Krka National Park was not in our original plans. Just like the vast majority of first-time visitors to Croatia, we instead planned on visiting the…
The historic center of Trogir sits on a tiny island – roughly 500 meters long and 250 meters wide – that has been continuously inhabited…
Šibenik, about halfway between Split and Zadar, has a visibly lower profile than other great towns on the Dalmatian Coast. That standing is probably reasonable:…
While in Croatia, we technically only explored sights on the Dalmatian Coast. This historic region today encompasses counties with seats in Split, Dubrovnik, Šibenik, and…
For the first part of our adventure in Croatia we were based in Split. We budgeted only a single day for exploring the town, but…
I have now come to the end of my photo-material from the spring trip to Portugal. For those interested, over 600 photos from the trip…
As my Portugal photo-essay series over the last couple of months clearly shows, our traveling targets in the country were heavily aligned with my well-publicized…
Sintra is one of the most impressive and attractive places to visit in all of Portugal. It is also one of the most maddeningly overcrowded.…
Not many people would use “love” and “Lisbon” in the same sentence. Ask anyone who toured Portugal to name their favorite stops, and it is…
We started our exploration of Lisbon with a morning trip to Belém to take a look at the World Heritage site that consists of a…
The third point of the Portuguese World Heritage monastic triangle, along with Alcobaça and Batalha, is the Convent of Christ in Tomar. The oldest of…
Our drive from Porto to Lisbon started with the rain-out in Aveiro. We had two more sightseeing stops along the way, and unfortunately we kept…
Just as in Amarante, our visit to Aveiro was negatively affected by the weather, only in a more dramatic fashion. We arrived in town on…
The first capital of Portugal way back in the 12th century, Guimarães is recognized on the World Heritage list as an authentic example of the…
The city of Braga did not make the final cut of our Portugal itinerary aside from one single sight on the outskirts of the town.…
The village of Amarante was planned as the end-of-day stop on the return to Porto from Douro Valley – it is conveniently located along the…
There are several properties on the World Heritage list that celebrate historic and famous wine-producing regions. My fairly well-known affinity for wine notwithstanding, I have…
The very first adjective to use to describe Porto has to be colorful. Yes, the city has a lot of history and quite a few…
Coimbra is the fourth-largest city in Portugal, and its former capital for a bit over a century quite a few centuries ago. As any city…
Our itinerary in Portugal was structured around two “hub-and-spokes” legs in Porto and Lisbon. There are roughly 300 kilometers of driving from one to another,…