On our first day in the environs of Évora we were hitting up ancient stone arrangements that were by and large out in the middle of nowhere. We still had more sites that we wanted to see, but to make sure that we didn’t run out of gas before checking off some key items we decided to focus our second day of tourism on the city itself. We’d save anything that we missed from either day as a good third day for the trip and this way minimize the chance that we’d miss out on “can’t miss” attractions. “Hey guys, you were in Évora, how did you like the chapel of bones?” “Oh, um, we didn’t make it?” That’s never a fun conversation. The heat was going to stay in the high-90s for our entire visit so there was never any serious thought to skipping the day and staying in the shade – might as well have stayed home at that point. Instead, we were up early, again (ugh), and into town.

John, did you just say “chapel of bones?” Why yes, yes I did! One of the most-remarked sights to see in all of Évora is the “Capela dos Ossos” – literally “Chapel of Bones”. Said chapel is lined with human bones, the remains of people who by and large had hoped for just this honor. Seriously, it was mostly the Franciscan monks who had dibs and anyone else in town had to play their cards just right in order to spend eternity stacked up like cordwood. I may kid, but they were (ahem) deadly serious about this stuff abck in the day; it was a tremendous honor to be so interred.

Well, it was an honor except for two people, whose mummified remains are still on display to this day. As the story goes, a man and his son treated their wife/mother quite badly for years. The mother cursed them both on her death bed, saying more-or-less that y’all will neither touch sky nor earth, reaching neither heaven nor hell. Now, why this lady’s curse carried any weight with the monks we do not know, but carry weight it did, and for hundreds of years the increasingly mummified bodies of father and son were kept suspended in the chapel. They only took them down in 2021!! And even still, to this day, they are displayed in glass cases, still not being interred. We can only hope to achieve such aggrieved cursing someday.

Another key location is the “Temple of Diana”, although as Roman ruins go it’s only exciting if you’re grading on a bit of a curve. (Yes, we are incredibly aware of what a privileged life we’re leading that we can stack rank ancient Roman ruins. Nevertheless, once you’ve been to Paestum it’s not going to stun you into insensibility merely to encounter a few upright columns.) Plus, it turns out that nobody really called it “that “the Temple of Diana” until a 17^th century monk made up a legend whole cloth and it took hold. The site was actually dedicated to the cult of Augustus around the 1^st century CE. Still, it’s neat to see something like that standing in the middle of the town square in southern Portugal.

There were numerous smaller pleasures, including the aqueduct that runs into the city which we also encountered miles away the day before. Speaking only for myself, it’s one thing to understand what aqueducts are in an academic sense and entirely another to realize just what a massive undertaking they were. Thousands of years ago they were building miles and miles of arching stone paths, straight as an arrow, to bring water to where they wanted it. (The featured map at the top of this post is a section of the aqueduct running through the surrounding fields.) And to top it off the center of town, the “old city” as it were, is surrounded by thirty-foot-high stone walls that are in magnificent shape, whether through rugged longevity or careful maintenance I cannot say. It was a great, hot, day, with more still to come.

You may recall from an earlier set of posts that I got a serious crush on the Alentejo region when we visited. It was still spring time and everything was green and lush. The fields were carpeted with wildflowers, and the temperatures were just great – warmish during the day, jacket weather in the evenings. When I would tell my friends about this they’d give me a grin and ask “have you seen it there in the summer?” I knew in the abstract that the Alentejo was known as a hot, dry region – it’s one of the reasons they cultivate so much wine down there. But, you know, temperatures on a screen are just numbers. With all of that as prelude, Lisa caught up on my birthday by taking us down to the city of Évora for a few days. What a difference a couple months make.

To be clear, this isn’t just a post whinging about how hot it was there; that’s not a story, and I wouldn’t waste your time. It does sort of frame the story, though. First of all, Lisa found a charming little rental cottage 10 minutes or so outside of town that had its own pool (not Olympic size, but plenty of room to splash around in and do laps if you want) as well as air conditioning. On the days we were there the highs were in the mid 30s(!) celsius, aka high 90s(!!) farenheit, so we needed to be thoughful in our plans each day. Especially since most of the chief attractions were outdoors.

So, for example, our itinerary for the first day consisted of heading out into the boonies. Honestly, if you put a description of the day next to many of the days we spent in Ireland, just with some place names scrubbed off, you’d be hard-pressed to tell them apart. We were chasing down ancient megalith sites, which are often in the middle of not much and practically guaranteed not to have much shade. And so, we set our alarm for 6:30 and were out the door a little after 7. Maybe not a typical vacation itinerary, but it was barely 70 when we left; score!

Speaking of scoring, the first site we visited was amazing. The Cromeleque de Vale Maria do Meio was fantastic. Lisa said they seemed cheerful, which was actually a good way of putting it! So many of these sites seem somber; beautiful but often in a sort of reverential way. These stones seemed to want you to have a good time. Part of it is definitely the surrounding environment. We’ve seen these sorts of things in fields, of course, but not too often are they nestled into trees with wildflowers strewn amongst them. It was a lovely site and we enjoyed just spending time with them.

Sadly we had a couple of travel snags (closed/damaged roads, no tresspassing signs that didn’t used to be there) that cut this part of the day short but it was still a good time. After a few hours of hijinks we made it back to our oasis of coolth, had a splash, and generally enjoyed the day. I’m not much of a beach person, but over the years we’ve figured out that I actually can have a great time with just a few adjustments. Namely, a shaded cabana with soft chairs and someone who will bring me drinks at my beck and call. Hanging out at the backyard pool is a lot like this! We popped into town for dinner that evening (to be discussed later) and then tucked ourselves in, the better to attack the next early morning.

We almost always prefer to take any sort of tour as early in the day as possible. The tourist crowds get denser as the day goes in so we want to see the sights with as little traffic as we can manage. (Yes yes, technically we are tourists at that point, too, but that’s different because… oh hush.) Thus it was that in the spring of 2014 we made our way through the relatively quiet streets of the city at around 8am and met up at the pre-arranged spot at a statue just outside of the museum. Our day began with a tour of the Uffizi Museum from Context Travel. As usual, our guide was knowledgeable and interesting, full of lesser-known facts about everything we saw. She started us in the plaza outside the Uffizi, with the trio of well-known statues in the Loggia. Cellini’s Perseus and the Medusa, Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabine Women, and Fedi’s Rape of Polyxena are a disturbing group of statues that are nonetheless beautiful and striking.

Our guide (whose name, alas, is lost to antiquity for us) was a degree’d art historian with a day job that wasn’t in her field, so she kept her hand in via this work; we’re old enough to know that “degree” doesn’t automatically mean “expert”, but she was very informed about – if nothing else – the collection at the Uffizi. She plotted a route that had essentially no backtracking (one or two galleries were cul-de-sacs so no help there…) and took us on a chronological walk forward in time from the late medieval period. The highlights that she chose included some obvious candidates (many of the Botticelli’s that you think of when you hear that name are in this collection), but she managed to point us at some real gems. For example:

Caravaggio’s Medusa is an incredibly intricate work on an unusual medium, and on top of being a mythological image it is also a self-portrait. Both of us are art appreciation amateurs and this was our first experience with Caravaggio; he remains a favorite and we’re always smiling like we ran into a friend when we find his work in a gallery. Speaking of running into art and getting excited, the Uffizi is also where we began our love affair with an obscure Biblical-era story and, more to the point, depictions of the murder at the heart of the story. (So, you know, Old Testament.) Briefly: Judith’s home city was besieged by Assyrians led by a general named Holofernes. She was a beautiful widow, and she was able to finesse her way into Holofernes’ tent because, you know, man. She proceeds to get him drunk and then beheads him. His army scatters, Judith saves the city, hooray! Early depictions of Judith often portrayed her in a virginal, even praying, position, or else demurely alluding to her story. Then, the transformational artist Artemesia Gentileschi came along. It isn’t sexism to point out that she was a woman; it’s kind of the point. Gentileschi has what you might call a different lived experience that led her to portray the comeuppance of a drunken, lustful man. Once you know these depictions exist you can find them all over the place, and we call out to each other when we find one.

But I digress.

The tour guide acknowledged up front that even three hours was barely enough time to get an overview of the collection, but we certainly didn’t feel like she shorted us. She knew the place well, and was able to layer in a mixture of facts and anecdotes to keep everyone engaged. She even went to the trouble of explaining what we weren’t seeing and, guided by that we decided not to leave the museum when the tour was over. Instead, we decided to pause and refresh within the museum before making a second circuit through.

Tucked away on the gallery’s rooftop, the Uffizi Café offers breathtaking views of Piazza della Signoria, Palazzo Vecchio, and even Brunelleschi’s Dome. It’s perched right above the Loggia dei Lanzi, so the people-watching is superb. The food is even good! Eating in museums is hit-or-miss and has varied wildly over the years, but this was a genuinely good meal. So now, when you visit the Uffizi, instead of exiting the museum you can step onto the terrace, order an espresso and a sandwich, and soak in Florence from above.

After we ate, we basically ran a second tour through the Uffizi on our own, following the advice of the guide. That’s one of the reasons we rate this tour so highly in our memories; it was so good we actually made two tours out of it. Of course, this kind of information is basically impossible to get about a tour ahead of time; it may be that we’ve set our standards too high based on an exceptional experience. These days, barring a strong recommendation or an intuition that the tour subject is too involved for us to study ahead of time ourselves, we’re more likely to read up on a place and prepare to guide ourselves.

OH. A quick note about the top photo. Lisa took that from a window in kind of a breezeway between two parts of the Uffizi. Absolutely no photography is allowed in the gallery itself. As a result, I have been in more than one person’s home who had this exact image displayed somewhere – the window you take it from it fairly small so you can’t play with perspective, and it’s the only time in the whole gallery you can snap a pic, so many people have got this view of the Ponte Vecchio as their photo “of the Uffizi.”

To begin with, what about the free tours? Well first of all, and this should not come as a surprise to anybody, they aren’t really free unless you’ve got the fortitude to look somebody in the eye who has spent two hours walking you around town and say “well, thanks!” and scoot off over the horizon, leaving them to sell matchsticks in the snow… or something. The proposition on free tours is almost always that you’re going to offer a gratuity when it’s over. For all we know they make out better by letting people set their own price rather than simply advertising a set number, but whatever works for them. Our suggestion is to just go into those tours with placid acceptance that you’ll be slipping them a couple of fins when it’s done. As far as the quality of those tours goes, honestly, they’re never that bad. Tour guides whose income is directly tied to the judgment on their work when it’s over are definitely incentivized. The only kind-of downside is that they often tilt towards entertaining in the “havin’ a good time” sense, showing you a good-time pub and maybe even sitting for a drink or three before moving on. Going on a “free” tour of a serious or intellectually rigorous topic might not be the best idea. Otherwise, they’re a pretty safe bet.

Conversely, paid tours seem to vary wildly. Maybe it’s the Americans in us but we get, er, opinions on value for money when we pay up front. The thing about paid tours is that the typical business model is that there is a company that acts as a clearing house, and they’ll develop a tour that they think will be popular; just for an example, let’s say The Louvre. They’ll advertise the tour and handle the money, and then staff up the guides as needed. But, that means your guides aren’t on the line beyond the work-for-hire relationship, and that means you can see… swings in quality. We’ll never forget some truly great tours we’ve been on, like a Ph.D. art history student walking us through the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and a damn-near-magical excursion through the Uffizi in Florence, Italy. But there’s also a double-handful of tours that, frankly, we forget we ever went on unless we sit and think on it a bit. So what’s our advice? Well, a couple of things. First, check out guides who have hung out their own shingles. They rise and fall on their own reputations, and if they’ve stayed in the business for more than a short spell then they’re probably going to be alright. (It would be a dishonor to the man’s memory to only talk about him in an aside, so please do read about our day with Danny Sheehy.) After that, the best you can do is the usual sifting of reviews. Go with the most recent ones you can find, and prioritize ones where the reviewer gives you any kind of details or anecdotes that can give you a sense of the guide’s personality.

What we can’t really do is provide a concrete recommendation for tours. (Danny Sheehy, mentioned above, sadly has passed away.) We used to swear by Context Travel for our tour needs, and it’s not that their quality has dropped (that we know of) but rather that their prices have skyrocketed. We’ve all got different ideas of what’s “expensive”, so that’s up to you of course, but we just ran a sample check on their site and it was north of 300USD for 2 people to join a group tour at the Uffizi. For 3 hours that just feels rich for our blood, and that’s pretty indicative of their pricing now. Any time we see a tour that they offer that sounds interesting it just always seems bloody expensive. That said, if those prices work for you we’ve almost always had a positive experience with them.

“Time and tide waits for no man,” a phrase that comes to us from Geoffrey Chaucer – as one of the earliest documenters of travel and travellers, we’ll draft him as a spiritual ancestor of this blog. See? We’re not all dumb puns around here. How is this relevant, you ask? Um… did you notice the cool literary reference? Ok, fiiiine. The point is, we were enjoying the trip even more than we had anticipated, but the end was rushing up on us and there was no helping it. One last descent into the depths of Amsterdam (not hard, considering the city averages -7 ft. below sea level. See? We’re not not dumb puns around here, either…) before a cab gets us to our direct flight to Porto.

We needed to check out from our hotel after breakfast but still had a day in the city, so we left our bags with the accomodating staff. Honestly, we short-changed this place in our last post. The Hyatt Regency Amsterdam was an exceptionally great hotel. The reception area is spacious and full of comfy over-stuffed furniture, offering a cozy place to hang out. The overall vibe is green and jungle-y, with loads of houseplants, solid wood desk/tables under glass lamps, and green plant themed wall decor. It’s an outstanding antidote to the gray outside.

We had access to the Regency Club, an upgrade for Hyatt members. This gave us loads of free amenities like a continental breakfast, all-day snacks and coffee, and a “happy hour” complete with several kinds of salad, Indonesian rice, sweets, fruit, cheeses, champagne, wine, sodas, and juice. The Club is a great place to hang out instead of the lobby, much quieter (except during happy hour!), and full of plugs for working.

Our room was standard for this property, but top of the line. The shower was huge, had both a rainfall and handheld hardware, with great pressure, and got as hot as you could wish. The closet was well-thought out, with plenty of hanging space (and proper hangers!), room for our big suitcase, a shelf above and below for shoes and whatnot, PLUS (ta da!) five good-sized shelves. In the room was a good chair for reading, with a tall back and lamp nearby, a desk and chair for work, a king bed, nightstands, and an ottoman perfect for sitting on to remove shoes. Of course there was a good-sized TV, and reading lamps for each side of the bed. The mattress was great, although the pillows were fluffy rather than supportive. SIGH. Its my ever-lasting sorrow that hotel guests seem to like poofy pillows. Maybe I’m the only traveling side-sleeper?

This whole trip, we’ve looked for interesting-sounding dining opportunities; casual or dressy, simple food or funky. Regardless, we always try to be respectful of the establishment and present ourselves nicely. Not ballgown and tux but, you know, nice. 100% of the time, we’ve overshot the vibe and come in at least a little overdressed. You’d think we’d be used to the dress-down nature of most of Europe, but alas. So finally, on this last big meal day, we say “screw it”; we’re going to be doing some sight-seeing after lunch, so let’s keep it simple. So naturally, when we walk into Bridges we see that, at the table next to ours, the men are in suits and the woman is in Chanel. Flippin’ perfect. Of course, in the manner of truly fine places (as opposed to pretentious) no mention was made nor merest concern observed. Nope, it’s cool. Probably not the first tourists to walk in like that, but we try, ya know? Anyway, we forgot all about what anybody was wearing, or even what clothes are, as we settled into a truly scrumptuous five-course tasting menu while looking out the window at the traffic, aquatic and otherwise, in and along the canal. We seriously could not have enjoyed that meal more if we’d been paid to do it.

After lunch at Bridges we crossed several more…. bridges that is (herp derp), to scamper to our canal tour (Pure Boats’ Ultimate Canal Cruise) shortly before it left. The weather continued to be kinda gross, so the semi-transparent plastic covers stayed in placed, which meant we saw some interesting things but decent pictures were hard to come by. Everyone else in the boat (there were about 9 of us) were Americans, either immigrants or tourists, and it was lovely to sort of catch up on the vibe back in the States while answering the usual questions (“Wait, where do you live? How does that work?”). This isn’t the most evocative description, but honestly while it was a pleasant way to pass a couple of hours, it didn’t blow our minds with information or anecdotes.

Our time thus passed, we began the process of unspooling our travels and getting back home. Now this was an evocative experience, starting with a lounge at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Thanks to… I dunno, a credit card, we have a benefit called “Priority Pass” which gets you access to ostensibly-premium lounges in airports all over the world. Sometimes you end up getting into the business class lounge of an actual airline, and those can vary in quality but are some degree of “fine”. The Priority Pass lounge at AMS (aka “Aspire”), however, is in serious need of updating. Many pseudo-leather seats are ripped exactly where one would put their bottom. Packing tape holds edging to walls and baseboards. Most of the food and drink comes from machinery, although there was some selection of hot food (soup and noodles) available when we were there at 19:00. It was… rough. Staff were unable to keep up with necessary clearing of dishes, leaving people to clear vacated spaces by moving used items to nearby flat surfaces (see photo for an example). They were moving as quickly as possible, but I would say there needed to be at least one more person (and probably more) to help. The lighting was 70s fluorescent, and not in any of the good ways. What made it seem worse was the lovely natural look-and-feel lighting over the food areas and in tiny 2-person booths around the periphery. Clearly the coveted spaces for those in the know. On the plus side, there were plenty of plugs to charge with, people in the lounge were pretty respectful of space and noise levels (even the children were pretty much quiet). And, ranking very high on the “made it ok” vector — it was NOT the gate.

Pleasant or not, it gave us a place to wait out an hour or two, and from there we were an easy delivery. The flight was fine, with no troubles, and the steadfast Orlando (seriously, this guy needs a spotlight shined on him when we get a quiet minute) met us at OPO to ferry us home. We’ve said it a few times now, but this was a lovely trip that accomplished everything we wanted. The only downside is we now have “longer trip to Vienna and Amsterdam” added to our to-do list.

Our foray into bite-sized travel has been a success in a lot of ways. We’ve been to two cities we’ve never visited before, in two countries we’ve never visited before. In fact, this represented the first new (to us) countries we’ve visited since we moved… well, unless you count Portugal. Smashing success! We’re out of our comfort zone, and are feeling more comfortable about poking our hands into even more virgin territory. (Hush.) The only even slight downside is, since now we know we like it in these places, we would like more time in them. Well, as we frequently say to each other, “next time.” For the nonce, we have exactly two days in Amsterdam and this was it. Cultural icons, varied food choices, and a good old fashioned walk-and-gawk made for a good first day.

We began our one full day in Amsterdam with breakfast in the hotel. We’re still not sure why, but we’ve been having better luck than usual with breakfast on this trip; maybe we’ve been hitting places with more business travelers without even realizing? This is one of the places where we still fail, or at least don’t acquit ourselves very well, when it comes to embracing local customs. We see a plate of cold cuts and a basket with yogurt cups, with maybe slices of white bread, and it just deflates us. The warm buffet is often not much better, with runny eggs and sausages of uncertain provenance. But lo! On this trip the choices have been more varied, the eggs have approached firm, and we’ve even seen the glint of recognition in servers’ eyes when we bring up waffles or pancakes. Good heavens.

Our morning is given over completely to the Rijksmuseum, which is the official, state museum of the Netherlands. As such, it gives pride of place to Dutch artists. Oh no, we must content ourselves with Rembrandt, Vermeer, et al… (Van Gogh is slightly represented, but he’s kind of like impressionists at the Louvre; the clear message is that there’s a whole ‘nother museum next door, beat feet if that’s what you want.) The Rijksmuseum is in the same glorious arts park that we visited yesterday, so we know the way just fine. By now we had sorted out the mass transit, and the weather was el gross, so we took light rail from practically doorstep-to-doorstep. Amsterdam has been surprisingly busy for February but we got in and ticketed without too much trouble and were soon being led by audio guide on a three-hour(!) “highlights” tour.

It’s a beautiful museum that can easily absorb as much attention as you’re prepared to give it. We were prepared to go until sore tootsies and empty bellies spurred us onward. Speaking of culinary peculiarities by region, the dining options in both museums we’ve been to in Amsterdam have been “cafeteria chic” without much in the way of “chic“. Sadly, our alternative for lunch turned out to be not much better. The Cafe in de Waag (“the weigh house”) is housed in the preserved remnant of the fortifications of Amsterdam and is the oldest non-religious building that exists in the city; it dates to the 15th century. Whatever value it once offered to the city has been slandered by what goes on in there now, with the Epcot version of old Amsterdam for decor and not-all-that-spiffied-up versions of pub food to eat. We don’t often get lured to our doom by tourist traps, but this place blew. (And now you know what it sounds like when we really don’t like a place.)

Post-lunch we had a nice block of time with which to do nothing in particular. We wandered the streets of the central district, poking around and generally just taking in the atmosphere. Amsterdam is a happening place; for all that there’s a lot of interesting old things to see, it isn’t propped up by tourism a la Venice. This is a fully functioning city that just happens to also have some cool stuff.

We meandered near and far but generally towards our hotel, where we kicked our feet up for a spell before heading back at for dinner at Ron Gastrobar Oriental Downtown (whew, such a mouthful of words!).

Billed as Amsterdam’s best night out made us leery. But Lisa had it recommended to her as a great place to get the classic many-dish rijsttafel, (literally: “rice table”), described as dozens of small, shareable dishes ranging from mild to spicy, in all colors of the rainbow, served with rice. So we settled in, ordered cocktails (high test and unleaded ) and perused the menu with interest.

We both thought the rijsttafel sounded like a great way to try lots of dishes in one meal. According to the menu, we could expect satay skewers – both chicken and goat – various curries (meat and fish), boiled eggs in sauce, vegetables in peanut sauce (wonderfully named gado-gado) and fried bananas. Yum.

But.

We are spice wussies.

So we took it to our waiter, and he was great. He thought a few dishes would be way too spicy for us and even asked the chef if substitutions could be made . . . but no. It was too much of an ask (which is utterly fair, and I respected them for being upfront about it!).

So instead, we started with dim sum, the classic shrimp and pork. So delicious. They do seven different flavors including Dai Tie Sieuw Mai (scallop, Chinese mushroom and spring onion), Who Ngau Sieuw Mai (Wagyu steak with bone marrow), ha kau with tobiko (prawn and wasabi mayonnaise), Beef Bao (steamed oxtail bun and foie gras, and kauw choi kau (steamed then fried chicken). Served with a thick soja and fermented leek sauce. We also had a gyoza of shredded duck (so good!) and the boneless spare ribs, Pai Kwat. No sticky fingers or mess, just very tasty sticky soft marinated pork meat, so full of flavor. We finished with the satay — to die for. The chicken and goat meat were perfectly moist yet charred on the outside, and the sauces spicy (for us) yet sweet. We’re pretty sure we had dessert, but we can’t remember what they were, except delicious! Every dish was perfect, luscious, and fun.

It’s hard to describe how truly marvelous this meal was. We never felt rushed, although the energy (and music) was definitely high energy (and increasing as the evening rolled on). Everything was great, and we will absolutely go back here the next time we visit Amsterdam.

As has been discussed (ad nauseum) (shut up) we left Vienna in the late evening and drifted off into sleep. The good news is we slept “ok”, which might not sound all that exciting but category of “good slight we’ve had involving mass transit” is dang-near empty, so we’ll take it. We arrived in the mid-morning at Amsterdam Lelylaan, which is not the more historic “central” station but is actually a super-convenient location if you aren’t staying in Tourist Ground Zero… which, as per usual, we were not. So instead, we took a quick hop and a skip into a cab and plopped ourselves in our hotel, which fortunately had an early room for us. The Hyatt Regency in Amsterdam is lovely, with a “green” decor that led the place to be festooned with live plants everywhere. We would have taken more time to relax and enjoy it but we had places to be, toot sweet.

So what gets two mildly bleary, half-bedraggled travelers to hop right back out of their digs instead of settling down for a bit? We’re in Amsterdam baybee, the answer is the Van Gogh Museum. Getting to it was a nice introduction to the city in and of itself. First off, the weather was kind of crap – cold breeze, intermittent rain, just the right combination to leave you deeply unsatisfied. Second, the city is f-l-a-t flat. We’ve heard of a lot of places that are “walkable”, but I don’t know that I’ve ever been anywhere so genuinely pancaked as Amsterdam. I feel like you could pick almost any spot, drop a marble in the street, and it wouldn’t roll away. And third, for the citizens (and visitors) who don’t feel like walking everywhere, they make it easy to get around by any method except cars. Automobiles are allowed in the city but they are clearly the most dis-incentivized option. Bike lanes are everywhere, and they are jammed with bicyclists. Light rail seemed to go dang near anywhere, and for longer transit needs there’s a subway through the major arteries. Everything well maintained and more-or-less clean. After a long train ride, though, we stuck to our feet for this first jaunt.

The museum is in a frankly aspirational park complex that’s home to a half-dozen different museums, big and small. John always gets a little carried away with his love of this kind of place. He has often said “when the next age comes and goes and the one after that, and archaeologists are digging through the remnants of the ancient empire of the United States, I hope they find the Washington Mall. All those Smithsonian museums and monuments, maybe they’ll think kindly of us.” Well, the Netherlands maybe doesn’t need as much reputational rehabilitation as some countries (ahem) but it’s still true that this area is the kind of place you brag about. Gorgeous, spacious, and home to a collection of art and science. For today though, we were beeline-ing for one spot in particular, the aforementioned Van Gogh Museum.

The museum is a fairly modern building and it is curated with a modern sensibility. They do a lot of heavy lifting to put the man’s work in context with the work of his contemporaries, and spend a lot of time (and space) showing the development of his aesthetic over time. The Picasso National Museum in Paris tries to pull the same tricks but honestly this place does it better. That or we just like the work more. There is an interesting tension in the work, though – if you want to see Van Gogh’s most famous works you might just be in the wrong place! You see, just prior to and then after his death, his sister in law, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, took on the mission of ensuring Vincent’s legacy, and one of the ways she did this was through ther shrewd placement of his work in museums all over the world. As we all know she did a great job, but it means that a lot of his blue ribbon work is scattered. Anyway, not to say that the museum is a let down, just be prepared to walk out wondering where “The Starry Night” is. (It’s at MoMA in New York, by the way.)

Once we spent a few hours at the Van Gogh Museum, though, we were well and truly tuckered. We had vague ideas for dinner based on some recommendations, but we were tired – we punted the plans and went back to the hotel for mediocre room service. And thus ended day 1 of our survey course on the Netherlands.

As we said last week, rather than spend a day of our mere one-week trip in transit between Vienna and Amsterdam we opted to take a sleeper train, the “NightJet”. We knew the NightJet was not going to be like the Orient Express — nothing else is, really. So our expectations were pretty low. Lisa packed a pillowcase and planned to stuff it with our jackets because she needs a lot of neck support to sleep well, and we’d read that the pillows provided were pretty slim. We both made sure we had clothes to sleep in and a change of underwear to start the next day fresh. Our smartest move was to pack everything we needed for the overnight in our two backpacks, allowing us to put the roller bag away for the entire trip, under the seats.

Boarding was NightJet was simple: the station display boards in Vienna showed us not only what track to be on, but exactly where our car (#253) was going to pull in along the gangway; no wandering through multiple cars dragging luggage behind! Our cabin was a deluxe, just the two of us (although a 3rd could be accommodated) and included a larger luggage stowage area above a cabinet containing a sink. The seats were very comfortable, although they required perfect posture (there was no way to recline or put your feet up). A small window could be opened to get more air, although it couldn’t be left open while the shade was down.

The beds folded down out of the wall and were outfitted with a thin mattress, a duvet-covered poly-fill comforter, and a fairly flat pillow. It all seemed very clean (no smells!) and the comforter, while narrow, provided plenty of warmth. Both of us had plenty of room to stretch out, although someone much over 6′ might be a little uncomfortable. The pillows were very flat, and Lisa was incredibly happy with her well-stuffed case.

The major — and we mean MAJOR — downer was the toilet. Not that it was down at the end of the car, but that it was SMALL. The case over the soap dispenser fell open onto Lisa’s shoulder every time she used the facilities. Someone was a messy washer and there was water on the floor — and we are trying desperately hard to believe it wasn’t something else — for several hours. Neither of us is small, and our bodies BARELY fit into the space, requiring a great deal of strategic maneuvering to be able to use the facilities (one foot here, slight twist to bring the other foot in, close and lock door, now step over the toilet to face the correct direction . . . you get it). It was cleaned regularly, so that was a plus, but seriously, it was smaller than ANY airplane facility we’ve encountered.

All that rolls up into our summary judgment: it was neither uncomfortable nor particularly comfortable, but adequate enough. It wasn’t a particularly cheap fare. However, it did buy us a day on our trip, since we had a full day of touring about Vienna, then slept on the train, and arrived early enough in Amsterdam that – as you will read next time – we hit the tourist ground running.

The sun rose up on our last day in Vienna. If you’re thinking that seems quick, well yeah – the whole point of the trip was just to take nibbles of new places; if we love either of them, we can always go back for more. That is, after all, the whole point of moving over here. Good news / bad news situation: we have indeed loved our time in Vienna, which means we’re also a little sad that it’s coming to an end. Alas, alack. Our last day is jam-packed, however, including an actual, honest-to-goodness bucket list item for Lisa. By the time the sun sets on this day, we’ll actually be in transit to our next destination. But that’s then, and this is now. Well, kinda. Verb tenses are complicated for a reason. In any case, let’s finish up Vienna!

It may surprise some of you to know that Lisa was horse-mad as a young girl. Lacking money, she had no choice but to grow out of it, but seeing the Lipizzaner stallions has been a bucket list item for decades. (Even John knew what they were and thought they were cool, he just never put two and two together that they were in Vienna.) So, of course this was a tent-pole event for this trip and Lisa booked tickets about as soon as the flights…. which was good, as it seems the daily practices sell out almost immediately — even in the off-off-season. They were the first thing on our agenda for the day, so we’re up and out and show up (at a palace, mind you, which really threw us off for a moment) about 15 mins before the show begins. A woman in charge of the queue checks everyone’s’ tickets and, seeing ours, waves us to the front of the line – she doesn’t stay with us, though, so now it’s just a couple of Americans banging their way through the crowded queue for no obvious reason, truly irritating a few folks including one woman who would NOT let us by until an employee made her — we kept apologizing and explaining that we were just doing what they told us to do). It seemed to be because our seats were on the ground just behind the low wall around the arena, as opposed to up in the galleries where most people were.

It was carefully and repeatedly explained to everyone that once the stallions came out, all film and photography was forbidden. No explanation was given, although John’s theory is that the management doesn’t want the magic dulled at all by footage of stallions- and riders-in-training not being at their best. In any case, we have no pictures or video of the horses to show you except from the interwebs.

And, it turns out that what we saw was not a performance, but literally a practice session. Five stallions came out with riders in the classic uniform and proceeded to ride around the arena, seemingly aimlessly. From time to time we’d notice one trotting in place, or doing one of the many “dance” steps they are known for, or drifting elegantly in a diagonal across the arena. It was lovely, but random, and not explained. The first group finished and left, and a second group came out, this time with a trainee (notable for their distinctive not-uniform and hardhat). And more of the same occurred, although we could see how the instructor guided the trainee, so that was a bit of insight. No acrobatics. No kicks. Nothing choreographed.

It turns out that PERFORMANCES only happen on Sundays (or on tour) and that is where you want to place your tent pole. Was it interesting? Yes, if you have some knowledge of horses, dressage, or the Lipizzaners. We weren’t exactly disappointed, but definitely felt our appetites more whetted than sated. Our next visit will absolutely be planned around a performance of these magnificent critters.

The arena itself is lovely and everything is oriented around the horses and their personalities. The arena actually is kind of crazy – if you removed the sand and put in a marble floor (and probably some more insulation) you’d have a ballroom as grand as any. To this day when riders first enter the space, they doff their hats in salute to their long-dead patron as thanks for the facilities. Kitschy or not, it’s not surprising. The horses are stabled not far from this practice and performance space, and a set of horse boxes look through a courtyard to the street bisecting the two areas; the keepers call them the “TV boxes”. It turns out that the horses here are particularly interested in watching the world go by and spend long hours just checking things out.

Afterwards, we met up with Robert, the walking tour guide included with our bus tickets. (To put a final answer to the question “are the tickets for the hop on hop off worth it?”, we’d say it depends on if you’re going to use it all. We got bus access for two days, the boat cruise, and a guided walking tour of downtown. We were very satisfied.) For the next 90 minutes he took us through the center of Old Town, explaining architecture, art, and typical lifestyle of the Viennese throughout history. It was thoroughly engaging and interesting, placing much of what we’d seen in passing over previous days into context, and whetting our appetite for future visits. It was particularly interesting to us that, for all that we felt charmed by the “old World” vibe, he pointed out numerous examples of modern living forcing out the old ways. Numerous bespoke businesses that had been owned by families for generations were being forced out by the typical encroachers – H&M, Gap, Target and so on. For the life of him John can’t find a photo that we took, but – there was an H&M on a main street that our guide pointed out. He had to point it out because it was a gorgeous, art deco structure with inlaid wood everywhere and almost no modern signage. Even the interior, visible through the beautifully huge windows, had that charming craftsmanship. The signage was modest all things considered. It turns out that the building had been sold at firesale prices in the 1930s by a Jewish family business that had to get out of town. By city decree the building has to be kept up as it was as a memorial, there apparently having been no remaining family to initiate a claim. We were given his opinion on places to eat, drink, and shop, and overall he rated favorably to many other tours we’ve been on over the years. It was one of the better perks of our Big Bus ticket.

From there, we went to lunch at the aquarium. Called the Haus des Meeres (House of Fish), it was converted from a 47-meter-tall flak tower in late 1943. It’s an odd building in many ways, and we’re told the aquarium is neat . . . but we were there because there is a restaurant on the top floor reputed to have great views of the city. Lunch was fine — nothing special, but freshly prepared and tasty. (Lisa had a hummus bowl, and John had the Caesar Salad with chicken.) The view, however, was truly spectacular (and would look even better at night, so go here for a drink before your meal out.) Naturally, we took no pictures…. sigh.

Our day was wrapping up, but our night was just beginning. Join us next week when we detail the wonders of going to sleep in Vienna and waking up in Amsterdam, courtesy of the choo choo train.

We’ve lived in Europe for a little more than two years now. In that time, as regular readers have seen, we’ve taken advantage of our new environs numerous times to visit some truly wonderful places. Impromptu birthdays in Pompeii, beach trips to the south of France, we’ve been to all sorts of lovely destinations. The thing is, though… the thing is, everywhere we’ve been to have been places that were more or less comfortable, even familiar to us. Before we ever moved here we’d been to France several times; ditto Italy. Sure, we went to a few different locales, but we knew how to poke around the language, we knew what to expect from the food, we more or less knew what we were getting ourselves into. More and more we’ve been poking each other about the fact that we weren’t really putting the “adventure” into our new life of adventure. So, what the hell, we basically threw darts at a map and came up with this week: a few days in Vienna, an overnight train, and a few days in Amsterdam before heading home. Whee!

If you’re thinking “3 days isn’t really long enough to see a place” we couldn’t agree with you more! This isn’t about truly plumbing the depths of these locales, it’s about going to places we know basically nothing about, understanding even less of the language than usual, and flinging ourselves into the deep end and splashing around for awhile. And believe us, we know this is still cheating a little bit. We’re still in developed nations within the European Union – there’s plenty of places further afield than these two spots. But hey! It’s a start.

Speaking of starts (come on, admit it – you missed our segues) we began this trip a lot more reasonably than some of our other go ’rounds. This time we boarded our bus to Porto at a very reasonable 9:30 AM, and then checked in for our flight with a couple of hours to spare. A cheap deal on last-minute seat upgrades meant that we could hang out in the fancy-pants lounge before making our way to our gate. By the way – should you ever need/want to avail yourself of such a lounge in Porto, be aware that there’s one lounge supporting most (all?) of the airlines. It’s actually pretty good as these things go, but it’s definitely the white-label version of such things. (And extra FYI – if you’ve got the Priority Pass thingie that is a perk of numerous rewards programs, this lounge is on the list.) We flew via Austrian Airlines, which felt a little scruffy but in a loveable way. A couple-ish short hours later, we arrived in Vienna. The rest of our first day was basically just checking into our hotel and settling in before going off to enjoy a lovely dinner at Veranda.

Couple of things about dinner. First and least, if you click the link you can see the table we sat at; it’s the first photo in the rotation. That’s the best we can do for now, as we continue to never feel like breaking out our phones during dinner to take snippy snaps. While dinner and accommodations didn’t tempt us, the other diners damn near did. As we later pieced together, we were actually dining in the arts district of Vienna during the end of their version of Mardi Gras. Now, if you think of “festivities in Vienna” the image that probably pops up in your mind (if anything does, I get it’s not an all-time callout) is those super fancy balls that they host around New Years; men in tuxedos (black or white tie, take your pick) and ladies in full gowns. Welp, turns out that’s how they celebrate a lot of things! When we arrived, the restaurant clientele was plus-or-minus looking like us – slacks/sweater or dress & shawl, take your pick. There was even a dude in a hoodie. By the time we left, however, multiple tables sported folks that were clearly having dinner before going to the ball. The table next to us was hall-of-fame worthy for people watching. Two(?) families that largely didn’t know each other, being brought together by college student(?) friends. Eight people, tuxedos and gowns all around, happily and animatedly chatting in at least three different languages. We’d think we had sussed out the nationality of one of the people, but when their language switched they’d sound just as fluent and natural in that tongue as well. It was almost as much fun for us as it seemed to be for them.

The food was great. We were offered two kinds of bread, a sourdough and a rye, accompanied by fresh butter and a cream cheese with cumin, coriander, paprika, and curry. An amuse bouche followed soon after we ordered, local char with (tiny!) pickled cherries, and sunflower seeds. We shared our dishes. Starting with pickled beets with smoked yogurt, pickled physalis, and buckwheat that was superb. Almost as good was a ceviche of local char accompanied by a (divine) sweet potato curry cream, macadamia nuts, and pickled rowan berries. Excellent (although the rowan berries were just frippery.) Our main was beef cheeks, potato puree, carrots and lingonberries. Lisa enjoyed an Austrian red from Salzl, Illmitz Osterreich (Late Harvest Red, 2022).

Our next day (which is today, bee tee dubs) we leaned into that old stand-by: the hop on hop off bus. We’ve talked about it before, but we do love a good, tourist-trap-ified double decker bus. Corny they may be, but if you’re in a new place and want to get the lay of the land, these things take you to where you want to go. For reasons of later practicality we’re staying at a hotel near the main train station so grabbing the bus was like a 10 minute affair. From there, we took one of their two routes, saving the other one for tomorrow. We were shown where a dozen of the most attractive sites in the city are located; most helpfully, we saw these in context, so we’ve already mapped out better itineraries for our next couple of days than we’d originally drawn up. We had originally planned to use the tour as a jumping-off point for taking it at least one or two of the sites around town, but a) the weather absolutely #&(*@&# sucks today, and John is nursing an ouchy in one leg that would probably benefit from a night off. So, instead we regrouped in the room before heading out to dinner at the SKY Cafe & Restaurant. We didn’t end up thinking much of the vaunted city view (perhaps because you only sit inside this time of year) but the food was top notch. We accidentally had an all vegetarian meal and didn’t even notice until we were almost done. After this it was back to the room to recover for the next day and, of course, write all this. On top of all this adventure it’s also Super Bowl Sunday, so at least one of us is staying up for a bit. [Ed. note: John did. Lisa was a sane human and went to bed.]