This is from the Guggenheim museum' s balcony that over looks the Grand Canal. The sculpture is in stark contrast to it's surroundings, the old with the new. The hard edges of the black sculpture in contrast to the soft summer pastel hues of the buildings and canal

We had lunch near the Rialto Bridge. So I took this photo, but we did get to see the Lucian Freud art exhibit at a museum, whose name I don't remember that was in St. Marco's Square. Freud who was the grandson of Sigmund Freud painted these very anatomical nudes. They almost looked like studies from an anatomy class.

This is the hotel we stayed in Venice. It was nice, but I would have loved to have seen the Greek Islands. I was really looking forward to seeing them. Maybe we can take another cruise to them.

These are some more of my cliche Venice photos. The second day we were there we up in the morning and took a long walk from our hotel to St Marco. I shot this on my way to the Basilica.

Here is the Basilica. We never went in. There was such a long line we decided to walk around.

One can not go to Venice without taking the traditional gandola shot. So here is mine.

This is a shot that I took out from my video of the fire on the ship. We were about 3 hours outside of Athens, when the ship started to burn. We had just had breakfast and went back to our cabin to lay back before we got into Athens. I heard this horrible noise, like the gears were grinding on the motor. I said something to Barry, and he said it was probably a tugboat bring us in. I live in the largest port in on the West Coast, the Long Beach San Pedro port. And I have seen tugboats pulling ships. They make that kind of a noise. I went out to check it out and saw smoke billowing down the corridor. I told Barry let's get out of here the ship is on fire. I put on my life jacked and went to the deck, a long with the other 1600 passengers. This is when I took this photo. They kept us up on the on the fire, but they had to do it in first Italian, French, Spanish, German, then English. The reason was because the majority of the passengers were in that order, with the Italians being the largest group of passengers. However, because I speak Spanish I was able to translate to Barry what was going on. It usually took about a minute or two before they got to English. The other photo of the ship is of the damage the fire created. I shot that when we were getting off the ship and taken to Athens. They had to end the cruise, because the dining rooms and kitchen were burnt. The cruise line paid for our lunch and dinner in Athens, but we got there to late to do much but walk around a shopping area under the Acropolis, but not in time to visit it. The third picture is of an Athenian street dog. There were a lot of them, but I have never seen such laid back street dogs in my life. This guy was so comfortable he could sleep in the middle of the street in the most vulnerable position with his feet in the air. I thought this was extremely funny.

These are photos from the cruise Barry and I took. They are of the first port in which we stopped Ancona, Italy. It was a quaint small town. One thing I love about Italy and Europe, is all the old historical buildings and streets. You walk down the street and run into fountains that were probably built in the 16th Century. I am sitting at one of those fountains. Another is of Barry at an out door cafe. Italy is one of my favorite places. I love to go to their museums. I got my degree in Journalism, but my minor was history. My Sophomore High School teacher, Sister Inid, turned me on to history and I have been an avid student of it ever since. So the other two of the photos are of a statue at the Ancona Museum of Archaeology and the is of the Ancona Art Museum. It featured local artist. The other is of the ship we were on, the Costa Classica. If you scroll down you'll see the rest. I 'm still having problems posting photos and text on this blog. I primarily want to post photos.