Nothing like a fall weekend in Rome to kick off the Winter 2007-08 travel season. My friends and I found a deal on Alitalia, booked a hotel near Via Vanetto and off we went. We arrived late on Friday evening, survived a harrowing roller-coaster-esque cab ride into town from the airport and checked into our hotel but we weren't ready to turn in for the night. The hotel had kindly gifted us with a bottle of red wine on arrival so we took the wine and three plastic cups to the Spanish steps to drink in the scenery, as it were. [View Full Entry]

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A weekend work retreat in Frankfurt gave me the chance to visit my birthplace again. My Dad always uses the expression "grey as Frankfurt skies" but luckily Sunday was sunny and beautiful - perfect for walking around downtown and taking a few photos. [View Full Entry]

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For an end of summer holiday, 7 friends and I went to Croatia for a sailing trip. We flew into Split and took taxis to Trogir which was a charming seaside town on a small island connected to the mainland by a bridge. Most of the island is within an ancient walled city which is pedestrian only. We spent one night in Trogir and were picked up the next day by the sailing company to meet our captain and sailboat - home for the next week. Our captain was an experienced sailor at the ripe old age of 26 who used [View Full Entry]

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Last weekend I went to visit Garron and Hannah in Belgium. It was Garron's last weekend before the big move to Rwanda (!!!) so they hosted a going away party. (Incidentally, you can follow their African adventures at http://millescollines.blogspot.com.) When I visited them for Thanksgiving last November we never left Brussels so this time I wanted to see a bit more of the country and we decided on Ghent in Flanders (Flemish speaking) and Dinant in Wallonia (French speaking). Nothing is ever more than an hour or two away at the most in tiny Belgium so it was easy to fit [View Full Entry]

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Thirty years ago, almost to the day, my parents eloped to Copenhagen. I've seen the photos they took of themselves that day with their camera on self-timer - my mother looking beautiful in a black and flowery 1970s style dress sitting on the grass next to my dad who has dark hair and sideburns and a big smile on his face. But I'd never actually been to Copenhagen before to see the city for myself and I'd wanted to for a long time. So when my friend John mentioned he might want to go there to celebrate his 30th birthday, I [View Full Entry]

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At the end of June I flew out to Moscow for a work event and stayed for the weekend. The work event was actually a big party to celebrate the successful public offering of a large Russian company that my law firm worked on this year. The party was elaborate and a bit surreal. There were cirque de soliel-type people walking around on stilts who sprinkled us with confetti as we walked in, opera singers, a swing band, modern dancers, a fireworks display, and the entire affair was hosted by a descendant of Leo Tolstoy who is apparently a television personality [View Full Entry]

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Three friends and I flew up to the Faroe Islands the weekend after the summer solstice. The Faroes are a small Danish protectorate and lie north of Scotland and east of Norway. They are well off the beaten tourist path -- sparsely populated with a changeable, chilly climate (doesn't get much warmer than 50 degrees Fahrenheit) and nearly around the clock daylight during the summer. We flew into the small international airport and got a bus to Torshavn, the capital, which is basically a small fishing port. We arranged to rent a car from a guy there and he met us [View Full Entry]

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For the first real holiday I've taken since I started working last fall (a whole week off!) I flew home to D.C. for a couple of days and then went on to the Mayan Riviera (south of Cancun and north of Playa del Carmen) in Mexico for the wedding of a good friend. We stayed at the El Dorado Royale and while I never would have chosen an all-inclusive luxury resort for myself as a holiday (for the same reasons a cruise has never really held much appeal) I have to say - I loved every minute of it. The resort [View Full Entry]

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Just on a whim, two friends in London and I decided to go to Barcelona for the weekend. None of us had been there before but I love Madrid and everyone raves about Barcelona so I knew we'd have a great time. We stayed very close to La Rambla and walked all over the city. I had booked a tour of the Picasso museum for Saturday and we really enjoyed that. It was fascinating to see his progression as an artist from a technically perfect classically trained style to the cubist method he pioneered later which made him famous. The museum [View Full Entry]

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I went to Madrid with a big group for a friend's 30th birthday and we had such a great time. It was a gorgeous, sunny early Spring weekend and although it wasn't a terribly cultural weekend in terms of museums and sightseeing (I've done most of that in Madrid before) it was very cultural in a stay out until 7 a.m. dancing with the locals kind of way. [View Full Entry]

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