On a weekday morning, the seafront in Camogli smells of warm olive oil from the bakery ovens on Via Garibaldi. The houses by the water rise to about six stories and are painted ochre, rose, and lemon, with green shutters left open to the light. From a higher floor, a woman leans out and shakes a tablecloth over the street. The window next to hers also has half-open shutters, and a neat shadow falls under
… Browsing: City Culture
Right before the hour in the Main Market Square, the pigeons appear to know something that the tourists don’t. People turn their heads toward the taller of the two brick towers of St. Mary’s Basilica, and about 266 feet up, a small window opens to reveal a brass trumpet bell. The tune is the hejnał, (roughly pronounced “hey-now”), consisting of five notes that rise, linger, and then stop, cut off mid-phrase as though someone had
… At the base of Bologna’s two famous towers, the morning air smells of espresso and wet brick, as bicycles pass through Piazza di Porta Ravegnana. The Torre degli Asinelli rises above them, built of 12th-century masonry, and stands 319 feet tall. Next to it stands the Garisenda, shorter and leaning at about four degrees. The city recently installed a protective fence around the Garisenda and used steel supports from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to
… As soon as the gates open each morning, joggers, a few early photographers, and the peregrine falcons that live at the Minster take up the section of York’s city walls between Bootham Bar and Monk Bar. The limestone beneath your feet is damp and cold. Behind one side are back gardens and well-kept allotments; on the other, the cathedral rises above the slate roofs, so close you can see the individual carved faces in the
… Austria’s second-largest city has a Renaissance fortress, a blue museum that resembles a friendly alien, and a Saturday market where people pour pumpkin seed oil on vanilla ice cream. Moreover, it is less crowded than it should be. Then there is the matter of the clock tower. The long hand shows the hours while the short hand indicates the minutes, a feature that dates back to when the tower displayed only the hour, and the
… Although the bus leaving the airport does not stop at Fairy Bridge, the small stone bridge spanning the stream on the main road to Douglas, the passengers still speak up. “Hello, fairies,” says one person, and a few more join in, partly in jest and perhaps some completely sincerely. The trees along the bank are decorated with ribbons, photographs, and handwritten wishes, some faded by the weather while others were tied that morning. Taxi and
… At the Long Bar inside Raffles Hotel, the colonial-era grand hotel on Beach Road that has hosted travelers since 1887, the floor crunches. Guests are invited to brush their peanut shells off the tables and onto the floor, and staff sweep them up by the thousands. In a country known for fining people who forget to flush a public toilet, this is the one room where littering is practically required. The drink that arrives with
… Turkey’s third-largest city has more than 2,300 years of history, but İzmir isn’t defined by one famous monument. Instead, it’s a real Turkish city with its own food and character, and it’s close to three of the Aegean’s top day trips. After a few days, most visitors settle into the local rhythm. Around five in the afternoon, a sea breeze drifts in from the Gulf of İzmir and cools the air along the Kordon, the
… The first blue plaque that caught my attention was on a little shingled cottage in the West End, almost completely hidden behind a thick thicket of beach roses; the plaque depicted a Cape Cod house being carried across the waves on a boat, with a lighthouse in the distance behind it. At first I thought it was a fanciful kind of house sign, but it turned out to be a biography. The Pilgrims were the
… The first word visitors to Fez pick up is not “hello” or “thank you,” but rather “balak,” meaning “watch out” or “make way.” When a mule with propane cylinders passes, its driver apologizes, and the lane closes up again behind him as if it were water. Even though Fez has been granting travelers space for twelve centuries, it still expects them to give way to the donkey. Marrakech is louder and Chefchaouen bluer, but Fez
… For eleven days every winter, Venice turns itself into the world’s most elaborate costume party. Step into St. Mark’s Square on a Saturday afternoon during Carnevale, and you might spot a courtier in a gold-beaked plague mask posing beside the Basilica. A woman in a hooped gown the color of crushed raspberries glides past a café, entirely unbothered that hooped gowns and narrow Venetian bridges were never meant to coexist. Nobody is in a hurry.
… At Dong Ba Market, a vendor raises a conical hat toward the doorway and tilts it in the morning light. Between the layers of palm leaf, a shape becomes visible: a line of verse and a bundle of bamboo, something that was not visible a moment before. This is the non bai tho, the poem hat, and Hue regards it as its own. The trick lasts about three seconds and captures the city well. Nearly
… In the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam’s northeastern coast, more than 1,600 limestone islands rise straight from the water. This is Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Southeast Asia’s most visually arresting landscapes.
The name translates to “Descending Dragon,” drawn from legend: a celestial dragon, sent to defend Vietnam from invaders, entered the sea and left its body behind as the karst islands scattered across the bay. Whether myth or …
Eight minutes. That is all that separates the roar of Manhattan from one of the most improbably pastoral escapes. Governor’s Island, a 172-acre jewel anchored in New York Harbor, has outlasted centuries of history, and emerged as the city’s most quietly extraordinary day trip, a place where the skyline just 800 yards away looks like a movie set. The pace of life on Governor’s Island, by way of contrast, is nearly surreal, a best-kept secret …