Europe

London: where to visit that’s not Big Ben or Westminster

KimberlyLeave a comment

IMG_20191122_021252_794Bjork in concert at the O2 (love!)

For some reason, I took the same trip to London three times before deciding to see something new. You won’t be reading here about Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, or the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. You definitely won’t be reading about Stonehenge, which is on my list of Why?

On my recent visit to London, I stayed with a friend on the South West side, so my list is designed for convenience of travel from there. I was by the Raynes Park train station, near Wimbledon, and the destinations listed below took 45 minutes to one hour to reach. London is a big city, so be prepared for long travel times. Trains, tube lines, and buses provide outstanding coverage.

1. Hampton Court (5 stars)

IMG_20191120_132106

Built in the 1500s, this was the palace of Henry VIII. It’s remarkably well-preserved and dripping with history. The optional audio tour will refresh your history of Henry’s six wives and his break with the Catholic Church. Tour the medieval dining hall and the royal chapel. A series of kitchen rooms offers a rare look into food preparation of the day and excess of consumption. I spent three hours in Henry’s part of the palace and didn’t even make it to the newer, baroque side, and walked through just the part of the gardens open in winter.

2. Tate Modern (5 stars)

IMG_20191121_160351Some of Mark Rothko’s murals, designed for the Four Seasons in NYC

They have a top notch permanent collection – Rothko, Pollack, Krasner, Picasso, Degas’ Little Dancer, Kandinsky, Matisse – and fascinating rotating exhibits. Free admission(!) to the main collections and some of the exhibits. When I was there, exhibits included Olafur Eliasson‘s innovative projects, like his heartbreaking glacier melt series, Ed Ruscha, Helen Frankenthaler, and a Kara Walker fountain.

3. The Play That Goes Wrong/West End (4 stars)

IMG_20191121_191650

Clever comedy about, you guessed it, the production of a play where everything goes wrong.

4. Food (5 stars)

Food is important to me. I was very happy in London. Wagamama and Pret a Manger are two excellent chains with headquarters in London. Find food from just about every part of the world there. I had delicious dim sum one day. I passed a Basque restaurant in the West End. I didn’t try it, but Basque is one of my favorite regions for eating. There were vegan options everywhere, even at fast food chains and in train stations, like the parsnip and kale soup I enjoyed at Waterloo station. I found easy access to fresh juices and plant-based milks for my coffee.

5. Victoria and Albert Museum (5 stars)

IMG_20191123_142007_834Ceramic staircase

The V&A is an expansive decorative arts museum. Wander the European rooms, Asian rooms, and others to find collections of silver, ceramics, furniture, clothing, musical instruments, sculpture, etc. etc. The Victorian cast courts housing reproductions of famous sculptures throughout the world were fascinating. There is a large Chihuly glass sculpture suspended over one of the lobbies. I spent a bit too much time in their interesting gift shop.

The sites that follow, I missed. They are on my list for next time I’m in London:

6. Dennis Severs’ house

The house was home to a Hugenot silk weaving family.  Ten rooms are set up representing different eras between 1724-1912. These tours sell out, so book in advance.

7. Brick Lane

This is a funky, hip neighborhood that can be explored any time, but I’d like to coordinate my visit with their Sunday market.

8. Historic literary district of Bloomsbury

There was not enough time in my 5-day stay there!

 

Experiences Over Things: a list

KimberlyLeave a comment

sunrise over sinaiSunrise over Mount Sinai

I’ve written a number of posts about what to bring home, but I haven’t given just due to experiences. Trends, of course, change and the millennial generation’s preferences for experiences over things is getting wide attention in the press.

For this post, I sifted through my own travel memories throughout the decades to prepare a short list of knock-your-socks-off types of experiences. Call it a “Things to Do Before You Die” list, rather than a “Places to Go Before You Die” one. There are many such lists on the interwebs, and I would dispute much of what’s there. (Case in point: you can skip the pyramids at Giza, Egypt and the rock carvings at Petra, Jordan, and still be fine IMO, but many people disagree with me.) Some of the experiences that made my list were dependent on the destination (for example, hiking Mount Sinai at dawn, which I’ll recount later in this post) and others can be created in a variety of places.

In the first example on the list, it was the combination of place+experience that puts it on knocked-my-socks-off list:

1. The Great Wall of China

I was underwhelmed by my first visit to the Great Wall. It was a busy tourist stop. There were super-sized tour buses. There were stalls selling various trinkets, such as “gold”-plated moulds of the wall. It was difficult to get a photo without tourists in it. I snapped a few and left.

Later in the trip, my family held a double bat mitzvah reception on an area of the Wall reserved for private events. This experience deserves its own blog post, but in short… The evening began with an elegant cocktail hour on the Wall with traditional drummers and dancers. Then we were seated at round tables in a formal setup in an adjacent section of the Wall. Our tables were surrounded by lush flower arrangements and beautiful decorations. We were served a delicious multi-course Chinese meal with red, white, and sparkling wine. A mix of music played and people got up to dance. We watched the sunset from our tables or from the dance floor. Sometime after dark, some secret guy behind a switchboard lit up the Wall section by section. At the end of the party, as the guests made their way back to the chartered buses, the skies opened up. It poured and lightning bolts lit up the wall in flashes. It was the most suitably dramatic end to the night.

1188-IMG_1183

2. Paris

Paris is enchanting anytime, but especially at night. Pro-tip: the light show in the gardens at Versalles (a short train ride outside Paris) in the summertime is total magic.

IMG_1731

3. Prague

I’ve written some about my time in Prague. This was a function of time+place, and there’s a full-length book that will emerge someday from my two years living there. I could be walking to work any day and see some architectural detail I’d never noticed before. Or look up (instead of down at the cobblestones) and see what I’d seen many times before, but my mouth would still drop open in disbelief at the beauty and grandeur.

4. Safari in Africa

IMG_20180503_054819

It could be Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Botswana, Malawi or Zambia. You pick. There is nothing like seeing these great creatures living undisturbed on their own lands.

5. A quiet beach

Take a trip and find your spot, away from the crowds. My two favorites were in Costa Rica and Dominica, but beyond that I won’t specify. You have to find your own. On a vacation without an itinerary and with a malleable return date.

6. Oktoberfest in Munich

It was 1996 when I first went, and then returned a couple years later, so I can’t attest that the raucous, multi-cultural vibe remains the same. This experience merits its own post, but it would be rated R and names would have to be changed to protect certain people. You know who you are.

7. The Grand Canyon from the air

I was a seasoned traveler, even hardened, but when I flew over the Grand Canyon my jaw dropped open and stayed that way for a while.

8. Mount Sinai at sunrise

This is the moment captured in the photo at the top of this post. My aunt and I awoke at 3 a.m., as the local residents said we should, without a plan. We walked from our camp with its two dozen or so cabins in the desert, following the road out until we found other people on the pilgrimage. People were already out walking at that hour and the numbers grew throughout the night. We walked by a few homes and businesses. Villagers were up early, watching us, and we stopped a few times to ask where we were going. We chose a less trafficked, but steeper path up. Along the way, we hired a man for a few dollars to guide us. It was dark and cold and the path was steep and rocky, eventually heading nearly straight up. There were a few huts on landing areas on the way, serving tea and snacks. Our guide basically ended up pushing my aunt most of the way up the hill by her butt. He still turned around to give me his free hand to grab at times. We wouldn’t have made it without him. At the top, travelers from all over the world gathered and we set our gaze on the eastern horizon. We waited through hushed utterances of “what time is it?”, “which way?” When the sun peeked over the horizon, there was an audible gasp from the crowd, including me, and the sounds of shutters clicking and clapping all around. I am not a religious sort, but it was such a spectacle (nee miracle?) that it was easy to see why the ancients believed this was a holy place and why it inspired belief in gods.

9. Macchu Picchu

If you plan to go, keep an eye out as closures have been discussed.

 

Where were your most memorable experiences?

 

What to Eat in Paris (it’s probably not what you were expecting)

Kimberly1 Comment

1433

Chez Hannah

It will come as a surprise to no one that Paris and food go hand-in-hand. There are countless books and articles and blogs dedicated to the topic, and if there aren’t poems, then there should be. An easy internet search or a conversation with a Parisian will get you quickly to the best baguette, croissant, macaron, cheese shop, caramel, crepe, fries, butter, ice cream, escargot, hot chocolate, praline, tomato tart, … well, you get the idea.

I recommend that you put falafel on the top of your list. It is worth a journey or a detour. The Rue des Rosiers in the Marais neighborhood is the center of Paris’ falafel district, with several falafel places within sight of each other. L’As du Falafel makes everyone’s lists, including this post by Serious Eats. You’ll enjoy a wonderfully satisfying meal, but the lines there are usually long, sometimes down the block. I’m sure that is aided by the photos posted of celebrities, such as Lenny Kravitz, eating there.

However, I skip L’As and head down the block to Chez Hannah. At all the falafel places, you can order your sandwich as you wish, with a choice of toppings. I order Chez Hannah’s hot-out-of-the-fryer eggplant, which is piled on the falafel balls, vegetable slaw, and tahini sauce. The mix of warm, cool, crunchy, and creamy is heavenly. One pita sandwich is probably big enough for two and a half meals.

Warning: although you can walk around with the stuffed pitas, sit in the restaurant or find a bench, or you risk losing half of it down the front of your shirt. You do NOT want to do that.

 

 

Rijsttafel (Rice Table)

KimberlyLeave a comment

800px-Rijsttafel_Den_Haag_Javastraat

Photo credit: Wikipedia

The Indonesian rijsttafel — a Dutch word that translates into English as “rice table” — is an elaborate meal adapted by the Dutch following their colonization of Indonesia. The politics of European imperialism aside, rijsttafel is a concept you’ll find in Amsterdam, not Indonesia. It is a fusion cuisine offering a variety of small dishes with spices and flavors that I have not experienced elsewhere on one table. It’s also darn difficult to find in other large cities that normally have all you could want on offer.

Here is the pronunciation of rijsttafel in phonetics: /ˈɹaɪsˌtɑːfəl/. Did that help? Ha ha. I listened to several audio versions of it online and they were all different. In one case the initial r was very notably rolled, but not the others. The j is pretty hard, making the first syllable sound like “ridge” or a slightly softer version of it. The “a” sounded different in every version I listened to, so I will leave you to your imagination with the rest.

I first had rijsttafel (“rrizh-stahffl”) two decades ago in Amsterdam while on a business trip. I was staying in a charming little hotel on lovely Vondelpark and my Dutch colleague took me to Kantjil for dinner. Wonderfully, Kantjil still exists! It does not have the highest ratings of the rijstaffel places on Yelp, but I would give it a chance.

It was an experience that stuck. Rijjsttafel was my primary objective when I returned to Amsterdam 15 years later.  Our hotel was not in the city center, so we decided to try the highly rated Blauw. Blauw also happens to be the restaurant featured in the Wikipedia listing for rijsttafel (photo above).

Again, the meal was memorable. I will also mention that my dining partner is a chef, so he tends to be hyper-critical of restaurants. He LOVED everything about it. He stopped talking, starting eating, and sopped up every last drop. The service was wonderful. They kept the food coming. The menu has English translations on it, which is always helpful, especially when you are experiencing a new type of cuisine.

The menu is long here. Go straight to the rijsttafel page. There is both a vegetarian and vegan option. Here are a few of the selections: tofu omelette, pan-friend eggplant, fried banana, sweet and sour cucumber. My companion had the egg in coconut sauce and said it was delicious.

As stuffed as we both felt at the end of dinner, of course we got two desserts to share, one chocolate and one not. Important warning: I see durian on the current menu. DEFINITELY skip that! If you are not already a durian fan — and I have never met one — it will seriously ruin your night, if not your entire vacation. Not kidding.

No durian sign

By the way, this is a “No Durian” sign. I have seen these in hotels in Asia. Sometimes the signs also specify the amount of the fine if you choose to disregard their prohibition. That’s because it will smell like something mammal in origin and MUCH larger than a durian died in your hotel room. You may be an adventurous eater, but you have been warned.

 

On the Cheap (and my comments on Money Mag’s annual list)

KimberlyLeave a comment

You can have the richest experiences by going on the cheap. Actually, I pretty much guarantee it.

Case in point. l LOVED Cuba.

IMG_0991

In addition to it making my list of top 5 places that I would go back to, everyone else I know who has been there has loved it too. That includes my parents who went 10 years ago; my friend who went 20 years ago; and my art teacher who moved there recently, started an art and tourism business, met a Cuban man, and had a baby all in one year! Last month, my aunt and uncle went and did not like it at all. Wha??! They took a cruise. I have written about cruises already. The ship stopped in three principal cities and a guide told them that the government embeds spies in the neighborhoods who watch everyone. And THAT is what they remembered. I told them I was in cities, villages, and on farms and met dozens of Cubans. I spoke to them in Spanish and we had a few English-speaking (Cuban) tour guides. Not one of them mentioned a plague of neighborhood spies. What did we talk about? The politics of Cuba, the political positions of the U.S., racism in Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, art, health, sports, food, music,… You get the idea. I loved it. You can draw your own conclusions, but if you are considering going, just DO. I should apologize though, as the theme of this post is “on the cheap” and it is not easy to go there cheaply. To do that, you will need to go on your own (not on a tour). This process is too detailed to write about here and the U.S. government regulations change fast, so research this thoroughly before attempting it.

Money Magazine publishes a great list of 20 affordable spots you can check out. I will comment on some of their choices. Of course, there are many more than 20 wonderful affordable spots. If you do a little research on, say, Central Asia, you will find spectacular sites with relatively few tourists. Here is one such example:

registan-square-samarkandSamarkand (photo credit: TripAdvisor)

On to Money Magazine’s list… I am going to skip their U.S. destinations, as it’s not my expertise. Here are my selected comments on their international destinations:

  1. Meknes, Morocco – My group of four did not love it. However, another friend did. Go figure. Nearby Roman ruins of Volubilus are totally worth a visit. Fez, with the largest medina in the world, is fascinating. I call Fez a MUST do, though overwhelming.
  2. Cozumel – I dunno. I’ve been to Cancun, Tulum, and Playa del Carmen, but not Cozumel, so I’ll pass on this one.
  3. Havana – see the first half of this post.
  4. Montreal – not sure why it’s on this list. Your call.
  5. Nanjing, China – I’ve been to Beijing and Xian and they blew my mind in a good way. I’ve mentioned that Shanghai is on my places to go next list, but mostly because I have a friend who is moving there, so maybe I’ll put this one on my list with it. See #10 below. However, the photos of Nanjing look promising.
  6. Monteverde, Costa Rica – I would recommend just about anywhere in Costa Rica. One of my top 5 of all time.
  7. Medellin, Colombia – never been.
  8. Crete, Greece – I’ll give this one a mildly interesting. The weather was not great when we were there, so we did not go to the beaches. However, would not have changed my reaction to the ruins at Knossos. Just ok.
  9. Prague – As I have such a deep love for Prague, I find this one difficult to talk about. From an architecture perspective, there is no place like it. However, it is overrun with tourists at all times of the year.
  10. Tainan, Taiwan – I have not been there. However, Hong Kong’s night markets and Bangkok’s flower markets get at least two thumbs up. One therefore might assume that Tainan’s night flower market is a wonderful cultural immersion experience. But I have a no-assumptions rule. The photos I looked at online appear carnival-kitschy rather than authentic, so proceed at your own risk. And please comment below if you have been!

Barcelona

KimberlyLeave a comment

IMG_20171201_080901This is one of those recommendations I do not want to make publicly, as I don’t want to not be able to get in next time I go to Barcelona. It’s a farm-to-table restaurant in the Barceloneta neighborhood. Barceloneta is not on the short list of touristed neighborhoods. But should you choose to go, and please do not tell all your friends, it’s Somorrostro. It’s also a family-run shop and they are super-nice. Shhhhh!

Look Closer

Kimberly1 Comment

The Blue Marble

The Blue Marble

One of the things that appeals to me about travel is that you board a metal cylinder and pop out the other end in a different world from the one you left. When I was early in my travel experiences, I found that as I traveled more, I craved even more different worlds from my own on the other end.

Growing up in the United States, my journey began with dips over the northern border (to Niagara Falls) and the southern border (Tijuana, when it still considered pretty safe). I moved to Eastern Europe for work when I was in my upper twenties. At the time, I had a two handfuls of countries under my belt. I was determined to see as much of the region as I could while I was there. After two years, I moved back home and  took a job in Boston that offered opportunities to travel to Western European countries. It was not enough and after two years I took a job where I supported a small set of Latin American countries. Five years later, I went looking for a position that offered the possibility of travel to Africa. I traveled to a dozen countries in Africa over my seven years there. Then I left that organization for a gig that put me in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

4-2B057

Christmastime in Dhaka. It’s freezing by the way.

Let’s stop there. One lesson that I learned during these years is that new destinations continued to stump me and cause wonder. I arrived in Mozambique expecting its neighbor Tanzania. It was not. I arrived in Costa Rica expecting Belize or Panama. It was neither. It was time to stop assuming stuff and just open my eyes and watch. One thing I’ve learned over thirty years of travel is that my journey is still a work in progress.

And then something else happened. It wasn’t a different world I was finding; it was the same. I leaned in and looked closer. People, families, meals together, a grown daughter’s wedding, a college graduation, holiday festivals, funerals. It was the same world, but it was wondrous for me and life to them.

Recently, I listened to a podcast interview of the first Iranian woman in space. I don’t think I had ever heard an astronaut speak so beautifully about the experience. When viewed from space, Earth has no nations and no borders and no tribes. We live on an orb of greens and browns and blues and whites. Boundaries are built by humans. And humans should tear them down.

 

Paris

KimberlyLeave a comment

IMG_20180912_212328_539Macarons

Good ones abound, but Pierre Hermes is my ultimate.

They cannot make a good macaron in the U.S.

U.S. style (everything): sugar. This applies to Ladurée in Manhattan as well (who makes a perfectly respectable macaron in Paris). After biting into each of the three I bought, disappointment growing each time, I actually threw away the box of remains. This is not something I would ever do lightly.

French style: distinct flavors that make mini explosions of joy in your mouth. My friend brought me this box on the plane from France, so I had the opportunity to test them again at home in Boston. Yup, still spectacular bundles of wonder.

Spain

Kimberly1 Comment

IMG_20160826_152835731

Fideua in Roses, Spain. OMG so good!!! It is similar to paella, except with broken noodles instead of rice.

Roses is a small beach town north of Barcelona. Roses features a Michelin star restaurant, els Brancs. We could not get a reservation there, even though we tried a couple weeks in advance. It was August and a lot of places are closed. Turns out, the luck was on us. We did some research online and picked another restaurant: El Jabali.

The prices at El Jabali were very reasonable and the meal was HEAVEN if gastronomy is your heaven, as it is mine. Just go. It is worth a drive if you’re anywhere in the area. From their white sangria, to the appetizer of some type of very small clams, the oysters with a melted creamy-cheesey topping, to the fideua (our very razón for being there), to the crema catalana (a flan-like dessert, but thicker), there was nothing not to love. The service was attentive, particularly when our sangria ran low 🙂 and the atmosphere was light and airy.

There was only one low point: I wish people would not smoke in restaurants anywhere anymore. People, beyond the obvious, it really degrades the taste of the food, comprende?

.

Prologue to Prague

Kimberly4 Comments

Prague 1994 from RFE RL alum FB page

It was 1994 when I landed in Prague for a vacation with my parents and my long-term boyfriend, Ron. They call Prague “The City of a Hundred Spires” with good reason, but it is a lamentably inadequate description that misses the sounds, smells, and souls that are essential Prague.

We emerged from the Delta flight to Ruzyně International Airport and descended the metal staircase onto the tarmac. I smelled it right away. It was the mingled scents of a hundred spires, myrrh, hand-forged iron, roasted chestnuts, the Hapsburgs, war, Communism, good beer, and a hundred thousand souls. Later, I learned to distinguish each of them, as well as the smell of soft, brown coal burned for heat and the leaded auto exhaust trapped in the valley on the days of winter inversions.

I grew up believing my grandfather’s father was from Prague. One of my great-grandparents was from Prague, one from Hungary, one from Germany, and one from another eastern European place referred to only as “the old country”. My grandfather, the first generation born in America, thought we were crazy to visit. He clucked his tongue disapprovingly and shook his head as he turned away. He simply didn’t get it.

We four were still in the airport at the northwest edge of the city when the thud reverberated inside my chest and head, the echoes of a medieval church door sealing inward for the night. It was the unanticipated sound of Prague lodging itself in my soul. Prague’s assertion came from a stew of reasons, but also, I believed I was personally connected to the place through my genes. As it turned out, you do not need a genetic connection for it to lodge in there. Prague is irresistible anyway.

The four of us had come for a short vacation, not due to family connections, but from a sense of adventure. Ron and I had traveled together before, but it was the first time we had gone on a vacation with my parents. I caught the travel bug early. I was 26 years old and he was 28.

Our tour consisted of three and a half days in Prague, a short flight to Budapest, three days there, and then home. As the scuffed white mini-bus deposited us, with three strangers and a heavily-accented guide, in front of the towering old Hotel International in Prague 6, I already felt cheated knowing the departing flight ticket was in my bag waiting in an envelope stuffed with travel papers.

The two receptionists at the front desk took our passports and walked into the back office, with no explanation. We waited. The carpets of the once-elegant hotel that housed Communist party bosses in the past, and possibly that day, were worn pink and burgundy. They harbored decades of Soviet dust and procedures. The chandeliers hung lopsided, offering a lonely working bulb. The flocked wallpaper was stained and peeling. There were cameras between the joists in the walls, now exposed, that probably hadn’t worked since the 80s. The receptionists hadn’t come back with our passports. I still felt shortchanged. I didn’t want to go to Budapest. I would shed a few tears when we left Prague.

Over the coming decades I would shed a lot of tears on planes. I never really knew why. I would also learn later that my great-grandfather’s Prague origins were another one of those family “misrembrances” passed down from generation to generation. But in the meantime, Prague was in my genes and in my soul.

Ron and I moved there one year later. We broke up there too and he moved home, while I stayed. It was my best of times and worst of times. It was all very much like a dream. I made lifelong friends there and sometimes we tell each other what is real and what was not, but everybody knows we are just guessing.