Back in 1990 we went to Venice. From the top viewing port of St. Mark’s Campanile in the Piazza San Marco we could see the roof of the magnificent Doge’s Palace.
Maybe the caretaker built this and lives there. Not sure if it is still there today.
Archive for the ‘Historical’ Category
Old Stuff
Sunday, April 19th, 2020Plague Months, Day 27
Friday, March 27th, 2020On to Ellesmere
September 10. 1999. On this day there were no castles, but we were always kept amused by the captain and his wife’s stories of life on the canal. The boat (The Unicorn) was a traveling history lesson, or at least that was the intention that Capt. Jeremy had in mind when he first began his canal adventure. Half the boat was crammed with books. Many were about English history, but there were several that even Roger and I found interesting enough to crack open.
The plan is to make it to the town of Ellesmere, a good 19 miles from our starting point. As we traveled south, the land became flatter, and there were more farms along the canal.We drifted past the towns of Rhoswiel and St. Martins before coming to the New Marton Locks. We passed the junction of the Montgomery Canal and then through the winding section of the canal near the town of Tetchill.
So here we have Roger, Jim, Jeanne and Gloria. Along with Emily, we were the only passengers on the longboat (we planned it that way) . The boat captain was Jeremy who did the navigation and his wife Dorothy who did the cooking and cranking.
Today there was a longboat party in Ellesmere and we passed hundreds of canal boats all decked out for the big party. Since there was no place to park the boat in town, we floated a bit and got off with Dorothy and helped her do some grocery shopping in town. Further down the cut was found a little beach area with a bench near Blakemere Lake where we had a BBQ style dinner with hambergers, sausage, beer and chips. We stayed the night at the lake.
So far, so good. We take our temperature every morning; holding steady! 1588/101242=1.57
Plague Months, Day 26
Thursday, March 26th, 2020Life on the “Cut”, A visit to Chirk
The neat thing about doing a canal float trip in England is that you get to jump out and help with the locks. In the picture above, Jim and Jeanne are helping Dorothy with the lock mechanism. We were always excited to take the special crank handles they called “a windlass” and operate the lock gates. On this day we also came upon a low bridge that we had to crank up to pass. On some bridges, the local children would hang out near the bridges to help do the work because it was fun.
Our journey today took us through the towns of Trevor, Ruabon, Froncysyllte, Whitehouse and Chirk. Near Chirk we stopped near a bridge and contacted a taxi service to take us up to Chirk Castle. (I walked there and back because I needed the exercise and we all couldn’t fit in the taxi) The castle is owned by the National Trust and is open to the public between March and October, with limited opening dates in November and December. The property is also notable for its gardens, with clipped yew hedges, herbaceous borders, rock gardens and terraces and surrounded by 18th century parkland.
Here Jeanne and Emily are strolling through Chirk gardens, a 5 acre area created from William Emes’ designs from the 18th century. I think we liked the look of those trees.
Gloria took this picture of Roger, Jim, Jeanne and Emily but she didn’t quite frame the picture to show that Jim and Jeanne have their feet locked up in the stocks, or pillory if you prefer. That’s why we have that fake look of humiliation on our faces.
The Colorado Gov. issued a “Stay-At-Home” order starting this morning at 6:00AM. and lasting at least until April 11. Index 1186/81836= 1.45
Plague Months, Day 22
Sunday, March 22nd, 2020
This day we went to something called Museu Nacional dos Coches located in the Belem district of Lisbon, Portugal. The museum was created in 1905 by Queen Amelia to house an extensive collection of carriages belonging to the Portuguese royal family and nobility. This museum is apparently the most visited museums in Lisbon, so I guess that’s why we were there?
The PCP might stand for People’s Communist Party but what else would it be if not the people’s party? Could the Forbe’s list of prominent CEO’s have their own party? OK, it might be the Portuguese Communist Party. Someplace in Lisbon photo op.
Actually this is Jeanne next to one of the many lion sculptures at the Monastery of Jeronimos, Lisbon, Portugal. The monastery sits on the original church grounds where Vasco da Gama spent the night in prayer before departing on his expedition to the Orient in 1497. Four years later construction of the monastery was started; completed about 100 years later, it was used by monks whose role it was to pray for the King’s eternal soul and to provide spiritual assistance to navigators and sailors who departed from the port of Restelo to discover lands around the world.
So far 389/31019, index = 1.25. The index is getting smaller each day; could be good news.
Plague Months, Day 20
Friday, March 20th, 2020Road to Portugal, 1982
“The Palacio Nacional da Pena is one of the finest tourist attractions in Portugal and exemplifies the 19th century Romanticism style of architecture. The palace is a hedonistic mix of vividly painted terraces, decorative battlements and mythological statues, all of which stand at stark contrast to the lush greens of the Parque de Pena forest.”
“The day that I die is better than the day that I was born.” At least that’s what the phrase in Latin says at this Capela dos Ossos or chapel of bones. we were in Lisbon watching the television and saw an ad for some kind of festival in the town of Evora, Portugal. We had time before we headed south to the Costa do Sol and we had this little car, a Mini Morris, I think it was called. It was an hour and a half drive through the countryside to Evora, so we figured we could do it in a day and still have time to get down to our hotel at the ‘Sol.
It’s the Church of St. Francis in Evora. We didn’t know it was there until we got there and some locals asked us if were were there to see the bones. The church was built with human bones (somewhere in the area of 5000 skeletons) by a Franciscan monk and they say after he died, his body was hung on the wall. See it there on the right in the above picture?
Index: 1.34 (is there a trend?)
The Plague Months, Day 18
Wednesday, March 18th, 2020Road to Morocco, 1982
This young man did a wonderful job as our guide in Cassa, especially since we were in his country during Ramadan; We were living in Indiana at the time working at Purdue University and the local travel agent said it would be a good time to visit Morocco.
These water sales people are just for tourists, but in the background is the Koutoubia Minaret. I used the location of this minaret several times to help find my way back to the hotel.
We didn’t make many purchases in Morocco but we did hang around many of the souks or bazaars. Also in Marrakech the great square Djemaa El Fna had lots to offer.
It’s a Berber rug made by the Berber people or Amazigh, any of the descendants of the pre-Arab inhabitants of North Africa
The place is still there, but it is now called La Mamounia Palace. Back in 1982 it really was the only place to stay in Marrakech but now there are several 4 and 5 star hotels available.
“Just moments away from Jemaa el-Fnaa Square in Marrakesh, La Mamounia offers the sophisticated luxury and comfort of a five-star palace hotel. Boasting incredible views of the gardens, the Atlas Mountains and the Koutoubia Mosque, the rooms, suites and luxury suites boast all the elegance of a 5-star palace hotel, each with their own interpretation of the Moroccan art of living.”
These places were a rat’s maze of leather goods, copper pots and a place to get fitted for a djellaba, the garb the guy is wearing in the picture. On special occasions men would wear a bernousse or fez.
On the way back to West Lafayette, Indiana we pass a town called Morocco, Indiana. We couldn’t help take this picture. That’s Jeanne asking for a few Dirhams. This trip included some time in Portugal. Maybe we will have some picture from that soon.
The index today was 1.66; 108 by 6500
UTAH
Monday, September 19th, 2016Shortened week in Park City; Here’s the start and the end. There’s other stuff like the SLC Zoo and the Great Salt Lake…
Balloonfest in Park City
This just happened to be an event on the day we arrived in town, so we went to it.
More Balloons
I’d say there were about two dozen hot air balloons out that morning. It was a nice day for it too!
Joe Hill Slept here
On our last day we visited the jail in Park City. The silver mines in Park City was the last place Joe Hill worked before he was arrested for murder in Salt Lake City. On the wall is a burned in logo of the IWW placed a year after Joe’s execution.
Whole lotta nothing (for now)
Wednesday, August 10th, 2016North side of FoCo where all the little industries lie and the Creator Hub, of course:
An abandoned air strip
Looking out in the south-eastern direction there’s an old landing field for airplanes and helicopters. Opened in 1966, it was called the “Valley Airport” and then about a dozen years later it was called the “Fort Collins Downtown Airport”.
North-west direction
Not much going on, but you might be able to still ride a bike on it, at least when they are not testing truck drivers for their commercial drivers license. If that’s happening, stay the hell away!
This blog is 8 years old today!!!
Friday, February 12th, 2016This blog started as a trial to use some common blog developers, starting with ‘Blogger’ and then a few years later “WordPress”. While some of the archive links have died (I killed them accidentally while screwing around on the Linux console) the actual flat files are still around if you can find them; Here’s some of note:
1) The very first post on Blogger entitled “In The Beginning“. It was just a few days before we took our little ‘road trip’ out West to find a piece of land to call our own. We thought at the time we would end up in Oregon, but FoCo found US, and here we are today.
2) Bellingham, Washington; where we blew a tire on the Prius but found some nice people who helped us out. Nice place Bellingham, but wet.
3) Eugene, Oregon with friends. We really thought that this was the place but we still needed to go further and see more!
4) Had to see more friends, this time in California. We know we wouldn’t live in California because t was too expensive.
5) Last stop: Fort Collins! We knew this was the place to be. What a nice place to retire; OK, now the rest of you, just keep moving on! Nothing to see here.
I’ll get back to the old blog at a later date. Here’s what we have that’s new:
SNOW!
We had a good month an a half of Chicago style snow that never melted and then an additional 17 inches fell. We we not all that concerned; must be used to it by now.
The snow in the street melts by noon they say
Well, not this time; and all the people were bitching about side streets not getting cleared so the city got out some extra money and a few back-hoe loaders to get the job done; Here they are on our small insignificant street! Wow!
