Posts Tagged: Europe

My flight arrived in Athens late on a Friday night. I took a car straight to the New Hotel and went to bed. The next day we set out to explore the city, walking over to the National Archaeological Museum, which boasts one of the most impressive collections of artifacts in the world. Among the many highlights is the Artemision Bronze, a statue of either Zeus or Poseidon that was fished out of the Mediterranean after a shipwreck.

Few cities can rival Berlin for dramatic twentieth-century history. Largely destroyed by Allied bombs in World War II, Berlin was rebuilt, then quickly became the epicenter of the Cold War. Divided by a wall and terrorized by a brutal secret police, the city and country were emotionally reunified at the end of the century. Today Berlin isn’t the most beatiful city in Europe, but its gritty charm, fantastic restaurants, and incredible museums make it one of the most fun and interesting.

Landing late at night at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport, we caught an Uber to our lodgings, a charming apartment in Lisbon’s Baixa neighborhood. Despite the jet lag, it was late enough that we had no trouble sleeping. In the morning, we strolled over to Padaria do Barrio, a tasty bakery. Then we ascended a series of hills, stairs, and elevators to Castelo de Sao Jorge. The hill on which the castle stands shows signs of human occupation dating to at least the 8th century BCE and has been the site of Phoenecian, Carthaginian, Roman, and Moorish fortifications.

I hadn’t really thought about it before I visited, but Sicily’s remarkable and consequential history should be obvious. Much of the history of Europe is the history of the Mediterranean Sea. As a large island right in the middle of the Mediterranean, Sicily was strategically vital at least from the time of the ancient Greeks through World War II. Some of the island’s oldest signs of human habitation are cave paintings dating to around 8000 B.