October 14 marks the 12th anniversary of my very first blog post on this website. I mark this date as the start of my travel blog. My first post came almost a year and a half after registering the domain name for the website and 5 months before I actually turned over the keys to …
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 …
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 …
From the World Heritage inscription for La Lonja de la Seda de Valencia: Built between 1482 and 1533, this group of buildings was originally used for trading in silk (hence its name, the Silk Exchange) and it has always been a center for commerce. It is a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture. The grandiose Sala …
Being away from my home country for so long—I’ve been traveling the world since 2007—but it didn’t just amplify the pet peeves I had about America. This time away has also given me a greater appreciation of the things that are good about America. Whether you’re visiting the country or you lived here your entire …
Australia is among the wealthiest countries in the world, and it’s the sixth-largest country by land size. Don’t be fooled by the size, though, as the interior is sparsely populated, and most of the life is lived along the eastern and southern rim of the continent. That means when you’re planning a trip to Australia, …
Joshua Tree National Park is located in the Mojave Desert in Southern California, centered roughly between Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Diego. It gets its name from the Joshua Tree (Yucca brevifolia, seen above) which inhabits most of the park. Due to its remote location in the desert, Joshua Tree isn’t a popular national …
This the second installment in a series for my 4th Travelversay Celebration. One of my favorite activities is visiting the great museums of the world. Unlike my list of favorite cities which had a heavy Asia/Pacific bent, this list has a heavy European bent. The simple fact is, Europe has far better museums than Asia. …
Here is what has been happening on my US road trip the last few days and other odds and ends: With today’s daily photo, I have now caught up with my most recent World Heritage site. Carlsbad Caverns was my 106th World Heritage site and it only took 35 days to go from Italy to …