Category: Travels for Fun
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THEY’RE TAKING ME TO MARRAKECH
I spent much of my youth hearing Graham Nash singing about the Marrakech Express. It was a big hit in the early 1970s and always on the radio. I often visualized about that train with ‘ducks and pigs and chickens’ and ‘charming cobras in the square’. Marrakesh seemed like some exotic, far off land in a distant place I would never visit. But finally now I have. And I discovered Graham Nash was spot on. Marrakech is full of sights and aromas and flavours and experiences. And thanks in no small…
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MORE CAMERAS THAN TULIPS
It’s tulip time and the bulbs are blooming in full force in Holland Zuid. So Padma and I set out to cure our spring fever and travelled to the land of tulips over the weekend. Our destination was Keukenhof Garden, a 32-hectare garden dedicated to all bulby things growing in spring. We first drove around on arrival and walked amongst the farmers’ fields and found we arrived at a perfect transition time – the early blooming daffodils and hyacinths were still in full bloom and shared the colourful landscape with the…
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BACHARACH
Every night before retiring, I see a book sitting next to my bed. A book I use frequently to dream about my next adventure: the Lonely Planet Guide to Germany. The cover shows a little village with a dominant church on a river. After some map gazing I discovered the cover pic was taken just an hour or so south of us on the Rhine. The sun made a rare appearance this weekend and despite the frosty conditions, Padma and I drove to Bacharach to check it out. It was too…
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ZEELAND
There are more bicycles than people in the Netherlands so we decided to do as the Dutch do and jump on some bikes during our stay in the Zeeland province in southwestern Netherlands. Xander, Joseph, Padma and I hired some bikes and cycled along paths to Veere, a village on the Lake Veere. The lake was separated from the North Sea in 1961 and is one of many projects the Dutch have constructed to protect themselves from the sea. For the first time I rode an e-bike and as we headed…
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PAYING RESPECTS TO OUR COUSIN
General George S. Patton Jr commanded the 3rd Army of the United States as they victoriously entered Nazi Germany during World War II. He remained in post-war Germany but was killed in an auto accident while going out pheasant hunting near Heidelberg just months after the war ended. He wanted to be buried with his men so he was laid to rest with 5,000 other American soldiers at the Luxembourg American Cemetery near Luxembourg City. Old Blood and Guts is my eight cousin, once removed. We both descend from a Huguenot…
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BACK TO OSLO
We left Ålesund early, the road tracing islands and bridges south through a familiar rhythm of ferries and tunnels. By late afternoon we rolled into Bergen, parked the car, and traded steering wheel for cable car, riding the Fløibanen up to Mount Fløyen. From the lookout, the city spread out in orderly colour—Bryggen’s timber fronts, the harbour, and the enclosing hills. The next morning we committed to rail, boarding the Bergen Line east to Myrdal, a high, wind-scoured junction. There we changed to the famous Flåm Railway, a steep descent through…
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418 STEPS OVER ÅLESUND
We reached Ålesund in the late afternoon after driving south from Kristiansund. The route followed the outer coast, linking islands by bridges and ferries, including sections of the Atlantic Ocean Road (Atlanterhavsveien), a stretch of infrastructure built to keep communities connected across open water. The journey itself was a reminder of how dependent this region has always been on the sea. On arrival, we went straight to Mount Aksla to break up the day. My sister Jenni, Padma and I climbed the stone steps from Byparken, a climb of more than…
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GRANDPA GAUSTAD
For as long as I remember, my mother has flaunted her ‘Norwegian-ness’. Her mother, Gertrude Gaustad, was of full Norwegian stock. So mom has an appetite for lefse but when I would ask her about our Norwegian ancestors she would draw a blank. She didn’t know much except that her grandfather was named Ole, he was blind and had died before she was born. So I set out to find out where we came from in Norway. It took quite a few years but I figured it out. In 1883, a…
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OLAV OF BYNESET
I hit a brick wall once. A genealogical brick wall, that is. For five years I had been trying to find out where my great grandfather, Ole Erickson Gaustad, came from. I was getting nowhere and figured I’d never find out. But one night in 2007, I was Googling ‘Gaustad’ and the village where I thought he was born, ‘Byneset’ and I got a hit. I found a function centre with Gaustad in the name so I took a chance and wrote an email. Within a day I got an email…
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