Today was the kind of day you hope to get at least once or twice during a working press trip. A day where we got up late, had a leisurely breakfast, and got on the road in this beautiful part of France with time to mosey into small villages, stop […]
We met Alain Travert in front of his oven. Tucked away into a non-descript shed, the oven where he bakes natural bread doesn’t look like much from the street. Inside, this retired bachelor farmer baker creates baguettes and country breads every day, and refuses to sell them to anyone. He’d […]
At the market in the medieval town of Bricquebec, all of the vendors ended our transactions with ‘have a good holiday!’ That’s because the country is practically all on vacation…people’s luxurious six weeks off begin about now. How civilized! At the market we saw crates of small chickens being loaded […]
The town of Villedieu-les-Poeles has been famous as metalworking mecca for 900 years. It began because in this part of town, the land was not owned by the king, and thus not subject to taxes. So artisans like bellmakers and copper forges thrived. The Fonderie de Cloches Cornille Havard is […]
On the eve of my departure for France, I decided that I can’t resist the lure of the iPhone. So I popped into this AT&T Store and plunked down $200 on the new 3GS phone, in white. I am so enamored with my itouch that I know I am going […]
I asked Parin if I could publish her photo, that I took in the desert. She replied today, as I expected, and said no. This is a photo on the bus as we drove back dancing in the aisles. This is not Parin! hinowadays we have a real bad condition […]
I got a press release from Brian Mullis, he runs Sustainable Travel International, and he had a good point that somehow got by me. There’s a new Bicycle Commuter Act. Buried in the fine print of the massive bail out bill is a provision to reward employers who make lives […]
Parin from Tehran again sends me an email from the thick of the Iran protests… hi again 🙂first of all thank you very much.(rahpeymayi) i mean we walk in silence in the street during a long distance with our want in our hands..as you certainly see in news in VOA […]
Yesterday I dove back into Jeffrey Tayler’s marvelous new book about his trek across the wildlands of the former USSR, called “Murderers in Mausoleums.” At this point in his long journey he has reached Urumqi, China, a large city where many races mix. There are the usual Han Chinese, who […]
I sat at the bar at the Lady Killigrew and watched the Sox on a flat-screen, high def TV. I was waiting for Steve, who had taken the scenic route over on his scooter, enjoying the vistas of the late afternoon sun on Blue Meadow Road. Outside people were sitting […]
Being a restaurant owner is tough. I read in today’s Boston Herald about a good intentioned chef owner of a high-end Italian place in Braintree who got punished by his customers for trying to recoup some of the costs of providing glasses of water to diners. Joe Viola figured out […]
It’s been a weird Spring. It is almost never warm and sunny; instead we get these dregs of what feels like March, or the bluster and overcast skies of late fall. I am sure that I am joined by all of the citizens of Massachusetts in wishing that it would […]