... try and find us

The little town of Hope, BC is often derided as we whiz by on our way to or from visiting rellies on the West Coast, but we never get tired of making note that we are now both Beyond Hope. Ho ho ho!

The Burgess Shale Fossil Bed is a large deposit of Cambrian sea-creatures. Yes, this mountain top was once-upon-a-time, the seabed.  The area is protected and can only be entered with a permit, or in our case, with a guide! Under a cloudy sky that was threatening rain, we met our Parks Canada guide, Amy, at 7am (groan) in Field.  She was perky, chipper and managed to get us all in a good mood about trudging up nearly 800 vertical metres of mountain in what could have been a wet, cloudy day.  We started up the trail and the lower slopes of Mount Stephen, working our way through the lush forest; it was quite spongy underfoot.  A lot of moss and tiny lilies.  This side of the Divide gets a lot more rain. And then...  we started to climb.  And climb...  Along the edge of cliffs and up ridge lines, the trail switch-backing when it could.  In the 3.6km, we gained over 800m; 200 of those in the last 300m! The weather had quietly eased off the...

We are putting this hike, along with a stay at the Whiskey Jack Hostel, on our to-do list with visitors.  Spectacular! Somewhat of a tough climb up to above the treeline then the trail runs along parallel to the valley undulating up and over moraines.  The views  are spectacular across the valley to the Takakkaw Falls, the Daly Glacier and the Waputik Icefield.  The trail runs below the Emerald Glacier with views up and down the Yoho Valley. The are a few route options.  We chose the out and back to the Iceline Summit.  Beautiful weather, blue skies with a few threatening clouds to keep the temperature down.  The rum and cokes at the picnic table back at the hostel certainly went down well! And again, in the spirit of hosteling, it was a fire pit, s'mores and a sing-song with all the hostel guests joining in. 

Thibaud pulls away from us Under magnificent blue skies, today's adventure was a road ride from Castle Junction to Lake Louise.  The headwind was far preferable to yesterday's drizzle and the rain has brightened the greens.  Wildflowers are out in force.  A great riding day! Lake Louise on a sunny Summer Saturday is a gong-show!  We walked our bikes up the hill to The Chateau - it as far too dangerous to ride.  People, cars backing trying to park, kids, prams and general chaos.  The traffic was backed up past the old 1A turn-off.  The lake itself was swarming with iconic red canoes and we counted at least three weddings.  Despite the hoards, nothing can distract from the stunning beauty of the mountains and the glacier.  We even heard Thibaud utter a "wow"! Thibaud led the charge back to Castle, and charge we did, all hitting max speeds over 60km/hr.  The magic of a downhill trend and a glorious tailwind.  In true Canad...

New shirts to wear.  Multiple washing machines for clothes.  Books.  Our bed.  Fresh audiences for our stories.  These are all things that we've missed but now have available to us.  It is good to be back in Calgary. We have a passenger on the Collins Fun Wagon, in the person of a 14-year-old French lad named Thibaud.  He has come to improve his already-good English ... and to experience our corner of Canada.  We have all returned just in time for the Stampede, that will be a good starting point for the Western Canadian way of life.  Even though we don't normally walk around in cowboy boots and oversized belt buckles all year, we take visitors to the Stampede to touch the rural history of our area.  The agricultural fair; pancake breakfasts; the midway - we're on our way!

A new country for both of us and only a two hour drive. How could we resist heading to Luxembourg for lunch?  The EU borders are so anti-climatic these days - just a "Welcome To" sign and, if you are lucky, a bump in the pavement. No more exciting than crossing from Alberta to BC and yet, here we were in a different country! The temperature soared into the high 30s so we parked in the cool of an underground parkade and scurried into the fabulous Musée d'Histoire de la Ville de Luxembourg. In the subterrainian cool of its five levels, we learned about both the city's thousand year history and that of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. For such a tiny country, it has the distinction of having the world's highest GDP per capita and is officially trilingual! We braved the early evening heat and explored the Grund quarter on the Alzette River.  Lovely old buildings, deep in the gorge looking up at the Old Town.  Beautiful (and cool) parks weave along and down into ...

Burgers, baked potatoes - fully-loaded, Caesar salad and s'mores. All washed down with a local crémant. Canada Day, Alsatian style!!

A glorious day to head to Zurich for lunch, made even better because it was with Franz Friedl!  We met at Fischstube restaurant on the lake. The terrace perched above the water overlooked swimmers, sailing boats, swans and, in the distance, snow-capped Alps.  Franz treated us to a superb lunch (I ate cod and scallops with lobster sauce accompanied by squid ink pasta and sea grass) washed down by a stunning Savignon Blanc from the region. Following lunch, we wandered around central Zurich with Franz playing tour guide. A beautiful city that has not suffered the ravages of war inflicted on so many European cities.  Yes, there are banks. And yes, they look very solid, safe and old - just what one wants in a bank! Of course, no outing with Franz would be complete without a coffee and cake stop. And as we were in Zurich, where else but Confiserie Sprüngli. Due to the heat, we opted to take our coffees iced - or in this case frozen! In a goblet, topped with cream...

Stepping out of Frankfurt Airport, having come from there straight from Athens, we noticed immediate differences.  The crowds didn't seem to press into us.  Train departure times were given in one-minute increments, rather than a rough hour.  The walls and floor tiles were all in perfect order, and looked like they would remain that way for the next few decades.  Announcements come over the intercom in German, followed by almost-unaccented English.  We've travelled only 2,000 kms, but we are in a very different culture now.  It's very Western here. Flowerboxes everywhere! After less than two hours aboard a sleek, comfortable high-speed DeutscheBahn train to Offenburg, we were met by our friend Florence.  She drove us back to her home in Bischoffsheim where we are now spending ten days under her and her family's roof.  Bischoffsheim is a scenic provincial village that is 30 kms from the Rhein River and the German border.  Although it fal...

 We have explored Athens (or at least that where ancient Athens stood), the Acropolis, the Ancient Agora, the Temple of Zeus, Hadrian's Arch, the Plaka, the flea market and ruins of many important monuments that now escape our memory. But what impressed us the most was the Panathenaic Stadium. Not just because it is functional but for Sean, it is a sports stadium and for me, the original (from roughly 500 BC) storm water system is still in use! Constructed completely of marble with amazing acoustics, the stadium hosted the athletic events of the ancient Olympics until they were banned by the Christians for their pagan bent - honouring the Goddess Athena.  They were renovated for the first modern Olympics and hosted the finish of a new event - the marathon. In the ultimate feel good outcome, the Greek, Spyridon Louis, won the first marathon but fortunately failed to repeat in full the legend of Pheidippides who as the inspiration for the modern event. Pheidippides was th...

...and once again, I wish I had taken more history in school. History upon history upon history everywhere. Each time a shovel is sunk into the earth in the old city, ruins are revealed. Sewer systems, house foundations, mosaic floors, wells and walls. The foundation engineers of Athens are a pretty resourceful lot managing to redesign (at short notice I am sure), the substructure of a building to minimize impact on the ruins. But mostly they are just that, ruins.  Even the famed Parthenon, perched magnificently atop the Acropolis, is on a shimmer of its former self.  A few millennia and vandals such as the Christians, the Ottomans and Lord Elgin have pared down this extraordinary structure to a few columns and the odd frieze. And despite this, it remains impressive. The precision with which these huge lumps of rock, way up in the air, were put together with the limited technology at the time is remarkable, even when you have slaves to do the heavy lifting. We expl...

Observations regarding the Greek islands we visited. Rhodes: get there by ferry if you can.  Entering the Port of Rhodes made me feel like an ancient mariner. once you have settled in your accomodation, rent a scooter.  You can visit different beaches and you can shop for pool/beach food at supermarkets for half the price. have dinner at a restaurant on the harbour of the old port.  It won't be as expensive as you think. when you have your scooter, go south to find the nicer beaches. Anthony Quinn Bay is sheltered by headlands; it isn't as tourist-y as it could be and it provides some great fish-viewing, even with just swim goggles. take swim goggles. restaurants outside of Rhodes town are 1/2 the price of restaurants in town.  Ones away from the beach can be really good. buy or bring some tupperware sandwich boxes and pack a lunch and snacks for the beach.  We bought some when we got here, and it was 3 Euros well-spent. beaches without surf a...

The cliff tops of Santorini appear to be snow-capped as we approached on the ferry but as we got closer, they revealed themselves to be the villages of white houses that the Greek Islands are renowned for. Stunningly beautiful despite not being very practical. Narrow, steep, winding marbled streets through which luggage, groceries and wine bottles need to be hauled, up and down stairs, sometimes slippery, often crowded and definitely not to any known building codes!  Our house is perched on the cliff of looking the caldera. It is newly renovated, beautifully staged and boasts three bedrooms each with ensuite bathrooms. The water sparkles, the sun shines and our rooftop deck is a perfect place to pass the time. Wendy and Graeme's partners-in-crime dribbled in over a few days.  Once they were all in town, we hosted a dinner party for twelve. Then the party began! We enjoyed a day on a yacht cruising the caldera, hikes along the cliff, breakfasts and dinner at...

Sean turns 50!! Alyki, on the Greek island of Paros, is treating us to more blue-hued, stunningly clear waters, more pretty white houses with blue shutters and white churches with blue domes. Sigh... Wendy and Graeme have joined us at 'Laliotis Home'; the gorgeous, marble-floored house with a huge terrace we have rented for the week. The village, with its long sandy beach and restaurants is a 300m walk. We have turned swimming and lazing on the beach into an art form!! Big celebrations were had today for Sean's 50th birthday! After a swim and a laze on the beach, we ate a lunch of local calamari and salad rounded off by a birthday ice-cream cake. Gotta say, it beat anything we have ever bought from Dairy Queen.  For dinner, we ate at a restaurant on the beach with the warm Aegean waters lapping at our feet. Beautiful local seafood with carafes of crisp and chilled white wine with a backdrop of a blazing orange sunset was certainly a fine setting for a milesto...