Martha Brune Rapp
QUINCY — Should you happen to be downtown today, you should take a moment to either stop by City Hall or at least slow down and take a look. There’s usually a pretty good crowd there on Monday night’s for City Council meetings as well. I’m sure many of those people will take a pause…
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(Part 4 of 4) LISBON — It is nearing 5 o’clock on a hot summer Tuesday afternoon in Lisbon. After an all-morning Portuguese cooking class with a wine-sated three-course lunch, we joined Rui, a Tours by Locals® guide who’s been giving us a private walking tour and tutorial on Portugal’s role in the slave trade…
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(Part 3 of 4) PORTO, Portugal — Call it serendipity. By pure luck rather than brilliant planning, my husband Jim, our grandson Benjamin and I arrive in Porto with our traveling companions on the morning of June 23. It’s the eve of the Feast Day of the city’s patron, São João (St. John the Baptist) and Porto’s biggest party…
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(Part 2 of 4) Our first morning on El Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James), we hiked to Roncesvalles, one of the most renowned villages in Basque Spain. I felt deeply connected to the past as we trekked along the path where Charlemagne’s army suffered its only defeat in the late eighth century.…
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(Part 1 of 4) NORTHERN SPAIN — There are as many reasons and ways to walk El Camino de Santiago (the Way of Saint James) today as there are pilgrims who trek across Europe to the purported tomb of St. James the Greater in Santiago. It wasn’t always this way. After a shepherd claimed to…
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Every life has pivotal moments. Some are over in the blink of an eye, while others span years. However long they last, these seemingly random disruptions of our expectations have one thing in common. They change everything. Serving in the U.S. Air Force during the confluence of the late-1960s Cold War years and the Vietnam…
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Situated in the Iowa River valley 25 miles northwest of Iowa City, the seven Amana Colonies are more than just another National Historic Landmark. Occupying 26,000 acres of rolling farmland, forests, and vineyards, Amana is, perhaps, the world’s geographically-largest church. Amana (which means “remain true” and is taken from the Bible’s Song of Solomon) was…
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QUINCY — It came without warning, that single glance in the mirror that left me dumbfounded. “YIKES! What on earth has happened here?” Sure. I knew I’d gained eight pounds since March 11, 2020, when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global pandemic. I knew I’d sort’ve tried to stay healthy at home, walking…
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