Monthly Archives: March 2023

Posts from Base Camp

Great Music Trips

Leave a comment

(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

Near the end of 2014, I went on a “musical pilgrimage” to southern England. Based mostly in Cambridge and London, highlights included Paul Carrack in Southend-on-Sea, Jools Holland at the Royal Albert Hall, the London production of “The Commitments”, Los Pacaminos (featuring Paul Young) in a Putney pub, and a bunch of Beatles sights (including crossing Abbey Road, in the above photo).

It’s been a while since I’ve done a trip like that, although I still attend a lot of concerts. So, where would I go now?

The first place that comes to mind is South Africa. Regular readers of this blog will know that I saw (and met!) the late Johnny Clegg many times. Paul Simon’s “Graceland” album remains one of my all-time favourites. “The Indestructible Beat of Soweto” is a great compilation of music from South Africa. I really enjoyed seeing Ladysmith Black Mambazo when they came to Kingston. And Ladysmith Black Mambazo recently collaborated with South African Jeremy Loops on a fun single called “This Town”. It would be great to see this live, in the country where it was made.

I enjoyed seeing a small tango orchestra in Buenos Aires, Argentina. But since then, I have discovered the music of Bajofondo. The band members are from both Argentina and Uruguay. They use local music, such as tango, as a starting point…but take it in some very interesting modern directions. Since poor weather stopped me from getting to Uruguay, wouldn’t it be cool to see something like this in Montevideo?

But it is not necessary to go halfway across the world. There are some American artists who could form the basis for a fun musical trip. I have great respect for Jon Batiste from New Orleans, Louisiana: I was singing the praises of his “We Are” album even before it received a bunch of Grammy nominations. A trip to New Orleans could also include Trombone Shorty, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (who we recently saw in Kingston)…the list goes on.

I’ve already seen the Weeklings perform live…in Monmouth, New Jersey, of all places. However, they were so compelling that I’d love to see them again. Their cover versions (especially of Beatles songs) are amazing, but their original compositions are great too. And I recently discovered that they sometimes play live at Daryl’s House, in Pawling, New York. It’s a cozy venue, and is operated by none other than Daryl Hall (of Hall & Oates fame). Wouldn’t that be a fun part of a trip to New York City?

I shared some Weeklings videos in a music-related post from a couple of years ago…if you like the above two, you’ll probably find these ones even better.

And what about all those Canadian music trips I could do? Pagliaro in Montreal…trips like that could keep me occupied for years!

Posts from Base Camp

Travel Flashback: 1974 trip to Europe

Leave a comment

(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

I recently wrote about my 1983 trip to Hinton, Alberta, which was my first “independent” travel experience. Today, I’m going back even farther…to my 1974 trip to Europe with my parents. While I have some souvenirs from that trip, most of these pictures were taken on subsequent trips.

The front cover of our menu – April 1974 Swissair flight from Montreal to Zürich

Travel was different then. Even in economy class, there was an element of elegance and style. You had to wear your “Sunday best”. Check out the menu from our flight…you’d never see this much fuss about a meal in economy class now!

Pages two and three of the in-flight menu

My mother put together an album of our trip, so it is easy to recall exactly what happened. We flew from Montreal to Zürich on SwissAir flight SR161, a DC-10 that covered the distance in 7 hours and 10 minutes.

My grandfather’s chalet (straight ahead) in Weissenbach, Switzerland (August 2006)

For the Swiss part of our trip, we stayed mostly in my grandfather’s chalet. It is located in the quiet Simmental village of Weissenbach; my uncle still owns it today. I loved being in the mountains, even before I had ever tried downhill skiing.

Skiing above Zweisimmen (March 2018)

We also stayed in the nearby town of Zweisimmen, where I have been skiing on many occasions since then. From there, we drove up to the Bühlberg mountain restaurant above the village of Lenk…where I went skiing (see also the photo at the top of this post) with my cousin 44 years later!

My cousin and her family – at the summit of “Lavey” between Lenk and Adelboden, Switzerland (March 2018)

From Zweisimmen, it was on to Montreux on Lake Geneva. The climate was much milder here; it almost felt tropical compared to the mountains we had just left. From Montreux, we moved on to my uncle’s house in the Basel suburb of Riehen. Now owned by another cousin, I also stayed here in 2011 en route to a ski week in Wengen.

Benny, my uncle’s dachshund (May 1991)

We then left Switzerland and spent a couple of days in Frankfurt, (West) Germany. Once again, there was a family connection: we stayed with my mother’s cousin.

The beach at ‘s-Gravenzande, the Netherlands (August 2014)

The last couple of weeks of the trip were spent in the Netherlands. We made our way by train from Frankfurt to Hoek Van Holland (via Mainz and Köln). We then stayed at my aunt’s house in ‘s-Gravenzande…I stayed there many times over the years, and it was also the “base camp” for my extended 1991 backpacking trip through Europe. Although it is no longer in the family, I did take a picture of it in 2014 during my even-more-extended travel odyssey.

“Our” house on the Monsterseweg in ‘s-Gravenzande, the Netherlands (August 2014)

We visited Delft, Rotterdam, and The Hague, just like I did with my wife 40 years later in 2014. I really enjoyed a day trip to the Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam…one of the few “sights” that I haven’t returned to in the intervening 49 years.

Market Square in Delft, the Netherlands (August 2014)

A lasting impression was how great Dutch breakfasts could be. Of course, being not yet 6 years old, this assessment was based mostly on the ubiquitous availability of chocolate hagelslag (sprinkles) and chocolate vlokken (flakes). Actually, chocolate was a common theme on my childhood European trips. If I eat too much of it now, I can trace it back to those formative experiences!

Me and my friend, the skiing “Milka chocolate” cow (March 2020)

We flew back to Montreal from Amsterdam on KLM flight 0671. This time, the plane was a DC-8 and it wasn’t as comfortable as the outbound flight.

Maassluis, the Netherlands (two of my cousins live here) – August 2014

It would be another 5 years before we were able to return to Europe, despite all of our family connections there. My international travel, at least for a little while, would consist only of brief trips across the U.S. border to northern New York state. But European trips were major events, and my memories of the 1979 trip are much more vivid.