© 2011-2024
Bruges is a small medieval city in Belgium’s West Flanders province, near the Atlantic coast. Even the grandiose “tourist wonderland” may understate. UNESCO named the whole durn city center as a world heritage site. Lonely Planet, Rick Steves, Fodors and TripAdvisor gush about Bruges unreservedly. ‘Why visit?’ answers itself. A better question for a retired…
Galicia is a Hawaii-sized state autonomous community on Spain’s northwest corner. I asked Spaniards if I should visit. “¡Por supuesto!,” said they, while suggesting that Galicia would be: (♦) Beautiful! Woodsy green hamlets fronting windswept Atlantic coastlines. Like that. (♦) Rainy! Maybe not as wet as San Sebastian, but up there. (♦) Relatively isolated. Spain’s high-speed…
The Bernina Express tourist train trek through the Alps is: “one of the most scenic train rides in Europe, or for that matter, the world.” … train guru Mark Smith, The Man In Seat 61 “…an incredible excursion … very tough to beat” … Everett Potter, Forbes “Is this the most spectacular railway journey in…
Madrid’s heart — her epicenter, undisputed city nucleus — is the plaza at Puerta del Sol. Couriers once traveled Europe to deliver the world’s news here at the Casa de Correos. A sidewalk plaque marks the plaza as the nation’s kilometer zero. City addresses begin here, as do measurements for Spain’s grid of radial roads.…
The latest installment: VENEZUELAN DIASPORA I meet Ecuadorans and Colombians in Madrid — and should, according to immigration-to-Spain stats — but not as often as I meet Venezuelans: two waiters and a manager in one restaurant; the part-owner of another; students, job seekers, new arrivals. Ties between the two countries are old, run deep. Some…
You’re coming to Spain! You want to stroll among the beautiful people on Calle Arenal, ponder Madrazo at the Prado, chug-a-lug calimochos in Latina, black out in a Malasaña patrol car. But, before or after your well-deserved arrest, you’d like to sample the Spanish rail system, too, and book a day trip. Maybe you’ll find an…
Behold, the innards of my 10′ x 15′ locker at Storage Pro in flat, uncelebrated Lathrop, California. I paid CrownWMS about eight and a half grand to cart this gear 5,700 miles east to Spain. Expats-to-be will contemplate similar transactions, may thank me for sharing what I learned. OVERVIEW Imagine hiring a crew for a…
“You were mostly a stay-put teacher, Tim, and now (you lucky, worthless bum, Tim) you’ve chased trams and metros in cities around the world. How has this affected your transit views?” De-lighted you ask! * * * * * In Zurich, Copenhagen, Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Stockholm and Amsterdam I traveled on transit networks that struck me…
… but ends and odds about different cities. This time the frequent-flying Bald One got to flash his now thoroughly broken in passport in London, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam and Oslo. In order: London (♦) I regarded London as about the least hospitable city for cycling I’ve ever seen, but still saw some martyrs-on-wheels there anyway.…
Stockholm’s new towns — no longer very new, and referred to as gulags only playfully — are the clusters of housing and commercial development herded about the outlying stations of the T-bana metro system. Transit guru Robert Cervero beamed about them in Transit Metropolis, and here I was jetting off to Europe anyway. I figured…