Buongiorno from the beautiful Italian region of Le Marche.  This is an area I have not yet explored much of so I have been discovering new sites, drinking the wine and relaxing after a busy two weeks in the USA. My time there was a whirlwind of packing, shopping, and driving from Colorado to Memphis to move my daughter to college. My son is also now settled at his school in Colorado so I have returned to once again being an “empty-nester”.  

As we traveled across the country we visited the homes of author Laura Ingalls Wilder, a childhood favorite of mine, and I reflected back on the places I have visited based on historical feminine figures that I have read and studied about.  In visiting the places they called home you can truly picture them; what they saw, how they felt, what they experienced.  In planning itineraries around one’s interests, including history, it creates an even more dynamic experience. 

From a very young age I have been obsessed with history

I credit Laura Ingalls Wilder with sparking that interest when I began reading her books as a young girl. As an “Air Force Brat” we moved a lot and I would find comfort in reading, losing myself in the adventure and stories of women who left their mark on history.  

Overtime I devoured historical non-fiction from all time periods and from across the world.  As an adult I have planned vacations to walk in the footsteps of those I read about to discover what their life was truly like.  

Here are just a few of the places you too can visit:

• Queen Elizabeth I of England. Childhood home of Hatfield and other numerous castles throughtout England. 
• Queen Anne Boleyn, 2nd wife of Henri VIII. Childhood home of Hever Castle and site of her beheading at the Tower of London. 
• Anne of Cleves, 4th wife of Henri VIII.  Childhood home at Burg Castle near Cologne, Germany. 
• Maria von Trapp, made famous by the movie Sound of Music. The family’s home is located outside Salzburg, Austria
• Sacagawea, guide and interpreter for Louis and Clark. Follow her trail from Idaho to Fort Clatsop near Astoria, Oregon. 
• Caterina Sforza, the “Tigress of Forli” who famously stood up to Cesare Borgia at the fortress in Forli. 
• Mary, Queen of Scots and Catherine de’ Medici, 17th Century queens of France. Numerous chateaus located in the Loire Valley and in Paris. 
• Eleanor of Aquitaine, 12th Century Queen of France then England. Burial site at Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud, France.
• Anne Frank, who hid from the Nazis for two years before being caught and dying in the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. You can visit the annex where the family hid in Amsterdam. 

The Hills are Alive

Just outside Salzburg you can visit the Villa Trapp where Maria met and married Baron Georg Freiherr von Trapp. Here they raised his six children from a previous marriage and two children with Maria. They lived here until 1938 when they escaped the Nazi’s to move to Vermont. The house was then occupied by the Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, as his summer residence.