St. Peter’s Square is a massive plaza located directly in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, the papal enclave surrounded by Rome. At the centre of the square is an Egyptian obelisk, erected at the current site in 1586. Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the square almost 100 years later, including the massive […]
The Sistine Chapel is a large and renowned chapel of the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in the Vatican City. Originally known as the Cappella Magna, the chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who restored it between 1477 and 1480. Since that time, the chapel has served as a place […]
Papal Apartments – is where you start seeing the real splendour of the Vatican Museum. If you were a Pope in the olden days you could commission Raphael to paint your apartment. At the age of 25 Raphael was asked to do just that – scrap all the previous work done by some of the […]
If a dizzying array of splendour that adorns the walls with famous paintings or tapestries or the floors done in priceless mosaics or just ordinary marble cut to perfection were not enough then perhaps the rooms and hallways and gardens lined with sculptures by every famous master from the beginning of time will impress and astonish. […]
It appears that whatever is not at the Louvre or at the National Gallery in London is here. There are a lot of priceless sculptures here and a great many of them share the same story. No one knows how some of these 2 or 3 or 5 thousand year old sculptures found their […]
The first thing at the Vatican Museum that you see are the paintings. Each more important and more famous than the last. It appears that over the years the Popes were quite fond of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and other famous masters. There are some modern works of art here too which the Vatican […]
Our schedule is quite busy for today so we had to decline a visit with Papa Francesco at the Vatican, but we did send our €88 towards the church to get a line up free tickets to see the Vatican Museum. The moment we got off the bus we were happy that we got the […]
If it is true that all roads lead to Rome then this is where we are heading this afternoon. On the way there we are treated to some amazing and spectacular sites along the way. It appears that each mountain top has its own town. Orvieto, Moltepulciano, Fabro, Orte and countless others. Beautiful day […]
If you don’t know what you are looking for, you would more than likely walk by this place without giving it a second look. The place is just outside the main part of the old town in the middle of a residential neighbourhood, off on a side street in the middle of nowhere really. This, however, […]
We went out to Arezzo one more time. First because there is a great pizza place we wanted to check out and second because we really wanted to have another go at Paradiso Gelato – some shopping seemed in order as well. Arezzo being one of the more affluent cities in Tuscany has a lot […]
We drive by this place every time we go up or down from Buccia Nera Agriturismo where we are staying. Today we decided to stop by for dinner. The place is a short drive, about 2km, from where we are staying, down the crazy road, it always looks busy and it has some spectacular views […]
It is not like we have strained ourselves yesterday but it is early days on our Italian adventure so we are taking it easy. We never got up early enough to get to the bakery so we had fruit for breakfast. After breakfast – the pool from 10 am to 7:15 pm with an occasional […]
Today we are spending the afternoon in the beautiful Arezzo. Arezzo is very very old, it dates back, or portions of the city do, to 5th century BC. It is a small city but the old town is quite large with at least 20 churches, some medieval, some Tuscan Ghotic and some even dating back […]
We found a great little restaurant in Arezzo called Luck, the actual Italian name is Osteria da Luchino. Off the main street, no English menu, small and charming and just perfect. We decided to try the Italian way of eating dinner. You start off with a small pasta dish, then have the main course with […]
Arezzo Cathedral is perhaps one of the largest buildings in the old city. Perhaps it is not as ornate as the Public Library or some other churches here but it is quite impressive. Inside there are some beautiful fresco covering the entrée ceiling of the cathedral as well as a couple burial monuments dedicated to […]
We are heading down to Arezzo for dinner and here are some shots from the way down to town. We are about 7km away from the old town so it is not a long drive. Behind the lens are my lovely wife and Evelina while I try to focus on what Italians call a road […]
Today, we are proud to say, we have done nothing at all. We drove down to the village to have breakfast the local bakery. We stopped by a shop to get some milk, cheese and salami and on the way back up we also stopped at a fruit stand and bought half a trunk of […]
All that you can hear right now in the middle of the night at Buccia Nera are crickets. It is almost midnight and it is still 25C outside, there are no bugs and it is absolutely fantastic.
Unlike our last trip to the middle of nowhere in Italy where we got lost on a deserted gravel country road in the middle of night with bats flying around – and no cell signal today the expedition went a lot better. We are still in the middle of nowhere, high up on the mountain […]
We are determined to still get some pool time in Arezzo today so we have left early – just a bit after 7am. We have about 900km to drive which should take about 8 hours. Austria is slow to drive through it is basically all dug out with massive construction everywhere plus on the best […]
Happy Anniversary to Kasia and Volker. We are out celebrating their 17th Wedding Anniversary today. Kasia and Volker suggested we go to one of their favourite restaurants just outside Nuremberg. Once again we did not manage to get all the pictures of the food for the blog but we did manage to get the desserts into […]
It is hot! Depending which application you look at on the phone it is somewhere between 32C-36C. Even in the shade by the water it is hot, hot, hot. Even after 3 scoops of great gelato, it is still hot, so we are off to the city beach. The city beach is in the […]
Girls’s day out today is in Pottenstein. Evelina’s best friends Lisa is at our house for a sleepover. These two girls really hit it off at school and have been great friends. Today is Lisa’s turn to stay at our house. As a little treat and for a bit of a break we drove to a […]
Not far from where we live, right across Dunkin’ Donuts and St. Klara church used to be St Martha’s church that was undergoing extensive renovations. We never got to see this church inside and now it looks like we won’t. It appears that durning the renovations, the roof being the only flammable thing on the church caught […]
Today we had 3 entertainment options on the table. City Park which we still have not been to, inside tour of the Imperial Castle or the Nuremberg Zoo, overwhelmingly the kids decided on the Zoo. The Zoo is located in Nuremberg Reichswald, which is an old imperial oak forest, southeast of the old town. With an area […]
A bit of a different perspective on the city. Out in the evening for some gelato to enjoy a slower pace of the city.
Know as the little Venice, Bamberg has its share of bridges and canals. There are quite a number of cities in Europe that try to make that claim but we all know there is only one Venice and everything else is just a town with a bunch of canals and bridges. Bamberg is a nice and […]
We are back to Altenburg Castle in Bamberg. It is such a beautiful and secluded site that offers phenomenal vistas of Bavarian countryside. This time for the first time we decided to climb the watch tower. There are two places where you can get some spectacular views. One of them is mid way through the tower […]
Going to Prague and not going to the Prague Castle and the St. Vitus Cathedral is hard. Once you get on Charles Bridge those two massive buildings are like a huge magnet that pulls you up. We lucked out because the last 3 times we were in Prague the river side part of St. […]
We love this city. We love the sites and the atmosphere, we love the food and the architecture. Having seen most of the big sites on the previous trips today we are wondering around at a gingerly pace trying to take it all in one more time. I am not sure if we will be coming […]
One of the great places in Prague is the top of the City Hall Tower in the Old Town on the main square. Weather permitting you get phenomenal views of the city and some of its great landmarks. The Prague Castle, the Tyn Church, Vyšehrad Castle, The opera house, the many churches, and turrets and building […]
We are back in Prague – starting with breakfast at Cafe Imperial. This place is on the list of top 10 Cafés in the world you should to visit.
A few hundred meters down the road from the Monastery is The Neupfarr Church which is a Protestant parish church on Neupfarrplatz in the Old Town of Regensburg. This church was built on the foundation of the old Synagogue which with the rest of the Jewish quarter was demolished to make room for a new Protestant […]
The Regensburg Cathedral dedicated to St Peter, is the most important church and landmark in Regensburg. It is the seat of the Catholic diocese of Regensburg. The Cathedral is an example of pure German Gothic and counts as the main work of Gothic architecture in Bavaria. It was founded in 1275 and completed in 1634, with […]
We continue our holy week and with it the required visits to as many churches as happen to be on our way from point A to point B. Niedermünster Abbey was built and rebuilt on the foundation of the first church which was built in the year 700. At the height of its power it […]
First stop, after we pared the car, is Scots Monastery from 1070. The full official name of the actual church, the most prominent building within the abbey complex, is The Irish Benedictine Abbey Church of St. James and St. Gertrude. Like many other churches and abbey this one too was burnt down, demolished, rebuilt and […]
We went out to see the sunset from the castle walls. Unfortunately the best view is from the lower gardens which together with the rest of the castle grounds closes at 8 pm. Undaunted, we set across the city in search of interesting sights and eventually a place to sit down and have a drink after […]
Wurzburg is a wonderful town. We did not quite know what to expect and we were nicely surprised. Wurzburg is a small city of 135,000 and dates back to the bronze age. It has a vibrant university and over 100 churches. Wurzburg is home to the oldest pizzeria in Germany, the oldest printing press manufacturer […]
Eleventh Century Romanesque Basilica Constructed over the stone coffin Of St Kilian, The Irish Missionary murdered here in 689. The Baroque facade was added between 1710-1716. This church is not huge but it is very interestingly decorated with vibrant way of the cross paintings which are very modern as well what appears to be a four Blade […]
The present cathedral, built from 1040 onwards by Bishop Bruno of Würzburg, reckoned to be the fourth largest Romanesque basilica in Germany, is the third church on the site: the previous two, built in about 787 and 855, were respectively destroyed and severely damaged by fire. After Bruno’s accidental death in 1045, his successor Adalbero […]
When we finished at the Wurzburg Residence it was 33.5 C in the car. There were a few lucky people who had the right car for this kind of weather.
The Prince-Bishop of Würzburg resided in the Marienberg Fortress until the early eighteenth century. This was not a suitable residence and in his opinion did not measure up to his position as an absolute monarch. Having won a small fortune in a court case, the Prince Bishop of Wurzburg decided to built a residence that […]
Koenigsbourg Castle is located not far from where we are hanging around today. Since we elected NOT to take a 2.5km hike to see the towering ruins of the 3 castles above the village of Ribeauvillé we decided to make the 20 min drive to see this castle instead. Koenigsbourg Castle dates back to […]
Next stop on our agenda is Riquewihr France. A small village of 1500 we visited last March. There is an amazing little bakery here that we stopped by to get some Macaron, and macaroons. It has also been at least an hour since our last meal so we had some gelato, and sat down down a […]
We are going out for brunch today, not the one filled with endless lines of chaffing dishes filled with food – we are thinking something more simple, less filling but equally as delicious. Sunday Brunch is more like Parisian Breakfast and no one does this better than the French themselves. We are not sure which of the […]
After dinner is gelato time and a quick look at what is what in Nuremberg so that we can plan lots of walks and photo sessions. Summer is coming and we should be back to 28C by Monday or Tuesday – we can’t wait.
No trip to Frankfurt is made without a quick stop at the Wertheim Village outlets for some uber cool – Super Dry… Contrary to deceptive Ninja writing on the store sign to make it look like this line is Japanese, it is actually a British store….
One more trip to Frankfurt, one more guest taking advantage of us being here and visiting. We are looking forward to showing off this beautiful city and visiting our favorite places.
A year has come and gone. So far we have visited 11 countries and what seems like innumerable number cities and perhaps even more restaurants and shops. We walked what seems like hundreds of kilometres on old cobble stones, consumed pounds and pounds of gelato and drunk gallons of espresso and wine. The blog has had over 22,000 […]
Today we are celebrating one year in Nuremberg. We are celebrating it by doing nothing. Actually we are relaxing after our trip to Berlin on the weekend. There are about 105 days before we say good bye to Nuremberg and head back to Edmonton. Of the 105 days we have 28 days where nothing is […]
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