Category Archives: Travel

September, 2021, from Liz Hottel Barrett:

Bryan and I visited New England in August to attend Judy Kennedy’s New Hampshire mini-reunion.  (See Mini-Reunions.)  Lucky us, we got to stay with Bobbi Childs Sampson and her husband Chris Hamilton in their beautiful summer house in Bridgton,  Maine.  They are on Moose Pond, a huge and spectacular lake that is ten miles long.  At our 60th Reunion, many of you saw videos of Bobbi waterskiing on that beautiful lake.  It is truly awesome, and Bryan and I had a fabulous day of kayaking.  Bobbi and Chris led in a canoe.  Glorious!

Hello all. There’s a Swedish saying, travel is good but home is best,
and returning from Europe to our Maine house and garden bears that out.
We’re harvesting squash, potatoes, chard, leeks, tomatoes and more,
madly cooking and freezing much of it, the perennials are still doing
their thing, and in this my favorite month there are sweet transitions
and start ups of classes, meetings, Richard’s rehearsals–and today
enjoying “Six,” a raucous all female pop musical based on Henry VIII’s
wives. American Rep in Cambridge each year offers a preview of a play
that is to go to Broadway (this one in February) and such consistently
win Tonys. And before going to the Loeb Theatre, lunch and catch-up with
Libby Callard Olson, in Nahant each summer and otherwise traveling
widely from Baltimore to visit family. She shared the experience of son
Peter and his family living on mainland China, where they get no news!

So, it’s all good here. But the thing is, our travel took us to a home
anyway, back to our spiritual home, Stockholm, and it was, as always,
deeply satisfying. Surely many of you have the experience of returning
to a place where you have lived or often visit: no longer you have the
need to be tourist or seek out the touted restaurants, instead the
luxury of savoring great meals in neighborhood pubs, alive with the
chatter of happy Swedes, or discovering a small unusual museum tucked
away somewhere, or the serendipity of happening to pass by a magnificent
church where a noontime organ concert is just starting…Of course no
place is perfect and during our stay, there were two daylight fatal
shootings of women in southern Malmo and north of Stockholm, both drug
gang-related and sadly connected with the large influx of migrants
welcomed into the country.

Hope none of you were really affected by Dorian; here it was incredibly
calm though conditions on our Goochs Beach attracted a huge number of
surfers this morning.

Enjoy each day, Elsa Anderson van Bergen, 9/7/19

and from Dottie, 9/8/19:

Thank you so much for a beautiful reading experience, Elsa!   My travels echo yours. Returning to Rockport MA is like settling into a familiar chair.  The difference is, unlike my life here in Tampa, Rockport is not rich with people and activities that enliven my days.  So after I have walked the familiar streets, breathed the salty air, glutted myself on lobster rolls and scallops I am ready to come home.

Right now, though, Dorian has made the weather truly unwelcoming. Although we avoided hurricane winds and flooding, it sucked extremely hot and humid air into our part of Florida. No rain and temperatures in the 90s for another week or so. Of course I will take this version of Dorian rather than what others have faced. I am so, so sad that our nation is not offering the help we could easily give while our president sniggles and snaggles over a weather report.

Love to all,  Dottie Smith Mann

from Judy Kennedy, October 1, 2018:  

…I also wanted to mention that Dan and I just spent a super fun week in Quebec City and the Charlevoix (the area just beyond Quebec City on the northside of the St Lawrence river that includes part of the Saquenay River fjord which is a sight to behold).   Trees were in full color, food scrumptious, and my French bad but passable thanks to freshman year at MHC.  The giant cruiseliner, Disney Magic, was tied up at the dock in QC to be replaced two days later by the Queen Mary 2 which is even bigger — both as well as others come often since both the St Lawrence and the Saquenay rivers are deep and wide and magnificent.  We also checked to see if the Louise Penny walking  tour of Quebe City was still available (based on the places in her book, BURY YOUR DEAD) and it is — on Wed and Sat at 1:30 pm — but neither time meshed with our plans so we didn’t do it this trip.  We could have arranged for a private tour with the regular Louise Penny tour guide but that was expensive and probably not as much fun as walking through the city with a bunch of LP fans, so we decided to save it for another trip.  Since it’s only 4 hours away from home and a wonderful world-class city, we like to go up every 4-5 years but this was our first time in the gorgeous farmlands and mountains of the  Charlevoix region, so there is still much for us to see there.  We’re already talking about “next time.”

Liz Hottel Barrett:  We had a beautiful time in Greece and London this September.  Here’s a photo of the beautiful Armourer’s Guild where we had a most gorgeous lunch in celebration of the 60th anniversary of Bryan’s time at the Royal Naval College.  It is stunning and was a complete surprise to us. 

There seems to be an interest in our email chat group about Road Scholar trips made by classmates. If you have taken a trip, please consider dropping me a line about it — and please include your date of travel (if you can remember).   I think I’ll just update  here as people add comments:

July 17, 2018:  I am a big Road Scholar fan.  We also did Iceland this spring (Jennifer, did you have Erikur? ) .  We’ve done over 20 and never had a bad experience. Barbara Freeman Douglass

July 3, 2018:  I have just taken my fifth Road Scholar trip after Paul’s death. Alaska. Norwegian fjords by ship. Canadian Rockies Mountaineer.New England cookies and Iceland. I second the remarks about Spain. Jennifer B-C Seaver

July 3, 2018:  Dan and I are just back from three wonderful weeks in Spain — our first trip there and we absolutely loved it.  Went with Road Scholar for the first ten days and spent half the time in Barcelona and the other half in Madrid — then hopped on the high speed train and spent another week or so in Cordoba and Seville.   Settling in at first with Road Scholar and their many expert guides to art, architecture and everything else made for a very rich cultural experience.  They really know how to do this, and give you plenty of free time on your own so you don’t feel herded about.  In a nutshell, Barcelona like New York is “hep” and spirted and very artsey with Gaudi and Picasso, Madrid has to be the most majestic place I’ve ever been bar none and I just loved its architecture and vast museum riches, and Seville reminded me of Boston, i.e. laid back, somewhat sultry and sexy (think flamenco in every bar, horses & carriages on every corner, and more outdoor cafes than one could possibly count where you can while away the day and night drinking cervaza and watching the world go by), all filled with your people exploring and debating the world.

To the email chat group, from Judy Marshall Kennedy, April 18, 2018:

Just back from an awesome five day trip to Washington DC, the highlight of which was a long, leisurely dinner with Liz (Hottel) and Bryan Barrett outdoors at Floriana’s Italian restaurant just off Dupont Circle!  Such a good time with those two that Dan and I were prompted to have dinner the next night at a British pub called Elephant & Castle so we could raise a pint to honor Bryan’s heritage and good taste in women (uncommon of course) and restaurants.

Also saw our fill of fabulous museums and learned that my usual two hour tolerance threshhold for most could be stretched remarkably (despite bad feet, as all of you know from previous emails on this subject) when they were as interesting as these, i.e. Air/Space, Holocaust, African-American.  Five hours for us in one per day on average — we just couldn’t tear ourselves away.  A concert and dinner at the Kennedy Center, a tour and show (The Wiz) at Ford’s Theatre, and unfortunately late day too quick visits to The Spy and the American Indian museums, as well as a viewing of the Cherry Blossoms rounded out the trip and left us satiated and very, very happy.

Thank you all for your suggestions and help which as you can see we followed;  our Chat group is remarkable for its support and reach,

Judy K 

PS   A tip in case any of you are planning a trip to Washington or know someone who is.  The most popular museums, in particular the African-American which is spectacular and rightly very popular, have mandatory “timed entry” and are pretty much sold out each day becaue of their advance sale programs.  BUT, it turns out that active military personnel, veterans and their dependents, policemen and firefighters and EMTs, and maybe a few others can just walk in at any time at no charge.  Once we found this out (fortunately, on almost our first day there), we sailed right in ahead of the crowds.  Talk about a benefit!