elucas' VirtualTourist Home Page

My apologies to those who sent Birthday and Christmas greetings and did not receive a reply – I have not been online over this period due to personal reasons. Belated New Year greetings to you all.

Our most recent trip was a few days in Prague, Czech Republic. The visit was brief and arranged at very short notice, but was certainly worthwhile. Prague is a handsome city and has many buildings decorated in the graceful Art Nouveau style which was very popular at the start of the 20th century. This beautiful 20th century window is in St Vitus's cathedral. We will certainly go back one day.

We spent a few days in Salzburg, Austria in February. Salzburg is famous for the great fortress which towers above the city, its Baroque churches build by the ruling Prince Archbishops and for the music of the city's most famous son, Mozart. I have completed an introductory page to the city and have added some tips.

We had a short break in Lisbon in October, which proved to be an interesting and characterful city, and far enough south in Europe to be warm and sunny late in the year ! I have done a short introduction and some tips will follow soon.

A total of about 70 VT members and their guests gathered on the beautiful island of Santorini (Thira) in Greece for the 3rd European VT meeting in June 2007. It was lovely to meet friends old and new and a great time was had by all. Many, many thanks to Galatea and Janet for all their planning and hard work - these big meetings don't just happen by themselves. More details and photos to come. Yes, I have finally done something about this and have added some tips on Fira, Oia and Pyrgos to my travelogues

A meeting was arranged as Horscheck (Holger) was coming to London. We met in the Kings Arms – a place with lots of character in Southwark, had a long, lively and enjoyable lunch, before exploring this fascinating part of London. For more details and photos see my album called Southwark, London, 2007 - and now another for 2008 when Holger returned, this time bring Sonja (YumYum) with him.

Apart from Santorini, the latest tips and photos to be added are on Jerez de la Frontera in SW Spain including information and photos on the greatest event in the year in Jerez - The Feria del Caballo - a real Andalusian Fiesta.

Thank you for "calling in" at my home page. Quite a few of you may know my husband, Andrew, who is an established member of VT. Photographs taken before Autumn 2006 are mostly "borrowed" from Andrew's pages - with his agreement ! However, Andrew now has, courtesy of his office, a serious digital camera, so now we both take pictures - and try not to take the same view from the same angle too often !

The pictures in the seasonal albums called "Spring","Summer" and "Autumn" have been mostly taken quite near to home. Yes, I know the main "reason to be" for VT is travel photos, but I feel that sometimes there can be a subject that is interesting or beautiful not far away. The album called "Colour" is a small selection of my favourite holiday photos.

It was great to meet so many new and interesting people in Marbella over three enjoyable days at the VT meeting in May 2006. Very many thanks to Stace and Carmen for all their hard work and planning over quite a long period of time.

We spent a week in Santorini in total - a very beautiful island formed by a very dramatic history. The "caldera" is the rim of the volcano which is what remains after a massive eruption in ancient times destroyed a great part of the island. The whitewashed villages are clustered on the rim of the caldera. Seen from the air they look like a scattering of shells on cliffs hundreds of feet high.

This picture shows Fira clustered on top of the volcano rim. The people used to live in little cave like dwellings built into the hills and linked by a network of narrow lanes and mule paths. There are many tiny churches dotted about - and, not surprisingly with these slopes, numerous steps to climb !

After we left Marbella we travelled north east through the hills, past the city of Granada backed by the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. You could hardly tell where the clouds ended and the mountains began.

We continued our journey on very good and mostly quiet roads, passing hundreds of thousands of olive trees, until we reached our destination, the handsome city of Ubeda, in north east Andalucia.

Places we visited included this magnificent castle at Banos. The castle was constructed in 968 on the orders of the Caliph of Cordoba to protect the entrance to al-Andalus from Christian invasion - this was frontier country then ! The castle is just north of the town of Bailen, not far from Linares.

We like to sightsee and we spent several days exploring towns, castles, fortresses and churches. Sometimes, however, we simply sat in a square beneath the orange blossom or admired the roses which are in full bloom in southern Spain in May, with a glass of wine or a cerveza (beer) and “watched the world go by”.
Cazorla lies east of Ubeda, close to the Sierra de Cazorla and on the edge of a national park.

We returned to Jerez in time for the annual "Feria del Caballo", where it was good to meet Stace and Carmen and Hansi and Lori once more. The Feria is unforgettable – a real Spanish Fiesta, with girls in flamenco dress, a great parade of horses and carriages, and dancing in the canestas (stands). At night the whole parade ground is lit by elaborate lighting so bright that night seems to become day. Andrew, (alucas) has produced a lovely collage of pictures of the Feria.

I took this photo at a rambling farm on one of those hot sultry summer days that now seem so very distant. There is a large gaggle of geese and ducks which regularly wander from the farm across a country lane - and you have to slow right down as geese especially are not timid. On this day I could see their reflections, but not them, they must have thought they were hidden !

Some of my favourite flowers. When Andrew and I moved here we brought a few plants from my parents' home. Now we have loads of them and have bought a few different ones from a nursery.

An uncle of mine not only used to grow them, but being a very serious gardener, he tried to "cross" them to create a new flower. His garden was full of irises which were all tagged and named - that is, until my sister, then a little girl of about four, decided to "pick some flowers"!