Krik's Picks

My wife and I just can't stay away from San Francisco. We first visited 40+ years ago for our honeymoon. We liked it so much, we moved there for a year. Though we didn't stay, we have made many return visits over the years. It's the city we travel to most often for leisure. So we know it pretty well. Our October trip was technically a business trip. We did have a meeting on one day. But we extended our stay so that we'd have time to take in our favorite activities and visit some favorite restaurants. One little glitch - it rained. Quite a lot, actually. But we still made our way around the city and visited familiar locales. Some of the others who were involved in the meeting used the opportunity to go to museums. The city has great museums. But on this trip, we didn't join them. Another couple had a break of good luck and went on a harbor cruise - no rain, lucky them. We've been on the harbor cruise before. It's fun. Lodging: The meeting planner made arr...

I read somewhere that in the fall of 2016, Northern California had an unusually large number of rainy days. Too bad for us, that's when we were there. While the rainy weather put a damper on some of our planned activities, we still were able to enjoy wine tasting, good restaurants, some live music, and a cozy, comfortable inn. And it didn't rain the whole time. We did have one day of beautiful weather. Hotel: Our base for this visit was the Inn at Sonoma .  This was a return visit for my wife and me. The location is ideal. It's a short walk to the Sonoma Plaza which is the bustling heart of this little wine town. And it's easy to get in and out of town from here for wine tasting and other adventures.   The amenities are very nice. There's a reception every evening with wine and light appetizers. It's a fun way to meet other people and learn about their wine country experiences. Breakfast every morning is delicious and hearty - a great way to begin the day. Th...

My wife and I have enjoyed California's wine country for many years. We've frequently been wine-tasting in Napa and Sonoma, as well as other areas of the state. Over the years, our preference for Sonoma has grown. I think in general, the wines produced there suit our tastes better. We also like that Sonoma still has many small family wineries, and we've enjoyed visiting many of them. Napa has many small wineries as well. But it seems like the Sonoma Valley is a little more laid back and less touristy than Napa.  While we've visited many wineries in California over the years, one experience we never had was a food and wine tasting at a winery. In retrospect, that seems like a foolish oversight.  It's a truism that having wine with food enhances the experience of both. Yet, at most wineries, the experience usually is all wine, no food (except for sometimes crackers or breadsticks to help clear the palate.) So on our October trip to the Sonoma Valley with my wife...

I don't usually order sandwiches when I'm out for lunch. It's not that I have anything against sandwiches in principle. It's just that when I'm eating out, I usually prefer something more creative, an entree, or even a salad. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to put some stuff between two slices of bread. (Exception: Grilled cheese. I LOVE grilled cheese sandwiches.) Earlier this year, Borough , a restaurant that I really like quite a lot, started serving lunch. So late in summer, when I was downtown during the lunch hour, I decided to give it a try. They have several items on the lunch menu that look good. But for some reason, I decided to try the pastrami sandwich. So glad I did. Pastrami on Rye at Borough The pastrami was excellent. Great flavor and very tender. Borough does a nice job with proportions. There's a generous serving of meat on the sandwich, but it's not piled ridiculously high. The sandwich is on a very tasty rye bread that...

In my whole career, I never had an office with a window. Actually, I guess I'm lucky I even had an office. I understand that the new trend is for something called ' collaborative working environments ' and ' nomadic ' offices. I'm not sure exactly how it all works, but from what I've heard, you come to the office with your computer and just settle into an open work carrel, or gather round a table with co-workers who are collaborating on a project. I always tried to be progressive and open to change. I tried to be a champion of more electronic communication and computer technology. (When I retired, I had almost no paper files for the last 7 years of my career. Almost all of my old work records consisted of electronic files stored on my computer.) When I traveled for work, I was pretty comfortable setting up a mobile office in my hotel room. As long as I had a good internet connection, I was able to work and be productive. But back at the headquarters, I d...

It's been 3 months since my wife and I returned from our 26-day trip to Paris and Italy. I've written separate posts about each of the destinations that we visited. This is an overview of the entire trip with some miscellaneous comments. We couldn't go to Paris without a pic of the Eiffel Tower Technology: We took our first trip to Europe for our 25th wedding anniversary in 1999. Of course, I was still working and felt the need to keep in touch. I think I had a cell phone in those days; I can't really remember when I got my first one. But I certainly did not get an international calling plan. Instead, I used a toll-free number to check voice messages back at the office and visited internet cafes to check e-mails. It's a lot different now. First of all, no more internet cafes. Every place we stayed had free WiFi included with our rooms. We were able to use our iPads to get emails every day plus keep up on news back home, send photos, and check TripAdvisor r...

There's a relatively new place in south Minneapolis that's getting a lot of favorable buzz. St. Genevieve is a French wine bar in a quiet residential neighborhood. We had a 7:30 reservation on a Saturday night. So, yeah, they take reservations! Big plus in my book.  Friends had told us it's quite noisy, and in the entryway, it was. But we were seated at a table near the back, and it wasn't too bad. Probably the most impressive thing was the friendly, knowledgeable, and accommodating staff. It was our first time there. The hostess sat down next to us and explained how things work - mostly small plates, encourage sharing, wine by the glass or bottle, half glasses of wine available. Very nice.  When we had questions about the wine, our server was very helpful - accurately describing the ones we were interested in. We liked our choices. My wife usually shies away from Pinot Noir, but when she inquired about it, the server noted that it's a white Pinot Noir - Pfeffi...

When we started planning a trip to Europe, our goal from the beginning was Italy. But we decided to make Paris our first stop. We had several good reason. First, we like Paris. Second, it had been a long time since we'd been there. Third, we could take a nonstop flight from Minneapolis to Paris. So, we thought, this would be a nice way to begin the trip, by getting over our jet lag in the City of Light .  Of course, we thought a little bit about the possibility of terrorism. We hadn't made our reservation yet when the terrorist attack occurred in November 2015. That caused us to reconsider our plan. But we finally decided that we would stick with the plan. If the situation got more threatening, we could always cancel the Paris segment of our trip.  Well, the situation in Paris did not get more threatening. The only trouble with our three days in Paris was the weather. It was much chillier than usual for late April, and we had periods of cold rain. One day the rain turned t...

We arrived in Milan late in the afternoon, after a 7 hour train ride from Paris. The ride was smooth and uneventful. The train from Paris arrives at the Milano Porto Garibaldi station, not Milano Centrale. That shouldn't have been confusing. But when we arrived, I hadn't yet learned the lesson to always get directions for where we wanted to go. So while I thought the 25-minute walk seemed straightforward and foolproof, it wasn't. We pulled our luggage for about 45 minutes before I used Google Maps on my iPhone and got the correct directions.  So by the time we got checked in to our hotel, it was already early evening. We set out to explore our surroundings and find a place for dinner. We were almost ideally located, only a few blocks from the opera house La Scala and the fashion shops of central Milan.  View of Bellagio as the ferry crosses Lake Como Since the train ride from Paris took basically a whole day, we only had two full days to explore Milan. We had two go...

During our trip to Italy in May, we'd often be asked: Where else are you visiting while you're here? And when we'd tell them that Lago d'Orta was on our itinerary, we'd get this quizzical look. "How do you know about Orta?" they'd ask. Then they'd usually tell us that the town of Orta San Giulio was sort of a quiet little resort town usually only visited by other Italians. I couldn't tell if they were impressed that we were such savvy travelers, or worried that their little, secret gem might get overrun by Americans.  Lago d'Orta - Photo taken by a very nice French tourist We got the travel tip from a friend (an American friend) who was a former travel agent and had stayed there. When we were planning our trip, we mentioned to her that we wanted to spend some time in the Italian Lakes region, probably Lake Como. She told us about Orta and the wonderful hotel where she and her husband has stayed. We looked into it and decided to st...