Vienna to Rome by way of Zagreb

Welcome! This website began in 2016 with a nine week journey from Vienna to Rome, hence the name of the website. The self-directed leisurely itinerary wandered through eight countries. Stops along the way included well known cities and many less well known but enchanting places such as Pécs, Zagreb, Lakes Bled and Bohinj, the Istrian peninsula, Mostar, Kotor, Bari, Ravenna. It was a travel dream come to life.

Over the years I added other trips to the website — Romania, Norway, England, several trips to Italy, Malta, Bolivia, as well as travels in the US and photos closer to home in Hartford. This year, however, troubles arose. Photos migrated aimlessly across the website: images from Bolivia appeared on pages dedicated to Romania, photos from Malta on a page on Lincoln Cathedral. The mess was too daunting to right. The best solution was to start over.

Travels are organized by year. Click on the year below my photo (below) or one of the categories below that and select a destination, or scroll down for posts arranged from most recent; click the date on the post to view images. In time I hope to restore some of the lost pages of the earlier website. Enjoy what is here and may these travels inspire travels for you.

Joseph Pace

  • I had a late October weekend on Cape Cod with friends. The weather alternated from unseasonably warm to chilly with a strong wind, but the scenery was perfect. We stayed in South Yarmouth, took in a Halloween party at Provincetown…

  • New York City in the fall is always great fun. I spent several days in the City at The Met (Painting in Siena 1300-1350), lots of familiar painters. And a visit to The Morgan Library and then the annual investiture…

  • This has been a good year for fungi in the forest, from the common mushroom to more exotic varieties such as the eerie Indian pipes. Penwood, a few miles from Hartford, became one of my refuges during the pandemic. I…

  • Tiny, rocky Malta, a place where life has always been a struggle, is generally believed to be home of the oldest structures built by humans. On Gozo we visited temples at Ġgantija and on the main island the Ħaġar Qim…

  • Gozo is the second of Malta’s three primary islands. All three islands are windswept, largely barren, but have their own peculiar beauty. The sea, of course, provides a great deal of the beauty of the islands. At the heart of…

  • The city of Valletta was built by the Knights of Saint John after the routing of the Ottoman navy in 1565. The new city provided better protection for the important Grand Harbour and was the home of the Knights until…

  • In the southern part of the country are the extraordinary Uyuni Salt Flats and a vast wildlife sanctuary. We were lucky to visit when we did, as the flats were covered with a thin layer of water, creating in effect…

  • Bolivia was a country of considerable natural beauty. An exception was the city of Potosí, the western hemisphere’s wealthiest city in the 16th and 17th centuries. The city’s wealth came from a conical shaped mountain riddled with tunnels for mining…

  • Bolivia has two capitals: La Paz, the legislative center; and Sucre, the judicial capital. Sucre was (in terms of elevation) the lowest altitude of the trip (an oxygen-rich 9,000 feet). The colonial buildings of the city are well-maintained, most in…

  • Bolivia’s first peoples pre-date the better known Incan civilization, which moved south through present-day Bolivia soon after the collapse around 1000 CE of the Tiwanaku culture. We visited the remarkable ruins at Tiwanaku (less than 10% has been excavated), and…