When I travel, I use a man bag. I can’t take all of the crap constantly in my pockets and don’t like those awful Italian hard bags that look ridiculous and nothing fits in them anyway. My usual travel attire is a backpack (Tumi) and another bag which is great for easy access on the plane […]
I have a bank, People’s Bank, and it’s about a 5-minute walk from my house. The other night I wandered into the bank as I needed some statements. I ended up chatting with two of the tellers and when I did, I detected an accent. So I asked where they were from. One said she […]
It’s the middle of winter, the snow has just started, the temperature is jumping down into the teens most days in Boston, and the days are desperately short. I know what, let’s go to Iceland for a winter break and get away from it all!! I know […]
Arriving in Dublin on a Saturday night can be a fun experience under any circumstance. But renting a car and driving into town after the final of the All-Ireland Gaelic Football game that Dublin won is a whole different world. The GPS could navigate me into the center but what it did not tell me […]
We drove out of Rome past the Protestant Cemetery and stopped to take a look at Eataly. This is the biggest location worldwide of the chain and it is in a very cool building. The building itself was constructed with public funds and opened in 1989 as the air terminal to handle the traffic from […]
The drive down the Italian coast from Rome is a mixed bag. After a scattering of fairly dull seaside places, we eventually got to Anzio where the allies landed in 1944. It is a fairly unmemorable town but there is the haunting Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial there which we visited. It is also the […]
So if you had to choose a place in all of Italy to hang out for a few days in super-luxury, relatively car-free, and using a boat to access restaurants and islands nearby, where would you choose? I would choose Positano in late September. Positano is one of those rare places that you find that […]
With all of this populist talk in the air and Trump grabbing most of the headlines through his really bad behavior, some people may have forgotten that the Prime Minister of England, Theresa May, is firmly committed to pushing the Brexit button next March. The good news for travelers is that the British pound continues […]
The gloves are off. What already took place in Europe with Ryan Air and easyJet, and moved subtly across to the domestic arena in the USA with Southwest and Spirit, is now happily making an impact on the transatlantic flight. Yes, the discount airlines are moving in big time. While they are not impacting the […]
I like to stay in Paris somewhere close to Montparnasse. Lately I have been staying at the Belle Juliette on the Rue du Cherche-Midi which interestingly enough is a fabulous French phrase that my Parisian friend, Claire, explained to me. To “chercher midi à quatorze heures” means to complicate things. From this delightful 4-star boutique […]
Summer is over. From my point of view, it finished around the middle of August when I couldn’t get a Sam Adams Summer Ale and the guy told me that they were only selling Sam Adams Octoberfest. Are you kidding me? I thought summer was defined through the summer solstice and the beginning of the […]
I’m originally from London so I know the city pretty much back to front. Nowadays though I tend to see it more as a tourist and probably enjoy a lot more of the sights than I ever would if I lived there. Usually when I fly transatlantic to London, the flight pattern follows the western parts of […]
It’s tough to find a place in the Mediterranean that is not overrun by tourists, especially the hordes from the north who populate and destroy the character of places in Spain and Portugal. But there are times to visit the Mediterranean and there are places during those times that remain relatively untouched by the scourge […]
Renting a car in Europe can be not quite as easy as you think. First of all – the insurance. Call your credit card company and make sure what you think is insured is insured. The cost of a rental car can literally double per day if you take the rental car’s suggested insurance options. […]