WRY/PPW—WELCOME TO PAPA
THE SIX LETTERS WRY/PPW (and PPW/WRY) identify the world’s shortest commercial flights, Loganair’s hops in Scotland’s Orkney Islands. These flights are between Westray (in airport lingo, WRY) and its neighbor … Continue reading
FROM LENINGRAD WITH LOVE, OR AT LEAST WITH DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM
GUIDEBOOKS CAN provide more than details of locale; they may also offer directions to thought. Certainly my Leningrad Guide, 1930, is such an example. Published within two decades of the … Continue reading
A STATUE FOR PORTO EMPEDOCLE
SEPARATED AT BIRTH: Russian Communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin and Italian Fascist playwright Luigi Pirandello, right?? It would be difficult to imagine two more politically antithetical individuals of the 20th century. … Continue reading
AN OVERTURE IN BASALT
GEOLOGY AND MUSIC seemed like a strange mix. Until, that is, I learned more about Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 26, The Hebrides, which is also known as Die Fingalshöne, Fingal’s Cave. … Continue reading
FRANCE FOR THE MOTORIST, 1927
CHARLES L. FREESTON legitimately appended F.R.G.S. to his name. Indeed, he was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences. In the … Continue reading
DRIVING A PARISIAN TAXICAB
LISTENING TO Gershwin’s wonderful American in Paris, complete with its taxi horns, brought back memories of my stint as a Parisian taxicab driver. It was in the 1980s. Auto journalist … Continue reading
SWEDISH ROADS AS RUNWAYS—U.S. AND U.K. TOO?
THE TOP SECRET part of the photo shoot was Saab’s EV-1 concept car—not the Viggen jet fighter. And this was why we were on the runway of a Swedish Air … Continue reading
WILL THE REAL BAYREUTH PLEASE STAND OUT
THE WORD “BAYREUTH” conjures up composer Richard Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen and the Richard-Wagner-Festspielhaus, his opera house built in 1876. Or so I thought until I came upon the … Continue reading
WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE ESTORIL
THE APRIL 2016 issue of Saveur, my favorite magazine of cuisine (and travel) brought back memories of Ayrton Senna’s first Formula One victory, the Portuguese Grand Prix, Estoril, 1985. I … Continue reading
PACIFIC COAST TOURING
“AUTOMOBILE TOURING on the Pacific Coast is altogether a different matter from that of tooling about the East.” This claim comes from Charles Fuller Gates, a travel, bicycle and motoring … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 