Bob and Nella's World

If it Ain't Baroque ... Make it Baroque!

Once upon a time there were two brothers, named Egid and Cosmas Asam. The principal concerns of their beleaguered parents, Hans and Maria, were feeding their many children, and keeping them from killing each other... [more]

Weingarten

Weingarten was originally called "Altdorf", or "old village", but in 1865, the city leaders apparently decided that "wine garden" would sound more inviting...[more]

London

Before 1971, British money was more complicated. There were pounds, shillings (20 per pound), pence (12 per shilling), farthings, ha'pennies, three and sixpence coins, florins, crowns and half-crowns...[more]

Prague

One of the Bohemian dukes was Wenceslas I, the "Good King Wenceslas" of the Christmas carol. Good or not, his younger brother assassinated him in 935. This qualified him for martyrdom and sainthood...[more]

Stockholm

As the ice sheets of the last Ice Age receded, southern Sweden underwent something called "post-glacial rebound". Relieved of all that weight, the land began to rise relative to sea level, and continues to do so today...[more]

Budapest

While Hungary is surrounded by countries (seven of them!) that speak Germanic and Slavic languages, and is not far from Italy, the ancestral home of the Romance languages, Hungary's language is none of these...[more]

Vienna

In the U.S., one can find canned things called Vienna sausages, but they don't have anything to do with Vienna – they come from Armour or Libby (apparently Hormel doesn't make them anymore)...
[more]

Zürich

Across the river from the Fraumünster is another old church, this one called the Grossmünster. Not too much thought seems to have gone into this name, as it means "big church"...[more]

Lauterbrunnen

The three mountains across the valley are the Eiger (Ogre), the Mönch (Monk) and the Jungfrau (Young Lady). You should be able to make up a story on your own - it almost writes itself...[more]

Milan

Lorenzo de' Medici sent a silver lyre to Milan, along with its creator, the 30-year-old Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo promptly applied for work. He talked about his engineering skills, and mentioned he could also paint...[more]

Belfast

During The Troubles, which extended roughly from 1969 to 1998, more than 3500 people were killed and tens of thousands were wounded or injured. A perfect place for a vacation!...[more]

Dublin

The Republic of Ireland: where they drink Guinness
and good Irish whiskey, where they love a good fight, and where everyone eats Lucky Charms for breakfast...[more]

Madrid

Spanish ham was darker than American ham, and sliced thinner, and no doubt a product of aristocratic pigs (one imagines them discussing polo matches), and pretty
much a whole different thing...[more]

Granada

It was during this time that Ferdinand and Isabella granted a favor to a Genoan sailor who had been pestering them since 1486 with a crazy idea about reaching the Indies by sailing west instead of east...[more]

Seville

When Americans think about Seville, they probably think of it in terms of Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville, or its iconic interpretations by the Little Rascals or Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd...[more]

Córdoba

Córdoba's average summer highs are 98F, which makes it the hottest city in Europe. Days exceeding 40C, or 104F, are not unusual in the summer. Naturally we were visiting the city in August...[more]

Toledo

People have tried to romanticize Toledo as the "Rome of Spain", going so far as to represent Toledo as having been built on seven hills, but surveyors armed with topographic maps have only been able to detect maybe four...[more]

Return to Madrid

The Plaza de Oriente is located east of the Palacio Real and, like the Sabatini Gardens, has a lot of statues. On this page, you can behold the back side of the equestrian statue of Philip IV. You're welcome...[more]

Copenhagen

In the 12th Century a village on the east coast of the Danish island of Zealand was fortified with a castle and became the town of Copenhagen...[more]

Berlin

Most Americans who think of the city of Berlin probably think of it in connection with one of its notorious 20th Century roles...
[more]

Cologne

To the non-German speakers of the world, "Eau de Cologne" unquestionably sounds classier than the German translation, "Kölnisch Wasser"...[more]

Brussels

In the 18th Century a number of wars were fought between France and either Spain or Austria, and all of them seemed to use Belgium as a battleground...[more]

Amsterdam

If you’d like to experience an awkward tourist moment sometime, try walking with your wife and daughter down a street where there are store windows displaying women in lingerie for sale (the women, not the lingerie)...[more]

Paris

Paris managed to not get itself destroyed through two world wars and survived to become the most popular tourist destination in the world...[more]

Seville

Partly as a result of Seville’s position on the only navigable river in Spain, voyages of exploration in some cases were planned in the city, and sometimes actually departed from Seville...[more]

Madrid

Madrid is located near the middle of a large central plateau that covers much of the Iberian Peninsula, and has an altitude in excess of 2,000 feet...[more]

Barcelona

Being surrounded by such architecture must certainly have had a profound effect on developing artists of the region. Three such artists were named Miró, Dalí and Picasso...[more]

Naples

The lively city of Naples (Italian name Napoli) is the capital of the Campania region of Italy, and is located approximately 120 miles (190 km.) southeast of Rome...[more]

Venice

The buildings of Venice were built on top of many many wooden pilings, largely logged from regions of modern-day Slovenia and Croatia which remain deforested to this day...[more]

Florence

Much of Florence's money found its way into extravagant homes, churches and public buildings, and into some magnificent art with which to decorate all of it...
[more]

Rome

The brothers picked the area near the Tiber, and after a disagreement over which of the hills to start the city on, Remus ended up dead, and the new city found itself named after Romulus...[more]

Rotorua

The first European to visit New Zealand was the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who arrived at the west coast in 1642. After Maoris began killing his crewmen, he elected to depart...
[more]

Coromandel

Heading toward Coromandel, we passed through a town with the unfortunate name of Te Puke, which means "the hill" in Maori. It also represents what you might do if you don’t like kiwifruit, as they grow a lot of it there...[more]

Auckland

As one would expect in a country so full of sheep, woolen goods are everywhere in Auckland. Clever New Zealanders have also created an unending array of products involving kiwifruit...[more]

Gold Coast, Australia

All connection between Australia and other continents was severed many millions of years ago. Since that time, a vast number of plant and animal species have evolved which are not seen anywhere else...[more]

Sydney

Sydney's Opera House has become one of the most instantly recognizable structures in the world, and is the first thing many people visualize when they think of Australia...
[more]