It’s well known that Italians are fiercely proud of their history, food, and culture and a visit to Florence will help you to understand why. Florence is a city blessed with many masterpieces of art, architecture, and literature. You can find Michelangelo’s statue of David, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Brunelleschi’s Dome on the Duomo, Florence’s cathedral, and you can visit the home of Dante Aleghieri, author of The Divine Comedy, which is considered the greatest work of literature in the Italian language. You could also visit Florence without seeing any of these things and still understand the pride of the Italians. We spent ten days in Florence wandering the medieval streets, eating delicious food, and viewing some of the greatest art of the Renaissance.
Continue reading All Roads Lead to Rome: But First, Florence
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Salzburg and one more Glühwein
On this trip, Matt and I have been able to visit some of the places that we have long wanted to see. For me, Brugues and Salzburg were two of those places. I have been to Austria before, but never to Salzburg. I will admit that I grew up watching The Sound of Music and as a young girl, dreamed of waltzing in the Van Trapp Family’s gazebo singing “I am Sixteen Going on Seventeen”. Well, I didn’t do that as the house in the movie is not the house in real life. So you are spared that detail that Matt would have made into an embarrassing video. But we did see some of the sights and a hefty amount of delicious beer.
Christmas Markets in Vienna
One of the best reasons to visit Northern Europe from mid-November through December is the Christmas markets. As we were planning our trip through Europe, I wanted to be sure that we would be in a place that had a Christmas market so Matt could finally see what I have been going on about for all the years that we have been together. I loved them when I was a little girl living in Germany and I wanted to see them again. After some research, we figured that Vienna would be the perfect choice because it has more than one Christmas Market.
Escape Impossible – My Auschwitz Experience
I know the history. I have seen Schindler’s List. When I was a girl, I visited Dachau. None of that prepared me for visiting Auschwitz. Being there felt like all of the historical tragedies of the past few hundred years were smothering me. There isn’t much left of the camp, but what remains sucked the oxygen from the air and from my lungs. I searched for open space, an escape, a moment to catch my breath, but it was impossible. Everywhere I looked, I was bound by brick, barbed wire, or electrified fences. Escape would not have been possible.
Continue reading Escape Impossible – My Auschwitz Experience
We Won an Award!
Yesterday we were nominated for a peer-reviewed blogger award, the Liebster Award. We would very much like to thank Ankita of Transforming Escapes for recognizing our rookie efforts at travel blogging. We have been spending the past month in Bali writing, editing photos, and working on our blog’s functionality. We are proud of this achievement and the nomination from a fellow travel blogger. We would also like to nominate two blogs we have enjoyed.