Inside a large public room at Sotheby’s, the famous auction house on New Bond Street in Central London, workers are painstakingly reconstructing another room: an Islamic-style chamber that has been disassembled and shipped here from an Arabian palace. Having once graced the ancestral home of an anonymous sheik, the wood-carved ceiling, walls and floor of…
Tag: travel
In the footsteps of Shakespeare of London
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The play is again the thing in the Southwark district of London as a newly-built replica of the Globe Theatre, where some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays debuted almost 400 years ago, is set to open in late August (1997) for a three-week dramatic season. Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear,…
Seeking new prospekts in St. Petersburg
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Our first day in St. Petersburg, Russia, we took a tour that showed off the magnificence of this city of exquisite palaces, cathedrals, prospekts and Venetian-style canals. We saw the Peter and Paul Fortress, St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Admiralty, the Church of the Resurrection, Nevsky Prospekt, Smolny Cathedral, miscellaneous grand palaces, Palace Square and the…
Sigmund Freud House and other Viennese Jewish landmarks
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The November 29 (1993) issue of Time Magazine featured a likeness of the founder of psychoanalysis on its cover with the caption, “Is Freud dead?” in conscious parody of the magazine’s well-remembered “Is God Dead?” cover of April 1966. Inside, several articles asserted that recent chemical discoveries and psychoanalytic treatment modalities of dubious value have…
Vered Hagalil, popular ranch north of the Sea of Galilee
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Yehudi Avni has a dream — to mount one of the 20 horses at Vered Hagalil, his horse ranch and guest farm north of the Sea of Galilee, and ride around the lake and through the valley to Amman, the capital of Jordan. “When peace will come, and if it will be a real peace,…
Tale of Two Cities: kosher eats in London and Paris
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Goldenberg’s, one of the leading kosher restaurants in Paris, serves Russian, Yiddish, Turkish, Romanian and Bulgarian delicacies in an informal haimishe atmosphere at 69, avenue de Wagram, about 20 minutes by foot from the Arc de Triomphe. The restaurant is one of a chain whose other outlets are in Sofia, Bucharest, Constantinople and Odessa, where…
Birdwatchers flock to Presqu’ile Provincial Park
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An unusual and even comical species of animal called Hominus Ornithologicus gathers each spring and fall in Ontario’s Presqu’ile Provincial Park, situated on the eastern part of Lake Ontario about 155 km east of Toronto. Specimens of this breed are easily distinguished by their binoculars, sketchbooks, cameras with telescopic lenses, and well-thumbed editions of Peterson’s…
Touring Israel’s Upper Galilee
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Israel’s Upper Galilee is famed for many things, including natural beauty, archaeological ruins, and being the source of the Jordan River. Visitors could easily spend much time in this region, touring parks, ancient sites, museums and towns like Kiryat Shmona and the fascinating mystical jewel known as Safed. The towering forests and rippling waterways of…
Exploring beautiful Cape Breton
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One hour’s flight north of Halifax, at the edge of the Atlantic, durable mountains meet the sea on beautiful Cape Breton, with some of the most spectacular scenery in eastern North America. Physically reminiscent of the Scottish highlands, the island boasts villages like Iona where Gaelic is still spoken and Acadian communities like Cheticamp where…
Bicycling in Austria’s Burgenland
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If you enjoy bicycling over relatively flat pastoral terrain, featuring vineyards and marshes inhabited by cranes and other rare birds, consider taking a bicycle tour of Austria’s easternmost Austrian province, the Burgenland. It is here that the European Alps surrender to the vast Eurasian plain. The Burgenland flatly contradicts our image of Austria as a…
