AHOY, CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS!

United States of AmericaEssentially AmericaMary Moore MasonTravelTourismUSA

16 Jun

FROLICS IN THE BIG APPLE; A NEW VISION IN SOUTH CAROLINA'S HOLY CITY

*Enjoying the final night party at the BGTW Tenerife AGM*

It may seem a bit off-course to begin a Mary Go Round America blog/newsletter with a description of Spain's Canary Islands but I have two good reasons to do so: they were Christopher Columbus's last port of call before he sailed off to “discover America” (actually some Caribbean islands) in 1492… and I recently spent a delightful week there at the AGM of the British Guild of Travel Writers.

In fact, Columbus used the island of La Gomera as his provisioning base for three more journeys to the New World, inspiring a modern statue in the island's capital San Sebastian (where he reputedly had a mistress) as well as an annual early September Fiestas Colombinas.

And, as of June 9, we Americans can return the favour by taking the historic first-ever direct flights back to the Canaries. They are operated three times a week by United Airlines from Newark Liberty International Airport into the airport at the South end of La Gomera's neighbouring much better-known and larger island, Tenerife.

If they linger in the south in such coastal resorts as Playa de las Americas, Los Christianos and Costa Adeje they will find wide, white sandy beaches, numerous large and glitzy hotels crammed with British and other European holiday makers, teaming marketplaces and the Scandal dinner show fronted by a flamboyant, cross-dressing panto dame who regaled us with saucy repartee (alas only in Spanish) plus a slightly off-key singer and scattily clothed and impressively nubile showgirls and boys. Not really my cup of tea but the largely Spanish audience obviously adored it.

More to my taste was a dolphin and whale-watching cruise out of a nearby marina. Apparently these pilot whales are particularly drawn to the area because of the giant and, to them, tasty squid which lurk in the deep waters just off-shore. And then there was the visit to the island's largest and quite remarkable family amusement attraction, Siam Park, its landscape and rides themed to Thailand (and blessed by members of its royal family). Among the offerings, a 28 metre high water slide and a massive surfing pool.

*Busy Puerto Colon, including The Tenerife boat we sailed on*

*The author on a dolphin- and whale-watching boat*

Particularly notable among the other major attractions of this ruggedly beautiful former volcanic islands is El Teide, at 3,718 metres the tallest mountain in Spain and the heart of the country's most popular, namesake national park. On a previous visit I soared up to its summit on a cable car; this time I joined others in the midst of a dramatic lunar-like landscape at its base from which we explored the clear evening sky via telescopes.

Further to the north, the landscape becomes greener, lusher, filled with banana plantations and vineyards and graced by numerous historic and beautiful cities and towns. Among them: the port city and island capital Santa Cruz de Tenerife, site of the flamboyant annual February Carnaval, the largest such event outside Brazil's Rio de Janeiro; picturesque La Laguna, a Unesco World Heritage site; and beautiful hilltop La Orotava graced with cobblestone streets, flower-adorned piazzas and mansions dating back to the 16th century. Our base was Puerto de la Cruz's luxurious garden- and pool-surrounded Hotel Botanico.

FROM THE OLD WORLD TO THE NEW

But I linger too long in the Old World. It's now time to return to the New World, specifically New York City

Accompanied by my adventuresome New Jersey-based journalist friend Rose Gilbert, I headed first to one of the Big Apple's newest attractions, Little Island.

Perched on what looked like white marble high heeled shoes in the Hudson River and reached by a purpose-built bridge from West 13th Street, the 2.4 acres parkland which opened May 2021 was financed to the tune of $260 million by communications billionaire Barry Diller and his fashion designer wife Diane Von Furstenberg. Entrance is free but you must have timed tickets for Friday-Sunday afternoons and holidays..

We settled down in the outdoor cafe sipping ice tea under beach-style umbrellas while watching a group of young Indians revolving in amazing pink bucket chairs on the adjoining patio. Then, of course, we had to make spectacles of ourselves by doing the same.

*Visitors relaxing beneath a Little Island arch*

Relaxing on the green grass of the island's steep inclines including the highest hill in Manhattan were young couples and families; others admired the beautiful flowers, the island amphitheatre and views over the Manhattan skyline and the harbour, the Statue of Liberty in the distance.

From this tranquillity we moved into the seething Theatre District, which after the long Covid lockdown has come back to life big time. As it was Fleet Week the streets were full of white-uniformed sailors which I half expected to leap into a song and dance routine like Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin did while on shore leave in the evergreen 1949 Hollywood film On the Town.

A reunion dinner with old friends, at Sardi's, a 44th Street showbiz landmark since 1927, its walls still plastered with caricatures of more than 1,000 Broadway celerities. And then off to Hangmen, a Tony-nominated black comedy written by Irish-British playwright and film director Martin McDonogh (The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Pillowman), set in a northern England Lancashire pub and recounting the 1960s misadventures of England's last official hangman, his long-suffering wife and their rather dim daughter.

Next stop – beautiful and historic Charleston, South Carolina, known as 'The Holy City' for its vast number of historic churches and synagogues but even better-known as the place where on April 12 1861 the American Civil War began when the South Carolina militia fired at the US Army troops based on island-sited Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Left too impoverished to replace its beautiful antebellum buildings, Charleston is a treasure house of glorious antebellum architecture. It's also known for its numerous excellent restaurants, its townhouse and other museums, including the Gibbs, one of America's oldest, and its lively City Market where I bought a Southern belle straw hat, a traditional sweetgrass basket and the definitive cocktail book titled Gone With The Gin.

*Touring through Charleston by horse and carriage*

*A City Market vendor of traditional sweetgrass baskets*

*Rose trying on a Cat Woman mask in the market*

*Jamez McCorkle as Omar on a slave ship*

We arrived in Charleston just in time for its splendid three-week Spoleto Festival USA established in 1977 by the award-winning Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti. It featured the premier of Omar, a powerful new opera created by the African-American team of Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels. Inspired by the memoir of Omar Ibn Said, a scholarly 37-year-old Muslim from Senegal, (portrayed in the opera by Jamez McCorkle) it followed his life from the time he was captured by slavers, shipped across the Atlantic and sold in the Charleston slave market to a cruel South Carolina plantation owner to the time when he was rescued by a Christian North Carolina plantation family. It was a reminder that the African-American life of Charleston also inspired George Gershwin's great 1935 opera Porgy and Bess.

We also visited the site of the under-construction International African American Museum, established on Gadsden Wharf where at least 100,00 slaves first set foot in America (it is estimated that 40 to 50 % of all African-Americans arrived in America through this site). The museum's aim we were told by a guide is “to honour the untold story of the African-American journey at one of our country's most sacred sites” . Among its offerings will be a genealogy service to help the descendents of former slaves trace their ancestry back to the lands of their family's origin. Already in place is the genealogical chart of former First Lady Michelle Obama whose ancestor was sold into slavery on this site, and it is hoped that she and former US President Obama might come to Charleston for the museum's official opening early next year.

Just around the corner from the museum is the launching base for boat trips to Fort Sumter and not far away on colourful East Bay Street is Charleston's newest hotel, and our base, The Saint where, in keeping with the city's reputation for hospitality, the reception desk doubles as a bar. Next door is one of the city's best loved restaurants Slightly North of Broad and just across the street are two other local favourites, Magnolias and High Cotton, specializing in succulent Southern cuisine.

*The facade of The Saint Hotel and its foyer bar*

Charleston also is the gateway not only to lovely white sand beaches but also to several famous rice and cotton plantations, some with beautiful gardens. Although most of the main plantation homes were destroyed during the Civil War, many of the slave cabins remain. No plantation provides more insight into the plight of the slaves than does The McLeod Plantation Historic Site located on James Island just across the Ashley River from Charleston. During the Civil War the main house was used by the Confederates as their military headquarters and possibly as a field hospital; after the war it became the regional headquarters of the Freedman’s Bureau, which was tasked with dispensing aid to the freed slaves. Some of their descendants continued to live in the plantation's slave cabins until January 1990 when they were evicted by a local group that owner William Ellis McLeod had willed the house to. Between 1905 and 1920 one side of the house was rebuilt with a white columned porch to make it appear more of a Gone With the Wind Southern mansion; however, the real, much simpler facade was retained on the other side of the house and a group of original slave cabins remain along an avenue of massive oak trees veiled in Spanish moss.

Neither the Interpretive guide who led our tour or Toby Smith, the cultural interpretation coordinator for Charleston County Park and Recreation, minced words about the life of the McLeod family's slaves – how the handprints of small slave children could still be seen in the bricks they helped make, how a small black child, Leia, was forcibly taken away from her family to provide “not a playmate for a McLeod child but a plaything – she was dressed up like a doll”, and how former slaves who had been given legal rights to part of the plantation land after the Civil War had it stripped away under threat of death and intimidation when the McLeod children and other plantation owners returned to the area.

So it was extremely moving to hear Toby say at the end of our visit: “One of my ancestors, Idella, was brought here on a slave ship, alone, at the age of eight. She, like little Leia, would have seen amazing things in her lifetime. In fact, Leia lived her entire life at McLeod, becoming a wife, mother and grandmother who lived long enough to see a granddaughter who, in turn, would live long enough to see an African-American man became President of the USA.”