What took your breath away?
 

Or made you just stop in your tracks to look again. I'm thinking of those travel experiences that transcend sore feet and crowds, that are aesthetically, spiritually unique, that become a defining image for a city or the trip. <BR>I'll share one of mine. We were at the end of 3 very hectic weeks in Eastern Europe, attending a wedding, visiting former students, adjusting to 3 very different cultures. We were pretty pooped. On our last day of the trip in Prague we woke up early in the morning and looked out the window. Prague had disappeared! [okay so it was fog ;)] My spouse and I looked at each other and said "Charles Bridge!" [which we had been avoiding because of the crowds] Off we trundled across Stare Mesto. Not only did we have the bridge to ourselves, the images of dark medival shapes emerging from the soft grey fog was one we will never forget! We crossed over into Mala Strana, walked a bit and crossed back. It was a peaceful, magical experience...

The train ride from Interlaken to Grindelwald. We had just arrived in Switzerland the day before and visited Bern. When we had arrived in Interlaken later that afternoon, it was hazy, and we could only see some of the closer mountains and no snow. So we didn't know what to expect the next day when we wanted to visit the Jungfrau. When we went out the next morning, all refreshed from a good night's sleep and saw the beautiful snow capped mountains around the Jungfrau, as clear as you could hope for, it was quite a sight. I could not take my eyes off those mountains everytime we caught sight of them on the train that morning. It was truly great to be alive and in Switzerland (not to mention the wonderful cool air of the Jungfrau peak after being in 90+ in North Carolina two days before).

On our first visit to Salzburg, we left the train station and took a cab to the hotel without looking around at any scenery. We then took a cab to Mozartplatz and then took the funicular to the HohenSalzburg. We were not prepared for the view from the back side of the HohenSalzburg. It was as if all of the mountan in the world had suddenly appeared. We proceeded to the little restaurant, ordered some cheeses and beer and enjoyed that view for at least an hour...and the beer was good as well.

I have to agree with Dan. Although I love many things about Europe, probably the most break taking moment was coming into the Jungfrau region of Switzerland. We traveled from Bren to Wengen, a small mountain top town south of Interlaken, and I was speechless on the train. I could not peel myself away from the window. When we got to Wengen, we had the town almost to ourselves (went during the off season) and when we hiked up the mountain, we were iterally "on top of the world." My words don't do it justice!! <BR>

The town of Assisi in Italy took my breath away. I had the fortune to see the town for the first time in an early spring day in 1994. The long loud ringing of the Monastery bells, the perfume of the almond blossoms, the thousands colors in a wonderful medieval setting....breathtaking!!

Arriving at night in Cortina tired after the long trip by plane and bus. Feeling disappointed as the village looked so ordinary at night but then waking up the next morning to bright sunshine and standing on the balcony completely surrounded by the beautiful jagged Dolomites.

Many things have taken my breath away over the years in my travels. Here are a few. Coming out of the the train station in Venice and taking in that first glimpse of the city - it seemed like stepping into another world. Waking up in Zermatt before sunrise, sitting on the balcony, and watching the most incredible sunrise I've seen come over the Matterhorn - a bright red glow reflected from the sun starts at the top and slowly engulfs the entire mountain. Also, the view from the top of the Klein Matterhorn is breathtaking.

This will not compare with what others wrote but I will never forget my first trip to London, many years ago, and took my first ever tube ride to Westminster station. When we walked up the stairs we saw Big Ben right before us. It was then that I fell in love with London. When we have returned with friends I always take them here first. <BR>

Two things from my last trip to Ireland come instantly to mind whenever I think of Ireland . One , a perfectly clear day atop Connor's Pass on the Dingle Peninsula and the other ,an early morning(no crowds)at the Cliffs of Mohr with a young lady sitting at the base of O'Brien's tower playing a harp and singing Irish ballars.

What a great question! Watching John Hopkins glacier calve a few hundred feet in front of us in Glacier Bay, Alaska took my breath away, as did the sight of Denali appearing thru the clouds on an august night

<BR>In no particular order <BR> <BR>The view of the sea from Cape Sounion, <BR>Temple of Poseidon, south of Athens. <BR>All I could think of was Homer's phrase <BR>"the wine-dark sea". <BR> <BR>My first trip to Monet's garden at Giverny. It was June, about 12 years ago. I was there first thing in the morning, just when it opened. Just a handful of other visitors were there.The garden was a blur of color and then I actually stood on that Japanese footbridge. <BR> <BR>My first sight of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, in the Louvre. <BR> <BR>Jefferson's Monticello (sorry, it's not Europe).

<BR>I, too, am a sucker for the awesome sites of the Alps in Switzerland. I love peering out of open hotel windows early in the morning at the incredible views, no matter what the weather is like. Flying over Denali Park in a light plane and climbing glaciers in Alaska also was incredible. I think anything with mountains and water does it for me!

In chronological order as I experienced them: the red stars aglow atop each Kremlin tower as I bussed into Moscow at night (obviously long ago in the communist era); <BR> <BR>the Winter Palace in Leningrad, oops, pardon me, St. Petersburg; <BR> <BR>the exquisite English countryside from a train window as I went from London to Liverpool; <BR> <BR>the Winged Victory of Samothrace in the Louvre, ditto from above; <BR> <BR>and the Wurtzburg fortress floodlit at night as viewed from my hotel window across the Main River, my first experience of Germany. <BR> <BR>For all the above, I simply could not believe that these things existed, they were so beautiful. Especially the English countryside, it looked JUST like the pictures! What joys these all were. Thanks, Wes, for coming up with this one.

That incredible statue of David in Florence. The most incredible thing ever made by man!!!

I am always taken by the view of a church spire across the landscape - the two notable vistas are Laon Cathedral in the northern part of the Ile de France and Chartres. They are so high/so massive, that you see them for miles. It is awesome when you think of the scale of these cathedrals in their own centuries. We admire them, but we are also used to monumental urban landscapes with huge buildings - but to think of coming as a medieval traveler or pilgrim across the plains of France and seeing these spires for miles and days, getting slowly bigger jsut knocks me out. <BR> Landscapes: besides the splendor of America's own Sierra Nevadas, which knock me out every time I go out my front door, lucky me - I have forever the incredibly romantic landscape image, sitting on a knoll on the southern Japanese Island of Shikoku in the summer of 1962 watching the sunset reflected across the flooded young rice fields - not a building in site. It is an unbelievable and timeless image in a time-driven century. I felt like I had floated back through time. <BR>

Campo de Criptana (La Mancha, Spain), late afternoon of a spring day, in 1989. <BR>The light like liquid gold, the windmills on the top of the hill, the little village with bright white walls and blue doors and above all the sky, crossed by puffy white clouds running in the wind. <BR>I simply never forgot the magic <BR>

Campo de Criptana (La Mancha, Spain), late afternoon of a spring day, in 1989. <BR>The light like liquid gold, the windmills on the top of the hill, the little village with bright white walls and blue doors and above all the sky, crossed by puffy white clouds running in the wind. <BR>I simply never forgot the magic <BR>

Yes to that comment about the English countryside. <BR> <BR>Like the first post-er.....We were laying in bed, but not sleeping on one of our first nites in Paris, which seemed jam-packed with tourists. All of a sudden, I had an idea - told my husband, if we got in a cab right now and got over to the Eiffel Tower, I bet there wouldn't be any crowds. So we did and there weren't -- tho there were more people around than I would have expected, post-midnite. Luckily for us, we got there when we did -- we hadn't realized they turn the lites off at 1 a.m. So we "put the Tower to bed" and went back to bed ourselves. <BR> <BR>Another good one: listening to Vivaldi by a string quartet in Ste. Chappelle...those windows and that music -- mmmmmmmm!

The view from the lower Basilica in Assisi was the most incredible thing! We were there in early December of 1994. There is no development down there (by law) and the streaming light came down from Heaven like something out of the religious paintings..... <BR> <BR>I had always heard that the light in Tuscany and Umbria has a quality all it's own. I had seen it and never believed until that day. It's amazing.

The tulip fields outside of Amsterdam on the way to the Keukenhoff Gardens are one of my most vivid memories from Europe. They were so beautiful! I nearly cried as I watched one of the bulb farmers plow through the field of flowers with a tulip "guillotine" to keep the bulbs from using all their energy on producing flowers.