I've just written these 2100 words for a local community newspaper, so thought I'd also share it here as well.
In June of this year, our
little family of three had the most amazing holiday; our first ever ‘big’
holiday overseas together. Now that our daughter is twelve, we figured this was
a good time to do it, as she’ll remember it forever more, and she was also
willing to sleep on the couch some of the time, saving us a fair bit of money
with accommodation!
My husband and I seem to
manage one 4-week holiday in the Northern Hemisphere once every seven years,
with somewhere closer like New Zealand or South East Asia in-between, at around
the 3-4 year point if we’re lucky. These things are expensive so we take it
pretty seriously and plan every detail as carefully as we can, to make sure we
get the greatest bang for our buck.
This trip was initially a
holiday built around my intention of attending an academic heritage conference
in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. For this reason, I booked our flights a full year
ahead, so we could get the cheapest deal. I made sure I included all the cities
on our ‘B List’ of historic cities to visit in North America (mainly because
I’ve achieved my personal ‘A List’ already, having been to NYC, Chicago, San
Francisco and New Orleans in the past).
We’re very much independent
travellers, so I also booked all our accommodation in what we considered the most
ambient places in the best locations for our budget on Air B’n’B, a year ahead.
I even booked our house-sitters in a year ahead, and they planned their flights
and all their arrangements around this too.
But life being what it is,
the sponsoring Universities then pulled the dates for the conference forward by
one whole week! Being completely self-funded I was gutted, as the cheap flights
I’d bought us were totally non-changeable. But once I picked myself up off the
floor, I soon came around to the idea that it was meant to be, and we may as
well just run with it and have a fabulous family holiday. So, that’s what we
did!
We flew United Airlines from
Melbourne straight to Montreal via a few hours change-over in Los Angeles. This
was my sixth change-over at LA Airport in my lifetime, yet I’ve never left the
terminal. I haven’t really seen the need to. It’s a long haul to Montreal,
about 30 hours door-to-door, including all transit aspects, so we got to our
two story loft apartment by about 11pm, and let ourselves in using the key
codes on the front and internal doors.
We had a whole week in
Montreal, founded 1642 (because I thought I’d be attending that critical
heritage conference!), but it turned out really well because we got to know that
beautiful, user friendly city in significant detail. We stayed in the historic
Old Port District, but travelled all over the city, exploring its various nooks
and crannies on foot and via subway.
It must be said that going on
holiday with me is like a tourism boot camp, because we walk ourselves ragged
each day. There’s always so much I want to cram into our time away. We’re
mainly interested in exploring culturally diverse urban neighbourhoods,
historic homes, museums, galleries, parks, bookshops and trying good quality
local food wherever we go. That’s our idea of a great holiday. We catch local
trains and buses, and staying
Air B’n’B also means we get to go to local supermarkets, stock up on
unfamiliar produce, cook our own dinners, and save money imagining we live
wherever it is that we’re staying.
After Montreal, we caught a
train for just two hours over to Quebec City, the oldest fully walled city in
North America, claimed by the French in 1608. After that we flew down to the
Deep South to spend 3 nights in Charleston, South Carolina, settled 1670, home
to the slave trade and the start of the Civil War. Next we hired a car and
drove down to Savannah, via two grand plantation properties and the sweetest
coastal town called Beaufort. (where 'The Big Chill' was filmed in the early 1980s). We spent 3 nights in Savannah,
Georgia, settled 1733, then flew North again to Boston, Massachusetts, settled
1630 by English Puritans, where we spent 5 nights. While there, we also caught a fast ferry two
hours North to Salem, and spent an extraordinary day there learning about the
witch trails of 1692. These five incredible cities (plus the day trips to
Beaufort and Salem) were the heart of our holiday.
On the way back we flew over
to Denver, Colorado, settled in 1858, and stayed for just 1 night and finally
Los Angeles, California, for 1 accidental night, courtesy of United Airlines’ multiple
stuff-ups with our connections. It was the most extraordinary trip, so I
thought I’d share a bit about it here just in case any of you have an interest in these places. Here’s my take
on the places we went:
Montreal was thoroughly
enjoyable and we feel we did justice to its diverse offerings – So much so that
we never need to return. A week there was the perfect amount of time. We went
to inspired museums, caught a Cirque du Soleil show, ate absolutely incredible food in the Jewish
district and the most sublime oysters in the Italian district, inspected
extraordinary churches which almost blew our minds, watched the city brace itself like a well oiled event machine for the Grand Prix, and did so many cool things
that there’s not enough space to rattle on about them all here. We walked until
our hips ached and our feet blistered. We saw and experienced so much, and would highly recommend Montreal to others, though only in their Summer! This is
a city of extreme cold most of the year, hence the mammoth underground labyrinth
of shopping malls, some of which we explored on our way to the Museum of Fine
Arts (five extraordinary buildings connected by a web of underground
galleries). Montreal deserves its accolades.
Quebec City was both fascinating
and very old-fashioned. Their approach to tourism seems stuck in the late 1970s
somehow, which they say is when the locals discovered that their quirky old
city might be of interest to outsiders. This fortress city has a long and
bloody history as it sits at the start of the Saint Lawrence River at the strategic gateway to French Canada. The
city is dominated by a fairy-tale style grand hotel called Chateaux Frontenac with
an enormous wide wooden Promenade that has an 18th Century feel: It
doesn’t seem right that everyone’s wearing modern clothes! We stayed in an
ancient street in the old Port district and had to hike up and down the hilltop
many times in order to see everything we wanted to see. It’s a very interesting
city with breath-taking architecture and we’re very glad we went, but it has an
odd vibe; a tension you can actually feel.
Charleston was unbelievably
hot and sultry when we were there, and we almost melted. The saving grace was
the iced tea we bought on multiple occasions at the city markets for a couple
of bucks. We did a horse and carriage tour around the old city’s heart and the
most delicious foodie walking tour, savouring many local specialties including
shrimp biscuits and grits. We also toured three Civil War mansions while in
Charleston: one preserved in it’s original condition (that was the most
pr,ofound experience), one partially restored and one fully restored. We also wandered
along the Esplanade where they used to bring all the slave ships in and contemplated
the park where they hung many poor people from trees once upon a time. This is
the heartland of people who still speak of the ‘War of Northern aggression’
(rather than the Civil War) and home to the horrific massacre that took place at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church exactly one year prior to our visit. It was being
commemorated all over the city while we were there. We enjoyed Charleston immensely
and like each American city we visited we dearly wished we had another night
there, so we could see everything on our wish-list.
Savannah is an entirely
seductive city full of 23 or more charming urban parks, draped with Spanish
Moss on 'Live Oaks', with the most famous being Forsyth Park, which we used as
our basis for meandering about. We even went to a Sunday morning service at
Savannah’s first Southern Baptist Church to sway to the singing of the gospel choir.
We sat with the mainly Afro-American congregation and listened to the Preacher,
who was quite enlightened and moved me to tears at times. Savannah was also
home to John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, so the spiritual heritage of
Savannah is deep. Having a car during our stay there was also very handy for
driving to Bonaventure Cemetery, where we did the most incredibly haunting and powerful two hour walking tour
with a very talented story-teller. Our daughter had a yearning to visit the
beach while in Savannah, so we also drove out of town to spend an afternoon where
the locals go: grey sanded North Beach on Tybie Island with an old
Lighthouse, where I sat and read on an
adult sized swing while my family went swimming in the strangely brown
seawater. Despite the weird low-country swamp beaches, this was the one city we could actually imagine ourselves
living happily in – It was incredibly beautiful and peaceful with lovely ante-bellum
buildings and supermarket checkout chicks who say things like “Y’all be blessed”
when you buy your groceries.
Boston is a highly civilised and
historic city, beautifully set up for visitors to enjoy. We stayed in the
centrally located Beacon Hill next to Boston Common, and found we could walk to
almost everything we wanted to see: the Italian North End, Waterfront, Back Bay
and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Fenway. We caught a train a couple of
stops over to MIT and then on to Harvard University and did a guided tour of
the campus. The highlight for me though was visiting Boston’s oldest surviving
wooden house, built in 1680, and home to American Patriot Paul Revere and our
private tour of the neighbouring Pierce/Hitchborn House, the oldest surviving
brick home: Both so wonky and wonderful. Trekking about the charming and steep cobblestone
streets of Beacon Hill admiring the brownstone architecture was also magical. We
just loved Boston, and would return in a heartbeat.
Denver was surprisingly uplifting.
It was flat as a pancake, despite the fact that it sits a mile high, underneath
the great Rockie Mountains. We only had one evening to enjoy dinner on our
hotel rooftop and a morning to do a historic walking tour of LoDo (Lower Downtown),
but every moment was an absolute pleasure. After the tour of the mammoth brick
warehouse and distribution district, we went back to several of the places our
guides told us about: the landmark Cowboy retailer store, the authentic Art
Deco Prohibition Bar, a cavernous ambient book barn, and so on. At first glance
Denver seems a dry and barren place, but give it a second glance and you catch its
pulse palpitating all around you. It’s quite amazing and we wished we had two
more nights there. They have some great looking galleries and museums too, but
we didn’t get to see any of them.
Los Angeles was exactly like we
thought it would be: sprawling suburbs as far as the eye could see, an unattractive
mishmash of buildings and palm trees smothered in visibly grey air pollution
and it’s distinctly unglamorous as an overall urban landscape. However, it was
interesting to get a peek of Venice Beach, West Hollywood, Beverley Hills, Hollywood
Boulevard and the original multicultural Farmer’s Market. The residents are tremendously spirited
and proud of their drab city which sparkles brightly in their mind’s eye. There’s
a lot to see and when we have the opportunity to revisit I’m sure we’ll happily
fill a week doing fascinating things.
The final thing I’d like to
say is that the quality of the food everywhere we went was simply superb. Gave us so many new ideas for how to approach daily meals! We're very privileged to have had the opportunity to plan and take this incredible trip, and hope this reflective overview may be helpful to those interested in any or all of these destinations.
