June 2016 Ancient vs Old I had blundered upon an archeological dig on the fringes of modern Salalah [see: Al Baleed, Salalah]. After...

July 2019 Nitra is a city in western Slovakia, situated at the foot of Zobor Mountain in the valley of the river Nitra. It is located 95...

February 2001 After a very long boat ride through the Chilean fjords of Patagonia - a very similar trip to the Inside Passage of Canada...

February 1990 slow learner My favorite part of the Sunday New York Times was the Travel Section and I anxiously awaited it each week. ...

July 2019 I had watched the late afternoon glow on the Charles Bridge and then die as the lights slowly re-illuminated the statues of the...

April 2019 The first visit to the Hofburg in 1987 I was amazed. That initial trip to Europe was a series of "wow" moments, but also...

April 1998 The Forbidden City Only foreigners call the Palace Museum the "Forbidden City". To the Chinese it is the "Palace Museum" in...

June 2019 Transformation of meanings A word I came to know while working in the Middle East was "corniche". Clearly a French word, I...

Bazaar June 2016 A very strange set of circumstances led me to As Salt. It all started in Diriyah, Riyadh on a visit with AQ when we...

January 2020 over-renovated On my trip to Valencia, one of the day trips planned was to Sagunto to see its Roman amphitheatre. The trip...

July 2017 I was day tripping into Amsterdam from Amersfoort, seeing chunks of the city as time and weather permitted. The day I was in...

December 2003 saved by colonialism Brian and I had come out of the misty tea mountains of Sri Lanka and headed toward beautiful Galle, a...

August 2007 Luang Prabang. The only thing we knew about it was that it had a lot of old temples. That would have been the...

July 2019 I decided to explore Pilsen after my delicious beer and lunch on the town square [see: Plzeň]. The old city center was not...

City Hall Bridge over the Danube to Komárom, Hungary Nádvorie Európy. July 2019 vestiges of an empire Komárno was an easy day trip by...

June 2018 [from FB post: June 22, 2016] Hope At the beach on the Dead Sea. Everyone is wearing what they want, doing what they like, and...

Darsait Viewpoint Qurm Beach Qurm Natural Park Qurm Natural Park Qurm Natural Park. March 2016 [from FB post: March 11, 2016] Muscat...

April 2012 Pastéis de nata Pastéis de nata were created before the 18th century by Catholic monks at the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos in the...

November 2004 My final visit to Australia was to the rarely visited "top end". We were exploring Kakadu National Park and other famous...

jungle trek Rafflesia. February 1997 We were actually staying at the swank 5-star Tanjung Aru Resort when we visited Kota Kinabalu. The...