Text & photos © Catherine Nichols THE NEIGHBOR LADIES and I met up for “Wino Wednesday” at our local watering hole right before the end of the school year. It’s a cozy, classy place in downtown Encinitas, California, with tables set among racks and racks of really good wine. The proprietors...

Text & photos Copyright © Estrella Azul IN A PREVIOUS travel article I talked about discovering Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia’s Ottoman influences, the biggest of influences still left standing. Today, I want to tell you why I deemed Skopje as having the quirkiest architecture I have...

Text & photos Copyright © Estrella Azul IN ROMANIA, we recently had two bank holidays fall during the same work-week: May 28th celebrated the Orthodox Pentecost Monday and June 1st was Children’s Day. For the Children’s Day holiday we planned for a bathing-suit kind of day, so we headed...

Story by Crystal Gabrielle. Photos Copyright © Crystal Gabrielle. After finishing another house-sitting job, I was heading from Grand Junction, Colorado to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I decided to swing out through Utah to see the sights. On Hwy 191, approx. 12 miles south of Moab, Utah, a big white arrow...

Text & photos © Catherine Nichols Over the pond in Wales, U.K., a sign at the Beaumaris Castle reminds us to keep track of our children, the floors are slippery, steps are dangerous, and that seagulls attack! I laughed out loud at this sign because I slipped on a slippery step trying to get away...

Text & photos Copyright © Estrella Azul IF YOU ONLY HAVE one day to visit the capital of Serbia, Belgrade (also called the White City)—and if it’s a sunny one—make sure to go for a walk downtown, but also explore the fortress. Hotel Moskva We visited Belgrade on our drive back home from...

Text & photos Copyright © Estrella Azul In my last travel article about the capital of FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), entitled 6 Essential and 7 Practical Travel Tips for Visiting Skopje, FYROM, I mentioned that while it’s a very good place to take long walks, one may need...