TRAVEL

In 2004 I was giving lectures on the subject of American public administration for the California State University system to four universities in Beijing. Supposedly, they wanted their students to…

Me, Count Vronsky? Ridiculous. And she, a middle-class government worker, was no Anna. But sometimes there is no stopping literary allusions from asserting themselves when the circumstances seem to align.…

Strangers On A Train Why did I do it!? Well into my thirteenth abstemious year and I light one up like a junkie who just lost his job and his…

When trains first became a mode of intercity travel they opened a new world to those who could afford to travel in them. But it was still a time, before…

[Continued from Part 1] At Pisa we checked our luggage at the station and headed off for the obligatory staged photographs of each of us “holding the leaning tower from…

Most hyphenated Americans, especially those born in the good old USA, carry around some degree of nostalgia for what is commonly referred to as “the old country.” Many will never…

These days the image that springs to mind when one thinks of French trains is that of the TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse). The sleek silver and blue 185-mph passenger…

Trains are my favorite form of transportation. With this piece I am introducing a mini-series of stories of my various experiences on trains over the years. Nothing like Agatha Christie’sMurder…

Preamble: The following is from my 2007 book, The Stranger is Me. It seemed appropriate to post on this St. Patrick’s Day and in remembrance of my late wife, nee Patricia Ann…

Gustave Flaubert might not have been the first, but he was perhaps the most successful novelist at expressing an oppressive monotony of mid-19th C French provincial life. While France was…