Travel

The Shenandoah Valley and Virginia Countryside

Posted by Joe Benning

We got a chance to get away for a quick trip over the Labor Day weekend, so we took a drive to the Virginia Countryside. Virginia is a fairly large state by area, but not densely populated like the North East. The landmass is just under 43,000 square miles with a population of about 8.5 million people. For comparison purposes consider New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the nation.  NJ has a population of about 8.8 million, (about the same as Virginia) but a landmass of only 8.7 million square miles—which is only 20% as much as Virginia. 

The upshot is that there is a lot of beautiful unspoiled country to see in Virginia. For instance, forests cover 62% of the State. There is quite a bit of wildlife. There are over 1 million white-tailed deer. Carnivores include black bears, bobcats, coyotes, foxes and skunks. The skunks can generally be seen on the beltway heading toward the district. 

Photo of farmland in Virgina with the morning fog burning off.

There are lots of parks in Virginia, both State and Federal. The bigger ones include Great Falls Park, the Appalachian Trail and Shenandoah National Park. Almost 40% of the  Shenandoah National Park has been declared to be a wilderness preserve. A particular interest of ours is the Virginia Natural Bridge State Park. 

An old barn in a Shenandoah Valley meadow; the Blue Ridge Mountains are in the background.

The park includes a 215 foot arch that serves as a natural foot bridge over Cedar Creek, a tributary of the James River. It is estimated to be almost 500 million years old. In 1774, Thomas Jefferson bought 157 acres of land, including the Natural Bridge, from King George III for 20 shillings. Jefferson built a log cabin with a guest room on the land and had many famous visitors including John Marshall, James Monroe, Henry Clay, Sam Houston and Martin Van Buren. (Note).

Photo of a woman tourist walking toward the landmark Natural Bridge in Virginia.
Natural Bridge, Virginia, USA — September 7, 2020. Tourists walk along a hiking trail by a stream under the landmark Natural Bridge in Virginia.

On our trip we saw the spectacularly beautiful countryside of the Shenandoah Valley, visited the Natural Bridge, took a ride along the Skyline Drive, and stayed in the small town of Lexington, VA. 

Blue Ridge Mountains from the Skyline Drive

The Shenandoah Valley and its surroundings are sights that should not be missed. Here are a few photos of from the trip. 

JFB

The Outer Banks

Posted by Joe Benning

Thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak our travel plans have changed quite a bit. The 2 month trip to Florence and Rome—well that didn’t happen. Three cheers for British Airways and Road Scholar for promptly sending us refunds after Italy shut down the country. The same can not be said for Hotel Adriano in Rome. After initially promising a refund, they tried to back out until we reported them to American Express. After that they saw the light. 

On a happier note, we traveled to the outer banks and stayed in Duck, North Carolina for two weeks. What a spectacular place–for instance, see the image below.

A beautiful pastel colored sky reflects soft morning light onto the beach in Duck, North Carolina

The Outer Banks are a series of barrier islands located between the Atlantic Ocean and Currituck Sound. There aren’t any cities on the 100 miles + of the Outer Banks. Instead the islands are mostly populated by small seaside villages and towns. It is a favorite vacation spot, attracting visitors from the Northeast as well as Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas. 

We rented a house for a 2 week stay in Duck, a tony village with plenty of gorgeous beaches, fishing spots and restaurants.  That’s right. Restaurants you can actually go to and sit inside and have cocktails and dinner. Or you can get a table outside and relax over food and drinks. 

There are other places to go to as wee—for instance Kitty Hawk, where Orville and Wilbur Wright made their first historic flight in their flying machine back in December 1903. And then there is Corolla Park with the architectural masterpiece Whalehead and its Museum. 

If you get a chance, visit the Outer Banks and the town of Duck. You’ll be glad you did. 

Here are a couple of photos from our trip (below), taken with a Leica Q2 camera. Click on a photo to enlarge it. They can be licensed at Evocative Photos.

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In the District–Washington, DC

Posted by Joe Benning

We spent a busy weekend in the nation’s capitol. Among other things we saw an absolutely terrific performance of My Fair Lady at the Kennedy Center.  Shereen Ahmed, a 26 year old graduate of Townson University was perfectly cast as Eliza Doolittle. She lit up the stage with an astonishingly versatile voice which she combined with first rate acting. The Kennedy Center revival performances of My Fair Lady are the beginning of a national tour. Don’t miss it if it comes to a theatre near you. 

We stayed at the Watergate for the weekend which now advertises that you don’t have to break in to enjoy the place. We also got a chance to stop in to see the exhibits on display at the Phillips Collection of Modern art and the National Geographic Museum. The National Geographic had an exhibit featuring Jane Goodall, known for her path breaking field work on chimpanzees in Africa. Both the National Geographic and Phillips Collection Museums are certainly worth a visit when in DC. Finally I should mention a very good French Bistro, the Opaline Bar and Brasserie, where we had dinner. Good food, great atmosphere and a fine Martini can be had there. 

Some iPhone photos from our jaunt are below. 

JFB

The Watergate Hotel
Photo that focuses on one of the buildings in the Watergate Complex in Washington, DC


Stairwell and Window in the Phillips Museum
Photo looking out a window in the Phillips Collection Museum of Modern Art to a Washington DC neighborhood.
Kobacker Building
Washington, DC, USA — 1/18/2020. An iPhone photo of the exterior of the Arthur and Sara Jo Kobacker building that now serves as a home for the Religious Actions Center for reformed Judaism.
In the Phillips Museum
Photo of a painting that takes up an entire wall in a Phillips Collection exhibition.
The Cosmos Club
Photo of the outside of the Cosmos Club in Washington DC.

Tallin, Estonia

Posted by Joe Benning

Tallinn may be the most beautiful city you’ve never heard of. The capital of Estonia, Tallinn is a small city in a small country with a turbulent history, particularly with respect to relations with Russia. On our walking tour of the city our guide noted that for Estonia, “NATO is everything”. 

There are about 1.5 million citizens of Estonia, and about 435,000 people who live in Tallinn. Located on the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has close historic ties with Helsinki, Stockholm and St Petersburg. 

The city proper dates back to the first half of the 13th century, but humans settlements are estimated go back 5,000 years. The first recorded claim for the land was made by Denmark in 1219 after a successful raid. After a couple of centuries of fighting between Scandinavian and Teutonic rulers, Tallinn became an important commercial hub because of its strategic location. 

Tallinn is one of Europe’s best preserved medieval cities and is counted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has the largest number of star-ups in Europe, and is the birthplace of Skype. It houses the EU’s IT agency and is the home of NATO’s Cyber Defense Center of Excellence. It is also ranked as one of the world’s top 10 digital cities.

We went on a walking tour of the city with a local guide and took lots of photos in the process. A few are posted below. 

JFB 

Tallinn, Estonia — July 23, 2019. A photo looking down on Tallin from a limestone hill overlooking the town square.
Tallin, Estonia — July 23, 2019. A vertical shot of a side street in Tallin, Estonia with the domes of Alexander Necsky Cathedral rising in the background.
Tallinn, Estonia — July 23, 2019. A tourist makes a donation to street musicians playing in a shopping area.
Tallinn, Estonia — July 23, 2019. Photo of a juice cart vendor giving the thumbs up sign in Tallin, Estonia.
Tallinn, Estonia — July 23, 2019. Photo of a side street in Tallin, Estonia.

More on Three Days in St Petersburg

Posted by Joe Benning

Among the many mind boggling things to contemplate is the fact that the Russian aristocracy didn’t just have one enormous and opulently decorated and designed palace. They had several of them; each one elaborate and ornate. In fact Catherine actually put a halt to all the gold being used to decorate her palace that had begun by order of her predecessor, Empress Elizabeth. 

Here, below, are some photos of Catherine’s Palace located in Pushkin, not far from St Petersburg. Please note that while some photos link to Evocative Photos for licensing, photos taken inside the palace may not be used for this purpose, so they are not linked. 
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A wide angle photo taken inside Catherine Palace in Pushkin, near St Petersburg.
Pushkin, Russia — July 22, 2019. Photo taken from the outside of Catherine Palace; tourists are admiring the lawn and gardens.
Wide angle shot of a house on a lake on the grounds of Catherine Palace near St Petersburg
Pushkin, Russia — July 22, 2019. Photo of guest quarters on the grounds of Catherine Palace outside St Petersburg.

Three Days in St Petersburg

Posted by Joe Benning

The Summer Palace, Peterhof, Russia

It would take years to see all there is to see in St Petersburg; actually it would take years just to see just the important stuff. So we picked our spots and saw all we could, including the winter and summer palaces. This post includes photos taken at the summer palace, located in Peterhof, about 40 minutes outside St Petersburg proper. 

The physical scale of the place, along with the wealth on display, is almost beyond belief. The main palace has about 1,000 rooms—big rooms. The rooms we saw, and we saw quite a few, typically were decorated with gold inlays on the walls and ceilings. Classical paintings  and sculpture abounded, including collections by Russian, German and French artists. 

Outside the palace there were gardens, an elaborate set of cascading fountains and a smaller gold domed castle. And this was just the summer palace. There was a winter palace as well, in some ways even more over the top. Note that in the photo of the throne room below, there is no furniture in the room other than the throne. That’s because protocol demanded that supplicants either stand or kneel in the presence of the King.

A political scientist from Johns Hopkins who was on the trip with us (as a lecturer) made the point that while we refer to her as Catherine the Great, the serfs would be unlikely to do so. Their lot was arguably even worse than that of black slaves in the South of the United States. It’s something you can’t help thinking about when confronted by the staggering wealth on display in the palaces of the aristocracy. 

JFB

Throne room in the summer palace
Stairwell in the Summer Palace
Peterhof, Russia — July 21, 2019. Wide angle photo of the Summer Palace in Peterhof and a fountain, the gardens and tourists behind it.
Peterhof, Russia — July 21, 2019. A photo of gold domed living quarters adjacent to the Summer Palace in Peterhof.
Peterhof, Russia — July 21, 2019. Wide angle photo of tourists and the fountains in the garden behind the Summer Palace in Peterhof.

Helsinki, Finland

Posted by Joe Benning

Helsinki, with the highest urban standard of living in the world, is, not surprisingly, one of the most livable cities in the world. It is refreshingly clean; the architecture is magnificent; the city is very walkable and friendly to tourists. With its metropolitan area population of 1.25 million people it is the third largest municipality of the nordic countries after Stockholm and Oslo.  

The city was the site of the negotiations that led to the signing of the Helsinki Accords by then President Jerry Ford. Initially thought to be a sop given to the Soviet bloc, the Helsinki Accords, with their emphasis on human rights, turned out to be a powerful weapon in the hands of Soviet reformers and dissidents. 

Finland became a member of the European Union in 1995, and it is flirting with the idea of joining NATO in 2025. 

Anyway, we went on a walking tour of the city, during which we wound up at the Rock Church, so called because it was built into solid rock by Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen—brothers and architects. By denomination it is a Lutheran Church in the Toolo neighborhood of Helsinki. It opened in 1969. 

Below here are some photos from our walk around, including photos of the Rock Church.  
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Helsinki, Finland — July 19, 2019. Photo of the Finnish National Theatre in Helsinki on a summer morning.
Helsinki, Finland — July 19, 2019. Photo of an outdoor cafe and coffee shop on a busy street in Helsinki, Finland.
Helsinki, Finland — July 19, 2019. Photo taken inside Rock Church in Helsinki, Finland, so called because the church is carved into a rock formation.
Helsinki, Finland — July 19, 2019. Photo of cyclists stopping for a rest outside the Rock Church in Helsinki, Finland.

Touring Banff: Walking on Glaciers and Sailing on Turquoise Lakes

Posted by Joe Benning

Banff deserves a priority listing on any to do list. The place is a natural wonderland, with spectacular mountains, valleys and lakes. It is full of good restaurants; it has wonderful hotels, the service is first rate and there are numerous tours lasting from a couple of hours riding a tour boat on a lake to weeks long camping trips. Among other things, we booked a tour that allowed us to walk on a glacier. 

We also booked an all-day tour with a guide named Sam who took us all around Banff, Lake Moraine and Johnston Canyon, where we did a considerable amount of hiking around. One place was more spectacular than the next. (Thanks Sam!)

Now we are back in the airport in Calgary waiting to fly back to DC. It was a great trip and belongs on everyone’s to do list. Here below are a few shots from the tours.

JFB

Our Hotel in Banff

Tourists take a walk on the Athabasca Glacier in Banff.

Alpine Glow in the Canadian Rockies

Photo looking over Lake Minnewanka from a boat with a colorful sky and the Canadian Rockies in the background.

Sam, Mary Anne and Joe at Lake Morraine

Banff, Canada

Posted by Joe Benning

Banff is nestled in the Canadian Rockies in Alberta, Canada. It is a place of spectacular beauty, which may explain the proliferation of one of the banes of modern life. I refer to that most horrid of devices: The Selfie Stick. It seems like everyone in Banff has at least one, ever ready to snap a photo of the owner with a mountain or lake in the background. Which is not to short change go-pros; they are everywhere as well, if only slightly less obnoxious. 

But even the ever present selfie stick fades into insignificance in the midst of the breath taking beauty of Banff. The Canadian Rockies are ever present; the lakes and rivers are a clear gorgeous turquoise, and there are massive glaciers all over the place. Our initial outing included a trip to Lake Louise, Peyto Lake, and the Athabasca Glacier, which we got on chance to walk on. It doesn’t get much better than that. 

Here are some photos below. More will be posted in the coming days.

JFB

Athabasca Glacier, Banff

Wide angle shot overlooking Peyto Lake in Banff Canada. Note the selfie stick photographer in the lower right corner.

Wide Angle shot of Lake Louise

Bow River, Banff Canada

Main street in Banff with mountain rising in the background