By Barbara Noe Kennedy In a beautifully restored olive oil mill in Urla—on Turkey’s Aegean coast, west of Ephesus and its now-crowded ancient streets—oleologist Pelin Omuroğlu swirls a golden-green liquid in a blue, tulip-shaped glass, its color concealed, its character revealed through scent and texture alone. “Smell first,” Omuroğlu instructs. “Then slurp—pull in air through…
What remains today of Tudor London, the city ruled by Elizabeth I from 1558 to 1603? Although two-thirds of the wooden city succumbed to flames during the Great Fire of 1666—which also cleaned out plague-carrying rats—a number of Tudor buildings remain. They include the Clink Jail (now a museum), the Seven Stars Pub, close to Shakespeare’s original London apartment, the Royal Exchange (modeled on the Bourse in Antwerp), and a 1520 riverside pub-restaurant called The Prospect of Whitby where Captain Kidd plotted his piratical schemes and writers like Charles Dickens and Samuel Pepys dropped by for beer.
During Elizabeth’s reign, urban life centered on the Thames River. Three thousand “watermen” offered taxi service to various river stops. Today, boats, including Uber-taxis, leave many of the same docks for destinations like sumptuous Hampton Court. Read More
It was a foggy June day in the year 793 A.D. when several longboats with dragon’s-head prows silently appeared out of the fog bound for the Lindisfarne monastery off the Northumbria coast. Howling like wolves, the Vikings methodically set about the business of slaughter. Some monks were killed midway through their prayers. Others were felled trying to defend their hand-lettered vellum books. Those who failed to die quickly suffered “the blood eagle,” a terminal torture in which a man’s lungs were ripped from his chest and allowed to flap like crimson wings until the screams subsided. And then, just as quickly as they had come, the Vikings disappeared into the cold gray mist of the North Sea, taking with them golden chalices, silk tapestries and intricately carved triptychs while leaving behind a legacy of fear. For the next 300 years, nobles and clergy alike ended their nightly prayers with the whispered supplication: A furore Normannorum libra nos, Domine – “From the fury of the Northmen deliver us, Oh Lord.”
Leipzig hosts the world’s largest annual Bachfest featuring roughly 3,600 musicians. More than 76,000 Bach fans attended BachFest in Leipzig in 2024. Photo by Philipp Kirschner, courtesy of Leipzig Travel. By Teresa Bitler If Johann Sebastian Bach could join the tourists and university students in Leipzig, Germany’s City Center today, he’d struggle to recognize the…
Ah, to be in Holland when tulips burst into flower—Holland, Michigan. That is in Holland, Michigan, and it would be the first week in May, when the entire community and thousands of visitors turn out to immerse themselves in bloemen abundance at Tulip Time. So it has been since 1929. Given such longevity, Holland has its…
By Cathy Senecal A man, clothed head to toe in white cotton, stood under a summer sun reaching over a liquid pool and gently raked fragile salt crystals floating on the surface of the water into a bin. When he spread the sparkly flakes out onto a long table, light bouncing off the snow-white piles…
By Sharon McDonnell The Polish city of Krakow is full of marvels, from its gorgeously preserved Old Town with Europe’s biggest medieval market square and a castle where the Kings of Poland lived for centuries, to the factory of Schindler’s List fame. But Poland’s second-biggest city also houses priceless art treasures by Leonardo da Vinci…
By Richard Varr It doesn’t take long for a sense of history to overwhelm you when walking through the narrow passageways of Bryggen’s wooden warehouses. Yes, the building facades are immaculate, swashed with muted red and brown earthen hues, but every step on wooden plank floors and stairwells seemingly comes with a creak or two,…
By Cynthia David My first Turkish coffee arrived dark and steaming hot from an electric coffeemaker at Espressolab on Istanbul’s historic Istiklal Avenue. The Espressolab had a long, curved marble bar, high ceiling beams and an Art Deco espresso machine. The 20 and 30-somethings around me chatted and sipped their cappuccinos and pumpkin spice lattes…
The Black Forest got its name from the Romans, who found the woods so dark and dense that they named it Silva Nigra, a “black forest” that suggested otherworldliness. After serving as Germany’s biggest source of lumber during the Industrial Revolution, the Black Forest’s 2,320 square miles have thinned to a shadow of their former impenetrability. Today, the area is a mix of forested mountains laced with river valleys, vineyards, lush meadows, streams, and towns with ubiquitous flower boxes overflowing with geraniums, says writer Beth Reiber. Measuring just 100 miles long and up to 25 miles wide, the forest is a cathedral for solitude that conveys feelings of contentment and remoteness as shafts of sunlight settle upon fern-lined pathways that spiral down from the summits past vineyards and orchards to medieval villages dating from the mists of time.