Cities
The Myrtles Plantation is said to be haunted by a variety of ghosts. Photo from National Park Service.
On my recent American Cruise Lines’ voyage down the Mississippi aboard the paddlewheeler Queen of the Mississippi, we left the state of Mississippi behind about halfway through the week. Our new destination was Louisiana, on the western side of the river, making our first stop in a very inviting looking town called St. Francisville, which, despite a pouring rain that morning, proved one of the most interesting ports on the Mississippi.
St. Francisville is actually the second oldest incorporated town in Louisiana, with Spanish and British roots rather than French, as you find farther south in the state. Nearly 150 structures compose its National Register Historic District, recalling the world of the antebellum South. The artist and naturalist John James Audobon did a number of his famous bird drawings here.
It… Continue reading
Longwood, an unfinished mansion in Natchez that’s the largest octagonal house in America. Photo by Clark Norton.
I’d like to be able to convince you that the life of a travel writer aboard a cruise ship sailing down the Mississippi for a week was one of arduous labor, a dawn-to-midnight whirl of interviews, note-taking, picture-making, fervid sightseeing, cabin inspections, food critiques, and long hours spent at the computer chronicling it all.
And yes, that does describe many cruises I’ve taken professionally. But on this cruise, American Cruise Lines’ Queen of the Mississippi voyage down the lower Mississippi from Memphis to New Orleans, I took a different tack. I relaxed and enjoyed myself much as if I weren’t working at all.
Maybe it was being in the South, where the pace of life seems a little slower than in New York. Maybe it was the languid heat that proved such… Continue reading
Vicksburg’s stately Old Court House is now a museum. Photo by Clark Norton.
On my recent cruise down the lower Mississippi aboard American Cruise Lines’ Queen of the Mississippi — built to resemble an old-fashioned paddlewheeler — “riverlorian” (river lore expert) Mike Jennings summed up the feelings of those who live along America’s mightiest (and muddiest?) river: “We’ve got mud in our blood.”
Jennings, who lives in Vicksburg, Mississippi, was on board to give passengers some historical and ecological perspectives on the river we were cruising down at 13 miles per hour. Over the course of a week, we would cover nearly 650 of the Mississippi’s total length of 2,350 miles, as we journeyed between Memphis and New Orleans. (The lower Mississippi actually starts somewhat farther north in Cairo, Illinois.)
The river meanders so much, Jennings said, that sometimes we would actually be traveling north despite our… Continue reading
View of the Mississippi River from Memphis with bridge to Arkansas. Photo by Clark Norton
With almost 24 hours in Memphis before our boat, American Cruise Line’s Queen of the Mississippi, was due to embark on its voyage down the — you guessed it, Mississippi — to New Orleans, we had a long list of possible things to see and do:
Graceland…Beale Street…eat ribs at The Rendezvous…the Stax Museum…Sun Studio…find the boat dock at the Beale Street Landing (always a good precautionary measure)…have drinks at either the Peabody or Madison hotels, or both…and meet our friends driving in from Chattanooga that day for our own rendezvous.
These are friends I especially like because not only are they very nice, talented artists who love blues music, but whenever they come to visit us they bring us a big box of crispy, yummy Route 11 potato chips, made in Virginia, which… Continue reading
Golden Gate Bridge tower, San Francisco — a must-see in the City by the Bay. Photo by Ian Klein/Dreamstime Stock Photos
OK, I’ll admit it, there’s nothing scientific about this list. I haven’t googled “The Five U.S. Cities Foreign Visitors Want to See Most,” because this post is based strictly on my own anecdotal experience.
And my experience in talking with foreign visitors from Switzerland to Singapore, Panama to Palau — and points in between and beyond — is that a remarkable number have the same wish list:
*San Francisco
*Los Angeles
* Las Vegas
* Miami
* New York City
Having lived in three of these cities and visited the other two, I understand the appeal. Not only are they great cities, but they dominate American movies and TV settings, and, in several cases, serve as the beacons of American glitz and glamour.
Sure, I’ve met… Continue reading
Budapest’s Chain Bridge over the Danube by night. Photo by Dennis Cox, WorldViews
I love river cruising and was itching to get onto the Danube as soon as we reached Budapest, the Hungarian capital that the river neatly divides into two sections called Buda and Pest.
“We” being the international group of journalists I was traveling with, on an Insight Vacations tour of Central European capitals. Budapest was our last stop in a whirlwind tour that was an accelerated version of the regular Insight tours of the region, yet we managed to pack a huge amount of sightseeing into less than a week.
Having just left Vienna a few hours before, we arrived in Budapest in late afternoon in time to change money, change clothes, change languages and change mindsets from schnitzel to paprikash. Fortunately, goulash, sausages and strudel remained much the same.
Our hotel, the Sofitel… Continue reading
The Hungarian Parliament Building, illuminated at night. Photo by Clark Norton
On my recent trip to Central Europe with Insight Vacations, I enjoyed Prague immensely, discovered the delightful Medieval town of Cesky Krumlov (also in the Czech Republic), rekindled an old flame in Vienna, but fell totally in love with Budapest.
Maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for river cruises — the evening dinner cruise we took on the Danube was magical — or maybe it was the Hungarian Parliament building, lit up like a centenarian’s birthday cake at night and almost as beautiful inside by day, or maybe it was that lunch consisting solely of the best strudel I’ve ever eaten.
Probably some of all three, but there were also the endearing intangibles:
* Asking a couple of locals shortly after our arrival the name of the bridge in front of our hotel,… Continue reading
The village of Durnstein lies on the Danube in Austria’s beautiful Wachau Valley. Photo by Dennis Cox/WorldViews
In my last post, Fifteen Things I Didn’t Know About Vienna, Austria, I confessed that there was a lot I didn’t know about Vienna, despite having visited there a number of times in the past.
But those visits had been quite a few years ago, and I had forgotten what a beautiful city Vienna is.
Vienna, in fact, has ranked number one of all the world’s cities for the past three years in the Mercer Quality of Living rankings for expatriates, based on 39 factors such as infrastructure, amenities, health care, etc. I could definitely see living here, though I’d have to brush up on my German, which consists of three words: bier, danke and Auf Wiedersehen. (Well, I guess that’s four.) And, oh yes, wein. And wurst… Continue reading
Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace was too small for Empress Maria Theresa. Photo by Clark Norton.
I’d been to Vienna several times before my recent visit there with Insight Vacations — a company that runs high-class tours of Central Europe and many other destinations throughout the world — but I learned a number of things I didn’t know about the city, largely thanks to our excellent guides and our tour director, Neira Milkovic .
* Vienna sports the world’s oldest zoo, the Tiergarten Schönbrunn, which dates from 1752 and is located within the gardens of Schönbrunn Palace.
* The gardens at Schönbrunn Palace are as big as the country of Monaco. The palace was the summer hunting “cottage” of the Habsburgs, who ruled Austria and much of Europe for hundreds of years; despite its nearly 1,500 rooms and 3,000 servants to tend them, Empress Maria Theresa, who ruled from 1640-80,… Continue reading
Prague’s Charles Bridge crowded with pedestrians. Photo by Dennis Cox, Worldviews
Somehow the Czech Republic had eluded me in my travels until two weeks ago, when I was invited as a guest on an Insight Vacations tour that spent two days in Prague and one day in Cesky Krumlov, a medieval town in the southern part of the country.
If you’ve been following my previous posts, you’ll know that we toured the main attractions as well as some of the more historic beer halls and restaurants in Prague, and spent a day with overnight in Cesky Krumlov, a well-preserved “fairytale town” that “went to sleep,” as our excellent guide put it, for 300 years following Europe’s destructive Thirty Years War in the early 17th century.
Here are ten things I didn’t know about the Czech Republic before I arrived (with thanks to our Insight Vacations tour director,… Continue reading
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