Modern beasts made from steel that hurl their futuristic shape from city to city at great speed, or rather rundown carriers of nostalgia that crisscross the countryside at a snail’s pace: trains. Manmade machines on tracks. I love them all. I’ve always had a great fondness for this quintessential way of getting from A to […]

Some foods are so intrinsically tied to a place that often they shed a light on its past vicissitude much better than any museums or monuments. One of them is cod: the consumption of this fish is widespread across several continents, from Russia, to Western Africa, from the Caribbean to England, to the point that […]

I like cities. I don’t like to leave them. Frankly, too much green and nature makes me slightly apprehensive. Wide open, verdant space may seem idyllic in many respects, true, but it can hide suspect hazards. Like bear traps. Or vicious moles. Or dogs off-the-leash intent on crotch investigation. A park, however, is acceptable; a […]

My friend ignored my first nine emails suggesting we visit the Norwegian wilderness in December. But then she remembered who she was dealing with, and I—like a dog with a bone—was unlikely to give up on northern lights, dog sledding and sleeping in a heated tent. She had reason to be concerned. The weather website […]