1. A Capitol Fourth, The Mall, Washington D.C.

What’s Special? You’re kidding, right? It is THE place to be–the seat of government, with an all-American entertainment program featuring John Philip Sousa marches and thousands of red, white and blue clad celebrants gathered on the grassy lawn in the middle of all those imposing marble buildings. Right there where the laws are made and administered and judged. And watching fireworks arc over the Washington Monument would give any patriot a thrill.

Although I’ve never been in Washington in person for July 4th, we never miss watching this celebration on PBS. The people in the audience can be as much fun as the show on stage. Jimmy Smits and Steve Martin headline this year.

2. Charles River,  Boston

Boston Fireworks on the Charles River

What’s Special? Mostly the magnificent Boston Pops Orchestra, but also the serene setting by the historic Charles River. The music is a tad classier, and so is the crowd, compared to Washington D.C., but it is still a heck of a show.

Now in its 38th year, Boston presents the famous Boston Pops orchestra on July 3 and July 4 and fireworks over the Charles River on the Fourth. For a real thrill, see the Boston July 4th show from the Charles River. I’ll be stopping over in Boston briefly in August, and loved our visit there a couple of years ago.

3. Macy’s Fireworks Celebration, Hudson River, New York City

New York City Fireworks on the Hudson River

Setting off fireworks from barges on the Hudson River is a long time tradition in New York City, perhaps remembering the fireworks of revolutionary battles with the British fought in this area. Back then New York City was a rural village with cobblestone streets, and you can still see the cobblestones on the very southern tip of Manhattan in front of the Fraunces  Tavern where George Washington gave his farewell address to the troops.  In 1976, the bi-centennial of the Declaration of Independence, one of the grandest celebrations in the land took place here, and the tradition continues.

Fireworks have been cut from a lot of city budgets, but Macy’s, who in the past have been firmly associated with Thanksgiving, because of the Thanksgiving parade, now own July 4th in NYC as well. Thank you Macy’s for one of the best events in New York, a city I love to visit.

4. Navy Pier, Chicago

What’s Special: Well, to tell the truth, I love Chicago, but the city is not funding any big fireworks shows this summer. Instead, people can trot on out to Navy Pier and see there usual 15 minute show. When I say usual–they do this fireworks display every night during the summer. It is a crowd pleaser, there will be live music, and the Pier’s  a cool place to be on a hot summer night, but it doesn’t hold a Roman candle to the extravaganzas in the other cities.

5. Big Bay
Big Bay Boom, San Diego

San Diego Fireworks on the Bay

What’s Special?San Diego has a gorgeous bay and the night views looking back toward the city or out across the lighted Coronado Bridge always take my breath away. Now add tons of exploding color being fired off from barges circling the bay–sounds incredible. View them from outdoors at Shelter Island or Seaport Village or grab a 9:00 p.m. reservation window seat at one of the hundreds of restaurants with views on the bay. Yum!

(If budgetary woes weren’t enough to slow down the fireworks shows, in California a judge questioned whether San Diego’s fireworks are environmentally safe. Only in California!The  latest ruling allows the big show to go forward in San Diego, so you can safely book your trip.)

Can you afford to get out of town for the long weekend?

Air fare just keeps going up-up-up and away as gas prices stay stratospheric, but CheapO Air lists special deals to four of these five cities. As you do your trip planning, check out the CheapOAir July 4th  flight/hotel combos for New York, San Diego, Boston and Chicago.

Finally, my favorite provider of travel bargains, Travel Zoo, sends a weekly newsletter with their bargains and on June 17 they listed a BUNCH of July 4th bargains.  If you don’t subscribe to Travel Zoo, do.

Don’t dispair if you can’t get out of town, the D.C. Capitol Fourth will be covered on Public Television, and you can curl up with one of the books we have recommended in the past.

True to their name, CheapOAir did NOT pay me to include this generous mention of them in this post. However, I will give them credit. Those are their fireworks photos above. The video comes from the folks at the Capitol Fourth, though. Travel Zoo and Peter Greenberg were mentioned without incentive, too. I just happen to like them.

Where will you be on July 4th? Do you have any special family traditions?

Print PDF

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Last year I talked about my favorite romantic city, romantic book and poetry, hotel, restaurant, etc. in this post. Please take a look because I have not changed my mind. And read on for two East Coast suggestions for this Valentine’s Day (if you can get there through the snow).

Happy Valentine’s Day

Unfairly, last year, I told you about a hotel experience that you cannot have because it does not exist any more.  But you CAN go to the Kimpton Hotel in Boston, Nine Zero.

A toast

Are you ready for this? The package is called “Rub the One You’re With.” It includes a one-night stay, a massage lesson for the two of you by a masseuse, champagne, take-home package of lavender and lemon oils, salts and candles, and for the practical in you–free overnight parking. $414 for a View Room in Boston on the night I checked, but the rates vary by date and city. (If the web site does not show availability when you want to go, call the 800 number.)

Since I stayed at the Nine Zero, I can tell you that if you are not satisfied with the contents of your overnight bag–or you just decide to go on the spur of the moment sans luggage, there are hangers in the closet with sexy little nothings, and lovely robes and slippers–all available for you to buy.

Actually most Kimpton hotels offer these packages, but I have stayed at the Nine Zero and can vouch for the fact it is special. Please check the Kimpton site to see where all the hotels are located and for all the fine print that accompanies the offer.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Like most writers, my mail box gets clogged with promotional pieces around holidays.  Here’s a P.R. release that caught my eye, and I just wish I were going to be in New York City on Valentine’s weekend, to take advantage of this good deal. (Are you reading this, Ken?) I’m presenting the press release, pretty much the way it came to me.

Take a Trip on the Love Bus: Gray Line New York’s Valentine’s Day Deal

New York Greyhound Bus Tour

Tired of the same old teddy bears and chocolates as gifts on Valentine’s Day?  Treat your special someone to one of the most stunning and romantic treasures you might have overlooked: a star-filled, skyline-topped late night ride throughout New York City – a quintessential New York City moment on a double decker bus.

Gray Line New York is offering a special Valentine’s Day bus tour where customers will receive a $25 Gift Card from Restaurant.com to use at one of NYC’s choice restaurants such as 5 Ninth or Circle Rouge with the purchase of two Gray Line New York’s world famous Night Tours tickets*.

This special Valentine’s Day promotion must be purchased online only.Tickets can be redeemed at the Gray Line Visitors Center located at 777 8^th Avenue (between 47^th & 48^th Streets) prior to the tour.

Night Tour tickets cost $39 per adult; departure times and locations of tours are as follows: 6:00 pm, 6:30 pm and 7:00 pm from 777 8th Avenue and 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm from Times Square.

*Tours are valid for travel only on Friday, 2/12, Saturday, 2/13 and Sunday, 2/14. The Gift Card has no cash value, and may not be substituted for another item or tour.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

What are you hoping for on Valentine’s Day? Or do you wish it would just go away? Where would you like to go? What would you like to read?

Print PDF

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Destination: Boston

Book: Walking Boston by Robert Todd Felton

A GUEST POST BY Robert Todd Felton

Bivalve Molluscs, French Royalty, and the Streets of Boston

One of the best parts of walking around Boston is that you are always bumping up against some surprising scrap of American history.  Around one corner is the house where Paul Revere lived, or Ralph Waldo Emerson grazed cattle,…or the King of France taught French.

One of my favorite discoveries while writing the travel book Walking Boston was that the man who would become the last King of France in 1830, lived above a dry goods store near the waterfront and taught French to the young women of Boston.

Oyster House, Boston

At 41 Union Street, mere steps away from Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market with their New England bustle, is a somewhat innocuous, brown, two-story building.  Inside is the Union Oyster House, one of Boston’s landmark restaurants and the oldest restaurant in continuous use in the United States.

It boasts the requisite long history and famous anecdotes of Boston’s trademark establishments (the statesman and politician Daniel Webster used to down six plates of oysters accompanied by six whiskeys here).  However, long before it became a restaurant, it was Capen’s Silk and Dry Goods Store and the room on the second floor was rented to an itinerant French tutor named Louis-Phillippe.

Louis-Phillippe had fled France in 1793 when he was forced into exile by political changes brought about by The French Reign of Terror.  For years, he roamed around Europe avoiding French political entanglements but apparently not romantic ones.  According to some sources, he left one illegitimate son in Milan and one in Finland.  After living in Philadelphia and traveling throughout the eastern United States, Louis-Phillippe settled in Boston in 1796.

The King Instructs Young Ladies In French

According to Union Oyster House co-owner Mary Ann Milano-Picardi (better known as “Ma”), Louis-Phillippe lived on the second floor of the building and made his living by tutoring the young ladies of Boston in French for about a year before moving on again.  Louis-Phillippe finally ascended the throne as the King of the French in 1830 and ruled until 1848. Although he was the last “King” to rule France, Napoleon III called himself an “emperor” and was therefore the last monarch.

To find Louis-Phillippe’s room inside the Union Oyster House, go through the front door and head upstairs to the “The Louis-Phillippe Room.” According to “Ma,” it used to be known as the Pine Room, but so many people came in asking where Louis-Phillippe lived that they finally had to change the name.  While you are up there, take a look for booth 18.  President John F. Kennedy used to hide up there and eat in relative privacy.  If all the tables are taken, sneak back downstairs to belly up to one of the best places in Boston to get fresh oysters.  The huge wooden semicircular oyster bar serves a focal point for the room, and allows the shuckers to trade banter and quips with each other and the customers.

Interior, Oyster House, Boston

Mary Ann and her brother Joe are only the third owners of the restaurant and are dedicated to keeping its history alive.  For example, Ma gathered all the historical information to have the building granted National Historic Landmark status in 2003 and provided the images for this article.
In fact, when I asked her if there was anything new about the Union Oyster House to highlight in the article, she replied, “oh no, we keep things pretty much the same.”  In fact, Louis-Phillippe himself might just recognize his old digs.

Robert Todd Felton

You can find these stories and more in Robert Todd Felton’s Walking Boston.  His newest secret traveling tip is a little-known website called Academic Ambassadors , where academics and non-profit professionals can find great deals at wonderful hotels. Shhhh, don’t tell anyone.

My heartfelt thanks to Todd Felton for sharing with us this little-known story from his research for Walking Boston. The news that a French King not only lived in Boston, but supported himself by teaching French, made me utter Sacre Bleu! Now I simply MUST get back to Boston to try out the Oyster Bar and “visit” the King. Did YOU know??? What other secrets have you discovered in your travels? Do share!!

Print PDF

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

John Adams outside Quincy City Hall

We visited Quincy Massachusetts, and looked for clues to the lives of the family of John Adams. Any reader should travel there and see the John Quincy Adams library! But I wrote about John Adams’ biography, a kind of time-travel book, back in July. In the city of Boston, we booked rooms at the amazing Nine Zero hotel. Kimpton Hotels, the group that owns Nine Zero, likes to say the hotel is located across from the Boston Commons. I don’t suppose it is good P. R. to say you are across from a graveyard. Directly across the street, you can visit the 2nd oldest cemetery in Boston, the Granary, which holds the graves of Samuel Adams and Paul Revere and the unfortunates who were shot by the British soldiers in what the American Revolutionary’s P.R. agents called the “Boston Massacre.”

Tombstone of the vicitims of the Boston Massacre

I was beginning to suspect that nothing is quite as it seems in Boston, which makes for good stories. People still leave coins and stones on the  gravestone of Crispus Attucks and the others, although the stones may have moved far from the original burial location. Turns out, I could have been looking down from my hotel room on the home of a fictional character who makes a living doubting what he is told. Spenser, P.I. Robert B. Parker wrote the Spenser mystery series.  And mystery books, as my regular reader know, make the best books for travelers.  Spenser lives just two blocks from the Boston Commons. When I read several Spenser novels, and watched the old Spenser for Hire shows on T.V., I was not studying what they had to say about Boston, so I quickly grabbed an old Spenser that I had not read yet, The Godwulf Manuscript (1973). That mystery novel, or any other of the 37 Spenser novels, could have provided a tour book for Boston.  Had I thought to look at Robert Parker’s website, I could have eaten at Spenser’s favorite restaurants*. The hard-boiled detective Spenser distinguishes himself from other shamuses in that he is well-read and does not hesitate to quote literary passages from time to time. He also cooks. No canned hash for him–In Godwulf, after he rescues a damsel in distress, he cooks up a dinner for her of chicken breasts with a cream sauce with sherry and mushrooms over rice, accompanied by a salad with homemade dressing with lime juice, mint, olive oil, honey and wine vinegar.

Rooftops of Boston with Boston Commons. Charles River in background

Parker’s/Spenser’s sense of observation is keen, and you learn every detail of the look, smell and sound of his home town.  When Spenser drives to check a clue, you get a tour as good as a travel guidebook.  Here’s an example: We went down along the Charles on Memorial Drive and across the Mass Ave bridge.  Boston always looks great form there.  Especially at night, with the lights and the skyline against the starry sky and the sweep of the river in a a graceful curve down toward the harbor. Now if we ignore the murder and mayhem that precede and follow this excerpt, doesn’t that make you want to go to Boston? If you want more touring details, look for an out- of- print copy of Robert B. Parker’s coffee table book,  Spenser’s Boston (1994).

*Spenser’s Top 5 Restaurants In Boston [Note: These came from his website in 2009. Since Parker passed away in 2011, the website has been changed, and this list has been removed.]

• Agawam Diner — Rowley (Rt. 1 and 133, Rowley MA)
• Grill 23 — Boston (Steak house: 161 Berkley in Back Bay)
• Sorellina — Boston (Modern Italian, Copley Square, Back Bay)
• Excelsior — Boston (currently closed and being revamped re their web site)
• Rialto – Cambridge (Harvard Square in Cambridge)

If you are a Spenser fan, have you ever followed his escapades through Boston?

Print PDF

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

When I think of Boston, I think of 1776, the beginnings of the United States of America, and some amazing leaders. John Adams, my favorite founder, has been the subject of many biographies, but I can’t imagine any  more satisfying than John Adams by David McCullough. A little American history must go on the traveler’s library shelf in preparation for a trip to New England.

As I write, John Adams stares directly at me from the Gilbert Stuart painting reproduced on the book jacket.  He looks stern, intellectual, but also approachable and human. Alternatively, you may get the paperback book which cheats history by using a picture of Paul Giametti, who played John Adams on television.

McCullough portrays every detail of life in John Adam’s New England and Boston and how he hated to go down to Philadelphia for sessions of the Continental Congress. But traveling to Philadelphia, despite danger and outbreaks of disease is only one of the multitude of sacrifices made by the founders as they groped toward a democracy.

McCullough scores again with his book, 1776, a day by day tracing of the events of the beginning of the revolution.  So many things could have gone wrong. Our army was weak, our navy non-existent and our leaders playing the whole thing by ear. Perhaps a quote from John Adams explains the final outcome. “We cannot ensure success, but we can deserve it.”

————–

And here’s an English proverb for you—“A stumble can prevent a fall.”  So have you stumbled your favorite post from the traveler’s library,yet?

Print PDF

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

This book could be yours.

NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS LONG GONE.

Exciting things are happening here at the Traveler’s Library.

1. Robert Todd Felton, author of several excellent books which have been discussed here, will be guest writer at A Traveler’s Library next week.  He will be talking about the importance of literature for the traveler and about his book A Journey to Transcendentalist New England.

2.  Mr. Felton has agreed to offer a copy of his book, Walking Boston as the prize in a contest here at A Traveler’s Library. Somewhere in the fine print explaining this blog, I explain that I will not talk about guidebooks. Usually. I will make an exception for literate guidebooks that are particularly concerned with culture and the arts. Walking Boston, qualifies as a particularly literate and fulfilling guidebook.

3.  You have a chance to win any time between now and March 2.  Just post a question in the comment section of this post, or in the comment section of one of Mr. Felton’s two posts next week.

What would you like to know about New England? Do you have other questions for the author? The winner will be selected by a random drawing of comments posted between February 17 and March 2.

THE PRIZE: “Walking Boston”, by Robert Tod Felton

TO ENTER: Leave a comment on this post or one of Mr. Felton’s two posts next week.

The DEADLINE: March 2, midnight MST

Don’t be selfish, now. Tell your friends, so they can have a chance, too. Click on one of the buttons below to share.

Print PDF

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

• A Journey into the Transcendentalists’ New England
• A Journey into Ireland’s Literary Revival
• Walking Boston

Oh, sweet dilemma.  Where shall I start?

Okay, I have peeked at the openings. He is an excellent writer.  Have you read his books?

Print PDF

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.