Of course, I am biased towards Berkeley. After all, I went there as both an undergrad, and for graduate school. Berkeley itself, has changed about 180 degrees since then. In 1964, the area around campus was almost Ivy League in appearance, with preppy mens stores, book stores, Frasers (an upscale home and designer store), and the usual assortment of college related businesses. Today, it is a mess. Read on...
We bid the Ruskins and Bella a fond farewell this morning, and headed back towards Golden, the only backtracking we have done on this trip. From Golden, we turned west towards home. The road over the Rockies was beautiful, with varied scenery. We saw active ski areas, impressive rock walls reaching high above us, and many mining towns. We were at over 11,000 feet at the highest pass!
One of the 6 Read on...
Originally settled in 1884 as a Canadian Pacific Railway construction camp, it was known as Holt City and later Laggan until renamed in 1914 for the lake, which had been discovered in 1882 by guide Tom Wilson, who named it Emerald Lake. It was later renamed to honour Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria and wife of the marquess of Lorne of Canada, 1878–83).
Since 1892, when the Lake Lou Read on...
Took the train from Montreal to Quebec City. The three hour ride was in a very rural and farm country area and included on the train was dinner and drinks. During our stay in Quebec City, we stayed at Hotel Le Priori. Nice hotel right in lower Quebec. Always amazed at people who are Found out the person who checked us in speaks 4 languages - English, French, Ukraine and Russian. Those last two mu Read on...
The next day we were slept in a bit as our first plan of the day is Sunday roast!! yay! C made us reservations at the Ladbrooke Arms in Notting Hill, a highly place she found. We met K there and enjoyed (well, I did) the delicious meal. It was quite heavy, but I was in heaven with my Yorkshire pudding. I think C and K dont really get Yorkshire pudding, but that just leaves more for me! Takes me ba Read on...
Today it was sadly time to move on from San Antonio, which has to be our favourite place so far this holiday - sorry Houston and New Orleans. We were heading to Dallas today, but as Austin is on the route so we through we would stop there on the way.
Austin is the capital of Texas and is the site of the Texas State Capitol. We found it very easily and were also easily (and surprisingly) able to p Read on...
Like many of you, I have been impressed by the metro transit systems of cities around the world. Some of my favorites are London, Moscow, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. According to Travel Trivia, the best are: London, Seoul, Hong Kong NYC, and Tokyo (best). Moscow is missing? Here is an excerpt of what they said about Tokyo:
The Tokyo Metro system is another that is widely regarded as best in class. Perh Read on...
has mutated into a relentless daily bombardment of information and intrigue and I suspect most humans are now immune to the massive impact it continues to have on our daily lives. Much like cabin fever, there is undoubtedly a new variant called Covid fever which causes a myriad of niggling issues, one of them being lethargy. The last blog written in this series was published on 21st January 2021 Read on...
Most of you already know this: Theres an actual Earl of Sandwich credited with inventing the term sandwich. When one day he decided to eat his meal with one hand, slapping two pieces of bread—with the meat between—the sandwich was born. Here are a few stories about ten American sandwiches.The Reuben was born in Nebraska in 1925 of all places. I have no memorable Reubens, other than the artist. Read on...
Today had been scheduled to be a nice quiet boring day, at least until last night when they announced that there wasnt enough water in the canals for us to make it to the Danube. We thought there would be enough water, but not quite. Fortunately, Viking has been through this all before and what they do is called a ship swap. While we have been proceeding from Amsterdam to Budapest in the Viking Li Read on...