There was a lot of controversy around the construction of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul. It was not that people did not like the beauty of this mosque. The controversy was more about Sultan Ahmed himself. First, he had not won any great victories for Islam that would justify building such an opulent mosque. [...]

This trolley in Istanbul runs the length of Istiklal Caddesi (street) which is a pedestrian street in Beyoğlu. Beyoğlu is an area of the city just north of the Golden Horn which is where the old European Embassies were located and therefore one of the most European parts of the old city. Now it is [...]

Episode 207 – Travel to the Tyrol (Tirol) Region of Austria
This is a transcript of an episode of the Amateur Traveler focusing on traveling to the Tyrol region of Austria.

Travel to the Tyrol (Tirol) Region of Austria – Episode 207
More blogs posts about Austria
More podcasts about europe

with special thanks to Cindy the Amateur Traveler intern [...]

Rounding out a week’s worth of pictures of doors is this door from Toledo, the former capital of Spain. I found this on one of the back streets by just trying to get lost wandering around the twisty little back streets of that city. I like the contrast between the armored right side of the [...]

What’s wrong with this picture? This is the front door to a restaurant in Santorini. But where is the restaurant? Because the towns on Santorini are often built on cliffs this door leads to stairs down to the restaurant.This is a surprisingly common sight on the island as the picture below will attest to.

Sofie met us in the lobby of our hotel somewhat out of breath from traffic in Prague snarled by a fresh snow storm. Sofie was there to give us  guided tour of Prague. Our tour was provided by OurExplorer.com as a way to try out their services. What OurExplorer does is connect travelers like us [...]

In my continuing series of pictures of doors that I have taken on my travels is this one form the lovely Tuscan hill town of Montalcino in Italy. Montalcino is the home of Brunello wine and is a small walled town.

In the recent Amateur Traveler episode on Travel Photography I mentioned that I collect photographs of doors. This is one of the doors that caught my eye. This picture comes from Toledo in Spain.

I have always thought of St George as a particularly English sort of saint until my recent trip to Prague. In addition to a church named after my favorite dragon slayer there was this statue of St George insie Prague castle.

After I posted the picture of the John Lennon Peace Wall earlier this week Lorene Romero (who is my co-conspirator on the New Media Cruise / Podcamp@Sea) sent me this picture of padlocks on a fence just around the corner from that wall. I did some poking around and found that these fences of locks [...]