Travel Photos – Greece (Athens/Delphi)

Travel Photos, , , , View all 3 comments

Given what is currently happening in Greece, I felt it would be a good time to offer up a post on the beautiful aspects of the country.  I visited Greece in 2005 while still in college with my parents and we spent 7 days in the country, 2 in Athens and the rest driving around the country in our rental car.  It was a memorable experience and now looking back it is easy to see how the country ended up in its present condition.  Regardless of your political viewpoint it is sad to see a country of such beauty go down this path.

Alright, enough commentary, please enjoy these pictures of my time in Greece:

The Acropolis in Athens (***** – Must Visit)

The Greek Flag Flying on top of the Acropolis

(As a side note, I did not have any decent pictures of the Parthenon so unfortunately it will not be included in this Travel Photos post)

The Temple of Olympian Zeus (***** the scale of the columns alone is worth the visit)

(Looking down from Acropolis, also note behind the temple is the stadium from the first modern Olympics held in Athens in 1896)

Temple of Hephaestus (**** – Almost fully intact temple with smaller crowds than the Parthenon, below the Acropolis hill)

Poseidon Temple ***** (South of Athens on Cape Sounion)

As a side note, there is a very cool hotel just down the coast at the base of the hill the Poseidon Temple is located on.  You can see the temple from the balcony of each room and the hotel has some nice beach access.

The Oracle at Delphi (***** – Worth going far out of your way to see)

Another picture (wide-angle)

Looking up the hill towards the remaining ruins at Delphi.  

The Treasury at Delphi

As a travel note, try to not plan to eat in the area surrounding Delphi as the prices are very high and the food quality low.  For a good lunch, continue on to the coastal town of Itea for an authentic experience. See below for the view looking down towards Itea and Olive Farms.

I hope y’all enjoyed these photos from my trip to Greece a few years ago, as you can probably tell from the pictures we were there during an off-peak travel period so the crowds were considerably smaller than in the summertime.  Look for another entry in the travel photos series next week, until then, enjoy the weekend!

Travel Photos – Verona, Italy

Travel Photos, , , One comment

This week’s featured destination in the Travel Photos series is Verona, Italy.  Verona is one my favorite destinations in Italy and has wonderful historical sites with smaller crowds, what’s not to love?

I guess I should start with the Arena in Verona, which happens to be one my favorite Roman Ruins in Italy.  It is so amazing to me that it still holds events to this day.  (Update:  I wanted to add in a helpful tip for parking near the arena.  It is the Park Cittadella and it is literally less than a 5-minute walk to the Arena.  I have included the link (in Italian) for any who are interested.) http://www.apcoa.it/it/parcheggi/informazioni/veneto/verona-parcheggio-cittadella.html

Closer View

Interior (You can see the updated seating that is installed in the Arena for events)

Piazza Bra (Piazza outside of the Arena.  The cafes here may look nice and have a great location but to get better food I would suggest heading at least 1-2 blocks into the city away from the Arena)

Via Mazzini (Pedestrian only street leading from Arena to Piazza delle Erbe)

Juliet’s House (With supposed balcony pictured)

Piazza delle Erbe

One more from Piazza delle Erbe

 If you have the chance to visit Verona I would highly recommend taking advantage of it.  It is a great city with interesting and unique sites.  Hope you enjoyed this edition of the Travel Photos series.

Weekend NYC Trip

Travel Photos, Trip Report, , , , , View all 2 comments

I know I haven’t posted anything in a while and I don’t really have a good excuse, I need to work on improving the frequency of the posts. That being said, my wife and I spent last weekend in New York to celebrate our 1-year anniversary. It was a quick but quite enjoyable trip and now I have something to write about!

As both my wife and I have been to NYC a few times each we spent most of the time there just enjoying ourselves with no set schedule.  I love this way of traveling, it provides for such a relaxing time.

The pictures from this trip are not the best but they are serviceable (taken from iPhone) so I will include them with some restaurant and one hotel review below. Enjoy!

Beautiful day in Central Park!

Looking north on 5th Avenue from the front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (I must recommend going if you haven’t before, rivaled some of the best museums I have seen in Europe)

NYC Public Library

Hotel Review:  New York Hilton Fashion District (W26th Street & 7th Avenue)

Price: $$$$$ (We used HHonors Points)

This is one the of the newer Hilton Properties in NYC so I decided to give it a whirl for our weekend anniversary trip.  The entire hotel has a “hip” vibe from the check-in area to the restaurant (RARE) all the way to the rooftop bar.  It wasn’t exactly “our scene” but nonetheless my wife and I enjoyed the hotel.  The hotel is located in Chelsea and is within easy walking distance to the subway and reasonable walking distance to Greenwich Village.  The rooms were average size for NYC and all features within the room were new and fresh.  I am fairly indifferent as to whether I would choose to stay here again.  There was nothing specifically or even generally wrong with the room or the hotel at all but nothing really connected with me, or my wife, as I think they have a different target audience.

Restaurant Review: Dell’Anima (Italian)

Price: $$$

We used Yelp to research restaurants and chose this restaurant based upon the great reviews and proximity to our hotel.  After finding the restaurant we wanted, we used Opentable to book reservations for our Saturday night anniversary dinner.  We arrived a little early for the reservation and chose to have a glass of wine prior being seated.  There is a small bar right at the entrance of the restaurant with a very good wine/beer selection.

After finishing our drink we were seated in a corner table for two and helped immediately.  I can’t compliment the service enough, it really makes a huge difference when the wait staff appears to actually care about the food/presentation.  We both thoroughly enjoyed our meals.  The restaurant does VERY well with fresh takes on Italian classics.  Overall, I would recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting NYC or to anyone that lives in the city.  The food was fantastic and the atmosphere was great. (The price was average for NYC, but expensive to me!)

Restaurant Review: Cookshop (Meatpacking District)

Price: $$

Again, we used Yelp and Opentable to find and book this restaurant for brunch.  We were not let down this time either!  This was one of the best brunches (not even sure that is a word but I am going to use it anyways since this is my post) I have ever had and would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone in the NYC area on a Sunday morning.  The restaurant has a nice outdoor patio and very open inside and the wait staff were very attentive for how busy it was.  (As a side note – Make Reservations for Brunch.  We were able to skip past a 45-minute wait when we arrived.  Also, order the fried egg breakfast sandwich – you can thank me later)

Hope you enjoyed my first official trip review!  I expect to improve with each one.  The next big trip we have planned is for Ireland this fall but in the meantime I am sure we will have a couple more weekend trips.

Travel Photos – San Francisco, California

Travel Photos, Trip Report, , , , , View all 2 comments

I am switching it up this time and going with photos from the most recent (domestic) trip my wife and I took.  We went to San Francisco over New Year’s and really enjoyed spending some relaxing time in the city while burning some Hilton points.  We lucked out getting 2 of 3 perfectly clear sunny days with highs in the mid-60’s.  Couldn’t have been better!  Enjoy!

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from close to Fisherman’s Wharf (Sight – ***).

View of Alcatraz from near Lombard St.

View of Colt Tower (Colt Tower – ** – just for the views) from near Lombard St.

My wife and I in front of Lombard St. (Apparently we took a bunch of pictures up there) (Lombard St. – **)

This picture is looking towards downtown from Columbus Ave. (Notice the Hilton Financial District Hotel peaking over the tops of some buildings on the right-hand side.  I will give a brief review below)

To complete the pictures portion of this post I had to throw in the requisite picture of Chinatown.  It is very touristy but still fun to walk through. (Chinatown – ****)

I do want to give a brief review of the hotel we stayed in during our trip to San Francisco.  We were there over New Year’s Eve and the prices to pay for rooms out-of-pocket were pretty prohibitive so I decided to use some Hilton Honors points to book us a room.  I searched and there are three options for Hilton’s in the city: Fisherman’s Wharf, Union Square and Financial District.  The Union Square and Financial District hotels are pretty close together and I liked the fact that they were in less “touristy” sections of the city so the choice was down to those two.  I selected the Financial District Hilton based upon the reviews on tripadvisor.com, which were extremely helpful.  I think the hotel was redeemed for approximately 40,000 Hilton Honors points per night which isn’t the greatest deal in the world, but isn’t awful for the what the rooms were selling for over New Year’s.  (Price Rating – $$$$$)

The hotel itself was updated, clean and had a newer feel to it even though from the outside you could tell it was older.  Hilton has done a superb job of keeping this hotel in good and updated condition.  The check-in was efficient, even arriving when we did at 1 AM, with the staff welcoming me as a Diamond Member and explaining the Executive Lounge.  The room itself was clean but had an odor of stale cigarettes that we could not get rid of. Other than the smell, we had no complains with the condition of the room/bathroom.

Overall, I would recommend this hotel to someone traveling for leisure or business as it has a fairly convenient location (Very close to Chinatown) and the rooms are what you come to expect from Hilton.

Hope you enjoyed this post!  Since I am traveling this week I might be able to press out one more so do look forward to that!

Quick Travel Question?

Business Travel, Thoughts, , , One comment

First, I need to provide some background.  I took a flight for business this past Monday morning and on the United flight from Houston to St. Louis the flight attendant forced all passengers to remove liquids (waters bottles, coke, coffee, etc.) from the seat back pockets during takeoff/landing as she claimed this is a FAA Regulation.

I have flown a fair amount in the past 5 years but have never once heard this pronouncement.  I have flown on the type of aircraft before as well and never heard it.  I was just wondering if anyone else has ever had a flight attendant force you to hold water bottles during takeoff/landing?