Thomil's Random Ramblings

I woke up on the fourth and final day of my trip to New York feeling like crap. That Humidity must have really taken its toll. Still, I gathered the rest of my crap together. My flight home was waiting for me at JFK this evening. On the plus side, I still had almost a whole day in the city, and I decided to make the most of it. As usual, I made my way down to the Hudson, having left my luggage at the reception desk. A last look at the North Cove Marina. Damn, I'm going to miss this place. Lots of traffic on the river today Hudson River Panorama, seen from the northern end of Battery Park City One of my last views of the Empire State Building What are ya lookin' at, eh? Can't one take a simple sand bath without being disturbed, or what? The Battle plan was similar to the preceding day. I dropped in at Macy's one more times, but the results weren't radically different to the day before. It was on to Madison Square Guarden, and another visit t...

My second day in New York began much like my first one, with a "pilgrimage" to Battery Park City and the local Starbucks. A heavy rain had pelted the city over the night, causing the humidity to skyrocket. It felt like the city had turned into a pressure cooker. Lower Manhattan seemed to consist mainly of steam and fog! Still, I decided not to curtail my plans. It was "shop till you drop!" My main destination was Macy's at Herald Square, supposedly the world's largest department store. Before that, however, I made my way through the financial district. It totally lacks the regularity of the streets and avenues in the northern part of the city, which makes sense, considering that this is the oldest part of the city, the site of the original Dutch colony of Nieuw Amsterdam. Trinity Church, the spiritual heart of Lower Manhattan. My route lead me across Wall Street. To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. It was dirty, crowded, an...

It is one of those places that you wonder whether they ever existed. A place lodged in the back of your memory, that you visited so far back that you have to ask whether you were ever really there. We all know such places. Places that we visited as kids, places that seemed beyond belief then, and seem almost unreal now. The Vajont Dam, seen from Longarone For me, one of these places is a narrow valley in the Italian Alps. It lies in a beautiful area that has remained relatively untouched by tourism, near a village named Longarone. If you drive through Longarone, you may see a glimpse of a large concrete structure wedged between the steep slopes of a rugged alpine valley. This is the Vajont dam, that special place I was talking about. From down there, it looks like any number of dams of this type in the alps. Now follow the SR251 road from Longarone onwards. The road will snake along the side of Piave Valley, with impressive view of the valley and the town below before disappeari...