Month: April 2020

I am so upset that this is my last passion blog post but all that means is that it will hopefully be my best one yet. One of the most fantastic places in the world is Australia. The best part about Australia is that it not only is its own country but it is also a continent. I know, that really isn’t a reason to visit it but that has caused me to have a great interest in Australia.

One of the places that I must visit is the Australia Zoo. I know there are zoos all over the world but the Australia Zoo will always have a special place in my heart. I have never been there but do you know who has? Steve Irwin has, the great crocodile hunter. When I was younger, my family and I always would watch his show and experience his life. He has been dead for a long time but nevertheless I feel that it would be a great time to visit the zoo. Apparently his family still works and runs the zoo which means I have a chance to meet them. I need to meet Bindi, it would be the best story ever to say I visited Australia just to meet this random girl.

Along with the Australia Zoo, I plan to visit the Springbrook National Park. This National Park has  the most amazing waterfalls and caves. The beauty of Australia is on a whole other level. Another thing that I really want to see in Australia is koalas. I would do this by visiting the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Koalas are the cutest animal in the whole world. I’m sorry to my dogs but koalas do beat them. All I want to do is sit in a little pen and feed and hold a koala. 

I would also love to go the Australian Outback. While doing research for this post, I have found out to get to the Outback, depending on what location you chose, anywhere from a twenty to thirty hour drive. So, this is not the ideal situation for me. However, I will make it work. Worse comes to worse, I’ll get lost in the middle of Australia. I see no issue with that. Getting lost in Australia sounds like a great story to me.

Australia really will be a great adventure. Not only because I plan to see koalas but also because of the amazing structures and landscape that encompasses Australia. I hope that you have all enjoyed my crazy travels and will continue to believe that one day I will travel to all of these places and come back with even crazier stories.

I know Italy isn’t the safest place to go to at a time like this but it’s okay, I won’t take this trip for at least a year. Probably more, since I still haven’t really traveled to Europe ever. I recently discovered how beautiful Florence is through watching a tv show. Yes, another tv show during quarantine. It seems that the show goes by quicker than normal. I started watching a show on Netflix called Medici. It’s a very good show but I really loved the beauty of Florence that it showed.

One of the most famous squares in Florence is Piazza del Duomo. It has so many amazing architectural designs that I know will be a sight to behold. The square includes the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral, Giottos’s Bell Tower, The Baptistery of St. John, and the Loggia del Bigallo. All of these sites are located in this one area which is beyond amazing. The time and effort put into this one town square shows the power that Florence once was.

I want to focus on one of these sites and give you the background so you can understand why it is a must see. The Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral took over one hundred years to build. One hundred years is a crazy amount of time to build one building, construction went through multiple architects and still after the first hundred years the dome was not built. Now if you were wondering why I know about this dome, Medici might be the reason. Obviously all tv shows are dramatized but nonetheless in the show, Cosimo, the main protagonist, decides that the dome must be completed. However, no one had ever built a dome that big or even knew if the dome was going to be able to stay up. With the Medici’s money and trust in Brunelleschi, the architect of the dome, the dome was able to be built and finished in sixteen years. In honor of Brunelleschi’s ingenious he even has a statue in the Piazza del Duomo which is admiring his work on the dome.

I really loved the story of the dome. Obviously the show Medici, exaggerated its creation but the real story is still a brilliant testament to the creation of amazing works of art during the Renaissance and the rule of the Medici family all while still being a democracy. I would greatly recommend to anyone to visit Florence and see all of its beauty after COVID-19 passes.

 

I do realize that I already said that I wanted to visit Paris which is in France but I feel that France has grown on me as a whole and deserves a whole post that is outside of Paris. I have a confession to make, during this time in quarantine I have spent way too much time binge watching tv. One of the shows that I have spent multiple hours watching, yes one of them, is Reign. It follows Mary, Queen of Scots as she finds herself as queen until her unfortunate beheading. It is very much so dramatized and not accurate to the real story but nonetheless I found it entertaining.

So, you might be wondering why would I want to visit France after watching a television show about a Queen of Scotland. If you didn’t know Mary married Francis, the Dauphin of France when she was fifteen and he was fourteen. What can you do, it was the 1500s. He would later become King Francis II and sadly pass of an ear infection at the age of sixteen. Yes, again it was an ear infection. The show doesn’t follow the facts of the time about there marriage or his death but getting back to why I told you about Mary and Francis’ history, the show was set in France.

Obviously, it was a tv show and wasn’t filmed in France but it still inspired me to learn more about the history of the French monarchs. So, after going through multiple videos and websites that have filled me in on the past facts of the wild French Court, I have realized that I need to visit the castles. One castle that sadly isn’t there anymore was in the lovely port city, Calais. Chateau de Calais was actually razed to the ground when the British and French were fighting for the city. Now in its spot is the Citadel of Calais. Not only would I have to visit the Citadel, I would see the Calais Lighthouse, The Tour du Guet, Les Bourgeois de Calais, and so many other beautiful sites in this one city.

As I was writing this, I realized that I could spend weeks just in Calais and not even actually visit one castle that was mentioned in Reign. Calais was mentioned because during the time of the show, the French recaptured it from the English but that isn’t the point. This post made me realize that France not only has Paris and Calais but other amazing cities that I must also visit and you might be getting blogs about them, too.