The nearly four-hour train journey north from Munich whipped us past a landscape of farmland, old Bavarian villages and rolling hills. Our destination: the historic city of Bamberg. We booked a small room at the …
March 25, 2014
Travel: Eat & Drink
Bamberg, Germany: the "beer city"
Helsinki, Finland
Helsinki, Finland, is considered by many to be the “gateway to the East,” dividing Scandinavia from Eastern Europe. Indeed, it spent time as both as part of the Kingdom of Sweden and as part of …
March 2, 2014
Wine and dine in Baja's Guadalupe Valley
Recently I went back to northern Baja's Guadalupe Valley. I hadn’t been there since the late 1980s. Back then, it was just emerging as a serious wine-growing region, with two giant producers (Cetto and Pedro …
February 20, 2014
O’ahu on a plate
A culinary expedition: journalist resolves to achieve edible incapacitation in the Aloha state. Let us resolve to gain weight this new year! Known as the melting pot of the Pacific, Hawaii is home to hundreds …
February 5, 2014
Hipster Tucson
Tucson’s becoming a hipster destination? Get out of town! Recently, Tucson was named one of the top up-and-coming "hipster" cities in the U.S. Someone must have stumbled out too deep into the desert and started …
January 31, 2014
Saarbrücken, Germany
Saarbrücken, the capital of the German state of Saarland that’s right on the French border, was part of an independent nation-state created after WWI. It changed political control back and forth: at times it was …
January 25, 2014
Kentucky's bourbon country
Billed as the “Horse Capital of the World,” Lexington, Kentucky, is also home to some of the world’s greatest bourbon. And, surprisingly, it hosts a robust, thriving food scene, showcasing an innovation more typical of …
January 13, 2014
Hoppy trails in Austin
It's no surprise to anyone that Austin, Texas, is a hip destination, boasting one of the best live music scenes in the country, some fantastic barbecue, and the University of Texas. I was already aware …
December 20, 2013
Georgia (the country)
Google “Georgia,” and you are much more likely to get recipes for peach pie than to learn about the unique ex-Soviet republic where wine was invented and a special language and culture survived a thousand …
December 19, 2013
17 travel tips for Thailand
1) Leave your rolly luggage at home. Wear a backpack and only fill it ⅔ full. You will shop – if not for yourself, for your friends. Most of all, make sure that your bag …
December 12, 2013
Luxe Stuttgart, Germany
Stuttgart isn’t as frantically busy as many other cities in Europe and even in Germany can be, but it’s lively and thriving. With luxury auto manufacturing, palaces and wine, the city is a place to …
December 9, 2013