Travel Couple

Zadar: The First Stop on Our Balkans Road Trip Through Croatia, Slovenia, & Bosnia and Herzegovina

| 2suitcasesfor2years

Peering down at the shimmering cobalt and turquoise blue water of the Adriatic Sea relieved the previous day’s anxiety of nearly missed connections. We encountered a long delay at passport control in Paris, before catching our connecting early morning flight to Zadar.

This temporary reprieve was short lived though, as we were confronted with a shuttered rental car window at the Sicily By Car booth, directly across from the small Zadar terminal. It was a Sunday morning – maybe the service at church ran long, or the coffee and pastries at the café were particularly delicious; nevertheless, the other passengers on our early morning flight who had rented with other agencies were long gone. At the terminal’s outdoor café we sipped coffee, waited, and discussed whether or not to cancel our existing reservation.  An hour passed before a car parked behind the booth, and the shuttered window was noisily cranked open. A pleasant young woman greeted us, and the morning’s delay was forgotten. Years ago, we began the habit of asking attendants at the rental car counters for suggestions to non-touristy places to eat. It appears it’s an unusual request from a customer, but folks seem pleased that we sincerely ask for their opinion. “Let me think on that, and by the time paperwork is done and I show you the car, my colleague and I will have some ideas for you.” With the names of three restaurants and a patisserie, “you should definitely try,” we headed off to see waterfalls at Skradinski Buk National Park in a nearly new small SUV, an upgrade from what we had reserved. The park was our first stop on our three-week long Croatian road trip, before our late afternoon check-in at an apartment rental in old town Zadar later.

The sunny April morning was now overcast as we drove into the small village of Benković to see its hilltop castle, and indulge our “drive a little, then café,” philosophy. Unfortunately, the castle was closed and the town seemed deserted in the pre-tourist season. Down the lane from the castle fig trees were setting their fruit and the first flowers of Spring were blooming. The café remained an unfulfilled desire.

We love traveling during the shoulder seasons to avoid the crowds of summer. But one of the drawbacks is fewer, if any, restaurants/cafes are open, especially in the more rural areas.

The drive to the park along Rt56 was semi-desolate, but pretty in an austere way, and passed through Croatia’s garigue shrublands, olive groves, and pine forests. From the road as we drove past Skradin, we could see large charter yachts at their winter moorings on the Krka River, two miles from the sea, sheltering there from fierce Adriatic storms, as they waited for the warmer cruising season to start.  Across the river the road zigged and zagged up the mountainside before leveling off on a high plateau.

Following the signs to the national park we drove down a side road which passed a sprawling abandoned factory site, fronted with several concrete military bunkers. They were relics from the Cold War era like the ones that dot the landscape in Albania. Built in the 1930s, the IVANAL d.o.o. plant was the Balkans region’s first state-of-the-art aluminum processing complex that employed 400 people. It was confiscated by Czechoslovakia’s communist regime in the 1940’s and never upgraded or maintained. Over the decades production fell until the plant was closed after Croatia’s independence in 1991.

The parking lot at the national park was very full, considering it was a chilly Spring Sunday, but the queue at the ticket booth moved quickly. While the falls are quite a distance downhill from the entrance to the park, some folks chose to walk a route through the forest to forage for the wild asparagus that sprouts along its path from March to May.

We opted for a ticket that included a shuttle bus ride to the largest waterfall, Skradinski Buk, at the bottom of a series of equally impressive waterfalls on the Krka River, then a walk back upstream along the waterway to another shuttlebus stop for a return ride to the top of the park entrance plateau. During the summer months the national park also offers a scenic twenty-minute boat ride from the harbor in Skradin,to the base of Skradinski Buk.

The overcast day was actually the perfect weather condition to photograph the waterfalls without heavy shadows or bright highlights, and the falls were thundering, foaming with the snowmelt from the Dinaric Alps, which run through the coastal Balkans region.

Along the way, we stopped at several restored watermills, with their mill races still intact. They were used primarily to grind locally harvested grain into flour, and to wash processed wool. A blacksmith shop also used a waterwheel to drive its furnace bellows to keep the fire hot enough to work the iron, and to power the heavy trip hammers the smith used to shape tools.

A serpentine elevated wooden walkway, without guardrails, twisted through groves of flooded forest, and kept us dry as the spring runoff rushed below us. It’s important to be aware of your footing in these circumstances, and we always waited at a wider part of the walkway for other folks to pass when the boardwalk was too narrow, to avoid fulfilling my mental image of being swept away down the rapids.

Unlike tourist sites in the United States, where everything is fenced to protect us from injury, in Europe you are expected to be responsible for yourself, and aware of your surroundings to guard against mishaps. We thoroughly enjoyed the waterfalls. We don’t see them in the coastal area at home, since we live nearly at sea level.

Zadar protrudes into the Adriatic, on a small peninsula, like a thumbs up sign, its once rough coastline now manicured with a sidewalk that follows its waterfront. Parking was challenging, but after circling the old town twice, we found a metered space near the Apartments Donat, our base for three nights. The rooms in the restored 700-year-old building were small. But the location, on a small lane overlooking the Cathedral of St. Anastasia and the Church of St. Donatus, was very convenient.

The manager of the building, who didn’t live on site, kindly made his parking space, next to the building, available to us for the duration of our stay. While having a rental car provides a lot of freedom, the typical 20 euro daily expense of parking in Europe can quickly add up. It’s not always possible, but we try to stay in hotels that provide free parking when we can.

Later that day we walked along the waterfront to Obala Petra Krešimira, a jetty that was being battered by whipping winds and crashing waves, which lifted large sprays of water over anyone brave or foolish enough to venture out onto it.

Nearby, in front of Zadar’s City Hall was Morske Orgulje, the Sea Organ, an experimental architectural sound installation designed by the architect Nikola Bašić and completed in 2005 to refurbish Zadar’s waterfront which had been neglected since the end of World War Two. The design incorporates polyethylene organ pipes under the marble stairs that lead down to the water. The motion of the waves continuously forces air through these pipes to create a “harmonic symphony crested by the wind, waves, and tides,” that is vented through the rise of the steps. Visually it’s a flat surface, but as we walked across the plaza the ethereal music faded in and out moodily with the motion of the turbulent sea.

The Greeting to the Sun, a solar-powered light installation also designed by Bašić, was a short distance away, closer to the tip of the peninsula. It’s a 22m (72ft) wide disc composed of 300 multi-layered glass plates, embedded into the plaza, which you can walk across. The panels absorb solar energy during the day to turn the disk into a colorful light display in the evening.

We hoped the storm clouds would begin to break apart so we could catch a scene from the spot that “Alfred Hitchcock once declared during a 1964 visit to the city as having “the most beautiful sunsets in the world.”  Alas, during our stay in Zadar the mornings were sunny, the afternoons cloudy, and our sunsets stormy and grey.

The next morning, we set out to properly explore the town, first stopping at the Roman Effigies, a collection of column sections and decorated capitals from the ancient Roman Forum, which stood in the area of Piazza Papa Giovanni Paolo (Pope John Paul II Square). The plaza itself was built over Zadar’s 16th century water cistern.

The piazza located next to the 9th-century Church of St. Donatus and the 11th-century Benedictine Monastery of St. Maria is the center point for the northern end of Zadar. The historic buildings did not open until later in the morning, so we continued down Zadar’s narrow lanes, enjoying the fragrance of orange blossoms while we strolled to Pekara Dalmatinka – Old Town Bakery, a recommendation from our friend at the car rental agency.

On the way, something piqued our curiosity down a narrower side alley and we detoured. There in a small workshop a craftsman was applying gold leaf to a frame. We appreciate old-world talents like this, and I asked in English, and gestured with my cell phone, if I could take a photo of him working. All was lost in translation and the man suddenly walked out, only to return a few minutes with his son who spoke English, and we chatted for a minute. Apparently, few tourists ever poked their heads into the workshop; the frame he was gilding was for a church, and his dad is a busy man, but it is okay to take his picture.

It’s a mistake to arrive hungry to a bakery that confronts you with a display case featuring mouthwatering Croatian pastries. We drooled over Kremšnita, custard cream cake; Madarica, a layered chocolate cake; Makovnjača & Orehnjača, a rolled dough pastry filled with walnuts or poppy seeds; Princes Krafne, a doughnut stuffed with luscious cream; Splitska Torta, a cake with layers of meringue, cream, almonds and figs; and of course Börek, a delicious, coiled phyllo dough pastry filled with feta cheese or spinach.

We planned to walk off our over-indulgence, and headed through Trg Pet Bunara, the Five Wells Square, to find a bench in Queen Jelena Madijevka Park. Tree branches laden with purple flowers hung over the decorative railing at the entrance to the park, which sits atop the city’s old bastion, next to the ancient Venetian Land Gate, and was the perfect spot for a morning picnic.  Built in 1573, it replaced an old Roman gate, and featured a relief of the Winged Lion of St. Mark, the symbol of the Venetian Empire, to celebrate a naval victory over the Turks. From our bench we watched a boat enter the small harbor in front of Zadar’s ancient defensive wall, a continuous activity since Zadar’s founding.

The ancient walls and gates around the city were first built by the Romans and then expanded upon by the Venetians in the 16th and 17th centuries, to defend the city from multiple attacks by the Ottoman Empire.

Several of the ancient gates still stand and allow passage from the old town to the ferry harbor. The top of the ramparts over the gates have been incorporated into a scenic walkway that parallels the waterfront and provides a pretty vantage point to view all the maritime activity, and some vignettes of old town Zadar.

Along this walk we spotted a younger man rowing a small boat with passengers across the narrow harbor, from a small lighthouse to a staired landing on the quay. Apparently, they were on the way to work and his service, like the traghetto in Venice, provided a shortcut. A sign we discovered the next day listed the fee as 2€.

Over the years the population of Zadar has sprawled into new buildings on the mainland, unlike Dubrovnik, which has been gentrified into a theme park. Old Town Zadar, on the other hand, has some newer buildings on its peninsula, but also has many that show the patina of age, and give the town an authenticity and delightful ambience.

Our sunny morning was threatened with rain by noon, so we headed into the Archaeological Museum, where they have an interesting and diverse collection of ancient artifacts, statuary, and busts unearthed in Zadar, from its pre-history through the Roman Era and Venetian times. Especially unusual was the collection of Neolithic Rhytons, a  four-legged ceramic ritual vessel, from the Impresso and Danilo cultures.

From the museum there is a good view of the Church of St. Donatus, and the belltower of Sainte Anastasie across from the ruins of the Roman forum. We’d pass these landmarks multiple times during our stay.

Fortunately, we did have good raincoats, and we scurried to Kavana Centar, a very nice café several blocks away that had some indoor tables still available and offered a reprieve from the rain. Located away from the main square, its menu was very budget friendly.

Though the rain had not stopped, folks continued on with their plans, and soon umbrellas were out everywhere.  After lunch, we headed back to St. Donatus, an unusual tall round cylinder-shaped church built during the 9th century in a pre-Romanesque style. Much of its construction utilized the ruins of the old Roman Forum, upon which it was built.

The fragments of reused columns, capitals, plinths, and cornices were used as fill, and can be seen in several exposed spots along the church’s foundation and interior. Its mammoth interior is 27m (89ft) tall, and at the top is a gallery that overlooks the space below.

The church was deconsecrated in the early 1700s, after which it was unceremoniously used as a wine cellar, warehouse, and Zadar’s first archaeological museum in the early 1900s. Nowadays, along with being a tourist site, it hosts theMusical Evenings at St Donatus, a concert series that utilizes the church’s excellent acoustics, every July.

The Campanile di Sant’Anastasia, the belltower of the Cathedral of St Anastasia and its monastery, is right next to St. Donatus. The campanile was added to the church in the 15th century, four centuries after the church and its monastery were completed. During the high season it’s possible to climb the 186 steps to the top of the 55m (180ft) tall tower for a panoramic view of the city and sea. But unfortunately, in early April it was closed when we visited. Surprisingly, the entrance to the cathedral is on the other end of the building, around the corner from the belltower, and took us a few minutes to figure out its location.

The interior of the Romanesque style church features an open timber truss roof, interesting side altars, an ancient fresco featuring what is believed to be a likeness of the saint, and the remnants of a 13th century mosaic floor, which I almost accidentally fell on, after losing my balance on the uneven stone flooring.

We could only imagine the uproar that would have ensued if I had damaged the antiquity. We wondered if our travel insurance would be of any use in this situation.

There are numerous other churches in old town Zadar. Choosing several churches and connecting the dots between them we found was a good way to see the various neighborhoods on the peninsula.

One of our favorites was the Crkva Gospe od Zdravlja, the Church of Our Lady of Health, set on the edge of a small park. Its small intimate interior was often visited by folks on their way to work in the morning.

Over the course of our wanderings past random buildings, down narrow alleys, and in dim courtyards, we found examples of the many different architectural styles that have graced the city over the centuries.

On our last night in Zadar, we drove off the peninsula to another recommended restaurant, Batak Zadar, located in a shopping center, far away from the tourist zone. We ordered several of their Croatian classics, and a local red wine. Everything was very good, and an excellent value compared to the inflated pricing of the restaurants in old town Zadar.

Though the weather could have been more cooperative, we enjoyed our three-night stay in Zadar, and found the size of the charming city just right for a short stay before the start our three-week road trip through Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna             

Prague – What’s all the fuss about? Confessions, Castles and Černý

| 2suitcasesfor2years

That was the question put forth on a Reddit travel thread. A rather jaded inquiry, we thought, that questioned the city’s continued popularity with tourists, who in their opinion have ripped the local fabric of life from the city’s historic center and Disneyfied it. We don’t share that opinion, and found it to be an intriguing destination for a four-night stay before continuing on to Croatia, but we can understand why it might be perceived that way, especially if you are visiting the city during the high season. Prague has been on our radar since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Unexpectedly, it took us nearly 40 years to make visiting this enchanting city a reality, but like a good wine it has aged well. And while some folks lament that it’s not as inexpensive as it used to be, it’s still one of the most budget-friendly cities in Europe.

As we descended through the clouds on the approach, Prague revealed thousands of acres of brilliantly yellow rapeseed blossoms carpeting the landscape that was slowly greening. The scene literally brightened our day after a cloudy grey connecting flight from Paris during the first week of April. It was a quick 30 minute Bolt drive from the Václav Havel Airport through Prague’s outer suburbs and parks before catching a glimpse of the Petrin Tower,a 59m (194ft) tall building constructed in 1891 for Prague’s Jubilee Exhibition, that loosely follows the design of the Eiffel Tower. A climb of two-hundred-ninety-nine steps to its to apex offers views out over Prague, and on a clear day it’s said “you can see nearly all of Bohemia.”  

A short time later the silhouette of Starý královský Palác, the old Prague Castle, and the spire of St. Vitus Cathedral, which centers the bastion, came into view. The cathedral’s completion in the early 1300s established the city’s iconic skyline which hasn’t changed much over the centuries.

A long descent towards the Vltava River provided views of some of the eighteen bridges that link the historic Malá Strana, Lesser Town, situated on the western riverbank below Prague Castle to Staré Město, the Old Town, and New Town on the eastern bank, as well as our first glimpse of the famous Charles Bridge, which has survived numerous floods and wars for nearly 700 years.    

Many of the narrow streets in the historic quarter of the city are pedestrian only, but our hotel the Luxusní hotel Černý slon, the Black Elephant Hotel, was right on the edge of the restricted vehicle zone and our Bolt driver was able to navigate it easily. We passed Staroměstské Náměstí, the Old Town Square, which was already festooned with Easter decorations and food stalls, and we arrived at the corner of a cobbled alley across from the 14th century Chrám Matky Boží před Týnem, Church of Our Lady before Týn, and its twin 80m (262ft) tall bell towers which dominate the square.

This charming hotel wonderfully retains its 13th century heritage, with a small and intimate polished wood bar, and a dining room with a Gothic vaulted ceiling, located across from the reception desk. Many of the rooms have painted wood ceilings, while the attic rooms incorporate the old wooden roof trusses into their atmospheric design. How it received its name remains an enigma.

Legend believes Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV was born in the neighboring house in 1316. An intricately designed arched doorway to a side apse of the church faced the hotel on the narrow alley that led to town square. The covered walkway across the ally once connected the church to its cloister, now the Stone Bell House, a contemporary art exhibition space.

It was a perfect spring day, and we were amazed by the amount of activity on the plaza, where folks were queueing for a spot under an arbor decorated with a beautiful floral arrangement, atop a raised platform in front of the church. It was a perfect location for a portrait.

Food stalls grilled aromatic sausages and meats while others offered dumplings and donuts. Thousands of colorful tulips bloomed, ringing the base of a monument commemorating Jana Husa, in the center of the plaza. One hundred years before Martin Luther, there was Jana Husa, a theologian at Charles University in Prague who “criticized the religious moral decay of the Catholic Church,” and advocated that Mass be conducted in the local language instead of Latin. His calls for reformation branded him as a heretic and he was burnt alive on the square in front of the church in 1415. His martyrdom led to the creation of a Pre-Protestant religious movement by his followers who called themselves Hussites. The statue honoring him was erected in 1915, 500 years after his death. During the county’s communist era, sitting on the wall surrounding the statue was a way for folks to quietly protest against the oppressive rule of communism.

St. Nicholas Church, a Hussite place of worship, stands across from the monument and has an interesting historical display about the Hussite religion.

The architectural integrity of the city has remarkably survived relatively unscathed through centuries of wars that have engulfed the region. Old Town Square is definitely the epicenter of Prague’s rich architectural history, with fabulous examples of the different architectural styles that the city has embraced, which prominently surround the plaza; the earliest examples of Romanesque style dating from the 12th century are followed by Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Classicist/Neoclassical, and Neogothic designs through the centuries.

Prague’s Medieval Astronomical Clock dates from its installation on the side of city hall in 1410. Famously, it is the oldest still-operating astronomical clock in the world, with moving wooden apostles that appear on the hour as a skeleton, representing death, marks time with a bell.  

Walking was a delightful way to discover the city; it is relatively flat, and each morning we set off in a different direction to explore.  First, we walked along the riverbank to the Charles Bridge, a destination we returned to several times: to experience dawn breaking over the city as folks began to head to work, and later when it was jammed like the sidewalks along 5th Ave in New York City or Istiklal Caddesi in Istanbul, at the end of the day.

That morning a swan seemed to appear magically on the bridge, as if he was the reincarnation of a night watchman, intent on questioning our purpose for crossing the bridge.

Thirty statues commemorating the city’s significant religious leaders through the centuries line the balustrade of the bridge that was completed in 1402. At the center of the span there’s a 17th century bronze statue memorializing St John of Nepomuk. He was a beloved and heroic 14th century priest who was thrown to his death from the bridge, for not revealing the confession secrets of Queen Sophia to her husband King Wenceslaus IV. Though some believe the Archbishop of Prague at the time thought it was the most expeditious way to end a political dispute with the priest and had his henchmen carry out the deed. His recovered body was enshrined at St. Vitus Cathedral with an elaborate two-ton silver tomb, where it serves as a quiet reminder of moral integrity in the face of tyranny.

Centuries of patina have been rubbed away by folks who believe touching the relief plaques at the base of the monument will bring good luck, good fortune, and a future return to Prague. 

As we continued across the bridge, we stopped at another small bronze relief that actually marks the spot where the priest’s body was discovered floating in the water. Both memorials to St John of Nepomuk on the bridge are considered pilgrimage sites.

Reaching the other side, Malá Strana, the Lesser Town, we entered the old quarter through the Malostranská Bridge Tower, and happened upon a weekly market underway on the plaza, in the shadow of the tall walls of a former Jesuit college and St. Nicholas Church. Good coffee and tasty pastries helped alleviate the morning chill as we worked our way around the stands before heading into the church.

A Gothic church had been on this site from 1283 until 1743 when 100 years of construction started to create St. Nicholas, a Baroque masterpiece that was the vision of three generations of architects in the Dientzenhofer family. The interior is voluminous, and embellished with frescoes, gilded saints and cherubs. Mozart famously played the church’s organ, which has over 4,000 pipes, up to 6m (20ft) long, when he visited Prague in 1787.

Afterwards we wandered the cobbled lanes to the Franz Kafka Museum, mostly because it was on the way to two city parks we wanted to visit. A courtyard in front of the museum featured an offbeat, quirky, whimsical mechanical sculpture created in 2004 by Czech artist David Černý. It’s called Čůrající Postavy and features two robotic men shaking their things in what could best be described as a “pissing contest.” Born in Prague, some of the artist’s larger sculptures, we would later learn, are featured in several places across the city.

Vojanovy Sady, the park nearby, was a verdant oasis, in a city of sandstone and granite. The park’s blooming magnolia trees were the perfect backdrop for a photographer taking pictures of a newly engaged couple as they strolled along pathways lined with early spring flowers. 

The Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic gathers at the Waldstein Palace, a 17th century structure, which along with the formal gardens underwent extensive restoration in the late 1990s. 

The gardens are quite extensive and feature a large reflecting pool, sculpture garden, roaming peacocks, and a dripstone wall from the 1600s that hides the likeness of faces in its construction. It’s a popular spot for its view of Prague Castle which towers above it on a hill.

After heading back towards the church we had a very satisfying late lunch at Dvorek pod Hradem on Nerudova Street before recrossing the bridge to the Charles Bridge Museum. It had some very interesting exhibits on how the bridge was constructed, and copies of some of the sculptures on the bridge, as well as the history of floods and conflicts which have required its repair.

We are still amazed by the ingenuity of the stone masons who built the bridge and cathedrals in the city. The museum also has a window with one of the best views of Prague Castle across the river.

From the museum we took a Prague Venice Boat Trip, which originates from under one of the bridge’s arches at the foot of the bridge, out onto the Vltava River. It was a very nice experience and gave us a different perspective from which to view the city. During the boat ride the captain steered us close to a house on the west bank and pointed to a high-water mark on the side of a building. It was the result of a devasting 500-year flood that raised the level of the Vltava River 8m (26ft) above normal. The devastation was tremendous and forced 50,000 people to evacuate their homes.

Walking back to the hotel we noticed numerous buildings with ornamentalist Art Nouveau facades featuring intricate details, natural forms and figures. The elaborate exterior decorations were popular during the late 1890s until the 1920s, when there was an effort to bring art into everyday life.

The streets between Mansson’s Bakery, a great spot for coffee and pastry, and Old Town Square are full of interesting buildings and atmospheric street scenes.

The next morning, we headed to the Municipal House, a 1905 concert hall, and the Powder Tower, an old Renaissance era gate to the city. The visual contrast between the two buildings was striking. Unfortunately, we missed visiting the Jubilee Synagogue, one of Prague’s finest examples of art nouveau design with a Moorish influence.

The architectural styles we encountered changed quickly from block to block and we were soon walking under an arcade which led to one of our best discoveries, Černá Madona, an amazing café where desserts and pastries are created as visually stunning pieces of art.

Nearby was the Basilica of St. James the Greater, that seemed inconspicuous at first, but when we rounded the corner to its entrance, we were captivated by a large stone relief sculpture above the door that depicted a fluid scene of saints, angels and cherubs ascending higher.  It drew us in and we were enthralled by the church’s lavish 18th century Baroque interior, which was so busy with murals and sculptures we were not sure where to look first.

We returned to our hotel through the quaint Týn courtyard, which originally started as a fortified merchant’s warehouse, with workshops, and lodges, like a caravanserai, in the 11th century when Prague was part of the Holy Roman Empire. It was predominantly used by German traders who were required to pay their ungelt, a customs tax there.

This growing and prosperous German trading community eventually funded the construction of Church of Our Lady before Týn in the 14thcentury. By the early 1900s the courtyard’s glory days had passed and the buildings were neglected until a 1990s renovation of the area reestablished it as a tourist destination. One of the best dinners we had in the city was just down the street from the courtyard at the vegetarian/vegan restaurant Maitrea, where we enjoyed an absolutely delightful evening.

Many folks choose to walk up Zámecké Schody, the castle stairs, which start near St. Nicholas Church in Malá Strana to visit Prague Castle. But our knees are not what they used to be, and we used a Bolt ride to drop us off above the castle at Loreta Praha, a beautiful pilgrimage site built around a replica of the Holy House of Nazareth, which is believed to be the house where the Virgin Mary lived and received the Annunciation.

It is a fascinating complex with cloisters, the 18th century Church of the Nativity of Our Lord with a marvelous Roccoco interior, and the Loreto Treasury that safekeeps the shrine’s ecclesiastical treasures; the centerpiece of its collection is the Prague Sun, an ornate 17th century monstrance with 6,222 diamonds, which was crafted in Vienna.

In 2011 a long forgotten 1600s crypt was rediscovered at Loreto. Opening it unexpectedly revealed a tomb covered in gruesome yet heavenly black and white frescoes, the artwork copies of works by Dutch artists that included Rembrandt, Govert Flinck, David Vinckboons, and Hendrick Goltzius. The artist who created them was assumed to be an unknown monk. A full-size recreation of the crypt is now on display in the Loreto museum.

It was a pleasant downhill walk from the shrine to Prague Castle, passing fascinating examples of period architecture along the way, particularly Schwarzenberský Palace, a Renaissance era building that is now a museum featuring a collection of historic Czech art and medieval weaponry.

A crowd was gathering in front of the Castle in expectation of the changing of the guard ceremony which occurs every hour at the ornamental gate in front of the palace’s first courtyard. The gate features a monumental sculpture called the Clash of the Titans-Standbeeld which towers over the zebra striped guardhouses.

The castle is a sprawling array of majestically scaled buildings, the most impressive of which was St. Vitus Cathedral, with its beautiful interior, and the elaborate silver crypt of St John of Nepomuk, which dominates a side aisle of the church.

Construction of the Gothic cathedral started in 1344, but wasn’t fully completed until 1929. The delay was caused by devasting plagues and centuries of wars. The scale of the grand banquet hall in the royal place was also impressive.

It should really be part of the overall ticket to the castle, but unfortunately there is a separate entrance fee to Zlatá ulička u Daliborky, the “Golden Lane,” a row of buildings first used as barracks for the castle guards, but later the home of numerous goldsmiths that setup shops along it. The street was somewhat interesting, but can surely be missed if you are budgeting.

They are a number of spots within the castle grounds that have scenic views of Prague, but the best was at the mirador at the top of Zámecké Schody, the castle stairs, that lead back down to the Lesser Town.

On our last day in Prague we set out on a long walk to see the Dancing House, built in 1992, a deconstructivist project by Croatian-Czech architect Vlado Milunić and Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry that emphasizes a fluid asymmetrical design in the New Town section of the city. The undulating shape of the building has earned it the nickname Fred and Ginger (after the famous dancers Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers). It stands out strikingly from the 19th century buildings which surround it.

Afterwards we set out on a route that zigged and zagged across New Town to see several interesting sculptures, which unbeknownst to us at the time, were more works of Prague’s favorite hometown artist David Černý. We first came across his large aircraft shaped butterflies with moveable wings that hang on the façade of the Levels’ building, an ultra-modern gaming facility. “The butterflies symbolize peace, while the Spitfire aircraft represents war,” and are a tribute to the 359 Czechoslovak fighter pilots, who served in RAF squadrons during World War II.

We enjoyed wandering in part of the city we hadn’t previously explored. There seemed to be something that interested us down every lane.

Eventually we arrived at Černý’s Franz Kafka head, a 11m (36ft) tall stainless steel kinetic sculpture of the writer’s head that is composed of 42 layers that shift on a regular schedule to alter the head’s shape.  It draws quite a crowd that patiently waits for the subtle changes to happen.

Our next stop was the Lucerna Palace, an early 1900s Art Nouveau shopping and entertainment venue that was the precursor of the modern mall. From its ceiling hangs Černý’s Saint Wenceslas Riding a Dead Horse. The 1999 piece is said to represent the artist’s opinion on the “political situation in the Czech Republic at the time and his views on the state of society.”

Though there are 22 tram lines that criss-cross the city, the best way to absorb the ambiance of Prague it is to wander its cobbled lanes and soak in the amazing architecture and streetscapes of one of Europe’s most beautiful timeless cities.

We had originally planned to spend 5 nights in Prague, but the airline we used canceled their flight on the day of our original departure. If we had that extra day, we would have used the time to explore the area around the National Museum and the Jerusalem Synagogue, both of which are in the New Town section of Prague. 

We had a grand time in the city and hopefully will get the chance to return one day, and maybe find the other 20 sculptures of Černý that are installed around the city.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

Panama: Snowbirds in Paradise – Sand, Sea, and Skyscrapers or A Relaxing Visit to the Azuero Peninsula

| 2suitcasesfor2years

By the time we picked up our rental car at the Tocumen International Airport it was the height of the evening rush hour in Panama City. Fortunately, we were heading into the city, while the traffic lanes carrying the daily exodus of commuters home from the financial capital of Latin America were jammed. It was only a twenty-five minute drive to our hotel on the waterfront, but we missed our exit and had to re-route our way through the now deserted downtown streets to the Hotel Plaza Paitilla Inn, for a one night stay. We chose this 19-floor waterfront hotel after determining it was the best place to get those iconic photographs of the city’s modern skyline along the Pacific Ocean coast. And we were not dissappointed.

Golden light filled the room as we drew back the curtains along a wall of windows to reveal a spectacular cityscape that transitioned through the sunset, twilight, and darkness. It was a million-dollar view and we felt as if we were some place only accessible to billionaires or actors lucky enough to have a movie scene filmed on location here. Surprisingly, the Hotel Plaza Paitilla Inn was an excellent value and very budget friendly.

After discussing our travel plan with the concierge the night before, we departed after an early breakfast to avoid the expected traffic delays as folks took the Friday afternoon off in anticipation of the four days of Carnaval before Ash Wednesday. The nationwide el Carnaval de Panama, which literally happens in every town, is the biggest celebration of the year in the country. It starts in each town with the coronation of a queen and ends with the Burial of the Sardine, which symbolizes the past festivals and enjoyment of drink and food, in the predawn hours of Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of Lent. Little did we know that Panama’s Carnaval is regarded as “one of the largest— and rowdiest — events in Latin America.” Nightly events feature themed parades with elaborately decorated floats escorted by trumpet and drum bands, called tunas. To the benefit of all, water trucks called Culecos spray the revelers in the ninety-degree heat to keep them cool. And between the water trucks, mojaderas, wetters, keep everyone partying around them soaked with water pistols, water balloons, and buckets of water. It’s not a particularly camera-friendly event.

Our destination for the next 5 nights was Posada Los Destiladeros on Playa Los Destiladeros, in Los Santos Province, a 5 hour, 335km (208mi) drive. Leaving the city, we crossed the Bridge of the Americas which soars 64m (210ft) above the Panama Canal, and stopped on the far side at the Mirador de las Américas for our first look at the canal. Two monuments commemorate the arrival of 750 immigrants from China 170 years ago to work on projects relating to the construction of the canal, which created an enduring friendship between Panama and China. The view of the canal wasn’t as impressive as its fact sheet: over 12,000 ships carrying $270 billion worth of cargo pass through the locks of the canal annually. Over 70% of the ships are headed to or are returning from ports in the United States.

Continuing on Rt1 we passed the first of many pillars being constructed to support Panama City’s new Metro 3 line, a double-track monorail project sponsored by the Chinese, that will connect the growing towns of Ciudad Del Futuro and La Chorrea to the city’s Metro 1 and Metro 2 lines, Central America’s first and only subway system that became operational in 2014. Rt1 is alternately called the Pan-American Highway, that famously stretches from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska in the United States, 19,000 miles way to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. Though a 100-mile section is missing in the difficult terrain of treacherous Darien Gap region between Yaviza, Panama and Chigorodó, Colombia.

Shopping centers and strip malls with McDonald’s golden arches, Starbucks, and Burger Kings lined both sides of the highway before giving way to open crop- and pastureland. The occasional hilltop offered views of the Gulf of Panama and the Pacific Ocean to the south. While to the north the rural highlands of the Cordillera Central, the jagged mountainous spine of the country, graced the horizon. Veering off the Pan-American Highway we headed west on Rt2 to Las Tablas. The town has been ground zero for Carnaval in Panama since the mid-1800s when two fiercely rival groups representing Calle Arriba and Calle Abajo started to compete in a festive, one upmanship every year before the 40 days of Lent began. The event in Las Tablas is very popular with folks from Panama City seeking to experience a more traditional Carnaval with folkloric music and regional dress, in what many consider Panama’s “heartland.”

Traffic had been slowly building all morning, and by early afternoon the streets of our intended route were blocked with floats being prepared for the weekend’s first parade that night. Folks were already creatively parking along the side of the roads and walking to the town’s central plaza, Belisario Porras. The congestion in the town unfortunately nixed our plans for lunch there, and we continued on for several miles along Rt2 through a scenic landscape of lightly treed hillocks. Cattle grazed in the shade under the trees.

Cars were parked on both sides of the road in front of El Cruce #2. It was a small fonda – a Panamanian roadside food stand, with smoke billowing up from its barbeque pit. It piqued our interests, and we stopped.  The outside grill area was open sided, under a corrugated tin roof. In its shade a man prepped and attended the meats that were smoking above a fire while another was using a machete to shave kernels from ears of corn. The unhusked pile next to him seemed monumental, akin to the Greek myth of Sisyphus and his never-ending task. It was the beginning step in the preparation of masa, a corn flour. It’s a must-have ingredient for traditional, homemade corn tortillas and tamales. The menu hung above a small window to the kitchen filled with women attending various stoves. Everyone was very nice and curious about where we were from, but seemed surprised that we had stopped. A large John Deere combine harvester with a police escort passed as we ate. A small caravan of pickup trucks with farm workers standing in the back followed it slowly down the road. The fonda was a very authentic, nothing touristy about it experience, and the food was good.  The line of traffic behind the harvester slowly disappeared as cars passed it when the opportunity arose.  It wasn’t until the last seconds as we raced past the tractor that we realized we also had to pass the police car! We returned the officer’s wave. It seemed like it was an everyday occurrence in the rural countryside. In Pedasi, the closest town to our hotel, preparations for the Carnaval were also visible down the side streets.

We missed the entrance to the hotel and continued down the road in hope of finding an easy spot to turn around, only to find that the road suddenly ended, with a log across it, at the top of Playa Destiladeros, a short distance away from the thundering waves of the Pacific Ocean, as if an early extension had been washed away in a storm. We were at one of the farthest points south on the remote Azuero Peninsula.

When we made plans for this return layover from our trip earlier in the month to Uruguay and Argentina, we didn’t realize our week coincided with Carnaval, consequently many of the hotels we were interested in were fully booked. After scouring the map for areas we wanted to stay we found Posada Los Destiladeros. While it showed as fully booked on Booking.com and Hotels.com, we were able to book a room directly through the hotel’s reservation page.

From the gated entrance we followed a long twin-tracked road, through a large palm tree covered property with many outbuildings, to the parking area. Through a grove of palm trees, the inviting blue water of the Pacific glistened behind the receptionist.

The vibe was really nice. It’s an unpretentious, tenderly time-worn resort in a verdant oasis of greenery on the low cliffs overlooking a wild beach and undeveloped coastline. The staff were very nice and friendly, and after a few days felt like family. The dinners that emerged from their kitchen were extraordinary!

It’s very unusual that we stay in one spot for 5 nights to unwind. But the Posada Los Destiladeros was the perfect place for us to relax, with easy walks on the beach, lounging around the pool and under palm thatched gazebos overlooking the surf as we waited for sunset every day, which offered a dramatic play of light across sand and surf.

A conversation in the pool one afternoon with another guest, a Panamanian American man visiting family over the week of Carnaval, related that he and his wife had been coming here for years, but “somehow it remains a hidden gem.” Of course, we took several half day trips to explore what else the Azuero Peninsula had hidden away.

Several days later we drove toward the beach town of Las Escobas del Venado. Well suited to the heat and humidity of the region, herds of Brahma cows have rested in the shade of the region since Spanish colonists first brought them to the area in the mid-1500s. At a turnoff for the small ranching town of Los Asientos, a roadside monument highlights the town’s traditional la corridas, bullfights. These are non-lethal events since a 2012 law prohibited the injury or death of the bull; however, la corridas are still popular in rural Panama. Along the road milk cans were placed next to the rancher’s gate, waiting for the local dairy cooperative to pick them.

A little way farther along, the colors of the tombs in a small cemetery seemed to vibrate against the verdant landscape, which receives between 45 and 90 inches of rain every year. A large group of cyclists, followed slowly by a support vehicle, made passing difficult along the narrow hilly road, with many blind curves. Though the congestión they created was well tolerated, without the honking of horns. Drivers respected their safety and gave them a wide berth when they were eventually able to pass. Small artesanal lumber mills along the way vertically stacked their milled lumber, like skis, against a wall to dry.

During the dryer summer months the Rio Oria lazily flows through the ranchlands to the ocean.

Las Escobas del Venado was the closest example of a traditional beach town, with several small hotels build along the shore of the half-moon shaped Playa Venao. It is not by any means a large resort town. The beach is very wide and shallow, especially when the tide is out, and it’s a popular spot to horseback ride or drive an ATV along the sand. Across the water a sailboat was safely anchored out of the wind and rolling waves behind the bluff at the southern end of the bay. The day was very hot, so we didn’t spend much time on the beach, and hugged the shade as we walked to the Almendro Café for our traditional “walk a little then café.”

It was a really nice spot, under large shade trees. Our coffees and pastries were excellent, and its menu looked very good with vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free choices. It was to our surprise part of the Selina River Hostel which promotes itself as a destination for digital nomads to enjoy the sun, surf, and sand of Playa Venao. We definitely skewed their demographics for the morning.

We continued driving into the highlands along Via Hacia El Carate, a narrow serpentine road that rose through a mesmerizing landscape of hills and valleys. Unfortunately, there were not any places to stop along the way until we reached the Mirador La Vigía, which offered great views of forested ranchlands, backed by the Pacific Ocean on the horizon.

Familiar with the road now, we occasionally stopped along gated pastures to photograph the expansive landscape, that showed little sign of human intrusion, as we followed the same road back downhill.

They were few opportunities for lunch along the way so we decided to head back to the Almendro Café at the Selina River Hostel . We were not disappointed; the food was excellent and healthy. It’s so nice to order from a menu that doesn’t automatically serve French fries with every order.

Nearing our hotel, a rancher blocked the road with his herd of cows as he moved them to a different pasture.

We were back in time to watch the sunset over Playa Destiladeros. We stayed until the last color in the sky had faded away before walking back to the resort’s restaurant, where we usually dined inside to take advantage of the air conditioning and ceiling fans.

Though having breakfast on the veranda, with the sound of the waves crashing in the distance, was a delight during the cool morning hours.

Early morning walks along the beach as the sun crested to the horizon were equally as enjoyable as the sunsets, but more tranquil with squadrons of pelicans swooping low over the surf, looking for fish. Occasionally some would peel away to dive headfirst into the water to catch fish.

Remnants of Carnaval celebrations the night before were still visible in the small towns along our route as we headed back early to Panama City to avoid the traffic. We arrived on the outskirts of the city sooner than expected and decided to spend the afternoon at Perico Island. Located at the end of the very long Amador Causeway which extends for 6km (3.7mi) into Panama Bay, it’s a popular spot for city folks to catch the breezes, picnic, rent bicycles or walk along its full length which offers great panoramic views of the city’s modern skyline and large cargo ships underway to the entrance of the Panama Canal.

After strolling along the waterfront for a while we decided to have lunch at Sabroso Panamá, a uniquely decorated place with a nice vibe, that also had a balcony overlooking a marina. We tried the carimañolas, similar to empanadas, though they are made with mashed cassava (yucca) dough and then fried.

Carnaval celebrations continued that evening and the direct route back to Hotel Plaza Paitilla Inn (we had such a nice experience there earlier in the week we decided to stay there again) along the Cinta Costera, the city’s waterfront park, and the eight lanes of the Pan-American that parallel it were blocked, and we had to circumnavigate our way around it. The massive street party continued well past midnight into the wee hours of Ash Wednesday morning.

Ash Wednesday was our last full day in Panama City, and we spent it exploring the Casco Antiguo, the historic old town district which dates from 1673, and is also known as Casco Viejo or San Felipe.

This town, built on a defensible small peninsula, replaced the city’s original settlement, Panama La Vieja, which was started 11km (7mi) farther east in 1519 when Spanish conquistador Pedro Arias Dávila landed 100 settlers along the coast, and built the first permanent European settlement on the Pacific. The city prospered for 150 years as the Spanish used the town as a base for expeditions to conquer the Inca Empire and sent the plundered gold and silver they seized back to Spain. The city’s wealth did not go unnoticed, and in 1671 the British privateer Henry Morgan landed over a thousand brigands on the Caribbean coast and trekked through treacherous jungles across the Isthmus of Panama to reach the city, which they then attacked, pillaged and burnt to the ground. Six hundred Spaniards died during the assault. Though the booty they looted wasn’t as much as expected, Morgan was declared a British hero, and knighted.

We arrived by Uber to the Catedral Basílica Metropolitana Santa María La Antigua on the Plaza de la Independencia in the center of Casco Antiguo. Its striking façade which blends Baroque and Neoclassical architecture dates from 1688, but the cathedral took more than 100 years to build, and wasn’t consecrated until 1796. Inside, an interesting mural in monochrome blue depicted the indigenous peoples of Panama accepting Chrisitanity.

The Old Town was once a citadel, though the defensive wall which encircled its 36 blocks was taken down ages ago to ease its expansion. Surprisingly, within this small area there were 4 still active historic churches and the ruins of another. Our basic plan was to visit every church and then spur off to other nearby points of interest.

Adjacent to the cathedral was the Museum of Panamanian History, housed in the Municipal Palace of Panama. It’s a beautiful Neo-Renaissance style building with pilasters, arches and decorative cornices. We didn’t tour the exhibits, but we did enjoy resting in the air-conditioning of the lobby.

The narrow-bricked lanes were more suitable for the horse drawn carriages for which they were designed than the cars of today. They surrounded a plaza full of colorful well-maintained 18th and 19th century buildings with decorative iron railed balconies covered by profusely blooming bougainvillea.

Cafes surround the Plaza Simón Bolívar where a grand monument commemorates the Latin America independence hero. Behind it the graceful belltower of the Saint Francis of Assisi Church looms above the plaza. It was a later addition to the original early 1700s church that was damaged during fires in 1737 and 1756.  

Nice views of the modern Panama City skyline were available along the lane leading to the Corredor Artesanal De Casco Antiguo, a trellis-covered lane with flowering vines that offers shade for the indigenous artisans who have stalls along its length.

Back in the center we passed the ruins of the Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús. It was built as a Jesuit monastery in 1641 and later in the 1740s it also served as the home of the Royal Pontifical University of San Javier, Panama’s first university, until the Spanish Crown banished the Jesuits from the colonies in 1767, and the church and monastery was abandoned. The ruins still standing are all that were left from a 1781 fire that ravaged the complex.

A block away was the Iglesia de San José. The 1670s church is notable for its ornate gold altar, that legend believes was saved from Morgan’s pirates by a priest who painted it black to hide its importance. There is also an interesting collection of religious sculptures and nativity scenes in a side chamber.

Afterwards we headed to the Santa Anna neighborhood, which was outside the walled citadel. While parts of it are in the UNESCO protected area of the Casco Antiguo; most of it is not. We had read that the area has great potential with many older buildings needing renovation, but were surprised by the quick transition from one neighborhood to another. While hopes are high for the barrio, many of the buildings we passed were only colorfully painted facades, with the sky above showing through the windows of roofless buildings.

Returning to Old Town we passed the Iglesia de la Merced, the only church to survive, fully intact, the destruction of Panama La Vieja during the pirate’s 1671 attack on the town. After the attack the church was disassembled by Franciscan monks and moved stone by stone to the new town, where it was painstakingly rebuilt, and is believed to be several years older than Iglesia de San José.

Our “walk a little then café,” beckoned when we happened upon Café Unido, a local coffee shop that pridefully specializes in Panamanian grown coffee, which they consider the best in the world.

A delightfully warm March day wandering the colorful streets of the Casco Antiguo was the perfect way to end our week in Panama. Between the beauty of the countryside and the coast, along with the warm hospitality of the Panamanians, we can understand why the country is a warm weather haven for expats from all across the northern hemisphere.

Hopefully, we will get the opportunity to explore more of the country in the future.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

Argentina – Buenos Aires: Empanadas, Tombs & Tango

| 2suitcasesfor2years

The ferry vibrated gently as the engines were switched into reverse as we approached the Buquebus ferry terminal in Buenos Aires. We had departed earlier from Montevideo, Uruguay, and hoped to view the Argentinian coastline from the Río de la Plata estuary, as the first Spanish explorers did in the early years of the 16th century. But we hadn’t expected the ferry not to have an open observation deck, and instead had to contend with the view, or lack of view, through hazy saltwater-etched windows.

Seasoned travelers on this route between Montevideo and Buenos Aires had already called for the ride share services of Cabify, inDriver, Didi, Easy Taxi or BA Taxi and waited curbside in front of the terminal. By the time the ferry docked there were no available drivers for 45 minutes. We were among the last to leave the port that morning.

Our first impressions of this wonderfully cosmopolitan city were formed along the 16-lane wide – yes, 16 lanes – Av. 9 de Julio. Despite its width it is a pleasant tree-and park-lined esplanade, that extends for 27 blocks through the city and reminded us of the area around Central Park in Manhattan. Older buildings from the 18th and 19th century shared the skyline with more modern buildings than we expected, as well as the first of many street murals dedicated to the football player Lionel Messi #10 for Argentina national football team, and the country’s superstar at the moment. The sidewalks were bustling with activity. We wondered how we would ever cross 16 lanes of traffic on foot.

Our hotel for the next six nights, Urban Suites Recoleta, was across the street from Buenos Aire’s historic Cementerio de la Recoleta. We soon learned that most landmarks and hotels in the neighborhood ended with Recoleta in their name. The cemetery from our balcony looked like an ancient lost city.

The next morning, we explored the immediate neighborhood around the hotel that was full of activity with delivery trucks off-loading produce and dog walkers leading their packs of small dogs to the parks. We eventually crossed the Puente Peatonal Dr. Alfredo Roque Vítolo, a brightly painted footbridge across the roadway that connects the parks around the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes to the Universidad de Buenos Aires. The Facultad de Derecho subway station is located at the foot of the bridge. It is a terminus on the H-Line, one of Subte’s (from Subterráneo de Buenos Aires) six lines, that can get you nearly anywhere in this sprawling metropolis. Opened in 1913, Buenos Aires had the first subway in South America.

The Floralis Generica, a unique abstract aluminum sculpture, an iconic symbol of the city, centered the Plaza de las Naciones Unidas next to the school. The 23m (75ft) tall mechanical flower with six petals which opens in the morning and closes at night was a gift to the city by the Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano in 2002. Walking paths circled the sculpture and offered different viewing perspectives of the flower that the sculptor visualized to “represent all the flowers in the world.”

Walking back towards our hotel we veered down Avenida Alvear, seven blocks that were once Buenos Aire’s Park Ave or Champs-Élysées at the turn of the 20th century.  It is known for the art nouveau-influenced Belle Époque architecture of the old mansions along the street that have now been converted into hotels and embassies. Unfortunately, many of the building facades were hidden by the trees that line the street.

Long before Starbucks was a thing, the Porteños, “people of the port,” as the citizens of Buenos Aires are called, developed a strong coffee culture that coincided with the arrival of several waves of Italian immigrants that began in the mid-1800s. The result is a city where it’s nearly impossible to get a bad cup of coffee. One block over from Avenida Alvear on Av. Pres. Manuel Quintana our “walk a little then café” philosophy was easily satisfied at La Fleur de Sartí, Confiserié Monet, and Cafe Quintana 460, where espresso-based coffee drinks rule.

When we travel, our mid-afternoon lunch tends to be our big meal of the day, so we end up looking for supermarkets to buy crackers, cheese and fruit to snack on later. Near our hotel there was a large Carrefour Market on Av. Vicente López. Around the corner from the supermarket was a block of traditional shops with two butcheries, a fish monger, fruit stands, and a cheese store. Though our best find in the neighborhood was Möoi Recoleta, which had a pleasing interior and excellent food. To our surprise it’s part of a small local restaurant chain.

That afternoon we timed our visit to the Cementerio de la Recoleta after the surge of the morning’s tour buses had departed. It’s a huge cemetery with a labyrinth of narrow passages through the grand mausoleums of Buenos Aires’ who’s who of notable citizens and wealthy families.

Some were very well kept, while others were under renovation, and a number appeared forgotten, with their doors broken and façades crumbling, as if the family line had ended or a once great fortune had been lost. One was highlighted by a whimsical statue of a woman roller skating atop her own tomb.

Many had small bronze plaques attached to the side of their tomb, hinting at the deceased’s illustrious career. Several had death masks protruding from the side of their mausoleums. The first one we happened across suddenly as we rounded a corner, and the very life-like stone face protruding from the side of a tomb, literally scared the wits out of me.

Surprisingly, Evita Peron’s tomb was one of the simplest structures. Immortalized since the Broadway musical “Evita,” by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice opened its curtain in 1976, and the following 1996 movie starring Madonna, folks have been intrigued by the controversial legacy of Eva Duarte. It is the rags to riches story of a poor country girl, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy rancher, who moved at the age of 15 to Buenos Aires and found fame as a radio and film actress, which resonated in the barrios of the “Paris of South America.” She found love at the age of 26, marrying 48-year-old Colonel Juan Perón, in 1945, two years before he was elected President of Argentina.

Passionate and combative, as Argentina’s First Lady she used her influence to champion social justice and worker’s labor rights, and was endeared to the less fortunate who saw her as the voice of the people. Her early death at the age of 33 from cancer saddened the nation and calls were made for her canonization. Flags across the country flew at half-mast for ten days. Blocks around the Presidential Palace were filled with mourners, and an estimated 3 million people watched the horsedrawn caisson carry her coffin through the streets of the city during her state funeral. Her embalmed body in its glass coffin was displayed for two years in her office in the Ministry of Labor building, as plans for a memorial that was taller than the Statue of Liberty were made.

After a 1955 military coup Juan Perón fled to exile in Spain, and the new military dictatorship secretly disappeared Evita’s corpse for 16 years. First it was secreted away in various locations across Buenos Aires until one “officer mistakenly shot his pregnant wife while guarding the corpse in his attic.”  The military dictatorship then enlisted the “covert help of the Vatican” to hide her body away in a crypt in Milan, Italy’s famous Cimitero Monumentale, for 16 years under a false name. In protest “Where is the body of Eva Perón?” was spray painted on walls all across Argentina.

In 1971, Evita’s body was exhumed and flown to Spain where Juan Perón and his third wife allegedly kept the “coffin on display in their dining room.” In 1973 Peron returned to the Presidency of Argentina, with his third wife as Vice President, but died a year later. The saga continued to get weirder when an anti-dictator revolutionary group, the Montoneros, “stole the corpse of General Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, whom they had also previously kidnapped and assassinated,” to use as a bargaining chip to get the third Mrs. Peron to return Evita’s body to her beloved country. Subsequent governments have gone to great lengths to secure Evita’s hopefully final resting place, in a subterranean tomb with trap doors and false caskets to deter grave robbers, within her father’s Duarte family mausoleum in Cemeterio de la Ricoleto.

Across the street was the Gomero de la Recoleta – Árbol Histórico, a majestic 225-year-old rubber tree planted in 1800. Over the decades its huge buttress trunk has grown to support a 50m (164ft) wide canopy, with tree limbs so long that wooden poles and sculptures are needed to support their weight.

Behind it, we found a reprieve from the hot February afternoon, and an early dinner at Bartola, which served an excellent lemonade, and has pleasant décor along with a rooftop terrace.

Buenos Aires is full of interesting street murals, and we spent the next morning wandering about searching for them.

That afternoon, after exploring farther afield from our hotel, we took a rideshare across the city to La Boca, a colorful neighborhood that is also the location of La Bombonera stadium, home of the world-famous Boca Juniors football club, the team on which some of Argentina’s legendary football players first played. Our route eventually took us below the elevated portion of Rt1 amidst a forest of concrete pilings painted with a vast array of creative street murals in an area named Silos Areneros. We found the area intriguing, but a tad sketchy, so we kept going.

La Boca was originally Buenos Aires’ first port at the mouth of the Riachuelo River, as it flows into the Río de la Plata. It has always been a bustling working-class neighborhood, “filled with all kinds of people, dockworkers, fishermen, musicians, prostitutes, thieves, socialists, anarchists, and artists.” But it grew substantially with the arrival of new immigrants in the 1800s and early 1900s.  Hastily constructed tenements called conventillos were built with galvanized metal walls and roofs and brightly painted with whatever left over colors were available from the shipyards, in an effort to cheer up the area.

La Boca is one of the city’s vibrant neighborhoods where tango originated on its streets during the hot summer months and was perfected in the bars along Caminito and Magallanes during winters of the late 1800s.

Today, satirical figures adorn many of the balconies along Caminito and the adjacent streets, and poke fun at politicians, rival football teams or celebrities. Though we think you need to be Argentinian to fully appreciated the humor behind them.

A mural at the end of Caminito commemorates the Bomberos Voluntarios de La Boca (La Boca Volunteer Firefighters), Buenos Aires’ first fire brigade, formed in 1884.

Sadly, we found the wonderfully colorful area was oversaturated with cheap tourists’ shops heavily devoted to everything football, especially Lionel Messi’s #10 blue and white football shirt, which was available everywhere.

Afterwards we headed to the dockside area of Puerto Madero. Built in the late 18th century the port helped support Argentina’s economic growth during WWI and WWII as the country’s beef and food stocks were sent to a war-torn Europe. But the viability of the port declined as the size of merchant ships became larger and containerization took hold, until eventually the port was abandoned for many decades. A masterplan for the port’s redevelopment was realized in 1989 with plans to renovate some of the old warehouses along one side of the quay into restaurants and shops, while land on the other side would be developed into a mixed-use area of offices and residential towers, with the two sides connected by pedestrian-only bridge.

The redevelopment along the Puerto Madero waterfront was a great success and created a strikingly beautiful, new waterfront neighborhood. Its reflective skyline and restaurants along the old docks continue to be destinations for both locals and tourists. Us included! It was a great place to people watch as folks strolled along the quay and over the footbridge. Towering cumulonimbus clouds glowed with golden light, as the sunset silhouetted the “Presidente Sarmiento,” an old three-masted sailing ship that is now a nautical museum.

We both grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey and worked in New York City for a while, but living in Manhattan never appealed to us. It wasn’t until we started traveling and experienced living in some foreign cities through short-term rentals that we grew to appreciate the vitality that city life offers.

Mysteriously, overnight the Parque Intendente Torcuato de Alvear in front of the historic Centro Cultural Recoleta building was transformed into a sprawling art and crafts festival, that to our surprise happens every Saturday and Sunday. Artisans’ tents and tables lined nearly every path through the sprawling park that was filled with folks shopping and buskers playing to the crowd. This was probably the best crafts market we’ve been to, as the quality and variety of items offered were very impressive. If our suitcases had been bigger we would have made lots more purchases.

For many years the Cultural Center was repainted frequently with colorful murals, which added a nice flair to its otherwise stoic facade. Sadly, this policy was discontinued in 2024, and the building is now covered in a monochromatic “Pompeyan Red.” The decision has received a mixed public reaction, but hopefully the verdict will be reversed in the future. The historic 1732 building was originally the convent of the Recoleto monks, for whom the Recoleta neighborhood is named, as well as part of Our Lady of Pilar Basilica, the second oldest church in Buenos Aires. Over the decades as the influence of the church waned after Argentina’s 1810 May Revolution the building was used as a hospital, military barracks, asylum, and an art school before being renovated into an exhibits and events space in the 1980s.  

That afternoon the tree lined blocks around Plaza Serrano and Plaza Armenia in the charming Palmero Soho neighborhood were so different from the high-rise towers of Recoleta, and reminded us of Barcelona & Madrid, with the wonderful mix of sidewalk cafés, along with trendy shops. Colorful street murals brightened many of the narrow alleys.

Across from Plaza Armenia we passed the Las Petunias restaurant which was full of lively diners at lunchtime.  But we continued our wanderings and returned around 15:00 when the restaurant was quieter, though there were still enough other people dining to make it a nice experience. We shared Los Tablones de Carnes for two. The grilled meats were excellent, and it was the best parrillada we had during our stay in Buenos Aires.

Sunday, we headed to the Feria de San Telmo, a weekly street fair that spans eleven blocks of Av. Defensa, a street known for its antique stores and art galleries. San Telmo is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Buenos Aires and has striven to retain its 19th and early 20th century character with well-preserved buildings.

The street was full of activity, but the feira was really more like a flea market featuring clothing and everyday items with only a handful of artists’ and craftsperson’s tables mixed in between. Buskers worked the street corners, and a puppeteer dazzled a young audience. Occasionally a street mural graced a side street.

Along the way the ornate mausoleum of General Manuel Belgrano stood beneath the towers of Basílica Nuestra Señora del Rosario. The church was constructed in 1753 and British soldiers sought sanctuary here after a failed invasion of the city in 1807. General Belgrano was one of the founding fathers on Argentina’s independence and is also credited with designing the country’s flag.

The Mercado San Telmo was our destination for lunch. It is a cavernous hall set in an 1897 building that resembles a Victorian era train station with an ornate iron superstructure supporting a glass roof.  The hall’s traditional produce stands, butchers and bakers, now share the space with takeaway restaurants, and antique stalls. But it was crazy with activity on a Sunday afternoon, and we vowed to return if we had the chance. Instead, we ate at Havanna, a small café chain across Buenos Aires, that we had eaten at the day before in Palmero Soho, and enjoyed.

Tango dancers were mesmerizing a crowd with their graceful twists, turns, dips, and kicks at the Plaza Dorrego. Resting between dances, they encouraged folks to come forward and dance too. It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, with a vibe totally different from the craft market in Retiro, and the shaded lanes of Palmero. Every August the city hosts the Buenos Aires Tango Festival & World Cup, a two weeklong dance-off, with concerts and shows where over 400 couples from around the world compete for the top spots in different categories.

The next day a rainy morning finally cleared as we were on our way to a three hour cooking class to learn how to make those savory pastry meat-filled turnovers called empanadas, and alfajores, a melt in your mouth layered shortbread-like cookie filled with dulce de leche.

Our hosts Tomas and Lala graciously welcomed nine of us into their home; we were from France, Norway, Switzerland, and the United States. The other participants, like us, we learned after introductions all around, were snowbirds escaping a cold northern winter.

Tango music played softly in the background as Tomas divided us into three groups of 4, 2 and 3, the odd man out joining Donna and me. It was very well organized, and Tomas led us through the mixing of ingredients and made sure we added just the right amount of water so the dough was kneadable, but not sticky. Everyone cut their balls of dough and rolled them out into taco size discs, not too thin or too thick. Lala provided a meat filling. The hardest part was crimping the edges of the dough together to seal in the filling. The gal next to us was very good at it and created bakery worthy pockets. The three of us had various aesthetic results, that would improve with practice. Brushed with an egg white, trays of empanadas were put into the oven to bake. The cookie batter was also quite easy to make. We sipped some mate (a traditional herbal drink with lots of caffeine) and got to know our tablemates as we waited for the empanadas. We can see why people like mate (pronounced mah-tay) but I think for us it would be an acquired taste. The empanadas were tender and tasty, though it was obvious which ones my fingers had molded, as they oozed from some thin spots in the crust. This was the first cooking class we’ve ever taken during our travels and found the whole experience, along with the shared camaraderie, very enjoyable.

The next morning, we pulled our luggage behind us as we strolled down Calle Florida, a 10 block long pedestrian walkway in the center of Buenos Aire’s shopping district that runs from the Plaza General San Martín to Plaza de Mayo. It was a very pleasant lane centered with rows of young shade trees, and intermittent sidewalk cafes along the edges. The Galerías Pacífico, an upscale glass domed shopping complex, was our destination.

With architectural inspiration taken from the Vittorio Emmanuelle II galleries in Milan, the 1889 building was designed to be a shopping experience akin to the Bon Marche stores in Paris. But a long economic recession in Argentina during the 1890s and early 1900s nixed its realization and the gallery area was used as part of the National Museum of Fine Arts, while the Ferrocarril Buenos Aires al Pacífico acquired part of the building for offices. The company’s presence eventually led it to being called the “Edificio Pacífico,” (Pacífico Building).

The famous domed lower level over what is now the food court was constructed during renovations in the 1940s and embellished with twelve spectacular murals by the artists Lino Eneas Spilimbergo, Antonio Berni, Juan Carlos Castagnino, Manuel Colmeiro, and Demetrio Urruchúa.

A hundred years later a 1990s renovation finally covered the galleries with a glass ceiling and the “Galerías Pacífico,” became the flagship of Buenos Aires’ shopping district. We really are not into mall shopping, but this is very nice, and an architecturally and culturally interesting spot that attracts a diversity of folks. It was the perfect spot for our “walk a little then café,” break before having an ice cream bar decorated with Lionel Messi’s blue and white uniform.  The Buquebus ferry terminal was only a short walk away for our crossing back to Uruguay and our flight home.

Buenos Aires is a sprawling city with 48 different neighborhoods and three million people. It is a great destination, and we only scratched the surface of the multitude of places to visit, and things to do within this vibrant city. In hindsight, we could have stayed several more days to explore the museums and government buildings, based ourselves in the Palermo neighborhood, and used the subway to get around.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

Along the Coast of Uruguay: Sand in Our Shoes – Faro de José Ignacio & Punta del Este & Beyond

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After a three-day road trip through the colonial towns of Colonia del Sacramento and Carmelo, then the rural farmlands of Minas and ranchlands of Gorzon, the amount of activity around the traffic circle in Faro de José Ignacio took us by surprise. We had reached civilization again! Not that it was really busy, but literally more cars had passed us in the last five minutes than the last three days, as we pulled into the small collection of shops along Rt10, which leads up from Punta del Este. Some fruit and supplies were gathered for our four night stay at Casa Franca from the Devoto Market, a well-stocked, but typical beach town store that benefits from a captive market. A few doors down the Panadería José Ignacio, a popular bakery, has a very nice selection of bread, pastries and tasty delectables. They also have a pizza and sandwich counter along with tables for eating outside on their terrace. We returned every morning during our stay for fresh from the oven delights.

Folks parked along the road followed sandy paths across the dunes to the beach. The sails of kite surfers filled the sky as we passed the Laguana de José Ignacio, a freshwater lake separated from the South Atlantic Ocean by a sandbank, which it breaches when it rains too much.

Surf pounded against the Playa Balneario across from our host Daniel’s guesthouse in the tiny hamlet of Santa Mónica, only 5km (3mi) west of Faro de José Ignacio, but a sea change in tranquility, compared to our earlier shopping experience. His wife and children waved from their balcony as his friendly dog energetically greeted us. Daniel helped take our bags to our room, which was located through a private entrance to an extension on their home with three other guest rooms. While our chic petite studio didn’t face the ocean it did thankfully have a shaded porch, where we spent many hours.

After settling in we headed to the lighthouse in José Ignacio, located on thumb-like peninsula that juts into the South Atlantic. Its 32m (105ft) tall lighthouse has guided sailors off this treacherous reef coast since 1877.

While Punta del Este has been promoted as a beach resort for wealthy Argentinians and Uruguayans since the early 1900s, and is now known as the “Ibiza of Uruguay”. José Ignacio remained a quiet isolated fishing village without running water or electricity, as the coastal road from Punta ended at the Laguana de José Ignacio. All that changed in 1981 with the construction of a bridge across the lagoon. The infrastructure improvements that came at that time were appreciated, but the town’s small population rallied to prevent the coastal area from becoming a Miami-esque playground, and successfully petitioned the local government to enact ordinances to ensure its quiet, peaceful character remained intact by allowing only single-family homes, no taller than two-stories within the Maldonado region. Along with banning discothèques, pubs and nightclubs, as well as all motorized vehicles on the beaches, jet skis and speedboats are also prohibited in the lagoons. Today the town’s seven miles of pristine beaches attract folks from all over who just want to unwind along what many consider the best part of Uruguay’s 410-mile-long coastline.

We walked out onto the rocky point next to the lighthouse, then down a boardwalk over the dunes to the Playa Brava, a long gracefully curved stretch of sand, scoping out the best spots to return to the next morning for sunrise photos. We strolled along the wide beach between lifeguard chairs. Squealing kids ran into the surf from the beach speckled with blankets and sun umbrellas amidst impromptu volleyball and soccer games. We stopped at El Chiringo, an outdoor restaurant with tables in the sand and shared a pizza for an early dinner.

Heading back to Casa Francawe stopped along the lagoonto watch a beautiful sunset across its calm water. Kite Surfers unwilling to end their day skimmed along the water until it was nearly dark.

The next morning Donna slept in while I rose before dawn and drove back to the lighthouse to watch the sun cast its first rays of light across the rocky headland and lighthouse.

A few hardy fishermen had already made their first casts of the day from the rocks. On the other side of the lighthouse a group of fishermen were readying two large skiffs to push into the surf from the beach. Next to them the first surfer of the day paddled out, and a few joggers pounded along the cool sand in early morning solitude.

After a day of rest and relaxation we wanted to explore the beach towns farther east along the coast as it runs towards Brazil. The weather doesn’t always cooperate, but we were hopeful the sky would clear as we drove along Rt 9 near Rocha. There were a good number of produce stalls along the road hoping to entice travelers to the beaches to shop. We stopped at one with shelves stacked full with jars of local honey, jams, and Dulce de Leche, along with wheels of artisanal cheeses. We purchased a Dambo, similar to Edam or Gouda. It is a traditional local cheese made with the milk from grass fed cows which graze freely in the palm tree studded, pampas rangelands, that define the region. Farther up the road we stopped for our “drive a little then café,” break at a small shop attached to a gas station in the uniquely named town, 19 de Abril.  The town takes its name from an event related the revolutionaries called the Thirty-Three Orientals, who returned from their exile in Argentina on April 19, 1825, an event that eventually started the Cisplatine War, which led to Uruguay’s independence from Brazil.

Normally in the states we avoid like the plague any eateries attached to gas stations, as they are typically places that just offer junk food, but route 9 traversed a semi-rural region, and there were few options. We were pleasantly surprised as we parked to see a mural of a painting by Simon Silva on the side wall of the café. We bought a poster of this image twenty years ago and it still hangs in our home, and it was nice to know that someone else enjoys the image as much as we do. The café Parador 19 de Abril delighted us. It’s a quaint oasis in the wilderness. The cappuccinos and fresh pastries were quite good, and the folks who ran it were very nice.

Folks were slipping and sliding through streams of water that were gushing down the hardpacked sandy roads of Punta del Diablo, as a deluge had descended upon us since our coffee break. The rain was too heavy to wander about, but we contented ourselves with driving through the haphazard layout of the oldest part of the rustic fishing village, that now has brightly painted shops and restaurants but is reminiscent of a village being founded by survivors of a shipwreck, using whatever materials they could salvage from the sea. Taking a horse drawn cart across the dunes was the only way to reach the once isolated village, until a road connecting it to Rt 9 was built in 1968. Larger flat bottomed fishing boats were beached along the gentle curve of Playa del Rivero, awaiting their next awaiting their launch at the arrival of high tide. A fisherman under a rain tarp offered his morning catch. Often during the Uruguay’s winter, June to November, the deep ocean just offshore allows folks to spot humpback and southern right whales breaching from the town’s beaches as they migrate north to the warmer waters around Brazil.

By the time we reached Aguas Dulces the rain had stopped, though the sky was still threatening, and the streets were nearly deserted. The high tide was rough from the earlier storm and was inching its way towards the row of boulders placed along the shoreline to prevent further coastal erosion and homes being swept away.  Laidback and low keyed, Aguas Dulces is a budget-friendly destination for Uruguayan families who enjoy its lifeguard protected beaches when the weather cooperates.

On the way to La Paloma we stopped at Puente Valizas, a picturesque riverside fishing village along the Arroyo Valizas. The tributary flows 10km (6mi) from the Laguana Castillos to the Atlantic Ocean, near the beach resort of Barra de Valizas. The river was busy with fishermen speeding to the Laguana to catch pink shrimp, which thrive in the brackish waters of the lagoon, for the restaurants along the coast.

In La Paloma the afternoon sky was brightening as we walked along the Paseo Marítimo, a boardwalk through the dunes that lined the tranquil waters of Bahía Grande, a small clam shell shaped bay. La Paloma is the largest coastal town east of Punta del Este and is a popular resort area with 20km (12mi) of beaches that are suitable for surfers and families with young children to enjoy.  Eventually we reached El Faro del Cabo Santa Maria, the town’s historic 42m (138 ft) tall lighthouse. Built in 1874, the powerful navigational beacon atop the tower can be seen 37km (23mi) out to sea. When it is open, folks can climb 143 steps to the top for some spectacular views of the coast.

On the way back to Faro de José Ignacio we followed Rt10 across the Laguna Garzón Bridge, an experience that totally took us by surprise, as the 2015 bridge has a unique circular design that resembles a flat donut. It’s really quite unusual but was designed this way to naturally slow the speed of traffic.

Our host and his family the next morning departed for a day trip a few minutes ahead of us. Their dog which watched their leaving from the second-floor deck had somehow escaped and was running frantically around outside the gated area. Fortunately, Donna has mastered that universal dog-call kissing sound, and we were able to lock him securely behind the gate. We called Daniel to let him know.

A few blocks down we stopped to photograph two abandoned properties. They were both very interesting, and we always wonder what the backstory is that goes with these places.

Route 10 hugs the beautiful 33km (20mi) stretch of wild undeveloped coast that extends from Faro de José Ignacio to Punta del Esta.

Reaching the outskirts of Punta we got our first glimpse of the Puente de la barra, a whimsical wavy bridge, that our route followed across the Arroyo Maldonado. Designed in 1965 to force drivers to reduce their speed, it’s said the rollercoaster-like bridge can cause vertigo if you drive too fast across it. On the Punta side there is a traffic circle that made it too easy for us to cross the bridge multiple times, just for the fun of it.

We stopped at a mirador near the “La Ola Celeste,” a stylized sculpture of a wave that overlooks the fast rolling breakers that beat against the waters of the Arroyo Maldonado as the river empties into the sea, and separates Punta from the smaller resort town of La Barra, which has a vibrant nightlife that rivals Punta’s as the best place to party in Uruguay.

This was also a great spot to get an expansive view of the dramatic beaches along the coast and Punta’s modern skyline, which often prompts folks to refer to it as “the St. Tropez or Monaco of South America.” The vista reminded us of Miami Beach.

We stopped for lunch at the Aura Beach House, a small modern café with a light menu, set on the brilliant white sand of Playa La Brava. They also have several rows of lounge chairs under nicely thatched beach umbrellas for daily rent. It was a beautiful, relaxing spot and our food and coffees were excellent; we didn’t want to leave. We found in our travels across Uruguay that street parking was always free, even along the beaches, something that is very rare in the United States.

We weren’t sure what the weather was going to be like the next day, so we took advantage of the splendid afternoon and stopped at The Hand, Punta’s most iconic landmark since the Chilean artist Mario Irarrázabal installed it along the oceanfront in 1982. It was very crowded with a tour group, but we waited for their departure before taking any photos. As it turned out the sculpture was within walking distance of our hotel, and we returned to it several times during our stay in Punta.

We continued on our way to the Faro de Punta del Este lighthouse that stands on the highest point of the narrow peninsula that was Old Town Punta, a whaling port established in the early 1800s.  

Punta, like Montevideo, has a lot of public art on the streets we realized as we drove by the Monumento El Rapto de Europa. The large bronze sculpture references the myth of Europa, a Phoenician princess who was abducted by Zeus in the form of a bull and taken to the island of Crete.  Why it is on a street corner near the beach in Punta, we haven’t a clue. Across the street from the lighthouse were several architecturally interesting homes and the very blue Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria church which had a lovely tranquil interior.

At Punta’s modern marina, sleek motor yachts and sailboats now bob gently in the water where the whaling ships once anchored. The first tourists to Punta arrived in the early 1900s, but it wasn’t until the infrastructure improvements of the 1940’s supported the construction of modern hotels and the town’s first casino that Punta’s reputation as a luxurious destination in South America was cemented. We stayed in the Old Town at Hotel Romimar, a budget-friendly lodging with an excellent breakfast, off Av. Juan Gorlero, Punta’s main shopping street.

We love exploring a new city early in the morning as it wakes up. By 7:30 beach attendants were hard at work carrying lounge chairs and umbrellas from trailers parked along the street, down to the sand and assembling them into tidy rows for their expected sunbathers. It was the perfect time to re-visit The Hand, as the sun was just cresting over its fingertips, and sunlight was reflecting brightly off the row of high-rise condos that fronted the coastline.

Wandering about we spotted several cachilas, old cars that out of economic necessity were lovingly maintained and passed forward through hard times. Some are now totally restored and look as good as the day they rolled out of the showroom. One, an old Plymouth, was creatively covered in a mosaic pattern of old Uruguayan coins.

Families were also out early to claim their preferred batches of sand at Playa El Emir, a small beach on the edge of Old Town Punta with a wonderful view of the coastline, near the Ermita Virgen de la Candelaria. The shrine to the patron virgin of Punta del Este is located on a narrow sliver of land that juts into the South Atlantic Ocean, that is believed to be where the Spanish explorer Juan Díaz de Solís held a mass when he landed nearby in 1516. Our “walk a little the café,” breaks were satisfied that morning with excellent coffee and pastries at Donut City and Cresta Café. Both were only a short walk from the beach.

A day trip the next morning took us to towns west along the coast from Punta that also interested us. Our first stop was at the Escultura Cola de la Ballena Franca, an open wire metal sculpture of a whale tail that overlooks the ocean between the endless beaches of Playa Mansa and Playa Cantamar. It is a popular lookout spot for southern right whales during the peak of their winter migration between July and October.

Casapueblo  is a surreal Guadi structure that captures the essence of the whitewashed cliffside homes on the Mediterranean island of Santorini, Greece. It started as a small wooden shack in 1958, the studio of Páez Vilaró, a Uruguayan abstract artist. He expanded it himself along the oceanfront as his family grew, and friends like Picasso and Brigitte Bardot visited, until a whimsical 13-story structure with 72 rooms stacked upon each other covered the cliff face. Today it is a museum and hotel.

Afterwards we drove to the Laguana del Sauce and enjoyed a quiet lunch overlooking the lagoon from the Hotel Del Lago.

Away from the oceanside a rural landscape quickly unfolded as we drove through farmlands to the Capilla Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, a pretty church that reminded us of settings in the American Midwest.

The next morning, our last full day in Uruguay, we headed west toward the Canelones wine region near Montevideo, an area which produces nearly fifty percent of Uruguayan wines at vineyards which were started four to five generations ago by families which immigrated from Europe. Piriápolis is a small coastal city which grew from a private investment as the country’s first planned resort was along our route. El Balneario del Porvenir (the Resort of the Future) was the vision of Francisco Piria, a wealthy Uruguayan businessman, who in 1890 bought 2700 hectares (6672 acres) of undeveloped land along a beautiful beach, 99km (62mi) from Montevideo. He spent forty years commissioning hotels and a promenade along the oceanfront, which he likened to the French Riviera, before his death in 1933. In 1937 the population of the resort town was large enough to be declared a pueblo, and twenty-three years later it achieved the status of a city. From the landing of a small chapel atop Cerro San Antonio we had a perfect panoramic view of the city that still draws visitors to its beach where families can rent scooter cars for their children to wheel along the promenade. During the high season the Aerosillas Piriápolis chairlift whisks tourist from the marina to the top of the hill. The Castillo de Francisco Piria, the entrepreneur’s home, was on the outskirts of the city as we headed to a wine tasting and overnight stay at the Pizzorno Winery & Lodge.

We arrived at the winery as a tractor pulling a wagon full of just-harvested grapes was being unloaded into a destemmer-crusher, the first step in the long process to create wine.

Founded in 1910, the fourth generation of the Pizzorno family operates the wine estate. It has 21 hectares (52 acres) of vineyards planted with Tannat, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Malbec, Arinarnoa, Marselan, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and Muscat of Hamburg vines.

We were the only guests that afternoon during the last week of February and thoroughly enjoyed the interesting tour of the wine cellar led by Joaquin, the winery’s sommelier. He   explained their viticulture philosophy which endorses “traditionally harvesting grapes by hand, respect for the ecosystem, environmental conservation through a no fertilization and watering wisely policy, along with green pruning, leaf removal, and bunch thinning to obtain the best grapes, which is reflected in the quality of the wines we make using only our own grapes.”

Afterwards Joaquin’s experience continued to enhance our tasting of four wines as he shared his knowledge of the vineyard’s terroir, and the different grape varietals, along with their aromas, flavors, and recommended pairings with food.

It was our last night of our 15-day trip around Uruguay and we treated ourselves to a luxurious stay in the winery’s posada. It was for many years the family home until it was creatively restored into an attractive boutique inn with four guest rooms overlooking a pool and the vineyards.   

“You will have the posada all to yourselves tonight. Enjoy the pool, and feel free to walk through the vineyard. A nightwatchman will arrive later.”  The golden hour was upon the vineyard as we cooled off in the pool. 

This surely dates us, but it felt like we were in an episode of the TV show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous hosted by Robin Leach, who used to sign-off with “Champagne wishes and caviar dreams.”

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

A Road Trip Across Southern Uruguay: Colonia del Sacramento, Carmelo & Garzon or Colonial Charm, Wineries & a Ghost Town

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Montevideo’s skyline vanished quickly from our rearview mirror as we headed west on Rt 1, through rolling hills verdant from recent rains, into Uruguay’s burgeoning wine region. The road roughly paralleled the contour of the Río de la Plata. This large navigable body of water that separates Uruguay from Argentina is often called the widest river estuary in the world. Sheltered from the harsh seas and winds of the Southern Atlantic Ocean, it appealed to the Portuguese who, in 1680, landed 400 soldiers and cannons, along with stonecutters, carpenters, and craftsmen from five Galleons to found Colonia del Sacramento, on a small strategic peninsula. It was an attempt to deter Spain from expanding its Argentina colony, which had already established Fuerte de San Lázaro, a military outpost farther north near the Arroyo de las Vacas River in 1527. Spain later sent more settlers across the Río de la Plata to establish ranches in the vast pampas wilderness, around what today is the town of Carmelo, in 1611.

There was very little traffic on the road, and the two-and-half-hour trip flew by as we zipped past the occasional farm stand along the way. Nearing Colonia del Sacramento, a row of stately palm trees lined the thoroughfare. Entering the city, we drove down Gral. Flores, a wide tree-lined boulevard, past a colorful street mural and an inviting city park to the Posada Manuel Lobo, our hotel for two nights. The newer boutique hotel was nicely decorated in an old colonial theme, with beamed ceilings and antiques, and its location was perfect, just a block away from Colonia’s historic quarter. And with a hearty breakfast included, and free parking on the street, what else could we ask for?

A quick trip to a pharmacy took us past the first of several antique cars, from the 1930s and 40s, that seem to be parked intentionally across the town as interesting accent points, and the Café Rollito where we returned to later and ordered a luscious waffle topped with cream mixed with fruit. Their cappuccinos were also very good. The cars, as we learned, are called ‘cachilas,’ family heirlooms that were acquired in the early 20th century when Uruguay’s economy boomed from exports of beef and wheat to a war-torn Europe.

Imports nearly ceased when the country’s economy collapsed in the late 1950’s. Out of necessity family cars were lovingly maintained, and passed down through the generations, and repeatedly repaired until they couldn’t be. They reflect the country’s strong family ties, work ethic and nostalgia for simpler times. 

Afterwards we walked into the historic quarter, which is roughly defined by the footprint of the ramparts that once encircled this small frontier outpost. Only the citadel’s gateway, the Puerta de la Ciudadela, and a small section of the fortress’s defensive wall have been preserved. But the original irregular layout of the 17th century cobbled lanes still exists, and weaves between rows of Portuguese era colonial buildings.

The citadel was attacked and captured by Spain several times, only to be returned to Portugal by various treaties. Spain’s “Laws of the Indies,” which required towns to be designed in a “checkerboard” grid pattern, wasn’t imposed on the growing town until it became a Spanish possession with the Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1777.

The afternoon was surprisingly hot, reaching 38C (100F). We thought we had timed our trip to coincide with the more temperate weather of Uruguay’s fall, but during our 16 days in the country the weather was unseasonably hot. 

We wandered the shaded lanes of the historic district for a while before heading back to the hotel for a siesta. Later we headed to the Vista del Atardecer, a short waterfront promenade that is a popular spot to sip maté tea, and watch the sunset over the Río de la Plata. It was off this point in 1763 that cannon fire from the fort sank the British privateer Lord Clive as it attacked the town. The surviving pirates were tried and hung. In 2004 the sunken ship was located, and efforts to raise money to finance the salvage of its rumored treasure are underway. The late ferry from Buenos Aires was silhouetted against the fiery sunset as it set below the horizon. Over the horizon Buenos Aires lies only 59km (37mi) away and takes only an hour and a quarter to reach by ferry.  

Later we visited the Basílica del Santísimo Sacramento. It’s often considered the oldest church in Uruguay because the 1810 building that stands today was built over the ruins of a smaller stone church built in 1699 atop the site where the colony’s first adobe and straw chapel was erected in 1680.  

Across the lane we had dinner outside at ¡Qué Tupé! It has a very colorful interior, but the evening was cooler, and we chose a table outside on the plaza, under trees strung with lights. We both enjoyed wonderfully tender and flavorful steaks for dinner, along with glasses of Tanat, Uruguay’s signature wine.

The next day we crossed the citadel’s old drawbridge and walked along the remants of the San Miguel Bastion. We continued down rough stone lanes lined with colorful time worn pastel buildings covered in bougainvillea. At the Museo de Colonia we decided to go inside when we spotted a huge skeleton of a blue whale while peeking through a gate to the museum’s courtyard.

We discussed ticket options with the attendant in the lobby, whether to purchase individual tickets or the pass that allowed us to visit all the museums in Colonia. We opted for the multi-museum pass but after purchasing we were frustrated to learn that only the ticket lobby and not the museum itself was open that day.

Aside from the Museo de Colonia, most of the museums in Colonia are very small, with only 2-3 rooms, but we were able to use our pass at the Nacarello House, a 1700s era home, and the Museo Naval which had a tiny collection focusing on the town’s nautical heritage.

Reflections from the lighthouse beacon glistened on the still wet pavement as we strolled to Charco Bistró. The 34m (112ft) Colonia del Sacramento Lighthouse has guided sailors on the Río de la Plata since 1850 when it was erected on the highest spot in the town. We rarely make reservations, and the restaurant was full of people still leery of the weather, but a table was found for us. The pleasant but overworked staff contributed greatly to a very nice dining experience on our last night in Colonia.

Following Rt 21, we headed north to Carmelo, an hour away. The C’ars International Museum was along the route. It has a modest collection of cachilas, the oldest being a 1929 REO. The museum also features nostalgic recreations, using restored original materials, of early 20th-century settings, such as a pharmacy, gas station, and barber shop. A little farther up the road there was an abandoned colonial era church. The stone building was quite large, but unfortunately there wasn’t a historical placard outside, and we haven’t been able to find any information about it.

Our morning sun had faded by the time we crossed a historic old swing bridge over the Arroyo de las Vacas into Carmelo. The gray overcast day gave the deserted streets of the quiet town the feeling of being a forgotten colonial backwater. This ambiance was reinforced when the first traffic we encountered was a horse drawn farm cart cantering down the street as we parked at the Rambla de los Constituyentes, a riverfront promenade, to get a better view of the bridge. It’s a pretty park with terraces along the water and an ivy-covered arbor dedicated to Dionysus, the god of wine making.

The swing bridge was built in Cologne, Germany, shipped to Uruguay, and then reassembled across the river in 1912. It had at the time a unique hand-operated mechanism that turned the center part of the bridge parallel to the riverbank, so larger merchant vessels could still access the warehouses along the upper reaches of the river, and load cash crops for export. From the riverport there is ferry service from Carmelo to Tigre, Argentina, several days a week.

Driving through town we stopped at the Plaza Artigas where under waving flags a statue commemorated General José Gervasio Artigas, who founded Carmelo in 1816. The area’s history dates back to 1527, when the Spanish built the Fuerte de San Lázaro, a small wooden fortress near the mouth of the Arroyo de las Vacas River. But a concerted effort to colonize the area wasn’t made until settlers were given cattle to bring into the wilderness grassland in 1611. But before leaving Carmelo we indulged our “drive a little then café” philosophy with very good coffee and pastry at Amor Café. There were a few newer buildings in Carmelo, but generally time seems to have stopped in the town.

We came up to Carmelo, the oldest wine producing region in Uruguay, to visit some of its highly touted wineries, known for their Tannat, Merlot, and Chardonnay wines. The area’s subtropical climate and diverse soils create a unique terroir that allows winemakers to cultivate a wide range of grapes.

Our first tasting for the afternoon was at El Legado, a small boutique winery, with four guest rooms and a restaurant, that produces only 4,000 bottles of wine a year. It is named to honor Bernardo Marzuca’s father, who dreamed of establishing a family winery. María Marta Marzuca and her son welcomed us warmly, and shared the history of winery – it has only been open since 2007 – before giving us an interesting tour through the winery, as well as the vineyard, where the grapes had been harvested the week before. In the small wine cellar, bottles from particularly good vintages were signed with the name of people who had bought them, but left them there to age.

Our tasting included their three red wines; Syrah, Tannat, and a Tannat/Syrah blend, along with a Viogner, an aromatic and fruity white wine. The accompanying hearty charcuterie board with artisanal cheeses, salamis, and bread was excellent, as were the wines. It was a very pleasant experience and we wished we could have lingered more, but we had booked a later tasting that day at the Bodega Zubizarreta, where we would be staying for the night.

We followed a road through gently rolling farmland past the Zubizarreta winery to the Calera de las Huérfanas, the ruins of a large Spanish Jesuit mission. It existed from 1741 until 1767, when all the Jesuits were expelled from the Spanish Empire, and their lands were seized by the crown. But during that brief time it was a self-sustaining community of 250 people that included priests, colonialists, indigenous Charrúa natives, and slaves who operated four clay kilns which produced limestone and the bricks that were used for building the site’s chapel.

In addition, they ran a blacksmith shop and bakery, farmed the land, tended animals, and made wine from 1500 grape vines, which were the founding of Uruguay’s wine industry. After its confiscation it was used as the College of Orphan Girls of Buenos Aires, and then forgotten after it was destroyed in the early 1800s by Brazilian forces when a state of undeclared war existed between Uruguay and Brazil.

Grapes still hung from a decorative arbor as we made our way into the courtyard of the Zubizarreta Winery and were greeted by Mariela Zubizarreta, the daughter of the matriarch that now owns the wine estate that was started four generations ago by her grandfather in 1957, a Basque immigrate with “nothing to lose.”

From their large vineyard they harvest nine different varietals and bottle 12 fine red, white and rosé wines. And as a commercial vineyard they also fill 5 gallon damajuanas with an excellent house wine for restaurants across the region.

We finished our tasting as the sun began its slow afternoon descent and cast a warm glow across the vineyard. Mariela showed us our room in Aitona’s House, the old family home which dates from the early 1900s, one end of which has been transformed into a lovely period furnished, large one-bedroom suite. Handing us the key, she relayed that the winery was now closed for the day, and that we would have the estate to ourselves for the night. “A nightwatchman will arrive later. See you in the morning.” We sipped wine as the sun set across the vineyard.   

The next morning was a transition day for us, and we set out on our longest drive of our road trip through southern Uruguay. Driving from Carmelo to Minas would take 4.5 hours, but with stops along the way it would take us all day.

We backtracked on Rt21 before turning east off Rt1 past Colonia del Sacramento onto east Rt11 through sleepy towns and expansive farmlands that were completely flat to the horizon. In San José de Mayo we stopped to photograph a monument to the Motorcycle Club of Uruguay, which for us, channeled the book and movie the Motorcycle Diaries, which portrays a young Che Guevara’s journey to discover the essence of South America in 1952, before he became a ruthless revolutionary.

Passing through the city of Santa Lucia, we found a restaurant on Google Maps across from the town’s central plaza. The Paseo Bistro turned out to be atop the  Supermercado El Paseo, a very large two-story grocery and department store, that has a hardware department and appliance center, along with a very popular restaurant with a rooftop terrace. The bistro was very busy at lunchtime, full of families and professionals. Ordering was from a picture menu above the kitchen, where our meal was freshly prepared. A restaurant pager alerted us when our food was ready. We were pleasantly surprised at the quality of our lunch as well as its reasonable price.

From Santa Lucia we continued east on Rt81. The route now rose through gently rolling hills spectacled with small patches of forests. Just before reaching the village of Montes I suddenly slowed and did a U-turn. “Why are we turning around?” Donna asked. “Did you see those dinosaurs?” “You’re delusional and should drink more water to stay hydrated!” “I only need to run faster than you,” I chuckled. The Parque de los Dinosaurios was at the end of a two-track lane, where a man and woman were sunning in their yard. With our lack of Spanish, we pointed and expressed an interest in seeing the dinosaurs up close.  As we learned from the man’s wife he single-handedly created this whimsical playland and picnic area filled with colorful prehistoric creatures. It’s definitely a Uruguayan roadside oddity that was a fun stop.

Driving into the center of Minas we passed a number of interesting street murals on the way to the Plaza Libertad, a classic Spanish square with an equestrian statue that celebrates the Lavalleja Department’s gaucho heritage, and a reflecting pool surrounded by palm trees that faces the neoclassical designed Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepción de Minas, which dates from 1892.

After an early dinner we headed to our accommodation for the night at the Valle de Domos, a small eco-friendly, sustainable resort where the individual cone-shaped cottages were constructed with earthen bags.

But before leaving Minas we made one last stop at the Museo de Réplicas en Miniatura. It’s a small private museum/workshop in the home of Horacio and Mirta Chocho. Horacio, a retired mechanic, met us at the gate to his yard and explained with no ifs, ands, and buts that his presentation takes a full 45 minutes and that he wasn’t interested in sharing his work unless we agreed to stay till the end. The man is definitely a mechanical genius and created his working models of cars, trucks, tractors and trains, along with various other items from found objects.

Twilight was descending when we reached the Valle de Domos. Though we had a confirmed reservation the manager was not expecting us, and was reluctant to let us stay, even though they had vacancies, until a phone call to the owner rectified the situation. We love these sort of alternative housing solutions and had a comfortable one-night stay. Sun light filled the tiny kitchen the next morning as we made coffee. There are several larger cone shaped cottages at the resort with 2-4 bedrooms and living rooms. If we had stayed longer, we would have chosen a larger unit.

Though we had a kitchen, we only had the makings for instant coffee and a few snacks, so we started the day in pursuit of a real breakfast and a good cup of java, which unfortunately was a little more challenging than expected. The hours and open days listed for the cafes on our online maps were incorrect. We realized this when the owner of Penitente Station, a unique restaurant in an old railroad car positioned atop a ridge in the Sierra de Minas, turned us away, but did let us admire the panoramic view from the railcar.

Fortunately nearby, everything was fully operational when we arrived at Salto del Penitente, a large state park with a zip line course, that is known for its spectacular rainy season waterfall. The park’s excellent restaurant with an open terrace overlooks Uruguay’s tallest waterfall, which drops 60m (200ft) through a narrow gorge below the granite rock face of Salto del Penitente, into a lagoon that’s a popular spot to swim. But the water flow was low and the stream was hidden away in its crevice. We did enjoy watching birds of prey soaring on the updrafts, two Pampas foxes, and several large black and white tegu lizards, which can grow to four feet in length, scattering from one shady spot to the next.

From here we were cutting across the rugged Sierra de Minas region to the South Atlantic coast at Faro de José Ignacio, 252 miles east of Carmelo. The excellent state roads we followed were all paved, numbered and well signed, until we turned to Garzon, where the blacktop suddenly became hard-packed dirt.  These wide, well maintained dirt roads coursed through a vast nearly unpopulated area that took us near Uruguay’s highest point, the 513.66 m (1,685.2 ft) tall Cerro Catedral. Though it really wasn’t noticeably distinguishable from the surrounding landscape.

Pueblo Garzón is an old frontier-like ranching community that was founded in the early 1900s, and was a boom town on the Central Uruguay Rail Line, which took the rancher’s cattle to the port of Montevideo for export. When the pueblo achieved the status of being a town in 1935, it had 470 inhabitants. With the economic downturn that engulfed Uruguay after WW2, partially as a result of the economy relying too heavily on beef exports, the train service to Garzón ended. An exodus of people began and by the 1970s Garzon was considered a ghost town. We good picture tumbleweed blowing through the town.

In 2003 the internationally renowned chef Francis Mallmann fell in love with the tranquility of the area and renovated the town’s abandoned general store into the El Garzón, a small restaurant and boutique inn. His signature horno, a large clay oven, surrounded by piles of stacked wood dominates the old wrap-around porch where ranch supplies once stood. Several small galleries, a café, and another inn soon followed.

The town’s prospects really began to increase in 2016 when Bodega Garzón, a large ultramodern, sustainably built winery with 524 acres of vineyards, was opened. It was envisioned by Alejandro P. Bulgheroni, the Argentine billionaire and wine entrepreneur, to be “the most emblematic winery of modern viticulture in Uruguay, creating premium wines with an intense personality and a deep sense of belonging to the land.” Since then, grapes harvested from 1200 different plots, which take advantage of the estates’ different microclimates, have created wines which have consistently won awards, and it has become a destination for wine enthusiasts and bon vivants from around the world.

It was serendipitously Valentines Day and El Garzón was the perfect place to celebrate.

Faro de José Ignacio was only 30 minutes and a whole world away.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

Montevideo: Feria, Murals & Carnaval – The Antidote for our North America “Winter Blues.”

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A clearing storm covered Uruguay’s Atlantic Coast as we landed at Carrasco International Airport on the outskirts of Montevideo. We were ten minutes into our forty-minute Uber ride into Ciudad Vieja, the old town section of Montevideo, when the masts of several catamarans poked above the tree line that obscured our view of the oceanfront. Our driver proudly boasted that the country has nearly 660km (410mi) of pristine beach-covered coastline along the Río de la Plata and the South Atlantic Ocean. But the real pride and joy of Montevideanos is La Rambla of Montevideo, a wide coastal esplanade that runs for 22km (14mi) along the city’s waterfront, “one of the longest continuous sidewalks in the world.”

Our ride into the city soon started to follow La Rambla’s serpentine route along the coast, past folks, at the end of the workday, flocking to its breezy shoreline to enjoy all sorts of activities from rollerblading to kite surfing. Several beach areas also had bandstands where musicians were drawing good size audiences. Lovers snuggled on the seawalls, amidst swimmers emerging from the ocean, games of soccer, joggers, aerobic classes, personal trainers, cyclists, sun worshippers, and walkers carrying their ubiquitous Mate carryalls. Enjoying socializing with friends on La Rambla is an important part of life in Uruguay’s capital, where the city’s 1.4 million residents, nearly 40% of the country’s population, have an open invitation to “The Outdoor Living Room of Montevideo.” Come sunset there seemed to be collective quieting as folks stopped to watch the sun sink below the horizon. We could already tell that this could be the antidote for our North America “winter blues.”

The next morning, we were up before sunrise to stroll along the oceanfront, hoping to catch the first rays of sunlight cast across the city. From our room at Hotel NH Montevideo Columbia, we could see seven freighters making their way to port, and the remnants of an old defensive tower. It was part of the quickly built ramparts that once encircled the citadel soon after the Spanish founded the city in 1726, to thwart Portuguese expansion southward along the coast from Brazil.

Street art and sculptures that were a blur yesterday as we sped by were now full of detail. In some places along the esplanade there were images of dinosaurs on relief plaques implanted into the sidewalk that suggested the region’s fauna 85 million years ago.

We reached Playa Ramirez, a large crescent-shaped beach as the sun was breaching the trees and shining upon the city’s modest skyline. A large group of cyclists preparing for the upcoming Vuelta Ciclista del Uruguay sped by. Two women stood in the water and let the gentle morning waves lap around their ankles as they chatted.

Across from the beach was Parque Jose Enrique Rodó. A large sculpture in the center of the park is dedicated to the Montevideo-born philosopher and essayist, who wrote about Latin America pursuing its own cultural identity and spiritual renewal, and the dangers of unbridled materialism.

We started our loop back towards the Ciudad Vieja down one of the park’s palm-lined paths and zig zagged our way through barrios full of colorful street murals, and older 1900’s era buildings with interesting architectural details.

Walking through Barrio Sur along Isla de Flores, bleachers were being set up at the intersections in preparation for one of the last parades of Carnaval. The street was lined with murals dedicated to the local comparsas, large groups of 50-100 candombe drum performers and dancers, who participate in the yearly festival. We spent some time determining a good vantage point for watching the parade later in the week.

The grand Plaza Independencia was a huge contrast to modest barrios we had walked through earlier that morning. In the park’s center a large equestrian statue stands atop the Masoleum of José Gervasio Artigas, a gaucho, military leader, and revolutionary who inspired Uruguayans to fight against Spanish and Portuguese rule. He is considered the father of Uruguay’s liberation movement, though he did not live long enough to see the country’s independence in 1828.

A vast array of different architectural styles can be seen on the buildings around the plaza, but the most intriguing is the chaotic styling of the 27-story tall Palacio Salvo, which eclectically blends elements of Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Gothic, and Renaissance architecture into its design. The iconic mixed-use building has shops, offices, apartments and the Museo del Tango. It was for a short period of time after its completion in 1928 the tallest building in South America.

At the opposite end of the plaza the Puerta de la Ciudadela, one of the old gateways into the colonial citadel, is all that remains of a tall stone defensive wall that was 6 meters (20ft) thick, and totally encircled the small peninsula where Spain established its first colony in Uruguay. After Uruguay gained its independence the demolition of the citadel’s ramparts started in 1829, less than 100 years after their construction, to make room for the growing port city’s expansion.

The old gateway opened to Sarandí, the main pedestrian lane that runs from one end of Ciudad Vieja to the other. At the beginning of the lane was Montevideo’s Walk of Fame, where stars of famous visitors to the city, like Nelson Mandela, the Rolling Stones, Enrique Iglesias, and Olga Delgrossi, Uruguay’s beloved singer and tango dancer, were imbedded in the pavement with sun bursts above their names.  Now mid-afternoon, the day had warmed, and the street was full of vendors under colorful umbrellas, selling all sorts of items geared for tourists.

We wrapped up our day’s wandering about at the Montevideo Metropolitan Cathedral, or as it is formally called the Catedral Metropolitana de la Inmaculada Concepción y San Felipe y Santiago.  In 1790 the construction of the cathedral was started to accommodate a growing congregation in the prosperous city, which had outgrown its first smaller brick church, which was built on the same site in 1740. Inside were some very nice pieces of religious art.

The next morning we continued exploring the old town and watched a wedding party throw rice upon a newly married couple at the Registry Office. We only noticed a sculpture of Montevideo’s version of Romeo and Juliet when a crowd in front of us was pointing up to a balcony. “Our walk a little then café,” routine was satisfied with breakfast at Federación, an artesanal panaderia and café, with tables on the sidewalk and in a small courtyard. It was on the way to several museums we planned to visit, before having a late lunch at one of the steakhouses in the Mercado del Puerto.

Montevideo has over twenty museums that span the spectrum from art and science to tango and carnaval. Around the corner from the café, in a 19th century building, was the Pre-Columbian and Indigenous Art Museum. It is a relatively small museum, but it has an interesting collection of archeological artifacts and an extensive collection of Carnaval masks from across Latin America.

Everything about the South American cowboy can be viewed at the Museo del Gaucho and Currency. It occupies a stately old bank building which in itself is worth poking your head into, but the immense scale of the building overpowers the exhibits of small objects used in the South American cowboy’s everyday life. Many of the fine silver items on display were from the estates of wealthy ranch owners.

The currency exhibit was okay, but we think you really have to admire a country that puts an armadillo on one of their coins. There was also a collection of coins recovered from the wreck of the Spanish galleon El Preciado, which was sunk in Río de la Plata by pirates in 1792, as it sailed for Spain carrying gold and silver to pay the taxes levied against the South America colonies.

Artistic street murals can be found all across Montevideo and we passed several interesting ones on the way to the Museo de las Migraciones. We really enjoyed this museum as it celebrates the country’s diverse population of its immigrants who contributed to making Uruguay the wonderful place that it is. The exhibits confirm the belief that most folks have more in common than what separates us.

It was a long walk back towards the Mercado del Puerto. The cast-iron and glass roofed structure was imported from Liverpool, England, and feels a little like a Victorian era train station; it opened for its first customers in 1868. The old port market used to be the central place to buy supplies, fruits, produce, meats, and fish, but has now been gentrified into an atmospheric food hall, where steakhouses reign supreme, and charge a hefty price for being convenient for the cruise ships passengers which disembark at the port. That being said, we enjoyed the ambience of open wood-fired parrillas, and wafting aromas rising from the various kitchens. It was a challenge to choose a restaurant, as all the dishes that waiters whisked by us looked delicious and tempting.

Later in the week we returned to the area to attend a tablado at the Museo del Carnaval, which also had a great collection of imaginative costumes from past carnavals. As the actors readied themselves for the performance, an announcer stepped forward. There were lots of Spanish words, followed by “Donna DiMeo Hammell” and more Spanish. I speculated that we had won the Uruguayan Lottery.  Or “maybe I’ve been chosen to participate, but I don’t speak Spanish!” Donna’s first thought was, wow, they pronounced my name correctly! The mystery was solved when Donna approached the offstage area, and a smiling theater employee handed her the credit card she had unknowingly dropped earlier.

Tablados are temporary neighborhood stages set up across Montevideo where colorful theatrical and musical performances are put on by groups of actors called Murgas, known for their satirical and humorous songs, who are joined by groups of Parodistas who are recognized for their entertaining parodies of well-known stories or events.

Tablados performances only happen during the carnaval season in Uruguay, which runs for forty days between mid-January and mid-March in Uruguay. The performance we attended lasted two hours and had eight different skits. If you cannot attend one of the carnaval parades in Montevideo the tablados are extremely funny and entertaining and you don’t need to understand Spanish to thoroughly enjoy them. They are also very inexpensive.

Walking back through the newer part of Montevideo the next morning we strolled along

Av. 18 de Julio. The street is named for the day in 1830 when the Uruguayan Constitution was ratified, and is the city’s busiest street with numerous stores, restaurants and bars along its length. At the intersection of Av. Carlos Quijano was the Fuente de los Candados,

the Fountain of the Padlocks. It seems every city has one of these landmarks where couples announce their love by hanging a lock on the metalwork; many of these were engraved with names, dates, or sentiments. What’s unique about this one is that it surrounds a fountain where folks also throw coins to make a wish.

Next to the fountain was a couple busking for tips as they tango danced in front of a café. This was the only time we saw tango dancing in Montevideo, even though the city shares credit with Buenos Aires as the birthplace of the dance. The scarcity of dancers might have been because we were there during carnaval season, and so many other events were happening then.  

Nearby was the Mirador Panorámico de la Intendencia de Montevideo. It’s an open-air viewing platform on the 22nd floor of the headquarters building of the Municipality of Montevideo. Montevideo does not have a very interesting skyline, but the view was expansive, and you can see the port and how La Rambla follows the twists and turns of the coast. There is a small café inside at the mirador. We didn’t find it to be a “must do,” destination, and would suggest trying to time your visit to the mirador around sunset, if possible, to make it more spectacular.

Afterwards we decided to expand our wanderings around the city, and we walked many blocks to the Mercado Agrícola de Montevideo, a historic city market that dates from 1913. We bought some fruit and empanadas for lunch. The most interesting part of our walk was around the Palacio Legislativo, a neoclassical building that is the seat of the Uruguayan parliament. The building’s iconic architecture stands in stark contrast to the large heart felt murals portraying local Montevideans, and the writer Kurt Vonnegut.

Over the weekend the Llamadas parade, one of the largest during carnaval, was taking place Friday and Saturday night in Barrio Sur. The parade celebrates the Afro-Uruguayan culture in the country with numerous comparsas, large groups of 50-100 festively dressed drummers who play traditional candombe rhythms for their dancers who perform along the street ahead of them.

Our Uber driver dropped us as close as possible to the viewing spot we had scoped out earlier in the week. But the streets were full of activity, with roads blocked for charter buses carrying various comparsas and staging areas where the dancers and drummers readied their groups.

We didn’t know advance ticket purchase was required, so we were totally surprised when the intersections were cordoned off and only tickets holders were allowed onto the sidewalks along Isla de Flores street. Fortunately, the area we had chosen had one small section that was open, and we jammed in, shoulder to shoulder, along with several hundred other folks with the same idea, to watch the parade. Folks next to us cautioned us about losing our phones to grab and run thieves, but we never felt uncomfortable in the crowd.

Carnaval in Montevideo is not as elaborate spectacle as in Rio de Janeiro where huge floats dominate the night. We didn’t last until the end of the parade, but it was a hugely fun, very authentic grassroots event that we thoroughly enjoyed. A few blocks off the parade route at Restaurante Palermo Viejo we shared our first chivito. These are huge, layered sandwiches that contain churrasco steak, ham, bacon, mozzarella cheese, lettuce, tomato, and a fried egg on top. The tasty creation was very filling, and it is often referred to as Uruguay’s national dish.

The next morning after a luscious breakfast at El Copacabana, in the old town, we took an Uber over to the Feria de Tristan Narvaja, a Sunday street market that stretches for seven long blocks through the Cordon neighborhood. It features a multitude of vendors selling everything imaginable, along with secondhand clothing, used books, fresh produce, and artist’s handcrafted creations.

Following our “walk a little then café” philosophy we took a break at El Imperio, an eclectically decorated bar, where the barista between serving inside customers ran trays of espressos out to the vendors on the street. We thought the feria was one of the more interesting ones we’ve experienced during our travels and think it’s a must-do activity when visiting Montevideo, if you like this sort of event.

Later that morning we headed to the airport and picked up a rental car we had reserved at Localiza Aquiler de Autos, a very good local agency with reasonable rates, for our 12 day road trip, which we were starting the next day. But first we had one more thing to do locally, and we drove an hour north into the countryside outside of Montevideo. Nearly forty percent of Uruguay’s population lives in Montevideo, but the city’s urban sprawl quickly transformed into gently rolling farmlands and vineyards as we drove through the Canelones region to the Cabaña La Mansedumbre, a rustic, under-the-radar destination restaurant. We eventually turned down a sandy dirt road. A small weather-worn sign hung from the cattle gate across the twin tracks that led to Fredy and Silvana’s ranch. When making our reservation, he had reminded us to close the gate securely so his goats wouldn’t escape.

We were the first guests to arrive that afternoon and were warmly welcomed into the courtyard of the couple’s rural farm stead. A tour of the open-air kitchen followed where we met Fredy’s son Juan, as he was preparing charcuterie boards under an array of sausages and cheeses hanging from the rafters. Heat emanated from a brick oven in the corner. Two large golden tortilla de papas cooled on a countertop under shelves laden with jars or homemade sauces, jams, and jellies. Baskets of fresh bread and rolls which Silvana had baked that morning tempted us with their wonderful aroma. 

Very enthusiastically Fredy explained that everything they use to prepare their dinners is sourced within a 5-mile radius of their farm. Though many items, like the goat cheeses, were made by his neighbor using the goat milk from Fredy’s herd, while the tanat wine we were offered, as we waited for the other guests to arrive, came from a friend’s vineyard at the other end of the road. Bottles of grappa that Fredy had infused with herbs lined a shelf above wine casks which flowed freely all afternoon.

Neither has trained as a chef, but they both share a passion for food and travel which has inspired them to refine their skills over the years, and now share their enthusiasm for great food at their home on the weekends. Seeing their farming community’s potential they have encouraged their purveyors to provide new and different sausages, cheeses, and produce than what was traditionally available in the past.

With everyone’s arrival we were seated at tables under their tinned roof porch. We were hoping to experience a traditional Uruguayan asado, but grilling meats on the parrilla was not part of the gourmet eight course feast that the couple had planned.

Our initial disappointment faded quickly as amazingly delicious dishes emerged from that simple country kitchen for nearly three hours that afternoon. Every dish was uniquely flavored, excellently prepared and presented. Coffee, dessert and grappa crowned the dinner. We wish we had taken notes, but photos of some of the dishes will have to suffice. 

The dinner was nicely paced, with plenty of time to talk with the other guests and enjoy the wine between courses. It was a memorable afternoon, and an excellent farm to table dining experience, along with being the best meal we had while visiting Uruguay.

For reservations Fredy and Silvana can be contacted through phone & WhatsApp +598 99 390 054.

Montevideo consistently ranks as the top city in Central and South America for quality of life. We thought it was a great destination, especially during Carnaval and it exceeded our expectations.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

P.S. Our 12 day road trip through Uruguay started the next day.

During our stay, Donna had horrible hacking cough, that was so concerning one night we called the reception desk at NH Montevideo Columbia to ask for advice. The hotel, to our relief, had a physician on-call who made a late-night visit to our room. After an initial exam the doctor wrote a prescription for a chest x-ray in the emergency room at The British Hospital, a private hospital in downtown Montevideo. Fortunately, it was a quiet night at the hospital, and we were attended to quickly after checking in. We had a good experience there, the x-rays were negative for lung infection, and the hospital visit was totally covered by our travel insurance.

Street parking everywhere in Uruguay is free!

Hawaii – Road Tripping Around the Big Island or Black Sand, Sea Turtles and Snowbirds in Paradise

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There’s a saying in the low country, that “summer in Georgia is like living on Hell’s front porch.” Our winters here are usually very mild, and our neighbors tell us a dusting of snow falls about once every 13 years, and it melts away in hours. But this year 3 inches of snow fell and stayed frozen on the ground for 4 days. The counties along the coast and in southern Georgia can’t cope with this type of “unusual weather phenomenon,” and declared a state of emergency. Schools were closed, and folks were advised to stay off the roads. Traffic came to a standstill on Interstate 95 due to the icy roadway and was shut down for 2 days. State Police rescued stranded truckers by using ATVs. Our neighbors shared, “When it snows like this in Georgia, you know Hell has frozen over!”

Fortuitously, months earlier four of us from our lake community had booked a flight to Hawaii that departed the same day the runways at the Savanna Airport were cleared of ice and ready for business again.  

The balmy air was a welcome reprieve as we descended the stairs from the plane onto the runway in Kailua-Kona, on Hawaii Island or as the local folks like to say, The Big Island. But we were overdressed and overheated by the time we reached the baggage claim area and headed to the restrooms to strip off layers of now unseasonably warm clothing.

When we arrived at the Budget Car Rental office the queue was already out the door, and we watched our first Hawaiian sunset from the waiting line as the sun’s dying rays silhouetted the palm trees. This was not the romantic drinks-on-the-beach sunset we had envisioned for our first night on the island. The problem was a severely understaffed rental counter which gave priority to members of the company’s Fastbreak Program. We finally figured this out after waiting two hours, with more than one hundred other folks in a queue that now wrapped around the building. Donna realized we could download their app and take advantage of the expedited checkout program, and signed us up on the spot. As we switched lines, we shared our tip with folks around us, and we were headed out to our car within minutes. Donna acknowledges a twinge of guilt as we sashayed past all the other poor folks still stuck in that dreadful line. We’ve used Budget Car Rental flawlessly many times, but this was a horrendous experience. Fortunately, our lodging for the week at a Hilton property in Waikoloa was only a 30-minute drive north on Rt19.

Beyond the reception desk, the dancing patterns of light off the ripples of the hotel’s dramatically lit pool looked enticing. But after a long day of flying we needed a good night’s sleep.

The next morning we were up with the sunrise and out for a walk after a quick cup of coffee. The day was beautiful and there were many other like-minded couples out and about following the sidewalk that looped between the buildings of the sprawling resort.

Budha Point, a tranquil scenic spot on Waiulua Bay, that overlooked the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, was our destination. We visited here several times over the week and spotted whales breaching offshore a number of times.

It was less than a mile walk from our room through the beautifully manicured landscaping which coursed through the jagged lava fields that surrounded the Hilton Waikoloa Village, a sprawling complex with a tramway and footpaths connecting several towered hotels and pools along the seafront and the site’s lagoon.

Hawaiians have a great reverence for the ocean, and one of the wonderful things about the state are its laws that guarantee folks have a right of access along the beaches and shorelines, and that private property owners cannot obstruct access to it.

A little segway here: Hawaii is costly – think San Franciso or NYC expensive! The cost of parking is outrageous across the island, with residents parking for free and rental car drivers paying a high hourly rate at parking kiosks. Hilton guests staying in their premiere hotels around the resort’s lagoon or visitors wanting to attend the Legends of Hawaii Luau are charged $48 per day or $8 hourly for self-parking, and $55 per day for valet parking. Fortunately, the hotel we were staying in was farther away from the action and included free parking.

There was also a free shuttle bus that connected the hotels, shopping and restaurant courtyard within the complex. Several small free Beach Access Parking lots, which are closed to overnight parking, are across from excessively expensive Waikoloa Village parking lot.

Continuing our loop around the resort we came upon the Kings Highway Foot Trail, part of the Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail, a 175-mile narrow footpath that follows an ancient trading and communications route, through rough lava beds. Starting at the farthest spot north on the island, Upolu Point, the trail which dates from the 1500s, connected the ancient Polynesian fishing villages and religious sites along the western and southern coast of Hawaii island to the farming villages in the highlands. In places like the Waikōloa Petroglyph Reserve, ancient messages were carved into the lava stones.

Dinner and watching the sunset from the Lava Lava Beach Club on ʻAnaehoʻomalu Bay is a pleasant nightly ritual for many who visit the area.

We could have spent the entire week lounging by the pool, but that’s not really us, so we planned several road trips around the island. We had driven to the hotel in the dark two days earlier, and the area around the resort was a mix of verdant greenery and sporadic patches of lava. Exiting the hotel complex onto Rt19 revealed an immense Martian-like terrain of arid inhospitable lava fields that stretch for dozen of miles down from the 4205m (13,786 ft) tall snowcapped summit of the dormant volcano Mauna Kea, and Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano that sits 4170m (13,680ft) above sea level. They represent just one of the 11 climate zones found on the island. Which means when you circumnavigate the diverse landscapes of the island, you can experience everything from lush rainforests to arid deserts.

A short part of our drive that morning was through a landscape that reminded us of the American Southwest as we headed toward Hapuna Beach, the longest and widest stretch of white sand on the island. It consistently gets ranked as “one of world’s best beaches.”

The boulders of ancient lava, from the now extinct Mt Kohala, carpeted the shoreline at Kapa’a Beach Park. An estimated one million years old, it’s the oldest of the Big Islands’ six volcanoes, and last erupted 120,000 years ago.

Rain clouds threaten us as we stopped for coffee at the Kohala Coffee Mill, in the small town of Hawi, to indulge in our “drive a little then café,” philosophy. Rain poured for a few minutes as we sipped our coffees at tables under a covered sidewalk, and waited for the shower to pass. It’s a quiet one street town with a few small shops, galleries and artwork along the street. Away from the large resorts on the Kona coast a little bit of “old Hawaii,” shined through here.

A few minutes farther up the road we stopped in Kapaau at the Statue of King Kamehameha that commands the slope in front of the Old Kohala Courthouse. Ancient Hawaiian legends had foretold, “a light in the sky with feathers like a bird would signal the birth of a great chief.” Halley’s comet passed over the isalnds in 1758, the year Hawaiians believe Kamehameha was born. For centuries warfare between clans and inter-island raids were widespread throughout the Hawaiian archipelago. Kamehameha with an army of warriors on hundreds of peleleu, double-hulled 70ft long war canoes, sailed between the islands. In a series of battles he defeated the opposing chiefs on Hawaii, Oahu, Maui, and Molokai and united the islands into the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi in 1795. By 1810 the islands of Lanai, Kauai, and Niihau voluntarily joined the kingdom.

Leaving Kapaau we followed Rt 250 up into the Waimea highlands beneath Mt Kohala, a vast grasslands atop a long ridge, and home to the 135,000-acre Parker Ranch, one of the oldest and largest cattle ranches in the United States. From the road distant views of the west coast of the island were abundant. As we descended into Waimea the summit of the dormant volcano Mauna Kea poked through the clouds.

Waimea is the center of the Big Islands’ paniolo (Hawaiian cowboy) country. It’s a large pretty town, with several old historic churches, colorful street murals and a tall cowboy boot marking the entrance to a shopping center. The first cattle on the island, 11 cows and 1 bull, were given to King Kamehameha by the British Naval Officer, Captain George Vancouver, in 1793. The king prohibited the islanders from slaughtering them and the small herd was left to freely roam the highlands.

In 1803 King Kamehameha received, from an American trader, the first horses to arrive on the island. The king invited vaqueros from Spanish California to the Big Island to teach some islanders cattle herding and roping skills. Eventually, the taboo against killing the cattle was lifted in 1830 by King Kamehameha III, when an estimated 25,000 wild cattle became troublesome as they destroyed farmer’s crops. Some of the cattle would be herded into the sea where they were swum out and then lifted onto waiting freighters and transported to the other islands. Hawaiian paniolos grew to be accomplished riders and over the years, have competed in numerous rodeos and world steer-roping championships. In 1999, Parker Ranch paniolo Ikua Purdy was inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. We had hoped to attend a Paniolo BBQ at Kahua Ranch for a night of good food and cowboy stories, but the weather the week we were on the island was just too iffy for us to commit to it.

Oustide of Waimea on the Mamalahoa Hwy, the ring road, we headed to the eastern, or windward side of the island and traveled through verdant landscapes of thick forests and jungles, the beneficiaries of the 130 inches of rain that this side of the island annually receives from the tradewinds that bring moisture in from the Pacific Ocean.  It’s a sharp contrast to the arid western, or leeward side of the island that receives only 18 inches of rain.

The overcast sky persisted as we drove down a twisting road through a rainforest to Laupāhoehoe Point. It’s a small, beautiful peninsula, with a rough lava rock coastline. The ocean swelled and crashed against the coast with a ferocity that the beaches on the west side of the island don’t experience, unless there’s a storm.

Saffron finches scooted around the undergrowth near the water’s edge. Over the horizon Baja, Mexico was 2,000 miles away. Things are not always wonderful in paradise and a memorial commemorates the tragic deaths of 20 schoolchildren and 4 teachers who drowned as their school was swept away in the giant waves of a tsunami that pounded the northeastern shores of the Big Island on April 1, 1946. Farther south in Hilo 159 people drowned and 1,300 homes were swept away.

The Big Island has over 100 waterfalls with the tallest, Waihilau Falls at a lofty 792m (2,600ft) tall, hidden away in the remote Waimanu Valley. Some serious trekking through the rainforest is required to reach them, while there are others that are way easier to view. As much as I liked the idea of an expedition through the tropical forest with my crew to see this spectacular waterfall, they can be a mutinous car full towards happy hour. So, we opted to seek out some of the more readily accessible ones during our week on the island.

Continuing south on the Mamalahoa Hwy we stopped to view the cascading Triple-Tier Umauma Falls, thundering loudly from all the rain that had fallen lately. It’s on private property, so there was an admission fee, but they did have really tasty coconut, pineapple and mango ice-cream.

We ended our day with drinks and dinner at Jackie Rey’s Ohana Grill in Hilo. It’s interestingly set in an old bank building across from some street murals. Our dinners from the happy hour menu were delicious and quite filling. In our opinion it was one of the best values on the island, and we did in fact eat there twice. Occasionally, a feral goat or donkey would be illuminated by the car’s headlights as we followed Saddle Road across the center of the island. At one point we reached an elevation of 2,021m (6,632ft) as we passed between the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. On the downhill side we could have coasted all the way back to the hotel.

Two days later we headed to Kona for their Farmer’s Market. We very much enjoy wandering about the stands at a good street market. Sadly, the Kona market was a huge disappointment, with only a handful of vendors selling tourist souvenirs and clothing. Only one stand sold local fruit and vegetables, which we did purchase to enjoy back at the hotel. Across the street we had breakfast at Papa Kona Restaurant & Bar, which had a spectacular second-story balcony perched right above the rocky oceanfront, where fishermen were casting into the surf.

Our ambitious plan for the day was to follow the Hawaiʻi Belt Road, Rt11, to the Hikiau Heiau temple on the opposite side of Kealakekua Bay from which Captain Cook landed in 1779, then hit a number of other interesting spots as we continued south to Ka Lae, or South Point as it is also known, before swinging around to the eastern side of the island, and ending our day on the volcanic black sand of Punaluʻu Beach.

Cook happened to sail into Kealakekua Bay during a Makahiki festival, a religious festival to appease the Hawaiian deity Lono, who in legend returns to the islands on a large ship. Timing is everything! Cook lucked out, his skull could have hung with other victims who had been sacrificed to appease the wrath of their deity, amidst the towering fierce tikis which portrayed Lono. The High Chief of the island ceremoniously welcomed the captain and lavished him with gifts of feathered capes, helmets, lei, and tapa cloth along with hogs, taro, sweet potatoes, and bananas. The bay is a tranquil spot now, but during Cook’s visit it would have been filled with hundreds of islanders on wa’a, outrigger canoes, and surfboards.

Continuing south we reached the Pu’uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park, site of an ancient religious sanctuary. Few spots on the Big Island resemble paradise more than Pu’uhonua O Honaunau, with its brilliant white sandy beach lined with swaying palm trees, along a cove with clear blue water. For centuries before the Christianization of the island started with the first arrival of protestant missionaries in the 1820s, it was also known as the City of Refuge, where islanders who broke a kapu, an ancient law, could flee to safety to escape the death penalty their action incurred. Here an offender of the ancient ways would seek absolution from a high priest and be free to return to their village. Villagers and defeated warriors could also seek sanctuary here during periods of inter-chiefdom wars.

The most important structure on the site is Hale o Keawe, a stone and thatch royal mausoleum that contained the remains of 23 deified high chiefs. Around it, fierce looking tiki statues serve as guardians of the dead, and embody the spiritual power of the kapu.

The site also has two Hawaiian hale houses, open sided bamboo and palm frond or pili grass covered structures. Multiple hale houses were built in a village for specific uses: men’s meeting house, cooking house, separate eating houses for men and women, workshop and canoe house, and a menstruation house.

Uphill from Pu’uhonua O Honaunau we visited the Painted Church, aka St Benedict Catholic Church. It’s a simple wooden church that dates from the 1880’s, and easy enough to just drive by unless you know it has a spectacularly painted interior.

While it’s not Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, the message is the same with every surface of the interior illustrated with stories from the bible. It was all the work of one creative Belgian priest, Father Jean Berchmans Velghe. He painted these religious murals between 1899 – 1902 for his, largely illiterate congregation.

The Coffee Shack,  a laidback breakfast and lunch restaurant on Rt11 in Honaunau-Napoopoo, was recommended to us as a nice place to eat. Parking was a little difficult in their small lot, and the place doesn’t look like much from the outside, but inside they have a lanai, an open sided porch, with panoramic views over the hills leading down to the Kona coast and Kealakekua Bay. We had just gotten seated when the power went out, something that we were told happens quite frequently across the island, and the server informed us “the cook doesn’t open the refrigerator when this happens, so we only have pastries, and the coffee is still hot.” It wasn’t much of a sacrifice to content ourselves with coffee and luscious pastry.

After a snack we optimistically continued south in search of an open restaurant, and we were not having much luck. Talk of mutiny was fomenting in the back seat. This whole southern coast lies in the shadow of the Mauna Loa volcano. Past the town of Ocean View the road crossed scars of ancient lava flows that stretched from the volcano’s summit to the sea. Fortunately, we came upon the El Encanto Food Truck, which had its own generator, and was busily serving a long line of hungry patrons at its window. Our lunches were delicious! The mutiny was postponed.

The power outage also affected gas stations along our route. With the afternoon sky darkening we decided to forego visiting South Point and continue on to Punaluʻu Beach. It’s a graceful crescent shape, and we are sure on a sunny day its volcanic black sand beach lined with coconut palms would be stunning, but this afternoon it looked foreboding with a gray sea sweeping its shore, more apropos for the scene of a novel’s fictional shipwreck, than a place to sunbath.

Rain was threatening now, but as we walked back to the car, Donna was waving excitedly to us. On the beach were three large green sea turtles in a roped off nesting area. Native to the Hawaiian archipelago, they are the largest sea turtle that nests on the islands and are symbols of good luck, wisdom, and protection. It was such a pleasure to see them.

The Hawaiian legend of Kauila, tells of a mystical turtle born on the black sands of Punalu’u, who had the ability to shapeshift into a human to play with the islander’s children that came to the beach, and to protect them from the dangers of the ocean. Heavier rain sent us hurrying back to the car. It was a long but rewarding day; we agreed that the spotting of the turtles was a real highlight of the trip.

Our pursuit of waterfalls continued the next day. Recrossing the mountains during the day cast a new light on the arid windswept heights as we ascended the road under snowcapped Mauna Kea then descended towards Hilo and into verdant greenery of the eastern side of the Big Island. It was a contrast equivalent to night and day, like our two drives across the island.

Roaring from all the recent rain, Wai’ale Falls was easily seen from the bridge over the Wailuku River. There’s not any official parking, so folks just park along the side of the road and walk out onto the bridge. There is also a rough trail, through thick undergrowth, up and over the road embankment that leads to the upper falls. We followed the footpath for a while until it narrowed along the edge of a fall-off, and we decided to turn back. Though some younger, more adventurous folks had reached the top of the 17m (55ft) high falls and were fearlessly jumping into the pool below.

Downriver, Rainbow Falls, in Wailuku River State Park, was a short drive away. It’s known for, you guessed it, rainbows that frequently appear when the light is just right. The riverside park is quite pretty and has paved trails that overlook the falls where the river’s cascading water veils a shallow cave as it drops 24m (80ft) into a large stone basin created over the ages by erosion. “Legends say that the cave beneath the waterfall was the home of Hina, mother of the Hawaiian demigod, Maui.”

Our next “drive a little then café,” moment was satisfied at Coffee Girl, a cute café in a Hilo strip mall, on the way to Makuʻu Point.

Turbulent seas churned from storms blowing across the Pacific along with volcanic activity have prevented the creation of beaches on eastern coast of the Big Island. Dramatic volcanic cliffs and lava outcroppings line the windward coastline instead.

The next morning, we set out to find more ancient stone inscriptions at the Puakō Petroglyph Park, in nearby Waimea. The trail started in Holoholokai Beach Park, where there is a unique beach of black lava rocks mixed with white coral, and soon led to a gathering of petroglyphs.

The symbols were quite interesting, but it was obvious that the carvings were reproductions of ones that the trail led to. We followed what started out as a well-worn trail through a primeval forest full of twisted trees, until the trail seemed to vanish. It was a hot day, and we were concerned about getting lost, so we backtracked and turned our attention to discovering some of the smaller beaches near the resort.

Puako Bay is a few minutes south of Hapuna Beach, the island’s largest stretch of sand, which we had visited earlier in the week. It’s a tranquil bay with many public access trails from the road to small sandy beaches, and rocky coves, that folks like to snorkel in.

There was a small beach next the Hokuloa Church that offered a nice view of the bay with Mauna Kea in the distance. The church was built with lava rock and then whitewashed in the late 1850s.

Kikaua Point Park was south of our resort and access to it was, surprisingly, through a gated community. Where folks are allowed access to the beach after getting a parking permit from the security guard. A long concrete walkway led from the parking lot through a boulder strewn lava field to a lovely palm treed beach. Folks were enjoying the breeze in the shade of the trees and swimming in the warm water of an almost completely circular and shallow sandy bottom cove. It was the perfect spot to spread our towels out and go for a swim.

We only scratched the surface of this big, beautiful island. And if we ever return we would definitely go to see the array of telescopes at the observatory atop Mauna Kea. The cost of living is very high on the island, with even locally caught fish, fruit and vegetables being expenses. Folks always say eat at the food trucks; while less expensive, their prices are steep too. So, if we ever return to the island – Donna furrows her eyebrows when I say this – we are packing snacks, several bottles of wine, a jar of spaghetti sauce and pasta, along with a couple of frozen steaks that should be perfectly thawed by the time our flight lands.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna

Driving Through the Baltics: Part 11 – Lake Peipus or Old Believers, Onions, and Honey

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Gently undulating farmlands soon flanked the road as we departed Tartu for a day trip to the Old Believers villages that dot the southern shoreline of Lake Peipus, Estonia’s largest lake which creates part of the country’s border with Russia. The villages are also part of the Onion Route, a 30km (19mi) tourist drive that promotes the area’s culture and “Estonia’s most celebrated onions, the Peipsi sibul, a golden variety known for their long storage life and flavor,” which the Old Believers have cultivated in the sandy soil of the region for several centuries.

The group’s name stems from a schism with the Russian Orthodox Church in the 17th century, in which they did not abide with the reforms Orthodox clergy patriarchates were initiating, and wow, wow, wow regarded the reforms which curled the beards of its elders, “as a corruption of their faith which was heralding the End of Days, and as such the Russian church and state were servants of the Antichrist.” Their dissent wasn’t allowed, and during The Russian Orthodox Synod of 1666-1667 the church and Tsar Alexis sanctioned their persecution. The group’s oppression was so severe that some ardent followers self-immolated in the ultimate act of protest. Thousands of Old Believers chose to escape their persecution and fled across Lake Peipus for refuge, and established a series of farming and fishing communities, in then Swedish-controlled Estonia, in which they prided themselves on their self-sufficiency.

We passed more farm tractors than cars that morning, but it was still a surprise when a large John Deere tractor pulled up alongside us in the gas station to refuel. Varnja is the southernmost village and the gateway to outdoor activities in the Peipsiveere Nature Reserve, which protects the fish and wildlife of the Emajõgi delta.

It’s a beautiful area, and was nearly deserted mid-week at the beginning of October. Fishing was once a viable livelihood, but only a few boats go out nowadays. Instead, some folks have converted them into niche rentals, like the owners of Mesi Tare who have creatively repurposed several small boats into maritime bungalows, both floating and permanently beached.

There wasn’t a soul about in the village, only an idle tractor in front of a barn with bundles of onions hanging from its rafters, or a plume of smoke from a chimney, and the lone dog sunning obliviously in the middle of the lane. Winter preparations were underway with large free-standing globe shaped piles of freshly split wood stacked along the lane or piled in cords neatly along the sides of houses.

As we left the hamlet and headed north on Kesk Tn, the main road connecting all the settlements along the lake, we stopped at Varnja’s Old Believers Prayer House, a red brick structure built between 1928 and 1930, and the nearby Issanda Templisseviimise, the town’s youngest Old Believers chapel constructed in 2015.

As we headed farther north, long narrow inlets, like the fingers on our hands, stretched from the roadside into the lake. Baskets, bowls and buckets of apples were in front of homes with backyard orchards that had what is commonly called in Estonia, “the apple flood.” This abundance is shared with the community, and the apples are free. It’s a long-standing tradition that reflects a spirit of sharing and generosity within Estonian culture. Occasionally, an abandoned stork’s nest crowned a telephone pole along the road, their yearly winter migration to southern Africa had already started in August.

We turned off the main road at every sign that pointed to the way to a kirk, church. The Kasepää Old Believers Church and Cemetery were particularly interesting.  The current 1862 sanctuary sits atop the foundation of a building that is thought to be the site of one of the group’s earliest churches after their exodus from Russia. Graves in the cemetery were marked with the traditional three horizontal-bar Orthodox cross. The configuration dates from the 6th century in which the Top Bar represents the inscription ordered by Pontius Pilate, The Middle Bar, the main beam where Christ’s hands were nailed, and Bottom Slanted Bar symbolizes the footrest and its slant reflects the fate of the two thieves crucified alongside Jesus – upward towards the repentant thief (St. Dismas) and downward towards the unrepentant one.

In Kolkja, a village first mentioned in historical records of 1592, we climbed the Vaatetorn bird-watching tower for an expansive view across the marshes and 3,555km2 (1,373 sq mi) Lake Peipus. The 219km (136mi) long lake has an average width of 82km (51mi), and is surprisingly very shallow, with an average depth of 7m (23ft). At its northern end the lake feeds into the Narva River between the Estonian border city of Narva and the Russian city of Ivangorod into the Gulf of Finland. Ice fishing is a popular winter activity on the lake which typically stays frozen from November to March. Small ice flows remain on the northern part of the lake until early May. Though with the recent climate change folks living along Lake Peipus have noticed a shortening of the ice season.

Afterwards, we stopped at Suur-Kolkja Vanausuliste Palvemaja, an Old Believers house of worship that was constructed in 1883, and its cemetery which was down the lane.

As we left the village an enterprising older woman, with a babushka covering her head, was unloading bags of onions, loaves of bread, and jars of jam from the trunk of a taxi and arranging them on a foldable card table she had already set up along the road. We had assumed the area was nearly deserted, but maybe there was an end-of-day rush hour as people returned home from work.

Although several museums, cafes and restaurants were shown on Google Maps, they were only open on the weekends during shoulder season. Our search for coffee took us to the larger town of Alatskivi, where we were able to satisfy our “drive a little, then café,” philosophy with a good lunch at Kivi kõrts, a bright eclectically decorated tavern, including a restroom decorated in a quirky theme.

We drove farther to Kallaste, a still larger village on the shore of Lake Peipus, but were discouraged from investigating the town in depth by the number of roadwork closures that hindered our travel.

On our return route to Tartu we passed through Alatskivi again and purchased honey from an automated vending machine near beehives in front of a local beekeeper’s home. We enjoy the simplest of things and found this combination of ancient practice and modern technology delightful. The machine even accepted credit cards.

At the roundabout in town, we circled twice to figure out how to reach the town’s library, which had a large wooden sculpture of two hands, with fingers carved from tree trunks, protruding from the ground in front of the building.

Earlier, the server at the tavern suggested we visit Alatskivi Castle,an old Baltic German feudal estate with vast land holdings, that was first mentioned in the historical records of the early 1600s. In 1885 Baron Arved von Nolcken, a widely traveled aristocrat, purchased the estate and reconstructed the old manor house in a Scottish baronial style, that is said to closely resemble Balmoral Castle, which he had recently visited. The von Nolcken family lived in the manor house for twenty years before they left for Germany with all their possessions, including the manor’s silk wallpaper, at the beginning of the Estonian Peasant Revolution in 1905. During the Soviet occupation of Estonia the lands of the estate were a state-controlled collective farm, and the castle was used as school, cinema, and library. Today, after extensive renovations the manor features a fine-dining restaurantand 4 suites available for booking directly through the castle, along with offering  a ceramic studio and workshop in the cellar. There is also a wax museum featuring figures of the manor’s servants; a butler, lady’s maid, cook, baker, groomsman, stable hands, and laundry maid are just a few of the various trades depicted. The exterior of the castle is totally white, and during the winter, with snow on the ground, must shine brilliantly on a sunny day. Or vanish totally from view during an Estonian tuiskav lumi, a blizzard. We wondered – if the walls of the castle could speak, what tales would they tell?

We had a great time exploring the cultures and complex histories of Estonia, Latvia, and regrettably only a small part of Lithuania during our three week-long road trip through these fascinating Baltic countries.

Till next time,

Craig & Donna