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Tag Archives: Mediterranean
Ashes and blue skies: a Palermo travelogue.
Warm air rushes in to fill the plane. We disembark by row, adhering scrupulously to the new socially-distant orthodoxy, ditching jumpers and jackets as we do: summer might be a distant memory where we left off, washed away in the … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, Italy, Sicilia
Tagged Bangla, Borgo Antico, Bread, Cathedral, Church, Duomo, Europe, Granita, Immigration, India, Italia, Italy, Kalsa, Koran, Maqueda, Market, Med, Mediterranean, Mosque, Old town, Palermo, Pane, Panelle, People, People watching, Qoran, Rubbish, Sea, Sicilia, Sicily, Ucciardone
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Coastal escapism.
I needed out. Out of walls, weapons, checkpoints and people convinced of being on first-name-terms with God. I needed a place where bigots were rarer than pandas, alcohol plentiful and the attitude on weed lax. I needed Tel Aviv. Tel … Continue reading
Posted in Israel, Middle East
Tagged Alfa Romeo, AM-PM, Bauhaus, Boulevard Rothschild, Boutique, British Airways, Bus Station, Clouds, Corniche, Independence Trail, Israel, It, Jaffa, Kite, Kite surf, Kite surfers, Med, Mediterranean, Middle East, Promenade, Saturday, Sea, Sherut, Stephen King, Storm, Sunset, Supremes, Surf, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Wind, Winter, Yafo
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Beirut people watching.
Humanity is the best spectacle, in this city where gated communities rub shoulders with bombed-out, charred shells. Pneumatically-enhanced bimbos and babes driving Dodge Camaros on one end of the spectrum and ragged Syrian children tapping on their rolled-up windows for … Continue reading
Posted in Lebanon, Middle East
Tagged Art, Beirut, Corniche, Hamra, History, Mediterranean, Middle East, People, People watching, Phoenicia, Phoenicians, Sea, Street, Syria
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Approaching Beirut.
Beirut, Paris of the East. Beirut, mother of laws. Beirut, the city that can be Rio, Miami and 1943 Stalingrad all within the same block. Beirut, the filthy. Beirut, the ironic (another French legacy I suspect). Beirut, you’ve got the … Continue reading
Posted in Lebanon, Middle East
Tagged Beirut, Cedars, Civil War, France, Graffiti, Holiday Inn Beirut, Lebanon, Mediterranean, Middle East, Phoenicia, Rubbish, Sunset
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Leaving it all behind: a journey to Jaffa and the coast.
Jerusalem on a Shabbat is as close as the initial sequences of 28 days later as it can get. Empty streets, only a few hours before riddled with busy pedestrians and erratic motorist, stretched in every direction. No buses, no … Continue reading
Sunset in Zadar
We rolled down from the mountains, through caves and gorges, towards the sea, as if driven by an invisible force. Zadar was our goal, an old Venetian town built on a small peninsula, a natural battleship moored in a landscape … Continue reading
Two minutes of Napoli
Today one of the guys who hosted me in Napoli shared this beautiful video with me on Facebook. It’s called Two minutes and is a montage of many smaller videos, a few seconds long, showing different corners of what is, … Continue reading
Posted in Campania, Europe, Italy, Napoli, Overlooked locations
Tagged Giuseppe Divaio, Italia, Italy, Mediterranean, Naples, Napoli, Tourism, Two Minutes, Video, Youtube
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“À Marseille, on ne se tracasse pas” – Part II (Le Panier)
Stepping into the Panier brings a certain feeling of déjà-vu and it’s easy to identify where I had all seen it before. It’s Napoli. Napoli, like Marseille, was founded by the ancient Greek as bases from which to continue their … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, France, Overlooked locations
Tagged Cathedral, Cote d'Azur, France, Marseille, Med, Mediterranean, Panier, Port, Provence
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“À Marseille, on ne se tracasse pas” – Part I
That’s what the security guard at the entrance of the Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée told me with a big smile as I was fretting over my backpack’s zippers (you can never find the buggers when … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, France, Overlooked locations
Tagged Europe, France, Marseille, Med, Mediterranean, Panier, Provence, Saint Charles, Vieux Port
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