Harlem Jazz Museum, Park Hyatt Toronto bikes, West Jet does Windsor-Calgary

New York City is seeking a developer to build a new home for the National Jazz Museum in Harlem across the street from the famed Apollo Theater.

The complex will include an art house movie theater and a satellite office of the city's tourism agency. The city's Economic Development Corp. on Monday issued a request for proposals for developers to bid on the project, which will be a further step in Harlem's growth as a tourist destination.

"Harlem more than ever has become sort of a global icon for the city," said George Fertitta, the head of NYC & Co., the tourism agency. "It's a magnet for visitors from all over the world."

True. But I wonder how New York jumped on this before New Orleans, which is regarded as the birthplace of jazz music.

On a slightly different cultural tack, I see that Brooklyn's famous Coney Island amusement park, home to the historic Cyclone roller coaster and Wonder Wheel, got some new neighbours with the opening of a new park named for an old one: Luna Park.

The 19 new rides at Luna Park will be phased in, and they'll have some famous company: the Cyclone, a wooden coaster built in 1927, and the giant Wonder Wheel, which stands 150 feet (45 metres) high and was built in 1920. Both are New York City landmarks. Nathan's Famous hot dog eatery is a few blocks away.

The new Luna Park is named for a now-defunct park that opened in 1903. In its heyday, it attracted 90,000 visitors a day.

The first Luna Park featured hundreds of thousands of lights — such a spectacle that people started using the phrase, "It's lit up like Luna Park." By 1907, visitors were mailing more than a million postcards a week out of the Coney Island post office.

Luna Park was destroyed in a 1944 electrical fire. An estimated 750,000 people stood watching the 10-alarm blaze from the Coney Island beach.

I've never been to Coney Island. But there's a great, old amusement park in northern California called the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, with a rickety old rollercoaster, great arcade rides and a real, old-fashioned feel. It's about 90 minutes south of San Francisco on the north shore of Monterey Bay.

Lots of folks visit San Francisco and don't have time to do the famous stretch of Highway 1 between Monterey/Pebble Beach and San Simeon, the part that includes Big Sur. But there's dramatic coastlines and fun places to stop on the road from Santa Cruz to San Francisco, and you can go from San Francisco to Santa Cruz in less than two hours along the coast, making it a fun day trip. It's especially nice in the fall, when northern California typically has its best weather.

PARK HYATT TORONTO BIKES

Just in time for Toronto Bike Month, the Park Hyatt Toronto has brought back its Bicycle Valet program. It's a free service for guests in which Trek Cruiser bikes are available in four-hour increments, although a waiver, understandably, has to be signed. Guests are given a lock, helmet, basket, a bottle of water and a biking map. They also can request a gourmet picnic lunch.

Park Hyatt folks recommend three particular routes: The Martin Goodman Trail on the Toronto waterfront, the Toronto Islands and the Don River system. As something of a fair weather biker, I'd endorse those. The Island is a great spot, especially down around Wards Island with its funky houses and the Boulevard Cafe, a lovely garden-setting with good food in a quiet spot. The Goodman Trail can get a little hairy around Harbourfront but it's beautiful once you get out of the downtown core. And the Don River system is always a treat, especially with the work done to restore part of the Lower Don. If you've got the energy, continue up north through the Don system to Sunnybrook Park and check out the police horses or the cricket players.

Toronto's ravines aren't a highly visible attraction to many visitors, but they're one of the great things in the city.

As well as those routes, a dash from the Martin Goodman Trail onto the Leslie St. Spit is highly recommended, as is a detour to High Park to watch the fishermen and maybe check out the small zoo. And don't forget Riverdale Farm and Cabbagetown. The cars aren't going so fast so there's plenty of room for bikes in Cabbagetown.

NEW VEGAS HOTEL

The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas will open in December (the only new hotel opening in Las Vegas this year), in a prime location on the Strip, right next to the Bellagio. Housed in two 50-storey towers the Cosmopolitan will offer a "boutique" experience with 2,995 rooms, each with open air balconies and residential style furnishings.

That's what I read. Boutique? 2,995 rooms? 299 would be far too big for a boutique hotel. 2,995? I don't think so.

WINDSOR-CALGARY

Folks in southwestern Ontario have more options today; and more ways to avoid Pearson. WestJet on Monday afternoon will launch seasonal, daily, nonstop flights between Windsor and Calgary. WestJet will fly daily between Windsor and Calgary until October 30, 2010.

The flight from Windsor to Calgary departs daily at 4:15 p.m. EST, while the flight to Windsor leaves Calgary at 10 a.m. local time.

Heck with the news, here are some favourite travel photos of mine.

I couldn't figure out why my email wasn't buzzing the way it normally does during the day, with all those breathless press releases about new airport motels in Cleveland and such. Then I remembered it's Memorial Day weekend down south starting, oh, in a couple hours, and folks probably had taken the day off. My gain!

I don't have a whole lot of news to talk about. Jamaica's situation still seems serious, although I haven't seen any reports of problems outside of central Kingston. The oil spill in the gulf doesn't seem to be immediately threatening Florida's coast, so there isn't a lot of big news I can see.

I did see something on the BBC about how some crazy nudist hikers have been at it again in Switzerland, strolling past seniors' buildings in the all together and offending the local residents. That got me thinking about nasty thorns and poison ivy, but maybe they're really careful where they walk.

Anyway, rather than riff on all that, I thought I might just give it a rest and post five or six of my favourite photos from my travels over the past few years. So, here you go. Back at the regular blog stuff on Monday, I suspect, although that will be a holiday down south, too. Maybe I should stay home and garden....

First up, one of my fave places on earth: Hawaii. This is a view from above Waimea Canyon, looking down at the Na Pali cliffs on the island of Kauai. Paradise.

Okay - this is not what you think. I was at a Pittsburgh Steelers game and this woman was wearing fake (really) plastic breasts over her blouse. Pretty funny. Rumour is Ben Roethlisberger wants her phone number.

I did a tour a few years ago of Hearst Castle in California and really enjoyed it. It's WAY over the top, of course, but quite lovely. And the views are tremendous. Highly recommended.

 

I did a trip to Georgia for our golf magazine a couple years back and experience perhaps the best sunset I've ever seen, at Jekyll Island. The Jekyll Island Club Hotel is awesome and the whole area is just remarkably fun and low-key. Great food at the hotel, plus nearby barbeque. It doesn't get much better than that.

Zurich doesn't get a lot of press, but I really like the city. There's great architecture, winding streets, outdoor cafes and a lovely lake that makes for a wonderful spot for couples. Two thumbs up. But it IS rather expensive. 

Sorry, time for some Canadian content! I took this near sunset, I think, in Victoria, with the legislative building nicely lit and a half-moon hanging in the sky behind it.

And finally, a place I'd LOVE to be this weekend...Muskoka. Taken at a friend's cottage on Stonewall Island, I just loved the flowers. Thanks, Patti!

 

I don't know if they were really married or just posing for a photo shoot, but I liked watching this couple have fun on at Hac Sa beach in Macau. I don't much like casinos but Macau is great for walking and eating (Lord Stow's custard/egg tarts are number one), and the Westin Hotel at Hac Sa beach is a lovely resort that's well away from the craziness.

John Lennon poetry fest...Wi-fi coming to Air New Zealand..Hurricane warnings

"Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup...."

With apologies to any non-Beatles fans, that's an excerpt from the lovely tune of John Lennon's called "Across the Universe." It's not my favorite Beatles song, but it's got some of his best, poetical writing. "Lucy in the Sky" has some great stuff ("tangerine trees and marmalade skies" is a line I've always liked), not to mention "A Day in the Life", "Strawberry Fields," "Julia" and many more.

Anyhoo, it seems there's a big John Lennon Tribute Season going on in the fall in his hometown of Liverpool, a two-month cultural program to mark 70 years since Lennon's birth and 30 years since his untimely death (that's from the press release I got, which perhaps unwittingly quotes from the end of "I Am the Walrus," where you can hear snippets of King Lear and someone saying, "Oh, untimely death.")

UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy will judge an international poetry competition "celebrating the life of master lyricist, published poet and world icon John Lennon," the release said. The final stages of an international hunt for "Liverpool Lennon Poet 2010" will take part during the two-month program running from Oct. 9 to Dec. 9.

The competition is being organized by "the world’s leading permanent Beatles-themed visitor attraction, the Beatles Story" and by Liverpool-born poet Roger Cliffe-Thompson.

"This world-wide poetry competition will form a significant part of the John Lennon Tribute Season, bringing tourists and poetry lovers from across the globe to Liverpool and culminating in a Liverpool Lennon Performance Poetry Slam on 6 November."

As much as John wrote some wonderful lyrics, don't forget some of the great work by Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Paul's greatest line has to be from "Eleanor Rigby," where he wrote that she's "wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door." (Also, I've always liked the line in "Hey Jude" where he sings "the movement you need is on your shoulder." He wanted to change it but John convinced him to leave it in.) Wonderful, evocative stuff.

Harrison had plenty up his sleeve, including the lovely ballad "Something," which Paul has taken to play on a ukelele when he's on tour, the uke being one of George's favourite instruments and one he no doubt played often at his Hana, Maui hideaway. Frank Sinatra once called "Something" one of the greatest songs of all time, and that's saying a lot.

As for Ringo, well, there's always Octopus's Garden.

WI-FI IN THE SKY

Got a note a few minutes ago to say that Air New Zealand's new Boeing 777-300's will be enable for wireless work starting in November when the first aircraft are delivered.

It will allow Air New Zealand customers to use their iPhones, blackberries and GSM mobile phones for email and text purposes, as well as their laptops in conjunction with their mobile broadband connections for emails and Internet.

"Feedback from our customers has shown they wish to be able to text, and check emails, to stay in touch with friends, family and colleagues during their long-haul flights," said Ed Sims, Air New Zealand.

"Based on recent customer feedback, Air New Zealand does not currently plan to enable voice calls onboard," Sims said.

HALLELUJUAH! My sister flies Virgin America at times and says you can use your cellphone a half hour after takeoff and up to a half-hour before landing. I can't imagine anything worse (well, the screaming baby and the guy slamming his seat back into your lap while you're sipping hot coffee might be up there) than having some person next to me on a plane yakking to his or her boyfriend/girlfriend/significant other or boss/mentor/co-worker. I find planes to be about the only place I can close my eyes and get away from the world.

Being able to catch up on emails I've missed would be helpful, but would cut into my rest time on board. Still, I think I'd probably use it for a few minutes if it wasn't too expensive.

But cell phones on a plane? Please, lord, no.

Air Canada has been testing wi-fi on some planes from Canada to the U.S. west coast. I've asked them for an update on the test, which has been going on for some time now...

YOU ARE, LIKE A HURRICANE

Yes, that's quite enough musical references for one day (Neil Young on that one, for those of you keeping score at home) but I couldn't resist. The salient and important point here is that U.S. weather forecaster William Gray, something of a hurricane expert, says the threat of an above-average 2010 Atlantic hurricane season has heightened over the past month.

It now promises to be "a hell of a year," he said, and that's not good news for folks down in Florida or the Caribbean, let alone poor Louisiana and the gulf coast.

"The numbers are going to go up quite high," Gray said this week.

There's talk that this year might equal or top 2005, when a record 28 storms formed and killed nearly 4,000 people and caused $130 billion in damages. That was the year of Katrina, Rita and Wilma, which I don't much recall but which apparently had a record peak wind of 295 kilometres an hour.

Yikes.

An average Atlantic season has 10 tropical storms, six of them hurricanes. I didn't know that.

Is air turbulence a growing problem/Costly volcano ash/Pearson baggage woes

Maybe it's just me. But I keep thinking I've had more turbulence on recent flights than I recall ever before.

On my way to London in April, we were rocking and rolling quite badly and our plane was on a pretty severe angle for a few minutes. I asked a flight attendant and she said it was "intense" and the worst she'd had in 25 years of flying. And that's saying something.

Last week, there was moderate turbulence on a flight from Paris to Toronto, seemingly in the same area around Labrador/eastern Quebec or possibly just over the Atlantic. The landing was quite rough, too, perhaps because of the heat in Toronto.

That's pretty unscientific, but it does seem I've had more turbulence in the air than I remember having. And then I see there was a flight from LAX to London the other day that had severe turbulence, resulting in 10 people suffering injuries, including broken bones. The flight had to be diverted to Montreal after running into bad air over the Atlantic.

It's pretty frightening when it happens, but I don't think it'll keep me from flying. At least not for now...

VOLCANO BILL

Wow. A story came over travelmole.com today to say that an expert economic analysis being delivered in Beijing this week will show the volcano ash from Iceland cost the world economy a whopping $5 billion. The unspoken bit is that that is the estimated damage SO FAR.

As we all know, or should know, volcanoes are fickle things. Another explosion could come today or tomorrow. Or perhaps in 20 years. And when it does, there will be more costs. Ultimately, we, the consumer, will pick up the tab. There's no other way.

ARE WE THERE YET?

USA Today notes that a United Express passenger fell asleep in flight and was then left unnoticed on the plane for more than three hours after it landed in Philadelphia. CBS 3 of Philadelphia reports Ginger McGuire was on United Express Flight 8080 from Washington Dulles, which landed at Philadelphia at 12:27 a.m. ET yesterday morning. CBS 3 writes "the crew and passengers deplaned shortly thereafter. It wasn't until 3:50 a.m. that a cleaning crew found McGuire still sleeping on the plane."

I haven't seen an official explanation, except that someone was maybe, ahem, asleep on the job.

PEARSON BAGGAGE WOES

I was bored at Pearson the other day, waiting for bags to arrive after an Air France flight. It was a good 20-25 minutes on a VERY QUIET day before the bags started rolling in.

Some folks give me a hard time for not letting go of the issue, but I find it disgraceful service. One of my famly members said I was silly to mention the delay on one of my "tweets" on Twitter (username jbyers11), but I noticed later that a very influential person on the political scene here in Toronto saw my tweet and fired off a "give 'em hell, Jim" note in response.

The person in question said they often complain about poor baggage service and that Pearson officials blame Air Canada. But I was on Air France, not Air Canada. So that excuse, to me, doesn't wash. It's not the end of the world, but it's annoying to wait for your luggage for so long when so many airports have bags ready within a few minutes of a flight landing.

A failed reunion in lovely Paris...And open your hotel door with your iPhone??

PARIS – You really can’t go home again.

Well, I didn't really try to go HOME again. But kinda.

Way, way back in the mists of time, in 1979 (gulp), I graduated from UCLA and headed to Europe for the de rigeur backpacking trip. England and Scotland were great, but I think Paris was my first-ever sojourn into a country where English wasn't the first language. I ended up with a room at a university residence on the left bank, just off Rue Mouffetard and a bit south of the Pantheon.

I could never, however, recall the name of it. But I remembered the solarium with the piano and the vaguely Italian-style patterns in the tile floor. And the girls. I definitely remember the girls.For some reason, I was on a floor with an entire cadre of 18-year-old Italian girls. I don’t recall why they were there, but they were all intensely interested in meeting an American (and future Canadian) and kept asking me all sorts of questions. One session took place late at night in the stairwell, with me being surrounded by a dozen younger girls in long, white, cotton nightgowns.

They were very sweet, to be truthful, and far too young for me. But they were fun to chat with. I saw the same place a few years later with my wife, who I met later on that same trip when I was in Rome, and took a photo or two. But I still couldn’t recall the name of the place or precisely where it was.

Until this weekend. I got off the Metro at the Cardinal Lemoine station and wandered down Rue Monge and Rue Mouffetard, past the same gyro and pizza shops I remembered from 31 years ago, and past the sidewalk masseuses (I don’t recall those) and finally found it. I’d kept thinking the residence was on Rue Lhomond, but actually was Rue Tournefourt; right next door.

I was smiling when I saw it was called Concordia, part of the University of Paris. I rattled the doors but the place was locked tight. I wanted to linger over the place, to be truthful, so I wandered over to a lovely café with a beautiful terrace across the street. I asked if I could have a beer but they said you couldn’t just have a drink. So I asked to have a meal and a drink. At first the answer was yes,. But then the nice waiter told me, Sorry, we’re not serving food right now.” Not even cold ham or fromage? Nope. "You are unlucky,” he said with a sympathetic smile.

I was a touch bummed out but quickly got over it and wandered up Rue Lhomond to the Pantheon, albeit not before seeing the Waikiki Café Brasserie. I remember taking photos of the Pantheon from the outside in 1979, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t go in. I have no idea why, because it’s glorious. It’s the burial place for everyone from Victor Hugo to Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rosseau. Impressive as hell.

Almost as much fun was sitting outside on a perfect May day and sipping a Kronenbourg in the sun, the Pantheon in all its glory on my right and the Eiffel Tower off in the distance to my left. I watched the passing parade; moms and dads with kids; girls in tight pink dresses, many more men in shorts than I could remember from back in the late 1970s, plus a pack of racing cyclists.

I took the Metro back to my hotel, the wonderful Secret de Paris up near Place de Clichy, and noticed there are…wait for it…283 Metro stations in the Paris subway system. 283! The TTC doesn’t have that many garbage cans, for god sakes.

I ended up walking up towards Montmartre for a minute, then going back “downtown” later to see the crowds at Notre Dame, as you can’t really go to Paris without seeing Notre Dame, even if you’re only here for 24 hours. It was as overwhelming and overpowering and awe-inspiring as  always. But I also loved watching people pose and chat about mundane things as they waited outside in the shade.

"I passed out last night and forgot to brush my teeth," one girl said.

A slightly different tone came from another young woman, who told her friend, “We’re having an Oreo and milk party tonight.”

As I walked back to the Cite metro station I spotted a woman reading a book quietly on the banks of the Seine as five or six guys with brightly coloured clown wigs walked past. Above,a guy in a kilt was playing “Auld Lang Syne” on the bagpipes. Just when I thought I’d passed into another dimension, I spotted a guy walking towards me wearing a yellow t-shirt with the words “Toronto 9” in blue. Toronto nine? I know the Chicago seven, but ….

I have no idea what any of this means, and you probably don’t either. But it illustrates the tremendous diversity of Paris, and it was all part of a wonderful afternoon.

So thanks to Tourism France (http://ca.franceguide.com) for their considerable organizing efforts and to the folks at Air France (www.airfrance.ca)

NO HOTEL KEY? JUST USE YOUR iPhone

Here's a bizarre thought, at least for a techno-challenged guy: the Daily Telegraph reports that a hotel in Chicago (the O'Hare airport Rosemont) and another in Houston (the Holiday Inn Express Houston Downtown Convention Centre) will soon test a program where folks can use their blackberries or iPhones or other PDA to open the door of their hotel room.

Guests would be able to avoid the check-in hassle at the front desk, much like, I supposed, they can now use their PDA to check in at the airport. The way the hotel thing would work is people would download an application to their mobile device and that would allow them to wave it in front of the hotel room door and, voila!

Bryson Koehler, an executive at InterContinental Hotels group, told USA Today: "The holy grail item for us is to simplify the room-key hand-off moment at the hotel.

"We don't need to burden people with additional items; it just clutters up their lives. The beauty of the smart phone is that they've already got it."

I'm not sure about the security, to be honest, but maybe I'm just a Luddite.

BRITISH AIRWAYS STRIKE ISSUES

A report today at www.travelmole.com says British Airways claims to have flown to all its short haul destinations and 85 per cent of its long-haul points in the first of five days of strike action by cabin crew. They said Gatwick and London City Airport Services were unaffected Monday, the first day of walkouts.

The airiline is engaging in a bit of a p.r. war, as well, by painting the slogan "Keep the flag flying: on some of its airplanes.

Farewell to Corsica; great driving fun and crazy signs...A small taste of Paris

AJACCIO, Corsica - I love a lot of things about Europe in general and France in particular. I love driving here for the most part. I didn’t find drivers all that aggressive; after a day or two in the Corsica mountains I actually found myself honking at folks going too slow for my tastes.And drivers were quite good about giving a wave when I pulled over to let them go past. Or, as you can see, when I took their picture.

I love the roundabouts that keep you from idling away forever at stoplights like we do in North America, and I wonder why we never really cottoned on to them. I also love, mostly, the directional signs at major intersections I found all over Corsica and “mainland France over the past week and a bit – arrows pointing to the next village or two and to the next biggest town. Also great are the yellow signs pointing to different hotels and signs pointing out major sites, such as squares or tourist atrractions.

Which made me wonder, how on earth do the poor folks we ask to come to Toronto ever figure it out? There’s nothing at Yonge and Bloor, for example, that suggests Yorkville is a block west and a block north (I think). Visitors would have no clue how to get from there to the Danforth, to Cabbagetown, to Queen’s Park or even to City Hall. It’s bizarre when you think about it.

On the other hand, things can be a little spotty here. When I was at a place called Chateau Bonaguil in the Lot River area of France, there was a sign just a minute or two away that pointed chateau-lovers to Chateau Biron, more than an hour away. Great, I thought, that’s where I’m headed. Of course, I didn’t see another sign for Chateau Biron until I was nearly there.

I also pulled up at one intersection outside of the city centre in Ajaccio and counted at least seven signs pointing me in various directions. It’s a recipe for disaster, as you can spend so much time looking at signs in the roundabouts that you end up slamming into some poor sod on a moped if you’re not careful.
Still, it’s a great driving country, with wonderful hilltop villages and mountain vistas and beaches and craggy coasts and all sorts of great stuff. Much more to come in the pages of Star travel and on our website, of course.

RANDOM THOUGHTS...

A lovely morning in Corsica when I departed; easily the finest and warmest of my visit. Oh, well. At least the plane ride was fun as I took in the area around Porto, Corsica that I missed because of the rain last week, as well as the Cote d’Azur, the French Alps, Lyon and the Rhone valley, etc….

When we landed in Paris, I swear I could tell by the way they stood waiting for their luggage which women were Parisian and which were Corsican or maybe from some other part of France. The ones who looked Parisian, and maybe it’s just my bias, looked like they were posing for a cigarette ad with that certain bored, detached kind of look. Interesting.

When one woman saw some friends at the airport, I noticed she planted FOUR kisses on them; two on each cheek. This took quite some time; almost enough for the luggage to arrive. I’ve seen two kisses, of course; one on each cheek. Some French acquaintances have told me the rule is three. But I didn’t know inflation had struck to the extent that folks had to greet friends with two pecks on each cheek.

For more information, check out the official website for information on tourism to France http://ca.franceguide.com.

Heading home today on Air France, which has been great so far. For information on their flights, go to  www.airfrance.ca.

Check this space tomorrow for a couple, I think, nice shots of Paris and some weird things   happening around Notre Dame on the weekend....And thanks to the folks at Hotel Secret de Paris - a wonderful place I stayed on my way home from Corsica. More on that soon in the Star. And here's one Paris shot from the weekend, taken on one of my favourite streets, Rue Mouffetard on the Left Bank; touristy, yes, but still fun, filled with lots of kids but still some French-flavour, such as this shop.

 

Bonifacio and beyond; a wonderful, sunny day in Corsica...

BONIFACIO, Corsica - Another wonderful day in paradise; definitely part of France but feeling more Italian, dominated by mountains but surrounded by lovely coastline and great beaches.

I had a great tour of Bonifacio in the morning. It's a town at the far southern tip of this island in the Mediterranean, situated high above the sea on a limestone cliff. There's a harbour that looks like a fjord, an old castle/military fort on the headlands, a medieval-looking town and a lively harbour full of beautiful people - and the occasional journalist.

I've tried loading photos but it's just not working. Sorry. If you want to check some of my pics, go to twitter.com and look for jbyers11. I filed a few twitpics today. More coming up in the pages of Star Travel, of course.

Corsica definitely is one of the most scenic and interesting places I've ever been. I had, oh, about 22 hours but crammed a lot in. Still, I wish I'd had a few days to hike the cliffs and take in more apertifs on the harbour and poke my head into more shops in the haut ville.

Ajaccio was nice, but Bonifacio is truly marvellous. After an entertaining morning tour and a boat ride to view the city from the water - a definite must-do - I wandered aobut and then drove up towards Porto Vecchio. I had heard about a beach called Rondarina and couldn't resist a chance to dip my toes in the Mediterranean.

It's a stunningly beautiful beach, with water colours reminiscent of Tahiti and a broad, sweeping sand beach and lovely yachts bobbing in the distance. Lots of teens and families enjoying the day, too.

From there it was up to Porto Vecchio, playground of the stars, and then to Zonza. Wow. Can't way I enjoyed the drive - being a tad afraid of heights and all - but I went from 25 degrees and zero altitude to 1000 meters and 13 degrees in about 40 minutes. Zonza is a wonderful, small village high in the Corsican mountains near a ragged set of outcroppings called the Col de Bavella. A little scary for a chicken Canadian driver, but a truly marvellous sight.

After that it was a short, easy drive to Levie and then to my hotel, the A Pignata, just outside Levie. This place would need a GPS to find nowhere but it's a remarkable property. It gets just three -stars, possibly because the rooms are fairly basic. Still, it's nicer than the other three-star properties I've had in Corsica the last two nights, and it's a hugely impressive spot.

It's a touch hard to find; down a bumpy road for a couple km's and then up a steep, private road (I think). But there's lovely stone work and an indoor pool and nice, understated gardens and a spa and a remarkably fabulous restaurant. I had charcuterie from the local, wild pigs, then a rack of lamb that was really two large lamb bones with succulent meat literally falling onto my pleat. Amazing, flavourful stuff. Plus some lovely basked pasta and a cheese tray with local fromage supplemented by fig confiture. If you've got any Corsican cheese and fig confiture lying around the house, I highly recommend it. Three thumbs up.

Yes, I often wonder what I've done to deserve this kind of life. Corsica has been a dream of mine since I don't know how long. I only had a few days, but I've still got driving to do on Saturday and a boat ride near Propriano and hopefully a sunset from my hotel outside Ajaccio. Amazing stuff, and I'm truly thankful...

Corsica is outstanding but I could do without wifi problems/French keyboards

BONIFACIO, Corsica - I cannot quite recall but I think I might have missed a day. I wanted to file a posting Thursday night but I can't get the wireless signal to work at my hotel.

I found a cyber cafe here in the lovely, lovely town of Bonifacio but French keyboards have letters in different spaces then at home and it is very hard to change 35 years of typing habits and it took me 10 minutes to sign on and write this!

Anyway, the trip from Ajaccio to Bonifacio was awesome; past incredible stone villages stashed on impossibly steep and rocky hills, then beautiful views of the bay at Propriano. I stopped at  a fascinating site called Filitosa with ancient stone carvings in a lovely valley; then visited the village of Sartene in the mountains with great stonework and a real ancient feel. A lovely central plaza for lunch and then the drive to Bonifacio; a beautiful village perched high on chalk bluffs at the south end of the island; quite close to Sardinia.

There are great boat rides and wonderful walks and hikes and an old town with medieval streets; plus a stunning harbour with great shops and cafes. Bonifacio climbs near the top of my favourite spots in the world. 

Hope to write More tonight if I can get a signal, and also send photos so bear with me....

Mediterranean thunderstorms/donkey on a tennis court/Napoleon Bonaparte

AJACCIO, Corsica - Talk about your bizarre travel days.

Up at 6:30 at the luscious Regent Grand hotel in Bordeaux, then a 9 a.m. flight to Paris/Orly airport. Then an 11:25 a.m. flight to Corsica, which was back in the opposite direction, for a 1 p.m. flight.

I just got back a few weeks ago from 13 days in the British Isles with maybe, MAYBE, five minutes of rain the whole time. So I come to the “sunny” Mediterranean and within an hour of my plane landing I’m driving over a mountain in Corsica in a thunderstorm, rain pounding down on my rented Peugeot 3008 with the parking brake I can barely figure out and a “sun” roof that’s literally about five feet long.

 The rain was a bit of a drag. I had hoped to drive north from Ajaccio to Porto and maybe take a boat ride, but I gave up after some rough slogging in the rain and beat it back to Ajaccio, driving over terrain the average Corsican wouldn’t think twice about but that I could a bit nerve-wracking, what with the lack of railings and the thousand foot drops and the rain and the curves and the admittedly small but still noticeable rock slides. I got back to my hotel around 4:30 and found a parking spot, then started to unpack.

It was then that I looked out and saw folks taking pictures of my hotel. Not of the hotel, but of two absolutely smashing, tall and thin and very pretty blonde women sashaying down the road. This got my attention. When they passed, I looked towards the Mediterranean from my hotel room at the San Carlu and spotted some ramparts; what looked the dry moat of a long-since abanboned castle.

So, I said to myself, “Self, you’re in the Mediterraean and you’re soggy and wet from having to stop in the middle of nowhere to take a leak in the rain at the side of the road and you drove through a thunderstorm over mountain roads and now it’s stopped raining but there’s an abandoned tennis court in a usually dry moat across the street and there’s a goat and a donkey having a re-enactment of Nadal-Federer.” Wow.

If my hotel had room service, I’d have ordered up a snifter of Jameson’s, or maybe just a Stella. Instead, I went for a walk. An hour later, I was walking past one of 1,413 places here that have the name Napoleon in the title (he was born in Ajaccio in a non-descript apartment about 60 yards from my hotel) when I spotted a ray of sunlight over the Mediterranean. I wandered in that general direction and immediately spotted a group of people dressed as…Napoleon.

Really. Well, not all of them, but a lot of folks in military-gear with pointed hats and feathers and rifles and swords and drums and trumpets and the whole nine meters. Tres bizarre. Not speaking a lick of French, I wasn’t able to ask anyone what in hell was happening. So I waited. A half hour later the several dozen folks gathered in costume started to collect themselves in the centre of the street. Then they started the music; a military-sounding jaunt. They marched up the road, around the corner and then down to the city’s old square, which happens to have a statue of…wait for it…Napoleon Bonaparte.

It turns out today was something like the 182nd anniversary of the founding of the French Legion of Honour, and all the dignitaries had gathered to do a little speechifying and to have the local volunteers dress up like the Little General and parade about town playing tunes. In all seriousness, it was pretty stirring stuff. The volunteers have a clear sense of Corsican pride, and it was wonderful to watch their precision and to watch them light a flame in the centre of the square and to hear their music.

As luck would have it, I had dinner with a woman from the Corsica tourism office and was telling her about the days’ events. Lo and behold who would sit down next to us but a group of the musicians who had just played during the ceremony. Crazy.

I had a nice meal, with some local charcuterie and great Corsican wine, not to mention what I think was a kind of shellfish dished out in thick, brown gravy and two huge slabs of crème caramel. The owner of the restaurant insisted on playing a CD with the song, “Napoleon, Napoleon” on it, just to amuse the Canadian journalist in the house. He also played a song by the French singer who made famous the tune “Le Petit Papa Noel,” which my oldest son sang at a school recital in kindergarten and something that merely thinking about makes me cry.

So, yeah, it was basically just another day on the road. But isn’t that why we travel? Because crazy, random, bizarre, fascinating, unexpected things could happen at any moment.

Bordeaux no longer just a "Sleeping Beauty"....Jim's Deals of the Day

BORDEAUX, France - I gotta admit the first impression was pretty poor. I rolled into this town in southwestern France in a bit of a hurry on Tuesday, rushing to make it from a morning tour of Chateau Bonaguil in the Dordogne region and then lunch in Biron so I could be here for a 7 p.m. dinner appointment.

Of course, I had stop to fill up my car with gas and the station exit didn't allow me to go towards the Gare St. Jean train station as I had planned, so I got stuck in rush hour traffic leaving central Bordeaux. I made a highly illegal u-turn and got back to the right spot, then got mired in gridlock outside the train station. They're doing a lot of renovation in this part of the city, and traffic is a nightmare. I finally got to the train  station, but was confronted with a left turn or a right turn. I chose left. I chose wrong. I ended up on a street that got right back into the exodus from central Bordeaux traffic that I had left 20 minutes before. So it was back into the fray. This time, I realized I should turn right at the train station. But I circled the area for a half hour and couldnt' find the place to return my car. I finally gave up and just parked at the side of the road and walked into the Europcar office asked where I could park. She gave me some general direction. Twenty minutes later, I finally was rid of the rental and on my way to my hotel downtown.

My cab driver drove me past endless stretches of magnificent buildings that were used in the old days as offices or storage places for Bordeaux wines, fruits, soaps and oils. The entire waterfront was filled with decaying warehouses not that long ago, but they've taken almost all of them down and replaced them with a four-kilometre stretch of parks and open space along the Garonne River. There are basketball courts and gardens and fountains and all sorts of open spaces for average folks to enjoy, and it's apparently a huge improvement.

My hotel, the Regent Grand Hotel Bordeaux, is a five-star jewel with great views of the Opera House across the street. Actually, it's a pedestrian-only plaza that's a real gathering point for citizens, and even now, at nearly midnight local time, the place is crawling with folks enjoying the fine, summer-like weather. The city reminds me a bit of Paris with its beautiful stone buildings. There are some uber-trendy bars and restaurants, many of them in the St. Pierre region. I gotta admit my image of Bordeaux was kinda boring; just the fancy wineries and a bunch of stuffed shirt old men pooh-poohing the rise of Australian and California vino.

But it's a vibrant city in its own right, and I had a wonderful seafood meal in the St. Pierre area (see photo), which was filled with outdoor cafes and young people sipping wine or listening to gypsies play the accordion.

I had plans to come here in 1979 when I was backpacking, having just finished my undergrad at UCLA. A friend I met in Nantes convinced me to skip Bordeaux. "It's really boring," she said.

Instead I went to the south of France and then on to Rome, where I met a Canadian girl. We've been married almost 29 years, and today was the first day I stepped foot in Bordeaux. If I'd come in 1979 I probably wouldn't have the wonderful family I have and the incredibe job I have, so I'm pretty happy about that girl who warned me not to come to Bordeaux 31 years ago.

Maybe Bordeaux was kinda boring then. But it looks pretty good right now.