Category: Attractions

PRAGUE'S ORLOJ DELIVERS A GOOD TIME

4/5/2017

Clockmaker Mikulas of Kadan & mathematician Jan Sindel get the credit for this magnificent timepiece.

Leave it to Orloj to show us a good time in Prague.

With nothing but time on his hands (my bad!), the oldest working clock of its kind in the world took center stage to do what he does best time and time again; mark the passage of time with uncharacteristic flair.

Indeed, Orloj was quite the charmer; downright heavenly!

ROMANIA'S SIGHISOARA'S CITADEL: A BLISSFUL UNION OF PAST AND PRESENT

1/2/2017

Marry the woman, marry the family; especially in Eastern Europe.

My motto?

Life’s a party. Let’s crash it!

Ok, so maybe Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn get credit for being the Wedding Crashers, but hey, this is 2016, a decade and then some beyond their 2005 antics. Somebody has to continue the tradition.

Crashing the party in Romania was easy.

DRACULA'S BRAN CASTLE: HISTORY WITH A TOUCH OF MYSTERY

12/13/2016

Nice digs, Dracula!

Drah-coo-lah?

My bad. I’m working on my Eastern European accent; still working on my Transylvanian history, too, since visiting the Romanian province nestled in the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe.

If memory serves me, your castle, Bran Castle, was built for the King of Hungary sometime in the 14th century by the Saxons of Brasov in what was then known as the province of Wallachia.

Friends in high places, I see; literally.

You were a Knight of the Order of the Dragon, huh.

Bram Stoker never mentioned you were a knight, although he did bestow you the title Count.

You know Bram Stoker, the Irishman responsible for your worldwide fame, right?

Wrong?

He got it all wrong?

Do tell.

SAILING THROUGH TIME & EUROPE'S IRON GATE

11/22/2016

Two fishermen add substance to the enormity of time and beauty behind Europe's Iron Gate.

Time, and the River Danube, had carved an amazing channel through Eastern Europe's Carpathian Mountains.

An early morning fog had added mystery to amazing. The queen of Europe's rivers had done it again, rendering the journey extraordinary.

BRASOV, ROMANIA: TIME IN A BOTTLE

11/9/2016

Brasov's Council Square sparkled with mystery and history.

So, this is where legend has it the Pied Piper reemerged after his Hamelin visit.

I could see it. There was certainly something whimsically enchanting about Romania’s medieval city of Brasov. Dusk did wonders for adding just the right touch of magic.

SHOES ON THE DANUBE BANK

10/28/2016

Thank you, film director Can Togay and sculptor Gyula Pauer, for honoring those so senselessly lost.

The most terrible of atrocities had been memoralized simply and poignantly.

Sixty pairs of rusted period shoes in all styles and sizes had been cast in iron. Different sizes and styles suggested no one had been spared - rich, poor, young, old, mother, child, peasant, professional - all had been forced at gunpoint, usually in the middle of the night, to march to the banks of the Danube River just south of Budapest's grand Parliament building; all had been instructed to remove their shoes; thereafter, all had been shot before falling into the river that carried them away.

7 THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT ROMANIA

10/20/2016

Our bus headed north from Bucharest on highway A3 through Romania's Carpathian Mountains, away from the bustling capital city; away from the indelible stamp of communism on drab buildings housing 2.5 million residents now looking to democracy for a brighter future.

Grey seemed the prevailing color for all the socialist architectural statements.

History has not always been kind to Romania, to her "citizens of the Roman Empire," but that's another post altogether. History aside, I discovered the largest country in Southeastern Europe has much more than Transylvania and Count Dracula to offer the world, thank you very much Bram Stoker.

You can thank yours truly via the comments for today's highlights, 7 Things You Might Not Know About Romania. And to think a few months ago I couldn't even find Romania on a world map. It's wonderful what travel does for one's view of the world.

THE SPELL OF THE YUKON

10/10/2016

Isn't time a beautiful and mysterious thing stretched as far as the eye can see!

So there I was, gobsmacked looking at the last 10,000 or so years stretching as far as the eye could see. Few places on the planet have been so unchanged over the course of time.

ALASKA'S WHITE PASS & YUKON ROUTE: ONE HELL OF AN HISTORIC RIDE

9/6/2016

“Give me enough dynamite, and snooze, and I’ll build you a railroad to hell.”

The Coast Mountains of Tongass National Forest were just the tip of the iceberg when it came to all this beautiful glacial valley had to offer.

Alaska’s White Mountain Pass looked pretty heavenly to me, although according to history it was hell building a railroad to the summit during Alaska’s gold rush years. Most thought it couldn’t be done.

Nothing like an amazing 2-hour ride along miles and miles of rugged mountain terrain and through years and years of history to encourage respect for the renowned “Irish Prince of Alaska.”

ALASKA'S MENDENHALL GLACIER: RAW, RUGGED & RECEDING

8/29/2016

Originally known as Sitaantaago ("the Glacier Behind the Town"), Mendenhall was renamed in 1892 in honor of Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, American physicist & meterologist.

The last 3000 years stretched as far as the eye could see.

The massive ‘River of Ice’ was raw and rugged and breathtakingly beautiful.

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