I’m staying at Le Grand Monarque here in Chartres and, just after breakfast this morning, I asked the woman at the reception desk if there was a photo store nearby. She looked at me, somewhat askance, and said, “Monsieur! C’est lundi aujourd’hui!” Yes, today is indeed Monday and that means just a few shops and…
Acela is what Amtrak calls their high-speed train that runs multiple times a day along what is known as the Northeast Corridor — Washington-New York-Boston. The Acela trainsets look pretty much like the French TGV (short for Train à Grande Vitesse, literally “high speed train”.) They’re modern and sleek and just look fast! But there…
OK, enough about depressing politics and more about some of the railway stations I encountered on my recent train trip across Europe and Asia. In truth, most of the stations we passed through while traveling between major cities were pretty ordinary. Here’s a good example: the station in the town of Vyazma, a busy railway…
In hindsight, I didn’t allow enough time for Shanghai. There is just too much to see and, understandably, visitors are taken by the incredible, even breathtaking architecture of the soaring, modern skyscrapers in the Financial District. Given more time, however, I would have liked to seen more of the traditional old parts of the city…