Departures

Luxembourg & Belgium

By way of our own

By Susan Manlin Katzman

Let’s get right to the heart of the matter: St. Louis is connected. Two of our city’s dynamic citizens are linking the heart of the United States to the heart of Europe. In the past two and a half years, President George W. Bush has tapped Ann Wagner of Ballwin and Sam Fox of Clayton to serve as ambassadors to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the Kingdom of Belgium, respectively.

Wagner was sworn into her role in August 2005, following two terms as co-chair of the Republican National Committee and six years as chair of the Missouri Republican Party. Despite the status of her office and her official responsibilities, she comes across as down-to-earth, during our interview juggling several roles—ambassador, wife and mother—with ease. Fox’s persona is that of a high-energy CEO. His movements are quick, and his conversation darts from subject to subject, often money-based and responsibility-focused. Sworn in during a recess appointment this past April, Fox is new to the job and seems a bit uncertain as to what is permissible to say, but his enthusiasm does break through the official verbiage. Each ambassador claims that his and her host country is the most sophisticated in all of Europe. Both ambassadors could be right.

Covering only 998 square miles, tiny Luxembourg sits landlocked, bordered by Belgium, France and Germany. Luxembourgers officially speak French, German and Luxembourgish, but add English and a variety of other languages to accommodate foreign residents of many different nationalities. With international banking and finance as its major businesses, Luxembourg is one of the world’s richest countries, reflected in the large number of Michelin-starred restaurants in such a small area. (Foodies will love Ristorante Mosconi in Luxembourg City and Restaurant Lea Linster in Frisange.) Wealth helps keep the whole of Luxembourg as manicured as a country club.

More complex, the 11,787-square-mile Belgium is considered the hub of Europe. Bordered by the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and France, with a short coastline on the North Sea, Belgium boasts three major regions: the Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north, the French-speaking Wallonia in the south and the bilingual Brussels–Capital Region in between. Brussels serves as capital not only of Belgium, but also of Europe, as the region is headquarters of numerous major international organizations, including the European Union and NATO.

It’s hard to get Fox to pinpoint Belgium’s top tourists’ attractions, as he seems enthralled with it all. “You’ll be blown away by how much there is to do in Brussels alone,” he says, adding the cities of Bruges and Ghent and the rolling hills of Wallonia to his list of highlights. Fox contends that Belgium’s history and culture are rich enough to fill the itineraries of a variety of special-interest travelers.

Indeed, art and architecture aficionados can explore a treasure trove of Gothic cathedrals, medieval castles, Art Nouveau homes and wonderful museums (like the Foundation Folon outside of Brussels). Tourists interested in the American Armed Forces can visit historic battlefields and pay tribute at World War I and II American military cemeteries, monuments and memorials established in various parts of the country. And those traveling with food first and foremost in mind will strike gold wherever they wander, as Belgium is famous for its beer, chocolate, waffles, mussels and frites. 

Ambassador Wagner says that for such a tiny country, Luxembourg offers a variety of landscapes across five tourist regions: the northern, forested Ardennes, with national parks and hilltop castles (Vianden is a favorite for touring); the Mullerthal, known as “Little Switzerland” for its rocky formations and numerous hiking trails; the wine-producing Moselle region (noted for light and luscious Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and sparkling Crémant, bottled in such limited quantities that Luxembourgers alone consume the bounty); a narrow strip in the south called the Red Rock area; and Luxembourg capital and surroundings, which incorporates the historical and exceedingly picturesque Luxembourg City. Old Town and the city’s magnificent fortifications grace the UNESCO World Heritage List and are a must-see for every visitor. In addition, tourists can let the good times roll at great shops, fun and fine restaurants, inter­esting museums and entertainments of the highest quality.

The euro is the currency of both countries, and a weak dollar exchange could make travel expensive for budget-minded Americans. On the other hand, both countries offer accommodations in every price range, and traveling by car or train is cost-effective and easy, as roads are good and train connections plentiful.

Although clearly loving being ambassadors and greatly valuing the countries in which they serve, both Ambassador Wagner and Ambassador Fox say there is one downside to the job: They miss St. Louis and all that the city represents—family and friends and the sweet familiarity of home.

Head to visitluxembourg.com and visitbelgium.com to learn more.

Chingling’s China

Local teacher and China expert Chingling Tai has been leading tours there for 23 years—and what she sees changes every time

By Jeannette Cooperman

Chingling Tai grew up in Taiwan, wondering about China. Her parents were “mainlanders” but had migrated to Taiwan. Trips home were impossible until Nixon’s famous visit opened the door. Then, in 1977, Tai braved the trip. “I went to China from Singapore and did not dare to say that I was from Taiwan,” she says, “because the tension between Taiwan’s KMT Nationalist Party and the Communist party was very high.”

Tiptoeing into the vast country that had always been a mystery to her, Tai expected to find poverty and government repression. Her trip was tightly controlled, but to an idealistic young woman, it presented a picture of real progress. “There were no locks on our hotel doors; they said we didn’t need to worry,” she recalls. “We couldn’t leave tips; people would chase after us and refuse to accept the money. I thought, ‘This is a society that is so honest, so equal—and crime-free! Everybody had at most three sets of clothes, and men and women dressed the same, in Mao jackets and trousers. You didn’t need to be so engrossed in material things.”

Six years later, in 1983, Tai moved to the United States to give her son and daughter “a better education and freer choices for their future.” While working on a master’s in comparative literature at Washington University, she led her first tour to China in 1984. The occasion was the fifth anniversary of the formal ties between Nanjing and St. Louis, which was the first U.S. city to have a sister city in the People’s Republic of China. Tai ushered dignitaries around the city that was the capital of six dynasties and, later, China’s Nationalist Republic. In the six years since her first visit, things had changed noticeably. Workers demanded tips, and because shops were still owned by the government, clerks had little inclination to wait on customers. Tai could move more freely around the country—but she didn’t always like what she saw.

Tai earned a doctorate in sociology at the University of Hull in England in 1987. As she continued leading tours to China, she paid close attention to signs most tourists ignore: indications of crime and prostitution and other social problems that had been suppressed when she first visited. China was loosening up, and in the heat of change, all the vices were gradually reappearing, like code written in invisible ink.

Then, in the 1990s, a free market took hold. Ambition replaced apathy, with retailers pushing their merchandise at every tourist. “Vendors followed us on the street shouting, ‘One dollar! One dollar!’” she says, surprised all over again. Now the Chinese were eager to practice their English and Westernize their culture. Tai could wear shorts in the street (if she so chose), and no one would look twice. Westerners were paying close attention to China’s problems—from pollution and population control to human-rights abuses—but were also fascinated by China’s rich cultural history and sheer size. China’s future could change the world.

Tai still travels to mainland China at least once a year, most often shepherding students, faculty and parents from St. Louis' University High School, where she has taught Mandarin for 20 years. She’s also guided all sorts of grown-ups, from Mayor Francis Slay to members of the Rotary Club. One traveler dubbed Tai “the General” because she so quietly takes charge, handling every exigency with a calm grace. Depending on Tai’s tour group, a Communist shadow still might trail along—but she takes charge of him, too, and manages to usher visitors into places otherwise off limits.

“If you want to see the real China, go now,” Tai urges. “The earlier you go, the better, because it is becoming the same as everywhere else. In Shanghai”—which in 1990 had no buildings taller than 14 stories—“there are now more skyscrapers than there are in New York.”

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Tai’s ideal itinerary begins in the obvious place: Beijing, cultural and political capital of China. Here is the Forbidden City, built in the 1400s and protected by a wall unlikely ever to crumble (its white lime bricks were sealed with glutinous rice and egg whites). Walking from end to end takes at least an hour and dazzles the eye: In preparation for the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, workers are toiling 24/7 to restore all the breathtaking gold leaf to perfection.

“See the beauty of the architecture and the layout of the furniture in the great hallway, of course, but also the inner garden where you can appreciate the imperial family’s living style,” Tai advises. “The stone carvings of dragons refer to the emperor, who was thought of as the son of the dragon; that motif is everywhere. The phoenix is for the empress. Empress Cixi—you refer to her as the Dowager Empress—reigned for more than 40 years. In her living quarters, the phoenix was carved above the dragon to please her.”

It’s also in Beijing that most people visit the Great Wall, begun in the third century BC to hold back marauding nomads from the steppes. Wide enough for five horsemen to ride abreast, the wall twists and turns so often, its length is nearly double the 1,500 miles it spans, and the sight leaves Tai’s tour groups speechless.

To shop for antiques, she sends tourists to the Wang Fu Jing and Pan Family Garden districts: “You can spend days there! I always say I am going back alone someday.” For night life, “everybody likes to go to Shicha Hai for bars,” she adds. “This is a new place, and it is near some of the ancient courtyards.”

Visitors aren’t likely to need the Mandarin phrase wo mi lu le (“I’m lost”) in Beijing; the ancient city was built on a grid, and the modern highway is a circle, so places can be identified as “first ring” (closer to downtown), “second ring” and so forth.

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From Beijing, Tai often takes visitors to an ancient monastery on Song Mountain: Shaolin Temple, the legendary birthplace of the major Chinese martial arts as well as Zen Buddhism. Then she heads west to Luoyang for the Longmen Grottoes, where thousands of Buddhas were carved into the cliffs along the river; then on to Xi’an in central China, site of the most significant archaeological excavation of the 20th century. More than 2,500 years ago, China’s first emperor, Shi Huang Di of the Qin dynasty (the same man who ordered the Great Wall built) had 6,000 life-size terra-cotta warriors, horses and chariots carved for his mausoleum. Originally he wanted live soldiers buried with him, but was talked out of that plan. The terra-cotta warriors were discovered in 1974 when villagers drilled a well and brought up the head of one of the figures.

After Xi’an, Tai heads east and a bit south to Nanjing. Tai has been one of the forces keeping St. Louis’ relationship with her sister city alive, even cementing ties to a SLUH sister school. Nanjing is an intense city, filled with life and death: the tomb of the first Ming emperor, the site of the Taiping Rebellion and the monument to the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, skeletons partly excavated. In 1958, the Russians offered to build the first bridge across the Yangtze River outside Nanjing, then declared the task impossible and left. So the Chinese built it themselves—and named their engineering marvel The People’s Bridge.

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“In China there is a saying: ‘If there is a heaven down below, it is Suzhou and Hangzhou,’” Tai says. She’s smiling at the whimsy—but she clearly agrees. Southeast of Nanjing, these two towns, located in neighboring provinces, are her favorite places. Suzhou, called the Venice of China, was built on the bank of the Grand Canal, and the gray wooden houses, with eaves curving upward as gracefully as a bird’s wing, face the street with the canal at their backs. Officials retired here and in their gardens sought a refuge from the world’s cares. “They fully used the land,” Tai says, “and their gardens work like picture frames: From each different window, you have a different scene.”

The Four Classical Gardens in Suzhou are the Surging Waves Pavilion, the Lion Grove Garden, the Humble Administrator’s Garden and the Lingering Garden, each made harmonious by a Taoist arrangement of hills, water, trees and pavilions. It’s said that their beauty is rivaled only by that of the women born in Suzhou: “The officials were from the upper class, with good culture and beautiful wives,” Tai explains, “so genetically, their daughters had a better chance to be beautiful.”

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Back east, Shanghai is China’s financial capital, and the yen flow fast. The Grand Hyatt Hotel here is the highest in the world, with its lobby on the 54th floor and a presidential suite that costs about $5,000 a night. China’s new bullet train will run across Shanghai in mere minutes and go from Shanghai to Hangzhou—a five-hour trip by car—in 45 minutes.

The night life at Xintiandi is just as fast, and a night cruise dazzles visitors with the city’s neon lights. Tai forces a pause, though, in the Jade Buddha Temple on the modern western side of Shanghai. The Chinese once believed jade to have the power to preserve the body from decay, and the temple has two Buddha statues carved of Burmese jade to convey immortality and peace, one sitting, the other casually on his side in a position called “lucky repose.”

Shopping here is best done in the Confucius Temple district, whose real name is Cheng Huang Miao, Tai notes. “It is ‘the city god’s temple,’ and the English didn’t understand. Every city in China needs a god to guard its city.”

Gods are easily come by in China: “Taoism holds that many things can become holy if they grow big enough or old enough; they gather essence and become powerful,” Tai explains. “The Chinese government just started to relax on religion—people now pray at the temples, and Christians are feeling less need to worship in secret. Those who grew up steeped in the Communist ideology are not quite believing in anything—but the pragmatic theories cannot fulfill spiritual needs. A lot comes with culture: Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, a concern for the afterlife, fortunetelling

and superstition.”

Numerology, too, holds power in China. Nine means longevity: The Forbidden City has 9,999 rooms so it will last forever and ever. Eight means prosperity: “A lot of Asians, even in St. Louis, have addresses and phone numbers with a lot of 8’s in them.” The number 4 is bad because its pronunciation sounds like the word for death, so Chinese hospitals have no

fourth floors.

In the south, visitors find “vegetables you can’t even name, because you don’t see them here” as well as water-grown foods like water chestnuts and reeds. One of the delicacies is “beggar’s chicken,” named because thieves would steal chickens from farmers, wrap each chicken with mud, dig a hole and roast it. “By the time it’s done, you break the mud and the feathers come off with it,” Tai says, “and it tastes so good it has become a delicacy. Now, though, the chicken is cleaned and wrapped in water-lily leaves, which give it a distinctive fragrance.”

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Tai’s parents were born in Changzhou, well south of Shanghai in the land of panda bears, golden-haired monkeys and tiny, fragrant yellow cassia blossoms. Yearning to be buried in their hometown, they returned from Taiwan in 1989, after governmental restrictions loosened.

This month, Tai returns to China for the second time this year—but now she’s off-duty, traveling with friends to Jiu Zhai Gou, in southwestern China. She’s been there before, and she was so taken with the heavenly scenery and gentle Tibetan ways that she vowed to see the place in every season.

“Snow-covered mountains, three beaches, four waterfalls, 141 lakes—and the water is so clear, you can see to the bottom,” she says. “The water is sometimes a deep green-blue, sometimes pale blue, sometimes jade blue, sometimes dark. At Peacock Lake, it’s like a peacock’s feathers. Tiger Lake reflects the color the trees turn.

“The places I have talked about are all Han people; that is the majority, 93 percent, in China,” Tai says. “But there are 55 different minorities in the remaining 7 percent, most in the southwest, near Burma. The influence of Thai culture is strong, and there are semitropical areas with heavy plantation growth.” China recently built a railway to Tibet, she adds, and the train has oxygen so passengers can adjust to the altitude.

Then, of course, there’s the extreme north, the Mongolian part of China, where tigers roam and water lilies and chrysanthemums wither and only the hardy plum blossoms—and then only pine trees—can endure the harsh winters. “The Silk Road goes through the Gobi Desert, takes you past ruins of the Great Wall and gives you an entirely different sense of China,” Tai says. “Muslims settled here and many look Mideastern—or have fairer skin and blue eyes.

“China is diverse in every way—scenery, climate, culture, people,” Tai finishes.  “There are 3,000 years of history—more than 20 dynasties.”

You can’t absorb all of that on one trip.

You need 9,999.

Where the Wild Things Are

Life on a Kenyan Safari

By Michelle Salater

Volcanic dust mushrooms behind the Land Rover as we wind through the plains of southern Kenya’s Amboseli National Park. It’s my first wildlife safari, and I feel as if I’ve entered a National Geographic photo essay. A warthog prances alongside the vehicle. In the distance, three zebras chase one another in circles. A herd of elephants grazes with Mount Kilimanjaro in the background; its streams of snow glisten in the early morning sun.

Our driver cuts the engine and points to his left. My breathing is shallow, as I focus my binoculars on a mother cheetah and her two cubs. This is what I’d traveled to Kenya to see. But the statuesque cats pay no attention to us. They’ve spotted something much more interesting: A lone Grant’s gazelle is about to become lunch.

They sit, patiently. We do the same. An hour passes like this. The savannah has long since gone silent.

The mother cheetah stands. She’s on the move, her cubs trailing at a safe distance. Cautiously, she approaches our vehicle and gives us a once-over before trotting across the road. She crouches low to the ground and begins to stalk the gazelle, which is still munching on the same patch of grass. As her cubs hurry to catch up, the gazelle lifts his head. He notices the predator is now meters from him and darts out of sight. The cheetah leaps up and vanishes. We don’t have to witness the attack to know that she has caught her prey.

To go on safari means to take a journey. Not the destination, but rather the voyage itself is what’s important. From my first game drive, I understand the power and freedom that the word safari contains.

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Kenya, the east African nation roughly the size of Texas, is a land of extremes. The diverse landscape ranges from snow-capped mountains to arid, sandy deserts; woodlands to swamps; highland plateaus to grassy plains; freshwater lakes to the sandy beaches along the Indian Ocean. The abundant wildlife is as varied as the land. Kenya has nearly 30 national parks and 30 national reserves, making it a playground for wildlife enthusiasts, photographers and adventure-seekers. People come from all over the world for a chance to see the “big five”: leopards, lions, bison, elephants and rhinos.

Kenyan people have an intimate relationship with wildlife. The country is one of the few places left where people live so close to a vast number of roaming animals. You don’t have to venture into the bush to see them. Only four miles from the Nairobi city center, impalas, lions, cheetahs, bison, rhino and smaller mammals live in the Nairobi National Park.

Kenya is truly a magical land. It conjures up iconic, romantic African images of wildebeests grazing beneath acacia trees, an untamed wilderness where lion prides lounge in the afternoon sun and hippos submerge themselves nose-deep in watering holes. There are tree-dotted open savannahs and limitless skies.

Of course I’m not the only St. Louisan to have been drawn to and seduced by these sights. “I chose Kenya because the movies Born Free and Out of Africa were both centered in Kenya, and I wanted to experience that same feeling,” says Mary O’Toole, a St. Louis travel consultant. She and her husband, Joe, took an 11-day safari through Kenya this past spring. “Africa was always in the back of my mind as one of the most exotic destinations that I could possibly dream of.”

The country did not disappoint.

Traveling with Abercrombie & Kent, one of the top safari outfitters in the industry (Travel + Leisure winner for “Best Tour Operator and Safari Outfitter” from 1996 to 2004), the O’Tooles set out on a whirlwind tour, visiting the Sweetwaters Game Reserve, the Mount Kenya National Park, the Masai Mara National Reserve and the Samburu National Reserve.

Their first destination, the Sweetwaters Tented Camp, is located on the privately owned 24,000-acre Sweetwaters Game Reserve in Nanyuki, a few hours’ drive from Nairobi. At Sweetwaters, the O’Tooles got their first taste of camping in the bush, where they learned camping in Kenya doesn’t equate to roughing it. Quite the contrary. Most tented safaris maintain a balance between camping and comfort. Depending on how upscale you go, you may find your tented safari accommodations nicer than most hotels.

“Our private tent sat on a watering hole and was complete with wooden floor, nice furniture with netted bed and private bath facilities,” says Mary O’Toole. “After our game drive, we returned to our camp, where dinner awaited and a cozy hot-water bottle had been added to our bed.”

Excitement fills O’Toole’s voice when she speaks of her journey.

“Our first game drive brought us upon a pride of lions near dusk,” she recalls. “Our guides felt the lions were looking for something in particular, so we followed them for about an hour and a half, at times coming within a few feet of them. At last, they found the prey—an injured zebra. The lioness did the hunt—sneaking up on the unsuspecting zebra, while her three male cubs waited behind. The lioness took down the zebra and killed it, and then the males came in for the feed. Our guide told us that we were very fortunate to have been able to witness the actual hunt and kill, as he has only seen it happen four times in the 17 years that he has been a guide.

“This was pretty upsetting to watch,” O’Toole continues. “The herd of zebras close by circled, as the mother zebra howled in sadness over the death of her baby. I had to keep telling myself, ‘This is nature’s way.’”

O’Toole isn’t alone in her eagerness to share her safari experience. Deb Schwenk, assistant dean for clinical affairs at Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicine in Belleville, was so intrigued by Africa after a two-week Kenyan safari that she returned in March 2006 for a three-week safari through southern Africa—only this time she took six friends with her.

“I loved it the first time and wanted to see it again and share it with friends,” says Schwenk. “But southern Africa is different from Kenya. In Kenya, we would drive through the bush and come upon wild animals. In south Africa, we had to stay on paved roads in the parks, and they used watering tanks to draw the animals. Kenya isn’t like that at all—it seems much more wild. Untouched.”

Schwenk’s Kenyan safari took her to the Samburu National Reserve, the Masai Mara Reserve and Mount Kenya National Park, where she stayed at the famous Mount Kenya Safari Club. Established by a Texas oil baron, a Swiss millionaire and film star William Holden, it has hosted such illustrious guests as Sir Winston Churchill, Clark Gable, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Located in the Mount Kenya National Park, the lodge’s 100-acre landscaped grounds, which straddle the equator, provide a spectacular view of Africa’s second highest mountain, Mount Kenya. This year, Travel + Leisure voted Mount Kenya Safari Club one of the 500 greatest hotels worldwide.

“We stayed in a cabin with a fireplace and a bathtub that was shaped like a mini flamingo,” Schwenk adds. “It was very luxurious. Very British.”

Located farther north on the banks of the Ewaso Nyiro River, the Samburu National Reserve is a lesser-known destination in the region that used to be called the Northern Frontier District. Only in this semiarid part of the country can you find the reticulated giraffe, Somali ostrich, Grevy’s zebra and beisa oryx. It’s also home to more than 365 bird species.

“On our evening game drive, we spotted a leopard sleeping in a tree and a rare striped hyena, and then came upon a pair of lions mating,” says O’Toole. “My husband, Joe, was sitting up on the roof of the Rover while we were waiting for the next mating session, and the male lion was watching Joe closely. Gerald, our driver, told Joe to move down slowly into the Rover. The lion felt challenged because Joe was higher up, and the lion was getting upset.”

The O’Tooles stayed in an elevated, thatched-roof tent at the luxurious Samburu Intrepids Club. Luxury aside, they offer a warning about the baboons and black-faced velvet monkeys in the bush. “Our partner tent opened the zipper to receive their morning coffee and did a tug-of-war with a velvet monkey for the tray of coffee and cookies in the morning,” says O’Toole.

While in the reserve, the O’Tooles visited a Samburu village. “It was one of the most moving experiences I have ever encountered,” says O’Toole. “The most touching to me was when I met a young mother named Mary. She was a beautiful young woman with several children, and I felt a bond with her, even though I know that it was just her English name, not her tribal name. I purchased a wedding necklace that she had made to remember her.”

Both the O’Tooles and Schwenk opted to drive instead of fly from location to location.

“We drove everywhere, but flew to the Mara because it was so far,” Schwenk says. “If you drive, you’re going to see a whole lot more than if you fly. You see how the people live, you see the countryside and the way people live from town to town.”

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Every July and August, the Masai Mara National Reserve, considered Kenya’s best game-viewing park and one of the most popular safari destinations in Africa, plays host to the annual Great Migration. A million-plus wildebeests and zebras travel over 600 miles north into the Mara from the parched Serengeti plains in neighboring Tanzania. Predators follow close behind. The animals follow the rains to the lush banks of the Mara River, where they graze until October, at which point they return

to the Serengeti.

Schwenk, who visited the Masai Mara in mid-July for the migration, says, “I had it in my head that I had to see the Masai. We went on a trip to a village, saw the huts made of cow dung, met the villagers and saw how they lived. They are a stately, very tall, very dignified-looking people with their red robes wrapped around them. I peeked into one hut and saw the same world history book I had in the 10th grade.”

Before daybreak on their second day, the O’Tooles were whisked into the sky on a hot-air balloon for an aerial view of the Mara. It was an adventure born out of daydreams, reminiscent of Jules Verne’s novel Five Weeks in a Balloon.

“Even though it wasn’t migration season, we were able to see quite a few species,” says O’Toole, recounting how they landed along the Mara River and enjoyed breakfast while hippos snorted in the nearby waters. “The beauty is breathtaking,” she says of the Masai Mara reserve. “It has a calmness about it, even though it is the wild.”

For O’Toole, not only is this Masai Mara her favorite destination in Kenya, but that country itself now tops her list of international destinations. “I can honestly say that this has been the most incredible trip of my life. Kenya is nature at its best.”

As for me, the photographs in my living room remind me daily of my safaris in the Serengeti. Each time I pass them, I’m reminded of the smells, the hyena calls and the mist settling amidst the grass. My own journey into the Kenyan bush has yet to end.

Surrendering to Maine

One mother, two daughters, lots of lobster

By Emily Tennyson

Fall colors and New England—a solid couple, like shrimp and grits, peanut butter and jelly, or gin and tonic. Listen—can you hear Barry Manilow singing “Weekend in New England”? Imagine just you and Barry motoring to country inns, clad in tweed, trudging down leaf-laden paths ... STOP. I’m feeling sick.

For me, New England autumns evoke what my father churlishly called “Howard Johnson Color Tours” and outlet shoppers. I close my eyes and see fanny packs, pastel sweat suits and matching Crocs. Luckily, Maine seems exempt from tacky tour buses. Though the coast fairly teems with humanity, drive inland a few miles and you’re the only one on the road, looking at the prettiest trees Mother Nature ever created.

My daughters both chose to attend college in Maine. This came out of nowhere, as if they’d simultaneously decided to become dentists in Des Moines. I’d never visited the state except through the pages of the L.L. Bean catalog. Besides, I thought, the Midwest has perfectly satisfactory autumns. Our trees perform—they turn orange and drop attractive leaves. How nice can Maine be? I thought I knew my kids, but this was an unexpected wrinkle. Initially, I was a suspicious, jaded parent, prepared to sneer at lobster bibs and Bean boots. Though my St. Louis pals quickly ticked off Maine’s hot spots—Oquinquit! Bar Harbor! Cape Neddick!—I was unmoved. What did Maine have besides outlet shopping and a few islands? St. Louis has Plaza Frontenac and Laclede’s Landing.

Last October, Parents Weekend—the moment of truth—arrived. The plane was landing, and I’d finished one crossword puzzle, one Vogue and two newspapers. Diversions gone, I was forced to sightsee. I looked out the window, and there they were: Those Colors. Burnt sienna, crimson, Bordeaux, smoky coral—grab a Martha Stewart color wheel and sing along. As I saw Maine’s colors for the first time, I felt like Dorothy walking out of the house in The Wizard of Oz. Phrases like “intense hues” and “psychedelic shades” are awkward and trite, but accurate. One mile out of the Portland International Jetport (an ambitious title for an airport with only two luggage carousels), and I was enchanted.

Portland, Maine, might be the nicest little big city in the United States. It’s compact, adorable and loaded with diverse architecture, not to mention the requisite symphonies, museums and medical centers that help ensure an interesting and solid residential base. My daughters preferred the fact that it had nice shopping, not that their incomes offered much chance to enjoy it. The waterfront is beyond picturesque—boats bob up and down alluringly, while the intriguing ferry to Nova Scotia hovers in the distance. Along the water, restaurants abound, and they’re all good. I know this, because I tested them all. A friend from Kirkwood recommended Portland Lobster Company, where you sit at picnic tables waiting for your pager to buzz. That urgent sound signals that your lobster rolls, that brilliant creation involving lobster, mayonnaise and not a lot else, are ready. It’s not just lobster there; I love their North Atlantic clam cakes and the provocatively named “Peekytoe Crab Cakes.” Warning: Once you start eating your way through the menu, it’s hard to stop. In fact, their steamer clams are so good that I once had them for dessert. I’m not proud of that.

Besides lobster, a perfect day in Maine involves lengthy drives that consist of mostly oohing and aahing. If you can, stop in Wiscasset, one of Maine’s prettiest villages. Perched on a riverfront, Wiscasset has darling stores and cuter residents. Everyone looks like a J.Crew model, down to his or her color-coordinated ice cream cones, which never drip. Tipped off by St. Louis interior designer Tim Rohan, we explored Wiscasset’s 18th-century buildings and antique markets before ending up in Boothbay Harbor. (I found an armoire that would look perfect in his Maplewood shop, but couldn’t figure out how to get it home.) On an 80-degree day in October, we watched sailboats slide by as we scavenged the obligatory “Salty Dog”–themed gift shops. Amid the tchotchkes and taffy, though, a few fine galleries exist, notably Abacus, which sells contemporary jewelry, prints, paintings and loads of other lovely things. My younger daughter, overwhelmed by Boothbay love, managed to find her way back the next day in someone’s sailboat.

Kennebunkport is a town I’d both avoided and wanted not to like. Its name popped up whenever I mentioned Maine; evidently, it’s a popular destination for St. Louis residents and, I guessed, the rest of the world. Visions of buses, binoculars and all-you-can-eat seafood buffets haunted me, but what I found instead was street after street of pristine 18th-century houses, beautiful landscaping and pale yellow trees swaying along a blue, rocky coast. I drove along the shoreline, mentally selecting my post-lottery dream home, until I came across police barricades, numerous squad cars and a number of American flags swaying in the distance. Farther out on a little island, several large gray clapboard houses were visible. “Walker’s Point,” I read. My brilliantly intuitive husband looked at the massive security efforts and commented, “I thought I read somewhere that President Bush has a house in Kennebunkport. Maybe we’ll see it.”

Maybe. Surprisingly, Kennebunkport sells some of the most hilarious George W. souvenirs, and they are not all highly complimentary.

Though I love the coast, my favorite town in Maine is Oakland, tucked into the middle of the state. The Pressey House, certainly the quirkiest B&B I’ve ever encountered, is an octagonal house on a minute, nameless lake. I love its 900-square-foot basement suite opening onto the water. It’s furnished with antiques, copious doilies, vintage photos of anonymous folks and a perfectly 1950s kitchen. My daughters and I watched Gilmore Girls from big couches and saw the sunset over the lake, framed by maples. The cost includes an enormous breakfast, plus the use of on-site canoes. Nearby Waterville is home to Colby College, a lovely liberal arts school that draws St. Louis kids in droves. Colby was also immortalized in The Sopranos as the spot where Tony took Meadow on a college tour before whacking an old capo. Waterville, too, boasts some great restaurants, like the Apollo—a bona fide combo bistro and beauty salon. I’d love to match a course with a treatment—caprese salad and nails, crab cakes and highlights, chocolate mousse and a blow-dry ... and lobster in there somewhere.

Did I mention that Maine also has the cleanest air you’ll ever breathe? Maybe it’s all the CO² involved in making those trees so darn pretty.

Oh, Maine. I’m a convert.

Amelia Island Plantation

A natural gem on Florida’s Atlantic coast

By Diana Lambdin Meyer

Playing tooth fairy to a great white shark wouldn’t appear to be the most pleasant of assignments, but it’s one that Christina Nelson approaches each morning with enthusiasm.

As program manager of the Amelia Island Nature Center, Nelson leads regular excursions searching for sharks’ teeth on the sandy beaches of Florida’s Amelia Island. That a great white has almost 3,000 teeth in its mouth makes the job a little more reasonable, and the fact that lost teeth can tumble around in the ocean for thousands of years after falling from the shark’s mouth improves the odds. And it’s not just great white teeth (which are actually a fossilized shade of gray) that can be found on Amelia Island’s beaches. Tiger, hammerhead, goblin, lemon and dusky sharks’ teeth all jingle in Nelson’s pockets as she walks, teaching others what to look for amid the jumble of Mother Nature’s debris on the beach.

The nature center, fabulous beaches and sandy-footed treasure-hunting are what distinguish Amelia Island from hundreds of other Florida beach destinations for Virgil and Sandra VanTrease of St. Louis. After being referred there by a friend and visiting for a couple of years, the VanTreases bought a four-bedroom condo there seven years ago. Ever since, they’ve taken long-weekend trips there about every six weeks, also sharing the apartment with family and friends.

“The nature center is an absolute jewel,” Virgil says. “It just reinforces the efforts on Amelia Island to conserve and

appreciate nature.”

Located across the intercoastal waterway from Jacksonville, Amelia Island Plantation is 1,350 acres of natural beauty that defines itself in beaches, centuries-old live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss and more than 90 species of birds and other wildlife. Named for the daughter of King George II of England, Amelia Island had developers who recognized the value and necessity of preserving this abundance of nature in the early 1970s, long before going green was considered fashionable or necessary.

Visitors are encouraged to park their cars and travel by foot, bicycle, golf cart or Segway to reduce auto emissions. Waterways used by wildlife in the area as a home and food source are protected from humans by a 40-foot buffer of natural grasses. In many cases, homes have been designed around trees on the lot. In one case, a massive live oak juts through the center of a home, making the tree the focal point of the property and reinforcing that it was there first.

But Amelia Island provides many more activities than just appreciating nature’s abundance. When the VanTreases and their friends visit, they golf on one of the three courses on the property. Ocean Links, where duffers often spot wood storks or bobcats, is prized because of its five holes fronting the ocean. All of the golf courses are certified by the Audubon Society for their efforts in pest management, water conservation and

public education.

Other visitors come for the 23 clay tennis courts, home of the Bausch & Lomb Women’s Tennis Championships each April. If you’re a tennis fan, this is a good time to visit Amelia Island for the otherwise unprecedented access to some of the top players in women’s tennis. If you have children, the resort’s junior program has been ranked in the top five in the U.S.

Another attraction that Amelia Island holds for the VanTreases is its accommodating environment for people of all ages. Although there are certainly a number of retired couples living on the property, families with young children find entertainment as well. One of your first stops should be amelia’s wheels, an outlet that provides bicycles, baby joggers and baby trailers. There are seven miles of paved bicycle trails around the property, along with generously wide roadways shaded by a mature growth of trees and other landscaping.

Amelia’s Wheels is also where you can rent and learn to ride a Segway, the battery-powered personal human transporter that makes no noise and goes no faster than about 12 miles per hour. Children as young as eight years old can operate a Segway with a little instruction. Family safaris with a Segway guide will lead you through some of the most beautiful areas of the property in search of wildlife and interesting sites.

For shopping, Amelia Island offers many of the popular chains found in St. Louis, such as Chico’s. But find local flavor at Colors By the Sea, Resort to Home and Monkey Barrel, an upscale children’s clothing shop. The shops are centered around a fountain-filled pond and encircled by a charming boardwalk and outdoor cafés.

After any of these outings, book a few hours at the spa, for watsu (underwater) massages, Island Marsh body scrubs and beach-feet treatments. Gastronomically speaking, more compelling menu items—such as Key lime tarts, Cumberland crab cakes and lobster veloute—can be found on a visit to any of Amelia Island’s eight restaurants. The VanTreases prefer The Verandah for its view of the tennis courts at Racquet Park.

One more selling point for the VanTreases: American Airlines offers twice-daily direct flights from St. Louis to Jacksonville and Amelia Island. And after seven years of shuttling between River City and their favorite Florida spot, the family is equally comfortable in both places.

“Amelia Island just feels right,” Virgil says. “It’s home, just like St. Louis is home.”

For more information about Amelia Island Plantation, visit aipfl.com or call 888-261-6161.

The Italian Job

Want to actually work abroad? Attenzione

By Kathy Gilsinan

I was born in St. Louis, but I’ve never been stuck here.

Until I took a notion to be elsewhere.

In August 2006, with a brand-new bachelor’s degree and not much to do with it, I abandoned my beloved hometown for Piemonte, Italy, to take a job as a writer and translator. I settled into the adorable little town of Bra. I had a charming landlady with a bonkers dog who loved me, a palatial apartment for a mere 400 euros a month and the best pizza joint—I’m still convinced—in the entire world, right across the street from me. (The name, Pizza Blitz, belies its appeal.) There were cobblestones and sumptuous evenings on my terrace (from which on clear days the Alps were visible) and wine tastings and aperitivo hours with Italian men whose fascination with blondes rendered me enormously popular. I was ciaoing around like crazy, inhaling towering heaps of ravioli, and my halting Italian elicited nothing worse than indulgent condescension, which suited me just fine.

This wasn’t a vacation, though it felt like one. I was working, in a manner of speaking, though the practically mandatory two-hour lunch break was its own mini-vacation every day. Imagine going out for an Italian lunch—in Italy!—before heading back to work. Then imagine snagging a gelato to devour at your desk, and you’ll have some idea why it was hard to think of my job as “work.”

I was, in any case, being groomed to take over the international communications office of Slow Food, a food-focused organization that has chapters all over the globe. Many of these chapters are in English-speaking countries—my job was to render the movement’s vague philosophy, barely decipherable in Italian, into English for brochures, newsletters and communiqués to members. The basic idea, and the basic reason I was getting paid to live in Italy, is that people should support their local farmers, concentrate on the sustainability of food production and, of course, eat lots of delicious stuff. Legend has it that all of this suddenly occurred to Slow Food’s founder, Carlo Petrini, a former socialist politician, when he witnessed a McDonald’s being opened near the Spanish Steps in Rome. He complained about the homogenization of food production over wine with some friends. An international movement was born.

That movement’s headquarters is in Petrini’s hometown, a sleepy hilltop village in northern Italy, about an hour south of Turin. It took some time to get used to a few things about Bra, not least that that was its real name. Sleeping late on Saturday would mean a grocery-less weekend—supermarkets were open only in the morning that day, and not at all on Sunday. Nor could you use your lunch break to buy the groceries you hadn’t that weekend; stores were closed for the precise two hours you were allowed out of the office. Stores would also be closed if you tried to go after work, as that time was after the store owners’ work, too.

Cafés were open after work, however, and this is when the youth of Bra congregated at or between three or four places on the main hangout street, Via Cavour. My favorite, Converso, served brilliant cappucino, which, by the way, is a breakfast drink; order one after 10 a.m. and risk outing yourself as a foreigner. Via Cavour couldn’t have been more than the length of a

St. Louis block, but it was wide and paved with cobblestones, with a church on each end and umbrella-covered tables on every patch of sidewalk. For two euros, you could get a drink and a plate of predinner snacks: prosciutto, breadsticks and bruschetta to go with your Campari.

Meanwhile, my three-month tourist visa was running out. I knew how to handle this, though; the Italian consulate in Chicago had told me that in order to get a work visa, which would enable me to stay for a year, I needed first to get a work permit. And for some reason, getting the permit required my physical presence in Italy.

I didn’t discover until I got there that the office in Italy responsible for such things had a different idea. They wouldn’t issue me a permit without a visa. And I could only get a visa in my country of origin. I explained in panicky Italian that the office in the States had explained the situation to me in reverse: permit first, then visa. A put-upon carabinieri—the military police, who wear Armani, carry automatic weapons and for some reason staff the permit office—explained to me, with exaggerated patience, “No, signora. Non si fa.” It’s just not done.

Perfect. Somebody was lying to me. The other possibility was that everyone was telling me the truth. That would be much worse. I emailed the consulate to ask, and their response ran something like this: “We don’t understand your situation. In order to help you, we need a copy of your visa and work permit.”

This was more than a Catch-22. It was at least a Catch-33. I needed advice to get the work permit or the visa, the visa to get the work permit, the work permit to get the visa, and both to get the advice on how to get either. In a later email, my consular correspondent suddenly decided that I additionally needed approval from the Region of Piemonte in order to live there. The Region of Piemonte, though, had never heard of such a thing and had never given any such kind of approval. They seemed disinclined to start with me.

It’s awkward to feel as if a whole country is conspiring to keep you out of it. As Americans, we are born into a place where an awful lot of other people want to be; most of them won’t be welcomed here, simply by virtue of the fact that they were born elsewhere. For all the dreamy talk I hear about globalization erasing borders and leveling playing fields, borders are much more complicated than physical barriers. They’re fortified with paperwork and red tape.

So three months into my fabulous European adventure, my tourist visa ran out, and I was back in old St. Lou, gathering documents for another chance at those cobblestones, that terrace and those Alps. One of these was my flight itinerary, a pricey document indeed, but one that would ostensibly encourage the consulate to issue me a visa before the scheduled departure date.

Not so. That date came and went; a few days before I was set to leave, the consulate asked me to supply some more documents from Italy. When I pointed out that those weren’t on their website’s list of requirements, my interlocutor sniffed that they didn’t have room to post every requirement online.

I don’t want to call this guy a bugiardo, or liar, nor even a stronzo, which I’ll let you look up. But I feel compelled to note that the Internet is a roomy place, with new stuff being added all the time. One more bullet point somewhere wouldn’t make the thing collapse.

Yet still I’m stuck, sans passport and all hope of escape. Despite all the English-speaking I do nowadays, though, my lifestyle is more Italian than ever: I am a grown woman living with my parents.

Except here, the ravioli are toasted.

Is this a great country or what?