Flagler College

Flagler College forms one of the pillars of the community, making this old Spanish town a college town too. The grounds and main building of the college was converted from a Gilded era hotel. Lots of expansive, yet cloistered rooms give the place a feeling of grandness. The many details in wood and stone contribute to the elegance.

Eats

Joy and I wander around our vacation spot for dinner. Sometimes we’ve heard of places to eat. Often we ask our host, the owner of a B&B or the hotel clerk, to point us to a favorite place. We found an English pub, a Spanish creole mainstay with great shrimp and grits, and a little shop with ice cream and cookies.

Fort

The mission served as a safe retreat for the missionaries and their converts. Walking around the walls, you could feel that this was a close community, but that quarters in the mission were probably nicer than most of the area. The support facilities, like the kitchen, are spacious and clean, although a bit claustrophobic inside the walls.

Tenement Museum

Immigrants defined the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the 19th and 20th centuries. Communities like Little Italy and Chinatown gave the area distinctive qualities of culture and class. The Tenement Museum seeks to capture this history of working class immigrants. Joy and I took the Irish Outsiders tour. The old building, with ruined and restored sections, feels like it still holds the ghosts of the people who lived and died there. After the tour, we walked the neighborhood, down Grand St in Chinatown, before heading north to Central Park.

Central Park

Since it was such a beautiful day in New York City, people flocked to Central Park to get some sun and outdoor time. Joy and I walked across the park from the 81st entrance to the MET on the east side. People walked and ate and lay on the green grass. We especially liked seeing the Castle in the park, as it had been featured on CSI New York. We couldn’t find any restaurants on the west side of the park, so we settled for a pretzel and a bottle of water from a food truck.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

No one can do the The MET justice in a day or a paragraph. The museum hosts a giant collection of Egyptian art which I am always excited to see. Not one, not two, but three structures are recreated in the museum; a tomb, a temple, and a gateway. The statues and artifacts range from large to huge, but the exhibits shortchange any close examination in favor of spectacle. Suffice it to say, I found the museum showy but merely whelming.

9/11 Memorial

Joy and I visited the World Trade Center site in 2002. Then it was a rubble filled hole in the ground. Now it has been transformed into two holes in the ground dotted with trees. I can’t understand why the Twin Towers were not rebuilt. It makes perfect sense to me.

Two square pools cascade water into deep, black stone pits. The 9/11 Memorial feels like a large paved park, combined with enough surveillance cameras and armed guards to manage a prison. That makes visitors the inmates. Visitors should not be surprised that security is as tight as an airport, with x-ray machines, bag checks and ID screens. At least shoes can remain on.

I’m glad I requested tickets to the first entry group to the site Sunday morning. Our first few moments at the pool felt intimate. Only the new blue skyscraper peered over our shoulders as we looked down into the falling water.

Hospital

The damp and dark cells lapse into silence as the tour group moves off. Joy and I are left alone to explore. Parts of the prison have seen a bit of clean up, but much remains with only sparse bare bulbs, peeling paint, and rusting steel. The emptiness plays with your head. Most room have a narrow window that looks out on the sea or the courtyards. Debris and broken furniture fill some rooms. The relics of the inmates painted on the walls tell stories.

But even more eerie are the scattered furnishings and age-old dust in the hospital section. Some spaces look like they were simply abandoned. It must have once been quite clean, quite alive with people, but one wonders if there were screams here. Perhaps blood does not stain linoleum.

Soviet Era

Estonia suffered under Soviet rule. The walls and wire filling the yards on the prison record this pain. The vast numbers of people arrested by the Soviets forced construction of new cells. These were little more than dog kennels, open to the sky, covered by wire mesh and barbed wire. Beyond lay the sky, and freedom, and guards with guns.

Living Quarters

The ground floor is filled with the living quarters of the royal family. These are still richly furnished with fine pieces, matching the equally fine architectural detail of the rooms. Touring the rooms requires looking up, left, right, and down to take in all the details.

Round Tower

The view from the top of the Round Tower rivals that of St. Paul’s in London. Built to house an astronomical observatory as part of the new university, it still has a telescope at the top. The coolest feature is the spiral staircase, which winds around the inside of the tower in place of a stairway.

Castle Defended

There are several buildings which make up the castle. One even sits on a stone outcropping. The entire castle is surrounded by water and connected to land by a stone bridge and guardhouse. The castle’s Norman origins can still be seen in the arches in the wine cellar. Evidence throughout the castle shows the many additions made over the years.

Eton

Windsor lies on the Thames River, right across from the town of Eton, famous for the college of the same name. After visiting the Castle, we strolled across the river to look at the shops and the towering Cathedral of Eton College.

Edinburgh Castle

The castle sits on a spine of volcanic rock in the center of the city, commanding the Firth. The Firth came right up to the base of the spine, but this area was drained and turned into a park.

Atmospheric

The rain started before we got to the castle, but we didn’t let it stop us. We had brought umbrellas along, so once we were past the gate we strolled when it slacked and ran when it poured. Even in the rain, or because of it, we got a real view of the city of Edinburgh.

Great Hall

At the center of the castle, at the highest point, sits the Great Hall. Here are the royal rooms and the Scottish Crown Jewels. The Jewels had been hidden in a trunk for hundreds of years. There was a Scottish tour guide inside who had an incredible burr in his accent speaking in the Hall.