Romeo and Juliet may only be characters in a play, but they’ve been supporting a lucrative business in the city of Verona for quite a while. Souvenir shops sell figurines of the romantic, doomed couple and hotel ads quote Shakespeare. Tourists cluster in the courtyard under Juliet’s balcony and pose by her bronze statue, touching […]
Of all the cities in the world, there are few having more intriguing and rewarding areas than Rome’s neighborhoods. Standing proudly alongside such famous neighborhoods as the burrows of New York City and the arrondissements of Paris, the neighborhoods Rioni of Rome are filled with historic sites and museums and each has its own style […]
While I was pursuing a degree at Université de Rennes II (France) in French Studies with a specialty in Art History, I got “schooled,” French-style, by my civilization professor one day in class. “Where is Picasso’s greatest work housed?” he queried, looking me straight in the eye. I was shocked for two reasons. First, the […]
We arrived on Thursday afternoon in a raging rainstorm, flying in from Paris. It was a good flight, but landing was a little nerve-wracking because of the high winds. We stayed that night at a charming little hotel in Biarritz called the Edouard VII.
Introduction to Serbia Serbia was once the undisputed leader of the South Slav confederation that made up Yugoslavia. That region of the world was once and is now becoming again one of the most wonderful places to visit and spend a vacation. Serbia represents that movement to the fullest: a pariah in the 1990s for […]
Montpellier, the capital of Languedoc Roussillon, is less than 3 hours from Barcelona and Italy, and just minutes from the Mediterranean.
With only two hours of sleep, I arrived in Brindisi, Italy at 6am on a night train. Brindisi, located in southeast Italy, is one the final stops on the Train Italia rail system, with Lecce being the only major city further south. Having a large, natural port on the Adriatic Sea, Brindisi has a significant history filled with accounts […]
It seems impossible that such a tiny island can have so much to offer the traveller and tourist, but everyone heading for Ireland must understand that you can never go just once.
Some of the Abruzzo region’s most amazing tourist sights, the trabocchi, are located on the Adriatic coast between the Italian cities of Ortona and Vasto. They have existed for centuries, once stretching as far south as Gargano in Puglia. They were built out of everything – from railroad rails to logs cut from trees that had been transplanted from […]
The price of gasoline in France is high — about 1.55 euros per liter (that’s more than $9.50 dollars a gallon — ouch.) That’s the bad news when you’re driving. The good news is that touring in the Loire Valley means you don’t have to travel far to see the grand chateaus and pretty villages […]