Joe Benning Photography

Travel & Photo Blog

  •   Reston, VA

Photo Book for Sale

A Photo Book entitled La Belle France, A Photographic Journey is now available from Blurb. It is a 58 page hardcover book, printed on top quality paper and therefore a bit pricey. The book is an exploration of France and French culture as seen through a camera lens. The photos explore the cities of Paris […]

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Wrapping it Up in France

Well, it’s about time to wrap up the trip to Bordeaux. The last few days we were very lucky to be accompanied by glorious weather as well as our friends Sally and Michael. Fittingly enough, at least as far as we were concerned, we spent the end of our trip in St Emilion and Medoc […]

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Sunday in Bordeaux

We had beautiful weather during our day trip to Cognac. The next day, Sunday, was also very nice in Bordeaux. We hiked over to to the Basilica (Basilique Saint-Seurin) for the 9:00 AM Mass which was, of course, all in French.  The building of the Basilique Saint-Seurin de Bordeaux (Basilica of Saint Severinus in English) […]

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Living in Tuscany

We are finally back after spending most of September in Tuscany, Italy. We had actually planned to get to Florence from Aix-en-Provence by train but a rock slide in the Alps covered the train tracks leading from France to Italy, so that plan got shelved. In the end we managed to fly to Florence from […]

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Tallin, Estonia

Tallinn may be the most beautiful city you’ve never heard of. The capital of Estonia, Tallinn is a small city in a small country with a turbulent history, particularly with respect to relations with Russia. On our walking tour of the city our guide noted that for Estonia, “NATO is everything”.  There are about 1.5 […]

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More on Three Days in St Petersburg

Among the many mind boggling things to contemplate is the fact that the Russian aristocracy didn’t just have one enormous and opulently decorated and designed palace. They had several of them; each one elaborate and ornate. In fact Catherine actually put a halt to all the gold being used to decorate her palace that had […]

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Three Days in St Petersburg

The Summer Palace, Peterhof, Russia It would take years to see all there is to see in St Petersburg; actually it would take years just to see just the important stuff. So we picked our spots and saw all we could, including the winter and summer palaces. This post includes photos taken at the summer […]

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Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki, with the highest urban standard of living in the world, is, not surprisingly, one of the most livable cities in the world. It is refreshingly clean; the architecture is magnificent; the city is very walkable and friendly to tourists. With its metropolitan area population of 1.25 million people it is the third largest municipality […]

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Stockholm, Sweden

We are back from traveling through the nordic countries for a couple of weeks, with Stockholm being the first stop. Stockholm is an extraordinarily beautiful (and clean) city. As are the other nordic cities we visited, as it turns out.  It is a vibrant city, and with a population of just under 1 million people, […]

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