Worldcrunch
By the start of the 1970s, some new technology had made it to the bottling line of this cognac distillery in southwestern France. Nevertheless, production was still very much a traditional affair: The famous brandy must be distilled twice in copper pot stills and aged at least two years in oak barrels.
Oia church, on the Greek island of Santorini, is a one-picture summary of the surrounding Cyclades islands, with its whitewashed walls and its blue dome.
There was no wholesaler, no packaging and no shipping between producer (these K’iche” vendors, of Mayan descent) and consumer (me) of bananas on the famous Guatemalan market of Chichicastenango.
Before going there, I imagined Iceland“s roads to be in a rather rough state. But its main ring road was actually in good condition: Not a dot was missing from its center line.
The Schönbrunn Palace, formerly the summer residence of successive Austrian monarchs, is one of the country’s most majestic Baroque designs. It even features a Gloriette (a “little glory”), a building whose rooftop overlooks the magnificent gardens.
The fine sandy beaches of Nazaré, in western Portugal, are probably as big a tourist draw as the painted boats and the fishermen’s traditional costumes.
I’ve already told you how my wife and I liked to wander off the beaten path and picnic somewhere nice. This time we’d picked a vast meadow — only to discover that the place was next to a cemetery, which apparently had a little problem with upkeep … Bon appétit!
Italian craftsmen shared their know-how with Indian lapidarists who were then able to execute the exquisite inlaid marble of the Taj Mahal. And the more I look I at it, the more the iconic Indian mausoleum reminds me of the Florence Cathedral.
If you ever get lost in London, you can always turn to a member of the local police force — or as they call them, “bobby.”
These beautifully fortified walls protect the old medina quarters of Fes, the “Mecca of the West.”
This looks like Rome’s Colosseum, but is actually the Arena of Nîmes in southern France. When I took this picture, archeological digging was still taking place in the Roman amphitheatre, which nowadays serves as a concert venue.
In Sunda Kelapa, the old port of Jakarta, Indonesian dock workers were busy unloading pinisis, these traditional two-masted ships.
I took this photo from the window of the classroom in the early days of my career as a high school philosophy teacher in my hometown in eastern France. Back then, before traffic lights arrived in town, policemen with their white staffs were still in charge of keeping the traffic flowing.
BašÄaršija square is one of the landmarks of Sarajevo’s old town, where everybody comes to sit around and talk and drink. But we tourists know it as “the Pigeon Square”.
The geese in southwestern France would produce what may be the country’s most controversial, yet scrumptious, delicacy: foie gras.
In 1969, nine years before I went there, Caernafon Castle in northwestern Wales was used for the investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales. It raised the profile of the medieval fortress, but its beauty was well worth visiting in its own right.
Blue sky, blue car, blue bicycle, and a very blue pub.
This picture of the 14th-century Valentré stone arch bridge in southwestern France (one of the oldest in the country) is one of the very first photographs I took with my Exakta Varex camera. Though the German Ihagee brand is now defunct, the slides held pretty well — and are now digitized for all eternity with […]
Here’s a Moroccan version of “like a bull in a china shop.” I must say “like three sheep in a pottery souk” doesn’t have quite the same ring.
I took this shot from the top of the World Trade Center.
TOKYO — The large speakers at Quattro Labo, a music bar near Kichijoji Station in western Tokyo, mostly play U.S. rock music from the 1960s and 1970s: Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder, the Allman Brothers Band. Not only that, but the sound has a depth to it — along with the distinct scratch-and-pop effect — that […]
“Tony” the Cypriot shoe seller definitely had a knack for presenting shoes in a novel way.
In the late 1950s, some villages in southern Portugal still didn’t have access to running water. I guess you could call this walking water?
This stork decided to keep company with these Romanian haymakers near Covasna, a scene reminiscent of my childhood in the French countryside.
Oysters are my péché mignon — literally my “cute sin,” or guilty pleasure. I’ll have a shovelful or two, thank you very much.
Visiting Sarajevo 43 years ago was virtually a feat in itself because the roads leading to what was then part of the socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were mostly unpaved, and there were very few hotels to welcome tourists. But the city was nice and quiet, and kept its distinct Ottoman charm.
The sturdy dry-stone walls of the Incan site have been standing there since the 13th century. And they still look good on a group picture.
Taken at a time when this optical illusion was still somewhat original …
Estaing in southern France is one of the most picturesque villages in the country. Typiquement français. It’s a favorite stop among Christian pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela — still some 700 miles away in northern Spain.
Four shoeshiners for one foot. That’s how fierce competition was in Turkey, at a time when tourist feet were not as plentiful as today.
Slowly, the sands of time eat away at the concrete bunkers on Utah and Omaha beaches. The half-buried structures still bear witness to the German efforts to repel the Normandy landings.
Salvador is nicknamed “Brazil’s capital of happiness.” I wonder why …
Going to Lourdes as a tourist, not as a devotee, you come across a diverse bunch: the ailing believers looking for a cure, the admirable volunteers taking care of them, the peddlers cashing in on people’s faith. When I went there 45 years ago, I took this shot of pilgrims waiting for a group photograph […]
Until the Berlin Wall was built, just six years before I took this picture, people could walk freely under the Brandenburg Gate. It would be 22 years before Berliners and tourists were able to get closer to the triumphal arch again.
Judging by the abundance of flowers on the two horse-drawn funeral hearses, the departed must have been someone very important in Sicily.
Being only 70 ft-wide (21 meters) at its base, the canal that cuts through the Isthmus of Corinth is far too narrow for today’s large cargo freighters. It’s now mostly used by cruise liners, on the deck of which tourists can admire its high limestone walls.
You don’t always have to travel halfway across the world to see a historical wonder. Here is a shot of the closest UNESCO World Heritage Site to me: the 18th-century Royal Saltworks of Arc-et-Senans, just a little more than an hour’s drive away from my hometown.
My 4-year-old daughter and my father could not look more 1960s if they tried, posing by — and on — a cannon on the square in front of the Prince’s Palace of Monaco.
Seven pairs of polished shoes, four cravats and two plus-fours trousers … In the 68 years since, the dress code for French 16-year-olds has changed just a bit. Here I was, right in the middle of this shot, with six friends from my Greek-Latin Première class.
For 2,000 years, the Roman aqueduct of Segovia, in central Spain, has defied the passage of time. With the French Pont du Gard (of which I’ll show you a picture soon), it’s one of the best preserved examples of its kind.