September 2017 - Where Next, Baby?

September 22, 2017February 15, 2020

Travel to Albania: the mysterious pillboxes of a paranoid past

We’re traveling through Albania’s remarkably diverse landscape. We very slowly drive up and up horrendous roads with pencil-thin cliff ledges through the cold snow-capped Albanian Alps, then down and down and along gently rolling scrubby panoramas, then to the hot shores of the Adriatic Sea. We notice many expensive Mercedes-Benz vehicles on the rutted roads …

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September 21, 2017January 19, 2020

Visit to North Macedonia: Tracing Mother Teresa’s childhood wanderings through the streets of Skopje

We came to Skopje, the capital of what is now called North Macedonia, in early morning with cold dew drops still dotting all surfaces. This was to be an attempt to see the city as Mother Teresa saw her birthplace. Though of Albanian descent, the woman who would become St. Teresa of Calcutta was born …

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September 19, 2017March 15, 2021

Captivated by Croatia: yes, it looks just like ‘Game of Thrones’

Croatia has a stunningly beautiful coastline with cities like Dubrovnik and Split that are well worth a visit. But I’ve got to say, this was a country where the people we encountered were not overly warm – at least they weren’t to us. We kind of pride ourselves in meeting, engaging and befriending locals. It’s …

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September 15, 2017January 19, 2020

The Beauties of Bulgaria: traveling the land of the well-shod women

Here’s what struck me most in Sofia, Bulgaria: shoe stores. Shoe stores. Shoe stores. Shoe stores. We have never even imagined seeing so many shoe stores in such close proximity. We thought at first we just happened to be in the shoe store district. But no. As we moved further, we saw that every district …

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September 12, 2017January 19, 2020

Peru Travel: Walking in the footsteps of the Incas at Machu Picchu

You can hike or you can take the bus from nearby Aguas Calientes to see Machu Picchu in the Peruvian Andes. But I’d already been having shortness of breath and nausea in Cusco, which at 11,000 feet above sea level was supposed to help acclimate us for a couple of days before our train to …

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September 7, 2017January 19, 2020

Iguazu Falls: worth the bad hair day

Iguazu Falls in Argentina and Brazil is breathtaking, of course. There are 275 falls along 1.67 miles of the Iguazu River. The U-shaped Devil’s Throat, the most impressive, straddles the countries’ borders and plunges nearly 370 feet across 2,300 feet. Iguazu is higher and nearly twice as wide as Niagara Falls. (Victoria Falls, straddling Zambia …

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September 1, 2017February 15, 2020

Visit to Argentina: reminder of the Mothers of the Disappeared

So there we were, tooling around Buenos Aires, stuffing ourselves at phenomenal parrilla (Argentine steakhouses), shopping for incredibly affordable custom-made leather jackets, and drinking beers as big as our heads. We were touring beautiful and unusual cathedrals, loving the legendary soccer culture and buying the nephews Lionel Messi shirts. We saw Evita’s balcony and the …

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Month: September 2017