It’s easy to brainstorm a long list of things you can associate instantly with the USA. Easy peasy…

Washington, D.C., the White House, NYC, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Wild West, the Great Depression, Lend-Lease, the first man on the moon, the Space Shuttle, Coke and Pepsi, McDonald’s, Hollywood and Disney, Microsoft, iPhone, Google, Facebook… I could go on for ages, as I’m sure you could….

But one thing I never associated with the U S of A is volcanoes. However, it turns out there are quite a few here – and rather impressive they are too. They’re on the West Coast – in Washington state, up next to Canada.

For those who might not yet know, I’m a big fan of volcanism (see my tales, pics and vids from Kamchatka, New Zealand, Santorini, Mount Etna, Pico de Orizaba and so on).

And I can now add a plus-2 to my collection of been-to volcanism – with these two gems:

1) Mount Rainier (Indian name – Tahoma);

2) Mount St. Helens (Indian name – Louwala-Clough).

More: Stateside volcanism…

Yia folks!

Fate saw to it that I recently found myself on the island of Santorini for a couple of days, which just so happens to be one of the most interesting and unusual places on the planet, and as such finds itself residing comfortably on my list of the top must-see places in the world.

For anyone hearing of Santorini for the first time, it’s a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, 100 kilometers north of Crete and around 200km southeast from Athens – here!

This was my third time on the island, so by now I know quite a bit about the place – and it’s all rather fascinating… so let me give you the inside story here, so you don’t have to trawl through site after site and still not get the real deal…

So, let’s start with the basics: Santorini is a volcano-island. (Yes, that is no doubt why I’ve just had my third trip there!) Or, to put it more precisely, it’s what remains of a volcanic caldera after it erupted thousands of years ago, plus a new, smaller volcano slowly rising up from the sea which now fills the caldera in the center of the archipelago. The walls of the crater are impressively tall – around 300 meters high and made up of black, grey, white and red volcanic rock. The effect is one of unearthly beauty, like being on another planet. A unique bit of topography.

Then there’s the multicolored beaches – civilized sandy ones (which you need to take a car/quad/motorbike to get to), and wild stony ones (only by boat or foot). There’s also the exquisite Greek food (fresh fish, lots of greens, tzatziki; but if you want steak – best wait till you’re back on the mainland), and multi-starred Metaxa… In short, a Mediterranean paradise :).

More: The mystery of Atlantis…

Howdy all!

I’m not the world’s biggest fan of modern art, it has to be said; and I’m by far the most knowledgeable in this field… despite my regular visits to the Pompidou Center whenever I can fit them in. It’s just never all that clear to me when I stare at some modern kunst piece quite what the artist was depicting – or why. What was he/she trying to express, if anything? Other times – rarely – I do manage to ‘get it’, thankfully!

I mention modern art as we got to see quite a bit of it just recently. A group of comrades and I found ourselves at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in California – a real out-of-the-way place in the middle of nowhere where artists can come and stay to inject new vigor into their creativity, be it painting, sculpting, writing, music making or multimedia-ing.

More: Modern, classical and natural art – simply, effortlessly pretty…

Good day everyone – from London!

I don’t think I’ve ever been in London in summer. Fall, winter, spring – many times, but never summer, for some strange reason.

And so I was unaware, perhaps naively, that in summer London is at its most touristy. Along the bank of the river Thames (my favorite route for a stroll – easy to locate, easy to navigate, and you get to see plenty) we found ourselves having to shuffle our way through heaving crowds. The line – queue! – for the London Eye was just bonkers long (reminding me of the absurdly long lines for passport control at JFK!). Then there were all the street shows, musicians and cyclists, and yet more lines – for ice cream.

London aye? Nay, thanks

More: Crowds, crowds, crowds and… a gravity challenge!

NZ-2013. Day 15. Mistakes.

Those of you who’ve been following me around NZ with this travelogue will already know how unexpected torrential rain ruined our plans several times. Despite our heroic efforts to see everything, multiple shuffling of the route, and the extra hundreds of miles on the road – some must-sees remained inaccessible and thus unseen. They’ll just have to wait till next time…

Anyway, today I’ll be telling you a little about what we missed, just to make this travelogue exhaustive in terms of its covering all the must-sees of NZ – given good weather.

There were five must-check-outs we missed, as follows:

1. State Highway 6 – along the west coast of the South Island. We got to see only its northern section, but if the southern part is as beautiful – a leisurely drive along it is mandatory. Especially for lovers of hairpin bends :).

More: New Zealand vs Kamchatka – the final encounter…

Yes, here I am still, in sunny Oz, and as happy as a sand boy. We were recently on the east coast, in the green band between the Pacific and the edge of the massive desert interior of Australia. We did Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne – the main cities – from north to south. From Brisbane to Sydney it’s approximately 1000km. So if you ever find yourself down-under with two or three days to spare, I really recommend renting a motor – preferably a soft-top – and doing the whole route.

The early bird catches the… surf

More: Gold Coast, Surfers Paradise, Miami, Byron Bay, Port Macquarie…

NZ-2013. Day 12. Lakes beyond compare.

It would be unthinkable not to mention NZ’s spectacular lakes in this travelogue – even though we didn’t actually have time to study many of them in any great detail.

NZ’s lakes are simply magical – huge, turquoise, surrounded by lush mountain ranges and other pulchritudinous paysages… and that’s on both islands. Alas, we mostly just drove past them – sometimes several lakes a day, occasionally lunching on their shores, and some of us even swimming in them. But unfortunately we simply didn’t have the time to study them closely and get to learn all about them. We did however manage to pull off quite a few photographic masterpieces for your viewing pleasure:

More: 8001 more pictures of NZ lakes…

G’day all – from Paradise!

That’s the name of the place I was lucky enough to find myself in just recently – Surfers Paradise. And it just so happens to be one of the best places on earth for catching the sunrise at dawn – from the 60^th or so floor of the Q1. And the daybreaks this year were better than ever – clouds either were absent completely, or complemented the view of the horizon. Breathtaking!:

More: more sunrises, Oz beer & retro VW…

NZ-2013. Day 9. Route.

On the ninth day in NZ we simply tramped back along the path we’d already walked along (see Day 7), so spent most of the day checking out scenery we’d already seen. On various websites they write that this tourist track is one of the most beautiful in the world (among the not so difficult ones). I agree – this is one example of the Internet not lying. It really is “wow”!

Reminiscent of the Isle of Skye

Blofeld’s back

More: the route of our expedition…

How do you do, ladies and gentlemen!

Today – about the Churchill War Rooms. The underground bunker of Winston Churchill during WWII, in which he lived and worked at the helm of Britain’s tough, valiant and victorious war effort.

More: …and drank his preferred champagne and Armenian brandy