It is a great privilege and blessing to be able to visit Portugal twice within three months, first in December on a Viking River Cruise tour, and second in March on a Go Ahead Travels tour to Spain and Morocco commencing in Lisbon, Portugal...
What a difference the distance of three sea days between Cape Verde and Madeira makes! The country of Madeira, like Cape Verde, also discovered and settled by the Portuguese, is the opposite of Cape Verde...
I first heard of Cape Verde Islands in the title of a jazz composition by pianist Horace Silver, The Cape Verdean Blues.
Several blog readers have requested a description of our cruise life.
At every Viking port, several different excursions with local guides are offered. We didn’t want to visit another winery or cattle farm. So we chose a city tour which included a tango performance. Our local tour guide began by acknowledging that Uruguay is not a tourist “destination”...
This blog will describe Southern Chile: Puerto Montt, two impressive glaciers, Punta Arenas, and our transit around Cape Horn, the southernmost part of Tierra Del Fuego, South America.
Chilean wines of world class quality tend to be less expensive than similar European wines due to Chile’s lower labor costs.
Our fourth Viking port of call was the country of Panama, at the port of its huge modern capital, Panama City. Panama originally was part of its Southern neighbor Columbia. But American “gunboat diplomacy” separated Panama early in the 20th century into an American “protectorate”. This allowed the US to proceed with the ambitious project of constructing the Panama Canal, whose length of approximately fifty miles qualifies it as one of the greatest engineering projects in human history.
Following our first port of Cabo San Lucas and three days at sea, our second port of call on the Viking world cruise was the famous tourist city Puerto Vallarta. Puerto Vallarta is the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, a state which is approximately the size of South Carolina. Tourism is its main “industry.” Susan and I joined a city tour with a local guide who spoke perfect English. We toured the downtown area including the cathedral, followed by a half-hour drive out of the city to tour a tequila factory...
Departing Los Angeles and three days at sea, our first port of call of our world cruise was Cabo San Lucas, at the tip of the Baja California (Lower California) peninsula. The word “cabo” means “cape” in Spanish, referring here to the termination of the Baja Peninsula. It is a famous tourist destination, famous for its Marlin fishing competition and as a destination for partying American college kids on Spring Break. It is known for its dramatic stone formations in it harbor, which includes a dramatic stone archway...