As some of you already know, back in December of 2022, my daughter and I embarked on what would be our most ambitious dad-daughter trip ever – 21 days driving up and down Portugal. Eight Portuguese cities, one town (not including spending Christmas with my mother’s family in Santiago de Compostela, Spain) visiting eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites and spending New Year’s Eve in Lisbon.
It was pretty damn epic.
Portugal, 2022/2023
So when December of 2023 came around, the pressure was on to top the previous year’s winter vacation. And top it I did. The itinerary? Six different European countries over 29 days via trains, planes and automobiles. Written, produced and directed by yours truly. Like my Ecuadorian girlfriend would say, ¡Chulla Vida!
Why so ambitious? For one, my business enjoyed another very good year in 2023 (gotta enjoy it while I have it, no?), and my daughter had accepted a new job as a restaurant manager starting in January. Her previous job allowed her to take off large chunks of (unpaid) time but with her new job, it would be the usual two weeks of vacation.
That meant that this year’s dad-daughter trip might be our last for a while. An idea that started when my wife passed away in September of 2018 and my daughter and I decided that without her, it would probably be best that we not be home for the holidays. What we did was spend much of December (18 days) driving through eight different cities in Spain, including our first Christmas with my mother’s family in Galicia.
Christmas Day, 2018
It was a good idea. A great idea, actually. One that we decided to continue every December (when my business pretty much flatlines). But a busier than usual December in 2019 and two years of Covid relegated us to Christmas with my family in New York (still wonderful, of course!). But I still yearned for the day when we could hop a plane overseas and explore another of the many countries on my long travel bucket list.
Which brings us back to December of 2022 and the aforementioned (we’re back, baby!) 21 day trip to Portugal. And to our even grander six-country, 29-day European vacation. Miami to Paris to Brussels to Prague to Vienna to Milan to Barcelona (where we spent New Year’s Eve) and back to Miami.
And let me just get this out of the way now (SPOILER ALERT!) and I believe that I can also speak for my daughter when I say this: it was the trip of a lifetime. Shits and giggles with your 26 year old daughter over 29 days in Europe? You wanna talk about “priceless”? Every penny worth it.
And if you’re wondering why the heck did it take almost a whole year to post last December’s vacation photographs? Let’s just say I had a lot, I mean a hell of a lot, a friggin’ profusion(!) of photographs to sort and edit (I’ve also got a business to run, you know?). Oh, and photographs from not only my “big boy” Sony Alpha cameras but from my nifty little Xiaomi 13 Ultra camera phone that I purchased just for this trip (more on that later!).
So exactly one year ago today, December 6th, we set off for the first city on our trip on an American Airlines flight leaving Miami and landing at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris the following morning. So let’s get to it, yes?
PARIS
We checked into the Novotel Paris Les Halles right in the heart of Paris and it was on! But first, a quick nap, yes? As for the itinerary for our five full days in Paris, it included the usual suspects: Palace of Versailles, Sainte-Chappelle, the Eiffel Tower. And being the art museum nerds that we are, the Musée d’Art Moderne, Musée d’Orsay and, of course, the Louvre Museum.
Dad-Daughter Trip, 2023/2024
The Pont Neuf (“New Bridge”) is the oldest standing bridge across the river Seine in Paris, France. The decision to build the bridge was made by Henry III who laid its first stone in on 31 May 1578. The bridge was opened to traffic in 1604 and completed in July 1606.
Going from one city to the next, like we did in Portugal last year, was very exciting – and a great way to get to know a country. However, by the time we arrived back in Lisbon we were pretty spent. I mean, a day here, two days there, an afternoon stop at this attraction, then driving to another city for a three day stay can wear you out pretty fast.
Spending those six final days of our trip staying put in Lisbon felt like we were finally “vacationing”. So when it came to planning this trip, I arranged for one city per country and longer stays in each city. One country, one city. This allowed us to not have to rush through our itinerary and take the time to really breath in the sights and sounds of each city.
We also attended our very first opera, “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” at the Opéra Bastille, a modern opera house inaugurated in 1989 and the main facility of the Paris National Opera, France’s principal opera company.
I was able to nab a ticket to the sold out show by contacting the good folks at Les Amis de l’Opéra and becoming a member for €150 (plus the price of the tickets), which secured us center seats in the orchestra level, eight rows back (¡Chulla Vida!).
And it was worth every penny, a truly wonderful experience for us both – and for me, the highlight of my time in Paris (yes, it was that good!). I’ve got plenty of photographs from “The City of Light” coming up in future posts – so stay tuned.
After our five days in Paris, we took an Uber from our hotel to the Gare du Nord railway station and boarded a train (with tickets purchased via NS International) for our 70 minute ride to Brussels.
BRUSSELS
We checked into the lovely NH Collection Brussels Grand Sablon hotel right across the street from the majestic Church of Our Lady of Victories at the Sablon, a 15th-century Catholic church is known for its baroque chapels & Gothic architecture.
From our hotel, we walked the 10 minutes down to the Grand-Place (or “Grote Markt” in Dutch), the central square of Brussels. Widely considered one of the most beautiful medieval squares in Europe, The Grand-Place has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1998.
Erected between 1401 and 1455, the flamboyant Town Hall is the only remaining medieval building of the Grand-Place and is considered a masterpiece of civil Gothic architecture and more particularly of Brabantine Gothic, which surfaced in the first half of the 14th century in Belgium.
That evening, we ventured over to the Christmas markets around the Grand-Place, something we didn’t do in Paris (still not sure why). The “Plaisirs d’Hiver” was one of the reasons I chose to stop in Brussels – the historic city’s Christmas markets are considered among the best in all of Europe.
Not to mention the laser light show projected onto the medieval Town Hall building every hour.
We enjoyed jumbo sausage sandwiches and delicious tartiflette (a creamy baked casserole of potatoes, reblochon cheese, bacon, and onions) at the Christmas markets, ate actual Belgium waffles, fell in love with Kriek Boon (a traditional Belgian Lambic fruit-beer) at Au Vieux Saint Martin (a Brussels landmark restaurant since 1968), enjoyed delicious pita wraps at Le Perroquet Bruxelles.
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium consist of six museums and contain over 20,000 drawings, sculptures, and paintings, covering a period extending from the early 15th century to the present.
“Les trésors de Satan” (The Treasures of Satan) created by Jean Delville in 1895 was the cover art for pioneering death metal outfit Morbid Angel’s 1991 album “Blessed Are The Sick“. Yes, I was a metalhead growing up.
We spent three full days in Brussels, making stops at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, the aforementioned Church of Our Lady of Victories at the Sablon and paying a visit to Manneken Pis, a landmark bronze fountain sculpture (which dates back as early as the mid-15th century) depicting a “puer mingens”; a naked boy urinating into the fountain’s basin.
Full galleries forthcoming…
PRAGUE
On December 15th, we hopped on a Brussels Airlines flight to Prague and checked into the 5-star Grand Hotel Bohemia (I wasn’t cutting any corners on this trip) right in the city’s historical center. I planned five full days in “the City of a Hundred Spires” and our first stop was the Christmas market in the Old Town Square.
Old Town Square (“Staroměstské náměstí”)
The Old Town Square was founded in the 12th century as the central marketplace for Prague. It is dominated by the Týn Church (Týnský chrám), or The Church of Our Lady Before Tyn, and its 260+ foot tall twin towers topped by eight smaller spires in two layers of four.
We took a walk to the Powder Gate Tower (top left) where you can climb the 186 steps inside the tower to reach the viewing platform for views over the Old Town (top center). We also walked across the Charles Bridge (top right and below), whose construction started in 1357 under the auspices of King Charles IV, and finished in the early 15th century.
With over 400 000 objects of art, the National Gallery (Národní galerie Praha) is the largest and most important art institution in the Czech Republic.
We ate yummy Mexican(!) food at Las Adelitas and enjoyed trdelník (a sweet pastry made from dough that is wrapped around a stick, then baked and topped with sugar).
The Spanish Synagogue is the most recent synagogue in Prague’s Jewish Town. Built in 1868, It was called the Spanish Synagogue for its impressive Moorish interior design, influenced by the Alhambra in Granada, Spain.
We also paid a visit to the beautiful State Opera (Státní opera), which dates back to 1888, to watch a performance (which was actually being taped for broadcast TV) of “The Bartered Bride” (Prodaná nevěsta) by Bedřich Smetana, the most famous opera from the Czech Republic. Orchestra section, of course (¡Chulla Vida!)
During our five days in Prague, we also visited the Cathedral of Saints Vitus, which dates back to 1344 when Charles IV ordered its construction and beheld the Prague astronomical clock, the third-oldest astronomical clock in the world and the oldest clock still in operation (top left).
That’s all for Part I in what will be an extended series of photography posts from our trip. Stay tuned for images from our visit to Vienna, Milan and Barcelona in my next post. SUBSCRIBE HERE to not miss it!
All photographs in this post (from our 2023/2024 trip) taken by the remarkable Xiaomi 13 Ultra, a camera phone that features a variable aperture 1-inch main camera and Leica(!) co-engineered Summicron lens. And yes, I also had my Sony A7RV camera and a few good lenses but the Xiaomi has become my go-to camera when I want to get around without the bulk of the Sony attached to the 24-105mm f/4 G lens plus a camera bag carrying my 35mm & 85mm lenses every day. The Xiaomi has proven itself more than capable for capturing images and video, indoors or outdoors, in a pinch.
Check out images from my trip to Ecuador this year HERE
