Dave's Travel Blog

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:

Posted in California, Idaho, Kentucky, Midwest, Northwest, US, Utah, West, Wyoming | 2 Comments

Oregon and Washington 2017

Posted on November 16, 2017 by Dave

Cannon Beach, Oregon

I am a little late in posting our Oregon and Washington trip update….we got back several weeks ago and haven’t found the time to organize the photos and recollections. This time around, I organized the photos but I let 12-year-old Reagen M. write the details. She was supposed to write about the entire trip but she only managed to make it through two days and then gave up. So, without further ado, here are Reagen’s recollections of the first two days of the trip (with a few corrections from me):

“The first day we were there, we stayed at David’s sister’s house and really didn’t do much because we were tired from the flight and getting up so early. On Saturday, we woke up and I played tennis at the Seattle Tennis Club at 9:00 AM. It was a hassle because the tennis club had an all white attire dress code–or at least 2/3 white. We were running around Friday night trying to find a white shirt and shorts. We didn’t find anything and figured that we would just go to the pro shop and find something even though it was likely to be expensive. We found out at the club that it only had to be 2/3 white and that my tennis dress from Athleta was fine.

After tennis, we went on a ferry to Vashon Island. It was raining so we went inside a restaurant that was known for its biscuits. Of course we all got a biscuit and they were very good. Afterwards, we went into a couple of stores and then left. On Sunday we ate breakfast at Kelly’s in Gig Harbor and drove to the Black Ball Ferry Line in Port Angeles. We didn’t plan to take the car on the ferry because our hotel was right across from the ferry terminal and everything was in walking distance. The ferry was going to Victoria, Vancouver Island in Canada. We got there and the hotel was really nice. They had a lap swimming pool and the room was very nice and modern.

We woke up the next day and walked down to a breakfast place that David said got very good reviews. It was called Cora’s and he got really mad because when we were almost there, a bunch of old people got off a tour bus and went right in front of us. The food was fair but the drinks were good. After breakfast we got back on the ferry and talked to an old guy.”

Well, there are the first two days as scribed by Reagen….scintillating stuff, right? Hopefully she gets around to documenting the last 5 or 6 days of the trip.

Until then, I leave you with photos of our 8 day adventure:

Posted in Northwest, Oregon, Seattle, US, Washington | Leave a comment

Western & Southern Open – Cincinnati, OH

Posted on August 21, 2017 by Dave

Garbine Muguruza signing autographs after her win

We drove up the road 90 minutes to Cincinnati to see the finals of the Western & Southern tennis tournament on an extremely hot day. We got to see a bit of the men’s doubles finals and all of the women’s and men’s finals. The women’s final turned out to be a dud as Garbine Muguruza stomped all over Simona Halep, 6-1, 6-0. The men’s final was a bit more competitive as we saw two good sets as Grigor Dimitrov defeated Nick Kyrgios, 6-3, 7-5. The bonus is that Reagen and I were able to get autographs from both winners at the end of each of their matches. A really fun event and I can’t wait to see the renovations to the Lindner Tennis Center they have planned for next year.

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

More photos from Maine

Posted on August 19, 2017 by Dave

Perfect day in Scarborough, ME

Here are some additional pics from our recent trip to Maine. Includes trip to Belfast, ME, some photos from our summer picnic prep, dinner at Portland’s Back Bay Grill (their #1 restaurant), a visit to an Armenian picnic and, finally, a quick trip to a beach in Scarborough.