There is, arguably, not a more instantly recognizeable image of the Greek Isles than the silhouette of an azure blue church dome against steep cliffs and the sapphire Aegean Sea below. This image is from the stunning volcanic island of Santorini, where even the small, scenic town of Oia (pronounced “Ee’-ya”), with only a population…
Continue reading →Only one more day left on this sleepy island. Then I have to come out of my coma and wake up to real life. Sanibel has a way of sucking you into a fantasy world where no one hurries to be anywhere or do anything, or even have a schedule at all. You can sleep…
Continue reading →The Sanibel Causeway spans San Carlos Bay and connects the island to the Florida mainland in Punta Rassa, near Ft. Myers. The entire causeway is three miles long, consists of three two-lane bridge spans, with two man-made islands between, and charges a toll for island-bound vehicles only. So, once on the island, it’s easier to…
Continue reading →There is an actual bird, the Common Snow-Bird, or dark-eyed junco, that migrates south from the cold in groups. John James Audubon, the great naturalist and painter, once wrote of the snowbird, “The migration of these birds is performed by night, as they are seen in a district one day and have disappeared the next.”…
Continue reading →Tonga, the Pacific’s only remaining kingdom, is perched just east of the International Dateline and is made up of more than 170 tropical Pacific islands, most uninhabited. The entire population is about 105,000 with almost 70 percent living in the capital city of Nuku’alofa on the main island of Tongatapu. We arrived at the capital…
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