It’s great to be back in Istanbul. I can switch from endless churches to endless mosques. Starting with the Blue Mosque which was being restored when I visited in 2022, so you could glimpse very little under a lot of scaffolding. It is now glowing and beautiful. No shortage of crowds enjoying it. Less than…

Being back in Greece is very much a breath of fresh air. Spending time walking along the water, exploring the many churches and enjoying the city.

My last day in Bucharest and taking in two excellent museums – the Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of History.

The former Presidential palace provides both a mix of styles and some opulent moments. Bucharest has its own Arc de Triomphe.

Bucharest has a great botanical garden – this is a country that really seems to love its rose gardens. Also taking in a production of Verdi’s Don Carlo at the State Opera.

Bucharest’s massive parliament was originally designed to bring a very large, centralized communist government together under one roof. It was another five years after the revolution before it was completed and used to support the emerging democracy. With 1100 rooms it is the second largest building in the world and the heaviest building in the…

It wasn’t so very long ago that Bucharest found its independence from Ceaușescu, but its roots go back much deeper than that. it’s a very walkable city with many different styles that all seem to come together to give the city a personality. The traffic can be intense but there are also plenty of leafy…

Catching up on my blogging. In my last few days in Sofia I had the chance to continue to explore the city but also to see some of the new buildings appearing in the area. This building caused me to do a double take. The next time you call for customer support you may be…

If there is a symbol of Sofia or perhaps even Bulgaria itself it’s the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. With construction starting in 1882, when complete it was a whopping 31,000 square feet with the capacity for 5000 worshippers.