If you have ever wandered the narrow streets of San Sebastián (Donostia in Basque) or Bilbao and found yourself drawn into lively bars overflowing with colorful small bites on bread, some of them skewered on toothpicks, you have encountered one of Spain’s greatest gastronomic gifts to the world: the pintxo. Pronounced “PEEN-cho”. These vibrant, one-…
Tag: europe
Haunting in Oxford
Oxford does not do subtle hauntings. Welcome to Haunted Oxford, where the past does not just linger… it complaints, knocks books off shelves, plays with electricity and sighs disapprovingly at your reading choices. If you think this city is all dreaming spires, tweed jackets, and overpriced punting, you have never stayed after dark or you…
Yabancı in İstanbul, part 2
Living in Istanbul as a foreigner is a constant exercise in embracing contradictions. One minute it is serene, the next it is a full-blown street party. And after over 2 years living here, just when I thought I was getting comfortable, Istanbul decided to throw in an earthquake for good measure. Because, you know, why…
Pompeii Past Preserved
What do you do when you binge-watch “Sopranos” again? You book a flight to Napoli, or Naples, if you will. The Other Me and I had this overwhelming need to go back to Italy and Tony Soprano convinced us that it was time to go back. With less then 2hour flight from Istanbul it is…
Three Castles
The Kingdom of Cyprus was a medieval kingdom of the Crusader States that existed between 1192-1489. It comprised not only the entire island, but also had its foothold on the Anatolian mainland: Antalya (1361-1373) and Corycus (today’s Mersin Province, 1361-1448). Initially it was ruled as an independent Christian kingdom. Cyprus under the Crusaders experienced significant…
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