for Sophie My sister says that she was “magnetic”. At our mother’s funeral twenty-two years ago, my sister’s two-year-old daughter, Sophie, cried and said, “My grandmother died, and I didn’t even know her.”  When I remember her, my throat tightens …

I love cities and buildings and walking around and exploring. My friends are often interested in theatre, art or music, and that makes sense, but for me walking is usually enough. It’s both the seeing and the anticipation that come …

We associate the French with beauty, refinement, elegance, grandeur. These are visible everywhere in Paris, as is occasional disorder and chaos, but underlying them is a discipline that is harder to discern. This year I was in Paris for more …

Yesterday I returned to Vienna by train from Znojmo, in the Czech Republic.  Znojmo was the terminus of my trip,  suggesting old links with Austria; however, the train was almost empty when it reached the town on Tuesday morning, and …

Last week, I took the train south from Klagenfurt (in south Austria) to Trieste.  Reviewing Google maps, I had assumed that the train headed directly south through Slovenia.  But history or geography planned a route that skirts Slovenia completely.  The …