I left Vienna with five days to reach Innsbruck and a route that continued west. The train took me to St. Pölten, where I changed to a rental car for the drive through Lower Austria and into Tyrol. Beyond Krems, the route followed the Danube through the Wachau. Salzburg and the Salzkammergut lay farther on,…
I arrived in Vienna with five days ahead and a handful of names beginning to fix themselves on the map: Stephansplatz, the Hofburg, Belvedere, Schönbrunn, Wieden, the Donaukanal. The journey stayed mostly within and around the old center, but the scale kept changing from cathedral stone and palace courtyards to market counters, café tables, garden…
I based myself in Malá Strana, on the castle side of the Vltava, where the streets stayed quieter than the approaches to Old Town. From there, four days in Prague crossed river bridges, castle courtyards, tram routes, cafés, markets, and residential neighborhoods beyond the main postcard views. Old Town, Malá Strana, Hradčany, and New Town…
I started in western Slovenia, inland from the Adriatic and Dalmation Coast where we had previously been. The road moved away from sea views and into vineyards, orchards, and small hill villages. Goriška Brda came first, with family vineyards spread across rounded hillsides and medieval villages set above the roads. Wine stayed close to households,…
I arrived in Korčula by ferry, which was the right way to meet the island. Provence had been a journey of vineyards, village markets, and long Mediterranean lunches. The Adriatic promised something different: islands connected by ferries, white wines shaped by limestone soils, and towns that still revolved around their harbors. The old town sits…
There are places that reveal themselves immediately, and others that take a little patience. Provence belongs firmly to the second group. At first glance, visitors arrive expecting lavender fields, hilltop villages, and endless photographs of pale rosé beneath olive trees. Those things certainly exist. Yet after several days moving through the region, what stayed with…
The Amalfi Coast is much larger and more varied than it first appears on postcards. Positano draws most of the attention, but the coastline extends through a long series of smaller towns connected by cliff roads, stairways, ferries, fishing harbors, and terraced hillsides that have been cultivated for centuries. I spent several days moving between…
Santorini is one of those places everyone thinks they already know before arriving. You see the white villages constantly across Instagram, travel magazines, cruise advertisements, and films to the point that it almost risks feeling overly familiar before you ever arrive on the island itself. What surprised me most was how quickly that feeling disappeared….
The rhythm shifts again. After the open coastline and long Atlantic light of the Algarve, Crete feels more layered—less expansive, perhaps, but deeper in its sense of time and place. Chania sits along the northwestern edge of Crete, where layers of history stretch back more than three thousand years. Ancient Kydonia once stood here, a…
The rhythm shifts here. In Portugal’s Algarve, after the stillness of the mountains, the Algarve feels softer, carried by light and the steady presence of the sea — a contrast to my time in Cortina. The light changes quickly in the Algarve. It arrives softly over whitewashed walls in Faro, brightens along the coast in…