UGANDA 2025: DOHA, QATAR

 July 17, 2025

Qatar is a tiny country in the Middle East that pokes out like a thumb from the Arabian Peninsula into the Persian Gulf. It comprises 4,471 square miles (slightly smaller than Connecticut) and has a population of about 3.2 million (slightly less than Connecticut).  Unlike Connecticut, 80% of its population is centered in one place, the capital city of Doha.

We arrived ini Doha at around 6:00 p.m., and by the time we got through immigration, it was beginning to get dark, which means the city was beginning to come alive. Our guide, Dharma, was a man in his early 40s from Nepal, of all places. He was friendly but very difficult for us to understand and misinterpreted many of our questions.

Doha is a visual paradise, and it quickly became apparent that the city is all about architecture. One of the first things we saw was Stadium 974, built in 2022 for the FIFA World Cup. Its name comes from the fact that it was built with 974 shipping containers.

Our first stop where we actually got out of the vehicle and stepped into the sweltering heat was the National Museum of Qatar, opened to the public in 2019. 

GERMANY: HITLER'S MUNICH

 May 25, 2025

Our very last joint activity on our family trip to Germany was a guided tour of Hitler's Munich. But before I get to that, I just have to throw in this photo of a silver lion that we passed in the Old Town square. Munich has several statues of lions, once a symbol of Bavarian strength. Besides the Old Town Square, they can be found flanking the entrance to the Munich Palace, on the top of the triumphal arch, and at the Lowenbrau Brewery. My high school mascot was a lion, and I'm a big fan of the books The Wizard of Oz and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, both of which prominently feature a lion, so I am always drawn to statues of lions. This one looks powerful. I like it!

Munich is considered the birthplace of the Nazi Party (aka National Socialism or NSDAP), and a visit to Munich is not complete without seeing a few of the sites involved with the Nazi Party, especially in the 1920s and 1930s.

Our first stop on the tour was the Hofbrauhaus, a historic beer hall that started as a supplier for the Bavarian court. 

Our guide took us up a long stairway . . .

. . . to this dining hall. It was here in February 1920 (so early!) that 30-year-old Hitler, the propaganda chief of the National Socialist Party, announced the party's official program to a gathering of about 2,000 people. Seventeen months later, on July 29, 1921, he was elected to be the head of the Nazi Party here.

GERMANY: MUNICH

May 24, 2025

Munich, the third-largest city in Germany (after Berlin and Hamburg), has a population of 1.6 million and is the capital of Bavaria. However, strolling around in the Old Town area (below left), we didn't feel like we were in a huge city as there is a lot crowded into a very walkable area. 

The most dominant building in the Old Town square is the neo-Gothic Neues Rathaus,  or New Town Hall (below right).

 It is called the NEW Town Hall because it replaced the 14th-century OLD Town Hall (seen below) in 1874.

The New Town Hall has an impressive 400 rooms.

But what it is best known for is its mechanical Glockenspiel, which twice a day uses 32 life-size figures to re-enact scenes from Munich's history. See my four-minute video of part of the action here.

SPAIN: SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA ACCOMMODATIONS, FOOD, AND CITY SITES

 June 29-30, 2022

I. OUR HOTEL

We typically book hotels with high-ish ratings but avoid the five-star hotels that are generally beyond our budget. However, we splurged in Santiago de Compostela and booked a room for two nights in the  five-star Parador Hostal de Los Reyes Católicos, one of the oldest continuously operating hotels in the world and supposedly one of the most luxurious hotels in Spain. The big draw for us was not the luxury, but its location on the Obradoiro Plaza and next to the Cathedral.

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (yes, the monarchs who financed Columbus's voyages) made their own pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in 1486, and once there, recognized the need for a hospital and hostel for pilgrims. They funded the building project, which was completed in 1511. Pilgrims could recover in the rooms (three days in summer, five days in winter), and medical care was provided as needed, all at no cost to the pilgrims. It continued as a hostel/hospital for over 400 years. 

In 1953, the hospital, which by now was serving members of the community as well, was moved to another location, and in 1954 the building opened as a hotel. It became part of the Paradores hotel network it in 1986.

The hotel still provides breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day to the first ten pilgrims who prove they have completed the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage.

The front façade is the original from the early 16th century. Think about that. This dates back to the within a decade or two after Columbus made his first voyage.

ECUADOR: QUITO-IN-A-DAY

 March 21, 2022

Quito is the capital and largest city in Ecuador. Situated in a valley in the Andean foothills at 9,350 feet, it is the second-highest capital city in the world (La Paz, Bolivia, sits at 11,942 feet) and the capital city closest to the equator. It is the only capital city next to an active volcano, Pichinca, which stands at 15,728 feet. Its last major eruption was in 1660, but it did puff a fair amount of ash onto Quito in 1999. Quito has, however, had a significant number of large-magnitude earthquakes in the last 100 or so years, including two that were stronger than 8.0 in magnitude: 8.8 in 1906, 8.2 in 1979, and nine stronger than 7.0 since 1942. Yikes.

Founded by the Spanish in 1534 on the ruins of an Inca city, Quito proper covers 143 square miles and has a population of 2.8 million, and we had about ten hours to see it all.

In the morning we met up with Terry and Geneil and enjoyed an upgraded breakfast on the "club floor" with them, (Remember, Terry had been upgraded because it was his birthday.)

Beautiful flowers--of course--and passion fruit.

Afterwards we gathered in the lobby with the other two couples who were joining our group, Brian and Renee Bascom and Ward and Norma Robinson, who had arrived in Quito in the last day or so.

A guide and driver picked up the eight of us and we were on the road by 9:00 AM. Our first stop was the Itanim Middle of the World Museum.

Here we all are!

PANAMA: A DAY TRIP

 March 17, 2022

We are not ones to sit around the airport in a foreign country for hours on end waiting for our next flight. Our flight to Quito included an 8 hour 52 minute layover in Panama City, and that meant we had plenty of time for an excursion.

The four of us were met by our pre-arranged guide as we exited the airport at about 10:00 AM, and he drove for over an hour to a dock in a lake area that is part of the canal system. Honestly, I didn't think it wasn't the best way to start the day as we had already been sitting in LAX and then on the plane for hours and had eaten only a small breakfast on the plane since leaving LAX the night before. 

There was one highlight on the drive, however--a stop at a little convenience store where Geneil bought dim sum dumplings to share and we all got Cokes. The dumplings were divine, and the Coke/caffeine was much appreciated. Unfortunately, it would be the only food we bought all day until we returned to the airport, which was a significant negative for us as we were looking forward to eating in one of the restaurants recommended to us by a friend who lived for several years in Panama City.

Anyway, we boarded a boat like the one below that could have seated twelve or more passengers. It had a nice canopy for shade, and the temperature was very pleasant. 

The Panama Canal stretches 51 miles across the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and creating a man-made division of North and South America. It was started in 1881 by France, but progress was halted by engineering issues and a high worker mortality rate. In 1904 (23 years later!) the United States started work on the canal and was able to finish construction in ten years. 

Part of the project was creating a huge artificial lake 85 feet above sea level that has been named Gatun Lake. This reduced the amount of excavation work needed.

Map from Wikipedia

POLAND: WALKING TOUR OF GDANSK

June 21, 2019

There is a lot to see in Gdansk, and a good way to see it is by hiring a private tour guide. Our guide, Klaudia, was excellent. 

The first place she took us was to Solidarity Square, the site where 45 striking shipyard workers who were protesting the communist regime were killed in 1970. At the center of the square is the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers of 1970, also known as the Three Crosses Monument, which was erected 1980 next to entrance of what was then called the Lenin Shipyard. It was the first monument in the world erected in a Communist country to recognize victims of Communist oppression.

Three 138-foot steel crosses, each weighing 36 tons, stand on the spot where the first three victims of the riots were killed. The crosses represent the suffering and sacrifice of those first three victims, subsequent victims, and all of the protestors. The crosses are topped by anchors, symbols of the shipping industry. Bas reliefs of the dock workers adorn the bottom of the shafts.

Stockznia Gdankska = Gdansk shipyard: