November 9 – 23, 2013 El Gastor, Spain El Gastor is the little white-washed pueblo even the Spaniards have never heard of. It sits huddled along the northern face of a dry, olive-tree freckled hillside, and leans heavily into the shade of the towering Tajo de Algarín during long, scorching summer afternoons. We, of course,… Continue reading The Light in Andalusía
Category: Spaces & Places
All the way to heaven is heaven. – St. Catherine of Sienna
Roads Less Traveled In the Algarve: Portugal’s Forgotten Costa Vicentina (PHOTO ESSAY)
July 13 – 22, 2013 Southwestern Algarve, Portugal The Algarve is Portugal’s infamous bastion of summer tourism. Young Germans and Brits come in droves to places like Albufeira and Portimao to prop up the country’s stagnating economy with countless euros spent on over-priced one-star hotels, beachfront caipirinha shacks and rental sun loungers. As we hurried… Continue reading Roads Less Traveled In the Algarve: Portugal’s Forgotten Costa Vicentina (PHOTO ESSAY)
Out on the Tiles: Living Lisbon’s Summertime
June 25 – July 7 Lisbon, Portugal It’s been a while since my last post, but I can admit to having a pretty qualified excuse. For the past two weeks, we’ve made our home the ancient and decadently crumbling neighborhood of Alfama; Lisbon’s historic and, in many ways, cultural heart. In an attempt to align… Continue reading Out on the Tiles: Living Lisbon’s Summertime
Off the Beaten Path in Ireland: The Road to Torr Head and Carrick-a-Rede
March 19 – 24 Northern Ireland If there was a way to somehow distill the essence of Ireland such as to contain it in a bottle so that it could be taken as an elixir at the end of a particularly long and difficult day; a sort of tonic that could lift the senses and… Continue reading Off the Beaten Path in Ireland: The Road to Torr Head and Carrick-a-Rede
The Sands of Harris
March 9 – 16 Isle of Harris, Outer Hebrides Scotland “You’ll get off the boat in Lewis and you’ll say to yourself…wow, now that’s really something”. Clustered around their dinner table, our friend Davy’s eyes grew wide and round as he illustrated his point. Nodding her agreement, his wife Cheryl chimed in. “Then you’ll get… Continue reading The Sands of Harris
When the Sun Shines In Scotland
February 18 – 25 Isle of Luing, Inner Hebrides, Scotland On a late February day in the northwest of Scotland, we had been given a gift. It came in the form of a radiantly beautiful day, one in which a low-slung winter sun glazed the pastures and seacoast of the Inner Hebrides with a warm,… Continue reading When the Sun Shines In Scotland
Aotearoa by Pictures: Part 1
July 2010 North Island, New Zealand When I recently purged the hard drive on my Mac in a vain attempt to rid myself of some obscure, persistent error afflicting OS X, I came across several previously unpublished photos from our two months spent RVing in New Zealand during June and July 2010. Rather than archiving… Continue reading Aotearoa by Pictures: Part 1
Christmas Market Crawl
December 2012 Italy, Slovenia & Austria Throughout the month of December, as we made our way through Northern Italy and into Slovenia before finally coming to rest in Austria for the holidays, we had the occasion to peruse several of Europe’s best Christmas markets – also called Adventmärkte, Weihnachtsmärkte and of course, Christkindlmärkt. While we… Continue reading Christmas Market Crawl