Worldcrunch
The Mediterranean island of Malta has a past marked by Frenchmen. The capital of Valletta was named after Knight Hospitaller Jean Parisot de Valette, whose order then surrendered to Napoleon Bonaparte. But my visit there didn’t make it into history books.
Melrose Abbey, in southeastern Scotland, has a troubled history, having been destroyed and rebuilt numerous times since its founding in 1136. It seems to be holding up better since authorities understood that the lavish ruins of the Cistercian abbey were best used for tourism rather than religion.
An online series of photographs brings the writer back to his first great journey, via the Trans-Siberia rail, from his native Yugoslavia to post-Mao China.
The number of ceramic figures decorating the roofs of Beijing’s Forbidden City is proportionate to the status of the building: Only the Hall of Supreme Harmony at the Imperial Palace Museum boasts 10 such mystical beasts. The person who lived in this building must still have been pretty important, as 8 is also a lucky […]
Living a stone’s throw from Switzerland has its perks. People can go for a swim in the beautiful lakes — such as Lake Brienz here — but I’m more interested in Fendant, a dry and fruity white wine that’s particularly refreshing on a hot July day.
The month of March in Thailand is usually rather hot and dry. Still, you can sometimes run into monsoon-like weather, and be as powerless as these monks trying to cross a flooded street in the center of the country.
The monumental Karl-Marx Allee avenue in East Berlin, was a flagship project of the reconstruction program in East Germany after World War II.
There are some lesser known places that give you some serious “travel credibility,” like Belize, Swaziland — or Kaliningrad. Being home to a very large number of storks during the warmer months, the Russian enclave reminded me of Alsace, a stone’s throw away from where I live in eastern France.
The Eagle Mesa, the Sitting Hen, the Totem Pole, the Mittens … The sandstone buttes of Monument Valley lend themselves very well to man’s imagination. This here formation is called the Three Sisters, as it is supposed to resemble a Catholic nun facing her two pupils. To me it looks more like a gigantic “W” […]
Holy Week is the occasion of many colorful processions around Mexico, like here with this Paseo de los Judas Indultados (“Procession of Judas”) in front of Mexico City“s National Palace. Particular importance is given to Judas Iscariot — and an effigy of the man who betrayed Jesus is usually burned on the night of Easter […]
No one knows why the people of Morne-à-l’Eau in Guadeloupe have chosen to bury their dead in these checkered black-and-white tombs — perhaps because both black and white are colors of mourning in different parts of the world? Anyway, the famous cemetery’s design naturally brought me back to my chess-playing days.
The Stavrovouni Monastery in southern Cyprus is one of the few places that boasts a piece of the Holy Cross. It was particularly interesting to see how one of the oldest monasteries in the world manages to maintain the island’s tradition of Byzantine icon painting.
This is the arresting Rock of Monaco, back when you could snap a picture without having to slalom between obnoxious sports cars.
As I’ve already pointed out, eating in China is a singular experience. And though the stalls of the soup vendors in the streets of Xi’an, in central China, smelled delicious, you have to keep an open mind and expect something … well … exotic in your bowl.
Although it is somewhat cast into the shadow by the world-famous temple of Petra nearby, the Wadi Rum region in southern Jordan is popular among travelers who want to discover the wonders of the desert and its Bedouin heritage.
Located in the middle of the desert, DXB airport now surpasses London’s Heathrow in international travelers. Part museum, part high-end shopping gallery, it’s a global wonder.
Las Vegas, Shenzhen, Mexico … Paris” Eiffel Tower has inspired countless duplicates. We came upon this one standing a mere 18-meters tall at the entrance of Filiatra, in Greece’s southern Peloponnese region.
The Tsar Bell on the grounds of Moscow“s Kremlin is the biggest bell in the world, but it has never rung. During a fire in 1737, before the bell’s decoration was completed, guards threw cold water on it, causing a slab to crack off. The bell is so huge — look at the man on […]
On our Nile cruise down to Abu Simbel, we passed by these locals harvesting sugarcane. I couldn’t help but think of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile — and particularly about its 1978 movie adaptation with Peter Ustinov, a favorite of mine and of my grandson’s. Thankfully, nothing dramatic happened and no Hercule Poirot had […]
The Sacré-Coeur church in Audincourt is an unexpected modern jewel in the somewhat inconspicuous industrial town where I’m from: The stain-glass windows were made by French cubist artist Fernand Léger. I snapped this photo on the day the church was inaugurated by the archbishop of Besançon.
French writer François-René de Chateaubriand“s journey to North America had generations yearning for the romantic scenery he described: “Now and then, in the distance, you could hear the solemn rumble of the Niagara cataract, which, in the quiet of the night, echoed in the desert wilderness and died out through the lonely forests.” Unfortunately, visitors […]
Our first trip to Tunisia was more focused toward the interior of the country, driving our Peugeot 404 down to Tozeur near the Sahara, but we still saved time for a detour to catch a glimpse of the beautiful island of Djerba in the Gulf of Gabes.
They may look dignified and dedicated, but it seems that the guards of Quito’s Carondelet Palace, in the city’s centro histórico, are not doing a very good job: Over the years, the presidential palace has been looted several times.
Casually parked on a street near the port of Nice, on the French Riviera, was this a James Bond-like amphibious car?
The sun setting on Varanasi’s Dashashwamedh Ghat added a certain majesty to these Hindu pilgrims’ ritual ablutions in the Ganges.
The hard-packed sand at Daytona Beach makes it easy for cars to ride on the beach — something of a Florida tradition that started long ago, with horses and buggies. I had just the perfect view from my hotel room of some of the modern riders, who now have to pay for the shoreline cruise.
Before you can behold Petra“s Khazneh (Treasury), you need to walk — or ride a camel — for about one kilometer in the extremely narrow gorge they call the Siq. It’s the perfecty theatrical entrance to this truly awe-inspiring temple.
This week I’m traveling to Paris for a family reunion with my daughter, my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It has been a good 20 years since I set foot in the capital, but some things never change: Notre-Dame and the bouquinistes nearby are still there, like in 1960.
That shade of blue you often find on the Greek island of Santorini was also perfect for this donkey’s saddle. “The Donkey That Wanted To Be A Chameleon” would make a great fable by Jean de La Fontaine, wouldn’t it?
These Dutch klompen in Volendam bring back a precise chidhood memory: In 1940, when I was about the age of the boy on the left of the picture, I fled from my hometown in zone occupée to the village of Lacrost in the region of Bourgogne — then in zone libre … and I had […]
The mighty Danube divides Buda and Pest, the two cities that were unified in 1873 to form the Hungarian capital. The 19th century Széchenyi chain suspension bridge was the first permanent bridge across the river, becoming a national symbol of this linkage between East and West.
I could have run into famous French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson in the steep streets of Bonifacio. In 1969, the same year I went there for the first time, the master took a series of black-and-white pictures of Corsica.
In New Orleans, we were granted access to a warehouse where they keep the papier-mâché heads of the famous figures destined for the Mardi Gras floats. Granted, Reagan is pretty well done. We were stumped on the one in the middle; as for the one on the right, if we had been in France, I […]
The Sidobre mountainous forest in central France, studded with massive, weirdly shaped rocks, is unique in Europe. And though, contrary to Stonehenge’s standing stones or Brittany’s menhirs, man had nothing to do with these geological formations, the place has also inspired many legends and tales — and allowed my daughter Cécile to pretend she was […]
The valleys of south Ecuador are lush, and the Andean foothills impressive. But 22 years ago, it was better to look up, not down because the amount of plastic waste along the roads was simply astonishing.
When we first visited Tunisia, the tourism industry was just starting to take off in the country, although most of the economy still relied on farming. Here in the oasis of Tozeur, it was the harvest of dates.
In the barren Hungarian puszta, livestock dehorning is out of the question — unlike in my native France, for instance. That’s lucky for the Hungarian Grey cattle, with their long slender horns.
Elephants, symbols of steadfastness and mental strength in Buddhist culture, are a recurring motif in Sri Lankan sculpture. Some of the finest examples can be found in Anuradhapura, the former center of Theravada Buddhism.
The Stari Most (“Old Bridge”) was infamously destroyed in 1993 during the Croat–Bosnian War. Twenty years later, thanks to UNESCO funds, it was rebuilt with its notable arched Ottoman design. Motivated both by the architecture and recent historical events, I made sure to make my own crossing.
In the heart of the Kathmandu valley lies one of the most sacred and oldest Buddhist pilgrimage sites. At the top of the Swayambhunath dome, or stupa, Buddha is looking in all four directions. At this particular moment, I was hoping it meant a special protective glance over these two Nepalese cleaners, standing dangerously close […]