One of the first places I visited when I moved to Ireland was the prehistoric complex of Newgrange. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is one of the most interesting ancient structures in Ireland, located near the Boyne River, some 30 minutes north of Dublin. Apparently, this place had religious significance for the tribes living in this region more than 3000 years BC. As you can see in the picture I took, on that opportunity, I was very lucky to have an amazing sunny day.
The only time I haven't been able to enter a European country was a long time ago when I was not a European citizen yet and I didn't have a British visa to get into Gibraltar, the British Overseas Territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula next to the "Linea de la concepcion" town in Spain. In this picture you can see the famous Rock of Gibraltar and that was almost the end of my visit to this place. Today I am able to cross this border without any problem.
Last weekend I was reading on Wikipedia about some of the biggest misconceptions in history, and one of them was the Christopher Columbus and Earth round vs. flat discussion. Back then, many people agreed with the round Earth concept, but most of them disagreed with Columbus's assessment about the distance needed to reach India from Europe the other way around (and they were right). Some years ago, I visited the city Palos de la Frontera in Spain, and I had the opportunity to see some replicas of the caravels he used to navigate all the way to America. I remember thinking back then that I was able to understand why there was a rebellion just before they arrived at La Hispaniola. Maybe it’s not so clear in the picture, but they were tiny for such an immense trip.
The first time I went to Berlin back in 2006 I noticed there was this ugly building "under construction". I was curious and I took a picture that was buried in my hard drive. Today, when I was cleaning up my computer, I found this photo again and I realized they were not building anything, but it was actually the other way around: they were dismantling the "Palace of the Republic". This building was the seat of the parliament of the German Democratic Republic. A couple of years later, I visited Berlin, and the construction was gone. Berlin will always be one of my favorite cities in Europe.
The first time I visited Berlin in the summer of 2006, I fell in love with that really interesting city. I like history, and you can breathe 20th-century history everywhere in this city. When we were walking around with some of my colleagues, we passed next to this statue of Marx and Engels, and that was a good reminder that once this was East Berlin, the capital of the GDR.
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