Wayne Gretzky famously said, You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. He meant hockey, of course, but this adage is wholly applicable to photography. Sometimes a shot taken under conditions where no one can expect a good result comes out pretty well. But it is given a chance…
Among my all-time favorite photographs, this one is the oldest, dating from our first trip to Prague over a decade ago. I fell in love with the city and to this day consider it the most beautiful in the world. I suspect there is not a significant number of people…
This, technically, is the next installment of my re-counting World Heritage sites series. But it just struck me as something of utmost importance that the pictures accompanying this entry were taken in February of 1991, practically exactly twenty-five years ago. Red Square is one of those places that…
Wieliczka Salt Mines on the outskirts of Kraków is one of the first 12 sites on the UNESCO World Heritage list, inscribed in 1978 (by the way, so is Kraków proper, which means that it was the undisputed capital of the World Heritage in the list’s infancy). Dating from the…
Here are a few more pictures to complement previous World Heritage entry. Saint Vladimir (Volodymyr) Cathedral is as striking on the outside as any you would ever see. The guide on my Kiev-Pechersk Lavra tour named it without hesitation in answer to my question of which of the Kiev cathedrals…
Kiev is famous for its domed cathedrals, and on my only free day of the recent business trip I put aside considerations of unrest in the city center and spent time exploring some of the city sights, including its multi-location World Heritage site. There is no doubt that on my…
Budapest is a beautiful city, often grand, occasionally quaint and charming, striving to outdo Vienna quite a bit, and reminiscent of Paris in its central Pest area. There are plenty of impressive sights on both banks of the Danube. We’ll start with one of the emblematic sights of the Hungarian…
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.…
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…
… 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…