I tend to travel a lot: all around the world (including its more exotic locations), often, and mostly at a fast pace. I’m very lucky in that respect as I love traveling (surprisingly, not everyone does after doing it years!). I’ve been to most of the must-sees of this world, and taken plenty of pics while doing so and uploaded them to this here blog for well over a decade already. That includes both the North and South Poles, the Himalayas, the Sahara, Greenland, and a great many volcanoes. However, it turns out that some places not all that far away from home for some odd reason haven’t ever been investigated by Yours Truly. Indeed, I keep a short list of these special-yet-unvisited destinations with the hope of whittling it down to – hopefully – nothing sooner or later. Well, said list has just been shortened by one place: for I’ve finally, after so many years wanting to get there, been to… Florence!

Yep, though I’d been to Italy sooooo many times before, I never made it here! I’d been to Rome a zillion times since our first office was opened there (in 2008); also Milan, Naples, Venice, Bologna, Maranello, Syracuse and even Palermo. In short – everywhere but Florence! Well, I had briefly stopped at Florence on a train en route to somewhere else, I’d driven around part of its outer ring road, and I’d flown over it plenty of times, but never visited it properly. Until now…

So what can I say? I’ll say Florence is a magical city. Briefly, here’s why:

Read on…

After my quick trip up to Karelia, I was home a mere few days before I was off again on my travels – this time to (southern) western Europe: Milan, Italy. Here’s the view out of my window on the plane thereto:

The weather here was a far cry from up in northwestern Russia – snowless, windless, sunny, blue sky, perfect temperature… aka – spring! Ok, there is some snow here, but only on the horizon – covering the peaks of the Alps.

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Of late you’ve been getting nothing but tropical-equatorial-Ecuadorian–Galapagosian dispatches from me. Which is hopefully just what you need if it still feels like winter where you are. However, this post, as the title gives away, is a typically wintery post, just for a bit of variation…

So, without further ado, here we have…: snow. Lots of:

But why am I lying down like that in the snow? Simple: if I tried to stand up, I’d sink into that snow up to my waist!

But… why is the ice in the below pic green? Actually, it’s not the ice itself that’s green, but I’ll get to that in a bit. But green is our corporate color, so it suited us just fine.

Read on…

I think this day was the most Ecuad-awesome of all during our boat-based excursion of the Galápagos Islands. Two islands in one day: one with brightly-colored iguanas; the other – with similarly wonderful wild animals and sensational sunsets. The latter wonderful wild animals – I’d been expecting them sooner or later as I’d heard about them before, but here they finally were, in the flesh – Galápagos penguins! Yes, you read that right: penguins! Who’d have thought it – on the equator of all places?!

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Hola boys and girls!

Herewith, a continuation of my reportage from the Galápagos Island of Santa Cruz, on which we’d already seen: cacti that defy, surfaces with tortoises, and banana iguanas. Next up… – my favorite: volcanism! In particular: lava tubes. (‘A lava tube is a natural conduit formed by flowing lava which moves beneath the hardened surface of a lava flow. Tubes can drain lava from a volcano during an eruption, or can be extinct, meaning the lava flow has ceased, and the rock has cooled and left a long cave.’ – Wikipedia.

I’d been in such constructions before, in Kamchatka, Sicily, on the slopes of Mount Etna, and in Hawaii. I think that probably most relatively fresh volcanoes in the world feature such lava tubes – and that includes on the Galápagos Islands:

A new day on the Galápagos Islands and a new Galápagosh for us…

Still on the island of Santa Cruz (on which we saw yesterday’s giant tortoises), this morning we were checking out a different spot thereon – Cerra Dragon (Dragon Hill in English, here) (in the afternoon we were headed over to the tiny Bartolomé Island).

What made this day special was the way we didn’t see just one Ecuad-awesomeness, but a full three! Oh my Galápa-goodness! Let me go through them one by one. In this post – #1…

The ‘Galapagos land iguana’.

Oh my guana! Check these resplendent reptiles out!

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Another day – another gosh!…

The tortoise. Hmmm. Not the sharpest tool in the shed – even among reptiles, which aren’t known for their intellectual prowess. Probably the world’s slowest animal too. And when it comes to sweetness and honey and good manners and good looks – the tortoise is also toward the back of the line. Poor things. BUT!…

But… there’s still something about these creatures that charms, enchants, enraptures and enthralls. Maybe it’s something in our genes that says that despite their outward appearance the tortoise is wholly… tasty… But more on that later. For now: giant tortoise pics!…

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Hi folks!

Another day, another Galápagos island. Next up – Santa Cruz Island – here. We were driven literally from its top to bottom (on a road some 40km long). No swimming with the turtles on this day, but of course that didn’t mean there’d be no Ecuad-awesomeness – the main one of which was the fact that… cactuses can resemble trees!

Now, remember the last pic in yesterday’s post? The one with a tree trunk that looked to be of a pine or fir tree? Well it’s actually a cactus known as an opuntia, aka prickly bear! No, not one of those small cactuses with the silly ears that you know to be a cactus. Here cactuses are verrrrry big, verrrrry strangely shaped, verrrrry unusual – and with trunks!

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Hola folks!

Adios Española Island, and, after a short night flight, hola Punta Cormorant on Floreana Island – here.

At Punta Cormorant you’d think there might be at least one or two Cormorants to be seen, but you’d be wrong (I wonder… did they become extinct on the island?). However, instead, there are one or two tons of Cheloniid sea turtles – which provided today’s main Ecuad-awesomeness!

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While on Española Island, the young albatross leaping off a cliff face for the first time in his life hoping he’ll be able to fly – that kinda stole the show. However, there were other wild animals worthy of mention observed too – including species we’d seen for the first time or had never seen in such vast quantities. And we saw them at Punta Suarez – the westernmost point of the island.

Even before we’d made it ashore in the dinghy we came across a seal ‘kindergarten’. While mommy is out at sea getting the ‘groceries’ in, the little ones are frolicking on the beach!

I wondered briefly – how does mom know which toddler-seals are hers? Logically, I asked our guides; they answered: by smell. They added also how life can be rather cruel for the seals around here: if mommy get gobbled up by a shark while out to sea getting dinner in, her offspring will inevitably die. Other moms won’t feed them – poor things. But, at the same time – if one of those child seals happens upon a mom-penguin – young penguins wind up with no mommy too. And if penguins happen upon… and so on and so forth. I could carry on the ‘chain’ at length. But let’s look at some pics instead…

Read on…