I traipse in a trice through the French Riviera, where
a warship and a luxury liner have disembarked me twice, in other
eras for awesome sprees, once with family.

The mouse clicks up Rome's Colosseum and to Constantine's Arch beams, where daughters pose and horse-pulled buggies roll past statues and terrazzo art;
then switches to historic edifices, to capture the Basilica, the city's
beating heart.

Though fond of ancient churches, I fly to other Italian perches: to promenades and park benches for red wine and cheese lunches and grapes in purple bunches;
renewing a stroll on waterfront in Napoli, to hop a ferry and kayak
once more the Blue Grotto at Capri.

Athens is a capital idea:
marble glory revealing the democratic story of the Acropolis
and Parthenon; how we clambered upon that rocky mound
and found sculpted figures and broad ledges! Kids leaps of great
height keep me on edge, eased by a genuine lark, a fling through
a wing of a tree-ringed park.

It's off to westward isles for awhile, to London Town to peek at palaces and crowns
vesting royal power, and knights armor at the Tower; we hasten to fabled Downing Street, Victoria Station, and take time out at Piccadilly to ogle Victoria's likeness, lined with fountains, and toss bread smidgeons to silly, strutting pedestrian pigeons.

There's no bogging down in the usual fog; a friendly sun shines as our double-decker
hums to the Thames and Saint James Park--where I wrestled on lush lawns with a small son; he won--and satisfy a yen to snap Westminster and big Ben again.

A cursor signal re-opens Dublin again and graphic scenes at hand amid emerald hills
of Ireland; a few days stay at Wexford to pay sentimental tolls and muse at ancestors' homes and plots and stones where their history and bones repose.

Cruising the western coastline, to Rosslare Harbor and beyond, indulgence flows as far
as the eye and memory can see: peaceful ponds, rolling farmland with neat furrows; bed-and-breakfast stays to burrow under soft quilts windward of the sea; bounding
off turf to stride wide beaches and wade whispering surf.

Finally I decide to imbibe a few brews at sociable pubs--remembering how we prayed in pews where Irish brogues pervade--and level my over-worked lens at rock fences, with tapestries of yellow gorse overlaid; at winding creeks, Norman castle walls and the random sleek horse--all commonplace--and I must roam to Cork to buss again tall
Blarney Stone's cool face.