Travel
October 25, 2009
- Today marks St. Crispin’s Day -- a commemoration of two saints, actually: Crispin and Crispinian. According to tradition both men were shoemakers who were martyred at Soissons at the end of the 3rd century. But I don’t generally think of shoes or shoemakers on this day... I think of one of my favorite high school teachers. In the pantheon of teachers who shaped me into the woman I am ...
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October 24, 2009
- The dream now: a small cottage in a Tuscan village with the freedom to write all day with the inspiring backdrop of Italy behind me, my husband returning from his teaching duties with his arms full of wine and fresh Italian bread. The reality where the dream was born: Tuscany, Italy. The date: 2007...a trip several years in the making. My father, a good friend, and a tour group of eclectic ...
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October 22, 2009
- Today the most difficult decision I have to make is whether I should sit on the alabaster beach and watch the tide crash over a colony of corral reef that I discovered on an earlier dive, or join a group of rowdy tourists on a short boat ride out to the middle of the ocean for the sole purpose of jumping into lukewarm water with hundreds of wild stingrays. I sip the strong coffee contemplating ...
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October 21, 2009
- "Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels he belongs." Okay, so I'm not a man--but W. Somerset Maugham's words reflect the way I felt when I first arrived as an exchange student in Seville, Spain more than 25 years ago. I lived in the oldest part of the city, staying with two forty-something sisters named Ana and Paqui who shared an apartment with their ...
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October 20, 2009
- words, ideas, thoughts arise and dissolve before i sit to write. i will write that, i imagine, but somehow the moment shifts, time collapses and the paper bears no marki have returned from my past back to the present and discovered they are one and the same. my trip was more than, better than i could ever have anticipated. the days flowed seamlessly, there was love, joy, rain and sunshine, wind ...
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October 14, 2009
- Author Donna Leon pens delicious mysteries -- all set in Venice and all centered on the delightful detective Guido Brunetti. Ms. Leon, an American, spent her early adulthood traveling the world as a teacher, but she settled in Venice and has lived there for decades. Her books are international bestsellers and are translated into 20 languages, but they were not readily available in the United ...
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October 14, 2009
- You know the reputation. "Swiss" isn't a nationality. It's really an adjective meaning highly organized and perhaps even a little too punctilious. That's a myth. The place is just like the Middle East... (Look, I write fiction, but I may be onto something. Read on.)On my recent reading tour, I stopped in Basel as a guest of the superb Literaturhaus Basel. Everyone told me to go the ...
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October 13, 2009
October 12, 2009
- I am not sure if you’ve ever been booed out of an Irish pub. If you haven’t had this experience, I would recommend you avoid it, especially if your trip to Ireland includes a stay in a small village, where there are limited numbers of pubs which you may frequent. Because once you have to leave the local watering hole in shame, word will travel throughout the town, and it will travel ...
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October 12, 2009
- Reading in anticipation of a trip is one of my greatest pleasures. As I've been preparing for my trip to Venice, here are a few books I've been reading lately... Guide Books DK Eyewitness Top 10 Venice by Gillian Price The DK books are heavy on photos and strip the text down to the essentials. However, I like the thematic approach to Top 10 Venice. Using the lists you could spend a day ...
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