Europe – Page 6 – Michael Rappa

Eurotrip 2011, Part 12: Walking the Walls of Dubrovnik

September 13, 2013 Michael Rappa2 Comments

This installment covers Day 25 of my 2011 trip to Europe…

November 7, 2011: The morning after our introduction to Dubrovnik we were eager to get back into town and head up to the medieval walls that surround the old city–walls so well-preserved that they circle the entire city in one uninterrupted course. First we went down to the hotel restaurant, where I was disappointed to find the servers closing up the buffet 15 minutes before breakfast was scheduled to end. Oh well, that’s what I get for sleeping in.

Following breakfast we headed into the city, bought our tickets, and climbed up to the walls. We had such beautiful weather for early November that I was even able to wear shorts, and the best thing about being there in November was that the walls were practically empty. I’m guessing that Dubrovnik is packed with people during the summer, particularly up on the walls, but we didn’t have to worry about that. We were able to meander at our leisure and take lots of pictures without feeling rushed or bumped along. I was able to get many nice shots that might otherwise have been impossible with larger crowds to navigate.

The views along the walls are spectacular, both looking out to sea and in toward the city. Among the beautiful architecture is also evidence of the devastation from the 1991 Siege of Dubrovnik in the form of ruined buildings (there are even bullet holes still visible in certain buildings). Here are some photos from our walk (click on any image to view a larger version):

If you visit Dubrovnik and do nothing else, spend a day walking the walls, you won’t regret it. And if you’re a Game of Thrones fan, there is the added cool-factor of knowing you are walking in the footsteps of your favorite characters since Dubrovnik is where they film the King’s Landing scenes. If you like the show, you can read more about the various locations used during filming and see related photos at my post: Dubrovnik: A Tour of King’s Landing (and other locations).

We spent most of the day on the walls, though you can do the entire circle much more quickly if you choose (in total it is just over a mile not counting diversions like climbing the Minceta tower). But once you’re up there you will probably wind up staying much longer as we did. I could have spent all day up there just gazing out into the Adriatic and admiring the beauty of the city.

Afterward we had a nice dinner at a restaurant across from Dubrovnik’s entrance overlooking the sea, where I finally found a place in Europe that makes a real Long Island Iced Tea, which I followed up with a Mai Tai. Later that evening we walked around town again hoping to find a jazz club but we did not have any luck, so we settled for sitting at an outdoor café and splitting a bottle of Prosecco while enjoying the night air and the piano music emanating from within. Tomorrow would be our last day in Dubrovnik (and our final non-travel day in Europe), so this was our last night to stay out late and live it up, toasting the end of the adventure we had begun nearly a month ago.

But we still had one more day of fun ahead of us, which will be covered in the next installment. Until then…

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Eurotrip 2011, Part 11: Gettin’ Medieval in Dubrovnik

September 9, 2013 Michael RappaLeave a comment

This installment covers Day 24 of my 2011 trip to Europe…

November 6, 2011: On our last day in Split we headed down to the bus station to catch an early four-hour ride down to Dubrovnik. The majority of the bus ride took us along the beautiful Croatian coast. The scenery was spectacular and there were plenty of stops along the way so we weren’t cooped up in our bus seats for the entire journey.

Here are some views from the bus. These photos were taken with my cell phone through the window of a moving vehicle, hence the lower quality:

Along the road to Dubrovnik the route actually passes through Bosnia for a brief stretch before resuming in Croatia. When we reached the Bosnian border, officers boarded the bus to view everyone’s passports. We then stopped at a rest area while still in Bosnia, where my uncle nearly got left behind because he was outside messing around with his iPad as the bus was about to leave. The bus driver beeped at him and he finally boarded, but not to worry, I wouldn’t have let the bus take off without him. 🙂

We arrived at the bus station and proceeded to look for a cab to take us to our hotel. When one was not available, we hitched a ride with a private driver who had been parked at the bus stop offering to take people into town for a flat fee. This appears to be a common practice in the area.

We booked a hotel that was about a 15-20 minute walk outside of the old city because when I was researching places to stay, I had read that bedbugs can be a problem in some of the properties in town. I don’t know how true this is, but I didn’t want to take any chances. It was a pretty nice hotel room (probably the best one we stayed in during our entire European trip) with a view of the Adriatic.

After settling in, we left the hotel and walked into town. Here are a couple of views along the route we walked:

Not quite sure where we were going, we wound up taking the long way there, but eventually we came upon the majestic walled city.

Outside the city walls.
We would later eat at the restaurant on the right.

The Great Onofrio Fountain just inside the main entrance.

We were starving by this point so we decided to grab some dinner. We entered the old city and sat down at one of the first cafes we found on a side street, where we enjoyed a delicious pizza with a spicy salami similar to pepperoni. It was the best pizza I’d had since Venice and I can see why some people think Croatian pizza is even better than Italian.

After dinner we walked around the city as night fell. Here are some photos of Dubrovnik at night.

An outdoor cafe
like the one where we ate pizza.

Dubrovnik’s version of
the Spanish Steps in Rome.

We then headed home. Most of the 20-minute walk back to the hotel was up a steep hill. We were laboring by the time we got back, and thus decided that for the rest of our stay we would take the bus. We headed to the hotel bar, where I capped the night off with a Croatian beer followed by a delicious mai tai. I then briefly skyped with my wife, during which I time I was able to hear my dog bark for the first time in 3 1/2 weeks, which alone made battling the spotty wi-fi worth it. I then turned in for the evening.

We would spend most of the next day walking the wall that surrounds the old city, which will be covered in the next installment. Until then, here is one more nighttime photo, a long exposure that resulted in a neat fairy tale-ish effect of the water misting over the rocks.

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Eurotrip 2011, Part 10: Chasing Waterfalls in Krka National Park

August 14, 2013 Michael Rappa2 Comments

This installment covers Day 23 of my 2011 trip to Europe…

November 5, 2011: After spending a couple of days exploring Split, we decided to take an excursion outside the city. We had wanted to see Croatia’s famous Plitvice Lakes National Park but that would have been a three-hour drive, so we opted for Krka National Park, which was only about two hours away. We booked with a tour company, splurging on a private car and driver, which was a very nice break from all of the public transportation we had been taking for 3+ weeks. We had an entire multi-passenger SUV to ourselves, which made for a relaxing ride without the feeling of being on a tour.

Along the way our driver Ivan stopped at a rest stop/lookout so we could have some tea and enjoy spectacular views of a nearby bridge and the town that would be our ultimate destination.

Zoomed-in shot of Skradin, where we would pick up the boat to Krka.

When we arrived in Skradin we hopped on a boat for a pleasant 30-minute ride downriver to the park, surrounded by gorgeous scenery.

The boat dropped us off at a dock and we entered the park. The falls did not disappoint; they were beautiful to behold. I liked them so much, in fact, that I chose them as the main banner image for this blog.

Here are a couple of panorama shots of the falls:

Later in the day we stopped for lunch and treated Ivan. It wasn’t your typical national park fare; we had a shared dish full of all different kinds of meats, very tasty. After lunch we toured the rest of the loop around the falls. Here are some photos from that part of our day.

At the end of the day I returned to the dock by myself after getting separated from my uncle and Ivan. I was the only person on the dock so it felt like I had the entire river to myself (a major advantage to being in Europe in November is the lack of crowds). I lay down on the dock just staring out at the river accompanied by nothing but the sounds of nature. It was such a peaceful setting; I could practically envision myself as a character in a Mark Twain novel.

A view of the dock with the boat approaching to the left.

The boat picked us up and returned us back to Skradin just in time for sunset.

Swans were ubiquitous in town.
They would swim right up to the shore looking for food.

The sun setting over the river with the bridge and the lookout visible in the distance.

After leaving the town we detoured to another part of the park in search of another waterfall, but were unsuccessful. We did, however, get a view of Visovac Island, which houses a monastery.

Ivan took us home via a longer route, showing us a different part of the Croatian countryside where the devastation of the last war in that region is still evident. We arrived back in Split late that evening. We didn’t have time to do much, so we returned to our apartment and packed for an early morning bus ride to Dubrovnik, which will be covered in the next installment.

View more photos from Krka National Park

Eurotrip 2011, Part 9: Palace Living (Roman Style) in Split, Croatia

August 6, 2013 Michael Rappa1 Comment

This installment covers Days 21–22 of my 2011 trip to Europe…

November, 2011 – We woke up very early in Zagreb to catch the train down to Split. It was a unique journey. We rode one train for a while, it stopped in the middle of nowhere and everybody on the train transferred to a bus. The bus then took us to a remote train station where we waited for another train to pick us up—this was all part of the one ticket we bought (apparently there was some issue getting a nonstop train, though we were able to on the way back).

In all, it was about a 4- or 5-hour ride, and there was some pretty scenery along the way. The following photos were all taken with my cell phone from a moving train, so they are of lower quality, but still a good representation of the Croatian countryside:

We arrived in Split that afternoon. The moment we stepped off the train we were accosted by people aggressively trying to rent us rooms. We had already reserved a room, so we left the gang of prospective landlords behind and made our way into the city—and an amazing city it is.

Our first view of Split after exiting the train station.
Later we would be climbing that hill to the left all the way to the barely visible flag at the top.

Our primary reason for visiting Croatia had been to see Dubrovnik. We knew we would visit other places along the way but did not have anything specific in mind. A friend of my uncle’s recommended Split and when I looked at it on the map, it looked like a good halfway point between Zagreb and Dubrovnik, so I booked us three nights. I’m so glad we decided to stay there because it is truly one of the most remarkable cities I’ve ever visited.

Split is built in and around the palace of the ancient Roman Emperor, Diocletian. The old palace structure houses everything from apartments to shops and restaurants. The city is completely integrated with the usable parts of the palace; I’ve never seen anything like it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

After exiting the train station we headed down to the waterfront and I called the landlord with whom we had arranged a room to let her know we had arrived. She told us to meet her at a church near the waterfront. So we strolled along the water, eventually coming to the main waterfront and getting our first look at the magnificent, palm tree-lined Riva promenade.

We met the landlord and she showed us to our apartment, a tiny upstairs room a little outside of the main city, but still within easy walking distance. After settling in and changing into shorts (the weather was unseasonably gorgeous for early November; it was even warm enough for shorts at night), we headed into the city.

As you walk around the core of Split, inside the ancient Roman palace walls, you are often strolling on the very same roads used by the Romans, still intact and lined with ancient temples and other structures. It was great to take all of this in at our leisure, but part of me wishes we had taken a walking tour with a guide who could have filled us in on the history. I did have a city map with points of interest marked, so that helped.

Palace Ruins
The square beyond the columns is one of the main squares of the city core.

An ancient Roman road and some more ruins.

For our dinner that night we decided to eat in one of the outdoor cafes along the waterfront as the sun set. I don’t recall much about the meal but the view of the Adriatic alone was worth the price of admission.

Later that night we toured the sublevel of the palace. There isn’t a great deal to see down there, and they were prepping for an exhibit so there were a lot of anachronisms such as flat screen televisions, but because the architecture is identical to what the main floor of the palace would have looked like, walking through the sublevel gives you a good idea of what it would have been like to meander through a Roman palace in its prime.

We stepped into this cool courtyard during our sublevel tour.
Could almost be the set of a movie about Ancient Rome.

The next day we climbed the Marjan, a hill overlooking the entire city. The hike took a couple of hours with stops for photos of the countryside and some interesting vegetation that reminded me of something out of an Elder Scrolls game. The views along the way and at the top were breathtaking.

A zoomed-in view of the waterfront from halfway up the hill.

We made it!
At the top with the Croatian flag.

Zooming in on the other side of the city.

After returning from the climb we had some pizza for lunch and then walked around the city some more. Later that night we headed a bit off the beaten path for a nice dinner in a cute restaurant. We also booked an excursion for the following day to nearby Krka National Park to view the beautiful waterfalls, which will be covered in the next segment. In the meantime, here are a few more photos taken at night:

Some of the ruins with shops visible underneath.

An example of stores integrated with the palace interior.

View more photos from Split

Venice in HDR

June 26, 2013 Michael RappaLeave a comment

Lately I’ve been messing around with HDR photography. Normally that involves merging multiple versions of the same photo taken at different exposures, but I’ve also read that you can create a pretty good approximation of an HDR photo from a single RAW image, so I figured I’d experiment with one of my older photos.

I thought the above photo of the Grand Canal in Venice was a good candidate given the contrast between the light and dark areas, so I used Adobe Camera Raw to create three different image files: the original photo, an underexposed version, and an overexposed version. When I merged them in Photoshop, the overexposed photo washed the image out too much, so I only ended up combining the normal and underexposed versions. I then applied a bit more processing to the final image.

I’m still very much a novice at this HDR stuff (and with photo processing in general) and I kind of rushed through it, so the results are not ideal, but I think the final version below is a decent first attempt at a pseudo-HDR photo. You can click on the photos to view larger versions.

Like many HDR photos, this has a bit of a surreal feel to it, but with a little more time to tweak settings, I probably could have made it look more realistic.

On a side note, this photo was taken with my Panasonic FZ-40, a megazoom point-and-shoot. I am considering upgrading to a DSLR and have been eyeing the Nikon D3100 or D5200. If any photographers out there have any advice about these (or other cameras), I’d love to hear from you. Although I’m never going to be a professional, I feel that I may be outgrowing the limitations of my megazoom, particularly its performance in low light.

Update:
Just minutes after posting this to my blog, I saw a deal on eBay for a refurb Nikon D5100 with a kit lens at a price that was just too good to pass up. I normally steer clear of refurbs but the company, Adorama, seems to have a good reputation among the photography community, so I pulled the trigger.

So it’s official, I’m a DSLR guy! Now, to shop for some accessories and a good all-purpose zoom lens…

Eurotrip 2011, Part 4: Ah, Venice

Eurotrip 2011, Part 8: Long Train Runnin’, Destination Zagreb

June 11, 2013 Michael RappaLeave a comment

This installment covers Days 19–20 of my 2011 trip to Europe…

After our relaxing stay in Basel it was time to resume our trip. We hopped on the train in Basel at 9:30 a.m. for a roughly 15-hour ride that would take us through Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, and finally into Zagreb, Croatia. That’s a long time to be cooped up in a train, but on the plus side, our Eurail passes afforded us first-class seats for most of the trip, so the ride was more comfortable than the trains we had ridden in Italy.

And the scenery was breathtaking. If you like riding trains, I highly recommend taking one through Switzerland and Austria—I can’t imagine a more picturesque journey. Here are some photos from that part of the trip. The quality is poor because they were taken with a cell phone through the glass window of a moving train, but it gives you some sense of the beauty of the countryside through this part of Europe.

We arrived at the last stop in Austria late in the evening. The next train would take us into Slovenia and Croatia. The station was a bit creepy, tiny and isolated. Huge, long-haired guards were patrolling the grounds. They did not look like the kind of people you wanted to cross.

The layover was fairly long and we were starving. We had been on the road since the early morning without really having a meal. The only available food in the station was the finger food being served by a casino/bar, so we decided that we would wait and eat in the dinner car on the train. This turned out to be a mistake because the train to Croatia was basically equivalent to an old commuter train, so there was no dinner car, not even someone walking around serving snacks. Alas, we would not be eating until we reached Zagreb.

Riding through Slovenia at night was an interesting experience. It’s hard to put into words but it had a different feel than riding through Western Europe. I kind of felt like I was traveling behind the old Iron Curtain or something. When we reached Croatia we had a bit of a scare around 11 p.m. when Croatian police boarded the train to check our passports. One officer looked at my uncle’s passport for the longest time, and then began asking us questions about where we had come from and why we had no entry stamp.

I explained that customs never stamped our passports when we landed in France. He replied, “They must! They must! That is why we have stamps.” I thought we were going to have a problem but he finally said, “It’s not your fault,” and stamped our passports. So word to the wise: when you land in a foreign country, make sure you get your passport stamped.

We finally arrived in Zagreb around 11:30 that night. It was obviously too late to go out for dinner so I settled for a sandwich being sold by a shop in the train station. Fortunately, the hotel was right across the street from the station, so we didn’t have far to walk. We didn’t do much unpacking since we would only be here one more night, so I gobbled up my sandwich, went online for a bit, and then straight to bed.

We spent the entire following day walking around the city. It was the only day we would have to check out Zagreb on this trip so we tried to make the most of it. We didn’t have any planned excursions; we just meandered and soaked in the sites. I noticed right away that more people spoke English in Croatia than they did in Italy, so I wasn’t at all hindered by my failure to learn any of the Croatian language before the trip. In fact, I don’t think I encountered one person in Croatia that didn’t speak English, a much different experience than in Italy, where the tiny bit of Italian I picked up before the trip came in very handy.

For lunch we had some good doeners (a Middle Eastern/European dish similar to a gyro) at a little café. Later on we snacked on some tasty fritule, which are like fried donut holes or zeppoles. Uncle Kipp had his with powdered sugar while I opted for cinnamon (I never turn down a chance to have something with cinnamon). Later that evening we had an excellent dinner at a cute restaurant called Hansel & Gretel that featured a rustic, fairy-tale décor. I don’t recall exactly what I had, but I remember that it was a very rich and creamy dish, and quite delicious.

Here are a few photos from our day in Zagreb:

We didn’t stay out too late because we had to be up early the next morning for our train ride down to Split, which will be covered in the next installment.

Zagreb was a hopping city, kind of like Croatia’s version of New York. It’s a shame we didn’t have more time to take in all it had to offer, but who knows–maybe I’ll see it again.

View more photos from Zagreb

Eurotrip 2011, Part 7: Kicking Back in Basel

May 24, 2013 Michael Rappa1 Comment

This installment covers Days 16–18 of my 2011 trip to Europe…

After our final night in the villa we awoke, finished packing, and walked up the road to the bus stop. We had time before the bus was due to arrive so we entered the nearby restaurant to have lunch, where we bumped into three of our villa-mates. They had left the villa earlier in the week but returned to the area on this day to have one last lunch at the restaurant and say goodbye to the waitress they had befriended. We were very fortunate to have run into them because our bus arrived early and never stopped. We exited the restaurant just in time to see it speeding down the hill.

If our villa-mates had not been there we would have been screwed. The next bus wasn’t coming anytime soon and we would definitely have missed our train to Basel. Luckily, they had a car and were able to drive us down the hill and into Florence, all the way to the train station.

So we hopped aboard the train for the long ride to Switzerland. We had one layover in the very busy Milan train station before getting on the final train to Basel. As is always the case when riding through Switzerland, the scenery was gorgeous. Here’s one photo I took from the train that didn’t come out too badly (most of them had window reflections):

We arrived in Basel late that afternoon. Uncle Kipp’s friend Andy met us at the train station and guided us via public transportation back to her apartment. We would be spending the next three nights here before heading to Croatia. At the apartment we met the rest of her family, including her mother, who cooked us a delicious Tex-Mex dinner. Before dinner I had my first ever glass of Prosecco—and a love affair was born that continues to this day. It’s so inexpensive over there that Andy had an entire fridge stocked with it. After dinner I tried my first roasted chestnut, which was a big deal for me because I don’t like any kind of nuts in general, but I was able to enjoy these.

Before bed that night I skyped with my wife, Jen. I had chatted with her on the phone throughout the first 16 days of the trip, and of course I missed her the whole time, but it wasn’t until seeing her and my dog, Heidi, on video that I truly began feeling homesick—and I still had two weeks to go. We had been apart for 8 to 9 days on my previous trips, but a month is a long time. For the most part I was okay because I was always so busy during the day, but at night it would catch up with me a bit.

After breakfast the next morning we went for a walk all over the city. Unlike Lucerne, Basel is not nestled in the Alps, but it still has plenty of its own charm, and the Rhine is never far away. There was a fall festival going on that reminded me of the carnivals we have in the States. While walking though the festival we rode the large Ferris wheel, which provided us with spectacular views of the city when we reached the top.

For this post I decided to try a photo gallery for the first time, so here is a collection of some of my favorite photos from Basel. The fall foliage lent a beautiful color palette to the city. You can click on a photo to view a larger version and a description:

That night after dinner we watched some TV before heading to bed. The next day, we went into France for lunch. Basel is so close to both France and Germany that a trip to one of these countries is akin to hopping in a car in New Jersey and heading to Philly or New York. This was my first visit to France, not counting the Paris airport, so I could now say that I had set foot in the country, even if it was just over the border. We had a nice lunch at a Japanese restaurant—that’s right, we went to France to eat Japanese. 🙂

After lunch we went to a mall, which was near a McDonald’s. I was very tempted to get my Pulp Fiction on and go order a “Royale with Cheese.” Anyway, that night I skyped with Jen again before bed. It was Halloween, but they don’t really seem to celebrate it in Switzerland, so it was basically just a normal night.

Overall, we had a nice, relaxing three days in Basel. I am very grateful to Andy and her family for welcoming us into their home and for everything they did for us. It was a much-needed escape from hotel living that allowed us to recharge our batteries before embarking on the second half of our trip, which would begin the following morning with an early (and long) day of riding trains that would take us through Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, and finally into Zagreb, Croatia. That part of our journey will be covered in the next installment. Until then…

View more photos from Basel

Eurotrip 2011, Part 6: Leaning Towers and Haunted Villas

May 13, 2013 Michael Rappa2 Comments

This installment covers Days 14–15 of my 2011 trip to Europe…

At the end of our two-night, ill-fated Cinque Terre stay, we checked out of our hotel early to catch the bus that would take us into La Spezia for the train ride back to Florence. The bus was very late and for a while we thought we had missed it or were in the wrong location. Finally it came and we hopped aboard for a long ride into the city. After arriving we walked down to the harbor in the hope that we might be able to take a boat ride so I could get a closer look at the four Cinque Terre villages that I hadn’t been able to visit, but everything was either grounded or tied up in rescue operations. So we headed to a café for breakfast to kill time until our train left.

On the way back to Florence our train had a stopover in Pisa, so I decided to go see the Leaning Tower. Uncle Kipp had already seen it, so he stayed behind at the train station. It wasn’t a long layover so I had to hustle down to the Piazza dei Miracoli (where the tower is located), which was roughly a 30-minute walk across the River Arno.

I made it to the square and had just enough time to walk around the grounds, but unfortunately not enough time to tour any of the buildings or climb the tower, so I had to settle for taking some photos.

The hardest part about shooting the tower is resisting the urge to tilt the camera and straighten the tower out.

Rather than share the clichéd photo of myself holding up the tower, I thought I’d share a photo of other people doing their holding-up-the-tower poses:

After taking my photos I rushed back to the train station and we caught the train back to Florence. Before heading back to the villa we did some grocery shopping so I could make dinner the following afternoon. I bought supplies to make pasta with pancetta and braciole. We also picked up more of that awesome Italian prosciutto to snack on that evening–if prosciutto tasted like this in the States I’d buy it all the time.

So we hopped on the bus to take us back up into the hills and to our villa. Unfortunately, we had caught the wrong one—it only went about halfway up and then came back down again to pick up more passengers and then make the drive all the way up the hill, so we wound up riding it twice before finally making it back to the villa.

When we entered the house we discovered that everyone else in our group had already left, so we would be spending the next two nights in the sprawling villa all by ourselves. Walking the long halls and stairways of the 100-year-old building at night with nobody else around was decidedly spooky.

One of the hallways.
The only things missing were some ghostly twins and Danny Torrance riding his big wheel.

It didn’t help that a waitress at the local restaurant told us that the villa was supposedly haunted, or that we had just recently been discussing The Shining. In fact, one night while I was sleeping I thought I heard footsteps around my bed. I’m sure I was just dreaming, but it still creeped me out. 🙂

Here are a few of the interior shots I took to try and capture a bit of that creepiness:

The next day, I decided to stay behind at the villa while Uncle Kipp went into Florence. I needed a day to relax after everything we had crammed into the last two weeks. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, as if we were in the middle of the summer rather than the end of October. I walked around the outside of the villa and took some more pictures of the grounds and the beautiful countryside.

The caretaker’s house next to our villa.

View from my room over the top of the gazebo.

A zoomed in shot of Florence viewed from the hills near our villa.

Tuscan countryside viewed from the villa’s gazebo.

Another view of the Tuscan countryside from the gazebo.

That evening I started to make dinner, only to discover that there was no more garlic in the house. We didn’t think to buy any because there had been a lot left the last time we checked. Oh well, I forged ahead, though the lack of garlic made for some pretty bland braciole.

Uncle Kipp returned from his day out, during which he also took care of paying the final bill. To our shock, we got slapped with a heating bill of 800 Euros! The nights were cold and it was a huge building with lots of people requiring different levels of heat to stay comfortable, but we were still stunned. It didn’t help that there was a broken window in one of the rooms that we had to force closed with a rock that the landlords never fixed during our two-week stay. They also failed us in other ways (including shutting off the heat and hot water on our last night) but I don’t want this post to turn into a laundry list of complaints. Suffice it to say that they received a lengthy letter after we returned home.

That night I walked around outside taking some more photos. Here is one of Florence.

I watched some TV before heading to bed. The Cinque Terre disaster dominated the news channels. The only English-language channel was showing Jersey Shore. Ugh, I hope that’s not how the rest of the world thinks the average American behaves. 😐

The next morning we awoke early so we could close up the villa and head to the bus for our long journey to Switzerland and the beginning of the second half of our trip, which will be covered in the next installment. In the meantime…

See more photos from Tuscany

My Villa in Tuscany

May 6, 2013 Michael RappaLeave a comment

This video is a tour of the grounds surrounding the villa I lived in for two weeks outside of Florence, Italy in 2011. You may have already seen this if you read Part 1 of my Eurotrip journal, though the video is now much smoother thanks to youtube’s smoothing software (with the minor side effect of wacky looking text at the beginning).

The villa was over 100 years old and full of character. The view of the Tuscan countryside from the gazebo was sublime: the hills, the olive groves, the other villas; very peaceful. And on the other end of the grounds I could see Florence in the valley below—an amazing view at night. It’s not difficult to understand why someone would decide to drop everything and move to Tuscany; it’s such an easy place to fall in love with.

Featured Photo: Krka River Dock, Croatia

April 29, 2013 Michael RappaLeave a comment

I took this photo in November of 2011 during the Croatia leg of my epic monthlong trip to Europe. This is the dock outside of Krka National Park where a riverboat drops you off for a visit following a 30-minute ride down the Krka River from a nearby town. The park is home to some spectacular waterfalls, including the one featured in the panorama at the top of this blog.

After our tour of the park, I arrived at the dock about fifteen minutes early to wait for the boat. I was the only person on the dock so it felt like I had the entire river to myself (a major advantage to being in Europe in November is the lack of crowds). I snapped this photo and then lay down on the dock just staring out at the river accompanied by nothing but the sounds of nature. It was such a peaceful setting; I could practically envision myself as a character in a Mark Twain novel.