Like most of the ports of call on this cruise, St. Martin still has a lot of damage from recent hurricanes. Specifically, a well-known “clothing-optional” beach, “Orient Beach” was pretty much leveled in a storm the prior year and was being reconstructed. That didn’t stop a few determined beachgoers, but for the most part the […]
The web analytics don’t lie. Nobody cares about beautiful pictures of comfortable travel. Aspirational vistas of pristine beaches and the imaginary lives lived on them make for very poor click bait. People click on danger, on suffering. That’s a fact. So what the hell am I supposed to do with a bunch of pictures from […]
This was not the usual type of trip, and the blog entries will likely reflect that. I spent a couple weeks on a Caribbean cruise, visiting eight new countries and four territories. I booked with MSC, an Italian cruise line with some very different ports of call from the American lines. To my knowledge, this […]
We’re not breaking any new ground in this part of our trip. We stayed in the “Drop of Gold” quarter near Gare du Nord. I would describe the area as a charming and multicultural hub that is brimming with character. The interwebs do at times describe this arrondissement in less flattering terms, calling it dicey […]
