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 […]
Women are shaping the future of the Ecuadorian Amazon with great resolve. The particular kind of power evolving in this region does not shout, it does not posture. It endures. It is perhaps no coincidence that this movement is unfolding in Ecuador – the first country in the world to have granted constitutional rights to […]
In the Peruvian Amazon, the first thing you’ll notice is the soundscape. Cicadas pulse in steady waves, frogs call from hidden pools, and howler monkeys rumble in the distance like far-off thunder. As you glide along the waterway, you’ll see that the forest itself seems to breathe; leaves caught by wind, branches creaking, rain still […]
Nowhere on Earth makes it easier to reconnect with the natural world than the Amazon rainforest. I caught my first glimpse of that truth 27 years ago, the moment I set foot beneath its canopy. Like so many places, our idea of the Amazon is shaped by headlines and documentaries—and almost always for the worse. […]
We fear what we don’t know. In travel, as we grow our curiosity for the world, overcoming fear, misconception and unawareness are often part of the process. Few places embody this tension more powerfully than the Amazon. A vast, unknowable river world. A land of abundance and promise. A hostile and dangerous wilderness. Constant risk of […]
The G_ family has been traveling with us for over 20 years. They have been nearly everywhere, so picking their next destination wasn’t an easy task. In fact, they had no intention of visiting Brazil until we planted the idea in their minds of boat trip on the Tapajós River in the Brazilian Amazon. I […]
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” […]
We whirled by and I almost missed him. I had seen him two weeks earlier in some other valley on some other stretch of road, just barely on the pavement. The drive from Paro to Thimpu used to take 2.5 hours. It was down a valley to a confluence and then up the other waterway, […]