Seeing Italy Up Close and Personally We recently returned from a 36-day trip where we spent 21 days riding the trains in Italy to visit:
Then we boarded a ship (the 8-month-old Explorer Journeys Explora 2) at Civitavecchia that took us on a 14-day cruise through the Mediterranean to visit lots of exciting locations to include:
Here’s a map of what our trip looked like:  During our trip we traveled over 2,900 miles - riding the trains in Italy and on the Explora 2 cruise ship. We also hiked over 190 miles - averaging 5 1/2 miles each day. During the first 17 days – before we arrived in Rome or boarded the ship - we walked an average of almost 8 miles a day. We had wonderful and interesting food along the way. But best of all we had good company and got to see so many of the “Classic” Roman and Greek sights up close and in person. It was another "trip of a lifetime". As always, we took thousands of photos of the museums, artwork, cathedrals, cities, monuments, vistas, and nature that we managed to see. – so, we’ll be editing and posting them as soon as our schedule lets us get around to it. Here are a few teaser photos to give you a brief overview of some of the sights we saw until we get around to posting the photos from each location on our Adventures page: (click on any photo to start the slideshow) 
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The Revolutionary Past Lives on in New England During the year there are several activities in the area that celebrate our Colonial and Revolutionary War history. This year we attended the Patriots’ Day and Memorial Day ceremonies, and the Colonial Faire and Fife & Drum Muster. Patriots’ Day is a state holiday in Massachusetts commemorating the first shots fired in the American Revolutionary War, at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, on 19 April 1775. On 18 April 1775 the British Military Governor of the Massachusetts Colony, General Thomas Gage, ordered Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith to seize the arms and powder being stockpiled by the Concord militia. The skirmish that started at Concord's North Bridge had been brewing for some time since the tensions in Massachusetts had been escalating due to the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the Intolerable Acts. But the Battles of Lexington and Concord marked the actual first shots were fired between the Patriots and British regulars, beginning what would eventually lead to the American colonies Revolutionary War against the British Empire. Every year on Patriots Day, the local militia companies that fought at the Battles of Lexington and Concord back in 1775 March from their towns to the North Bridge to commemorate the occasion. Memorial Day is a US Federal holiday that honors and mourns the country's deceased service members and women who lost their lives while defending the United States. It is celebrated on the last Monday of May (27 May in 2024) and is often considered the unofficial start of summer. The local militia company provided the salute to all those who sacrificed their lives so that we may enjoy our freedom today. Colonial Faire and Fife & Drum Muster: In the days preceding the Revolutionary War, the local militias would usually muster to drill twice each year, once in the spring and the other in the fall. Following their drill, the militia would be joined by their families and celebrate with good food and drink, music and games. On September 28, 2024, the local Companies of Militia & Minute and Ancient Fyfe and Drum Companie hosted a full day of events at the Wayside Inn (which was established in 1716, making it one of the oldest continuously operating inns in the United States). As noon approached, fifes and drums could be heard in the distance as 24 companies from all over New England assembled to parade from the Wayside Inn to the muster field. After the parade, each fife and drum company returned to the muster field to play for the audience. The Wayside Inn is also the site of the one-room schoolhouse from 1798 made famous in the “Mary Had a Little Lamb” poem Here are a few photos from the events celebrating our Colonial history from throughout the year: (click on any photo to start the slideshow) The Colors of Fall This year we had a spectacular Fall here in New England. Because it was drier than normal during the Fall, the colors in the trees really popped and the leaves stayed on the trees longer than usual. Here are a few photos showing some of the spectacular sights that we saw as we hiked around – to include going out to Wachusett Mountain and the Wachusett Reservoir. The day that climbed to the top of Mount Wachusett it was clear enough that you could see the Boston skyline which is over 40 miles away. (click on any photo to start the slideshow) Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Last week we were lucky enough to see a celestial event that could be seen across our entire northern sky; the Aurora Borealis. Last night, 19 October 2024, we experienced a celestial event that was much harder to see; comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS; also known as Comet C/2023 A3. The comet came from the Oort cloud and was only discovered on 9 January 2023 by the Purple Mountain Observatory in China when the comet was ~7.3 AU (1.09 billion km; 680 million mi) from the Sun. The first naked eye observation of the comet from Earth was reported on 23 September 2024. It made its closest approach to Earth on 12 October, at a distance of 71 million km (44 million mi). When visible the tail was reported to be 10 degrees long under dark skies and 17.5 degrees long photographically. By 2 November the comet had faded to below magnitude +6 and was no longer visible to the naked eye. Based on astronomical calculations the Tsuchinshan-ATLAS comet came from the Oort Cloud - which lies far beyond Pluto and the most distant edges of the Kuiper Belt. The Oort Cloud is believed to be a giant spherical shell surrounding the Sun, planets and Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). It's like a big, thick bubble around our solar system, made of icy, comet-like objects.  Because of the comet's orbit (a retrograde orbit, lying at an inclination of 139°) Tsuchinshan-ATLAS did not approach close to the giant planets of our Solar System. Consequently, the comet is only weakly bound to the Sun and it is calculated that the outbound orbit will become a hyperbolic trajectory that will most likely result in the comet being ejected from the Solar System - never to return.  Here are some of the photos of the rare sight that we saw last night between 6:30 PM and 7:30 PM here on the East Coast: (click on any photo to start the slideshow) In addition, here’s a 1-minute time-lapse video of the Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS captured from space by Astronaut Matthew Dominick onboard the International Space Station (ISS). The Northern Lights Made a Second Rare Appearance Here in New England The past two nights the conditions were good for potentially seeing the Northern Lights here in New England once again. One chance to see the Aurora Borealis as far south as the Boston area is very rare; twice in the same year is unheard of. So, on the nights of 10 and 11 October 2024, we ventured out in the late evening and luckily got to see some amazing sights. As with the last time earlier this year (on 10 May 2024), prior to heading out we consulted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/) to check the forecast to find out if the conditions were actually good for seeing the Northern Lights in our area – since they’re the authoritative source for solar and space environment data. 
We also checked our “Sky Live”, “Moon Calendar” and “Lumnos” apps once again to see what the sky conditions were, the phase of the moon, and the location of the moon in the night sky. The air was crisp, the skies were clear, and the moon was in the Southern sky – so the viewing conditions were excellent. As mentioned in our previous Aurora blog from earlier this year (11 May 2024), we found that our cameras “saw” the lights (which are caused by charged particles from the Sun interacting with the Earth’s electromagnetic field) much better than our eyes. So, we had to shoot lots of photos and then see what showed up on our cameras. Again, we were surprised many times because the faint colors and striations that we saw in the sky were much brighter and more pronounced in the images that our cameras captured. Here's a great write-up by Ewen Bell explaining why this occurs: "Why Auroras Look Different on The Camera" The gallery below shows photos of the Northern Lights that appeared in our town’s skies during the two nights – along with a couple photos of our Town Center that was coincidentally lit up that week: (click on any photo to start the slideshow) Visiting the Boston Common, Christian Science Plaza, Harvard Art Museums and BU Since we live near Boston the early Fall is a nice time to head into the city to see the sights. The heat and humidity from July and August are gone – as are most of the summer tourists. So, this September we took a few trips into the city to visit the Boston Common, the Christian Science Plaza and Mapparium, and the Harvard Art Museums. Here’s a brief overview of each of these interesting Boston sights. The Boston Common is a public park in the heart of downtown Boston, consisting of 50 acres of land. Founded in 1634, it is the oldest city park in the United States. During the winter of 1775 and 1776, British soldiers installed artillery entrenchments on the Common, and a garrison of 1,700 Redcoats encamped there. On 24 August 1824 Revolutionary War hero Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier Lafayette (the Marquis de Lafayette) celebrated the 50th anniversary of our nation's founding at the Boston Common as part of a 13-month tour of the United States that he took at the invitation of President James Monroe, Although Lafayette had planned to visit only the original 13 colonies, his farewell tour eventually took him to all 24 states. Fun fact: cows were forbidden from grazing on the Common in 1830. Today you can take a Swan Boat ride on the lake, ice skate on the Frog Pond, ride the Carousel, listen to music at the Parkman Bandstand, see the bronze ducks modeled after Robert McCloskey’s famous children's book “Make Way for Ducklings”, play tennis and baseball, or just stroll around and enjoy the grounds and statuary to include:
The Christian Science Plaza is a 13.5-acre site that houses the original Mother Church (built in 1894), the Church Extension (built in 1906), the Christian Science Publishing House, The Mary Baker Eddy Library, a 690 x 100-foot reflecting pool, and the Mapparium. The Mapparium is a three-story stained-glass globe, bisected in the middle by a glass walkway so you can walk inside the globe and see the world in a way that doesn't distort the surface of the Earth. The Mapparium globe shows the world as it was in 1935. So, while the size and position of the continents are correct, the map's political boundaries are long out-of-date. Another interesting phenomenon is that the globe reflects sounds such that while you are standing on the bridge can hear a person from the other end when they whisper. The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985). The main building contains approximately 43,000 square feet dedicated to exhibitions for the ~250,000 objects that the museums possess. The Fogg Museum is renowned for its holdings of Western paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, photographs, prints, and drawings from the Middle Ages to the present. Particular strengths include Italian Renaissance, British Pre-Raphaelite, and French art of the 19th century, as well as 19th- and 20th-century American paintings and drawings. The Busch-Reisinger Museum is the only museum in North America dedicated to the study of art from the German-speaking countries of Central and Northern Europe in all media and in all periods. The museum holds one of the first and largest collections of artifacts related to the Bauhaus design school (1919–1933) which fostered many developments in modernist design, late medieval sculpture and 18th-century art. The Arthur M. Sackler Museum collection holds important collections of ancient Mediterranean and Byzantine artifacts comprised of significant works in all media from Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the Near East to include Greek vases, small bronzes, and coins from throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. The museum also specializes in Asian art, most notably, archaic Chinese jades (the widest collection outside of China) and Japanese surimono, as well as outstanding Chinese bronzes, ceremonial weapons, Buddhist cave-temple sculptures, ceramics from China and Korea, Japanese works on paper, and lacquer boxes. In addition, the museum holds works on paper from Islamic lands and India, including paintings, drawings, calligraphy, and manuscript illustrations, with particular strength in Rajput art, as well as important Islamic ceramics from the 8th through to the 19th century. While we were in the area, we also walked along the Charles River and through Boston University (BU) on one of our visits since it was a beautiful day heading into a clear night. Here are a few photos from our various adventures in Boston: (click on any photo to start the slideshow) Amazing Sights of the Harvest Super Moon and the Clouds Last night, 17 September 2024, the weather was clear enough to see this month’s Harvest Super Moon – but the clouds were also out - so we saw some really interesting sights as the moon and the clouds interacted. As the full Moon closest to the autumnal equinox, this was the Harvest Moon – named as such since during the fall harvest farmers sometimes needed to work late into the night by moonlight. Unlike other full moons, the Harvest Moon rises just after sunset for several consecutive days, creating an extended period of natural light in the early evening. Last night’s moon was also a super moon and the moon appeared particularly large in the sky owing to the coincidence of its closest approach to the earth (the perigee) with a full moon. If you want all of the scientific details, and all the dates, times and distances for full supermoons until the year 2100, Astronomer Fred Espenak has created a table that lists all of them at: Here are some of the photos showing the spectacular sights that we saw last night between 9:00 PM and 11:00 PM here on the East Coast: (click on any photo to start the slideshow) 23 Days Following the Path of the Vikings We recently made it home from a 22-day trip that followed the path of the Vikings from Amsterdam to Boston. During our trip we traveled over 7,600 nautical miles (~8,700 miles) and visited the Netherlands, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Canada (Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia) and Maine before returning to the US in Boston. During our 21-days on the ship we were very fortunate since the North Atlantic seas, which can be rough, were unusually calm. We couldn’t have asked for a better Trans-Atlantic crossing. In addition to all the sailing, we also hiked all over the locations where we made landfall – through all types of country and urban terrain. The sights that we saw were diverse and amazing: whales, seals, porpoises, puffins, Icelandic Horses, icebergs, geothermal geysers, waterfalls, volcanic craters, the rift between the European and North American tectonic plates, rock formations, world renowned and local art, architecture ranging from Cathedrals to fishing towns, Viking ruins and artifacts, brilliant moonlight nights, and spectacular sunsets that occurred after 11:30 PM. We were lucky enough to even get to Nuuk, the Capital of Greenland. We weren't supposed to stop in Nuuk, but the two scheduled Greenland stops (Qaqortoq and Nanortalik) were iced in, so the ship changed plans and headed to Nuuk (a port that the ship had never been to) instead. We even crossed the Arctic Circle (66 1/3 Degrees North Latitude) and celebrated it with the traditional Polar Bear/Blue Nose ceremony. Having seen lots of Viking artifacts in Norway, Iceland, and Greenland, when we got to Newfoundland we completed our Viking activities by going to L'Anse aux Meadows, the first European settlement in the New World, tied to Lief Erickson and dated to somewhere between 990 and 1050 AD. Here's a map of what our overall trip looked like.  During our 23 days of traveling we visited the following major sites:
As always, we took thousands of photos – so we’ll be editing and posting them as soon as our schedule lets us get around to it. Here are a few teaser photos to give you a brief overview of some of the sights we saw until we get around to posting the photos from each location on our Adventures page. (click on any photo to start the slideshow) What a Double Header – Seeing the Aurora Borealis and the Space Station on the Same Night We had an amazing coincidence occur earlier this week when, on the night of 11 May 2024, as we were waiting for the Aurora Borealis to appear, the International Space Station (ISS) streaked directly overhead.  The largest man-made object in space, the ISS is 356 feet (109 meters) end-to-end, one yard shy of the full length of an American football field including the end zones. The solar array wingspan (356 feet, 109 meters) is longer than the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380 (262 feet, 80 meters). In 24 hours, the space station makes 16 orbits of Earth, traveling through 16 sunrises and sunsets at a speed of 17,100 mph (4.76 miles/second). Here’s a short video of what the ISS orbit looks like as it passes 248 miles above the Earth. Note that the highlighted “cone” shows the locations that can see the ISS as it passes by. Because of its size, and the sun’s rays reflecting off its metal hull and solar panels, the ISS is very visible against the night sky – if you know when and where to look for it. Luckily, we knew that the ISS would be passing overhead that night, so we noted the compass directions that it would come from and head off to, and were prepared to look for it at the scheduled orbital pass time.
 Here’s a time sequence photo montage of the ISS passing overhead during the 6 minutes and 34 seconds that it was visible to us.  We even captured a short video of the ISS streaking through the night sky. (click on the arrows to expand the video to full screen since the ISS was shot against the dark night sky) Although we initially headed out for a chance to see the Aurora Borealis, the fact that we saw both the Northern Lights and the ISS passing overhead made for an unforgettable night. The Northern Lights Made a Rare Appearance Here in New England Last night the conditions were good for potentially seeing the Northern Lights here in New England. So, on the night of 10 May 2024, we ventured out in the late evening and luckily got to see some amazing sights between 9:30 PM and 12:30 AM from a variety of locations around our town. Prior to heading out we consulted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/) to check the forecast to find out if the conditions were actually good for seeing the Northern Lights in our area – since they’re the authoritative source for solar and space environment data. 
We also checked our “Sky Live”, “Moon Calendar” and “Lumnos” apps to see what the sky conditions were, the phase of the moon, and the location of the moon in the night sky – and the viewing conditions were excellent. The only odd thing we found was that our cameras “saw” the lights (which are caused by charged particles from the Sun interacting with the Earth’s electromagnetic field) much better than our eyes. So, we had to shoot lots of photos and then see what showed up on our cameras. Needless to say, we were surprised many times because the faint colors and striations that we saw in the sky were much brighter and more pronounced in the images that our cameras captured. Here's a great write-up by Ewen Bell explaining why this occurs: "Why Auroras Look Different on The Camera" The gallery below shows photos of the Northern Lights that appeared in our town’s skies that night: (click on any photo to start the slideshow) |
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