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📸 Photo Essays: Make-up Edition
A little bit of housekeeping this week: I realized I forgot to post my photo essays from our Danube River cruise trip. Well, that’s not completely true. I posted my Turkey, Hungary, and Croatia photo essays, but then I got sidetracked with life, and forgot to post Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania. In putting together my…
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Balkan Wine: The Jan Brady of the Wine World
If I’m thinking about wine, the Balkans isn’t the first region that comes to mind. Heck, it’s not even the 33rd. And yet – Balkan winemaking has roots stretching back more than 6,000 years. Older than Bordeaux. Older than Burgundy. Older than most of the national borders we recognize today. And still, Balkan wine remains…
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🌍 River Cruise Wrap-up, Part II: The Challenges and Rewards of Traveling in Eastern Europe
Last year we traveled through nine Eastern European countries – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the spring, followed by Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania on our recent Danube River cruise. And the one thing that unites all of them is a chapter that Western Europe simply doesn’t have: the Soviet Occupation Chapter. But…
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📸 🇭🇷 Photo Essay: Croatia
My Croatia photos are almost exclusively from our Danube River cruse visit to Osijek and Vukovar. I do have a few shots of Dubrovnik from a visit in 2022, but most of my photos from our day in Dubrovnik are not of the town, but of my daughter and her friend (we were there on…
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🇭🇷 Osijek & Vukovar: Homemade Brandy and the Scars of War
Good morning, Croatia. Woke up to more fog, but prettier fog. Celebrating our 33rd wedding anniversary today. I got Ken a very special anniversary gift this morning – Diet Coke for breakfast. We are docked in eastern Croatia along the Serbian border, in the town of Vukovar, which saw intense combat during the Croatian War…
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📚 Destination Bookshelf: What I’m Reading Before Our Danube River Cruise
Before we take a trip, I always try to come up with a reading list that connects with our upcoming destination(s). I usually gravitate toward my favorite genre – historical fiction. I find historical fiction helps make history more accessible and relatable. My husband is more of a non-fiction guy, but I don’t have the…
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Dubrovnik, Croatia 🇭🇷
Ship docked in Dubrovnik at 7am. Didn’t have to tender – yaaay!! Grabbed a taxi and headed to the old town. Quite a bit of Game of Thrones was filmed in Old Dubrovnik. You can buy ANY GoT tchotchke your heart desires here. My heart desires zero. Had breakfast next to King’s Landing. Walked through…