Is it not strange that at a time when we have lost our Princes, our Parliament, our independent Government… that we shou’d really be the People most distinguish’d for Literature in Europe? In 1757, the Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote of a rather peculiar phenomenon. Scotland, despite losing most trappings of its independence between 1603,…
The portrayal of Scotland as a country of wild kilt-wearing sword-wielding savagery is nothing but English propaganda, sadly perpetuated to this day. In reality, Scotland is - and has been for centuries - a place of highly educated, incredibly literate, poets, artists, philosophers, and scientists. Its institutions of higher learning are as storied as those…
I can’t imagine a more perfect experience than this. A pot of tea, specially blended for this single place. A warm scone bursting with raisins and red currants, along with proper clotted cream and strawberry jam. A tea room straight out of its 1903 opening, bright and airy, warm and inviting. And the genius of…
There is no shortage of places of historical interest in England. But here in the north, one city shines above the rest in that respect: York. Well preserved, beautiful, and fascinating, York could easily be a destination in and of itself, with more than enough to do to last a week or more. Well, I…
Few things both unite and divide the United Kingdom (and especially England) more than football. European football, soccer to us in the States. England is home to nearly 100 professional football clubs (with a few in Wales) arranged in four levels, and a whopping 5,000 clubs in the amateur levels below that. It is absolutely…
What do you get when you cross a reclaimed storied industrial area with the single most famous thing to ever come from your city? It sounds like a joke in need of a good punchline, but it’s actually a totally rhetorical question. The answer is that you get Liverpool’s Royal Albert Dock, Britain’s historically most…
If I’m going to be completely honest, Manchester blew away my expectations. I booked my trip as a stopover point, an easy gateway to fly into before heading to Scotland. Sure, it makes up a large portion of the UK’s second biggest metro area. Yes, it has been an economic and industrial power, so dominating…
In recent decades, Sicily has become a top tourist destination. And really, why not? Mediterranean coastline, mild winters and hot summers, good food and wine, fascinating ancient history and some reasonably exciting more modern stories as well… what else could a traveler want? Add to that reasonable prices in comparison to most of Western Europe,…
It is impossible to speak of one without speaking of the other: Catania, Sicily’s second largest city with a metro population around a million, and Etna - called Mama Etna by the locals - the mighty volcano towering over it. For as long as there have been humans present in eastern Sicily, Mt. Etna has…
I wasn’t planning to write about this. When I travel, I tend to outline what I feel my articles will be. So when my Sicily tour scheduled a morning to visit a Roman villa, I thought, ‘I’ve seen Roman villas before. This won’t be exciting enough to write about. I’ll focus on Greek and Phoenician…