Berlin is the city that makes my heart skip a beat. The buildings and streets define and narrate my lifelong obsession with my ancestral home (Germany) and its history like an interactive storybook. First, Berlin was the cultural center of the Weimar Republic era (between WWI and WWII) when the painters, filmmakers, musicians, architects, scientists,…
Tell me if you’ve heard this before: “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste. I’ve been around for a long, long year, stole many a man’s soul and faith. And I was round when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain, Made damn sure that Pilate washed…
A kremlin, the fancy Russian word for fortress, is not an entirely rare sight across Russia but only one has the distinction of being THE Kremlin. Moscow and its Kremlin were founded in the 12th century. Prior to the 1900s many people lived inside the Moscow Kremlin walls just as they would in any village. Soviet…
In the Heart of Transylvania is Harghita County, home of the Szekelyfold. The Szekelers are a group of Magyar/Hungarian origins who formed a battalion of frontier guards that defended the land against the Ottoman Empire in the Middle Ages.
Something bit me in Transylvania, and that is no joke. I kept a close eye on the painful new swellings and watched for any strange symptoms but they have healed, and now… I guess I’m… fine now. Before I begin, I found a video on Youtube that someone else filmed of Sighisoara that truly shows…
Alma is a small town of less than 300 residents in Park County, Colorado between Breckenridge and Fairplay. It was incorporated in December of 1873 and named after a local merchant’s daughter. Alma was originally formed as a camp settlement for miners and the workers of two smelting companies in the 1870s. Gold was found…
Yellow Springs, Ohio is a part of the Dayton MSA and was known until the 1820s as Ludlow. It is named after the nearby spring in the Glen Helen Nature Preserve. The spring flows around 110 gallons per minute, and has such a high iron content that it continuously leaves yellow-hued deposits on its…
One of the first things I noticed in downtown Boone, North Carolina was this mural painted by local artist Peter Grant Catoe. The mural depicts the Tank Man protest on Tiananmen Square back in 1989 when the repressed students and citizens of China rallied for economic reforms and personal freedoms, among other changes. The…
Grandfather Mountain is among the most rough and rugged mountains in Eastern USA and at 5,946 feet (1,812 m), it has the highest peak on the eastern escarpment of the Blue Ridge Mountains. My song for this entry is a heavy cover of Edvard Grieg’s classic “Hall of the Mountain King” by Apocalyptica: Daniel Boone…
Blowing Rock is a small town in northwestern North Carolina near the Tennessee border known as the “Crown of Blue Ridge” with around 1300 residents in its three square miles. The land that became the town of Blowing Rock first belonged to Cherokee and Catawba tribes, and when white settlers moved in, they used it…
One of my favourite drives for viewing fall leaves in East Tennessee is the Cherohala Skyway, a National Scenic Byway that runs between Tellico Plains, TN and Robbinsville, NC. TELLICO PLAINS The tiny 1.6 square mile town of Tellico Plains currently has less than 1,000 residents in what used to be the Cherokee settlement of Great…
Each fall since 1959, Tipp City, Ohio has hosted the Tipp City Mum Festival downtown. The idea came from a local who had been inspired by Holland’s Tulip Festival, and thought Tipp City should create its own festival to celebrate its world-renowned mums. Tipp City had already earned its title of “Mum Capital of the…
Porchfest started in 2007 in Ithaca, NY as a totally resident-owned and operated music festival, and it has spread to over 130 other cities in the USA and Canada since. Care to start one in your town? The organizers have thoughtfully put together some info you can find here. Maybe I will add that to…
Chattanooga is known for being an outdoor lover’s paradise, a modern tech city with dizzying internet speed, home of a Volkswagen plant, Finley Stadium, and a place full of Native American and Civil War history. The city is full of attractions known around the world like Rock City and Lookout Mountain, the Tennessee Aquarium and…
Chattanooga’s Southside District is centered around the junctions of Main Street with Market Street and Broad Street, respectively. You could say that it is the area south of Warehouse Row down to 20th Street. It would not be too much of a stretch to say it is the area between Finley Stadium and the Chattanooga…
Between a surgery, work, then a year and a half so far of Covid-19 forcing us to cancel our trip, I have not been able to go back to my beloved Vaterland for over three years. That ache in my heart for lederhosen and medieval architecture is sometimes unbearable. We set out instead for Helen,…
Tennessee’s oldest town was founded in 1779, nearly two decades before it officially became a state. Jonesborough, once spelled as Jonesboro, is part of the Tri-Cities region of East Tennessee that includes Johnson City, Kingsport, and Bristol. Jonesborough was named after Willie Jones, a politician from North Carolina who was known for his support of…
Fernweh 