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Scottsdale and Phoenix, Arizona
Scottsdale, Arizona has the cutest nickname: “The West’s Most Western Town.” When you walk down its charming streets, peering into shops selling Native American artwork, prickly pear candy, and Pendleton blankets, you can’t help but feel like you’re halfway to being a cowgirl yourself. During our Labor Day weekend trip to Arizona, Matt and I spent an afternoon wandering through Old Town Scottsdale, popping our heads into art galleries and admiring turquoise necklaces for sale at each boutique. As the afternoon faded, we turned our sights a bit further south, to Phoenix, where we purchased two tickets to the Desert Botanical Gardens just as the sun started to dip below…
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Arizona Architecture: Taliesin West
Every great architect is – necessarily – a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.” Frank Lloyd Wright There are a lot of attractions in Phoenix, Arizona that vie for your time and attention—meandering through the Desert Botanic Gardens, shopping in Old Town Scottsdale, hiking around Camelback Mountain. If you’re taking a trip to Arizona, allow me to add something to your can’t-miss-list: a tour of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home, Taliesin West. Much like the Grand Canyon, Frank Lloyd Wright really needs no introduction. Even to readers who aren’t interested in architecture or design, the name will ring familiar,…
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Grand Canyon: South Rim
What makes you come alive? What satisfies you at the same time that it urges you to do more, feel more, be more? If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you probably know that I am driven by a lust for adventure, always chasing after those sterling, shining moments of beauty that you hold in your heart for the rest of your life. There’s nothing quite as soul-expanding as a trip to the Grand Canyon. The place itself needs no real introduction, but I’ll set the scene: Our Trip to the Grand Canyon Matt and I wake up to a scorcher of a Sunday in Carefree, Arizona, just…
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The Cliffs of Moher
Inconceivable! The Princess Bride On our final full day of our multi-country adventures through Spain and Ireland, we decided to soak up one more day on Ireland’s west coast rather than catching an early flight back to Dublin. It was an unusual Saturday morning in Ireland—the sun was already beating down on the coastal town, and the temperatures were climbing into the 80s. We headed into the city to do some exploring and ended up at the Galway Saturday Market, a street market and trading post that sits in the shadow of St. Nicholas’ Church. Matt, who had visited Galway before with our good friend Caitlan, remembered the market as the…
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Galway, Connemara, and Cong: Ireland’s West Coast
We arrived in Galway around midnight, after a whirlwind trip to Spain and a three-hour bus ride from Dublin. The sound of our suitcases rattling against the cobblestone streets sounded like gunshots in the quiet neighborhood where the bus station was, but as we passed into the main square towards our hotel, the noise from the bars began to drown out our little caravan. We checked into our hotel, right off Eyre Square, and collapsed in bed almost instantly. Before I closed my eyes, I told Matt how funny it was that this morning, we’d been lounging on a beach in Barcelona, and now we were sleeping next to a…
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Gaudí’s Barcelona
Our second day in Barcelona was for one thing and one thing only: Catalan Modernist architect, Antoni Gaudí. I cannot overstate the importance of this artist to the Catalan culture. We started our self-guided architecture tour with perhaps his most famous achievement: La Sagrada Familia. The soaring, exuberant basilica is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that’s (famously) one hundred forty years in the making (which is longer than it took to build the Pyramids!) Construction on La Sagrada Familia began in 1882, and isn’t expected to be completed until 2026, which is the centenary of Gaudí’s death. A site of controversy, Catholicism, architecture, and art, the basilica is probably one of the most-visited…
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Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona is full of color. It is the capital city of the Catalonia region of Spain, the second most populous city in Spain, and the home of Antoni Gaudí, whose name, architecture, ceramics, religion, and craftsmanship define the city.
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The Alhambra, Granada
The scent of honeysuckle hangs in the air. I can smell it on my hair as I brush it out before bed. Outside, a full moon rises above the Sierra Nevada mountains, and from our hotel window, we stare up at the Alhambra, its ruddy walls turned silver in the moonlight.
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Granada, Spain
Granada—It is a city that has inspired songs, poems, dances, theatre, food, and art. It is home to the Alhambra, a copper-colored fortress rising against the backdrop of the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains, and the subject of its own blog post. It is the most beautiful city I’ve ever visited. From afar, I grow fonder of it by the hour.
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No8Do, Sevilla
I fully recommend taking the train from Madrid to Sevilla. Super fast, free Wifi, a café full of snacks and treats, and time to sit back and relax as olive groves and sunflower fields zoom by. If you’ve been following my blog posts about Spain, however, you’ll be familiar with the fact that nothing on our trip went according to plan: missed flights, lost luggage, cancelled hotels—and that’s the short of how Matt and I ended up at the Madrid train station (with two cancelled train tickets to Sevilla in hand) trying to rent a car to Sevilla. By God’s miracle alone did we find the very last automatic car available for…
