I landed in Dubrovnik under the most Dalmatian atmospheric conditions, with the warm Scirocco wind from the South, locally lovingly called Jugo, coming to greet me, setting the tone with a low, gray hanging sky and damp air. Like in every coastal culture, winds do not just dictate the route of boats: they’re also believed […]

I don’t know what came first: my affection for France, or my fascination for rusty old Citroëns. Either way, each emotion feeds the other. But one of them, over the years, has become what my close friends call a little problematic. It started young. As a kid I befriended the owner of the Citroën garage […]

‘Paris est minérale‘. Could there be a more poetic way to describe a bustling metropolis? As a Brazilian, I sure load my speeches and descriptions with hyperboles and words that defeat the rules of grammar. But mineral! Oh, I would never have thought of that, yet it remains as one of my favourite souvenirs from […]

On a cool November night at the end of last year, people nearing Beaune’s famous hospital – the 15th-century Hôtel-Dieu, also known as the Hospices, are right to wonder exactly what I and about a hundred other runners with headlamps are doing, gathered in the Place des Halles. On the weekend in question (always the […]

High above the wild gorges of Chassezac between Provence and the Massif Central, a medieval village remains quietly untouched, even in the middle of summer. On my first visit to the area, back in 2017, I almost drove past it without noticing it. The road across the plateau felt endless that day. Quiet and empty, […]

In most of my earliest childhood photos, my face is covered in chocolate. And while my table manners have somewhat improved, my love of chocolate remains unspoiled. My favourite dessert out there is my French grandmother’s chocolate mousse. Chocolate mousse is rarely the best in restaurants. It’s kind of a pain to make in large […]

France is a small but richly varied country, so we often combine two or more regions in a single trip: for example, Burgundy and Provence, Lyon and the Riviera, or the Alps and the countryside further south. But since there’s so much to see in these regions packed with history and character, there are always […]

There’s a particular kind of magic that settles over France in the off-season and I felt it almost immediately on my recent research trip. Not in any one grand moment, but in the subtle shift of things — the softened pace, the quiet streets, the way the experience moved from something observed to something more […]

There’s much I love about the French region of Alsace, tucked up alongside the Rhine between the pine-covered Vosges and the Black Forest of Germany.  For a start, it’s the only place I know where electric pistachio can be considered a subdued choice of colour to paint the entire outside of your house. The villages are […]

On a recent research trip in the English Lake District (located just below the Scottish borders, 90 minutes north of Manchester) I could not help but recall a William Wordsworth poem from my school days. I hadn’t enjoyed having to memorise it at the time – now I’m thankful. “I wandered lonely as a cloud” […]

When we travel, we seek change and variety. And if life at home feels predictable or monotonous, we seek to dial things up in the dazzle and flare of the big places: the hip, the hype, the bucket-list monuments, the dance floors and the delicacies – a spinning sensory wheel of excitement. But life at […]

I wake up. It’s still dark outside even though the clock reads 8am. I let the sound of the rain hitting my window gently soothe me back to sleep until day breaks. Things feel slower on this Monday in November, and I’ll gladly indulge if it means staying in my warm bed for a few […]

‘Tis the Yuletide season once again, but while some may have visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads, I’m thinking about fire, pageantry, sheep and the winter solstice in Portugal’s hinterland.  It’s been something of a hobby of mine for a few years now to get up to the Tras-os-Montes and Alto Douro regions […]

If there’s a city where history still tastes good, it’s Porto. Stand on the Ribeira quayside at sunset with the old Port lodges glowing on the Gaia side, and it hits you: this city was built on a drink. A sweet, ruby-dark, barrel-aged drink that once sailed the world and still defines Portugal today. But […]

Driving south from my home base in Jerez, I naturally like to put some flamenco on the radio.  Flamenco is that uniquely Spanish art form where, encapsulated within the syncopated rhythms, electrifying guitar, lyrics, melismatic wails and cries, is the history of Andalusia itself: Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, Muslims and Gypsies, who all contributed their […]

There is Mallorca, and just beyond, there is Mallorca.  Rarely have I visited a place that presents such a duplicity between its reputation and surface (overcrowded “package” tourism”) and what you can actually find beyond the beaches, teeming resorts, and yes, the maddening crowds. And I’m here to tell you friends that the Mallorca beyond […]