I just came back from my first trip to Japan but still have yet to come back down to earth. Wow! My husband Ben and I spent two weeks visiting my sister Carolyn in lush, laid-back Okinawa. She’s in the Navy and has been living in Okinawa for almost two […]
[Editor’s note: Join Ann at our informal online open house February 24 at 2 p.m. Eastern. RSVP here.] On many Classical Pursuits trips, we are reliant on the written word, and messages we can glean from mute buildings, streets, and monuments, to help us understand pivotal happenings in human history. […]
[Editor’s note: Only a few spaces remain for our Venice trip in March 2023. You can contact our travel partner Worldwide Quest to learn more.] Act I: Love at First Sight I was nineteen, a student and an aspiring artist, when I walked into the Frari church in Venice and […]
He’s been described as the most famous author of his day, as “literature’s greatest whistleblower.” His influence on French, American, and world literature is undisputedly huge. And his books, as the title of this post suggests, are full of three things people love to read about, even if they don’t […]
What comes to mind when you think of Quebec City? If you didn’t say “revolution,” you would not be alone. With its dramatic clifftop location overlooking the mighty St. Lawrence River, its fortification walls, narrow winding streets and wealth of historic buildings, Quebec City charms visitors with its picturesque views […]
Daedalus could not have picked a better spot. As I walked the path leading up to the temple, I stopped to bask in the warm November sun that gilded the valley below and transformed the sea into a thin strip of silver. I was in Agrigento on the south coast […]
I could feel my heart beat a little faster as I stepped out of the hostel lobby and onto the lilac-filled esplanade. Kids were playing soccer while next door at the Corsican wine bar, the owner chatted with a couple of regulars. Up the street, the a shout of laughter […]
The very name Ganges brings to the mind’s eye a swell of images that flow, just as the river itself, through 4,000 years of human history: the famous ghats at Varanasi, fishermen in narrow boats, the unmistakable profile of Kolkata’s Howrah Bridge over the Hooghly tributary. This relatively short river […]
One of the best things about returning to Paris this spring for the first time since 2019 was experiencing long-anticipated pleasures, both familiar and new. I was happy to once again be swept up in the rush-hour Métro crowds, or sip my favourite aperitif, a Suze, among the lilac trees […]
“Just look! It’s right there in the painting.” This exhortation from our guide Sara Magister seemed so intuitive, so easy. A painting is there to be looked at. What happens when we take the time to do it? Let me back up a bit. Who is Sara, and which paintings […]