Tag: tips

Bengal & Benares

Calcutta, or Kolkata as it is now known, is a huge city and once the seat of British India. You would have to say that they made a pretty good job of constructing such a giant edifice that nobody would doubt their divinely-ordained power. And out the front is a huge open space which has […]

Cuba Libra

Cuba is extremely tough to describe. For many it is the tourist enclaves that exist at the best beaches and which actively exclude everyday Cubans, providing all-inclusive resort accommodation to Canadians, Europeans, and Russians. With good roads, carefully manicured lawns, and ‘local’ handicraft stores, it is about as close to the real thing as a […]

Tourists

“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.” G.K. Chesterton         I know that every foreigner who comes here influences the place (just think of Mark Anthony), but there are foreigners and then there are tourists. I couldn’t figure why the only international flights I […]

Albania via Greece to Cairo

      As I write this, with the green fields of the Nile Valley flashing by the train window, it is extremely hard to conceive that just one week ago I was taking a similarly long trip in what now seems a different world. The only similarity is that I am the only foreigner […]

Big Black Mercs

I wasn’t at all sure what to expect from Albania. I guess I had the view that it would be rather backward and full of donkey carts. Well, I’ve seen precisely three donkey carts and about 300 big black Mercs… But Tirana is fascinating. No big monuments or anything but a really interesting culture.Still plenty […]

Vini Pu and other Montenegran oddities

I think it is high time I published some thoughts (and photos) on Montenegro. Now I find myself on my last day in Ulcinj in the far south, with the call to prayer at the mosque on Friday the first I have heard since I was in Morocco. The owner of my guesthouse described himself […]

Valencia

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Toledo con jamon

     I love places that resist the urge to become complete slaves to tourism. And, thankfully, Toledo is just such a place. Of course, I do accept the potential hypocrisy of being a tourist and decrying tourism, but I can justify that by saying I never buy t-shirts with a town name on, fridge […]

Hola Ecuador

      Quito is by far the prettiest of the Andean capital cities I’ve seen, not that it gets much competition from Lima or Bogota. The old city has been mostly left alone, and probably has had to be since it got one of the first UNESCO World Heritage Site awards. Just think big […]

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