vacation – Destination NOW

Tirana, Albania

2020 was supposed to be Mike’s and my biggest travel year ever. It feels like a lifetime ago that we booked trips to Croatia, Germany, Japan and Egypt. We (more likely the optimist of this twosome) were so confident that covid would be over in several months that we didn’t take a cash refund. Instead we opted for travel credits with bonus incentives.

Fast forward three and a half years. I’m now working my way through those credits, beginning with this trip to Eastern Europe, which starts with OAT’s pre-trip to Tirana, Albania.

One of the many reasons I enjoy traveling with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) is the ability to customize my trip. I figure if I’m going to subject my body and my money to a cross Atlantic flight, I’m going to stay for as long as I can, so in addition to the pre-trip, I decided to fly in a day early to get acclimated.

So far, everything has gone smoothly, starting with a great experience on Austrian Air. Passport control at Tirana’s airport was incredibly efficient. You scan your passport, which opens a gate, then get your picture taken, which opens a second gate and you’re DONE. It was so FAST. But the time I gained at passport control, I lost in bumper to bumper traffic on the way to the Oxford hotel. It took over an hour to go 11 miles, making me feel like I was back in Houston, Texas. The timing actually worked out fine, because by the time I got to the hotel, I only had to wait about 10 minutes for my room to be ready.

The room is small, but lovely, with a shower that makes the standard size in cruises look huge by comparison. I suspect I’ll be missing Mike even more than usual tomorrow morning, because when we traveled, he always showered first, figuring out how the fixtures worked, and setting the temperature just right for me. (It’s always those little things that do you in when you lose your spouse).

Take a look—no need for a bidet in this bathroom. All you have to do is swivel and lift your butt. That is, if you can figure out which faucet turns on which of the two shower heads. Yes, tomorrow will indeed be interesting because there’s not a lot of room for error. Fortunately we learned the ‘towel on the shower floor’ trick because I’ll bet that marble makes the floor extremely slippery when wet! I just hope that floor drain isn’t clogged!

But enough bathroom humor. What about the town, you ask? I remember Laura, our guide in Patagonia telling us, “There’s no such thing as bad weather; only inappropriate clothing choices.” Fortunately, I packed appropriately, and checked the weather so I wasn’t daunted by the rain. It also helps that the Oxford is perfectly located—right across from a mall ( where I bought 3 liters of water for less than $1), close to ATMS, cafes and restaurants, squares and sights. I love the art on the sides of buildings.

Wonder which of these books would be banned in America?

This is a very strange image. What is the artist trying to say?

I was surprised that George W Bush had a major street named after him in Tirana. I recall the people in Africa revered him because of his involvement during the AIDS crisis. But Albania? Clearly he has his admirers—and some detractors— who covered his name with stickers.

Tirana is full of surprises—here’s another: The Italian Institute of Culture building. I know from experience that Albanians make fantastic Italian food. My favorite Italian restaurant is run by Albanians. Clearly there is a bond between those two countries that I will explore with my guide when I meet him tomorrow.

What’s with that zig-zaggy structure in front of the building? Is it a picnic table? A runway? An altar for sacrificing virgins?

This area was once part of the Ottoman Empire, so I was not surprised when I passed a mosque just in time for the call to prayer. If you want to check out the weather and share in the mosque experience, here’s the YouTube link. I wasn’t successful uploading the video to WordPress. Maybe this will work. https://youtube.com/shorts/RXIjSq3ElqM?si=BxfwMJnXN6hBMHFd

On the MAIN trip, which starts on Sunday, we will travel to Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, ending up in Slovenia. My friend Augusta will be joining me in Dubrovnik for the main trip. She frequently traveled with Mike and me in the past, prompting one of our fellow travelers to dub Mike “the man who travels with two wives”.

Below is a visual of our journey through some of the former Yugoslavian countries.

Tomorrow or Wednesday, I will connect with the 6 travelers that opted for the pre-trip, then on Sunday, we will join with the remaining 9 travelers in our group of 16.

What’s YOUR Travel Style?

Do you prefer organized tours or would you rather choose your own itinerary and pace? There are definite advantages to both modes of travel, and I enjoy each. I’ve discovered that the key to maximizing pleasure is to understand exactly WHY you are taking the trip. Is your goal to see as many sights as possible? Or do you hanker for a slower pace, enjoying the companionship of a few close friends?

Lucky me—I’ve been able to do both types of trips to Sicily, so I can compare and contrast. You see, in 2017, my husband and I took an Overseas Adventure Trip (OAT), spending 16 days based in Palermo, Mazara, Piazza Armerina, Ragusa, and Catania.

Currently I’m traveling with three good friends, who planned everything, and are willing to do all the driving. Not surprisingly, this trip is far less structured than the OAT trip. Although we will be based in different cities: Ortigia, Modica, Enna, Palermo and Taormina, we will be covering similar ground.

Our first two days were somewhat grueling, with an overnight flight to Rome, followed by an afternoon flight to Catania, and a 45 minute ride to our first hotel, Algila Ortigia Charme Hotel, our home for three nights.

They say you can’t get a bad meal in Italy. Well, Sally and I accomplished the impossible, with TWO bad meals—a dinner on our first night and lunch on the second. Breakfasts, on the other hand, were at the hotel and were fantastic!

The world’s worst pizza. Fortunately, Sally was able to see the humor of the experience

We finally wised up and avoided the places around tourist attractions. All meals henceforth were at restaurants down little side streets and THAT is where the food exceeded expectations.

Karen and Diane on left, Sally and me on right

Also on Via Cavour was an abundance of little shops. We discovered Sebastian’s shop, in which he was selling various flavors of ‘cello. After sampling several, Diane and I, slightly drunk by then, purchased limoncello and almondcello.

Of course, we had to make purchases here. A magnet for me and a mobile for Diane and Karen

Although we did see the normal Ortigia sites, over our three night stay, it was at a much slower pace than when Mike and I visited. For our OAT trip, we only spent a half a day in Ortigia, and saw the same attractions. Of course, we didn’t spend as much time being lost and confused, because we had a guide. We also didn’t sleep as late either.

I am grateful to Sally, Diane and Karen for including me on this trip—my first since Mike died. It is comforting to be among good friends while I process my loss.

Leaving Northern Ireland

On our return to the Republic of Ireland, we made one last stop in Northern Ireland, to the walled city of Derry, where we visited the Museum of Free Derry for a history lesson.

On January 30,1972, inspired by the civil rights marches and peace protests that occurred in the USA, about 15,000 Catholics staged a march to call attention to the discrimination they were experiencing. British soldiers shot indiscriminately into the crowd, killing 14 unarmed protesters. The day after what became known as Bloody Sunday, 2,000 men joined the IRA, which up until that time had not been very active.

Although attempts were made to portray the peaceful marchers as terrorists, a film crew was there, recorded what actually happened, and smuggled the film out (in their underwear!) to the Republic of Ireland where it was broadcast around the world. Despite the visual evidence to the contrary, the false narrative that some march participants were terrorists persisted until 2016, when an inquiry finally revealed the truth. The result was a long overdue apology by Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron. An excellent video in the Museum shows the huge emotional impact that historic apology had on the people of Derry. Sadly, the guilty soldiers still have not been brought to justice.

While on the Black Cab tour in Belfast, our driver showed us the size of rubber bullets that were used for crowd control. These were fired on Bloody Sunday, and contributed to the injuries many protestors suffered. Can you imagine being hit by one of these?

We couldn’t leave Derry without touring its city walls, and learning about its history, most of which I promptly forgot. Of course, the wall had the requisite cannons, strategically interspersed.

Our border crossing into the Republic of Ireland was seamless. No check points, no guards, no showing of passports, just a change of currency, back to the Euro. Ireland has sworn that it will never have a border dividing it again. Boris Johnson declared the Irish Sea will be the border, but many wonder exactly how that will work post Brexit. No one quite knows.

And now for a little perspective: the population of Northern Ireland is a wee bit under 2 million. The population of The Republic of Ireland is almost 5 million. Compare that to the population on NYC, which is over 8 million, and you can understand why much of this glorious island is comprised of rolling green hills and picturesque landscapes, perfect for raising sheep.

Which brings me to the next subject: the Irish Diaspora. We all know that millions of Irish left during the potato famine, but I never knew that many lost their homes when they were evicted.

This beautiful castle was built by John Adair, who evicted 244 of his Irish tenants because he thought raising sheep would be more profitable than allowing his tenants to continue farming. By the way, the Irish became tenants on their own land, after Oliver Cromwell conquered them, and seized their property so he could use the land as payment to his soldiers.

Adair was the first of three owners of Glenveagh. The third, Henry McIlhenny, was an Irish American. His grandfather, John McIlhenny settled in Philadelphia, where he became very wealthy from his invention—the coin operated gas meter. Henry was an art aficionado, who donated his family’s extensive collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His generosity extended to Ireland, when he donated the castle and its gardens as a gift to the nation. It is now a national park.

Touring the grounds of Glenveagh with a naturalist, who demonstrated the depth of the bogs, and explained why the people sacrificed in the bogs were so well preserved.

I had originally planned to write a bit about Donegal, but that will have to wait for a future post, because I have run out of time.

Three Glorious Days in Dublin

Spending our last night in Dublin at the Castle Vaults Pub was a wise decision indeed. I had my best sleep yet, and am feeling grand this morning.

I’ve either been too busy or too tired to write, so this is a stream of consciousness, unproof-read post, hastily done before we board our coach to Belfast.

The Belvedere Hotel is perfectly located, close to a HOHO stop, and within walking distance of all the sights, but away from the madness of Temple Bar. Although it has great WiFi, I was glad that I had purchased the Aíralo eSim, because I used it frequently while walking around Dublin. My sense of direction is legendary, and I soon discovered my travel buddy, Janet’s, is equally bad. Fortunately, Aíralo has been working great and it has helped us to avoid wrong turns more than once.

About the HOHO: in an earlier post, I talked about the three different Dublin options, and my research pointed me in the direction of Do Dublin, the green bus. It was the perfect choice for us. We spent our jet lagged arrival day hopping on, and didn’t hop off till the end of the route. It gave us exactly what we needed, a very helpful overview of Dublin’s most important sights, and it was over just when we were ready for lunch. The Parnell Pub was recommended by the driver who picked me up at the airport, and he didn’t steer us wrong. The soup of the day was wonderful and the bread was out of this world, but the chicken wings could have been skipped. Best of all, the price was right—only 11 Euros.

Our HOHO ticket included two freebies. We used the ticket to The Little Museum on our jet lag day. It is located in a Georgian House, near St. Stephen’s Green, and is packed with memorabilia, including a room devoted to the band U2.

I’m not a fan, so instead, here’s the model of Admiral Nelson’s column, which was blown up in the ‘60s.

It was replaced by the Spire, affectionately dubbed by the locals “the stiffy by the Liffey” or “the stiletto in the ghetto”. I didn’t find the Spire visually pleasing, so haven’t included a photo. The nick names, however, should give you a really good idea of what the Spire looks like!

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the Trinity area, until it was time for the early bird special at a restaurant recommended by my blogging buddy, over at Aging Gracefully My Ass. Thank you, AGMA.

This was NOT false advertising. The food WAS great, the service friendly, and their Early Bird Special offered excellent options. Luckily, we went with the 2 course option because their portions were so generous, we were unable to finish them. In fact, weliked this restaurant so much, we actually toyed with returning, but Dublin offers far too many attractive alternatives.

The other freebie that came with the Do Dublin HOHO was the “Paddy Liddy Walking Tour”. Here in Ireland, though, it is called the PAT Liddy Walking Tour. And yes, there really IS a Pat Liddy, who is now in his 80’s. We saved that for our second day in Dublin and we were SO glad we did. Jim, our tour guide was AMAZING! He knew so much about the history of Dublin, and walked us around to spots we never would have found on our own.

Here’s Jim, standing in front of a Clery’s department Store, which will be reopening in October. He’s explaining that, back in the day, the favorite Friday night meeting spot for his contemporaries, was under the Clery clock at at 7 PM. (The clock is that black thing on the building, right behind his head). If, by 7:30, your date hadn’t shown up, that meant you were being stood up. Sometimes, though,when you looked around, there were members of the opposite gender who shared a similar fate, which presented an opportunity to make a new friend and possibly experience a Hollywood ending.

As you walk through Dublin, be sure to look down occasionally. You’ll see plaques like this one, which shows Viking artifacts that were taken from the ground below. When I did 23 and me, and discovered that I had Viking ancestry, I had assumed that it was from a “rape, pillage and plunder” Viking excursion into Ireland. Maybe not. Apparently, the Vikings had a trading settlement in Dublin.

I couldn’t get a good shot of the Music Hall where Handel’s Messiah debuted. Every year, since 1772, it is played on April 13 at 1 PM to commemorate its first concert. During COVID, on that date and time, one of the area residents placed her speakers in her open window to keep up the tradition. Can’t you just hear the hallelujah chorus blasting through the neighborhood? That must have lifted the spirits of her neighbors at a time when spirits definitely needed to be lifted.

During our tour, Jim walked us through the Temple Bar area. Prior to coming to Dublin, I had mistakenly thought there was ONE bar, called Temple. Nope, it is the name of the land, formerly owned by a guy named Temple, and the “Bar” part was shortened from the “Barricades”, which were built along the Liffey River.

I was horrified to see that the hotel I had booked for my return trip to Dublin was in “ party central”, right next to a Hard Rock Cafe. After listening to Jim’s description of what the area was like on most weekends, I decided to look elsewhere, so at the end of the tour, I asked Jim for hotel recommendations. Well,that question turned into a delightful 2 hour lunch with our wonderful, fascinating guide at his favorite pub. At the end, we followed his recommendation to visit the National Portrait Gallery, before heading back to the hotel for the official start of our OAT trip.

There are 11 of us on the tour: 3 couples and 5 singles. We had an opportunity to converse over our welcome dinner, and I feel very lucky to have joined such an interesting and congenial group. I’m looking forward to getting to know them better over the next two weeks.

We started our final day in Dublin with a brief tour of the city. It wasn’t as in depth as the Pat Liddy walking tour, and because there was only a slight overlap, I was glad we were able to do both. As you can see from the photo of the Oscar Wilde statue atop this blog, we were blessed with fantastic weather.

Our next stop was a tour of the fascinating, multi media EPIC Museum.

This beautiful sculpture shows the evolution of transportation from the early ships to modern aircraft

Recognize any Irish Americans in this collage?

There is so much more to say about this fascinating city, but I’ll end this post by saying I’m so very glad I’ll be returning to Dublin in 2 weeks!

Royal Air Maroc: Better Than a Magic Carpet!

My love affair with Morocco continues, but that will be a post for another day. Being a woman of my word, I will instead use this post to make good on my promise to report back on our experiences with Royal Air Maroc.

Faithful readers will recall that we flew business class TO Morocco, so that we could stretch out in the lay-flat seats and catch a few zzzz’s. We didn’t want to be totally exhausted when we arrived in Casablanca. As reported, business class was a luxurious experience with several unexpected bonuses.

Because our flight from Casablanca was scheduled to depart around 1 PM, we decided coach would be just fine for our return flight. And it was.

It is entirely possible that our experience was impacted by Covid, and when travel returns to normal, flights will once again be full. But not today. Mike and I had the row to ourselves, thoroughly enjoying having an empty seat between us. We didn’t feel cramped, the seats were comfy, but not as plush as business, and there was plenty of room in the overhead bins. The passenger in front of us had the entire row, so he was able to stretch out across all three seats.

Okay, so this was the first time I’d seen this really cool window feature. Instead of having a shade, there is a little button below the window that gradually lightens or darkens the pane, so you can be shielded from the sun’s brightness and heat, and still see outside.

Lunch was rather good. The orzo was sprinkled with cinnamon, the chicken had a delicious sauce and best of all, the wine was free! The second “meal” was not so good. In fact, it is as pretty pathetic and there was no accompanying wine to ease the pain. So, in addition to a guaranteed seat to yourself that has an almost infinite number of adjustments, you get much better food (and drink) in business class.

The seat back entertainment in coach and business is identical. Even if it were different, that would not have been a selling point for me because with my iPhone and iPad, this girl is all set. I keep the flight map on the screen so I can watch our progress, while bopping in my seat to my favorite music or reading a book on one of my I-thingies. Fortunately the seats have outlets, so I can recharge if the need arises. It doesn’t take much to make me very happy, and yes, wine helps.

In business class, we received a little bag with hand and face cream, lip balm, ear plugs, eye mask, a comb and socks. But guess what? People in economy also got a goodie bag. It only contained socks and an eye mask, (neither of which I EVER use) but still, that’s more than other airlines do for us folks in steerage.

Because of my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card, we were able to use the Pearl Lounge at the very uncrowded Casablanca Airport, so our airport wait was quite comfortable.

Bottom line: Air Maroc worked out really well for us. We were able to fly at reasonable times. Those on the Air France return flight had to get up at 3:30 AM, and had a “box” breakfast. We got up at 8 AM, had a delicious buffet breakfast, and because our flight was non-stop, arrived at JFK about 15 minutes after the Air France Flight. Others on our trip had their flights changed multiple times. Ours did not. Best of all for OAT travelers, another member of our group was able to fly Royal Air Maroc and have the arrangements made by OAT, because of their code share with American Airlines. That would definitely been our preference! I must have had a new OAT rep, who was unaware of that option.

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