Oh My-llorca!

Two weeks after Interlaken, we were on a plane to Mallorca, an island just off the east coast of Spain. EasyJet had a great rate on flights and Travers, using his skills in the hotel business, found us a great hotel called The Beach House, which was located right on the beach, at one end of the main boardwalk in a town called Magaluf.  We arrived at the airport and picked up a rental car, which to Travers' grateful surprise, was an automatic, which meant I could drive for once! (Most rental cars in Europe are manuals, which I don't know how to drive, or you pay a premium for an automatic, so Travers always ends up driving). So I hopped in the drivers' seat and we headed into Palma de Mallorca to get a feel for the town before heading to the hotel.

We drove as far as we could into the old town area, parked the car and walked around the city. We walked through the Placa Major, down some crowded shopping streets, and grabbed two bocadillos in Plaza de Cort, sitting beneath the 100 year old olive tree to enjoy them.  We then passed by the Palma Cathedral getting a few great views of the city and ocean, then headed down the ramblas, stopping for a refreshing drink to take in the culture and some people-watching.

Later that afternoon, we drove to our hotel in Magaluf, just a 15 minute drive away.  Immediately upon walking into our hotel room, we knew we had made a great choice. We had fabulous views of the hotel pool, beach, and ocean! We dropped our things, put on our swimsuits, and headed down to the boardwalk.  This part of Mallorca is known as a British party area.  Apparently tons of British people fly to Mallorca and come down to Magaluf to hang out, party, and get really really drunk. So we were expecting it to be a bit rough and a little seedy, but we were pleasantly surprised by how polite most of the Brits were, even though they were completely wasted already.  After enjoying a drink on the boardwalk, we found a crowded outdoor bar with music, a mechanical bull, and a few stag parties going on. So we grabbed some beers, took a seat, and enjoyed the show.

After laughing a ton at the drunk guys trying to ride the mechanical bull, watching even drunker guys down bottles of alcohol, and seeing a few drunk girls flash the crowd, we decided it was time to head back towards the safe haven of our hotel and get ready for dinner.  We headed back into Palma de Mallorca to a restaurant called Asador Bolixe, a slightly out of the way Argentinian restaurant that had the nicest Spanish-speaking only waiter, delicious food, and some interesting paintings on the walls.

The next morning, we woke up, grabbed some pastries, orange juice and coffees from the small grocery store across the street, hopped into our car and headed out to explore the rest of the island. We drove to Platja de Palma and S'Arenal, which is the area known for where the Germans come to sunbathe and party.  It was still slightly early so we didn't see many crazy party people, but we could immediately tell we were in the German area as all the restaurants stopped serving fish and chips (which is popular in Magaluf, the British area), and started serving bratwurst and currywurst and all sorts of other German dishes.

Continuing our drive, we headed to the east side of the island to a beach called Es Trenc. We were hoping for a more secluded beach area or cove, but apparently that's hard to find without tons of people already there. But we found a nice spot on the sand, and relaxed and enjoyed the sun, listening to the waves hit the beach, and even enjoyed some fresh pineapple from a local woman selling it along the coast. We had lunch at the one restaurant on the beach, drinking some refreshing sangria and eating some large plates of food. Laid in the sun for another hour or so before packing our stuff back up and heading back to the hotel.

 Next to our hotel is the Nikki Beach Club, a beach club that started in Miami, Florida and has expanded internationally as one of the best beach clubs to be at. So once we got back to our hotel, we stopped by the Nikki Beach Club for some specialty mojitos, enjoying the music, and watching a bit tamer crowd than the day before.

That evening, we drove to a small town nearby called Portal Nous and had dinner at Restaurant Port Alt, located on a cliff overlooking portals and illetas and the distant bay of Palma. Unfortunately the restaurant didn't quite live up to our expectations, but we had a nice time anyway, and got to see a different town on the island.









The next day, we decided to stay at the hotel and enjoy the pool at the hotel. We grabbed breakfast again at the market across the street, and parked ourselves in two lounge chairs by the pool. We lounged, I read my kindle, and Travers watched some shows on the ipad. We ordered lunch from the poolside bar menu, which was surprisingly affordable for a pool side menu.  We watched the people come and go, moved our umbrella strategically around as the sun moved throughout the day. And we stayed there until about 5pm or 6pm that evening when we decided it was enough time in the sun and we should get ready for the evening.

Since it was our last evening, we decided to head back into Palma de Mallorca, and found a small restaurant, called Bar Dia, that served Spanish tapas where we ordered several small plates of food, a cold beer for Travers and a glass of red wine for me.  Finishing our beverages outside in the warm night air, we saw this guy, dressed head to toe in a white suit, leaning casually against the railing...just had to get some photos with him in there.

After dinner, we strolled through the neighborhood, stopping at Wineing, a wine bar where they give you a keycard and you can go around the room, tasting as many different kinds of wines you want.  We befriended the woman working there that evening and she explained all about the wines to us and helped us choose the best ones to taste!

To end the evening, we found another bar nearby that was showing the Confederations Cup football match between Spain and Brazil. There was a fairly large crowd watching the match, and unfortunately Spain ended up losing, but we were excited to take part in some local Spanish culture.

Our final day in Mallorca, we drove to a nearby town called Camp de Mar. This was towards the south-west coast of the island and we had heard it was a nice beach area to visit with a restaurant on an island.  We parked the car and proceeded to walk down a gangplank across the water to Restaurant Illeta.  We took in some amazing views of the blue water and beach, and gazed out at the Balearic Sea while we had a delicious final meal.

Our flight wasn't until later that evening, so we headed back to the hotel to soak in the sun at the hotel pool for a couple more hours. We had to get the last few rays of sun, then hopped in our car to go back to the airport. It was an amazing long weekend and allowed us to get some great tans and come back totally relaxed!

Uphill Battle

Each summer since we moved to Geneva, we have spent a weekend in Interlaken, the adventure capital of the world.  The last two summers we have gone canyoning, which is an amazing adventure of jumping, sliding, and swinging down a canyon in the mountains of Switzerland.  Since we've already done two of the best canyons in the area already, we opted for a tamer adventure this summer and did a bike ride from Interlaken to neighboring town, Brienz.  We rode the train up with our friends Shelley and Mike, and their baby girl Harper on Saturday morning. We were staying just a bit outside of Interlaken at the Hotel Neuhaus which sits just on the shore of Lake Thun.  We immediately sat in grassy area at the hotel, staring out at the lake and amazing mountains surrounding us.

After a few hours of sunning ourselves, Shelley and I decided to check something off our bucketlist, by renting some paddle boards and heading out into the lake!  We grabbed the boards, and slowly made our way out into the lake, amazingly keeping our balance.  It was a bit tougher than I expected at first to keep my balance, but once I got the hang of it, it was pretty fun to go around the lake, paddling away, in this gorgeous landscape.


That evening we headed into town to have dinner at our favorite restaurant in Interlaken, Hooters! Travers and I took our bikes while Shelley, Mike and Harper hoped on the bus.  We enjoyed the beautiful easy bike ride into town, passing by lots of cows and more breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains. And we were rewarded with the taste of delicious wings and tasty burgers and sandwiches.









The next morning, we said goodbye to Shelley, Mike and Harper, dropped our bags at the Interlaken train station, and headed out on our bikes towards Brienz.  We had mapped it out as a 20km ride, taking just a few hours, mostly flat along the edge of the lake with a few hills here and there. But boy were we wrong!

The ride started out beautifully. We rode along the river, following a riverboat that was headed out to the Lake Brienz. We hit the edge of the lake and still the ride was just gorgeous, down a gravel path, gazing at the beautiful blue water.

Just a short way into our ride, we hit our first hill. And at first it wasn't too bad. We both dropped into low gears on our bikes (and let me interject by saying that our bikes are not mountain bikes by any means. They are just regular casual bikes that are meant for easy-riding). So we started out ok, but this hill just kept going up and up!  So, eventually we had to get off and walk our bikes up this hill.  Don't worry we thought, this is just the bad one, and after this it will get better. When the hill finally did stop, we were rewarded with some great views of the lake below and with a short downhill into a town called Iseltwald.

After a brief rest, we hopped back on our bikes, and back up hill.  This went on for several more hills. We would get a brief relief with a downhill, and then have to go right back up again. At one point, we were walking our bikes up the hill, and were passed by an old man that must have been in his 90's, pedaling away on his bike, making his way slowly (but faster than us) up this hill!  But we never gave up, and we learned quickly how to down shift into our lowest gears and pedal extremely slowly up the hill.  Most of the time, we just sucked it up, and walked. We rested a lot, and were finally rewarded by passing by a gigantic waterfall, the Giessbach Falls!


These falls were so large that the water spraying off of them nearly drenched us, which was a welcome relief from the heat and sweat of our bike ride.  We parked our bikes and headed down a path that lead to a bridge built behind the waterfall!  I have never been behind a fall this large before. It was an amazing experience to see the fall from this perspective!

We cooled off as much as we could, then grabbed our bikes and continued our ride. We got to see the falls again from a different perspective, and couldn't believe just how long and far the falls went!











With the end of our ride getting closer, we headed back up a few more hills, being quickly dried and hot again, but knew the end was near.  Eventually, we made it up a hill and around a bend and finally had Brienz in sight!  With a final burst of energy, and a welcomed downhill, we quickly made our way into the town, catching our final glimpses of amazing mountain ranges and glistening blue water.

We had made it! All 20km in just a bit longer than we anticipated. Ok, a lot longer than we anticipated, but we enjoyed ourselves, even with the uphill battles and gave ourselves a big lunch as a reward in Brienz.  Stomachs full, legs shaky, we headed to the train station to head back to Interlaken.  Unfortunately, there was a power issue, and we ended up having to take a bus back, but we were definitely done biking for the day!  We grabbed our bags from the train station in Interlaken and boarded the next train back to Geneva. Our epic bike ride was over!

Tennis Anyone?

The weekend after we got home from Croatia, we headed to Paris to watch some tennis at Roland Garros aka The French Open (apparently no one in France calls it the French Open, just like they don't call fries, French fries, they simply say fries).  Travers had done a 48-hour trip to SF between Croatia and Paris, so he didn't get to Paris until early Saturday morning. I was able to get there on Friday night and meet our two friends, Mary and Angie, who had gotten there the night before.  After checking into the hotel, we grabbed a taxi and headed to the St. Germain area for dinner. Angie had made us a reservation at Peres et Filles, where we each had a delicious Parisian bistro dinner followed by a nice stroll through the neighborhood.

The next morning, Travers arrived and we immediately headed out for a quick breakfast before taking the metro to Roland Garros.  The area was filled with people and as we walked through the grounds, in certain areas, you could hear the ping, ping, ping of a tennis ball being hit back and forth, usually followed by an applause or cheer when the play would end.  There were a few large screens set up so those that didn't have tickets to the main courts (us) could still watch the matches.  Once we got our bearings, we found our way onto one of the lower courts and wiggled into a few seats that were just a row or two from the court.  We had made it just in time to see the Brian brothers play a doubles match. If you don't know, the Brian brothers
(twins) are American doubles players who went to Stanford and as of August 5, have held the World number 1 doubles ranking jointly for 323 weeks, which is longer than anyone else in doubles history! It was amazing to see them play, being able to cheer for some Americans and knowing they went to school just around the corner from where I grew up! And of course, they won the match!










The Brian brothers' match was followed by a men's singles match, which was followed by a women's singles match. We watched all three matches, moving seats each time to get the best view and only risking going to the bathroom once as it was a risk as to whether you would be let back in or not.

After several hours at the court, we finally decided to call it a day, so we left our seats, which were immediately taken by others waiting by, and headed out to do a final walk through the grounds before heading back to the hotel.

That evening, we headed back out to the St. Germain area for a pre-dinner cocktail at Cafe Mabillon, followed by another delicious dinner at Le Pub. Our stomachs full, we headed out to enjoy the nightlife and made some new friends along the way.

Sunday morning we slept in as long as we could, grabbed a late breakfast at Cafe Montparnasse, followed by a stroll towards the Eiffel Tower before catching the train back to Geneva. It was a whirlwind of a trip but we saw some great tennis, made some fun friends, and got to experience a new part of Paris!

Wall Walking

The last few days in Croatia were spent in Korcula and Dubrovnik. We arrived in Korcula, a small island between Hvar and Dubrovnik, in the early evening. We were staying in a small apartment rental that was on a side street just off the large walkway that surrounded the old town area. We didn't have much time in Korcula, just the night in fact, so we quickly dropped our things, and headed out to explore and find a restaurant for dinner. We strolled the main boardwalk that was lined with restaurants on one side, and had a low stone wall with the water beyond on the other side.  We decided rather quickly on a restaurant that had outdoor seating that overlook the water with the large moon shining down on us.  The food was delicious, the wine was spectacular, and the views were breathtaking. It was probably one of our most romantic dinners ever.

After dinner, we roamed through the old town, down narrow cobblestone passageways, exploring the small town.  We had to get up early the next day so we sadly called it a night and headed back to our apartment.  The next morning, we had a few sunny moments overlooking the water again, and gathering some last views of Korcula. We hopped on a boat that took us to the mainland, where we got on a bus and drove a couple hours to Dubrovnik.

The bus we were on dropped us right at our hotel, Hotel Dubrovnik Palace, located on the north west corner of the peninsula of Dubrovnik and a short bus ride from the popular old town area. The hotel was built on a cliff overlooking the ocean, and we luckily had a great view of the ocean and pool beneath our room. We immediately went out to the pool to get some rest and sun for a couple hours before hopping on the city bus to head into old town.

Arriving in old town, I have never seen so many people trying to cram themselves into a walled-in city than in Dubrovnik.  We had counted at least three cruise ships docked in the harbor, and a fourth one on its way in, so there were thousands of people in town all wanting to do the same things at the same time.  We pushed through the crowd and luckily found a few smaller side streets with a few less people, finally deciding to sit at a pizza restaurant to get an afternoon snack and hope the crowds died down some.

After our snack, we began walking through the town, up and down stone stairways and alleyways, finding our way through the maze of walls that make up the city.

We then decided to get a different perspective of the city, so we headed up the stairs that led to the walkway on top of the wall, getting amazing panoramic views of the city below and the ocean on the other side.

The walk was much longer than we expected, but filled with views around every corner and well worth it, but were pretty exhausted afterwards so we headed to an Irish pub we had passed by earlier in search of some drinks to cool us down and to watch a popular football (soccer) match that was playing that evening.  We settled into a corner booth, ordered a beer, a glass of wine and a couple burgers, and watched the match and the people that had filled the bar up.

The next day, we spent several hours at the hotel pool, resting our legs and feet from all the walking we had done the day before, enjoying hearing the waves crash on the cliffs below us.

After getting some proper rest, we headed back into old town to explore some more. We strolled down the center of town, stopping at a cafe in the sun to get some people watching in. Then we walked down towards the harbor and out to the nearby beach area, and somehow found our way on the outside of the wall, enjoying some fabulous views of the city from yet another perspective than the previous day.

That evening, we found a great wine bar called Dvino where we grabbed two seats at the bar and were treated to some delicious wines, chosen by one of the owners, and complimented with a large cheese and meat platter. We didn't need dinner after that, so we strolled back through the town, stopping once at a cafe that had a couple live musicians playing outside then eventually grabbing some ice cream on our way back to the hotel.

The next morning we only had half a day before having to head to the airport, so we lounged at the pool some more, and ate a delicious lunch at one of the hotel's restaurants (as a side story, the previous day, a maid had let some stranger into our room accidentally, thinking it was his room. Thankfully we were in the room to stop him from coming all the way in, but we were quite alarmed that some stranger was just allowed access into our room! So we notified the hotel and the general manager, very concerned, spoke with us about it, reassured us that the maid had been reprimanded, and asked if he could treat us to a meal in one of his restaurants. So we took him up on it!).  We finished our meal and took in some final views of the beautiful Adriatic, then headed to the airport to end our epic 10 day holiday in Croatia!