As our journey through Southern Colorado was coming to an end, it was time to decide how we were going to get to the airport in Denver. That may not sound like such a big deal, but it turned out to be more difficult than one would expect. My initial plan was to return to Denver via a road that was not quite as far south as we had come, but would still be in the southern part of the…
Continue Reading “An Unexpected Stay in Glenwood Springs, Colorado”
My mom has always mentioned that she would love to see the Christmas markets in Europe. Given I’m still making up for missed trips due to COVID, I suggested that we make the journey to Europe this year to see some Christmas markets. My dad suggested Budapest and Prague. Of course perhaps I also wanted to go because I was turning 40 and felt like I deserved a special trip for my birthday. Ten years prior, for my 30th, I…
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Wednesday was our last day in Budapest. We would be leaving by train for Prague in the afternoon. We should have had another full day here, but as happens too often, I managed to be confused about the dates when I made the reservations. Since Andrea had been to Budapest before, she was more excited about visiting Prague so it worked out. Our train to Prague wasn’t leaving until 3:30 so we still had time to take in more of…
Continue Reading “A Morning in Budapest then a Train to Prague”
Monday was my 72nd birthday. It was also a travel day as we were to take a train to Madrid where we would leave Spain to fly home. However, our train didn’t leave until nearly 3:00 so there was still time in the morning to do a little more exploring of Granada. We headed out towards downtown again. We were headed to the University which we had been near the day before, but it had been closed. I thought we…
Continue Reading “Our European Journey Comes to an End in Spain”
The southern part of Spain is known as Andalusia. In many ways it is primarily an agricultural region. Historically what made it significant was that for many years it was under the rule of the Moors. The Moors were Muslims mostly from North Africa. They brought their own distinctive architecture into the region, the Moorish style. When Christians took over the region again, they changed some of the buildings such as turning mosques into churches. However, many buildings still remain…
Continue Reading “Looking for Moorish Architecture in the Alcazar and the Alhambra”
When we started talking about taking this European trip, my plan was to go east from Porto to the town of Salamanca, Spain. However, when it came time to schedule our trip, I realized that would be tricky. Instead I discovered that from Porto we could take a train all the way south through Portugal to the town of Faro. Faro was not a town on my radar. In fact I’m not sure I had ever heard of it before.…
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After struggling through three days of cold and rain in Belgium, it was a relief to wake up on Monday morning and see it was not raining. In fact there was actually some spots of blue sky. It was a great day to travel by train to Paris and see some sights including St. Chappel and the Arc de Triomphe. The train to Paris leaves from the Midi train station in Brussels. We didn’t want to miss the train so…
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Last year my daughter Andrea and I visited Bruges as part of our trip to see the tulips in The Netherlands. We had a fun and interesting time in this old city. This year as my wife and I were deciding where to visit in Europe, I felt like it would be good to take Silvette to Bruges as it had been such an interesting place to see. Originally I had thought we would go Friday, but the rain was…
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Having left Hong Kong behind us, we arrived in Taipei, Taiwan in mid-afternoon. While we arrived in the capital city, we were not going to stay there long. We would be going south to the city of Kaohsiung for most of our time in Taiwan. Following a meal at the church in Taipei, we participated in a church service that evening. When the service was over, we headed to the train station. We would be traveling by train to the…
While day one and day two were all spent fairly close to our hotel. On our third day we would venture further away from Taipei. While researching our trip, my daughter discovered information on an unusual place she decided we should explore. It was a cat village where cats are allowed to roam freely. The town’s actual name is Houtong. Houtong is located outside Taipei, but one can get there easily by train. We hopped on the usual looking subway…
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