Winter 2018

View from our apartment balcony Click here for more photos of Torre del Mar One year ago, we spent February up on a magnificent mountaintop overlooking the south coast of Spain and the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. We could also look down on a long stretch of beach that looked very inviting. This year we skipped  the mountain and fled to that beach; it's in the town of Torre Del Mar , Andulusia, Spain.  Torre Del Mar is a great beach town, right alongside the Mediterranean. The beach is fully developed with a wide walkway, bike path, running path, playgrounds for kids, seniors, athletes. It is magnificent! The beach is 3.4k so it attracts runners, walkers, bikers, in line skaters all day and into the night. The beach paths are lit all night and the beach itself is lit until 10pm so there's plenty of time to enjoy the offerings. Sunday afternoon strolling along the beach They groom and clean the beach every day and part of it is rolled for the running track...

Here is a link to photos of Lagos Lagos is on the southern shore of Portugal, in the Algarve region, fast alongside the Atlantic Ocean . It was a home to Prince Henry the Navigator (Henrique to the Portuguese). From here the age of exploration originated as sailors traveled south to eventually round Africa on the way to discovering a route to India. Walking down our block Not far to the west lies the wind swept southwestern tip of the European continent. We couldn’t get further south nor west in Europe so this is as warm as it will get. It’s in the low to mid 60’s everyday and the sunshine is awesome! The sky couldn’t be bluer and the sun can’t be brighter. It really is the way to spend winter!  As is common in these beachside communities, the main drag hugs the waterfront with a wide tiled sidewalk to make walking inevitable and desirable.  In Lagos, the sandy beach to the east meets imposing cliffs to the west. It's interesting to see a ...

Here's a link to more photos of the Queen Mary 2 Man, it was cold as we boarded the Queen Mary 2 on Wednesday afternoon. The fuel barge pulled up late delaying our departure and the bomb cyclone storm blew up the coast to block our path to the sea so we waited in port in Brooklyn overnight and sailed promptly at 7am into the teeth of a fierce snowstorm.  We followed slowly behind the storm as it moved north, finally slipping around it on  Thursday morning as the captain put the hammer down and shot our ship across the Atlantic.  To say the sea was angry that day would be an understatement. The waves were ferocious! Storm force 11 was in effect! Many passengers were down for the count as we rocked hard for about 36 hours. I felt it queasy for a while, but an afternoon nap managed to improve my disposition.  Couple of things... the Queen Mary is a great sailing vessel. Despite extraordinarily rough seas, the ship held her own and really maintaine...