Tag: Travel

Ready, set …

~ Chris ~ 6 Comments

Right about now I have a squirming urge to bolt, to unshackle from the boring and banal, to hop a jet and vacate this place somewhere faraway, to get the hell out of here, to go go go. Sure, Mexico City was only six weeks ago, a distant, wondrous dream doused in humanity and habanero, but plans must be made when that itch called wanderlust screams for scratching.

And so I plan. And I move fast. And I’ve picked where to go next. And, greedily, I’ve chosen two discrete destinations for early 2026. And they’re probably not what you would think.

Because they’re not what I would think, either. Marseille, Aix-en-Provence and Arles in Southern France happen the first week of February. Then, in a whiplash turnaround, I hit Nashville, during the first week of March. 

Nashville? you ask in italics. Me, too. 

In an abbreviated checklist, what the country musical capital has going for it: a slew of top-tier southern food restaurants, like the legendary Prince’s Hot Chicken (extra spicy fried fowl); the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum; the National Museum of African American Music; pour-happy whiskey distilleries; vibrant ‘hoods, including the hip, boho East Nashville, where I’m staying; and of course neon-bedazzled Broadway, where practically every bar — miles of them — is a honky-tonk or a venue hosting crunchy Americana in lieu of touristic cowboy hats.

The Strip slash Honky-Tonk Highway, as it’s alternately dubbed, is also where I will urgently avoid the famed flotillas of inebriated bachelorette bashes that turn the avenue into a twerking, tongue-flashing parade of sorority swillers. In pink cowboy boots, to boot. They should rename it Hell’s Highway.

Nashville’s blinding Broadway

Now, to France. Despite the grungy reputation of Marseille — France’s second largest city, animated by African and Italian immigrants, graffiti, a picturesque port and world-class cuisine — the character-rich, seaside region has found its footing in recent years as a must-do destination. 

It’s “the underrated city in the South of France that should be on your bucket list,” toots Condé Nast Traveller, calling it an “untamed labyrinth, the dusty-rouge Mediterranean Port City” that delivers everything from grand cathedrals to transcendent bouillabaisse, Marseille’s iconic seafood stew.  

And it’s affordable. For instance, my hotel, the whimsical Mama Shelter Marseille, is less than $100 a night, and it’s no dump. It has personality, pizzaz and a penchant for partying. (Grandpop here is bringing earplugs just in case.)

From Marseille I’ll catch under-an-hour train rides to Aix and Arles. These quaint, leafy, cobblestoned villages in Provence are where Roman ruins — ogle the gaping 2,000-year-old Arles Amphitheater, home to bullfights today — dot the stomping grounds of great painter Cézanne and great paint-eater Van Gogh. Both towns exude Old World charisma, naked charm and uninterrupted beauty. I’ll spend a day in each, then rail back to the grit, graffiti and gormandizing of Marseille.  

And then, sigh, my journeys will be complete for the first part of 2026, and I won’t embark on another one (or two!) till fall, when the weather cools and, critically, my wallet recovers. Wanderlust is an incurable disease and I’m inflamed and afflicted. I do what I can about it. Which invariably comes down to go. 

Marseille’s famous Vieux Port 

Getting stuffed on the bounty of Mexico City

~ Chris ~ 3 Comments

Twenty-two tacos. That’s all I could devour over seven days in Mexico City before I hit taco fatigue, a malady that beats Montezuma’s revenge by a long shot. (I was gratefully spared that gastrointestinal massacre.) Too many tacos — poor me. But it happened: I burned out on the tortilla-wrapped meats and spices, even though they were otherworldly delicious. Al pastor remains a gastronomic god.

I knew I peaked during an exhaustive nighttime taco tour, which included a pitstop for a heady mezcal tasting. I could only devour seven of the tacos served — including a rather average one at the only taco stand in the world to earn a coveted Michelin star — and had to pass, bloatedly, on the final two. (That would have been nine tacos in three hours, if you’re counting.) I simply couldn’t finish, unless my tour mates wanted to see the feeble American provide a gut splash on the sidewalk. 

During my week in Mexico City, I wasn’t on a journey to eat as many tacos as possible. There was no quota. From the start, I wanted to leave room for an array of local delicacies, street food to fine dining, enchiladas to empanadas. Mission accomplished. Pizza even slipped into the plan. Thanks to its strong European tang, the city is famed for its prodigious pies. It was amazing.

The city surprises like that. CDMX, as they call it, is a sizzling melange of cultural influences, a vibrant swirl of art, cuisine, architecture (note the heavy Euro inspiration), lovely people, dogs, parks, museums (only second in the world for the sheer number of them, after London), sports, and, crap, a serious and grueling traffic problem. Don’t get me started. No, do. Some Uber rides took an hour, stop-starting, for just a few miles. The Ubers were nearly all dusty, dented beaters, but they muscled through and delivered. The streets — as clean as Tokyo. And there are no public trash cans. Pride reigns.

Located in the center of Mexico, the megalopolis sits 7,350 feet above sea level, which makes it higher than Denver, with thin air and temperate climes. It teems with life — 22 million people live there. That’s a lot of humanity, not to mention the multitude of pleased and pampered pups I saw all over the city.

I usually take wads of pictures of camera-happy hounds on my travels, but I only snapped a few this time. Here’s one, among a smattering of shots, a taco-y taste of CDMX. 

In line at the Frida Kahlo Museum. I forgot her name.
Frida Kahlo looking pensive, near the museum. The city bursts with street art.

Cooking up one of my favorites, pork tacos al pastor.

Al pastor up close. That’s marinade, not blood.

A cathedral in the City Centro.

The famous interior decor of the main post office.

The ludicrous circus-like spectacle of lucha libre: wrestling theater. The crowd of 7,000 goes wild at the backflipping, body-stomping, mask-wearing rivalries. It kind of gave me a headache, in a good way.

One of the better pizzas I’ve ever had, even in Italy. Perfection.

A typical park smack in the city. Joggers, yoga, musicians, dogs, salsa dancers.

Palace of Fine Arts (Palacio de Bellas Artes)

Rear is chicken taco al pastor. Front is octopus al pastor. Awesome.

Breakfast before a three-hour tour of the astounding Museum of Anthropology.

A random facade in City Centro.

Large tortilla chip with guacamole. On top: grasshoppers. Yes, delicious.

Making me a killer cocktail at Tlecān mezcal bar. It’s ranked #23 in the World’s 50 Best Bars 2025 and #3 in North America’s 50 Best Bars 2025. It, like Mexico City, lives up to the hype. Ultra-modern with a hearty, heartfelt nod to history.

Roaming Roma

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

About that Mexico City trip I’m taking in November, I think I’m getting carried away. I’m there for a week and already I’ve booked four dinners and six tours, and I’m scanning more adventures in the heaving megalopolis, which goes by the sporty acronym CDMX. 

The gargantuan city is so overwhelming, with so much to see and eat, I feel I require more guidance and guardrails than on previous trips. I’m so fretful that I woke at 2 a.m. to make a pair of rarefied restaurant reservations just to make sure I secured them at the exact right time. (Scored!) 

But I’m also a loner, so, when it comes to tours, I really don’t want to get stuck with too many chatty chuckleheads from, say, Melbourne and Milwaukee. I can roll my eyes only so much. Still, I have six tours on my slate, a personal record, which could be a canny or foolhardy proposition. 

That said, I’m probably going to spend the rest of my time strolling the many neighborhoods solo and uncover my own delights. The place is frightfully big, so this expedition will either be sweetly exhilarating or operatically tragic. 

One of the tours I’ve booked is of the vibrant Roma area, billed as a paradise of local markets, parks, trendy restaurants, bars and hipster cafes. If that’s my sort of  thing — and it is, though I do love my grunge — it also evokes writer-director Alfonso Cuarón’s 2018 memory film “Roma,” set in the neighborhood during the much different 1970s, when the socio-political scene was uniquely combustible. (The area, incidentally, is named after Rome, Italy, as a tribute to its wealth and culture.)

The award-dappled movie is a languid stunner, an autobiographical portrait of growing up in Cuarón’s tight upper-middle class family, with special focus on the domestic help, namely Cleo, who, beyond sweeping up dog poop and making beds, takes care of Cuarón and his three gangly siblings.

Deceptively simple, “Roma” — shot in shimmery, Oscar-winning black and white that looks like quicksilver — is family drama at its most heightened and honest. Its verité verve is pure documentary immersion.

From the director of masterworks “Y tu mamá también,” “Gravity” and “Children of Men,” the movie examines with a flea comb the daily dynamics of living and loving together, and all the pain and joy that involves, including fatal frictions between husband and wife. 

And then there’s quiet, big-hearted Cleo, cooking and cleaning and embracing her role as part of the family — and in the process, becoming a sort of angelic savior keeping the clan together. The movie ranks #46 on the New York Times list of best films of the last 25 years.

The tour I booked has a lot to live up to.

(On Netflix.)

Wrestlemañia

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

It’s billed as the “BEST NIGHT EVER,” comical hyperbole that actually might live up to the puffery. How? Why? Because we’re talking about an excursion starring tacos, beer, tequila and — wait for it — tickets to Lucha Libre wrestling at the main arena in Mexico City. All for $84. Bust the bank? Let’s bust some chops.

What is Lucha Libre? Poor dears. Much like the muscle-bound, spray-tanned, flamboyantly theatrical wrestling spectaculars in the States, this is Mexico’s native version, with its own zingy flourishes. It pops with spangled spandex, gasping acrobatics, high-flying punishments and, of course, glittery but menacing masks. It’s like a ‘roided-out Cirque du Soleil with pile-drivers instead of creepy puppets.  

You might know it from “Nacho Libre,” a 2006 Jack Black comedy I found flat, though some people swear by its broad satirical swipes at easy cultural targets. (And, really, any movie starring the frenzied Black, who looks like a stout, overstuffed burrito in his glistening wrestling regalia, can’t be all bad. Well, yes it can.)

The sport — more like “sports entertainment,” because these shows are about as real as a Bugs Bunny cartoon — is massively popular in Mexico and boasts a cast of characters who act out elaborate storylines of good vs. evil, much like in American professional wrestling. Villains are lustily jeered, heroes cheered, feuds and rivalries fanned, and the wrestlers, known as luchadores, egg-on the rowdy throngs. 

The clownish masks that fit snugly over the brawlers’ entire head denote their identity and persona, like superheroes. “Losing a mask in a match is a significant loss, sometimes even more devastating than losing a hair match where the loser shaves their head,” that according to the web. (Think about a hair match in American wrestling, where the men fling their Goldilocks in a weird kind of virile vanity. It would never happen.) 

Back to that BEST NIGHT EVER (Trumpian all-caps theirs), which unfolds when I visit Mexico City in November. Our small group meets at a cantina for tacos (al pastor, please!), beer, tequila and mezcal (another pour, please!) before we head to Arena Mexico, dubbed the Cathedral of Lucha Libre, holding 17,000 fans. 

It’s going to be bedlam, sheer madness. Fans going crazy, beer being hawked, wrestlers executing thunderous body thwumps that rattle the giant ring, masks all over the place. I’m not a big public noisemaker, but I understand our host gives us our own Lucha Libre masks. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be whooping it up, too. I’m rooting for the villains. 

Whistle while you irk

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Here he comes. Yes, he is coming. I don’t see him. I hear him. From afar. He’s whistling, oh-so carefree, head swaying, body grooving. And he’s doing it loudly and without a whit of shame or self-consciousness. Notes swirling from his pursed lips for all to hear.

This middle-aged guy, this oblivious songbird, comes to the cafe almost every time I’m there, which is a lot. He sports sunglasses, a down vest, chinos. And he strolls around whistling, sometimes to a song of his choosing, often to whatever is playing on the cafe stereo. Tweetle-lee-dee …

Whistling.jpg

Why am I so vexed by a man who whistles merrily about a coffee shop? Whistling, it’s said, is a symptom of happiness. One site muses: “Are whistlers so insanely happy that they have some overly elevated level of joy? So much so that it bubbles up and spills out in the form of air molecules passing over the tongue and through their lips?”

If so, am I just madly envious of this fellow’s happy mien? His ability for unfettered glee to pour out and tweetle in everyone’s eardrums unbidden? He’s not a bad whistler. He’s actually fairly adroit, a mini jazz-flute maestro vamping on his facial wind instrument.

No, I am not envious. I have no idea if he’s inflated with uncontainable ecstasy, though he appears pretty content and confident with his hands-in-pocket swagger. It’s that his music is like a yappy-dog bark, nails on a chalkboard. Then again, I can’t whistle enough to call a dog.

Yet I give him license. Whistling Willie, I’m convinced, is simply indulging a bad habit. His tuneful penchant is pure reflex, like the drummer who instinctually taps the table with his fingers. We all have tics, mannerisms and foibles, even if they’re not as piercing and public as full-throated whistling. The dude’s just doing his thing.

pluggingears-614x307

The lip-doodling is pretty damn distracting (otherwise I wouldn’t be grousing) when I’m trying to read and write. “If you’re an anti-whistler type, short of duct tape, how can you keep your focus when Tweety Bird starts up?” asks the above web site, Screenflex (a portable room divider company!).

There are no answers. There is only discipline. Tune out the tunesmith. But it’s not just the “music” that kills me. It’s the brazen indifference to his fellow folks, inflicting, without a flinch, his own song list on strangers, like the lunk who hoists a blaring boom-box strutting down the street for all to hear, no matter individual taste and basic social decorum. It’s the principle.

Unknown.jpeg

My whistler, my personal Bobby McFerrin, who’s probably a swell human being, despite the cloud of patchouli cologne he resides in, just needs a touch of self-awareness to wake him up — perhaps an actual whistleblower to call him out, bawl him out, and slip a cork into that irksome “O” on his face.

Revving up for Mexico

~ Chris ~ 4 Comments

With a trip to Mexico City planned for early November, I’ve been flipping through a couple of travel guides to see what I’m in for. (I smell tacos al pastor. Dog-ear that page!)

The place is ginormous, the sixth largest city in the world and the most populous city in North America, with 22 million people. I plan to weep as I inevitably get lost in the grand sprawling Spanish-speaking metropolis. What’s the Spanish word for “mommy”?

Yes, I am going to eat tacos on an epic scale and drink tequila and mezcal with stupid abandon and avoid the sun while lapping up kaleidoscopic art and archeological thingamabobs and trying to figure out why everyone’s so batshit about Frida Kahlo. 

There’s a Kahlo museum set in her childhood home or some such, but I’m more interested in the massive murals painted by her lecher hubby Diego Rivera — he had more mistresses than murals. Either way, it’ll be an art orgy.

I’m staying in the leafy, shady, unspeakably bougie La Condesa neighborhood, where a gorgeous park resides and is evidently the city’s dog capital, which makes me serene about the fact my hotel is charging me two year’s salary for a six day stay. Perros! 🐶

But my canine pals are just a bonus on a trip that promises heaps of highlights, be it the spectacular, art-stuffed Palacio de Belles Artes or insane, masked Lucha Libre wrestling; the lavish Catedral Metropolitana or self-explanatory Museum of Tequila and Mezcal. And, of course, street tacos out the wazoo.  

I really don’t know what to expect. When I was 14 we took a cruise down the Pacific Coast of Mexico, strictly beach stops — Cabo, Mazatlan, Acapulco. But Mexico City is a landlocked, high-altitude megalopolis teeming with fine dining, clubs, bars, galleries, museums and such. (Like any major city, it also has unfortunate pockets of crime and squalor that shouldn’t be ignored.) 

Mexico City. What am I doing? I ask that before almost every journey — Budapest, huh? — and almost always return enlightened, brightened. It’s about discovery, learning, seeing, and in this case, a lot about tacos al pastor. I’m seriously considering taking a $70 class on how to make these scrumptious finger foods while I’m there.

That sound you hear is me turning pages in my guide books with increasing excitement, the revelations and expectations. It’s all part of the trip — an expedition of the known and the unknown blended in a zesty imperative: show me what you’ve got.

Palacio de Belles Artes

Stuff, etc.

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

One of the cats died recently. He was kind of the rotten cat, the one that shreds up the carpet, craps where he feels like it and was extra aloof, like an Aviator-wearing rock star who hates giving autographs. Anyway, we’re saddened and miss the ornery fellow. I’m not sure what to do with his ashes: urn them nicely or chuck them over the fence at the squirrels. 

I don’t trust social media as far as I can spit. If I had a girlfriend, I’d ask her, quite nicely of course, to get off that shit.

Voyeurism is the opiate of the masses, not religion. Think about that for about four seconds.

Just guess who I think embodies all of these descriptives: racist, greedy, venal, petty, megalomaniacal, misogynistic, heartless, rankly sophomoric, vulgarian scum. Bingo.

I’ve planned a trip to Mexico City for November, but I’m so traveled-out right now, the whole thing sounds terrible. Five months is far off, so I should be refreshed by then. Thing is, the weather runs in the mid-70s to 80 in November and I’m barely any good over 70. I hate the heat; I’m a San Francisco wuss. I read that t-shirts and shorts are frowned upon in Mexico City, and I’m not a fan of them either. It sounds like when I was in sweltering India and everyone was swaddled in jeans and long sleeves. I wore jeans with t-shirts and I sweated like swine. Drenched. Two showers a day. I don’t want any of that crap. Maybe I’ll push the trip to December. Or January. Or never.

What I’m reading: “Demon Copperhead,” Barbara Kingsolver’s gritty, funny, unsparing ode to Dickens’ “David Copperfield.” The novel won a Pulitzer last year and rollicks with knockabout wit and wisdom and with more than a dash of social commentary about the sorry state of many of our states (opioids, poverty, detox). The damn thing’s a cinder block so it’s taking me forever to plow through, but it’s worth it. The title character, a teenage boy, both tart and talented, is one for the ages. He’s like a super smart Pig-Pen from “Peanuts”: brilliant but with a cloud of flies and dust buzzing around him. It’s his lot. But he’s one wily fighter, a scrappy, red-headed hero (hence “Copperhead”) in a bedraggled, Dickensian wasteland.

The cat died; the dog thrives. Cubby the wonder mutt needs a bath and a haircut and those crunchy, coagulated eye boogers extracted, but otherwise the aging fella is in fine fettle. OK, he’s been doing the occasional “revenge pee” in the dining room, meaning when he feels abandoned he’ll whizz on the rug when no one’s around. Stealth urine is as bad as any urine, but it’s worse, because you know the scruffy rascal’s doing it with a puckish glint in his eye.

Green with ennui

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

The Chicago River is a goopy green, a mossy Monet, the emerald algae cast of a veggie power shake. As I spluttered down its tributaries last week on a boat tour highlighting the city’s ample architectural gems, I noticed the murky waters as much as the man-made wonders. I’m dorky like that.

Of course, Chicago actually dumps green dye into its giant river on St. Patrick’s Day in a festive gesture of verdant overkill. To my eye, the river hardly needs it. It’s already an “Exorcist”-ish hue of those minty Shamrock confections served at McDonald’s around St. Patty’s, the ones I loved as a kid but that I would probably barf up now.

What was I doing in Chicago? Nothing. And everything. And yet nothing. Just kicking about the Windy City — those storied gusts are a billowy reality — to cash in some flight credits that were soon to expire. I hadn’t been to the city in seven years, and I enjoyed it the first time: Millennium Park, the Art Institute, a foodie tour, the thickets of neck-craning architecture, a terrific play, actual cooked pig face at award-winning restaurant The Girl and the Goat. 

I’d be fibbing if I said last week’s visit lived up to the one in 2018. This was a journey of diminishing returns, and I’m not totally sure why. The weather, wind and all, was sublime. The food, from tortellini filled with lamb cheese at Monteverde to the double smashburger and Red Snapper cocktail at hip gin joint Scofflaw, met Chicago’s lofty culinary standards.

But something was missing. When I glance back at photos from the previous trip I see discovery, the shock of the new, a frisson of excitement. Looking at the few pics I took this time around I see ho-hummery, just another big bustling city — one crunched and ravaged with road work on every block, potholes and the plain pits. 

Chicago lost some of its sizzle. My highly acclaimed “luxury” hotel was worn, calling for renovation and more accurate PR. (It sold Pringles in the lobby shop.) I kind of shuffled through the two marquee museums, one of which, the Art Institute, boasts masterpieces of world eminence, hoping the good paintings would come to me, instead of vice-versa. A few did, many did not.   

But the few-days journey wasn’t a total bust. Peaks include my feast at Monteverde restaurant, whose server couldn’t have been more zealously attentive and helpful; a walking tour of indoor architectural pearls (which I almost ditched, I was feeling so listless) that knocked me out; the invigorating American Writers Museum, wondrously clogged with words words words; that Scofflaw brunch of burger and cocktail; and a factory tour of the Goose Island Beer Co., with deep pours of complimentary suds. 

Still, oddly, overall, my mood remained a shriveled azure. I was down. Now I ponder the big spearmint Chicago River, shades of grass and Tiffany glass. 

And I think, with Kermit in mind: It’s not easy being green. It’s also, I might add, not easy being blue. Blue like Lake Michigan, that oceanic mass kissing a faceted, world-class city, the one where I was doing nothing, and everything.

The Chicago River dyed Day-Glo green on St. Patty’s Day, like battery acid.

No baloney about Bologna

~ Chris ~ 3 Comments

Strolling and gawking among the glass-encased medical curiosities, from a face smothered in smallpox pustules to deformed conjoined twins, I was thinking of tortellini. Specifically, tortellini in brodo, stuffed pasta curls boiled and served in a zesty meat broth. Dinner. Yes. That’s what I was thinking.

I was at the Museo delle Cere Anatomiche — the anatomical museum — in Bologna, Italy, last week, and not even the bulging tumors and gleeful spreads of glistening guts could suppress my appetite for the city’s star cuisine. 

Tortellini in all its shapes and sizes, broths and sauces, is but one of the celebrated dishes in Bologna, which is renowned as Italy’s rightful food capital, or “La Grassa,” the well-fed or, more directly, the tubby. It’s one of the reasons I chose to go there. That and twisted, amputated limbs.

And, well, pasta bolognese. And Parmesan. And the world’s finest balsamic vinegar. And, naturally, Mortadella, which would almost pass as American baloney (Bologna, baloney — you see?) if it weren’t for the spots of white fat that marbles the Italian variety, as well as the way it’s sliced, paper-thin, like prosciutto. Oscar Mayer can only weep in shame.

Tortellini in brodo. Pasta ‘bellybuttons’ swimming in hearty meat broth.

It was a foodie trip, based in the region of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy. The area’s medieval capital of Bologna is the seventh most populous city in Italy, and a mere thirty-minute train from Florence. The region boasts the city of Parma, known for Parmesan cheese and Parma ham, as well as the headquarters for such auto royalty as Ferrari and Lamborghini.

But sports cars don’t impress me — they’re like appliances, refrigerators or blenders, no matter if they’re painted a neon-pee yellow and can go 200 mph. So I skipped them for Modena, a small city (that has a Ferrari museum) best known for opera and balsamic vinegar (and, OK, Ferrari). 

The ancient, rustic region is where I booked a long lunch and balsamic “experience” that happened to take place deep in the wintry countryside on a sprawling family estate where mom, dad, son, daughter and cousin each produce their own balsamic vinegars, totally artisanal, completely blue ribbon. To reach the marketplace, a balsamic must be officially approved in strict quality control tastings by experts. These folks pass with a neat, and humble, familial pride. 

I was with a genial group of about ten fellow travelers. We feasted. Salumi (a spread of Italian deli meats), Parmesan of various ages, ricotta, risotto, quiche and more. We drizzled homemade, world-class balsamic on all of it. There was wine, too. Stuffed, we easily got our money’s worth (about $90). A long, edifying tour of the balsamic-making process — like wine, it’s made of grapes — preceded the pig-out. Ask me about the thick, tangy, reddish-brown liquid and I could likely answer with cocky erudition. 

Back to the university town of Bologna — it was more than I expected. My hotel was a twenty-second lope to the main city square, the yawning Piazza Maggiore, the kind of history-encrusted space that has you marveling as you sip a beer at a sidewalk cafe. 

The centerpiece is the Basilica of San Petronio, a stunning slab of Italian Gothic whose construction began in 1390 (the facade remains unfinished, the slackers). I can do a full-blown travelogue here, but we know how that goes — like listening to someone carry on about their “crazy” dream last night. Really, it was mostly about the food, and a breathtaking cocktail bar, Le Stanze Càfe, designed with real ancient frescoes, where I had lovely libations as I drank in the dazzling decor. 

I will say the anatomical museum, filled with miserable disease and morbid delights, created specifically for university medical students (yet it’s free for anyone), was a highlight of my stay. Human anomalies, freak shows, mystifying medical malformations, the two-headed, the three-legged, the Elephant Man fascinate me. It’s not amusing; generally it’s appalling. But curiosity is piqued, wonder is conjured, pathos pours forth. I kind of love it.

Thing is, I might love tortellini more.

Meat and cheese plate during a food tour in Bologna. That’s Mortadella on the left.

Pasta bolognese, a signature dish in Bologna. Noodles topped with beef, pork, wine, carrots, etc. Dynamite.

At the anatomical museum. Don’t worry. They’re made of wax.

Quote of the day: travel’s travails

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

“When I finally arrived at my door, I was thinking about the willful blindness of travel. We must forget the aches of travel — the discomfort of the middle seat and the tedious crawl at border control; the missed trains and the bad meals; the slog from the airport. You un-remember those things and elevate the happy memories because if you didn’t, you would never travel again.” 

— Paris-based writer Caitlin Gunther