I’m following Edwin on a walk around York — the most interesting stop between London and Edinburgh. Edwin is a spry retired schoolteacher who stays active by leading town walks and giving private tours. Today, he’s showing me around to illustrate why, in his mind, York is such a fascinating city.

Edwin and I head over to the York Castle Museum, where English memorabilia from the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries is cleverly displayed in a huge collection of craft...

Back in the 1980s, on a train heading for Budapest, I stood in the aisle with my elbows on the edge of an open window, enjoying the moonlit countryside rushing by. I was soon joined by a Czech woman who was doing the same thing. She told me she was on her first trip out of her country. I asked her if she was excited about visiting Budapest. She said she was most excited about eating a McDonald’s hamburger. The buzz throughout Eastern Europe was that Hungary had just opened a branch of...

You can search the entire Mediterranean coastline for the best rustic village, surrounded by vineyards and steeped in tradition, and not find a more rewarding escape than tiny Vernazza, my favorite of the five villages that make up Italy’s Cinque Terre.

The Cinque Terre is a stretch of Italy’s Riviera tucked into the mountainous shoreline between Genoa and Pisa. Long cut off from the modern world, this remote expanse only became easily accessible with the coming of the train.

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