Greencaviar Travel

We arrived in Galway late in the afternoon and had a short visit to the cathedral before checking into our hotel.  We were greeted by a beautiful sunset bursting with orange, pink, and purple hues. I drank on the magnitude of the scenery of the imposing cathedral with the orange and purple sky in the backdrop and took quick pictures inside. The following morning, I decided to go back to the cathedral to learn more about its history and to admire the artwork. With a camera hanging around my neck, I headed to the cathedral, passing narrow cobbled streets lined with pubs, restaurants and gift shops.  The streets were empty and quiet except for the sound of small delivery trucks revving engines. As I was about to cross the bridge leading to the Galway Cathedral, I saw two rivers diverged. ( To borrow a phrase or two from Robert Frost's 'The Road Less Taken'),  I looked down as far as I could  to where a wooden foot bridge lead to a grassy pathway dividing the riv...

Baltic Germany, Part 1 I don’t go on a cruise for the sake of cruising. I don't particularly care about the accommodation on the ship, the show, and the food - the buffet and the supposedly chef's signature dishes prepared for hundreds and hundreds of passengers. I go on a cruise to visit incredible destinations that are not easily accessible by land like Tasmania and Milford Sound or relatively untouched places like Antarctica. Unfortunately, I had been on a cruise where I was not able to reach the two top places in my list of destinations because Mother Nature struck her fury that our ship had to skip a port of call. On a recent cruise to the Baltic, the same thing happened. We skipped two ports of call due to fierce winds. Thankfully, I had a chance to discover Germany's charming medieval towns in the former East Germany (GDR), a place I have not been before, or the cruise to the Baltic would have left me all totally disappointed. To be honest, I was not excited...

I cannot be in Milan and not see Leonardo Da Vinci's “The Last Supper.” So I set aside a day to do the art/museum hopping thing. Although some familiar tour operators offered something called “The Davinci Tour” with guaranteed tickets to see the “Last Supper” for 79 euros, I didn’t want to join a tour group and be rushed; I wanted to enjoy and savor Leonardo’s masterpiece. So the next day, I headed into the town center and looked for the Church of Santa Maria Delle Grazie. I hopped on the usual Metro yellow line from my hotel without studying the metro map that the concierge handed me. I figured the metro was easy and assumed that everybody in Milan would know where the famous painting was. I asked a fellow passenger, where the stop for the Maria Delle Grazie Church and she told me it was the next station which happened to be her stop. As we emerged from the metro, she continued to give me direction to the church. As it turned out,  it was not the church I was looking for. ...

Apple orchards, calvados, camembert, organic farmer’s market and the bucolic scenery c a me to mind as we head north from Paris to Normandy. But when I started firing my SLR camera, all the pictures turned out hazy and blurry like some ‘impressionist’ paintings.  Blame it on my inability to work the new camera, but the photos made me realize that we’re in the region of France where life and art intermingles.   Driving through Normandy is like seeing many impressionist paintings come to life. So what started as a weekend getaway in search of camembert and calvados turned into a few days of ‘Chasing Monet’. Our first stop was at Giverny, an hour drive outside of Paris.  It remains the quiet village where Claude Monet made his home and drew inspiration in his water lily paintings.   The house, and the gardens outside and the water lily pond are now part of the Foundation Claude Monet ( a museum of sort ).  Spring flowers like hyacinth, pompom daisies and ...

I had forgotten just what a beautiful place Venice was.   I have been to Venice three times.   The first time I came here was when I was a young student and we focused more on seeing the artwork at the Basilica of St. Marks or the whole basilica as an art piece.   The second time I came here was when I was on a whirlwind tour in Europe.   I remember our guide taking us for a gondola ride, then a regular boat rides to take us to the restaurant and a show as part of the package tour. Our boat navigated through the narrow canals to get to the restaurant.   The whole place looked sad to me.  I felt sad seeing the dark, empty buildings and thought that Venice was really sinking. Last fall I visited Venice again, I was surprised to see how lively the town had become.   Considering that it was the end of the tourist season, it seemed that the town got more than its fair share of tourists and boat traffic (from the big cruise ships, I guessed). ...