Regent Voyager 

On route to boarding our ship in San Antonio we visited the city of Valparaiso.  Valparaiso (Paradise Valley) is a very hilly town but I managed to climb many stairs to the upper level prior to returning via the antique funicular. 

Once we had checked in to our ship a beautiful orchid as well as a bottle of Champagne (the French stuff) awaited us in our stateroom.  In the evening we dined at Prime 7 (steakhouse) where we were served wine in cut-crystal glasses

 

We are meeting lots of interesting people (mostly Americans).  We lunched with a retired military type who noted that he and I were similar in age to Biden.  He wanted to know if I felt that I could deal with that kind of responsibility at my age.  He was a life-long Republican until switching once Trump became President.  He noted that only after he knew that we were Canadians did he feel safe to ask a political question.  He then told a story about biking in Nova Scotia many, many years ago.  He fell and smashed his hip.  However, his commanding officer refused to allow him to have surgery in N.S.  Instead, a hospital plane flew from Vietnam to Greenwood in order for him to be evacuated.

Saturday night was “formal” night and we were invited by a New York heart surgeon and his wife to join them for dinner.  He was born in India and did his training there.  I asked him if it was difficult getting accredited in NY.  Very easy, he responded, just two easy tests.  Fortunately, he didn’t want to practice in Nova Scotia. 

On Sunday we had an unexciting tour of two lakeside towns (Puerto Varas and Frutillar). 

Then at 6:00 p.m. everyone was asked to take a wine glass and leave our rooms.  This was a “block party” and we spent a fun half hour getting to know our neighbours up and down the corridor.  We then had a leisurely dinner in Sett Mari (Italian restaurant).  In fact, we went through so many courses that at the end of the meal it was too late to attend the evening show (a comedian). 

Monday we drove through a relatively isolated section of Patagonia.

This area was not settled until 1921 and now is primarily an area of salmon farming. Scenery was very nice and we stopped for a short walk along the Rio Simpson.

Although we had missed lunch we made it back to the ship in time for high tea.

Santiago de Chile

“Getting there is half the fun” is perhaps the most asinine adage ever expressed.  We left Antigonish at 8:00 a.m. on Monday, drove to Halifax, flew to Toronto, had a 7- hour layover before flying overnight to Bogota.  After a three-hour layover we flew to Santiago, arriving mid-afternoon on Tuesday.  

 

The temperature in Santiago was 32 degrees. We were met by a Regent representative who drove us to our hotel.  Quick showers and a change of clothes prepared us for a pleasant evening at the hotel.  After a cocktail

reception we had a nice meal with other guests who will be on our cruise.  We sat with a couple from New York City.  He is a recently retired homicide detective.  I made sure his glass was constantly refilled and he regaled us with tales of various “murder-for-hire" thugs who he had managed to eventually arrest. 

We began Wednesday with a tour of the old part of Santiago prior to our driving into the countryside to visit the Santa Rita Winery.  We had visited Santa Rita in 2008 and were just as impressed this time. 

After a brief tour of the museum (new since 2008) we had a very leisurely lunch in the winery restaurant.  We were served Chardonnay with our tuna tartare, and then switched to a magnificent Carmenere Reserva to accompany our beef short ribs.  The waiter kept re-filling my glass and Betty’s claims I had 5 glasses of this great tannic wine.  I don’t remember the number being that big. 

Lunch was to be followed by a tour of the winery.  We managed to skip that tour and sat in the beautiful garden until it was time for the official wine-tasting.  No wonder we slept on the bus back to the city. 

I wouldn’t have believed I could eat in a Chilean restaurant without a bottle of wine.  However, in the evening we ate at a pleasant sidewalk café and neither of us could face even a small glass. 

We spent all day Thursday in the Andes.  Spectacular but so different from the Rockies; little vegetation, just rocks and more rocks.  The drive up to Portillo and back down was interesting if not plain scary with 27 switchbacks and no guard rails. 

In Portillo the temperature was in the mid-teens; wheras when we got off the bus back in Santiago we faced the low thirties. 

 

 

LAST BLOG:  ROMANIA

We disembarked on Wednesday (Nov. 2) and had a lengthy bus ride, mostly through farmland, to Bucharest.  Upon arrival we drove through the city to the old quarter where we had a traditional Romanian lunch while being entertained by dancers

Bucharest is a large (over 2 million) but pleasant city with lots of green space and some very elegant buildings. 

However, there are always heavy traffic and many derelict buildings.  When the Communists took over after WWII they abolished private land ownership.  In 1989 the Communists were overthrown and President Ceausecu was executed after a hastily arranged trial.  The new government passed a law returning all properties to their original owners.  After 44 years it proved difficult to find many of the owners (or their heirs) and buildings have remained vacant until now the present day.

After arrival at our very elegant Bucharest hotel we were very tired so we ate pizza in the hotel Italian restaurant.  I asked the waiter to choose a suitable Romanian wine.  He chose an indigenous varietal called Feteasca Neagra (Black Maiden).  We liked this wine so much that we have ordered it each of the next two nights.

We left early Thursday morning for a lengthy ride over the Carpathian Mountains to Transylvania.  We arrived in the late afternoon at the largest city (Brasov).

and after a tour were taken to an “interesting” hotel for the night.  The hotel is brand new and upscale, but the designer had some rather odd ideas.  Firstly, everything is black, or occasionally dark gray.  This includes walls, curtains, urinals in the public washrooms; in fact, everything down to a black pencil sitting on the black desk alongside the black telephone.  Also, everything is designed to be square, including door knobs, light switches and even the toilet seat.  The only break is to look through the clear glass bathroom walls to one’s roommate’s light skin while showering or sitting on the square toilet seat.  (Sorry but there are no pictures.)

On Friday we stopped at Bran to see the Bran Castle (Dracula’s castle).  When the Irishman Bram Stoker wrote Dracula he had never visited Transylvania, but chose, from a painting, the Bran Castle as the setting.  It is argued that he based Count Dracula on the 14^th century ruler Vlad Draculea, best known as Vlad the Impaler.  Vlad, however, was ruler of Wallachia rather than Transylvania, and may or may not have ever stayed in the Castle.  The only downside of our visit was that a woman in our tour group fell or collapsed coming out of the restaurant and was left behind in a Transylvanian hospital.  We got back to Bucharest in time for a drink before dinner.

Romania is primarily an agricultural country but they do manufacture Dacia cars (Dacia was recently bought out by Renault).  One sees lots of these cars on the streets and they are Romania’s largest export, most of the cars going, interestingly enough, to Germany.

As we must leave the hotel at 3:00 a.m. Sunday morning to begin our journey home we celebrated a last lingering meal on Friday night at an American-style steakhouse, also in the hotel (we are back for two nights in the same hotel as Wednesday).  We discussed with the waiter what steaks to order and he brought a platter with each cut (uncooked) for us to examine.  As all the steaks were huge and as we wanted to share an appetizer the waiter suggested very kindly that we just order one steak and split that.

My last picture is of perhaps the most important stop in Romania.