Phot-o' the Day: Los Milenios on the Malecon; Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

The Malecon is the concrete boardwalk adjacent to the Pacific Ocean (well, technically -- and I am all about the technical accuracy here -- the Bahia de Banderas, the bay that is responsible for the "Puerto" in "Puerto Vallarta"). It's lined with all sorts of statuary. Such as, por ejemplo, "Los Milenios," or "the Millennia," en ingles. This symbolizes the passage of time, for the origins of earth to the present. Time, apparently, passes in a curvilinear fashion.

Visited February 2011.

Phot-o' the Day: "Temos Sardinha" in Alfama; Lisbon, Portugal

I've been to 49 states and 31 countries, and the only place on earth I've been where the restaurants proudly proclaim that they have sardines is Portugal. "Temos sardinha." "We have sardines." The good news is that they also have sangria, as in "Temos Sangria."

Sardines are something of a cultural icon in Portugal. Other than that, it's a great place to visit.

This photo is in the Alfama neighborhood of Lisbon, where the streets are so steep and windy that ordinary public transportation cannot access it. Visited September 2017.

Phot-o' the Day: Looking Down Into Upper Plitvice Lakes; Pletvica Selo, Croatia

I was talking about Plitvice Lakes, Croatia, just the other day, so I thought it was time to post a picture. You can see the wooden walkways just above the water's surface, which you walk on to see the sights. And you can see a cave in the cliffside.

Plitvice Lakes is a series of lakes separated by waterfalls in Central Croatia. If you see Croatia on a map, it looks like a horseshoe with the open prongs facing east and southeast. Plitvice Lakes is at the near end of the southeast prong of the horseshoe. Or you could look it up on Google maps.

I've been twice. Two totally different experiences. In 2014, the park was completely flooded after a summer of incessant rain. And the rain was coming down hard during the visit. The good news is that the waterfalls were full of water and looked amazingly impressive. In 2019, the sun was out, the temperatures were mild, and the weather was perfect. I'm not complaining, but the waterfalls were smaller and weaker because, of course there is going to be more water when you're in the middle of a flood.

The sun is out in the above picture, which means it is from the October 2019 trip.

Phot-o' the Day: Arc de Triomf; Barcelona, Spain

Barcelona has got an Arc de Triomphe, too. It shares some superficial similarities to the most famous of the world's Arc de Triomphes, that being the one on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. This one is smaller (how much smaller, I do not know, as I did not bring a tape measure). It is red brick. And even though it is named "Arch of Triumph," it is not a war memorial.

Of course it would not be. Spain has not had much luck in wars for almost 500 years now.

(Ba-da dum)

It was built to be the entrance gate for the 1888 world's fair being held in Barcelona. In the Catalan language, it is the Arc de Triomf, which also is the name of the nearby Metro stop. In Spanish, it is the Arco de Triunfo. (Linguistic primer here: Catalan is not a "dialect" of Spanish. It is its own language. It seems to fit precisely halfway between Spanish and French, which makes sense given the geographic locale of Catalonia. Sometimes the Catalan word or phrase looks more Spanish; sometimes it looks more French. "Arc de Triomf" is an instance where the Catalan looks more like the French.)

Visited September 2015.

Phot-o' the Day: Wax Palms in the Valle de Cocora, outside Salento, Colombia

Wax palms are the Burj Khalifa of the palm tree world.* They are the tallest of the palm trees, which means they are very tall indeed. They are able to survive strong winds because of their slender shape. The place to see wax palms is the Valle de Cocora Nature Preserve in Quindio province, near Salento, in Central Colombia. This is the western slope of the Central Cordillera that runs through the middle of Colombia.

(Geology lesson o' the day. In southern Colombia, the Andes mountains split into three ranges, or cordilleras, as the mountains move northward to where the South American tectonic plate bangs up against the Caribbean. Or, if you prefer, the three mountain ranges that run like spines, north-south, through Colombia merge to form the single mountain range we know as the Andes, continuing all the way down to the very southern tip of the South American continent.)

Visited September 2012.
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 *  I have never been to Dubai. I have never seen the Burj Khalifa. I hear that it is tall. Hence the analogy.

Sunday Church Phot-o' the Day: Inside the Biserica Mănăstirii Stavropoleos; Bucharest, Romania

The Biserica Mănăstirii Stavropoleos, or the Stavropoleosis Monastery Church has got to considered among the most beautiful churches in Bucharest, Romania. I cannot be certain that it rates as "the most beautiful," although it would have to be a strong contender, exterior as well as interior. I have not visited all 1,883,425 Orthodox churches in Bucharest (one for every resident of the city).

Yes, that number is exaggerated (the number of churches, that is) (as far as I know that is an accurate number for the total population of the city which is bigger than you would think). But there are a lot of churches in Old Town Bucharest, nearly all of them Romanian Orthodox, and nearly all of the them tiny, which would account for the need for large numbers. (The Russian Orthodox church was the only one that looked regular-sized, what you would expect from a suburban Catholic parish church. All of the Romanian Orthodox churches appeared to be, as we would say, fun sized.)

The Biserica Mănăstirii Stavropoleos is incredibly beautiful, inside and outside. Every square inch is ornamentation, including the saints painted on the walls.

Visited May 2019. (That really feels like 10 million years ago as we are now in the fifth month of the COVID lockdowns.)

Phot-o' the Day: Grotto Geyser; Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming USA

Yellowstone in artsy black and white.

Grotto Geyser was particularly steamy at the time. This is in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park, near the most famous geyser in the history of geyser-dom, Old Faithful.

Visited September 2019. Y'know, if everything is still in lockdown this fall, and international travel is out of the question, and Hawaii (which I only want to visit so I will have been to all 50 of the states of the USA) is still doing the eternal-quarantine thing, so I'm only left with Mainland USA travel options, a return trip to Yellowstone probably would be my choice. It took me 59 years to finally get here and I have no excuse for what took me so long. It is unlike anyplace on planet earth.

Until the super-volcano underneath it all blows.

Phot-o' the Day: Looking Down on Douro; Porto, Portugal

This is the Douro River, viewed from high atop the Ponte Luis I (the Luis I Bridge). Porto, Portugal, is to the right. Vila Nova de Gaia, the suburb on the southern shore of Douro, is on the left. Squint really really hard and you still will not be able to see all of Port Wine cellars found in Vila Nova. They're all there, on that side of the Douro, rather than the Porto side.

It was a beautiful day that day in September 2017 when I visited Porto. So here's the original uncropped photo in living color:

Blue water. Red tile roofs. Grey metal on the bridge rail. You don't need many crayolas in the box of 64 to color this scene, but it's still very colorful.

Phot-o' the Day: Jose Artigas, on Horseback, Views the Palacio Salvo; Montevideo, Uruguay

So much Uruguay packed into this single photo.

The man on the horse is José Gervasio Artigas, who fought for the independence of Uruguay in the early 19th Century. He's the Simon Bolivar, or the George Washington, of his country, to analogize. (And, befitting the George Washington parallel, there is a statue of Artigas in Washington, D.C., at Constitution Avenue, 18th Street and Virginia Avenue, across from the OAS building.) The statue is in Plaza Independencia, in the center of Montevideo, separating the old city from the modern metropolis. He is pointed towards Palacio Salvo, the signature building of the Montevideo skyline, with its art deco "rocket ship" decorations flanking the main tower.

Visited November 2013.

Phot-o' the Day: Rush Hour under the Charles Bridge; Prague, Czech Republic

On the Vltava River, alongside the iconic Charles Bridge, is the place to be in Prague.

Not for me, however. I'm on the riverbank, since cruising down the river is not my thing when visiting a river city. If it's your thing: awesome. It's great that not everybody wants to do the exact same thing when visiting a city. Because it's not-so-great at all when you visit a place and everybody wants to see the exact same time. So take that cruise down the Vltava when you visit Prague. You'll enjoy. I'll pass.

From my October 2011 visit.

Phot-o' the Day: Plaza Mayor, Villa de Leyva, Colombia

Back in Black. And White.

This is the Plaza Mayor in Villa De Leya, Colombia, late morning on a hot November day. (It's near the equator, so there is no seasonal cooling in November. There's only rainy season and dry season and this is from the dry season.) Villa de Leyva is a fun little tourist magnet about four hours north of Bogota by bus (the only way to get there) (unless you have a car) (and I would not recommend driving in Colombia, especially anywhere close to Bogota) (the buses are clean, cheap and worry-free).

Villa de Leyva may be a tourist magnet, but it's not "tourist-y," because nearly all of the other tourists are from Colombia. Here's one of many travel rules: Tourist towns in foreign countries are huge fun when you're the only American tourist in town.

VdeL visited in November 2018.

Phot-o' the Day: Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho USA

A trail through black volcanic rock leading to a mound of black volcanic rock

Today is the 51st anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the surface of the moon, shortly thereafter, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin taking those small steps for men, giant leaps for mankind, on the lunar surface.

In all my travels, I've not yet been to the moon. I think, back in 1969, we just assumed that we would be able to visit there as tourists by now. But we're not. I've been to Moon Township, Pennsylvania. They have a very nice airport there. I've been to Half Moon Bay, California. They have a very nice ocean there. And I've been to Craters of the Moon National Monument, which is somewhere near nowhere in Southern Central Idaho. They have a lot of very nice rocks there. Lots of rocks.

I'm not sure why Craters of the Moon, the national monument, was named what it was. The surface is hard black volcanic rock. There are no craters per se. And gravity works just the same there as anywhere else on the earth's surface, so I'm not sure what's supposed to be "lunar" about the place. But I guess it's as close to the surface of the moon as I am going to get this lifetime.

Sunday Church Phot-o' the Day: Inside the Frauenkirche; Nuremberg, Germany

Interior shot from the Frauenkirche, the Church of Our Lady, on the Hauptmarkt in Nuremberg, Germany. The Hauptmarkt is the large square just north of the river (the Pegnitz, for those keeping score) that is the center for Nuremberg's famous Christmas market.

I visited Nuremberg in December 2018 specifically to visit the Christmas market. Nuremberg's Christmas market is considered to the best in all the world by the experts -- yes, there are people who are experts on all the various European Christmas market -- which in yet another tangential digression is more appropriately referenced as an "Advent" market since they are open for the Advent season, pre-Christmas, rather than the Christmas season, which begins with Christmas Day.

One of my more major travel regrets is that I did not set aside enough time to see and explore Nuremberg. The Christmas Market the evening of my arrival was all the Nuremberg I allotted time to see. The next morning I was off to Trier, Germany. Nuremberg would have been worth a whole day, or two. I'm not sure if I'll make it through to here again, since Nuremberg is a little difficult to get to, as it's in the center of the country and all the major cities and other places people want to see in Tourist Germany are on the country's periphery. This looks like a regret that will always remain unsated.

Phot-o' the Day: Mardi Gras World; New Orleans, Louisiana USA

This one knocked my block off.

Larger than life Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, just waiting to be placed atop some Mardi Gras float. While they are not waiting in their respective corners for the next round to begin, they are waiting inside the enormous Mardi Gras World warehouse in the Port of New Orleans, Louisiana. Mardi Gras floats are built here -- it's a year round operation -- and past designs are warehoused here for recycling / re-purposing on future floats. Open for tours, too, when these sorts of things are open.

Visited May 2013.

Phot-o' the Day: A Tutorial on Playing Go; Ritan Park; Beijing, China

Ritan Park, just east of the central core of Beijing, People's Republic of China, is the place to see the ancient Temple of the Sun.  It is also a place where you can receive a tutorial on the playing of the Chinese boardgame Go, learning from one of the game's masters.  This expert, pictured above, was very passionate about the game and really immersed in explaining the intricacies of Go.  Unfortunately, the lesson was conducted only in Mandarin Chinese and the wisdom of his ages was lost on me.

Visited in July 2018.

Phot-o' the Day: Pletna Boats in the Rain, with Castle; Lake Bled, Slovenia

Pass the word the pics are back.

After taking a few weeks off, I'm back to posting phot-o's the day. And I am getting back into the groove by posting a pic from what I consider the most photogenic place on earth, at least among places I've visited. Lake Bled, Slovenia. These are the rowing-powered pletna boats (used to transport us tourists to the island in the middle of the lake with the church on it), at the dock waiting out the rain, with the imposing Bled Castle looming large high atop a rock face, on the other side of the lake.

This was from my first visit to Lake Bled, back in May 2010.