“Italy will return to the splendors of Rome, said the major. I don’t like Rome, I said. It is hot and full of fleas. You don’t like Rome? Yes, I love Rome. Rome is the mother of nations. I will never forget Romulus suckling the Tiber. What? Nothing. Let’s all go to Rome. Let’s go […]

Bob is going on a walking tour where he will learn how the Renaissance Medici family ruled and held onto their city as an independent state for three centuries in face of pressure from the Papacy and how they commissioned some of the greatest art in the western world. He will learn about the political […]

Well, we are in Florence, by serendipity, on April 5, 2002. By that I mean that we were on the train from Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera headed to Siena when we realized we would be going through Florence to get there. I had actually been pulling for Assisi where my favorite saint is […]

In Barcelona we stayed in the Lower Barri Gotic area at Hotel Peninsular at Carrer Sant Pau, 34. Two single beds; sink; window opens into central court; very clean and nice bathroom and shower down the hall; towels, soap, toilet paper even. The hotel was on a narrow side street off the Rhumba or main […]

In the train, before crawling into my compartment, I stood out in the hall and had a great conversation with a bright energetic young Brit (Richard) attending Cambridge. He had been traveling by himself on college break all through Morocco. (There were thousands of European students on college break traveling all over Europe during this […]

The next day, we spent the day in Marrakech waiting for our favorite night train back to Tangiers. I spent all afternoon at the Ali Hotel Internet Cafe while Bob went out walking through the city again. Ate dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Square. Bob had great beef stew with onions and raisons. I […]

We took an excursion trip south and east past incredible green terraced fields and old Berber kasbahs (ancient Moroccan self-contained communities made out of the rust colored mud of the countryside)-seemingly idyllic-to the Atlas Mountains. Our group consisted of Bob and I, a young couple from New Zealand in their thirties-one a computer/internet analyst and […]

Founded in 1070–72 by the Almoravids, the Medina of Marrakesh remained a political, economic and cultural centre for a long period. Its influence was felt throughout the western Muslim world, from North Africa to Andalusia. It has several impressive monuments dating from that period: the Koutoubiya Mosque, the Kasbah, the battlements, monumental doors, gardens, etc. […]

I think it is more difficult to ignore your own cultural filters when in a country similar to yours-for example-Europe as to America. There is a tendency to want to think that everything about a culture and a country is wonderful, which of course isn’t honest. If someone visiting the U.S. told me they thought […]

From Seville we took a bus to Algeciras on the south coast of Spain and saw hundreds of windmills that reminded Bob of Don Quijote. In Algeciras we took the ferry to Tangier. The man next to me on the bus made the sign of the cross as we pulled out of the station (apparently […]

In Seville, found a charming pension-the Hospedaje Monreal at Calle Rodrigo Caro, in Barria de Santa Cruz-about a block from the cathedral right in the middle of maze-like Barrio Santa Cruz with its hundreds of tapas bars on narrow windy streets. The room was three flights up-no lift. In European hotels, btw, the first floor […]

Spanish trains have compartments with room for six people. Luckily ours had two young Swiss girls that we recruited, a young guy from Japan that was studying Spanish in Salamanca for a few months but going to Portugal for a break, a guy from France and us. I remembered that when my friend Barbara and […]

I just walked out of the jaw-dropping Cathedral in the beautiful old city of Salamanca a few minutes ago. Made Notre Dame in Paris look pretty tame. And there are several cathedrals in Salamanca! The city, named Cultural City of Europe, feels like you woke up one morning in the medieval age. There is hardly […]

In the hotel in Paris at breakfast one morning. I struck up a conversation with a woman that wasn’t speaking French to the waiter and she had avoided talking to me. I guessed that she might be English or Scandinavian and most Sacandinavians speak English. It turned out she was from Poland but knew English […]

From the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower, from the Place de la Concorde to the Grand and Petit Palais, the evolution of Paris and its history can be seen from the River Seine. The Cathedral of Notre-Dame and the Sainte Chapelle are architectural masterpieces while Haussmann’s wide squares and boulevards influenced late 19th- and 20th-century […]

Last night we were walking to the theater and a guy sitting on the sidewalk against a building waiting for the bus after work called out and asked if we were tourists. I turned and smiled and said yes. He said “Americans?” I shook my head yes. He shouted “I could tell by the way […]

We didn’t realize that our neighborhood was “hip” until we were sitting in our hotel/bar in Notting Hill a couple days ago and I noticed a newspaper clipping pinned up on the wall above me with a picture of Clinton standing at the same bar with local beer in hand. He and 9 presidential guards […]

Bob circles the holy mountain. For the story and pictures of his experience go here. Bob mentioned that when he did his Kora (trip) around the holy mountain of Kailesh in Tibet you always knew who the Jains were because they circumnavigated the mountain clockwise and the Hindus and the Buddhists walked around counter-clockwise. The belief […]

While Bob was on a climbing trip to Nepal, I traveled with friend Patty Gutierrez to Patty’s father’s tiny village of Tamazula de Gordiano south of Guadalajara and on to the beach at Manzanillo. Over the years, Bob and I have taken several other trips to Guadalajara, Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende, Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta […]

Bob climbs mountains in Nepal, including Everest base camp, on two different occasions…in 1998 and in 2000. I’m waiting for him to tell his own story. He likes layovers in Bangkok especially. The cultural heritage of the Kathmandu Valley is illustrated by seven groups of monuments and buildings which display the full range of historic […]