Reflecting on 100 Days in Europe: Travel Memories Make You Richer

Finally home now after a hundred days in Europe, something occurred to me. I posted 100 blog entries in 100 days on my Facebook page. These generated about a hundred comments a day...and I read all 10,000. It's fun to be in touch with my readers, and to able to share experiences like these in almost real time:

In Greece, when the Orthodox priest explained to me how he used incense to change the mood at Eastertime -- from sadness to anticipation to joy -- and then gave me a fragrant tour of his stash to make me a believer.

In Florence, when the chef giving one of our tour groups a cooking lesson coached me to knead the flour with more love and more determination, even as I doubted that a little egg could turn that dry wad of flour into usable dough. (Shortly after that, we ate our delicious homemade pasta with an unforgettable sense of triumph and accomplishment.)

In Nürnberg, when, standing at the doorway Hitler walked through to address the masses at his tribune, I saw and smelled the rot caused by Germans who, 75 years later, still urinate on that door.

In Wales, when craning my neck to enjoy the broken Gothic arches in the sky of the remote and romantic Tintern Abbey at the border of Wales and England, it suddenly got even more romantic as a harpist began strumming and an angelic bride and her happy father walked by me, arm-in-arm.

What can you both treasure and share? Travel memories. And when you make them, you become richer.