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On a weekday morning, the seafront in Camogli smells of warm olive oil from the bakery ovens on Via Garibaldi. The houses by the water rise to about six stories and are painted ochre, rose, and lemon, with green shutters left open to the light. From a higher floor, a woman leans out and shakes a tablecloth over the street. The window next to hers also has half-open shutters, and a neat shadow falls under

Right before the hour in the Main Market Square, the pigeons appear to know something that the tourists don’t. People turn their heads toward the taller of the two brick towers of St. Mary’s Basilica, and about 266 feet up, a small window opens to reveal a brass trumpet bell. The tune is the hejnał, (roughly pronounced “hey-now”), consisting of five notes that rise, linger, and then stop, cut off mid-phrase as though someone had

At the tasting table at the end of a coffee tour above Boquete, the guide lifts a spoon to his mouth and slurps loudly, like a straw at the bottom of a milkshake or a drain clearing its throat. This is the correct way to do it, cuppers say; only by spraying the coffee across the tongue can you detect the citrus and jasmine in a good Panamanian bean. Outside, a fine mist the locals

At the base of Bologna’s two famous towers, the morning air smells of espresso and wet brick, as bicycles pass through Piazza di Porta Ravegnana. The Torre degli Asinelli rises above them, built of 12th-century masonry, and stands 319 feet tall. Next to it stands the Garisenda, shorter and leaning at about four degrees. The city recently installed a protective fence around the Garisenda and used steel supports from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to

As soon as the gates open each morning, joggers, a few early photographers, and the peregrine falcons that live at the Minster take up the section of York’s city walls between Bootham Bar and Monk Bar. The limestone beneath your feet is damp and cold. Behind one side are back gardens and well-kept allotments; on the other, the cathedral rises above the slate roofs, so close you can see the individual carved faces in the

Each ‌autumn, ‌between six and seven million people gather in a 103-acre meadow in southwest Munich. They wear traditional dress like their grandparents and drink beer from heavy glasses that hold exactly one liter. Locals call the meadow the Wiesn, but the rest of the world knows it as Oktoberfest. More than two centuries old, the festival has grown louder, larger, and more Bavarian each year.

Oktoberfest began

In Esperanza, the fishing village on Vieques’s south shore, you’ll see small groups gathered at roadside spots, dressed in long sleeves and pants even when it’s warm. Because the bay’s rules ban sunscreen, insect repellent, and lotion in the water, covering up is the only option. Nearby, a horse stands by the road, looking as if it has never worried about time. Flash photography isn’t allowed, and it’s hard to capture what comes next on

The horse rises straight up among the people, its black coat gleaming, and its front hooves sweep through the air above the hundred raised hands. In the Plaça des Born, the main square of the old part of Ciutadella. Historically, people reached out to touch the horse’s chest, as it is traditional to do so to secure a year of good luck. This is the jaleo, the climax of the Festes de Sant Joan which

For now, to get to Koh Lanta, you must take a boat. At the Ban Hua Hin pier on the mainland of Krabi, cars, minivans, delivery trucks and, from time to time, a scooter with an entire family on it board a ferry with a flat deck and cross a narrow channel to Koh Lanta Noi; from there they continue on a bridge to Koh Lanta Yai, which is the island that most people mean

At Sligachan, under the Old Bridge, a woman in a rain jacket kneels on the rocks and dips her face into the river. Local legend says that if you keep your face in the water for seven seconds and then let it dry in the wind, you’ll gain timeless beauty, a gift of the faeries. The water comes straight from the Cuillin, the steep black mountains above, and it’s so cold that seven seconds feels

On the third Sunday of September, the meadow at Ukanc fills with the sound of cowbells arriving before the cows do. Then the herders come down from the high pastures, shoulders loaded with the basenga, the whole kit of tools and utensils that made cheese possible above the tree line all summer. The cattle wear flower crowns. The brass band plays through it. Somewhere behind all of this, Lake Bohinj lies perfectly still.

The Cows’