Grand Tour of Italy: My "Collections"

You know me and how I love to "collect" things via photography, right?  So, as I've been trolling through all my images, each in their separate files, I've come up with the following categories to group together as collections of this Grand Tour.

Where to start!

Let's start with TUSCANY, since that area of Italy happened in the first 2-4 days after arriving in Italy, right after Turin (days 4-6 of the trip).

We're talking about the area around Lucca, Pisa, Florence, San Gimignano and Siena.

The olive trees and poplars were everywhere, as well as the vineyards in their early growth.

No wonder everyone loves Tuscany! 

Aster Tuscany we spent 2 days in Rome, the capital of Italy.

SPQR quickly became collectible.

It's Latin for Senatus Populusque Romanus = The Roman Senate and People.

It refers to the government of the ancient Roman Republic.

And since we're talking about Rome, remember ROMULUS and REMUS from Roman mythology?

Lillian Geiger, my high school Latin teacher, would be so proud of me.  HA!

It's probably strange to collect MANHOLE COVERS, but I do, if they have city names on them:

Roma, Firenze (2), Napoli (in Pompeii), Amalfi, Sirmione (at Lake Garda), Alberobello and Verona.

And WEATHERVANES, of course, even though all were on churches/public buildings.

Then there were the buildings we saw from the bus while going from here to there...

...like CASTLES and CHURCHES, usually from afar on the horizon.

My zoom was often at 1200 mm, which made focus difficult, but you get the gist.  

Because these were in passing, I have no clue what/where they are.

Sprawling CITIES dotted the landscape, like Naples (top-right) which we only passed.
The middle image is Cassino, looking down from the mount above (Montecassino).

Do these HOUSES look like Italy to you?

How about these:  APARTMENTS, FARMS.

Sometimes an "unfinished" building looks abandoned but isn't, we were told.

One small area of the house is lived in without having to pay taxes...because it's "unfinished."

But clearly some, often in ruins, are ABANDONED STRUCTURES.

They bear testament to a country facing bankruptcy and a bailout from the EU.

Where is all that Mafia money when you need it!

However, it's an entirely different story when you do see the magnificent VILLAS along the seas,

the Mediterranean Sea on the western side and the Adriatic Sea on the eastern coast.

Like Tuscany, it's what we think of when most of us "see" Italy in our mind's eye.

All of the above...in "collections"...to give recollections of this Grand Tour!

A Giessen River Boat Ride

Do you ever feel that sometimes you have way too much fun?!  HA!

Well, this is one of those times, almost 3 weeks ago, when Astrid and I joined our friends, Margreeth (mother) and Natascha (daughter), for a Saturday's boat ride on our nearby Giessen river, just 7.5 km from home.

It so happens that Margreeth's brother, who lives in Giessenburg, owns an electric-motor boat.

Out of the goodness and generosity of his heart, along with his wife, we had access to it for the day. 

(Notice that I have a photo of them and their house...but not the boat!)

Here's the collage I put up on Facebook of Natascha's iPhone images.

(Did I mention it was a hot day and I had to keep myself covered from the blistering sun?)

Think about 4.5 hours of lazily cruising the Giessen river...the operative word being lazily.

Just ogling the real estate along the way was worth the trip.

Location.  Location.  Location.  (right?)

We watched mamas and papas along the way feeding their babies. 

It was educational.

(Have you ever seen a great crested grebe that wasn't soaked to the skin?)

Speaking of eating, we did our own thing right there on the boat.

A picnic on a boat!

Everything else was frosting on the cake.

What you see is what you get when you are lazily passing by.

We especially enjoyed seeing the Ons Museum from the river, which we had visited in 2014.

But to be honest, it was the cows who made my day, there at the water's edge.

By now, back away from the water, our earth is parched for lack of rain and the heat.

The cows teach us about how to deal with this extreme weather, right?

And then it was the windmill at the far end before we turned back.

It's the Oudendijkse Molen from 1683.

What is it about windmills!

I put this collage on Facebook today and someone said Astrid looked like a little girl!

I think all 4 of us (each with our turn at the helm) were little girls that day.

I even got my "fix" of weathervanes, all from the boat.
(Most of these I've shown before.)

Let's just say we had the Life of Riley that day...

thanks to the generosity of dear friends.

Nicholas in The Netherlands, 2018 Review

After our time in Atlanta for Nicholas' high school graduation (last post), we flew back to Amsterdam, bringing Nicholas back with us as our graduation gift to him.

You may remember that he was here for 2 weeks back in 2015, when he turned 15.  How 3 years can make such a difference is beyond me, but at his age, that's 1/6th of his life.  HA!

So, for those of you who have watched him grow up, here you go:

Our first full day after arriving was Monday Market day.

Astrid began this stay by making a Dutchman out of him, eating herring the Dutch way.

More Dutch you cannot get.  [Even I have not done that!]

To be honest, this time we didn't try to cram everything in, going all over tarnation.

But we DID do something almost every day, even it it was just a citadel walk.

One goal was to find the 27 Memory Bricks that are hidden around Gorinchem since his last trip.

 Nicholas helped us find 25 of the bricks over several days.  

[Astrid and I are still hoping to find the other two.]

On his last Saturday, Astrid and Nicholas climbed the church tower of our nearby Grote Kerk.

I stayed below to capture them once they reached the top.

There were also times of meeting up with friends and family close to home, 

where Nicholas could share in the life we live here.

He said those times were some of his favorites.

We DID go out-n-about, of course, even to Germany,
giving him another country-notch on his belt, like Belgium the last time.

We drove to Monschau, Germany, 218 km southeast of Gorinchem.

OMG!  Half-timbered houses, a castle and a river running through it all.

This was actually a birthday gift to me from Astrid!  Can you see why?!

So many wonderful memories in that idyllic tourist town.

I even collected a few weathervanes while there!

We then drove to Düren for an overnight before driving to Cologne, Germany, the next day.

We wanted Nicholas to see a HUGE European cathedral!

It doesn't get much bigger or better than the Cologne Cathedral...

and it's neighboring promenade along the Rhine river and it's bridge of love padlocks.

A shorter trip to nearby De Haar castle in Utrecht gave Nicholas another castle experience.

We took him last time to the Loevestein castle (from 1368) across the Merwede river from us.

De Haar is from 1892 and hosted many movie actors over time because of the Rothschild family

who funded the rebuilding of the castle that had gone to ruin over the years.

Then it was my 73rd birthday on June 13 and Astrid took us to the Rotterdam shipping port

for a 75-minute cruise of the 3rd largest shipping port behind Shanghai and Singapore.

Guess what!  On your birthday you get the cruise for free.  Lucky me.

Seeing monstrosities like this gives new meaning to the word 'shipping.'

Rotterdam is one of the cities destroyed during WWII

whose rise from the ashes gave new meaning to quirky architecture.  We love it.

We then drove 30 km west to the world's largest lock/storm barrier in nearby Hoek van Holland.

The Maeslantkering is part of the Dutch Delta Works and closes when flooding is a threat.

You know me.  I have to play around.
The top of this hill was our vantage point for seeing the storm barrier.

And because we were so close to the North Sea, we continued on to the beach.

Just had to touch the water...and eat an ice cream!

One last trip was to nearby Wijk bij Duurstede, 53 km from home.

Can't believe we didn't take him last time to the only drive-through windmill in the world!

The castle isn't available for inside viewing apart from event venues.

I bet you can imagine getting married there, right?!  

We even picked up fresh cherries along the way.

It's one of our favorite short-trip visits.

And like the Memory Bricks in Gorinchem, Nicholas helped us find the windmill tiles in the road.

They must be new since our last time because it was our first time seeing them. 

That was our last outing before taking Nicholas back to Amsterdam on June 17.

Two delightful weeks of just BEING together before he goes off to Oregon in the fall.

Nicholas Joseph Grannan.  Class of  2018.

We're still pinching ourselves because we feel so lucky to be his g'mas!

AMERICA 2017: The Facebook Overview with Ted and Jane in CT

There and back again!  Don't you wonder how these annual trips--the pegs on which we hang the year--come and go so quickly.  Sliding right down into the New Year....

But I digress.

Our 3-week trip to America this year has 3 distinct parts, of which the one week at the beginning, with friends Ted and Jane, is the first.

It's actually a short story of how we met.  In my past life, Donica and I took a quick trip to Prague from Hannover, Germany, in May 2005, during which time we did a dinner cruise.  Back then, 12 years ago, I was just beginning to use a camera and had just started blogging here at In Soul!  (If you wanted, you could go back to my archives on the left sidebar to find those posts.)

During that cruise, we met Ted and Jane from Connecticut (but alas, no photos of them).

And because Ted is an avid photographer, we've stayed in touch all these years.
He is the very one, from Today's Photo, who often comments here on my blog!

It's a small world after all!

Here they are!
After Ted and Jane picked us up at the Bradley Int'l Airport near Hartford, CT,

we stopped to eat Reuben and pastrami sandwiches at one of their favorite Jewish cafes.

We were counting on this proposition for weeks, if not months, after Jane first suggested it! 

Every day on FB that week both Astrid and I showed photos of what we saw.

Ted knew we'd be interested in the Congregational churches dotting the CT landscape.

What was educational for me, however, was finding out how these churches,

dating back to the 1700-1800s, trace their origin to the Puritan settlers of colonial New England.

[And yes, we went inside a handful of these churches, which I hope to show later.]

All these vanes are from the Congregational churches we visited.

Don't you wonder if there's a "congregational code" for how similar they are?

Makes me want to know more....

You know I was excited also to see the other vanes during the week.  OMG.
The Dutch aren't the only ones, of course, who love their vanes.

We were in CT from October 11-18 and saw the beginning of the fall colors.

Can you imagine living there?

Another thing we planned before arriving was one of Ted's slide talks on his Brass Valley book.

Lucky for us, he was able to arrange a talk at the Warren library, 8 miles from home. 

With degrees in architecture and literature, he taught for 40 years in Connecticut's Northwest Hills.
We finally got to see/hear him in action!  A true teacher at heart.

Not to be outdone, we even had the chance to see/hear Jane rehearsing with bagpipers.

Funerals, weddings, graduations, celebrations...you name it and she'll be there, if you book her.

She also was a teacher before retiring.  What a talented couple!

It so happens that Ted and Jane were both sick when we arrived,

having caught something from friends while in Toronto earlier.

I caught it from them but, thankfully, Astrid was spared.

So off she went on her own walks without us...and shared her own photos on FB.

I did go on a couple walks with her, so you know I wasn't totally incapacitated.

The Shepaug River runs along the road near the house.

By that river Astrid captured some fabulous images, reminding me why I fell in love with her.

She even made her own rock pillar/shrine, adding it to the collection already there

[surely more on that later].

So, does that give you a taste of our first week?

Ted and Jane were fabulous hosts and made us feel like queens (which we are, of course).

And what's really special, I like them more NOW than what I remembered from back in 2005.

Don't you just love when this kind of serendipity happens!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

As an FYI, neither Astrid nor I took our laptops to America this time...only our iPads.
It meant that all our images had to be processed apart from our Photoshop and Paintshop tools.
We managed well enough with the LiveCollage app and will continue to not travel with our laptops.
The things we learn along the way!