In brief: In Mongolia’s capital city, known as UB, old values like the Buddhist faith have found new strength and the new is slowly transforming daily life. Ulaan Baatar – or UB, as the capital…
In brief: The 17th c. monk Zanabazar has become a fitting hero for the newly independent Mongolian people, one whose legacy has been spiritual, practical and artistic. Born in 1635 in Tibet, Undur Gegeen Zanabazar…
Sometimes the least traveled places can be the most interesting, even in tough conditions. On a dark, bitterly cold day, we went to Kolomenskoye Park at the outskirts of Moscow because of the ravine. The…
View of old Lisbon from Sao Vicente We had seen quite a lot of Lisbon and its surrounding towns when we first visited in the fall of 2017. This time we kept quite busy with…
Waiting in Moscow for a few days before beginning a rail trip across Siberia, we were pleasantly surprised to see the old city in such fine shape. We had not been here for 25 years…
Yekaterinburg began in 1723 with a dam made of Ural larch, one never replaced till this day. It was a planned city, named in honor of Queen Catherine I, and organized as a factory town…
In brief: Baikal lake is extraordinary in many ways, but its ice is the big draw. Crystalline frozen texture The best way to enjoy Lake Baikal in wintry Siberia, we found, is just to get…
In brief: The Trans-Siberian railway offers little drama, but takes you into a special world. Our Trans-siberian cabin Our home for four days and nights, crossing Russia from Moscow into snowy Siberia, was a very…
Except for one day during our visit in Spring 2018, Granada was as sodden and chilly as the rest of western Europe. Yet, on this first trip together to the south of Spain, we were…
In brief: Connecting the Atlantic and Pacific was an engineering triumph, one you can see from a trip within the Canal. But it also split the country, a division of the well-off and poor still…