This week’s “Wish You Were Here” photos come from reader Matt McCall. When I decided to travel to Tallinn, Estonia with my brothers for a quick weekend trip, I was not quite sure what to expect. What I did find however, was an unexpectedly interesting city. Arriving on a rainy, cold August night, it felt as though I was transported not only to another season, but also to another time. Wandering through the lamp-lit medieval passages in the misty night, I explored the old city's streets, with its towering churches and numerous restaurants. The old city of Tallinn is surrounded by its Continue Reading
Norway Wishes You Were Here
With tour groups on one side and a 9th century Viking ship on the other, you tend to look past the tourists. The Viking Ship Museum in Oslo displays the large Viking ships of Oseberg, Gokstad and Tune, the best-preserved Viking ships known in today’s world. These ships were uncovered in the late 1800s, found in the royal burial mounds in the Oslo fjord. Admiring the ships and their intact nature predictably comes with a visit to the museum. However, these ships were not for imagined grand Viking conquests and expeditions but rather to carry the dead on to the next world, filled to the Continue Reading
Learning Italian and How To Travel From The Nonna
BUZZZZZ! BUZZZZ! “Non lo so! Non lo so!”, my driver Giovanni kept saying as he pressed the buzzer to my new home for the next month. 18 years old and for the first time in a foreign country alone, I began to wonder what I got myself into as it appeared nobody was home. Hand gestures and phone calls commenced as I sat on my suitcase wondering why my Italian host family wasn’t answering their bell. Did they already regret their decision? Will I have to live on the street? Questions in my mind mixed with an overzealous imagination that errs on the worried side more than the carefree. Coming Continue Reading
Rome, Italy Wishes You Were Here
I was beginning to fall out of love with Italy. After three months of living in Florence, I grew tired of little Italian nuances I used to find charming when I studied abroad. When a place starts to lose its magic, it is usually time for you to go home, get perspective and appreciate it all over again. When I was 14 years old, I fell in love with Italy in Rome. Perched at the Trevi Fountain lapping up a gelato, there was something about that evening that dictated the rest of my life. When I returned to Rome this past September before catching my flight home, I became reacquainted with the Continue Reading
Vadstena, Sweden Wishes You Were Here
It is around 10PM and the light in Vadstena burns as though it’s 5PM. The sun seemingly is trying to set, but it appears Vättern Lake just won’t allow the ball of fire to dip below its surface. It is not time for bed just yet in this quiet Swedish town. What struck me about Vadstena was the light, bouncing through the trees to the lake or cascading across the cobbled lanes and wooden buildings. The town itself is a pilgrimage site for many. Santa Birgitta carries about town just as the light does. The Klosterkyrkan, Vadstena’s church, was built in response to the saint’s Continue Reading
Matera, Italy Wishes You Were Here
Silence is hard to find in Italy. Noise of some form is bound to find a way into the most isolated stretches of the country. From their garbage trucks to Italians in general, finding peace and quiet in Italy can be a challenge. That is, until I reached Matera, a town located in the southern region of Basilicata, in between Calabria and Puglia. Matera is considered one of the oldest settlements in the world, with the first inhabited zone dating back to Paleolithic times. These settlements formed in the earth with caves, called sassi. However, Matera is not merely known for its old Continue Reading
Alberobello, Italy Wishes You Were Here
In the Puglia region of southern Italy, known as the heel of the country, the town of Alberobello covers in some of Italy's most unique structures. All around Alberobello, witch hat looking homes scatter about, with some adorned in strange Christian and pagan symbols. Driving into the city around dusk, birds circle throughout the sky above as though Hitchcock is here filming his latest thriller. The sky’s color is burnt orange, with hints of deep purple. The screeching birds are not in Alberobello for dramatic effect. Some 1,500 strangely shaped homes set up in town known as trulli. The stone Continue Reading