Posts
Awesome Avenue of Volcanoes (2013)
Day Trip From Quito They line up the Pan-American Highway leading from Ecuador further south, like fierce sentinels watching over every traveller. Their names roll of your tongue with awe, Sangay, Tunghurahua, Quilotoa, Cotopaxi, Illiniza, Antisana, Pichincha, Reventedor. Some wear a gossamer scarf so as …
Quito – Sniffed & Frisked (2013)
“You have been selected,” gushes the breathless airline attendant in her charming Spanish-accented English as I approach the boarding gate. Her English vocabulary exhausted, she then lapses into Spanish. I am mystified but also flattered about having been chosen for whatever it is. Visions of …
Paris – On a Bike (multiple times since 1981)
Napoleon, perched nonchalantly on top of the 135-foot column at Place Vendome, appears to be mocking me as I try to balance precariously on a three-foot high bicycle right under his nose. After all, I hadn’t ridden a bicycle in over a quarter of a …
Lhasa, Serene No Longer (2014)
Our small plane takes a sharp turn to the left, dodging the towering massifs that line up to form an amphitheatre and eases itself neatly into a narrow gap to begin its descent into the Lhasa valley. For the better part of the last five …
Florence – Agony & Ecstasy (2009)
You’ve heard of intelligent machines, but have you encountered any? Well, you would, at Roma Termini station. Every time you ask for a ticket to any destination on Trenitalia, the vending machine invariably displays the most expensive train and ticket options. For instance, when you …
Venice, Dowager Queen of The Adriatic (2005)
When was the last time you were in a city without road traffic? Not encountering a single car, bus or truck is perhaps the most appealing aspect of Venice for the jaded city-dweller hoping for a getaway from petrol fumes for a few days. That …
Krakow, Schindler’s Town (2017)
Krakow, the imperial capital of Poland for five centuries from 1038 to 1611, has often been compared to Prague, Vienna and Budapest on account of its baroque splendour, but for me, the most endearing images of this city are those of Kazimierz, its bustling, bohemian …
