We had second-to-last-row seats at the Opera Garnier to see La Source ballet on Christmas Eve. The building, which we’d previously toured, as well as the ballet were magnificent. I felt so fortunate to be there. Laurel loved seeing a ballet that was not The Nutcracker. (She was sick of The Nutcracker after rehearsing it…
We (Ok, “I”) wanted to see The Sound of Music sites in Salzburg but had limited time. We also wanted to walk around the old town a bit more and see the house where Mozart was born. We enjoyed looking in the store windows and seeing traditional Austrian clothes – the dresses like you see women…
We stayed in an apartment in Vienna (Wien – Did you know Wiener just means someone or something from Vienna? How did I never know that? It doesn’t seem quite so snicker-worthy now…actually, yes it does.) from December 19-22, having taken a taxi there from Budapest. We liked it, but in hindsight I would have…
Above: Chain Bridge over the Danube River on December 17 Below: We took the funicular up the hill and happened to arrive just in time to watch the changing of the guard at Buda Palace. (The people in the crowd are attempting to keep the sun out of their eyes; they’re not saluting.)…
On Monday, December 15, our same taxi driver from the day before picked us up at our 17th century, Krakow townhouse and drove us a few miles outside the city limits to the town of Wieliczka where a salt mine has been in operation for 700 years, ceasing most activity about 15 years ago. Since…
I’m sitting in the small lobby of our Salzburg inn where I can use the wifi. I’ll have to catch up the blog with the other posts when we return to Paris. We took a 2 1/2-hour train from Vienna to Salzburg today and, after checking into our hotel, walked across the Salzach River on…
I had been dreading going to Auschwitz although it was one of the main reasons we came to Poland. I felt obligated to try to get a sense of what happened there, but I was afraid I might have nightmares for a while. The buildings that remain and the museums they house at Auschwitz and…
This is going back in time a bit, but here are some sightseeing photos from Friday when we had all day to see more of Prague before our 10:26 pm train. Charlie’s favorite travel guide, Samantha Brown, came here to the Imperial Cafe. She talks about a tray of stale doughnuts that people can throw…
I’m pretty sure R.E.M.’s 1991 song is about the Poles…or not. We arrived in Krakow from Prague Saturday morning on an overnight train that started off badly. And it’s unfair of me to point to the Poles’ grumpiness, as the Czechs are none too sparkly themselves. It was a Czech conductor/ticket taker who tried to make…
I have to keep reminding myself as we walk around Prague/Praha (not sure why we call it Prague since they call it Praha) that it’s all real – legitimately old and not the Las Vegas version. At least two of the churches we’ve seen were built more than a century before Columbus set sail. There…
Travels with Charlie and Laurel 