Panoramas just won’t fit

On December 19, 2022December 20, 2022 By Jim BellomoIn Photography6 Comments

I love shooting panoramic (pano) photos. Not the kind you do with your iPhone. The ones I take are usually composed of a series of photos I have taken from the same place, with my feet firmly planted on the ground. I swivel my upper body and shoot anywhere from six to 15 photos. Before I start shooting them, I take a photo of my left foot. Then when I finish, I take a photo of my right foot. When I am doing my photo triage, later on, I know where the pano starts and ends.

Then I process those photos in Camera RAW and stitch them together in Photoshop. From that, I have gotten some pretty good panoramic photos. But I will let you decide. I decided to put together this post because I have so many panoramic photos, but I can’t post them on Facebook or Instagram because they crop them severely. When I do, you can only see the very center section. So here are a few of my own with a caption that tells you where I took them. As you will see, I take them both indoors and out, of scenery and people as well. Anytime I have a subject that won’t fit into one frame. My shortest (the indoor one in Naples) is only three photos stitched together. My longest (not sure which one) might have as many as 20.

Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. To really see these, you have to see them BIG!

My best pano…Puerto Vallarta sunrise

My most recent pano…The Boeing Museum of Flight

Victoria, British Columbia

Venice, Italy

Cinqe Terre, Italy

Split, Croatia-1

The first Olympic stadium, Athens, Greece

Taromina, Italy

Bonaire

Split, Croatia-2

Taromina, Italy

New Orleans, Louisiana

Toronto Aquarium

Athens, Greece

Niagara Falls, New York

Monte Carlo, Monaco

Mariner Spring Training Game, Peoria, AZ

View from the Acroplis, Athens, Greece

Athens harbor, Athens, Greece

Sedona, Arizona

The Parthenon, Athens Greece

Kotor, Montenegro

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Naples, Italy

Taromina, Italy

Monte Carlo, Monaco

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Akaroa, New Zealand

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Dunedin, New Zealand

Interior of the dining room on Holland America’s Nieuw Statendam

The beach at Seaside, Oregon

The Biosphere outside Tucson, Arizona

Bonaire

Avalon Harbor, Catalina Island

Celebrity Century

Downtown Curacao

Dawes Glacier, Alaska

Allure of the Seas

Inside a mall in Naples, Italy

In the beginning, the cubists broke up form without even knowing they were doing it. Probably the compulsion to show multiple sides of an object forced us to break the object up – or, even better, to project a panorama that unfolded different facets of the same object.
—Marchel Duchamp

Last day in Florida

On July 3, 2021 By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized5 Comments

If this post comes off as a little loopy it’s because we had to leave Mike and Cathy’s house this morning at 2:15 am to get to the airport for our flight to Quito. So please forgive any omissions or mistakes. Plus I am writing it in our Quito hotel room where the altitude is 9,000 plus feet.

I finished the last post before we left for dinner and a concert on Thursday so I wanted to drop a little bit in here to finish up our visit with Mike and Cathy. On Thursday night we went to a free community concert that Mike and Cathy go to all the time. And then on Friday we did a super relaxing “yacht tour” of the intercostal waterway from Delray Beach south for a few miles. Saw lots of cool boats and houses and drawbridges. Then it was back to Cathy’s house for an awesome pot roast farewell dinner. The next morning Mike actually got up at 1:45 to take us to the airport. That’s a true friend. And you would think it could be sad to take our leave of these friends but we aren’t that distraught as we are staying another night with them on our way home.

Make new friends and keep the old; Those are silver, these are gold.
Joseph Perry

Dublin on the way home

On June 25, 2019 By Jim BellomoIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

This is it. The last post of our more than three week 2019 trip to Europe. Yesterday I told you about our short and sweet visit to Cork and Cobh and the next morning found us sitting at the dock in Dublin. But unlike previous cruises, we did not have to get off the ship. Celebrity, in their great wisdom, had decided us to give us an overnight stay in Dublin before we had to disembark. So we arrived on Thursday the 13th at 7:00 am and didn’t have to leave the ship until 9:00 am on Friday the 14th.

This left us with an entire day to do something else in Dublin. This might have been really important to us if we had not just spent three full days in Dublin before the cruise but that all worked out since we were going to the Guinness Storehouse to celebrate Bob and Holly’s anniversary by taking part in the Guinness Connoisseur Tasting Experience.

If we hadn’t already known quite a lot about beer, this would have been a super learning activity but we had pretty much been schooled in beer by Kathleen’s daughter Michelle and her husband Brian who are level one cicerones (the beer equivalent of a sommelier). Since we pretty much had the beer facts down pat, it was a very fun way to spend two hours with friends and family and drink a sample of every beer that Guinness makes (six to be exact) plus learn to draw the perfect pint of Guinness (as we had learned about Beamish the day before in Cork). By the way, one thing we learned was that the Guinness Storehouse has been named one of the top tourist destinations in Europe. It’s a really slick presentation and very well done. If you are in Dublin, it’s worth the time and cost.

Once you have looked at the pics below, our trip is done. We have been home for more than a week now and if you missed the story of our flights coming home, you can read about that by clicking here. We hope you have enjoyed traveling with us and I plan on returning to posting about travel in general for the rest of June and most of July…right up until we cruise again, to Alaska on July 26th on Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas with our kids and grandkids. Can’t wait.

In the meantime, since it’s summer, we are doing ship visitations and those deserve some posts as well. Last Thursday we went to Vancouver to tour Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth, so you can watch for that one coming soon. This Saturday we are touring Norwegian Cruise Line’s Joy and I will get some info and photos from that one. Later in the month we will be on our old friend Solstice as well as Ovation. Watch for these.

We get the welcoming talk at the Guinness Storehouse

The famous lease that lasts for 9,000 years at 45 GBPs signed in 1759

Inside the Guinness Storehouse

The story of beer

It’s the water

Inside the Guinness Storehouse

Inside the Guinness Storehouse

Kathleen in the advertising section of Inside the Guinness Storehouse

Kathleen in the ad section of Inside the Guinness Storehouse

In the marketing section of Inside the Guinness Storehouse

Inside the Guinness Storehouse

The Guinness harp in its many incarnations

Waiting for the Connoisseur Experience

Our instructor for the Connoisseur Experience

Getting ready for beer tasting

Lots of beer tasting

Bob pulling is pint

Kathleen pulling her pint

On the top floor of the Storehouse is the Gravity Bar. It is a 360 degree view of Dublin but it was a really flat day, thus not a lot of pics.

My favorite food from my homeland is Guinness. My second choice in Guinness. My third choice – would have to be Guinness. —Peter O’Toole

Kind of cool Cork

On June 23, 2019June 24, 2019 By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized2 Comments

When I was about five I had a great grandmother that we just called Grandma Kinney. She was my maternal grandmother’s mom and her claim to fame was being born in County Cork, Ireland. Three summers ago we visited Cork and did the usual stuff you do when you hit the port of Cobh. That would be going to Blarney Castle, the Blarney Woolen Mill, the epicurean village of Kinsale and a few minutes in downtown Cork. So this time we didn’t need to do that so we (us and our good friends Bob and Holly) wanted to head into Cork to the English Market. It’s a typical old-style English market and bills itself as the oldest English Market in the world—and it’s not even in England.

We got off the ship, got Steve, Jamie and family off on a tour van to Blarney and grabbed a cab (took a little while) and headed into Cork. Our cab driver dropped us off at the back door to the market, just down an alleyway to the market, past a really cool mural dedicated to everyone in the world…except George Bush (really—see the photos).

We wandered through the market (which was very nice and really cool) but much smaller than we expected. So when we were done we had only been in Cork for about 45 minutes (which was kind of ridiculous for a 25 euro cab ride) so we thought we should find something else to see. On the way in from Cobh (where the ship docked), our cab driver had recommended that we see Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral, the biggest church in Cork. It was pretty impressive (see the photos).

After we had seen the church, we all needed to use a rest room and Kathleen mentioned that in the last block she had seen Fordes pub and thought we could kill two birds with one stone, use their restroom and get a pint. It turned out to be a GREAT idea. Not only did they have really clean restrooms, they also had a super barman who told us the history of the bar (been in the same family for generations) and offered to teach us how to pull the perfect pint of Beamish. For the uninitiated, in the north of the republic of Ireland, Guinness is king but in Southern Ireland, Beamish is king. So now Bob and I both have certificates that we are certified to pull the perfect pint of Beamish (did you know that a Beamish must sit for a 117.5 seconds after the first pull to let the nitrogen bubbles settle?. Well I do.)

After a nice break and a pint, we took a taxi back to the ship and took a break while the others toured all over southern Ireland. The whole journey comes to an end in Dublin which I will show you a little more of tomorrow.

And monkfish

Just another pilot boat

They got olives

The cathedral of Saint Fin Barre

Quite the façade

Holly, Kathleen and Bob check ou the mural

Fordes Pub. We will come back to this later.

Along the River Lee

The sign on the back entrance

The mural on the alley entrance to the British Market in Cork

And figurines on the front of the pulpit

230 years. Can you believe it has been here for 230 years

Ad lots of other fish

Sailing into Cork, I saw another example of alternative energy in Ireland

Angel on the front…

Along with some saints.

On a fountain.

Heron alert.

The cathedral in Cobh

And an excellent altar

A magnificent ceiling

Mosaics in front of the altar

More great stained glass

Another outside shot

More doors

And more great stained glass

Along the River Lee

With a gargoyle or two

These guys were NOT amused

Then let it sit like this for 117.5 seconds

Then fill it all the way up.

The inside was beautiful and very well preserved.

WIth beautiful stained glass

The graveyard behind the church

Two fun people in front of the cathedral

Looking forward inside

Bob pours his Beamish

Here, in Cork district, you have in combination all the dangers which war can inflict. ——Eamon de Valera

Incredible Iceland— Akureyri-Day 2

On June 22, 2019June 19, 2019 By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized2 Comments

I was glad we had come back a little early from our first day tour so I could be up at what would be dawn at home (5:30 am) to see old town Akureyri and I got lucky and had a great walk. I didn’t get rained on but the by the time I got back it had really started coming down. I will leave it at that and you can see what I saw in my photos. Later on, some of the group went into town but Kathleen was wiped out so we stayed on board and the whole gang was back for a late lunch at The Porch (a Reflection alternative seafood restaurant) and it was wonderful. A great lunch. Some super fresh seafood and some of the best sangria I have ever had. Drank way too much of it. We sailed out late in the day and it was a beautiful sail out up the fjord. This was followed by two sea days before we would dock in Cobh, Ireland. More about that coming on Sunday.

But it has cool doors

Reflection in Akureyri

Straight on at Reflection

A very cool sculpture that would have looked better in sunshine

Found this great statue in old town Akureyri

The harbor in Akureyri

Another boat on the shore in old town Akureyri

Old town Akureyri at 5:30 am

This is the oldest house in Akureyri. It dates to the late 1700s

We couldn’t believe these people were going whale watching like this. It was freezing!

Akureyri has a big church as well but not as big as Reykjavik

And this one

And a red and white boat

Here’s the 10:45 from Reykjavik

Our crazy gang having lunch at The Porch

And this family of swans

I got off the ship to mail some postcards and found these trolls

This ship is a Ponant Cruise ship. They are a French cruise line that sails small (100-200 people) cruise ships.

The Akureyri Airport was right off our verandah

When I prepare, I am not messing around. I find the right places, the right people, and the right environment. Iceland is one of those places. —Conor McGregor

Incredible Iceland— Akureyri-Day 1

On June 20, 2019June 20, 2019 By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized3 Comments

After what seemed like a very short night we sailed down an incredible fjord into Akureyri, Iceland’s most important northern city. It’s small town (a population of only around 27,000) but it is the gateway to some pretty amazing natural wonders. The day started with beautiful weather and the sail-in made for some great photos.

I almost forgot to mention that before we got to Akureyri the captain of Reflection decided to make us all what my friend Bob (a long-time Navy guy) calls “Bluenose Sailors” which I am sure means we have been inside the Arctic Circle. He sailed the entire ship north of where he needed to so we could say we had been inside the Arctic Circle. What a guy! We even got a certificate. Kind of the like the one we got when we crossed the Equator many years ago on our SouthEast Asia cruise.

Sailing into Akureyri takes you up a long fjord that has amazing views

Eyjafjörður fjord

Then we saw whales

Whales

And more whales

Eyjafjörður fjord

You know how I love pilot boats

Along Eyjafjörður fjord

Pilot boat!

Goodbye pilot boat

Our first glimpse of Akureyri

Akureyri

A beautiful waterfall

We were met by our guide Auðun of No.17 Tours. He had been recommended by the god of shore excursions, my buddy Mike Preisman. Mike had used the services of Auðun a few years ago on their Icelandic cruise and had spoken highly of him. He was right. I should point out that Auðun told us his company used to be Taxi 17 because when it wasn’t touring season, he would drive a taxi but now the government says he is too old to do that. He can drive a bus, a truck and a tour van but at 76 he can’t drive a taxi. Who would have thought. He is an amazing guy who really knew the area he was showing us. Plus he had some great stories from his 27 years as the skipper of a fishing trawler.

We set out a little earlier in Akureyri as the ship was docked and let us off by 10:30. Auðun was ready for us and we were off to see the northern waterfalls, stand with both my feet in different continents and see some other amazing geological wonders as well as two versions of the Blue Lagoon. And we finally got to see puffins. We had missed them before on previous trips to places where they live but this time we got to see a bunch. Check out the photos for all the sights we saw.

Even though we had gone out earlier than we had in Reykjavik, the weather had turned both cold and gray and by the time we had seen the puffins and the waterfalls, we were wiped out so we asked Auðun to just head us home and we were off to the ship were we pretty much caught a late dinner and collapsed. But we did have a super day and the Icelandic landscape is even more amazing up north.

The brand new 9K tunnel that saved us more than 20 minutes more than the tours used to take.

Godafoss

Sorry, I just couldn’t stop taking pics of Godafoss

On the way to the Lake Myvatn area

These two mountains stand next to each other, one peaked and one with a flat top

Couldn’t resist this shot

Dimmuborgir an area of lava

The right side of this photo is in North America, the left in Europe. I stood with my foot on each one.

A smaller and cleaner northern version of the Blue Lagoon

Dettifoss, the most powerful waterfall in Europe

Dettifoss

The other end of Dettifoss

A very cool horseshoe falls

Dettifoss

Puffins on the northern coast

More puffins

And more puffins

Northern Coast house

One more Blue Lagoon wanna be, the best yet!

I still don’t know why, exactly, but I do think people can have a spiritual connection to landscape, and I certainly did in Iceland. —Hannah Kent

Incredible Iceland— Reykjavik-Day 2

On June 18, 2019 By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Most everyone else in our party slept in a little bit after getting back at almost midnight from our Golden Circle tour with Birkir. I on the other hand, love it when a ship overnights in a port so that I can get up early the next day and walk through the city. (One of my best photo walks ever was in Québec last October when we overnighted on Summit). More and more cruise lines are doing this (overnighting in cities) and you can get off and on whenever you want all night long. This was a good day to do that but I really missed that early morning golden light I had when we were in Edinburgh and Dublin.

I got up at 5:00 am and headed out to walk the seaside walkway into downtown Reykjavik but the light outside was already like 10:30 in the morning as you can see from my pics. I got some decent stuff and then headed back to the ship to shower and meet Kathleen and others in our group to take a taxi back into downtown to see some more of the city. My pics and their captions will pretty much tell the tale on that. Don’t forget to click on the first one and view them as a slide show. And if you want to see more, check them out on Flickr by clicking here.

We were back on the ship by 2:00 pm and Reflection set sail for Akureyri at 3:00. It was a pretty great day considering how little sleep was involved. Thursday, I will post all about our travels in Akureyri, in the north. And we cross the Arctic Circle!

Hallgrímskirkja—this church dominates the Reykjavik skyline

Sun Voyager—Huge 1990 stainless-steel sculpture of a boat by Jón Gunnar Árnason, set on granite beside the sea.

Reykjavik’s version of the bridge in Paris

The green lock kind of drew my lens like a magnet

Harpa Concert Hall

Noticed this ship coming in. Not sure what it was.

Turned out to be a small cruise ship. We met some people who were onboard later at coffee.

Sun Voyager from a different angle

A sculpture along the walkway. Looked different on every side

See what I mean?

Viking Sky coming into the harbor. This is the ship that had the engine failiure earlier this year.

The Hofdi House built in 1909, the home of Icelandic poet Einar Benediktsson also hosted an iconic political summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbatsjov

The lupine was everywhere and in full bloom

The end of my walk. Almost back to the ship.

Out later with Kathleen saw this photo shoot in front of Hallgrímskirkja

Hallgrímskirkja up close

Inside Hallgrímskirkja we found a small chamber orchestra rehearsing

Inside Hallgrímskirkja Cassie and Jamie look at the ceiling of this magnificent church

Above the altar in Hallgrímskirkja

I love taking photos of artists as work.

Such great expressions

See what I mean

Outside of Hallgrímskirkja is this incredible statue of Leif Erickson

Kathleen found a friend. Hey, I have to take these tourist photos once in a while.

Great street decoration

This is a real place. Seriously.

I never did find out who these statues represent.

A closeup of Harpa Concert Hall to end our stay. We went inside but the photos didn’t come out as well as I would have liked.

Incredible Iceland— Reykjavik-Day 1

On June 16, 2019June 22, 2019 By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized3 Comments

After our Titanic foray into Belfast, we spent the next day and a little more at sea heading to Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital. After a cool sail in (see the photos—we passed a huge iceberg), we arrived around 1:00 pm and after a quick lunch we set off on an 8 hour tour with our guide from Tours by Locals, Birkir. Now normally we would never start an 8-10 hour tour at 1:30 pm because within few hours all we would be able to see is darkness. But this was Iceland and we were within 2 weeks of the longest day of the year so we could tour until midnight and it would never be totally dark. That meant we could see what the tour books refer to as the southern Iceland Golden Circle.

Iceberg!

This was kind of disconcerting after visiting the Titanic Experience

This dormant volcano is covered with a glacier

We passed by downtown

And were passed by an NCL ship on its way out.

It included the edge of continents, incredible waterfalls, exploding geysers, volcanic craters, Icelandic horses and some of the most amazing natural beauty we have seen. Our first stop was the Þingvellir Icelandic National Park which has significance for two reasons. It is a historical site where the Icelandic parliament first met in 930 AD. And it is the intersection of two continents. Seriously. The plates that form the North American continent end in Iceland and run directly into the plates that form the European continent. In a way we were walking between North America and Europe the entire time we were in Iceland. In fact, two days later just outside Akureyri in the north, I was able to stand with my right foot in North America and my left foot in Europe. Pretty cool.

On the way to Þingvellir we passed these wild Icelandic horses

On the right, North America. On the left, Europe.

Same here

The park was well taken care of with great walkways

People were in the park taking their wedding pics

Heading down

Bob is always way ahead of us

A “natural” rock formation?

I love the Icelandic flag. This is at the exact spot of their first parliament meeting in 960 AD.

The top of a beautiful waterfall in Þingvellir

After our visit to this beautiful (in its own way) national park, we drove onward to ice cream. Yes, ice cream. It seems that there is a world-famous dairy and ice cream factory in almost the middle of nowhere. We had some amazing ice cream and even got to meet the cows that had done the original work on it. It was a fun and delicious experience.

Our stop at the dairy farm and ice cream shop included a look at the basic cream makers. I loved their look.

I love the coloring of this cow.

These guys were wandering around the grounds

And there was an old tractor I could do a still-life landscape on.

Next up was Kathleen’s favorite part of the tour, a visit to feed some very cool Icelandic horses. As you drive through the wilds of Iceland, you see thousands of these Icelandic horses (never call them ponies). They are everywhere. Of course they are owned by someone but you do see some wild ones as well. Birkir knew of a place where a farmer allowed his horses to be petted and fed (he even provided “horse candy” you could buy) and so we stopped and everyone who wanted to got to feed the horses while the rest of us took photos. See mine to see how incredibly beautiful these animals are. That said, it is sad to say that Icelanders eat horse on a regular basis. It is a staple of their diet. Birkir offered to find us a restaurant that served horse but we said we were content to pet and feed them.

Our closeup with the Icelandic Horses

Kathleen gets to meet an Icelandic horse

And feed another

Cassie and Jamie do the same

So does Analee

Everyone wants a pic of the Icelandic horse

It’s like Icelandic horse paparazzi

What a cutie!

After that it was on to the absolute, drop-dead highlight of the day—the Gullfoss waterfall. We have been to Niagara Falls but I have to tell you, this was so much better. In my opinion the reason for that was that these falls are still in a very natural setting and incredibly cool. Also, the water is totally unpolluted and blue. When you see the photos, just realize that I didn’t do anything to those pics at all—the water really is that blue. Seriously. The pictures tell the story.

Coming up to Gullfoss

Gullfoss. One of the most incredible waterfalls in the world

Gullfoss

Steve, Jamie and Cassie in front of Gullfoss

Rainbow over Gullfoss

Love the trench here

Gullfoss

A panorama of the top of Gullfoss

We thought we had seen it all but now it was on to geysers. Compared to Old Faithful that goes off once an hour, Iceland’s southern geysers go off every five minutes or so. They smell of sulfur but they also are very cool. Check out the photos below.

On the way to the Geysir area

We arrived at the Geysir just as this one went off.

The terrain around the Geysir was almost moon-like

The hot sulfur pools at Geysir

The hills were covered with lupine

A close up of the lupine that we were lucky enough to find in bloom.

Here goes the Geysir

Geysir eruption

After our geyser experience and a brief stop at a volcanic crater (sorry, this one didn’t come close to Crater Lake and just not impressive enough for pics), we made a brief stop for dinner (by this time it was around 8:30 but outside it looked like the middle of the day) and then it was on to our last stop of the day, The Blue Lagoon.

If you have ever been to Iceland you have heard of the Blue Lagoon. It is so popular that people flying from the US to Europe will do a five hour stopover just to hit the Blue Lagoon (which is located between Reykjavik and the airport). If you have never heard of it or seen photos, just imagine a giant, blue hot tub with hundreds of people (maybe more) swimming around, drinking and rubbing mud on their faces. And the strangest thing was that we arrived at the lagoon just before it closes at 10:55 or so. But you would never know it. The sun was up and there were (see the pics) hundreds of people still in the lagoon. Birkir told us they stop letting people in at 11:00 pm in the summer but they don’t start kicking people out until midnight.

The walkway into the Blue Lagoon. It is about 11:20 pm and VERY light out. Sun was still up.

The Blue Lagoon

I should add that sunset that day was at 11:58 and sunrise the next morning was at 2:15 am. It never really got dark and when we finally got back to the ship at almost midnight, we were very thankful for the blackout curtains in our staterooms.

Our first day in Iceland was INCREDIBLE! Birkir was an amazing guide and got us everywhere in a fun and beauty filled day. It was just outstanding.

Coming soon to a travel blog near you

On June 15, 2019June 18, 2019 By Jim BellomoIn Uncategorized3 Comments

So our trip is done and we are recovering from 27 hours spent in airports and airplanes to get home. Today is all about laundry and resting up. Not a great trip home due to so many things. Among them were weather (Denver airport closed for a time as we were attempting to land so we got to circle for a while), late flights and construction at airports made this a really long day.

I wasn’t going to add this but I want to see it in print so feel free to skip it. This is what our travel home day was like.

Woke up at 3:15 am onboard Celebrity Reflection (As usual, couldn’t sleep).
Left Reflection at 6:45 am (early).
Arrived at Dublin Airport at 7:35.
Sat in shared business class lounge with Bob and Holly until our flight to London Heathrow left at 10:50 am.
Arrived London Heathrow, Terminal 5 at 12:20 pm.
Transferred to London Heathrow Terminal 3 for flight to Denver. Took the better part of an hour.
Sat in British Terminal 3 Business lounge until 2:40 when we boarded our flight to Denver.
Arrived in Denver at 6:15 pm Denver time after circling due to weather.
Stood in line for almost an hour at Customs in Denver as all inbound flights had been held for weather and then all arrived at the same time. It was a bloody zoo.
Due to the fact that we could not get a Business Class award flight direct to Seattle we flew to Denver (instead of home to Seattle) we had to now check all our luggage back in for a short flight to Seattle (that we paid for…in coach) that was supposed to leave at 7:35 pm.
Due to all the late arrivals, our flight didn’t leave until 9:06 pm.
Arrived in Seattle at 10:55 pm.
After getting our luggage we grabbed a Lyft and wound up getting home at 11:45.

So that was our day. Too long. And all to get award seats from BA via Alaska Miles. Which will bring me to a future post on finding award seats in the near future. I promise.

And now to the reason for this post. The schedule of what is to come this week. My plan is to post Iceland day 1 tomorrow afternoon, Iceland day 2 on Tuesday, Iceland day 3 and 4 on Friday. Hope that keeps you all up to date without overwhelming anyone with too much to read.

Technology doesn’t address everything – for example, air travel still sucks. —Brad Feld

Blustery Belfast

On June 15, 2019June 15, 2019 By Jim BellomoIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Sitting in the Club World Lounge in Terminal 3, Heathrow, I think I have enough time to upload Belfast (their WiFi is pretty good and it is already written). We shall see. It was the next stop after we boarded in Dublin where I left off (other my WOW Iceland post and my Woeful WiFi post).

We awoke on our first day after leaving Dublin to a truly blustery day in Belfast. Due to tides we weren’t able to dock until almost 11:00 am. As soon as we were able, we walked four of our party who had never been to Belfast before out to a private excursion I had arranged through Tours by Locals that would take them to up the Antrim Coast to Giant’s Causeway. We had done this on a previous visit to Belfast and we along with four others in our group who had been here before decided to forego that and pay a visit to the Titanic Experience.

I fully realize that visiting a museum dedicated to a cruise ship that sank by hitting an iceberg while on a cruise seems to be tempting fate but we went anyway. If you are in Belfast, this is a must-see. They have done an excellent job of detailing pretty much everything about the Titanic, its building, the times it was built in and so much more. Not only are there a number of excellent exhibits, there is even a ride. Who knew? We were pretty surprised. It was a great tour and worth the money and time.

Our original plans after the Titanic experience had been to jump on the HoHo bus but since it was pouring rain, we crammed ourselves into a taxi and headed back to the ship. All and all, a pretty decent day.

Remember, you can click the first photo to see the pics larger and as a slide show.

Post note: Wasn’t able to upload everything in the lounge. Finishing up at home with my usual AWESOME WiFi. Exhausted but more about that later.