Norfolk Botanical Garden, Norfolk, Virginia

I have not been in the habit of reviewing local attractions, but the 'Garden of Lights' Christmas light display at the Norfolk Botanical Garden in Norfolk, Virginia is definitely worth mentioning. Earlier this month I had been with a group of friends to see the lights at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia, and found it quite enjoyable. Their best display was a peacock, which was gorgeous. But their display as a whole, paled next to the display in Norfolk. From the point where you drive into the Norfolk Botanical Garden, well before you pay for your tickets, there are beautiful displays to view. This display is a drive-through, so you can't get cold while enjoying the display.

Each individual light display was clear and crisp and well done, with no lights missing. some had movement, like a frog diving into a pond, or a waving snow man. There was a beautiful windmill that first brought home to me the quality of the displays. There were identifiable flowers, mushrooms, butterflies,a caterpillar, a train, an aircraft carrier, and displays taking you through all the seasons of the year, from spring through harvest, through Christmas. There were several trees that were completely and fully decked out in lights, and one area that was apparently supposed to be the night sky - a huge expanse of "stars" with a moon.

Alas, I did not have my camera, and even if I did I'm not good at night pictures with it. But I highly recommend the 'Garden of Lights' at the Norfolk Botanical Garden. It is well worth the $10 per car it costs to get in. Of all the light displays I've seen, it is by far the best, very professional and perfectly maintained.

By way of information, it is possible to buy a combination ticket to see both Norfolk and the Virginia Beach boardwalk displays at the Norfolk Botanical Garden, but they must be purchased from the Botanical Garden on December 1, the first day of ticket sales, because they sell out quickly.

Vatican City

Since I already detailed our visit to St. Peter's Basilica, this will be brief. The doors in the last photo are the only original doors to the basilica. The other important thing to note is that every painting there is actually mosaic. That gives new meaning to mosaic for me - I usually think of them as being a little bit crude, but these are incredible artwork.

Rome, Italy Part 2

After lunch we re boarded our bus and headed out to the Quirinalis (one of the seven hills of Rome), the Victor Emmanuel monument, the Roman Forum and the Coliseum. The tomb of the Unknown Soldier is located near the statue of Victor Emmanuel. After passing by the monument, we headed down a long flight of stairs into the ruins of the Roman Forum. These are quite extensive, and there is a lot of archaeological work going on. I was fascinated by what appeared from a distance to be cliff dwellings, but which probably appeared to be that way because the level of most of the city is now so much higher than it was in the days when all those structures were built.

Unlike at my prior visit, the coliseum is now fenced off, rather than being completely open. We did not go into it, but I'm sure the atmosphere there is much better than it used to be. After we left we boarded our bus near the remains of an ancient aqueduct. From there we could also see the Circus Maximus.

After this we headed to St.-Paul's-Outside-The-Walls church, which now is a Catholic church, although it did not start out that way. The scale is much smaller than St. Peter's but it is a beautiful church.

Sunday turned out to be a good tour day. There were fewer people than on other days, plus we saw no evidence of the usually ubiquitous pickpockets.

A few odd bits of information: there are three prices for coffee at a café. The least expensive is when you buy it to go; next up is when you want to consume it inside; most expensive is when you want to consume in on the patio. Lane lines on the roads appear to be suggestions, based on the way people drive. And finally, by law in Rome no building can be taller than St. Peter's Basilica. Therefore there are no skyscrapers.

Monday morning we had an easy time checking out of our hotel and traveling to the airport, which is nearer to Civitavecchia than to Rome. There were armed guards above the ticketing area of the airport, but security was easy to get through, apart from the fact that our passports were checked at least five times. We found the airport easy to navigate. Our timing was also perfect: we left the hotel at 8:30AM for a 10:55AM flight, which was exactly enough time to board our flight immediately after check in. We had a safe and uneventful flight home, apart from the usual delays at JFK airport surrounding baggage loading.

Civitavecchia and Rome

Saturday, our final morning on board the Prinsendam was somewhat of a sad time, because we had to say goodbye to many new friends. But disembarkation was easy and occurred in a timely manner. We met the private car we had arranged for prior to the trip, which took us to our hotel in Rome. The quality of the roads was excellent. On our ride through the countryside we saw cattle, grapes, olive groves, plus the very distinctive Italian stone pines, which are also known as umbrella pines. We drove past Vatican City, where there were long lines waiting to get into the museums and the Sistine Chapel.

As soon as we checked into our hotel, Tina left to walk over to the Vatican. She was willing to wait in line because she had always wanted to see the Sistine Chapel. I opted to stay at the hotel, and once the room became available, I used the time to take several naps and organize my belongings. In the evening we went walking to see if we could find a restaurant. We ended up at a little shop that sold many kinds of intriguing looking pizzas, all of them oblong in shape. We bought pieces of several and ate them as we walked back to the hotel. We also picked up some cookies and a prickly pear fruit at a small grocery.

Our hotel was the Visconti Palace, which was located fairly close to Vatican City in the city center of Rome. Our room was clean and comfortable, though not fancy. The "continental breakfast" that was included in the price of the room turned out to be quite a nice, satisfying buffet. One important note about the room is that if you need more than one outlet that fits American plugs, bring an adapter. The only outlet I could plug my camera into was in the bathroom.

This was Tina's first time in Rome; I had been there before in 1967 and was not looking forward to our stay at all because my prior experience had been so bad. In the end, however, I was pleasantly surprised by all the changes in the city. It is much cleaner than it was before, and much restoration work is in progress. It was interesting to observe that most of the scaffolding in use was covered by interesting scrims.

A few observations: The people in this city don't look sloppy the way so many Americans do. They don't have the same rate of obesity, either. The architecture in Rome is very detailed, and the old buildings are both ornate and very distinctive in style. There are many cobblestone streets in city center (can you imagine the work involved in paving them? Our tour guide told us, however, that the way government handles projects that involve digging up the street is totally inefficient, and what she said sounded just like how we do things here at home). The automobile population is also very different from what we find at home: There are mostly small cars, with some smaller station wagons and minivans, and only a very occasional SUV. Rome is the only place I've been where one routinely sees parking areas holding more cars than there are designated spaces. As an example, across the street from our hotel there were eleven marked spaces, holding 15 automobiles. Nobody took up two parking spaces!

On Sunday we had arranged for an all day tour that included the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, several other places (which I will specify when I can find the tour booklet), ending the morning with a visit to St. Peter's Basilica. Although I had been to the Trevi fountain on my prior visit, nothing about it looked familiar. It is huge and ornate, and probably three times the size I remembered it as being. The Pantheon looks as if it has been kept in good repair through the years, unlike most buildings its age. While riding in the bus our guide pointed out the Teatro di Marcello, the bottom part of which looked very much like the Roman Coliseum. A more modern building completed the top. Our guide mentioned that it had been built in 46-45 BC, which makes it 130 years older than the coliseum. As we were entering St. Peter's, our guide casually mentioned that the Pope would be speaking from his apartment window at noon. It is necessary to go through security to get into St. Peter's. The process is not difficult, except for getting the crowds coordinated in going through the gates.

St. Peter's Basilica is the most amazing piece of architecture I've seen to date. The scale can only be described as humongous. Letters that look to be maybe a foot high are actually eight feet tall. Where there are niches with statues at several levels on the walls (sort of stacked), the upper ones are larger than the lower ones so that they all look to be the same size. It is necessary to make sure you get into the right line going into the basilica, or you might find yourself climbing the six hundred (or so) stairs up to the dome. We saw people up at the first level, and just seeing people up there was frightening. There was a service in progress while we were there, and we were delayed leaving until the final procession had passed. We got back out into the courtyard in time to hear the Pope speak. We were walking toward our group meeting place during that time because we didn't want to miss our bus, but the broadcast was loud enough that we could hear the whole thing easily.

The tour included a four course lunch at a restaurant, which was quite good. The first course was an interesting salad; the second was two kinds of pasta with different sauces; the entrée was a veal steak with arugula & tomatoes in olive oil, and fried new potato wedges; dessert was a thin cake topped with red currants & wild blackberries. It also included bottled water and both red and white wines.

The afternoon part of the tour will be included in the next post.

Straits of Messina and Stromboli

We had a wonderful surprise in the afternoon after leaving Messina. The captain announced that we would be passing Stromboli, a volcanic island, with the first view about 3:15PM. At exactly the time specified we were able to see it clearly, with the top surrounded by low clouds. The island has an elevation of about 3000 feet above sea level, and rises 10,000 from the floor of the sea. The volcano is active, with a constant flow of lava. We were surprised at first to see that there are three villages on the island. However, as we passed close to the island it became clear why those villages could exist: the areas of lava flow are well delineated. The contrast between the green areas and the lava flow areas is great. There is agriculture on the island; they grow grapes, caper berries and wild asparagus.

As we passed the island it also became clear that the low-hanging clouds were actually clouds of steam rising from the center of the volcano and one of the vents on the volcanically active side of the island. And while we could not see the red glow of the hot lava, we could see clouds of steam hovering over the area, which indicated the presence of hot lava.

Another intriguing sight was the 43 meter high rock near the island, called Strombolacino (or something similar - not sure of the actual name). It looked as if it had trees growing on it, but it was too far distant to know for sure.

The first photo is of mainland Italy before we got near Stromboli.