Sunday: Church Day

The Baptistery at the Duomo, Florence, Italy 

 

 

Inside the Baptistery, from third level before

ascending into dome. Not a public area.

 

Planning the next European trip: Paris/Normandy 2015

   

Photo from Google

    We are getting ready to take a trip to Paris, down the Seine and to tour Normandy. We are taking our almost teen-aged granddaughter (and will be taking another grandchildren each year after her on the trip of their choices). It is fun reading, planning and hearing her excitement. It is good fun teaching her some of what we have learned by traveling. We do not know what the food will be like - will we like escargot? Will we enjoy goose liver? Lots of fun thinking about four free days in Paris and what to do. We each have our "must do's". I am looking forward to filling this blog with photos and information. Most of all, twenty-years from now, I want my grandchildren to remember these adventures and feel at ease taking their own.

Not everything is old in London

     People often think only of the old things in London like The Tower or Westminster Abbey. There is a good deal of new especially east of the Tower Bridge (which is not the London Bridge and is not that old either*.) The picture above is across the Thames and the building at the far right is "The Pickle Building" - easy to spot and not its real name, but it sure looks like a pickle.  

*The Tower Bridge, so named because the end on the left of this photo

 is next to The Tower of London.

Sculptures I like

Calgary

Banff

Rome

The Victoria and Albert

Florence

 

So the guy didn't like the seat in front of him reclining...

The news was that the man put in a set of blocks that kept the airline seat in front of him from reclining. The woman in the seat ahead took it into her own hands to set him straight. The plane made an emergency stop to get rid of both passengers. Who was right and who was wrong?
     Well, put me (6'2", 185 pounds) in an economy seat and you have pain at 600 miles to Portland and agony after 7,000 miles to Europe. I can see why the guy doesn't want the person in front to recline the seat. I can understand why she wanted to recline the seat. Besides, she paid to recline it and the seat is designed to do it.
     I'd say the airlines are at fault. They want to squeeze as many as they can into the limited space of the aircraft. It costs extra to get an exit row seat. It costs extra for Premium and a big extra for Business. You figure you can take it, even sleep for the 11 hours from San Francisco to Paris and it is worth it when you get there. Well, as long as the kid behind you doesn't kick your seat, the woman in front doesn't completely recline her seat, and the guy next to you stops coughing.
     Still, I love it.

Crater Lake, Oregon from Alaska Airlines flight.

Change celebrated

This is the floor of a Basilica St. Maria degu Angeli e de Martri in Rome that was designed by Michelangelo. It is a celebration of Galileo - who, before his death, was condemned as a heretic by the Catholic Church. Odd how things change. Religion catches up to science; science catches up to religion.

For real

The dermatologist that I go to has an office filled with his photography. He has a similar picture of this one of Peyto Lake, Albert, Canada. I thought his was Photoshopped until I went there. This is glacial water on the Ice Fields Parkway.