Category: Postcards

Images from my travels

postcard from america

The Everglades in Florida is made up of coastal mangroves, sawgrass marshes and pine flatwoods that are home to hundreds of animal species including ubiquitous Florida alligators. On a cloudy day we took a trip on one of the Airboats through the waterways to find those alligators in the water. Seeing one swimming lazily towards the boat, eyes just above the water getting close and personal is quite an experience. It is quite exhilarating as the Airboat picks up speed and heads for the river of grass heading into miles of wetlands – thoughts of Miami Vice or CSI Miami entered my head, hoping we didn’t discover a dead body in the reeds.  Our tour ended with a bizarre Gator wrestling match and seeing baby gators (with their mouths tied up). It wasn’t something I would repeat although the boat trip was fun.

home thoughts from abroad

Home thoughts from abroad is a new series on Travel Words featuring a single photograph that reminds me of a country visited and showing something that uniquely identifies it as being ‘abroad’.

Our few days in Montreux were very busy. On our first day we caught a bus* to Vevey Funi and took the funicular railway up the mountainside to Mont Pèlerin (no views sadly because of the fog lingering over the water) then walked back along the promenade (Quai Ernest-Ansermet) into Vevey town centre for a look around. From Vevey-Marché (lac) we caught a ferry boat to the Castle of Chillon which is at the far side of Montreux, with the intention of visiting the castle in the afternon before walking back via Quai des Fleurs and Quai Alfred Chatelanat to our hotel (2 miles). A full self-guiding tour takes approximately 1.5 – 2 hours, depending on how fast you walk and how much reading you do. Castle of Chillon is the result of several centuries of constant building, adaptations, renovations and restorations with excavations affirming this site has been occupied since the Bronze Age.

*free transport passes are provided to visitors by your hotel in many parts of Switzerland on local buses, trams and trains.

postcard from america

“They Also Faced the Sea” was an art installation of five large black and white photographs of Provincetown women of Portuguese descent mounted on a building on the end of Fisherman’s Wharf in Provincetown Harbor (2003 – 2005). Norma Holt’s beautiful portraits of Almeda Segura, Eva Silva, Mary Jason, Bea Cabral and Frances Raymond are meant to represent all the women of Provincetown who over the years have been the backbone of this vital fishing village. The installation was designed to help keep the spirit and the presence of the Portuguese culture alive. Please click on the link to find out more about these women and this installation.