All posts tagged: Heritage Travel

Restoring the Readyville Mill

Published by

The Readyville Mill sits on the Rutherford/Cannon County line near the town of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where I spent my childhood years.  At that time it was one of two mills remaining in the vicinity and was still in operation as a working mill for area farmers.  Some time in the early 1970s I played some bluegrass at the mill as part of a heritage days festival.  It was always a community center in this still-rural area of Middle Tennessee. However, in the 1980s the mill was abandoned, a four lane highway opened up Cannon County to rapid development, and the mill seemed destined to either fall into the river from neglect or to be torn down for someone’s vision of a better community.  Luckily Tom Brady (not the Patriots quarterback) stepped into the breech. A local website describes the mill’s background: The Readyville Mill is the sole vestige of what was once a flourishing industry on the Stones River in Middle Tennessee.  Dating from the 1870s, the current Readyville Mill is a three-story building with an open …

Exploring LA

Published by

Having been in Los Angeles the last four days for work-related meetings, I haven’t had an opportunity to post More to Come…updates.  But I have had time to explore parts of the city with colleagues involved in historic preservation.  As is always true when I’m in Los Angeles, I learned more and more about this city’s many wonderful historic places.  Our meetings were in Santa Monica, and I took some time to visit the historic pier and to sample a nice Spanish restaurant in their funky Main Street – which is more like a neighborhood commercial center these days.  Don’t think I spent hours on a sunny beach – it was cool, rainy at times, and in the 50s. But on Saturday, when we spent 8 hours touring around town, the weather gods cooperated.  While the temperature stayed in the 50s, the rain gave way to partly cloudy skies.  We began our tour on bus and went through a number of neighborhoods off Wilshire Boulevard, before we ended up downtown.  It was my first chance to see …

Inauguration Planning – Sites to See Off the Mall

Published by

Well, our little place on earth is getting pretty excited about the next ten days.  Washington is making plans to keep Virginians from coming into the city.  (I would have thought they’d be treated better since they actually voted for Obama, going blue for the first time since Jamestown was founded, or so it seems.)   While Candice and I will be passing each other in the airport on the way to and from town, the children are busy making their plans.  Claire has a good friend on Capitol Hill, so she’s already set for a sleepover and a morning hike to the mall.   Andrew is vacillating between hiking to the mall with friends and watching it all in the comfort of the restored AFI Theatre on the big screen.   I just hope I can see the actual ceremony before I have to head out of town. But for those looking for something to do in Washington during the inaugural week, my organization, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, has put together a great list of …

Wrap-Up from Vienna

Published by

As promised, I’m posting a few additional photos from my travels to Vienna, Austria last week.  The top two photos are a detail from Hofburg Palace and a view of St. Peter’s Church in the rain.                   The next is a detail from St. Peter’s.   Finally, the last two are shots from St. Stephansdom:  the organ on the left and a detail of the pulpit and nave on the right. More to come… DJB

A fitting day for a Viennese funeral

Published by

Today was cold, gray, and rainy in Vienna.  But since it was also the only day I had to tour the city, I hit the streets early bundled in my winter coat and sheltered (somewhat) by my travel umbrella.  It turned out to be a fitting day for a (Viennese) funeral. For someone interested in history, architecture, and cities, being in Vienna for only one day on your first visit can be as frustrating as being a kid in a candy store with a very strict parent.  There are only so many things you can choose.  Luckily, my friends Jim and Janet (they of the great Western trip itinerary) had steered me to a wonderful (and relatively inexpensive) little family hotel that sits astride the St. Stephansdom and Hofburg districts of the city.  These are the names for the medieval city and the imperial city respectively.  So I could jump back and forth with ease and, in the course of a day, see 4 of the best churches in the city while also spending an hour …

When You Need More Water…Have St. George Slay a Three-Headed Dragon!

Published by

Last evening in Bratislava, i went with friends and colleagues from the International National Trusts Organisation (INTO) to a lecture and reception hosted by the Slovakian Ministry of Culture and the National Trust of Slovakia.  The evening was at a former palace for the Roman Catholic Cardinal in Bratislava, and so was very opulent and grand. We entered through a courtyard and came across the statue of St. George slaying the dragon that you see at the left.  We were admiring it when someone said, “I didn’t know St. George had to kill THREE dragons.”  Well, we looked closer and there was only one dragon, but this variety had three heads.  One bit of speculation was that the Cardinal simply wanted more water in the fountain and a three-headed dragon was the answer. Whatever the reasoning, it was another good day for our meetings, which were held at the University Library in Old Town.  The library was part of a complex of three historic buildings, which have been adaptively reused.  The courtyard (see photo) made …

In Praise of Sligo Creek

Published by

On a beautiful fall day at the height of the fall color season, Candice and I walked through Maryland’s Sligo Creek Park today and soaked up the wonders of nature. The Washington area is blessed with parks and Rock Creek is the best known.  But where Rock Creek Park can be busy on a gorgeous day, nearby Sligo Creek Parkway – located five minutes from our front door – is a great alternative with less crowding.  So we walked for an hour, breathed the fresh air, took a few pictures of the creek and the fall foliage, and tried to just “be.”  We hope you’ll enjoy. More to come… DJB  

Touring Old Salem

Published by

Last weekend I had the chance to tour Old Salem while on a work trip to Winston-Salem.  It had been more than 10 years since I visited this historic home of the Moravians in North Carolina, and it was a great way to reconnect to this very historic – and special – place. I knew the day would be a treat when a long-time and dear friend, Martha Hartley, stepped on our bus with her husband Mo to give us the traditional Moravian escort from the boundaries of Wachovia.   Martha and I worked together in preservation many years earlier in Virginia, and I didn’t know she had been tapped as the organizer of the day’s tours.  Mo and Martha traded special insights back and forth about the founding of Salem, the impact of the landscape and waterways, and the practices of the Moravians. After the short organ recital on the David Tannenberg Organ by Janette Fishell (see my earlier post In Praise of Tracker Organs), we spent the rest of the morning touring the town, …

Monument Valley

Published by

Today’s Washington Post Magazine had a travel-related article on Monument Valley in Utah.  The author is a huge fan of John Ford’s classic Western The Searchers and he went to Monument Valley in search of sites from the film. We had just visited Monument Valley in August, so the article brought back fond memories of our vacation.  Everyone who travels to this special place takes photographs because the landscape is so evocative.  You’ll find a gallery online in the Post website, and I’ve added a few here from the Brown family collection. More to come… DJB

Random Ridge

Published by

I just heard from my good friend Susan in California.  Her note reminded me of a wonderful time that my daughter Claire and I had a couple of years ago at Susan and her husband Bill’s vineyard and winery on the Sonoma/Napa border.  Susan was writing to say she enjoyed the blog and that she loved baseball, acoustic music, historic places, and teenagers.  Hey, she’s my target audience!  This is a post to connections and friends. Susan is a preservation lawyer.  Bill is a surfer, poet, and winemaker.  Their wonderful wine is Random Ridge and Claire and I enjoyed a delightful lunch and afternoon at their winery a year or two ago with the staff and families of the Western Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The day was rainy (hence the appropriateness of Susan’s photo of the double rainbow at Glen Ellen) but the friendship was warm.  Claire and the other children enjoyed playing with Susan’s dog and marveling at Bill’s ceilings made of surfboards.  The adults enjoyed the wine, food from …