Part VI – Acquafondata
https://youtu.be/IO9DZCKf-bc Preface: The small municipality of Acquafondata lay high in the mountains at the nexus of the Winter Line and the Gustav Line, the fortified Axis defensive lines where Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring’s Army Group C made their stand against the US 5th Army as it pushed towards Rome. This tiny handful of less than a […]
Unfiltered: Bambinos in Italia
https://youtu.be/ruAy6FiXX88 The Journey Begins Again I’d like to think that Jenn and I are fairly experienced and efficient travelers. We breeze through airport security, know how to pick the right seats on the plane, take advantage of points and perks offered on travel credit cards. We find a good balance, leaving parts of trips open […]
In Another Country
As has been the case several times during the telling of letters home, the next chapter was one in which I came in thinking I knew what story I wanted to tell, but had it completely reshaped from what I found. It all started with a simple entry in a US Army Morning Report, the daily […]
An Unexpected Adventure to Newcastle
https://youtu.be/4hrT9vI-yPk?si=4jQU9lfjC1Q8ZK7c Dreaming up an Adventure It was just before Jacob’s bedtime, and we had out his big illustrated children’s atlas that he loves flipping the pages of… looking at the animals, the food and the structures in all of faraway places of the word and unloading all the questions that his curious mind could think […]
A Fall Day in Amsterdam
Being a Tourist Again In October, the Dutch weather turns bad. The days are darker, the sky is gray, and rain comes all the time from the North Sea. Amsterdam’s neighborhoods carry the scent of wood fires as everyone tries to get warm. Pedaling back on the bakfiets from picking up Jacob from school, we […]
A German Story
https://youtu.be/VRT2h_JlFmc Beware that what follows is a raw account of a dad granted an unexpected hall pass to embark on a solo journey to Oktoberfest in the heart of Germany. You may be wondering: How did this man return to tell the tale? Allow me to regale you with the story. On a seemingly ordinary […]
Market-Garden: Just Grass
In September of 1944, the German army in the Netherlands found itself in disarray. Only four short months prior, the Allies had stormed the beaches of Normandy, their relentless advance carving through France and now Belgium with an alarming haste. The recent capture of Antwerp, Europe’s second-largest port, brought them close to the Dutch border. […]
In Bruges
https://youtu.be/5mw6VCdR-LA In the flat plains of West Flanders, Belgium, Bruges was our first travel destination as expats in the Netherlands. We had been together a few years ago and while it is a town to enjoy as unencumbered adults, it was also a place that we were excited to show our kids someday. So when […]
The Move
I don’t know where our dog or our seven bags are but the line into passport control is quick only because we waited twenty minutes for the ground crew to fish out our stroller from the plane that we thought we needed given the six hour layover we were about to endure. We just got […]
A New Chapter
It was an overcast day as typical of Rotterdam in the fall. Philip Jacob Bretz stood on the dock with dozens of other migrants, their belongings all scattered about them, ready to board the Solomon Saltus for the six week sail to New York City. They had work ahead. Hard work. Jacob looked down at […]
