Reading Goethe's "Italian Journey". He hung out with a Frenchman, "a man of rank, who is well bred, but whose mind cannot go beyond himself and his immediate circle ... he is traveling through Italy for pleasure, but rapidly, in order to be able to say that he has seen it ... it caused me some surprise to think that anyone could ever travel in this temper, without a thought for anything beyond himself, and yet he is, in his way, a polished, sensible and well-connected person."

In Rome he is "oppressed and borne down with numberless phenomena. Wherever one goes and casts a look around, the eye is at once struck with some landscape, forms of every kind and style ... by the evening one is quite weary and exhausted with the day's seeing and admiring."

Having a local cook you dinner when you're traveling sounds like a good idea.

EatWith

The queen of Denmark (who loves the ballet and goes to nearly every new show) has a terrible seat at the Royal Theater: her box is right next to the stage, so everyone can see her, but she needs to practically lean out of her private box to see even three quarters of the stage. And that's what she does.

Here are all the breweries between San Francisco and where I'm going camping this weekend. Thanks, BreweryMap!

• Silk Road
• Berlin (yes, again)
• Barcelona
• Ibiza
• Istanbul
• Tashkent
• Russian Georgia
• to be continued...