BEST WISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR

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HERE'S TO 2015
FILLED WITH TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE!!!




YEAR IN PHOTOS 2014


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Auschwitz

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Last month, I visited Auschwitz, the site of the most notorious extermination camp in human history. Finding the right words to describe how I felt while standing in the spot where millions of people were murdered was very hard. It was beyond comprehension. I just got to sorting the pictures and videos I took from the trip when the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh happened. So, imagine how I felt when I heard about the senseless killing in the United States. I kept going back to the sights I saw in Auschwitz and the words of George Santayana, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  So, if you do have the opportunity to visit Auschwitz, you should. But I understand that not everybody will have the opportunity, so I just wanted to share some insight from my trip.

Auschwitz I - The Main Camp
In 1940 Himmler, the head of SS ordered a former garrison site in the town of Oswiecin (Auschwitz in German) to be taken over and held as a concentratio…
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Latvia: A Walk in the Forest

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On a recent trip to the Baltic, I had the chance to visit the Ethnographic Open-Air Museum of Latvia, one of the oldest and largest open-air museums in Europe. It’s located on the banks of Lake Jugla and just 30-minutes drive from downtown Riga. The museum was established in 1924 and had collected 118 historical buildings from all over Latvia. Information as to when and where the building was built and when it was added to the museum is posted on each building.

On a beautiful clear day, with blue skies and fresh air in abundance with temperature in the mid-60s Fahrenheit, I expected a few visitors around, but there seemed to be no other visitors but our group. Which is strange since there were lots of tourists in the Old Town, Riga about eighteen kilometers away.

After the museum entrance, we entered the first building - a barn with a collection of ancient wooden carriages on display. But the information posted on the building describes it as Roadhouse Pub built in the district of Ba…
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Poland: The Wieliczka Salt Mine

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One of the most spectacular UNESCO World Heritage Sites I visited this year was the Wieliczka Salt Mine near Krakow, Poland. It was founded in the 13th century to mine the rich deposit of salt. Salt mining stopped in 1996 when the low price of salt on the world market made it too expensive to mine and the mine was slowly flooding. But miners did more than just extract salt. They left behind them a breathtaking record of their time underground in the shape of statues of mythical, historical and religious figures.  Part of the salt mine became an art gallery, chapels, cathedral, and underground lakes. Today, Wieliczka Salt Mine is one of the most visited National Monuments in Poland.

For safety reason, less than one percent of the mine is open to visitors, but even that is almost four kilometers in length. There are 20 chambers to visit and 800 steps to climb of which 350 at the beginning take you down into the mine. You can’t just visit and wander around on your own. All of the visits …
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