Foggy Winter Morning Part 2
We had a foggy morning the other day. I really like photographing the fog. I started at a small lake. After photographing around the lake, I moved to the Indian River Lagoon in Titusville Florida.
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Our Venice Cruise Chapter 22: Return to Venice
It has been said that all good things must end. Sadly our cruise came to an end. Early in the morning on the last day of our cruise we returned to Venice. The night before we needed to have our bags packed and ready to be picked up. They were taken to the lower deck to be unloaded at the dock in the morning. This helps get everyone get off of the ship more efficiently. It’s sort of a strange feeling. It’s a big sign that the cruise is coming to an end. Also there is a bit of anxiety, wondering if you packed something you need until you get the bag back again, or if you didn’t pack enough and have too much stuff in your carry-on the next morning. I woke up early the next morning. I wanted to see Venice as we sailed past. I went to the upper deck to get a good view. Venice is an island that’s sort of shaped like a fish. Ships enter the curvy narrow waterway around Venice at the bottom of the tail of the fish. They continue winding their way along the belly of the fish between Venice and some smaller islands. The cruise port is at the mouth of the fish. This path takes the ship right past St. Mark’s Square. I wanted to see St. Mark’s as we passed. From the upper deck I could see a lot of Venice as we sailed by. It was a beautiful clear morning. The fog that delayed our cruise on the first day did not appear. Cruise ships for their size are very maneuverable. Typically they can get into any port on their own without any help. I have seen them do some amazing things. Sailing into Venice, our ship was tethered to several powerful tugboats. Several months prior to our trip, a cruise ship sailing into Venice lost power and collided with a docked river cruise ship. This elevated the existing campaign to have the cruise port moved away from Venice. Also, this is why we needed the tug boats.
The weather for our trip was amazing! We sailed in the fall. The cruise started at the end of October and ended the second week of November 2019. We had summer-like weather for the entire cruise. It only rained a small amount the morning we were in Dubrovnik. The northern Adriatic sea was not so lucky. We were sailing in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas. I heard there were some nasty storms that caused other cruise ships to miss some ports. That happened to us on our first cruise, it was not good, but that’s another story. On the upper deck there was a definite chill in the air. Fall temperatures had returned. I was taking in the beautiful city as we sailed by. As we approached St. Marks, I noticed the square was flooded. They were experiencing an acqua alta. This is when Venice is flooded by an exceptionally high tide. The water retreats at low tide but tends to return again with the next high tide. A few days after we left at the beginning of the cruise, there was a record breaking acqua alta. The highest in over 50 years!
After watching the beautiful city of Venice glide by, I met up with Robbie. We went to the dinning room for our final cruise breakfast. One thing about cruising, there is no shortage of good food. I gain 5-10 pounds on every cruise. After breakfast, we went back to our cabin for the last time to collect our things. They wanted us out so they could start getting the cabin ready for the next passengers – in just a few hours. We were assigned a group number and time for disembarking the ship. We made our way to one of the nice lounges to wait for our time. They called our number and we exited the ship for the last time. We met up with Sandy, Jerry, Marcia and Jack on the dock. The rest of the group had made other arrangements to get back home. We shared a cab to our hotel in Mestre. Venice, as I said, is an island. Mestre is a small town just on the other side of the causeway that connects Venice to the mainland.
We had a flight the next morning to Lisbon Portugal, so we had the evening to spend in Mestre. We had not planned on going back to Venice due to the limited time. After we all got settled into our hotel rooms, the group wanted to go to lunch. Robbie and I were a bit tired so we decided to rest for a while and go out later. Also there is that Italian thing I mentioned before, where some restaurants are closed for what we call “lunch time.” After we rested and relaxed for a while, Robbie and I ventured out. The woman at the desk told us where we could get a good pizza, so we set out to find the restaurant. After one or two wrong turns, we found it. You can’t really say that you’ve properly seen a new place unless you make a few wrong turns. We ordered a pizza, beer and wine, it was amazing! No worries, we did eat the whole pie. We need to remember to get a photo before we dig in. There was an awesome dessert as well. We stopped at a grocery store for some supplies on the way back to the hotel. It was nice getting to see a little of Mestre before moving on.
Authors note: We took this trip in Oct./Nov. of 2019. I took a gazillion photos. It takes me a long time to sort and edit my photos. My plan was to write most of the posts about this trip before I started to post them. I am not the fastest writer by any means. It’s surprising how long it takes to write 500 or so words when you choose your words carefully. So I knew from the beginning that it was going to take me a while to start posting about this trip. Anyway, I’m ready to start posting and BAMM!! We find our self in the middle of a global pandemic! Cruise ships are stranded at sea and people are dying onboard! That sort of took the wind out of my sails. I didn’t think this was an appropriate time to start posting about a wonderful cruise. So I shelved my cruise posts. Time flies when you’re not having fun. It’s now been a year since we departed on our trip. What a year it’s been! I’m not sure what the future holds for the travel industry. I was hoping to be traveling again in the spring of 2021. Now it may be longer and even longer yet for the cruise industry. For now I hope that you will enjoy reading about our Italian, Aegean Sea cruise.
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Foggy Winter Morning
I have been waiting for a foggy morning to go out and take some photos. The other day we finally had a nice foggy morning. I started at a small lake near my home.
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Our Venice Cruise Chapter 21 part 2: Dubrovnik Croatia
Continuing to work our way through the Dubrovnik, we ended up in the old east port. The old east port was a waterfront area that had restaurants with a beautiful view. If you wanted to, you could catch a ferry to the island of Lokrum. Here, you could see the actual iron throne. We didn’t make that trip.
After a great morning exploring Dubrovnik, it was time to take a refreshment break. We picked one of the many nice sidewalk cafes along the Stradun. Ordering some cold beverages and relaxing for a while. It was also time to take advantage of the cafes WiFi. Robbie and I were using Google fi, so we always had good service. Everyone else depended on WiFi where ever it could be found. It was nice to see that the Zvonik clock tower was still standing. It was seen dramatically crumbling to the ground in the GOT finally, as was most of the city.
Feeling all relaxed and refreshed we continued on with our tour of Dubrovnik. I wanted to see the Minceta Tower. I really like the scene in GOT where Daenarys is looking for her dragons in the tower. She is walking around the base of the tower looking for a way in. She is followed by Jorah, as they circle the tower, Daenarys vanishes into the tower. Jorah is unable to get into the tower to help her. Anyway the visual is pretty cool looking. The reality is that you cant actually walk all the way around the tower, more Hollywood magic. The tower is at the highest point in the old town. I totally chose the wrong way to get there. We had to climb a very steep and long stone stairway to get to the tower. We kept going up and up and up. It was quite the climb. We should have gone the way Jerry wanted to go, it was a longer but more gradual climb. The view at the top was amazing! Unfortunately we couldn’t see as much of the tower as I had hoped. You need to do the city walls tour to see it better.
Taking the longer more gradual decent on the return trip, we past a very interesting restaurant called, Lady PiPi. It gets it’s name from a statue/water fountain of a lady going PiPi in front of the restaurant. You wont find a more interesting fountain anywhere. I was looking at their website, it looks like a really nice restaurant. They were closed for the season when we were there.
It was time to do some shopping, so we all split up to find something amazing. After dong some shopping some people went back to the ship. Robbie and I did a little more exploring before returning to the ship. We had a great day in Dubrovnik. It was really nice seeing all of the GOT filming locations. It’s no wonder that they chose Dubrovnik as a filming location. It really is a beautiful medieval city. When you are cruising sometimes you really only get a small taste of a place. This is when you need to plan another trip to see more. I think Croatia would be a great place to plan another trip.
When sailing in or out of a port, a fun thing to do, is to go to the upper deck, to watch the sail away. It’s a great way to say hello or goodbye to a port. We went up on deck to say goodbye to Dubrovnik and take one last look.
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SpaceX Starlink L19 Night Launch
SpaceX launched another flock of 60 Starlink broadband internet satellites. I stayed close to home this time. I took this photo from my driveway in Titusville Florida.
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Our Venice Cruise Chapter 21 part 1: Dubrovnik, Croatia
Our next port of call was Dubrovnik, Croatia. A port that I was looking forward to for several reasons. Foremost, it is a beautifully preserved medieval city. I really like exploring old places like this. Secondly, Robbie and I had become Game of Thrones fans. This beautiful medieval city was a prominent Game of Thrones filming location. Also Croatia is one of those Slavic countries that you hear of but really don’t know too much about. I was curious to see what it was like.
Dubrovnik is a great city to explore on your own, so there was no need to pay extra for a cruise line shore excursion. The cruise port is however about two miles from the old walled city. Not super far, it would be an easy cab ride. The cruise line did hire a bus to take passengers to and from the city. There were several people in our group that wanted to see the city together, so we opted to pay the small fee and take the bus. We woke up to some light rain showers. This was the first and only rain of the trip. The weather for this trip was amazing! It was unseasonably warm and sunny for pretty much the whole trip. It wasn’t until we returned to Venice that it cooled down to normal fall temps. It was lightly raining when we boarded the bus. The bus dropped us off just outside of the old walled city. Before entering the city we visited the old West Harbor. The weather was starting to clear. What a beautiful little harbor. There is a stone pier jutting out through the rocky cove. To the left there is a great view of the stonewalls of the city that was built on the rocky cliffs. On the cliffs to the right is Fort Lovrijenac. The harbor was a beautiful place to visit, which is probably why it was used several times as a filming location for the Game of Thrones. Almost all of this little harbor was used in GOT at some point. It’s not hard to imagine the Red Keep CGI-ed on the old city walls or Cersei standing on the stone pier as Jamie’s boat returns with the body of their daughter.
We entered the old walled city through the Pile gate, another GOT filming location. The old stone walls and cobble stone streets are truly like strolling through a medieval city.
Exiting the Pile Gate puts you on the Stradun, the wide main boulevard through the city. We strolled down the Stradun taking in the beauty.
At the end of the Stradun, we made a right turn that took us to the famous Jesuit staircase. The staircase was used several times in GOT. Notably, Cersei’s walk of shame. Looking up the staircase you need to imagine the huge Great Sept, CGI-ed at the top of the stairway. We walked up the staircase to Saint Ignatius Church. The actual real Catholic church at the top of the staircase. Once at the top of the stairway, turning to look down, you see all of Kings Landing Dubrovnik in front of you.
Winding our way through the cobbled streets, Robbie spotted a sign that read “Cold drinks with the most beautiful view.” This we needed to investigate further. The arrow on the sign pointed to literally, a small hole in the wall. We went through the hole in the wall and were treated to the most beautiful view! The bar was not open, it’s called the Buza Bar. Standing on the rocky outcrop, we had a nice view of the city’s stone wall. Below the beautiful Adriatic Sea was lapping at the rocks.
After visiting the amazing view of the Buza Bar, we made our way through the winding streets of Dubrovnik. We passed by many medieval stone buildings through narrow cobblestone streets. There were several churches, the Church of Saint Stephen and the Cathedral of the Assumption. The Rector’s Palace is the home of the Rector who was the head authority of the town. The palace has been beautifully restored and is now a museum. It was also a GOT filming location.
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SpaceX Starlink L18 Night Launch
Another flock of SpaceX Starlink satellites launched into space last night. Photographed along the Indian River Lagoon in Titusville Florida. If you follow the dock to the horizon. The small light is another SpaceX Falcon 9 ready to launch at 5:14 am!
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Our Venice Cruise Chapter 20: The Greek Island of Mykonos
One of the things I like about cruising is that your floating hotel takes you from place to place. After an awesome day in Rhodes, we arrived back on our ship, the Lirica. As we were freshening up and getting ready for dinner, the Lirica’s crew prepared to head out to sea. It’s fun to go on the upper deck and watch the sail away from port. We usually ate dinner as a group in the main dining room. After dinner, we would watch a great show in the main auditorium. As we were sleeping, the Lirica would take us to a new and exciting port.
Today we woke up on the Greek Island of Mykonos. If you like, the cruise line will plan your whole day for you. This does come at a cost though. Wherever possible we liked to do some exploring on our own. Mykonos is a great port to explore on your own. It does, however, require a small ferry ride to get from the cruise port to the town. The cruise line hired a ferry to transport passengers to town. They made it very convenient and quite easy to charge for this ferry. It pays to do a little research about each port. I found out that you could buy a ticket directly from the same ferry company for considerably less. Not only was it less expensive, they used a different ferry. The ferry was not as jam packed full as the cruise line ferry. A side trip we could have taken while visiting Mykonos, is a trip to the ancient ruins on the nearby island of Delos. The cruise line has a shore excursion to Delos. This same ferry company also goes to Delos for less. We decided not to go to Delos. Robbie and I and a few of the others spent the day in Mykonos. There were a couple of people in our group that did do one of the Mykonos shore excursions. Disembarking the ship was quick and easy. We found the ticket booth for the ferry and purchased our tickets. On the way to the ferry, there were several brightly colored, old wooden fishing boats. I really liked these old wooden boats.
Getting off of the ferry in the old port of Mykonos, we were greeted by a reminder of our old friend again, Agios Nikolaos (Saint Nicolas). St. Nicolas is the patron saint of sailors and fisherman. Agios Nikolaos, the small whitewashed church with its bright blue dome has a prominent place in the old port. Locals would enter the church to light a candle and say a prayer for their sea going friends and family. Mykonos is dotted with dozens of small whitewashed churches with brightly colored domes. Each ancient local family was required to build a small church to worship and celebrate religious holidays. The small churches also housed the bones of family members. There must have been lots of families on Mykonos back then.
Strolling through the giraffe patterned stone streets of Mykonos is a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. The narrow streets are lined by whitewashed buildings, with blue or red trim, laced with colorful bougainvillea. There are lots of shops selling everything from souvenirs to high end clothing, jewelry and art.
Having just been in Venice, we needed to check out a small section of Mykonos called Little Venice. It’s basically a row of buildings that were built right on the edge of the sea. Most of them are restaurants or bars with an awesome view of the Aegean Sea.
From Little Venice we got a great view of the windmills of Mykonos. The windmills are the most well known landmarks on the island. Six of the windmills are on a hillside overlooking the Aegean Sea. This is a beautiful location with an awesome view of the sea. This was also the best location to harness the winds of the Aegean. The wind power was used for grinding grain. Today some of them have been converted into homes. One of them is listed on Airbnb. That would be a great place to stay.
As we were making our way through the town, Sandy kept an eye out for a nice restaurant to have lunch. She thought Katerina’s looked nice. Katerina’s was one of the restaurants in Little Venice. So we made our way back to Little Venice. Sandy made a great choice, Katerina’s was awesome! We had a nice view of the Aegean and our waiter was great! I had the linguini and shrimp, it was very good! Everyone else enjoyed their meals as well. The waiter brought us some baklava to share; it was amazing! As we were finishing our lunch two weary travelers came in. It was Sherry and her husband Jeff, from our group. They had taken one of the shore excursions. It was interesting that they chose the same restaurant. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” (Casablanca)
Feeling rejuvenated from our refreshing lunch, we made some plans for the rest of our afternoon. While doing my pre-trip planning I was reading about Boni’s windmill. Boni’s has been totally restored and is now a museum. Unfortunately the museum was closed for the season. The best thing about Boni’s is the location. It’s perched high above Mykonos and has the best view in town. So I wanted to go to there. Barb wanted to do some shopping, so we split up. Robbie went with Barb, Sandy and Jerry. Marcia and her husband Jack came along with me to Boni’s. The thing about the best view in town is that it involves a fairly steep climb. We huffed and puffed and the view kept getting better and better, driving us to the top. The climb was totally worth it. The view from Boni’s was amazing! Marcia and Jack saw another place they wanted to explore. I wanted some more photos of Mykonos, so we split off exploring in different directions. I made my way back down the hill through a maze of narrow walkways with whitewashed buildings and churches. Back at sea level there was a nice beach. A dip in the Aegean would have been nice. I didn’t bring my swim suit though. Walking along the waterfront, I found Robbie and Jerry having drinks at a cafe. I ordered a nice cold Greek beer as we waited for Sandy and Barb. On the way to the ferry I had to get a gelato. They wouldn’t let me on the ferry with it, but we still had some time before it departed. Still no sign of Marcia and Jack. We hoped they would catch the next ferry, and they did. Mykonos was a great town! It had a very relaxing vibe to it. Just lazily wondering this beautiful town was an enjoyable way to spend the day.
roy thoman photography 