For two days, we’ve drifted past schoolchildren waving from grassy banks and coconut groves, watched fishermen untangle their nets at dawn, and played endless games of travel backgammon on a rickety little table on the deck, as the kettuvallam houseboat glides through Kerala’s sleepy backwaters, greeted by kingfisher calls and the gently bobbing palms that …
It was Tove Jansson’s classic, The Summer Book, that first introduced me to Scandinavian summers and archipelagos strewn confetti-like with tiny islands, those in turn dotted with brightly painted wooden cabins. The all-too-brief passing of the northern summer months, the sense of urgency to seize every moment of sunshine and dappled light, before “it is still …
Somewhere above Bolzano—just beyond the creaking ascent of the cable car to Soprabolzano/Oberbozen—the names begin to double. Every signpost, every trail marker, every café board now comes in Italian and German. Soprabolzano / Oberbozen. Renon / Ritten. Malga / Alm. It’s June, and the meadows spill over with wildflowers—cornflowers, gentians, tiny pink orchids. I’ve packed …
Read more “Two Names for Every Mountain — Exploring the Dolomites”