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Queen Elizabeth II: Record-Breaking Globetrotting Multilingual Monarch

Queen Elizabeth II is now the longest-serving monarch in British history. And since her crowning in 1952, she’s gotten out of Buckingham Palace quite a bit, including visits (often multiple times) to 128 different countries. That makes her the most widely traveled head of state in history. Have a look at a few of Elizabeth’s […]

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Food / Travel Society

Couchsurfing In Tehran, How Foreign Crashers Help Iranians Escape

Travel for Iranians is hard, which is why the young have found hosting foreigners is a way to explore the world vicariously. The latest twist to the private breaking of Iran’s myriad restrictions.

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They Name Horses, Don’t They?

Let me introduce Bébert, my uncle and godfather, back from plowing his field in my ancestors’ village of Chaignay — just north of Dijon in eastern France. Let me also introduce Bayard and Marceau, the two draft horses. Back then, it was customary to name horses after legendary figures such as Napoleonic commanders Kléber or […]

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Stop And Smell The Roses

There’s a very famous Festival of Roses every year in the Kalaat M’Gouna oasis, near Ouarzazate in southern Morocco. But it’s held in May, not October, so unfortunately it smelled more of camel than flowers when we traveled there.

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Bright China

I remember being mesmerized by Shanghai at night — maybe even more than by Las Vegas. Twenty years ago, the Chinese city also seemed to be at the vanguard of technology. That’s where I saw people using cell phones in the street for the first time.

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Sailors And Ducks

This picture made me smile when I rediscovered it — not so much for the image of these strolling Danish sailors, but for the slide that came up just before: two ducks, similarly side-by-side, heads in the water and bottoms up. (When your last name is Mallard, you see ducks wherever you go.)

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Wisdom Teeth

Pure happiness was radiating from this old man, whom we met during a trip in southern China. I don’t remember why he was so cheerful — but we learned a Chinese proverb somewhere in our travels: “If you are not a fish, how can you know if the fish are happy?”

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One Roast For The Road

A popular street food in the mountainous regions of Ecuador is hornado — a slice of roasted pig usually served with potatoes. If that doesn’t make your mouth water, you can still settle for a bottle of Coke. We’ve found the ubiquitous brand even in the most remote corners of the world.

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Moroccan Market

The Moroccan sun was strong on the market place in Larache, a small harbor on the Atlantic coast between Tangier and Rabat. Unfazed by the heat, this vendor was selling herbs, spices and … a giant turtle shell, whose scales he also used to make trinkets and jewels.

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Immutable Greece

I took this picture during the first of our 11 trips to Greece. We had driven our Simca Aronde down through Italy, then onto the ferry that had just been inaugurated between the southern Italian port city of Brindisi and Igoumenitsa in Greece’s northwestern Epirus region. Then up to the mountains we drove: on narrow, […]

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A Monk’s Peace Of Mind

When we went to Sri Lanka in 1992, conflict was raging between the country’s central government and the separatist Tamil Tigers, based in the north of the island. All our hotels were guarded by army soldiers, and there were tanks deployed in the parks of the capital Colombo. This monk looked to be prepared for […]

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Flowing Volga, Still Life

Ten years had passed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union when we took a river cruise on the Volga … but in some places, there was no way of telling. This church, which had been abandoned under the Communist regime, remained unrepaired. The landscape of open pasture and haystacks brought back childhood memories of […]

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In Naples, One Small Beer For Mankind

A couple of hours after I took this picture, I shared a beer with an American G.I. stationed in Naples, not far from this narrow street in the old city center where laundry was drying in the summer heat. How do I remember that beer so clearly? The date was July 21, 1969 — and […]

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Same Street, Different Cars

The Rua Conde de Bobadella in the center of Ouro Preto, in Brazil’s southeastern Minas Gerais state, hasn’t changed much since we went there 20 years ago — as this photo, taken at almost the exact same angle, shows on Wikipedia … Can’t say the same about the cars!

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Danish Dragons

The building in the background is Copenhagen’s 17th century Borsen, the oldest stock exchange in Denmark. With its intriguing spire made of four dragon tails twined together, I wondered if Danish bankers appreciated the architect’s twisted sense of humor…

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Danger: Camel Crossing

This is the greatest danger we faced when we drove from Ouargla to El Oued in southern Algeria: bumping into a wild camel…! By 1970, the anti-French sentiment left over from the Algerian War a decade earlier had largely faded away. But we were lucky to enjoy the calm then; as three years later, the […]

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Food / Travel

My Grand-Pere’s World

For more than half a century, my grandfather has spent every spare moment exploring the world, and photographing his journey. 80 countries. 20,000 high-quality, old-fashioned slides. Now each day, thanks to our digital world (and with a little help from his grandson!) he can share those places and faces and memories of a life well-traveled. […]

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Food / Travel

Forget The Love Boat, Here Comes The Nude Cruise

Cruise lovers come in all shapes, sizes and inclinations. Some climb aboard for the pleasure of getting decked out in their sharpest evening wear. Others like to keep it as casual as they can. Dress codes, indeed, vary from ship to ship. UK-owned Cunard Cruises may still require tuxedos and evening gowns on its ocean […]

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