Europe 2015 - Paris and Barcelona: Leaving the comforts of home

The devil may well be in the details, but sometimes angels are in the detalles – the Spanish word for thoughtful gestures or small expressions of affection. Those small slices of kindness stay with us forever.

For all the allure of chasing the exotic and experiencing the unexpected while traveling, occasionally finding comfort and safety in the familiar can be a welcome break. I’m not talking about running into the first McDonald’s you see and inhaling a Big Mac as if it were oxygen. I’m talking about a place you feel welcome, where you can put your feet up, throw in some laundry, and raid the fridge – a place you feel at home.

After Brussels, where family took us in, three college friends hosted us in their homes. In Saint Denis, outside of Paris, Deniz’s former classmate and our mutual friend Delphine accommodated us. In Cerdanyola del Vallés, outside of Barcelona, our former housemates Dulce and Dimichell, along with their boys Roger and Manu, welcomed us.

We met them all back in 1999 at the University of South Carolina, where I suppose it makes complete sense for a Turkish American girl and Ecuadorian American boy to fall in love and be surrounded by friends from France (Delphine), Spain (Dulce) and Puerto Rico (Dimichell).

Delphine is far left:

Dulce is far left and Dimichell is sitting on the right:

Beyond their generosity in taking us in, they all had their own beautiful detalles that will be permanently etched in our memories.

Apart from helping us make the most of sprawling Paris in record time, Delphine received us with homemade, authentic ratatouille – a healthy, classic French vegetarian plate of sautéed eggplant, squash, zucchini and various other chopped vegetables, garnishes and spices. We all had seconds and the kids gobbled it up each time. On our second night, she put out a fantastic selection of caviar, salmon tartare, various cheeses – perfect with our Chardonnay from the nearby Burgundy region, where Chardonnay originated.

Dulce – sweet in Spanish – has always lived up to her name as far back as we’ve known her. Apart from laying out a table full of tapas just about every night we stayed with them, she made our visit particularly awesome by surprising us with cake and champagne on our anniversary.

Dimichell, a wine connoisseur who did his very best to make me a little less wine illiterate, picked up on a quick anecdote I shared over dinner. When I mentioned to him that my dad had scored a bottle of Barón de Oña (Baron from Oña) in Spain many years ago and declared he would uncork it at the birth of his first grandson – the first “varon de Oña” or boy from Oña, Dimichell secretly went on the hunt. My dad popped open his bottle following Emilio’s birth. Dimichell popped his on our last full day in Barcelona.

Not to be outdone, their boys Roger and Manu were quite gracious hosts to Aylin and Emilio. Boys their age don’t tend to be exactly maternal, but it was clear their upbringing had much to do with their thoughtfulness. Both boys were smitten by Aylin and Emilio’s antics, and they constantly helped us look after them, play with them, and give them the occasional high five.

The younger Manu put a little lump in our throats by presenting Emilio with a this drawing of a tiger. Emilio was clinging on one of the boys’ tiger toys. We insisted he return it because we knew he’d quickly turn to something else – Emilio and his “expansive” attention span. Even so, Manu picked up on this and within a few minutes came running out to the car, as we were saying our final goodbyes. Out of breath, he said, ”Here, I drew this tiger so Emilio can take it with him.”

Emilio loved it so much, he took a little bite:

Sometimes, the details are – indeed – in the angels. Our next stop – Nice – will be our first without family or friends showing us the way. We’ll see how it goes.

Europe 2015 – Nice: Finding our vacation rhythm

In Barcelona, we said farewell to the comforts of family and friends. From Nice onward, we rolled solo.

During our trip planning months earlier, we considered skipping around Europe from one AirBnB spot to another. But the thought of displacing the kids and packing and unpacking stuff every few days sounded about as much fun as a bleeding ulcer. So we settled on two weeklong stays: Nice and Positano. Besides giving the kids some semblance of routine, most AirBnB locations offered modest discounts for weekly rentals.

Nice is a great anchor point – right smack in the heart of the fancy-schmancy Côte d’Azur or the French Riviera. Within 30 minutes are some of the most luxurious places in the world, including Cannes and Monaco. But equally appealing to us: Nice is the cheapest. It’s like staying in Santa Monica versus Beverly Hills. You’re close enough to smell the Chanel without the fumes melting your wallet. But just as with Santa Monica, you’re not talking about a dump either. Nice is quite easy on the eyes.

Deniz scored a sweet flat directly across from the Promenade des Anglais, where every morning we threw our shutters open to let the Mediterranean join us for breakfast. We’d cross the street to walk on pebbly Sainte-Hélène beach and stroll the boardwalk where old men with little dogs and svelte runners with littler waistlines made their rounds.

In the evenings, after we put the kids down, we enjoyed a few glasses of something-something on our balcony, and enjoyed the sensation of being out without having to leave the kids. It would have been perfect, if not for Boris the Bat, who enjoyed taking evening laps off our roof with the pure intent of scaring the bejesus out of me. Because what’s not to love about, a blind, screeching mouse with wings whom despite his super sonar is bound to fly into something or someone at some point?

Without a local to show us around, it took a few days to get our bearings. But it took me no time at all to pull my first Clark Griswald-move right out of “European Vacation.” After our AirBnB host greeted us, handed us the keys, and thought he left us in a good place, I headed back to the car to start unloading our junk. With what felt like not-quite-the-Earth on my back, but perhaps a little bulkier, I managed to contort through the lobby doors and miraculously cram myself and our little world of crap into one of those old wooden elevators. After unloading said crap and letting out a premature sigh in front of our door, I tried to wiggle my key in. Nothing. Hmm, maybe the wrong floor? I tried one floor up. Nope. One floor down? Nada.

A French man walks out of one the apartments I jabbed with my key. He stairs me down suspiciously. If not for all the parental paraphernalia adorning my mountain of crap – a pink, cute, Little Mermaid backpack, for example – there’s no telling what this guy would have done. Sweaty with my bandana and scruffy goatee, I didn’t exactly look like someone you’d invite in. But I could read in his eyes that he knew exactly what was up. With a smile and few hand gestures, he escorted me and my hefty globe of kiddy-adorned shit to the adjacent apartment building. Turns out, Atlas was in the wrong building.

A few days later, another tenant proceeded to strike up neighborly chitter-chatter with me, in beautiful-sounding French and with articulate hand gestures, about the a-holes who come into our apartment building and forget to close the manual elevator doors – inadvertently putting the lift out of service. The a-hole, naturally, was me.

It also took Deniz and the kids a couple of days to get settled in, but – not surprisingly – they managed without embarrassing themselves. Subtracting the fact that Aylin and Emilio are simply tireless, rambunctious 4 and 3 year olds, who love to egg each other on, they’re good, adaptive travelers and easy customers. It doesn’t take much to please them: a carousel, public transportation or a park and they’re in heaven. For example, for them, it didn’t get better than the mirroir d'eau (water mirror) at the Promenade du Paillon in Old Town Nice.

We took easy day trips to all the nearby places Cannes, Antibes, Monaco, Juan-les-Pins, Eze. By far our family favorite was the beach in Villefranche-sur-Mer. Apart from it being nestled in a picturesque cove surrounded by well-preserved old shops painted in a rainbow of pastel colors, its beach was easily accessible with kids. Also accessible: cheap beer. And of course, Aylin and Emilio frolicked on the shore to no end.

In Nice, we found our vacation rhythm. We settled in, took our time, went sightseeing and struck the elusive balance of what is fun for the kids and what is fun for the parents.

Oh, and bats still suck.

Nice in photos (Click on this link or the photo below to view all of our photos):

Europe 2015 – Vernazza and Pisa: Short and sweet

If we had to do it over, we we'd absolutely stay at least two nights in Vernazza – one of the five villages that make up Cinque Terre (“five lands”) near La Spezia, Italy. We wanted to find a place somewhere between Nice and Rome, and settled on Vernazza after we received several recommendations to visit Cinque Terre. But with the recommendations, also came a warning: it will be tough with kids. It kind of was, but we bumbled through.

Getting there was rough. First, the drive along the edge of cliffs in roads that at times were so narrow only one car could pass in either direction was beautiful and daunting. Then, we had to park about a kilometer outside of town. We couldn’t figure out the shuttle situation, so we walked it with our gear and the kids.

But the payoff was immediate and abundant – a beautiful, tiny, seaside all-pedestrian town with narrow cobblestone walkways. And what a sunset! Orange and purples slowly fading away behind the horizon and the towering cliffs that shot up from the sea.

The owner of the Vernazza Room we rented met us and escorted us to our spacious room – more than enough for our one-night stay.

We had tangy pesto pasta for dinner at one of the waterfront cafes. For a relatively low-key plate, it was superb.

Apart from walking around town, there wasn’t much for the kids to see or do, so this gets chalked up as a stop for the parents. What we also did not do are the hikes to the other four towns, which is the big draw of Cinque Terre. Perhaps, when the kids are older.

After Cinque Terre, we stopped in Pisa. The kids were star struck with the leaning tower. For months in preparation for the trip, Deniz had showed Aylin and Emilio photos of the most iconic monuments they would be visiting. So seeing the tower was a highlight for them.

Vernazza and Pisa proved to be the calm before the storm that was Rome.

Vernazza and Pisa in photos (Click link or photo below to see ALL photos):

Europe 2015 - Road Trip Soundtrack 3: From Nice to Cinque Terre to Rome

As we said au revoir to France and buongiorno to Italy, we listened to a few more French selections and some of our favorite Italian ones:

French Selections:




Italian Selections:

Europe 2015 – Rome: Fall of the Oña-Sevgili (tiny) empire

Odds are something will go wrong on vacation. But, et tu, Roma? Say it ain’t so, bella ragazza?

Merely getting there felt like we were trapped in some twisted GPS labyrinth. We were five minutes from our AirBnB destination for 30 minutes.

“Make a right. Make a left. Make a u-turn.” On and on she went, our chatty British-sounding GPS voice lady. After I had about enough of her, I pulled off to the side, whipped out the iPhone, and recalled a time when I could actually look at a map – a paper one – and get anywhere, without the micromanaging. A light jog to a nearby intersection is all it took.

Then, we had to park. After a dozen back-n-forths, I jumped out and, with one foot in front of the other, I measured the three open spots. The one by the fence edged out the others by half-a-Mario foot. It only took 23 maneuvers to get in there. My consolation: it was late and no one was watching. Or so I thought.

That’s when it got weird. Five minutes too late, I got a creepy voyeur text from an unknown number. “I would try parking by the fence.” Apparently, me and my parking routine had an audience, but who? Our AirBnB host was not in the building.

It only got stranger from there.

We crammed the kids and crap into a small wooden elevator that wailed and trembled up its cast-iron enclosure. Not counting my shattered confidence in parallel parking, we made it to our flat in one piece. But one look inside, we were certain we’d be leaving in little pieces – probably in small, forensic, plastic bags.

The locks on the door would have been suitable for the Hotel California, where “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

The kitschy floor tiles concealed grime, but after a few steps, our bare feet and socks turned a sooty-black. And the wires than ran across the floor? I just knew they would set off a booby trap – a swinging axe, certainly.

A water bottle suddenly appeared on the kitchen counter, and the boat in the small painting seemed to rock. Then, when I ran the shower, I could hear the faint, incessant screams of children.

In this hoarder’s paradise, there was enough creepy clutter to make this submariner feel claustrophobic. Yellow, aged, cracking newspapers, magazines and books stacked high and wide, along with bizarre, old-timey photos and weird relics, made this place an ideal setting for a horror movie, if only you could fit a movie camera in there. If Norman Bates’s mom had a flat in Rome, this is what it could have looked like.

Deniz said, “It looks like someone’s grandma lived here her entire life. She died and nobody bothered to remodel, clean, or throw anything out.” Maybe not even her remains. Could she be the charcoaly stuff sticking to our feet?

Oh and it smelled a little of death – dead pigeon, bat, rat or kitten, perhaps.

Besides being in Rome and figuring we'd do as Romans do, there was also the issue of it being 11 p.m. So against our better judgment, we laid ourselves down to sleep, prayed the Lord ours souls to keep, and stared up at a light fixture, perfectly suitable for an operating room or for performing an autopsy. Very comforting.

We survived the first night, but it didn’t get better. Although I’m a healthy skeptic of the supernatural, it was hard to dismiss the possibility of this place's negative aura spilling into our only full day in Rome. Petty arguments, blame games, and a little too much being said, escalated into the inevitable family vacation meltdown, precipitated by miscommunication leading Deniz and Aylin to get separated from Emilio and I for about 45 minutes. We questioned whether traveling together for so long was even a good idea.

Yet somehow, in a very Hitchcockian way, this all made perfect sense. The darkness of it all accentuated our Rome experience. It’s impossible to walk through Roman ruins and not feel impending doom. You walk around the magnificent Coliseum knowing savage lions mauled condemned people to the roar of even more savage, bloodthirsty spectators. At the dilapidated Circus Maximus, chariot races, gladiator contests and venatio or beast-hunts regularly stained Roman soil with human and animal blood.

We took in as much of Rome as you possibly can in a day. And despite the creepiness of our house, almost everything ended up having a logical explanation. The voyeur text was from a friend of our AirBnB host, who was asked to make sure we had arrived safely. The howling noises were likely the result of old, loose piping. The moving boat in the painting – upon closer inspection – was an optical illusion created by a dust bunny clinging to the painting. Sure, it was a little gross, but nothing to fear. And the magically appearing water bottle? I later learned Deniz had placed it there in the second I had looked away. We never did figure the stench, but like everything else about the flat, we chalked up as either uncleanliness or horrible interior decoration.

The redeeming quality and why we chose this flat in the first place was location, location, location - a 10-minute walk to the Coliseum. Since we knew we wouldn't be spending much time in the flat anyway, we booked it. But next time, we may consider: location, location, cleanliness.

Unbeknownst to us until we hit or next stop, it turned out, you sometimes have to make a pit stop in purgatory before paradise is found. Onto Positano we went.

Here are the far less creepy pictures of our Rome visit (click on this link or on the photo below to view all of our photos):

Europe 2015 – Positano: Paradise found

We’ll keep this one short, as Positano gave us enough goodness that I’m going to try to crank out a story and try to get it published.

That said, Positano proved to be a great recovery from the freak show that was Rome. As I mentioned in my last post, sometimes you have to make a pit stop in purgatory to find paradise. Positano was certainly that. Metaphorically speaking, we enjoyed Positano like a perfectly chilled glass of Limoncello: we sipped and savored every last drop.

Until are next post, here is our Positano visit in photos. Click here or the last photo to view all of our Positano photos.

CLICK ON PHOTO TO VIEW REST OF POSITANO PHOTOS

Europe 2015 – Acone (Tuscany) and Venice: Kings and paupers

Long before our trip, we decided to stop somewhere in Tuscany to cut our eight-hour drive from Positano to Venice. We’d been to Florence before, and since we’d only be spending a night, we wanted something low key. As it turned out, Deniz found the perfect place.

Years ago, my submarine pulled into La Spezia on the northwestern coast of Italy. As it was customary, several tours were offered to us, including one billed “agriturismo.” Submariners love to purposely butcher other languages for their own amusement, so agriturismo – in our dialect – became “aggravated tourist.” Portugal’s former currency escudos became “Scoobies.” And so on.

Anyway, about the only aggravating thing about agriturismo was deciding what to eat from the bountiful spread laid out before the pack of salivating, unruly sailors. Agriturismo or agritourism broadly defines visiting a farm or ranch and participating in various activities, including picking fruit, milking cows, and eating fresh food. All I remember was arriving at dusk and partaking in a gastronomical bacchanal. We guzzled wine from porcelain pitchers and devoured anything within reach. Apparently, fighting for freedom, whets the appetite, as does months of haze-gray-underway Navy chow.

After a somewhat hushed culinary experience, we looked to Agriturismo Il Giardino for redemption. Deniz found this bed and breakfast in the tiny town of Acone, an hour northeast of Florence. We drove 20 miles off the highway through roads that became increasingly rural: windier, tighter, bumpier. We took it slow, honking around tight curves, just in case.

But as soon as we got there, we were hooked. Hills and valleys, forming a quilt of squares and rectangles in hues of green, surrounded us. Our hostess Laura showed us around. The young proprietor Gabriel, maybe in his late 30s, upgraded us to the spacious, rustic country house with exposed wooden beams, cast iron accents, and a cavernous brick oven. The house’s mustard yellow exterior with its dark wood shutters and terracotta shingles contrasted against the vineyards, pencil Cypress trees, and rows of olive trees. We were in storybook Tuscany.

A big draw for us was the petting zoo for Aylin and Emilio. With the sun descending behind the hilly horizon and beginning to watercolor the sky orange, purple and gray, we walked down to the stables. The kids were immediately smitten by the geese, goats, sheep, and a single, pregnant donkey.

Emilio talked a big game, but when it came time to mount Marcelina, a honey-colored palomino with a blond mane, he cordially passed and scurried off with his “kind” – the chickens. He also found solidarity with the pigs, pleading to see them. “Cochinitos,” he yelled to me. “Domuzlar,” he yelled to Deniz.

Fearless Aylin saddled the gentle mare without hesitation. She took a lap while Laura kept the horse on her best behavior with the help of an annoyingly handsome farmhand named Fabio – of course that was his name. Apart from ensuring Aylin’s safety, I forgave Fabio and his damn pearly whites and surfer-tousled mop for pulling me off the hot seat with Deniz and helping me show her that I can be an equal opportunity gawker. You see, a week earlier I sought validation from Deniz on the beauty of a woman sitting near us in a café in Positano. I commented the way you might, a piece of artwork, and thought nothing of it. Alas, the scenario played out much better in my head.

We enjoyed a couple of glasses of local Chianti while the kids took their last turns on the nearby playground. When twilight settled, accompanied by the cool mountain air, we retrieved back to our quarters until dinner.

We lost count of how many courses, but they brought us just about everything the farm had to offer and then some: prosciutto, cheese, ravioli in a rich bolognese sauce, fritada (fried pork chunks), and house wine. For dessert, cognac and biscotti for us, ice cream for the children.

Apart from gluttony, our only other sin was staying so short. The next morning it rained, so the kids couldn’t say their arrivedercis to the farm animals. We were all bummed, but onto Venice.

Although Deniz and I had been there 13 years earlier, we couldn’t deny the kids seeing the striped-shirt gondoliers oaring under the Bridge of Sighs or riding the vaporetto (water bus) past the candy-striped piles on the Canalasso or Grand Canal. When it comes to entertainment, the bambinos are low maintenance. It doesn’t take much to please them, so a stop in fair Venezia was a given.

But we had to get there first.

We knew hauling kids and bags on boats would be challenging, so Deniz did extensive research beforehand. Even so, the trek to our flat seemed daunting. We paid a little more to leave our car at the Tronchetto parking garage, located across from the vaporetto stop. Other than our AirBnB host’s friend bitching about waiting an extra 15 minutes for us, we made it to our immaculate flat much easier than anticipated. Located a short, five-minute walk from the iconic Rialto Bridge, our accommodations were perfect for us.

If in Acone, we enjoyed a feast fit for kings, in Venice, we ate scraps barely fit for paupers. In most places we visited on our trip, we found good eating alternatives for a family on a tight budget. Not so in Italy, and especially in Venice. Not variety anyway. There’s only so much pasta and pizza anyone can take. Fortunately, Acone held us over until our next stops in Salzburg and Prague, where fantastically cheap and delicious – our two favorite culinary words – entrees awaited us.

But we made the best of it. I found a Chinese food place near our flat to mix it up a little. Deniz read about a whole-in-the-wall place called Peter Pan, specializing in Turkish döner – thinly sliced lamb wraps. We took a few wrong turns, but on our last night, we found it. We bought three wraps to go, walked over to nearby Piazza San Marco, and hunkered down on steps inside the arcade of the Procuratie’s Napoleonic wing – one of the three buildings enclosing the plaza. With the San Marco Basilica lit up in front of us, we wolfed down our three euro-döner, washing them down with white wine in plastic bottles. You know, to be discreet.

As if on cue, a nearby strings quintet serenaded us with “Con Te Partiró,” Deniz’s processional song at our wedding. We favored this Andrea Bocelli-sung gem over Wagner’s more traditional “Bridal Chorus” from “Lohengrin.” We toasted our crumpled-up bottles.

Apart from looking like a disheveled pack of vagabonds and despite sensing the eyes of pity searing through our hunched over backs, we fit right in there. We also felt good about paying nine euros for a decent meal for four, while folks nearby paid the same for a cup of cappuccino – I shit you not. Same view. Same music. Same experience.

Evidently, sitting in a chair comes at a premium most will gladly pay, as we were the only ones on the floor. It helps to be a little shameless and confident in your own skin. But it’s also the humbling realization that those small sacrifices leave enough pocket change to splurge on the luxury of time. It’s a trade off we will always accept: a mile of gravel in Death Chucks over 10 yards of red carpet in designer shoes.

Here are photo of our Acone and Venice stops (click on this link or on the photo below to view all of our photos):