The festive period is important to us. We cherish many simple traditions which we enjoy every year as the winter settles in and the days get shorter. It is a time when we write greeting cards and contact people we rarely speak to. We bake many fruit cakes to give away and we put up a tree and cheery decorations. Since we keep a daily journal, we also take the opportunity to reflect on the events of the past year.
As we begin a new year, we have been mulling over the significance of an additional festive experience we had in 2024: a voyage that literally and metaphorically transported us to a place of genuine joy and good cheer and left us feeling refreshed and optimistic about the year ahead.
Sometimes we are attracted to a place because of the people we meet who come from there. Many years ago, we met a lovely couple from Norway, a country we knew little about. Over time, the stories they told us created images in our minds and our curiosity grew.
What is it like to live in the Arctic Circle? What scenery do they see on their way to work? What do their grocery stores look like? Do they get to watch the Northern Lights dancing in the sky before going to bed? Simple things of everyday life that add texture to our connection to people we like. This November, we seized an opportunity to visit.
Norway is a narrow and elongated country, stretching between 58 and 71 degrees north, or approximately 1,750 kilometres. This is about the same distance as between New York City and Miami, Florida. Our friends currently live in Tromsø, the largest Norwegian city north of the Arctic Circle. The further north we went along the coast, the sparser was the vegetation but the tranquil scenery and the fading blue afternoon light were enchanting.
Alaska is by far the largest American state. It has thousands of miles of coastline, five times more than Florida, which comes second. The total land touching the sea is ten times greater than its coastline, because of all its islands, inlets, and fjords. The southeast coast of Alaska stretches far south, along the Canadian border, and it is the perfect doorway to this fascinating state.
Because there are very few paved roads, the best way to explore southeast Alaska is on a boat and the easiest way is to board a cruise ship. We opted for a cruise that started in Vancouver, with ports of call in Ketchikan, Haines, Sitka, and Juneau, the capital. Each of these towns has a colourful past and a modern-day dynamism. Although we were told to expect mist and rain every day, we did not have a single day of rain during our ten-day cruise.
There were lectures on different topics offered on the ship throughout the voyage. In addition to our own preparation, those talks, given by an eminent naturalist, a geographer and other experts, brought the economic and social history, natural history and magnificent scenery to life. As we travelled up the Inside Passage along the British Columbian and Alaskan coasts, we marveled at the pristine landscape surrounding us. We sailed through fjords, lingered close to several glaciers, observed wildlife, visited frontier towns and witnessed the seasonal salmon run in two rivers.
The part of Alaska we travelled to during our cruise.
We learned about the history of the Indigenous peoples of the region, the Russian colonization of the area to exploit the fur trade, and the purchase of Alaska by the United States in 1867, negotiated by Secretary of State William Seward, for $7.2 million or about two cents an acre.
Alaska has a lot of glaciers, about 100,000 separate ones, covering five percent of the state. Each glacier, each fjord has its own story and characteristics. The scenery, truly breathtaking, made us made us rename the state: Awe-laska! Four natural locations we visited were particularly memorable.
Like many other retirees, we enjoy travelling for leisure and hope to be able to do so for several more years. We do not have a specific bucket list of countries that we intend to visit, but we cultivate a healthy curiosity about the world.
In the past year, we travelled to locations that were out of our comfort zone and we enjoyed those experiences but found that a trip with a packed agenda can be draining. To balance such tours, we sought to identify some tranquil destinations on the coast that have an enticing history, interesting geography and a relaxed pace. The region of Cornwall stood out.
Cornwall is a county at the southwestern extremity of the island of Great Britain. We expected a certain level of familiarity since we had visited many other parts of the UK, but our minds and hearts were totally open. What we found were soothing landscapes with impressive hedges, charming small coastal towns, stone cottages with gardens in bloom, unpredictable weather, community festivals and, most importantly, welcoming locals.
We returned home refreshed and energized. We started to reflect on the benefits of an agenda-free and unhurried holiday in an inspiring rural setting. Could that become our leitmotif for future travels?
The Thousand Islands form an archipelago of more than 1,800 islands in the St. Lawrence River, ranging in size from tiny to quite substantial. The islands straddle the Canada-U.S. border, sandwiched between Eastern Ontario and New York State.
There is a fascinating love story associated with a large castle on a heart-shaped island in American waters in the Thousand Islands. The six-storey, 120-room castle, constructed by George C. Boldt, was to be a gift for his dear wife, Louise, whom he adored.
They both loved the Thousand Islands, and like many of their affluent “Gilded Age” contemporaries at the end of the 19th century, they spent their summers there in grand homes or on expensive yachts on the river.
Louise Boldt
These millionaires had made their fortunes in the new industries of the time (like railroads, large scale manufacturing, department stores and hotels). Once they discovered the area, they created their own little community in the Thousand Islands, away from the traditional elites of New York and Boston.
The castle was to be completed and ready for moving in before Valentine’s Day in 1904. But those plans were thwarted. Boldt’s princess died the month before they were to move in. The project was promptly abandoned. It is said that George Boldt never returned to live on the island.
Throughout its history, the Iberian Peninsula has been a land on a crossroad: between Western Europe and Africa and between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, as far as the New World. Today’s Spain has been shaped by groups of hunter-gatherers, explorers, conquerors, traders and migrants from around the world. It has been ruled, in turn, by Roman emperors, Christian Visigoths, Muslim Moors and Catholic monarchs.
Recently, when we walked through the historic districts of Toledo, Seville, Granada, and Cordoba, we saw Roman ruins, Moorish palaces, evocative monuments, ancient mosques, synagogues and monasteries and several treasure-laden churches. We experienced the richness of Spain’s intricate past but we also felt the weight of its history.
From our perspective, the perfect place to get an appreciation of Spain’s complex history is a walled city called Segovia. This small city is just an hour by bus to the northwest of Madrid, in the region of Castile and León. Segovia is worth the detour.
