The Educated Traveler

Plan Ahead for Summer

By Ann Waigand

Early spring is when most people gather up flower and seed catalogs to plan for the summer garden. I head instead for my travel catalogs, brochures, and all those clippings I’ve saved through the winter to begin the delightfully arduous task of deciding how to budget my travel dollars and time for the coming year. Learning adventures always top my list. If I can squeeze in an overnight at an interesting kind of place en route, all the better. What stops would you choose from the following?

Harp Summer School

I met Janet Harbison, founder and director of the Grammy Award-winning Belfast Harp Orchestra, when I gave a talk to the Northern Ireland Tourist Board in Belfast last fall.

“What is something you can do better in Northern Ireland than anywhere else on earth?” I asked the group, who represented all walks of tourism life. Janet immediately raised her hand and shouted out: “Learn to play the harp.”

I discovered later over lunch that there is a unique, entirely Irish tradition of harp playing, and Janet has been working diligently to keep it alive. At her Glenolmcille Harp Summerschool, held in a remote and scenic glen of County Donegal, students of all ages and backgrounds learn to use the ancient oral tradition. The music is passed from one generation to the next—not by written notes but by ear.

The Old Rectory, a Victorian country house with an open turf fire and views of the sea, serves as both classroom and residence. In addition to group classes and communal playing sessions, there are options to learn about specialized areas of harping, such as using harp music for healing. Harp weeks in 2001 are July 7-14, 14-21, and 22-28. Contact: The Harp Foundation, 1 Quinville, Holywood, Co. Down, BT18 9DH, Northern Ireland; jharbison@harps.dnet.co.uk, www.harpfoundation.org.

Iceland’s Blue Lagoon

To get to Harp School I would definitely fly to the U.K. by Icelandair, especially if I could arrange a stopover in Reykjavik for enough time for a soak in Iceland’s Blue Lagoon. Perhaps you thought this was just a cheesy tourist destination (it’s connected by regular bus service to the airport less than 20 minutes away). I wouldn’t blame you, especially since the brochure describes the lagoon as having been created by run-off from a hydroelectric plant. But take it from me, the lagoon is a magical oasis in the middle of a moss-covered, 13th-century lava field. Its warm, mineral-rich water is world-renowned for its healing properties. If you can find your way through the surrealistic steamy atmosphere to an outer edge of the pool, you’ll find pots of silica mud to slather on (the key to a great facial, but we used it all over).

An inexpensive spa break enroute to Europe also gives you a glimpse of the Icelandic landscape. Buses run to the Blue Lagoon from Keflavik Airport and downtown Reykjavik. Flights from the U.S. arrive in the early morning (usually before 7 a.m.); departures to the U.K. are scheduled as late as 4 p.m. Contact: The Blue Lagoon, Posthof 22, 240 Grindavik, Iceland, 011-354-420-8800, fax 011-354-420-8801; www.bluelagoon.is.

Belize Dolphin Research

With two teenaged daughters begging to add yet another animal to our menagerie (which already includes two dogs, two cats, a hamster, and a fluctuating number of fish), my solution long ago was to include animals in our vacation plans. That’s why Oceanic Society Expeditions’ research programs are so appealing.

Birgit Winning, long-time director of OSE’s ecotours, told me their Belize Dolphin Research Program is particularly appropriate for non-adult participants. The Belize research project, headquartered at the Blackbird-Oceanic Society Field Station near Blackbird Caye Resort, in contrast to other OSE research expeditions, is land-based. Live-aboard programs are “very, very focused,” says Winning, and not everyone can adapt so readily to the confining quarters abroad small motor yachts.

The Society’s researchers have become like family to the dolphins in Belize. Studies there have been ongoing since 1992, and travelers who come to help get introduced to individual dolphins by name. Amateur researchers plot the movements and behavior of bottlenose dolphins, log manatee sightings, and attend evening presentations on the marine ecosystem. Contact Oceanic Society Expeditions, Fort Mason Center, Building E, San Francisco, CA 94123-1394, 800-326-7491; www.oceanic-society.org.

Mainz’s Gutenberg Museum

When I arrived in Mainz, Germany in October too late for the official transportation to my German Tourist Office Advisory Board meeting, I simply walked through the airport to a sleek, futuristic Deustche Bundesbahn train station, hopped on one of the frequent services to Mainz, and within 20 minutes was in the city that just celebrated the 500th anniversary of the birth of Johannes Gutenberg. (You may remember that Gutenberg gave us the printing press, an invention that won him the title of “Man of the Millennium.”)

The Gutenberg Museum is right in the center of this charming, pedestrian-friendly town. The Rhine River is just across the street. Mainz’s St. Stephen’s Church has Germany’s only Chagall stained glass windows, designed by the artist when he was already in his 90s. The souvenir of my Mainz visit, a chocolate Gutenberg Bible, disappeared quite quickly when I got back home.

For train schedules contact Rail Europe, 800-4-EURAIL; www.raileurope.com. The Gutenberg Museum is at Liebfrauen-platz 5, Mainz www.gutenberg.de.

Literary Lodgings

It’s been said that Charles Dickens slept in more places than George Washington. Immersed as I am in The Pickwick Papers, I urge you to plan a stay at The Great White Horse Hotel (Tavern Street, Ipswich, Suffolk IP1 3AH, United Kingdom, Tel. 011-44-1473-256558, fax 011-44-1473-253396). Even though Dickens’ wrote disparagingly of his stay, the interior must have made a lasting impression: he recounts with astonishing detail the establishment where Mr. Pickwick gets lost only to encounter “the lady in yellow curl-papers.”

Perhaps the service will be better at Winterbourne Hotel (Bonchurch Village Road, near Ventnor, Bonchurch, Isle of Wight PO38 1RQ, U.K.; Tel. 011-44-1983-852535, fax 011-44-1983-8353056). Once his summer home, Dickens described Winterbourne as “the prettiest place I ever saw in my life, at home or abroad.”

ANN WAIGAND, a consultant and writer on special interest travel, was the founder and editor of The Educated Traveler newsletter.