Why is Lucca so Lucky?

Driving through the imposing medieval walls into the small Tuscan city of Lucca, we asked ourselves three questions:

Why does everyone look so happy?
Why is everyone on a bike?
Where is all the tourist hoopla?

Over the course of our three-day break, we found answers to all our questions.

First, everyone looks happy because they live and work in one of God’s green acres. According to Forbes magazine, Lucca is the second most idyllic place to live in Europe (after Patmos, Greece) and “has all the charm of Tuscany without the crowds … This is a quiet, though classy town, with lawyers and housewives peddling the narrow cobblestone streets past thousand year old churches and made-in-Italy fashion boutiques.” OK, that explains the contentment but …

Why does everone ride a bike? Because the busses don’t fit through the walled entrance and because most of the perfectly preserved historic centre has been pedestrianized. Locals and visitors alike find it more fun and easier to wiz around on bicycles. Bike rentals are everywhere and prices are reasonable (inquire at the tourist office). A highlight for visitors is to cycle the 4 km circuit around the broad, tree-lined ramparts.

But what about the tourist hulabaloo? As Lucca is a classy town and seems to appeal to a more discerning kind of tourist, the “tour bus, fake handbag and warped post card” options you find all over Florence and Pisa are in short supply. We did find lovely and fairly priced Italian linens in a shop called Butterfly on the Piazza S. Frediano and our daughter was able to find beautiful but affordable Italian paper and notebooks at the tobacconist on Via Santa Croce. Cultural offerings including churches, museums and ‘climbable’ bell towers were equally impressive and uncrowded.

Finally, we were delighted with our hotel and the restaurants. Thanks to the suggestion of Italian friends, we stayed at the mid-priced Hotel Ilaria, which was a great recommendation. This hotel benefits from an excellent location, charming staff, and lots of freebies including parking, WiFi, bicycles and drinks and snacks. Our rooms in the annexe, a former 14th century church, were large, nicely appointed and dead quiet. Rates include a generous buffet breakfast.

The best meal we had was at the Buca di Sant Antonio. This romantic restaurant has been a Mecca for the great and the good since 1782. The food and service were excellent. Also good was the Antica Locanda dell’Angelo where we feasted on budget busting truffles. We had a tasty €10-a-head lunch at Ristorante Gli Orti di via Elisa and the Café di Simo, with its belle époque interior, is a great place to see and be seen.

All in all, our three days in Lucca was hard to fault on any count. This town is indeed lucky, and we’ll be back.

Photo from Rex Maximillian's photo stream on Flickr.

Take a Two Minute Trip to the Arctic

Who knew freezing your butt off could be so much fun?

When I heard that National Geographic had opened a store on London’s Regent Street, I thought:

It will be worthy

It will be well done

But exciting retail?

I doubt it.

Well, I was wrong.

Yesterday, on the way to look at kitchen counters at John Lewis (speaking of worthy but boring retail) I stumbled into the Nat Geo emporium and had a blast – literally.

Of all the things to do and see in this huge, glossy, dare I say it, sexy store, it’s hard to beat taking a spin in the testing chamber where you can try out your expedition gear in simulated extreme weather conditions while a thermo camera takes a pictures of your body’s temperatures. Even though I was in street clothes, the friendly member of staff was happy to let me have a go. Oh yes, it was super windy and cold but where else in London can you take a two minute trip to the Arctic?

In addition to the testing chamber, the store is filled with nifty products that would be great to have whether you are venturing down the block or around the globe. I found the shoes, boots, bags and backpacks particularly seductive. As you would expect from Nat Geo, there are inspiring pictures everywhere, a gallery, a space for presentations, a section for children, and a groovy looking café (the only busy place in the store) with world food and music.

It’s hard to imagine that this enormous store filled with relatively esoteric stuff will make lots of money but as an exciting retail destination and as an expression of the brand, it is a runaway success. In the guest book for the store’s current special exhibition on Finland, a young visitor, who obviously had a great time on his visit, put it this way: “I LOVE National Geographic” and that about sums it up.

The National Geographic store can be found at 83 – 87 Regent Street. There is another store in Singapore.

The photo of the testing chamber taken by Philip Meech & Tim Kavanagh is from the store’s website.

Is Your Hand in my Pocket Because You're Glad to See Me

Yesterday, the UN ranked Norway the best place to live based on education, wealth and life expectancy which reminded me that I had an instructive email from Gary languishing in my inbox about the need for travellers on the road to be vigilant with valuables ... even in the best place to live in the world!


Soon after we rendezvoused with our friends on arrival in Oslo, one of them somewhat randomly mentioned multiple signs they had seen mentioning the need to stay vigilant about pickpockets.

Ah well, our friends don’t travel that much, I thought, and haven’t endured multiple “pickpockets are working this area” announcements at innumerable London tube stations. Isn’t that sweet (and maybe a bit naïve) that Marianne is concerned about such things?

The next day we had decided to join the tourist crowds, which we occasionally do, and go to see the astounding sculptures of Gustav Vigeland, Norway’s most well known (and randiest, if you take a moment to study his work) sculptor. Vigeland Park is a huge outdoor museum, and we enjoyed ourselves, despite, or maybe because of the steel grey weather. Recommended, in spite of the crowds.

Heading back to our apartment, we decided to make use of our OsloPass, which afforded us free travel on the entire trolley system, we headed to the station just outside the park gates. I was a tourist among tourists – cargo shorts, backpack, water bottle, camera. Waiting for the trolley, I took this random picture of a couple of people, one of whom (not facing me) would become more important.

The crowd built up, so by the time the train came, there were a couple of dozen of us waiting to get on.As we scrummed to board the train, said guy, newspaper in hand, thoughtfully motioned me and my backpack ahead of him. Interesting I thought, because I had seen him talking earlier to his friend, the guy who was now in front of me. Maybe they’d had enough of each other. No biggie.

Slowly, the guy in front of me stopped, and even backed up a bit, appearing to be waving others in ahead of him. Meanwhile the guy in back kept moving forward, jostling me and poking me with various elbows and knees. Was he just impatient or was that…a hand in my pocket? Suddenly, Marianne’s words came back to me as my mind spun with visions of spending the vacation cancelling credit cards and replacing driving licenses (after all who cares about the cash?)

What I did next came directly from my amygdala – no cerebral cortex involvement, I assure you. I screamed loudly “Hey, give me back my wallet!” and grabbed his newspaper arm (having understood the purpose of the paper now). Tellingly, he did not react at all, which was probably better for both of us, since I was ready for a fight and he was 20 years my junior. Everyone looked at me and waited to see what would happen. By that time I realized that he had not been successful – my wallet was still in my pocket. I know I should have dragged him to the local constabulary, but I was so relieved that I let him go and he melted into the crowd.

SO there is a moral to this story, which by the way, is not about Oslo, since it could happen anywhere. Yes, it’s about being vigilant, but more than that, it is about what a wonderful idea it is to make a scene. Acting like an obnoxious American has its advantages, and it was clearly the right thing to do here. Lorraine tells me that women, especially are taught not to call attention to themselves, even in such circumstances. I can tell you that the vacation would have been a very different one.

The image is from Viegland Park (thanks to http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/) and pickpockets or not - I really want to go there!

Thank You American

I need a flight. That was one of my first thoughts after hearing that my aunt Anne had died. I need to be in North Carolina, not London, so I called American Airlines.

I explained to the woman on the other end of the phone, I don’t remember her name, that there had been a death in the family and I understood most airlines had special “bereavement” fares. It felt disrespectful even to ask. Someone has died, so can I get a cheap ticket please. But the American Airlines representative handled it all beautifully. She explained that the airline understood that there were times when a passenger was not able to book in advance. She checked availability on the next morning's flight, quoted a fare that I would have received had I booked way in advance, reserved a nice aisle seat at the front of the plane, processed my credit card and sent me my e-ticket, all in a matter of minutes.

I’ve said tons of ugly things about airlines in this blog. Still, I thought I’d use this chance to thank American for being so nice about one of the saddest requests I’ve ever had to make.

FYI – American Airlines has a daily non-stop from London Heathrow to Raleigh Durham Airport with a terrific new terminal where I cleared US Customs and Immigration in less than 10 minutes. Right now, I can’t think of a nicer or more efficient place for foreign nationals to enter the United States.

The Café of the Skinny Dipper, or, Bavaria au naturel

Naked bathing in Bavaria with Gary and Lorraine???

Here's a fun story from the dynamic duo about revisiting old haunts - and the things you never forget.

Rottach-Egern, Germany—

Twenty-one years ago, the two of us traveled to Europe for the first time. The occasion for me was a client’s global management team meeting to take place at a small hotel on the Tegernsee, a beautiful alpine lake an hour south of Munich, and the opportunity for Lorraine was a two-for-one business class deal with Sabena – already leading the industry back then by flying empty planes across the Atlantic from Boston, where we were living at the time.

During the days, I worked intensively with the client’s senior team while Lorraine explored this new world, and then shared her discoveries with me over dinner each night. One particular story stuck with me. She had rented a bike at the hotel, rode it around the shoreline of the Tegernsee, and discovered a glorious café along the way, one that served beer, coffee and a few pastries on a lovely deck literally over the water at the end of a deserted dirt road. The setting was incredible, but the memorable event was when the woman sitting at the other end of her long table finished her beer, paid her bill, walked down the steps of the café’s deck, calmly removed every single article of clothing, and dove into the water.

Fast forward 21 years, and another business meeting has brought me back to Munich, this time on Emirates from Dubai, rather than poor Sabena from Boston. Lorraine decides to come along, and we plan a weekend to rediscover the Tegernsee and see what’s changed.

The first disappointment is that the lovely little rustic B&B that we stayed in back then, the Seehotel Ueberfahrt, has obviously been successful—it is now a 5 storey glass and steel monstrosity with five stars and room rates to match. We stayed elsewhere, needless to say.
But the news improves from there. This time my work was finished before the weekend, so we rented bikes together, rode down the shoreline past a few beaches, and voila! There it was. It had also seen its share of success in the last 20 years. The long tables were replaced by classy wooden café sets for seating two- and four-tops, and a high tech retracting roof had been added, with a nod to Bavaria’s sometimes unpredictable weather. The setting was every bit as beautiful – far away from the hotel crowd at the end of a long peninsula, it is truly a discovery, with a breathtaking view that takes in the length of the lake.

The menu had also gotten an upgrade. We were impressed with the range of traditional Bavarian dishes, although on this occasion, we settled for a mid-afternoon nosh of a Côtes du Rhône rosé and a fantastic trio of chocolate mousses accompanied by perfect fruits and berries. Just the thing to give you the energy for the rest of the ride…

Sadly, I can’t really tell you how to get there by car, because it seems to be relatively inaccessible that way. However, riding a bike or walking west along the beach from the Seehotel Ueberfahrt in Rottach-Egern will get you there quite efficiently – there are occasional signs to the “Strandcafe” to give you a clue. By boat, there is of course a dock, just across a small bay from the “Abwinkl” ferry stop. The GPS coordinates are N 47° 41.754’, E 11° 44.292’, so if you paste those into Google Maps or Earth, or your SatNav, you will have a very good idea of your target.

And no, for those of you who are still wondering, that event that made Lorraine realize she was in a different culture altogether twenty years ago was, sadly, not repeated.

Them’s the breaks.

A Room with a View

Last week I went to Paris to try and finish a thesis on how social media networks are influencing activist politics in the Middle East.

I rented a cute little apartment on the 7th floor of a building on rue du Dragon in St Germain des Pres. You can rent it too and the link to the website is here. The apartment has a great view of the Eiffel Tower and is across the street from Cafe Flore, where Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir did a lot of their writing. Yes, the setting was atmospheric and inspiring but I think the neighborhood did more for them than for me. I'm still not done with the thesis.

But I am done with academic purdah and No Crowds radio silence. Enough is enough. Still, I am really proud that the No Crowds concept has survived the last four months thanks to the wonderful contributions of expert travellers and reporters, Gary and Lorraine. In fact, I love the idea that all kinds of people can use this platform to talk about all kinds of travel experiences. Long may it last.

Tomorrow, there's more from Gary and Lorraine, but for now, it's nice to be back.

Navigating Away from the Crowds

Gary, top No Crowds reporter and resident geek enlightens us all on the why and how of using a handheld GPS on our travels.

So, you are a confirmed no-crowdite, unwilling to spend vacations within sight of more than a dozen other members of homo sapiens. When the traffic turns left, you turn right. When others queue at the airport, you take the train, or better yet, a tuk-tuk. When there is a fork in the road, you take it, just as Yogi Berra famously advised. You, my friend, had better own a handheld GPS.

You may already have a GPS (or Satnav, as they call them in the UK) either built in or added on to your car. But chances are it’s big and clunky or even physically built in, and goes catatonic when you take it a few feet away from a paved road. Enter the handheld. About the size of an iPhone, these units are wildly useful for all travelers, although you wouldn’t know that from the marketing literature. Are you going to be hiking? Biking? Driving? Boating? Traveling by train, bus or rickshaw? These babies have capability to support you in all of these modes, and among many other services, they can always answer that most important of all questions:

“Where on earth are we, and how do we find the hotel?”

A selection of things you can do with one of these units:

· Get turn-by-turn highway directions to the destination of your choice, wherever you are in the world (like your car GPS, but with a beep instead of the voice)

· Find gas stations, speed cams, hotels, restaurants and other important things

· When hiking or mountain biking, identify trails in geographic and topographic detail (i.e. how steep they are) and where they lead, as well as keeping a record of where you have been in case you need to retrace your steps.

· Plot boating trips on detailed nautical charts, with complete details about buoys, lighthouses, ports, obstacles and water depths. Boaters will also appreciate anchor drag and shallow water alarms.

· My particular unit even has information like “water temperature” and “depth”, which, although completely undocumented, make me think that it could be used while scuba diving.

· …and, if you are taking pictures, regardless of your means of conveyance, the unit will be able to encode each photo with information about exactly where in the world it was taken.

One example: The Garmin Oregon 300

As a confirmed iPhone lover, I couldn’t imagine using buttons and wheels to navigate around a map, so the Oregon seemed like a good solution, since it is completely touchscreen driven. It set me back about $350 from Amazon in the US, along with another $100 for a detailed road map and high level trail map and marine chart that covered all of Europe, from Poland to Ireland and Finland to Malta (detailed topographical maps are also available, if you’re an avid hiker). I gave this thing an unplanned test on the first day out when I slipped on a hiking trail, and managed to break my fall on a rock outcropping with the Garmin – smashing it on the rock screen side down, with all my weight behind it. End of story, I thought. As you can see, it came away with some impressive scratches (as did I), but nothing else, and continues to work perfectly. I think of the scratches as proof that I really used the thing, and wear them proudly. Try that move with an iPhone and see what happens…

It’s all about the maps

Once you choose the right GPS (or even before you choose it), make sure you can get the right digital maps, either on CD, a chip that goes in the unit, or downloaded from the maker’s website. Frankly, the unit is completely useless without them. Garmin, for example, has a dizzying array, but they let you view each map online to see whether it has the information you will need. The maps also need to be compatible with the actual unit, and that’s not always easy to figure out. But in the US and the UK especially, the available maps go to and beyond the detail of the old USGS topo maps we used back in the day when we were hiking the Appalachian Trail. The map specification is open, so for example, the Norwegian Trekking Association sells its own Garmin-compatible detailed trail and topographical maps on chips that can be loaded into your unit. And of course, there are a wide range of detailed nautical charts from around the world to make any weekend sailor happy.

There is also no end of things you can do, post holiday, with all of your GPS memories. EveryTrail (http://www.everytrail.com/) allows you to upload your trip information and photos to create a photoessay and map of your travels, and you can even let others “fly” your route in Google Earth and have your photos pop up like road signs, showing the sights along the way…
A century ago, John Masefield, the English poet laureate, just needed “a tall ship and a star to steer her by”. It may be a lot less poetic to be able to have that star in your pocket today, but hey – if it helps us each find our version of the “lonely sea and the sky”, who can blame us?