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I don’t know what you call this — it appears to be some form of motorized paragliding. There were a couple of guys taking off from Anna Maria Island when we were there in Florida during the biting cold spell this January.
Whatever it is, like jet skiiing, off-road biking, and similar activities it’s probably fun [...]

This brief video is for James Higham, who loves thunderstorms. It’s a glimpse of a monsoon thunderstorm seen from my guestroom at CS Graphics in Singapore, where I am press checking the Asian Art Museum’s new art of Shanghai book. There has been some pretty spectacular thunder along with the rain, but I didn’t succeed [...]

When this post publishes I will be on  a plane to a distant press check. I will miss being with family, who will keep the home fires burning (literally, since we seem to be in for a long wet spell). In fact, I will be traveling through much of the next few weeks, and posting [...]

Recently we stayed in Agerola in the Lattari Mountains overlooking Amalfi. Our place was down a narrow, semi-dirt road that wound around the side of the mountain above the hamlet of San Lazzaro. Twice a day a goatherder would drive his goats down the road. We would hear them coming by the pleasant jingling of [...]

While driving the Via Amalfitano has its motoring excitements as well as its famously spectacular views,

1. At the airport, do not wait it the long queues for train tickets. Instead go to the tobacconist’s and get your ticket without waiting.

As I have mentioned, I’ve just returned from a vacation in Italy, and some posts will be a little off-topic for the next few days. Somewhere along the line I acquired Italian phrasebooks by the Rough Guide and by Langenscheidt, and we took these with us as a hedge against pointing in the supermarket and [...]

Okay, I guess I’m still a little jetlagged — or maybe just worn out from coming back to an office in crisis mode. Anyway, too tired to do more than post another couple photos (click through for larger versions) from the Sentiero degli Dei — the path of the gods — in the Lattari Mountains [...]

This photo was taken from the spectacular trail in the Lattari Mountains overlooking the Amalfi Coast called the Sentiero degli Dei — the path of the gods. A few hours after the photo was taken a fierce storm hit the coast. (Click through for a larger version.)
I’ve just returned from a trip to Rome and [...]

Sure, it’s a little overcast, and it rained a bit earlier. But wouldn’t you expect there to be someone on the beach at 1:00 in the afternoon?

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I guess this week I’ve got a sort of travel blog — a bit bare-bones since for some reason I’m feeling a little lazy. (Although I did write a guest blog for Foreword Magazine today–more on that when the post goes live.)

Cities on the southern U.S. seaboard feature a lot of what I call “overwrought iron” work. The image above is from Charleston, South Carolina,

I mentioned I’m on the road. Soon we’ll be heading down to Florida, where I guess it’s in at least the mid 70s, but for the moment we’re enjoying Beaufort, South Carolina, home of grand houses set on big lots full of live oaks that are draped with Spanish moss.

Jeff Barry has completed an interesting project of culling his blog archives to produce a free e-book, called Buenos Aires, City of Faded Elegance. He explains:
Whenever I come across a new blog I read the latest postings and, if I like those, I add the site to my news reader. I always intend to go [...]

These ladies were having a great time at the Getty Center. They thought it was a hoot that I wanted to take their picture.
More L.A. photos: At Buried Mirror I’ve posted a couple of pictures of the wonderfully kitsch facade of the Mayan Theater.

I’m having some trouble getting my Maya materials online because there are so many of them, and there’s just so little time. So, we’ll do this one building at a time. This is “El Caracol” (“the snail,” so called in Spanish for its winding internal staircase), which is called “The Observatory” in English.
It’s not hard [...]

Over at Frisco Vista I’ve posted a photo of a windmill in Golden Gate Park and, for comparison, one in Bruges, Belgium.
Well, I guess I’m on a windmill kick. (After all Cervantes and I share a birthday . . . the day, not the year, smart ass!) So here’s a picture of the inside of [...]

Much of the Maya Riviera, stretching from Cancun south beyond Playa del Carmen, is a bit of a horror show, full of giant resorts and traffic jams, and crawling with loud, lobster-red gringos. Puerto Morelos (“la joya del Caribe” — the jewel of the Caribbean), however, though just 25 kilometers or so south of Cancun, [...]

I’m just back from a trip to el mundo Maya.
This photo (click the photo — or here — for a larger view, via Flickr) was taken in very dark conditions at Cenote X’Keken near Valladolid in the Yucatan. Travelers to the Yucatan know that cenotes are sinkholes formed by water erosion through acidification of the [...]