After finishing our cruise on Marlborough Sound, we went back to the airport in Blenheim and flew to Te Anau. Te Anau is in the southern part of New Zealand’s south island, just a little more than 3,000 miles from the South Pole. Today our tour would take us to Milford Sound – and there would be incredible beauty every step of the way. Our first stop was Mirror Lakes. These are small lakes very close to the road on…
We visited several small towns in the Umbria region of Italy which include Orvieto and Assisi from my last post. Umbria is famous for medieval towns, wine and beautiful farmland. We stayed in Torgiano, also in the Umbria region. The oldest part of Torgiano is still partly surrounded by a wall. Pictured below is the Torre di Guardia which is a defensive tower dating back to the 13th Century. As we walked to see this tower, we came across the…
This will be the last “Beijing” post and will focus on the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven. The Summer Palace was originally commissioned in 1749 but was damaged in two wars. It was rebuilt in 1886 at the direction of Empress Dowager Cixi. She is said to have been one of the most powerful women in Chinese history. She was widowed when she was 26 and her five-year old son was next in line to serve as emperor. …
Our tour group visited Tiananmen Square which means the Gate of Heavenly Peace. Besides being a major tourist attraction, many celebrations and military reviews are held here. This was also the site of the student and worker protests in 1989 which ended with many pro-democracy protesters being killed. The first picture under this paragraph is the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. Our guide told us that Chairman Mao is revered by the Chinese people and indeed, many Chinese were waiting to…