Explore Palais Ferstel’s Passage, Vienna

In Mitteleuropa and Eastern Europe, I always love peeking into the spectacular ‘passages’. Vienna is no exception and the beautiful Freying Passage of the Palais Ferstel is well worth a visit on your next visit to stately Vienna. The palace is named after Heinrich von Ferstel, the architect who built it in 1860. The passage…

Read More

The lack of pressure before becoming a bestselling author

There’s an interesting interview with the British, bestselling women’s fiction author Jojo Moyes in this month’s Writer’s Digest. In her interview, Moyes speaks about the lack of pressure before writing her most successful book, You Before Me. Before that best-seller, Moyes had written numerous books and had a large and loyal following, but her breakthrough…

Read More

Macabre memories in Sedlec, Czech Republic

Close to the pretty town of Kutna Hora, an oft-visited town close to Prague and famous for its spectacular Gothic church – Svata Barbora (Saint Barbara), see my earlier post – lies another impressive must-see. Only two kilometers northeast of Kutna Hora lies the suburb of Sedlec. While the town is nothing special, it’s a destination…

Read More

A happy writing year to all you fellow writers out there!

On this FIRST day of 2016, wishing all you writers who may follow my blog a wonderful new year filled with challenging and exciting story ideas, effortless revisions, and the knowledge that you have lots of support through your sweat and tears from fellow writers who are cheering you on. The writing itself may be…

Read More

The view from the top of St Vitus’ bell tower, Prague

Admittedly, I may have a problem. It doesn’t matter where I am in the world, when I visit a city, I always want to make a beeline to the highest vanatage point to enjoy the views from a  bird’s eye perspective. This includes skyscraper tourism in modern cities, and – most commonly- church bell towers…

Read More

Goodreads Challenge: Another great year of books

Taking this opportunity to wish those of you who celebrate Christmas a Very Merry Christmas! I always love to have books under the Christmas tree, and in these lazy days around the holiday, I often find myself content and curled up with a good book… with my family members curled up nearby with their own.…

Read More

A round-up of European Christmas markets to visit

This year, I couldn’t manage to escape to one of the Christmas markets I love in Europe, so instead on this post I’ll pine away thinking about great Christmas markets of the past take a look at some of the Christmas markets I’ve posted about in European cities. Should you find yourself in any of…

Read More

Beyond the idea…

“But the truth is, it’s not the idea, it’s never the idea, it’s always what you do with it.” Neil Gaiman   I recently read (and loved) this quote from author Neil Gaiman. Gaiman, whose work spans such a wide range of genres and age categories, surely knows a thing or two about how to…

Read More

Gone fishing … in Bali

I’ve never been much of a fisherwoman. I love eating fish, but I don’t have the patience or passion to go out there with a  fishing rod to try to catch them myself. My oldest son, on the other hand, loves fishing. So when I was in  the coastal area of Nusa Dua in Bali,…

Read More

The devil’s in the details

“Making people believe the unbelievable is no trick; it’s work … Belief and reader absorption come in the details: An overturned tricycle in the gutter of an abandoned neighborhood can stand for everything. Or a broken billboard. Or weeds growing in the cracks of a library’s steps. … The details are always the starting place in…

Read More