European Colour-unique look at European sights.

Barcelona Living

According to legend, Barcelona was founded either by Hercules or Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal’s father, in 3BC. Around 15BC, the Romans took over the town as a castrum, a military defensive position.

In the fifth century, Barcelona was conquered by the Visigoths, and then by the Arabs in 711AD. In 801AD, Charlemagne's son, Louis, reconquered the city and made Barcelona a buffer zone between the Christian kingdoms of the North and the independent Muslim states, which held the rest of the Iberian peninsula until the Treaty of Granada in 1492.

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Facing Chairs

Situated on the banks of the Bidasoa estuary, is a 10th century castle built by the King of Navarre, Sancho Abarca, during the early days of the Christian Reconquista. A powerful Caliph, Al-Mansur, was a threat to the area at that time, but the King and his castle at Hondarribia were spared because the King gave one of his daughters in marriage to the Caliph.

Emperor Charles the Fifth remodeled the castle during the 16th century.

During the wars between Spain and France, Napoleon stayed at the castle for quite some time.
Today, the medieval fortress is a hotel, with just thirty-six elegant rooms, providing splendid views of the estuary and the French coastline.

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Along The Courtyard

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Big Yellow

On October 23, 1956, thousands of people took to the streets of Budapest to protest one party rule established by the Soviet Union. The statue of Stalin was pulled down, and a new leader appointed.  The Soviet Union responded with military force, killing thousands of people, arresting thousands more, and thus forcefully ending the revolution.

In May, 2004—just two days before the Republic of Hungary joined the European Union—the Budapest city council revoked Stalin's 1947 honorary citizenship, granted in recognition of his liberation of Hungary from the Germans at the end of  World War II.

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Wine Cemetery

Vineyards in Spain maintain a wine cemetery where “dead” wines are stored for posterity. (In most of Europe, it is called the wine library.)
The wine cemetery is a vault containing the last bottles of a vintage. In some wineries, the bottles resting in the cemetery can date back as far as the late 19th century.

La Rioja, with chalky clay soil, and south-facing slopes is well protected from prevailing winds and frost, all of which gives the land its wine personality. The stony ground, with layers of clay, retains freshness and moisture allowing the grape to ripen with subtlety and balance.

The Atlantic-influenced climate provides abundant rainfall and lower than average temperatures from the rest of the region. The combination of cool nights and hot days create the ideal conditions for superb ripening of the Tempranillo grape used to make Rioja wine.

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Big Red Wall

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Wide Eyed

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Bright Corner

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Follow The Yellow Brick Road

The name Krumlov, according to legend, comes from the German Krumme Aue, which means crooked meadow. The town's naturally crooked layout is created by the meandering Vltava river. The first mention of the town was in documents dated 1253 and was called Chrumbonowe. Český Krumlov Castle was built in the 13th century by the Lords of Krumlov. The last Krumlov died in 1302 without leaving an heir. The castle and the surrounding area became the property of the Rosenbergs, who occupied the castle for 300 years.
Nazi Germany annexed the town in 1938 as part of the Sudetenland. In 1945 when the town was liberated by American troops (led by George S. Patton), the German speaking population was expelled, and the town returned to Czechoslovakia. (Now the Czech Republic.)

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Old Yellow

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Table Setting

After seeing forks used in Italy during his travels, an Englishman by the name of Thomas Coryate brought them to England around 1611. The English were not impressed. They thought using forks not only unnecessary but effeminate, and Coryate was ridiculed for promoting the use of forks.

Food during the Middle Ages was eaten using one’s hands, a knife and spoon. Everyone carried his or her own knife for eating and simply wiped it clean at the end of the meal.
The castle crowd began calling him the fork-bearer, as a way to make fun of him. Can you imagine how he must have felt when he entered the keep, “Look, here comes the fork bearer”.

Many of the Church of England clergymen were opposed to the use of forks, believing it ungodly. If someone died after using a fork, they said it was God’s way of showing His displeasure for using such a shocking novelty device.

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Purple Wall

Nazi Germany annexed the town in 1938 as part of the Sudetenland under the pretext the ethnic German population was being mistreated. As a result, Český Krumlov, and the rest of the country, was spared from German bombing raids.

And, since there were neither military installations nor weapons factories in the country, the Allies had no strategic or tactical reason to conduct bombing raids. So none of the architecture found in Český Krumlov and the rest of the country suffered any damage in WWII.

However, the Czechoslovakian people suffered greatly under Nazi rule. In addition to hundreds being executed and thousands being imprisoned, an estimated 5,000 innocent Czechs were executed as retaliation after SS Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich was shot and killed by British trained Czechoslovakian commandos.

In 1945 when the town was liberated by American troops lead by General George S. Patton, the German speaking population was expelled, and the town returned to Czechoslovakia (now known as the Czech Republic).

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Tilt-A-Phone

Sir Giles Gilbert Scott designed the bright red telephone booth seen on the streets throughout the United Kingdom, Malta, Bermuda, and Gibraltar. It is red so it is easy to spot.


The red booth resulted from a competition held in 1924 to design a kiosk acceptable to the various London boroughs. The United Kingdom Post Office originally produced a concrete phone kiosk in 1920, which was considered atrocious.

In 1952, Elizabeth II departed from the practice of using the "Tudor Crown" as the symbol of government began using a representation of the actual crown used at coronations—St. Edwards Crown.

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Colorful River

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U Zlate Studny

A four star hotel, with just four double rooms and four suites, returned to private ownership following the Velvet Revolution of 1989 which ended Communism in what was then Czechoslovakia. Located in the Old Town district, the hotel on Kings Road is near the Old Town Square, Charles Bridge, and the Prague Castle.

Hotel U Zlate Studny, whose origins began in the 16th century, is a beautiful historical building under the patronage of UNESCO. The restaurant located on the fourth floor was refurbished by Italian architects in 2008 offers a spectacular view of Prague.

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Flower Window

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Number 58

Think British Pub and what comes to mind, beside beer? Fish and Chips. The chip, known in the states as french fries, may well have started as an imaginative substitute for fish rather than a side dish. With no fish available when rivers and streams froze over, cooks started cutting potato slices into fish shapes and frying them in place of the actual fish.

The idea of actually frying fish was brought to Britain by Jewish refugees from Portugal and Spain. Vendors hung large wooden trays holding fried fish around their necks and hawked the wares on the street. Dickens in his novel “Oliver Twist” (1839) mentions a fried fish warehouse where fish is served with bread or baked potato.

Who first came up the idea of fish and chips is the subject of fierce controversy in England, and will likely never be settled. John Lees, an entrepreneur, is credited by some as the first to market “fish and chips” as early as 1863 in Lancashire. Others credit a Jewish immigrant, Joseph Malin, as the first around 1860.

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Textile

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The Quiet Life

A roadside view of a small faming villiage in the Czech Republic.

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