Here are this week’s travel destination stories on the Web:
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Here are this week’s travel and travel technology stories on the Web:
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On Sunday afternoon, fine fall weather broke the gloomy skies we had encountered at the end of the last week and continued with even sunnier skies and warmer temperatures on Tuesday as we drove south of Bayeux about an hour and a half to the storied island abbey of Mont. St. Michel.
This monastery fortress (never captured by the English, but finally overthrown during the French Revolution) is built on a mountainous island on the border between Normandy and Brittany and is visible from miles away as you drive to it. But for the causeway connecting it to the mainland, Mont St. Michel would be completely surrounded by water at high-tide. (Even today, some cars and tours buses that park too close to the channel find themselves sitting “knee deep” in water). It is probably the most dramatic place along the entire French coast that faces the English Channel.
Today, the last of the Benedictine monks are gone, replaced by souvenir hawkers and “San Francisco Fisherman’s Wharf” type restaurants on the lower reaches of the island that lure tourists. The abbey itself, however, is a destination well worth a visit, and is run today by the French government as a museum-type facility.
(Excerpted and adapted from the trip blog written by Dick Jordan during his month-long visit to Europe in September of 2006. Another installment will appear on Tales Told From The Road next week.)
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Peter Hessler’s River Town: Two Years On The Yangtze chronicled his stint teaching English to Chinese students in Fuling when he was a Peace Corp volunteer. With Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present he took a long, hard look at China’s move from its ancient past to its modern, frenetic, Almost-A-Capitalist-Country status. In his newest book, Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory, Hessler puts us in the passenger seat as he does something very few Americans are likely to experience: Motoring around China.
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You thought your iPhone was primarily a telephone. Wrong. Then you decided it actually was mostly a computer. Right. Finally, you discovered it was not just a telephone and a computer, but also a travel guidebook, too. Right again — almost; it’s actually a guidebook library. Here are two popular places to buy electronic books to carry around on your iPhone (I have the 3GS model) or other portable electronic devices and how they compare: Amazon.com (Kindle Books) or Apple (iBooks).
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Here are this week’s travel destination stories on the Web:
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Here are this week’s travel and travel technology stories on the Web:
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We’ve been complaining (but scarfing up) the heavy-on-meat-and-cheese German-style cuisine of Austria and Switzerland, so we were hoping that dining out in France would give us a “leaner and meaner” look. No such luck.
Finding a table in Beaune is tough this time of year with all of the tourists in town. Our hotel recommended a local place that turned out to be just wonderful. A pleasant young couple from Holland chatted with us and, unfortunately for my waistline, they exerted an undue influence (as did another couple sitting nearby) on my Weight Watcher will power, convincing me that I JUST HAD TO PARTAKE OF a cheese course (very yummy, and probably only 2,000 calories in and of itself).
Luckily for us, we have a very long walk up many flights of stairs to reach our hotel room and that ought to whack off at least a few grams of fat from our French “diet.”
(Excerpted and adapted from the trip blog written by Dick Jordan during his month-long visit to Europe in September of 2006. Another installment will appear on Tales Told From The Road next week.)
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Dick Jordan
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My wife is no longer my only travel companion: The New Yorker joins us for most trips these days.
A few years back one of my wife’s book club friends started loaning me back issues of The New Yorker to tote along on vacation. Finally, last October, I asked my wife to give me a gift subscription for my birthday.
When I think of travel magazines, National Geographic Traveler, Travel & Leisure, and Sunset are among those to come to mind. But if a “travel magazine” is one that can carry you to places you have not been before, then The New Yorker clearly meets that criterion.
I took two recent issues of the magazine with me on a two-week trip to Oregon. Along the way, I made “virtual stops” in Los Angeles (“L.A. Postcard: Francophrenia”), Wall Street (“The Financial Page: Masters of Main Street”), Boston (“The Undead: Big Papi’s Late Innings”), and North Korea (“Letter from Yanji: Nothing Left”).
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