July 23 - August 3, 2015 - Camano, Orcas and Vashon Islands, WA

Camano, Orcas and Vashon Islands  

July 23 – August 3, 2015

After a week in Michigan, the boys and I flew to Seattle and met up with Alle, who was coming from California and with Ricardo. We all drove to a rental house on the beach on Camano Island. Camano is an hour and half north of Seattle and west of Pilchuck Glass School. The house we rented sat on a warm-ish bay, looking southeast with views of Mount Baker, still covered with snow,

and on a clear day, Mount Rainier. We rented it for a week so that Ricardo’s immediate family could come together for a reunion. All of the kids had not been together before. Ricardo’s older son Jordan, his wife Magda and their two year old son Lazaro arrived later on Thursday. Ricardo’s older daughter Annika and husband Jake arrived the next day. We spent a long weekend together, Thursday through Monday.

Our house was on Iverson Beach near a wilderness preserve called Iverson Spit Preserve.  To get there, we took a bridge to Camano Island and drove down the Iverson Beach Road, which was bathed in beautiful light by the time we reached it at sunset.

Being on East Coast time after our week in Michigan, I was rising earlier than the rest of our group, which is not typical. This was one of my early morning views.

The interior of our cabin was rustic, but comfortable.

The Camano Island beach was rocky with lots of drift wood, perfect for building forts

and for kayaking.

After the older kids left, we drove east and spend a morning at one of my old haunts, Pilchuck Glass School. Both Ricardo and I have served on the Board there at different times. Our sailing buddy, Mark Haley, a mutual friend on the Board introduced us to each other many years ago. Here's the view I never tire of from Pilchuck, looking north towards the San Juan Islands. 

The staff have added these flags of all the countries represented in Pilchuck glass classes to the lovely log entry of the lodge.

The weather became sunny and warm towards the end of our time on Camano; the last three days we were on the beach were lovely summer days.

We even tried swimming in the very cold water. One of the days, we walked down the beach to the preserve. 

There are paths in from the beach; one was called the Hobbit Trail, which the boys liked.

It is wooded and magical.

From Camano, we drove north and boarded a car ferry at Anacortes to Orcas Island.

The whole process takes about two hours. Orcas is one of the San Juan Islands and is more sunny and drier than the Seattle area.

We arrived on Orcas and were met by our old friends Mark and Nancy Haley, on their lovely wooden sailboat.

We were all so happy to sail with them for the latter half of the day. Everyone got a chance to try steering the boat while it was under sail. It was a beautiful afternoon.

Chatting with them felt as if no time had passed although I haven’t seen them in at least four years.

For two nights on Orcas, we stayed in an apartment above some shops in East Sound, a small quaint touristy village in one of the bays.

It was a great place to stay. A nice bakery was downstairs and lots of shops dotted the street below us.

Everything we wanted to see on the island was within easy driving distance.  One of the reasons we had booked a few days on Orcas was that other friends from Des Moines were also there visiting family. The boys’ preschool friend Anna Lucy and her family were there. So, we saw them on one of our days there. We met up for breakfast and also for dinner, which was fun.

From Orcas, Alle and I drove Ricardo and the boys south to the King Street Station in Seattle. It was a long process to get south. We started on Orcas at 11 am, caught the 12:30 pm ferry, made it to Anacortes around 2 pm, drove to northern Seattle around 3:15 pm and to the train station by about 4 pm. We were lucky and the legendary Seattle traffic (in a bad way) did not hold us back going in our direction.  The boys were ready for their 4:40 train to Minneapolis. Alle and I made our way to Vashon Island via a stop for red bean pastries and bubble teas in Chinatown.

We visited some of our favorite people on Vashon, Shirley and Bill.

We had a lively, less-than-24-hour time with them, but even a visit that short can be worthwhile. We had a sunset dinner and long breakfast each filled with good conversation. Aunt Shirley's Studio walls have inspired many a creative project and summer cousin's camp adventure.

We had a chance to swing by our Vashon farm and meet our new tenants, who seem to be very excited about the house, two acre garden and ten acres of grass.  

Alle and I decided to spend our last few hours of holiday in downtown Seattle at Pike Place Market. We ate our way from one end to the other and then went out for a light dinner.

We stayed in my favorite downtown Mayflower Hotel and flew back to Des Moines the next morning.  The only saving grace of being home with too much laundry, unpacking and reorganizing to do is that we are bringing a new puppy into the family. That will have to be a different story. 

July 18 - 23, 2015 - Visit to Michigan

After our three week trip to Barcelona and Paris, I was home for eight days. I am not sure why I booked my summer travel so close together, but that is how it worked out. I played with the boys, unpacked, did laundry and repacked. 

The boys and I flew together to Michigan to visit Uncle Fred, Aunt Betsy and Omi in mid-July. It was great fun as always to visit Uncle Fred, Aunt Betsy and Cousin Mel in Ann Arbor.  Their vast garden was looking like a park. 

This visit, they had a new puppy dog named Maizey Blue who enjoyed the boys and whom the boys enjoyed in return. Together they exhausted each other.

After two days and many nice meals together, we drove to Rochester to visit my Mum. One of our cats Gusti is home with Omi. Both my Mum and our cat were happy to see us and as chatty as ever. The boys had fun playing with Gu, since they haven’t seen her since the Fall. 

During our four day visit, we played with the train set, made many fabulous arts and craft projects, took Omi out to dinner and played in the yard. Here's the front yard with a cat sculpture from us. 

Here's the back yard and gardens:

One of the days, Uncle Fred, Aunt Betsy and Cousin Laura came and took the boys to the Detroit Zoo, which was a big adventure. I tried to help Mum document all of the wonderful treasures at her house so that she can move someday, if she wants to. We have been cataloging all of my mother’s and father’s books so that perhaps we can donate the academic books, also.  Our time in Michigan seemed too short; we flew from Detroit to Seattle. 

July 3 - 9 , 2015 in Paris

Six Nights in Paris - 3 - 9 July 2015

After a wonderful week in Barcelona, we took a high speed train to Paris. I’m sure we could have flown there more quickly, but I thought it would be more interesting to see the country side heading along the Mediterranean and then up north through France. We arrived at one of the downtown stations and took the Metro to Saint Paul’s. From there it was a short, nice walk across a bridge or two to Il Saint Louis, which is the second of the two islands in the middle of the River Seine. The first island holds the Notre Dame Cathedral and is better known. Il Saint Louis is filled with lovely buildings, shops and restaurants and is very central. Here's the view down the street from our apartment window.

Crossing one bridge put us on the Left Bank and St Germain neighborhoods of restaurants and art galleries; crossing another bridge put us on the Right Bank and heading towards the Louvre, gardens and shopping areas. We even had a french cat living in one of the restaurants a few doors down from us. 

One of our favorite things about living on Il Saint Louis was walking back from dinner each night. We would walk back passing either in front or behind Notre Dame. This was our view on the 4th of July at sunset looking down the Seine from one of the bridges to our island. 

On the Sunday that we were in Paris, we attended a service at the church on our island and walked to Notre Dame to listen to the choir there, also. Seeing modern windows in an old, traditional cathedral such as Notre Dame was unexpected and breathtaking for me.

Later that day, we walked to Sainte Chapelle, built by King Louis IV and one of the only churches in Paris consisting of primarily stained glass.

I had booked most of our dinners via Trip Advisor on-line before we left. I like to try “foodie” restaurants and while in Paris, I wanted to try some of the best restaurants there.  So, every evening, Alle and I returned to our small flat, changed into less touristy clothes and tried some great Paris restaurant. Most of them were really good; our favorite was Pur in the Four Seasons Hotel near the Paris Opera House. All of the special Parisian treats we tried were really good as well, such as macaroons at La’Duree and Mont Blancs (a ground chestnut dessert) at Angelina’s.  Luckily, the best ice cream in Paris was just down the street from us on our own island at Berthillon.

We did all of the traditional Paris tourist things to do, I think. We took a boat tour down the Seine. We visited the Eiffel Tower.

We toured all of the Impressionist art we could find at the Musee d’Orsay, L’Orangerie

and Musee Marmatton. We looked at the exterior of the Louvre, but did not go inside. We assumed that we needed at least three days to do it justice and I have seen it before. We took great walks all around our island, around the gardens of Tuileries

and Palais Royal, 

the new galleries of Bastille, and interesting shopping areas. Here is the entry to one of the traditional indoor shopping areas, Galerie Vivienne, the precursor to our shopping malls, but so much more civilized. 

We could have spent any number of more days in Paris; there was still so much to see and do. 

June 26 - July 3, 2015 in Barcelona

Six Nights in Barcelona, June 26 – July 3, 2015

After a few days in Michelstadt, Germany we flew to Barcelona and arrived there early in the afternoon. We found our host’s recommended Aerobus from the airport into the center of town. Our apartment was just south of Plaza Catalunya, so we exited the Aerobus there with our rolly bags and made our way out of the south end of the Plaza, down the Port de L’Angel, a large pedestrian shopping street. Our place was on Santa Anna, a quiet smaller pedestrian street across from the pharmacy sign in the photo below. 

I had texted our host Mario and he met us at the apartment’s front door.

Our Barcelona apartment was up four flights of very tight, circular stone stairs, 

but it was modern, light and open. It was one large room with a living space and a low wall separating the bedroom and a door into the bathroom space with a shower. It was small and in a wonderful location. We could walk out and turn left onto Las Ramblas and from there walk all the way down to the port with its somewhat confusing statue of Christopher Columbus.

or we could turn right to de L’Angel and walk two blocks to the Cathedral with its wonderful Cloisters. 

Our first night we walked to the Cathedral 

and into Barri Gotic 

for a reservation I had made via TripAdvisor before we left, at L’Antic Bocoi Del Gotic restaurant. We got there when it opened at 7:30 or 8 pm and we were the first people there. Most people do not eat until at least 9 pm in Barcelona. On this night, it was good to be first because they sat us at the best table at the end of the restaurant at the window with a view of the square below.

We loved Barcelona, named for Barcino whose name graces the square near the Cathedral. 

One of the highlights was the Spanish Guitar concert we saw at Palau Musica. We had booked tickets in advance and found the “Palace of Music” was just a few blocks from our apartment. The interior is wonderfully decorative and the best way to see it was to see a concert.

One of the low lights is that I narrowly avoided being robbed while shopping at one of the markets on Las Ramblas. People had warned us that pick pockets were very aggressive in Barcelona. At one market stall, a man next to us asked a question of a vendor, while his female partner tried to take the wallet out of my purse. Luckily, I felt something and was able to hit my wallet out of her hands and reclaim it. 

We saw many of the Gaudi designed buildings. The first was the Palau Guell, a residence for the Guell family 

with its central worship or concert hall with many small skylights. 

My favorite was the Sagrada Familia cathedral. 

Gaudi designed it around 1880 – 1900, but much of it is only being built now. The stained glass windows, for example were designed and installed since 1999 by a Barcelona based artist.  

We got tickets to go into the Nativity towers. There is an elevator going up and the view of the city is very good. The way down, however, is via a tight spiral stone staircase. Some of the openings as we went down were a bit terrifying, but the views are great.

One of the areas further east from Barri Gotic was El Born. We walked there one morning to see the church Santa Maria del Mar. This is a view of it from another characteristic Barcelona street of stone with apartment buildings and shops on either side and vegetation in pots along the sides or in the balconies. 

There are great restaurants and shops near by. We had tapas for lunch here. 

We walked back to our favorite gelato place near City Hall and the government buildings called Gelaaati! Each flavor was made in the morning and the range of options and intensity of flavors was staggering. We really had to try something every day to get a full sense of the place. 

One of our other favorite ventures was the Joan Miro museum. One of our days in Barcelona, a Swiss friend of mine who lives in Girona came to visit us by train. After she arrived, we all took the “vertical” metro up to the “mountain”, Montjuic. We visited the Joan Miro Museum, which is the largest collection of his works in the world.  

Further up the road from the museum at the National Palace/Museum of Catalan, there is a set of waterfalls down to the street level of Plaza Espana. We loved the view down 

and then the view back up from the bottom. 

From there, we walked back to the Parallel metro stop where we had started and had dinner at a place I had reserved from home, Café Manilla.

It was one of our favorite meals while in Barcelona on our last night there. Onto Paris.