Around Rome
Rome celebrated it’s 2,766th anniversary when we were there. With a city this old, there is a lot of history. So I will be breaking our blog up by several key sites.
This blog is just some images taken around Rome. They include our visit to the Parthenon, Spanish Steps, and Trevi Fountains. And, of course, some walking around our B&B area. It’s a rich and interesting place to visit.
The elevator in our B&B is small, very small
Outside view of the Parthenon
Elaborate decorations inside the Parthenon
The stone work is amazing
Trevi fountains
Piazza Venezia, AKA the Typewriter
Some local architecture
More Rome sights
A yes, a farmers market
Lots of fresh vegetables
The street where Les and Ida had their B&B, just down the road from ours
Spanish steps
Sculpture at the Spanish Steps
ng area no matter where you look.
First landfall – Ponta Delgado
Ponta Delgado is a smallish city on the Azores Islands. They are Portuguese territory, and about 1,000 miles from the nearest land. But they were important during the exploration years (1500’s) as a last chance to stock up on provisions. Now they export primarily pineapples, canned fish, and wine.
Ponta Delgado is a cute city, lots of color and some nice parks. They have a very nice botanical garden where tropical flowers bloom. We enjoyed our stopover.
On the main square. See Romola and the Cooks?
Narrow and styled streets
Bird of paradise
A local fishing boat on the way back to harbor
Local architecture
More flowers
We walked a lot, resting those tired dogs.
Romola standing in a bamboo grove
Beautiful flowers
Colorful house
On the boat
These floating palaces are a great way to kick back for a few weeks. Great food, excellent service, good entertainment, and meeting new people. Just a great way to jut cool it. Here are some more pictures of the cruise.
Stairway from the atrium to the casino, one deck down.
A parade to get us in the party mood.
Les and Ida
The dining room is three floor tall.
One of the specialty restaurants
Inside the atrium
Royal Caribbean”s trademark Viking Lounge – 14 stories up
Early morning on the jogging deck
Some artwork by the elevators
This is where the ship is run from
Our worst weather day. Note lack of people….
A 24 hour coffee shop, just to make sure you never go hungry
Ice dancing — on a ship!
Part of the ice show
John and Romola
Inside the atrium
Les tries skating… good work!
Early morning scene
Yes, I’m an early riser
Somewhere, on the Atlantic..
Day 6 of our trip to Rome and London. Plenty to eat, points of activity, but super slow (and expensive) internet. More later…..
Getting ready for Europe
Final test of my photo equipment on our cruise to Europe, and on to Rome and London.
Took a walk by Lake Lewisville and took some pictures. Downloaded them wirelessly to my Nexus tablet for editing. When I got back to a hotspot, the Nexus uploaded them to my cloud storage. Again on the Nexus, took one image to make this post.
Works great! Ready for our trip!
From Starbucks
So I thought I would see if I could add a blog from Starbucks, on my phone…
Our last post from South Texas
Our time in South Texas has come to an end. On Friday, we had back to the Dallas area. While we are looking forward to seeing friends and family, we’ll miss the friends we made in Southern Texas. We’ll miss the food, and especially the world class birding. We visited three of the major sites (Bentsen World Bird Refuge, Santa Anna Bird National Sanctuary, and Estero Grande Below is an album of some of the birds we saw.
Orange Crowned Warbler
Orange Crowned Warbler
Black Crested Titmouse
Black crested titmouse
Harris Hawk
Harris Hawk
Cardinal
Couch Kingbird
Mockingbird
A group of Snowy Egrets
Green Kingfisher
Yellow Crowned Night Heron
Black necked stilt
Great White Heron
Dragon fly
Lazy Duck
Pink Orchid
Pink Orchid
White orchid
Black necked stilts
Shovelers Duck
Orange fronted woodpecker
Visit to Mexico (sort of)
For the last several years, we have been having our dental work done in Progresso, Mexico. This town is right across the border, and is very popular with “winter Texans”. The dentist we use is US trained and certified, the staff speaks English, and bottled water is used. And, since the costs are very low — about 1/5th of USA costs — they are very popular.
We went today to accompany our friends Les and Ida. Les was having some pretty major work done, so we offered some support and company. We went further into Mexico than normal, and shopped at some of the tourist traps. Here are some pictures.
Romola at the entrance to the city Nuevo Progresso
Lots of chance for tourists to spend some money
You can improve your image at many storefront surgery places
Pedicure, anyone?
Or maybe a drink to build dental courage?
Lots of jewelry to choose from
Colorful pinatas
Plenty of liquor, too
Whatever pottery you may want
Birding in South Texas
South Texas is in the migratory path for a wife variety of birds. So, there are many birding areas, well known for excellent bird viewing. Today we stopped for a few hours at Estrello Llano Grande, in Mercedes, TX. Here are some pictures taken on our walk. Good thing Romola was there to identify all these birds!
Golden Fronted Woodpecker
Great Kiskadee
Green Kingfisher
Little Blue Heron
Egret
Black Crowned Night Heron
Black Crested Titmouse
Great Kiskadee
Three Yellow Kiskadees
Laninga's Travel Blog 