We had a chance to venture outside of Vilnius and into the Lithuanian countryside for a day, thanks to a local friend and Malta connection. Our target was Kernavė, site of four old castle mounds that were once hilltop forts. UNESCO called the area an “exceptional testimony to 10 millennia of human settlements in this region.” It’s believed to be the place where Mindaugas was crowned in 1253 — he...
I’m spending a few weeks in the Baltic countries, researching a magazine assignment, and just living the global nomad work-from-random-places lifestyle. I thought you might like to join me. Not literally — I hate getting woken up in the morning, and I doubt you’d enjoy my traveling style. But we can hang out virtually throughout the trip. And you’ll only have to see the best stuff without...
I went to church last Sunday… Now before you fall off your chair, call me a liar, or attempt to wash my mouth out with soap, please allow me to explain. I didn’t just go to any church. I flew 3 ½ hours to attend THE church. But more on that in a moment… My weekend’s adventures took me to Cologne, Germany’s second-largest city. A place bisected by the Rhine, where the kölsch beer flows freely, and...
I love Venice the most late at night. The way light on the canals dance dapples on stone walls. The way voices echo from what sounds like a bar, but you can never find them: each narrow street seems to dead end on water, and you have to backtrack and start over again. I loved wandering back from a late dinner and buying a glass of grappa from a bar near the Rialto bridge. I took my drink over to...
It’s incredible how disruptive the apartment hunting process is here in Malta. The entire game is dominated by agents, who earn a commission equal to one month’s rent each time they successfully match owner with tenant. Unlike in Canada, a lease doesn’t just continue month to month once the initial term has expired. A year is a year, and the contract is deemed to be over unless you sign on...
The Victoria Lines is a 12km long series of fortifications that cuts across the island of Malta from coast to coast, along a steep escarpment called The Great Fault. […the Great Fault was actually no one’s fault… just geology…] They were built by the British between 1870 and 1899, to defend the main part of the island from a landing and invasion in the north. The Grand Harbour became the Royal...
Christmas is just another day for me. I’m not religious, and if forced to choose I would pick the old Greek and Roman pagan gods over any current creed or belief system. We don’t have any family in Malta either. And so, rather than sit around at home working, we decided to take advantage of the silence of the countryside to do a little exploring. It was a nice sunny December day, and the guns of...
This is what it looks like at the end of the world. If you sail past the horizon — right out there — you’ll fall off the edge of the Earth. At least, that’s what the early navigators thought. But the bravest among them proved the theory wrong. Cabo de Sao Vicente is Europe’s most southwestern point. And it was the last place these Portuguese explorers would see when they set out to discover...
I had an opportunity to spend a week in Amsterdam recently. I was in town for a conference on how to maximize my use of air miles and elite status to get travel benefits, and I decided to stay a few more days to check the place out. It was my first visit to this city, and I want to share a few highlights with you. We rented an apartment in the Western Islands, and it proved to be the perfect...
I’ve never been the sort of traveler to obsess over frequent flier points, or to spend hours trying to game the system. Where my time is concerned, quite frankly, I’d rather have more of it than save a few bucks or get the occasional free upgrade. But my friend Craig Ballantyne of Early to Rise recently turned me on to a couple of cool “mileage hacker” newsletters. And when an opportunity came up...
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