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THE GOLDEN AGE OF TRAVEL First published in 2019 in The Log The international publication of the Circumnavigators’ Club Most likely, most of the millions of passengers who struggle through long lines at the world’s busiest airports today have little idea of how good international travel used to be. This year marks an important milestone in aviation history, giving us an opportunity to take a look back at what was called the Golden Age of Flight. Exactly eighty years ago in June of 1939, a Boeing 314 PanAm airboat named the Yankee Clipper flew into history successfully completing the world’s first commercial trans-Atlantic flight. The round-trip fare was $685 or about $12,000 today, but passengers traveled the distance in unprecedented time and unparalleled luxury. The fact this historic flight took off at all is all the more remarkable considering that summer Europe was on the brink of WWII and America was still recovering from the Great Depression that defined the 1930s. But take off it did into the dawn of a new era. The two largely responsibleWe owe the world-shrinking achievement of international air travel to two men in particular. One was a tall lanky superstar who blazed headlines across the globe in the 1920s and whose name is permanently etched into the history of aviation. The other was an equally bold visionary of the industrial age but whose name today is all but forgotten. The first was the international toast of the town Charles Lindbergh who famously completed the first solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in May 1927. The other was a young entrepreneur named Juan Trippe, the son of a wealthy investment banker of Cuban heritage, who founded a company called Pan American Airlines just one month after Lindbergh’s triumph in June 1927. Lindbergh was 25, Trippe aged 28. Literally overnight, Lindbergh had achieved worldwide celebrity and was inundated with job offers, but Trippe wanted him on his team. He realized Lindbergh’s rock star status would attract investors and add luster to his new enterprise, and he needed the aviator’s extraordinary expertise. They met and immediately bonded, seeing each other as kindred spirits sharing a common vision for a burgeoning industry. They became lifelong friends and business partners propelling a fledgling business into a global phenomenon. Trippe’s initial idea was to focus on lucrative U.S. airmail contracts. He developed routes across open water using airboats that could take off and land almost anywhere there was a body of water. The company’s first scheduled flight left Key West carrying mail to Havana in the fall of that first year 1927. It was the first international flight by any U.S. airline. In the beginning, Trippe chartered marine aircraft from other small operators but eventually he began ordering his own from a brilliant Russian-born aircraft designer named Igor Sikorsky, later of helicopter fame. The Sikorsky S-series of flying boats known as clippers became the bedrock of Trippe’s fleet and brought the company its greatest fame. Given alluring names such as the China Clipper and the South Seas Clipper, they excited the imagination, inspired books, movies and iconic advertising. The earliest clippers could carry 20 passengers across 1,000 miles, but as PanAm’s amphibians became bigger and increasingly powerful, longer and longer routes were created by hopping between several fueling stops often located on remote islands. Interest in international travel exploded. Trippe realized he needed even bigger and better aircraft that could lift enough fuel to travel thousands of miles and a greater number of passengers to make his airline even more profitable. He turned to the Boeing Aircraft Corporation. Luxurious flying hotelsIt was the giant Boeing 314 clippers introduced in 1939 that saw the advent of trans-oceanic flights capable of carrying 74 passengers and 10 crew distances of up to 3,500 miles. This was impressive. Only 12 years after its first baby hop to Havana, PanAm could now offer globe-spanning strides. Underscoring the importance of this historic milestone, the first plane in the new fleet was named the Yankee Clipper by the President’s wife Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. The only tickets sold were first class and passengers were suitably pampered. They were sophisticated, wealthy elite who were ferried out to these double-deck behemoths on a tender or walked to them along a swaying jetty dressed in their Sunday best. Food and a fully stocked bar were available throughout the flight. Smoking, standing and strolling around the cabin was permitted. When settled, they were accommodated on comfortable couches in a series of lounges decorated in alternating colors. Even a honeymoon suiteAt night, they slipped between crisp sheets, couches were converted into beds and the lounges transformed into curtained, deluxe sleeper cabins. There were spacious dressing rooms and separate bathrooms for men and women. There was even a honeymoon suite toward the rear of the plane. Six-course dinners prepared by chefs from four-star hotels and delivered by white-coated stewards were served on the finest china. Clippper Club members enjoyed extremely personalized service and a very tony status. They were invited to members-only social occasions and even asked to join committees as consultants to PanAm department heads. Still, if you’re thinking you’d love to be transported back to this golden era, think what you’d be giving up: cheaper, faster flights for sure, but also on many long-distance flights these days we have ergonomically designed seats with adjustable headrests, and seat cushions that can prevent deep-vein thrombosis. We have power outlets to charge our devices, WiFi to keep us up to speed, and personal in-flight entertainment systems with touch screens and audio and video on-demand. Some airlines today now offer iPads giving us all of that in one hand-held device. The best PanAm could offer back then was a whirling projector and a set of canned movies. Cabin noise could be loud and noise-cancelling headsets were way in the future. Making history againIn 1934, an important VIP refused to deplane after landing on a TWA flight from Pittsburgh to Newark, declaring angrily to

BEHIND THE BAMBOO CURTAIN Ancient Treasures of China and the Yangtze River Mystery is what makes China one of the most alluring travel destinations in the world. For centuries, tales of a vast and distant land of fabulous riches, exotic customs and an ancient culture whispered across the deserts, plains and mountains along the Silk Road all the way to the Roman Empire. But few believed what they heard. Even centuries later when Europeans first read Marco Polo’s Travels, most dismissed his accounts as pure fantasy. But such stories were woven into the fabric of a mysterious allure that has persisted through the centuries to modern times. Now that the bamboo curtain has been drawn aside and a government more open to the West is stimulating sweeping change, the sights, sounds, myths and legends of China are attracting millions of visitors a year. Few are disappointed by what they find, but many are surprised. China has a rich culture older than that of ancient Egypt and classical Rome combined. Much of it remains and it doesn’t disappoint. But, China is a country of surprising paradoxes. On the one hand, are abject poverty, grime and squalor in rural villages more than 400 years old. On the other, are new airports, highways and cities of gleaming steel-and-glass towers housing luxury hotels, western-style shopping malls, international banks and corporations as dense as a forest. With a population of 13 million, almost twice that of New York City, Beijing alone has more than 2,700 high-rises and the number is climbing higher every month. Shanghai’s tally of towers is almost as great. Much of its spectacular Pudong business district didn’t exist 10 years ago as it rushes to rival Hong Kong as Asia’s commercial and financial epicenter. Soon, many rural villages will also fall under the bulldozers of progress but undoubtedly the people will remain rooted in their rich cultural heritage. In China, old customs, beliefs and superstitions die hard. Even the most urbane Chinese business leader will consult a feng shui specialist about the proper placement of a high-rise or use a cell phone to discuss strategic timing with a fortune-teller. Capitalism is in full bloom in a Communist country. One that still dictates that its citizens may have only one child, what occupation it will pursue, what may be watched on TV or what internet access may be allowed. Yet American icons are not only encouraged but also embraced. Enormously popular with Chinese children, there seems to be a KFC on every city corner, and when the first Macdonald’s opened in Xi’an recently, more than 50,000 meals were served the first day. Most of the major cities now have international hotels with fitness and business centers, and luxury rooms complete with computer ports and CNN; restaurants offering western as well as eastern cuisine; shops with friendly English-speaking staff, and taxi drivers adept at reading major destinations preprinted in Chinese and English on pocket cards provided by the hotels. Such aspects of modern China may surprise, but it’s the ancient treasures that lure most tourists, and they do not disappoint. They are spectacular. A classic itinery takes visitors to Beijing, founded by the Mongul Emperor Kublai Khan; to Xi’an, the site of the terracotta warriors; to Chongqing for a cruise down the Yangtze river through the spectacular Three Gorges; to cosmopolitan Shanghai on the South China Sea, and finally to dazzling and glamorous Hong Kong where west has long met east. Beijing Visitors arriving by air at the nation’s gateway capital are greeted by a ten-foot high, 200 foot-long mural depicting the Great Wall that dominates one side of the ultra-modern airport’s Immigration Hall. Symbolically, even today’s invasion of foreign hoards must pass beyond the greatest defensive barrier the world has ever known. Once beyond the wall, expect to be awed by a sleek, commercially booming metropolis that’s the modern world capital of a country larger than all of Europe and inhabited by one in five of the world’s population. Sights not to miss include Tiananmen Square, the largest in the world, and still the spiritual and political heart of the country where more than 500,000 Chinese spontaneously congregated last summer (2001) to celebrate their capital’s selection as the host city of the 2008 Olympiad. On one side of the square, beyond a moat, under imperial yellow roofs and behind 33-foot high vermilion walls is the fabulous 9,000-room fortress-palace known as the Forbidden City. Here 24 emperors ruled their universe for more than 600 years. Despite the teeming crowds, it’s still possible to find a quiet corner in the massive complex, stand in a secluded courtyard and imagine the smell of lotus blossom and the passing rustle of the silks of a Ming Dynasty official. Outside the city is the Great Wall sprawling across the mountains like a sleeping dragon. Begun 200 years before Christ walked the Holy Land, when completed it snaked for almost 4,000 miles across the country’s northern territories. Here too, it’s possible to stand on the massive wall’s gray terraces, listen to the brightly colored pennants snap in the breeze and imagine Mongol warriors just the other side of the craggy, green-clad hills. That is, if you can block out the legions of multinational tourists, and the incongruous European classical music blaring out of the antiquated PA system. Of course, there’s much, much more to see. Imperial parks, teahouses, pagodas, temples, the labyrinth of traditional dwellings and alleyways known as the Hutong district that can be toured by rickshaw, and the richly colorful song, dance and acrobatic art-form known to the world as the Beijing Opera. Shoppers shouldn’t miss the Hong Qiao market, a four-story complex in the heart of downtown, famed for its pearl dealers on the top floor well known to celebrities, film stars and the likes of former Presidents Carter and Clinton. Xi’an Although the ancient city of Xi’an served as China’s capital for more than 1,100 years and was the eastern terminus of the Silk

MOROCCO’S LEGENDARY LA MAMOUNIA HOTEL REOPENS, RAISING THE BAR ON PALATIAL LUXURY Since it first opened its doors in 1923, La Mamounia has maintained its position as one of the world’s most iconic hotels. After three years of renovations costing $176 million, Morocco’s legendary world-class hotel in the heart of the ancient imperial city of Marrakech opened its gates to the rich and famous once more on September 29. Enjoying a global reputation as one of the finest hotels in the world, La Mamounia has been a jet-set favorite since it opened in 1923. Built on the grounds of a palace and gardens that were a gift of a king 200 years ago to his son Prince Moulay Mamoun, this oasis of luxury has been a Mecca for the wealthy and well-connected for decades. Located at the foot of the snow-capped Atlas Mountains on the edge of the Sahara Desert, La Mamounia has attracted celebrities from Charlie Chaplin to Tom Cruise, Franklin Roosevelt to Jacques Chirac, and from Charles Aznavour to Elton John. Perhaps the hotel’s most remembered guest was Sir Winston Churchill who invited Franklin Roosevelt in 1943 to visit him in what he described as “the loveliest spot in the whole world.” Churchill was such a frequent visitor; a hotel bar and a suite are named after him. The Churchill Suite overlooks the gardens that Britain’s wartime Prime Minister so loved to paint. One of his unfinished paintings is displayed on an easel in these rooms along with the umbrella and hat he used to shade himself from the sun. Overseeing the renovations and preparations for the highly anticipated opening, the hotel’s Directeur-General Didier Piquot is a man whose name is synonymous with luxury property management. His resume includes executive experience at some of the world’s toniest hotels including The Pierre in New York, the Ritz in Paris and the Four Seasons, Bangkok. A slim and suave Frenchman speaking perfect English, Piquot described what guests can expect at the hotel today. “Three years ago, we auctioned off almost everything in the hotel and hired one of the best interior designers in the world to start all over.” The hotel hired Jacques Garcia, internationally renowned designer of numerous prestigious properties including the Parisian pied-a-terre of the Sultan of Brunei. His mission, Piquot said, was to “dazzle guests” with the latest technology blended with Moroccan style and ambiance. “We wanted the most advanced electronic innovations. But we also wanted Garcia to respect La Mamounia’s wonderful architectural heritage while at the same time reflecting the best of modern Morocco’s art and style,” Piquot continued. The latest technology includes computer ports in all rooms, of course, and large flat-screen TVs offering a particularly extensive selection of games, and TV and radio channels in multiple languages, including French and Arabic. Most lights are controlled by dimmer switches, which go on and off automatically as a guest enters or leaves a particular area. Local art has been incorporated into the overall décor. A collection of watercolors of Marrakech forms a gallery in the lobby where the centerpiece is a magnificent life-size marble sculpture of a desert lion attacking a camel and its turbaned rider.“We commissioned six famous photographers to shoot impressions of everyday Moroccan life then lined the corridors on six floors with their wonderful black and white photographs,” Piquot added. The hotel has 136 classic, superior and deluxe rooms, 71 suites, including five two-story Duplex Suites, seven Signature Suites, and three, three-bedroom, Moroccan-style “Riads” each with their own swimming pool and sun terrace. The hotel hired Jacques Garcia, internationally renowned designer of numerous prestigious properties including the Parisian pied-a-terre of the Sultan of Brunei. His mission, Piquot said, was to “dazzle guests” with the latest technology blended with Moroccan style and ambiance. “We wanted the most advanced electronic innovations. But we also wanted Garcia to respect La Mamounia’s wonderful architectural heritage while at the same time reflecting the best of modern Morocco’s art and style,” Piquot continued. With accommodations starting at over $1,000 a night, Didier Piquot knows his guests’ expectations are as high as the nearby mountains. “We’ve recruited some of the best talent available to oversee almost every aspect of the hotel,” he said. “Three of the chefs managing our four restaurants have two Michelin-star pedigrees and our tennis pro is Henri Leconte, the 1980s tennis star once ranked #5 in the world.” Piquot knows his guests demand privacy and discretion. He ensures access to the property is tightly guarded. Sightseers never make it to the lobby. No one can enter the hotel without a reservation. And getting a reservation, even for one of the restaurants, is about as tough as booking a trip on a flying carpet. Once inside, privacy and discretion are further assured. A system of silk drapes has been artfully designed for use in the lobby lounge and restaurants that can separate any table from others, creating a discrete, private enclosure for every guest who requires it. Individual staff members, universally young and polite, and dressed in elegant designer uniforms, serve the hotel’s signature dates and almond milk to each new arrival, while luggage magically disappears. Guests are then escorted on a private “orientation tour” taking in the five bars, four restaurants, two-storey spa, swimming pool, fitness pavilion and the eight-acre royal gardens. By the time guests arrive at their accommodations, they’re ready for the sugared cakes and iced champagne waiting there.  The staff member has memorized their names, personal likes and dislikes.  Soon the guests will be addressed by name by most of the staff for the remainder of their stay. Much has been updated at La Mamounia.  A purse of $176 million has bought one terrific facelift for this desert queen.  Her resulting fresh, good looks are as captivating as Cleopatra’s.  But some things have not changed.  Guests still feel they’re staying in a palace, pampered and waited upon like royalty.

ISLAND OF RAINBOWS Venice is a city built on a group of small islands, separated by picturesque serpentine canals linked by over 400 bridges.  Some of these islands are better known than others.  Many visitors make their way beyond the city center to the island of Murano, where in 1291 the city’s glassmakers were ordered to move their foundries to avoid the risk of fire in the then largely wooden city.  But few make it to one of the most rewarding spots in the entire Venetian lagoon: the island of Burano. The island is a 40-minute ride in a high-speed vaporetto from St. Mark’s Square. Zooming across the calm waters of the lagoon is an experience in itself. But a spectacular bonus is fabulous views of the iconic Venetian skyline from the water, seeing her as Marco Polo would have done centuries ago. Once you arrive at Burano, your eyes are dazzled by the bright rainbow of colors. Cottages lining the narrow streets, canals and squares are painted to conform to an ancient, mystifying color system that’s still enforced by the local government. If someone wishes to paint their home, they must send a request to the government, who will respond with a notice of the color permitted for that specific lot. The island is also famous for its lace-making. Lace made here in the traditional manner is extremely time-consuming and therefore expensive. But it is also of superb quality. So much so, when Leonardo da Vinci visited in 1481 he purchased a lace cloth for the main altar of the Duomo di Milano. Soon Burano lace was gracing altars of churches and cathedrals, and dining tables of stately homes across Europe. But eventually trade declined and did not revive until 1872 when a school of lacemaking was opened, which is still open here today. It’s an easy morning stroll around the flat, tiny island of quiet canals, shaded squares, wooden bridges and narrow streets, then it’s time for lunch at  the legendary Gatto Nero (Black Cat). Occupying most of the sidewalk adjacent to a narrow canal, you can believe its seafood couldn’t be fresher. Better still, a vaporetto will deliver you directly to its door or pick you up there to take you back to your hotel.

ASIA MINOR ENTERS THE MAJOR LEAGUES Known in earlier times as Anatolia and Asia Minor, Turkey is a land that has witnessed the rise and fall of so many great civilizations it has inherited a legacy of outstanding art and architecture that ranks among the foremost in the world. It’s been said there are more ancient buildings and monuments, ruins and excavations in Turkey than Greece and Italy combined. But that’s not all. Long neglected as a tourist destination, today the world is finding out there’s a wealth to see and do in a country as varied as its people. Here are some of the must-see highlights that explain why Turkey delights. IstanbulIt’s a city that assaults the senses. A city of dazzling sights, pungent smells and exotic sounds. Sights of richly colored mosaic patterns on harem walls. Smells of ginger and vanilla spices from Africa and the Orient. Sounds of high-pitched prayers from ancient minarets. It straddles the Bosphorus, one of the most strategically important bodies of water in the world, connecting Europe with Asia. The Romans called it Byzantium and made it the capital of their Empire. But they weren’t the only ones to leave their mark. There were others, such as Persians, Arabs and the Crusaders. Today, the city’s cobbled streets swelter under an intense summer sun and seethe with a population of 10 million Europeans, Asians, Muslims and Arabs dressed in garb and speaking languages as colorful and varied as their origin. It’s easy to imagine nothing much has changed through the ages. Known for a thousand years as Constantinople, this great center of religion and learning, power and wealth was an important stop along the Silk Road, the busiest port on the Mediterranean and the richest city in Christendom. Hunkered down behind massive impregnable walls punctured by fortified gates and strengthened by almost 200 towers, the ancient city prospered for centuries, withstanding wave after wave of assorted assaults until it was finally captured by Mehmet II in 1453 marking the beginning of the Ottoman Empire. Enough of the great fortress walls remain to still intimidate. But today the city’s skyline is dominated but the lumpy outlines of two architectural triumphs, the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia. The first is distinguished by its six towering minarets built by some of the same stonemasons who built the Taj Mahal. The second is rose pink, more than 1400 years old and ranks among the world’s greatest architectural achievements. Within these two awesome testaments of faith, mosaics and calligraphy have been elevated to a dazzling art form. Mosaics of meticulously crafted religious icons peer down from the walls between intricate designs formed by artistically scripted passages from the Koran. Nearby is the 15th century Topkapi Palace home to a glittering collection of priceless treasures amassed over almost 500 years by omnipotent sultans from throughout their far-flung empire. Here too is a labyrinth of brilliantly tiled corridors and chambers of the Harem that once accommodated the Herculean challenge of over 1,000 concubines. Down by the ferry boats, next to the faded facade of the terminus of the fabled Orient Express, are the covered alleyways of the 400-year old Spice Market. Aromatic powders have been sold here since the days when the precious cargo arrived in wooden ships from Egypt or by camel trains from the distant Orient. Not far away is the sprawling indoor maze of narrow streets and passages known as the Grand Bazaar, the ultimate destination for shopaholics where more than 5,000 shops, boutiques and stalls have been selling goods from around the world for more than 600 years. CappadociaIn central Turkey is one of the most remarkable landscapes on earth. Cappadocia’s draw is its valleys of hundreds of naturally-formed, tall, conical, rock outcrops known as peri bacalari or fairy chimneys. Early 4th century Christians fled from the Middle East to this remote and desolate region leaving scores of these outcrops carved into hidden chapels adorned with exquisite frescos. You can take an early-morning, hot-air balloon ride soaring above this bewitching landscape as the orange dawn streaks across the sky. There is evidence of early Christians below ground too. Around Keyseri are the remains of an entire underground city. Some believe there could be as many as 300 of these ancient honeycombed communities. Their narrow, waist-high subterranean passages connect dozens of rooms, kitchens, storehouses, wine cellars and even stables. Perhaps as many as 30,000 Christian fugitives are believed to have hidden hundreds of feet below ground in these claustrophobic caves, sometimes for as long as a year, to evade persecution by the Romans. Not far from Keyseri is the pretty, leafy town of Avanos, for centuries famed for its beautiful pottery and ceramics thrown, painted and glazed by hand, some by masters of the craft recognized worldwide. Visit the legendary studio of Kaya Seramik Evi. Many of the delicate, intricate designs found here are painstakingly reproduced from originals that adorn the Sultans’ palaces and the country’s most important mosques. Avanos is also famed for its soft-as-butter silk carpets, the most collectable of which have 900 knots to the inch and the maker’s name woven into the pattern. The Turquoise Coast and the Aegean The southern coast of Turkey is a craggy ribbon of sandy coves, inlets and bays of crystal-clear waters ideal for sailing, swimming and snorkeling. Now known as the Turquoise Coast, this Turkish Riviera of picturesque harbors and fishing villages teems with boats, para-sailors and sun worshipers by day and throbs to a disco beat by night. But behind this contemporary façade lies a much more ancient history. Brooding over the popular resort of Bodrum is one of the most impressive fortresses on the Mediterranean, the daunting castle built on a peninsular by the Knights of St. John to protect pilgrims on the way to the Holy Land. Nearby is Halicarnassus the site of the ancient tomb of King Mausoleus one of the seven wonders of the ancient world that gave us the word mausoleum but was torn down by the knights to build their castle. Today, traditional wooden boats known as gulets

WHAT HAS HOLES BUT STILL HOLDS WATER? It created one of the biggest industries of the 20th century and built what is today the most vibrant Greek community in the United States.What is it? A humble aquatic creature we call a sponge. And where’s that Greek community? Tarpon Springs, Florida, once a thriving capital of the world’s international sponge industry; today one of America’s most unusual, underrated travel destinations. Thousands of sponge species are found throughout the world in habitats ranging from shallow tropical seas to the deep polar abyss. However, it’s generally considered that the best and therefore most valuable are those from Florida waters, notably Key West, Apalachicola and Tarpon Springs. Sponges have been used since ancient times. There’s evidence they were used in the Bronze Age. Homer and Plato mentioned sponges used for bathing, and we know Roman centurions used them to line their helmets and to hold water or wine when they were on the march. It may be hard to believe today, but until the advent of synthetic materials about 100 years ago, a sea sponge could be found in virtually every home and business in the western hemisphere. They were used widely for personal hygiene, as packing material, for stuffing mattresses and upholstery, and for absorbing fluids during surgery since the Middle Ages. Greek island spongers were legendaryMost of these sponges came from the Greek islands of the Dodecanese, particularly Kalymnos, where sponges were harvested by men armed with a harpoon, plunging naked into the sea, holding their breath reportedly sometimes for as long as five minutes. This took skill and training that made the Greek islanders legendary and gave them a reputation that rang throughout the Mediterranean. However, although their fame was lasting, their livelihood was not. The supply of Mediterranean sponges collapsed in the late 1800s when the traditional sponge beds between Greece and North Africa suffered disease. So, with international demand remaining high, the search for the valuable sea creature moved elsewhere. They were found in the warm waters of Cuba, the Bahamas and Florida. About this time, a wealthy American entrepreneur named Hamilton Disston bought four million acres of the central west coast of Florida in 1880 for 25 cents an acre. His purchase included a small fishing village on the Gulf called Tarpon Springs, named for the abundant fish seen leaping from the waters offshore. It had a population of about 50 residents.   When the railroad came to town Four years later, the railroad came to town and a depot was built to accommodate passengers and freight.  Soon, largely though Disston’s efforts, Tarpon Springs grew to become an exclusive winter resort for wealthy Northerners. But in 1887, one of Disston’s employees named John Cheyney changed Tarpon Springs forever.  He discovered money could be made by harvesting the sponges growing offshore and launched the town’s first sponge fishing boat.  Three years later, sales by the Cheyney Sponge Company exceeded one million dollars. Along the way, Cheyney met a recent Greek immigrant named John Corcoris, a sponge buyer for a New York firm.  Cheyney was so impressed by the buyer’s knowledge of the industry, he hired him to develop his burgeoning enterprise. Corcoris encouraged Cheyney to recruit experienced spongers from the Greek islands.  At first, a few adventurous young Greeks arrived, then their friends, sweethearts, wives and children followed. By 1905, over 500 Greek sponge divers were working 50 boats. Sponge boats sailed out for about a month at a time.  Each boat carried several small dinghies.  A pair of men worked each dinghy with one man rowing while the other looked for sponges using a glass viewing box pressed against the surface of the water.  When sponges were spotted, they were pulled up with a long-handled hook. Then new diving technology arrived.  Wearing a brass helmet, diving suit, and a weighted belt, divers could walk along the sea floor using a long air tube connected to the sponge boat above.  Now they could go deeper, for longer, and harvest more.   Bigger than the citrus and tourism industries Over the next 30 years, Florida’s sponge industry became bigger even than the citrus industry or tourism.  In time, more than 100,000 Greeks made their home in the Gulf coast community; immigrants who brought with them their culture, food, music, and religion, recreating a rich and lively Mediterranean community. But in the 1940s, a blight in the Florida sponge fishing grounds and the introduction of synthetic sponges caused the demand for real sponges to plummet.  By the 1950s, the boom was almost over.  Decades later, new sponge beds were found, but by then times had changed. Today, a handful of sponge boats still leave the docks daily, but now, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Tarpon Springs is renowned mostly for its rich Greek heritage.  One in ten residents claim Greek descent.  More than seven percent speak Greek at home.  The high school’s sports teams are nicknamed the Spongers. Visitors can tour charming Victorian neighborhoods or stroll along the brick streets of the Historic District, browse through a sponge museum, art galleries, antique stores, and specialty shops housed in buildings over200 years old. Along the main street, appropriately named Dodecanese Boulevard, boutiques painted with the Greek colors of light blue and white, sell real sea sponges, handmade soaps, clothing and nick-nacks. Tangy aromas lure tourists todayDown some side streets, you may still hear men in cafés boisterously chatting in Greek, playing cards and enjoying a bottle of tangy retsina wine. Along others, Greek restaurants and bakeries offer authentic Greek specialties often prepared by the descendants of the original Greek families. The tangy aromas of souvlaki, garlic lamb and baked chicken, mingling with the honey scent of baklava, lure tourists from far and wide. “We have 125 businesses, 25 restaurants, and I don’t know how many bakeries,” said George Billiris, whose family settled in Tarpon Springs in 1904. His grandfather, father and uncle helped build the sponge industry. Now

MY NIGHT WITH A LEGENDARY LADY I knew all about her, even before I met her. The Venice-Simplon Orient Express is synonymous with elegance, luxury, romance and mystery. Just reading her name conjures images of Puttin’ on the Ritz: suave men in double-breasted smoking jackets, and glamorous women draped in ropes of pearls, gliding across Europe in Art Deco luxury while sipping champagne cocktails. She’s not just a train. She’s a legend, made famous by Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, movies, TV shows, documentaries, and games and puzzles. She was and is a thrill to be experienced, not so much for where she takes you but for how she gets you there, in a style that was once the epitome of trans-continental luxury. Even now, sitting in the piano bar surrounded by guests in black tie listening to the rush of crushed ice sliding into a chilled martini glass, its easy to imagine Hercule Poirot somewhere nearby. All thanks to an American entrepreneur. Kentucky businessman James Sherwood bought two cars, originally owned and operated by the Compagnie International des Wagons-Lits, at auction in 1977. Over the next few years, Sherwood spent$10 million buying 35 more sleeping cars, restaurant, and Pullman carriages to complete an entire train. Restored to their full glory, the distinctive dark blue-and-gold cars are now owned by luxury travel operators Belmond of London who own many other historic, luxury properties around the world. Today, our journey begins at a dedicated reception area on Platform 2 at London’s Victoria station where we gather for identification and processing of luggage, most of which we will not see again until Italy. We’ve been warned only a small carry-on bag each can travel with us. A tricky challenge when packing for a two-day overnight trip including recommended dinner dress. The first leg of our journey is from London to Folkstone on another legend, the chocolate-and-cream British Pullman once known as The Brighton Belle, also ranked among the top 25 trains in the world. Settling down for our morning run south to the coast, we roll smoothly past the lush green pastures and hedgerows of Southern England while being served a light brunch paired with traditional Bellinis (peach juice and champagne cocktails) by smart, white-gloved attendants. In days past, a crossing from Britain to “the Continent” would have been by ferryboat across often blustery open water. We transferred by luxury coach to Le Shuttle, a 35-minute glide through the Eurotunnel to Calais, France. And there was our first sight of the glamorous movie star herself looking spectacular decked out in her finest, sparkling in the afternoon sun. Uniformed attendants posed obligingly in front of her famous features while dozens of cameras, cell phones and iPads took advantage of this staged photo op. Somewhere nearby a brass band played. We find our cabin, decorated with colored lacquered inlaid woods and polished brass fixtures. It beautifully evoked belle epoch elegance, but, equally true to the period, the cabin seemed a little cramped by modern standards. Here was a bench seat for two, not much more than a knee’s length from a small washbasin artfully hidden in a corner cupboard, a narrow luggage rack above, and a tiny drop-leaf table at the window. No sign of a bed. We learned the toilet was at the end of the corridor. But, should that trip become necessary during the night, fluffy black robes and chic black slippers embroidered in gold with the train’s logo had been thoughtfully provided. But now it was time to change into dinner dress. Imagine two people dancing a tango in a phone booth on wheels, and you’ll get the idea. But no one complains. After all, we’re on the Orient Express about to enjoy the highlight of the trip: A Michelin-star, four-course dinner impeccably served in sumptuous surroundings. We enter the romantically lit dining car passing through a high-end souvenir boutique and a champagne bar where bottles chill in heavily carved Lalique ice buckets. In the dining car of honey-colored inlaid wood, deeply upholstered armchairs wait invitingly beside tables draped with starched linens and set with sparling crystal and brightly polished silver, monogramed flatware. Most guests are in formal dress. In the crowded bar after dinner, a French piano player entertained into the small hours playing tunes from the 20s, 30s and 40s when no one was around but everyone knew from somewhere, sometime. Back in our cabin, we discovered a small miracle. Our bench seat had been converted into two bunks, one above the other reached by an slender brass ladder with red velvet-covered rungs. We slumbered peacefully through eastern France and northern Switzerland, waking east of Zurich to a breakfast landscape of tumbling waterfalls, soaring, snow-capped mountain peaks and panoramic lake views. By late morning, we were through the depths of the Gotthard Tunnel admiring the craggy, terra-cotta villages of northern Italy, and by afternoon tea were down from the hills and sweeping across the verdant landscape of the Veneto plains toward the Adriatic. Just before 6:00pm we rumbled across the lagoon’s causeway into Venice-Santa Lucia station perched right at the water’s edge of the western end of the Grand Canal. The setting could not have been more appropriate. We’d arrived in a time capsule in a city where time has stood still.  

JOSEPH CALLEJA’s 25th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT A group of us from Naples, Florida traveled to the Mediterranean island of Malta in July to hear a one-night-only concert featuring two of the world’s most celebrated tenors performing in one of the island’s most historic venues, the open courtyard of the spectacular Fort Manoel built by the Knights of St. John in the 18th century. The concert was Joseph Calleja’s 25th Anniversary concert, a dazzling sound, light and firework show of classic and contemporary favorites featuring the Maltese tenor joined by his longtime friend Placido Domingo and the silky voices of Italian-American soprano Jeanette Vecchione-Donatti, and mezzo-sopranos Marvic Monreal and Laetita Grimaldi Spitzer. When we arrived in a jostling crowd of three thousand others to take our seats for the sellout performance, we found someone had taken my seat. I was about to dislodge the squatter when fortunately, the concert’s conductor, Ramon Tebar, who I knew as Artistic Director for Opera Naples, saw what was happening and invited me to listen to the show from backstage. I jumped at the chance. Once there, I saw maestro Domingo sitting in his makeshift dressing room quietly waiting to go on, running through the program in his mind beating time with his hands on his knees. Occasionally, a curtain, separating him from me and any other unwanted onlookers, swung open teasingly in the gentle breeze. I watched and waited patiently until the breeze lifted the curtain aside just wide enough for me to snap this atmospheric shot unobtrusively.

A BUS DRIVER PHILANTHROPIST I was touring the great open spaces of the American west, sitting on an almost empty tour bus in the middle of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Everyone had got off the bus for a nature break leaving me alone with the driver, a quiet unassuming man named Bill Green. So far into the trip, Bill hadn’t said much to any of us, concentrating as he was on driving the sometimes precipitous, often serpentine roads of the American Rockies. But now that we were just the two of us, I struck up a conversation by asking him where he liked to go on vacation when he wasn’t driving around a busload of tourists. “The Philippines,” he answered, surprising me. “Manilla?” I asked, naming the capital, which was about all I knew of the southeast Asian archipelago of Pacific islands. “No,” he answered, “northeast of there. A little offshore island called Siarago.”He could see I’d never heard of it, so he added,” It’s very popular with surfers.”He told me 20 years ago he’d built a home on a remote beach on the island for about $1,000, quickly explaining how money went a long way over there and even farther back then. I asked him how he got along with the locals after all this time. “Oh, I’m pretty much part of the community now,” he said proudly. I get invited to weddings, christenings …. all the big local events. “Soon after my house was finished,” he went on, “a very pregnant young woman came walking along the beach to see me. She told me she already had five children and couldn’t bear the thought of having another one. Would I take the baby she was carrying? She pleaded with me. I guess I promised I would, and when the baby was born, I did.” He pulled out his cellphone to show me a photo of a smiling and attractive young woman posing on a beach. “Her name is Nice,” he said proudly. “She’s 19 now.” “Wow!” I said, stunned. But then thinking of all the practicalities, I asked, “How did you manage to raise her when your work is over here most of the time?” “I have a housekeeper,” he said. “But the community is very small, very close-knit and nurturing. We pull together.” As if to emphasize the point, he dropped another revelation: “I put the local doctor through school, as well as two nurses. And I give to three different churches.” Now I was totally amazed. “How do you manage all that?” I asked.“I do it all on the tips I get from driving this bus. Like I said, a little goes a long way over there.” We chatted a little more about the people, the community, and how it’s changing. The little island is now one of the top surfing destinations in the world. The Philippines Department of Tourism intends to promote this further. It’s currently working with Australia’s Academy of Surfing to help ensure high standards of surfing instruction and enforce strict safety protocols. Meanwhile, Bill’s once peaceful surfside haven, built for $1,000 twenty years ago, is appreciating in value. He told me a big hotel is going up just along the beach from him. He estimates his home is now worth around one million dollars.

TWO WOMEN “MAKING A LITTLE NOISE” Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda Gloria Steinem, born March 25, 1934, is an American journalist and social political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader and spokesperson for the American feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She was a columnist for New York magazine and founded of Ms. Magazine. She was married briefly to South African Entrepreneur David Bale, father of the actor Christian Bale. In the 1960s and 70s, IBM was largely known as a provider of large-scale business systems. Its U.S. print advertising was primarily placed in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and magazines like Businessweek and Forbes, targeted at mostly male business leaders and decision makers. Its TV advertising dollars were spent advertising during landmark sporting events, like the USTA Open or the Super Bowl, and sponsoring occasional high profile TV specials like A Christmas Carol to enhance its good corporate citizen image. The Advent of Personal ComputingIn the 1980s, computers begun to get smaller, more portable, and more affordable for the average consumer. In August 1981, the company announced its ground-breaking IBM Personal Computer, which heralded the beginning of computer power in the hands of the everyman and became the design standard for the majority of microcomputers in the world today. For the first time, IBM’s advertising strategy began to be aimed toward reaching a wider public. Around this time, I was assigned to working in IBM’s global headquarters in Armonk, New York, responsible for corporate print advertising worldwide. I met with dozens of media representatives to get a better understanding of how I could reach these new consumers most cost effectively, and began to convince my traditional hierarchy of the value of placing ads in next-generation publications such as the then recently launched People magazine, Savvy, and Ms magazine, the latter co-owned and edited by Gloria Steinem. I first met Gloria Steinem in my office. At the end of a hurried meeting, she invited me to have a further conversation with her over dinner, and invited Paula and me to join her at Le Cirque, the elegant, upscale restaurant in Manhattan now closed, but then considered one of the finest in the world and a well-known celebrity haunt. The evening of our visit, Warren Beatty and his wife Annette Bening, were sitting at a corner table having a quiet tête-a-tête, while another movie star sat at a table close to ours surrounded by several beautiful teenage groupies. It was that kind of place. A Swing of the PendulumAt one point in the conversation, I congratulated Gloria on all that she had achieved as a feminist advocate. However, I said, I felt compelled to point out her success had come at a price: a behavioral change between the sexes. Men seldom stood any more to give up their seat to a woman on a crowded bus or train. They’re rarely seen helping a woman place heavy luggage in an overhead rack, holding her coat, or opening a door, as once had been commonplace. “And the loss of these old-world courtesies isn’t a one-sided thing either,” I added. “If I open a door for a woman these days, they either look at me askance or breeze past me without so much as a ‘thank you,’ and that’s discouraging. It’s not surprising men stopped displaying common courtesies because when they do, women often ignore the gesture or take it for granted. Mutual respect for one another seems to have gone out of the window, and I think, that’s thanks to the push for equal opportunity.” To my surprise, she agreed. “You’re right,” she said, “the pendulum, has swung too far the other way. All I wanted was for women to be treated as equals and paid accordingly. But, look at companies like yours…. In your scramble to be regarded as a leading equal opportunity employer, you’re rushing to promote women into positions in which they’re ill-equipped to succeed. In fact, unprepared for the role, they’re almost destined to fail. And that failure helps reinforce the belief that women aren’t up to the job and they’re not as good or as valuable as men.” She paused, then added, “But, don’t misunderstand me, your company is ahead of the curve.” I wasn’t going to argue with her and I wasn’t persuaded to advertise in her magazine either, but I did learn that her co-publisher was Jane Fonda another vocal feminist and a superstar I had long admired. Agnes of GodI readily accepted when Gloria ended our meeting by inviting Paula and me to an upcoming preview of the movie Agnes of God at the Rosewood Theater, starring Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft, and Meg Tilly. The movie is the story of Sister Agnes, a naive young novice in a Roman Catholic convent (Tilly), who is found in her room covered in blood with a strangled newborn lying dead in a basket beside her. Agnes tells the convent’s Mother Superior (Bancroft), she’d experienced a virginal conception and had been impregnated by God. When she’s accused of murdering the child, a court-appointed psychiatrist (Fonda) is brought in to investigate and determine if Agnes is insane. Following the show, we joined the cast and crew for a post-movie dinner in a nearby restaurant. Soon after we’d sat down, I spotted Meg Tilly at a nearby table and got up to go over and congratulate her. She was age 25 at the time and two years into her first marriage to American movie producer Tim Zinnemann. She had two more brief marriages ahead of her plus, most famously, a relatively long-term partnership with British actor Colin Firth. Tonight, she was seated at a large table with a bunch of friends having a full-on celebration. She’s not particularly attractive as movie stars go, but she does have a smoldering sexuality on and off the screen that quickly generates chemistry. I felt it immediately when her warm, dark eyes looked up at me