Toscana
Toscana The end of that summer started with a wedding. Not ours, we just took over the honeymoon. It was a while ago, but we can still remember a lot of wine, long driveways, dust, cypress trees, and clouds that just hung there, over a huge wave of landscape. We sat under the trees in lost […]
Lago Maggiore
Lago Maggiore November 2021 Stresa is like Milan by the sea. Northern melancholy with southern charm. On clear days, you can see from Milan across the plain to the mountains. I didn’t know the Alps were so close to the city. Sitting on the train and seeing that, driving up Lago Maggiore, thinking how beautiful it […]
Portofino
Portofino April 2022 Portofino has never interested me. Lots of cars, even more people, and a bay. Always someone trying to sell beach towels. Bad and expensive food. Flashy, but not glamorous. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had style. In their stories, Portofino is still exactly as it never was. Today, 50 Cent comes and […]
Côte D’Azur
Côte D’Azur September 2019 We spent that summer where the Queen of England once spent her winters. We stayed in a Wilhelminian style hotel overlooking the sea and drank martinis at the hotel bar. It was a beautiful bar with blue velvet and brass, the waiters wore cufflinks and handed out canapés. The bar was […]
Vitznau
Vitznau May 2022 I had about twenty or thirty pages of notes, eager to be written, when we arrived in Vitznau. We had spent the last few weeks in many different countries, and between countries we stopped in Lisbon to celebrate my book finally being in bookshop windows and a few other things.We needed peace […]
Madrid
Madrid July 2019 Yes, those were the days. The days in heaven. Days that could have lasted a lifetime. No one can ever take these days away from us, for they have happened, and I keep my part of them stored within a broad chest where I keep all my personal belongings. Some of them […]