Gnomeless

Right, well it’s been a while since the last post. In the time that has passed, we’ve been to Florence, Paris, Brussels and now we’re in England again. The best way I can think of to catch up is to present awards to the cities we visited during our fifty days of travelling throughout continental Europe. So, without further ado, here are the Continental Awards:   

Best Flavor Award – Ohrid, Macedonia   

I got my first pair of glasses when I was sixteen, and I still remember getting home and just staring out the window at the back yard for about half an hour. I could see leaves on the trees, the texture of the wood on the fence, blades of grass on the back lawn – I could see things in detail for the first time in years. “I’ve been missing all this?” I thought.   

Eating vegetables and fruit in the Balkan countries we visited (Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania) was a very similar experience. Carrots tasted so… carroty! Peaches exploded with flavor. Apples were crisp, juicy and incredibly delicious. Cherries… well, I could go on and on. Basically, it was an absolute revelation. Instead of the washed-out fruits and veggies back home (even those of the absurdly overpriced organic persuasion), produce can actually have vivid flavor.   

In a close race, Ohrid narrowly beats out Sofia, Bulgaria, and Durrës, Albania, to win the Best Flavor Award.   

Best lemons ever.

Best Eye Contact Award – Durrës, Albania   

I’m pretty sure my wife KJ was not the first East Asian person to visit this small city on the Adriatic Coast, but it would seem she was the first to visit in a pretty damn long time. She got stared at constantly while we were there. And any time she happened to catch someone staring, they almost never looked away. They just kept at it. KJ says she felt like she was a zoo animal.   

Clean Streets Award – Paris, France   

Many cities around the world struggle to find ways to reduce littering. Paris has found a novel solution: put garbage bins pretty much everywhere and empty them regularly. We covered a lot of ground over fifteen days, and I don’t think we ever walked more than 100 feet without passing one – and we certainly never saw one that was overflowing. The result is that the streets of Paris are unbelievably clean. Since the city is doing its bit, everybody seems a lot more conscientious about doing theirs.   

Other cities that (rightly) make littering subject to fines but which (wrongly) don’t supply enough places for people to throw away their trash ought to consider this ingenious approach. Any city that doesn’t supply enough garbage bins really doesn’t deserve to be litter free if you ask me.   

Ian does his part to keep Paris clean.

Underachiever Award – Sofia, Bulgaria   

An easy win for Sofia. Here is a city with lots of old buildings just disintegrating before your eyes. Not all of these buildings are architectural masterpieces, but a great many in the central part of the city would be pretty appealing with a little fixing up and a fresh coat of paint. The people could try to smile now and then and stop looking so bored and miserable as well.   

Sofia needs to shake off the ennui that rules over the city. Until that happens, it will continue to be so much less than it could be.   

Early Bird Award – Sofia, Bulgaria   

All throughout Europe, we were surprised to find a goodly number of people starting their day off with a beer or a glass of wine. We saw this everywhere we went, but no place matched the sheer epic scale of Sofia’s early bird tippling, where it seemed at least half the city hit the bottle around seven in the morning.   

Best Espresso Award – Ohrid, Macedonia   

You would expect this award to go to a city in Italy or France, but no. Little Ohrid in little Macedonia takes this one. Awesome espresso here.   

Ian starts the day off right with a hit of espresso in Ohrid, Macedonia.

Best Rotisserie Chicken Award – Durrës, Albania   

Macedonia and Albania seem to be obsessed with rotisserie chicken. Rotisserie restaurants are everywhere and very cheap. For backpackers, obviously, cheap equals win, so we ate our share – and then some. The very tastiest of all was at a restaurant owned by a cool guy named Saba in Durrës. Fantastic Greek salad, too.   

The best of many rotisserie chicken places we ate at. Very lucky that Ian loves chicken.

Best Beer Award – Brussels, Belgium   

Brussels wins this one easily. This city offers an amazing array of beer at very affordable prices – every type of beer you can imagine and most of them delicious. The chocolate is pretty damn good, too.   

Best Pasta Award – Florence, Italy   

Good old Tuscan cooking. You can’t go wrong. Florence was filled with culinary delights and the pasta especially was out of this world. A bit expensive, sure, but so delicious.   

Yum! That's all I've got to say.

Best Piazzas Award – Rome, Italy   

No city I’ve ever been to can touch Rome in this category, and its piazzas are a major reason it is one of the best cities anywhere to just chill out and relax. Piazza Navona alone guarantees the win.   

Ian cooling his tootsies in one of the amazing fountains at Piazza Navona.

Livability Award – Paris, France   

To visit Paris is to feel inadequate about your own city, no matter how amazing it may be – and my city, Vancouver, is truly amazing. Whatever your city does well, Paris probably does better. Whatever your city doesn’t do well, Paris probably does very well.   

Beauty abounds everywhere you go in Paris, it has a ridiculous number of incredible museums, the food is great, the wine is fantastic, parks are scattered about liberally and, as I mentioned above, it is really clean. It is also very safe and  the people are actually quite nice. Parisians also read voraciously, which is a nice thing to see and which supports a wealth of big and small bookstores.   

All of this and much more made KJ and I constantly delay our departure from Paris. It also makes us want to live there. Now if only I could figure out a way to make that happen…   

KJ, Ian and I at the Luxembourg Gardens.

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