Author: travelerdonna

When one hears Madeira, it is usually wine that comes to mind, and so it is only fitting to go to the island of Madeira to get a good sampling of their wines. Madeira is an autonomous region of Portugal off the northwest coast of Africa, and the warm subtropical climate and its namesake wine…

The Azores are a Portuguese group of nine volcanic islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The largest island is Sao Miguel and the capital is Ponta Delgado, where we stayed. What brings someone to this island besides the fact that it is beautiful? Steve came because I suggested he come, and I came to attend the…

Although a cool rainy morning we were the first to arrive for our Canal Martin cruise. The cruise begins on the quay near The Bastille. Note the Metro (subway) line going over the river. While waiting, we observed some of the boats moored on the Seine River. Waits for mooring can take up to five…

Sunday morning and we had our entrance-timed tickets for entrance to the Musee D’Orsay to see the Impressionist exhibition with over an hour to get there (it’s .7 miles away) so what could go wrong? As you would suspect, everything went wrong. Finding a taxi was impossible because all the bridges were closed for a…

Who doesn’t love Paris? We never tire of coming here! To get in the Paris mood, following are a few pictures to set the tone. The first picture is of the Seine River, and the second is obviously of the Eiffel Tower. Both these pictures were taken from the Pont Neuf, translated to “the new…

With only a few days in Tunisia (4 nights), the plan was to make the most of that time. So we were up early the next day to begin touring at 8:00 a.m. A driver picked us up, and we then proceeded to drive an hour to pick up our guide, noting that both the…

Leaving Naples we caught a flight from Fort Myers to Chicago. After a very long layover, we caught a late overnight flight to Paris, arriving about noon. Through immigration and though our bags were among the last to unload, they arrived. Then, we walked and walked some more to get to the Air France check-in…

We left our apartment on the Right Bank and moved to a hotel on the Left Bank, the Hotel Parc Saint-Severin with a spacious room and balcony overlooking the Eglise (Church) Saint-Severin and Paris rooftops, plus, the top of Notre Dame. We stayed in this hotel some years ago and really liked it. It is…

With Steve wanting to ”take the day off,” I continued with exploring. I had noted the Sainte Chapelle de Vincennes in the pretty King Louis XVI Square nearby and decided to visit. It is known as the Expiatory Chapel and dedicated to the memory of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI and built on the…

Wanting to spend more time in Paris, we decided we would rent an apartment for the first half of our stay and then stay in a hotel the second half and compare the two stays. We rented an apartment through Airbnb, and, being fairly familiar with Paris, we selected a good location. The apartment is…

We left Quimper and were on our way to Roscoff with a stop in Brest for lunch. Originally I had planned to stay in Brest, but, the more I read, the more convinced I became that Brest was not the place to stay. Not that Brest is not an interesting and important city as it…

We left Geneva via a TGV (“train a grande vitesse”), translated to a very fast train. Only in this case, it was not all that fast. The original schedule we booked was changed and added a half hour to the train ride, which, of course shortened our connecting time a half hour. That in turn,…

Days with Friends – It is always a special event when one gets to enjoy visiting another country with friends who truly know the area. And, so we are lucky to be able to spend a few days with Ulla and Gerry in the eastern part of France. We are staying in the Domaine de…