Arriving in Paris without your luggage might seem like a huge damper for the start of a mini–Euro trip. But with the sights and sounds of the City of Lights, all thoughts of my lost …
August 28, 2015
Europe
Who says you can't do Paris in two days?
Lost to history but preserved in legend
Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture is not an esoteric piece of music. The overture is quite popular, in and of itself. The overture is not a freestanding piece, though. It was written as incidental music for a …
August 18, 2015
Art meets nature in the Canaries
The island of Lanzarote, part of Spain’s Canary Islands off the west coast of Africa, is for many budget tourists synonymous with cookie-cutter resort towns and all-inclusive holiday packages. The truth is that the island’s …
August 9, 2015
Elegant and unimportant
Let’s get a little crazy and combine a summer piece of music with the esoteric pick of the week. The power of this concept is overwhelming me. It’s the perfect summer storm. Faure composed his …
July 20, 2015
Absorbed in history-rich Berlin
Berlin was always on our list of places to go someday, but the timing just never seemed right for one reason or another. As it turned out, May 2015 was the 70th anniversary of the …
Juan’s foreign affairs, cont’d
Fresh from an April junket with his wife in the Bavarian Alps paid for by nonprofit foundations backed by German industrialists, House Democrat Juan Vargas embarked alone on another free foreign journey in May, thanks …
July 1, 2015
France's Haute-Savoie: not the Riviera
On a steep narrow country road 3,700 feet above sea level, my travel partner accelerated the engine, heading toward the sound of alpine bells. As herdsmen rallied the cows to graze on the undulating pastures …
June 27, 2015
In search of Romeo and Juliet
Lamb’s Players fine production of West Side Story raises a question. The musical based Tony and Maria on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. But where did the Bard’s star-crossed lovers come from? And were they real? …
June 25, 2015
How to start with Mozart and end up with nihilism
Mozart’s Haffner Symphony is a fairly famous piece of music, but who the hell was Haffner? Haffer got not just the symphony but also a 55-minute-long serenade. That’s about 90 minutes of music by Mozart …
June 12, 2015
Craft beer's eastern front
Poland is the forerunner in the Eastern European craft brewing world. Serbia and Bulgaria are right behind.
June 3, 2015
What enters with difficulty goes not out easily
Some men there are whose love becomes true only after long converse, much contemplation, and extended familiarity. Such a one is likely to persist and to be steadfast in his affection, untouched by the passage …
June 3, 2015
Temple of Wes
Dear Hipster: What would be the ultimate hipster vacation destination for this summer? — Deb, Golden Hill Well, until recently that might have stumped me enough to cop something lamely ironic, and overzealously punctuated, like, …
May 20, 2015
Tour de Belgium: Sax and the saxophone
Last year, Belgium celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of the inventor of the saxophone, Adolphe Sax. His birthplace and important milestones occurred in the Wallonia (French-flavored) part of the country. It’s his inventions …
May 12, 2015
Rhodes, Greece: island of the knights
Rhodes is probably best known as the island once home to the Colossus of Rhodes, a 98-foot-high statue of the Greek god Helios and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Today, the …
April 23, 2015
Ağva's "Club Bar"
My friend Saba and I decided to take a trip outside of Istanbul to Ağva, a vacation village in the mountains, by the Black Sea. Saba is a native Turk, but she majored in American …
March 31, 2015