Dates visited: February 18, 2015 – February 20, 2015 Santo Domingo, founded in 1496 by Bartholomew Columbus (yes, he was Christopher’s younger brother), is a city of firsts—first cathedral, university, castle, monastery, and fortress in the New World. And all of this contained within a two square miles area called Ciudad…
Dates visited: January 3, 2015 We visited Ban Len (40 miles north of Bangkok) to see the Ban Pa-In Royal Palace on our way to Ayutthaya. This palace, built in 1632, was used as a Summer Palace by the Thai royal family. It has elements of European as well as Chinese…
Dates visited: December 30, 2014 – January 3, 2015 If you know Buddha like I know Buddha, then be prepared to be amazed and awed by what Bangkok has to offer in the “Know Your Buddha Basics” category! Prior to visiting Bangkok, if you had asked me to describe a Buddha…
Dates visited: December 26, 2014 – December 27, 2014 Huế, 63 miles northwest of Đà Nẵng, was established as the capital of Vietnam in 1802 by the Nguyễn dynasty, and held this position until 1945. We drove from Đà Nẵng to Huế via the scenic but dangerous Hải Vân Pass—a 13…
Dates visited: April 17, 2014 – April 20, 2014 Since we were flying through Santiago to get to Easter Island, I decided to spend three days in Santiago. Unfortunately, based on our interests, I realized we did not have enough things to do for three days in Santiago, so we…
Dates visited: August 13, 2012 – August 16, 2012 After spending 9 days in Russia, surrounded by signs and names in Cyrillic script and advertisements for unfamiliar Russian brands, I had (subconsciously) missed not being bombarded by the marketing blitz of familiar brands! I realized this when, during our taxi…
Dates visited: August 9, 2012 – August 13, 2012 Saint Petersburg, Russia’s gateway to Europe, is 445 miles northwest of Moscow and easily reachable by Sapsan high speed trains. The proximity to Europe makes it a more popular tourist spot that Moscow so finding an English-speaking person here is easy.…
Dates visited: September 21, 2009 Split, the second-largest city in Croatia (17 miles east of Trogir) is also on the Adriatic coast. We spent just about four-five hours here, as we had to drive another 145 miles to reach Dubrovnik by evening. We concentrated our sightseeing to Diocletian’s Palace, and…
Dates visited: September 15, 2004 – September 16, 2004 Venice is little under three hours from Florence by train. We didn’t spend a lot of time in Venice, so we toured the usual suspects—Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square), Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco (St. Mark’s Basilica) and Canal…