Our year in photos – 2013
2013 saw Andrew and Claire pass the halfway point of their college years, with all that brings.
All posts filed under: Heritage Travel
Fallingwater (Revisited)
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater is one of the architectural wonders of the world. In the midst of the depression, when the Kaufmann family of Pittsburgh commissioned Wright to design their vacation home along Bear Run in the mountains of southwestern Pennsylvania, they envisioned a location that would give them a view of the beautiful 30′ waterfall that ran through their property. However, as the world soon discovered, Wright – who was then in a period of critical decline among architectural critics and the public – saw things differently. The results immediately captivated the country when the home was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1938, and it hasn’t stopped attracting visitors and attention since. Our family is no different. After a business trip to the National Historic Landmark in early May 1998, I immediately booked a return trip a week later with Candice and our twins – Andrew and Claire – who were five years old at the time. Both children were eager to see this place that mom and dad described with …
Still the most beautiful building on campus
We were touring the University of Pittsburgh campus this afternoon at the suggestion of a friend who is a student there, when we turned the corner and it happened again… …the most beautiful building on campus was peaking out at me, seemingly atop a flower basket hanging from a light post, just waiting to be discovered. I’ve written before about how college chapels are often the most beautiful – and ignored – buildings on campus. I have no idea if the Heinz Memorial Chapel is ignored on campus tours, but from my very brief visit and admittedly small sample size (having seen only about 1/10th of the Pitt facilities), there is no more beautiful building on this campus. This is a wonderfully light and delicate Gothic design that is – as Andrew phrased it upon seeing it head on – drop dead gorgeous. I agree. We were in Pittsburgh for one major reason: to attend a Pittsburgh Pirates game tomorrow at PNC Park and check another MLB ballpark off my bucket list. (Look for that …
A wonderful week exploring European coastal civilizations
A wonderful week with National Trust Tours exploring from Portugal to France.
Remembering Their Sacrifice
Our last day touring in Europe was the most emotional. If you don’t cry, you may not have a soul. We saw Normandy, and the place names from the U.S. that will resonate through history: Utah Beach, Omaha Beach. We walked among row after row of headstones at the American cemetery. Crosses and Star of Davids. Most with names of men who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Some whose names are known only to God. And it was made all the more personal because of a chance encounter last week. When we were headed out the door to leave on this trip, we saw our 90-year-old next-door neighbor and told him we were going to Europe and would visit Normandy. “I’ve never been to Normandy,” he said, “but I was flying over it on D-Day, trying to take out a German gun placement.” We can’t wait to show August the photos of the beaches and, yes, the craters that remain from the bombs that fell on that day. Heroes all — and they even live …
Bilbao: The Cliff Notes Edition
Wow! I had read the stories of how a gritty, shipbuilding city in Spain had reinvented itself as an arts and cultural center built around the signature Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum. I had seen the pictures. But I wasn’t ready for the reality. We spent Sunday in Bilbao, Spain — after a drive through the lovely heart of the Basque country — and Candice and I found the first city where we are set on finding a way to return as soon as possible. Bilbao in the 1980s saw the closing of an iconic shipyard and had the foresight to think creatively and boldly about a new future which blended new and old. It is the last part — the blending of new and old — that is often missed in the write-ups about Bilbao’s renaissance. You get the impact of Gehry’s Guggenheim, along with the works of Calatrava, Norman Foster and other modern masters. But what is often missing is the context for these works: a walkable and vibrant historic city dating back …
Santiago de Compostela: Our visit to the final destination of the Camino de Santiago
Saturday of our European Coastal Civilizations tour took us to Santiago de Compostela, the famous destination of the medieval pilgrimage trail Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James) and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The morning began as we docked in La Corona, Spain, after sailing past the Tower of Hercules, the oldest Roman lighthouse in use today. It makes for a dramatic entrance into the port city and set the stage for what was in store. After an hour-long bus drive, we arrived at Santiago de Compostela, with its cathedral of St. James. The picture at the top of the post marks the official end of the Camino de Santiago, and we had a chance to talk with pilgrims who were arriving in a steady stream – many on very nice road bikes! The city’s importance came from a visit by the Apostle James to this outpost in Spain to convert people to Christianity. Centuries later, in 813, a hermit saw a vision of a shining field, and from the Latin “Campus Stellae” …
Porto, Portugal – A great start to our tour of European coastal civilizations
Candice and I just completed the first day of our European Coastal Civilizations tour, spending a delightful day in Porto, Portugal. After setting sail from Lisbon, our ship headed north overnight and docked on Friday morning at the Port of Leixoes which services the city of Porto. Quoting from the ship’s news, The city of Porto, built along the hillsides overlooking the mouth of the Douro river, is an outstanding urban landscape with a 2,000-year history. Its continuous growth is linked to the sea (the Romans gave it the name Portus, or port). It is the second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon, and one of the major urban areas of Southern Europe. Porto’s history goes back to pre-Roman, Celtic times, and it was during the Middle Ages that it developed into one of Portugal’s most important trading cities. It was in the 18th century that Porto became an important link between the Douro Valley wine producers and wine importing countries like England. The old city – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – is where …
A Refuge
Since I was young, I have been drawn to the 19th century utopian communities that seemed to spring up like wildfire across America. Rugby, Tennessee, was a place that sparked the preservation interest which would lead to my career. The Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, has been a community I’ve visited numerous times and have always found fascinating. So when the National Trust for Historic Preservation listed the Village of Zoar, Ohio, on its 2012 listing of America’s Most Endangered Historic Places and named it one of our National Treasures, I couldn’t wait to make a site visit. Yesterday I joined colleagues and partners in this small Ohio village founded in 1817 by a group of German religious dissenters. The Zoar Separatists were persecuted in their native country for refusing to join the state-sanctioned Lutheran Church, and they immigrated to America with the help of English Quakers. Using funds borrowed from the Quakers, they purchased 5,500 acres on the Tuscarawas River (the mayor says you have to visit the town at least 3 times …
The World’s Longest Art Gallery
Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon is one of the unique cultural landscapes in the world. Earlier this week I was fortunate to tour portions of the canyon with some of the smart, passionate people who have helped save it through the years. As Jerry and Donna Spangler note in their guide Horned Snakes and Axle Grease, Nine Mile Canyon is…well, not nine miles in length. By its very name, Nine Mile Canyon is an enigma. From its upper reaches on the west, the canyon twists and turns more than 50 miles to its confluence with the Green River on the east. And how the canyon got its incongruous name remains clouded with the passage of time. Despite the misleading name, Nine Mile Canyon is an amazing landscape filled with rock art – or as some prefer rock writing – from Native Americans about whom we know very little. The miles of rock art has led many to call Nine Mile Canyon “The World’s Longest Art Gallery.” As the Spanglers note, “There is something undeniably magical …
MORE TO COME... 