The Bold Soul: A Writer's Life in Paris

Quick photo update...

I'm almost out of wireless time here in Strasbourg but I managed to get photos uploaded to Flickr through Day 9 in Salzburg. So here is a quick link to ALL the photos taken so far... I created a collection over at Flickr and will be working on a permanent page here on the blog that will have links to the entire photo gallery plus the details of where I stayed and what I did (with links) in case you're planning to go to any of these places and want some tips. The Grand Tour Photo Gallery is here. I'll post another notice when I've got the rest of the photos uploaded here. Enjoy! Read more →

Kaleidoscope

The rose window, Cathedrale de Notre Dame in Strasbourg, France. Happened to get there yesterday, just as the full afternoon sunshine was coming through! One of the most beautiful rose windows I've seen, and the entire cathedral is very impressive. Read more →

All good things: Reflections on the end of the journey

I'm in Strasbourg, France this morning, giving myself permission for a slightly lazy morning as Strasbourg isn't very big and I don't want to run out of things to do later! So it's 9am, I'm still in bed and thinking about getting up now because my stomach is rumbling. It's Day 13. Tomorrow, I go home to Paris, via a bit of a detour in Reims. It's hard to believe I'm finally at the end of this trip! I won't say it's all been a blur because I have really been making the effort to be "in the moment" in each place and on each train, and just enjoy it for whatever it is. When you travel "lite" like this (a little of this and that in every new city, connected by hours of travel in between), it can be easy to have your experiences run one into the other, without any clear recollections or impressions. Taking a lot of digital photos and being able to review them every evening on my computer has helped with that. I didn't get to post as many of them online as I'd hoped, but that would have been more for other people's benefit... Read more →

View over old Salzburg

One of a million lies they told

The entrance to Dachau through which all prisoners had to march. The words translate to "Work makes you free" and was just one small piece of Nazi propoganda about how these were "work camps". This same slogan would appear later over the gates of Auschwitz and possible other camps as well. Dachau was just the first, as well as where the brutality of the SS was born and spread. The former SS training camp was just adjacent. Read more →

Raindrops on roses...

This was used as the lakeside location for filming some of the scenes in the movie, like the one where the children and Maria come along in the little rowboat and it tips over (little "Gretel" nearly drowned for real, as no one thought to realize a 5-year old probably couldn't SWIM! Luckily they pulled her out in time). The gazebo is in a city park space a few miles away - we saw that, too. Read more →

One of her favorite memories

This is the chapel that was built on the spot in Oberndorf, Austria, where Josef Mohr and Franz Gruber wrote and composed Stille Nacht (Silent Night). The original church is no longer there but this is built on the same site. It's very tiny and very quaint. This was one of the highlights of my grandmother's 1956 tour of Europe, so I made a special point of coming here. The town of Oberndorf is right on a river, and if you cross the bridge, you're in Germany. I took the Lokalbahn to get there - easy - but if you like to ride a bike you can bike there on the river bike paths in under an hour. Just watch out for wild boar in the woods; I actually spotted a group of them on the way back to Salzburg! Read more →

As romantic as it gets

Still on the road... Days 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Short Version)

Yes, I'm still alive. And definitely well! I'm in Munich now and finally have a half-way decent Internet connection; in Venice I had access but it wasn't great and I used it to check e-mail only, and in Salzburg I just couldn't get the connection to work. I took that to mean I wasn't supposed to be on-line, but enjoying myself. And I have! Because this is costing me by the hour, I'm going to keep it brief, and post just a photo or two more. When I get back to "real life" next week, I'll have blog-fodder ad nauseum to share about my travels, to the point where you will most likely be BEGGING me to write about Paris again. So here are the highlights: MILAN: You know about my experience at The Last Supper. Pity it wasn't more serene, but I'm glad I got to see it anyway. The Duomo: I was completely knocked off my feet at the sight of it! It is a masterpiece. Otherwise, there wasn't much that I could recommend about Milan; although in fairness more than half the restaurants in town were closed for summer holidays and maybe it's a better place to... Read more →

Making museum guardians irate all over Europe

I put up with a lot of verbal abuse over this photo. I'm not in the least bit sorry. I paid $28.00 to be in the space for less than 15 minutes, at least 10 of which where wasted by the room's guardian who was arguing with me about my camera. That being said, this is just amazing to behold. And I'm sorry but Dan Brown is right: "John" does look an awful lot like he could be a "Mary". And that disembodied hand with the knife that the "authorities" claim belongs to Peter? He would've had to have his arm at an angle that is physically impossible. Read more →