Posted 12 years ago
maggiethecat
(5 items)
My first trip abroad I landed in Holland. A great stepping off place as the people are so friendly and English is spoken. Add the charm of the canal houses, the windmills and the fantastic museums and you don't ever want to leave.
The second picture is from Cologne and is a souvenir of their annual wine festival. Met some deaf people there who on discovering I taught deaf children began buying me drinks. Got so drunk I had to be carried back to my pension. Not sure what this is. It has a hole for hanging and is also heavy so would make a great paperweight.
The pin comes from Austria. I was there during a Mozart festival. One of the highlights was a candlelit piano recital in a palace drawing room. Another was a bus tour of the sites where the Sound of Music was filmed. On the bus I met a young man also traveling alone and the next day we rented a car together and took the back roads to Innsbruck stopping at random to examine an abandoned villa or walk along a babbling brook.
I'm no fan of bull-fighting but Spain is one of those places that can stir all my senses simultaneously. Imagine white-washed houses lining a street so narrow you can reach out and touch both sides, the coolness of dusk, the softness of the fading light. The air is fragrant with the scent of flowers in hanging baskets. And then the silence is broken as someone behind an open window picked up a guitar and began playing Segovia. Impossible not to stop and listen.