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…
In brief: We were thoroughly smitten with Portugal and its two major cities on our first visit ever. Here is what we saw and what we observed. How could we have missed out on Portugal…
We took a recommendation and went to the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, a private collection by an developer of oil fields in Iraq early in the 20th century. Chinese screen, Gulbenkian Assyrian panel, Gulbenkian As befits…
In brief: Two towns, split between colonialists and natives, long served as key African ports. Despite years of decline, both still tell the past and foretell better futures... They were vital ports once, both developed…
South Africans know it. Portuguese know it. Increasingly, other Europeans are discovering it. The 2500 kilometer long coast line along the Indian Ocean is a natural and tourist treasure. In the south, the coast around…
National route N1, the principal and just about the only highway through Mozambique, curls north from the coasts of the south toward the highlands in the west before again cutting back to the coast. There…