When people ask me what I saw when I went to England, I say, “Oh, the usual – Stonehenge, Buckingham Palace, the Sistine Chapel.”  When D’s aunt told us not to make any plans for Wednesday, that she had a special surprise for us, none of us could have guessed we’d be taking a day trip […]

My fifth trip for the The Armchair Traveler Reading Challenge took me to the island of Crete, one of the many treasures of Greece. Since Zorba the Greek was written before the tourist industry started booming in Crete, Nikos Zazantzakis gives us an unspoiled look at the land and the culture. We see beautiful blue […]

My third review for the The Armchair Traveler Reading Challenge takes us to the Eastern European city of Prague in the Bohemian land now known as the Czech Republic.
Originally published in 1891, The Witch of Prague, by F. Marion Crawford, gives us a picture of Prague rife with history, alchemy and images of architecture that […]

Something of the divine has touched me this week. I started a new book, Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. A dozen books were waiting on my shelves to be read, and none of them seemed right, until I spotted this one, a recent birthday gift from a dear friend. I felt something akin to […]

Following the little people back to the Rhine, I find myself in Germany during World War II, picking Stones from the River. Trudi is a bitter dwarf with a good heart, and through her eyes, we can see what it must have been like to live under the fear of Hitler.
Since my heart doesn’t bleed, […]

If you want to immerse yourself in the Norse myths, Thorarinn Gunnarson can take you travelling on the wings of valkyries, soaring from the heavens to the tree that gave birth to the gods on earth, to the Rhine river and beyond. His novels Song of the Dwarves and Revenge of the Valkyrie are a […]

From Avalon in the British isles, we travel across the North Sea to enter the mainland via the Rhine River. The river has a rich and magical history, whose mythologies gave birth to modern day fantasy fiction. If Middle Earth were a real place, this is where it would be.
Stephan Grundy’s Rhinegold takes us back […]