Category: Travel

Viking’s Danube Waltz (3): Vienna

Viking’s Danube Waltz (3): Vienna

Vienna, Austria

con­tin­ued from part 2….

June 3: 

Viking’s cui­sine is gen­er­al­ly first-rate, high­ly var­ied, and the break­fasts lack noth­ing we could think of except the odd blintz. For exam­ple, there were three dif­fer­ent styles of yogurt, eggs any way you want them includ­ing cus­tom-made omelets, smoked salmon, fish, cheese, cold cuts, cham­pagne by the glass, a dozen or more vari­eties of bread and rolls, pas­try galore, all the usu­al things you find under hot plates, and every­thing of uni­form high qual­i­ty. For items you order from the table, like Eggs Bene­dict or pan­cakes, serv­ings are small, but this is a plus for two rea­sons: it gives you more room to try dif­fer­ent things, and if you want more of any­thing, a wait­er will hap­pi­ly bring you a sec­ond serving.…

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Viking’s Danube Waltz (2): Bratislava

Viking’s Danube Waltz (2): Bratislava

Bratislava

con­tin­ued from Part 1….  

June 2: Bratisla­va, Slo­va­kia 

If the Viking Leg­end is any exam­ple, you don’t need to wor­ry about table ser­vice. The wait staff, most­ly Fil­ipino, could not have been more atten­tive, but at the same time nev­er struck us as fawn­ing or gra­tu­itous. Our favorite waiter’s name tag read “Neri.” It turned out that he’d opt­ed for that because his real name wouldn’t fit: Alde­fon­so Ner­ia. He and his col­leagues were gems, always look­ing out for us, and soon began to save a nice place for four by throw­ing nap­kins over chair backs at a well-sit­u­at­ed table.…

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Viking’s Danube Waltz (1) Budapest

Viking’s Danube Waltz (1) Budapest

We Cruising alternative

If your idea of a cruise is float­ing around the sea with thou­sands of peo­ple and 24/7 enter­tain­ment, food and drink, a Viking Riv­er Cruise is not for you. Which is exact­ly why we took one, with two con­ge­nial friends and 180 fel­low pas­sen­gers, from May 31 to June 7 aboard Viking Leg­end, start­ing in Budapest, with three days’ option­al side trip to Prague, stay­ing at the Hilton. We came away high­ly sat­is­fied and impressed with the crew and orga­niz­ers, even though orga­nized leisure is not our thing. We like to get out into a coun­try and nib­ble the grass, as Churchill said, going where whim and the road take us.…

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Driving in Britain Then & Now

Driving in Britain Then & Now

Drive…if you dare

A friend head­ed for Eng­land who heard about their speed cam­eras asks how many he’ll encounter. Answer: a lot. Even out in the coun­try, they’ll snap away at you.

Since 1974 I’ve logged 80,000 UK road miles, from Land’s End to John O’Groats. Islands from Jura in the Hebrides to Guernsey in the Chan­nel. For a long time it was a driver’s par­adise.  More recent­ly UK dri­ving turned from a joy to drudgery. Of course a lot has to do with the huge growth of cars on cramped roads. The mod­ern depre­da­tions of the State are a result rather than a cause.…

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Exuma: Jewels in the Sea (3)

Exuma: Jewels in the Sea (3)

Con­clud­ed from Part 2…

Staniel Cay is an active stopover for sail­ing yachts with an affa­ble yacht club for lunch. We spent an hour mean­der­ing its wind­ing lanes and admir­ing the col­or­ful cot­tages. On the way back we stopped at Com­pass Cay to “swim with the sharks”—big, friend­ly nurse sharks which behave like aquat­ic dogs, nos­ing up to a water-lev­el dock to be fed bits of conch and allow­ing their sand­pa­per backs to be scratched.

These nurs­es are quite dif­fer­ent from your image from “Jaws” (and as vet­er­an Bahami­an divers know, we have noth­ing that threat­en­ing in local waters any­way).…

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Exuma: Jewels in the Sea (2)

Exuma: Jewels in the Sea (2)

Con­tin­ued from Part 1…

Once reached, the gem­stone islets of Exu­ma invite you to mean­der at a delib­er­ate pace in placid, gin-clear waters. There were sail­boats and cruis­ing lots galore along the islets, and you can see why. Sail­ing from one to anoth­er, drop­ping anchor by whim or fan­cy, is an expe­ri­ence that will wash the world away.

Every islet is dif­fer­ent and has its own attrac­tions. At Ward­er­ick Wells Cay is the Exu­ma Cays Nation­al Land and Sea Park—a good first stop after cross­ing over from Eleuthera. A marine fish­ery and native plant pre­serve, it occu­pies 176 acres.…

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Exuma: Jewels in the Sea (1)

Exuma: Jewels in the Sea (1)

EXUMA, BAHAMAS, FEBRUARY 5TH— Get­ting from our home island of Eleuthera to oth­er Bahami­an Fam­i­ly islands is com­pli­cat­ed, usu­al­ly requir­ing air trav­el via Nas­sau. But the near­est of the Exu­ma Cays is only about 40 miles from Cape Eleuthera, or 65 miles from Governor’s Har­bour, and you can do that in under two hours in a fast boat. So off we went from Cupid’s Cay aboard Capt. Paul Petty’s immac­u­late Mar­lin 35 skiff, Mar­ti­nis & Bikinis.

The date was our anniver­sary, so it couldn’t have been bet­ter timed. Paul and his affa­ble mate Dwayne had six pas­sen­gers, includ­ing three res­i­dents of Rain­bow Bay and three Cana­di­an ladies, one of whom orga­nized the expe­di­tion.…

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Arrington McCardy 1947-2011

Arrington McCardy 1947-2011

Self-trained, he had unorthodox techniques. On a steep hill, the standard tactic is to shift up two cogs and stand up, adding your body weight to the downstroke, using your arms to wiggle the bike from side to side to help the upstroke. We never saw Arrington stand. Instead he would hunker down in the saddle and simply power his way over the hill. And he always left us in the dust. I was hoping to watch this technique in the White Mountains when he and Hazel were to visit us in New Hampshire.

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Bahamas Fishing Haul, Spanish Wells

Bahamas Fishing Haul, Spanish Wells

My friend Bruno Under­wood called March 18th to ask if we were up to fish—his only oppor­tu­ni­ty to take us out since he’s work­ing round the clock. We have been enjoy­ing fish­ing char­ters with Bruno for five years. On March 19th he and his dad, Baron, met us at Gene’s Bay, north Eleuthera, at 9 and off we went to their favorite spots, plot­ted by GPS. We were in from 12 to 25 feet with 25 lb.-test spin­ning tack­le and cut bait (gog­gle-eyes).

For the first half hour, only nib­bles; Baron said these were yel­low­tail steal­ing our bait, but ”they’ll soon be full and will move on for the big boys.”…

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