Tortola Christmas 2023 - Day 2: Smuggler's Cove

We lounged around the villa this morning and had a late breakfast outside on one of the decks. The sun rises behind the house, uphill, so it's not roasting in the sun in the morning, which is nice.

Eventually, we loaded up the car, descended the switchbacks down to the main road ("Route 1") and headed about a mile up the road to Smuggler's Cove. Almost immediately past the Long Bay Beach Resort, Route 1 runs up and over a hill, then turns into a gravel/dirt road.

There was some complaining from the back of the Pilot, but we made it to the beach eventually. The small parking area (I hesitate to call it a "lot") was full-ish, but we improvised, as appears to be the custom.

The beach is home to two separate beach bars: Nigel’s Boom Boom Beach Bar & Grill, and Patricias Beach Bar; they are beach bars in the truest interpretation of the term that I've ever seen.

The beach wasn't extremely crowded, but there were plenty of (rental) chairs and umbrellas spread out, taking up a good chunk of it. Also the surf was rough, forcing everyone up the beach toward the tree line. We set up the umbrella and chairs that we brought from the villa, and claimed a spot near some shade.

There was a solitary life guard in the middle of the beach, flying a yellow caution flag. (It later became a red flag, as the surf and current got spicier.) As I mention every time we're in the Caribbean, there are also wild chickens roaming around everywhere; this beach had a local gang of them.

After a relaxing swim, I set up between two trees for the afternoon. Pro tip: always travel with a hammock! You never know when you'll find the perfect spot for some reading, or perhaps a snooze.

The soothing white noise of the pounding waves eventually became too much to bear, and I succumbed. Someone was gracious enough to document it... using my own phone, even.

Even hidden in the trees, I had plenty of sunshine peeking through.

The chickens scratched around looking for food, but weren't aggressive or annoying about it. We had some snacks, but did not share with them.

It was around 2 PM by the time we need some hydration from Nigel's. He's providing a valuable public service, and isn't shy with the pours.

After a cocktail, I went back in the water. That's me, under the hat, in the middle.

Some people don't need a hammock to take a nap, but rather have the remarkable ability to sleep sitting up in a camp chair.

In a complete mockery of the other people on the beach having (what appeared to be) Instagram photoshoots, I took some over-the-shoulder shots of Sabrina and Lauren.

This guy randomly came by, trying to sell fresh coconuts. We didn't patronize him, but he stopped for a chat (and again on the return trip).

Apparently Lauren took my phone for a walk on the beach; I was distracted by a book.

Here I am, trying to enjoy that book.

As if an alarm had gone off, almost everyone around us packed up and left at the same time. It turns out they were cruise passengers, at the beach for the day, but had to get back to their ship. I think they were mostly from Germany.

For the next hour or so, we had the beach virtually to ourselves, until we started to get hungry and overheated. The surf had gotten quite lively, so nobody wanted to go back in the water. The lifeguard had gone out several times to bring people back to shore on his surfboard, because they were struggling with the current. None of us noticed when the flag changed to red, but we all had a sense that it had been several hours ago.

Just before 4 PM, we packed up the car and headed back toward Long Bay. Where we got back to pavement, I pulled over to admire the view and let a taxi pass us; the rough road didn't stop them from shuttling cruise passengers to and from the beach, in minivans nonetheless.

Just past the road that heads uphill to our house, we ducked into Sebastian's for an early dinner. Despite being officially called "Sebastian's On The Beach", there isn't a beach anymore. At least, there isn't a sandy beach, although it's still visible in Google Maps/Street View.

We felt bad for this poor woman, who was just trying to have a peaceful glass of wine with her book. The surf was rougher here than it had been at the beach, or maybe it just seemed that way because it was crashing on the rocks under the edge of the restaurant.

The service was a bit slow, because they weren't quite ready for dinner service yet. We mostly stuck to the bar menu, but eventually managed to satiate everyone's hunger by 6 PM or so.

We caught the last remaining light of the sunset, over the rock-and-coral beach.

It was starting to get dark as we walked back to the car and repeated the hill climb, 500+ feet up to the villa.

We spent the rest of the evening recovering from today, preparing for tomorrow, and sitting on the roof deck listening to the ocean and a chorus of tree frogs.

Other than the water being rough, it was a perfect beach day. Allegedly, Smuggler's Cove has some excellent snorkling, but nobody was testing that theory today. The weather was great all day, though; 80 to 85F, sunny with scattered clouds, and a strong ocean breeze.

Tomorrow is supposed to be about the same weather. We're taking a boat trip to a few other islands, leaving the house by 9 AM.

Tortola Christmas 2023 - Day 1: Arrival Adventures

This year's Christmas trip is to Tortola, one of the British Virgin Islands (BVI). The BVIs are a bit trickier to get to than the US islands, but they have a lot of small conveniences, like using the US dollar and US-style power outlets. Also, being harder to get to, they're apparently less crowded than the USVI. The lodging options were also much more reasonable, and there are fewer large resorts/chains.

Our journey really started last night; we all convened at Lauren's apartment for dinner, and then spent the night in Morristown; there's a two-bedroom apartment in her building that's available for rent, so we could all get an early start in the morning, not far from the airport. It's also cheaper and easier to park at car at her place than at Newark airport.

Just before 4:30 AM, in the dark, we took a car service to the airport. To get to Tortola, we first flew to St. Thomas, deplaning into the hot sun around noon AST (1 hour ahead of EST).  Sabrina, Lauren, and I had been there almost 5 years ago, so it all seemed vaguely familiar.

St. Thomas is a US territory, so there are no customs/immigration lines; we zipped through the airport after changing into lighter attire and found a taxi (van) to take us to the ferry terminal on the edge of Charlotte Amalie.

There are several options for ferry trips, depending which origin/destination ports and days/times work with one's itinerary. Thankfully, the USVI tourism site has thorough information. We opted for the 2 PM offering from Smith's Ferry. On top of the round-trip ticket price, there's also something like a $10 per-bag cost and a $10 per-person "port fee"; these seemed to be common to all of the ferry operators.

While we waited, we ate a light lunch dockside, mostly consisting of sandwiches and snacks we had brought from home; it wasn't clear in advance what the food options were at the ferry terminal, and we knew there was absolutely nothing at the St. Thomas airport.

The ferry ride is about an hour, part of which was rougher than some people would have preferred. We initially sat in a group, but were later split up when the staff asked people to shift more to the port side to balance the boat.

Along the ride, we were treated to lovely views of St. Thomas, St. John, various minor islands, and eventually Tortola. Oddly, one of the Marvel/Avengers movies was playing on a TV at the front. 

After all of the luggage (and various packages being shipped via ferry) was unloaded, we disembarked at the BVI customs and border inspection dock, around 3:20 PM. Everyone was very much operating on Island Time at this point.

The Bomba Charger certainly wasn't the nicest ferry option, nor the fastest, but it's what worked with our schedule. Overall, it was uneventful, which is exactly what I'm looking for in a ferry ride.

After having our paperwork and passports checked, and paying yet another per-person fee ($10 Environmental Tourism fee), we hoofed it about 1/4 of a mile to the car rental desk and picked up our ride for the next five days.

After tetris-ing 6 people and all our bags into a Honda Pilot, we ventured out into what qualifies as rush hour here, just down the street to the nearest grocery store. There was absolutely nowhere to park, though, so we abandoned that plan and decided to find one on the way to the Airbnb instead.

We stopped at a Riteway Food Market just down the road, to pick up some breakfast essentials and something to make for dinner tonight. We knew that the rental villa had a decent kitchen situation, wanted to admire the sunset view, were all somewhat tired, and didn't want to go back out for dinner later.

While we were shopping, the power went out twice. I have no idea if this is typical or not, but nobody else in the store seemed excited or surprised. It sounded like a backup generator fired up, outside, the first time, so the lights were only out for 10 or 15 seconds.

After some probably-power-outage-related problems with the register and/or credit card reader, we finally managed to pile some groceries into the already-crowded SUV and continue along the coast road, west, toward the Long Bay area. (I just noticed that the villa we're renting is at the top of their aerial photo. It's the left one of the four in the center/top. Edit: I'm adding it, at the bottom of this post)

Along the way, we got our first taste of Tortola sunsets.

We met the local property manager at the bottom of the hill, and followed him up the steep switchbacks to the villa. Multiple reviewers had suggested that 4WD was a requirement; I don't look forward to driving up or down here if it's wet.

The villa is absolutely stunning. The Airbnb listing always seemed to good to be true, but it really is as nice as their photos made it look.

The property manager showed us around the three separate buildings. The central one is the kitchen, dining, and living room area. It also has a bathroom and an office. The outer buildings are each two bedrooms, one above the other, and each of those has its own full bath.

On his way out, the manager took the solar cover off the pool. We enjoyed the sunset over Jost Van Dyke, cooked dinner, unpacked, and finally relaxed a bit.

I went for a swim after dinner, and we all turned in early.

Tomorrow will probably involve some sun and sand, but there are no specific plans yet.

Barcelona 2023 - Day 6: Home, Epilog

We packed up in the morning, and I went out for a baguette at the corner bakery so we could turn our leftover cured meats into some sandwiches.

Around 11 AM, we checked out at the desk and stored all of our bags in these enormous lockers, in the small garage attached to the hotel. I think the garage had 10 or 12 spaces, and was completely empty.

We had about 90 minutes until we needed to mobilize, so we meandered through the shopping area of Grácia, near the metro stop we'd be using all week, toward one of the plazas.

It was a national holiday, so the square was full of kids playing soccer or bombing around on scooters. Once it got too crowded, we moved on to the next square and ate our improvised picnic lunch. Sabrina also had some leftover paella, room temperature.

We should have stayed there, people-watching, all day, but we had to eventually return to the hotel to fetch our bags and hop the metro back to the airport. We knew from our prior trips that it would take about an hour to get there, including the walking, changing metro lines, etc.

The Barcelona airport was once again an absolute pleasure to traverse, so arriving 90 minutes before the (intra-EU) flight was perfectly adequate. We even had time to browse the jamon vending machines; the US CBP frowns on bringing any meat products into the country, unfortunately, so we didn't partake.

Our flight to Lisbon was about an hour and a half, and then we had around two hour until the next leg. Originally, we thought this would be time to eat an early dinner, but with TAP apparently feeding us on the plane, we didn't bother.

Instead, we sat at a cafe for coffee and a another pastel de nata; it's almost worth connecting through the Lisbon airport just for the snacks, in my opinion.

They have an entire store just for canned fish (sardines, anchovies, etc.), in case that's something you want to bring home. It was empty, when we walked by.

Our flight back to Newark was uneventful and quiet, except for all of the people coughing, as usual. Dinner was a choice of chicken/rice or mushroom ravioli, along with a small salad, roll with butter, crackers with soft cheese, and something resembling a whipped cream/cheesecake dessert with berry compote.

It was a 7.5 hour flight, so they woke us up a few hours later to give us... a snack, I guess? It was half of some sort of spinach wrap with either a soft cheese in the middle? Or maybe it was egg salad? I'm not really sure. Also a small chocolate bar with something crunchy in it. I think it was around midnight or 1 AM, Barcelona time.

By the time we deplaned in Newark, got through customs (shockingly quickly), retrieved our bags, got back to the car, and drove home, it was after midnight EDT, which felt like 6:15 AM to us.

Closing thoughts, notes for next time, etc., in no particular order:

The public transit is exquisite. We would not have been able to see all of the sights we saw, with such scheduled precision, without the ability to zip across the city so quickly. Whether or not the Hola BCN transit cards are a good deal, price-wise, is debatable; it depends entirely on how many trips/day you might make, versus just getting a 10-trip card or whatever. The fact that it includes the L9 line to the airport made it worthwhile for us, especially because we did two extra airport trips for the Mallorca overnight. There's also value is not having to think/worry about the cost of additional metro trips, like when we just went back to the hotel to pick up our bags, water bottles, etc.

By the end of the trip, we knew the core of the metro map rather well. Transferring to the L9 involves 4 or 5 levels of escalator, and is worth taking the elevator if you have luggage. (It's very deep underground.)

The great metro coverage meant that we never had to walk more than a mile, at the most. We chose to walk around quite a bit, averaging over 9 miles per day, or something like 50 miles walked while on this trip, not counting the travel days at either end. We also got in a few good bike rides, and did some serious Stairs Days on Tuesday and Thursday.

Everyone we met from the area, whether they were working, just walking around town, or fellow tourists, was extremely friendly. People are courteous on the subway, on the street, at the airport, etc. They're all just so happy, it seems strange to us coming from the US.

The eating times and late hours of everything takes some getting used to. I absolutely loved it; Sabrina was repeatedly in disbelief at how late people were out, eating, etc. Going to see tourist attractions before 10 AM meant there were virtually no lines. Going to dinner before 9 PM was a sure way to get a table without a reservation, as the rush seems to start at 9.

The thing to keep in mind is... they're sort of in the wrong time zone, geographically. The whole country moved an hour later, in solidarity with the bulk of Europe, during WWII and just never moved back. The details are a bit more complicated than that, but the end result is it sort of isn't as late as it seems, if one is concerned about the position of the sun.

There are coffee shops absolutely everywhere; the cafe culture is amazing. Sabrina was annoyed at the lack of decent tea options, because it's very much a coffee city. The ability to get a pastry/sandwich and a coffee, at any time the sun is up, anywhere in the city, is fantastic. I could really get used to that.

There are also corner markets/grocery stores on almost every block, at least in Grácia, Eixample, and the old city areas. The relatively cheap cost of food in the city, combined with the very favorable Euro/USD exchange rate right now, meant the costs seemed reasonable to us, even at "convenience store" prices.

We had heard/read the Barcelona was an "expensive" city, but that wasn't our experience at all. Again, the exchange rate helps, but the lack of tipping and low cost of beer/wine makes dining out much more affordable. The biggest sticker shock I had was the cost of tickets to enter the tourist attractions; two tickets to one of the Gaudí houses cost more than dinner out for the two of us.

On that note, the overnight trip to Mallorca was shockingly affordable. The ability to fly from Barcelona to Palma for under $50/person is difficult to fathom, coming from a place where we'd spend more than that for round-trip bus tickets from eastern Pennsylvania to New York City and back (about a 75-minute drive each way). The hotels were also very reasonable, everywhere. Traveling off-peak or in a shoulder season certainly has its benefits.

I think if we were to do it all again, I'd probably try to arrange the Mallorca side trip to line up with the end of the trip, so when we flew from Palma back to Barcelona, we'd just stay at the airport and fly home from there, instead of taking two extra ~1 hour trips to/from downtown. This would require storing luggage at the airport, which looks do-able, and would be putting a lot of faith in Vueling/whomever not to delay/cancel a flight or otherwise screw everything up.

The day trip to Figueres could've gone better, but we couldn't forecast a problem with the train. That mostly ate up the time we'd allowed to explore the town, but it was mostly closed due to it being Sunday anyway. I don't think we could've found much to do on Sunday anywhere in the whole country, though. Additionally, the train ride wasn't as scenic as I expected it to be (based on absolutely no information whatsoever).

We had initially considered different train day-trip destinations like Sitges (close) or Tarragona (about an hour, like Figueres). In hindsight, it's good we didn't try to go to Sitges because we saw signs advertising their film festival that we would have unknowingly tried to crash. I don't know that there would've been anything interesting to do in either city on a Sunday either, but the train ride would've been along the coast at least.

Aside from the delight that is wandering around old European city centers, the Gaudí attractions are a unique experience of Barcelona. Throw in the exquisite food and friendly people, and it's a trip that I would absolutely do again, given the opportunity. Next time, perhaps we can combine it with a trip along the Mediterranean coast, either to Costa Brava, or the south of France.