Rusty Travelers Regain Their Sea Legs

“Protocols are changing so rapidly — it’s so confusing to travelers,” said Mr. Berklich, who usually logs 200,000 miles a year. “Their minds don’t have enough space to worry about regular travel essentials when they’re worried about whether they’ll get into a country or be allowed to leave.” Dr. Wang said that traveling engages what’s…

In Greece, It’s Almost Normal

The plaster-cast heads of Dionysus were back. The unblinking blue Mati evil eyes and Parthenon refrigerator magnets hung once more outside the souvenir shops of Plaka and Monastiraki, where shopkeepers tended to rows upon rows of leather sandals, silver meander rings, dried spices and Cretan mountain tea. The tourists were back, too, if not quite…

Capri and Procida: A Tale of Two Islands

In that regard, it did not disappoint. The window of our modest Airbnb was decorated with a typewriter because it was purportedly where Elsa Morante, the great Italian author, wrote her 1957 novel, “Arturo’s Island.” “The Procidans are surly, taciturn,” Morante observed, adding, “The arrival of a stranger arouses not curiosity, but rather, distrust. If…

Inside a Turkish Camel-Wrestling Festival

The arena was filled with raucous spectators who, in tiered seating, surrounded the wrestling pit below. Camels were paraded in and out of the ring, dolled up in their best regalia, their elaborate saddles noting their names, origins and their trainers or owners. Held in mid-January on Turkey’s Aegean coast, the annual camel-wrestling festival near…

Colosseum Opens Its Belly to the Public

ROME — For nearly 450 years, the majestic amphitheater known today as the Colosseum provided spectacular, often gory, entertainment for legions of ancient Romans, and this week, archaeologists opened its restored warren of underground corridors to the public. Starting in A.D. 80, spectators were thrilled to gladiatorial contests, bloody tussles between wild animals, staged sea…