TRANSPACIFIC AIR LOCALES
INTERESTING ISLAND history lives in the tale of transpacific air travel. In the Golden Years of Aviation, 1919 – 1939, airliners lacked sufficient range for the vastness of the Pacific. … Continue reading
A MOTHER LODE OF NUGGETS
CALIFORNIA’S FORTY-NINER Gold Rush owes its origin to a construction fault at Colonel John Augustus Sutter’s mill. What’s more, Sutter wasn’t really a colonel. He didn’t actually discover the gold. … Continue reading
A FOURSOME OF FRONTENACS
SO THERE I was, preparing a remembrance of Quebec City’s Hotel Frontenac, when my research reveals yet more valve orchestrations. The resulting foursome of Frontenacs includes the famed hotel, a … Continue reading
PARIS 1922
“…PARIS IS a moveable feast,” said Ernest Hemingway. And, based on the 1922 Continental Hotel’s Guide, it must have been memorable. Surely Google Translate has this wrong: What I suspect … Continue reading
SARAH BRIGHTMAN—COSMONAUT
THE WOMAN loved by the Phantom of the Opera has fallen in love with space tourism. And not just the concept, but the actual thing. Classical crossover/musicial theater soprano Sarah … Continue reading
THE DANUBE
THE BEST travel books offer historical nuggets and personal insights as well as trip details. Nick Thorpe’s The Danube is a fine example. Why upriver? Thorpe says he’s following a … Continue reading
MY NATION—AND I MEAN MINE: MICROCON 2015
FROM TIME to time, people complain that they could do a better job of running things than the incumbent politicos. And, for a select few, they do just that. These … Continue reading
ブリヂストン美術館—BRIDGESTONE MUSEUM OF ART
SHOJIRO ISHIBASHI chose the name Bridgestone for his company in 1931 for two reasons: His surname is literally ishi (stone) bashi (bridge); and he liked the British sound of its … Continue reading
THE WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE CITIES
LIKE MANY, I am curious about lists of extremes, the most this, the least that. And, being as I am something of a city dweller (as opposed to living rurally), … Continue reading
SHAKESPEARE COUNTRY—1914 AND TODAY
I HAVE claimed that old guidebooks are useful for travel today. (See “Baedeker’s Handbooks for Travelers,” http://wp.me/p2ETap-ki.) What was worth seeing a century ago is still worthy of attention today, … Continue reading
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