Archive for the Category ◊ Vistas ◊

10 Sep 2009 Exploring Caledonia: Part I

A Week in Caledonia

I began writing this shortly before we left Britain, but then life caught up, and in the chaos of returning to the US, it got set aside. As I write these words now, it has been nearly a month and a half since we landed in the US and a month since we returned to Albuquerque.  Life has been…  Very good, but very busy since the return.  But the memories of Britain and Europe are still strong, and part of our hearts still live there, I think.

So now I flip back through my notes and the feel and scents of Scotland return to me.  I will do my best to transcribe some of them, but there’s a great deal to say, so this may take more than one post and some time to get out.  (Not aided, I know, by my incurable verbosity.)  Think of it as a slow-motion discovery for each of you — you’ll never know when another bit of it will pop up.  But I’ll do my best to at least finish up Scotland before, oh, say, Christmas…

One of the final tour targets for the great Rati-Lane British Isles tours was Scotland. We’d been hoping to hit all of the major regions/countries of the British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland), but we still missed Ireland.  Ah well — good reason to return at some point.  ;-)

We had to decide on something, and we had really needed a work-free vacation, so we packed our bags and headed North.  A lot happens in a week of intense vacationing, so there’s quite a bit to report.  We’ll start with:

more…

10 May 2009 Hiking in Wales
 |  Category: Places and Sights, Vistas  | 8 Comments

So I promised that we’d get back and chronicle some of our hiking trip to Wales.

(Warning: long and lots of pics behind the cut.)

more…

10 Apr 2009 The view from the bus

So, Mom and Dad are visiting us for Holy Week.  We should have a post about Palm Sunday services in St. Paul’s Cathedral, but this post is not that post.  This post is about a bus tour.

Magdalen College Tower in Oxford

Magdalen College Tower in Oxford

more…

18 Mar 2009 Spring comes to London!
 |  Category: Places and Sights, Random fun, Vistas  | One Comment

It isn’t all snow and wet and dark here in London.  Spring is on the way!  Last weekend1, Susan and I went to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew to enjoy the first flowers and a bit of blue sky.

Early spring flowers at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew

Early spring flowers at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew

more…

16 Jan 2009 Our trip to Pisa at last
 |  Category: Places and Sights, Vistas  | 3 Comments

So, we’ve been failing and failing to put up anything about our trip to Italy at the beginning of December.  There’s no real excuse for it.  We just got stressed out about getting our UK visas and moving.  Then we got here, and we’ve wanted to post the stuff off the tops of our heads.  So, though perhaps not the most inspired trip log, here at least is something, with pictures :). more…