Great art that goes unappreciated by the dead

Rome

Verona

 

La Villa

 

Near Cashel, Ireland

Near the River Shannon, Ireland

 

It may be that, by profession, I spend lots of time in cemeteries and am always taken by the great art created to celebrate the life of someone who has died. This is true everywhere.

FAVORITE SIGNS - that bring back memories

Goal: The Palace of the Popes

During the 14th Century the church moved its headquarters to Avignon, France. There actually were competing popes for a time. Avignon is in the south of France. It is a good central place to visit ll of the southern part of France, Monaco and even Barcelona, Spain.

Planning Trips

Because of some health related concerns we may not be going to the south of France as we had hoped. Even so, I am not stopping the planning process.

For every trip there are three fun aspects: planning, going, remembering. While a trip for us is usually a little less than a month, the planning takes many weeks. We look at places and figure routes and research weather and figure out what to take. We know what we don't need to carry as we find out what is available where we are going. As we often do not have a firm itinerary, we usually only book a few places to stay. This means we have to make lists of possible places where we "might" need to stay.

The remembering includes keeping some sort of general diary or journal, We collect little slips of paper like receipts. We may buy books at certain sites. Then, when we are home we have to organize them. It is fun combining them with the photos we have taken and thinking of the high points, the low points and the surprises.

So, the trip itself is only about one third of the joy and another third is the preparing. Even if we do not get to go, at least we have one third of the fun.

High Speed Rail

Not a jet, this is a train "engine" on the route between Rome and Florence. Californians are arguing about whether we should have these. I do not go to LA much anymore, but I might if I could board one of these. On our trip in Italy we had a steward, wine and snacks, and a quick and relaxing trip. Sure would exchange that for driving six hours on I5.

Do you need a tour to see Florence- London - Rome?

There are so many great tour books out that you can plan your own tours and understand what you are looking at. In most of these places, sites are close together and when they are not the cabs are cheap. The only advantage is that the tour takes care of getting the tickets and you do not have to stand in line. However, read Rick Steves or Lonely Planet and they tell you how to get you own tickets in advance. The bad part of a tour is that you cannot linger if you want to, and if you are touring a gallery or museum all forty of you are in front of the same piece of art. Without a tour you can often have the area all to yourself. Will you miss something important? Maybe, but on the other hand you may encounter something unexpected that you would miss following the lady with the raised flag/umbrella.

Terrible snapshots

I save all my photos and go through them when I have returned from my trip. Some of them are very bad, but I keep them because I know what they are about. In the future someone will wonder what the world this is. Well, It is Trafalgar Square and that is Nelson's Column and I was standing on the steps of the National Gallery, Someone let a balloon go and it caught my attention. It was something silly in the middle of such serious stuff. Can you see the balloon? I can and that is all that counts to bring back the flow of memories.