E.J.

I’ve written a long-ish two-part travelogue - places we stayed, things we saw, and general impressions - about my trip to Sigulda, Riga and points beyond on my blog. Part one can be found here, and part two can be found here.

I’ve written a long-ish two-part travelogue - places we stayed, things we saw, and general impressions - about my trip to Riga, Sigulda and points beyond on my blog. Part one can be found here, and part two can be found here.

I’ve written a fairly long blog entry on my four days in Munich at the end of February 2006. I hope someone who’s planning a trip will be able to dig some advice and tips out of what we did.

Click here to read it.

A town - the first in the US to be powered by atomic energy, incidentally - near the spooky Craters of the Moon National Park.

I wrote a long blog entry about this here. It relates, among other things, where we stayed, what we saw and what we thought about it all.

the historical value of Salzburg makes a visit worth your while. But, really, the place is crawling with tourists who lost 50 IQ points as soon as they left home for the airport. Proper timing (off-season) is key.

The bonus is that Salzburg is a very compact and manageable place, and spending two full days there should enable visitors to traverse most of the city (by foot, no less) and take in the important sights such as the Dom, Hohensalzburg Fortress, Mozart’s residence(s), Mirabell and the Residenz.

A longer blog entry of mine can be found here.

I’ve been to in a long time. The Königsee is remarkable, and St. Bartolomä makes for a great day trip with hikes ranging from the short and sweet to the strenuous. Hiked with my wife and friends up the east side of the Watzmann Alpine range to the Watzmannhaus, which was a rain-soaked adventure of sorts.

A longer blog entry of mine can be found here.

did my wife and spot the English bookshop near our hotel. With barely twenty minutes to catch our train, we had to pass it up.

We endured torrential rains for most of the trip, but Porto and the surrounding area had a kind of dilapidated beauty. As if to counter the idea that self-edification is only possible through increased economic standing, there were dozens of excellent bookshops amid the city’s very {ahem} modest accommodations.

and have been kicking myself ever since for not taking more advantage of the opportunity I was given. I really went off the rails in Valencia, which in retrospect is probably one of the better places to do so, but I often reflect on my time there and how it could have been far better spent. Hope to go back and get something like a second chance.

Lived here from 1999 to 2001 and will eventually move back. One of the few places in the world I’ve ever felt entirely at home.