Travelrific® Travel Journal
Picture postcards in prose.™ Check out the blogroll on the front page for official merchandise and other resources!Archive for U.S. travel
Ivy League
By Linda Tancs
When author and former Princetonian F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in This Side of Paradise that Princeton, New Jersey is good-looking, he must have been inspired by a stroll through its public parks and gardens. Boasting a range of heirloom plants, bulbs, wildflowers, mature trees, peeking peonies and exploding irises, the springtime blooms of the town’s greenways await you. Start your tour at Morven, the official governor’s residence from 1945 to 1981. As you walk the rolling back lawn of this estate named after a mythical Gaelic kingdom, you’ll spot towering trees that are at least as old as our country. This Georgian-style mansion was, after all, the ancestral home of Richard Stockton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Step gingerly around the beds of heirloom annuals from the 18th and 19th centuries and onwards to a re-creation of a Colonial Revival-style garden of the early 20th century.
For a less antique perspective, roam through Princeton’s nature preserves, parks and refuges. In the northeastern section of town, you’ll find Herrontown Woods, a completely wooded park best noted for its color-coded, three-mile hiking trails ringed with oaks, red maples, flowering dogwoods and Japanese honeysuckle. Claiming six of its 35-mile tract in Princeton in a north to south stretch, the Delaware & Raritan Canal evokes images of the Irish immigrants who forged the waterway with pickaxes and shovels to create a passageway for coal transport. The tree canopies, some extending up to 50 feet in height, provide lush cover for several species of warblers that predominate in the spring from the Charles H. Rogers Wildlife Refuge nearby. A noted ornithologist, Rogers played a key role in establishing the sanctuary, where springtime blooms amidst its 39 acres include trout lilies, violets and irises. At the steepest southern ridge in town, Woodfield Reservation greets visitors with a full understory of wildflowers and a convergence of spring leaves in the park’s center that locals say is not to be missed. You’ll find convergence of another kind—wetlands and meadows—at Mountain Lakes Nature Preserve, a Y-shaped valley originally granted to colonist William Penn from England’s King James II. Particularly stunning are the “seven sister” cluster of red oaks at the northern boundary, flowering daisies and buttercups in the meadows, and an array of spring beauties in the wetlands. Finally, in the western area of town lies Marquand Park, host to an arboretum including eleven trees that are the largest of their kind in the state. And that’s not the park’s only distinction. It also sports two record-setting fir trees from North Syria and Greece. Thankfully, most of the 200 species of trees found here are mapped and tagged.
Beauty may rest in the eye of the beholder, but Fitzgerald certainly was on to something.
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Airline Combos Read Like a Script
By Linda Tancs
The spate of actual and intended airline combinations reads like a Peyton Place of the transportation industry. Continental breaks it off with United. United begins courting US Air. Continental flirts with OneWorld, perhaps feeling spurned by the impending nuptials of Northwest and Delta. The OneWorld dalliance could portend the greatest development yet in this story. Consider the prospect of a Continental/British Airways merger. Could it happen? Well, continuing open skies negotiations could pave the way for transatlantic marriage. The open skies treaty, after all, opened up markets between the US and EU–allowing, for example, British Airways to fly direct from Paris to New York in lieu of re-routing via the UK. If the well-documented costs of airline operation continue to rise, then suitors will be lining up to cross the borders. Stay tuned….
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Cleanse Your Palate
By Linda Tancs
They say good artists suffer for their art. And if the exhibition taking place at the Whitney biennial art celebration this year is any indication, they suffer for their ecosystem, too. At New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art now through June 1, there’s an interesting fusion of environmental issues and contemporary art among the 80 or so exhibitors. You’ll find such eco-inspired displays as resin-encased compost droppings, a floral-infused recycled industrial trash heap, and sculptures modeled on bird droppings. Not to be outdone, Germany’s Biennial for Contemporary Art in Berlin offers the work of over 110 international artists until June 15. However, the difference between these biennials is like night and day. Literally. Berlin’s event is divided into two parts–Night and Day. At night, patrons can sample a mix of lectures, concerts, and even an out-of-body experimentation. During the day, the exhibition will have you walking the city at four distinct locations to take in sculpture, artwork and movable objects, some designed to evoke images of Berlin’s tortured past, like the Berlin Wall death strip.
Art with a conscience. That appears to be the promise of these events. Will you promise to go?
Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street
New York City
http://www.whitney.org
phone: 1-800-WHITNEY
Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art
Multiple locations
http://www.berlinbiennale.de
phone: +004903024345910
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A Twist of Twain or a Dash of Dickens
By Linda Tancs
Book lovers, take note. Do you long to experience the riverscape of Mark Twain’s Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer? Are you interested in the historical underpinnings of chancery, “keeper of the King’s conscience,” as young law clerk Charles Dickens would have seen it? Then why not step into their shoes–and those of other literary greats–through a literary tour. Is this a new trend? Hardly. Think “da Vinci code tour” and you’ll know what I mean. Still, you can’t help but be inspired to write the next great novel of our time after walking in the path of the masters. The thought of their dedication and effort gives more meaning to every edifice of brick, marble or stone lining the tourist trail of the places with which they’re associated. Perhaps Oscar Wilde said it best: “Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.”
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Jewels of the Brandywine Valley
By Linda Tancs
Beginning today, the glorious mansion and grounds of the late industrialist Alfred duPont will re-open after an eye-popping $40 million renovation. Named Nemours after the family homeplace in France, the estate is one of the highlights of the Brandywine Valley, located on Rockland Road in Wilmington, Delaware. While you’re in the neighborhood, why not follow the Brandywine Valley wine trail in the Philadelphia countryside and enjoy the spoils of the six wineries competing for your nose and palate. Poetry in a bottle? Perhaps. But a good vintage is better savored than spoken about.
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You Can Be a Select Traveler
By Linda Tancs
Imagine yourself sipping champagne in an ornate wood-paneled dining car, watching the Italian Dolomites soar as the steward offers you yet another canape. Or perhaps you prefer the French country elegance of a château. Or the craggy, mystical highlands of Scotland. Or the samba beat of South America. Whatever your guilty pleasure, Continental Airlines now gives you a menu of options to choose from with their new Select Escapes luxury packages. They’ve put together an impressive array of high-end rail tours, palatial digs, resorts and spas. Someone once said, “Vacation used to be a luxury, but in today’s world it has become a necessity.” Does that mean that a luxury vacation is an imperative? You decide.
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New Hotel Chain Promises a Lofty Experience
By Linda Tancs
If tight ceilings, small beds and even smaller TVs are putting a crimp in your hotel experience, then maybe Starwood’s new offering will give you a lift, or should I say, a loft. “aloft” is the newest budget entry in the chain’s array of properties, sporting oversized windows, HDTV flat panels, oversized beds and showers, and 9-foot ceilings that even Brobdingnagian guests should find comforting. The majority of open properties at the moment are in North America, ranging from Montreal in the East to Rancho Cucamonga in the West. Other properties slated to open in 2009 and beyond include hotspots such as Orlando, Nashville and Denver in the U.S. and international locales such as Brussels, U.A.E. and the Asian Pacific region. With hotel development in full vigor worldwide among the leading players, let’s hope that guests won’t be aloof over aloft.
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Happy Earth Day
By Linda Tancs
Today marks a worldwide celebration of our natural resources. What better way to commemorate the day than to see what’s on in some of Mother Nature’s most glorious natural environments. How about Hawaii? Many Earth Day-related festivities have already started–and ended. However, the Kona Earth Festival is still kickin’ until 21 June. In Thailand, morning chants at Dhammakaya Assembly Hall started off the annual salute to our environment, ending tonight with fireworks at the Grand Meditation Square. Calgary is celebrating with a call to action to Ward 9 to pick up litter for 22 minutes! And the U.K.’s North Norfolk coast, an eco-friendly paradise for backpackers, is hosting an exhibition on environmental technology and initiatives at Deepdale Farm. What’s on in your neighborhood?
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Travel Promotion Laws
By Linda Tancs
Few people may realize that in 2007 yet another pass was made in Congress to create an advertising fund to promote travel to the U.S. The Travel Promotion Act of 2007 intended to address declining travel to the U.S. by earmarking $100 million generated by private industry and overseas visitors’ entry fees to facilitate understanding of America’s entry system and promote U.S. travel. These activities would be undertaken by a non-profit corporation to be known as the Corporation for Travel Promotion. Even fewer folks may recall that in 2002 a similar initiative fell flat. Of course, the circumstances differ surrounding the introduction of a travel promotion bill in each of these years. In 2002, the primary concern in developing the legislation was to allocate funds from a $100 million proposed reserve to the states to prop up tourism following 9/11. In 2007, the bill’s sponsors blamed harsh border control and entry requirements for a drop in tourism despite a weak dollar. There is certainly support for that position. Just consider this portrayal of travel to the U.S. by travel columnist Matt Rudd from January’s Sunday Times in London: “Nowhere else can a visitor expect such a spirit-crushingly frosty reception. A preflight e-interrogation, epic queues at immigration, thin-lipped questioning from aggressive border guards, and an outside chance of a rubber-gloved rectal rummage are all part of the fun.” Ouch. On the other hand, a recent report from the Federal Reserve claims that the one bright spot in America’s economy at the present time is–drum roll, please–foreign tourism! So perhaps the bottom line is that, so long as schizophrenic assessments pop up among bureaucrats, any proposal to bring America’s promotional spend in line with that committed by our chief competitors will surely be doomed.
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Viticultural Areas Abound in U.S.
By Linda Tancs
So what is a viticultural area, you ask? It’s a wine grape-growing region with distinctive geographic features, similar to (but distinguishable from) an appellation of origin. The U.S. has over 180 American Viticultural Areas. As you might suspect, a great majority of these are in California. You might be surprised at some of the other locations on the list, places like the Ozarks in Arkansas, the Mississippi Delta, Virginia’s Eastern Shore, Texas High Plains, and southeastern New England (Connecticut, Maine and Rhode Island). So move over beaujolais and make room for the home-grown varietals.
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