Arch and Amanda's Travel Blog

Ripley, Ohio

2020-05-29T14:40:00.001-04:00

So this post is a little different. This trip wasn't a typical vacation for us as we've been to Ripley a lot, but what is different this time is that we were here because we're purchasing a house to turn into an AirBnB! The trip also took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, so we were working while on vacation for this one. We still managed to have a lot of fun, and there's a lot to see in this area. Hopefully, you'll consider taking this trip as well!

Ripley is a small Ohio river village in Brown County. Historically it's important because it was an early stop on the Underground Railroad. You can still visit the Rankin House, a national historic landmark where Presbyterian Minister, John Rankin, helped enslaved people escape slavery. It's also where Colonel Charles Young lived, who was the first black man to achieve the rank of Colonel in the U.S. Army. In short, it's got some cool history.

Right along the Ohio River, Ripley is a lovely village in Brown County, OH.

The unassuming Rankin House sits atop Liberty Hill in Ripley. Be sure not to miss it!

There's a small downtown that's pretty charming and comes with some great antiquing. There's also a good diner, pizza place, and some other dining options to check out. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays also feature a flea market that's pretty fun to visit.

Great antiquing here!

Lots of historic homes along the main drag on the water.

The downtown is really pretty.

Another nice little shop to stop in.

My favorite bar down here, Snapper's Saloon.

It comes with great outdoor seating and a great view of the river, so you can be safe from COVID while enjoying the view!

The flea market is another fun diversion downtown. It's open Fri-Sun.

Tons of stuff to rummage through! We got some records and games for the house.

Definitely the best pizza in town - Giovani's Pizza.

Twins Diner is really good too. Nothing fancy, just good diner food. I recommend the Philly Cheesesteak!

Cohearts Riverhouse is probably the nicest restaurant in town. They were doing carryout while we were there because of COVID-19.

Check out these delicious ribs!

Another cool part about the village is that it's very close to a great stop on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, the Old Pogue Distillery, which has been around since the 1800s.

Old Pogue is only 15 minutes away!

Definitely a good bottle of bourbon. Be sure to schedule a tour ahead of time!

Where all the magic happens...

You can also visit a couple of wineries nearby, the Meranda-Nixon Winery (about 15 minutes North) and the Kinkead Ridge Winery right downtown.

The vinyard at Meranda-Nixon.

Stop in for a tasting and get a bottle to enjoy with a cheese and meat tray!

Speaking of the downtown, one of our favorite things to do is walk along the river near sunset. There are some beautiful historic homes along the way and lots of them have historical signs outside that talk about their histories.

Beautiful sunset the evening we went for a walk!

Also some beautiful historic homes to check out along the walk.

Charles Young, the first black Colonel in the U.S. Army, had a home here for many years as well.

There's also a park dedicated to John P. Parker, a former enslaved person who bought his freedom and became an industrialist and Underground Railroad conductor. You can see his home there as well.

Jetti, our beagle, loves the walk!

You'll also see a lot of Purple Martin houses (and Purple Martins) along the walk!

The best part of the trip, however, is spending time at the house my grandparents have (which we are turning into an AirBnB!) The house and the 23 acres that it sits on have been in the family my whole life, and my brother and I have really fond memories of visiting. I love hunting and hiking through the woods there. It's really a beautiful spot with a great view of the river. Check it out!

The best feature of the house is the view of the Ohio River!

The cabin itself is two bedrooms with a sleeper in the living room, so it sleeps six.

Great views from the inside as well!

There's a great wrap-around porch to enjoy the views from as well.

The living room comes with the views too, along with some great seating for lounging with family and friends.


One of my favorite ways to relax and enjoy the view is the hammock on the hill.

The best part of the property, though, is the woods. As previously mentioned, there are 23 acres attached to the property and trails throughout. It's full of wildlife as well.

Beautiful wooded hill right behind the property.

There are trails throughout the property both along the creek and going up to the top of the hill.

Beautiful waterfall.

There's a creek that runs along the West side of the property.

I almost stepped on this little guy, thankfully his bright colors stand out!

I saw deer all over the place on the property and love hunting there, but this is definitely the youngest fawn (probably less than a week old?!) that I have ever seen! Mom did come back to get it, don't worry!

This is from a couple years ago when my buddy Aaron and I went hunting down there. The plan is to rent out to hunters as well, so if you're into that sort of thing then this is the place to be!

The most exciting thing about this trip, of course, is that you can take it anytime you want! The AirBnB will be available to rent starting July 1, 2020. You can find the listing on AirBnB here. Book your next trip soon! You won't regret it.

Spain - Barcelona

2020-03-02T15:01:00.002-05:00

After spending time in Madrid and Toledo, we traveled to our third city: Barcelona. It was roughly a three-hour train ride on their high-speed train, but the time passed quickly and the views were great. Once we got there, we headed straight for the first item on our to-do list: La Sagrada Familia.

Gaudí's creation, the Sagrada Familia, has been under construction since 1882.

The outside leaves you understanding what people mean when they say something is gaudy.

Inside is a different story.

Gaudí wanted to reflect nature on the inside, so there are very few religious artifacts that you'd normally find in a cathedral like this one.

There are beautiful stained glass windows, with the Eastern ones resembling the morning blue haze.

The ones on the Western side reflect the setting sun's orange glow. Also, the columns are built to resemble trees.

We paid a quick visit to the Arc de Triumf next to check it out.

After that we checked out La Rambla, the long street featuring lots of shopping and dining, which is largely overpriced.

Finally, we took the bus home. I'll mention too that we got a three-day travel pass for the bus and trains. It was definitely worth it, as Barcelona is a lot less walkable than Madrid seemed to be.

The next day we decided to take a day trip to Montserrat, which means "serrated mountain," and which is home to a monastery on the hill. First, we got some breakfast though.

Brunch and Cake's "Mangolicious" cocktail was definitely delicious.

Their interpretation of Eggs Benedict and French Toast. Also both wonderful.

The best way to get to Montserrat that we researched was taking the train to the cable car station and taking that up to the top.

Looking up from the cable car station.

Getting loaded up.

Looking down.

And further down...

Once at the top, there's a lot to do. We got something to eat first as the train ride took about an hour, then we went and checked out the basilica.

Simple lunch of chicken, pasta, and potatoes from the cafeteria, but good.

The heart of Catalan Catholicism: Montserrat Basilica.

Inside the basilica, where there was eventually a service featuring the boys' choir.

Probably my favorite piece of artwork, this head was outside the atrium.

Next, we checked out the museum, which featured some really great artists.

Amanda in her happy place again.

A Carravagio.

An early Picasso... who knew he was a realistic artist first? I had forgotten that if I knew it...

After Montserrat, we visited another of Gaudí's works: the Park Guell. This park was designed by him and was supposed to be a planned community, although it never quite made it that far. Now it's a cool park that you can visit.

Full disclosure: we were too lazy to figure out exactly where the tickets were being sold (after being told multiple times that they were sold around the corner), so this is the only view we have of the real Gaudíí-inspired stuff. It was close enough for us though, and you can also theoretically buy tickets online.

This is the home where Gaudí lived for about 20 years and which was also the model home for the community he hoped would be here.

It's a lovely park on top of all of the Gaudí stuff, so I'd still recommend checking it out even if you don't go down to the other part.

After all of the travel, we were hungry, so it was time to eat. We got a light dinner in the hopes of doing some more tapas later on that evening.

Just a sandwich and some cheese and wine for now...

Up next, we went back into town to check out the Gothic Quarter, an older part of the city that features some interesting architecture and feels more like an old city than the other parts of Barcelona. We got some dessert, although along the way we ran into a protest.

I'm not sure exactly what they were protesting, but they were pretty upset about it.

Typical street in the Gothic Quarter.

We asked the waiter if the pannacotta or another dessert was better, and he replied that the tiramisu was best, so we got that and the pannacotta.

View of the restaurant.

There were a lot of cool shops in this area, like this one featuring cool artwork.

We had some time to kill, so we went to a hookah bar for some shisha and tea.

Just a cool restaurant's picture I took.

The highlight of the night though was going to a jazz club and seeing an amazing band.

The Jamboree is definitely a live music venue I'd recommend.

This band was amazing, and the woman was one of the best jazz singers I've ever heard. Amazing voice and she plays trombone to boot.

The next day we woke up with precious few plans, so we did a lot of googling ideas of things we wanted to see, including breakfast. We had stopped by Brunch and Cake again, but it was so crowded that we tried another spot. Thankful we did, because they had possibly even better Eggs Benedict (which I obviously love, if you can't tell).

Breakfast in Barcelona.

The next thing Amanda wanted to do was visit the Picasso Museum, which I have to admit was pretty neat.

After that, we decided to visit the beach.

Obviously a little cold for a swim, although a few brave souls were trying.

Still, beautiful views though.

The happy couple.

Up next, we visisted the St. Joseph's Market, La Bouqueria, which is like 2nd Street Market but on steroids. Tons of great food in here. We got some cubed steak, ham, and empanadas for lunch.

Fresh game!

Obviously, ham.

Seafood too.

After this, Amanda wanted some dessert, so we stopped in what is probably the only craft beer place in Spain. The beer really left something to be desired most places for me, but this place was awesome.

Check out Beer'linale if you're ever in Barcelona!

This imperial stout was excellent. And Catalunyan.

The dessert was also not too shabby.

After dessert we checked out the Casa Mila, another Gaudí work that's actually being used!

I am not sure but this seemed like a Gaudí as well.

So next, we kind of ran out of ideas, so I started googling and discovered there's such a thing as an ice bar (Ice Barcelona) there with a bar made completely out of ice! Is it a gimmick? Yes. Did Amanda make fun of me for wanting to go? Of course. Did she humor me? Thankfully. And that's why we're a good couple.

Amanda willing herself to have fun in an ice bar.

Look - Jaws!

Even the glasses are made of ice!!! I had a Rocketman.

Looks, it's that scary clown!

Other sucker tourists.

Even Indiana Jones!

And King Kong!

After having way too much fun there, we went back to the bnb for a bit. Then we went out for one more nice dinner.

We got the "tasting menu" and the first thing to come out was a ham salad, which had some delicious ham on it. The salad part I could do without.

This was delicious, I don't even remember what it was though.

Some scallops, which were great as well.

The main dish was the steak, which was excellent.

Finally some Catalan cream wrapped up dessert... it's like a lighter, fluffier creme brulee for me. Delicious.

Finally took one last stroll through the Gothic Quarter, then it was time to get to bed so we could get up at 4:30am for our early flight.

Spain was awesome, and I definitely can't wait to go back. The blending of cultures there and the history is everywhere, and it's one of the only non-English speaking places where I actually have been that I somewhat know the language (at least a tiny bit). Really glad we got to do this trip together, and can't wait for the next one!

Spain - Toledo

2020-03-02T13:38:00.004-05:00

From Madrid, Toledo is just a short train ride away (30 minutes), and it's totally worth spending a day there. It's a place where you get to see the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian influence all in one place. The city has has definitely had a wide range of influence, from Roman to each of the three Abrahamic faiths. You can even see a part of a Roman road while you're there.

There's a beautiful train station in Madrid...

It's even cooler inside, with its own greenhouse.

The train ride is only 30 minutes, like nothing!

Once you arrive in Toledo, it's easy to get into town with just a short walk, which I'd recommend doing instead of a cab or something.

A beautiful fortified city on a hill awaits... it looks like something out of Game of Thrones.

The bridge dates from Roman times and was remodeled by Islamic and Christian rulers as well.

Once in town, you can hop from one place to another pretty easily walking through the old city. Our first stop was Alcazar de Toledo.

Goes all the way back to Roman times, check out more about its history here.

After that we checked out a catapult museum that had a dungeon in it!

Cool museum with lots of information.

Lots of catapults in here... I'll save you all of the photos I took of them.

There's even a dungeon!

This would have sucked...

So THAT'S why they call it a battering ram!

We checked out the Santa Iglesia Cathedral next, which is the largest and most important one in the city.

The entrance for worshippers.

Built in the 13th century, this is a Gothic cathedral with a fascinating history.

The inside is pretty ornate.

St. Ursala, the maiden saint who stood up to Atilla the Hun, is in the crypt.

Next we checked out the Juderia Districa, or Jewish District. Most of what survives from Islamic and Jewish influence was turned into a church at some point in its history after the Reconquista, when Christian forces pushed Muslims and Jews out of Spain.

The Sephardic Museum, which outlines Jewish history in Spain.

Interestingly, you can see Islamic influences inside, like you can in the other Jewish synagogues.

Amanda and I looking at the synagogue in what used to be the women's gallery.

We grabbed lunch next, playing a game of Mus beforehand.

Playing mus in Spain!

Would definitely recommend this place.

We got a really great pork dish, unsurprisingly.

Up next we checked out the Sinagoguge de Santa Maria Blanca, which seems strange until you realize that it's a repurposed synagogue that survived the Reconquista by becoming a church.

Once again, the Islamic influence on the synagogue is obvious.

...as is the post-Jewish Christian influence.

We checked out the Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes next, which is a 15th-century monastery built by Isabella and Ferdinand.

It's not an active monastery, in fact that stopped a while ago.

Inside is a pretty beautiful cloister.

Next up, we checked out a mosque, the Mezquita de Cristo La Luz, which also survived by becoming (what else) a church.

The facade is definitely Islamic influenced.

So is the inside. It sits on top of a Roman road and cistern.

Over the centuries though the Christians definitely left their mark.

We were hungry and needed a bathroom, so we checked out a restaurant for some dessert and a much-needed break.

They brought out some complimentary palate-cleansing sorbet before the desserts came.

I got to try my first rum old fashioned, which was delicious and came with chocolate for some reason. I'm not complaining.

Mmm... good.

I got a souffle and Amanda got some flan. Both were amazingly good.

Up next, Amanda wanted to do some sketching, so we found a nice spot for drinks with a good view near Alcazar and settled in for a bit.

Amanda in her element. Check out her artwork at amandagrieve.com.

The view from the top.

The subject of her first sketch.

My view with my Manhattan.

Finally, it was time to head home. I would definitely recommend this day trip, and we would probably consider staying there longer, but more was left to do in Madrid, so ultimately I'm glad we stayed there and just did a day trip. Can't wait to see it again sometime!

Last but not least: Barcelona is next.

Spain - Madrid

2020-03-02T08:08:00.000-05:00

So it's been a while, but Amanda and I finally took another international trip that was just the two of us. I think our last one of those was Italy. We decided on Spain because we both speak un poco de Spanish, Amanda wanted to see the artwork, and I love ham, so it seemed like a perfect getaway, and it was!

Delicious ham and bacon for breakfast at the little Bar Horreo close to where we were staying.

The trip started off well travel-wise in that all of our flights managed to be on time and we made all our connections, a miracle considering we were going through Chicago in February. We got to Madrid, found our AirBnB, and were allowed an early check-in, so we headed straight for the Prado after breakfast.

Amanda standing outside her art heaven.

So for me, I got to see some famous paintings, which was really cool. For Amanda, she was in art heaven, which seemed to be how she felt the entire time she was in any of the (many) art museums we visited. Eventually, we came up with a system whereby she would bo through at her own pace and check out everything, scope out the ones she thought I'd want to see, then after a few hours she would play tour guide to me and I would check them out. For this first one though we found some of the really famous ones first together, so I got to see Las Meninas, De Goya's May 2nd and May 3rd paintings, and his "Black Paintings," among others. Unfortunately, there are no pictures allowed in the Prado. After that, I left Amanda in the museum to meet up later while I went exploring.

Street performers... street performers everywhere! Good ones too.

I walked around near the Prado a lot, checked out the Retiro Park and stopped in some cafes. I didn't realize how bad my Spanish had gotten until trying to communicate, but thankfully Google Translate, which I had downloaded ahead of time, was my savior. My first stop while exploring was at the Museo del Jamon (or "ham museum"), which was closer to my own personal heaven than the Prado.

Lovely fountain in front of a bar I checked out, which was also lovely and had great empanadas.

The "Ham Museum"

Complete with its own ham cutting expert.

It was delicious... I ate way too much.

Up next I picked up a deck of cards. It sounds funny, but this is actually the only souvenir I was looking for. Spain has its own deck of cards that you can use to play a game called Mus. We've been playing with a friend, Julio, who is from Spain, for the past couple of months, and we wanted our own decks, so it was cool to get those from Spain. Plus they didn't take up too much room, which was good as we managed to only pack personal items for the entire trip.

Front right you can see my new Mus deck! It's a really fun game, you should check it out.

After we met back up, we booked our train from Madrid to Barcelona back at the bnb. We flew into Madrid and were flying out of Barcelona, as a high-speed train connects the two and it just made the most sense. We also booked a trip to Toledo, which is its own post.

Up next we did some walking around, crossing of some things on our list of what we wanted to see and just exploring the city.

There were delicious pastries and food taunting us from all sorts of windows.

Who knew the home of the good burger is actually Madrid?

The Puerta Del Sol.

At the Plaza Mayor.

I just thought this was cool....

Tapas!

Amanda discovered that she's kind of OK with olives in Spain.. the uneaten one are mine as I recognized that I don't like olives in any country.

Would definitely recommend this little wine and tapas place.

Found a nice little hookah bar to do my journaling in the evenings.

That ended day one, and day two was Toledo, which I'll do in a second post, but we had dinner on day two back in Barclona and went tapas-bar hopping. We started out at Txakolina and Txirimiri.

Actually, first we stopped on the street to get some churros, which were delicious.

Freshly made...

Amanda approves.

Salmon at Txakolina... mmmm......

Choices were difficult, even if they are small plates.

This was like a tandoori chicken almost.

That's Brie on top of mixed vegetables... delicious.


This is called pinxto de tortilla, which I think has potato in it. It was delicious too. I also found out here that Spaniards seem to love drinking straight vermouth. It's OK, but not exactly my thing.

After all this I took Amanda on a wild goose chase to find Flamenco music. We did finally find a place, but they were done for the evening, so we got the times checked and showed up the next day.

For our second full day in Madrid (and last day there) Amanda started off at the Reina Sofia, a modern/contemporary art museum. I went off exploring again and did quite a bit of walking. Along the way three people asked me for directions, and they were all Spanish! I felt honored.

I started my exploring by walking all the way to the municipal Museum of Madrid, which is nice as it's one of the only free ones I encountered. You can find some cool artwork, but more interestingly to me it tells the story of Madrid going from a backcountry "capital" to a truly cosmopolitan city. It really only capitalized (pun intended) on its central location within the country after the introduction of the train system. It's a nice little museum, especially for the price. I also walked down the Calle de Fuencarral, which is a pretty big shopping area that you may want to check out if you're into that scene.

Breakfast was at Bar Horreo again, where we both got the potato-heavy Spanish omelet. It was really good.

The Reina Sofia.

Amanda in art heaven again.

I went through town and did some exploring.

Lots of cool buildings and shops.

This was one of the places someone asked me to help them find their bnb.

My initial quest was to go see the Plaza de Dos Mayo, or May 2nd plaza. It's just a park with a statue though, so I wouldn't say it was totally worth the walk. Check out this picture instead.

Another view at the May 2nd Plaza.

The outside of the municipal Madrid Museum. No pictures allowed inside.

Next I went back to meet up with Amanda, where she showed me the highlights, like Picasso's Guernica (no pics allowed of that one). After that we stopped for lunch.

A Salvador Dalí.

A Picasso.

The Great Masturbator, a Dalí.

I thought this was cool... on one side the eye is closed...

But stand on the other side and it's open!

Calder's work, who did work with kinetic sculpture. If you know local artist Terry Welker, it's much like what he does as he was an inspiration for him.

Up next we took a long walk to the other side of town, through the Plaza Mayor and to the Mercado de San Miguel, where you can find all kinds of fresh food and tapas. Unfortunately, we weren't as hungry, but you can see how amazing the food looks!

After some dessert, we wanted to go see the Pallacio, but first we came across the Cathedral de Santa Maria la Real de la Almuneda, which stands just opposite of the palace, so we stopped in there first. It's a beautiful gothic cathedral complete with a crypt.

The Almuneda Cathedral.

Inside the cathedral.

A view of the Pallacio.

We decided against going in because of the line.

At this point I had gotten my steps in for today and tomorrow....

Finally, we reached our destination: Ermita de San Antonia de la Florida, the chapel where De Goya is buried and where the beginning of the end of Carnaval takes place. We witnessed the beginning of the "Entierro de La Sardina," or the burying of the sardine. This takes place each year to wrap up the festivities, and it was a pretty fun event, even though everyone pretends to be in mourning for the sardine.

Me with a "mourner" and the "sardine."

Mourners weeping over the fish.

Bands come out and play for occasion.

They also get some large statues for the parade.

Ok I don't know who these guys are, but they showed up right before it started in a large bus wearing tuxes, holding drinks and cigars, and brought the sardine with them. I want to be them.

It's the sardine!

Before the march they must address the crowd in front of De Goya's statue.

NBD, just showing off the sardine.

Finally time to get going.

Finally to round out our experience in Madrid, we went to a Flamenco show. We saw the Flamenco Essential Show, and I can definitely recommend it. The performers were amazing, and I don't know exactly how to describe the music, but it's definitely percussive, which I love. I don't just mean drums - in fact all they had was a box for a "drum," - but their entire bodies. I don't know that, as a drummer myself, that my hands can move as fast as their feet. Probably not. The dancers were amazing, and what intrigued me the most about it was that you definitely get a sense of the blending of cultures that's at the heart of Spanish culture. The singer sounds like he's doing a call to prayer, so I looked it up and there's definitely an Islamic influence in Flamenco, which I didn't know.

The band was amazing.

The dancers even more so.

Definitely check out a show while you're there!

After that we decided to hunt down some tapas for our final time remaining in Madrid. We found a bar called El Tres, which is cool because Tres is my nickname, so we had to stop.

El Tres... and the other El Tres.

We just got some delicious ham...

Madrid was playing a soccer... sorry, football, match as well.

We also stopped in El Sur before heading in for the night.

We had a good risotto there, although it was kind of cold to be honest.

So it's funny, but with the number of people who speak English in Spain vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina, I found it easier to communicate in BiH than in Spain, in spite of knowing more of the language in Spain. That said, everyone was really friendly and we didn't really have any major miscommunication issues or anything.

That's it for Madrid! Definitely a fun time and loved being there. Would do it again! Next up: Toledo and Barcelona.

Bosnia & Hercegovina Trip Part III - Mostar

2016-07-17T14:33:00.000-04:00

The view from the top of the Koski Mehmed-Pasha Mosque in Mostar. It was well worth the climb.

Day 6 - July 6

We traveled from Banja Luka to Mostar by bus, a trip that took approximately six hours (including a quick bite for lunch). Matt had promised us that the five-hour trip would feature some breathtaking scenery, and what we saw did not disappoint, especially when we actually arrived in the city.

Political Background - Skip ahead if you're just here for the pictures!

The last stop on our trip was Mostar, a city that gets its name from its famous bridge. More specifically, it gets its name from the soldiers who guarded that bridge under the Ottoman Empire, the "mostari," or bridge-keepers. The Neretva river cuts through the middle of the city, and there are a number of bridges all along the way, but the most famous is the Stari Most, which most people refer to as the "Old Bridge." It was built during the Ottoman Empire and for many years served as Bosnia and Herzegovina's primary symbol. Unfortunately, the original was destroyed during the Bosnian War in 1993. During this time the city was bitterly divided as Croats and Bosniaks turned on one another after President Tudjman of Croatia struck a deal with Slobodan Milosevic to carve up BiH after the war. As a result of fighting between all three groups, the city bears the dubious distinction of having suffered more destruction than any other city during the war. As I mentioned in a previous post, few sacred objects were left untouched, and the famous (Serb) Orthodox Church was destroyed by the Croat/Bosniak Federation.

Today the city is facing different challenges, including the inability of its local politicians to agree upon a local governance structure. This has resulted in Mostar's inability to form a city council, and the city has been acting under the sole leadership of its mayor, Ljubo Bešlić, since 2004.

I have to say though, looking around at the city now, you wouldn't know the challenges it was facing politically. Tourism is increasingly steadily each year, and it is the most visited travel destination in BiH, with over one million travelers each year. Many of them come from across Europe to see the undeniable progress the city has made since the war, which (perhaps most famously) includes the reconstruction of the bridge.

Stari Most, or the Old Bridge, is a beautiful symbol of the city's reconciliation.

The bridge itself is undoubtedly the city's claim to fame, and this beautiful reconstruction of the Ottoman-era original was celebrated locally and internationally when it was rebuilt over a decade ago. The hopes for the city moving past the gridlock of its past, however, were a bit lofty. As a result of infighting (which I won't go into, but which you can read about in-depth here), Mostar is a city of duplication, with two bus routes, two school systems, two of everything. The town divides along the front lines of the war, and while the bridge symbolizes the reconnecting between the predominant groups that inhabit the city (Croats and Bosniaks), the reality is that the mixed marriages and cosmopolitan atmosphere that made it a model of ethnic integration before the war has simply not re-materialized.

What has happened, however, is that the city has continued to make the best of the political gridlock, and the status quo has been for the city's mayor, Ljubo Bešlić, to continue to lead the city with a unified budget in the absence of a city council, which has not met since 2008. Those who had gone on the last trip with the delegation and returned this time noted that a great deal of investment has gone into reconstructing the war-torn buildings that stood along the main road that runs through the city, which served as the front lines during the war during the infighting of the Croats and Bosniaks.

Back to travel...

Challenges aside, Mostar is a beautiful city, and the first thing we wanted to do upon arrival (particularly since we would have to leave a day before the rest of the group) was go into the heart of the old city and see the famous bazaar that runs along the east side of the river, on the Bosniak side. Since the war, the bazaar has been beautifully restored, and the cobblestone streets provide a wonderful "foot massage," as one of our tour guides put it. After being dropped off at the bus station by Matt's wife, Irena, (herself a native of Mostar), we had a short (under a mile) walk to the bazaar.

The walk from the bus station was uneventful, but the scenery's dramatic change upon arrival in the actual old city went from the view above...

...to this! The cobblestone streets have been beautifully restored, and the shops have the feel of walking back in time (particularly if you pretend that the Ottomans had permitted Coca-Cola to be sold throughout their vast empire).

Once we hit the old town, we immediately bought some gelato, one of our favorites. I've mentioned it in previous posts, but the price of food is unbelievably low here, and it's hard to resist.

I love Mostar Gelato too.

Mostar is a Turkish Delight-lovers dream...

After satisfying our sweet tooth needs, we wandered into the Koski Mehmed-Pasha Mosque, which is a practicing mosque that is also open to visitors. For a small fee (about $6) you can go inside and walk all the way up to the top of the minaret, where you will undoubtedly have the best view of the bridge. We were lucky to be there on a clear night, and it was well worth the money and exercise.

The mosque from the outside.

From the inside.

In the minaret, climbing to the top.

At the top of the minaret, you have a beautiful 360 degree view of the city.

And a lovely view of the bridge.

If you don't feel like making the climb, you can also get a nice view from the ground, next to the cemetary.

After that we walked a little further into the bazaar, towards the Stari Most.

Along the way we found one of our new favorite artists, Alica Jakirovic. We bought our third piece of art in 20 minutes at this shop, and now have a small collection of Stari Most artwork. He has a small shop and has his desk situated inside (to the left of the door) so that he can look at and see the bridge.

After some shopping we strolled over to the bridge, where we got another selfie with the mosque we had just been inside right behind us.

The bridge is deceptively slippery, even when it's not wet. Definitely use the large steps...

At the other end of the bridge was a good reminder that this bridge is a reconstruction.

Mostar is famous for its craftsmen, many of whom sit outside and practice their trade, which adds to the charm of the bazaar.

You can also get a great Turkish Tea downtown, complete with a ton of sugar.

We had to stop.

Waking back home you could see buildings that were obviously waiting to be demolished standing next to new ones, juxtaposing the progress made with the challenges the city still faces.

The city also has some of the best graffiti I've ever seen, but more on that later...

We got back in time for dinner at Hotel Mostar, which is the brand new hotel we were staying in. The food was delicious and the hotel was amazing. I don't think I've stayed in this nice of a hotel, in part because we typically do B&Bs, and partly because we usually can't afford such fancy accommodations.

The appetizer...

The blatina wine, which is probably my favorite. Blatina is the type of wine, not the brand. That's about the extent of my wine knowledge.

Dinner was delicious. Veal and potatoes.

After that we weren't quite finished exploring, so we went back into town. We asked Matt for a recommendation on bars along the river, and he said they were all good. We picked one and bought a bottle of blatina, which was too much for us to finish. Luckily a table of students who were visiting from Vienna was next to us, and it was a good excuse to start a long conversation about BiH and American politics. Interestingly, three of them were Serbs from Banja Luka, and one was from Mexico. It was a great discussion and gave us some insights into the politics of the country and a better understanding of what remains. The biggest take-away I had was that their response to my question about what is the greatest obstacle keeping the country from moving past the Dayton Accords and creating its own constitution was "the divided education system."

Day 7 - July 7th

The second day began by traveling to the City Hall, where we had a meeting with city officials. It was an insightful meeting, although other than my public administration class members I'm not sure many will find it all that exciting. I was impressed though, particularly with their strategic planning. In terms of outcomes, we agreed to try and set up a student exchange, and I'm hoping to help start one centered on internships between my school and a local company.

Mayor Whaley and Commissioner Joseph (right) with the mayor and his staff.

There was quite the gaggle of press after the meeting. You can find the press release about our visit here.

After the meeting we were taken on a walking tour of the city, which was a lot of fun. The tour guide was from Fortuna Tours, which I'd recommend if you're visiting Mostar.

Our tour guide was knowledgeable and funny, two of the most important qualities in a guide.

The Spanish Square was just next to the university and along our walk into town. It honors the Spanish soldiers from the UN who were killed in Mostar during the war.

On our way our guide pointed out this mosque, which was built by Mostar tanners during the Ottoman era. The tanners were often unwelcome in other mosques because tanning is pretty nasty, so they built their own so they wouldn't have to suffer the disapproval of their peers.

We stopped at the bridge again, but this time down below it, next to the water. This time the divers were out... locals who dive into the river for tips. We helped them get up to the 50KM they needed to dive in and enjoyed the show!

Lunch was along the river at the Labirint, which was delicious.

This was one of our last cevapcicis, plus some chicken, steak, and liver. I'm not a huge liver fan, but the rest was delicious. Plus I think if you like liver it would probably be really good.

We went on a tour of the bridge next, learning about the original and its reconstruction.

Up next was some more shopping, our last chance before we headed out the next day.

After shopping, we went back to the water to dip our toes in.

Walking back up, we found Hunt and Anne sitting at little bar and joined them for drinks.

What goes around comes around.

Hunt, Amanda and I were walking back to the hotel and had some time to kill, so we decided to check out the old glass bank building, which served as a sniper tower during the war. They are hoping to have some investment in the area and tear it down, although while it stands it serves as a Mecca for graffiti artists. The draw was too great, so Hunt, Amanda, and I had to climb to the top. Below are some of my favorite pieces!

The old glass bank building. Below are some of my favorite graffiti pieces from the tower.

Took us a while to figure out how to get to the very top, but we found this ladder just past the bathrooms.

The view from the top was second only to the Pasha Mosque.

The obligatory "we made it to the top" selfie.

True.

This is what the stairs are like... if you end up going, be careful and don't fall. It's a long way down.

A good reminder.

Up next was dinner. We had a short walk from Hotel Mostar to Restoran Radobolja, a up-scale traditional restaurant that we all loved.

We had an assortment of fish for dinner, including eel, which I've never had before, but was surprisingly good.

Dinner was delicious, although the die-hard soccer fans among us couldn't be without the France game.

The nutella-filled crepes and ice cream were the perfect dessert.

The gift exchanges were next, and we had a couple things from Dayton to give the mayor.

Hunt presented him with a Buckeye pen, which we gave to each of the mayors on behalf of the sister city committee.

We were all very grateful to the mayor for his hospitality. After dinner we left for the hotel to start our final day in Mostar.

Day 8 - July 8th

Our final day began with a bit of delegation business, visiting Intera Technology Park, a local entrepreneurs center that has a great deal of programming aimed at helping bring jobs to Mostar and train their local workforce. They actually had a similar mission as my school, and I'm hoping to be able to start a student internship program between our school and the park, so stay tuned!

Intera Technology Park

On the first floor there's a beautiful showroom that showcases many of the products made locally.

There's also a training center for high-tech machining on the first floor.

Upstairs there are a number of businesses, as Intera also serves as an incubators to startups.

Before leaving we were treated to a presentation about the company and about tourism in Hercegovina. It was a great presentation and I hope to be able to partner with them for an internship!

After we visited the park, the rest of the day (our last) was full of sightseeing. Our first stop was the Orthodox church that was destroyed during the war. We were given a tour of it by the local priest, followed by a tour of the old, original church, and both have an interesting story.

The view of the old, New Orthodox Church, which they're attempting to reconstruct.

A great deal of progress has been made, but there's a long way to go.

The inside of the church will be huge.

The second church we visited was right behind it, and that was the "Old Orthodox Church," a much smaller one with an interesting legend behind its construction.

The Old Orthodox Church was built earlier during the Ottoman empire's rule. They required that it be built below the ground so that it would be hidden.

The legend for the church's original construction goes some like this: there was a priest who wanted to build the church, but the Ottoman governor at the time demanded his daughter before giving permission. He refused, but was persistent enough that the governor said he could build it on the area taken up by a bull's hide (or his robes, depending on who is telling it). Being pretty creative, he cut it into one long strip that with a very large circumference, and when he stretched it out it was large enough to build a church inside of it!

The first pomegranate tree I found. Pomegranates are a symbol for Hercegovina.

Our second stop was the Blagaj Dervish House (as in whirling Dervishes), which was located in a beautiful setting right at the base of a mountain and next to an enormous natural spring. I would definitely encourage you to visit, it's very worth it.

The house is set back in a beautiful hillside town, with small stone houses like these dotting the road leading back to it.

Women had to cover up before heading into the house. Men with short shorts had to put on a skirt.

The Dervishes like to be in touch with nature, which they believe brings them closer to God. The beautiful views were definitely moving.

Amanda exploring the Dervish house.

Mike and Hunt getting appropriately attired.

We went upstairs next.

And saw how the Dervishes lived.

The view from outside the house... the waters were crystal clear.

This is BOSNIAN Coffee (not Turkish), which somehow manages to be even sweeter than Turkish coffee. Delicious. The Turkish Delight (or Bosnian, I'm not sure), was good too.

The beautiful view from the bridge looking towards the house.

After the Dervish House we traveled to an old fort. On the way, though, we saw quite a few wineries.

Up next we went to the Pocitelj Fort, which began as a Hungarian fort in the 1400s. After that the Ottomans took over. That's about all I know about it, and it was a short stop, but it has a fascinating history that you can read about on UNESCO's website.

Matt and I decided to see how far up we could get in 7 minutes before we had to turn back down.

These steps have been well-worn. My flip flops probably weren't the best footwear for the climb.

Amanda and Monica caught up to us pretty quickly.

Didn't quite make it to the tower, but we got close enough for a nice shot!

When we arrived there were vendors walking around selling fresh fruit. Dates, apricots, figs, and more. I think if I lived here I would eat a lot more fruit.

Our final stop before Amanda and I had to head back to Sarajevo (or so we thought) was lunch at the Herceg EtnoSoloMedugorje, a beautiful restaurant that combines the modern with the rustic along with elements from nature. The restaurant has a small creek running through it even, complete with fish! We had one of our last great meals here before leaving, and it was a great one to end on!

A river runs through it...

Complete with fish in it!

Not sure if they're the same fish that end up in here, but this soup was really good too.

The potatoes and meat platter was delicious. I'm really missing the food!

As a last gesture of the hospitality we experienced in Mostar, we were taken to Mostar by Ms. Radmila Komadina, Chief Advisor of the City of Mostar, in her car. As if that weren't enough, she heard that we wanted to stop and see the Kravice Falls, so she took us there!

It's a popular spot for the locals and for tourists, with beautiful waters to swim in.

Wish we had more time to stay and swim!

Beautiful view...

Didn't realize we got photobombed until I was writing this :)

That night, we headed back to Sarajevo by bus. It was a nice two-hour drive and a beautiful last drive through the countryside. Our time in Bosnia & Hercegovina was too short, but we made a lot of friends and hope to go back in the future.

Thank you again to all our wonderful hosts, and thanks for reading!

Bosnia & Herzegovina Trip Part II - Banja Luka

2016-07-11T07:03:00.000-04:00

Day 3 - Banja Luka, July 3rd

The trip from Sarajevo to Banja Luka in Republika Syrpska was a lengthy four (or more) hour ride, but it was full of gorgeous scenery. This area of the world is often referred to as the Balkans, and it wasn't until studying for this trip that I learned that "balkans" literally means "mountains," which is definitely an appropriate geographic shorthand for the country. Coming from Ohio, perhaps the mountains seem even more dramatic, but there were no flat parts of the country stretching further than a few miles that I could find, and every inch of the countryside is beautiful.

The view from the bus on our way to Banja Luka.

This kind of view was pretty typical. Hard to complain about a long bus ride when you look out the window and see this.

There wasn't a whole lot to this day other than traveling and eating, although our stop at lunch was a restaurant with amazing views next to a river. Like everywhere we went, the food was outstanding. This time I had veal, although before you hate me, I will point out that their veal is free range and probably harvested within a 10-mile radius of the restaurant, so until I stop eating meat altogether I'm not going to feel bad about it!

You couldn't ask for a better setting for lunch.

The funniest thing at the restaurant was the portion size. Everyone was hungry, so most people ordered a "medium" Cevapćići, which apparently means you want the equivalent of 15 sausage links with an accompanying large pita bread! No one could finish an entire one, and the picture of Anne from the first blog post was actually taken here.

The veal dinner I ordered, which was pretty tasty.

Lots of extra food, but we did our best!

A couple hours later we finally arrived in Banja Luka, where we stayed at Hotel Bosna, a recently renovated hotel in the center of the city across from the Orthodox Church and City Hall. It was a smaller room, but very nice, and the hotel is attached to a casino and a few restaurants. I tried my hand at blackjack and thankfully only lost 15 KM (about $8.00), which could have been much worse! We had a light dinner at the hotel and processed everything from the last couple of days before preparing for our meeting with Banja Luka's mayor the following day.

Matt talked prepping the delegation for the packed agenda we had in store for July 4th.

After that we walked across the street to the Mac Tire Irish Pub, where the World Cup was on TV. It was a very upscale bar and served good food, although the fish and chips were not exactly what I'm used to! I'd still recommend it though for sure. We also had our first taste of the local beer, Nektar, which started out as a local Trappist Monastery's brew, but is now owned buy a guy from Ireland. I'd recommend it!

Nektar... it's good for you. No wait, that's Guinness...

After that we turned in for the night to get some sleep for our meeting with the Banja Lukan Mayor the following day.

July 4th in Banja Luka

Before our meeting with the mayor we grabbed breakfast at the hotel, which was quite good.

The view from the hotel balcony at breakfast, which is pretty good. They have really good coffee here...

...just watch out for the birds. They are like tiny little vultures and are unafraid of my hand.

After breakfast we started out the day meeting with Mayor Slobodan Gavranović and his staff at City Hall, where we heard an update on the opportunities and challenges of Banja Luka (BL). Their focus right now is on tourism and economic development, and as the second-largest city in BiH, they have a lot to offer.

Mayor Whaley, Matt Joseph, Kelly Gears, and Sam Braun in front of the Orthodox Church. Right behind it is City Hall, and both are about a three-minute walk from the hotel.

I should pause for a moment and point out that BL is in Republika Syrpska (RS), which is one of two states in BiH, the other being the Federation of Bosnia & Hercegovina, where the other two cities from our visit are located. As some of my former history students will know, the name Republika Syrpska generates some angst to this day for many (particularly non-Serb) citizens of BiH, as it is the same name used by the Serb forces that broke away from BiH and declared their allegiance to Serbia under Rodovan Karadzic, and which committed many war crimes during the Bosnian War. Richard Holbrooke later confessed that allowing them to keep the name after the accords was something he regretted. I'd highly recommend reading his memoir about the accords, To End a War, which goes into great detail about the entire process leading up to and after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords. The past notwithstanding, I can't emphasize enough how welcomed we felt on our visit by the entire city, not just the mayor and his staff.

The city staff's presentation highlighted many of the areas they are currently trying to develop and for which they are seeking investors, including their burgeoning tourist industry, which includes world-class whitewater rafting. Check out their official tourism site, which lists many more things to do than we were able to accomplish during our short time there.

Mayor Slobodan Gavranović met with us in City Hall.

After listening to their presentation we were invited to attend a "police demonstration." I'm not sure what I expected, but it definitely wasn't what we saw, which was a major search and rescue exhibition whereby cantonal (county) level police officers/search & rescue teams, RS national guard soldiers, and the BiH Army showed off equipment and tactics they have put in place since BiH was rocked by major flooding back in 2014. It was an impressive demonstration and covered extensively by members of the press, and we got a personal tour by the mayor and members of the police and military.

We met up again with Mayor Gavranović at the demonstration, where we had a tour of the equipment being used by their search and rescue teams and disaster response units.

These sandbag filling machines were pretty cool.

Next up was a briefing from the BiH military on their collaborations with the cantonal-level search and rescue units and police.

After the tour and briefing on what we would be seeing, we watched from the balcony of the old castle wall (now an amazing restaurant with delicious appetizers, which I'll get to soon) as rescue operators repelled out of helicopters and dove into the river to find dummies hidden in the water ahead of time. They even pulled a car out of the river! It was an impressive demonstration.

I was busy taking a video during the demonstration, so I didn't get many pictures, but this is one of them.

Search and rescue teams repelled down the castle walls as part of the demonstration while we watched safely from the balcony...

...while we worked hard on eating this. I guess what I'm saying is it was a tough day for all of us.

After this we were taken on a tour of some of the city's cultural sites. The first stop was one of Amanda's favorites. They have renovated a building on the grounds of the Kastel Fortress to house four of BL's most famous artists. I wouldn't classify myself as a huge modern art fan, but I truly enjoyed the exhibit. I also loved the fact that it showcases the talent of artists from all of BiH's ethnic groups, with two Serbs, one Croat, and one Bosniak represented at the exhibit. The exhibit is entitled: On the Modernist Road: Misirlić, Simić, Ćurić, Staljo.

Outside the Stone Building, which is located inside` the Kastel Fortress walls.

Inside we were given a tour of the pieces on display in the sizeable permanent exhibit.

Amanda snapping a picture of her favorite piece, a self-portrait by one of the artists.

From there we had a short walk through the mall to the Republika Syrpska National Museum, although not before stopping by the famous Ferhadija Mosque, which only recently reopened in May of this year after being destroyed during the war. It's opening is a major sign of the city's commitment to reconciliation, as just 10 years ago the story was much different. You can read more about the historical significance of the mosque and its reopening in this story from Balkan Insights.

The minaret was too tall to capture in one shot, but the reconstructed version is beautiful. The original was built in 1579!

At the museum we were given a tour by the museum director. The museum does a nice job showing off the history (and pre-history) of RS and BiH in general, particularly ethnographically/historically. One exhibit that was very salient during the visit was the one dedicated to the experience of Serbs, Bosniaks, Jews, Roma, and political dissidents (including Croat ones) during WWII, where they suffered from major persecution and genocide at the hands of the Croatian Ustasha regime, which aligned itself with Nazi Germany. The exhibit serves as a reminder that many Serbs who were alive during the Bosnian War of the 1990s remembered the intense suffering and persecution they had faced under the Ustasha regime. As they say, "the past is prologue."

There are many artifacts from from throughout BiH's history.

These posters show the number of Serbs, Bosniaks, Jews, Roma, and political dissidents.

After the museum we walked past my favorite park on the way to our next stop. They have giant chess boards set up.

They have giant chess boards in the park. Need I say more? I'm ready to move...

Our next stop was the Banja Luka Museum of Modern Art. It took me a while to catch onto this, but the museum is full of pieces by an artist who was pretending to be someone else at the time. The real artist was Nikola Otaševič, but he created an alter ego to publish the artwork under named Ilija Dimić. Opening the exhibit in the 1960s, he claimed to have found the artwork by the late artist, Dimić, and even made up a biography and fake documentary about the supposed genius who was "ahead of his time." The exhibit is full of "Dimić" pieces, and interestingly enough (given our Dayton connection) he did a great deal of pieces relating to flight. I really enjoyed the pieces.

A portrait of the young (fake) artist, Ilija Dimić.

We were given a brief intro to the museum and its impressive history/collection before having the chance to see the work.

"Takeoff" (1933... except not really).

After this we had some free time, which Amanda and I used to try and visit the local Trappist Monastery. We successfully got there in time to get back to dinner, but unfortunately they were closed. Thankfully we visited the following day with the entire group, but Amanda had some time to at least sketch the church and I made a new feline friend while trying to call a taxi company to come get us.

Cute kitty...

Later on that evening we attended an ethnic music festival at the castle. It was a fun celebration, and we were guests of honor once more. It was great hearing the traditional music and seeing the traditional dress of the different communities in BiH and beyond, and I half-joked that next time we come we need to play some bluegrass at the festival!

Great dancing and music!

We were pleasantly surprised at the end of the evening when we were treated to a fourth meal of traditional Cevapcici and rakija by the city. After a couple of those we were all singing show tunes and cracking jokes with our new BL friends.

The food was delicious and rakija was in abundance!

We also met Dražen, a local tourism guru from the Banja Luka tourism board. He took us out for drinks afterwards and joined us the following days on excursions around BL. If you're at all interested in visiting let me know and I'll get you his contact information!

At the dinner we met Dražen Brdar, who works for the Banja Luka tourism board. He would be our guide for the next couple of days.

Day 5 - Banja Luka, July 5th

Our second day in BL began with a focus on our delegation's goal of connecting with folks in the city as we visited the University of Banja Luka. Our entire delegation met with the Rector (which is like our President) of the University and some members of his staff. We heard about the programs they have to offer and the opportunities and challenges that exist for the university and for their students. A lot of good connections were made between delegation members and the university. One thing I would love to see happen (and which I will try to help facilitate as much as possible) is an exchange of students and faculty, which our committee chairman, Hunt Brown, will be exploring through Wright State. If you're affiliated with WSU though and you're reading this and this idea intrigues you, please contact Hunt or myself!

The delegation with the main building of Banja Luka University in the background.

President Prof. Milan Mataruga, PhD, and International Relations Officer, Jelena Rožić with Mayor Whaley and Commissioner Joseph.

After the meeting we went to the Trappist Monastery as a group (and got in this time!). Once inside, the priest gave us the history of the monastery, which once housed over 250 priests. Now, there are just three. One keeps the grounds, the other makes the cheese, and the third (who gave us the tour) makes herbal remedies and spirits. They are apparently not too keen on the Communist years under Tito, as they lost a great deal of their land and their numbers drastically decreased, but the church's history is rich with service. They created the first hydroelectric power plant for the city and an electric street lamp system for the city (eight years before London had streetlights), as well as served as a boarding home for children of all faiths. The priest was a comedian as well, joking about how he gets to wake up "late" (at 4AM) for prayers when compared to other Trappist monks that wake up at 1 or 2AM. "It could be worse!" he joked. Don't skip the gift shop if you visit, and be sure to get some of the rakija and cheese at least!

The priest met us at the doors of the church, where Drazen and Matt greeted him.

We were treated to many stories about the church's history and more information about the Trappists, which I knew little about (other than the fact that they make beer too).

The priest was pretty proud of the beer they used to make there. Now it's called "Nektar," which I've already told you about.

The priest we met made all of this... most of it is rakija. He called a lot of it medicine as well, although when I bought my standard plum rakija, he just said "this is Bosnian medicine" and laughed. He was pretty hilarious the entire time.

His fellow monk made all of this cheese, and that guy is the only one with the recipe. They pass it down by oral tradition and never write it down.

After the monastery we were getting pretty hungry, and didn't have a knife for the the wheel of cheese we all pitched in to purchase, so we were all ready for lunch when we arrived at another gorgeous outdoor patio restaurant along the side of the road, right next to one of the (slower-paced) canoe/tube rental spots along the snowmelt-fed river. I forget the name of the restaurant, but it had an amazing assortment of bread and cheese appetizers. They even cut ours up after watching us hack at it with dull knives for a while. Next they brought out the main dish, which was grilled trout on a stick.

There was a beautiful view from the patio seating area to look at...

...and great friends to share a meal with.

These cheeses and whatever these puffy little bread balls are were delicious! I couldn't sop eating them.

The main course - fish on a stick!

Since we had voted that day to do the monastery instead of white water rafting (they offered us both as options), after dinner I went down to stick my toes in the water to see what it was like... it was freezing!

The water may be cold, but I couldn't complain about the view.

Because we were a little slow, we had the nearly impossible task of going back and eating dinner within two hours of this meal. Our final night with the BL mayor and his staff was spent back at the restaurant where we had watched the search and rescue demonstration, only this time we had a four course meal at the Kazamat, starting with an assortment of appetizers, salad, meat, and dessert.

Walking into the restaurant you feel like you're going into an old castle... because that's what you're doing.

We were all full from lunch, but that really didn't matter once we saw how good the food was.

We sat right next to the kitchen, where you could watch them preparing the meals.

They brought out some of the appetizers we had when we were watching the demonstration, and they were just as good the second time.

After a salad came an amazing meat platter. I believe it was pork and lamb, perhaps some veal too but I'm not sure.

A light dessert was perfect.

Before leaving we exchanged gifts, as was our custom with the mayors on the trip.

Day 6 (Part I) - Saying Goodbye to Banja Luka, July 6th

After saying our goodbyes, we went out for one last night on the town before heading in for the evening and leaving the following morning. While I'm on the topic of Banja Luka, I want to mention that the following morning, before we left, the city arranged for us to have a quick visit to the Orthodox Church that was in between us and City Hall. It's a beautiful church, and one that replaces the original, which was destroyed by the Ustasha during WWII.

The view walking over...

The communists who took over after WWII under Tito built a memorial on top of the church's former grounds, making it impossible to rebuild in its original location until the 2000s, when they moved the monument and began rebuilding.

The local priest gave us a short history of the church and talked about its renovation, explaining that no expenses were spared in the rebuilding of the church. This includes solid marble pillars (unlike most, which are marble facade with concrete filler) and a gold plated dome, which was paid for with help from the Russian Orthodox Church.

The view from the front steps...

Walking inside the front doors...

And greeting the priest...

Looking up at the beautiful panels inside the church...

And even further up past the chandelier to the ceiling...

Then back down, where worshipers come to pay their respects.

The people of Banja Luka are some of the friendliest I have ever met, and their hospitality towards our enormous delegation was incredible. I can't wait to go back and do some whitewater rafting next time, and I hope the friends we made, like our guide Drazen, will come visit us the next time they are in the U.S. He even followed us on our bus for a while to show us the waterfalls we missed the other day, where we got some great pictures before heading to our final destination: Mostar!

Beautiful.

Great selfie spot too! See you next in Mostar...

Bosnia & Herzegovina Trip Part I - Sarajevo

2016-07-10T18:13:00.000-04:00

On July 1, 2016, Amanda and I arrived at the Sarajevo International Airport. On the descent into the airport in Sarajevo we struck up a conversation with a man who had fled the city during the war. He ended up in London, where he makes furniture, but returns each year to the city. In the short amount of time we spent talking with him about his home, I could already tell we would love the country. During our chat he explained to us that we were standing on top of the tunnel that was used by the residents of Sarajevo to flee the city into Free Bosnia, bring in supplies, and carry out the wounded during the siege of the city, which lasted from 1992-1995.

Needless to say, I've learned a lot more about the conflict that tore this country apart in the first two days of travel than I have the past five years of teaching about it in my world history class. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain first why we are here, then I'll get to a day-by-day of our experiences and along the way explain why your next vacation should be here too.

A view from the top of one of the mountains overlooking Sarajevo... it's even more amazing in person.

This past March I joined the Dayton Sister City Committee, a committee under the Dayton City Commission that is responsible for handling relationships with Dayton's sister cities, one of which is Sarajevo. Last year (in 2015) Dayton was host to the 20th anniversary of the Dayton Peace Accords, which featured a keynote address by Bill Clinton at the University of Dayton.

This year it was our delegation's turn to visit, with Mayor Nan Whaley and Commissioner Matt Joseph and a large delegation of folks from the city and other Dayton organizations taking a turn traveling to Bosnia and Herzegovina to visit not just one, but three cities: Sarajevo, Banja Luka, and Mostar, all of whom signed a memorandum of understanding last year to work more closely with one another in key areas. This was Dayton's first visit to all three cities, and I was lucky to join at the right time (as treasurer) and Amanda and I tagged along for our first delegation trip.

This is our delegation in Mostar, one of the four cities in the MOU located in the Herzegovina region of Bosnia & Herzegovina. This trip was awesome in no small part because we got to travel with all of these great people!

The flight over wasn't too bad, although the layover in Newark (seven hours) was a bit long. Having another couple (Hunt and Anne Brown) to travel there with us on the same flights was nice, plus they must have been good luck, because we've never not had a delayed flight and/or missed connection on a trip before! We met so many great new friends and became closer with ones we knew already during the trip as well.

Hunt Brown, Amanda and I in Mostar

Anne and Amanda in Mostar

Traveling with Mayor Whaley as part of her delegation has its pluses too, and BiH (the shortened form of Bosnia and Herzegovina, pronounced "bey-ha") certainly rolled out the red carpet for us, which was nice because the delegation was paying its own way and the majority of us had to take vacation time in order to attend. It is truly a generous and hospitable country.

Mayor Whaley and I before heading out to dinner with the delegation. I was really proud to be a part of her delegation, and really proud that she was representing Dayton in BiH.

And, of course, I have to thank Dayton Commissioner Matt Joseph and Mayor Whaley's Senior Policy Aide, Ariel Walker, for organizing the trip. Both are members of the Sister City Committee, and Matt frequents BiH with his wife and children to visit his in-laws. He met his wife, Irena, in BiH when traveling there back during Dayton's inaugural visit to Sarajevo in 1999. As "citizen diplomats," our most important goal on this trip was making connections with folks from the three cities, and I think it is safe to say that we succeeded in that regard.

Dayton Commissioner Matt Joseph is the city's ex officio member of the Dayton Sister City Committee, and he does a great deal of work as a committee member (in addition to everything else he does). His passion for BiH was infectious, and he's also just a really great person. There's no doubt that Dayton's commitment to maintaining and strengthening our ties to Sarajevo (and BiH as a whole) is so strong because of his countless hours spent working behind the scenes.

Now that thank-yous and background are out of the way, I'll be posting about each city separately, starting with Sarajevo!

Day 1 - Sarajevo, July 1st

Seeing the stark contrast between the beauty of the hills surrounding the city and the pockmarks in many of the old buildings on the drive into the city was a stark reminder that BiH still bears many of the scars of war. This contrast was always at the forefront of our trip and was not just physical, but economic, political, cultural, and sociological. It's cliche to point out, but the city is famous for two wars, the first of which was, of course, the start of WWI. One of my goals through this blog though is to unequivocally convince anyone who reads it that BiH is an amazing travel destination place both in spite of and because of the tumult of its recent past.

It's a bit hard to read, but this plaque stands right next to the spot where, on June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, sparking the events that led to WWI.

This is the view of the Latin Bridge in Sarajevo, which spans the Miljacka River and terminates (on its northern end) in the spot of the Archduke's assassination. You can see from the photo just how beautiful the city is.

We were greeted at the airport, and it was telling when the first thing we were asked by the friendly Sarajevo City staffer who picked us up at the airport was, "You're not vegetarians, are you?" She was relieved when we told her that we very much enjoyed eating meat, but I soon realized that the initial concerned look in her eyes was justified just shortly under a half an hour after she took us to join the rest of the delegation, (which had arrived in Sarajevo the day before) for lunch. We found them at a small restaurant, Petica, that served traditional food in the Old City, where we ordered steak and Ćevapcici (ćevapi for short), a skinless meat sausage traditionally served with a thick, grilled, pita bread and (often) onions. Cevapcici is amazing, but having had that once already I opted for the "bistek," which is just a steak, because I noticed that it cost just 7 Konvertible Marks (KM), which equates to about $4.00. Thinking it too good to be true, I was blown away when they brought me an amazing steak (plus fries) that was at least seven ounces. It was mildly spiced (and extremely delicious).

Full disclosure: this isn't from the restaurant (I forgot to get a picture), but Anne's face pretty much sums up the entire delegation's amazement at how much food we were served throughout our trip. Plus, it's a good picture of ćevapi...

After lunch we visited Gallery 11/07/95, which features an exhibit on one of the most horrible massacres of the war, which took place in a town called Srebrenica. The city was one of a number of "Safe Areas" set up by the United Nations during the war, but in reality they were anything but safe, and on November 7th, 1995, 8,372 people (predominantly Bosniaks, or Bosnian Muslims) lost their lives at the hands of the Republika Syrpska army under the command of Ratko Mladić.

Take a moment and check out their homepage, which features pictures of the exhibit. We weren't allowed to take any, but they have a number of the powerful pieces displayed on their site.

The first of its kind in Sarajevo, this museum has a powerful mixed-media exhibit that blends history and art, as well as a very knowledgeable staff. The Gallery features photos that tell the story of the war, including a very moving exhibit with pictures of many of those who were killed during the massacre. There is also a room where you can hear from the survivors and see documentaries about the genocide. Most interesting to me, though, was the current exhibit, "Postcards from Sarajevo," which was full of posters by a group called "The Trio," which created a great deal of art during the war bemoaning the international community's refusal to act in a decisive manner for first three years of the war.

Perhaps one of their most famous pieces, this one obviously plays off of the Coca-Cola logo. Definitely check out their gallery for more of the posters.

One reason I found this artwork so intriguing is that from 2010-2015, I taught a unit on conflict and genocide alongside language arts teacher Jenn Reid at the Dayton Regional STEM School, and our students created some artwork that in many ways resembles these authors, which I didn't even know about. It made me wish I was still teaching the unit, and I'd love to figure out a way to connect with the gallery!

This is one of my favorite posters about this particular event. It was created by Justin This, a DRSS graduate in the Class of 2016. Learn more about this unit in this article by United to End Genocide.

After this sobering visit, we had a much less emotionally demanding time exploring the city on our own, particularly since we were a day behind the rest of the delegation. Below are some of the stops we made:

The spot of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is a stop you have to check off your list, and there is a museum right next to the spot as well. While we visited there was a replica of the car Ferdinand was riding in when he was killed right next to the spot. For a small fee you can ride in it! We just shot a picture...

The Latin Bridge (behind us) is a must-see stop. The bridge just east of it also makes for a great selfie spot.

This is the Markale Market, which is the spot of an infamous massacre that took place in 1995, whereby Bosnian Serbs launched shells into the market. Though tragic, the incident pushed US decision-makers to act and (eventually) led to the Dayton Peace Accords.

If you look closely at the back of the market, you'll find a memorial honoring those whose lives were lost in the attack. While After I took this picture and put my phone into my back pocket, a friendly vendor tried to explain to me that my phone was easy for pickpockets. I didn't understand though so he tapped the phone and motioned to put it in my front pocket. After that I bought some rasberries from him and Amanda wouldn't let me have my phone anymore...

We walked through the Old City part of town next to see a few things we had found in the Brandt Travel Guide, which was recommended to us by Matt. I'd definitely recommend it if you travel to BiH, and I'd also get it on Kindle and download it to your phone.

Sarajevo has a cafe culture, and had the feel of Italy to Amanda and I in that regard, although if I had traveled to more places in Europe I'd probably just say "European." The interesting thing about Sarajevo though is how visible the transitions are between the various rulers of this country that is the size of West Virginia.

There is definitely some Roman influence, and all we had to do was look across the patio from our hotel to find evidence of their presence.

The Ottoman Empire certainly had a huge lasting presence on the region as well, and Turkish coffee sets like this were everywhere in the old city.

The bazaar at the center of the Old City is also a leftover from Ottoman rule.

In the Old City proper you can spend hours inside small shops like this one, which featured Persian rugs.

After the Ottomans came the Austro-Hungarians in the late 1800s. Their influence can be seen in a literal dividing line that separates the older Old City with the newer part, after which you see Austro-Hungarian architecture...

...like this!

While significantly smaller, there has been a Jewish presence in BiH since the late 15th century, when Spain severely persecuted Jews and Muslims. Pictured here is the Old Synagogue, although we couldn't go inside that evening.


While this was taken on a different day, this is a view of the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque, which is dates back to the Ottoman Empire. The mosque is the primary one in Sarajevo, and most official Sarajevo Muslim ceremonies are celebrated here.

A view of the minaret of the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque, which didn't fit in the other picture.

We headed over to the Cathedral of Jesus' Sacred Heart Church next, which is a beautiful Catholic church. Some of the members of the delegation attended service here before we left on Sunday, although pictures inside are forbidden (according to the sign).

After all of that we had to stop at Cafe Moj (right next to the Cathedral) and get a drink, which included a mojito for Amanda and my first taste of rakija, BiH's national drink. It's usually translated as plum brandy or moonshine, although I would consider it more consistent with what we'd call moonshine... whatever it is it's definitely strong!

Sarajevo Brewery (Sarajevsko Pivaro)

After all the walking we did, we had to head over to the brewery that Amanda had read about. This is a special place not only because they make great beer (or "pivo"), but because during the war it served as the city's only supply of fresh water thanks to its strategic location on top of an underground spring... thanks, beer!

On our last night in Sarajevo I really wanted to go back to the bar that's attached to the brewery: Pivnica HS, and I'm glad we did. The bar came alive as a band played traditional music. We had our last Sarajevan meal there, an outstanding peppercorn steak and a delicious chicken (with some kind of Alfredo-type sauce) and a couple of their famous dark beers.

Inside the attached bar, Pivnica HS, which serves some great food and even better beer! The bar dates back to 1864.

Peppercorn steak and a dark Sarajevsko (Sarajevo beer)... what more could you want?

After dinner we turned in for the night and returned to the hotel. Somehow I failed to get a picture of the outside, but our accommodations at Hotel Europe were very nice. It's on the more expensive side, but because of the favorable exchange rate you will likely pay under $100USD for a really nice room. Great breakfasts, and perfect location for exploring both sides of the river. It has all of the accommodations you could need, and then some.

One more thing before I go on - it's worth noting that travel for English-speakers is much simpler than I had anticipated (throughout the country). As Matt explained to us before the trip, most people under 30 speak English (in varying levels of proficiency), so you shouldn't have difficulty getting around and/or talking to people, although I'd recommend bringing a Bosnian dictionary or an downloading an app.

Day 2 - Sarajevo, July 2nd

This was one of the days I was looking forward to a great deal. We were given a tour of the city by representatives from City Hall, who had arranged for a number of local experts to give us tours at each of our stops, the first of which was the National Museum of Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH).

National Museum of Bosnia & Herzegovina

At the National Museum we were given a personal tour by the head of each of their three departments: archeology, ethnography, and natural history. Their archeological exhibit was most impressive to me, particularly seeing their collection of Roman ruins and artifacts from the (earlier) times of the Illyrians. It was a good reminder that all of the three primary different ethnic groups came from the same heritage, with allegiances shifting over time.

We were led on a tour of the archeological exhibit by the head of the archeology department.

Up next was the ethnography exhibit. While I didn't get many pictures inside, my favorite part was this ceiling, which gives a nod to the three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) through its design.

After the ethnography tour we saw the natural history exhibit, although we were running late and I didn't get any pictures. After that though we went into the courtyard to see their impressive collection of Stećci tombstones, which you can find all across BiH. They are definitely one of BiH's national symbols, and their unique history is fascinating. You can learn more about them here.

Amanda examines one of the Stećci on the museum grounds.

The highlight of the museum though was seeing the Sarajevo Haggadah, a rare Sephardic (Spanish) Illuminated Jewish text that is used by Jews during Passover ceremonies. The text survived emigration from Spain and many wars and ended up back in Sarajevo, where they put it in its special display room just for our delegation's visit. Normally it's not displayed for visitors. You can watch a video from PBS about it here.

The view from the room where the Spanish Haggadah is displayed.

What I didn't realize at the time of our visit was that the museum actually closed due to lack of funding from the BiH government for a number of years back in 2012, and only recently reopened. During that time the staff members actually came in and continued to curate exhibits and take care of the artifacts, unpaid. If you go, it's definitely worth a visit, and their dedication was greatly appreciated by our delegation.

After the museum we rode down the main road that travels along the river, which became known as "Sniper Alley" during the siege. From the bus we saw much of the damage that still exists, including one former retirement apartment that has yet to be demolished.

The former apartment for retirees serves as a reminder of the destruction Sarajevo suffered during the Bosnian War.

The famous Sarajevo Holiday Inn, which sits along "Sniper Alley," was built for the 1984 Olympics, but it became the base camp for journalists covering the war during the 1990s. This is also the hotel where snipers who "loyal to Ratko Mladic" (see BBC article here) shot at peaceful protestors in 1992.

In contrast to the remaining war-torn buildings, many new buildings (including a large mosque) can be seen throughout the city. Much of the new investment is coming from middle eastern countries, particularly Saudi Arabia. Tourism is growing here as well at a rate of 10% per year.

The good news is that investments are returning to Sarajevo and new buildings are going up, such as this one, which is on the same street as the Holiday Inn. There's even a McDonald's, which CNN journalist David Russ covered during his visit on the 20th anniversary celebration of the Dayton Accords.

After the museum we had our second war-related visit to the Sarajevo War Tunnel Museum. During the war 11,500 Sarajevans were killed, and the tunnel served as the city's only connection to Free Bosnia.

This map, originally created for the Olympic Games, now illustrates just how surrounded Sarajevo was during the war. In the top right corner you can see the "Free Bosnian Territory," and the tunnel was the city's only connection with the outside world.

This house became the terminus for the tunnel, which started at the UN-controlled Sarajevo airport, the same one we flew into the day before.

Our guide was a commander of Bosniak forces in the Bosniak (Muslim/BiH) army, and he was proud to tell us that his soldiers did not destroy Orthodox (Serb) cultural sites. The same could not be said by BiH Croat/Bosniak soldiers in Mostar, the final city we visited. The Dayton Peace Accords, of course, are talked about frequently in BiH. He explained that Dayton was good in the sense that it ended the war, but bad in the sense that the country continues to live under this document in the absence of a long-term agreement on a permanent constitution. His sentiments are shared by most people in the country, and figuring out how to get past Dayton drives a lot of the conversation here.

Our guide, a former commander during the war, explained the history of the tunnel and the siege before we entered.

Going back to the tunnel though, it's a worthwhile visit where you can experience just a small fraction of what it was like to travel through the 800-meter tunnel. It's construction took approximately four months, and traveling through the entire tunnel would take you over an hour. Oh, and traffic was one way. Over three million passed through the tunnel in total, including President Izetbegovich, BiH's first president and the country's leader during the war, who used the tunnel on a number of occasions to raise the spirits of the city's inhabitants during the war.

I followed Hunt through the short portion of the tunnel they have set up for visitors to experience a bit of what it was like to travel through its tight corridors. It was enough to get a very small sense of just how difficult it would have been to get so many necessary supplies to such a large city.

We were shown typical accommodations during the war and learned about how every home was a target. People lived in constant fear of a mortar round hitting their home throughout the siege.

During the war, cigarettes served as a form of currency, as money and resources were scarce. While the city was under siege, a single egg could cost as much as three Euros! One of our Tunnel Museum tour guides explained that, because of their role during the war, Drina cigarettes actually make a much more authentic souvenir than the bullet pens you see throughout the city. I have some at home... they were the cheapest souvenir I purchased.

After the Tunnel Museum we headed over to lunch at Pod Lipom, where Bill Clinton and other foreign dignitaries have dined.

Outside Pod Lipom, which translates to "Under the Linden Tree."

Every time we thought we were finished the lunch kept on coming! All of it was delicious, and most of it was meat. I couldn't be happier with the food, and the favorable exchange rate was a source of constant amazement for everyone in the group. This is one of the many reasons I'd recommend traveling here!

Our appetizer was an amazing platter of meats and cheeses. I had to get a light Sarajevsko to go along with it, naturally.

This came next, and I don't know what it's called but there were different fillings inside each pastry and they were all delicious.

We thought we were done, then this came (after the salad)... at this point I was too stuffed to eat more, but we all did anyways. I was too full to remember to get a picture of the desserts, but they were all different and each was amazing.

After lunch we were taken on a walking tour of the Old City bazaar, and I've already included many of the pictures/insights from the tour above. Our guide was great though, and she took us to the famous spring-fed fountain during the tour where (according to legend) if you drink from it, you will return to Sarajevo. I had to get a drink so I could come back again, and we also got a nice group shot of the delegation.

Our huge Dayton Sister City Delegation! All of us will have to come back now...

After our tour was the part of the trip I was perhaps most looking forward to, which was a Bosnian BBQ! Last year during the celebration of the Dayton Peace Accords at 20, I was lucky to attend thanks to Joel Baker, one of my students. He was invited because he won a competition to design the logo that would be used for the ceremonies, and I got to tag along.

Joel Baker and I, along with his parents, at the opening ceremony for the Dayton Peace Accords at 20 celebrations last November.

While we were there we met a group from BiH who was creating a documentary, Looking for Dayton, which follows the lives of three Bosniak veterans of the siege of Sarajevo as they search for answers to their tough questions about the Dayton agreement. I just happened to sit at their table on the last day of the event at the Hope Hotel at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where the agreement was reached, so needless to say I was surprised when Hunt told me that he had arranged for a BBQ with them.

Last year I met Paja Fukarek (far left) and Valery Perry (not pictured). Dr. Perry works at the Democratization Policy Council, and I'd definitely recommend checking out her articles if you'd like to get a better understanding of post-Dayton BiH.

Valery Perry and Kurt Bassuener of the Democratization Policy Institute and Sue Folger of Internews were at the event last year and the BBQ and are still working on the documentary. Check out the trailer below! If you're interested in donating to the project let me know and I'll put you in touch with Valery.

Like much of our trip, the night was a whirlwind. I jumped into Paja's car (pronounced "Piya") and he took us straight up to the top of the mountain where his friend owns a farm. The farm was on the front lines during the war (most of it actually lies in what was the "no man's land" between Serb and BiH forces) and was where he and his friends spent their time during the siege. On the way up he showed us the grave of President Izetbegovich and the spot where he hid during a Serb charge during the war.

The cemetery where President Izetbegovich is buried.

On the way up the mountain...

Once we arrived we had some "real" rakija. Cevapi was being grilled next to the tent and there were Sarajevsko Pivos in the tub next to the barn. They were doing some filming for the documentary as well. Below are some of my favorite memories.

We had our first taste of "real" rakija made in the mountains of Sarajevo... we're fans.

Valery's dog Froya was adorable... she earned her living begging on the streets of Sarajevo before Valery adopted her. She's still quite good at it...

How can you say no to that face? I couldn't...

There was a lot of great food under the tent waiting for us at the top...

...and Sue was filming as well.

Kemo and Azem Velić were on the grill...

...and Sarajevskos were in the tub by the barn.

The best part was the great company though.

We couldn't ask for much more, although what we got next was a tour led by Paija, who showed us the layout of the battlefield he served on during the war, including the trenches they defended the city in. He pointed out all the trees too and noted that his unit was the only one that didn't clear cut the forest.

Paja's sense of humor was best displayed when he warned us to stay on the trail and away from the mines leftover from the war (which wasn't the funny part). He pointed to the sheep and said that they like to send them out to graze in the minefield so they can find the mines. He explained that "they find the mines and you get to have a barbecue... It's a lambicide."

This is one of the trenches where they took cover during the war.

The view from the top... it was much easier to understand just how important their strategic locations were after seeing the map at the War Tunnel Museum. It's also beautiful.

Paja explained to the delegation just how strategic the location was during the war.

On the way back he was offering selfies, so naturally we had to take him up on it. That's a sign warning of mines in the area in the top right of the photo.

After the BBQ we actually ended the night at the Marquee Bar, a local favorite that makes up part of the lively bar scene in Sarajevo. It was a great time, and the best part was that they were celebrating the Fourth of July (albeit a couple days early). Nothing quite like celebrating July 4th in Sarajevo! I had to take one of the posters home for a souvenir too, which we all signed...

And a fun time was had by all...

Our time in Sarajevo was too short, but it was great to experience our sister city like we did in the time we had. We woke up the next day to travel to the second city of our visit: Banja Luka, in Republika Syrpska.

Check out Bosnia & Hercegovina Part II - Banja Luka here!

Black Mountain/Montreat, North Carolina

2015-06-18T16:19:00.003-04:00

Stateside Again

So this year's trip was a little different than last year's Italian one (and thankfully much cheaper!) With finishing up my graduate program at Wright State by taking summer classes the week after finishing up at the STEM School, then going back to school the week after those classes are over, there was less time and money this year to go overseas. In what has become a fairly predictable pattern, we decided to remain stateside and travel to a state which neither of us had been before: North Carolina. And, of course, we stayed with friends. We are lucky to have some really good ones.

The trip down together was a lot of fun and full of beautiful scenery, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that we stopped in Rocky Top Tennessee and had some great ribs at Coal Creek Smokehouse for dinner. The ribs and pulled pork were almost as good as the company.

An odd angle of Amanda driving down.

One-stop shopping for all your pork and tattoo needs.

In truth, all you really need are the ribs. The other stuff was great too, though, and they have a nice local beer selection and front-porch dining.

The Cabin in Montreat

This time one of my friends and colleagues from the STEM School had a cabin in her family called "Kirkhaven," and it was amazing. Or, to steal her words, it is a "magical place." The cabin is in the "town" of Montreat, which is really an overgrown retreat for Presbyterians in the mountains above the town of Black Mountain. Reading, playing chess or the newly purchased mandolin I bought down in Black Mountain, or just sitting around chatting with friends while on this porch are some of the best memories I brought back. With the water chasing after itself in the nearby stream as it trickles into nearby Lake Susan, it always sounds like it's raining. The temperature, too, is always near-perfect. When we got tired of entertaining each other, the perfectly-timed release of Orange is the New Black did the trick.

Having fun learning to play the mandolin I bought from Acoustic Corner in Black Mountain. Very friendly shop with excellent service and beautiful instruments.

While there I decided to try and emulate some of the Irish/Scottish/English breakfasts I've had in the past. I made this breakfast twice on our trip and neither time did I burn the eggs. Like I said, it's a magical place!

Orange is the New Black could not be missed. Even in the mountains. On vacation. Sorry, Jenny.

Rock sitting was a group favorite. Amanda and some of the folks even waded down the creek to the nearby Montreat Conference Center. I was not as adventurous. I was there to relax...

...except when Kevin and I were trying to grill meat that one night. In the end we didn't do too bad, but our charcoal-grilling skills were at odds with our pyro inclinations. In the end everyone said that dinner was good. Strangely, they didn't ask us to cook again...

Ultimately, dinner was served and Jordan even got an early birthday cupcake. Happy early 30th my friend! For reference, this picture was taken in a nearby picnic area, which you have to reserve, but is only about 30 yards from the cabin.

Black Mountain

But enough about the cabin and friends. There was a lot to do outside as well. We'll start with my personal favorite: golfing. My friend Kevin and I chose to head over to the city's course, Black Mountain Golf Course. Designed by Donald Ross in 1929, this course seems to channel some of his original Scotch heritage, which fits well with the Scotch-Irish/Presbyterian-rich area, although the course layout can be frustrating at times. While not actually a links course, it had the feel of one (an assessment which I base on my extensive, one-time experience of golfing in Scotland). At least twice I found myself yelling "FORE!" as my ball sailed towards a group teeing off on the next hole. Still, if you want to know how a person who is thrilled if they shoot under 100 performed (AKA me), you can check out my scorecard (courtesy of my favorite golfing app: FunGolf). Limiting myself to two triple bogeys was a personal victory, and if you look closely you'll even find a par on hole 17, which is an unheard of par 6! You'll likely need 6 strokes for this 747-yard monster.

Kevin teeing off on the Par 6 hole #17

Venturing into town to check out the shops and such is also a must. My friend and host, Emerie, describes the town of Black Mountain as "like a mountain version of Yellow Springs. . . only bigger and with more Presbyterian people." I found this description to be largely accurate. The shops were a lot of fun, although after a while you can only take so many pottery shops filled with kitschy signs. I took refuge by getting ice cream at Kilwin's.

On the subject of food and drink, there were so many great places to choose from that I was only able to hit a few. If you're into local breweries, Pigsah Brewing Company is actually located in Black Mountain. Unfortunately I didn't make it over, but it didn't matter too much. Nearly everyone serves Pisgah. The first place we visited upon arrival was Trailhead, where we were late for music but just in time for some drinks with those who arrived earlier in the day. Another nice stop (excluding the flaky server) was the Black Mountain Ale House, which had great beers and tasty mixed drinks. Don't miss one of my new favorite coffee shops, the Dripolator, or Louise's Kitchen, which has some great food. I wish I had made it over to Louise's for breakfast, and if lunch is any indicator of the quality then I'm sure I missed out.

Photo taken by Emerie at Black Mountain Ale House

I like my coffee shops to impart a bit of wisdom with my morning cup of coffee. I finished a short compilation of Steve Biko's writings and started a Kurt Vonnegut book of short stories and essays on war and peace while I was on the trip, so this seemed very apropos.

Things Nearby

The nearby city of Asheville was another attraction. I only headed over for Indian food our last night there (at Mela, which was amazing), but Amanda and others went to visit the Craggy Gardens Pinnacle Trail along the Blue Ridge Parkway (I think that's right), which also looked beautiful and, I'm told, had some fun trails to hike. I'm sure it was almost as amazing as the views from the golf course, which is where I was at the time (see above).

This picture from Emerie made me kind of sad I missed it.

The view from the top. Beautiful picture. The mountains in the background are nice too.

Another fun thing we did was take a short trip over to nearby Lake Lure, about 45 minutes away, where you can go canoeing and kayaking. Our friends Jenny, Kevin, and Brittnee let us tag along as they went out on the water for about two hours (with an hour in between for lunch and drinks at a small little tiki bar attached to The Geneva motel, just past the Flowering Bridge and only a little ways up Broad River). They brought their own kayaks and canoes, but you can rent them for $15 an hour (or $60 per day) there in town.

The view from Jenny's canoe. Her pictures are much prettier than the ones I take.

So much more...

There were so many things we would have liked to do, but this was a great trip nonetheless. I've heard that the Seven Sisters Art Gallery in Black Mountain is spectacular, and I would have loved to have stayed in Asheville for a whole day at least. The nearby Biltmore Hotel is another stop Amanda wanted to visit, but we simply ran out of time. Plus at $60 to visit, it's a bit pricey.

If you're wanting to stay at this magical place, it runs for $125 per night or $1,000 for the week. At one point we had twelve people (including a number of couples) there and it still felt spacious, so if you have a group that wants to have a great experience together, email Lisa Allen at lallen4@comcast.net. There's plenty of front porch seating, a fire pit, and two stories, so it's definitely worth the money, particularly with a larger group of people. Special thanks to the Allens for their warm hospitality.

Happy Travels!

Local Travel - Hispanic Festival

2014-08-16T20:26:00.003-04:00

Next up in our local series is the Hispanic Heritage Festival, which is a lively festival that celebrates Latin American heritage each year at the Dayton RiverScape MetroPark. This festival is well-attended and takes place just one day, this year lasting from 11am-11pm.

The music was great, especially if you like merengue

In terms of local festivals, this is one of my favorites, and much of that has to do with the food. From spicy pork to savory empanadas, you can find a lot to sample here. This was definitely my favorite part, although I will say that the drink selection (which consisted solely of Yuengling and Sam Adams) left something to be desired. I couldn't even find a Corona, let alone Dos Equis or a Modelo. Still, the food is the real draw for us anyways. If you're a fan of Salsa or Merengue music, you're sure to enjoy some dancing too. I, however, could hardly walk (let alone dance) after sampling all the food I could. Here's what we did.

Plenty of food tents, although the ones on St. Clair were the best

Plenty of grilled food, including Mexican...

...and Peruvian (great empanadas here)

St. Clair is where the better food tents and vendor booths are located

The Lydys, Emerie, Peggy, and Jordan joined us for this trip. Festivals are always better with friends.

Ezra checks out some of the stands

Mmm... empanadas (I had two - steak and chicken)

Ironically, we got caught in the rain while drinking this... true story. Even these were non-alcoholic though, but still tasty.

The pavilion had some music and dancing as well, but to be honest I spent most of my time wandering around here after a brief excursion with Jordan to find an ATM (the closest of which, by the way, is directly East of the MetroParks main office at 409 E. Monument St).

Antojitos Criollos was probably the best food tent we tried, as the line can attest. It's also a local Puerto Rican restaurant that we plan to try now, located at 3937 Linden Ave.

Potatoes, beans and rice, and chicken and pork from Antojitos Criollos


Emerie and Peggy enjoying the fried plantains. The sweet fried plantains were delicious!

Between the food, music, and friends, this is always a fun festival to visit. There's stuff for the kids as well, including games and face-painting. Afterwards part of the group went to see Dr. Strangelove at the Victoria Theater, which was playing as part of their Cool Films Series. We would have joined, but had a class reunion to attend the same evening. It was a great time though and the festival is definitely worth the trip downtown. Enjoy!

Local Travel - German Festival

2014-08-10T15:16:00.000-04:00

So I've decided that this travel blog doesn't have to be about traveling all the way around the world. There are so many things right here in the Miami Valley that we can travel to easily and enjoy as well, and when I have time I'm going to highlight some of them. Given our very brief trip to Germany for an unplanned layover on our trip to Italy this summer, I thought the annual Dayton Germanfest might be a good place to start. Filling in for Amanda (who was out of town for a friend's wedding) on this "trip" was another redhead, my brother Patrick.

For the last thirty years the Dayton Liederkranz-Turner German Club has held a "Germanfest picnic," and this year was their 31st. One of the earlier festivals in the festival season, this was one I'd never attended, usually opting instead for the Oktoberfest, which is also a great time. I'm glad I went though, and there's a lot of great food, music, and festivities to enjoy. The festival takes place at Carillon Park. The video below has a number of highlights and is worth watching to get a sense of the mood. It also serves as a good barometer for whether or not you'll enjoy the music, as yes, there is a lot of polka. But there's also a German beard contest, so how can you not enjoy that?

Food

Food is one of the primary draws, of course. For dinner I got a mett sausage, sauerkraut, and potato salad, which are really fried potatoes. They were delicious, although I kind of wish they had been a little more generous on the portion sizes given the price, which was $9 for everything (not including the beer). Still, it was good, and I was more happy to have enough room for snacks.

Potato salad, sauerkraut, and a mett sausage

After grabbing some dinner we strolled around looking for more food, which is not in short supply. You definitely have to stop by one of the pretzel booths. These pretzels were salty and very light - almost puffy. I'd never had one that tasted quite like them, but they were so good I went back for another. They have the more traditional ones that I'm used to also, but I would always choose this kind if given the choice. The sausages to the right were great too; spicy and like really, really good summer sausage.

Some amazing German pretzels and sausages

The food tent is always busy

And the sausage is cooked nearby

No shortage of food tents either, although if you skip the German food for this then shame on you!

I do like homemade ice cream though... I stayed strong though and saved all the room I had for pretzels

Drink

Germany is also synonymous with beer, of course, and there's no shortage of it here. The prices were reasonable, but if you want a craft beer from a local brewery like Warped Wing or Toxic Brew you'll be paying around $6, while the really good German beers are only $5. Of course, given that the Dayton Sister City was celebrating 50 years of partnership with Augsburg, Germany, it seemed appropriate to celebrate something both cities have in common: great beer.

The main beer tent, where you can find microbrews and German beers

Local microbrews had a respectable showing and celebrated Dayton's burgeoning microbrewery market

Beer just brings people closer together

Seating was actually not a problem, it's a laid-back festival where you can relax and enjoy good company

Fun for all ages!

Entertainment

Kids and adults both have ample opportunities to be entertained here. Whether it's the kids' play area, the merchant and antique booths, or the music stage, you're sure to find something to do.

Just one of the things for the kids... and I'm pretty sure I saw a few adults enjoying it as well

There are also plenty of inflatables to wear the kids out before heading home

Patrick checking out one of the antique booths, which actually had some really cool stuff, mostly books, posters, and magazines

Even Ronald Reagan made an appearance

Plenty of stuff to browse in between food and beer samplings

And, of course, there are beer steins...

As well as other vendors

German food that you could probably only get at Jungle Jims

And a really out of place nutcracker

That's right, lederhosen for the little one

While not normally my thing, polka sounds better when you listen to it while eating sausage and sauerkraut

Many of the tables cleared out so people could get up and dance

And if you can't get enough polka while you're there, you can always take some home with you...

All in all, this is a fun-filled festival with a relaxed environment, good food, great beer, and something to do for everyone. This is definitely one that I'll be going back to next year, and after going I was sad that I had neglected it for so long. Don't make the same mistake I did!

Italy - Florence

2014-07-28T17:40:00.001-04:00

The climb up into the Duomo is worth it. Great view of Florence. Also makes you feel like the Assassin in Assassin's Creed.

My last post for this trip is about our day trip to Florence. We took the train up to Florence from Rome, and on the high-speed train it's only about an hour and a half ride. Again, you can check times for the rail system at www.virail.it. Given our short time in Italy it was actually kind of nice to be able to see more of the country through the windows of the train on the ride up, so I'd recommend taking a train ride at some point in your own trip. As I mention in the first post on Planning and Tips for Travel, you'll want to download Rick Steves' audio tours and maps before you go. We hadn't planned on having time for the short trip to Florence, so we didn't do it beforehand, but we wish we had. I've got the links here for your convenience -

Florence Audio Tours from Rick Steves' Italy Audio Tours

Renaissance Walk Tour
Listen or Download | Download map
Accademia & Michelangelo's David
Listen or Download | Download map
Uffizi Gallery Tour
Listen or Download | Download map

Florence is commonly referred to as the "birthplace of the Renaissance," and given its massive wealth (due largely to rich families like the Medicis) it had many arts patrons who could finance some massive projects. For more on the history of Florence, check out Lonely Planet's article. Our time in Florence was brief, so we didn't do half of the things we wanted to do, but it was still a great time. We did see the beautiful and architectural masterpiece built by Brunelleschi. National Geographic did a story on the dome's history, which is fascinating, given that the city built the massive church before the technology existed to create a dome that would cover such a great expanse. With rain falling into the cathedral, it is certainly true in the case of the Duomo that "necessity is the mother of invention," and in 1420 the designer Brunelleschi proposed a nested two-dome design which the church fathers cautiously commissioned. When climbing to the top you get an idea of just how massive of a project it must have been, and you realize when seeing the frescoed ceiling up close just how large the paintings are.

Up close picture of one of the faces in the dome. This guy's head is about as big as me.

The Last Judgment fresco. Check out this blog for more on the artwork inside the cupola.

There are over 400 steps to get to the top, so eat your Wheaties the morning you prepare to visit.

The view from the top is breathtaking...

... in more ways than one.

Makes you feel like the Assassin from Assassin's Creed 2... I admit I'm a fan. If you are too check out this video juxtaposing Assassin's Creed 2 segments with the real shots of the city. The game designers really did an amazing job.

After the Duomo, we walked over to see the Baptistry of St. John's, which is right in front of the Duomo. This is a must-see, and be sure to check out the famous doors of the Baptistry. Although they're copies now, Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise" depicts 10 Old Testament stories.

The scenes are 3D.

For more on the doors and the inside of the Baptistry, check out Sacred Destination's article.

Once inside you have to sit down and look up a lot at all of the scenes. Be sure to grab a pamphlet inside the doors on the left so you know what is being depicted on the ceiling's beautiful (and sometimes terrifying) mosaics.

Small chapel altar inside the Baptistry.

The mosaic of Christ is amazing as he sits in judgment of the world. To his left you can see a terrifying image of hell.

A look up into the dome. For a good description of the different scenes depicted, check out the Web Gallery of Art.

Some statues inside the Baptistry.

Check out the terrifying image of hell on the bottom row... Here's a brief description of what's happening.

After that we walked through some shops and visited some of the street market vendors on our way over to the famous Ponte Vecchio, which is a stone bridge lined with shops. You can read a brief history of the bridge on Lonely Planet's review. Today it's pretty much entirely gold shops, so if you're in the market for a watch or some jewelry, this is definitely a stop you'll want to make.

View from the bridge overlooking the Arno river.

The obligatory bridge selfie...

The bridge is pretty crowded... watch for pickpockets.

After that we walked around and shopped for a while. I got some shoes and a chess board, after which Amanda cut me off from further expensive purchases. Florence is known for its gold, leather, and many fashion stores. If you're into shopping this is your place. Check out this Conde Nast Traveller article on where to shop if that's the case for you.

Apparently waffles are a thing in Florence. I had never had gelato sandwiched in between two waffles before. Check...

Gotta have Florentine steak in Florence, right? We found a good restaurant that I reviewed here.

I got a really cool chess set pitting Roman military pieces against the Goths. I even got Amanda to play with me while waiting on our train home at a small cafe!

I don't really have anyplace to put this, but we happened to walk by this nondescript apartment after walking through the Ponte Vecchio and found that this is the apartment where Dostoevsky wrote one of my favorite novels, The Idiot. I wouldn't have noticed had I not seen another person taking a picture of it!

The last stop before heading home was to the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, which after serving as a personal residence for members of the Medici family and the Riccardi family, then briefly the capital of Italy after the unification of Italy, is now a museum and sometimes a meeting place for city leaders.

It was definitely one of our favorite stops, although we only stumbled upon it after walking by it and figuring we should see something related to the famous banking family. It has a lot of classical work and some very intriguing modern art pieces as well, which (in spite of my lack of interest in modern art) I found to be pretty cool. Inside you can see the famous Chapel of the Magi by Bennozzo Gozzoli (no pictures allowed, sorry) which is a beautiful Renaissance frescoed chapel that is definitely worth visiting. You can see some of the fresco walls here though. There's also a really neat interactive simulation set up outside the chapel which is set up kind of like a Wii where you can point to different parts of the fresco and listen to explanations of what is being depicted on that part of the painting.

Here are some of the highlights from the visit -

Cool ceramic art piece depicting the Tower of Babel.

"Kiss" by Xu Hong-fei. This was part of a traveling exhibit at the museum that was pretty cool. It's part of his "Chubby Charms" series, which have traveled around the world. Here's an article from when they were in London.

There are also some classic pieces and some really valuable stuff as well, like this (purple marble again) basin...

I loved this golfing one... it's called Good Job.

And this one too... apparently I share a love of golfing and motorcycle riding with the Chubby Charms...

...and cycling. The sculptures just make you feel joy.

Lots of classical statues to see here as well.

There is a great hall on the first floor overlooking the garden that was frescoed by Luca Giordano. On the ceiling is the Apotheosis of Medici. Apparently they thought very highly of themselves... pun intended.

It's easier to snap a picture of the description of the Galleria than explain it.

A scene from the Galleria.

Council meetings are still held from time to time in the tapestry room.

See?

Shot of The Apotheosis of the Medici from underneath the fresco.

While you're there, don't miss peaking inside the salon on the first floor, where negotiations between Charles VIII and the Florentine elite took place after the Medici family ceded this palace to him, resulting in the family's banishment from Florence for the shame of stooping to his demands. After Charles VIII's demands became too great and he threatened that the city would be sacked once he called for his trumpets to sound, Senator Pier Capponi supposedly said "If you sound your trumpets we shall toll our bells!" The Florentine leaders then vacated the negotiations, prompting Charles to call them back into the salon, as he didn't want to risk the revolt of the entire city. Read more about the history of the encounter and what happened at the Province of Florence's website.

Our stay was too short, and these are of course just a few things to do. While admittedly a terrible thing to miss, we didn't make it to see Michelangelo's famous David sculpture in the Galleria dell Academia. The line was simply too long and we didn't make it there in time to get through the line. There were many other things we didn't have time to do, which you can research on Lonely Planet ahead of time. Still, we enjoyed our experience and it was a nice day trip. We took the last train back to Rome and headed to our favorite restaurant again, Tema, back in Rome.

Relaxing in the streets of Rome after our day trip.

I hope you enjoyed reading about our trip to Italy. If this is the first post you've checked out, there are four other posts you can check out as well. If you go there, please share your experiences with us.

Thanks for reading!

Italy - Planning and Tips for Travel

Italy - Minturno

Italy - Rome

Italy - Vatican City

Italy - Vatican City

2014-07-28T14:36:00.000-04:00

Amanda and I standing in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

Seeing the Vatican was at the top of our list of things we wanted to do in Rome. Although it's not just St. Peter's Basilica that attracts visitors, the Vatican Museums are also a huge pull, and there is more art on display there than you have time to truly see in a day.

If you know nothing about Vatican City, you probably are aware that it is the world's smallest country and is an enclave inside Rome. Also referred to as the "Holy See," the Vatican has a population of less than 1000 people and, according to the CIA World Factbook, takes up less space than the National Mall in Washington, D.C. As I pointed out in the Rome post, this is not actually where the Pope's cathedra rests. That's in St. John's Lateran. Lateran refers to a number of things, such as the Laterni family and the palace that used to be there, but in this context it refers to the Lateran Treaty, which created the papal enclave and allowed it to separate from the rest of Italy after Italian unification in the 1800s. For a long time the Pope considered himself a prisoner inside the walls of the Vatican until the Lateran Treaties set up Vatican City as a fully sovereign nation, still the world's smallest country in geographic area and in population. My own small town of Xenia, OH dwarfs it by comparison. Here's a good map of the Vatican so you can orient yourself.

Click here to view a larger version of this map.

Some tips for visiting the Vatican

Be sure to book ahead of time for the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel (which is actually an exhibit inside the museum) so you don't have to wait in the long line. It's a bit of a jungle at the Vatican!

One thing we did ahead of time (but unfortunately forgot to bring with us) was to download Rick Steves' audio tours of St. Peter's Basilica. You can also download his Sistine Chapel Tour and map ahead of time for the visit.

Rick has a number of audio tours that you can download for free for Italy (and Rome in particular) and other European destinations. I'd recommend downloading those ahead of time and printing off the maps or saving them as pictures on your phone. The map for St. Peter's is here. I also updated our Planning and Tips for Travel post on Italy to include links to other sites in Italy for which he's created audio tours in case you'd like to know how to find them. Be sure to watch the Rick Steves Europe video Rome: Baroque Brilliance, which highlights a number of the stops you can see so you can get an idea of what you want to be sure to see in person when you get there.

Vising the Vatican was a really cool experience, and I'm sure everyone has things they found special. It was especially neat being there only a year into Pope Francis' papacy. As the first Jesuit Pope (see more in my Rome post about this religious order or check out this informative piece from CNN on the impact of the Jesuits), Pope Francis has chosen to forgo many of traditional trappings of the office in favor of a more humble papacy and seems to have a keen understanding of the symbolic power of the choices he makes in how he carries out his papacy. A good video and story about his choice not to live in the papal apartments from CNN can be viewed here. One of the more interesting things about being in Rome was just how much people love Francis. You can't help but feel a little sorry for Pope Emeritus Benedict, as his predecessor John Paul II and the Francis clearly outshine him. You can easily find tons of vendors selling JPII and Pope Francis stuff everywhere, but Benedict souvenirs are a bit more difficult to come by.

Below are some pictures highlighting some of the things I personally thought were the most interesting about our visit.

View of the obelisk and St Peter's Basilica as we stand in line for St Peter's. The lines are long, and beware of pickpockets.

A panorama doesn't do it justice, but it's still a breathtaking view. I've been told the design of St. Peter's "square" (which is not square) was meant to represent the arms of the Church reaching out to the world to welcome you into its embrace. It kind of felt that way.

The basilica up close. Christ is in the middle, flanked by the twelve apostles along the roof.

Inside the basilica it's a tradition to touch the feet of St. Peter.

The feet are pretty worn down, giving you a sense of just how steeped in tradition everything is here at the Vatican. You really get the feeling you are walking in the footsteps of many pilgrims before you.

Bernini's Baroque Baldachin (or altar canopy). Much more brilliant in person.

A look up into the dome of St. Peter's, designed by Michelangelo.

Jesus flanked by his apostles. Through here was a cool stop you should see... Again, listen to Rick Steves' free audio tour while you're inside for all the things I'm not pointing out.

Michelangelo's Pieta.

St. Peter stands outside holding the keys of the Church. For more on Catholic theology regarding St. Peter, check out this reading.

A better view of the basilica and St. Peter.

Inside the Vatican Museums now. This is a map from the Galleria delle Carte Geografiche (Gallery of Maps).

A picture of Jesus... I'm not an art expert by any means, and I can't remember which gallery this was in. You'll have to visit yourself and get the audio tour. Many of the exhibits have numbers, and if you decide to purchase the audio tours when you get there, you'll see numbers next to many of the pieces of art where you can listen to more specific details about certain artifacts.

The Vatican has a huge collection of Egyptian art.

If you recall the purple marble I talked about earlier, you'll remember how heavy it was. This is Nero's bath, made completely out of that really expensive marble... I can't begin to imagine how heavy it is.

There are many amazing frescoes to see inside the Vatican. The Cappella Niccolina has quite a few.

View from the Borgia apartments.

The School of Athens Fresco is in the Stanze di Raffaello.

Closer view of Plato and Aristotle.

Who knew one of The Thinker sculptures was in the Modern Art exhibit?

Modern Art exhibit in the Borgia apartments was one of my favorites...

OK, part of the reason I liked it was because we like watching the often pseudo-historical show The Borgias on Netflix, so it was cool being in the Borgia apartments.

There was a whole room of modern art dedicated to sculptures of popes.

I thought this one was particularly interesting.

A work by Fernando Botero entitled "Trip to the Ecumenical Council" from 1972 in the modern art exhibit. This was one of my favorites for some reason...

I just liked it.

There's so much to see at the Vatican, these are just a few of the ones I really enjoyed. I hope your visit is as much fun as ours was!

Last post for this trip is Florence - check it out!

Italy - Rome

2014-07-27T21:43:00.000-04:00

Amanda and I at the Colloseum. Note the cool hat I bought in Minturno.

We got into Rome early by taking the high-speed train from Minturno to Rome's Termini station (again, find rail info at viRail.it). Literally called "multiple terminals," it is so named because almost all train tracks going to Rome end right here. It's also one of the relatively small number of locations where you can almost always find a taxi. One thing to know about Rome is that taxis don't travel around nearly as much as they do in other big cities. The drivers are generally content to wait at the airport, the Termini station, and some other places around the city, so don't count on one driving by unless you've called for one, which we did when we went to the Vatican.

I've highlighted on the Google Map below a number of the places we visited, although we definitely didn't do all of them in a day. What I would recommend is using the app I mentioned in the first post - Triposo, and researching the places you want to go ahead of time. Once you've done that you can use one of the functions on there called "City Walk," which allows you to select a number of the places you want to see and then have the app create a walking tour for you (which it will do without Internet) so you can visit them all most efficiently. You can also read up on them while you're there to find the "things to see," and even find some ones that weren't on your initial list but that look intriguing when you walk by, which end up being some of the most memorable visits. Another good site for information is rome.info.

This is the relic of the Basilica of St. Prassede, which is believed to be a fragment of the column to which Jesus was tied when he was flogged before the crucifixion. Whether it is or not historians debate (although probably not), but it has been believed to be for a long time. More importantly though, we only visited this beautiful basilica because we happened to turn our heads at the right time en route to St. John's Lateran and read what was inside on Trioposo!

History is everywhere in Rome. As one of our guides pointed out, part of the reason that Rome only has two subway lines is that every time they dig something up it becomes an archeological site.

Case in point - some work being done close to St. John's Lateran while we visited exposes some Roman brickwork. You can't spit in Rome without hitting something that's been around longer than the United States has been in existence.

Here's a map of the places we visited, including some restaurants, churches, and places inside the Vatican. Seeing everything took about 3-4 days, although we stayed in the Hotel Canova for four nights and took a day trip to Florence. We both liked the Hotel Canova, although our only complaints were that the WiFi went out the night before we left and the complimentary continental breakfast isn't worth skipping a chance to eat in one of the city's cafes. Go up and grab a yogurt to go if you must, but then head out to a local cafe up the street along the Piazza dell'Esquilino for a real Italian breakfast and a cappuccino!

You can create your own map on Google Maps. For perspective, we could walk everywhere on here from our hotel, Canova, in under an hour. In fact we walked to everything here at one point or another during our stay. We only took a cab to the Vatican (not pictured here, but to the West) to get there a bit earlier in the morning, but it would have been about an hour walk from the hotel.

I'd also recommend watching the following Rick Steves' video. Check out my post on Planning & Tips for Travel to find audio tours and maps of a lot of the destinations I've mentioned below so you know what you're looking at when you see it!

Ancient (and not so ancient) Roman Sites

Best to get the most "touristy" stuff out of the way first was our thought. After arriving in Rome we went straight for our hotel, dropped off our stuff, then went to see the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. At the Roman Forum you can see things like the Roman Senate house of Julias Caesar and much, much more. It's helpful to visit the Coloseum first and get a guide who will take you over there after the tour, as there's so much to see and you don't know what you're looking at without someone telling you or researching it in detail ahead of time. I'd definitely recommend downloading Rick Steves' Roman Forum Tour and map ahead of time to bring with you.

View from the Colosseum with Constantine's Arch behind us.

View down into the Colosseum. A stage would have covered this.

A pano of the Colosseum still doesn't do it justice. It's huge and still rivals our own stadiums today.

I'd highly recommend a tour guide. Most of what they tell you is stuff you've read before, but if it's your first time it's nice hearing someone explain it why they point it out to you so you can see it for yourself. Much different than looking at pictures. You'll see some people swarming around you offering you tour guides you when you get there. It's OK, they're legit, and you can believe them when they say that if you join their tour that you'll get through the line quicker... much quicker, in fact. They charge you the ticket price and a fee for their service. The second of those things is negotiable, and if you walk past the louder ones at the entrance to the Colosseum you'll find a better deal (as much as 10 Euros in our case).

View of the Colosseum and Constantine's Arch from the Roman Forum, which a good guide will take you to after you visit the Colosseum. Ask your guide before you pay to make sure this trip is a part of your deal first. They may ask for tips later, and 5 euros is pretty generous.

View from Palatine Hill of the Roman Forum. The Forum was where everything converged in Rome - religion, politics, and economics. The market was here, the Senate met here, and there were many religious sites here as well. Have your guide tell you about them or check them out before walking past everything or you'll miss the significance.

Some of the ruins of the Emperors' palace(s). It's called Palatine Hill because it's where the Emperors lived... in their Palaces. It's one of the more famous of the seven hills of Rome.

The Arch of Titus, which straddles the Via Sacra (or Sacred Way) that runs through the Forum. If you look at the other side you'll see one of two things that are all over Rome - the abbreviation S.P.Q.R. This stands for Senatus Populusque Romanorum, or "The Senate and People of Rome." As an institution it pre-dates the Roman Empire (as it is the dominant institution of the Republic) and outlasted the fall of the Roman Empire. It's also on a lot of man-hole covers thanks to Mussolini's attempt to legitimize his dictatorship.

Santa Francesca Romana, (previously St. Mary's). Probably belongs in the holy sites section, but you can see its facade only from the Forum. Would have liked to have gone inside, but will have to save that for the next trip.

According to our guide, those marble columns outside what used to be the Temple of Romulus (and is now known as Santi Cosma e Damiano, a Christian church) are made of the most expensive purple marble that was only used by emperors. It's extremely dense and heavy. Now the Roman Catholic Church owns most of it, including Nero's bathtub, which is housed in the Vatican Museum. A picture of that is forthcoming in the Vatican post. Also, the lock and keys to this door still work. The Vatican owns those too...

To be honest I forget which one this is... comment below if you recognize it.

A view looking down the Via Sacra as we walk through the Roman Forum.

Stuff like this is everywhere.

The Senate House, or Roman Curia, the construction of which began under Julius Caesar but was finished by Augustus.

After the forum, check out the Campidoglio, which is the square designed by Michelangelo on top of Capitoline Hill, another of the seven hills of Rome. For a good description of the buildings and monuments to be found there, check out this site. You can also see (can't miss, really) the Altar of the Fatherlands, a monument honoring Italy's unification. After that, stroll across the street to Trajan's Column and Marketplace, both of which are very cool.

Like I said... hard to miss. Lonely Planet has a good short description if you're interested in the Altar of the Fatherlands.

Trajan's column, which depicts his victories in the Dacian Wars. Definitely worth seeing.

A closer view of Trajan's Column.

After that it's not a long walk up to see the Masoleum of Augustus, although while we were there it was undergoing some archeological excavations and closed to the public. We did get a decent shot of it though.

Masoleum of Caesar Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome... unless you count Julias Caesar.

The Trevi Fountain and Spanish steps are not too far away, although unfortunately the fountain was undergoing construction as well... I did manage to throw a penny I found over my shoulder though (and the construction fence) while we were there, which according to tradition means I will return again some day! Watch out at the Spanish Steps in particular for people trying to sell you stuff. It wasn't enjoyable having so many people shove water bottles or roses into your face asking you for money, so we didn't stay there long. You have to see them both though whenever you visit Rome. It's a rule or something dictated by Rick Steves.

Another stop to see is the Pons Fabricio, or "Bridge of Fabricius." It's a good stop for after you visit the Great Synagogue (described below) as it's right across the street.

Amanda standing on the oldest standing stone bridge still in continual use in Rome.

Built in 62 BC, it's right across from the Jewish Ghetto, an area which was occupied by Jews even during St. Paul's time, so it's very conceivable that he walked across it as well given its proximity to the Jewish area in Rome.

View of the bridge, which spans the Tiber river.

One thing we didn't do but that I wanted to try was biking in Rome. Rick Steves recommends Top Bike Rentals and Tours, which he bills as being run by Romans "who love their city and love showing it off." If someone does this, let me know how you liked it!

Holy Sites

There are more churches and holy sites in Rome than you'd be able to visit in a lifetime. If you feel like you're missing out, just remind yourself that even the Pope hasn't visited all of them! Below are some of the ones we visited.

All the sites have something unique, so it's more about what you're interested in seeing. This person has done a good job of listing their own top ten and why they like them, it's worth checking out. My favorite stop, for example, was seeing the place where St. Ignatius of Loyala lived, who was the founder of the Society of Jesus, a Catholic order that began after the Reformation and which spearheaded the Counter-Reformation. He's famous for his spiritual refocusing of Christianity, particularly the spiritual exercises he instituted and his "daily examen," which is literally a five-step approach to examining yourself each day. Perhaps in Ohio though his right-hand-man, St. Xavier, is more famous. He has a famous university or two named after him. Jesuits are also known for their commitment to education and missions and are referred to as the "Pope's Marines." Read this story from CNN to find out why. I could go on, but here are some pictures...

This is a shot from inside the beautiful and ornate Chiesa di Gesu (Church of Jesus) in Rome, the home of the Order of the Society of Jesus.

Another view from the inside.

Close by you can visit the recently renovated Rooms of St. Ignatius, where he and his closest advisors lived and worked to enlarge the order's reach. This is his room.

This is me in his room...

A sign pointing out that it's his room...

An Ignatian relic - his cloak.

Some of his shoes, which people used to come and carefully cut in order to take a piece home with him on pilgrimages to his residence. Amazing how much of them are still left!

You can see some of the original primary documents of his spiritual exercises there as well.

Some of the key founders of the order.There's also a really cool room next to his apartment that's painted in such a way that it really plays with perspective. You have to see it though, I can't describe it and do it justice. It was Amanda's favorite part of this stop.

As a former Roman temple and a current church, the Pantheon straddles the line between Roman history and Church history. Read more about it here.

The Pantheon was 'converted' into a Christian Church, although originally it was a site for all gods of the Roman Empire, hence the name.

I always wondered what happened when it rained at the Pantheon. We found out on our visit - the rain falls onto the Pantheon floor, obviously...

Another view inside the Pantheon.

St. John's Basilica is another must-see stop. This is actually the highest ranking church in Roman Catholicism, as it's the seat (literally and figuratively) of the Bishop of Rome, whom most people know by his more preferred nomenclature - the Pope. If you're wondering which St. John (the one who dunked people or the one whom Jesus loved) this is named after, so was I. It's actually both. For a good history of it check out the Catholic Encyclopedia's historical explanation. For better pictures and a virtual tour (and organ music), check out this Vatican website.

View from Transept 1 looking towards the altar.

View of the ceiling, adorned with the Keys of St. Peter, which you'll see everywhere in Rome. They symbolize the Roman Catholic belief that the Pope is the successor to St. Peter, whom Christ gave "the keys to the Church."

The apse and throne (or 'cathedra,' which is where we get 'cathedral' and literally means 'seat') of St. Peter. This is literally and figuratively the Seat of the Bishop of Rome, currently occupied by Pope Francis. Better view here.

Beautiful mosaic above the cathedra.

Believe it or not, St. John's is actually one of the less gaudy churches in Rome...

This is a working church, and service was taking place in the Colonna Chapel while we visited. I'm guessing they're fans of Vatican II, as they had an acoustic guitar accompaniment.

View of the altar.

Apostles line the naves of the Church. This is St. Peter.

Down below the altar you'll find St. John. Pretty sure it's John the Baptist. People throw quite a lot of money down here.

You can also go to confessional at the churches in your native language. The larger basilicas like St. John's and St. Peter's have priests on hand who speak multiple languages and signs telling you which one you can go to. This one is Spanish. I thought it was cool that you could also choose which religious order you wanted when at St. Peters (e.g. Benedictine, Franciscan, Jesuit, etc.)

The altar (or what I'm calling the altar) sits above St. John.

I think this one is St. John, the one known as the disciple whom Jesus loved.

A smaller basilica behind St. John's is Constantine's Basilica, which is in honor of the Roman Emperor who made Christianity legal in the Roman Empire. Personally I'm not a fan of the emperor (although the basilica is beautiful), as he turned Christianity into a state religion and used it to justify his military victory over a rival to the throne, but there's no doubt that he played a huge role in the development of the Christian religion.

Chapel inside Constantine's Basilica.

Remember those expensive columns I talked about from the Temple of Romulus? Same kind of marble here too...

Constantine saw a vision of the cross (allegedly) before going into battle at Milvian Bridge in 312 AD, which he won. From then on he became a follower (or new leader, depending on how you look at it) of the Christian faith, attributing his victory to the Christian God. Christianity's long tradition of pacifism and non-violence began to quickly fade soon after. In my opinion it's one of the most tragic events in Christian history. Read more about Constantine's impact on Christianity here. A good book about Christianity and non-violence in the pre-Constantine years is Nonviolence: the History of a Dangerous Idea, by Mark Kurlansky, which I highly recommend.

Altar inside Constantine's Basilica.

From there it's a short walk to Santa Maria Basilica, which is another beautiful basilica. If you're a University of Dayton graduate you'll be happy to know that this is much more Marianist than the Church of the Gesu. Much more information can be found at the Vatican's site.

View from outside the basilica.

There are beautiful marble floors inside. We noted that there is a lot of that purple marble everywhere. When you walk across it inlaid next to other types of marble, it's notably higher due to its higher resistance to wear... or at least that's our theory.

Fresco ceiling.

High canopy over the altar. Note the purple "emperor" marble again...

View looking towards the apse.

Beautiful apse mosaic.

The relic here is (believed to be) four pieces of wood from the manger that held the Christ child.

Pope Pius IX kneeling before the altar. When you commission a basilica you often get to have your likeness in it.

A short walk from St. Mary's you will find the lesser basilica of Santa Prassede, which supposedly houses the relic of the flaggelation column I mentioned above. It's an interesting spot because it is named after the daughter of Pudens, a man whom supposedly housed St. Peter in his travels to Rome and whose daughters suffered persecution for burying early Christian martyrs. Much more to learn about. A good site for this one is Sacred Destinations.

Below the altar you can find collections of the bones of martyrs, including St. Pudenzia (Prassede's sister).

View of the altar and apse behind it.

Mosaic in the Chapel of St. Zeno. This picture doesn't do it justice, as the mosaic covers the entire room.

Again, the column believed to be what Christ was chained to when he was flogged.

The chapel was built by Pope Paschal I to bury the bones of martyred saints (and his mother).

One place you'll definitely want to stop is the Jewish Ghetto, which dates back to the 1500s. It was during that time that the Pope decided Jews needed to be separated off from the rest of Rome. This is after the 1442 expulsion of Jews (and Muslims) from Spain, so its official beginning as a legally separated area (which was fenced in from the rest of Rome) came during a particularly anti-Semitic period of Church history. The Jews of Rome thrived though and their presence in the city predates Christianity's arrival in Rome, and Christ. You should definitely visit the Great Synagogue of Rome and do the tour of the Spanish Synagogue and Great Synagogue. No pictures allowed inside the Spanish, but you can take pictures of the beautiful (and fairly young) Great Synagogue. Security is tight though, as this was the site of a tragic PLO assassination of a young boy in 1982. With everything going on in Israel/Palestine during our visit, security seemed particularly cautious, and understandably so. The museum is inside and you can go through that and then tour the synagogue with a group afterwards.

View of the outside of the Great Synagogue of Rome. It looks like a Church by design, as Rome has only relatively recently begun to celebrate and recognize the Jewish community at its heart.

Inside the Great Synagogue of Rome.

View of the beautiful rainbow ceiling, which recalls God's promise to Noah after the great flood.

You do have to wear a yarmukle when you visit if you're a guy. Also, women must cover shoulders, torsos, any exposed cleavage, and usually knees when visiting most churches (and synagogues), so Amanda wore short sleeves but carried around a shawl for her shoulders for when we went inside places. Some churches have shawls for you to cover up with, but others simply turn people who are inappropriately dressed away.

View of the altar. It's an enormous building with two floors. Women sit on the 1st floor, which we'd call the second or the balcony.

Across the street from the synagogue is what I thought was one of the most fascinating churches, at least from an "interfaith" perspective. San Gregorio della Divina Pieta is a small church where Jews used to be forced to attend. The story we heard was that the Jews would put wax in their ears to avoid hearing the sermons, so during a redesign of the church a painting of the crucifixion was placed above the entry along with an inscription from the Book of Isaiah about Jewish obstinacy (written in Latin and Hebrew).

View of the painted crucifixion and Isaiah passage above the entry to the church.

Closer look at the inscription. The passage from Isaiah 65:2-3 reads as follows: "All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations—a people who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick." In other words, just a bit passive-aggressive...

The message here was pretty obvious... read more about the history of anti-Semitism in the Church at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's website.

These were some of our favorite and most interesting holy sites that we visited, but there are so many more... So much to see and so little time!

Food

You have to eat in Rome too. Here are some of our favorites. Check out Trip Advisor or Yelp for reviews of a restaurant before you visit though. We had one bad experience that we could have avoided had we done so. The following are in no particular order, but they're all some of the places we visited for food and drinks that we'd recommend.

I can't find the address for this cafe, but it was a good one right up the street from us at the Piazza dell-Esquilino between Via Urbana and Via Cavour. Great cappuccino and pastries.

Amanda and I at Ristorante Tema celebrating our 9th anniversary. The service there was excellent and it was a laid-back fine dining experience. The restaurant made you feel like family, especially when we kept going back!

This is Amanda enjoying spaghetti with scrambled eggs and prosciutto at Tema. It sounds weird, but it tastes amazing.

Tema again... loved it so much we ate there three nights (although one just for dinner). The mussel appetizer was great.

Steak with prosciutto for me and veal for Amanda. Fried artichoke was great also.

This is from La Taverna Del Ghetto in the Jewish Ghetto. The most amazing hummus and felafel I've ever had!

I also got a pasta dish there. While I can't remember the name, I remember it tasted great.

Amanda got a salad, which was light and refreshing and bursting with flavor.

One place I forgot to get a picture of in the ghetto was Forno Boccione, which is a Jewish bakery that is famous for their pastries. You should definitely stop in and get one of the ricotta pastries (and as much of their other pastries as you can eat) for breakfast before visiting the Great Synagogue. Just be careful if you try to take it across the street to the Kosher cafe. Apparently this restaurant is not considered Kosher, although our Italian wasn't good enough to ascertain exactly why.

This is from a pizzeria we ate at on our way back from St. John's basilica, La Cuccuma. Only weird thing for me was eating cold pizza, as some they prefer not to heat up. They will (grudgingly) though if you ask them to. I recommend the one with all the tomatoes on it.

Our last night in Rome we had to go back to Tema for dessert. I wrote a review of the restaurant on Yelp and Trip Advisor if you want to know more about why this was our favorite place to go.

On the corner of Piazza degli Zingari and Via dei Cappocci is a great little store called the Minti Beer Shop. If you're into microbrews or just want to try something different, stop in here. Oddly enough one of the girls who works there was an international exchange student in Ohio. Small world! This was my favorite beer name.

This is easily my longest post, and there are many more things I could add to the list of things we did in Rome. The list of things we didn't have time for is much longer. There's simply too much to see.

In terms of the bigger cities we've been to we both agreed this was at the top of the list, right behind Dublin. The laid-back vibe you get here helps you relax while visiting all of these amazing places, and the people were some of the friendliest we've ever met. We definitely can't wait to go back!

Up next - Vatican City!

Italy - Minturno

2014-07-27T12:26:00.001-04:00

View of Minturno from our hilltop perch in Pat and Mindy's apartment

Minturno, or the Comune di Minturno, is a beautiful city in between Naples and Rome on the Western coast of Italy in Latina, the same province as Rome. It's on the shin of the Italian boot, if you will. It's an ancient town that began as a Roman city along the Appian Way, which we'll look at more below. Today it's actually a group of cities, including the coastal district (Marina) and a shopping area (Scauri) and the city on the hill, which is where the ancient folks of Minturnae fled for defensive security as the Roman Empire was in decline.

Amanda and I at the theater in Minturnae, the original (Roman) Minturno.

If you want to visit "real Italy" where you'll need to learn at least some Italian to get around and experience the way Italians live outside the big cities, this is a great spot to do it. As I pointed out in an earlier post, we were lucky enough to have some relatives of our in-laws buy an apartment there where we could stay for the cost of utilities, so we had a beautiful place to stay and an even more beautiful view. If you choose to visit the area, there are plenty of places you can stay closer to the ocean, but be sure to travel up to the hill at some point and see the old city, where the "new" church is the one that St. Francis of Assisi founded. Check out Trip Advisor for some ideas on locations and see more things to do than we can cover here.

The "new" church dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, built in the 1300s.

This was a unique trip for us in that we stayed in just two places instead of our typical pattern of moving around a lot, so I'll divide this trip up more by our visits to different spots by day than by city.

First up - a look at Minturno and the things to do there. The apartment we stayed at had a beautiful view and was in a very small town at the top of the hill. There are a lot of places you can check out. Pictures are worth more here than words. We'll start with food and then move on to some other things...

This is the margherita pizza Amanda got at Roni's family restaurant, a small eatery that we went to on our first night there and had some rustic Italian food.

Sitting outside our favorite cafe, Cafe Effetta, underneath a statue of St. Francis of Assissi.

The Italian donuts were amazing... as was the cappuccino.

Dinner at B-52 pizzeria/restaurant, which was not as great as the other places. Don't get the tomato sauce pizza, get the B-52 pizza that I had with proscuitto and rosemary. Also, don't get to an Italian restaurant until 6:30 at the earliest, they won't be open!

This was taken at Claudio's, which is a very nice restaurant that's right next to B-52s and is supposed to be really good according to Trip Advisor reviews. Our experience wasn't as good here, but we may have caught them on a bad night.

Cappuccino and journaling was a great way to relax and chronicle the journey at the cafe was a daily stop for us.

Be sure to go to the market on Saturday morning to interact with the locals and buy some fresh fruit and fresh mozzarella, which is amazing. We got some tomatoes and that was all we ate for lunch for about two days.

I also got this cool hat at the market... I swear this was the most touristy I looked the whole trip.

Wine was just 1.80 Euros per liter at the local fish shop (address Via Cordona 9) and it's very good. Bring your own bottle and they'll be happy. The lady there speaks a little English as well.

We went to Sunday mass while we were there and the town mascot (which we called "Yellow Dog") joined the folks for service. He's everywhere around town. I thought it fitting that a dog joins mass in a church dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi.

Visiting with Yellow Dog after our day in Formia.

View of the simple interior of the church of St. Francis. It's a big contrast from the gaudier churches in Rome.

Minturno has some great beaches. Be sure to check them out if you go. Keep in mind that the public ones are very crowded though and that private ones, like this one, charge you to enter. It's worth it to pay. Lindsay Lohan visited a little bit before we arrived in town, or so we heard.

You can still see ancient Roman aqueducts heading towards Minturnae.

Be sure to visit the museum and ancient ruins of Minturnae, the Roman city that pre-dates "modern" Minturno. They still have local performances here.

A good look at a Roman Arch, which is what made their relative tall buildings possible. Most of the time they're filled in, as the arch is for architectural support, not for openings (like this one).

A panoramic view of the ruins from the theater.

Some of the ruins of the Temple of Augustus.

This is a reconstructed arch in the Minturnae forum, where shops used to line the Appian Way in front of these arches.

Closer view of the forum and a look at the chariot grooves made in the Appian Way. On the right you can see where the store fronts would be set up for things like grain, wine, fish, and more. Local politics would happen here as well.

What the inside of a column looks like (and the outline of my cool Italian straw hat).

View looking towards the theater, where you can get a sense of the size of the community, which had a large temple on site as well.

The city's communal bath house. A bench would be placed along the wall on top of those stone stools and the clean water would run along the ditch in front, where you could dip your sponge in to make the ancient equivalent of wet wipes... Also can see half of our personal tour guide, Mike - Pat's brother and accomplished architect. There's a better picture of him on our first post.

A view of the caste on top of the hill next to the town square (we're back in "Minturno alto" now).

We saw a musical performance by what appeared to be a pretty famous police band the night before we left for Rome. Great view from the cafe next to the square! It's easy to get places early in Italy. The concert "started" at 9, which meant that the band started getting on stage around 9:30.

This is a view before dark of the same concert, but one where you can see the canopy cover the trees provide for the town square park. This is a view from one of the local bars on the hill. If you were to look left from here you'd see the the church of St. Francis.

Head up the street from the town square and you'll find the cafe we liked and the older church in town, the Chiesa di San Pietro. This is the view from inside the Church of St. Peter in Minturno.

A look up at the ceiling in Chiesa di San Pietro

Once you've mastered the bus system and figured out how to get around, head over to the next town to the north, which is Formia. There you'll find a bunch of shopping and a nice museum (even if it's only in Italian). This city was bombed quite a bit during WWII, but there are still many things to see and plenty of shopping to do. Below are some of our favorite things.

View of the port where the bus drops you off, which is still heavily utilized.

Check out the National Archeological Museum in town for some cool statues. Unfortunately no English guide, but still cool to see all of the archeological finds.

There are a lot of things to see in Formia, including this 1st Century (BC) Roman Cistern.


The underwater remains of an ancient Roman bath are still visible from the port docks.

Be sure to stop by the visitor's center right next to the museum along the Via Vitruvio and pick up a map with local sites. This was the home of Cicero, so it has a lot more to see that we didn't have time to check out.

The church of St. Erasmus in Formia.

Everyone was very friendly in Formia. We asked how to find a Roman Cistern that we had been searching for forever and a local grandmother told her granddaughters to take us!

Lastly, a longer trip, and one that's definitely worth it, is to Monte Cassino. If you've seen the movie Monuments Men you will see in the very first scene George Clooney talking about lost artifacts and sites destroyed during WWII, including the hilltop monastery of Monte Cassino, which was also bombed heavily during WWII. And no, it wasn't Germany who did it, it was the United States going after the Germans, who we erroneously thought were hiding there. They weren't, although after we bombed it it made some nice bunkers for them. Nonetheless, they undertook what must have been a tremendous rebuilding effort and there is today a beautiful monastery again at the top of the hill, which serves as the site where St. Benedict and St. Francis both developed their monastic rules for their orders.

View of the square in the middle of the monastery looking down from the steps to the chapel.

Panaromic view from the monastery walls looking out. Helps you understand why so many monks choose to live here...

There are so many vibrant and beautiful mosaics to see here that you could spend a whole day looking at them.

Relaxing at the top of the steps...

Another beautiful mosaic in the church. Be sure to check out the crypt as well.

View of the church at the top of the monastery. Statues of popes line the walls.

Walking inside you can't help but look up at the ceiling.

View of one of the walls heading down into the crypt.

More beautiful mosaics down in the crypt.

I liked this "Fruits of the Spirit" carving on the wall.

The view looking up into the dome.

It is a monastery still, so you'll probably see a Benedictine monk walking around at some point. They make great limoncello and a not-so-great liquor that tastes like cough syrup. They also make great chocolate.

The main garden at the entry of the monastery.

After wrapping up our 4 days in Minturno, we decided to leave early and head for Rome to get a head start on our sight-seeing there and hopefully have time for a day in Florence. Stay tuned for more...

Italy - Planning & Tips for Travel

2014-07-27T08:38:00.002-04:00

Amanda and I on our 9th anniversary at our favorite restaurant in Rome, La Tema. Check out my review.

Our trip to Italy was the result of our sister-in-law, Sara, telling us about her sister's (Mindy) and her husband's (Pat) "new" 900+ year old apartment in Minturno, Italy. After talking with them we found out they would let us stay at their place for the price of utilities, and Amanda began learning Italian! You can check out their blog here. They're actually moving to Italy, so they're in the process of renovating this apartment in the town of Minturno, along the ancient Appian Way, the original super-highway of ancient Rome. Without their help and advice and some friends we met along the way, we would not have had nearly as much fun.

Dinner on our first night at Roni's with our hosts and their family. Great pizza and better company!

The view from Pat and Mindy's apartment

Aside from getting great advice from people who have gone before, there are also a number of things you can do to prepare. We have some tips, app reviews, and lessons learned that we wanted to share.

Apps/Travel Guides

We used a number of apps, websites, and travel guide information sources in preparation for and during our trip. Here are some of them.

Google Maps - A must-have app. Google Maps was great for getting around, especially in Rome, as you can find route info for public transport and it just makes it so much easier to find places. Another trick was that I found out Google Maps lets you download maps ahead of time to use offline. This was a huge Internet data saver, and I'd recommend saving anyplace you might want to go ahead of time for offline use. This guy explains better than I can how to do that. I also used it to save places I knew I wanted to see later by making them "favorites" on my account so I could easily navigate to them when we arrived, which was a huge time-saver. Definitely my favorite travel app whether I'm going to a friend's house or around the world. Be sure to download the apps on your phone before you go.

Google Translate - This is another useful app for travel from the folks at Google. It helped us multiple times when we couldn't figure out how to say what we were trying to communicate or ask a question correctly. Only downside is that it requires Internet, but doesn't use much. There is an Android and an iPhone app for it if you want to download them ahead of time.

Duolingo - This is a great (free!) language app for learning some of the more common international languages, although I wouldn't recommend it for phrases while you're there. Amanda used this (and I should have) and actually made some great strides using the app to practice whenever she had time. The game-like style of learning is addictive, which is a good thing.

Rick Steves - Almost goes without saying, but Rick Steves and his videos are must-watch homework for your trip. We had fun seeing many of the places in person and it helps you decide what you want to see and what you may want to skip. Lonely Planet is great too. Would also recommend getting an actual guidebook from your local library (or buying one if you have to have your own). He also has audio tours of many Italian sites that you can download to listen to when you visit, including the following ones for Rome:

Pantheon Tour
Listen or Download | Download map
St. Peter's Basilica Tour
Listen or Download | Download map
Roman Forum Tour
Listen or Download | Download map
Colosseum Tour
Listen or Download | Download map
Sistine Chapel Tour
Listen or Download | Download map
Trastevere Walk
Listen or Download | Download map
Jewish Ghetto Walk
Listen or Download | Download map
Ostia Antica Tour
Listen or Download | Download map

Be sure to check out his site to download other locations you may visit, including Florence, Venice, Assisi, and Pompeii. I wish we had done this ahead of time, but unfortunately we forgot. We still had a great time, but this would have made discovering so many things much easier.

viRail.it - This is a good app for finding train times when you're in Italy. It's in Italian, but pretty intuitive.

Kayak.com - Good site for booking flights and hotels.

Triposo - This is a great app we found and really liked. You can use the vast majority of it completely offline, and there are apps for Italy and for Rome, specifically. The great thing about it is that it's divided up by city, so you can read about and save locations you want to visit within a city and then create city walks to get around. We found many places we wouldn't have otherwise gone. It also has a helpful phrasebook with some phrases you'll need to learn if you go outside of Rome (where many people speak English). I'd highly recommend downloading it before you go.

Journal - Ok, while not really an app, this is something you should do. I try to make myself do this at the end of each day. Great excuse for a cup of coffee or a drink at a local cafe to experience one more new place for the day, plus you'll forget everything eventually if you're like me, so writing helps you remember. It's also easier to stuff things in, like the day's ticket stubs or business cards from restaurants and places you visited that you want to remember to write down later.

Writing in my journal outside our favorite local cafe in Mintorno, Italy while enjoying a cappucino.

Phones/Internet

While in Italy we activated our phones for overseas. You probably know how to do this already, but as Verizon Wireless customers who hadn't done this before, we were surprised how reasonable it was. It was $25 per 100MB, and if you make sure only certain apps (like Google Maps and your travel guides) use cellular data, you can make that go a long way. Here's the info on Verizon's website for overseas travel and a data calculator to figure out an approximation of how much data you'll use.

Lessons Learned

We forget this every year, and I'm writing it down mostly so we remember it, but leave enough time between connections to make sure you can still make them if your flight gets delayed! We had only an hour connection in Charlotte, NC and missed it because of an hour and a half delay in Dayton. Don't let this happen to you! On the bright side, we did get to add Germany to the places we've visited. We had a pretzel there, so it counts...

See?!? Germany!

In Italy there are tons of people hanging out around train stations who want to "help" you. They also want tips. Just be sure you know they'll be asking you for way more money than their service was worth. Some even wear the train company's shirts, so you think they're employees. Also, when boarding trains, don't forget to validate your ticket if you didn't buy it in already validated by one of the automatic teller booths. Some tickets are good for a long time, but we lucked out when we didn't validate ours the first time due to our lack of Italian-speaking skills and only suffered through an annoyed train worker's eye-rolling.

Us after learning how to validate a ticket!

One more thing - many sites have different rates for students. Sometimes the savings are significant (such as the Great Synagogue of Rome, where adults pay 11 euros and students pay only 4. If you have a student pass, bring it. I used my grad student ID quite a bit. I just took a picture of it and put it in an "ID Stuff" folder on my iPhone so I didn't have to carry it around.

These are just a few of the tips/lessons learned. Next, on to the places we visited... First up - Minturno!

Links to the other posts from this trip -

Italy - Minturno

Italy - Rome

Italy - Vatican City

Italy - Florence

London

2014-02-22T11:49:00.002-05:00

After leaving Oxford, we drove into London (a slightly terrifying experience) and dropped off the rental car.We then checked into the Parkwood at Marble Arch Hotel. Our luck had returned and it was a great hotel (that was kind of a B&B), although there's no elevator, so keep that in mind if you are on one of the upper level floors.

View from St. Paul's Cathedral of the Thames

Some tips for traveling around London

Public transportation is the best way around London. Whether it's the bus, tube, or tram, I'd recommend getting an Oyster card or a Travel Card.
If you have a smartphone, check overseas rates so you can use Google Maps to get around. It's so much easier to use the app to find route times for public transportation than paper maps.
We found Verizon too expensive to activate overseas, so we rented a WiFi hotspot from Tep Wireless. This way you can bring your smartphone and turn off cellular data but still use Google Maps to find route times. It worked great! They'll drop the hotspot device off to you at your hotel too.
It's worth checking out The London Pass if you're going to stay a few days. Many attractions are discounted or allow you to skip waiting in long lines. Check out their website for a list of the attractions and deals, and make sure you'll go to enough on the list to make it worth it before purchasing, as the pass isn't cheap!

Things to see and do

Where to start? We spent only three days in London, so we barely scratched the surface. Here are our Top Ten highlights though!

#10 - London Bridge/River Cruise

Largely intact and very underwhelming

London Bridge is just a bridge, much less exciting than the one often confused for London Bridge: the Tower Bridge (next to the Tower of London). Either way, you should definitely take a trip on the Thames and see the sights along the river. Check out Thames River Cruises for information.

Always thought this was London Bridge... turns out it's actually Tower Bridge. All spruced up for the 2012 Olympics!

# 9 - The Globe

The Globe replica... it's not the original, but it's pretty close!

The Globe Theatre is not just a place to see a show, it's also a museum. It's worth checking out, even if you don't have time for a show.

#8 - Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey is visited by over a million people each year and is the burial place of many famous Brits, including Shakespeare, Dickens, and Darwin. No trip is complete without a visit here.

#7 - The House of Commons (and Big Ben)

House of Commons and Big Ben

If you're a nerd like me, you have to go watch a debate in the House of Commons. Check out their website for information on how to visit. If you want to see the PM's Question Time you'll have to do a bit more planning.

#6 - Churchill War Museum

(No introduction needed)

The Churchill War Museum is worth a visit. This is the statue of Churchill across from Parliament, not outside the museum, but it's not a long walk to the War Rooms in Whitehall. It's also a stop that's paid for with the London Pass. Here, you can see the actual underground bunkers Churchill and his staff stayed in during the Blitz of London and throughout WWII. Very interesting history here about the war and Churchill himself, perhaps Britain's most famous politician ever.

#5 - The Tower of London

The Tower of London is a great place to see some of the Queen's Guards

The Tower of London is the home to the Crown Jewels. There, you will find many of the Queen's Guards, and you can even get a tour from the Beefeaters (and find out why they're called "Beefeaters"). The tours are great, and you will hear about all of the palace intrigue and the history of the Towers, which dates back to Roman times.

#4 - St. Paul's Cathedral

View from the top of St. Paul's Cathedral. It's worth the climb!

St. Paul's Cathedral is a great stop, not only for the history, but also for the view. One of the confusing things about London is that it's actually a number of cities. Westminster Abbey is right next to Parliament, but it's technically in Westminster. St. Paul's is actually the Cathedral for the City of London. There's so much history to see here, and you can do a self-guided audio tour to hear about the history of the Cathedral. You should also definitely climb to the top of the Cathedral for the view over London, but bring your walking shoes! You can also grab a great (and reasonably-priced) lunch in the basement cafe. Don't forget to check out the crypt while you're down there!

#3 - Buckingham Palace

Amanda at Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace is actually open to tourists. Having finally realized that her real power is in her ability to attract millions of tourists to the UK each year, the Queen has been letting people walk through the palace for years now (for a "small" fee). Parliament appreciates the subsidy. Make sure they're open to tourists when you go, as they're only open for a couple months in the summer.

#2 - The Royal Parks

Careful, the chairs in St. James Park are rented out by the hour, and sitting in one is considered contractually binding.

We spent a lot of time just walking through parks, which are plenty big enough to stroll around in, but not so big that you feel lost. St. James Park is right next to Buckingham Palace. You can take a stroll, but be careful where you sit! We preferred Hyde Park, which was just a 30-second walk from our hotel and has a nice grill and outside eating area.

# 1 - The Narrow

View from The Narrow, the Gordon Ramsay restaurant where we ate

Last, but certainly not least, don't forget to go to a Gordon Ramsay restaurant! OK, this might not be on everyone's list, but as a huge Gordon fan I had to go to one of his restaurants while we were there. Some of the others were a bit pricey, but The Narrow was pretty reasonable (and delicious) and a nice casual eating experience. It's also right on the Thames, so you'll have a great view too. London obviously has no shortage of places to eat, so you're sure to find a great dining experience. One thing we wanted to do that we never got around to scheduling was afternoon tea, so if you find a good place leave it in the comments below!

We did more in London, but this is a snapshot of some of our favorite highlights. One thing we did while we were there, though, was take a day trip outside the city to see some famous sights. It's not worth a separate post, but we'd recommend the Stone Henge, Bath, and Salisbury tour by Evan Evans Bus Tours. Below are some pictures from our all-day excursion! Hope you enjoy your trip to the UK!

Bath was one of our favorite stops, definitely worth the trip

The Circus in Bath, great example of Georgian architecture

Poor picture of Salisbury Cathedral. Amanda recommends reading "Pillars of the Earth", a book about its construction

View inside Salisbury Cathedral

No trip is complete without seeing Stone Henge

Hope you enjoyed!

Oxford

2014-02-17T20:44:00.001-05:00

Throughout Ireland and most of this trip, we have always had great luck with B&Bs. Unfortunately, that luck ran out in Oxford. We checked into the All Seasons B&B for a couple nights, but we wish we hadn't. Without dwelling too much on it, the location and price was great, but the lodgings and breakfast were pretty bad. Still, we didn't let that get in the way of a good time, and gave us more of an excuse to get out and see the city. You might want to invest some time looking for a different place to stay when you visit.

View of the famous Oxford Canal than runs through the center of the city. There's lots to do along the canal.

Oxford is a beautiful city, and like Edinburgh, I'd recommend checking it out by bus first. You can pick up buses all over the city, hop on and off, and see the sights from a double-decker before venturing out on foot. Check out www.citysightseeingoxford.com/ for the rates. There's an audio tour that plays on a loop while you're on the bus and points out all the stops you'll want to see later. For a detailed listing of the stops on the trip, check out their tour stops on their website. You can also decide which walking tour you'd like to do. We didn't have time for one, but whether you're a C.S. Lewis/JRR Tolkien fan or a (British) Civil War fan, there's no shortage of history to see up close and personal on one of the city's walking tours.

View from the double-decker bus tour of some of the amazing architecture.

The Bird and Baby Pub, hangout of C.S. Lewis and JRR Tolkien

There's a ton of shopping to do in Oxford. If you're into indoor shops, check out the Templars Square Shopping Centre. The streetside shops downtown are more fun, though, and there are tons of shops to visit in the city centre and in the famous covered market.

The shop with the red sign is where Alice of "Alice in Wonderland" would buy her candy!

After some shopping in the morning and the bus tour, we walked around the university. The University of Oxford is really many different colleges. According to their website, Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world, and the architecture of the university buildings spans nearly a millennium, so there's much to see. For lunch, a great spot to stop is the University Church of St. Mary's, which is at the center of Oxford and the home of the international aid organization, Oxfam. It's also a (perhaps surprisingly) great place to get lunch at their Vaults and Gardens Cafe, where they serve local, sustainable produce and cater to meat-eaters and vegans alike. It's also a great experience to eat lunch in a building that's over twice as old as the United States, surrounded by Oxford students and professors!

Radcliffe Camera, right across from the Vaults and Gardens cafe.


Oxford University (NOT Miami!)

After some more sight-seeing, we decided to visit the famous Eagle and Child Pub. The locals call it "The Bird and Baby," and it was the hangout of famous authors (and friends) C.S. Lewis and JRR Tolkien. We happened to be there on a Tuesday night, which was trivia night. If you want a quick blow to your pride, play a round of trivia in a pub where literary giants hung out and where Oxford students and professors continue to frequent. That should do the trick!

Imagine sitting here talking about your next chapter of Lord of the Rings!

In hindsight I would have stayed here a bit longer and drove into London a little later, but you can see a lot here in a day and a half and we only had a couple days for Oxford before moving on to our next stop: London.

Edinburgh

2014-02-17T01:21:00.001-05:00

Edinburgh is a huge city, and we barely scratched the surface. There are tons of things to do and places to see, at least 464 according to Lonely Planet. In case you missed it, I mentioned that we flew into Edinburgh and stayed at the Fraoch House B&B while we were staying here in my first posting about our UK trip. Great accommodations and a good location for sight-seeing.

We started out in the morning with a bus tour to get a feel for the city. I'd recommend downloading some walking tour podcasts from Edinburgh Bus Tours. There are so many sights to see and famous people associated with the city that it can be a bit overwhelming. Whether you're into Calvinism, Harry Potter, or The Wealth of Nations, you'll find your hero here.


Adam Smith can be found along the Royal Mile. You won't even need the Invisible Hand to find him!

John Knox, founder of Presbyterianism and Protestant Reformation leader.

No trip to Edinburgh is complete without a stop at Edinburgh Castle. There's a tremendous amount of history at this volcanic outcropping of rock. From the 12th Century building, St. Margaret's Chapel, to the room where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James VI, the castle has continued to play an important role in British history. Today you can still visit the Crown Jewels there, and you'll always know when it's One O' Clock when you hear the canon fired every day.

This is not the One O' Clock gun, but it is a cool old cannon.

Be sure to visit St. Margaret's Chapel while you're there, the oldest building on the castle grounds.

After a tour of the castle we walked the Royal Mile, which is the strip of road that goes from Edinburgh Castle down the hill to Holyrood Castle, the Queen's residence when she's in Scotland. We just happened to arrive in Edinburgh the same day as the Queen, who was there for her Diamond Jubilee. We caught a glimpse of her as she came out to greet the dignitaries visiting Holyrood that day, which was a long wait, but well worth it. You can barely see her in the video I took, but she was there. More entertaining was the Queen's band, who entertained the audience with the Olympic Fanfare and the Death March while we were waiting!

Right across from the Castle is the Scottish Parliament, a very modern-looking capitol building where the Scottish Members of Parliament meet. While we were there the big topic of discussion was whether or not to break away from the UK, which (as of the time of this posting) is still being debated.

View of Holyrood from inside the Scottish Parliament building.

After checking out the Parliament building and Holyrood, we walked back up the Royal Mile and stopped at Canongate Kirk, where Adam Smith is buried. There are many famous people buried in Canongate Kirkyard, and it's worth taking the time to stop and stroll through the cemetery grounds outside the Kirk. If you're lucky you'll even see some Scottish thistle. You'll also want to visit St. Giles Cathedral, named after the 7th-century hermit and patron saint of Edinburgh.

Scottish thistle on the grave of Adam Smith.

The view inside St. Giles Cathedral.

If you're tired of being outside, take a walk down the hill from the Royal Mile and check out the Scottish National Gallery. There you will find artwork from many great artists, including El Greco, Van Gogh, and Monet. There are also many shops to check out in Edinburgh, and one of our favorite stops was an old antique shop where we found some communion tokens for my dad. A Presbyterian practice, communion tokens were used as a way to limit who could partake in the Lord's Supper and were made popular by John Calvin during the Reformation. We also walked around the Edinburgh Woolen Mill for close to an hour, checking out all of the kilts and other wool items we could buy. Eventually I ended up with a wool hat, and it's one of my favorites to wear during the winter months.

Example of a communion token.

We ended the evening by eating at the Cafe Royal Circle Bar, a very nice oyster bar in town. I had the mussels, which were delicious, and we enjoyed going back over the sights we visited that day. After a quick stop at Robbie's for one last pint, we were done for our all-too-short visit to Edinburgh. Next time will definitely need to be a longer visit.

Whether you're into literary history, philosophy, royalty, whisky, antiquing, shopping, fine dining, or just fish and chips, Edinburgh has something for you. It's a truly unique city and deserves its special status as a World Heritage Site. For a change of pace, our next stop is Oxford!

UK Trip in 2012 - Scotland and England

2014-02-16T17:56:00.004-05:00

My inspiration for wanting to go to Scotland came from the following biography:

"Robert S. Grieve was born on a pioneer farm within two miles of the city of Xenia on July 27, 1831, a son of Archibald and Agnes (Stephenson) Grieve, natives of Scotland, the former born in Selkirk in 1775 and the latter, in Roxboroughshire, who became residents of Ohio in 1814 and here spent their last days. Archibald Grieve grew to manhood in his native Scotland and on March 11, 1811, was there united in marriage to Agnes Stephenson, daughter of John and Isabella Stephenson. A year later, in 1812, he and his wife came to the United States, landing at the port of New York, and in 1814 left that city and came to Ohio, presently settling in this county and buying a tract of one hundred acres in the vicinity of Xenia, where they established their home and where the spent the remainder of their lives. They were members of the old Seceder (Associate Presbyterian) church and their children were reared in that faith. They were [sic] nine of these children, of whom five lived to rear families of their own, hence the Grieve connection in this generation is a [of] no inconsiderable one hereabout."

My mom has always been into genealogy, and I felt I had little to contribute in the way of research and was sometimes bored with it. After looking through her records, though, I discovered this brief bio about Robert S. Grieve, my great-great-great-grandpa. This excerpt is from the "History of Greene County Ohio: Its People, Industries and Institutions Volume II." This article about him contained a great deal about the original Archibald Grieve, his father, who came over from Scotland with his wife Agnes in 1814. We discovered through Ancestry.com's birth, marriage, and burial records that Archibald and Agnes were married in Yarrow Parish in 1811. Finding this little parish church became my primary goal for our visit.


Yarrow Kirk (Church), taken in July 2012 in Selkirk, Scotland

The trip was made all the more meaningful because I discovered some of my family's heritage, but this was a great trip for many reasons. While this write-up has been long overdue, I'm excited to take you through the journey of Scotland and England that we took as we traveled through the United Kingdom, and I hope you'll be inspired to take your own journey there soon.

Starting out was a bit rough, as our trip was pushed back due to poor weather on our departure day and a flight cancellation. We did end up flying out of Dayton International Airport on June 29th, 2012, however, and after a few connections we landed in Edinburgh.

View of Edinburgh from Edinburgh Castle (this is what good weather days look like in our experience)

We immediately got our rental car and drove straight for the nearest golf course we could find. This was one of the items on my bucket list-golfing in Scotland. We found a beautiful course to play in Gullane at the Gullane Golf Course, where we played Course 1. Hole #7 yields a beautiful view along the North Sea, and Amanda didn't mind walking with me to get the experience of the tumultuous Scottish weather, which changed often. There are many courses in the area, though, and I would recommend finding one that will allow you to rent clubs and bring your own golf shoes. The shoes are easier to pack, plus you'll have golf shoes that have tread on Scottish turf!

On the course at Gullane Golf Club, with a beautiful view of the North Sea behind us

We only made it 16 holes before weather forced us to turn in early, but found a nice little restaurant on our way back named "Ducks Kilspindie House." I had the Bucclea Steak and Amanda got a chicken risotto, both of which were delicious. The great thing about the restaurant though is that the menu is seasonal, so go with the special while you're there and be sure to enjoy your first Scotch in Scotland after dinner. You should definitely try some single malts while you're in Scotland, although be sure to pace yourself! A good video on how to read the bottles to get what you want out of a Scotch can be found from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society.

We finally turned in at the Philip Burns Best Western. This is a bit of a change from Ireland, where we stayed at B&Bs for most of our trip, but I'll have to say that this felt like a large B&B. Our room had two floors, with a loft above the living area. My only regret is that we didn't stay here longer, but the Scottish Breakfast they served in the morning was brilliant.

After breakfast we went out to find Yarrow Parish Kirk (the Church of Scotland spelling) and sat through a very nice service. I'll never forget how welcoming everyone was. We learned that the church was the same building that the original Grieves were married in back in 1811, but that had experienced a renovation and a fire in the interim. Still, it was a beautiful and quaint parish church (or "kirk") where we found many Grieves in the cemetery outside. Apparently many were still around, and we visited another parish kirk in Ettrick parish, not far away, and found many more Grieve headstones.

View inside Yarrow Kirk

View from behind our pew at Yarrow Kirk

Headstone found in the cemetery of Yarrow Kirk, along with many other Grieves

View of Ettrick Kirk, the other parish church in this dual parish containing a cemetery full of Grieves

More recent Grieve who passed away, taken at Ettrick Kirk

After leaving Ettrick, we drove around for a while enjoying the beautiful countryside of the Scottish Lowlands. We passed by a mill and decided to stop for lunch at Philiphaugh Estate and eating at the on-site cafe, the Waterwheel Restaurant, where you can get some amazing smoked salmon from the River Ettrick and stroll through some lovely gardens and local trails.

Beautiful countryside in Yarrow

Finally, we toured the Glenkinchie Distillery, the best part of which was the tasting room afterwards. In the words of one of the church-goers from the morning service, people in the lowlands aren't known for having the best distilleries, but they still "appreciate a drop of whisky every now and then." The nice thing about visiting Glenkinchie is that it's part of a group of distilleries that make the famous Johnny Walker Scotch blends, but each also makes their own single malts. Some of my favorites that we got to try were Oban, Cragganmore, and Lagavulin. Either way, you'll be glad you visited a distillery to see how what is arguably Scotland's most famous product of origin is made.

Me at Glenkinchie Distillery

We finally drove back into Edinburgh after our brief countryside excursion and checked into a B&B, the Fraoch House, after which we went out for some authentic, (British) Indian food at Assam's. We stopped at Robbie's bar later on for a pint and then walked back home, exhausted, but ready to take on Edinburgh the next morning. All in all it was a great first two days of travel. The only thing we didn't get to do (because of the poor weather on our original departure date) was visit Iona, the island where Christianity was first introduced to Scotland. If we had another day we would have driven up there and into the highlands a bit, but we'll be sure to do that first on our next trip to Scotland! Up next: Edinburgh.

The South (of Ireland)

2012-01-15T22:49:00.000-05:00

The last leg of our journey was a shorter trip from Dingle back to Dublin, although with plenty of stops in between. Our first stop was the famous Blarney Castle, atop which rests the Blarney Stone. One of the blessings supposedly bestowed upon everyone who kisses the stone is the "gift of gab," but you can be the judge on that one. Whether you're blessed with it or not, it's still something you have to do when you visit Ireland. The rumor that the locals pee on it was unsubstantiated, although they had a bottle of cleaning solution and a towel next to it, so we chanced it. They don't tell you until you get to the top, however, that you actually have to lie on your back, hold onto a bar, and lean out over the edge of the castle wall in order to actually kiss it. It's one guy's job to literally stand there and give you instructions on how to best accomplish this. Beautiful castle though and worth the stop, (and worth the fee to get in... don't forget to check out the gardens, one of which is full of poisonous plants!)

Our next stop was in Cork, which we really wanted to spend more time in. If you're like us, the New York Times Article 36 Hours in Cork will be longer than we had to spend there. Don't miss the English Market, however, where you can sample the breads, cheeses, and black pudding. We stocked up on soda bread while we were there, and wish we had stayed longer.

Our next stop was our next B&B, Killiane Castle, where we stayed because of Amanda's desire to stay in an old castle. We started off thinking of staying at Ashford Castle to satisfy the urge , but looking at their 'special deals' starting at 298 GBP (per person), we rethought our decision and opted instead for a cozier place in County Wexford.

This is a nice place to stay, although the rooms weren't anything special. The nice part of staying here was the surrounding countryside and working farm, where you can go on walks and check out the livestock. There's also a driving range nearby. Clean rooms and a great breakfast. Very relaxing, although we could only spare a night.

Our last stop on our trip back to Dublin was the Glendalough Monastery. This old Christian monastery was founded by St. Kevin in the 6th Century and is set in the beautiful Wicklow Mountains, and, (like everywhere else we stayed) we wish we could have stayed longer. The monastery has a round tower and a 12th Century stone church on site, although the roof is gone from the main chapel. Hoping to find some O'Darraghs that could be possible ancestors of Amanda's family, all we could find in the large cemetery were Byrnes, the surname of some good friends.

Finally, we headed back for Dublin. We arrived at Quince Cottage, on the West side of Dublin in Sandyford, and headed back into the city for one last pint at O'Neill's (reviewed in the Dublin post). The owners at Quince Cottage are some of the nicest we've met on the trip. The website promises tea and coffee with treats on arrival, and they don't disappoint. The owner let us settle in, plan out our last evening, and even drove us to the Laus stop so we could take the train into town. The last drink I had was a Guinness, although I doubt we'll be able to stay away for long. We went for our 5th year anniversary, and are thinking of going back for our 10th. I'm sure we could retrace the journey and have an amazing time, or not go a single repeat stop and still have a great trip.

If you go to any of the places we did, be sure to leave a comment! Happy traveling.

~Slainte

Dingle

2012-01-08T11:18:00.000-05:00

Day 1
Having spent the night in Kinvara, we woke up ready to head out to the Aran Islands, the Gaelic-speaking islands off the West coast of Ireland. We went to Inish Oirr, the smallest of the three, and took the Happy Hooker from the city of Doolin (make sure to book ferry rides ahead of time) out to Inis Oirr, from which you could then continue on to the larger islands, which we didn't have time to do. Spend some time here and rent a bike, ride around the island, see the ruins and thatch houses, then have some lunch at the local pub, Tigh Ned, where you may see a spontaneous table dance!

We didn't spend the night here, however, although would have enjoyed the slower pace and relaxation had we had 4 weeks as opposed to 11 days. Still, it's worth seeing one of the islands while you're out here. Also, be sure to catch a glimpse of the spectacular Cliffs of Moher, which you can see on the ferry ride back into Doolin. From there, we left and went down to Dingle, where we were staying for 3 nights and could relax in town a bit, and Dingle (both the town and the Peninsula) is a great place to relax. That night we checked into the place we were staying for the next few nights, The Lighthouse, probably the nicest of the B&Bs we stayed at on the trip. It's above the town, but within walking distance; it has beautiful rooms that are nicely furnished and very clean; they serve great breakfast and the owners are very hospitable. Definitely recommend it!

That night we had dinner at the Dingle Pub, a touristy pub, but one that has a great atmosphere and good traditional music.

Day 2
Dingle has become the new "Kerry" of the West, and there's even a less touristy "Ring of Dingle" that we drove around rather than the more popular Ring of Kerry. The roads are small, though, and pulling over for the touring buses is a must. Still, going out to explore is definitely worth it.The following are some examples of the things you can see that we enjoyed as well.

One of the great things about Ireland is you can pull over and see medieval architecture or the ruins of a monastic community just sitting in a field with no one around. Kilmakedar Monastery is a great example of such a place, and you should definitely make this 7th Century church ruins a driving destination. Check out the sundial and the Ogham Stones and walk through the Romanesque Arch the serves as the doorway to the church.

Another great place to see is the Gallarus Oratory, where you can see a great example of dry-stone fit architecture of a 7th or 8th century Christian church. This one's not free, but it's worth seeing nonetheless.

Another great destination is the Creek of St. Brendan, where St. Brendan allegedly left from in order to spread the Gospel in the "land to the West," and you can read about his amazing journey, which many believe led him to North America well before even the Viking explorers.

Be sure to see the "beehive" huts at Dunbeg Fort as well. You have to pay the local farmer to gain access, but you get to walk around with the grazing sheep at this ancient stone-structure community and see the beehives that are an example of how people lived during the Iron Age in Ireland.

Don't miss stopping at a side-of-the-road spot called Clogher Head on the Ring of Dingle, which gives you amazing views of the Atlantic and the Three Sisters mountains (in the background on the right). You'll want to stay for a while and listen to the ocean. It's amazing how open this area is, so be careful, there are none of the rails that you would expect to see in a similar location in the US.

You could spend a week in the Dingle Peninsula and not see everything it has to offer, so take some time to research your options to determine what you really want to see. The last night Amanda talked me into going up and playing with traveling musician at Murphy's Pub (also a B&B) in downtown Dingle. I did a terrible job, but the singer was nice and I'll never forget singing "Mr. Valentine's Dead" in a traditional Irish pub. You're sure to find your own unforgettable experiences in Dingle as well!

Northern Ireland

2012-01-07T21:14:00.000-05:00

If you know nothing about the history of Ireland (and yes, I did just link you to Wikipedia... it's actually a pretty decent article though), you'll know they've had a wee bit of trouble in the past, particularly in the North. In fact, those times are referred to as "The Troubles," and they had to do with a long history of Catholic and Protestant fighting (or, more accurately, Irish and British fighting) over who gets to control the country. You should at least read up about this when traveling, because it makes the whole experience much more interesting.

When you travel into the North of Ireland, you'll know right away that you're in another country. There are no "Goodbye, Ireland" or "Welcome to Great Britain" signs to see like I've come to expect when I leave Ohio and enter Indiana. There was, however, a bar we saw upon entering the United Kingdom that was emblazoned with Red, White, and Blue and surrounded by Union Jacks, one of which had a picture of the Queen on it. The picture on the left is of one of the local Protestant defense leagues, which are famous for lighting bonfires celebrating the British victory at the Battle of the Boyne, which, coincidentally, happens to be viewed by the notably larger Catholic community in Ireland as the battle in which the Irish completely lost control of their country to the Brits. Then there are the marches. A friend of mine from Belfast said the Irish calendar starts with January, February, March, March, and March... The Orange Order (read "Protestants") march through largely Catholic neighborhoods celebrating this English victory, which tends not to go over well with the Catholic community. Think rebel flag being flown in Detroit.

Still, after the Good Friday Agreements, most of the country has accepted the fact that the British control the North (not withstanding a small, radical minority who haven't), and the most it will mean for you will be that you'll need to exchange some Euros for British Pounds and the speed limit will go from Kilometers per hour to Miles, which is much better anyways. Going to the North is worth the small inconvenience by far, however, and you shouldn't skip it.

Going to the North had a special significance for me, as family research revealed that I was of the "Orange Irish" heritage, so we stopped in a town that my ancestors supposedly lived in. I'm not recommending you go here, but Tobermore was one place I had to say I'd visited. There are a lot of "Boones" in the graveyard, and yes, Daniel Boone was of Scotch-Irish heritage, so who knows?

After stopping in Tobermore, we drove up the Antrim Coast to see the Giant's Causeway, allegedly built by Irish warrior Finn McCool and used as stepping stones for the feuding giants of Ireland and Scotland. It's definitely amazing to see the formations in the earth, and after you're done you can go visit the Bushmills Distillery, just three miles away in the town of Bushmills. We didn't have time to go, but we made sure to get a bottle of Bushmills before we left.

One of the great things about Ireland is all of the unplanned smaller stops. We found Dunluce Castle that way, which is an amazing castle ruins that is literally falling into the sea. It's still mostly there, however, and was probably one of our favorite stops on the trip, something you just have to see to fully appreciate.

Our final destination for the day of travel was the next B&B, Breezemount Guest House in Coleraine, which is in the province of Ulster. It was a spacious room with a small kitchenette, which was nice, as most places closed surprisingly early. Eating someplace nice on our anniversary was next to impossible, as everyplace was already closed by six! We ended up eating at "Cactus Jack's," which wasn't exactly what we had in mind. Nonetheless the room was nice, although breakfast here could have been better. Not sure anywhere after here lived up to the Irish breakfasts we had in Dublin.

Day 2
Coleraine is a great place to stay and see a lot of the North. On our first full day there we wanted to visit the beautiful Mourne Mountains, where C.S. Lewis liked to visit and were the inspiration behind The Chronicles of Narnia. If you go, make the Silent Springs reservoir your main destination. This reservoir was designed to provide water for Belfast, and is in a beautiful location. You'll also enjoy getting stopped by some sheep herding along the way and see a lot of stone fences along the roads. There's also a great little cafe, the Silent Valley Cafe, which has amazing views and great bakery items. Nice place to have tea.

That, however, was in the afternoon. In the morning we headed for Newcastle, a coastal town that has great shops and even better scenery. It's a good place to do some shopping and have some really good fish and chips. You can walk along the beach there and find some nice mementos of your trip.

That night while watching a local TV station, I saw the show "Ultimate Ulster," which listed the top ten votes by locals for weekend getaways. The Mourne Mountains were #9, Newcastle was #3, and Giant's Causeway was #2, so I guess we did all right for our first day out.

Day 3
Last night was our last night in Coleraine on the marathon of Ireland that we were on, so this day saw us visiting and traveling, which wasn't too stressful as long as you leave enough time to see the things you want to see. Before leaving the North, I wanted to see the town of Londonderry, or Derry, depending on whether you're Protestant or Catholic. Aside from the fact that one of my ancestors came over to the US from here, it's also a very historic town for many reasons. Protestant pride and Catholic demands for independence and civil rights have clashed here for many years, including the infamous "Bloody Sunday," where Catholics demanding their civil rights were gunned down by a British paratroop regiment in 1972. Still, it's a very cool town where we stumbled upon an historic re-enactment, saw the amazing wall around the city and toured the local shops. While leaving the town you will see a very cool mural on the side of one of the Catholic apartment complexes that reads: "Now Entering Free Derry," a reminder that under the surface, tensions remain.

After that we ventured haphazardly towards our final destination for the day: Kinvara.

Upon leaving the North we stopped at the church where W.B. Yeats is buried, in Drumcliffe, County Sligo. You can read his famous self-written epitaph and walk the grounds of the church, which was the site of an ancient monastery founded by St. Columba, the famous Irish missionary who took Christianity to the Picts in Scotland in the 500s AD. There is an amazing 10th Century stone High Cross (pictured left) with biblical scenes carved into it next to the cemetery, and a great example of the round towers that are found throughout Ireland, which served as places of refuge from the Viking raiders who tore through the island in the 800s and on into the next millennium.

The last leg of the journey to Kinvara consisted largely of beautiful scenery and short stops, with one of those stops being an 11th century church that lay in ruins in County Sligo. Take as many of these unplanned stops as possible! We did, however, have one last surprise before arriving at our final destination for the night when we heard our GPS tell us to "take the ferry" after driving for a few hours. We lucked out and ended up getting the last ferry of the day across a large harbor and arrived safely in Kinvara in time for dinner. We chose to stay in Kinvara as a break between the long trip from the North of Ireland down to the Dingle Peninsula, but had we known how nice the town was, or the fact that it is one of the go-to spots for traditional Irish music, we would have planned on being here an extra day. We had a bite to eat, however, and spent the night at the Clareview House, a nice B&B with friendly owners, although a little too far from town to walk.

We ventured into town for dinner and ate at the Pier Head, a very nice restaurant overlooking the harbor where we struck up a conversation with a family originally from Great Britain, but now living in New Zealand. It seemed that Kinvara was a great place to meet fellow travelers, as we went down to Connolly's, a local pub, to hear some traditional music and met a couple from Vermont who was biking across Ireland.

After a long day it was time to head back, get some rest, then wake up and head down even further South to the town of Dingle.

Dublin

2012-01-07T16:18:00.000-05:00

Day 1
We left the Dayton International Airport on July 18th, arriving (with some serious jet lag) on July 20th in the AM. Downloading some movies on the iPod before the flight really helped pass the time. A tip we got from some friends was to spend the rest of the day doing sightseeing and going to bed with the rest of the country. It makes for a long first day, but adjusting to the schedule is much easier after it.

The first challenge was getting our car, which we needed in order to get from the airport to our B&B. In hindsight, we would have taken a bus to our B&B and only gotten a rental car after our stay in Dublin, as we only used it on day 3 to go out and see Malahide Castle. We stayed at Cashel Lodge, a great bed and breakfast run by Mary and Pat McManus. It was here I fell in love with the traditional Irish Breakfast of eggs, ham, black and white pudding (sausage really), and a cooked tomato, with toast and coffee. This was one of the great things about the B&Bs--we ate so much for breakfast that we could get by with a light snack and a Guinness for lunch. Cashel Lodge is a great place to stay, and one we would both recommend.

Following our friend's advice, however, we arrived in Dublin and drove to our B&B to drop our stuff off, then got on the bus (Cashel Lodge is crucially located along a bus route, a "must" for us, along with having free Wi-Fi) and headed straight for Dublin Castle, Trinity College (to see the Book of Kells), and then over to Christ Church Cathedral for a tour around the abbey, including seeing Strongbow's effigy (read your Irish history). From there we went over to the Chester Beatty Library/Museum, which has some of the oldest Bible manuscripts in the world and a diverse collection of artifacts and interesting exhibits (including one while we were there profiling the surprisingly large Sikh community in Ireland).

Day 2
The second day we went to see the greatest tourist attraction in all of Ireland: The Guinness Storehouse. While somewhat gimmicky, this is an amazing museum, of sorts, for all things Guinness. We found out how it's made, why the location was chosen, and all of the ingredients that go into making Guinness (well... almost all of them, still some trade secrets). There is an amazing "Sky Bar" at the top where you can get a pint of Guinness and look out over all of Dublin, the best view in the city, in fact. Apparently they have a new app, which I didn't get to try, but looks pretty cool. Don't pass up learning how to pour the "perfect pint" while you're there at their educational bar, it's not as easy as it looks, and you'll always be able to tell your bartender whether or not they do a good job. The Dublin Pub in Dayton is the only place in the area I know that prides itself on actually doing this the right way.

The Guinness Storehouse wasn't our first stop that day, however. We took the bus down to the National Museum of Ireland, which (among other things) tells the long and troubled history of the Independence of Ireland. Knowing the history of Ireland beforehand made this stop well worth it (which, because the museum is free, only costs your time and bus fare). There are so many exhibits here (many totally unrelated to Irish history) that this was a no-brainer stop. There's also a great little cafe in the museum where we stopped for lunch and tea, and a nice outside seating area where you can have a great deli sandwich and sit and enjoy the architecture of the museum, which used to be the Collins Barracks and has seen more housing of troops throughout its history than artifacts. There's a great scene of the British leaving Ireland at this very museum in the movie Michael Collins, a great movie for an intro to the history of the independence movement in Ireland.

That afternoon we took the Laus over to St. Stephen's Green, a beautiful park in the heart of Dublin close to the shopping district and Temple Bar. Don't miss walking over the historic Ha'Penny Bridge, or checking out the many street performers who like to frequent the area.

We ended the night at ONeill's Bar and Restaurant, less flashy than the famous Temple Bar, but a great pub where you can get bangers and mash, a pint of Guinness, and hear some great live music. This was the kind of pub we were looking for when we came to Dublin. Finding the right pub for you is another useful service that provided by the Lonely Planet app.

Day 3
Our last day in Dublin we were traveling up North to the UK (not part of the Republic of Ireland-read your history and bring some British Pounds). Before we left, however, we managed to head out of Dublin city a bit to see Malahide Castle, a beautiful estate that began when Richard Talbot accompanied Henry II to Ireland and stayed in the family until 1975, although with a brief change in ownership after Cromwell's invasion when he handed it over to Miles Corbet. It's now operated by the Irish State, although as of January 2012 was under renovation, so check the website before visiting.

Before leaving Dublin we went to St Michan's Church, where you can shake hands with a Crusader's mummy and see Edmond Burke's baptismal, and then had lunch at the Jameson Distillery, where I found my favorite whiskey drink: a "hot whiskey."

Hot Whiskey
Shot of Jameson
Hot water
Two sugar cubes
Lemon wedge with cloves in it

Our last stop was the beautiful St Patrick's Cathedral, which is a must-see stop. It's almost like visiting a museum, and be sure to take a picture with Jonathan Swift, who used to be the dean of the cathedral.

Next stop: Tobermore.

Planning

2012-01-07T15:31:00.000-05:00

Obviously a trip overseas takes a lot of planning, and as this was the first one we'd taken together, we did a lot of it. We started early (over 6 months before we left) by gathering books-both informational and inspirational-finding flights and places to stay, renting a car, and figuring out our top locations that we wanted to visit. We came up with a list of things we really wanted to see, then came up with a strategy of seeing those things. Below is a list of the tools we used during the planning stages.

Websites we used

Vacation in Ireland (official tourist site for Ireland): This website is actually a really useful website. We used it to search for B&Bs, which we stayed in exclusively during our stay. Spend a lot of time browsing the site, and also ask them to send you a B&B package (for free) that will help you choose which ones you want to stay in. It's also got a great trip-planning feature to save all of the places you want to stay in and things you want to see. Definitely recommend it.

Kayak.com: This is a great website for finding the cheapest flights and rental cars. We used this to book both.

Books we read (from the library)
Rick Steves' Ireland Rick Steves is a must-have for travel, and always has great tips. We used this to help to know what to expect in the different places we wanted to stay, as well as the best times to go to different places (like when the Guinness Storehouse is the least crowded).

Rebels of Ireland by Edward Rutherford is a great read (according to Amanda-I didn't get around to this one) for people who like to read historical fiction. It's always nice to know a little bit about where you're visiting though!

How the Irish Saved Civilization is a great book (with only a slightly inflated title) that taps into the character of Ireland and highlights some of the historical narrative of the Irish people in the "isle of saints and scholars." Entertaining, informative, and easy to read.

I Never Knew That About Ireland makes great bathroom reading before the trip, and was actually a useful one to take along with us. Broken down by province, it has a lot of interesting tid bits that make a tour guide redundant. It was a Christmas gift that turned out to be more informative than I had hoped.

Brendan is another historical fiction book about St. Brendan which tells the (possible) story of his trip to North America, with the history and mythology surrounding St. Patrick interwoven into the story. Another of Amanda's recommendations. In a later post I'll show a picture from our visit to the spot that he set sail from on the Western coast.

Apps we downloaded
The first time we went I didn't have an iPhone, but on our trip to the UK this summer I plan on getting it activated for use in the country, primarily for Google Maps Mobile. In Boston this last summer this app was a lifesaver, giving us the quickest route times for buses and trains and allowing us to leave the car at the hotel our entire stay. We did, however, have an iPod, on which I downloaded the Dublin Bus app (now available for free) and got around quite easily using public transport in Dublin, although Google Maps may make this app irrelevant now.

If you're going to be staying any length of time in Dublin, I recommend Lonely Planet's Dublin app, which will give you a great descriptions of everything from great pubs to which museums are the most underrated (here's a freebie: it's the Chester Beatty Museum). This app will also let you know which places are worth eating at and which ones are best bypassed. While we didn't go to Belfast, I'm sure the app they have for it is worth the $5.99 as well.

These are just some of the things you will want to use when planning your own trip. In the end we found that we wanted to go around the entire island, starting in Dublin and ending in Dublin. On the map we made a huge counter-clockwise circle, with a lot of stops along the way. Hopefully some of the following posts will show the benefits of our planning, while also saving you some of the research time that we've spent already!

Welcome

2012-01-07T15:19:00.001-05:00

The purpose of this blog to to serve as a chronicle of the trips that my wife and I have taken while also helping others who like to travel freely. I started this blog as a way to help people who don't like the idea of the pre-packaged trips that you will hear from your AAA agent, but are concerned about the sometimes daunting amount of planning that can go into a trip. If you've ever tried to balance the questions "how do we make sure we get the best deal and see all of the things we want to see?" with the sentiment of not wanting to be stuck with the same people seeing the same things that everyone else on your 2-3 week tour will be doing, this blog is for you and us to collaborate. We'll share our stories with you, and maybe inspire you to share your stories as well. We can can share the things that worked and warn each other about the things that we'd do differently, but (most importantly) we can show each other what we did so that we can take each other's trips.

The first vacation I'll be taking you through is what I think was a pretty successful trip to Ireland in the summer of 2010. I'll take you through the planning stage, tell you about the books we used, where we stayed, what we saw, and how you can take a similar trip. Maybe you can tell us about the trip you took as well!