While viewing the fantastic and seemingly-endless Jean Paul Gaultier special exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia in October; my mind traveled back to Puerto Rico. My father’s side of the family is from Borinquin and over the years, I have visited there many times.  Whether the French-born fashion maven and professional pot-stirrer has ever traveled to Puerto Rico, I can’t say. But as I viewed the products of his inventive mind, I was also thinking of the runway show of Puerto Rican fashion designer  Luis Antonio which I had seen the month previous during New York’s Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. Both… Read More…

The night I did not bring my camera with me when I went into the village of Cadaqués center for dinner, I took a side street on my way back to my hotel and found myself at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. I was here working on a story for The New York Times Travel about the painter Salvador Dali, who spend most of his life on this rock-crusted community and who depicted it in various works of art. Dali had his paintbrush, his sculptor’s’ hands. And I have little doubt the magnificent scene before me would have inspired him to create something. Without… Read More…

Ancient myths like Iceland’s Sagas continue to be told in their countries of origin because the themes are so timeless. In Hero, an Icelandic one man-show playing this summer in tourist-friendly  West Iceland, Kari Vidarsson puts a modern spin on the Saga of Bardur Snaefellsas. Haven’t heard of him? No worries, this summer for the first time, the play will be performed in English. This is great news because Kari’s interpretation of the Snaefellsas saga is a wild joy ride of cultural insight, delivered with poignancy and humor. Kari takes on the personality of a dozen characters who are part of the story of Snaefellsas, an… Read More…

  Mexico has its playas, the Caribbean its beat, but Americans are prone to overlook the charms of the neighbor to the north. I’ve already had a healthy dose of the remedy to that affliction with visits to two of Canada’s largest cities; Calgary and Vancouver. Soon, I’m off on a four day journey back across this great big land on VIA Rail, Canada’s version of the Orient Express. A full report on the train trip will follow my arrival in Toronto, but I already know it will be a far different experience from the ones I’ve had so far. While a tour by train… Read More…

The only other time my husband, Jim and I saw a whale in the wild, it was an orca that came up to our boat flashing its shiny black tail so close I gasped out loud. We were in, or I should say off the coast of Victoria, British Columbia. It was thrilling, but full disclosure, it was one whale and we’d traveled 90 minutes in very choppy waters to see it. So my expectation when boarding the Dolphin Fleet whale watching boat in Provincetown on Cape Cod last month was for a similarly look-hard-and-don’t blink experience. Wrong. Thirty-five Humpbacks, 9 North Atlantic Right Whales,… Read More…

When Jesus told his disciples, “I will make you fishers of men,” I’m pretty sure he wasn’t talking about what Ceyhun Baldan and Steve Ridvan are up to. But every night, on a bridge in Istanbul, Ceyhun and Steve and dozens of men like them toss out the bait and try to reel in the catch. Ceyhun and Steve are hawkers at Balik Noktasi, (or Fish Point in English) a seafood restaurant located on the Galata Bridge over the Bosphorus. It is one of dozens lining the lower level of the car and pedestrian crossing that offers a variety of fresh-caught fish. Each and every… Read More…

(Read part 1 of this post here) In the Franconia region of Germany the Main River separates the towns of Sommerhausen and Winterhausen. A bridge connects them. This is a metaphor for the communities themselves. They are distinctly different in a way that complements both. Winterhausen is architecturally appealing and a beautiful place to spend a few hours aimlessly exploring the twisty cobblestone streets, but the absence of public accommodations, (I counted one bakery and one pub) leads me to believe it is primarily residential – maybe a response to Sommerhausen’s outgoing “drink our wine, visit our galleries” vibe. But stroll or bike along the… Read More…

It is not my habit to visit popular tourist destinations in the high season, but here I am in Venice in August when the population of 60,000 swells to a million or more. Considering that each of us will pelt the natives with some version of this question, “Do you speak…” as a prelude to some other question, the Venetians show remarkable good spirits and enough patience to make every one of the saints adorning walls and piazzas very proud indeed. But this year, a stroke of good timing in the schedules of two of my sons, Sam and Joseph, allowed them to join my… Read More…

When I told the folks I met in Providence, last weekend, that it was my first real touristy visit to their city, even though I lived right next door in Connecticut,  they were not surprised. Seems news about the spectacular renewal in Rhode Island’s capital city skipped right over us here in the Nutmeg state.  I was told all the first time visitors from Connecticut are equally surprised. Judging from the number of people who crowded onto the walkways lining the rivers in Providence on Saturday night, everybody who is not from Connecticut already knows that tiny Providence is not-to-be-missed. Let’s start with the reason… Read More…

Tina Lassen, a travel writer from Oregon, doesn’t mince words. Frankly I think she found my behavior on board Don Chancey’s flat bottomed fishing boat too cold-blooded for her taste. This explains why she is now calling me the “salt water assassin.” We were spending a glorious Florida day fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, just a few miles off the coast of Homosassa in Citrus County where the gulf water is shallow. Don was the captain of our vessel, the Grouper Hunter and rounding out the group was the adorable and charming Peter Sacco, who writes for the travel website gonomad.com. The afternoon of… Read More…