Travel

At 5,437 feet and still active, the Arenal Volcano looms large and ominous over the pastured green hillsides and lake that surround its base.

Montmartre is a thriving artist community in the northern end of Paris. It was a favorite location for Salvador Dalí, Claude Monet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro, and Vincent van Gogh.

This lovely little church sits high on a hill above Vienne, France and the river Rhône. It occupies a site within a fort and monastery from the Middle Ages.

Gdańsk is a spectacular medieval port city on the Baltic coast of Poland.  It centers on this Renaissance style Town Hall, built in 1556 and reconstructed after WWII.  The colorful buildings on this street, once private residences (and also reconstructed), are now home to shops and restaurants.

This charming road winds through Hartshorne Woods Park, a hilly, forested, 791-acre site overlooking the Navesink River.  Many impressive homes line Hartshorne Road.  It was named after Richard Hartshorne, an English Quaker, who settled there in 1669.  Among the highest elevations along the Atlantic Coast, the Park is located at the north shore of the Navesink River just west of its juncture with the Atlantic Ocean.  Locust is a shore community close to New York Harbor.

Iceland, a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, is volcanically and geologically active.  It is characterized by sand and lava fields, mountains, geysers, glaciers, spa lagoons, lush green farms, and fields.  Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate.  However, its high latitude and marine influence keep summers a bit chilly and often stunningly misty.

Gold was first discovered in 1848 in Auburn (Placer County), California, after which 300,000 fortune-seekers rushed west to stake their claim. This lovely town in the Sierra foothills is a popular stopping place for travelers going between San Francisco and Lake Tahoe.

Portugal is known for its charming villages with narrow cobblestone streets, crooked lanes, and sometimes steep intersections.  Many villages are perched on hills rising out of agricultural planes.  In medieval times, these villages would unite to fight against invading enemies.  Nowadays, they unite to fight against the passage of time and modernization.

This magnificent church is of the Romanesque-Byzantine style. High above Paris, it is the second most visited church in France.

Venice is built on more than 100 small islands in a marshy lagoon in the Adriatic Sea. Its stone palaces seemingly rise out of the water. There are no cars or roadways, just canals and boats.