My to-date photographic portfolio of Cinque Terre on these pages is the extreme example of “outsourcing” photo hosting to external services. I included a single picture of each village in the summary WH post, and revisited that only a couple of times within the intermittent “Postcards from” series (one picture…
One of my children has spent a few days in Florence this spring. Me, I haven’t been back there for over a dozen years now. My last visit took place right around the time that I rediscovered interest in photography. However, back then, my standard M.O. was to post minimal…
Þingvellir National Park (the first character in the name denotes the Icelandic unvoiced “th”, hence the frequently transliterated spelling of Thingvellir) is inscribed on the World Heritage list for cultural criteria: it is the place where the Icelandic Parliament was founded in 930 CE. The Althing (or Alþingi, if you…
My flight back home was leaving in the afternoon, and with a few hours to kill before that, I always planned to add another tick to my World Heritage visited roster. It is a non-trivial drive from Milan to Ivrea and then back to Malpensa airport, but on a rainy…
From the late 15th century on through the early 18th century, Northern Italy built a number of sanctuaries as alternative places of worship in Europe to the Holy Land, which was becoming increasingly difficult for pilgrims to access owing to the rapid expansion of Islamic control over the Middle East.…
As I’ve been to Northern Italy many times in the past, I had covered most of the primary World Heritage destinations across Lombardy and Veneto on different trips. This most recent trip was about catching up on some of the lesser-known WH properties. One of them was the serial site…
You probably heard me say on these pages on several occasions that my traveling preferences are to explore places that I’ve never been to before. The most recent example was my sort of lament about the dearth of new discoveries on travels during the last year. And practically in the…
Genoa does not loom large in the imagination of visitors to Italy as a must-see destination. Even as far as Liguria goes, you are most likely to prioritize seeing Cinque Terre or Portofino before setting your sights on the region’s capital city. That goes some way to explain how, in…
Aside from a day trip to Turin several years ago, Piedmont has not featured on my itineraries in the past. This time around, I made plans to see a few of the highlights of the region. The first destination was the World Heritage property of the Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont.…
My plans for the Italian trip in November included a bunch of World Heritage sites that are accessible from Milan on day trips. A couple aligned with visits to interesting cities that I have not managed to visit before. A couple revolved around more rural destinations that were off the…
There was a period of time about a decade ago when I packed a tripod into my luggage. The rationale for that was “just in case” for those singular occasions when I might decide to take after-sunset or before-sunrise set of pictures. Long-exposure photography would improve the output. Which, for…
In my obviously unbiased opinion, Versailles is a must-see in one’s lifetime (and, of course, it is a World Heritage site). But it is frequently unbearably overcrowded. And, being the early inspiration of grand royal residences, it is exceeded in splendor by some of its imitators, so if you’ve been…
One of the activities that should not be skipped when in Paris is getting on a boat for an hour-long cruise on the Seine. I have probably done it a dozen times by now – and almost always after the fall of darkness. Your mileage will certainly vary, but I…
One of the most famous creations of human ingenuity, the Eiffel Tower has been a dominating feature of the Parisian skyline since 1889. Initially meant as the temporary signature piece of the World Fair that year and roundly criticized by the intellectual elite, it quickly turned into a permanent cultural…
When it comes to selecting one sight you don’t want to miss, my Parisian choice may feel counterintuitive. In a city known world over for its architectural marvels and superb art collections, most visitors would make the Louvre, or the Notre-Dame, or the Eiffel Tower their unmissable attraction. And yet…
If you have been reading these pages for a number of years, you must have, in the past, come across my professed love for Paris. Our visits to this great city have become rather infrequent in recent times, but the affection remains in full force. When it comes to “there…
In our years living in London, we never prioritized a visit to the British seat of government, the Westminster Palace. Of the various reasons for shunning it in the past, none stand up to scrutiny, so I’ll refrain from offering an explanation. It is part of a World Heritage site…
I finished my old Tower of London entry with a statement of intent to build a better portfolio of it on future visits. Quite a few years came and went by before I had a chance to do that. On the recent trip to London, the Tower was near the…
The village of Hollókő, a bit over an hour northeast of Budapest by car, is recognized on the World Heritage list as a living example of rural life prior to the 20th-century agricultural advances. Something that is 300 years old and deliberately well-preserved would always pique my interest, and the…
Although my November trip to Hungary was primarily meant for closer re-acquaintance with the nation’s capital, I wanted to take a couple of days to drive around the country and explore a few places beyond Budapest. Limitations of distances and daylight meant that I could only fit in a handful…