Because the weather in October and May can be iffy in Connecticut and Florida, we usually try to plan a trip.  We’ve never toured Central Europe, so we decided to take it on in a big way and spend an entire month of travel through the area.  Seven countries, seven languages, seven currencies. 

Poland

We flew to Warsaw for 3 days, then trained to Krakow for 4.  Both cities have an “Old Town” that are the focal points of tourism, but their history is very different.

Warsaw is a city rebuilt out of ashes—literally. Unlike Kraków, which survived the war with most of its historic architecture intact, Warsaw was systematically destroyed. There were two uprisings in Warsaw that often get confused. In 1943, Jewish fighters trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto with 400,000 others launched a desperate uprising against the Nazis—the first urban revolt in occupied Europe. Poorly armed and outnumbered, they fought for 27 days before being crushed. A year later, in 1944, the Polish resistance launched the Warsaw Uprising, a 63-day battle to liberate the city before the Soviets arrived. Hitler ordered the complete destruction of the city and it’s inhabitants.  90% of the buildings were destroyed. 

After the war, Stalin wanted the city built back in its original form to be Poland’s capital and a showplace of the Soviet system.  It is scenic for sure, but not really authentic. 

Krakow, on the other hand was the cultural center of the region during the German occupation and was preserved.  It has a more medevial feel that isn’t Disneyesque.

We took a full day tour to Auschwitz and Birkenau with a private guide whose grandmother was taken there.  The camp has been set-up as a well organized museum that allows visitors to better understand the whole systematic slaughter.  We were pleased to see how the whole site was preserved rather than “buried” to forget and that large student groups are regularly touring.  We’ve been through the Hiroshima Peace Museum, the Khmer Rouge Genocide Museum (Tuoi Sleng) prison in Phnom Penh and other devastating sites, but Auschwitz stands out.

Prague, Czech Republic

In 1939, Hitler dismantled Czechoslovakia and turned Prague into the capital of a German-controlled protectorate. The city became a hub for Nazi administration.  Czech resistance existed but paid a heavy price—most famously after the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, one of Hitler’s top officials. The Nazis responded with mass executions and the annihilation of the village of Lidice, but Prague was spared, and thus has much of its historic beautiful architecture.

Unfortunately, a deal at Yalta called for the Russians to take the area and the Communist Party seized full control in 1948. Prague became another gray, repressed Eastern Bloc capital, and personal freedom disappeared behind censorship, political prisons, and secret police. Hopes for reform came in 1968 during the “Prague Spring,” but Soviet tanks rolled in to crush it. For the next two decades, dissent simmered quietly underground as writers, banned musicians, and students refused to give up.

Then, in November 1989, inspired by the fall of the Berlin Wall, student protests erupted in Prague’s Wenceslas Square and demonstrators were beaten by riot police. movement grew into the Velvet Revolution – named for how it toppled the regime without a civil war. Within weeks, the communist government fell. Dissident playwright Václav Havel became president, and Czechs got their country back without a shot fired. We spent a fascinating 2 hours with a journalist who took a terrible beating during the student protest at the age of 16 and got an appreciation for his anxiety over the Russian attack on Ukraine.

Today, Prague looks stunning – cobblestones, spires, and café culture.  but history is never far below the surface. WWII scarred it, communism suffocated it, and the Velvet Revolution rewrote it. Worth the visit for sure!

Bratislava, Slovakia

Budapest, Hungary

Formerly two cities, Buda and Pest (really) divided by the Danube, Budapest was formed when bridges were built in the late 19^th century. Near the end of WWII, the Soviets closed in on the city and Hitler refused to let his troops retreat. The result was the horrible Siege of Budapest in 1944–45. Pest, the flat and densely built half of the city, took the worst of it. Entire blocks collapsed under artillery fire. Every Danube bridge was blown.

What makes the city remarkable is how much of its prewar architecture survived through sheer stubborn restoration. While the Communists built plenty of ugly block housing, the grand boulevards and 19^th century apartment houses were patched back together instead of wiped clean. In the 1990s, after the fall of Communism and with the help of EU funding, major improvements and beautiful architecture was restored.

We spent a were particularly fortunate to couple of hours with journalist Nick Thorpe of the BBC who has lived in Budapest since the fall of Communism and is the BBC’s go-to reporter for all things Central Europe.

Serbia

Belgrade sits at a strategic bend of the Danube and has been taken – sometimes repeatedly – by Celts, Romans, Byzantines, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Ottomans, Habsburgs, Serbia, Nazi Germany, and the Soviets. No city in Eastern Europe has been passed between empires more often.

People we spoke with were glad to be tied to Europe but still very anti-NATO. Hard to blame them: during the 1998–99 Kosovo War, Belgrade (then part of Yugoslavia) was hit more than any other city in the 78-day NATO bombing campaign.

Bulgaria

We made a couple of stops in Bulgaria (Vidin and Rousse) on our way to Bucharest. Didn’t do any serious touring or see anything memorable. Though I did learn that they shake their head for yes and nod for no. I guess we can’t criticize as lots of people these days “yeah, no” when you ask them a question!

Romania

Finally, we spent four nights in Bucharest, a city of striking architectural contrasts. After 25 years of Soviet influence, it had become a swollen industrial capital. When Ceausescu came to power in 1965, he maintained a Communist regime but initially courted the West for political and economic favors. By the mid-1970s, he entered a megalomaniac phase. Following a devastating earthquake, he bulldozed entire neighborhoods and historic districts to make way for the Palace of the Parliament, an enormous structure second only to the U.S. Pentagon in size. The main halls are adorned with five-ton chandeliers, each featuring 7,000 bulbs. While the Parliament building in Bucharest looks impressive in photos, the Budapest Parliament is about 20 times larger by floor space!

Perhaps not to be outdone, Romania’s Orthodox Church built the Cathedral of the Salvation of the Nation, the largest Easter Orthodox church in the world, right next to the Parliament and it opened the day we arrived. At and estimated cost of $300 million (mostly from the government), it was to be a statement about Romania’s Orthodox Christian heritage. We thought perhaps we should see it since it just opened, but the line to enter was 2 hours long (with no beer vendors).

The rest of the city? Meh. Newer, more polished districts sit in the north; elsewhere it’s a hodgepodge of mismatched streets and neighborhoods. One exception is the massive boulevard Ceausescu built to mimic Paris – made a few millimeters wider than the Champs-Élysées simply because he could.

Final Thoughts

In the end, despite a bit of schlepping, we very much enjoyed the trip. Our favorite cities were Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw. As with our tour of Israel, spending time in the region also helped us better understand the news when it breaks—such as the current unrest in Bulgaria. In Israel, we spent time with a journalist and found it especially enlightening. I managed to do the same in Central Europe through the journalist.net website, which I highly recommend as a way to get a feel for local politics and the public mood.

I’ve been feeling guilty that I haven’t been posting much. Part of it, I blame on the fact that I finally made a coffee table book of my best travel pictures from the last 10 years. Then, I rationalized that we don’t travel quite as much now that we’ve been to so many places. But a number of years ago, Google Maps created a “timeline” that tracks all of your travel if you allow it to. Most people are creeped out by the thought, but I thought it was a fun way to memorialize our travel. It tracks day-by-day, cities, countries, and places in great detail. Sadly, they recently stopped keeping the history beyond two years. I am so disappointed. I downloaded the most recent two years—a period when I thought we didn’t travel as much as before. I was surprised to discover that we hit all the continents, 64 countries, and 314 cities. Guess I need to get back to blogging!

When people learn about our travels, one of the most common questions we receive is, “What is your favorite place in the whole world?” It’s a tough question to answer because it depends on so many factors. We have places we’re thrilled to have visited, such as Antarctica, Cuba, Machu Picchu, Sicily, Portugal, and St. Petersburg. We also have places we love and could envision living in, like France and New Zealand. However, all my life, I have wanted to live in Connecticut, and I finally got the chance late in my career. After spending the most beautiful fall I can remember here, I realize I never post about Connecticut—my favorite place in the world.

Paris may be our favorite city in the world. So when we learned that the opening ceremony of the Olympics would take place on the Seine on Debra’s birthday, we immediately began planning our trip. After investing in flights, tickets, and accommodations, we were met with a barrage of news warning about risks of terrorism, excessive security measures, restrictions, traffic issues, difficulties securing restaurant reservations, and overloaded metro forecasts. Despite these concerns, we decided to proceed with our plans but kept our expectations low.

I had found the perfect apartment at the tip of Île Saint-Louis, but then discovered that the entire river area would be sealed off except for those cleared with a QR code. After a month of anxiety, we finally received our codes just days before our flight. Turns out, having a QR code for access to the secure area on our island and along the river was like having a “backstage pass,” allowing us to enjoy some of Paris’s most beautiful sights as if we were nearly alone in the city!

The opening ceremony entry logistics were chaotic despite hundreds of pleasant volunteers who could say “I don’t know” in 9 languages. And then the temperature dropped and rain began – leaving us, having dressed for the typical hot Paris summer evening, shivering most the night. I’m sure the ceremony was better on TV!

Fortunately, the weather cleared up and was beautiful for the whole week we stayed. We went to 5 different venues and we encountered no issues with the metro, taxis, Ubers, or restaurant reservations even after events concluded. Security was tight but well-organized; heavily armed personnel were friendly and helpful. We attended various events including the opening ceremony, table tennis, beach volleyball, indoor volleyball, badminton, water polo, and even watched some tandem diving practice. Although some events were early qualifying rounds, they were filled to capacity with appreciative and excited crowds from around the world.

We’re so glad we ignored the naysayers and went.

To the Paris organizers: Beau travail!

We decided to return to Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore in May when the weather is a bit iffy here. Since we’ve been a number of times before, we don’t feel any obligation to tour temples and sites. Debra spent weeks finding cooking videos and foodie tours of the cities we were going to. I must admit we were both craving food in a big way by the time we arrived. We tracked down some off-the-beaten-path tiny places that YouTube reviewers recommended and had some fabulous meals. Many of these spots had no menu, so we just did a lot of pointing!

We’ve come to rely on video tours in advance of a trip to learn more about the local specialties—I highly recommend it!

I also love playing golf around the world. Of course, often the courses are “rustic,” but sometimes we hit a home run (or a hole-in-one, I guess). On this trip, we played three spectacular courses worth mentioning: Red Mountain in Phuket, Thailand; The Els Club in Datai, Malaysia; and the Serapong/Sentosa course in Singapore (which was WAY too difficult for me). We often say that the best courses we’ve ever seen are in New Zealand, but these three are definitely up there!

Yeah, my posting activity has definitely declined. Our travels have shifted to revisiting places we loved. I also took my 10-year retirement anniversary as a reason to finally create a coffee table book of my favorite photos, so I have a little less incentive to go out and “get the shot.” However, we had never been to the East Coast of Africa, so in March, we joined a ship to explore. Most people use these stops to go off on safaris and inland adventures, but since we’ve already done that, we mainly enjoyed the coast and played some fabulous golf courses.

In Zanzibar, Tanzania, we were joined by our Kiwi friends and enjoyed the stunning beaches and the Freddie Mercury Museum.

While there was certainly a lot of poverty and we likely wouldn’t return, we found the people to be incredibly friendly and welcoming. We’ve often been asked if we felt safe. Honestly, we rarely worry about that when we travel – even in the USA, despite 120 gun deaths per day. People publish lists of safety practices that make most want to stay home. We have one rule: “Don’t be stupid!”

I left my wallet in a restaurant after lunch one day. After walking about two blocks in 100-degree heat, a woman ran to catch me and returned my wallet with all its credit cards and cash. In Maputo, Mozambique, we rented a car and drove three hours to Leopard Creek, a famous golf course in South Africa. The next day, I returned the car and took a taxi for 40 minutes during rush hour—it was crazy traffic. When I got to the ship, the rental agency called to say they had underbilled me by mistake AND I discovered that I’d left all my camera equipment in the back seat of the car (violating the “don’t be stupid” rule). Since the ship was leaving in two hours, I was afraid to go back. The taxi driver volunteered to take $100 to the agency and return with my equipment! When he returned, he brought his son to meet me.

There are bad people everywhere, but we find that the overwhelming majority of people are wonderful if they’re treated with respect.

We made this trip in 2015 and it was so spectacular, we decided to do it all again. But this time the weather wasn’t as good and rules on land around penguins were very strict because of a worry about bird flu which has hit South Georgia Island. We did have one beautiful day so I got some good photos as well as a time-lapse that may give you a better sense of the scenery.

Time-lapse sailing thru channels:

We’ve sailed the coast of Chile a few other times, but each time seems a little different. The weather on the west coast of South America is often cloudy, foggy, rainy. But this time it was gorgeous. Seemed even to make the food and wine taste better!

Wow, it looks like I haven’t posted in a year! We have still traveled, but more to places we’ve loved and I’ve already covered on the blog before. We revisited Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and England. In late September, we had an extended stay in Rome to attend the Ryder Cup golf tournament.

But this fall, we decided to go back to “work” on the bucket list (getting shorter every year). Daughter Liz, the extreme (in my couch-minded view) adventurer, always talked about Machu Picchu. I didn’t know much about it, but when I saw the photos and read a book about it, we had to go. But not to hike, camp in the wild, or climb mountains – we splurged on the easiest, most comfortable way. We feel a little guilty about that (very little, though). I’ll give a little more detail in this post as I’ve been asked by a number of you about the logistics if you want to do it right (or wrong depending on your perspective).

We flew from the coast over the Andes Mountains to Cusco, Peru (11,100 ft. altitude) and had a gorgeous mountain view as the sun set. Then we drove directly to Urubamba (9,400 ft.) in the Sacred Valley to altitude acclimate for a couple of nights and did some local touring of Inca ruins. After that, we went to nearby Ollantaytambo, where backpackers start their 4-day, 3-night trek on the Inca Trail over the mountains (13,800 peak) to Machu Picchu.

We, on the other hand, boarded a luxury train called the Hiram Bingham. Seats with nice dining settings, and an observation car (open at one end), a delicious lunch, and a fun bar with live local musicians. The service was wonderful, and the view was stunning all the way as it cuts through the mountains along a river. I can’t imagine the hike! (I understand there are also inexpensive train options.)

The trains stop in Aguas Calientes, which is about 1500 ft. below the Machu Picchu entrance. A scenic bus up switchbacks took us to the only hotel at the entrance, the Belmont Sanctuary Lodge. Then at 3 PM, we toured Machu with a guide for two hours. We took Circuit #3, which was a bit of a climb (about 25 stories) and were rewarded with an exhilarating view even though it was mostly cloudy.

The next morning, I signed up for a private “sunrise” tour to enter the grounds at 6 AM open. I got up in the dark to complete fog and rain. I almost went back to bed. Fortunately, I hiked back up to the higher platform (not the two major mountain climbs that some do) and set up my equipment in the hopes of clearing. While waiting, I set up my iPhone for a time-lapse just in case. Then this happened:

In conclusion, Machu has always been a great destination for hikers, climbers, outdoor enthusiasts. We’re not into the “expedition” life and I was worried my photos would be full of people. But Machu Picchu was fabulous – way better than I expected in almost every regard. The views, the history, the visitor control. It is hard to get to, even if you do it the luxury way, and probably only worth a day or two – a lot like Petra, Jordan in that regard. But as photography was my mission, it did not disappoint.

A) It’s hard to believe how well preserved things are. Most structures were made of sandstone or limestone. One would think the sandstorms and time would have worn them down over the centuries, or at least destroyed the carvings on their walls. But many were buried by the sand, so the detail, and even some of the coloring survived. Speaking of preservation, inside the mummies are surprisingly in-tact bodies thanks to their dehydration with sodium carbonate (modern day baking soda).

B) The detail and carving quality is stunning. Large chiseled images repeat with exactly the same features, minute details (like toenails and cuticles) are included in everything from sandstone to granite. And walls covered with one inch high hieroglyphics seem not to have ANY mistakes (predating white-out).

C) The tombs in the Valleys of the Kings and Queens are not terribly interesting because most that have been found were completely looted over the years. The exception is King Tut’s. He was only king briefly as he died at 19, but his tomb and its original contents were found undisturbed just 100 years ago. Most of the contents are on display in Cairo including furniture, jewelry, his 400 lb gold sarcophagus and even some portable board games.

D) The size and scale of many of the temples and pyramids are hard to fathom, and they claim only 30% of the sites have been excavated to date. Photos don’t do them justice, but if you go to Luxor, be sure to take a hot-air balloon to get a sense.

And speaking of size and scale, how big do you think the Sphinx is compared to the Great Pyramid? Some pictures make it look as big due to the angle of the photo, but it’s actually tiny in comparison. 66 feet vs 450 feet high!

We went because we felt obliged to learn, not expecting to be fascinated for 10 days. A worthwhile trip.

The last of our adult kids finally got to travel on the ship. They chose Greece and we joined them for a couple of days in Santorini.

It’s touristy for sure – because it’s so beautiful! In the summer, the crowd that gathers for the sunset make it impossible to get a table or even use a tripod for a photo. But in October, we were able to get a prime table at a fabulous restaurant at sunset!

38 years ago, I was sent to New Zealand to deal with a quality problem we had with the Fisher and Paykel appliance company. Everyone there treated me like an important customer rather than a problem supplier. I learned so much from the experience that treated suppliers as respected partners for the rest of my career. More importantly, I met two guys who (along with their wives) became besties.

After a 2 1/2 strict NZ Covid lock-down, they were able to travel again. We had them to the U.S. for almost three weeks and did our best to show them a good time. Fishing, swimming, golf in Stamford – Book of Mormon, a NY Giants football game, a NY Rangers hockey, and ping-pong bar in the city, then a yacht trip, more golf and fine food in Miami Beach. What a wonderful time we had!

Made a video for them (10 minutes) – https://youtu.be/rqhcBzDT8eM

We’ve been to southern Portugal (Lisbon, Cascais) and loved it, but had never been up to the northern coast and Porto. While we were only there a few days, we enjoyed it so much it rates a posting. If you want an inexpensive vacation with great cuisine, a vibrant town, and access to nice beaches, this is your place!

One of the few remaining “bucket items” I had left was to do a golf trip on the west coast of Ireland. I started trying to get tee times at the great courses in March, but because of Ireland’s strict 2 year Covid lock-down, almost every September date was fully booked. We did manage to get booked for Adare Manor, Tralee, Old Ballybunion, Ceann Sibeal and Old Head.

When the weather’s good, Ireland is one of my favorites. The people are so friendly and the scenery is beautiful. Just sailing around the west coast was enjoyable despite being in quarantine.