Being part of a group tour we didn’t have to queue to get in through the main door. I took the above after we came out, and the crowds were now inside. The museum began in 1764 when Catherine the Great bought two hundred and twenty five paintings from a Berlin merchant. Among the paintings […]

Being part of a group tour we didn’t have to queue to get in through the main door. I took the above after we came out, and the crowds were now inside. The museum began in 1764 when Catherine the Great bought two hundred and twenty five paintings from a Berlin merchant. Among the paintings […]

In 1788 Thomas Gilbert was the Captain of the Charlotte, which had sailed to Australia as part of the first fleet carrying convicts. After discharging his convict passengers Captain Gilbert sailed for China and passed through a group of islands that we now know as The Gilbert Islands. He made sketches of the islands and […]

Elisseeff Emporium on Nevsky Prospekt. Elisseeff Emporium reminded me of a visit to Fortnum & Mason’s in London. Elisseeff Emporium food hall was part of retail and entertainment complex, which was built in 1902/03. Before this new building was constructed in 1881, there used to be a restaurant on the corner, which anti-tsarists used to dig […]

Elisseeff Emporium on Nevsky Prospekt. Elisseeff Emporium reminded me of a visit to Fortnum & Mason’s in London. Elisseeff Emporium food hall was part of retail and entertainment complex, which was built in 1902/03. Before this new building was constructed in 1881, there used to be a restaurant on the corner, which anti-tsarists used to dig […]

Elisseeff Emporium on Nevsky Prospekt. Elisseeff Emporium reminded me of a visit to Fortnum & Mason’s in London. Elisseeff Emporium food hall was part of retail and entertainment complex, which was built in 1902/03. Before this new building was constructed in 1881, there used to be a restaurant on the corner, which anti-tsarists used to dig […]

Being part of a group tour we didn’t have to queue to get in through the main door. I took the above after we came out, and the crowds were now inside. The museum began in 1764 when Catherine the Great bought two hundred and twenty five paintings from a Berlin merchant. Among the paintings […]

Let your mind wander, smell the salt, feel the ship’s movement, lift you face to the wind and relax and enjoy. Having been a fan of the cinema since I was a child & I can’t help but visit the cinema when I travel. In the 1964 I was in Moji , in southern Japan, […]

Being part of a group tour we didn’t have to queue to get in through the main door. I took the above after we came out, and the crowds were now inside. The museum began in 1764 when Catherine the Great bought two hundred and twenty five paintings from a Berlin merchant. Among the paintings […]

Elisseeff Emporium on Nevsky Prospekt. Elisseeff Emporium reminded me of a visit to Fortnum & Mason’s in London. Elisseeff Emporium food hall was part of retail and entertainment complex, which was built in 1902/03. Before this new building was constructed in 1881, there used to be a restaurant on the corner, which anti-tsarists used to dig […]

We docked alongside a working port called Phu My (pronounced Foo Me) in Vietnam. The port is about a 90-minute bus ride to Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh. Many of the locals still refer to Ho Chi Minh as Saigon. The Diamond Princess was too large to sail to Saigon, so we had to […]

We sailed from Thailand for Vietnam’s southern main port of Ho Cha Minh (used to be called Saigon), and once again we couldn’t get too close to Ho Cha Minh city because of our size. We berthed at Phu My, which is a 90 minute drive from Ho Cha Minh city via the fleet of buses waiting for […]

B.H.S = Boredom – Heat – Sand (and for my British readers BHS is not British Home Stores!) We sailed from Muscat for Doha, but for some reason, which I can’t remember, we were diverted to Bahrain, which is 130 km ( 81 miles) as the crow flies from Doha, but a little longer by […]

When I arranged our holiday in Vietnam for my wife and I, and our friends, we were all price sensitive, so I had to be careful of the costs. Flying out of Sydney we could fly with Vietnam Airlines   or Qantas , but when I checked on the prices I realised that Vietnam Airlines had […]