Raoul’s Two Cents: October 24, 2025 Frightful Passages If you don’t want to ponder, move on to the Jokes. To be relevant with the season, I wanted to talk about the big event just around the corner – Halloween! I toyed around the idea of writing about the decorations, the costumes, the history but — meh! – these themes have …

The Canary Island of Lanzarote is a UN recognized Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System and a UNESCO designated Biosphere Reserve. But I know it from a previous visit as a party island with barren lava and volcanic ash landscape and some gorgeous beaches. This trip I vowed to reconcile the world view with my own admittedly narrow tourist vision, to experience the history and culture I had missed before.

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An immaculately clean well-lit room with a 360 degree computer screen hovering around me with an endless number of browser windows --- each containing different topics, with the most relevant topic enlarged in the center.

After the Great War and during the 1920s and ‘30s, Paris was the place to be for artists and the forward-thinking avant-garde looking to etch their mark, while novelists and writers quickly recognized that it was far easier to be acknowledged by the small innovative Parisian publishing companies than to catch an editor’s eye in the States.

Okay, is there anyone who actually made it through childhood without at least a cursory introduction to Peter Rabbit, Flopsy and Mopsy and that mean old farmer McGregor? Well, this is where they lived until Beatrix caught them and immortalized them forever in little 5" by 4"-sized books.

Centuries ago, when the Lion of St. Mark roared and the known world listened, the doges and aristocrats of La Serenissima built their sprawling warm-weather estates in the countryside  that enhanced the coffers of the money-mad merchants of Venice.

Earlier this summer on my way to visit family vacationing in France, I took a 3 day side trip to Montreux just over the border from France in Switzerland. I wanted a couple of days to recover from jetlag in a nice spot and was impressed with Montreux. It helped that the weather was perfect, giving me a great opportunity to explore the city and its beautiful waterfront. I had flown into Geneva and joy of joy, I was able to pick up a train right from the airport direct to Montreux, about 1 hour away. The train ride was smooth, efficient and perfectly on time.

Nestled on the western coast of Ireland, the Aran Islands consist of three separate islands: Inishmore, Inishmann and Inishere. Located approximately seven miles from the mainland, about 30 miles from Galway City, the islands are easily accessible by ferry from Rossaveal and the musical town of Doolin in County Clare. Today, locals no longer create their own soil and reliable electricity has finally come to the Aran, but the islanders --- the most rugged-looking people that I have ever encountered --- are a hospitable group who are proud to share their history and culture with you. Tourism is now their largest form of income, and visitors come from all over the globe to experience this unique world of primitive forts, medieval churches and dramatic scenery.

TBoy photographer, Deborah Roskamp, shares pictures along the historic Nile River -- where Kings traveled and where the Hebrew race blossomed.