This was a city that mattered almost 3,000 years ago, a stepping stone from Greece to Italy. Unfortunately for Corfu, armies seeking to get across the final miles of the Adriatic Sea … aren’t as common as they were in the days of the Greeks and Romans. Corfu at times made me think of the […]

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I have become … oh, not obsessed but definitely interested … in the notion of saying hello to strangers. As the French do. On our most recent trip to California, I tried out the French method, in English, to people I encountered while walking. “Good morning!” It met with some success, suggesting that suburban Americans […]

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It wasn’t only because we found meals in Vienna to be expensive, compared to nearby cut-rate European capital cities Prague and Budapest, that we avoided Vienna’s restaurants for most of our stay in the Austrian capital. Though that was much of it. Another major factor? A chance to binge on American-made movies in VO (version […]

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A canal separates the monument-rich “inner city” of old Vienna, Austria, from the newer neighborhoods to the east. Behind those housing districts is a sprawling park named the Augarten, where citizens and tourists can frolic or exercise or relax. However, the Augarten has two squat, ugly towers that look out of place. In fact, they […]

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Living in France, one comes to appreciate the daily niceties, at least in the country’s small towns. It is considered declasse’, bordering on overtly rude, to pass someone — anyone — in the street without saying hello. The encounter can be with young or old or snarky teen, and still social conventions call for a […]

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Stefan Zweig. Know him? I thought not. Neither did I, until I expressed my interest in the history of Europe before the First World War while in the earshot of our friend Mary, who has an enormous library in her home in Paris. She later sent me the names of five authors, including Zweig, with […]

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Given that I’ve been re-reading Alan Furst, who spends a lot of time in Central Europe, and that World War I concluded with the end of the fairly ridiculous concept that was the Austro-Hungarian Empire … the other day I remembered a conversation I had more than 35 years ago — with someone who grew […]

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I find the notion of “2013” awkward. It’s the 13. Not a felicitous number. Though it does sound more like a football score than anything we have had in a while. Which is good. Moreso than 20-10 or 20-09, certainly, or even 20-07. Just looking at it, it seems as if it is a prime […]

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The UAE Olympic soccer team’s Summer 2012 European Tour continues, jumping from Austria, via Munich, to the English city of Manchester where, I am happy to report, it is not raining. (Turns out that Manchester actually has fewer rainy days, and gets less rain than is typical in England. But last I had heard, rain […]

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  What a great discovery. Austria. Who knew? That is a final picture of the Grandhotel Lienz, taken from the other side of the Isel River. Quite a spot. The hotel, the river, the city. But I liked just about all of what I saw in this country.

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