Day 27: Zurich to E-ville, Observations of last 11 days

Day 27:  Zurich to E-ville, Observations

Quote of the Day: We are pleased to …

Weather: Cold in Zurich, raining at the airport, just right in E-ville

There's an outdoor deck in the Swiss Air lounge. Hadn't seen that before, maybe for smokers? In any case, it's raining, nobody is out there smoking or otherwise

Department of hypocrisy: DB gets an e-mail from Cosport, the US company in charge of the Olympics ticket sales:

After financial reconciliation with our partners, we are pleased to be in a position to credit the amount of $155.68 based on your ticket purchase back to your credit card.   

THB goes into cynic mode: really, Cosport is happy to give us money they grossly overcharged us for on top of very expensive price of  O’s tix? How generous…they didn’t keep the money, maybe just maybe because as part of the financial reconciliation they weren’t allowed to keep ALL the money due back to their customers. Just maybe…

Repeat

Except this time THB orders something called Purple...ice tea of sorts

Breakfast at John Baker, repeat of yesterday except THB has Purple (ice tea) instead of a flat white. $25

Check out of the Ambassador de Opera Hotel. Very cozy and extremely well laid out. The bathroom was easily the second best on trip even if it didn’t have a bath tub. Nothing compares to our room at the Villa La Coste, now that was over the top. $645 for two nights. By Zurich standards, a real bargain.

Train is due in at 10:11...right on time!

Train station a short walk from the hotel, and the train is right on time (see pic). The ride to airport is smooth and we know to get off as the airport is the last stop. $14 for two, considerably cheaper than the $75 cab ride into town from the airport.

Shuttle inside airport...you can't see the carry-on bags, they are squished in there somewhere

The airport is huge, gigantic, bustling. It’s quite a distance to the Swiss Air check-in. Security is easy, and now we have to catch the shuttle to the departure gate in a different terminal. The first sign of Swiss ineffectiveness: the shuttle is several cars short and four car full of passengers (with carry-ons) crams into two cars. Not pleasant. Airport is also very warm. And, in our car, THB swears they are playing Taps over the loudspeaker in the car. Hmmmmmmm…

Cold on the top, hot on the bottom per THB's lounge buddy

DB has a quick snack in the business class lounge and heads out to spend leftover euros; we managed to spend every one of our Swiss francs before catching the train to the airport. She’s on the clock: 40 minutes until the scheduled boarding. In the meantime THB admires the “drink” slurped down by the guy sitting next to him in the lounge.

"Chicken" was our main meal on the flight home...odd shape for chicken

Once on the plane at 12:45pm, THB immediately falls asleep as it is the middle of the night in E-ville and THB is trying to get on local time asap. Only hours later does DB enlighten him: the plane left over an hour late awaiting people making their transfer.  THB slept right through the delay and that’s why THB can’t figure out why the flight is taking so long.

Good news: THB finishes another book on this really long slow flight. It is a winner:

Book Review: The Last Whalers, Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life, Doug Bock Clark. Masterfully told, the story of a small tribe, maybe 1500 total combined living in the village on an island in the Savu Sea and ex-pats, the Lamalerans are dealing with an ever infringing modern world on their primitive subsistent hunting of whales as a means of survival. Much larger topics are gently addressed as part of the deep reporting on village life: conservation, merging of different religions, honoring the livelihood and territorial claims of indigenous people, integrating widely disparate sub-groups into a nation. If you travel to any “under developed” country, this is a great book to read while there. Very pertinent when THB and DB will be in Raja Ampat early next year.  Highly Recommended

Observations for the last 11 days of the trip: in reverse chronological order

MB and DB (and THB and DB) in a classic art pose

One of our two art purchases in Paris, comes with a swatch of the fabric behind the painting

The other purchase

Anniversary Tour: so many things went well that we managed to laugh off and adjust for the excesses of Calabria meals. After all, we scheduled our own marathons at Bauminiere and Arpege, both terrific. Tons of great art, even a few purchases. A great time with SMC in Venice and with MB and DB in Paris and some interesting characters on the Calabria tour. Not a single flaw with the logistics. Five nights in a honeymoon suite. Villa La Coste, a giant splurge that lived up to its world-class reputation. A great apartment in Paris, living like locals.

A trio of art chasers

a quartet of chaser

YT and YT at Al Covo in Venice, a "summit" meeting 

On the art walk around Chateau La Coste

What a year it has been and there’s still 3 months of celebrating left!

Susch, about as out of the way as you can get in Europe

Zurich: A perfect combination of chasing art, pretty countryside, excellent meals at new places and a few at old favorites, ease of getting around, and breaking up the long trip from Calabria to E-ville. Great way to make cost of living in Bay Area seem reasonable.

Calabrian Food and Wine Tour

First: The tour lived up to its name, there was a ton of Calabrian food and a large vat of wine on offer. Expectation exceeded.

Most of the tour

The group in a typical pose: lots of wine glasses and a meal yet to be started

Second: the tour members were about as congenial as any group of 17 mostly random people could be, even accounting for the impressive congeniality of THB in being flexible and accommodating in all things requiring constant human interaction (Ed. Note: nice use of words to hide a bold-faced lie). Rather than a rundown of each couple (there was one foursome: parents, adult child, and Coco the purse dog), THB will use the last valuable posting space on the tour itself.

Our only wine purchase (2 bottles from this Riserva)

Third: The wine for the most part was unexceptional and you could drink all you wanted (and a few tour members did just that). We bought two bottles of the only wine we really enjoyed and at that it was a different vintage than the one we tasted. There were some very unusual wines: the “light” red, the salty rose’, the red served chilled (very good cold not good at room temp), etc. For the most part wines were very inexpensive, a truism in this part of Italy as well for all expenses. On Wednesday “no alcohol” day, THB only sipped and spat. That turned out to be a good way to handle the many days of 10+ wines to taste and THB semi-adopted that method after the first Wednesday. For those paying close attention, on the day in Tropea THB actually had a mid-afternoon aperitif. What was he thinking? It was pizza night so THB managed a brewski instead of vino.

Chiara and the owner of the estate, a guy she claimed was better looking than Marlon Brando

Even with mediocre wines, the wine consultant/sommelier expert accompanying the tour, Chiara, was exceptional. Totally unpretentious, full of gentle advice on how to enjoy the wine, a wealth of knowledge about the entire process of making wine, what made Calabria a unique wine region, and a genuine sense of humor in her second or third language (not easy to pull off). How she managed to fairly describe each wine, no matter its quality, with the winemaker standing or sitting next to her is an innate skill. Even though she wanted a “back-office” job in wine, everywhere she went people told her she should be public-facing and thankfully she finally gave in to the advice; the input was right, she is a very poised and impressive 32 year old (well, to THB that seems very young nowadays).

Note: Tips were recommended for the driver and Chiara and THB and DB gave Chiara 100 euros for the tour. That is probably less than what might be recommended on other tours…this is Italy, everything seems less expensive here and the tour on a per person per day basis was definitely cheaper than almost any tour we’ve taken.

DB at the pool at the Borgo

Fourth: Our lodgings in general were adequate. THB’s biggest complaint: we didn’t get enough time to spend on site in the afternoons. The long lunches were too long for most part. So resting was generally done on the bus watching not-all-that-interesting scenery rather than by the pool or maybe even using whatever fitness stuff was available. At the Borgo the hospitality was above and beyond. At Populia it would be hard to find a more surly, unhelpful and disingenuous staff, though at times (like hooking up to wifi) they were extremely helpful. At the Castello de Serraguimenta, it was somewhere between the two other lodgings.

One tour member has taken many Tauck tours and Tauck’s input on Calabria: not enough quality places to stay. A bit elitist and apparently true.

Ed note: THB and DB have discussed that we may have outgrown the large tour group travel mode, even though we have taken many enjoyable group tours and overall this tour was no exception, it was a good tour. So take the following with the usual THB mode of skewing the point of view more negative…or as THB likes to think: constructive.

Chiara with the winning winemaker at our professional tasting

Will this couple make it to their 50th?

The best dish THB has a pic of...there were a few that topped the Potato Souffle stuffed with Porcinis that THB did not capture a pic of

Fifth: Calabria for most part is pretty arid; the picturesque hill towns are way up in the hills; and the wineries similar (i.e., vats, barrels, pumps, etc.) though we saw a nice range from boutique to enormous by local standards.  You get a lot of views of the seas on both sides of this mostly thin and long province. We lucked out by being here at beginning of the olive harvest and near the end of the grape harvest because it meant our stops had some interesting moments. And for the most part (if you followed along at all), a pretty monotonous diet of dishes.

Leno leaning in

Ours was not one of the 250 weddings held at this winery each year

Co-leaders 

Sixth: Both co-leaders were for most part very congenial and very proud of their contacts, home cities, and all things Calabrian and most things Italian (a bit too prideful for THB’s flexible and accommodating taste).