Astrid and Ronnies travels

  Last week Telfed had a tiyul (tour) that took us to the Kineret Collage south of the Kineret. Here we had an old guy who lives on a kibbutz nearby and he came from Perth.  He told us the story of this  The Battle of Samakh. This is the final battle of the Battle of Magiddo. The ANZACs charged before dawn  and killing 98 Turks with Germans for a loss of 17 Australians. This was the final battle after that basically Kemal Ataturk was brought to the region to organize an orderly retreat. A few of the killed were Aboriginals and this is what the Statue is about. The grave was supposed to have a cross on it but it was decided that it was better to keep it neutral and the hat on the back of the saddle is to stop people putting children on it. Visitors from Australia come and the grandchildren of the Aboriginal who fought in the war have also  visited. Samakh was an important station as it was the place that the coastal engine ended and a bigger locomotive was put on...

Celebrity Eclipse. This was from 25th April till 9 May .  We were up at 3am. to get a taxi to the Ben Gurion Airport for a 4  hour flight to  Amsterdam  with El Al.  There are cheaper airlines but only the Israeli airline s fly if there is a war on. We were meant to be in Amsterdam at the Jakarta Hotel for 2 nights but the cruise ship was delayed in dry docks and so they paid for our 3rd  night at the hotel including meals and we got compensation as we were unable to see the port of Waterford Ireland From the hotel we could watch enormous barges carrying building sand or gravel each one  probably more that the capacity of 20 trucks. Close up you can see the bargee has a whole home on it including gardens and bicycles  some even had a car on it. It also carries a crane to load and unload. The Dutch are always reclaiming  land always taking soil to fill polders in the Ijsselmeer, perhaps that was the purpose. Koningdag  . That Saturday was...

 The Liverpool  and Leicester  Days 1981 to 2000 28/5/18 The first time Astrid and I went to England was in summer 1981 when she was pregnant with Tal who was born in March 1982.  We arrived at Luton airport and waited out in the cold for he passing National Bus night bus. This took us to Sheffield which was the hub and we waited there inside a garage till all the bus arrived and they swopped passengers and we arrived in Liverpool via Wales and Brenda was waiting to collect us. At this time the famous Cavern of Beatle fame was being demolished and replaced by a new building called Beatle Walks? After a few days we took a National bus and changed busses in Manchester and went to Scotland, saw Edinburgh and then went on bus to Perth, Sterling, Aberdeen and finally Inverness. In those days we managed to get student cards to travel a reduced rates and you simple arrived at the station or bus station and there was a desk where you told the person in charge you wanted a BB...

  Friday 25th Oct 2024 flew El Al to Leonardo de Vinci Airport Rome, from where we had an organized taxi to the old port of  Rome called Citavechia. (old city) Our hotel was a family run place on ground floor above us were apartments. One of the things you are aware of in most smaller towns in Italy especially the South that their population is shrinking and their are empty protected buildings. Some have a roof around them protecting the pavement from falling masonry. This old walled city and some of the walls have later been made into parts of new buildings, including a city gate tower and a turret that is part of a  4 story block of flats. Walking along the dockland there are fishing  boats ,   yachts as well as the cruise ship docks. A memorial to those who died in the Great War looks like a statue to ancient dying  Roman legionnaires.   A statue of  Giacomo Matteotti     1885 to 1924  a socialist  politician who w...