I’ve got “top ten” lists on the brain these days… I thought it’d be fun to dredge through the foggy corners of my memory, brush aside the cobwebs, and post a list of my top 10 favourite cities, taken from 25 years of travel. Number One aside, I didn’t post this list in any particular order. Each place is unique and has some individual character that can’t be compared with the others...
It’s been nearly a year since I packed up my books and moved to a small island in the Mediterranean. It was a goal I set 8 years before, after reading Lawrence Durrell and island hopping the Adriatic. I was attracted to something in the landscape: those dry stony islands, the wind in the olive trees, the quality of light, and the pure clarity of Poseidon’s translucent domain. It took me 8 long...
A journey through Wales is a walk through the landscape of my childhood imagination. It was like traveling through the fragments of dreams barely remembered, with a constant haze of deja vu hovering just over my shoulder. My friends and I were driving to the town of Hay-on-Wye, site of a famous literary festival and home to more used bookstores than any other place on the planet. Conversation...
One of the most interesting things about living in the Mediterranean is the culture of the aperitif and digestif. Every country seems to have its own version. And exploring them is part of the fun of the region’s “slow food” culture. The traveler side of me loves the stories behind these drinks, and their unique pedigree. The fitness enthusiast side is curious about one simple question: do they...
The theme of Topkapi is seclusion. A graduating depth of shadows. Deeper shades of obscuring darkness. Privacy nestled within privacy like Russian dolls, visible in the layers of courtyards and iridescent tiled chambers. Each layer of rooms contained its own household of secrets that transcended and included the rooms that surrounded it. Only those at the centre knew all. The innermost rooms were...
The theme of Cappadocia is Seclusion and Fear. Isolated by its arid emptiness, its people sought further seclusion by digging vast cities deep under the ground. They tunneled to escape invasion, military recruitment, and puritanical government attempts to control the distillation of raki. The rock is threaded by rooms in which thousands of people could live for 4 or 5 months without ever coming...
To me, Dylan Thomas has always been a monumental figure. The sheer originality of his word usage was intimidating and sometimes difficult to approach. He was also a poet whose facade of unruly drunkenness could overshadow the importance and originality of his work. So much of his life was shrouded in “official myth” that it was difficult to see the person behind it. Thanks to our friend John...
Me and the puzzled travellers We searched the ground for wealth And scoured the dreaming valleys On days where shadows melt Digging for the blue and the green Constant in opal or ultramarine If you could only find yourself that way… Steve Kilbey, The Church It’s a lovely fall day on the Bosphorus. Sunny with a scattering of cloud, and the water heaving with steady chop. Asia’s over there...
“The entire Mediterranean seems to rise out of the sour, pungent taste of black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat or wine, a taste as old as cold water. Only the sea itself seems as ancient a part of the region as the olive and its oil, that like no other products of nature, have shaped civilizations from remotest antiquity to the present.” – Lawrence Durrell...
One evening Colin and I hiked up Cave Hill to take in Belfast at stereoscopic scale. On our way back to town, we paused to slake our thirst at a pub called The Front Page. It’s close proximity to the offices of the Belfast Telegraph and Irish News had reputedly made it a hangout for journalists and newspaper workers. While I tend to avoid other writers, Colin, a photojournalist by profession...