Walking and Drinking Beer in Central Park

Strolling New York’s Central Park is one of the great urban walks of the world and as a bonus, it offers the best outdoor bar in Manhattan.

Of course, you’ll have to share that bar with the park’s 25 million annual visitors. This is the most popular green space in America – and the most recognizable. More than 200 films have been shot here. From romantic Annie Hall to Death Wish, Love Story to Fatal Attraction, Central Park has seen it all.

But strangely, most of the people who visit the park have no idea what they are seeing.
As they stroll down the shady 58 miles of paths through a landscape of rolling lawns, trees and lakes, populated above by some 250 species of birds, they have little awareness that they are walking in one of the greatest man-made wonders of the world. Because everything in this lovely park of 500,000 trees, shrubs and plants was created by man, all in an area that once was a dismal swamp.

When the idea of a park was first proposed in 1844 by newspaper editor William Cullen Bryant, New York had a population of a half million people, most living in crowded and cramped conditions below 38th Street. Bryant proposed creating a public park that would offer families a place to escape for carriage rides and give working-class New Yorkers a “healthy alternative to the saloon.”

By 1853, the city had spent $5 million to buy 6 percent of Manhattan Island – a slice of property a half-mile wide by 2.5 miles long. The land was basically worthless for development and filled with swamps, bluffs and rocky outcrops, as well as being home to some 1,600 poor Irish pig farmers and 3,000 African Americans, all of whom would have to be relocated.
There was no public landscaped park in America at this time, so in 1857 a landscape design competition was held to decide what to do with all this space. The winning design, submitted by the park’s superintendent, Frederick Law Olmsted, and an English born architect and gardener, Calvert Vaux, called for creating pastoral landscapes reminiscent of English paintings filled with rolling meadows and deep woods, offset by huge public spaces where the elite of New York could gather and stroll on terraces. Commercial roads through park would be sunk nine feet deep so that bridal paths and walks would go over them uninterrupted on a series of 36 bridges.
Building the park became one of the most massive construction projects in New York history. Twenty thousand Irish workers labored for 15 years. More gunpowder than was exploded at Gettysburg was used to blast out mountains of rock, while an estimated 10 million horse-drawn carts rolled in and out of the park, dragging away debris and swamp and bringing back rich topsoil from New Jersey. Ninety-five miles of pipe were laid underground to feed the six man-made lakes, reservoirs and streams, while European craftsman created seven splashing, ornamental fountains and German gardeners planted a quarter million trees and shrubs. Finally, 9,000 benches (seven miles of seats) were placed near ponds, overlooks and in wooded glens under stately elms.
In its first decades, the park was a place for the wealthy, who arrived by carriage in top hats to stroll the Mall. But as poor immigrants moved north on Manhattan, eventually surrounding the park, its character changed. By the 1970s, Central Park was one of the most dangerous places in the city with every building covered by graffiti, while park benches were missing their slats and garbage and litter were everywhere.

Then in 1980, control of the park was given to the Central Park Conservancy (http://www.centralparknyc.org/). To date, this private, non-profit organization has raised more than $500 million and restored Central Park to the brilliancy of the original design by Olmsted and Vaux. A team of 49 gardeners keep the 843 acres in immaculate condition. Today, the park is safe, spotlessly clean and litter-free. Amazingly, all 125 water fountains work, while the scrubbed restrooms play classical music. Dogs can walk in many places off leash, and the park is filled with musicians and music of all kinds.

Most visitors enter Central Park from the south at 59th Street, either by the Plaza Hotel on 5th Avenue or Columbus Circle on Broadway. There are maps posted in logical places, filled with photos of nearby things to see. A new feature asks cell phone users to call (646) 862-0997. Touch tone the extension posted at different sites and you can hear celebrities describe what you are seeing, from Whoopi Goldberg talking about Wollman Skating Rink to Sarah Jessica Parker reminiscing at the Pond to Jerry Seinfeld telling jokes about the Mall. There are bike tours, bike rentals, walking tours, pedi-cabs and surprisingly inexpensive horse-drawn carriage rides (just $34 for the first half hour, $10 for each additional 15 minutes).
But the best way to experience the park is to just wander, get hopelessly lost and look for these treasures along the way.

The Loeb Boathouse (75th Street) (http://www.thecentralparkboathouse.com/rkboathouse.com/house.com/) The restaurant is expensive, but go into the restaurant and to the left and there is a green outdoor bar with lakeside tables and chairs. It’s all self-seating, so grab a $7 Stella at the bar, fight your way to a table and enjoy the best outdoor view in New York. The restaurant bar also overlooks the lake and would be a little warmer in inclement weather. There are 100 boats for rent here too, as well as bicycle rentals.

The Pond and Gapstow Bridge (62st Street): Similar to the Ponte di San Francesco in San Remo, Italy, this graceful stone bridge is an icon of Central Park and the subject of many posters and postcards. The banks of The Pond are lined with flowers; the reflection of the nearby skyscrapers make this one of the park’s most visited spots.
The Mall (66th Street): One of the grandest elm-lined walkways in the world, the Mall is a four-block-long pedestrian promenade where you’ll find many of the park’s 51 statues.

Bethesda Terrace & Fountain (72nd Street): The “heart of the park” is this ornamental fountain and terrace. It is probably the park’s most photographed spot. Two sweeping staircases lead down to a terrace, where the gentry of New York once came to be seen. Today, it is one of the best people-watching spots in New York and home to world-class street performers.

Strawberry Fields (72nd Street): On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was shot dead as he entered his home at the Dakota Apartment Building at 72nd and Central Park. The former Beatle loved walking in the park with his wife and young son. Through the generosity of his widow, Yoko Ono, a 2.5-parcel of the park was re-landscaped and named Strawberry Fields, in honor of the Beatle’s song, Strawberry Fields Forever. From Yoko’s 7th floor apartment in the Dakota, the area looks like a giant teardrop. Ten thousand tiles from Italy spell out a simple mosaic with just one word: “Imagine.” Strawberry Fields opened on October 9, 1985, which would have been John’s 45th birthday. Today, music fans gather here every year on that date.

Bow Bridge and the Lake (73rd Street): Another classic movie location, Bow Bridge was completed in 1862 and was built entirely of cast iron. The 22-acre lake is best seen by row boat, with looming skyscrapers in the background. You can get a boat at the Loeb Boathouse for just $12 an hour.

The Ramble (77th Street): Just north of the lake, walk under the picturesque Ramble Arch into a maze of trails and paths through a forest woodland with streams and waterfalls. Though it looks wild, every single thing was planned and planted. Olmsted wrote: “Every foot of the park, every tree and bush, every arch, roadway and walk, has been fixed where it is with a purpose.”

Belvedere Castle (79th Street): Designed in 1865, this castle offers breathtaking views over the Great Lawn and is an entry way to the Shakespeare Garden, a quiet place in the park where the only plants are flowers that were mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays. This is the main weather station for New York. You can climb to the top tower on stone circular stairway.

The Obelisk – Cleopatra’s Needle (82nd Street): The oldest monument in America was erected in Heliopolis around 1500 B.C. and moved by Rome’s Augustus Caesar to Alexandria in 12 B.C. Depending on who you ask, it was either given to America as a token of good faith or stolen by William Vanderbilt, but in 1879 it came to New York and was erected near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The amazing museum, perhaps the most celebrated museum in America, sits nearby at 81st Street and is, of course, worth a day on its own.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir (90th Street): This 106-acre reservoir is 40-feet deep and holds a billion gallons of water. The 1.58-mile running track along its edge is one of the city’s favorite jogging spots. Since the reservoir no longer supplies water to New York, there is great debate about what to do with it, ranging from adding beaches, restaurants and marina to filling it in for ball fields.

Conservatory Garden: This hidden gem at Fifth Avenue and 105th Street is actually three gardens based on classic English, French and Italian designs. Filled with fountains and flowers, walkways and tree-shaded paths, it is the only formal garden in Central Park, and one of the park’s most secret and deserted retreats.

Duke Ellington Statue: This rather bizarre statue sits at the top of the park’s northeast corner at 110th Street. Dedicated to the African-American jazz composer and band leader, the monument has Duke standing next to a piano on top of pillars made up of nine very shapely nude women. They’re supposed to be the “muses” that inspired him. Okay. But it’s no wonder they called him the “Duke.”

Wollman Rink (62nd Street): From mid-October through March, one of the highlights of Central Park is skating on this 33,000 square foot rink, surrounded by skyscrapers and views. In fall, the white of the ice is offset by the color of the surrounding trees. Climb the rocks above the skating rink for one of the best views in Manhattan.

IF YOU GO: Central Park also has a famous zoo, a Shakespeare theatre, the famous Tavern on the Green restaurant, four inexpensive outdoor cafes, and the Conservatory Water, where the little mouse Stuart Little had his famous boat race and where New Yorkers sail model boats on the weekend. And that’s just the beginning. There are two excellent Web sites for information: http://www.centralparknyc.org/ is the Conservancy’s site; and http://www.centralpark.com/ is a commercial site. Columbus Avenue runs parallel to the park two blocks away and is lined with outdoor cafes and great bars.

Riding Trains and Drinking Tequila in....Tequila!

If you drank eight different shots of tequila a day, it would still take a 100 days to work your way through every variety of tequila available in the Mexican state of Jalisco. They take tequila very seriously here in central Mexico.
With more than 800 different brands of tequila to explore, one of the most fun way of studying this particular fire-water is by riding the legendary Tequila Express – an excursion railroad that runs a rolling party from Guadalajara down 40 km of rusting track to the Hacienda San Jose del Refugio, near the town of Tequila (http://www.tequilaexpress.com.mx/ilaexpress.com.mx/).

Of course, “express” is a relative term. This “express” train takes an hour and forty-five minutes to chug just 24 miles, but that gives you plenty of time to admire the scenery of rolling hills covered with fields of cultivated blue agave – the spiny, cactus-like plant from which tequila is made. And the long train journey also gives you plenty of time to drink tequila, accompanied by a dozen mariachi players, who move from car to car, bringing a bedlam of blaring brass and strumming guitars with them.
The ride begins at Guadalajara’s train station with our guide offering some basic information about Mexico’s national drink.
To be called “tequila,” the liquor must be distilled from a fermented concoction that is at least 51 percent the juice of an agave plant grown in Jalisco, the Mexican state that covers the very heart and central part of the country. The mixed stuff is generally considered rock-gut; all really good tequilas are distilled from 100 percent agave juice, and will be marked as such on the bottle. A “sister” drink, mescal, is made from agave grown outside of Jalisco and has slight variations in how it is prepared.
There are four basic types of tequila. Tequila blanco or silver tequila is distilled and bottled with no aging and is clear; a gold variety is the same thing with caramel added for coloring. Aged tequila is a new phenomenon that only dates back to 1989 when Don Julio invented it by accident. He served some friends a personal tequila that he had stored in his office in an oak cask. The aged drink was a sensation. Today, tequila reposado (rested) has been aged two to 11 months in oak casks. Tequila anejo (aged) has sat at least a year in a barrel. Both tequilas interact with the oak, taking on a pleasant dark amber color, while becoming much smoother and sweeter – perfect for sipping rather than mixing in drinks, much like a single malt scotch. Tequila anejo can also become very expensive, selling for up to $400 U.S. a bottle.
With the short tequila train lecture over, our guide says it’s now time to try some! As the countryside rolls by and the mariachis play, it’s five happy train carloads of guests who sample a variety of tequilas, before finally arriving at the Hacienda San Jose del Refugio, home of the famous Herradura tequila factory. It was here in 1870 that Don Ambrosio Rosales discovered a horseshoe in a field and made it the “good luck” symbol of his tequila. Today, Herradura is one of the most famous and traditional of all tequilas.
The hacienda is organized somewhat like a kibbutz. Inside its long, adobe walls, it is home to five generations of workers, who live in the attractive compound of colorful houses and cobblestone streets. You must be a relative of a previous worker to live in the sprawling hacienda.
On a tour of the grounds, craftsman show how the spines of the cactus-like agave plant are cut away to reveal a big, “pineapple-like” ball in the heart of the plant. Called a “pina,” these giant pineapples are loaded on conveyor belts and cooked by huge ovens for 26 hours. Then, the roasted balls are crushed and juiced and the liquid is allowed to ferment naturally in the open air into a low alcohol, beer-like product called pulque. No yeast is added at Herradura, all fermentation is natural. Mango and citrus trees planted around the hacienda add natural ingredients to the air to help the fermentation process.
From here, the pulque is distilled twice to make it tequila. The hacienda museum preserves century-old distilling equipment with copper tubing, vats and eerie lighting that make it appear more like Frankenstein’s laboratory. Today, modern distilling makes tequila a minimum of 38 percent alcohol, although Herradura makes a variety with a higher alcoholic content of 45 percent.
Which we were happy to taste, while enjoying a Mexican extravaganza of a buffet lunch, mariachi music, colorful dancers and a charreada, a Mexican rodeo with trick roping and riding. All these traditions – so identified with Mexico -- come from Jalisco. As does sangrita, Mexico’s partner for tequila. Order an “un completo” in any bar and you will be served two tall shot glasses, one with tequila and one with a spicy red mixture called sangrita, a non-alcoholic drink that “completes” the tequila. The idea is to take small sips from each glass. To really become a local, order a “bandera,” which adds a glass of lime juice, replicating the red, white and green of the national flag.
There are as many recipes for sangrita as there are for tequila, but most involve grapefruit, orange and lime juice, chili powder, hot sauce, jalapeno or tomato juice. Mexicans believe that sangrita’s combination of tart juice and fiery chili wards off hangovers.
After the lunch, fiesta and dancing, the train finally departs at 6 p.m. with, yes, more tequila, mariachis and madness for another two hours, dropping the survivors back at the Guadalajara station at 8 p.m. You’ll need a cab from here – no one drives home from the Tequila Express.

Guadalajara, Guadalajara!

With more than 4 million people, Mexico’s second largest city can be modern, sprawling and congested, but it also offers a wonderful, colonial, pedestrian-friendly downtown worth spending a day or two exploring. Start at the Catedral de Guadalajara. Begun in 1561, this is the heart of the city, surrounded by plazas, shopping and incredible architecture. The balcony of La Antigua Restaurant and Bar at Morelos 371, overlooking Plaza Guadalajara and the cathedral, is a great place to grab a local amber Victoria beer, eat some delicious garlic shrimp and plan an attack.
Plaza Liberacion, to the east, has the most colorful activity with everything from balloon vendors to Aztec dancers and drummers performing their ancient ceremonies beside a wild statue of revolutionary leader Miguel Hidalgo. More on him later.
The Mercado Libertad is “deep Mexico,” with hanging pig’s heads at the butcher shop, herb and spice stalls, acres of produce and windows filled with mystical interpretations of devils and ghouls, no doubt to ward off evil spirits. Don’t miss the songbirds for sale in cages in the back courtyard.
Plaza de los Mariachis is a bit disappointing mid-week, but on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons it allegedly jumps with mariachis bands. The very first mariachis began right here in the1860s as cowboy troubadour groups.
The Instituto Cultural de Cabanas is a Unesco heritage site and architectural gem, approached via a long pedestrian mall lined with shops, restaurants, fountains and statues. The rest of the square mile historic district has pocket parks and churches, museums on history and art, colonnaded walkways, courtyard cafes, and all manner of shops and department stores. It’s not as uniformly historic as the Zocalo of Mexico City and there are many tasteless modern buildings mixed in with old treasures. But there’s a relaxed and friendly vibe to the city – and certainly no hint of danger. Guadalajara feels safer than most American cities. There are horse-drawn carriage rides for the tourists, but you’ll do better on foot…and the horses look like they can use the rest.

Tlaquepaque

Besides being fun to say (tlah-keh-pah-keh), this is Guadalajara’s Beverly Hills, a truly pleasant pedestrian street, 7 km from downtown. Lined with upscale artisan shops, cafes, parks, hanging walls of brilliant pink bougainvilleas and quiet courtyards this is a lazy, tree-shaded town with a gleaming white basilica and plenty of cast iron benches to while away an afternoon. Marimbas are popular and several groups hustle around town playing them. El Parian, at the end of the mall, is an open courtyard shared by a half dozen bars and restaurants. Here, you can sip a beer watching the street action, or sit quietly in the center court listening to live music.
Tlaquepaque is known throughout the region for offering some of the finest arts and crafts in the nation; many of the galleries represent artisans who work on-site. Like Beverly Hills, the stores are not cheap, but with its compact shopping area and more than 200 shops, restaurants and boutiques, this is the shopping destination in central Mexico and more fun, traffic-free and relaxed than any shopping district in Mexico City.

Tequila

The town of Tequila is less than an hour from Guadalajara and offers a quiet village of cobblestone streets, all surrounded by a sea of rolling hills covered with blue agave. Tequila was first introduced here in 1795 by Jose Cuervo, who received the exclusive government contract to distill it. Tours of the Cuervo distillery are available in English and Spanish (www.mundocuervo.com), and offer a variety of tasting options. The grounds and shops are beautiful.
In the central town square, don’t miss the bubble machine man, who pushes a cart dispensing bubbles, followed by a small army of kids. There’s also the National Museum of Tequila and any number of shops specializing in tequila and tequila souvenirs.

Ruta 2010 – Walking and Drinking Cerveza
on the Road to Revolution
By a stroke of good fortune for the Mexican tourism office, both of Mexico’s revolutions began a hundred years apart – in 1810 and 1910. Assuming the country doesn’t follow suit and have yet another revolution next year, this will lead to one big historic celebration in 2010.
Routes that follow the various military campaigns have been laid out with one leaving from Guadalajara that goes to the three most historic towns of Mexico’s 1810 revolt: Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato and San Miguel. Happily, they are also some of the most beautiful and charming destinations in central Mexico. http://www.bicentennial.gob.mx/

Town of Pain..and Ice Cream
Dolores, which means “pain,” is the least attractive but most historic of the three. It was here on September 16, 1810 (a date celebrated in Mexico as a national holiday) that a rather bizarre priest named Father Miguel Hidalgo rang the bell of his church and issued the “El Grito de Dolores” – a call to revolution against Spain. Hidalgo gambled, danced and fathered seven children, but this unorthodox padre is a Mexican national hero and his fiery, bald-headed image shouting out for independence can be seen throughout the country in countless murals, statues and even at the entrance of San Miguel’s largest disco.
Hidalgo and compatriot Ignacio Allende threw together an army of 80,000 machete-armed rebels, who captured Guanajuato, San Miguel and Guadalajara, before meeting disaster against well disciplined royalist troops. Hidalgo and Allende were captured, executed and beheaded. Their heads hung in iron cages in Guanajuato for 10 years, until independence was finally won in 1821.
Today, Dolores is much more peaceful. You can visit Hidalgo’s home, see the bell he rang for freedom (the Liberty Bell of Mexico) and visit a museum on the revolution, but most people stop here for ice cream in the pleasant town square. In one of those quirks of Mexico that you just accept, Dolores has become a national center for homemade ice cream. You can get dozens of flavors that include favorites such as beer, tequila, avocado, cheese and even fried pork skin. If flavors such as corn ice cream don’t appeal, they also have every tropical fruit flavor imaginable, all served at the corners of the square from distinctive stands.

Guanajuato
Three and half-hours from Guadalajara, just forty minutes from Dolores, is one of the great colonial gems of Mexico – the incredible silver mining town of Guanajuato. As much as a quarter of the world’s silver has come from this town. Founded in the 1550s, there are still eight active mines in the area.
The wealth of the hills was poured into fanciful (and colorful) Baroque and neoclassical buildings, churches, mansions, parks and homes, that are painted wild colors, from turquoise to brilliant burnt orange. But it is the location that is truly different. Built in a steep valley, the town spills up the sides of the mountains in twisting cobblestone streets, stairways and alleys that have a real European feel. The main roads of the town are underground – five miles of tunnels that branch off, interconnect and meet up again – all underground. The unique layout, preserved architecture and wonderful pedestrian-friendly center have won Guanajuato a designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Jardin de la Union is the center of the city – a wonderful triangular park of cast iron benches and trimmed trees, lined on all sides with umbrella-filled outdoor cafes. It has the feeling of Italy or Spain. Nearby is the university, the elegant Teatro Juarez and the Basilica of Guanajuato, but it is the plazuelas (the pocket parks) that you will remember. Built wherever there is a flat spot, these little green spaces offer an oasis from the labyrinth of narrow, twisting streets – one of which is so tight, it is called the kissing alley because legend has it that two lovers kissed across the alley from balconies on either side.
In the evening, groups of Estudiantinas (musicians dressed as 19th century troubadours) stroll the alleys, serenading tourists. It’s a little corny, but great fun, though it must drive the local residents crazy to be serenaded every night.
The town has an inexplicable love affair with Don Quixote (there are statues everywhere and a museum) and in October, kicks off a yearly, three-week Cervantes Festival that celebrates all the arts with music and dance in the streets.
Bars are everywhere and inexpensive. It’s no surprise that Zorro and Once Upon a Time in Mexico were filmed here. This is romantic Mexico, so wildly beautiful and colorful that it’s difficult to believe this is an actual working town of 140,000 people and not some movie set. Ride the funicular to the hilltop for a stunning view at twilight, have a drink at a café around a square, poke in the galleries and shops, and get lost in the backstreet alleys. This is one great town.

San Miguel de Allende

San Miguel is arguably the most Americanized town in Mexico with a Starbucks and 8,000 (about 10 percent) of the population being ex-pats and Europeans. But don’t let that bother you – it’s also one of the most beautiful towns you will ever visit.
Founded in the 1542, the colorful colonial town became an artist colony and beatnik hang-out in the 1950s and has been declared a Mexican national monument.
The 24-square block historic center is a dream of earth colors -- ochre, yellow, brown, pale green and burnt orange adobe buildings. Some of them are nearly 500 years old; all are adorned with antique wooden doors and line an up and down, hilly maze of cobblestone streets, offset by elegant shops and shop windows…all under the soft, pale light of a 6,000-foot high mountain desert.
Deep Mexico is around every corner. Step in the market or pause outside one of the dozen historic churches and you’re sure to meet an old women begging for centavos. But on the next corner is a courtyard restaurant with a wall of flowers that would be at home in Santa Fe or St. Moritz.
The center of town is El Jardin, the quessential Mexican plaza of cast iron benches and boxed laurel trees, lined with colonnades of arches from colonial days. There are any number of bars here for a Victoria beer and the sunset show when thousands of grackles go crazy, roosting in the trees, as lovers walk by.
The rose-colored, La Parroquia, a Gothic church of crazy spires allegedly inspired by a European postcard, overlooks the square and completes the picture that, Starbucks aside, you’re not in Kansas anymore.
San Miguel has the home of the other beheaded hero, Ignacio Allende (for whom the town is named). There are galleries galore and museums, but it’s also a great place to just wander and walk, order a tequila “un completo” at an outdoor café, and watch the color of the buildings change as the sun moves lower on the horizon and the hundreds of historic lanterns start to glow. Nobody but the taxi cabs are in a hurry, and even they will pause, briefly, rather than run you down. There’s just time for another “un completo” before the mariachis start playing in the plaza.

Riding Ferries and Drinking Rum in the Virgin Islands

The title is a little deceptive, because just about the only place in the Virgin Islands where you can’t drink rum or beer is on the ferries. When you see how these passenger boats pitch and roll on their fast run between islands, you can understand the “no eating or drinking, all passengers must be seated” policy.
But once on land, it’s anything goes. As a U.S. territory (residents are citizens, but can’t vote for president), the three U.S. Virgin Islands have all their own laws. Driving is on the left, British style. The drinking age is 18 and there are no open container laws -- you can drink a beer on the street, on the beach, on a hiking trail or anywhere you like. You can even take an open beer into and out of any of the many bars on the three islands. There are, of course, strict drinking and driving laws, but go on foot, and the laws are pretty much the same as when pirates ruled the land.

Welcome to the Virgin Islands
Located a thousand miles southeast of Miami, the three U.S. Virgin Islands (and 50 or so neighboring British Virgin Islands) are at the northwest tip of the Lesser Antilles…that circular band of islands that separates the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic.
Compared to the larger islands of Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Cuba, the Virgins are just specks in the sea. St. John is the size of Manhattan, many of the islands are smaller and most are uninhabited. They look like lush green mountaintops sticking up out of a turquoise sea, many of them rising up to 1,700 feet in height and all of them visible from each other. And of course, they are ringed with some of the most gorgeous and famous white sand beaches on earth. The relatively safe waters with lots of pristine anchorages make it a top bare-boat sailing destination, and the marinas on Tortola, the sailing capital, are filled with sailboats available for weeklong charters.
It’s deep Caribbean – the dream everyone has of get-away-from-it-all islands, exotic but safe, easily negotiated, hassle free…and as a result, expensive and crowded. Most people see the Virgin Islands in one of three ways: chartering boats on expensive sailing vacations; staying at even more expensive, uber-upscale resorts or invading the islands with mobs of their fellow shipmates on frantic day trips from cruise ships.
But there is an alternative. Go to St. John in the off-season of May and June, before the hurricanes and after the mobs, and there are a number of reasonably priced small inns in the town of Cruz Bay that make an excellent base to go island hopping by ferry. We stayed at the St. John Inn (http://www.stjohninn.com/) for $130 a night. It’s a funky, ramshackled place, with a nice deck for breakfast (included) and free rum punches at sundown, but best of all, it’s a five-minute walk to the West Indies beach bars and shops of the hip little, backwater village of Cruz Bay.

Exploring St. John

The center of Cruz Bay is a small, palm-shaded plaza, surrounded by shops and restaurants in buildings painted peach, lime, rose and purple and covered with pink bougainvillea. A string of popular bars line a little beach and harbor filled with boats and in the distance, just three miles away, are the mountains of St. Thomas. It’s one of the top spots in the islands to watch a sunset.
From Cruz Bay, it’s an easy walk to dream-like beaches. Head to the National Park visitor center on the edge of town for a copy of the The Hiker’s Guide ($2.95) and from here it’s a 15-minute walk to idyllic Honeymoon Beach or snorkeling at Salomon Bay. Sixty percent of St. John is protected as the Virgin Islands National Park and the rest of the island is nearly as wild with only one other small town, two upscale resorts and some scattered private residences. In 1956, millionaire Laurence Rockefeller saw that development could destroy St. John, so he bought two-thirds of the island and gave it the U.S. government to become a national park. Today the park preserves 13,000 acres of land and underwater coral, 140 species of birds, 740 plants and 50 types of coral.
Only 3,500 people live on St. John and there are very few places to stay so by evening, the island population is small, giving Cruz Bay an “end-of-the-world” feel. There is no airport on St. John and the hourly ferry to Red Hook is the only connection to civilization.
Of course, St. John also has some of the most famous beaches in the world. Trunk Bay makes every top 10 beach list and island calendar and is even on a U.S. postage stamp. The beach is just the beginning. Lying just offshore of this too-good-to-be-true white sand lined with palm trees are two tiny islands and a coral reef offering superb snorkeling.
The national park has put in a 225-yard underwater snorkeling trail here. They’re very proud of the trail, which consists of signs sunk in 10 to 15 feet of water identifying fish and plant life. It’s okay, but in truth, the underwater signs are a bit hard to follow and distracting. With schools of kaleidoscopic fish, coral and plants in every direction, the last thing you need is to be reading an underwater brochure.
More impressive is that here, and in equally pretty next door Cinnamon Bay, the national park shop sells cans of El Presidente beer from the Dominican Republic for $2….and you’re more than welcome to drink beer on the beach or throughout the park. There are also fresh water showers, lockers and snorkel rentals.
You can get to the beaches from Cruz Bay by open air taxis ($6 to Trunk Bay each way) but to really explore the island, you need to rent a car ($50-60). The roads are crazy, incredibly steep, blind curves and of course, you’re driving British style on the left but with American cars made to drive on the right. No worries. No one goes over 20-30 mph, and usually much slower.
There are pull-offs and knock-dead views every half-mile, and the island is covered with hiking trails. Leinster Bay Trail follows an old Danish road around the sea to Watermelon Bay, one of the best snorkeling areas known for sting rays and sea turtles. The short trail to the Annaberg Sugar Mill ruins has gorgeous views of all the islands and is a good introduction to the strangely brutal history of this “paradise.”
Columbus was the first European to see the Virgin Islands in 1493. It was at St. Croix that the first bloody skirmish between the native peoples of the Americas and whites of Europe occurred when some Carib Indians attacked his ships.
Columbus didn’t report seeing anyone living on St. John or many of the islands. Archeological finds prove that there were native peoples here, but they were gone by the 15th Century.
For a 150 years after Columbus, the islands remained deserted, but then everything change drastically when the world discovered the simple pleasure of putting sugar into tea.
Between 1660 and 1725, the per capita consumption of sugar in England increased by eight times, unleashing a mad scramble by European powers to secure Caribbean islands for sugar plantations. The profits to be made from sugar were unimaginable; contemporaries likened it to a gold rush. Every European country sent ships to take and seize different islands. By 1650, there were 75,000 people involved with sugar living on Barbados, more than the entire population in the all the original 13 colonies at this time.
It was the Danish, of all people, who raised the flag on St. John in 1718. By 1733, there were 109 cane and cotton plantations on the island.

When Sugar was King

Growing sugar was wildly labor intensive and the only way to make it profitable was to use a small army of slave labor. Hundreds of thousands of African slaves were transported to the islands to live in miserable conditions, working backbreaking days stooped over in hot, sunny cane fields. Throughout the 18th Century and half of the 19th Century, the number of slaves brought to the New World outnumbered the number of Europeans immigrating there.
Because of its isolation, St. John became an especially harsh place, an island where difficult slaves were sent or where slaves fresh from Africa were sent to be broken. In 1733, a group of male slaves from Akwamu, a warlike nation in Guinea, were sent to St. John and put in the fields – a job they considered “women’s work.”
The strategy backfired. The former warriors smuggled cane bills, a type of short machete, into the fort on St. John and killed all but one of the soldiers. Then they fired a cannon, signaling an island-wide revolt and a general killing of whites. The slaves held the island for six months, but in the end, one out of every three people on St. John, black and white, was killed before a French force subdued the rebellion. This was just one of 75 little discussed slave revolts that occurred in the British West Indies before 1837.
The Annaberg plantation ruins date from 1780 and includes a former windmill that was used to crush the sugar cane.
At this time, for every two pounds of raw sugar produced, there was a byproduct of one pound of molasses. Until about 1650, molasses was a nuisance; no one knew what to do with it and tons of this “waste product” were dumped in the sea.
And then someone discovered that if you added water to molasses, let yeast attack it and then distill the results, you create a beverage that was first known as “kill-devil” and later was simply called “rum.” By 1655, Barbados alone was producing 900,000 gallons of rum a year.
Rum became staple of life in the colonies and to all seafaring men. Robert Louis Stevenson summed it up in “Treasure Island,” when he has pirate Billy Bones say, “I’ve lived on rum, I tell you. It’s been meat and drink, and man and wife to me.”
Today, one of the finest rums in the Caribbean, Cruzan, is still made on St. Croix. To try it, go to one of the many Cruz Bay bars. Along the waterfront, there’s The Balcony, Beach Bar or Hide Tide Bar & Grill (http://www.wharfsidevillage.com/) or in town the Quiet Mon Pub (http://www.quietmon.com/) and the crazy popular Woody’s. For dinner, the Banana Deck and the Fish Trap have great seafood. But remember, with an open container law, everywhere on St. John is a bar. We spent most of our time drinking a delicious Blackbeard Ale (or a lighter Carib for a change of pace) from the convenience store, walking and drinking beer on the beach and in town.

Tortola and the British Virgin Islands

From St. John it’s easy to visit the British Virgin Islands on day trips by ferry. Because you have to go through customs, there is a separate dock area with ferries going to Jost Van Dyke (famous for a handful of crazy bars); Virgin Gorda (famous for the Baths, rated one of the world’s best beaches) and Tortola, the capital and most developed and most mountainous of the BVI’s. The ferries leave on an erratic and maddening schedule, so if visiting the BVI’s is important to you, you need to plan your trip around their infrequent departures. Go to: www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/ferry.shtml
for ferry departures…and good luck. If you can’t see all the islands, don’t worry, because all the islands are good.
The most frequent ferries are to West End, Tortola, a magical, West Indies town filled with boats and bars, palm shaded balconies, pastel colored buildings with white shutters and a Pusser’s Rum outpost of civilization.
For more than 300 years, rum was a staple of the British Navy. Churchill supposedly said it was “buggery, rum and the lash” that made the British Navy, but while that oft-repeated quote is doubtful, the Royal Navy did serve rations (a “tot” as they called it) of up to five ounces of rum a day to all sailors until as late as 1970.
The five West Indies blended rum they served has since been revived to the original formula and is called “Pusser’s,” because it was the purser on the ship that dispensed it, and if you drank five ounces of rum a day, you’d also have trouble pronouncing purser.
Made in wooden pot stills, the same way it was at the time of Trafalgar, this single malt rum is the “father of grog” and every seaman’s choice, http://www.pussers.com/
There’s a Pusser’s store and pub in West End and also in the capital city of Road Town, and both are great visits for their naval ambiance and souvenirs, the best of which is a $10 enamel tin cup that features a sailor being hanged with the slogan, “Good to the last drop.”
You can pick up a rental car at West End (make arrangements through your hotel ahead of time, the rental cars are located outside of town and will have to meet you). You can easily explore the island in a day, with stops at spectacular Cane Garden Bay, the showpiece mile-long beach that often makes the world’s top 10 beach list. The beach bars here are a great place for lunch; a lobster salad sandwich on whole wheat bread was $8…the palms overhead and gentle surf lapping at your feet are free.
Along the way, stop for a beer at the Bomba Shack in Apple Bay. The bar is made out of driftwood boards that Bomba nailed together in a crazy maze of rooms decorated with panties, bras and hand-painted signs, the most memorable of which was “Give Bomba your panties and be blessed.” The bar was deserted when we stopped by, but hundreds of photos tacked to the walls (many of Bomba hugging topless blonds) attest to some wild nights, especially during their monthly full moon party.
Bomba’s nephew is opening his own mini-version of this craziness on Long Bay Beach called “Nature Boy’s Bar.” The government is giving him a hard time, so stop by for a beer and give him your support (look for the BVI flag at the end of the beach).
Road Town is a real city, by Caribbean standards, but also a bare-boating capital surrounded by mountains. Cruise ships have invaded here, so there’s plenty of shops for day-trippers, but it’s still small scale. The Pusser’s Pub is a dark, cool bit of England with prints of naval battles and Nelson.

St. Thomas Madness
Neighboring St. Thomas (just three sea-miles from St. John) has only 50,000 residents, 85% of them people of color. It can feel as remote and exotic, but an abundance of cruise ships can cause overnight population explosions. St. Thomas is one of the biggest cruise ship ports in the world, capable of holding four mega-cruisers at one time with up to18,000 passengers day-trippers (1.5 million visitors a year), who swarm ashore in a mini-D-Day invasion to embark on frenzied trips to the duty free shopping that lines the main street of the capitol town, Charlotte Amelia. Another perk of being a territory – all three islands offer duty free shopping at every single store -- and you can bring home six liters of liquor instead of the usual two.
Which means St. Thomas can be big-time tourism when the ships are in. The century-old stone warehouses that line the back streets of Charlotte Amelia, with their West Indies architecture, green and black shutters and big arched entrances, are now filled with upscale watch and jewelry shops, elegant liquor stores, and international clothing stores. Little side alleyways offer shade, bars and restaurants, antique shops and palm trees to help disperse the crowds.
It’s an odd town. The Greenhouse Restaurant (http://www.thegreenhouserestaurant.com/) is a great little pub with open views to the harbor, and is next to S.O.S. Antiques, a wonderful pirate shop filled with authentic canon, flintlocks, swords and even a blunderbuss for a mere $4,000. It’s also the official shop for Blackbeard Ale souvenirs – the only place on the island where you can get t-shirts, caps, and coasters from this great Virgin Island microbrewery http://www.blackbeardale.com/ But as nice as this enclave is, it’s a pistol shot from the St. Thomas Hooters, located in a hideous modern building.
All of this changes at 5 p.m., when deep whistles signal that the ships are departing, and St. Thomas reverts back to being a sleepy, edge-of-the-world backwater…that might even be a little dangerous. Everyone agrees – don’t venture too far from the shore and into town after dark.
You can stay in town at one of the guesthouses like Galleon House (http://www.galleonhouse.com/) for as low as $85 in off-season. They have a great deck overlooking the town and there’s a pleasant walk along the harbor to Frenchtown, a tiny neighborhood of residents from St. Barthelemy with a popular waterside pub, Hook, Line & Sinker. Also in town, Blackbeard’s Castle (he never was in it, but it is an authentic 17th Century fortification) is also interesting, but most people who stay on St. Thomas head to one of the beach resorts.
If you stay on St. Thomas, rent a car, try to get used to driving on the left on horrendously steep hills filled with blind curves and views (with no pull-offs) and visit the highlights. Drake’s Seat (where Sir Frances Drake is supposed to have sat, high on a mountaintop, looking for Spanish treasure fleets to attack) is worth a stop, particularly as it looks down on Magen’s Bay – consistently rated one of the top beaches in the world. It’s a knockout, if you can hit it on a day when there are no cruise ships in town. There’s a great walk in thigh-high water along the rocks to the north.
Coki Beach is where to go for snorkeling, and though everyone will tell you the coral in the Virgin Islands is dying, for walk-in, easy-access, off the beach snorkeling, it’s tough to beat. Stop at Buddy’s Bar afterward for a Carib or Blackbeard Ale.

IF YOU GO: For information on the U.S. Virgin Islands: http://www.usvitourism.vi/
For British Virgin Islands: http://www.bvitourism.com/

WHAT TO READ: and a Bottle of Rum by Wayne Curtis is the ultimate book to take on any Caribbean vacation. In a fun and highly readable book, he tells how rum has shaped the history of the world (or at least, America) by relating the stories behind ten popular cocktails. How many books are not only fun to read on the beach, but also increase your knowledge and enjoyment of rum at night?
For excitement, read Treasure Island – the greatest adventure and pirate novel of all time. Legend says that Robert Louis Stevenson used Norman Island in the BVI’s as the island in his book. Yo ho ho…..

Walking and Drinking Beer in New York's Historic Taverns

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…

…while searching to find a nicely poured pint in a quiet bar with a wonderful little neighborhood to stroll around afterwards. Well, maybe not, but Emma Lazarus wrote those lines in 1883 to fundraise for the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal, and they certainly epitomize New York’s historic appeal. It’s been burned to the ground, occupied by military forces and survived numerous terrorist attacks. In movies, New York has been frozen, flooded and invaded by apes and aliens. But still, everyone wants to come here. Last year, the city attracted 46 million visitors from every country of the world, speaking 300 different languages.

London has Public Houses that developed into pubs primarily for the locals, but New York’s fame is the tavern – a “clean, well-lighted place” where over the years the city’s many visitors could feel welcome with a good meal and drink. Here are some great historic taverns, along with a speakeasy, an Irish pub or two and some other fine stops.
Fraunces Tavern Museum, http://www.frauncestvernmuseum.org/
Well, it’s not the best bar in the city for a drink, but it is one of three with a claim to being the oldest. Opened in 1719, it was originally called the Queen’s Head. The Sons of Liberty plotted a revolution here and in 1775 the British fired an 18-pound cannon ball into the roof. But it is most renowned as the place where George Washington bid an emotional farewell to his officers on Dec. 4, 1783. The most famous party of the Revolution was held upstairs in the Long Room, which has been re-created as it appeared on the afternoon that wine and tears flowed freely. A museum has exhibits on New York’s role in the Revolution, along with one of George’s false teeth and a lock of his hair.

The building was restored in 1904 and how much of it is authentic can be debated, but it is one of a very few structures in New York to survive in any way from the Revolution. When the British captured the city in 1776 (backed by the largest armada and invading army the world had known to that point), retreating Americans set fire to the town and much of it was destroyed

Fraunces Tavern witnessed more violence in 1975 when it was bombed by the Armed Forces of Puerto Rican National Liberation and four people were killed.

Today, the restaurant and bar have a colonial feel with wooden tables and chairs, and there are flags and paintings, and (God knows why) fake African animal heads in the bar, but you can’t deny the sense of history.

Neighborhood Walks in Lower Manhattan
The great thing about Fraunces Tavern is that it is in the heart of Lower Manhattan. Your first walk should be up the gangplank to board the Staten Island ferry for the free, 5-mile trip back and forth across the harbor. At Staten Island, you simply follow a series of ramps and re-board immediately; the whole trip takes about an hour and offers views of the Statue, the skyline and whatever ships are heading into port. On the ride back to New York, go down to water level for a very different view of Manhattan.

Battery Park is adjacent to the ferry and has one of New York’s old forts – Castle Clinton – and two emotional memorials. The Sphere designed by Fritz Koenig was a monument to world peace that stood in the plaza in front of the World Trade Center. In the 9-11 attacks, it was buried under tons of rubble, torn apart, bent and scraped, but it has been dug up, reassembled and now sits in the park as a testament to New York’s resiliency. Nearby, the Merchant Marine Memorial is truly eerie. Commemorating the 7,000 merchant marines who died in World War II, it depicts a drowning sailor with his arms stretched out of the sea. Depending on the tide, you see half of his body or just his arm and neck reaching out for help.

New York’s famous Broadway starts at the intersection of Battery Park and Bowling Green, and here you’ll find the 7,000 pound bronze Charging Bull sculpture by Arturo Di Modica that has become the symbol of a bull market on Wall Street. Rub its nose for luck, and continue up Broadway to the beautiful Trinity Church, where Alexander Hamilton is buried. It’s a good place to consider how strange America is that we have a treasury secretary on the $10 bill who was murdered by a former vice president (Hamilton made it clear before his famous “duel” with Aaron Burr that he would not fire; former VP Burr still deliberately aimed and shot him down.)

If you need any more evidence of America’s financial strangeness, cross Broadway and head down Wall Street. The famous flag on the New York Stock Exchange with Washington’s statue in the foreground (he was inaugurated as president on these steps) have become an iconic photo of New York. If you look closely, you’ll see the stock exchange is on Broad Street, not Wall Street. Less well known is that yet another of New York’s terrorist attacks took place here in 1920 when 31 people were killed by a bomb placed in a horse and carriage. The building across the street from Federal Hall still has pot marks from the explosion.

Anywhere else in the nation – or the world – Federal Hall National Monument would be famous. In New York, the 1842 modified version of the Parthenon is overshadowed. But climb the steps and go in – the rotunda is amazing, it’s free, there’s a lot of history and (always important in New York) there are clean, free public restrooms.

It’s a ten-minute walk to South Street Seaport, which is a bit touristy, but it’s hard to beat the views of The Peking (the second largest sailing ship ever built) against the skyline. There are plenty of bars on Pier 17 with views of the Brooklyn Bridge or the East River, and the schooner Pioneer goes out on day sails into the harbor. The cobblestone pedestrian mall, old 18th century buildings and squawking seagulls remind you that New York was once one of the biggest commercial harbors in the world.

McSorley’s Old Ale House, 15 E. 7th Ave., http://www.mcsorleysnewyork.com/

Both Abe Lincoln and John Lennon have bellied up to the bar here (standing room only, please, no bar stools), as have Presidents Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt and John Kennedy. Woody Guthrie played guitar at the front table, and e.e. cummings wrote a poem about the place.

Opened in 1854, McSorley’s is the longest continually operated saloon in New York…and looks it. The floor is still covered with sawdust, there’s a genuine coal- burning stove, and the walls are a museum with everything from the handcuffs used to tie up Houdini to an authentic wanted poster for John Wilkes Booth. No women were admitted in the bar until 1970 (an early 1920s slogan was: “Good Ale, Raw Onions and No Ladies). It took a lawsuit and a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court to change that. The bar’s revenge? They allowed women, but didn’t offer a ladies room. I can remember many nights in the 70s standing guard for women friends outside what became the most interesting co-ed bathroom in New York. A real women’s room was not added until 1986. For its entire history, McSorley’s has served only one beverage – ale. Ordering is simple, you simply say “Light or dark.” In another quirk of the bar, you need to buy two beers at a time, though they are smallish mugs, about 10 ounces each.

As you would expect, the place attracts a large crowd and seems to be a mecca for college students. It’s best on a cold afternoon before the rush, with the late afternoon sun streaming through the windows and the coal heat from the stove warming the room. Pet one of the house cats, eat some peanuts and read e.e. cummings’ poem: “I was sitting in mcsorleys. outside it was New York and beautifully snowing. Inside snug and evil.”

Walks Around the East Village
McSorley’s is a block from St. Mark’s Place, ground zero of the Hippie movement in the 60s. The block between Third and Second is where Andy Warhol and Yoko Ono (pre John Lennon) staged hippie happenings and the nearby Fillmore East was where the Who premiered their rock opera Tommy. Forty years ago, as a long-haired college student, I spent many evenings here. From the funky t-shirt shops, costume stores, tattoo parlors, and basement shops, the street still has that same electric, edgy, crazy, punk-goth feel. You won’t be surprised that this was Madonna’s first New York neighborhood.

One of the best and cheapest places to eat in the city is in Little India, a row of a dozen Indian restaurants nearby on East Sixth Street at Second Ave. A table full of food with pan bread, mango chutney and even a bottle of wine will set you back less than $20 each. The Taj Mahal usually has musicians playing sitar and tambura.

But there’s no shortage of cheap food in the area. Both Second and Third avenues heading north are lined with cheap eats, ethnic restaurants, outdoor cafes, crazy shops and just the general teeming crowds of daily life in the city. This is “deep” New York and a fascinating walk.

Nearby Alphabet City is also great for a stroll. In the 60s, it was your life to walk on these three north-south avenues, A, B and C, between 2nd and 10th, but now the brownstones have been fixed up and mixed between them are wonderful little cafes and galleries. Check out Obscura Antiques & Oddities at 280 E. 10th, between 1st and Avenue A. It’s like walking into the Adam’s Family living room.

Pete’s Tavern, 129 E. 18th Ave., www.geocities.com/petestavern.geo/historyb

Pete’s never attracted George Washington or Abe Lincoln, but it has been featured in Seinfeld, Sex in the City and Law and Order, which makes it a New York classic. Opened in 1864, Pete’s claims to be the longest continually opened bar and restaurant in the city. (Pete’s stayed open during prohibition, disguised as a flower shop. McSorley’s was operated as a speakeasy.)

Perhaps the most famous event occurred at Pete’s in 1904 when bar regular O. Henry came in and wrote the classic short story, Gift of the Magi, in one-sitting at his favorite booth, the first one in from the front doors. Sit at the 30-foot-long rosewood bar and try their 1864 Original House Ale. Gramercy Park is a couple blocks away. The park is locked and private, but surrounded by gorgeous flats, giving it the look and feel of London. Chelsea (due west on 23rd) makes a nice stroll. Swing by the Chelsea Hotel, 222 W. 23rd, www.hotelchelsea.com/history, where Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road in one marathon session, Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey, Bob Dylan composed songs and Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols may have stabbed his girlfriend to death. The art-filled lobby is as wild as you would expect.
Up for another pint?…or least ready for a restroom, the Half King http://www.thehalfking.com/ is down the block at 23rd and Tenth Ave. It’s a literary bar (Sebastian Junger, author of A Perfect Storm is one of the owners), filled with a maze of rooms lit by candles and known for book readings and signings. The Half King, by the way, was an Indian chief who guided George Washington in Western Pennsylvania. George no doubt drank with, but not in, the Half King.

Grand Central Terminal: The Oyster Bar www.oysterbarny.com and Campbell Apartment, www.hospitalityholdings.com

The restored Grand Central is New York’s masterpiece. Opened in 1913 at a cost of $80 million, the Beaux Arts building just had a $200 million restoration. Go during rush hour to see the madness as New York races across an acre of marble floors, topped by a nine-story atrium (the windows alone are seven-stories high) with a vaulted ceiling covered with 2,500 hand-painted stars pinpointing the major constellations. Outside, there are ten pillars and a gigantic statue of Mercury (the god of travel). The outdoor clock features the largest piece of Tiffany glass in the world.

But of course, for our interests, Grand Central also has some of New York’s finest historic bars. The Oyster Bar has been the city’s most famous seafood restaurant since it opened. Ian Fleming thought it the best restaurant in America, so he made it the favorite restaurant of James Bond, too. The crazy arched ceilings made of yellow Guastavino tiles were used as the inspiration for Lex Luthor’s hideaway in Superman. Sit at the counter, sip a Brooklyn “Local 1” Ale, and order some oysters (there are two dozen choices running about $2-$2.50 each) or some little neck clams for $1.35. An oyster poor boy is only $8.25.

Campbell Apartments is a bit more pricey, but there’s no more romantic spot for a cocktail. The 1920s room was once the office of mogul John W. Campbell, who turned the place into a replica of a Florentine palazzo with an inlaid ceiling, massive fireplace and leaded windows. It’s simply incredible – you expect to see Nick and Nora Charles sitting at one of end of the bar and Scott and Zelda at the other. Most of the cocktails are shaken and will set you back $12-15, but the experience is worth it.

And like a real speakeasy, it’s not easy to find. Going up the west ramp from the Oyster Bar, look for a freight elevator with a brass marker. That’s the only in-terminal entrance. The bar has a strict dress code with no t-shirts, shorts, athletic shoes, sweatshirts or torn jeans, thank you very much.

Walking Around Grand Central Station

No one needs a walking guide to mid-town Manhattan – it’s all good. But if you need another beer, or that all important easy public restroom, head to Bryant Park at Sixth Avenue and 42nd. Once the most dangerous spot in mid-town, Bryant Park has been transformed into a little slice of Paris. There are hundreds of French green folding chairs and tables to sit at – on gravel paths under the shade of rows of London Plane trees or beside a massive Italian fountain. The outdoor bar here is magnificent. I have seldom been in New York and missed an opportunity to have a beer at this lovely oasis. And although it’s just a block from Times Square, there’s a clean, safe, public restroom playing classical music. Only in New York.
In mid-town there are a hundred interesting bars, Irish pubs and the city’s only Scottish bar, St. Andrews at 140 W. 46, http://www.standrewsnyc.com/. With kilted bartenders and live music on the weekends, it’s a nice break from the 80 or so Irish pubs in the area. But if you’re so inclined, for a Murphy’s pub, try the brand new Legends at 6 W. 33rd which has great live music, http://www.legends33.com/, or for a Guinness and Irish music, head to the Galway Hooker, at 7 E. 36th, http://www.galwayhookernyc.com/. Practically next door is The Ginger Man, 11 E. 36, http://www.gingerman-ny.com/. With 70 beers on tap and 160 in bottles, it is, as beer guru Michael Jackson said, “one of the great beer bars of the world.”

But if you need one more historic bar, try the Algonquin Hotel, on 44th, between Fifth and Sixth, http://www.algonquinhotel.com/. Opened in 1902, the elegant hotel was home to the “Algonquin Round Table,” a bar where throughout the 1920s, the city’s greatest wits and writers gathered to tell jokes and trade insults, many of which worked their way into novels, films and plays. Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Harpo Marx and George S. Kaufman (who wrote the Marx Brothers movies) were just some of the regulars who lunched here. The lobby bar has been maintained in the same style. Waiters will point out the location of the original “Round Table” and there is a historic display case telling the story. But best of all are the bar’s cocktail napkins, which have one of the great lines of Dorothy Parker that originated in this room: "I love a martini -- but two at the most. Three I'm under the table; Four, I'm under the host."

St Paddy’s Day Tips
The largest St. Patrick’s Day Parade in the world is literally “marching and drinking beer” down Fifth Avenue (though New York has zero tolerance for drinking in public and people are arrested. No worries, there’s a pub on every corner).

The parade starts at 44th Street and Fifth, and they’ll tell you on TV that with the crowds, it’s impossible to see anything of it south of 66th. Well, of course, they’re wrong. The parade starts forming on 44th, but doesn’t really get going until 47th. There are no crowds around the forming that takes place east and west of Fifth on 44th-47th; you can wander around these side streets, easily getting your fill of pipe bands, Irish wolfhounds, and the green-covered crazies, take some great photos, and be on your way.
Even at “ground zero” of the parade, passing St. Patrick’s Cathedral, I could easily see enough of the parade in 2009. In the end, how much of it do you really want to see, anyway? When you’re ready for a pub, pick up the free St. Patrick’s Day Irish Pub Guide, available in every pub with details on 80 Irish pubs, including who has music. Slainte!

Walking and Drinking Beer with the Wreckers, Rebels and Rumrunners of Key West

The six-foot-two-inch female impersonator in the gold lame gown curled her finger at me across Duval Street and shouted, “Come on over honey, the show starts in 15 minutes.”
She was wrong. The “show” in Key West started about 180 years ago and it’s still going strong.
This somewhat crazy tropical island, capital of the self-proclaimed Conch Republic, lies 126-miles from the southern tip of mainland Florida -- closer to Cuba than to Miami, and closer to another planet than to Mainstream America. Since it was founded in 1822, Key West has been home to a whacky collection of pirates, wreckers, artists, rumrunners, writers, sponge divers, cigar makers, ex-presidents, poets and musicians.
And, of course, it’s also attracted tourists. Today, tens of thousands of them flock to Key West on frantic day trips from cruise ships, barely making it past the bars and souvenir shops on Duval Street to hurriedly buy a Sloppy Joe’s t-shirt or Margaritaville shot glass.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, but Key West is best enjoyed at a slower pace. Instead of looking at your watch so as not to miss the last launch back to the ship, you should be bicycling down the back streets past pastel-colored mansions, dining on the wharf under moonlight or sunning on a beach beside a Civil War fortress. Or of course, walking and drinking a beer along the harbor past the second largest schooner fleet in the nation.
With gas prices at record lows, this is the year for a road trip down Highway U.S. 1 to the southernmost point in the nation -- especially since this “road” trip spends 15 percent of its time on water.

Highway 1 to Key West

There are 800 islands in the Florida Keys, but only 30 of them are inhabited. The Overseas Highway, also called U.S. 1, opened in 1938 on an old railway bed and stretches from Key Largo just off the mainland for 126 miles due south until dead-ending at the bottom of Whitehead Street in Key West. Along the way, the highway crosses 42 bridges -- some 18.8 miles of open ocean water, including a spectacular stretch at Seven Mile Bridge, also known as Mile Marker 45. Miles are marked by how far you are from Key West, which has the distinction of being Mile Marker 0.
At MM45, you can walk on an old abandoned stretch of the bridge to Pigeon Key and a museum about Henry Flagler, the crazy millionaire who made all of this possible. http://www.pigeonkey.net/

It was Flagler who had the inspiration and obsession to build a railway across the Florida Keys. People thought he was mad and it took him seven years a small fortune, but in 1912, a steam locomotive finally chugged across the ocean and “Flagler’s Folly” was a reality. The tourist railway was a success until September 2, 1935, when a hurricane and 18-foot tidal wave washed over the keys, killing 800 people and wiping out the tracks and many of the bridges.
Key West was an island again…but only for three years and then the railroad was replaced with the auto highway.

Islamorada

Driving U.S. 1, which for the most part is just two lanes, can be slow, but there are enough 1940s tourist attractions including giant shells, 30-foot high pirates and huge cement dolphins, as well as pull offs for beaches and parks, to keep it interesting.
If you’re driving straight through to Key West, Islamorada at MM 85 makes a good lunch stop. The Islamorada Fish Company offers alligator, grouper and cracked conch on a deck overlooking the water. It’s part of the Bass Pro Outlet here, which is worth a look to see Hemingway’s personal boat, Pilar, with is rather bizarrely placed in the middle of the store. God knows what Hemingway would have thought of that.
Islamorada is called the “sport fishing capital of the world,” but you might have to share your catch with the pelicans that are everywhere. Just off the coast is the San Pedro Underwater Archaeological Preserve – the final resting spot for 21 Spanish galleons that sank in a 1733 hurricane. Hurricanes have been bad news here for a long time.

Old Town Key West

The first thing to do in Key West is park the car. You won’t need it again until you leave. There are at least a dozen bike rental shops and everything is more or less within walking distance…provided you like to walk. The historic area is 4 miles by 2 miles, and runs from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean. There’s nothing else quite like it in the world because Key West’s history has been nuts.
It’s been home to wreckers and spongers, Cuban cigar makers and New England fishermen, spongers from the Bahamas and a crazy assort of writers, poets, gays and eccentrics…all of whom have left their mark on the look of the place. The architecture reflects everything from Victorian New England to the louvered shutters of the Caribbean, with a few New Orleans balconies thrown in. And of course in the tropical climate, everything is rotting to some degree. Much of the wood carpentry work on the houses was done by out-of-work boat builders, so there’s a unique hand-crafted, wood “Conch House” are on nearly every block. And, it’s easy to believe, a ghost story behind every one.
Pick up a copy of Sharon Wells’ Walking & Biking Guide to Historic Key West, perhaps the best and most detailed free tourist guide produced anywhere (also on line at http://www.seekeywest.com/). It’s available at racks around town and in bars and restaurants. She provides 14 walking and biking tours with an exhaustive amount of detail. You’ll never be able to do it all -- or even follow her crazy directions --but if you really want to know the history of that strange, Classic Revival pink house on the corner, this guide will tell you.
The north side of the island has most of the action, centered, naturally, around the cruise ship docks and the historic seaport. Harborwalk is a maze of boardwalks that follows the waterfront. It’s lined with boats and bars and four great tall ships that go in and out of the harbor on day and sunset cruises. Duval Street, the town’s main drag, runs the length of the island, but is decidedly more noisy, crazy and decadent on the north side. You’ll have to have the obligatory beer in Sloppy Joe’s (where you’ll hear that the original Sloppy Joe’s – the one Hemingway drank rum mojitos at -- is now Captain Tony’s Saloon, a gay bar). Have a second obligatory beer at the Hog’s Breath Saloon, after which you can relax and discover you own places.
The Green Parrot is wonderful (Playboy’s Top 20 Bars in America) and Kelly’s Caribbean Bar, Grill & Brewery is beautiful at night -- an outdoor patio under trees of white lights with decent beer and wonderful food, all owned by actress Kelly McGillis, star of Witness and Top Gun. http://www.kellyskeywest.com/
I liked the waterside setting and pub atmosphere of The Schooner, where from our table you could hear the rigging creaking in the nearby boats, but there’s no shortage of bars. http://www.schoonerwharf.com/
No one said a thing to me when I walked the Harborwalk drinking a Guinness. There’s a number of outdoor bars along the pier selling everything from beers to frozen daiquiris at Mallory Square, and it appears that as long as you have your drink in a plastic cup, you can walk and drink on the streets to your heart’s content.
And of course, you will have to go Mallory Square for the sunset madness, at least once. It’s not as bad as you’d think for having a dozen mimes, jugglers, fire-eaters and pirates (frightening creatures dressed like Johnny Depp who come up behind you, say “Argggh”…and want a dollar to pose for a photo). The famous cat show is worth seeing, though you’ll want to throw the annoying Frenchmen through the ring of fire instead of the cat. But the sunset, with the schooners sailing back and forth in the foreground, the crowds and the craziness is now an American icon, right up there with the Grand Canyon.
As is posing for a photo at the Southernmost Point. When the cruise ships are in, there’s actually a long line of people waiting to pose by the red, yellow and black buoy that is closer to Cuba than Miami.

Key West Attractions

For such a small place, Key West has an incredible amount of attractions. You can tour the homes of Hemingway and Audubon, see the “Southern White House” of Harry Truman, go to art museums and art galleries, walk among butterflies or through an aquarium petting stingrays, stroll the town on historic walking tours and ghost tours and rubber wheeled train tours, sail across the bay on schooners or jet boats, lay on the beach, take a snorkeling cruise, climb to the top of a lighthouse, dream of discovering sunken treasure at Mel Fisher’s Shipwreck Museum, or even see an authentic shrunken torso that was once owned by Hemingway and is now, very appropriately, in Ripley’s “Believe it or Not” museum.
I gave the Pirate Soul Museum a look. Billed as the “Ultimate Pirate Museum!” it has Blackbeard’s weapons (they look like any other flintlock guns), and the only authentic pirate treasure chest in the world. Well, anything to do with pirates should be encouraged, but trying on pirate hats at the costume shop next door is more fun.
The Shipwreck Museum starts off with a dreadful bit of corny “living history” as “actors” portray the wreckers who once dominated Key West, but then they take you into the museum and the story is quite fascinating. From its founding in 1822 through the 1850s, most people in Key West made their living as “wreckers.” About once a week, a ship would run aground on the reefs that surround the island and the people of Key West would race to it in small boats to salvage anything they could from the wrecks, including gold, silver, china, silks, rum, fine wines and tea. Big towers were built in town and it was highly competitive to watch the sea for wrecks. http://www.shipwreckhistoreum.com/
Why sea captains continued to sail in these waters, knowing that one of them would wreck once a week, is never fully explained. But apparently they did. So much so, that for 50 years, the 2,000 Key West salvagers had the highest per capita income in the United States.

At the edge of town, next to the largest beach, is Fort Taylor, strangely called both “the Gibraltar of America” and “the Forgotten Fort.” It never fired a gun in action. The trapezoid Civil War fort has brick walls five-feet thick and houses, as their guides will tell you, “the largest collection of Civil War artifacts in America.” Well…what the guides don’t tell you is that the artifacts, mostly huge canons, were used as land fill and were completely covered with cement. So you can’t actually see the largest collection of Civil War artifacts in America, but you can see where they were buried.
And it’s appropriate the fort in Key West never fired a canon because Key West is also the location of the shortest war in American history. In 1982, to stop alleged drug trafficking from the Keys to mainland Florida, the U.S. Border Patrol put up a blockade on the U.S. 1 and forced anyone traveling north from Key West to show identification that they were U.S. citizens. Since the U.S. government was treating the residents of the Keys like they were a foreign country, on April 23, 1982, Key West Mayor Dennis Wardlow declared that Key West was seceding from the Union and becoming the Conch Republic. A flag was created and war was declared. The Conch Republic immediately surrendered and demanded Foreign Aid.
Today, the Conch flag flies throughout town and you can buy any number of souvenirs (including a Conch Republic Passport) with the country’s slogan, “We Seceded Where Others Failed.”
But Key West doesn’t need its own flag or passport. You only need to spend 10 minutes here to know that this is a strange and different land.

Information: http://www.keywest.com/
http://fla-keys.com/

Rolling and Drinking Beer on the Ski Train

Every Winter weekend for the past 69 years, the Ski Train has chugged out of Denver’s Union Station at 7:15 a.m., climbing 56 miles up into the Rocky Mountains on what many people call the most scenic stretch of railroad track in the nation. Along the way, the train burrows through 28 tunnels, hugging a narrow rock canyon wall as it zigzags up 4,000 feet in elevation to arrive at the Moffat Tunnel -- the highest railroad tunnel in North America.

Here, the train passes underneath the Continental Divide, and emerges right at the base of Winter Park, the third largest ski area in Colorado. It’s a great way for skiers to get to the slopes without the hassle of driving, but the train journey is so scenic, half the train passengers don’t ski. They just come up for the scenery and to hang out in the town of Winter Park, take a heated snowcat ride to the top of the mountain, go sledding and tubing in nearby Fraser, bundle up on a horse-drawn sleigh ride through forests of pine trees, or just sit in the sun at an outdoor bar like the Derailer, waiting for the train whistle at 4:15 p.m. that signals it’s time to start on the journey back down the mountain.



Only now, on the return trip, two of the 14 cars on this quarter-mile long yellow-orange train become lounge cars – the longest rolling bar in the nation. After a day of skiing or sledding, it’s incredibly relaxing to have a beer or wine on a train, while winter scenery flies by the window. And it’s pretty great scenery too. The train curls down South Boulder Canyon through a part of Colorado where there are no paved roads or highways – there’s nothing here but rocks and trees, an ice-crusted river and the railroad tracks.
Winter Park Resort gets more snow annually than any other major Colorado ski area -- 350 inches…and consistently wins as the favorite ski resort of Coloradans. It gets my vote. There are three interconnected mountains and 143 trails, so it can get confusing and I’ve been lost many times…especially trying to get back from Mary Jane to Winter Park.
But the scenery’s spectacular on top at 12,060 feet with a 360-degree panorama that takes in most of the state. The runs are long (up to 4.5 miles) and there are 25 lifts so lines are never too bad (especially when tired old legs need the rest anyway). The Sunspot restaurant also gets my vote as one of the best on mountain cafes with an outdoor deck that is two miles high and a big stone fireplace and wood beam ceilings.

But a word about life two miles above sea level.

For one thing, the sky really is bluer due to less pollution and water vapor in the upper atmosphere. Baseballs, golf balls and footballs travel 9 percent farther. Special high altitude tennis balls have to be made for Denver’s mile high altitude using toned-down rubber and less pressure and basketballs are inflated with 7-10 pounds less air than at sea level.

Strangely enough, winters feel much warmer in Colorado because high altitude means there are fewer air molecules pressing against your skin. Also, the low humidity produces a "dry cold" that most people find less penetrating than a "wet cold" at sea level. Outdoor cafes are open all winter, and picnic tables are always filled with people eating outdoors. But remember, there is only half the protection from the sun's rays that can be found at sea level, so sunscreen and sunglasses are a must.

In Denver, water boils at 202 degrees instead of 212 degrees, and it takes four minutes to soft boil a three-minute egg. High altitude is excellent for beer, causing it to have more fizz and carbonation. However, be careful opening champagne bottles. Most of them are bottled at sea level and the change in pressure in Colorado's light air causes the cork to fly out much quicker.

In fact, be careful drinking any alcohol at really high altitude. Since there is less oxygen in the air, your lungs have to work harder to pump oxygen into the blood, meaning alcohol is absorbed into the blood system quicker, speeding up the effect that a couple of drinks would normally have. The bottom line -- two beers at the Sunspot and it can be a long trip back down the mountain.

I wait until I’m done for the day, have one at the outdoor deck overlooking the slopes at the Derailer Bar, then hop on the train back to Union Station…which just happens to be across the street from Denver’s Wynkoop Brewing Company – the largest and best brew pub in Colorado.

IF YOU GO: The train leaves from Union Station at 7:15a.m. every Saturday and Sunday from Dec.-March 29, with trips on Thurs. and Fri. starting in Feb. The trip takes about two hours each way with the return train leaving Winter Park at 4:15p.m., arriving back at Union Station at about 6:30 p.m., although coal trains have priority on the line and can delay the trip home. Summer schedule includes runs in July and August. For schedule and prices, visit: http://www.skitrain.com/ .

Drinking with George Washington in Philadelphia

George Washington was a Philadelphian. While he’s most often associated with Mount Vernon in Virginia, the truth is that he spent nearly his entire public life in Philadelphia, both as a general and president.
In 1776, Philadelphia was the second largest city in the British Empire. With a population of 40,000 and some 6,000 impressive brick buildings, it was the largest city Washington ever visited – and his favorite.
Miraculously, 2,000 of those 18th Century brick buildings still survive today. On a weekend trip, it’s possible to visit many of the most important sites associated with Washington’s life and also get a sense of the man. You can step inside his favorite tavern and sip a beer made from his own recipe, waltz across the same floorboards where he once danced the night away with Ben Franklin’s daughter, cross the Delaware at the spot where he saved the Revolution, or visit another battlefield where he nearly lost it.
You can even sit in a church pew where he sat 225 years ago, the only place in the world where you can rest your bottom on the same wooden boards he once did.
Here are ten places to visit on an all-Washington weekend in Philadelphia.

1. Independence Hall http://www.nps.gov/inde/ The most important building in American history was also the most important in Washington’s life. It was here in May 1775 that he was appointed commander in chief of the Continental Army. He began his public career in this hall with a less than inspiring speech, telling Congress, “I, this day, declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command.” Master Carpenter Edmund Woolley built the hall in 1747 for Pennsylvania’s colonial government. Because it was the largest hall in the largest city in the colonies, it became the site for the Second Continental Congress. The Declaration of Independence was approved here in July 1776 and Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention here in 1787. The actual chair he sat in still sits in the center of the room and before it is the inkwell that was used to sign the Declaration.

2. Portrait Gallery in the Second Bank of the United States http://www.nps.gov/inde/second-banknde/second-bank A block away, the Portrait Gallery is a wonderful place to get a sense of what Washington and his contemporaries looked like. While there are long lines for Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, you can always walk into this free museum, where you are encouraged to turn the flash off your camera and take photos of all the artwork. After all, since this is a federal museum – you own everything in here. Some of the most famous paintings of George and Martha are on the walls, mixed with paintings of most of Washington’s generals. Unlike the portrait on the dollar bill (painted shortly before his death when he was a very old man) Washington was for most of his life an extremely tall, athletic and imposing figure. Contemporaries described him as “god-like.” Thomas Jefferson thought him the greatest horseman of his age and the paintings and statues here depict him as such. An exhibit two blocks away at the National Constitution Center http://www.constitutioncenter.org/ gives some perspective. There are life-size statues here of all 26 delegates to the Constitution Convention of 1787. At six-foot, two-inches in height, the statue of Washington is the tallest in the room, a foot taller than tiny Alexander Hamilton or even smaller James Madison.

3. City Tavern. http://www.citytavern.com/ Located two blocks behind Independence Hall is the place John Adams called “the most genteel tavern in America.” Beyond serving food and drink, colonial taverns were the nerve centers of the city. A “subscription room” in City Tavern had all the newspapers of the day and men gathered here in a room filled with tobacco smoke and politics to read and discuss the latest events. Paul Revere rode from Boston to Philadelphia to bring the news of fighting at Lexington and Concord and his first stop was City Tavern. During the Second Continental Congress, George Washington took a table at City Tavern and dined here nightly. What did he eat? Wealthy people in Colonial Philadelphia ate very similar food to us, though it was much more difficult to prepare. Beef, chicken, hams, baked oysters, lamb, game and all varieties of fish. Banquets could offer up to 140 different courses and dining was considered an experience more than just a meal. Liquor, coffee, tea and ice cream were available at the tavern at all times. George was a big fan of ice cream and Madeira wine was his drink of choice, but he also drank beer, rum, punch and champagne. A recipe for porter beer found in his desk is now served at City Tavern, along with a pale ale made from a recipe by Thomas Jefferson. They’re both terrible, but how often do you drink history? The original City Tavern was torn down in 1854, but working from the architect’s plans, the National Park Service built an exact replica in 1975. The Tavern now serves lunch and dinner with a colonial inspired menu. Waiters dress in 18th century costumes and the dining rooms are lit by candlelight. Try the West Indies pepperpot soup or the Martha Washington-style Colonial turkey pot pie…and get the four ounce samplers of historic beers. There’s still a tavern too, if you want to just pop in for a beer.

4. Powel House, http://www.philalandmarks.org/ Amazingly, the house that Washington lived in for seven years while he was president was torn down. But you can get a sense of how he lived by visiting the home of his good friends, Samuel and Elizabeth Powel. Their elegant, 1765 Georgian brick townhouse is located a short walk from City Tavern and is a museum with period furniture. Eliza Powel was Philadelphia’s most gracious and popular hostess and George and Martha were frequent guests, stealing many decorating ideas from the Powel’s, which they incorporated in Mount Vernon. The Washington’s celebrated their 20th anniversary here. A letter to Ben Franklin from his daughter describes George dancing the night away in the second floor ballroom of the house. Martha didn’t dance, but George was an enthusiastic dancer (regularly dancing three hours without a break) and he liked the company of ladies. A woman meeting him during the revolution wrote, when “General Washington throws off the hero and takes on the chatty, agreeable companion, he can be downright impudent sometimes – such impudence, Fanny, as you and I like.” When Washington died, Martha cut four locks of his hair for special friends. The one given to Eliza Powel is on display in the house.

5. Christ Church and St. Peters Church. www.christchurchphila.org/ Washington was not particularly religious, but like all people of the time, he attended church regularly. He was a member of Christ Church, located a few blocks from Independence Hall. You can see his pew, No. 56-58, located next to that of Betsy Ross. Washington was wealthy and so had an excellent view of the pulpit; Betsy was poor and a pillar blocked her view of the minister. Christ Church is one of the places that can claim, “Washington slept here” because the sermons generally ran two hours. The impressive red brick Christ Church was the tallest building in America until 1830 and there are more signers of the Declaration of Independence buried here than anywhere else. Ben Franklin did some of his electricity experiments from the steeple.
St. Peters Church www.stpetersphila.org/, a short walk away, was the church of the Powel’s, and Washington frequently attended church here as well. The wood pews in Saint Peters have never been changed; sit in the Powel pew and you are sitting in the only place in the world that will let you sit where George Washington once sat.

6. Elfreth’s Alley http://www.elfrethsalley.org/ To get an idea what colonial Philadelphia looked like, walk a few blocks from Christ Church to Elfreth’s Alley, the oldest continuously inhabited street in America. The cobblestone, 16-foot-wide alley is lined with 32 brick rowhouses built between 1728 and 1836. Originally, these were the homes of grocers, shoemakers, tailors and other tradesmen who worked on the bottom floor and lived up above. Today, they are all private houses, but two of them built in 1755 operate as a small museum providing a glimpse at colonial city life. George Washington marched his army down this street in 1777 en route to the Battle of Brandywine. It’s easy to tell which houses were here at that time. Homes from the revolutionary era had front doors that opened directly onto the street. Because the streets were filthy, the stoop was invented and homes built later had doors that opened a foot above the street onto a stone stoop.

7. Washington’s Crossing www.ushistory.org/washingtoncrossing You can follow in the footsteps of Washington’s most famous military action just an hour north of the city, in a beautiful location along the Delaware River. Two state parks, one in Pennsylvania and one across the river in New Jersey, tell the story of the dramatic events that took place here. The revolution got off to a good start in 1776. Washington drove the British from Boston and marched his army of 20,000 to New York. But then the Empire struck back, sending over the largest armada and invading army the world had ever known. In a series of battles, the redcoats defeated Washington and drove his ragtag army south in retreat through New Jersey and across the Delaware River. To the British, the revolution appeared to be over. But Washington, a card player and gambler, decided to stake everything on one last throw of the dice – he would stop retreating and go on the offensive, crossing the Delaware in a surprise attack on Trenton. At the parks, you can visit the two ferry houses that Washington used as headquarters and walk across the river on a bridge at the spot where Washington famously crossed in a boat on Christmas night. Museums in each park use films and exhibits to trace the coming battle that saved America. It’s even possible to walk on the actual road where Washington’s troops marched, many of them leaving a trail of blood in the snow from their broken shoes. The story of the battle is brilliantly told in David McCullogh’s best selling book, 1776.

8. Brandywine Battlefield www.ushistory.org/brandwine Located 45 minutes west of Philadelphia, Brandywine was the largest battle of the American Revolution. It’s not a household name like Saratoga or Yorktown because the battle was a disaster for the Americans and arguably Washington’s worst day as a general. In New York, the British had defeated him by pretending a head-on attack, while secretly sending part of their army around the American lines to attack them in the rear. At Brandywine, Britain’s crack troops did the same thing again. The state park preserves one of Washington’s headquarters and has an excellent museum with exhibits about the tactics and strategy used in the Philadelphia campaign. Much of the battle took place on what is now private land, but a driving tour visits the beautiful countryside, which has changed very little. The defeat at Brandywine in 1777 allowed the British to capture Philadelphia. As an insult, the British turned Independence Hall into a stable and City Tavern became the headquarters for redcoat social life. But Washington was not finished yet.

9. Germantown While England was rejoicing over the capture of Philadelphia, Washington was planning another surprise attack. Barely a month after Brandywine, Washington pounced, his army attacking the British encampment at Germantown from five directions. Fog and confusion defeated the Americans, but the mere fact they had gone on the offensive was a victory. Today, Germantown has been swallowed up into suburban Philadelphia, but there are still 30 stone colonial homes here, five of which are museums. At Cliveden www.cliveden.org/ you are in the center of the battlefield. At the height of the action, 120 British troops ducked into this mansion and fortified it, firing at the rebels from the upper windows. Washington’s men attacked again and again and soon there were 75 dead Americans stacked at the front door and on the grounds, but the British held. In a rare nod to historic preservation, the house was left exactly as it was after the battle. The exterior walls are covered with bullet holes. Bizarre statues on the grounds have no faces – they were shot off by musket balls in the cross fire and have never been replaced. Nearby, the Deshler-Morris House, www.nps.gov/demo, was the British headquarters during the battle. Ironically, it would later in 1793-94 become the Germantown White House, when Washington lived here as president. It is the oldest presidential residence in the United States and is now maintained as a museum with period furniture by the National Park Service. Washington came here in the summer of 1793 to escape a Yellow Fever epidemic that killed 10 percent of Philadelphia’s population. Cabinet meetings with Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were held in the study.

10. Valley Forge www.nps.gov/vafo Located 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia, Valley Forge is one of the most famous names associated with the Revolution – and one of the least understood. No battles were fought here, and while the army suffered from a lack of food and supplies, the misery the army endured at Valley Forge was no worse than what the soldiers suffered every winter. In fact, the winter at Valley Forge was milder than usual. The misunderstandings come from romanticized versions of the encampment written into early histories. What Valley Forge does so well is tell the story of the hardships that all men endured in 18th Century warfare. The National Park Service has replicated samples of the 1,500 crude huts the men lived in and has exhibits and films on the diseases and supply problems that plagued the army and caused 2,000 deaths that winter. Washington made his headquarters at the Isaac Potts House. The pretty fieldstone house looks quiet today and it is difficult to imagine how chaotic it must have been when all 25 members of Washington’s staff lived here. Martha was here also. George and Martha were very much in love and devoted to each other. Though it was rare at the time, Martha spent many winters with the army, enduring great personal risk and hardship traveling by coach and sleigh to be with her “old man,” as she called him. She was adored by Washington’s staff, who found the General much easier to deal with when Martha was around. George and Martha shared the upstairs bedroom in the Potts House and made time for a private breakfast together there each morning. The room is decorated as it would have been.

The Revolution dragged on nearly five years after Valley Forge. George wrote to Martha almost every day they were apart. When he died, she burned all but two of the letters. America’s first couple spent almost all of their lives in public service, but Martha ensured that their private life would stay private forever.

IF YOU GO: For more information on Philadelphia, visit: www.gophila.com/