GERMANY: NUREMBERG'S MARKET SQUARE (OLD TOWN)

 May 18-19, 2025

We spent the morning in Dresden, then drove to Nuremberg in the mid-afternoon, a drive that took about 3 ½ hours. We arrived just in time for dinner. While on the road, I researched restaurants to try to find a good, authentic German dinner. We ended up at the Bratwursthäusle (House of Bratwurst). Founded in 1312, it is the oldest restaurant in the city and is famous for producing what the European Union has declared to be the first bratwurst (grilled sausages) in Germany. Their sausages are made onsite every morning.

I got an assortment of brats (boiled, grilled, and fried) and a chunk of some other kind of meat with sides of sauerkraut and potato salad. It was wonderful, and I had it again the next day when our guide took us to the same restaurant. (We didn't tell him we'd been here the night before.) The desserts were also very good. We had chocolate mousse with a berry sauce and apple strudel swimming in custard sauce.

Were we happy? Yes, yes, we were. In my journal I note that it was our best meal so far.

After dinner and then at the end of the day the following day, we explored the Hauptmarkt, or main market square. The Nuremberg Town Hall was basically destroyed during World War II but was painstakingly rebuilt afterwards. 

NEW YORK CITY: WORLD TRADE CENTER NEIGHBORHOOD

  May 11, 2023

We made a quick trip to New York City to visit our son Andrew and his girlfriend Michaela on Mother's Day weekend. We took the red-eye Jet Blue flight out of Ontario, and arrived in NYC early in the morning on Thursday. We had booked a room in the World Center Hotel, which is just a block or so from the 9-11 Memorial at One World Trade Center. There are a lot of different subway lines that connect in the neighborhood, and it is also a 15-20 minute walk from there to our Andrew and Michaela's apartment near Chinatown, so it was a good location for us.

I was hoping we would have a view of One World Trade Center from our hotel window since we were so close, but we were facing the wrong way. Still it was an interesting view of some other skyscrapers, and I loved the tile work on the apartment building next to us.

Judging by the fancy outdoor spaces, it costs a lot to live in the apartment building with the fancy tile work.

We were lucky to be there on a weekend with perfect weather and no pollution. The soaring obelisk of One World Trade Center almost seemed to blend into the sky. 

I recently heard someone from my area of the country say that they don't like New York City because the buildings are so tall that you can't even see the sky and its depressing. Honestly, I don't know what they are talking about. Yes, there are big buildings, but there are also a ton of open spaces. I love that about NYC!

PORTUGAL: EVORA, PART II - EVORA CATHEDRAL, ROMAN RUINS, A LOST CAR, AND DINNER AT TABERNA TIPICA

 July 2, 2022

As I noted in the last post, we realized that we hadn't really paid attention to where we had parked the car, and so we decided we had better retrace our steps before we went any farther. We knew the more places we went, the less likely we'd be able to remember how to get back to the starting place. By the time we had walked about two blocks and made two turns, we realized we had no idea where to go next. There were so many narrow, twisting alleys and staircases that looked the same. We also disagreed on the general direction to go to find the car. I was sure it was one direction, and Bob was convinced it was another. We had no real landmarks in mind. We were in serious trouble.

However, in our wanderings, we did come across several other sites on our list, starting with the mid-gothic Cathedral of Évora, the oldest and largest medieval cathedral in Portugal. Construction started in the 12th century and was completed in the 14th century, although significant changes and additions were made up until the early 1700s. This cathedral is one of the structures cited in the UNESCO World Heritage Site designation for Évora.

A few years ago I read the book The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris, which tells of the author's experience living in a Benedictine monastery for nine months. I think of her quiet, soul-searching prose every time we stroll down a cloister walkway, and somehow at the Évora Cathedral the laughter of running children made this particular experience that much more spiritual.

Off the cloister is a funeral chapel that contains the tomb of the cathedral's founder, Bishop King Peter, as well as the Archbishop of Évora who died in the 20th century. (However, I am not sure if I have these labeled correctly because there are also a few other tombs connected to the cloister.)

PORTUGAL: BRAGA

July 1, 2022

Our Braga accommodations, the Hotel Vila Galé, was about a five-mile drive from the Bom Jesus Basilica. At first we couldn't find it. The address led us to this building, which was clearly (we thought), a church and not a hotel:

Eventually, however, we noticed the hotel signs on the right end of the building.

We learned that our hotel was occupying a site that was originally the Hospital de São Marcos, established in the 1500s--similar in some ways to our hotel in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The Iberian people built incredible hospitals! The original building was expanded a few times over the centuries, and the building as it now appears served as a public hospital with a capacity of 521 active beds in 2007. It was vacated in 2011 in favor of a new, modern structure. In 2016 the Via Galé hotel group purchased the building, and in 2018 it opened as a four-star hotel. 

The hotel is enormous. Once we checked in at the front desk, we walked through a series of corridors for almost five minutes before reaching our room.

PORTUGAL: BOM JESUS DO MONTE BASILICA

 June 30, 2022

We got on the road around noon for our two-hour drive back to Portugal and our next destination outside Braga, another pilgrimage site, Bom Jesus do Monte, or "Good Jesus of the Mountain." (We kept irreverently calling the place "Bomb Jesus" and giggling.)

We had eaten an extensive and delicious breakfast buffet in our hotel, so we weren't ready for lunch, but we did pick up some nutritious snacks for the drive. I didn't know Magnum made anything but ice cream bars! What a wonderful surprise! And the Sumol Laranja drink on the right tastes just like one of my favorites: Orangina.

We had zero interference crossing the border into Portugal. Everything we had read online about tight Covid restrictions in Portugal were either out-of-date or overblown.

Bom Jesus do Monte turned out to be one of my favorite churches in Portugal, in spite of the fact that the road to the church is a series of hairpin turns up a very steep mountain.

Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019, the extensive property (64 acres) is stunning. The UNESCO document notes that "the landscape evokes Christian Jerusalem, recreating a sacred mount crowned with a church. . . . [It] illustrates a European tradition of creating Sacri Monti (sacred mountains), promoted by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent in the 16th century." The rest of the UNESCO description is one of the most lavish documents of praise I have read on their site, and I wonder what took them so long to name Bom Jesus a World Heritage Site. 

Many churches have existed here, beginning in the 14th century, but the current  one was started in 1784 and consecrated in 1834. A zig-zagging series of 577 steps leading from the town of Braga up the mountain to the basilica were built between 1723 and 1837, and it is these stairs and accompanying artwork and landscaping that make the basilica such a special and unique place, which is why over 1.2 million people visit it every year.

SPAIN: THE CATHEDRAL OF SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA AND THE CATHEDRAL MUSEUM

 June 29-30, 2022

As noted in the previous post, the current Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela was built in Romanesque style in the 13th century, with Gothic and Baroque additions in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. It is a massive structure, and no doubt gets its notoriety from being the reputed burial spot of St. James (aka Santiago) the Greater, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. However, it is a magnificent edifice of its own accord.

By the way, the only other churches in the world built over the tomb of an apostle are St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, St. Thomas Cathedral Basilica in Chennai, India, and the Basilica of St. John in Izmir, Turkey.

A sign of the importance of this cathedral is that it was visited THREE TIMES in a span of 28 years by two different popes--Pope John Paul II in 1982 and 1989 and Pope Benedict in 2010.

The interior of this cathedral is about 310 feet long, has a transept that measures 206 feet, and stands 72 feet high, making it the tallest building in Europe when it was built. Today it is still the largest Romanesque cathedral in Spain. At first glance it looks rather austere.

But then you see the main altar, and the closer you get, the more opulent it is.

PORTUGAL: COIMBRA

 June 27, 2022

From Batalha we drove about an hour north-northeast to the university city of Coimbra, where we had a private tour scheduled. We had about an hour before we were supposed to meet our guide and were starving, so we found a parking place within walking distance of our meet-up point and conveniently located near the Café Santa Cruz. We lucked out because this café has been open since 1923 (although the building itself dates back to 1530) and is a Coimbra landmark. 

Photo from here

We arrived at lunchtime and the place was packed. They had a buffet-style set-up, and they couldn't keep the dishes stocked, so the line was moving pretty slowly. We paid 18€ for both of us, and that included drinks, and when we finally got through the line, we discovered that the food was quite good. The tables were full of what looked like university professors and students, and it was fun to be in that atmosphere.

Photo from here

Just outside and perpendicular to the restaurant was a wonderful "trash art" mural of a baby owl by the Portuguese artist Bordalo II. The left side is more or less traditional, its claws digging into an old wall, and the right sight is much more futuristic.

RUSSIA: KALININGRAD CITY TOUR

June 29, 2019

We began our day with a city tour led by our guide, Irina. She had a list she wanted to get through and didn't adjust very well to our interests.

Our hotel was located in an area of the city known as the "Fisherman's Village." We probably did spend too much time getting acquainted with this rakish sailor and his clever monkey . . . 

. . . but they were so friendly.

We could tell that luck-seeking passersby had rubbed their noses a lot.

Further along the walk we saw but didn't speak to this lady of the night. Her nose has been rubbed a lot too.

We rushed right by this fellow, who had set up shop on one end of a bridge.  I had to use Google Translate to learn that his sign says "Sale of finds from excavations in Konigsberg."

Looking at the photo now, I wish we had been able to stop and take a closer look!

POLAND: SOPOT, GDYNIA, AND GDANSK

June 21, 2019

Our second day in Poland was spent touring the resort cities of Sopot and Gdynia, both located north of Gdansk on the Baltic shoreline. I would compare them to California's Malibu and Laguna Beach--beautiful, indulgent places where the wealthy vacation.  

Sopot is marked on the map below with a red pin, about mid-way between Gdynia and Gdansk:

Our guide called Sopot, which is less than 10 miles from Gdansk, "the Polish Riviera." I can see why the Polish elite would want to spend their summers here:

One of the most famous hotels in Poland, and indeed in Europe, is Sopot's Grand Hotel. Built in the 1920s, it was THE place to stay for the rich, famous, and important. Its most infamous guests include Adolf Hitler and Herman Göring. (I wouldn't want to stay in the rooms they slept in, would you?) Over the years, other guests have included King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Fidel Castro, Charles De Gaulle (although he complained that the beds were too short for his 6' 5" frame), Greta Garbo, Vladimir Putin, Reza Shah Pahlavi (the Shah of Iran), and Omar Sharif.