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Travel Oyster: 5/1/14 - 6/1/14

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Tuesday, May 13, 2014. Hiking the Metal Hills of Italy. The 25th of April is a national holiday in Italy. It's the Festa della Liberazione. The day that marks the end of the second world war and the end of the Nazi occupation of Italy. For the last eight years, it's also the time when JR and I join Italian friends on a hiking or biking trip. Since my trusty bike was stolen. Recently, there was no choice to be made. We would be on foot for four days in the Colline Metallifere. The cowboys of the Maremma h...

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Travel Oyster: 3/1/14 - 4/1/14

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Tuesday, March 18, 2014. On our last full day in Paris for this year, I went out early to buy bread and a final croissant or two. The city was still abed; the streets were swept clean; and everything was aglow in the early morning sun. It was a good day to be out and about in Paris. My friend Marcelle invited me to lunch and we went to a nearby restaurant which I had always meant to try, but never had - Des Gars dans la Cuisine. To celebrate another great stay in Paris. Did open during the last year on t...

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Travel Oyster: 8/1/13 - 9/1/13

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Tuesday, August 13, 2013. Baptismal Party, Kamilari, Crete, Greece. Approaching Kamilari, we saw that the entrance to the town was barred. An outdoor party was being held and all the streets leading into the center of town were closed. We walked to the town square and came upon a scene straight out of Nikos Kazantzakis. In Crete, the old ways can go back a very long time. During our stay, we visited Knossos. The Minoans - Europe's first great civilization - were thought to have arrived in Crete from Afri...

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Travel Oyster: 6/1/13 - 7/1/13

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Monday, June 10, 2013. The Jersey Shore - Post Sandy. Watercolor by Jerome Myers, Private Collection. A week or so before the visits of the Prez and the Prince, JR and I were passing through New Jersey on our way home from Europe. We decided to take a tour of our own to see how the Jersey Shore was faring. Although there were no reporters following us and no governor to guide us, we did get the royal treatment from my family, who live in New Jersey. In their natural state, these islands provide a protect...

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Travel Oyster: 11/1/13 - 12/1/13

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Tuesday, November 5, 2013. Caviar from the Great Lakes. Click on any photo to enlarge and see all photos. Strictly speaking, salmon caviar is not real. Caviar. That designation goes only to caviar made from the roe of wild sturgeon. From the Caspian and Black Seas. Beluga, the most famous of the caviars - the favorite of James Bond. The hero of Ian Fleming's. Was abundant in the Great Lakes. By the late 1800s, the commercial catch of lake sturgeon in the lakes averaged more than 4 million pounds per ...

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Travel Oyster: 6/1/14 - 7/1/14

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Wednesday, June 25, 2014. Morels and wild asparagus with the Pere Marquette River in the background. An American friend of mine in Paris, who is definitely a big-city kind of girl, shakes her head in disbelief when I describe our cabin on a river in northern Michigan. She knows that we spend two months in Paris and two months in Pisa each year and can't imagine going from the myriad offerings of those two cities to what she calls "wilderness." "What do you do there? Guests get to stay in the Love Shack.

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Travel Oyster: 12/1/13 - 1/1/14

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Monday, December 30, 2013. Still Life, Anonymous, 16th Century, Florence. We'll be leaving for Paris on January 6 and going on to Pisa in March. In anticipation, I'm reading some great French and Italian detective mysteries. Although it might not seem obvious, a good detective story can be better than the best guide book in providing a window on the culture, history, geography and cuisine of a country. In France, a detective or police novel is known as a roman policier. A slang word derived from policier;.

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Travel Oyster: 3/1/13 - 4/1/13

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Monday, March 18, 2013. Under the Tuscan Rain. The Arno River approaching the top of its banks as it passes through Pisa. Since we arrived in Pisa last week, more than once we have heard the phrase: Povera Italia. Poor Italy. The economic crisis is worsening and young people are returning home to mamma. In droves because they can't find jobs. As has become our custom, we had dinner our first night at nearby Giorgio's. On the way home, we decided that it would be a great idea to invite some friends for di...

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Travel Oyster: 12/1/14 - 1/1/15

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Monday, December 15, 2014. Woman Seated on a Sofa by Edouard Vuillard, The Art Institute of Chicago. Travel Oyster is back with the sixth edition of its Great Books series. This year's recommendations are all memoirs of a sort, but each book is infused with history: the history of a family, a language, a time, a cuisine. The Hare with Amber Eyes. By Edmund De Waal. 2010, 351 pages. The Hare with Amber Eyes. From the very first page, I was entranced with The Hare with Amber Eyes. 2009, 290 pages. For more...

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Travel Oyster: A Flâneur in Paris

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Thursday, March 19, 2015. A Flâneur in Paris. Springlike weather arrived in Paris last weekend and with it came the urge to imitate Baudelaire's flâneur. Strolling idly around Paris, watching people and admiring the city. Since this. Loves company, I invited JR to join me in my wanderings. We cheated a bit by beginning our day not on foot, but on Line 1 of the metro. The city's first line, it opened in 1900 to take passengers to the various sites of the Exposition Universelle,. Whose works include among ...