Dream Trip To Yukon and Alaska By Road, To Anywhere Else By Any Means At All
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Cliff Brody's Own ''Best and Worst'' List -- (Dream Travel Trip Anywhere; Yukon-Alaska Road Trip)
Top 10 Lists
My "Best and Worst" List...
... strictly limited to where I've been ...
... hardly a list of the world's best ...
... or worst!
| Most elegant hotels I've stayed at |
Dolder Grand, Zurich, Switzerland Savoy Hotel, London, England The Ahwahnee, Yosemite National Park Ritz Hotel, Paris Kempinski Hotel Baltschug Moscow |
| Hotels I've stayed at with the most awesome views |
Grand Canyon Lodge, North Rim, Grand Canyon National Park Grand Teton Lodge, Grand Teton National Park Holiday Inn, Beirut Lebanon (pre Civil War) Bryce Canyon Lodge, Bryce Canyon National Park Many Glaciers Lodge, Glacier National Park Sheraton Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Kempinski Hotel Baltschug Moscow, Russia Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming |
| Once-great hotels I've stayed at (that saw better days before I got there) |
Ashoka (Ashok) Hotel, New Delhi, India Paris Hotel, Prague, Czech Republic (it has been renovated since I was there!) |
| Most pleasant informal hotels (in the US) |
Big Meadows Lodge, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia Glacier Park Lodge, Glacier National Park, Montana Grand Teton Lodge, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming Earthsong Lodge near Denali National Park, Alaska |
| Hotel with nicest cuisine | Deer Lodge, Lake Louise, British Columbia (European-French) |
| My favorite restaurants | ----- in the US ----- Katz's Deli, Houston Street, Manhattan Higbee's Cafe, Sundance, Wyoming Lange's Cafe, Pipestone, Minnesota Ben & Jerry's, anywhere ----- in Europe ----- Chez Leon, Brussels, Belgium (mussels) Le Souffle, Paris, France La Coupole, Paris, France U Zlateho Tigra (oooh ZLAT-tay-ho TEE-grah; At the Golden Tiger's) beer pub in Prague, Czech Republic U Kocoura (oooh Koe-TZUR-ah; At the Cat's), beer pub in Prague, Czech Republic ----- and locally in Washington DC area ----- Pallisades Pizza, Washington DC (pizza, fried clams, steak subs) Otello, Washington DC (Italian) Five Guys, many locations metro area (fabulous hamburgers and fries) Maggiano's (a really comfortable place for American and Italian cuisine) Tastee Diner, Bethesda, (especially for a real diner breakfast) California Tortilla (local metro area chain), very informal tex-mex Cafe Belga, Capitol Hill (Belgian, Mussels! Beer! Chocolate Desserts!) Bistro Lepic, Georgetown (a real French bistro/wine bar) Georgetown Bagelry, Georgetown & Bethesda (best bagels going!) |
| Best milkshake west of the Mississippi |
Yellowstone Drugstore, Shoshoni, Wyoming |
| Best milkshake east of the Mississippi |
Open to any suggestions... |
| Worst hotel I ever stayed at |
Airport Hotel, Riga, Latvia (before it was rebuilt) |
| Worst airplane trip | Aeroflot between St Petersburg, Russia and Moscow (chickens, geese, the farmers, the mafia, and me) |
| Worst Over-The-Road trek | Tour from New Delhi to Taj Mahal via unairconditioned inter-city bus after train reservations fell through (although it WAS exciting watching the bus driver chasing away bandits who had blocked the road with tree limbs during our pitch-black night-time return to Delhi !!!) |
| Places I love the most to visit |
----- in the US ----- New York City, New York San Francisco, California Half Moon Bay, California Carmel and Big Sur, California Chincoteague Island, Virginia Chesterton, Maryland Sundance, Wyoming Appomattox Court House, Virginia Jefferson & Loncoln Memorials, The Mall, Washington DC (at night) ----- outside the US ----- Prague, Czech Republic Paris, France Chartres, France (cathedral) Florence, Italy Salzburg, Austria Traunkirchen, Traunsee, Austria Nurnburg, Germany (center city, Christmas market) Quebec City, Canada Grand Place (main town square), Brussels (at night) |
| Places that stopped me dead in my tracks |
Normandy Beach, France,at the Spring Equinox (March 21), when the tide is fully out and all the small craft and large ships left over from the D-Day landings (and sunk as jetties) emerge as eerie ghosts from the past Traunkirchen, Traunsee, Austria - unbelievably beautiful Carmel Beach at sunset, Carmel, California - ditto Prague, Czech Republic, at night, viewed from Hradcany Castle - ditto Paris, France, anywhere at night (especially at Alexander III bridge) - ditto Vietnam War Memorial, The Mall, Washington DC - as a reminder District of Columbia First World War Memorial, Mall, Washington DC - ditto World War II Memorial, The Mall, Washington DC - ditto |
| Most serene settings I've visited |
Chincoteague and Assateague Islands National Seashore and Wildlife Refuges, Virginia Carmel Beach, California (at sunset) Bryce Canyon (at sunrise) String Lake, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming Traunkirchen, Traunsee (Traun Lake), Austria Neustift, Stubaital, Austria Binic, Brittany, France Les Andelys (castle ruins on Seine, west of Paris, in moonlight) Parc National de l'ile Bonaventure et du Rocher Percé (Bonaventure Island and Pierced Rock Nat'l Park) Quebec, Canada Brugge / Bruges, Belgium The Cloisters, Upper Manhattan Vung Tau, Vietnam (during the war) |
| Longest single driving days | Washington DC to Fargo, ND, enroute to Arctic Circle Washington DC to Miami, Oklahoma (enroute to Santa Fe, New Mexico) Vienna, Austria to London, England (including car ferry) Paris to Marseilles (long before there was an all-autoroute way to get there) |
| Most scenic mountain roads I've driven |
Dachstein, in Austria Mount Washington Road, New Hampshire Pike's Peak in Colorado US 212 in Wyoming Skyline Drive/Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia & N Carolina Going To The Sun Highway, Glacier National Park |
| Scariest road I've ever driven |
Bien Hoa to Vung tau, Vietnam, during the war |
| Most national borders crossed in a single drive |
6 of them: Czech Republic-Austria-Germany-France-Belgium-Great Britain |
| Weirdest border crossing | Checkpoint Charlie, from West to East Berlin (way back when!) |
| Least amount of money I arrived with in a foreign city |
$6, in London (don't ask me why!) |
| Tightest airplane connection |
Geneva Airport - with help of airport control tower, both planes were stopped on runway so I could run from the arriving to departing aircraft (once again, don't ask me why!) |
