Bill's Blog

The first full day in Nice, recovering nicely (snicker) from 13 hours on airplanes the day before. A full day of activities: tour of and a tasting at a local winery, lunch at an outstanding small restaurant, an afternoon Rose tasting, a walk through the old town, and dinner at the hotel restaurant. The day was a Bank Holiday in France; everything shuts down and everyone goes partying. For us, the evening ended with a beautiful fireworks display over the water that we watched from the roof of the hotel.

Obligatory scenic's of Nice:

View from our hotel room balcony

A busy day at the beach.

Sidenote: there is no sand on the beaches. They are comprised entirely of small smooth rocks. It doesn't look very comfortable, but obviously that didn't bother anyone. 

Yes, the water was almost that blue. I shoot through a polarizer but did not push contrast or saturation.

Up the street past our hotel

          The Winery

Waiting for the mini buses

On the road through Nice

Path to the vines. The vineyard was at the top of a very narrow, winding road.

Kelly and the winemaker, Gio, explaining the vines on the hill behind them. Wilson, for once, paying attention.

Looking out over vines. Brangelina's winery is out there someplace.

The Wines

The Wines, the Winemaker and our Leader

Remnants

Tools of the trade

Waiting for wine

Wine Baskets

Hot sunny morning. The sun zeroed in on my Lensball and started lighting a barrel on fire. Moved everything before the winery burned down.

Touring old town Nice

A very orange building

Pastries and...

... Pizza

I liked this image but couldn't decide how to finish it. So, two visions.

Umbrella overhead shade

Wilson, of course, required police protection.

50 Shades of Rose,
A Tasting

! !

And, lastly, an homage to my ongoing addiction to images of doors.

Very small shrine. There is a little statue of the Virgin Mary in the alcove.

Door Humor

August 15, 2019

Next: A morning in Nice and on to Monaco.

Ruth and I embarked on an amazing trip to the Mediterranean August 13- 23. We went to some amazing places, met some great people, made some good friends, ate some excellent food, and drank (a lot of) really good wine. Over the next 2-3 weeks I'll be posting images taken along the way and will open a gallery dedicated to the trip.

So, as they say, it starts at the beginning. Tuesday evening flight, Tampa to Nice, France by way of Frankfurt, Germany.    

August 13-14

Unsurprisingly, Ruth met a friend at the Tampa airport. Her new friend tried to stay with Ruth in the Frankfurt airport, much to the consternation of her parents.

First destination: Nice, France. We arrived late afternoon, severely jet-lagged. A dinner with our group and this image were about all I could manage.

The Floating Egg was amazing!

Next: Wine and wandering in Nice. Coming soon.

The Florida Keys

Orlando

Gaylord et al at night

Yellow Love

The Caribbean... the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Grand Turks, and at sea

Sea Flight 1

Sea Flight 2

A Pair of Island Lifeguards

Beached 1 (in front of a major resort)

Beached 2- no more tours

Front Yard

Historic library after a hurricane

On the elevator

Harbor escorts- note the machine guns at the bows

April- May, 2019

Storm clouds on the road

Storm moving over Miami

Urban Sunrise

July, 2019

Key West

The Bahamas

Public Service Message, on the side of a building

The Grand Turks

The store fell victim to a hurricane but is still open

Tallahassee, FL

A Rural Gated Community, with communal mailbox

Ocala, FL

May- June, 2019

On the bus...

May, 2019

Lensball, assisted by a shot-glass repurposed from what it is normally used for in Key West.

April 2, 2019

I275 South and I75 South Intersection

March 31, 2019

A bit of explanation:

The images above are from the FL DOC Road Prison on Big Pine Key. There used to be approximately 60 inmates housed who did basic road maintenance all up and down the Key's roads. The state decided several years ago that infrastructure repairs were too much to spend and closed the prison, contracting the roadwork out instead. The prison sits empty now.

 
The following are from the Big Blue Hole on Big Pine Key.
This now scenic stop is actually an abandoned rock quarry that was used for local roads and dug in the 30s and 40s.

If you search back through my posts, you can find images of the
One-eyed Alligator that lives in the Big Hole.




Big Pine Key in the Florida Keys
April 3, 2019

Jodi and the Lensball

March 27, 2019

Last batch of images-

Lighthouse foreshadowed

St. Augustine Doors

Renovation

The Tini Bar

Bird in Abstract

November, 2018

The pond in front out our home is visited by beautiful and graceful birds. They walk elegantly on long legs, brilliant white feathers glowing in the sun, occasionally dipping long beaks into the water for a snack. When done they spread beautiful wings and soar off to another spot.  

And then there is this guy...

December, 2018

St. Augustine, FL
November 28, 2018

The Santa Maria Restaurant opened in the '40's on St. Augustine's waterfront, next to the popular downtown. In 2015 it was sold and closed down. An ongoing battle between the new owners and the city left the once popular landmark desolate and abandoned. The hurricanes and storms have not been kind, causing more damage with each passing year. The big sign on the roof is gone and the walkway to the building is collapsing.

This is an ongoing series, now going back over four years. Visit my Out of Business gallery to see all the images.    

      November 27, 2018

Signs x 2

November 27-29, 2018

St. Augustine Seawall at Sunrise

November 28, 2018

From Wikopedia:

Tulum (Spanish pronunciation: [tuˈlum], Yucatec: Tulu'um) is the site of a pre-Columbian Mayan walled city which served as a major port for Coba, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo.The ruins are situated on 12-meter (39 ft) tall cliffs along the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula on the Caribbean Sea in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. Tulum was one of the last cities built and inhabited by the Maya; it was at its height between the 13th and 15th centuries and managed to survive about 70 years after the Spanish began occupying Mexico. Old World diseases brought by the Spanish settlers appear to have resulted in very high fatalities, disrupting the society and eventually causing the city to be abandoned. One of the best-preserved coastal Maya sites.

From our visit:

Lily, our guide.

The Castle

The building was deliberately built crooked. Something to do with the alignment with the sun.

Tulum was a great Mayan seaport, built on a cliff beside the ocean.

It looks all nice and manicured. The ruins are surrounded by jungle on three side and ocean on the fourth. It is only accessible by walking down a road through the jungle.

I pushed the contrast and saturation to bring out the carvings. See the face at the bottom?

Seaport

The Mayans are gone, but there are still local residents...

Coati

October 30, 2018

More of an ongoing series:

Out of Business:

No more Country Cookin

November 9, 2018

Hurricane Michael hit the Panhandle of Florida on October 10 as a Category 4 storm, winds two miles an hour less than a Category 5. The storm caused huge amounts of damage; everyone saw pictures of the devastation. A month later, on November 8, I drove from I10 down to just north of Wewahitchka in Gulf County, one of the hardest hit areas of the storm. The drive took me through Calhoun County including through the towns of Greensboro and Blountstown.

The talking heads did not do justice to the damage the storm caused. What the news reports do not give you is a sense of the size of the area that the storm hit and the breadth of the damage it caused. Mile after mile, as far as you can see, trees are snapped off like twigs and man-made structures damaged or destroyed.  I have been around for a day or two (no jokes), have seen a lot of storm damage of one kind or another, but nothing prepared me for what I saw on that drive.

There was a lot of work going on, clearing and cleaning up. But even a month after the storm, the damage is astounding.

Here's the thing: everyone donates right after a catastrophic storm, but there is still a huge need in the area for money to rebuild, for food for those who lost homes and jobs, for the basic necessities we take for granted like soap and toilet paper. If you want to help folks, there are lots of agencies still taking donations: reach out to them. We are.   

A few pictures from the drive. We didn't stop to take pictures and do closeups, folks there have enough on their plates without people stopping to take pictures. These were all taken from inside a moving vehicle with my little DX0. 'Most are not the quality I like but they give a sense of what hit the area.   

November 8, 2018

Tampa Harbor

Goodbye, Tampa

Cruising away

Last of Tampa Bay

Sun on the ocean

Sailing into Night

Coming into Key West

Docking

Wilson and a friend at Fantasy Fest- Key West

Departing Key West- sunset

Sunset #2

Flags and Time

Mexican Para-sails

Sunrise #1

Sunrise #2

October 27- November 1, 2018