Traveling Through the Alphabet part 3

As noted above, we are picking up after logical post number 3,262 and starting in the middle of this round at the letter K

When we roll over this first alphabet we will start ALPHABET number 100!!

Well we did it - or YOU did it.

Round 100 Reached on Thursday July 11, 2024 in 14 days. (Cyn with the Alto Resto - as was - in Nice, France) at post 3,284.
It has only taken us 4 Years, 1 month and 12 days to achieve this amazing milepost.

Round 101 Reached on Monday July 29, 2024 in 18 days. (Cyn with the Alsatian Museum in Strasbourg, France) at post 3,315.

Round 102 Reached on Saturday August 16th, 2024 in another 18 days. (KGC with Alzey in the Rhineland of Germany) at post 3,342.

Round 103 Reached on Wednesday August 28th, 2024 in only 12 days. (Fred with Arcis-sur-Aube near Troyes) at post 3,371, or for the nerds among us, post D2B in hexadecimal. I think D2B trips off the tongue so sweetly.

...
for what it's worth

Nigel

this page also kept free for levels and stats

K

Kremmling, Colorado, USA. Literally called “K Town” by many residents, this is a community at a crossroads in the Colorado mountains, well west of Winter Park and well north of Vail.

The Book Cliffs rock formation north of town is a long row of cliffs that look like a shelf of books. A big fireworks display is shot off of them for the 4th of July.

K
Kennicott in Wrangell St. Elias National Park. One of the least visited National Parks and bigger than Switzerland. I just got back from 2 nights there. Visited the mines and hiked on the Root Glacier. At one time Kennicott was the largest copper mine in the country. It closed in 1938. I was there in 2002 and just got back from my second visit. The park service has done a wonderful job preserving the historic mines. Loved my visit to this wild, remote place. The McCarthy road drive to get to the park is beautiful and long!

About an hour's walk north of Cambridge campus is the little village of Landbeach,

whose main buildings were taken over by the university in the early 1700s.

http://www.landbeach.org.uk/history/a-short-history

It has a population of about 800 today, basically one road with some side streets.

M

Montecito

An hour and a half North of LA is the town of Montecito. Near Santa Barbara the enclave has been home to “famous” people since the days of Charlie Chaplin.

Presently it’s home to Prince Harry and Megan Markle, Oprah Winfrey, actor Rob Lowe, and singer Ariana Grande.

N is for Nevada

A town in central iowa not pronounced like the state.

near Madrid iowa. Which is not pronounced like the city in Spain

O for Ontario, Canada

A beautifully diverse province easily visited from the US. Toronto is an amazing, global city. And Ottawa, the Canadian capital, has a charm of it's own. The Niagara region has the falls and wine country. The St. Lawrence seaway is beautiful. And for the outdoor adventurists, there is the still wild north.

P for Paternoster Vents.

In London next to International Dispute Resolution Centre with LMAA stands this unique outdoor stainless steel sculpture by Thomas Heatherwick. Every time the Paternoster Vents seem to look differently playing with light, shadows and reflections - depending on daytime and light conditions. A must-see for sculpture fans. It won Design and Art Directions' "wood pencil" award for design in 2002.

Q is for Quai de la Loire along Le Bassin de la Villette in the 19e in Paris. This time of year it should be very lively with one of the Paris Plages spread out over a few locations around Paris.

R is for La Roche sur Foron is a French town in the Haute Savoie region that we will get to know in the next week.

S is for Savoie which is the department in France south of the Haute Savoie where we’ll be in the French Alpes.

T is for Tonon Les Bains a French town on the shore of Lake Geneva. We look forward to visiting this town with chateaus, markets and lake ferries next week.

U for Unter den Linden

A 1.5 km walk the takes you through the heart of Berlin. Begin at the Brandenburger Gate and walk west to the bridge leading to Museum Island.

I don't normally contribute to the Alphabet, leaving it to all you wonderful contributors, but I'd like to contribute one close to my heart

another "U"

Ursprung Buam are a Tirolean folk band who have been playing in and around Mayrhofen in the Zillertal in Austria for 30 years.

They are holding their Ursprung Buam Festival in Mayrhofen in Zillertal this weekend.

It isn't often that you find a three person band with both a harp and a violin (and a Styrian harmonica (accordion without piano keys)).

V

Vignemale, the very tall mountain in the French Pyrenees that towers over The Gaube Lake. We’re headed to the lake right now, with good weather. Cattle are up there, too, so I’ll watch my step in the grass surrounding the lake.

Y is for York the original name for Toronto Ontario. Established in 1793, 'York' was the capital of Upper Canada and became a strategic point during g the War of 1812. The Canadians didn't fare well during the Battle of York. It was renamed Toronto in 1834, still holding its status of Capital.
There is still a region of Toronto called York. Head out to Little Italy, or Little Portugal and you will find yourself in York.

to stay in synch may we have a "W" please

W is for the Winnie-the-Pooh-Trail near Barrington NH. As a former children’s librarian, I’d design something like this from a children’s book too if I had such beautiful wooded acreage. https://www.barringtonconcom.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Pooh-Trail-Brochure.pdf

Oops. Sorry Nigel. Must have posted before full coffee quota.
Just for that, I will add "X" to get us better aligned.
X is for XivaUzbekistan. It is Xiva in Ubzbek, and Khiva in English.
The regional city is one of the main tourist stops for travelers these days, but does have a history of over 2500 years of habitation.
It was a major stop on the Silk Road, Ghengis Khan pillaged it as did other Khan's and by the 17th Century it started becoming a known slave market, eventually becoming one of the slave capitals of the world. In the first half of
the 19C, more than 30000 Persian and Russian slaves were sold in this city alone.
Uzbekistan spent much of the 20thC under Russian rule. Though most of the city was in rubble by end of 19th C, Russia saw its architectural beauty and went about reconstructing many of the old madrassahs, towers and mosques. However, like other major Uzbek cities, it is accepted that some artistic license was taken in the finishes colours and amount of mosaics compared to historical accounts.

z is for Zamora, Spain.
Zamora is a fair sized city between Salamanca and Leon in NW Spain. It is known for having the most Romanesque churches in Europe...25 to be exact. Of course it means there is also Romanesque art inside, so pace yourself.
Speaking of pace, Zamora is also on the Camino de Santiago.

A

Alto Resto had been my very favorite restaurant in Nice, France, for years. We’ll be in Nice in a week, for the finish of this year’s Tour de France bicycle race, and I had been looking forward to dining at Alto again, but sadly, I’ve discovered that it has closed. I don’t know whether it’s another casualty of the Pandemic, or for other reasons, but it will be missed.

B

Bayonne, France is the capital of French Basque Country, and our current trip included several nights there last week, starting Thursday afternoon. It turns out that the fascinating Museum of Basque Culture has free admission on Thursday nights.

It also turns out that the annual Fetes de Basque festival, which turns out to be the biggest festival in France, just started yesterday. Partially fashioned after Pamplona, Spain’s festival, it includes a running of bulls (or cows), but, apparently mostly drinking. Many pairs of open, red and green urinals had already been set up throughout the streets in the old town, to discourage peeing on the streets themselves, or up against buildings. Apparently that had been a problem in the past.

The festival is normally held in early August, but we were told that because police that are normally needed for the festival will be needed in Paris for the Olympic Games, the Festival got moved to July. The Olympics are also the reason the final stage of this year’s Tour de France got moved from Paris to Nice.

C

Cauterets, France, is a charming town deep in the Pyrenees Mountains, just a few miles from the Spanish border. We’re here now, after driving from Bayonne on Sunday. The Tour de France passed through here last year, and will be coming nearby again in a few days - maybe we can get to a spot on the roadside to cheer on the riders.

Lac du Gaube, a high mountain lake set below the high Vignemale peak (see the “V” entry above) can be reached via a strenuous hike, or a chairlift ride well above Cauterets, but it turns out that there’s NOT a trail that completely circles the lake. While most folks walked a wide trail (a very rocky road, actually) on the right side of the lake to the far side yesterday, where many yellowish cattle were also located, we tried to reach the far end by hiking along the left bank. We discovered, as did a few other folks, that the faint trail turned into lots of scrambling over boulders, and eventually dead-ended by a waterfall and an impassable section of a steep slope, thick trees, and rock faces. Trying to find a shady spot for a picnic turned into an expedition.

More hiking later this morning … hopefully less arduous.

C

China Basin

A San Francisco neighborhood which is home to Oracle Park where the San Francisco Giants baseball team plays.

In a past life when I worked in The City we loved going to lunch at The Ramp. Huge cargo ships would dock close by. The area was intriguing and gritty. The diners were a mixed bag of individuals, artists, motorcyclists, bankers, locals and KQED staff.

The proverbial hidden gem of a restaurant wasn’t truly “discovered “ until Woody Allen’s 2013 Blue Jasmin filmed there.

When I’m visiting the Bay Area I’ll still go to The Ramp for breakfast but honestly it’s now a bit too hip for me. Gentrification of the neighborhood kinda ruined the vibe. High priced condos have encroached and The Chase arena where the Golden State Warriors basketball team plays is close by.

Still has great food and the views of the huge nearby ships remain of interest.

CONGRATULATIONS

We have - you all have - reached Alphabet number 100!!

Cyn has taken us to Nice, France, to Alto Resto, her previously fav restaurant. Yet again piles of special Nauga stars with special Century embossments.

This was at post 3,284.

It has only taken us 4 Years, 1 month and 12 days to achieve this amazing milepost.

Congratulations to all contributors over the past 1,504 days. Well done.

(and thanks to Claudia for mentioning China Basin and KQED - in a former life I did some work for KQED. Good memories.)

D is for the disastrous Darwin Green housing development on the west edge of Cambridge University --

Last fall they discovered that the foundations for a bunch of new housing blocks were faulty, and dozens of almost completed new homes are being demolished.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv2548v1dpyo

https://www.dwh.co.uk/new-homes/dev002495-dwh-at-darwin-green/

That's a lot of Ds

E is for the Elbe and F is for its Ferries. The two major cities associated with this river are Dresden and Hamburg, though obviously it flows through a lot more places, and each has pretty special ferries nearby

Near Dresden, in a town called Rathen, is a ferry across the Elbe. It operates entirely on cables and the current--no power needed because the power of the river does the work. Really cool! Here, the river is closer to its source and not very big--maybe 100m wide.

Near Hamburg, in a town called Glückstadt, there are big car ferries across to Wischhafen. By this time the Elbe is quite wide--2km across--and the ferries must watch for ship traffic. They are critical because beyond Hamburg, there are no tunnels or bridges across the Elbe--only these ferries.

Within Hamburg itself there are ferries for commuters that are part of the regular city public transport as well. Locals ride these to get out on the Elbe if they can't afford a boat!

F is for Fairbanks AK. 2nd city of Alaska, population of 32,000.

Home of the northern lights, midnight sun in June and my daughter, wonderful son in law and two wonderful grandgirls ages 12 and 14. Also where I was in January 14th 2012 when second granddaughter was born and it was 45 below zero!!! Left a lasting impression on this Texan, believe me. Happily heading there in 12 days for a visit with much better weather.

G is for Grand Canyon National Park, one of the crown jewels of America's national park system. The first morning of the first of 3 separate visits we've made was on 9/11, 2001.

H is for Holstein, Iowa

Which is just up the road from Schleswig, Iowa.

Both were named by German immigrants

I is for the relatively new Cambridge Institute for Technology and Humanity

https://www.ith.cam.ac.uk

Their mission statement:

The Institute for Technology and Humanity (ITH) supports world-leading research and teaching that investigates and shapes technological transformations and the opportunities and challenges they pose for our societies, our environment and our world.
The Institute is home to three University Research Centres: The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and the Centre for Human-inspired AI. By integrating cross-centre strengths, facilitating synergies, and catalysing new collaborations, the Institute combines the arts, humanities and social sciences alongside the natural, medical and technical sciences in order to address the great issues of our time.

The Director's bio blurb:

Stephen Cave is Director of the Institute for Technology and Humanity, and of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, both at the University of Cambridge.

Stephen earned a PhD in philosophy from Cambridge. He then joined the British Foreign Office, where he served for nearly a decade as a policy advisor and diplomat before returning to writing and academia. He now holds the grade of Director of Research at the University of Cambridge (full professor equivalent).

His research is mostly in the philosophy and ethics of technology, with two strands. First, he writes about the ethics of AI and robotics. His publications on this include the co-edited volumes AI Narratives (Oxford University Press, 2020), Imagining AI (Oxford University Press, 2023), and Feminist AI (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Second, he writes about the ethics of life-extension and the philosophy of (im)mortality. His publications on this topic include Immortality (Crown, Penguin Random House, 2012), a New Scientist book of the year now available in many other languages, and Should You Choose To Live Forever? (with John Martin Fischer, Routledge, 2023).

His work has been covered in many hundreds of media outlets around the world, from The Atlantic to the Daily Mail. He has written on philosophical and scientific subjects for the Financial Times, Guardian, New York Times and others. He also regularly appears on television and radio, including the BBC and NPR

If his book on Feminist AI catches your interest I suggest you read this book first:

https://data-feminism.mitpress.mit.edu

J is for Jebil National Park in Tunisia. This is the gateway to the Sahara, with a few camping spots and the Ksar Ghilane oasis along the edge and a whole lot of sand everywhere else.

K for Kanata, which is the Huron- Iroquois word for "village" or "settlement" and is believed how Canada got its name. The first use of "Canada" as the official name came in 1791 when the Province of Quebec was divided into the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada. It wasn't the only name being considered, also in the running were Albertsland, Albionora, Borealia, Britannia, Cabotia, Colonia, Efisga, Hochelaga, Norland, Superior, Transatlantia, Tuponia, and Victorialand.

Wow, if they had picked 'Colonia' it would have made for so many more jokes besides Ontario CA vs Ontario CANADA and the Vancouvers...

And here I was thinking Canada drew letters out of a hat.
C.
C, eh?
N.
N, eh?
D.
D, eh?

There you have it, the country had a name!

Back on track:
L is for Luhmühlen. This is a training center for the exciting sport of three day eventing (equestrian). Seriously, if you are unfamiliar, check this sport out--equestrian triathalon with a spectacular cross country element with people who are seriously bonkers. Located just outside of Lüneburg in northern Germany, it is also home to one of only seven top level events in the world for this sport, and it takes place in early/mid June every year. If you want to see horses and riders tackle the seemingly impossible from very close up, this is a great place to do it!

M is for Mount Kilimanjaro. The highest peak in Africa is a walk-up in terms of trail. It isn't all easy, especially as the air gets thinner, but it is not technical. There have been 10 year olds and 70+ year olds who have summited, but top athletes like Martina Navratilova did not because there is only so much predicting how the body handles altitude. Slower climbs are more likely to succeed, but the five day route is definitely doable. You'll probably spend the night preceding the climb in Moshi, and the first night is at the Mandara Huts. Horombo and Kibo huts are also on the way up, and Horombo is repeated on the way down.

Fro those wanting to challenge themselves, this is an amazing experience that can be combined with a visit to the Maswa Game Reserve (beside the Serengeti), Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara National Park, and Tarangire National Park.

O is for Okay, Oklahoma.
As Mr. Hammerstein's lyric goes....
"We're only sayin', You're doin' fine, Oklahoma! Oklahoma, Okay!"

Point Reyes Lighthouse

https://www.nps.gov/pore/planyourvisit/lighthouse.htm

A gem regarding the maritime history of the California coast line. The whole area is a lovely part of Northern California.

The Quarry Whitehouse Auditorium in the Bartlam Library of Cambridges' Selwyn College was recently renovated.

https://www.audiencesystems.com/case-studies/bartlam-library-selwyn-college

It opened in 2022:

https://www.meet-cambridge.com/why-cambridge/case-studies/cs-new-auditorium-provides-perfect-space-for-training-conference/

Selwyn College is one of the newest in town:

https://www.sel.cam.ac.uk/about/selwyn-history

R

Red Lion Pub

In London down the Crown Passage. A spot I found over 20 years ago.

A pleasant albeit small traditional pub to enjoy a pint.

S

Storks’ Roost, atop a chimney in Bergheim, Alsace, France. We were walking home from a significantly Italian restaurant in this small French town that seems quite German, with the vast majority of other tourists speaking German, when I looked up. Coincidentally, a stork alighted on a chimney on a house, one of the few non-half-timbered buildings in town. What a surprise! It started rapidly clicking its beak, and then was standing on one leg. Its balance is impressive.

I got home, and watched it from the balcony of our rented apartment, and then went back out on the street to get closer. Just as I started typing all this on my phone, a second stork joined it, and both started clicking. The second one’s gone now, or at least is off of the chimney and possibly on the roof below. It’s after 10pm now, and getting noticeably darker by the moment, but I can still clearly make out the stork against the eastern sky. The stork is dark at the bottom, and white on the head and back. The beak is quite long, as are its legs.

It was especially unexpected, as guidebooks have mentioned how rare the once-abundant birds in Alsace have become. Efforts to restore them have increased the population somewhat, but it sounded like that is still tenuous. What success tonight!

P.S. As I stood out in the street typing this, a woman came by, walking her large dog. I pointed up to the chimney and said, “cigone.” She said, in English for an obvious, perhaps clueless foreigner, “maybe?” I said, “oui,” and she looked and agreed that it was a stork, and that I’d not butchered the French name so much that it was unintelligible. She didn’t seem too surprised that there would be a stork in her midst (or that a tourist would also be in town, let alone standing out in a fairly quiet street), so maybe the storks are pretty common again. That’s good to learn. Bonne nuit, Gute Nacht from Bergheim.

P.P.S. This morning, from the bedroom window on a higher floor, and in broad daylight, I saw that the building has two chimneys, and each one had a perching stork. Beak clicking ensued thus morning, too.

P.P.P.S. Driving thru the countryside north of Bergheim this afternoon, coming home from an uncomfortably hot hike today in the foothills of the Voges mountains, we saw a stork flying nearby. They’re somewhat awkward-looking flyers, but still look magnificent in the air. We get some cranes at home, and lots of robins and magpies, along with a fair amount of hummingbirds, but cranes? Not so much. It’s great to come to Alsace for exceptionally different birds.

T

Thannenkirch, another town in Alsace, northwest of Bergheim. We drove into, and around Thannenkirch yesterday, and there’s a wood carver/sculptor with a gallery on a steep street above most of the town. There are also small fountains throughout town, and his sculptures adorned the tops of all of them. If you want a garden sculpture that’s 500 times more intricate, as well as much more unique than a ubiquitous garden gnome, he can provide it.

....... Around the year 1980 the stork was at the brink of extinction in Europe. Thanks to an reintroduction program there is serious increase in population. Once a few breeding pairs left in the Netherlands it is grown to a population of around 1700. In many European countries the stork is the traditional symbol for announcing the birth of children.

Never seen them where I live, but since a few decades it's a regular visitor in the region.

Mind if I join?

U is for Urumqi.

It's one of those cities in China with 3 million people (!) that few in the US have heard of. I'm not sure this would be on my first visit to China - it's in the northwest (no politics, please) - but I'm so curious about this massive nation and the various "unkown" cities.

V is for Vashon Island, a delightful island in Puget Sound in Washington State, USA. Vashon Island can be accessed by car ferries from West Seattle and Tacoma. Vashon Island is lovely year round, but especially shines in the summer with nice breezes from Puget Sound and temperatures in the 70s (Fahrenheit). Vashon is home to Oscar the Bird King, one of the trolls designed and built by Danish artist Thomas Dambo.

Wil, that’s testing that storks are being successfully brought back, in places where they’d once been plentiful, and were in danger of being lost. Hopefully they don’t go the way of the dodo.

Aside from references of storks bringing newborns in a sling carried in their beaks, my main exposure to storks until now was the cartoon character on the label of Vlasic pickles. Old commercials featured the bird holding a pickle like a cigar, and sounding like Groucho Marx.

Another French stork update: there was a lair on the roof of the town hall, clicking away. Then one suddenly tilted its neck backwards, and laid the top of its head against its back. The other one did likewise, still clicking its beak. Courting ritual?

And speaking again of Bergheim …

W

Western parking lot in Bergheim, France, the actual place to start Rick Steves’ 30-minute walking tour of the town. Rick says it’s the “southern” lot, but he describes a lot and a park just west of the High Gate, the only remaining gateway in the surviving medieval stone walls. It’s definitely on the west side of an essentially rectangular guest walled town. There’s a road that heads south from the town, called Rue Port Neuve (New Gate St.), so apparently there was once a newer gate (probably still a long time ago), but it’s long-gone.

From the parking lot that’s really on the west (I’ll submit a formal correction notice to Rick’s Website), you head east, to a square named for Dr. Walter, who was the mayor of Bergheim for 28 years, starting back in the 1960’s. That’s where the TI is located, although Rick’s book says there isn’t any. So, second correction needed.

The Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University has a department of X-ray Astrophysics

https://cavek.ast.cam.ac.uk/research/x-ray.astrophysics

They have a library in the old Observatory building off the Madingley Road that is open for visitors, but check ahead to make sure they are open.

There are public stargazing nights but they are on hiatus until October:

https://www.public.ast.cam.ac.uk

Y is for Ynys Mon, the Welsh name for the island of Anglesey. This island is home to Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch, also called Llanfair PG. The island is also home to wonderful sites such as the town and castle of Beaumaris and was home to Prince William and Kate for a few years.

Z

Zellenberg, a town along the Wine Road in Alsace, but seemingly not highlighted in any guidebooks. We’re wrapping up our Alsace visit, and while we were in several charming towns, some swarming with tourists and some with extremely few, Zellenberg was only a scenic drive-by. That’s unfortunate, as I expect that it would’ve been interesting for even a few minutes, but we were trying to get some basic groceries before things in the area closed, and were also trying to arrive at our apartment in nearby Bergheim at the time we were expected.

It’s between Riquewihr (which Rick Steves says is the most heavily touristed town in the area - actually we were maybe the only ones, and we weren’t there long, as it doesn’t seem to have a grocery store) and Ribeauvillé (which has a pretty big supermarket a mile out of town, and was packed with tourists in town). Zellenberg sat on a hill off of the highway a half mile or so away as we drove past, and might have been a nice compromise between those other two towns, geographically and tourist avoidance-wise. Except it didn’t seem to have a grocery store, either, so we didn’t bother going in. Maybe next time.

A

Alsatian Museum, in Strasbourg, capital of Alsace (and of the EU). Finishing our last day in Alsace, I visited the museum, which will be closing for an extensive remodeling in a few weeks. Three adjoining buildings display a collection of household artifacts from the area, including old ceramic, polychrome painted furniture, typical Alsatian clothing from 120 years ago, and complete kitchens from a bit older than that. Displays of religious items told of the practicing Catholics over centuries, and of the once very large Jewish populace in Alsace.

Several rooms had large, intact ceramic room heaters (reminds me of the Schönbrunn Palace in Austria), but the most curious item was basically a jug with two small holes at the bottom. Apparently it was used to drip water onto a floor before sweeping it, to keep dust down. Isn’t wet dust just a thin film of mud, which wouldn’t sweep away well?

More Nauga Stars for Cyn for wrapping us around again, with her Alsatian Museum in Alsace where she currently is.

Now starting Round 101

Oh, and bonus points for our Webmaster with his second contribution - Urumqi.

B Brown's Brasserie started in Brighton in the '70s and became a franchise with a location in Cambridge that occupies a 19th c. building that used to be Addenbrooke’s Hospital.

They aim to have outlets in towns with historic interest.

https://www.browns-restaurants.co.uk/restaurants/eastofengland/cambridge

C is for Châlons-en-Champagne, a pretty town on a crossroads southeast of Reims.

D is for Deventer Boekenmarkt, Europe’s biggest book market. Typically held on the first Sunday of August and now in its 34th year, Deventer Book Market has something for every kind of reader! From rare hardback editions offered by antiquarian bookshops to brand new bestsellers, you can find anything and everything at the market. Mainly an open air event held in the streets of the beautiful historical centre of Deventer.

E

Elfin Forest

4 hours North of the Megalopolis of LA is the Elfin Forest. Situated near Los Osos the Elfin Forest consists of pygmy oaks and scrub brush.

https://highway1roadtrip.com/things-to-do/elfin-forest/

F is for Fayetteville. No less than 13 states have a town or community bearing this name and 12 of them have a Fayette County.

Chances are there are several people on this forum who live or have lived in one of these.

G is for Vienna's Graben.

Strolling along, turning onto Kärntner Straße for a stop into Julius Meinl, grabbing a lite lunch at Trzesniewski, and window shopping at Lobmeyr. Whether a diversion or destination, absolutely love walking in this area.

G is also for "G-L-O-R-I-A ... glohreeaah ... G-L-O-R-I-A ... glohreeaah ... "

H

Holy City

A cult compound that was situated off of Highway 17 in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Many stories about the locale were fodder for rumors when I was growing up. My folks and I would drive past the few buildings if we took the
“ back roads “ to Santa Cruz, Aptos and Capitola.

Seems the area is now owned by Sciencetologists.

Bemused nothing has really changed.

"Iller, Lech, Isar, Inn fließen rechts zur Donau hin. Altmühl, Naab und Regen kommen links entgegen." The first sentence of the German geography teacher staple mentions three rivers beginning with our letter I and then flowing into the Danube.

....J isfor Junction

My anecdotal observation is that many states in the mid west have towns that the last half is Junction, named after an intersection of railroad lines or even roads. The largest of which is Grand Junction Colorado. Are there similarly repeated names in other countries reflecting on conjunctions??

Cambridge University's contemporary art is displayed in the gallery called Kettle's Yard

https://www.kettlesyard.cam.ac.uk

Collection Highlights

• Alfred Wallis, Five Ships – Mount’s Bay, 1928 (circa)
  
• Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Bird Swallowing a Fish, 1914
• Winifred Nicholson, Cyclamen and Primula, 1923 (circa)
• Christopher Wood, Self-Portrait, 1927
• Ben Nicholson, 1962 (Argos)

Their museum shop is known for handmade jewelry.

L is for Lindau, DE where we are staying this week in the middle of the island. We walk to the busy Lindau Hafen several times a day to watch the pleasure boats and ferries negotiate the protected harbor opening between the lion and lighthouse. Quite an acrobatic show and a lot of horn tooting.

M is for Miniatur Wunderland. This is the most visited tourist attraction in Germany--more than Neuschwanstein Castle or the museums of Berlin. This world in miniature is full of insane little details--every window of every building is filled with little scenes--from people in their offices to minions in a cave to pairs coupling in the grass (don't worry, the racy stuff is hard to spot). The easter eggs all over this place are insane, as is the technical precision. The working airport in particular is great, with takeoffs of all kinds of planes (and even the Millenium Falcon), trains, and automobiles. Every 15 minutes the lights go out so you can see it all at night with the lights, and there are myriad buttons that cause movements and lights--the roller coaster starts, the shuttle launches, the dolphins jump, etc.

Be sure to get tickets in advance, especially on weekends or school breaks.

N

NO NAME LAKE

There are a number of them in the US National Parks.

O is for Orofino, Idaho, a city along the beautiful Clearwater River, and the major city within the Nez Perce Indian Reservation; its name means "fine gold" in Spanish. Nearby is the historical "Canoe Camp," where the Lewis and Clark expedition built five new dugout canoes and embarked on October 7, 1805, downstream to the Pacific Ocean.

P is for the free Polar Museum at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge.

https://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/

It includes a lot of Ernest Shackleton memorabilia and scrimshaw carving.

They also have about 600 "objects made by the indigenous peoples of Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland, Sápmi in northern Europe and Siberia" to try and satisfy modern notions of conquest being less heroic and more exploitative. Performative? You decide.

Q is for Quinte West A city in Southern Ontario, Canada. It is well located for summer vacations as it is tucked into a bay of the St. Lawrence Seaway and very near 2 major tourist areas...Prince Edward County (PEC) and the Trent-Severn Waterway. PEC is a penninsula in the St. Lawrence with some of Ontario's best dune beaches and vineyards. It is popular with tent campers and well-heeled tourists alike. The T-S Waterway is a 240 mile canal system connecting much of Ontario's 'Cottage Country' which draws folks from Toro to every summer weekend.

R is for Rockford, Illinois, or for the content of this post, the Rockford Peaches Women's Baseball Club made famous from the movie A League of Their Own. Rockford has a small exhibit in the local museum about the real team as does the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington.

S is for Sidi Driss (or Sidi Idriss). This hotel in Matmata, Tunisia is a troglodyte home, but it is insanely famous as the filming location of the Lars Homestead--the home of Luke Skywalker and his aunt and uncle in the original Star Wars. Filming there and around Tunisia in the 1970s wasn't easy--a lot of materials were transported by "Berber taxi"--a donkey. But now the main area where Luke breakfasted is still intact, complete with set pieces, and the whole thing is still a hotel. It is surprisingly inexpensive, amazingly cool in the heat of the Sahara, and comfortable for an adventurous traveler. They even serve blue milk with breakfast, and there are pictures and articles about the filming there in the 1970s (Episode IV--A New Hope) and for the prequels.

Lots of day tourists stop there, but staying overnight is unbelievable. We were in the Yoda room, and we were the only guests there. There isn't much to see and do in Matmata itself, but just enjoying the hotel and its cool (literally and figuratively) courtyard is great. And then a day trip into the Sahara to Ksar Ghilane oasis . . . .

Two nights worth every penny and then some because you feel like you are actually in Star Wars. Un. Freaking. Believable.

T is for Trippstadt, a small town in the center of the Pfalzwald with numerous hiking trails. The roads are popular with motorcyclists on dry days, and the outdoor market at Christmas time is devoted to wild game and local handicrafts.

U is for Uffizi, the premier art gallery of Florence, Italy and among the greatest in the world. The existence of much of its collection is owed to the last descendant of the main line of the Medici family, Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici. Under the Patto di Famiglia agreement, she entrusted the vast Medici collection to the Tuscan State under stipulation that it never be sold or otherwise taken from Tuscany, thus saving it from certain fate of being sold off piecemeal by the incoming Lorraine family of the Austrian Hapsburgs. She is buried in Basilica di San Lorenzo.
(Edited)

"V" is for Vienna - not the one in Austria, but the one in southwest Georgia, pronounced "Vy Enna".
Population +/- 3000, home of the largest and oldest barbeque cooking contest in Georgia, the Big Pig Jig.

W is for the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge.

For curious travelers, it has one of the best displays of globes available anywhere.

https://www.whipplemuseum.cam.ac.uk/explore-whipple-collections/globes

Their regular hours are in the afternoons but if you want a quiet/relaxed visit you can contact them ahead to arrange a morning time.

X is for Xhamlliku, a neighborhood in Tirana. I haven't been, but I found the name on a map! One of the things that makes this game fun is little discoveries like this.

Y is for York.another fin thing about this thread is researching common names. There are 35 places in the world names York. Most are north of the equator. Northernmost region is in Alaska, and southernmost in Western Australia.
Some places like it so much, they keep repeating themselves. USA has the highest number of names, across 23 regions.

The Zoology Club at Cambridge is for teenagers who like dead animals.

https://www.museum.zoo.cam.ac.uk/learning-outreach/zoology-club

The museum is free, great if you're traveling with kids,

and their collection is big on birds and bugs, but they have plenty of skeletons too.

https://www.museum.zoo.cam.ac.uk/collections-research

If there's anything that the British have been good at over the years it's killing off exotic species but saving some samples -- they're especially proud of their Tasmanian Devil and passenger pigeon holdings.

A is for Alzey, where there's been a settlement for over 1400 years. This Rhineland town was a major horse-trading center in the Middle Ages, and the schloss is spectacular, especially in a place this small. Has a nice market in the square by the Protestant church, and it's a stop on the regional train line.

B is for Barberini

Since its opening in 2017, the Barberini has established itself as one of the most popular art museums in Germany with international exhibitions and an extraordinary collection of Impressionist paintings. Located in Potsdam’s historic center, the Museum Barberini is an art museum that was initiated by Hasso Plattner, the founder of the German software company SAP and a patron of the arts.

The Barberini Palace building itself is a beauty.

Nauga Stars to KGC for starting the next Alphabet round with their mention of Alzey in the Rhineland of Germany.

As we dig into Round 102

Thanks to all.

C is for Croydon. This London suburb is home to a favourite travel memory. We were taking a group of young people on a tour of the British Isles. For most of these teens it was a first trip away from home, first time out of the state, first time on an airplane, first trip to Europe, and we were paired with another group and had guides for the bus / ferry / train portions. Our final stop was London, and our hotel was in Croydon. Together with our guide and the other group, we walked over to the train station and caught the train into the city, at which point our groups split up to enjoy different things in London. This is in the days before we had readily available Google maps. As we took our train back to Croydon in the dark after a day of sight seeing, we realised we didn't recall exactly where the hotel was, though of course we had the name.

So there we were, wandering around Croydon, trying to find anywhere--anywhere at all--that was open where someone could give us directions better than the vague (and ultimately totally incorrect) direction given us by the lone person at the Croydon station. Cue a sudden and torrential downpour. But we adults kept our spirits up, and the kids were laughing--oh, they were laughing--as we wandered around town in the dark and the rain trying to get our bearings and find the hotel. We finally found someone to give us directions to the hotel--which was only on the next corner at that point!

No good travel story ever starts with "everything went perfectly," and the laughter and high spirits of a group of teens who were so eager to experience all the things--including misadventures and being lost--makes this a highlight.

D

Donauquelle, the source of the Danube River, in the Black Forest. Three weeks ago, our first time in Germany in over two decades, we stayed at the Kolmenhof guesthouse, just up the road from the town Furtwangen. A tiny stream emerges from under a rock in their backyard, and a couple of scientists used dye to trace the water to prove that it’s the start of the Danube. A modern statue of a reclining river god, and some signs in German, French, and English are located at the site, along with a short path to the spouting rock. We’ve ridden bikes for several days along the Danube, in Austria, which is quite some distance from there, and it’s even farther to the Black Sea, where the Danube ends.

E

Espelette, France. I’d typed up a whole Espelette entry a week ago, but when I hit the Add Reply button, found that another “E” entry had already been made while I was typing up mine. So here’s a shorter (slightly quicker) version of that.

Espelette is a town in the Baque region in southwestern France. It’s now known for a special red chile pepper, the only spice with an AOC designation. The pepper originally came from México, and was the one determined in the 1980’s to be best suited to the climate and growing conditions of the area around the town. To meet the AOC requirements, plants are set a specific distance from each other, in rows a specific distance apart. We were there in early July; now in August the peppers should be turning red, and will soon be strung up, always 10 peppers on a string, and hung along the outside walls of buildings in town to dry. We saw white, half-timbered buildings with red shutters, but after harvest, the buildings apparently look red because of all the peppers dangling against their exterior walls.

The spice isn’t severely hot, but it does pack a bit of a punch. It takes a moment after you’ve taken a bite of something containing Espelette pepper, and then a tingle hits at the back of the tongue and throat. Even if it’s not the spiciest thing around (the chile - or chilly - at a Pakistani restaurant in Toulouse was the fieriest), for France, a country where I never thought hot spices were accepted, it’s relatively scorching. Note that this pepper’s only been around there since the 1980’s, and the AOC designation just since the 1990’s, so it’s not something you’ll find throughout France. The vast majority of peppers are ground to a powder, but some whole, peppers are available. Cheese and chocolate are among the things the peppers are added to in France. It’s popular throughout the Pyrenees. The powder can turn something a surprisingly bright orange.

The day we visited Espelette, it started to pour rain. The road into town was blocked off by police, so we had to join lots of cars parking along the side of the road. It turns out that a running event (Pepper half-marathon? Chile Olympics?) was starting and ending in the town, but most of the runners were getting drenched outside of Espelette. Maybe some spicy food helped warm them up after they got to the finish.

F
Franschhoek is a wine region located about 45 minutes from Cape Town, South Africa. Its one of the oldest towns in South Africa. Franschhoek was mentioned in Time magazine as one of the world’s top 50 places to visit.
We stayed in Stellenbosch, but next time we will stay in Franschhoek, I even have our accommodations already picked out.

G

Greek Theatre

Located in Los Angeles’s Griffith Park ( another G ) the Greek is an interesting venue to appreciate musical acts.

https://www.lagreektheatre.com/connect/history-of-the-greek-theatre

H

is for the Hundred Days from the time Napoleon returns from Elba to his final defeat at Waterloo.

The year 2025 marks the 210th anniversary of this event. I would be very surprised if a reenactment in Antibes does not take place on the 1st of March next year commemorating and celebrating the Emperor's momentous return from exile. These reenactments in France are well attended and received. ...bravo.

I
is for Invalidenstraße in Berlin,

This is one of the exits of Berlin Hbf, en route to the large and famous hospital Charité and the Invalidenfriedhof, the oldest Prussian-German military cemetery in Berlin. This is also the street that is a major junction point for tram and bus lines plus the U-Bahn lines.

J for the people of Jasper, Alberta who lost their homes and businesses in the devastating forest fire earlier this month. The citizens are slowly returning this week to assess the damage after being evacuated a month ago. Jasper is closed to tourists until further notice. The highway between Jasper and Lake Louise is one of the most scenic routes in the world. I've always been fascinated by Jasper for its history in the formation of Canada. The area was a strategic trading and resupply post for goods between Eastern and western Canada.

K

Kolmenhof, the German guesthouse where we stayed last month in the Black Forest, at Douauquelle (see the “D” entry a few posts above). It’s a family-run place, with a sauna (we didn’t use it in July), and lots of hiking and mountain biking trails all around. There’s also a small church across the road and up about 200 yards, Martinskapelle, that the family maintains, and opens and closes for visitors daily. They seem to get lots of German, Swiss, and a few French and Belgian clients - relatively few English speakers. The father was concerned about the American presidential election this November, and wanted to chat about that.

The breakfast and dinners are outstanding - there’s an excellent chef onsite. They even have their own fish swimming on the premises for meals. There were a lot of flies buzzing around the tables, though, which wasn’t ideal. The sky is extremely dark at night - no city lights, illuminated signs, streetlights, or traffic headlights to spoil the night sky viewing. If you’re looking for a place to snowshoe or ski in the winter (XC, but downhill’s no longer available), this would be worth considering.

L

is for Luneville in Lorraine, not too far from Nancy.

This trip I went here twice from Metz and Nancy. Good that I did the second time because on the first visit I did not find the famous chateau. The treaty ending the War of the Second Coalition in 1801 in the French Revolutionary Wars where Austria again beaten by France was signed in Luneville. That was my purpose in going there to see that site and the famous amazing Chateau de Luneville.

Napoleon's victory over the Austrians in June of 1800 was not enough to compel the Austrians to seek peace. It took another defeat six months later by a rival of Napoleon to bring the Austrians to the peace table at Luneville in 1801.

M

is for Morhange/Lorraine. This little place is the site of the German WW1 military cemetery. The town is reachable by train from Metz, ca 20 mins, which I took but getting out to the cemetery requires wheels. I couldn't get out there. No taxi in sight, nothing.

The train station is a pit stop along a rural road but historically interesting as Morhange was part of German occupied Lorraine as was Metz prior to 1914. The station has a large photo commemorating the Kaiser's visit with his retinue to Morhange in 1905. Revealing and enlightening.

O is for Obergurgl in the Tirol. A beautiful town for skiing that is off the main route.

N is for Nothing to declare - in today's times of social media when everybody posts everything a remarkable walk-through statement of silence.

Just as quick-repair to keep the alphabet completeness.

Next is "P".

P

is for Prenzlau in the Uckermark area, NW of Berlin.

Finally, on this trip I made it here as a day trip from Berlin. This town had always intrigued me so finally I made it point to get there this time.

Prenzlau was known as Garnisonstadt, a garrison and fortress town. Almost immediately as you step outside of the train station, you are reminded of what took place in 1806 (very historically focused) when the Prussians tangled with the French, they lost since they fell for the French trick, new word I learned...Kriegslist.

As I was there in May prior to the European Parliament elections , everywhere was plastered with voter campaign posters, especially that of the AfD posters this AfD country from the Elbe to the Oder as I saw in Frankfurt an der Oder. I'll have to visit Prenzlau again since I go as far as the Altstadt.

Q is for Quellental, a quiet street in an upscale neighborhood of western Hamburg. There is absolutely nothing noteworthy about it other than that it's quite green. Oh, and there is a little restaurant of the same name on the street. But it starts with a Q, and those are hard to get.

R is for Ribe

Ribe is Denmark's oldest town. It has an own character and beauty and is located on mainland Jutland, not far from the border to Germany. With its old town part which was - compared to towns such as Rothenburg - not destroyed in WWII it is somehow a must-visit for history buffs. Visitors can also participate in a Night Watchman tour.

The Danish North Sea beaches and also the islands such as Rømø or Fanø are in short travel distance.
For families Legoland in Billund is not far away.

S :: The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences is the oldest museum at Cambridge University

https://sedgwickmuseum.cam.ac.uk

Their collecting began in the 17th century. What was going on in that time period, do you imagine?

You can bring a suspected fossil or somesuch to them and they will tell you what it is:

https://sedgwickmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explore-0

MarkK, Billund also offers the Lego House and events like Lego Inside Tour (a three day experience that includes the secret museum, interaction and games with top Lego designers, and sets not sold commercially / designed and available specifically for the Inside Tour).

T is for Tornesch, a boring bedroom community outside of Hamburg. We had friends there, and we always teased them about how nothing happened. Then a few years back they came in with big news--a resident's pet python had escaped! The fact that this was the local headline for days was a source of much laughter about how nothing ever happens in Tornesch. Don't worry, Chantal was reunited with her owners after a few days and before the fire department's planned search.

U

is for Unterführung.

When you walk through an "underpass" in European cities and towns, Lüneburg, Soest/Westfalen, and Berlin-Koepenick come immediately to mind, that is an Unterführung.

W

is for Werder an der Havel.

This is a little town in Brandenburg very close of Potsdam, also on the Havel River. I stopped here this time just to get a quick glance, a look-around, of this interesting place. I had been recommended to see this little place provided I had extra time. Seeing this little place will have to wait until the next trip in the Greater Berlin and Potsdam area.

Noting that Fred with an Unterführung has made the 100th (100 emoji) post in this series 3 of the Alphabet.

By the way, may we have a V please?

V. Venice Night at Ocean City NJ. This was the 69th time and is a fabulous event. Boats and fireworks and lots to see. Since I followed the U not Fred can I get a badge too????

oops...sorry about that ..forgot the "V"

X-ray, tubes, vacuum tubes, and thermometers are displayed in the Cavendish Lab collections of historic scientific instruments at the Whipple Museum in Cambridge.

https://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/history

"The Cavendish Laboratory has an extraordinary history of discovery and innovation in Physics since its opening in 1874 under the direction of James Clerk Maxwell, the University's first Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics. Up till that time, physics meant theoretical physics and was regarded as the province of the mathematicians. The outstanding experimental contributions of Isaac Newton, Thomas Young and George Gabriel Stokes were all carried out in their colleges. The need for the practical training of scientists and engineers was emphasised by the success of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the requirements of an industrial society. The foundation of the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1851 set the scene for the need to build dedicated experimental physics laboratories and this was achieved through the generosity of the Chancellor of the University, William Cavendish, the Seventh Duke of Devonshire. He provided £6,300 to meet the costs of building a physics laboratory, on condition that the Colleges provided the funding for a Professorship of Experimental Physics. This led to the appointment of Maxwell as the first Cavendish professor.

Since its foundation, the Laboratory has had great fortune in appointing Cavendish professors who, between them, have changed completely our understanding of the physical world. Maxwell did not live to see his theories of electricity, magnetism and statistical physics fully confirmed by experiment, but his practical legacy was the design and equipping of the new Laboratory. Maxwell died in 1879 at the early age of 48 and was succeeded by Lord Rayleigh, who was responsible for setting up a systematic course of instruction in experimental physics, which has remained at the core of the Laboratory's teaching programme.
"

Since the last entry was more a "C" than an "X" location.

X is for Xi Beach

Xi Beach is a unique red sandy beach in front of white chalk cliffs on Cephalonia island. Like a lot of Mediterranean beaches visitors can find sun lounger hire, restaurants and bars.

Y is for Yakima, a city in Washington State, USA, which is in the Yakima Valley

The region has long been known as one of the world's leading producers of apples. And, for beer lovers, each year about 75 percent of the nation's hop crop comes from the Yakima Valley. ""Yakima is recognized by beer brewers around the world as America's hop mecca."

Z

is for "Zur letzten Instanz"

This is the oldest restaurant in Berlin serving traditional German cuisine along with Brandenburger and Berliner Spezialitäten. You can walk it from Alexanderplatz, ca. 10-13 mins ?

I have there twice , both times for dinner. Both tourists and locals are patrons there in this famous site of Berlin history. I had no idea of this restaurant's famous reputation and existence until a local suggested that I would like it.

A ....to start another round !

is for Arcis-sur-Aube, a little town served by a bus departing from Troyes, France.

While waiting at and checking out the various schedules of the lines in the bus depot of Troyes, I found out much to my pleasant surprise that one of those bus line went out to Arcis-sur-Aube....fantastic, obviously, another reason for coming back to Troyes from Paris to catch that bus going out to Arcis. Arcis was one the last victories Napoleon inflicted on the Allies in their invasion of France in 1814.

Thanks for mentioning that restaurant, Fred!

What is the difference between klopse and Buletten ?

Also, yeech.

"Kartoffel-Petersilienstampf" ??

they'd have to pay me to eat there

Congratulations and suitable Nauga stars to Fred for taking us to Arcis-sur-Aube, a genuine settlement location never before mentioned in the Alphabet game.

Well done and thanks.

We now roll over into Round 103, onwards and upwards.

Gail, I don't understand your question, sorry.

Nigel I was kidding about Fred going out of order. No real question just having a silly moment. Hope you didn't ponder over it too much!!! Now back to our lists.

My dining experience at Zur letzten Instanz is little dated with the last and 2nd time in 2015...liked it both times. The menu offers good choices plus that Kartoffel side dish ( Beilage) with the Koenigsberger Klopse.

B

is for Boulogne-sur-Mer, France.

I first got here in 1987 taking the ferry from Folkestone. The stop in France was Boulogne, didn't stay though and took the taxi (this time to the train station (I wasn't dilly-dallying) and want to get to Paris to sleep, got into Paris Nord.

No until the mid-1990s was I in Boulogne again, this occasion with time to see the centre-ville.

Outside of Boulogne is a tall pole (I saw this 1995) which the French had set facing England as Boulogne was the preparation site for Napoleon projected invasion of England, while at the same time Britain was concluding diplomatic alignments for a concerted 4 prong invasion of France. With Napoleon's defeat in 1815, the British turned this pole towards France.

It was at Boulogne 99 years later in 1914 that the BEF landed in France to face the Germans, this was the cream of the British Army, members of crack regiments, most of them would perish before the year was out. It was these British professionals that practically wiped out Hitler's regiment in Ypres.

C

is for Chaumont, France.

This town I got to by taking the TER from Paris Est this last trip. The train ends up in Chaumont after also stopping in Troyes.

Compared to Troyes, Chaumont seemed less exciting, whatever that means, I went there as a day trip as it is featured in Napoleonic history of 1814, its treaty doomed Napoleon militarily and diplomatically if the Allied signatories adhered to their word given at Chaumont on prosecuting the war against Napoleon, come what may.

Chaumont can also be accessed from the bus depot in Troyes as a bus departs from that station to Chaumont , likewise to other famous little, and they are little, towns, ie, Brienne-le-Chateau and Arcis-sur-Aube.

D is for Dithmarschen. This is a rural county in southwest Schleswig-Holstein doesn't have big sites. It is nevertheless worth a visit, both for its natural beauty and for its cute towns.

Notable places include:
-- the town of Brunsbüttel, where the Kiel Canal meets the Elbe river, making it an important small port
-- the cute town of Büsum which also has a ferry to the island of Helgoland (not a part of Dithmarschen, but an amazing place to visit)
-- Germany's largest oil field
-- The seal station at Friedrichskoog, which is worth a visit
--The island of Trischen, which is a bird sanctuary. From March to October, a single bird researcher lives on the island. There is internet, quiet, and a weekly boat to bring supplies and remove trash. The island, like most in the region is constantly moving.
--The home of my Search and Rescue dog team, the DLRG Burg/Dithm. e.V., and of course many of our training areas. Our team is currently working to save for an underwater drone to support the work we do with our dogs.

E

is for the river , "die Etsch."

A major river in Italy , ( in Italian the Adrige), " die Etsch" flows in the region of the South Tirol.

The poem featuring the Etsch stanza became the German national anthem , that stanza "Von der Etsch bis an den Belt" has been dropped , obviously.

F is for Fisher Towers National Recreation Trail, a terrific day hike near Moab, Utah, and one we just did for the 3rd time this past spring. The trail encompasses a fascinating mix of glorious landscapes, including a wind around the enormous bases of pinnacles soaring as high as 900 ft; Titan, the highest, is the largest free standing sandstone tower in the US. Nearby Ancient Arts is a measly 400 ft. but its corkscrew summit, with its wobbly platter-sized peak, is a popular challenge for rock climbers.

https://www.visitutah.com/things-to-do/hiking/moab-hiking/fisher-towers

G

Goodge Street Underground station, on Tottenham Court Road in London. There’s a an actual Goodge St. around the corner from the station’s entrance on Tottenham Court, but there’s already a Tottenham Court Road tube station, several blocks to the south, just before Tottenham Court changes to Charing Cross Road. At Goodge Street Station, take an elevator down to the platform. If you take the stairs, you wind up in a long, long, long tiled stairway. I’m glad we didn’t have luggage on that deep descent. The station’s not open as late as some others.

H

Ha Ha Road, possibly the most amusing street in the London area? It’s in Woolwich, just east of Greenwich, and has the Queen Elizabeth hospital just beyond where it becomes Carlton Park Lane at its western end. The “Ha Ha” in its name isn’t the response to a funny joke, but refers to a shallow ditch that runs along the length of the road to the north side, with a short wall on one side of the ditch.

If you’re coming from the east to visit someone at that hospital, go Ha Ha.

Hackney

... is a borough in north east London. Where I've called home since 2008.

Hackney has a population of approximately 260,000, according to sources online, but it's probably much higher.

Inhabited since the Iron Age, on the gentle slopes of the River Lea valley, the name is first documented around the 13th century.

In the Tudor age, it was a country retreat for royalty. Sutton House, dating from 1535 is the oldest surviving structure in Hackney.

It's had its ups and downs. It had a really poor reputation through the 80's and 90's particularly. When I first visited in 1993 it seemed totally lawless and wild. Things have calmed down a lot now.

Gentrification has taken hold somewhat, many properties are now worth millions. It's still very mixed culturally, with at least 89 different languages spoken in the borough. There's a large afro-Caribbean community, a large Turkish community and many from the Indian subcontinent. Stamford Hill is the home to the largest Hasidic Jewish community in Europe, maybe only equalled in numbers by New York outside of Israel. It's gentrified, but definitely not sanitised.

There's a thriving food scene, many people pushing the boundaries with the restaurants and bars they're running. Many of the artists who lived and worked here in the 90's have been pushed out by rent rises, but there's still pockets of creative endeavour going on. There's still something of a bohemian feel, even though the average creative might have a job producing TV or managing an arts institution in Westminster these days rather than being a starving artist squatting a warehouse.

Well worth a visit, especially if you've seen the sights and want to see how people live. I think of the inner London boroughs such as Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Southwark and Lambeth as the "real" London. Of course they're no more real than Westminster, just different, but that's where you're going to get a flavour of London that's not so polished for the tourist experience.

I had a Hackney Pony named Easter Parader as a child - a flashy, high-stepping pony that we hooked up to a Jog cart. I figured that Hackney must be a fancy place in England.

Our Shetland Pony, Pony Pat, had longer hair and a woolier coat. I got to see some in Shetland few years ago, but they weren’t wearing Pony Sweaters https://www.horseloversmath.com/sweatersforponies/ .

A black taxi in the UK is still known as a "Hackney Carriage" in official documents. That derives from the horses that used to pull them.

… as opposed to Hackneyed writing …

The Isleham Hoard is the largest Bronze Age hoard in England, found in 1959, in Cambridge.

Here the wikipedia entry:

The Isleham Hoard is a hoard of more than 6,500 pieces of worked and unworked bronze, dating from the Bronze Age, found in 1959 by William 'Bill' Houghton and his brother, Arthur, at Isleham, near Ely, in the English county of Cambridgeshire.

It is the largest Bronze Age hoard ever discovered in England and one of the finest. It consists in particular of swords, spear-heads, arrows, axes, palstaves, knives, daggers, armour, decorative equipment (in particular for horses) and many fragments of sheet bronze,[1] all dating from the Wilburton-Wallington Phase of the late Bronze Age (about 1000 BCE). The swords show holes where rivets or studs held the wooden hilts in place.

The greater part of these objects have been entrusted to St Edmundsbury Borough Council Heritage Service and some are on display at West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village outside Bury St Edmunds, while other items are held by the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge in Cambridge.[2]

Some of the items are on display at the archaeological museum at Cambridge University.

Isleham is not near Cambridge, it is 20 miles northeast as part of Ely but is actually much closer to Soham.

Most of the artifacts are in Bury St Edmonds in the county of Suffolk, 30 miles east of Cambridge.

Hackney ponies are unlikely to compete in the Hamburg Derby, which takes place in the (J is for) Jenischpark. Sort of.

This park in an affluent neighborhood in the Altona borough of Hamburg, and when Altona was forced to join the city of Hamburg in the 1930s, the city required the family to sell them the (already leased by Altona) park. It is absolutely lovely, and the Jenisch Haus is now an art museum.

The adjacent Derby-Park is still owned by the Jenisch family and is host to the Hamburg Derby (Deutsches Spring- und Dressur-Derby), a dressage and especially jumping competition attracting riders from around the world and attended by 90.000 people. This competition has been around since the 1920s and hosts a bank that was the inspiration for the famous Hickstead Bank. The competition takes place in early May and is tons of fun. As it's just meters from an S-Bahn station, it's also easy to access.

Both the park and the derby are worth a visit!

K

is for the famous Cafe Krantzler am K'damm close to Bahnhof Zoo.

The famous Krantzler site does not function as a Cafe at the moment but it could be coming. Currently nothing has replaced this famous site am Kurfürstendamm.

If you were in Berlin in the 1970s, then invariably you saw it. I first Cafe Krantzler and the crowd frequenting it in July of 1971 during that stifling heat wave and thought, this must be the famous "Berliner Luft" sung that song.

L

Lone Eagle Peak (formerly Lindbergh Peak - another “L”) is an extremely spiky point in the Indian Peaks Wilderness in Colorado. It’s actually the end of a long, spiny ridge, and not a mountain, but when viewed from below, it appears to be a stand-alone rock needle.

It was named almost 100 years ago by Fred Fair, a friend of Charles Lindbergh (first solo flyer across the Atlantic, who didn’t have to endure airport security or bag check lines back then), who was trying to raise money to build a tourist road to its base. There’s no road now, just a narrow, steep, 7 1/2 mile trail.

We’re spending our 25th anniversary later this week, backpacking up to Mirror Lake and Crater Lake at the base of Lone Eagle, where we’ll spend the weekend as volunteer ambassadors for the U.S. Forest Service. As the area is in a designated Wilderness, nothing motorized is allowed, the limited campsites (which require reservations in the summer, to limit the number of people) do not allow campfires, dogs must be on handheld leash at all times, and groups are limited to a maximum of 12 heartbeats (total of people and animals). A numbered, wooden post marks each of the twelve campsites, and registered campers must set up camp within 30 feet of the post.

The regulations are intended to maintain a remote, isolated, pristine atmosphere in the Wilderness, and we’ll be there to provide friendly reminders about the policies. Despite the No Campfires rule, we expect to find old fire rings from previous campers, and will need to dismantle and disperse them. An ambassador earlier this summer collected 30 lbs. of trash that was forgotten or deliberately left by campers in the area, including one dog bootie and scraps of toilet paper. Backpacking back to the trailhead with the additional load of trash was quite a task. Presumably, there won’t be a lot of cigarette butts.

Wads of TP on the ground were unfortunately seen in the mountains of France and Germany a month ago, too, so it’s not just a Colorado litter thing.

M

is for Mutzig, France.

Alsace-Lorraine is riddled with WW1 and 1870 military sites belonging to the Germans and the French. The little town of Mutzig located in Alsace is one of these sites showing the new type of WW1 fortification then previously unknown.

Just before the 20th century rolled around, the Germans decided to protect Straßburg as it was then known by constructing a new type of fortification capable of withstanding heavy bombardment by high explosive shells. The French had discounted the value of heavy artillery.

The result was Fort Kaiser Wilhelm II in the town of Mutzig, not far from Obernai and Colmar.

Seeing it can be done as a day trip from Strasbourg....very doable.

Circling back to Nigel's note regarding Isleham, thank you sir for the additional info.

Although, when you say "Isleham is not near Cambridge, it is 20 miles northeast" that hits the ear of a western American as a does-not-compute -- you must recall from your own days here that 20 miles doesn't even count as 'down the road a ways' . I'm reminded of a silicon valley officeworker who described her typical lunch hour if she doesn't pack her own, and the strip mall sandwich shop she prefers is more than 20 miles from the office.

N is for Ngorongoro Crater. Located in Tanzania, this Conservation Area boasts a caldera that is 600m deep and covers over 250 square km. It's one of the best places in the world for seeing the rare black rhino, and it's great for most major African animals (no giraffes and only male elephants inside the crater, though). When we were stopped at the bathroom--the only place in the crater where one gets out of one's vehicle--the monkeys busted into our car and stole some food. Apparently they always do this, and if they don't get some loot, they are likely to crap inside your safari vehicle.

If your trip to this part of the world doesn't include Ngorongoro, you are missing out.

we were stopped at the bathroom--the only place in the crater where one gets out of one's vehicle--the monkeys busted into our car and stole some food. Apparently they always do this, and if they don't get some loot, they are likely to crap inside your safari vehicle.

It’s ironic that the monkeys don’t just use the bathrooms, if they need to go. Or is the defecating just payback for not getting food? Pickpockets in Europe, and thieving/crapping monkeys in Africa… travel involves risks, as well as rewards.

M

Modesto, California.

Anyone recall and enjoy seeing a young Ron Howard and Harrison Ford in the film, American Graffiti? It was directed by George Lucas. Also starred Richard Dreyfuss.

Even though it was about car cruising in Modesto. but was primarily filmed in Petaluma, California.

While attending college in the illustrious burg of Turlock my college chums and I would take old Hwy 99 to “ Motown,” to watch the cruising.

Modesto still has an arch with lights that praises what the city is proud of: Water, Wealth, Contentment and Health.

So so many folks have NO clue what an agricultural state California is. The Central Valley supplies over half of the fruits, vegetables and nuts grown in the US. Almonds, grapes, tomatoes, prunes, peaches, lettuces, strawberries are just some of the state’s agriculture.

According to our guide it's payback for not getting food. At any rate, it was an adventure to be that close and makes for a great story!

And back to the game--O is for Ottensen. This is a district in Hamburg Altona. It's a lively place full of great food, local theatres, hipster live music venues, cafes, old world buildings with all their charming walk up apartments with weird layouts.

P

is for Plattensee.

Located in Hungary it is widely known there by that name as well. This is Lake Balaton SE of Budapest. Lake Balaton is popular, no doubt, one can expect it to be crowded.

Q is for Queensbury, NY - Queensbury is a town on Lake George at the edge of the Adirondack Mountains. I have friends who live here. When I visited, we only did a short hike, but my friends take advantage of the location and often do some of the more spectacular Adirondack hikes. On a side note, I just finished a great novel that takes place in the Adirondacks and briefly mentions Queensbury - The God of the Woods, highly recommended. Not armchair travel per se but you do get a little taste of it.

R

is for Rue Rivoli in Paris.

This street is not an ordinary street in Paris one may expect to see and walk through. It is a street where wealth can be seen in its shops, (That's plainly obvious) and the international tourists frequenting them and are showing off their wealth.

Rue Rivoli is named after the battle in northern Italy where the Austrians suffered a convincing and final defeat at the hands of Napoleon, after which decided to end the The War of the First Coalition by concluding the peace treaty with France.

S

is for Schultheiss, the well known beer producing company in Berlin.

If you like Berlin beers, you will find a varied selection of Berlin beers by Schultheiss, among these Berliner Spezialitäten "Berliner Weiße" to which you can choose to add that shot of raspberry syrup.