Waitomo and Rotorua

Visited Waitomo  Glow Worm cave yesterday. Amazing place.  It has been open to the public since the 1890s when two men discovered it when boating on the river.  Wonderful limestone stalactites a and stalagmites.  It is further enhanced by glow worms that live in the caves and emit light. After walking through the caves we went on flat bottomed boats in the pitch dark to be able to see the glow worms.  It looked like there were hundreds of Christmas lights throughout the cave.

Drove to Rotorua and pulled up to the hotel.  My heart dropped because it looked like we pulled up to Motel Six.  Instead, the Regent  Rotorua  hotel is an absolutely delightful upscale boutique hotel with fabulous rooms, a terrific location and a great restaurant.

Went to Te Puia this morning to see the geysers and bubbling mud pools.  There are areas throughout the downtown area of Rotorua that have low fences around them because they are hot spots.  Ground is literally boiling underneath. Maori still use these spots to prepare food.  You just need to put food in a metal box on a rock and it is steamed in minutes.

Auckland

Arrived in Auckland  on  Thursday which was really Wednesday back home.  Very cosmopolitan city. Our hotel is in the heart of downtown so it is very easy to walk everywhere.  Walked to the viaduct area where there are great views of the harbor. Had dinner at Soul which was a wonderful seafood restaurant on the dock.  Amazing oysters! Took an orientation tour of the city yesterday and ended with a tour at the War Memorial Museum.  Wonderful Maori artifacts to get a glimpse of their way of life.  Good introduction to New Zealand.

On the Way To New Zealand and 2014 RI Convention

After planning this trip for a year, it is finally here! We leave tomorrow for Auckland and the Best of New Zealand tour, followed by the Rotary International Convention in Sydney.  Not looking forward to 18 hours of flying time plus a 4 hour layover in Los Angeles.  I downloaded lots of books and movies and hopefully we will sleep for part of it.  See you there!

HRCT - Taormina and Naxos Sicily

OK, we could live here as well.  Even more bella.  Keeping an eye on Mt Etna, we bussed from the beach (and Cannes-like) town of Naxos, up the mountain to oh so beautiful Taormina.  After walking the narrow - some less than one meter - streets from ancient gate to ancient gate, again wine and cheese and shrimp and and . . . .  Oh this is a tough life.  Then the onslaught of a couple thousand tourists from some monster cruise ship and quickly back to our pleasant 900 passenger floating home.

HRCT Cruise - Sorrento

All ashore by 9AM for tours of beautiful Sorrento.  Of course we chose a tour of the area that ended at the wonderful Quattro Passi restaurant.  After a tour of their extensive and nearly ancient wine cellars, a tasting of local wines new to us but very, very nice.  Bruschetta and cheeses made lunch unnecessary.  OK, we could live here.

Hamden Rotary Mediterranean Cruise - Rome

Happily our group voted to decamp en masse on Wednesday and avoided the strike that first shut down the entire city of Lisbon, and then caused Friday to be a complete disaster.  After a relaxing afternoon and evening in Rome and a beautiful 40 minute late morning drive on Thursday, we boarded the Crystal Symphony as a group at noon.  After assembling for our Bon Voyage dinner, at 9PM the ship departed for the overnight journey to Sorrento.  More later.

Visiting Prague

We drove from Austria into the Czech republic. it was very enjoyable seeing a lot of countryside and a lot of typical European villages with some clusters of houses and lot of green fields.

Our first stop was the village of Cesky Krumlov.  It was a great, hilly, cobblestone village with shops, castles, churches and magnificent views.  If you travel to the Czech Republic to get to Prague, I suggest you stop there. It is about 2 hours from Prague.

Prague is a must-see city if you are visiting Europe.  We did a lot of walking- The Charles Bridge, St. Vitis Cathedral, the Prague Castle.   Some of the stained glass windows and silver statues are worh seeing in the cathedral although i must confess I'm starting to be castled and cathedraled out. These cities all have buildings that are hundreds of years old.  Prague was probably the prettiest of the three cities.  they had very little bombing in the war so most of the city is very old with gorgeous baroque architecture. It is still amazing to me that many cities in Europe may have started over 1,000 years ago.
The Kempinski was a great hotel to stay. We had a bi level suite with a living room downstairs and a great spiral staircase up to the bedroom. It was a terrific location near the old city.  We were able to walk to everything from there. 

We went to the Town Square and stumbled upon Bobby McFerrin playing with the Czech Philharmonic.  They were all dressed very casually. It turned out that was just the rehearsal and the main show was later that night.  We went  back that night and it was great outdoor open-air concert with the Czech Philharmonic in black tie with Bobby McFerrin playing a few songs with them.  Jerry said it was a lot of fun and great to see so many young people really into classical music.