Worldcrunch
The Sorbonne University, in the center of Paris, is the second oldest university in the world. No, not behind Oxford — behind Bologna. I took this shot of the Chapelle Sainte Ursule de la Sorbonne more than 50 years before my grandson and partner-in-crime went to one of the university’s branches, just a few hundred […]
I was lucky enough to see some of the world’s greatest treasures at a time when there were few fences and rarely entrance fees. But even when there were limits, like here in Hadrian’s Villa near Rome, they were of little concern for my daughter Cécile.
Meet Thotsakan, a demon from the Hindu epic Ramakien guarding one of the entrances to Bangkok’s Wat Arun Buddhist temple.
The Palmeral of Elche in southeastern Spain is the biggest palm grove of its kind in Europe. Its shades of green made it the perfect place for me to experiment with color film for the first time.
CAIRO — Two months ago I set out to reserve a hotel room in the Egyptian city of Minya for a work trip. A quick and easy task, I thought. I called more than 10 hotels but they all told me they were fully booked. I was surprised because Minya is not exactly Egypt’s prime […]
There are 400 pleats in the kilt-like fustanella worn by the Evzones guards who patrol Athens’ Syntagma Square. That’s one pleat per year of Ottoman occupation. Now I wonder what the pompoms on the clogs stand for …
You’re never quite sure of what’s in the wicker baskets of the street peddlers in Jaipur. It could be some fresh fruit or vegetables — or a cobra!
The Bay of Fundy, on the Atlantic coast of Canada, boasts the highest tides in the world … and apparently some of the tallest suds as well.
For centuries, the thick walls of the Saksaywaman citadel have been looking over the valley of Cuzco, the historic capital of the Inca Empire.
There’s something striking about Southeast Asian countries: More than any of the countless other places where I’ve pulled out my camera, people like this rickshaw driver on the Indonesian island of Java, would naturally just smile back at me.
From architecture to food, history lives on in the Andean city, where residents continue to celebrate their Inca heritage and traditions.
This stone calvary in western France’s Brittany region depicts scenes from the life and death of Jesus with incredible attention to detail — and someone on Wikipedia was kind enough to explain it all exhaustively.
Next to the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra lay several funerary towers known as the Valley of the Tombs. You can see them in the background of this photograph, as my wife Claudine walks among local ethnic Druze. Sadly, we know that the first-century necropolis was destroyed by ISIS terrorists last year. Some Druze villages, […]
Taking pictures of license plates allowed me to remember where I took this or that series of photographs without having to write it down. When you’re dealing with over 20,000 slides, it comes in handy.
The famous German philosopher Immanuel Kant spent most of his life in Königsberg, in what was then known as Prussia. HIs mausoleum has seen borders and names change: The city is now a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania called Kaliningrad.
Can you spot the little red riding hood playing in L’Aquila’s Fontana delle 99 cannelle (“The Fountain of the 99 Spouts”)? Luckily, the landmark fountain suffered only minor damage during the deadly 2009 earthquake.
It was rather quiet when we got to the indigenous town of Otavalo, in northern Ecuador, and I was able to take my time photographing a woman using a big spinning wheel. The image ended up looking something like a Flemish painting.
Among the tombstones at Petersfriedhof cemetery in the Austrian city of Salzburg are those that are not stones at all, but intricate works of wrought iron.
The statue of Notre-Dame-des-Neiges (Our Lady of the Snow) marks the top of the Bavella Pass, in central Corsica. In this photograph, the serene but somewhat austere statue stands in stark contrast with our playful daughter Cécile posing under the road sign.
In Philadelphia, a group of U.S. Marines were petitioning to change the Constitution and make any desecration of the American flag a crime. That hasn’t happened, though the debate over national symbols is apparently still very much alive across the Atlantic.
On the first of our many trips to Greece, my wife and I drove down to Mystras in the south of the country. Abandoned in the 19th century, the town’s churches, castle and fortress walls stand as a reminder of Byzantine grandeur.
Under the authoritarian regime of Josip Broz Tito in then Yugoslavia, lots of shop windows were empty. Roadside vendors were a more reliable source of food there, with watermelons being a staple of domestic agriculture.
PARIS — So far, so good. The collapse of the British economy predicted by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, in a case of a Brexit victory, has not materialized. The services sector, which represents 80% of the UK’s GDP even rebounded unexpectedly in August, and business activity recovered its level of March, […]
About a hundred kilometers south of the Himalaya mountain range, the village of Chobhar is a far cry from the country’s bustling and polluted capital, Kathmandu.
With my RDA-made Exakta Varex camera, I tried my hand at some macrophotography. I processed the film myself in a home-made darkroom.
This is one of two rostral columns opposite the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange on the Neva river. The red stucco columns, adorned with bronze ship prows, were meant as beacons — the torches at the top are still lit on ceremonial occasions.
We drove to Spain several times in the 1960s, back when General Francisco Franco was still leading the country. This is a Spanish peseta coin representing El Caudillo (“the Chief”) that I kept from our trip all the way down to Santiago de Compostela.
In between visiting the wonders of the nearby city of Jerash and the desertic Wadi Rum valley, we stopped for the night in Jordan’s capital Amman. And scenes like this one in the hotel lobby were as memorable as the country’s ancient ruins and wondrous landscapes.
Our itinerant Slovenian-born New Yorker takes a long-awaited voyage to the land of Joyce and good drink, and a certain singular brand of modesty.
The nine totem poles in Vancouver’s Stanley Park were impressive both for the carvings, and the height. For some perspective, my wife Claudine, in the foreground, was about 5ft7.
On the Zambezi, the upper end of which begets the mighty Victoria Falls, I went on a half-day cruise. There was amazing fauna to observe from the deck, and champagne to drink from the boat’s open bar. Hey rhinos, here’s looking at you …
I bought a nice bedspread from one of these Uru women, sitting in the sun on a islet in Lake Titicaca. They sure get enough practice: The Uru people wove the islets themselves, using dried reeds.
I’ve already told you about the fishermen’s wives of Nazaré, and the seven petticoats they’d wear traditionally in this Portuguese town. The fishermen“s costumes are just as interesting. Although granted, they do look a little bit like pajamas.
Though definitely not the most impressive watefalls I got to see, the Gullfoss cataract (not far from other popular Icelandic landmarks like Þingvellir or the “father of all geysers“) gives the eerie impression that the water disappears into the earth.
Members of Sri Lanka“s Hindu minority have a religious custom where they tie a piece of colored cloth to a line. Every knot signifies a wish.
Brightly-decorated Sicilian carts don’t just look great. The scenes carved in the wood of the carretti siciliani used to be a good way to teach history, and pass on folklore, to illiterate workers.
To deal with daily traffic jams in the Indian city of Jaipur, locals and tourists alike turn to fast and cheap rickshaws that can weave through clogged city streets.
These two Peruvian women in traditional clothes were taking a break from a nearby festival, watching me watching them.
Ask anyone in France about Brittany, and there’s a good chance they’ll tell you how bad the weather is in the northwestern region. Looks like blue skies to me!
This was the first of about a dozen trips to Greece. From Athens to Epidaurus to Crete … There is something about the country’s history and its people that always made us come back for more.