Urban Adventure

The latest trend in urban design is blurring the line between civilization and nature to create parks from contaminated sites, landfills, and abandoned manufacturing plants.  Former brownfields like a 9-acre parcel of land on Puget Sound, once dotted with UNOCAL’s oil tanks, is now home to Seattle’s spanking new Olympic Sculpture Park.  Landscape architects are also tackling awkward space that is no longer viable.  Take, for example, High Line Park, open last week on the West Side of Manhattan.  For decades, the High Line served as an elevated railway track that brought freight into the city.  By 1980, the trains had stopped running and the tracks were sliding into decay that, somewhat remarkable, was also a kind of blossoming.  Nature re-established itself as saplings and wind-sown grasses sprouted in the rail beds.  The trees took root and so did an inkling of an idea, almost Seuss-like, to create a public space that would be 30-feet high above the city and nearly 1.5 miles long.  That fantasy has thankfully come to fruition. www.thehighline.org

The latest trend in sightseeing is downloading free podcast-style audio tours to your Ipod or MP3.  This is happening all across America, from an Atlantic City boardwalk to the Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn to Millennium Park in Chicago.  Accompanied by a map, the advantage of an audio tour over a more prosaic travel guidebook is the use of experts talking about subject they know best.  Take, for example, the hour-long Boston Harborwalk tour, which leads you to 17 sites from the North End to the South End (www.bostonharborwalk.com/audio_tour/downtown.html).  Mayor Menino welcomes you, soon followed by a member of the Sachem tribe discussing Native American settlement along the harbor, a trainer from the New England Aquarium talking about seals, and the owner of Hook Lobster Company telling us about his business.  A second MP3 tour offered by the city brings you to Fort Point Channel (www.bostonharborwalk.com/audio_tour/fortpoint).  You’ll check out local favorite, Lucky’s Lounge, hear about sculptor Ana Crowley’s life living in an artist-owned co-op, and see where Martin Sheen fell to his death in the Academy-Award winning, The Departed.  It’s a great way to get a workout and learn a thing or two. 
 

With airplanes finally reducing their fares and hotels practically begging people to book rooms, this is the summer to travel.  Unfortunately, this is also the summer most of us are broke due to the economic meltdown, especially us bloggers.  Don’t despair, fellow adventurers.  You can still get your groove on, even if you’re stuck in the city like me.  Try these Urban Adventures across America: 

New York
Sea Kayak the Long Island Sound
A mere 59-minute ride on the Metro North train from the Grand Central Terminal and you arrive at Norwalk, Connecticut. With a guide from The Small Boat Shop set out for a seven-mile paddle tour of the wooded, mostly uninhabited Norwalk Islands of the Long Island Sound. The six-hour trips cost $85.

Chicago
Sail Lake Michigan
If you feel a hankering to get on that Great Lake, make a beeline to the Chicago Sailing Club.  Members are always looking for crew to sail their J-22s.  It’s the best bargain in town since walk-ins are free.  Belmont Harbor, off Irving Park Road. 

LA
Hit the Waves
Learn to Surf LA guarantees that you’ll be standing on the board after the 90-minute private lesson.  In the water.  $100.  Santa Monica State Beach. 


Seattle
Two if By Sea
Kayak through the marshes of Lake Washington to a nearby Arboretum.  Stronger paddlers can check out the sloping lawns of Madison Park’s mansion row.  Agua Verde Paddle Club.  Single kayaks are $15 per hour. 
 

Bikers and noisy motorbikes weaving in and out of cars and buses might be the image that comes to mind when you think of Vietnam, and this might be true in larger cities like Hanoi. But head just south of Danang on the central coast and you’ll find the Vietnam of yore at the coastal community of Hoi An. This colonial city was the country’s major port from the 16th to 18th century and is heavily influenced by the Japanese and Chinese traders who made their way to town. To celebrate its 10th anniversary as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the city is shutting down its Old Town streets to motor vehicles for most of the workday Monday through Saturday (except Tuesday and Thursday) and for two-and-a-half hours every evening but Sunday. Stay at the 94-room Life Heritage Resort Hoi An located on a quiet stretch of the Thu Bon River and within easy walking distance of Old Town. Then check out some of the 800-plus historical buildings, the signature Japanese Bridge, and arguably the best food market in Vietnam.
 

While we’re on the subject of Miami, I drove the family over to my favorite hideaway in the area last week, the Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden in Coral Gables. This lush oasis is a mix of ponds, palms, ferns, big birds, and whimsical sculpture. One step inside the serene environs and I’m staring at an anhinga drying its wings in the sun next to giant polka dotted pumpkins created by Japan’s Yayoi Kusama. One of Dale Chihuly’s colorful works of glass perfectly blends in with the orchids and big-leaf ferns in the conservatory. But it’s the serpentine trails that take you into a waterfall-laden rainforest shaded by vanilla trees, under the Spanish moss hanging from a southern live oak, and past the massive roots of a 70-year old baobab tree that keeps me coming back to this 83-acre gem. Add the large collection of herons and warblers that are fortunate to call the Fairchild home and you have the perfect rendezvous.
 

There’s an excellent exhibition currently on display at the Morgan Library in New York on the Romantic Movement’s influence on landscape design. One of the mottos of the movement came from a line in a 1731 Alexander Pope poem, “Consult the genius of the place.” Translation: Preserve the wild, unadulterated beauty of the grounds and don’t overmanicure. I though about that line while walking last week in London’s Hampstead Heath with my family, friend Claire, and her adorable daughter, Evie. The rolling hillside is rich with old growth forest, shaded trails, long stretches of lawn, and streams, where we wound up feeding ducks and coots. After a week of fighting crowds at the National Gallery, Covent Garden, and the Tower of London, it was wonderful to spend the afternoon at arguably London’s best attraction, one of its many exquisite parks. On a weekday, Hampstead Heath was relatively quiet and off the beaten track enough to savor the serenity with locals. Only a few miles north of the city hubbub, it’s the perfect oasis.