Days 27-30 (March 7-10, 2024): ITALY

 


In progress — Come back soon for a taste of Rome’s unparalleled architecture!  Here’s a sampler  


























Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Days 31-34 (March 11-14, 2024): BRAZIL

Image
Our time in Brazil was split between Santos, two hours south of São Paulo on the Atlantic Ocean, and São Paulo itself.  Having visited Rio de Janiero many years ago, we decided that this visit to Brazil should include some other cities.  But visiting Brazil without visiting the ocean just wouldn't do!  So we decided to combine Sao Paulo with the sea-side city of Santos and to get two different perspectives of the country. We landed at Sao Paulo’s Gaurulhos Airport at 7:40PM and by 8:30PM were in a car arranged through our hotel.  (The driver had driven the two hours from Santos and turned around to take us back there.)  It was an uneventful drive, which provided nighttime views of both Sao Paulo and Santos.  We arrived at the hotel in Santos around 10:45PM.   The next morning, we were up fairly early and took in as much of Santos as we could.  It really is a pleasant city, and we felt quite safe there.  It was a great place to start our ...
Read more

Days 25-27 (March 5-7, 2024): MOROCCO

Image
Tunisia and Morocco are two of the countries that ended up being “trimmed”, when we reduced our RTW itinerary from six weeks to five last fall.  So we knew that, with travel added to the mix, it would effectively give us just a full day in each of Tunis and Casablanca.  It worked out well in each city, as we got up early and hit the road in each to pack in as much as we could.  And the time one spends to see the sights in a city is usually commensurate with the sights that city has to offer!  Let’s just say, Tunis and Casablanca are not Paris, so a full day in each can net a person sufficient coverage. On the flight from Doha to Tunis, I decided to watch the 1942 film, “Casablanca”, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.  I figured that, if I was about to visit Casablanca, the film would be a must-see.  Well, be advised that not one scene was filmed outside California, and the film is a love story that doesn’t really give you any insight into Casablan...
Read more

Days 9-12 (February 18-21, 2024): AUSTRALIA

Image
We knew the trek from the Philippines to Australia would be one of the toughest travel days of the trip, and it was.  For complex reasons (see the Transportation Log), we had to book separate airline tickets from the Philippines to Singapore, then Singapore to Indonesia, then Indonesia to Australia, with very little time to connect from one to the next, in order to make it to Perth in one day.  It all worked out in the end, but by the time we landed at Perth at 1AM, we were exhausted beyond the beyond.  Oh well, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, as the saying goes! When we exited the airport at Perth, the heat struck us like a brick.  Perth, which is on Australia’s western coast, is normally in the 18-30C range in February.  But they were in the midst of a major heat wave when we arrived, with highs into the mid-40s.  Even at 1AM, it was in the mid-30s. Our hotel was a great choice in the heart of the city, and we were treated like royalty, with a f...
Read more