Greencaviar Travel

2014 has been a great year for travel. Although I would rather talk about the poetry and romance of travel, I’m very thankful for the blessings of good health and the strong economy. I like the quote, “Travel is the only thing you buy in life that makes you richer.” I must add that the money I spent to see places and do the things in my travels, gave me more than a thousand percent return on investment. It’s priceless. I learned so many things and found religion in so many places. That said, I’d like to borrow another phrase from Yes, Virginia There Is a Santa Claus , “In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge." In addition to finding religion in a place said to be the holiest place on earth, I also found God in the rocks of Uluru and Kata-Tjuta and Cappadocia, and the rock walls of Petra, the skies of

As they say, no trip to New Zealand is complete without a visit to “The Lord of the Rings” movie location. As an avid fan of “The Lord of the Rings," I visited three movie locations: Mt. Victoria in Wellington, the Hobbiton Movie Set (a bit cheesy) and Edoras. And the most impressive was my journey to Edoras. (Sorry, for the reference to those of you who have not read “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy or seen the movies.) In J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional Middle-Earth, Edoras is the capital city in the kingdom of Rohan, built atop a rocky outcrop in a valley surrounded by craggy mountains. The countryside of Rohan is a land of pastures and lush tall grassland that is frequently windswept. Peter Jackson brought this fictional place to life in the film “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” which was filmed on location in the Canterbury region of New Zealand. Many scene shots were taken from the Rangitata Valley. The movie set was built on top of the hill called Mount Sunday (Edoras).