Travel Blog

Quebec City

2009-03-29T15:47:00.000-07:00

I wish to share a little more on our trip through Eastern Canada in Quebec City. Quebec is a province in the eastern part of Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level. Quebec City is beautiful, full of history and old buildings. Here are some photographs.

View from the funicular (see the website)

Ken & Harriet around some street sculptures
of Aboriginal tribal members ....

Quebec in January 2009 ..... I was sent these by Mandy, a cousin of mine, this year. She was sent them by a good friend in Quebec who they got to know really well when she and Gary, her husband lived and worked in Canada for several years earlier than this time. See the Blog Site on Quebec in January 2009

Part 6. Ontario Pioneer Camp ....Eastern Canada

2009-03-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

I wish to share a little more on our trip through Eastern Canada at the Ontario Pioneer Camp. We came back from the week long Alaskan part of trip back to Vancouver. We then flew up to Toronto which was a five hour trip. For those who may be reading this travel blog for the first time, I summarise our itinerary from Part 1:

• On the 8th May we flew from Brisbane down to Sydney which is a one hour flight
• Then we boarded a plane which flew straight to Vancouver in Canada which was a 14 hour flight …. A long trip!! This was a lot simpler than flying to Los Angeles (USA customs etc.) then flying to Vancouver
• We had three days to walk the streets of Vancouver …. taking lots of photos
• On the second day we caught a taxi to the waiting ship for a week long cruise to Alaska and back again. We cruised right up to the Skagway in northern Alaska and back finally to Vancouver
• We then went to Vancouver airport and flew to Toronto …. A five hour trip. One of our old friends, Yolanda actually met us at us at ‘Arrivals’. It was wonderful to see her after 25 years. We were neighbours, living on acreage at Chambers Flat in the mid 1970’s. Yolanda had returned home to Canada in the early 1980’s. Yolanda acted as our personal assistant from getting possession of our hire car and getting us to our hotel.

Then she took us out to dinner. As we said we wanted to see Niagara Falls, Yolanda contacted friends on her mobile phone who lived up there to meet us and ferry us around for the day. See the blog site here to view our Niagara Falls photos.

I wish to share a little more on our trip through Eastern Canada at the Ontario Pioneer Camp. We came back from the week long Alaskan part of trip back to Vancouver. We then flew up to Toronto which was a five hour trip. For those who may be reading thitravel blog for the first time, I summarise our itinerary from Part 1:

• On the 8th May we flew from Brisbane down to Sydney which is a one hour flight
• Then we boarded a plane which flew straight to Vancouver in Canada which was a 14 hour flight …. A long trip!! This was a lot simpler than flying to Los Angeles (USA customs etc.) then flying to Vancouver
• We had three days to walk the streets of Vancouver …. taking lots of photos
• On the second day we caught a taxi to the waiting ship for a week long cruise to Alaska and back again. We cruised right up to the Skagway in northern Alaska and back finally to Vancouver
• We then went to Vancouver airport and flew to Toronto …. A five hour trip. One of our old friends, Yolanda actually met us at us at ‘Arrivals’. It was wonderful to see her after 25 years. We were neighbours, living on acreage at Chambers Flat in the mid 1970’s. Yolanda had returned home to Canada in the early 1980’s. Yolanda acted as our personal assistant from getting possession of our hire car and getting us to our hotel.
• From Niagara Falls, we drove up back through Toronto 2 and half hours up North to Muskokas (the cottage lake district) to pick up our 28 year old daughter Claire. She is a primary school teacher who had been living and doing volunteer working in Canada from June 2007 till June 2008.
• Claire had initially travelled to Canada to volunteer as a chalet leader for Ontario Pioneer Camp a Christian Summer Camp and Outdoor Education Centre which has over 1200 acres of property, five separate camping sites (three winterised) on two lakefronts. Lake Clearwater is several kilometres across. During the summer the camp operates a Boys Camp, Girls Camp, Adventure Camp (for small children), Leaders in Training (LIT) Program, to name a few. Claire volunteered at Girls Camp for the summer and taught Sailing and Wilderness Survival skills as well as bonding with small groups of girls who came to camp for a one or two week session. (6 weeks- 6 days a week)
• When the summer finished Claire extended her visa and was accepted as an instructor for their Year Round Outdoor Education Program. She received a lot of on the job training and was then able to teach canoeing, kayaking, high ropes, low ropes, wilderness survival, etc during the autumn (fall) and then after the joys of experiencing snow for the first time was taught how to cross country skiing, snowshoe, broomball etc. to the many school and weekend retreat groups that utilised the facility.
• See the website for Pioneer Camp.
There is a lot of beauty and joy in life .... I wish share with you a very small portion of this. See the few photos below and see the Blog Site of Photographs of our experience of the Ontario Pioneer Camp over three days we were there.

Our 28 year old daughter Claire at home .... she has become an official Primary School with a one year contract at a local school in 2009 .....

Claire about to stern (steer) a large replica War Canoe across the lake .... in the summer time in Canada 2007 before we arrived in Canada in May 2008-this lake freezes right across it’s surface and it is possible to walk between the different summer camp sites. (not to mention drive a truck across if you so desire!)

Cedarwood ….. one of the buildings where we stayed for three days …

One of the chalets that the campers lived in during the summer (this was Claire’s home for 6 weeks-the bunk on the left)…..

Camp Farewell to Claire who had been a volunteer at the Camp for a whole year ….. she was presented with a cake and a Canadian Flag …..

Winter Time

Harriet & I were down the Gold Coast Park (Australia) reading under trees with our shoes off in February 2008. I had been writing e-mails to Claire in Canada every week and I copied this photograph into the e-mail to keep her informed of our Australian situation. She wrote back and said how she was amazed to see us with our shoes off. There was five feet of snow outside her front door and they had to keep shovelling the snow to get inside. The difference between summer in Australia and winter time in Canada!!

I trust you enjoyed looking at these photos of the Ontario Pioneer Camp ..... I trust they are a celebration of beauty and joy in life. Enjoying the impact of one focussed detail of life has to be counterbalanced with the big picture of life. Life is a journey and not a destination.
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Canada Part 5 ... Skagway in Alaska

2009-01-29T18:14:00.000-08:00

Part 5. Skagway in Alaska ....

16.01.09

Dear Friend around the World,

I wish to share with you some experiences of a recent trip we did overseas in May 2008 through the medium of photography and blog sites or recommended websites. On the 8th May we flew from Brisbane to Sydney and boarded a plane which flew straight to Vancouver in Canada …. A long fourteen hour trip!! However this was a lot simpler than flying via Los Angeles (USA customs etc.).

The next day we boarded our ship for a week long cruise to Alaska. Here are some photos of our week long trip in the Veendam. We stopped at two places for excursions right up in Alaska ...... Juneau and Skagway. Part 5. Is on our day trip in Skagway. See the Blog Site I have made of some my Skagway photos.

Also see David Daward's website of photographs from no. 174 -244 For his White Pass photos and 203 – 244 for his Skagway photos.

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Download from the free Google Earth Website ....

2009-01-16T13:18:00.001-08:00

If you the latest version of Google Earth, you can put in our address at 1606 Chambers Flat Rd. Chambers Flat Australia and the Earth will zoom into our address and show even our house roof. Slide the bar down to a smaller size and you will see Chambers Flat in relationship to Brisbane >>>> then Australia as a whole then Australia against the whole earth .... Awesome!!!

Use Google Earth to see any location we have travelled to as detailed in this travel blog site. It is best being on Cable Internet ..... it comes in so fast!!

2008 Canada .... Part 3

2009-01-16T12:52:00.001-08:00

Part 3. Northern Alaska in the Veendam

We had three days to walk the streets of Vancouver (two days there initially and one day a week later) …. taking lots of photos see the Blog Sites in Part 2. On the second day we caught a taxi to the waiting ship for a week long cruise to Alaska and back again. We cruised right up to the Skagway in northern Alaska and back finally to Vancouver. Here are some photos of our week long trip in the Veendam operated by the Holland America cruise line. It had 1200 passengers and 600 crew to look after you.

..... Ken and Harriet have just boarded the Veendam
for cruising to Alaska for a week ….

…. A liner similar to the Veendam
moored up in Skagway, Alaska …

The Interior Of The Ship: The ship had
eleven floors on it. You would go up
by lift to the general Ship Restaurant and to
the covered Swimming Pool and outdoor Eating
Room on the 11th Floor. The two photos below
show one of the many halls and the general Ship
Restaurant which was duplicated on the other side
of the ship.

It was very stable as the ship travelled

up the Alaskan Inside Passage .....

This is our Bedroom on the 5th Floor …

.. it isn’t called a Bedroom. It called a
State Room = 516. At night, you would be left
a notice by your room that if you would like
breakfast in your State Room, what time would you
like it and what breakfast selection would you
have from this list? In the morning at your set time,
a man in his catering uniform would wheel a tray
of your special breakfast selection to your room,
knock on your door and when you had opened,
he would hand - carry in a tray of your selection
to your table. He would come back and pick all the
trays along the hall when you left them
outside on hall floor beside your door.

The Interior Of The Ship

• The Interior of the ship ….. see the photographs here
• The Veendam on the 11th Deck ..... you come up by lift to the General Ship Restaurant and to the covered Swimming Pool and outdoor Eating Room which looks over the water .....…..see the photographs here
• The Veendam Auditorium ……See the Photographs here
• The Veendam Formal Dining Room ……See the Photographs here
• The Veendam Ken’s Birthday Dinner (May)……See the Photographs here
• The Veendam Library ……See the Photographs here

The Exterior views from the ship ….. see the photographs here

• Bob Silverman’s photos …… the man above in the red coat …. See his many photos through Kodak Gallery. We got to know Bob and his wife Elaine on the ship in a close way over the whole week we were on the ship. He appears in my photos above section: The Veendam Ken’s Birthday Dinner (May)……See the Photographs here ‘ His photos are wonderful and show scenes inside the ship, on the ship (including several of Harriet and I walking around on the timber deck for exercise). He shows photos of two places we stopped for excursions right in Alaska ...... Juneau and Skagway. I will focus on these places in our Blog Sites in Part 4 and 5 which will come out as later date. Bob and Elaine are now on my worldwide e-mail friends list.

I cannot organise things very well or drive due to my severe brain injury twelve years ago. I used to do this very capably in my former business. I ran a small business in upmarket landscape design and construction for wealthy clients around Brisbane for twenty years. It was called ‘New Earth Systems P/L’. I was an Outer Gardener concerned about Outer Sustainability. This Outer Sustainability was fragile and easily eroded, dependent on my performance and people's acceptance of my work. Two specific blog sites of my past gardens are these:

• Greenmount Beach Resort … 28 years on from when I did the garden in 1980
• Sheehan's Garden in October 2007 .... House and Garden in West End, Brisbane … 23 years on from when I did the garden in 1984

I thought of a landscape as a three-dimensional piece of space that people walked through. This space changed with time as it grew and changed with the time of day: shadows vs. sun patterns, boulders, colour, plants, trees, earth-forms, solid structures and water. These were the ingredients in a subtle flow of landscape design and construction. Rather an intangible product to sell and run a business with!! Out of this stage I built a structure for my life: my marriage with Harriet, business and our house plus we had a family of two children.

Now I cannot do these things. I am in a new season of life where other people are very important. One thing I do now is that I now facilitate The BRAIN INJURY SURVIVOR NETWORK around the world ….. there are hundreds of fellow survivors all linked by the blog site as given here. The BRAIN INJURY SURVIVOR NETWORK is about HOPE and RESTORATION.
Hope and RESTORATION: that by following the fundamentals of the Sustainable Life, you will again be a valued member of the community again. Such a life has the ability to be continually and maintained everyday. From my personal belief and experience there three important components in recovering from a brain injury and maintaining an ongoing life. These are: Structure, Social Network and Spirituality. Each of these components act like legs on a tripod which sit on large rock near the ocean. When the storms and waves of life come (as in brain injury), if the legs are strong, the waves will go over you but you will sit firmly on the rock of life. If one of the legs is weak, the tripod of your life will fall.

Hope and RESTORATION : that by following the fundamentals of the Sustainable Life, you will again be a valued member of the community again. Such a life has the ability to be continually and maintained everyday. From my personal belief and experience there three important components in recovering from a brain injury and maintaining an ongoing life. These are: Structure, Social Network and Spirituality. Each of these components act like legs on a tripod which sit on large rock near the ocean. When the storms and waves of life come (as in brain injury), if the legs are strong, the waves will go over you but you will sit firmly on the rock of life. If one of the legs is weak, the tripod of your life will fall over in what you could call an Unsustainable Life.
Now Harriet does all the day to day organising and the daily driving. I instead focus on visually recording the experiences through photographs ….. all the places we go to. I came back from Canada with 3000 ++ photographs from our 3.50 weeks in Canada on three 2 GB chips. When I came home, I then downloaded them onto my home computer into many folders and many subfolders. Then I can use them in blog sites of photographs and word explanations. I can then communicate with many associates and friends around the world by sending a few e-mails.

Regards,

Ken Aitken (B.Sc.)

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Juneau in Alaska .... Part 4.

2009-01-02T23:39:00.001-08:00

Part 4. Juneau in Alaska ....

Copied from an e-mail broadcast 28.12.08

Dear Friend around the World,

I wish to share with you some experiences of a recent trip we did overseas in May 2008 through the medium of photography and blog sites or recommended websites. On the 8th May we flew from Brisbane to Sydney and boarded a plane which flew straight to Vancouver in Canada …. A long fourteen hour trip!! However this was a lot simpler than flying via Los Angeles (USA customs etc.).

The next day we boarded our ship for a week long cruise to Alaska. Here are some photos of our week long trip in the Veendam operated by the Holland America cruise line. It had 1200 passengers and 600 crew to look after you.

We stopped at two places for excursions right up in Alaska ...... Juneau and Skagway. Juneau is the capital of Alaska and Skagway was the dropping off point 500 years ago for the Klondike Gold Rush. The overall excursion was very stable as the ship travelled up the Alaskan Inside Passage. The Inside Passage of the Alaska Panhandle and coastal British Columbia is a coastal route for oceangoing vessels along a series of passages between the mainland and the coastal islands. Ships using the route can avoid some of the bad weather in the open ocean, and visit the many isolated communities along the route. It is heavily travelled by cruise ships, freighters, tugs with tows, fishing craft and ships of the Alaska Marine Highway and BC Ferries systems. The name Inside Passage is also used to refer to the ocean and islands around the passage.

The Alaskan portion of the Inside Passage, in the north, extends 500 miles (800 km) from north to south and 100 miles (160 km) from east to west. The area encompasses 1,000 islands, 15,000 miles (24,000 km) of shoreline and thousands of coves and bays. British Columbia's southern portion of the route is of similar extent, with up to 25,000 miles (40,000 km) of coastline, and includes the narrow, protected Strait of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland, the Johnstone and Queen Charlotte Straits between Vancouver Island and the mainland, as well as a short stretch along the wider and more exposed Hecate Strait near the Queen Charlotte Islands, though from Fitz Hugh Sound northwards the route is sheltered via the various large islands in that area such as Princess Royal Island and Pitt Island.
The Juneau mining district is a gold mining area in the U.S. state of Alaska.In 1880 a local inhabitant, Chief Kowee, revealed to prospectors Joe Juneau and Richard Harris the presence of gold in what is now named Gold Creek in Silver Bow Basin. The city of Juneau was founded there that year.

The strike sparked the Juneau gold rush which resulted in the development of many placer and lode mines including the largest, in their time, gold mines in the world: the Treadwell complex of lode mines on Douglas Island (across a narrow sea channel from Juneau) and the AJ lode mine, in Juneau itself. The steep, wet, timber-covered, seaside mountain setting provided water power, transportation, and lumber such that, "extraordinarily low costs of operation make available low grade ore that under conditions only slightly different would be valueless."
The first claims of what was to become the Treadwell complex were staked in 1881. Mining the Treadwell site began by sluicing residual placers over the lode deposits. Underground mining began with a five-stamp mill operating in 1883. In the mid-1910's, with 960 stamps grinding ore and tunnels reaching as far as 2400 feet below the surface and extending under the sea, Treadwell was one of the most technologically advanced mines of its day. Up to 2000 people worked at the mine before a collapse allowed the rising tide to flood the tunnels in 1917. All operations at the Treadwell ceased by 1922.

As the Treadwell mines declined and closed, the AJ mine rose in prominence. After years of losses and labor problems, the mine became profitable in the mid-1920's: with 600 workers it was setting production records. Through the decade, it was the main economic engine of Juneau. In the 1930's, with 1000 workers, it was an important factor in softening the impact upon Juneau of the Great Depression.

Economic pressures of WWII lead to the closure of the AJ in 1944; this was the end of the dominance of mining in the Juneau economy.

Although those two mines are long-since closed, as late as 1980 one of the hydropower plants built to power the AJ was still in use. [5] Fires and time have destroyed most traces of the Treadwell complex; the AJ mine buildings still tower over the Gastineau Channel south of Juneau.

The Juneau mining district; comprising the area between the Canadian border, Lynn Canal, Admiralty Island, and Frederick Sound, has produced over 7 million ounces of lode gold and 80,000 ounces of placer gold.

See the following website on Alaska as one of the states of the USA. This website gives an overall view on Alaska. Our goal on the excursion were one day stop offs at Juneau and Skagway. 1200 passengers were assigned into several groups. Our group was going on a nature walk to be to teach us about to take better digital natural camera photographs. There only 14 people in a our group led by Brandon. See the photographs and detail below.

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...... The ship docking at Juneau ....

...... Harriet with our group walking through the
National Park on the track to the Mendenhall Glacier ....

..... Ken and Harriet at the mighty Mendenhall Glacier
in the background with the surrounding snow covered mountains.
The Glacier is a moving mass of ice with rugged crevasses.

.... Brandon, the leader of our group ....

was there to teach us about to take better
digital natural camera photographs ......
I am still on an e-mail connection with him in
Alaska from Australia. Brandon had done digital
camera course in the USA and had come up to
Alaska to be and apprentice to Mark Kelley.
See Mark’s website ...

I just had an e-mail from him in January
2009 where he said:

I completed my work in Alaska at the end of
September and returned to New Hampshire to
be with my family. Before I left I made a contact
with a National Geographic Photographer named
Flip Nicklin. Now I am living in Maui and working with
a non-profit whale research company called Whale
Trust. I will be hear until the end of April and will
then return to Alaska. I have recently updated
my website if you would like to view some shots
from Alaska and around the USA.

..... The Boat we went to see whales in the Bay .....

See the following websites on Juneau:

• Bob Silverman’s photos …… the man above in the red coat …. See his many photos through Kodak Gallery. We got to know Bob and his wife Elaine on the ship in a close way over the whole week we were on the ship.
• See the Juneau photos I took of the ship coming in, the walk we did to the inland lake, the iceberg which formed the lake and the surrounding snow covered mountains
• See this website for more detail on Juneau.

...... One of the whales seen our boat trip .....

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See the Blog Site on Juneau which is in number of sections:

Juneau Wharf in the day

The Walk at Juneau ..... Mendenhall Glacier ..... the goal of our walk in Juneau ....
The Boat Trip to see whales ....

Juneau at Night ....

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A Tip on Reading Blog Sites ....

2008-10-28T21:10:00.001-07:00

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A tip on reading blogs: After you have read the main blog writing, remember to read all the separate posts .... they do not automatically come up the main blog writing. To view photographs with a larger screen size, just click on the particular photograph and will come up a larger screen size. You can the save them if you wish by clicking 'Save Image As' in your mouse dialogue box.

When you see a solid > in the green righthand column, click on the > and up will come a list of options. Click on the particular line and you will see a particular post on our travel blog.

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2008 Canada .... Vancouver .... Part 2 .....

2008-10-26T01:13:00.001-07:00

Australia to Alaska and Canada and back again in May 2008

Part 2 .....

I wish to share with you some experiences of a recent trip overseas in May 2008. This is through the medium of photography and blog sites or recommended websites.

On the 8^th May we flew from Brisbane down to Sydney which is a one hour flight
Then we boarded a plane which flew straight to Vancouver in Canada which was a 14 hour flight …. A long trip!! This was a lot simpler than flying to Los Angeles (USA customs etc.) then flying to Vancouver
We had three days to walk the streets of Vancouver …. taking lots of photos see:

2008 Canada .... Vancouver to Toronto and to Niagara Falls ....

2008-10-26T01:00:00.000-07:00

Australia to Alaska and Canada and back again in May 2008

Part 1

I wish to share with you some experiences of a recent trip overseas in May 2008. This is through the medium of photography and blog sites or recommended websites.

Overall Details of the Trip … See the overall details with specific blog sites in the summary of our trip soon to come out in future parts:

On the 8^th May we flew from Brisbane down to Sydney which is a one hour flight
Then we boarded a plane which flew straight to Vancouver in Canada which was a 14 hour flight …. A long trip!! This was a lot simpler than flying to Los Angeles (USA customs etc.) then flying to Vancouver
We had three days to walk the streets of Vancouver ….... taking lots of photos
On the second day we caught a taxi to the waiting ship for a week long cruise to Alaska and back again. We cruised right up to the Skagway in northern Alaska and back finally to Vancouver
We then went to Vancouver airport and flew to Toronto …. A five hour trip. One of our friends, Yolanda actually met us at us at ‘Arrivals’ as we are on e-mail with her. She then acted as our personal assistant in getting possession of our hire car and getting us to our hotel. Then she took us out to dinner. It was wonderful in seeing a friend after 25 years. Yolanda (a former Canadian) and her former husband Paul, had moved to Canada in the early 1980’s. We all lived at Chambers Flat on acreage in the mid 1970’s.
As we said we wanted to see Niagara Falls, Yolanda contacted friends on her mobile phone who lived up there to meet us and ferry us around for the day. See the blog site here to view our Niagara Falls photos
From Niagara Falls, we drove up to Ontario to stay and pick up our 28 year old daughter Claire. She is a primary school teacher who has a special gift with small children. She has been overseas in Canada from July last year till June this year. She came home three days later on the 3^rd of June on a different plane to prepare for doing her Masters Degree in early childhood at Griffith University. She initially went over as a volunteer leader to the Ontario Pioneer Camp which is 1200 acres in extent and has several lakes on the property. One lake is several kilometres across. It is a Christian Adventure Camp which has small school groups coming into camp for a week a time. Claire did an Outdoor Education Course and became an instructor with her team to groups coming in … Sailing, Kayaking etc. See the website for Pioneer Camp.
Over the next two weeks, Harriet, I with Claire slowly drove up the eastern side of Canada to Princess Edward Island (PEI) and slowly down on the coast and eventually back to Toronto. We even spent three days on the USA side of the border in Maine and New Hampshire. We particularly enjoyed the travel hospitality of the Philbrook Farm Inn in New Hampshire. See the website: http://www.philbrookfarminn.com/ The place was 5^th generation, originally built in 1834. It became an inn in 1861. It was truly finding genuine hospitality on the road less travelled
We then flew from Toronto and back to Vancouver. From there we had another 14 hour flight back to Sydney. We then had another one hour flight back to Brisbane. We arrived back Sunday the 1^st of June at 11.30 a.m. where our son Anthony met us at the Airport with our car and drove us back into Brisbane as he lives at West End. This meant that we could then drive ourselves home to Chambers Flat = 35 kms. out of Brisbane.

Harriet and I have been doing some travelling around the world in recent years. See our travel blog on these places. Not only is it fun to travel but it means seeing new and often spectacular scenery and geography. It also means experiencing meeting people in new cultural settings and you realise there are millions of others around the world who live their lives in quite often new ways. They maybe largely ignorant of you and the way you live and where you even live. Some of the people we have met in unusual or casual circumstances. We have just been in Canada in May. Some of the people we met whilst:

Staying in a 14^th century restored Manor House in England on our trip to England in 2003
Walking through the Dodges Palace = 13^th century on our Italy trip in 2005
Meeting someone for the first time in Singapore ….. Having this friend on e-mail but we had never met personally. It was a strange experience in actually seeing him in actuality versus only seeing him on a website photograph. He took us out to his district or community on Singapore’s very efficient train system. We went to a communal restaurant where he went around the various restaurant owners introducing us in a very personal way as his Australian friends. This was on our trip to France in 2007 and we had a stopover in Singapore
Staying in Fiji on our trip in 2007
Having coffee or having a meal on our trip around Canada in May this year

I do not drive due to my brain injury and I cannot organise things very well. I used to do this very capably in my former business. Now I cannot. Now Harriet does all the day to day organising and the daily driving. I instead focus on visually recording the experiences through photographs ….. all the places we go to. I came back from Canada with 3000 ++ photographs from our 3.50 weeks in Canada on three 2 GB chips. When I came home, I then downloaded them onto my home computer into many folders and many subfolders. Then I can use them in blog sites of photographs and word explanations. I can then communicate with many associates and friends around the world by sending a few e-mails.

We were so inspired by what we saw and experienced, that we will put out our e-mail broadcast in a number of parts. Part 1 is on the overall details as above. The next one is on our two days in Vancouver and the next one will be on our Alaskan Cruise and others will follow the above outline.

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2007 Fiji Holiday

2008-10-26T00:41:00.000-07:00

Fiji Holiday 30th November to the 9th of December 2007.... Harriet and I, my son Anthony and my mother, have just come back from a one week holiday in Fiji.

See the blog site: http://fijidec2007.blogspot.com/

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2007 France

2008-10-26T00:39:00.001-07:00

OVERVIEW OF OUR HOLIDAY AND DETAILS ON FRANCE:

We had a holiday in France from May 8^th -29^th2007

We had:

Brisbane to Singapore (seven hour flight)
Two days in Singapore on the way over and one on the way back
Singapore to Paris (13 hour flight …. A long flight !!)
A week in Paris ... stayed in an apartment .....we caught trains and buses everywhere (just as well Harriet could read French at a glance)
Hired a car and drove throughout Brittany for a week
We drove down through down through the Loire Valley for another week
We finally stayed in Paris near Charles de Galle Airport then flew back to Singapore (13 hour flight )
Stayed in Singapore overnight
Singapore to Brisbane (seven hour flight)

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Singapore:

.... Two days in Singapore on the way over and one on the way back .....

See the Blog Site of Photographs I made up.

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Week 1: A week in Paris

...... we stayed in an apartment ..... we caught trains and buses everywhere …

And bought l food from local food markets.

See the Map of France at this Website ….

….. and see any location mentioned here on this Blog Site

at Google Earth ….. especially if you

are on Cable Internet ….. AWESOME !!!

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To see a section of Week 1 of our week in Paris …..

See and click on the following website on the Eiffel Tower in Paris: http://eiffeltowerken.blogspot.com/

The Eiffel Tower has 6 million visitors every year and is an important centre in the middle of Paris , you can see right over Paris, north, south, east and west.

When you see this blog site, it refers you to the official website for the Eiffel Tower: http://www.tour-eiffel.fr/

See the Blog Site of actual photos I have made up of of our trip to the Eiffel Tower.

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General Paris .....

The River Seine: The Seine (pronounced [sɛn] in French) is a slow flowing major river and commercial waterway within the regions of Île-de-France and Haute-Normandie in France and famous as a romantic backdrop in photographs of Paris, France. It is also a tourist attraction, with excursion boats offering sightseeing tours of the Rive Droite and Rive Gauche within the city of Paris. It terminates in the Bay of the Seine region of the English Channel and is navigable by oceanic transports about ten percent of its length to Rouen, 120 km (75 miles) from the sea, whereas over sixty percent of its length from Burgundy near the Swiss Alps is negotiable by commercial riverboats and nearly it's whole length is available for recreational boating.

There are over three dozen bridges over the River Seine just within Paris and dozens more spanning the river outside of the city. Examples in Paris include the Pont Louis-Philippe and Pont Neuf, the latter which dates back to 1607. Outside of the city, examples include the Pont de Normandie, one of the longest cable-stayed bridges in the world, which links Le Havre to Honfleur.

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The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine, housed in the former railway station, the Gare d'Orsay. It holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography, and is probably best known for its extensive collection of impressionist masterpieces by such painters such as Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Cezanne. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986. See this this website for more detail

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The Sacré-Cœur Basilica (French: Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, "Basilica of the Sacred Heart") is a Roman Catholic basilica and popular landmark in Paris, France, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Sacré-Cœur is pronounced [sakʁe kœʁ]. The basilica is located at the summit of the butte Montmartre (Montmartre butte), the highest point in the city. See this website for more detail.

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The Rodin Museum Housing Sculptures by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) the French artist ........ see the websites:

http://www.parisdigest.com/museums/museerodin.htm.
http://www.aviewoncities.com/paris/museerodin.htm
http://www.ushistory.org/districts/parkway/rodin.htm
http://www.paris-walking-tours.com/gardenoftherodinmuseum.html
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... The Rodin Museum Housing Sculptures by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) the French artist ........ see the websites:

http://www.parisdigest.com/museums/museerodin.htm.
http://www.aviewoncities.com/paris/museerodin.htm
http://www.ushistory.org/districts/parkway/rodin.htm
http://www.paris-walking-tours.com/gardenoftherodinmuseum.html
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Rodin, Auguste (1840-1917). The French artist Auguste Rodin had a profound influence on 20th-century sculpture. His works are distinguished by their stunning strength and realism. Rodin refused to ignore the negative aspects of humanity, and his works confront distress and moral weakness as well as passion and beauty.

Francois-Auguste-Rene Rodin was born on Nov. 12, 1840, in Paris. At the age of 14 he entered the Petite Ecole, a school of decorative arts in Paris. He applied three times to study at the renowned Ecole des Beaux-Arts but was rejected each time. In 1858 he began to do decorative stonework in order to make his living. Four years later the death of his sister Marie so traumatized Rodin that he entered a sacred order.
The father superior of the order recognized Rodin's talents and encouraged him to pursue his art.

In 1864 Rodin met a seamstress named Rose Beuret. She became his life companion and was the model for many of his works. That year Rodin submitted his Man with a Broken Nose to the Paris Salon. It was rejected but later accepted under the title Portrait of a Roman. Rodin traveled in 1875 to Italy, where the works of Michelangelo made a strong impression on him. The trip inspired his sculpture The Age of Bronze, which was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1877. It caused a scandal because the critics could not believe that Rodin had not used a casting of a live model in creating so realistic a work.

The controversy brought Rodin more fame than praise might have. In 1880 he was commissioned to create a bronze door for the future Museum of Decorative Arts. Although the work was unfinished at the time of his death, it provided the basis for some of Rodin's most influential and powerful work. In 1884 he was commissioned to create a monument that became The Burghers of Calais. His statues St. John the Baptist Preaching, Eve, The Age of Bronze, and The Thinker are world famous. Rodin died on Nov. 17, 1917, and was buried at Meudon.

When Rodin was 76 years old he gave the French government the entire collection of his own works and other art objects he had acquired. They occupy the Hotel Biron in Paris as the Musee Rodin and are still placed as Rodin set them.
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See the Blog Site I have made up of actual photographs I took.

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Notre Dame de Paris is a Gothic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in Paris, France, with its main entrance to the west. It is the cathedral of Paris and the seat of the Archbishop of that city. Notre Dame de Paris is widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. It was restored and saved from destruction by Viollet-le-Duc, one of France's most famous architects. The name Notre Dame means "Our Lady" in French. Notre Dame de Paris was one of the first Gothic cathedrals, and its construction spanned the Gothic period. Its sculptures and stained glass show the heavy influence of naturalism, giving them a more secular look that was lacking from earlier Romanesque architecture.

Notre Dame de Paris was among the first buildings in the world to use the flying buttress [arched exterior supports]. The building was not originally designed to include the flying buttresses around the choir and nave. After the construction began and the thinner walls (popularized in the Gothic style) grew ever higher, stress fractures began to occur as the walls pushed outward. In response, the cathedral's architects built supports around the outside walls, and later additions continued as such.

The cathedral suffered desecration during the radical phase of the French Revolution in the 1790s, when much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. During the 19th century, an extensive restoration project was completed, returning the cathedral to its previous state. See this website for more detail.

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Les Invalides in Paris, France, is a complex of buildings in the city's 7th arrondissement containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building's original purpose. The buildings house the Musée de l'Armée, the military museum of the Army of France, the Musée des Plans-Reliefs, and the Musée d'Histoire Contemporaine, as well as the burial site for some of France's war heroes (list below). See this website for more detail.

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A Street Planter in the Village before Napoleon Bonaparte’s Palace.

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Napoleon Bonaparte’s Palace

Napoleon Bonaparte, (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) later known as Napoleon I, was a French military and political leader who had a significant impact on the history of Europe. He was a general during the French Revolution, the ruler of France as First Consul of the French Republic and Emperor of the First French Empire.

Born in Corsica and trained as an artillery officer in mainland France, he rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns against the First and Second Coalitions arrayed against France. In 1799, Napoleon staged a coup d'état and installed himself as First Consul; five years later he crowned himself Emperor of the French. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, he turned the armies of France against every major European power and dominated continental Europe through a series of military victories - epitomised in battles such as Austerlitz and Friedland. He maintained France's sphere of influence by the formation of extensive alliances and the appointment of friends and family members to rule other European countries as French client states.

The French invasion of Russia in 1812 marked a turning point in Napoleon's fortunes. His Grande Armée was wrecked in the campaign and never fully recovered. In 1813, the Sixth Coalition defeated his forces at Leipzig, invaded France and exiled him to the island of Elba. Less than a year later, he returned and was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon spent the last six years of his life under British supervision on the island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821. The autopsy concluded he died of stomach cancer though Sten Forshufvud and other scientists in the 1960s conjectured that he had been poisoned with arsenic.

Napoleon developed few military innovations, drew his tactics from different sources and scored major victories with a modernised French army. His campaigns are studied at military academies the world over and he is widely regarded as one of history's greatest commanders. While considered a tyrant by his opponents, he is remembered for the establishment of the Napoleonic code, which laid the administrative foundations for much of Western Europe. See this website for more detail.

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Napoleon Bonaparte’s Palace

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Layfette

Founded in 1893, Galeries Lafayette has always been a trend-setter in the Parisian fashion world. The multiple store complex is home to scores of famous luxury brands, but also serves as a launching padfor young and upcoming designers. ‘Lafayette Homme & Gourmet’ and ‘Lafayette Maison’, the main store, offer a vast array of ladies, men’s and children’s apparel, VO for young people, skincare products and cosmetics, food products, kitchenware, cooking utensils, table linen, crystalware, chinaware, and interior decoration items.

Galeries Lafayette is not only well known for shopping, but also has a reputation for being one of the best sightseeing spots in Paris. The splendid glass dome of Neo-Byzantine style has been classified as a historical monument. It is an architectural landmark which attracts people from all over the world. The terrasse of the building offers a splendid panoramic view of the city. The newly renovated building of the Opera Garnier House lies beneath your eyes, and if you look up, you will see in the distance the Basilica of the Sacred Heart atop the Montmartre Hill. See this website for more detail.

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WEEK 2:
We hired a car and drove throughout Brittany for a week .....

..... We then went down through the Loire Valley in week 3 …

CHARTRES: About 80km southwest of Paris, CHARTRES is a small and relatively undistinguished town. However, its Cathédrale Notre-Dame (May-Oct 8am-8pm; Jan-April & Nov-Dec 8am-7.15pm) is one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in Europe and, built between 1194 and 1260, perhaps the quickest ever to be constructed. It's best experienced on a cloud-free winter's day when the low sun transmits the stained-glass colours to the interior stone, the quiet scattering of people leaves the acoustics unconfused, and the exterior is unmasked for miles around.

See the Blog Site of photographs on Chartres city and Chartres Cathedral.

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DINARD: We stayed at little hotel that overlooked the estuary and went off to see Mont Saint-Michel and St. Malo which were within easy driving distance.

Dinard is on the Côte d'Émeraude of Brittany. Its beaches and mild climate make it a popular holiday destination, and has resulted in the town having a variety of famous visitors and residents.
History: In modern history Dinard was first settled by Saint-Malo's shipping merchants who built some of the towns magnificent houses in the town- however very few survive. In the late 1800s American and British aristocrats made Dinard popular as a fashionable summer resort, and they built stunning villas on the cliff tops and exclusive hotels such as the 'Le Grand Hotel' on the seafront during the French 'Belle Epoque'.

The name Dinard comes from the Arthurian legends: Din (hill/ fort) - Arz/Art(bear / Arthur); the bear in celtic mythology is a symbol of sovereignship.

Originally, Dinard was part of the parish of St-Enogat. In the late 19th century, the resort became popular with the British wealthy who built magnificent villas on the coast. Dinard rapidly expanded and became the most popular seaside resort in Europe. It started declining in the 1930s when the Jet set started preferring the Cote d'Azur. Today, Dinard is considered the one of the most "British" of sea resorts in France, however it has retained its French charm. There are 407 listed villas.

The official name of the town was Saint-Enogat until 1879 when the name was changed to Dinard-Saint-Enogat. The name was changed once more in 1921 to become simply Dinard. Saint-Enogat is now just the name for the western area of the town.

See this Website for More Detail

Dinard as a town is built on the Atlantic Ocean. In the photograph above., the tide is right in, being up the stone retaining wall. The question is: How did stone masons build a stone wall in location? With the Atlantic Ocean on the Brittany Coast, tides are massive, going out many metres to expose maybe a kilometre of ocean sand. It would have been inbetween the tides that walls were built. Stone retaining walls like this were common on the Brittany Coast.
See the website of other photographs at Dinard.

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Mont Saint-Michel:

Mont Saint-Michel ...... the Island and The Sea .... Brief Description: Perched on a rocky islet in the midst of vast sandbanks exposed to powerful tides between Normandy and Brittany stand the 'Wonder of the West', a Gothic-style Benedictine abbey dedicated to the archangel St Michael, and the village that grew up in the shadow of its great walls. Built between the 11th and 16th centuries, the abbey is a technical and artistic tour de force, having had to adapt to the problems posed by this unique natural site.

http://mont-saint-michelanditsbayphoto.blogspot.com/

Le Mont-Saint-Michel (English: St Michael's Mount) is a rocky tidal island and a commune in Normandy, France. It is located approximately one kilometer off the country's north coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches.

Tidal island

Mont-Saint-Michel seen from Spot Satellite

Le Mont-Saint-Michel was previously connected to the mainland via a thin natural land bridge, which before modernization was covered at high tide and revealed at low tide. This has been compromised by several developments. Over the centuries, the coastal flats have been polderised to create pasture. Thus the distance between the shore and the south coast of Mont-Saint-Michel has decreased. The Couesnon River has been canalised, reducing the flow of water and thereby encouraging a silting-up of the bay. In 1879, the land bridge was fortified into a true causeway. This prevented the tide from scouring the silt round the mount.

At low tide surrounded by mud flats - seen from the air

On 16 June 2006, the French prime minister and regional authorities announced a €164 million project (Projet Mont-Saint-Michel^[1]) to build a hydraulic dam that will help remove the accumulated silt and make Mont-Saint-Michel an island again. It is expected to be completed by 2012.^[2]. See this website for more detail

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ST. Malo: (Breton: Sant-Maloù; Gallo: Saent-Malô) is a walled port city in Brittany in northwestern France on the English Channel. It is a sub-prefecture of the Ille-et-Vilaine department.

History: Saint-Malo during the Middle Ages was a fortified island at the mouth of the Rance River, controlling not only the estuary but the open sea beyond. The promontory fort of Aleth, south of the modern centre in what is now the Saint-Servan district, commanded approaches to the Rance even before the Romans, but modern Saint-Malo traces its origins to a monastic settlement founded by Saint Aaron and Saint Brendan early in the 6th century. Its name is derived from a man said to have been a follower of Brendan, Saint Malo.

Saint-Malo had a tradition of asserting its autonomy in dealings with the French authorities and even with the local Breton authorities. From 1490–1493, Saint-Malo declared itself to be an independent republic, taking the motto "not French, not Breton, but Malouins".^[3]

Saint-Malo became notorious as the home of the corsairs, French privateers and sometimes pirates. (In the nineteenth century the city's "piratical" notoriety was portrayed in Jean Richepin's play Le flibustier and in César Cui's like-named opera derived therefrom.) The corsairs of Saint-Malo not only forced English ships passing up the Channel to pay tribute, but also brought wealth from further afield. Jacques Cartier, who sailed the Saint Lawrence River and visited the sites of Quebec City and Montreal — and is thus credited as the discoverer of Canada, lived in and sailed from Saint-Malo, as did the first colonists to settle the Falklands – hence the islands' French name Îles Malouines, which gave rise to the Spanish name Islas Malvinas.

The commune of Saint-Servan was merged, together with Paramé, and became the commune of Saint-Malo in 1967.

Saint Malo was the site of an Anglo-French summit in 1998 which lead to a significant agreement regarding European defence policy. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac stated that "the [European] Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises".

See this website for more detail and see the Blog Site of Photographs I have made up.

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KER MOR ......

Perros Guirec ……. We stayed in a little Hotel for two nights.

There was a little ancient seaside town of Perros Guirec with the old stone built buildings everywhere. The grey slate rooves where common as in all the towns and villages of France. The little hotel we stayed in for two nights had a hand-built – stone wall on the road boundary with a covered a litch - gate at the end of the wall. See the photographs above. The actual hotel is the last building on the left. You went down some stone stairs to the entry office. It was right on the sea and very picturesque.

See the Blog Site of Photographs .....

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BREDAT: We went by ferry out to this little island ..... all day ..... just AWESOME!!!

Two kilometres off the coast at Pointe de l'Arcouest, 6km northwest of Paimpol, the ÎLE DE BRÉHAT – in reality two islands joined by a tiny bridge – gives the appearance of spanning great latitudes. On its north side are windswept meadows of hemlock and yarrow, sloping down to chaotic erosions of rock; on the south, you're in the midst of palm trees, mimosa and eucalyptus. All around is a multitude of little islets – some accessible at low tide, others propriété privée, most just pink-orange rocks. All in all, it is one of the most beautiful places in Brittany, renowned as a sanctuary not only for rare species of wild flowers, but also for birds of all kinds. Individual private gardens are also meticulously tended, so you can always anticipate a magnificent display of colour, for example in summer from the erupting blue acanthus.

See more detail on the island at this web site.

SAINT LUNAIRE: Saint-Lunaire (Breton: Sant-Luner) is a commune in the Ille-et-Vilaine department in Bretagne in northwestern France.

This old fishing village is very popular for its old church, its beautiful beaches and the English-style houses on the Pointe du Décollé. In the summer, a lot of rich Parisians live there, and, with the near-by villages of Saint-Briac or Dinard, it's possible to meet a lot of French "stars" in the area.

Fantastic point of views on the Pointe du Décollé, hill of La Garde Guérin and the Pointe du Nick.

See this website for more detail .....

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TREGUIER: From our hotel at Dinard, we went driving to this town as it had a special cathedral. There was a special religious procession on this day. The cathedral, remarkable in having three towers over the transept, one of which is surmounted by a fine spire, dates from the 14th and 15th centuries. It contains the sumptuous modern mausoleum of Ivo of Kermartin (St Yves; d. 1303), a canon of the cathedral and patron saint of lawyers. The building of the cathedral was largely due to him. The Pardon of Saint Ivo, a religious festival, attracts an international audience drawn from the legal profession. To the south of the church there is a cloister (1468) with graceful arcades.

Near the cathedral there is a statue of Ernest Renan, a native of the town. As he was a prominent skeptic, author of the "pagan" Prayer on the Acropolis, the 1903 unveiling of Renan's statue, which also included a depiction of the goddess Athena, led to widespread protests from the Catholic church. The town also houses the Renan birthplace museum.

The port and harbour are picturesque, containing many pretty waterfront restaurants and crêperies. There are dramatic views of the quayside.

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SAINT LUNAIRE:

Saint-Lunaire (Breton: Sant-Luner) is a commune in the Ille-et-Vilaine department in Bretagne in northwestern France.

Fantastic point of views on the Pointe du Décollé, hill of La Garde Guérin and the Pointe du Nick.

See this website for more detail .....

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Josselin

We had a two night stay in Josselin at a Bed and Breakfast place owned by an English couple (Ann and Brian Bird) who had come over and restored the house in three years ..... travelling back and forth to England. See their website at:

http://www.brittany-france.com/maisondeloiseau.

The house was built 300 years ago in the 1700's. They had to virtually restore everything except the stone walls. We could look out from our unit and see wonderful old restored houses next door. Ann and Brian showed us by photographs what those houses looked like in the wintertime ….. covered with snow and -13 degree centigrade
…. Very cold for our Australia experience!!

Also see the blog site of Josselin where we stayed. and see website on Josselin. It was welcome relief as they were so helpful and wonderful. It was actually wonderful to hear the English language being spoken after French for two weeks. Harriet could converse in French in a very capable way and I had to just listen and see the emotional interchanges between and the French people and Harriet. Many could speak a little English if you asked them if they could.

Josselin: History from this website as given above …..

St Meriadek is said to have founded a chapel there during the 4th century. It became a stronghold of the House of Rohan.

In 1351, during the Breton War of Succession (part of the Hundred Years' War), two groups of approximately 30 English knights (led by Robert Bramborough, the English captain of Ploërmel) and Franco-Breton knights (commanded by Jean de Beaumanoir, captain of Josselin) staged an arranged combat at a spot halfway between the Chateau de Josselin and Ploërmel. The Franco-Breton side eventually won after killing or capturing the English force, including Bramborough. This episode was later known as the Combat of the Thirty.

The old fortress can still be seen today, although only four of the original nine towers remain after the Cardinal Richelieu ordered the castle partially demolished in 1629.
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VANNES: Vannes is located on the Gulf of Morbihan at the mouth of the Vannes River. It is a market town and often linked to the sea.

History: Darioritum (first name of Vannes) was founded in the first century BC by the Romans.

The diocese of Vannes was erected in the 5th century. The Council of Vannes was held here in 461.

The first historical ruler of Vannes was Waroch. See further detail and the photo gallery at this website.

Vannes Cathedral or St. Peter's Cathedral, Vannes (French: Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Vannes), which also carries the title Basilica, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Vannes, Brittany, France. It is the seat of the Bishops of Vannes.

The present Gothic building was erected on the site of the former Romanesque cathedral. Its construction extends from the 15th to the 19th centuries, or if the length of the existence of the 13th century Romanesque bell tower is included, a total of seven centuries of construction. For further deatails, see this website.

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SAUMUR:

Saumur is a commune in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France.

The historic town is located between the Loire and Thouet rivers, which join to the west of the town.

See more detail on the town at this website. See the blog site of Saumur I have made up.

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Chateau de Chenonceau (Chateau is French For Castle): The Château de Chenonceau is castle near the small village of Chenonceaux, in the Indre-et-Loire département of the Loire Valley in France. It was built on the site of an old mill on the River Cher, sometime before its first mention in writing in the 11th century. The current manor was designed by the French Renaissance architect Philibert Delorme.

See more detail on this castle at this website.

See the Blog Site of photographs I have made up .....

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Week 3: We drove down through down through the Loire Valley for another week .....

See the blog sites:

http://francebrittanyholiday.blogspot.com/ Brittany: May 19th - 20th 2007 ..... Perros Guirec ……. We stayed in a little Hotel for two nights.There was a little ancient seaside town of Perros Guirec with the old stone built buildings everywhere. The grey slate rooves where common as in all the towns and villages of France. The little hotel we stayed in for two nights had a hand-built – stone wall on the road boundary with a covered a litch - gate at the end of the wall. See the photographs in the blog site. You went down some stone stairs to the entry office. It was right on the sea and very picturesque.
http://chateauxvillandry.blogspot.com/ Brittany: Week 3 … May 19th - 20th 2007 ..... Chateaux de Villandry ……. Villandry was completed toward 1536 and was the last of the large chateaus built in the Loire Valley during the Renaissance. Villandry was built by Jean le Breton, one of François I’s Finance Ministers, whose coat of arms can be seen on the gable of the left-hand dormer window. His most impressive achievement in this field was the construction of Chambord, that vast flight of regal fancy, which Le Breton supervised under the aegis of François I.

While directing this project, he built for himself nearby a small replica of Villandry called Villesavin near the Chambord chateau. Le Breton had first been ambassador to Italy where he spent all his time studying the Italian Renaissance art of gardening. In order to build the present chateau, Le Breton had razed an old XIIth century castle, from which he had only kept the old tower that can be seen behind the main courtyard.Villandry stayed in le Breton family until 1754 and then became the property of the Marquis de Castellane, the King’s Ambassador who came from a very illustrious noble family from Provence. He built the Classical style outbuildings that you can see on either side of the front courtyard. He redesigned the interior of the chateau to meet the standards of comfort of the XVIIIth century which are much closer to those we know today than to those, which were applied during the Renaissance.

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DETAILS ON FRANCE: In France you find there nearly 60 million French people who:

Work 35 hour weeks
Take seven weeks of paid holidays/year
Take an hour and a half for lunch
Have the longest life expectancy of any in the world
Eat the richest food on the planet
A people who keep alive their local shopkeepers
Who love nothing better than going to the public market on Sundays
Who finance best health care system in the world
A people who’s companies are the least unionized and the most productive among modern countries
Whose post-industrial consumer society ranks among the most prosperous in the world

Also image a country where:

The citizens have so little civic sense that it never crosses their minds to pickup after their dogs or to give to charity
Where people expect the State to do everything because they pay so much in taxes
Where service is rude
Where the State is the most centralized and pervasive in the world
Where the civil – servant class amounts to less than one quarter of the working population
Where citizens tolerate no form of initiative or self rule
Where unions are so pervasive they virtually dictate the course of government and even run French ministries

You go throughout France and you are upon history at every village and town … houses built in the 17 th century are frequent and there are many castles Chateaux as they are called in France) which date from the 1500’s (Medieval times ) ...... Hand built stone walls are everywhere ….. in house walls, garden / property walls church / cathedral walls and buildings of stone.
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Read the book: ‘Sixty Million Frenchman Cannot Be Wrong ….. What Makes the French so French?’ by Jean Benoit Nadeau & Julie Barlow (His wife).

Imagine a country in a broader sense that:

Is geographically green for most the year then winter comes as we learnt at Josselin (a small town we stayed in for two days in Brittany)
Where it snowed and the temperature got down to -13 0.
There even rainfall across the whole country as it is bounded by two seas and there no mountain ranges to modify the rainfall
The soils are very rich and that leads to frequent small farms which are farmed very intently all over
France Situated in Western Europe, France is the second-largest country on the continent, with an area (including the island of Corsica2) of 547,030 sq km (211,209 sq mi). Comparatively, the area occupied by France is slightly less than twice the size of the state of Colorado. It extends 962 km (598 mi) N–S and 950 km (590 mi) E–W. France is bounded on the N by the North Sea and Belgium, on the NE by Luxembourg and Germany, on the E by Switzerland and Italy, on the South by the Mediterranean Sea, on the SW by Andorra and Spain, on the W by the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic Ocean, and on the NW by the English Channel, with a total boundary length of 6,316 km (3,925 mi), of which 3,427 km (2,130 mi) is coastline.
France 's capital city, Paris, is located in the north central part of the country.

From this website: is the following information given:
Population and size: France is the largest country in Western Europe. The population is currently 58.5 million, and the country is about twice the size of the UK at approximately 550 000 square kilometres. (NB: The UK has a population of 57.6 million people inhabiting an area of 244 111 square kilometres.) The population density is 105 inhabitants per square kilometre but more than 50% of these live in towns of over 50,000 people. Many rural areas are underpopulated, some seriously so.
Climate: France has three main climate types. Brittany and Normandy and the west of the country have an oceanic climate, with mild winters and cool summers, changeable and with a fair amount of rain. The central areas have a continental climate with hotter summers and colder winters, with this becoming more marked the further east one progresses. The Mediterranean areas are sunny and dry, with winds and storms in the winters, and very hot summers.
France in the EU: France joined the EU in 1957. As part of the Eurozone, France will be using Euros from January 1st 2002, alongside francs for an initial changeover period.

The national currency will be phased out in June 2002. One of the 'four freedoms' established by European Union legislation is the free movement of citizens within the Union
(the other three are free movement of goods, services and capital), which means that anyone who is a citizen of one Member State has the right to take up residence in another.

The French economy and the role played by agriculture: Amongst the 58.5 million inhabitants of France are 3.5 million foreign residents, of whom 1.4 million are EU citizens. Although the country is Europe's leading producer and exporter of farm products, only 3.9% of the total workforce is employed in agriculture. There are 735,000 farms and 997,000 farmers and farm workers. France is the EU's main producer of sugar beet, and is the second largest wine producer in the world. She also produces more cereals and oilseeds than her European neighbours. Tourism is also important to the economy, with 62.4 million tourist visiting the country in 1996. France has 17.3 million tourist beds of which 16.1 million are in rural gites, camp sites and youth hostels. An increasing number of farmers are now offering tourist accommodation in the form of chambres d'hotes (bed and breakfast) or self-catering gites. Some have established themselves as fermes auberges, or farm restaurants, offering specialities of the region.

See the blog sites:

http://josselinkap.blogspot.com/ ... which is a summary of our two day stay in Josselin.
http://francebrittanyholiday.blogspot.com/ Brittany: Week 2 … May 19th - 20th 2007 ..... Perros Guirec ……. We stayed in a little Hotel for two nights.There was a little ancient seaside town of Perros Guirec with the old stone built buildings everywhere. The grey slate rooves where common as in all the towns and villages of France. The little hotel we stayed in for two nights had a hand-built – stone wall on the road boundary with a covered a litch - gate at the end of the wall. See the photographs in the blog site. You went down some stone stairs to the entry office. It was right on the sea and very picturesque.
http://chateauxvillandry.blogspot.com/ Brittany: Week 3 … May 19th - 20th 2007 ..... Chateaux de Villandry ……. Villandry was completed toward 1536 and was the last of the large chateaus built in the Loire Valley during the Renaissance. Villandry was built by Jean le Breton, one of François I’s Finance Ministers, whose coat of arms can be seen on the gable of the left-hand dormer window. His most impressive achievement in this field was the construction of Chambord, that vast flight of regal fancy, which Le Breton supervised under the aegis of François I.

While directing this project, he built for himself nearby a small replica of Villandry called Villesavin near the Chambord chateau. Le Breton had first been ambassador to Italy where he spent all his time studying the Italian Renaissance art of gardening. In order to build the present chateau, Le Breton had razed an old XIIth century castle, from which he had only kept the old tower that can be seen behind the main courtyard.Villandry stayed in le Breton family until 1754 and then became the property of the Marquis de Castellane, the King’s Ambassador who came from a very illustrious noble family from Provence. He built the Classical style outbuildings that you can see on either side of the front courtyard. He redesigned the interior of the chateau to meet the standards of comfort of the XVIIIth century which are much closer to those we know today than to those, which were applied during the Renaissance.

http://mont-saint-michelanditsbayphoto.blogspot.com/

...... Mont Saint-Michel ...... the Island and The Sea .... Brief Description: Perched on a rocky islet in the midst of vast sandbanks exposed to powerful tides between Normandy and Brittany stand the 'Wonder of the West', a Gothic-style Benedictine abbey dedicated to the archangel St Michael, and the village that grew up in the shadow of its great walls. Built between the 11th and 16th centuries, the abbey is a technical and artistic tour de force, having had to adapt to the problems posed by this unique natural site.

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2006: Australia: Northern Territory Trip

2008-10-26T00:36:00.000-07:00

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2006: Australia: Northern Territory Trip ... 1st-13thJune ... Harriet and I flew off to the Northern Territory from 1st-13th June for a short holiday whereby we:

Flew up to Darwin from Brisbane on the 1st June then hired a camper van
Then went down 250 kms to Kakadu National Park for four days … a Park of rivers, floodplains, cliffs and Aboriginal rock art etc. over hundreds of square kms.
Then we drove back to Darwin
Then we caught the train = the Ghan down to Alice Springs (1000 kms. +) which is in Central Australia
We stopped off before Alice Springs on the way down, for four hours to visit by boat the Katherine Gorge
Then on a small bus tour to Ayres Rock for several days
Then we flew back to Brisbane by the 13th June ….. Alice Springs to Sydney then onto Brisbane

See the following websites:

Kakadu National Park ...... see the dialogue boxes: Aboriginal Culture, Nature, The Outback, Adventure, Fishing, Backpacking, Walking and Trekking
and Driving
Saltwater Crocodiles
Australian Crocodiles
Katherine River Gorge
Frontier Camel Tours
Central Australia

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2005: The Italy Trip

2008-10-26T00:34:00.000-07:00

2005: The Italy Trip .... Four week holiday in Italy ….. from the 17th March to the 18th of April .....

Italy has 2000 ++ years of European History whereas Australia where I come from, has only 230 years of European History.

When you start travelling, you realise that Australia is very small place on the planet. Twenty two hours away in Italy there are millions of people who barely know that you exist and vice versa.

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THE ROMAN EMPIRE in the First Century

The Roman Empire represented the zenith of the best of the human empires. It could adapt any culture on earth into the Roman format. It ran on very enlightened principles and became very wealthy. The British Empire which began to rise in the 1700’s till the 1990’s, was a 1000 ++ later, was based on those same principles.

Harriet and I personally know about the Roman Empire. We were there on a four week holiday in Italy in 2005 in mid March and April. One of the places we went to see was Pompeii. See our travel blog at: http://pompeii2005.blogspot.com/ Also see the very detailed website: www.thecolefamily.com/italy/pompeii for a virtual photographic tour of Pompeii. See all the wonderful photos of Pompeian life before the eruption in 79 A.D.

Pompeii was founded in the 8^th century B.C. by the Oscans, a tribe of peasants and shepherds. By the 6^th century B.C. the area was under Greek influence. About 400 B.C. the city was conquered by the Samnites. Rome conquered Pompeii in 80 B.C. The layout of this once vibrant town was a scaled down version of Rome, a model repeated in towns and cities throughout the Roman Empire.

Pompeii is unique as an important archaeological site in the world. Almost every other ancient urban site is simply the remains of a ghost town, long ago deserted by its citizens who carried away with them everything of value. Prior to the eruption of Vesuvius, Pompeii was a thriving city. Then it was buried with so little warning in 79 A.D. that Pompeii was literally frozen in time.

Vesuvius is currently 4,200 feet (or 1,281 meters) high. Some geologists have estimated that it was 6,000 feet high before 79 A.D. If so, that means the top third of the mountain rained down on the surrounding countryside. The prevailing wind at the time blew much of it in the direction of Pompeii .

Some estimate that 20% of the population perished, though it may have been a much higher number if the volcanic gases were excessively toxic. Thousands fled the city in the afternoon darkness, blacker than any Roman citizen had experienced (except in Jerusalem when Jesus Christ was dying on the cross). The falling debris rapidly accumulated in Pompeii to several feet in the streets and on rooftops, making escape impossible for the thousands who sought shelter in their homes.

If we want to know details about what life was like in a Roman city during the first century, I think by studying Pompeii we can get the very best perspective with the least speculation. We can understand how the privileged rich man and the ordinary slave lived from day to day in the Roman Empire during the time when Christianity was beginning to spread throughout the Mediterranean. A better understanding of life in Pompeii, a city with both Roman and Greek influence, can help us to better understand many of the writings of the New Testament.

The Amphitheatre at ancient Pompeii was where sporting events were held. The passion of the people for gladiatorial games was great. The sporting enthusiasm was similar to that provided today by football games (or soccer in Europe). Gladiator helmets, richly decorated with scenes of Greek mythology, were found in the ruins of Pompeii. See the website for an explanation of gladiators: http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/gladiatr/gladiatr.htm It was real people fighting it out to a death finish in front of thousands …. For sport.

The amphitheatre at ancient Pompeii is considered to be the world’s oldest known amphitheatre. About the size of a modern football stadium, it had a seating capacity of 12,000 spectators. It was here in 59 A.D. that a riot broke out during a competition with a rival city. The death of many spectators caused the Roman Senate to forbid any games in the Pompeii Amphitheatre for the next 10 years.

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TRIP OVER = Flying There on the 17th March

Week 1 = Trip There: Eight hours to Hong Kong ....... a day in Hong Kong ..... then eleven hours on to Rome.

Week 4 = Trip Back: Eleven hours to Hong Kong ...... a day in Hong Kong ..... then eight hours on to Brisbane.

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Week 1 = Sorrento A train from Rome down to Sorrento on the southern part of Italy on the Mediterranean Sea. The town is very ancient and the church was from the 13th century. See the section in Sorrento 'The Deep Valley of the Mills' a wheat grinding mill from 900 A.D. ...... we would see this daily as we walked down from our unit. The mill was abandoned in the 1800's as the winds which cooled the Valley were inhibited by the build up of Sorrento as a town and it became to hot and humid down there. See the blog site: http://sorrentovmills.blogspot.com/

We also saw:

The Amalfi Coast and Ravelloby bus ..... see the 60 stunning photos of Ravello and the Amalfi Coast. See the Blog Site: http://ravelloandvillacimbrone.blogspot.com/

Isle of Capri

Pompeii for a day. See our Pompeii Blog Site at: http://pompeii2005.blogspot.com/ Also see this website: www.thecolefamily.com/italy/pompeii/)

Naples for a day to the National Archaeological Museum which stores a lot of art from Pompeii plus Roman Empire artefacts.

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Pompei: The Ancient Ruins of Pompeii ….. an original Roman Town buried by 5-6 metre of Volcanic ash from Mt. Vesuvius in 76 A.D. You can easily spend a whole day walking the original stone cobbled streets looking all the houses, temples, public baths and shop fronts.

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Week 2 = Venice: Walking the streets and canals for a week ..... one of the most beautiful cities in the world from out of the 13th Century .... All of it is like a museum piece ….. but a very impractical city ….. you can lost in it in the blink of an eye. See the Doges Palace as well as this website

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Week 3 = Florence:

Week 3 = Florence: We stayed in a little town called Empoli about half an hour by train from Florence (see www.lacasadiruggero.com where we stayed) ….. then we went out from there every day to a different location:

Florence for one and 1/2 days
Pisa .... see the website on the Leaning Tower of Pisa and The Blog Site of photographs I took.

The new Pisa ...we walked through .... If the Tower of Pisa is the bell tower of the Cathedral and its construction began in 1173 and continued (with two long interruptions) for about two hundred years, the new Pisa is anything built in the last 830 years from when we were there in 2005.

Siena: Siena , like many other Tuscan hill towns, was first settled in the time of the Etruscans (c. 900 BC to 400 BC) when it was inhabited by a tribe called the Saina.

San Gimignano The town is called 'Medieval New York' from the remaining fourteen stone towers .... the city used to have 70, 300 years ago.

Lucca .... Lucca Italy - Rooftops from the Guinigi Tower .... Ascend the Guinigi Tower to catch Lucca spread out below. The tower has trees on top, an oddity among towers, but allowing for some great framing of the rooftop pictures.

Vinci (Where Leonardo Da Vinci grew up and lived) .... the museum on Leonardo de Vinci ... Leonardo was born in Vinci in 1450 ... he was a genius with hundreds of inventions which were way ahead of his time in the 1400's. See the website: www.universalleonardo.org/Universal Leonardo is a programme aimed at deepening our understanding of Leonardo da Vinci through a series of European exhibitions (2006), scientific research and web-based resources.

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Cinquere Terre …. A landscape worth saving …. A mans park ….. the first image that comes to mind when you think of Cinque Terre is that of rugged mountain terrain, with its deteriorating dry stone walls, built to hold up vineyards. An impressive and unique landscape which has been included on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The landscape, which we admire, is the product of collective creativity that was able to overcome the difficulties posed.

It is the local Cinque Terre people, that has spanned over a thousand years. Together these people have worked towards one vision - to live, to produce and to be part of a community. Over this time, a human chain of men and woman transformed this territory with age-old techniques and wisdom and with the naivete’ of poverty, a hard challenge for survival.

There are five ancient fishing villages perched on the edge of the cliffs:

1. Riomaggiore, 2. Manarola, 3.Corniglia 4. Vernazza, 5. Monterosso ….. all joined by a railway line and by old walking and donkey trails. We walked up from the train Station at the first village of Riomaggiore and saw the ocean and the steep cliffs …… we walked on the easy walk to Manarola …… a rockslide had occurred between Manarola and the third village of Corniglia . We then we caught the train up to the last (fifth) village of Monterosso then walked four hours to Vernazza by old walking and donkey trails. ….. the fourth village on the sea .... absolutely beautiful!!

See the blog site: http://cinqueterre1.blogspot.com

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Week 4 = Rome: We stayed in a small convent on the edge of St. Peters Square.... where over successive days where we saw the Colosseum and walked down the excavated Forum Area where Paul and his 1^st Century Christians would have walked down. We stayed in a small convent on the edge of St. Peters Square. From there we would walk downstairs after breakfast to see places:

St. Peter’s Square itself, St. Peter’s Basilica
The Vatican Museum
The Palatine plus the Forum Area (First Century) website at: ..... Includes general photos of Rome as well
Gladiators

The Catacombs …. One of six around Rome see:

The flip side of Roman Culture was that people’s lives didn’t matter. Hence you have things like these:

The passion of the people for gladiatorial games was great It was real people fighting out to a death finish in front of thousands …. For sport. If certain slaves showed promise, they could go through the gladiator school and provide live sport for thousands in the watching stands ….. to the death with other gladiators or wild animals ….The rewards were great for successful gladiators
Executed Christians without mercy when they wouldn’t acknowledge Caesar as God …. Fed them to the lions in a public spectacle in the Colosseum or nearby in another sporting complex or burned them as pitched soaked night-time garden candles in the Emperor’s garden
The Romans would go to take over whole countries and just take them over: England, North Africa, Spain, Europe etc. …. Whether they liked or not …… possibly burn their cities to the ground and take their people back to Rome as slaves as happened in Jerusalem in AD 70
Roman culture had a variation on wholesale abortion …. Babies would come to full term …. Then if mothers didn’t want them, they would left by the roadside for wild animals or vultures to eat or throw them in the river. …. Maybe 1 in 3 occurred this way

Homosexuality was common …. Older men often had young boys as sex slaves

http://earlyromethepalantinearea.blogspot.com/

http://earlyrometheforumarea.blogspot.com/

http://theromanempireinthefirstcentury.blogspot.com/

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2004 The Port Douglas Trip ..... Australia

2008-10-26T00:32:00.000-07:00

2004: The Port Douglas Trip .... Driving to Pt. Douglas in Northern Queensland and back again in ten days from Brisbane (about 1000 kms. either way). This was with myself and my family .... Harriet, Claire and Anthony taking turns to drive (I do not drive in 2007 because of my brain injury eleven years ago). We saw:

SkyRail Trip .... Welcome to Skyrail, the World’s Most Beautiful Rainforest Experience Skyrail Rainforest Cableway, Cairns Australia, is a world first in environmental tourism taking you on an amazing experience over Australia’s World Heritage listed Tropical Rainforest canopy and deep into the forest.

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The Original Kuranda Scenic Railway which is a spectacular journey comprising unsurpassed views of World Heritage Listed rainforest, steep ravines and picturesque waterfalls within the Barron Gorge National Park. Constructed between 1882 and 1891 it is considered an engineering feat of tremendous magnitude. Hundreds of men were employed to build the 15 hand-made tunnels and 37 bridges that stand as a monument to the pioneers of tropical North Queensland. This famous railway winds its way from Cairns to Kuranda, the village in the rainforest. __________________

Cape Tribulation Trip … From the website: The Daintree Cape Tribulation coast is where the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree rainforest meet, the only place on earth where two World Heritage areas exist side by side. Stay a few days and learn to appreciate the area with local tour guides. The Daintree National Park is an ecotourism paradise, and there is a variety of accommodation close by. __________________

Mossman River Daintree National Park … From the website: >>>> Type in 'Mossman' in the search function >>>> Go to the section on Mossman Gorge. What's special? Crystal-clear water cascading over smooth granite boulders in the Mossman River makes this picturesque section of Daintree National Park one of the most popular parks in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. This section stretches from the coastal lowlands to rugged mountains, providing a home for a wonderful variety of rainforest animals including tree-kangaroos and the tiny musky rat-kangaroo. Tall dense rainforests clothe the lowlands and slopes while open forest and woodlands grow on the exposed slopes and mountaintops. The Mossman Gorge Section is part of the traditional lands of the Kuku Yalanji people.

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Hartley’s Crocodile Farm Trip: Situated on the magnificent coastal drive between the popular destinations of Palm Cove and Port Douglas. Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures is the best place to see crocodiles and native wildlife in Tropical North Queensland. Set in the foothills of the MacAlister Range , in a World Heritage listed area, Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures is home to a range of habitat types including melaleuca wetlands, riverine rainforest and eucalypt forest.

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Agincourt Reef Trip: Experience Nature's Finest with Australia 's Best - Quicksilver Connections. Travel with Australia 's most awarded reef cruise company. With a choice of day trips or extended cruising options, it's the ultimate way to see nature's finest in absolute comfort and style. For your experience of a lifetime, Quicksilver's friendly crew will take you to a reef at the very edge of Australia 's Continental Shelf, to an underwater world that is a dazzling kaleidoscope of colour and brilliance. Everything you'll want to know and more is inside. The "Reef Trips" section is probably a good place to start, or choose one of our premier reef trip vessels from the images above. your experience of a lifetime, Quicksilver's friendly crew will take you to a reef at the very edge of Australia's Continental Shelf, to an underwater world that is a dazzling kaleidoscope of colour and brilliance. Quicksilver takes you to Agincourt Reef, a magnificent ribbon reef where you can experience first hand the magic that is the Great Barrier Reef.

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2003 England

2008-10-26T00:29:00.000-07:00

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Stourhead Garden ....

One of the finest landscape gardens in the world

Harriet and Ken Aitken from Australia visited this garden when we holidaying in England in May 2003. Some of these photos are my personal photos and some are from the National Trust website. See the website here of my actual photos.

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2003: England ... for four weeks in mid March 2003. We visited four regions:
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Week 1: Stonehenge, Windsor Castle .... ( London to Croyde Bay only): See Stone Henge .... and enter the word 'stone henge' in the search box and Windsor Castle

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Week 1: Cornwall and Devon = Lower England:

Devon, Croyde Bay ..... (website 1) and website 2:
Croyde Bay Holiday Club: http://www.intervalworld.com/web/cs?a=1503&resortCode=CBY&parentResortCode=CBY

... We stayed here free of cost for a week.

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Week 2: Ross on Wye = Mid England = Somerset on the Wales border:

See Ross-on-wye and Flanesford Priory (Flanesford Priory is an historical building mentioned in the Doomsday Book and was established in 1346 by Sir Richard Talbot, Lord of Goodrich Castle. Flanesford Priory is we where we stayed for a week .... See the Links pages with Goodrich Castle we saw for half a day We also saw the Ancient City of Bath and the Roman Baths

We also saw Stourhead Garden for a day visit. We had British Heritage Pass which meant we could walk into any old building or garden free of cost. It would otherwise cost may $$ to walk into each site.

Stourhead Garden ....
One of the finest landscape gardens in the world. See the blog site at: Stourhead Garden ________________

Week 3: Lancaster = Upper England but before Scotland ..... borderlands, see the Lakes District:

Lakes District plus the little town of Ambleside
Salisbury Cathedral
Birdoswald Roman Fort in Hadrian's Wall
York Cathedral

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Week 4: London:

City of London ..... see the Blog Site

`Tower Of London >> Find Out More >> Tower of London

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An International Perspective

2008-10-26T00:23:00.000-07:00

With the freedom of life we have and having no mortgage on our five acres of land plus house we built from recycled materials in 1981 for minimal money, Harriet and I have been travelling overseas every two years to see the world. In between we have been seeing parts of Australia which is a very large country. We are also a member of Wyndham Vacation Resorts Asia Pacific and because they are linked with Interval International, we have available free accommodation in 3 star apartments around the world. These are free of cost.

I believe there are three kinds of people in the world. I compare these people to how they would look at trees in a forest. They are:

1. There are those who see and count the physical trees in the forest .... all they see in the world is the physical things of life.
2. There are who those who see, observe and work with the spaces inbetween the physical trees in the forest .... all they see in the world is the spiritual and abstract things of life.
3. There are who those who count the physical trees in the forest but they also see, observe and work with the spaces inbetween the physical trees in the forest .... they see that you cannot have the spaces inbetween the physical trees without the actual trees .... they endeavour to live whole lives.

Harriet and I are of the third kind of people. When we go travelling, we see and value the physical realities that we are seeing but also the culture behind what we are seeing. We have a great love of history eg. when we were in France in May 2007, we spent a week in Paris, we hired a car and drove throughout Brittany for a week then we drove down through the Loire Valley for another week. See two of the places we saw: Josselin and Perros Guirec.

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Travel Blog for Ken and Harriet Aitken

2007-07-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

Travel Blog

Quebec City

Part 6. Ontario Pioneer Camp ....Eastern Canada

Canada Part 5 ... Skagway in Alaska

Download from the free Google Earth Website ....

2008 Canada .... Part 3

Juneau in Alaska .... Part 4.

Juneau Wharf in the day

The Walk at Juneau ..... Mendenhall Glacier ..... the goal of our walk in Juneau ....

The Boat Trip to see whales ....

Juneau at Night ....

A Tip on Reading Blog Sites ....

2008 Canada .... Vancouver .... Part 2 .....

2008 Canada .... Vancouver to Toronto and to Niagara Falls ....

2007 Fiji Holiday

2007 France

Tidal island

2006: Australia: Northern Territory Trip

2005: The Italy Trip

2004 The Port Douglas Trip ..... Australia

2003 England

One of the finest landscape gardens in the world

An International Perspective

Travel Blog for Ken and Harriet Aitken