Category: 2022
-
Music, Magic, and Modernisme 🇪🇸
Barcelona welcomed us with sun, song, and the sparkle of Catalan creativity. Our first stop was Casa Batlló, one of Antoni Gaudí’s most imaginative works. Its rippling façade of glass and tile looks like a dragon’s scales shimmering in the Mediterranean light. Inside, the curves and colors seem to flow like water—Gaudí famously said there…
-
Cannstatter Volksfest: Stuttgart’s Spirited Celebration 🇩🇪
Every autumn, Stuttgart transforms into a whirlwind of color, sound, and celebration for the Cannstatter Volksfest — Germany’s second-largest beer festival and one of its most cherished traditions. What began in 1818 as a harvest festival celebrating the end of famine has grown into a joyful blend of Bavarian-style festivity and Swabian pride. Held at…
-
The Oppenheim Keller Tour: Life Beneath the Front Lines 🇩🇪
In September 2022, we visited Oppenheim for one of the most fascinating and unexpected history lessons we’ve experienced in Germany — the Keller tour, a walk through the vast underground cellar system hidden beneath the old town. At first glance, Oppenheim looks like a quiet Rhine-side town surrounded by vineyards. But beneath its streets lies…
-
Icons of Innovation and Chocolate Creation 🇧🇪
Our final full day in Brussels began with a picnic breakfast and an early visit to the Atomium. Built for the 1958 World’s Fair (Expo 58), the Atomium symbolizes scientific optimism and progress. Its nine connected spheres form a magnified model of an iron crystal—165 billion times larger than the real structure. From the top…
-
Antwerp Adventures and a Sea of Flowers 🇧🇪
We caught the IC train north to Antwerp, just under an hour away. The city’s Central Station is often called the most beautiful train station in Europe—and for good reason. Built between 1895 and 1905, it combines iron, marble, and glass in spectacular harmony, earning the nickname “the railway cathedral.” Our morning began with an…
-
Arriving in the Capital of Europe 🇧🇪
We arrived in Belgium’s capital after an easy morning train ride, excited to experience one of Europe’s most spectacular summer traditions — the Brussels Flower Carpet, an ephemeral work of art covering the Grand Place with hundreds of thousands of begonias. Every two years since 1971, volunteers carefully assemble these blossoms into intricate patterns that…
-
When Guests Come to Town, You See Wiesbaden Differently 🇩🇪
Having visitors in town has a way of making you slow down and truly appreciate where you live. With guests in Wiesbaden, we found ourselves rediscovering familiar places through fresh eyes — and being reminded just how special this city really is. We started in downtown Wiesbaden, wandering through the elegant streets and open squares…
-
Touring the Cochem Bunker 🇩🇪
Our visit to the Cochem Bunker offered a fascinating — and slightly unsettling — glimpse into Cold War Germany. While the guided tours were conducted only in German, the experience was still deeply engaging, and the historical context alone made it well worth the visit. The bunker was constructed in the early 1960s, at the…
-
A Living Fairy Tale: Visiting Burg Eltz 🇩🇪
With family in town, we set out to visit Burg Eltz, a castle that feels less like a preserved monument and more like a living fairy tale. Hidden deep in a wooded valley above the Moselle River, the castle rises suddenly from the forest, its clustered towers and half-timbered walls looking almost unreal. The approach…
-
The Ring of Rüdesheim: History, Views, and Small Moments 🇩🇪
A visit along the Ring of Rüdesheim always delivers, but this time it was the details along the way that made the experience especially memorable — layers of history, quiet woodland paths, and moments that delighted the kids just as much as the adults. One of the highlights is the Niederwald Monument, standing high above…