Journeys | The Smart Set

The Traveler’s Want

Molly Pascal — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 12:30:00 +0000

“Follow me,” said Furat, our guide, and he took off. My husband Matt hastily grabbed my hand, and, like a pair of eager James Bond impersonators, we gave chase. Furat popped in and out of sight as he wove through the old city, ignoring red lights and crosswalks. “There he is!” Matt pointed. In the […]

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From Paris to Nowhere

Claire Polders — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 12:30:00 +0000

Paris, C’est Cher! For 18 years, I lived with my (now) husband in a charming old artist atelier in the 6th arrondissement in Paris. My home was a short daily walk from the Jardin du Luxembourg with its spring blossoms and fall foliage, and lay in the shadow of the Tour Montparnasse, where I not […]

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The Last Emperor

Balu George — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 11:30:00 +0000

The boy of 11 is at a book fair. School is out in Cochin, India, and he has dragged his father along to the book fair in the city. In two days’ time, the family is going on vacation to Ahmednagar, where his father’s elder brother stays. The uncle works in a sugar factory there, […]

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Hindsight

Jeremiah Bass — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 11:30:00 +0000

In 2011, my wife, Casie, and I moved to Porto das Dunas, Brazil. We got an apartment on the beach; every piece of furniture in that fully furnished apartment was either covered with sticky, salty ocean air or crumbling to dust from the never-ending equatorial sun. The twin mattresses we pushed together flaked debris onto […]

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Beach Trip!

Edward Comstock — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 13:14:04 +0000

Storms beat on the rocky cliffs and were echoed By icy-feathered terns and the eagle’s screams; No kinsman could offer comfort there, To a soul left drowning in desolation. The Seafarer (Old English Poem) Well before the Bible told the story of Jesus calming the storm in the Sea of Galilee, and even before Odysseus’ […]

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The Allure of Medievalism

John Capista — Mon, 08 May 2023 11:30:00 +0000

On a recent three-week vacation to Italy where my wife Maria and I go each year to celebrate our Italian heritage, we spent our first week in Siena. Our only previous visit there had been three years earlier on a one-day tour to several Tuscan hill towns with a hired driver. The schedule called for […]

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Retracing His Steps

Daniel Hudon — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 11:30:00 +0000

It was not yet my birthday, but it might as well have been, for I was swerving through the hillside farmlands and quiet Welsh towns in the late winter sunlight on my way to Laugharne to see the poet’s boathouse and breathe the seaside air that infused his words. Laugharne of the old castle and […]

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a modern pilgrimage

John Hartley — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 12:30:00 +0000

4:44 reads the entry ticket at Edinburgh airport long stay car park. The flight isn’t scheduled for another two hours. When you mentioned it, your colleagues raised eyebrows: Medjugorje — since 1981 the site of ongoing apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but you can only either dive in headfirst or altogether walk away when […]

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Tracking Wolves in the Wild Heart of Italy

Naomi Elster — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 12:30:00 +0000

Nothing moved on the side of the mountain. Nothing except us, as we quietly scanned the wide expanse of snow in the open valley below us, and the forested peaks of the mountains rising on the opposite side. It had been an early start, drinking espressos in the bar of the rustically charming Hotel Iris, […]

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Travel in Time of War

Olga Kovalenko — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 16:05:47 +0000

When my husband invited me for a short trip to Tuscany in May, the first thing I thought was: “How do you travel for pleasure when your country is under enemy fire?” On social media, my relatives, friends, and colleagues shared brief posts to notify others of their movements — down into a tube station, […]

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