Over the past few weeks I have found the perfect recipe for maximising the number of insect bites. Here are my handy tips: In the dark Dress in shorts (or a skirt). At dusk, go …
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Orange and pink
Ok, this is mostly going to be about opera. I was having dinner in the restaurant I Tre Marchetti in Verona. This was about two decades ago and I was in town, as so many …
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Sit there!
It was 10:15 in the morning and it was high time for a little coffee break. I was in a very small village, St Pantaléon-les-Vignes, but was happy to spot a nice-looking restaurant with a …
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A car in the pool and a book on the roof
A couple of days ago, someone in a village nearby got a little surprised as he stepped into his garden in the morning: there was a red car in his swimming-pool. It appeared that his …
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Blinded by the lavender
The young driver wanted to make a u-turn with his huge truck on a narrow road with lavender fields left and right. He succeeded, but at a cost (although not for him): he overturned a …
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Waterworld
Rotterdam Cranes, containers, docks, old ports, new port, water taxis, one windmill, water, wind and fast-moving clouds. And the Erasmus bridge. To do the almost compulsory tourist tour of the port (rather a small part …
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In Lincoln land
In Jacksonville, IL The strange customer, part I I had to ask three times before I understood what the girl behind the counter in the coffee shop asked me (she must have thought that I …
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Normal
What is Normal? The trip started from the legendary Union Station in Chicago. The Amtrak train took us to places like Pontiac and Normal. Although in Normal things weren’t really normal: the trained stopped normally at …
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And the sky is grey – not
Rain or shine As I sat in the taxi from the airport to downtown Chicago, my first visit to this city, it started to rain. The taxi driver, who was from Hyderabad, told me that …
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Vineyards
My most visited vineyards are to be found around Mirabel-aux-Baronnies, in southern France. I love all seasons best – every time I’m there I’m fully convinced that that particular time is the most beautiful.