Christmas Eve Dinner Reservations...

I have been in a bit of a frenzy trying to figure out how to handle Christmas Eve dinner while in Rome.

I've heard conflicting reports... one person will say "there will be plenty of restaurants open" and another says "hardly anything is open".

We have plans to do a walking tour of the Jewish Ghetto in the late morning/early afternoon of December 24th. I thought we might be able to find a good place for dinner in the Jewish Ghetto since Christmas might not be such a "big deal" in that neighborhood. But I also didn't want to take a chance of not having anything to fall back on. So I started combing the internet to find some recommendations for Christmas Eve...after all, we do want to try and attend mid-night mass somewhere that night!

After a few days of research I came across Ristorante Sangallo. From their website, a YouTube video and a posting on Chowhound the place looks pretty nice...yes, it's upscale, but hey, it will be Christmas Eve! And it's not far from the Pantheon, which I have read has a pretty amazing mid-night mass.

So, on November 23rd I emailed Ristorante Sangallo and the next morning I had a response that they would be happy to make my reservation for November 24!!!! OH NO!!!! I wanted December 24th. I double checked my original email to them, yes I clearly asked for December 24th. I dashed of another email to them immediately pointing out the error and that I didn't want a reservation for November 24th (it was that night...YIKES!) but for December 24th. A day later I got an email from them apologizing for the misunderstanding and confirming a reservation for 2 at 7:30pm on Christmas Eve...whew...crisis averted.

I can now rest easy that we will not go hungry on Christmas Eve! And the restaurant is only a few blocks from the Pantheon, where we have been advised to arrive between 9:30 and 10pm in order to get inside for mid-night mass...ahhhh...I am excitedly anticipating Rome at Christmas!

Ciao!

30 Days Until La Dolce Vita....

Wow...I can hardly believe in only 30 days mom and I will be tossing our bags into the car and heading to the airport to start our Roman Christmas adventure.

We are both getting very excited...we have found so many restaurant recommendations we will have no problem filling up our time there with food choices, not to mention the Christmas markets, the churches, the museums and just soaking up the Italian lifestyle...La Dolce Vita!

Happy Thanksgiving!

France 2008 Preparations Begin!

Well, I just couldn't help myself. I know I have the Rome trip at Christmas and a long weekend in NYC over Memorial Day 2008, but when I read a post on Fodors recommending Hotel Le Grimaldi in Nice I couldn't help but explore this hotel a little more.

I am glad I came across this hotel. I've planned a 2 week Rick Steves Tour of France for Sept/Oct 2008 and the tour ends in Nice. The decision was made to stay an extra 4 days after the tour ends and since I'll be in Nice, why not stay there? Normally I might stay in the same hotel as the tour and just extend the stay by 4 nights, but when I read all the rave reviews on Trip Advisor about Hotel Le Grimaldi and checked out their website, I was just completely drawn to the place. Yes, it's a little more expensive then I would usually pay, but it's still a deal compared to some other prices I have seen in Nice.

I was able to secure the dates I needed for a rate of 115 Euro per night. It doesn't include breakfast, but the location of the hotel is excellent...right in the heart of the old city. And it's a small boutique style hotel. 46 rooms in 2 belle epoque buildings that share a courtyard and the toiletries are L'Occtaine...when in Provence! :)

So the end of the trip accommodations are secured. I will just wait to see which hotel the tour books for Paris before I arrange accommodations in Paris for the night we arrive prior to the tour starting.

Ahhh...I'm a happy gal...planning all these great trips!

2008 Travel Plans Shaping Up...

OK, I know I am a travel fanatic but in the last month I have returned from Turkey, went to Tucson for a long weekend, and booked 2 trips for 2008! I'm addicted!

A couple days ago I found a really good deal on flights and hotel to/in NYC and couldn't resist booking it. So, for Memorial Day weekend I will be jetting off to NYC. And the best part is it's a direct flight from Savannah to LaGuardia...no connections!

Then just today I found unbelievably reasonable (under $1,000!!!) flights to France for my September/October 2008 trip to France. OK, so it was exactly 331 days before the October 2008 dates, but to find an airfare to Europe under $1,000 is a good catch in my opinion.

Guess you could say I REALLY like to plan ahead!

Now I need to focus on Rome!

Ciao!

40 Years and 40 Days!

Lots to talk about today.

I just returned from Tucson where I helped celebrate my dearest friends 40th birthday. My attendance at the 40th birthday bash was a complete surprise so I couldn't mention it on my blog prior to going.

I left on Friday morning and arrived in Tucson at about 1pm. Ken's mom picked me up at the airport and took me to Ken and Lisa's house. They were out, but Ken's friend Adam who lives in London was there...yes, Adam was a surprise guest too!

I had never met Adam so we chatted for a little bit and about 20 minutes later Ken and Lisa arrived home. They walked into the kitchen and put the lunch take out on the table. As Ken said to Adam, here's lunch for you, I walked out of the dinning room into the kitchen and nearly gave Ken a heart attack. He was in complete and utter shock and wanted to know what I was doing there!

We had a great weekend, I got to spend time with the girls and the party was fantastic. For the big event Lisa and Ken used a caterer so they could spend time at the party enjoying themselves and they did and the food was fabulous!

Sunday was a laid back day and Ken, Adam and I went bowling and then we all headed to La Cantada to do some shopping and then ended the day with a great meal at the Guadalajara Grill.

Monday morning came all too fast and I had a 7:40am flight out of Tucson with a connection through Atlanta. All flights were on time and I was deplaning in Savannah at 4:10pm. With traffic and a stop at the grocery store I was home by 6:15pm.

And to not ignore my Rome countdown, only 40 more days until departure for Rome. Over the next few weeks it will be "major" research mode!

45 More Days til Rome!

I finished reading my first Rome guidebook this week and am officially excited about this trip. Not that I wasn't excited before, but now the departure is just on the horizon and I have stepped up my Rome research.

I've been pouring over the Fodor's website site posts about Rome and have been weighing the pros and cons of (1) purchasing the Roma Pass (looks like a good thing!), (2) booking a car service from the airport to the hotel or taking the Leonardo Express train into the city (the car service won that toss up) and (3) trying to find a restaurant for Christmas Eve dinner (I think I will email the hotel and ask them for a recommendation and if they would make a reservation for me). But it looks like many restaurants are closed on Mondays and with Christmas Eve being a Monday, I may run into an obstacle. But, there is always the option of stopping in a local market and buying cheese, bread, wine and fruit and having a Christmas Eve picnic in the hotel room! :) It will be an adventure and that's the best part of traveling.

On the flip side I have been checking the exchange rate lately and things are not looking good. At last check it was up to $1.53! YIKES...whatever the price is in Rome I will have to multiply by 1.5....picnic meals might be the norm on this trip! :) Seriously, I'm sure I will be able to find some fun local joints that cater more to locals than tourists and hopefully the prices will not be too astronomical.

In the next couple weeks I will be fine-tuning my Rome research/tips into a handy-dandy "home-made" guidebook so that I have as much information with me as possible to make good decisions when in Rome.

Picture Link!

Below is the link to my Kodak Gallery photo album of the pictures from my trip to Turkey...Enjoy!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=lapmcp6.1zexskaa&Uy=3xh4n9&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=266530202944_931364692306

50 Days until "wheels up" for Rome

Whew...now that I have my trip report from my adventures in Turkey complete I can concentrate on the next trip on the agenda and that will be ROMA for Christmas!

Since coming back from Turkey I've spent the last several weeks dealing with work and tying up all the end of trip details...downloading pictures and organizing them online as well as on my computer and then ordering the "real" pictures themselves...this year I created a photo book on the Kodak Gallery website from the picture of the Turkey trip...and then of course there was actually writing the trip report from my journal entries made during the trip...and not only posting the trip report here on my blog but also on the Fodor's website for other travel junkies to refer to in the future! Oh! and how can I forget catching up with all my magazine subscriptions...just when I had finished reading the magazines that were delivered while I was away, all the next month magazines began to arrive!

So, now that I have all that dealt with, I can actually start reading my Rome guidebooks and spend time doing some more in-depth Rome research. I had started doing some before I left for Turkey, but didn't want to get to involved since I was starting to confuse Turkey travel stuff with Rome...ahhh...what a problem to have! :)

I'm happy to say that in about 7 weeks I will be walking the streets of the Eternal City ducking into churches to see the nativity scene, eating lots of good food and soaking up Rome at Christmas! I am really anticipating this trip for many reasons but the biggest reason is because my mom will be joining me and we are going to have a great time!

And who's to say I may be able to squeeze in a quick trip before Rome...stay tuned!

Back to Istanbul...

Day 16, October 6, 2007

We left Kusadasi and went to the airport in Izmir for our flight back to Istanbul. I used Atlas Jet and had made online booking months in advance. All went smoothly from checking in to boarding the flight. The flight was not full and it was a quick 40 minute flight back to Istanbul. Unlike US flights of that length we were given sandwiches and drinks. The sandwich wasn’t the best I ever had, but it wasn’t the worst either.

We arrived back in Istanbul at about 4:30pm and our shuttle bus driver was waiting for us after baggage claim.

During this stay in Istanbul I took the advice of Fodorite fishee and booked 4 nights at the Hotel Uyan (http://www.uyanhotel.com/) in Sultanahmet. Because I had booked the room back in January 2007 I got a rate of 90 Euro per night since then the price has increased to 99 Euro per night. This price included the pick up from the airport and daily breakfast at the rooftop dining room.

Because we had a late afternoon flight and a Saturday during Ramadan, the traffic into the city was terrible and it took about an hour to get to the hotel. But all went smoothly with the ride the driver spoke near perfect English; he had gone to school in England. And check-in at the hotel was a breeze. We had a twin room that was very comfortable and clean. Our room faced the back of the hotel which worked out well since we didn’t hear any street noise which we thought would have been an issue with the rooms facing the street. Although I have to say the street was fairly quiet for being in Sultanahmet.

During check-in we asked the girl at the front desk to make a reservation for us at a restaurant down the street called Rami. This was in my opinion the BEST meal of the entire trip. The address for Rami is Utangac Sokak No. 6 Sultanahmet.

Our reservation was for 7:30pm and when we arrived the restaurant was not very crowded, however the place filled up while we were there. We had a small bottle of white wine, a grilled eggplant, tomato, & yogurt starter which was completely out of this world delicious. CL had the house special of eggplant, meat, potato, peas, mushrooms, and olive oil baked in paper, it was a stew-like dish and she loved it. I had a shrimp, eggplant, tomato, and cheese dish baked in a terracotta bowl and it was absolutely decadent. It was rich, but I savored every forkful. We passed on dessert and the bill came to 110 Lire. We chatted with the couple at the table next to us for a while and it turned out they were going to be starting the Rick Steves Turkey tour in a couple days, so we gave them the "skinny" on our tour and then called it a night. With our bellies full we waddled up the street back to our hotel and fell into a peaceful slumber.

Day 17, October 7, 2007 – Istanbul

We started the day with breakfast at the rooftop dinning room (the Hotel Uyan does not have a full roof top restaurant, just a breakfast area). The food offered at breakfast was similar to what we’ve had elsewhere. There was a variety of breads, cheeses, yogurt and coffee.

Shortly after 9am we started out for the Dolmabahce Palace. We took the tram from Sultanahmet to the Kabatas stop (the last stop on the line) and had a short walk to the palace. The ticket line was not long and it cost 15 Lire per person for a 1 hour guided tour of the administrative wing. We did not take the tour of the Harem at Dolmabahce. There was an additional fee of 10 Lire if you wanted to take pictures inside the palace.

This palace is a huge ornate place and in one room there is a 4.5 ton Baccarat crystal chandelier. It was interesting and the tour was in English. After the tour we walked around the grounds for a bit and took some more pictures.

After see all the opulence we decided to walk to the Oratoy neighborhood. It took us about an hour to walk. We were told by our taxi driver the day before there would be a local market and the vendors would not “hassle” us there. He was right; it was nowhere near the experience at the Grand Bazaar. There were vendors there with lots of different crafts and we both bought interesting bead necklaces for 10 Lire each. We walked around the area and then hopped on a bus heading back to the Kabatas tram stop. The bus fare was 1.25 Lire each.

When we got off the bus we got on the funicular which took us to the Taksim Square area. The fare for the funicular was 1.30 Lire each.

We walked down Istiklal Street, which is a modern shopping pedestrian street. It was packed with people. We stopped to have lunch at a cafeteria type place. CL ordered a doner sandwich which is shaved meat with tomato, peppers and French fries on bread. I had stuffed eggplant and a pudding for dessert. We shared everything and it was all very good (I can’t remember the name of the restaurant!), but it was way too much food and we could only finish about half. The pudding was the best we had tasted during the trip.

We meandered along the street and ultimately made our way to the Galata Tower. Today was a much better “tower day” then the day we were in the area 2 weeks before, so we went up to the top of the tower (10 Lire each). The views of the city were spectacular. We then made our way back to the hotel for some relaxation time.

We weren’t really hungry but we wanted to try the outdoor restaurant just down the street from the hotel since we were told they had good mezes there. So we set out at about 6:30pm. When we arrived it was hardly crowded and we ordered hummus, eggplant & sauce and a spinach pancake. All the food was good and as the sun began to set the restaurant started to get busy. Since sunset was fast approaching it was almost time to break the fast so more and more people kept streaming into the restaurant. CL and I just sat back and did some people watching and it was one of the most fun evenings we had. After a couple hours we called it a night and went back to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep for our “designated” shopping day tomorrow!

Day 18, October 8, 2007 – Istanbul

We spent time today shopping. CL wanted to go to a leather store Murat had recommended which meant we had to take a taxi there since it was in an area between Sultanahmet and the airport.

We had the girl at the front desk call a taxi to take us there and it cost 13 Lire. CL did find a leather coat but alterations had to be done to the sleeves so we had to come back the next day.

When we finished with the purchase the shop wouldn’t call a taxi for us but said we could get one on the main street (Kennedy Caddessi), so we left the shop and started to walk along the street towards a bus stop. But there was no schedule posted at the same time a taxi had stopped and we jumped in.

Now, I have to digress here…I had read about how taxi drivers will scam you in Istanbul if not called by a hotel or restaurant but at this point we where far from where we wanted to be and there was not route map or schedule at the bus stop. So against that little voice inside me, we took the taxi.

We told the driver to take us to the Grand Bazaar. We were nearing the Spice Market, not our original destination, but when the meter started to roll past 20 Lire we changed our mind and wanted to get out at the Spice Market. There was some communication difficulty, but we managed to make are point, paid the driver and we got out at the Spice Market.

We walked around the Spice Market but did not purchase anything. I think the difficulty for me was that there were so many choices, I just couldn’t decide on anything I wanted! We did go back over to the Grand Bazaar and stopped to see Murat again. He was kind enough to take us to the jewelry wholesaler where his son-in-law works and I did find a really interesting 14K gold ring there that I did purchase.

After shopping we decided to have a late lunch/early dinner at Hamdi (www.hamdirestorant.com.tr). This restaurant, near the Spice Market is on the upper level of a building. They have a small outside terrace overlooking the water and we sat there enjoying the view.

We ordered the eggplant kepab, which wasn’t the best we had but we also ordered the beyit which is a meat wrapped in phyllo dough kepab and that was delicious.

Day 19, October 9, 2007 – Istanbul

Today we decided to venture on the tram and try to find our way back to the leather shop to pick up CL’s coat. We had a map, but in retrospect it wasn’t the greatest map we ever used. We got on the tram just after 10:30am and went several stops (not quite to the end of the line). We got off the tram at about 11am and started walking in the general direction we thought the shop was in. We knew we would have a “good” walk because even on the map we had, it seemed a pretty far distance. One hour and 20 minutes later we found the shop and got the coat. Now to find the tram again!

We figured out that we had gotten off a stop or 2 too early! Our map showed a shopping mall not too far (or it looked not far) from a tram stop. So we managed to find the mall while walking through what clearly appeared to be the leather and fur district. If I am ever back in Istanbul I now know where to go to order a custom leather or fur coat!

We stopped at the mall for a bit to eat and a little rest for our weary feet and then we set out to find our way to the tram. We were doing good for a while but then started to wonder where the tram stop was. We pulled out our map again and there were 2 young girls who were about high school age who helped us. They walked us all the way to the tram stop and believe me if it weren’t for their help we would probably still be wandering around looking for the tram! They were so nice, they didn’t know much English but they showed us their school notebook with their English lessons. We thanked them profusely and got on the tram.

Once we got back to the hotel we started to re-pack our bags for our return trip home the next day. After packing most of our belongings we decided to have dinner at Balicki Sabahatin (address: Seyit Hasan Kuyu Sokak 1).

We sat outside on the covered dinning area and had 3 mezes, seabass, grilled squid and a house special that was rice with carrots, onions, and mussels, it was all delicious. We also ordered a bluefish entre which was very tasty. This was a great place for our last meal in Istanbul.

Day 20, October 10, 2007 – Leaving Istanbul

I can’t even really count today because we left the hotel at 9:30am for our flight home. The flight left Istanbul about a half hour late, but we landed at JFK on time. Instead of connecting to a flight home to Savannah immediately we decided to spend the evening in NYC and I was able to book a reasonably price room at the Washington Square Hotel on Waverly Place in Greenwich Village. Once we were through customs and immigration and got our bags from the baggage claim we took the Air Train from JFK to the subway and was in the city within an hour.

The next day we didn’t have much time to spend in the “Big Apple” but we walked around a bit and then hopped back on the subway and went back to JFK for our uneventful flight home to Savannah.

It was a great trip and I brought home lots of wonderful memories!

Kusadasi and Ephesus

Day 15, October 5, 2007

Today was another early start and we arrived at Ephesus just after 8am. There were still a lot of people, but not the hordes that I was told are normally there. I thought the most interesting parts of the site were the terrace houses and the library. The mosaics in the terrace houses are worth dealing with the crowds!

The Library at Ephesus

Be warned at the exit from Ephesus there is a big “gauntlet” of shops with salesmen trying to sell you just about anything.

Once back in Kusadasi we did a little window shopping and had lunch and then headed back to the hotel for a nap before our final dinner with our group. We had a great farewell dinner with the group and said our good-byes to our new found friends.

Amazing Aphrodisias!

Day 14, October 4, 2007

We got an early start this morning and at Aphrodisisas by 9am. This was my favorite archaeological site on this trip. Much less crowded then the other site and it felt much more intimate. This ancient city once had a population of 80,000. The ruins are very well preserved and still lots of excavations going on. The weather really cooperated with us this day and it was not too hot, which made it great for walking around the site.

Temple of Aphrodite

After spending a few hours here we were back on the road and this time it was towards Kusadasi. In Kusadasi we stayed at Grand Onder Otel (www.onderotel.com)

We arrived in Kusadasi at about 4pm and had a short look around. It is definitely a cruise ship town. When we rode into town there was a huge and I mean huge ship in port. I have been on cruises before, but never in my life have I seen a ship that big before!