Georgia Road Trip, Part 1

Last weekend was a long weekend for us with a holiday on Monday. Daniel and I used the opportunity for a road trip in Georgia. We wanted to explore an area we hadn't been to and decided to stay in Americus, GA as our base for exploration.

As I researched hotels in Americus, I discovered the historic victorian Windsor Hotel right downtown and we decided we simply had to stay here. 

 It is run by Best Western and we found it quite affordable.

The lobby alone was worth the visit.

 Such a magnificent building and so nicely restored and maintained.

At some point during the weekend, we saw all the hotel guests taking their picture in this huge mirror. We thought we were so clever...

Our room was on the second floor, but of course we had to explore the entire hotel. 

The hotel has two restaurants, one for fine dining and the other a pub, which is where we ate. The food we had was really good. 

Of course, an old hotel like this has to have a haunting or two. We read all about it after the shutters in our room kept closing and opening by themselves. We found it interesting, but other than that, we had no ghostly visitors.

As legend has it, there is a mother and child and an old porter who still roam the hotel and try to interact with the guests.

Breakfast was served in the elegantly restored dining room. 

That was a little more breakfast than I had thought it would be, but since we ended up skipping lunch, it served us well.

If you zoom in and look at the floor, it is a mosaic of tiny tiles. 

That was only the hotel part of our trip. We were so surprised by everything we saw and visited that I am going to overwhelm you with photos in my next few posts. 

It's too much to put in one post alone. Plus, the four places we visited in the vicinity of Americus were all completely different from one another.

One thing I can say for sure, Georgia keeps surprising us. Stay tuned...

❧ Silke

Cruise 2017 - San Juan, Puerto Rico (Part 1)

We have so many photos from San Juan that I'm showing them in two blog posts. Our arrival started with a cloudy and very windy morning. It looked like we might have to take the umbrellas.

Can you see me by the railing? I was holding on because the wind was unreal. 

As we got closer, the weather improved and we were eager to get a good look at San Juan. 

It had been hit so hard by Hurricane Maria (who also hit us as a strong tropical storm) that it devastated parts of the island. And they still haven't fully recovered.

However, San Juan was ready for tourists again, which is great for the revenue of the island. 

A view of the beautiful fort El Morro. 

Once off the ship, we just walked around town and took in the sights. 

There were places we could see some of the effects of the hurricane, but in general the town was as  beautiful as I remember it from last time!

Another big cruise ship that was in town that day. I think there were three altogether. 

Finally it was time for a libation and for cooling down in the beautiful Convento, an old convent turned into a gorgeous hotel. 

After this, we wandered some more and had lunch in a local restaurant. Daniel then went on to explore El Morro and I went back to the ship with the rest of our party. I don't do well with heat and humidity, so often Daniel explores more then I do. I'll show the photos he took in my next post! 

❧ Silke

2017 Cruise - Tampa & Key West

I'm finally getting around to posting some of our photos from the last cruise. I've noticed that I often use my blog like a photo album. Since we don't print our photos out anymore, it's really nice for us to have a record. So I'm doing this as much for us as for you.
This cruise left from Tampa, which is one of our favorite ports to leave from. The path to the Gulf of Mexico is a long one and there is much to see on the way.

 I love this little light house.

The next morning after breakfast,

We spent some time on deck. Daniel was painting,

and I may have been staring out at the ocean without doing anything. It's one of my favorite past times on the ship...

When we got close to Key West, the pilot came on board

and a short while later, we were at the dock.

We didn't know what to expect in Key West after they were almost hit directly by Hurricane Irma, but to our delight, it had recovered well and the island looked as beautiful as the last time we were there.

On our last visit we didn't go into the Hemingway house and we decided that this time it was a must!

Of course, being the cat lady that I am, I loved seeing all the six-toed cats everywhere! I think there are 54 of them on the property.

Aren't the colors great?

Cats everywhere - even on the curtains...

and in the gift shop on all the shelves.

Back out on the street, we just wandered around and took some fun photos.

Daniel did a painting of this street. You can see it here on his blog. 

We even put our feet into the water, which was quite refreshing.

I remembered this old theater that is now a Walgreens. Isn't it a beautiful building?

Then it was time to get back on board to leave for our next destination: Puerto Rico, another island hit hard by a hurricane and still not fully recovered.

I'll have pictures of that in my next blog post.

❧ Silke