May 21, 2025

 

We’re off.  Thanks to our reliable Julie’s Taxi Service we arrived at Sea-Tac 3 hours ahead of departure time,

 

I usually start these blogs with horror stories about no space-available, cancelled flights that result in vacation days lost, lost luggage, et al.  Well, this time, Teresa bought us guaranteed employee discount seats.  Still not free, but way less than full fare.  It takes the pressure off of trying to get to our first destination on time.  We will be coming home on a pass.  Haha.  Scroll down for that story.

 

We consider ourselves pretty experienced travelers, but we were pleasantly surprised with online check-in.  Usually this works OK on a domestic flight, but not so on an international flight.  Well, during on-line check-in I was enabled to scan our passports.  So, when we got to the airport, we only had to go to an automated bag-tag kiosk to get bag tags and then deposited the bags at the counter (again with no lines).

 

She also upgraded us to something below Business Class.  Apparently, the meals did not get upgraded.  We had ecologically-friendly meals – no plant or animal gave up its life for the meal.  I’d describe it to you, but it was unrecognizable.  Even more interesting, both looked the same even though Teresa ordered different meals.  I’ll explain it to you later.

 

May 22, 2025

 

We’re in Paris after a looooong 10 hour flight.  Now we are waiting for our train to Strasbourg.  Slight panic: Teresa left her trip binder with all our reservation numbers at home.  We’ll have to wing it until Julie can scan the whole book and send it to us.

 

Jet lag gets harder as I get older.  That’s why I retired early!

 

We arrived at the Strasbourg station at about 10pm and walked a half a mile to our apartment-hotel.  One of the nice things about revisiting our favorite towns is we know where to go for food, supplies and fun. So we went to a favorite little Doner Kabob place and split a Doner Kabob meal and a glass of wine.  Let me be clear right from the start of this blog, some people have commented that it seems that all we do on these trips is eat and drink.  That is correct.

Quick “nap” and we will rent a car and go visit Teresa’s Aunt Marie in Folkling for lunch.  No time to rest; rest when we get home.

 

May 23, 2025

 

Woke up early enough to get breakfast and to go to the mini-mart for essentials (wine for us and  to bring to Marie).  The mini-mart didn’t have red wine.  I reported the store to the French authorities, and the place was immediately shut down.  A store in France with no red wine?  What a national disgrace.

 

Then proceeded to the rental car office that we have used a million times.  No problem, right?  Well…they changed their procedures since the last time.  Now a code is necessary to enter the garage.  But apparently it is a SECRET code since they didn’t tell me.  So, I had to tromp back to the office for the code and then back to the garage.  What should have taken 15 minutes took 40.  Now we were running late.

 

Good news, Marie is healthy, and the food was delicious and lots of it!

 

Returned the rental car without incident and I am happy to say that I won’t be driving anymore on this trip.

 

After a hard day of eating and drinking, it was time to stroll out for dinner.

 

Salmon Flam Kuchen and a Chicken Caesar Salad.

Strasbourg is very flat, so the bicycle is king.

Another of Teresa’s cousins, Chloe, and her boy friend Jordan, gave us the royal tour of the city center today.  A great town to walk around.  Plenty of scenery, shops and restaurants.

My regular blog followers may remember Chloe and Jordan from a canal trip a few years ago.  Delightful couple.

After they departed, we trekked down an unfamiliar street searching for place to have dinner, and were rewarded with a slew of new restaurants to try.  We found a definite winner.  We had White Asparagus (Spargle in German) with prosciutto, and Fettuccine with burrata and arugula. We shared a half-liter of white wine from the Languedoc region that we have boated through many times.  Five stars. Happy tummy.

May 25, 2025

Now that Chloe taught us how to use the bus and trams, we solo navigated to the city center to the big Catholic cathedral to meet with more of Teresa’s cousins to join us for mass.  (Did you hear that the Mars lander sighted more of Teresa’s cousins living there?).

Did I say that it was a big cathedral?  My mistake: it is a ginormous cathedral.

After mass, Teresa’s cousin, Michel, led us across the square to a restaurant where he had made reservations for lunch.  What a famous place!  They had pictures on the wall of several famous people who had eaten there, including, Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe, AND Pope John Paul II!

Another spectacular meal.  This time I had roasted chicken in a light cream sauce and spätzle, a German pasta noodle thing.

On the way home we went to the train station to figure out how to get a train to the airport tomorrow.  Easy-peasy (I hope).

May 26, 2025

OK, we deserved an easy one, and today was it.

 

In nice, cool weather we walked with our suitcases for 10 minutes to the train station; walked for another 10 minutes to the correct boarding platform; waited 15 minutes for the next train; got on the train and in 11 minutes arrived at the Strasbourg Airport.

 

At the airport, we arrived at the baggage check-in as the agents were opening up.  No line at the security check point and got to our gate with two hours to spare.

 

But…the best part was when we arrived at Barcelona Airport. EasyJet has its own little terminal, FAR from the hectic main terminal, and we got our bags in 15 minutes then approached the automatic exit doors and were greeted by a guy with a sign with TERESA LINDO written on it.

 

Since we arrived in the middle of the day and traffic was light, we got to Blanes in one hour.

Now that’s the way it’s supposed to work!

 

One of the reasons we like Blanes:

May 27, 2025

 

Another reason we  like Blanes.  There is an open market six days a week right out our front door:

The old church where mass is still celebrated.

Lunch was a little leftover pizza from our first night here and a very fresh salad with tomatoes and garlic from the open market.

 

For dinner we took a walk to the Texas Steakhouse Restaurant (another favorite) and had the BEST garlic shrimp appetizer and split some baby back ribs.  Fabulous and amazingly inexpensive.  The long walk helped shed some of the calories (I hope).

On the way back we stopped to snap some pictures of Blanes from the shore.

May 28, 2025

 

Read ‘em and weep, Seattleites:  Sunny and 74 degrees.  I’m wearing shorts and a polo shirt.  Lovin’ it.

 

Our humble abode:

Another one of our favorite places is the take-out rotisserie chicken place that is only about five blocks away.  If you can live with the whacky hours, it is great.  They open on Wednesdays at 11am, but if you show up at 11:30 the chickens are not done yet.  Try 12:30 and you’re in business.

 

ALERT:  We are now transitioning from a travel blog to a foodie blog.  Please set your computer settings accordingly.

 

OK, we’ve all had Costco rotisserie chicken, but did it come with potatoes cooked in the chicken drippings???  This place also served a takeout plate of roasted onions, eggplant and red bell peppers that I had to buy. To find out more about this place, check the Weight Watcher’s website, under: Places Not To Go.

 

This made for a great lunch, with leftovers that Teresa has planned for Arroz con Pollo and then chicken soup at the end of the trip.

 

As a certified Wino, I usually buy wines from the bottom shelf in Seattle markets.  Here, on vacation, I buy wines from the middle shelves.  These are wines that would be $$$ in Washington, so they are really top shelf.  As was this simple wine (the bottle was emptied for the sake of the photograph).

The view out my bedroom window with the old church on the left.

A rare moment when Teresa stops to just admire the view.

Needed a few minor necessities and needed a stroll.  Blanes is mostly flat, so going for a walk is easy and pleasurable.

 

We had a great debate about dinner plans, so we decided to stop for “Patatas Bravas,” a local favorite (spicy potato cubes).  We never decided on a dinner product, so we just kept ordering tapas.  What a winner.  After the Patatas Bravas we had an order of calamari and an order of octopus (we are in a fishing village).  That was dinner – and the best restaurant meal so far.

Julia Child, eat your heart out.