Aphrodite’s Island: Milos

 They say that Milos is the island of lovers. It is Aphrodite's island, where the famous Venus de Milo (keep in mind that while in English we say, "MYlo," it's really "MElo") statue was found in 1820. To step off the boat and to see the crystalline blue of the water, as well as the…

A Tour of Northern Greece

In beauty of face no maiden ever equaled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream - an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the fantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos. - Edgar Allen PoeI didn't know what to expect upon my arrival in Greece. So much…

A Fruitful Layover: 5 Hours in Istanbul

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of…

Still Rotating, Two Years Later

 "A good rotation. A rotation I define as the experiencing of the new beyond the expectation of the experiencing of the new. For example, taking one's first trip to Taxco would not be a rotation, or no more than a very ordinary rotation; but getting lost on the way and discovering a hidden valley would…

Two Days in Tahoe

Closer at hand, it was the trees that ruled. To south and east the wood went on as far as Jon could see, a vast tangle of root and limb painted in a thousand shades of green, with here and there a patch of red where a weirwood shouldered through the pines and sentinels, or…