Category: Travels for Fun
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BASQUE COUNTRY
A couple of days ago I had never heard of the Basque fishing town of Hondarribia. Padma and I needed a place to hang out for a few days near Biarritz, which is in French Basque country. But Biarritz is too posh and expensive for simple folks like us. So I brought up the map […]
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ANOTHER CHATEAU
There are about 1000 chateaux in France’s Loire Valley. Padma and I saw one and a half. That’s enough. Been there. Done that. We started our drive through the Loire with a stop at Amboise and really enjoyed walking through the chateau and the gardens and courtyards. Then we travelled south to the River Cher […]
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ON TOP OF THE (GERMAN) WORLD
Last Sunday was one of those frigid, yet super clear days that only seem to come around a few times each winter. We were showing Padma’s brother’s family around and were staying with our friends Karl-Heinz and Hiltrud Linke in their little village of Illerbachen. As the sun rose on a very frosty morning, Karl-Heinz […]
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DROP IN IF YOU’RE IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
Just a few weeks ago I received an email from a genealogist in Switzerland. He found a 1928 photo I posted online of some distant cousins in Wisconsin and wanted some details. I sorted out his enquiries and he was most grateful. He said ‘If you’re ever in the Bernese Alps, drop in.’ I don’t […]
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RESEMBLANCE AFTER 36 GENERATIONS?
Joseph, Padma and I travelled with our German friend, Volker, to pay our respects to our ancestor in Aachen, Germany. Charlemagne – or Charles I, the Emperor of the Romans, the King of the Lombards and the King of the Franks – was laid to rest in 814 in his imperial capital city of Aix-la-Chapell, […]
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THE WUPPERTAL SCHWEBEBAHN
‘Whopper-what?’ I asked. My new German friend, Volker, tried to share his hometown with me. ‘Wupper-who?’ I just couldn’t pierce through his thick accent so I pulled out my phone and brought up Google Maps and let him zoom in. ‘Wuppertal!’ I finally realised. ‘Never heard of it.’ Volker explained it was one of the […]
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WEBERT. OLBERODE. ANCESTRAL HOME.
‘What’s your mother’s maiden name’? How many times have I had to answer that question? ‘Webert,’ I answer. But for most of my life it was only a name. A name I knew nothing about. And a name my mother knew little about. A few years ago I got bitten by the genealogy bug and […]
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FINDING CHRISTIAN
PERHENTIAN BESAR – 8 February 1978 Olympus OM-1 on Kodachrome 25. Roll 2. Frames 22 and 23. When you travel alone you are inclined to meet more people … and some of those people become your travel mates. I was hanging out during a Chinese New Year holiday at a guesthouse in a small village […]
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ALSACE. GERMAN OR FRENCH?
One of the few things I remember from high school history is the story of Alsace-Lorraine. It’s a region in present-day eastern France that has been claimed by both France and Germany and as a result has changed hands several times over the past two centuries. Traditionally the people of the region speak a dialect […]
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