Perudo in Utah
Dicing in the desert
Spectator Life
An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.
Tough times for tenacious Tigray
I wouldn’t envy anyone fighting in that terrain against a tenacious, vigorous people defending their beloved homeland
October 8, 2021
Leftist tree-huggers and backwoods conservatives unite!
If we can agree on one thing, it should be that nature is worth preserving
September 16, 2021
Bog bodies: mysteries of the Iron Age
There is a theory in Ireland that the country’s bog bodies may be the remains of failed kings, ritually killed on Samhain
September 15, 2021
Say yes to Yerevan
Yerevan is a living palimpsest of history and fable
September 14, 2021
In search of the Iliad
Few places can conjure up such stories of love and loss, homesickness and heroism, gallantry and grief as Troy
August 22, 2021
Samurai nights in Aizu
Before its downfall, the Aizu domain was famous for its education system and strict samurai code
August 21, 2021
Paying the ferryman in Greece
Greece may never be this empty again
July 21, 2021
Down Santiago way
The Camino de Santiago is no normal pilgrimage
July 20, 2021
The Isles of Scilly, a botanist’s paradise
‘You can get away from everything,’ said Harold Wilson of the Isles of Scilly, ‘not only in distance but also in time’
Walking to Byzantium
The lines that now smudge my map look more like the flight of a woozy bluebottle than the traces of a man with a plan
June 21, 2021
A summer solstice on Long Island Sound
As is only proper, today promises to a dazzling sun-drenched day
June 20, 2021
Gibraltar rocks on
Gibraltar is no longer a colonial outpost. It feels modern, cosmopolitan
Memo from Montecito
Trading places with Meghan and Harry
May 21, 2021
On the frontlines of the Pennsylvania gas station war
Me, I’m a Sheetz girl. My first date was at a Sheetz
May 17, 2021
The romantic return of Florence’s wine windows
Italians, normally so keen to hug and kiss each other, have been forced into social distancing, and it has given the wine windows a new lease of life
May 16, 2021
Keem Bay, Ireland: the best beach in the world
Beware: Keem Bay is beguiling
April 29, 2021
Bath time
If you have lived in Bath since the beginning of the pandemic you might not have noticed the changes so viscerally
April 10, 2021
Under the skin of Seville
Four hundred years have passed since Seville was the greatest and most glamorous city on earth
March 10, 2021
Time for Tudorbethan
Tudor architecture marked the first instance of Anglo domesticity recognizable today
February 8, 2021
Lake life
The best way to see Lake Geneva is from the water
January 18, 2021
Don’t sweat it
At one time there were 900 bathhouses in Rome alone
January 16, 2021
Magic mountain
Like most places in Switzerland, Davos is clean, tidy and full of prosperous, contented people
December 8, 2020
A morning in a diner with Michigan’s COVID rebels
At one point, a biker in a Trump mask briefly pops in, sees the full house and leaves a generous tip
December 3, 2020
On the road to Mandalay
Ngapali, on the Bay of Bengal, is pronounced ‘Napoli’ and is said to be Burma’s answer to Naples
November 11, 2020
Homes, sweet homes
A few years ago, for reasons I can’t recall, I acquired a donkey hut in the Molise
November 1, 2020
Prussian blues
It took me 30 years of traveling to learn that my Heimat is Prussia
October 22, 2020
Killing time in Thailand
By Day 11, I understand why my windows are sealed shut and why I am not allowed knives
October 10, 2020
Salamis tactics
Piraeus was the point of entry for the notorious plague that afflicted Athens in 480 BC
