A World of Travel; Six Cities That Captured My Heart
Updated: 4 days ago
Tony Bennett might have left his heart in San Francisco, but I left mine in six cities over decades of work-related travel (good thing I have a big heart!): Kyoto, Edinburgh, St. Petersburg, Sydney, Toronto, and Miami Beach. Yes, very different. Yet each offers its own unique personality, from the electric pulse of Miami Beach to the quiet beauty of Kyoto.
Six Cities, Six Stories
What connects these? Perhaps their ability to preserve the past while embracing the future:
Kyoto whispers its history through temples, gardens, tea, and cuisine.
Edinburgh brings history to life through castles, literature, and festivals.
St. Petersburg dazzles with imperial grandeur while carrying the scars of revolution and war.
Sydney turns a magnificent harbor and infrastructure into the centerpiece of a vibrant, modern city.
Toronto proves diversity can become a city’s greatest cultural strength.
Miami Beach transforms sunshine, architecture, and reinvention into an art form. Besides, they have great Mojitos.
These towns remind me why I love to travel. First up, Kyoto, where food, history and futuristic are woven into everyday life.
Part I, Kyoto: Where Ancient Japan and the 21st Century Come Alive
Few cities capture the soul of a country quite like Kyoto. For more than a thousand years—from 794 until the Meiji Restoration moved the imperial capital to Tokyo—the city was the political, cultural, and spiritual heart of Japan. It still is. That extraordinary history is everywhere. With its thousands of temples, serene gardens, traditional wooden machiya houses, stone pathways, and quiet neighborhoods time has slowed down. Wander through the Gion area and you could be fortunate enough to see a geisha or maiko glide toward a tea house.
Speaking of food, Kyoto is a foodie paradise, a fantastic culinary experience. The city is renowned as the birthplace of kaiseki, the exquisite multi-course cuisine influenced by imperial court traditions and the rituals of the tea ceremony. Like a carefully painted portrait of the season, each meal brings together delicate tofu and yuba, heirloom kyoyasai vegetables, pickles, fresh fish, and beautifully prepared local specialties.
Kyoto Nanzenji Garden Ryokan
Near the Nanzenji area, Kyoto Nanzenji Garden Ryokan Yachiyo offers a serene immersion in traditional Kyoto. It is an amazing combination of Japanese food, culture and hospitality. Its historic wooden Honkan, dating to 1890, preserves the atmosphere of an earlier era, while the newer Bekkan adds modern comfort. No two rooms are exactly alike; many feature tatami floors, shoji screens, futon bedding, and views of gardens created by master landscape designer Ogawa Jihei, with some suites offering private garden baths and fragrant hinoki cypress tubs.
The experience extends to the table, where the kitchen begins each day with fresh dashi and prepares its Japanese dishes by hand from seasonal Kyoto ingredients rather than processed foods. Surrounded by changing foliage and the Higashiyama landscape, the inn presents Omotenashi: the thoughtful welcoming into a quiet Kyoto home.
The Kyoto Shinkansen Train Station
From the quiet gardens and gracious hospitality of Nanzenji Garden, Kyoto Station’s soaring steel and glass reveal another side of the city—one that embraces the future while honoring the past, especially if arriving at Kyoto Station by bullet train (Shinkansen). This vast terminal is a modern gateway to the ancient capital, and its Tokaido Shinkansen platforms connect Kyoto with breath-taking speeds (up to 320 km/h/199 mph) to Tokyo, Nagoya, and Shin-Osaka.
The station's futuristic design also pays subtle tribute to the city’s past: the exposed roof structure, known as the Matrix, (sorry Keanu, not your Matrix) recalls the orderly street grid of Heian-kyō, while monumental entrances evoke traditional gates and the soaring atrium represents the surrounding mountains, light, and sky. Stepping from a sleek bullet train into a city of wooden townhouses, temple roofs, and centuries-old gardens has you crossing between two eras in a matter of minutes.
In Conclusion
But from Kyoto’s quiet temples and living traditions, my heart now turns to Edinburgh, where history takes on a more dramatic shape in volcanic rock, ancient stone, and winding streets.
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