The seven hills of Lisbon are not a selling point. They are a physical fact of the city that every piece of tourism copy romanticizes and every pair of legs eventually resents. Lisbon is built on steep gradients, and the azulejo-tiled facades and terracotta rooftops that look so gentle in photographs are connected by cobblestone streets that climb at angles no one warned you … [Read more...] about Lisbon’s Seven Hills: A Walking Guide That Tells You the Truth
city guide
New Orleans: An American City That Plays by Different Rules
New Orleans was founded by the French in 1718, transferred to Spain in 1762, returned to France in 1800, sold to the United States in 1803, and shaped by the largest forced migration in American history into something that does not fit neatly into any of those categories. The city that exists as a result is architecturally French, legally Napoleonic in its property code, … [Read more...] about New Orleans: An American City That Plays by Different Rules
Istanbul at the Threshold: A City That Has Always Been Two Things at Once
Istanbul is the only city in the world that occupies two continents. The Bosphorus Strait — 30 kilometers long, less than a kilometer wide at its narrowest — divides the city between Europe and Asia, and the ferry crossing between Eminönü on the European side and Kadıköy on the Asian side takes about twenty-five minutes. In that time, you watch tankers the size of apartment … [Read more...] about Istanbul at the Threshold: A City That Has Always Been Two Things at Once
Marrakech’s Medina: How to Read a City That Was Not Designed for You
The Marrakech medina is a walled city of roughly three square kilometers that has been continuously inhabited since the eleventh century. It was not designed for tourism, nor for navigation by people unfamiliar with its internal logic, nor frankly for the volume of people now moving through it. This is also what makes it one of the most fully realized urban environments on … [Read more...] about Marrakech’s Medina: How to Read a City That Was Not Designed for You