Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, Russia, is one of the most iconic buildings in Moscow. Located in Red Square, it faces off of other mighty architectural giants, such as the Kremlin, Lenin’s mausoleum, the State Historical Museum, and the GUM shopping center, and quite easily holds its own.
The Temple of Jupiter in Split, Croatia is a small, ancient Roman sanctuary located within the walls of Diocletian’s Palace. This marvelous little building is nestled in one of the most beautiful places in Croatia and is well worth the visit.
We visited Olana State Historic Site, the estate of artist Frederic Edwin Church, on the most perfect fall day. It was the exact moment of the fall season where the colors were the brightest, and we had such beautiful weather. We hiked along the Lake Road up to the top of Crown Hill, then from the farm to the main house via the Farm Road and North Road. Olana and Clermont have always been personal favorites of mine. Our family has visited these sites so many times over the past several decades. And in the fall, it is the best place for leaf peeping in Upstate New York.
We stopped by Newspaper Rock State Historical Monument, a large rock face containing hundreds of petroglyphs, on our way from the Needles sections of Canyonlands National Park down to the Goosenecks State Park on our drive through Utah. We had no idea how impressive it was until we saw it in the flesh. It is larger than we imagined and absolutely worth a visit.
When we booked our trip to Morocco, we knew that we wanted to visit Marrakesh. Not only because of the song, “Marrakesh Express” by Crosby, Stills, and Nash, or the wonderful book, “The Drifters” by James Michener, but because of this lovely little book I read in school titled “Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco” by Paul Rabinow. Jemaa el-Fnaa is the main square in the old part of the city where Marrakesh truly comes to life. Here, you can experience the sights and smells of all of Morocco into one small condensed area. It is a sensory overload in the most fantastic way!
While driving from Denmark to Sweden, there was one place that I really wanted to stop at and visit while passing through. This place is on the very itty bitty end of Zealand Island at the edge of the Danish border. Looking across Øresund Sound is Sweden and after a very short boat ride, you are on Swedish soil. This place is Kronborg Castle, of course, located in the town of Helsingør.
There are several little corners in Europe where myth and reality are so intertwined that the lines between them are wonderfully blurred. Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, is one such place. Here dragons (or rather, the Ljubljana Dragon) play into history as much as any other sobering realities. The result is a magical, fantastical, and charming place.
Scotland is, without a doubt, one of my favorite places in the world. There is something incredibly wonderful and comfy about the entire country. To me, it feels like home. I will have to talk about so many of the lovely spots that I had the chance to visit while doing research for my masters thesis, but today, I will talk about just one amazing place. The Ring of Brodgar in the Orkney Islands.
Two places very near and dear to my heart are Clermont and Olana; two historic homes and estates located in the Hudson River Valley in upstate New York that are now protected State parks. Both places have contributed greatly to local and national history, and in very different ways. We recently visited and hiked around Clermont and I must say that in June, it may be one of my favorite settings in the world.