Savannah

 We went to 3 weddings in 2022, the first was back in June. Angie's cousin got married at a big estate in Savannah. Like the trip to Italy in 2019 we decided to make a vacation out of it.

Savannah is a great little city and we stayed in three different hotels, the contrast between the three was really interesting. The first was Avid. This is and IHG (think Holiday Inn) hotel and is marketed as "midscale" but I would consider to be somewhat downmarket from Holiday Inn express. We stayed because it was the closest to the wedding venue and I could get it free on points. Thank you to Avid, my employer, for years of having me stay at IHG properties.

Our second hotel was the McMillan Inn. It's a fairly large B&B on the edge of the historic district of Savannah. Nice place, good food, nice people, fun little pool.

Finally we stayed in the Marshall House. The most expensive of the 3 it's a grand old hotel near the river. The room was small but this one is all about location, it's a short walk from all the touristy stuff in Savannah. The breakfast was fantastic as was the wine hour in the afternoon. One day we played trivia, the next they had live music. The wine flowed freely and Wayne, the host, made us feel very welcome.

Yup, those are Segways. This was our third Segway tour, the others were Chicago and Nashville. If a city is walkable at all then a Segway is a great way to see a bunch of the city. Our guide was very knowledgable and we had a great time.

Savannah the city sits on the Savannah river. There is a bricked in walking path along the river ("River Walk", imaginative name) and it's pretty nice to just sit and watch a working river do it's thing. We saw a number of giant container ships going up and down river and even got to see dolphins.

Johnny Mercer was a Savannah native who wrote a bunch of songs you've probably heard, even if you didn't know who wrote them. He's buried in the Bonaventure cemetery which is worth the short drive. There are guided tours and, when you first get into the cemetery it's easy to see why people take them but aided by the Google machine we found a bunch of the touristy graves and even a bunch of interesting graves that aren't typical tourist spots.

Of course being in the south I wanted a low country boil. This was from a place just across the street from the Marshall house. It was very good and not expensive.

Angie got a po-boy. I can't remember what the protein was, probably shrimp. She was jealous of my meal...

One of my favorites from the trip was the Savannah history museum. This is the bench from the movie Forest Gump and while it looks like a real bench in pictures (and in the movie) in real life it's obviously fiberglass.

While wandering around the museum this young fellow approached us and asked if we'd be interested in hearing a talk about the siege of Savannah. We followed along and he talked for 30+ minutes with no notes and covered all aspects of the siege. The detail he provided was amazing including names and dates. Places, guns, famous people, the whole bit. We then followed him outside where he fired his musket 3 times.

As a black powder shooter I knew he was the real deal when I saw the black smudges on his hands. It was hot and muggy (normal for Savannah) and he managed to get the gun to go off 3 times with zero misfires.

I'll confess I travel largely for my stomach. On our last night in Savannah I convinced Angie to go to a British pub for a meat pie. We'd had a big lunch and ended up having just one pie between us but it was a good un.

The drinks were also fun, on the left was a rubarb drink I can't remember the name of, on the right was "Gandalf the Grey" which featured gin steeped with Earl Grey tea.

I don't have pictures but our last stop before leaving Savannah was "Mrs Wilkes Dining Room" which is a MUST if you're going to the city. We'd seen it after our Segway tour on Wednesday, but there were maybe 10 or 15 people in line and we'd decided to wait. BIG mistake. Doors open at 11am and by 10 there were probably 50 people in line, so many in fact that we missed the first seating. I knew we were cutting it close but persisted and I'm so glad we did.

Food is served family style, big plates of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, fried okra, buttered corn, rolls, turnips, squash and I can't remember what else. We ate until our buttons were bursting and then they brought out desert! What a place, a meal I'll remember forever.

Anyway we really enjoyed Savannah, oh wait, one last spot:

Leopold's ice cream, a real old time ice cream shop. Another MUST if you're in Savannah. Get the waffle cone, you'll thank yourself.

Back to the Philippines

Long time readers might remember that I went to the Philippines back in 2015. In August I went again. I was pleased to get the same flight schedule as last time but in the intervening years my employer has updated their policy so that flights of more than 6 hours allow us to book premium economy. I flew Japan Airlines (JAL) and, while I was impressed with them last time, the premium economy experience was even better.

Premium economy gets you lounge access but JAL doesn't have a lounge at BOS so you get entry to the British Airlines lounge which is pretty great. I had a bite to eat and a couple of glasses of wine which was lovely to relax me for the flight.

The seats in premium economy were like first class seats on domestic flights in the US. The seats weren't lay-flat but they laid out pretty good and included an eye mask and noise canceling headphones that, for being free, were pretty good. I even got a couple hours sleep which is unusual for me.

Our office is in Taguig which is part of metro Manila. We're in a big office building, the first 4 floors of which are a mall. For breakfast many of the mornings I opted for a taste of home:

If you're not from near-Canada you might not recognize Timmy's but its a Canadian staple. After a few breakfasts I actually switched to Starbucks, I did that for a couple reasons:
1. Starbucks would do coffee with no sweetener. I had a helluva time convincing the workers at Tim's that I didn't want sweetener in my iced coffee.
2. Starbucks has oatmeal. I can only eat so many egg sandwiches...

This cooky building is "SM Aura" and is actually a 6 story shopping mall. The end bit that goes up purportedly has dining facilities on top but I didn't go up there. Filipino's love their malls and I discovered that the part of the mall I was most interested was actually underground. So in this 6 story mall there are 4 stories up and 2 stories (plus the car park) underneath. There reason I like the below stories better is thats where the grocery store and the bookstore are. Its where the regular people shop. The stores up top are the same as we have in the US and just bore me to tears.

I did go to another mall I didn't get a picture of "Market Market" which is much more asian and clearly priced better because it was PACKED. They had a big outdoor section for fresh produce and then inside had market stalls. At one point I was wandering in market stalls and realized I'd gone into a bad place, there weren't many people and those that were there were staring at me. My technique in those situations is the old "Fake it until you make it", just plow on like I know what I'm doing and hope things get better on the other side. They usually do and they did this time.
I really wish I'd gotten a picture of "The American Store" which was what we would call a dollar store...

My favorite Manila restaurant is "Mary Grace" which is decorated like generic granny's house with (I guess) Filipino granny's food. This is beef tapa which is dried beef thats been rehydrated and is served with a sweet sauce. This was breakfast so it came with egg and, of course, rice. This was one of my favorite meals during my 2 week trip.

I went to several grocery stores and one of them had ice cream freezers at the beginning of the checkout lane. This one was coconut milk with chocolate in the center.

This is coffee with coffee jelly. If you've ever had boba this is similar.

The "jelly" is actually more like "jello" made with coffee.

This is gelato. I found a Gelateria which, considering our recent trip to Italy, was really nice.

Snacks! If I'm honest my favorite part of travel is buying snacks. Korean snacks are apparently really popular in the Philippines, the Pepero in the picture is Korean. Its a lot like Pocky but with a pretzel stick instead of short bread. I'm not prepared to say that I like one better than the other. :)

Speaking of snacks I ended the trip buying all the varieties of Kit-Kat I could find in the Tokyo airport. I think I ended up with 17 or 18 different kinds of Kit-Kat including:
Green tea, wasabi, hot pepper, banana, dark chocolate, melon and marscapone cheese, grape, peach, apple, and strawberry. The variety is amazing although I'll admit to liking some a lot more than others, the banana, for instance, I quite like.

Back to Rome

Our trip back to Rome really showed off how comfortable we had become traveling in Italy. First we tried to take a bus from the hotel to the pier but for reasons unexplained it never seemed to appear so we ended up in a taxi. Then a long wait for the ferry, at least the weather was nice so the ferry was very smooth.

Then an Italo rail trip from Naples to Rome. On our journeys in Italy we first rode Trenitalia, these are the green trains I mentioned before. They varied between the 1950s vintage train we took from Lamezia to Soverato, the fairly modern interurban train/trolley from Soverato to Reggio Calabria and the modern but slow and dirty Freccabianca from Reggio Calabria to Naples.

Italo rail is a whole different train company, these are the super modern red trains you'll see in most travelogs and they are vastly superior to Trenitalia. Faster, more comfortable, and they serve snacks like an airline does. 10/10, would ride again.

I don't have any pictures of the Rome subway but our second hotel in Rome (Hotel Tango) was near a subway stop so it was the easiest way to get there. The Roman subway is fantastic, easy to understand, clean, friendly. I apparently exude a "don't mess with me" vibe, as I've never ever been messed with on a subway. That was comforting as we had our bags and were obviously tourists.

Believe it or not this is the front door of our hotel. By this point we had gotten used to finding hotels by the little brass plate in the wall as an identifier. Opening this door was pretty hilarious using that big doorknob. Hotel Tango is actually a modern building inside of a much larger older building. We picked it because the rooms are all two stories which seemed cooler than it actually was. The inner building didn't have terrific sound insulation and the kids in the room next door to ours were a bit infuriating.

This is one part of the wall around Vatican City about 2 blocks from Hotel Tango which is another reason I had picked that hotel.

Look carefully in this shot and you'll find "The Godfather pigeon" who keep strolling around a restaurant we were eating in. He seemed very well behaved but the staff of the restaurant kept shooing him out in embarrassment.

I should have taken a picture of this pizza/calzone before we started eating it. As you may have heard pizzas in Italy don't come pre-cut, you end up just tearing it apart with your hands. This was half pizza, half calzone which is an idea was should totally bring to the US.

Angie scored us tickets to the Colosseum which is amazing. It starts with arriving off the subway at the Colosseo stop. As you exit the subway and your eyes adjust the Colosseum is right there across the street and its so big it amazes your eyes and it takes awhile to really sink in and for your brain to figure out what you're looking at...

 Our tickets included access inside to the underground portions. This is a reinvention of the elevator used to transport animals (like lions) from the underground portion to the floor of the Colosseum. Theres a NOVA documentary on the construction of this elevator which is worth seeing.

This is one of our guides, our tour package included a tour of the Roman Forum, a tour which we almost missed because we were busy filling our faces with more pizza. This part of the tour included the burial spot of Julius Caesar and the supposed birthplace of Romulus and Remus, the brothers who led to the founding of Rome. Having a tour guide was fantastic, both guides really added depth to our tour.

Angie in Vatican City. We didn't have time to tour the Vatican, this was the morning of our last day. We really needed another 2-3 days in Rome, probably at the outset of our trip, there is so much to see there.

Okay so looking back here are a couple pieces of advice:

1. Ignore most of the advice you see online, its ridiculous, specifically: Italians dress the same as you do, at least mostly. They wear jeans and sneakers, anybody saying otherwise hasn't spent any time in Italy or if they have they've only been in tour groups.

2. When going to a big attraction like the Coliseum get timed tickets. By that I mean get a ticket that has a specific start time. This will save you waiting through the miles long lines.

3. Naples to Sorrento has a local train but I couldn't find a way to buy tickets online. The ferry is difficult to get to in Naples traffic.

4. The Roman subway is terrific but you're limited in where it goes.

5. Not everybody in Rome speaks English but there are so many people that do that its rarely an issue. Everybody we met in Sorrento/Capri spoke excellent English.

5a. Few people in Soverato in the south spoke English but they all seemed excited to play the pantomime game. I think English speakers are fairly rare there and they were excited to see us.

In short if you're afraid of travel to Italy you shouldn't be, its easy. If we can do it you can do it too...

Little Capri

Note: I wrote this a few weeks ago but in light of current events I'd like to keep posting positive things. Know that I'm thinking about folks and hope you're doing okay.

Capri is a little island off the coast of Sorrento. There are ferries to go over but our group had chartered a 40' motor yacht. This seemed like a good idea at the time but by the time we left the weather hadn't improved any. Our trip was supposed to include lunch but the cruise company didn't think anybody would be stupid enough to want to go so they hadn't made any. No matter, the cruise was still a go, they just refunded a little of our money.

The ride over was rough:

The pictures kind of give an idea, you can see the clouds. We had a following sea which meant that the boat wallowed and the diesel fumes were pushed back into the cabin. We were all pretty much up against sea-sickness for awhile. Angie leaned over the rail at one point, fortunately she didn't throw up because I think it would have triggered the rest of us.

Fortunately that was the point where the weather cleared enough that we could move to the front of the boat. I didn't get any pictures of that part but things got a lot more pleasant and we made a loop around the island before heading in.

Capri is neat in that the island is basically all mountain. Theres a little ring of beachfront but most of what you want to see is high up. Theres a little train, the Funicolare di Capri which takes you up. A funicular railway like this is one that uses two trains connected by a cable. Since the trains weigh about the same it takes a small amount of energy to move them.

You get an idea how steep it is...

The views from the top were epic and the weather started to clear which was even better.

Capri has some cool old tunnels into the mountain which is where I found the fat man's restaurant.

And coincidentally the only gas pressure lantern of the trip.

LA Cisterna is literally the best restaurant we went to in Italy, no joke. Its hidden away in a tunnel but absolutely worth the trip. We had:

-Lemon/mozzarella toasted bread. I thought this was a weird sounding combination but the bread, cheese and lemons were all fresh, it was amazing

-Fried anchovies: "Caught fresh not two hours ago!" quoth the fat man. I wish I'd taken a picture of them, these were cooked exactly the way my grandfather cooked smelts, they were dredged in flour and fried in oil. We were nervous to order this but the fat man was so enthusiastic how could we deny him. By the way that is him on the wine bottle...

-Gnocchi, Angie still has dreams of the gnocchi.

-Pizza margarita, some of the best pizza I've ever eaten.

The fat man claimed the wine was made special for him. I don't know if thats true or if its a generic rebottling but it was really good.

We all ordered and then we all shared, it was a great way to dine. There were only 6 of us, the others had gone to eat at some place with a great view. In talking to them we definitely got the better deal, they paid much more for food that wasn't half as good. We joked that they paid the "tourist tax".

Capri is much like Sorrento in the shopping mall vibe. The "streets" are really just pedestrian walkways, there are almost no cars up on the mountain because there are almost no roads. One of our party told Angie and I that we needed to check out the botanical gardens, he then gave us super sketchy directions and to our amazement we actually found the place:

The views were spectacular, the yacht actually took us around the rocks in the last picture. One of them has a hole in it just big enough to fit the yacht through. When he lined up the boat on the hole I thought "Theres no way he's going to.... Oh, he is..." and through we went, it was super cool.

The return trip to Sorrento was way better than the trip over. We all sat out on the front of the yacht, limoncello, beer and prosecco which is a bit like champagne. This was one of the highlights of the whole trip.

Up Next: Back to Rome and headed home.

Charming Sorrento

I originally started blogging as a way to tell people about good things and in Sorrento we found a very good thing.

Sorrento is a real tourist town. I realize not everybody reading this blog is from New England but I usually tell fellow New Englanders that Sorrento is like North Conway, New Hampshire, which is to say its full of outlet stores. The big difference, of course, is that Sorrento is something like 2000 years old. Wikipedia says Sorrento is known for its "small antique shops". I dunno where they were, I don't remember any antique shops.

Sorrento sits across the bay from Naples, so we took the train from Soverato to Naples but my research didn't give me a way to get from Naples to Sorrento. It turns out theres a train but you can't (or at least I couldn't figure it) book tickets online. What I could find was the ferry so we booked that.

There were two things I hadn't counted on:
#1. Naples is bonkers. Seriously, I'm used to Boston. Compared to Boston, Rome is bonkers, the traffic is heavy, the streets are small. Compared to Rome, Naples is totally bonkers, the streets are way smaller, the traffic is way heavier. Our cab ride from the train station to the port was frantic.
#2. Italy was experiencing unusually cold weather. Later that summer they'd have a heatwave but when we were there the temperatures in Italy were pretty much the same as at home in the northeast US.

So our ferry ride to Sorrento was really bumpy. I don't get seasick but that ride was pretty scary and my stomach was not happy.

Anyway you can spend big money on one of the grand hotels in Sorrento but I've never been a fan of the big grand hotels. Instead I searched around and found "Luiselle Charming Accommodation" and booked it just on the name. Well, I did look at the reviews but lets face it, the name sold me. I was a trifle worried when I told the cab driver where we were going and he said "Theres no hotel there." but we pressed on regardless.

It turns out the Luiselle Charming Accommodation is in an old office building. When I say old I'm not kidding around, the building must be from the '20s. Check out the elevator.

I had to stand outside the elevator to take the picture because otherwise you get:

Its small, its wood. You open the outside doors, open the inside door, step inside, close the outside door, close the inside door and then select your floor.
One thing I was caught off guard by is that in Italy buildings have a 0 (zero) floor, what we in the US would call the first or ground floor. This led to us getting lost, Luiselle was on the "second" floor which is actually what I would think of as the third floor. Fortunately you don't have to "drive" the elevator, you select a floor and listen while contactors slap in relays to make your selection happen.

The accommodation is indeed charming:

As usual I wish I'd taken more pictures. The room was big and well appointed with free Netflix that we didn't use, after all we were in Italy. We went out and came back exhausted.
The first morning our host Andrea offered Angie scrambled eggs and I thought she was going to kiss him. Italians eat a lot of desert and lunch meats for breakfast and she was eager to have something savory that wasn't salty. "Scrambled eggs" turned out to be a fried egg but it didn't matter she was super happy.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this hotel to anyone interested in accommodations a bit off the beaten track that are a little different. Also those who are looking to save money. Although as I say it is a little off the beaten track it was only maybe a 5 minute walk to the main street where all the action was. At night I was actually happy to be somewhere quiet so we could get some rest.

Up next: Capri