Random Photos

As I go through and write this blog, I really try to find pictures that show what the location was about and a bit of the historical, cultural events. I also shoot a lot of different things as well. Last year I did a lot with door knockers, and I have one here this year as well. I also love windows and flowers. I so wish I had the ability to do this at home, but I know it won't happen as our construction style in California does not lend itself to hanging real objects on the outside walls. Stucco looks nice, but it is just a bit of sand and cement spread over chicken wire with no ability to hold up an object with weight. Also there are the pictures that didn't turn out. I had one I wish really could have, but it just didn't. (No I did not waste cyber space by showing it here!)

As for the shots in this series, they are from throughout the trip. I will try and show their city/county of origin, but I may be wrong. I mean a rock in the dirt looks the same in Greece as it does in Italy or Turkey! So for my pleasure I present random photos of our trip of 2008. I hope you enjoy them.


A lot of our trip consisted of having a meal off ship. Tasting the local fare is one of my favorite things to do. Here is Cathy and David at our table in Florence. I bought a large messenger bag for me to carry my camera and things with before we left on this trip. Cathy called it my Man Purse and we stuffed a TON of things in it. Besides both our cameras, there were water bottles and the souvenirs we bought along the way. It was very handy and I look forward to using it in the future when traveling. In case you are wondering, that large canvas bag is my messenger bag.


I believe this is the only door knocker I shot this year. I was so good!


If there is anything that makes traveling in a tour bad, it is the number of people you are traveling with. Our ship had over 2000 people and there were TWO cruise ships at Ephesus on the day we were there, plus others. Yes, there were a lot of people!


I don't know why I find this amusing, but I do. After all I enjoy all types of foods and expect to find different cuisine in major cities as I travel, but to find a Sushi Bar in Bari, Italy was a bit beyond what I was expecting. But it is a port city and where better to get tuna but from the Mediterranean Sea. Yes they fish tuna there.


This is one of four wall murals on a building in Montecatini. They all dealt with urns and and I gathered that they used the urns for oil. the building is now a series of stores, but the murals remain.


The windows. I think it is the shutters, closed and painted, with the bright color of the flowers that attract me to them. The randomness of the placement and the utter disregard for shape, and letting the plants naturally to grow versus the Disneyland pruning that we do in the United States were everything needs to be cut, trimmed and tidy. Wow that sentence says a lot about me!


The heat. It was warm this summer. In all the cities and towns we were in, it was hot. I sweltered and sweat my days away. This is what I felt like after a few of the day trips:

Shade was at a premium, as is shown here in Croatia. This street is not more than 10 feet wide, yet the umbrellas are in full use.

Even this weary tourist in Pisa shows his sweat and tired stance for this picture.

Even the lizards in Greece tried to get cool and not warm. You know it is bad when the Lizards are looking for shade!


This is what was known as the Golden Horn in ancient Constantinople. It contained the home of the emperor and Haggai Sophia. It later was the home of the Sultan and now also contains the Blue Mosque. This is a view of the Golden Horn from where we had lunch.


So there ends my random pictures. I really tried to stay to my rule of one roll of film a day, that works out to 24 pictures a day. Sometimes the roll lasted two days, and sometimes I did use two rolls. But if I were to upload every picture I took, what would I bore you with when you come to visit me? Actually you are seeing here pictures that are cropped a bit, and they are the better shots of the roll. Anyway, I hope you enjoy and comments are welcome, even the ones about me removing you from my emailing notifications.