Travelogue

Publisher’s note: This is the seventh installment of Edmonds resident Nathaniel Brown’s travels to Greece. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here , part 5 here and part 6 here. At the end of my last travelogue, on leaving Crete, I promised to try readers’ patience with one more…

Publisher’s note: This is the sixth installment of Edmonds resident Nathaniel Brown’s travels to Greece. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here and part 5 here. “Here’s a maze trod indeed through forthrights and meanders.  By your patience, I needs must rest me.” — Gonzalo, in The Tempest Crete…

Publisher’s note: This is the fifth installment of Edmonds resident Nathaniel Brown’s travels to Greece. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here and part 4 here. “Acropolis” or “ακρόπολη” (akró + poli) means “high city” in Greek. There is evidence that the Acropolis of Athens — other cities such as Corinth…

Publisher’s note: This is the fourth installment of Edmonds resident Nathaniel Brown’s travels to Greece. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here. I’m sitting down to write the morning after arriving in Heraklion, in Crete. The last few days have been exhausting, if fascinating and enjoyable, but I arrived here…

Publisher’s note: This is the third installment of Edmonds resident Nathaniel Brown’s travels to Greece. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here. It is a little difficult to write about Delphi; one goes there with such expectations, and yet somehow… Avoiding all the guided bus tours to Delphi, I splurged on a…

Publisher’s note: This is the second installment of Edmonds resident Nathaniel Brown’s travels to Greece. You can read part 1 here. Leaving London, aside from a rather early alarm clock, was simple and unfraught: taxi to Paddington (wonderful driver – we had a grand time talking unrepairable automobile engines and decrying modernity), Heathrow Express, Heathrow…

Publisher’s note: This is the first installment of Edmonds resident Nathaniel Brown’s travels to Greece. Three threads are woven into my life — each an enduring source of fascination, delight, joy and ongoing exploration and learning. The first is music. One of my earliest memories is of my brother stretched out on the floor of…

Publisher’s note: This is the sixth and final segment on the train trip adventures of Edmonds resident Nathaniel Brown. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here,  Part 4 here and Part 5 here. After arriving in Chicago from New York, the next day I had a ticket for the Chicago Arts…

Publisher’s note: After a pandemic hiatus, Nathaniel Brown of Edmonds is on another train trip adventure, and will share reports about his travels. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here and Part 4 here. In New York, the Algonquin was kind enough to allow me a late checkout, which made for…

Publisher’s note: After a pandemic hiatus, Nathaniel Brown of Edmonds is on another train trip adventure, and will share reports about his travels. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here and Part 3 here. Following my Oysters Rockefeller meal in New York City, I had 2:15 tickets the next day for the Guggenheim, which allowed…

Publisher’s note: After a pandemic hiatus, Nathaniel Brown of Edmonds is on another train trip adventure, and will share reports about his travels. You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. An old man with long gray whiskers came through the cars selling popcorn, chewing gum and candy. “Hey!” said one of his…

Publisher’s note: After a pandemic hiatus, Nathaniel Brown of Edmonds is on another train trip adventure, and will share reports about his travels. You can read Part 1 here. “RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off. — Ambrose…

Well, the knee ganged up on me. I’m back in London sorting out hotel cancellations, changing  and canceling flights, etc. Robert arranged for me to have a wheelchair in the Newcastle train station. Not totally necessary, but awfully nice, not least as the two helpers (one for the chair, one for the bags, tip refused)…

Part 2 London, after a seemingly endless disembarkation and bus ride to the capitol. Cunard does everything so well, but the trips are always bookended by an impossible website and a disembarkation process that borders on ridiculously inefficient. When the bus group was called to disembark 45 minutes late, with no information about what was…

Part 1 Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime. – Mark Twain. I am sitting in my stateroom on Queen…

Part 2 of 2. Read Part 1 here. Sunday, Jan. 27 Chicago in six hours. We are surrounded with glazed snow, and even the double-glazed windows on the train are letting the cold in. A wonderful night’s sleep, except for half an hour on the roughest tracks I’ve experienced: At one point I almost fell…

Part 1 of 2 Tuesday, Jan. 22 There are four Amtrak routes across the Western United States.  The northern route, with the Empire Builder, crosses to Chicago not far below the Canadian border, and passes through Glacier Park, beginning and ending, if you will, in Seattle, which means it very conveniently passes through Edmonds both…

London, Sunday, Sept 17 Today’s Seattle Times headline reads “UK makes ‘significant’ bomb arrest but attack seems imminent.” “Attack seems possible” is more the mood here: We were in London when the attack occurred, but didn’t learn about it until we read it in the news. And judging by the usual Saturday night crowds, no…

If it comes to Edmonds versus New York – give me Edmonds every time! I’ve been waiting to say that for several days. Actually, I’m in mid-Atlantic, half way to Southampton aboard Queen Mary 2 on a trip that is going to take in London, the Faroe Islands, the Shetlands, Oban and Iona in western…