Index

RTW - 2013 Italy, Rome

CRS 2016 - Falklands, Malvinas

Argentina - Buenos Aires, Walkabout

Australia - Riding the Indian - Pacific

Australia - Sydney Harbor Ferry Race

Brazil - Manaus, Solimoes e Rio Negro

Cambodia - Angkor Wat, Main Temple

China - Beijing, Great Wall

Cuba - Camaguey, City Center

Cuba - El Cobre

Cuba - Sancti Spritus, Valle de Los Ingenios

Cuba - Santiago de Cuba, San Juan Hill, El Morro

Cuba - Santiago de Cuba , Fidel's Final Stop

Gibraltar

India - New Delhi, American "Theme Nights" at Major Hotels

India - Benares (Veranasi)

Italy - Sardinia, Tharros

Italy - Sardinia, Alghero

Malaysia - Malacca

Philippines - Manila Bay

Portugal - Fatima

Spain - Escorial, Valle de Los Caidos

Spain - Salamanca

USA - Florida, Tarpon Springs, Stafford House

USA - New Hampshire, A Mt. Washington High

USA - New York,City of New York Public Library, 42nd St.

Vietnamese - Hanoi, Red River Cruise

Vietnam -  Hoi Ahn

Lebanon - Anjar

Russia - St. Petersburg, Russian Folk Show

....... and hundreds of more "Life Events" ( on Facebook) spanning the better part of a century

RTW 2013 - Lebanon, Anjar

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Important commercial center during the first Umayyad Caliphate 8th CE.... (Europe in the Dark Ages). Astride two, crossing trade routes. Once supplanted by the Abbasid Caliphate 10th CE, Umayyad’s recreated themselves as a western caliphate in Iberia, Cordoba as its center...Mosque there , built over by a Cathedral centuries later, is from that period. Succeeded by two waves of Moroccan Berber (yet Muslim) invaders. Finally, the Reconquista cleared all Muslim influence from Iberia.

Been to Cordoba, and now Ajar, but only just now...arranging this photo gallery... "connecting the dots"...... with Google's assistance, of course.

April 2013

Link to Photo Album:

Anjar - Lebanon

RTW 2013 - Italy, Rome

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Yesterday we arrived in beautiful Roma and as always there was a "suit and tie" young man    at the airport holding a sign with our name ....and a Benz limo waiting. Miguel said he wanted to give me the "Imperial" treatment. It was raining bucketful’s.

In town, passing San Giovanni Basilica, the driver told us that this very day the POPE would lead a procession down a long avenue from that basilica to the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, in the Pope-mobile, of course. Something to do with the Domus Cristi Holy Day.

It was just 11:00 a.m., but there were crowd-control barriers up all along that avenue...which made us even more interested in what was going to happen later that day.

 We then came to our "guest house" which Miguel had found on the Internet in the "Heart of Rome". It's brand new with modern, spacious rooms whose owners … a flamboyant young couple…. greeted us. Real charmers. This is Rome.

Starving, we immediately went for lunch which was fantastic:  meat, veggies, pasta...and wine, lots of wine to make up for our self-imposed Norwegian "drought" where a bottle of wine was 5 to 6 times more than here. I ordered gnocchi though not quite as good as those my friend M’s can make back in Atlanta but still yummy.   

We slept a great nap....we're in Italy after all...and around  6 in the evening ,  we went for a walk in bright sunshine. As it happened, we stumbled across Santa Maria Maggiore and got a sidewalk table at a bistro in front of the church, just where the Pope was expected to come by.  And ordered our beers, of course.   

Our table was up against a crowd-control barrier so nothing could block our view of where Bergolio (the Pope's real name) was to go by....couldn't believe our luck. And soon enough the procession began. After hundreds of priests, nuns, and monks passed by there was our ARGENTINE Pope...NOT in the Pope-mobile but WALKING!       

I took a picture of a vehicle carrying the Chalice containing Domus Cristi  (the BODY of CHRIST!) with  Bergolio (Francis I, to be more correct) just behind in the procession, no more than three meters from where we were. Then my camera went "plin, plin"  ..."memory full"... I COULDN'T TAKE ANY MORE PICTURES!  

This is the second time we have seen a Pope, but the other time it was the prior Pope in the Pope-mobile (in Vienna) at some distance. This time it was an ARGENTINE Pope, so, obviously, a little more special for us....though Miguel was a little less impressed than I was.      

Well, we're off now to stroll around Rome with no particular destination I mind, again with bright sunshine, to see what there is to see. Miguel says he'll look at the guidebooks tomorrow. It makes him feel like an explorer...although we are in a city that is 2,500 years old!

May 2013

Link to Photo Album:

Rome - Major Sites and Landmarks

Cuba - Santiago de Cuba, Fidel's Last Stop

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Drove down from "El Morro", past the city's port to the city's main cemetery to view Fidel's grave.

Had Arrived in Cuba just after Fidel Castro had been laid to rest..... symbolically returning to the region where he launched his revolution. The funeral cortege had transited the length of the island, about 500 miles, retracing the route to Havana once taken to topple Batista.....attended by millions along the way.

At the cemetery, a mausoleum to Jose Marti is... just behind Fidel's grave. Returning to the city center you pass Revolutionary Square where, like in Havana, nearby buildings brandish large metal sculptures evoking Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, the other two of the Revolutionary "trinity" of commanders.

Fronting these, across the square, a very large - and surprisingly modern/abstract -  monument to Antonio Maceo one of the independence wars heroes ..as he was in his original country the Dom Rep. 

(Historical note: Hispaniola twice exported its civil tumult to Cuba: first, expelled French sugar plantation owners from Haiti, then successful rebel generals from the Dom Rep who continued their animosity against Spain in neighboring Cuba.)

Oriente Province, historically much bigger than what it is now, was where many of the independence wars/Cuban revolution leaders came from or originated their rebellions: Cespedes, Gomez, Maceo, Garcia, Fidel....a province big enough to support a rebellion and yet too far away for Havana-based Spaniards to successfully suppress the rebels/revolutionaries.

December 2016

Link to Photo Album:

Fidel's Gravesite, Santiago de Cuba,  Cuba

  

EURO 2015 - Russia, St. Petersburg, Tsarskoe Selo, The Grounds

 

 

 

Notes:

The grounds of Catherine the Great's country palace blend the prevalent European landscape designs of 18th Century (rectilinear pathways connecting small,well-tended parks each surrounded by precisely- shaped hedges) with the emerging "English" design which allowed for plants and trees to retain their more effusive "natural" appearance. Among the buildings on the grounds: apartments for Catherine's lovers, notably Prince Potemkin; a Greek-Roman Pantheon with an exterior gallery exhibiting the busts of famous "enlightened" figures, ancient and contemporary... overlooking a "classic" garden; a small "retreat" on the edge of a small lake where Catherine spent most mornings poring over state documents....with only strong coffee as sustenance; on exit, a long view of the Palace's exterior.....and,finally, passing a statue of Pushkin who spent his summers in Tsarkoe Selo some decades later and for whom the nearby town is now named.

Link to Photo Album:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/cciwCRRD8bBQhWHt7

May 31, 2015

Italy - Sardinia, Tharros

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Something close to half of the UNESCO World Heritage sites are in Italy... the majority of which are beyond the "must-see" Rome-Florence-Venice tourist arc. These others, though smaller, are equally steeped in history. At Tharros, there is a small medieval chapel where undoubtedly the local priest exhorted the local peasantry to join the Crusades. Just beyond, there is an extensive archaeological site with layers of history one built upon the other... ...Nuraghi, Phoenician, Carthaginian, Roman, Byzantine, Aragonese. Tharros served as a commercial port until sea-borne Saracen raiders made it no longer tenable......and it was abandoned for the safer location of Oristano. Underfoot at the site.... the footpaths and streets... paving stones still very much in place.

May 6, 2015

Link to Photo Album:

Italy - Sardinia, Tharros

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Argentina - Cordoba, Cavanagh 

Link to Photo Album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/FeFoMWAzdpJCrvY89

Notes: 

...weekend with L's relatives deep in the "Pampas Humedas"; dinner with all and sundry then walking it off with tour of the downtown sights. Next day, home- cooked 'tallarines" and reminiscing with photos and the memories they spark. (Panorama of Carlos Paz...350 kilometers later).