Figuring that the Eiffel Tower will be a ho-hum stop on our tour of France, I buy tickets to go see it on the first night we will be in Paris. I’ve seen the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, site of the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens. I’ve seen the Statue of Liberty. Neither…
Author: BashfulAdventurer
Three Lines Worth Waiting On (and Two to Skip)
The frustration of any trip—especially one taken during peak tourism times—is waiting on line. If only all major world attractions had a FastPass, where I could return at a designated hour and cut right to the front of the line. Some attractions, though, are worth those minutes and hours and sweaty days of snaking forward…
Dining Before the Revolution in North Salem
There’s just something alluring about having dinner in a low-ceilinged dining room with peanut shells on the floor and a fireplace and ancient-looking wooden beams holding everything in place and rippled views from the antique glass windows. That this place—Purdy’s Farmer and the Fish in North Salem, N.Y.—has good food, too, is just a bonus….
Paris: Don’t Skip Sainte Chapelle
During this season of renewal, my mind floats to my favorite churches in Paris. I can’t help but marvel at Sainte Chapelle, stuck next to a courthouse, the little sibling of its competitor, the grand Notre Dame Cathedral. With each located on the Ile de la Cité, and with time in the capital limited, the…
Moscow Now
Any number of people, knowing that I’ve visited Russia, say to me, “I’d never go there now.” I can’t help but think, why not? Well, there’s that crisis in Ukraine, of course. Yet most people I know wouldn’t be heading to Kiev, they’d be going to St. Petersburg to see the Hermitage and to Moscow…
R & R, Nature and Nurture, on Sanibel
Not every vacation can be a jungle adventure in the Amazon. Sometimes, a traveler just needs to get away and for the trip to be unthinkingly stress-free. For a quick escape, I tend to choose Florida. It’s all too easy to buy a plane ticket on a site like CheapOair and then head south at…
Sanity on Sanibel
Florida features so many destinations, and hotels are so numerous, that making a choice can be overwhelming. Even narrowing down a list of prospective hotels can be daunting. At the high end, chances are you won’t really go wrong no matter how you choose a place to stay. At more modest levels, though, success can…
“I Can’t Walk into a Bar Alone”
So said a divorced mom of two to me about going through life a bit solo right now. I am always surprised when otherwise outgoing people suddenly become needy and clingy when confronted by an adventure that they have to undertake alone. Just this week, a certain senior adventurer in my life expressed doubts about…
How We Want Woodstock
Watching Peace, Love & Misunderstanding (2012), I remember how I’d like my ideal life to be, full of Jane Fonda as a hip grandmother, happily cluttered houses fostering free-range chickens, and women with whom to howl at the moon whenever it happens to be full. I wonder whether I’d be as uptight as Catherine Keener…
Peacefulness by the Sea, Captiva
The Brawny Sherpa and I wander aimlessly through Captiva Island, Fla., having ditched our rental car somewhere with the optimistic hope that we’ll remember its color, make and license number when it’s time to retrieve it. This is a day trip for us as we wind down from a family get-together in not-so-far-away Naples. Nothing…