Author Archives: The Wife of Bath
From the Pyrénées into Bayonne: Basque culture and a jar of beans
We got up early this morning, walked out into a star-filled sky, and made our way to the Basque region of France to Bayonne. After a fascinating visit to the Basque Museum, we walked about enjoying the rainy ambience of this pretty town. Dawn in the Pyrénées. Confidential to the people of Bayonne: you live […]
The worst thing about traveling is missing my cat
I’m feeling it now, that stomach-churning excitement of imminent travel mixed with fear of flying and…guilt. Guilt has whiskers and four paws—meet our cat Janacek. Janacek is a big, lovey fellow whose hobbies include shedding, begging for dinner, shedding, sleeping in sunbeams and by the radiator, shedding, sitting like a pumpernickel loaf, playing hockey with […]
Collegio del Cambio: Perugino’s fashionable frescoes in Perugia
It was a great plan, in theory. We’d get up early in Arezzo, take a train to Perugia, stop in Perugia for a few hours to view Perugino’s frescoes and then continue by bus to Gubbio. Here’s what happened: we took a train from Arezzo to Perugia, stopped in Perugia for a few hours, and […]
My wish list for 2015: tolerance, cultural-crossbreeding and a comfortable bra
My neighborhood was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti this week. It would be wrong and upsetting for this to happen to a Jewish community anywhere, but these are my neighbors; the people I sit next to on the bus, share a library and grocery store with, whose cute kids I play peekaboo with on the train platform. I am […]
Funniest travel moments from 2014
That one time I was photo-bombed in Ragusa Ibla… Some schmuck I met at Maulbronn monastery. The forehead that was more like a fivehead in the Icon Museum of Frankfurt. We watched a line of people pose with this penis in Agrigento. Restores my faith in humanity, that. I regret we didn’t stop in Frankenstein. […]
Medieval eye candy and Monsieur John Waters in Semur-en-Auxois
We had hardly arrived in Semur-en-Auxois when HOB started to worry: “But where will we catch our bus tomorrow?” I was doing my best to oooh and aaaah at all the charming details of this quaint town in the Burgundy region of France, but HOB couldn’t focus. Most places have well labeled bus stops complete with daily […]
How to travel in winter
Around this time every year I open my email to find an inbox full of cheap airfare alerts–cheap winter flights to cold weather destinations. I feel cocky seeing those cheap winter airfares. And oh yes, smug. Just for a minute or two, I indulge in contempt for snowbirds, for sun-worshiping zombies, for geezer cruisers. While they’re flipping themselves […]
Ostuni, the other windy city
Italians call it La Citta Bianca–The White City. I call it L‘altra Città Ventosa–The Other Windy City. Ostuni (the official name of this white and windy city) is remarkably picturesque from a distance. We approached by train though silvery rows of olive trees towards a small mountain of whitewashed buildings. After the friendly owner of our B&B picked us […]
Mosaics in the Cathedral of Monreale
We’ve already established that I suck at history, and while we’re on the topic of embarrassing self-disclosures, I confess I didn’t realize until recently that Normans were French. Here’s what I do know about Normans (other than that they all seem to have been named William): they built some gorgeous Romanesque buildings. In Sicily, once […]
Picnic at the Cathedral 