Saturday Scenes

The Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine dates back to 1787 and has long been the burial place for the city’s upper classes. Despite knee-high snow drifts and below freezing temperatures, I spent a couple hours wandering around the ornate tombs scattered among the hills and pine trees on the outskirts of the city.  With no […]

Transdniestr is best known as a “breakaway” republic sandwiched in between Ukraine and Moldova. It is not actually recognized as an independent state by anyone other than Russia and visiting the tiny “country” is like taking a step back in time to the Soviet era. While most tourists only stop in the capital of Tiraspol,

I hadn’t planned to stop in Ivano-Frankivsk as I explored western Ukraine last year. But due to a train snafu, I ended up spending the night there, which allowed me a few hours to check out the small town before my camera froze. Yes, that’s right. It was about -18F as I wandered around the

It was two years ago at this time that Chicago was digging out from one of the worst snowstorms in decades – and by far the worst storm I had experienced since the Great Halloween Blizzard of 1991 up in Minnesota.  It started sometime around noon on  Tuesday, prompting many businesses downtown to close early

We are kind of lacking in the snowfall department in Chicago this year, so I thought I’d flash back to where I was last year at this time – in snow, snowy Kiev. It was snowing when I arrived in the Ukrainian capital on January 14, 2012 and it continued to snow for the next

I visited Wurzburg, Germany in October 2007 as part of a whirlwind tour through the country that also included Frankfurt, Trier, Cologne, Heidelberg and Stuttgart. While the weather in late October wasn’t always ideal, I loved the vibrant fall colors like those I saw at the Fortress Marienberg in Wurzburg, pictured above.

Lahij is a village of a few hundred people in the mountains in northeastern Azerbaijan. I spent a weekend there, taking a break from the hustle and bustle of Baku while I waited to get my visas to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. A center of craftsmen since medieval times, Lahic’s cobblestone streets are lined with copper

Staying in the holiday spirit for one more weekend, here’s a shot of a giant Christmas tree in Minsk, Belarus. Even though I spent all of December in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, I encountered some of the most festive decorations when I got to Belarus for the Orthodox Christmas and New Year in January.

I didn’t arrive in Grodno, Belarus until mid-January, but a festive, holiday atmosphere was still apparent. Since most Belarussians celebrate the Orthodox Christmas and New Year, celebrations had just ended days before my visit and lights and decorations still adorned the main square.

During my five day crossing of the Black Sea (a voyage that should have taken half that time), I always looked forward to watching the sun rise. Not only was it different every day – and beautiful – but it gave me hope each morning that it would finally be the day we would dock