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Luxembourg

A short walk around the defence walls of the old town with a personal guided tour from someone who has grown up in the city and knows it’s history, buildings, customs and all hidden gems, we as tourists would never find, see or discover.  What a treat.   [hd] [hd]

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Luxembourg with Friends

Luxembourg is amazing – we did not know what to expect but absolutely blew us away.  The architecture is very reminiscent of a bit ofParis with a touch of Switzerland and Germany.  Everything is obsessively clean and everything smell nice, the entire city smells like flowers.  We met up with our good friends from Germany […]

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Gdansk Kamienice

For the first time we got to climb the old City Hall Tower – as it is only open during the spring and summer. Needless to say the views are equally as spectacular as they are from the main church tower next door but then again the climb is a lot easier too for the […]

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Uphagen’s House

The Uphagen house is one of only a few 18th century merchant town houses in Europe that is open to visitors. The Uphagen house was purchased in 1775 by Johann Uphagen, a merchant, historian, art collector and city councillor. He remodelled it to suit the needs of a wealthy 18th century merchant. After Uphagen’s death […]

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St. Joseph’s Church

The church was built between 1905 and 1909, and designed by Jan Sas Zubrzycki in the Gothic Revival style. It is the largest church in the area. The interior is shaped in the likeness of a Gothic cathedral in the so-called Gothic Vistula style. It is filled with numerous altars, benches and other items made […]

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Pomnik wyrwanych serc

This monument was erected in 1964 to honour those who were murdered in the adjacent concentration camp between 1943-1945 in Płaszowie.  Actually the monument is in place where routine massive executions took place before most of the people were shipped to Auschwitz.  There was a stone quarry near by where most of the prisoners slaved […]

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Wieliczka Salt Mine

Wieliczka Salt Mine has been around for about 7 centuries but it was originally explored from Neolithic times . Wieliczka salt mine, excavated in the 13th century, produced table salt continuously until 2007, as one of the world’s oldest operating salt mines and now a museum and a UNESCO site.  There are some 287 km […]

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Krakow

Krakow – first time for me but not for the rest of the family.  We are massively jet lagged but we keep pressing on. Kraków is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. The city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596  and has […]

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Amber Museum

Gdansk certainly deserves to be called the World Amber Capital or so the local sentiment claims.  This museum is brand new, it opened last year and it houses some amazing pieces of art and history.  It also houses the larges amber in the world weighing in at 68.2kg.  Every colour and every shade of amber […]

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National Museum in Gdansk

This museum is located in the old late-Gothic Franciscan monastery, which has been used to house exhibits since the end of the 19th century. The museum used to hold  a sizeable collection of historical works of art. In 1884. The core of the Museum’s collection constitutes the collection of Jacob Kabrun, which includes several thousand […]

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Oliwa Cathedral

The archcathedral in Oliwa is a three-nave basilica with a transept and a multisided closed presbytery, finished with an ambulatory. The façade is flanked by two slender towers, 46-metres tall each with sharply-edged helmets. It is enlivened by a Baroque portal from 1688, as well as three windows of different sizes and three cartouches. The […]

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Park in Oliwa

Today we are doing something more productive.  Right after we finished the morning coffee and other drinks we set off to Oliwa, a small suburb of Gdansk that’s  famous for its parks, gardens and the large cathedral with a huge organ.  Did I mention cakes, lots of amazing cakes to eat too.  

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National Independence Day

National Independence Day  is a national day in Poland celebrated on 11 November to commemorate the anniversary of the restoration of Poland’s sovereignty as the Second Polish Republic in 1918 from the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. Following the partitions in the late 18th century, Poland ceased to exist for 123 years until the end […]

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Nuremberg Cellars

Way back when, if you wanted to brew beer in Nuremberg you need to have a cellar, both for fermentation and storage.   The cellars consist of a system of narrow tunnels and caverns that run under Nuremberg’s old town. Dating back to 14th century there were about 40 breweries in the small city all of […]

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Galileo Museum

Everything from Galilio’s finger to a broken glass from his telescope to everything else as it was invented to make the modern world tick – it’s all here and it is well worth a visit.  Alternatively – it’s worth even getting the free app and do a virtual tour of the place to explore this […]

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Arno River

Our hotel is right over the Arno River which gives us access not only to great views but also great photo opportunities.  If you want to see something really interesting look this up here.  

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Car Tour

Some of the great sites we visited on the little vintage Fiat Tour.  From vineries and olive tree orchards to monuments, churches and homes. Lots of great views, food and company.  It truly was a great day.  

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Santa Croce

This tours is definitely lacking in visits to the holy places but little church certainly makes up for it.  You walk in here and find some amazing crypts of who is who of Renaissance and beyond.  St. Francis of Assisi left his frok here.  Buried in this church are Galileo, Michelangelo, Dante, Machiavelli, Marconi, Rossini […]

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Fiat Fun in Florence

This was really a last minute idea for doing something different – aka something that involved less walking and more sitting.  We booked it the night before and had to get up early to be there by 8:30 am.  This turned out to be a half day tour through the hills around Florence with an […]

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Sunset over Florence

I think one of the greatest benefits of the hotel we are staying at, other than the fact that there are a lot of great pubic areas, is the rooftop patio.  You can grab a drink from the bar, park yourself and enjoy a beautiful sunset.  Truly amazing.               […]

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New Digs in Florence

We took a train from Rome to Florence.  This is the first time we are on holidays where we did not bother with a car.  Less than 1.5hours later we were in the centre of Florence – instead of the usual almost a 4 hour drive.  I think we can get use to it.  We […]

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Domitian Stadium

The Stadium of Domitian was dedicated in AD 86, as part of an Imperial building programme at the Field of Mars.  It was Rome’s first permanent venue for competitive athletics – think Olympic Games and other things, including gladiator fights when the Colosseum burned down. It was modelled on Greek buildings and seated as many […]

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Under the Trevi Fountain

To the right of the Baroque church on the opposite side of the Trevi Fountain are the ruins of an ancient Roman apartment complex located 9 meters beneath the city’s Trevi district. The archaeological site dates back to the first century, but wasn’t discovered until the late 1990s. The site is called  Vicus Caprarius, the City […]

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Villa Farnesina

Villa Farnesina was built for a wealthy banker back in the early sixteen century and ‘painted’ by many famous Italian painters including Raphael.  It’s been rebuilt and redecorated and altered and reinforced to deal with the vibrations of the traffic to preserve the amazing frescos inside of it.  

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Trastevere

Trastevere – goes as far back as the days of emperor Augustus. It has been part of the city’s 14 districts, and it was quite popular with important Romans who built villas in this neighbourhood, including Julius Caesar.  It is many colourful building and narrow streets.  In the old days it was primarily occupied by fisherman […]

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Sant’Ignazio

This is a small church among some 900 other churches in Rome, and is dedicated to Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, located in Rome. Built in Baroque style between 1626 and 1650, the church functioned originally as the chapel of the adjacent Roman College, which moved in 1584 to a new larger […]

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Roman Forum and Palatine

We have done bits and pieces of the Roman Forum and the Palatine but this time we took our time.  I think we spent good 4 or 5 hours meandering through the ancient ruins of a city built upon an older city built upon and older city still, stories below where the current city is. […]

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Still in Rome

Still walking around Rome looking for new things to explore and new things to see. We took a full 5 minute ride on a LIME scooter that would have taken 3 minutes to walk because of traffic and a minor confusion with a car on the road.  After that we promptly park the darn thing […]

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Went By a Church

Perhaps if Papa Francesco was in we would have gone to the church, aka as St. Peter’s Basilica, but in truth we really just went for the nice walk after dinner to enjoy the night views without the crowds, without the noise and without the vendors.  It was a long day.         […]

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As The Sun Sets

The sunsets are crazy spectacular, this is taken from the edge of the gardens at Villa Borghese on our way down towards the Spanish Steps.  On the way down we met the nicest young man a great artist from Albania, studying art in Rome, how amazing is that?               […]

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Chocolate Festival

In the gardens of Villa Borghese a chocolate festival, the richness of which you could smell from a mile away.  Dangerous time and place to ‘find’ yourself in – just before dinner!                                               […]

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Quartiere Coppedè

This little area in Rome was built around the  1920s and is was famous for its mixture of several different architectural styles, all coming together to create something never seen before.  This is the place where you will find the Villino delle fate (the fairy house) and in the centre of the square the Fountain […]

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Shades of yellow orange and red

That seems to be the dominant colour palette for Rome.  No matter where you are and no matter where you look those are the three primary colours, occasionally punched with a bit of white, mostly churches, and the broccoli trees, the towering pines.                         […]

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Hello Roma

Yesterday was rough, but today after a good night’s sleep and plenty of coffee we are visiting the old favourites, away from crowds, and at a very leisurely pace. First stop Campo de’ Fiori. Colourful, fragrant and lively.  Nothing changed here since our last visit and that’s a good thing.           […]

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European Solidarity Centre

The European Solidarity Centre is a museum and library in Gdańsk, Poland, devoted to the history of Solidarity, the Polish trade union and civil resistance movement, and other opposition movements of Communist Eastern Europe.  It resembles a hull of the ship both inside and outside.  It is done exceptionally well with lot of amazing exhibits. […]

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Westerplatte

A place that is near and dear to every Polish soul.  A place where the WWII started, a place where the first resistance started and a place that gave every person a bit of hope.  We got off the boat that took us there and decided to go for a nice walk through the park […]

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Sunny Winter Day

Last night it snowed, big heavy flakes falling so slow it all seemed like it was in slow motion.  The morning we woke up to a beautiful and sunny day, a bit windy but no trace of snow and blue sky.  Here it is then, the best part of Gdansk seen from the islands in […]

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