I flew from Crete to Cairo. There was no ferry — that crossing stopped being practical decades ago. I watched the Mediterranean change colour through the window as Africa appeared, first as a brown line, then as a city so large it seemed to have no edges. Egypt The first Egypt moment — Giza The […]
What Silence Weighs — Egypt Reflections Read More »
Route: Cairo (Pyramids, Souq, Nile) → Luxor (Valley of the Kings, Karnak, Luxor Temple) Distance: 510 km (by air or rail — not a driving route) Transport: Domestic flight (1 hour) or overnight Talgo sleeper train (9–10 hours) Recommended duration: 5–7 days (2–3 Cairo, 2–3 Luxor) Best months: October–April Currency: Egyptian Pound (EGP). Approximately 50–52
Cairo to Luxor — The River and the Stone Read More »
A morning in Heraklion. I was walking along the harbour wall — the Venetian one, built in the sixteenth century by people who expected it to still be standing when they were not — and I stopped at a place where someone had carved letters into the stone. Not graffiti. Something older. A name, or
What a Stone Remembers Read More »
The ferry from Dubrovnik crossed the Ionian Sea overnight. I did not sleep much. I stood at the rail in the dark and watched the water carry the light from the stern in a long shifting line that broke and reformed and never quite repeated. By morning, Greece. The first moment in Greece — Athens
The World Before the Word — Greece Read More »
Greece Route: Athens (Piraeus) → Santorini → Crete (Heraklion) Total distance: 350 km by sea Total crossing time: 7–11 hours (two ferries, without time on the islands) Recommended duration: 7–10 days Best months: May–June, September–October Vessels: Blue Star Ferries (conventional), SeaJets (high-speed catamaran) The Shape of This Route across Greece This is not a Greece
Greece: Athens to Santorini & Crete — Across the Aegean Read More »
It was a Tuesday morning, I wasn’t thinking about Greece. I was sitting near the old harbour in Dubrovnik, on a low wall that had been warm for an hour already, watching the water move against the stone below. The sound was small and constant — a soft collapse, a retreat, another collapse — the
The Sea Has No Name Read More »
The ferry from Venice took three and a half hours. I spent most of it on the upper deck watching the Adriatic change from lagoon grey to open blue to something I did not have a name for — a colour that seemed to arrive not from the sky or the sea but from the
The Colour That Has No Reason — Croatia Trip Read More »
Route: Rovinj → Plitvice Lakes → Dubrovnik Total distance: 700 km Total driving time: 9–10 hours (without stops) Recommended duration: 5–7 days Best months: May–June, September–October Roads: Istrian Y (A8/A9), A6, A1 Autocesta, D8 coastal road, Pelješac Bridge The Shape of This Drive, Rovinj to Dubrovnik This route crosses Croatia diagonally — from the Istrian
Rovinj to Dubrovnik — The Length of the Coast Read More »
It was a Sunday evening. I was sitting on the stone steps of a fondamenta on the eastern side of the city, where the buildings thin and the lagoon opens and there is nothing between you and the sky but Adriatic sea and the memory of the sea. The stone was still warm from the
The Steps at the Adriatic Read More »
I had explained Rome to hundreds of travellers. The approach from the northwest. The terracotta roofs. Which side of the plane to sit on. Then Florence came introducing Venice. Not the information about it. Rome. None of that prepared me for the moment the wheels touched down and I understood I was actually there. My
The Distance Between Knowing and Being There — Rome, Florence & Venice Read More »