Bulgaria is one of Europe’s great roadtrip secrets. In places like Veliko Tarnovo, you can rent cars for as little as $25/day. Roads cross mountain ranges, and buffalo yogurt stands and woodcutter towns and weird monuments like the one below. Years ago I bought a great old Soviet 35mm camera for about $20 at a flea market in Sofia, Bulgaria. Sometimes I remember … Read on
A few years ago, I wrote a piece for Perceptive Travel on a serious topic: moustaches in Russian, past and present. It began: There’s no way to know the precise percentage of Russian men who wore moustaches in the first decade of the 1700s, but if you’re like me you’ve spent some time wondering about it… And I still do. But … Read on
A couple months ago, I shared some travel rules (not my full list of 44) — including what to do when you’re chased by cows — at the Google HQ in New York. Then I got a free lunch in their swank cafeteria.
Sometimes people ask me who my favorite writer is. And I’m always embarrassed not to have a prepared reply. I had phases with Twain then Dostoevsky, and quieter ones stalking the words of various college football columnists. I don’t really have one, I guess. From now on I’m just going to say that whenever there’s a subject I’m drawn to, one I’d imagine … Read on
Sibiel is a Transylvanian village where I had one of my favorites stays a few years ago. The B&B’s jovial owner volunteers at a local school, invites local clarinetists to come play in evenings, joins you for beer which is kept cold in the mountain stream out back, and has created the cutest corner display I’ve ever seen in a B&B:
Vladimir Lenin was born Vladimir Ulyanov. At 31, he changed his name to “Lenin,” most likely after the Lena River, a north-flowing river that crosses the Russian Far East and is used as a frozen highway in winter. The river’s most famous feature are the Leninski Stolbi (or Lenin Pillars), rock formations reached by boat a day’s ride from Yakutsk, a city of … Read on
