Travel
Japan, and 30 Days of Paris
I adore guide-books. Not, please, the flavorless modern versions, little more than well-digested lists of places to see and hours of opening. No, I mean the traditional guides written by those who have truly Been There. I use guides from the 1920s as an entree into the time and place I’m writing about, but frankly,…
Read MoreThe covered market
One of the chief reasons I always stay within striking distance of Oxford when I come to England for a few weeks is the Covered Market. The Market is a Victorian glass cover over a hive of shops, from carrots to watches, shoes to fresh pasta, coffee to cheese. It’s where I head if I…
Read MoreEngland the tease
England is such a tease. When I arrived here, it was the hottest weather since, well, the last hot weather. Which in England isn’t exactly a treat, since the houses are designed more for trapping the air inside than for letting any faint breeze pass through. And as you might imagine, a hot spell of…
Read MoreThe English conundrum
When I travel, I prefer actually settling down in a place for a week or six rather than camping out in hotels. Yes, hotels are nice for providing services like hot and cold running meal delivery, after which one heaves the tray into the hallway rather than dealing with dirty dishes, but one misses so…
Read MoreRural Japan
One of our goals for the trip was to see something of rural Japan, since the previous (and only) time my traveling companions came here, they sought picturesque villages and found cities of 400,000. Well, we got rural. We’re on the island of Shikoku, home of the 88 temples of pilgrimage (I’ve managed to check…
Read MoreThe Kindness of Strangers
A traveller depends on the kindness of strangers, in the 21st century as in the first. And when said traveller lacks the forethought to have learned the local tongue, and finds him or herself in a situation not covered by the handy Book of Phrases, the kindness of strangers is the only salvation between the…
Read MoreIn Japan!
I write this from Okayama, Japan, having first flown 3000 miles east from California to give a talk to the assembled masses at the fabulous Syracuse library in New York: thank you, everyone who invited me, and all of you wh turned out to hear me. I can only hope my voice did not…
Read MoreColin Fletcher made me do it
When I was in high school in the late sixties, a book came out that changed the world of backpacking. These were the early days of REI, when that company was run out of a smallish house in s Seattle suburb, and a person could wander the rooms in a glorious fantasy of compact tents,…
Read MoreGo, Lisbon! (Go, Pirates!)
I’m in Lisbon today, or at any rate, I’m over at Go Lisbon! talking about my time in Lisboa. Do drop by for a visit to one of my favorite cities.
Read MoreThe greatest trip, ever (5)
Meredith Taylor, in LewTrenchard, Devon: We then went on to the Church of St. Peter in Lew Trenchard just next door, which is small and lovely. W.S. Baring-Gould, grandson of SBG, compiled the first annotation of the complete Holmes that I ever owned. On his account I took a picture of the memorial plaque to…
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