Shanghai
Shanghai, China’s most international city, provided a fascinating introduction to this vast and complex country. Highlights included the Site of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party - where we found ourselves the only foreign visitors - the futuristic high-rise district of Pudong across the river, and the historic Bund waterfront with its colonial-era architecture.
Taiwan
Taiwan is delightfully navigable by rail. We made a compact four-stop loop: Taichung (central hub and starting point), Tainan (historic temples and mellow streets), Hualien (gateway to dramatic east-coast scenery), and Taipei (the energetic capital that ties it all together).
Norway
I stayed with a friend about an hour outside Oslo in Norway. Few places cram so much variation into one long, slender outline: fjords, islands, forests, and weather that shifts quickly as you move north or gain altitude. Oslo combines Nordic design, contemporary art, and the world’s foremost black metal music scene.
Montenegro
Montenegro is a small country in South-East Europe with a lot of coastline. The Bay of Kotor is stunningly beautiful, Tivat airport is a bit of a “challenge”, and of course you’ll get the Austrian empire-tinged cake.
Munich
Mechanical keyboards meetup in Munich. Enthusiasts invest considerable time and money into custom keyboards, which double as effective desk territory markers.
Munich’s art museums offered strong exhibitions: Mythos Spanien at Kunsthalle München, contemporary works at Pinakothek der Moderne, and Cao Fei’s multimedia installations at Lenbachhaus.
Bonn
A short trip to Bonn took me to the former capital’s museums and the FrOSCon conference.
Euros 2024
Euro 2024 took me across Germany: matches in Munich and Frankfurt, the Tübix Linux conference in Tübingen provided a stopover, art at Berlin’s Alte Nationalgalerie, and the tournament’s final. Seven matches total.
Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein is an alpine microstate between Austria and Switzerland with the world’s highest GDP per capita, breathtaking scenery, and a world-class art museum, all contained in what amounts to a village.
Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria
A rail journey through the former Yugoslavia and Austria: Split offered Diocletian’s Palace and the Croatian football derby, Zagreb provided excellent cake and the New Wave Museum, Ljubljana retained its socialist-era counterculture and has added some alpine hipness, and Klagenfurt served as a quiet Alpine stopover.
Saarland
Saarland was the last German state I hadn’t visited. The photos are all from Völklingen Ironworks.