Snapshots and Side Quests

A non-fiction storyteller. A character creator. A rhythm over rhyme poet. A folklore inhaler. A photographing fiend. I'm off to Germany with my Husband to chase adventure and inspiration. Join me for scenes and tales from our travels.

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Essstäbchen für fünf Personen bitte.

Chopsticks for five people please.

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Andere Länder, andere Sitten.

Different countries, different customs.

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The Netherlands has probably been one of my favorite places in Europe to visit. And because Jess lives there, probably also the country I’ve visited the most outside of Germany (obviously). I love how bike friendly they are, and honestly would probably live there if the opportunity presented itself.

-Amsterdam Centraal train station-

Amsterdam is also one of my favorite European cities. While my journey with the German language ebbs and flows, I’m still pretty English-reliant, and I found that this was almost never a problem in Amsterdam.

-Halloween poster and street art-

Our first trip to the city was actually during Halloween 2016, and in Amsterdam Halloween is kind of a big deal. For the adults. Tons of costume parties and festivities. We opted to do a midnight to dawn horror movie fest at the Pathé Tuschinski. It opened, of course, with a local movie about an evil windmill. (That was actually pretty decent and pretty gory.)

-a crooked little building-

We didn’t get out until about 7:30 in the morning, but once we’d slept and recovered, we did some of the more typical touristy stops. B is a huge fan of zoos, so we hit the ARTIS Zoo and Micropia, which is a museum about microbes – interesting, but also gross.

We stayed away from the art museum’s which aren’t typically my cup of tea, but we did visit Madame Tussaud’s, The Amsterdam Dungeon (not worth the entry fee, in my opinion), and the Anne Frank House. The line to buy tickets was out the door and around the block (e-tickets are a lifesaver), which is a testament to how many people are touched by her story. Walking through the exhibit, you retrace the steps of the Annex’s inhabitants, and I found it was a really moving experience. I had not yet read Anne’s diary, so I bought a copy here.

If you haven’t read The Diary of Anne Frank, I would highly recommend it. I remember having to read an excerpt in grade school, which I think gives some people the impression that this is just a read for kids. Unfortunately, war  - particularly one in which your community is experiencing ethnic cleansing - doesn’t allow you to stay a child for very long, and seeing that process take place is part of what makes her diary such an intense read.

We also made sure to do a ride through the canals, which happened to be at a perfect time for photos.

During our visit, we stayed at Cityhub, which calls itself a hotel but offers more hostel-like accommodations with a quirky layout. Two rooms or “hubs” fit together to make a cube. We thought it was fun, and it also gives you a discounted breakfast at The Breakfast Club café which has an amazing huevos rancheros. It’s also located on a side street right around the corner from a daily market with lots of yummy food stalls.

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Mir gefällt dieses Buch.

I like this book.

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The Inhabitants of Wilhelma Zoo

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A Splash of Color

I really love nature photography. There are so many lines, shapes, colors and textures to take in. So many intricacies that we don’t get to see unless we’re looking super close. So this post is filled with some of my favorite photos taken at the botanical gardens in Stuttgart’s Wilhelma Zoo. 

If you’re interested in more nature photos, check out my post on bees and blooms in Frankfurt.

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Burg Hohenzollern

Walking up to Burg Hohenzollern made me feel like I was going to die. And we didn’t even start from the bottom of the mountain. You’ll notice there aren’t any pictures of the blooming hillside, and that would be because I didn’t have the energy to lift my camera and hold it straight. B made it without much complaint or heavy breathing, but I was very much not in shape during this trip. It was also July. If you want a gently sloping walkway, try elsewhere, because this climb is all super steep stairs.

Hohenzollern was our first real castle, and the relatively modern look of it belies the fact that castles and fortified structures have existed on top of this mountain since the 11th century. The current walls were built in the 1800s during the German Romantic period, but if you go down into the lower levels of the castle, you can still see portions of the old walls and ruins. The current structure is believed to be the third castle built on the location.

Once you make it up to the castle, and through the twisting walkways and tunnels that lead up to the main level and walls, you can get a pretty spectacular view in any direction. We walked all the way around and came across several statues of Prussian rulers. It’s not really hard to imagine why a noble family would want to build on top of this mountain (or any mountain, I’m sure) – everything seems small in comparison. And for those rulers who relied on the divine right of kings, it’s harder to connect yourself more with God than living on the highest point around while your subjects look on from below.

To get into the main castle courtyard, you have to pass under this tower [below]. But you can also climb to the top of it. The stairs were…interesting, and the rooms were small and hot, which was made even worse because the tower has informational videos that people stop to see in huge, heat-trapping clusters. The one advantage of the heat was that many of the windows at the top were open, giving me a chance to get a broad shot of the castle without glass warp.

[Statue of Jobst Nikolaus von Zollern]

We were able to spend time in a few different parts of the castle, including the tower, the cellars, the chapel and some of the rooms which have been filled with Prussian historical artifacts. And then we made our way back down the mountain which, for the record, was pretty much just as bad as the climb up.

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Finishing up Barcelona with a few random pictures from around the city.

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Barcelona in Blue

Here’s a compilation of some of my favorite beach and water shots from Barcelona.

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Gaudí Landmarks

Most people visiting Barcelona make a point of visiting some of Gaudí’s work even if, like me, they know very little about it - it’s one of those things you’re supposed to do. And it’s totally worth it.

La Sagrada Familia

This is probably Gaudí’s most recognizable and well-known design, and the church is actually still unfinished. Gaudí died in 1926, leaving the building incomplete. Work on the structure has been intermittent since his death, as it relies on private donations, but it is expected to be finished by 2026.

This image shows a side view of the Passion Facade (western side), with depictions and symbolism that makes a (very pointed) nod to Christ’s crucifixion. 

If you walk around to the eastern side of the church, you can see the Nativity Facade, which is vastly different from the Passion. While the statues on the western side are stark and angular, the scenes on the Nativity Facade have a more traditional look and are exploding with details.

The inside of the church is also pretty fascinating, and extremely different than what I was expecting (Remember, I knew nothing about Gaudí’s style prior to the visit.). Personally, I was reminded of the “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” exhibit at Disney World - the columns are very much like trees or large plants and it can make you feel like a minuscule bug. Gaudí loves using natural elements in his work, but I can’t say for sure whether making church-goers feel like ants was part of his intent. It is obvious, however, that the building was built to take advantage of color and natural light.

Parc Güell

Parc Güell has a lot going on, and we only visited a few of them. This house in the picture above was one of the two residences in the park. Gaudí lived in the park during the time that he spent working on La Sagrada (although not in this particular one), and his old home is now a museum. The park was initially intended as a living community built out of nature and away from the “cityness” of Barcelona, but the idea never really panned out and the park was opened to the public the same year that Gaudí died. He didn’t design this house, but he did design many of the architectural features in the park, using nature as his muse.

Because of long lines and time slots, we didn’t get to access the main terrace and its iconic mosaic benches, but we were able to see the area and still get some decent views (seen in the photo at the beginning of this post) without the terrace experience.

Parc Güell is built on a large hill, so it is a great place to get panoramic views of the city, and some pretty great exercise if you walk from downtown like we did. Stopping to smell the flowers was more of a necessity than a choice once we finally made it there.

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Barcelona: The Beginning

Apart from Barcelona being the actual starting point of last summer’s trip, this post is also the beginning of a series of posts from Barcelona. Some of my favorite photos came from this city (see above!) and it was the place where I used my camera the most. I attribute this to being the freshest and least tired here - a shame for my photographic enthusiasm at some of our later stops, but a great use of the beautiful, blue Barcelona sky!

Below are a few of the big sites we saw in the city, minus Gaudí’s landmark locations which will appear in another post.

Arc de Triomf

La Boqueria on Las Ramblas

Monument to Francesc Macià

Barcelona Olympic Stadium

Montjuïc Communications Tower

National Museum of Catalan Art

The Four Columns and the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc

The Cascada in Parc de la Ciutadella

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Firenze (Florence by any other name...)

I wish we’d had more time to spend in Florence - it was only about a day and a half before we headed on our way to Verona, and we didn’t really get a chance to take in everything the city has to offer. (We did eat some pretty delicious pizza at a restaurant in the Mercato Centrale near our hostel, though.)

We, of course, made time for The David (photos here), but the rest of our time was spent largely on wandering around the city and seeing some of the well known highlights that didn’t require entry fees or long lines.

This is the courtyard outside of the Uffizi Gallery, home of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, among many other great pieces of art. This courtyard also happens to be lined with statues of famous Italians, including Dante Alighieri, Galileo Galilei, and Niccolo Machiavelli (again, among many others - these were some of my personal favorites). Through this gateway is the Arno river, which is crossed by the Ponte Vecchio:

The bridge is known for its shops, which currently house art, souvenirs, and (really expensive) jewelry. In the past it would have been the location of butchers and other merchants selling their wares. It has also been destroyed and rebuilt several times since early Roman times, but was the only bridge in Florence not destroyed during WWII. An interesting landmark, but not the most exciting if you don’t have much to spend.

Our walkabout also included several churches with beautiful facades. The first is the Santa Maria Novella and the second is Santa Croce. Unfortunately, there were bleachers and scaffolding in front if Santa Croce, so the picture is angled and not the best to show off the facade. The last two images are of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, highlighting the Duomo di Firenze and Giotto’s bell tower (named for the architect who designed it).

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Back in June, my friends and I visited several cities in Italy, including Rome. Because we had limited time in the city, we ended up taking part in a day long tour of the highlights – the Coliseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, the Vatican Museums and St. Peter’s church. We also got to visit the Sistine Chapel, but photography (and speaking) is prohibited, so it isn’t represented in the photos here.

The first three photos are of the Coliseum, inside and out. You can see that a wood floor covers only a small portion of the bottom, to show the areas where animals would have been kept.

Photo number four is of the Trevi Fountain, which was unfortunately turned off for cleaning (and coin removal) on the day that we had our tour.

Image five is the Roman Pantheon. It was converted to a church in the 600s, but was originally used as a temple to honor the various Roman gods. It has a hole in the dome known as an oculus to let in light, and a slanted floor which drains any rain water that might come in through the top. This was probably my favorite stop during the tour.

After the Pantheon, we visited Piazza Navona. This plaza was originally a stadium, which is why the current area is so large. It also contains several fountains and sculptures. The obelisk in the picture is the central part of the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, or the Fountain of the Four Rivers. It depicts river gods that are representative of the four major rivers of the continents touched by the Catholic church: the Nile (Africa), the Danube (Europe), the Ganges (Asia) and the Rio de la Plata (the Americas).

The next two images are of the wall surrounding the Vatican City and the view of Rome from inside the Vatican. The length of the lines to get into the Vatican Museums was atrocious, making us extremely thankful that we had booked our tickets ahead of time. I haven’t included any photos of the artworks contained within the museums, because I think they deserve a post all their own.

The last two images are of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica and then the inside of the church. Even if you aren’t religious, it’s a pretty awe-inspiring structure.

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Pictures from my June trip to Verona, Italy. Will always remember the hailstorm and the weird custom of grabbing Juliet’s boobs for a souvenir picture.

Picture highlights: Casa di Giulietta (Juliet’s House and balcony), Arena di Verona, Castelvecchio and bridge, Torre dei Lamberti (Lamberti bell tower).

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Back in May, B and I visited the Black Forest or Schwarzwald. Since we had heard so much about it, we ended up staying in the city of Triberg for a weekend.

The Black Forest refers to a forested, mountainous area that stretches about 90 miles from north to south. Our city of choice is known for the House of 1000 Clocks and the Triberg Waterfalls – both of which we visited.

As you might be able to tell from the photos, I was a huge fan of the waterfalls. They are the highest waterfalls in Germany (163m or 535ft), and have 7 different stages. We probably climbed up to the 5th or 6th before coming back down.

One of the neat things about the path we took up the mountain was that it doesn’t just follow the falls – you can hike to several of the nearby towns if you follow some of the branches. The 3rd photo shows a signpost (Wallfahrtskirche) that translates to something like “pilgrimage church” or “sanctuary.” And that pathway is commonly traversed by individuals who are making a pilgrimage to a specific church in the area.

While we were in town, we also tried some of the traditional Black Forest Cake. And it’s probably a blasphemy, but I think I prefer the knock-offs. The true cake is soaked in cherry brandy and the alcohol taste was just a little too present for me. Otherwise, all the other components were delicious.

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The husband and I recently visited Frankfurt, Germany. I’d like to say we saw all the sights while we were there...but we really just made a really long drive for Chipotle. Sometimes, you miss the little things.

We did take a walk on the roof of the Skyline Plaza (the home of Frankfurt’s Chipotle), and I got to take some really nifty pictures of bees. And since I was too lazy to change to my macro lens, they were actually that close to my face!

The garden was pretty large, and a very cool use of space in the middle of a downtown area. B liked the garden...not so much the bees.

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Photos from my recent trip to Venice.