IDEAS      Homes for Vacation & Long-Term Rentals

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FOR FAMILY PICTURES - CLICK THE BUTTON ABOVEScroll Down to Maps & Click on the Map of the Country to Read the  Diarios

Below are the

Flags of the Countries & Cities We Have Visited so far

How Many Can You Recognize?  

Working on West EU, Germany, France and Scandinavia Diarios One Each at a Time.

EAST EU 2011 This Year	PARIS 2010 10 Pages	WEST EU 2009 Up To Amsterdam	GERMANY 2007 Up To Dresden	FRANCE 2005  Up To Lyon	Scandinavia 2003  UpTo Moscow
IBERIA 2001   Fix Photos	ITALY  2000  TO DO	UK/Ireland 1999     1 Page	ITALY  1997   TO DO

HOLLAND 1974  To be Done		Honeymoon: HUNGARY & YUGOSLAVIA 1970 Pages Setup: Slides Done		GREECE Trip 2013   Shorter trips from now on.  The first will be to the Greek Isles.

As of 2011 we have thoroughly toured all the areas colored in tan.

The trip Diarios are written by Kenneth J. Hoffer, MD

("diary" in Italian is "Diario")

            These are my writings and photos during 3 month trips taken by my wife, Marcia, and I every other year starting in 1997.  In 2011, the 14 years of doing this, we have spent 2.25 years driving through Europe visiting 23 countries.  Starting in 2013, the trips will be shortened to 5-6 weeks since we have now visited most everything west of Poland except Northern Ireland.  Our interest in further east is not as high.

        The goal was to spend 3 months primarily in one country on each trip to learn as much as we could about the people, culture, history, language, food, art and heritage of that country.
        On our first trip in 1997, instead of sending postcards, I decided it would be quicker to write a diary of where we had been and what we had seen and experienced and send it by email.  Being in Italy, I called them "diarios."  Since I was also reading about the history and culture of the people, I flavored it with some of that.  Then I started adding pictures.

        I originally started writing them for our kids (Kristin, Jeffrey, and Kevin) but more specifically for Marcia's mother (Eleanor Wasgatt) in Rockland, Maine (who had never been to Europe) and my Aunt Elsie Holmes in Westminster in Orange County, CA.  They both told me how much they enjoyed reading them.

Unfortunately, we lost both of them in 2004.

   Eleanor Wasgatt          Elsie Holmes       

 Aspen, CO 1983

KEVIN (left)

JEFFREY (middle)

KRISTIN (right)

Vince Daukis

WHY A WEBSITE?

        Soon relatives, friends and colleagues asked me to include them in the email list which kept growing.  A problem arose in 2001 when AOL began considering me a spammer because of the number and frequency of the emails I was sending.  AOL shut me down 3 separate times requiring calls to the US to turn it back on.  The 4th time, they closed my AOL account.  Exasperated after the 2001 trip, Vince Daukis (photo right) was kind enough to agree to disperse the emails through his IBM account allowing me to only have to send the one email to him through AOL.

        After doing this for the whole 2003 trip and the France 2005 trip, Vince persuaded me and helped me set up this website and taught me how to edit and work on it.  He did a fairly good job, I think.  Now this website has become my hobby.

 PREVIOUS TRIPS

TRIP #1

Marcia Hoffer

        Our 1997 trip wasn't really our first to Europe; but our third.  After we were married in Rockland, Maine on May 30, 1970, our honeymoon was a flight to Frankfurt, Germany and then to Ljubljana (Slovenia) and ending in Belgrade (Serbia,) Yugoslavia.  At that time Yugoslavia was a combined Communist country ruled by Broz Tito.  We rented a Japanese car and drove to Budapest, Hungary [my paternal grandparents were both born there] and while toasting with glasses of Tokay wine on the banks of the Danube, we promised each other that if our marriage lasted 25 years we would return here for our wedding anniversary.  Over the ensuing two week trip, we drove to Lake Balaton (Hungary,) Zagreb, Split, Zadar and Dubrovnik (Croatia), to Sarajevo and Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina) and back to Belgrade.  Both countries were communist but Hungary was much more severe, since Tito made Yugoslavia less restrictive.  Hungary was ruled by dictator Janos Kadar.  Needless to say we didn't get back for our 25th anniversary but in the middle of our 1997 Italy trip we drove to Budapest and did celebrate our 27th anniversary there.  When we checked into our hotel on May 30th, they did not have anything but twin beds.  When I told them our story, the Marriot staff put us into the Presidential Suite (for one night only) and sent us up a bottle of champagne.  It was quite an experience.  Now that we are in our 41st year, we need to plan to return for our 50th anniversary.

TRIP #2 Ken

        In November of 1974, I had been asked to give my first public lecture on IOL power calculation.  To gain credibility regarding my subject, I felt I needed to visit the ophthalmologists in Europe who originated these techniques.  Marcia was 8 months pregnant with our 2nd son, Jeffrey and she was not allowed to fly, so an optician named Walter Fadden wanted to accompany me since he had never been outside the US.  We flew from LAX to Amsterdam, Holland and spent 2 days there.  We rented a car and drove to Gröningen to visit Dr. Jan Worst and then to Terneuzen to visit Dr. Cornelius Binkhorst.  We later took a side trip to Münster, Germany to see Prof. Dr. Herman Gernet.  We then decided to drive to the Brussels airport and fly to Zurich, Switzerland and then on to Rome with a stopover in Milano.  The flight over the Alps was grueling and on arrival I had a horrible earache and was treated by a hotel doctor.  We toured some of the sites and visited the Vatican.  Our greatest experience was the fettuccini Alfredo at Alfredo's Originale.  We flew back to Brussels and drove back to Amsterdam for our return flight home.  When I returned, I decided to give up flying for a while and later discovered my love of taking Amtrak trains for all my long distance trips in the US.  Not flying gave me a good excuse not to have to accede to every request made to me to lecture around the country and around the world.  I was home watching my kids grow up for the next 25 years.   I have never regretted that decision.  Thirty-five years later, in 2009, we visited Dr. Jan Worst and his wife Anika and stayed at their summer home in Norg, Holland for 3 days.  We had a wonderful time,

TRIP #2 Marcia

        In the summer of 1995, Kristin (our youngest) wanted to do a month at Oxford University in England between her junior and senior year in high school.  When she was finished, Marcia wanted to go and pick her up and bring her home.  After she was finished with Oxford, they traveled to Scotland and visited Edinborough and the Isle of Skye and then returned to England and visited Bath and London before returning home.  Two years later we go on our Italy trip and then Marcia's choice for our next trip was to the British Isles.

TRIP #3 Marcia

        Marcia and our daughter Kristin went to Egypt in November 2008.

 THE RECURRING PLAYERS

                 Dimitrii & Tania in San Francisco 1997

            Throughout these Diarios, you will hear mention of my Russian eye surgeon friend living in Italy, Dimitrii Dementiev MD and his darling wife, Tatiana.  They did so much to make our trip in Italy special and have been extremely wonderful on all our subsequent trips.  In 2001, I became their daughter Anastasia's godfather (Padrino).  Below right is a photo at the Baptismo; Anastasia is the little one in front of me.  We have stayed at there house in Arese and/or Zoagli on every one of our EU trips.  Dimitrii met us in Moscow in 2003 to show us his native city for 3 days.  They were at Kevin and Gisele's wedding in Rome during our Germany trip in 2007.  In 2010/11 Anastasia lived with us for one year while attending St. Monica's High School here in Santa Monica.  Tania stayed here with her while we were in the EU for 5 weeks in 2010.  Below are photos of Anastasia with Kaylin, Erik and Anabella (left,) one with little Erik (center) and another with Kevin's wife, Gisele and little Wesley (right.)  She became part of our family and we all miss each other since she has gone back to Italy.  After her experience here in the US, she decided to attend the American High School in Milano when she got back home.  She is now on the Honor List there and we are very proud of her.  She's become an "American."

Brian & Krisha with us in Stockholm 2003 

             Brian Thornhill & Krisha Ford are the friends we met in England at the beginning of our 1999 UK trip.  He graciously invited us to stay for a week at his home in Thurgaton near Nottingham.  In 2001, while traveling in Iberia we stayed at his other home in Orba, Spain where he shuttled us to and from the ferry for our excursion to the Balearic islands of Ibiza  and Majorca .  In 2003, they flew to meet us in Stockholm (photo above) for several days (they had never been there).  They are great friends and fun to be with.  In 2005 on our trip to France, Brian met us in St-Malo for three great days in Normandy with his new friend Alexandra White (below, with Marcia and Brian in Santa Monica.)

            Brian and Alex visited us in Santa Monica and we took them to see the Sequoias.  They were at Kevin and Gisele's wedding in Rome during our Germany trip in 2007.  They also came to visit us in Barcelona when we were there in 2009 and we we spent 3 days with them in Brno, Czech Republic in 2011.

                        Marcia & Irene with us in Cordoba, 2001

     We met Irene Calatayud on her birthday in Barcelona Spain on August 8, 2001.She, along with her friend Manuel Cortiñas, guided most of our trip through Iberia, suggesting the best places to visit and booking some of our hotels.  Our trip would not have been the same without them.  During our trip, she flew to meet us in Bilbao and again, a month later in Cordoba (we were there 3 days after 9/11).  In 2003, she flew to Moscow to be there with us for 3 days (she had never been there) and flew to Copenhagen for a few days.  In 2005, during our trip to France, we drove from San Sebastian, Spain to her home in Manzanares near Madrid and had a wonderful visit with her for 3 days.  She has visited us in Santa Monica and Carmel.  She was also at Kevin's wedding in 2007 with her new friend Carlos Palomino, MD, an eye surgeon from Madrid.  We visited with her again when we were in Barcelona in 2009.  We spent time together in 2011 in Vienna.  She is an elegant, gracious lady and we our proud to be her friend.  We owe her so much.

    Above left, Irene & I in Lake Arrowhead, 2005

Irene with us at Ground Zero in Manhattan             Manuel & Marcia in Barcelona 2001

        Dimitrii, Tania, Brian, Alex, and Irene have all visited us here in Santa Monica over the years.  This allowed them to meet and get to know the rest of our family.

            I first met Bo ("Boo") Phillipson, MD many years ago through the International Intraocular Implant Club (IIIC.)  He is a famous professor and practicing ophthalmologist in Stockholm and has been very involved with European eye societies.  We had the pleasure of visiting with him and his lovely wife, Agneta (also a physician) at the beginning of our travels through Sweden in July 2003.  They were so helpful in completely revamping our planned schedule for touring their country.  They also invited us to join them for a traditional Swedish family crayfish dinner at their country house in Rörk in central Sweden.  We will be forever grateful to them for our outstanding Swedish experience, which is reflected in the Diarios of Sweden.

            In the very beginning of our trip through France on, July 6, 2005, while having dinner in an Italian restaurant in the city of Fréjus in Provence, we met Serge Guerchon sitting at the table next to us (right.)  He is from Nice and runs and import/export business [A.C.R. Trading.]  When we told him we were just at the beginning of our trip to explore all of France, he set about drawing a map of the country on a napkin and named all the places we just had to see.  We followed most all his recommendations thoroughly and it made all the difference in the quality of our adventure.  Many of these places we had never heard of.  We are very grateful to him for having done this.

            We also got a chance to see him again in 2009 when we arrived in Nice before getting on our cruise ship at the end of our West EU trip.  Not only did he pack and ship all the extra stuff we didn't want to take on the plane home, he helped us drop off the BMW at the Harms shipping location in Nice and recommended an honest limo driver to take us to the cruise boarding dock in Monte Carlo.  We paid half what my friend Larry paid for the same trip.  We did have a chance to take Serge to dinner in the old town and meet his lovely daughters.  He is really a great friend.

            A very interesting side story is that when we met in 2005, I had never envisioned my Diarios would become a website.  I started the website after returning in September 2005 and did not have Serge's email address so I had no way of letting him know about it.  Six months later while doing the Diario page on Besançon, I made mention that we would never have come here if it wasn't for Serge.  Since I had his phone number, I decided to call him and thank him for all his advice.  When I mentioned the website, he said he knew all about it.  I was astounded.  How could he have known?  He said he was told about it by a friend of his in China who had seen his picture on my Diario page about Fréjus.  Unbelievable!  Above are photos of Serge and his lovely daughter Stephanie.  Above left is (L-R) Sabine, Marcia, owner of La Pierre Bise restaurant in Nice, Sara and Serge.

            As I was thinking about our upcoming trip through Germany, I contacted a colleague from Munich that I have known for many years, Thomas Neuhann MD.  He is a highly respected eye surgeon in Germany, in Europe and internationally.  I asked him if he would consider laying out a plan of "must see" places for us to see in Germany.  At the next ASCRS meeting in San Diego he handed me a bunch of papers and maps of different parts of Germany and there it all was: a thorough plan to see the important things in this large country.  We weren't able to cover all his recommendations but we did about 90% of them.  Most of these places we had never heard of and might not have stumbled on.  Then in 2010, he gave me all the places I must see in completing a tour of the city of Munich.  We are deeply indebted to him for all the time he took from his busy practice to do this for us.

            On our honeymoon trip to Yugoslavia and Hungary in 1970, we had the greatest time in the capital city of Budapest because of Gedeon Borsa and his wife Mary, (photo left, 1970) who showed us all over this beautiful city.  He was the Director of the National Art Museum in this deeply communist country.  We met him because of an emergency room visit.  During my residency in Detroit, I moonlighted at night at a suburban hospital covering the emergency room, night call and wound up delivery a number of babies.  One night in the ER, I was treating this very lovely Hungarian-American lady (Ethel Palfi) and mentioned I was going to Hungary for my honeymoon.  She was very excited about it and insisted that I contact her close friend Gedeon when I arrived.  Just lucky I guess for how it turned out; a personal guide through a Communist country.

            When we returned to Budapest in 1997, we got a chance to meet up with them again, but we all were a lot older.  Thank you Mary and Gedeon for the special memories.  He was too sick to allow a visit during our time in Budapest in 2011.

            I have known John Shammas MD since the early 1970's.  We worked together in the field of IOL power calculation and put courses on for our colleagues.  When we participated in the formation of the IOL Power Club in San Sebastian, Spain in 2005 (see below,) John asked why we shouldn't meet a few days in advance in some interesting place.  I chose Biarritz at the end of our 2005 France trip and we had a great time together with his wife Najwa who is a pediatrician (who takes care of our grandson, Wesley.)  We visited the prehistoric caves south of Toulouse (left.)  In 2007 at the end of our Germany trip we repeated this on the island of Sylt (right) and in 2009 at the end of our West EU trip we did it again in Annecy and Fréjus, France.  In 2010 they met us in Munich and joined us for the Oberammergau Passion Play before our IPC meeting in Venice.  In 2011, they met us for 3 great days in Prague, Czech Republic.  It isn't often you find friends that are fun to travel with; we have had great times together.

            Finally, the five friends I have made in the field of IOL power calculation over these many years formed a group called the IOL Power Club.  Our first meeting was in September 2005 in San Sebastian, Spain.  Back row (L-R): Sverker Norrby PhD of Sweden and Holland, John Shammas MD of Lynwood, CA and Wolfgang Haigis PhD of Würzburg, Germany.  Front row (L-R): Jaime Aramberri MD of San Sebastian, Spain, me, and Thomas Olsen MD of Århus, Denmark.  Each year we have met for scientific discussion and social events.  Our 2nd meeting was in Carmel, CA and the 3rd was in Århus.  In 2008, our 4th meeting was in St. Pete Beach, Fl then our 5th was in Roses, Spain.  In 2010 our 6th meeting was in Venice, Italy and our 7th meeting in 2011 was in Würzburg, Germany.  So Marcia and I always enjoy our time with them.

 The three people I most wanted to meet

           President Ronald Reagan in LA in 1994                                                     Pope John Paul II in Rome in 1997

Radio Host Rush Limbaugh in in 2003

            I have been listening to him since Marcia's mother turned me on to his program in in Maine in 1985.  I finally met and shook hands with Rush Limbaugh while he was playing golf on the 8th hole at the Pebble Beach Country Club during the AT&T Pro-AM Golf Tournament in February of 2003.  He was nice enough to sign (right) my entry badge (left.)  I'm sorry no one photographed us.

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