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Times Travel Mag

They Eat Horse Sashimi in Tokyo, Don’t They?
By ADAM SACHS

An American chef I know told me about a dream he had in Tokyo after an intense bout of professional eating. Dinner had been an exhausting affair, during which every creature of the sea appeared at the table. The feast ended after 4 a.m. with the entire restaurant staff lined up on the street outside, waving good night. My friend woke in his hotel room later with a vivid memory and an unsettling lump in his gut: he dreamed he'd swallowed his camera. More

South Africa’s Valley High
By BRUCE SCHOENFELD

Late in the evening of Sept. 29, 1969, in the bloom of the antipodean spring, an earthquake struck the quiet community of Tulbagh, some 75 miles northeast of Cape Town. Boulders glowing like hot coals tumbled down the nearby mountain of Saronsberg. Downtown on Church Street, textbook examples of thatched-roof Cape Dutch architecture were reduced to rubble. “I was convinced they’d dropped an atomic bomb on Cape Town,” is how Nicky Krone, whose family owns the local winery Twee Jonge Gezellen, describes it. Krone spent that night pulling the children of his black workers out from under the remains of collapsed buildings. Two perished. More

Ottoman Rules in Istanbul
By SUNA ERDEM

Istanbul, the city that once commanded an empire (and was called Constantinople, New Rome and Byzantium), embodies centuries' worth of East-meets-West history. But that's all water down the Bosporus. A new generation is creating a vibrant cosmopolis that bridges two continents, and cultures, in style. More

It’s a Med, Med World
By ARMAND LIMNANDER

The Mediterranean is still -- and won't it always be? -- summer's hottest ticket. But at the height of the season, it's definitely overrun. Here are six islands that are the exception. More

French Revolution in Paris
By JODY ROSEN

The closest thing to a tourist attraction in the Paris neighborhood of Belleville is a small plaque commemorating the birth of Edith Piaf, posted on a drab apartment building on a busy street. “On the steps of this house,” the inscription reads, “was born on 19 December 1915, in the greatest destitution, Edith Piaf, whose voice would later turn the world upside down.” The story isn't quite true — in fact, Piaf was born in a nearby hospital — but it's a charming myth that evokes both Piaf's legendary rise from street urchin to international stardom and the hard-boiled mystique of her childhood quartier. More