The village of Oia enjoys incontestable top billing among Santorini sights – to the point that some travel publications caption a photograph of Oia as simply “Santorini” – but we took time to explore other parts of the island. Our intent to take a closer look at the main town…
Oia – pronounced EE-yah, the O is silent – is one of the most recognizable destinations in the world and a place that always features on the first-time itineraries of the Aegean island-hopping. The blue-domed white churches are Oia’s calling card, regularly appearing in travel publications and social media adverts.…
The terrace of our apartment on Santorini was facing west and we were able to add a pretty sunset to the incredible sunrise that we saw on Crete. In fact, the activity of sunset-watching turns the western side of the village of Oia into a madhouse, with most paths and…
This last point of interest that we explored while on Crete deserves its own blog entry in part because of the insanely beautiful mountain road that took us there. We climbed significant heights along the way, driving on an uneven one-lane road that looked deserted for miles on end. In…
Crete is a huge island, impossible to cover in much detail in less than a week’s time. We did not attempt anything of the kind. Our time on Crete was planned with a slant towards beach-going, with only a few of hours of sightseeing on any given day (including a…
The capital of Crete does not offer much in terms of must-see sights (Knossos Palace, by any measure near the top of the list of Crete attractions, has the name of Heraklion region in its address and is located a few minutes’ drive beyond the city boundaries). We budgeted only a couple…
In our two-plus weeks in Greece this past summer, we have purposefully visited 8 archaeological sites and probably saw just as many in passing. That should not be surprising to anyone, as there are few countries in the world as firmly associated with ancient civilizations as Greece. Crete was the…
You may have seen this view before, as my lovely spouse, who is significantly more active on social media than yours truly, posted her versions literally as the sun was still coming up. Me, I had to follow my usual process of deliberate cull and development, delaying this post by…
I have now reached the end of photographic narrative for our springtime trip to the French department of Dordogne and then to Paris. For those who are interested, a couple of Flickr albums have been created to consolidate the pictures from the trip, including some that I did not pick…
My opportunistic attitude towards visiting World Heritage sites was on full display on our last day in France. The town of Poissy is situated roughly half-way between Giverny and Paris, so on the way back to the capital after having thoroughly enjoyed Monet Gardens, we made a brief detour to…
Even if you are not an art enthusiast, you probably have knowledge of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies series – and may have chanced upon some of them in various art museums around the world. A real Impressionist buff has to find their way at least once to the house and…
One of my favorite movie quotes comes from Woody Allen’s ode to the French capital: That Paris exists and anyone could choose to live anywhere else in the world will always be a mystery to me. Which is a bit ironic, because as much as we love Paris, we happen…
As we are leaving Dordogne, let’s take a look at a small selection of photographs that did not have enough collective mass to support a featured essay. Actually, I might be doing Domain de Monrecour an injustice by saying that. This fantastic hotel is anchored by an eye-catching landmark of…
There are 10 Les Plus Beaux Villages de France in Dordogne, more than in any other French department. We have already seen 9. The persistent drizzle that accompanied our stop in Brantôme at the start of our last day in Dordogne kept telling us to wrap it up and drive…
The historical province of Périgord, which roughly corresponds to the modern Dordogne department, is informally divided into 4 “colors”. Our base was in the southeastern Black Périgord, where the flow of the Dordogne river is the most picturesque, and the places like Sarlat, Beynac, La Roque-Gageac, Belvès, and others are…
Castelnaud-la-Chapelle is practically a clone of Beynac-et-Cazenac – a riverside village running up the steep hill with an imposing castle as the crown. In fact, the château is said to have been erected specifically for the purposes of rivaling Château de Beynac. The village holds membership in the Prettiest Villages…
Once you’ve been to a certain number of castles, you begin to realize that aside from architectural grandiosity the ones that leave the most lasting impression are those that look livable. No matter the historical significance or the commanding position, barren walls and a sense of abandonment will render any…
Belvès is the largest of all Les Plus Beaux Villages de France in Dordogne, counting nearly 1,500 residents. We started hitting the point of diminishing returns when we visited here, as the village would surely impressed us more if we had not seen close to a dozen other places on…
Périgueux is the capital of Dordogne and of the historic province that preceded it, Périgord. It is by some distance the largest town in the region, and out appreciation of it suffered for that. The central part of Périgueux – historically called Puy-St-Front district – is attractive enough, but the…
A year ago, on a day-trip from Costa Brava, I stopped by a couple of interesting churches in order to add Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France to my collection of visited World Heritage sites. One of the biggest serial sites on the list, this property includes 78 different…