travel more. experience more. live more.
Naples is authentic. I think that word might get thrown around too much these days without meaning. Where other city’s historic cores have been taken over by souvenir shops, tourist restaurants, and designer brand shopping, old Naples remains very residential and commercial only with mom and pop butcher shops and groceries, pizzerias, café/bars, pastry shops, [...] Read more »
Orvieto is Umbria’s imposing hill town. You won’t notice much, pulling in on the train. The city is perched a thousand feet up on a piece of volcanic tuff rock. You’ll need to take the funicular up the hillside to reach the city. Orvieto is an easy day trip from Rome. But it’s better [...] Read more »
Nikiszowiec Historic Working-class Housing Nikiszowiec was built as housing for miners between the years 1908 to 1919. It’s a district in the city of Katowice, in Silesia, in the southwest of Poland. The densely populated region is rich in resources and is heavily industrialized. It’s not the type of place you would read about in your [...] Read more »
“We’re all related, but we’re not inbred.” Gunnar told us as he drove the van back towards Reykjavik after a full day of touring South Iceland. It was one of the many quotes and anecdotes he told that day to entertain our small group and try to give us a picture of the Icelandic [...] Read more »
You can’t see the Northern Lights from Reykjavik. On the rare occasion that you can, you need to view them from a particular spot when they are particularly active. But it’s not like seeing them outside of Iceland’s 200,000-inhabitant strong capital. So that’s why we drove off with Erich, a Canadian we meet at Reykjavik [...] Read more »
A Walking Food Tour of Rome If the first thing we think about Rome is ancient ruins of the former Roman civilization, the second is food. Italy has a love affair with food like no other country in Europe. Shared meals are cherished and food preparation is practically a religion. Italians appreciate the subtleties of [...] Read more »
I’ve long spoken of the beauty of Florence, and traveling back a second time only confirmed the belief I held after my first visit five years ago. I’m not the only one. For most of the year, Florence bulges with tourists and foreign students studying abroad. Whether you are inside the Uffizi Gallery, the Bargello, [...] Read more »
When it was time to leave Olomouc, an under-appreciated city in eastern Czech Republic, I had an idea. Instead of going directly to Prague, why not take advantage of our Eurail passes and detour to another city before reaching Prague? I was a little disappointed having not been able to visit Bratislava during our three-day [...] Read more »
When travel seems to go wrong It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. We were supposed to stop in a small town in the foothills of the Tatra Mountains of Slovakia, rest for few days, work on our laptops, and enjoy some tasty Slovak food. So how did we end up in a pseudo-hostel sandwiched [...] Read more »
I’ve always said that I travel to see how people are living. I’m curious to see what places are like and what people do there. I want to feel the atmosphere of cities and the quiet of the open countryside. As I travel, I also visit the museums and famous landmarks. It would be foolish not [...] Read more »
The road to Can Rigall twists and turns its way 800 meters up from the valley floor and the village of Arles-sur-Tech. It had been a long journey up to this point. Our bus from Girona dropped us off at the toll both alongside the highway instead of the Le Boulou bus station. After a [...] Read more »
One of the novelties of traveling in Europe is the density of small countries and the ability to pass through most of them with absolutely no border controls. The small size of the countries also makes it not uncommon to allow the traveler to pass through more than one of these countries in the [...] Read more »
We were recommended to stop in Wroclaw Poland by several people. These recommendations were based on the notion that we’d enjoy a pleasant city with nice architecture and an interesting history with a near-absence of tourists. The recommendations were right on. Pretty soon, people other than Poles and a few Germans will be visiting Wroclaw [...] Read more »
I mentioned before in a post about Tampere, Finland that I’m inspired by industrial landscapes. Rail yards definitely fit that bill. When we pulled out of Wroclaw Main I had my camera ready. Although the station looked newly remodeled, the train itself was a classic. This five-hour journey through southern Poland reminded me of my [...] Read more »
From Vilnius, Lithuania, an eight hour bus ride got us to Warsaw Poland. I thought I would be overwhelmed and intimidated by the Polish capital, but I can say that neither was true. Our time was limited and we stuck mostly to the center and the Old Town. Warsaw has an interesting past and a [...] Read more »
Paris, Barcelona, Vienna and Riga, Latvia. What do all these cities have in common? They are all world centers of Art Nouveau architecture. In the late 19th and early 20th when the architectural period blossomed, Riga was part of Imperial Russia. Today, more than a third of the buildings in the Central district are built [...] Read more »
As I walked the cobbled-stone streets of old Tallinn, Estonia, I couldn’t help but notice the colorful and sometimes decorative front doors. Many were painted multiple bright colors, some just featured wooden patters, and others had metal work. Tallinn has one of the best-preserved medieval towns in Northern Europe. It’s an easy trip from Helsinki [...] Read more »
I’m inspired by old industrial landscapes. One of the best I’ve seen is in central Tampere Finland. Since they’re not in use anymore, the smokestacks are not belching out black smoke and toxins, but have been refurbished for multiple uses and stand as a reminder of Tampere’s industrial past. I normally don’t publish a lot [...] Read more »