All in 2026
“Oh, those Romans! They really got around the Mediterranean in ancient times. That included northern Morocco’s city of Volubilis (population 20,000)… Even before the Romans arrived, Volubilis was a thriving Berber (Amazigh) settlement… At one point, Volubilis served as the capital city of the Kingdom of Mauritania under King Juba II…”
“The name “Casablanca” is familiar nowadays, but the place actually started out as the ancient city of Anfa. When the Portuguese arrived in 1468 and blew Anfa to ruins and later built a military fortress there in 1515, they called the village that grew up around it "Casa Branca" (Portuguese for "white house)…”
“Seventeen days is too little time to make a person expert about a place, but it’s more than enough to have made me fall in love with this northwestern corner of continental Africa. That lyrical name — Morocco! — piqued my curiosity for decades… Our initial plans took several of us north from Casablanca for three days to the “blue city” of Chefchaouen”
“Tucked in the northeastern corner of Italy on terrain hotly contested in World War I and again in World War II, the Dolomite Mountains march gloriously southeast toward the Adriatic Sea. These mountains don’t jut so much as carve a serrated skyline with jagged knife-edged drama…”
“As I reach into the pantry to prepare a winter’s morning dose of caffeine, daylight struggles to penetrate the fog outside. I appreciate the confluence of this state both inside and outside of my still-sleepy brain… Morning routine elevates my level of wakefulness.”
