Author: marionvermazen

I am a traveler, hiker, avid reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, Spanish and French language student, knitter and genealogist. I am retired after working for almost 30 years in the Computer Industry. I live in Reno, Nevada with my husband Duke.

Our first day in Paris

I love French croissants! I have been looking forward to a French breakfast ever since we started planning this trip. Monday morning our breakfast of coffee, croissants and orange juice at a little cafe near our hotel made me very happy.

After breakfast we headed to The Louvre. I’ve been there a couple of times before but this was Duke’s first visit. The size and splendor of the former palace always amazes me.

We saw many of The Louvre’s most famous pieces of art.

The Venus de Milo

Winged Victory.

The Mona Lisa

Mercury.

The Code of Hammurabi.

On our way back to our hotel we saw more than 100 horses with splendidly uniformed riders parading along the Seine. We couldn’t figure out why. But then over coffee in the lounge at our hotel we saw that President Xi Jinping of China and President Macron of France were reviewing the troops at the Arc de Triomphe.

For dinner we ate at another great little local restaurant near our hotel, Le Petit Pontoise. We started with foie gras. For our main course Duke had steak and I had veal kidneys. For desert we had crime brûlée. The ambiance and the good food made it a quintessential and perfect dinner.

We are in Paris

Duke and I arrived in Paris today at the start of another European adventure. Our plan is to spend a couple of days here then head north. We will explore parts of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany before ending up in Spain.

It’s exciting to be in Paris. Even just the short walk from the Metro to our Hotel was full of quintessential Parisian sights.

After a great Norwegian Air overnight flight from Oakland I’m pretty tired. But I just need to stay awake until it gets dark so I can start getting over my jet lag.

We ate dinner at a restaurant near our hotel, L’Atelier Maître Albert. Our meal was very good. I had roast bream fish and Duke had roast duck. We had a spinach mushroom gratin as a side dish. For desert we had ewe cheese with a cherry jelly.

On the walk back to our hotel we had another beautiful view of Notre Dame

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Honolulu – Diamond Head and Waikiki

From our hotel on Waikiki you can’t even see Diamond Head because of all the other high rises. So yesterday we hiked along the coast out to the old light house on the point right below Diamond Head.

On our way back we stopped at the bandstand in the park to listen to a Royal Hawaiian Band Sunday concert of Hawaiian music. It was idyllic.

We had an excellent dinner last night at Morimoto.

Today we went swimming near our hotel and generally relaxed and enjoyed the tropical weather and beautiful view from our lanai.

It seems very appropriate that our last meal in Hawaii was at Duke’s on the beach.

Honalulu – the Bishop Museum and the Chinese New Year Parade

We visited the Bishop Museum today. They have fascinating display about Polynesian and Hawaiian history in a beautiful building.

The Bishop Museum also has a planetarium and a science center. In the planetarium we watched a very interesting presentation about how the Polynesian navigators found their way from island to island. And in the Science center we watched a demonstration about magma and lava. The presenter poured some molten lava out of a special furnace. It was very cool, or should I say hot!

Next we watched the Chinese New Year Parade in Chinatown.

We ate dinner overlooking the beach. It was a wonderful day!

Kona to Honolulu – Pearl Harbor and the State Capitol

Yesterday morning we sat on the lanai at our inn and read. Around ten o’clock we drove to the airport, turned in our rental car and the flew from Kona to Honalulu.

Today we took the bus to Pearl Harbor and visited the USS Arizona Memorial. The dock on the memorial is being renovated so we couldn’t actually go on the memorial but we did get a boat ride in the harbor so we could see the memorial up close.

From Pearl Harbor we went to visit the Hawaii State Capitol building. The building is unique. It has five stories with an open air courtyard. I really like it.

While we were in the outer office of the governors office who should come out but David Ige, Hawaii’s governor and Ed Case one of Hawaii’s two congressmen in the House of Representatives!

They had a picture taken then we did the same.