“In years long gone, too many for the almanac to tell of, or for clocks and watches to measure, millions of good fairies came down from the sun and went into the earth. There, they changed themselves into roots and leaves, and became trees. There were many kinds of these, as they covered the earth,…
Bay of Smoke
Reykjavík is Old Norse for “smokey bay,” named for steam rising up from the geothermal vents found across the island. Although I did not visit any hot springs, my vision of the city was smokey, dark, misty. During the day, it was either nighttime or raining or both. In November 2021, on my first solo…
Bairros de Lisboa
Every time I sit down to write about my recent trip to Lisbon, I fall into a rabbit hole of swirling lines of Fernando Pessoa’s poetry and prose. Pessoa, who was born in Lisbon in 1888 and who died in 1935 at the age of 47, is perhaps the greatest figure of modern Portuguese literature….
Ilha Verde
I visited Portugal at the beginning of March and spent two nights in the Azores and three in Lisbon. It was at the start of the global pandemic and the exact worst time to get on an international flight. On the morning of the first full day of the trip, I woke up to news…
Terra Inter Montes
The city of Innsbruck is the capital and largest city in Tyrol, a western state in Austria’s salient, or panhandle. Tyrol (Tirol in German and Tirolo in Italian) is a larger historic and cultural region in the Alps in both Austria and Italy. In Medieval times, Tyrol was a part of the Holy Roman Empire….
The Nordkette
These photographs were taken on Hafelekarspitze (Hafelekar Peak), a mountain in the Austrian Alps right above Innsbruck. The following is an excerpt from a piece I wrote for Past@Present, the UMass Amherst Department of History’s blog, about this trip to the Alps. In November 2019 I went to Innsbruck, Austria, to attend the Annual Conference…
Lago di Como
What is Lake Como? A body of water, historical location, geological formation, luxurious vacation destination, pandemic ghost lake? I put together the paragraphs below by curating sentences from articles published in academic journals, online magazines, and travel websites. Each piece of writing considers the lake from a different perspective; I’ve woven fragments together in an…
Altstadt München
Sometimes you end up in the wrong city, in the wrong country. Maybe you’re trying to get to Innsbruck, Austria for a conference but the airline you booked with decides not just to cancel your flight but that they will no longer fly to Innsbruck, period. So they reroute you to Munich instead and you…
Sonder in Sondrio
Sondrio is a northern Italian town nestled among the Alps in Valtellina. I visited with my family on a dreary November afternoon. There were few others out and about but the people we did see were living their own full lives and being their own conscious selves. The name Sondrio makes me think of sonder….
A City of Love
Verona is called a city of love. Where does love live in a city? Is it between the medieval blocks of stone of the façade of the Basilica di San Zeno, mined and assembled by the hands of unknown laborers? Or perhaps in the crypt of this church, the purported setting for the ill-fated marriage…
Ponte Nel Cielo
The bridge in the sky connects two towns and crosses a chasm. It was built for people to drive up to the village to spend money and then to cross it and then to cross back or perhaps to embark on a longer journey but either way they end up back at the starting point….
La Vieille Capitale
Québec City is the capital of the province of Québec. In the mid-19th century, the city was the capital of all of Canada. It’s nickname in French is La Vieille Capitale, which translates to the old or former capital. The etymology of the name comes from the Algonquin word kébec, or “where the river narrows.”…
La Métropole
In June 2019, we road-tripped from Massachusetts to Québec and stopped in both Montréal and Québec City. Montréal, nicknamed “Québec’s Metropolis,” is the second largest city in Canada after Toronto with a population of about 1.8 million. The city covers part of an island in the Saint Lawrence River which runs from Lake Ontario northeast…
The City of Light
I spent a week in Paris during the summer of 2018 as an on-site program coordinator for an architectural history and urban studies study abroad program. We spent two weeks in London before taking a train through the Chunnel, and also took a day trip to Versailles while in Paris. We criss-crossed France’s capital, visiting…
The Flower of Cities All
I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Charlotte Brontë During the summer of 2018, I spent three weeks working as an on-site program coordinator for an American study abroad program where students earned course credits in the history of architecture and urban studies. The first two weeks of the…
Architecture & Astronomy
Greenwich is a borough of London accessible by Underground or, my preference, the roller coaster-like Docklands Light Railway which passes over Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs. Inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1997, “Maritime Greenwich” contains a high density of sites of significance to the area’s seafaring history including the Royal Park,…
From Here, Enlightenment
The University of Cambridge, founded in 1209, is the second-oldest English-language university in the world after Oxford. I visited on a cold and dreary day while on a day trip from London and explored the parts of the campus open to the public. I walked along thoroughfares, down alleys, and across bridges over the River…
Take the Waters
The city of Bath in Somerset, England, was first founded by the Romans as a spa retreat called Aquae Sulis. The eponymous Roman baths are still very much a destination, as are the modern resort amenities in the city. The archaeological site was built because and on top of the geothermal hot springs below. The…
Castle of the Sun King
Versailles is the epicenter of excess in the outskirts of Paris. Originally a country residence removed from Paris, it is now subsumed into the suburban sprawl of the capital city. Versailles was built in the 17th century as a lavish display of luxury and expression of power, with 2,300 rooms and space for 20,000 people….
Royal Botanic Gardens
Who knew one of the most biodiverse places on Earth can be reached via the District Tube Line from London? Kew Gardens, located in the eponymous suburban district of London southwest of the center city, is home to a botanic garden with UNESCO Cultural World Heritage designation. The gardens first opened in 1759 and Kew…