Kieran

Osaka: Second City

“People from Tokyo say we greet each other here with ‘Mokkari-makka (Are you making money)?’ – which is nonsense. We say ‘How are you?’ like anywhere else.”

Washington DC: Monumental City

“Once the Vietnam Memorial was on the Mall, all the other veteran groups wondered why they did not have theirs as well. If they had not been built we might think of the Mall in very different terms than as a place where we dump all our national war memorials.”

Istanbul: Turkish Delight

“Most tourists think the Grand Bazaar represents Turkish culture,” says designer and businesswoman Aysegul Ozmen. “The craftsmen there make the same stuff they have always made – as that is what the tourists buy. Our culture is much richer than that – maybe our problem is that our culture is too rich.”

Nicaragua: Keeping Faith

“At one point people were using costumes from other countries, not just places like Colombia but also Japan. So we have brought things back to their roots. Things should stay as traditional as possible.”

Bruges: Tourism Central

One extraordinary thing about these works of art is that they are on show in the very city they were first created for. To stand in front of them is to be transported back in time.

Venice: The Ghetto

IT’S HARD TO stumble on the Ghetto of Venice. You have to go looking for it. Two entrances are low, uninviting gates. The third is over a lovely cast-iron bridge across Rio della Miseracordis. That’s well off the well-trodden path through the Cannaregio district between the Rialto Bridge and Santa Lucia train station. The diversionContinue reading “Venice: The Ghetto”

London: World Centre

The official center of London is at Trafalgar Square, marked by a small brass plaque in the pavement beneath a statue of Charles I on horseback. “Stand here and you will eventually see everyone you know in the world,” they say. And it’s true I once bumped into someone I worked with a decade before inContinue reading “London: World Centre”

St Petersburg: Tsarry-eyed Wonder

VISITORS TO FLORENCE will be familiar with Stendhal’s Syndrome, a kind of panic or ecstasy brought about by seeing too many wonders in too short a time, named after the impressionable young 19th-century French novelist. I’m sure the Russians have a parallel name for those overcome by the arguably even greater wonders of St PetersburgContinue reading “St Petersburg: Tsarry-eyed Wonder”

Arlington, Virginia: Past glories

THERE is nothing like Arlington in Britain, a national cemetery for all who have died in the service of their country. London has St Paul’s and Westminster Abbey, with their grand memorials, and the great graveyards of endless war dead in Flanders, Changi and Normandy. But Arlington is all those, and more.

Lower Saxony: High Living

This is an extract from my article in the October issue of Food & Travel magazine: http://www.foodandtravel.com AMERICAN Michael Boyer (pictured) has the glorious title of “Rattenfanger’ in the town of Hameln (better known to us as Hamelin). It means ‘Rat-Catcher’ but he is, of course, the brightly arrayed Pied Piper who famously led the town’sContinue reading “Lower Saxony: High Living”