Alaska cruises are always fantastic. You just can’t beat the scenery. Add to that, that we hit the jackpot with the weather this week, which shows off the natural beauty even more spectacularly. We woke up this morning in The Endicott Arm, a narrow fjord is located approximately 50 miles southeast of Juneau. It extends […]
We are on an Alaska cruise for a week. Skagway, Alaska, home to about 1,200 folks, is defined by the Klondike Goldrush in the late 1890s. Today the city is booming again thanks to about 8,000 cruise passengers every single day in the summer. The city is cute as can be. Getting out of town […]
Today we visited the USS Silversides Museum located in Muskegon, Michigan, on the east side of Lake Michigan. The highlight was a complete walkthrough of the ship. She was a Gato-class submarine. They were able to build 77 of these type subs between 1940 and 1944. Some interesting numbers and factoids about Gatos: They could […]
After decades of population decline, Detroit is once again growing. And it is easy to see why. All over the city we saw clean streets and buildings, no graffiti and massive construction. We have not been to a more underrated city. They have fabulous museums, housing, restaurants, offices, and shopping. We focused our visit at […]
We spent the morning at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Fabulous! Did you know that Allyn played the guitar and sang professionally in various bars from 1972 – 1974 to put herself through college? We stopped by the football stadium walking back to the ship. Cleveland fun factoids: Even though the city is […]
It’s fun and awesome getting wet while viewing Niagara Falls up close. Interesting factoids: The volume of water in the Great Lakes would cover North America in about 3.5 ft of water. Today less than one percent of the water of the Great Lakes is renewable on an annual basis (precipitation and groundwater). The rest […]
We are back on the road for 12 nights. We had such a good time on our Great Lakes road trip in 2022 that, this summer, we are taking a 12-night Great Lakes cruise. We stayed at the original Four Seasons Hotel last night in Toronto. This morning, we enjoyed a Toronto tour before boarding. […]
Last night we were treated to our most elegant affair ever. Yes ever! In a special surprise dinner, Manfredi Lefebvre d’Ovidio, who owns Crystal Cruises hosted all 120+ 2025 world cruisers to a magnificent evening at Palazzo Colonna. It is the largest private residence in Europe. The Colonna family line is 31 generations. They have […]
About 2,000 years ago, in 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius (near Naples) had a huge eruption, over 100,000 times stronger than the atom bombs dropped on Japan. Several communities were destroyed including Pompei and Herculaneum. Because we enjoyed our day so much in Pompeii in 2011, we decided to visit today. Herculaneum was covered with 50 to […]
Today we are in Trapani, in the northwest corner of Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean, and Italy’s southernmost region. It has the lovely European medieval Old Town charm that we have become used to lately. Narrow streets and old buildings are the norm. Given that it is a bit off the beaten path, […]