Geiss Up Your Life

On the fourth day of our two week journey through Spain we left our homebase in Madrid to explore two cities in the region of Castilla y León.  The full-day tour left Madrid before 9:00 A.M. and took up to both Ávila and Segovia, with guided, walking history tours in both cities from our tour …

Our trip to Spain began with 5 days in Spain’s capital, Madrid.  Since this was our first international trip since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we were a bit apprehensive about entrance requirements, appropriate paperwork, and getting it all right.  I must say, I was surprised by how easy the process was.  After downloading …

Life became very tough for a lot of people around the world in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic changed almost everything about our daily lives.  Compared to many, we were very lucky to be minimally displaced by the virus, but its timing delayed many trips which we had been saving and preparing for.  In …

Austin, TX is well known for its live music scene and cultural diversity, where the slogan “Keep Austin Weird” has been widely adopted to describe its uniqueness.  When I decided that I was going to surprise Emily for a 30th birthday weekend trip, Austin’s quirky vibe seemed to be just what I was looking for.  …

The Palace of Versailles was near the top of Emily’s to-do list when we began planning a trip to Paris, so when we heard about the widespread strikes affecting transportation, we were nervous about how we would get there.  Under normal circumstances, there is a metro line that takes you to Versailles, making it an …

After a day of nothing but museums, we were ready for some time outside and exploring.  And we were ready to do some walking.  But I don’t think we were ready for exactly how much walking we’d do on this particular day.  More to come on that, though.  First, we began our day with a …

I’ll be honest:  I’ve traveled across much of Europe without visiting some of the world’s best and most appreciated museums.  Emily, on the other hand, could spend countless hours in them and has a much greater appreciation for the masterpieces of art on display.  For this reason, we dedicated a full day of our trip …

The Royal Chapel, Sainte-Chapelle, at Sunrise Unless you’ve been to Paris or spent time researching the city, you’ve probably never heard of Sainte-Chapelle.  We certainly hadn’t prior to reading about it as we prepared for this trip.  This exquisite example of Gothic architecture often gets overlooked due to the much more popular Notre Dame, which …

Our first full day in Paris started with the obvious:  breakfast pastries.  We left a little earlier than needed in order to give ourselves time to find a great pastry shop, and, boy, did we ever!  Joseph Boulangerie was our favorite bakery of the entire week, and we stopped by at least one other time …

What’s one thing that can make a couple of international travelers, generally obsessively neurotic about their meticulously planned trip details, feel completely uncomfortable about the week ahead?  A national transportation strike, that’ll do it.  Whatever plans we had previously made for our upcoming week in Paris had to be completely flexible as soon as we …