Road Trip Through History: Thinking About the Bucket List
My Own True Love and I recently sat down to synchronize our calendars for the coming year--a terrifying process. (We already have things scheduled well into September? Really?) As always, it gave me the travel itch and made me think about the places I really, really want to see. Some of them have been on the list for years decades a long time. Others are relatively new.
Here are a few road trips through history that I'd love to make:
- The Minoan Palace and Archeological Museum at Knossos: This one's been on my list since I was a kid. (Thank you, C.W. Ceram.) English archeologist Arthur Evans. like Heinrich Schliemann* before him, used ancient legends to guide his excavations on Crete, long associated with the legend of the minotaur and the labyrinth. The story of his discoveries, the later story of how the script was deciphered, and the sheer beauty of the artifacts continue to fire my imagination.
- The Plains of Abraham: In recent years, My Own True Love and I have grown increasingly interested in the history of the French in North America. The Plains of Abraham in Quebec is the site of a critical battle in the French and Indian wars, which ended with North America in the control of the British--if not for long.
- The Museum of the Fur Trade in Chadron, Nebraska: It's just one small step from being interested in the French in North America to being interested in the North American fur trade.
- The Alhambra: I assume this needs no explanation. Who wouldn't want to see the Alhambra?
What road trips through history are on your list?
* Retired German businessman Heinrich Schliemann ignored conventional academic wisdom, insisted that the stories of the Trojan War were true, and used Homer's descriptions to discover an ancient city.
Image credit: clabert / 123RF Stock Photo
Road Trip Through History: Bath
Having spent many hours enthralled by the novels of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, I was excited to arrive in Bath, our last stop in England. It was thrilling to have lunch in the Pump Room, to stroll through the Assembly Rooms where some of my favorite heroines danced the quadrille, and to see the neoclassical splendor of the Royal Crescent. My Own True Love and I spent a happy afternoon at the Building of Bath Museum, learning about Georgian architecture and John Wood the Elder's development of the city into a popular Georgian resort town.*
Georgian Bath delighted me. Roman Bath blew me away.
I knew the Romans had built baths at Bath--the Romans built baths everywhere. I didn't know that the baths at Bath were more than just baths.
When the Georgians came to drink the waters they were taking part in a centuries old tradition. Bath is home to the only thermal springs in Great Britain. Ancient Britons worshipped a goddess of the springs, Sulis, long before the Romans arrived in 43 CE. The Romans identified Sulis with their own goddess of wisdom, Minerva. The two religions merged together in a temple-bath complex at the new town of Aquae Sulis that was in use for roughly 300 years. Pilgrims came from all over the Roman empire to bathe in the springs and consult the goddess.
Today the ruins of the Roman baths and temple lie under the streets of Bath. Partially excavated, they form the heart of an excellent museum that ties together Roman history, religion, social history, urban planning, and plumbing to tell a fascinating story of the birth, death, and eventual rebirth of the city. You can even have a glass of the famous waters if you feel the need.
* We like buildings almost as much as we like history. History and buildings together? Heaven!
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A few travel notes for anyone inclined to worship at the goddess's spring, take the waters, or otherwise visit Bath:
- The city of Bath sponsors free two-hour tours led by The Mayor's Corps of Honorary Guides, a volunteer group of carefully trained local enthusiasts. My guess is that the tours differ from guide to guide. Our guide was engaging, opinionated, and passionate about his city's history. Overheard bits of another tour suggest that the guides are uniformly excellent.
- If you're a vegetarian--or just feeling like you'll get scurvy if you don't have a few vegetables soon--try Demuth's Vegetarian Restaurant. Our meals were as inventive and elegant as anything cooked by Charlie Trotter. Honest.
Home Front Girl
A couple of weekends ago--in between baking ham, slicing sweet potatoes, chopping cranberries and rolling out biscuit dough-- I gave myself the treat of reading Home Front Girl: A Diary of Love, Literature and Growing Up in Wartime America. And a treat it was.
Born in 1922, Joan Wehlen, later Joan Wehlen Morrison, grew up in Chicago as the only child of Swedish immigrants. She had a slightly socialist streak, a healthy interest in boys and clothes, a quick pen, and a sharp mind. Her diaries from 1937 to 1943 are smart, lively, funny, and philosophical by turn. She quotes, paraphrases, and parodies Cicero, Shakespeare, Kipling and others to make her points.
Her picture of adolescent life would be interesting enough in itself: she talks about crushes, clothes, class work, and working on the Chicago Maroon* with a fine eye for detail and a self-deprecating wit. But her description of day-to-day life is deepened by a keen historical awareness.** Thoughtful commentary on the larger events of the day, from the Lindbergh kidnapping to the fall of Pearl Harbor, runs side-by-side with accounts of bridge, boys, and biology class . Perhaps most interesting to me are her repeated discussions of herself and her contemporaries as a generation who always knew their war would come. She describes then as fundamentally shaped by the lean years of the Depression, having "a kind of brittle strength they didn’t have before. A kind of body of muscle and bone and not much else. Strong in a fragile way almost and enduring more than the weightier people in days past."
Comparisons with The Diary of Anne Frank are inevitable--and should be made cautiously. The experiences of the two girls are not parallel. Nonetheless, there is a striking similarity between them in terms of intelligence, curiosity, and sheer vividness .
Edited and annotated with a light hand by Morrison's daughter, Susan Signe Morrison, Home Front Girl, is a delightful read. It's marketed as young adult non-fiction, but will interest a wider audience. If you grew up loving Anne of Green Gables and Daddy-Long-Legs, or weeping over Anne Frank, give Home Front Girl a try.***
*The University of Chicago's student paper
**She would later work as an adjunct professor of history at the New School for Social Research.
***Any male readers out there who know and loved these books?