What are your must-have travel essentials? Hear me out, but the No. 1 thing I don’t leave home without is a roll of blue tape, also called painter’s tape. It’s the stuff you use to paint clean edges, keep paint off anything you don’t want painted or secure tarps to floors or walls. When you’re done, the tape lifts easily without taking part of the wall with it.
Thinking about travel essentials has led me to pondering Karl Malden’s ads for American Express Travelers Cheques that ran from 1973 to 1995. If you don’t know who Karl Malden is, then you likely have no clue what a travelers cheque is. One ordered them before travel (domestic or international) to use instead of cash. They lost favor around the turn of the last century, as foreign transactions because easier amid a rise in credit cards and ATMs where one could get cash in local currency. The American Express motto for Travelers Cheques was “Don’t Leave Home Without Them.”
Which brings me back to blue tape. I first started traveling with it during the seven months we lived in Belfast in 2017. Blue tape proved its usefulness around the flat and on our travels to tape curtains shut and block dots of light emitted by turned-off TVs, smoke detectors, vent hoods and anything else that was bugging me.
During our last trip, I affixed curtains to walls, blocked out red lights on TVs and used it to label our food in the common refrigerator in student housing at the University of Galway.
During our 7-month stint in Belfast, the management company affixed plastic signs to the landing on each floor imploring residents to keep the landings clear of bikes, prams, trash, etc. The glue that maintenance staff used wasn’t sufficient, and the signs soon hung askew or fell down.
Using my handy blue tape and an X-Acto knife (another useful tool for long trips), I taped the signs back up (not just on my floor but throughout the five-story building), taking particular care to ensure they were straight and that the edges were clean. I haven’t been back to those flats since we returned home, but I like to think the signs are still up, with dozens of people passing them daily and no one recognizing they were affixed by some dude who likes order and had the free time and tools to put them in their proper place.
You’re welcome.
Second Place: Tiny Fan
During this summer’s five-week trip to Dublin, Galway and Scotland, I quickly determined that I’d left home without hand sanitizer, a water bottle or my glasses case, the latter useful for storing my specs while plane “sleeping” and during my frequent visits to a lap pool.
But Marilynn and I did not forget our tiny fans, which are quite powerful despite being less than 5 inches round. These are new items among our travel essentials, and they proved valuable during the two weeks we spent at a Dublin flat last year while Marilynn was doing research in the National Library of Ireland. The fans are three-speed, make a decent bit of noise (this is a plus for us) and are powered by a USB. We carry an American electric adapter in the box for domestic use, but most international hotels and B&Bs have outlets that accept USB.
Don’t leave home without this, either.
Third Place: Medium Binder Clips
My laptop case always contains such travel necessities as extra AA and AAA batteries, charging cord and adapter for my phone, pens, ear plugs … and two or three binder clips, which around the house we call “chip clips.”
As you can imagine, we use them to close partially eaten packages of dry goods that go back in the pantry. On trips, however, they are also useful to ensure curtains stay closed where they meet in the middle. Blue tape keeps those same curtains affixed to the wall to keep any sleeping area as dark as possible.
Despite the length of our trip, we traveled with just carry-on bags. But blue tape, tiny fans and binder clips made the cut to travel with us.
What does one do when presented with not one — but two — once-in-a-lifetime opportunities in the same week? You take advantage of them both, of course!
For a football fan like Declan, Atlanta hosting World Cup games is like having your favorite singer perform in your living room. Once we determined a match would be held at Mercedes-Benz Stadium (take that, FIFA!) on his 22nd birthday, it was a no-brainer that we would attend.
Yes, the ticket price for the three of us (me, Declan and his girlfriend) was more than we wanted to pay, but what part of once-in-a-lifetime don’t you understand? Marilynn’s not the football fanatic Declan and I are, so she stayed at home.
Declan found tickets in the lower bowl for Uzbekistan vs DR Congo that weren’t bad price-wise. Looking closer to the match, I saw single tickets going for nearly the price I’d paid for three of them, so Declan, indeed, found a deal.
We hit MARTA almost three hours before the match, anxious to take in the FanFest for ticketholders. However, the excessive heat caused us to quickly change plans, entering the stadium much earlier than we’d planned. The concourses thronged with people, many of them apparently there for fear of missing out on the spectacle. I saw lots of people taking selfies in the middle of the concourse, taking pictures of other people taking pictures and generally being there for the sake of being there.
Fortunately, the folks around us were ardent fans on both sides. There was a guy dressed like an Uzbekistan cleric a row behind us, and the man sitting next to us was a loud and proud Congo fan. A special shout-out to the Uzbekistan fans behind us who bought Declan a drink to celebrate his birthday.
While we were definitely neutrals in this match between the bottom two teams in the group, the chance to advance to the knockout round was on the line, and both teams were lively, with Uzbekistan scoring early on a looping shot that the goalkeeper could only watch nestle into the top right corner of the goal. Congo later put the ball into the net, but it was disallowed on what I think is a questionable VAR call (I just watched the highlights). But Congo came roaring back, equalizing on a penalty before going ahead in the 78th minute and adding another in second-half stoppage time.
Declan called it one of the best days of his life, being a small part of the larger world as it stopped by for a visit.
‘We’re Playing for England … En–ger-land!’
Sometime during the match, I discovered that England — Declan’s favorite national team — would play the winner of this match four days later at the Benz. After asking Marilynn for permission to spend way more money than is wise, we bought two tickets for that match, a further father/son bonding experience.
Declan is quite the fan. Three summers ago, he and I flew from Belfast to Manchester to watch England stomp North Macedonia in a Euro 2024 qualifying match. We were there for less than 24 hours before joining Marilynn in Germany. Four Arsenal players are on the England team, including Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka, his favorite player (we have a cat named Bukayo).
The day before the England match, my good friend Kevin wrote to ask if it was a crazy idea to attend the match on Wednesday. “We already have tickets,” was my reply, so he bought a ticket close by and was able to sit next to us during the match.
Watching the World Cup as a neutral is a much different experience than having fanatic skin in the game, especially when England goes down a goal in the 7th minute.
Both sides had good chances, and the Congo goalkeeper was particularly spry, making several great saves to keep the Three Lions out. Late in the first half, there was a potential penalty when the goalkeeper appeared to trip up England Captain Harry Kane in the 18-yard box, but the ref waved it away and VAR declined to intervene. However, people in the stands booed loudly, and pundits on TV agreed with us. Alas, that’s how the football bounced.
England got its revenge in the 75th minute when Kane scored to tie the match at 1-1. He also scored the winning goal 10 minutes later to put the Three Lions on top for good.
Declan brought his England flag and waved it proudly all through the match, and I think Kevin enjoyed the game, too.
And while I’m happy that England won, I’m ecstatic that I was able to share this experience with my son and a good friend.
Planning for this five-week adventure paid no heed to the English Premier League nor the Champions League schedules, both of which concluded while we have been out of the country. However, Marilynn graciously indulged my Arsenal passion as they lifted the PL trophy and came ever-so-close to winning the Champions League, comprised of the best football teams in Europe.
Arsenal 1, Burnley 0 (River Bar, Dublin)
Arsenal played the day we arrived, taking on already-relegated Burnley. If Arsenal won its last two games, it would top the league, simple as that. If the second-place team, Manchester City, faltered in any way, the title could be wrapped up sooner.
After we settled into our hotel, had a quick nap and ate in the hotel restaurant, Marilynn and I donned our Arsenal jerseys and braved the rain to walk to the River Bar, the official Gooner pub in Dublin. Don’t ask me what the bar is like, because I have no idea. I spotted an Arsenal fan taking a smoke break outside, pointed to my jersey and made the universal shrug that means “where’s the match?” He pointed downstairs, an area just inside the front door.
We quickly made our way downstairs to see about 150 Arsenal fans in an expansive basement area with two large televisions and several smaller ones showing the match. Even though we arrived before game time, every seat was already taken, with fans chanting and ready for a good time.
We erupted into deafening cheers when Kai Havertz headed home the winner from a Bukayo Saka corner late in the first half.
Given our degree of jet lag, we walked home during the half, and I watched the second half from the hotel. I’m sure the crowd groaned when Havertz received a yellow card for a high boot challenge on a Burnley player, an offense the replay official watched endlessly before determining that was sufficient punishment. A red car would have meant the team would have to play the remainder of the match without Havertz.
Bournemouth 1, Man City 1 (The Old Stand, Dublin)
Arsenal fans celebrate at The Old Stand
The following evening, Manchester City took on Bournemouth, a mid-table team vying to play European football next season (in other words, no pushover). The study abroad group was enjoying the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl. I was, too, but I’ll admit to wearing my Arsenal jersey for a second day and checking my phone every five minutes. A Man City tie or loss would mean that Arsenal had won the title.
I cheered quietly when Bournemouth scored, then held my breath as the game ticked into second-half stoppage time. Man City tied the match during extra time, which ratcheted up my emotions. My phone indicated time left when I stepped into The Old Stand, which has been open in the same location for 350 years. Cheers erupted — not for me entering the pub, but from a group of Arsenal fans who were in the pub. The pub was airing another football match, but coverage was interrupted to show fans outside the Arsenal stadium in London cheering wildly, as Man City’s tie meant that Arsenal had won the Premier League!
An Púcán in Galway features a huge outdoor viewing area.
Crystal Palace 1, Arsenal 2 (An Púcán, Galway)
By the final day of the Premier League season, Marilynn and I had relocated to Galway, where she would spend a week in the University of Galway library doing research. We checked into our accommodation, student housing (i.e., a really, really tiny dorm room designed for one), and made a beeline for the city center, where we watched the match at An Púcán, a local sports bar with a huge outdoor patio where the match was being shown.
Although Arsenal had already won the league, the final day is a chance to see the team lift the trophy and generally celebrate. And since it’d been 22 years between titles, there was a lot to celebrate.
Unfortunately, there were no tables available on the patio, but we did manage to snag a two-top inside thanks to Steve, the guy who had reserved the table starting at 6 p.m. No one was sitting there because of the reserved sign, but the match would be over by the time Steve needed his table. Sweet!
The mussels we shared were superb, and the mains we had later were equally fine. The only disappointment was the men’s toilets, which I described in my Google review as “wild animals fornicating in a dung heap on top of a landfill.” I used the disabled toilet or the patio toilets from that point on. I should also note that the pub responded promptly to my review, and the second time we visited during our trip (the food was that good), the men’s room was MUCH improved — so thanks, guys.
We moved to the outdoor area for the trophy lift. Someone had been to the London Arsenal store and bought champions jerseys that several friends were wearing. It took seemingly forever before the ceremony, all the better to cheer and chat with fellow fans. I somehow got in the middle of the celebrations, which weren’t quite to my comfort level, but a terrific time was had by all.
Subdued crowd at the Irish Arms, but at least the food was good!
Champions League Final: PSG 1, Arsenal 1 (4–3 penalties)
The following Saturday found us in Lisdoonvarna, in the west of Ireland. We were spending the weekend with friends from Atlanta who happened to overlap with us. Marilynn and I took a bus from Galway to Lisdoonvarna, settling into our accommodation at the Rathbaun Hotel just before lunch.
I was looking for someplace to watch the match, but the options appeared limited. Yes, it was slightly before peak tourism season, but Lisdoonvarna seemed like a town that progress forgot. Many rooming houses were closed or didn’t serve people not staying there.
Locally processed cold salmon was especially tasty.
Fortunately, we had a great lunch at the Irish Arms, a short walk from our hotel. The cold, locally smoked salmon I had was delicious, and Marilynn liked her soup. I was wearing my jersey, of course, and the barman offered to reserve us a table for the match a few hours later.
Not surprisingly, the crowd was small — us and three ladies vacationing from London at another table and a handful of local blokes who huddled around the bar to watch the match. We did our best to urge the team on, but a second-half penalty and many missed chances led to extra time and then a penalty shoot-out that Arsenal lost. It was a disappointing end to the Champions League campaign, but a successful season overall.
Well, that’s 50 Euro, two hours and a couple of years off my life I won’t get back. Despite extensive domestic and international travel experience, I made the biggest blunder of my traveling life as Marilynn and I journeyed to Dublin for five weeks of study abroad (her), research (her), lounging around (me) and a week’s vacay in Scotland (both).
A jet-lagged me left my laptop bag at the bus rank at Dublin Airport, not realizing my error until I was about one-third of the way to our accommodations. Although not an official member of Marilynn’s study abroad trip, her co-director had journeyed a day earlier and most students were on our flight. Busses from the airport into town are often crowded, so Marilynn took roughly half the students while I waited for the next bus with the rest.
Between counting heads and holding onto my carry-on bag, I left my black laptop bag under the bench I was sitting on. Aside from the laptop, the bag contained my passport, British money, prescription medications and other items important enough or personal enough to keep with me instead of leaving them to baggage handlers.
As my mistake became clear, what little color remained in my cheeks drained in realization I needed to rely on the students to make their way into town while I retraced my steps. In my panic, I gave instructions on where to get off the bus to the person who’d never been out of the US before. It all worked out fine, but what was I thinking? That’s precisely the point — I wasn’t thinking straight after a sleepless overnight flight.
After exiting the bus at the next stop, I had to download an app to call a taxi, which arrived quickly. The driver definitely sympathized as we discussed the odds of me finding it. Fortunately, the driver deposited me near the bus rank where I was fairly certain I had left the bag.
But was my laptop bag still there? Did someone nefarious pick it up? Did someone turn it into the Garda, who were now pawing through it and looking at things they shouldn’t be looking at?
The bag was right where I left it, just under the edge of the bus bench, unnoticed by other harried passengers trying to get to wherever they were going. Although black bags look like other black bags, maybe that was an advantage for me, as a bright bag might have attracted unwanted attention.
Despite my palpable relief, I now had to get back into town. The local bus makes more than two dozen stops before it gets near the hotel, so I went to the taxi rank, which was quite crowded. The second driver wasn’t nearly as chatty as the first and spoke with a thick Dublin accent I couldn’t quite get my Southern ears to comprehend. I nodded apprehensively at whatever he said, although I was not quite sure what I was agreeing with. Hopefully I didn’t join a cult or agree that somebody important needed to be assassinated.
The important thing was that my laptop bag was back in my possession and that our next Irish adventure could begin.
At a time when for many people the objective truth is subject to personal opinion, our visit to three Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama, was like a breath of fresh air.
Conceived by Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, The Legacy Sites take an unflinching look at the effects of American slavery through the ages, from the kidnapping of millions from African countries and elsewhere, through decades of mistreatment and degradation, a brief reprieve from bondage following the Civil War, lynching, Jim Crow laws and desegregation to mass incarceration and harsh prison sentences for minorities.
These are not happy slaves learning a trade, as current thinking from some corners (wink, wink) would have you believe. This is an in-your-face examination of how whites have mistreated Blacks and other minorities through the ages and how that continues to this day. To this white guy, it prompted a stark realization that the status quo in today’s America is insufficient to make up for hundreds of years of abuse.
Quick Points to Ponder
What a way to spend a weekend, huh? It was a meaningful experience for me, Marilynn, and our friend Modupe, a museum curator and daughter of a Nigerian man and a Black woman.
Before getting into a description of The Legacy Sites, I must mention how they are set up for personal education and reflection.
(mostly) No pictures allowed. No one needs a selfie next to a sculpture of a slave in agony, scattered skulls across a mock ocean floor or a lighted shelf wall containing jars of dirt taken from where someone was lynched. The policy is for everyone’s benefit.
The price is right. Our total outlay for the three of us to visit the three sites? $5 a person for a multi-day visit. The Legacy Museum has an affordable on-site café, two associated dining options across the street, and a restaurant in the Elevation Convening Center and Hotel (also part of The Legacy Sites experience). These are outlets of popular restaurants, rather than institutional food vendors serving the same slop you get at a ballpark. I couldn’t get the idea of the Free at Last! cafe run by Aramark out of my head, a horrible idea that EJI thankfully didn’t succumb to.
Wonderful displays and exhibits. We were impressed by every exhibit, the depth and breadth of information, the point of view and the interpretation. As Marilynn noted, there was not a comma out of place anywhere.
Ease of access. It was off season and we had a car, but folks can park at the EJI boat launch along the Alabama River and take a boat to the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, then a shuttle between the other sites and back.
Freedom Monument Sculpture Park
We started at the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, a 17-acre outdoor sculpture park along the banks of the Alabama River. The afternoon was perfect, with nary a cloud in the sky. The path is mostly tree-lined, with plenty of space for reflection between installations.
The boat is the recommended mode of transport to the park, a reminder of how enslaved people were brought into Montgomery. Even after the importation of slaves was abolished in the United States, the internal slave trade remained robust, with 200 enslaved people arriving in the city each day in the 1850s to bolster the ranks needed to work cotton or to be sold elsewhere.
The location is particularly appropriate, on the river and next to the railroad tracks, electric transmission lines and heavy construction next door. It reminded me of areas where Blacks and other minorities were forced, during Jim Crow, into areas no one else thought habitable. It also was a reminder that slaves were trafficked using the most up-to-date technology of the time, steam boats and trains.
One of the many highlights is the new sculpture Hanging Tree, a 25-foot bronze tree suspended upside down over a shallow pit, designed by Charles Gaines. Every few minutes a motor kicks in, and the tree sways gently in the “breeze,” a haunting reminder of the horrors of lynching.
In addition to contemporary sculpture, the site includes two 170-year-old buildings where enslaved people lived, both during slavery and in the decades later when they magically became sharecropper cottages. Look closely, and you’ll see newspapers from the 1950s that were pasted on the walls for warmth.
The central feature is the towering National Monument to Freedom, which honors four million formerly enslaved Black people who won freedom after the Civil War. More than 100,000 names from the 1870 census are engraved on both sides of the monument, showing the names formerly enslaved people took. Often they took the name of their former captors.
At displays in the Visitors’ Center, you can look up surnames and see where people with a specific last name originated from. Although “Bolch” is an unusual name, there were five formerly enslaved people who took that surname, all from Catawba County, North Carolina. The county seat is Hickory, where my family can trace its roots. We emigrated from Germany in the 1750s and the timeline fits, so it’s a reasonable assumption that my forefathers kept slaves.
The Legacy Museum
The original 11,000-square-foot Legacy Museum opened in 2018 and quickly reached capacity 80% of the time before the pandemic. EJI used the pandemic disruption to reimagine the museum in a new location, reopening in 2021 in a 47,000-square-foot space in a former Lehman, Durr and Co. cotton warehouse along the Alabama River where enslaved people worked and were housed. If the “Lehman” in the warehouse name sounds familiar, what became the giant (and now bankrupt) financial services firm started as a dry good store and later a raw cotton dealer in Montgomery.
The museum is built to handle crowds. Visitors walk through a long hall designed to resemble a sea floor, with skulls along the sides to depict those whose bodies were tossed overboard during the perilous Atlantic crossing, probably victims of disease or malnourishment. A wide second hall presents the same information in each wall, with a central display. Then the museum opens out, allowing visitors to wander left or right at their leisure.
It’s difficult to discuss “highlights” at what’s basically a slavery museum, but the display of court cases either promoting desegregation and Black rights (few) and those restricting rights (lots) is especially telling. So is the well-lit, double-sided floor-to-ceiling display of large jars containing samples of dirt from spots where people have been lynched. EJI has documented more than 4,400 lynchings in the U.S. between Reconstruction and World War II. In the background, strains of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” can be heard. If you’ve never experienced this haunting sound about lynching, stop reading this and click on the link now.
Other highlights for me were the large display of signs barring Blacks, Indians, Puerto Ricans and other minorities from public accommodation; a poll test Black Americans were expected to pass that included correctly guessing the number of jelly beans in a glass jar; an interactive exhibit of prisoner stories; and the final gallery of contemporary art.
We spent the better part of a day at the museum, stopping for a sumptuous lunch at Pannie-George’s Kitchen, a meat-and-three restaurant on site. Visitors can leave and reenter, which makes the museum feel more accessible.
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice
TheNational Memorial for Peace and Justice, the country’s first comprehensive memorial to the more than 4,400 Blacks killed in racial terror lynchings between 1877 and 1950, was our final stop. The six-acre memorial visually represents the scale of death, with 800 corrosion-resistant steel panels that eerily resemble coffins hanging within the open air monument — one panel for each county where a lynching took place.
The memorial sits on a hilltop, and visitors approach the building on grade to view the panels straight on. Then, the path winds down to the bottom of the memorial, forcing visitors to look up at panel after panel. Interspersed on the walls are plaques that tell why a particular person was lynched. Perhaps it was for passing a note to a white woman or simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Off to one side are replicas of historic markers that towns have placed to remember lynchings in their communities.
While completing the circle pathway that surrounds the memorial, visitors pass a second set of markers, this time on the ground side by side. EJI hopes that counties that experienced lynchings will claim “their” marker and create their own memorial. No signage indicates how many (if any) panels have been claimed, but, judging from the sheer number we passed, I’m guessing that few counties have had the courage to do that.
New (and Free) Legacy Site Opens
EJI was putting the finishing touches on the new Montgomery Square when we visited. This site is devoted to the foundational role Montgomery played in the Civil Rights movement from 1955-1965. The mostly outdoor site is next to the Elevation Convening Center and Hotel and at the top of Montgomery Street, where thousands marched to conclude the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965.
Living Large Like F. Scott
Marilynn found a unique Airbnb for our visit: a suite in the house where F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald lived in Montgomery in 1931. They had met in Montgomery when Scott was in the service, and Zelda wanted to be near her ailing parents. Fitzgerald worked on ”Tender is the Night” during his time in the city, while Zelda started writing “Save Me the Waltz.”
The Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum is the only museum dedicated to the couple, who never actually owned a house. After they moved out, the house was divided into four units. Now, the Fitz, as the museum is colloquially called, comprises the ground floor, with the Scott Suite and the Zelda Suite upstairs.
It took an overnight trip to Chattanooga to see one of my favorite authors, Alix E. Harrow, promote her latest novel, “The Everlasting,” to make me realize that I’m a fanboy, pure and simple. There was no other reason for the trip: no business conference, client interaction or friends to visit. The trip consisted of a two-hour drive either way, a night in an Airbnb, a bento box at a local Japanese restaurant and being one of the few male faces in a crowd of about 150 people.
Why didn’t I realize this before?
You would have thought that flying to Washington, D.C. — twice — to see my favorite Radio Paradise artists Vienna Teng and Elbow perform would have been a huge clue. But hey, in D.C., we get to see friends and the occasional historic site.
Maybe staying up late on a Friday in New York after Marilynn gave a talk at Columbia University’s Irish Studies Seminar to see our favorite Irish band The Prodigals would have provided that spark of recognition. When Declan was small, we drove from Atlanta to Tampa to see The Prodigals, but the fanboy thing didn’t some up because we visited family. In other words, just part of a vacation. Same thing when we saw them in Chattanooga several years ago (Tennessee Aquarium) or drove four hours to see Mindy Smith at City Winery in Nashville (friends).
The biggest clue should have been last year when Marilynn and I interrupted a trip to Oxford, England, to travel to Birmingham overnight to see Elbow for the first time before returning to Oxford. You can read about that adventure here.
I can’t remember whether the fanboy recognition manifested itself while fighting rush-hour traffic in Chattanooga, trying to follow the accurate (yet confusing) directions to the flat or realizing that this could have been an out-and-back day trip. But it did.
In some ways, I guess we’re all fanboys (and fangirls, naturally), whether that be Irish literature (Marilynn), all things football (Declan) or favorite bands (and spas, definitely spas of both the clothed and textile-free kind — me). My family definitely are fans of travel, especially in Western Europe or visiting friends in Ireland, Northern Ireland, England and Scotland.
What gets you excited probably doesn’t work for me, and vice versa. And that’s perfectly fine — as long as what you’re into isn’t illegal and doesn’t impinge on the enjoyment of those around you. Despite the travel time and overnight nature of the visit, I’m glad I made the trip. It was nice to support an author I admire and get my book signed. When I told her about driving up from Atlanta, she inscribed my book “to the person who drove the greatest distance.”
Although I appreciate a well-planned trip, I’m particularly fond of those unexpected encounters that turn truly remarkable. And that’s what happened in Baden-Baden.
In between the relaxing spa visits, we had a fair amount of time to kill. Marilynn wanted to visit City Museum, located at the end of the Lichtentaler Allee Park, an expansive greenway that skirts the River Oos. While we were wending our way there, we passed Museum Frieder Burda, which was advertising a temporary exhibit by Richard Pousette-Dart.
Jon Pousette-Dart
I knew virtually nothing about the artist, except that his son, Jon, founded a rock band in the ‘70s, the aptly named Pousette-Dart Band. One of my siblings had their 1977 album “Amnesia,” and I still remember the lyrics to the title track and my other favorite “County Line.”
We finished up at City Museum, and I suggested we visit Frieder Burda to see the Pousette-Dart exhibition. I don’t like to waste money and tickets were 15 Euro each, but we took a chance. All I can say is, “Wow!”
The entire museum was given over to more than 140 pieces of his art, which is mainly abstract and impressionist. However, he was also an accomplished photographer, sculptor and metal worker. Pousette-Dart is mentioned in the same breath as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, fellow founders of the New York School that brought free abstraction to the forefront in the 1940s.
While you can see a few pictures here, his paintings have a depth and vibrancy that photographs cannot convey. I audibly gasped after turning a corner and glimpsing a gallery of black-and-white abstract art.
If you get a chance to see any of Richard Pousette-Dart’s art in person, go, just go. You will thank me.
About the museum: Frieder Burda was a German publisher and art collector who lived in Baden-Baden. The museum was designed by Richard Meier, who won a Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1984, the year after the Meier-designed High Museum in Atlanta opened. I knew immediately the designer was the same, because both museums feature circular, off-white ramps between floors.
Alsatian Cuisine and Cathedrals in Strasbourg
After Baden-Baden, we popped over to Strasbourg, France, for two days. I’m not sure whether it was the fourth week of our trip or the fact that it was nearing the end, but we didn’t do much in the city besides partake of the cuisine. Marilynn enjoyed her city tour, but I ducked out after about 10 minutes, preferring a nap to history.
But from my minimal history lesson, I did learn that Strasbourg Cathedral was the tallest building in the world for more than two centuries until a taller German church opened in 1874. The Great Pyramids long held the title, but the removal of the limestone casings at the top for other building projects over the millennia and inevitable erosion shortened the pyramids by 26 feet.
The cathedral is truly impressive both inside and out, although our free visit to the interior was cut short by a mid-day shutdown we didn’t anticipate.
Marilynn tells me that the region moved freely between French and German influence throughout the centuries, reflecting design features from both cultures, including half-timbered houses that would be totally at home in Bavaria.
But there was food, glorious food to consume. We particularly enjoy French pastry, so Marilynn hunted up breakfast at a local patisserie each morning, returning with a heaping bagful of flaky goodness that cost less than $10. Our hotel wanted 20 bucks a head for what I’m sure was an inferior meal.
Because of my onion allergy, I couldn’t partake fully in the Alsatian dining experience, although I did grow to enjoy a cold glass of Alsace pinot noir, the only red grape allowed to be grown in the region best-known for white wine varieties. At La Fignette, Marilynn had the beef bourgignon (made with local pinot noir), while I had a hamburger. We both enjoyed lunch at Le Troquet des Kneckes, part of a small chain of 10 bars, restaurants and a hotel(!) in Strasbourg. And I contented myself with a meat-and-cheese platter at a restaurant we found along the waterway.
Visit Mainz for Chagall Stained Glass
Georgia State University has reciprocal agreements or partnerships with 16 European universities, including Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany. Two of Marilynn’s colleagues were based at the university in the spring, so we added an overnight stay in Mainz, about a 30-minute train ride to Frankfurt, where we would fly back to Dublin before returning home.
Unfortunately, her colleagues were out of town when we visited. But we stayed one night anyway, mainly to trek to St. Stephen’s Church to glimpse the exquisite stained glass windows created by Marc Chagall, best known as a modernist painter. Those windows were, in a hyphenated word, breath-taking, as soft, blue light filtered into the sanctuary while afternoon gave way to early evening.
It was quite a hike to get there from our hotel, but definitely worth the effort. Another successful European odyssey complete, we were more than ready to get back to Atlanta.
“You know, this is the naked spa,” the German woman said to Marilynn and me in perfect English. While she probably spoke perfect English anyway, I like to think her flawless pronunciation was the result of having to remind dozens of tourists during each shift that the Friedrichsbad spa in Baden-Baden, Germany, is what they call “textile-free” every day except for Wednesday and Saturday.
The swimsuit option only became available last summer, because the Victorians bathed au naturel, just like God intended. There are no separate rooms (or days) for men and women. You drop 38 Euro for the privilege of dropping trou and getting your 17-station Roman-Irish bathing experience on. The apparent highlight is the soap and brush massage where someone soaps your body for 10 minutes. Those slots fill up quickly, though, and getting naked in front of other people was adventure enough for us.
And it was an experience that everyone should try, at least once.
Relaxation (and nudity) await at Friedrichsbad Spa.
Getting Beyond the Buff
During our first trip to Baden-Baden in 2023 with Declan, we enjoyed a fantastic, relaxing day out at Caracalla Spa, which shares ownership with Friedrichsbad. We knew the latter spa was “textile-free,” and there was no way we’d be doing that with our then 18-year-old. Because I’m a bit of a smart arse, I even made up my own German word for textile-free bathing: “donge-swingen.”
At that time, I said it wasn’t for me. But two years older and with no son in sight, Marilynn convinced me to give it a try. Although the naked part did take some getting used to, it was a truly relaxing experience, and I slept better that night than I had in a long time.
After paying for your experience, you don a plastic wristband that opens your locker and doff everything else. In your locker, you’ll find a “towel” that feels more like a white tablecloth and that could have encircled me twice. After an initial shower, you leave the tablecloth behind and get a pair of flip-flops to wear as you walk among the relaxation stations.
You don a plastic wristband that opens your locker and doff everything else.
In each room, you’ll see a sign that tells you how long you’re supposed to spend for maximum benefit. The recommended time for the whole circuit is three hours. Because the clock was far away and my eyesight is near, I should have brought the stopwatch I use to monitor my sauna time, which was back in our hotel room. You move from dry heat to wet heat: saunas, whirlpools, plunge pools, and something I called the “cold-as-hell frolic pool,” which is probably the closest to sea bathing I ever want to get. We did stay for the recommended time in that pool, though, splashing around to ward off hypothermia.
We did skip one of the last stations, a large room filled with what looked like massage tables, where we were supposed to stay, lying down, for 30 minutes. After a final shower, you get another tablecloth and the opportunity to lotion up (no kidding) before spending time in the reading room, where you can enjoy a hot beverage in a chaise lounge while perusing a very limited number of magazines, mainly in German. One guy (of course it was a guy!) didn’t get the memo to wear a tablecloth. Also of course, he was the one who walked back and forth several times getting successive cups of tea.
Caracalla Spa at night
Maybe ‘Donge-Swingen’ IS for Me
Even before writing this blog, I had already compiled a short list of pithy things I wanted to say, including that I saw more bush than in a botanical garden and more dong than you’d glimpse in a handbell choir. The reality, however, was very different. Because the recommended experience takes three hours, the spa halts entry three hours before closing. We got there 30 minutes before that time and experienced the spa with fewer than two dozen other people. The nudity thing became a non-issue by the time we entered the second room (apart from that dude in the reading room).
Quick side note: Designed in Renaissance style, the Friedrichsbad opened in 1877, as part of Baden-Baden’s effort to find a new tourism avenue to replace casino gambling, which had been outlawed in the country. The bathing style replicated that developed in the 1850s by a physician in County Cork, Ireland, for health and relaxation. Dr. Richard Barter opened the first such spa in 1856 near Blarney (and no, I didn’t make that up).
We book-ended our visit to the Friedrichsbad with visits to the fabulous Caracalla Spa next door, where you can enjoy the thermal baths wearing as many swimsuits as you’d like — except for upstairs. Because Caracalla’s textile-free areas are mainly saunas, which Marilynn doesn’t particularly enjoy, we kept our bathing suits on.
Our first week, in Ulster, was the prelude to the main event — two weeks in Dublin. For Marilynn, that meant going to the National Library of Ireland from 9-5 on weekdays (plus one Saturday morning) and conducting archival research on the Brian Friel play “Faith Healer.”
My days were filled with grocery shopping, occasional work, laundry, general housekeeping and finding a gym. The first gym I researched wanted 100 Euro for a month. The gym recommended by our host was in a hoity-toity hotel that made the 150 Euro offer they made me for two weeks sound like a great deal. On my own, I found a gym at a nearby Clayton Hotel, which features a clean and uncrowded five-lane pool, a steam room, sauna, whirlpool and a large gym with machine and free weights, exercise bikes and other workout gear.
For those over 55 (and yes, I qualify — barely, he says with a straight face), it was only 46 Euro a month. What’s more, that was prorated to the 5th of the month, so it was only 25. I went every day except for a particularly blustery Saturday morning, making my daily outlay less than I’d pay for a cup of tea.
All good trips in Dublin start with a train trip!
2.5 Degrees of Separation — Tops
But Marilynn’s work schedule still allowed for a bit of fun. On the first Sunday, we dropped our bags at our flat near Grand Canal Dock and hopped a train to Dún Laoghaire to see a Rough Magic/Gate Theatre production of “The Loved Ones” by Erica Murray.
While trying to find the theatre, we heard someone calling Marilynn’s name (it happens so often here, I’m no longer surprised). An American academic from a liberal arts school in Virginia had brought a Maymester class to see the show, which included a pre-show talk by the playwright and the director, and she recognized Marilynn. Of course, we were invited to the talk. After 25 years of visiting the island, I’ve learned that the 6 degrees of separation we’re familiar with in the U.S. is more like 2.5 degrees in Ireland, especially if you’re married to an Irish literature scholar.
We also caught up with Lynne Parker, co-founder and longtime artistic director of Rough Magic. She’s the niece of the late Belfast playwright Stewart Parker (Marilynn’s second book was a critical biography of him) and a great friend. In fact, she was the first person connected with Marilynn’s research I ever met, in spring 2000 in Washington, D.C., when Rough Magic brought a production of Parker’s “Pentecost” to the Kennedy Center.
Rough Magic is at the forefront of bringing new plays to the stage and mentoring emerging talent across theater disciplines. The company commissioned the play, and the director honed his skills with the company.
Dublin Castle
Dublin Castle, EPIC, and the Custom House
To be honest, we didn’t get out much, a combination of Marilynn’s work and our familiarity with Dublin. Most of the things we wanted to see we’ve already seen. We ate out more than we should have, especially at Yoi Ramen, a block from our flat. We also found a new local at Slattery’s, which serves beautiful pints amid a friendly, welcoming atmosphere.
On a dank Saturday afternoon, we toured Dublin Castle, first constructed in the 13th century and long the headquarters of English and British administration in Ireland. It’s not a castle in the traditional sense, but large public buildings that have been in constant use for centuries.
A guided tour grants access to the underground areas of the expansive building. The confluence of the Poddle and Liffey rivers formed Dubh Linn, or “black pool,” where Dublin later derived its name. The Poddle flows north to south, mainly underground, and was once part of an expansive moat that surrounded Dublin Castle.
One of the more famous employees of Dublin Castle was Bram Stoker, best known for his Gothic novel “Dracula.” His first published book, “The Duties of Clerks of the Petty Sessions of Ireland,” was based on his experiences as a civil servant there. Even he admitted that one was boring.
Visitors on the guided tour also see the Chapel Royal, a small Gothic Revival church opened in 1814 and designed by Francis Johnston, who also designed the General Post Office. Over its history, it has been both a Protestant and Catholic worship space, but it has been deconsecrated and now hosts community events and concerts.
The tour also visits the State Apartments, open to the public. Highlights include Saint Patrick’s Hall, where Ireland’s presidents are inaugurated, and the James Connolly Room, where the injured and near-death leader of the Irish rebellion in 1916 spent his last days (the building was a hospital then) before being taken to Kilmainham Gaol and executed.
I also visited EPIC, The Irish Emigration Museum founded by Neville Isdell, a former chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company – so it does have an Atlanta connection. The basic premise is that Irish people are everywhere.
Maybe it’s the extensive travel we’ve done in Ireland or the lack of actual exhibits, but EPIC doesn’t do it for me. However, I may be in the minority — the venue was supposedly rated Europe’s top tourist attraction between 2019-2021, and it has a 4.8 rating on Tripadvisor. I do appreciate that there are free public toilets in the center where EPIC is housed, however.
I also had a peek inside the Custom House Visitor Centre (top photo). At the time of our trip, tickets were free within 48 hours of visiting Dublin Castle or heavily discounted with a receipt from EPIC. If you’re an architecture buff, the Custom House should be near the top of your to-visit list. Designed by James Gandon in 1791, it served as the import/export portal for Dublin for over 100 years. The building was heavily damaged by fire in 1921 during the Irish War of Independence but later mostly rebuilt. Exhibits in the center encompass the building’s history and presentations related to the war of independence.
If time is limited, you can certainly glimpse the grandeur of the building for free. Pay close attention to the 14 figurines carved into the building’s keystones. They represent Ireland’s rivers. You can also see where the dome is differently colored from the rest of the building. The dome was rebuilt after the war, using local stone instead of the Portland stone used during initial construction.
Following the conclusion of the Dublin leg of our journey, our adventures next take us to Germany and France.
To Europe ... and Back 