Venice: A city to love or not
June 19, 2008 at 9:27 am | In Italy | Leave a CommentTags: Italy, Venice
Of the cities we visited, my favorite was Venice. I though it was a city to love.
Not only is it a beautiful city, it is a city of beautiful canals. Because of the canals, Venice is a city without automobile, bicycles, motorcycles, and trucks. Instead people navigate Venice by foot, gondola, water taxi, and gondola ferries. That makes it easy to walk through the cities.
Unfortunately, my wife hurt her foot early in the trip, and she was less pleased with the city because it is hard to navigate with a cane. Also the food in Venice was limited, and everything was expensive.
Still, I want to go back to Venice someday.
Athens: Ruins under reconstruction
June 3, 2008 at 2:22 pm | In Greece | 1 CommentTags: Acropolis, Athens, Greece
At the top of the Acropolis in Athens are the ruins of the cultural center of Athens. Presently, many of the ruins are under reconstruction, not to rebuild the ruins but to make them less subject to pollution. The columns that been reinforced with lead in earlier times, but the lead is weakening the columns, so the lead is carefully being replaced with titanium. Even with all the reconstruction, the Acropolis is worth the visit, with great views of the cities and interesting ruins. Even the weather was nicer on top, with a gentle breeze that made the temperature bearable.
Turkey: the land of bazaars
June 3, 2008 at 2:17 pm | In Turkey | Leave a CommentTags: istanbul, Kusadasi, Turkey
In Istanbul they have a shopping district called the Grand Bazaar, where the adjective “Grand” is truth in advertising. Under one shelter is over four thousand shops, selling rugs, leather, gold, watches, fakes, art, restaurants, food, electronics, etc. One main concern is keeping a sense of directions; otherwise it is very easy to get hopelessly lost.
In Kusadashi, they have a much smaller Grand Bazaar, which is not completely covered, but it is still too big to visit all the shops in the pedestrian shopping area.
Mykonos: Storybook land
June 3, 2008 at 2:14 pm | In Greece | Leave a CommentTags: Greece, Mykonos
Of all the destinations on this trip, one looks most like a theme park, like Williamsburg. Mykonos, with its white houses and blue doors (sometimes red doors), looks like too picturesque to be real. And yet, it is a real community, with churches, restaurants, post offices, etc., although it is a quite windy one.
Naples: A hectic resort
June 3, 2008 at 2:12 pm | In Italy | Leave a CommentTags: Italy, Naples
Naples looked beautiful and peaceful from the ship. On land, Naples still looked beautiful, but not peaceful. For such a glorious city, it was extremely hectic, as if everyone suffered from a caffeine overdose. The traffic laws seem to be based on the assumption that no one will obey them, so crossing a street is an act of daring. Even the tour buses drove like crazy, which made sightseeing a tad difficult. Still, it was a beautiful town.
Tale of Two City Tours: Florence and Rome
May 30, 2008 at 5:05 pm | In Italy | Leave a CommentTags: Florence, Italy, Rome
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- Florence Italy
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- Rome Italy
Florence was on a Monday and Rome was on a Tuesday.
The Florence tour was an all-day trip that involved a lot of walking. Because my wife broke her toe early in the trip, she wasn’t able to go. She was missed, and much of the trip I was thinking how much she would have enjoyed it. Florence was interesting, the tour guide was friendly and informative, and the tour group was a nice group.
The Easy Rome tour was a much shorter trip, which involved little walking, so my wife could go. Rome was less interesting, the tour guide was a tad sarcastic, and the tour group had chronic complainers. The complainers complained about Italy’s small roads, the low levels of air conditioning, the costs of gasoline, the walking, the tour guide, and basically life in general.
The results of the differences between these two tour guides and two tour groups, contributed to my liking Florence a lot more than Rome. Probably I would have liked Florence better if I had a better tour guide or was with a better tour group, but I will never know.
Marseille: Pleasant port city
May 30, 2008 at 4:59 pm | In Marseille | Leave a CommentTags: Marseille France
According to the handout that we received from Princess Cruise, Marseille is the largest port in the Mediterranean, and the second largest city in France. I found it a pleasant city and enjoyed the tram around the city. It isn’t quite as attractive as Honflur, but then it is a lot bigger and a main port instead of being merely a tourist town.
A line shops encircles Vieux port, which has a number of fishing boats. In the near distance is the Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde, on top of a neighboring hill. The hill is supposedly the highest point in the immediate area, and near the church offers a great panoramic view of the city. A tram offers an easy way to get to that church.
Barcelona: The home of the unfinished cathedral
May 30, 2008 at 4:55 pm | In Barcelona | Leave a CommentTags: Barcelona, Church of La Sagrada Familia, Spain
One of the most strikingly unique sites of Barcelona is the Church of La Sagrada Familia, conceived by Antoni Gaudi. Unique is often an overused adjective, and is often used as hyperbole, but in reference to this church, the word is an understatement.
It is unique in not only being a church that has been under construction since 1883, but also in its style of the architecture, which is a strange mixture of Gothic meets Miro, with a touch of Picasso. On top of some of the spires, there are things that seem to look like bunches of fruit. Some bunches are reddish orange balls, some are bluish green balls, and some look like yellowish bananas. Way above one entrance way is what looks like a huge pine tree decorated with white doves, topped with an angel in red.
Unique it is, but also pleasant to the eye.
Tale of Three Airports
May 27, 2008 at 4:48 pm | In Barcelona, Frankfurt, Japan | Leave a CommentTags: Barcelona, Frankfurt, Nagoya
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- Cafe inside Frankfurt Airport
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- Nagoya airport shopping alley
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- Shops in Barcelona Airport
On the way to our Mediterranean cruise, one of the first things that struck me was the difference between Japanese airports and Western-style airports. To get to Barcelona, we went through three very different airports: Nagoya, Frankfurt, and Barcelona.
Nagoya airport (or more accurately Chubu International Airport) was probably the newest and most interesting. Like most new airports in Japan these days, it is built a tad removed from the downtown area, and they have a specific area designed solely for shopping and dining. There are other areas where you can eat and buy things, but on a separate floor there is a central region of shops and restaurants arranged around a large plaza with the obligatory huge television screen. On one side are shops and restaurants in a European motif and on the other side the shops and restaurants are in a traditional Japanese motif. Both sides have winding streets, with nooks and crannies.
Frankfurt and Barcelona had shops scattered everywhere throughout the airport, but the layout is reminiscent of strip malls, with roles of generic shops and restaurants. The European airport was more spread out, and the organization of the design, if any, was not readily apparent. In Japan, each major airport tries to capture the ambience of the city, with regional products highlighted. In Europe, each airport is merely an airport.
Packing to go
May 20, 2008 at 2:17 am | In Japan | 1 CommentTags: Gifu, Meitetsu Gifu, Meitetsu Gifu Station
In a couple of days, we leave Japan for a mediterranean cruise, and our trip will start by taxi to the Meitetsu Gifu train station, where we will go to Chubu International Airport in Nagoya.
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