“Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.”  -Ansel Adams

In the comments on last week’s post, I was asked how I managed to place my website name on each of my photographs. I hadn’t thought about it much, and haven’t blogged about photography itself here for quite a while. So, inspired by Hallie’s question, I’m planning to write about photography each Wednesday in the month of February, including how I file and sort, edit and mark my digital image files. But first for today, the reason to become hooked on photography: On the Joy of Photography, and finding your inner lens.

Years ago, my love for photography came on strong—it traipsed into my life like a memorable song, sashaying in, swinging her coattails, and purring a delectable melody.

Dewy daisy at first light, in my former backyard, one of my favorite early shots

My first exposure to cameras was in modeling, the high-fashion kind where seedy photographers follow willowy girls with their dark cameras to freeze an attractive look for all time. There, cameras hooked me, I think. Images created and released from the combination of mysterious light, pungent film, and human creativity became a song in my head which followed me and grew louder with each passing year. Swapping sides with the camera, being the creator and not the subject, has been a wonderful experiment for me, a dive into a world of new beauty and staid time.

Now, ten years after getting my first SLR camera, the lure of the lens is unavoidable and its magic unforgettable. Photography opens up the world. Sharing what I see through photographs is part of my identity, an essential part of me.

My first good camera was a film-based SLR (single lens reflex), and I took endless rolls of photographs, learning by testing the limits of light and lens to find the style which I now see as my own. Once digital photography emerged onto the scene, I changed the film SLR camera in for a digital SLR. Digital format has been tremendously freeing, allowing me to capture more images than imaginable, all in the fleeting minutes of found inspiration. When the lighting is just right and something beautiful catches my breath, I dash for my camera and click through a few shots. I shoot photography in small blippets of time, between writing and the family and the daily chores of life.

Red Spotted Purple Butterfly

Years and hours behind a camera and studying images have helped me to find my inner lens, one of the more rewarding pieces of my life. To help you find your inner lens, I have three essentials for a great shot.

The Essentials

A WOW moment is one I love to grab onto an image … one where I say “Wow!” as I press the trigger.

I think there are three elements that are essential to a WOW shot:

1) Lighting. When the light is right, the shot surpasses the ordinary to rank with timeless. Soft light is almost always best—first thing in the morning or in the evening, cloudy days, or natural light through a window. Harsh shadows from direct sunshine or blatant flash usually compromise the best image. But, I love low direct sunlight of winter!

The View of Prague's Spires toward Old Town, from Charles Bridge

2) Camera. There are many options these days for cameras. But, even with the ease of a cell phone camera, the portability of a compact digital camera, I still choose to lug around my big digital SLR camera. Many reasons are involved, but the speed of taking the actual photographs and the flexibility of switching lenses are two of my top reasons. I currently shoot with a Nikon D90 and alternate between a Nikkor 18-100mm lens and a Nikkor 70-300mm lens. Since I’m definitely not a pro photographer, yet not a novice photographer either, the D90 has been perfect.

Taking photographs in the Cinque Terre, Italy

3) Subject. Something amazing occurs in a photograph when the subject (what you want in focus) appears crisp and the background fades out and appears fuzzy. Leaving out technical terms, for a great shot, back up and zoom in as far as possible. When taking the photograph, focus on your subject and allow the subject to fill the frame. The background fades away, leaving the subject as the main interest—beautiful!

Venice, a splash of color

I’d love to hear what your photography tips are, along with any recommendations you have! Please share on the comments, and thank you … happy clicking!

PS. Parts of this post have been taken from a post I originally wrote in fall of 2010.

“All my life one of my greatest desires has been to travel–to see and touch unknown countries, to swim in unknown seas, to circle the globe, observing new lands, seas, people, and ideas with insatiable appetite, to see everything for the first time and for the last time, casting a slow, prolonged glance, then to close my eyes and feel the riches deposit themselves inside me calmly or stormily according to their pleasure, until time passes them at last through its fine sieve, straining the quintessence out of all the joys and sorrows.” – Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco

Along the Aegean Sea in Greece, everything seems beautiful. From the rich lapis blues and turquoise of sea and sky and shadowy distant land to the architectural ruins of cultures fading back into the beginning of time, Greece has treasures and beauty beyond what I had imagined possible.

Though I traveled with my family to Greece in November, I’ve waited until I could sort through my entire array of photographs before I posted a blog about the trip. The sheer number of photographs I took on the four day trip speaks for Greece’s beauty: ~1500 photographs! As a place rich with of color and architecture and natural beauty, the country was this photographer’s playground. Orange and olive groves, and vineyards dotted and striped the countryside outside Athens as we traveled to and toured the Corinthian Canal, the ancient civilization of Mycenae, Agamemnon’s Tomb, the ancient amplitheater Epidaurus, and the sea fortress of Nafplio. It was spectacular!

Ready for a tour of my favorite photos? Here we go: 12 of my favorite photos from my trip to Greece:

View toward the Acropolis, Athens, Greece

Acropolis, Athens, Greece

the view over Athens from the Acropolis, Greece

Erechtheum Temple, Athens Acropolis, Greece

Parthenon, Athens Acropolis, Greece

the Acropolis, Athens, Greece

the Porch of Maidens, Athens Acropolis, Greece

Temple of Hephaestus, Monastiraki, Athens, Greece

Temple of Hephaestus, Athens, Greece

A Shepherd walking along the Peloponnesian Peninsula, Greece (I love this photo!)

the View toward the Acropolis through Hadrian's Arch, Athens, Greece

The Blue of the Aegean at Nafplio, Greece

Question for you: Have you been to Greece? Or been there through movies like Momma Mia? What is your favorite place in Greece?

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire:  it is the time for home.  ~Edith Sitwell

The View over Prague in Winter

The first winter I lived in Prague, in 2009-2010, the snow came early and stayed late. Months passed and kept us blanketed with more than a foot of snow. For me, a native of Texas, the months of that first winter in Prague were out of a fairy tale … castles, spires, palaces, cathedrals all etched with enchanting and glittering snow.

Prague's Star Summer Palace in Winter

In November of 2010, I decided that I needed cross-country skis if we were to live in this place buried for months in snow. A week after I bought my used skis at Happy Sport in Dejvice, it snowed. And the snow didn’t stop … I skied my way through the winter of 2010-11. It was beautiful.

Prague's Spires, Prague Castle, and the view from Petrin Hill

Now, this winter of 2011-12, I am waiting  for the sure-to-come winter that will bury us with snow. My skis, though well used in the Italian Dolomites over Christmas, are standing unused in the garage. But despite the lack of snow, Prague is beautiful in January’s low light.

Prague's Mala Strana from Charles Bridge, January 2012

Prague's National Theater along the Vltava River

Majestic Prague Castle, January 2012

The View of Prague's Spires toward Old Town, from Charles Bridge

This January, I’m enjoying the brilliant sunsets, the quiet evenings to read by the fire, the crisp air, and frequent pixie dustings of snow. It’s simply beautiful.

The Sky on Fire, Sunset over Prague, January 2012

What is your favorite part of winter? The snow? Reading by the fire? Enjoy!

“Our truest responsibility to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find the truth.” ~Madeleine L’Engle

I have always loved to read, and yet some books I’ve read linger in my memory long after I’ve turned the last page. Why? I’m not exactly sure, but that the language tucks under my tongue and the story and protagonist move in ways that long intrigue me. Since it’s January and the dead of winter here in Prague, and since I choose to spend much of my free time reading by the fire (it’s really dark in Europe right now!), I’m posting quotes from 10 favorite classic works.

Frosty Garden Rose

“A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and flagrant as groves between the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway.”
- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,

Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices

That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

Will make me sleep again. And then, in dreaming,

The clouds methought would open and show riches

Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked

I cried to dream again.

-William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“It’s lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.” – Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions… but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself.  The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”  ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend, will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof shuts out the sky.’” ~Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one…just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“On a cold windswept street, this was a warm, cheerful place with a big stove in winter, tables and shelves of books, new books in the window, and photographs on the wall of famous writers both dead and living. The photographs all looked like snapshots and even the dead writers looked as though they had really been alive.”
-Ernest Hemingway,  A Moveable Feast

“All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.” ~Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” ~Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake;–stumbling–leaping–slipping–springing upwards again! Her shoes are gone–her stocking cut from her feet–while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly, as in a dream, she saw the Ohio side, and a man helping her up the bank.”
~Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

For you: Do you have a favorite quote from Literature? From a favorite novel? What is it? Feel free to post your quote or novel title in the comments. Thanks for sharing!

¹man·i·fes·to  noun \ˌma-nə-ˈfes-(ˌ)tō\  : a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer  -via http://www.merriam-webster.com

On New Year’s Day, 2012, I saw the Holstee.com Manifesto for the first time. It encourages the reader to live their life, and to live it well.

I always love a visual that inspires me, reminds me of what matters most. And so, moved by the fresh page offered by a new year, I set out to write my own manifesto. A few hours later, this is the result. It represents what I believe about life. I love it. I hope it will inspire you, too. So, I’m posting it here to share with you.

If you click on the link tag on the image, you can embed this manifesto onto your own site, or paste into Facebook or other site you might want to share.

Here’s to making 2012 great. Dig deep. Live large. And to catching the joy as it flies.

Jennifer's Manifesto

Question for you: What inspires you? Do you have a statement or manifesto that reminds you of what is most important to you? I’d love to hear about it! Links, etc. are great. Happy New Year!

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.

So throw off the bowlines.

Sail away from the safe harbor.

Catch the trade winds in your sails.

Explore.

Dream.

Discover.”

– Mark Twain

Throwing off the Bowlines (Sweden, Baltic Sea, summer 2011)

To me, there is nothing like the thrill of growth, being stretched just a little further, reaching out toward the wind lashing my face as I race toward the goal, toward becoming my very best self. The feeling is a lot like the feeling of being aboard a sailboat, seaspray fanning out in rainbows with each slap of the bow against the waves, the boat tilting with the heave of the sails as the wind empowers the boat faster, further, out across the water. I love that feeling.

While we all have our everyday lives, the weighty routine of laundry and grocery shopping and waiting in lines, we also have potential to grow and learn and continue becoming, no matter what our daily routines, no matter what our age may be. And while I unquestionably aspire to goals and hopes and dreams with my family, as a wife and a mom and a friend, and to giving back to others as much as I can, I also aspire to becoming my best self. To become the best me that I can be, with the various gifts and passions and energy and time I’ve been given. It’s a step by step process … becoming. A process that happens one year, one week, one day, one moment, one breath at a time.

That is why, every year about this time, I take time to think back over the year behind me, and count up all the things for which I am thankful, proud to have done, and happy I invested the time in doing. Always, there are so many things to smile about in remembering the previous year. And looking ahead at personal goals, Mark Twain’s quote always comes to me as a thread running between the year behind and the year ahead. I always have to ask: What is it that I most want to do in this coming year? What are my goals? My hopes? My dreams?

There are many. And quite a few are an extension of things I personally really enjoyed and feel proud of having done from 2011.

• Exercise: 800 miles, ~12,500 crunches, ~4,000 boy-push-ups for 2011
• Reading: 32 books read
• Travel: 23 countries traveled in 2.5 years, in 2011 stood aside 7 Seas
• Writing: extensive work and rework on 2 novels in 2011, including intensive work with an editor
• Music: learned 2 new pieces (George Winston) on the piano in 2011

Looking Ahead to 2012, personal goals:

Explore: Travel … as this quote says so well: “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

I hope to read many pages of the world (travel) with my family again this year, and to learn more language, specifically more Czech and Italian.

Dream: Writing … as Winston Churchill says so well: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Because my biggest long-long-long-held dream is to be a career novelist, to write stories and connect with people through stories and language, I will continue writing daily and would love to break-in to NYC traditional publishing this year.

Discover: Reading, as Jane Austen says so well: “It is only a novel… or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language”

I hope to read 50 great books in 2012. You can keep up with me and my reading at my page on Goodreads.com. I love to find great books to read (recommendations) and to hear what friends are enjoying reading.

Wrapping up 2011, I am excited and hopeful at the fresh slate, the brand new year 2012 ahead. There is so much potential, and to seize the potential, we need goals …

“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.” – Bill Copeland

What are your goals for 2012?

“Attracting the attention of invading armies … objects in precious metals were the first to disappear from a household …” -The Lobkowicz Collections, on the value of their family’s vast decorative arts collections

The Prague Castle, the Lobkowicz Palace at the right-hand end in creamy white

As I look to wrap up my thoughts for 2011, after traveling more than 12 countries and dipping my toes in the Seven Seas in 2011, I must reflect on one event that has changed my thinking and altered my view of the world more than any other. And this event happened just last week, on December 15, in the Prague Castle grounds … at the Palace of friends we have the immense privilege to get to know a bit.

What do you think of when you hear the word CONFISCATION? Do you recall the bottle shampoo the security agent at the most recent airport you traveled took away because it was too large? Or the contraband you saw taken away at a school event, or other official venue, because it simply wasn’t allowed? I can think of a million things that might be confiscated at different places on different occasions …

But no confiscation ever could be as significant as the one I heard William Lobkowicz speak about last week, in relation to his family, and what the Nazis, and later the Communists so hastily took away.

The Lobkowicz family name gained recognition in Bohemian lands (Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic) of Central Europe with the first Lobkowicz prince in the late 1500s. With ties to the famed Golden Fleece, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II, and having a Spanish royal wife, the first Lobkowicz prince began the tradition of historical collections within his family name. With collections of famed paintings (Brueghel, Canaletto, Bellotto, Rubens, Veronese), ceramics collected over 5 centuries, and copious arms and armor, the finest private library in Central Europe dating back to 1462, and a music archives of over 4,000 manuscripts and scores including Mozart’s work on Handel’s Messiah and Beethoven’s 3rd, 5th, and 6th Symphonies.

But, as the Nazis entered and dominated the region in the late 1930s and early 40s, the Lobkowicz Collections became a target. Ousted from the region, the Lobkowicz family was forced to leave all of their collections, castles and palaces, and name behind — it was all taken by the Nazis. After the end of the 2nd World War, the Lobkowiczs were briefly restored to their land and name, only to have it all stripped away again by the Communist takeover. This is the truest meaning of confiscation, I think. I cannot imagine anything more horrific to history, or to a family of historical, societal, and political importance.

In 1989, the Velvet Revolution liberated the Czechoslovakian region from Communism, and as the Iron Curtain fell, in 1991, Czech President Vaclav Havel (who passed away just this week) passed laws to allow the return of confiscated property from the Communist and Nazi domination. When the Lobkowicz family heard, exiled in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, they returned to Prague to begin the process of restoring their family’s heritage.

And so begins the incredible story I heard last week, of William and Alexandra’s journey through restitution, through regaining and reclaiming their family properties, and in igniting a family vision toward the future.

I was most struck with the generosity that shines from all they do and say, in their purpose to designate their family Castles and Palaces and Collections to public touring, learning, and use. Please, go to their website and see for yourself, their generosity: www.lobkowicz.cz .

One comment of William’s I would like to carry with me through 2012 and the years to come is this: That when all things are stripped away, we know that things are not what is significant. The most important values for life are in these 3:

1) Family and Friends

2) Faith and Beliefs

3) Education

These, William says his father always told him, are the things in life which have meaning, and which cannot be stripped away.

When you come and visit Prague, and are looking for the most impactful place to see … the Lobkowicz Palace and their Nelahozeves Castle are must-see and must-visit places. For within their family and palace walls contains many truths about humanity, our pasts, and our brilliant futures. Especially with the generosity of spirit with which they envision it.

For you: Have you visitied the Lobkowicz Palace within the Prague Castle, high above the age-old spires and the Vltava River?

“Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph.” – Matt Hardy

I have always loved beautiful photographs; I’m the kind of  soul who thrives at the sight of something that takes my breath away. Photography books, paintings, art books, travel books, and more have long been my inspiration.

At the age of 15, I took my first trip across the Atlantic, and splurged with babysitting money and bought a new Olympus film camera, to capture the sites I knew I would see in France on that trip. Photography has come a long way since I was a teenager, and given that I’ve taken thousands and thousands of photographs since then, my photographic eye has come a way, as well.

Having traveled over a dozen countries in Europe in 2011, I have had the incredible opportunity to photograph many beautiful places. And as part of wrapping up 2011, I’m posting my 12 best photographs from 2011. I hope you enjoy them!

A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.  -Franz Kafka

Library at Strahov Monastery, Prague: A setting in my work-in-progress novel, Water Lily

It’s December, and we’ve arrived at the final days of 2011 (already!). Every year, here on my blog, I reflect on the books that I have read and enjoyed over the past year, and post the names and titles. After all, books make the best gifts, especially for the hard-to-buy-for friend or family member, because a great book sticks with us long after we’ve turned the last page to The End.

Here, my top 11 list of books I’ve read in 2011: (linking to books on Barnes and Noble.com (BN.com) because I love their clean and easy to navigate site)

For Women:

1. The Violets of March by Sarah Jio  (debut novel, part mystery, part love story)
2. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman  (deep South fiction, coming-of-age, uplifting)
3. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton  (love Kate Morton’s work, part mystery, part literary family saga)
4. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern  (magical circus, incredible setting)
5. A Place Called Freedom by Ken Follett  (sweeping Scottish historical)
6. Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum  (a tough read, on the Holocaust and its survivors, but deeply moving)

Classics I Love:

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte *the movie, Jane Eyre 2011, was fabulous!*
2. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
3. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (great book for young readers, especially girls age 9-12)
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
5. Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney *all-time favorite children’s book*

Other book recommendations for Boys (a whole post from June 2011, 10 Books to Hook Your Boys)

Looking ahead to 2012:

I am setting a goal to read more than the 30 books I read this year in 2011 … hoping to read 50 books in 2012. I love to read, and look forward to spending more time with my nose in a book this coming year! As I have for the past couple of years, I post my reading and reviews of books I like at Goodreads. Join me over there– Goodreads is becoming a great place to talk about books with friends (like a giant book club).

Also, several writer friends of mine have books coming out in 2012:

• Sarah Jio, and her newest, The Bungalow
• Beth Hoffman, and her newest, Looking for Me
• Erika Robuck, and her debut novel, Hemingway’s Girl

I look forward to interviewing them here as their publication dates approach! (The best way to support an author you love is to write a review of their book, paste it into the review section of online store sites, and to click their Facebook fan pages to stay up to date with their newest work.)

For you: What are your reading goals for the coming year, 2012? What books have been your favorite reads of 2011? I’d love to hear what you have to say! Thanks for leaving a comment!

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.” -Leonardo da Vinci

I once had a friend ask me how I could enjoy taking vacation. Looking back at her, I didn’t know what she meant. She explained further. “I don’t get to relax at all when we’re on vacation. The kids are always at each other. Mealtimes are the worst, and they never want to ride in the car, or airplane. It’s like we shouldn’t even try to go, because vacation never turns out like I hope.” I didn’t really have an answer for my friend on that day, but the conversation has never left my thoughts.

Since we’ve lived in Europe, my family and I (my husband and I have 3 school-aged boys) have had the incredible opportunity to travel extensively. But, we have taken advice from very wise friends before we left the US. They encouraged us to travel as much as possible, because the expat assignment is such a unique opportunity to see the world with our family. We have taken that advice to heart. So far in our 2 1/2 years in Prague, we’ve traveled to 21 countries, and in this year alone, we have stood with our toes in the Baltic, North, Mediterranean, Tyrrhenian, Ligurian, Adriatic, and Aegean Seas. (the 7 Seas!)

Dreamy. Absolutely!

But, all travel comes with its hardships. I have learned a little about travel and what suits me and my family.

One thing is this:

Travel in and through foreign cities is not relaxing.

It doesn’t matter if I’m overlooking Prague:

Prague

Rome:

Rome

Amsterdam:

Amsterdam

London:

London

or Athens:

Athens

Traveling in and through dense crowds of people does not equal a restful and relaxing vacation.

Instead, I am learning what is relaxing, and what makes up the kind of vacation (the one I highly prefer) I call a Getaway. Because it is just that, a getaway from the busyness and stresses and pressures of everyday life. An escape.

My definition of a Getaway: to step away from it all, to let the soul catch up to the body

Here, 7 Ingredients to a Great Getaway Vacation:

1) Time to listen: to the rhythm of waves crashing along a shore, to the birds, to the sound of silence

2) Time to eat: to try local cheeses, olives, produce, meats

3) Time to drink: to slow down and enjoy local drinks like wines or cappuccinos

4) Time to see: to look and really see the colors of the surrounding landscape, of flowers, and water, and sky

5) Time to sleep: to rest with no alarms

6) Time to feel: the warmth of the sunshine, the sand scrub of walking along a beach, the caress of the breeze

7) Time and space to walk: miles of beach or fields or mountains

And just as essential, the pieces of regular life that need to be missing or scarce from the Getaway Vacation:

clocks

internet

multitasking

hurrying

a schedule

For me and my family, our ideal Getaway Vacation here in Europe we’ve found to be in Italy along the Tuscan coast of the Mediterranean.

the Tuscan coast along the Mediterranean

We fill our days with reading, walking along the beach, gathering shells, chasing lizards, playing flashlight tag and paddleball, and lots and lots of unplanned space.

my favorite Getaway spot, along the Italian coast

To me, the Getaway Vacation is the best, a requirement for a balanced year. I can’t wait to go again …

For you: Do you have a favorite place to Getaway from it all? Did I leave any essential ingredients off of the list?