"Been There" Virtual Travel Quiz? Round #37
See Round #20 for info about and rules for the contest.
Round #26 won by MCD
Submitted by BKMD. Photo of a suspended orange tree in Old Jaffa, an area at the south end of the Tel Aviv, Israel. Jaffa is thought to be the oldest port in the world, with its history going back 4000 years! This is a work of art by artist Ran Morin, who created the statue in 1993 can be found in the Lion alleyway.
Round #27 won by TravelGuy
Submitted by AlanS. The Sun Gate at Machu Picchu, Peru. 1.2 mi. and 1000' of climb on a rough, rocky, steep, trail from the entrance to the main archaeological site. Peru & the Galapagos Islands.
Round #28 won by AlanS and Portolan.
Submitted by JohnS. Sadhus in Kathmandu, Nepal in front of Pashupatinath Temple (cremation site). The Sadhu's are frequent users of cannabus- smoke it and drink a beverage infused with it. The pictures were taken on the Tauck Northern India and Nepal tour.
Round #29 won by JohnS
Submitted by KathyM. The (formerly McDonald-Randolf) Randolph Hotel in Oxfordshire, England. Episodes of the British TV show inspector Morse were filmed here in the "Morse" Bar and throughout Oxfordshire.
Round #30 won by Claudia Sails
Submitted by Sealord. Peacock Clock at the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Tauck’s small ship cruise to the Baltic and St. Petersburg.
Round #31 won by Smiling Sam (again!!)
Submitted by ClaudiaSails. Statues of Vikings(?) on the right bank of the Seine River at the Boieledieu bridge in Rouen.
Round #32 won by JohnS with assist from Sealord
Submitted by Smiling Sam. This is Mumbai India. These people in the white suites are lunch delivery people. They are called Dabbawala and part of a lunchbox delivery and return system that delivers hot lunches from homes and restaurants to people at work in India, especially in Mumbai.
Round #33 won by Smiling Sam and AlanS
Submitted by SueMS. Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, Paris, learning to make Macaroons under the guidance of Pastry chef instructor Éric Verger. It was at the beginning of the Savoring France Rhone River cruise, which started in Paris. Then we boarded the TGV train to Lyon for embarkation. Oh. and we got to keep the aprons and hats.
Round #34 won by rwilso15
Submitted by MCD. The memorial at the killing fields in Cambodia. Full of the skulls and bones retrieved from the mass graves. Seen on the Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos tour.
Round #35 shared by AlanS and Smiling Sam
Sumitted by BKMD. Tesla Supercharger charging stations at the Al Manaseer gas station along Hwy 15/45 (Desert Hwy) between Petra and Amman, Jordan. Jordan is one of only two, UAE being the other, middle east countries that has Tesla infrastructure. Seen on Tauck's Israel and Jordan trip.
Round #36 won (tie) by Smiling Sam and TravelGuy
Submitted by JohnS. This is Athabasca Glacier on the Columbia Icefield in Alberta, Canada. The pictures were taken last year on the Tauck Canadian Rockies and Glacier National Park Tour.
Round #37 is officially open. Submit your photo in a reply [Leave a Comment] to this announcement.
Comments
No one submitted so I'll take another shot.
It has a story which formed the basis of a non-fiction novel published in 2005 and written by a noted US author.
3. What is the story?
4. Who is the author?
5. Where did he get the title of the book?
In case you were wondering, I painted over the banner text.
We should be on our flight to Italy right now but that didn't happen so I will answer this one.
1. This is the worlds first Opera House.
2. It is located in Venice Italy
3. The story is of some interesting inhabitants of Venice, Italy, whom the author met while living there in the months following a fire which destroyed the historic La Fenice opera house in 1996.
4. The author is John Berendt.
5. The title is The City of Falling Angels. I believe it is in reference to the precarious condition of much Venetian architecture.
This is a nice post. I am a travel blogger. Read my blog Delta Airline Deals
I was flagger #5 and watched the spam go away!
BKMD - For us illiterate types, can you explain what "I was flagger #5 and watched the spam go away!" means? You, like AlanS (aka Maverick), have a subtle use of the English language. Perhaps a quote from'The City of Falling Angels' or perhaps it's just gibberish and what happens when your brain gets frostbite in the high altitude of Denver.
It is La Fenice ("The Phoenix") opera house in Venice. (I'm not sure it is the world's oldest but it is quite renown though smaller than many others in Europe)
So bingo, except for the title of the book- easy to find so you know it is "City of Falling Angels." (not to be confused with City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare.) If you read the book you'd know the origin of the title- during/after the 1996 fire that destroyed the building, angel sculptures fell off building's cornice (or other nearby buildings?). Interestingly the firefighting was a comedy of errors- fireboats couldn't get close to the theatre because the nearby canal had been drained for the first time in 40 years!
Like the 14th-century brick bell tower in St Mark's Square that totally collapsed in 1902, the Fenice was rebuilt. Check out the photos at my first link.
Once I got past all John Berendt, the author's name dropping, I found it a fairly interesting story about Venice's inhabitants, open sewers (canals
) politics, social environment, expatriates, American benefactors like Peggy Guggenheim, glass blowing family dynasties, etc. etc. Even though upon the book's release on September 27, 2005, it entered Amazon.com's Top Ten Bestsellers list and was number one on the New York Times Best Seller list, there were also a few reviews like this one: 
Oh, forgot to mention, there is a great little restaurant, Ristorante Antico Martini, on the piazza just to the left of the Opera House. A bunch of us on the tour (Classic Italy, Small Groups) ate there. (That is a theater window and street lamp on the right)
Ah, there was a spammish message earlier that I saw, something about Delta, I wasn’t sure whether it broke any rules. Almost hit the spam button but didn’t
At the bottom of the post you'll see a "Flag." When you click on it you can select "SPAM", "Abuse", or "Report." You can only do it once, if you click a second time it removes your original click. After 4 other people (total of 5) click "SPAM" (or Abuse?) the forum software automatically removes the post and sends it to remediation where the IT folks deal with it.
Certainly! There was a new poster whose message was something to the effect, "click my Delta blog link." First rule, NEVER click a link like that (especially today, since the 4/16 Windows 10 update broke Windows Defender (now fixed, as of this morning)). If you click the Flag link in the lower left corner of any post, a few options come up, one of which is Spam. If 5 forum members flag a post as spam, it goes poof. I was the 5th person to flag it this morning and watched it disappear. I suppose if I posted some obscure picture from some obscure part of the world, you would have known exactly what it meant
BKMD and British - Thanks for the explanation of marking something as Spam on the forum. As always, both of your posts are educating and illuminating. BKMD - Touché, I had that coming for my frostbite comment. 😀
I clicked on the icon for the person and saw the entire message. It also shows whether the person is new to the forum. I would never click on an untrusted link
I was one of the flaggers. Did the same as British to check him out. Not sure if it was spam (as in fraud) or just an opportunist trying to drive traffic to his site. Either way not needed.