For all who visit the Hungarian capital of Budapest on the Danube, there is intense romance written into the city’s very existence. For centuries, Buda and Pest faced each other from opposite sides of the river – the first regal, a bit haughty and filled with castles and cathedrals, the other scrappier and more commercial […]
There is quiet and peace in the green meadow on a not-too-hot summer’s day. The grass now covers the valley among gently rolling hills, with only a few stones marking departed buildings poking through. A welcome breeze finds its way through the leafy trees. The world, meaning the bustling Czech capital of Prague only an […]
I didn’t read Postmortem when it introduced Dr. Kay Scarpetta in 1990, but I jumped into the series a few books later and then played enthusiastic catch-up. So, as of now, I’ve read all 29 of Patricia Cornwell’s Scarpetta novels – and feel therefore compelled to tune into the new TV series on Prime Video. […]
It was sometime after midnight that the train I’d taken up from Rome stuttered to a stop in the dark as I tried to sleep sitting up, slowly releasing all its passengers onto a concrete walkway. Guards with machine guns directed us into a tunnel of high fencing lit in pools by spotlights. The year […]
My journey to Prague began as a postcard, truth be told: one of those faded, crumpled cards in a flea market long ago – I don’t remember where or when. The city in that vintage black-and-white photograph seemed filled with castles, with shuttered windows and cobblestones and statues and balconies, and drifts of white snow, […]
The word arancini in Italian means “little oranges.” But in the Sicily that named them, going back to the Arab occupation in the 12th century, they are actually no such thing. They were named so, as you might expect, because of a physical resemblance. Some – a deep-fried form of risotto – are round like […]
Art lovers witnessing the birth of the fringe festival in 1947 Edinburgh may have felt an intriguing twinge of familiarity. After all, the creation of a rebellious exhibit to protest the stodgy Paris Salon was something their art form had seen 84 years earlier. In the role of the (actually wonderful) Edinburgh International Festival, there […]
In the exhausted aftermath of World War II, when even the victors faced visible and emotional devastation, a group of arts visionaries in Edinburgh, Scotland, figured out what their city truly needed. And maybe the world needed it too. Someone had to celebrate centuries of pan-European culture and the classical music, dance and theater it […]
