"Been There" Virtual Travel Quiz? (Open to all) Round #73
See Round #20 for info about and rules for the contest.
Round #63 won by BKMD
Submitted by Smiling Sam. A woman of one of the Karen tribes which reside in both Myanmar and Thailand. Picture was taken in Chiang May, Thailand on the Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand tour.
Round #64 won by AlanS
Submitted by Portolan. Katzenzungen Castle, home of the 350+ year old vine of Versoaln. Versoaln isn’t just Italy’s oldest vine, it is one of the oldest in the world – and the largest in Europe. Located in Tisens, South Tyrol, it is 350 years old, and its branches form a 300-square-meter pergola. It produces a white wine that goes by the same name as the vine, Versoaln.
Round #65 won by BKMD
Submitted by MCD. The Boboli Gardens of Pitti Palace - Florence Italy. The Abundance, 1608 - 1637, by Sebastiano Salvini - Giambologna - Pietro Tacca. White marble with wheat bouquet of bronze.
Round #66 won by AlanS
Submitted by BKMD. A photo taken during the Israel & Jordan tour a short distance from the Movenpick Resort in Jordan of the window of a small shop. The window display featured a female mannequin wearing a “Burkini,” a full body swimsuit which covers all but face, hands, and feet, and is designed to be worn by Islamic women.
Round #67 won by JohnS
Submitted by Sealord. Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain
Round #68 won by BKMD
Submitted by JohnS. A high drop, “Squatty Potty” at Bhadrapur Airport (BDP) in Bhadrapur, Mechi, Nepal.
Round #69 won by Johns (and BKMD)
Submitted by Kathy M. Folding parking preventer. Zagreb, Croatia. This style is also known as a Wide Arm Fold Down Bollard.
Round #70 won by Smiling Sam
Submitted by BKMD. Isla del Sol, village of Yumani, Bolivia, the Inca Stairs. 12,552'- the stairs add 200 meters in elevation, at the top.
Round #71 won by connorlaker
Submitted by sidecar. It is Toledo, Spain. It is known for being the City of Three Cultures: Christian, Muslin, & Jewish. Also, the sister city of Toledo, Ohio (A few miles from where we live. "Holy Toledo"
Admin. Toledo has an incredible history of conquest. In your free time (is there anything else now? ) read the “short” Wikipedia history of this incredible city
Round #72 won by SueMS (w/a pre-opening from Sealord)
Submitted by DavidB from the UK. It is a red Jammer in Glacier National Park. The photo was before our run along the 'Going to the Sun Road’ to Lake McDonald Lodge. The Red Buses of Glacier were made by the White Motor Company and are Model 706. That is a Dept. of Interior logo in the lower left of the license plate with buffalo in its center.
Round #73 is officially open to all. Submit your photo in a reply [Leave a Comment] to this announcement.
Comments
This carved scene is over an entrance to what building?
It looks very similar to a lot of entryways in India. Plus it looks like one of the women in the carving could be wearing a sari. That said, I reviewed all my pictures from the Portrait of India tour and can't find anything like it. The column below the carving throws me off because it looks like a corinthian column which would say it's somewhere in the east Mediterranean area. So in other words I have no idea!!!
One hint is the subject of the relief.
In the middle of it, it looks like Mary washing Jesus’s feet, but everything else looks off.
The stonework around the relief looks Mamluk, and the fellow on the left is wearing a turban and the figures on the right look Asian -- but I have no clue what this is.
Julius Bryant once wrote that "these scenes serve as effective advertising across languages, inviting retailers and customers to enter via the open arches below to find the refreshments and goods within".
Very similar (banded) arch above greek-style columns to what we saw at the Cathedral of Cordoba. So, I think it'll turn out that this is somewhere that had both Moorish and Christian influences.
Never mind...see next post.
I think that Smiling Sam should have taken more photos.
Crawford Market, Mumbai. Found several other images of the sculptures over the archs and they all are about gathering food.
Scott
(not my photo)
Portolan got it. Photo was taken on my Portrait of India trip. Following is a couple of others. No shopping carts!
connorlaker - Was this included as part of the tour or somewhere you visited on your own? We visited markets in lots of cities, as part of the tour, but not in Mumbai.
Was it the no spitting rule that dissuaded you?
We got stuck doing our laundry and didn't have time for the market.
Feel free to continue the discussion here. I'll consider the contest portion complete and open a new round.
BTW, our Nepal and Northern India tour, which ends in Mumbai, didn't visit the Crawford Market. Actually, minimal activity in Mumbai. For those thinking of doing that tour and especially if you take a Gift of Time at the end, go to Elephanta Island (lots of options for this on Viator).
Portolan - I think some of the new itineraries for the various India trips may include Elephanta Island. Our Portrait of India tour had a couple of days in Mumbai. The below is taken from the 2021 Portrait of India itinerary.
Elephanta Island is highly recommended. We had an evening flight out of Mumbai. Another couple had a similar departure time so we hired a guide through the hotel. Quite a long and tiring day(s) for us however. Morning trip over to the Island and back then to the airport then Mumbai (BOM) to Tokyo (NRT) about a 10 hour flight. Then a 9 hour layover at Narita Airport. Then Tokyo (NRT) to Seattle (SEA) about an 11 hour flight. Still worth it however.
If I remember correctly, when The India tours were firsts offered, Elephanta Island was an optional add on to the tour which is unusual for Tauck. We first became interested in visiting India when we met a couple who had been on Tauck India tours that back then were two separate tours, one did, I guess Northern India and one Southern. I’m guessing here, but they did the tours back to back. They were so enthusiastic that we shelved plans to visit China and put India as a higher priority for a visit. By the time we wanted to go, there was the PortraIt of India and Spotlight of India, the second being a shortened version of the first one. That was not originally how India was first offered. At the time, we could not take the longer tour, my husband was still working and a three week tour was not doable, so we took the Spotlight, knowing that the longer tour was more leisurely and we would not miss too much. Better to go to part of India than not at all. Now, of course, there is the Nepal option too. My advice, if you see a Tauck tour/Itinerary you like, book it quickly before it is discontinued or changed. Since we took the Spotlight tour, Khajaraho has been removed from the itinerary due I believe to a train schedule which makes a visit there very tricky. We found that area very interesting and we are so glad we got to visit it while it was still possible.
This was part of the tour, Plan B, which included a visit to the Arthur Crawford Municipal Market and to The Prince of Wales Museum. Plan A was to take a boat cruise to Elephanta Island, but it was too windy. We may have seen Smiling Sam doing his laundry while we were at the observation platform above. And, under the circumstances, he is forgiven for not having taken enough photos.
I don't like the current trend of on-tour options. Many of the cruises have those now. I don't like being forced to choose between two or more on-tour excursion options especially if there are sites I find interesting on more than one option- I want to see it all!!! Also, I don't know if it is in response to customer feedback, a decline in quality of lodging or attraction, a cost break point issue, or what, but the current versions of many tours that were originally 13 or 14 days, have been shortened to just 10 days by eliminating destinations.
AlanS - Like all benefits, they only get less. As you said about durations, Tauck has very few tours over two weeks, and the trend is that fewer and fewer even reach two weeks. If they do it is often simply by making the last day a “Travel home at your leisure day” and the first day often is just “There will be a get acquainted reception at 6 PM”. This allows Tauck to advertise the tour as two days longer, but two of the days don’t really have any content. As tours shorten it is harder and harder to justify long and expensive plane rides for just a few days. These are all factors we each have to consider.
In this case it was not a choice of two options. It was an adjustment to the day's plan because Elephanta Island had to be cancelled because of weather. I agree that options are a hassle. Another drawback is that the most desirable excursion may book up before you sign up.
There may be others, but I think the few remaining tours still over 14 days are Portrait of India, Amsterdam to the Black Sea, and Grand Australia & NZ. Of course until she gets her second wind, my wife is ready to go home around Day 8!
I don’t know how the people who take back to back Tauck tours do it. I don’t care if it’s an economical way to save money on air fares. Maybe the shorter tours attract people who still work and have limited vacation time. When Tauck started to do one week tours, we were able to take two tours some years for the allotted three weeks vacation my hubby had at the time. Puglia was such a tour.
When we did back to back tours - Seine plus Versailles&London then England, Scotland, Wales - we worried it would be too much. Actually worked well. Thought there would be a weird anticlimactic feeling to not leaving after the farewell dinner in London. Instead of a stressful flight out early the next day we had a leisurely train ride up to Edinburgh and a day on our own before joining an entirely new group, routine, etc. The only hard part was trying to plan a wardrobe for a wide range of weather and lugging our dirty laundry from the Savoy to a laundromat so we could start the next leg with everything clean.
British - There certainly is a place for shorter tours. I think the point that was trying to be made was that tour content seems to being reduced, I assume to try to maintain certain price points. I understand that from a Tauck marketing perspective, but it seems almost deceptive marketing to advertise a tour to be a certain length, if the length includes nothing for two of the days except a meet and greet on the front end and a fly home at your leisure on the back end.
Sam, I actually find Tauck is better than some companies for what they describe as Day 1. Some start day 1 as the day you get on the plane, for example.OAT. so it can be day 3 before the tour begins when you factor in overnight flights.and connections. I guess with everyone coming from different parts of the US and a few other countries, there is little that can be done on what is classed as Day 1. I like that Tauck gives the ‘Gift of Time’ as it does give people a chance to arrive a day early. We are surprised by the number of people who do marathon flights to get to a far flung place and arrive just a couple of hours before the tour begins, even when they have time to get there because they are retired or certainly have the money to arrive early. But then Tauck has to cater to the assumption that people will be tired on Day 1 and won’t want to do much.
As far as content in the tour, I too don’t like all the extra free time these days. The worst for that was the Iceland and Panama Small Ship tours. . But generally, I think it was customer demand for free time. On our first tour, an ITALY one, there were people moaning that there were too many meals included, they wanted to be able to eat independently for some meals. Others wanted free time. Back then Tauck tended to stay in a hotel for three nights and use the hub and spoke method of site seeing. all these things were moaned about on our first few tours and Tauck listened and changed things. I remember asking tour directors about it. We prefer to see more things in one location instead of just doing highlights, but others want to be able to say how many cities, countries they saw. Some people hate museums, some people want shopping. I’ve even noticed lately that there seem to be more shopping opponents that I certainly don’t want....show me a shop and I can decide what I want in five minutes, but others need hours to decide to buy the same thing.
Anyway, these are just my personal observations since about 2003.
Once you've looked at one or more itineraries or taken a tour, it becomes clear that Day One and the last day are not really touring days, (with a few exceptions an 8 day tour has only 6 touring days) so it isn't deceptive marketing. When people are looking for a tour, any tour, it lets them know the absolute minimum time they will be away from home- that is important to some people who are still working and have limited time. I'm sure it was a significant factor for British, before Mr. B retired. Speaking of food, somewhere in the old reviews or old forum discussions someone posted that they thought there was too much Italian food on the Classic Italy tour!
Yes and didn’t someone say it wasn’t the Italian food they were used to in the US.
That too!!!