So...

Back before we set out on our spring trip we were already thinking of maybe a fall trip.  We didn't want anything too challenging but we thought a couple weeks in England would be fun.  We've been there before but never really got to spend time in the Lake District or Wales.  We tore through that area back in 1990 but you've got to admit that was a while ago.  Plus, when we visited Ireland we had intended to visit Northern Ireland but just ran out of time.  So, we talked ourselves into a Northern Ireland, Lake District and Wales trip even before we'd gone on our cruise.  We thought mid-September sounded like a good time; weather might be questionable but at least it wouldn't be crowded. 

Then our friends invited us to a birthday party in Germany on August 11.  Hmmm.  Well, we could move the England trip forward so we bought the tickets.  Non-refundable tickets, of course.  Then when we were in Spain our friend had an accident which sent him to the hospital and cancelled the birthday party.  Happily we hadn't purchased the tickets to Germany but only the tickets to London.  So, the English portion of our trip was going to be a little less hurried.  We can make this work.

We left for London on August 8 arriving on the 9th.  We got there really early so had decided to hop the train to Liverpool and spend a couple days there getting over the jet lag.  That all worked out well.  We got to see a bit of the city and get our feet on the ground.  We had decided we wanted to go see Northern Ireland first so we set out on the Stenna Line ferry to Belfast.  Let me tell you, there doesn't seem to be a way to go from Liverpool to Belfast in less than a day!  Flying involves travel to airports that are distant and the ferrys all seem slow.  I don't know, maybe we missed some genius method that is only 2 hours.  We hopped the ferry!  This is a photo of a similiar ferry in the middle of one of the largest windfarms in the world - in the middle of the Irish Sea.

We enjoyed walking around in Belfast.  It seemed like a nice walkable city.  Of course we had to rent a car and go check out the Giant's Causeway. 

We got to the causeway mid-afternoon and couldn't even get into the parking lot!  It was slammed!  We wandered down the road and found a nice little hotel to spend the night.  About 7 pm we decided to go check out the Causeway.  It is a national monument so you can visit any time.  You just miss the tourist office and we were pretty ok with that!  Clammering around on the rocks was fun but, well, how much fun can a guy take?  So we went back to the hotel and had dessert. 

Heading back to England was another day on the ferry but quite nice.  We found our rental car and headed our for the Lake District.  Our car was a Vauxhall Adam and let me assure you it was small.  Like the back seat wasn't usable for anyone with legs.  Still, it worked for us.  Our suitcases filled the trunk and our backpacks rode in the back seat.  We had decided to use the Keswick area as the center of our Lake District visit.  We had considered trying to stay on Lake Windemere and were very glad we'd switched to Keswick when we got caught in this awful traffic jam by Windemere.  For the second time moving our vacation earlier had brought us the crowds we were hoping to avoid.  Oh well. 

Our hotel was on Lake Thirlmere, one of the smaller lakes. 

It was very remote actually but worked for us. 

Keswick, the town, was still pretty crowded but our hotel was quiet.  Parts of the building are quite old but it has been updated many times over the years.  We found a walk or two to take and spent a day just driving around in other parts of the Lake District. 

Next we moved down to Barrow in Furness.  It was just a place that was closer to Wales and on the sea.  Living in the desert makes the seaside sound pretty good.  From Barrow we drove all the way down to Cardiff.  In terms of US travel it isn't far but in the UK it's quite a drive! 

Cardiff was fun.  It ought to be called Castle Town though.  First there is Cardiff Castle.

Then there is Caerphilly Castle.

And, finally, a late comer: Castle Coch.

Being a foolish American I always envision castles as having grand staircases and wonderful areas.  Here are the staircases tourists get to use!  This one has iron handholds, some only have a rope!

But, of course, it is great fun to visit these wonderful buildings and learn about the history and the stories surrounding them.  It does make using the elevator a much more treasured experience.

Next we headed for Aberystwyth on the western coast.  Aberystwyth is a college town with a lovely beach walk.  We enjoyed walking on the beach and in the town.

You can see the lovely summer weather we were enjoying.  No fear of finding a woman in a bikini on this beach!

Next we wandered up to the Northwest corner of Wales around Caernarfon.  Actually we were in a small town a few miles away called Y-Felinheli.  Our hotel was right on the Menai Straits.  We'd had a really small, odd room in Aberystwyth and the guy at this hotel took pity on us and gave us a special room.  This room has been used for a party room, servants quarters and who knows what else.  Here's a bit of the decoration.

But it was really a great place.  We could see the tides and the boats and, yes, Caernarfon Castle.

I like that view of the castle because it gives you a hint about how formidable it would appear to others.  And I liked the little warning signs they posted.

But it was the view from our hotel that was really the star of the place.

We found a restored railway to take for a day trip where we even got to see Snowdon!

That's the visitor center on the top of Snowdon.  At least that is what one of our fellow travelers said!

From Menai Strait to Liverpool was just a little drive and we got to spend another day or two in Liverpool.  By now we felt we knew the city and just relaxed and enjoyed our time.  There was an artist who set up some "Lost Castles" and we got to see one.  This was all created by volunteers using cardboard!

After Liverpool it was back on the train to London, Heathrow and flying home.  Thanks for stopping by!

Zooming right along

After the excitement of our cruise and visit to Spain, we were happy enough to be at home.  We got back into our morning walk which is around our neighborhood for about 2.5 miles.  We keep track of the neighbors cars and horses and lawnwork.  (We have 2 cactus plants and a whole bunch of rock in our yard.)   This saguaro is a couple blocks away and once in a while it blooms.  It really is amazing.

In addition we have the annual ceremony on this day (May 9 if you are curious):

100F for the first time in 2018.  Exciting stuff!  (37.7C just doesn't have the same ring.)

So, ok, we are dull when we are home.  We do sometimes have visitors.

Someone has to eat all that seed that falls out of the birdfeeder.  And, of course, I have to take a photo on or close to the solstice.

So, any more questions about why there aren't a lot of posts?  I could complain about local politics or national politics but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't do any good. 

In July we did have some excitement but not of the good sort.  A relative who lives in Washington state had a sudden turn for the worse.  We decided we'd better get up there and check things out for ourselves.  Happily our relative kind of clicked back and is doing reasonably well again.  So we got to visit the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge out on the Olympic Peninsula. 

It has a fantastic spit of land that reaches out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

You do get to see SOME wildlife.

But when you are out on the spit you get to see the Olympics.  It is amazing!

It's not quite enough to make me want to move there but almost!

That's it for today.  I'll work on August and September soon.  Promise.  Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good one.

Wow, really falling off the rails here!

Ok, I haven't blogged since late July and here it is early October.  Sorry!  What can I say?  I've been busy.  Let me talk a bit about Barcelona (which was in April!) and then give you an idea of my summer.

We dropped off our rental car in Barcelona with the thought we'd have 3 or 4 days to enjoy the city and that's exactly what we did.  We had a hotel that was right on the harbor front so from the rooftop deck we could check out all the fabulous yachts in the harbor.  That was kind of cool.

Unfortunately our room wasn't facing anything!  But I digress.

When I think of Barcelona about all I think of is Gaudi and the Sagrada Familia church.  What I found was a city that was alive with art of every sort.  We did walk the Las Ramblas, visit the market and all that good stuff but the overwhelming impression was that there was art everywhere.

Oddball art in the park.

Art on the rooftops.

 There is a marina used during Olympic games with plenty of interesting buildings around it.

There was a small city sponsored store where things were sold that were created in Barcelona.  Lots of interesting stuff!

The Spanish custom of eating at 22:00 (10 p.m.) doesn't sit very well with us so we did quite a bit of tapas hunting.  Some of the tapas are pretty creative but I must admit that we stuck with the simpler ones.  Sorry, and it got a bit dull, but it wasn't something we wanted to try.

Barcelona turned out to be a vibrant and exciting city to close out our Spanish travels.  There is, however, a sober side to the city.  Barcelona is a refuge city for people attempting to escape from Africa.  They are very aware that not every refugee makes it safely across the Med.  So they have these monuments on the shore in Spanish and English.

That was the number of people known lost trying to cross by early April, I'm sure that number is much higher by now. 

Thanks for stopping by.  There is lots more travel coming in 2018.  Just warning you!  Take care.

More of spring's trip in Spain

While we were in Bilbao we got some rather shocking news.  We have friends where the husband is a couple months older than me and the wife a couple months older than my wife.  My wife worked with him back when we lived in the Netherlands back in 1998.  The guy was visiting relatives in Germany and while mountain biking fell and a rock pierced his right eye.  In the US you would be given a prosthetic eye and sent on your way.  Apparently Germany is quite a ways ahead of the US when it comes to eye surgery because they were willing to try to save the eye.  (This happened in April.  Now, almost August, he is still undergoing surgery and healing.)

From Bilbao it was a short drive to Pamplona.  We were careful to inquire before heading there if there was any danger from bulls!  Of course there was none so off we went.  There was the autoroute sort of way and the curvy way; of course we went for the curves.  And we sure got them and the beautiful views that can go with them.  As usual our hotel was on the outskirts of town so when we decided to walk into town we expected a fair hike.  It turned out quite a bit more than that but it was interesting. 

One thing we didn't even know was that there is a huge fort in the middle of the city that has been turned into a park.  The word 'huge' isn't right; it's way more than that.

The photo is of only a tiny portion of the fort but it does give you an idea of the size of the walls.  We walked along one side of the fort headed for an exit from the city walls.  As we were walking we found a lot of people apparently just clustered around this church.

It was only after we'd passed it that we discovered that it is on the pathway of the running of the bulls.  Oh well, it was pretty touristy.  We found our way out of the town and headed back out to the hotel.  We had to cross this bridge, the Puente de la Magdalena.  It is one of the oldest in the city and is, of course, pedestrian only.

All around Pamplona we saw people with walking sticks and backpacks and such.  It turns out that Pamplona is on a walking tour that Catholics can take to gain favor.  Some of these tours are several hundred miles long. 

After tiring ourselves out in Pamplona we headed for Zaragoza.  We arrived on a Monday following a holy day so many things were still closed.  Our first tourist stop was the cathedral, La Basilica del Pilar.  It is absolutely enormous!  Wow.  There were plenty of tourists but it was nice to see people praying as well.  It is clearly a working church.  It is along one side of a paved square and I simply couldn't get far enough away to get the entire cathedral in one photo.

The Romans spent quite a lot of time here so in the middle of the city you find an ampitheatre.  Doesn't every city have one?

We also visited the local castle; the Aljaferia - the Moorish-Christian castle of the kings of Aragon.  This one is kind of interesting because it has been used by so many rulers.  It started out being built by the Moors and just kept being useful for whoever was ruling the area.  It sustained a lot of damage over the years but has been carefully restored. 

Finally we left Zaragoza and headed for Tarragona.  Tarragona is on the Mediterranean Sea and has a LOT of Roman ruins.  Of course there is an ampitheatre - and just near the beach as well.

From the top of the ampitheatre you can look out over the water and see the remains of a fort on the other side of the beach.  Amazing.

It is kind of crazy for me but right across the street were more Roman ruins:  the Circ roma combined with the Pretori roma.  The thing that continues to surprise me is that on the other side of the street is a little shop; it is the most natural thing in the world for these people to live next to a World Heritage Site.  Finally we walked around the old city walls.  In the distance we could see the aquaduct that had moved water.  It is in the center of the photo going almost straight up.  You can also see where some of the stone for all the Roman buildings was quarried.

My wife used her telephoto lens to get a closer view.

Finally we strolled around the old city which is actually just a neighborhood like any other.  All in all we were blown away by the Roman past on display in Tarragona. 

That's it for this time.  Next we'll visit Barcelona where our visit to Spain ends.  Until then, thanks for stopping by!

Not Dead Yet!

Though I haven't blogged since May I really am alive and well.  Sorry about the erratic nature of my writing.  I don't have any good excuse, it's just a lack of discipline.  At any rate, here goes!  Back to April and Spain.

We picked up a rental car in Madrid and headed for Sergovia.  Why?  The aquaduct of course.

It really was quite amazing.  You walk downtown, turn a corner and there it is.  It's just amazing.  We were staying at a small hotel close to the outskirts of town and were able to follow the aquaduct almost the whole way back to the hotel.  It was chilly but not actually raining. 

The next morning was different.

Yeah, snow.  Happily it was just a bit and quite wet so it went away quickly.  We were headed north towards the Basque regions.  My wife had heard of cave paintings near a small town called Ribadesella which is a bit west of Bilbao.  So off we went.  Ribadesella is a very small place on the Bay of Biscay but quite beautiful.  Our hotel was outside of town on top of a hill.  We had nice views.

The reason for chosing this town was Tito Bustillo - caves containing ancient cave paintings.  The cave was quite easily accessible and had regular tours.  The tour was in Spanish but the guide was nice enough to add in some English for us.  No photos unfortunately but it really was very nice.  The town is proud of it's history and had a series of humorous signs showing it's history.  This is the pre-history one.

Most people go to this area for a different reason:  the beach.

It is supposed to be a nude beach but it was pretty chilly so the only people we saw were well covered!

Now we headed east towards Bilbao.  My wife is making hotel reservations looking for parking so we have another hotel on the outskirts of town in this case on top of a hill.  The hotel started as a cafe where the owners made their own wine.  They still make it and even gave us a bottle!  Pretty good stuff too.  Here is the view from behind the hotel.

 

 Bilbao has a lovely finicular railway going down to the downtown so that was pretty neat. 

It is s short ride but has great views and leaves you near a bridge that takes you into downtown. 

The big deal in Bilbao is the Guggenheim Museum.  We had read that the museum is more spectacular than the contents and I'd have to agree.  But we had to see it.  We also got to wander around the old town quite a bit and that was fun. 

In the photo above I found it interesting that the upper floors have windows that extend beyond the front of the building.  I haven't seen that often but it was all over Bilbao in older buildings like these and in newer ones as well.

I'll have to continue this another time.  But we are getting towards the end of our trip.  Take care and thanks for stopping by.

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Onward!

So having enjoyed our stay in Funchal the ship untied and headed off to Africa!  Yes, it is a new continent for us so we were excited.  Of course it's a cruise so we get to stay in port of a day.  No time for a safari but instead we got a tour of Tangier, Morocco.  Viking is fairly new to this ocean cruising thing so I'm going to give them a break and just say the tour wasn't the best use of our time.  We got a tour around the Kasbah in these groups of about 30 people.  You would have to say the area is extreme.  A beautiful building will be next to one that looks totally uncaredfor. 

Our guide was interesting enough but it did seem that every block contained a home that had been owned by some Hollywood-type who liked drugs.  That was kind of annoying but then he brought into TWO sales rooms; one selling rugs and the other selling some sort of herbal medicine.  Those were downright insulting.  Even if we had simply walked another couple of blocks it would have been better.

We did get to visit the Kasbah Museum which was, at least, a beautifully restored building.  The tile work and the wood work was amazing. 

Soon, of course, we were off to Spain.  Oddly the voyage went to Cadiz then to Valencia and finally to Barcelona.  The reason I consider it odd is because to visit Cadiz we had to go back west a bit.  However, it gave my wife and I a chance to visit Seville so that was fun.  Unfortunately the tour was a 2 hour bus ride, 3 hours in the city and another 2 hours back to the ship.  At least this guide wasn't trying to sell us anything! 

So we leave Cadiz just after dinner so we get to go through the Straits of Gibralter about midnight.  I must admit I think it should have been in daylight.  We had an entire day at sea between Cadiz and Valencia getting in quite early in the morning.  My wife and I both enjoyed Valencia.  The tour was in the old section of town and centered around two or three churches.  Churches are ok but it was some sort of holiday and most people prefered to leave the churches to the congregations.  It was kind of interesting that buses are not allowed in the older parts of town so the bus dropped us off then came back a couple hours later.  We took a walk that took us out past a university to a city park.  It just seemed a very beautiful city.

That left us one last night onboard the ship.  Most folks were headed off to the airport but my wife and I wanted to see more of Spain so set out early to catch a train.  People who were going to the airport had their luggage all piled in a building on the pier.  We are carryon folks so we just walked out.  I've got to say some people had quite the luggage collection!  We actually did carry an extra bag this time because of all that time on the ship.  In the end it was unnecessary and was mostly unused.  We found a taxi who took us to the train station for a very reasonable 20 euros or so. 

We had reservations on a late morning train so had plenty of time to just relax.  The Spanish train system seems pretty good; this one was a really high-end one and we found ourselves doing almost 300 kph (something around 185 mph) towards Madrid.  We had only one stop so made the journey in 2 hours 45 minutes.  We've been in Madrid so were only using it as a place to get a rental car.  Now we wouldn't have staff around helping with everything but we'd have to figure things out on our own. 

I'll do another installment in a few days.  Take care and thanks for stopping by!

Time for an Overview

So I figured out that I've been off-line for quite a while with no real explanation and I ought to do something about that.  So, here goes.  

Late last March my wife and I flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico.  We spent a couple days in the city before boarding a cruise on the Viking Sea.  The ship was making it's repositioning cruise.  It cruises the West Indies in the winter and the Baltic in the summer.  This cruise was to Barcelona, Spain via Sint Maarten in the Virgin Islands, Madiera, Tangiers and various ports in Spain.  We decided to also spend three weeks wandering around in Spain after the cruise.

We started, as I said, in San Juan.  We stayed in the old city never venturing into the new parts.  The old parts are in fair condition though there are some blue tarps covering damage from the hurricane but things are gradually being brought back to life.  The forts survived just fine.

The cruise is sort of a bucket-list thing.  For much of my life I wanted to buy a boat capable of ocean travel.  That never happened.  The next best thing is a cruise and it was pretty amazing.  Viking has positioned themselves as the cruise line for older folks and (aside from the crew) there might have been one person under 40 on this ship containing 900 plus vacationers.  The ship itself is only a couple years old and is nicely set up.  We chose a Deluxe Veranda stateroom.  It was 270 sq. ft. including the bath.  For rv'ers that's plenty of space.  All cabins have a balcony and there are two wrap-around decks for walking.  Of course there is also a gym and spa for those wanting them.  There is NOT a casino; NOT a Captain's night; and NOT big name shows.

The weather was close to perfect the entire cruise.  Mostly there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  Walking was definitely a shorts and shirt kind of thing.  There is a pool with a cover.  It was covered in the evenings and one or two days when we got close to Europe.  It was only then we all realized it was only April!

Not the 'bikini contest' sort of pool area!  There was also a small 'infinity' pool with hot tub on the aft deck by the bar. 

Check out the lady walking the deck.  Did I mention the age of the cruisers?  Probably only about 5% of us were using assistance meaning canes, walkers or wheelchairs but that is still 50 people.  Four laps of the ship equals one mile in case you are wondering.

There is a buffet restaurant that we used for breakfast and lunch most days.  Dinner was at a more normal restaurant with waiters and all.  There are two 'specialty' restaurants and while we tried both I couldn't honestly say the food was any better.  A little more pretentious but that's about it.  There are a a couple of things Viking is doing right.  One is that they offer free beer and wine with your meals.  I'm sure it means nothing to many people but my wife and I like a glass of wine with our meals.  Another thing is that there is a free laundromat on each floor of the ship.  I've seen people with three or four huge suitcases but since my wife and I are carry-on folks we really appreciate being able to clean our clothes rather than pay the horrendous fees most ship laundries charge.

After a few idylic days at sea we came to tie up in Funchal on the island of Madiera.  It was rather strange coming upon this piece of land after so many days at sea.  But it was a beautiful green island.

After we landed we took an 'included' tour of the island.  It was rather disappointing since it was mostly a bus ride.  We did get to stop at this huge cliff that overlooks the sea. 

Then we got dropped off to shop in the downtown area.  No thanks.  We simply walked back to the ship. 

I'll get us on towards Barcelona next time.  For now, thanks for stopping by!

Yeah, I'm back.

I've been gone so long Google texted me checking to see if this logon was actually me!  Aside from the obvious question of who the heck is so bored that they would try to hijack my blog, gosh, maybe I should feel important.  Hmmm?

Anyway, the answer as usual is that we've been traveling.  I don't have any excuse for not blogging in the early portion of March except that I'd just be wasting the reader's time as well as my own.  However in late March we managed one of those bucket list things:  crossing an ocean on a ship. 

We flew out of Las Vegas to Charlotte, NC and then on to San Juan, Puerto Rico to join our ship.  Let me tell you, that was the flight from hell.  Not that they weren't smooth, polite and relatively on time; it's just a really long time to be traveling.  The time difference isn't too awful but it was just nasty.  The good thing is that you end up in Puerto Rico.

We went a couple days early so we could look around the city a bit.  We aren't hearing much about San Juan since Hurricane Maria hit there in late September 2017.  Well, let me tell you things are definitely NOT all fixed up.  Don't get me wrong, they have done a ton and as a visitor everything was great.  We stayed in a cute little hotel, ate well and visited a few of the many tourist destinations.  I've read that in the interior of the island they are still using portable generator sets for the power grid.  What you  have to be there to appreciate how many roofs are still covered in blue plastic tarps. 

San Juan has an old part of town and some of those old buildings weren't up to the stresses imposed by the hurricane.  No surprise there but just flying in over normal surburban housing provided one with a sea of blue tarps.  Whatever Chinese companies make those things must have had to go into overtime plus mode to fill the need. 

I'll write more and even add photos but right now we've only been back 4 days and I'm definitely not all here.  Take care!