Constanța, Romania. September, 2014

Without a doubt, the grimmest place I’ve visited. Buildings disintegrating, people secretive, everything still showing the shockwaves from decades of Ceaușescu totalitarian rule that eviscerated this once thriving land. As Dr. B and I were walking along the city’s main thoroughfare (pictured), a man asked us what time it was. And as we answered, two plainclothes policemen suddenly came over, showed us their IDs, aggressively asked for our documents and pummeled us with questions. Why were we talking with this man? Were we buying drugs? Were we tourists? How many days were we staying? Which hotel were we in? How much local currency did we have? Were we buying cocaine? They checked our arms for drug tracks. They checked our passports, counted our few euros, and finally let us continue with a warning that it was dangerous to speak with people on the street. As we slowly recovered from this unpleasant interrogation and were saying how scary it was, we realized that we were missing fifty euros. Con men.

Odessa, Ukraine. September, 2014

The Potemkin Steps, fabled in legend and in song. And, perhaps most famously, in cinema. These are the steps down which a runaway baby carriage careens after the child’s mother is shot in the most famous scene of Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. (A scene referenced or parodied in dozens of later films, including Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, Woody Allen’s Bananas, even Laurel and Hardy’s The Music Box. Click here for the original and some spinoffs.) We, of course, had to climb them. But we were careful to avoid the young men with huge hawks that they’d try to put on your shoulders for picture-taking purposes. For a fee. Later in the day, I saw others with monkeys trying to do the same thing. No, thanks.

Kotor, Montenegro. October, 2012

Walk a few blocks in any direction in this small town and you’ll find yourself at the original ramparts that protected Kotor from aggressors for centuries. One minute you’re surrounded by cafes, crowds and commerce, the next this peaceful change of pace.

Watertown, MA. July, 2013

5:30am. Here comes the sun, so welcome on a winter’s day, a menacing threat when it’s up this early on the fifth day of a brutal July heat wave. Temperatures in the mid-90s with humidity indexes so high that triple-digit heat advisories were called every day. I’m up early to run before it gets any hotter.

Venice, Italy. October, 2012

Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to read without proper light, that it would ruin your eyesight? And besides, there’s so much beauty to look at here at twilight, quayside on the Giudecca Channel, with the church of Il Redentore in the distance, why would you want to read anyway?

Dubrovnik, Croatia. October, 2012

This Roman city is built of white marble, white stone, white everything. Arrive early if you can before the tour buses fill the place with, well, tourists. Like us. Fortunately we like walking the back alleys, tunnels, passageways that others avoid. And so we’re able to see the parts of town where the residents live. Like this.

Dubrovnik, Croatia. October, 2012

The Wind Surf anchored in the outer harbor of this dazzling city and shuttled us into port on small motorized boats. Not only did this allow us to approach Dubrovnik as so many have since antiquity. But it also allowed the Wind Surf to lower its “sports platform” and let its passengers (like us) swim, kayak and waterski in the welcoming beautiful waters of the Adriatic that you see here.