18 months since our last travel outside Ecuador (Oaxaca, Mexico in December 2019). 14 months since our last post, in which I wrote that we would be locked down for “a short time” for this COVID stuff. Well, we were only starting to get a glimpse of how serious the situation was way back then. […]
Portugal 9 – Lisbon
Our three month adventure in Europe and Central Asia is now over. This is our 37th and final blog entry covering this trip that has taken us to Italy, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, and finishing with a month in Portugal. On our last day in Lisbon, we decided to check out their zoo. We […]
Portugal 2 – Porto, Part 2
We are now on our own, exploring Portugal. The star trail image above was shot from our apartment window in Porto, as we start to explore this country. Our first impressions of this city were rather negative – based largely upon the very steep hills in our neighborhood. After a week here though, our impression […]
Uzbekistan 2 – Samarkand
We are now in Samarkand, the second city on our Silk Road tour in Uzbekistan – just in time for Evelyn’s birthday! Jamil is our local guide in Uzbekistan, and his parents showed up to meet our train, greeting Evelyn with a bouquet of roses from their garden. His mother also baked one of the best birthday […]
Uzbekistan 1 – Tashkent
We have now entered Uzbekistan, and started our photographic tour with Mehmet Özbalci, the same guide we used on our photo tour in Turkey last year. The above block gives a taste of the guidance Mehmet gives us. He had taken us to the Khast Imam Mosque to photograph in the late afternoon. There was a small […]
Italy 10 – Rome
We have finally reached the end of our Italian trip, with a visit to Rome. More than anything, this is a city filled with larger-than-life statues. Most of these huge statues were created during the peak of Roman power in the centuries just before and after Christ. It was clearly an attempt to demonstrate the power […]
Italy 9 – Naples
On the 45-minute ferry ride from Sorrento to Naples, we encountered two cruise ships in Sorrento plus six cruise ships in Naples, and expected to fight crowds. We took a cab to the Underground City, and our “mad man” drove like a New York taxi driver, barreling across town, honking most of the way. When we stopped, […]
Italy 8 – Amalfi Coast
We recently concluded 4 days on the Amalfi Coast, using Sorrento as our home base. This sunset image was taken about a 5 min walk from our small hotel, which is just below those monster hotels you see further up on the hillside. We took a ferry over to Capri Island, one of the most picturesque […]
Italy 7 – Pompeii & Herculaneum
We started today with a guided tour of Pompeii, which is a 45-acre unearthed city. Though the general story of Pompeii is well known, the details are not so much. The guide provided us with those details of daily life in Pompeii, how the city was one of the leading trading centers, showed us details of the […]
Italy 6 – Tuscany
We have just spent several days touring the Tuscany region of Italy, with the medieval town of Siena as our base. “Sienna” is the color many artists are familiar with. Without a doubt, the highlight of this portion of the trip was the cooking school at La Scuola di Cucina in Siena. We learned to […]