It is not often that a toilet and a tea ceremony form perfect metaphors for the culture of a country, but so it is in Japan. The toilet falls into the realm of delightful personal discoveries – albeit all of them in the hotel bathroom of the Kyoto Park Hotel.
The Palladian Traveler lurks in the shadows while attempting to solve a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma as he files a series of new dispatches from St. Petersburg and Moscow.
It’s almost impossible not to fall under the spell of this dreamscape where round, domed houses known as trulli rise from gentle hillsides. Alberobello will make you feel like you’ve stepped into the pages of a fairy tale, but this small town in Italy’s southeastern Puglia region is decidedly of this world, fashioned from limestone, surrounded by centuries-old vineyards and olive groves, and home to 11,000 residents.
Last month many in Europe, and possibly others around the world, celebrated the 75th Anniversary of June 6th, 1944, when the Allies invaded Normandy in France to begin WW2’s liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny. As a result of this 2019 Anniversary of the 1944 invasion, newspapers, television shows, magazines, and the media in general, were filled with photos of that June 6th day in 1944, along with remembrances by the few remaining WW2 military that – amazingly – are still with us.
The attractive Catalan language drifts through Barcelona, an ancient port city built atop Roman ruins with bits and pieces of 4th century architecture proudly standing tall amidst the mad crush of 21st century tourism. With its countless tree-lined streets and glorious architecture, Barcelona appears to have been blessed by a goddess from the World of Art who draped her large silk scarf over the city to ensure an artistic bent.
Enjoying a cruise today is noticeably different than those my wife and I did some 25 years ago. That reality was dramatically in evidence when we took a Princess cruise earlier this year, and the memories we experienced “back then,” still color my thoughts today. In the 1970s research shows that about 500,000 people took a cruise every year. In the cruise industry today (2019) the cruise business has grown considerably.
At age 52, Tulasi Shrestha, whose parents wouldn’t let her attend school because she was a girl, is finally learning to read. Shikha Gauchan, after receiving training on a computer, has vastly increased her business to foreign trekkers by promoting her guesthouse on Facebook. Children who once couldn’t pass the entrance exams to further their education have so excelled that the community built a secondary-level school to accommodate them.
Three days were not long enough. Nevertheless, when I had an opportunity to visit Buenos Aires, Argentina, I jumped at the chance. As soon as I climbed into a cab, I was immediately awestruck by the city’s wide boulevards, grandiose monuments, rolling parks and distinctive neighborhoods of somewhat faded glory.
Nothing against the plains or oceans, but if you want to hypnotize a kid with nature, go for three-dimensional spaces with high vertical, try the Bugs – Canada’s Bugaboos – one of the continent’s premiere hiking and climbing arenas.
Driving through the mountains of Bosnia, it’s easy to become enchanted by the verdant beauty of this little visited Balkan country. It’s also easy to forget it’s one of Europe’s poorest countries, and that through the 1990’s, it was torn by the worst ethnic warfare Europe has seen since the Second World War.
