One if by land, two if by sea……QUACK QUACK!

Last weekend my family and I took the Boston Duck tour. The DUKW (Duck) is a vintage World War II amphibious truck.

The Duck Tour is a 80 to 90 minute tour of historic Boston. The first hours or so is a narrated tour showing you all of the important spots in this seaport town. The tour includes sightings of the Bunker hill monument, U.S.S Constitution and Quincy Market. This has turned out to be the best way to get an over view of the things to see and do in Boston. When you board your DUKW (ok I have to spell it correctly) your conDUCKtor begins an entertaining description of the history of Boston form the earliest settlement to the Big-Dig of today. A unique part of the tour is after you finish all of the history you drive right into the Charles River. The DUKW switches to boat mode and you get a unique view of parts of Boston like MIT and the Esplanade where the Boston Pops performs on the Forth of July.

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 17% [?]

When I was in Istanbul recently I stayed in two different hotels. The first one was a European style business hotel near Taksim. The second one was a small hotel, Hotel Historia, just behind the Sultanahmet mosque (the blue mosque). The first hotel was wonderful but was probably about twice the price of the second hotel. Neither of the hotels is what Americans would expect from a typical hotel room. A typical American style hotel has two double beds or a king size bed. A typical small European hotel might fit a double bed but there would not be any floor space. More likely you will find smaller twin beds. The rooms are smaller. I noticed with the Hotel Historica that the reviews for the hotel ran from people who loved it to people who hated it. Some of the people who hated it were Americans who I think arrived with the wrong expectations.

So what should you expect? These boutique hotels can be a wonderful experience. The hotel Historica was inexpensive. It had an elevator, but you will not always find this in these older hotels which is one of the reasons I like to pack light. The hotel was clean and the people were wonderful. It had high speed internet although not good coverage from my particular hotel room. No problem, it had a nice comfortable lobby which looked more like a living room. As I sat checking my email someone brought over a glass of hot tea. The breakfast was included and was beautiful as well as tasty. The hotel was 2-3 blocks from one of the main sites in the city. Someone did not like this place? I don’t get it.

Popularity: 24% [?]

I was wondering recently what was my favorite beach in the entire world. I thought about the pink beaches of Bermuda, black sand beaches in Hawaii, beaches covered with agates in Oregon, sailing off of Long Beach in southern California, etc. This was going to be hard to choose.

I finally decided that my favorite beach is a place called “The Baths” in Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands. The Baths is a beautiful cove leading to turquoise waters dotted with sail boats. Lying on the beach or swiming or snorkeling in the water is a slice of paradise.

But half the fun of The Baths is getting there. Around the beach it looks like a giant was playing with marbes. There are boulders dropped everywhere and the path to the beach is an adventure. You walk, crouch, wade and climb through half submerged caves made by these boulders to get to the beach. Kids of all ages will love it.

My family and I visited the Baths on an excursion to Virgin Gorda from the Windjammer barefoot cruise that I talked about on an earlier episode of the podcast.

Popularity: 25% [?]