The Berlin Wall is familiar to us and yet much more complicated than I understood before visiting the Berlin Wall Memorial. The line of the Wall, built in 1961, zigs and zags all over the city, rather than being anything like a straight line. The Wall was about 96 miles long. It surrounded West Berlin…
Touring the Reichstag in Berlin gives you a fascinating pairing of the old and the modern, with layers of history, much like the city itself. Hi there! This post may contain affiliate links. That means I earn a bit of money if you purchase products through me. This involves no extra cost to you and…
The Paris Pantheon, modeled on its counterpart in Rome, is in the Latin District of Paris. Originally built as a church, the Pantheon is also the resting place of Marie Curie, Voltaire, Rousseau, Emile Zola, and Victor Hugo. It is looking clean and impressive after undergoing extensive restoration a few years ago. This post contains…
The ageless beauty of Sainte-Chapelle, in the heart of Paris, amazes all who enter here, but it is easy to miss. From the outside, this chapel that dates from 1248 is unimpressive. Its neighbor Notre Dame is only a couple of blocks away and seems to get all the attention. But don’t let the exterior…
Paris has so many must-see places, and here’s one you may not have heard about to add to your list: The Conciergerie. Where is this? And what is it? All I knew going into the building was that Marie Antoinette spent her final days imprisoned here. A fascinating tour taught me more about this centuries-old…
Shakespeare and Company is a delightful bookstore tucked into a street that borders the Seine in Paris, right across from Notre-Dame. Modeled on its namesake opened in 1919 close by in Paris, this store began in 1951. The building was originally a monastery that dates back to the early 1600s. This post contains affiliate links….
The Royal Air Force Museum London gives you much to explore, with more than 100 aircraft dating back to WWI on display. The museum is on the site of a former air field, and you can visit several huge hangars to see different displays. In our morning there we were engrossed with the historic displays…
A visit to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco is a must. Of course it’s touristy and can get crowded, but if you go a bit off the main path and venture beyond the official boundaries of Fisherman’s Wharf, it’s lots of fun. The piers of the wharf were built on the rubble of the 1906…
The California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park is among the largest natural history museums in the U.S. With an aquarium, a rainforest, a swamp, and a planetarium, all under one roof, it’s a great place to spend a day. We recently went with our grandkids, ages 10 and 11, who have…
