August 10th, 2009 08:08pm
John Connell
I don’t know if it was really as good as it tasted - it might well just have been the fact that we were in the Caribbean, sitting on a rooftop terrace on a warm, breezy night looking out over Santo Domingo’s old colonial square, and within sight of the palace built (see below) for Diego Columbus (Christopher’s son) - but the rum punches that I and my fellow conference speakers were served in Angelo’s Café were simply wonderful.
Technorati Tags: santo domingo, dominican republic, rum punch, angelo’s cafe
August 10th, 2009 06:51pm
John Connell
I had the chance to spend 5 days in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, back in June, where I spoke at an EU-organized conference. On my last day there, I took the chance to wander the old colonial city, accompanied by Luis, a great guide. We started at the old fort above, built by Christopher Columbus. We stopped at the building that housed the very first university in the whole of the new world (below).
Luis also took me into the Monument of Heroes, where I was able to see the burial places of a number of Dominican national heroes, and took the pic of the massive chandelier gifted by one dictator to another in the past - Franco of Spain to Trujillo of the Dominican Republic.
Technorati Tags: dominican republic, christopher columbus, franco, trujillo
August 10th, 2009 12:22pm
John Connell
Soem nice images caught while wandering around the Scottish Borders on a Sunday afternoon back in May. The above photograph of a grey horse was taken from the bridge that crosses the Jed Water, not far from the ancient village of Roxburgh. The image below shows Jedburgh Abbey veiled by trees.
And the next image is of a heron fishing at the weir just below Jedburgh Abbey.
Technorati Tags: jedburgh abbey, horse, roxburgh, jet water
August 10th, 2009 12:15pm
John Connell
Jan and I spent a brilliant week in Australia back in April. I had been invited to give a keynote address at the Australian College of Educators’ Digital Fair at Geelong Grammar School. We were able to spend a couple of nice days in Melbourne before heading south-west to Geelong, where we had a great time amongst friends at the event.
The above is a view of the main part of the school campus, while below is the school’s amazing sports centre, big enough to serve a town, never mind a single school!
Technorati Tags: geelong grammar school, australian college of educators, australia, melbourne
May 5th, 2009 11:22am
John Connell
You really do not have to travel far in Scotland to find lovely vistas and beautiful countryside. We spent the weekend in Clackmannanshire, in the shadow of the Ochil Hills, that dramatic escarpment that rises up so suddenly from the flat glen of the Forth. A visit to Perth on Sunday gave us the chance to see a stretch of the River Earn that we either hadn’t come across before or had not noticed previously. The stretch from Perth west to Stirling, and extending into the Campsies, is one of the loveliest parts of Scotland.
Technorati Tags: scotland, ochil hills, campsie fells, stirlingshire, clackmannanshire, perthshire
April 22nd, 2009 08:39am
John Connell
Jan and I took the chance to drive a little distance west from Torquay, Victoria, Australia, along the start of the Great Ocean Road while we were in that part of the world last week. We stopped at Bell’s Beach to watch the surfers battling against the rollers (although I don’t think they were nearly as big, on the day we were there, as they can be).
It’s an impressive place - wide beach, high waves, blue ocean and set off by the cliffs nearby.
The Great Ocean Road was built by Australian soldiers returning from the First World War, and was intended as a practical memorial to their dead comrades.
Technorati Tags: great ocean road, bell’s beach, australia, surfing
March 24th, 2009 02:03pm
John Connell
“Truly travel can widen the mind, but the width of a man’s life consists more truly in the width of the mind with which he goes travelling.”
James Ralph Darling from his book: The Education of a Civilized Man
Technorati Tags: james ralph darling, travel, broadening the mind
February 23rd, 2009 04:10pm
John Connell
A nice night-time view of Bahrain’s own twin towers. The two towers are shaped to funnel the wind off the Gulf through the gap, and the integrated turbines are supposed to supply up to 15% of the building’s energy needs.
You can see a daytime view here.
Technorati Tags: bahrain, world trade center, turbine, green, tall building
February 17th, 2009 07:01pm
John Connell
After all the cold wintry weather of late, it was nice to find the waters of Loch Eck, just north of Dunoon, sitting as flat and as calm as they could be - a chance to catch some strong reflections in the lochside.
Technorati Tags: loch eck, cowal, scotland, reflections
February 12th, 2009 04:47pm
John Connell
Visiting the new Cisco office at Eurocentral, close to Glasgow, yesterday, I could not resist snapping the Comic-Relief-enhanced Big Heids sculptures nearby.
Technorati Tags: big heids, public art, sculpture, cisco, comic relief, trilogy, eurocentral
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