We just returned from a week in Medjugorje. That is one very special place. Kate found a tour group from the U.S. who said that we could join them in Frankfurt. For a very reasonable price, we got a round trip flight to Split, Croatia, a three hour bus ride to Medjugorje in Bosnia & Herzegovina, a nice room and breakfast and dinner each day. The group was led by Steve Shawl of www.medjugorje.org, who has been conducting these tours to Medjugorje for the past 13 years. We were fortunate in that just as we were signing up to go, [View Full Entry]

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VERDUN “They had conquered a notorious hill. They had lived in trenches that had been alternately French and German. These trenches sometimes lay filled with bodies in different stages of decomposition. They were once men in the prime of their lives, but had fallen for the possession of this hill. This hill, that was partly built on dead bodies already. A battle after which they lay rotting, fraternally united in death….” (Georges Blond - Verdun) It was a cold, wet, and foggy day when I drove into Verdun. It is hard to imagine that in the 10 sq Km. (a [View Full Entry]

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There is no way that either Kate or I would have ever imagined that we would be spending our 39th wedding anniversary in Warsaw, Poland but due to an airfare special from a German airlines that is exactly where we landed on our anniversary. Warsaw, being the capital of Poland, is a large city. According to Wikipedia, the city area is 516.9 square kilometers (199.6 sq mi). It is the eighth largest city in the European Union. Fortunately, most of what we wanted to see centered around Warsaw’s old town and relatively new downtown sections. There is so much to see [View Full Entry]

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Česky Krumlov is definitely one of the most picturesque sites we have ever visited. Česky Krumlov is a charming medieval town located in southern Czech Republic near the Austrian border. Sitting amidst the Vltava River, this quaint town boasts an abundance of culture, history, and adventure, and good food and beer. You can wander aimlessly through the cobblestone, traffic free streets and enjoy the colorful houses that line them. Eating or just enjoying a drink at one of its many restaurants is truly a treat as many of them have outdoor patios, which overlook postcard views of the [View Full Entry]

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For a place that really is really only open for about 8 weeks a year and especially if you love spring flowers, and more especially tulips, there's no place better than De Keukenhof not far from the village of Lisse, The Netherlands, southwest of Amsterdam. This remarkable park is transformed every spring into a dazzling, ever-changing display of tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocuses, lilies, amaryllis, and many other flowers. There are also flowering shrubs, ancient trees and countless natural surprises, as well as themed gardens to explore and pavilions filled with displays, and of cour [View Full Entry]

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This past weekend we had the opportunity to visit the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) in Hexxenagger, a village about 80 miles SE of where we live and just north of Munich. This has to be the best Christmas Market we have ever been to, even in the rain. The various craftsmen working on their wares and just the ambiance of having the market on the castle grounds just made everything perfect. With the smells of the various foods the vendors were preparing wafting through the grounds and the sounds of music and children laughing made for a great day. We are [View Full Entry]

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Kate and I had the opportunity to visit Strasbourg a few weeks ago. For a town that is over 2000 years old (the first mention of this city dates back to 12 B.C.), Strasbourg looked extremely well preserved. The old town is located on an island, which is surrounded by beautiful rivers and canals. Strasbourg sits at the confluence of the Bruche and Ill rivers and it sits across the Rhine River from Germany. It boasts one of the world’s most stunning cathedrals and its streets, including the Petite France neighborhood, are right out of a fairy tale. Situated on the [View Full Entry]

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It was a warm and sunny day when we arrived. There were a lot of people who arrived about the same time we did, all talking quietly to each other, wondering what this place was really like, trying to imagine…. The only difference was that we were arriving by car, not jammed into a rail car like so many who arrived here over 60 years ago to the infamous concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. We were there as tourists, not like the million and half men, women, and children who were slaughtered, many within a short time after their arrival. [View Full Entry]

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According to medieval legend, ‘Before Rome, Trier stood one thousand and three hundred years’. However, according to recorded history, Trier’s history begins around the middle of the first century B.C., when a guy by the name of Julius Caesar conquered Gaul (France, Belgium, Luxemburg and some portions of the Netherlands and Germany) in 51 B.C. and integrated the Moselle Region into the Roman Empire. Not only is Trier Germany’s oldest city, but also it was the “Rome of the North” and, in its heyday in the 4th century A.D., as important and splendid as R [View Full Entry]

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The last weekend of August Kate and I spent the weekend in Aachen, Germany attending some of the World Equestrian Games. The two-weeklong games are held every four years in a different country. In 2010 the games will be held in Kentucky. I would advise anyone thinking of attending that they start seeing about tickets. We bought our tickets in late January, seven months before the games, and all the seating for the finals were sold out. The World Equestrian Games are the Olympics of the equestrian world. What was interesting is that the games consisted a good number of events [View Full Entry]

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