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 […]
We are off for another road trip. This time we are going down south – Italy, Arezzo and beyond. Boris and Evelina have two weeks of Spring holidays so we are going to explore a bit more of the enchanting Tuscany that we all love and see where else the road takes us. We are […]
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 […]
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 […]
If I don’t hear Embassy and Munich in the same sentence ever again it will not be a moment too soon. Today we set off to pick up kids’ passports at the Polish Embassy. Munich is about 180km away – door to door, from our house to the embassy and this we can usually manage […]
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 […]
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 ! […]
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!
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 […]
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 […]
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.
And now for something completely different. The Walhalla is a hall of fame that honors laudable and distinguished people, famous personalities in German history – politicians, sovereigns, scientists and artists of the German tongue. The hall is housed in a neo-classical building above the Danube River, east of Regensburg and is based on the Pantheon […]
This is the last church on the agenda for today. Although, on the way to the car, we did try to see another monastery which was closed. The Church of the Holy Trinity, located on the Gesandtenstrasse, was built in the midst of the Thirty Years War. This was one of the first evangelical churches […]
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 […]
Right in front of the Cathedral, no more than 50 meters from the front door and slightly to the left is St. Johann Monastery. The Monastery of St. John in Regensburg is dedicated to St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist and was founded in 1127 by bishop Konrad I of Regensburg.
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 […]
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 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 […]
After the last church we sat down to relax and have a coffee. No more than 100m from the coffee shop is the main market place and another church. A towering gothic building done in red and white is St Mary’s Chapel or Marienkapelle Church and the Baroque facade of the Falkenhaus. The former home of a wealthy citizen, today the Falkenhaus […]
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 […]
So, a brisk drive in the morning to Ribeauvillé – France where we spent a lovely weekend in March. No traffic, no accidents just a wide open road., I think we managed to shave off about an hour of the trip. The breakfast did not quite work out the way we planned but we still managed […]
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 […]
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….
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 […]
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 […]
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.
… a Trabant tour in every shade of colour under the rainbow….
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. […]
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.
Packed like sardines we set off for Frankfurt to drop off our parents for their trip back to Edmonton. Not a lot of traffic, not a lot of construction nice and easy drive, just the way lazy Saturday drives should be.
We had a wonderful stay at Agriturismo ai Casoni – honestly if we could we would stay there a few more days. This truly is an amazing place, a mom and pop operation that prides itself on great service, amazing food and wonderful atmosphere. Helped by their 3 kids, all off of whom work in the kitchen, […]
For the rest of us not taking part in the water fight, we simply just sat around on our porch – enjoying a quiet evening in a peaceful and serene Italian countryside with spectacular views at Agriturismo ai Casoni. To the right are the mountains, in front is an old country house, to the left […]
At 5pm, when we were coming home from Treviso, it was still 26C outside and very humid. The best solution for that would be to cool off in the pool which was a bit cold still, so the children went for the second best option – a water fight. There were no winners in this […]
Today is our last full day in Italy so we are visiting Treviso. This small city of about 80,000 people is actually quite famous. Treviso became a city in 89 BCE, the main road leading up to the Venetian defence walls is lined with spectacular villas on both sides of the road. Because of its […]
St. Mark’s Basilica is the most famous of the city’s churches and one of the best known examples of Italo-Byzantine architecture. It lies at the eastern end of the Piazza San Marco, adjacent and connected to the Doge’s Palace. Originally it was the chapel of the Doge, and has only been the city’s cathedral since 1807. Know for […]
Piazza San Marco often known in English as St Mark’s Square, is the principal public square in Venice. The Palaces, St. Mark’s Basilica, the Bell Tower, the Clock Tower leading to the Rialto Bridge as well as the connection to the Grand Canal and the Grand Canal promenade is all here. It is a massively large open […]
The Grand Canal, Rialto Bridge and St. Mark’s Square and Basilica are the most iconic landmarks in Venice They are instantly recognizable and quite amazing in their own right. The weather is fabulous, there are no crowds – a perfect day to be in Venice.
Going to Venice and not taking a gondola ride is like going to Rome and not seeing the Coliseum or going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower. Not only do you get to see Venice from a totally different perspective but you also get to see Venice as people who live there see […]
Venice is famous for its glass, colourful and ornate. You can buy just about anything you can imagine made out of glass, from candies and cakes to animals, to pencils and cufflinks. You can also get some good street art. While a lot of it is simply printed there are some local artists that actually […]
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