SIDEBAR OF EUROPEAN OBSERVATIONS

Amazing FM Radio - I don't know if this is common all over Europe or just in Italy, but you can tune into an FM radio station at say 102.5, and as you drive, the frequency the radio shows changes to whatever signal is stronger, like a cell phone. So you look at the radio, and suddenly the station frequency read-out says "106.0" or "94.2" changing as you drive, delivering the same programming consistently. We can't do that because we have thousands of independently-owned FM stations in the US, not just a few national services. But when driving, I like the Italian system!

Credit Cards in Europe – When you pay for a meal let’s say at a restaurant in Europe, your credit card never leaves your sight. The waiter or manager uses a portable, hand-held device to swipe the magnetic strip on your card and voila, you sign a little receipt. There’s no chance of a waiter or the kitchen help getting an opportunity to record your number and sell it on the black market, which is common in the U.S. We need to adopt this system. At the same time, Europe is moving faster than us on “smart” credit cards… the one’s like the Chase Slate, that has an embedded chip on the back, instead of a magnetic stripe. I tried to buy some wine at a West End Theatre in London, and had to pay cash because their credit card device was brand new and won’t even read “old fashioned” magnetic credit cards like the kind I was carrying!

Smoking in Europe - Most countries have ruled that you can't smoke inside European restaurants. That's fine, but now all the smokers simply eat on the outdoor terraces and if you want to eat outside, you'll likely have someone blowing smoke in your face as you eat your pasta! Not a good solution! San Francisco has banned smoking anywhere within 25 feet of a restaurant, and that makes sense. A few things are better in California.

Bars at Italian Gas Stations - When I buy gas for my car, I'd love to be able to have a quick Scotch on the rocks to make the voyage smoother, right? Strange as it might seem, every gas station we stopped at in Italy had a bar in the cashier area, instead of just some version of a "Quicky-Mart!" Not just an espresso and wine bar, but full liquor service! Get your tank filled and get tanked up! Perfect! What are they thinking? No wonder they all drive 100 mph!

British Airways Pod Seats - In their Business Class, British Air has installed pretty cool-looking pod seats that recline to a full, flat bed surface. However, if you sit on the aisle, there is absolutely no place to put "stuff." No pocket in the seat in front of you, no side boxes, just a small drawer at your feet that you can't reach if you have your seat belt fastened. Ronna had this crummy aisle pod seat on the way to London, and she wanted to trade because the adjoining window seats have huge bins under the windows to store stuff and are more private than the aisle. She also plays with the "partition" between our seats, jokingly raising it indicating she's had enough of me! (It's up right now making her area by the window quite private!) Her seat faces back; mine forward. I inappropriately call them the "69" seats, but you get the idea.

How Big is a Tic-Tac? - We both broke up in laughter on our car journey from Cortona to Florence as we passed a huge big-rig painted with the logos of "Tic-Tac" candies. Given the diminutive size of the little morsels, Ronna cleverly remarked, "That truck must hold enough Tic-Tacs to service all of Europe!"

People Don't Thank Enough – On our Anniversary evening at Villa d'Este in Lake Como, there was a nice bottle of Champagne in our room with a congratulatory note from the manager and his business card. The next day I sent an email to the manager, thanking him for the gift. You'd think I had just given him a Papal blessing. He emailed back at how appreciative he was of our thank-you and wanted to meet me at check-out! I guess not to many people do the obvious. I guess that's why Ronna still likes to send traditional, written postal "Thank You" notes. Interesting.

European Toilet Plumbing - Every toilet we used in Europe had a bowl like we have, a seat and lid. But all the water tank plumbing and mechanics are hidden behind the bathroom wall with just a button or lever visible! That means if you have a problem with your toilet flusher, or anything having to do with the water flow, you have to tear out the wall behind the toilet to fix it. Sometimes the wall behind the toilet was made up of huge marble tiles, like at Villa d'Este. This design must have been pushed by the European building trade unions. It seems totally idiotic in normal size bathrooms in hotels.

Why Don't Europeans Like Showers - At Chateau de Bagnols they only had one room with a stand up shower... all the others had the handle-held versions that make it extra difficult to wash your hair properly. I don't quite get it.

Metric System - America HAS to get on the metric system. Virtually every other country in the world uses it. Metric is logical, easy to remember, and precise. Why is it we use a measuring system called "English" when England uses the metric system. Obama needs to issue an executive order making the change gradually over the next 10 years. Think how many new rulers and scales we'll sell.

Part 5 - England to Home

As Ed McMahon used to say to Johnny Carson playing Carnac, "This is the last envelope," or in this case, the last wordy blog entry! (Big cheer from crowd!)

Photos of London

Friday, May 13, 2011 - Friday The Thirteenth did not offer any surprises and, in fact, it was quite a stellar day in London, England!

We had heard about how pleasant it is to walk along the south side of the Thames River, near the "London Eye" Ferris wheel and all the new waterfront sights nearby. We walked from our hotel down many streets to the Thames, and crossed over the Golden Jubilee pedestrian bridge toward the enormous Ferris wheel that has become a new landmark of London.

It's quite a structure... but also quite a line to ride it! Unlike a regular Ferris wheel, it rotates very slowly, allowing people to exit and enter the large gondola pods during the ride. Each glass pod looked like it could hold 20 people or more, and it's always packed. Takes a half hour for the full revolution, plus the wait in the cue. We passed and decided to move on to our second planned stop: The Tate Modern Museum.

The Tate is an amazing restoration of a former electrical power station made into a huge art exhibit space. Amazingly, admission is free, except for an additional charge for special touring exhibits, like the Miro show that was here for our visit. We were quite hungry when we got to the Tate after a three-mile walk from the hotel. So we had lunch at the Tate's very classy Cafe, enjoying some very interesting Bulgarian Pinot Noir and nicely prepared English lunch dishes, including snacks of olives and spiced mixed nuts.

After lunch we explored some of the Tate, and then headed back to prep for our big last evening in Europe.

Months before I had scoped out London West End theatre offerings. I had read about a show with pretty decent reviews, "Dirty Dancing," a Broadway-style musical version of the popular movie. So I secured very nice second-row center mezzanine seats for us some time ago. This show has an unusual play schedule: They do two shows on Fridays.... one at 5 pm another at 8:30pm. We had tickets to the 5 pm performance, a time I thought was great, giving us an opportunity for a non-rushed dinner after the show. The 5pm show is very much a cocktail event in the lovely Victorian theatre lobby. You can even bring your drinks on into the theatre in plastic containers to enjoy during the performance.

We loved "Dirty Dancing!" It was better than we expected and very entertaining. The music was a mash-up of recorded original song tracks from the early sixties, augmented with some brass musicians, a drummer and a bass--all of whom were hidden for most of the performance. The actors were all unknown to us, but were fabulous dancers. The only problem we had was that the lead actor/dancer looked so much like a young Dana Carvey it was freaky! We kept waiting for him to breakout into a "Church Lady" routine! He had an amazing buff, six-pack dancer’s body, but his haircut and face looked exactly like Dana! Even his voice was similar. This theatre, the Aldywich, didn't give out "Playbills," so we don't know the name of this Carvey look-a-like, but it was just a bit distracting.

But once we got past that, the show moved sprightly and provided a great afternoon of fun. I think I read that it might be heading to Broadway, because it has done quite well here in London.

Since the show was 2.5 hours, we had to make a pretty quick dash to our dining destination, Corrigan's of Mayfair, for our 8:30 reservation. I had read about Terrance Corrigan's Mayfair restaurant online, it being on several "Top Restaurants" lists for London. And he did not disappoint!

It's a classy and modern space on the ground floor of a typical Mayfair row building. After our mad dash in a cab, we actually got to the restaurant early, and were politely given the choice of being seated at our table, or having a drink at the bar. We opted for a bit of time at the attractive bar. Ronna had a glass of oaky French chardonnay, and I had a wonderful Lebanese Rose. We then moved on to our table.

For some time, I've been doing this thing on OpenTable.com that has been quite effective: When I make a reservation and it's just Ronna and me, I type in the box for special instructions: "A table for two not facing a wall, please." I hate being seated at a deuce table with one seat facing a wall... and this approach has helped a lot.

Corrigan's took my online request and gave us the best corner table for two in the restaurant! Even though the place was packed when we moved to our table, the corner spot with both seats facing out to the main dining room at a 90-degree angle was held vacant and ours! A fabulous beginning to a fabulous meal!

Corrigan is an Irish celebrity chef driven to re-invent boring English cuisine. He has really done it! I began with a starter of crispy fried whole egg with asparagus and leaks. You cut through the perfectly cooked egg, as the moist yolk provided a sauce for the vegetable and the crust a wonderful counterpoint. Ronna had an amazing Cornish crab salad--a martini glass filled with tasty fresh seafood with hand crafted melba toasts served on the side in a traditional toast rack.

Next came a butter-poached chicken breast with leeks for Ronna. I had an astonishingly-good braised rabbit roll, with red cabbage, onion and bacon cubes. Fab! We shared a wonderful over-the-top lemon concoction of pie, meringue, curdled lemon cream and mint. This was truly one of the best meals we've had anywhere... with expert service, in a gorgeous space. And it was no more expensive than a nice dinner in San Francisco. What a way to end our Anniversary Europe Adventure!

We walked back to the May Fair through Berkeley Square and Arden Street, only to discover that the large, street-front bar area of our hotel turns into a wild and crazy disco nightclub/casino late at night! There were lines of young-things waiting to enter, and plenty of gorgeous eye-candy of any persuasion you could imagine on the scene. Plus the prerequisite wealthy men and man-about-town wannabees. The thumping beat of the disco sound was like a magnet for me... but Ronna reined me in, reminding me we had to awake at 6:30 am for our flight to SFO. So much for my London disco fantasy! But she was clearly right! Between the on-site casino and what Ronna figured were hookers, I would have lost a fortune! And, years ago in London, we had already been there, done that.

Saturday, May 14, 2011 - 6:30am arrived early! But we had pre-ordered coffee and light breakfast for this appointed hour and it arrived on cue. When we had the problems with our "Message Waiting" light telephone the manager of the May Fair gave us complimentary breakfast as a consideration. So this worked out great.

At 8:30am we were in a cab headed to Heathrow to catch our 11:30am flight from London to San Francisco. Heathrow is the biggest airport in the world, and British Airway's Terminal 5 alone is larger than 75% of the airports in the US. There sure seem to be a lot of people who fly "Business Class!" Our line to drop off our baggage was just as lengthy as Economy class. But we were soon in the very large BA Club World Business Class lounge, clearly separate from the over-the-top First Class lounge which is a whole separate floor at Heathrow. We had plenty of time to get ready for our boarding, with lots of free food and drink. I love the cool Euro coffee machines that instantly make Cappuccino or Lattes on-the-fly from whole beans. So easy!

But being the biggest airport in the world has mixed blessings. The Club World host said our flight to San Francisco from Gate A10 was to be a "Coaching Departure." That meant you get on another dumb bus and drive to the airplane. You would think the world's biggest airport could have regular boarding jetways for their flights, especially the 400+ passenger 747s... but no, we drove for a good 15 minutes, under runways, over many tarmacs, thru other terminals and eventually reached our Boeing 747-400 airplane. We schlepped our carry-on stuff up the rickety steps of the old-fashioned outdoor stairway. Where were we, Burbank Airport? Ridiculous in my mind!

But I guess we shouldn't bitch too much. We were, after all, able to use our American Airlines AAdvantage points to fly Business Class to Europe and back, so we have to be grateful. But that's no excuse for lousy planning or plain stupidity at Heathrow. Build more jetway gates!

As I'm writing this, we are enjoying very nice service in the upper deck level of this amazing large airplane. Two capable Indian-English flight attendants are doing a fine job keeping me lubricated with plenty of Scotch to write this final chapter.

The flight is scheduled for 10 hours and 10 minutes, and we'll be happy to be home. But, this was one of our best European trips and definitely will be remembered!

I write this blog because I enjoy it and hope that a few other friends and acquaintances will find it interesting. But I also write it for us. Ronna and I used to keep a little notebook labeled "Travel Journal" when we were first married. I even glued in the wrapping of a really good pat of French butter I had once into the notebook! But I haven't made diary records or notes of our travels very much since--until the time of the Internet and blogs! Now I relish putting down in words our daily adventures. So some day, when I can't remember my name, I might be able to access all these musings and fondly remember how fortunate I've been to live such an incredible life with such a wonderful partner.

Until next time....

Warmest Regards,

--Bill and Ronna

Photos of London--

Part 4 - Cortona to Montepulciano, Italy

We're in the home stretch...

Photos of Montepulciano

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - We enjoyed a nice buffet breakfast in the dining room at Villa di Piazzano on the outskirts of Cortona, Italy, and prepped for our day of sightseeing in Tuscany. There are dozens and dozens of picturesque, sun-drenched hill-towns in this beautiful part of the world. We decided to drive to Montepulciano, one of the three destinations to which our tour guide would have taken us if we had elected his all-day excursion.

I think I've mentioned before that the Italians don't seem to pay much attention to the route numbers of their roads. Despite the fact that Google Maps shows all the roads in Italy with little numbered markers, like "SB35," the road signs in this part of the world don't abide by this convention. Instead, you have to know the name of the next town that you will pass through on your excursion. For example, there is no sign right outside Cortona that directs you to say, Montepulciano. Instead, there will be a sign that might point you to the left at a roundabout and say "Campacio." That's fine if your want to go there, but is not much help if that is not your chosen destination. To get to Montepulciano, I made a list on my pocket notepad of the towns that I figured we would pass through to get there: Saint Angelo, Campacio, Montalla, Ossaia, Riccio, La Caselle, Pietraia, Valiano, then finally Montepulciano.

This approach worked great! It took about 45 minutes, with Ronna driving and me barking out "right ahead" or "left after you go all the way around the roundabout," we approached the picturesque town of Montepulciano.

Another reason we picked this town to visit is I really like to pronounce the name... "Mon-te-pool-CHA-noh!" It also is one of the few Italian wines that I know and really like. We found a parking meter spot just a bit away from one of the wall openings to the old town. These Tuscan hill towns typically have an ancient, massive rock wall surrounding them.

Montepulciano has some of the attributes of Cortona, but is much more hilly. It's famous for excellent olive oil and of course, their fine wine. Both a "Nobile" Montepulciano that is aged, and a "Rosso" Montepulciano that is younger and cheaper. We strolled through the medieval paths and roads ending up near the top of the community in their large main Piazza. Unfortunately, it was about 1 pm and most of the shops were closed for their mid-day break.

We had spied an attractive restaurant with a nice view of the Tuscan valley on our way up the hill... but finding it again was a bit of a challenge. We were determined to find a short cut to make the walk down the hill a bit quicker. After several false starts, we ended up back on the main street of the town, quite close to our restaurant destination. These hill town walks are great for burning off last night's dinner!

We had a nice lunch, with Ronna having an unusual stuffed turkey roll, while I had a Tuscan frittata with pancetta and mozzarella cheese. Ronna tried the local wine, and I had a fine local beer. We had a leisurely lunch until about three when the shops reopened.

We went to a jewelry and gift shop that looked like a similar one in we had visited in Cortona. Sure enough, the man working in the shop here in Montepulciano was the same gentleman who had helped us the day before in Cortona! I wonder how many gift shops he owns in Tuscany? I think there's a bit of similarity when it comes to Italian hill towns.

By late afternoon, we decided to drive back to Villa di Piazzano and relax in our nice room. The drive back was easy by just reversing our list of towns along the way. Plus, Ronna was getting her bearings and began recognizing landmarks on the narrow Italian roads. And, she was getting really good at driving really fast!

During our shopping excursion, we had bought a bottle of Rosso Montepulciano to have as a pre-dinner wine in our room, and it did not disappoint. It was fruity but not too much so--just as we hoped; an Italian version of a nice Sonoma Pinot Noir. Since we had such a good time at the cooking class, we decided to have dinner again in the dining room of the Villa, since our new friend and teacher, Gabriela was cooking tonight.

Unfortunately, this meal was not as good as our prior experiences. When we told the front desk receptionist that we would like to dine there tonight, she said that there were many more guests than they had planned for, and there would be some small changes in the menu, which is posted daily on the reception desk. Instead of the filet of beef entree, it would be more of a kebab of beef with cherry tomatoes. Obviously that meant that they didn't have enough beef tenderloin and they were going to add some cheaper beef to the melange. That would have been fine, except when it came time to eat the dish.

Our starter, and the first course of pasta were excellent. But predictably, the beef course was terrible. I didn't eat much of my tough chunks of beef, but Ronna tried diligently to eat what she could, but suddenly discovered that a few of the pieces had an "off" taste. Our cooking school friends Jim and Corrine were also having dinner at the same time we were. And after we were both served the beef, Jim glanced at me and did a thumbs-down gesture. We both agreed, not up to par.

We moved on to dessert, a chocolate mousse which was rich and tasty. But this one little entree fall back was not a good one. Gabriela, our wonderful cooking instructor/chef made an appearance in the dining room as we were eating, but we didn't have the heart to tell her that the beef dish was not great.

The next day Ronna got a bit ill, probably from our dinner entrees. Too bad they didn't just serve a small tornado of beef filet, instead of creating a larger portions of meat chunks to make the serving look generous. It seems to be a bit of an Italian tradition of large portions in these types of places. I had asked Gabriela during our cooking class about portion size, and she said that guests in Italy demanded and deserved large portions. It was not a good philosophy this night!

Thursday, May 12, 2011 - Our time in Italy was almost done, and we had to be up early to make the drive to Florence to catch our flight to London.

We had to return our rental car at the Florence airport. With the possibility of rush-hour morning traffic around Florence, we left the Villa three and a half hours before our 1:30 pm flight departure time.

Getting back to Italy's main super highway, the A1, is much easier than trying to find a picturesque hill town in Tuscany. When you get to a major crossroad, there are green sign markers that lead you to the A1. The markers for directions to smaller towns are always in blue. Nice touch. Except if you are colorblind like me!

But no problem, we eventually found the A1 and Ronna expertly made the drive to Florence in record time.... probably because she drove at the speed of the other Italian drivers... between 95 and 100 mph! Once she got the hang of the lane change movements, she floored it like the best of them, clearly enjoying the freedom to speed like Mario Andretti…while I quietly hung on!

The only bit of stress we had is that it was not clearly indicated to us by anyone exactly where we were to return the car to the Florence Airport. On our rental contract it said "Auto Return: Auto Europe, Florence Airport, 9 Terminal Road." I figured this was Auto Europe's off-site rental return location. So I had Google-mapped "9 Terminal Road" and had screen-saved the map to that location on my iPad. But we could not figure out how to get there! After several stops at gas stations around the airport, we discovered that 9 Terminal Road was the local business office of Auto Europe, NOT where we were to return our rental vehicle. A very nice gas station attendant said, "No, you bring-a da car to the aero-port parking lot." OK, then!

They are constructing a new terminal building at the Florence Airport, and boy, do they need it! The current terminal is absurdly small, and decrepit. But security was fast and efficient, and we got a seat near the gate to wait for our Air France/CityJet flight to London City Airport, a closer-in London airport that can handle smaller regional jets.

As is the custom in a lot of European Airports, we got on a bus at the airport gate to go to the plane. Unfortunately, sixty passengers crammed into a motor coach at the appointed time, only to sit there for 10 minutes for no apparent reason! Why not board the passengers when the bus is ready to move out, letting us wait comfortably inside at the gate, instead of having us stand up in a crowded, stationary bus! When I run my airport, I'm going to do things differently!

In retrospect, the bus wait was minor compared to how COOL CityJet was! Air France farms out their short-hall flights to CityJet, much like United or Delta farm out their flights to Mesa Airlines or United Express. CityJet is London-based, flying very cool RJ-235 FOUR engine regional jets that are freakishly wide, but quite short. They look like ugly "fat-f*ckers." But they can land on very short runways and are a joy to ride!

The first six rows of the plane were reserved for "Premiere Class" ticket holders. We moved past to our two aisle seats, 8C and 8D. For some reason the middle of the plane was totally occupied, but in the rear there were lots of open rows.

As they sealed the door anticipating departure, the attractive French-accented, African-European flight attendant told a passenger in a middle seat in the row in front of us that she could move to any vacant seat now. So we took the cue too and moved up to the third row on the plane, a window and aisle on the left side in the "Premiere" section! I've never been able to do that in 40+ years of airline travel!

It was like moving to First Class. Premiere seats had more leg room and we got to get off first. Even better, they serve free drinks to the whole plane -- it was great! We also had complimentary turkey sandwiches and very attentive service. All this for a $79 ticket. And I paid for our airline travel before the dollar crashed in value against the Euro! Yippee!

Landing in London was smooth as could be, and soon we were in a new generation London Cab (which I don't like... more about that in my sidebar) headed to our hotel in Mayfair. Although London City Airport is a bit closer to Central London than Heathrow, it isn't any quicker to get to the middle of the city on a Friday afternoon. Our cab ride was hammered by city street traffic, two tunnels under the Thames, and then horrible jams on Piccadilly Street because of road construction. The route to Heathrow is mostly on a highway, so I don't think it is much of an advantage to land at City, except it is smaller and perhaps a bit easier in and out of the planes.

The May Fair Hotel is not a typo. For some reason they separate the words, unlike the area name, "Mayfair." Anyway, this hotel we had booked on our own at hotels.com. It was a very nice property, newly refurbished with modern amenities and pleasant public spaces. We were assigned to a room about as far from the elevator as you could find and it had a phone that kept flashing a "message waiting" light. We should have resisted the temptation to unpack and asked for a different room. That phone problem became a running issue for our entire two days at the May Fair.

But we can't argue about the hotel’s location or the room size... both excellent. After unpacking one more time for the last two days, we took a nice walk around the Mayfair district of London, admiring the gorgeous street exposures of the high-end shops in the area. Between the paint colors, the graphics and the signage, London designers do a masterful job of making storefronts look fabulous. The typefaces, the lighting, the door hardware... everything gives an image of class and I'm sure this is part of the appeal of Mayfair as a high-end shopping location.

We had seen a number of cool looking restaurants on our cab ride to the May Fair. We wandered a bit more and ended up at a very hip bar and restaurant called "@venue" on St. James Street. It was more glamorous bar than restaurant and our dinner was less than great... but we were looking forward to a full day in London ahead, so time for bed.

Photos of Montepulciano

Part 3 - More Italian Travel Advertures

Como To Cortona, Italy

Photos of Cortona

Sunday Evening, May 8, 2011 - Italians and their cars! OMG! Whether it's Cernobbio, Como or Cortona, they are everywhere! On streets too narrow for pedestrians, on sidewalks, in front of doorways... there don't seem to be any "no parking" rules and if they are, it is like their speed limits: they are routinely ignored. I'm afraid it has ruined some of these beautiful medieval cities. But apparently in Italy automobiles are like mistresses... "It's tradition!"

We had seen some interesting restaurants in Cernobbio during our many walks around the Lake Como area. So for our last night there, we decided that for dinner we would again venture out and see what we could find outside the gates of Villa d'Este. Earlier, we had a late poolside light lunch of well-prepared hamburgers, since we had an "urge." Won't even discuss what they cost. It was worth it, though, because the poolside people-watching was quite marvelous. Everything from overly-tanned Italian impresarios with very young wives, to handsome men trying to work a deal on their cell phones while they sipped beers, to a gaggle of four super-models who were either here for a photo shoot, or some reward for being so thin and gorgeous!

We relaxed and enjoyed our fabulous suite in the late afternoon, then made our way to Cernobbio for our dinner. We returned to the ferry terminal area of Cernobbio where we thought it might be fun to have a cocktail at one of the many outdoor cafe areas. We picked one that had the nicest table linens, but it was not quite what we imagined. Ronna ordered a Vodka Martini and got a large margarita glass with vodka rocks, some sort of sweet and sour mix, and SUGAR on the rim of the glass! It was almost undrinkable... but we sucked it up and finished our drinks without bitching, mainly because the waiters totally ignored our waving and requests for attention!

But dinner was better. We had seen the restaurant Ristorante Valpore mentioned on several listings of good food spots, so we wandered in about 8 pm. We got a table the nice outdoor patio of the restaurant, overlooking several quaint alleyways that snake thru the central town area. We started with some insalata mista, then we shared a superb pasta dish of tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms... amazing! Then Ronna had thin-sliced lamb chops that were breaded and fried. I had ossobucco that was fantastic. To end the evening, we sat outside at our suite's balcony table with a tiny candle watching the twinkling lights around Lake Como and sharing a split of Champagne. Bellisimo!

Monday, May 9, 2011

- We keep learning new tricks. Instead of quickly getting dressed to go to the fancy Villa d'Este dining room for coffee and breakfast, we pre-ordered just our coffee to be delivered to our suite at 8 am. Then we leisurely got dressed and had another marvelous breakfast buffet in the Veranda Room.

By 11:30 am we were all packed and unfortunately it was time to say goodbye to Villa d'Este. It was an unbelievable experience and we would love to come back here again, if we have any money!

We asked the concierge to call us a taxi and soon we were on our way to the AutoEurope Car rental agency in central Como. We had to wait about a half hour while a foursome from India squabbled over moving from a sedan into a van. They had 11 suitcases and the adult son had lost the keys to the sedan somewhere in the rental garage! Aaaggh! Our time finally came and we loaded our small bags into the back of a sharp Fiat Diesel Chroma sedan with manual transmission! Ronna was Driver No. 1 this day and did a great job of getting us onto the streets of Como heading toward the A9 Highway to Milan. Only one down shift stall upon exiting the A9 that caused a small honk from a very large truck right on our tail, but we survived!

We had printed out any number of computer directions from Google, MapQuest and others for our drive between Como and Cortona, but they all seemed so difficult. There were dozens of street names and turns and roundabouts. So instead we just asked the car rental agent "How do we get to the A9 to Milan?" She replied, "Go out the garage and turn right. Follow the green "Milan A9" signs." That was it! Italians do a nice job of directing you to their well-maintained superhighways... and we basically did not need a map for our journey down the A9, to the A8 cutoff around Milan to the A1 all the way past Bologna and Florence. It was very intuitive to follow their directional signs, except when we got past Florence, I wasn't sure how long we stayed on the A1. In complicate matters further, after Florence on the A1 you have to follow the signs to ROME. That didn't seem quite right, but it was. About 50 km after Florence we found a small exit and followed the detailed directions to our remote Villa di Piazzano near a small village of Pergo, about 10 km south of Cortona.

Ronna drove the first and last third of the trip. I drove the middle third. There are almost as many big-rigs on the A1 as there are on I-80 to Tahoe! And once you get past Bologna approaching Florence, the road drops down from three lanes to two, has lots of tunnels, steep cliffs and gets narrow as heck! And of course the Italian drivers in the left lane go as fast as they can, and unless you get out of their way, they get within a few feet of your rear bumper and flick their lights to move you over. We were driving 75-80 mph, but not fast enough! It was a very interesting experience, but not very relaxing for either of us! Stress Italian Style. We did pretty well at keeping our silence so as not to annoy our driving partner during this excursion. We did not want to cause an end to the 30 year marriage!

The Italians also have a nasty habit of creeping intentionally outside their lane a foot or two. We guessed they do this to "anticipate" their next lane change and block out other drivers moving past them. It's un-nerving to say the least, when they straddle the lane marker and zip by inches from your car doors.

We followed the Villa's directions after getting off the motorway now travelling on narrow country roads. Villa di Piazzano is in a very isolated location about 1/2 mile from a small village called Pergo. We found it, with just a few missed turns and before dark.

Villa di Piazzano is a beautifully restored manor estate built in the early 1500's by Cardinal Silvio Passerini. Passerini's son, Giovanni, later became Pope Leo X. In 1998, the current owners, who have Australian roots, bought the dilapidated old Villa and painstakingly refurbished it with large guest rooms and suites, amazing gardens and grounds, a large swimming pool, and a cozy bar and dining room.

Our junior suite, done in Tuscan yellow, has a large, four-poster bed, seating area, fine furniture and a nice size bathroom. The windows all had interior wood shutters to close at night. The vaulted ceiling was beamed with terracotta tile between the rafters and the floors were of polished terracotta tiles.

We had scheduled to eat dinner in the Villa's dining room, "L'Antica Casina di Caccia." We had a glass of champagne in the cute bar, then moved in for dinner. There were only two other couples dining when we arrived, and there is just a set menu of starter, pasta course, meat course and dessert. It's like eating in some one's home.

No complaints on the food... huge servings of tuna rolled in zucchini and eggplant on salad, then an amazing thick spaghetti with roasted tomatoes and onion on top of pesto fondue; and finally a perfectly cooked trio of pork cutlets with roasted apple, onion and ginger glaze. Dessert was a pear cake, which we passed on.... way too full!

But the dining room was painfully quiet. There was no buzz or conversation, until a party of four arrived and livened up the room a bit. There was also a tiny CD player with music that was not loud enough. Anyway, we'll do things a bit differently when we open our Villa!

The bed at this Villa has much better sheets than either Chateau de Bagnols or even Villa d'Este. Both of the prior places used extremely stiff pure linen sheets and cases. Ronna tells me they are very expensive and fancy but my elbows got raw from turning over in the night, they were that scratchy. Piazzano sheets are soft cotton. And we slept quite well.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

- We rose at 8:30 am and headed down to the dining room for a nice breakfast buffet spread. We then returned to our room and got ready for our 10:30 Cooking Class, part of our room package here at the Villa.

We were escorted back to a newer stone building that also has some new guest quarters and entered a nicely-designed kitchen with a large counter where four patrons could watch the teaching chef and do prep work and food creation. Our teacher, Gabriela, was an amazing chef and a charming communicator. We were joined by a nice couple from Chicago, Jim and Corrine. He's a leveraged buyout specialist at PNC Bank, and she's a professional photographer. They had similar senses of humor to ours and were also both "foodies." It felt like this was really going to be fun!

First, we went out to the Villa's garden, where we picked several herbs and a gorgeous, huge head of butter lettuce. We then returned to the kitchen, and helped Gabriela make our appetizer, Strudel Salato con Prugne e Panchetta. A nice doughy roll filled with sauteed prunes, bacon, walnuts, parmigiano and herbs.

We also helped create a dessert of Tiramisu with Strawberries. It was so simple... a parfait-like dish with a crushed oat cookie on the bottom, sliced strawberries in the middle, and a custard made of strawberry yogurt, marscarpone cheese and sugar. We chilled these dishes for service at the end of our meal.

Next we learned about and helped prepare an amazing ravioli filled with Gorgonzola, pears and walnuts. We made the pasta from scratch and ran the dough throught an old-fashioned crank pasta press.... so much fun!

We then took a break and had a little white wine with some bruschetta of toasted bread, gorgeous cherry tomatoes, basil and olive oil. Gabriela simply rubbed a peeled garlic clove over the toast before adding the other ingredients. So delicious!

A new step we learned was that when Gabriela made the pasta dough, she used white wine instead of water to mix it. We had to wrap the filling in the pasta dough, cut it into squares with the scalloped edge pasta cutter, and then crimp the ravioli to turn it into a big "hat" shape, like a tortellini. Tricky, but we eventually got the hang of the extra pasta manipulation.

There were plenty of laughs and quips during our cooking class. At one point Gabriela, in her charming Italian accent said, "I don't smoke. I don't drink. I just have really good wine." So that doesn't count as a vice!?! We all broke up over her hilarious comment!

Finally, we prepared an amazing Ossobuco, using the most tender cut of beef shank we've ever seen, with a huge section of marrow. The large, thin shanks were braised in a mix of carrot, celery, onion, garlic, and spices, plus olive oil and white wine. It only took about an hour to cook on the stove, in a large covered saute pan.

It was then time to eat our feast in the beautiful cooking school dining room set for four. This time we enjoyed a wonderful local red wine. Course by course we devoured the amazing dishes, all superb! We finally went out to a table in the garden to have our Strawberry Tiramisu dessert. The conversation was fun, and the cooking tips were fabulous... especially seeing home-made pasta being made, just like my father Hank used to do when I was a kid.

It was one of the best parts of our whole trip... four hours of total enjoyment!

But now we really needed a nap after all the rich food and wine. Ronna and I seriously considered making a pact to agree to never eat anything again, we were that full! But after a couple of hours of rest, we decided to visit the walled city of Cortona... for sightseeing, shopping and maybe some light, late dinner.

Cortona is only about 10 minutes North of Villa di Piazzano, and pretty easy to find with good signage. We read in some guide books that it is smart to drive around the walled town and park up near the cathedral and walk down the hilly little streets. We found a parking spot along the side of the road, parked parallele and ventured into historic Cortona.

We did some shopping and stopped for a glass of wine at about 6:30 pm in a very stylish restaurant/wine bar, Tuscher Hall, that was playing all our favorite smooth jazz hits! Small world!

We then meandered around determined to find a place to eat "just a very light supper." Easier said than done... we scoped out half a dozen places and chose Ristorante La Bucaccia... named after the neighborhood of Cortona in which it was located. Ronna had a nice rustic pasta dish of sausage, ham and zippy pepper, while I had a pasta made with potatoes and pecorino cheese. We also shared a large salad and a too-rich vegetable flan made of chopped veggies and cheese!

We waddled back to our car and returned to our Villa via a challenging drive in the dark.

We had scheduled a full day tour of Tuscany with a tour guide-driver for tomorrow, but this morning we decided to cancel that, since we did not want to be inside a car that much and we wanted more time to relax and see Toscana on our own with our rental car... now that Ronna has become such a masterful Italian driver!

Ciao for now!

Photos of Cortona

--

Part 2 - Lake Como, Italy

Our Pictures of Lake Como

Friday, May 6, 2011- Our pre-ordered breakfast arrived promptly at 8 am for our last morning at the Chateau. We arranged with the Chateau to have a Lyon taxi pick us up at 11:30 am for our1:55 pm flight to Milan. It was a luxury Mercedes sedan taxi with a formal driver for the 1 hour drive to the Lyon airport. EasyJet has a strict limit of 40 kg/88 lbs TOTAL of checked luggage for two people and only ONE carry-on per person. So we created a carry-on bag for me that would not only hold my briefcase with iPad, but also sundry electronics and laundry items. We planned to just continue to move items out of our checked bags into the carry-on to reach our weight limit. That wasn't necessary, as we came in under our weight allotment. EasyJet was a lot like Southwest Airlines, except you can buy not only drinks, but hot sandwiches, muffins and tons of duty-free items on board. We ordered some wine and a ham and cheese sandwich that took longer to prepare than our flight... almost! We got the sandwiches as we were landing, scarfing them down just moments before touch-down. But the flight wasn't full, and generally we don't think the airline EasyJet deserves the nick-name our British friends at the Chateau used: "Sleazy-Jet!"

Another driver that our travel consultant booked was in Malpensa Airport waiting for our arrival in Milan. A very pleasant chap, he motored us to Lake Como in about 45 minutes. The arrival was high-class all the way, and we were pleased to be upgraded to a Junior Suite from our booked "Lake View Room." It's great suite, with a nice size living room with a couch and two chairs, plus a desk. And a fabulous bathroom, walk-in closet and the suite has three big window with balconies that open to the Lake, one of which has a cute table and two outdoor chairs.

This part of Lake Como was inhabited by the Romans 2000 years ago, and it remains a very special place. What I like best is that we have this super-exclusive, all-inclusive resort, but you can walk outside the gates and in 10 minutes are in downtown Cernobbio, a cute little lake-side town with tons of interesting shops and restaurants. One of the problems of the beautiful Chateau de Bagnols was the quiet isolation: Great for contemplation and reflection, but it didn't leave much for activities outside the hotel, unless you took a taxi. This "captive audience" syndrome leads to a bit of an advantage for the hotel operator, when it comes to prices and value. But at Villa d'Este, you have a choice of using the beautiful facilities of the hotel, or not--as you choose. I like that option!

On our first night here, we were determined to walk a bit. We sauntered though the grounds of this spectacular lake-side property... acres and acres of perfectly-manicured gardens, buildings and water-front activities. They have two great restaurants, comparably priced--one formal (coat & tie), one casual. But we were a bit tired of stuffy food and so ventured out into Cernobbio for some local cuisine.

And did we hit a home run! After a glass of wine at the beautiful lake-front Harry's Bar in the middle of Cernobbio, we moved back to a place I spotted while walking along a side street: Ristorante L'Hostaria. When I went into the restaurant earlier at about 7 pm, I asked to see a menu. The proprietor pulled one out and proceeded outside to post it in the window box outside his establishment. There were only 7 tables inside... a good sign for me, and the menu was entirely in Italian--no annoying English translations, or worse--photos of the dishes on the posted menus like we saw at another lake-front touristy restaurant.

So after Harry's Bar, we wandered back to L'Hostaria for our dinner. I never expected that the man who showed us his menu, was the maitre'd, the waiter, the cook, the sommelier--everything! It was a one-man restaurant! He takes the orders, moves into his spotless kitchen, starts the orders, moves back to the dining room, and so forth. We had a great view from our little table of the door to the kitchen, so we could see the owner/chef/waiter do his thing!

It was absolutely amazing! He pulled off every dish perfectly... starting with a wonderful salad of greens with warm shrimp and mint. Then a pasta dish--tortellini with spinach and ricotta. Then I had branzini fish filets, while Ronna chose a sauteed baby chicken. All of it pulled off as if he had a staff of cooks in the kitchen. But it was just him! We ended with Tiramasu and decaf espresso, and everything was excellent.

Imagine this kind of place in San Francisco... no worries about employee taxes, health care assessments, workers comp, anything! Perhaps I have a new career ahead! We continued to compliment the owner, and finally learned his name, Eugene. We asked him what it was like to do everything, every night in his restaurant. He said in his broken English, "You have to be fucking crazy!"

Anyway, super memorable for our first night in Lake Como!

Saturday, May 7, 2011 - Official 30th Anniversary Day - We awoke with the amazing warm light of Northern Italy sparkling on Lake Como. We are truly blessed to be in such a beautiful suite with views that change with the hours. We called for room service to get our included Continental Breakfast, expecting it would take a half hour or more. This is a very large hotel, with buildings spread over many, many acres. To our surprise, our breakfast trays were here in less than 10 minutes! More amazing service!

As we mentioned, we got a free lunch at the swanky gourmet restaurant as part of our Virtuoso booking from our travel consultant, Kittina Powers. I thought it would be a minimalist thing of limited choices. Wrong! We were seated outside on the gorgeous patio with a lake-side table and were told we could have a three-course lunch made up of anything on the menu! We were polite and didn't go crazy, but it was quite spectacular food... starting with a gnocchi pasta dish for me with braised radicchio, while Ronna had a marvelous chicken soup with dumplings that was superb. Then came our entrees--I had a tasty baby crispy chicken with tempura vegetables and garnished with the smallest dice of carrots, tomatoes and zucchini that I have ever seen! Delicioso! Ronna had a perfect veal Milanese. We were stuffed but HAD to do a third dessert course. A simple request for some gelato turned into gorgeous plates of ice cream with beautiful adornments and a plate full of cookies and chocolate sweets! What a lunch! All for "free" and I priced out our simple orders at north of $250. Amazing!

After our memorable lunch, we decided to walk to Cernobbio and take the Lake Como Ferry to Como... to see the largest town in the area, do some sightseeing and possibly some shopping. The ferries run about every 15 minutes and traverse the whole length of huge Lake Como. This is not a small body of water! It takes almost two hours to travel by boat from the top to bottom. But our little run from Cernobbio to Como took only 12 minutes.

The busy city of Como was bustling with tourists, shoppers and students. A nice setting overlooking the water, with tons of typical Italian trattorias and bars on each corner. We walked a lot and ended up at the base of the famous Como-Brunate Funicular Railway, that takes you from the lake level up to the top of a nice mountain to Brunate, a village of about 1,000 inhabitants at an elevation of 2,100 feet. You move quickly up the steep track of the train at about a 45 degree angle. It's a very thrilling ride and historic. This Funicular Railway opened in 1896.

We enjoyed the views from the top overlooking all of Lake Como and then made our way down. We didn't notice that our return ferry to Cernobbio left from a different pier than our arrival ferry. So we almost missed our 4:45 departure! The nice Italian longshoremen, held the boat as we ran to Pier 4 and we made it on! We also noticed several boats named "Villa d'Este 1 or 2." We wondered whether these were private boats to take us back to the Villa. Nope. They are simply tourist boats that take curious onlookers outside the lake-front areas of Villa d'Este for a glimpse of the rich and famous! How lucky we are!

Back at Villa d'Este, we enjoyed our suite and prepped for our official 30th Anniversary Celebration Dinner. Hotel management had a nice bottle of champagne chilled in our room for us when we returned from our Como tour and we took the picture that I just posted to Facebook just before leaving for our taxi ride to Ristorante Navedano in Como.

A word about taxis in Italy and France. They don't just charge for your ride. They start the meter from wherever they are located when they get your request for a ride. So when our cab arrived at the Villa, it already had almost 20 Euros charged on the meter. That's $30 for just having him come to this place. By the time we finished our 20 minute ride to our dinner restaurant, the tab was about 40 Euros ($60)... but again, who's counting!

Our dinner at Ristorante Navedano was very good. When we were seated in this gorgeous dining room filled with tulips and orchids, there were only about four other tables occupied. We had some simple salads to start, then shared a nice black squid carbonara pasta dish and then Ronna had "Wild Boar Chops" and I had veal liver! Both excellent. By the time our entrees arrived the restaurant was packed. And that's when the service fell off a bit... we passed on dessert and decided to move back to Villa d'Este.

Determined to see if I could make my cab dollars go a bit further, I asked the restaurant owner to call us the "closest cab" she could find. She did and within 10 minutes we were boarding a nice clean mini-van... with only 12 Euros on the meter already. This is a bit better, I figured. We had a nice ride to Villa d'Este and I smirked when I saw the meter reading "only" 23 Euros as we pulled into the Villa's driveway. But suddenly the meter jumped to 41 Euros! "What happened?" I asked the driver. "Oh, there is an automatic surcharge for trips after 10 pm." Yikes! Can't win for losing! But it's only money!

Despite my frugality, it was a very special and fun night! A marvelous way to celebrate 30 years!

Sunday, May 8, 2011 - We awoke to see an even clearer day on Lake Como. There's a bit of a breeze and it has moved some of the haze off the lake.

We pulled on our clothes and went to the main formal dining room for our breakfast. It was one of the most lavish breakfast buffets we've ever seen! Everything from omelets to cheeses to amazing breads and rolls... all included in our room tariff.

We then freshened up a bit in our suite, and began a nice walk up the aqueduct steps in the main garden area of the Villa. You climb hundreds of feet with a bubbly path of water naturally flowing down from a stream into two parallel raised aqueducts next to the pathways. You get amazing views of the lake from the top structure that houses a huge statue of Hercules. There is a wonderful Chef's garden with dozens of kinds of herbs and vegetables along the way to visit, too.

Time to post this blog before it gets stale!


--Bill, with edits by Ronna


Our Pictures of Lake Como

Part 1 - London and France

Sunday, May 1, 2011 - For this trip to Europe, we were determined to overcome jet-lag earlier.

We started this process in San Francisco four days before we left for New York, gradually getting up earlier and earlier to get us onto Eastern Time. It worked suprisingly well... since we got up at 4 am on Friday, April 29, 2011 for our flight to JFK, we were tired in the early evening after arriving in New York at 3 pm, and became East Coast time-types immediately. But the five additional hours of time change for London was not quite as easy.

After two days of nice visits and excursions with our daughters and their families in New York, we headed off to JFK on Sunday to catch a 7:30 pm departure to London on British Airways.

We used American Airlines frequent flyer miles to book our Business Class travel roundtrip to Europe and we were suprised to learn that our early evening flight to Heathrow was labeled as "Sleeper Service." It's billed as a way for travellers to get some extra sleep, since the business class seats recline to a complete flat bed, albeit a bit narrow. To allow more time for shut-eye, British Air has a large lounge at JFK airport that includes a buffet-style restaurant for those of us on the "Sleeper" flights. Although it sounded like a neat idea, in practice it was pretty lame. The buffet line included some tired salads and a Pho soup station where an over-taxed chef made custom bowls of Asian soup with your choice of ingredients. It was a very time-consuming routine, and I waited for at least 20 minutes to get our bowls of Pho. By the time we ate our soup it was time to board, so we really didn't eat enough to sustain us through to London.

The "Sleeper Service" could also be a way for British Air to save money. They clearly had fewer flight attendants than normal in our upper level business class area, and they were definitely saving money on food expenses, since all you could eat on board was a bad chicken salad or some dried-out ravioli. But after a couple of drinks, we both got a little sleep and were soon being asked if we wanted a light breakfast. As we approached Heathrow, our flight attendant informed us that the Captain had told him that Osama Bin Laden had been killed and that news spread throughout the cabin very quickly.

Monday, May 2, 2011 - We didn't notice any increase in security at Heathrow, which was surprising. Our bags arrived relatively promptly and our travel consultant had arranged for a driver who was already at the airport with his "Grosvenor Car Service" sign.

We arrived at our "jet lag stop" hotel, The Academy, in a great area of London just blocks from the St. Pancras train station where the next day we would be boarding the Eurostar for our trip to Lyon via Lille, France. The Academy Hotel is a small boutique property with our room costing only 139 Euros--a very low rate for London. On prior trips to Europe, we typically arrive early in the morning and have to kill time at the hotel bar or lunch room waiting for our room to become available, since most of these places have an "official" check-in time of 3 pm. This time, we decided to spring for paying for two nights, even though we would really only be sleeping in the hotel room one night. So when we arrived at the hotel, we could go to our room straight-away... take a little nap and be ready for an nice evening in London.

We decided to slum-it with pub food for dinner, and we shared an "English Pie Assortment" of doughy, British concoctions which made us pretty ill by the time we finished it all off! But the Jack Horner Pub, was a friendly place with Peroni beer on tap, which was great! We went to bed relatively early, in anticipation of our train voyage to France the next day.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011 - We had high hopes about using Europe's high-speed rail network. And the Eurostar portion through the "chunnel" from London to Lille did not disappoint. Our first class seats included a nice lunch with wine, lots of free magazines and very comfortable seats. The only down-side to this idea was the problem of "schlepping" your own luggage onto and off the train. No porters, like in the old days. They have luggage racks right by the doors of each car, but people are trying to get to their seats or store their own bags, and it was a bit of a fight to get our two medium cases, and two smaller bags onto the rack. But it worked out, and in less than 90 minutes, we were in Lille France, having zipped across England, the English Channel and Northern France at 185 miles per hour.

The transfer from the British Eurostar to the French TGV train was relatively painless, but again a hassle trying to roll our bags up and down escalators. When you arrive, you go to a waiting area where at exactly 20 minutes before your train departs, the track on which it will leave is flashed on a schedule monitor. Everyone then made a mad dash to Track 46 to catch our TGV double-decker train No. 5022 which would go to Lyon, Provence and all the way to Marsailles.

Unfortunately, TGV was nothing like the Eurostar. Unbeknownst to us, we had bad pre-reserved seats facing another couple and had to play footsie with them for most of the trip. Even more annoying there was zero food or beverage service. The bar car was closed tight, and when I asked a French train dude why it was closed, he pointed to a TGV notebook that said "Bar Car Closed for Reasons Beyond Our Control." Labor strife? Mechanical problems? Who knows. Bottom line is not even a bottle of water was available for our 3 hour excursion through France.

We read our e-book readers, and watched the countryside zip by at incredible speed, but it was hardly enjoyable, and definitely not "first class." But in about the same time as it would take to get to an airport in London, go thru security lines, wait for your flight, then arrive and wait for baggage, we got to Lyon on the trains pretty much on time at 7: 15 pm. Total travel time, about 4 and a half hours. But we've now been there, and done that, and probably won't repeat the train experiment again, unless we are travelling extremely lightly.

Our destination was Bagnols... a small village about 45 minutes northwest of Lyon. The Chateau de Bagnols had arranged for taxi service to meet us in Lyon, and the driver was inside the train terminal with his "Chateau de Bagnols" sign when we arrived.

At about 8:15 we got to the Chateau... a 13th century French castle that has been lovingly restored to its original grandeur by Lady Hamlyn in 1987. Renaissance walls were uncovered, antique furnishings installed, and 12 unique guest quarters were created inside the various levels of the castle. The grounds and the views are absolutely stupendous.

We got upgraded into the Gaspard Dugue Junior Suite--a very large apartment with a 17th century four poster bed that has been placed in the alcove of the former location of the chapel of the castle. A big living rooms adjoins the bedroom and we also have a large bath and a walk-in closet. All the furniture is period. I'm typing this sitting on a chair and desk both from the 18th century! The original 400-year old leather seat and back shows cracking and age, but is totally intact and useable! I'm afraid of sitting too hard on it, for fear of breaking a piece of furniture that might be worth $100,000! All the accessories in the room are of the highest quality, and of course available for purchase. The cute little silver wine "beakers" that accompanied our "Welcome" carafe of vino are available for just 400 Euros ($600) each. The menu of accessory prices is also a subtle way of telling guests, "Don't steal this stuff or you will be billed for it!"

One of the most unusual aspects of the bathrooms in the Chateau's accommodations are the toilets. They are hidden in wooden "thrones" that might have been church pew seats at some point in history. The wooden top seat lifts to expose another wooden level with a large hole to sit over. That also lifts up for "stand-up" uses by males. But the location of the hole makes lengthy sitting on these commodes less than ideal. In addition, our room just had a bath with a hand-held shower. I'm not big on these, and so after our first night here, we inquired whether all the rooms had these strange toilets and if any had showers. All but one room has these "thrones" and only one small room has a regular stand-up shower... so after looking at our other possible choices, we decided to stick with our "Gaspard Dugue" suite. The size of the suite and the views both to the Valley below on one side, and into the courtyard on the other side, made it worth putting up with the funky plumbing.

We had arranged to have room service dining on our first night because of our somewhat late arrival time. Ronna had a chicken dish and I had beef and they were quite good, but of course shockingly expensive. We knew things would be pricey, and with the dollar so low against the Euro, it gives you some serious "sticker shock" when you order a small chicken dish that runs 42 Euros ($63 dollars.) Add some soup and a dessert to share and you've blown about $250 on your in-room dinner. But alas, you only have a 30th Anniversary once... I think!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011 - We slept in a bit and called for our room service Continental Breakfast, which was included in our room package. Good strong coffee, cereal, fruit, a huge roll and croissant basket... all excellent.

We then took a stroll through the cute little Bagnols village. It's comprised of a few shops, which were closed more often than open, a post office and a nice Pizza bar-restaurant, which was also closing up for mid-day break when we sauntered by. But we took some marvelous photos, with the amazing European light and fabulous colors of the stone work. Bagnols is famous for two things... wine-making (Beaujolais) and stone and tile masonry. Both are evident everywhere.

We went back to our Chateau and spent some time in the hotel's Lounge room, another amazingly restored period place with an enormous Renaissance fireplace and fabulous furnishings. We also enjoyed a glass of wine on the outdoor terrace. There are not many guests at Chateau de Bagnols at any one time... I think they make their living primarily on groups and special events, like weddings.

We returned to the Lounge to wait for our 8 pm dinner reservation time and ended up meeting a charming couple about our age from the UK. We chatted and moved on to the dining room together.

We had reserved a spot for dinner in the Michelin-rated Chateau Restaurant, Salles des Gardes, which boasts the largest Gothic fireplace in all Europe. It was a spectacular space. Our new friends, Sue and John from Manchester, joined us for dinner and we enchanged plenty of interesting conversation over our five course tasting menu dinner. One of the best bargains on the wine list is of course Beaujolais wine... made right around the Chateau. But beyond the Beaujolais, the wine list prices were heart-stopping. Nothing less than $200 a bottle, and most well into quardruple digits! There must be some very rich people around!
We learned that Sue and John owned five automobiles ranging from Bentleys to Porsches, and he made his fortune creating chefs' coats and linens for restaurants! He has a plant in England that with automation, can make chef's coats cheaper and faster than even a Chinese factory. He provides these garments to restaurants all over Europe and the Middle East. It always amazes me how many ways there are to earn a good living in this world!

We left the dining room close to midnight and finally went to sleep without the aid of "Simply Sleep" or Ambien. A wonderful day!

Thursday, May 5, 2011 - Up earlier today... 8:45 and we wandered down for our Continental Breakfast in the fancy Dining Room.... where we met again with Sue and John. They were driving on to the South of France in their Bentley, and we wished them well on their journey.

Part of the benefits of booking our trip through Travel Consultant Kittina Powers, is the fact that we get "Virtuoso" benefits at each hotel. At Chateau de Bagnols we got free breakfasts, plus a tour of a local winery. We scheduled that for 2 pm this day, and a car from the Chateau drove us about ten minutes away to a lovely nearby village, Le Bois d'Oingt. We met a charming lady, Mdme. Durdilly, who's husband and son are the winemakers for their brand of Beaujolais wine... Domaine Durdilly. She showed us the whole winemaking process and we compared our experiences in the Napa and Sonoma Valleys with hers, and it was very interesting. We of course had a thorough wine-tasting of all of Durdilly's offerings... from a very limited production Chardonnay to their various forms of Beaujolais... including some heavy oak-tinged offerings. Amazingly, you could buy her wine right there for between 5 and 7 Euros a bottle... the same wine we saw on the Chateau wine list for 32 Euros!

Other interesting insights from Mdme. Durdilly: She employs about 30 seasonal workers during fall grape harvest, all retired folks or young students. She has to pay them 100 Euros a day ($150) plus provide them with room and board! She says vineyard workers in Chili earn 1 Euro a day, by comparison.

The winery visit was very fun and she gave us a great recommendation for dinner in her little village... L'Restaurant Auberge Gourmande. So when we got back to our hotel, we had the concierge make us a reservation and set up a ride from the Chateau to the restaurant and back with the in-house driver.

It was nice to have classic French food, but not quite so fussy and fancy as the prior night in the hotel. The owner/server did her best to accommodate us with her limited English and there was no "French attitude" of any sort... she was so friendly and caring, maybe because we were staying at Chateau de Bagnols!

We said goodnight after another wonderful day in France

Our Photos of Bagnols