July 2010
12 posts
Romania, part II
On our second day in Romania, we visited the castle in Bran. Often credited as Dracula’s castle from the Bram Stoker novel, it is in fact, probably the inspiration for the castle in the story. However, Vlad the Impaler never lived there, who is thought to be the character inspiration. The novelist is likely to have borrowed influences from several people and locations. The castle was...
Romania, part I
On arriving in Brasov, Romania, I felt for the first time that we had truly arrived in Eastern Europe. Brasov is a quaint and cute town, and as you’ll see from my pictures, “probably the best city in the world.” We got a lot of chuckles out of that slogan, so carefully worded and hedged in English. We were told that it is the most popular destination in Romania, which...
High Tatras, Slovakia
We spent two days in the high Tatras mountains on the Slovakian side, and so far these are among my favorite of the trip. We stayed in a gorgeous ski and hiking lodge with two incredibly well-preserved and active owners. Stana goes running or biking every day for two to four hours, and Yala just got back from vacationing in Croatia. We arrived via overnight train and by 7 am they had a hearty...
Prague
We took our first night train to arrive in Prague in the morning. The European overnight trains are quite an experience. When we got onto the train, the seats had already been converted into three beds. Manuel promised us that our first train would be our most luxurious, and our traveling companion concurred, with a sink, running water, nightlights and a small closet inside our compartment. ...
Auschwitz
When I was ten years old, I read about World War II somewhere and was inspired to do a project for our fifth grade Social Studies Fair on the Holocaust. I remember building a cardboard model of a concentration camp, complete with string and tin foil barbed wire, and carefully lettering a poster listing how many people had died in each European country. Yes, I can offer this as evidence of being...
Krakow, Poland
I have been diligently taking photos for the past week, but not so diligently posting none of them. Our tour with Tucan Tours has been fantastic so far - we love Manuel, our tour leader! It’s fantastic to not have to worry about transportation or hotel details, and to get a few hours introduction to each new city. Then we usually split off from our group of ten (mostly Australian) fellow...
Warsaw sneaker diaries
Here are a few more photos from our afternoon walk in Warsaw yesterday. We saw a bear in the zoo, numerous street musicians, some of the Warsaw jazz festival, many beautiful public squares, and stumbled into a private performance of a singer at an interesting ice cream shop / gallery / restaurant which was displaying a Solidarity-themed political painting show.
My impression of Warsaw is that it...
Boston to CDG to Warsaw
I adored flying Air France yesterday because it gave me a perfectly good excuse to have a glass of champagne on the flight yesterday to kick off my trip. After a very short flight, very little sleep, and a brief stopover at the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, I arrived uneventfully in Warsaw. Our hotel turned out to offer us lovely, somewhat luxe digs right in the heart of the city. so we found...
Bon voyage to me!
Today I’m taking off on a trip I’ve been planning for several months to visit a few countries which have been on my wish list for many years: Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Turkey, and Romania. It is the culmination of a year which in it’s entirety has been a whirlwind. My adorable boyfriend told me a few days ago that in the course of this one year, I am doing many of the...