Barcelona
Prague’s famous Charles Bridge is often jam-packed with tourists. Photo by Clark Norton
You may have experienced it yourself when battling humongous lines to enter San Marco in Venice, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, or the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, or when you found yourself in a wave of fellow travelers struggling to get a peek at the changing of the guard at palaces in London, Athens, or Prague.
You may have been put off by hordes of drunken revelers in Amsterdam, Mallorca, or Berlin (of which, we trust, you were not one yourself).
You may have found small Alaskan ports or Croatian islands too overrun by your fellow cruise ship passengers to appreciate the beauty that attracted you to such cruise itineraries in the first place.
You may have sought out privacy in Iceland’s hot springs, only to find them packed with Game of Thrones fans drawn… Continue reading
Kyoto’s Kinkaku-ji Zen Buddhist Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Photo by Dennis Cox/WorldViews
Barcelona, Spain. Udaipur, India. Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Rome and Florence, Italy. Santa Fe, New Mexico and Charleston, South Carolina, U.S..
Luang Prabang, Laos. Ubud, Indonesia (Bali).
Cape Town, South Africa. Hoi An, Vietnam.
Kyoto, Japan. Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Oaxaca and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
What do these cities have in common? If you said “very little,” you’;d be right, but you’d also be wrong.
They were all voted into the top 15 of the “World’s Top Cities” by the readers of Travel + Leisure Magazine. The criteria included sights/landmarks, culture, cuisine, friendliness, shopping, and overall value.
Where are the Usual Suspects?
Notable absences include London, Paris,. Venice, Prague, St. Petersburg, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Vancouver, Hong Kong…not even such trendy destinations as… Continue reading
The Hungarian Parliament Building, Budapest, overlooks the Danube. Photo by Clark Norton
Travel + Leisure Magazine has just come out with its latest “World’s Best” lists — there are lots of those these days — one of which is the World’s Top Ten Best Cities.
Here’s the Top Ten as voted by T+L readers:
10. Jerusalem, Israel 9. Cape Town, South Africa 8.Barcelona, Spain 7.Krakow, Poland 6. Bangkok, Thailand 5. Rome, Italy 4. Florence, Italy 3. Siem Reap, Cambodia 2. Charleston, South Carolina 1. Kyoto, Japan
A loyal reader sent me the link yesterday and asked if I could name my own Top 10. I’m happy to oblige.
First, I will say that the above list is not bad, although I don’t quite understand how Siem Reap, Cambodia, makes the list, because it’s mostly known as the gateway to Angkor Wat — which, while being a world-class icon, doesn’t qualify… Continue reading
The Hungarian Parliament Building, illuminated at night. Photo by Clark Norton
I see a lot of Top Ten travel lists of this and that, often filed away and forgettable. But a friend just sent me a particularly interesting compilation of Top Ten travel lists — ranging from the world’s best nightlife destinations to best culture and history to cheapest and most expensive places to visit — as voted on by 7,000 travelers who took part in a recent survey by hostelworld.com.
Now it’s true that most people using hostelworld.com, a site where you can book hostels and inexpensive hotels/inns/guesthouses around the world, are probably much younger than the typical baby boomer demographic. But I was struck by, well, how much I agreed with the findings of the survey – though perhaps for different reasons in some cases.
Whether that means I’m still a 20-year-old backpacker at heart, or… Continue reading
Having spent several days in the past week cruising the western Mediterranean — Italy, France and Spain — on Costa’s new flagship, the Diadema, I’ve been able to reacquaint myself with some of my favorite sights in Europe: outdoor food markets.
For my taste, there’s nothing like a food market in Europe, where the vegetables, fruit, meat, seafood, sweets and everything else look so tempting that I’m ready to load up my shopping bag even if I have nowhere to cook or even time to eat them.
Here is a small sampling from one of my favorite European markets, in Barcelona, Spain, right off the famed boulevard, Las Ramblas. While the market is covered, its sides are open to the outdoors.
The market’s seafood looks like it was caught that morning — because it was.
Fruta — looks good enough to, well, eat.
Chili peppers, among other… Continue reading
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