Koningsdam Day 4-Prince Rupert

On May 5, 2023 By Jim BellomoIn Photography12 Comments

Every time I think that things will get better, they get worse. So many bad things have happened that I can’t remember if I have already written about them or if I still have to. I have to say I have not talked to a single person on this cruise that is happy about it. Not one.

And I feel so bad for the crew. They are working as hard as they can, but they are HUGELY understaffed and HUGELY overworked. Having talked to some crew members, they work 11, 12 and sometimes more hour shifts. Everything to do with food is being manned by fewer people than they would normally have. Here’s how the end of yesterday and today went.

I posted early this morning, but I think I forgot to mention that we had a comedian who performed last night in the BB King venue, and he was pretty funny. The place was packed, and there were lots of people standing around the edges. He did two shows, we were at the first one, and the laughs were quick and numerous. See, there’s something positive.

We did dinner at the buffet, where only one side was open. That meant there were no seats on that side of the room, so we sat on the other and walked back and forth. I ate what I call my “not willing to stand in line” menu. I would get anything that I didn’t have to stand in line behind ten people to get. Not much selection in that lineup.

I have not mentioned how HAL is handling the buffet. In about 85% of the buffet, you cannot serve yourself. There is a plastic shield preventing you from doing that. In 15%, there are tongs and a space to reach through for a roll or a small sandwich. The only problem is that if you get a roll and want butter, you must get in line to ask for the butter. Or (like I did last night) I grabbed a sandwich and then took the same tongs to reach a little further back for potato chips and was quickly scolded by the person behind the counter that I was not allowed to reach that far and if I wanted chips with my sandwich, I would need to get behind the 11 people in the line. I was welcome to as many sandwiches as I could eat, but not the chips. Go figure.

Breakfast in the Main Dining Room

This morning, against my better judgment, Bob talked us into going down to try to get into the dining room for breakfast. We had not eaten any meal in there as of yet and really wanted to see what it looked like. So we went down expecting a long wait. Lo and behold, we were second in line and ushered to our table at 8:10. Keep track of that number; it’s important 😜.

At 8:40, we were still waiting for water and coffee and had not had a waiter stop at our table for anything. Judy was coughing and really needed water, and Bob pointed out that there were water pitchers on a table behind me. So I grabbed one and poured us all some water. Before I could set the pitcher back down, a waiter grabbed it from me. He finished pouring and went and brought us back to carafes of coffee, one with decaf for Bob and the other for the rest of us. Sadly, they were lukewarm and became cold pretty quickly.

The server came back about five minutes later to take our orders. He told us that it might take a while since they had just had a big group of people come in, and there were a lot of orders coming in. By this time, it was close to 8:55. I really wanted to point out that if he had taken our orders when we came in, we would have had our food by then, but I didn’t. I want to point out that this situation was NOT HIS FAULT! He was covering a lot of other tables, and the food was NOT coming out very quickly. We knew we would be waiting a while for the food to come back because the tables near us had been seated before we were, and they didn’t have food yet, either.

The food finally showed up at about 9:20. This is where it really gets good. Kathleen had ordered buckwheat pancakes, and they were OK but not hot. Just lukewarm. Judy had ordered banana pancakes, and as you can see from the photo above, they came with exactly THREE slices of banana on them. I asked her if there were any mixed into the batter, and she said, “No, these are just buttermilk pancakes with three slices of banana on top.”

Bob and I had both ordered the same thing—the ham and cheese scramble with hash browns, and I also ordered an English muffin. Now wouldn’t you think that a “scramble” would have the eggs scrambled into them? You know, scrambled eggs? No, when Bob moved aside the tortilla chips that were, for some reason covering his “scramble,” there were two (kind of) soft-boiled eggs on top. When I moved mine back…there were two hard-boiled eggs on top. That is NOT a scramble. It just isn’t. The ham, cheese, green bell peppers, onions and potatoes looked great, but the entire dish was dry without the scrambled (or poached, soft-boiled or any other kind of egg other than hard-boiled) eggs.

Not being willing to eat hard-boiled eggs, I called another waiter over and asked them to take them back and get me some scrambled eggs in my scramble. He did, and miraculously within about 5-7 minutes. But one small problem. The veggies and ham that were on the bottom were not cooked. Basically raw. The scrambled eggs were on top, and they were almost raw, very runny. And the cheese? Nowhere to be seen. It has probably run off with the hash browns and English muffins because they weren’t there either. So I pushed the veggies and ham aside and ate the wet eggs. Just as I was finishing them, out came two servings of hash browns. One was cooked almost well-done, and the other was close to raw.

We just gave up at this point as the coffee was cold, and it was obvious that my English muffin had gone to HAL food heaven with Bob’s Dive-In hot dog. I hope they are doing OK together. We left the dining room at 9:50 according to Kathleen’s recollection.

HAL rips off everyone on the ship…or at least attempts to

So after this wonderful breakfast, we decide to go and check out scenic Prince Rupert. Regular readers of this blog know that I walk a lot. My daily walk is always between four to eight miles. Kathleen, on the other hand, is not a big walker. She has a few things that make it difficult for her to walk long distances, and she can’t keep up with me. When we do go out together in a port, I try to walk slower so we can stay together, but she knows it is driving me crazy…but we make do. This also means that we like to tour by tram or bus.

So today, we get off the ship, and there is a tram that takes you around Prince Rupert. Super! When we go to buy tickets, we are asked for our sea pass card. Now this is NOT a HAL excursion. Anyone can walk up and take it. But once they knew I was off the ship, they wanted my sea pass and would not take cash. So I gave the woman the card, and she wrote us a receipt. She had told me the trip around town took 90 minutes, and the cost for us would be $59.95. She handed me the receipt to sign, and I was SHOCKED to see it was $59.95 EACH! For a 90-minute tour around a very small town. We decided to skip that.

Then we started talking to a couple of local people who worked for the tram service, who were only too glad to fill us in on what was going on. It seems that HAL (and all the other Carnival Corp lines who stopped here) were buying out all of the trams for the days they have ships in port. Then they set the price for that day for everyone. Even if you happen to drive to Prince Rupert and want to take the tram, you pay the price set by the cruise line that is in town that day. He said the day before when Princess had been there, the price had been $69.95 per person. I don’t know about you, but this is just WRONG as far as I am concerned! They buy out the entire set of 15 trams (the only ones in town) to be able to charge their own customers more. Shame on them!

And later on, when I went out walking on my own, I passed one of these trams and saw them stopped in front of a house with the driver pointing at the house. That’s cool. Then as I went past him, he moved up one more house and started talking about that one and the people who had lived there. I walked another 300 yards to the corner where I was going to turn and looked back, and he had pulled up two more houses and was doing the same thing all over again. You see, I think Prince Rupert must not have that many things to show people who are from out of town, so they probably tell the guides/drivers to take as long as you can describing things to stretch this out as long they can. I am fully willing to hear from anyone who took this tour that it was a good value.

I also want to point out that when we got off the ship, there was not a single vendor selling any kind of tour. No boats, no helicopters, no airplanes, no taxis. Nothing near the port. The collusion between the city and the cruise lines is really evident here in Prince Rupert.

Lunch on board Koningsdam in Prince Rupert—how sweet it ISN’T!

After we had tried to go out (we did walk around for a short time), we came back to the ship; I changed into my walking shorts and a tee shirt and went out to do my four miles. Had a very nice walk as the weather was uncharacteristically (we were told by a local) beautiful and sunny. And then, when I came back, I had to again…stand in a 20-minute line to get back on the ship. We took our grandkids to Walt Disney World in February, and we were told by Disney that it was the most crowded four days in the park’s history. We have stood in more lines to get places on this ship than we did there. And at least at WDW, they give you something interesting to look at while you wait in line.

Once I was back, we went up and got a sandwich/slice of pizza on deck 10 (above the buffet, next to the indoor/outdoor pool). Got it pretty quick (which was awesome), but then we both felt like something sweet afterward (I had missed my English muffin at breakfast, remember?), so I went down to check out the desserts in the buffet. Above is the list of the desserts they had on offer today. Below is a picture of the actual desserts that were available directly below the sign. This was the only place to get sweets (except for a small ice cream station serving two flavors of ice cream with a line of at least 15 people waiting at all times) on the entire buffet. This is the second day in a row that this has happened. Nothing there for sometime before the meal is set to be over. At the point I took this photo, they still had more than an hour before the time the buffet was scheduled to close. I did walk by a little later and they were putting out a few apricot tarts but as soon as they were out, a swarm of people grabbed them all. Ah, the hoarding of desserts.

They did get me to spend money on gelato again. HAL has been doing really well getting me to spend money on extra stuff. Besides the gelato, I have purchased meals in specialty restaurants (which have been really great so far) on four of the five nights of this cruise. We are eating in Canaletto (the family-style Italian place) tonight and Rudi’s (Fish house) tomorrow night, the last night of the cruise.

For your viewing enjoyment here’s my selection of my favorite Prince Rupert photos from early morning and my walk around town. 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. Please…

Early morning as we were sailing into Prince Rupert.

The sky was kind of layered.

This boat looked like it was going to sink, bow first.

But it didn’t sink and it was overshadowed by a huge freighter waiting to take a load on.

As I walked off the ship on my walk, there was a crab boat unloading right next to the gangway and these women were sorting them.

This guy would hook up the crab pots to a winch and they would be hoisted to the dock.

This guy guided them on to the dock to start the sorting.

When I came back, this guy had his crab waving to us.

As I walked up a fairly busy street, this deer ambled by and just started grazing next to the parking area.

These two Mounties were in full dress greeting people as they came off the ship. Later I saw them taking photos with people at Service Park.

Found the very cool, old and falling apart church at the top of the hill.

It makes an interesting subject but it desperately needs a coat of paint.

My Prince Rupert Panorama.

It’s after dinner as I am finishing up this post; we are back in our stateroom. I have succumbed to the lure of a reduced-cost WiFi package and picked up the last three days of the cruise for around $25 US. Worth it to be able to check some things going on with Kathleen’s estate stuff and a medical appointment I have coming up, plus I get to post the rest of the way.

We had a very nice dinner at Canaletto, and we all ate way too much. When we had been on Nieuw Statendam with my brother and his bride, we had thought the food was kind of weak in Canaletto, but it is much improved here on Koningsdam. So far, we have eaten in three of the four specialty restaurants and we have had great food, efficient and friendly service and wonderful experiences. I just said to Kathleen, “this is where HAL is putting their experienced waiters and cooks—the specialty restaurants. Where they make money.” Again, that’s pretty sad, but I believe it’s true.

I’m scammed almost every day. Or, if not scammed, at the very least someone tries to scam me. Usually more than once a day. —James Altucher

Finally…we are off again…for a short one

On May 1, 2023 By Jim BellomoIn Photography4 Comments

Sometimes it feels like we aren’t traveling anymore, and sometimes it feels like we are never home. Since our February trip to Walt Disney World (my last major set of posts), we have been traveling but only for family stuff.

In late February, we flew to the Bay Area to deal with the death of Kathleen’s mother and brother. Then in late March, we went down to Southern California to celebrate the 90th birthday of my brother’s mother-in-law (who is the coolest 90-year-old you will ever meet) and from there, back to the Bay Area for more meetings with attorneys, realtors, contractors, etc. We have two houses to sell and three cars to get rid of—so much fun.

But back to today—we are sailing on Holland America’s Konigsdam from Vancouver, BC, to beautiful Ketchikan, Alaska and Prince Rupert, British Columbia. Yes, it’s Alaska again, but there are two big reasons we are boarding this ship today: Alaska is not one of them.

The first is that our last cruise before the pandemic was from Fort Lauderdale to New Orleans for Mardi Gras in February 2020. We sailed with our Martini Mates and had an awesome time. My best buddy Bob was part of that cruise, and even though Kathleen and I have been on three cruises since then, this is the first time Bob and Judy will be on a ship since we got off on that cruise. So we just had to go along on this one to celebrate.

Our second reason for taking this cruise is that it is we are celebrating a first on this cruise. We are traveling with Kathleen’s daughter Michelle and her husband, Brian, on their first cruise. When they found out we were going on this short cruise, they asked if they could come along. So yesterday Brian drove us up (his car was the only one that could fit all our luggage) to Vancouver; we had an amazing dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant (Cin Cin–been going there since 2005) and spent the night at the Pan Pacific Hotel which is right at Canada Place, the cruise terminal for Vancouver. In fact, I can look out our hotel room window (where I am writing this) and see our stateroom on the ship just below us. That’s really cool.

So far, things have gone well. Brian and Michelle knew a great place to stop for lunch on our way north; otherwise, the drive was uneventful. If I have one complaint (actually two), it is that check-in time for the Pan Pacific is 4:00 pm, but we didn’t get rooms until almost 5:00. Not the kind of service I expect for the price you pay. And their WiFi has been spectacularly terrible as well.

I hope to do my usual job of blogging this cruise, but it may have to get posted after we are back. We didn’t get a WiFi package on this ship since we will seldom be out of cell phone range but putting this kind of stuff online with a phone is next to impossible. But watch this space. The posts will get there eventually.

Here’s a last-minute gift; a few photos I took on an early morning photo walk on Vancouver’s incredible waterfront. 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. Please…

Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party.
—Robin Williams

My Best Photos of 2022

On December 31, 2022 By Jim BellomoIn Photography3 Comments

Here we are on the last day of the year, and I only have one post left to do to wrap up 2022. Since I consider this site a travel and photography blog, I have saved my best photos post for last. And they are all travel photos so that kind of fits.

I wanted to do a David Letterman and give you a Top-Ten list, but I could only narrow it down to 14, and I need some of you to tell me which ones you like better. I shot a bunch of photos this year across two continents in seven different countries and all while traveling. I had some fantastic photo experiences, the best being in Venice and Tarragona, Spain, but I loved the other shots I got as well. So please let me know in the comments which ones I ranked differently than you would have.

Just a note: If you click on any of the photos, they will enlarge on a black background to fill your screen. That’s the best way to view them. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Number 14—The magazine ad from Eze, France

I took this from way up on the top of the village of Eze, a true hilltop town in the south of France between Nice and Monaco. When I got back to our stateroom and was going through my photos, I realized that I had taken an advertising photo. Is this not the perfect photo to illustrate any advertisement for the south of France?

Number 13—The view from the Number Two

Floating down the Grand Canal in Venice at 5:45 in the morning, I looked back and saw this view behind the #2 vaporetto I was traveling on. I stepped out onto the back deck and got this shot of Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute and the sky behind us, and I loved the light I got.

Numbers 11 & 12—My two best people photos

Olympia, Greece

Athens, Greece

I have a bunch of people photos from this year, but I love these two the most. The first is from Corfu. We had gone on a shore excursion that took us to Olympia in Greece and then to a hotel where they did some cooking demos and lunch. After lunch, this wonderful man and his family did some amazing Greek dancing. ‘He was incredibly animated and he really played to my camera.

The second shot, from only two days before, is our guide George who took us all over Athens and then found us the best lunch in the world. I loved his quiet confidence in this shot. He was the perfect guide for us.

Number 10—A flamingo on Grand Turk Island

Grand Turk Island

If you look back on my Top Photos of 2021, what I considered my best photo was a shot of a flamingo I took while we were in the Galapagos Islands. There is something about these birds; they are both majestic and awkward all at the same time. The reflection made this shot. And the really amazing thing is that I shot it from a tour bus at about 30mph.

Number 9—The money shot in Cinque Terre

Cinqe Terre, Italy

This is incredible Manarola, one of the five villages that make up the Cinque Terre on Italy’s eastern coast. We were visiting for the day on a tour with the amazing Luigi. We were going from village to village via the ferry. When we arrived in our second stop, Manarola, Luigi told me that I wanted THE quintessential Cinque Terre shot, I would need to climb this particular hill and then look back. He was right. This shot, of the more than 600 I took that day, says it all. It’s the postcard shot.

Number 8—The Columbia Bar, Astoria, Oregon

Columbia Bar, Oregon

This one is my most peaceful shot of 2022. I love the way the spray and the water “humps” are just flowing. The lighthouse in the background helps as well. But conversely, this is really a pretty violent photo because, as anyone who has lived in the northwest can tell you, the Columbia Bar (where the Columbia River enters the Pacific Ocean) can be VERY dangerous. Lots of ships have been wrecked trying to sail through these waters.

Numbers 6 & 7—Wedding pics in Venice

Venice, Italy

Walking into Piazza San Marco in Venice at just before 6:00 am and finding the entire piazza empty except for these three people almost took my breath away. I had been there the afternoon before, and the crowds had been immense, smothering and overwhelming. To walk into the piazza and find this couple and their photographer taking photos right at dawn was like a miracle for me. But I can’t decide which one is my favorite, so this is another chance for you to pick.

Number 5—My best panoramic shot of 2022

Naples, Italy

This is a manufactured panoramic shot I took while in an indoor shopping center in Naples, Italy. I love taking panoramic photos. Not the kind you get with your iPhone but this kind. Ones where I plant my feet and move the camera by pivoting my upper body as I take a series of shots. Then I take them back into Photoshop and stitch them together to create what I was seeing from where I was standing at the time. This shot is one of the few vertical panoramas I have taken. I started as three vertical shots. If I have any complaints with it, it is that it seems slightly tilted to me and when I try and fix that, it only looks like it is tilted in the other direction. But I still love it.

Number 4—A hole to the sky in Barcelona, Spain

Naples, Italy

We were on a tour in Barcelona, Spain, and we had stopped to see Gaudi’s La Pedrera—Casa Mila. This is a multi-story building that initially housed two condominium-type dwellings for two fairly wealthy families in the early 1900s. Just before we took the elevator up to the top floor to work our way down, I leaned out into the center of the building and took this shot, looking straight up the shaft that is the inner courtyard. I had no idea it would turn out this good. And it really helped to have amazing weather, so I had the blue (with wisps of clouds for contrast) sky.

Number 3—The lights of Kotor, Montenegro

Kotor, Montenegro

Someday I will blow this shot up and hang it on a wall. It might be the best nighttime shot I have ever taken. We were in Kotor on our Viking Sky cruise. During the day (while Kathleen was quarantined due to Viking giving her food poisoning), I hiked up this mountain/hill and took many great photos looking back. I was so impressed with the city. Luckily for me, the ship did not sail away from the city until fairly late that night. We were in our stateroom watching another episode of Downton Abbey (what else do you watch on a Viking ship 😜) when I happened to look at the bow cam on our TV and saw this scene. I literally grabbed my camera and ran to the front (and top) of the ship to get this photo of the entire town lit up, including the old fortress that protected the city. I have to give huge credit to my new Nikon z7 being able to get me a shot this clear when I handheld it at 1/20th of a second. Amazing.

Number 2—Man eating breakfast in Venice, Italy

Venice, Italy

My favorite (and I believe the best) photo I have ever taken was a shot like this. It told a story. You can see that one here. This one does the same thing for me. I was up early in Venice and pretty much lost and wandering the calles and campos I turned a corner, and there in the distance was a man having breakfast. And just like my best photo, this one was all about the light. Or, in this case, the lack of it. What light exists does exactly what I want it to do, it send my eye directly to the subject. No photographer could ask for more.

Number 1—The blue hour (actually about 15 minutes) in Venice

Venice, Italy

Lots of people know about the “golden hour” of photography. It’s that time just before sunrise or after sunset when the sky turns golden. What you may not have heard of before is the term “blue hour.” This really isn’t an hour but it’s the 15-20 minutes just before or after the golden hour. The sky is transitioning from the black of night to the golds, oranges and pinks of the sunrise. If you get lucky and do some planning, you can be in the right place (standing on the Rialto bridge) at the right time (the blue hour) to get the shot you want.

So that’s it. Another year of photography behind me. I like to think that I get better each year. Retirement, or at least cutting back on work and being able to focus a little more on taking pictures, has helped me improve. Sitting here writing this at 4:00 am on New Year’s Eve I feel really good about the shots I got in 2022. Can’t wait to see what I put in my post a year from now.

Happy New Year! Hope we all have an awesome 2023.

Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still. —Dorothea Lange

I hate it when this happens–but you get more panoramic photos to look at

On December 20, 2022December 20, 2022 By Jim BellomoIn Photography2 Comments

Yesterday I was sitting on the couch working on yesterday’s post about panoramic photos. About halfway through uploading photos, I had to make dinner, so I thought I was saving the page, but the actual button I hit was “Publish.” When I hit that, WordPress (where I host my website) sends out an e-mail, and that’s it. I can make changes to the post, but you won’t be notified when I do.

The problem was, I still had a BUNCH of pano photos I still wanted to post. So here they are, and hopefully, you will appreciate them. I have never been able to post them in the past in my daily travel pics on Instagram or Facebook because they won’t let me add them and show you the entire photo. You only get the middle part. I hope you enjoy them. Make sure to open them up on the biggest screen you have. Otherwise, you won’t get their full impact.

These first two are special as they depict the same scene, just taken from two different angles. I was standing in the same spot. In the first one, I started on the left with one ship in view and moved to the right until I had done almost a 360-degree turn. On the second one, I started with both ships in view and moved to the right. The first one is a BUNCH of pics stitched together.

Here are a few more with comments. And of course…don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. (If you have to, make sure to at least turn it sideways to view them horizontally.)

The next four are from…

our sail-in down the fjord…

that took us into…

Akureyri, Iceland.

These next four are from our recent visit to Barcelona, Spain

From Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya

From the top of Casa Mia

From Park Guell

Also from Park Guell

On a sidewalk next to Plaça de Catalunya

Here’s some from our stop in Dubrovnik, Croatia. I climbed the walls that day and walk all around the city, so lots of chances for panorama photos.

Those seem to be the only multiples I have left, so here’s the rest with captions.

This is the off-leash area of Marymoor Park here in Redmond

Orangestad, Aruba

Inside the main theater on Holland America’s Nieuw Statendam

The upper deck on Celebrity Infinity

A beach on Grand Turk Island

Hilo, Hawaii

Kilauea volcano

Sailing into Kotor, Montenegro

Lake Elsinore, California

Taken from a lighthouse in Florida just before a thunderstorm

Maui, Hawaii

The harbor in Messina, Sicily

The view from Taormina, Sicily with Mt. Etna in the background.

Looking out from Taormina to the sea

The view from Mt. Etna

The city square and palace in Monaco

Taken from the palace in Monaco

Morikami Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach, Florida

Mt. St. Helens

Ohau, Hawaii

The Gatun Locks on the Panama Canal

Changing of the gaurd at the Canadian capitol in Ottawa

Petco Park in San Diego, California

Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic

My best friends old neighborhood in Port Hope, Ontario

Outside Reykjavik, Iceland

Downtown Rochester, New York

San Diego, California

San Juan, Puerto Rico

San Francisco, California

Seattle Washington from a WA State Ferry

Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

Sydney Harbor, Sydney Australia

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything. —Theodore Roosevelt

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

Seven Travel Photo Tips That Have Really Helped Me

On November 6, 2022 By Jim BellomoIn Photography5 Comments

I have promised this post about my photography methodology since we got home from our Mediterranean cruise. Before I start, I want to thank everyone who has complimented my photography, either here or on Instagram or Facebook. It is so gratifying that people like the thing I love creating. And I truly do love creating photographs.

I had originally thought I would just tell you about my cameras and what I do, but this way will be more fun and maybe help you improve your travel photography by hearing about these things I do when I shoot travel. BTW: These will work for ANY camera; your phone, your point-and-shoot, your DSLR or your mirrorless camera. And I did include the camera and lens stuff down at the bottom.

#7—Get out of the way

Thought I would start with the pet peeve that I learned how to solve long ago—getting out of the way of other people. So often, I see someone walking along in a crowd of people, and they see something they want to take a photo of. They immediately stop, pull out whatever camera (probably their phone) they are using, and they bring it up to their eye and take a photo. Or two. Or three. Or worse is those that stop to take a selfie. Or two. Or sixty—with a different facial expression in every one of them.

But the really important thing they don’t do is GET OUT OF THE WAY! If I see a photo I really want to get, I immediately walk to the nearest wall or pole or real-life obstruction and stop there. I NEVER stop in the middle of the sidewalk, road or wherever else I am walking. (And I don’t change direction immediately. I move diagonally) Why? Because I am not the most important person in the world. I have no business blocking others who may not want to take a photo right then. So get over to the side, get out of their way and take your photo.

#6—Take a few seconds to figure out the best shot available

Now that you have stepped to the side take a few seconds to look at what you first saw that attracted your eye. Take that first shot. Then ask yourself, is there some other way to shoot this that might look better? Try a couple of other shots. Maybe switch sides of the sidewalk or street. Get up higher, get down lower. Most of the time, when you see one of my photos, there are four or five other ones on the same subject that you will never see. I shot them, but I liked the one I posted a whole lot more.

#5—Look behind you

Now you have taken the shot that caught your eye, turn around and look behind you. I know I have mentioned this before on numerous occasions, but a guy named Shawn King, who used to have a Mac podcast I listened to, used to talk about photography, and this was one of his prime directives. Look behind you. I almost always do, and it has paid off with some great shots. I took two photos within two seconds of each other in England. I had taken the obligatory Stonehenge shot, remembered to turn around and got this great cow. I honestly like them both equally.

#4—Shoot a lot of images

When I first started taking photos seriously (not just snapshots), I was in my first year as a yearbook adviser at Coachella Vally High School. The absolute biggest difference between my photography then and my photography now is digital. When I started taking pictures, we were using film (yes, I am that old 😜). If you don’t remember shooting with film, it used to come with a certain number of exposures per roll. That meant the maximum number of photos I could take was either 12, 24 or 36. That was it. Then you had to put in a new roll of film. Film was expensive, as was getting it developed and printed. For 36 color photos, I would probably spend $8.00 for the film itself and then another 30¢ per photo to have them printed and more for enlargements if I wanted them. The total for 36 prints was in the ballpark of $20 with tax, etc. So every photo I took had to be the one I wanted. The second, third and fourth shots were expensive. If I had taken the Med cruise we took in September, I would have probably shot one or maybe two 36 exposure roles of Kodachrome or Ektachrome a day. Our cruise was 21 days so that would have cost me more than $750.

Today on an average trip, I spend exactly $0.00 to take thousands of photos. On our September trip, I took a grand total of 3,203 images. I have shared many of those on this blog, on Instagram, on Facebook and other places, but it still hasn’t cost me a single cent beyond the cost of my original investment in camera and memory cards. (BTW: In case you are wondering why my photo count is so high, it’s because I take triples. That’s three shots pretty much every time I push the shutter.)

So the message here is…take a lot of images. Out of the 3,203 photos I took in September, I was happy with about 600 of them. The rest are long gone. Out of those 600, I only show anyone about 350 of them. But they are the ones I love and want to share. And in many cases, they were the third, fourth or fifth photo I took of the same subject, just from a slightly different angle. So shoot a lot of pictures.

#3—Then organize those photos—with photo triage

If you aren’t familiar with photo triage, it works just like medical triage. I think watching the TV series MASH was the first time I understood how triage worked. A doctor would be in charge of triaging wounded patients as they came into the hospital. Those who were hurt the worst got care; first, those with less life-threatening injuries could wait.

I do the same thing when I return from a day of shooting photos. I download them to my computer and decide which ones are worth saving and which aren’t. I also have a category for those that might be good shots if I work with them in Photoshop for a little bit. I do this in a program called Adobe Bridge (below). Others use Adobe Lightroom. But you could do it just as easily in Apple’s Photos app or the base photo organizer tool for Windows. I look at each photo and hit either my 1 key for losers, my 5 key for winners or my 3 key for fixer-uppers. You can do the same thing in Photos by favoriting the ones you like (they need a numbering system). Then I summarily trash all the 1s. Get them off of your computer. I promise if I had left all of my 3,203 photos on my computer, they would not only have been a pain to manage but also have taken up a substantial amount of hard drive space. Once I have my 5s and have repaired my 3s, then I show Kathleen my 5s (fixed 3s become 5s) and see what she thinks.

After that, I might do a little more work on my final choices. Then I perform two steps that, in all likelihood, you won’t have to do with your photos. Mine are taken in a format called RAW. This format produces what photographers call a digital negative. It gives me a chance to choose a bunch of settings for my photos that your camera or phone chooses for you. Apple has created kind of a RAW format for iPhones, but there is a pretty decent learning curve if you want to use it. Since I use RAW files, I first have to convert them to JPEGs before I can put them online. I have a Photoshop extension that does this in bulk, but it does take a few minutes. Then if I want to put them on Facebook or Instagram, I have to make them smaller, so I have another Photoshop action that I run to shrink them for online use. I always keep my original files in RAW, so I still have them if I want to print them or use them in a large format.

#2—Learn how to hold your camera and hold it still

About 90% of the people I see using an iPhone hold it like this to take a photo. This is the wrong way. I can fix a lot of things in Photoshop, but no one can fix camera jiggle. So much of that has to do with how you hold your camera or your phone. My current iPhone, it has an excellent camera, and I thought I might start using it more. So I signed up for a course (online) on shooting with my iPhone. Sadly, I didn’t learn a lot because most of the course was just basic photo techniques that I already knew. But one thing that I learned in the very first lesson was how to hold the phone in the best way to avoid jiggle and get a clear photo every time.

How should you hold a phone? Like this.

Three fingers of your non-dominant hand going up or across the back. The phone is supported by your little finger and thumb of that hand. Then put your dominant hand underneath your other hand and take the photo using your thumb. This gives you an amazing amount of control, and it is a lot less likely to not only jiggle, but you are a lot less likely to drop it if jostled in a crowd. Give it a try. I do need to say that it took me a while to do this every time, but I do it every time now. Make it a habit. BTW: If you need a better explanation, just Google “the right way to hold an iPhone when taking a picture.”

#1—If you can shoot Manual and/or get a real camera

This tip only partially applies to those of you using your phone as your predominant camera. But if you have a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) or a mirrorless camera, stop shooting in Program or Auto and shoot in Manual. And if you are using your phone, consider buying a real camera. (That will take you to the next level). When you take a photo in Program, Auto or with your phone, your camera thinks you want a photo of your subject in midday, full light. Let me illustrate. On the left is a photo I took in Program. On the right is one I took in Manual.

See a huge difference? The one I shot in Manual is what I saw with my eye. The one I shot in Program is what the camera thought I wanted to take. I never want to take that photo. The mood of the one on the right is what I want every time. It completely captures what I wanted it to.

My equipment

I have had people ask in the comments what kind of camera I use. I am happy to say, but I hope that you realize this has little to do with my photography. Saying that it does is like asking Jimi Hendrix what kind of guitar he played. He could have played any guitar and been as awesome as he was. That said, I am currently shooting an almost brand new (I got it in September) Nikon Z7II. It is a mirrorless camera that I picked up in July. Mirrorless is the current state of the art in cameras. I could get really technical as to why it is superior to my old Nikon D810 DSLR, but the biggest advantage for me is that I can now hand-hold my camera at 1/20th of a second. To me, that is amazing. When I started shooting, the best I could do was around 1/60th of a second; otherwise, I got way too much jiggle. But without a mirror snapping up, I can hand-hold a lot slower shutter speeds. This new camera is also much better for action because it can take a lot of photos faster.

The predominant lens I shoot when traveling (or pretty much all the time) is a Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3G ED VR lens. David Pogue, the NY Times tech guy, called this the “Magic Lens” because you only need this one lens to shoot all the time. I do have to give up a little light that I could get back by shooting a faster lens but they just don’t make them. This lens is also pretty darned-heavy. With my camera attached, it weighs about 5lbs. I do own other lenses, but I rarely use them.

The other piece of equipment I never travel without is my Black Rapid camera strap. I can’t stand things (especially things that weigh 5lbs) hanging off my neck. This one is cross-body, and they last forever. My current strap is the only one I have ever owned, and I have been using it for more than 15 years. Not only does it distribute the weight well, but it has a zipper compartment for extra cards and a pocket for an extra battery—which is a must!

As you have already read, I also take my Mac on just about every trip we take. This helps me feel better about not losing any photos. I am a fanatic about backing up my photos. My Nikon has two slots for memory cards. I shoot to both of them. This means that when I take a photo, it is saved to both cards at the same time. When I get back to the room or the ship stateroom, I download the pics from the primary card. Then I get out my 2TB backup drive and back up my Mac. Every time I shoot I always have at least two (and usually three) copies of every photo until I have done my triage and backed up those. Then I can get rid of the rest. And I forgot to mention that the folder where I keep my photos that I download is in my Dropbox folder so it is also being uploaded whenever I have WiFi. That puts all my photos online as well.

I fully realize this is more than everyone wanted to know but if it helps you improve your travel photos, it will have been worth it. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments.

Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything. —Aaron Siskind

Expectations Not Met but That’s OK

On September 30, 2022December 24, 2022 By Jim BellomoIn Food Experiences, Photography13 Comments

It was interesting to me that when we got our post-cruise survey from Viking, they had everything listed by expectations. For instance, a question might say, “Food in the main dining room: A) Exceeded expectations B) Met expectations C) Did not meet expectations.” When I thought back on it, that was my problem with Viking. After listening to friends talk about how much they love Viking, reading a FaceBook group of Viking fans, and knowing that Viking clients are incredibly loyal, I was expecting an almost perfect experience. That was my problem and not Vikings. (Viking—do your surveys online. You are doing yourself a disservice because I truly believe you get more info that way. When I only have a tiny, multiple-choice survey with little space for comments, that’s all I give you.)

I also realized in retrospect that so much of what I knew I would love about Viking (I did a blog post about why we were moving to Viking, and you can read it here.) is things it does not have: kids, smoking (Ok, there is a tiny area outside, on deck 7 but Viking says “No Smoking” in their marketing), casino, ship’s photographers, art auctions and more. As little things went wrong along the way, I was thinking about those things, not the things that weren’t there that I loved them for. All those things were great; I just didn’t think about them because they weren’t there. But they really improved our cruise experience.

Since we got home, I have also been telling people who ask about the trip that “Now we know how long a vacation is too long.” A month is too long. Three weeks on a ship is too long. Especially when you are sick and quarantined or are self-quarantining. But if we were going to do three weeks, Viking is the cruise line I would do it on. So, without further ado, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of what we loved and what we didn’t.

What we loved

Our stateroom. We had what Viking calls a Penthouse Verandah. It was the largest non-suite stateroom we have ever had. 338 beautiful square feet. With so much storage. How much storage? So much so that we had an empty drawer and a junk drawer—on a ship. Here are some pics of one of the best staterooms we have ever been in.

Looking in from the door.

Looking back from our verandah

The verandah. We have had bigger but this was nice.

Not only a couch, but a chair and the most usuable coffee table we have ever had in a stateroom

A really nice desk and bureau. Both (as well as the closet) had drawers.

The bathroom

And a huge shower for a cruise ship stateroom.
The mini-bar. On every single one of our previous cruises (except Celebrity Flora), one of the first things we would ask our room steward to do was to remove everything in the mini-bar. On Viking, we left it all in there. Why? Because it was all free. And it got completely refreshed every day. And if there were something you would rather have in there that wasn’t, all you had to do was ask. For instance, it was full of Sprite and Diet Coke—neither of which we drink. But we do love the Schweppes Bitter Lemon they served in the bar. So we asked if we could swap out the two we didn’t like for Bitter Lemon. Well, they didn’t regularly stock it, but they ordered it up from the bar at no cost to us.
All the upstairs food on the 7th deck. That means that we found some of the best food we have ever had on a cruise in The World Cafe buffet, Mamsens and the Pool Grille. I can count on my fingers the number of times in 30+ cruises we have eaten dinner in the buffet. We usually just do the buffet for breakfast or lunch but hardly ever for dinner. On Sky, we did. Almost every night because the food was amazing. I have never eaten so much outstanding seafood.
The service in the buffet is amazing. One of my complaints about the buffet on other ships is the absence of trays. Not because I like trays but because I only have two hands. One for a salad and one for the main course. Now, how do I hold the drink(s) that I want as well? So, I go and set my food on the table, and I run back to get the drinks, and by the time I am back, my food is cold. This never happened on Sky. Ninety percent of the time, within seconds of sitting down at the table with my salad and my entrée, someone was asking me what I would like to drink. The buffet also worked like a well-oiled machine. The managers were always coming by to ask how things were. Once I told one of the managers that the veal I had just grabbed was dry and tough. He immediately turned around, went to one of the chefs and told him to remove it and get new. That was impressive. I really felt like they cared what I had to say.
The room service was outstanding. Again, before this cruise, I could count on one hand the number of times we had done room service on our other cruises, but because of our quarantine situation with Kathleen’s food poisoning, we ate a lot on this cruise. We loved room service, especially breakfast. The order was always right, delivered hot, and except for one small hiccup with a pepper shaker, it was all outstanding. I do wish their non-breakfast menu had more variety, but everything we had was great.
The wonderful quiet places on the ship. I did an entire post on this subject a few days ago and I posted pics. Just click that link to read it. Suffice it to say; there were so many great places to sit and work on my photos and write posts. Or for Kathleen to go and read but still see the sights out the front of the ship or just someplace to have a quiet conversation.
Television choices. They were awesome. I know, who watches television on a cruise? People who are quarantined. People who are feeling sick. People who are exhausted from being in a port and touring every single day. And we got to choose from quite the variety of shows, an excellent interactive map of our itinerary, old TV shows we love and more.
Embarkation and disembarkation. Not the transport from the pre-extension or back to the post-extension. But getting on the ship was a piece of cake. Viking under-promised and massively over-delivered. When we were checking in, we were told that our stateroom would be ready no later than 3:00 pm. So we headed up to the buffet for lunch (lots of tables available), and just as we were finishing up, our cruise director announced on the PA that all staterooms were ready—about two hours early. Under-promise, over-deliver. Both getting on and off the ship was about as easy as we have ever had in all our cruising.
Size of the ship. We loved it. It never felt crowded (except one night in the dining room). You could walk from one end of the ship to the other in no time. With only 9 decks and us on deck 5, we could get anywhere on the stairs, although we didn’t have to because the elevators were easily accessible. Kathleen hardly ever had to wait for elevators. But even though the ship is smaller than what we are used to, we never felt that much motion which we thought we would.
Fewer people. With only 928 total passengers, we never felt crowded.
Laundry and pressing. In 30+ cruises, we have only sailed on one ship that had a self-service laundry. It was super to have clean clothes whenever we wanted them. And it was so great being able to not worry about it when we did laundry. I would go and toss stuff in a washing machine, set a timer with Siri and then go back when she went off. Same with the dryer. And since we were in a PV-class stateroom, we also got free pressing. So I would wash and dry my shirts and send them off to be pressed and they would come back the next day looking perfect.
The included WiFi. This was excellent. Very few glitches. No, I could not watch a Netflix movie, but I was able to upload all my pics, post to this blog, FaceTime twice with our grandkids and even watch Seattle Mariner highlights on YouTube. All for free. And it was only out on very rare occasions and never for that long.
The chocolate desserts. My brother just reminded me that I raved and raved about every single dessert that was chocolate. I am NOT a chocolate person. I prefer my desserts to have fruit in them or as the main taste profile (think lemon-polenta cake), but when we went to Manfredi’s, I had the best chocolate dessert I have ever had. From that point on, I made a point to try everything chocolate and almost every single thing was just as good. If you love chocolate, it might be worth going on a Viking Sky cruise just to eat it.

What we didn’t love

The entire food poisoning incident. I have written about it pretty thoroughly here. I personally was not happy with the way Kathleen was treated. It comes down to not listening to women when medical treatment is involved as well as jumping to conclusions. Everything worked out in the end, but it just should never have happened to the extent and in the way that it did. Kathleen had to miss at least three places that we had never been to before.
Any dining on decks one or two. This includes the main dining room (AKA The Restaurant), Manfredi’s and The Chef’s table. I want to look at them individually and tell you why we did not love them. None of these restaurants passed what I now call the “Steve Standard.” My brother Steve wrote this in his review of our May cruise on Celebrity Millenium, and I have stolen it from him because I think it is the best way to describe and evaluate a cruise ship restaurant. Here’s the “Steve Standard”: If this restaurant were in your neighborhood and you ate there, would you pay to go back? Pretty simple. And the answer for us for all three restaurants is no. They did not pass the “Steve Standard.” Upstairs, the World Cafe, Mamsens and the Pool Grille all passed. I would pay to go to any of them.
- The Restaurant. On every other cruise we have ever been on, we have eaten 95% of our dinners in the main dining room. On this 21-night cruise, we ate exactly three dinners in the main dining room. Now I will give you that part of the reasons this happened was Kathleen’s quarantine when we ordered room service and long days onshore when we were just too tired and not at all motivated to get dressed to go to the dining room. But the times we did go, we were not pleased. Two of those times we felt the service was just weird. We are used to having the same servers for our dinners, but not only did we not get the same servers on these two nights, but we also had different servers for every course. And it seemed none of them really wanted to wait on us. Both dinners took more than 2.5 hours. That’s too long. We would be seated and then wait 20 minutes to get water or bread. Then another 10 to get our orders taken, then another 10 until the appetizers came, and it went on like this. And things would be missing from orders, or they would be cooked differently than asked. We were never offered a wine list, and when we would ask for one, it would take 15 minutes to get it. In the meantime, another server would just come around with the bottles of the evening’s included wines and start pouring those. We gave up. The third time we went to The Restaurant, we joined our new friends Corky and Larry, who told us they had cultivated a relationship with an outstanding server…and they had. He was amazing, and the wine steward showed up immediately to ask us about other wines. It was the kind of service we loved. And the food was great that night. But the noise level was deafening. We were sitting at a small table for four and could not hear each other talk. I still have no idea what half the conversation was about. I got tired of asking the other three to repeat what they said, so after a while, I just gave up and nodded my head. All in all, we just weren’t happy with The Restaurant.
- Manfredi’s. One of the things we loved about Viking was that the specialty restaurants were free. On most ships, you pay extra for those. A lot extra in some cases. For instance, on Holland America, we went to Rudi’s, the seafood restaurant on board and paid $50 per person to go. So when we heard that we could get into Manfredi’s for $0.00, we were thrilled until we ate there. We went twice. The first time was the same sporadic service as The Restaurant. That got fixed the second time, but the food was never up to snuff. This is supposed to be Italian. I am an Italian-American, and I LOVE to cook Italian. I have lots of Italian restaurants I love. This is not a good Italian restaurant. Example: On Celebrity cruise line ships, there is an Italian restaurant called the Tuscan Grille. I love their calamari. I have been known to have it as an appetizer and an entrée at the same meal. I looked forward to that on Sky, but it was horrible. Reminded me of eating those old snack food, Bugles. Remember those? And their ribeye steaks (which are supposed to be amazing) were some of the thinnest ribeyes I have ever eaten. And my brother (who is a steak person) ordered one and got an entirely different steak. The only thing I had that I liked was a risotto with escargot. I might get that take-out from a restaurant at home. Suffice it to say that Manfredi’s was better than Olive Garden, but not by much.
- The Chef’s Table. This is a matter of personal choice. The Chef’s table has a fixed menu that rotates every three days. We had four reservations there, but due to quarantines, we lost our first one. Then the second and fourth time, they were doing a menu that had nothing on it that Kathleen could eat. She is allergic to shellfish (two courses) and duck (the entrée). So that was out. The one time we went was on a night that they were featuring California food. She had one course she could not eat (crab cakes) and they brought her a very nice cheese plate. And the food they did serve was pretty good…for what it was. But as I said, this is a matter of personal choice and at home I would never go to a fixed menu restaurant if I could avoid it. While I thought that dinner was fine, there was not a single thing on that night’s menu that I would have ordered in a regular restaurant. The menu for two nights later looked good but we could never make it work with our reservations.
The included excursions. Another thing that drew us to Viking was that they included an excursion in every port. But those excursions just did not work for us. Either they were too long, the guides were incredibly boring and talked as if they were being paid by the word, or they just weren’t our cup of tea. I did love that Viking provided free shuttle busses in every port where we weren’t anchored right in the center of the city (Kotor), but the included excursions were just not up to par. I wish that Viking would give you a credit for excursions if you don’t use them.
The optional excursions. Out of 21 days in ports, we booked an optional excursion seven times. Only two of them would I do again (Dubrovnik and Messina). Two of them were pretty good for half of the tour (Naples and Bari) , and one was good for about a quarter of the tour (Olympia ). One was just “fine” (Kotor), and one was downright horrid (Monaco) because it was way too long, had the worst guide of the trip and included way too much crapola (like shopping). Our buddy Corky said that Viking should offer tours that were listed as “shopping or no shopping.” I totally agree. When you compare these to the pre-cruise tour we did in Athens with George of Tours By Locals, the post-cruise tour we did in Barcelona with Olga, also of Tours By Locals and the Cinque Terre tour we did with the amazing Luigi, there is no contest—there were all bad. I will give you that they were less expensive than the tours we booked ourselves, but I would gladly have paid more for better tours.
The weird weeks of this cruise. Our friends Corky and Larry, who are long-time Viking cruisers, told us that our 21-day cruise (and their 28-day cruise—they started a week before us in Instanbul) was NOT like any other Viking cruise they had been on because it wasn’t really one cruise. It was (for them) four one-week cruises, and for us, it was three one-week cruises. Did this matter? It kind of did. For instance, we could not see, book or change our shore excursions until the next week’s cruise started. Or the number of people getting off and on really was strange. Our first two weeks were primarily with a great crowd of travelers in our age group, and it worked well for us. Most were doing two-week cruises. But when many of them got off in Rome, the new group that got on was louder, ruder and generally younger. They were only doing a one-week cruise, and that meant they wanted to get all their partying in right away. We preferred the older, travel-oriented folks we had with us from Athens to Venice. Corky tells me that this particular cruise on Viking Sky is one of the few where Viking does this. We hope to avoid that in the future.

That about covers all of it. So what’s the final verdict? Well, we booked another Viking Ocean cruise while on board. So I guess that says it all. We have booked a 14-night cruise in 2024 from London up to the Norwegian fjords and ending in Bergen, Norway. We have never done this itinerary before, and it will give us a chance to compare a regular itinerary with this three week mess.

I hope you have enjoyed following along on our journey. I also hope if this was the first time you have read the blog, that you would both subscribe for future journeys and go back and read about some of what we have done in the past. I have been doing this since before the pandemic, and there are a bunch of other trips you can read about. I will be back in a couple of days with my promised treatise on how I do my photography.

True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information. —Winston Churchill

Beautiful Barcelona

On September 28, 2022 By Jim BellomoIn Food Experiences, Photography5 Comments

After our fun ride in from Tarragona and our lunch at La Rita, we got a decent night’s sleep on the first bed I had been comfortable on in 21 days. The next morning all six of us had been scheduled to do a 5-hour tour of the city, and the Gaudi highlights with Olga from Tours By Locals. Sadly, my brother had eaten something that did not agree with him so he and Jamie stayed at the hotel, and the rest of us set off for what was to be an outstanding tour. It was outstanding, primarily because of the excellent Olga.

I know I have mentioned Tours By Locals before, as we used two of their guides previously on this trip, Hans in Amsterdam and George in Athens. Both of them were great. I have used them on many occasions, but Olga may have been the best guide they have ever sent our way. To start with, she was 10 minutes early. I love early. I got a call from the lobby saying that our guide was there. As soon as Pam and Dave were downstairs, Olga’s driver pulled up in a wonderfully spacious Mercedes van. It was so GREAT not to be stuck in a “luxury motor coach.”

Kathleen and I with Olga on the roof of Casa Mila.

When I first contacted Tours By Locals a month previous, it had been hard finding a guide that either wasn’t already booked or could accommodate some of the things we wanted to do because of the festival going on for the entire time we were in the city. On the other hand, Olga was completely willing to work with me on setting up a tour that would incorporate the best of Barcelona. That’s what I love about Tours By Locals; the guides will work with you to see the things you want to see. When you go to Barcelona, some of the things most people want to see are the works of revolutionary Antoni Gaudi, the most famous of which is La Sagrada Familia. We knew upfront that the church would be completely closed to anyone but locals, so seeing the inside was not an option. Olga made suggestions of things we could see that would be a good alternative, and I liked them all. We decided to do Gaudi’s Casa Mila, Park Güell, see the outside of the La Sagrada Familia and then tour the old town. Olga said she would try and throw in some surprises along the way.

La Pedrera—Casa Mila)

When Kathleen and I were here in 2007, we toured the beautiful La Pedera—Casa Mila building. The building is an entire block made up of two condominiums totally designed by Antoni Gaudi (who designed La Sagrada Familia) as well as many other one-of-a-kind buildings throughout Barcelona. We wanted to see it again and make sure that the rest of the group also got to see it. Kathleen had no problem touring this building in 2007 and thought she could still do it because when you did the tour, you took the elevator to the top of the building. And then you walked down and did the tour on the way.

Olga told us that this had changed since we were there last (what hadn’t 😜?) and that now you walked UP the stairs and then exited by way of the elevator. This just wasn’t going to work for us. So Olga jumped into action as soon as we got there, and in no time, Kathleen and I were going up the original apartment elevator (not open to anyone but employees) to the top floor to start our tour down. I wish I had taken a photo because it was one elegant elevator. It even had a Gaudi-designed, hand-carved wooden bench that Kathleen got to sit on while we went up. This is what makes local guides so good. They know the people to talk to (because Olga toured there constantly), and they know what can and can’t be done with the right request. We were blown away.

We had an awesome time touring the building. I am going to let the photos and the captions tell you the rest of the story. 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. Please…

Casa Mila from the outside

Looking up the façade.

The entry way is gorgeous

Gaudi loved to showcase nature in his work.

Loved the etched glass windows.

Looking up in the inner courtyard.

It almost looks like…

…a gateway to heaven.

The main reception stairs to the second floor apartments

Incredible ceilings

They have different rooms set up exactly as they were when the building was inhabitied.

The original owners lost the buidling during a financial downturn.

A bank bought the building.

The bank turned it into a museum…

…so the public could tour it.

The rooms were incredibly large for the time.

Gaudi also designed much of the furniture.

Of course every European household has a bidet.

A small tub for bathing the babies in the house.

The windows all had incredible views.

The office

I loved the patterned floors

Either done with wood or tiles.

Beautifully furnished throughout.

The dining room.

Even the ceilings were beautiful.

A Gaudi-designed bed.

And mirror.

The design of the furniture mirroed the design of the house.

It takes a while to tour the floor where people lived.

No showers in that age.

Even the coat rack was Gaudi-desgned.

When the building became public…

…this amazing space above the living space and below the roof was discovered.

The supports for the roof and the entire building were here and they are beautiful.

They have turned this area into a museum.

Here you can see how Gaudi worked

There is a scale model of the entire building.

As well as a display of Gaudi’s furniture designs.

And then you reach the roof.

It has amazing views.

In every direction

As well as these amazing sculptures everywhere.

Gaudi loved to design.

It is said that George Lucas came to Casa Mila …

And used these statues as his inspiration for the stormtroopers in Star Wars.

It sure looks like it.

The roof top is truly a gem.

And from there you have an amazing view of La Sagrada Familia.

When we were here in 2007, the air quality was horrid…

…so my photos were nowhere near this good.

Can’t you just hear the…

Darth Vader March.

Looking back down into the courtyard.

Park Güell

Our second stop on the tour was the beautiful Park Güell. This is another of Gaudi’s masterpieces that was originally built out in the country north of Barcelona, but over the years, the city has grown to swallow it up, and it is now almost in the city center. There is so much to see there, but I will just let you see it in my photos. Enjoy.

Note how the name is spelled. The man who commissioned it wanted a British Park.

Remind you of palm trees?

One of the many buildings on the grounds.

The view from the Park

Remind you of elephants?

A band was playing in the park.

The queen of Barcelona

On the upper level of the park. The place was swamped.

Loved all the nature depicted in the art.

This is the support for the upper part of the park.

More elephants? Everything is designed with a purpose.

Looking down from the top of the park.

This was Gaudi’s home for a while.

Underneath the upper park.

There are four huge circles in the ceiling.

They represent the four seasons.

The Park’s unofficial mascot, at the front gate.

Looking up at the top of the park.

Note how the tiles are both convex and concave.

The top of the house Gaudi lived in.

Check out the dots on top, which are actually coffee cups turned upside down.

On the house across the entrance from Gaudi’s home.

Gaudi’s house almost looks like a gingerbread house.

Looking back at the park.

The other house on the opposite side of the entrance.

Beautiful design was everywhere.

La Sagrada Família

Even though this incredible church was closed to non-locals due to the current festival, Olga wanted us to see it close up from the outside so she could explain the building and the significance of the art on the outside. You can’t believe the art on the outside of La Sagrada Família. Maybe you will have you see my photos. If you get bored with all the closeups, please feel free to jump out, but I did pair this down from more than 200 photos. 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. Please…