Jeremy HildrethCategory Archives: Travel writing: the fun stuff
Dispatch from Kaliningrad 3: The Curonian Spit
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You’d think you’d know it if you were on a mile-wide strip of sand with water on both sides. But the Curonian Spit is so heavily forested that you cannot see anything but trees when you drive along the main road.
The Spit is a geographical anomaly: it’s narrowness contributes to this, [...]
The problem with first impressions
…is that you don’t know what you don’t know, sometimes, when you’re looking at something.
Take, for example, this scene in Vilnius (where I am delighted to be living for the summer), which I photographed while jogging today.
It is a normal scene, a bit of urban decay, some concrete blight. Very common around here. You might [...]
Dispatch from Kaliningrad 2: Konigsberg transmogrified
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There is a Baltic legend of the city Wanetha, a coastal conurbation which was sunk into the sea in retribution for the sins and errors of its citizens. Anybody familiar with this myth would certainly recall it when listening to the tale of Kaliningrad.
Konigsberg, as the city was called until 1946, was founded [...]
Why to bother keeping up appearances
I know Ignalina nuclear power plant is scheduled to close at the end of this year. And rationally I know that managing two atomic reactors — even if they are almost identical to the vintage Soviet RBMK-1000s at the heart of the Chernobyl hiccup — and keeping an aquarium have nothing to do with each [...]
Dispatch from Kaliningrad 1: The bridge to Tilsit
Stuck at the Russian border for 6 hours.
Tourist Friendliness 101
One hundred and fifty euros for a Russian visa. Nearly six hours waiting to cross the border at Sovetsk/Tilsit. And 134km from there to the city of Kaliningrad/Königsberg.
Königsberg Cathedral is the jewel of what precious little is left here of German architecture — the site the official tourist brochure says to visit first and foremost.
When [...]
Sign of the times?
At the Monaco Grand Prix, Jeremy pays 50 euros for a rum and Coke.
Grits, Green and Graceland
Elvis Presley: corporate identity guru.
The place where it actually happened
On 3 April 1964, Martin Luther King gave the famous ‘mountaintop speech’: “Well, I don’t know what will happen now,” he said. “We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop….And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get [...]
Bilbao, Mississippi
Driving from New Orleans to Mobile, I passed this work in progress on the Biloxi waterfront. Directly across from the broad white sand beach and down the main drag from a coming-soon Margaritaville hotel and casino, the construction site really stood out.
No surprise why: it’s an art museum designed by Frank Gehry which was 11 [...]
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