Europe

Toledo: The World’s Finest Swords

It was a sunny yet cold morning in the ancient town of Toledo, Spain. I could feel the tourists? happiness wandering the narrow and colorful streets, delighted to explore a place that offers such a historical and archeological uniqueness. For no other reason, it is...

A Stranger Roadtrippen’ in a Strange Land —
How I Learned to Road Trip Abroad

Friends often call me a NASA-TV nerd. I watch transfixed by late night filler video of an earth rotating below the orbiting International Space Station, and in the same way I' m fascinated at how Google Earth maps depict the earth from space. I've found it to be my...

Magical Mayo and Must-See Sights in Ireland

My love affair with the west of Ireland began some years ago when I attended a family reunion. It was great fun ? for two short days. Due to work commitments, I was pressed for time, so I rushed around the Ring of Kerry, took a photo at the Cliffs of Moher, and drove...

A Hidden Concert
in a Berlin Warehouse

It is a chilly Sunday evening in Berlin. Late October and the trees have shaken off their leaves. I shuffle my feet through piles of golden yellow and approach two steel doors with graffiti scrawled on them. Two smokers huddle in the cold, shifting from one foot to...

Finding the Bogs Outside of Riga Latvia

It's not often that there are more highlights outside of a small country's capital city than there are in it. Latvia's capital city Riga is quaint in an ex-soviet, medieval, tourist-hot-spot, type of way. Quite a lot like Estonia's Tallinn, and Lithuania's Vilnius,...

Gaudi’s Barcelona

At the end of the 19th century Barcelona became well known for the Catalan Modernisme movement, exploding elsewhere within Europe as Art Nouveau, but expressed here not just in architecture with a Catalan identity but in a cultural movement as well. Although many...

A romantic trip in Kandersteg, Switzerland:
three of the best things to add to your itinerary

Most people think of Zurich when they travel to Switzerland. However, while my husband and I love flying into the city and spending a day or two settling into our trip, we much prefer the charm of Switzerland?s alpine villages. As keen hikers and general outdoor...

Germany and the Breath of Pipe Organs

I was eighteen years old, standing in the Portland International Airport with a backpack that still smelled like home and a ticket to Frankfurt, Germany. It was the first time I had ever left the country on my own. Most of my friends were just starting their summer...

My Barcelona Story: A Taiwanese Artist’s Journey
Through Spanish Beauty and History

From the moment I could hold a pencil, drawing and sketching became more than just a hobby?they became the very pulse of my life, an inherent passion that has guided me ever since. Born and raised in Taiwan, my roots are steeped in tradition, and my art education...

The Omphalos of Tuscany in Castelmuzio

Everyone tells me that they simply love touring Italy. I do too. The food, the wine, the undulating roads lined with emblematic cypress trees. Beginning with the Etruscans millennia ago up to today's Republic, it's rich history and beauty have earned a place in my...

The Moody Skies of Malham

Bill Bryson once said, ?I won't know for sure if Malhamdale is the finest place there is until I have died and seen heaven (assuming they let me at least have a glance), but until that day comes, it will certainly do.? You see, being half English means being rather...

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek: Enjoying Art in Unforgettable Surroundings

The afternoon air was crisp on a cold November day when my family and I got down at Humlebaek station, after a journey of 45 minutes by train from the Copenhagen city center. The train had sped past a scenic landscape of the azure waters of the ?resund Sound behind a...