Funny you don't look American

We were at 9,000 feet at Passo Giao, Sud Tyrol, Italy and we wanted our picture taken. I saw a likely looking man and used sign language to ask him to take our picture. We almost always find the Frenchman in the bunch and we don't speak French. Well, this man was from Colorado by way of Tennessee and he was riding the Dolomites with his wife and an Irish guide on their motorcycles. We compared notes with the Dubliner and thanked them both in English. Here is one of the photos.

Not your average Dolomite photos

Well... maybe the middle two are somewhat average but the first one is a truck that followed us up a pass. The last one is a Dolomite Water bottle at the top of a lift overlooking La Villa, Alta Bada. (Double click the bottle to read it.) Behind the bottle is a park at over 7,000 feet. There was also a cafe and a playground.

Driving the Alps

Roads in the Alps. other than the autoban and Autostrasa are very narrow and have many hairpin curves. They are not hard to drive, but you must look out for people on cycles and motorcycles which go very fast up and down the mountains. At the top of every pass there are places to pull off, eat and usually have some alcohol -- which seems risky to me. The top picture is of us driving our small Mercedes caught in the middle of around 50 Porches during a rally. I finally pulled over and let them all go by.
If you are going to drive the Alps be sure and bring along a GPS and a cellphone is handy in case of emergency or for making reservations up ahead. One final note: the roads are about 1.5 cars wide in the Dolomites which makes it a little tough when you meet the intercity buses...

The subtle changes traveling makes

There are some subtle changes that traveling and visiting new places can make in your life. Take just one area like food. I discovered a liking for black and white pudding in the UK. In the Republic of Ireland I learned to like Guinness and also to enjoy lamb stew. From Italy I returned liking sparkling water with dinner and prosecco before it. I also learned that donkey-meal ragu is not bad at all, but I would likely not order it again. Those are just some things I learned about myself and food.

There are other things in other areas. I found that I cannot use a bidet, nor want to. We will address this later.

Multnomah Village

It was once a stop on the railroad (the tracks are long gone) and is now a place of nice cafes and pretty shops. This view shows O'Connor's Bar/Restaurant, Annie Bloom Books, the Ice Cream and Candy shop and our dog's favorite, Fat City Cafe. Fat City has a basket of dog biscuits out and every dog knows where it is. This is part of our daily walk in Portland and is near our place there.

Birds of a feather

We were hoping to go to the top of a hill outside of Florence to hear the monks chanting at the evening vespers. An Italian friend, Domenico, said he too had always wanted to go there. So, off we went by taxi. When we arrived we found that we were an hour early for the singing, but just in time for evening mass. Now Domenico and I were fine with that and entered the great church (8th to 12th Century) and descended to a room under the high altar where mass was being said. Marietta and a couple of folks from Santa Fe New Mexico that we had met went around taking pictures outside. You see them below. Domenico and I worshipped with the service being in Latin  and Italian -- I only understood half of it and Domenico understood the other half. The others worshipped outside in the grand Italian dusk. 

 

Door: Old Town Feldkirch, Austria