Merry Christmas from the Deep South!
It has been another year of atypical weather for us, starting with a paralyzing ice storm in January. This summer broke a record for the number of days at or above 90 degrees. Yet, we did not have any days reaching 100 degrees. We had a very late fall. Even in early December we had temperatures close to 70 degrees. The winter forecast indicates we will have a warmer and drier winter than normal.
For the second year in a row we are very disappointed Braves fans. For much of the season, the Braves had a healthy lead in the wild card race, which began shrinking in September. It all came down to game #162 with the 8 ½ game lead all but gone. The Braves lost to the Phillies, so it was “season over”. As bad as the colossal collapse of the Braves was, the Boston Red Sox blew an even larger wild card lead.
We are enjoying having Kristin and Eric in GA. Throughout the year we had numerous visits with Kristin, Jim and Alexis. We have been fortunate to see the developmental changes in Alexis from birth to the present. She is crawling now and is able to stand up. It won’t be long before she is walking. Eric is in the second year of the GA Tech MBA program. Over the summer Eric did an internship with Samsung in Dallas. They have offered him a full time job following his graduation from GT. For as hot as it was here, Dallas had it a lot worse with many days over 100 degrees.
In addition to the trips to Rincon this year, we spent New Year’s at Jekyll Island. In February we made a return visit to Jekyll as well as touring the Okefenokee Swamp. In March we had a nice time in Mobile, AL and Biloxi, MS where we stayed at the Beau Rivage Hotel and Casino.
June found us traveling to NJ where we got together with a group of friends we had worked with on the Safeguard project in the 1970s! We have stayed in touch over the last 40 years via snail mail and email. It was wonderful to see everyone “in person”. We had an interesting day in lower Manhattan. We walked the length of the “High Line”, an elevated green space and walkway in the meat packing district. We also went through Eataly on Fifth Avenue. This food emporium is the result of a business partnership with Food Network star Mario Batali and Lidia Bastianich of PBS fame. We concluded the day at Ground Zero. At that point, Tower 2 had been re-built to the 70th floor. Since this was a driving trip, we planned stops in PA and NY before we arrived in NJ. We particularly enjoyed the day in PA to tour two Frank Lloyd Wright homes – Kentuck Knob and the iconic Fallingwater in Dunbar and Mill Run, respectively. Each has distinct features, yet both are unmistakably FLW at heart. The next stop was in Corning, NY where we toured the Corning Museum of Glass. Even though we went through many of the galleries, we did not have time to see all of them. The two that we found most interesting were the modern glass gallery and the “glass through the ages” gallery. After our time in NJ, we headed for home via Lancaster and Harrisburg, PA. In Lancaster we had a pleasant evening with a lifelong friend of mine, Lois, and her husband, Curt. After all was said and done, we logged 2341 miles in the car. Interestingly, we spent more on gas for the car than on meals for ourselves.
We were able to combine a visit with Jim, Kristin and Alexis with a few days of beach time at Hilton Head Island, SC in August. We had wonderful beach weather and were fortunate to have avoided hurricane Irene.
No sooner had we returned from SC when we had to get ourselves organized for our trip to eastern Europe. For most of the time we were on a cruise. We sailed on the almost new ms Nieuw Amsterdam, one of Holland America’s “dam” ships. The cruise was bookended by extra time in Venice prior to the cruise and four days in Florence following the cruise. We were gone for almost three weeks. Two things that we did not anticipate were the horrible heat and crowds. Typically, by early September, neither is a problem. The heat got to us because we had just left an unbelievably hot summer in Atlanta. Everywhere we went there were long lines and long wait times. Venice is quite interesting in that there are no roadways – just canals and sidewalks, so it is not easy to get around. We are used to walking, so that was not a problem, but to travel any distance it is necessary to use the vaporetto, or water taxi system, which can be daunting. We managed to see quite a bit, including the San Marco and Rialto areas of the city.
Our cruise began and ended in Venice. The first port of call was Split, Croatia, the administrative center of Middle Dalmatia. The city is old; it dates to the mid-third century when Roman Emperor Diocletian built a palace large enough to contain an entire city within its confines. Because of its formidable size and well preserved features, the palace complex is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We dodged a “travel bullet” in Athens. For months there has been increasing unrest due to the crumbling economy. The taxi drivers had gone on strike the day we were there. Fortunately, we were already on one of the ship’s shore excursions. We were able to go to the Acropolis (Greek for high place) to see the three major structures – the Temple of Athena Nike, the Erectheion and the Parthenon (Greek for virgin’s chambers) built between 470 and 432 BC.
We had two days in Istanbul, the only city in the world that straddles two continents, Europe and Asia. The Bosporus, a narrow strait that links the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, separates Istanbul’s European and Asian sections. The city was founded in the 7th century BC as Byzantium, and in the 4th century AD (May 11, 330) it was renamed Constantinople by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. Eleven centuries later it was captured by the Ottomans in 1453. We were able to tour the Spice Market, adjacent to the eastern terminus of the Venice Simplon Orient Express, as well as the Cisterns, a Roman era aqueduct beneath the Hippodrome, and an evening cruise along the Bosporus. The next day in Istanbul was a full one. The first half of the day we spent at the Topkapi (Cannon Gate) Palace. Construction began there in the 1460s by order of Sultan Mehmet II. It was completed about 20 years later and covers an area of 700,000 square meters. For four centuries it served as the imperial residence, as well as the administrative, educational and arts center of the Ottoman Empire. We were able to tour the Harem which is part of the palace. It is made up of 300 rooms, nine Turkish baths, two mosques and one hospital suite. The other highly interesting feature of Topkapi is the Treasury which houses gems and royal relics, most of which are encrusted with diamonds and precious stones. The 86 carat Spoonmaker’s Diamond is on display there.
The second half of the day was spent at Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque. Hagia Sofia dates from the 6th century and was built by order of Emperor Justinian. For 1000 years Hagia Sofia was the world’s largest church. It was later converted to a mosque and since 1935 it has been a national monument. Many Christian icons are still in evidence alongside Moslem ones. Most notably, the Nicene Creed is still visible. We finished the afternoon at the Blue Mosque. Luckily, the timing worked for us as the mosque is closed to the public five times per day during the “call to prayer”. The interior has 21,403 blue tiles; 16 balconies and six minarets are on the exterior. The downside to an otherwise fascinating city is fighting the 17 million inhabitants for sidewalk space. Traffic is also a nightmare and we were all but squashed when we rode the tram.
The next port was Mykonos, a granite island and one of the islands that comprises the Cyclades. Mykonos Town is a charming place of twisting lanes lined with whitewashed buildings, shops and restaurants. The town layout is disorderly by design. The corkscrew crazy quilt street layout helped foil would-be attacks from pirates. This allowed the villagers to maneuver pirates into an easy ambush. Mykonos was one of our two favorite stops on the cruise.
From Mykonos it was on to Kusadasi, Turkey. This port is located close to Ephesus. We had an extensive tour of this well preserved 2000 year old city. Ephesus is considered to be a highly significant area for the development of Christianity. The library of Celsus is here. It was built in 117 AD. At one time it contained enough books to make its content third only to the libraries of Alexandria and Pergamum. Three of the most notable features in Ephesus are the tomb of St. John, the foundation of the Temple of Diana (Artemis) - which is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the House of the Virgin Mary. Our guide told us that if it were possible to excavate the archeological site non-stop for the next 50 years, all of Ephesus would still not be revealed. We found Ephesus to be fascinating. This was our second favorite stop on the cruise.
The next port of call was Santorini, our least favorite stop on the cruise. It is also a part of the Cyclades. The main town sits on top of a caldera. An arduous trek up the side of the volcano, which is also a donkey thoroughfare, is one of the two approaches to town. The other is to ride the funicular to the top. We rode up and walked down after we toured the town. Even walking down the side of the volcano is treacherous and it takes a long time. And it was blazing hot since we did this in the middle of the day.
The last stop before returning to Venice was the island of Katakolon, home of Olympia, the site of the first ever Olympics in 776 BC. The Olympics were held every four years thereafter until 394 AD when Emperor Theodosius I banned them. During the competition the city-states were bound by a sacred truce to stop fighting and take part in the athletic events and cultural activities. The original Olympic Games consisted of a footrace, wrestling, pankration (a form of martial arts) and the pentathlon. All athletic events were done in the nude! Interestingly, married women who tried to watch the games risked execution. In addition to the physical events, there were also artistic and literary competitions. When the Olympic Games ended in the late 4th century, they would not be revived for another fifteen centuries. In 1896 French historian Pierre de Coubertin brought the Olympic concept into the modern era.
The last stop was the ship’s return to Venice. We taxied to one of the two Venice train stations (Mestre) to ride the rapid rail to Florence. We absolutely loved Florence and were fortunate to have had four days there. It is a surprisingly walkable city. Each day was sunny and cooler than any day on the cruise. We had wonderful evening meals in addition to lots of fantastic pizza and gelato for lunch each day. We saw quite a bit including: Bargello Museum, which has many works of Michelangelo; Batistero, the Baptistery; the 278 foot tall Campanile; Capelle Medici, the private chapels and crypts of the family with much of their wealth on display; the iconic Duomo (cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore), the Gothic cathedral started late in the 13th century; Galleria degli Uffizi, a museum filled with Renaissance art and sculpture; Giardino di Boboli, a vast garden; Palazzo Vecchio; Piazza della Signoria; Ponte Vecchio and Santa Croce, Michelangelo’s burial place – along with Galileo and Machiavelli! We had to ride the rapid rail back to Venice as all of our air arrangements were through Venice. We flew to New York’s JFK where we cleared customs and then went through security again before boarding the flight to Atlanta. By the time we arrived home we had been up for over 24 hours, so we were dead tired.
If all of this traveling weren’t enough, we will be joining Jim, Kristin and Alexis for a week in December at Disneyworld to celebrate Alexis’s first birthday and an early Christmas with them. Eric and Amber joined us for Thanksgiving. We hope that all is well with you. Happy Holidays.
It has been another year of atypical weather for us, starting with a paralyzing ice storm in January. This summer broke a record for the number of days at or above 90 degrees. Yet, we did not have any days reaching 100 degrees. We had a very late fall. Even in early December we had temperatures close to 70 degrees. The winter forecast indicates we will have a warmer and drier winter than normal.
For the second year in a row we are very disappointed Braves fans. For much of the season, the Braves had a healthy lead in the wild card race, which began shrinking in September. It all came down to game #162 with the 8 ½ game lead all but gone. The Braves lost to the Phillies, so it was “season over”. As bad as the colossal collapse of the Braves was, the Boston Red Sox blew an even larger wild card lead.
We are enjoying having Kristin and Eric in GA. Throughout the year we had numerous visits with Kristin, Jim and Alexis. We have been fortunate to see the developmental changes in Alexis from birth to the present. She is crawling now and is able to stand up. It won’t be long before she is walking. Eric is in the second year of the GA Tech MBA program. Over the summer Eric did an internship with Samsung in Dallas. They have offered him a full time job following his graduation from GT. For as hot as it was here, Dallas had it a lot worse with many days over 100 degrees.
In addition to the trips to Rincon this year, we spent New Year’s at Jekyll Island. In February we made a return visit to Jekyll as well as touring the Okefenokee Swamp. In March we had a nice time in Mobile, AL and Biloxi, MS where we stayed at the Beau Rivage Hotel and Casino.
June found us traveling to NJ where we got together with a group of friends we had worked with on the Safeguard project in the 1970s! We have stayed in touch over the last 40 years via snail mail and email. It was wonderful to see everyone “in person”. We had an interesting day in lower Manhattan. We walked the length of the “High Line”, an elevated green space and walkway in the meat packing district. We also went through Eataly on Fifth Avenue. This food emporium is the result of a business partnership with Food Network star Mario Batali and Lidia Bastianich of PBS fame. We concluded the day at Ground Zero. At that point, Tower 2 had been re-built to the 70th floor. Since this was a driving trip, we planned stops in PA and NY before we arrived in NJ. We particularly enjoyed the day in PA to tour two Frank Lloyd Wright homes – Kentuck Knob and the iconic Fallingwater in Dunbar and Mill Run, respectively. Each has distinct features, yet both are unmistakably FLW at heart. The next stop was in Corning, NY where we toured the Corning Museum of Glass. Even though we went through many of the galleries, we did not have time to see all of them. The two that we found most interesting were the modern glass gallery and the “glass through the ages” gallery. After our time in NJ, we headed for home via Lancaster and Harrisburg, PA. In Lancaster we had a pleasant evening with a lifelong friend of mine, Lois, and her husband, Curt. After all was said and done, we logged 2341 miles in the car. Interestingly, we spent more on gas for the car than on meals for ourselves.
We were able to combine a visit with Jim, Kristin and Alexis with a few days of beach time at Hilton Head Island, SC in August. We had wonderful beach weather and were fortunate to have avoided hurricane Irene.
No sooner had we returned from SC when we had to get ourselves organized for our trip to eastern Europe. For most of the time we were on a cruise. We sailed on the almost new ms Nieuw Amsterdam, one of Holland America’s “dam” ships. The cruise was bookended by extra time in Venice prior to the cruise and four days in Florence following the cruise. We were gone for almost three weeks. Two things that we did not anticipate were the horrible heat and crowds. Typically, by early September, neither is a problem. The heat got to us because we had just left an unbelievably hot summer in Atlanta. Everywhere we went there were long lines and long wait times. Venice is quite interesting in that there are no roadways – just canals and sidewalks, so it is not easy to get around. We are used to walking, so that was not a problem, but to travel any distance it is necessary to use the vaporetto, or water taxi system, which can be daunting. We managed to see quite a bit, including the San Marco and Rialto areas of the city.
Our cruise began and ended in Venice. The first port of call was Split, Croatia, the administrative center of Middle Dalmatia. The city is old; it dates to the mid-third century when Roman Emperor Diocletian built a palace large enough to contain an entire city within its confines. Because of its formidable size and well preserved features, the palace complex is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We dodged a “travel bullet” in Athens. For months there has been increasing unrest due to the crumbling economy. The taxi drivers had gone on strike the day we were there. Fortunately, we were already on one of the ship’s shore excursions. We were able to go to the Acropolis (Greek for high place) to see the three major structures – the Temple of Athena Nike, the Erectheion and the Parthenon (Greek for virgin’s chambers) built between 470 and 432 BC.
We had two days in Istanbul, the only city in the world that straddles two continents, Europe and Asia. The Bosporus, a narrow strait that links the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, separates Istanbul’s European and Asian sections. The city was founded in the 7th century BC as Byzantium, and in the 4th century AD (May 11, 330) it was renamed Constantinople by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. Eleven centuries later it was captured by the Ottomans in 1453. We were able to tour the Spice Market, adjacent to the eastern terminus of the Venice Simplon Orient Express, as well as the Cisterns, a Roman era aqueduct beneath the Hippodrome, and an evening cruise along the Bosporus. The next day in Istanbul was a full one. The first half of the day we spent at the Topkapi (Cannon Gate) Palace. Construction began there in the 1460s by order of Sultan Mehmet II. It was completed about 20 years later and covers an area of 700,000 square meters. For four centuries it served as the imperial residence, as well as the administrative, educational and arts center of the Ottoman Empire. We were able to tour the Harem which is part of the palace. It is made up of 300 rooms, nine Turkish baths, two mosques and one hospital suite. The other highly interesting feature of Topkapi is the Treasury which houses gems and royal relics, most of which are encrusted with diamonds and precious stones. The 86 carat Spoonmaker’s Diamond is on display there.
The second half of the day was spent at Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque. Hagia Sofia dates from the 6th century and was built by order of Emperor Justinian. For 1000 years Hagia Sofia was the world’s largest church. It was later converted to a mosque and since 1935 it has been a national monument. Many Christian icons are still in evidence alongside Moslem ones. Most notably, the Nicene Creed is still visible. We finished the afternoon at the Blue Mosque. Luckily, the timing worked for us as the mosque is closed to the public five times per day during the “call to prayer”. The interior has 21,403 blue tiles; 16 balconies and six minarets are on the exterior. The downside to an otherwise fascinating city is fighting the 17 million inhabitants for sidewalk space. Traffic is also a nightmare and we were all but squashed when we rode the tram.
The next port was Mykonos, a granite island and one of the islands that comprises the Cyclades. Mykonos Town is a charming place of twisting lanes lined with whitewashed buildings, shops and restaurants. The town layout is disorderly by design. The corkscrew crazy quilt street layout helped foil would-be attacks from pirates. This allowed the villagers to maneuver pirates into an easy ambush. Mykonos was one of our two favorite stops on the cruise.
From Mykonos it was on to Kusadasi, Turkey. This port is located close to Ephesus. We had an extensive tour of this well preserved 2000 year old city. Ephesus is considered to be a highly significant area for the development of Christianity. The library of Celsus is here. It was built in 117 AD. At one time it contained enough books to make its content third only to the libraries of Alexandria and Pergamum. Three of the most notable features in Ephesus are the tomb of St. John, the foundation of the Temple of Diana (Artemis) - which is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the House of the Virgin Mary. Our guide told us that if it were possible to excavate the archeological site non-stop for the next 50 years, all of Ephesus would still not be revealed. We found Ephesus to be fascinating. This was our second favorite stop on the cruise.
The next port of call was Santorini, our least favorite stop on the cruise. It is also a part of the Cyclades. The main town sits on top of a caldera. An arduous trek up the side of the volcano, which is also a donkey thoroughfare, is one of the two approaches to town. The other is to ride the funicular to the top. We rode up and walked down after we toured the town. Even walking down the side of the volcano is treacherous and it takes a long time. And it was blazing hot since we did this in the middle of the day.
The last stop before returning to Venice was the island of Katakolon, home of Olympia, the site of the first ever Olympics in 776 BC. The Olympics were held every four years thereafter until 394 AD when Emperor Theodosius I banned them. During the competition the city-states were bound by a sacred truce to stop fighting and take part in the athletic events and cultural activities. The original Olympic Games consisted of a footrace, wrestling, pankration (a form of martial arts) and the pentathlon. All athletic events were done in the nude! Interestingly, married women who tried to watch the games risked execution. In addition to the physical events, there were also artistic and literary competitions. When the Olympic Games ended in the late 4th century, they would not be revived for another fifteen centuries. In 1896 French historian Pierre de Coubertin brought the Olympic concept into the modern era.
The last stop was the ship’s return to Venice. We taxied to one of the two Venice train stations (Mestre) to ride the rapid rail to Florence. We absolutely loved Florence and were fortunate to have had four days there. It is a surprisingly walkable city. Each day was sunny and cooler than any day on the cruise. We had wonderful evening meals in addition to lots of fantastic pizza and gelato for lunch each day. We saw quite a bit including: Bargello Museum, which has many works of Michelangelo; Batistero, the Baptistery; the 278 foot tall Campanile; Capelle Medici, the private chapels and crypts of the family with much of their wealth on display; the iconic Duomo (cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore), the Gothic cathedral started late in the 13th century; Galleria degli Uffizi, a museum filled with Renaissance art and sculpture; Giardino di Boboli, a vast garden; Palazzo Vecchio; Piazza della Signoria; Ponte Vecchio and Santa Croce, Michelangelo’s burial place – along with Galileo and Machiavelli! We had to ride the rapid rail back to Venice as all of our air arrangements were through Venice. We flew to New York’s JFK where we cleared customs and then went through security again before boarding the flight to Atlanta. By the time we arrived home we had been up for over 24 hours, so we were dead tired.
If all of this traveling weren’t enough, we will be joining Jim, Kristin and Alexis for a week in December at Disneyworld to celebrate Alexis’s first birthday and an early Christmas with them. Eric and Amber joined us for Thanksgiving. We hope that all is well with you. Happy Holidays.
No comments:
Post a Comment