A Photo a Week: Happiness Is…

Happiness is an attitude more than anything else. You can choose happiness, or not… …which is why I find happiness in many things! For Nancy Merrill’s A Photo a Week challenge, the theme is happiness is… so here are some things that happiness is to me. Flowers… …especially the ones I grow myself. Fresh tomatoes […]

Castle Perspectives

A castle on a hill…sounds dreamy, doesn’t it? And to us modern tourists, seeing one castle after another on the Rhine River is a dream come true – we admire their beauty and their history. Castles were built not just as residences for royalty, but fortifications against invading enemies. Positioning them on hilltops above a […]

LAPC 99: The Old and the New

Amy of Lens-Artists invites us this week to show old and new with our photos and stories. On our last trip to Brazil, we spent our first week staying with friends in the southern city of Curitiba, which has well over 1 million inhabitants. The city has grown a lot since I was last there […]

April Tops, Day 16: Obelisks

Obelisks were built throughout ancient Egyptian history, but they became more common during the New Kingdom. The top of an obelisk is pyramid shaped and is called pyramidion, referring to the uppermost piece or capstone of an Egyptian obelisk. For Becky’s April Squares with the subject top, here are some obelisk tops.

Friday Fun: In the Distance

Here are some 2019 travel photos for Aroused’s Friday Fun: Distance. Caesarea & Jerusalem, Israel: Rhine castles in Germany: I kept thinking of this song while doing this post. I think the lyrics are fitting for these days of fear and crisis.

Lens-Artists #84: Narrow Passageways

Amy at Lens-Artists this week invites us to explore the topic of narrow. In my travels to “old” places – places built when there were no cars or crowds of tourists -I explored (or declined to explore) many narrow streets and other passageways. Places like Old Town Tallinn, Estonia (where I got lost due to […]

Thursday Doors/FOTD: Schoenbrunn Palace

July 7, 2019 On our second day in Vienna (and 2nd to last day of our Grand European Tour cruise!), we visited Schönbrunn Palace. This 1,441-room palace was the summer residence of the Habsburg rulers and is a major tourist attraction in Vienna. The palace in its current form was built in the 1740s-1750s during […]

Melk Abbey and Town

July 5, 2019 Today we docked at Melk, a town on the Danube known for its abbey, which sits on a cliff overlooking the town. A bus drove us up the hill to tour the abbey. The Benedictine abbey was founded in 1089. A monastic school was established in the 12th century and the library […]

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Leading Lines

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #80 is about leading lines. Leading lines are one of the “rules” of composition: There are indeed “rules” of photographic composition, which like many other rules, are made to be broken. Whatever their skill level or experience though, understanding and knowing when to use the “rules” of composition can be helpful for […]

Thursday Doors: Passau Walking Tour

The German city of Passau is located in Bavaria very close to the Austrian border, at the confluence of three rivers: The Danube, the Inn and the Itz. It was the last German city we stopped at during our cruise last June-July. We arrived at Passau on the U.S. Independence Day, July 4. This post […]