Day 17 -- Iceland

Could not come to Iceland and not sample the thermal baths.  Last night, the girls recommended Vesturbæjarlaug pool, which they and their families use. They said it was a nice neighborhood facility for local and not tourists. We walked to the bus terminal and took bus #15.  At the pool, there were separate changing rooms for men and women. Bo learned the ropes from an elderly Icelandic woman in the locker room. First, you had to take a shower naked and wash yourself with provided soap; then you put on your swim suit, left the towel in the shower room and went outside to the pools. The facility has a big swimming pool, a children’s pool, five hot tubs of varying temperatures, a seam bath, sauna and a gym. We initially ended up in small round pool.  After a bit we migrated to the next pool which was 104 degrees.  It was amazing.   Bo did 2 laps in a bigger pool. After 45 minutes of soaking we left.  It was a small trial to find the bus back.  There was no busstop across the street from where we got off.  We got on the bus at the same place that we got off, since the route is circular. The amazing thing was that for the rest of the day we felt really warm in spite of the weather. Geothermal pools are Icelanders’ secret to surviving this wretched climate. After lunch we walked to the penis museum.  They have a collection of 1800.  We decided not to pay the exorbitant entrance fee and left. We then took a walk along the water and ended in the Reykjavik’s concert hall called Harpa (Harp). It’s an amazing building of stunning architecture. It won the European Union architecture prize in 2013. The entire building is made of glass windows, most of which are clear, but some random ones are colored. The interior walls are dark grey, but there are many yellow accents – doors, furniture. Overall, it is a beautiful piece of modern architecture that incorporates the surrounding landscape.

Day 16 -- Iceland

Spent the morning walking around, shopping and comparing prices. We could not help comparing Reykjavik with Lviv. Lviv is so much more interesting, has so much more to offer, not to mention the very tourist-friendly prices (Lvov .1L vodka 65cents – Iceland $8.  Lvov dinner for 3 with drinks  $20, Iceland hamburger and fries $20), and yet it is virtually unknown to international tourists. We took a city tour which cost 10 times as much as Lvov city tour and less than half as good. Reykjavik has almost nothing to see. The city tour consisted of the church (which we had already seen on our own), the Pearl  (an out of town facility that stores geothermic water for the city) and driving around pointing to pools, camping sites, a couple of churches, business district, and a little house where Reagan met with Gorbachev. When we got off the bus at the Pearl, it was snowing! The guide said that tourism is #1 source of income for Iceland. It surpassed fishing a few years ago. Bo is convinced that this is the result of a brilliant marketing campaign rather than the virtues of the country. Ukraine should hire this marketing firm to increase their tourism. We decided to have a nice dinner and picked out a highly rated restaurant in the city center where entres started at $50. After we walked there in pouring rain and freezing wind, we were told that they are fully booked by a group of 250 people. They recommended their sister restaurant a bit further downtown. When we got there, we were told again that there were no tables until 9 pm. We walked back and tried a couple more places, which were also full. Finally, we found a table at a little French restaurant almost next door to our hotel. The food was OK. After dinner, we went to our now favorite bar called “Ten Drops”. Al went to get our beers and picked up a cute young Icelandic girl who joined us at our table. A few minutes later her friend joined us too. They told us a lot about life in Iceland and recommended a thermal pool that we’ll try tomorrow. A bit later, their friend from Chicago also joined us. She’s been living in Iceland off and on for about a year making a documentary film about Icelandic creativity together with her mother who is a professor at a university in Kansas. It turned out be be quite an interesting evening, which we concluded by watching the US-Belgium soccer game.

Day 15 -- Iceland

We left our hotel (Bel Air) for an easy drive to the airport and car return. Barcelona airport is nice.  The SAS flight to Copenhagen was not great, but their plane had the best bathroom we’ve seen on any plane so far. It was spacious and had 2 windows.  IcelandicAir loaded their plane from back to front with no preboarding for anybody. Bo bitched to no avail. We arrived at Iceland to dismal weather - cold and rainy.  The airport is far from the city so like everybody else, we took a 45 minute airport shuttle bus from airport to town. Then it was just a 3 min taxi ride to our hotel.  Hotel/apt (Room with a View) is nice and in a perfect location on Reykjavik’s main shopping street. In the summer, they put bicycles painted in various bright colors to close the a few main streets in the center (including ours) so they become pedestrian streets only. The center consists of small, 2-3 storey houses painted in all kinds of colors. In the middle is a very tall, modern church, the tallest structure in Reykjavik. We walked our neighborhood (in drizzle). Bo was looking to buy a rain jacket. She checked out about 10 shops. All of them had fantastic outdoor gear, beautifully made and very high quality, bu a rain jacket cost about $400. She finally asked a saleswoman why they were so expensive.  She replied “because this is Iceland”.  Bo told her that she can buy it for much less in US (around $60).  She replied that is the reason Icelanders go to America to shop. Generally prices in Reykjavik are very high, maybe with the exception of the local beer. We have a kitchenette in our hotel so we went to a grocery store to buy some goodies for breakfast. Stores close early here – most at 6 pm. To our surprise, you cannot buy any alcohol in a grocery store. We were told (by a woman in a Polish store!) that there is only one store that sells wine and beer in Reykjavik center and it closes at 7 pm.  We walked some more, visited the church and then decided to have a drink. We walked into a few bars, but they were all totally full. Finally, we found a table at one quirky bar and had some local beer (very good). It was about 9 pm and the sun just came out! It does not get dark here in the summer at all…..

Day 14 -- Leaving Valderrobres

We had our hotel breakfast, which was the same each day -- 4 slices of jamon, 2 slices of cheese, 2 slices of regular ham, a bowl of pureed tomatoes, toasted bread, coffee, 4  pieces of pastry and a big jug of orange juice. At first we were not sure what to do with the tomato puree, but at the wedding we saw that they put a lot of it on the bread and eat this soaked bread with the jamon so that’s what we did. After breakfast and quick packing (stuff still in car) we set out.  The countryside in this part of Spain is beautiful. Green rolling hills and a few small hill-top villages.  We stopped at a large city (Tarragona).  It has a pretty historic area with quite a lot of well preserved Roman ruins, and a lovely cathedral.  We walked it for an hour.  Our next stop was our hotel in Castelldefels.  It is a beach city like Huntington Beach.  Our hotel is right on the beach.  It is 20 minutes from the Barcelona airport which was instrumental in the choice.  We walked the street along the beach and picked a place for our 3 pm comida. It was the best meal we have had on the trip.  Out of necessity we waded in the Mediterranean. We then walked the board walk for half a mile enjoying the view and the breeze.

Day 13 -- Valderrobres wedding day

After breakfast in the hotel, we walked around the new part of town and stumbled upon an outdoor market. It was pretty big – mostly produce, but also Chinese junk and clothes. We bought delicious cherries, big yellow plums and funny looking flat peaches. Everything was fresh and delicious. Then we got dressed up in our wedding attire and drove to the church on top of the hill. The wedding was lovely, traditional Catholic – with a mass in Spanish. There were about 100 people there, and probably almost equally divided between Spanish and Italian, with very few English speakers here and there. Everybody was formally dressed. After the wedding, there were endless pictures in front of the church and then people started leaving for the nearby (about 15 miles) town of Monroyo where the reception was going to start at 3 pm. Monroyo is another picturesque hill town and Posada de Guadalupe (the reception venue) is an old, stone traditional building almost at the top. The first stage of the reception was outside. There was a bar set up and several bar tables and as people arrived, they got aperitifs and an endless stream of appetizers, including a station where jamon iberico was being sliced and served. This stage lasted about an 1.5 hours or so, until the newlyweds arrived and had some drinks and appetizers. Then we moved inside to the dining room. There were 14 tables with assigned seats – about 8-10 people at each table. There were two main courses – seafood and lamb with apple sorbet in between, and then ice cream, wedding cake and fruit for dessert. The wedding cake was brought up in the dark, all lit up and the newlyweds cut the first piece with a long sword. The whole reception was very well organized, the service was fantastic and the atmosphere very lively.  Then we drove back to Valderrobres with a stop in yet another pretty hill town, and took a long evening walk to try to burn some of the wedding calories.

Day 12 - Travel to Valderrobres

Early departure from hotel (6am) and easy drive through city to airport.  This coastal part of the city is beautiful – clean and well maintained. Nice parks and flowers. OK flight to Barcelona and we embarked on our drive to Valderrobres.  Nobody at the airport had ever heard of this place.  Pretty drive along the countryside and winding roads over rolling hills.  In the middle of nowhere Valderrobres appears.  It is very picturesque. This town of about 2000 inhabitants is situated on two sides of a river. The old city is on a hill with a Castillo and church on top, and the new part is on a flatter terrain. We walked to the hilltop, and then back to the new town where we passed an open gate leading to what looked like a warehouse, but inside were barrels, bottle and plastic containers with wine. We bought a bottle of local wine, and the owner told us that his family has been making this wine for a hundred years.  We passed many restaurants trying to choose one for dinner but they did not open up until 9 or 10 pm. We sat on our terrace and killed the bottle. Then we walked outside and bumped into Frank, the father of the groom and his family group heading to the old town. We tagged along with them, and spend a nice evening sitting and chatting in an outdoor restaurant/bar. In keeping with the local customs. our tapas dinner wasn’t until about 10:30 pm.

DayI 11 -- Istanbul

Today was a relaxing day. We got up late, and decided to take a 2-hour cruise on the Bosphorus. There were several companies to choose from. We picked one that had a 12:30 departure. The whole pretty large group followed a guide to the boat – about 15 min on foot, but in blazing heat. Once we boarded the boat, it was nice and breezy. We first went along the Golden Horn past the Golata bridge, and then along the Europen side along the Bosphorus to the second bridge, about half way between the Marmara Sea and the Dardanelle Straits and the Black Sea. We passed the restaurant where we ate last night (Sardunya), and the Cihangir Moaque on the hill, and several sultan palaces (including Dolmabance), many converted to luxurious hotels.  This part of the city is supposedly the most affluent and houses overlooking this part of the Bosphorus cost at least $15 mln according to our guide. The trip back was along the Asian side, which seemed a bit more relaxed and low key. In the evening we had our last dinner in a roof top restaurant and last walk through Sultanahmet.

One thing bears mentioning – the number of cats everywhere in the city. They are everywhere in large numbers, and all of them seem happy and well fed and totally not intimidated by people or cars. Dogs are pretty much the same way, but there are not nearly as many of them.

Day 10 -- Istanbul

Bo found a NY Times article about Orhan Panuk’s (a great Turkish writer who won the Nobel prize in 2006) Istanbul, in which he took the journalist to his favorite places in the city. One of the places called Vefa Bozacisi was an old (1876) establishment which made and sold a unique concoction (boza) made from fermented bulgar and other unknown ingredients.  It was quite a trek to find it in the old orthodox Muslim neighborhood of Fatih.  The place was jammed with girls around 20 with head scarves.  The drink is supposed to do wonders for your femininity.  It is so thick it must be eaten with a spoon.  Al could not eat too much, so much the better for Bo’s femininity. On the way back we walked through the university campus and also through the Grand Bazaar (more shopping). After a little rest in the hotel, we set off to meet our friends in Taksim Square and together explore the neighborhood of Cihangir. On the way, we went to Karakoy Square and to a special market with hundreds and hundreds of hardware stores. Al brought with him a picture a metric square nut that he was determined to buy in Europe. We searched all over Lviv for it to no avail so this was his best chance. We got sent from shop to shop, but finally success! Al bought his nut.   From Karakoy we walked and walked along the edge of the Bosphorus until the funicular. We met our friends and started walking through Cihangir, which used to be an old Greek neighborhood, and now it’s hip and artsy and full of antique stores and boutiques. Orhan Panuk lives there and he also recently opened a Museum of Innocence there, which we saw on the way. Cihangir is on a steep hill so we kept walking down and at the bottom, by the coast, we came across a lovely modern restaurant with a great view of the Bosphorus so we had dinner there. After dinner, we parted with our friends. Bo really wanted to see one more place in Cihangir – the old Cihangir mosque, or rather the mosque garden from which (according to Panuk) you have the best view in the city. So we climbed a million crumbling steps to the very top of the hill. The mosque is closed and in pretty bad shape, but the view from the garden is truly spectacular.

Day 9 -- Istanbul

After breakfast we walked to the bazaar.  It is a large area with thousands of shops. We spent 3 hours shopping and increased our luggage by 10 lbs.  After a little rest we met our friends for a visit to the Blue Mosque, which is called Sultanahmet here and to Hagia Sofia, which here is called Ayasofya.  First we visited the mosque. Women had to cover their heads (they hand you a scarf if you didn’t have one). Men and women with knees uncovered got long skirts to put on, and everybody got a plastic bag for their shoes. The mosque is huge and it is indeed blue inside. We went to our friendly merchant and bought tickets to Ayasofya.  When we got there the line to buy tickets was very long but we could just walk in.  The structure was built in year 537 as a Byzantine cathedral.  It was later converted to a mosque, but served as an active place of worship until 1935 when it was turned into a museum. It is an amazing place where you really can experience the layers of history and the spirit of time. We then walked around the neighborhood and had a nice dinner in a roof restaurant with 360 views of the Bosphorus, Topkapi, Ayasofya and the Sultanahmet mosque.

Day 8 -- Istanbul

Istanbul is an impressive city.  It is large and beautiful. Our morning walk took us to Topkapi Palace.  It dates from the 14^th century with renovations up to the 19^th century.  It was used by the Ottoman sultans continuously for almost 400 years. Both the castle and the grounds are immense and well maintained. The palace goes on and on, with 3 or 4 courtyards, and the Harem is a palace within a palace. The display of ancient artifacts (swords, rifles, armor, clothing) and the jewels and treasures of the sultans was beautiful.  After lunch at the market, we embarked on a trek to meet our friends.  We bought an Istanbulcard which is prepayment for all transportation. The tram stop is big and enclosed by turnstiles.  The card is proximity read and both of us use the same card to enter.  The tram is large – 5 long cars together.  We took it to the end stop of Kabatas, and then we were told to take the underground funicular to Taksim Square. The funicular looked like a modern subway that went between 2 locations.  But when we exited we saw the very large cable that pulled the car up the incline.  This area was very different from our historic neighborhood of Sultanahmet. The Hilton, Hyatt, Intercontinental, et.al. were here.  We meet our friends at the Hilton and spent a lovely evening with them ending with drinks on a rooftop of a 9-story building with a great view of the night city.

Day 7 -- Lviv/Istanbul

This morning was the last chance to have our favorite sour cherry strudel so we went out on the farewell walk to the main square. After the strudel, we walked towards the Cathedral because Pani Marta told us there was going to be a big Corpus Christi procession there. Unfortunately, the procession was after the 11 am mass, too late for us as we had to leave for the airport. Lviv airport is brand new and very nice, and it has free wifi.

The Turkish airline flight was great. The food was surprisingly good and plentiful. Istanbul was a huge contrast to Lviv --  big, crowded, noisy. The hotel cars was supposed to pick us up, but there were so many people holding up names that we had to go back and forth several times before we spotted our name. Our hotel (Acra) is located in the historic Sultanahmet neighborhood, between the Topkapi Palace and the Blue Mosque so right after checking in we walked around to get our bearings. At about 10 pm we started to look for a place to eat and ended up in a restaurant on a roof terrace with a beautiful view of the mosque, good food, good wine, but excruciatingly slow service. 

Day 6 -- Lviv

After breakfast we hired a taxi to take us to Zlokiew (Zhovkva).  It is a small city about 20 miles from Lviv and is one of the best preserved renaissance cities in Ukraine. It has a fascinating history. It was created in 1594 by a high ranking Polish nobleman and a chief hetman (admiral?) of the Polish royal army Stanislaw Zolkiewski, who was a big fan of Thomas More’s Utopia. He named the city after himself and based its design on the ideal city described in Utopia. He built a big castle there, which was later remodeled by his grandson, Polish king Jan III Sobieski, who used it as his country residence. The castle still stands, but is in disrepair. There is also a church where the whole Zolkiewski family is buried, including the hetman himself (beheaded by the Turks in the 1620 battle with the Turks and Tatars), and many churches and a synagogue.  The town is small so we easily walked the entire inner city.  We also visited an old wooden orthodox church from 1720, which was beautifully maintained. Today is music day in Lviv so there are small music groups playing music at 50 places throughout the city. At one of them, in the courtyard of the Museum of Natural History (former palace of a Polish count Dzieduszycki), in addition to human audience, there was also a very musical cat who stayed close to the piano and listened attentively. Continuing the celebration of the Music Day, after dinner we went to a concert at the Lviv Philharmonic.  An American jazz violinist, Christian Howes was enthusiastically received in the first set. He had to give 3 encores. The second half was Dvorak’s New World symphony conducted by an American  conductor with the Lviv symphony orchestra. The orchestra is very young. It looks like no one there is over 35.  After the concert we went to our favorite strudel place and were very disappointed when they had no cherry strudel.  So we stopped and had wine.

Day 5 -- Lviv

After breakfast we met the director/principal/professor of a special music school for particularly talented children. There are only 4 such schools in Ukraine, one for each region. We got connected with him by Bo’s friend Basia. We walked to the school, which is not far from our hote.  Levko (the director) gave us an extensive tour. The school is in a very large building from 1848. When he became the principal 5 years ago, the building was in total disrepair. Now, half of the building has been renovated, mostly because of his enthusiasm and energy. But monetary constraints of the government prevail. He even got the teachers to chip in for the only new piano the school has and for painting the walls and renovating a classroom. Art students provided some labor (painted murals). He even brought things from his house – a door, rug.  The school has 415 students grades 1^st to 11^th.   Levko is very proud of his students. He says they are very, very talented and win many competitions. He said that the school has 5 winners of the Paganini competition in Italy, more than any school in the world. After visiting the school, we went to see the palace of the Polish count Potocki, which is now a museum. After lunch we walked through the old book market where Bo spotted the book she learned to read from.  Our evening activity was the opera.  We enjoyed the Lviv production of La Traviata.  Sitting in the box next to us were 2 Polish gents from academia.  Bo had long conversations with them.  They and the music guy are hoping for grant info from Bo.  After opera we went to our favorite eatery which makes amazing strudel. We had one chicken and one sour cherry. Sour cherry strudel is definitely our absolute favorite here. We have to have it at least once a day.