I spent a night in a 19th century prison in Beziers, a town in southern France. Fortunately, the prison — once home to a guillotine last used in 1949 — has been repurposed to accommodate visitors in this medieval city in southern France. It’s called La Prison Hotel for good
Zadar, a small city on the coast of Croatia, boasts it is home to the “tastiest tuna in the world.” It IS very good; in fact, it was far and away my favorite among an assortment of five seafood dishes that comprised most of a dinner (actually, banquet) staged last
Stockholm has lots of islands and lots of enticing museums. This past summer a travel companion and I spent a few days getting acquainted with a few of each. Parts of Sweden's capital were built on 14 islands, located on the east coast of Sweden. Most tourist visits center on
It was my first trip to Asia and my first day in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital. After hotel check-in, I made a beeline to the traditional market area. I walked among temples, big sculptures, numerous ceremonial sites — and an awfully lot of people. The crowds kept growing with folks gathering
The dictionary defines a fjord as “a narrow inlet of the sea between cliffs or steep slopes.” That’s a precise but inadequate collection of words when measured against the real thing on the west coast of Norway. The numerous fjords that turn Norway’s coast into a jagged line are routinely,
Our tour guide said that Bergen, a port city on the west coast of Norway, has attracted outsiders for centuries, both as traders and settlers. Then she made the point with her own story: Although our guide was born and raised in Bergen of Norwegian forebears, she said DNA
The Grandhotel Pupp, in the Czech Republic’s Karlovy Vary, dates to 1701; however, the two main buildings that one sees, and sleeps in, date from the late-19th century heyday of Czech spa towns — and a time when Karlovy Vary was called Carlsbad. The hotel section now referred to as
My recent itinerary to the Czech Republic opened and closed with stays in Prague, in two hotels opened just this spring and located across a tiny square from one another. Further, they are only a couple of blocks from the Powder Gate Tower and a short additional walk away from
Travel and 2020 are mutually exclusive concepts. Except for skiing (driving between New York and Vermont), I went nowhere this year. By now, I entertain myself with old travel photos. I am taken with the fact we humans treat architectural blank spaces like vacuums, filling them with artwork or just
In September 2020, organizers of Rio de Janeiro’s official carnival parade canceled the annual event, set for February 2021, leaving the nature of the carnival itself in flux. The parade will be back (like my travel plans), but no one knows when. As it happens, I was in Rio in
