Travel and Leisure

The Real Streets of Venice: Queen of the Adriatic

It was Venice, the City of Canals and the Queen of the Adriatic, in a nutshell. It was a simple image I remember photographing out of our hotel room window. See, this was the end of a long and frenzied 10-day trip to Italy that encompassed the Amalfi Coast, Rome, Florence, and now Venice. Since this Read More

Lithuania as a Tender Echo in My Soul

It’s been a long time ago, a whole lot of ages have passed… So long that it seems as if it happened in the past life. Lithuania arose in my thoughts while working on a group project during my studies in Wageningen, The Netherlands. And this beautiful Baltic country instilled a sens Read More

Lisbon's Impressive Jerónimos Monastery (Mosteiro dos Jeronimos), Facts

Jerónimos Monastery (Mosteiro dos Jerónimos) is one of the most impressive examples of wealth and power that Portugal had during the Age of Discovery. It is one of the best examples of European Gothic architecture in the whole of Portugal. Located in Lisbon, the Mostei Read More

The Portuguese Early Gothic Style of the Alcobaça Monastery

In the heart of the Oeste Subregion in Alcobaça lies a medieval monastery that embodies everything beautiful about the Portuguese early gothic style, the Mosteiro de Alcobaça. Admiring this grand structure from the outside, ancient stories of love and tragedy are visible in the origina Read More

Wondrous Juneau, Playful Whales, and the Defiant Inside Passage

It was the northernmost journey's end of our Alaska Inside Passage cruise and the 2nd most remarkable destination of the trip: only behind Canada’s Yukon Territory. It was the serene, surprisingly temperate, and nature-filled Juneau Alaska. Juneau is a magnificent panorama of natur Read More

The Trees of Yosemite Valley

The most influential of the Valley trees is the yellow pine (Pinus ponderosa). It attains its noblest dimensions on beds of water-washed, coarsely-stratified moraine material, between the talus slopes and meadows, dry on the surface, well-watered below and where not too closely assembled in groves t Read More