Taormina offered three notable experiences during our stay:
The town itself
An epic hike to Castelmola high above Taormina
Taormina’s spectacular Roman theater
Our last post addressed the first item above. This second one will bring completion to the triad.
Hike to Castelmola
To reach Castelmola, we hiked the Sentiero dei Saraceni (Path of the Saracens):
But to reach the trailhead, we first had to leave our place on the water, take the gondola to Taormina’s centro storico, then wind through town, and then finally deviate from the well-trod Corso Umberto to climb through the labyrinthine streets in the old town’s outskirts. THEN the real climbing began.
The trail takes its name from the ancient road used by Arab forces during their siege of Taormina in 902 AD.
The path itself is an old trazzera — a Sicilian dialect word for a country track — worn into the landscape by the constant passage of mules and horses through a wild terrain of fig trees and prickly pears.
Although not nearly as taxing as the Path of the Gods (Sentiero degli Dei) that we hiked on the Amalfi Coast earlier in the trip, the 7+ mile hike did have 1220 feet of ascent. And we also hiked on a pretty hot day. (In addition to the route on the map below, you can also identify Isola Bella and our AirBnB location on the right side.)
The path is an ancient way to access Castelmola from the southern slope of Monte Tauro, the mountain that looms above Taormina. Starting from Piazza Duomo in Taormina, the initial walk winds through the town’s streets, then the trail transitions to a combination of dirt and rocks — mostly steep stone steps.
You definitely get rewarded with some great views along the way.
And a forest of cactus.
A sign that we’re reaching the apex of our hike at the hill town of Castelmola:
The site was first fortified by the Byzantines around 800 AD, serving as an outpost for and above Taormina. In 902, the fortification fell to Muslim forces after fierce resistance. The Saracens broke into Castelmola’s forts and destroyed much of the village, sparing only the castle — and the access gate to the historic centre is still called the Porta dei Saraceni because of this event.
In 1078, Norman Count Roger I reconquered the area and built a new castle incorporating the original walls. Most of what remains today dates to a 16th-century version of the structure. A 10th-century plaque with Greek-Byzantine engravings on the cathedral façade reads: “This castle was built under Constantine, patrician and strategist of Sicily” — almost certainly referring to Costantino Caramalo, who defended the territory from Arab attacks in the 9th century.
Throughout later centuries, Castelmola sided with the Swabians and Aragonese against the Angevins, eventually becoming part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1738 and then the Kingdom of Italy in 1860.
In addition to some great historical context for Castelmola’s many lives, this recitation also recalls the convenient history-of-Sicily-on-a-t-shirt introduction in our first Sicily post. (The t-shirt, as it happens, actually was spotted during our stay here in Taormina.)
Regardless of the events that led up to Castelmola’s current iteration, it proved to be a pretty charming little hill town.
With a little cafe just for WolfeStreetTravel’s resident figeater:
And then there’s Castelmola’s chief attraction:
Bar Turrisi, or. . .
the dick bar.
The bar was founded in 1947 by Salvatore Turrisi, who later had three sons in 5 years and decided to celebrate this by absolutely filling this place with dicks.
It’s a riot of phallic symbols (all of them, btw, created exclusively by Sicilian artisans, for what it’s worth):
After some beers and pizza, we headed back down to Taormina, where our oasis awaited.
Definitely a welcome respite after the hike.
Roman Theater
Taormina’s Teatro Antico offered the last of the three highlights during our stay.
Although its known for the role it played during the Roman period, the theatre originally was constructed during the Hellenistic period, circa 265–215 BC. It is one of the oldest theatres in Magna Graecia to feature a curved cavea rather than the older trapezoidal design. The structure was carved directly into the rocky hillside of Monte Tauro, using the natural slope in the classical Greek manner to create optimal sightlines and acoustics.
Originally designed for dramatic performances, it hosted plays by ancient Greek playwrights such as Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides. These performances were often part of religious festivals and reflected the myths and social issues of the time. Acoustics were engineered so that even whispers on stage could be heard in the highest seats.
During the Roman rule over Sicily, the Romans did not merely maintain the theatre — they systematically rebuilt and repurposed it over roughly two centuries, in three distinct phases.
Phase I & II — Expansion under Trajan and Hadrian (98–138 AD)
The major Roman renovation expanded the cavea, modified the retaining walls to run parallel with the stage, and constructed an elaborate multi-story scaenae frons (the ornate architectural backdrop behind the stage). This phase created the theatre in its most magnificent form. The first intervention enlarged the theatre’s capacity with the construction of an external ambulatory and a complete reconstruction of the scaenae frons. Scholarly research confirms the architectural ornament of that stage front is definitively Trajanic or Hadrianic in style — and the architect of the theatre at Taormina used illusionistic column effects closely similar to those at the South Theater at Gerasa, suggesting Eastern influence on its design.
Phase III — Conversion to Arena (Late 2nd / Early 3rd Century AD)
The second Roman intervention involved changes to the stage and an expansion of the orchestra to transform the theatre into an arena capable of hosting gladiatorial games. A ring corridor was built, closed by a raised parapet, along with underground spaces used as shelters for equipment and animal cages. Three vaulted passageways were built under the scaenae frons to provide access for gladiators and animals.
Phase III — Conversion to Arena (Late 2nd / Early 3rd Century AD)
The second Roman intervention involved changes to the stage and an expansion of the orchestra to transform the theatre into an arena capable of hosting gladiatorial games. A ring corridor was built, closed by a raised parapet, along with underground spaces used as shelters for equipment and animal cages. Three vaulted passageways were built under the scaenae frons to provide access for gladiators and animals.
A view up to Castelmola, the destination of our hike the previous day and home to the dick bar.
The theatre has a horseshoe-shaped cavea with a diameter of 107–109 meters, an orchestra measuring 28–29 meters across (later expanded to 34 meters during the arena conversion), and a seating capacity estimated at 8,900 to 11,150 spectators across more than 40 rows divided into nine cunei and three maeniani (levels). It is the second largest of its kind in Sicily, behind only the Greek Theatre of Syracuse.
The setting is arguably the theatre’s most famous feature. Oriented to face south-southwest, it frames a panorama of Mount Etna and the Ionian Sea simultaneously — a view that has captivated visitors for millennia.
During the Middle Ages, parts of the theatre were reused to build private residences and religious buildings, including Taormina Cathedral. It was the Grand Tour of the 18th and 19th centuries that restored the theatre to international fame. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visited in 1787 and wrote in his famous Italian Journey: “Never has a theatre audience enjoyed such a view.” His words became perhaps the most quoted description of the site and drew generations of European travelers in his wake.
The theatre today is far more than a museum piece — it remains an active cultural venue. Since 1983 it has hosted the Taormina Arte festival and other cultural events. Since 1971, the Taormina Film Fest has been held in the Ancient Theatre, with premieres and new film screenings taking place here.
The charming town of Taormina was to be the final stop on the Sicily leg of our prolonged foray. (Map and overview of the full foray is posted here.) If you’re following along, we have only three legs left after Sicily.
Perched high above the Ionian Sea, Taormina was founded by the Sicels and later became an important Greek settlement after refugees from the nearby colony of Naxos just south of Taormina’s current location relocated there in the 4th century BC (stay tuned later this year for a post covering travel to Naxos the Greek island, which is upcoming). The town flourished under Greek and then Roman rule, leaving behind its most famous monument, the spectacular Ancient Theatre of Taormina (which we’ll get to in the next post), whose stage frames views of both the sea and Mount Etna. Through the Byzantine, Arab, Norman, and Spanish periods, Taormina retained its strategic hilltop position and developed into one of Sicily’s most historically layered and visually dramatic towns.
Taormina’s 12th-century Porta Messina on the north end of town (where you would enter the town if you were coming from Messina to the north in the olden days; or from the gondola at sea level now):
And on the other end of town, the 15th-century Aragonese Porta Catania (replete with the Spaniards’ coat of arms), facing south to Catania (where we’d fly out of in several days):
And snaking between the two? Corso Umberto, Taormina’s main street.
Like the one-road Baroque town of Noto visited a week or so earlier, Taormina indeed is replete with streets, but there’s only one main drag and singular main event.
But what a fantastic main drag it is – way more restaurants, bars, and shops than Noto and incredibly appealing. Beginning in the 19th century, Taormina became a celebrated stop on the European Grand Tour, attracting artists, writers, aristocrats, and intellectuals drawn by its scenery, mild climate, and classical ruins. Today it remains one of the Mediterranean’s most stylish destinations, combining luxury hotels, elegant boutiques, refined dining, and breathtaking views in a setting that feels both sophisticated and timeless.
The corso appears packed here, but everything’s flowing and there was never any sense that we had embroiled ourselves in an overtaxed Positano-type situation.
Plus, the occasional religious festival procession winding its way down the corso – in this case, celebrating the Feast of Saint Anthony of Padua (that’s him on the litter); we think maybe they’re taking the lazy way out of this by proceeding with a litter on wheels instead on shoulders, like in Godfather II and Godfather III:
And around the midway point on Corso Umberto lies Piazza IX Aprile and Porta di Mezzo – the midway tower:
Because Taormina is perched on a cliff, Piazza IX Aprile offers a great belvedere with views of the coast below:
View into the corso under the clock tower:
Medieval palazzo off the corso, with a vibrant jacaranda tree in bloom, to boot.
Taormina’s second square (second to Piazza IX Aprile, of course): the Piazza Duomo:
There’s the duomo. And, uh, there’s the Quatro Fontanes (Four Fountains):
Topped by a female centaur – apparently the historic emblem of Taormina. She wears a crown and holds a scepter in one hand and a globe surmounted by a cross in the other—symbols of civic authority and power. Regardless, super weird.
Heading to the duomo, the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas of Bari, the popular bishop-saint whose cult spread widely throughout southern Italy and Sicily.
The duomo looks more like a castle than a church. Built from massive stone blocks and topped with battlements, it was designed as an ecclesia munita—a fortified church capable of providing refuge during periods of instability. This defensive appearance earned it the nickname “Cathedral Fortress” and reflects the turbulent medieval history of Sicily.
But the interior of the 13th- and 14th-century duomo looks pretty standard.
Down (and to the left) we encounter the 2nd-century AD Roman “Naumachie,” a long brick wall punctuated with niches, likely to house statues. Buried and unknown for a millenia and a half, the moniker was incorrectly (just like in Agrigento) applied by a Dutch scholar in the 18th century, who figured – and why not? – that the structure hosted naval battles.
The massive wall did function as the barriers of a reservoir to supply a gymnasium or massive municipal fountain complex.
But enough history; aperitivo hour is approaching with the setting sun and we needed to locate a decent perch.
This will do.
With a great view over the coast and also a glimpse of what once was a 14th-century Dominican monastery. . .
But now houses the Four Seasons and the setting for Season 2 of White Lotus (they were closed to outside visitors due to a private event when we were there, otherwise we would have checked it out).
Pretty great town.
To actually reach town (through Porta Messina), we had to walk about 2 blocks from our AirBnB to catch the gondola at this station, since Taormina is high up on a cliff, visible at the top of the pic:
You grab your tickets while in line, and head on up; we never had to wait more than a few minutes – pretty efficient system.
Why would we stay a gondola ride from town instead of nestled within centro storico? Because this:
Pretty great setting in the Sicilian heat.
Because we were fixated on lodging with pools, we snagged this thing probably 6 months before we headed off for our prolonged foray.
Great view of Isola Bella – Beautiful Island. King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies donated the island to the town of Taormina in 1806. In 1890, Florence Trevelyan purchased it, built a small retreat, and transformed the island into a botanical sanctuary filled with tropical and subtropical species that thrived in Sicily’s climate. The Sicilian government acquired the island in 1990, and it later became a protected nature reserve. And unofficial symbol of Taormina.
Oh, and we’d occasionally see the goofy tourist sub (ubiquitous in coastal towns, it seems) go out and back from our place.
And also the occasional yacht.
Definitely the right place to stay for our Taormina tour.
After cooling our heels at home for the first several months of the year due to the actual Wolfe Street events noted here, we were able to get away sooner than we anticipated thanks to the crew completing the construction milestone that was putting our lateral line at risk.
So, where to go in April? Despite its proximity to DCA, we had never visited the Bahamas, so this was a candidate; as were Monserrat, St. Eustatius, Saba, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mustique, Bequia, and a few other Caribbean islands that WolfeStreetTravel has yet to visit (we’ll get to them all in good time). But which one now? We’ve never viewed Bahamas positively, probably due to Nassau and that unappealing stationary cruise ship of a resort, Atlantis, so this wasn’t necessarily the top of our list. But we didn’t want complicated travel logistics, which all of the others would entail, and we had been eying Kamalame Cay off Andros Island in the Bahamas for probably five Christmases in a row now. They had availability (and a 5th night free for a stay of 4 nights), and getting there entailed a civilized 10:15 flight from DCA direct to Nassau followed by a 10-minute puddle jump to Andros Island (plus a 20-minute drive to their dock). So, we booked.
Nothing compares to our puddle jump experience to and from St. Bart’s second-shortest-runway in the Caribbean (good thing we didn’t go to Saba this time – that island holds the record for the shortest), but pretty cool and super casual experience. (That’s someone’s Starlink dish just sitting there in the aisle behind the cockpit.)
The bustling Andros Town international airport – country 82 for WolfeStreetTravel!
And an on-time arrival at our destination. Kamalame Cay is both a cay off Andros and a self-contained resort.
Where you’re issued a golf cart upon check in, and you drive this sandy path to and from your cottage to the main house complex, where the pool and two bars and restaurants are located.
Pretty good situation at our North Beach Cottage.
One of our cottage’s resident curly tail lizards (travel without reporting on reptiles would be anathema to WolfeStreetTravel’s core tenets):
Super early dinner our first night, since we didn’t have any breakfast (as a matter of routine) or lunch (because we were on or between flights and had no opportunity). The pork belly bites with hoisin sauce and basil became an almost-every-night staple during our stay.
The cay’s overwater spa, indulged in on one of the WolfeStreetTraveler’s birthday.
Beach by the great house, which was nice, but the one just down the steps from our cottage was just as pleasant.
The weather was perfect – clear skies, upper 70s / lower 80s. BUT, we had to contend with wind 24/7 during our entire stay:
Each cottage had its own little palapa, which was pretty great.
As was the pool.
Whole fried snapper. Great in concept (who doesn’t like a whole fish?), but their technique to pull the fillets out and batter and fry the backs unfortunately ruined it. Still fun to look at though?
Little drive back to our place – the sound / strait, such as it is, is on the right, and all of the properties and the beach are on the left:
Pretty great cottage situation – every property on the place is right on the beach.
Sunset our last night:
Early morning ride across the sound / strait to Andros to catch the 7:30 flight (with a ridiculous layover for our noon flight home).
Another puddle jumper, another cockpit view:
Nothing to be alarmed about here:
Other than an engine fire?
Hopefully more posts on Sicily soon, but you never know.
In an unusual move for us, we have now spent two consecutive Christmases in the same country. Shocking! Last year, we visited San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. This year, we returned to Mexico (albeit to a different region).
Mandarina is a new, Pacific-coast development an hour northwest of Puerto Vallarta, very similar in concept to Mayakoba on the Riviera Maya an hour(ish) south of Cancun.
Coincidentally, we also stayed at the same hotel collection in Mandarina as we did in Mayakoba (and San Miguel). Definitely did not disappoint.
And with us, as always, were the traveling Christmas stockings, which have accompanied us on almost every Christmas trip for the past 25 years, from London, to Latvia, to Laos (they were left behind for our Christmas on safari due to the duffel bag limitation). Lisa made the stockings for our first Christmas on Wolfe Street when we moved there in 2000 and, because we have traveled abroad each Christmas since that time, they’ve become world travelers in their own right. (One year I’ll remember to take pictures of the stockings when they’re full. . .)
During breakfast our first morning, we spotted a pod of gray whales cruising by right off the beach.
W spotted another pod from our terrace later in the same day. Pretty cool, especially considering that we took a whale watching tour out of Bar Harbor last year, and saw none. Now, unexpectedly, they were everywhere.
Sunset stockings.
Santa!
Pretty cool Peruvian / Japanese / Mexican fusion at one of the restaurants, and a rather decent bar, to boot.
Perfect freakin’ weather the entire time, which was welcome.
Oh, and Roy Kent! “He’s here, he’s there, he’s everyfucking where! Roy Kent!”
And, as always, a little wildlife to delight one of the travelers (but only one of us, to be sure).
We spent one afternoon at the nearby polo field for our first polo game.
Just an exhibition match, but it didn’t disappoint. They were pretty good.
Fortuitous cervesa choice.
Pretty short stay of just 5 days, but definitely worth it.
“WASHINGTON—A report released Wednesday by the United Nations revealed that the U.S. continues to lead the world with the highest per capita density of Kevins of any nation. ‘Ranked against the rest of the international community, the United States is far and away the global leader in Kevins, with upwards of 27 Kevins per square mile in most major American urban centers,’ said lead researcher Gilbert Dujarric, who added that when factoring in the nation’s Kevs, the density figure nearly doubles. ‘There are certainly areas of Australia, the U.K., and Canada where the concentration of Kevins is high, but they all fall well short of the United States’ Kevin population across all demographics. And when we look at the benchmark Kevin-to-John ratio, no country comes even remotely close to the staggering .205 figure the U.S. posted in 2013.’ The report’s authors noted with surprise, however, that the United States had surpassed Denmark and risen to second place in Jürgen density.”
Right on the heels of our post Five Legs in Six Weeks trip overview, the New York Times slyly attempted to one-up our juggernaut media platform with this “One House in Four Countries” article:
Clearly a knockoff of WolfeStreetTravel and a blatant brand encroachment violation, but we’ll let it pass because the situation described in the article is very cool, and certainly aligns with our interest in European history and cartography. The gist (and hook) of the article is pretty much captured in the first three paragraphs of the New York Times article:
“ ‘Wait until you find out how everyone in my family has come from a different country,’ says Alex Zigante on a recent summer afternoon.
Mr. Zigante, a 30-year-old engineer, takes a breath and lays out the family tree: His great-grandmother, Angela, was born in Austria-Hungary. His grandmother, Maria, 90, in Italy. His father, Aldo, 61, in Yugoslavia. And Alex was born and raised in Slovenia.
And yet, all of them have lived their lives here in Portorož, a seaside village in what is now southwestern Slovenia, where the family’s roots go back centuries to the Venetian Empire, and where their modest three-story home has been a fixed point on an ever-changing map.”
Even better (for WolfeStreetTravel’s interests, anyway) is the series of maps included with the article, depicting the fluid and ever-evolving geopolitical construct that swirled around Portorož over a 100-year period:
Super freakin’ cool, from our perspective, to have your property caught up in the maelstrom of pre- and post-world war political territory restructuring; then revolution; then restructuring. Absolutely enthralling.
And who doesn’t want the occasional reminder of the scope and size of the extinct but still-mildly intriguing Austro-Hungarian Empire?
Following the strategy articulated in the overview for our 6-week trip up the Adriatic coast (and into the Dolomites and Bavaria) earlier this summer, we bookended the summer with another 6-week, shoulder-season trip. Last time, we left on June 1 and returned on July 15. After a 6-week respite at home, we left for this trip the last week of August and returned the first week of October, which still provided us with great weather in Mallorca and Cornwall, but without the crowds that would be there in July and August.
And, unlike the “pick-up-a-car-in-Sarajevo-and-drop-it-off-6-weeks-later-in-Munich” approach from the last trip, where we luxuriated in a car that we could hang on to during the entire, 6-week road trip, we popped in and out of five rental cars in as many trip legs for this journey.
A cartographic overview of the trip’s five legs is pasted below:
Treating the map above as a clock, our route rolled out like this:
We began our trip at the 3:00 spot, with an 8-day loop around Switzerland
Then flew counterclockwise south to the 5:00 location, with an 8-day loop around Mallorca
Then flew to Valencia at the 6:00 spot, after a couple of days there, we began an 9-day drive west to multiple locations in Andalusia in Spain
Then flew up to Portugal at the 9:00 location for 3 days in the Douro Valley and then back to Porto for day
And finally ended the trip at the 12:00 spot with a 10-day loop around Cornwall and back to London in the UK
An interactive, zoomable map of the legs is provided below:
The route around the Switzerland leg of the trip also proceeded in counterclockwise fashion (and provided a second opportunity to visit (or at least drive through) Liechtenstein!):
Although we’d spend all of our time on this leg in the land of cantons, we nonetheless began at the Milan airport in Italy, since this location provided a more logical start and end point for a loop route that would cover several mountainous regions as well as Switzerland’s lake-happy Ticino canton in the south.
Our first stop in Switzerland – straight from the airport – was a gondola ride and hike to the Aescher Gashaus near Appenzel for a little lunch – pretty great perch to kick off our time in Switzerland (other than the first of the two parking tickets we’d get on this trip):
Just a normal day of traffic in Appenzel:
Our time in Appenzel, hiking and otherwise, was pretty damp the entire stay:
So onward we headed – first to Lucerne:
Really atmospheric and enjoyable – plus a great, historic footbridge!
Then to the car-free mountain town of Wengen in the Lauterbrunnen region:
From whence we experienced one of the most spectacular hikes ever, in the Swiss Alps:
View from the nearby, smaller hamlet of Murren to the Junfrau and Eiger:
Our final hike – the Eiger Trail – and more mist and rain, unfortunately:
But our digs in Wengen helped assuage this a bit:
After a week, we ended our loop with an 8th day in the Swiss town of Locarno on Lake Maggiore (strategically booked at an AirBnB with a washer / dryer – a key element to our long-duration trips):
Then spent the next morning in Locarno’s even more charming sister town of Ascona before heading to the Milan airport for a flight to our next leg in. . .
the Spanish Balearic island of Mallorca, where we’d spend the next 8 days:
Mallorca’s capital of Palma, the biggest town (and only city) on the island:
Cool pool in the shadow of one of Palma’s massive churches (very reminiscent of our pool sitch in Carcassonne in 2017 and Uzes in 2021):
Strolling Palma on the way to our 27th anniversary dinner:
Palma’s cathedral lit up at night from our terrace:
And strolling amidst its flying buttresses the next day:
On to a couple of days in Port de Soller on the island’s west coast:
Cool perch over the port and ocean on our last night:
On to Pollença on the north end of the island, which necessarily entailed driving the absolute most insane road we’ve ever experienced:
Super charming town of Pollença, with it’s 365 steps to reach the town’s Oratori del Calvari chapel:
After swimming in the ocean and trying the nearby beach for all of 20 minutes, we decided that this arrangement would better suit our interests for the day. We were right.
Our last town of Colónia di Sant Jordi (and another AirBnB laundry stop), in the southeast corner of Mallorca
On to the Spanish mainland!
Although we’d spend the rest of our time in Spain exploring more of Andalusia (after seeing and loving much of it during our bike trip in the region in 2017), we’d first bop around Valencia on the east coast for a few days:
Spectacular city – super vibrant and fun and very Beaux Arts-y. The unbelievably perfect weather undoubtedly had a lot to do with this impression.
Cool little bike tour one day around the city and out to the beach:
Including riding through Valencia’s sci-fi City of Arts and Sciences:
Then, a long drive west to our first Andalusian town that we missed on our bike trip: Cordoba.
Star of the show? The absolutely unique Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba. Originally built as a grand mosque in the 8th century under the Umayyad dynasty, it was converted into a Catholic cathedral after the Christian Reconquista in 1236. Unlike every other instance of these conversions, however, the existing mosque structure and architecture was not razed, but retained.
First of several times we’d see this street-cooling technique used in Andalusia:
At one end of Cordoba’s Roman Bridge lies the Moorish Tower (Torre de la Calahorra), a fortified gate built by the Moors in the 12th century to defend the southern end of the bridge.
On the drive from Cordoba to Malaga, a stop at an olive oil processing facility for a tour and tasting at the Almazaras de la Subbética cooperative south of Córdoba – winner of the World’s Best Olive Oil competition in 2024/2025. And the 10 previous years. Super cool.
That’s a LOT of olive oil!
Priego de Cordoba, another white-washed Andalusian town visited on the drive to Malaga:
Malaga, the second (and final) iconic Andalusian town we missed on our previous bike trip:
Right in the heart of town lies a Moorish calabaza atop a Roman amphitheater. The history half of WolfeStreetTravel was delighted.
Cool little tapas tour our first night; it turns out that maybe we DIDN’T need to pack 45 cigars for the trip (which we certainly did).
One of our goals? Chow down on espetos at a chiringuito – a beach fish-grilling restaurant (which we learned about on The Amazing Race, for what it’s worth).
Definitely lived up to the hype (especially accompanied by a few tinto de veranos).
A stopover in Marbella en route from Malaga to our next town. Despite high expectations for a super awesome area – meh.
After months of the Mediterranean (first in Croatia on the initial bookend and then in Mallorca, Valencia, and Malaga on this trip), we transitioned to the Atlantic after driving past Gibraltar to get to Playa Zahara de los Atunes.
Where we stumbled, during our only night there, into a cool little concert at a beach bar down the street:
Continuing our little U-shaped arc around Andalusia, we headed next to Conil de la Frontera (our third de la Frontera, designating a frontier town between Christian and Moorish territories in the 900s):
Fried fish frenzy.
And a little day trip to Vejer de la Frontera:
Even more atmospheric Andalusian town (and our forth de la Frontera):
More beach fish at Playa de la Fontanilla:
And our casita for 2 days right down the beach. One of the best AirBnBs we’ve experienced (plus a laundry stop):
Amazing sunsets from the casita’s roof deck:
Then, back to Seville, which we really enjoyed when we first visited in 2017.
Never got to see the “mushroom” during that visit; this has been corrected:
And we spent our limited time in 2017 visiting Seville’s storied cathedral and did not have an opportunity to visit its alcazar. This also was corrected:
And, reminiscent of our days feasting on pinxos in San Sebastian in 2021, a dinner in Seville that included baby eels. Delicious.
Seville served as our last stop in Andalusia; from there, we flew to Porto, Portugal, picked up another car, and headed immediately east to the Douro Valley – Portugal’s wine country.
Our first stop – literally straight from the airport – was a tour and tasting at Quinta da Pacheca. Good wine. Great port.
And the Douro Valley wineries really DO still stomp grapes, a la I Love Lucy. Pretty wild.
Cool little sunset boat trip on the Douro River:
And a full day of biking through vineyards (none of which accommodated walk-in tastings – you had to have reservations, which we thought was insane:
Douro needs to learn lessons from the Virginia (and sure, California) wine region.
Pretty good digs for our 3-day stay:
The day after biking, we did end up calling and then visiting Quinta de Fojo, which offered an outstanding and authentic tasting experience at a generations-old family winery:
Then, back to Porto for a day; we first visited at the tail end of our inaugural post-retirement long trip in 2023 and definitely wanted to return, even if only for a short time:
Like our second visit to Rovinj, Croatia, a few months earlier, we stayed across the river from Porto’s core instead of inside – definitely a different point of view!
From Porto, we flew to our final leg: Cornwall in the southernmost tip of England:
Due to the length of the drive from London to our first Cornwall location (we try to keep drives between locations under 4 hours, and ideally no more than 3), we stopped halfway in the town of Frome, in Somerset:
Turned out to be pretty cool, and with a remarkably high ratio of pubs to people, which was a plus for us:
Then, to our first stop in Cornwall – Padstow:
Rather than stay in town, which was a little bereft of cool lodging options, we stayed about 10 minutes away, at. . . The Pig. Which was a cool lodging option, it turned out:
But we did get into town our second night to dine at The Seafood Restaurant, the flagship eatery of Rick Stein, who we had never before heard of, but who turns out to be a beloved English restauranteur and a seafood magnate in Padstow (the restaurant was one of at least three Rick Stein joints in town):
And on our first full day, our real purpose for visiting the region: spectacular hiking. In this instance, a quasi-loop hike between the achingly charming village of Port Isaac to the even smaller hamlet of Port Quin:
The hike exceeded all expectations:
Our excitement manifested itself in different ways, to be sure:
Port Isaac in the distance:
The local cows seemed excited to see hikers come by, since all of them crowded the fence when they saw us coming:
Our reward once back in Port Isaac? The first of several fish and chips (less than half a dozen during this trip, much less than the daily dosage we sought in our 2-week Cotswolds and Wales trip in 2022 that packed on so many pounds that we had to wear muumuus when we got home):
Our next hike en route from Padstow to St. Ives represented the most iconic views from the British TV series Poldark, which essentially inspired this entire leg. At the start of the hike lay the very tin mine that Poldark worked in the show, Wheal Coates:
Cliffside hiking at its best:
Our next base, St. Ives:
(Which always seemed to be at low tide during our stay, oddly enough):
But had a legit, picturesque English port town charm to it, even if most days were overcast (which seemed to amplify the Englishness of it all):
En route to our next hike, we stopped at the Minack Theatre, which was reputed to be an amazing venue for performances on a cliff facing the water. All of the facts were correct, but it was, in fact, meh:
The next hike? Around Lands End! The actual, for real most southwestern most point in England (and the UK):
More unbelievable Cornish cliffside walks:
Then, around the horn of Lands End and on to the first of our last two Cornish stops: Falmouth.
Meh.
The weather during our stay may have, however, influenced this assessment:
And the final Cornish stop, St. Mawes. More shitty weather, but a super picturesque Cornish seaside village:
And, of course, the weather improves the day we depart:
On the way back to London (by way of Sherborne), we literally drive right by Stonehenge. It turns out that we never actually needed to buy the entrance fee in 2022!
One of the many block-bisecting arcades of London, our final stop.
This was our fourth stay there, and we base ourselves in a different neighborhood each time – this time was Marylebone. Also, since we forewent the whole high tea experience on each of our previous three stays, we concluded that the fourth time was the charm:
The next day, a visit to London’s 3rd century Mithraeum, discovered beneath the modern city in 1954. This was a Roman temple dedicated to the god Mithras, a mystery cult popular among soldiers in the 2nd and 3rd centuries and could have continued to be more popular than early Christianity as an alternative to the traditional Roman pantheon had it not been for the pivotal backing of the latter by a couple of Roman emperors.
And a visit to St. Bartholomew the Great church, founded in 1123 – London’s oldest surviving parish church and a rare masterpiece of Norman architecture. Its Romanesque nave and medieval chancel evoke nearly nine centuries of continuous use, surviving the Great Fire, the Reformation, and the Blitz.
Definitely a historic end to an epic 6-week journey of 5 legs!
We’re definitely done traveling for the next few months – we need a break and some recovery time to revel in the most appealing town of all: Old Town Alexandria. So, this is where we’ll hang and try (really try!) to post some of the growing backlog of trip photos that are piling up (and have, in fact, now contributed to maxing out the storage capacity to the home PC, prompting a replacement).
Our first, 6-week, shoulder-season session of 2025 is complete! We’ve had a yen to return to Europe after our last five trips, all of which have been elsewhere, including and in particular our last three, long-duration trips to French Polynesia and New Zealand, South America, and New England and Canada. We also wanted to get out of stifling Alexandria for the summer like we did last year with the New England and Canada road trip, during which we fled Old Town for the entirety of July and August, as well as the first week or so of September.
The problem with this convergence – return to Europe and get out of Dodge for the summer – is being in Europe in the summer. This we were not keen on. Not only are all of the spastic Germans, Dutch, and English rampaging all over the continent during the high season, but too many Americans are there now, too. We love traveling, but we hate crowds, abhor lines, and are not too keen on being around other tourists. We’re super hypocritical like that.
Our imperfect solution? Avoid the high season and instead head to Europe for two, 6-week trips during the shoulder seasons that flank the insanity that is July and August in Europe. The first trip would hit the early summer shoulder and the second would take us to Europe in the very late summer / early fall. Our strategy would (hopefully) grant us sufficiently warm weather for swimming (in the locations where we’d be coastal) but still avoid the crowds that come with the hotter peak periods. However, our strategy would not get us out of steamy Alexandria for the peak summer period, so there’s a downside.
For the first trip, we’d finally return to Croatia and explore this country more. We spent about 10 days in Slovenia and Croatia in 2007 and loved that trip so much that when people ask us our favorite country, we’d almost always respond with Croatia. Despite this, we had never been back, despite returning to Italy, Spain, and France again and again (just see the list with years visited on the home page).
So, we’d spend most of the first, 6-week European road trip in Croatia. And we’d sequence travel here first, over other trip targets, to hit the balance between suitably warm weather and low crowds, and then head to a more northerly location before the real heat hit in early July. What more northerly location has been on our list (and tantalizing us frequently in our Instagram feeds)? The Italian Dolomites. So, we’d spend 11 days there (and South Tyrol), across five locations.
But we’d bookend our time in Croatia and the Dolomites with a few days in a new country to us (no. 81, if you’re keeping track) on the front end (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and a series of Bavarian towns like a string of pearls that has been on our list since visiting Lansburg am Lech in 2008 (the Romantic Road). In short, we’d pick up a car in Sarajevo, drive through Bosnia, up the Dalmatian islands in the Adriatic, across mountain passes in the Dolomites, and into Bavaria, and drop it back off 6 weeks later in Munich. Pretty cool. Plus, we only had to board airplanes at the start and the end of the trip, resulting in much more flexibility in what we lugged around with us (mostly bottles of Aperol and prosecco, if we’re honest here. . .).
The route looked like this:
Before conveying the overview of the road trip delineated in the interactive map above, an acknowledgement: the WolfeStreetTravel’s Chief Adventure Officer – despite his expertise in trip planning earned from arranging scores of trips and overcoming the most vexing of logistical challenges – committed an embarrassing planning error. The route should have formed a perfect J, beginning at the lower right in Bosnia and heading down, then up and up until its conclusion in Bavaria. But as you’ll see at the top of the route above, there’s a weird jug handle at the top of the J. The CAO shamefully backtracked the WolfeStreetTravelers – a cardinal sin of trip planning in our view – at the end of the trip when this could have been avoided.
We flew back out of Munich at the end of that jug handle simply because the CAO (mistakenly) assumed that MUC would be the closest airport to Würzburg, our final Romantic Road town on the Bavarian leg of the trip. It is not. MUC is a 3-hour drive south, back the way we came. Had the CAO done his job and simply compared the driving time between Wurzburg and FRA Würzburg and MUC, he would have seen that FRA was only an hour away. We could have come back a day early and avoided the overnight stay in Munich the day before we flew out (although we also would have missed the chance to stay in another Rosewood, so there was an upside).
With that gaffe behind us, we will proceed to the the trip overview.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
We landed in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital, midday, picked up our car (a brand new Renault Clio with only about 25 km on it) and headed into town. Founded by the Ottomans in the 15th century, the town is still a very Islamic country, much like parts of North Macedonia that we biked through back in 2019.
Famously, Sarajevo played the pivotal role in kicking off WW I with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand – right on this corner here:
The next morning(ish), we headed to our second stop in Bosnia: Mostar.
Mostar, established in the 15th century under Ottoman rule, became renowned for its iconic Stari Most (Old Bridge), a symbol of unity destroyed during the Bosnian War in 1993 and rebuilt in 2004 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We’d spend 2 days here – pretty cool town.
Croatia – The Islands
We then headed across the border and, via our first of five ferries, across a straight in the Adriatic to the Croatian island of Mljet, which is home to a really nice national park.
In the middle of which is The Benedictine Monastery, built in the 12th century on the islet of St. Mary in Veliko Jezero. You get there by waving a red flag on shore to summon a boat.
Probably our best (and first) swimming experience of the trip diving off the rocks at Odysseus’ Cave and swimming in and out of the cave in the awesome azure water.
After 3 days on Mljet, we headed off to our next destination. . .
The island of Korčula. One of our two favorite stops on the trip. Our AirBnB here may have been a factor.
Korčula’s Old Town had a great vibe, great history, and great architecture.
And great food, including our first Michelin-starred meal of the trip:
Very cool boat tour to Korčula’s nearby islands and swimming bays, complete with some outstanding fish grilled on the boat.
Frankly, most of our meals in Croatia consisted mostly of fish. Fish, cheese, and wine:
Pretty great living for a month!
After 5 days on Korčula, we headed to Hvar, where we’d spend another 5 days.
Hvar, settled since prehistoric times and founded as a Greek colony in the 4th century BC, flourished under Venetian rule from the 15th to 18th centuries as a strategic Adriatic port and cultural hub, famed for its Renaissance architecture and maritime trade.
We visited Hvar in 2008 and fell in love with the place then.
The island still captivated us in 2025, but it definitely exuded a clubbier, 20-something vibe that wasn’t nearly as idyllic as during our first stay.
But it still had our favorite features – the historic port of the Venetian empire, always full of incredible yachts,
Super low-key atmosphere on the nearby Palmazini Islands,
and awesome, al fresco dining every night,
including one night at Dalmatino, one of the Boston Connell’s recommendations from their recent trip.
A little field trip one day to Hvar’s other town, Stari Grad, which turned out to be incredibly charming and atmospheric (and with no herds of 20 somethings around to degrade the vibe).
Very cool beach club at the foot of the hill below our AirBnB that we frequented two of the days of our stay.
Last night in Hvar before moving on.
Croatia – the Coast
To spend 4 days in Split, via the last of the five ferry rides of the trip.
Split began as the Roman Emperor Diocletian’s Palace, built around 305 AD as his retirement residence, and grew into a bustling medieval town after refugees from the fallen city of Salona (which we would visit) settled within its walls, eventually evolving into Croatia’s second-largest city.
Split’s iconic Riva between Diocletian’s palace and the harbor – as appealing now as it was to us in 2008.
And the main square of the palace itself.
After AirBnBs on all of the Croatian islands so far, finally a hotel in Split (with a pretty cool setting, to boot).
A hot day trip to Klis Fortress, high above Split.
The fortress has served as a strategic stronghold since Illyrian times, famously defending Croatia against Ottoman invasions in the 16th century and later passing through Venetian, Napoleonic, and Austrian hands.
And another field trip to the ruins of the Roman city of Salona, once the flourishing capital of Roman Dalmatia with over 60,000 inhabitants.
The city was destroyed by invading Avars and Slavs in the 7th century, prompting its surviving residents to flee to the nearby coastal refuge of Diocletian’s Palace—laying the foundations of modern-day Split.
Yet another excursion from Split – this time to the incredibly charming Trogir just north of Split on the Dalmatian coast.
Trogir was founded by Greek settlers from Vis in the 3rd century BC and thrived under Roman, Venetian, and other rulers as a fortified port town, preserving a remarkable blend of medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque architecture that earned it UNESCO World Heritage status.
Sporting its own little Riva, Trogir struck us as Split’s Mini Me.
A final field trip from Split to the island of Brač (which is actually closer to Hvar, but we didn’t act on our original plan to visit it from there because the boat left Hvar way too early for us). Oh, and more little fried fish!
The Dalmatian islands and coast were pretty hard to beat – everything we were looking for.
But we had to end our stay in Split and move on.
Cool free concert in Diocletian’s palace on the way home:
We continued to drive north, this time to Zadar – another Venetian masterpiece – where we’d spend another 3 days. Zadar, a settlement since prehistoric times, became a Roman colony in the 1st century BC and later a prominent medieval Dalmatian port, enduring Byzantine, Venetian, and Austro-Hungarian rule before joining modern Croatia.
Zadar’s Venetian Gate, built in 1543 during Venetian rule, which once served as the city’s grand entrance and a symbol of its strategic maritime importance.
The 10th century Basilica of St. Donatus built on the ruins of a Roman temple of Jupiter and Minerva.
The Five Wells Square, built in the 16th century, was engineered to provide the city with fresh water during Ottoman sieges and remains a testament to Zadar’s resilience:
The highlight of our stay was an all-day boat excursion that began with a visit to a ridiculously cool, Bond-villain-esque, abandoned Yugoslavian nuclear sub pen:
And then proceeded to swimming and snorkeling spots along the islands off the coast, including snorkeling on a freighter wreck. Throughout the trip and including here off Zadar, the Adriatic was spectacular.
We then continued to drive north along the coast to Krk, a Croatian island perennially in search of its missing vowel. (A massive bridge connects the island to the mainland, so no ferries needed, and Krk does not get counted among the Croatian islands category addressed previously.)
The Frankopan Castle in Krk, built between the 12th and 15th centuries by the powerful Frankopan noble family, served as both their residence and a defensive stronghold protecting the island’s main town.
Krk harbor:
Pretty cool view from the AirBnB.
A view surpassed by that of our next lodging at our last stop in Croatia: Rovinj.
During our visit to Rovinj in 2008, we stayed inside the historic Venetian old town. This time, we stayed across the harbor so we had a view.
Pretty good decision.
Rovinj evolved from a Roman settlement to a Venetian fishing village in the 13th century, and developed into a charming Adriatic coastal town known for its medieval architecture and vibrant maritime heritage.
Second Michelin dining experience of the trip in the middle of Rovinj’s old town
Field trip to medieval hamlet of Bale. . .
and the ruins of the medieval town of Dvigrad.
Last evening in Rovinj.
and last sunset at La Puntulina, where we had enjoyed our favorite dinner in 2008.
Dolomites
After 4 days in Rovinj (and 25 days in Croatia), we drove north to finally cross the border into Italy and the Dolomites – the second major segment of this trip (combined with South Tyrol). Our goal in the mountains was to experience the iconic hikes we kept seeing on Instagram, and so we based ourselves in towns with easy access to the trailheads of these hikes.
We stayed first in Cortina d’Amprezzo, which will co-host with Milan the 2026 Winter Olympics.
The next day, we hit the trails, first up was the out-and-back hike to Lago di Sorapis:
The day started out perfectly (then we’d get absolutely drenched in a downpour during the last 1.5 miles of the hike on the way back).
The lago at the apex of the hike was, indeed, pretty spectacular (although crawling with skeevy Instagrammers posing up a storm, which we took great pains to avoid including in our pics).
Then, thoroughly soaked from the rainstorm and while still drying off in the car, we drove about 45 minutes to Lago di Braies, another reportedly iconic experience in the Dolomites. The lake was spectacular, but it was pretty touristy. That didn’t stop us from doing the touristy thing and renting a boat to row across and around the emerald lake.
The next day, we first took three gondolas to reach the Cima Tofana di Mezzo, 10,573 feet above Cortina d’Ampezzo and above the clouds.
Where we encountered snow in July (and a reminder of why we ultimately chose to bring boots to hike in instead of our regular trip shoes – a choice we were surprisingly torn over, which seems absurd in retrospect).
Then, we hit the Tre Cime loop hike, easily the hottest hike of the trip.
Tre Cime = Three Peaks:
After 3 days in Cortina, we headed west over some pretty incredible mountain passes to reach what turned out to be our other favorite spot on the trip: Ortisei.
And a new language for WolfeStreetTravel upon reaching it: Ladin. For years, our favorite obscure European language was the fourth official language of Switzerland, Romansch, which, tradition holds, resulted from the abandonment and isolation of Roman legions in Helvetica when the Western Roman Empire petered out. But in Ortisei we encountered Ladin (the first language on the trilingual sign below).
Like Romansch in the Alps, Ladin is living evidence of Roman history in the Dolomites. Its origins trace back to the Romanization of the Central and Eastern Alps. When the Romans conquered the region (1st century BC–1st century AD), Latin mixed with the local Raetian and Celtic languages spoken by the mountain tribes. Over centuries, this “vulgar Latin” evolved in the isolated Alpine valleys, diverging from mainstream Italian, French, and standard Romansh. The term Ladin historically referred to the word Latinus (Latin), underlining its Roman roots. Today Ladin survives in five main valleys in the Dolomites – including Val Gardena, where Ortisei is located – which are naturally secluded by mountains. Until modern roads and tunnels, each valley was quite cut off, preserving dialects and traditions.
And Ortisei itself was super charming (and way more German Tyrolean than Italian).
Including a decent smattering of lederhosen at the town’s beer festival.
Also, instead of driving to each of the trail heads like in Cortina, all three of the major hikes out of Ortisei were accessible just by walking down the street to three different gondolas. Way more civilized.
Just as Ortisei became our favorite town in this leg of the trip, our first hike out of Ortisei turned out to be the most spectacular of the trip: Seceda.
Our next hike across the Alpi du Siusi was the most boring. . .
Meh.
So we headed back down into town, rented bikes, and rode along a cool bike path that followed the bottom of the valley to each of the towns in the area.
But we were rewarded with our third Michelin dinner of the trip that evening:
Our final hike should have been much longer, but we hightailed it back when we were not only caught in another deluge, but also hail. In July.
Absolutely insane, but also hilariously unexpected, as clearly articulated in this video on the cliff:
South Tyrol
From Ortisei we veered a little northwest to Plose Mountain in the South Tyrol and our epic stay at a hotel that our safari friends recommended to us:
Third favorite hike of the trip – Plose Mountain, Part Uno (or maybe Part Eins, considering that in the Italian South Tyrol, they’re still all German-speaking Austrians in a region that was transferred from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Italy after WW I).
The next day, back up we went – Plose Mountain Part Due / Part Zvei, where we climbed to the peak itself, after hitting the other two peaks nearby on the first hike. Second favorite hike of the trip, even though it hailed on us at the end of the trek – AGAIN!
It was also 42 degrees at the top – lowest temperature of the trip.
Then, a quick stopover for a night in South Tyrol’s capital of Bolzano.
Another cool perch at our place perched 4035 feet above the town of Merano:
Foregoing our hiking routine, at MiraMonti, we rented bikes to ride up and around the nearby Merano 2000 mountain.
Romantic Road in Bavaria
We spent the last few days of the trip on the Romantic Road, visiting the string of medieval walled towns just over the border in Germany where the clock has stopped some time in the 15th century.
Although not officially on the Romantische Straße, we stopped for a night to revisit Garmisch-Partenkirchen (and to do a bunch of laundry in the AirBnB, since we’d only been in hotels since Rovinj).
The charming Bavarian town we remembered as Garmisch from our earlier trip turned out, in fact, to be Partenkirchen, which was way more interesting.
Met some cool locals over lunch and, appropriately, ordered our first schnitzel on this leg of the trip.
Then, on to Donauwörth,
Harburg Castle,
Nördlingen with its entirely intact medieval walls and tors,
Dinkelsbühl, which we found to be both the most charming and least touristy of them all,
And, of course, the crown jewel of the Romantische Straße, Rothenburg ob der Tauber:
We ended our Romantic Road journey in Würtzburg, which was thoroughly underwhelming. Luckily, one of us has cousins in Germany and luckily one of the cousins has friends in the nearby charming village of Eibelstadt and luckily Eibelstadt was hosting a wine festival that evening. Relatives and wine and friends delightfully solved the Würtzburg problem.
We drove 3 freakin’ hours to Munich the next day to hang out, spend the night, and fly the following morning out of MUC when we should have just headed an hour the other direction from Würtzburg and flown out of FRA. But considering that that was the only major misstep of the trip (there was a minor one in the Dolomites that we’ll cover in a future post), the overall trip was fantastic. Really great pace, in terms of time spent in each location and time on the road between locations.
All told, our latest road trip entailed the following:
The New York Times reported “Trump Suggests U.S. Territorial Expansion and Airs Grievances: In a news conference, President-elect Donald Trump refused to rule out the use of military force or economic coercion to take Greenland and the Panama Canal.”
“President-elect Donald J. Trump said (“In a rambling, hourlong news conference”) Tuesday that he would not rule out the use of military or economic coercion to force Panama to give up control of the canal America built more than a century ago and to force Denmark to sell Greenland to the United States.”
WolfeStreetTravel finds interest in all things cartographic, vexillologic, and heraldric. Particularly the compelling cartographic oddities we encounter on our travels. But yesterday, multiple news outlets (and several travel Instagram accounts we follow) reported a development directly relevant to the last item in the list.
As reported in the UK’s Guardian, “The Danish king has shocked some historians by changing the royal coat of arms to more prominently feature Greenland and the Faroe Islands – in what has also been seen as a rebuke to Donald Trump.”
The previous Danish coat of arms was formalized in 1972, but elements of the current heraldric symbols can be traced back to the rule of King Canute VI around1194. The old coat of arms did acknowledge Greenland, but subordinated its polar bear to a position in quarters within quarters upon the field (shield shape). The Greenland polar bear shared a quartered space in the lower left quadrant of the field with the Faroe Islands ram, below three crowns, “symbolizing “the symbol of the Kalmar Union between Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, which was led by Denmark between 1397 and 1523.”
Denmark’s new coat of arms more prominently devotes an entire quarter of the field – the same lower left quadrant – to the polar bear symbol of Greenland. Although not as relevant to the story, the Faroe Islands’ ram gets its own quarter a the top right quadrant of the field, and the crowns are now gone. (They made cosmetic updates to the dudes with the clubs, too, but no one is commenting on the rationale for this change.)
All of this, of course, in response to Trump’s declaration that owning Greenland is in America’s strategic interest. Trump wrote yesterday on Truth Social, ““Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation. We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside World.”
The Washington Post reported that “For the Danish government, this situation is “a huge headache,” according to Mikkel Runge Olesen, senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. “It cannot be seen to be pressuring Greenland or jeopardize relations with Washington, which it depends on for security guarantees through NATO.”
Headache or not, WolfeStreetTravel finds it fascinating that the Danes are asserting their sovereignty over Greenland through updates to their ancient heraldric symbols while this whole thing plays out in the lead up to the new presidential administration.
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