All posts filed under: Heritage Travel

Posts about travels to places around the globe that reflect our shared heritage

Acadia

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To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service in 2016, Candice and I spent last Thursday at Acadia National Park in Maine – with thousands of our newest friends – to enjoy this magnificent landscape (and the first national park east of the Mississippi River). On a beautiful summer day, the park was brimming with people taking every form of transportation imaginable to access a part of Mt. Desert Island.  We enjoyed the loop ride, and stopped along the way to see treats such as the magnificent views at Thunder Hole.  It was fun to see young couple skipping from rock to rock while grandparents pulled out their lawn chairs and sat in the shade just to watch the endlessly fascinating waves break against the shore. After a lunch in Seal Harbor, we headed up to Cadillac Mountain in the center of the park. Cadillac Mountain, at 1,530 feet (466 meters), is the highest point along the North Atlantic seaboard and the first place to view sunrise in the United States from October …

Pilgrim Inn

Guns, wedding gowns, cold beer

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While driving through Central Maine to reach our destination on the coast, we passed a convenience store on a small rural road that had a sign which read: Guns Wedding Gowns Cold Beer We were laughing too hard to stop and take a picture, so you’ll have to trust me on this one.  Depending on the willingness of both sides to get married, these three things comprise almost all the essential ingredients needed for a (shotgun) wedding.  Add a Justice of the Peace (or these days, an internet-approved minister) and you’re all set. Seriously, we’ve had a wonderful introduction to Maine.  On Saturday we stayed at a B&B in Littleton, Massachusetts, to split the drive in two (the Lyttleton Inn), and in the small world department it turns out that the innkeeper is the aunt of a former colleague at the National Trust.  We savored the delicious breakfast and interesting conversation with Mary (the innkeeper) before hitting the road north. The second day’s drive was uneventful (just what you want) and we reached our destination …

Fine Food in Philly

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The Browns are gathering in Philadelphia this weekend to celebrate the wedding of Julia – the daughter of our dear friends Ellen and Lundy Pentz –  and Barry Katz.  Claire arrives from the west coast late tonight, while Andrew arrives mid-day tomorrow, after recovering from the adrenaline rush of attending tonight’s Beyoncé concert in Baltimore.  (Can we say “excited?!”) That left Candice and me to our own devices today.  Naturally, we found some fine Philadelphia food. Julia and Barry had included Chef Jose Garces’ Amada restaurant in their list of recommended places to eat near the hotel.  We checked out the web site and jumped on it.  Here’s the site’s description of Chef Garces: “Since opening Amada in Philadelphia in 2005, Chef Jose Garces has emerged as an enormous talent and one of the nation’s most gifted chefs and restaurateurs. Today, he is the owner and operator of more than a dozen restaurants across the country, plus a thriving event planning division and 40-acre Luna Farm. He is a 2009 winner of the James Beard …

Check Off Another One!

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My goodness, it has been a busy week of travel! Attend the Main Street Now 2016 conference on Monday and Tuesday in Milwaukee and get energized by all the work going on in downtowns across the country – check. Stop by and visit the amazing Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory Domes in Milwaukee – check. Catch a bad head cold and endure a 4 1/2 hour flight from Chicago to San Francisco – unplanned, but check. Have lunch in Carmel with one of the elder statesmen of preservation – the indefatigable Knox Mellon and his wife Carlotta – check. Celebrate the beginning of the construction phase of our work at Cooper-Molera historic site with more than 100 people from the city staff, California State Parks, our local stakeholders, and our development partners in Monterey – check. Over a wonderful dinner celebration in Monterey, talk baseball with the wife of one of our partners at Cooper- Molera, who has the perfect marriage…she’s a Red Sox fan and her husband is a Giants fan…so on the west coast …

I Do Love a Good Historic Hotel!

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After a long week of travel, it is good to land in a wonderful historic hotel for a couple of days of family time with Claire.  This beauty is the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, one of my personal favorites where I’ve stayed in the past when in Southern California. Have a great Memorial Day weekend.  As you kick off the summer, take the time to remember those who have sacrificed for our country. More to come… DJB

Chiaraviglio Apts

Observations from the road: “Final Rome edition”…for this visit

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As we prepare to leave Rome and head home, I have pulled together a few final observations about things we have seen while in this most fascinating of countries.  I’ll begin with the serious, and then move on to – shall we say – less serious thoughts that have popped into my head before returning to a final note of thanksgiving.  As always, these Observations From… posts are quick and quirky.  You’ve been warned! The Non-Catholic Cemetery is a treasure – Several people told us to make sure we visited the “Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome” (also known as the Protestant Cemetery), and we are so glad we did.  On the day we visited Ostia Antica, we walked across the street from the train station upon our return and spent a good hour roaming through this beautiful space. Here is a bit of the background, from the cemetery’s website: The Non-Catholic Cemetery for Foreigners in Testaccio, Rome (to give it its full name) is also widely known as the Protestant Cemetery although it contains the graves …

Contemporary Art in Historic Rome (Continued)

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I believe it was those sage philosophers Rodgers and Hammerstein* who said, “When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.”  That describes our Friday in Rome. After seeing the stunning Santa Maria del Popolo in the morning (more on that later), we had planned to take in the Bernini statue The Ecstasy of St. Theresa  at Santa Maria della Vittoria and then walk down the street to see Francesco Borromini’s fantastic San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane.  Both were closed.  Thankfully, I’ve seen San Carlo (and will try to get Candice there tomorrow).  But we were disappointed, and the gelato we had after our picnic lunch only partially brought my spirits back. However, as has been our practice, when we walk by a church or open historic building that we haven’t seen before, we’ll ask each other, “Do you want to go in?”  More times than not, we’ll say “yes” and head in to find some new hidden gem. We were walking back towards Trastevere when we passed Chiesa di Sant’ Ignazio (the …

Excavated street and buildings

A trip Into antiquity

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Earlier this week Candice and I found time to visit two sites that have taken us at least as far back as the 4th century BCE and up through the 7th century CE.  Both were fascinating while serving as good platforms for thinking about historic preservation past and future. On Tuesday, we walked through our neighborhood to get to the Basilica of San Pancrazio, where we had attended Palm Sunday services three weeks ago.  We heard a presentation the night before from one of the fellows at the academy on labor practices in the catacombs, and it stirred us to visit the catacombs under the basilica. San Pancrazio’s catacombs are one of the few in Rome that have been consistently visited through the ages.  The fact that they were not lost over the centuries has been attributed to the fact that pilgrims from the cult of St. Pancras consistently visited the site throughout the Middle Ages. (Pancras) came to Rome together with his uncle Dionysus after his parents’ death and was decapitated in 304 after …

Venice!

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I absolutely loved Venice. That’s not how I expected to feel following our first trip to the city.  For quite some time I’ve been hearing from people connected to all parts of my life (personal, professional, seasoned travelers, first-time visitors), and they inevitably mention the number of tourists, the limited number of “things to see” in the city, the cruise-ship impacts, the obvious effects of climate change, and the food.  (If I had a Euro for every time someone said, “You can’t get a bad meal in Rome and you can’t get a good meal in Venice,” I would have enough for at least one good meal in either city!) Our experience was very different. For one of the places on earth that can truly be described as unique, I went to Venice with relatively low expectations.  We arrived a week-ago Friday after a three-hour and forty-five-minute trip on the high-speed train. What a luxury!  Candice and I stepped out of the terminal and were only a five minute walk from our hotel. Thanks to …