Around the world, it seems to be assumed that hardly a jet can touch down — anywhere, at any time of year — and not have some Americans on board. With more of them already ensconced in a nearby hotel or tourist club. Americans like to get out and around. But not necessarily in this […]

[Read more →]

It happened on April 1 — April Fools’ Day. It is a quasi-notable pranking date on the Western calendar but it seems unlikely it meant anything to the Egyptian guys in the housekeeping department of the Nile Commodore. They like to create works of art out of items they find in each stateroom. And it […]

[Read more →]

I have always liked that journalistic convention … on how to handle a “dateline” when traveling via water. You write “aboard” and continue with the name of the ship. Such as “the USS Enterprise” or “HMS Victory” or “RMS Titanic”. A few decades ago, the dateline also would have included the day a story was […]

[Read more →]

Intellectually, we know how important the Nile River is to Egypt. It can be seen on a map; the blue line that waters a country. But the Nile’s importance is really hammered home when you leave your mooring place on the river and travel a few miles east or west. What appears to be a […]

[Read more →]

He gave his life for tourism. — comedian Steve Martin The Valley of the Kings is cleft in craggy limestone a few miles from the Nile river valley, and each year thousands of international visitors flock to the site just outside the Egyptian city of Luxor to have a look at it. They come to […]

[Read more →]

Most of us are aware of the ancient treasures of Egypt, but we might be a little hazy on what is where. It is a big country, after all, larger than Texas in square miles. Want all manner of things big and small and mummified, profoundly old? Then the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the capital, […]

[Read more →]

Rookie mistake? Shady operators? Inevitable issues? Doesn’t really matter when it goes bad, does it? Our last-minute visit to Egypt, which began well enough on Day 1, got a bit better on Day 2. A wet finger in the Red Sea, which is interesting but not Moses-like in impact, lots of sun while catching up […]

[Read more →]

Most people do not really want to be known for hare-brained schemes, but eventually a body of work cannot be defended from the reality of bunny-level planning. (Raising my hand.) This began a month ago, thereabouts. A long time ago, when it comes to groceries, no time at all when it involves international travel. It […]

[Read more →]

We tried for six years to get a reservation at Tickets, the well-known (and Michelin-starred) Barcelona tapas restaurant based on molecular gastronomy. We have tended to stay in the Barcelona neighborhood named Poble Sec, where Tickets is located, and when we discovered that … the building seemed to sort of taunt us whenever we walked […]

[Read more →]

So, back in Barcelona. Hard to avoid the place when it remains one of the world’s great cities … and when visiting friends and family (from the U.S.) stage through the Spanish town on visits to Europe. But it also has that one major problem that has not been resolved. And this is not about […]

[Read more →]