Worldcrunch
Starting in spring, to protect passersby from the heat, Seville deploys its sails-like awnings along the calle Sierpes, the city’s main commercial street. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
I’m an analog kind of photographer: I started taking pictures in the 1950s, when film was still somewhat expensive — meaning that even though I now own a digital camera, I’ve never really gotten used to taking lots of shots of the same subject. But some of the world’s wonders, like the Taj Mahal, are […]
On the northwestern coast of Wales, my wife Claudine was pacing the ramparts of Harlech Castle, looking out toward the peaceful Welsh countryside. Some 700 years ago, watchmen walking the same path would have been looking at the sea, which has since retreated. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
The sap harvested from these Pará rubber trees on the Indonesian island of Java coagulates in the yellow collection cups, and voilà, here’s your rubber latex. Or as we say in France, caoutchouc ! See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
The Spanish island of Ibiza is not reserved for beach-goers and party animals only. It’s also rich with nice villages and seaside resorts with old olive trees like this one. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
Sunda Kelapa, the old port of Jakarta, was the perfect place to snap some portraits of Indonesian stevedores at work. Balance is everything. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
Sorry, little spider monkey of Crococun zoo, near Cancun: My favorite zoo is still Hamburg’s Tierpark Hagenbeck. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World.
Like elsewhere in Syria’s largest city, parts of the Great Mosque of Aleppo, where this man was praying peacefully more than 20 years ago, have since been destroyed.
For a fistful of dollars (actually, pesetas), I was able to visit Tabernas and its movie sets that were used in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns in the 1960s. Cue some chords from Ennio Morricone …
KISH — The island of Kish is a far cry from the rest of Iran. Although it’s just 19 kilometers from the mainland, this Persian Gulf outpost features the kind of open hedonism that would be shocking in other parts of the country. As hard-line politicians and religious figures target so-called Western imports such as […]
Timgad, in the Aurès Mountains of Algeria, is sometimes nicknamed “the Pompeii of Africa.” The Roman grid plan of this city, where my wife and daughter were walking, is remarkably well preserved.
I’ve had my fair share of beautiful sunrises and sunsets, but watching the Grand Canyon get more and more red, in the serenity of the rising sun, stands out in my memory.
The city of Rust, in eastern Austria, stands near the border with Hungary. This geographical and cultural proximity was particularly visible in the way the women dressed, on their way to the market.
The Mediterranean island of Malta has kept many traces of its British past: Bedford buses (driving on the left side of the road), pubs, and these beautiful bow windows overlooking the beautiful port of Valletta.
What became of the camels of Palmyra, now that there are no tourists to hire them for a ride?
Now that“s what I call street art…!
This Batak woman, in a Toraja village of Indonesia, was balancing a rice bowl on her head during the traditional dance performance. A beautiful moment, followed by the not-so-beautiful moment of the ritual slaughter of the unsuspecting water buffalo in the background.
In the heart of the colorful moor of southern England, the Postbridge clapper bridge was built with large flat stones back in the 14th century. Beauty meets utility.
Don’t worry: This little vessel in the port of Caraquet, New Brunswick, was not about to crash down. It was simply attached to the hull of a bigger fishing boat.
The Watergate complex may be the most famous building in Washington, D.C. for the wrong reasons — and we didn’t even have to break in to visit it!
I crossed the Arctic Circle on several occasions — but always under the same polar sun and blue sky.
Once the fish had been caught, the fisherman’s wife in Nazaré would put them directly on the grill for breakfast. Bom apetite!
Britain’s decision to leave the EU is having a ripple effect on the island nation of Cyprus, where ex-pats and tourism operators are already feeling the pinch. But there may be a more long-term windfall in the finance industry.
Traveling the world means seeing different attempts to blend bad American culinary imperialism into local cityscapes. Here the golden arches ruin an otherwise characteristic Wilhemian facade in this old city center in western Germany.
Twenty-six years ago, cranes were busy working on brand new buildings in Cairo. The Egyptian capital was still some distance away from the Pyramids of Giza, though the modern neighborhoods are now slowly encroaching on the iconic structures.
Zebras, lions, elephants, alligators, rhinos … I have seen animals in their local habitats all across the planet. Naturally, this guy in South Africa was the tallest.
As Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte would say: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” Resting for a second on a column in the sanctuary of Olympia, my wife Claudine snapped this shot of me most probably chewing on a twig or a toothpick — for I was one of the few French philosophy teachers in the […]
Dante Alighieri is buried in this tomb, in Ravenna. The story of the quarrel surrounding the 13th-century poet’s remains, disputed between this city in northern Italy where he was exiled, and his native Florence, is long and fascinating.
The majestic Andean condor is one of the largest birds in the world. After this one displayed its impressive wingspan, an elderly animal-rights activist from our organized tour, got into a heated discussion with the owner of the bird. She wanted to buy the condor in order to set it free.
Sorry, ladies: When Frenchmen like me talk of “une belle Américaine,” they’re most likely thinking of cars like this Pontiac Star Chief parked in front of Disneyland in California.
Flowers and clothes drying are regular features of backyards bordering the khlong canals of Bangkok. This picture, taken from a boat, also shows what is probably a Buddhist shrine of sorts — but definitely looked like a fancy birdhouse to me.
When I visited the prehistoric site of Stonehenge in southern England, it was still possible to walk among, and even touch, the megaliths. Not for long, though: A year later, the damage to the standing stones caused by erosion forced the authorities to start keeping visitors at a safe distance.
Taken from the window of my hotel room, in Ghardaïa, in northern Sahara’s M’zab region.
The Syrian government’s recent tourism videos of beautiful scenery and nightlife look ludicrous to Westerners who know the brutal truth about Aleppo, but the West isn’t the intended audience for this publicity blitz.
The 1960s was a momentous period for the French island of Corsica, caught between opening up to tourism and dealing with a growing nationalistic movement. But in Ajaccio on that sunny spring day, it was just fishing business as usual.
The Candelabra of the Andes is even more mysterious than the neighboring Nazca Lines. No one knows with certainty what it represents, or when, why and by whom the 600-foot tall geoglyph was carved into the hill.
The quaint fishing harbor of Polperro, on southwestern England“s Cornwall coast, is having a hard time delivering on its promise: Unscrupulous parking lot owners have been known to capitalize on car park fees.
For more than a century now, the Coastal Express has been a staple of the wonderful Norwegian coast, taking passengers through barren landscapes and fertile lands, large towns and fishing hamlets nesting in magnificent fjords.
These half-timbered structures of the Den Gamle By open-air museum in the Danish town of Aarhus remind me of some houses in the eastern French region of Alsace and across the border in Germany.
House for rent, move in date after Nov. 8. Quiet neighborhood, 18 acres of grounds, well-equipped security system. (Exterior unchanged from date of photograph, alterations to interior; tenant at the time: George H. W. Bush.)