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…

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….

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….

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…

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…

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….

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…

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.”…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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….

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…

Ely is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England and easy to combine with a day trip to Cambridge if traveling from London via train. Although the etymology of Ely (pronounced ee-lee) is not fully agreed upon, it may come from its early nickname as the Isle of Eels. Ely was located on an island in…

The dragon is the emblem of Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia. Legend has it, the city was founded after a dragon living in the surrounding marshlands was vanquished. We spent three nights in Ljubljana at the end of our international trip last summer. The city was Europe’s Green Capital of 2016, and environmental initiatives can be…

The oldest Phoenician inscription was found by archaeologists in Byblos, a key location for the dissemination of the writing system three thousand years ago. Sea-faring Phoenician merchants took the alphabet with them, spreading it across the Mediterranean world where it was assimilated and adapted by a variety of cultural groups. Phoenician is the first alphabet, from…

Are you looking for Khan al Saboun? Here are directions: Enter the souks, Tripoli’s ancient marketplace. Walk past the gold jewelry. Turn the corner. Get lost. Keep going. Pass through the archway. You’ve found it. Each time I visit Khan al Saboun, a guild of artisan soap makers in the heart of the souks, I feel as if getting…

Trieste is situated on the Adriatic Sea but at a crossroads, and its complicated history can be read from the city’s structures and the structure of the city. It has been a Roman colony, a Byzantine outpost, part of the Holy Roman Empire, occupied by the Republic of Venice, a major Hapsburg city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, occupied…