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On our first trip to Oregon’s Willamette Valley wine country some years ago we floated in a balloon high above the vineyards early on a sunny summer morning. This time around we were greeted by a watery winter sun when we arrived in Newberg for wine tasting with friends. In the morning we drove through the peaceful countryside with its rolling hills covered with sleeping vines and filbert orchards where each tree was hung with hundreds of chartreuse colored catkins, presaging spring. In
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Margo and Briana from The Travel Belles have asked how their readers pick a hotel. The question is for this week’s edition of Across the Cafe Table. My answer required some thought when I realize that I have stayed in about every type of hotel found in a zillion sorts of ways. A few highlights and lowlights come rapidly to mind:
The “B&B” in Bodrum reserved for us by a “friend.” Slavering Doberman tied up by the door and toilet in the yard.… Read more
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The first section, Mutiny on the Bounty, is the story of the ship’s voyage from the West Indies to Tahiti to collect breadfruit seedlings to be planted for slave food and the infamous mutiny led by Fletcher Christian who didn’t want to leave the sybaritic island.
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Suriname was the next stop. The contrast between dismal and pewter-colored Georgetown and bright Paramaribo was surprising. (Maybe it was the sunnier weather.) The city hosts many houses of worship reflecting the varied persuasions of its inhabitants, Amerindians, Indian Indians, Javanese, Africans and Europeans. Mosques, a synagogue, Hindu temples, an enormous Gothic style wooden Catholic church and smaller evangelical churches were scattered about the city center. The synagogue with pillars needing paint and sand on the floor to prevent arson was sad – the congregation dwindling and the gravestones in the yard cracked.… Read more