Europe

Poland:Tatra Mountains

“How Many Poles” (06/12/25)

I am not sure why, but when I was a kid there were so many Polish jokes using them as a metaphor for incompetence. This is where the title of this blog stems from. It may have been hyper-focused in my area of upbringing because the people in Oakland County MI were not politically correct (read bigots), to put it mildly. Where did these insults stem from? I understand that immigrants faced backlash, but the derogatory remarks about Italians and Germans, seemed to fizzle out by the late 20th Century. Continue Reading

England: Cotswold’s Way

“London Calling” (09/15/24)

I Decided to add an extra week-long hike in Europe this year and dragged Amy along with me. We were off to hike the Cotswold’s Way in England. I will get into the specifics of thew hike, but first, a history lesson. My country primers are usually fairly easy to digest. Unfortunately, when looking into the history of the English Empire, you quickly get lost in the weeds. So, I will keep this very top level. We could go back thousands of years, but I like to start after the Iron Age. So, that puts us around the time of Jesus, when Romans were the big kids on the block in what today is England. Continue Reading

Germany: Black Forest

“Danke Schoen” (05/15/24)

Time for my annual Spring multi-day hike across Europe. This time up is Germany. I will be doubling down this year with an additional transatlantic trip to England, but that won’t be for a few more months. I will get to the brief digestible history of Germany in a second, but first let’s discuss current affairs. I was looking forward to this trip for many reasons, but one timely reason was I wanted to see how rationale Germans dealt with their own right-wing morons. You see they have a version of the current American Republican party, called the AfD.Continue Reading

Ireland: Dublin

“The Real Old Mountain Dew” (06/01/23)

It’s somewhat surprising that it took me until now to visit Ireland. On the other hand I really had not had too much interest in Europe in general until I ran out of other places on the map in the past few years. I say it is surprising considering I have family history in the southern end of the country near town of Cork, I went to a high school modeled after the teachings of Irish Catholic Missionary,Edmund Rice, and attended University of Notre Dame which, although French in name, has the mascot of the “Fighting Irish” Continue Reading

Slovenia: Ljubljana

“The Bell Tolls For Thee” (10/10/22)

So, after packing my Lederhosen back in my bag I boarded for Slovenia and the capital city of Ljubljana (lube-lee-anna). I arrived around noon and caught a shuttle into the center of the city and slept for the next 8 hours in my hotel. I woke up and it was dark and raining intensely. I decided to walk around anyway, stopped in an Irish bar for a burger because it was one of the only places with a pulse. Got adopted by some local welders and shared a few pints. Continue Reading

Spain: Picos De Europa

“Take a Holiday in Spain” (07/10/22)

A few months back I had read an article on some mountains in northern Spain called the Picos De Europa. I was immediately interested as I had never heard of them, and the pictures of the hiking trails looked amazing. There was not a great wealth of knowledge available, so I did the best I could. Continue Reading

Scotland: Glasgow

“You Take the High Road” (05/01/22)

I have always wanted to visit Scotland as it seems to be one of the hip places right now, well, maybe it was about 5 years ago, so hopefully I missed the crowds a bit. In every travel book on Scotland, it eventually mentions this trail. It is about 96 miles from Glasgow to Fort Williams. Continue Reading

France: Paris

“City of Lights” (03/11/17)

Decided on a quick 3 days in Paris because prices were right for a direct flight. Leave on a Wednesday afternoon, arrive on a Thursday morning and fly home on Sunday. Stay in a boutique hotel in Montmartre district and knock out a different section of the city each day on foot. Continue Reading

Iceland:Reykjavik

“More Like Rainland” (09/20/16)

I was not has psyched about this trip as I have been in the past. I had just moved into a new house and was more interested in working on it than traveling but the plans were made and I knew once I got moving everything would be fine. I was also a bit skittish because I just recently came back from Portugal, where I was very sick and being sick in a foreign country all alone is never any fun. Continue Reading

Portugal:Porto

“Portugal The Man” (06/20/16)

Believe it or not I had yet to go to Europe. I guess technically Istanbul is in Europe, but I don’t consider that to be so. I selected Portugal for my 3 week trip because it did not seem as touristy as France, Italy, Spain, etc. and a lot of the travel pictures I see on the Internet often feature the varied landscape of Portugal. It did not hurt that the Euro was not strong here so I could make my dollar go a bit further and I was amazed at how cheap it actually was. Continue Reading