PLEASE ENJOY MY TRAVEL COMPILATIONS
These videos have no dialogue, just music. Enjoy
I’ve traveled a whole lot but unfortunately much of it was before the age of YOUTUBE. Here are a few highlights of my most recent trips. Enjoy.
In January 2018 I was fortunate to see some friends in Israel after having celebrated Christmas with my family in the Netherlands after 23 years away. I had a hard time selecting pictures because there were so many! Before I returned home I stopped off in Amsterdam to visit the RIJKSMUSEUM , the Dutch national gallery.
Amsterdam
The Rijksmuseum houses the largest collection of any museum in the Netherlands and of course it home to the newly restored Night Watch by Rembrandt van Rijn
Israel 1: Masada and Acre( Akko)
Masada is the site of the final events in the first Jewish -Roman war 72-74 CE. After a three months siege the Romans finally reached the top. They had build a huge ramp on the side only to find that everyone in the fortress had committed suicide rather than risk being captured.
Acre or Akko is a northern Israeli port city that was the gateway to the Holy Land for centuries for many of the crusaders and pilgrims who came by ship. Acre was the last Crusader/Christian stronghold that finally fell to the Muslims in 1299 C.E. and ended the age of the crusades.
Israel 2: Jerusalem
Jerusalem is home to many faiths and all of them claim real estate inside of the Old City. I was not able to go to the Dome of the Rock or the Al Aqsa mosque out of safety concerns.
Israel 3: Tel Aviv and the area around the Sea of Galilee (Kineret)
The area around the Sea of Galilee is where most of the stories about Jesus in the New Testament are supposed to have taken place. Today it is a favored destination for many Christian travelers. After Israel became a state in 1948 until the Arab- Israeli War of 1967 Syria claimed territory right down to the northern coast of the Sea.
Israel 4: Ein Karem and Jaffa
Ein Karem is an ancient secluded neighborhood of Jerusalem and according to the Bible it the place where the Archangel Gabriel came to tell Mary that she would give birth to the son of God. Unfortunately I was not able to get into the Church of the Visitation on that day. Instead my friends took me to a low-key small chamber music concert. We sat just behind Gabriel Bach (93) who was a junior prosecutor in the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1962 and who later became a supreme court judge. We also went to Jaffa the ancient port just south of Modern-day Tel Aviv.
Israel 5 : Beit She’an
Beit She’an was my favorite visit. These days you can walk between the ruins of the ancient Byzantine town that once stood there. The area itself has been inhabited since the time of the Akkadian, Babylonian and Egyptian Empires. Remnants of an Egyptian governor’s house are still located on the hill top overlooking Beit She’an.
Munich and Vienna.
Both cities are a delight and very hospitable. While in Vienna we met up with a grad-school friend of mine who was working on her dissertation.
WWII Museum near Bastogne Belgium (Battle of the Bulge)
This museum was moved to it’s current location in 2014 and is fascinating exhibit of the experiences of both German and American soldiers and the Belgian people who lived through the Battle of the Bulge (Dec. 16, 1944- Jan. 25 1945) This is the area and these were the events that inspired Stephen E. Ambrose’s book Band of Brothers and the HBO series of the same name. The huge statue in the front is one of three such statues. The other two are in Florida and of course here in San Diego Harbor!
Cologne Germany: Cathedral and Roman/Germanic Museum.
As a girl my parents took me to Cologne a lot to visit the zoo but my favorite place to visit was the Roman/Germanic Museum right next to Cologne’s famous cathedral (1248-1473 first stage of building). Cologne was a very important Roman post along the Rhine river and it wasn’t until after WWII when the city was clearing it’s rubble that all these artifacts came to light. The current museum is about 3 times bigger than it was when I was young.