How Walt Disney's Love of Trains Changed the World

Walt Disney with the locomotive created for Disneyland.

Walt Disney loved trains, and because of that, the world is a better – and happier -- place. 

Walt was fond of saying that his empire “started with a mouse.” And indeed, his creation of Mickey Mouse did make him a fortune.  But the idea for Mickey Mouse came to him while riding a train.

It’s quite possible that if Walt was not such a railroad buff, Disneyland and none of the other 11 Disney theme parks would exist.   Certainly, if not for Walt, four old beaten-up steam locomotives that did decades of work hauling hemp and sugar cane on the Ferrocarriles Unidos de Yucatan (United Railways of the Yucatan) would have long ago been turned into scrap metal in Merida.

The Disney empire has 11 theme parks.

Instead, these four ancient engines from Mexico have been transformed into the most popular steam trains in the world, bringing delight to kids and pulling 3.7 million passengers a year.

 Today, the Disney theme park empire has 46 resorts in four countries, 26,000 hotel rooms and more than 140,000 “cast members” who keep the parks running.  Walt Disney World in Orlando alone is the largest single site employer in the United States with a $1.6 billion payroll.

Yes, it all started with a mouse.  But it also might never have happened but for Walt Disney’s love of trains.

“In one way or another, I have always loved trains.”  Walt Disney

The museum is in America's newest national park, the Presidio

The best place to follow this remarkable story, is to start at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco.  Located on the Presidio, a former army base that’s been turned into one of America’s newest national parks, the huge 40,000 sq. ft. museum tells the life story of Walt Disney, letting you get to see – and hear -- the man behind the magic.  Much of the story is narrated by Walt himself on 200 video screens. There are interactive galleries, artifacts, photos, early drawings, historic cartoons, and a 14-foot model of Disneyland.

From gallery to gallery, the story unfolds. Walt was born in 1901 and had an idyllic childhood on a farm in Marceline, Missouri.  Railroads at this time were much more than transportation, especially to Walt.  His father was a railroad mechanic and his Uncle Mike Martin was a steam locomotive engineer.  Walt’s first job was selling newspapers, candy and fruit on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.  

Walt Disney (right) with his first locomotive, the Lilly Belle

His other great love as a youth was drawing cartoons.  At 16 he faked his age so he could become an ambulance driver in France during World War I, where he spent his down time drawing cartoons.  

Many of his drawings from that period are on display in the museum.

Back from the War, with just $40 in his pocket, Walt took a train to California and with his brother Roy as a partner, set out to change the world of animation.  There were ups and downs.  In 1928, he lost his first success, Oswald the Rabbit, to a bad business deal in New York.  Bankrupt, he was returning to California by train with his wife Lillian when he thought up a new cartoon – Mortimer Mouse.  His wife thought the name was too formal and changed it to Mickey.    

For the next 20 years, Walt would provide the voice for Mickey Mouse, while Disney Studios released a steady stream of ground-breaking animated movies, from the first full-length feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Fantasia, now regarded as a masterpiece.

Toy Trains Generate an Idea

Walt had always had a Lionel toy train set in his office, but in the late 1940s he discovered that two of his animators had bigger ambitions -- they had backyard railroads.  

Walt riding behind the Lilly Belle.

Ward Kimball, who drew Jiminy Cricket, had a full-scale train in his backyard, while Ollie Johnson, famous for creating Pinocchio and Bambi, had a large-scale model railroad that you could actually ride on. 

Walt went to the studio machine shop and hired Roger E. Broggie to build him a miniature railroad.  It was the beginning of a wonderful friendship.  Ultimately, Walt’s backyard railroad, called the Carolwood Pacific after his street address, had a half-mile of track, switches and a long trestle.  His wife had a problem with the train going through her flower garden, so he buried a 70-foot-long tunnel under the plants.  He also named the engine after her – the “Lilly Belle.” 

The Lilly Belle today in the Walt Disney Museum

The seven-foot-long locomotive and tender and many of the cars are now on display in the museum.  Walt could sit on the tender and drive the locomotive around his yard pulling 11 people, who would sit on top of the miniature railcars.  His daughter’s friends, neighbors – and even strangers – stopped by for a ride.   

Walt was getting an idea.

Before his train, he had taken his young daughters to amusement parks. He said, “Saturday was always daddy’s day. So I’d take them to the merry-go-round and different places and as I’d sit while they rode the merry-go-round. I felt that there should be something built where parents and children could have fun together.”

A 14-foot early model of Disneyland

He wrote his ideas for a new type of theme park, originally called Mickey Mouse Park, to a friend, saying, “I just want it to look like nothing else in the world…and it should be surrounded by a train.”

His brother Roy and his wife thought he was crazy.  At this time, amusement parks were trashy places with a bad carnival atmosphere.  But Walt persisted with his dream, and on July 17, 1955 Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California. 

It was like nothing else in the world.  And it was circled by a train.

Walt wanted to do his next park bigger and better in Orlando

The park was a phenomenal success.  But Walt had bigger dreams and set his eye on Florida, where he wanted to build another theme park.  “I am doing this because I want to do it better,” he said.  The locomotives at Disneyland had been built from scratch, but for the new park, he wanted real locomotives, and he sent Roger Broggie around the

world to find them. 

Roger did.  In a railroad graveyard in Merida, Mexico, he found four old rusted black locomotives that had hauled sugar cane, sitting forlorn and abandoned, ready for the scrap heap.  Roger bought them for $750, shipped

The world mourned Walt's passing

them to Florida, and helped completely restore them with a bright new paint job, brass fittings, new smokestacks, and new square headlamps.  The four engines were named the: Walter E. Disney, the Lilly Belle, the Roger E. Broggie and the Roy O. Disney.

Sadly, Walt never got to see them.  He died unexpectedly from lung cancer complications on Dec. 15, 1966.  But his brother Roy took up the mission, and on October 1, 1971 opened the Magic Kingdom in Orlando with all four locomotives circling the new park. 

Backstage Railroad Tour

Engineer Joe takes the tour back to the roundhouse.

Today, some 3.7 million people ride the Walt Disney World Railroad every year, making it the largest railroad in Florida carrying more passengers than AMTRAK.  You can take the 20 minute, 1.5 mile ride around the park, or if you want an up close and personal look at the trains, you can take a $54 backstage Train Tour.  The tour is limited to 20 people and meets outside the gates of the Magic Kingdom at a shocking 7:30 a.m.  

The early departure is soon forgotten when a real locomotive engineer, Joe, shows up in overalls, striped engineer cap and red bandana, ready to take us on our own personal train ride.   Each locomotive circles the Magic Kingdom 70 times a day, but on our backstage tour, our personal train stops after a quarter mile and blows three short whistles.  We will learn that this is the signal for going in reverse.  Each train has 16 different whistle patterns and they all mean different things.  Two short whistles means moving forward, one long whistle and one short (followed by a clanging bell) means coming into a station.

A personal train stops at the station for the 20 person tour.

On our tour, the locomotive backs over a switch and pushes its five cars back to the roundhouse, located outside the park, where we will get to see all of the engines getting ready for a day’s work. 

It takes 45 minutes to fire up each locomotive and get the water to 425 degrees to create the steam that propels it.  The locomotives are stored in the bottom floor of the massive “roundhouse” (which is actually rectangular because the upper floor is where Disney World stores all their monorails at night).  Crews work all night long preparing the engines, polishing the brass, repainting some of the trim, refueling the tender (the train uses 22 gallons of fuel an hour).

How to Run a Locomotive

Joe takes us up into the cab where we get to see how to drive a locomotive.   A giant wheel in the cab is covered with notches.  The throttle has a handle that fits in the notches and can be moved forward or backward a notch at a time. 

"Bring it up a notch" to make it go faster. 

That’s where the expression, “Bring it up a notch” comes from.  Bringing it up a notch will increase the speed, bringing it down a notch will decrease speed.  For safety, these locomotives travel at a maximum of 10 mph, but they could do 50.

Joe tells us some of the other every day expressions that came from railroading.   “Blowing your stack” comes from letting off steam pressure through the smokestack, whereas “Spinning your wheels” is what happens if a locomotive tries to start too quickly and the wheels spin on the tracks without getting traction.  We wonder if Joe is just “yanking our chain,” but turns out, that’s another railroading expression.  So is “Wrong Side of the Tracks,” which was the side where wind normally blew smoke and ash, so it was where the poor people lived.

Everyone gets to be an Engineer

The park opens at 9 a.m., so it’s soon time for the locomotives to get to work and we have a rare opportunity to see the trains the Walter E. Disney and the Roger E. Broggie side by side.  These two locomotives were built side by side in 1925 by Baldwin Locomotive works for Ferrocarriles Unidos de Yucatan.  They worked side by side in Mexico for 40 years, and today they still run on the same tracks together.  

No other two locomotives in history have ever done that.  

It’s a fitting tribute to Walt and his friend Roger, who did so much to keep the adventure

These two locomotives have shared many adventures.

of steam trains alive.  

Millions upon millions of people around the world have been able to hear a real steam whistle, see and feel the cloud of steam as an engine pulls into a station, listen to the clanging bell and enjoy the thrill of riding behind a real locomotive as it chugs down the tracks. 

“I just want it to look like nothing else in the world,” Walt said about his theme park.  And he built it.  Circled by a train. 

If you go:   Walt Disney Family Museum, www.waltdisney.org/, Walt Disney World, www.disneyworld.disney.go.com/

  

The Great Adobe Castle of the Santa Fe Trail -- Bent's Fort

Traders and guides on the Santa Fe Trail at Bent's Old Fort during one of their many re--enactment events.

Few roads in history have conjured up romantic images like the Santa Fe Trail.  It lasted only 60 years, from 1821 to 1880, but for that short time it was America’s first international highway.  And the most colorful. 

Across 900 miles of open prairie, from Missouri to Old Mexico, the Santa Fe Trail became one of the most important commerce roads in the world, bringing goods from Europe -- wool, silk, iron tools and cotton cloth -- to Mexico and returning with furs, silver, mules and horses.   Traveling on the trail were a wild assortment of characters -- fur trappers and mountain men dressed in buckskins, famous guides like Kit Carson, big-hatted vaqueros and cowboys, soldiers from three different armies, gold seekers, journalists and adventurers. 

One of the typical wagons of the trail at Bent's Old Fort

Thousands of huge 6,000-pound Conestoga wagons creaked across the dirt tracks, pulled by teams of 20 oxen, that were matched by color so that one wagon had all black oxen, while another used all brown.  These wagon trains with their white canvas covers billowing in the wind like sails, slowly moved across a sea of grass at a rate of 15 miles a day.

And then there were the Indians.  The trail passed through the traditional hunting grounds of the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Comanche and Apaches.  There were raging rivers to cross, massive herds of buffalo to be negotiated, mountains to be conquered, drought, cold, snow and thunderstorms.  

All that's left is ruts

And then, just like that, the Santa Fe Trail was gone. In 1878, there were 500 dusty wagons rolling into Santa Fe from the trail every day.  But two years later, the railroad from Missouri was completed. Where once it had taken three months to travel to Santa Fe by foot, by rail it took just three days.  The famous trail quickly faded into obscurity, wind and rain washing away all but a few traces.

Today, modern highways follow some of the original route and most people zoom by at 75 mph.   But slow down, and it’s possible to still see some of the old trail.  There are natural landmarks and even some ruts in the prairie, carved there by wagons nearly 200 years ago. 

Bent's Old Fort

Best of all, the National Park Service rebuilt the most famous site on the trail – the amazing adobe castle, Bent’s Old Fort in La Junta, Colorado. 

Enter the gates of this mud-colored trading post, past massive towers guarded by cannons, and you are time-tripping back to the 1830s.  Here, you can listen to tales from mountain men and soldier re-enactors, touch the wagons they pulled across the prairie and see the exact same views they did when this adobe fort marked the border between Mexico and the United States.

Building the Trail

The story of the Santa Fe Trail began a decade before Plymouth Rock, in 1610 when Spanish explorer and colonist Pedro de Peralta laid out the Villa de Santa Fe – the City of Holy Faith – in Northern Mexico.  It was an ambitious plan with a grand Governor’s Palace on the plaza.  But of course, at first, there were bloody battles with Indians, who in 1680 revolted, threw the Spanish out of the territory and occupied the Palace for 12 years.  But slowly over time, Santa Fe became a peaceful and prosperous city, except that it was completely isolated.  The Spanish government forbid any trade with the North Americanos of the United States and anyone who tried was arrested.

Governor's Palace in Santa Fe

Then in 1821, William Becknell changed that.  He was a bankrupt Missouri trader, one step ahead of the U.S. law, who decided to take a big risk.  He smuggled the first three wagons of goods to ever cross the Great Plains, somehow dragging them over rivers and up mountains and finally into the plaza of Santa Fe.  Where instead of being arrested, he was treated as a hero!  There had been a revolution, the Spanish were thrown out and the new Mexican government welcomed trade.

Overnight, the word was out and great caravans of wagons began assembling for the tremendous profit to be made trading with Mexico.   The typical wagon train didn’t follow one wagon after another, as shown in films.  No one liked eating the dust of the wagon ahead, and there was plenty of land, so the wagons spread out in columns.  Caravans of 10 to 100 wagons traveled together for protection.  Trade mushroomed from $65,000 in 1825 to $1 million twenty years later.

When the United States declared war on Mexico in 1846, an army of 1,657 soldiers and 150 wagons tramped over the trail, to capture Santa Fe without firing a shot.  In the Civil War, both Confederates and Yankee armies used the trail, fighting the deciding battle of the war in the West directly on the trail at the Battle of Glorieta Pass.  The Union victory preserved New Mexico and Colorado for the North.

Bent’s Old Fort

Troops approach Bent's Old Fort on the Santa Fe Trail

One of the trail’s most exciting events occurred n 1835, when brothers William and Charles Bent and their partner Ceran St. Vrain decided to build an Indian trading post along the Santa Fe Trail, on the banks of the Arkansas River.  This was the dividing line between Mexico and the United States at the time and the center of Indian hunting grounds.  Profits could be huge.  The Bent’s could buy a buffalo robe from the Indians for 25 cents worth of trinkets, and sell it in Missouri for $6.

But the Bents didn’t want to build just any old trading post or fort.  They envisioned a fortified town – a castle, really – that would be built of adobe bricks, guarded by towers and cannons.  It would be a place that could provide all the luxuries of the city to hungry travelers who at this point had been weeks on the trail. 

In the plaza of the Fort

The Bents brought 100 workers from Mexico, pushed mud and straw into wood forms to create sun-dried bricks, and over two years, built their dream.  A visitor in 1839 marveled, “it was as though an air built castle had dropped to the earth in the midst of a vast desert.”  

 

The original fort vanished, along with the trail, long ago.  But the National Park Service working with original plans, drawings and archeological excavations, built an exact replica. 

The first view takes your breath away.  The fort’s parking lots are several hundred yards away.  As you leave the parking lot and climb a small rise, there suddenly is Bent’s Fort in all its glory, sitting on the plains just as it would have appeared to wagon trains. 

Bent's Fort appears like a dream today, just like it did in the 1830s

Enter the gates and you are in 1830s, surrounded by bustling re-enactors portraying the blacksmiths, gunsmiths, hunters, traders, soldiers and horse wranglers who kept the fort in business.  It was a busy and multi-cultural place filled with many languages.  The Bent’s owned three slaves who lived here, of whom Charlotte was a renowned cook. Indians frequently camped outside the fort while trading, and today, teepees still dot the horizon.  

The center of the fort was an open plaza, surrounded by two story buildings.  On the bottom floor were the storehouses, trading rooms, a barber shop, dining rooms, a kitchen and a blacksmith shop.  The upper floors had more private rooms and even a billiard table and bar.  Some 60 to 100 people lived in the fort, and it could accommodate up to 15 prairie schooners in a walled adobe corral.  No one worried about Indians stealing goods from the corral – the walls were protected on top by living cactus.

The interior of The Fort Restaurant in Denver

The trading rooms were packed with beads, brass wire, red cloth, tobacco, hoop iron, tomahawks, bracelets, bright colored blankets, and of course whiskey. 

Kit Carson worked at the fort as a hunter, supplying meat for the workers, before becoming more famous as a trail guide and soldier. 

Ironically, William Bent didn’t live in the fort.  His wife, a Cheyenne named Owl Woman, didn’t like all the constant noise of wagons coming and going, and the hammering in the blacksmith shop, and the traders and trappers drinking whiskey and carousing.  So she lived in a teepee by the river.  She made William live there too.

The Fort Restaurant in Denver was first re-creation of Bent's.

When war broke out with Mexico, Bent’s Fort became an army post.  After the war, trade fell off, and the Bents had difficulties with the U.S. government.  One story is that they set fire to the fort rather than have the U.S. take control.  At any rate, the fort was abandoned and the adobe bricks eventually washed away, like the trail it had served, leaving only the wind, the grass and the big skies of the Great Plains. 

  

If you go:  Bent’s Old Fort is located in La Junta, Colorado, 190 miles from Denver and 280 miles from Santa Fe. http://www.nps.gov/beol  The first reproduction of the fort was created by Sam Arnold in 1963 in Denver as The Fort restaurant.  www.thefort.com. 

Prickly Pear Margarita

Today, the restaurant is run by his daughter Holly Arnold Kinney and The Fort still dishes up more buffalo than any other restaurant on the planet.  It’s a wonderful place to soak up the atmosphere of the Santa Fe Trail, while tasting buffalo, elk, quail, rabbit  – even rattlesnake is on the menu. Try the “Bowl of the wife of Kit Carson – a soup served by Kit Carson’s granddaughter with chicken, rice, chipotle chili, dried garbanzo beans and cheese, served with avocado, cilantro and lime.  Wash it down with a Prickly Pear Margarita made with real cactus juice.  As the mountain men used to say, “Waaaah!”

San Francisco -- the City in a Park

From Presidio National Park

Most cities have parks inside them.  But San Francisco is a city inside a park.   And an 80,000-acre national park at that.  Along the coast, in the bay, on the other side of the bay, and even right through the heart of the city, San Francisco is surrounded and cut by a series of national parks and monuments that have preserved the beauty and history of the area.

Today, you can see an island prison that was once home to the gangsters Al “Scarface” Capone and “Machine Gun” Kelly.  You stroll the wooden deck of a century old sailing ship, or cling to the outside of a cable car as it rattles up and down roller coaster hills – and always be part of the national park system.  There are walks along sheer cliffs or on wide beaches.  You can even stroll through a silent, 1,000 year old forest of redwoods and still be only a few minutes from panoramic views of San Francisco’s skyscrapers.

Best of all, you can walk from one national park to another across the most famous bridge in the world.

The Marina from the national park pathway along the bay.

Here’s some of the best national parks surrounding (and inside) San Francisco.

The Famous Cable Cars

It’s hard to miss these iconic cars with their bright yellow and maroon colors, clanging bells, and strange rattling noise as they are pulled along by underground cables.  At one point, there were 600 of these cable cars (never call them trolleys!) whipping up and down the hills of San Francisco.  Today, only 40 survive, but each of the 15,000-pound cars is a national monument – the only moving national monuments in the national park system.

The giant wheels that spin the underground cables.

The best way to understand how the cars work is to visit the free Cable Car Museum.  Here you can actually see the gigantic wheels that rotate, pulling huge steel cables in miles long circles underground.  A “Gripman” on board the cable car squeezes a lever that grips the cable and drags the car forward at a stead 9.5 miles an hour.  To stop the car, the gripman releases the cable and pulls a brake.  It’s no easy job.  It takes amazing upper body strength and coordination, and any Gripman is a true hero in San Francisco.

The cars can’t go backwards, so when they reach the end of the line, they are turned, by hand, on a roundtable to go back the same way they came.

The best moving national monument in the country.

This Victorian transportation system started in 1873 when a Scottsman, Andrew Hallidie, witnessed a horrible accident.  Horses pulling a wagon up one of San Francisco’s infamous hills started slipping on the cobblestones and fell, dragging the wagon and horses down the hill into a dreadful heap.  Hallidie had seen cable cars pull gold ore and was convinced they could pull humans too, but when it came time to test the first car downhill, the hired brakeman lost his nerve.  Hallidie hopped on board and guided the car down safely. 

Today on a ride, the hills still give the biggest thrills.   The 40 cable cars are as safe as they can be, but that’s not very safe.  They hold 29-34 people sitting, but another 20-40 are allowed to stand on the running board holding onto a leather strap.  There are no seatbelts, and the cars rattle right down the center of the street, barely missing automobiles, other cable cars, and pedestrians.

The cars go from Union Square to Fisherman's Wharf

They are generally crowded.  You can wait 30-40 minutes to catch one at the roundtables, but better, just walk a few blocks along the track and look for trolley boarding signs. There are no true stations.  The cable car stops every few blocks and you simply jump on board, quickly, and grab a seat or a leather strap.  And hold on!  You can buy tickets ($7 each way) on board, but a better deal is City Pass (which includes tickets to all of San Francisco’s top attractions and offers unlimited rides on the car for 7 days). 

The cable cars hit most of the famous sights in the city, from Nob Hill and Chinatown to Fisherman’s Wharf.  Of the three lines, the Powell Hyde is the most thrilling, and the California Street line the least crowded.

The Rock

This guard tower is fake, added for a movie.

The solid rock island sitting 1.25 miles off the shore of San Francisco has been a fort and a lighthouse, but is best remembered as the most infamous prison in U.S. history – Alcatraz.  From 1934 to 1963, it was the nation’s toughest maximum-security prison – the place they sent the worst criminals or those who had caused trouble in other prisons. 

Generally, about 260 inmates lived here in cold, windowless, tiny 5x9 foot cells.  There were three guards for every prisoner, six guard towers with machine guns and miles of barbed wire, while the surrounding water was freezing with strong currents.

Still, the human spirit being what it is, 34 inmates tried to escape in 14 different attempts.  Many were machine gunned or recaptured, while others drowned in the bay.  But five inmates were never seen again, and though presumed dead by drowning, who knows?

Everyone is glad to leave Alcatraz.

Today the prison is run as a museum by the National Park Service.  It still exudes a feeling of loneliness and cold damp misery, especially in D Block, the dreaded solitary confinement cells where inmates spent 23 hours alone each day.  On New Year’s Eve, the prisoners could hear big band music drifting across the water from parties in San Francisco.

An extremely well done audio tour narrated by former guards and prisoners walks you through the cell blocks, with special attention on the escape attempts, including the last possible successful escape in 1962 in which three inmates made dummy heads to fool the guards that they were sleeping in their bunks.  The actual cells they escaped from are made to look exactly as they would have to the guards, even the dummy heads have been preserved in exhibits and photos.  The tour is fascinating couple of hours, but when it’s over, no one is sorry to leave Alcatraz.

  

The Golden Gate

Rodeo Beach in the Marin Headlands

At close to 80,000 acres, Golden Gate National Recreation Area begins on the beaches and rocky shoreline where the Pacific Ocean pounds into the San Francisco coast, and extends inland to encompass forts, mountains, rolling grasslands and ancient fog-shrouded forests. 

The newest addition is ironically San Francisco’s oldest historic site – the Presidio. It was here in 1776, at the same time that Thomas Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence back east, that the Spanish established their first fort.  Parts of the old adobe walls are still visible in the newly opened information center and museum.  For 218 years, the Presidio remained an important military base, changing over the years from being defended by cannons to becoming a control center for Nike missiles.  Then in 1994, the U.S. Army closed the base and gave it to the National Park Service.  Today, there are 20 miles of hiking and biking trails, incredibly stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge, and some of the city’s most spectacular beaches. 

the Palace of Fine Arts, adjacent to the Presidio

The old army buildings are being repurposed as everything from a new upscale restaurant “The Officers Club,” to an entertaining museum detailing the life of Walt Disney.   Strange mixture?  Why not?  The Presidio was the fictional headquarters on earth for Starfleet Command in Star Trek, and today the real George Lucas has his office here.

From the Presidio, you can walk, bike or drive over the 9,000-foot long Golden Gate Bridge to the Marin Headlands, the often foggy rolling hills that slide down in sheer cliffs to the crashing Pacific Ocean below.  At Rodeo Beach you can see 300 species of birds or hike along the booming surf to the Point Bonita Lighthouse.

The Pelican Inn

Further north, drive to Muir Beach and stop for a pint of ale in the completely authentic English pub, the Pelican Inn.  From its half-timbered dining rooms to its snug little wood paneled bar, this is the place to warm up by a fire after a brisk beach walk in the fog.  Further north, Stinson Beach is another adorably village, but mind how many pints of ale you enjoy before the drive.  The road there is filled with hairpin curves and sharp cliffs.

A near flat path follows Redwood Creek for several miles.

Another torturous and twisting road leads inland to a high, flat,  
mountain valley where a pretty creek is lined with thousands of the tallest living species on earth --
the coastal redwood. Redwood trees covered much of the  Northern Hemisphere 150 million years ago.
 
Today, only a very few groves survive.  The ones here, Muir Woods, were preserved as a National Monument by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908.  Some of the trees in this ancient forest are 1,000 years old.  Redwood trees can grow to be 300 feet tall and require a foggy climate to get enough moisture.  At their base, it is always cool and dark with just a few shafts of light drifting through the upper branches.  The forest does not support much wildlife, so it is always strangely silent here.  National Park signs ask people to be quiet as you walk through the tallest trees at Cathedral Grove.  It’s hard to believe, as you listen to the creek and walk past these venerable and silent evergreens, that bustling San Francisco is just 12 miles away.

For more information go to:  www.sanfrancisco.travel.

Around Northern Italy by Train

Varenna has train service.  From here you have to take a ferry to Bellagio.

The Italians are many wonderful things – but slow, safe and sane drivers, they are not.  Italian highways resemble race tracks more than roads, and cars can be expensive and a hassle in the country’s ancient, pedestrian-oriented cities.

The solution is to tour Italy by train.  All the grand stops of Northern Italy are 2-3 hours apart by rail.  Italian train cars are efficient and comfortable and many seats come with tables and power outlets so you can catch up on emails as you zip through the countryside.  You can even bring your own bottle of wine on board and enjoy a glass.   There’s no need for a Eurail pass; it’s far cheaper to just buy tickets as you go.  Ticket machines are in English and easy to understand.

Milan station.  Train ticket machines are easy and in English.

Italian rail stations are always near the center of the city and surrounded by hotels – usually the best bargain hotels too.  Travel light and you can easily roll bags from the station to the hotel, traveling for instance from Venice to Florence in three hours, hotel door to hotel door, with maybe even a nap on the train in between.

The country is set up ideally to tour clockwise, spending two nights in each of the classic stops of Lake Como, the Dolomites (Italian Alps), Venice, Florence, Cinque Terra, and Milan.

So here then is the grand tour of classic Northern Italy by train, arriving and departing from Milan.

Bellagio & Lake Como    

Bellagio Harbor as you arrive by ferry.

If it’s good enough for resident George Clooney and to be used as a location for the James Bond film Casino Royal, then Bellagio, the “Pearl of the Lake,” is a perfect first stop in Italy.  You’ll have to take a train from the airport to Milan central station, and then catch a second train to Varenna, a picturesque lakeside village with tree-shaded cafes.  It’s a relaxing place to sip a glass of wine while you wait for the ferry and the 30 minute sail across Lake Como to Bellagio.

Arriving by water into Bellagio’s harbor is one of the great romantic moments of Italy.  The harborside is lined with cafes, manicured trees, shaded walks, and Old World elegant hotels, while the lakeshore in all directions is rimmed by far off mountains.

Bellagio waterside cafes.

The town is small, but ritzy, and filled with covered arcades housing expensive and exclusive boutiques and upscale restaurants, mixed in with the usual tourist shops and pizza places. 

On your free day in Bellagio, take the “slow” boat up the lake, stopping at villages along the way for a lakeside lunch and stroll, or a tour one of the famed historic villas like Villa Carlotta or the 18^th Century Villa del Balbianello, used as a film set in Star Wars: Episode II, of all things.

Bolzano, The Dolomites and The Italian Alps    

The Dolomites

You’ll have to ferry from Bellagio back to Varenna or sail south on the lake to Lecco and catch an hour train back to Milan.  From here, it’s an easy train ride to Bolzano, the gateway to the jagged and dramatic rock mountains that make up the Italian Alps. These are possibly the most beautiful and photographed mountains in Europe.  Entering Bolzano is like leaving Italy and entering Germany; the small city is completely German in appearance, language and food.  Indeed it was part of Austria before World War I.

This is the one spot you may consider renting a car for a day to drive the high twisting roads through mountain passes, though it is just as easy and cheaper to take a 40-minute public bus ride to the cable-car at Siusi.  Here, you are whisked up high above the trees into the mountains to Alpe di Siusi – Europe’s largest high-alpine meadow. 

Hiking trails through the Dolomites.

This is calendar country, filled with grass-covered rolling hills dotted with farmer’s huts and tranquil cows with bells.  The horizon in all directions is a rocky panorama of snow covered mountains.  You can do easy, level hikes across the meadows, or take chair lifts even higher to access trails that cut literally through the mountains.  Get a good map at the information center. The trails are well marked, and all trails heading downhill will eventually take you to an outdoor café with delicious ice-cold German beers on tap.  Still, you are in a high mountain meadow accessible only by cable car, so you don’t want to miss the last ride down.

Venice    

Riding a vaporetto up the Grand Canal at night is one of the premiere experiences in Venice.

With a change in Verona, it’s just three hours by train from Bolzano to Venice.  Exiting the train station, your first view of Venice is a magnificent scene of chaos overlooking the Grand Canal where every type of watercraft can be seen sailing by.  Everything in Venice moves by water -- police boats, ambulance boats, and garbage boats float along as do expensive yachts and barges filled with everything from beer and food to construction materials. 

You’ll move by water too, on vaporettos, the sleek, cool black ferries that ply the canals and connect the many islands of Venice. Buy a daily pass so you never have to hesitate whether to hop on board. 

The nearby island of Murano is filled with colorful houses.

Venice can be crowded beyond imagination, especially when cruise ships are in. It’s hot, dirty, expensive, exhausting and confusing.  It’s also quite possibly the most wonderful city on the planet.

There are a hundred guidebooks to the sights, but truly, the most amazing experience in Venice is just to wander and get lost in the maze of ancient twisting streets, alleys and canals. 

At night, when the cruise ships depart, the back streets of Venice are almost deserted.  The most romantic ride in the city is the hour long “slow” vaporetto, which sails up the Grand Canal, pulling into every stop while all the lights of the city reflect in the water.  Most people heading back to the train station board the night vaporettos at Piazza San Marco, at which point the ferries can become hopelessly crowded.  To avoid the crowds, just walk east along the waterfront two stops and board the ferry here.  At this point, you’ll have the vaporetto to yourself and can get the choice seats in the bow. Bring your own bottle of wine and glasses and you can have a drink on the one hour ride up the canal.

Florence

View from the top of the 423 step summit of the Duomo

The loveliest Renaissance city in the world is just three hours by train from Venice.  Almost all the major sites are within a twenty minute walk of the train station.  Make your first stop the central Visitor Information Center and ask what museums are free that day.  Several times a week, a different museum remains open at night with free admission.  The day we visited, there was an hour wait and $12 charge to see Michelangelo’s famous sculpture David during normal hours, but it was free that evening and we walked right up to it alone at 9 p.m.

View from Piazzle Michelangelo

Florence is another city to stroll – and climb.  It’s 463 steps to the top of the Gothic cathedral, the Duomo, but worth it for the central view over the red rooftops of the city.  Likewise, it’s a long climb to Piazzle Michelangelo, a pleasant park on top of a hill on the other side of the river, but in late afternoon, the view from the café over the entire city and countryside is stunning.

While the city is filled with museums, there are also dozens of free sites to explore, from Ponte Vecchio, the city’s most famous bridge, which is lined with gold and silver shops, to the popular and picturesque markets of San Lorenzo and Mercato Centrale.  It’s free to enter the courtyard of Palazzo Vecchio, a palace dating to 1540, and every street in the city is lined with statues, art and history.  Make sure you bring an extra camera battery.

The Cinque Terre

 

Vernazza on the Cinqe Terra with other towns in view in the distance.

The last stop, a few hours by train from Florence, has no museums or famous historic sites. It is just an untouched, car-free, section of the Italian Riviera.  The rugged, hilly coastline is a mixture of rock cliffs and vineyards and is dotted with five incredibly beautiful and remote seaside villages. The towns are connected only by ferry, by train or by hiking paths.   Hiking from village to village is one of the principal pastimes, always rewarded on arrival by a café stop for a glass of wine or a local beer.  There are beaches and sun, wildflowers and cliffs, and wondrous coastal views, many of them

Portovenere is a 40 minute ferry ride from Cinque Terra

from brightly colored cafes perched on rocky promontories overlooking the harbor. Ferries can take you south around the coast on a scenic 40 minute trip to perhaps the most gorgeous town of all, Portovenere, this one capped by an ancient fortress.

Each of the five towns has its own personality…and fans.  For me, Vernazza was the most dramatically situated and offered the best feel of a real Italian town.  No mistake, the Cinque Terre is not undiscovered, and by day it can be packed with tourists and hikers.  But hotels are limited (most people make arrangements to stay in private houses through booking services).  In the evening, Vernazza and the other towns revert to small Italian villages.  Laundry hangs from the windows, residents chit-chat on the streets, dogs run along the small harbor, and everyone sips a glass of wine to celebrate and toast the setting sun.

Toasting the sunset above Vernazza.

From Vernazza, it’s just three hours by train to Milan.

If you go:   As with any trip to Europe, the best guide is www.ricksteves.com.   His books are worth the investment in money (and the weight of carrying them around).