Dave's Travel Blog

Italy 2019 – Dante’s Inferno

Posted on August 13, 2019 by Dave

We are back from a 10 day trip to Italy and we were lucky to be there in the midst of a record-breaking European heat wave. We were greeted with 105-degree temps that didn’t let up much the entire time we were there. I am sure Dante Alighieri was rolling in his grave with laughter as we tried our best to acclimate to the hellish weather.

Despite this, the trip turned out great. We managed to fit in the standard Italy first-timers itinerary (Rome, Florence, and Venice) and also managed a few side trips to places I haven’t visited before–notably Bologna and the Cinque Terre (with swimming in the Ligurian Sea an added bonus).

Reagen M. promised to provide a much more detailed accounting of our trip which I hope to post soon but for now, I’ll leave you with some pics from our adventure:

Posted in Europe, Florence, Italy, Rome, Venice | 1 Comment

So this is The 1975 live…oh my…

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Dave

I see that my travel blog is transforming into some sort of quasi travel/music website but that’s OK for now. I believe I would be extremely derelict in my blogging duties if I didn’t post about The 1975 concert in Cincinnati last night. For those that don’t know them, they are a group out of Manchester, England and they are difficult to categorize as far as a genre. I think it is safe to say that they play an edgy style of pop and their live shows are second to none. I have been to many concerts before but I have never seen anything quite like this. It was liked being trapped in a trippy music video for two hours…in a very good way. This was undoubtedly the best concert I have seen and I encourage everyone to check them out…even if you have never heard of them. Here are a couple of vids…hopefully, they remain up:

Posted in Cincinnati, Midwest, Ohio, US | Leave a comment

Toronto – The National

Posted on May 8, 2019 by Dave

The National in Toronto

Yes…another road trip to see The National. This time, it was a bit of an adventure. We originally had a group of six scheduled to go and by the day of the trip, only me and Eric made the trek to Toronto. One person, who shall remain nameless, checked his passport the night before the trip and discovered it was expired and another, who shall also remain nameless, got sick about 20 minutes into the trip–we had to return home to address that situation. Still, we made the best of it but we did miss our friends and family who should have been with us.

A bit of a problem selling some of our spare tix, but the evening turned out great as our seats were close to the stage and the concert was certainly worth the trip.

Regrets that we did not get to see much of Toronto as we were exhausted from the drive and all the walking we did near the venue. The city is incredibly huge and requires at least a few days to get to see even a decent portion of it. One of my favorite towns, for sure.

All was well with the trip except for the miserable U.S. border agent who took great pleasure in berating us for bringing back one bottle of wine more than we were allowed. I don’t think I can adequately describe the theatrics/borderline hysterics we experienced from her. A really nice welcome back to the States–thank you–that was quite a performance. It pains me knowing that you might be someone’s mother.

Here are a few shots from the concert…enjoy:

Posted in Canada, Ontario, Toronto | Leave a comment

Italy 2018 (I’ve been neglecting this blog far too long)

Posted on December 4, 2018 by Dave

A dreary November day in Milan

I have been absurdly derelict in my duties maintaining this blog. Since my last post, we have visited Spain and Maine (yes, soon you will see my ‘rain in Spain falls Mainely on the plains post).

A recent trip to Milan, Italy has taken me out of my doldrums and I’m ready to start posting again.

I went to Milan over Thanksgiving break to visit Tony, an old friend of mine, who is teaching at Bocconi University. It’s been over 5 years since my last trip to Italy and I don’t often make it to northern Italy so this was a nice trip—despite the awful weather.

First the good news–it was the first time in the last three trips abroad that I didn’t get deathly ill (Spain and Armenia were not good to me). And the bad news–this is the second trip in a row that I have taken a tumble (Spain down a set of spiral stairs leading to a bad ankle injury, Italy on a moving train with only minor consequences). Not sure what either of those situations tells me–other than it sucks getting older, I suppose.

Overall, despite the weather, the trip was good with the highlights being attending my first Opera (Elektra)–at La Scala–arguably the best Opera house in the world (if I am going to my first Opera, I wanted to do it in style). We were also able to visit Mantua to get a tour of Palazzo Te from Massimo, a colleague of Tony’s at Bocconi. Pallazo Te had a great Gerhard Richter/Titian exhibition while we were there and we were fortunate to have Massimo’s guidance and expertise as we visited (I believe he was instrumental in setting up the exhibit). The New York Times has a great review of the exhibition (click on link below):

Titian and Gerhard Richter: Keeping Faith With Painting, 5 Centuries Apart

Lastly, after countless trips to Italy, I was finally able to make it to Italy’s lake region and visited the town of Arona. I look forward to going back in the summer when there is (hopefully) much better weather.

As usual, I have a few pics to show:

Posted in Europe, Italy, Milan | Leave a comment

California All the Way / “Not Japanese”

Posted on December 29, 2017 by Dave

Somewhere in Utah

When my friend Tony texted and asked if I was interested in driving with him across the country to San Francisco, I jumped at the opportunity. I’ve never been to many of the central US states and driving across the country was always something I wanted to do. Tony is in the process of moving to Italy for a year and no longer needed his car–the idea was to drive from NYC to San Fran to sell his car to his mother-in-law and to pick me up in Louisville along the way.

The plan was to break the drive up into 4 days: Louisville to Kansas City, KC to Laramie, WY, Laramie to Elko, NV then Elko to San Fran. We were a little concerned with the Laramie snow forecast but it turned out to be a minor storm and all four legs of the trip went swimmingly.

I wish I had some super-thrilling stories to relay but spending most of the time in a car doesn’t typically yield much excitement. Still, we did have a great time catching up and we did manage to visit many good restaurants and see some things that were a bit out of the ordinary—most notably, a hotel check-in gentleman dressed as a Christmas tree.

Highlights of the trip were:

Great barbecue at Jack Stack in Kansas City.
Tour of the Lincoln, Nebraska Capitol building.
Waking up in Laramie to a minor snow storm.
Finally seeing Kansas and Nebraska.
The long stretches of emptiness…which were mesmerizing in their own way.
Toki Ona restaurant (see more below).
Lake Tahoe.
Best of all was the Christmas party hosted by Tamaron’s (Tony’s wife) grandmother. I want to thank Tamaron’s family for making me feel so welcomed and at home.

A special mention goes out to the Toki Ona restaurant in Elko, Nevada. As we perused Trip Advisor for an eatery in Elko, we stumbled upon a review that described Toki Ona as, “Not Japanese.” We weren’t sure if that was a contemptuous or flattering remark, but it caught our eye, nonetheless. It turns out that Toki Ona is a Basque influenced restaurant—who would have guessed such a thing existed in small-town Nevada. We shared a few dishes and were glad we did–portions were very large and the food turned out to be surprisingly good…definitely not Japanese!

As usual, here are some photos from the trip…enjoy: