy_996

Originally uploaded by fauxbro.

Added some pictures from Siena.

Only Rome to go and I'll be all done.

Cinqie Terre 02

2008-11-29T10:51:00.001-08:00

2008.09_Italy_901

Originally uploaded by fauxbro.

Added the rest of the Cinque Terre shots to Flickr.

Enjoy.

Cinque Terre 01

2008-11-27T06:47:00.001-08:00

2008.09_Italy_763

Originally uploaded by fauxbro.

Put up the first batch of photos from the Cinque Terre.

Lucca

2008-11-24T11:39:00.001-08:00

2008.09_Italy_633

Originally uploaded by fauxbro.

Put up a few more shots of our time in Lucca.

Next up is the Cinque Terre.

Lucca Panorama

2008-11-18T10:06:00.001-08:00

Lucca Panorama

Originally uploaded by fauxbro.

A panorama of the Roman amphitheater section of Lucca. On the other side of these buildings you can see where some of them were built around the old structure. I'll have some pictures of that up later.

In the meantime, click through for the (rather large) full sized version of this.

Ahh… Venice

2008-11-10T07:47:00.001-08:00

2008.09_Italy_468

Originally uploaded by fauxbro.

Added photos from Venice to flickr.

Still more to come.

Varenna

2008-11-01T09:31:00.001-07:00

2008.09_Italy_157

Originally uploaded by fauxbro.

Just posted some pictures from Varenna on Lake Como. Go here to see more.

More to come tomorrow.

Photos of Italy

2008-10-18T17:28:00.000-07:00

I've started to post photos of our trip to Italy. So far I've only put up Milan, but I hope to have more by the end of the weekend. Check the out here.

Irene in Venice

2008-10-08T10:38:00.001-07:00

Irene in Venice

Originally uploaded by fauxbro.

Taken with my iPhone in Venice. More pictures coming soon (well, relatively soon).

We have returned

2008-10-07T13:29:00.000-07:00

We got back last night around 7:30. We are back a work and a bit tired. I'll start sorting through my pictures this weekend and begin posting them to Flickr before too long. So stay tuned for those.

Also, here is a link to Grom's website. Truly the best gelato ever.

Day 14-17 — Rome

2008-10-03T08:19:00.000-07:00

Today's gelato flavors (I'm still going to do this even though Irene said it was bragging, I just view it as an important part of the Italy experience to impart to people back home): for me, Kinder (as in the eggs) and Nutello (it was sort of a candybar day for me); for Irene, Chocolate with chilly pepper and chocolate. We got these flavors at a place around the corner from the Vatican, and they were pretty damn tasty.

And that's what we did today, The Vatican. We got a bit of a late start because we had to get up so early yesterday, but according to the guide books, it does you no good to get there early as it's even more crowded first thing in the morning. So we got to St. Peter's Bassilica around 9, and there was plenty line to get it, but fortunately it moved pretty quickly, 20 minutes tops. We did the Rick Steves' audio tour of the place (which is enormous, they have markings on the floor to show how the next largest cathedrals would fit inside).

We decided to grab lunch before going to the Vatican museum. Here's a tip for a cheap lunch most anywhere in Europe: donner kebab. They are large, tasty and filling and I wish someone would open a donner kebab place in our neighborhood.

When we got to the Vatican museum after lunch there was no line at all, which was very nice. Now the last time I was here it was on the free sunday of the month and was incredibly crowded. Plus we only had a limited time until it closed so we made a bee-line through the museum straight for the Sistine Chapel, not stopping at all to take in the museum. This time Irene and I had time to take it a little more slowly.

But honestly, after awhile all those greek and roman statues start to look alike. And whoever curated the modern art collection... The Sistine Chapel doesn't dissapoint though.

So now I'm in a laundry/internet cafe and Irene is back at the hotel. We are going down to the Trastevere area tonight to poke around and for dinner.

Tomorrow is ancient Rome day, the colluseum, the forum, maybe the pantheon as well.

I can' beleive we only have two days left. It hardly seems fair. Oh well, time to start planning the next trip, to Spain.

Day 12-13 — Siena

2008-09-30T08:49:00.000-07:00

We know the question you're all asking yourselves-"Is Burnt Siena really like the crayola color?" Ken took lots of pictures, of course, to put an end to the debate. Ken's pulling at my arm telling me to post today's gelato flavors. Frankly, I find this daily gelato update to be a little boastful, but--as he is my travel guide--I must make him happy. Today we stopped in at a place between our hotel and Il Campo that hailed the most pleasing coffee flavor by Ken's standards since (the elusive) Grom, which--thanks for notifying us, Jeff--can also be had in New York. So go. Go to New York. Buy your tickets now. Get Grom. Yes, now, the other flavors were some sort of biscotti mix, which Ken judiciously paired with the coffee flavor, and I had a gelati mix that I dub "the Mounds", that's coconut and chocolate. (And I concur with Ken's assessment on the quality of this particular gelateria.)

With that out of the way, we can also tell of the excellent weather which we've had so far. The only time we saw rain was when we were on the train on our way here this morning, when we were well sheltered. Ken has done an excellent job of sheaparding us from one point to another. I highly recommend him as a guide.

My luggage is completely maxed out. I fell for the scarf and hat vendors in Firenze and now my pack is fit to burst. Our feet are properly toughened up from all the walking, and from the stairs we climbed in the Cinque Terre our calves are well-toned. Ken has also gotten over the cold that he contracted immediately after deboarding the plane to Italy. I bet he never mentioned he was contending with a cold. He's stoic that way.

All righty. Happy thoughts. We're well and happy.

Cheers,

Irene