Being Victorian does not require a Queen Victoria. Where medieval landmarks are concerned, the Swiss went through the same let’s-rebuild-it-bigger-and-add-battlements phase as their British counterparts around the turn of the 20th century. In Basel’s Marketplatz, you’ll find an imposing red building with three generous arches, false battlements, a tall clock tower on the left, and murals …
The Baselites have this extremely helpful habit of painting the year of construction right above the doors of their houses. Of course, left to a history-nerd father-and-daughter team, one of whom is armed with an audioguide and the other with a passion for historical architecture, any city tour inevitably turns into a scavenger hunt for …
If you pick up a tourist’s guide to Switzerland, the cities with their own chapters are Lucerne with its medieval covered bridge and Zurich with its turquoise river. If you’re like me, when you hear the name Basel, your reaction is probably: Is that…an herb? …a British guy? Now, I’ve never met a European city …
This is the floor of the great hall in Amsterdam’s Royal Palace, which in fact wasn’t royal during the Golden Age in the 1600s. It was the city hall, and of course, since trade was so important to the lifeblood of the city, the lavish decorations pay homage to seafaring and world travel. The image …
I have no commentary on this one. I just like it. Apparently music was a symbol of family harmony in the 17th century.
Here’s my favorite portrait from the Rijksmuseum. There are a number of interesting things that Gerard Bicker, the 20-year-old son of a spice trader in 1642, can tell us about his era. For one thing, look at how perfect his skin is. This might not be just an artistic liberty. Cosmetics were popular among the younger …
Does anybody remember the time I tore the bumper off Mom’s car pulling out of a parking space? I think you should not put me behind the wheel of a car in a canal city with no rails.
I will have more interesting photos soon. And by soon, I mean as soon as I figure out how to upload them from the fancy newfangled camera Dad brought me from home.
We took a boat tour of the canals this afternoon. The scenery was beautiful, but—perhaps due to the multilingual nature of tourism in Amsterdam—the guided part of the tour came in the form of an audioguide in the language of your choice. The format was a dialogue between a husband and wife who have been …
I haven’t found any stroopwafels, per say, but there are a number of these long, skinny to-go street bakeries:
Dad is jet lagged and still managed to tow me through a museum and a half after he picked me up at the airport. But he fed me street waffles, so it was a good day by my reckoning. Amsterdam is incredible. I want to live here. But I have to admit that I say …
There will be a temporary hold on photo posting because I seem to have maxed out my storage space again. This should not have happened, since I’ve been uploading smaller images and also spent a painstaking hour and a half in a coffeeshop yesterday reducing the size of every photo I’ve posted since January. Obviously …
And by old, this time I just mean the days before those tiny, fussy La Boulange pastries replaced the chunky muffins, chewy chocolate chip cookies, slabs of coffee cake, lemon-pound-cake-with-an-inch-of-glaze, and raggedy chocolate and vanilla donuts at Starbucks. But globalization has only so long a reach. Marooned in a Starbucks in St. David’s, I have …
Do we have canned beef in the US? I’d never seen it before. Since I’m sick as snot, I bought canned beef at Lidl, theorizing that beef stew is a good comfort food. When I opened the can, I realized we probably do have canned beef at home; it’s just labeled wet cat food.
No wonder we’re always reading about what a huge problem disease posed in Roman garrisons. The same goes for youth hostels. I picked up the flu in my eight-person barrack (I mean dormitory). Then my hands were shaking so hard on the walk to the train station that I dropped my phone in two inches …
That’s all, folks—I’m packing my bags and moving to York. Just change my return address to this coffeeshop. The reason begins with “tea and tuna panini” and ends “while sitting on top of an ancient Roman gate in the floor.” Meet the Croque Monsieur coffeeshop: It’s next to York’s medieval Bootham Bar gate, which is …
Plans to meet Levi having fallen through, I found myself at loose ends in my favorite city in the UK. I had no particular plan, so I swung by the Tourist Information Center, obtained a map of York’s independent bookstores, tracked down the delightful Little Apple Books, purchased Stardust by Neil Gaiman, and went hunting for a …
I’m staying in a hostel with seven roommates (six of whom snore). I make it bearable by telling myself that the Roman legionaries at Caerleon had it worse.
So I don’t have any funny stories of train-related misadventure, apart from the bit where the train was an hour late (not my fault) and my Uber app kicked me out in York, and when I tried to log back in it sent a confirmation code to my American phone number (not my fault) so …