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Hiking Hadrian’s Wall, Virtually

Europe, Travel

I’m a purist trekker when it comes to walking long-distance designated trails. I insist they be step-by-step odysseys with no skipping of sections deemed to be of lesser interest. In the summer of 2005, I hiked a portion of the Hadrian’s Wall Path National Trail that rolls across northern England. I followed a wall of tightly fitted gray stones to a high point above Crag Lough where a pair of swans drifted over the still water. It was there that I vowed to return someday and walk the whole thing. Earlier this year, I did just that. Virtually.

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European Roots Run Deep in the Fertile Soil of America’s Midwest Heartland

America, Culture, Travel

By Mary Bergin New Glarus, Wisconsin, is a village of 2,247 residents that takes pride in being known as “America’s Little Switzerland.”  Located 30 miles southwest of Madison, the community supports a männerchor (men’s choir), kinderchor (youth choir) and jodlerklub (choir of yodelers). The mournful sound of meters-long alphorns (used long ago by the Swiss…

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There’s More to Romania than Transylvania, Dracula and Ghostly Carpathian Forests

Culture, Europe, History, Travel

Romania conjures mysterious and sinister images of Count Dracula and the Transylvanian forests. The foreboding Bran Castle high in the Carpathian Mountains certainly looks like the location of Irish writer Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Stoker’s story of vampires rising from their coffins is an invented tale. But in autumn when twilight comes early it’s easy to imagine ghostly spirits of the undead lurking in the shadows.

Yet the Bucharest I saw was a bustling metropolis with museums and traffic jams, wide boulevards and cobblestone streets, good restaurants and late-night clubs. And a handful of lakes and gardens.

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Oklahoma’s Indian Nations Grow Prosperous Businesses

America, Travel

Oklahoma is Indian Country. The US Census Bureau says 523,360 Oklahomans – about 13% of the state’s population – are Native Americans. This mainly results from the forced relocation in 1830 of 30 tribes from neighboring states. Their journey on foot commonly is referred to as the Trail of Tears. Today, the areas considered barren lands 194 years ago are oil-rich counties studded with entrepreneurial boomtowns.