THIS BLOG POST APPEARED IN MARCH 2016. HOWEVER SOMETHING WENT TERRIBLY WRONG WITH THIS WEBSITE, IT CRASHED AND THREE OR FOUR POSTS WERE DELETED. I’M REPOSTING THIS ONE AGAIN. THE OTHERS THAT WERE DELETED WILL SOON ALSO BE REPOSTED. BY…
It’s the last week in October. That means soon there’ll be lots of ghosts and goblins walking the streets begging for sugary treats. The TV stations will replay classic vampire and zombie movies. Some intrepid epicureans will delight in eating…
The first week in September we traveled to Seattle for an overdue visit with family. Instead of going to a hotel we decided to make our accommodations through AirBnB, a website for people in the private sector to list, find and rent…
It was a perfect weekend to visit a friend who lives in Rockaway Beach, Queens. She didn’t live here in October 2012 when Superstorm Sandy, a category 3 hurricane, hit this beach community. The storm did major damage to Cuba…
In the early afternoon of August 24th 79 AD an unusual cloud hung over Mt. Vesuvius. We know this because, Pliny The Younger, an 18 year old and one of a handful of people who survived the devastating eruption of…
When the cruise was over we disembarked at a port an hour train ride from Rome, where we would then catch another train and travel down to Naples. I’d miss the quiet evenings of sitting on deck watching the sun…
The more I see of the world the greater is my appetite to experience other locations, food and cultures. When we reached Elba Island, Italy, the last destination on our Mediterranean cruise, I fantasied that I might come back to each…
We hit some pretty rough water a couple of days before the end of our Mediterranean voyage and I was happy to get off the ship and stand on solid ground again when we pulled into Portovenere. This was our…
It was a brilliant day when our boat docked in the harbor of Cannes. The palm trees trembling in a slight offshore Mediterranean breeze gave the place a sense of the tropics. At the time of our arrival the Cannes…
Our vacation is over, we’re back in NYC and I’m seriously jet lagged. I’ve heard that it takes one day for each hour time difference. So, I should be fine by the time I post this. But meanwhile, I wake…