🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- This is Reichsburg Cochem, a stunning fairytale castle located in Germany. Situated high above the Moselle River, it is surrounded by rolling hills and vibrant green vineyards. Originally built in the 11th century, the castle was later restored in the 19th century after being heavily damaged. Visitors can take guided tours of the furnished rooms or enjoy scenic boat cruises on the river below. "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- Naples, Italy 🇮🇹 That's the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona ⚽ down there, with Mount Vesuvius 🌋 doing its quiet menace routine on the horizon. The volcano hasn't erupted since 1944, but it's still classified as active and looms over roughly three million people, which is the most Neapolitan setup imaginable: chaos, beauty, and a slight existential threat, all in one frame. Match days here are loud enough to register on seismographs, fittingly. 📷: @birdogabirkaravan "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- The Castle of Methoni, an impressive medieval fortress, is located in the town of Methoni, in the Peloponnese region of southern Greece. 📷: @nikos.tsiak "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- This is a famous rock fortress located in the middle of the sea, off the west coast of France, between the islands of Île d'Oléron and Île d'Aix. "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- 📍 Český Krumlov, South Bohemia, Czech Republic 🇨🇿 The Vltava River bends so hard here that it almost wraps the old town into an island 🍂. The castle on the left holds the second largest castle grounds in the country, after Prague. Inside sits a Baroque theatre from the 1680s that still works with its original stage machines. In autumn the hills around the red roofs turn gold and orange. Morning light makes the whole loop of water glow soft and quiet below the towers 🏰. "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- Valensole Plateau, Provence, France 🇫🇷 Those endless purple corduroy rows belong to Valensole, the plateau that turns every July into one giant lavender postcard, lone stone hut included 🏚️💜. The bloom window is short and very now: peak runs late June into mid July, then the harvesters move in and the colour is gone for the year ✂️. 📷: @kasiahphotographer [IG] "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- Boracay Community There was a time, when foreign tourists from around the globe flocked to Boracay in their tens of thousands. Korea and China then got on board and began direct flights from their shores to ours - almost two million arrivals between them each year. Then the Covid scare came and brought us travel bans, and the world, unbelievably, closed down for almost two years. Fast forward to today, and Boracay is suffering from a huge change in the demographics of its visitors, as the chart below indicates. On average, it shows just over 500 foreign tourists arrive each day. Our popular d*mall is full of pretty good restaurants. They offer an excellent variety of both European and Asian food, and some really good local Filipino cuisine. Sad to say, when I walked through one lunchtime recently, most were empty, or at best, had just two or three tables with customers. The local chicken and unli-rice places were packed solid. That tells a story. I see the travel shows around the country are being patronised by our local tourist officials, but in effect, how many foreign tourists will be reached at them? And the overseas travel and tour operators in attendance will mainly be looking at what is on offer at the destination where the travel show is and everywhere else that is offered. Of course, these shows do 'some good', but it's nowhere near the much needed on-target marketing in promoting Boracay to the necessary foreign markets that we should be looking at; it's simply not doing enough, nor is it good enough. And, I haven't seen even one ad from the national DOT promoting Boracay either - they seem to have forgotten us and all the business that Boracay previously attracted to the Philippines. This complacency costs us dearly. It's really hard to get to the top - but we were - however, it’s even harder to stay there, and we no longer are. It's a sad state of affairs, but considering the above, the only way forward, and we must go forward, is to adapt our business models to the overwhelming domestic visitor market. There are still two million of them. Let's make Boracay a premier and welcoming destination with all the necessary facilities that those visitors require - and to help local businesses do well again. It's all about professional planning, proper execution, and a genuine desire, along with a lot of effort, to help Boracay prosper in the right way. We are being let down. Boracay is still Boracay - and it’s still a wonderful tropical island destination. — Having said all this, when the casinos and entertainment complexes (which are already starting) really kick into gear, and the proposed new routes open to flood the island with high rollers and the like, what will our little tropical island look like then? I'm glad I still have my memories …🌴😎 "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France 🇫🇷 This walled village in the hills behind Nice is Saint-Paul-de-Vence, the spot half the 20th-century art world came to loaf 🎨. At the inn La Colombe d'Or, broke painters like Picasso and Léger once settled their tabs with canvases, so the dining room is now a quiet fortune in originals 🖼️, and Chagall loved the place enough to be buried in the village cemetery ⛪. Roll in at summer sunrise 🌅 and the ramparts are yours before the galleries open and the tour buses grind up the hill 🚌. 📷: @xavier_hemery "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- The 1948-52 Veritas RS Roadster . "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- Markets of Provence 🇫🇷 Taste Provence: www.tasteatlas.com/provence Market days are the absolute backbone of Provence, carrying on a way of life that dates back to the 12th century when local farmers and craftsmen first gathered in the nearest towns to barter and sell their wares. What makes them truly special today is that they still maintain a strict nomadic, rotating schedule—instead of staying put, vendors pack up their trucks and move to a different village every single day, completely transforming historic town squares into open-air food hubs. The most famous spots to track down include Apt (the oldest and largest setup in the Luberon), the highly photogenic Saint-Rémy, the elegant avenues of Aix-en-Provence, and L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, which is just as famous for its Sunday antiques as it is for its food. To catch the best selection of cheeses, produce, and fresh catch before the heavy crowds hit, arriving by 8 AM is essential, along with bringing cash since these small-scale backyard farmers rarely accept cards. Credits: @tofurabbit @la_baptistine_de_gordes @aixenprovencetourism @sonia.weberr "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- Wow ....Beautiful Boracay! 🏝🩵💙 June 16, 2026 11:30am #WorldsBestBeach #LoveBoracay "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- Today we remember Stephen Hawking, whose ashes were interred in the Abbey #onthisday in 2018. A renowned physicist, his best known work is 'A brief history of time.' His memorial lies next to the graves of Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, and his Caithness slate gravestone is inscribed with his most famous equation, describing the entropy of a black hole. "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- GM Pura Vida 'Pure signal,no noise' Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

Is that the coffee ☕ machine at NASA?

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- Franz Kafka "No matter how much you keep encouraging someone who is blindfolded to stare through the cloth, he still won’t see a thing." "Franz Kafka, (born July 3, 1883, Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary—died June 3, 1924, Kierling, near Vienna, Austria), German-language writer. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in what is today the Czech Republic, he earned a doctorate at the University of Prague and then worked successfully but unhappily at an insurance company from 1907 until he was forced by a case of tuberculosis to retire in 1922. The disease caused his death two years later. Kafka published only a few works in his lifetime, including the novellas The Metamorphosis (1915) and In the Penal Colony (1919) and the story collection A Country Doctor (1919). His unfinished novels The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926), and Amerika (1927), published posthumously against Kafka’s wishes by his friend Max Brod, express the anxieties and alienation of 20th-century humanity. His visionary tales, with their mixture of the normal and the fantastic, have provoked a wealth of interpretations. Kafka’s posthumous reputation and influence have been enormous, and he is regarded as one of the great European writers of the 20th century." (Britannica) Franz Kafka (2012). “The Castle: A New Translation Based on the Restored Text”, p.184, Schocken "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- The Duke's Castle of Isola del Liri, also known as Boncompagni-Viscogliosi Castle, is located in Isola del Liri, Italy. 📷 : @blu_oltre_mare "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️

GM 🌻

GM Toum 🧡

GM 🌄

🌊 SURF 'N TURF 🏝️ -THE BORACAY ISLAND LIFE- The Ancient Crypt Where Goldfish Swim Above a 1,000-Year-Old Mosaic Floor Hidden beneath the Basilica of San Francesco in Ravenna, Italy, lies one of the world's most unusual historic sites—a 10th-century crypt permanently filled with crystal-clear water. At first glance, it appears as though the chamber has been accidentally flooded. In reality, the water is a result of Ravenna's unique geography. Because the city sits at a very low elevation and close to the Adriatic Sea, groundwater naturally seeps into the crypt, submerging its ancient mosaic floor beneath a shallow layer of water. What makes the scene even more extraordinary is the presence of goldfish. Swimming peacefully above the centuries-old mosaics, the fish transform the historic burial chamber into a surreal blend of archaeology and nature. Through the clear water, visitors can still admire portions of the intricate mosaic pavement that has survived for nearly a millennium. The crypt lies beneath the historic Basilica of San Francesco, one of Ravenna's most important religious monuments. The site is also closely connected to Dante Alighieri, whose tomb is located nearby. After his death in 1321, funeral rites for the celebrated poet were held at this church, forever linking the basilica to one of Italy's greatest literary figures. Today, the flooded crypt remains one of Ravenna's most fascinating attractions, drawing visitors from around the world who come to witness this remarkable intersection of history, architecture, and nature. What makes it so unforgettable is the contrast. A medieval crypt submerged beneath groundwater— where goldfish glide silently above a mosaic floor laid nearly 1,000 years ago. "Pure signal, no noise" Credits Goes to the respective Author ✍️/ Photographer📸 🐇 🕳️