A Bit of Local Press
Stumbled upon my name in one of the local papers the other day. It seems that one of their journalists heard about my article in the Toronto Star and gave me a little local publicity. Who knows, might lead to something?
Tasting Sea Spray With the Killer Whales in Port McNeil. B.C, Canada
After a beautiful drive up Vancouver Island through old-growth forests, you get to the little fishing village of Port McNeil. From here, whale-watching tours depart down the Johnstone Strait for some of the best killer whale viewing in the world. Early in the morning, you cut through the misty archipelago, searching for the resident pods…
The Most Visited Site in Spain
Perhaps not surprisingly the most visited site in Spain in 2008 was…? I ran a little poll the other day and got a flood of hits, the answers were: The Prado Museum (Madrid) 1 (33%) The Sagrada Familia (Barcelona) 0 (0%) The Alhambra (Granada) 2 (66%) The Great Mosque (Cordoba) 0 (0%) The Cathedral in…
Friday Foto 4
Continuing on with the thread from my last post, I thought that I’d post a photo of what may be the most beautiful mosque in Libya. The mosque of Murad Agha was built in what is called the Al-Andalus style with a square minaret, it is an easy day trip from Tripoli. Just find the…
Smiling and Bargaining Over Berber Delights in Tripoli, Libya
If you somehow managed to jump through the right bureaucratic hoops to get in independently or if you stepped off one of the luxury cruise liners that now stop daily in Tripoli, you won’t be disappointed. A land where only the government can advertise and Gaddafi watches are the hot tourist item, the until-recently-forgotten Old…
Friday Foto 3
After being being designated a sensitive Military Area and therefore off limits for many years, the true end of the Trans-Siberian is once again open to visitors. Contrary to what you might think, Vladivostok (a mere 9,289 kms away from Moscow) in the summer is actually quite nice. True, there is a train that runs…
Sacred Earth
Photo by Martin Gray These beautiful shots from the Guardian a while back. The following from the site. “Acclaimed photographer and anthropologist Martin Gray has spent the last 20 years on a pilgrimage photographing and exploring more than 1,000 sacred sites in 80 countries. What follows is a selection from his new book, Sacred Earth,…
Finding Shade in a Palace on the Caspian in Baku, Azerbaijan
This is why you have come so far. With the Caspian reaching out to the steppe of Central Asia in front of you, the warm winds of the Middle East swirling up from below, and the cool breezes from the Caucasus mountains sweeping down from the north—a mix of styles awaits you in the Old…
It’s Cold Out There!
Pascal Parrot/Getty Images Marseille, France: Pink flamingos rest at the Vaccares pond As the cold sweeps south, Spain is seeing some of the coldest temperatures it has seen in 30 years. Temperatures dipped down to around -4 here in Caceres the other night and some say that it was even colder. I do hope the…
Friday Foto 2
Keeping in mind the article I published at the beginning of the month in the Toronto Star, I thought I would continue highlighting some of the sites of my adopted city. A fine view of the Palacio de Moctezuma here in Caceres at sunset.