McKinney Gypsy Caravan

4 days around Denver, Colorado

April 22, 2025 / Erin McKinney

Norah had 3 days off school for her Spring Break this year so I decided to take a couple days off of work and decided we would explore the Denver area for a long weekend because we could get cheap flights on Frontier, I had Marriott points for the hotels…and we had never been! We were supposed to leave New Orleans at 7pm, but on our way into the airport they delayed us until 9pm, then again to 9:40pm departure, putting us into Denver around 11:45pm. By the time we got our rental car and got to our hotel, it was about 1am, but we were happy to be here- knowing that when you book the budget airlines, that doesn’t always happen! Ha

The only thing notable at midnight on the way to the hotel

Friday morning we slept in a bit longer than I had originally planned because of the flight delay and the fact that within the last week a winter storm had developed and the south area of Denver was unexpectedly going to dealing with up to a foot of snow where I had planned to spend our first day… so my itinerary was getting whittled down quickly.

We started our morning at a Mexican burrito truck. One thing about the western US, breakfast means breakfast burritos and I’m here for it!

Our first site of any significance was Garden of the Gods, a red rocks formation with a drive thru park and hiking trails.

Kegan had warned me, back in his Geology camp days, they came through here… and he said it was skippable… but since we literally had to drive through it to get to the Springs where we were headed, it didn’t make sense to skip.

But… that’s it. That’s the Garden of the Gods. lol Just those red rocks. ha I couldn’t believe how famous the park name is when THIS is literally it.

Right on the edge of Garden of the Gods was the Manitou Cliff Dwellings so we swung in here and spent $45(!!!) to see a recreated cliff dwellings and a museum and gift shop. 100% a skip lol

I learned after that this cliff dwelling was created around 1907 to try to divert tourists to the area… and the stones were actually looted and stolen from a real Ancestral Puebloan site near Cortez. The family that built this still runs it… and apparently its highly controversial, even to this day. I had no idea at the time. But we definitely were like…ok… you ready to go? ha

After that visit, we headed on down to Manitou Springs for a stop at Miramont Castle, a chateau built in 1895 by a french-born catholic priest named Father Jean Baptist Francolon. He was born into a wealthy aristocratic family and immigrated to the US after being recruited to serve as a priest in the Santa Fe area. He spent almost 10 years touring around the southwest to various mission churches and chapels. He had failing health and he decided to move to Manitou Springs area, because it was known for its healing waters and clean air.

Father Francolon incorporated all of the features he liked into one castle. There is English Tudor, Byzantine, Moorish, Romanesque… it really was a cool house…but did sort of seem like a mish-mash of random elements.

The tour started with a fire history museum in the basement… I realized after, I didn’t take many photos because nothing was very photo worthy, really…

This was the priest’s bedroom, the lady at the front desk said this was the most peaceful room or that people feel unsettling spirits here.

There was the Queen’s Tea Parlor in the castle that serves high tea twice daily. But I didn’t know their max capacity would be like 5 people… and they were “all booked” even though there was only 3 tables… so we didn’t have high tea. I have a feeling that was probably for the best. ha Our theory was that you had to have reservations because they likely ordered the food in instead of making it on site and had to know how much to order.

As we left, the snow we were promised started falling. The fluffiest snow I have ever experienced.

We headed on into town to find an alternate for lunch. The town was a cute artist-type town. Like a Nashville, Indiana. Tons of good independent shops and restaurants.

We decided on Sherpa Garden for Nepalese/Tibetan food. It looked really good online.. and it was a great choice!

Beef Momo dumplings with a tamarind sauce

We shared the Combination plate with Saag, Lamb Curry, and Chicken Tikka Masala

They had a momo soup, which I made an assumption was the momo is a spicy broth like I always get in New york at my favorite restaurant. Even asked- is this like “momo johl?” and she said – yes, exactly that. So I was a bit disappointed with a chicken broth soup showed up. haha BUT, it was one of the BEST chicken broths I have ever had… it had definitely been stewed down all day to make this.

The combo platter came was a rice pudding that was dreamy. Now I have to figure out how to make this at home.

To go with the rice pudding, I ordered a Kabuli naan- a naan bread sweetened with raisins and cashews. Also dreamy. 10/10 would recommend.

We were supposed to drive out to the Royal Gorge and Florissant Fossil Beds, but the fossils were starting to get covered in the sticking snow… and I couldn’t imagine driving 2 hours into the mountains to walk across the highest and largest gorge in the US in 29 degree weather and snow was a great idea.

We had also booked the Cave of the Winds 6:30pm night UV special tour… but we had decided over lunch we likely didn’t need to hang around until 8pm then drive an hour on the interstate after dark, so we would just finish up the few in-town items we had earmarked and head back to the city.

First stop was the first of the natural springs- Twin Spring- which was drilled in the 1920s. I saw a local resident walking down with his water bottle to fill up for the day. We sampled it. It was naturally fizzy, so that is super cool to me…but we all agreed it didn’t have a good clean taste to it… it had a metallic funk to it.

We finally found a spot to park behind the arcade we wanted to visit anyway, so that was handy 🙂

We walked up the hill to another spring, Wheeler Spring that was drilled in 1936 as a tribute to Jerome Wheeler who bottled and marketed Manitou Springs naturally fizzy water and made it famous.

Norah said this one tasted like you licked a chain link fence. lol

The Penny Arcade was our intended destination. I had read that they had tons of vintage and even antique arcade games to play, most of which were still 5 cents, 10 cents or a quarter.

I think this old wooden basketball game was my favorite. The guy pitched the basketball up granny style into the goal.

I had a lot of fun playing this old baseball game too.

Old peep show booths. Of COURSE we had to check those out. I’ve never actually seen one in real life! ha The Knotty Peek was just a cartoon style girl figurine on the beach.. the Peeping Tom headquarters was just pinup girl photos in bikinis. Very racey! lol

If you’ve ever read Ready Player One- you know there is an epic Joust battle that allows Wade to find the Copper Key for the First Gate…. Ready Player One is one of my favorite fun easy-reading fiction books, so playing Joust was super fun.

Kegan played the rifle game after I recommended it… I said it was really fun! I got 2900 points. Kegan’s score was so high, it reset the dang scoreboard. lol 13,000 or something in the end. It just kept giving him extended play. I think he played 6-7 minutes on a quarter. ha

Sampling another spring- Navajo Spring. Same. Metallic. Not great. ha

Quick stop at Patsy’s Candy Shop before heading out of town.

We decided that it was time to get moving…and it was the right call. This was the interstate already.

As I’m driving, I got a call from Colorado Springs… and I’m like, what the heck… it was the Cave of the Winds calling me to tell me they were cancelling our UV tour because of the weather to get everyone home and they were refunding our tour cost. I was like, that’s amazing- we had already ditched you guys and headed back to Denver. ha She laughed and we had $95 back we didn’t anticipate. Win!

I made Kegan take a photo of this crap I was driving in while he was being a passenger princess 🙂 We have an arrangement- I drive in cities, he drives on long trips. He hates traffic and managing 18 different inputs on the road… and my brain hates the monotony of long stretches of nothing… so it works for us. ha But that meant that I was the only name on the rental car for the weekend.

The aftermath back at the hotel in Denver.

We checked in the Denver Marriott West for the next 3 nights.. and after 30 minutes or so, headed out for our escape game reservation that also was moved up to 7:30pm from 9:30pm

We booked this one because it was Star Wars themed. War for the Galaxy. We were in a jail cell and had one hour to escape and find the resistance before we were caught.

We escaped we plenty of time to spare. I think they said we were 3 minutes off the all-time record.

After, we couldn’t pick anything that sounded good to anyone….so we sat in the car for a bit trying to find something… and when Kegan mentioned there was a Chuy’s Mexican restaurant nearby, we all said “ooooh, I’d eat Chuy’s!” ha So, we just did chain food. Nothing new and exciting…

We rolled back into the hotel and Norah and I both fell asleep in our clothes. ha Bad mom.

Saturday morning bright and early we headed towards Golden to fit in some suburb town stuff before an afternoon of reservations in Denver.

Breakfast burritos again at Bonfire Burritos. I got the Carne Asada with Green chili sauce and it was the best I had ever had. Kegan and Norah got a chorizo one that was soooo salty, they didn’t finish theirs… but I was happy. ha

An older gymnasium/center that reminded me of the Vallonia gym.

Our first stop was the Mines Museum of Earth Science at the Colorado School of Mines- a public university in Colorado founded in 1874.

Our first view of the mountains since it was so low visibility on Friday.

We drove out a bit to a dinosaur tracksite, but the road was closed. We walked up the hill to the first spot to see some dinosaur bones

With the snow still covering the ground, we decided the almost half- mile walk uphill (in thin air, mind you…. it was hard to just BREATHE haha and when you add elevation..it was a bit of a workout at times just doing a flight of stairs! Someone said it takes about 8 days to acclimate) We all decided that the likelihood of seeing nothing on the ground after walking was going to be disappointing, so we aborted the mission and went back to town.

Next stop- the Denver Museum of Miniatures, Dolls and Toys. Which, I figured would be weird… but it was even weirder than I anticipated. It really was just dollhouses with a couple shelves of other things.

Now, weirdness and all- you cannot discount the skill and craftsmanship that people put into these miniatures. Like the vegetables above- those are purchased whole from a local miniature creator. But they are designed to where you can cut open the bell pepper and find seeds, the cucumber slices, the red cabbage has all of the layers of the real thing. Mind blowing attention to detail. (My fingertip for scale)

This one in particular was a blast from my past. This Fashion Plates from 1977 was at my grandmother’s house when I was growing up. I remember making MANY a doll rubbing with those plates.

We headed on into Denver to a shop that was only open 12-4 Saturday during our trip…so we had to hit this window- called Fifty-Two 80s. A vintage toy shop of 80s and 90s nostalgia.

They had soooo many items from PeeWee’s Playhouse.

Including the REAL ACTUAL PLAYHOUSE SET. Only $900 and it could have been mine 🙂

If I wasnt flying, I’m pretty sure this Chairy would have had to come home with me… but Kegan talked me out of it since it was over $100… and flying with it would be a giant pain.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle table. I recognized about every item on the table from Bryan having every turtle item known to man.

Our haul in the end- some Labyrinth stickers for Norah’s best friend. Hello Kitty trading cards, 2 packs of Little Shops of Horrors stickers from the 80s, 2 packs of 1982 Dark Crystal trading cars, a Casa Bonita South Park sticker, a set of Star Wars nesting dolls (to go with our Yo Gabba Gabba nesting dolls) and then the cashier gave us a Kojak trading card at checkout.

Now…. the entire purpose of the trip was upon us.

We had been watching TV and found Casa Bonita Mi Amor- a documentary about Trey Parker and Matt Stone -the creators of South Park and Denver natives- buying the defunct Casa Bonita Mexican restaurant and restoring it to the price tag of something like 30 million dollars to try to salvage the history and their childhood magic. Great documentary. Great cause. They say throughout how this was NOT a sound business decision. That the reason they were able to buy this and do this…. was because it was a stupid money decision.

But how refreshing is that… that in this world of business savvy and investment capital and everything having to be for the greatest possible profit and the greatest return for investors that these two filthy rich big kids can just do something from the heart, the right way… and preserve something that didn’t make “business sense” to preserve. Long live Casa Bonita.

For that alone, we had to make the pilgrimage. I booked 3 months prior and there was only late lunch slots available for me to reserve for the entire weekend. But I didn’t mind- I planned my day around a 2pm lunch reservation. ha

Of course, we knew about the lore of Casa Bonita from South Park- which is a staple cartoon of my upbringing. If you haven’t seen it- its one of the best episodes. Kyle gets to have his birthday party with 3 friends at Casa Bonita, Eric Cartman’s favorite place in the whole world- except Kyle isn’t inviting Cartman- because Cartman is a jerk, he instead invites Butters. Cartman schemes to get the spot for the trip by manipulating Kyle and hiding Butters in a bomb shelter for a week so he can go. The scheme unravels as they arrive to the famous fountain in front of Casa Bonita and Cartman does a speed-run to try to fit in all of the fun of Casa Bonita before the police take him into custody. Its comedy genius.

Watch the South Park episode, watch the documentary, visit the place. It’s absolutely worth it for one visit.

The famous fountain and giant bell tower which we could see from a mile away on our way in, like a big Mexican food beacon. ha

The menu is 1 set price since you are basically paying for the whole experience. $39.99- unlimited chips and salsa, unlimited fountain drinks, one entree and then Sopapillas for dessert. We added on a side of guacamole and 2 El Diablo cocktails with a smokey mezcal, lime, cassis and ginger beer. They were fantastic and made dealing with this ADHD fever dream of a restaurant a better experience. ha

Cartman himself getting an honorary seat forever at Casa Bonita. Loved seeing this. ha

Live music playing throughout the experience

In the remodel, they set aside a Museum section with original Casa bonita items and history.

The original gorilla that would randomly roam around and surprise children. He’s still around, Norah and Kegan found him later in the Magic show.

The splash zone for the Cliff Divers, for the kids to get an up front view

The sheriff, one of the characters roaming the venue interacting with guests.

Black Bart, Ani and the Princess Pirate.

The Assayer remodeled and reprogrammed to give Casa Bonita coins in a Farrah Faucet t-shirt.

We stayed so long, a new band came on shift. ha

Finding the secret button to get a pearl. (a plastic egg with a squishy octopus inside.)

I had set a 5:30pm alarm just in case we lost track of time since we had an escape room reservation… and we needed every minute of it… probably could have even spent another 20-30 minutes if we had it to spend. It was an overall great afternoon. It was like the Disneyland of Mexican restaurants. For the price, definitely worth it as a one-time experience. Viva Casa Bonita!

We headed out to Louisville, Colorado (pronounced Loo-is-ville I’m told) to what Reddit told me was the best escape rooms in the Denver area- Rabbit Hole Recreation Services.

We did Frost Base Z – an antarctic base that we had to go try to save a stuck contaminated team, decontaminate ourselves and escape in our pod back to the surface. The theming was pretty good. There was fog and a escape pod that was just a stationary room, but the sounds and light effects made it feel like it was really moving up and down underground or to the surface. We escaped with 14 minutes left. Plenty of time 🙂

For Easter. I had them hide a rabbit stuffy and rabbit key necklace for Norah in the room for her to find. (it was a service they offered at booking- I wasn’t a crazy mom that asked this to random things haha)

We were due to go to dinner at a Sushi place in Louisville before heading back to the hotel, but none of us were hungry at the time, so we got carryout so we could take it back to the hotel and eat it within a couple hours.

Easter Sunday Funday started a bit later with our first plans being at 10:20am at Meow Wolf Denver.

I forgot to take a photo of the outside, but its called Convergence Station- a multi-dimensional train station between Earth and other dimensions, with some sort of weird parallel arc story about missing people and stolen memories.. as all Meow Wolf art installations are a visual fever dream… but also have hidden easter eggs to find, hidden doors, codes, quests, etc.

Fun fact, that vending machine of laundry detergent is a secret door to a hidden room.

Norah completed the hidden pizza quest and got the passcode into the hidden pizza room.

Cracking the code in the aquarium room to get a secret psychedelic video

We spent hours wandering around, seeing every corner of the building… but there really isn’t much to say without experiencing it. I don’t think I’m quite artsy enough to truly “get” Meow Wolf… but it is like nothing else in the world every one we visit.

We decided to get German food for a late lunch at Rhein Haus downtown right near Mile High Stadium.

Giant Pretzel with beer cheese and honey mustard.

Kegan’s sausage platter with cheesy spaetzel and sauerkraut

My Denver brat with Polish Kilbasa, cheesy peppers and onions with diced jalapeno. It was really good!

Our afternoon was uneventful… we were debating going to the Selfie Museum… or the Museum of Illusions…but eventually we all agreed to just go back to the hotel for a 3 hour nap before escape room fun in the evening. Norah and I did full on pajamas in bed and were zonked out. Kegan had to wake us up to go out. ha We would have been down for the night, I think.

Conundrum games was our destination tonight- for the Hollywood Mystery room- a Dick Tracy style 1940’s missing starlet we had to help the detective find the suspect and where he had taken the star- Holly Woods.

Funny story- We got a card that was coded in a cypher called “pigsty”. The room malfunctioned, and a drawer was supposed to open that gave us a decoder ring to decode the message… but have no fear… Norah just happened to know how to decode pigsty IN HER BRAIN… so the game master didn’t even notice that the drawer didn’t open for us. So, even with a malfunctioning game, we managed to get the record for the room. Hence Norah’s “It was all me” sign. It really was. ha

We weren’t really wanting a full dinner after German lunch- so we decided to just get ice cream.. and found this local chain of frozen custard called Goodtimes. It was good enough for a late night teat.

Monday morning was our last day. We packed up and checked out of our hotel and headed into the downtown area, we had a few options for breakfast to select between, but everyone agreed just coffee and pastries sounded best so we drove to Aurora to Paris Baguette.

A Fruity Pebbles Mochi doughnut. Norah said it was “fire”

After breakfast we fought our way directly downtown on a Monday morning and searched for parking for a bit to go into the Denver mint. When we arrived we were still over 45 minutes away from a tour start, so we decided to just hit the gift shop and look for any sets or coins for the collection.

We settled on this Native American Dollar set from 2009-2018 since we always try to find these but they are hard to come by in circulation these days. Norah was looking for a 2019 Denver mint penny… so if anyone has one in a change jar, she’s still on the lookout 🙂

The Denver Public Library building looks like a child’s castle playset that someone built in real life. Parking is such a beast I noticed that they had pull up curbside book drops for people.

Since we had to pay for 5 hours of parking. we decided to just leave the car there and walk a bit towards the Colorado History Center, passing the Denver Art Museum.

The actual Colorado State Constitution from 1876. I learned that Colorado is nicknamed the Centennial State since it was 100 years after the founding of the country.

The History Colorado Center was a very well done museum. Lots of state history and memorabilia, lots about mining culture and settlement…but didn’t shy away from some of the darker parts of Colorado history like the Salt Creek Massacre, the Chinatown riot in downtown Denver, KKK prevalence in the state, Japanese internment camps, segregated ski towns…. I think those things are important to ensure they tell the stories of EVERYONE in the state… and I think this did a great job all around.

Produce boxes highlighting the agriculture industry in Colorado

A recreation of one of the larger family homes in the Amache Japanese internment camp

Business sign from one of the original burlesque clubs that folks like Clint Eastwood and Elvis used to frequent when in town.

I forgot to photograph all of the mine exhibits, but lots of focus on the silver and gold industries and other mining that has been at the heart of Colorado industry

There was an exhibit on skiing and the mountain retreat culture and ski industry of Colorado. Norah gave ski jumping a shot in their simulator.

Ha! Even History Colorado got in on the fun of Casa Bonita complete with the 4 minute Cartman clip speed-running Casa Bonita. ha

An electric car from 1905 designed and built in Colorado. The signs said this car arrived at the museum on its own power in 1990.

They almost didn’t get me to leave this complete blockbuster setup in the corner. haha Talk about nostalgia. I could picture myself stocking shelves, stuffing VHS and DVD clamshells with title inserts.

Original cardboard cutout from the premiere of South Park in 1997.

Norah enjoyed the basement gaming setup from the 90s and played a little MarioKart on the N64

Norah had to have this 90s activity book from the gift shop. I made her agree to do it on the plane instead of electronics if I bought it. She shook on it 🙂

To kill an hour or so until we headed to the airport, we decided we could eat so we went to a restaurant I had bookmarked called MAKfam- a modern Chinese.

We sampled all 3 bao they had- a marinated mushroom, a pork and a spicy chicken.

Chinatown dumplings with chicken and chives

a Steak and Egg Jian Bing sandwich with beansprouts and hoisin sauce

Norah requested her own scallion pancake order… and she housed the whole thing- soo I guess the kid knew what she wanted.

To round out our trip, we took a drive through the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Preserve to check out some wildlife. Its an 8 mile loop through a nature preserve… we saw prairie dogs, deer, buffalo, ducks, geese, tons of birds- even a hawk.

After that it was the craziness of rental car return, shuttle, security, gate changes, etc… but a fairly empty direct flight back to New Orleans on Southwest. Norah decided to wear her retro Casa Bonita shirt home today that she picked up in the gift shop…so I’d say the goal of creating childhood memories at Casa Bonita was a success!

Next trip is New York City->London->Ireland for 8 days at the end of May. See you then!

Ciao from Italy!- 3 days in Venice and Milan

March 20, 2025 / Erin McKinney

Our final destinations of the trip were brand new for all of us. We took a high speed train from Florence Station into Venice on Thursday morning

Coming directly out of the Santa Lucia train station in Venice (the further point cars and trains can enter to the island of Venice) you can see the Grand Canal and very “Venice” style architecture. I was hooked already.

We bought 48 hour unlimited tickets on the “Vaporetto” or water buses. The Venetian equivalent of the subway/train system. The water buses hold 50 or so people and go station to station along the water on a set schedule. There are also private water taxis which were much more posh… but also much more pricey. Our 48 hour pass for the water buses for $40/person- a one-time water taxi is $100-200 depending on where you want to go.

We were dropped off at a station just 1-2 minutes’ walk from our hotel. This hotel was sooo nice compared to the other two. Nice marble bathroom, a gorgeous canal view out the window, but the mattress was actually the worst of the trip I would find. lol

Our first few steps out of the hotel had us crossing a bridge right behind St Mark’s square and the Doge’s Palace with a great view of the famous Bridge of Sighs, named because its the bridge prisoners crossed after they were sentenced to death in the court to go back to the prison, that they would sigh looking out at Venice for the last time. Famously, Casanova spoke of crossing this bridge before his escape from the prison.

We took our first look at St Mark’s Square, the Campanile and the Doge’s Palace.

Right around the corner we saw a Gondola spot to hop in for your rides. We all collectively decided we didn’t need a gondola ride… we just watched a few paddling through and that was good enough. 🙂

We hit up a shop for lunch and gelato and then proceeded to keep exploring the city. I got a walnut and fig flavor that was excellent.

I had saved this house/museum – the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo in case we were in the area… and Venice was MUCH smaller than I expected from the map… so we ended up over here quickly… so we went inside and climbed ALL of those spiral stairs to a terrace up top.

It really wasnt anything famous in the past- it was a rich family’s house for a long time…. it was a filming location for Orson Welles’ Othello…but really it was just a unique architecture from around 1500.

Randomly in the art gallery of modern streaky bright colored weird art was this Renaissance Tintoretto

This is labeled the “Mozart house” on Google Maps… but when you read further- “Mozart stayed at this house once during a visit to Venice during Carnival when he was 5 years old” hahaha but there you have it- a house where baby Mozart once stayed. 🙂

Next along the walk we came across a perfumery I wanted to stop into because their bottles were beautiful online…

I ended up with a small bottle that I could fit in my toiletry bag of the Vinegia 21…but disappointingly, the small bottle wasn’t pretty.

We decided to spend a bit touring around the inside of the Teatro La Fenice, one of the most famous opera houses along with La Scala in Milan.

We crossed the canal over to the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, a church from the 1600s. Built on a platform of over a million wooden piles!

Kegan decided he needed a coffee before we went back to our room, and Norah decided she wanted one too- and she drank it! A real Italian Macchiato… and she said she liked it… in Europe, counter and take-away has a different price than tables, since there really isn’t a tipping culture. So, if you want to be served at a table, the food costs more. I REALLY like that set up.

For dinner, we had reserved at a very fancy seafood spot…and since Carnival season (equivalent to Mardi Gras in the states) just ended 2 days prior, it was dead empty. Overall, the food was fantastic…but the prices and the portions left a little to be desired. I wouldn’t recommend it because it wasn’t enough food for what we paid for it…and their menu was MUCH smaller than what was available on their website.. so we struggled to find stuff that we even wanted… they did have oysters but they were 6 euro a piece lol and as a now gulf-coast girl getting gulf-coast oysters at 50 cents a piece at happy hour, I just couldn’t do it. ha

a squid ink tortellini with cuttlefish, sour cream and mint

Cardoncello mushroom with garlic panacotta and sage sauce

Grilled octopus with black cabbage (kale) and artichokes

Monkfish with romaine lettuce. (good luck finding the 1 oz of monkfish lol )

Norah’s pork shank with mushrooms with sweet and sour onion

Kegan’s dessert was some sort of apple cider panna cotta or something… I can’t remember

It was amazing when we left at 10pm from the restaurant, Venice was all to us. No one around, empty alleys and streets, calm water… it was really cool.

When we got up Friday, it was back to normal with the typical bustle of a city.

The famous Rialto Bridge. The oldest of the 4 bridges that spans the Grand Canal. Absolute tourist trap of selfie sticks and Instagram fakeness. The bridge itself is gorgeous.. and iconic… so I get it. but 30 seconds on it was enough for me. 🙂

We made a stroll through the Liberia Acqua Alta

Kegan was very amused by the painting of “Fire Exit” on the wall that leads to the water. lol

Saw this picturesque house as we left and just really loved how it stood at the fork of two canals like the Flatiron building in New York. On the flight home, I watched the new Mission Impossible- and it was set in Venice and they had a scene on a bridge in front of this house! and on bridges we 100% had just been on. It was fun.

Next we stopped by the Museo di Palazzo Grimani, which is a museum…but was once the home of Antonio Grimani, who became the Doge of Venice in 1521.

Venice is unique in that it was historically always an oligarchy. It was founded and grew to be a city of wealthy merchants. These wealthy families shared power and elected a “doge” to be the representative leader for life. Therefore, since they never would want anyone to have power too long, usually the Doge was much older and would only serve a few years….and it was usually from very prominent families. The Doge had to furnish the palace for himself during his reign…as well as entertain guests and foreign visitors… so it wasn’t cheap to be a Doge… they had to be rich. Venice had the Doge system for over a thousand years… crazy… from 698 to 1797 when the last Doge abdicated to Napoleon.

What makes this house special, is that it was a home of a very wealthy Doge and stayed in that family through the late 1800s. It was restored as a museum in recent times… and there are temporary exhibits and some long term art and sculpture housed here- but really, the architecture is the real attraction- to see the high class life of a 1500s Doge.

The Tribuna, which held over 130 ancient statues in its prime.

We thought this looked like Norah, even without arms and …ahem… as a boy.

There were a few strange rooms staged artfully to house some curiosities. Like in this case, straw and fake mushrooms to show off the skulls and other nature type oddities?.. I didn’t really get it… but some of the stuff was cool.

After that we made our way back down to the Museo Correr in St Mark’s Square. It was 4 museums, in theory, but you had to buy all 4 together and they were sequential along the path… so to me- that’s one dang museum with different sections 🙂

A large solid walnut library that was relocated to the museum. Housing a large volume of historical documents

They had a very large coin collection- with some Venetian coins with images of the Doge back to the 800s.

A few rooms with historical military weapons, with armor and swords and knifes and clubs.

Plenty of ancient roman and greek statues on display… even I was getting “statued out” at this point… and I LOVE this stuff. ha

Venetian Murano Glass chandeliers in the museum from the 1700s

There was sooo much more I didn’t photograph. Tons of exhibits on the history of Venice and building, shipyards, the arsenal and navy, navigating, ports… renaissance art, ceramics… definitely worth a few hours here.

After the museum, I had to promise Norah some fried seafood- her favorite thing – to get her to make it through the boring museum, so we trekked across the city via water bus for 20-30 minutes to the Frito Inn for some cones of fried seafood.

She was very pleased. So were Kegan and I. We got the mixed fish that had little anchovies and big sardines as well as shrimp and squid. It was greasy, but it hit the spot.

After a stroll back by foot, we rested for a bit in our hotel and I took a nap, prior to our guided night tours- an after-hours small group tour of the Doge’s Palace and St Mark’s Cathedral after closing. SO WORTH IT.

Walking across the Bridge of Sighs to the prison

We just about bailed on the tour because the tour guide was all over the place, repeating herself, taking forever on silly stuff, rushing everyone through the areas we wanted to look… and then wanted to take a 20 minute break before we even went into St. Mark’s. (2 groups bailed, it wasn’t just us haha) But we decided we didn’t have anything else to do, let’s stick it out… what if St. Mark’s is amazing inside?? Spoiler alert… it was.

First, when we entered, the church was empty expect for a couple security guards and the lights were all shut off except for a few “emergency lights” and I was like, well of course, they are getting ready to go home… we’re not even going to be able to really see the ceilings… what a crock… We were guided to the chairs in the center of the church and they shut all of the lights to darkness…then slowly in silence started turning them all on, set by set, until the entire cathedral was illuminated bright in all its gilded glory.

I have to say, annoying tour guide or not… that felt like a VERY exclusive experience… and that alone to see the church lit up JUST for you was worth the tour.

The floor mosaics were incredible. Almost all various types and styles of marble make these intricate geometric patterns and animal shapes. And to think, Venice doesn’t have any marble- it all had to be shipped in or brought over the mountains, making the sheer amount of marble in St. Mark’s unbelievable.

The entire church is covered in gold marble mosaics. These aren’t painted. They are glass and real gold. They would make 2 layers of clear glass with gold leaf in the middle and then use those glass pieces to make these huge and gorgeous mosaics. These all seem to have already been completed before the1200s.

The Dome of the Creation from the 1400s. Tells the story in days of Genesis.

This platform is where the Doge would sit, or where a new Doge would be presented to the people of Venice.

The medieval alter screen, from the late 1300s with the 12 apostles and a gold and silver crucifix

The high alter of St Marks, or the Pala d’Oro – 10 feet wide and 7 feet tall, made of gold and silver and 1,927 gems., including 526 pearls, 330 garnets, 320 emeralds, 255 sapphires, 183 amethysts, 175 agates, 75 rubies, 34 topazes, 16 carnelians, and 13 jaspers, originally created in the 900s, but finished in its current form during the 1300s Renaissance.

All in all, the best and most amazing church I’ve ever been in. Glad we went.

It was almost 10pm when they kicked us out of the church for the next group, and we knew we had to head to Milan fairly early so we didn’t want a 2 hour dinner- so we grabbed some sandwiches at a corner shop/bar and ate them in our room.

Our last view of St. Mark’s Campanile before we left the city.

Saturday morning, bright and early we departed on a train for Milan to fit in one last city in a quick whirlwind visit. We had never been to Milan and there wasn’t enough on my bucket list to justify a whole trip there in the next few years, so hitting the few things we wanted to see in this trip just made sense. So off we went on a water taxi back to the main train station

Arriving in Milan, I didn’t really have a good plan- maybe walk, maybe ride the subway? wander around? Maybe grab lunch- the morning was a mess until our pre-booked appointment to see DaVinci’s Last Supper painting and a walking tour of the city.

We arrived in Milan, stored our bags at a local luggage storage for $20 for the day and headed out (we ended up taking our bags with us so that we could exit the return train one stop earlier than we boarded and save ourselves the taxi fare back off the island of Venice since we would be staying at the Marco Polo Airport for our return flight that night.)

We did end up using the subway and buying tickets- Norah thought it was awesome because we each had to pay for our own fair with our own phones (a weird rule) and so she was getting to use her Apple Pay that I just recently turned on for her. Real grown-up stuff 🙂

A Saints decorated car on the streets of Milan. Caught Norah’s attention.

We arrived at the Duomo station and took a look around the square and walked through the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II – a double iron and glass dome shopping arcade from the 1800s.

A statue of Leonardo DaVinci in a square near the arcade.

This city had streetcars a lot like New Orleans.

The most interesting tiny car we came across on the trip

We chose to pass a couple hours at the Leonardo DaVinci Museum of Science and Technology. We didn’t allow NEARLY enough time to see everything there and grab lunch before our tour… so we did the quick pass through, but I’d highly recommend it.

They had a large collection of notebooks of DaVinci on display.

A quick stop for pizza and to rest our (my) feet before 3 more hours of walking.

We arrived at our tour spot, at the Santa Maria del Grazie church which is the site of the Last Supper painting.

You have to buy timed tickets in advance (they were all sold out for the day when we went in) you have to leave all food and drink and bags in a locker… and only 35 people are allowed in at a time for 15 minutes. The doors are also coordinated to not open more than one set at any time so that the humidity and temperature stay at as near constant as possible.

Its important to note that really we aren’t seeing DaVinci’s Last Supper. He painted it in the 1490s and decided to try a new technique of painting on top of dry stucco instead of wet stucco like all frescos were previously done… and it did not go well. It is said that within 20 years of completion the colors had faded and pieces were flaking off. Over the years, with it being in such absolutely terrible shape, they knocked a hole in the wall to create a door, it was used an an armory during the French invasion in the 1700s and soldiers scratched out the apostles eyes.. it was used as a prison in the 1800s… and some guy even messed more of it up trying to remove it to a better/safer location before realizing it wasn’t a real fresco. During World War II the church was bombed heavily and half demolished, so it is a wonder the wall even exists at all…

So, as expected, there have been multiple restoration projects on this painting… and now what we see is as close as can be replicated of DaVinci’s art… but with a lot of documented detail now missing. The feet of Jesus crossed under the table are gone forever. The food and decor on the tables is no longer painted. Even with that, it is a very well-known and maybe the most famous painting around the world (maybe Mona Lisa beats it? also DaVinci…) so it was an awesome opportunity to get to see it in person before it is potentially gone forever. It wasn’t even open to the public from the 1970s to around 2010… so who knows when the next long window of time for restoration will be.

A painting on the other side of the room that no one ever mentions… called Crucifixion

After our time in the Refectory with the paintings, we took a quick pass through the inside of the church.

A colorful modern statue in Milan paying homage to the garment industry that has driven their economy and their place as a fashion capital of the world. I will say, local people dressed much more fashionably and nicer than anywhere else I have been in Europe. Presentation and style definitely matter a lot in Milan. For the record. I was in jeans, an LL Bean sweatshirt and Target slip on shoes. I’m sure I was judged accordingly. 🙂

Our next tour stop was the Sforza Castle – a medieval fortress that served as the residence of the Duke of Milan… but now is just a public space and houses many city museums.

I believe the tour guide said this building used to be the Central Bank of Milan, but now is a Starbucks Reserve Roastery.- the biggest in Europe.

Milan celebrates their Carnival a week later than the other cities, so Milan was busy and there were tons of celebrations in the public squares. There were also protests against the US as well. Right after this group of kids and confetti was a bunch of people lined up and a guy speaking on a karaoke machine in Italian and all I could pick out were the words “Zelensky” and “Donald Trump”

and we ended our walking tour right back at the arcade.

We headed back to the train station to catch our train home which was on time… and grabbed quick “fast food”: dinner from a shop in the station.

Norah had a hotdog and french fry sandwich lol She was happy enough with her decision.

Our train back was supposed to be 1.5 hours… ended up being 3 hours due to a rail strike and diverting down to Bologna and then back to Venice… which gave us a bit of a scare we got on the wrong train for a bit lol Nothing was mentioned, no info was displayed, it just kept saying “15 minutes delayed” and we were over an hour into the wrong direction. All in all, it was fine. We got off at that “earlier” train station on the mainland that I mentioned earlier… and we got a taxi straight to our Marriott Courtyard American hotel bed for all 4 hours we had before we had to get up for our final flights home.

In bed around 11:30pm, up at 4:10, flight at 6:10am to Paris, then 2 hours in Paris, a 10.5 hour flight to Houston… followed by Malaysian crawfish with Tim and Jen again and then a 6 hour drive back home.

1/10 stars, would not recommend 24 hours of travel on very little sleep to end with a 6 hour after dark drive home! haha

Our 10.5 hour flight didn’t have wifi- we got a text that is would be out of service the night before which added to the dissatisfaction with this flight along with the stress that we couldn’t print our boarding passes ahead of time and had to go to the counter in the luggage drop off line to assign our seats, even though I had pre-selected seats and working with customer service for days prior had ended with “nothing we can do”. But overall, all of our trip was very non-dramatic… everything worked out the way it should and we had a great week. Just be weary of AirFrance promising wifi on their long haul flights- research informed me this is common and very often the “wifi isn’t available” which I’m thinking they just don’t want to pay for the usage for that many people on all of their flights and selectively don’t allow it. The silver lining- I do now know I CAN go 11 hours without the internet if I have to. 🙂

We’re going to do a quick trip to Colorado in April and then we have a week in UK/Ireland in late May. More blogs coming soon.

Ciao from Italy! -2 days in Florence

March 16, 2025 / Erin McKinney

For Tuesday morning, we woke up, packed up and headed to the Rome Train Station where we were booked on a high speed train to Florence, arriving around noon. The train was on time and just a few minutes from our hotel in Florence, so we dropped our bags and headed out to see the city.

The hotel had a terrible odor of sewer and after looking through reviews online there were a few other people complaining of the same over the months… so it wasn’t a new problem. Kegan diagnosed the problem the evening when we returned, that the toilet was syphoning the water from the trap of the bidet right next to it every time you flushed because it was installed wrong, causing sewer gas to permeate the entire hotel room and floor. So, every time we flushed, we refilled the bidet and covered it up with the thick bathmat and didn’t have any more problems…. but like, how hard would it have been for the hotel to figure that out after multiple bad reviews over a year timespan?? They just kept posting annoying responses to everyone that it was sometimes the city sewer and they couldn’t stop it and their staff worked hard to keep the hallways and rooms fresh… so was that lip service?…or are they really not smart enough to figure out the source? I thought about telling them…but then decided a language barrier and the chance for them to gaslight me and tell me it wasn’t their problem (when I knew I’d never stay there again anyway) wasn’t worth the potential frustration. ha Long live the sewer smell at the Market Urban Hotel Florence! ha

Anyway- out and about the town!

I wish I could say this wasn’t common graffiti in a LOT of places we visited this week. We saw a VERY large Ukranian support protest in Rome after dark that was pretty unsettling. The street was packed full, burning fires, signs and yelling chants…seemed like something out of history books… all against the US since it was the day after the Oval Office fiasco with Zelensky. There was fresh graffiti daily with similar sentiment to this every morning. Our European allies are not happy with us right now…and I can’t say I feel very differently than they do. Some of the news coming out daily doesn’t represent what I feel like America should stand for… just wanted to document it here to look back on from our future vantage point, whatever that may be….

Our first attraction in Florence was timed entry tickets into the Galleria dell’ Accademia where the Statue of David is displayed.

In the hall leading down to the David is one of Michaelangelo’s unfinished Pieta sculptures

After the David, we caught the last few minutes of a small obscure museum nearby that was a Museum of Pietre Dure – a craft of cut stones placed together and sanded smooth to create pictures and inlays.

Norah. was. hooked. She loved it. I’ve never seen a kid so into something like that. She looked at every picture, she looked analytically at all the old time tools to do it, sat and watched the 15 minute video showing a craftsman working on a piece. She walked away decidedly that she absolutely wanted to do that. We talked to her about starting small….not being THAT good at first, etc… haha So….we’ll see. Kegan and I are now on a path to figure out how you help a kid get started making inlay stone art….I’m 100% open to any ideas 🙂

Next up, we were due for some food and we walked past a wine window. Ironically, these windows were started in plague times as a way to still serve wine and products while slowing the spread of diseases.

So its no surprise that during Covid, a lot of restaurants unblocked their wine windows and they are making a comeback around the city.

We chose to have a full meal down in their actual restaurant instead of just wine and snacks outside.

So, so good. And 2 glasses of Chianti at lunch never hurts 🙂

After a full filling and long lunch, we headed to the Leonardo DaVinci museum dedicated to all of his inventions and experiments. Norah said it was her favorite museum of the trip because she could interact with everything.

This life size model of his 360 canon defense tank that he designed when he was trying to get the Grand Duke of Florence to hire him as his military advisor

The world’s first at home gym? Leonardo had drawings for a machine to work out muscles at home.

After the DaVinci museum, our walking path took us past the Duomo for the first time. Words cannot describe the grandeur of this structure. The sheer size, the volume of marble, the intricacies of the statues, the alcoves…it is just unbelievable standing there in person.

We walked past the famous Baptistry of San Giovanni doors- which Michaelangelo likened to “the Gates of Paradise”, designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1452. (these are replicas placed now…but we DID see the originals the next day- you’ll see below) The 3D perspective effects of these gilded panels is mind blowing.

After admiring the outside of the Duomo and the Bapistry for a while, we continued on to the Piazza Signoria and got our first glimpse of the Palazzo Vecchio we would be touring later. A copy of the David statue still stands in front because the David was originally commissioned for the Medici family and stood in front of this palace.

We walked on to the Ponte Vecchio bridge to look out over the river Arno and show Norah the shops that lined the bridge.

We backtracked towards the Palazzo Vecchio and explored the sculptures in the Loggia dei Lanzi, including the famous Abduction of the Sabine Women by Giambologna for Cosimo the 1st de Medici

I thought I had pre-purchased a guided tour of the Palazzo Vecchio so I didn’t do a lot of research ahead of time, only to arrive, be called 15 minutes before my time to be told we were late and she was waiting for us (we weren’t late- double checked) and be handed tickets quickly, given a QR that she acted like I was too dumb to know how to work and then ran off. ha We just joked that she must have had to go to the bathroom. lol So… we began our SELF-guided tour of the Palazzo Vecchio- or “Old Palace” of Florence.

The people of Florence in 1299 decided to build a palace that would be safe in times of turbulence and worthy of the city’s importance.

Duke Cosimo 1 de Medici moved his official seat to this Palazzo Vecchio in 1540.

The Hall of the 500 from the top floor balcony overlook. In theory, there were large paintings here by Michaelangelo and DaVinci at one point in time before the Medicis that were replaced by these giant scenes of Florence battle triumph. Lost to time… Michaelangelo would have been commissioned to paint these works, but the Pope sent his guard to Florence to capture Michaelangelo and bring him back to Rome to paint the Sistine chapel, threatening Michaelangelo that he would start a war with Florence if he refused to return. (Kinda makes sense now why he painted a big giant bare bum right where the Pope would look up to say prayers….and why he painted over 100 naked men on his giant alter piece that had to later be covered with some fabric in key areas to make it more palatable haha)

The Hall of Maps from the 1500s was my favorite here too. Designed by Giogio Vasari as a room of cabinets to hold valuables and curiosities…but finished with maps of the world drawn/painted by Egnazio Danti, who was later asked to paint the maps in the Gallery of Maps in Rome that we saw earlier! 57 cabinet doors, with the maps painted directly on the cabinet doors. The regions on the map corresponded to the origin of the items found inside the cabinets. Vasari originally intended for the room to have a false ceiling that would conceal 2 large globes that could be lowered and raised into the room.

There was a hole overlooking the Vasari staircase to see below to who was coming upstairs…

The Piazza Signoria where they held the famous Bonfire of the Vanities and where they hanged and burned Gorolamo Savonorola, the man who orchestrated the whole thing to begin with.

The beautiful fountain of Neptune in the plaza deserves its flowers. Designed in the mid-1500s, it celebrated the Medici’s “gift” of clean water to the city… and also to symbolize his marriage to the Grand Duchess of Austria.

Keeping with the clean water gift, right behind the Neptune fountain was a public drinking fountain that had the option of still normal water and water “gassata” – carbonated bubbly water!

Please ignore the absolutely terrible wide angle photo of me, its the only one i have! ha

I bet we filled up 6 bottles out of this fountain over two days. We all loved it. ha

We ended our night seeking out a good restaurant to splurge a bit and have Florentine steak while we were in Florence. The restaurant we found did not disappoint and we had the entire place to ourselves! Trattoria La Faltorona. If you go to Florence, I’d recommend to put this on your list.

The best carbonara we had ever had, with shaved black truffle

Tiramisu..again.. (every meal for Norah lol) but this one was LEGIT the best Tiramisu any of us had ever had.

Wednesday we got to sleep in a bit as our first tickets didn’t start until 10am and the major Duomo and sites don’t even open until 10:30am. My kind of city 🙂

We grabbed our skip the line tickets from a guide standing in the Piazza and went first to see the Baptistry at his recommendation while we waited for the Duomo to open.

While waiting in line to enter, a gypsy woman approached us asking for money. Very persistent and glaring at Kegan in the eyes. He grabbed a 2 euro coin from his pocket and dropped it into her cup expecting her to move on… Except she didn’t. She started tapping him on his pocket asking for more! haha but it wasn’t aggressive, it was like cute grandma annoying… so I laughed. That made her laugh and she asked Kegan again, what else he had. He frustratingly was like, all I have it a piece of candy” (a lemon tea flavored hard candy that he likes to carry). She sees the candy, her eyes light up. “I take??” hahaha uhhh, sure, knock yourself out. She pops it in her mouth and walks away to harass other tourists. ha Enjoy your Arnold Palmer candy. ha

The Baptistry of St John was originally exactly that- where Florentine infants were brought to be baptized on Saturdays in the center of the building.

I missed being able to enter the baptistry on our last trip because I didn’t buy tickets in advance… and they were sold out. This trip I got the tickets, only to walk in and find the ENTIRE CEILING was covered in a tarp printed to look like the giant domed and gilded mosaic ceiling! errgghh. Why even have the dang thing open?

We were SUPPOSED to see the amazing gold mosaics covering the entire domed ceiling completed in the 1200s. 10 million mosaic pieces. Expected completion of the restoration isn’t scheduled to end until 2028…so plan accordingly.

Annoyed, but understanding, we headed into the main Duomo and decided to explore the crypts first before they got more crowded.

In the 1960s, archeologists worked to excavate the remains of many earlier churches on the same site including the original Roman temple and earlier christian churches, the most recent being the Santa Reparata Church, Florence’s first cathedral. Many knights, popes and other famous folks are buried here in the crypts including Filippo Brunelleschi- the designer and builder of the famous dome on top of the Duomo that towers over the city of Florence, 50 years before Leonardo DeVinci was even born…

The preserved Roman mosaics were amazing to see

Back upstairs in the main Duomo cathedral, we explored its gigantic basilica- one of the largest churches in the world.

After walking around the church, we headed behind the church to the Museum of the Duomo to see all of the original works of art that have been removed from the elements over the years and are being handled in a more controlled environment to preserve them for the future.

Donatello’s Penitent Magdalene, originally stood in the Baptistry in the 1500s.

The original solid silver alter of silver and enamel from the Baptistry from the 1400s. The intricacy of this was just crazy…

From the top floor of the Museum, there was a terrace that provided a fantastic up close view of the dome of the Duomo.

Another of Michaelangelo’s Pieta sculptures was on display in the museum in its own room. This one was from later in his life.

Finishing up at the museum- which housed 3-4 floors of statues, relics, Pope robes, dome models and just SO much history, it was lunch time.

We decided on a board for two along with a bowl of lampredotto- a dish made from stewing the 4th stomach of the cow.

We spent the rest of our Florence afternoon at the Uffizi Gallery.

Portaits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino – the Sforza family from Milan, painted on wood from the 1400s.

Perseus Rescuing Andromeda by Piero di Cosimo

Andrea del Verocchio and Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Baptism of Christ from 1475

Michaelangelo’s Doni Tondo (The Holy Family) The frame is original to the painting, likely designed by Michaelangelo himself too. Fun fact, this is Michaelangelo’s only free-standing painting known to still exist.

This Crespi painting really caught my eye for the amazing use of light. It looked just like a photograph in real life.

Portrait of Cosimo the Elder by Pontormo

Portrait of Cosimo I de’ Medici by Bronzino, the court’s painter.

A view of the Ponte Vecchio bridge from within the Uffizi

The head of Medusa by Caravaggio on a shield – since Perseus used a shield as a mirror to cut off Medusa’s head. It was given to Grand Duke Ferdinando de Medici as a gift.

Famous portrait of Galileo Galilei by Sustermans

Kegan thought this one looked like me…so I made him walk all the way back through the museum to get a photo of it for me. haha

This was a major highlight of the self-portrait gallery. A tiny round painting highlighted on a full blank wall. Its a self-portrait by Lavinia Fontana, an Italian artist- the first woman artist! I can live with having a likeness to the first pioneering woman of her field! 🙂

We didn’t even go out for dinner after the Uffizi, we drank wine and ate biscotti in our hotel room and chilled, packed up and to be ready to head to Venice the next morning.

Ciao From Italy! -3 days in Rome

March 15, 2025 / Erin McKinney

Hello everyone! This year for Mardi Gras Break, we took a whirlwind of a week trip to Italy. It started before Christmas, Norah said “I reallllly want to go to Rome… can we please go to Italy? I was too young to remember it”… and I can be EASILY persuaded to book trips out of the country if the price is right. 🙂 So, I started searching and I was able to find flights for a decent amount of credit card reward points… and some decent price hotels… so, it was planned.

The flights were from Houston to Rome via Amsterdam… so that meant the second Norah was out of school on Thursday afternoon- we hit the road to Houston, TX. The next day for lunch before the airport, we met my friend Tim and his wife Jen for sushi at a new place I have had my eye on since it opened in October- Katien Ginza Onedera – it is the first of the chain in the US, originally in Tokyo, its a very high end fresh nigiri conveyer belt sushi experience.

This salmon lunch set was legitimately the BEST salmon I had ever had in my life. And that’s a LOT of salmon in my life. ha Can’t wait to return.

Tim and Jen took us on to the airport and our car sat at their house (I wish everyone amazing friends who on one day’s notice are like- heck yeah! let’s get lunch! and no, you don’t need to Uber, we’ll take you to the airport!) *anyone who will drive you to the airport means they are a true friend. No one likes an airport run 🙂 ha

Norah was all geared up. We all packed for the 9 day trip in backpacks since we were changing flights twice, changing hotels 3 times and taking 2 train rides as well as hoofing it through Venice and other cobblestone uneven European streets. I had to repack my bag 3 times to fit everything! ha

The food on the flight wasn’t bad… pasta, bread, dessert, salad.. I’ve had worse.

For the first time ever, my name was on a sign waiting at the airport! We had arranged a private service to take us from the airport to our hotel since it was about 45-50 minutes and we wanted to try to fit in some hours of exploring the same day we arrived. 100% worth it to not have to navigate any bus tickets, cab fares or directions at all.

The airport had a wonderful surprise for Norah. TUC crackers. ha This was an Irish staple…and almost impossible to find in a store in the US (Amazon has them, but pricey) and so immediately, we had to get a package of Tuc. ha

Another Italian treat I had forgotten about… Pocket Coffee. Caffeinated, liquid center coffee chocolates that act as a shot of espresso. After flying overnight, we were ready for these!

Our hotel in Rome was a sort of AirBnb style setup… small operation, maybe just a husband and wife who remodeled a floor of a building into some hotel suites. it was clean and comfy… no complaints.

The elevator was very old with manual doors to close and lock in to go…. tight squeeze. ha

First stop- showing kiddo that McDonald’s in OTHER countries is actually good. ha

Offering a side of parmesan cheese with your burger lol

Look- a Big Mac… put together like a real burger… with real toppings… and the size of an actual meal!

Another side choice- croquettes- ham and cheese fried bites. Had to try those, too.

Overall, Norah was super impressed, as I had assumed.

With some food in our stomachs, we set out to just walk around the city for the day exploring some sites.

Trevi Fountain craziness. SOOO many tourists in this one square, you go 50 feet away its almost deserted.

I wanted to go into this “City of Water” which is an old Roman cistern and reservoir of water they excavated and studied under Harry’s Bar. We stopped by to see if we could walk in and she only had 1 ticket slot left- in 45 minutes….and since I skipped it 10 years ago, I initially said no thanks… but then went back and said, yes please- put us down. So we went and got gelato while we waited.

Strawberry for Norah (and lemon for Kegan which I guess I didn’t photograph)

Once it was time for our entry, we went to check out the underground Roman water system

We headed towards the Pantheon because this was the 1 thing I thought Norah needed to see in Rome… but alas, it was closed for mass by the time we got there… and would not be reopened for another couple hours… so we made plans to circle back around before we left Rome.

The Fontana del Moro at the other end of the Piazza

We walked by a shop with Aperol Spritz to-go! I have been on quite a kick of drinking spritzes even at home, so this was great 🙂

To wind out our evening, ended at Castello Sant’Angelo – my 1 “must” of the trip.

Castel Sant’Angelo was originally designed and built to be a mausoleum for the emperor Hadrian and his family, beginning around 134-139 AD. Hadrian’s ashes were placed here after his death in 138AD… and all following emperors through Caracalla in 217AD. However, when the Visogoths sacked Rome in 410AD, it was looted… again in 537AD when the Goths came back for another round of sacking Rome they removed all the hundred or more statues from the monument and all the bronze decorations.

It got it’s modern name because legend has it that the archangel Michael appeared over the Castel in 590AD to signal the end of the plague.

The popes converted this ransacked mausoleum into a fortress, incorporated it into the Aurelian walls of the city somewhere around the 1300s. There is even a secret path from the Vatican underground where the Pope could reach Sant’Angelo for safety in times of need. Supposedly they are working on converting that old underground path into a tourist path between St Peter’s Basilica and the Castel.

Since 1901, its been a museum… and we got the last entry tickets in for the night to explore.

Really interested in the backstory that gets Baboons painted on the Pope’s room in the 1500s

It was really raining and all the outside exploring of the Castel had us cold and exhausted after flying all night and exploring all day. Norah couldn’t quite hack it and zonked out in the cab back across the city towards our hotel for dinner, but overall- she did fantastic for being exhausted.

Dinner was Ok, but nothing to write about really.. we just wanted to pay and go to sleep at that point 🙂

Our Sunday morning started out at the Basilica of Saint Mary Maggiore- a REAL surprise and gem that I had never heard of, but am so glad we saw!

The original church was built in the 400s AD and retains a lot of the same shape from the original building. The floors are all Roman mosaics, original to the church. Absolutely unbelievable.

These Athenian Columns pre-date even the building of the church… and the coffered ceiling is said to be gilded with gold that was brought by Christopher Columbus, presented by Ferdinand and Isabella to the Spanish Pope, Alexander VI.

The mosaics all over the church, but especially in the nave represent old testament events

There are at least 6 popes buried in this church already…and it will be the future burial place of our current Pope, Pope Francis… who at the time of our visit was hospitalized for a respiratory illness…but seems now to be improving.

One thing I didn’t know before our visit is that this is a Holy Year for Catholic pilgrimage- once every 25 years.. and for pilgrimage to Rome and to be forgiven for all of your sins, you must walk through the Holy Doors (which in the major basilicas are only opened every 25 years) of the 4 major basilicas in Rome. This is one of them. The other 3 being St Peter’s in the Vatican, St John Lateran’s and St Paul’s Outside the Walls. We did pass through the gold Holy Doors of Santa Maria Maggiore, but I didn’t take a photo as there was a nun entering alongside us and she was actively praying and kissing the doors and it felt invasive to photograph her…

We decided we needed some breakfast after that. Stopped at a little cafe with some great pastries, coffee and sandwiches.

There is an old staircase called the Scalinata dei Borgia or the Vicus Scelerata (the Evil Steps) that connects Via Cavour where our hotel was, up to the higher streets which led us towards the ancient Roman Forum and ruins. This staircase is famously where an ancient king of Rome – Servius Tullius – was killed by his daughter in an overthrow in 509BC…. but in modern history, the Borgia family lived in the palazzo above the staircase and lots of secretive murders and rendezvous happened here. Today it’s just a lot of steps with homeless people living on both sides under the cover….and some dude playing one line of a song over and over for tourists hoping for tips.

This led us to the colosseum first along the path. Here’s Norah in front. We originally had a private tour of the colosseum booked but they cancelled it, letting us know they couldn’t get tickets reserved for that day because the first Sunday of every month is free entry to the ancient sites and they don’t sell advance tickets… The line was INSANE…, so we had decided we just might miss the inside of the colosseum this trip… so we headed to the Roman Forum to wait in that line… and learned after we got the tickets, that our Roman Forum entrance included a timed entry to the colosseum to skip the line! Big winners!

After our Roman Forum and Colosseum exploration, it was time to meet our guide for our afternoon private golf-cart tour out along the Appian way.

Loved this fountain in the square. Made of a repurposed 1500s marble mask and an ancient granite tank from a Roman thermal bath.

The took us to the Giardino degli Aranci – the Garden of the Oranges to take a walk over to the medieval walls for a gorgeous look out over the city.

Also beside this park is the Basilica di Santa Sabina all’Aventino (on the Aventine Hill)- a church that dates from 422AD as maybe THE oldest church in Rome… back in Christianity’s infancy.

What makes this rare, is that as Christian houses of worship adapted to more ornate and opulent interiors, this church has retained its more stark and plain contemplative worship space. The pillars were taken from the ancient Temple of Juno the Queen which stood nearby in ancient times.

The doors are very special. They are made of Cypress wood and have a layout of 28 panels.

One of the smaller top panels, depicts the crucifixion of Jesus and 2 other figures in front of a Roman style portico’d building – this is the VERY FIRST known publicly displayed image of the crucifixion of Christ. These doors are from the original church in 432AD.

Unbelievable. and there was like, NOBODY there… add this to your Rome itinerary- totally worth it.

There is a small portal window across from the amazing doors giving a glimpse into the private garden of the convent (a convent used by St Thomas Aquinas) of an orange tree that was supposedly planted by a Saint in the 1200s and is still producing oranges. Believe it if you want 🙂

A golf cart tour was amazing, we sped through the city along with the cars on the streets, passing by tons of famous landmarks on our way to other sites.

Our guide stopped in a small restaurant to buy us Suppli- a fried risotto ball stuffed with mozzarella and tomato sauce. It was AMAZING. Ours were Suppli dei Telefono- because when you bite into it the mozzarella center strings out like a telephone wire.

I had to get a selfie with our awesome guide Francesco before he left us.

We headed back across town to a restaurant near our hotel called Ristorante Amedeo.

She almost didn’t make it through dinner tonight either- which is expected since the restaurants don’t even open for dinner until 8pm. She had a Veal Scallopini for her main

Kegan’s dessert was a “grandma’s lemon cake” that he said was great.

Norah and I got tiramisu. How can you be unhappy with tiramisu?

Free limoncello after dinner with the bill.

Tuesday was an early start because we had purchased an early entrance private tour into the Vatican to see the Vatican museums and Sistine Chapel before opening time.

We started our tour in the Pine Courtyard – named after the huge bronze cone from the 2nd century at the top of a staircase designed by Michaelangelo. The pinecone used to be a fountain where water would trickle down from the top in front of St Peter’s Basilica and it is even referenced in Dante’s Divine Comedy- used to describe how big the giant Nimrod’s head was- as big as the pinecone at St Peters. ha

Arnaldo Pomodor’s “Sphere within Sphere” – the original. There are now 45 more… we’ve seen a few around the world, but have many more to go. Supposedly there is one in Indianapolis….. but I’ve never went seeking it out yet.

The two lion statues in front of the staircase are Egyptian and date from the 300s BC! They were discovered in the 1400s and were placed in front of the Pantheon, but were eventually added to the Pope’s Egypt collection.

The interior of the Vatican museums had way too many items to write about… just mind-blowing history and art…

I don’t remember much about this red stone, other than the guide said it is the most expensive stone in the world, because it was all quarried and used in antiquity and no longer exists.

My absolutely favorite room- the Hall of Maps. Various maps from around Italy, all painted in the 1500s

The Raphael rooms were next along the way to the Sistine chapel.

Finally we were able to get our 15 minutes in the Sistine chapel- where of course they don’t allow any pictures or talking, so I have none to show.

Our tour also included a back entrance visit into St Peter’s and our guide got special permission to pass through the Holy doors here as well

Michaelangelo’s Pieta is at St Peters. He was only 23 years old when he carved this. I learned that they originally sold this off as someone else’s work because they didn’t think anyone would believe a 23 year old did this. He tracked it down and in the middle of the night carved his name into a sash across Mary that basically said “Michaelangelo did it” lol Turns out he was kind of a jerk. But when you’re the best, you get a little wiggle room ha. The statue is now behind glass because in the 1970s, some idiot thought he was a child of the Virgin Mary and bashed it in with a geologist’s rock hammer because he was mad at Jesus for being with his mother. (He was forgiven by the Pope of course after mental treatment for schizophrenia)

After an entire morning of art and history at the Vatican, it was time for some lunch and we just went inside a little pizzeria along our walk. It was good for just randomly choosing but we ordered entirely too much food.

So much so, that we decided it was time to go back to our hotel and chill for a couple hours and take a nap. Norah enjoyed some time on her phone out on our tiny little balcony.

After a couple hour reset, it was time to go back out for some last sights.

I wanted Norah to see the Column of Marcus Aurelius since its such a huge amazing piece of sculpture. I don’t think she really cared… but maybe some of my history lesson stuck 🙂

The elephant obelisk- the smallest of all the Egyptian obelisks in Rome.

I was able to reserve tickets into the Pantheon as the last group in for the day…which was great because it was hardly busy by that time.

Hadrian ordered the Pantheon built in 126AD after an earlier temple by Marcus Agrippa burned down

The Pantheon has the most famous dome in the world- a coffered concrete dome with a central oculus open to the sky. two thousand years after it was built, its still the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome. 142 ft wide and 142ft high at the center oculus.

The painter Raphael is buried here. two kings of Italy are, too- Vittorio Emanuele II and Umberto I

The columns of the portico were quarried in Egypt and floated down a barge on the Nile during the Spring floods when the water was high- transferred to vessels to cross the Mediterranean Sea and then from the Roman port of Ostia, they were transferred onto barges and pulled up the Tiber river to Rome. The giant 24 foot tall bronze doors are the oldest in Rome

After killing a bit of time to have spritzes and snacks at a little cafe right by the Pantheon, we grabbed a taxi from the queue and headed away from the tourist center out to our first international escape room! It was themed V for Vendetta and it was super fun. I thought it was one of the best we’ve done- but Kegan just thought it was better than average.

Of course, we escaped 🙂

Don’t ask me what the cards say, I can’t remember. We did this room because it had the option to be set in Italian or English… and the game master spoke English as well.

The girl from the escape game recommended a close by place for food- trattoria pizzeria da simonetta- so we took her advice and headed there since we had been underwhelmed by our meals in Rome… this one was worth it- very good food.

Norah was very proud that she ate this entire pizza by herself lol

After Rome we headed to Florence by train and I’ll post about that in my next post!

Exploring Los Angeles after Christmas

January 2, 2025 / Erin McKinney

Hey everyone! We took a quick 5 day trip to Los Angeles between Christmas and New Year’s this year to fit a little stateside travel into the plans.

Day 1

We booked ourselves on a 6:25am flight out of New Orleans, luckily direct to LAX, so only about a 3.5 hour flight. It was the first time Kegan got to use his Clear Plus membership and his TSA Pre-check, so that made 5:30am security a bit more tolerable.

We landed on time and headed out to grab an Uber, only to learn that you can’t grab an Uber at LAX, you have to ride a shuttle out to a rideshare lot. Which, actually, first annoyed me…but then after seeing it, I get it… it was much smoother and easy to find the Uber when it arrived because everything was labeled with a letter and number.

Our Uber dropped us at our hotel first to leave our bags, but unexpectedly, they had our room available at 10am. I booked Burton House, Beverly Hills- which sounds fancier than it is- its just a Residence Inn they rebranded. ha

Our first destination was supposed to be brunch at Bottega Louie in West Hollywood…which I had read was amazing, but they just brought us a lunch menu, no brunch today….but that’s ok. Food was still stellar. They are known for their pastries and macaroons. We didn’t sample any of those.

These were Portabello mushrooom “fries” and they were fantastic

Norah didn’t want the pizza we were getting, so I told her to just order her own entire pizza. ha

This is what I was here for… the Truffle, fontina, creme fraiche pizza with a runny egg yolk. This pizza was heavenly.

With full bellies, we headed across town to the La Brea Tar Pits to begin our tourist track for the day.

Overall, the geologist on the trip voted this a “skip”… and he’s right… there’s nothing really to see. You are seeing some sectioned and fenced off pits that may have a little 2-3 foot section of wet black tar visible. It is all preserved, which is great… but there’s not much to actually SEE. The Page museum on site was a nice 30 minute walk through with a few skeletons… and the atrium was pretty, but I think I’d save my money.

They had an Observation Pit that would have been cool to actually see the tar and maybe see how sticky it was….but it was closed. No tours were given that day either. Kegan was only able to get this photo sticking his phone up over a gate and hoping he didn’t drop it! ha

They have found the skulls of over 400 dire wolves in the pits.

A sloth with fur getting eaten by a big cat

I think this is the mammoth they found in 2009 when they excavated more of the LA Museum of Art underground parking garage.

My bestie- the ground sloth. Not as big as others we’ve found- but I love it when I find them 🙂

We finished at Le Brea way quicker than I anticipated, so we decided to add on the LA Museum of Art which sits right beside La Brea in the same park and on our way to our next 3:30pm tickets we had to wait for.

It was a modern art museum… and I’m just not an appreciator of a lot of modern art… but they did have an exhibit highlighting the cosmos through various cultures in art. That was pretty neat.

There were lots of displays of old hand-drawn books on display about discoveries in space and science

This was a moving 3 layer hand-drawn and colored star chart in a book from the 1600s

Our first glimpse of the Hollywood sign from the 3rd floor of the Museum of Art

A statue of a chicken by Picasso. They had an entire room of Picasso works, including a couple that weren’t cubist. That was interesting.

A portrait of Frida Kahlo by Diego Rivera

Modern art I found interesting- a headless man trying to drink from a fountain

This was probably my favorite of the modern art… a mixed media work by Sanford Biggers called “Witness” from 2016. Various materials used to create African folk statues, creating shadows of a more modern strong Black culture. I couldn’t find much from the artist discussing the meaning other than it shows the ties to history and culture.

After meandering through all of the galleries, it was time for our pre-booked tickets at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

This museum just opened in late 2021, so still seemed very new and fresh.

Norah was thrilled there was a VR experience

One of the coolest exhibits was a zoetrope of the Toy Story characters to show the art of animation.

They had a big room/display of old cameras and equipment used to film in color. I liked this one because it was very similar to the color wheel we have for our 1950’s aluminum Christmas tree where the colors rotate in front of the light and create different color effects.

Storyboard design for the racers in Tron

Storyboard design for the Terminator before filming

A concept design idea for the movie Blade Runner

The very first character sheet for Mickey Mouse. I love how just by looking at these still images on a sheet of paper, you can tell how the animation is suppose to move and act,

Gizmo from The Gremlins. Fun fact- by the time we got to this museum, my feet had a couple blisters because I wore new shoes like an amateur…and very thin socks. Kegan advised I get a pair of real socks… so I went to the gift shop of the movie museum here and bought a pair of Gremlins socks. ha

Overall, a very cool museum. There was a permanent exhibit about the roots of the movie studios and the Jewish founders. I didn’t realize that ALL the movie studios were founded by Jewish founders. Literally, every single one. That was interesting.

After the museum, we decided to just visit a couple other spots in the area before heading out. We got dropped off in our Uber at the parking lot of Du-Par’s, a well-known diner in the area. Famous to us because of the Amazon show Bosch, where the *sort of spoiler alert* – one of the main characters dies in the parking lot.

Attached to Du-Par’s is The Grove, which is a big vendor stall sort of food establishment. We were there for the Kaylin and Kaylin Pickles Kegan had seen on Instagram.

They had 12 types of pickles and offered pickle flights. We tried all 12.

In the end, we liked the Kosher Dill and the Honey Mustard slices the best. Kegan got 2 jars to eat this week before our flight back home.

We grabbed coffee at the “best coffee in LA”. Newsflash, it was not the best coffee in LA. lol

After walking around for a bit trying to find good food we wanted, we just decided to Uber Eats something from the hotel or eat nearby. Once we got back to our hotel, we decided to try Factor’s Famous Deli, a kosher deli across the street from our hotel.

Norah ordered cheesesticks…and man, there were a lot of them. ha she ended up eating them the next night for a late dinner snack too.

Matzah ball soup… a staple. Their’s was good… but I’ll actually venture to say that mine is better!

Norah’s chili dog she ordered… apparently the girl is growing. She’s thinner than she’s been in years, back in jeans she outgrew almost two years ago…and eating full meals this week, which is very unlike her. Must be a growth spurt. ha

Kegan got the Pastrami on Rye. I got the beef tongue half sandwich on rye with a side of chopper liver but I guess I forgot to photo mine. Chopped liver wasn’t my style..I’m still chasing Toojay’s liver schmear from south Florida….man, nothing like it.

We got Black and White Cookies to go since we were so full… and headed back to the hotel room for 30 minutes or so until our escape room time.

We had booked at Hatch Games for The Lab Rat which I had read was one of the best rooms in LA.

We (obviously) escaped! 🙂 It was a very cute room and concept. The humans were the lab rats and the rats were the scientists and you had to figure out how to escape your cage in 60 minutes. Our game master was super impressed with Norah, of course… and so impressed, he recommended she check out the behind the scenes set up of the room, so she could see the wiring and the sensors and the Arduino board and breadboard that was controlling the whole thing (she just got an Arduino board for Christmas…and I was hoping she would enjoy learning to program C++ on it via this 30 Days Lost in Space game where you have to get your stranded space ship back online over the course of 30 days via coding lessons to help you do it… so this backstage glimpse couldn’t have been more timely! Yay game guy for helping a mom get her kid interested in programming!)

After that, he even took us up an old elevator to a new room they are working on with a giant submarine they are theming for a room.

Funny little turn of events. I found this place because I was looking for Escape My Room LA- which is the only other location of the Escape My Room in New Orleans where we did all 4 rooms, they were the best rooms ever, we made friends with the game master there who even recommended we look into Haynes Academy for Norah and who told us about sound color synesthesia – which Norah definitely has! So… because we had such ties to Escape My Room, I wanted to find it out here but couldn’t. It looked like maybe they were affiliated with the Hatch Games in some way… But when he took us up to the top floor to the new super secret game under construction, I saw a giant Escape My Room logo painted on the wall. Turns out, during the pandemic they went under it sounds like and sold to the guys who created Hatch Games. The submarine is from New Orleans! and was acquired from the Audubon aquarium at some point by the Escape My Room guys, but never finished… but now its going to finally see the light of day next year. All in all, we felt very “in” there and it was a cool experience. He said Lady Gaga was just there last week. I bet she didn’t get to go see the secret submarine room! ha

Day 2

We started Day 2 with breakfast and a coffee from the chain Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf connected to our hotel…and then grabbed an Uber up to Warner Brothers Studios for a studio tour.

The tour was fairly neat. We go to see the backlot and the sound stages where tons of famous movies and shows have been filmed since the 1930s.

After a film and a golf cart ride around the backlot, we were allowed to self-explore a museum type area and the Stars Hollow town set from Gilmore Girls.

None of us were fans of Gilmore Girls or had ever really watched much…so this experience of walking the town didn’t really do much for us. Friends was the other big show with tons of photo ops, like the orange couch in Central Park with the fountain…or the Central Perk couch…we don’t really like Friends either… so we weren’t as absorbed into the opportunities as some other folks.

They let Norah turn off the Bat Signal and Kegan got to be the good guy to turn it back on to call Batman.

Original Christopher Reeves Superman costume

They had a Harry Potter section that Norah was pretty into

The sorting hat experience sorted her into House Gryffindor- which she wasn’t thrilled about because she’s definitely a Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. A HuffleClaw or RavenPuff, if you will. 🙂

After Warner Brothers, we hitched an Uber ride out to Glendale to eat at Porto’s bakery- a cuban bakery and lunch spot.

We were unfortunately a bit underwhelmed. It was sooo busy… and the pastries or coffee wasn’t anything like what we would get in south Florida… but overall, it was a quick lunch to hold us over and was fine.

Guava and cheese pastry and a churro croissant. We also tried the Ham Croquette, the Potato Ball and the Cafe Con Leche. The coffee was the most disappointing. Kegan says its because it needs to be made with hate and a little bit of red lipstick. These folks just weren’t angry enough like his cuban girls at the cafe he used to go pick up from in Boca. haha

Next stop was the Griffith Observatory. Man, were there a lot of people who had the same idea on the Friday after Christmas! ha The traffic up the road to the observatory was so backed up, I felt bad for the poor Uber driver and we got out and walked the last mile up the hill to the entrance so he could turn around and go back down.

The viewpoint here I would have missed from the car, so that’s a positive. Also, I was not chilly anymore after that hike up…so another positive!

From the top, you have a great view of the Hollywood sign. I had to stand too close to Norah to get a good photo showing the sign closer and bigger behind her due to all of the people… but you get the idea.

The building is gorgeous… the views are spectacular.

They have expanded the observatory underground from just a telescope, exhibits and planetarium to add the Leonard Nimoy Event Theater, the Cafe At The End of the Universe (a play on words and homage to Douglas Adam’s Restaurant At the End of the Universe book-the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books being my favorites)- and tons of other science exhibits. There were just a few hundred too many people everywhere to be able to do anything. Kegan was frustrated, Norah was visibly annoyed with all the kids jumping in front of her and messing with the exhibits she was using… so we quickly decided that was enough and made our way for the exit.

Next stop was the cross streets of Hollywood and Vine to explore downtown Hollywood and see the famous Walk of Fame.

I made sure we stopped where we could see the Capitol Records building for Norah. One of her fun facts is that the Capitol Records building sends out a morse code signal from its tower. She sat and decoded it to ensure that her facts were accurate 🙂

Hollywood has a scramble light like Tokyo and it was fun to see everyone rush everywhere in all directions later in the evening when it was swarming with people.

We had time to kill until our dinner reservations, so we headed to Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

Opened in 1927, its been a theatre house and movie theater ever since. Changing names to Mann’s Chinese Theater in the 1970s and now the TLC Chinese Theater.

It was the first theater to have air conditioning…and many movies have premiered at this theater over the years including Star Wars in 1977. The Academy Awards were hosted here in the 1940s, but now in the Dolby Theater next door.

We were able to find tons of hand and foot prints in the front courtyard.

I was on the lookout for Mel Brook’s handprints because I knew his was funny. He wore a prosthetic 6th finger on his left hand when he did his prints, forever “cementing” him as a funny man.

Norah said “I know the name Michael Keaton”…. uhhh yeah, its Beetlejuice! I love Michael Keaton as an actor. We watched The Birdman recently and that was such a cool weird artsy film…. he’s great in the show Dopesick, too.

Kegan decided to give Billy Crystal’s star a little Mike Wizowski treatment. “Can you believe it… I’m on the Walk of Fame!!! ” (while being completely obscured)

I had made 5:30pm reservations at Musso & Frank’s on Hollywood Blvd. It’s an Italian restaurant that’s been serving Hollywood elite for 105 years!

We were sat in one of the half round leather booths in the “new room” which was added on in the 1930s and the original exclusive “back room” bar and tables for the elites was moved to this area. This restaurant held Hollywood’s first pay phone where I’m sure many movie deals were made.

The history from their website is better than I could write it up:

“From the beginning, Musso’s has been a favorite among Hollywood’s A-list. Charlie Chaplin was an early regular. Often seen lunching with Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks, Chaplin — legend has it — would challenge Douglas to a horse race down Hollywood Boulevard, and the winner had to pick up the tab at Musso’s. Charlie would win and gloat over a plate of Roast Lamb Kidneys, his favorite Musso’s meal.

In the ‘20s and ‘30s, it wasn’t uncommon to see Greta Garbo and Gary Cooper having breakfast together — flannel cakes and fresh coffee, of course. Or to bump into Humphrey Bogart having drinks at the bar with Dashielle Hammett or Lauren Bacall.

In the ‘50s, Hollywood legends like Marilyn Monroe (flanked by Joe DiMaggio), Elizabeth Taylor and Steve McQueen could be found enjoying drinks and appetizers in Musso’s famous Back Room. Jimmy Stewart, Rita Hayworth, Groucho Marx and John Barrymore also had starring roles at Musso’s.“

Most of their original classics are still being served. We started with the meatballs with polenta

I couldnt resist the steak tartare with quail egg. It was amazing.

I went with the classic Prime Rib- it was fantastic…..but 18oz was wayyy too much meat. ha I had to leave half of it.

Kegan tried the Lyonnaise potatoes. Basically skillet fried with onions… tasted like midwest skillet potatoes to me… but he loved them.

and the very authentic fried shrimp and fries for my kid who can’t ever get enough shrimp and fries, even living in New Orleans. lol

Stumbled on Leonard Nimoy’s star as we left Musso and Franks.

Norah really wanted to go to Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum… so since we had almost 2 hours to kill before our escape room reservation, we gave in and humored her.

To round out the evening, we booked an escape room at The Escape Hotel right on Hollywood Blvd.

It was a very cool themed joint. They had sideshow acts performing on the stage, tables and a bar…. and then 8 escape rooms all with circus or horror themes.

They gave us Escape passports to track for all of their rooms. They stamp you once in green when you enter, and in red if you escape.

We earned our red stamp and escaped with time left! It was a neat themed room, but overall an easy one since we’re at like 70-80 rooms now ha We really need to add up all of the rooms we’ve done and see.

Day 3

We started this Saturday morning with an Uber downtown to the Grand Central Market, a famous market that’s been open since the 1920s.

We found a guava and cheese croissant and coffee – neither were worth finishing.

So, we went to the only other venue open other than Eggslut (a new chain that had a huge line) – a Mexican taco stand serving chilaquilles, pancakes and breakfast burritos.

After breakfast we walked next door to the Bradbury building to see if we could get a peek inside to the famous atrium where scenes from BladeRunner were filmed.

The building didn’t open for another 45 minutes, but we could see most of the atrium through the door!

Across the street was the Million Dollar Theatre, one of the first movie theaters in the US. Opened in 1917. Built by Sid Grauman, just like the Chinese theater, this one was over 10 years earlier, before the big move from downtown to Hollywood.

After checking out that area, it was time for the trek up the big hill over towards the Central Library where we were scheduled for a monthly tour by the LA Conservancy on Art Deco Architecture.

But.. because of this amazing funicular railway called the Angel’s Flight, it was a quick and easy trip to the top of the hill!

Angel’s Flight was a railway open since 1901 for transporting people up and down Bunker Hill. With a 33 degree incline, its a steep slope.

The original Angel’s Flight was demolished in the 1960s when this whole downtown block was demolished to revamp it into mixed use commercial space. But, they stored the original cars, planning to reinstall it within 2 years. It took 27 years to actually get it accomplished!

It reopened in 1996 and other than a couple accidents that closed it down (biggest from 2001-2010) it remains open for travel and costs $1 each way, or .50 with TAP, LA’s public transport app. I had TAP for mine, but it wouldn’t let me pay for Kegan and Norah with my own TAP… so Kegan had to use a credit card for the $2 because they also only took exact change and the lowest he had was a $10.

This was another famous Michael Connelly novel/Bosch episode where they investigate the murder of a lawyer on the Angel’s Flight railway.

We headed to Maguire Gardens at the Central Library to meet our tour guide for our Art Deco tour.

Our guide was very nice friendly older lady, but man…she was a talker. ha I had to zone out and read on my phone hiding behind Norahs back a few times to keep from making annoying faces. ha but overall, great info- and great access into a couple private businesses we couldn’t otherwise see downtown.

We started out at the Con Edison building

After the tour, we walked to another street nearby and Norah spotted a robot delivery service.

The side of it said it was being driven remotely by a real human. How cool!

I wanted to stop by St Vincent Court that was nearby, it is a European street tucked into downtown LA. Since the 1950s when a big department store started letting out space to restaurants and cafes, now it is a deli, Italian, French coffee, middle eastern restaurants… it was a cute little street.

The next item up for us was lunch… and it was a couple miles away and across some freeway areas, so we thought it might be best to Uber…but I had seen these robot cars driving around earlier called Waymo’s. I was determined to ride in one during this trip. ha Kegan was not on board… but like most things, he loves me and wants me happy, so he was willing to die like a man. haha

I downloaded the app and signed up during one of those droning tour guide sessions I mentioned above while hiding behind Norah….so I called up Waymo and it was there in 3 minutes! It pulled up to the curb, I unlocked it with the app and we were in! Once you buckle up, you click Start Ride on the screen and you are off!

It was so weird to be riding in a car with no one in the driver seat…but honestly, after this ride, we took about 7 more in the trip and were disappointed when the destination was out of Waymo’s designated travel area and we had to go back to Uber. No weird driver, no crazy air freshener smells or terrible jerky driving (my goodness the bar is low for Uber drivers anymore)… the car was clean, the temperature was great, the music is set from your phone based on what you want to hear. It was honestly a great experience and the robot driver was fantastic. Kegan became a bigger fan than me! and having Norah alone in the front passenger seat with no driver had tons of people looking and doing double-takes, laughing, asking her how she liked it… it was great. 10/10 recommend if you go to LA.

Lunch was an all you can eat sushi restaurant that had fantastic reviews online called Tokyo Haus.

After eating the entire ocean, we needed to call up our robot friend Waymo once more to visit Olvera Street, the birthplace of Los Angeles back in the 1800s when it was just El Pueblo de Los Angeles.

They were having some sort of festival in the square.

After exploring downtown, we decided to make one more stop our way back towards our hotel at the Velaslavasay Panomara – which is something we saw a couple places in Europe- these 360 degree paintings- mostly in Poland and the Czech Republic… so Waymo dropped us off, only for us to discover it is open by appointment only… and there was a homeless guy sleeping behind that bush in the entry. So… back into a new Waymo. lol

Last minute, I found an escape room to book at Maze escapes which was Sherlock Holmes themed… we tied for the record in the room at 22 minutes…..so it was sort of disappointing to be in and out so fast lol

We were still so full from sushi lunch that we didn’t eat dinner, just grabbed a couple small snacks at the convenience store next to the hotel and called it an early night.

Day 4

Today was museum day. We started out with breakfast at our hotel which ended up being a bad choice- it took an hour to get Salmon toast and a coffee. ha Kegan was banned from making any more decisions on this vacation after this third choice that was an annoying one ha (Griffith Observatory and La Brea Tar Pits are the others) After breakfast we Waymo’d to the Natural History Museum

We were almost the only people upstairs when we first started. Much more manageable crowds than we have been experiencing.

The largest known ammonoid fossil in the world.

Norah still enjoys the little kid science museum exhibits. So I always let her play around. You never know when it will be the last time.

A very extensive gem and mineral collection.

After the Natural History Museum, we had to get an Uber to The Getty- a large private art museum thats way out in the Hollywood Hills

A Da Vinci painting that I was surprised to see here.

The line out the door queueing up to view Van Gogh’s Irises. We accidentally skipped the line by coming through the building from upstairs first and then down… whoops lol It is a very cool blue/purple bright pigment painting. I see why it was so remarkable.

Im sure this view from the top overlooking the city is amazing when its not 50 degrees and foggy 🙂

Overall, a few cool paintings…but I feel like it was more of an attraction for the amazing buildings and gardens and views… At the risk of sounding super snobby, it just didn’t have the impact after going to European art museums. It was free entry though…. and technically you were supposed to make a reservation ahead of time…and we didn’t so we were lucky to even get in. The security guy just took pity on us and let us pass through! So, for that…I am thankful and happy with the experience.

We grabbed an Uber back down off the mountain into town to a taco truck I had been following on Instagram for months….only to learn they are only there on SATURDAYS and not SUNDAYS…. dang it. So I pivoted and found another high rated Mexican restaurant in the area called Loqui.

After that, we decided to walk around and explore Culver City. We walked past Sony Pictures Entertainment (I think where they film Jeopardy!)

We walked a mile or so to the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

It was a weird art installation that was set up to look like a real museum. It was all weird useless stuff lol I’m not artsy enough… We were all confused ha. I think maybe pass. Unless you just like weird stuff lol

We hit up Milla Chocolates across the street but it a was right before they closed and the girl was less than helpful even explaining how they bundle their chocolates… so I just got a drinking black sesame chocolate drink and called it a day. $6 per chocolate for tiny little chocolates anyway lol

Next we walked by an Erewhon grocery store- the celebrity grocers…. I had to go be a grocery store tourist and see what sort of stuff I could find.

I left with a $14 bottle of super green juice because I LOVE green pressed juice and didn’t have any the whole trip… and it was some of the worst green juice! haha It was just like pressed swiss chard with cayenne pepper.

Lastly, we had to let Norah experience the California exclusive of In-N-Out burger.

Kegan and I lived in California for a couple years… so we didn’t feel the need to eat a Hamburger and fries, but Norah was all about it.

To round out the evening, we booked one last escape room at Escape Room 66 in a room called The Mush Room.

It was a fantasy room almost like Candyland where we had to find our way out. There were like 75 locks in the room. It was comical. Not our fave. Very homegrown…but they did have a tank of a cat named Beans that we got to pet, so a win overall.

Day 5

Day 5 was alllll Universal Studios Hollywood!

We went all out and booked the VIP experience with the private lounge, guided private tour guide, lunch and and VIP lanyard that granted us unlimited Express Lane rides for the entire day.

The breakfast was a small buffet with pastries and sandwiches and coffee while we waited and met our guide for the day.

Our studio tour was on a trolley of about 20 people and we got to walk around the sets and take photos instead of just the normal tram studio tour

We got to walk through the currently filming show St Denis on Stage 26 which looked SUPER realistic to a real ER that it was spooky.

Our guide Angela and the Back to the Future courthouse set, which is also the courthouse from To Kill A Mockingbird with Gregory Peck.

Monster murals by a famous LA street artist done with spraypaint.

Walking down New York Street where all the major superheroes have fought.

The plane crash from War of the Worlds scenes

Fast and the Furious the Ride was broken when we went through, so no idea if the car chase was cool or not lol

The Waterworld show was a bit kitchy but there a surprise plane that flew it on fire at the end and made it pretty cool.

Our first glimpse of Super Mario World from the escalators

Someone was very happy with their Toad hat lol

We shared a meal back at Harry Potter World of fish and chips and sticky toffee pudding and I had warm butterbeer.

To close out the night we ended in the kiddy land and rode Secret Life of Pets and Minion Madness and Kung Fu Panda Express.

Overall, I felt like the value was there for the VIP passes since the normal tickets were higher for Christmas and once you added Express Passes and paid for food and water in the parks… it was maybe $100 more per person… and everything felt very relaxed and handled… and we rode every ride in the park at least once. For one day, worth it.

Tuesday we headed to the airport first thing to head back home. It was a fun trip to the west coast, but I won’t be searching Zillow for any houses anytime soon. 🙂

Next trip is to Italy at the beginning of March, see you then!

4 days around Denver, Colorado

Ciao from Italy!- 3 days in Venice and Milan

Ciao from Italy! -2 days in Florence

Ciao From Italy! -3 days in Rome

Exploring Los Angeles after Christmas

Kegan, Erin & Norah

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