Sorry, Sorry, Sorry

Sorry everyone that I asked you to check my blogspot and then haven't been able to post. The internet on the ship is sporadic. Everytime we leave port it shuts down and they have to climb up and adjust the satellite dish when we arrive at the next port. It also is very slow and I'm having trouble uploading photos. I'll do the best I can while I'm away. I will update all my posts when I get home and include the photos that go with them. Thanks for your interest in my artwork. Loretta...in Ibiza, Spain.. yes, do go look at a map...it's an island south of Barcelona. Bye

Day 7 Mahon, Minorca, Spain

We pulled into port early this morning. Mahon is a city on the beautiful little island of Minorca off the coast of Spain. It looked different than other ports we’ve been to so far. It has a very long natural harbor, one of only a few natural harbors in the world. The port is lined with homes built into the hillside, many have their boats anchored just outside their homes. You walk up a long staircase to get to the town center.

We took a morning tour that took us to Monte Toro to visit a 16th century church and monastery. It was beautiful. It overlooked the whole island.

Next we stopped at a prehistoric sight, Torralba D’en Salord, to look at stone structures that are 3000 years old. They look like the stone constructions at Stonehenge.




Our final stop was at the cliffs of Cala’n Porter. We visited a bar/nightclub called Cova D’en Xoroi, an unusual outdoor nightclub that is in the caves on the cliffs, a most unexpected venue. To get to it you walk down a long staircase that wraps around the side of the cliff. There are a couple of terraces that you cross and as you round the bend you see the opening of the cave. There are a lot of tables and several bars and more terraces. It was surprisingly large. I don’t think you’d want to have too much to drink at this place or else you might end up at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Interesting restrooms, when you look up you are looking at the sky.

We had lunch at a local restaurant in town. I had to try the salad that was made with the local Mahon cheese. Our tour guide had pointed out green signs along the road as we were traveling. They are posted outside farms that make the local cheese. It indicates that you can buy cheese there. It was a delicious salad of sliced tomatoes topped with capers grown locally and fresh shredded homemade cheese. The other local specialty is fish stew. I ordered it knowing that I was taking a chance on what would arrive at my table. The broth was a delicious vegetable base and it had pieces of cod, a few calamari rings, shrimp and mussels. Very good!

We were invited to join the captain on the bridge to watch the ship pull out of port. The concierge escorted us up to the bridge. It was quite a thrill. There were two passengers who had not returned to the ship. The captain gave a long blow of the whistle to try and let them know we were leaving. We waited a few minutes, he said, “we have to go” and just as they were beginning to pull in the gangplank they showed up. Then a friend of his joined us to see the boat leave port and just as the tugboat was leaving us he climbed down a rope ladder a few feet and hopped onto the tugboat. (I later found out that this was not a friend of the captain but the local port authority. They board the ship at every port and watch it leave. As soon as it is clear they hop on a small boat and return to shore.) I didn’t know you could do that. The captain took us into his office and we shared some wine and talked so long that we missed dinner. Good thing they have room service all the time or we would have to go to bed hungry. Like we couldn’t afford to skip a meal.

Tomorrow we dock in Ibiza, Spain another one of the Balearic Islands.

Day 4, Monte Carlo/Monaco

Welcome to the Cote dAzur! Monaco is an independent principality that has been governed by the Grimaldi family for the last 700 years. It has 50,000 citizens and over 2 million visitors a year. It is smaller that New York’s Central Park and contains some of the most expensive real estate in the world. A favorite spot of the jet set it is known for its nightlife, posh hotels and beautiful beaches.

Once off the ship we walked up to the Prince’s Palace high above the sea. It is close to the Jacques Cousteau Oceanographic Museum. We took the trolley tour through town that showed us all the historic sights including the hairpin turn of the Grand Prix. Pretty amazing that race cars speed through this little town at speeds of over 100 miles per hour. There are statues throughout the city that mark different places along the car race route.


The church where Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier were married is not far from the palace. That was our next stop. I remember when I was a kid that my Mom and Dad had a book about her in their collection. It seemed like a fairy tale story and I used to love looking at the pictures of the Prince and Princess in that book. Both of their graves are also located in the church along with all the former Grimaldi monarchs.

The architecture of the palace is not that impressive compared to the other buildings in the city. The tour of the palace takes you through some of the more formal rooms including the throne room. They are still used by the family for special occasions. Pretty cool to be in the some of the same rooms as the royals.

If you like fancy boutique shopping this is the place for you. All the designer names are here and you can spend all your money very quickly. Shopping is such an exhausting activity that we needed a café con leche. Did you know that cappacino is really only served as an after dinner drink meaning after 8pm. During the day you drink café con leche…coffee with cream…more cream than coffee...mmm, good. We sat at the famous Café de Paris outside the Grand Casino, Monaco’s biggest attraction and enjoyed the sun, the sights and our cafe con leche!

Day 3, Portofino, Italy

Wow, the sea is rough today! We walked down to level 3 on the ship to disembark onto a tender. There was a bit of a cue and people were getting anxious as we only had a few hours at the port. They were having trouble getting everyone on the tender, which holds about 50 people. The waves were so rough that it was taking a long time to board each person safely. By the time they had about 40 people on board the first 20 were beginning to get seasick and asked to come back on the ship. They were white as ghosts when they walked through the crowd and up the stairs. Rose and I decided to go have lunch on the ship and hope that the sea would cooperate and calm down in the mean time. A couple hours later we were on the tender and being dropped in the most beautiful little port that I’ve ever seen, truly a painter’s dream.

Because we have so little time in each port and there is so much to see I am not taking the time to do the little watercolors that I usually do when I travel. Instead I’m spending my time exploring and photographing and will rely on my photos to create paintings when I return home. With all the places I’ve been so far this year I have enough resource material to last the rest of my life and I plan to live a long time!

Portofino is called the Pearl of the Mediterranean. It is small and intimate, declared a national monument by nearby Genoa in 1935. When I think of a quaint, small, unchanged village along the coast of the Mediterranean, Portofino is it.

It has a circular port that has a small opening to the sea, which is why the ship could not dock there. The harbor has small yachts and tiny rowboats. The sidewalk that wraps the harbor is lined with cafes and boutiques. There is a main street that climbs up a hill where hotels and more restaurants are located.


We wandered the streets and shops for a while and then walked up to see the Church of Saint George and Brown Castle. As you walk you pass some local homes tucked into the hillside with those picturesque red tile roofs and all painted shades of peach, yellow, green and pink.


As we walked down the steep curving steps back to port we suddenly realized how parched we were and decided to spend our last hour in port at a café overlooking the Gulf of Rapallo with a glass of wine and a couple appetizers. We ordered two glasses of white wine, a plate of prosciutto with melon and a plate of fresh mozzarella and tomatoes and they brought a basket of bread too. It was so delicious. We had been warned that things were expensive here and when the bill came it was true, 80 euros about $125. US, outrageous, but how often are you in Portofino, Italy… the place where all the movie stars vacation. Next time I’m packing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Day 2 Rome in a Day

I got ahead of myself in yesterday’s blog entry. We spent another day in Rome before we boarded the ship. It’s tough being on vacation… I’m already loosing track of days.

Today we took a cab to the Vatican Museum. The entrance is surrounded by high stonewalls like a fort. As the cab approached we were shocked to see hundreds of people cued up for entry. Many of the sights have private tour guides that for an additional fee will get you into the museum faster as a group than as an individual. We had a very good British guide. You can’t believe the crush of people entering the Vatican Museum. The lobby is a mass of confusion of people moving every which way. There are long lines everywhere. We began our tour in a beautiful courtyard with the dome of the basilica of St. Peter’s in the background. It is a landmark that you can see from many parts of the city. Our guide, using photographs of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, explained many of the details of Michelangelo’s paintings before we arrived at the chapel. You walk through two beautiful long corridors on the way to the Sistine Chapel, one with gorgeous tapestries and the other with 16th century painted maps of the Papal States. These two galleries and the Chapel are the only air-conditioned parts of the museum which on a 94 degree day in Rome is something to think about.

The Sistine Chapel is overwhelming as I expected it would be. To enter the room and think that one man painted this in 4 years is quite amazing. There are 391 figures to look at, only one looks at you, the famous damned soul hugging himself as he awaits his doom. The room is large but you stand shoulder to should with people unless you are lucky enough to grab a seat along the wall. You are not allowed to photograph and the Italian guards yell at you if you do. Our guide told us that there is an extensive ventilation system to draw out all the moisture that occurs from peoples’ breathing. Moisture will rapidly deteriorate the paintings. The number of people visiting this room every day is staggering.

Our next stop was St. Peter’s Basilica. Michelangelo’s beautiful statue of the Pieta is one of first things you come across in a small chapel at the back of the church. The front of the chapel is covered in glass. The man who attacked the statue back in the 70’s spent two years in prison. The arm that he broke off and the faces that he chipped have been restored. Michelangelo made this masterpiece when he was only 23 years old. It is the only work that he signed. Supposedly he overheard people disputing who made it and he then decided he needed to add his signature.




The Piazza San Pietro outside the basilica is exactly as I envisioned. The 140 statues of the saints topping the colonnades surrounding the square are beautiful. We walked down the main boulevard that leads to St. Peter’s and found an outdoor café. Lunch of a thin-crusted tomato and cheese pizza was delicious.

After lunch we made stops at the Pantheon and the Coliseum. We headed back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and drive about 45 minutes to the port in Civitavecchia.

Tomorrow, Portofino…arrivederchia!

Day One in Rome

Hello from Rome!

Rome is everything I expected it to be… hot, crowded, dusty, expansive and I love it! The architecture is beautiful and around every turn is an old Roman building of some sort. Our room was not ready when we arrived at Hotel Eden so we were escorted up to the hotel bar on the sixth floor for a drink and a lovely view of the city. It was a great way to begin out trip. Hotel Eden still follows some of the bygone customs like doormen in tuxedos wearing white gloves and bowler hats. My sister, Rosemary and I enjoyed a glass of iced tea accompanied by a tray of snacks that included huge green olives that were delicious.

Our first stop today took us on a walk through the northern part of Rome ending at the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. It is possibly the oldest of over 80 churches in Rome dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It was built in the 5th century. The first thing that you notice inside the ancient basilica is the beautiful coffered ceiling, Legend says that it is gilded with the first gold shipped back from the New World .

Our next stop was Trevi Fountain. There are so many fountains throughout the city. They are around every corner. Many of them are small and you see people filling water bottles and dampening hankerchiefs to try and beat the heat. So, to see another fountain didn’t seem particularly important on our list of things to do, until we rounded the corner and saw the mass of people surrounding the largest, most elaborate fountain I’ve every seen. I’m not sure if I was more overwhelmed by the number of people or the fountain. The fountain is massive, about as tall as a four story building. It is covered with many columns and figures, the central one representing Neptune or Oceanus. If you’re a film fan you can see Anita Ekberg visiting the fountain at night in Fellini’s classic, La Dolce Vita. Rose and I both had to follow the tradition of throwing a coin into the fountain ensuring our return to Rome some day. We both would also have liked to jump in the fountain to cool off.

Our last stop for the day was the Spanish Steps or Piazza di Spagna. It is a gathering place for many visitors and Romans alike and has been for several centuries.. It is one of the most famous places to visit in Rome consisting of a double staircase that is very beautiful. There was a group of teenagers from South Carolina, about 100 people, who were spread across the steps getting a photo taken. Rosie and I needed to cool off so we popped into a café for a cappacino and iced granita. Rose says that the coffee is great here. It’s strong like she likes it but not bitter.

We had a 45 minute ride by car to the port in Civitavecchia. It was a beautiful ride and arriving a couple hours after the allowed boarding time is not all bad. We were the only two people boarding the ship and it was very quick.

Our room is lovely, on the 5th floor with a small veranda. We took a walk around the ship to get the lay of the land and then headed to dinner. You have a choice on this cruise to be seated alone or to join others. We chose to join a table of six and had a great dinner with two other couples both from England. They all were veteran cruisers. There seem to be quite a few veteran cruisers here. Eric and Val were from outside London. Sheila and Chris lived in London. Chris made the conversation very interesting at dinner. He is a coroner. In the U.K. attorneys and doctors are appointed as coroners. Chris was an attorney and had some interesting stories about his appointment.

We dropped into bed and the sway of the ship had both Rose and I asleep in minutes.

Until tomorrow arrivaderici!

Another Painting Trip! Italy and Spain

Sorry I've not been blogging the last few days. I'm getting ready for another painting trip. This time I'm headed to the Mediterranean. I'm flying to Rome this evening, spending a day and a half in Rome and then headed to Barcelona via a cruise ship that will stop at various ports along the way. If you want to know where I'm stopping you'll just have to read my blog.

Smith Gardens, Oakwood, Ohio

Early Morning at Smith Gardens, 9"x7", $55.

I was up and out early today painting before it gets too hot. Whenever I want to stay close to home and paint I head for Smith Gardens in Oakwood. It is a lovely peaceful sanctuary. The gardeners and I keep each other company.

Painting in Kettlersville, Ohio

Wildflower Gardens, 9"x7", ink & watercolor, $55.












Marna & John's Garden, 9"x7", ink & watercolor, $55.

Today I had to drop off some paintings up north of Dayton in a charming little town called Kettlersville. It reminded me very much of the place in Indiana where I go so often to paint, Kewanna. My artist friend, Mike Elsass, has a studio in Kettlersville and invited me to show my work at his place this weekend and also come up and paint. I am involved in a "paint in" at Lake Loramie State Park on Friday. If you need something to do during the day and like to make art, pack up your supplies and come join us.

Both of these watercolor sketches were created at the beautiful gardens and home of John & Marna Gutman. I hope to return to this place again and do many more paintings.

St. Simon's Island Lighthouse, Georgia

Ink & watercolor, 7x10", $55.
This painting was done last summer while on a trip to Georgia. St. Simon's is a beautiful picturesque island between Savannah and Jacksonville.

What I'm working on today: It's finally finished...the car painting. Today I will put a protective finish on it and wait for the framer to call and tell me he has the frame ready to go.

Indiana Sunflowers

Indiana Sunflowers, 20x24", custom framed, $600.

If you're looking for something to do this weekend Saturday or Sunday, June 16 & 17, head up I-75 near Sydney, Ohio to Kettlersville. I'm part of an art show called "The Color of Energy" at the Easy Avenue Gallery. Stop by Saturday 10am-2pm or Sunday 2-8p.m. If you come Saturday afternoon and want to hang around for the artists party at 5pm look for me and I'll give you directions. There will be a blues band, beautiful gardens and lots of art talk and artists. Call me on my cell phone if you need information or directions 937-672-6717.