Traveling with the Jones

This morning we visited the Maritime Museum, which includes a large exhibit on Holland America Line, tracing the company’s history dating back to 1873, when the company was founded in Rotterdam.  The exhibit is in Dutch and English.  We found the models and written materials such as menus interesting.

The museum houses many model ships and an interactive exhibit of the The “˜Berlin’ Tragedy – Shipwreck at Hook of Holland in the early 1900s.

Another exhibit allows you to create an email photo, with your photo inserted in various backgrounds.

  After a restful night of sleep at the Hilton we were ready to explore Rotterdam. A tourist information office –with friendly and helpful staff as well as numerous English brochures — is adjacent to the Hilton hotel.

The theme for Rotterdam in 2007 is “City of Architecture” and many different programs are available to spotlight the diverse architecture of this city. With the sun out, we decided to take the Spido Cruises Architecture Harbour Trip.  The cruise departs every day at 1:15 pm through September and costs 9 euros/person. During the 75-minute sail, commentary in both Dutch and English highlights Rotterdam’s unique architecture, starting by sailing under the Erasmus Bridge, built in 1996 and nicknamed “The Swan.”

And a nice surprise, Holland America Line’s ms Rotterdam was docked in the cruise pier just across the River Maas.

Some of our favorite sites from the architectural cruise were: The Cube Houses, built from 1978 to 1984;

The Shipping & Transport College, a blue and white checked building resembling a periscope, completed in 2005.

Italian lattes and Austrian pastries in Bolzano/Bozen, Italy

We had to think hard today as everything in this beautiful city in Northern Italy is written in both Italian and German.  It seems that German is spoken more often.   Our morning was filled with trying to sort out an Trenitalia Italian rail company ticket refund.   After talking with customer service twice and several long conversations with the ticket agents, it appeared that we had to fill out a form — in either German or Italian — and mail it to Florence, Italy, because we originally bought the ticket at the Pisa train station which is in the Florence region of Trenitalia.   This form has our US mailing address, email address and phone number, and we are supposed to eventually receive a refund by mail.  We won’t hold our breath, but we would like the 80 euros back.  It is hard to understand why the refund could not be applied to the credit card that the ticket was charged to originally?   The good news was that the ticket agents, customer service representatives, and the post office workers were all very friendly and tried hard to be helpful despite our limited Italian and German language skills.

That task handled, and our train tickets purchased for tomorrow, we set off to explore this area.  We started with the Runivia del Renon, the cable car to Soprabolzano/Oberbozen.  This cable car goes straight up the mountain, and then passes over valleys, high above the ground to the next mountain.  It was nerve-inducing for those who don’t like heights, but provided an incredible view of the city and the vineyards planted on the steep hillsides, in-between green pastures.  On the ride, we also started to see the Dolomites in the distance.  Once in Soprabolzano, we walked around, and enjoyed the views while having a glass of the local wine.

Next we caught the tram from Oberbozen/Soprabolzano to Klobestein/Collalbo. (Every sign and map list the cities and towns like this — in both languages.)  On this ride, the views became even more spectacular!

From Collalbo, we hiked on a well-marked and maintained trail about 40 minutes for incredible views. There were several cafes to enjoy a coffee and apple strudel or a glass of lcoal wine along the route.

Another 40 minutes of hiking and we were back to Collalbo, where we decided to take the bus back to Bolzano for a different view.   This was only a 25 minute ride — of hairpin turns down the mountains and through the apple trees and grape vines.

An increible day!  It is hard to believe that tomorrow we will be in Venice by noon, and, hopefully, despite a bus strike in Venice, be onboard Royal Caribbean’s Splendor of the Seas by about 3 pm.

Post Update:  About 9 months after requesting our train ticket refund in Italy, we did in fact receive a  check mailed to us in the United States, in U.S. dollars.  This seemed complicated rather than just posting a credit to the credit card we purchased the train ticket with (in Euros), but hey, we got our refund.