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Next up, Treasures from LACMA! Saw three cool exhibits during my visit; one on stonework art, one on the Dutch Republic and colonialism, and one on Islamic women’s art. All were great!

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I got caught up seeing Space Invaders in Paris that I missed going to an actual museum. But, Sacre Coeur had some sweet mosaics.

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Back July 2023, in Toronto, I wandered into the Divina Dali show, which was cool! A collection of Salvador Dali’s watercolours of scenes from Dante’s The Divine Comedy.

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I also got to see this cool pop-up show called Punk and Beyond: Legends of the Lower East Side. Pretty cool to get to see instruments played by Lou Reed, Vernon Reid, Johnny Thunders, Norah Jones, among others in person! The DJ was cool to chat with too.

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Treasures from The Cloisters. Easily a top five New York site for me. It’s a mashup of actual church buildings imported from Europe and housing some sweet medieval art, including The Unicorn Tapestries!

Treasures from The British Library. Last stop was to The British Library, which has a cool collection of religious books and other memorabilia.

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Treasures from the Tate Modern. My last stop the first time through was to the Modern and I saw a cool exhibits on colonialism in the wider world, and in Australia specifically.

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Treasures from the Saatchi Gallery. My visit coincided with a local food festival and I had the most amazing chocolate cake in the park before I went in and saw a sweet hip-hop and graffiti exhibit.

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Treasures from the Tate Britain. They had an interesting exhibit about the Rosettis on when I visited. It was a cool first experience!

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Treasures from Westminster Cathedral. I love mosaics because they are pixel art, but in stone. Also, I really enjoy when church iconography overlaps with Socialist/Communist imagery…

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Treasures from The National Gallery, London. Next up we wandered around London letting our feet take us wherever they wanted to go.

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Treasures from the National Gallery of Ireland. I only viewed half of the collection due to President Biden’s visit that day. Still saw some great stuff!

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First up, was Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts, since I spent some time there before I headed off.

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Nackariah @nackariah.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Wasn’t sure how to present all the cool stuff I saw in museums on my trips, so, I’m just going to dump it with artist and title. Deal with it.

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My recent pilgrimage was to the Mariner’s Church in Vieux Port, a good sailor’s first stop. It’s home to Marguerite Bourgeoys - Montreal’s patron saint! And that statuette is from a town just outside Brussels! I’d been told to go when I 1st moved here, but, I forgot for almost two years!

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Maybe someday I’ll share the stuff I thought was cool from each of the museums I visited.

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I got back to Montreal, and realized that in addition to a Rolling Thunder tour, a Magical Mystery Tour, and a Great War tour, we had also been on a Cabot and Dorchester Square tour! We’d been to Newfoundland, followed the railroad out West, and seen WWI & II Europe, as well as Korea.

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My last day in Belgium, I decided to visit Heysel, which has a tragic Liverpool connection. I got to the subway station and there was a crowd of people all around the stadium. Turns out the Pope had held a mass and the Belgian Royal Family had gone. The we revisited some of our favourite sites.

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Our last day trip in Belgium was to Antwerp, which was great! We just wandered the city centre after leaving the train station, which is the best way to day trip!

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Our next day trip took us out to Ypres, or ‘Wipers’, as the soldiers who served there called it. We were on our way to see the site where maybe the best known piece of poetry, Canadian or otherwise, was written, by John McCrae, a doctor serving in the 1st Canadian Artillery Brigade.

Train service in Belgium is awesome and because it’s not a huge country, you can get most places in an hour. First trip was to Mons, which took us by Waterloo. Napoleon didn’t call - he probably knew our connections to Wellington, Picton, and Nelson - so we didn’t go!

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Belgium was our last stop on this leg of the tour, and it was potentially the best? Belgium is, to me, a country sized Montreal, and I love it. It might be my favourite country in Europe. We touched down and took a cab to the Cardo, which was cool, but also a little Lynchian in its design.

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The great thing about Liverpool and Manchester is the rail service, which will connect you to Wales. I took a day trip from Liverpool to Conwy, to visit one of the four UNESCO castles you can visit there. Conwy was perfect, the castle is superb, and the town is doable for a day walk.

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First day in Liverpool we walked down to the Mersey, and along Canada Boulevard, renamed to honour Canada’s role in the Battle of the Atlantic. The Three Graces are here and a statue to four local lads who changed the world! Check out the British Music Experience for more artists who did too!

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Next stop on our tour was Manchester! To me, it felt like a more manageable London, with how each neighbourhood retained its own vibe, while being super close to each other. First stops were the Corn Exchange, the National Football Museum, and the Cathedral Gardens for some Davis Cup tennis!

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Nackariah @nackariah.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

I spent a month back in Canada, hanging out in Montreal, working out again and making suitcase space. Turns out living like a rolling stone is tiring. But our Magical Mystery Tour had to continue. Or maybe it was a Rolling Thunder Review? No, it was a Magical Thunder Rolling Mystery Tour!

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I took the train to Osaka, after Tokyo, and stayed at the Moxy, which was great! I met some of the staff, and got some cool travel tips! My first stop was a local bookstore, and then I figured out the local transit to visit Sumiyoshi Taisha.

Nackariah @nackariah.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

After Vietnam, we flew to Tokyo for our second trip to Japan! I stayed in Shibuya this time and enjoyed wandering the neighbourhood. I went to the Starbucks Roastery, bought pants at Japan Blue Jeans and had lunch at Aloha Table. And it was the perfect way to take a break from Vietnam’s heat.

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Nackariah @nackariah.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Next stop on our trip was to Hanoi, where this was our view over West Lake! PEC is also home to a West Lake. <insert a joke about how Zac will think he’s at home here.> I had a private tour guide who took me around the city. We stopped at Tran Quoc Pagoda, Ho’s House, and the One Pillar Pagoda.

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Hue was a big change after Saigon - it’s smaller and more rural, and that was perfect for seeing a different side of Vietnam. I stayed at Azerai and had a great balcony view of the Perfume River. Quoc Hoc High School, where Ho Chi Minh went to school, was a block away, and made a good first stop.

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The biggest lesson I learned in the South Pacific was to check country entry requirements first! I learned at the airport that I’d need an emergency visa to enter Vietnam, but the process at Flight Centre made it easy!

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Sydney was cool, it felt a lot like Toronto after seeing Melbourne. I had a sweet view of Circular Quay and the Opera House from the hotel, which was beautiful!

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I got an introductory travel point offer with my credit card, and having now qualified for the reward, decided to use it to visit Melbourne! I didn’t realize that Australia required you to apply beforehand for a visa, but the ETA app made applying last minute super easy!

While in Hong Kong, I did a day trip to Macau. The ferry lets you off near the casinos, which feels like a tropical Fremont Street. From there, I climbed up to Guia Fortress, visited St Paul’s and the Macao Museum, and stopped in at the Hong Chan Kuan Temple before lunch.

From Paris I flew to Hong Kong. I had a connection in Doha, and got to walk through The Orchard in the airport, which was really cool! I spent the first day after landing in Hong Kong sleeping and it was worth it.

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Guernsey was a place that I wished I’d spent more time - one night was not enough! I got off the ferry in St Peter Port and biked over to Grand Havre beach. I walked the town, saw Victor Hugo’s house, read about Isaac Brock’s birth here, saw where an RCAF pilot crashed, & had food at the Terrace!

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I flew to Paris, and rented a car to get to Saint Malo. You can take a train, that’s quicker, but I wanted to make a stop on the way. I was late for the anniversary but Juno Beach was worth the visit. The visitor centre offered a great overview of Canada’s WWII effort. Also worth the visit!

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While I was in London, I took a day trip to visit the town of Tring, where I had coffee and visited with some people in the park, and saw a taxidermied wolverine at the Natural History Museum. And then it was off to Paris again!

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Taking the train to London was a great way to start our second trip there! I stayed near Soho, during the Euros, which was awesome because the pubs got super crowded! I also made a point of visiting some place named sites, like the Quebec Sts and the HMS Belfast.

Edinburgh was a great way to end the trip because it felt very compact. We saw the Royal Mile, visited the Writers’ Museum, saw St Giles’, saw the Monarch of the Glen at the National Gallery, climbed Calton Hill, ate at the Ghillie Dhu, and had a zero at the Conan Doyle.

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After Skye, we headed for Edinburgh. Along the way we stopped at Birnam Wood, climbed Dunsinane Hill from a sheep pasture, and left a stick for MacBeth. Then we stopped at the Perth Museum, had a private view of the Stone of Destiny, and then saw the Kelpies in Falkirk, before returning the car.

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Next up, we took the road to Skye - and what a road! Highlights include these ruins to the west of Loch Cluanie, the Battle of Glen Sheil, Alt a’chruinn and the Great War Memorial, and Eilean Donan - there can be only one! And then we made it to our stay in Kyleakin!

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After Oban, we spent a few days in the Caledonian Canal area, staying in Inverness. On the way, we stopped at and climbed Ben Nevis, in about 3.5 hours, in our sneakers. We didn’t have breakfast, so a huge thank you to the climbers who gave me a Dairy Milk on the way up, because I did not prepare.

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I took the A82 to Oban and stopped in at Loch Lomond and the Falls of Falloch on the way. What a cool road to learn to drive on too - the corners and the rock walls really keep you on your toes!

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While in Glasgow, I took a day trip to Ayr, to see the RNR Commonwealth Graves there. Ayr was also home to Robert Burns, and I walked over to see the house he grew up in, the church from Tam O’Shanter, and Brig O’ Doon.