What I like about the Spanish capital is that it is small enough in the city centre to walk to most places. Local still reigns. It's a city of neighbourhoods, or barrios, each...

24 January, 2023 /

Hotels in Paris are aplenty. Safety and refuge is what I seek in a hotel. In turn that implies that the décor is aesthetic, the staff welcoming, and the very act of walking...

27 December, 2022 /

On the rue de Charonne, in the backstreets of Paris' 11th district, just north of the Gare de Lyon, is a cluster of four extraordinary places to eat and drink: Séptime, Clamato, Tapisserie and Séptime...

27 December, 2022 /

If I could live anywhere in Paris, I would chose an apartment overlooking the Maurice Gardette Square – the largest patch of green in the 11th arrondissement, shaded by mature trees, and with green...

22 November, 2022 /

I spent a month in August 2022 in Castell'Azzara, Southern Tuscany. I worked as a volunteer at ASHA, the Alchemy School of Healing Arts, just 2km outside the town centre.  Castell'Azzara is a 'mountain' town perched on the edge...

13 October, 2022 /

The portici or shady arcades of the Italian city of Bologna came as a welcome relief; first from the torrid sun and then, when I returned to the city four weeks later, the torrential rain....

09 September, 2022 /

I sneaked in a visit to Lyon just before the arrival of the summer heat wave – or la canicule as the French call it, when temperatures approach 40C degrees, and the locals seek the...

25 July, 2022 /
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