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 […]
All Roads
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 […]
Pizzeria del Borgaccio
This little place in the village below Buccia Nera is where we stopped by for breakfast. It is a bakery / pizzeria place. Basically a breakfast with freshly baked goods and some cappuccino and espresso for the four of us, plus some cookies for good measure was just under €7.00 that is what I call […]
Pizzeria Santacroce
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, […]
Good Night Arezzo
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 […]
From Tuscany with Love
It is hard to describe this place, everyday it looks different, more beautiful, more enchanting. The clouds rolled in today and I think it might have cooled off down to 34C – unbelievable. This is a paradise we are calling home this week.
La Capannaccia
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 […]
Day of Rest
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 […]
Paradiso
We started off in this place and I finished the day off in this place. I think we have crowed the new best gelato place on this trip. Paradiso I think will permanently unseat the great gelato we had in San Gimignano Italy and Cacao in Ljubljana Slovenia. It is that unbelievably good. Paradise as […]
Luck
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 […]
More Tuscany
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 […]
Pool Time
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 […]
Serenity Now
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.
Buccia Nera – Italy
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 […]
Germany – Austria – Italy
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
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 […]
Heat Wave
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 […]
Back to Pottenstein
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 […]
St Martha’s On Fire
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 […]
Tiergarten
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 […]
Experiences
Earlier this week it was no flight for you! Today an earthquake. Technically, I think it was a tremor but since we never experienced one we are calling it an earthquake. Boris and Evelina were getting ready to go to the old town while we were sitting and relaxing like we do most of the days, […]
Arabian Nights
Sandy beach and a 5 start hotel in Abu Dhabi! Check Tickets and transfers – Check Suitcases, swim shorts and sun block packed – Check Train tickets to Munich and back – Check No line up at the business class check in at Etihad Airlines – check …but the computer says NO to the passport requirements ! […]
Hard Core
Fearless exploration comes at a price. This is a simple account of the last 7 days of our trips starting with Wurzburg. Seven days of aimless wondering around different cities and Nuremberg of course – fueled largely by gelato twice a day and a few sausages here and there!
Back to Altenburg Castle
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 […]
Prague Afternoon
After the castle we hastily headed down to the restaurant as some storm clouds started rolling in. We did not have to walk far and in all honestly the rain did not last very long. But while it was raining we were sitting down enjoying a nice dinner and coffee. Good times, Prague never disappoints […]
Prague Castle Revisited
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. […]
One More Time – Prague
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 […]
A View from the Top
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 […]
Niedermünster Abbey
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 […]
Regensburg
Today we are travelling about 100km south east to Regensburg. This small city is nothing like Nurember or Wurzburg which we visited a couple of days ago. The city dates back to the Stone Age. The Celtic name Radasbona was the oldest name given to a settlement near the present city. Around AD 90, the […]
Wurzburg
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 […]
Neumünster Church
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 […]
33.5 C
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 Würzburg Residence
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 […]
More Nuremberg Walks
With Maciek here for a visit we are hitting all the big spots in Nuremberg to show off the city, get some exercise and see some beautiful sights. Today on 3 separate walks we managed to walk almost 19km in total. We walked the permitter of the Imperial Castle defence walls and moats, we walked […]
Riquewihr Part Two
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 […]
Showing off Nuremberg
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.
Meanwhile at the Outlets
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….
Retrospect
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 […]
Architecture Series
My Architecture Series has grown since our latest trip to Berlin. Hopefully more will come soon!
365 Days
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 […]
Berlin to Nuremberg
This was a great weekend trip. We all loved Berlin! There is just something different about it. It is young and funky, it has an amazing vibe and energy, the people are young and happy and well dressed, Berlin has it’s own style that is hard to pinpoint. Our only wish was to stay here […]
Berlin Cathedral
Not wanting to be outdone by the Roman Catholics and their obscenely splendid churches – the Protestants built their own showpiece. Having a budget of a king always helps and thus Berlin Cathedral. While this account is not entirely based on historical accuracy, the building nonetheless is wonderful and splendid. It has an air of […]
Water Perspective
After a bit of walking, instead of sitting down to eat something again, we decided to take a boat cruise around Berlin. The boat leaves from the Berlin Cathedral and goes down the driver by the Museum Island, towards the Brandenburg Gate, around government buildings and back. This is a great way to discover Berlin, learn […]
More Berlin
Wasting no time today, we got up early, had a nice breakfast and headed out to see more Berlin. On the agenda today is East Side of Berlin. We were a bit worried because it rained all night but the weather is cooperating so we should have a great day out.
Heaven
After what can only be described as a gastronomical apocalypse yesterday – today we are dining at Radisson Blu. It truly is heavenly!
More Berlin
After the morning walk and lunch we came back to the hotel to check in, and to relax for a bit before round two of our exploration. We walked around the Tiergarten park and Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Climbed the Victory Tower, and strolled down the Embassy street, had a dinner and came back to the […]
Around Berlin
We are in Berlin – finally! This city is nothing like I thought it would be. Unlike some other amazing European capitals we visited like Paris, London, Prague, Budapest or even Ljubljana, Berlin for the most part is ultra modern, spacious and very very clean. I think our favourite part of Berlin is the Tiergarten. […]
Storming Berlin
This has been a long time coming but we finally found a free weekend to go to Berlin for a short trip. We are looking forward to it.
Getting Ready for Summer
The Volksfest is slowly wrapping up but summer festivities are just around the corner. The city beach is being set up with piles and piles of white sand, of course beer and sausages are also going to be on hand. Our patio in the garden has been set up by the neighbours from downstairs, Smart […]
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