All I knew about the German city of Baden Baden was that it was a famous spa town. But I also recall the English football team had boot camped there with their WAGS one infamous tournament of which there have been so many. So I equated it with failure, inevitability, and the hopelessness of England to ever be successful at soccer again after one great and surreal moment in 1966. Off I went to visit Baden Baden and try to heal the memories and expunge the dreadfulness of overpaid footie players.
Baden Baden is really quite a short drive from Strasbourg. The border between the two
countries, France and Germany, is evident and comes upon you quickly. It’s dull and ironically is marked by a mosque at what was the checkpoint. One brief autobahn ride and within an hour we found ourselves in this very beautiful and well-manicured town. There were tons of fancy hotels with spa facilities advertised everywhere. There is an elegant long ascent up a wide series of well-kept gardens. There was a delightful clay court tennis club that looked like it had been there for years, it had a turn of the 19th century fell about it and its doors were open to whoever fancied a game. A rushing river cut through the center of the 
gardens and people were strolling along its banks as if they were in a French impressionist painting. It was so damn civilized.
There were lots of Range Rovers and Audis but nothing too flashy. It was very much a Sunday place. In fact, every day, I imagine, seems like Sunday here. Women with hats and couples arm in arm. We grabbed a good lunch at a belle époque restaurant. The food was a welcome relief from the heavy meat meal of its neighbor over the border. All I could think about was how this region had been tossed around like a tennis ball in that clay court for 
50 years. I didn’t get to go to a spa. It seemed complicated and difficult to figure out how to gain entrance. You knew the spas were somewhere but it just didn’t seem that if you wanted to go for a spa holiday, you would
choose this place. Maybe it wasn’t sexy enough or accessible enough. Or maybe I just missed it! Baden Baden is absolutely worth a visit. It’s beautiful and it even had a couple of Sequoia trees towering in the gardens. How strange that at the top end of the town, beyond the hotels, something that seemed so terribly northern Californian was front and center. Redwoods. California, Germany. Go figure.
credit from a canceled reservation a year ago over to a new reservation this year. So my son and I hit Telluride. I had never been before although I had heard lots about it. We both love to ski so this seemed like a perfect storm.
territories. Not more than 20 minutes from Montrose is Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. The canyon is as deep as the Grand Canyon but not as wide. It was spectacular in the early morning mist to see this giant chasm in a national park right next door to a very bland, modern town like Montrose.
caught my eye. It was called 
approach it through the Bois de Boulogne. Constructed around a cascading stairway of water, it’s an assemblage of huge glass sails and blocks known as “icebergs.” Because of the glass, the trees that surround it, and the constant movement of water, it creates a continuous impression of movement depending on the time of the day and night. It is quite a sight to behold.
scattered – not just the Picasso and Matisse pieces, but Cezanne, Gauguin, you name it, he had it. Much of it thankfully ended up at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Although during the Stalin years – and there were lots of them – the viewing of his paintings were forbidden because Stalin thought that both Matisse and Picasso were seditious counter-revolutionaries. Oh dear.
the Swiss started it all and it still thrives there to this day. All you need to trigger one of these things is 100,000 votes. Well, as we know, it’s not all wine and roses. Hitler used the device to promote his populist rantings and managed to screw the entire western world over and kill a lot of innocent people in the process. Referendums gave him the dictatorial powers that enabled him to dominate the evil arena for over 12 years. In the USA, there’s no national mechanism for a referendum. Pity, as we could probably do something about Donald of Orange right now given his current standing! Still, 24 states hold referendums and Massachusetts became the most recent state to pass legalization of marijuana laws through this device. So, referendums are really not all that bad. It’s just that when you need them to fail, the failsafe doesn’t work. Brexit voters just caused the biggest upset in British politics…and what will happen to Scotland? After all, Romans thought it was wise to keep out the Scots by building a wall! Heard that somewhere before. Didn’t work then. Won’t work now!
would be good for something even though none of us could understand a word that she said! So, off I have been on the path of discovery to County Clare, the tiny town of Scarriff, and the even tinier hamlet of Aughram. I am looking at church records, the births and deaths register in Dublin, you name it, I am on it. And I am nearly there.
Boston, the loudspeaker message came over stating they were looking for passengers prepared to take an alternative flight for a credit voucher on the same airline. Let the buyer beware, as we know with 
to Strasbourg, the capital of the territory, to see this beautiful city that sits on the Rhine and its tributaries. It has fabulous wines and is the center of power for the European Parliament. Who knows, this would potentially be for me a last look at what it was like to see a Union Jack outside the Parliament building after Brexit.
to visit two other spectacular nearby places – Baden Baden and Colmar. For a French teacher, Colmar is a must and Baden Baden is a fabulous add-on across the border. We even got to see a baseball game outside the EU parliament. How strange, especially since baseball, so they say, is on the decline and soccer is on the rise. It seems here in the heart of Europe a flicker of faith was keeping the old ball game alive. Meanwhile, the Union Jack was flying high; a last flutter of the flag to denote that the great European experiment, alive and well everywhere, and created after the disaster of the second world war, was getting red carded in the U.K. Go on Scotland, declare independence and leave Auntie Britain and go live with your less superior relatives, The Euros. Ireland seems much happier living with its European neighbors since its divorce in 1922!
just as bad as reading a magazine during a dental surgery knowing that almost certainly what happens inside is not going to be good.
operating the most basic system of all with no baggage surcharge if you check, is always considered the best system? It’s random, there’s no class distinction, you just line up in rows with numbers allocated and you cannot move until they tell you. And on the airplane, it’s a free for all so you choose your seat, have a nice day, and get over it. It works and that’s the way it goes. The domestic boarding experience is one of the most horrific experiences known in the airline industry and yet the glowing example of how to do it right is staring everybody in the face.
about a $25 ticket on a 1,000-mile route? On the other hand, American is charging big bucks for crap service. Get a load of this – American’s numbers actually improved over last year. Alaska, which has just acquired Virgin America, looks like it will further improve its network and grab some of its strong points and push it over to what was its Virgin competitor.
the saddest examples of how not to make a great impression on your visit to such an amazing place like Paris. And it feels seedy, the taxi set up is appalling and you know that someone is specifically out there with a view to ripping you off. Of course, it happened to me.
went there because D was involved in antiques at the time. She needed some things for her shop and we needed some stuff for the house.
When I travel, I use a man bag. I can’t take all of the crap constantly in my pockets and don’t like those awful Italian hard bags that look ridiculous and nothing fits in them anyway. My usual travel attire is a backpack (Tumi) and another bag which is great for easy access on the plane for my headsets, iPad, Kindle, and passport. I use the backpack as an extra and sometimes I even pack it in my suitcase. I like to travel with a compact Briggs and Riley four-spinner suitcase. It’s always carry-on friendly and it fits above every plane but has an expandable pop out if you need it.
