Interesting Links
Sometimes during research you find websites that are just delightful, full of information you can use, or that tickle the fancy or the taste buds - but have no direct relevance to your own site.
It seems that for those of you who are regulars, you might share similar interests, so I have started this new page to add some of those links. There is no commercial advantage for listing them but I think you will enjoy their content.
This will be an ever-growing list so I hope you return regularly and wander off on the web to satisfy your curiosity, your humour and your taste buds – but please come back or we would miss you.
Kay Gail is The Travel Gourmet - and she welcomes your company.
Food, fascinating little
places to delight in, recipes (yum, yum), and the personality of the
writer - something that always makes good reading: join Kay Gail, the
Travel Gourmet and start dreaming of your next fooodie adventure. Click here for an example of her visit to the Matisse Museum just north of Nice in France.
Barry Berndes has been directing people to the best of San Diego since 1969 via his 'The San Diegan'city guide in print or online
This link is to his overview of the Old Town. For those of us who have strolled here with friends or colleagues and soaked up the wonderful ambiance and delighted in the quirky goods on sale and taste bud exciting food on offer, this guide seems to be straight forward, helpful without faff, and generally the sort of thing to keep handy when visiting.
When a man loves trains so much he ends up running the busiest railway station in Britain, you have to think he might have some insight on train travel - and he does
Mark Smith is 'the man in Seat 61' and his website of the same name is the best guide to train travel you will be able to find. He even knows which sites in Europe quote which fares for the same journey and how to get around it.
As he says himself, his love of train travel led him as a young man to run away to join the circus (which was called British Rail at the time) and his career with the railways just fuelled his love of life on the rails (so to speak).
Even if you never do take the train, you will enjoy reading this site. It is filled with Mark’s love of train travel and the excitement of the journey itself.
Informative, based on a deep professional knowledge of railways and how they work, well-written and entertaining, this site will lure you back to take a trip with The man in Seat 61.
What I know about wine is that I really like good wine - and with the help of The Wine Doctor, now I even know a bit about French wine
Chris Kissak translated his love of wine and desire to understand it into a truly marvellous website which has been his passion as it has evolved since 2000.
Chris specializes in the wines of Bordeaux and the Loire and his site is fascinating in its ability to not just give excellent wine notes – but to reveal the character of the appellations, estates and their history.
Well written and full of information, the site will have you off down to your best wine store and booking a trip to France.
Click on Producer Profile - then on that opening page click on one of the regions and then click on one of the Chateaux. There you have a descriptive history and a guide to its wines – and you will be an addicted fan thereafter!
We are in a different era than travel on $5 a day - but for the budget traveller this is a great site
Bootsnall Travel is a fantastic guide to budget travelling: well written and with evocative photos.
What has General Patton got to do with it?
It takes me a minimum of four long days to complete a page for this site. This is because of the way I travel. As I mention elsewhere, I like the adventure to unfold spontaneously and to wander and be captivated by what I find. Naturally I take lots of photos. I then come home to do my research.
Most travel writers I know work in the reverse order. Sometimes I miss “the big thing” but I seldom feel cheated for what I have found gives me a deeper insight into the reality and uniqueness of the place.
In the course of my later research I am often seeking the right example from history to illustrate a point – and it was in this way that I came to this page on General George S. Patton.
As most people know only what Hollywood has depicted of the great man, I thought my readers would also enjoy getting to know the real person and his passionate accumulation and use of knowledge.
The link is below but this is section what interested me, a prolific reader, and someone ever curious:
He studied the past to discover the great historical continuities. Patton felt that all of recorded history is one contiguous string of accomplishments.
Patton understood that history is not
just a record of isolated, individual
events non-related to each other. Every
act of history is contiguous totally dependent upon the previous act.
Because William the Conquer defeated Harold of Hastings in 1066, the whole future and history of England was changed. England took a vastly different path than it would have if Harold had been victorious. All of history was thusly changed.
England would have followed a much different path in its context within the world community.
Patton recognized this historical cohesiveness and its contiguous correlation for what it is. Its the basis for all cultural habit, tradition, custom, and the nature of man.
The main fascination for Patton in his
search for the common elements of man's historical behaviour was the
significance and importance of military leadership. He continually
sought those elusive factors that produce
victory or defeat in battle. He was
intrigued by the relationships of tactics and supply, maneuver and
shock, weapons and will power.
He could easily lecture on such the
subjects of scale, chain, and armor, on
German mercenaries, the Italian Wars,
Polish tactics and techniques, the Peninsular War, and so on, for hours
at a time. He wasn’t simply cognizant of history, he was familiar and
intimate with it; Greek phalanx,
Roman Legions, Napoleons columns, Baron
de Jomini, Marshal Saxe, Sun Tzu, Flavius Renatus, J.E.B. Stuart, Mosbys
Rangers, Grant and Lee, Samson and his ass jaw, all the way up to and
including the mass armies used
in World War I.
He could subjectively compare the heavy cavalry of Belisarius with the modern armored vehicle. He discovered a certain craftiness in the 6th Century tactics of Belisarius that he actually applied to the use of modern tanks.
My search for identity of place goes beyond the summarised, adapted and repeated 'fluff' pieces (often repeating factual error) about a location, a region, a piece of history.
This is what fascinated me about how Patton was informed by history. Modern versions are too often abridged. In an AI-era, the large-language learning models that educated your AI are only one version of the kaleidoscope of realities of an era, a place, its personalities, and its culture.
Keep reading!
