Across the Pond

Romantic getaway? Poster in a thrift store in Bakersfield. Want to spend a weekend for two in California? Your options are many. You probably know them: Yosemite, Napa, La Jolla, San Francisco, Big Sur, Mendocino... My husband and I, for a romantic getaway in July, picked - Bakersfield. What? my friends asked, Bakersfield? Did the hotel have a pool? (It did not.) For those of you who are not from California, Bakersfield is a hot place. In July which is the warmest month highs average 96.9 °F (36.06 °C). Then again, Bakersfield is not what you'd call a hot spot. The apparently once beautiful historical town center was almost entirely destroyed in an earthquake in 1952 (actually an aftershock to a shaker a month earlier); bland looking buildings replaced the ruined heritage (though some are rather colorful); malls and marts went up on the outskirts and drained the inner city of life (a fate Bakersfield shares with many cities in the U.S.). According to the...

In the morning, before the crowds arrive, Vienna's Schönbrunn Palace and the park behind it belong to the early birds: ducks, chattering in Neptune's Fountain; slugs, slimy and rust colored, making their way across the empty paths; gardeners, plucking weeds, working silently with rakes and hoes. Serenity reigns. My early morning Schönbrunn is an empty canvas. In that sense it is like other morning destinations, not different from the places in L.A. where I used to run off the night and enjoy the promise of a new day. For all I know it is not even different from Canaletto's early morning Schönbrunn 250 years ago. (In the image shown Canaletto depicts the gardens as busy, but by the look of the shadows he was painting in the afternoon.) The first buses arrive before nine a.m., earlier in the summer. Tourists swarm out by the dozens. From their guides they hear about Empress Maria Theresa under whose reign Schönbrunn Palace as we know it was finished in the 18th century. The...