Linda A. Tancs's Blog: The Long and Short of It, page 199

A Chieftain’s Table

By Linda Tancs

Legend has it that South Carolina’s Table Rock got its name from a Cherokee chieftain who used a ledge of Table Rock Mountain as a dining table to feast on the bounty of his hunt. Indeed, long before this area of the Blue Ridge Mountains become Table Rock State Park (one of 47 state parks), its Cherokee inhabitants named it Sah-ka-na-ga, the Great Blue Hills of God. The extensive trail system carries hikers past streams and waterfalls to the top of Table Rock and Pinnacle mountains. Pinnacle Mountain is the highest peak located entirely within the state.

A Memento in Budapest

By Linda Tancs

American writer and activist Maya Angelou observed that “history, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” Perhaps that thought best sums up the motivation behind Memento Park in Budapest, Hungary, a statue park paying lasting tribute to the biggest actors of the Cold War and their influencers. It houses 42 massive statues and monuments removed from Budapest after the fall of communism, including the likes of Stalin, Lenin, Marx, Engels and Red Army soldiers. Getting there can be challenging (requiring a combination of metro and bus travel) unless you’re able to take the direct bus at 11:00 a.m. from Deak Square.

Dangerous Water in Minnesota

By Linda Tancs

One of the most recognized and photographed icons in Minnesota, Split Rock Lighthouse in Two Harbors is a National Historic Landmark. Completed in 1910, it addressed the disastrous loss of 29 ships in a 1905 storm, two of which foundered in this area dubbed “the most dangerous piece of water in the world” by an American novelist. Its compelling location on the top of a sheer cliff that plunges 130 feet made it the most visited lighthouse in the United States in its heyday. Today, it’s still a favorite among visitors to the Lake Superior shoreline.

In the Heart of Horse Country

By Linda Tancs

In the heart of horse and bourbon country in Lexington, Kentucky, is Gratz Park. One of the city’s oldest neighborhoods and a historic district, it’s named after early Lexington businessman Benjamin Gratz. Other luminaries who once graced this area north of Main Street include Mary Todd Lincoln, Horace Holley and horseman John Gaines. Colorful houses from the 1800s join stately dwellings like the Hunt-Morgan House, built for millionaire businessman John Wesley Hunt. His great-grandson Thomas Hunt Morgan was the first Kentuckian to win a Nobel Prize for medicine. The home is also the site of the Alexander T. Hunt Civil War Museum, a great resource for Civil War researchers and enthusiasts.

A Goliath in New Jersey

By Linda Tancs

In New Jersey, a Sussex County zoo held the Guinness World Record from 1967 to 1991 for the world’s largest bear in captivity. That was Goliath, a Kodiak weighing 2,000 pounds and standing 12 feet tall. He still greets visitors to Space Farms—stuffed, of course. But nowadays it’s the live action that keeps visitors coming back. Boasting more than 500 wild animals (including more than 100 species), the countryside zoo in Beemerville hosts bobcats, tigers,  lions, buffalo, hyena, wild ponies, timber wolves, foxes, bears, deer, leopards, monkeys, jaguars, coyotes, llamas, yaks, snakes and hundreds more. Internationally famous for their bear and lion cub breeding programs, Space Farms has the largest private collection of North American animals in their natural surroundings in the United States.

Europe’s Oldest Ghetto

By Linda Tancs

Five hundred years ago today the rulers of Italy’s Venetian Republic created a ghetto for Jews in the city. Europe’s oldest ghetto, its occupants were subject to harsh laws governing their freedom to leave the community and to practice a profession. Emancipation followed over two centuries later when Napoleon conquered Venice. Still relatively intact, the area has five synagogues and a museum.

Light City USA

By Linda Tancs

The light (no pun intended) shines on Baltimore, Maryland, today through April 3 as the city hosts the first large-scale, international light festival in the United States. Light City is a premiere event, a festival of light, music and innovation. During the day a series of conferences will explore social, medical and ecological innovation; lights, performances and live music will enliven the Inner Harbor at night. Featured art includes glacier-like installations, floating lights, interactive sculptures and 1,001 LUX, a large scale video project that uses light forms such as fireworks, car lights, flashlights, candles, torches, cigarettes, the sun, the moon, the stars and lightning with self-produced sound material.

An Open Door in Wisconsin

By Linda Tancs

Resembling the jagged blade of a knife, Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula separates Lake Michigan from Green Bay. Its sandy reefs and shoals present a hazard for mariners, especially around the treacherous strait between the tip of the peninsula and Washington Island. The number of shipwrecks in this area accounts for its moniker, Death’s Door. It should come as no surprise, then, that lighthouses adorn the area. Some are accessible during the summer months. But three (at Plum, Pilot and Chambers islands) can be reached only during Door County Maritime Museum’s annual Lighthouse Festival in June. Those opportunities include a highly anticipated cruise through the middle of Death Door’s Passage to a tour of the ruins of an 1848 lighthouse, a visit to an 1868 lighthouse and a hike to the 1837 Pottawatomie Light (Wisconsin’s oldest). Tickets for these three tours go on sale the first week of April and sell out quickly.

Meatballs and Fries

By Linda Tancs

An important political center in medieval Europe, Liège is a historic Belgian city on the Meuse River. It abounds with puppets, feasts and legends—as well as an ample supply of meatballs and fries (boulets à la liégeoise). The most traditional dish from the region, it comprises meatballs prepared with pork and beef along with fries and a sweet sauce (a mixture of pears and apple syrup, wine, onions and a local gin). Spend Sunday like a native and have a platter after visiting La Batte, a Sunday institution (the largest and oldest market in Belgium) stretching over a mile with colorful stalls offering fruit, cheeses, clothes, flowers and local products.

A Devil of a Place

By Linda Tancs

Tasmania, an isolated island state off Australia’s south coast, is widely known as the home of the Tasmanian Devil. Reputation aside, this shy creature is the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial since the extinction of the Tasmanian tiger in 1936. But there’s so much more to this island nation than its protected inhabitant. Consider Hobart, Tasmania’s historic waterfront capital. It comes alive each Saturday at Salamanca Market, an outdoor market set between plane trees and sandstone facades of historic warehouses that draws hordes of tourists and locals. More sandstone is on display at Battery Point, the city’s oldest suburb, accessible via the 175-year-old Kelly’s Steps from Salamanca. In addition to beautiful sandstone mansions, you’ll see colonial cottages and delight in impressive river views.