Trip Reports Archives - Travel Sage

Big Bend Trip Report

Cathy Laurenzi — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:28:00 +0000

The Travel Sage

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Big Bend Trip Report

My husband, Mark, is a nature guy and Big Bend National Park has been on his must-see list for years. Unfortunately, it isn’t easy to get there. The closest feasible airport to fly into is Midland/Odessa, but that still leaves a 4 hour drive to the park. But in February 2025 we finally decided to make the trek. I planned for us to stay an entire week there because in addition to exploring the parks, I had hoped that we would be able to sign up for at least a couple of guided activities, like rafting/kayaking, rock hounding, and/or birding. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until after I booked the airline tickets, that I received replies to my emails telling me that none of those activities would be possible. The woman who does the rock hunting tours doesn’t start until March, the birding guide had ended his business, and the river tour company only offered one day-trip paddle in February, and that was to a place that didn’t look very appealing to me. So, I wasn’t sure how we were going to fill 6 full days. But as it turned out, we didn’t do much the first 2 days because it was freezing – literally. The lows were in the low 20’s and the high the first day was in the 40’s. (I believe that this was especially cold for the area.) Plus it was windy! Thankfully it warmed up after the first 2 days. During the time we were there we experienced temperatures ranging from 23F to 89F.

We stayed in a “Casita” that I booked through Airbnb. It was located in the small town of Terlingua, Texas (the closest town to the National Park) Despite the photos, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect from our casita. Well, the best way I can describe it is a stand-alone motel room with a patio and grill. Along the road that runs through Terlingua, you can see all kinds of interesting-looking accommodations. In addition to a couple of motels and RV parks, there were white teepees, tiny A-frame buildings with decks and hammocks, really tiny A-frame buildings that looked only big enough to hold a bed, and what appeared to be domed tents with ⅔ of the “ceiling” being glass for star gazing, which was excellent in Terlingua. Overall, though, this town is by no means a crowded tourist destination. You can see everything for miles as you drive down the main road because there are essentially no trees or tall buildings blocking your view.

The first day we didn’t leave our room until after noon due to the cold. Then we drove west to Big Bend Ranch State Park and checked out the Barton Warnock Visitor Center (indoors) which had nice displays illustrating the natural history of the region. By the time we left there it was around 2pm so the temperature was up into the 40’s and I was able to tolerate a little birding and a brief visit to Terlingua’s historic cemetery.

Some people might think cemeteries are only for visiting deceased loved ones, but for me they are a glimpse into the lives of people in the past and sometimes they are also a window into other cultures. Terlingua cemetery was unlike any I’ve ever seen. Many of the graves were simple graves with pieces of wood made into a cross but nothing indicating who was buried there. I believe these were the older graves (early 1900’s) from when Terlinga was established as a mercury mining town.

But surprisingly, this small graveyard (just over an acre) contains not only graves from 100+ years ago, but residents are still being buried there today. It makes you realize how few people have lived in Terlingua. The new graves were much more “colorful” than the ones of the town’s settlers. Many of these graves are piled high with all kinds of objects such as tchotchkes, bottles, artificial flowers, and stones. This allowed visitors a much more in-depth look into the lives of the deceased. Typically we only get clues from what’s inscribed on the tombstone, but here you can infer all kinds of things. For example, I imagine that the man whose grave is piled with empty beer and liquor bottles was quite the partier. I’ve included photos from a few of the more unique graves for you to interpret.

After the cemetery, we visited the Terlingua Trading Company. I had read that this was a great gift shop, and it did not disappoint. It had a large main room and then smaller rooms with specific items like Christmas decorations, jewelry, hot sauces, cold drinks, etc. It also had a couple of rooms with historical displays. I highly recommend it.

Our second full day in Terlingua was again quite cold so we waited until late morning to go exploring. We decided to go into Big Bend Ranch State Park on this day because we read that the road going through the park was scenic. We figured if it was too cold to hike comfortably, it was better to miss the hikes in the state park rather than the ones in the national park. Our first stop along the road was to eat our picnic lunch at a picnic area. The teepees over the picnic tables were a nice touch.

So, the drive was scenic, but it didn’t quite live up to my expectations after having read glowing reviews.

Although we spent most of the day just driving, we did get out of the car a few times to walk a short distance, especially to take in scenes of the river.

On Day 3 it finally started warming up enough for me to enjoy the outdoors, so we headed into Big Bend National Park. Our first stop for taking a walk was at Dugout Wells and the short Chihuahuan Desert Nature Trail. It was a pleasant walk but not much to see in February, other than some interesting cacti. I especially liked the pink/purple ones.

Our next stop that day was at the Rio Grand Village Nature Trail. This walk led down to the river and offered some nice views. We discovered that many of the trails that bordered the river, have Mexican tchotchkes for sale, most of which were figures made out of wrapped wire. Mexican men rode their horses across the river border to put out these handmade items. Each collection of items for sale has a lockbox next to it where you can deposit U.S. dollars.

Before leaving the Rio Grande Village area, we walked through the campground because I heard it was a good birding spot. We didn’t see a lot of birds, but I did see my first roadrunner, which I was very excited about!

The following we got an early start, and headed back into the national park. Our first stop was at the Sotol Vista Overlook. The views were spectacular but the photos don’t do them justice.

Our primary destination that day was Santa Elena Canyon, which was my most anticipated site on the trip to Big Bend. Despite the Sotol overlook being approximately 14 miles from Santa Elena Canyon, you could actually see it as an obvious notch in the distant mesa. And as we drove closer to the canyon we pulled over several times to get photos of it.

We stopped for a quick picnic lunch right before we started along the Santa Elena Canyon Trail. While we were eating, we got a visit from a gray fox and several roadrunners.

The Santa Elena Canyon Trail didn’t disappoint! The only “challenging” part of the trail was at the beginning, where you had to balance on some small logs to avoid falling in the muddy stream.

After the stream the trail starts climbing up steps in the rocks, and before entering into the canyon, there’s a nice view looking back at where you’ve been. In the photo below on the right, the people on the right side of the river had crossed over just so they could say that they were in Mexico.

It was breathtaking as the trail entered into the canyon, and then after walking for a little while the trail dropped down to the level of the river. For me, this canyon was the highlight of our trip to Big Bend. But we still had two more days to explore.

The next morning we headed out pretty early to Mark’s most anticipated destination – The Lost Mine Trail. The drive there was quite scenic.

The Lost Mine Trail is 4.8 miles out and back with an elevation gain of 1,145 feet. I knew going in that I wasn’t going all the way to the top, so I just went as far as necessary to get some really great views. Then I found a nice place to hang out while I waited for Mark to return.

After The Lost Mine Trail, we drove to the Chisos Basin and walked the easy .3 mile Window View Trail.

That day we headed back to our casita a little early so that we could get cleaned up for a nice belated anniversary dinner. Our anniversary had been 2 nights prior, but when we showed up at the one “nice” restaurant in Terlingua (The Starlight Theatre) that night, we discovered you had to get there early and get in line or you’re out of luck. So, this time we arrived about 45 minutes before they opened and we were the 2nd group in line.

When I say it is a “nice” restaurant, I mean that it has a cosmopolitan menu with prices to match. But don’t expect fancy decor or tablecloths! Actually, it was the old-west rustic vibe that made a visit to the restaurant worthwhile. The food was nicely presented, but in my opinion, it wasn’t worth the price.

Our final day in Big Bend started wtih a stop at Terlingua Cemetary to get a few more photos in early morning light, and then we headed into the park to Daniels Ranch Road near the Rio Grande Visitor Center. I had read that this location is a great birding spot. I managed to add two more birds to my life list, we had a visit from a wild boar, and I bought a Mexican-made, wire-wrapped roadrunner in the local “shop”.

Our final destination inside of Big Bend National Park was the Boquillas Canyon Trail. As the name suggests, the trail led down to a canyon on the Rio Grande. It was nice, but it wasn’t nearly as spectacular as the Santa Elena Canyon. As we started out on the trail, we came across a Mexican on horseback who tried to not only sell us tchotchkes, but also some home-cooked empanadas that is wife had just made. I really wanted to try one of the empanadas, but I decided not to risk getting sick the day before our trip home.

Impressions and Tips for Visiting Big Bend

Overall, it was a nice trip. I was bummed about the cold weather at the beginning, so if I had to do it over maybe I’d push the trip back by a couple of weeks and go in March. That would also have allowed me to take the rock hounding tour that I was interested in. However, be forewarned, I was told that March is a very busy month in Terlingua and in the park. April also can be a good month to go, but you might experience hot temperatures. However, I understand the crowds are slightly less than March, rafting is better, and wildflowers are in bloom.

Here are some additional tips that I gathered from my experience there:

I think a 4 to 5 day trip would be plenty of time for most people to fully explore the area.
Compare gas prices before filling up, I saw some stations that were gouging people.
Download any information to your phone that you might need in Big Bend National Park because the cell service there was spotty.
Once you pick up your rental car, look for supermarkets on the way to Terlingua. The general store in town is very limited.

If you’ve ever been to Big Bend, please consider sharing your tips and experiences in the comments below.

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Workaway in Italy – A Cultural Immersion

Cathy Laurenzi — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 20:13:02 +0000

The Travel Sage

Workaway in Italy – A Cultural Immersion

Heads Up: This page includes affiliate links, which are marked by an “*”. If you click and purchase, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. But rest assured – my opinions are my own, I would never recommend something I haven’t or wouldn’t purchase for myself.

When traveling abroad, a big part of the experience is learning about different cultures. But when you’re a tourist, it isn’t always easy to get a real sense of what it’s like to live in that country. Most people just visit the popular tourist sites and rely on guides or museums to explain the local culture.

After visiting Italy five times, my husband and I both wished we could experience what it’s like to live there. We decided that we wanted to move to Italy for a year, but life circumstances have kept that from happening. Also, I wondered if we moved there, whether it would be difficult to integrate with the locals. So I did some research in hopes of finding a way to have a meaningful cultural exchange without having to uproot our lives. I was thrilled to find Workaway.info which provides a way to do this at very little cost!

A “workaway” is an arrangement where you live with a host family for an agreed upon amount of time, and in exchange for free room and board you provide help to the host. So, after doing a 2 week workaway in the U.S. as a trial run, I started searching for hosts in Italy that I thought would be a good fit for me.

The first thing I noticed is that there are a lot more workaway hosts in Italy than in the U.S. Here’s a comparison: Florida has a population of over 22 million but currently only has 40 hosts on workaway. But Tuscany, Italy, with a population of only 3.7 million, has over 500 hosts! So, that was good news for me! I narrowed my search by focusing on Northern Italy since I wanted to travel in August and September when it’s really hot at home in Florida. After looking through hundreds of host profiles, I decided to contact 3 of them and the 2 below replied.

One host family lives in a large house with extended family and others living with them. In total, there were 6 adults and 3 children living there. One thing that drew me to this host profile was the photo of the couple and their 3 adult sons sitting in a big tree. That spoke to me for some reason. Also, I liked the idea of experiencing a multi-generational Italian home. And the work included gardening (which I love) and possibly helping in a ceramics studio (which I wanted to try).

The other host was a 60ish year old couple who primarily wanted someone to speak English with them, but it also included working in a small garden. Again, I was drawn to the profile photo – something about their picture made me think that I’d want to be friends with them. However, this host was new and didn’t have any reviews which made me a little leary. (The other host had lots of 5 star reviews.) But I decided to go with my gut, and reach out to them.

Over the course of several weeks I had a video call with each of the two couples that accepted me. And we arranged my travel dates so that I could spend two weeks with one host and then go from there straight to the other host. And after planning the trip, I studied Italian for the 6 weeks leading up to my departure. Although I’d studied Italian on and off most of my adult life, this time I was motivated, especially since I was told that the husband of the large family did not want to speak in English! I had taken a few Italian classes over the years, and more recently I had been using Duolingo. And while my vocubulary had grown with Duolingo, I really couldn’t speak Italian except for very short, basic sentences. So I did some research and decided to try a audio based app. I settled on Pimsleur* and studied one to two hours every day. And although I made more progress in those few weeks than I had in the sum of all my previous studying, I was still far from being conversational.

So in mid-August 2024, I flew to Italy alone (my first time traveling to Europe by myself). The first destination was a small town near Brescia, called Cellatica. This was the location of the large extended family, whom I was scheduled to stay with for 2 weeks. I flew into Milan, then made my way by train to the Milan central station, then took a train to Brescia, and then caught a bus to Cellatica where my workaway host was picking me up. It sounds like a lot, but the trip went very smoothly. But to ensure it went smoothly, I did research beforehand to determine the best way to get to the Milan train station, and how to pay for the bus.

Italian Workaway #1: Introduction & Routine

Once I arrived at the bus stop in Cellatica, I messaged the host (Hedwige) to let her know I was there. At first she thought I was at the wrong stop, but after she realized I was in the right place I received the message “Arrivo!” Google translated “Arrivo” to “I arrive”, but I didn’t see anyone. After about 10 minutes she pulled up, and this became my first Italian language lesson of the trip- “Arrivo” is a way of saying “I’m on my way.”

Hedwige is a French woman who had lived in Italy since she married her Italian husband about 30 years ago. She seemed warm and friendly. She picked me up in the family’s tiny car and drove me the short distance to their home. It was a huge, multi-story house sitting on the equivalent of about 5 acres just outside the tiny town of Cellatica. I later learned that in Italy this is a typical “farmhouse”. Apparently most Italian homes are small, with the exception of “villas” and “farmhouses”. Villas are very upscale, while that isn’t generally the case with farmhouses. This house was relatively new by Italian standards – it was built in the 1970’s and this was only the second family to live in it. The house had a huge wrap-around porch on two sides, three large garages, and a partially buried above ground pool. It had lots of windows – all of them with wooden shutters. Upon arrival, I was shown around the house and then up to my private room. The room was sparsely furnished with a single bed and a desk, and plenty of closet space. It was perfectly adequate for me. The best thing about the room was that it had its own private patio/balcony looking down over the front yard. I shared a bathroom with one other person.

Throughout the course of my first day I met the members of the family who were living in the house which included the husband, Marizio, the youngest son (in grad school), Ilia, Marizio’s Italian mother and Hedwige’s French father. The parents were in their 80’s/90’s and they both needed to be taken care of. Neither of them could walk unassisted and they had both lost some mental capacity. There was a consistent routine every day, which I’m guessing was at least partly due to the parents needing assistance.

Breakfast was eaten on our own, but it appeared that the parents were usually fed around 8am, which is when I started my chores. A hot lunch was prepared around 1pm and everyone who was home ate together at the kitchen table. Then we were off to do afternoon chores and possibly a swim in the pool to cool off from the extreme heat. I usually took a nap in the late afternoon since I was constantly exhausted. I was not used to that much manual labor, especially without air conditioning. (The main part of the house wasn’t air conditioned, but thankfully my bedroom was.) At around 7:30pm everyone started gathering to help finish preparing dinner and to get it on the table. Most nights we ate outside on the front patio and once the sun went down it was very pleasant.

After being there for a few days, I met the rest of the other family who lived in the house. (They had been away on a short trip.) This included a young woman (Moroccan, I believe) and her three sons aged around 7 through 14. This family was taken in by Hedwige and Maurizio nine years prior and had been living there ever since. Over the course of my two weeks there, I learned that Hedwige and Maurizio were involved with an organization that helps women in need. During her nine years there, the woman was able to build a life for her and her children, and happily, when I met her, she was gainfully employed and had just bought a house with her fiance and was moving out soon. This story was only one of many things that made me realize how incredibly caring and generous Hedwige and Maurizio were. Not only did they house this family, but they frequently had to watch the young children. So, at the time I was there, 9 people were living under that roof, not including me. But apparently there was always room for more. In addition to being a host on workaway.info*. Hedwige and Maurizio were listed on the site warmshowers.org. This is a site where people can sign up to host long-distance cyclists as they travel through town. Twice in the two weeks I was there, a couple of cyclists joined us for dinner and camped overnight in the yard. The first two people who came had met on one of these online travel sites and decided to take a trip together. She was from France and he was from Mexico, and the second visitors were a couple from France. At dinners, especially ones with visitors, I was taken aback by all of the different languages being spoken across the table.

Italian Workaway #1: The Work

According to this Workaway host profile, I was expected to work no more than 5 hours per day, 5 days per week. I worked more than that. But honestly, if I hadn’t, I would have felt guilty given how hard both Hedwige and Maurizio worked every day. I didn’t work at all on my first day, but Hedwige did go over the list of chores she had created for me. She told me she didn’t care when I did each chore – that was up to me, but she did expect me to work. The one chore that I was asked to do daily was to go into the back garden and pick whatever food was ripe. I was told this was the “small” garden, but it was huge! There were rows of tomatoes, cucumbers, various kinds of squash, pumpkins, celery, green beans, and much more. The big garden was in front of the house and it was a community garden. The family had allowed people from the town to plant there and harvest it themselves.

In another part of the yard there were fruit trees and vines. I’m not sure about all of the kinds of fruit they had, but the ones that were producing when I was there included grapes, pears, plums, and figs. There were so many figs! Picking fruit was another one of my daily chores. The number of figs I picked every day was mind boggling! And it was all from just two trees. Working in the gardens was my favorite chore, despite the oppressive heat. I came to northern Italy to get a break from the hot Florida summer, but when I checked the weather, I found that, on many of the days that I was there, it was hotter than it was back at home.

Some of the other chores I did included painting the radiators in the house, cleaning miscellaneous things, weeding between the cracks in the walkways, weeding the garden, scraping out old caulking from around the kitchen sink, helping to wax the tile floors of the wrap-around porch (by hand, on our knees). I only got to help in the pottery studio a few times. Once to clean and wedge the recycled clay and once to sand and clean the old wooden boards used for the background of the ceramic mosaics. Also, on my last day, Hedwige showed me how to make clay leaves by hand and assemble them into a tree.

I realized after the first day of work that my life back at home was very sedentary. I hadn’t thought it was, but the physical exhaustion I felt after only 6 hours of labor told me otherwise. When I wasn’t working or eating, I was mostly sleeping. But after about a week of this routine, the fact that my body was physically tired started to feel good in a way. It’s hard to describe, but maybe in some way I felt a little more alive.

Italian Workaway #1: Days Off

Although I was only supposed to work 5 days a week, I really only took 2 complete days off over the 14 days. On the 2 Sunday’s that I was there, I just worked a little in the garden and picked fruit, but overall I took it pretty easy. But on the days I was completely off work I wanted to do some sightseeing. My first choice of things to see was some of the “lake country”. The house was only about a 30 minute drive to both Lake Garda and Lake Iseo. (Not that I had a car, but it was clearly a short distance.) After getting advice from Maurizio and doing much research, I decided to go to Lake Iseo because the lake was smaller and therefore it would be easier to see more of it in a day. Also, there was a train that ran up along the entire east side of Lake Iseo. My plan was to take a bus to Brescia, then the train up to Pisogne, then a ferry to Lovere then a ferry to Monte Isola (an island in the lake) where I would then take a walk across the island and then catch a ferry the brief distance to Sulzano where I would get the train the back to Brescia and the bus back to Cellatica. I checked all of the bus, train and ferry schedules to make sure it could be done in one day. What could possibly go wrong?! Unfortunately, I found out. It’s such a long story, that I’m creating a separate article about it called “Your a Meticulous Planner – What Could Possibly Go Wrong!” Although I never made it to the north end of the lake, despite everything that went wrong, I did manage to walk around Monte Isola and take in some awesome scenery.

On my other day off I did something nice and easy – I explored the city of Brescia. It was easy because it was just a direct 30 minute bus ride away, and I had already taken that bus the day I arrived. I decided to walk through the older part of town to the Brescia Castle. The first thing that struck me as I walked through town was the lack of tourists. The Italian cities I had visited in the past were tourist destinations, but, for the most part, Brescia was not. I thoroughly enjoyed taking in a “real” Italian small city. At some point during the day it dawned on me that I really loved traveling alone (although I would have preferred my dog to be with me). I did whatever I wanted at my own speed, not having to worry about what a travel partner was thinking; it felt very liberating!

I walked through the historic part of the city on my way to the city’s medieval castle, Castello di Brescia. One of the most interesting things I found in Brescia was that their 17th century cathedral was built next to their medieval cathedral, which is still standing. This is unusual to find since it was common for the old one to be torn down to build the new one.

The old cathedral (12th century) and the new cathedral (17th century) of Brescia sitting side by side. (Photo courtesy of Wolfgang Moroder.)

Italian Workaway #1 - Observations and Takeaways

So, after 2 weeks in Cellatica, I considered what I observed and learned from this cultural exchange.

Food is very important. Eating together is an essential part of daily life. Meals are to be shared and not taken in a hurry. The food is fresh (preferably from the garden) and simple. Most of the family was vegetarian, so typically meals included a selection of vegetables sauteed with fresh herbs, a starch (pasta, rice, polenta, and/or bread, sometimes a salad, and always fresh tomatoes and cucumbers for eating whole. Occasionally there was a sweet dessert after dinner, but there were always fresh fruits, and occasionally homemade gelato (peach or fig) made from fruit picked in the yard and frozen.

You don’t need to speak the same language to communicate. I was a bit nervous coming into this workaway after being told that Maurizio didn’t want to speak English, but in reality he tried to speak to me in English and I tried to speak to him in Italian. And with the added guests in the house there was a lot of translating going on and always hand gestures being flung about. There was only one instance when a gross miscommunication occurred. I had asked Hedwige how long ago her mother had passed away. Well, for some reason, she thought I was asking when her mother-in-law was going to die. That made for an awkward few minutes until she realized what I was actually saying, and then we had a good laugh!

Natural products are best. Edwige made her own hand soap, cleaning detergents, and laundry detergents. Chemicals were avoided at all costs.
There were no strangers; everyone was a welcomed guest. I have a hard time imagining most people in the United States being so willing to welcome strangers into their home, let alone foreigners who may not speak English. And it really impressed me that the family shared their land (the big garden) to allow people who lived in town to grow their own vegetables as a community.
There was almost no TV and very little computer use. The only person in the house I saw watching television was the grandmother who was not mobile. And it appeared that smart phones and computers were mainly used to communicate or look things up.
I have a very easy life! As much as I love the idea of growing my own food, having a large property, being involved in the community, and living more naturally; this experience opened my eyes to how much work is involved in sustaining that kind of lifestyle. I would like to do more of this but on a much smaller scale.

As it was time to say goodbye, I was a bit emotional. I felt that I really made a connection with Hedwige and Maurizio and I would miss them.

Although the original plan was to go directly from my first workaway to the second one, I decided instead to spend one day and night in the city of Bergamo, which was on the way.

It was an easy train ride from Brescia to Bergamo, and I got an apartment near the train station for one night on Booking.com that allowed a 2pm check-in. So, after checking in, I immediately headed up to the old part of the city, which is walled and sits atop a hill. I walked up the main road heading toward the city where there is a funicular that takes you up into the center.

Once I was up in the old city, I just wandered around taking in the sights. I noticed shops selling focaccia loaded with different toppings, and I treated myself to some gelato. Bergamo is known for stracciatella gelato which was invented there, so I felt the need to try it. Honestly, I found it boring. It was just cream with specks of shaved chocolate. It occurred to me that vanilla gelato isn’t common in Italy. Their “plain” gelato is simply the flavor of cream.

After wandering around for a while, I took another funicular up to the remains of an ancient castle, Torre Castello San Vigilio where I found sweeping views of the city.

As I was trying to get back to the apartment before dark, I took a bus back, but got off a few blocks early to grab a bite to eat. After being in a vegetarian household for 2 weeks, I chose to get a big juicy hamburger instead of the requisite Italian food. By the time I walked back to my apartment it had just gotten dark, and as soon as I moved off the main street I started feeling a little uncomfortable. And when I got to my street I found about a dozen young men just hanging out, some drinking out of paper bags. No one bothered me, but it was pretty unnerving. I was later told by an acquaintence that the area around the train station was not a good part of town. I thought I was being smart staying there because it was so convenient (just 5 minute walk to the station), but I’ll be more careful next time and be sure to research any neighborhood where I intend to stay.

Italian Workaway #2: Introduction & Routine

I left bright and early the next morning to head to my next workaway. After changing trains twice, I made it to the Ivrea train station where I was picked up by next host, Renza. Renza was very friendly and welcoming and her English was better than I had been used to hearing for the previous 2 weeks. It was just a few minutes drive to her home where I met her husband Gianni. Their home was completely different from my first workaway. It was a small 3 bedroom attached home, with contemporary furniture. Their yard and vegetable garden were small, but their home was an end unit so that gave them some extra room. One of the nicest features of the house was a big glassed in porch that offered beautiful views.

The first thing that my new hosts did on the day I arrived was to sit me down and ask me what my expectations were. Well, after having just completed my first workaway I was expecting something similar, so I said that I assumed that they would give me a list of what they wanted me to accomplish. After some back and forth and moments of awkwardness I realized that they wanted to know what I was hoping to get out of the experience. I don’t recall what my answer was, but after that we just started chatting and everyone relaxed.

Renza and Gianni both worked, but they were still home quite often. Renza worked flexible hours, and Gianni worked for a company in Turin (about 1 hour away), but he was able to work from home 4 days a week. As was the case with my first workaway, meals were always shared. And here, all three meals were eaten together, even breakfast. In the evenings when we were all at home, we sometimes played cards. The last night I was there they had a “barbeque” at their house with about 14 people. (I’ll talk a little bit about that below when discussing observations.) One night they also took me out with a few of their friends to an “aperitivo”. In Italy an “aperitivo” is like a happy hour, where drinks are discounted, but some bars offered free appetizers with the drinks. Of course, my hosts knew where to go, so the bar they took me to had a nice spread.

Italian Workaway #2: The Work

The ad for this workaway had said that they wanted to practice their English and some help in the garden. But in reality, they just wanted to spend time with me speaking in English. I had to nag them to give me actual work to do. They didn’t even need me to clean because they had a cleaning lady. However, I did force the issue and got to do some weeding, trimming, and picking nuts out of the gravel driveway.

I also wanted to cook for them at least once or twice, but that was a bit tricky because I had trouble finding the ingredients to the recipes I wanted to make. They mentioned that they liked Latin food but their friend who cooked Latin for them made complicated dishes that they didn’t want to go through the trouble of replicating. So, I thought of one of my go-to Latin recipes that is so easy and everyone likes it – chicken chili. Renza took me to the largest grocery store in their town so I could buy the ingredients, and then dropped me off at a second grocery store, but the Latin section in both stores pretty much consisted of just tomato salsa and tortillas. I couldn’t find green chilies, salsa verde, or even coriander! But I saw that there was a Latin grocery in Turin and I knew I was going there on my day off, so I held out hope to get the ingredients there. Meanwhile, I wanted to cook something else for them, so I headed to the can soup aisle for some cream soup that I use to make chicken and stuffing – another easy dish. I couldn’t find the canned soup so I asked someone “Dov’è la zuppa?” Unfortunately, I didn’t know the Italian word for “canned” so I was directed to the refrigerated soup section. So, I called Renza and asked her where I could find the canned soup. She seemed confused and asked what kind of soup I was looking for, I told her a “cream soup”. She then informed me there were no canned soups. “If we want soup, we just make it.”

I gave up on making them anything easy because, apparently, easy ingredients don’t exist in your average Italian grocery store. Except, of course, there was a whole aisle of boxed pasta. But I wasn’t going to make pasta for my Italian hosts, and certainly not boxed pasta! I eventually settled on making a dish that I considered to be Italian – chicken & wine with olives. There were a lot of ingredients, so it wasn’t a quick and easy meal, but at least I could find the ingredients. (Except there was no “Italian Seasoning” I just had to mix the individual spices together.) I made this meal for my hosts one night; they liked it but Gianni commented he could tell it was American. Huh? I was baffled by that at first, but in hindsight, I think it was because the dish was complicated and had a lot of different vegetables in it. I think it wasn’t as simple as Gianni was used to.

So, back to my main task… helping Renza and Gianni with their English. I tried to give them some sayings that they wouldn’t typically learn from a class or an app. Over the course of the week, I tought them sayings like, “it is what it is”, “what’s done is done”, “twist my arm”, “up-side down”, and “right side up”. I also corrected them sometimes, although I was careful not to do that too much. Although they really wanted to work on their English, they did encourage me to practice a little Italian, which I did rather poorly.

One day I accompanied Renza to visit her parents. I sat with her mother in the living room while Renza visited her father in his bedroom. Renza’s mother didn’t know any English, so that made conversation a bit difficult. I mostly nodded and smiled while she talked, or nodded and looked sad if her mother’s tone warranted it. I was actually able to understand a little. She asked me where I was from, which I answered in Italian. Then I thought she asked me how long I was staying with Renza, so I responded “due settimane” which means two weeks. After that she kept complimenting me on how great my Italian was. It wasn’t until the drive home, when I replayed the conversation in my head, that I realized what she had acually asked me was how long I had been studying Italian?! Well, that explains why she thought I spoke Italian so well. I don’t think she would have been nearly as impressed if I had told her that I had been studying on and off for about 35 years!

Italian Workaway #2: My Day Off

I was only with this host for 10 days, so I figured one day of sight-seeing was plenty. Besides, I was still recovering from the exhaustion of the prior two weeks. Since Gianni goes to work in Turin on Mondays, he graciously offered to take me into the city in the morning and pick me up after he got off work. I did a little research and decided to visit the National Cinema Museum inside the Mole Antonelliana which is a historic building with an elevator that takes you up to a tower with panoramic views. The inside of the building was really cool looking, and I enjoyed both the museum and the views. The museum contained a lot of paraphernalia from what was mostly Hollywood movies, as well as some oddities such as the theater room with toilets as the seats.

After visiting the museum, I walked down one of the main streets in the city toward the waterfront along the River Po, and then my plan was to walk about 20 minutes out of the way to go to the Latin grocery store to get the ingredients for chicken chili. Some of the main streets have porticos over the sidewalks which helped give the city a grand feel. The views on the river were very pretty and much greener than I expected.

As planned, I made my way to the Latin market. But I was quite disappointed to find this sign on the door. Unfortunately, It was only September 2nd, and apparently the owners had not yet returned from their summer vacation. There would be no chicken chili!

Italian Workaway #2: Observations & Takeaways

I had a great time staying with Renza and Gianni. Here are some of my observations from the visit.

Italian food is simple and meals do not need to be complicated. When I say the food is simple, I mean that they tend not to add a lot of different ingredients. I learned that simple can still be delicious. One thing I noticed in the houses where I stayed, as well as restaurants and grocery stores, is that salad dressings aren’t really a thing. Instead, they simply use olive oil, and vinegar or lemon. Also, their meals don’t have to follow any rules. For me, I always felt that a meal has to be thought out and the ingredients have to work together. In Italy, they would often just pull things out of the refrigerator and put them on the table. If they need more food on the table, they can always put out some cheese, or tomatoes, or olives. Maybe this is why Americans eat too much pre-made and fast food; we make meal planning too complicated.

The reputation that Italians have of being passionate when they talk is very true. As an Italian-American I really already knew this from my own family, but it was nice to see and confirm in Italy that it is perfectly normal (i.e., not rude) to be loud and argumentative. (I hope my husband believes me now.) When my hosts had a gathering at their house, I sat back and really enjoyed listening to the lively and animated conversations, even when I couldn’t understand much of it.

Italian gatherings aren’t much different than American ones (except maybe louder). When Renza and Gianni had their friends over for a barbeque, I noticed the similarities to a typical American gathering. The host provides the main course and everyone brings something to share. The closest friends of the host help in the kitchen. And most notably, the men all gather around the grill drinking beer!

Hand gestures really are an important part of communicating for Italians. I’ve always talked with my hands, but I hadn’t realized that in Italy, most all hand gestures have meanings which are used universally. My hosts showed me a book that their American friends had given them. It’s called “Speak Italian : The Fine Art of the Gesture“*. What amused me about it the most was that the book wasn’t meant to be funny – it was a serious book about how to interpret and make Italian hand gestures! This little book got passed around at the BBQ gathering and Renza and Gianni’s friends critiqued whether they thought it was correct. With just one exception, they agreed with the book’s translation of hand gestures. The book made for good dinner party conversation.

The Italian language has an unusally large number of words that relate to food and sex. For example, when helping Renza in the kitchen, she was asking me to clean some vegetables in preparation for cooking (“mondare” in Italian) and she wanted to know what the English word was for that. I said “wash” or “clean”. But that wasn’t what she was looking for, she wanted to know the word that means specifically to clean/peel vegetables. She was surprised to learn that there isn’t one. Other examples include “scarpetta” which means to mop up the remaining sauce on your plate with a piece of bread, and “culaccino” which refers to the wet mark left on a table from a cold glass. Regarding Italian words related to sex that don’t have a direct English translation… I’ll leave that to the reader to research.

The night of the party was my last in Ivrea. I was sad to leave Renza and Gianni; I really felt that I had made new friends. The next morning they took me to a bus stop to catch a bus to the Milan airport where I met my sister-in-law who had just flown in from Massachusettes. I spent another 10 days in Italy with her being tourists. But that’s another story. Although I do still like to see the sights, doing these two workaways was the true cultural immersion that I was hoping for!

Epilogue:

I had really hoped to stay in touch with my Italian host families and, so far, I’ve accomplished that. In fact, my husband, Mark, and I visited my new friends 9 months later (May 2025) while traveling through Northern Italy.

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Celebrity Apex 7 Day Cruise of Norway

Cathy Laurenzi — Mon, 19 May 2025 15:16:44 +0000

The Travel Sage

Celebrity Apex 7 Day Cruise of Norway

Heads Up: This page includes one affiliate link, which is marked by an astrick “*”. If you click and purchase, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. But rest assured – my opinions are my own, I would never recommend something I haven’t or wouldn’t purchase for myself.

Cruising the Norwegian fjords has been on my bucket list for as long as I can remember, but it kept getting put on the back burner untiI in July 2024 when a friend told me that she heard that Norway was banning cruise ships from entering some of the fjords effective January 1st, 2026. I immediately did some research and found that she was correct – beginning in 2026, all cruise ships would be banned from the Unesco-designated fjords unless they were zero emissions vessels. Well, since currently there are no zero emission cruise ships, I decided to book a Norwegian cruise for 2025. I learned that the stops of Flam and Geiranger were both in Unesco fjords, so I booked a cruise that included both of them on the Celebrity Apex, May 10th, 2025. The good news for future travellers is that in late 2024, Norway changed its mind and prostoned the ban until 2032. So it’s not too late for you to see these magical places!

Our itinerary was as follows:

Sat, May 10
Sun, May 11
Mon, May 12
Tue, May 13
Wed, May 14
Thu, May 15
Fri, May 16
Sat, May 17

Southampton, England
At Sea
Nordfjord, Norway
Flåm, Norway
Geiranger, Norway
At Sea
Zeebrugge (Bruges), Belgium
Southampton, England

Depart 4:00pm

1:30pm to 7:30pm
8:00am to 4:00pm
8:00am to 4:00pm

10:00am to 5:00pm
Arrive 6:00am

——- Leaving out of Southhampton, England, our itinerary included: Nordfjord, Flåm, and Geiranger in Norway; Zeebrugge, Begium; and 2 days at sea. ——-

Celebrity’s Apex is one of their newer Edge Class ships, and this was my first time aboard one of these ships. I was immediately impressed with the contemporary decor, and when finding our way to our room, it felt more like a hotel than a ship. I booked one of their new style of “veranda” cabins. The veranda can either be an extension of the room or if you close the folding doors and put down the massive window it would then feel more like a traditional balcony. Overall I enjoyed this design, but it definitely has it’s pros and cons.

My husband, Mark, and I took this cruise with my nephew, Will, and his girlfriend, Ia. Of course, the first thing that we all did when we got onboard was to drop our bags in the room and head straight for the buffet. And the buffet did not disappoint! I’ve been on a lot of cruise ships, and the Apex’s buffet is my favorite to date. Not only was the food consistently great with a huge selection, the size and layout of the food stations keeps you from almost never having to wait in line for food (except, of course, for the desserts and ice cream). In addition to that, the tall ceilings gave the space a much more open and contemporary feel.

We spent much of the afternoon napping and unpacking, but I managed to find some time to explore the ship.

Our first full day was at sea. Mark and I headed out of the cabin to explore the entire ship deck by deck; but we got stuck on deck 5 when we wandered into a Captain’s Club welcome gathering. (Anyone who has sailed with Celebrity before is in the Captain’s Club and that included us.) You don’t want to miss these types of events because they always include free drinks. (And we really needed the free drinks with the ridiculously high prices on the Apex.) We had received an invitation to the party but didn’t see it beforehand. This gathering was held in The Eden, which is an absolultely beautiful, multi-level space with all kinds of seating arrangements.

That night while we were at sea, we went to the first big show of the cruise, called Crystallize. I can’t say that I understood the whole crystal theme, but the performers did a great job.

The following day was our first port – Nordfjordeid, and our first venture into the fjords. Two years ago I had traveled into Milford Sound in New Zealand, and I was hoping the Norweigan fjords would compare favorably to that incredible experience. I got up early that day in anticipation of seeing some dramatic sights as we entered the fjord, but it wasn’t exactly what I had imagined. Yes, it was beautiful, but it wasn’t very dramatic.

The port of Nordfjodeid was quite small with not much to offer. From what I gathered, this port is not frequented by cruise ships nearly as much as other ports in the area. The town of Olden which is deeper into Nordfjord, seems to be a better stop with a lot more options. We opted to check out the Viking Museum. The museum features a replica of the largest Viking ship ever discovered. Although the museum was quite small, it provided a decent amount of information, but I felt that it lacked information about the viking ships and life at sea. Anyway, it was a nice enough visit but I’m not sure it was worth the $20 per person we paid for it. We spent the rest of our time in port, wandering through town, and of course the guys had to stop to try some Norwegian beers.

Our ship was in port until 8pm that night, but we were back on the ship by around 5pm. I made sure to get up early again the next morning, because we were traveling into a another fjord (Sognefjord) on our way to Flam. Well, this fjord was better than I had imagined! It got light very early, and when I woke up before my alarm went off, my view out the window while lying in bed was a rock wall. It was every bit as spectacular as Milford Sound in New Zealand. And it is a much longer fjord than in New Zealand which meant we got many hours of spectacular scenery both on our way in and on our way out.

Most passengers were sleeping through the incredible scenery.

We had booked the scenic train in Flåm that goes to the little mountain stop of Myrdal and back. If you ever do this, be sure to sit on the side of the train that you board from. The best views are from that side, and we made the mistake of sitting on the opposite side. Although we did have some nice views, they weren’t nearly as spectacular as on the other side of the train. The train makes two brief stops on the way to Myrdal, including one to view a gushing waterfall up close.

We were even treated to a surprise performance at the falls which really made the scenery more special.

Sailing out of Sognefjord was just as spectacular as sailing in.

The following day was our last stop in Norway – Geiranger. I had heard that this fjord was the best one, and it did not disappoint! We saw hours of amazing scenery passing by so close it was difficult to get photos. Luckily, our phones can take wide-angle shots. I was surprised at the huge number of waterfalls found throughout the Geirangerfjord. The first 2 photos depict the Seven Sisters Waterfall and the Suitor Waterfall which are directly across the fjord from each other.

For Geiranger we had booked a minibus tour to a view point called Dalsnibba through Get Your Guide. This place is closed in winter and apparently was not supposed to be open yet (it was May 14th), but it opened for the day because there was a cruise ship in town. Well, I can see why it isn’t open in the winter. As the road climbed up the mountain, our green surroundings turned into a snowy wonderland. From the town and the ship you could see that there was some snow on the mountain tops, but we were shocked at home much snow! I was also quite surprised to see that a few people had rented tiny electric vehicles (with no side windows) and drove them the 45+ minute drive up to the peak in below freezing temperatures.

It was freezing at the top but the views were spectacular!

I snapped tons of photos on the way back down the narrow winding road, all the while fearing for my life as our driver/guide was turning around to talk to us and constantly gesturing with his hands!

We made 2 brief stops on the way down to take photos, and then our driver offered to drop us of at the visitor center which was a little above the town. We were so glad we took him up on that offer, because the walk back to town from that point followed a gushing waterfall and offered great viewpoints.

Once we reached town Mark and Will had to stop for more local beer, while Ia and I did a little shopping. Then I hurried back on board for lunch in the buffet and to squeeze in a nap before we headed back out of the fjord – I didn’t want to miss the scenery. The following day was a day at sea. We mostly just chilled out, but of course I had to make time for some serious family board game competition!

After a day at sea, we arrived at our last port, Zeebrugge, Belgium. The city of Bruges has been on my bucket list for quite some time, and the port of Zeebrugge is only a 30 minute drive away. So I used Viator to pre-book us a roundrip shuttle from the port into Bruges*. (And I’m glad I did because I paid $35 per person, and Celebrity charged $75 per person to drop people off at the same location.) Anyhow, I loved Bruges even more than I expected to! Unfortunately, we only had a few hours in the city, so we booked a free historical walking tour with Legends of Bruges.

One of the things that we learned on our tour was that there are over 1,500 kinds of beer brewed in Begium, and Belgians take beer drinking very seriously. Every beer must be consumed in the properly shaped glass for that beer. If fact, just to be sure you don’t make a mistake, each type of beer has a coordinating glass with its label on it. It was this beer culture that immediately convinced Mark and Will that they had to come back to Belgium!

In addition to beer, Belgium is known for its waffles and, more importantly, its chocolate. Before shopping for chocolate, we made a pit stop at the House of Waffles which, according to our tour guide, had the best waffles in town. The entire menu was made up of beer and waffles. Mark opted for the savory Americana waffle which was essentially a BLT plus egg between two waffles. I opted for a sweet waffle with ice cream and caramel. And for those who wanted to take waffles home, next door was a very posh Waffle Boutique.

After completing the waffle experience, we only had a short time to shop for chocolate before we had to hurry to catch the last shuttle back to the ship. Thankfully, Celebrity had a wonderful surprise in store for us for the last night of our cruise. One of the stations in the buffet, was converted into a belgium chocolate smorgasbord!

For me, that chocolate was the perfect ending to an awesome cruise!

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Ha Long Bay Shore Excursion that Avoids the Crowds

Cathy Laurenzi — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 08:57:26 +0000

The Travel Sage

Ha Long Bay Shore Excursion that Avoids the Crowds

Ha Long Bay has been on my bucket list for quite some time. This was the first tour I booked after making the cruise reservations, and my primary objective was to appreciate the unique rock formations in the bay. From the photos, Ha Long Bay seemed like a magical place that could be peaceful under the right circumstances. Unfortunately, the bay has become a popular tourist destination so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to see it without crowds of people. In order to increase my chances, instead of getting on a group tour boat, I opted to book a private tour through Tours by Locals. I couldn’t have been happier with my choice; I was able to enjoy the bay in all its glory! But allow me to start at the beginning of the shore excursion.

The plan was for our tour guide to pick up Me, Mark, and our nephew, Will, at the port gate. Unfortunately Mark had a bad head cold and decided not to join us. I felt very bad for him; I wouldn’t have missed seeing Ha Long Bay even if I had to be carried on a stretcher! Anyway, our guide, “Steve”, arranged our tour so that we wouldn’t get to our boat until the afternoon. He said that the mornings were the busiest times on the bay. A typical tour included a tour of Ha Long city, but I opted to see more of the countryside instead. Our first stop was to Yen Duc village. Steve (his name was really Hoang) said it was a typical newer Vietnamese village.

Our first stop in the village was to walk along a narrow road that ran through rice fields. We stopped to watch the women working in the mud. The woman in the photo below is planting young rice plants. This is clearly dirty, back-breaking work.

The woman in this photo is pulling up plants that were damaged by the cold weather.

Scooters are the primary mode of transportation here. It appears to be how all of the workers get to the rice fields.

After the rice fields we walked across the street to a neighborhood. The homes here seemed rather large and nice with a front gate and a paved or tiled front “yard”. We noticed that most of the homes we passed had glass shards stuck on top of their courtyard walls. I asked Steve about this and he said it was to keep the children from climbing up the walls and picking the fruit. But I am a little skeptical of that explanation given many of the homes didn’t have fruit trees in their front yard. I’m not sure where the more modest homes were hidden.

We continued to walk through the streets until we came to the village’s temple. The complex of buildings and gardens were very pretty and peaceful.

On our way to the village we had passed by a cemetery and I asked our guide if we could stop there on the way back; he kindly obliged. I always try to visit a cemetery when traveling to a new country. I think it’s very interesting how different countries honor their dead in different ways. The section of the cemetery we visited was fairly new. The tombstones were mostly made out of marble, and I found it odd that the ground in between the tombs was concrete instead of grass. But the most interesting part of the stop was Steve’s telling of a Vietnamese tradition. Apparently, they bury their dead in a regular coffin and then after the appropriate time has passed for the body to decompose, the family holds a midnight ceremony where they raise the coffin. He said that they remove the bones, wash them and then put them in a smaller coffin and bury them in their final resting place.

We made one more stop before heading to our boat in Ha Long Bay. We visited a place where saltwater pearls are farmed and processed. It was quite interesting. They use a Japanese technique to get perfectly round pearls. It involves taking imperfect pearls and grinding them down to make tiny round pearls, they then implant those pearls into other oysters to create a larger round pearl. I didn’t completely understand the process involved with preparing the tiny pearl to be implanted, but it involved the use of other parts of the donor oyster (first photo). Once the tiny pearl is implanted into a particular part of the live oyster (second photo), it is put back onto a rack (third photo) and placed back into the bay. We were told there is only about a 30% success rate in getting a round pearl from this tedious process.

After the tour we were ushered into a huge jewelry showroom. I had no intention of buying anything, but I caved and bought myself a necklace. It caught my eye and the idea of having pearls harvested from Ha Long Bay really appealed to me. After spending too much money, we headed to the main event of the day – our cruise of Ha Long Bay!

I knew we were going to have a private boat and a seafood lunch, but both Will and I imagined a small motor boat and a picnic style lunch. So we were a little taken aback when we were shown to our tour boat that was large enough for 48 passengers and had a full kitchen onboard!

Around 10 minutes after we boarded they started bringing out the food. And it kept coming and coming until there were 10 different dishes. I had a difficult time eating because I couldn’t stop looking at (and photographing) the scenery.

As we were traveling through the bay, our guide pointed out some of the more famous rock formations. One of them is found on the back of their 200,000 bill. (That equals about $9US.)

Another famous rock formation is called the Rooster and the Hen, but our guide liked to call it the “kissing chickens”. I just don’t see it.

It didn’t take long for us to arrive at our first destination – a floating village. Well, that is what our guide called it. At one time it was quite large and many fisherman lived there. But when tourism became very prevalent in the bay, the government relocated the fisherman. The “floating village” is now just a base from which to get into a kayak or row boat, along with a store. Will and I opted to take the easy route and had a very friendly Vietnamese women row us around.

She rowed us into an opening in the rocks and that lead to a pool of water completely surrounded by tall rock formations. We were told that this is where the fisherman go with their boats to get protection from the wind during a typhoon.

We felt so fortunate that we had this beautiful, peaceful place to ourselves. It wasn’t until we were leaving that other row boats started coming in.

After leaving that protected area we were rowed a little ways into the opening of another rock formation. This entrance was shaped like the bat cave and the area on the other side wasn’t enclosed.

Can you see the cat in the photo below?

Again we were fortunate to be able to enjoy the quiet and solitude. Next we headed back to the floating village to rejoin our boat.

Back on our boat, we sailed past more beautiful, peaceful scenery as we headed to our next destination – caves.

I knew that our tour included caves, but I really didn’t know what to expect. For some reason I had the idea that we’d be taking the rowboat through some small caves. So, both Will and I were surprised, and in awe, when we docked and were walked into a cave that rivals the magnificence of Carlsbad Caverns in the U.S. It’s name is Heavenly Palace Cave (Hang Thien Cung in Vietnamese). It was really hard to capture the essence of it in a photograph. Some of the stalactites and stalagmites were incredibly massive. Our guide said that they were estimated to be as old as the rock formations in the bay which are approximately 500 million years old. I thought the ceilings were very cool with their white, circular indentations that looked like puffy clouds in the sky. In the photo below, can you spot the “window” into the next room?

After we exited the first cave we could see the boats docked below. At that point there were quite a few tour boats there, but still we saw very few people. I think we managed to stay just a few minutes ahead of them.

From there we walked a short distance into another cave called Ba Hang. This one was also very impressive but smaller than the first one and it had a much larger entrance which let in a lot of natural light.

The second cave was the last stop on our cruise tour. We enjoyed the ride back to the harbor from the top deck of our boat. Then from the harbor we were driven back to our cruise ship, the m.s. Westerdam.

That night onboard our cruise ship we had a nice view from our balcony. I’m so happy to have had the opportunity to visit this magical place and check it off my bucket list!

My Impressions of the Ha Long Bay Area and our Excursion

Despite dreary weather, the visit to Ha Long Bay was one of the highlights of my 28-night cruise. The two biggest pleasant surprises of the day were 1) being able to enjoy the bay without crowds of people, and 2) the magnificent caves! And despite spending too much money, I’ll also glad we went to the pearl farm; it was really interesting. The visit to Yen Duc village was okay, but I would have been happy to skip it. I realized after-the-fact that a lot of tours visit this particular village. So even though there isn’t much there, it’s almost like this village is maintained to be what the Vietnamese want us to think is a typical village. This might explain why the locals were overly friendly. Everyone, including workers in the street, were sure to smile, wave and say “hello” to us. One other thing I found amusing was that a lot of the Vietnamese people, especially the tour guides waiting to pick up people at the port in the morning, were bundled up in heavy winter coats. Will and I were wearing shorts – the temperature was in the upper 60’s and low 70’s!

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The Best Da Nang Shore Excursion

Cathy Laurenzi — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 08:24:11 +0000

The Travel Sage

The Best Da Nang Shore Excursion

Out of all the shore excursions we took on our 28-night Holland America cruise, the consensus of our group (me, Mark and our nephew, Will) is that our tour in Da Nang was the best! We booked our guide, Hoa, through Tours by Locals. The first stop on our 12 hour tour was to see “Lady Buddha“. The 67 meter tall statue is in a beautiful setting in the complex of the Linh Ung Pagoda which offers magnificent views of Da Nang.

In the photo below, our guide explains to us that this mythical creature is called a “unicorn” because there is no actual word for it in English.

Hoa also pointed out to us that all of the statutes of dragons include a ball. This is due to the legend that every 100 years, a koi fish leaps over heaven’s gate and bites a ball off of a dragon which causes the fish to turn into a dragon. We all pointed out dragon balls for the rest of our trip through Asia! Can you spot the dragon balls below?

Next, as we drove through Da Nang toward our second destination, I asked if we could stop and take a photo of the harbor and Hoa kindly obliged. The round boats on the sand are dinghies that the fisherman use to get to and from their boats anchored in the harbor. Most of these dinghies are made out of bamboo.

We then headed south out of Da Nang to the Marble Mountains which is a cluster of five marble and limestone hills. Apparently they were once much larger in size before much of the marble was extracted. It’s my understanding that in order to preserve what remains as a tourist attraction, marble is no longer allowed to be taken from here. Before exploring the largest of the hills, we were taken to a place where marble was supposedly being carved. But what we saw appeared to be mostly just a huge store. We were told that we were going to be shown how the marble was carved, but that just entailed a woman walking us behind the stores and showing us a man crouching in front of a large piece of marble and presumably carving it by hand. That was a bit disappointing. After that we were ushered into the store. The prices were quite high so Mark and I didn’t buy anything, but it was nice to admire some of the larger marble pieces, like the bench in the next photo.

Next we explored Thuy Son Mountain, the largest of the five hills that make up the Marble Mountains. I was surprised how much there was to see there.

We were a good portion of the way up the mountain as we were seeing these sites but our guide gave us the option of “conquering the mountain”. By this he meant climb to the top. Out of the three of us, only Will conquered it!

I felt that the best part of visiting Thuy Son Mountain, was going inside the caves. There was a large network of caves and many of the rooms had natural openings in the cave ceilings that let in light. Over several hundred years, shrines and temples were built in the caves. I believe the structure in the first photo below is one of the oldest.

Below is a photo of Mark and Will having a friendly game of chess with the locals.

This buddha statue was carved into the marble in a location where the sun would hit it during a particular time of day and time of year. We were there at almost the right time as the sunlight was hitting the nearby cave wall.

After the mountain was conquered and the caves were explored, we headed out. But first I had to make a pit stop. Forgive the bathroom photo but I just had to share the fact that they made me take my shoes off to use the toilet… ewww! And while I’m talking about the bathroom, I’ll continue with a little more crudeness. Our guide, Hoa, referred to the bathroom as the “happy room”. When we asked why he said it was because sometimes you fart when you are in there and that makes you happy. At this point we really started to have fun with him!

Our next destination was the Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary which is an area of several Hindu temples that were built between the 4th and 13th centuries. This massive Unesco site consists of 350 acres plus a natural buffer area of an additional 2,273 acres. The site is so large that we had to be shuttled from the parking lot in an electric vehicle and then walked quite far along a paved path. It was a real treat coming here and getting away from the crowds. The grounds was very pretty and included mountains in the distance, streams, and lots of ponds with water lilies which were just starting to bloom.

We encountered several lizards like this one. When I first approached him he curved his very long tail all the way over his head.

But the highlight of the Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary was the ancient brick temples.

Below is a photo of our guide discussing the many phallic symbols we saw like the one in the background.

Tragically, quite a bit of damage was done on this site by bombs during the Vietnam War. The first photo below is of a bomb site where the remainder of the temple is being stabilized. You can see bomb craters in the foreground. The second photo shows bomb casings that were recovered from the area. and a wall that was bombed and partially reconstructed.

Before leaving Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary, we watched a traditional Hindu dance performance.

Our last destination for the day was the ancient town of Hội An. This well preserved town was a trading hub from the 15th to the 19th century. We arrived here at around 4pm after already having been on our tour for nearly 8 hours without a break. So, the first order of business was lunch in a local restaurant, and the meal that Hoa had arranged for us did not disappoint! We enjoyed all of the courses but the three of us agreed that our favorite was the Hoi An Crispy Pancakes, which our waitress kindly assembled for us. I’m not sure exactly what it was but it appeared to be some sort of crispy egg patty with baby shrimp in it. Our waitress put shredded vegetables on each patty and then rolled it in edible rice paper. It came with a yummy peanut sauce for dipping. Mark has never been a big fan of Vietnamese food, but after this meal he declared he might be changing his mind about it.

After the lunch break, our tour continued with a stop at one of the ancient homes that was open for touring. The first photo below is of the interior of the home with its beautiful original woodwork made from a type of iron wood. We learned that even though the town floods somewhat regularly, the dense iron wood does not get damaged. The second photo below shows the height of the water level during various floods, and the third photo is of pictures from previous floods in the town.

After leaving the house we continued our tour walking through the town. There were many shops and artisans. The first photo below shows a man carving sculptures out of bamboo roots. We have bamboo in our yard, so I might give it a try sometime. 😉

We arrived at our next destination in Hoi An which was a 300 year old assembly hall built by the Chinese where businessmen met to trade.

At this point in the day the sun was setting and the boat operators were getting ready to take the tourists out on the river. Hoi An is known for its colorful lanterns that make the town truly special, so taking a ride on the river at night is a popular way to appreciate all of the lights. In fact, as it started to get dark the streets became more and more crowded.

But we still had one more stop to make on our tour – a silk weaving demonstration. We were shown all of the stages in the process from the worms, to the cocoons, to creating the threads and weaving.

Of course, after the demonstration there was the requisite shopping. There was a shop with clothing and other textiles, but I focused on a showroom where finely detailed needlepoint artwork was hung. The larger pieces (16X20 inch or more) were so detailed they looked like paintings. But we opted to purchase a small one.

By the time we left the textile shop it was completely dark. The agreement we had with the tour operator was for them to leave us in Hoi An so we could experience it at night and then we’d take a cab back to our ship in Da Nang. But I never imagined that our tour that started at 8:30am wouldn’t finish until after 7pm! Since we were exhausted, we asked Hoa if we could just snap a few photos of the lights and then have them take us back to the ship. Hoa and our driver were kind enough to agree. So that ended our whirlwind tour of the Da Nang, Vietnam area. This excursion and the one we took two days later in Ha Long Bay were my two favorite stops on the entire 4 week cruise!

FYI, if you are traveling to other parts of Vietnam, Hoa recommends checking out Culture Pham Travel company for some of the best Vietnam tours.

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Bangkok and Ayutthaya, Thailand

Cathy Laurenzi — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:44:16 +0000

The Travel Sage

Bangkok and Ayutthaya, Thailand

Heads Up: This page includes a couple affiliate links, which are marked by “*’s”. If you click and purchase, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. But rest assured – my opinions are my own, I would never recommend something I haven’t or wouldn’t purchase for myself.

It was an exhausting, but incredible fun, series of tours that we took while our ship was docked in Laem Chabang, Thailand for one and a half days. This port is about two hours from Bangkok and we had to be back on board by 2:30pm on the second day, so in order to make the most of our time there, we stayed overnight in Bangkok. Our excursion started with a private, personalized tour for me, Mark, and our nephew, Will through the company Thai Tour Guide. We were assigned our tour guide when we booked the tour; her name was Ms. Pookie. The name made me imagine a much older woman than she was. Lol

Ms. Pookie escorted us to a nice, comfortable van with plenty of room to stretch out. She gave us a bit of Thailand (formerly known as Siam) history as the driver drove the 2 1/2 hours north to Ayutthaya. Ayutthaya was founded in 1350 and was the capital of Siam until it was attacked and burned by the Burmese in 1767. We toured several of the archeological sites there.

Despite knowing that I would need to have my shoulders covered when going into temples, I wore a sleeveless top since it was going to be hot and we were only visiting ruins that day. Well, it turns out the ruins of temples are still temples, hence the need to turn my blue jacket into a cape.

This area was once covered by a portico that surrounded the grand temple. You can see the remnants of the pillars that once held up the roof. All of the buddha statues are lining the walkway to guard the temple. I was standing on a walkway on the grand temple when I took the first photo below.

We visited several archeological sites within Ayutthaya but currently only one of those areas is a Unesco World Heritage site. Once declared a World Heritage property, the site must be kept as it is found, it cannot be restored, only maintained as is. So it wasn’t until we went to the Unesco property that we saw the damage that Western treasures hunters, with the cooperation of Thai thieves, had done to the ruins. Sadly, the buddha statues were very popular “souvenirs”, and since the statues were generally too big to easily steal, people stole just the heads.

Can you spot the buddha face below?

Can you spot the stray dog below?

Many of the structures were leaning quite a lot. You can see how much the base is compressed on one side.

Each of the three temples below was erected for a member of the royal family.

Silly tourists…

After touring several archeological sites around Ayutthaya, we stopped at a local restaurant for lunch. We were in shock at how inexpensive the food was. We got four meals, a salad and four drinks for less than $13US.

We had one more adventure before leaving Ayutthaya – a canal boat ride. On our way to the boat we passed a few elephants.

Along the canals, we saw shacks mixed in with a few nicer, newer homes. And of course we passed by many temples, some new and some old.

After the boat ride, we headed to our hotel in Bangkok, which should have taken an hour, but took 2 hours because we were caught in rush hour traffic. I had hoped to get there in time for a short nap before our night tuk tuk food tour started, but we barely had time to check into our hotel before we were headed out to meet up with our tour. Thankfully, I had the foresight to pick a hotel very close to the food tour meeting point. This food tour* was the highlight of our trip to Bangkok! Our tour guide was a very perky, animated young woman who was quite entertaining. We had 6 stops. At five of the stops we were given different traditional Thai food and at one of the stops (rooftop bar) we were given a drink and a spectacular view.

Riding in the tuk tuk’s was a little scary but a lot of fun! The video below shows a tame part of the ride – I couldn’t video during the scarier parts because I was hanging on for dear life! The tuk tuks are really only designed for 2 people, so the 3rd person sits sideways on a tiny bench with nothing behind them to keep them from falling backward into the street.

Our first stop was in a modest-looking restaurant where a spread of several different dishes awaited us to share. There was a delicious lemongrass & ginger soup (my favorite dish of the stop), a Thai papaya salad, duck, chicken, pork and sticky rice. The food was arranged by the level of spice with the spiciest at one end of the table and the least spicy at the other end. I sat on the wimpy end! I was already starting to get full by the time we left this first stop.

As we were leaving the restaurant, I noticed that a man was cooking alongside the road on top of charcoal filled pots. Some of the meat looked like what we ate. I don’t know if that was our restaurant’s grill, but a later stop made me think it was likely.

Our second stop included two dishes. One was something I didn’t quite understand – it had shrimp on top, but I didn’t catch what else was in there. Mark liked it. The other dish was coconut sticky rice sprinkled with mung beans and sliced mango. I don’t know how such a simple dish tasted so amazing! We also got a sliced rose apple that I thought was quite bland.

And then we were back on the road toward the next stop, China Town.

China Town was bustling. We sampled some street food as we walked, but I don’t really remember it – I was just focused on keeping up with the group.

Our next stop was to a restaurant (Ann Guay Tiew Kua Gai) that was awarded a Michelin star multiple times. Their signature dish is guay tiew kua gai, which is fried rice noodles with chicken, and an egg on top. It might not sound very interesting but the flavor is in the way it is cooked. We were treated to a special tour of the back alley “kitchen”, which was quite an eye-opener!

This was another no-frills eatery where we sat on benches and ate on metal tables. I’m sure there are lots of nice, tourist-class restaurants in Bangkok but that isn’t what this tour was about.

By the time I got to the bottom of my noodle bowl, I was stuffed and couldn’t quite finish it. Thankfully, our next stop (The Eagle’s Nest) was just for a drink, not more food! The five flights of stairs we had to climb was well worth the view.

It was 10:30pm when we left the bar. Our final stop was going to be at a flower market, which I thought was pretty strange for a night-time food tour. I was so exhausted I toyed with the idea of skipping the end of the tour and heading back to the hotel. But I’m glad I didn’t skip it because it was quite the experience. We were taken to an area where flower vendors lined the street. Everyone was very busy, you would have never thought that it was nearly 11pm.

After a lesson in flower folding, we walked into what seemed like a storefront, but it was actually an entrance into a huge wholesale market/warehouse that runs 24/7. For the life of me, I can’t imagine who buys all of these flowers, especially since the majority of flowers we’ve seen around town have been artificial.

Past all of the flowers, there was a section of vegetables and then some sweets. We got to try a traditional dessert on a stick made with sticky rice and coconut. I was full but I made room for dessert. But then, we went back outside and were given some meat skewers. I just had to say “no”!

That was the end of the food tour, so our tuk tuk driver dropped us off at our hotel. By the time we got to our room it was 11:30pm. And by the time we showered and got to bed, we only had about 6 1/2 hours until it was time to get up and get ready for the next tour. Our hotel* was very upscale in a central downtown Bangkok location, but the price was only $75 per night. This is less than half of what we paid for our hotel in Singapore, and breakfast was included. And the breakfast buffet was something to behold. This photo only shows part of it, but each of those chafing dishes holds something different. There were some breakfast items but more than half of the buffet was food that you would expect to find on a dinner buffet.

Ms. Pookie arrived at 8:00am to take us on a canal boat tour of Bangkok. This time we didn’t have a driver so she took us on the subway to get to our destination. The subways were very nice inside, and we were amused by the priority seating signs. Can you guess why?

Monk Fun Facts

1) In Thailand men can sign up to be a monk on a temporary basis for as few as 3 months. Our guide said that many families have their sons sign up as soon as they finish school. In Vietnam, I asked if they did the same thing and I was told no, it was a Thai thing.

2) While Thai Buddhists only have 5 rules of conduct to live by, monks have a whopping 227!

Getting on the canal boat was rather challenging. The boat was tied up to a floating dock that was along a major waterway. The dock and the boat both rocked but not in unison.

From the canal boat we saw a lot of shacks. It was amazing that most of them were actually inhabited.

However, just like in Ayutthaya, amongst the mostly poor homes, there were some very nice new homes and many temples.

We also saw a little bit of wildlife, including quite a few monitor lizards.

We stopped in a neighborhood along the way and got off the boat for a bit. There were some shops and an artist studio along the water.

Back on the boat, we passed a giant golden buddha in the distance. The shacks along the canal were quite a contrast.

We headed back toward the dock. I didn’t get a good photo of it, but these boats are powered by massive truck engines.

Our final stop on our Bangkok tour was Wat Pho Temple. We were getting kind of templed-out, but this royal temple complex was pretty darn impressive. The biggest attraction here was a massive gold reclining buddha statue. The statue is 50 feet high, 150 feet long and covered in gold leaf.

The buddha’s toes came complete with prints made out of inlaid mother of pearl.

The Wat Pho temple complex had a lot more to it than just the giant buddha. There were many shrines (like the three shown in the first photo below) that hold the ashes of members of the royal family. I was most impressed by the detailed mosaics, that were covering some of the very large structures.

After Wat Pho we practically ran back to our hotel to catch the taxi that I had arranged to take us back to the ship. After seeing how the Bangkok traffic could get gridlocked, I was pretty stressed thinking that I might have cut the timing too close getting back to the ship. But, thankfully the ride went smoothly and we were back with an hour to spare. This was our last stop in Thailand. We were off to Cambodia next.

My Impressions of the Thai People

First of all, it was pretty clear that Thai’s love food. They generally eat small meals 5 to 6 times a day and food is everywhere all the time. Ms. Pookie was telling us about their major holiday (the Thai new year in April) which is very family oriented. When I asked her if stores closed for the holiday she looked confused and said “no”. When I told her that even grocery stores close in the U.S. on Thanksgiving and Christmas, she was shocked! Her response was “how do people eat?” We told her that we just shop ahead of time, but she was still dismayed because the food wouldn’t be fresh!

The other impression of the Thai people that I got from talking to Ms. Pookie was that Thai’s are not rule followers; they are independent and like to do things their own way. When discussing religion, Ms. Pookie said that although Thai’s are Buddhist, they don’t necessarily follow all of the rules. For example, she said that since Buddhists don’t believe in god as an single entity, the Thai people pray to the gods of other religions for what they want. She giggled as she told me this. There were many times after that when I asked Ms. Pookie why they did things a certain way, she would smile and say “because we are Thai!”

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A Day in Singapore

Cathy Laurenzi — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 02:15:03 +0000

The Travel Sage

A Day in Singapore

We were supposed to have two days in Singapore, but Mark and I slept through the first one! Well, our excuse is that it was raining – a lot! Our nephew, Will, met up with us on day 2 and we headed out pretty early trying to beat the rain. When researching Singapore, it was the futuristic part of the city (Marina Bay) that really appealed to me, and that’s where most of the tourist attractions are. Singapore also has several highly rated museums, but since we were limited on time we opted to skip those (although that would have been the perfect rainy day thing to do). We arrived at Gardens by the Bay (part of Marina Bay) fairly early and walked around the grounds while waiting for some of the attractions to open. The gardens are approximately 250 acres and are filled with lush landscaping, sculptures, waterways, and some attractions that you have to pay for. The giant floating baby was pretty cool. The crane in the photo above gives you an idea of the size of this sculpture. I’d like to know how they keep it so clean and white. The next photo shows the back side. This is clearly a baby BOY.

We continued exploring by walking along the river, and then just took different paths throughout the park.

The photo below with the elephant leading a line of animals is the beginning of a sculpture which is apparently the longest in the world. Each of the animals is connected in some way. The sculpture actually wraps around the corner of a walkway. When I visited the artists’ website, I noticed that the sculpture has dates of being in Singapore from May 2023 to May 2024. So, I wonder if it will be moved after May of 2024. But moving it doesn’t seem very practical.

Our first attraction of the day was a visit to the Skypark Observation Deck on the roof of the Marina Bay Sands hotel, which is the building in the background of the previous photo. On our walk there we passed more cool sculptures and nice landscapes. There were panoramic views from the observation deck and of course Mark and Will were very happy they sold beer there.

After the observation deck, we took another scenic walk to our next destination, which was the Flower Dome.

I didn’t know exactly what to expect at the Flower Dome, other than flowers, but as it turns out, the sculptures were even more impressive. This attraction is said to the be largest glass greenhouse in the world. Some of the coolest sculptures inside were ones made out of small pieces of wood. There was a massive dragon with smoke coming out of his nose, as well as a lot of different animals.

But I think the coolest sculpture in the Flower Dome wasn’t one of the wood ones but rather the bronze sculpture pictured below. It’s called La Famille de Voyageurs (the Traveling Family). It’s not an optical illusion; the people’s midsections are missing.

After leaving the Flower Dome, we headed next door to our final attraction for the day – the Cloud Forest. Like the Flower Dome, the Cloud Forest was enclosed in glass panels, but unlike the Flower Dome, the focus was more on the overall atmosphere than on the individual sights.

After the Cloud Forest we headed back to the hotel to rest before dinner. Will needed some essentials, and I decided to do a little shopping with him. So we asked the person at the hotel desk where to go and they told us about a nearby underground shopping area. The desk clerk’s directions took us to what appeared to be a designer shopping mall – not the kind of place to find what Will was looking for. But then we noticed some stairs going down and took those. We arrived in a whole different place, one that felt a little like a basement with its low ceilings. But we were delighted that there was food everywhere we walked! And Will noticed that the exact same pastries he saw upstairs were downstairs for a quarter of the price. We felt like we had found the secret place where the locals shop! We pulled ourselves away from looking at the food long enough to find a tiny shop that just happened to have both of the things that Will needed, and he paid less than half of what he would have paid in the U.S. Of course, we didn’t make it out of the underground shopping mall without buying something to eat/drink. One thing that amused me was seeing multiple food stalls advertising “air flown” sweet potatoes from Japan.

It rained on and off all afternoon and it was predicted to rain even more in the evening. I really hoped that the forecast was wrong because Marina Bay is supposed to be beautiful at night. Well, the forecasters weren’t wrong – it poured. But below is a photo of what I would have seen if it wasn’t pouring.

Photo courtesy of Kosublog.com

Although we weren’t willing to go back to Gardens by the Bay in the rain, we did brave the rain to get some dinner. The cab driver that drove Will from the airport told him to eat at Lau Pa Sat, which the driver said was where the locals go. Well it just so happened that was where Mark and I had dinner the night before. But we were happy to go back so that Will could experience it. And it was quite an experience. It’s essentially a giant, covered open-air food court with around 70 stalls serving almost exclusively Asian food. The following photos were taken the first night we went, which was a Thursday. On the second night (Friday) it was too packed to even take photos. I must say that the experience was somewhat stressful. It was a bit of a sensory overload with so many different choices that somehow all seemed the same. But once we got our food and sat down it was kind of amusing watching other tourists walk by with their mouths hanging open looking lost and confused just like we were moments before.

In addition to the stalls within the building, when it isn’t raining they close off part of the street and have outdoor grills and additional seating.

The next morning, Will and I explored the 17th floor of the building that our hotel is in. It’s was a unique open-air park in the middle of a high-rise.

When it was time to check out of the hotel, we had the desk clerk in the lobby call a cab to take us to our cruise ship. Since there were three of us and quite a lot of luggage, we required a rather large vehicle. What arrived was an overpriced party bus. The vehicle came complete with neon lights, a refrigerator, a smoke machine, and what appeared to be dance pole for a little person. Well I guess that was a fitting send off to our next adventure – a 28 night cruise with the first stops in Thailand and ending in Tokyo. More trip reports coming soon.

My Impressions of Singapore

Singapore is a very new and clean city. The more touristy parts felt a little bit Disney-ish and were quite expensive, especially compared to neighboring countries. But I enjoyed my time there and wish that I had another day or two to explore other parts of the island.

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Picton, New Zealand – A Great Cruise Stop

Cathy Laurenzi — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 18:54:41 +0000

The Travel Sage

Picton, New Zealand – A Great Cruise Stop

One of my favorite stops on our 14 day cruise of Australia and New Zealand was Picton, NZ. This town sits on the northeastern tip of New Zealand’s south island in an area called Marlborough Sounds. Marlborough Sounds is actually made up of many individual sounds, the largest of which is Queen Charlotte Sound. The geography here is pretty unique; the coastline juts out in irregular ways forming a maze of waterways.

Mark and I and our friend Dave had two cruise excursions planned that day. The first one was a private flight over Marlborough Sounds in a small, single-engine plane. The company, Pelorus Air, offers 3 different flight options, a 20 minute flight, a 45 minute flight with a remote beach landing, and a 1 hour 15 minute flight with beach landing. We took the middle option. You can book directly on their website, but if you book the same excursion through Viator*, for essentially the same price, you don’t pay until 2 days before the flight, you can get a full refund up to 24 hours before departure, and you pay directly in U.S. dollars.

The owner of the company, Chris, who was our pilot/guide, met us at the information center in Picton, where the ship’s shuttle dropped us off. Chris drove us 10 minutes to the “Picton Airport” which was more like a landing strip with a few hangers than an actual airport.

Mark got to be co-pilot, but we all felt pretty official in our head gear.

The takeoff was smooth and we started the flight with a flyover of our ship.

The scenery was stunning and I was amazed that most of the land was uninhabited.

The white water in the photo below are rapids that are formed by tides due to the narrow channel between these two pieces of land.

We started descending as we got near our landing spot.

At first it appeared we were just going to fly into the side of the mountain, but then the strip of grass came into view. It was a smooth landing!

After landing, our pilot Chris parked the plane just over the sand dune from the beach. It turns out that the property we landed on belongs to Chris’ parents. While we explored the beach, he walked down a wooded path to visit his parents at their house. The beach was covered in smooth flat rocks and we found a few treasures.

After about 20 minutes of exploring the beach, we had another smooth takeoff. And the scenery was just as stunning on the way back.

After landing back at the tiny airport we were driven back to the Picton visitor’s center. From there we headed over to the waterfront where we picked up our next cruise excursion, a mailboat cruise*. Well, if you’ve never heard of a “mailboat cruise”, you aren’t alone, but it’s a thing in the Marlborough Sounds. Because of the geography here, many homes are hours from the nearest town by car, but maybe only 15 minutes by boat; so delivering the mail by boat makes more sense. However, people are so dispersed that it really isn’t feasible to deliver the mail by boat every day, so each location gets two deliveries a week. And to make mail delivery even more economical, they have combined it with tourism. Instead of delivering the mail in small boats, they use bigger passenger boats and provide commentary along the way. From the crowds on our boat, they are clearly making a profit – at least in summer. Our tour was about 4 hours in the afternoon (they also have a morning run/tour). I really wanted to love it, but honestly, I was kind of disappointed. I was not expecting there to be that many people and I expected more outdoor seating. The experience would have been much better if you weren’t viewing everything from inside a big room where most seats were not near a window. There was an outdoor bench in the back of the boat that seated about 6 people, but the fumes from the engine were pretty bad back there. Thankfully, I was still wearing my Covid mask, so I was able to tolerate it. The photos of the tour online show a boat with rooftop seating, but sadly ours didn’t have that. Despite my disappointment, I still enjoyed the experience. We learned quite a bit and got to see a lot of unique wildlife.

There was one drop off for each cove, and someone was always there to accept the mail and give the outgoing mail. I guess that person had to coordinate with the other people who lived in the cove.

Sometimes we were greeted by dogs.

There was one stop where we were able to get off the boat and wander around for a little while. The place we stopped was called “Ship Cove” and it was the first place that the native Maori people spent a significant amount of time with the Europeans. I enjoyed taking some wildlife photos.

I enjoyed watching the birds and taking photos. My favorite bird was the western weka. I was amazed at how this flightless bird lifted rather large rocks with it’s beak in order to get to the critters hiding underneath.

Throughout the excursion we saw wildlife – much of which I’d never seen before. But I think the highlight was seeing the Hectors Dolphins. These endangered dolphins (estimated population of 7,000) are the smallest dolphins in the world and are only found in the waters off New Zealand.

I also got to see a rare bird – New Zealand’s King Shag. One feature that distinguishes this species from other shags/cormorants is the orange swelling found in front of their eye.

There were a lot of seals to be found. Some on rocks, other hanging out around the docks hoping for some free fish.

And although it wasn’t unique to New Zealand, having Bottlenose Dolphin play in your boat’s wake is always a thrill. And I was thrilled to get a photo (with my phone) of two dolphin jumping out of the water at the same time!

After getting back to the harbor we walked along Picton’s picturesque waterfront to the ship’s shuttle bus stop. Picton made for an excellent cruise stop that I highly recommend. If I ever find myself back in New Zealand, I’d love to spend a few days in the this area.

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Holland America New Zealand Cruise

Cathy Laurenzi — Tue, 16 May 2023 20:08:02 +0000

The Travel Sage

Holland America New Zealand Cruise

Heads Up: This page includes affiliate links. If you click and purchase, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. But rest assured – my opinions are my own, I would never recommend something I haven’t or wouldn’t purchase for myself.

On February 11th, 2023 Mark and I and our friend Dave set sail on a cruise from Sydney, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand. This 14 night cruise on Holland America’s ms Noordam was set in the middle of our 5 1/2 week trip that began with a short stop in Oahu.

A few days before the cruise, while were staying in Sydney, we learned that a cyclone was headed toward the north island of New Zealand at a time when Auckland was still recovering from record flooding. I was concerned that our cruise could get canceled but thankfully the storm only resulted in two of our scheduled ports closing and a date change on another port. Luckily, the ports we missed weren’t ones I was especially excited about, and Holland America replaced one of those ports with a stop in Wellington, which is New Zealand’s capital. So other than me having to scramble to reschedule our plans around the new itinerary, all was well.

Our first full day on the ms Noordam was at sea, which was nice since it gave us a chance to rest a little and get acquainted with the ship. On our second day the ship docked in Melbourne, which would have been an awesome stop if we hadn’t just spent a week there. Ships dock in the town of Port Melbourne which is just south of downtown. We could have easily reached Melbourne on one of the shuttle buses but instead we opted just to walk around the vicinity of the ship.

The 3rd full day of our cruise was spent in Tasmania, which is an Australian island state directly south of Melbourne. The largest city in Tasmania is by far Hobart on the southeastern side of the island, but our cruise docked in Burnie which is on the northern Tasmanian coast. Options for things to do there were fairly limited, so we chose to take a day tour out of Burnie to see Cradle Mountain. There were quite a few tour operators offering day trips to Cradle Mountain, but we chose Cradle Coast Tours which we booked through Viator. We chose this particular tour because it had great reviews and a maximum of 7 passengers. Well, as it turned out, there were twice that many people on the tour and we didn’t think our guide was as wonderful as most of the reviewers did. Despite the few disappointments, we saw some beautiful scenery.

Our first tour stop was Fern Glade Platypus Reserve. We didn’t get a glimpse of any platypuses, but we did see some cute little marsupials called pademelons.

Photo taken by Ali M Saeed

We drove quite a while through the countryside before arriving at our tour’s primary destination – Table Mountain.

After Cradle Mountain, we took a stroll on a nearby trail called “Enchanted Walk”. The area was dotted with wombat dens. Unfortunately, no wombats were out and about during the middle of the day, but it was a pretty trail.

Tasmania was our last stop in Australia on this cruise. When we left port that day we set sail for New Zealand. We had 2 full days at sea while our ship crossed the Tasman Sea. I enjoy sea days because they are a chance to relax between busy sightseeing days, but my ideal cruise itinerary doesn’t have more than one sea day in a row. Thankfully, this was the only time we had multiple sea days lumped together. Mark and I spent most of our time lounging around on our balcony – him reading and me writing my travel blog.

I really like ships that have pools with retractable glass roofs. It’s a great place to relax on a sea day especially when its cold and sunny.

The ship’s captain gave a lecture about the ship’s mechanical systems. I found the information somewhat interesting but the highlight for me was his dry humor.

Early in the morning after our second day at sea we reached our first destination in New Zealand – Milford Sound! This was the place I was most looking forward to seeing in New Zealand, even though we were only cruising around the sound and not actually getting off the ship there. (However, if you have a few extra thousand dollars to spare you can take a ship’s excursion that lets you off at Milford Sound and does an overnight on land and then meets back up with the ship the next day.) It was before dawn as we approached and I headed to the ship’s bow to get a good look. My initial reaction was confusion since it looked like we were headed directly into a stone wall. But as we got closer, I could see a narrow channel opening up in front of us.

I was amazed at how narrow the channel was and how tall the fjords were that towered all around us.

Milford sound was just the first part of our day of scenic cruising. Our next destination was Doubtful Sound followed by Dusty Sound, but the views were beautiful all day – even en route to our destinations.

We spent the day going back and forth between watching the scenery from our balcony and the various decks of the ship.

After our relaxed day of scenic cruising, the next stop was Port Chalmers, which is just outside of Dunedin. We opted for a great tour that gave us a very brief overview of Dunedin and then headed out of town and into the country. That was a pretty busy day so I’m going to make a separate trip report for it (coming soon).

The following day our ship stopped in the small town of Timaru, New Zealand. There wasn’t really much to do there so we just visited the little craft festival that was going on and then walked through the city to Timaru Botanical Gardens. It wasn’t the kind of Botanical Gardens that I’m used to, it was more like a nice city park. But it was a pleasant place to walk and look for birds.

After we left the gardens we walked through the nearby cemetery because, strangely, I find cemeteries very beautiful and interesting. The cemetery was close to the coast so from there we caught a trail called Hectors’ Coastal Track, (In New Zealand they call trails “tracks”.) and headed back toward our ship.

The walk along the coast wasn’t as pretty as I had hoped and when we got off the track to get back to the ship we had to walk through a rather unpleasant industrial area. I was starting to think we would have been better off visiting the Timaru’s most popular spot instead – Caroline Bay Beach. But after we got back on the ship, I realized that the view from our balcony was looking out at Caroline Bay, the towns’ “best” beach, which was situated right next to the port. Overall, I’d say this was my least favorite port stop of the trip. However, our friend who was cruising with us, spent the day on his own in Timaru and fell in love with the little town.

The port after Tiramu, was my favorite stop of the cruise. We docked in Picton, which is on the northern tip of New Zealand’s south island – this town is located in a maze of waterways called Marlborough Sounds, which is actually made up of 3 sounds – Queen Charlotte Sound, Kenepuru Sound and Pelorus Sound.

I knew that the scenery coming into Picton was going to be spectacular so I got up before dawn that day to watch it from my balcony. I was not disappointed!

Me, Mark and our friend Dave had two excursions planned that day. The morning tour was a private flight over Marlborough Sounds in a small, single-engine plane, and it included a 20 minute stop at a remote beach. Our afternoon excursion was a “mail boat cruise“. The people who live in the more remote areas receive there mail via boat since traveling by car would to get to these places would take way too long. So, the local government had the ingenious idea to use large tourist boats to deliver the mail so that us tourists could pay for the mail service. Our day in Picton, NZ was too eventful to try to include in this already long post, so check out the separate trip report I created for our cruise stop in Picton. Below are a couple preview photos of that post.

The ship left Picton in the early evening and headed across the Cook Strait to Wellington which is New Zealand’s capital. Wellington wasn’t on our original itinerary; the stop was added when two of our scheduled ports were cancelled due to the typhoon. Luckily, Wellington was a more interesting destination than the places we missed! According to Trip Advisor, at the time of this writing, the top 3 things to do in Wellington are 1) The New Zealand Museum (Te Papa Tongarewa) 2) Zealandia Ecosanctuary and 3) the Wellington Cable Car. We had hoped to do all 3 of those things while in port. We decided to make Zealandia our priority of the day since it is a unique place; the first of its kind in the world. Zealandia is a 500+ acre fenced sanctuary that was created in order to give native animals, especially birds, a predator-free place to thrive. New Zealand, as well as Australia, has a huge problem with non-native mammals, that were brought into the country by settlers, decimating their population of birds. The birds in Zealandia are wild but they choose to stay because all of the non-native vermin have been removed from the site and are kept out by a specialized designed fence over 5 miles long.

Given that Mark and I like to bird, this place did not disappoint! And in addition to rare birds, Zealandia had some beautiful scenery.

Wellington operates a free shuttle to and from Zealandia, making it really easy to access the park. On the way there we caught the shuttle stop at Wellington’s waterfront, but on the way back we took the shuttle to the other stop which is at the top of the cable car. I had thought about taking the cable car both up and back but the line was outrageous going from the bottom up – probably due to the 2,000+ people on our ship! I’m really glad we didn’t wait in line because the cable car was a disappointment. It was a very short ride and you only got a good view for an instant. Much of the ride was underground, but at least they decorated the tunnels with lights.

After exiting the cable car it was a short walk along the waterfront to the New Zealand Museum. We didn’t have a lot of time left but we figured we’d check out a little of the museum, since it was free. Unfortunately, by the time we finished in the gift shop it was just too late to get started. It’s too bad, because we heard really great things about it. I guess this is a good reason to have to come back to Wellington.

The day after Wellington was my 20th wedding anniversary. I had planned out a fun, relaxing day in port with dinner in a nice local restaurant. But when the typhoon screwed up our itinerary, our anniversary became a day at sea. So, for something special, I made reservations for one of the ship’s specialty dining restaurants – Canaletto. The food was very good throughout the cruise, so I was primarily looking to find a restaurant with atmosphere that would feel special. Well, a few days before our anniversary, we were eating in the buffet for dinner and it dawned on me that the corner of the buffet seating that is blocked off in the evening was actually the Canaletto. That’s the opposite of the special atmosphere I had in mind.

Luckily the hostess in the main dining room was willing to reserve a window table for our anniversary, and that turned out to be a little special.

The night of our anniversary was also Noordam’s “Orange Party”. Apparently it’s a thing Holland America does because the Dutch wear orange.

At this point there were only 2 days left in the cruise – the port of Tauranga followed by a day at sea. In reality, the Port of Tauranga was in the small neighboring beach town of Mt. Maunganui. Most of the tours offered from this port took visitors to locations over an hour away. One of the most popular tours was the Hobbiton movie set tour for the Lord of the Rings fans. Most of the other tours went to the town of Rotorua and its surrounding attractions. We debated between exploring Mt. Maunganui on our own or taking a Rotorua Highlights tour which included a stop at Whakarewarewa, which is the only traditional living Maori village still in existence. I really wanted to visit the village, so the only reason for the debate was that we were spending two nights in Rotorua after the cruise and I didn’t know whether we’d have time to do everything we wanted while we were there. I’m really glad we opted to take the tour from the cruise stop, because as it turned out, I was too sick to do much of anything during our stay in Rotorua. I’ll be creating a separate trip report for this Rotorua tour, but I’ve included a couple of preview photos below.

The last day of the cruise was advertised as “scenic cruising” in the Bay of Plenty. Thankfully, I didn’t expect much so I wasn’t too disappointed when all we saw were a couple of points of interest from quite far away. But Mark managed to get a good zoomed-in photo of Whakaari / White Island which is an active marine volcano with 70% of its mass below sea level. On December 9th, 2019 a massive eruption of the volcano killed 22 people who were touring the island on foot. Land tours are no longer offered but you can take a tour that flies over White Island.

On this last day of our cruise I was coughing a lot but I figured it was just my allergies. But that night I kept waking up coughing. We were disembarking that next morning, so I took a Covid test just in case it was positive; then I could get a note from the ship’s doctor which would allow me to file a claim with my travel insurance if our travel plans got messed up. Unfortunately, it was positive, but fortunately, we were able to stay in the Airbnb’s that we had booked, and our flight home was scheduled for the first day the new CDC guidelines allowed me to travel. It was a bummer that I missed out on the activities I had planned to do on New Zealand’s north island, but I guess I was lucky I didn’t get sick sooner and have to be in quarantine on the ship.

Overall, it was a great cruise. The food was great, the ship wasn’t too crowded and we loved our cabin! It was a great way to see New Zealand.

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A Little Bit of Sydney

Cathy Laurenzi — Sat, 08 Apr 2023 18:33:04 +0000

The Travel Sage

A Little Bit of Sydney

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After Kangaroo Island, we stayed 5 nights and 4 days in Sydney. This was the third place we stayed on the trip with a full kitchen, and by this point we had our routine down – the first thing you do after you arrive is go to the grocery store and the liquor store (but not in that order)! After traveling all day, that was pretty much all we had the energy to do.

Our first full day in Sydney was actually spent outside of the city on a day tour from Sydney to see kangaroos and wombats. So that left us really only 3 days in Sydney. On our first day in the city, we walked down to the popular and historic area of called “The Rocks”. We started by visiting The Rocks Discovery Museum. It was a nice little free museum housed in a historic building with exhibits about the history of the area.5

Our next stop in The Rocks was the Lord Nelson Brewery which is the oldest pub brewery in Australia. It was Mark’s mission to try one of their award-winning beers. And what better to go with that beer then a traditional Aussie meat pie with mashed potatoes and smashed peas!

After lunch we checked out nearby Barangaroo Reserve. I’m not sure exactly what I expected but, although there were nice views, wandering around the park on our own wasn’t very interesting. Perhaps I should have signed up for an aboriginal heritage tour or a historical tour about The Rocks being a penal colony when the area was first settled.

The next destination on our walk was to see the iconic Sydney Opera house. My first impression was that it seemed smaller in person.

The harbour that the Opera House sits on is called Circular Quay. This is a major tourist hub with lots of dining options.

Although I was already exhausted at this point, we decided to walk back to our apartment through Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden.

We also walked half of the way through Hyde Park.

That was the end to a long day of walking. Rain was forecast for our 3rd day in Sydney and we decided that was a great reason to stay in and rest. Given that our entire trip was going to be over 5 weeks, we were trying to pace ourselves. For our 4th and final day in Sydney we decided to see the outskirts of town and try out their mass transportation system.

I was very impressed with the many options for getting around Sydney and the outlying area. The trains, buses and ferries all had an easy system of automatically charging riders by having them tap on and off. Unlike most major cities I’ve visited, you didn’t have to purchase and replenish a special card for your fare. You could use any credit card for the same price; you just needed to be sure to use the same card when tapping on and off. And there is a cap on how much they will charge you over a certain period of time. You can use all of the modes of transportation as much as you want and never pay more than $16.80 on a weekday, $8.40 on Saturday/Sunday/holiday, and $50 in a week. (Prices as of April 2023.)

We had thought about taking a harbour cruise or signing up for a hop on, hop off boat, but then we realized that riding the ferries would be much more economical and flexible on times. So, on our final full day in Sydney we mapped out an itinerary that ended the day with 3 ferry rides. Our day began with a train ride to Sydney’s Olympic Park which was originally created to house the 2000 Olympic games. I chose this park because I heard that it was a good birding spot with nice nature walks, but I also chose it because there was a ferry terminal at one end of the park. This allowed us to take a train there and a ferry back to downtown Sydney.

Olympic Park was massive with a lot of different sections. We tried to stay mainly along the water and in the more green parts.

We came across a couple of old ships that were grown over with trees. I looked it up and the place is called Shipwreck Lookout in Homebush Bay. However, “ship graveyard” is probably a more appropriate name since the ships didn’t actually wreck here, they were just laid to rest here.

After a very long walk through the park, we made it to the Olympic Park ferry terminal just as a ferry was pulling up. I was really impressed with the ferries. They had comfortable seating inside plus plenty of places to take in the views from out on the deck. Unfortunately, none of the other ferries we took were as empty as this one.

It was quite a long ferry ride from Olympic Park to Circular Quay in downtown Sydney, followed by a ferry to Manly Wharf. Below is a map of the ferry routes we took, starting from the left. Mark mostly slept while I snapped photos.

Look closely for the people on the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the photo below. Not only can you walk across the bridge, for a fee, you can walk over the bridge!

The photo below was taken coming in to downtown Sydney, where we switched to another ferry heading to Manly Beach.

Manly is one of Sydney’s more popular suburbs. It’s a trendy area with a relaxed vibe that is popular with surfers and sunbathers due to it’s nice long stretch of sandy beach. The ferry from downtown Sydney takes you to Manly Wharf and from there it is just a short walk to shops, cafes and Manly Beach. I thought the building murals with old headlines were pretty cool.

One of the nice things about Manly was that it had many pedestrian only streets and alleys.

This situation perplexes me a bit…

We ended our day with a ferry ride back to Sydney.

The next day we were leaving Sydney on a 14 night Holland America cruise that ended in Auckland, New Zealand. I was really looking forward to it. I love cruising and hadn’t been on one in 5 years, primarily due to the pandemic. We had some time to kill between hotel checkout and cruise check-in, so we walked around a part of Sydney we hadn’t been to yet. We walked to Darling Harbour and then crossed over the river on the Pyrmont Pedestrian Bridge.

We had beautiful weather for our ship’s departure out of Sydney Harbour. Be sure to check out our trip report of our cruise on the ms Noordam.

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