Category Archives: Europe

Destinations, Europe, Public Transportation, Stockholm, Sweden, Travel Tips

Stockholm from the Ferry – Route 80 – Nybroplan – Frihamnen

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NOTE: Post updated in March 2021.

If you’d like to see Stockholm from a boat, take one (or all) of Stockholm’s ferries that are part of the SL system. SL stands for Storstockholms Lokaltrafik = public transportation in Stockholm, Sweden.

All you need is a regular ticket – preferably a timed visitor SL Access smart card, but a single ticket will work as well (for an excellent guide about public transportation in Stockholm, see sweetsweden’s post “Your Guide to Public Transport in Stockholm“).

SL operates four “shuttle” ferry routes. Follow this link for the timetables for all ferries, and this link for the maps of the ferry routes (also shown below).

1) Route 80 – which, when we took it in May 2019, used to run between Stockholm Nybroplan in the Stockholm center and Frihamnen, which is close to where several large cruise ships dock when they visit the town,  and took about 50 minutes one way.

It looks like since May 2019 this route was expanded to go beyond Frihammen and includes 9 more stops now, going all the way to Frösvik! (Which means if we’re ever back in Stockholm, we’ll have to take the trip again and update the post with more photos!)

Continue reading Stockholm from the Ferry – Route 80 – Nybroplan – Frihamnen →
Attractions, Destinations, Europe, Germany, Historic Sites, Museums

German Resistance Memorial Center in Berlin

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Berlin’s German Resistance Memorial Center (Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand) is a 13-minute walk from the nearest  subway and train station at Potsdamer Platz, but don’t let that discourage you from visiting. There are two other interesting museums nearby – Modern Art Museum (Neue Nationalgalerie) and the Gallery of Paintings (Gemäldegalerie), though you likely won’t be able to visit all three on the same day, since you should set aside at least three hours for the Resistance Center, more if you plan on being very thorough and read every single display and story about those who stood up to the regime of Nazi Germany.

If you think the museum looks like a nondescript office building from the outside, you are correct – it was built in the early 1900s for the Naval Office, and since 1933 it housed the General Army Office in the Army High Command.

It was in this building that Adolf Hitler announced to the leaders of the German Military (Reichswehr) that he would “conquer new living space (Lebensraum) in the East.”

This building was also the center of an attempted coup against Hitler on July 20, 1944, and a place of execution of the conspirators shortly thereafter. Continue reading German Resistance Memorial Center in Berlin →

Amusement Parks, Attractions, Destinations, Europe, Florida, Massachusetts, Museums, Nature, Orlando, Poland, Science, USA, Washington DC

#ThrowbackThursday: Our Travels (with Kids) 10 and 5 Years Ago

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I’m lazy today and don’t want to write much 🙂 so I thought I’d share some of our photos from our travels ten and five years ago. Sometimes it’s really fun to go down the memory lane!

2006 February – Rabka, Poland

During February vacation in 2006 I took my son to Poland to spend some time with my parents. We went to Rabka, Poland, a small town popular with families because of its salt works (it’s a spa town).

My son had fun going sledding with my Dad:

Dziadek (Grandfather) and Wnuczek (grandson) having fun on the sled being pulled by the sleigh in Rabka, Poland, in 2006
Dziadek (Grandfather) and Wnuczek (grandson) having fun on the sled being pulled by the sleigh in Rabka, Poland, in 2006

Continue reading #ThrowbackThursday: Our Travels (with Kids) 10 and 5 Years Ago →

Art, Attractions, Austria, Destinations, Europe, Museums

Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna

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Beautiful Art in a Beautiful Building

Whenever I start my question with “Do you remember that museum we saw in …” my kids give me the look and reply “Which museum? You drag us to at least a couple museums every place we go to!”

But with the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna it was different. I only had to say “Do you remember that museum in Vienna where we had lunch in this really nice round room, where Daddy waved to us from the hole in the ceiling up above?” and they knew exactly which place I was talking about.

My daughter replied with “Was it that place where they had a lot of Egyptian stuff? And all that gold?”

My son added “Was it the one where they had this big painting of a mountain that looked like a tower?”

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Tower of Babel, at the Kunsthistorisches Museum
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Tower of Babel, at the Kunsthistorisches Museum

Yep, that’s the one.

Continue reading Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna →

Attractions, College Tours, Destinations, Europe, Historic Sites, Krakow, Museums, Poland, Universities

Museum of Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland

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Visiting Collegium Maius

May 12, 1364 – Polish King Kazimierz III (Casimir) the Great issues a royal charter establishing a university in Kraków, the capital of Poland at that time.

While there are already some thirty universities in operation in Europe, this is the first university in Poland, and the second oldest in Central Europe. Charles University in Prague was founded some twenty years earlier, in 1348.

The university has no buildings, the lectures are held in various buildings around the city. After Kazimierz’s death in 1370, his successor Louis I of Hungary has no interest supporting the Polish university, so the few professors and students move to Prague or other universities. The kings change, however, and in 1390s, the new king and queen – Władysław II Jagiełło and Jadwiga of Anjou – decide to revive the university and succeed. Jadwiga even bequeaths part of her private wealth and estate to the university.

The following year, 1400 King Jagiełło donates to the university a house he bought near the edge of the city, and inaugurates reopening of the university on July 26, 1400, with 206 students enrolled.

Continue reading Museum of Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland →

Attractions, Austria, Europe, Historic Sites, Museums, UNESCO

In the Footsteps of Royalty: Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria

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Right past the wide open massive iron gates, the vast courtyard is full of tourists eager to catch a glimpse of imperial splendors of the past.

In the times of Emperor Franz Joseph, who reigned from 1848 till 1916, on Mondays and Thursdays any subject of his empire could supposedly ask for an audience with the monarch in his opulent Walnut Room.

What did it feel like, I wonder, to approach the Schönbrunn Palace, crunching gravel underfoot and petition in hand?

Schönbrunn’s size must have must have impressed even the wealthiest of the emperor’s subjects, not to mention the simple city dwellers, if they were in fact ever allowed to see the Emperor.

The grand entrance to the Schönbrunn Palace up close
The grand entrance to the Schönbrunn Palace up close

Continue reading In the Footsteps of Royalty: Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria →