On and Off the Map

Ljubljana, Slovenia, is a lovely city. It is, however, a bit off the “beaten path,” so, it was with a tiny bit of anxiety that we left Salzburg for the journey. Our concern was making our train connection as we only had a 10-minute window to change trains. Fortunately everything went smoothly with our first…

The sun was shining, the train from Innsbruck to Salzburg was on time and we did not have to change trains. That made for a wonderful start to the day. There was one little annoyance, however. We were seated in the “quiet zone” of the train (who knew?), and, an English couple was quietly chatting….

Becoming more knowledgeable about European geography and topography is one of the benefits of riding the rails. Going from Strasbourg to Innsbruck took us through Switzerland and Liechtenstein before getting to Austria (T-Mobile welcomed me to each country as we entered) and necessitated two train changes. We were lucky as the one change with a…

Leaving Amsterdam was much easier than getting there. That is not to say that getting to Strasbourg was exactly “a walk in the park,” though. We left Amsterdam as it was beginning to rain; good timing. After a 3-hour ride we arrived in Paris at Gare du Nord, which is one of the busiest stations…

Amsterdam is a city in constant motion. Streams of people are always on the move, in and out of Amsterdam Centraal train station and up and down the streets. The trams continuously flow through the city, and, the bicycles dodge the pedestrians, the trams, and the few buses and cars. Amsterdam does mass transportation extremely…

The day started off so well. We had a nice breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien, taxis were waiting right outside our hotel to whisk us to the train station, and, we easily found our train information. The train came on time; we were off to Malines, where we would change trains. We arrived in Malines…

Riding the rails created a little intrigue as we left Lens. The departures board at the train station was out of service, so, confirming our train time and platform took some questioning of the locals (en francais, which adds to the intrigue). We would not have found the correct platform without their help. We again…

So why visit a small city like Lens? It is not a well-known city and not yet on the tourist list of “must see” places. Lens was dealt a harsh blow during World War I as it was ravaged, and, then it was dealt another blow with the end of the mining industry in the…

The forces of Hurricane Dorian have been doing their best to “derail” the start of this month-long Eurail trip. We were scheduled to fly out of Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday to connect with a flight in Charlotte to Paris. Watching the path of the hurricane and the timing, we grew nervous. Fortunately American Airlines agreed…

While brew pubs may not be a “wonder” of the Northwest, they certainly are fun and plentiful, especially, it seems, in Tacoma where we are staying. Tacoma is a city of neighborhoods, and, each neighborhood has its own brew pubs. According to a recent article in the Tacoma daily paper, approximately 3,700 breweries and brew…

We were .000230 percent of the visitors to the iconic Space Needle this year; translated, that means we were three (Steve, Patty (my sister) and me) of the 1.3 million visitors this year. With wind conditions of 9 miles per hour and no earthquake or tremors, we were way, way below the threshold of 200…

A trip within a trip within a trip is an apt description of our experience of “island life” for a day. Whidbey Island was our destination. But first we went to Kirkland to spend the evening with our friends Kathy and Jim, with whom we were going to Whidbey Island. And, our trip to the…

In past years one could be forgiven for knowing that Olympia was the name of a beer rather than recognizing Olympia as the state capital of Washington. Olympia beer had a phenomenal advertising program, and, movie stars from Paul Newman to Clint Eastwood to Matt Damon drank Olympia beer in movies. However, once the Olympia…