On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good Morning All,
This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.
So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.
You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.
For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.
Have a wonderful weekend, and enjoy the pictures!
It’s Friday, and thankfully, it’s otmar.
Today, pictures from valued commenter otmar.
As you might now, the Council of the EU operates on a rotating chair basis: every 6 months a new EU member state takes over and chairs the various working groups and organizes a hell of a lot of meetings, mini-conferences and a summit.
The current EU chair is Bulgaria, we (Austria) will take over on July 1st.
This is the background for my trip to Sofia at the end of March this year.
The meeting took place in the “National Palace of Culture” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Palace_of_Culture), this is the view we had from the roof towards the center of the town.
For the social event, they invited us to a dinner at the former residence of the communist strongmen: The Boyana Residency.
Well. A bit too bombastic for my taste and it has aged not too well. It’s been decorated with the slogan of the BG presidency, there are all EU Member State flags arrayed on the side, so I guess this is the place where they do all the socials/dinners for EU events.
And there was a folklore dancing troupe. I have no clue how often that group will do this show during the 6 months of EU events in Sofia, but I guess it’s a good living for them right now.
On the last day, on the way to the airport, I had finally the chance to walk through the old center of Sofia. This here is the Cathedral Church Sveta Nedelya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Nedelya_Church)
Just wowzers, what a great way to start Friday!
Thank you so much otmar, do send us more when you can.
Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.
One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email
JMG
Greetings from Bordeaux, France! Alice and I are visiting our daughter who works here, and I have just returned from a trip to the laundromat, where the only other customer, a man in his 60s as I am, decided to engage in conversation. I have a little French, not much, as I told him, but he assured me that was no problem, that all I had to do to pick it up was watch more television! He was, thank goodness, willing to carry the conversation entirely, which I suspect he’d have done if his audience was another Frenchperson. He loves Bordeaux, thinks Macron was no great shakes but could be worse, and that Trump has a big mouth. So we got along fine.
Sorry, no pictures yet. Alice took her phone to an antiques fair, and this is being written on her laptop. We’ll try to make amends for that gap tomorrow.
SgrAstar
Otmar, thanks for sharing those cool photos! I’d love to see more….and of Austria, too.
JPL
Thanks Otmar!
Mary G
I love those onion domes on the churches. Another area on my bucket list to visit. Thanks for sending them, otmar.
debbie
Outstanding architecture!
rikyrah
Those were beautiful pictures ?
Lapassionara
Love these pictures. Thanks for sharing.
Waratah
Thank you Otmar terrific photos you gave us a little of everything. The communist strongman building was not as plain as I would have thought. I liked the wood ceilings.
The colorful dancers and the domed buildings with gold had me smiling.
Waratah
@JMG: I am looking forward to your photos. My husbands uncle was a farmer rancher from New Mexico and his first trip to New York City to see his daughter he was up early in the morning walking the streets to find coffee drinkers and talk. He found a deli that had his requirements and was happy.
MomSense
Lovely photos this morning. I tried to take some photos of an orthodox church a few weeks ago but there were so many damned power lines no matter how I tried to frame the church.
Elizabelle
Happy Friday, all.
Thank you, Otmar, for glimpses of a country most of us are less likely to see. Cool that you get to travel to these many meetings. United we are indeed stronger.
Neldob
Fascinating. Love the architecture with the blue roofs that look like a fairy tale.
eclare
Thank you for the pictures!
otmar
Thanks for the nice feedback.
My descriptions for the last two pics are missing, here they are:
———————
Russian Church “Sveti Nikolay Mirlikiiski”
———————
This is the Cathedral Saint Alexandar Nevski, which seems to be a mix
between nationalistic monument and a church. It’s a lot newer that it
looks like. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Nevsky_Cathedral,_Sofia
———————
And yes, SgrAstar, there will be more pics of Austria coming soon.
satby
@otmar: I thank you as well otmar, and an a tiny bit envious of your travels ?
If I had the funds I would travel full time for a couple of years.
@JMG: safe travels to you and your wife! Looking forward to your pictures too!
Alain the site fixer
@otmar: sorry if i clipped something!
J R in WV
Otmar,
Great set of great photos of great architecture! I love your pictures of Europe, you could just do a couple a week of your everyday surroundings and educate us New World folks about your places.
And thanks for the wiki references, I’ll be looking things up to match with the great pictures.
Alain, thanks for building and administering the photo sets, it’s a great little add-on to a great little blog. Have a great weekend, all ~ !!!
mawado
What a beautiful place. Thanks for sharing.
otmar
@J R in WV: My daily commute and various errands mostly involve the Vienna city center. I cross paths with sh*loads of tourists every day.
Sadly the quality of snapshots taken out of trams is usually not that good and I rarely have time to do proper photography during daily business.