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 […]

The Greece of my earliest imaginations came from the iconic pictures of whitewashed villages and blue roof houses overlooking the Aegean Sea, and sun-scorched white sand beaches. I was always dreaming of warmer and sunnier pastures, likely a function of Canadian climate and culture. Greece was a “forever summer” country in my mind, with endless […]

Don’t worry.  I’ve not gone off the deep end (yet). The title is a rough translation of the hymn to San Sebastian, aka Donostia, aka one of the Coolest Coastal Towns in Spain.  It’s also much more readable than the original Basque: Sebastian bat badu zeruan, donosti bat bakarra munduan. But Basque aside, I’m not hot […]