7/13 In the morning we took the C-Train near our hotel to the Calgary Stampede Park. The park is enormous (208 acres). There are two Stampede entrance options when taking the train from the city to the park. We were told to take the second entrance or furthest stop on the train's schedule and it proved to be good advice. We landed near the main building where we could pick up our tickets, cowboy hats and other paraphernalia. From there we walked around the animal barns, saw a “Working Cow Horse Show” in the indoor arena (what a relief from the heat outside). For lunch we had an enormous Gator pork sandwich that actually originated in the Everglades. There was much disorganization among workers at the fairgrounds. Stampede Guides gave different directions for the same agenda ... read more

Italy Day 21, Monday, October 24, Rome Finally, a trip we had all anticipated. After so many Italian churches, we were going to tour the Vatican and Saint Peter’s Cathedral, the greatest of them all. It was a beautiful, sunny day, cool enough to be comfortable. Renato came with us on the bus and as we passed the Villa Borghese he told us the Globe Theater who had come to present Shakespeare in the park during the summer months. There is so much to do in Rome that, like most cities, unless you live there, you are relegated to the necessary tourist sites to check off your bucket list. But I will return for a more leisurely and relaxed exploration of the essence of this city as if I were a local. Sometime. This was my ... read more

Italy Day 19, Saturday, October 22, Rome It was a chilly 62 degrees the morning we began our 8:30 A.M. tour of the Colosseum and the Forum. We arrived early in an attempt to beat the crowds but they were already there. I can’t imagine how busy it would have been had we arrived later! Departing the bus, we were confronted with ancient Rome seeing the Forum to our left and the Colosseum to our right bathed in the morning light and dark shadows adding a mystery to the amazing culture that preceded our present day life. As we walked through the Triumphant Arch of Constantine to get to the Roman Colosseum, originally known as the Flavian Amphitheater, located just east of the Roman Forum, one couldn’t help but feel a bit awestruck by the history ... read more

Italy Day 17, Thursday, October 20, Sorrento to Rome This morning we left Sorrento and the amazing Amalfi Coast, heading north to our ultimate destination, Rome. To break up the 3 1/2 drive we stopped at the Benedictine Abbey of Montecassino. The abbey is located on top of Monte Cassino, (also called Montecassino) a 1,706 foot high “hill” overlooking the town of Cassino. When we arrived the entire valley was engulfed in clouds. We began to break through the white billowy stuff as our bus wound up the narrow steep switchbacks to the mountain top. Perched high above the town of Cassino, the surrounding atmosphere gave a rather heavenly aspect to the abbey above the clouds. This was previously a heavily pagan area. Cassino, the town at the base of the mountain, was first settled in ... read more

Italy, Day 15, Tuesday, October 18, Pompeii and Sorrento We drove through numerous long tunnels via the A3 from Sorrento to Naples en route to Pompeii, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. The distinction of the spelling of Pompei versus Pompeii is that the first refers to the modern city, the second, the ancient ruins. Sitting under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, Pompeii ironically was both destroyed and then preserved from the ash of the so called ‘Plinean eruption’. Pliny the Younger wrote in his later years a description of the eruption from his personal observations of the disaster. Vesuvius is a smoking gun and, still emitting ominous fumes, it is currently considered one of Europe’s most dangerous active volcanoes. It is estimated that about 1600 of the 12,000 people living in Pompeii stayed and perished. It ... read more