Blogs from Europe - page 11731

I've been going pretty much non-stop for the last five or six days. I can't sleep well and I've been doing so much that I haven't stopped to write down a thing. Well, and while that's not entirely true, I would really prefer to reorganize my thoughts before jotting them down in this little forum. Bacco, God of Wine, was worshipped this weekend at the Medeval Festival in Monteveglio and I had an incredible experience. I was immersed in rich culture and thrown in with all the young people in the town- who after hours and hours of drinking seemed to forget that I was the American girl, and its been a blast. There is a girl Ilaria that I've made good friends with. She is an artist and we have lots of passions in common. ... read more

Our day started off with a guided city tour of Prague. Our guide, Eva, took us first to the Strahov Monastery located on Petrin Hill just past the Prague Castle area. The monastery, built in 1140 by Prince Vladislav II, was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in a gothic style in 1258. We took some photos of the outside of the monastery and then headed to the Loreto, a baroque church from the 17th century. At the end of the block was a statue of Edvard Benes, the second President of the Czech Republic. We toured the inside of the Loreto but were unable to take photographs inside. After the Loreto we headed to the Prague Castle area, first walking through Hrydcany Square with Schwarzenberg Palace, the Plague Statue (or statue of the Virgin Mary), and ... read more

We arrived via train in Madrid and both assumed it would be large, and not very pleasing to the eye. It was completely the opposite. Madrid is a huge city with every building being enormous and beautiful. There are tons of fountains and squares to walk around and parks at each end of the city. The police are very abundant and cleaning crews are out all day everyday sweeping and cleaning the streets. There are tons of tapas bars, wine bars and restaurants on every corner and very charming side streets filled with apartments. Our hotel is right in the heart of downtown on the 5th floor of a building that was built in 1890. Our room is about 12 by 13 feet but you can't beat the location. The Museum Reina Sofia was amazing ... read more

I have not traveled and/or done much interesting lately, just worked, so not a lot to report; however, today, I took the bus to Moscow. It was suppose to take one hour instead of two hours by train, well, it took me 2.5 hours to get to the train station, which is where I needed to be at to meet the friends I met on the cruise in January. The seats were more comfortable, but the trip was just as long, and had it been hot, there would have been no air condition so I think I am going to stick with the train since you can better plan the time. Speaking of hot, it has been excellent here. The past couple of days, I had to shut all of the windows as it was ... read more

So my time in Scotland is over unfortunately. Overall it was a great time, and a beautiful country. I spent Friday night in Edinburgh and then got up bright and early to catch the bus back to Glasgow. I didn't really feel like spending my last day in Scotland in the city, but I also had no idea where a good day trip would be. Since I didn't really feel like going back to the hostel to research options I decided to catch the next bus out of Glasgow and see where it took me. I ended up in Loch Lomond, a really popular lake in Scotland. But really, that's all there is there....I literally got dropped off on the side of the highway at this lake with absolutely nothing around. About 10 minutes into ... read more