Boulder’s Chautauqua Park: more than just hiking and climbing

by Laurel Miller on

The Chautauqua Movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries provided millions of Americans with cultural, educational, and entertainment experiences that included concerts, classes, lectures, and exhibitions. It was, to quote Teddy Roosevelt, “The most American thing in America.” Ask most Americans today what a Chautauqua is, and odds are, you’ll get a blank stare.

Until recently, I too would have had that deer-in-the-headlights expression. I’m ashamed to say that although I lived in Boulder for nearly two years, I had no idea that Chautauqua Park was anything more than just an exceptional place to hike, with some cool historic buildings thrown in. Thankfully, while in Boulder on business last month, I displayed the instinctive intellectual curiosity I possess when I’m in travel mode. Thus, I discovered that the city’s–and my–favorite recreational spot is far greater than the sum of its parts.

The first “Mother” Chautauqua was organized by a Methodist minister, at a campsite on New York’s Chautauqua Lake in 1874. By the end of the first World War, 12,000 Chautauquas were in the U.S.. Many had religious leanings, but Chautauquas were primarily educational adult or family summer camps, fostering a sense of community and culture.

The 40-acre Colorado Chautauqua in Boulder opened on July 4, 1898 as a summer retreat. Today, according to the website, it’s one of three remaining Chautauquas in the U.S., and the only site west of the Mississippi River in continuous operation, with its original structures intact. It became a National Historic Landmark in 2006.

%Gallery-129131%The Colorado Chautauqua (locals just call it “Chautauqua”) includes 60 guest cottages and two lodges for nightly or long term rental; a dining hall and auditorium; 48 miles of mountain biking and hiking trails; climbing routes and bouldering spots, and 8000 acres of open space. The “Green” located at the entrance was Boulder’s first city park.

In 2008, the Colorado Chautauqua Association vowed to make the grounds the country’s “greenest” National Historic Landmark. Changes in operation include water and energy conservation, and expanding methods of diverting waste from landfills. Even the (adorable) cottages have recycling bins, water-saving shower heads, faucets, and toilets, eco-friendly soaps and hair products, and alternative cooling systems.

Chautauqua hosts public events at reasonable fees year-round, including music, theater, dance, film, forums on everything from global warming to sustainable farming, outdoor “active” plays for children and family, and the Colorado Music Festival. It’s also immensely popular for weddings and other outdoor gatherings (which must be booked through the Chautauqua).

Even if you skip the events, I recommend a pre-hike, al fresco breakfast or brunch, or a post-hike (local, craft-brewed) beer at the Dining Hall, which has been in existence since 1898. It’s not where you’ll find the best meal in town, but the wrap-around porch offers stellar views, and it’s an ideal place to absorb the essence of Boulder life. The Dining Hall offers classic American cuisine, and is also open for lunch and dinner; reservations strongly recommended.

Sadly, the Chautauqua Movement lost its mojo as we became a more urbanized and technologically advanced society. Why go to the Chautauqua when you can play “Angry Birds” or see what those crazy Kardashians are up to? And that’s exactly why I was so affected by what I learned in Boulder last month. I used to live less than two miles from this remarkable monument to American history. Yet I was too self-absorbed and distracted at the time to be curious about its roots, despite hiking there on a weekly basis. Sometimes, we need to put down the toys, be in the moment, and really take note of our surroundings. And that’s what the Chautauqua Movement was all about. May it one day thrive again.

If you’d like to support the revival of the Chautauqua Movement, go to this new site launched by the Chautauqua Network: Chautauqua Trail.

Missing plane found 71 years after it disappeared

by Kraig Becker on

A Royal Canadian Air Force plane, missing since 1940, has been found at the bottom of a lake, ending a 71-year old mystery regarding the final resting place of the aircraft and its crew. The plane was lost on Dec. 13, 1940, but was recently discovered by a group dedicated to finding missing airplanes, who used sophisticated radar to guide divers to the site.

On December 12th, 1940, another RAF plane went down near Lake Muskoka in Ontario, Canada, due to a raging blizzard. The next day, two Northrop A-17A Nomads, carrying two man crews, were scrambled to search for the missing plane. With the weather and visibility still poor, the two Nomads had a mid-air collision, sending them both crashing into the lake. One of those aircraft was recovered a few weeks later, but the other, along with her crew, were never seen again.

Last fall, Matt Fairbrass, President of Lost Airmen in Muskoka Project, made it a priority to find the missing aircraft. He and a friend discovered that a family living on the lake at the time had witnessed the two Nomads collide and were able to give them a general idea of where the plane went down. Fairbrass says he spent “hundreds of hours” searching for the airplane, and using side-scan sonar, he was able to narrow its final resting spot down to three possible locations. Divers from the local underwater search and rescue team were able to take it from there.

When the plane went down it was carrying two pilots – Canadian Ted Bates and Brit Peter Campbell. The families of the two men were left to wonder what became of them and after more than seven decades, this discovery has brought those families a measure of closure. Bates’ younger brother Tom, now age 84, says he’s “glad they found the plane,” adding “My parents thought about it often.”

The Nomad was a big, yet versatile plane, that was commonly used early in World War II. The plane had a wingspan of nearly 48 feet and was primarily used as an attack bomber until retired from service in 1944. Finding one is seen as a rare event amongst aircraft enthusiasts. For Matt Fairbrass however, he’s just happy to recover the airmen who sacrificed themselves for the good of their country.

Five Belgian chocolate statues and their inspirations

by Tom Johansmeyer on

When you wander through Europe, you run into statues (literally, if you have your nose stuck in your guidebook). There are lots of ’em, and they’re all old. Some are incredibly impressive: I still have a soft spot, of sorts, for Venus de Milo. Others, however, are utterly forgettable – vast collections of stone or metal that are important while falling short of stunning.

Visit Bruges, Belgium, and the rules change entirely.

Sure, there are plenty of statues, including a piece by Michaelangelo that somehow found its way out of Italy (this doesn’t happen much, to be honest). The interesting stuff isn’t sitting in churches or etched from stone. Rather, it’s built from a distinctly Belgian medium: chocolate.

I’m not joking.

Spend a few minutes in Belgium, and you’ll be bombarded by the sweet stuff (you’ll even be encouraged to stick some up your nose). There’s chocolate everywhere, and as I saw shortly after I hit the ground in Bruges, it’s even on display.

The local chocolate museum, Choco-Story, is home to quite a few of them – unsurprising, really, given that the propaganda exhibition museum has the tools and expertise necessary to make it happen. There are a few more elsewhere in the city, though, and you should keep an eye out for unique, interesting and tasty creations all over the cute little city.

Below, you’ll find five interesting chocolate creations, along with some guesses at what may have inspired them. In some cases, it’s a straight line from the real world to chocolate equivalent, but I will admit I stretched plausibility in a few places. Ultimately, the extent to which I may have fudged is up to you!

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War and Travel: the Dubrovnik Gallery You Can’t Afford to Miss

by David Farley on
A Muslim man, on his knees, his hands up, his face creased with fear, kneels on the street, as firearm-brandishing Serb militiamen approach from behind. He has no idea what’s in store for him. And for the viewer of this arresting photograph, we never know the outcome of the event, though we might be able to guess.

Most people don’t go to Dubrovnik for reminders of the conflict that took place in the Balkans in the 1990s, or to remember the 1991 shelling of this walled gem of a southern Dalmatian town (the town has been so spruced up since then, only a keen eye might be able to spot scars of the conflict). In fact, the last time I was in this seaside Croatian town, the streets were filled with happy tourists, many of whom had just stumbled off cruise ships (much to the annoyance of the business-owning locals who claim cruisers never spend any money there).


But Wade Goddard, former war correspondent, has been on a mission to get tourists to think about the nature of war and what makes, as he put it, a guy pick up a gun and go shoot his neighbor. Goddard is the director and co-founder of the riveting War Photo Limited, a photo gallery in the center of Dubrovnik dedicated to war photography. It was in this space where I saw the photo described above and it (along with the entire permanent exhibition) changed the way I thought of travel a little. This is war and travel, the gallery you can’t afford to miss.
The gallery, the only such of its kind, features revolving exhibitions focusing on world conflicts, and a permanent display of photos is dedicated to the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s (which the New Zealand-born Goddard covered). And while many people don’t want to be “disturbed” on their vacations, visiting War Photo Limited is enlightening; in fact, it revealed to me the core of why we travel: to challenge and refresh our beliefs and perceptions about other cultures, our own culture, and ourselves. For travelers in Dubrovnik, a visit to the gallery seems especially important now, a time when the United States is fighting two wars, and revolutions are springing up (and, in some cases, being violently put down) throughout the Middle East.

“Too often nowadays, we’re presented with only a 15-second clip of the worst part of the day’s conflict,” Goddard said who sat down with me for a coffee in the alley across from the gallery during my last visit to Dubrovnik. “Here you have a better chance to see the reality of war. Governments tell the public about ‘limited collateral damage’ and ‘surgical airstrikes,’ made up words so we don’t understand the reality of war.”

Goddard said he wants spread the truth about war and conflict, to bring these relatively taboo topics to the breakfast table; to get people talking and thinking about them. And to do that, he puts much of the curating in the hands of the photographers themselves.

“In magazines and newspapers, there may be only one or two photos per story and sometimes the photos get mixed up in other stories or are used in ways that the photographer thinks is inappropriate. At the gallery, we don’t edit anything. The idea is for the photographers to bring their work directly to the public.”

Goddard’s done his time in the field and now wants to spread the word via the gallery.

“I had a choice,” he said. “I could retire from war zones and spend time with my family or ship myself off to Afghanistan and Iraq.”

If you’re in Dubrovnik soon, stop in and say hi to Wade. You may never look at war photography the same way again.

Venice’s Island of the Dead, Isola San Michele

by Gadling Staff on

Half an hour away by vaporetto, Venice‘s waterbus, from the chaos of Saint Mark’s square, is the Isola San Michele, a stopping point between the city of Venice and the island of Murano. Circling the city of Venice by boat towards the north, the lagoon is paved with small islands, but Isola San Michele turns heads. It is a small island surrounded by terracotta brick wall punctuated by arched tips at regular intervals. Cypress trees peer over the wall giving the appearance of a floating garden in the lagoon, until you pass round the front of the island and notice a grand entrance with three arched gates with white steps disappearing into the water. Above the gates is a simple white cross, marking the entrance to Venice’s Island of the dead.

There is a sense of serenity when you step off the vaporetto onto the unstable platform at Isola San Michele. It is one of Venice’s best-kept secrets, as most tourists will continue on the boat to Murano. The cemetery is both tranquil and surreal. Venice as a city is silent after the cruise ships go home, there are no cars and the only sound you’ll hear are the occasional footsteps echoing through the alleys and sometimes a church bell. In the cemetery the silence is broken only by birdsong. Walking between the tall cypress trees, you are aware of crunching gravel beneath your feet and you feel something is out of place.Unlike Pére Lachaise in Paris, Venice’s cemetery is surprisingly “modern,” there are no tombs or mausoleums dating back for centuries, no hoards of tourists scouring the graves name-hunting. Here, the graves are tightly packed line by line, with the path lined with cypresses running down the middle towards the grand arched gates where the coffins are carried up from funerary gondolas. If you’ve seen the cult classic, “Don’t Look Now,” the front view of the gates, as approached by boat, look familiar. From the waters, the gates are an ominous “momento mori,” a reminder of our mortality; looking out from the inside through the wrought iron, you glimpse the city of Venice lingering in the distance across the waters, a peaceful reflection of life.

Walking away from the central division of the cemetery, you’ll find the neo-classical mausoleums and tombs dating back to the 19th century that belong to prestigious Venetian families. Memorial walls for the dead, circle the island’s perimeter, while rows of tall white columbarium walls, containing plaque-covered niches for cremated remains, close in on small pathways as you head back to the vaporetto jetty.

While Isola San Michele is not one of the great monumental cemeteries – like those found in Paris, Milan or London – Isola San Michele is a curiosity, it is after all the resting place of Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Diaghilev and Ezra Pound. A key player in Venice’s history, surrounded by the calm waters of the Venetian lagoon, almost forgotten behind its terracotta walls and under its cypress trees – welcome to Venice’s Island of the Dead.