As promised, below is a selection of photos taken on my tour of Chichen-Itza. Very impressive, but tinged with disappointment. I was looking forward to climbing to the top of the Great Pyramid, only…
Some people come to Rome for its millenia of history. Others may be attracted by the treasures found in the Vatican Museum as well as a number of lesser known galleries. Yet others explore architectural beauty of its many churches and palaces. Me, I come to Rome for its squares.…
OK, let’s next pick a city that would present me with a welcome problem similar to what I had with Florence or London – plenty of photographs to choose from. We’ve been to Paris many times, and repeatedly professed our love for the city on the pages of this blog…
A second entry in a row brings me to a city that I undoubtedly like a lot, but somehow do not have a wide range of pictures of to share. With Madrid, the reason for that shortage is somewhat inexplicable, since we have hundreds of good-quality pictures taken there. But…
A more extensive photo-essay from more recent trip can be found here. Our itineraries took us to Amsterdam just once on our journeys, and it was during the unfortunate period of time when we did not yet quite catch on to the fact that our main camera produced inexplicably grainy…
When you lived in a given city for several years but you always approached it as a kind of “tourist”, targeting specific points of interest, never failing to admire the scenery, and practically never walking down its streets without a camera in hand, you end up with much more than…
There are certain cities in America that have more than rudimentary tram networks (Boston springs to mind as an example), but in most places if you come across a tram line, it is primarily a curiosity rather than a major mode of transportation. Conversely, many major cities in Europe retain…
Cracow is big enough to offer more than a few points of interest, it is full of wonderful architecture, and it leaves an overwhelmingly positive impression on a traveler of my inclinations. It all starts with the focal point of the Old Quarter, the vast expanse of the Market Square.…
The bonus side effect of my recently started new series is that perusing our photo archives I come across an occasional cool picture that I never posted anywhere. For instance, here is a shot of a pavement artist at work. It was taken in Florence, but could have been taken…
Boy, this is not a simple task, picking just a few shots of Florence. I’ve been to the city several times and I can never get enough of it, so it is no surprise that we accumulated quite a lot of photographic memories over time. The funny thing is, my…
Munich does not break into my top tier of favorite cities. I’ve only been there once for a few days, I liked it well enough, it is lively and welcoming, but I do not find it exceptionally beautiful or uncommonly impressive. Perusing my photo archives, I am struck by the…
Both within this virtual space (here, for instance) and in meat-space, I never hesitate to proclaim which city I consider to be the most beautiful among all. Prague, hands down! Such opinions are subjective, I realize, and your mileage may vary relative to other places you’ve seen and things you…
Recalling wonderful times in Europe when we rarely hesitated to get into a car and drive someplace for enrichment or entertainment, we took a trip to Philadelphia today for the flower exhibition at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Here are a few quick shots. …
… because every travel post should have some. And by virtue of our late arrival home on Wednesday, I did not have a chance to arm myself with pictures from our recent trip before I posted my brief trip overview. To compensate for that, here are two shots from that…
This little project has been years in the making. When I worked on the movie about our first Paris trip, in 2002, the well-known Russian pop song (called “Walking about Paris”) was the obvious choice for an opening segment. Unfortunately, I realized that we did not tape a single scene…
A small selection of shots made during my recent Scottish adventure can be found via the links on the sidebar or directly here.
A pretty interesting observation from our regular drives in and through France are the “nearby attraction” billboards on French freeways. These are normally positioned some distance ahead of their corresponding exits and pictorially depict the most important stuff that you might want to check out if you suddenly decide to…
The French are very fond of the summertime practice of producing light shows at their famous landmarks. I cannot fault them for it: Every time we come across one such, it is a great spectacle. On our return journey from the big summer trip we stopped overnight in Strasbourg. The…
I have been fairly brief so far in my descriptions of the places that we stayed at during the big summer holiday. A more expansive overview is likely due. So, for those interested, here is an entirely subjective comparative look at L’Estartit on Costa Brava in Catalunya, Roquebrune-sur-Argens on French…
One stat that I omitted in my previous post was the number of gelato flavors sampled by the family. The exact count, in fact, escapes me, and likely cannot be extracted from Natasha’s travel diary, since she must have omitted some of the less enthusiastically received flavors. But an intelligent…