Tag Archives: adventure

Gone to the Dogs

2014-12-21 ramblintraveler 9 Comments

After ferociously posting, catching up on all my travels, once again the silence (i.e. lack of posting) has begun… I figured I should tell you all why exactly. See, I’ve literally gone to the dogs!

I’m in Sangkhlaburi, Thailand near the border with Burma (Myanmar) volunteering at the Baan Unrak Animal Sanctuary. I may have mentioned before that my ultimate goal in life is to start an animal sanctuary of my own, and well, in order to get there I first have to actually see what its really like…

Most days are good, just the basics: feed, water, play, change blankets/mats, laundry, give meds, play more, walk the dogs with paralyzed back legs in the doggie “wheel chair”, more play, night feed, rest. There are approximately 40 plus dogs and puppies, most are regular dogs, several are 3-legged and 3 other precious dogs are only able to use their front legs. Well, Gizmo technically CAN use his back legs, he just chooses not to:)

Dogs rule the streets here (which I adore) but on occasion or rather more than ever necessary that means hit and runs. While many people love their animals and actually take care of their dogs and other pets, far many more don’t. Animals are purposely poisoned, cuts and gashes are ignored leading to very serious maggot infestations (we had to put one down because it was literally infested with THOUSANDS of maggots from his mouth to his tail, which was acutally missing, nothing more than a hole filled with squirming maggots) while others are simply abandoned or starved. Vet care is free (donations are welcome) yet some people simply prefer to choose a grisly life for them instead of seeking help.

But, while there is that heartbreaking side to volunteering here, there are so many joys to it too. They bring such an unconditional and pure love to my heart that is hard to match. Unfortunately, the nature of caring for any life (human or animal) includes having to deal with every aspect of it, the good and the bad. We help where we can, do what we can, but of course not all can be saved. Just the nature of the beast.

So you see, it’s not just for any random reason I’ve been M.I.A. on my blog, I’ve just been busy loving and caring for dogs:) I do of course plan to catch up on about 5 other posts I have in mind, but the other excuse I have for not posting is I’ve been dealing with a super crazy virus on my tablet that kept rerouting me to a website called adfoc.us (do NOT click that!!) and some other thing called mobo market kept trying to download on my computer. But after 4 factory resets, I think it’s finally gone:)

On to The Death Railway

Back to Thailand

Ayutthaya, Thailand

Gecko Hallucinations

2014-12-10 ramblintraveler Leave a comment

I thought of calling this post “Tales of Two Tails” but came up with ‘Gecko Hallucinations’ first, so I thought I’d go with that. Just to clarify, I wasn’t on ANY kind of drug at the time, only about 900 mls of beer WITH food, so it wasn’t even like I was THAT drunk!

As I was sitting at my table enjoying some dinner the first night at the hostel, I noticed a gecko making his way across the table toward me. He was quite the brave little guy as he just kept coming closer and closer and closer, wiggling his little body back and forth with each cautious yet determined step.

Seeing how close he was getting, and not wanting to scare him away I stopped all my movements just to watch and see how close he’d actually come. A few minutes later he made his way to my beer bottle… Hmmm… Maybe he was after the water condensing off the bottle? At the beer bottle he lifted his head as if to look the entire length of the bottle up and down, trying to decide what his move would be. He then moved his head to the table where some water had pooled and, well didn’t really drink, but looked like he was sniffing it, lol!! I know this sounds nuts!! I was quite humored by this however!!

I made a movement with my hand to get an itch on my nose and he recoiled back about half way down the table. I know you should never feed wildlife, but I couldn’t help it! I threw over an itty bitty piece of egg from my plate and he immediately attacked it as if it were a bug that just landed. I ended up throwing a few more bits of egg his way when suddenly another gecko was on the table. This gecko only had half of his tail however, so needless to say they were named “short tail” and “long tail”, lol!!

Long tail noticed short tail’s arrival and immediately started twitching his tail back and forth all while giving off short little chirps. Everything seemed friendly enough but all of a sudden long tail scurried over and started biting (or something) short tail on his side! Short tail didn’t seem in any sort of pain however since he wasn’t going anywhere, but long tail kept on for about 20 seconds. Then he ran off as short tail remained.

The tables somehow seemed to have turned because though long tail seemed to be the dominant one (since he was the one attacking) it was him that was running off and short tail that remained.

Short tail started to come toward me this time so I threw him a few bits of egg. A few minutes later long tail came back on the table and started coming toward short tail again. At this point short tail started twitching HIS tail and chirping, but instead of another spat, long tail simply ran off again, lol!! And that was the last I saw of long tail that night…

Believe it or not the second night was the same! Long tail showed up first, then a little while later short tail came by. Long tail tried to show dominance by even raising up on the pads of his feet, arching his body in the air to make himself look bigger (or something!) but still it was always short tail who won out without any real effort being put forward by him, lol!!

The pictures taken are only of the short tailed gecko as on the third night I never did see long tail… Hmmm…

On to What IS That?!!?

Back to Thailand

Thailand

Temples and Monks

2014-12-10 ramblintraveler 2 Comments

I’m not sure why, but whenever I step into a Temple or see a monk passing by, something about it brings me chills and tears to my eyes. There’s something so powerful about a place and people who dedicate their entire lives to a single belief. A belief in peace. A belief in harmony. A belief in loving your fellow-man, animals and Mother Earth. There is a powerful tranquility being in that space.

I will say it is funny to see monks riding on the back of motorcycles, smoking, talking on cell phones (not all at once of course) and that some have tattoos, lol!

So many other religions are full of corruption and are misguided in my opinion, that the true teachings of them are clouded by power and personal need or gain. Of course, just like in all religions, not every person who believes in one religion or another are perfect. But that’s not the point. The point is to live being the best YOU that you can be. If we were all the best versions of ourselves, for the betterment of the world and those who live in it with us (not for ourselves) then we would finally have a home to live in without fear, injustice and hate.

Just my two cents.

On to Gecko Hallucinations

Back to Thailand

Bangkok, Thailand

One Day in Bangkok

2014-12-07 ramblintraveler 2 Comments

I didn’t know what to expect when first exploring Bangkok. One thing for sure is that there are many different parts to explore. I stayed in a hotel not far from the airport (Floral Shire Hotel) basically picking it because it was easily accessible from the airport AND they offered a free shuttle, so can’t go wrong there! I stayed for two nights, which turned out to be a good call since I barely had any sleep on the flight over and was dead tired when I arrived. So technically my first day there was spent catching up on sleep!

Driving into Bangkok

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From the air Bangkok has the look of Houston (industrial and HUGE with lots of a large variety of buildings) yet as if it was set in southern Florida (tons of wet fields and watery canals/rivers giving the land a swampy look). Upon landing, the air smelled like San Jose, Costa Rica (thick jungle air with the scent of a city nearby). Honestly there were times I had to remind myself I was in Thailand and not back in Costa Rica as the plants and animals also reminded me of C.R. with loads of banana trees and geckos (love those little chirping buggers!!) crawling all around the walls and ceilings chasing after bugs. Oh, and there was the veggie truck that came by each morning by the hotel advertising fruits and veggies for sale. It brought a smile to my face once again being in place that felt easy going with simple living:)

Street Market

Wires Abound!

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Before going into my day there, I wanted to give my overall impressions. Bangkok is an interesting mix of life. There is obviously poverty there and it has a very dirty feel to it (literally dirty as you could feel the street on your skin after a few hours of walking around and at the end of the day my snot was black! Too much info?? Lol!). People are everywhere, all around working away or moving about, bumping into you (not rudely, just the nature of crowds) or simply minding their business with whatever task they are into. Yet, for as sketchy as the surroundings looked and for the amount of people coming closely in contact, I felt safer there than anywhere I’ve been so far. I can’t speak for all people who’ve traveled or will travel there, and I did get scammed a bit, but I never felt unsafe. Strangely there were times I wandered with my camera in hand (I NEVER do that! It’s always packed unless in use) or walked through areas that at a glance you would think “don’t go there!!”. But my senses never felt any danger or real threat, so I went where I wanted watching the life of Bangkok unfold. That’s the feeling I came away with from Bangkok… Before moving on I have to say I’m not at all a fan of the scent of Bangkok… It’s fish mixed with dirt, car pollution, stale standing water, industrial oil and what smells like a toilet somewhere. Not everything can be peaches! 🙂

Side Street

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Bangkok Life

Crabs & Clams

Moving on to my day: as I’m not a huge fan of big cities, visiting downtown Bangkok took a bit of a kick in the rear. I kinda dreaded having to navigate such a large place, especially given that the language was SO different than anything I’d been used to before. As it turned out, one DAY in Bangkok was enough for me!

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Before heading to town I did a bit of research on what to see/do and came across a website that outlined the top 9 things to do in Bangkok in one day… Perfect! Sounds like a plan for me and it got me excited to head into the city! So I jotted down all the necessary information (where and how to get there) and the next morning headed out.

Birds in a Cage

Second Story Living

Dried Seahorses

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That was about where everything went NOT according to plan… The first thing on the list was a floating market which thankfully also mentioned it’s only open on the weekends. So #1 was off the list. On to #2, the temple of dawn: Wat Arun. I asked the receptionist to get a taxi so I could be taken to the Airport Rail station to head to town (as always I figured I would walk from there or get another cab if needed to where I wanted to go). She however, suggested I just have the taxi take me into town (“much easier”). Ok, fine. Why not? So I get into the cab and we start heading to town. On the way he starts telling me about “boat”. “Boat trip down river”. I responded with “nice, ok” not realizing that he took “ok” literally and proceeded to take me to a boat tour place. Once I figured out what was going on I insisted that no, I wanted to go to the Grand Palace (a teeny boat trip across the river from there would get me to Wat Arun). He then said that wasn’t possible because the Grand Palace was closed to tourists due to the Kings Birthday being tomorrow (December, 5) which was actually true. “Too much traffic there” is what he also stated.

Wat U Phai Rat Bamrung

Wat U Phai Rat Bamrung Cocks

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We ended up at the Oriental Pier just north of the Taksin Bridge where they gave boat tours. 2000 baht for 1 hour… Which equates to almost $61… No thanks. I would rather spend my time walking around than one hour on a boat taking typical tourist “picture, picture, picture” (how the tour lady explained the boat trip). It also turned me off that she tried to negotiate the price with me. To me, the original price is either worth it, or it isn’t. I’m happy to pay the full price of something IF it’s worth it to me. This wasn’t, so I declined all the way. 15 minutes later after finally succeeding in explaining to my taxi driver that I wanted to pay him (375 baht in total damage) and just walk to town from there I headed out on foot.

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China Town

I was definately NOT in the touristy part of town… I was in the Hangover Part II, back alley, so-many-car-fumes-in-the-air-you-could-barely-breathe part of town. I was so off the map of where tourists “should” be that I never even ran into another gringo until I got to China Town. It is amazing to see how people live. Food markets and street food kiosks were everywhere lined right up along the edge of the sidewalks where cars and motorcycles (which by the way they also use sidewalks to drive on) zoomed past. There wasn’t anywhere to be able to stop for a break unless you sat for food and bathrooms? Hope you have a big bladder because you won’t find one for a while in that area! But then again, as I said I was off the perhaps “normal” path for a bit.

Car Show?

Long Live the King

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I made it to China Town along Yaowarat Rd. where they were having some sort of itty bitty car show! There were tons of people wearing yellow shirts that at first I thought were part of a tour of sorts but later realized yellow is the color of the King, so just about everyone was wearing a yellow shirt to honor his birthday:) I ran into my first English speaker since leaving the hotel who confirmed I had been walking the right way for the Grand Palace (phew!!!).

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Itty Bitty Car Show?

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Now, normally when navigating my way around places with a map and my feet I always think after the fact “gee, those distances were a lot shorter than I would have thought based on the map”… This is NOT so with the Bangkok map! Everything is quite a bit further than the maps would lead you to believe… One block on a map seemed to be 5 in reality, lol! After about 4 hours of walking I was getting a bit tired. According to the map I was ALMOST there so I kept trucking… And this is where the scam occurred…

Bangkok ‘Gangster’ Scams

Back to Thailand

Europe, Greece

Katakolon

2014-11-28 ramblintraveler Leave a comment

Katakolon itself is just a little port town. Nothing terribly special about it per se; numerous restaurants and shops line the main street where tourists can wander and stroll in search of gifts. Olive wood in particular is quite popular there, and I might add very beautiful!

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Olive Wood Store

What puts Katakolon on the map as a port of call for cruise ships is that it is only about an hour drive to Ancient Olympia, the site of the first Olympic Games. Olympia, as it is inscribed on the plaque out front “stood out historically as the most important Panhellenic religious, political and athletic centre of the ancient Greek world”. It is rich in mythological tradition and was founded as the sanctuary of Zeus. Structures include a gymnasium, greek baths, the Temple of Zeus, the crypt, the Temple of Hera and of course, the Lighting of the Olympic Flame.

Olympia Restaurant

While we had purchased tours for Ephesus and Santorini, we didn’t for Katakolon figuring it would be easy to just do our own tour. In that regard we were quite right as the second we disembarked there were people lining the streets with signs for bus rides to Olympia. We opted for one of the buses and headed out to Olympia. Once there we immediately went to the ancient ruins. My sister in particular wanted to see the ancient structure where they lit the flame for the Olympics.

Olympia Ancient Ruins

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Gymnasium

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Thankfully we had heard before leaving the ship that there was a possibility for rain so we brought a poncho and an umbrella (won during a round of Bingo on the ship- but more on that in the ‘cruise critique’ post).

We made our way to the ancient ruins which were just around the corner from the main street of the now town of Olympia, paid for tickets to get in the site and started to have a wander around. By the time we were at the ticket office, it was gently raining. No biggie.

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Temple of Zeus

By the time we were basically in the center of the ruins, it began to rain hard… Then about 5 minutes later (only about 20-30 minutes after we had entered) it started to pour down rain!! And thunder, and lightning and more rain!! For those who know me, you know at this point I’m in 7th heaven as I LOVE a good thunderstorm!! However, it wasn’t just me involved. My dad and sister were with me (my mom decided to skip the Olympia trip and stayed behind to shop in Katakolon) so I wanted to make sure they were being taken care of. My dad was using the umbrella and my sister and I shared the poncho. I kept snapping photos of various ruins under the poncho as we made our way around to ensure that we saw the site for the lighting of the Olympic torch!

At one point the rain was so heavy that we (and all the other tourists there) started to huddle under the trees for a bit more shelter… Not the best idea with lightning around, but hey, strength in numbers?? 🙂 The rain kept pouring but what made us all start to leave the site wasn’t the rain exactly, but that it was starting to flood! The umbrella and poncho did little to really protect us as we were getting soaked from the feet up. My sister and I, concerned for our dad, decided we’d better head back. It took us probably 10 minutes to find a shelter where we could fit (most of the close ones were already taken up by tourists) and that wasn’t flooding out. We only stayed under the shelter for a few minutes then decide to keep going back to town. All three of us at a certain point just started walking through the water instead of trying to skirt around it, since we were already wet!

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Rain Pouring on Ruins & People

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We finally got out and back to town, drenched and chilly, but generally in good spirits! Since we kept walking to town instead of stopping longer for shelter, we were among the first people back to town, which gave us first dibs on chairs in a restaurant with lovely outdoor heaters!!! We huddled around the heater, ordered some drink and food, and listened to the rain pour down all around us.

We thought it rather ironic that we had gone just the day before from a place that barely got rain (Santorini) to a place that was now pouring with rain, lol!!

One funny observation my sister made at the restaurant was from a picture in the menu. It was advertising an Amstel natural brew Radler beer with the caption: “Natural Beer with non-alcoholic lemon”. My sister then said “hey, look. They have alcoholic lemons here!!” LOL!! 🙂

After enjoying our meal, the rain had basically stopped but as we only had about a half hour until the bus was going to pick us up again, we opted to hang around town. Once on the way back the skies turned blue and remained that way until we boarded the ship again. Go figure! But there’s my reason to go back:) AND we did at least get to snap off a photo and see the site of the lighting of the Olympic torch:).

On to Cruise Critique

Back to Europe

Europe, Greece

Santorini

2014-11-28 ramblintraveler Leave a comment

I have a song working in my head that once completed will be published about Santorini, but well, for now it’s plain text:)

What a beautifully unique place! Santorini as we know it today is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea that was formed by a large volcanic eruption that destroyed the previous civilization living there. Now, it is the largest island of a circular archipelago that has remnants of a volcanic caldera. The island isn’t your typical flat land island. It is a mountain jutting from the sea with what looks like snow on top. Upon closer inspection the “snow” are the little towns sprinkled along the top of the mountain.

Sunrise on Santorini

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Travel to Santorini

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Because of it’s volcanic history (pun intended) the land of Santorini is rich and fertile and very diverse! Black lava rock, red clay and white pumice stone are visible around just about every corner etched into the land. Homes in fact used to be built out of cooled black lava rock, which made them somewhat invisible to travelers coming by sea. A clever way to be invisible to your enemy in my opinion. However, in the 1930’s the government made it law that each structure had to be painted white because it keeps the homes cooler and saves on energy.

View of the Land

Wealthy People’s Land

Diverse Terrain

While the Island itself is not all THAT attractive, the towns are absolutely adorable!!! The rest of the island is rugged, rocky and not terribly interesting. However due to the fertile nature of the volcanic rock, a large variety of produce are grown there. The most popular of course, is wine:) Part of the tour we took included a winery tour where we were able to sample the various wines and even purchased several to take back with us. Growing grapes on Santorini is a bit trickier than one would think however. Due to the ferocious winds Santorini is plagued by quite often, vines are not able to grow upright as in a normal vineyard. Instead, people train the vines to grow in circular nests or baskets on the ground so they aren’t damaged by the winds!

Santorini Wine

Vineyard

Along with the hard winds, Santorini rarely gets any rain. Water is a HUGE commodity and isn’t to be wasted at all. The lack of rain is why their wines also have such a distinctive taste (the grapes are very concentrated due to lack of water). The lack of rain has even inspired how the buildings are built. One will notice 2 kinds of ceilings on buildings in Santorini: a flat roof and a circular or arched roof. The flat ones are designed to collect rainwater that then gets funneled to an underground cistern, while the arched/circular roofs are the best design for buildings to withstand earthquakes… Yes, they have earthquakes too on top of the lack of rain and violent winds and there is still that volcanic caldron to think about… Sounds like a rough life to me, what with having to battle nature in so many different ways!

Roof to Collect Water

Oia Church

Oia main “road”

Oia and the Sea

Looking into the Caldera

Free Tibet!

While wine, capers and olives are among the favorite products of Santorini, their favorite and most revered animal is the donkey. They love their donkeys!! Several statues of the honored donkey can be found in every town, and several times over. They are working donkeys of course but are well taken care of and once they are of retirement age, they even have a proper retirement home for them to live out their lives. Too cute, I love it!! One of the ways to get back down from the town to sea was via a donkey ride:) I was absolutely on board to do that, however our tour guide made a mention that the donkey’s aren’t really a fan of it, so I decided to spare the donkey a trip down the rugged terrain (sigh). Dogs are also very popular on the island and seem to run the place. It reminded me of dogs in Costa Rica- how they do what they want during the day, but have a place and home to go to at night.

Oia Dogs

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Oia Donkey

Thera Donkey

Donkeys!

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We wandered around Thera after our tour of Oia and the winery and stopped for some lunch at Arcobaleno. The food was delicious and the view was unbeatable as it was overlooking the center of the archipelago where the volcano remnants remain. I had a beer filtered with volcanic rock called Volcan while my parents and sister had wine. And of course, since I was in Greece I had to have a teeny bottle to Ouzo to finish off the meal:) From there we did some more shopping for gifts and such, had a pedicure at the Dr. Fish Spa where they use cleaner fish to nibble off all the dead skin, then had one more drink and a wee dessert (baklava anyone?) before taking the tram back to the loading area for the small boats to take us back to the ship.

Oia and the Sea_2

Where does this go??

Drinking Ouzo

Nibbling Fish

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Tram Down

Oh, one last interesting story about Santorini: the poor houses. Wealth was signified not by the kind of house you had (large or small) but rather by how much land you owned. So those who weren’t wealthy, instead of having homes on land lived in homes carved out of the rock along the top edge of Santorini. Looking at the pictures of Oia and Thera, you can see how many of the homes are practically on top of each other and built right on the edge of the land. These were the homes for poor people. Today of course, these homes are worth millions of dollars… Go figure!

Oia “Poor” houses

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Oia Church and the Sea

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Oh, Greeks also love their churches. If memory serves, people in the town were allowed to build their own churches and name them in honor of a Saint (each church was in honor of a different Saint). While the churches weren’t used every day or week, when the day came around to honor whatever Saint was associated with their church, the church owner would give it a face life, clean it up and invite the town to the church to celebrate the Saint. Lovely:)

Volcano Caldera & Ship

Volcano Caldera

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Remnants of Venetian Castle

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Last, last thing… There are actually ruins that were discovered on Santorini from the previous civilization (the one wiped out by the volcano eruption) and it has been compared to Pompeii… We didn’t have time to look into that further but it’s certainly a reason to go back:)

On to Katakolon

Back to Europe

Europe, Turkey

Ephesus

2014-11-28 ramblintraveler Leave a comment

We had a full day at sea between Dubrovnik and Ephesus and it was spent full of a variety of activities (working out, pool time, Bingo!, etc.). It was quite relaxing and the day seemed to zoom by. When the night came around, my sister and I stayed up at the bar chatting and drinking the night away. She woke the next day just fine… Me on the other hand, I was a wee bit hung over. We had a scheduled tour to get to however so as we approached the port town of Kusadasi, it was time to buck up and sober up!

Our tour was to the Virgin Mary’s house (where after the crucifixion of Jesus she escaped and lived in hiding from persecution by the Romans) and to the ancient Greco-Roman ruins of Ephesus. We met for our tour abroad the ship then were all escorted out onto the tour bus and off we went. We were each given a little welcome package including a pin of the eye of Turkey for good luck, a bottle of water (I really needed that!!), a postcard and a little ceramic container with an impression of the Virgin Mary on the front and a cork top.

We were also issued little headsets so we could hear our tour guide throughout the tour as we wandered around. I had seen other tours use these before and always thought them a great idea. However, after actually having used them, I’m not so much a fan. The reason being that the guide was many times speaking about things way ahead of where I physically was (I was lagging a bit with my crazy picture taking) so I would hear her explain something, but it wasn’t until 5-10 minutes later that I’d catch up to the area where the information was relevant. Just goes to show that even with those little headsets you still have to keep up with the guide!

Leaving Kusadasi, we drove up the winding mountains of Turkey, past the large golden statue of Mary, watching the terrain turn from almost rugged, drier land to lush green forest land. It somewhat reminded me of being in New Mexico, driving from Albuquerque to the mountains of Santa Fe in the summer time. We arrived at Mt. Koressos, the site of Mary’s house. The house was originally discovered because of visions that Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (a book was later published about her visions) had of the Virgin Mary and her home in hiding. Searches ensued to find the home seen in the vision and was indeed found as described by Blessed Ann Catherine Emmerich. Today the home is a shrine for both Catholics and Muslims who flock to see the very simple but functional home.

En Route to Mary

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Golden Mary Statue en route

Outside the home a church has been set up and today people come to pray and even hold regular masses. The home itself has been visited by several popes and has been blessed by them during their visit. Outside her home, three taps of spring water exist, Holy Water, for visitors to drink, bathe, or fill up their little ceramic containers:) I filled mine up, and though we weren’t supposed to drink from the ceramic container, I took a sip figuring it could only help with the hangover:) Further along the wall from the Holy water were hundreds upon hundreds of pieces of cloth, each with someone’s prayer or hope or dream written in scores of different languages and tied onto the wall. It was quite powerful to visit this site. It is also a beautiful setting and a feeling of calm and peace is very present there. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside her house, but my favorite bit on the inside was a very faint and almost unnoticeable chalk drawing on the wall, just before the exit that seemed to be the face of, what looked to me like Jesus. I can’t be 100% sure that it was Him (that’s how faint it was) but it made me wonder the history behind that. I loved the simplicity of it.

Mary Statue Near Home

Mary’s Garden

Church

Mary’s House

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Picture of House Interior

Holy Water Springs

Wall of Prayers

From Mary’s house we were escorted back on the bus and down the hill to the shopping area (Genuine Fake Watches!!) just outside the ruins of Ephesus. Ephesus was an ancient Greek city that long ago was actually a port town! It is the same Ephesus where Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians (thanks mom). It was founded in the 10th century BC but was devastated by an earthquake in 614 AD. The earthquake strike along with the harbor slowly silting up by the Cayster River declined the cities importance as a commercial center and was eventually abandoned (Thanks Wikipedia!).

Genuine Fake Watches

Ephesus Ruins

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Today only about 25% of the city has been excavated and it is only in the past 100 years or so that excavations have been taking place! It was amazing to hear about how modern the people of that time really were! They had indoor plumbing, a library, a theater, a brothel (the foot and heart imprint could be found throughout the city leading the way there) a gymnasium, there was even evidence of surgeries having been conducted! Pretty much anything you could want in a city was there and everything was so stylishly done in marble or brick! At least in my mind, it’s hard to envision civilizations from thousands of years ago being so modern. We like to think with our technology that we are so much more advanced than people were back then… After visiting these ruins, I’m really not so sure!

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From the ruins we were taken to a very touristy spot where there was nothing but shops and food and a little play depicting the days of Cleopatra and Marc Anthony enjoying some gladiator action between soldiers (no lions involved;)).

We had some kebabs, drank some beer then it was back to Kusadasi for a demonstration on how the famous Turkish rugs are made. The presentation was fascinating and the store owners very kindly provided us all with some refreshments during the showcase of the rugs. According to the store owner, making Turkish rugs is a dying art. Not many people know how to make them or are trained to make them any more. In an attempt to get people trained again in the art, the government got involved and developed a program that allowed stay-at-home moms to learn the art. They were then allowed to work from home on the rugs:) Love it!! I had no idea how intricate each rug could be! One silk rug we were shown had a million knots per square meter!! Absolutely incredible!! My sister ended up buying a very lovely rug after some hard bargaining, then we were off on the streets again, wandering around checking out the Kusadasi for more gifts and things to buy, then back off to the ship.

Art of Turkish Rugs

Art of Turkish Rugs_2

Silk Turkish Rug

Kusadasi

Kusadasi_2

Kusadasi_3

Kusadasi_4

On to Santorini

Back to Europe

Croatia, Europe

Dubrovnik

2014-11-27 ramblintraveler 2 Comments

What a beautiful place! Nestled right along the coastline of the Adriatic Sea, Dubrovnik is uniquely located on a very narrow, yet long stretch of Croatia that borders with Bosnia. They are so close, in fact, that the surrounding mountains are actually in Bosnia. The Old City is quaint and kept in fashion of how it was hundreds of years ago, and today is the setting for where they film The Game of Thrones. I’m honestly not entirely sure what that show is all about, but our local taxi driver was very pleased by this little bit of trivia:)

Arriving in Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik from the Ship

Dubrovnik from the Ship_2

Dubrovnik from the Ship_3

Dubrovnik from the Ship_4

Dubrovnik from the Ship_5

As we disembarked the ship we were all met by a line of taxis. For 10 Euro they would take you to the Old City, for 50 Euro you would get an hour taxi tour of Dubrovnik… We were on vacation, why not?? Off we went with a very passionate and clearly patriotic older local from point to point around the city getting out to take pictures at the best locations. Being in the taxi while he navigated the narrow roads was somewhat of a roller coaster ride for me, but he was obviously very used to the ways of the road there and navigated beautifully. He took us up to the top point of Dubrovnik so we could get a panoramic view and he pointed out the Bosnia mountains.

First Tour Stop

First Tour Stop_2

Second Tour Stop

Second Tour Stop_2

View of Old City

Along the Coast

The history of Dubrovnik, as explained to us by our taxi driver, was quite a tumultuous one. While they preferred to simply set up a port town where ships could come and go to trade various goods, they were constantly being bombarded by one country or another who were interested in taking them over and involving them in war. Dubrovnik has bounced back and forth between one power and another but are now free to trade and live as they please. Hopefully they continue that trend and are able to stay out of the wars, unlike their neighbors…

Mountains in Bosnia

Dubrovnik from Above

Dubrovnik from Above_2

Dubrovnik from Above_3

Dubrovnik from Above_4

Dubrovnik Coastline

After our tour, we were dropped off at the gates to the Old City and bid farewell. We wandered in, stopped for some lunch, sampled some Rosé wine (which Dubrovnik is famous for and apparently is the birthplace of Zinfendel…) then headed down the main street and side streets to shop:) I of course didn’t pick anything up, since I can only carry so much in my travel backpack, but my sister and mom had a blast! My dad thankfully tolerated us going into almost every single store looking for things to buy, and would stop to befriend random street cats every so often just to get a little shopping break, lol!

Dubrovnik Coastline_2

Old City Entrance

Cannon Away

Old City Port

Old City Port_2

Old City_2

After walking the Old City streets, it was definitely easy to see why this spot was chosen for The Game of Thrones as it is very medieval! The streets are made of smooth stone, (I’m not 100% sure but they may have been marble) it’s entirely surrounded by original walls and even the old gates that guard the entrances to the city are well intact! I couldn’t help think when seeing the numerous steep stairways leading from the main road of the Old City to the new area of town, just how great a workout it would be to just walk up and down side streets daily there, lol!! Random, I know:)

Old City_3

Old City Port_3

Old City_4

Old City Port_4

Entertainment during Lunch

Old City_5

After our walk through the Old Town we grabbed a taxi back to the ship, shopped for a few more last-minute items then headed back on board. Side Note: I was obviously very trigger happy with my camera on this trip… LOL! 🙂

Old City_6

Exercise Stairs

Where’s the Tree Growing From?

Old Town Square

Outside Old Town

Outside Old Town_2

Dubrovnik at Dusk

On to Ephesus

Back to Europe

Europe, Italy

Venice

2014-11-27 ramblintraveler 1 Comment

Venezia! I’ve been there a few times before and each time not only love the uniqueness of it, but something new seems to happen every time I go. This time, it was the flooding of the streets! While we were able to avoid most of the flooding into the streets, it was still rather wet all around and they even had the planks around on standby just in case. The second night I spent there we were all woken up at 3:45 by the flood warning siren, joy!! I adore San Marco’s Square, as well as the church in the square with the most unique multicolored marbled columns and warped mosaic floor! I adore how a city built hundreds of years ago on water is still standing today! I adore its romantic history rich with courtesans, beautiful gowns and Carnival!

Carnival in Venice!

Venice Street Life

Venice

This trip was unique for me however as it really wasn’t as much for me as it was for my family… Specifically my mom and dad:) You see, each hit a major birthday milestone this year (70 & 75) so my two brothers, sister and I all chipped in to do something a little extra special for them. My mom was the one who actually found the trip: a 7 night cruise aboard the Royal Caribbean “Splendour of the Seas” leaving from Venice, Italy with port calls to Dubrovnik, Croatia; Ephesus, Turkey; Santorini, Greece and Katakolon, Greece. My mom obviously knew all of this information, however my dad was only told that the family had chipped in for a birthday cruise for only him and I to go on. He had no idea that my sister and mom would be joining too…

Love the Canals

Boat Garage?

On the Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal

Rialto Bridge

For almost 3 months prior to leaving for the cruise my mom, sister and I exchanged probably about a hundred emails going over details and how we were going to spring the surprise on my dad. There was a ton of confusion at first because the website for Royal Caribbean is absolutely bonkers!! You would think that they would get it together and create a site that actually works!! But no… It seemed that just about every day for almost a straight month something was wrong with our reservation because of that idiotic site. But thanks to some nice customer service operators, things smoothed out well.

Grand Canal

Zoom on Gondolas

The Rialto Bridge

Symbol of Venice (Winged Lion)

So the plan was for my dad and I to go to Treviso (where he has a cousin) and stay with them for a couple nights. Then he and I would go to Venice where we would stay overnight the night before having to board the cruise. My mom and sister were to arrive in Venice mid-afternoon) from the States the day before the cruise as well. Then they were going to meet us “randomly” at a restaurant (one we would pick in advance so I could be sure that my dad and I would be there) and the surprise would be revealed:)

That’s how it was supposed to go… Now how it REALLY went is as follows: My dad and I did go to Treviso to see family and were dropped off in Venice mid-afternoon. Now, the WiFi in the family’s place wasn’t quite all there all the time… At some point in the morning before leaving for Venice I just happened to refresh my email and suddenly several emails showed up saying “flight was delayed”; “stuck in Heathrow”; “missed flight due to idiotic security people at Heathrow”; “trying to leave from Gatwick”; “hope to take the 4pm flight out”…

Flooding in the Streets

Planks for Street Flooding

Grand Canal on Sunny Day

San Marco Square Church

At this point I’m a bit panicked… I’m the only one who knows they are coming, so I can’t say anything to my dad about them being off track… They are supposed to be a surprise… But now I’m a bit worried because I can’t contact them… I checked the airport site but had no luck with any information there…

We got to Venice where my first move was to get my tablet hooked to the WiFi so I could search for any updates… Nothing, nil, zilch… I still have to play it cool however so I spend the rest of the afternoon acting as if all is well (when really I’m a bit worried on what to do in case they didn’t show, lol!) strolling around beautiful Venice with my dad. We walked quite a bit and opted to take a canal taxi back to the hotel.

So many different colors of Marble!

Floor inside Church

Church Ceiling

Warped Mosaic Floor

Once there, we started to get ready to go out for dinner. I shot off a quick email to my sister and mom, hoping they would get it, about where we were planning to go. At this point I still hadn’t heard whether they had even made it on the 4pm flight to Venice! Before heading out for dinner, I even filled in the hotel receptionist on what was going on in case my sister and mom stopped by there!

So off to dinner we went… It was about 8pm at this point, and though Italian meals tend to take a bit of time, I was purposefully trying to drag this dinner out as long as possible. 9pm rolled around… “sure I’ll have another beer”… 9:30 came about… “Dessert? Why not?”… almost 10pm was upon us…

San Marco Square_3

San Marco Square_4

San Marco Square_5

Gondola Ride?

At this point I was already out of reasons to stay any longer AND I was starting to wonder if they had made that 4pm flight after all?? For, if they had, then certainly they would have been in Venice and would have been able to make it to the restaurant by now! I thought that I better not drag dinner out any more, but rather I’d better get to my email to see what’s going on…

Just as I went to walk out the door with my dad behind me, my sister came walking in the door!! We saw each other, our eyes widened and we immediately did an about-face, her out the door, and me toward my dad so I could try to shield him from seeing her, lol!! Unfortunately he just happened to see her face as she was coming in and the gig was up!! She came back in (on her own as my mom was hiding around the corner as a second surprise) to greet my dad and all the details started to come out as to why she was there. Then my sister said “you wouldn’t believe the day WE’VE had getting here”… We??? my dad asked… Who’s we??? Lol!! Ooopppss!! So out the door we went and my mom came out of hiding, lol!!

Beautiful Vista

On the way to Jail

Beautiful Vista_2

Beautiful Vista_3

So while it wasn’t exactly how we had planned the surprise, it was still a great surprise for my dad nonetheless:) My dad said after the surprise that he had been feeling tired from dinner, but was now very wide awake, lol! I’m just glad my sister and mom made it!!

In any event, the next day we all boarded the ship and waved goodbye to Venice as we headed out to sea.

View from Water Taxi

View from Water Taxi_2

By the way, I do have to make a mention about Hotel Canal in Venice… It’s located just across the street from the train station and both times I stayed there it was a very pleasant experience! The staff were beyond accommodating, the location was unbeatable in my book, the rooms were very spacious (both times we ended up with a room that faced directly on the Canal) and while it could probably use a tiny facelift, I really enjoyed its old style Venetian charms:)

View from Hotel Canal

Hotel Canal

On to Dubrovnik

Back to Europe

Europe, Italy

Scots in Italy??

2014-11-27 ramblintraveler Leave a comment

The reason I had been traveling through Europe so fast was so I could make it back to Italy by mid-October… I got news while in Berlin that Anna (my neighbor in Costa Rica who I visited in Glasgow) and her friend, and now my new friend Morna were coming to town for the week!! Yay!! But, that meant to push the gas on the pedal for my other travels. Hence, after visiting the Neuschwanstein Castle I booked it via train through the Alps back to Florence to prepare for their visit:)

Preparing for their visit is really just code for stocking up with lots of wine, lol!! I believe during their visit, my dad got 20 liters of wine and between the two of them, they probably went through 12-13 liters… LOL! But hey, I can’t blame them, they were in Italy for crying out loud! If you aren’t going to enjoy yourself while here, why bother at all?

I met them in Pisa and we stayed the first night and the next day doing all the tourist stuff, i.e. getting a picture taken holding up the tower. Morna didn’t want to get in on that action, but we got her later when we were in the top cupola of the Duomo in Florence cupping another dome of Florence… I Should now mention that all the pictures in this post were taken by Anna and her camera. Gotta give credit where credit is due:)

Pisa TV Area

Tower & Duomo of Pisa

Front of Pisa Duomo

Anna Holding the Tower

Cemetery Hall

Gravestone

Basilica, Duomo & Tower of Pisa

Fallen Angel: Pisa

In any event, our time after Pisa was spent hanging out at my dad’s place eating delicious home cooked Italian food; getting tipsy on wine and beer and chatting about good times both past and present; taking hikes in the National Forrest to Vallombrosa and Secchieta; going into Florence about 3 separate times trying each time to get into the Duomo but failing until our last try (which we then ended up walking to the very top for a panoramic view);

Duomo

From where we came

Florence Panoramic

Duomo Ceiling

Looking Down from the Cupula

Florence Panoramic_2

Florence Panoramic_3

Caught in the Act being Touristy!

Slanted way down

Going to see Michelangelo’s David, of course! (the picture below is of my favorite part of David… (no, not THAT part;)))

Making a wish at the porcellino;

And staying after dark in Florence to watch night life a bit.

Probably the most humorous time for me was the hikes… The first day we went, not more than 3 minutes after we left the house it started to pour down rain. Did we turn back? Naw, it was just a bit of rain and we were SURE it would stop soon. Thankfully I had brought an umbrella and poncho “just in case” since it was a bit cloudy, and while I caved and took out the umbrella for shelter after about 10 minutes of walking in the rain, Morna and Anna were still braving it with the light jacket/sweater they brought for the walk. About 20 minutes later they were drenched!! They took the poncho, which was large enough to share and onward we went. Along the way we spotted several deer!! And that was probably only because the deer figured “no human in their right mind would hike in this downpour!” They were wrong, lol!!

Hiking in the Rain

Salamander

On the hiking path

Jesus

We eventually made it to Vallombrosa all cold and quite wet. Thankfully there was a teeny bar on the side of the road:) We had cappuccino’s, a sandwich, some wine, beer, some more wine and beer… Then shots to warm up a bit more (we were still chilly) then another shot or two until it was starting to get too late and dark to walk back down, so we called my dad to pick us up, lol!!

The second day of hiking was much less wet, but still cold and windy! We did make it all the way to the top to Secchieta (where we had planned to go the first day) and once again at the end of the trail, what was there to meet us?? You guessed it, a bar! We brought our own lunch that day so we just purchased some cappuccino’s, two wines and a beer:) We behaved that day knowing we had to walk down but not entirely… You see, along with sandwiches for lunch, we also packed about a liter and a half of wine to sip along the way:) We did behave on drinking it however because we barely cracked into it until we were heading down:) Ah, good times!