London’s Bevis Marks Synagogue, which marks its 300th anniversary this week, was one of only a few buildings in its east-end neighbourhood to emerge unscathed from the Nazi bombing blitz of World War Two. Twice rattled by IRA bombs intended for nearby targets, the elegant brown-brick building still stands proudly in its tiny protective courtyard.…
Tag: travel
Travel in the post-9/11 era
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In some way, being on a modern jet aircraft is like riding a magic carpet from the Arabian Nights. No matter how often I fly, I always retain a sense of awe and wonder about the essentially miraculous process of jet travel. Have you ever wondered how Leif Erikson, Marco Polo or Christopher Columbus might…
In the Yucatan, Mayan temples and Spanish conquistadors
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“The main thing to remember,” said Pepe, our Mexican guide, “is that the Mayans believed in reincarnation. They believed that unless they fed the sun every morning it would not rise.” High on a promontory overlooking Mexico’s Yucatan coast, Tulum is the only temple the Mayans built by the sea. Considered holy ground, it was…
Merida, a Roman retirement community in Spain
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Merida, a city of 41,000 inhabitants in the Spanish province of Estremadura, boasts the most spectacular Roman ruins in Spain and an outstanding museum in which many impressive ancient treasures are housed. One’s introduction to the National Museum of Roman Art in Merida is the town itself. Merida was founded in 25 BC and named…
Travel: Winter interlude in Montreal
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Snow was gently falling as I boarded the train at Toronto’s Union Station for VIA Rail’s recently-introduced overnight sleeper car service to Montreal. Before long I was sipping a drink and engaged in conversation with a fellow passenger in the glass-roofed dome car. “What is it about Toronto? They’re such amateurs when it comes to…
Inside glimpse of Hassidic Crown Heights
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“One of the reasons we started doing this is because there’s so much misinformation out there about the Hassidic community,” says Rabbi Beryl Epstein, tour guide for a busload of visitors that leaves midtown Manhattan for 770 Eastern Parkway, headquarters of the Lubavitch Hassidic movement in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. During the 45-minute…
Travel: restoring endangered species to desert
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A recently opened camping compound on an Israeli wildlife preserve allows overnight guests to observe coyotes, jackals and other nocturnal animals in action. But you don’t have to sleep over at the Yotvata Hai-Bar Nature Reserve to see these nightly creatures. Daytime visitors may also view a menagerie of rodents, reptiles and arthropods in the…
Travel: Jewish Museum in Eisenstadt, Austria
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Less than an hour’s drive east of Vienna, in the low-lying Austrian province of the Burgenland, are a series of towns of special interest to Jewish travellers. These are the once-famous “Siebengemeinden,” the seven noteworthy Jewish communities of Eisenstadt, Mattersdorf, Deutschkreutz, Lackenbach, Kobersdorf, Frauenkirchen and Kittsee. The largest and most significant is Eisenstadt, the provincial…
Travel: Edison Museum & the sleepy hamlet of Vienna
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Six kilometers above the northeastern shore of Lake Erie, the sleepy hamlet of Vienna, Ont. boasts a strong but little-known connection with the family of Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), the legendary American inventor, who might have been born on Canadian soil but for a quirk of history and fate. Four generations of Edisons lived in…
Travel: London’s Dorchester Hotel is fit for royalty
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Situated a short walk from Buckingham Palace in the posh neighborhood of Mayfair, London’s deluxe Dorchester Hotel has had a long and distinguished association with royalty, British and otherwise. In the summer of 1947, some five years before the British Princess Elizabeth was coronated as Queen, her engagement to Prince Philip was announced at a…
