Walk

The summon sounded imperative, I had positive interests, thank goodness – I was to receive by the hands of professor Cioranescu the second volume of his memoirs - this, as he had no intention of coming to the country this year – moreover, my curiosity was not inconsiderable.

Lisbon, a town whose name comes from the mythical traveler Ulysses – so they say – , illustrated in the Middle Ages by so many navigators and explorers curious and eager for adventure, shows to the visitor first its drowsy side. It is true that I first visited it on

I cannot think of a more fortunate coincidence: this is the first time I have visited Paris in May and the show is extraordinary. I know somebody who keeps a dried chestnut flower between the covers of a notebook, a flower that he has picked up from the sidewalk in Cluny

excerpts30th September When I get on the tram, in Zurich, I cross myself. To whom? Not to the tram, of course, but to the Power that gave some people (engineers, technicians, workers) the ability to create such public means of transportation: and to others (the passengers)

The news that a German foundation offered me, many years ago, a scholarship to Heidelberg gave me an incommensurable joy and an unrestrained curiosity of knowing places that, for a very long time, I could only associate with the plot of Wilhelm Meyer Förster's play.

All roads to the West go through Vienna. Generous crossroads where the western world fuses with the horizons of eastern Europe and the Germanic spirit seems to have rich confluences with Latinity, the old Austrian metropolis still conveys the same charm that those claras

excerptsVienna, December 1838 Extra Hungariam non est vita, si est vita, non est ita.  Vienna and Bucharest! Oh, what a difference between these two cities! Like the sun and the planets is this Capital surrounded by adequate corollaries stretching to the margins of the

excerptsThe most dazzling phenomenon of the long Finnish winter night is the polar lights. The fantastical miracles that move profoundly the foreign traveler, they also impress the local people, who watch them in ecstasy like some genuine miracles of nature. The most impressive

Lapland is the most northern country in Europe. It has more than 70,000 inhabitants and its surface, comparable to that of France, is barren and lacks vegetation. Physical appearance. The Lapps are short and thin, their legs are short and curved and they seem smaller than

excerpt If from a topographic and picturesque point of view, the Yellowstone plateau is endowed with everything: rocks, rivers, lakes, high peaks, endless forests, rich pastures, from a geological point of view it is almost unique: some of the mountains I have mentioned

excerptsA group of Indians. In one of these caves I saw the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego for the first time. I had left the convoy behind at a certain distance and accompanied by two men, I had gone ahead, when all of a sudden, I found myself near a group of 25 or 30

Friday, December 10, 1897We leave at 1 o'clock in the morning. Description of the Toro. The fat captain and his unremitting thirst. I go to sleep in the mechanic's cabin (or room, or whatever). Wine and alcohol on the table. The first mechanic is drunk all the