Looking for some fun in the Windy City?  Chicago is known for its music scene, most
notably the blues, and the city is ripe with clubs that showcase some of the
finest musicians playing the emotional urban sound in the country.  One of my favorites, in the Lincoln Park
neighborhood (far...

Charles was taking the Intercity train from Florence to Bologne to visit friends, and when he sat down diagonally across from me just before the ride started I thought he was Italian.  His skin was very dark and he had the stubble of a beard several days old.  His peacock coat...

It is the little details that strike you most when arriving in a new place.  When I arrived in the urban pueblo of Velez-Malaga after two weeks in Madrid and Granada, the first thing that struck me was the smell of the sea.  The town is two miles inland from the Mediterranean, but the fresh...

In an AP article this morning, it was reported that the Vatican is embracing a forest project in Hungary and going green.  The Vatican has accepted an unusual donation by a start-up called ClimaFa.  The donation consists of a plot of land and the promise by KlimaFa to plant 37-acres worth of...

            When you arrive at Bajaras International Airport in Madrid, there are no open-bag inspections or hard-nosed, stiff-eyed questions.  There is only one thing you will encounter...

        The front page of today’s Chicago Tribune has an article that is the first in an extended series of economic-themed travel articles to be written in the coming weeks by Tribune foreign correspondent Evan Osnos.  His journey will take him into the...

The south of Spain is a vast landscape peppered with olive trees and dry, dusty hills of a parched green and brown hue.  The air is thin and free of humidity and the sun at dawn is incredibly bright, a hazy ember like that emitted by a forest fire.  The majority of Andalucia looks like a...