Author Archives: The Wife of Bath
Winning window bars in Poitiers
Why can’t my window bars at home be as, um, as uplifting and exciting as these I saw in Poitiers?
Picnic at Église Notre-Dame la Grande, Poitiers
A plane to Paris, connection directly from the airport by train to Poitiers, a quick dump of our bags in the hotel by the train station, a run up a steep hill into the historical district of Potiers and voilà: two hungry and jet lagged Americans ready for a picnic. Within an hour of arrival we […]
Château de Saumur and the month of September from Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry
One of my favorite works of art is the French Gothic manuscript illumination Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Today we visited the Château de Saumur, in Saumur France, which is seen in the illustration of September. A great day for in situ magic! How we got to Saumur: train from Tours. Where we slept: […]
Seville’s April Fair: beautiful Andalusians and embarassing dancing
I’m not sure who was more gorgeous: the people or the horses. Weirdly, neither species was sweating, except for us, two Midwesterners broiling in the April Seville sun. The Seville April Fair or Feria de abril de Sevilla for all you non-gringos, is a yearly six day fair of Andalusian culture in Seville, Spain. […]
I’ll just have to wait for the arancini
I had a jones for Italian street food on my lunch break. Normally, I’m pretty disciplined about eating only what I pack from home, but damn, this was what crack addiction must feel like. I NEEDED ARANCINI. There’s a place by my job called L’Appetito that I walked past for years but never eaten in […]
Cutural tourism at home–great practice, no jet lag
One of the best ways to be a great traveler is to practice–like anything else, the more you do it, the better you get. Yeah, I know, you don’t have a trust fund or infinite amounts of vacation time, so you can’t just fly over to Europe whenever you feel like it. But you can […]
Interlude in Rimini with funeral at Tempio Malatestiano
I had it all planned: we were in route from Florence to Urbino , and we would jump off the train for a few hours in Rimini to visit Alberti’s Tempio Malatestiano. HOB and I were in the midst of our self-designed Ideal City trip across Italy. Were studying the work of five Renaissance architects/urban planners: Brunelleschi, Bramante, Alberti, Michelangelo and […]
Public bathrooms in Europe, or how I conquered the Turkish toilet and lived to squat again
My first time was in a rather upmarket restaurant in Paris. I asked for the bathroom and when shown the way I entered what surely was the wrong room, since it was only a porcelain hole in the ground. I ran out, looked at the sign on the door, went back in, and to my […]
As Slow as Possible: searching for John Cage in Halberstadt
It was snowing and we were lost in Halberstadt, Germany looking for a John Cage performance. There were signs: “The longest piece of music in the world-639 years!” but we still had to stop passersby and ask in terrible German “Wo ist John Cage?”. We followed a well-intentioned woman and two toddlers several blocks in […]
How to find cheap airfare to Europe
I get asked this a lot. I mean, I’ve gotten emails from co-workers I’ve never had a single conversation with that are like, “Hey, someone told me you can get me a cheap flight.” Sometimes it’s true. I don’t want to brag, but…. oh heck, I do want to brag. For instance: a friend just […]
Picnic at the Cathedral 