Rails, Ales & Old Towns Europe Travel Podcast
Tips for Great Europe Trips
When I touched down in Las Vegas for the first time, I was genuinely surprised to see mountains ringing the city. Now, I suppose I should have known that Sin City was circled by peaks, but it had just never occurred to me. I honestly thought Las Vegas was a sandy place with dunes a …
Continue reading “Mt. Charleston: One of Las Vegas’ Best Kept Secrets”
When we dream of going to Italy (and we all dream of going to Italy at some point), we don’t typically spend much too much time thinking about Bologna. Naah, it’s usually the ‘big three’ of Rome, Venice, and Florence that tend to star in our Italian fantasy films, with places like Cinque Terre , …
Everything you’ve heard about Bruges, Belgium is true: it’s historic, it’s pretty, and it’s overrun. It’s tough to escape the crowds in Bruges, but visiting the Beguinage (an old place where devout women used to live) gives you a fighting chance. Here’s a picture I took of it.
It happened a few years ago. I was just sitting there, minding my own business, reading (thumbing) through the pages of my trusty European guide book. I stumbled across a place called Ljubljana, Slovenia. Ljubljana was described in cliché phrases such as a ‘cozy’ ‘cafe-centric’ ‘split by a romantic river’, ‘crowned by a stoic castle’, …
Continue reading “Here’s A Laundry List of Reasons to Love Ljubljana, Slovenia”
When we were in New Zealand a while back, we swung by that Milford Sound. It’s really pretty, and apparently the whole deal was created by glaciers! Anyway, here’s a picture of it:
Eating and drinking like a local in Europe is all the rage nowadays – well, pretty much anywhere I suppose – and it is a trend I can wholeheartedly support. The tacky tourist traps that line the historic quarters of Europe, shamelessly pilfering those who just want a halfway decent local meal and a …
Continue reading “A Few Ways to Eat (and Drink) Like a Local in Europe”
Amsterdam is a world class capital city, but it is also a surprisingly small place compared to others of its ilk. In fact, if you’re on a bicycle, you can pretty much get anywhere in the city in around fifteen minutes. That’s one of the reasons I love living here so much, but this compact …
Before you read any further, there is something very important you should know: ‘burg’ is the German word for ‘castle’. So anyway, when my parents were over here in Amsterdam, we thought it would be fun to go over to Germany for a couple days. We wanted to watch a river flow, look at some …
We were in Cologne for a couple nights, and while we were there, we made sure to go to one of the famous Kölsch beer halls. Kölsch is beer from Cologne, and it is light and yellow and tastes, well, good. It is served at every bar in the city, but the waiters that serve Kölsch in the …
There’s no question that Chur, Switzerland isn’t even half as well known as some other Swiss cities. Nope, Chur isn’t the home of saintly rock star organization Red Cross like Geneva is, it doesn’t have an affordable mid-size sedan from Buick named after it like Lucerne, and it isn’t home to nearly as many sketchy …
