One of the several books I read on our recent trip was Between Salt Water and Holy Water by Tommaso Astarita. It’s a history of southern Italy which unfortunately, was more informative then entertaining reading. It is a description of the many invasions and occupations of this part of Italy and the politics of the area. Both the Romans and the Greeks were interested in the beautiful coasts and fertile ground of the area, but many other cultures also occupied…
Tom Standage has written a short book about an eighteenth century chess playing machine that was the hit of Europe. The Turk tells the story about a Hungarian nobleman Wolfgang von Kempelen who was an inventor during an age of great interest in clever mechanical devices. He created a machine which was named "The Turk" in 1769. It won almost all of the time in contests with human challengers. The machine was an instant success and it’s playing career extended…
I’ve added two more weblogs. One is a site where I have posted a collection of photographs. Some are more for personal enjoyment and some are photos that I like. Some of the photos were taken by Lita and some by me. I intend to load photos from our most recent trip as soon as I have time. This site is Paul Luvera Photo Album: http://www.paulluveraphotoalbum.com/. With some reservation I’ve also created a weblog for plaintiff trial lawyer tips. I’m…
A high school friend sent me an email with a story about marbles that I found useful to think about. In summary the story dealt with a man who calculated that the average person lives 75 years. He multiplied 75 times 52 weeks in the year and came up with 3900 weekends a person has available during an average life. He was 55 years old so he decided if he lived to be 75 years he had about 1000 weekends…
Final Report of our travels. We disembarked the ship at a port outside of Rome and were driven to the Galleria Borghese in Rome. If you have never visited this museum you should put it on your list of things to do before you die. It was a Borghese family villa, now a museum that requires a reservation well in advance to enter as they limited the number of people and limit how long one can stay inside to two…
Friday May 18, 2007. We are on anchor off the town of Sorrento. We are close to the shore, but the wind has picked up and there are white caps that slightly roll the ship. Last night was the roughest of the trip. Not bad enough to make you sea sick, but enough to keep you from sleeping well. We had arranged a driver and car so when we got off the ship at 9:00 am. John Luca was waiting….
May 17, 2007. We are anchored off of this small island located close to the island of Sicily. There is no other cruise ship here. This island is close enough that there is a regular hydrofoil passenger ferry connections from Scicily to here. The weather has taken a turn for the worse. Overcast and some rain, but it looks more threatening this afternoon. We didn’t have to stay up late for a show since there was a 7:00 one last…
Wednesday May 16th. Today as I sit in the ship’s computer room looking out the window I see cargo containers stacked up and cement elevator storage containers with large industrial cranes. This is not a pretty harbor and the city looks very industrial. There are some 360,000 people here with a high population density. This place and the surrounding area has been destroyed by earthquakes over the centuries. In fact, this city has been buried in lava at least seven…
How could I have forgotten a very significant fact about Malta in my last report? Let me add it now. This is the island the great St. Paul was shipwrecked on. Paul had been arrested and after being held prisoner for some two years exercised his right to be tried in Rome. He had left Alexandra by ship as a prisoner. After proceeding a distance on the voyage, and against Paul’s advice the captain decided not to wait out the…
While we were waiting in Egypt at a restaurant, a man carrying a prayer rug under his arm and laid on the ground, took his shoes off and began the prayer required five times a day by Muslims. Alternately standing with arms positioned, he would knee and touch his forehead to the ground. It reminded me of an article I had just read in the International Herald Tribune by Professor of History Leor Halevi at Texas A & M University…
