Below is a gallery of the Torchlight Procession for Hogmanay in Edinburgh, Scotland. This is the first day of a three day celebration to ring in the new year in Edinburgh. The torches were actually huge, rather like swords, and even little children were given torches just to keep you on your toes :P. This was a lot of fun, albeit extremely dangerous, and there were over 40,000 people in attendance.
Below is a gallery of documents from the secret archives of the Vatican. These include the document that created our modern day calendar system and the document from the House of Lords in England asking the Pope to give King Henry VIII a divorce from his wife. The archives contain documents that literally changed the world, and these are some of them.
One common problem that you will encounter when traveling around Europe is how to figure out when the trains come and go. It seems easy enough, but, each country may have its own train system and website as well as a different language, poor website design, no human working at the train station, etc. Every traveler has encountered this problem and, here, I will tell you where to go to find almost all the information you will ever need to travel by train around most of Europe. Continue reading »
I get to the meeting point for the Pompeii day-tour at around 7 am and it is quite cold. In fact, even I, having lived in Boston for years, feel the need to wear a coat. I am a bit lost, or so I think, and I want to ask someone a question. As I look at the crowd of people gathering around a fountain, I immediately know who I can speak to – the other American. Continue reading »
So, just how much do you think it costs to travel around Europe for one month? I have been meaning to write a post like this for a while and, after a visitor named Luke asked me about this, I figured I’d write about it now.
The short answer is $1,000 – $3,000 and up (not including the flight over there and back). Read on for what you need to consider to approximate your expenses. Continue reading »