Places

All aspects of trip preparation and planning. Wondering thorough Europe. Biking and Hiking.Sights and sounds. Travel journal.

History of Panama Canal (1513 – 1915) Connecting Dots on the Map

2017/11/25
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Modified: 2017/11/05
French-Panama-Canal-by-1888

What is an isthmus? It is a relatively narrow strip of land (with water on both sides) connecting two larger land areas. Why Panama? Because it is irresistible. It was irresistible for everyone, who looked at the map of Americas for 400 years. At first, they search for a open waterway. There was none. Then they searched a passage to the North and to the South of the continent. On September 6, 1522 a news reached Spain that there is a water passage to the South. Only one ship with 18 men returned. They started 3 year earlier with 5 ships and a crew of 237. Ice and cold securely blocked…

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Adventures in the Dominican

2017/11/24
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Modified: 2017/11/24

2017-11-24 FR 18:35 (17:35 EST) Hello hello from warm Dominican Republic. – counting number of sudoku tables  – how many different valid 9-on-9 sudoku tables are possible? – questions to Mergebot – does their service ($26/month) support upgrading from one server to another while maintaining new configuration  options – planning DWC.com migration to Amazon: compare double entry vs. a new migration round – a week in a warm climate – any difference in health and state of mind? See you Sunday on a soccer field!

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Aug 26 SUN – Road to Napoli [… in progress …]

2017/11/22
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Modified: 2017/09/16

[…in progress…] Today we spent almost entire day driving from Pitigliano to Napoli.  We paid €65 cash and left the place around 10:30.  We set GPS to one of the hotels in Napoli from my list, and it showed that we need to drive over 350 km, and if driving nonstop we should arrive at 14:30.  We stopped for watermelon break, for gas (€86 for 45 liters).  We also stopped for a lunch (€17.30). Road was perfect.  After 3 or 4 hours of driving we only paid €15 in tolls.  We arrived in Napoli around 16:00. We overshoot by one exit, and entered Napoli back streets littered with garbage evenly distributed…

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Aug 25 SAT – Agriturismo in Pitigliano [… in progress …]

2017/11/18
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Modified: 2017/09/16

[…in progress…] Today is Saturday.  After breakfast, we checked out, but spent another 45 minutes in the pool.  Guests from yesterday have already left the night before or earlier this morning.  We had the entire property to ourselves. We departed from Agriturismo “La Quiete”  near Cecina at 12:00 noon.  We drove 99 km on a highway to Grosseto, and then jumped into a winding road toward Pitigliano and some address I entered into GPS. The road was so saturated with turns that we had to stop and catch our spinning heads. Around 2 PM we had lunch in Enoteca Dei Mille Di Detti Michele in Seasano (14:54 – 2 Piazza Garibaldi,…

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Woodstock Fruit Festival (WFF) – August 16-23, 2015

2017/11/15
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Modified: 2017/11/05
WFF2015 - Lira in a Mess Hall

Camp Walden, Diamond Point, NY August 16-23, 2015 Don Bennett – http://health101.org/ Raw Food Our ancestors were slowly gathering fruits and plants to eat.  We need to emulate this pattern with eating mostly tropical fruits for calories and nutrition.  For minerals we need to eat greens and  other vegetable.  Emprasis on RAW is made for two main reason: (01) coking is destroying nutritional values of the food, and (02) cooked food is modified food.  That makes it a stranger in our digestive system. 80-10-10 Eating mostly fruits will dictate a certain ratio of where we getting out calories from.  That way we can  get 80% of our calories from carbohydrates (raw fruits);  10% from  protein and 10%…

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Aug 24 FRI – Torre del Lago Puccini – Pisa and Agriturismo

2017/11/14
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Modified: 2017/09/16
12-30 Pommery Afar

Today is Friday. We woke up at 7:22, and had a luxury to gather our things slowly. No rush. No hurry. Our next stop is Villa Puccini that is 67 km away. We are now turning back South. Yesterday we reached our North-most point in the trip – Levanto. Today is a beginning of a new billing cycle on my Verizon account. At 08:37 (2:37AM in America) I am resetting my data counter on iPhone. Each 100 MB cost $25, and for the first 12 days of vacation I used up 90.6MB. Perfect. Now for the next 10 days in Italy I could use another 100MB. Why they make such a…

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Aug 23 THU – Cinque Terra [… in progress …]

2017/11/10
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Modified: 2017/09/16
Monterosso al Mare - Seashore

[…in progress…] Our bus to the train station was scheduled for 09:10, so we woke up at 07:30 and went down to have a large free breakfast. Fruits and eggs, and several cornetti (croissants).  Very good. At the front desk I did buy  2 LEVANTO – LA SPAZIA unlimited one day train tickets with rights to use the Park trails (€10×2 = €20 cash). Five for usage of the park, and five for unlimited rides between La Spezia and Levanto. We took a free hotel-provided shuttle at 09:10 to La Spezia train station, and at 09:26 I already validated the tickets in one of the yellow machines on the platform.  Single…

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Trip to Montreal – July 2011 – Through New Hampshire

2017/11/08
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Modified: 2017/11/05
Place-des-Arts

There are only 3 warm long weekends in a year - Memorial, July 4-th and Labor Day. Get an extra day off and get away from the city every time. This article is about wonders of Sawyer Pond in New Hampshire and fantastic Montreal in French-speaking Quebec. Read all about 2 bikes, 4 nights, $700 and 800 miles.

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Aug 22 WED – Lucca (Toscana) – La Spezia (Liguria)

2017/11/06
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Modified: 2017/09/16
La Spezia - Hotel Ghironi

  Today we woke up at 9:15 in Lucca.  This is a middle of a second week and it is a midpoint in our trip.  This is night number 12 out of 24. Right now (10:37) we are finishing our fruit breakfast in the kitchen, and planning to stroll around the city over the city walls.   Lucca – City walls are so thick that a wide comfortable boulevard is forming a unique circle around the center Lucca – Basilica di San Frediano – 13:16   First, we climbed the city wall (11:52) near our hotel (Corso Garibaldi) and walked our marry ways along with other pedestrians and bicyclists. The walls…

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2015 BMW 535i xDrive Gran Turismo – Dark Graphite

2017/11/05
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Modified: 2017/11/05
Test-Drive-Day-2015-06-14-S

This article is to record all the random and wonderful coincidences and events that led to finding and purchasing a new 2015 535i xDrive Gran Turismo on Sunday, June 14 2015. This article started on Wednesday, June 17, 2015.  This car has a few days of history with me, but it was sitting in the showroom long enough to be discounted and get into an “attractive” zone.  The earliest date on the documentation provided is 2014-09-19 when this car went through inspection before entering a showroom.   Date Event 2015-06-01 MO 15:01 I received an email from BMW to schedule a routine free service appointment for my 2013 BMW 320Xi. 16:12 I…

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Crossing Pemigewasset Wilderness through Twin Brook Trail

2017/11/04
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Modified: 2017/09/16
Stone-Profile

Crossing a huge body of wilderness often involves a question of returning back to your car.  This itinerary suggests such a crossing, if you have one car, one bike and 3 nights to spend in the woods.  At no point you are required to carry your tent and your sleeping bag on your back.  Instead, you will stay two nights in a campground and one night in the hut, where they have beds and blankets. New Hampshire White Mountains are only 2 hours from Boston (140 miles to Lincoln, NH).  They are close enough and large enough to explore several times a year. Here is a bird-eye view of your itinerary:…

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