Tag Archives: travel
Folk music in Svaneti, Georgia
Imagine this: you’re stuffed with fresh home-cooking, toasting Saint George with potent local chacha (vodka). There are charming children, a fire in a wood-burning stove and outside your temporary home it looks like this: You’re warm and comfortable but your hair is standing up. It’s the music. The music of Svaneti, a mountainous region of […]
How ancient jewelry inspired a fountain in Kutaisi, Georgia
We were sweating when we arrived at the enjoyably chaotic bus station in Kutaisi, still dressed in mountain weather-appropriate layers. There are palm trees in Kutaisi and an almost tropical humidity, which explains the omnipresent ice cream bars. This is a city of ice cream bars—multiple coolers of ice cream bars on every block. We’re not talking artisanal ice cream […]
An overnight train and a marshrutka from Tbilisi to Svaneti, Georgia: paper sheets and landslides
We’re in Svaneti, a region of Northwest Georgia full of cultural treasures. Getting here was dramatic. First step: an overnight train from Tbilisi to Zugdidi. This is the part of the trip that had stressed me out the most. As it happened, the journey was uneventful, even pleasant. We showed up at the Tbilisi train […]
Insomnia in Tbilisi
It’s dawn in Tbilisi, where we arrived yesterday morning at 3:35 am. We napped a bit on arrival and I’ve been awake ever since, awake in fact for the most of the past three days. I was awake at midnight when the other residents of our guest house snuffed out their candles on the balcony […]
That obligatory post about my travel mistakes
It’s like this; I could stay home, or I could travel a lot and make mistakes. So yeah, I’ve made plenty of mistakes and I’m ready to own all of them. Cringe along with me, why don’t you? This coat. I visited at least four countries in this coat with it’s gigantic fur collar. These days […]
If your car ever happens to stop in front of a painted egg museum in Romania, I recommend you go inside
We were traveling East, though the mountains of Northern Romania. This (and the occasional cascade of sheep across the highway) was our view: Normally I’d have micromanaged every stop on our itinerary, but we were in the unusual position of taking a private tour—something I’d sorted out at the last minute so we could visit […]
A wardrobe malfunction in the Legend of the True Cross fresco, Arezzo
We arrived in Arezzo, a lovely art-laden town in Eastern Tuscany, with reservations to see Piero della Francesca’s Legend of the True Cross fresco cycle. Actually, I’d booked two separate viewing times, since reservations are compulsory and limited to a 1/2 half hour and that’s not enough time for us. As it turns out, we were the only visitors during both […]
The charm of interstitial cities
Getting around by public transportation as a budget minded, independent traveler can be non-linear and inefficient; this is why I love it. The phrase “you can only get there by car” activates my travel machismo and sends me straight to the internet, since I know there must be a way. An email to a tourist information […]
Michelangelo’s strange stairway at the Laurentian Library, Florence
How can a stairway start an architectural revolution? When it’s designed by Michelangelo. Construction on the Laurentian Library of Florence began in 1525, and plans for the vestibule and stairwell to the reading room were conceived by Michelangelo when he was 50 years old. Several architects continued the project, keeping with Michelangelo’s design concept, until […]
Paper, plastic, and ATM machines: your plan for spending money while traveling
Shout out to all my fellow cheapskate travelers: you savvy penny-pinchers have taught me so much about budget travel. In all the focus on saving money, though, the logistics of spending money during a trip sometimes get sidelined. Every traveler, even a cheapskate—make that especially a cheapskate—should have a money plan. You’ll need a combination of cash and […]
