One of the reasons that I travel is to learn.  I think most people who enjoy traveling would say the same thing.  Our world is large and varied, fascinating and wonderful.  I find that the more I travel the more I want to learn.  My husband and I talk frequently about “going down the rabbit hole.”  When one of us is researching something on the internet and one fact leads us to look up another and another. We can sometimes find that an hour has passed.  We started out entering a question about voter registration into a search engine and suddenly, we are studying medicines in the year 1750.  We call this “going down the rabbit hole.”  It can be like that with travel sometimes.  For example, a few years ago, he was in western Germany for work.  We were looking at the map and saw which countries were nearby.  We wondered about a day trip over the border.  Before we knew it, we were researching Belgium and the multiple cool cultures contained there.  It led to a four-day side trip to Bruges and Brussels.  Regular readers will recognize my love of Bruges from a previous post.

Despite how much research you complete or how many times you go down the rabbit hole, life can surprise you.  Our wonderful world can, and definitely will, surprise you.  Locals have often told us about unique places we should see and unexpected facts about the area that we would never have guessed.  In that spirit, here are my top four favorite travel surprises (so far).

1. Savannah, Georgia – Congregation Mickve Israel

If someone had asked me to name some of the oldest Jewish Congregations in America, I would not have been able to name specific ones.  I would, without a doubt, have named cities like New York City.  That just seems obvious to me.  Doesn’t it to you?  Immigrant populations who founded this nation in its earlier days often came through Ellis Island in New York City.  In fact, my own family did just that.  (Thanks, great-granddad, Morris). 

Therefore, I was astounded on a hot and humid summer vacation to Savannah, Georgia to learn that the third oldest Jewish congregation in America is there.  Georgia? Really?  Congregation Mickve Israel was founded in 1733 by mostly Spanish and Portuguese immigrants.  Their current sanctuary was built in 1878 and is a very rare example of gothic architecture being used on a synagogue. Conde Nast Traveler even named it one of the top 15 most beautiful synagogues in the world.  The best part is that it is open to the public for tours. 

2. Colorado Springs, Colorado – Garden of the Gods

I spent my honeymoon in Phoenix, Arizona, so I have been to the desert.  I have seen the ancient and colorful red rock formations.  I have been awed by geology and Mother Nature.  I expected rock formations in the desert.  I did not expect them in Colorado.  Perhaps I am naïve but, when I think of Colorado, I think of forests, hiking trails and lots of ski slopes.  Several years ago, I spent the week before Thanksgiving in Denver.  While there, a local mentioned Garden of the Gods to me.  I was immediately intrigued.

One hour south of Denver is Colorado Springs. There you will find Garden of the Gods Park.  This park is a National Natural Landmark and is well worth a visit.  There are 21 miles of hiking trails to explore, a visitor’s center and guided walking tours are available too.  Some of the rock formations are 300 feet tall.  We explored on our own for hours.  Every trail led to an even better photo opportunity and we just couldn’t stop clicking away! 

3. Trieste, Italy – Risiera di San Sabba

The next big travel surprise is not a happy one but, it was an educational one all the same.  We have all learned about World War II and the Holocaust in school.  I am not a WWII history buff.  I know the basics and, even though I knew The Third Reich’s evil empire spread quite far, I still fell prey to certain misconceptions.  When I thought of the Holocaust, I thought of Germany and Poland first with a little France thrown in there as an afterthought. 

A couple of years ago, while on a lengthy trip to northeast Italy, I came face-to-face with my first Holocaust site.  I will go on record as saying that the choice of whether or not to visit any Holocaust site is a deeply personal one.  My husband and I have discussed many times whether or not we wanted to do so.  In the end, we decided that our generation needs to remember.  We do not want the truth of what happened to fade away.  We chose, very deliberately, to dedicate a day in our travels to the Risiera di San Sabba in Trieste, Italy.

When the Nazi forces occupied northern Italy, they repurposed a rice factory into a concentration camp. The factory was used for evil purposes beginning in 1943.  Prisoners were held at this location until being transported to either Auschwitz-Birenkau or they were executed in onsite gas chambers.  In 1945, as Allied forces approached, the Nazis intentionally blew up the crematoriums to hide their deeds.

Today, the site is a powerful museum with an audio-tour available in many languages.  It is free to visit.  After you have visited the prison cells and other key locations, there is a good museum with interesting artifacts.   I estimate that you could spend anywhere between one hour and three hours inside depending on how much time you want to spend in quiet contemplation. We must never forge

4. Georgia/Tennessee state line – Rock City

Like many Americans, I had heard of Rock City.  I knew it was a very old tourist attraction.  While I didn’t know what it actually consisted of, I assumed it was a cheap and cheesy tourist trap that was intended to easily part a fool and his money.  I was so wrong!  I am eating crow!

If you look at a map, it is so close to the state line that it can be hard to tell if it is in Georgia or Tennessee.  Rock City is located on Lookout Mountain in Georgia.  It is also a mere six miles from downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Rock City opened in 1932 and is famous for its barn advertising.  In the beginning, the owners painted barns with the “See Rock City” slogan.  It was a cheap and effective way to catch the eye of people driving through the region.  The ad campaign expanded over the years and by 1969 the slogan-painted barns could be seen in 19 different states.  Someone created bird houses made to look like the red-black-white barn design and that just helped to expand the ad campaign because now visitors could take a piece of rural America home with them.  Eight decades later, the barns and birdhouses are now iconic symbols of a quintessentially American tourist attraction.

Tickets for the attraction begin at $21.95 per adult and go up from there.  More expensive tickets include combined admission to other nearby attractions such as, Ruby Falls or an incline railway that chugs to the top of a mountain.

My husband and I spent an entire day here and weren’t bored for a second.  It was so beautiful; we didn’t know where to look first.  We followed trails that led through caves and up to the summits of waterfalls.  We crossed chasms on dangling bridges and hiked to the edges of cliffs.  None of the walking was too strenuous, even for the beginners that we are.

Our day of hiking concluded with a visit to the quirkiest part of Rock City.  There really don’t seem to be adjectives appropriate to describe it.  In the 1940’s, a woman named Frieda Utermoehlen Carter, who was fond of fairy tales decided to create a lasting shrine to them.  So, in one area, rather than leave the landscape natural (as it has been left throughout most of the park), she commissioned a sculptor to create an underground fantasyland.  Subterranean Disneyland?  It is equal parts charming, silly, pointless and eerie.  It is admirable that the woman dedicated so much time and money to something that she loved, but the area is also the stuff of which nightmares are made.  I think I will let the photos speak for themselves at this point.

As I said, travel surprises can be wonderfully memorable for a host of reasons and they can render you speechless for just as many reasons.

Have you had a happy surprise while travelling?  Did you stumble on a place that you now believe everyone should see?  Did you plan a quick trip somewhere, get sucked in and end up spending days there instead? Share the travel joy in the comments below.