Time to unpack the memories and chart a new course
This is my last column as the Travel section editor, so it's the perfect occasion to recall highlights from nearly 20 years traveling the world.
By ROBERT N. JENKINS
Published March 26, 2006
Cue Andrea Bocelli: It's time to say goodbye.
This month I took on two other editing assignments for the St. Petersburg Times, and while I will be writing about a few trips this year for the Travel section, this is my last column as its editor. It's the perfect occasion to recall highlights - and to begin with a disclosure:
When I was made the paper's first travel editor in 1987 and was told by the managing editor to fashion a section each Sunday about "what's out there,'' I did not have a passport.
To believe, as many Americans do, that what our country offers is enough is like believing you've read enough books. My fellow Americans, the rest of the world holds grander canyons, higher mountains, longer rivers, broader deserts, more wildlife, greater museums, more-enchanting clothing, plus a couple of thousand more years of history. Think: castles.
As travel editor, I've been privileged to see a fraction of them. Among the most memorable places and moments:
Best late-night show, big-city division: In the vastness of Moscow's Red Square, watching the goose-stepping changing of the guard at Lenin's Tomb.
Best late-night show, no-city division: Walking a mile between steep canyon walls, the sandy path lit only by luminaria, to the Treasury building, symbol of Jordan's ancient city of Petra. Movie fans may remember Harrison Ford, as Indiana Jones, racing up to the 125-foot-tall red sandstone facade on horseback near the climax in his Last Crusade. Indy got there in daylight, I arrived at night - on my birthday.
Best daytime view in a big-city park: Stopping on a little-used road to discover a view not even my Rio de Janeiro hosts had seen before - before and below us was the 98-foot-tall Christ the Redeemer statue, and beyond, rising from the water near Copacabana beach, Rio's landmark Sugar Loaf Mountain.
Best daytime view from a big-city traffic circle: In Paris, atop the 17-story Arc de Triomphe, looking down on the 12 traffic-laden streets that intersect there, and looking out on a 360-degree view of the city.
Favorite moment at a natural landmark: The first time I saw Wyoming's Grand Teton mountains, I considered moving to the state so that I could gaze at those jagged peaks whenever I wanted. I settled for a photo mural of a pink dawn on the eastern faces, which hangs in my den.
Favorite moment at a man-made landmark: When I stood at the base of the Great Pyramid in Egypt, I realized that people around the world would recognize the scene. But later on that trip, I looked up at the ceiling of a 3,300-year-old temple in the Ramesseum and I was staggered at the still-bright colors on the ceiling's hieroglyphics.
Most calming scene in a place close to war: The farmland and lake below the gentle hill designated as the Mount of the Beatitudes, generally accepted as the place where Christ delivered the Sermon on the Mount. I had already seen the poverty evident in the refugee camps, a line of tanks parked outside Jerusalem, metal detectors near Judaism's holiest site, the Western Wall, and a one-man bomb squad dealing with a package by a Tel Aviv bus stop. That panorama on the green hillside is still with me.
Most unsettling scene in a place close to war: In a line of vehicles heading into Northern Ireland, I waited to be inspected by a member of the national police force. But he waved me past to check the truck in front of my car. As I moved by, I noticed the British Army soldier prone in the grass, his machine gun aimed at the truck.
Most embarrassing moment - I think - for others: It happened in Jerusalem, as I began to climb down a concrete stairway from the wall encircling the Old City. The stairs first turned away from the wall, then ran parallel to it. When I made the turn, I encountered a couple on the stairs, having sex. I turned and went back up to the wall.
Most embarrassing moment for me: Was it the time I passed out drunk in the men's room of a Leningrad restaurant - the result of an inedible chicken entrée and all those vodka toasts offered by the Russians nearby - or was it the time the masseuse in the Bangkok hotel's fitness center made it clear from her groping and broken English that she'd be pleased to provide more than deep-muscle massage?
Best trip by sea: I have been aboard exactly three dozen vessels for the Times. The list includes a wooden windjammer off Maine, a small freighter carrying people, cargo and the mail between Bahamian islands and the Queen Mary 2 the night Queen Elizabeth named the vessel in a gala ceremony. My favorite trip was in January, aboard the Wind Spirit, which does not put on pretensions for its laid-back but well-heeled passengers.Best trip in the air: My flight aboard the supersonic Concorde. Being endlessly pampered by the cabin staff while flying twice the speed of sound was swell, but being buckled into a jumpseat in the cockpit for our landing was unforgettable.
Most romantic city: Venice. I have spent four days there, strolling the twisting streets off the canals and the famed square, but I will never return without my wife.
Most restful city: Cesky Krumlov, near the Czech Republic's border with Austria. A miniature version of what many consider the epitome of central Europe before McDonald's occupies the prime corners, the village is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sit down at a riverside table and have a great glass of beer. Then have another.
CIty I'd avoid: Bangkok, for its smog-filled air, wild traffic, Western development run amok and a climate that makes you long for Tampa Bay in August.
City I'd pass through to reach another destination: Bangkok, for just a plane ride away is the "hill country'' near the border with Myanmar - green, populated by ethnic tribes, calming, despite the opium-poppy fields.
Best random act of kindness: It's a tie. In Glasgow, a man I had met just an hour before at my hotel bar left, then returned with a wrapped package he handed me. It was a handsome, framed watercolor of a British Navy ship, the HMS Glasgow. Neil Gunn said he had planned to present it as a 50th birthday gift to a friend that evening but that he wanted me to have it, as a remembrance of my first visit to Glasgow. It hangs in my house, too.
I took nothing tangible from my meeting with another stranger, not even learning the name of this man in Odessa, a tired city in the Ukraine. But I shall never forget his good spirit and kindness in leading me for 45 minutes through his city to find me help in reaching my hotel. Neither of us spoke the other's language but with gestures and smiles - even laughter and applause when he told our fellow trolley passengers I was an American - we carried on. As we parted, later, he waved and called out to me:
"Mir, druzhbah!"
I smiled and waved back, not knowing until my tour guide later explained that the man had called out: "Peace, friendship!''
Editor best suited to take over Travel: Already at the wheel is Janet K. Keeler, the award-winning editor of the Times' weekly Taste section and, for the past year, creator of Travel's innovative Side Trip, which appears on Page 3T. Janet, I'll be getting off here.
n n n
Did I ask for the strong vocals of Andrea Bocelli? Maybe it's better to leave to that old smoothie, Bob Hope: Thanks for the memories . . .
Robert N. Jenkins can be reached at bjenkins@sptimes.com or 727 893-8496.