Yearly Archives: 2014
How to get the best customer service from tourist information and visitor services employees: an insider view
One of your most valuable resources as a budget traveler are tourist information centers and the visitor services staff at museums and cultural centers. The employees of these organizations are passionate about where they live and work and they are experts on what tourists need to know. They can reliably provide you with brochures and […]
No one told me there would be cats in the Hagia Sofia
The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is overwhelmingly grand, which I expected. What I didn’t expect were the cats. The cats of Istanbul are apparently unimpressed by this famous Byzantine church-turned mosque-turned museum, and they’re just hanging out or snoozing just as nonchalantly as can be. Actually all of Istanbul was full of stray cats and […]
Bramante’s Tempietto gets a visit from the Infamous Blue Traveling Poncho
This modestly-scaled building in Rome, the Tempietto, is the monument of Italian High Renaissance. Donato Bramante created his “little temple” in 1502 after a lifetime of studying Roman ruins and the architectural writings of the classical author Vitruvius. Bramante followed a strict classical ratio of proportions, where height equals width in the lower and upper sections. The Tempietto feels rather […]
The origin story, or how I became a raging travel-craving maniac
I was sixteen, living in a tiny Midwestern town and determined to go to Europe. I didn’t have money and in that rural environment, received no encouragement from my friends or teachers. Nonetheless, I researched relentlessly until I learned about the Rotary Club International’s Rotary Youth Exchange program, which funds and facilitates international student travel. […]
Bach’s St. John Passion in Leipzig: celestial voices, unbearable beauty
Listening to Bach’s St. John Passion at St. Thomas church in Leipzig, Germany, was an ethereal and indescribably moving experience. It was Good Friday and we were in Leipzig to hear the Thomanerchor, the boy’s choir that has been performing sacred music in Leipzig for over 800 years (they board and study in the town). Johann […]
Picnic at the cathedral: how to picnic in Europe
If you’ve traveled across the ocean to see a great work of architecture, a wonderful way to enhance your visit is to picnic in front of it. Beautiful view? Check. Chance to observe and interact with locals? Check. Cheap? Check, check check. While picnicking is fun for it’s own sake, it’s also practical. You have […]
Cave paintings in Font-de-Gaume
The guide took us through a narrow passage into a dark cave. She lit her flashlight and there it was–a 16,000 year old frieze of bison. So elegant! So confidently painted! We reached the Font-de-Gaume cave in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, Southwestern France, by train from Périgueux, followed by a 3km hike. While waiting for our reserved […]
Pun from fear: coping with fear of flying
Q: What do you call a Roman with a cold? A: Julius Sneezer * Let’s get the obvious out of the way: it’s ironic and super-duper embarrassing for a travel blogger be afraid of flying. I AM TERRIFIED TO FLY. And yet I love to travel, so I fly all the time. My fear of […]
Adorable Alberobello and a cozy night in a trullo house
The view from the train through the Itria Valley, in the Puglia region of Italy, was stunning, and we had plenty of time to enjoy the scenery, as trains in South are slooooooooooooow. There were the silvery olive trees everywhere and then….what was that odd little hut with a cone on top in the middle […]
French people are rude and other silly stereotypes
“French people are rude”. “French people are snobby”. “They hate Americans over there.” I hear this frequently, mostly from Americans that haven’t traveled much. Where does this idea come from, that roughly 65 million French people, living out their lives in their hexagon of a country, in between munching on baguettes, are beside themselves in a […]
Picnic at the Cathedral 