Campbell River, BC

 I've come to the opinion that travel is rarely seamless.  It makes sense, if you consider the failure points in any trip.  Delayed or cancelled flights, trains, buses, weather, illness and injuries.  Let's not include scheduling mistakes, because they never happen...

We decided to spend Thanksgiving with Nickie's daughter's family, who live in North Vancouver.  October is usually dicey weather in Vancouver, but aside from a little rain, what could go wrong?  To be fair, we enjoyed a few days of hiking in Campbell River, on the east coast of Vancouver Island.  The area is beautiful and with only 2 days to hike, we didn't start to cover all the incredible terrain in the area.  We are 87.6% certain we will be back in the near future.

Elk Falls
Note the suspension bridge at the top

Thanksgiving weekend was wet.  It rained just enough to make us hesitate about outdoor activity.  This is a problem with 2 grandchildren aged 5 and 7.  For those who subscribe to masochistic endeavors, perhaps a tiny bit more "character Building" is required, to make the experience truly rotten.  Try being sick at the same time.  Although Nickie recovered well from her illness while returning from Italy, I never fully recovered and since both grandsons were ill, perhaps I picked up a new strain...

So, Thanksgiving was a bit wet, then we hiked in Campbell River, then during our last weekend in Vancouver, it experienced record amounts of rain.  Do recall that this is Vancouver.  Not known for record breaking sunny weather.  Nickie and I went for a walk and although I wore a raincoat, my pants were soaked.  Some streets had 20 cm of water.  In one store, water was coming in at the bottom of the walls.  Wet!

Suspension Bridge over Elk Falls

Campbell river has numerous hikes within a short driving distance.  We started with a hike in the Elk Falls Provincial Park.  Surprisingly (to me), there was a waterfall in the park!  The trails in Elk Falls PP are not overly technical with only a modicum of elevation.  A nice trail when recovering from the flu.  There is a serious suspension bridge close to Elk Falls.  It got a little misty while taking pictures, but incredible views nonetheless.  We then hiked to the John Hart power station, crossing the famous Erna bridge.  For those who a keen on bridges, I should mention that Erna's bridge is quite tiny.  You might be disappointed if you spend thousands of dollars to go see it.  But who am I to judge?

Mini tree-house for rent?

The next hike was along the Crest Mountain trail.  Crest Mountain is shaped just like a tube of toothpaste - incredible to see!  Before you spend thousands of dollars to go see Crest Mountain, please read my note on Erna's bridge...

This is a serious hike with some serious elevation gain, but worth hiking if only to see an amazing forest.  The trees are truly impressive.  At one point I was told by Nickie that I wasn't allowed to take any more pictures of trees.  From then on, I took pictures of amazing rocks (which just happened to be beside an incredible tree).

The rock looks like a mirror image!

Crest Mountain Trail is in the Strathcona Provincial Park, which is over 250,000 hectares.  It is also the oldest provincial park in BC.  The trail is a bit technical in spots and there is 1,250 meters of elevation gain.  Although only 5K, give yourself a healthy 4 hours for this hike.

A couple of cedars

We did not make it to the top.  I thought I was recovering, but after 2+ hours of climbing, I was starting to fade.  And not the type of "fade" normally associated with a long climb, but a tiny bit of "write your will" fading.  After climbing through the large trees, the hike becomes a bit steeper.  Once there was snow on the trail, the discussion turned to getting back down.  As in "How the hell are we going to get back down?".  We were not far from where the trail becomes gradual and emerges from dense forest, but we decided to turn back.  Next time!

Much trickier than it looks!

Getting steep!

I'm beginning to like YVR.  I know it is smaller, but the Vancouver airport seems to be more efficient than Pearson in Toronto.  We dropped our rental car at an offsite agency.  The shuttle departed for the airport 15 minutes late, which is normally not an issue for us, but since our flight was at 10:10 and the shuttle left at 08:15, i was a bit concerned about the typical airport delays.  I don't know if magic was invoked, but we got to the airport, checked our bag, went through security and was at our gate by 09:00.  Not sure how that happened!

We now have 3 weeks off before a trip to Costa Rica.  Nickie and I will be travelling with my sister Christine.  She is the youngest of my siblings, but a true commando at heart.  This is likely due to being a teacher for 30+ years.  I expect her students were all terrified of her.  I know that we are.

Hiking in Italy

The title is a bit misleading...  I have been to Italy 5 times.  To sum up why, the food.  Those damn Italians make everything taste better.  It's not fair!  Salads are better.  How can anyone possibly make a salad "better" than elsewhere?  I answered this one myself when I noticed the chef popping out to the garden beside the restaurant and picking a few herbs.  Unlike Canadians, if the food is not excellent, Italians will go elsewhere!

Back to the misleading title.  Although we hiked in the Dolomites for a week, we also visited Venice and Verona.  Nickie had never been to Venice and although I had been there 2 years ago, it is a spot everyone should experience firsthand.  I did warn Nickie that she would not enjoy Venice.  Why, you ask?  The crowds, which are both unbelievable and disturbing.  I cannot imagine living in Venice - I don't know how the locals do it.  And the Italians only have themselves to blame.  Similar to the French, they have a plethora of sites everyone should see.  Unlike the French, Italians are nice to tourists.  Entirely their own fault.

San Marco Sinking?

I don't live near an ocean.  I know about tides, but was puzzled to see raised platforms being erected in San Marco square.  Curious!  Then I noticed water coming out of the storm sewers.  Lots of water.  Definitely not a good sign.  We visited San Marco square during a "high" high tide.  The raised platforms were about a meter in width and could easily handle a few hundred people.  Do recall that I am talking about San Marco square which, incidently, was now a lake.  Thousands of people were trying to move along the raised platforms.  It only took one tourist to stop and take a picture, for everyone to be standing still.

Gondola Rushhour

First game of Marco Polo was played here

Two full days is sufficient to see a good part of Venice, unless you intend to swim all of the canals.  If so, give yourself about 3 weeks.

Glass blowing island of Burano

I guess that I should mention about our flights.  Not wanting to risk another fiasco similar to when we flew to Vancouver with Lynx, who went bankrupt prior to our return flight, we booked with Air Canada.  Guess what?  Air Canada was facing a strike, which would start the day our flight left for Venice!  We hemmed and hawed about booking another flight.  With 5 days until our departure flight, we decided to book with Air Transat and avoid the risk of not getting to Italy.  The day after our flights with Air Transat were confirmed, Air Canada declared the strike had been averted!

Another Italian plus is their transit system.  I love talking to Europeans about the non-existent Canadian transit system.  They shudder at the cost of taking a train from Rome to Venice, which can be as steep as $95 CAD.  I ask them to guess at the price for a train from Toronto to Vancouver.  Yes, it is a much longer trip, but can cost north of $5,000.  Getting from Venice to the Dolomites is tricky.  Reminds me of the punchline for a Rodney Dangerfield joke: "You can't get there from here".  We took 5 trains and a bus.  I like to have a comfortable buffer between flights.  I don't book 30 minute layovers.  So imagine how I felt when I realized that 2 of our train connections were less than 10 minutes each!  Our shortest was a 7 minute gap between trains.  All this in railway stations I had never seen.  As a credit to the Italian train system, none of our trains were late and we had no problems.  We took a train from Venice to Venice (from San Lucia to Mestre), Verona, Bolzano, Fortezza, then Brunico.  Then a bus from Brunico to Pederoa.

Hiking in the Dolomites

A word of caution about town names in the Dolomites.  Over the centuries, the area has been under rule from both Italian and German speaking nations.  I'm hazy on who invaded whom, but a lot of towns have 2 names.  Brunico is also Bruneck.  Bolzano is Bozen.  It can get quite confusing if you are not aware of this!  We stayed at Hotel Pider, in the town of Laval / Wengen / La Valle.  I forgot to mention that some parts of the Dolomites have 3 official languages; Italian, German and Ladin.  If you have not heard of the Ladin language, you are not alone.

Nickie, yelling something about the hills being alive.

Hotel Pider from a distance

Zoom in:  Pider is left of the church

Hotel Pider is a wonderful hotel deep in the Dolomites.  I recommend the half board, which (I think) means they feed you breakfast and supper.  There are hiking trails outside the front door.  Breakfast is quite a nice spread, including scrambled eggs.  Supper was beyond intimidating.  I'm pretty sure the chef at Pider has never heard of Hamburgers.  Every breakfast, we would select that night's supper from a menu.  How can that possibly be intimidating?  Here is the menu for one of our suppers:

Salatbuffet

Grub aus der Kuche

Kurbiscremesuppe mit Gorgonzolatropfen
oder
Penne mit Thunfisch Perltomaten Sauce

Flank Steak vom Rind mit Krauterkruste
oder
Kohlrabi Eintopf

Kartoffelblatter, Auberginen 

Parfait von der Walnuss

Very soon we found out they can provide the menu in English!

I think this is a barn

Hiking in the Dolomites is incredible.  It is one of the most beautiful places on this planet.  It was almost annoying how many times we had to stop and admire the views.  Mind you, the vertical might also have influenced the frequent stops.

Hiking above the clouds

The Dolomites remind me of the Canadian Rockies, in that pictures do them no justice.  There are also impossibly verdant fields, where cows graze.  I think the cows are on some form of Valium.  I would certainly not consider grazing on such steep slopes!

There are many buildings whose purpose at times eluded us.  Is it a barn?  A B&B?  Storage?  Some were obviously built on or in a cliff.  One building of which we had no trouble determining its use was a restaurant, high in the Dolomites.  The view was excellent, the soup amazing and the wine delectable.  There is little reason to order a special bottle of wine in Italy.  The house wines were far better than Ontario reds.  They all tasted great, in part because we had been hiking 3 - 4 hours that morning. 

Wine is better at altitude!

Pider provided us with bus passes.  Although it would have been easy to hike from the hotel every day, we took advantage of the bus passes and hiked from La Villa (aka Stern) and Badia (Abtei).  From Badia, we actually hiked back to hotel Pider.

The Dolomites!

From the Dolomites, it only took 2 buses and 3 trains to reach Verona.  It was a breeze!  Verona also had large crowds.  It boasts a Roman amphitheatre called Arena Di Verona.  Since it predates the Colosseum in Rome, it is rumoured that it was used as a template for the Colosseum.  Verona is also the site for a play called Romeo and Juliet.  It was written by some old guy, possibly Bernard Shaw.  One component of this play is a balcony.  I took a picture of it, even though I couldn't see what the big deal was all about.

Arena Di Verona

Juliet's Balcony

As with all travel, it was time once again to head home.  I developed a tickle in my throat in Verona.  We took a train to Venice for our last night, to make the trip to the airport less complicated.  The next morning, the throat tickle turned nasty.  Perfect timing, getting sick while travelling for 20 hours and crossing 6 time zones.  We are recovering nicely (yup, we were both under the weather).