Palau de la Música Catalana and Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona

Palau de la Música Catalana and Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona

From the World Heritage inscription for the Palau de la Música Catalana and Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona: These are two of the finest contributions to Barcelona’s architecture by the Catalan art nouveau architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner. The Palau de la Música Catalana is an exuberant steel-framed structure full of light and space and …

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Cambodia Calendar Update

I was doing some house cleaning and I realized I never posted a postscript to the Skull the Troll calendar Scott Kurtz and I created back in December of 2009. If you remember waaaaaay back before Christmas, we sold a 2010 calendar of photos I’ve taken of Skull the Troll around the world, to help …

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How to Visit the Best Gaudi Architecture in Barcelona

The Architecture and Works of Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona

Antoni Gaudí is almost synonymous with Barcelona. The architect was a visionary with an outsized impact on the architecture and building technology of the early 20th century. La Sagrada Familia is Gaudí’s signature building in Barcelona, and it’s been under construction for almost 130 years. Despite the size and scope of this basilica, it’s not …

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Eating Our Way Through Valencia

This guest post is written by Lillie Marshall who blogs at AroundTheWorldL.com. We traveled together for about a week in the Valencia Region of Spain in April, 2010. All photos used here were taken by Lillie. Stalking Gary As I stared at the sixth course of our third five-star dinner in Spain, I realized: this …

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The Opposite of Travel

If travel evokes images of moving from place to place and seeing new things without a care in the world, then what I’ve been doing during the last two week since I’ve gotten back to the US has to be the opposite of travel. I’ve been living in my parents basement, visiting my father in …

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Vizcaya Bridge

Vizcaya Bridge

From the World Heritage inscription for the Vizcaya Bridge: Vizcaya Bridge straddles the mouth of the Ibaizabal estuary, west of Bilbao. It was designed by the Basque architect Alberto de Palacio and completed in 1893. The 45-m-high bridge with its span of 160 m, merges 19th-century ironworking traditions with the then-new lightweight technology of twisted …

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Baggage Autopsy: A review of the stuff I carry

I’m back in the US sitting in a makeshift office on a folding table in my parent’s basement amongst my boxed up former possessions. It makes a good opportunity to review the what, why and how’s of all the crap I carry with me. It normally isn’t something worth talking about, but the last few …

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My Transatlantic Hospital Odyssey

I’m writing this from the waiting room of the hospital my father is in. My trip back to Wisconsin is finally over. Getting here involved closed airports, four canceled flights, a delayed flight which almost caused me to miss my connection, a missing bag and a ridiculously priced car rental. Lets just say US Air …

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Palmeral of Elche

Palmeral of Elche UNESCO World Heritage Site, Spain

From the Palmeral of Elche World Heritage inscription for the Palmeral of Elche: The Palmeral of Elche, a landscape of groves of date palms, was formally laid out, with elaborate irrigation systems, at the time the Muslim city of Elche was erected, towards the end of the tenth century A.C., when much of the Iberian …

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