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“If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today.”
E. Joseph Cossman
So very much has happened in the last year; it is difficult sometimes to ‘get one’s head around it’. These photos were taken a year apart! Where would I rather be?…
Tags: Holiday, Mexico, Photo, Snow, Sunshine, Victoria, Weather, winter
Well, here we are at the end of this short retrospective – one year on – of our 2019 trip to the UK and Greece. The Girl and I had a wonderful and memorable visit to Europe – a fine balance between spending time with loved ones and old friends, revisiting a bit of the old country and getting to wallow in glorious antiquity in a part of the world that neither of us had known well.
As is the way of such things, on our return to BC we immediately started thinking about and planning further excursions, little knowing that – along with everyone else – our future travel plans would all have to be put on ice for an indeterminate and possibly indefinite period.
The Girl and I loved Athens and you can read the notes of a year ago and view the photos that I posted here and here.
Finally – a few more images from those taken in Athens:
Tags: Europe, Greece, Holiday, Memories, Photo, Travel, United Kingdom
This time last year we had just returned from the splendid trip to the UK and to Greece that I am re-living vicariously through the medium of this journal.
The timing of this particular post is really quite apposite because – having rounded off our splendid reunion with the UK and headed south to join our cruise ship for the first phase of our Greek visit – it was no longer possible for me to publish posts to the blog, on account of the paucity and cost of the Internet connections on board ship. As a result I unleashed a stream of such postings after we returned to Canada – starting with this one.
I had visited Greece once before, though that time to a different set of islands – the Dodecanese. This time we would be mostly in the Cyclades. For The Girl this would be a first visit to any part of Greece and neither of us had been to Athens – where we would spend a few days at the end of our cruise. Much, then, to look forward to.
Now – with regard to the cruise itself the postings that I made on our return were really quite comprehensive and laden with (if i say so myself) quite lovely photographs. If the Greek islands are of interest to you do take a look around. As for this post – well – I will do my best to dig out any interesting images that did not make the cut first time around. I know that I took plenty – so I am hopeful…
These images are from our visits to Santorini, to Heraklion and Knossos and to Ephesus:
Having bid a fond farewell to my brother at the end of my second week (and The Girl’s first week) in the UK at around this time last year – and having at the same time reluctantly extracted ourselves from the slightly strange but delightful decadence of a mostly empty Oatland’s Park Hotel (for such it was, though I did not name it at the time), we set out on a short road trip to impose ourselves on the hospitality of lovely friends in Essex (Colchester), Kent (Sevenoaks) and Berkshire (Maidenhead).
A lesson that we learned from our trip as a whole – but from this segment in particular – was that though it was absolutely lovely to see again such a great number of those from whom we had been separated for at least the length of time that we had been resident in Canada… paying fleeting visits to them was never going to be enough.
However generously and warmly we were received, entertained and generally spoiled rotten it was impossible not to feel that we had cheated these good folk out of the joys of our extended company. I say this not from any excess of ego on my (our!) part, but merely echoing the sentiments that they themselves repeatedly expressed (as well, of course, as our own feelings) at the point at which we had, reluctantly, to tear ourselves away and to move on to our next port of call.
I hope that my postings – then and now – have expressed adequately just how grateful we are for the amazing hospitality that we were shown by all concerned. Thank you.
I looked back over the photos that I took on this part of the trip. I make a point – as any regular readers of these jottings will no doubt have noticed – of not uploading to the blog any pictures that identifiably include the people of whom I write (including myself, for which the gentle reader will be most grateful!). I do so as a point of principle; the matter concerning privacy. I extend my caution also to names and to other such detail. Not all bloggers adhere to such strictures. I do!
Sometimes however – as in this instance – I am as a result left a little short of interesting material with which to embellish my postings. In the case of our mini-tour I took photos of some of the lovely people with whom we stayed that must remain – and will remain – private.
Fortunately I, at least, get to look back at them…
Tags: Celebration, Friends, Holiday, Memories, Travel
The Girl is slowly getting over her sinus infection. I am fighting off a mild attack of the sniffles (no comparison!). Let us cheer ourselves up with a quick miscellany of jolly images of sun-drenched Zihuatanejo (where the maximum temperature varies by less than 5 degrees C – across the whole year!)…
“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Newton’s third law of motion
There are some – particularly amongst those who feel compelled to seek correspondence between their understanding of science (such as it maybe) and their religious beliefs – to seize upon the encapsulation of scientific principles and – by treating them as apothegms – to claim that therein lies the justification/basis for some scarcely connected spiritual practice.
Such folk take – for example – Newton’s third law of motion (“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”) and find a parallel with the Hindu and Buddhist concepts of ‘karma’ – and in particular the idea that one’s fate or destiny is shaped by one’s previous actions.
Now – I have no truck with such notions… except where they afford me with a cheap headline for a blog post.
Such as the one above…
Naturally I also vigorously reject any suggestion that – in The Girl’s case – our cheeky week in sunny Zihuatanejo was repaid by the universe by her going down with a sinus infection the very second that our feet hit the ground back at Victoria International (YJJ). I am sure that all gentle readers out there in InterWebNetLand will join me in saying a heartfelt “There, there” and sending empathetic and positive vibes for a speedy recovery.
Falling ill on immediate return from a holiday is a double edged sword. Not only does one feel terrible – with the contrast to the recent relaxing and sun-drenched delights only rendering the agony yet more palpable – but being off work the moment that one has returned tends to increase the antipathy of one’s colleagues – particularly those that did not themselves recently get away somewhere lovely and warm. Hardly fair given the fact that one is not simply swanning around at home having a gay old time of it!
Of course, the fact that spring has not yet fully sprung here in BC and that this particularly wet start to the year shows no signs of being any less so in the immediate future does little to help.
It is frankly about time that things perked up here!
“ANDY: Think you’ll ever get out of here?
RED: Sure. When I got a long white beard and about three marbles left rolling around upstairs.
ANDY: Tell you where I’d go. Zihuatanejo.
RED: Zihuatanejo?
ANDY: Mexico. Little place right on the Pacific. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That’s where I’d like to finish out my life, Red. A warm place with no memory. Open a little hotel right on the beach. Buy some worthless old boat and fix it up like new. Take my guests out charter fishing.”
The Shawshank Redemption – by Frank Darabont
Based upon the story – ‘Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption’ – by Stephen King
“I’m Mexican. I eat salsa with everything.”
Anjelah Johnson
I believe that I have mentioned previously within these musings that The Girl and I were going to take advantage of the College having a ‘reading week’ this February to run away to Mexico for a little R & R – not to mention some much needed sunshine and warmth.
And here we are – in a rather lovely and luxuriously verdant resort near Xtapa – which is itself but a stone’s throw from Zihuatenajo. As ever I cannot travel without taking pictures. Herewith a random introductory selection:
It has taken a good seven weeks since we returned from Europe to reach my last missive on the subject of our jaunt to the UK and to the Greek islands. In part this is because our experience over there was so varied and so rich (and I found I had taken so many photographs that I wanted to share) that it has taken this long to get all of my thoughts and all of the images organised for presentation. I hope that this extended rumination on our adventures has not too badly outstayed its welcome.
Anyway…
When in Athens…
…one must visit the Acropolis and see the Parthenon (along with much of the other antiquity on offer in the city). We hired a young archeologist to act as a guide and set forth under the blazing sun. Photographs were very much in order. Here are the barbarian hordes, storming the Propylaea.
The Acropolis hill hosts a number of major structures in addition to the Parthenon itself. This is the Erechtheion with its famous porch of Caryatids.
It is no surprise that the monument is under continual – and, nowadays, sympathetic – restoration. There are strict limits on how much non-original material is permitted in the rebuilding and the use of different shades of stone enables the casual visitor to understand what is reproduction and what is not.
The site also encompasses the Odeon of Herodes Atticus…
…which is still used for opera and concert performances – and the Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus, which is not.
The new (a mere ten years old this year) Acropolis museum lies outside the historical site itself, but has been constructed parallel to the Parthenon and with an interior core that is identical in size to the temple. Extensive use of reflective glass allows the Acropolis hill to be reflected on the outside of the museum, with sweeping panoramic views of the hill from the inside.
The museum site is itself of archeological interest and the building effectively sits on stilts above the ground, whilst glass floors and subtle lighting enable the visitor to view the excavations below.
The museum houses many of the precious artifacts recovered from the Acropolis site itself.
One of the most affecting displays is the recreation at the top of the building of the frieze that once surrounded the top of the Parthenon. This extraordinary work comprises a mixture of original carvings and new stonework reproductions. These are clearly delineated so that one can gauge how much (or little) of the original frieze remains, how much has been destroyed – and how much removed to collections in other parts of the world. The majority of the latter – of course – include that extensive number that were removed to London and make up the bulk of the so-called Elgin Marbles in the British Museum.
It as truly startling to see just how much material was plundered from the site and carried away in this manner.
“An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.”
Robert South
Athens, Athens… what can I say of Athens?
At the end of our Greek island cruise we had a couple of days in Athens, a city that neither of us had previously visited but both were eager so to do. I will, naturally, dwell upon such cradles of antiquity as the Acropolis and the Parthenon in another missive, but those aside our few brief days were just a whirlwind of wonderful impressions. That being the case I felt that I might simply try to pass on to the gentle reader a similar excess of imagery. In the words of Elias Canetti:
“Explain nothing. Put it there. Say it. Leave.”
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