At every Viking port, several different excursions with local guides are offered. We didn’t want to visit another winery or cattle farm. So we chose a city tour which included a tango performance. Our local tour guide began by acknowledging that Uruguay is not a tourist “destination”...
We began our China tour in the capital city of Beijing. Though Beijing is a city of 21 million people, it is very clean and efficient...much above my expectations which were colored by my experience of the crowded cities in India. We toured the famous Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square on our first day, and on the second day we toured a section of the Great Wall of China.
Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, after #1 India, #2 China, & #3 USA, numbering 279 million people (source-Wikipedia). It is the world's most populous Muslim country. It is the world's 14th largest nation by area, and the world's largest archipelagic state consisting of over 17,000 islands.
But beyond these statistics, I was very impressed with the warmth of the Indonesian people. The attached photo gallery illustrates their warmth.
How much can a tourist learn about a country in five days? First impressions count. One can draw conclusions from even a short visit that merit more research perhaps through a future visit. Having just spent five days in Bhutan. . .
We spent two tourist days in Rome prior to boarding the Viking cruise ship. Our hotel was located in the Trastevere section of Rome, an older residential area across the Tiber River from the central city, home to Rome’s most famous architectural landmarks.
My travel blogs are intended to provide my readers with the vicarious pleasure of my sharing my travel experiences.
Corfu and Albania face each other across a narrow channel. Ferries carry tourists back and forth from Corfu several times a day. Albania is perhaps the least-developed country for tourism in all of Europe. For many years Albania was the poorest country in Europe. Prices are half the costs in Corfu. This makes Albania attractive for tourists. The Albanian landscape is very mountainous, so the tourist industry is promoting the country’s undisturbed natural attractions for adventure tourists.
The Greeks affected the whole world with their ideas, foremost among them the concept of democratic rule. Greece gave rise to philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Greek architecture was adopted first by the Romans, but later around the world, including the columns seen in US government buildings in Washington DC. The Greek language gave rise to words in science, religion, and history that have been adopted by other countries’ languages around the world.
As we traveled across the Denali Highway, the 105 mile dirt road through this incredible wilderness, with higher elevation came fresh snow.