Culture & Festivals | Culture With Lina

Hanami: How Japan Turns Cherry Blossoms Into a National Holiday of Joy

For a week or two every spring, Japan collectively looks up. Hanami, “flower viewing,” is the centuries-old custom of gathering…

I signed up for a Kyoto tea ceremony thinking it would be a pleasant hour of cultural tourism. I left…

Nothing I had read prepared me for Varanasi, and I had read a lot. One of the oldest continuously inhabited…

I thought I knew what a religious procession was. Then I stood in a packed Seville street at two in…

The best advice I got about Marrakech came from a riad owner on my first morning: “You will get lost.…

If you only experience one festival in your life, make it Holi. I have never felt joy quite like the…

Some places make you stop mid-step. Plaza de España in Seville is one of them. I had seen the photos,…

A food fight with 150,000 tomatoes and a city that burns giant sculptures for fun. A guide to two of…

Diwali turns India into a country of light. What the Festival of Lights really means, when to go, and how…