Europe in Black and White

A journey across Europe in black and white photos. © www.uncorneredmarket.com

Town Hall and Market Square - Krakow, Poland
Krakow, located in southern Poland, maintains a young and vibrant atmosphere thanks to its large university population. As the weather warms, the main square becomes full of outdoor cafes. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Neringa/Curonian Spit - Lithuania
The Curonian Spit is a slender piece of seaside land, virtually surrounded by water and stretching from the Lithuanian city of Klaipeda in the north to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad in the south. We rent bicycles and cycle the length of the spit, 32 miles, to the town of Nida. Along the way, we marvel at the diversity of Neringa’s landscape and culture – taking in sand dunes, old German villages, and the Hill of Witches, a wooden sculpture garden in the village of Juodkrante. Read more about our journey around the Baltics. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
The Journey Begins - Tallinn, Estonia
Tallinn has a small, charming old town center with an architectural style reminiscent of frosted cakes, fairy tales and Teutonic knights. It is surrounded by medieval walls and is full of windy cobblestone streets and colorful houses, many of which date back to the Hanseatic League (13th century) and the Middle Ages. For us, it marks the beginning of our journey where we say goodbye to friends and set off south by bus to Lithuania. Read more about our journey around the Baltics. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Gondoliers Before the Pause on the Grand Canal - Venice, Italy
Our first stop in Western Europe is Venice, Italy. Although the magic and romance of its famous canals, bridges and narrow alleyways is well-known, a way for tourists to roam its streets without getting lost is not. We learn quickly and take joy in re-orienting ourselves by finding the nearest bar or restaurant serving cicchetti, the local style of small-plate eating. Cicchetti features a choose-your-own rhythm and pace, equivalent to that of Spanish tapas. Offers run the food pyramid from grilled vegetables and marinated olives to cheeses and prosciutto. Order a few plates and wash them down with some Italian wine and you’ll likely wax reflective on the day’s events as you decide where to go next for gelato. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Journey Across Europe in 100 Days
A trip across Europe by plane, train and bus, from Estonia to Turkey, and back west to Portugal. Come join us. Read more about our journey around the Baltics. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Fishermen on the Amalfi Coast - Italy
The Amalfi Coast, made famous in recent years by the film “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, simply stuns. The Mediterranean Sea mesmerizes with its blueness, the bougainvilleas are striking, and the houses – engineering marvels themselves – are tucked right into the cliffside. Walks are not for the faint of heart – stairways are small and steep and alleys are tight. The roads - a challenge to navigate even for Europe’s best drivers – provide an amusement-park style experience. With blind curves and barreling buses sounding their air horns, the possibility of careering down a cliff is possible at any turn. Stay on foot! Our arrival in late September coincides with the end of the tourist season, so the town had a sleepy feel to it as locals go about their normal routines. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Buda+Pest = Budapest, Hungary
Budapest is the formation of the once separate cities Buda and Pest. The view here is of the Buda Castle from the Pest side of the city. Budapest’s grandeur is due in great part to its growth during the 19th century under Austro-Hungarian rule. Today it is a cosmopolitan city where, for example, you can enjoy yourself at an international music festival on an island during the day and relax in the traditional baths at night. Budapest twice served as our transition between East and West, once as we traveled from Slovakia to Italy and again from Italy and Croatia to Romania. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Dubrovnik Old Town - Croatia
The walled city of Dubrovnik, known as the “Pearl of the Adriatic”, is situated at the southernmost tip of Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast. With its marble-lined promenade, medieval architecture, and terra cotta tiled rooftops, it makes for a pleasant history-filled introduction to the Balkans. Enjoy its laid-back lifestyle with an order of risotto with squid ink, and a carafe of local white wine. Dubrovnik marked the start of our “honeymoon”. After enjoying our stay there, we explored the Dalmatian coast, including the island of Korcula where, according to local folklore, Marco Polo was born. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
A Little Switzerland in the Balkans - Ljubljana, Slovenia
The Swiss are said to flinch when Slovenia is described as the “Switzerland of the Balkans”. But the country makes a strong case for the comparison with its decidedly alpine feel and virtually unscathed emergence from the former Yugoslavia. Besides being virtually impossible to prounounce on first glance, Ljubljana offers a youthful college town culture with its galleries, museums, students, and young artists. It serves as an ideal jumping-off point for Slovenia’s other underrated tourist sites. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Tuscan Agriturismo (Tourism Farm) - Tuscany, Italy
A typical Italian agritourismo is a working farm often dating back 100s of years that offers rooms for rent and home cooked meals made from locally produced vegetables, fruits, meats, and wines. This agriturismo, located in the valley three miles from Pienza, includes a 1000-year old tower. We and our guests stay here during our wedding festivities. The food was sublime. Luciano, the owner, arranges for his wife to prepare a meal that includes bruschetta and crostini made with truffles, pecorino cheese, and sundried tomatoes and series of main plates ranging from freshly made pillows of ricotta-stuffed ravioli to Florentine steaks. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Il Duomo - Florence, Italy
Florence boasts an array of architectural treasures and some of the best museums in the world, offerering living proof that the images projected on the walls of Renaissance and Baroque Art History lecture halls do indeed exist. Playing a prominent role in the skyline is Brunelleschi’s dome (Il Duomo) at the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower). For us, Florence is a required wedding planning stop. Here, we secure the paperwork and requisite stamps and signatures to marry legally in Italy. As we await the completion of our paperwork, Ponte Vecchio and Florence’s old town provide a welcome distraction of dizzying shopping opportunities for such essentials as wedding rings and a suit for the groom. We could found worse places to be “stuck” shopping! © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Birthplace of Vlad Dracul III – Sighisoara, Romania
Sighisoara – a small Transylvanian town that has managed to preserve many features of its walled, medieval past including its 16th century clock tower and 14th century citadel. Sighisoara’s is perhaps most well-known as the birthplace of Vlad Dracul III, the source of inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Nicknamed Vlad Tepes (or Vlad the Impaler), Vlad III ruled the surrounding territory of Wallachia from 1456-1462 and was known for skewering his enemies with impaling sticks - by the dozens, hundreds or thousands depending on the historian you speak to. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Backgammon Lessons - Turkish Meditteranean
The Turkish Mediterranean coast is chock-a-block with offers of gulet (wooden-hulled boat) sea cruises. We book ours last-minute at the very end of the season in early November. Our cruise, which finds us traveling alone with a full crew at our service, takes us from Fethiye to Olympos with port stops at Kalkan and Kas in between. Though the tourist season is essentially over, we enjoy three days of sunning and swimming in crisp, but clear-blue waters. When we aren't busy relaxing, the captain’s brother and first mate engage us with ad hoc Turkish lessons (point and shoot method using a quill and English-Turkish dictionary), card playing and copious backgammon defeats. For us, the sites, food, people, and gaming captures the Turkish spirit and proves one of the many highlights of our three weeks in Turkey. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Aya Sophia - Istanbul, Turkey
The original church of the AyaSofya is from the 5th century, and was rebuilt after the huge dome collapsed several times in the 600 years that followed. In 1453, the Turks converted it from an Eastern Orthodox church to a mosque. Today, it houses the AyaSofya Museum, displaying a unique mix of Islamic symbols and Christian mosaics. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Church of the Jacobins - Toulouse, France
Toulouse, also known as “The Pink City” due to its unique red brick architecture, offers a lively university atmosphere, great cafes and bookstores, monasteries, the mysterious history of the Cathar heretics, and access to southern French fare such as cassoulet, a white bean casserole made with duck, goose, and pork. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Sledding in the Swiss Alps - Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland
Perched one station below Europe’s highest railway station (11,332 feet) of Jungfraujoch, is the small skiing village of Kleine Scheidegg. We arrive during the off-season and take advantage of a virtually empty mountainside to go sledding before loading up on cheese fondue and heading back to our base at Grindelwald for the night. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Art Nouveau Architecture - Budapest, Hungary
Keep looking up as you walk the streets of Budapest, Hungary. The streets are full of architectural detail. Read more about our visit to Budapest. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Estonska in Black and White - Prague, Czech Republic
Cotton ball afternoon clouds hang over the Estonska street courtyard in Prague. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Bernardine Cemetery - Vilnius, Lithuania
Taken at the Bernardine Cemetery (Bernardinu Kapines) in the Uzupis neighborhood in Vilnius, Lithuania. Read more about our journey around the Baltics. © www.uncorneredmarket.com
Fat Margaret - Tallinn, Estonia
Affectionately known as "Fat Margaret," this 16th century cannon tower sits at the edge of Tallinn's old town and now houses a maritime museum (meremuuseum). Read more about our journey around the Baltics. © www.uncorneredmarket.com