INDIA, VARANASI: CHRISTMAS EVE MASS AT ST. MARY'S CATHEDRAL

 December 24, 2025

I wasn't too thrilled about spending Christmas in a non-Christian country, but in the end I think it was a good experience. We enjoyed our Sunday service in an LDS Ward, and we had the opportunity to go to a Christmas Eve Mass in Varanasi in St. Mary's Cathedral, a Gothic Revival-style church that is the episcopal seat for Varanasi. Since Catholics make up only 0.1% of the population of the Agra Ecclesiastical Province that includes Varanasi, it is impressive that they have this building and could pull off this level of celebration.

St. Mary's was established in 1854 during the British colonial era and attained cathedral status in 1970. The current church was finished and dedicated in 1993.

The cathedral was less than a mile from our hotel, so we decided to walk there rather than worry about catching a cab, rickshaw, or Uber. Once we got in the general vicinity, the church was hard to miss because of the lit-up Christmas decorations.

The highlight of the outdoor decorations was a nativity scene that ran almost the entire length of the yard from the entry gate to the church building. The stable and Holy Family were in the center, with the shepherds arriving on the left end . . . 

. . . and the wisemen arriving with their camels on the right end.

ITALY: NAPLES - DANTE PIAZZA, MARADONA, STREET ART, THE CHAPEL OF SANSEVERO, CHRISTMAS ALLEY, AND THE CHURCH OF SOULS IN PURGATORY

March 15, 2024

After a decent night of sleep, we met Chris and Stan for a mediocre breakfast in the hotel at 7:00 AM. We had 9:00 tickets for our first destination, and we had to figure out how to get there.

The streets are very narrow, and we were quite impressed by the parking job of the car below. We were also very glad we didn't have a car that we had to park. The ice cream visual on the right was tempting, but we couldn't be late for our first appointment.

This is the University Institute of Mediation. At first I thought that was "Meditation," and that those four guys holding up the balcony were deep in thought. 

It turns out they need someone to negotiate their release.

INDONESIA TRIP: SINGAPORE PART I - OLD AIRPORT ROAD HAWKER CENTRE AND THE SINGAPORE NATIONAL GALLERY

 June 30, 2023

Because it was raining as it can only rain in tropical areas--like water from a firehose--we needed to go somewhere indoors. We rearranged our plans and headed to the Old Airport Road Hawker Centre. "Hawker Centres" are basically huge food courts, and they are very popular in Singapore. Opened in 1973, the one on Old Airport Road is supposed to be the biggest (over 160 food stalls) and the best.

The stalls were just beginning to open when we arrived, and there were already quite a few people scouting out the many options.

We learned right away that we needed to bus our own table.

PORTUGAL: EVORA, PART I - ST. FRANCES CHURCH

 July 2, 2022

Évora, yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site, was the last city on our list before returning to Lisbon, and there were a lot of things we wanted to see there. However, most of them were closed between 12:00 and 2:00 PM,  so after parking our car we took a crazy, zig-zagging 12-minute walk through streets, alleys, and staircases, guided by the GPS on our phone.

We arrived at the Igreja São Francisco, or the St. Francis Church, not quite sure how we had gotten there.

Built between 1475 and 1550, it is a huge Gothic church--although it doesn't look very Gothic on the outside, and the inside has Renaissance and Baroque styles as well. The vaulted nave is the largest of its kind in Portugal.

The main altar includes an impressive "wedding cake Jesus" crucifix.

SPAIN: THE CATHEDRAL OF SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA AND THE CATHEDRAL MUSEUM

 June 29-30, 2022

As noted in the previous post, the current Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela was built in Romanesque style in the 13th century, with Gothic and Baroque additions in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. It is a massive structure, and no doubt gets its notoriety from being the reputed burial spot of St. James (aka Santiago) the Greater, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. However, it is a magnificent edifice of its own accord.

By the way, the only other churches in the world built over the tomb of an apostle are St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, St. Thomas Cathedral Basilica in Chennai, India, and the Basilica of St. John in Izmir, Turkey.

A sign of the importance of this cathedral is that it was visited THREE TIMES in a span of 28 years by two different popes--Pope John Paul II in 1982 and 1989 and Pope Benedict in 2010.

The interior of this cathedral is about 310 feet long, has a transept that measures 206 feet, and stands 72 feet high, making it the tallest building in Europe when it was built. Today it is still the largest Romanesque cathedral in Spain. At first glance it looks rather austere.

But then you see the main altar, and the closer you get, the more opulent it is.

PORTUGAL: TAGUS RIVER ESTUARY AND SR. LISBOA RESTAURANT

 June 25, 2022

During the Covid pandemic, Bob somehow got into birding. I'm still not sure how it happened. He has always loved wildlife photography, and so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he narrowed his focus to what he could see a lot of nearby. His interest in birds expanded as we took several trips to Texas during the last few years and on our trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands in March.

But who knew that PORTUGAL would be a birding paradise? Certainly not I.

Bob hired a private birding guide, Bernardo Barreto, to take us out looking for birds for a full day. He was an excellent guide, and in one day we saw 53 different species of birds. (For more about Bernardo, see his website here.) But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Bernardo picked us up at 7:30 AM. On our way out of town we saw this great mural. I have no idea what it means, but I like the anachronistic combination of the clothing and the can.

We traveled across the Vasco da Gama Bridge, opened in 1998. At 10.56 miles long, it is the longest bridge in the Europe Union. As a point of comparison, the Coronado Bridge in San Diego is 2.1 miles long, and the San Francisco Bay Bridge is 1.7 miles long. (On the other hand, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana is almost 24 miles long.)

The Tagus River ends its 626-mile journey in Lisbon and provides the city with its main port. Its estuary is the largest one in Western Europe. It is a critical spot for bird migration, hosting over 50,000 birds during the winter. A 35,000-acre nature reserve was established in 1976 to preserve the wetlands.

Bernardo had an impressive scope mounted on a tripod. The scope had something like 600x magnification. That, combined with his amazing eye for finding birds, made for a very successful day.

Another really amazing thing about Bernardo is that he can take pictures with a cell phone through the scope. I tried doing it, and I had 0% success. Almost all the bird pictures I have here were taken by Bernardo with my phone through his scope. Most of the time I have cropped the photo and rotated it, but they are still pictures he took.

The first bird we saw was a black-winged stilt.

PORTUGAL, LISBON: NATIONAL AZULEJO MUSEUM AND THE TIME OUT MARKET

 June 24, 2022

We had a little extra time before dinner and decided to visit something that was on our "B List" for Lisbon: the National Azulejo Museum. Azulejo is the Portuguese word for "tile," and as the word is used in Lisbon, it refers to a specific painted tin-glazed ceramic tile. Azulejos are everywhere in Portugal; in fact, they are probably the most iconic image of the country (at least for me). The Azulejo Museum houses one of the largest ceramics collections in the world.

If we make it back to Lisbon, I want to spend more time using the metro system. I've read that almost every station has a unique azulejo mural. 

The National Azulejo Museum was a nice blend of old and new. One of my favorite modern pieces is this whimsical blue bird with a terribly unimaginative name.

Wall Plate by Ellen Jensen (1977)

These are typical 18th century azulejos:

Gold framed azulejo: Devotional tile panel: Our Lady of Conception, St. Marcal,
St. Francis of Borjia, and Souls in Purgatory (1758)
Lower border azulejo: Ashlar with Hunting Scenes (c. 1740)

PORTUGAL, LISBON: CITY VIEWS AND THE CASTELO DE SAO JORGE (ST. GEORGE'S CASTLE)

 June 22, 2022

Feeling fortified by an excellent seafood meal, we continued what had turned out to be a much more lengthy and difficult "walk" to the St. George Castle than we anticipated.  Suddenly stops along the way to take in the view seemed unusually appealing. Of course, how could we say no to this view?

The large dome on the left is the Church of Santa Engrácia, one of the many churches we never made it to.

One of the building walls near the view area had this azulejo (glazed ceramic tile) depiction of Commerce Square, the large plaza facing the ocean we had seen at the beginning of our walk.

The bougainvillea was in bloom all over town. I'd like to copy this look in my backyard, right down to the real bird on the edge of the birdbath.

Still going uphill, we reached another large plaza with a large statue at the center.

ECUADOR: TRAVELING TO THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS AND VISITING BALTRA AND SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS

 March 21, 2022

After our full day in Quito, we were ready to head to the Galapagos Islands. Our hotel in Quito was one or two blocks from the airport, and the hotel had a shuttle ready for the eight of us at 7:00 AM. There were some confusing things to do at the airport, like have our bags run through x-ray before security as well as fill out some forms in a different location of the airport. It was by no means a clear process.

The Galapagos Islands straddle the equator 563 miles west of continental Ecuador. Flights leave for the islands from Guayaquil, so we had to fly there first (45 minute flight). It was fun to see the Guayaquil LDS Temple both on landing and take-off.

The second leg of the flight, from Guayaquil to the Galapagos Islands, was about 1.5 hours. This map isn't to scale (the islands are MUCH smaller in relation to the continent), but it at least gives a good idea of the location and number of the islands. There are 13 major islands and more than 100 smaller islands in the chain.

Map from here

Two airports are used for tourism in the Galapagos. We landed at the one on the island of Baltra, a tiny desert island separated from the much larger island of Santa Cruz by a narrow channel. (The other airport is on the island of San Cristobal.)

We disembarked old-style down a flight of stairs wheeled up to the plane.

The airport itself is quite small.

After two long years of pandemic waiting, we were very excited to finally be on the Galapagos Islands!

TEXAS: HOUSTON MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, PART II (PERMANENT COLLECTION)

November 24, 2021

As mentioned in my previous post, the Texas Museum of Fine Arts is one of the largest art museums in the United States and has a permanent collection of over 70,000 pieces.  I took a photo of each one for this post.

Not really. 

I'll bet you are relieved.

Actually, I only took photos of 7,000 of my favorite pieces. Prepare yourself.

I was stunned, stunned, to see that the artist behind this painting is John Singer Sargent. It's so abstract and scenic.

Gondolas off the Doge's Palace, Venice (c. 1903-4)
by John Singer Sargent

These are the kinds of paintings that I am used to seeing by Sargent:

Young Man in Reverie (1878) by John Singer Sargent

Mrs. Joshua Montgomery Sears (1899)
by Sargent, known for his
skill at painting white.

Paintings by Sargent always stand out to me. He does such a good job of capturing the personality of his subjects.

TEXAS, EL PASO: MUSEUM OF ART

 July 3, 2021

We ended our nine-day trip to New Mexico back where we started - in El Paso, Texas, where we had time to visit the El Paso Museum of Art, get some dinner, and get a bird's-eye view of the city.

Art first. 

The museum is located in the heart of downtown. The current location was built in 1998, and I liked it even before we went inside because of this fun mural on the side of the building.

People and animals have a lot in common, don't they?

The museum lobby had this work on one wall. Created by Andrea Bowers in 2019, it refers to the separation of migrant families at the border. The changing colors of the letters suggests the random divisions going on there.