Rome—The Eternal City

The FindPenguins app always encourages me to include past trips as well as present ones. So I am including, here in 2025, recollections of my first trip to the Mediterranean and the Middle East which I made immediately after graduating from college in August of 1971. The dates given for the days in each location are approximate. I went with two friends for a trip to the holy land, but the trip turned out to be a wonderful introduction in Western Civilization. We started in Italy, went to Greece, Lebanon, Israel, Cyprus and Egypt.

Taylor Davis, Ike Parker and I left our Air France jetliner at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, boarding an El Al airplane bound for Israel. I have special fondness for that Air France flight because it offered me my first taste of wine. I had a little glass of dry French red wine with an airborne meal and thought it was absolutely delicious. We landed in Rome and carried our blue plastic carryall bags bearing the Travelmaster Tours emblem to the hotel Olympia, our home for the next few days. We visited The the Vatican, Colosseum, Piazza Navona, the Roman forum, the Trevi fountains, and many other famous tourist attractions. As Ike Parker and I were just wandering around near our hotel, we found the local parish church.. We wandered inside and I was amazed at the artwork. The artist had used local teenagers as models for the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene and other characters. These were not saints as depicted on stained glass windows or in marble statues. Their poses were natural, and their clothing was simple enough to be considered generic. It could be worn in any century. The people used as subjects, both male and female were quite attractive, making the paintings remarkably realistic.Read more