Travels & Traditions: Gateway to Scotland - #905

BURT WOLF: Scotland. People have been living on this land for at least 6,000 years. The first inhabitants appear to have been groups of hunters and fishermen. Next the Celtic tribes who had been forced out of Europe. In the year 80 AD the Roman legions marched through. And finally the English.

The first references to Scotland’s central city of Edinburgh were in the notes of Ptolemy, an ancient Roman writer who made his comments in the year 160 AD. The first site in the area to be colonized was probably a hill called Arthur’s Seat.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Precisely which Arthur actually took a seat here isn’t quite clear. Romantics like to point to the legendary King Arthur of the Round Table. But there is no evidence to support that view. There is, however, considerable evidence that this hill had at least four prehistoric forts and an ancient farming community.

BURT WOLF: Immediate seating for Camelot or not, it’s definitely a spot from which you can see a lot. And just below Arthur’s Seat -- Old Town.

Edinburgh’s Old Town is one of the oldest communities in Great Britain and much of it has remained intact. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: One of the things I liked about the Old Town was that all economic levels of the society lived in the same house. The rich and famous lived in the middle, the poor and unknown at the top and the bottom. And they were in regular contact with each other. They met each other in the hallways, on the staircases, in the courtyards. And they knew a lot about each others’ lives. If someone in business was being dishonest or a magistrate handed down an unpopular opinion in the courts, they would be confronted about those issues when they got home. And often the confrontation took the form of a flying bucket of garbage. I like that system a lot. As I see our public officials leaving their elegant homes in their chauffeur-driven limousines, I wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea to have a law that said that all government officials had to go to work in public transportation. Just to keep them in touch.

BURT WOLF: Someone who is very much in touch is Anne Doig. She’s the Director of Tourism for the city of Edinburgh and she begins by taking us to the top of the most famous building in the city -- Edinburgh Castle.

ANNE DOIG ON CAMERA: You can see the city is very dramatic, because it’s a city born from fire and sculpted by ice.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: What was the fire?

ANNE DOIG ON CAMERA: Volcanoes. This whole area was under a shallow tropical sea that was subject to intense volcanic activity. Eventually when the ice came, one time there was two miles sheet ice on top of this area and when it moved, it tipped up so dramatically that the ice scraped away all the soft debris and earth and rock and left seven hills that Edinburgh was created on.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: So these hills are still volcanic hills.

ANNE DOIG ON CAMERA: They’re still volcanic.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Fire and ice.

ANNE DOIG ON CAMERA: Fire and ice...city of fire and ice.

Well, this is the oldest building in Edinburgh. It dates back to the eleventh, twelfth century. Saint Margaret’s chapel. The castle was taken in 1313 by the Scots again when they took it back from the English. They razed it to the ground. So everything went except the chapel. So it predates 1313. The Scottish military can still hold their weddings and christenings in that chapel. It’s a very tiny chapel. So if it’s a wedding, it’s much to the delight of the father of the bride because it only holds sixteen people so it’s not an expensive wedding, he loves it.

This is actually quite interesting because we’re standing here looking at the oldest building in the castle to the right and the very youngest opposite us. And you’d never really believe that that was the youngest building on the rock, it was actually built between 1923 and -27. The weathered rock used to build this war memorial was originally part of a chapel called St. Mary’s On the Rock. It was a Catholic chapel which was demolished during the turbulence of the Reformation. But being Scottish, they didn’t waste anything, right? Recycling is nothing new to the Scots. They kept all the original stonework until they had another purpose to build on this site. And it was after the First World War they wanted to build a memorial to all the Scots who died in World War I. All the Scots who died and all the conflicts of the twentieth century are listed by name in books in this memorial. People come from all around the world to visit Edinburgh Castle, and they might have a grandfather or an uncle or something who died in the First or Second World War, and they can go to the books inside and their names will be there. So it can be really quite a touching experience. 

The origins of the Old Town of Edinburgh and the city begin with the castle, which was a fortress. And what happened was we had several periods of invading armies and so what the people did is they built these scattered houses and huts in the shadow of the old fortress for protection, and as the city increased its importance and eventually became a capital, there was a huge population concentrated on this rocky ridge, and so there was no room for the city to expand out the way, it had to develop up the way because it was a walled city. So it became a vertical city. So there was a tumble of tall tenements developed all the way down from the castle down a spine of rock. So you can forget about Manhattan being the place where the skyscraper was developed; the skyscraper/high-rise development, first in the world, was right here in Edinburgh and that’s a superb example. Some of the buildings were fifteen, sixteen stories high.

BURT WOLF: The man that Jekyll and Hyde was based on lived right here.

ANNE DOIG ON CAMERA: That’s exactly right. His name was William Brodie; his title was Deacon Brodie and he was a well-respected man in the city. But at night, he became a burglar. So this wave of crime was well-known but they couldn’t catch the thief. Why not? Because he was chairing the committee examining it. So eventually he was caught red-handed. There was another twist to the tale, because when he was executed, he was actually executed on the new, improved gallows. He designed the trap door and he was the first person executed. So the double life of William Brodie which inspired Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

BURT WOLF: In 1752, the Lord Mayor of Edinburgh secretly published a proposal for the improvement of the city. He complained that there was no place for the merchants of Edinburgh to do their business, no safe repository for the public records, no meeting place for the magistrates and the town council. The New Town was constructed to meet the needs which the Lord Mayor so rightly described. And everyone who could get up the money moved from the Old Town to the New Town. The exodus from the Old Town was so fast and so dramatic that it has come to be known as “the great flitting.”

ANNE DOIG ON CAMERA: The New Town of Edinburgh was built at the same time when there was an outburst of amazing intellectual energy. It was a period in our history known as the golden age, the enlightenment. And the New Town of Edinburgh was really the physical manifestation of what was happening in the minds of the people at that time. So in contrast to the Old Town, described by Stevenson as so many smoky beehives, the New Town was light; it was a city of nature, gardens, reason. The streets were laid out symmetrically. Squares were balanced at either end. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: That’s quite amazing that the architecture would follow the intellectual thought of the period.

ANNE DOIG ON CAMERA: You can read all about the people by reading the buildings. You can still see the wide doorways, lovely fanlight windows, the original lamps which would have been whale oil, then gas and now electricity. 

And this is a typical house from that period built by one of the greatest men in our history; the greatest architect of the eighteenth century was Robert Adam. So this house belongs to the National Trust, but they’ve brought it back to the way it was back in 1790s. This is exactly the way the people would have eaten. You see the china’s Wedgwood. Everything came to the table at the same time. So you have the soup, fish, vegetables. But back in the eighteenth century they ate everything all at once. 

And typically of the eighteenth century, they had chairs on the outside. So there was a big space in the middle, because they might have spontaneous dancing, Scots dancing.

TIME TO EAT

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA:When most people think about Scottish food they come up with, shall we say, less than the most enticing images.

BURT WOLF: First to mind is usually Haggis, a nationally famous dish made from the innards of sheep that have been chopped up and boiled in the lining of a sheep’s stomach.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: And then they stop thinking about Scottish food and desperately try to think about something else. Reflect for a moment. You’ve undoubtedly heard people say: “Let’s go out for French food, or Italian food, or Chinese food. But I’ll bet you, that you have never heard anybody say: “Let’s go out for Scottish food.”

And yet, for the last few years, I have been having really good meals in Scotland.

BURT WOLF: And where have we been eating in Edinburgh? A grand, French-style building in Register Place. Inside, the Cafe Royal, originally opened in 1817. Hundred-year-old stained glass windows show the British at their traditional sports. At the end of the bar, a tile that presents the first ship that put to sea for the Cunard Line. For lunch: seafood chowder, and grilled salmon on a bed of spinach with a mustard sauce. 

Leith has been a port area for centuries, an independent and wealthy place with a clear sense of its own future. But as Edinburgh grew, it slowly incorporated Leith. I say slowly, because Leith went to war to prevent that incorporation. Today it is a charming, gentrified edge of the city of Edinburgh. The docks are lined with a dozen or so small restaurants of which our favorite turned out to be The Shore. Set in a building that was constructed during the 1700s, the collective preference of our crew was the Squid with Rosemary, Saffron Fish Soup, and for dessert -- Lemon Tart and Toffee Pudding Cake.

Just in front of the entrance to Edinburgh Castle, in a building that dates back to the 1500s, is a restaurant called The Witchery.

JAMES THOMSON ON CAMERA: Well, the restaurant’s called The Witchery because between 1470 and 1722 over fifteen hundred people were burned as witches in the Castle Hill, which is just outside here. Anybody who had a physical deformity -- it could be a large nose, or a wart, or whatever -- could be thought to be a witch. And they’d be taken away and tortured until they confessed to being a witch. Of course, most of them weren’t actually witches; it was just a public sport at the time, but the church and the Crown became very wealthy because they inherited the estate of the witch. So I thought that with this building being on the Castle Hill, we would be a reminder for all those innocent people who died, sadly, of being accused of being witches.

BURT WOLF: The room is decorated with Scottish antiques, and the kitchen specializes in the use of traditional Scottish produce. I had a good lunch here. It started with a roasted tomato soup and was followed by a roast loin of lamb with a mustard and chopped olive crust. No dessert today -- because my lighting grip, Nigel Smith tells me that there is a unique Edinburgh sweet that I must taste.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: I’d like to order six Deep-Fried Mars bars.

SALESGIRL ON CAMERA: Six?

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Six, please.

SALESGIRL ON CAMERA: Okay...

BURT WOLF: Ah, yes, you heard it right, Deep-Fried Mars Bars. Here in Pasquale’s, as in Fish and Chips houses all over Scotland, the Mars Bar Fritter is as common as malt vinegar. And no one knows if it was created intentionally or if it was the result of a freak deep-fat fryer accident, but the famous candy bar is indeed coated with batter and plunged into hot fat. ... This batch seems to be fortified with a little extra iron... and yes, this is the same fat that the fish and chips are fried in.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Besides Mars Bars, do you use any other kind of candy?

PASQUALE ON CAMERA: Umm... Snickers... any kind of sweet that I’ve got up there.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: What do you think works best?

PASQUALE ON CAMERA: The Mars Bar is the best. It is more popular.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: You’re right -- you gotta eat ‘em when they’re hot. Definitely an acquired taste.

THE WHISKEY TRAIL

BURT WOLF: The national beverage of Scotland is whiskey -- a whiskey of such importance that the rest of the world simply calls it Scotch. There are about one hundred different Scotch whiskey producers in Scotland and each one has their own very particular approach to the craft.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: But it’s not only the skilled labor of the maker that controls the final product. To a great extent, the color and taste of a particular Scotch whiskey is the result of the physical environment in which the distillery is located. And that has led to the development of something called the whiskey trail.

The whiskey trail is actually a well-beaten path that takes you through Scotland’s Scotch producing districts, which fortunately for the Tourist Commission, takes in all of Scotland. It is an ideal journey for someone with a great thirst for knowledge. If you are starting out from Edinburgh, a good first stop would be the Central Highlands.

And this is the Dalwhinnie distillery. It’s been in operation since 1897. Its name is Gaelic for the meeting place. Dalwhinnie is the highest distillery in Scotland at over 1,000 feet above sea level.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Each of the distilleries in Scotland has chosen a very specific place for its facility. In the old days one of the most important considerations was the relationship of the distillery to tax agents. Ideally you would be in a place where the King’s men could never find you. At the very minimum you wanted to be in a spot where you got enough warning so you could hide your whiskey.

BURT WOLF: The next most important element in the selection of a site has always been the water supply. Most of the distilleries are set next to streams. The water that is drained to make the whiskey comes into the stream from a spring, or drains down from the rain that falls on the nearby hills, or from melting snow. The trip that the water makes on the way to the distillery gives it a very distinct taste. If the water passes over and through rocks, it picks up the flavors of the minerals in those rocks. If it passes through a moor with heather growing, the water will pick up a honey note. If it passes through fields of peat it will end up with a peaty flavor. How peaty will depend on the amount of time that the water spends near the peat. Peat is the remains of compressed plant life, sort of an early form of coal. Some land formations will filter water for years before delivering it to a stream that feeds a still. And every inch of the journey will be reflected in the taste of the Scotch.

The type of wood used in the aging cask is also important. In the early days of Scotch making, the wooden casks were used merely as containers to store the whiskey. Eventually, however, people discovered that the cask could change the flavor of the Scotch.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Temperature also affects the flavor of Scotch whiskey. And so does the air. Scotch spends years maturing in wooden casks, and during that time period, it pulls air into the cask. If the distillery is near the sea the air may have a salty quality. That salty air enters the cask and the salty flavor is reflected in the Scotch.

BURT WOLF: When all the whiskey in a particular bottle comes from the same distillery and has not been blended with whiskey from any other distillery, it has earned the right to be called a malt, or single malt.

The next leg of Scotland’s whiskey trail runs northeast, into a district that faces out on the Moray Firth and the North Sea, and is known as Speyside. The river from which the area takes its name is one of the world’s great locations for salmon fishing.

Cragganmore is a small distillery in Speyside, but its whiskey is considered to be one of the best. The area is also famous for its wild mushrooms. For a classic recipe, take a look at salmon on a bed of roasted fennel with a white wine and cream sauce. There’s also lots of home-baked fruit cakes, scones and shortbreads.

Now the path works its way across the top of Scotland to the Isle of Skye which is only fifty miles long and thirty miles wide.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The only distillery on the Isle of Skye is called Talisker. It was established in 1831, and makes a whiskey that turned out to be the favorite of the great Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson who, amongst his many famous books wrote Treasure Island, the search for the buried treasure of Captain Kidd, a treasure that very well might have included a bottle of whiskey from Skye.

BURT WOLF: Talisker is considered to have a peppery quality, which goes well with the food of the area. Skye is famous for fish and shellfish... grilled scallops on a bed of langoustine and monkfish wrapped in slices of Scottish ham.

Now it’s time to turn down and head along the west coast. This is one of the most romantic parts of Scotland. Isolated villages. Tiny port towns.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The first settlers in the area are thought to have arrived about 7,000 years ago and made their homes in cliff side caves. These days the capital of the area is a town called Oban, which is also the name of the local Scotch whiskey. Authorities believe that Oban is a classic example of the single malts that are made in this area.

BURT WOLF: The pros describe it as having the aroma of fresh peat with a slight hint of the sea. They like to add a splash of water and drink it along with a dinner of grilled fish.

Leaving Oban, the trail heads south to the Isle of Islay. Islay is the most famous of the Whiskey Islands.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Their stills produce whiskey with flavor notes that remind drinkers of peat and the great North Atlantic Ocean. Then whiskey rests in casks; can be there for three years minimum, or may be there for decades, and during that time period the casks actually breathe in the atmosphere. The end result is that the climate becomes part of the flavor.

BURT WOLF: A wee dram of the local whiskey called Lagavulin makes the point. And to go along with it, the great seafood of the region -- Islay’s famous for its oysters and mussels.

And finally, the trail moves across the southern Lowlands, an area known as the Borders because it borders on England.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: This is one of the most unspoiled spots in Europe. It’s Scotland’s garden and it’s covered with rich farmland. It’s also the birthplace of John Muir, a Scotsman who was a conservationist who moved to North America and actually began the idea of establishing National Parks.

BURT WOLF: Glenkinchie is a good example of a Lowland whiskey. The aroma of the local wildflowers ends up in the glass. And the fields of wheat end up in a wide range of yeast breads. The Borders are also famous for their traditional Scottish cheeses.

GLENEAGLES

And if you would like to see a wee bit of the magnificent Scottish countryside and what elegant country life was like for the British during the heydays of the 1920s, you can get yourself some wheels and head north... over the bridge that crosses the Firth of Forth, which is easier to cross than it is to pronounce and on into Gleneagles.

Gleneagles was opened in 1924 and described as a Riviera resort in the Highlands. I assume that the river they had in mind was the Tay that runs near the property. It was the place to vacation in Great Britain, and it still is.

What also makes Gleneagles attractive is their activity program. They focused on a series of leisure time undertakings and set up a school for each -- a school that was designed and in many cases is still directed by one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject. The championship golf course was developed by Jack Nicklaus.

For me, however, the most fascinating school at Gleneagles is the British School of Falconry, where James Knight took me through the introductory course.

JAMES KNIGHT: This is Talisker. 

There he is. He’s obviously raring to go. Now, the most important thing that we do with him now -- and I’ll explain it while we’re there -- is we’ve got to weigh him. Okay? Before we can use him. So we take him down the corridor here... and then we’re going to pop him on the scale. There we go.

BURT WOLF: He seems to know where he’s going.

JAMES KNIGHT: Yeah, he gets weighed every day. The thing to remember about falconry is it’s four thousand years old, okay? It started in China and Japan as a means of getting food for ourselves, but he’s not going to do that if he’s full and fat, okay? So he has to be hungry. He does nothing for us whatsoever, okay? He purely does it for himself. So if he doesn’t feel like hunting, he’s not going to do it. So we have to get him to what we call his hunting weight. Okay? And that happens to be one pound, four ounces. So we’re lucky, he’s just spot on.

JAMES KNIGHT: Now we’ll try to get him to do a little bit of work for you, and I say “work” because he doesn’t like flying, okay?

BURT WOLF: Doesn’t like flying?

JAMES KNIGHT: People always think that birds like to fly and that’s our idea because we can’t fly -- you know, we think it would be great to fly. But flying for him is work. And he only does it for a reason, okay? That’s true of all birds, and with us it’s food, in the wild he’s got to find a mate to build a nest and do all sorts of things, okay, but he’s not thinking “Yippee I’m enjoying this,” okay. He’s thinking “Yippee I’ve got a bit of beef.” So to cast him off, you put your arm out straight, okay you can see he’s excited, he’s ready to go, keep hold of the jesses and then I’m just going to take a little step and give him a little push. Just like an airplane, they always like to take and land off into the wind. They hate the downwind landing. So fingers crossed. So take a little step and give him a push. There he goes; you see he turns into the wind and lands into the wind. Now to call him back all I have to do is to put my glove up with some food on and back he comes. His eyesight is eight times better than ours. He will see that little piece of beef, you know, from three or four hundred yards away without any problem. Right! So, it’s your go. So we’re gonna turn these, that’s it, so that your glove is facing into the wind. I’m just going to step around the side here and I’m going to place the jesses through your thumb, through your middle fingers, perfect, and he’s all yours.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Go for it.

BURT WOLF: For Travels & Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: Cruising France - #904

BURT WOLF: In 1991, a French archaeological team working on the banks of the Seine River in the middle of Paris discovered three dugout canoes that proved to be 6,500 years old.  The canoes belonged to a Neolithic tribe of hunter-gathers. So it seems that people have been hanging out in this neighborhood for at least 7,000 years. 

About a mile up stream from the spot where the canoes were found is an island in the middle of the river. Around 300 BC, a Celtic tribe known as the Parisii set up a trading post on this island. It was the perfect spot for a settlement. The river was used for east-west trade. And a north-south land route passed over the island. Once again, the spot where a land route crossed a river became the point of origin for a great European city. The ancient Romans saw the value of the location and developed the island into a typical Roman outpost. Today, it’s called the Ile De La Cite and it’s one of the best neighborhoods in Paris.

It is also the starting point for my tour and river cruise from Paris to Lyon in the middle of France.

The eastern half of the Ile De La Cite is home to the cathedral of Notre Dame. Construction on the cathedral started in 1163 and went on for almost 200 years. At the time, most people could not read, so the builders used the front of the cathedral as a giant billboard to illustrate stories from the bible. In the middle is the Last Judgment and the Resurrection. 

In the year 250, St. Denis, a Christian missionary and the first bishop of Paris, was beheaded on this hilltop.

Legend has it that he picked up his head, and took 6,000 steps to the spot where he wanted to be buried. The hill became know as Mons Martyrum, which means the martyr’s mound. These days the area is known as Montmartre and it’s the highest point in Paris. During the last decades of the 1800s and early 1900s, Montmartre was the favorite district for artists and the place where Impressionism and Cubism were born. This was the neighborhood of Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Picasso. It was, and still is the home of the Moulin Rouge and its traditional Parisian cancan show.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: In 1896, the Moulin hosted the annual Paris Arts Student’s Ball, during which the first all-nude striptease was presented. The model who unveiled this new art form was arrested and taken to jail at which point the citizens of Montmartre rioted. It appears that the right to undress completely in an appropriate public space is a basic French liberty and not to be interfered with.  And so she was released.

BURT WOLF: Another revolutionary triumph for French freedom that made my list of top ten tourist sites in Paris is The Arc De Triomphe. It was commissioned in 1809 by Napoleon in order to illustrate his most important military triumphs and its size was meant to match the dimensions of his ego. It lists 128 major battles which are richly illustrated, and the names of his 660 favorite generals who took part in those battles.

I hear that his personal recipe for the cream filling that goes into a Napoleon pastry is inscribed on the monument, but up to now, no one has been able to find it. Actually, it’s not so easy to find a Napoleon pastry in Paris.   However, right down the block from Napoleon’s Tomb is Le Boulanger– a pastry shop that opened in 1901 and has been making great cakes, pastries and breads ever since.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Now most pastry shops carry something called a millefeuille, it’s French for a thousand leaves. Same pastry cream as a Napoleon. Same pastry dough as a Napoleon. But on a millefeuille the top is powdered sugar.

BURT WOLF: The top of a Napoleon however has icing with a brown N on a white background. The N stands for Napoleon.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: But when Napoleon lost at Waterloo, the pastry chefs of Paris decided to keep the pastry but drop his initial from the top. You know this is a tough town and your pastry is only as good as your last battle.

BURT WOLF: The Eiffel Tower was built as the entrance way to the international exposition of 1889, which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution.  And its design was quite revolutionary.

The French government held a competition and over 100 plans were submitted to the committee. The government was looking for a monument that expressed their sense of achievement.

BURT WOLF: The winning design was presented by Gustave Eiffel, who until the time was considered to be a talented bridge engineer. His idea was to construct a 1,000 foot tower made of open-lattice wrought iron.

The plan was to keep it up for only a few years.  But with the high cost of taking it down, and the fun that everyone was having going up, it’s still here.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Until 1930 when it was surpassed by the Chrysler Building in New York City it was the tallest structure on earth.

BURT WOLF: These days, it’s the best place to get the ultimate view of Paris.

And there’s the Musee D’Orsay.

The Gare D’Orsay was a train station built for the 1900 World’s Fair. By the early 1950s, however, its platforms were too short for modern trains and the building was scheduled for demolition. But the President of France, Giscard d’ Estaing, understood the value of the structure and turned it into a national museum. A museum filled with works of the great French Impressionists.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: French Impressionism got started in the late 1800s and early 1900s when a group of painters in Paris got fed up with the traditional subjects of French painting. They’d had enough of religion and mythology and history, they wanted something new.

BURT WOLF: During the late 1860s, Claude Monet began concentrating on the effects of light and color. The subject matter of the painting, the depth and the perspective became less important. Surface pattern became more important. The Impressionists did all of their painting outside while looking at their subject as opposed to the conventional practice of painting in a studio.

Today the Musee D’ Orsay presents the works of the Impressionists and the Post-Impressionists including Monet, Manet, Pissarro, Degas, Cezanne, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh---artists who freed Western painting from thousands of years of tradition.

And then there’s the Louvre---the largest museum in the world and probably the most famous. You could easily spend five years working your way through the main collections.

BEAUNE

BURT WOLF: The next day we headed south past the forests of Fontainebleau, which were the favorite hunting grounds of the French kings, and into the Burgundian city of Beaune.

People have been living in Beaune since prehistoric times. For centuries it belonged to the ancient Romans and was a center for cattle raising and the production of wine. For many years it was the home of the Dukes of Burgundy who were more powerful than the King of France, until 1478 when the King invaded and made it part of France. Today, Beaune is the wine capital of Burgundy and much of its economy is based on the production and sale of wine --- so you owe yourself a drink.

The most famous landmark in town is the Hotel-Dieu.

During the 1400s, Nicolas Rolin was the Chancellor to the Dukes of Burgundy and one of the most powerful men in Europe.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Things were good for Nicolas, but not for everybody.  The Hundred Year’s War had just ended, and there were bands of soldiers wandering around the countryside destroying everything and everybody they could get their hands on.  A plague had just begun and ninety percent of the people in Beaune were destitute.  Ah but Nicholas saw an opportunity in all of this, he thought he might be able to do well by doing good. He was a bit concerned about the things that he had done to become the great Lord of Burgundy and how they might look on his application to get into heaven.

BURT WOLF: So Nicholas built a great hospital.  A magnificent palace.  A place that has become famous throughout the world.  And that fame was central to his plan.  Rolin figured that if someone “upstairs” noticed what he had done it might reduce the impact of his sins and improve his overall standing with the Almighty. This was not an uncommon practice at the time.  Celestial favors were a big business and this arrangement in no way diminished the magnificence of his charity.

Much of the art created for the Hospices was commissioned by Rolin in order to distract the minds of the patients from their own condition and redirect their thoughts to prayer and requests for God’s forgiveness.  Well, let me tell you... lying in bed in a hospital and looking at the detail of the Last Judgment could certainly do that.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: When the well-to-do were well enough to leave, they would make a generous gift.  Sometimes it was money.  Money was good. Sometimes it was land.  And in 1471, for the first time, it was a vineyard. 

BURT WOLF: Wine was thought of as a health-giving liquid. Water was often dangerously polluted and considered something that could kill you.  So donating a vineyard was a great step in the right direction.  The Hospices could use the grapes to make wine... give some of it to the patients... and sell the rest for money.  And they could do that year after year after year.  The gift of a vineyard was a gift that kept on giving.

Over the centuries many more vineyards were donated.  Today the Hospices has holdings on over 50 estates, and they are on some of Burgundy’s best land.  Each year grapes are gathered from the hillside and employees of the Hospices make the official Hospices wine.

On the third Sunday in November, the result of these winemaking activities are sold at the world’s largest charity wine auction.  Buyers come from all over the world to bid and many millions of dollars are raised to cover the upkeep of the Hospices.

AVALON SCENERY

BURT WOLF: The boat we sailed on was the Avalon Scenery which was launched about a month before we arrived. It’s a perfect example of a new approach to comfort and convenience.

The Cruise Director is Jean Loup Domart.

JEAN LOUP DOMART ON CAMERA: Traveling on the boat, making it easy, you’re going to spend seven nights on the ship.  You just park your suitcase; you don’t live out of a suitcase for a change.  We have among the largest state rooms on the river and the decoration is nice, soft and relaxing in terms of treating the wood colors and the textiles.  And most of the rooms that we have on this ship have got sliding doors with some of the most beautiful views of the rivers as we’re sailing.  You have plenty of sky deck, and it’s extremely relaxing on a nice sunny afternoon to just relax on the deck.  Even with a nice cocktail and sort of sip the glass and the scenery as you sail along.  You have on the top deck also a Jacuzzi; you have a gym as well on the lower level and the services of the hair dresser.  The food on the boat, we try to reflect as much as possible the different areas that we are crossing, there are three important meals on the ship.  Morning breakfast, which is a traditional American buffet breakfast.  Then we normally cater a buffet at lunch time and then dinner always with different themes.  Could be a Provencal dinner, could be any kind of dinner that has been planned by the kitchen.  One nice thing about this dinner is that every single dish that is presented at the table to the guest was actually paired with wine. 

We have evening’s entertainment at the ship at least three times a week.  Everybody knows a lot of these French songs so we have a singer coming from one of the cabarets in Lyon that actually sings for us and then as we get to the south there is an important culture that is extremely strongly Spanish influenced and we have the privilege of receive onboard, once a week, The Gypsy Kings.

TOURNUS & MACON

BURT WOLF: The next morning we visited the Chateau De Cormatin.

It was built in the early 1600s as the private residence of the Marquis d’Huxells, who had the brilliant insight to marry the daughter of the Count de Monee who was the Finance Minister of King Louis the XIII.

Most of the Chateaux that were put up during this period were vacation homes for the Parisian nobility--- nice little places so you could get away from it all.

They had rustic fireplaces.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Chicken noodle…

BURT WOLF: Old fashioned wooden ceilings.

Lots of paintings --- probably done by the kids in school.

A country kitchen.

A place for the little things you collected as you traveled around.

A few extra bedrooms in case you wanted to invite two or three hundred of your closest friends for the weekend.

And pleasant little gardens where you could grow a few herbs or vegetables or flowers.

Or plant your own forest.

The simple life.

This place was built during the time of the Three Musketeers and I can definitely see them in the neighborhood.

That afternoon we arrived in Macon and took a walk around the town.

We also visited St. Vincent’s Cathedral which was built during the 6th century.

But about 1100 years later, during the French Revolution, local citizens decided that they had a better use for the stones than a church, so these days there isn’t much left of the old cathedral.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: That’s the oldest house in the city.  It was built in the 1400s.  And because there’s a row of figures on it that appear to be half man, half animal, it was thought to be owned by the devil and when you walked by it you weren’t supposed to look at it.  But recent research indicates that those are just naked guys hanging out in a bar.  So if you want to look at it you can.

BURT WOLF: Macon is the southernmost wine town in Burgundy. The wines that come from this area are usually light, uncomplicated, easy to drink and a good value for their price. Pouilly-Fuisse is the most famous and most expensive wine of Macon.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: But I’d just as soon drink the Macon-Village --- considerably less expensive. Great taste and because the wines of Macon are not aged in oak they are ready to drink when they are released.  And I’m ready.

LYON

BURT WOLF: The next morning we sailed to the city of Lyon which was founded by the ancient Romans in 43 BC. They developed their settlement on a peninsula formed by the meeting point of two great rivers --- the Rhone and the Saone.

The hill above the city is called the Fourviere --- probably a contraction of “Forum Vetus” which is Latin for Old Forum.

On the top is the church of Notre Dame. It was built in the 1870s.   It’s a little flashy for some of the local residents who refer to it as the upturned elephant because of the four short towers that stick up from the corners.

Even though the subject matter is the Virgin Mary, the mosaic-covered walls and floors give the inside of the building a Moorish quality. It has become a major pilgrimage site with over a million visitors each year.

Right down the street is the excavation of two ancient Roman theatres.

They were discovered during the 1930s by a group of nuns digging a garden.

The larger theater was constructed in 15BC and had over 10,000 seats. If you got to perform here, it was considered an important booking for your act and a tribute to your agent’s power and influence. It was like playing the big room in Vegas.

Even today, the theatres are used to present special events.

These giant Roman amphitheaters are the earliest Roman structures outside of Rome.

At the base of the amphitheater’s hill is Lyon’s Old Town. During the 1400s,

King Louis XI of France granted Lyon the right to hold commercial fairs that brought in buyers and sellers from all over Europe. Many of the merchants who took up residence in Lyon were from Italy and the buildings have a similar look to the buildings that were constructed during the same time in Florence. In fact, Lyon’s Old Town has one of the largest collections of Renaissance buildings and has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

BURT WOLF: The word Renaissance literally mean rebirth and in the arts it’s reference to a period in European culture that followed the Middle Ages.  It was characterized by an interest in the classical knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome. In architecture the objective was to re-create the ancient classical structures of Rome. Harmony, balance and proportion were the essential elements.

At the beginning of the 1800s, Lyon was considered to be the silk capital of Europe. Over half the population of the city was involved in the weaving and dying of silk.  The weavers were known as canuts and today La Maison des Canuts is a museum dedicated to the history of Lyon’s silk industry.

A guided tour covers the history of the textile industry in Lyon, the invention of the jacquard loom which revolutionized textile weaving and how the industry is evolving in the 21st century. In addition, the museum has a gift shop with great silk scarves and fabulous ties.

Lyon also has a unique architectural feature --- known as traboules, they are narrow covered alleys that were designed as private connections between the great family mansions. They were originally used to transport the delicate fabrics between the different producers and the dyers, and to allow private visits between the families. During the Second World War they were conduits for the French resistance. The residents of Lyon knew the network --- the Nazi’s didn’t.

Today the traboules are still private but agreements between the owners and the Lyon Tourist Association make them available to visitors.

Many people say this is the town that invented modern French cuisine.  Chef Paul Bocuse reinvented it in the 1970s.  We sampled some of the signature dishes at Brassiere Le Nord.  For starters, a chicken liver and foie gras mousse, roasted beet salad and a puree of cod and potatoes.  The main courses were pan roasted chicken, steak in a pepper sauce and whatever the daily special is.  Today it’s saddle of lamb.  For dessert, a fresh fig and raspberry tart and a pineapple upside down cake with coconut ice cream.

That evening we returned to our boat for a private performance by The Gypsy Kings.  The Gypsy Kings are a musical group who perform Rumba Gitano music which is a blend of rumba, rhythms and flamenco.  Their first album was released in 1987 and since then they have sold over 18 million albums.  They’re the world’s best selling musical group from France.

It was a great concert and a perfect way to end our cruise.

For Travels & Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: Cruising the Rhine - #903

BURT WOLF: The Rhine is one of the world’s great rivers. It starts in the Swiss Alps and flows for 865 miles through six European countries ending up in the Netherlands and the North Sea. It connects to dozens of other rivers and canals forming a vast inland waterway. Berlin, Paris even Provence on the Mediterranean is reachable on this freshwater highway.

Traditional Rhine ships are long and sit low in the water. They’re long because they can’t be wide—the river is too narrow and the locks are even narrower. They can sit low in the water because they’re not worried about ocean waves and heavy seas.

The ancient Romans understood the commercial value of the Rhine and maintained a Rhine fleet to protect its trading boats. Moving things on the Rhine was cheaper than moving things on land. As a result, the river is lined with some of Europe’s oldest and most famous cities --- Basel, Strasbourg, and Cologne are perfect examples.

The river has inspired paintings, operas, symphonies, and books—and in recent years, tourists. So I decided to take a cruise along the Rhine from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Basel in Switzerland.

We started out in Amsterdam and cruised its canals.

Then on to Cologne in Germany with its thousand year old cathedral.

The next stop was Koblenz to check out its castles.

We docked at Rudesheim, a classic wine village.

At Heidelberg for a drink at its 300 year old tavern. 

Strasbourg for some of the best food in Europe.

Then the medieval town of Breisach and finally the Black Forest.

We ended up in Basel, Switzerland and headed home.

We cruised aboard the Avalon Tapestry and Katalin Kovacs was our Cruise Director.

KATALIN KOVACS: This type of ship, the Tapestry, was the first twin cruiser, which means that the ship is in two parts.

KATALIN KOVACS ON CAMERA: We are now in the hotel part of the ship, and it is pushed by a second part of the ship.

KATALIN KOVACS: In the second part there is the wheel house and the engines and the second part is pushing the first one so that’s why we do not have vibration at all in the first part. And that’s fantastic, that’s a very nice experience for the passengers-- that they are just floating with their hotel, and watching the sight without feeling the vibration.

Wherever we go into each city, we try to let the people taste the local foods and we are enjoying many—of course we have all those wonderful sauerkraut and sausages. When we are in Switzerland or when we are in Holland we have also local foods and local food tastings in the restaurant. We try to satisfy everybody so that you have the best selection of food that you can get on the river cruise.

We have the biggest staterooms on the rivers in Europe so you have your proper twin or king-size beds. You have your own bathroom of course, and you have enough space to put all your clothes and all your suitcases into the stateroom. This is also the convenient part of river cruising, that you unpack once.

AMSTERDAM

BURT WOLF: Our flight from the United States arrived in Amsterdam, which has always been one of my favorite cities. Great art. Great beer. Great architecture. Great beer. Great shopping. And,

of course, great beer.

CANAL TOUR GUIDE: The canals where we are sailing now, this is what is called the Prinsen Canal.

BURT WOLF: We started our tour of Amsterdam by cruising the canals, which is the best way to get a sense of the city. Most historians see the 1600s as Holland’s Golden Age because they dominated international trade---especially the spice trade from Indonesia.

The houses along the canals were built with the great wealth that came to Amsterdam as a result of its international trading.

Dutch ships owned by the people who lived in these houses carried many different things including wines and spirits. But besides carrying the wine, they also influenced the type of wines that were available.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Up until the 1600s, wine wouldn’t last very long. It was undrinkable within six months, and you couldn’t hold it from harvest to harvest. That was unacceptable to the Dutch, who wanted to ship wine all over the world. So they went to France and they actually taught the French how to make Cognac. They also helped them with their sweet wines and they introduced sulfites as a preservative. Here’s to the Dutch.

BURT WOLF: Amsterdam has a unique distilled spirit called Geneva. It’s a juniper-flavored liquor and was probably one of the precursors to early English Gin.

FENNY VAN WEES: This is Geneva, and Geneva is made from grains.

BURT WOLF: The van Wees family has been making it for over 150 years.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: How did Amsterdam get started making Geneva?

FENNY VAN WEES ON CAMERA: Well, the Dutch went to the East Indies and the monks in Amsterdam—there were a lot of them during the 18th century—they started to experiment with all these herbs and they started to make Geneva in order to find medicine against the black disease. And they started to distill these herbs together with grains and that’s how Geneva got started.

BURT WOLF: It was a medicine. Ah, wonderful, I always drink for medicinal purposes.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Let’s go have a drink.

BURT WOLF: Just across town you can visit the House of Bols which has a museum dedicated to the cocktail.

SANDIE VAN DOODOORNE ON CAMERA: This is the House of Bols, cocktail and Geneva experience. And we created this to allow people from all over the world to come and take a look at the world’s oldest distilled brand, Bols, and to find out throughout about the world of cocktails and bartending and liquors and Genevas.

All the five senses—what you touch, what you see, what you feel, what you smell—they are all influence how you experience taste. So if you see something red for example, you have a certain experience of what you’re gonna taste. But it could very well be a vanilla but if it’s red that’s really going to influence how you’re gonna taste that vanilla. And here at the House of Bols, you can experience the smelling and tasting and how all the senses influence what you taste.

BURT WOLF: Because the Dutch controlled the islands that now make up Indonesia, Indonesian food became a basic part of Dutch cuisine. Most locals go out for indo more often than they go out for traditional Dutch food. 

The signature Indonesian meal in Holland is called a Rijsttafel which means ‘rice table”. You start with a plate of rice. Then you add an assortment of accompaniments. Curried meats, chicken, shrimp, vegetables, nuts, eggs, sauces, pickles and fruit. The objective is to end up with a balance of dishes that are sour, sweet, salty and spicy, all held together by the blandness of the rice. This elaborate meal was developed in Indonesia during the years when it was being exploited as a Dutch colony. Accordingly, in some circles, Rijsttafel is not considered a politically correct event, and you don’t often see it in Indonesia. However, it’s still around in Holland and Indonesian restaurants in Europe and the Caribbean and it can be fantastic.

COLOGNE

BURT WOLF: We sailed through the night and the next morning. That afternoon we arrived in Cologne Germany. Cologne was built by the ancient Romans in 38 AD at a point where the Rhine River crossed a major east-west trade route. It was an ideal spot for commercial development and by the Middle Ages it had become the largest and one of the richest cities in northern Europe. And once again it was a city’s position on a major river that made it rich.

But Cologne’s wealth and fame is also the result of its religious relics. In the middle of the 1100s, Emperor Barbarossa, who lived in Milan, gave the remains of the Three Kings to the Archbishop of Cologne who brought them home, and had them placed in a golden shrine and built a fantastic cathedral to hold that shrine. Pilgrims came from all over Europe to visit “Holy Cologne.” Even today, over five million visitors come here each year.

Just down the river from where we docked is The Chocolate Museum which is housed in a boat shaped structure on the bank of the Rhine. Inside the displays will take you on a journey through 3,000 years of chocolate history, from the Aztec’s to modern day industrial production. There’s a small working chocolate factory where you can see how the cacao bean is processed into chocolate and how the liquid is formed into finished products.

CHOCOLATE FACTORY WORKER: Spin it, equally.

BURT WOLF: The factory produces about 1,000 pounds of chocolate a day and you can take part in the process.

That afternoon I brought everybody onboard over to Haxenhaus to meet my friend Willie and have a beer on me.

WILLIE ON CAMERA: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Haxenhaus. My name is Willie.

BURT WOLF: Drink up. Drink as much as you want. Not this table.

BURT WOLF: Cologne has its own beer called Kolsch. It’s a light colored, slightly bitter and hoppy ale and by law it must be brewed within the city limits. Kolch is served in a thin small glass that is marked to hold about seven ounces. It has no carbonation so it tastes best the moment it comes out of the keg. With a small glass you drink the beer quickly. Waiters come by and refill your glass until you put a coaster over the glass which signals that you’re finished.

That evening, there was a classical music concert by a trio called La Strada. 

KOBLENZ

BURT WOLF: During the night we sailed to Koblenz Germany.

In the year 9 BC, the ancient Romans set up a camp at the spot where the Rhine River meets the Mosel River. The point where two or more rivers meet is known as a confluence. In Latin the word is confluentes, which is what the Romans called their settlement. Over the years, the name got shortened to Koblenz.

Koblenz was the home of an Archbishop and a Prince Elector who selected the Emperor. As Archbishop he had to defend himself against the devil and as Prince Elector he had to defend himself against the princes who wanted his land.

He had a lot of defending to do and he made Koblenz his stronghold, which is why the city has so many defensive castles.

Today, Koblenz is the cultural and economic center of Germany’s Central Rhine Valley.

The city has a number of bizarre statues. This statue of a young boy looks perfectly normal. However…every 2 minutes a stream of water shoots from his mouth and drenches unsuspecting viewers.

They also have a town clock with a face that sticks its tongue out on the hour. It’s all quite strange because the people of Koblenz are quite welcoming. It must be a problem with their sculptors.

THE RHINE GORGE

BURT WOLF: At mid-day we headed up river to the Rhine Gorge.

The Rhine Gorge is the most picturesque part of the river. It runs for about forty miles and has been declared a World Heritage Site. For hundreds of years those romantic castles belonged to a bunch of the nastiest guys on the planet. Known as Teutonic knights they set themselves up as independent rulers, fortified the high points along the narrow gorge and charged a toll for every ship that came by. If you couldn’t pay the toll you lost your cargo and in many cases you lost your life. It wasn’t until the middle of the 1800s that these guys were finally subdued and a treaty was signed by all the countries along the Rhine making it a free and open highway to ships of all nations.

So they finally got rid of the Teutonic knights, but they still had the problem of the Lorelei. The story goes that a beautiful woman named Lorelei lived on a rock which towers some 400 feet above the river. Her thing was to sing an enchanted song which distracted the boatmen. They lost control of their craft, crashed into the rocks and drowned.

RÜDESHEIM

BURT WOLF: Later that afternoon we docked in Rüdesheim.

The Romans arrived in this neighborhood about 2,000 years ago and taught the local population to build more maneuverable ships and stone houses.

They also showed them the best techniques for cultivating vines and making wine. The Rüdesheim vineyards ended up providing wine for the Roman troops.

During the first half of the 1800s, Rüdesheim became a main stop for steamboats and railroads and suddenly it became a destination for tourists. Most of the sightseers came from England which was in its Romantic Period. Rüdesheim’s old courtyards and winding alleys lined with half-timbered houses were just what they were looking for.

We concluded our evening in Rüdesheim with a visit to the Rüdesheimer Schloss – or more appropriately – Rüdesheimer schloshed. Their specialty is a Rüdesheimer coffee which consists of sweet coffee, a substantial hit of the local brandy, and a topping of whipped cream with chocolate shavings. 

HEIDELBERG

BURT WOLF: Over night we sailed to Mannheim where we took a bus to Heidelberg. According to archeological research our European ancestors have been living in this neighborhood for over 6,000 years.

Heidelberg was a Celtic settlement, the site of a Roman fort, and for 500 years, starting in the early 1200s, the hometown of the mighty counts who elected the kings of Germany.

The counts were responsible for three of the most important things in Heidelberg. First is their castle, which they started building in the 1300s and finished about 400 years later. What slowed things down was an unending conflict between two factions of the family over window treatments.

The most interesting way to get to the castle is on the funicular. This section of track is the oldest funicular railway in Germany and considered to be a historic landmark. It uses the original wooden cars that were built in 1907. The ride up offers some fabulous views of the Rhine Valley.

The oldest part of the Heidelberg Castle complex is the Gothic House which was the home of the Elector Ruprecht III. The Friedrich Wing dates to the early 1600s and has a classic Renaissance façade decorated with statues of the kings of Germany.

The sculptural decorations in the Otto-Heinrich Wing include Biblical characters, Roman gods and the virtues.

The one thing in the castle that almost everybody feels the need to see is the Heidelberg Tun, a wine vat with a capacity that is given at something in the area of 50,000 gallons. The original vat on this site was built in 1591 and used to collect taxes that were paid in wine.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The one that’s here today was installed about 250 years ago and probably never held any wine at all. Its primary objective appears to be to enclose vast quantities of emptiness-- a concept that fascinates over three million people a year who actually pay to come and look at it.

BURT WOLF: That afternoon we visited the Church of the Holy Ghost which dates to 1398 and has a unique history of serving both Catholic and Protestant congregations at the same time.

We were treated to an organ concert. 

STRASBOURG

BURT WOLF: Strasbourg is the capital city in the Northeast region of France, known as Alsace, which has an unusual history.

Thousands of years ago, it started as a Celtic village. When the ancient Romans colonized the area it became a garrison town. In the 5th century it was taken by the Francs. During the Middle Ages Strasbourg became part of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1681, the king of France invaded and took control. Ten years later, it was given to back to the Germans. Then back to France at the end of the First World War. The Germans occupied it during the Second World War. At the end of which it was returned to France. 

Are you getting this down?!

Today, everyone in Strasbourg speaks French, but they also speak German as a second language—just in case.

The city is crisscrossed by a network of canals that connect it to river systems that run throughout France.

The Petit France District is the most picturesque part of the city. 

We also had a guided tour of Strasbourg’s Cathedral of Notre-Dame, which was started in the 11th century and completed in the 15th century. It was worth the wait. It’s made of red sandstone and in spite of the many architectural styles that went into its construction, it holds together as a harmonious structure.

The cathedral has an astronomical clock that was originally built during the 1300s and everyday at 12:30 it presents a group of allegorical and mythological creatures. The clock’s body has a planetarium based on the 17th century theories of Copernicus.

BREISACH

BURT WOLF: The next morning we docked in Breisach at the edge of the Black Forest. Until the 11th century, when monks began to set up isolated monasteries, nobody was interested in entering the Black Forest. It had a reputation for being filled with thieves, and wild-man-eating boars. But in the 1500s, farmers along the Rhine began to clear the land and move into the forest.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: There isn’t much left to the thick pine forest and the thieves appear to have gone into the mortgage business or running offshore corporations. And the wild boars…they’re in television.

BURT WOLF: The area is famous for its Black Forest Cake. 

But its most famous product is probably the cuckoo clock. During the 1600s, Black Forest wood carvers started producing wooden clocks that were sold all over Europe, but there was nothing cuckoo about them. In the 1850s, a local artist designed a clock with a little house on the front. Shortly thereafter, some unknown mastermind placed a bird inside the house, developed a mechanism that allowed the bird to come out on the hour, and announced its presence by yelling “cuckoo”. 

I wouldn’t say these clocks were cuckoo, but some of them appear to be a little neurotic.

Up river from Strasbourg, the Rhine becomes a stairway to paradise—a man-made canal with seven giant locks that raise the river to the height of the Swiss city of Basel.

Basel is the highest point on the Rhine and the city where our cruise ended.

As the boat pulled back out into the river the captain sounded three bells---the old Rhine custom that marks a prayer: “In God’s name, a good voyage”.

For Travels & Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: Islands of Bermuda - #902

BURT WOLF: On June 23rd 1609, an English ship carrying colonists to Virginia encountered a storm. A storm that sent it crashing into an ocean reef. The ship, named the Sea Venture was about 600 miles off the coast of North Carolina.

But the reefs that they hit were not just any reefs; they were the reefs surrounding Bermuda.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: And the 150 people who made it to shore safely became Bermuda’s first settlers. Wasn’t where they intended to end up but in many ways it was better.

BURT WOLF: The islands of Bermuda are the result of a volcanic eruption that took place about 70 million years ago. It sent up a three mile high needle of rock that topped out just below the surface of the water. The rock was in the middle of the Gulf Stream which comes up from the Caribbean and keeps the waters warm throughout the year. The warm water attracted coral life and over the centuries the rock was covered with the compressed shells that formed the 250 foot thick limestone cap that is now Bermuda. The pinkness of the shells produced Bermuda’s famous pink beaches.

Bermuda is a member of the British Commonwealth, but England is 3,500 miles away. United States a mere 600. Bermuda looks to England for its culture but its biggest trading partner is the United States and even today its currency, the Bermuda dollar is on a par and used interchangeably with the U.S. dollar. Bermuda was founded by Europeans but 60 percent of its present population descended from African slaves. Diverse elements, but somehow Bermuda has been able to blend them together. And in many ways they have done a better job than most nations faced with similar histories. The net result is one of the most beautiful, interesting and hospitable resorts in the world.

SCOOT AROUND

BURT WOLF: The capital city of Bermuda is Hamilton.

Hamilton has plenty of taxis. And the amount of truck traffic you’d expect for a town with 2,000 inhabitants, but not many cars.

Bermuda actually has a long history of opposing automobiles. The government only allowed them in after the Second World War. Even today, each family is limited to one car per resident and the maximum speed is 20 miles per hour.

As a result, the primary mode of transportation is the motor scooter. And that’s true for many tourists as well as residents.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Ah, it’s biker time.

BURT WOLF: Motor scooters are easy to rent.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Okay.

JASON NESS ON CAMERA: Afternoon, how you doing?

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: I’m doing fine, how are you?

JASON NESS ON CAMERA: Good, thanks.

BURT WOLF: Everyone gets an introductory lesson, and a helmet that must be worn.

JASON NESS ON CAMERA: Does it fit okay?

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Perfect. Alright.

JASON NESS ON CAMERA: First things first here, push the bike forward to take it off the kickstand.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Push the bike forward to take it off the kickstand, right.

JASON NESS ON CAMERA: Step down, lift back to put it back on.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: That’s it? I can do this.

JASON NESS ON CAMERA: That’s—yeah, there’s more to it though.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Oh, hold on, hold on, hold on.

JASON NESS ON CAMERA: To start the bike, key in the ignition, turn it to the right, squeeze both breaks. Headlights are over here, high and low beam, turn signals. And remember you do have to cancel them by pushing that in.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: You have to cancel by turning it off.

JASON NESS ON CAMERA: Correct.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: I like the horn.

JASON NESS ON CAMERA: That’s just the Bermuda greeting. If you hear anybody honking at you, they’re just saying hi.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Alright.

JASON NESS ON CAMERA: We drive on the left here. That’s probably the most important thing for you to remember.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Okay. I’m ready.

JASON NESS ON CAMERA: Ready?

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Yeah.

JASON NESS ON CAMERA: Okay.

BURT WOLF: And a reminder that Bermudian drivers are very polite and you are expected to follow suit. Hamilton contains the island’s major shopping area which is Front Street West. It runs along the harbor and consists of a series of three story buildings filled with shops and restaurants.

PHOTOGRAPHER ON CAMERA: Hey Mike, think honeymoon!

MIKE ON CAMERA: Honeymoon, you bet!

ROYAL NAVAL DOCKYARDS

BURT WOLF: These are the Royal Naval Dockyards of Bermuda—a huge military fortress that was built by the British Navy in the late 1700s, and for good reason.

When the United States won the War of Independence against England, the British Navy lost its ports along the east coast of North America. The young American Navy was quite aggressive and England began to feel insecure about its position as ruler of the seas. This fort made them feel a little more confident about their situation.

ADMIRAL BRYAN DARBY ON CAMERA: My name is Bryan Darby, I am the Admiral of Dockyard and I represent a man called Admiral Richard Coburn. Basically you’re looking at a Victorian Dockyard; it’s only 200 years old. It was built by convicts. Sadly we had to bring 8000 convicts out from England, and they turned this fortress into what was called the Gibraltar of the West. And the reason for it was because Britain was losing control of the world to America. So if you’ll follow me, this a’ way.

This building here is a warehouse, but the top corner there is, in fact, the Dockyard church. They forgot to put a church in the plans when they built it, and found a very strong demand for a church around about 1850, so they gave them the top half of this building and they turned it into a Victorian church with about capacity for about 600 people. When 1938 came around, many years later, my father—my real father—was sent out from England to be the Chaplin of the Dockyard and run this church. And they turned this into the only interdenominational church in the history of the British navy. Sounds nice to us, doesn’t it? 

Unfortunately, it was against orders. So my dad was cashiered and sent back to England in disgrace, but he’d had the good sense to have me born before he did that. Many, many, years later the Queen of England gave him the OBE, which is the Order of the British Empire or Other Buggers Efforts I think they call it. Anyhow, he was quite pleased to get it, but he didn’t know why until they sent him his papers from his navy days and across the Bermuda page someone had written in ink, “When this chap retires give him a gong for what he did for the young men.” So thank you, Dad.

These buildings here were built by the navy for their offices. As you may see: small rooms, no ventilation, roofs made of lead. But the lead on the roof was dynamite. We drink the water off our roofs and that was dumb. But we never thought to ask. I don’t know what it is about the British.

This is called the four-face liar. I don’t have to tell you why, do I? It never tells the right time. Never.

And there’s my ship. Come and look at this beautiful boat. I give you The Spirit of Bermuda. What a lovely name for a ship. If you look at those masts, they had a rig called the Bermuda Rig. All the other ships of the day had square riggers, they were tall ships. We invented

the Bermuda rig, and that’s a sloop rig—and it goes much, much faster. So put 35 guns on a small boat like that and you’re quite a force to be reckoned with. This way please.

This is called a sheer leg crane. We had to have a crane in the dockyards. Out in the mail came these two sockets. And they said and now you get a 110-foot length of Canadian spruce, and you stick them in the holes, bring it up to the top, put a rope on top, with lovely winches and stays and what have you. When your ship comes in, you lower this enormous great structure over the ship and you pluck out the guns, and the cargo and the masts at will. Wonderful in theory. In practice, it weighed 43 tons. And sometimes the weight of the cargo overwhelmed the strength of the winch. It’s the only crane in history to have sunk three warships. Straight through the bottom. So they took it away. Isn’t that sad? Sad.

So you’re in a very interesting country, a very interesting island, and a most interesting spot in the world is Bermuda. Dockyard is the number one tourist attraction, and I am very pleased you are here today. Thank you very much indeed.

ST. GEORGE’S

BURT WOLF: St. George’s was the original capital of Bermuda. And the second English town established in the New World. And much of its old English atmosphere survives.

The local church, St. Peter’s, is the oldest Anglican Church in continuous use in the Western Hemisphere.

Across the road is the State House, which is the oldest building in Bermuda. Dates back to 1620.

The Bermuda Perfumery was founded in 1928, when the gardens were coming into their own and traditions were being established. To this day each bottle continues to be filled by the dedicated staff. They manufacture perfumes with the best ingredients from around the world.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The reefs outside the harbor of St. George’s always made the approach rather treacherous. And as ships got bigger the problem became more pronounced. In 1815 the government of Bermuda decided to move its capitol from St. George’s to Hamilton, which had a better harbor. As a result, things in St. George’s got a lot quieter, and that’s one of the reasons they’ve been able to hold on to so much of their historic architecture.

BURT WOLF: Bermuda architecture is one of the most interesting aspects of the community. The buildings are constructed with a design that is unique to these islands. It is a response to the climate and the building materials that are available in the middle of the Atlantic. Vince Caan is a Bermuda taxi guide with a special interest in the local architecture.

VINCE CAAN ON CAMERA: The architecture in Bermuda is very unique. The homes are very solid; there are no frame homes. They’re made out of Bermuda stone or concrete block in the modern day. And we need that sort of structure to support our roofs, which -- we depend on rainwater from our roofs. The roofs are made of Bermuda stone. It’s cut into a slate; it’s about sixteen inches long and about a foot square and about an inch thick. And it’s laid similar to the way you lay your shingles in America. The roofs are painted with a lime wash, which is a lime powder you mix with water and it forms like a latex paint. That helps to keep the water purified. There’s a gutter incorporated into the roof, and it’s on a ten-to-thirty degree angle. And the rainwater is caught from the roofs and goes down into the tank, and a pressurized pump system pumps it back through the house. Every tank has a trap door, and the trap door by law must be on the exterior of the house. And of course the Fire Department reserves the right of putting their hose in any tank. They will replenish the water they take out -- so you don’t need hydrants.

Bermuda is noted for its pastel colors. In the old days, that I can remember, you had two colors. You had brick dust, and you mixed the brick dust with lime, which was white, and you got a pink. So you’ll see multitudes of different shades of pink. And the blue came from the old days; they used to put bluing in your white clothes, to whiten your clothes, so they used to crush that. There used to be a blue cube, they used to crush it and mix it with the lime wash, and you got blue, pale blues. So here we are in the modern day with computerized paint mixing, you got a variety of other colors.

THE AQUARIUM

BURT WOLF: The Bermuda Natural History Society was founded in 1901 with specific instructions to find out what was happening in the waters around Bermuda. Since then it has expanded into the Bermuda Aquarium, Natural History Museum, and Zoo.

Today its home to over 100 species of fish, plus an interesting selection of golden lion tamarin monkeys, scarlet ivis, giant tortoises, and children fascinated by the exhibits.

Doctor Ian Walker is the curator of the Bermuda Aquarium and Zoo.

DR. IAN WALKER: That’s one of our golden lion tamarin monkeys. So we have three in this exhibit that run free.

DR. IAN WALKER ON CAMERA: And, they are very curious little monkeys, and they love to come up to visitors. But they’re absolutely beautiful. And I can say we have three in this exhibit, we have two males and one female.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Mornin’!

DR. IAN WALKER: There we are. There we have Rosiette the spoonbill.

BURT WOLF: Spoonbill.

DR. IAN WALKER: Spoonbill. Named obviously from the shape of their beak. They’ll stick their bill in the water and…

BURT WOLF: Suck up everything they can?

DR. IAN WALKER: That’s right

DR. IAN WALKER ON CAMERA: This is our 148,000 gallon North Rock exhibit tank.

DR. IAN WALKER: And it’s uh designed to exhibit the most northerly coral reef system in the world—which is uh the North Rock—about eight miles North of here.

DR. IAN WALKER ON CAMERA: But we have a whole bunch of different fish in the tank and one of our favorites is Darth Vader, the black Grouper. He likes to come over and be petted.

Have you ever petted a grouper?

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: No.

DR. IAN WALKER ON CAMERA: Would you like to?

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: No.

DR. IAN WALKER: This is actually a natural behavior for them—not actually necessarily coming up to humans.

DR. IAN WALKER ON CAMERA: but posturing like this to be cleaned. So he’ll come up, and uh ordinarily in the reef fish like this would go into a sea frond or something like that. And they would just posture which would indicate that the other fish were safe to approach them and pick little bits of skin; you name it, off them. Give them a good cleaning. So--

BURT WOLF: It’s a spa treatment.

IAN WALKER: Exactly.

BURT WOLF: Darth, see ya around!

SPORTING BERMUDA

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The two great spectator sports in Bermuda are: Soccer and Cricket.

Ah, soccer is pretty easy to follow. You kick the ball or butt it with your head and try to get it into a netted area at the end of the field and the opposing team tries to stop you.

Cricket, on the other hand, is very British and a little complicated and—I’ll have to get back to you on that.

BURT WOLF: The four primary participatory sports are:

Golf, tennis, kite flying and sailing.

Bermuda has more golf courses per square mile than any other country. And the first time the PGA Grand Slam of Golf was held outside of the United States it was held at the Mid-Ocean Golf Club in Bermuda. The beauty of the Tucker Point Club is a perfect example of why golf is so popular.

Tennis is a big deal in Bermuda too. There are over 400 courts on the island.

Kites are made and flown throughout the year and there are experts available who will help you build a kite and teach you or reacquaint you with the proper techniques.

Competitive sailing got started in Bermuda during the early 1800s, when work boats were refitted for racing and British naval officers took up the sport.

The boat used to train the youngest sailors is called an Optimist. It was designed in 1947 for a men’s club called The Optimists. They wanted to start the sailing equivalent of a child’s soap box derby. Today, 150,000 young sailors train on Optimists and the training appears to work – 70% of the sailors who have won gold medals in the Olympics started out in an Optimist.

Every two years, in the middle of June, over 180 sail boats gather together in Newport Rhode Island to take part in the Newport Bermuda Race. For over 100 years sail boats have assembled here to begin a race that takes them across 635 miles of ocean --- ocean known for challenging weather, strong currents and the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is a series a powerful currents that act almost like a separate river in the middle of the ocean. It has the power to decide where your boat will be going without prior consultation with your crew. The fleet is divided into five divisions to allow boats of various sizes and designs to compete fairly in what is one of the world’s most famous and aggressive ocean races. The race ends in Bermuda with the kind of celebration that is traditional for Bermudians.

RUM AROUND TOWN

BURT WOLF: During the 1600s, the primary source of great wealth to plantation owners in the Caribbean, was sugar. A bi-product of refining sugar was molasses and a bi-product of processing molasses was rum.

In Bermuda the Gosling family has been making rum since 1863. The first Gosling arrived in Bermuda in much the same way as the original settlers. He was headed to the United States and weather forced the ship into Bermuda. And like the first settlers, 200 years before, he decided to stay.

Today Gosling’s is the largest exporter of a Bermuda made product.

WHAT’S COOKING

BURT WOLF: Bermuda has hundreds of restaurants catering to many different tastes.

One is the Sunday morning breakfast specialty of codfish and potatoes served with boiled egg, sautéed onions, tomato sauce with more onions, a Johnny Cake, a banana, a slice of avocado and a piece of cassava pie. It’s a specialty.

There are restaurants that are known for their local dishes like Bermuda Fish Chowder topped with Sherry Pepper Sauce and Black Rum.

There are chefs that prepare the classic recipes of France like the traditional onion soup.

There are bistros doing an excellent job with seafood, including spiny lobster.

There are restaurants that cater primarily to locals and can be fun to visit.

And finally, there are British-inspired pubs serving traditional pub grub of bangers and mash.

And of course you must stop in for high tea.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Afternoon tea got started in Britain during the 1840s when the 7th Duchess of Bedford, who also held the title of Lady of the Bed Chamber, decided that she was getting hungry between lunch and dinner and wanted to have a little snack—which she took secretly in her bed chamber, and consisted of tea and some little bread and butter sandwiches. Eventually her friends heard about it, and it turned into an afternoon tea party, which became common amongst the British all over the world.

THE PRINCESS AND HER SISTER

BURT WOLF: In 1883, Princess Louise, who was the daughter of England’s Queen Victoria and the wife of the Governor General of Canada, spent her winter holiday in Bermuda. Putting aside the question of why a princess needs a holiday in the first place, her visit was covered by all the socially important magazines and newspapers in England, Canada and the United States. Suddenly, Bermuda was fashionable and local developers began developing a suitable hotel.

On January 1st, 1885, just two years after the visit by Princess Louise, The Fairmont Hamilton Princess welcomed its first guests. The idea was to have a hotel in Bermuda that was so luxurious that it would attract people who normally vacationed in Palm Beach.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The hotel was the place—flattering gas lights in each room, five-inch mirrors on the dressing tables so you could see how good you looked in the flattering gas lights, hot and cold running water in the bathrooms—amazing stuff for the time. Cruise ships began bringing in guests from the East Coast of the United States and the hotel became famous.

BURT WOLF: These days the Fairmont Hamilton Princess is in better shape than ever. It overlooks Hamilton Harbor and remains a center for social and business gatherings.

For a number of years, The Hamilton Princess has had a younger sibling, The Fairmont Southampton. The Southampton sits on top of one of the highest hills in Bermuda. Each guest room has its own private balcony and most have panoramic views of the island. It has its own 18-hole executive par-3 golf course.

Spas are a big deal in Bermuda and Southampton’s Willow Stream Spa is a perfect example. It has 31,000 square feet of facilities, including 15 private treatment rooms, three lounge areas, a private indoor pool and separate men’s and women’s saunas. There’s a heated indoor pool with a waterfall and gardens, and two outdoor Jacuzzis on a sundeck overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

The two hotels run as a team. All the facilities at each hotel are available to guests no matter which hotel they are staying at. And there’s a private ferry that takes you between the two properties. Princess Louise would have loved it.

Today, tourism is responsible for over half of Bermuda’s income, which makes it an essential part of an economy that imports almost everything. The government is constantly active in managing Bermuda tourism, and its primary interest is in quality rather than quantity. Over forty percent of Bermuda’s tourists are repeat visitors and the government wants to keep it that way.

That’s Travels & Traditions in Bermuda. I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: Tulip Time Cruise - #901

BURT WOLF: For thousands of years the best way to get around Europe was on a river boat. The rivers were the great highways that moved people and goods. They were also the natural boundaries between cultures. As a result many of the great cities of Europe were built on the banks of rivers.

During the last few years cruising the rivers of Europe has become a major attraction for tourists. And for good reason --- the ship is your hotel and it takes you peacefully from city to city. Often you’ll dock in the oldest and most beautiful parts of a town. And one thing that is particularly dear to my heart --you only unpack once.

This cruise is called Tulip Time. It starts in Amsterdam, which is filled with art, architecture and places to shop. Next, Dordrecht to discover how windmills really work. Then Antwerp, which is the world epicenter for diamonds and Brussels for food, beer, lace, beer, unusual statues and beer. Ghent for its outstanding architecture and Bruges where the city center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

AMSTERDAM

BURT WOLF: Towards the end of the 1100s, a group of herring fisherman decided to build a settlement at the mouth of the Amstel River. They drove wooden stakes into the mud, mounded some wet earth and seaweed around the stakes and patched together a few huts on top of the mounds. Nothing to brag about, but still something they could call home. There was, however, one serious problem -- at high tide, home was about three feet underwater.

So they built a dam to hold back the sea and the people called the place the dam on the Amstel. The dam worked and there was much rejoicing.

Today that same spot is Amsterdam’s town square and there is still much rejoicing.

The best way to get a quick look at why they are rejoicing is to take a canal tour. The canals were built by the city government during the 1600s. Each canal had four lanes of traffic. A ship could tie up in front of a warehouse, unload its cargo and not interfere with the ongoing traffic in the center lanes. Double parking was a capital crime. The three main canals could handle 4,000 ships at a time.

Real estate has always been tight in Amsterdam. As a result some people began living on canal boats. Eventually these floating apartments became some of the most desirable locations in the city. Captain Vincent is the curator of The Houseboat Museum and offers visitors a tour of life on a canal boat.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Good Morning.

CAPTAIN VINCENT van LOON ON CAMERA: Morning, welcome.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Thank you very much.

CAPTAIN VINCENT van LOON ON CAMERA: Just come inside and I show you my boat.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: I’m right behind you.

CAPTAIN VINCENT van LOON ON CAMERA: Welcome onboard, be careful with the steps.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Okay.

CAPTAIN VINCENT van LOON ON CAMERA: This is the kitchen.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Pretty big kitchen.

CAPTAIN VINCENT van LOON ON CAMERA: Yeah, this is the living room, as you can see a lot of people think it’s quite small in a houseboat but it can be even bigger than some small apartments in Amsterdam. This is a model of ships like these which were converted into houseboats, they were former freighters, this one was built in 1914 and the deck house, the whole family lived in, four people or maybe ten square meters, so it’s quite small, and they could transport goods by opening these covers, coal and other grain and things like that could come in. This is the sitting room with nice chairs, enough height to stand, some old pictures of Amsterdam. For example this is a nice picture because you can see these ships which were transformed into house boats were freighters, you can see people loading stuff on the ships and transporting all over the Netherlands.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: And you’re connected to electricity

CAPTAIN VINCENT van LOON ON CAMERA: Yeah, water; telephone, so it’s quite comfortable to live on a house boat in Amsterdam.

BURT WOLF: The net result of all these canals is a city built on 90 islands and connected by 500 bridges. Laws controlled the size of the houses that faced the canals, the bricks that could be used and what architectural embellishments were allowed. These buildings were constructed during the late 1500s and early 1600s. At the time, Amsterdam was the commercial and financial center of Europe and much of its wealth was created by the Dutch East India Company which controlled the spice trade with the islands of the South Pacific.

This was the business that Columbus was looking for when he bumped into the Bahamas. The Dutch East India Company was making big bucks. It was also one of the first companies to have a pubic offering of its stock. Investors could buy shares and share in the riches. This was Amsterdam’s Golden Age and much of that gold went into buying works of art.

As a result, Amsterdam has a half-dozen of the world’s great museums.

The Van Gogh Museum houses more Van Gogh paintings and drawings than any other museum in the world.

The Rijksmuseum is the official state museum and has the greatest collection of Dutch masters. They have Rembrandt’s Night Watch and the Jewish Bride. They have Vermeer’s Milkmaid and the Love Letters and Franz Hals Portrait of a Young Couple. They also have an awesome collection of Delftware porcelain and one of Europe’s largest collections of prints and drawings.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: For thousands of years, if you had big money you wanted to use some of that money to commission a work of art. Money could be in the hands of a rich family like the de Medicis of Italy or a King like Louis XVI of France or the Catholic Church. They liked mythological themes and religious elements. But here in Amsterdam the money was in the middle class.

BURT WOLF: Pictures from everyday life were in and everything had to look real---your uncle Franz --- the guys in your drinking club --- landscapes--- and seascapes.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Unfortunately, Amsterdam’s golden age was short lived. During the second half of the 1600s everybody ganged up on the Dutch. The English started a series of wars that took away their holdings in the East Indies and the Portuguese attacked and took away most of their holdings in Brazil. Even New Amsterdam became New York.

BURT WOLF: But much of what was created during Amsterdam’s Golden Age is still around and easily available to visitors and that is particularly true when it comes to eating and drinking.

Amsterdam has a unique type of establishment called a “tasting house” where you can taste the different liquors produced by a specific manufacturers. In this case the Van Wees Company. Their tasting house is called The Admiral it and offers 17 types of Geneva which is a kind of Gin. They also offer an assortment of special liqueurs with unusual flavors like cinnamon and ginger.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Here’s to the Dutch.

BURT WOLF: Pancakes are also a tradition in Amsterdam and a shop called Pancakes! is the place to try them. They have pancakes with ham. Pancakes with bacon and cheese and pancakes with raspberry sauce.

You’ll also see people eating raw herring. They buy one from a street vendor who serves it on a paper plate with a garnish of chopped onion. Correct form requires that you tilt your head back, hold the herring above you, slowly lower it into your mouth and bite off a piece. This is definitely an acquired taste, and an acquired skill.

If you’re interested in the traditional foods of Amsterdam but the flight of the raw herring is not your thing, may I suggest a visit to Haesje Claes. You can taste hotchpotch, which is a dish of meats, mashed potatoes, onions and carrots. Another favorite is red beans with potatoes and piccalilli. They also have an excellent Dutch pea soup.

AVALON ARTISTRY

BURT WOLF: Following our free time in Amsterdam, Avalon’s crew welcomed us onboard.

AVALON CREW ON CAMERA: Afternoon sir, welcome onboard.

Cheers enjoy the first evening on board. Cheers to everybody. Salute.

BURT WOLF: Andrezj Sanakiewicz was our Cruise Director.

ANDREZJ SANAKIEWICZ ON CAMERA: What’s special about cruising on the Artistry is very nice intimate atmosphere and a very dedicated crew. There is a ratio of about three and a half passengers for one crew member. We are very proud of our staterooms because they are the most special on the European Rivers, all the staterooms are equipped with minibar and a dryer, bathrobe and TV, ninety percent of all our staterooms have sliding glass doors, French balconies, we have of course, a special restaurant as well, for breakfast they have hot stations with omelets and eggs on request, they have all kinds of cold cuts, bagels and cream cheese, we have fresh fruits and a big selection of cereals. We try always to introduce some of the local products like cheese. We have a very special lounge which is a place for all kinds of social gatherings and lectures and we have a musician for evening entertainment. In addition a beautiful sky deck where passengers can enjoy the countryside passing by.

SCHOONHOVEN

BURT WOLF: During our first morning on the river we docked in Schoonhoven.

All of Schoonhoven fits into three square miles and has a medieval feeling.

Little canals lined with row houses.

Narrow bridges crossing over the canals.

And ancient streets lined with jewelry shops and silver galleries.

For the past 700 years, Schoonhoven has been a center for the design and production of silver jewelry. During the 1300s Schoonhoven was the most important royal court in the Netherlands. Silversmiths came to the area to make things for the royal family. When the royal family began losing power and money during the 1400s the silver artists stayed on and sold their work to anyone who could afford it. And the number of people who could afford it was quickly increasing because of international trade. 

One of the most interesting workshops is the one in the old water tower which shows works by local and international silversmiths. These are active workshops where you can watch artisans shape their designs.

Paul de Vries is an artist who works in silver.

PAUL de VRIES ON CAMERA: I’ve been working for 25 years now and I still like it even better than gold. I find it very special. And you can make any shape of it. It’s very malleable and still it’s very strong.

BURT WOLF: In addition to silver jewelry, Schoonhoven is famous for Kok’s Bakery.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: And Kok’s is famous for its Fonteyn Koek, which is made of gingerbread and honey and sugar and dried subtropical fruits. Ah, but I bet you knew that already.

They also make waffle-like wafer cookies that are held together by a layer of caramel syrup.

DORDRECHT

BURT WOLF: That afternoon we stopped in Dordrecht where we caught a bus to Kinderdijk and learned about windmills.

Kinderdijk means children’s dike and refers to a great flood on St. Elisabeth’s Day in 1421, when a crib with a crying baby was washed up on this dike. There are nineteen windmills in the area and until 1950 they were used to drain water from the land which is below sea level.

There are two major types of windmills. Polder mills and industrial mills. Polder mills are used to drain the land that was and still is below sea level. 

Industrial mills are used for a number of traditional purposes like milling wheat, extracting oil and sawing wood.

The earliest windmills built in the Netherlands date back to the 1200s and may have been inspired by the wind powered grain mills of Persia. The Low Countries of Europe have very few rivers that can power mills so the windmill became the most important source of energy. 

They were also used to send messages.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: When the blades are in this position it means that the miller is on a short break.

When they are like that, he’s on a longer break.

When they are in this position it’s called the mourning position, something sad has happened, the market has gone down another 200 points.

This is the celebration position. That means there has been a birth or a wedding in the miller’s family or the government has decided to put a permanent end to earmarked legislation.

During the Second World War, windmills were used to send secret signals to the allied forces.

ANTWERP

BURT WOLF: The next morning we arrived in Antwerp which is the center of the diamond trade.

More than seventy percent of the world’s annual diamond business, worth over 15 billion dollars, takes place in Antwerp. Its home to two thousand diamond companies, employing over thirty thousand people. 

Diamonds were first mined in India and until the 1700s India was their only source. They are the hardest naturally occurring substance and when properly cut they have the ability to separate white light into the colors of the spectrum which gives a diamond its extraordinary brilliance.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The weight of a diamond is measured in carats --- a food reference but probably not the one you are thinking about. The word ‘carat” when it’s used with diamonds is a reference to the carob bean. It’s based on an old Greek word and strangely enough carob beans have a uniform weight so they were used in Ancient times to measure the weight of precious stones and diamonds.

BRUSSELS

BURT WOLF: About mid-day we headed for Brussels.

Brussels got started as a fortified castle on a small island in a River. The island was important because it was the crossing point for two trade routes. The local Dukes saw it as a good spot to make a few bucks and set up a protected market around the fort. By the 12th century Brussels was a major commercial center producing luxury goods that were exported throughout Europe.

The most famous symbol of Brussels is the Manneken Pis --- a bronze fountain in the form of a naked boy. It was constructed in the early 1600s and there are a number of stories about its meaning. But all the stories make the same point; the people of Brussels are courageous, have stood up to opposition, and the statue expresses their attitude towards anyone who tries to oppress them.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: In 1746, during a visit by the King of France to Belgium, a group of French soldiers stole this statue. The King was so annoyed and embarrassed that he had the soldiers thrown in prison and held there until the statue was returned. And then he passed a law that said that every French soldier who ever passed this statue had to salute.

BURT WOLF: The King also gave the statue a uniform of gold brocade. The idea of putting different uniforms on the statue for different occasions caught on. Today there is a museum with over six hundred costumes. Dracula --- Mozart --- and my personal favorite --- Elvis.

Brussels is a great town for food. Its quintessential dish is steamed mussels in an herb broth with a side of French fried potatoes and a beer. The shell of the first mussel is used to scoop out the meat on the other side. The French fries, which should really be called Belgian fries, because the Belgians fried them first, are dipped into mayonnaise.

And there’s a beer that is called gueuze. It’s often described as Belgian Champagne. It’s made from lambic beer which is itself rather special. Most brewers add commercial yeast to their beer, lambic brewers count on the yeasts that are floating wild in the air around Brussels. The process produces a dry and cider-like drink. Sometimes, one–year-old lambic is mixed with longer aged lambic and bottled for a second fermentation. The result is Gueuze.

If you are serious about beer you might want to stop in to one of the many beer shops. Belgium produces 400 artisanal beers and some excellent mass-produced stuff.

And you wouldn’t want to forget about Belgian chocolates. Many of the big Belgian chocolate makers have retail outlets around the world and there’s little point in tasting what you can get back home. You want to go where the locals go and for many Belgians that’s Wittamer. In addition to its chocolate counter it has a beautiful café that serves a selection of macaroons, pastries and ice creams. I’ve been a fan of Wittamer’s work for the last thirty years.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: And I’ve been buying my cookies at a shop called Dandoy for just as long.

Every year on December 6th, which is St. Nicholas’ Day, children all over Northern Europe receive a cookie called a speculoos. It’s from a Latin word that means “mirror”. Let me show you why.

BURT WOLF: It’s a reference to the fact that the cookie is made in a hand carved wooden mold that produces a mirror image of St. Nicholas.

Their old molds go back for hundreds of years and represent many other images besides St. Nick --- and some of them are over three feet tall.

GHENT

BURT WOLF: The next morning we arrived in Ghent. Ghent is one of the oldest cities in Belgium and during the 1200s it was second only to Paris as a focal point for commerce and culture. It had a monopoly on the English wool trade which made it the center for European textiles. It also made it rich and powerful enough to be an almost totally independent city for hundreds of years.

Fortunately, Ghent has been able to maintain much of its architectural and cultural past.

It still has its 14th century belfry with a 52-bell carillon which was originally built to show off the town’s independence.

The feudal castle of the Counts of Flanders that was built to intimidate their rivals.

The 7th century Abbey of St. Bavo with its Lapidary Museum. Lapidary is a reference to the art of cutting and polishing stones. The museum has a collection of stone fragments collected from various demolished buildings and monuments. There is also a collection of tombstones that date from the 13th to the 19th century. It appears that from time to time certain abbeys, monasteries and churches decided to sell off their old tombstones to make way for new tombstones.

And there’s an unusual type of retreat that was popular in the 1200s, called a Beguinages. They were developed for unmarried women and widows who were unable to pay the convent dowry that was required to enter an official nunnery. It was a place where women could live in their own society, insulated from a troubled world, and use their individual skills to develop a collective environment. The Beguinages were financed by wealthy patrons and are unique to Belgium and the Netherlands.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Here we go.

BURT WOLF: Ghent also has a famous shop devoted to Mustard. Catherine Caesens is the owner.

CATHERINE CAESENS ON CAMERA: The firm has been founded in 1790 and has always been around here in the area. The shop moved into this building in 1860. The mustard is made with mustard seeds, vinegar and very, very little salt. I don’t use any preservatives, no additives at all, no starches, no colorings, so it’s quite a natural product. I’ll give you some of the mustard to try here from the vat. Be careful it’s quite hot. And this is where we sell our mustard from as well.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Oh, it’s very nice.

BRUGES

BURT WOLF: That afternoon we took a tour of Bruges. During the 1200s Bruges was a major port and home to the Dukes of Burgundy. The Dukes were as powerful as the King of France. But by the 1400s, the waterway silted up and Bruges went into an extended period of economic decline.

The fact that Bruges was pretty much broke for 500 years was bad for citizens but good for its architectural heritage. No one had enough money to update their buildings and so they remained pretty much intact. As a result Bruges is one of the most beautiful cities in Northern Europe and the historic center of the town has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The town hall dates to 1376 and it is the oldest town hall in Belgium. 

Avalon’s Tulip Time Cruise was a great experience and I hope to tip-toe through the tulips again.

For Travels and Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: Immigrating to America, Part 2 - #810

BURT WOLF: Every person who lives in the United States is an immigrant or the descendant of an immigrant. In every case they were people looking for a better life. Social tensions were always part of their experience. Immigrants were stereotyped and discriminated against. Many suffered verbal and physical abuse because they were “different”.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Even Benjamin Franklin, that great lover of freedom, was opposed to German immigration. He felt that so many Germans were coming here that they were going to take over the country and turn us into a nation that only spoke German.

BURT WOLF: Franklin complained that the Germans don’t look like us; they don’t speak our language, and they don’t share are values. These are the same arguments that have been used to oppose immigration for decades. And it begs the question---who is us.  These are the same arguments that were used against the Italians, the Irish, the Chinese, the Catholics, the Jews, and today they are being used against Mexicans and Latinos. 

CARL ANDERSON ON CAMERA: Well it’s no surprise that waves of immigration have caused waves of resentment and negative reaction.  That’s been the history throughout the history of the United States.  It is clear in the short term there is some disruption to the economy, to daily life patterns and so it’s a fact. But what we know in the United States, over time, is that these waves of immigration have brought great benefit to the country and the immigrants do find their place in American society and make a wonderful contribution to it.

The statute of liberty has become iconic in American society standing for everything that we prize but often times we forget what’s written on the base of the statue that great poem by Emma Lazarus talking about the tired, the poor, the homeless.  These are the people that came to the country in the millions and the great miracle of America is that they help build this country into the wonderful nation that it is.  So we might say that the stone that was rejected by the builder in so many countries, in America, became the cornerstone.

BURT WOLF: Lynda Zengerle is the Partner in charge of immigration practices at the Washington Law firm of Steptoe & Johnson. She believes that a point system might work. 

LYNDA S. ZENGERLE ON CAMERA: There are a number of countries now that have a point system.  Interestingly enough, most of them used to be colonies of the United Kingdom.   But Australia and Canada and I believe the UK all have what they call point systems.  You get a certain number of points for having a certain level of education.  You're given a certain number of points for having skills.  You get a certain number of points for not having any criminal violations on your record.  And when you reach the critical number of points, you're given permanent residency.

BURT WOLF: So how do you solve the problem?  What do you do with the twelve million people who are here?

LYNDA S. ZENGERLE ON CAMERA: You give them a way that will allow them to come out of the shadows, which is extremely important for everybody's sake, and having either paid a fine or pay some price - it can't be an amnesty.

BURT WOLF: So, let me see if I can summarize this.  For the twelve million people who are here illegally, we have to have some kind of system to bring them into a legal position where they don't have to hide but they have to pay some price in some way for having come in illegally so that it isn't an amnesty.

Congressman Charles Rangel is the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and for many years he’s been dealing with the issue of immigration.

CHARLES B. RANGEL ON CAMERA: People are not honest enough to admit that there is absolutely nothing that we can do with the 13, 14 or 15 million people that are here illegally.  And, so, as long as we talk about them having to go back to where they came from or searching for the path for citizenship, the dishonesty makes it difficult to come up with a plan that people can understand.

I mean, we have people arguing here as though the terrorists are coming across our Southern border.  And, so, therefore, we have to treat this like an act in the war against terrorism.  They know that this is not so.  And they also should know that if we had the ability to identify each and every person, Mexican or otherwise, extract them out of the general population and send them back where they came from, the economy would collapse.

This country is so beautiful and so great, and has such great opportunity that I can understand how anyone would want to come to the country legally or illegally in order to improve their quality of life.  But we have to be a country of laws.  And we have to respect it.  And we have to make certain that those who want to come in come in legally.  Because we've done such a terrible job in the past in terms of who is here and who is staying here.  And because most all of these people are hard-working people that are scared to death of exposing themselves for fear of deportation.  It seems like we got ourselves into a position that we're going to have to face reality and get on with it, and fix this thing in the future.

CHARLES B. RANGEL ON CAMERA: And what do I mean by that?  I mean, first of all, you make legal the people that are here.  And first find out who the heck they are, which is so important if we're talking about national security.  And to make them as whole as possible those who are deserving of citizenship.  The second thing that you do is to make certain that you don't have a guess-working program to come into the United States and to evaluate what do you have already in the United States so that you can take care of your long term needs.

How does an American treat these types of problems?  I would suggest, with sensitivity.  Thinking about locking up people, deporting people, keeping the kids and sending the parents back home.  To me, that's not America. 

THE CHINESE RUSH FOR THE GOLD

BURT WOLF: By the end of the 1800s China was a madhouse. Its five most important port cities were under the control of foreign powers. Because they were port cities, the local Chinese were getting a look at the outside world and they soon realized that immigration to Europe or the United States was the best way to improve their lives.

The horrendous conditions in China were the “push”. The need for cheap and subservient labor in America was the “pull”. U.S. employers were so concerned about a supply of labor that they had our government sign a treaty with China that allowed Chinese immigrants to immigrate without restriction.

Able bodied men were recruited under a system that gave them passage to America in exchange for a period of work. They came to be known as “coolies” after a Hindi word for hired servant. But because they were usually forced to do the most difficult work they probably thought they were being called “ku-li” which in Chinese means “bitter strength”.

When the California gold rush came to an end the Chinese went to work on the railroads.

As usual they did the toughest work for the least money and virtually no credit.

This painting was made to commemorate the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad that connected the Eastern part of the United States with the west.  In spite of the fact that over 10,000 Chinese worked on the railroad, you can’t find one in the painting.

On the other hand, this photograph taken at the actual event is filled with Chinese laborers. It’s a clear indication of the difference between what immigrants actually contribute to our society and what our society wants to see.

1900 TO 1950

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: During the 1920’s one of the most important political issues was limiting immigration. In 1921 the Federal government passed a law, for the first time, imposed numerical limits on the number of people who could immigrate to our country.  Clearly some kind of limitation was necessary but it’s sad that the Federal government chose to enact a law that was clearly racist.

BURT WOLF: During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, there were years when more people returned to Europe than immigrated to the United States. It wasn’t that things were economically better in Europe. It was the simple fact that it was easier to be poor in a poor country than in a rich one.

REFUGEES AND DISPLACED PERSONS

BURT WOLF: In 1945, The Second World War came to an end with eleven million displaced Europeans trying to stay alive.  Some were able to return to their own countries but for many their countries no longer existed. Some had been displaced by the Holocaust but there were also thousands of people trying to escape the Russian Army as it advanced to the west. 

In spite of the obvious need for assistance, American officials did almost nothing to relieve the suffering of the displaced persons. We had moved on to the Cold War with Russia and our priorities had shifted.

A series of laws were passed that were clearly designed to keep people from immigrating to the United States. One of the hurdles for anyone wanting to immigrate was the requirement of a document showing that the individual would not become a financial burden to the government. Their economic support had to be guaranteed. 

President Truman reduced the impact of that demand by allowing blanket guarantees for large numbers of people to be issued by social service organizations. The three most important were religious organizations representing Catholics, Protestants and Jews. These agencies began to play a major role in immigration and they still do.   

CARL ANDERSON ON CAMERA: One of the first groups of immigrants to come to the United States described this new land as a shining city on a hill.  And it certainly has been that for generations of new Americans and in fact we can look at it a slightly different way because America has been so welcoming to so many diverse people, economically, racially, nationally. America truly is that shining city on a hill not just because of the way immigrants have perceived us but the way we have welcomed generations of immigrants.

THE COLD WAR YEARS

BURT WOLF: For decades after The Second World War, our governments’ immigration policy was based on a series of contradictions. Some elements were liberalizing. The labor unions who had opposed new arrivals since the Civil War shifted their position and began supporting European immigration. There were two reasons for labor’s shift----first, during the Roosevelt presidency collective bargaining became a recognized part of American industry and the unions felt more secure, and second, many of the union members were the sons and daughters of the type of people who were trying to immigrate.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: In 1952, Congress passed the McCarran-Walters Act. It was clearly a response to the Cold War and our fear of communism. It tightened things up but it also put an official end to the ethnic and racial barriers that were preventing people from immigrating to the United States or becoming naturalized.  The key word here however is official. Administration is always more important than legislation. Congress can pass whatever law it wants to pass but whether that law is enforced or not enforced is the key issue.

MAN SWEARING IN PEOPLE: To defend the constitution and the laws of the the United States of America.

BURT WOLF: During the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the increase in legal immigration was mirrored by an increase in illegal immigration. The largest groups of illegal immigrants were from Mexico and Ireland. Ireland had large numbers of well educated and skilled workers, more than the Irish economy could employ. So many came to the United States with visitor’s visas and stayed on to work.

ASIAN, ASIAN-INDIAN& FILIPINO

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Throughout history the reasons for immigrating to the United States have always been pretty much the same.  If you thought your life was going to improve socially, or economically, you came.  If you didn’t think there was going to be a significant improvement you stayed put.  By 1965 Western Europe was in great shape.  And Western European immigration dropped off.  Eastern Europe however was in terrible shape and the Eastern Europeans wanted to come here.  But the Communist governments wouldn’t let them out.

MAN: Congratulations my fellow Americans.

BURT WOLF: Large numbers of people in the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia felt that coming to the United States would improve their lives and so they immigrated in larger and larger numbers.

MAN GREETER ON CAMERA: Congratulations sir, Good luck sir; congratulations, nice to have you.

CARL ANDERSON ON CAMERA: In a way borders are more important than ever but we have to look beyond borders and no country as rich as the United States has as many miles of border with a country as poor as Mexico.  So even though questions of border security are absolutely important we have to look beyond our borders to make sure that economic opportunity, the rule of law, factors that we take for granted as Americans, others outside of America, also have the same opportunities in the future.

BURT WOLF: The Chinese were the earliest Asian immigrants to America and they now represent greater numbers than any other Asian group. China was a key ally during the Second World War and that led to the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act and their right to become naturalized citizens. By the early 1980s, the image of a Chinese immigrant had completely changed from that of an underpaid laborer to a highly motivated member of a model minority driven to excel especially in science and technology. 

Following the Second World War, there was a massive increase in the immigration of Filipinos. The vast majority were nurses. English was the primary language of instruction in the Philippine hospitals that were training nurses and because the Philippines and the United States were closely associated in many areas, Philippine nurses were educated on the American model.

NURSE ON CAMERA: You don’t need the monitor anymore.

THE REFUGEE ACT OF 1980

BURT WOLF: In 1980, during the administration of Jimmy Carter, Congress passed The Refugee Act, which was the first attempt in American history to add human rights to American foreign policy.

The act was a distinct change. It also introduced the right of asylum and created a new category of refugee. The category was set up to cover a person who was in the United States, either legally or on a tourist or student visa, or a visiting athlete or a performer, or illegally and claimed the right of a refugee. Eventually, the person must meet all of the criteria of a refugee or be expelled but unlike a refugee who is attempting to enter the United States this person is already in the country. The law also put a cap at 5,000 of this type of refugee per year.

For the first time in the history the United States it accepted the idea that it had an obligation to take in refugees---an extraordinary change in attitude when you consider how our government ignored the needs of refugees during and after The Second World War.

MEXICAN IMMIGRATION

BURT WOLF: Mexican immigration legal and illegal is a special story. At the beginning of the 20th century a series of events pushed and pulled more and more Mexicans into the United States. The Mexican Revolution created almost twenty years of chaos throughout Mexico. That was the “push”.

The development of industrial farming throughout the American Southwest was the “pull”. Advanced techniques for irrigating the land, the introduction of the refrigerated railroad car and the development of a nationwide system for distribution created an ever growing demand for labor and Mexico became the source.

John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath immortalized the lives of people forced by The Great Depression to become migrant workers in California. But in reality, the majority of people working on the farms of California during the great depression were Mexican immigrants. 

WHAT’S NEXT

BURT WOLF: It’s true that since 1970, the number of immigrants to the United States has risen but it’s still well below what it has been in the past. The common belief that we are being inundated with immigrants is just not true.

But reaching a balance is difficult. Too many immigrants and you run the risk of introducing a type of tribalism that increases the tension among groups. It can increase crowding, the cost of social services, and pollution. It can also limit the future possibilities for the people who are already here. 

CARL ANDERSON ON CAMERA: Of course in the issue of immigration we’ve got to have a strong reaction, effective reaction to criminals that come into our country or people when they’re here who break the law but to treat everyone in the same way, even when they come from desperate poverty in order to provide for their family, is simply not only mean-spirited but is unjust.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Immigration can produce social difficulties, but it can also produce a new vitality. Immigration changed American culture but it also proved that diversity, as well as unity, was the source of our national strength.

VARIOUS CHILDREN SINGING ON CAMERA: I pledge allegiance to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. 

BURT WOLF: For Travels & Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: Immigrating to America, Part 1 - #809

BURT WOLF: Each year the United States grants permanent residency to more immigrants than all the other nations of the world combined. Most people come here believing that with hard work and determination they will end up with a better life---more money and more freedom. In fact, everyone who is in the United States today is either an immigrant or the descendant of an immigrant.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: For over 30 years I have been traveling around the world reporting on cultural history.  And usually it’s pretty easy for me to figure out how a wave of immigrants or conquerors effected the place I was in. 

BURT WOLF GREETING FATHER PAUL LAWLOR: How are you; good to see you.

BURT WOLF: I remember a church in Rome where the ground floor was built by a pagan tribe. On top there was a small Roman Temple. Then a hidden Christian shrine.

FATHER PAUL LAWLOR: So now we go up to the level of San Clemente.

BURT WOLF: …and finally a magnificent church. The man in charge of the building was an Irish priest. Each layer represented a different culture. Understanding the culture of each layer below gives you an understanding of what’s on top. The layers in the church are the same layers that produced today’s Rome.

Because of my work, I have spent most of my life as a stranger in a strange land trying to understand what was going on. A few years ago, I decided I needed to have a look at my own country. I wanted to uncover the true story of immigration to the United States.

EARLY ARRIVALS

BURT WOLF: Anthropologists tell us that the first people to immigrate to North America came from Asia between 15,000 and 35,000 years ago. They crossed a land bridge that was about a thousand miles wide and ran between Siberia and Alaska. They were big game hunters following herds that were migrating east. Several genetic studies indicate that our entire Native American population descended from the people of Siberia and they may have descended from a group of only 70 people.

For at least 15,000 years the Western Hemisphere seemed to have developed without any additional immigration. But in 1492, Columbus’ first ship arrived in the Americas and everything changed. For the next hundred years after the voyages of Columbus just about everyone who came through North America was an explorer looking for a way to get rich as fast as he could.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Starting in the early 1600s, however, we began to get a group of people who wanted to settle in and make a new life for themselves. And like every group that immigrated to the United States they came because things were not working out in their old life. If things at home are fine you stay put. It’s when things at home are a problem that you suddenly want to immigrate.

BURT WOLF: That was the case for most of the people who came here from England in the 1600s.  King Charles I, not on my list of nice guys, decided to reestablish the idea that the king ruled by “Divine Right” and could do whatever he wanted, especially when it came to religion.  About 20,000 people, known as the Puritans disagreed, and moved to what we now call New England.

Later in the 1600s, in much the same vein, England’s King Charles II gave William Penn a huge tract of land which eventually became Pennsylvania.  The King, who was a little short of cash at the time, owed 16,000 pounds to Penn. Big Money. The King offered to pay off the debt by giving Penn some land in the American colonies. The land was actually bigger than England but it was still a win-win deal.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Penn was an aristocrat which the king liked. But Penn was also a Quaker, which the king didn’t like. The Quakers had this idea that a government should represent the needs of all of its people. The king thought that was outrageous and apparently some governments still do. So the king took Penn and 10,000 Quakers and threw them into prison.  The idea that he could satisfy the debt and at the same time ship Penn and the 10,000 Quakers off to the colonies was a no-brainer.

BURT WOLF: There was, however, one serious problem that the King did not foresee. The ideas that came to Pennsylvania with the Quakers were the same ideas that formed the basis of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolutionary War which resulted in the King losing his American colonies. Some days you just can’t win. 

The colonies that formed the Untied States began without the rigid class system that was so much a part of life in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Immigrants were attracted to the cheap land, religious freedom and the chance to improve themselves---

SHOP KEEPER ON CAMERA: Good Morning Mrs. Russett.

…a chance to escape from persecution and poverty. In the 150 years before the American Revolution, dozens of different religious and cultural groups managed to find a way of living together in relative harmony. It was a major improvement over the bloody Reformation and Counter-Reformation wars that were ravaging Europe.

But not all the immigration was voluntary. Starting in 1619, millions of Africans were taken from their homes and forced into slavery in North America. In 1808, Congress banned the importation of slaves and that appalling traffic slowly came to an end.

THE GREAT WAVES

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: During the 1800s, almost all population growth in North America was internal. High birth rates and low death rates had shifted the population to almost 98% of it was local born.

But during the 1820’s things began to change that was also the same time that our federal government began to keep track of people who immigrated by boat. And during the twenty year period, from 1820 to 1840, immigration increased every year.

BURT WOLF: During the 1800s, immigration to the United States increased even further. Europe was in mass confusion---crop failures, famine, shortages of land and jobs, increased taxation, and disease. Millions of people where heading to America.

In 1892, the federal government opened a new immigration center on Ellis Island in New York harbor and for the next 50 years, Ellis was the primary immigration center for the United States government. During its peak years, 1900 to 1924, over twelve million people came through Ellis.

There were three classes of service on the steamships that sailed between Europe and New York. If you could afford to travel in first or second class life was easy. Officials from the U.S. Immigration Service would clear you while you were still in your cabin and you were free to begin your new life.

Third class was a different story. Steamship companies saw the immigrants who traveled in third class as profitable cargo…cargo that even loaded itself. They were called steerage passengers because they were kept in the back of the boat, next to the steering equipment. They were packed together in appalling conditions---conditions that were breeding grounds for disease. Thousands of people died during those voyages. And when your ship finally arrived in Manhattan, you were ferried across New York Harbor to Ellis Island.

Barry Moreno has worked in the Museum Services Division at Ellis Island for over a decade and authored a number of books about immigration through Ellis.

BARRY MORENO ON CAMERA: This is where the Immigration and Naturalization Service brought the aliens, the immigrants, to Ellis Island aboard barges.  What they would do is they would bring them from the steamships, and the barges were coming all day long, and they would dock here.  Then the immigrants would come out, and directed by men called groupers, they would form two lines.  One line, for men and boys and the other line for women and girls.  So, then they would continue into this main building at Ellis Island.  This is the registry room.  This is the place in which the fate of the immigrant was decided by an inspector.  And the inspector was assisted by an interpreter in case the load of ... the shipload of immigrants were non-English speakers, and there was always a clerk at the inspector's side.

BURT WOLF: At those desks.

BARRY MORENO ON CAMERA: That’s correct. The inspector was really looking for ways of keeping the immigrant out of the country, weeding out the alien. That was the idea.  You had to find out whether someone violated the laws in advance of entry.  They would find out:  Does the immigrant have enough money?  Is the immigrant a criminal?  Does the immigrant suffer from some contagious disease or immoral disease?  Or is he handicapped in some way that would prevent him making a living?

BURT WOLF: I understand that some people came here with money.

BARRY MORENO: Yes.  Actually, a good many did. 

BURT WOLF: Why?  Why would they come if they had money?

BARRY MORENO: Well, they wanted to invest in this country, to buy land and settle down here, buy shops and go into business, and that was the way to do it.  You were frugal. You'd save your money, and then you came to America.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: And if they got through, what happened next?

BARRY MORENO ON CAMERA: Well, if they actually passed through, then the next question was, how soon they could they get off of Ellis Island, because people didn't really like Ellis Island. 

BURT WOLF: In spite of the fact that Ellis was processing twice as many people as it was designed to handle, the staff did a remarkable job. The average immigrant was in and out of Ellis within five hours. Medical exams were completed, stability interviews conducted; there was a place to change your old-country money into U.S. dollars and a spot to buy railroad tickets if you were going on to some other part of the country. If you were staying in the neighborhood, you went through a door marked “Push to New York”. On the other side was a ferry that would take you the last mile of your journey to Manhattan.

IRISH IMMIGRATION

BURT WOLF: On New Year’s Day of 1892, a 15-year-old girl named Annie Moore arrived from Ireland’s Cork County and was the first person to pass through Ellis Island.

EDWARD T. O’DONNELL ON CAMERA: The Irish, of course, had been coming since the Colonial period. But their biggest wave was certainly in the 19th century. And their contribution, one of their biggest contributions, was that they arrived in such huge numbers and really shocked America and forced America to really think about what it meant to be an American. By being mostly poor and from Ireland and Catholic for the most part they forced America to rethink what it meant to be American and kind of expanded the definition.  America was not particularly pleased with the arrival of the Irish, gradually over time, it took a couple of generations, accepted them as Americans. I mean you can look at something like the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.  It’s held all across the country now every year on March 17th, it’s a celebration of Irish identity but it’s copied and replicated by every immigrant group since.  Other contributions by the Irish, probably the most evident one is in the role that they played in building the American economy as laborers.  They came with very few skills and with almost no money, but they did arrive with a need to work and a willingness to work, and if you look across America, the great infrastructure that was built that made America the greatest economy in the world by the early 20th century, the railroads, the canals, the great projects like the Brooklyn Bridge all were built overwhelmingly with Irish labor.

BURT WOLF: Irish immigration also set a pattern for mutual assistance within a community.

Most of the immigrants who came to the United States during the 1800s were single men. But when the Irish potato crop failed in 1845, and hundreds of thousands of Irish men and women fled to America, many came as families. And of the others who did not come as families, there were almost an equal number of men as women, which allowed for the immediate formation of more families.

Patrick and Mary McGivney were typical of the Irish families that arrived during the middle-1800s. Patrick landed with very few skills and with almost no money, but like most of his fellow immigrants he showed up with the need and the willingness to work.

The McGivney’s settled in Waterbury Connecticut and Pat became a molder in a nearby brass mill. The McGivney’s were not faced with the prospect of starvation which had haunted them in Ireland but they did live in the grip of poverty. Their oldest child Michael grew up in a community filled with the sorrow that comes along with scarcity.

When Michael was thirteen years old he went to work in a spoon-making factory so he could contribute a few dollars towards the family’s survival. At sixteen he left the mill and began his studies for the priesthood. On Christmas Day, 1877, Father McGivney began his ministry as Curate of St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, Connecticut.

It was a time when parish clubs were popular. For the most part, they were social organizations that gave the Irish community a chance to hangout. But Father McGivney saw them as an opportunity to build a fund that would provide for the financial needs of families that were overwhelmed by illness or death.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Father McGivney began working with a group of Civil War Veterans that had come to the United States from Ireland. They wanted to form an organization that would help protect their families during times of stress and they called their group The Knights of Columbus. They wanted to make the point that they themselves were still struggling for equality in our own country, but they were now in the new world.

BURT WOLF: Today, The Knights of Columbus combine fraternalism with an insurance program that meets Father McGivney’s vision of support for families in trouble. There are over one million seven hundred thousand Knights and during the past ten years they have contributed over one billion dollars and four hundred million hours of volunteer service to charitable causes.

ITALIAN IMMIGRATION

BURT WOLF: Though the Irish opened Ellis Island for business they were the second largest group to pass through --- the largest group were the Italians.

EDWARD T. O’DONNELL ON CAMERA: The Italians brought with them first and foremost themselves, by the millions, and one of their most obvious contributions to America were the millions of people that filled the factories, the work sites that built the roads and produced the great abundance of the American economy in the early 20th Century.  These are mostly nameless, faceless people that we don't know anything about; except that they were Italian and that they came to America. But among the millions, there certainly are many very notable ones that do stand out.  Probably, one of the best examples being Marconi, who invented the wireless set and eventually founded the company that becomes RCA, one of the biggest and most important corporations in the 20th century.  Enrico Fermi won the Nobel Prize for his research in nuclear science.  You could shift to the arts and look at people like Enrico Caruso, probably the most popular entertainer in the early 20th century.  Into areas like baseball.  New Yorkers would certainly argue and, I think, a lot of other baseball fans would agree, that Joe DiMaggio is one of the great baseball players of all time, Yogi Berra, certainly, another great one.  You could shift to Hollywood and see that Frank Capra, the man who brought such great movies, like It's a Wonderful Life to the silver screen.  So, you have both lots of nameless, faceless people who made their contribution and then certainly notable ones that stand out.

BURT WOLF: Another major group came from Eastern Europe, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Austria and Romania. As the 1880s came to a close, Eastern Europe found itself in constant turmoil.  Crops were failing.  There was agonizing poverty throughout the population and religious persecution was rampant.  During a 50-year period starting in 1875, over 2 million Russians took passage to New York. By 1914, two and a half million Poles had passed through Ellis. 

EDWARD T. O'DONNELL: The heyday of Eastern European arrival to America, mostly Jewish, was at the turn of the century, and they were the ones most closely associated with Ellis Island. They come by the millions, largely due to factors in Eastern Europe, persecution, war,

EDWARD T. O’DONNELL ON CAMERA: famine and general overpopulation.  And they arrive in America at this time, usually going through Ellis Island and fill American cities.  They're very urban people.  And they  like all the immigrants before them make a tremendous mark.  Think about the Jewish contribution to the arts.  People, like, everything ... from Irving Berlin to the Gershwins.  Go back a little bit earlier.  Late 19th century, early 20th century.  Vaudeville was probably the most popular form of entertainment in America, and it's overwhelmingly, full of Jewish entertainers.  The Marx Brothers were originally a vaudeville routine.

BURT WOLF: Most immigrants settled near their ports of entry but a large number found their way inland. My mother’s mother arrived in New York in 1909 and went straight to Chicago. Some states, especially those with small populations, tried to attract immigrants by offering jobs or free land for farming. There was also a desire to move to communities that had been established by earlier settlers from their homelands.

As soon as the immigrants arrived they started looking for work. There were jobs, but never enough and employers often took advantage of the immigrants. Immigrant men were generally paid less than other workers and women less than men.

THE GERMAN AMERICANS

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: We tend to think that the largest number of immigrants to the United States were either Irish or Italian but that’s not the case. The 1990 census indicated that over 60 million Americans are the descendants of German immigrants which makes them the largest ethnic population in the country. In 23 states they actually represent over 20 percent of the population.

BURT WOLF: What we think of as a traditional Christmas celebration is based on German tradition. Most of our great symphony orchestras and glee clubs are based on German societies. They gave us the kindergarten, the hamburger, the frankfurter and the delicatessen.

In rural areas they pioneered scientific farming, crop rotation and soil conservation. They started some of our most important companies in food processing, brewing, steelmaking, railroading, printing and publishing.

The first permanent German settlement in America was founded in 1683 at Germantown, Pennsylvania by a group of thirteen families who had emigrated from Krefeld. Germantown became the center of German immigration to the American colonies. But many families used Pennsylvania as a staging point to move to other areas.

Military units raised from German American communities played a key role in the Revolution. A little known but fascinating fact --- George Washington’s personal body guards during the war ended up being German-Americans. His first set of bodyguards turned out to be English spies. He felt he could only trust German-Americans.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: No wonder you never see a picture of him smiling---poor guy was surrounded by assassins. For Travel’s & Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf. 

Travels & Traditions: Hong Kong - #808

BURT WOLF: Hong Kong is a small island just off the southern coast of the Chinese mainland. It’s a model of free enterprise. A bustling metropolis. And one of the world’s most important financial centers. But it is also a focal point for traditional Chinese history and culture. Chinese music. Chinese art. Chinese theater. And Chinese food. And that unusual blend of western high-tech with Chinese high-touch has made Hong Kong the most important tourist destination in Asia. Over ten million visitors come to Hong Kong each year.

The north side of the island of Hong Kong, facing the mainland, is the home of the central business district. The best way to see the place is to hop on one of the double-decker trams, sit up top and up front and see the city. But don’t take your tram ride during the morning or evening rush hours. The traffic is unbearable.

Next -- a ride on the funicular railway to Victoria Peak, the highest spot on Hong Kong island, from both the geographic and social viewpoints. This is the place to live in Hong Kong. If you are at the top of your game, you live on the top of the peak.

Hong Kong is also the home of a district called Western. It was the first place settled by the British in the 1840s, but they soon moved out and left it to the Chinese who were moving in to get work. Today Western is a typical, colorful, urban Chinese community. It’s the place to see the most traditional Chinese craftsmen at work. Mahjong set makers. Chop carvers. Jade workers. Fan makers. Potters. And egg roll bakers. It’s also the neighborhood of the Chinese herbalists.

Ladder Street is lined with some of the city’s oldest buildings. It’s thought to have been constructed with these broad stones in order to make it easier for men carrying people in sedan chairs to make it up and down the hill from Hollywood Road. The sedan chairs are gone, but Hollywood Road is still here and it’s a great spot for antiques, furniture, snuff bottles, and porcelain.

WINNIE CHAN: The road is name Hollywood is because the second governor, Sir John Davids, named this road according to have a home in England called Hollywood Tower, so he named this road Hollywood Road. 

BURT WOLF: Ah ha so it’s not about movies at all.

WINNIE CHAN: Oh, no.

BURT WOLF: It’s about somebody’s garden in England.

WINNIE CHAN: Yes, that’s right. When you look at the jade carving, the carving itself is very important. Even though I give you a piece of best jade, and if you mess up with the carving, it’s not worth much. You know, the carving itself is very important.

BURT WOLF: It’s like cutting a diamond.

WINNIE CHAN: Like cutting a diamond. Burt, look at this -- a headdress. Ladies’ one. The blue one is the enamel, and then the pearls, and then the green one is jade beads.

BURT WOLF: That’s gotta be for a special occasion.

WINNIE CHAN: Yeah...Wealthy, wealthy people.

BURT WOLF: You don’t wear that when you’re shopping.

WINNIE CHAN: No. And snuff bottles here. And different carving, and colors, and all that.

BURT WOLF: More lions.

WINNIE CHAN: Yes, that’s right.

BURT WOLF: Keep out those evil spirits.

WINNIE CHAN: Oh look! Here, a huge basket. In olden times, the groom... the bride’s family carried the dowry to the groom’s home and they put everything in it...

BURT WOLF: Silks and...

WINNIE CHAN: ...food, and money, and gold, and all that. Lunch.

BURT WOLF: Lunch? Did someone say lunch?

The island of Hong Kong is also the site of Wanchai, known also as the “Wanch,” and it’s home to one of Hong Kong’s great markets.

WINNIE CHAN: Right, Burt, this is one of the oldest Chinese bakeries. And you can see, first of all you can see all of these colored ones on the top there. Those are all the wedding cakes.

BURT WOLF: You give those to someone who’s having a wedding...

WINNIE CHAN: Yes...

BURT WOLF: ...or you get served that at a wedding?

WINNIE CHAN: Well, give it away, it’s a sort of announcement, especially, it’s given out by the bride’s family to say that my daughter is marrying out now...

BURT WOLF: Do the colors mean anything special?

WINNIE CHAN: Oh, yes, these are all the lucky colors, you know, yellow is represent wealth and power; pink, basically, red is happiness, you know. And they have very different stuffing inside.

BURT WOLF: So if I get one of those, it’s somebody telling me that their daughter is getting married?

WINNIE CHAN: You don’t normally get one. You normally have a set. 

BURT WOLF: Oh, I’ll get a whole set...

WINNIE CHAN: Yes, yes...

BURT WOLF: Oh, that’s very nice...

WINNIE CHAN: Yeah...that’s right.

BURT WOLF: Beats those little cards.

WINNIE CHAN: Yeah.

BURT WOLF: Hong Kong’s commitment to its Chinese heritage is expressed throughout the society. The population continues to take part in all of the traditional Chinese holidays and follows the customs associated with paying respect to ancient gods and ancestors. This is the Man Mo Temple. It was built in the early 1840s.

WINNIE CHAN: First of all, we come to this very beautiful door. And years ago when very important people would go through the door...

BURT WOLF: Ah, so the rich and famous go through the door, the rest of us go around it.

WINNIE CHAN: That’s right, the rest of us go around it.

BURT WOLF: Ah ha, okay.

WINNIE CHAN: The temple is for Man and Mo, two gods. And the civil god controls the destiny of the civil servant. And Mo, it’s actually marshal and we also named him the god of the war. First of all we’re going to get some incense and then we do bison, that means worship the gods. 

BURT WOLF: Let’s get some incense.

WINNIE CHAN: Right. The money in the donation box and I’ll just help myself to have a pack of incense. That’s always come in three sets, three sticks in one set.

BURT WOLF: Why?

WINNIE CHAN: It represent the heaven, the universe and the hell. Once you offer, you offer to God, human being and evil spirit.

BURT WOLF: Three levels.

WINNIE CHAN: Three levels... so come around here.

BURT WOLF: Is there different power for the different sizes?

WINNIE CHAN: Well, of course, the biggest one is the better one.

BURT WOLF: Well, looks like I’m in deep trouble already.

WINNIE CHAN: Okay, now, communication with God is a private matter. So, you have a question, doubt in your mind, you bow and you say your prayer. You don’t have to sing out, you just say it to yourself, and then, whatever wishes you want. And after you finish your prayer, you can put the incense on here...

BURT WOLF: And I bow three times?

WINNIE CHAN: Well, it’s not necessary.

BURT WOLF: Depending on how much I have to ask.

WINNIE CHAN: That’s right.

BURT WOLF: Okay.

WINNIE CHAN: Okay, I just want to show to you there are different incense about us and if some of the family, people, worshippers want to have a blessing they normally burn a bigger one. One of these big ones last for two weeks.

BURT WOLF: So these circular ones are incense.

WINNIE CHAN: Yes.

BURT WOLF: And you light the end and it slowly burns around. For two weeks? 

WINNIE CHAN: The big one is for two weeks, all right, and the smaller one maybe ten days and you normally write your wish, happiness, successful business, write it on the red tag underneath it, yeah.

BURT WOLF: So that will burn there for all of those days expressing that wish for the family.

WINNIE CHAN: That’s right.

BURT WOLF: I’ve never seen incense like that, that’s very interesting.

WINNIE CHAN: Yes, yes, very different, very different. Okay, well, the last, last not the least, last things we put a bit of donation in it, and you can drum, and the bell, and that will bring us good luck.

BURT WOLF: I put the donation into here.

WINNIE CHAN: Right...put the donation in.

BURT WOLF: And then I take this three times.

WINNIE CHAN: Yeah...And the bell.

BURT WOLF: That ought to do it!

WINNIE CHAN: Right, you will have a fortune year coming...and then.

BURT WOLF: That’s it?

WINNIE CHAN: That’s right.

LITTLE ISLAND

BURT WOLF: People have been living on Hong Kong for over six thousand years, and until the middle of the 1800s it was a quiet place with a small population that made a living from the sea.

But that is no longer the case. These days Hong Kong is one of the busiest and most modern cities in the world. And perhaps because it is physically so small -- only seventeen square miles -- it loves the idea of being big in every other way.

It has the busiest container port in the world. It is the world’s largest exporter of clothing, watches and fashion jewelry. It is one of the world’s largest banking centers. It has the world’s largest Chinese restaurant, which you might expect, but it also has the world’s busiest McDonald’s. It has constructed the world’s longest outdoor escalator.

Hong Kong is also one of the world’s top centers for trade. Which is only fitting, since Hong Kong’s growth began as the result of a trade war between England and China in the middle of the 1800s. And trade has been the source of Hong Kong’s growth ever since.

But where does all this economic success come from? What are the origins of Hong Kong’s wealth and power?

Hong Kong has no vast agricultural areas. Hong Kong has no wealth of raw materials. Hong Kong has no reserve of valuable minerals. It would seem that Hong Kong has none of the things that traditionally make a community wealthy. But Hong Kong does have two things that make up for everything that’s missing. The first is a unique geographic position. Hong Kong is at the crossroads of Asia and it is the commercial entrance gate to the Chinese mainland. To take advantage of its geography, Hong Kong has built itself one of the most modern ports in the world. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The second thing that Hong Kong has is a population with a cultural tradition that loves “efficiency.” Efficiency is basic to the Chinese character and it comes out in everything that is a basic part of Chinese life.

BURT WOLF: For thousands of years the Chinese have cooked in woks. A wok is easy to make. Easy to store. Easy to use, and most important, it is very efficient in terms of fuel. Most Chinese recipes are masterpieces of gastronomic efficiency. Lots of well-balanced nutrients for the least cost.

The Chinese junk is an amazing example of efficient nautical design. Easy to build, it carries a large amount of cargo space and makes almost perfect use of the local winds. The Chinese also invented the magnetic compass, which was certainly a great step toward more efficient travel.

And with all due respect to Mr. Gutenberg and his bible, the Chinese had movable type centuries before the Europeans. They also invented paper, which gave them the original prize for efficient information storage. And next time you open up your wallet, please bear in mind that it was the Chinese who came up with the idea of paper money.

NINE DRAGONS

BURT WOLF: Across the harbor from the island of Hong Kong is Kowloon. The distance is only a mile and you can cover it by car in the harbor tunnel, but the most interesting way to make the passage is on the Star Ferry. These ferries have been running up and back on Hong Kong harbor since 1898, and these days they run every few minutes. And at 25 cents per ride it’s one of the best transportation deals in the world.

The word Kowloon means nine dragons. The folklore that goes along with the name tells the story of a boy emperor in the Sung dynasty who was forced to this tip of land by the invading Mongols. While he lived here, he noticed that the peninsula had eight hills.  He called them the eight dragons. An adviser to the emperor pointed out that an emperor was also a dragon and so he included himself and called the place nine dragons, Kowloon.

Kowloon has a land surface of only three square miles, but it’s the center of Hong Kong’s shoppers’ paradise. The place to start is at the Chinese Arts and Crafts Store in Star House.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: In China, tea is very important, but the equipment that the tea is made in is just as important. Particularly the pot. 

Now this is the jade department. Jade is very important in Chinese culture because jade is thought to have the power to lengthen your life and to keep away evil spirits. When you’re buying jade, if you’re lucky enough to be doing that someday, you want to look for jade that has a deep green color and the color should be very even. Here are two pieces. There’s a really deep green color, looks great, even. This one is bigger, but less expensive because it doesn’t have the depth of color and it’s not even. I guess you’ve got to assume that the deeper the color the more expensive the jade, the more evil spirits it will keep away. 

This is the department of traditional Chinese clothing, it’s ready to wear, I mean, the clothing’s ready to wear. I’m not sure that I’m ready to wear it. Dresses look fine --certainly would fit in any western wardrobe. Red’s a very important color. It means good luck. And I think all of the women’s clothing here is nice. The men’s clothing, it’s a little trickier. This is a traditional men’s garment, it looks very comfortable. I’m not exactly sure where I would wear it. And I’m afraid that if I wore it once, it’s so recognizable, they’d know it when I wore it a second time. They have an area where they reproduce the clothing of the emperors. Very nice. Only emperors were allowed to wear gold, so they wore it as often as possible. This is actually an ensemble, you have the whole outside garment, those are the boots and the belts that go with it and the hat. Hat’s very important, it’s a big deal emperor’s hat. You wear it like this. The tail in the back spins you into the wind. If you’re an emperor it’s important to know which way the wind is blowing. I can also wear it this way, it’s a fabulous fly-swatter during the summer or in southern countries, and, as a triple threat it works as a wonderful salad bowl which you can then move around the table with this end. I always like multi-function things you know.

BURT WOLF: And then there’s The Golden Mile on Nathan Road.

THE NEW TERRITORIES

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The third area making up greater Hong Kong is known as The New Territories, and it’s just up the peninsula from Kowloon. And though it isn’t visited very often by tourists, its worth the half hour trip just to take a look at the nightly fish market in the small town of Sam Tung. And finally, there are the Outlying Islands, a good place to see what this area actually has looked like for the past six thousand years.

BURT WOLF: Observers of the Hong Kong scene are quick to describe the community as addicted to commerce. But the real addiction for the people of Hong Kong is Mahjong. Mahjong is a board game played by Chinese all over the world. It originated during the Sung Dynasty about a thousand years ago. In the beginning it was played with cards but these days small tiles are used. Chinese characters are engraved on the blocks and the game is similar to gin rummy. Get your matching suits together and get out. Each player also has a pack of one hundred betting chips which are assigned a value by the players. Millions of dollars change hands at Hong Kong mahjong games each year. It’s a game that is noisy, fast and, to the eyes of a westerner, a bit aggressive. It is sometimes used to test the strength and intelligence of a newcomer to a group, a new employee, a merger partner, or a prospective bridegroom.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: I learned about Mah-Jong when I was six years old. I have no idea why, but every Thursday night my mother and three of her friends would play Mah-Jong. The game wasn’t particularly important to me but on Mah-Jong nights she would serve a bowl of chocolate-covered raisins, a big bowl, and that made Mah-Jong special. Now these ladies play a far superior game to anything that went on in my mother’s house, but they only serve tea. It’s just not the same for me.

BURT WOLF: Hong Kong is a wealthy city. It has the world’s third-highest per capita gross national product. It has the largest gold reserves in Asia. It has the largest per capita ownership of Rolls Royce cars. It also has an appetite that goes along with its assets. Hong Kong is the world’s largest importer of cognac. It is one of the world’s leading consumers of protein. And it has the world’s highest per capita ratio of restaurants. In Hong Kong, there is one restaurant for every eight hundred people. Whatever it is that you want to eat or drink, this town will get it for you.

BURT WOLF (ON CAMERA):  But when all of the fads and fashions of international gastronomy have been pushed off to the back burner where they belong, and it’s time to settle down to some good eating and drinking, Hong Kong’s heart is Chinese and Hong Kong is home to some of the best Chinese cooking in the world.

BURT WOLF: The majority of the people who live in this city are of Cantonese heritage, and Canton is a part of China with an ancient reputation for good food. The Cantonese kitchen is based on fresh foods of high quality that are prepared in ways that preserve their original appearance and natural flavors.

Barbecued meats... minced beef and egg flower soup... crabmeat and sweet corn soup... steamed shrimp... pan-fried boneless chicken with lemon sauce... baked salted chicken... sautéed diced chicken with chili... grouper filet with a sweet corn sauce... and broccoli with crabmeat.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA:  But of all the gastronomic contributions of the Cantonese, perhaps the most significant is dim sum. Dim sum translates as “a point on the heart” or “touching the heart.” And what does the touching is a collection of small foods designed to be taken with tea.

BURT WOLF: The best way to experience this tradition is to visit a restaurant that specializes in dim sum. This the Ocean City restaurant in the New World Center, and it is one of the world’s great presenters of dim sum. A dim sum restaurant should be huge, well lit, packed with eaters, noisy and somewhat chaotic. Carts carrying steam baskets and dishes of food are wheeled around the tables by women. Each basket or dish contains a particular food. As they move through the restaurant, they describe the food on their trolley. The diners yell for what they want, and the servers serve. Each dish has a specific price, and each table has a card. Your card is stamped for each dish that you take. At the end of the meal, the waiter adds up the stamps and you find out what your meal cost. You can eat as much or as little as you like. But if you want to eat dim sum at its best, it’s important to get to the restaurant early. If the place opens at noon, try and be there about fifteen minutes before. The food will be at its point of perfection and you will get a table for the first round of service. The later you come in, the more limited the selection. Dim sum is at its most magnificent on Sunday morning, when it is a traditional family meal... a gastronomic bedlam, and lots of fun. 

For Travels & Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: Alaska - #807

BURT WOLF: It starts up at the top of the Alaskan panhandle and runs south along the coast of Alaska and the Canadian province of British Columbia. It covers a thousand miles and ends just below the U.S. border in Seattle, Washington. It’s called, the Inside Passage.

And that is precisely what it is: a sea passage that runs along the northwest coast. But it runs between the coast and a series of islands that protect the route from the open sea. At its southernmost point the course is shielded for three hundred miles by Vancouver Island. Then the Queen Charlotte Islands take over the defense. And finally the route is safeguarded by the more than one thousand islands that make up the Alexander Archipelago. It is a magnificent stretch of wilderness.

I started my journey from the Canadian city of Vancouver.

Archeologists believe that native tribes have been living in the Glacier Bay area for at least 10,000 years. The first Europeans to explore the territory were the Russians, who sailed through during the 1740s. About fifty years later the French stopped in to check things out. By the 1880s, tour boats were coming in to take a look. Glacier Bay is truly one of the fascinating places in Alaska.

THE WINDY PLACE

BURT WOLF: This morning’s port of call is the town of Skagway. The name Skagway comes from a native American word meaning the windy place. It’s located at the northernmost point on the Inside Passage. The area was never a permanent settlement for any of the tribes, but it had been used for hundreds of years as a seasonal ground for hunting and fishing.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The first European to take a serious interest in Skagway was a retired steamboat captain by the name of William Moore. In 1887, he staked a claim for 160 acres of land and with the help of his son he built a small cabin. He knew the area so well that the Canadian government asked him to help their surveyors find a pass through the mountains. He did and it eventually became known as The White Pass. Moore had been watching all of the mining activity going around in the territory and he firmly believed that it was just a question of time before there was a major gold strike. He also believed that when that strike came Skagway would become the seaport for the gold rush.

BURT WOLF: And boy, was he right! When word of the Bonanza Creek gold strike got out, over 100,000 people set out to seek their fortune in the Yukon, and the route they took to get there started with a ship to Skagway. In the end, only about 30,000 people got here but they turned the place into the classic gold rush boomtown. In 1898 Skagway had almost one hundred saloons filled with gamblers, thieves and ah, ladies of perpetual availability.

These days Skagway has about 800 permanent residents, and a great nostalgia about its past. Much of the original commercial district has managed to survive and the United States Park Service conducts guided walking tours through the historic areas of the town. My guide today is Rick Fields.

RICK FIELDS ON CAMERA: Burt, this is The Red Onion Saloon, that actually was a saloon and bordello during the time of the Gold Rush. Downstairs’s the saloon, upstairs the ladies of the evening. Actually, during the time of the Gold Rush, if a gentleman wanted any kind of woman’s accompaniment, he could walk into that saloon and behind the bar was a display case with dolls dressed in like of the ladies that were working the floor that evening. And so if a gentleman had any particular lady in mind, he could actually look behind the bar and if the doll was standing that she was very much available for your accompaniment. If she was laying down, well she was busy.

The AB Hall here, Burt, was also an original structure. It was a fraternal organization that was developed by the stampeders as a kind of social club, if you will. There’s over 10,000 pieces of driftwood actually nailed onto the face of that building. The last known member to ever join the Arctic Brotherhood here in Skagway was Warren G. Harding, our president. In 1923 he came to visit us for three short hours. We then initiated him into our Arctic Brotherhood Lodge. 

BURT WOLF: What goes on in the Arctic Brotherhood?

RICK FIELDS: Today it’s actually our city museum. Actually we have a fine arts museum of some of the old paraphernalia you might have found during the time of the Gold Rush all inside our museum and it’s set up as a display so that you can go in and spend a few minutes and enjoy.

BURT WOLF: You know like little kids they like to take matchsticks and build things out of them and that’s what happens when those kids grow up.

RICK FIELDS: That’s right.

BURT WOLF: Wow!

RICK FIELDS: They just make bigger piles, don’t they?

RICK FIELDS: Well this is actually the Mascot Saloon, and the Mascot has actually been set up as a display only by our National Parks Service, so the kind of saloon you’d actually see during the turn of the century here in Skagway; got the old hardwood floors and the lighting as it was back in 1898. Actually, the bar I could never seem to ever be served at here. I keep trying, but it’s just not ever happened, but some of the old cigars that you might, would have found as you would have come here. We’ve actually restored all of these buildings along this block back all to their original condition: wallpaper, paint, colors, everything is back to its original condition. It’s really a pleasure to be in a community that had such community pride of their buildings. I really do enjoy living here.

RICK FIELDS: Well, Burt, this is Kirmse’s Curios. Actually Herman Kirmse was one of the very first pioneers that came into Skagway when the words of the Klondike Gold Rush happened throughout the country. And Herman, actually, instead of traveling over the pass and heading for the gold 600 miles away from here, he actually stopped here and established his jewelry business. He was quite an entrepreneur, like many that had to travel the trail up here.

BURT WOLF: I get the feeling that the real gold was in the retail business and not in the creeks.

RICK FIELDS: I’m gonna have to agree with you, Burt. It seems as though the guy who made a living and a good one up here was the packer, the storekeeper, the guy who sold you services.

BURT WOLF: When the prospectors headed out of Skagway they had to choose between two routes to the gold. One was the Chilkoot Trail. That’s what it looked like during 1897 and ‘98 when some 30,000 prospectors made the six-hour climb up what came to be known as the “Golden Stairs.” And because each of them was transporting a minimum of 1,000 pounds of supplies, they made that trip at least twenty times. 

The other Skagway trail used by the gold seekers to get to a claim was the White Pass. It was less steep than the Chilkoot but no less dangerous.

ALL ABOARD

BURT WOLF: In 1900, things got a lot easier. That was the year that the White Pass and Yukon Railroad opened and connected Skagway to the town of Frazer in the Canadian Yukon. The rails run through some of the most rugged terrain in North America.

CONDUCTOR: ALLLLLLLLLLL ABOARD!!!

The roadbeds were carved along sheer rock cliffs. Tunnels were hammered through solid granite. When it was completed, it was considered to be one of the engineering marvels of its time. Today it’s a marvelous guided tour for visitors to Skagway -- and the guide is Sharon Hannon.

SHARON HANNON ON CAMERA: We’re coming up now to the Denver Glacier Bridge. This is mile-post 5.8 on your railmaps. We’re going to be crossing over the east fork of the Skagway River. As we make a real sharp left curve over the bridge, you’ll have a nice opportunity to view the train -- all fifteen parlor cars that we’re pulling. So it’s just amazing to think that this railroad that we’re traveling on this morning is nearly one hundred years old. And how they built it back then is absolutely incredible. What they did was, these workers were roped together while hanging on the slopes. And the smooth granite obviously offered no footholds whatsoever. So in hazardous winter weather, these men chipped all of this granite with hand tools in order to plant the 450 tons of blasting powder. This was obviously extremely hard, very dangerous work, for thirty cents an hour. And they say that this was a railroad that was impossible to build. There is very little advanced planning involved. Now there was no rolling stock, there was no construction materials or heavy-duty equipment. There was no means of feeding or housing the work crews, and remember a total of 35,000 men worked on the line. Also, the site was more than a thousand miles from the closest supply base which was in Seattle, Washington. So the railroad had to compete for ship cargo space with the thousands of stampeders that were also headed up north. And I mentioned earlier the workforce, highly educated professional men, but by no means skilled railroad laborers. So this railroad was built against all odds and it was completed in only two years, two months, and one day -- all built by hand. And it cost ten million dollars to build it, and then another two million dollars to outfit it for service. And it’s an international railroad. It was financed by the British, contracted by the Canadians, and engineered by the Americans.

BURT WOLF: The White Pass and Yukon Railroad certainly made the trip from Alaska to the Yukon easier. What you’re looking at is the last remaining section of the original pass that the prospectors used. Can you imagine hiking thirty-five miles, carrying hundreds of pounds of gear on your back on a path that narrow? And by the time the railroad was finished the gold rush was over.

About an hour boat ride south of Skagway is the town of Haines. It started out as settlement for the Native Alaskan Tlingit tribe, and they still play a very active role in the community. 

A non-profit association called Alaska Indian Arts has dedicated itself to the revival and perpetuation of native craft and culture and in Haines they present the Chilkat Dancers, a group whose authentic performances have given them a worldwide reputation.

BURT WOLF: The Haines area has always been important to the native tribes. It was the end point for the ancient trail into the interior, and it was also the site of the gathering of the eagles. Today the region covers 48,000 acres and is known as the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve. Each year some 4,000 bald eagles take up residence along a five-mile stretch of the Chilkat River. They’re attracted to the spot by an annual late run of spawning salmon. In addition, warm water upwellings in the river bottom keep parts of the river ice-free during the winter, providing even more fish for the eagles, at a time when many other food sources are exhausted. This is nature throwing an all-you-can-eat buffet for the eagle, and it’s been going on for thousands of years.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA:  But it almost came to an end in 1917 when someone in the government decided that the eagles were eating too many salmon and began to offer a bounty on them. Over a hundred and twenty thousand eagles were shot for a dollar or two dollars each before someone realized that in fact the eagles were not doing any damage at all. Just another episode in the endless saga of government stupidity.

BURT WOLF: Fortunately the eagle is now protected. It is a federal crime to harm or possess a bald eagle, and with any luck, the law is being enforced.

And if you’ve ever wanted to see Alaska from an eagle’s eye view, take a look at this.

LARGEST STATE IN AMERICA

BURT WOLF: Fragments of the earth’s crust drifted together to form Alaska. And they are still very much in the process of drifting and forming. And what they have formed is already the largest state in the United States of America. It’s twice as large as Texas and has fifty percent more coastline than all the states in the lower 48 put together.

The Spanish were probably the first Europeans to explore this coast, but the Russians were the first to try and take control. The Russians showed up in 1741. Actually, it wasn’t really a Russian. It was a Dane named Vitus Bering who worked for the Russians, and eventually lent his name to the Bering Straits. When his crew got back to Russia, they showed everybody the sea otter pelts that they had acquired -- skins that were immediately judged to be the finest fur that anyone in Russia had ever seen. That did it. The exploration and the exploitation of Alaska was underway.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The word Alaska comes from a native phrase that means “the object towards which the actions of the sea are directed.” But it wasn’t only the Russians who were directing their actions towards Alaska. The British were beginning to nose around. Captain James Cook came through in 1778 and picked up a few otter skins of his own. And to make matters even worse, the Spanish were thinking about coming back. They’d been down in Los Angeles, and when they realized that the movie business wasn’t going to begin for another hundred years, they started moving up along the coast to see what was happening here.

BURT WOLF: Sure, Alaska was beautiful, and the sea otters made a great fashion statement, but by the 1860s Russia wanted out. Well, actually what they wanted was to sell out before somebody just took Alaska away from them without making a payment.

A Russian agent went to see William Seward, who was then the U.S. Secretary of State, and somehow convinced him that buying Alaska was the deal of a lifetime. And at 7.2 million dollars -- or 2 cents per acre -- it was.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: For hundreds of years, the Gastineau Channel along the southern coast of Alaska was a quiet fishing ground for the local Tlingit tribes. But all that changed in 1880 when a Sitka mining engineer offered a reward for any tribal chief who could bring him a piece of gold-bearing ore and show him where that ore came from. A Tlingit clan elder by the name of Kowee brought in the sought-after sample, and George sent a couple of prospectors down to check out the location. One of them kept a diary that has the following entry: “We knew it was gold, but we were surprised to see so much of it, and not in particles -- in large streaks running through the rock and in lumps as large as peas and beans.” I like these guys. Not only did they know about gold, they were into good eating.

BURT WOLF: Their names were Richard Harris and Joe Juneau. They staked a 160-acre townsite and the gold rush was on. Originally the town was called Harrisburg, apparently because Harris could read and write and Juneau couldn’t, so Harris did the recording of the claim. Eventually, however, Juneau got his name back.

Unlike many gold rush towns, Juneau survived and even prospered after the gold rush was over. Today it is the state capitol of Alaska, and home to about 30,000 residents. Juneau is on the small side in terms of the number of people who live here, but in terms of area it is actually the largest town in North America and second largest in the world. It covers 3,108 square miles. The city clings to the base of two mountains that top out at over 3,500 feet above sea level and literally lock Juneau into its waterfront cove.

As a tourist there are a number of things of interest in Juneau.

ON ICE

Behind the mountains that form Juneau’s backdrop is the Juneau Icefield, over 1,500 square miles of ice cap, and the source of thirty-eight glaciers, including the Mendenhall. Mendenhall Glacier is just thirteen miles outside of Juneau and it is one of the few drive-in, walk-up glaciers in the world.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The Mendenhall in Mendenhall Glacier was Thomas C. Mendenhall, the Superintendent of the U.S. Coastal and Geodetic Survey at the time that the border was surveyed between Canada and the United States.

BURT WOLF: As moisture-filled air comes in from the Pacific Ocean, it runs into the peaks of the coastal mountains. The encounter causes the air to give up its water vapor and it does so in the form of snow... over one hundred feet of it each year. Because the air is so cold up here, the snow never melts. It just gets heavier and heavier, and packs together so tightly that the air between the molecules is lost. In the process, it transforms itself into glacial ice. Under this extraordinary pressure, the ice begins to flow. The Mendenhall Glacier flows down the Mendenhall Valley for twelve miles at the rate of two feet per day. But it never gets anywhere, because at the same time that it is flowing, it is also melting. Each day, large chunks of ice break away from the glacier and float off into the lake at its base. The process is known as “calving.” In addition, glacial ice just melts away at the front edge. When the rate of Mendenhall’s flow is compared to the rate of its melting, you end up with an annual withdrawal of about thirty feet. And it’s been withdrawing since the 1700s.

The easiest access to a spectacular view of the area is from the Mt. Roberts Tramway. Its base is right in front of the dock where the cruise ships tie up, and its top is 1,750 feet above... overlooking Juneau and the Gastineau Channel.

For Travels & Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: Holland - #806

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The two most powerful forces in the history of Holland are wind and water. For over a thousand years, the people living in this part of the world have had an amazing ability to take advantage of these two forces. Perhaps the most obvious example is the windmill.

BURT WOLF: The Dutch used windmills to turn the pumps that drew the water off the land, over the dikes, and back to the sea. Much of Holland’s actual land surface was created by windpower moving water. The farmland that evolved from this system formed the basis for Holland's extensive agriculture and dairy industries. It was also windpower that moved the Dutch ships across the surface of the seas during the 1600's and made Holland the most powerful trading nation of the time, and the absolute center of commerce and culture. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: During the early 1600's there was an extraordinary expansion in worldwide trade. In Europe just about everybody who had a boat wanted to push off for some distant port in the hope of buying something there and bringing it back home and selling it for big bucks. For the Dutch, it created a giant worldwide trading empire -- and back home in Holland, an enormous amount of money. A lot of that money was used to commission works of art. Art that the Dutch appreciated in terms of aesthetics, but that they also considered to be a great commercial investment -- and boy, were they right.

BURT WOLF: Holland's golden age of the 1600's was the time of Rembrandt -- not a bad investment -- and Van Dyke, Franz Hals and Vermeer. These works can give us a detailed picture of what Dutch life was like at the time, especially when it comes to food. The Dutch masters have left us a picture of the period's menu: cheese, fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, fish, beer. The same foods and drinks that make up the traditional meals of today's Dutch family. Very often the way a food was shown was meant to tell a story. The Merry Family by Jan Steen looks like a great Sunday afternoon lunch with the kids -- but when you look at it closely you see that the children are following the bad habits of their parents: drinking, smoking, overeating. The painting is actually a warning against weak morals, a seventeenth- century cry for improved family values. The Dutch love of art has continued, and so has their ability to produce some of the world's finest painters. 

Vincent Van Gogh was born in Holland in 1853 and died in 1890. Almost all of his paintings were made during the 1880's, and though he was able to sell only a few of his works during his lifetime, his paintings have become some of the most valuable. In 1990 a Van Gogh sold for more than eighty million dollars. In the center of Amsterdam is the Van Gogh Museum, built to make his works available to the public. Over one hundred Van Gogh works are on continual exhibition. 

Food has always been an important subject for Dutch painters and Van Gogh was no exception. This still life of apples and pears was a color study that produced a completely yellow picture. He also presented people eating and drinking in cafes and one of his favorite works was The Potato Eaters.

LOUIS VAN TILBORGH ONCAMERA: He...he tried to do something with the light which is...very difficult. I mean he... from the beginning...

BURT WOLF: Louis VanTilburg is the curator of the museum's Van Gogh collection.

VAN TILBORGH ON CAMERA: The Potato Eaters is an important painting because it's actually the first mature painting that Van Gogh really made. Before that time, that means from l880 until '80...'85... he made more or less studies. He didn't make... pictures which he thought were good enough for the market... for the art market. He was just learning the trade more or less, and with The Potato Eaters he first thought that he could launch own career... artistically and commercially. He thought that he could send it to...to an exhibition in Paris and could present himself with that picture to... art dealers.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: It doesn't have any of the bright colors that so many of us expect in a Van Gogh.

VAN TILBORGH ON CAMERA: He... always like to exaggerate. He did that in France and he also did that in Holland and in Holland at that time... gay colors were not in fashion but dark colors were, that he exaggerated. I mean if you would compare his pictures to the pictures of his... of his colleagues at the time... his... his pictures are much more...darker ...even...even more to say black.

This pic... picture... if you very... look very carefully at the... the hands... the way it is constructed it's very... I mean the people are sitting there... cramped. They're not looking at each other. For instance, the lady on the right has to pour coffee. Someone has to... take a fork and take in the potato. It's all very clear... very defined but as a total... it's not sensible at all because there is talk at a table. They interact and they do that... don't do that in that picture and... I think he himself was aware of the fact that he did not succeed in that, because he never made a picture like this any more... five persons around the table that... was too... too difficult for him.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The fact that they were using potatoes to make an entire meal is an interesting reminder of how important the potato was to the European peasant farmer. During the seventeen and eighteen hundreds it was very often the only food they had, and because of its high nutritional content, was actually enough to keep them alive. For Van Gogh, the peasant and the potato were examples of a purer and simpler lifestyle, but in the case of the potato that's only true if you leave off the sour cream.

VINCENT IN CHOCOLATE

BURT WOLF: About an hour's drive into the Dutch countryside from Amsterdam is the small village of Zundert. And this is the building that put Zundert on the map.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Zundert is where Vincent Van Gogh grew up and did his early work. They even have a small museum dedicated to him. 

BURT WOLF: The museum has a small collection of things that relate to the period when Van Gogh lived in Zundert, as well as his other years in Holland. Van Gogh made a number of drawings that showed the landscape and the people of the village. He was fascinated by the life of the peasant farmers who worked the land, and there are many drawings that show them at work in the fields and in their homes.

Certainly a fitting tribute, but the sweetest tribute of all is just down the street at the Luijckx Chocolate Factory. Almost every morning you will find the shiny steel tank-truck outside the building, a tank-truck filled with twenty thousand gallons of the finest chocolate. Chocolate that goes into the building to be molded. The free-flowing chocolate is poured into molds moving along a track. They're shaken to take out any air bubbles, then flipped so the form has only a thin coating. It's turned again and weighed to make sure it holds the proper amount. The chocolate cools and hardens to become little cups but the Luijckx system can form just about anything. A substantial part of their business comes from producing special designs, things for Christmas, Easter, McChocolates, and the local specialty -- a reproduction of Vincent Van Gogh's self-portrait in chocolate.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: This is great stuff. It nourishes the mind and the body at the same time and it does it either in milk or semi-sweet chocolate. How few works of art can make that claim?

SAY CHEESE

BURT WOLF: Holland's mild climate, high quality marshy soil, and regular rainfall promote the year-round growth of excellent grass, grass which in turn produces excellent cattle, cattle that have been used to produce milk for at least four thousand years and cheese for a least a thousand. The country's natural waterways play a big part in the development of the cheese business. Almost every farmer had a waterway touching some point on his land. When his cheese was made, he would load it onto a barge and sail off to market. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: It could have been a small town just down the canal from his farm or he could join up with a major river like the Rhine and end up selling his cheese in France or Germany. Because the Dutch sailors were such good navigators, they were able to develop a coastal trade and end up selling their cheeses as far south as Portugal and Spain. At one point in time, cheese became so valuable that it was used a form of money -- but it was very difficult to keep any small change in your pocket.

BURT WOLF: Over the years the technology of cheese making has changed some, but the story is pretty much the same. Today Holland is the world's largest exporter of cheese. It ships out many millions of pounds of cheese each year. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: So if you want to get an accurate picture of the history of the Dutch, just say cheese.

BURT WOLF: The Denboer family farm has been here in Holland for at least three hundred years. The land was reclaimed from the sea and a giant dike stands behind the farmhouse, just in case the sea ever tries to get back in. The Denboers raise their own cows and use the milk to produce cheese in the most traditional of Dutch farmhouse methods. The milk goes into a large tub. An enzyme from the lining of a calf's stomach, called rennet, is added to the milk. The rennet causes the milk solids, called the curd, to separate from the liquid, called the whey. The milk solids are taken out and placed into a form. Pressure is added to squeeze out additional liquid and give the cheese its shape. At that point the cheese is submerged into a brine bath, really just salted water but it adds flavor to the cheese, when the cheese comes out of the bath it sits on the shelf to mature for two weeks. At that point the cheese is ready to go to market. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Cheese is just an ancient method for preserving the valuable nutrients in milk. All of the calcium and protein that's in the milk is now in the cheese but it's in there in a concentrated form. It takes about ten pounds of milk to make one pound of cheese, and in moderation, cheese is an excellent source of nutrients.

BURT WOLF: It's pronounced "houda" in Dutch and Gouda in English. It's the name of the most famous cheese produced in Holland, and it's also the name of the town where the cheese was originally developed. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Starting in the 1200s, if you lived in a Dutch town, you wanted that town to have weighing rights; that is, the right to weigh the cheeses made by the local farmers and put the town's official seal of approval on those cheese. It was the equivalent of today having a major league football franchise. Big deal stuff. 

BURT WOLF: And as soon as your town got weighing rights, it got a weigh house in which the activity was conducted, like building your own stadium. Gouda got theirs in 1668. It's right across the street from the city hall, which just serves to point out the importance of the cheese business to the town fathers. Most of the cheese exported from Holland is named after the towns from which it comes. Edam: skimmed milk, mild flavors, smooth texture, easy to spot because it usually comes in a red ball. Masdam: it's Holland's answer to Swiss cheese with a mild, nutty flavor. And of course gouda: starts mild and creamy but becomes more robust the longer it's aged. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: So check the cheese to make sure it has the town seal on it. That's the only way to be sure it's gouda enough.

AMSTERDAM

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Some time during the 1100s, a group of herring fishermen settled near here along the Amstel River. That community eventually became the city of Amsterdam. So I think it's only fair to say that from the very beginning, the story of Amsterdam has been the story of something good to eat. 

BURT WOLF: But the real golden age of Amsterdam was the 1600s. Amsterdam was Europe's center for business as well as its cultural capital. It all started in 1595 when a Dutch trading ship landed in what was then called the East Indies now Indonesia: Bali, Java, Borneo, Sumatra; lands which produced some of the world's most valuable spices.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Those were the places that Columbus had been looking for, and when the Dutch got there they took control of a spice trade to Europe that made many Dutchman wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Actually, those dreams weren't very wild at all, because even then the Dutch were very structured and not showy. Much of the wealth from that spice trade was used to build homes along the canals of Amsterdam.

BURT WOLF: Amsterdam was actually put together by connecting ninety islands with about five hundred bridges --- most citizens get around on bicycles. The town has only seven hundred and fifty thousand people but a million bikes. You could, if you want to, get from place to place just as well by boat.

Thomas Schmidt is the executive assistant manager of Amsterdam's Amstel Hotel. He borrowed one of the hotel's boats so we could take a tour of the city... a tour with two objectives: first, to see the traditional sights, and second, to stop along the way and eat the traditional foods.

THOMAS SCHMIDT ON CAMERA: And here you have a very typical bridge...which is still operating. If a boat passes through here, there are two bridge guards who will open up the bridge to you; every time you pass a bridge and he takes a bicycle and drives along the channel, opens the bridge and then he goes to the next.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Bicycle goes along with the boat.

THOMAS SCHMIDT ON CAMERA: That's right.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: And opens it up for you. That's really great.

THOMAS SCHMIDT ON CAMERA: But most of the time the bicycle is faster than the boat, so that's no problem.

THOMAS SCHMIDT ON CMAERA: Here we're going into the typically Dutch channel. What you see on the right hand side, left hand side, houseboats.

BURT WOLF CAMERA: People live on these...boats?

THOMAS SCHMIDT ON CAMERA: People live on them, yes, that's right.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: It looks like it's a nice place to live.

THOMAS SCHMIDT ON CAMERA: It is. It is actually. You see even the people create their own garden and terrace and they're trying to... to feel at home here you know. And there's another thing you probably have noticed, the... hook hanging on each house. This is meant to... bring up the corniches, and if you move from one to the other house, you bring it up from the outside, through the window.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Oh that's right. The stairs are so narrow in these houses that you can't bring a bed or a piano upstairs, and even today they use that hook on the top of the house to bring their furniture in when they move.

THOMAS SCHMIDT ON CAMERA: That's right.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Amazing.

THOMAS SCHMIDT ON CAMERA: That's right. You see also different type of the decorations. This one is... more of the very heavy decorated and they have some more simple as well. People showed the...their richness on the outside of the... house by building a gable which is more decorated or less decorated, and there's not much space in the small houses to show your decoration of your richness so the gable was a nice place to do that.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The ornateness of the crown.

THOMAS SCHMIDT ON CAMERA: That's right. That's right.

BURT WOLF: One of the great pleasures of a canal tour of Amsterdam is that you can tie up, go ashore and see what's cooking in the streets. 

Each city around the world has its own customary street foods, and eating them as you move around the town has become almost a ritual for the citizens. In Amsterdam there are a group of very traditional street foods. Maybe it's because Amsterdam was originally founded some seven hundred years ago by herring fisherman or maybe it's just because the Dutch love herring. I don't know, but I do know that Amsterdam has dozens of small street stands where people eat herring. The fish is very fresh, lightly salted, cleaned and served on a paper plate with some chopped onion. The herring is held in the air above your head and eaten bite by bite. There are also street vendors for french fried potatoes, freshly cut and deep fried right in front of you. They're served with mayonnaise, a peanut sauce or ketchup. The third classic street food of Amsterdam is the waffle. They're freshly made by vendors who set up their stoves in the town's open markets. They're thin and crisp. Two waffles are put together like a sandwich and the filling; it's made up of a maple-based sugar syrup. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: And licorice, an anise-flavored candy that they make both sweet and salty. So those are the street foods of Amsterdam: licorice, herring, french fries and little waffles. What an unbeatable meal.

BURT WOLF: As you move through the streets of Amsterdam you will see at regular intervals the “Brown Cafes.” There are five hundred of them in the downtown area.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The Brown Cafe is to Amsterdam very much what the pub is to London: a neighborhood gathering spot, an extension of the living room, a place to come in and have a beer or a coffee, to read a book or a newspaper.

BURT WOLF: They're called Brown Cafes because the wood used in their construction is always dark because the lighting level is kept low, and because the walls which have been stained with smoke and nicotine are never washed or painted.

This is probably the most famous of the brown cafes. It's Cafe Hoppe and it first opened for business in 1670. The Brown Cafes are an essential part of each of Amsterdam's neighborhoods and very often attract a particular clientele. One might be the place for writers to meet, another frequented by painters.  They're a real reflection of the neighborhood and a great place to get to know the people of the city.

DUTCH TREATS

BURT WOLF: The city plan of Amsterdam is based on three canals that form three semi-circles, one inside the other. Together they are described as the Canal Girdle. The outside canal in English is called the Prince's Canal. In the middle is the Emperor's Canal, and on the inside, the Gentleman's Canal. It's interesting that the most elegant and ambitious of the three is the Gentleman's Canal, not those named with royal titles.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA:  It's a reminder that for centuries the people of Amsterdam have loved the small businessman, the individual entrepreneur, and like most people, the owner of a small business tries to keep his taxes as low as he honestly can -- or at least to get the most for his money.

BURT WOLF: During the 1700's the people here paid their homeowner's tax based on the width of the front of But those same houses go up and they go back, and as they go back they get wider. A pie-shaped house with the thinnest part facing the street helped to cut down on your taxes and let you keep a bigger slice of your own economic pie. That's the Trippenhuis, built in 1662. It's like a Venetian palace. Across the street is the narrowest house in Amsterdam. The story goes that the Tripp family coachman was expressing his wish for a home on the canal, even if it was only as wide as the door of his master's house. Mr. Tripp overheard him and built him just that: a house as wide as the Tripp door. The extraordinary architecture of Amsterdam is one of its greatest joys. The government has designated some seven thousand buildings in the old center as historically significant. The character of these streets tells the history of the city for almost eight centuries. The people of Amsterdam have done a pretty good job of preserving their heritage. Holding onto the old buildings was essential.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: And they've built museums for just about everything Dutch that you can think of. They're also doing a good job of holding onto their gastronomic heritage. There are chefs all over this town who are researching old recipes, reproducing them and making the gastronomic past part of the present. 

BURT WOLF: DePoort Restaurant, at the center of the town's oldest area, started as a beer brewery in 1592. It was the place where Heineken was first made. Today the restaurant offers some of the most traditional home foods of Holland: Dutch pea soup, a meal in itself with pieces of pork and slices of sausage; herring in various forms; hotspot, which is a combination of mashed potatoes, sauteed onions and carrots. Made me go out and get a pair of wooden shoes; a wonderful Dutch dish. And giant pancakes served with apples or preserves. These are the real Dutch treats. 

BEER HERE

BURT WOLF: One of the most popular tourist attractions in Amsterdam is the old Heineken Brewery. The original facility was called the Haystack Brewery and it started its production in 1572. In 1863 it was taken over by Gerhart Heineken, who at the ripe old age of twenty-two decided he could make a better beer. Today the original plant is a museum devoted to the history of beer. They have an interesting collection of art and artifacts that tell the history of beer making. It starts with material from ancient Mesopotamia and takes you right through some of the major European painters. They also have an extensive collection of beer drinking vessels, including this unusual number: Her Royal Majesty holds a bowl above her head from which you drink an aquavit or vodka. Then she flips over and her base fills with beer.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The main reason that beer has been so popular in so many parts of the world for so many centuries is because very often beer was the only safe thing for someone to drink. The open water found in lakes and rivers was highly polluted, and though no one actually understood the concept of bacteria at the time, they knew from experience that drinking water was dangerous. Experience also taught them that drinking beer was safe, and the reason is quite simple; when you make beer, the water that's in it is brought to a boil. The boiling water kills the bacteria. So people concluded that drinking water could kill you. Drinking beer in moderation was quite safe.

BURT WOLF: There are ancient stone carvings that go back over six thousand years and clearly show people making beer. The ancient Egyptians even put beer into the tombs of their kings so they could have a drink in the afterlife; talk about a six pack to go. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Here at the Heineken Brewery in Holland, you can see the process pretty much the way it's been going on for the past two thousand years. It all starts with a grain called barley that people have been eating since prehistoric times. Because barley grows well in soil, even if that soil has some salt in it and because it has a very shallow root system, it was one of the earliest crops planted by the Dutch when they reclaimed their land from the sea. Brewers start the beer making process by taking the barley and mixing it with water. The process that results is called germination, kind of wakes up the sugar in the barley. They let that go on for a week and then they stop the process by toasting the barley.

BURT WOLF: The germinated and toasted grain is called malt. The malt is transferred into a big copper kettle mixed with water and heated. The starch in the malt changes to sugar. Hops, which are the leaves of a vine, are added to give flavor and help preserve the beer. The solids are filtered out and the remaining liquid is called wort. The wort is mixed with a special yeast that converts the sugar in the wort to alcohol and you have young beer. The young beer rests in a storage tank for four to six weeks, at which time it's old enough to have its own bottle.

For TRAVELS & TRADITIONS, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: What's Cooking in Switzerland - #805

BURT WOLF: The tectonic plates that hold our continents float on a sea of molten earth. About a hundred million years ago, the African plate banged into the European plate. Billions of tons of rock were rammed together and the Swiss Alps were born.

The most mountainous region in Switzerland is called the Valais and it is the home of Switzerland’s most famous mountain ---the Matterhorn. At the base of the mountain is the town of Zermatt and that is where my gastronomic tour began.

During the 1600s, a group of peasants who lived down in the valley purchased their freedom from the landowners and came up here to start their own community. The old part of Zermatt looks pretty much as it did when they built it 400 years ago.

The new part of town, however, looks different every 400 hours. It has a street lined with excellent shops that put new things out for sale each week. Their specialty is outdoor wear and as the weather and the seasons change they offer the appropriate gear. There are also lots of restaurants and pubs.

From the center of Zermatt, I took the Gornergrate Railway which was Switzerland’s first electric cogwheel railway and the highest outdoor cogwheel railway in Europe. It took me up to the top of the Riffenberg at 8,469 feet above sea level. It’s the place to get a great view of the Matterhorn.

The Matterhorn itself reaches a height of 14,692 feet and it gets a little higher each year as the earth pushes it up. The first attempt to reach the top turned out to be a total failure. It was only in 1865 that a team of climbers were able to reach the peak. The Matterhorn holds a special place in the history of Swiss mountain climbing but it is also important to the history Swiss gastronomy. Let me explain.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: In 1908, Erik Baumann and his cousin Theodor Tobler, after hours of feverish experimentation, created a perfect fusion between nougat and milk chocolate, thereby giving us the first Toblerone.

BURT WOLF: Not only did they cross this previously unbreachable boundary between chocolate and nougat but they had the skill and the insight to create a mold that produced individual servings of the bar in the shape of the Matterhorn and to use a manufacturing process so unique that it was granted a patent.

But wait, there’s more. The man working at the Swiss Federal Institute for Intellectual Property -- the organization that issued the patent for the Toblerone -- was none other than Albert Einstein.

And so the Matterhorn is not just a mountain it is a gastronomic and scientific landmark.

As you come down from Zermatt and your sugar high, you enter the Valais where you will find the town of Sierre and the Chateau de Ville. The Chateau has been here since the early 1500s. Inside is a restaurant that specializes in the traditional foods of the region and it is one of my all time favorite spots. And each time I come here I have the same meal.

The first course is viande sechees -- beef that has been air dried and thinly sliced. You grind a little pepper on top and eat the slices with your fingers. There’s a basket with two types of rye bread -- one is flavored with cumin seeds and the other with walnuts. 

 The Valais is one of the great cheese producing regions of Switzerland and the main course is raclette. For me this is the ultimate melted cheese dish.

The restaurant has a room where they age their cheeses over several months, turning and brushing them and with white wine and salt.

The chef takes a half wheel of Simplon Cheese and places it in front of a heat source. The heat can come from a fireplace or an electric raclette maker. As the cheese melts, the chef scraps some of it off onto a plate. The cheese is served as a disc about three inches in diameter and about a quarter inch thick. The chef works at the edge of the dining room and the raclette comes to your table as soon as the cheese is melted.

BURT WOLF: There’s a wooden bucket on the table filled with boiled fingerling potatoes. You take out a potato, place it next to the cheese, cut off a small slice, cover it with warm, soft cheese and pop it into your mouth. Along side the raclette is a bowl of gherkins and pickled onions.

The chef keeps an eye on each table and as you finish off the first dish, he starts melting your second, but this time he uses a different cheese. You can order from 3 to 12 rounds of raclette, each with a different cheese. And along with the raclette you drink a local wine.

The Chateau restaurant has 500 local wines on the menu and right next door is a wine tasting room with the same 500 wines available for sale. Each week they have a different selection available for tasting in both the restaurant and the tasting room, and all 500 are available for sale at the same price you would pay at the vineyard.

The Valais is the largest wine producing area in Switzerland. There is a great diversity of soil types and microclimates and the mountains on both sides of the valley protect the vineyards. They grow over 40 different grape varieties.

After lunch, I visited the town of Sion, which is over 2,000 years old. On a hill at the center of Sion is a fortified church that was built in the 4th century. It has protective walls, battlement towers, and internal walkways designed for military defense.

It also has the world’s oldest playable organ. It was put together during the 1400s and there are regular concerts.

THE LAKE GENEVA REGION

BURT WOLF: The next day, I continued heading west into the Lake Geneva Region. Switzerland is divided into 23 states called cantons. The Lake Geneva Region is home to the canton of Vaud. Its Southern border is made up of villages, small towns and a few mid-sized cities that spread out along the shore of Lake Geneva. Its western and northern frontiers run through farm communities and small villages in the Jura Mountains that share a border with France. And much of its Eastern edge rises up into the Alps.

The first town I stopped at was Aigle which has been inhabited for over 4,000 years. The first vines were produced here by the ancient Romans and this has been an important area for wine production ever since. The castle at Aigle has a wine museum that will give you a good look at that history. My favorite exhibit illustrates the evolution of the wine bottle and points out why it was impossible to do business without a uniform system of measurement.

If you were buying wine form a distant vineyard and you expected the big bottle, because that’s what people used in your neighborhood, and instead you ended up with a little bottle, because that’s what they used two valleys over, you had a problem.

In the late 1700s, France introduced the metric system, based on the meter, which is one ten millionth of a quarter of the world’s equator. The French clearly understood how much more convenient one ten millionth of a quarter of the equator was instead of a foot.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The people of Vaud where I am standing did not want to give up the foot and so they standardized it at three tenths of a ten millionth part of the equator. They also introduced the hand, which they standardized at four hundredth of a millionth part of the equator. Of course, at the time people were not totally convinced as to the proper length of the equator, and so often there was a 2.0115 correction one way or the other. Are you getting this down?

BURT WOLF: The unit of measurement for wine became the liter, which is a volume measurement based on the meter. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Attempts to understand this system lead to an outburst of heavy drinking which in turn resulted in Aigle producing some of the finest wines in Switzerland.

BURT WOLF: They have a light bouquet, a nice balance of fruit and acidity, and the more you drink the more you think you understand the metric system. The Chateau has a charming little restaurant called the Pint of Paradise, where you can have a pleasant lunch, drink the local wine and test your comprehension of metrics.

For centuries the best way to get around this area was to hop on one of the Lake Geneva sailboats. It was an informal service that was already in existence when the ancient Romans arrived. But it took on serious structure when the Lake Geneva shipping company went into business in 1823. Their boats carried local residents from town to town along the lake shore. Even now they are used by commuters.

By the middle of the 1800s tourists began coming on board, and they still do. The boats make regular stops at most of the towns on the lake and you can get on and off and back on wherever you like. Taking a ride on a lake steamer is the best way to see the beauty of the Lake Geneva shore, the small towns and the surrounding mountains. I used a lake streamer to continue my westward journey through the Lake Geneva Region; I got off at the town of Vevey.

Vevey is the cradle of the Swiss milk chocolate business and the corporate headquarters of Nestle, the world’s largest food company and the largest company in Switzerland. Vevey is a popular resort that faces out on Lake Geneva and the Alps.

Charlie Chaplin moved here in the early 1950’s.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Chaplin was born in London in 1889. His family were vaudeville performers and he followed in their footsteps eventually becoming the superstar of the silent screen.

BURT WOLF: During a tour of the United States in 1912, the Keystone Film Company noticed Chaplin, gave him his first work in silent films and introduced him to film audiences around the world.

His most famous screen character, the little tramp, was so widely appreciated that Chaplin came to be regarded as the greatest comic artist of his time and one of the most important figures in the history of motion pictures. 

When he passed away in 1977, Blaise Poyet, his favorite chocolate maker, called Chaplin’s son and asked if he could honor Charlie’s memory with a special chocolate. They worked together and developed a chocolate recipe that was a little bitter, a little sweet, and always filled with surprises. Just like Charlie. 

Then they formed the chocolate into miniature copies of the shoes that Chaplin wore in his films. The shoes are set into a box with their heels together and their toes apart, just the way Chaplin walked in his movies. The box itself is actually a movie film canister and it’s tied with ribbons that are printed with a movie film pattern---a bitter sweet memory of a man with an amazing talent.

I left Vevey on the wine train. It runs along the north shore of Lake Geneva which is one of the most important wine growing regions in Switzerland. The grapes are grown on steep terraces that have been cut into the mountains. The hills face south and get lots of direct sunlight. The lake also acts like a giant mirror bouncing even more warmth into the vines.

I got off at the town of Chexbres and started walking the wine trail. It’s made up of about 20 miles of road that wind through the vineyards. There’s a guide book to the area that says the wine makers have an open door policy, but they also have an open bottle policy. When you see and open door you can walk in, introduce yourself to the winemaker and receive a glass of the winemaker’s work, along with the story of how he makes his wine, a brief history of his family and his candid opinion of the state of the world. And it’s all free.

This part of Switzerland is known as the Lavaux region and it has been designated as a Unesco World Heritage site.

GENEVA

BURT WOLF: Properly fortified with fermented grape juice, I continued my journey toward Geneva.

Geneva is the most westerly region in Switzerland. It’s famous for its role in the Protestant Reformation, as a center for watch making, as a home for the United Nations, and for the many humanitarian organizations that are headquartered here.

The first residents of the area, that we know about, were members of a migrating tribe that came over from Eastern Europe and settled on the high ground, which is now Geneva’s Old City. Good spot. It was just above the junction of the Rhone and Arve Rivers. And right in front were two islands that they used for the base of a bridge, which made it the only spot for hundreds of miles where traders could cross the river on foot and stay dry. A century before the birth of Christ, Roman soldiers saw the strategic value of this site, and turned it into one of their most prosperous colonies. Even then, Geneva understood the importance of bridge financing.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: By the middle of the 400s, Rome began to lose its power, and Geneva came under the control of the Dukes of Burgundy. The Dukes spent the next thousand years or so duking it out with assorted princes, until 1536, when Geneva declared itself an independent republic, under the protection of the Swiss states to the northeast.

The Swiss loved this. Geneva became independent but it also became a buffer between the Swiss and the Dukes. The Swiss not only offered the people of Geneva military protection, but they offered them the opportunity to become Protestant and join the Reformation.

BURT WOLF: The main street in the Old City is called Grande Rue, and during the 1960’s I lived here. This was my neighborhood. And it hasn't changed very much, which makes perfectly good sense, it's been here for 1500 years. What did I think was going to change?

There's the old Arsenal. The building was put up in the 1400s, and there are five original cannons. My kids used them to play blow up the Duke of Savoy.

Down the block is the Place du Bourge-de-Four, the oldest public square in Geneva. For the ancient Romans this was a center for the affairs of commerce. It's still a center of activity, but these days the affairs are mostly of the heart. A little bar down the street from my house is still here. The sweet yeasty smells of the bakery still drift into the street, and it's still impossible to find a parking place. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The only thing that seems to have disappeared is my youth.

BURT WOLF: In 1886, Geneva set up a hydroelectric station

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: to supply power to the craftsmen working in the city,

but every evening when the workers would turn off their machines, there was a dangerous overcharge. Engineers would rush to the pumps to turn them off, but they never knew exactly when that surge was going to hit. 

BURT WOLF: Eventually somebody had the bright idea to install a safety valve that released the excess water in the form of a jet, which eventually became the symbol of the city. It’s called the jet d’eau and it’s produced by an amazing piece of machinery. 

This is the pump room. Every minute two pumps suck eight thousand gallons of water out of the lake, mix it with air, and place it under tremendous pressure. The key design element is the nozzle, it sends up a column of water filled with millions of air bubbles, which gives the jet its white color. Without the air bubbles, it would be practically invisible from the shore. 

The jet d’eau is an important symbol of Geneva but so is the Escalade.

Each year on December 11th, the city commemorates an event that took place in 1602. The Duke of Savoy, who controlled the land around Geneva, teamed up with Philip II, the Catholic King of Spain, and decided to crush the Protestant Reformation that had taken place here.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The troops were in the middle of a sneak attack when a woman heard their approach. Stationing herself at her kitchen window, she poured a pot of hot soup down on the Savoyards. With their chances for a surprise attack seriously dampened, they pulled back, giving the Guards of Geneva time to counter-attack and defeat the Duke's men, thereby saving Geneva's freedom to produce vegetable soup anyway they wanted. 

BURT WOLF: Not to be left out of the celebration, each year the chocolate makers of Geneva produce chocolate soup pots filled with vegetables made of marzipan. They also shape chocolate into other forms, each designed to mark an event. At The Du Rhone Chocolate Shop, a two foot high beehive, with bees, signals the beginning of spring. An antique car announces the opening of the annual Auto Show, and the perfect pocketbook celebrates a particularly successful bit of shopping.

And shopping is definitely a part of what Geneva is all about. For over a thousand years, Geneva has been an important commercial center, but for the past 300 years its most famous commercial product has been the watch. Protestant reformers, as part of their desire to simplify life, limited the use of gold and precious stones in jewelry --- so many of the jewelry makers started to making watches and clocks. Throughout the city there are public displays of the craft. 

In 1955, a flower clock was constructed in a small park at the edge of the lake. It's about five yards wide, has the largest second hand in the world, and over six thousand plants are used to produce its face.

About a block away in the center of a covered shopping street, is the clock of the Passage-de-Malbuisson. Built in the twentieth century, it marks each hour with 16 bells, a parade of 13 chariots, and 42 bronze figures. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The biggest impetus to watch making in Geneva came in 1685, when King Louis the XIV of France decided to kill off all the French Protestants. French Protestants were known as Huguenots and thousands of them fled to Geneva. They were master craftsmen and many were great watchmakers. They made an immediate and valuable financial contribution to the city, and what was France's loss became Geneva's gain. 

BURT WOLF: Calvin was the leading Protestant theologian in Geneva and he demanded an almost monk-like asceticism in the city, which made watch making a perfect occupation. The monk’s cell was replaced by the watchmaker’s cabinet, and Geneva became one of the most productive and creative cities in the world. There is no other country where so many watches are made and sold. 

Geneva is also the European home of the United Nations which gives the city an international atmosphere and hundreds of the interesting restaurants. Last time I checked the numbers, Geneva had more restaurants per person than any other city in Europe. 

Here are a few that turn out excellent examples of some of Geneva's most traditional dishes. 

The Grande Theatre is Geneva's opera, and right across the street is Le Lyrique. On one side, it's a simple brasserie, and on the other side, a formal restaurant. It opened in 1981, but the decor is late nineteenth century. 

The Café de Soleil, which means the Cafe of the Sun, was the first restaurant to be built outside the city walls. It went into business in 1680, and for a while it was a cabaret. At the time Geneva was a very conservative city, which may explain why it opened up outside the city walls. Today it's a down home neighborhood brasserie that's famous for its cheese fondue. 

The Café de Soleil makes their fondue using only gruyere cheese. Swiss have been making gruyere since the 1100s, and for over 500 years, chefs have considered it one of the great cheeses for cooking. A wheel of gruyere weighs between 77 and 88 pounds, has a diameter of 20 inches, and has been aged for at least a year. It has a slightly nutty flavor that's perfect for fondue. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Swiss fondue eating etiquette requires that all diners prevent their bread from dropping into the cheese, and if you fail, there are severe penalties. You may be required to, A, buy wine for everybody at the table. B, kiss everybody at the table, and C, keep a slice of hard boiled egg in your wallet throughout the month of July. 

BURT WOLF: One place I keep coming back to is The Bistro du Boeuf Rouge. The walls are covered with hats, beer mugs, old posters, cloudy glass, and undistinguished prints, and none of the plates match, which makes me feel very much at home. Thought of as a steakhouse, they also make great fried fish, in this case, filet of lake perch, which is a specialty of the town. 

I have spent a number of years living and filming in Switzerland and I am always impressed with the quality of their restaurants. I like good cooking in a relaxed atmosphere at a fair price and that’s the major tradition in The Valais, The Lake Geneva Region and Geneva.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: That one…

BURT WOLF: And chocolate---they have great chocolate. My cardiologist told me to have an ounce of dark chocolate everyday.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: One of those…two of those…

BURT WOLF: I take it after my baby aspirin and my cholesterol-lowering pill but before my red wine.

For Travels & Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: Rome, Italy - #804

BURT WOLF: In contrast to New York as The Big Apple, Rome has been called The Big Lasagna, and it’s a perfect description. Like lasagna, Rome is all about layers -- layers that could easily stand on their own, and yet being together in the same pot has made the entire dish more interesting.

This particular pot is resting in the middle of the Italian peninsula, about fifteen miles inland from the west coast. Archeologists have found traces of an ancient Roman settlement that dates back to 1200 BC, but most historians like to date the beginning of “real times Roman” as the eighth century before the birth of Christ.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: For me, there are five distinct layers to Rome: the first is made up of the ruins and restorations of ancient Rome. Stuff that’s been at the bottom of the pot for over two thousand years.

BURT WOLF: Next come the remains of early Christian Rome: buildings that started out as Pagan temples and ended up as some of the earliest Christian churches. Works of art that tell the great stories of Christianity.

The third layer is Renaissance Rome -- the extraordinary rebirth of culture that took Europe out of the Middle Ages. This was the time of Michelangelo, and Raphael.

Then came a period known as the Baroque. The word “baroque” comes from the Portuguese and means “uneven stone.” The movement grew as part of the reaction to the Protestant Reformation. It was designed to restore the power of Rome and the Catholic church. In Rome itself, some of the greatest examples of the Baroque are the works of Bernini.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: And finally I see an ingredient that’s not so much a layer as it as a light dusting on top. Sometimes it’s like grated cheese ... a little bit salty and demanding. Other times it’s quite sweet and light like powdered sugar.

BURT WOLF: It got started in the mid-fifties and is called La Dolce Vita, which means “the sweet life,” and it’s a reference to the lifestyle that was developing in Rome.

In order to understand why a particular dish tastes the way it does, it’s very helpful to have a recipe. The first ingredient in this Big Lasagna recipe is Ancient Rome.

The Forum was the political, religious, and commercial center of ancient Rome. As I wandered through the ruins, my guidebook told me of the great structures that stood here some 2,000 years ago. The Forum was built under the direction of Julius Caesar. That pile of broken stones... that was the spot where triumphant generals stood when they returned home. That clump of weeds... the very location of the magnificent House of the Vestal Virgins. And those columns... the Temple of Saturn. I can see it all in my mind’s eye. With my regular glasses, however, the place looks like it needs some serious attention.

Next, the quintessential visual symbol of Rome: The Coliseum. It was built as a stadium in the first century and held over 50,000 spectators. It was the center for the contests between the gladiators. At one point in its history, the building became a source of marble for the local construction companies and it was stripped of its facade. Some ruins are more ruined than others.

That is The Pantheon. It is probably in better shape than any other ancient Roman building. It was built in 27 BC as a temple to all the Roman gods. Kind of a mutual fund approach to pagan religion. You spread your veneration over a large group of deities and you reduce your risk of missing out on the powerful one. The Pantheon seems to have survived the centuries because it was turned into a church in the 600s. It’s set on the lowest point in Rome and was subject to regular flooding. If you look up you will see the dome of the structure which is bigger than the one on St. Peter’s. The hole in the center is the only source of light. Unfortunately it is also the source of water whenever it rains.

THE BIG LASAGNA

BURT WOLF: To continue along with the idea of the layers of Rome, a perfect example of how the Renaissance layer was placed on top of everything that went before, is the Capitoline Hill. It was originally the site of a pair of pre-Christian temples honoring Jupiter and Juno. But in 1538 it became the home of Michelangelo’s Piazza del Campidoglio. You approach the plaza by walking up a long, gently inclined ramp -- perfect for a grand imperial entrance to Rome, which was Michelangelo’s purpose. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was coming to town. The Emperor would be greeted by two statues of Castor and Pollux, the twin heroes of classical mythology. And in the center of the Campidoglio, he would be confronted by a magnificent statue of Marcus Aurelius, set on an impressive pedestal. The statue is no longer there, but the pedestal is -- proving once again that even when the politician is gone, his platform remains. On two sides of the piazza are museums storing ancient Roman artifacts. The third building is the Senatorial Palace, which to this day is used by the local government of Rome for the storage of ancient ideas on how the city should be governed.

To explore the next layer of the lasagna of Rome, the Baroque, I turned to Ilaria Barberini. She is the descendent of a powerful Roman family that included Pope Urban VIII, the man who commissioned the Barberini Palace and the Piazza Barberini. The family crest is illustrated with three bees as a symbol of how hard the Barberini work. Ilaria is certainly a perfect example. She’s part of a cultural association called Citta Nascosta, which means “the hidden city.” It’s made up of a group of instructors who are specialists in guiding people to the most famous parts of Rome, as well as the more unusual areas. She’s taking me to see a perfect example of the Baroque style that consumed Rome during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.

ILARIA BARBERINI: This is Palazzo Colona that was first built at the time of Pope Martino Quinto who was Pope in Rome from 1417 until 1431. The palace was then rebuilt in 1730. This is the gallery which was created to collect paintings and furnitures. The gallery was created because they need to show the power and the importance and the prestige of the family and it was a very typical thing that powerful families used to do in 16- and 1700s. And it was easy for the families connected to the pope, or connected with the pope, to buy important artistic treasures.

BURT WOLF: If you got it, show it.

ILARIA BARBERINI: Mmm hmm. Yeah. And so, we can start and see the rooms that lead to the great ballroom which is the big room -- a very beautiful one.

So in this room, as in all the other rooms, it’s full of beautiful paintings, but this is a particular painting. It’s very famous and important. And this painting is very famous because it gives you the idea of reality. You really can feel, you know, the bread, the man that is eating, the beans... It’s called the Mangia Fagioli in Italian, that means “the bean eater.”

BURT WOLF: Bean eater.

ILARIA BARBERINI: Yes.

BURT WOLF: This is the new style that starts in the 1600s.

ILARIA BARBERINI: Yes. This is new style. It’s realism -- naturalism. We can see the bread, the red wine, the man that’s sitting. We feel immediacy, reality. And we can also see the difference with that painting there that it belongs to the end of the fifteenth century.

BURT WOLF: Very stylized.

ILARIA BARBERINI: Yes, yes.

BURT WOLF: Unrealistic.

ILARIA BARBERINI: Yes.

BURT WOLF: And this is the average person.

ILARIA BARBERINI: Yes. There’s a big difference.

BURT WOLF: And it’s a painting that makes you hungry...

ILARIA BARBERINI: Yes.

BURT WOLF: ...which is the mark of true art.

ILARIA BARBERINI: Yes!

We are entering now in the big ballroom, the real gallery and it’s, you know, it’s amazing. They say that it’s even bigger than the one that is in Versailles. And here we can find one of the best examples of Roman Baroque. We have all the elements. We have the colored marbles, we have those kind of living frescos very rich in action. And so we see the will to glorify the power of the family, to give importance to the family. And then we have all those golden stuccos and all the statues around the gallery, the paintings...

BURT WOLF:  What do they actually do in this room?

ILARIA BARBERINI: Well they... the room was built to collect paintings actually at the middle of the 1600s. But they also danced in it, they had big balls and that’s...

BURT WOLF:  A little roller-blading was nice...

ILARIA BARBERINI: Yes, a little roller-blading...

BURT WOLF:  Field hockey... tennis...

ILARIA BARBERINI: Yes, exactly... tennis... they played sports...

BURT WOLF:  You need a room like this... I understand completely...

THE SWEET LIFE

BURT WOLF: The enormously grand style of the Baroque period grew out of a reaction to the Protestant Reformation. Four hundred years later, as a reaction to the poverty and darkness of the Second World War, Rome came up with La Dolce Vita.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: But instead of being presented in the traditional Roman art forms of painting, sculpture and architecture, La Dolce Vita was brought to us in film.

(FLIM CLIP)

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The master of the form was Fellini, and during the 1950’s he showed us what was happening in Rome as wealth and power returned to the city. But the sweet life was also captured by still photographers.

BURT WOLF: The most famous streets for shopping in Rome are at the base of the Spanish Steps... the international fashion houses... the great Italian tailors... the jewelry makers. And although there are plenty of restaurants in the area, it can be tough to find good food at a good price. A notable exception is the restaurant Il Cantinone, on the Via Vittoria. Charming... unpretentious... inexpensive. It’s run by the brothers Zucca, and it serves the specialties of the island of Sardinia -- like Carta de Musica, thin crisp bread named after the ancient paper on which music was printed... or tiny Sardinian pasta in a tomato sauce... ravioli stuffed with cheese and vegetables... grilled squid... grilled cheese with honey... and a knockout selection of Sardinian cookies.

Another favorite spot for me in Rome is the restaurant Piperno. It was originally opened in 1860 by Pacifico Piperno, a master chef whose specialty was Jewish cooking. At the time, this area was the center of the Jewish Ghetto. These days, the restaurant has an excellent table of appetizers, but my favorite meal at Piperno begins with artichokes cooked in what is called “the Jewish style,” followed by a bowl of chickpea and pasta soup. And to finish off, an espresso laced with Romana Sambuca and a dollop of whipped cream.

Da Vincenzo is a neighborhood restaurant, virtually unknown to tourists, and even to many Romans who don’t live or work in this particular neighborhood. It’s one of the few restaurants in Rome that still caters to the old tradition of Gnocchi Thursday. Gnocchi is a pasta made from potatoes and flour, and for some reason that I have been unable to discover, there are a group of restaurants that make it every Thursday. Also worth trying at Da’ Vincenzo is a sautéed veal dish called saltimbocca, which means “jump in your mouth.” And for dessert, panna cotta, a custard flan which in this case is served with fresh berries. I recommend this place to you, but I don't want you to tell anybody else about it, okay?

FIELD OF FLOWERS

The Campo de’ Fiori is in the southern part of Rome’s historic district. Campo de’ Fiori means “field of flowers,” and during the Middle Ages that’s what was here. But by the 1500s the district had become the heart of Rome. In the center of the square is the statue of Giordano Bruno, who was executed in the year 1600.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: At the time, the official word from the church was that the earth was the center of the universe and everything in the sky moved around us. It was an ego thing. Poor Bruno, he was only interested in the scientific aspects of the universe and really wasn’t getting the macho message from the monks. His experiments led him to the belief that, in fact, the sun was the center of the universe and the earth actually moved around the sun. Well, let me tell you, this was an unacceptable belief. And worse than just believing it, Bruno was going around and telling that to other people. Clearly, this man was a heretic. And the monks burned him at the stake.

BURT WOLF: Today his statue is at the center of the Campo and one of Rome’s great markets moves around him.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: In most ancient societies everybody ate and drank pretty much the same things. Of course the rich had a lot more of whatever it was than the poor. But in ancient Rome, perhaps for the first time, that began to change. Because the Roman Empire was so huge and in contact with so many different parts of the world, the people of ancient Rome who had the money were able to choose from an extraordinary variety of foods. Foods that were just not available to people who didn’t have the money. But they were not just interested in variety, they were fascinated by quality. And they would spend an enormous amount of time, money and effort getting the best of everything.

BURT WOLF: When Marcus Apicius heard that the shrimp off the coast of Libya were superior to those available in Rome, he outfitted a ship and sailed off to check it out. When he got there and found that the shrimp were no better than what he was already using, he turned around and headed back without making a purchase.

And that desire for the “best of class” is still very much part of the attitude of the modern Roman food lover. One of the first things that you learn as a traveling eater is that almost every town has a special interest in certain foods. Those same foods may be available in other cities but not at the same level of quality. And not subject to the same level of interest on the part of the local public. In New York they would be bagels, pastrami, steak and cheesecake. In Paris it would be pastry, wine, and chocolate. Here in Rome, it’s bread, particularly in the form of pizza, ice cream, and coffee.

The place to try “best of class” bread and pizza is the Antico Forno at the edge of Campo de’ Fiori.

For ice cream it’s Gioletti.

And for the best thick chocolate ice cream with a whipped cream topping... the Tartuffo at Tre Scalini in the Piazza Navona.

And almost everyone seems to agree that the best cup of espresso is at Santo Eustachio.

THE DIGESTIF

BURT WOLF: When the ancient Romans first started making wine, their feel for the craft, in terms of taste, was not very good. But the good feeling that they got from drinking it kept them highly interested. To help the flavor along, they often mixed their wine with honey, or herbs and spices, or all of the above. One result is that the ancient Romans developed a taste for beverages that were sweet and had an herbal flavor.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Much of the time their herbal drinks were considered more in the area of medicine, than in gastronomy, but that was often the case with wines and spirits that had been given an herbal flavor. Over the centuries one of the spirits with an herbal flavor that had a medical claim to fame and was very popular, was the digestif, something you drank after dinner to help you with your digestion. And one of the most popular flavors was based on anise, a flavor that many people associate with licorice.

BURT WOLF: The ancient Egyptians knew about anise, and so did the ancient Greeks. The ancient Romans often ended their banquets with anise-flavored cakes, pointing out that anise was a valuable aid to good digestion. Roman weddings usually included an anise cake for dessert.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Even today, candied almonds with an anise flavored coating are part of weddings in France and Italy. One scholarly source tells us that at the end of an ancient Roman battle, the generals would give anise flavored candies to their successful troops. Now, that doesn’t strike me as a really great gift after a battle, but maybe there were little prizes in the boxes. You know, you never know about these things. The point is that for thousands of years people have associated the flavor of anise, spirits, good luck, good fortune, the end of a good battle or the end of a good meal.

At this point, the Romans have distilled all of that into a drink called Romana Sambuca. They drink it after dinner. They put it into espresso. Sometimes they even top off the coffee with whipped cream, ending up with a sweet anise-flavored drink that they call Caffe Romana.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: For thousands of years people have believed that certain plants had vital forces and critical energies. The more unusual the shape and color of the plant, the more powerful these energies. And the way to get to these force fields was to capture the aroma of the plant... and the way to do that was to burn the plant and capture the smoke... in Latin it was called per fumus... in English we call it perfume. And one of the most powerful forces came from the anise plant.

Look at that. An after-dinner drink and a little aromatherapy, all at the same time. What a combination! 

NATURAL SPRINGS

BURT WOLF: Water... soaring up from beneath the earth. A spring has always had a mystical quality, offering an opportunity to be cleansed and rejuvenated. It’s an ancient and universal symbol of life and rebirth.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: For thousands of years a natural spring was considered to be a sacred place. The perfect spot to build a shrine. And for good reason. The idea of pure water as a life giving force is not only poetic... it’s practical. People can live for a couple of months without food... but a couple of weeks without water and life begins to disappear. So when someone came across fresh, clear, pure water just coming up out of the earth, they knew that they had reached a special place and they honored it.

BURT WOLF: Ancient civilizations, including the Greeks, planted gardens and built shrines around their springs. When the builders started to use basins and reservoirs to display and transport the waters, the springs became fountains. The Romans developed a purely decorative form of fountain that eventually ended up as a monumental sculpture. The early Christians placed fountains in their basilica as a symbol and a source of purification. During the Middle Ages, the fountains moved into the courtyards of the monasteries. But it was in Italy, during the Renaissance, that the fountain took on a form that was dominated by staggering, immense, virtually gargantuan sculpture. And Rome is the place with the most extraordinary examples of this art.

This is the Piazza Navona, which takes its long, narrow shape from an ancient Roman stadium that once stood here. There are three fountains in the Piazza Navona, but the most important one is the Fountain of the Rivers. It was designed by Bernini, who was a great architect of the Baroque period. The work was finished in 1651, and represents four rivers from four corners of the world: the Danube from Europe, the Ganges from Asia, the Rio de la Plata for the Americas, and the Nile for Africa. The head of the Nile is covered to show that the source of the Nile was not known at the time the fountain was built.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: When Bernini designed this fountain he was in competition with another architect of the time named Borromini. Borromini designed the front of the St. Agnese Church which is right in front of Bernini’s fountain.

BURT WOLF: Tourist guides like to tell you that the statues of the Nile and the Plate are holding up their hands in a defensive position in order to protect themselves from the Borromini building -- which they expect to fall on them!

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The truth of the matter is that the church was built a few years after the fountain, but maybe Bernini had seen the plans and knew what was coming. At any rate, their rivalry is still in evidence.

BURT WOLF: The most famous fountain in Rome is probably the Trevi Fountain. During the year 19 BC, thirteen miles of canal were built to bring water into the city, and this is the spot where the water arrived. The figure in the center represents the ocean, and he is being drawn across the waters by two sea horses and two sea gods. In the 1959 film, La Dolce Vita, Anita Ekberg took a little dip in these waters, and the place became even more famous.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: During the middle of the 1600’s Pope Urban VIII began building a fountain here. He used money that he collected from a tax on wine, which proved to be extraordinarily unpopular. He ended up being accused of trying to turn wine into water. He had to give up the tax and his plans for the fountains. It did get built, however, about a hundred years later by a local sculptor named Nicola Salvi. Local folklore has it that if you stand in front of the fountain, facing away, and throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain, you will someday return to Rome and your wish will be granted...

So much for that wish.. for my next wish, I wish that you will join us next time ON TRAVELS & TRADITIONS, I’M BURT WOLF.

Travels & Traditions: Going Platinum - #803

BURT WOLF: Platinum is a naturally white metal that’s been around for a long time but its only found in a few places including a few meteorites that crashed to earth 2 billion years ago.

But despite its age, platinum has an excellent memory and it knows how to keep and maintain its shape and weight. Once it’s set into a shape, it keeps it. In fact, platinum is so good at keeping its shape and weight that our standard measure for weight is the International Prototype of the Kilogram which is made of Platinum.

Platinum is ductile, which means it can be pulled out into a long string.

A single gram of the metal can be drawn out to a fine wire over a mile in length. And that has allowed jewelry designers to create some amazing pieces in platinum mesh. 

This would be difficult with any other precious metal.

Its melting point is extraordinarily high --- approximately 3,220 degrees Fahrenheit or 1,786 degrees Center grade. That melting point gives it some unique physical properties.

And platinum doesn’t oxidize, which means that it is not affected by air---no tarnishing. That makes it a noble metal.

What you see is what you get and you get it for ever.

Platinum is our most extraordinary metal---thirty times rarer than gold. And it is virtually impossible to corrode. Most of the Crown Jewels of England are set in platinum.

Platinum is extremely dense which allows it to safely and firmly grasp the precious stones that are part of the setting. The world’s most valuable diamond, the Hope Diamond, is set in platinum.

The highest honor in the music business is the award of a platinum record. You must sell a million copies to go platinum. Elvis Presley holds the record for a solo artist with 33 singles certified platinum and multi-platinum status.  In fact, he liked platinum so much that when he married Priscilla, he used platinum wedding bands. During the last century the word platinum has come to stand for importance and success.

It’s the ultimate.

BURT WOLF: The purest blonde is a platinum blonde.

And the highest level of respect many credit card companies offer is the platinum card. 

PLATINUM’S ASSOCIATION WITH HISTORY

BURT WOLF: Platinum was basically unknown until the early 1500s when Spanish conquistadors came across it in the gold and silver mines that they were digging between Panama and Mexico. It was a new and mysterious naturally white metal and they couldn’t figure out how to melt it. Platinum’s melting point was just too high for them.

Platinum’s big breakthrough came in 1751, when a Swedish metal expert learned how to melt it. 

During the 1780s, King Louis XVI of France declared platinum the only metal fit for a King. His Jeweler made several platinum pieces for him, including an ornate sugar bowl. And by the end of the 1780s, French scientists had figured out how to refine it into a pure metal and shape it.

In 1788, Francisco Alonso, a famous Spanish artist of the period, sculpted a platinum chalice for Pope Pius VI.

And before you knew it, everyone who was anyone wanted things made of Platinum.

The Kings and Queens of Europe.

The Tsar and the Tsarina of Russia. Even their son, the Tzardin, demanded things in platinum.

King Carlos IV of Spain had an entire room made of platinum.   

In the late 1800’s, Cornelius Vanderbilt II coated an entire room of his home in Rhode Island with platinum. 

And it wasn’t only the West that loved platinum. 

The Maharajas of India not only wanted objects in platinum but insisted that it be used to make the thread in their clothing.

In 1910, the pearl designer, Mikimoto, introduced a Platinum necklace that launched a boom in the metal.

Everyone who could afford it was going platinum.

PLATINUM IN ASIA

BURT WOLF: Today, China is the world’s biggest consumer of platinum and their demand for its use in jewelry is booming. Jewelry is now the third most popular consumer purchase in China after property and cars. Platinum jewelry is considered more modern and the most precious white jewelry. A natural choice with high purity.

In China it exemplifies womens inner strength, beauty and confidence.

Platinum jewelry has long been a favorite of Japanese women. They love the metal’s subtle sheen, that it lends itself to fine workmanship, its durability, the way it complements their skin tones and the prestige that comes with wearing the world’s most precious jewelry metal.

In Japan it represents the self-assured woman who will buy herself Platinum jewelry as a reward for an achievement or simply for happily being herself. They feel that it can be worn everyday with great style.

In Japan, it’s becoming customary for the generation of baby boomers reaching retirement age to mark their retirement with Platinum jewelry. Many husbands in Japan give it to their wives in appreciation of her support and their enduring relationship. These are called “Thank Days”. 

PLATINUM JEWELRY

BURT WOLF: Throughout the years, platinum’s purity, rarity and enduring nature made it the preferred metal of great jewelry designers and sophisticated buyers.

Detra Segar is the regional Vice President and General Manager of Tiffany’s Flagship store in New York City.

DETRA SEGAR ON CAMERA: We were started in 1837 by Charles Tiffany. We started in the fancy and stationery business and then in the mid 1800s moved into jewelry. In fact, at one point, Mr. Tiffany was referred to as the “King of Diamonds”. The more fashionable side of things was probably our introduction, in 1886, of our 6-prong setting diamond engagement ring. Before that diamonds were set in side metal and that was the first time that platinum, because if its inherent durability, was used to lift up and highlight the diamond, light came under it, it sparkled even more and it became a standard and very recognizable for Tiffany. In fact other jewelers will many times refer to the setting as the Tiffany setting. 

Tiffany’s relationship with platinum is pretty extensive. We go from very plain clean designs of Elsa Peretti, where you have a diamond set in a bezel with just the rim of platinum showing, to whimsical things as you will see in a charm bracelet that we recently introduced and you can also see it in our very wonderful and intricate designs as you see in the broach that I’m wearing, which is a reinterpretation of an archival design where platinum is used because of the pliableness of the metal; so you can set all these tiny diamonds in it quite nicely.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Tell me a little bit about what’s in the cases. What do you see here that you like.

DETRA SEGAR ON CAMERA: Well these items are some of the most coveted items in the world and probably some of the best examples of use of gemstones and platinum. So when you see platinum and diamonds set with everything from sapphire to tanzanite to rubies you’re going to see some rings that are absolutely amazing. This ring style is something called Legacy and it can be done in all kinds of sizes with all colored stones. A little bit of a throw back to tradition but very modern. Or perhaps this wonderful aquamarine pendant again set in platinum with diamonds.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: And earrings.

DETRA SEGAR ON CAMERA: And earrings.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: You could make a set out of that.

DETRA SEGAR ON CAMERA: You could, you could have a whole wardrobe. What we’re looking at right now in the case line is all of our traditional engagement rings. And most of them, as you will see, are set in platinum. The setting that you are seeing right here is Lucida which is a very clean modern cut for a diamond… and men like it too. They can understand something that’s durable.

Cartier also has a long association with Platinum.

Frédéric De Narp is President and CEO of Cartier USA.

FRÉDÉRIC DE NARP ON CAMERA: Last century, platinum was really used in the industry and in scientific laboratories for its physical qualities. And it is really, Louis Cartier, this genius man, who did decide to combine platinum with diamonds and use platinum in the world of jewelry in the proper way. He did understand that platinum would allow him to express its full creativity. These are contemporary pieces that Cartier has realized with platinum base, with diamonds, you know, and it's absolutely amazing to see that the luminosity of the diamonds with platinum and this chandelier earrings, which are very, very fashionable as well. 

And here is an example of one-of-a-kind pieces; you have these amazing sapphires, emeralds and platinum necklace which is absolutely gorgeous. 

It does show you how much the use of platinum will allow us as a jeweler to express the maximum of creativity and this is very delicate designs but the hardness of this platinum metal would allow us to create this very, very delicate motifs.

RALPH ESMERIAN ON CAMERA: Platinum could, easily for a jeweler, do very intricate work, whether it was lattice work, cut out platinum and you could do designs that you couldn’t possibly do in silver. From the jewelers point of view in the west this was a sensational material because number one it didn’t tarnish, as silver tarnished and with the tarnish of silver going into the white diamond or into the emerald, suddenly the whole piece looked slightly dirty and would require constant polishing over the period of a year or two years. Platinum held its whiteness.

PLATINUM IS A DIAMOND’S BEST FRIEND

BURT WOLF: When the wife of King George was preparing for her coronation in 1937 she selected a crown made of platinum for her famous 105-carat diamond.

RALPH ESMERIAN ON CAMERA: Platinum is perfect for making diamond jewelry. It’s a neutral color, white. The best color for what they were off setting, which is the stone. It is the stone that is most important thing; so you don’t want a frame that is going to overwhelm the picture. And that’s the way you should look at the work of the metal smith. It could hold stones in a much more secure way than gold and certainly better than silver.

And it can sort of blend in much more with skin tones. It also allows for very intricate workmanship and it’s subtle. And of course, diamonds look much better in platinum. And as diamonds have gained in popularity, which has been a steady increase over the last hundred years, platinum is the metal that a diamond looks best against. 

STAR POWER

BURT WOLF: These days Platinum is the favored metal for celebrities who want the best and love displaying it at red carpet events. 

RALPH ESMERIAN ON CAMERA: Celebrities have always loved jewelry because in the thirties and forties the Joan Crawfords, the Rita Hayworths then again later Elizabeth Taylor…they used actual jewelry not costume jewelry. And it was usually their own jewelry that they had bought or had been given. And then they also began to borrow from jewelers.

BURT WOLF: One famous piece of jewelry that didn’t need to be borrowed was the Taylor-Burton diamond. 

DAVID FROST ON CAMERA: What does 69.4 carats really mean?!

RICHARD BURTON ON CAMERA: What it means is the most expensive diamond in the world that’s what it means.

BURT WOLF: For Elizabeth Taylor’s 40th birthday Richard Burton purchased this 69-carat pear-shaped diamond.

This diamond is so rare that only platinum could be trusted to hold it. Platinum is a diamond’s best friend. It’s the most secure setting.

DAVID FROST ON CAMERA: Well, thank you for being with us…(crowd laughs)…

WITH THIS RING I THEE WED

BURT WOLF: The most romantic use of platinum in jewelry is in engagement and wedding rings.

Historians have theorized that the first rings may have been made of leather, plants, or other degradable material that served not only to symbolize a union between two people, but also their connection with the land that sustained them. As time passed, metal rings became more traditional and eventually gemstones were incorporated to add a measure of distinction and beauty.

OSNAT GAD ON CAMERA: The first time we know that the ring was given as a pledge of love was actually in the Roman times, and it was a ring that was called earnest money. And it was a ring that was given as a pledge of love between a man and woman. And it was to show that the man can afford to support his wife to be. That ring binded them together. And that was the most beautiful thing for me, that, it had such a significance in world history.

People still want to have the most precious metal in the world. They want it because it is durable, it is solid, it's strong, it's a ring that you're gonna' wear for the rest of your life. You don't want it to change color; you don't want it to bend. I find that platinum is the most beautiful metal to enhance the color of the stones. It's pure white. The stone, once it's set in it, it sparkles, it shows the color. It doesn't change on you. It's secure.

BURT WOLF: According to Conde Nast, publishers of Bride’s, Modern Bride, Elegant Bride and Vogue magazines, the wedding industry generates more than $161 billion dollars each year and 81 percent of American brides desire platinum. There are more than two million weddings per year and the average cost is $30,000.

And China has over 8 million weddings per year.

MAX KOVINS ON CAMERA: The difference between platinum and gold is often very misunderstood. Now to the naked eye they look almost the same don’t they?

The most important thing to know about buying an engagement ring is to find the ring that's going to symbolize the perfect union of the couple.

The engagement ring symbolizes the circle of life, the circle of love. I recommend platinum for the setting for the engagement rings because it's pure, rare, eternal. It's 100 percent hypoallergenic. It gets a beautiful patina over time. 

Another nice thing about platinum is that it's 65 percent more dense than gold, so it has a great heft to it. And you don’t loose any metal. With platinum, it's sort of like chalk versus clay. With clay, if you take your finger and run it through it, you don't loose the clay, it simply displaces and you could mold it back into place. Whereas gold is more like chalk, where if you scratch it with your finger, you lose the chalk forever.

Platinum lasts forever because it literally is an eternal metal. What platinum does for a diamond does what no other metal on the face of the planet can do. Since it's a pure white metal, it truly makes the diamond shine brightly. So if you want to have a diamond that's going to look the best. You set it in platinum. Platinum, set for life.

BURT WOLF: While the engagement ring symbolizes the promise, wedding bands symbolize the commitment. So it only makes sense that this commitment needs to be signified with a metal that is pure and rare like true love. 

The interest in platinum is worldwide. Ninety-five percent of all engagement rings sold in Japan are made of platinum. And China is the largest market for the metal. 

JEWELRY IN THE MAKING

BURT WOLF: In a small office tucked away on jeweler’s row in Manhattan, designer Michael Bondanza turns out unique works in platinum.

MICHAEL BONDANZA ON CAMERA: I started working in platinum because basically I wanted something that was a challenge. You’ve really got to be good at what you do to make something in platinum, especially on a large complicated scale. There's a bracelet that we're making that we've been making actually for a long time. It's one of the original platinum and gold bracelets. It's platinum top. It's made out of plate of platinum. And it's 18-carat yellow gold carriage 'cause I like to combine the metals also. The qualities of platinum let me engrave it beautifully. You can make it extremely thin and it’s still strong and it’s still something that shows well as metal.

BURT WOLF: Japanese jewelers are known for their intricate detail in jewelry making techniques and their topnotch creative skills.

In China, this platinum necklace masterpiece “Jiang” was inspired by the visual beauty and rich history of the Yangtze River.

In India, this Iraja necklace by Arunima Bhaumik of Ganjam Jewellers was inspired by the life-giving power of water, and evokes the designer’s native India, where many cultures are bound together by rivers. Hollow beads and diamonds are linked with Platinum.

The metal is also showing up in fine watches. Most of the time pieces are being made in Switzerland but they are being sold all over the world.

Usually the most limited edition of branded watches, the ultimate collection pieces, are in platinum cases. 

PLATINUM IN INDUSTRY

BURT WOLF: In 1974, the United States government passed a series of laws that attempted to regulate and improve the quality of the air we breathe. Suddenly the demand for platinum became even greater because platinum has the ability to remove dangerous gases from the atmosphere.

KATHRIN SCHOENKE ON CAMERA: One of the major uses of platinum is in auto catalyst. That means that the active component, of an catalytic converter, has ingredients in it that are made of platinum, which help to reduce pollution. Platinum is the active ingredient that promotes the chemical reaction in emission control without being used in the process. So, platinum is really prevalent in a lot of places where you don't assume it is.

BURT WOLF: Worldwide use of platinum group metals has been responsible for preventing over 12 billion tons of pollutants from entering the earth’s atmosphere. These days platinum is being called “the environmental metal”.

But platinum is not only used to keep our atmosphere clean, it’s actually integrated in to one out of every five consumer goods, including iPods, flat screen TVs, and laptops. 

Platinum is also used in cancer fighting drugs, hard disk drives, fiber-optic cables, eyeglasses, and pacemakers.

The glue in the little post-it notes that have become part of my life are made using a platinum catalyst.

JURGEN MAERZ ON CAMERA: Glass manufacturing is using platinum. Fiberglass uses platinum. The automobile industry uses platinum. Petrochemical uses platinum. There is platinum used in medicine. 

KATHRIN SCHOENKE ON CAMERA: If you think of retinal implants, of oral implants, of angioplasty, you know, the stents for treating blocked arteries. Or, you know people who have arrhythmic heartbeat, they have these little devices implanted, they’re called ACD’s, that in essence help them to regulate their heartbeat.

JURGEN MAERZ ON CAMERA: Platinum overall has many, many features that are beneficial to us.

Platinum is hypoallergenic. Nothing attacks platinum in your body. Platinum doesn't oxidize. So platinum, from a sparkplug all the way up to heart surgery, it's very, very important.

BURT WOLF: Almost every month, someone comes up with a new use for platinum, but no one is coming up with a new source. And even when you’re lucky enough to find some Platinum, the refining process could test the patience of a saint.

JURGEN MAERZ ON CAMERA: It takes about ten tons of ore to make one ounce of platinum. The ore is, mined from way underground. It's brought to the top. Goes into a crusher. It is turned into a powder. It is then smelted, and is then divided, and the things that are in this particular ore are taken out, including platinum.

If you take all the platinum that's ever been mined and put it in an Olympic swimming pool, it would barely cover your ankles. It's that rare.

INVESTING IN PLATINUM

BURT WOLF: During the last ten years there has been an extraordinary increase in the value of precious metals. One result is the production of a variety of platinum coins and bars that are both collectables and a physical investment in the metal.

Platinum has considerable value over the long term.

It’s relatively scarce and has performed well as an investment. Investors can buy it as futures and options, bars, ingots and coins like the American eagle, the Australian Koala and the Canadian Maple Leaf.

KATHRIN SHOENKE ON CAMERA: The platinum supply is finite. There’s more and more industries depending on it. So it's a commodity that's regulated by supply and demand. It's just a no-brainer to see that the price of the platinum will go up, particularly with emerging countries demanding more and more of it. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Precious metals have a long history of going up in value when other investments, like stocks and bonds go down. Of course you can never be sure of stocks, bonds or precious metals. You can’t wear a stock certificate out to dinner. On the hand, a nice platinum ring is a different story. For Travels & Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: Milan, Italy - #802

BURT WOLF: Milan has been an important city for well over 2,000 years. It was a significant political and commercial center for the Roman Empire, and it has maintained that position ever since. The name Milan comes from an ancient word meaning “the center of the plain.” It’s a reference to the fact that Milan was built in the middle of the Po Valley Plain, a crossing point for a number of roads that came down out of the Alps and connected to the commercial trade routes in what is now Italy. 

Today, Milan is an industrial powerhouse. It is the financial and commercial center of Italy, a focus for electronics, publishing, television, textiles, international trade-fairs and fashion. This is the fashion center of the world.

Milan became the fashion center of Europe right after the Second World War. Americans were the only people with enough money to buy good clothes, and they wanted things that were easy to wear and not expensive. Paris wanted to stay with the costly stuff. Italy saw their chance and started making fashionable clothes at half the price of the French. And they were able to keep pace with the... changing fashions.

The commercial tone for the city of Milan was set all the way back in the Middle Ages.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: During the 300s a bishop by the name of Ambrose was also the governor of Milan. He was a talented administrator with a very clear idea of how things should be done. He built a strong and powerful administration with one major objective: to get rich. He also didn’t think much of the idea of separating church and state. He felt he had to control everything that was going on in the government and everything that was going on in the church. And clearly that was okay to the people of Milan because today he is known as Saint Ambrose, and he is the patron saint of this city.

BURT WOLF: The church of Sant’Ambrogio was originally founded in the year 379 and is an excellent example of medieval architecture. Saint Ambrose felt that acquiring wealth during your lifetime was not only acceptable in heaven, but if you spent some of your money on good works for the church you might even end up with superior accommodations in the afterlife... a thought which led the wealthiest families of Milan to put up the money for the construction of some splendid churches and some magnificent religious art. It made good business sense -- put a little aside now and enjoy it later. It was sort of a pension plan for Paradise.

Tourists pop into the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele. It was built in 1865 and it is one of the earliest buildings to use a system of holding glass in place with cast iron. It was the prototype for the covered malls of the 20th century.

This is Via Monte Napoleone, and every day it attracts thousands of tourists looking for something with a designer label. But if you’re looking for great design without a fancy label, let me suggest a short detour.

Just 100 yards down a side street at Via Gesu Number 5 is the Museo Bagatti Valsecchi. It’s a 16th century Italian palazzo, filled with authentic furnishings and objects from the Renaissance. During the middle of the 1800s, two brothers, Fausto and Giuseppe Bagatti Valsecchi, decided that they wanted to live in a place that was just like a noble family’s household during the Renaissance. This is what they built. It’s open to the public and it’s the real thing.

DR. LUCIA DINA: It was built personally by the two brothers, they superintended all of the work of the building, restoration, furnishings...

Dr. Lucia Dina is a specialist in Italian Renaissance art, and she’s guiding us through the building.

DR. LUCIA DINA: For example, here we have an arch which was built in the nineteenth century and it was in the Renaissance style... you see the classical round arch and the two columns, but then, what they did was they inserted those two medallions you see. Those are authentic. They were made in the fifteenth century and they were bought by the two brothers in the antique market. So instead of just putting them on the wall, they really gave them life again and they framed it in and out. And they personally designed the arch and setting of all the things inside here.

BURT WOLF: But they weren’t architects, they were lawyers.

DR. LUCIA DINA: Exactly, yes, they were not, they had not a degree in architecture, but they were very good at drawings and they were very passionate of art. So here we are in Fausto’s bedroom and this is his bed. It was made in northern Italy in sixteenth century. Quite comfortable.

BURT WOLF: But the pillow is square...

DR. LUCIA DINA: Yes that’s the way it was actually. And it was actually a part of an altar which was then transformed into a bed. So it’s really a work of art. You can see Christ’s ascent to Calvary. You can see it was something which belonged to a church actually. And I know this room is a bit gloomy...

BURT WOLF: Yes, gloomy is a good word...

DR. LUCIA DINA: Isn’t it?

BURT WOLF: Like a mausoleum.

DR. LUCIA DINA: It is, it is. Actually we wanted to preserve it like this with the same atmosphere because it was the taste of the nineteenth century, sort of romantic, dark, gloomy taste. But we must not think that Fausto was a gloomy person, he was a very lively person. He was a bachelor. He had many girlfriends, so...

BURT WOLF: Girlfriends that would come to this bedroom?

DR. LUCIA DINA: They were supposed to do so, yes...

BURT WOLF: Just checking, just checking...

DR. LUCIA DINA: Maybe they liked it like this, I think it’s not really the taste for us...

BURT WOLF: It sure is.

DR. LUCIA DINA: You have to enter this different taste.

And this is the bathroom. This was Fausto’s private bathroom, and it was not only the tub, but also the shower.

BURT WOLF: This was his tub?

DR. LUCIA DINA: Yes, this was his tub. And on the ceiling, you can see that one of the roses was actually made of iron and it was the shower.

BURT WOLF: Wow!

DR. LUCIA DINA: It was a very modern invention for that time. And the inspiration came from a very famous painting which is now kept in Brera, the Museum of Brera in Milan, it was made by Piero della Francesca in the fifteenth century, and when the brothers saw the painting they thought it was a good model for their shower and tub. So this is how the whole thing came out.

So this is the Arms and Armors Gallery. It was very fashionable in that time to recreate the classical Armors Gallery with all the antique art and armor.

BURT WOLF: Just a room with all your family’s armor...

DR. LUCIA DINA: Yes.

BURT WOLF: That’s wonderful. Is that an authentic piece?

DR. LUCIA DINA: Yes, it is.

BURT WOLF: Ah ha. So during the Renaissance you had to be very careful about your weight. You couldn’t just gain a couple of extra pounds and go into the tailor and say “Hey, Tony, would you let it out, I put on a little weight at lunch!” I guess you could let it out, but it would cost you a fortune.

THE LOMBARDIAN PLATE

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: During the 700s Charlemagne came into the neighborhood and set himself up as king. Then Barbarossa arrived and sacked the place. In the 1500s the French took over, followed by the Austrians, and then the Spanish. Then a second period of domination by the French under Napoleon and finally a second period of domination by the Austrians. Lombardia didn’t actually become part of Italy until 1859. A difficult history in terms of power and politics but very tasty in terms of what each of the invaders brought to the Lombardian plate.

BURT WOLF: Today, Lombardia is the third-richest province in Europe, and Milan, its regional capital, is the country’s financial center.  But it’s also the heart of an important agricultural area, and the source of some of Italy’s best cooking.

The Spanish arrived in the middle of the 1500s and during their two hundred years of rule they introduced rice-growing to northern Italy, along with the recipe which eventually became risotto. The Spanish also imported saffron. Together these two ingredients produce Risotto alla Milanese, one of the most traditional dishes of the city. The Spanish also brought in Cassoela, a dish of braised pork, sausages and cabbage. The Milanese consider Cassoela as one of their great comfort foods.

The Austrians took over from the Spanish in the early 1700s, and you can see their influence in a dish like Costoletta Milanese, a pounded and breaded veal chop with the bone in, sautéed in butter. Very similar to the schnitzel dishes of Austria and Germany.

And when the French House of Savoy took a turn in the kitchen they left their Brioche recipe with the Italian bakers.

The Milanese took the pastries of France and Austria and invented a shop that is a combination bakery, pastry shop, candy store and coffee bar. And they’re one of the great pleasures for both local residents and visitors.

And in response to the mid-day rush of a modern commercial center, the Milanese have adopted the sandwich, which they’ve modified to meet their own idea of what a quick lunch should be.

Other classic recipes from Milan include Minestrone alla Milanese, a vegetable soup that has become a favorite throughout Italy.

Osso Buco alla Milanese, braised veal shank cooked with garlic, parsley, and lemon zest.

Bollito Misto, a collection of boiled meats and one of the great winter dishes.

Polenta, made from corn meal, is Italy’s answer to grits. It’s served as a soft mush or dried and cut into blocks, and then sautéed.

The cows of Lombardia give excellent milk which is used to make butter, which is in turn used as for much of the cooking instead of oil. The local dairy farmers also produce a wide selection of cheeses; their most famous is a fresh Gorgonzola.

SWEETS TO THE SWEET

BURT WOLF: Italy is famous for its sweets, both its confections and pastries, and there are historical reasons for this notoriety, reasons that go back for almost a thousand years.

For thousands of years, honey was the primary sweetening in the human diet. And during those years, it became a symbol for goodness and purity. For centuries, honey lived its sweet life without competition. And then, in the 11th century, things began to change. Sugar arrived from the east, and western food has never been the same.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: We know that for at least 2,000 years sugar has been in use in both the Near East and the Far East. And the Arabs brought it to Sicily and Spain during the 700s. But nobody in Europe really paid much attention to sugar until the time of the Crusades. The Crusaders got a really good look at the stuff in Tripoli and very soon thereafter it was being imported to Europe by the traders in Venice. But for over four hundred years, it was rare, it was expensive, it was used only as a spice or a medicine, and only by the very rich.

BURT WOLF: Nevertheless, from the very beginning of its use in Europe, we can document an increase in the number of recipes using sugar. Our sweet tooth had begun to grow. And when sugar production got started in the Caribbean, the sugar business took off. Suddenly there was a clear increase in the use of sugar in place of honey. As sugar became more and more available, and at a lower and lower price, the general public began to use it as much as possible.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Sugar made them feel that they were eating like a king. And sugar became an important item of international trade, which was never the case with honey. Sugar was big business, and it was a sweet deal for the governments that taxed it. Sugar became the first luxury to end up as a mainstay in the diet of an entire continent.

BURT WOLF: But even in the early years when sugar was coming into Europe as a rare and expensive spice, the Italians were developing pastry and candy recipes that used sugar as the sweetening agent. The Italians also began to develop an international reputation for their skill with sugar. They were so well thought of in this area that up until the last century it was the custom for wealthy households to employ Italian pastry cooks and confectioners along with their French chefs.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Many of the early European specialists in pastry and confectionery were from northern Italy. They had learned about sugar from the Arabs who were living in Sicily and from the Crusaders who brought it back here in the 1100s. They also had easy access to the spices that were coming in through Venice. One of the earliest recorded examples of their skills deals with a recipe for a cake called Panettone. There are lots of stories about how Panettone got started but the most popular is set here in Milan in 1490.

BURT WOLF: For many years Panettone was a traditional Christmas gift given by the businessmen of Milan to their employees. Today it is a favorite cake throughout Italy and eaten throughout the year.

NEW WORLD FOOD

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Chocolate is a New World food that was first shown to Europeans when the Mexican emperor Montezuma gave a sample to the Spanish explorer Cortez. When it got back to Spain it was held as a court secret for over a hundred years inside the royal household and the churches. Until a group of traveling monks got their hands on some of it and brought it back to Italy, where it was mixed with sugar and spice and everything nice that was being imported by the traders in Venice.

BURT WOLF: Chocolate in the form of candy became an important part of Italian confection. It shows up in a number of famous forms. Two of the most popular are Baci and Gianduiotti. Gianduiotti is a mixture of chocolate, cocoa powder, sugar, and hazelnuts and it’s always presented in this distinct shape. It was introduced in 1852 in the northern Italian city of Torino in the district of Piedmont. The chocolate is named after Gian d’la duja, a symbol of the struggle for freedom and independence that was fought in the Piedmont at the end of the 1700s.

Baci is the Italian word for “kisses,” and it has been applied to this candy since 1907. Young Giovanni Buitoni had been sent by his family to set up a candy factory in Perugia. Luisa Spagnoli was the product developer.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: They fell in love but were forced to keep their relationship a secret. They exchanged their messages of love by wrapping notes in the chocolate samples that they sent up and back between them. Today Baci contains a message of love in every package to commemorate that relationship.

BURT WOLF: The final chapter in the book of Italian sweets contains the biscotti, the amaretti and the cantuccini.

The baking of biscotti in Italy became important during the 1600s when the Venetian navy began searching for foods that would not go bad at sea. They realized that dried cookies would be perfect and set up a Biscotti Procurement Office. I would have liked to have worked there. During the 1800s the manufacturers widened their audience, in more ways than one, by marketing their biscotti to the upper classes. They designed all of their packaging to attract the rich and famous. Biscotti, by the way, is not the Italian word for “biscuit;” it means “twice baked.”

Amaretti are light, crisp confections made from egg whites, sugar and the ground kernels of apricots. They were invented in 1789 to surprise the Bishop of Milan, who was surprising the people of Saronna with a surprise visit.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Cantuccini are almond cookies that were originally developed in Tuscany but are now popular all over Italy. Like biscotti they are twice-baked. You take cantuccini dough and you roll it out into a tube, bake it, take it out of the oven, then slice it along the diagonal to get little disks like this. They’re laid out on a tray and baked a second time. Biscotti and cantuccini tend to come to the table at the end of a meal to be taken with coffee or dipped into sweet wine.

MUSIC TO MY EARS

BURT WOLF: Castello Sfozesco is a huge fortified castle and the 15th century home of the Sforza family. The most famous of the clan was Francesco, a mercenary who became the Duke of Milan, and would duke it out with anybody if the money was right. An iron hand in an iron glove. Today the old homestead is a museum with paintings, sculpture, and craftswork. What most visitors to the Castello don’t see is one of the world’s great collections of antique musical instruments, and its just down the hall.

MARC BELLASAI: Well this is a harpsichord that was probably built in 1571. It’s almost entirely the original instrument...

BURT WOLF: Marc Bellassai is a Fulbright Scholar working at the Castello, and studying the history of Italian music.

MARC BELLASSAI: The museum has given us permission this morning to play it. I’ve tuned it and I’ve even found a chair from the same period that I can sit in...

BURT WOLF: Oh... it’s a nice matching set... this little sign says “don’t touch,” but it’s not for us. Go ahead.

MARC BELLASAI: Okay let me open up the lid here. Now, Italian harpsichords from this period were actually two instruments in one. The inner instrument, which is the real part, the business end, and the outer case, which you can see here is decorated in gilt leather from the 1500s.

BURT WOLF: Oh!

MARC BELLASAI: And, uh, here let’s give it a spin.

BURT WOLF: Before piano bars, were there harpsichord bars?

MARC BELLASAI: This is the Renaissance harpsichord bar and while we’re here I’ve got another wonderful instrument to show you. Here this is an organ built in Naples around the beginning of the nineteenth century. And it’s got a very peculiar tuning system which I’ll show you in a minute. But first there’s a small detail -- uh, you’re collecting those...

BURT WOLF: Yes, “don’t touch.” Part of my collection.

MARC BELLASAI: Since electricity costs a lot in Milan, uh, you’ll have to work the bellows. It’s very simple. It’s not too strenuous. You can leave your jacket on. When you push the one down all the way to the bottom...

BURT WOLF: Push this one down...

MARC BELLASAI: All the way down, go ahead...

BURT WOLF: Okay...

MARC BELLASAI: To the bottom... now when it gets up to halfway, you let it go, push this one down...

BURT WOLF: This is the halfway mark...so when that gets to halfway, then I push this one down... okay.

MARC BELLASAI: That’s so the organ doesn’t go “ugh” in the middle of what I’m playing.

BURT WOLF: I want to talk to my agent about this before we do any more. All right let’s go...let’s go.

MARC BELLASAI: Okay, here’s the same piece that I played before. 

BURT WOLF: You get tipped for this or it’s just a regular set fee?

BURT WOLF: The antique instrument collection at Castello is only a small part of what Milan has to offer in terms of music. Milan is also the home of the most famous opera house in the world, Teatro alla Scala. It was built on the site of an old church called Santa Maria della Scala, “Saint Mary of the Steps,” and that is the origin of the theater’s name.

BURT WOLF:  You can start whenever you’re ready...

BURT WOLF: La Scala opened in 1778 with a work written by Antonio Salieri. He was the court composer in Vienna, and the teacher of Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt. But in the end, he will probably be remembered as the bad guy who tried to kill Mozart in the film Amadeus. Such is the power of the media.

La Scala was the home field for the great composers of Italian opera -- Verdi, Donizetti and Bellini. Puccini used La Scala for the presentation of La Boheme, Tosca, Tourandot, and Madame Butterfly. In 1920 Arturo Toscaninni became the artistic director of La Scala and during a period of reconstruction he took the orchestra on tour to North America. That gave La Scala an international reputation.

Attached to the main theater is a museum that contains an extensive collection of objects relating to the history of Italian opera.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The first Italian opera was presented in 1594. It had grown out of the little musical spectacles that were being presented in the homes of the aristocracy to mark an important occasion: something like a birth, or a wedding, or a royal visit. Eventually they became full-blown drama set to music. They also moved out of the homes and into the public theater at which point they became more varied, more dramatic, and more violent.

BURT WOLF: The opera season at La Scala runs for six months and starts each year on the 7th of December, which is the birthday of St. Ambrose, the patron saint of Milan. Getting a ticket through the box office is almost impossible. But if a visit to La Scala is your dream, you might consider the services of the baggarini. The baggarini are highly specialized dealers who traffic in opera tickets. They pay students to stand on line at the box office, often for days at a time. The tickets that are purchased by the students are turned over to the dealers, who resell them for between two and five times the original price. That dog, by the way, is a special guide dog. If you give him the code word, he will lead you to his master, who will sell you a ticket. An easier system, however, is to consult with the concierge at a good hotel, who can usually direct you to the services of the baggarini. But don’t say I didn’t warn you about the price!

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Well, that’s a quick look at the Italian city of Milan -- world famous for business and fashion -- but when you get to know the place, you find out that it’s just as important in terms of history, art, music, and great food. For TRAVELS & TRADITIONS, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: Cruising the Danube - #801

BURT WOLF: The Danube River is the second longest river in Europe after the Volga. It rises in the Black Forest Mountains of western Germany and flows for over 1,700 miles until it empties into the Black Sea. It passes through ten countries: Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldavia and Ukraine.

For centuries its banks formed the boundaries between the empires of Europe.

And the waterway itself served as the great commercial highway that made the empires rich.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: During the 7th century BC, Greek ships were coming up the Danube and trading with the local tribes. And when the Romans replaced the Greeks, the Danube became the northern boundary for the Roman Empire.

BURT WOLF: The river was constantly patrolled by a Roman fleet. The Roman fortresses along the shores became major cities, including Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade.

For almost 3,000 years the Danube has been an important road for commerce.

But with so many hi-tech advances in modern transportation you would think that the Danube would lose its standing as a significant commercial route. But just the opposite is true. Since World War II, traffic on the Danube has been on the increase. Constant dredging and the construction of a series of canals and locks have made the river more popular than ever.

And since the mid-1990s, the Danube has become a major attraction for river cruises with people coming from all over the world to sail on it---including me.

CAPTAIN ON CAMERA: Good afternoon sir, welcome aboard.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Thank you.

CRUISE DIRECTOR ON CAMERA: Good afternoon, welcome aboard.

BURT WOLF: The cruise I chose started in the Hungarian capital of Budapest and returned back to Budapest eight days later. While the ship was on the river it made stops in Bratislava the capital of Slovakia, Vienna the capital of Austria, Dürnstein where Richard the Lionhearted was held for ransom, Melk, a one thousand year old Benedictine monastery, as well as Grein, Linz and Passau.

Boats that sail on rivers are different from those that sail on oceans and large lakes. River boats are designed with a shallow draft which means they don’t go down very deep into the water. Our boat has a draft of about six feet. Because a river boat is not subject to high waves and strong winds you end up with a much more comfortable ride.

This is the Avalon Poetry. It’s operated by Avalon Waterways which is part of a Swiss company that’s been taking people around the world for over 80 years.

Burghart Lell is the head of operations.

BURGHART LELL ON CAMERA: The boat itself is 127 meters long, 443 feet and the nice part is that it is on three decks and we have cabins on all three decks. The most important thing is that on the middle and the upper deck we have French balconies. The bridge itself is the heart of the ship. We have sometimes a bridge that we have to lower it so that we have just a flat sky deck and we can pass underneath some of the bridges. There’s always some passengers who would like to walk outside and just get a shot of the landscape. So what we did there in the lounge was that we just has an isle on the side and you have a space in the front where you could always be outside even when it’s raining. And then we have built the lounge in such a way that it is the social center of the ship.

Cheers.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Proust.

BURGHART LELL ON CAMERA: We have the bar in there, you can play cards, meet friends, have a chat. We have as a policy to give you very good food. We have in the morning a breakfast buffet, we have a lunch buffet, there’s always a variety. I have to admit it’s terribly decadent. Then we have a dinner a sit down dinner with one seating. The ship itself is stopping once, twice, or even sometimes three times a day in different places. You can walk off your calories. But there’s always the possibility to go to the gym. In the gym we have some exercise equipment like bikes, like rowing machines, and for those of you who really like to get a little bit of a treat we just can get yourself in the whirlpool and watch the landscape outside.

BRATISLAVA

BURT WOLF: One of the advantages of a river cruise is that most of the time the boat docks in what for centuries was a central part of the city. On our first morning we docked in Bratislava and went ashore for a tour of the old city.

Bratislava is the capital of the Slovak Republic and the historic center of the country.

Starting around 1500 BC a trading route known as the Amber Road linked the people of the Mediterranean with the population centers around the Baltic Sea. Bratislava was a major stop on the road.

The city’s most important church is St. Martin’s Cathedral. It opened in 1452 and was originally part of the city’s medieval fortifications. Accordingly, the entrances to the building were placed in the side walls – a safer spot.

The relic chapel is said to contain the bones of St. John the Evangelist. During the Middle Ages, no matter what else a church had going for it, it was important to have some relics.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Relics brought visitors, and visitors brought money, and money was essential for the maintenance and expansion of the church. And the bigger the relics the bigger the money and the bones of St. John the Evangelist were big.

BURT WOLF: For almost 300 years, St. Martin’s Cathedral was the site of the coronation of the kings of Hungary.

Next we visited the Castle. The high point of any tour of Bratislavia is always the castle. That’s because it’s on a hill that’s over 300 feet above the river. You know sometimes a high point is just a high point. Construction on the castle began in the 9th century when the Slavs built a fortress to protect a crossing point on the river.

When the Hungarians took over in 1526 they made it bigger. Then the Habsburgs of Austria improved it. The fortress was so impregnable that the Empress, Maria Theresa, had a special room where she kept the Hungarian crown jewels and, even more important, her collection of vintage baseball cards.

That evening we docked in Vienna and a group of us went ashore to attend a Classical Concert at the Kursalon.

MELK and GREIN

BURT WOLF: About 50 miles west of Vienna the Danube joins up with the Melk River. This is the spot that became the cradle of Austrian history.

In the year 976, the Babenberg family took control of the neighborhood and built a series of fortified castles. The castle at Melk was their most important stronghold and the place where they decided to bury their ancestors.

To make sure that their family burial site was cared for properly they set up a monastery inside the castle. The Babenberg’s ruled for just over a hundred years, at which point the castle and the surrounding lands were turned into a Benedictine Abbey and the Benedictine monks have been living here ever since.

St. Benedict believed that nothing was more important than the worship service and the Melk Abbey church was built to honor that belief. The artwork inside the church is based on the theme that “without a just battle there is no victory”.

St. Peter and St. Paul in a farewell handshake as they set off to do battle with death.

Christ crowned with thorns, battles through suffering to glory.

The entire area around the altar represents people battling on the road to salvation.

Our next stop was the picturesque little town of Grein. The stretch of water in front of the town was once a very dangerous part of the river. It was filled with rapids and rocks and took the lives of many boatmen. It was known as the Greiner Strudel.

The word strudel originally referred to a whirlpool or an eddy. But over the years its meaning has changed to include not only rivers but strips of pastry swirling around slices of baked apple. Which is a considerable improvement.

The Greinburg castle that sits above the town is one of Austria’s oldest palaces. It was built in the 1400s. The courtyard is three stories high and was used as the setting for great feasts and receptions. The most unusual room in the palace is a small artificial grotto with walls that are covered with a mosaic of pebbles from the Danube River. The palace also houses a nautical museum with models that illustrate the different types of ships and the rafts that once traveled the Danube.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: There are tiny little lounge chairs in there.

BURT WOLF: The town of Grein and the family that originally built the palace got rich because they were granted the eternal right to collect tolls from boats traveling on the Danube. Apparently eternity took its toll – these guys are out of business.

PASSAU and LINZ

BURT WOLF: Our destinations for the next day were Passau and Linz. The German town of Passau is located at the meeting point of three rivers, the Inn, the Ilz and the Danube.

The old town sits on a narrow strip of land between the Inn and the Danube, which makes Passau feel like parts of Venice.

And like Venice the streets are regularly flooded. The ground floors of many of the buildings have been given up and outdoor staircases built to lead up above the high water mark to the first floor.

The wall of the city hall has a series of markings that indicate the flood levels starting in the early 1500s.

Besides being one of the most beautiful towns in Germany, Passau is famous for its St. Stephen’s Cathedral.

After Passau we headed to Linz.

Linz is the third largest city in Austria and people have been living here for at least 3,000 years, though, most of them look considerably younger. The Old Town has preserved much of its baroque architecture.

The local café is the perfect spot for an after dinner coffee and a slice of Linzertorte which is one of the traditional pastries of Linz.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: A Linzer Torte is an open pie that’s filled with raspberry or red current jam and a dough that’s made with ground nuts instead of flour. It’s been an Austrian specialty for at least 400 years and some people consider it the oldest pastry recipe in the western world. In the middle of the 1600s a cookbook was published with four different recipes for Linzer Torte. 

DÜRNSTEIN

BURT WOLF: One of the most beautiful parts of the Danube River is the section that runs through the Wachau Valley---ancient castles, great vineyards and the town of Dürnstein.

The third crusades to the Holy Land took place at the end of the 12th Century and featured a guest appearance by Richard the Lionhearted ruler of England. During one of the battles Richard insulted Duke Leopold of Austria by insisting that the Duke take down his battle flag. Richard felt he was entitled to top billing. When the crusade was over and Richard was returning to England he had to pass through Leopold’s neighborhood which included Dürnstein. In order to avoid being recognized he disguised himself as a traveling tradesman. But he forgot to take off his royal ring. He was spotted, captured, and held in the castle of Dürnstein until he was ransomed for 100,000 marks.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: It’s interesting to note that it took over two years to get the ransom money together Richard was not very popular with his family. As a matter of fact, his brother John and Philip the King of France put some big bucks together and offered it to Leopold if he would keep him here for another year. But Leopold went with the original deal and released him at which point King Philip sent a note to John saying: “Watch out; the devil is loose.”

BURT WOLF: Today, Dürnstein is at the center of one of the most important wine growing areas in Europe.

The ancient Celtic tribes that lived here 3,000 years ago were already growing grapes and making wine. But winemaking didn’t become a big business until the monasteries got into it during the Middle Ages. The monks would teach the local peasants how to cultivate a vineyard. Then they would take most of the grapes and make wine.

Monasteries throughout Europe were making and selling wine, it was a big business, and six of the major players were right here in Austria. 

The Wachau area is about 40 miles west of Vienna, at a spot where the Danube cuts through a range of hills.

For a few miles, the steep northern bank produces some of Austria’s most famous wines.

The hills are so steep that very little equipment can be used and there are places where the workers are roped together like mountain climbers. It’s not an easy place to make wine.

VIENNA

BURT WOLF: Our next stop was Vienna.

Vienna is the largest city in Austria, and the nation’s capital, it was home to the Hapsburg court, the imperial seat of the Holy Roman Empire, and the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The best way to see Vienna is by driving the Ringstrasse - Vienna’s main boulevard. It circles the city center and is lined with museums, universities and public buildings. When the old city walls were taken down in the 1850’s, it was the Ringstrasse that took their place.

The Opera House was one of the first buildings to be reconstructed after World War II. Vienna is known for its musical big-shots, at one time, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Strauss all lived and composed in Vienna.

Behind the Opera House is the Sacher Hotel, it’s the home of the Sachertorte, Vienna’s signature pastry.

And this the Albertina, an 18th century palace which now houses over 60,000 drawings and one million etchings. You should come up and see them sometime.

The main attraction on this boulevard is the Habsburg Imperial Palace. It was the residence of Austria’s rulers starting in the 1200s. Decorators loved it - it got remodeled every time a new ruler moved in.

The Graben was once part of the town moat into which the residents threw their enemies. Today it’s Vienna’s main shopping thoroughfare into which residents throw their money.

One of Vienna’s most popular attractions is the Schonbrunn Palace. The Hapsburg family came to power at the end of the 1200’s and hung onto it for almost 900 years. Schonbrunn was their summer place, and it was built to look like Versailles in France.

BUDAPEST

BURT WOLF:  The last day of the cruise was spent in Budapest, which is actually made up of three cities: Buda, Pest and Obuda.

These days Budapest is a peaceful, beautiful and culturally interesting city which has managed to hold on to much of its history while adapting to the needs of a modern capital.

This is the Castle Hill area. The capital of Hungary was originally a few miles up the river on a flat plain that was almost impossible to defend. During the middle of the 1200s, the Mongol Tartars, who had become wealthy as a result of their invention of tartar sauce, invaded the town and destroyed it. So the next time a town was built in the neighborhood it was put up on a steep hill. Good move---safer neighborhood.

The hill is about 200 feet high and about 5,000 feet long and it holds an entire city district filled with historic houses.

The district also contains the Mathias Church. The original church on this site was put up in 1255 for use by the German residents of Buda. At the time it was known as the Church of Our Lady but people started calling it the Mathias Church after it was used for the first wedding of King Mathias in 1463.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Mathias used it again for his second wedding to Beatrice of Naples. And I’m sure if he had a third wedding he would have been here too. He loved getting married in this Church and he was getting a fabulous deal from the florist.

BURT WOLF: Next to the church is an equestrian statue of St. Stephen who converted to Christianity in the year 1,000 and became the first king of Hungary. There is a story that the number of legs connected to the ground on an equestrian statue is related to the way in which the rider died: one hoof raised means the rider was wounded in battle; two hooves raised means death in battle; and all four hooves on the ground means the rider survived all battles unharmed. 

This is a popular story but not always true. It depends on when and where the statue was made and who made it.

Behind the statue is an area known as the Fishermen’s Bastion. During the 1200s each group of tradesmen were responsible for defending a part of the city wall and this was the part defended by the fishermen. 

The spot has a great view of the Danube and Pest. The building that dominates the Pest bank is the Parliament.

When we finished our tour of Budapest we headed back to our boat where we celebrated our last evening on board with a Gypsy Dinner. 

Well, that’s river cruising on the Danube. For Travels & Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: Taiwan, A Sense of Place 2 - #710

BURT WOLF: The island nation of Taiwan is an extraordinary combination of ancient Chinese culture and the most modern aspects of Western society.

Its 23 million inhabitants live with two calendars. Business runs on the standard Gregorian calendar used in all western nations.

But family life is based on the Lunar calendar which has controlled Asia for thousands of years.

The Taiwanese have carefully preserved the traditional arts and crafts of China. Everyone still has a chop that is used for signing documents. It’s a name stamp that dates back to the time when most people could not read or write.

The document being sealed with the chop can be a traditional wedding license or a contract for the construction of a high-rise condominium.

There are mountains where tea is cultivated with the same ancient techniques that have been used for thousands of years

And there are modern facilities that have made Taiwan a world leader in the manufacture of computer chips, chemicals and hi-tech components. Taiwan is the world's leading producer and exporter of laptop computers. 

But Taiwan also exports talent and a major beneficiary of that trade has been the United States. I wanted to visit Taiwan based on the advice of people who really knew it. 

People like Dr. Henry Lee, the world’s leading forensic investigator. The real CSI.

DR. HENRY LEE ON CAMERA: I start my career in Taiwan. I graduate from Taiwan Central Police University. Then I became a police captain. In my career, I assist Law Enforcement around the world investigate approximately seven to eight thousand major cases. A lot of people say those high profile cases the most interesting - O.J. Simpson, John Kennedy Assination, Jon Benet Ramsey, Lacey Peterson, Elizabeth Smart, to recent case, Phil Specter.

BURT WOLF: Taiwan also gave us Michael Tong, who brought elegance to Chinese restaurants in the U.S.

MICHAEL TONG ON CAMERA: I love to eat, I love to cook. And the real restaurant which is I joined Mr. Wang in 1967 at Shun Lee Dynasty. And the first one, actually, become recognized by the New York Times and received four stars. The restaurant take up like fire. 

BURT WOLF: Taiwan native Dr. David Ho is a leading authority on AIDS prevention.

DR. DAVID HO ON CAMERA: I've been a researcher working on HIV/AIDS, ever since the early 1980s. My team had concentrated on understanding HIV, what it does in the body of an infected person. And that led us, in the mid-1990s, to develop certain strategies to treat HIV that ultimately became, quite successful, and that's the so-called combination, or cocktail therapy.

BURT WOLF: Walter Wang, an award-winning entrepreneur, also came from Taiwan.

WALTER WANG ON CAMERA: I'm in the manufacturing business. We take PVC or plastic raw material, and we convert it into building materials. Exterior doors, patio doors, exterior moldings. And so, almost anything you can think of related to building materials. 

BURT WOLF: Fang-Yi Sheu, is an internationally famous dancer who splits her time between Taiwan and the U.S.

FANG-YI SHEU ON CAMERA: Dance makes me fell alive and dance is part of my life. If I try and figure out without dancing what else I can do and that would be really, really big question for myself.

BURT WOLF: And Chien-Ming Wang, star pitcher for the New York Yankees, who currently calls New York home.

CHIEN-MING WANG ON CAMERA: I am pleased and honored to be one of the players on America’s best professional baseball team.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: I wondered what it would be like to visit Taiwan with advice from those who knew it best. And so I asked—and I came.

BURT WOLF: Considering the fact that the Taiwanese have been serious about baseball for over 100 years, and that the game is played with the same rules as in the U.S., it’s not surprising they’re producing stars like Yankee pitcher, Chien-Ming Wang.

What is surprising are the differences in what goes on around the games. Six big league teams travel around the country but for many years none of them had a home town which meant that no matter where they were playing, each team had thousands of fans at each game.

The Taiwanese may have accepted the idea of a four based diamond, nine innings to a game and a maximum of three strikes or four balls for each at bat.

But when it comes to ballpark food they definitely have their own approach. Peanuts, popcorn and crackerjacks are out.

Pork and sticky rice sausages and a lunch box with pork, rice, and vegetables are in.

And the fans are not shy about expressing their feelings. They show up with horns… whistles… and drums…and anything else which will help them convey their opinions. And they have an opinions about every play.

These massive responses are organized and coordinated by independent self-appointed cheerleaders. It’s somewhat of a mad house, but the officials see it as just another expression of the nation’s love of democracy and their belief in the right of self expression.

TAIPEI 101

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Right now, I am in front of Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world. But since some people have always believed that size mattered, I’m sure that someone somewhere is trying to build a taller building. But the height of this building is not what really interests me.

BURT WOLF: I find the building interesting because it is a perfect example of Taiwan’s constant effort to incorporate ancient Chinese principles into modern technology.

Taipei 101 is 508 meters high and is built with the most advanced construction techniques. But it’s shape is like a stalk of bamboo, an ancient Chinese symbol for growth. And that’s only one of many traditional symbols in the building.

STEPHEN CHI ON CAMERA: You see lots of Chinese characters for example the cloud and also the dragon head in the corners of the building and also what we call ru yi in the ancient coins. Oldest characters represent symbols of fortunes, means if people living here, work here, can bring lots of fortunes to him.

BURT WOLF: In Chinese culture the number eight is a symbol for prosperity. Accordingly, the building is divided into eight sections and there are eight floors in each section.

STEPHEN CHI ON CAMERA: And each big union contains eight small unions.  In Chinese it's called fa fa which means to “bring lots of fortunes” so again it means that people working this building can earn lots of money.

BURT WOLF: Taipei 101 also houses the first wind damper that is on public display. Suspended from the 88th floor, this 660-ton ball helps stabilize the building during typhoons and earthquakes.

STEPHEN CHI ON CAMERA: It's main function is to reduce the vibrations of the high buildings because a high building would normally shake by the wind and especially in Taiwan because we have earthquake.

BURT WOLF: The elevators are the fastest in the world, traveling at over 1,000 meters per minute. But their location in the building was approved by a feng shui master practicing the 5,000 year old art that tells him if the construction plan is in keeping with the mythological forces of the planet. Too much feng and not enough shui and you’re in deep trouble.

In 39 seconds these elevators take visitors to the 89th floor where they can look over the city while waiting for their stomachs to catch up.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: But if you belong to the terra firma school which believes that the more firmer the less terror, fear not, because those who stay below will be offered shopping.

BURT WOLF: The Taipei 101 Tower rests on a vast support of international shops. Electronic stores, a high-end supermarket, the largest English language book store in Taiwan and dozens of different restaurants, bars and cafes.

DIN TAI FUNG DUMPLING HOUSE

BURT WOLF: Ah, my life is filled with unanswered questions, and, like George Carlin, I wonder why there is an expiration date on sour cream? Why do they call it chili if it’s hot? And if money doesn’t grow on trees, why do banks have branches?

And one that has stymied me for decades---the secret of the Taiwanese soup dumpling.

This is the Din Tai Fung dumpling shop and it is the world epicenter for dumplings. Each day thousands of dumpling lovers line up to get in and the line is particularly long on Sundays, because that is the day when they make their inscrutable soup dumplings.

WALTER WANG ON CAMERA: What’s so special about this dumpling is that when you - it's small bite-size dumpling when you bite into it, all the juices flow out.

BURT WOLF: How do you get soup broth into a dumpling without breaking the dough that’s holding everything together?!

Or even more mystifying, what’s the secret of keeping the dough from getting soggy?

The master dumpling maker believes there is no secret. And to prove his point he’s allowing me to video tape him making the dumplings and to watch the replay in slow motion.

Okay. The dough is made from wheat flour. Half gets mixed with cold water—which keeps the dumpling wrapper puff up when it’s steamed. The other half is made with chicken broth which keeps the wrapper from expanding too much.

The dough is kneaded into a rope. A piece is pinched off. A rolling pin is used to flatten it out and shape it into a circle.

The pork filling, which has been mixed with a little gelatin, is packed into the dough.

Then the sealed dumplings go into a steamer where they steam for about two minutes.

When they come out they’re puffed up with soup. How did that soup get in there?

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Let’s watch the replay.

BURT WOLF LOOKING INTO MONITOR AND TO CAMERA: Dough looks okay. Ground pork looks okay. Wait, wait, there it is you see the soup was frozen into a gel and mixed with the pork. It was hiding in plain sight all the time.

Good work huh Dr. Lee?!

DR. HENRY LEE ON CAMERA: Hummmm.

THE LANTERN FESTIVAL

BURT WOLF: Most of our celebrations have their origins in something that is happening in nature. It may be happening on earth, like the beginning of the season for planting.

Or it may be happening in the heavens, like the night of the biggest moon.

In Chinese communities all over the world, the most important celebration of the year takes place on the first day of the first lunar month---it’s Chinese New Year and it usually falls around the beginning of February. But unlike the New Year celebration in the west, which lasts for twenty-four hours, the Chinese New Year celebration lasts for two weeks. It ends with the ritual of the lantern festival, which has been part of Chinese New Year for over 2,000 years.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The Taiwanese believe that the world is filled with invisible spirits who are roaming around. They also believe that the first full moon of the year casts a magical light that will allow you to see these spirits.

BURT WOLF: In the past, believers would walk around with torches which made the job easier. Eventually those torches became lanterns and the Lantern Festival was born.

Over the years, the Lantern Festival turned into a special event for children. Probably because the date of the first full moon of each year often occurs when children are going back to school after their New Year’s break.

Parents build elaborate lanterns for their children to take to school. And teachers help the children light them.

The bright light rising to the heavens expresses a symbolic wish that the children turn out to be bright students and rise to the top of their class.

On these special evenings, the streets of Taiwan are filled with thousands of people marching along with their lanterns.

Fireworks are often set off to attract the attention of the gods.

There is even a traditional food for the lantern festival. It’s a round sticky rice cake.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The round shape of the cake is symbolic of the moon and of the unity family.

And some people believe if you eat this cake at the right moment in the New Year festivities it will prevent you from aging during the next year. Now, I've been doing that for ten years and as you can clearly see my timing is seriously off.

TAIPEI’S GRAND HOTEL

BURT WOLF: Taipei’s Grand Hotel was built on a tree covered hill above the city. It opened in 1952 and quickly became a national landmark.

The architectural approach is known as the Chinese Palace Style and it's been used for hundreds of years in the construction of the strongholds in which the emperors lived.

CATHERINE FAN ON CAMERA: The Grand Hotel was officially established in 1952.

BURT WOLF: Catherine Fan is a communications specialist with a detailed knowledge of the symbolic meaning of the hotels architecture.

CATHERINE FAN ON CAMERA: If you look carefully at the wood streak patterns of the Grand Hotel you may find something interesting. These are Chinese characters.

BURT WOLF: There are six calligraphic letters on each of the main entrance doors that mean Long life to the Republic of China.

The dragon and the phoenix are symbols for happiness, good fortune and prosperity. They are considered to be the royalty of the animal kingdom and you will find their images on the hotel's staircases, walls and ceilings.

CATHERINE FAN ON CAMERA: The general numbers should be 200,000 dragons.

BURT WOLF: 200,000 dragons are in the building?!

CATHERINE FAN: Yes.

BURT WOLF: So be careful where you walk.

BURT WOLF: The ceilings are also covered with five-petaled plum flowers which is the national flower of The Republic of China on Taiwan.

The flower in the center of the entrance area has 5 dragons holding onto a dragon ball surrounded by an additional 23 dragons and 16 phoenixes---elaborate but essential for good fortune, and prosperity.

While Taiwan was under Japanese occupation, this area was part of a Japanese shrine. A series of bombings destroyed most of the shrine but this dragon remained ---clearly a sign of its mystic powers. So in 1987, the hotel had it gilded and set back in place.

CATHERINE FAN ON CAMERA: I was told this dragon is almost 100 years.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: 100 years…

CATHERINE FAN ON CAMERA: Yes.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: It doesn’t look a day over 90.

NEO BA-BA BEEF NOODLE SOUP

WALTER WANG ON CAMERA: In Taipei, you would enjoy the best beef noodle soup. There's a restaurant in Taiwan in ... my favorite is called the ... Daddy of Beef Noodle Soup.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: There's a widely accepted rule in economics that as sales increase, prices decrease. But there are some exceptions.

BURT WOLF: One of the more unusual exceptions is Taipei’s Neo Ba-Ba Restaurant. The Beef Bowl.

Their most famous soup is made from five different cuts of beef from five different countries: Japan, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S. And the more bowls of beef noodle soup the shop sells, the more it charges.

When Tony Wang and his wife Jan first introduced their Rolls Royce version of the noodle soup they charged 20 dollars U.S. per bowl. 

After they sold 30 bowls of soup they raised the price to 30 dollars.

At 50 bowls it went to 60 dollars.

And today it goes for 120 dollars per bowl. And they have sold over 4,000 bowls since they opened.

JAN & TONY WANG ON CAMERA: When the store first opened there's only one beef soup. After period of time a customer tired of eating the same one so we try to make different that's why it comes to 23 different kinds of noodle soup. This one is the first one and this one is the last one.

BURT WOLF: Before preparing the meal, Tony visits your table to find out your taste preferences. Once you’ve finished the meal, he takes detailed notes about your likes and dislikes and holds them for future reference.

So, just in case you win the national lottery, or marry into great wealth and come back here to celebrate, Tony will be ready to cook for you.

In addition to the usual soup, Tony offers a three course meal called Head of State Beef Noodle Soup Dinner. The first course is slowly simmered beef broth. The second course is five kinds of beef in a soup. The third course is soy braised beef over noodles.

There is no set price for the meal. When you finish eating you pay whatever you think its worth. Tony says that on average people are paying about 250 U.S. dollars per meal.

CUSTOMER ON CAMERA: You can try once or twice in your life but not everyday okay?!

NIGHT LIFE (KTV)

BURT WOLF: There’s lots of nightlife in Taipei, but for me the most interesting are the giant Karaoke Clubs like Partyworld.

FANG-YI SHEU ON CAMERA: KTV is a great place to scream. When you sing and those words come out, and the melody come out it's --- people feel like they're telling their own story.

BURT WOLF: The lobbies are decorated in a style intended to convey a lavish sense of wealth. You have arrived. Your ship has come in. The world awaits your talent.

For speakers of Mandarin, Taiwan is the pop music capital of the world, with its own set of superstars turning out an endless selection of hits.

And millions of fans who feel compelled to sing along.

Karaoke in Taiwan is called KTV and it’s somewhat like a karaoke bar on steroids.

As you get off the elevator you are welcomed by the staff… and taken on a tour of the buffet and the food is pretty good.

The building consists of ten stories of private karaoke rooms.

Some are huge and can hold over 2,000 people. The smallest are designed for no more than a dozen. And they have just about every size in between. You book your space. Assemble at the appointed hour and sing your heart out. The place is open 24 hours a day and there is always a party going on.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Well you can do anything but don’t step on my blue suede shoes. You can burn my house, you can steal my car, you can drink my liquor from an old fruit jar, you can do anything you want to do but honey don’t step on my blue suede shoes.

Thank you, thank you very much.

BURT WOLF: For Travels and Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: Taiwan, A Sense of Place 1 - #709

BURT WOLF: From the very beginning of our history America has been populated by people who came here from somewhere else. We tend to focus on the immigrants who came here from Europe during the late 1800s and early 1900s but even the Native Americans who were here when the first Europeans showed up had originally immigrated to America from Asia.

During the 1800s mainland China was in total chaos. Thousands of Chinese left their homeland in search of their golden opportunity which they believed was buried in the mountains just outside of San Francisco.

The earliest Chinese workers to arrive at the time of the California Gold Rush, did the toughest jobs for the least money. When the gold rush came to an end the Silver Rush started and they were back in the mines again. And when the silver petered out they went to work building the railroads. And when the railroads were finished they built the California vineyards. 

Asian immigration has continued. And today some of the most interesting people coming to the United States are coming from Taiwan. Chien-Ming Wang, who is pitching for the New York Yankees. Dr. Henry Lee, one of the world’s most famous forensic scientists who is with the Connecticut State Police. Fang-Yi Sheu, a star with the Martha Graham dance company in New York and The Cloud Gate Dance Company in Taiwan. Dr. David Ho, one of the world's leading researchers on the prevention and cure of AIDS. Walter Wang, a successful manufacturer and philanthropist. And Michael Tong who introduced the first elegant Chinese Restaurant in America.

Taiwanese students are attending major technical universities in the United States and many have graduated into positions in Silicon Valley. Jerry Yang, one of the founders of Yahoo, is a perfect example.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Hi, how are you doing….

BURT WOLF: I have been a frequent visitor to their homeland of Taiwan and I was curious to find out what they would recommend for my next visit. I asked and this program is the result of their suggestions.

TAIWAN’S NATURAL BEAUTY

CHIEN-MING WANG ON CAMERA: I think the scenery in Taiwan's eastern rift valley, especially the national Taroko Park, is awesome.

DR. DAVID HO ON CAMERA: In Hualien, you could you could go inland into the Taroko Gorge and that scenery is very special. And rather unique to Taiwan. And I think every visitor who is going to spend some time some time in Taiwan should go visit that spot.

DR. HENRY LEE ON CAMERA: I like to see the countryside. I like to see the nature beauty. I like to see the people, how they live. I want to talk to the farmer and to learn their life, and to share their life experience with me.

BURT WOLF: About four million years ago, the tectonic plate under Asia, bumped into the tectonic plate under the Philippines. One result was the Central Mountain Range that forms the backbone of Taiwan. Giant sheets of marble were forced upward and weathered by thousands of years of wind and rain.

Today the area is known as the Taroko National Park and it’s the best place to see the pristine natural beauty of the island. The park is filled with mountains, valleys, gorges, fast flowing rivers and waterfalls.

The Central Cross Island Highway winds its way through the park and offers visitors some spectacular views of the landscape. A river cuts through the marble mountains creating one of the world’s most interesting locations for white-water rafting.

About twenty percent of Taiwan has been reserved as national park land and protected against development. It's an extraordinary opportunity to see what this part of the world was like when it was still under the control of ancient tribes. 

WULAI HOT SPRINGS

BURT WOLF: An hour’s drive south of Taipei in a narrow valley surrounded by steep hills is the small town of Wulai. Before the connecting roads were built it was not an easy place to get to which helped protect its natural beauty. The Wulai waterfalls spill down for over 260 feet.

And if you’re into extreme sports you can take the Wulai Cable Car to the top of the cliffs. It rises to a height of 80 meters above the river which makes it the highest cable ride in Taiwan.

But Wulai is even more well-known for its hot spring waters that gush up from beneath the mountains. It comes out at 85 degrees Farenheit. It’s colorless, odorless and contains large amounts of iron. Tourists and locals bathe at the open-air spring at the banks of the river. The spring water gives your skin a very pleasant smoothness.

FANG-YI SHEU ON CAMERA: I think it’s the water helps me a lot. Just release my back, my neck. I have nothing to do that’s the only place I go. Some how that place makes me calm. Yea.

BURT WOLF: Thousands of years ago the springs of Taiwan attracted native tribes to the area. And today the town is a virtual hot bed of hot spring inns, each receiving a supply of warm water directly from the hot spring.

On the surface it can look like a sleepy little town. But they have balanced out the local economy with a street of shops selling souvenirs and snacks and the local rice wine.

Wulai is also home to a very special spa called Pause Landis. The spa has a series of private bathing rooms where the hot water comes directly from the hot springs. All of the rooms look out on the tranquil beauty of the valley. And each has a different interior design.

In this room the hot spring water passes over a solid gold basin from which the water absorbs a heavy dose of good luck which is then passed into your body while you soak. Then there is the waterfall room.

My favorite was the hot pot room which has three oversized cast iron pots in which the water is kept warm while you relax.

GRAND HOTEL DIM SUM

BURT WOLF: Taipei’s Grand Hotel is run by a non-profit foundation dedicated to the preservation of traditional Chinese culture. The architecture is traditional. The furniture is traditional. Even the restaurants are traditional. And in Taiwan, that means Dim Sum.

DR. HENRY LEE ON CAMERA: Now Cantonese Dim Sum is so famous. I want the small, steam bun with crab meat in there and so those are the stuff I like. 

BURT WOLF: Dim Sum means “touch your heart” and it was originally developed by chefs during the Sung Dynasty which got started in the 10th century and ran for 300 years. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Two thousand different dishes have evolved since Dim Sum was first introduced. And though it was originally designed as a snack to be served in Tea Houses, these days it’s become the basis of a full meal.

CATHERINE FAN ON CAMERA: Here at the Grand Hotel we have prepared two kinds of delicacies. One is from Northern China and the other one is from Southern China. 

CATHERINE FAN: The Northern part includes pork fried icy dumplings, ribbon rice cake, pork bun, seafood dumplings, and the shrimp and Chinese chives dumpling. 

And the Southern park includes vegetarian dumpling, taro cake, pork chow mei, fish dumpling, and the shrimp dumpling.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: There's really nothing more important in Chinese culture than food. In fact, one of the ways you ask someone how they are is Tsa Fon La Mao which means “Have you eaten? The theory being that if you’ve eaten you're okay.

TAIWANESE HAND PUPPETS

BURT WOLF: Hand puppetry is one of the most authentically Taiwanese traditions. It’s even performed in the Taiwanese language instead of Mandarin. And it’s been around since the 1600s.

DR. DAVID HO ON CAMERA: The Taiwan puppets are very well-known. They are enjoyed by kids in the previous generation much more than today. I also think that's very unique to Taiwan. It's quite special. 

BURT WOLF: Taiwanese puppets consist of two parts – a hollow wooden head and a hollow body made of cloth. The puppet master puts his hand inside the puppet and uses his entire hand to mimic the natural movements of people.

WALTER WANG ON CAMERA: Usually, a kung fu puppet series. It's multiple series, like a soap opera if you will. It has a full-length story, and it has a bunch of stories, has a hero. And it's about kung fu fighting, and it gets kids very interested and excited. 

BURT WOLF: It’s a little like Pinocchio meets Bruce Lee. Hand puppet shows are still a very popular form of street entertainment with puppet masters reciting poems, singing traditional songs and using sound effects. They’ve even begun using lasers, dry ice and anything else that promises to increase the size and attention span of the audience.

SHIATZY CHEN

BURT WOLF: Another area in which Taiwan is balancing ancient traditions with modern technology is fashion. Shiatzy Chen is one of Taiwan's most successful designer labels. 

FANG-YI SHEU ON CAMERA: I love their clothes. I mean they’ve got a style. And they have a lot of great designs. It can be very formal and you know can be casual too. But once you wear her clothes, I feel like, yea I’ve got a style. I love Shiatzy.

BURT WOLF: The brand got started in 1978. And their objective was to develop a line of high quality, stylish clothing for women which they described as “neo-Chinese chic". In 1987 they introduced a line for men.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Now you might think that these sleeves are a bit too long. But it is the Ancient Mandarin style and it tells everybody that you are much too rich to work with your hands.

BURT WOLF: Shiatzy Chen has done a considerable amount of research on traditional Chinese dressmaking and has incorporated that knowledge into their work.

THE JADE MARKET

FANG-YI SHEU ON CAMERA: Jade Market is a great place to shop.

BURT WOLF: For over a thousand years, the Chinese have worshiped the Jade Emperor. And when they started mining jade in the 1700s it became the country’s most precious stone. It's beautiful but it's also tough.

Every weekend hundreds of vendors who specialize in Jade come to Taipei and set up a market that’s open to everyone. There are new pieces, antique pieces and polished stones. There are pieces that sell for thousands of dollars and pieces that sell for just a few bucks. They say that jade can reflect the wearer's way of life, with the color becoming more intense with age and literally polished by the owner's skin. 

Fang-Yi’s suggestion to visit the jade market is much appreciated, especially by my grand-daughter.

THE SLACK SEASON RESTAURANT

BURT WOLF: The restaurant is called The Slack Season and it has an almost mythic place in the gastronomic history of Taiwan. 

Mr. Hang Saw Hang is the fourth generation in the business. And there will probably be a Hang in this restaurant for many generations to come. His great, great, great, grandfather is credited with developing the basic recipe for Tainan Noodle Soup which is one of the most traditional of Taiwanese dishes.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The story of Tainan Noodles goes like this---Hang’s ancestor was a fisherman, but because of the typhoons that came through in August and September he didn’t have very much fish it was kind of a Slack Season. So he developed a soup made from noodles and shrimp and pork which he sold from a stand. It’s kind of Taiwan’s answer to Spaghetti Bolognese.

BURT WOLF: And today it’s a national favorite.

RELIGION IN TAIWAN

BURT WOLF: Taiwan is one of the most religiously tolerant nations in the world. At last count over 25 different religions were recognized by the government, which means that they met the requirements for a minimum number of local members, and sufficient money to carry out their mission.

There are over 23,000 places of worship on the island, including 8,600 Taoist temples, 4,000 Buddhist temples, 3,600 Protestant churches and 1,100 Catholic churches. You will also find Jewish Synagogues, Confucian monasteries and Islamic mosques.

Almost all of the monasteries and temples are open to the public and welcome both worshipers and visitors. The most interesting are the folk temples that combine Buddhism and Taoism with an assortment of gods that specialize in specific areas.

The most popular folk deity in Taiwan is Matzu, patron saint of seafarers. Her dark blue face makes her easy to recognize. And she's always accompanied by two giant statues with huge ears and eyes. One is known as Eyes That See a Thousand Miles and the other is Ears That Hear On The Wind.

The legend of Matzu tells of the daughter of a fisherman who was born about a thousand years ago. One night she had a dream that her father’s boat was caught in a typhoon and sinking. In the dream she tried to save her father and her brothers who were on board. When she woke up she found out that there had been a typhoon and that by some miracle her brothers were saved, but not her father. She spent the rest of her life using her special powers to save people. Over the years her benevolence has extended to all in need and her followers are in the millions.

THE NATIONAL PALACE MUSEUM

DR. DAVID HO ON CAMERA: I visited many museums on the mainland, and in terms of the collection none will compare to that held in the National Museum in Taipei.

MICHAEL TONG ON CAMERA: They are the world's largest collection of the priceless Chinese treasuries and I mean for art field.

WALTER WANG ON CAMERA: The National Museum is a place that almost all visitors in Taiwan must go. It has a lot of Chinese antiques that visitors would not be able to see in the rest part of the world. Even in China or in Mandarin Museum, you won't be able to see those exhibitions that you can see in the National Museum of Taiwan. 

BURT WOLF: The National Palace Museum in Taipei opened in 1965 and holds over 700,000 works. It is the largest collection of Chinese art in the world, representing over 5,000 years of the most important arts and crafts.

When the Japanese attacked China in 1931, the greatest works of Chinese art were loaded into thousands of crates and for 16 years secretly moved around so the Japanese wouldn’t find them.

After the Japanese surrendered in 1945 and civil war broke out in China 4,800 crates of the most valuable works were shipped to Taiwan for safekeeping. And all through the following years of turmoil not a single work was ever lost or damaged.

There are 4,400 ancient bronzes, 24,000 pieces of porcelain, 13,000 paintings, 14,000 works of calligraphy, 4,600 pieces of jade and 153,000 palace records. Today, most of the collection is held in storage rooms that were dug out of a mountain behind the museum. The objects are periodically rotated but it would take 12 years of regular visits to get through all the rotations and see the entire collection.

SUN MOON LAKE

DR. HENRY LEE ON CAMERA: For the tourist, if they just stay in a 5-star hotel, eating hotel meal, you only see part of the country. You should go to where other people, living, eating and touring, and learn and experience their culture.

BURT WOLF: Three hours south of Taipei, in the foothills of the Central Mountain Range, is Sun Moon Lake, the largest natural lake in Taiwan.

FANG-YI SHEU ON CAMERA: I love Sun Moon Lake because it just makes me feel like, oh my God, this is an amazing place. I feel like oh my God this whole view is like a beautiful woman. Very classic.

BURT WOLF: It got its celestial name because of its shape. The Eastern part of the lake is round like the sun, while the Western part is shaped like a crescent moon hence the name Sun Moon Lake.

Legend has it that the lake was discovered when the ancestors of the Shao tribe stumbled upon it while they were out deer hunting. They found it so beautiful that they moved their entire clan to its shores. 

These days there are only 300 people in the Shao tribe but they still live in their favorite neighborhood and they have exclusive rights to the best block—a sacred island in the center of the lake that serves as their private sanctuary.

Even though the island is accessible only to the tribe, the rest of us have plenty to do. Fishing, boating, eating, and lots of hiking. Seven different trails wind through tea farms, conifer forests, aboriginal villages and a waterfowl sanctuary.

NIGHT MARKETS

BURT WOLF: Most people in Taiwan spend their days working and end up with very little time to shop, but the merchants of Taiwan have solved that problem by opening up night markets. Each town has their own version and the larger cities have dozens of them. They open about 7 pm, close at sunup and spread out over several blocks.

Each market has a slightly different set of vendors but in general they offer clothing, shoes, local inventions and lots of street food.

Originally they were serious shopping areas designed to meet the needs of hard working families, but today they are more about atmosphere and fun. Rosa Hsu, a resident of Taipei and friend of mine for many years, took me to have my fortune read.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Ah, a fortune teller, well, let's have our fortune told.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: What is she saying?

ROSA HSU ON CAMERA: You don’t want to know.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: What is she saying now?

ROSA HSU ON CAMERA: You don’t want to know.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: I want to know.

ROSA HSU ON CAMERA: No, you don’t want to know.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: I don’t want to know.

ROSA HSU ON CAMERA: She said that the program will be finished in five seconds. Quick!

BURT TO CAMERA: For Travels & Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf. That was fast.

Travels & Traditions: A Tuscan Harvest, Italy - #708

BURT WOLF: About 3,000 years ago a people known as the Etruscans migrated from Eastern Europe to central Italy and set up a federation of 12 city states.

Today, their old neighborhood is known as Tuscany, and its cities are some of the most famous in Italy. Florence, Pisa and Siena are Tuscan cities.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The Etruscans had a highly developed society. Great art and architecture. They also had a strong fleet that traded with the Syrians and the Greeks. They traded in Africa and in Spain. Etruscan tin and copper went out; ivory, precious jewels and textiles came in. But by the beginning of the third century the Roman legions had become so strong that they were able to crush the Etruscans and eventually incorporated all of Etruscan society into the Roman Empire.

BURT WOLF: However, the great cultural traditions of the Etruscans remained in place. It was the citizens of Tuscany who triggered the rebirth of art and architecture that we call the Renaissance. Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Raphael---everybody who was anybody in the Renaissance was working in Tuscany. Tuscany is still home to artists and writers who find inspiration in the magnificent landscape and the unusual light.

During the 9th century, the Tuscan hill town of Siena became a major stopping point on the road between Paris and Rome. By the beginning of the 12th century it was a bustling city, producing some of the best wool in Italy, developing a clothing industry and exploiting a small silver mine.

By the end of the 12th century Siena was a commercial and financial center and her growing economic success began to challenge the city of Florence which was only 30 miles to the north. An emotional competition developed between the two cities which eventually led to the Battle of Montaperti in 1260.

Siena won the battle and entered a period of extraordinary power---power which rested in the hands of a small group of influential families. One way the families showed their new-found wealth and influence was the construction of magnificent fortified palaces.

The city’s location on the road to Rome gave it a commercial advantage but it also made it a resting place for pilgrims. If you were on your way to the Vatican from virtually any part of Europe you made a stop in Siena.

The city began building a series of outstanding churches, towers and public squares. And since most of the modern construction has taken place outside the old city, Siena’s character remains relatively unspoiled. Narrow winding streets and ancient buildings give Siena a distinct medieval feeling.

During the past 3,000 years dozens of different ethnic groups have immigrated to the peninsula that is presently called Italy.

And each immigration made a contribution to the cooking of the land but there were three groups that set the foundation which eventually became what we now call Italian cooking.

The three groups were the Greeks, the Saracens, and the Etruscans. The Greeks arrived over 2,000 years ago and set the base for all southern cooking. The Saracens popped in around 700 A.D. and superimposed a whole bunch of ideas on top of the Greek base. The Greeks and the Saracens were the primary influences on the cooking of the south. The north was controlled by the Etruscans and the center of the area which they controlled eventually became known as Tuscany.

When it comes to food, Siena has all of the traditional dishes of Tuscany, but its greatest strength is in its sweets. The Saracens brought sugar to Italy and about ten minutes later, Siena had a sweet tooth.

Its most famous sweet is Panforte, which means “strong bread.” Panforte is a medieval spiced bread made from candied orange peel, lemons, almonds, hazelnuts, sugar and honey. It is made by a number of bakeries in Siena and shipped to Italian communities throughout the world. Perhaps the most famous baker of panforte is Nannini, who also has a number of retail shops throughout the town. Wherever there is an Italian community, there is Panforte. And right next to the Panforte are Ricciarelli, little cookies that are made from almonds, egg whites and sugar.

THE WINES OF TUSCANY

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Starting in the year 1000, Europe saw an enormous increase in its population. And people started moving into the cities. The hot towns were Milan, Venice and Florence. And as more and more people moved into the cities the merchants became wealthier and wealthier. Suddenly there was a large group of people interested in buying good stuff and at the top of their shopping list was wine.

BURT WOLF: By the early 1300's each resident of Florence was on average knocking off a gallon of wine per week with much of that wine coming from the nearby vineyards in Tuscany and the word Chianti was already being used to describe the land between Florence and Siena.

For most of its history Italy was made up of small independent states. Each had its own approach to business with separate currencies, weights and measures. That, plus a mind boggling system of import and export duties made it impossible for Italy to develop an international or even a national market for its wines. And the quality of the wine remained uneven at best.

But during the middle of the 19th century things began to change. The city states became a single nation. Well, at least in theory. The wine producers of Tuscany introduced quality standards and soon developed an international reputation.

Michael Yurch is the president of Sherry-Lehmann in New York City. It’s considered to be one of the world’s great wine stores. He’s also a leading authority on the wines of Italy. I asked Michael to come with me to Tuscany and share his expertise.

MICHAEL YURCH ON CAMERA: Government regulations on wine are both good and bad. It’s a good thing that it guarantees what the wine is made out of. It guarantees where it’s from. How it’s made. And sometimes regulations are bad because I mean if you can imagine a government regulation if you equate wine making with art, if you can imagine a law that told the painter what color to paint with, that’s sort of what we have here in making wine.

This is why 20 or so years ago, some wine makers just totally broke with the government regulations and said we’re going to paint with the colors we want. We’re going to make wine with the grapes that we want. And we’re going to make great wine. And if you don’t want to officially sanction it for us, well, that’s too bad. We’ll just call it table wine, vino de tabla, but we’re going to make the best wine in Italy. And we’re going to show that the government regulations aren’t the be all and end all on how to make wine. And of course. The proof of wine is in the glass, not on the label. Although from a consumer standpoint, the wine regulations do offer a good degree of protection.

BURT WOLF: During the 1970s, Italian winemakers were more interested in quantity than quality. They hit the bottom of the barrel.

MICHAEL YURCH ON CAMERA: Back in the bad old days, these folks are getting 20 or 30 or 40 tons per hectare in some instances. And now, eight is more typical for a good quality table wine, especially here in Italy. The concept of less is more has taken hold to where it’s not good to have so many tons per hectare.

During the summer, the workers come through and examine all the clusters, and they only pick the best ones, and leave the best ones on the vine. This one didn’t make the cut, or literally did make the cut. It’s called “dropping fruit” and what it does… concentrates the grapes that are left. It gives the vine more vigor to pump into the grapes that are remaining.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: How are they?

MICHAEL YURCH ON CAMERA: They’re pretty sweet. Sweet?

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Ready for picking. Call me as soon as it’s time to drink.

BURT WOLF: The most important of the traditional grape varieties in Tuscany is the sangiovese. The word comes from a Roman phrase that means the blood of Jupiter.

They also planted grape varieties that were traditional to France like Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. The winemakers concentrated on the quality of the grapes. And they blended the wine that came from the Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot with the wine that came from the sangiovese.

MICHAEL YURCH: Sangiovese been around longer than the Romans and probably longer than the Etruscans. It is the most widely planted red grape in Italy. But here it makes a wine that is firm in acidity, cherry flavors, tea flavors, but most important, it’s a grape that makes a wine that goes well with food.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The old giant Slavonian oak tanks that were used for hundreds of years in Italy were replaced by smaller French oak barrels. Winemakers took the best of the traditional Tuscan techniques for winemaking and added the things they had learned from wine-makers all over the world. The result was a series of wines known as the “Super-Tuscans”. World class wines at world class prices.

TOLAINI

BURT WOLF: Today, one of the new and most forward looking producers of wine in Tuscany is Pierluigi Tolaini, who likes to be called Louie. His vineyard is in the south-west corner of the most important grape growing area in Tuscany.

PIERLUIGI TOLAINI ON CAMERA: We were very poor. The war was over and poverty was everywhere. I was 19 and beginning to see what was ahead for me. So I decided to immigrate to Canada. And then I got a job working on oil rigs as a laborer.

Then I bought a truck to haul water for the drilling rig. I was making money and all I thought I died and gone to heaven. So I bought this little trucking company and I started hauling general freight. And now we are the largest private trucking company in Canada.

So when I left my father had been getting up. As I was walking away I knew he was at the window looking for me. He wanted me to turn around to say goodbye but I never did you know because you know I was thinking you know. I felt sorry for me but I felt sorry for him too. The only son going away with a one way ticket. You know so I kept saying to myself I’ll never be poor again. I’ll never eat polenta again; I’ll never drink bad wine again. And some day I’ll make my own wine.

The trucking business is doing well so I thought that it would be a good time to slow down a bit. And come to Italy and spend more time in Italy and pursue some of the hobbies that I always had.

One I was racing cars and the other was making wine. So first I bought a car, fast car, and I took lessons, how to drive on a track. I enter a couple of races and then I realized that you know at 200 miles an hour my reflexes are not what they used to be. So I decided that if I wanted to die in bed that I should go farming.

So I thought, plant your plants, your trees, your vines, watch them grow, drink wine be with friends.

BURT WOLF: Simple dream.

PIERLUIGI TOLAINI ON CAMERA

Yea it was a simple dream. I choose this area because look at it. That’s one of the best areas. See all those valleys you know they have the sun from sunset to sunrise. And then the heat in this valley stays there. The rocks keep the heat for the night. So this is one of the best zones.

BURT WOLF: Albert Einstein once said that imagination was more important than knowledge. When Louie decided to start a vineyard his winemaking knowledge was almost non-existent, but his imagination was in top form and he kept imagining new ways to do things.

He noticed that bending down to work on the vines exhausted his crews so he invented a tractor that makes their life easer and their work faster.

PIERLUIGI TOLAINI ON CAMERA: The guys they gotta get down here and they’re bend like this all day. So I said what are we gonna do here? So I thought about this thing here. And you know it’s a tractor, a diesel engine. It's all electrostatic. It’s all controlled with the feet so the hands are free to work. What the best thing is they’re sitting down. And they don’t use their backs. So when you’re picking or you are pruning you’re here and the biggest bend you do is this. See? And the productivity is increased about 30%.

BURT WOLF: He also produced a special container that protected the grapes from damage as they were moved from the vineyards to the winery. It also made them easier to move.

When the grapes come in from the fields they go onto a selection table. Any grapes that are not perfect are taken out. Then the stems are removed and they go onto a second selection table. The entire Tolaini family are involved in the sorting of the grapes and they are compulsive about using only the best, and that just one of their many compulsions. The grapes are kept whole which prevents the juices from interacting with the air and that gives the wine a much better flavor. The grapes continue their journey up and into a row of oak fermenting tanks.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The key process in making wine is called fermentation. There is a natural yeast on the outside of the grape. When that yeast comes in contact with the sugar in the grape juice it turns it into carbon dioxide gas which escapes into the air and alcohol which mixes with the juice. The more sugar in the grape, the more alcohol in the wine.

PIERLUIGI TOLAINI ON CAMERA: Taste it. It tastes like a sweet grape juice. Now when it ferments the sweetness go away and become alcohol.

BURT WOLF: The winemaker decides when there has been enough fermentation, at which point the wine goes into oak barrels to age.

After about two years the wine from different barrels are blended together and bottled.

New bottles are placed onto the bottling line. They’re washed and dried and filled with wine. Then the air above the wine is pulled out of the bottle. The cork goes in. The bottle is capped and sealed and labeled. At that point some wines are ready for shipment.

But others continue to gently age in the bottle for another two years. Right after I turned 50 I decided that gentle aging was extremely important.

The history of Tuscan wine has always been about deciding which grape varieties to plant, and how to grow them. Cabernet and merlot are traditional French grape varieties but when they are planted in Tuscany, like so many long term residents of the area, they develop a distinct Tuscan accent.

The consulting wine maker at Tolaini is Michel Rolland, who is one of the world leading authorities on the subject.

MICHAEL ROLLAND ON CAMERA: I’m just giving advices from the vineyard to the cellar, aging, bottling and sometimes drinking. Good grapes are absolutely necessary to make good wine.

MAN ON CAMERA: Sure.

MICHAEL ROLLAND ON CAMERA: In fact, there is not a good winemaker, it is mostly good grapes. I began in Bordeaux, in the lab doing mostly analysis not really giving advices and step by step I change my mind, because the lab was a little bit boring.

At the beginning the enologist was not really tasting the wines, because people was not asking to taste they were making wine like the father was doing wine, and the grandfather was doing wine, and they were asking us to taste only when they can’t think they have a problem in the wine. And so I began to taste the wine and I began to speak and to make a change with the owners and step by step we arrive as the consulting.

BURT WOLF: Pierluigi’s daughter Lia and her sister founded one of the most successful private wine retailers, she also helps her father and she owns a national wine importing company called Banville and Jones. And she makes her own wine.

LIA TOLAINI ON CAMERA: Donna Laura is my winery and I wanted to import a very good Chianti Classico and I couldn’t find one that I believed in that had the right price, so I made one. I buy the fruit from my father and I rent some property nearby here and I use his winery.

So Bramosia is the Chianti Classico. And I had an artist do Venus, Baachus and Cupid on the label together. And this is Ali. Ali is Sangiovese de Toscana and this is named after my daughter. And I have a Chianti coming out this year. I have two boys so I had to do a third wine, an Alteo.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: I have to tell you something. Lia and her father are extraordinarily competitive and her father will not even allow her wines in the house, which is why we’re filming down here secretly in the basement.

SUNDAY FAMILY MEAL

BURT WOLF: The harvest is always celebrated with a great meal --- often it’s a family feast on the Sunday after the harvest has been completed.

The idea of having a holy day once a week goes back for thousands of years. It was an Old Testament tradition that was adopted by Christian and Islamic cultures. After spending six days creating the earth and the heavens God rested on the seventh and advised his people that they should do the same. In western societies, Sunday is usually a day of rest, but it can also be a feast day when family and friends come together for a special meal.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The foods that are served at an important family meal must be different from those foods that are considered “everyday” foods. Very often the recipes revolve around something that’s considered a family heirloom. Today, the Tolaini’s are preparing for a big deal meal. And all of the dishes are traditionally Tuscan.

BURT WOLF: The great cooks of Tuscany are devoted to a rustic approach to food. They claim that they are merely adapting and refining traditional farm recipes. But since the farm cooks produce some of the world’s finest bread, oil, beans, cheese and mushrooms, they’ve got a lot to work with.

Julian Niccolini is one of the owners of the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York City, which is considered to be one of the finest restaurants in the world. We brought Julian to Tuscany so he could help with the family meal.

JULIAN NICCOLINI ON CAMERA: Here we have bruscetta made with fresh tomato, wonderful garlic, basil and stale bread, but superb olive oil. Next we have another different type of bruscetta, made with fresh herbs, specially basil, parsley, garlic and also some anchovy. Very important, Tuscan olive oil and stale bread.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: I like this segment. Julian talks and I eat.

JULIAN NICCOLINI ON CAMERA: Next course we have a wonderful bifstek-a-la-Farentina. Bifstek-a-la-Farentina is basically the best part of the Canina cow which is locally grown in this particular area. We just cook it ten minutes on each side. Just some rosemary, garlic and touch of olive oil and that’s it. That’s the best piece of steak you’re going to have in this particular part of the world.

We always try to grill some wonderful sausages, these are pork sausages, you just grill very simply, again, touch of olive oil, some sage on top, some peppernacino and you’re done. We have a wonderful soup, which is made with faro, olive oil, potato and some mushroom.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Yum, nice.

JULIAN NICCOLINI ON CAMERA: And this is the famous grain that this particular faro is made out of. And it is a staple food of any Tuscan cuisine.

BURT WOLF: People coming together to prepare for a meal can be as important as coming together to eat.

MAN ON CAMERA: Thank you very much.

BURT WOLF: It puts them in a relaxed and informal space. And it lets everyone make a contribution to the meal.

A special meal served at home, always contains symbols of togetherness and separation. Single placemats may be the norm for weekday meals, but a special meal always gets one big tablecloth. And on that tablecloth, which holds everything and everyone together on one field, there are individual place settings, individual dishes, individual glasses, knives, forks and spoons---individual but clearly part of a group.

The family table reinforces the idea of being together in a group, but at the same time it can separate. It gives everyone an opportunity to show that they are a unique individual within the family.

The sharing of wine at a family table is a symbolic act. Since ancient times wine has been presented separately from other food and drink. Even when everything else comes to the table as a single serving, the wine comes in a bottle or a decanter, and it's divided in front of the family, reminding everyone of their common starting point.

PIERLUIGI TOLIANI ON CAMERA: Today is a special occasion and welcome to everybody and thank you for coming.

BURT WOLF: Since many of the members of the Tolaini family are involved in the wine business it is a particularly important part of the meal.

The family meal puts young children in a situation that makes it easier for them to understand how language is used. They see people ask for things and get them. The children begin to understand the raw power of a phrase like, “grandpa, can I please have another cookie?”

The meal started in late afternoon when the sun was strong. It ended as the sun was setting. A reminder of how fast time passes and how important it is to enjoy the warmth of the occasion.

For Travels and Traditions I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: St. Gallen, Switzerland" - #707

BURT WOLF: St. Gallen is the most eastern province in Switzerland. It's also the most populated with over 180,000 residents, but you would never know it from traveling around the countryside. Forests, grazing cows, rolling hills that look like someone comes out every night and dusts them off. Neatness is very important in Switzerland. 

To get a sense that there are actually more people than cows you need to go into the area’s capital city. The capital city of St. Gallen, is called St. Gallen, which can be confusing but very efficient. Like New York, New York.

But St. Gallen was into efficiency for at least a thousand years before anyone heard of New York. And they are presently in the process of celebrating that history.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: It all started in 612, when a wandering Irish monk by the name of Gallus was passing through eastern Switzerland and decided that this was his kind of neighborhood. It was cold, it was barren, it was gray---it was miserable, and that was just what he was looking for. Because in those days, in order to have great accommodations in the after-life you had to have miserable accommodations in this one.

BURT WOLF: Over the years Gallus developed a substantial following, and after his death a Benedictine Abbey was founded on the spot where he died. Gallus was sainted and within two hundred years the abbey became one of the most powerful monasteries in Europe. It was the most important educational institution north of the Alps.

The room where the abbey scribes worked became one of the most famous libraries. It was built in 1758 and contains more than 150,000 books from and about the Middle Ages. The books are arranged according to different scientific fields of study. It’s still a working library for scholars studying the Middle Ages. This library is considered to be cradle of the German language. It was here that Latin was first translated and written in the German dialect. Before the St. Gallen translations, German was spoken but not written.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The environment inside the abbey might have been magnificent but the surroundings outside were still pretty rough. At 700 meters above sea level the only crops that grew well were flax and hemp which the monks used to weave linen. They also taught the local population how to weave.

BURT WOLF: During the early 1700s, the St. Gallen weavers saw how Turkish hand-embroiderers decorated the silks that were being sold in Europe, and they decided to embroider the fabrics made in St. Gallen. By the end of the 1700s, over 40,000 embroiderers were working in eastern Switzerland. And by the middle of the 1800s, the town of St. Gallen had become the world epicenter for embroidery. Which it still is.

There are three great embroidery houses in St. Gallen and each has a different approach to the art. This is Forster Rohner. Tobias Forster is the CEO.

TOBIAS FORSTER ON CAMERA: The company was founded by my grandfather in 1904. And at that time, many embroidery companies were founded in St. Gallen. And because the embroidery industry was the most important export industry of all of Switzerland. More important than watches or chocolate or what have you. So, at that time, when you wanted to get rich quickly, you had to go to St. Gallen and found an embroidery company.

Then after the First World War, business became difficult. Fashion changed. So many companies went bankrupt.

And then in the ‘30’s my father came into the business. And he thought, this is not going to happen to me again. And he thought, I have to have an instrument in order to keep embroideries in fashion all the time. And he did it, building up a very close relationship with the best designers of the world. And the best designers of the world at that time were the couture designers in Paris. 

BURT WOLF: During the 1860s, craftsmen in Switzerland developed a mechanized loom. It utilized a combination of continuously threaded needles and a shuttle containing a bobbin of thread. The shuttle was shaped like the hull of a boat. In the Swiss German language, the word for little boat is Schiffli and the mechanism became famous as the “Schiffli machine”.

When the first large embroidery machines were built in St. Gallen, these elaborate fabrics were suddenly available at a much lower price than ever before. Today about 65 percent of embroidered fabrics are produced for generally affordable items, particularly lingerie.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: About 35 percent of St. Gallen’s embroidery goes to the fashion industry for the creation of haute couture and prêt-a-porter clothing by the great designers.

BURT WOLF: But I was surprised to find out that almost all of the embroidery designs are developed not by the fashion houses that design the clothing, but by the embroidery companies. Martin Leuthold is the Creative Director of Jakob Schlaepfer Company, which is one of the most important embroidery houses in the world.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Do you go to famous designers and ask them what they want for next season?

MARTIN LEUTHOLD ON CAMERA: Very difficult to ask them what they need.

When we ask them what they want for next season, they say something nice, something beautiful, something in what …

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Very detailed.

MARTIN LEUTHOLD ON CAMERA: Yes.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Something nice.

MARTIN LEUTHOLD ON CAMERA: In fashion once seen something, it’s old. Fashion people they have to touch and they have to see the colors, they have to feel the fabric, and then they choose or they like it or don’t like it. We do about 2,500 designs a year. Each three months we have a new collection. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: What are some of these that are here?

MARTIN LEUTHOLD ON CAMERA: Well, they are different fabrics. This is something special, we developed. It’s a five layer silk metallic fabric, it’s just woven to gather on the selvage, and all five layers are loose, and then over print with the inkjet print and you get this kind of light feeling. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: It’s more than really embroidery; it’s the creation of different fabrics.

MARTIN LEUTHOLD ON CAMERA: Well, we look, use all materials from feathers to wood to plastic, silk screens, silk, cotton, polyester. This is the feathers on cotton organdy. Cotton organdy it’s also a very specialized fabric from St. Gallen, the last 200 years we do cotton like organdy, like silk.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Is done by hand?

MARTIN LEUTHOLD ON CAMERA: Yes.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: So each of them.

MARTIN LEUTHOLD ON CAMERA: Each one is glued on by hand.

BURT WOLF OFF CAMERA: We’ve been embroidering fabric for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians and the Babylonians embroidered their robes. During the Middle Ages Ecclesiastical clothing was embroidered. And by the early 1300s successful merchants were into embroidered clothing because it was an unmistakable sign of their wealth.

BURT WOLF: One of the great inspirations for new designs are the embroidery house libraries. Bischoff Textile is the third great embroidery house in St. Gallen and it is famous for its textile library. Max Hungerbuehler is the CEO.

MAX HUNGERBUEHLER ON CAMERA: As a Chinese embroidery. I’ve personally worked with it, this by coloring up new designs. Because the color combinations are so unusual, it’s something different made in pure silk.

Here is a Japanese embroidery – very, very colorful. You see the background is red. And then at least twelve to fiteen colors are being used for the embroidery. A piece of art.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: How long would it take somebody to do just one of those flowers?

MAX HUNGERBUEHLER ON CAMERA: I would estimate it would take between two and three hours to do this with the changing of the yarns and everything. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: So, we’re looking at hundreds of hours just to make that piece.

MAX HUNGERBUEHLER ON CAMERA: Absolutely.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Amazing.

MAX HUNGERBUEHLER ON CAMERA: At this library is an old collection of embroideries, but also of books, fashion books. Designers come here and they work with the different books that we have here. Let me just show you one. You have different designs of old dresses. Surely today a stylist or a designer will not make something like that again. But it inspires him. And he also sees how embroideries can be adapted on the different dresses. 

This is a present that they got from customers in Spain. The reason is Brischoff Textile, they was founded in 1927. And Mr. Brischoff went for his first trip to sell embroideries to Spain, and he made many friends down there, because it became quite a good market, even during those tough times. And one of the friends then gave him this as a present. This embroidery, hand embroidery, metallic embroidery. A beautiful piece.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: I hope the bulls appreciate what they went through.

MAX HUNGERBUEHLER ON CAMERA: I could imagine they didn’t so much. But the public and probably the Toreador that was wearing it, he also was quite attractive to lots of women. 

BURT WOLF: St. Gallen’s thousand year history in textiles eventually led to the development of its own couture fashion house. It’s called AKRIS.

It was founded in 1922 by Alice Kriemler-Schock. Her children had grown up and gone off on their own. She re-channeled her energy into designing aprons that she sold to her friends. Eventually the demand for her work developed into a small manufacturing company. When her children entered the business it became a producer of high quality ready-to-wear for the great designers in Paris.

In 1982, Alice’s grandson Albert was brought into design their own label under the AKRIS name.

ALBERT KRIEMLER ON CAMERA: Designing with us starts always with fabrics. I can not design or sketch without having fabric in my hands. Because the fabric always gives a lot to tell you what is possible, and what is not possible. 

When I have done the fabric quality I think of a color. And then I do a sketch. I design what I want to do.

BURT WOLF: The drawing and the fabric are discussed with the tailor and developed into a three dimensional model.

ALBERT KRIEMLER ON CAMERA: She dyes a pattern and she does a first silhouette, which we put on a mannequin and then we start speaking. It has to be more narrower. It has to be more straighter. I want the shoulders larger. Less large. She goes through all these details and if we are good we need 2 or 3 fittings. If we are not so good we need 7, 8, 9 fittings. And to get the final result.

Still not right.

BURT WOLF: Albert is always mindful of St. Gallen’s history in embroidery. His signature clothes use both classic embroidery and modern fabrics. Twenty-five percent of the manufacturing process for an AKRIS garment still requires highly specialized handwork.

His designs are sold in major department stores and AKRIS shops that have been set up in cities throughout the world. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA:  In recognition of its 1,000 year history in the textile business, St.Gallen has organized a celebration, called “Schnittpunkt”. It’s a word that’s used in the textile industry, and means “cutting point” but it has a second meaning. It means “crossroads”. The spot where you choose your future.

As a part of the celebration the work of AKRIS is on display at the Textile Museum.

ALBERT KRIEMLER ON CAMERA: This is the Spring Summer collection 2006. This year’s summer collection and here I was inspired by a photo shoot of Helmut Newton of Angelica Houston that she did in 1973 for Italian Vogue. She’s wearing a nude color, very light chiffon blouse. I was inspired through all the season by this picture. And it made me develop a lot of extremely light fabrics, but also I only stayed in these nudes and beiges and whites. I felt this was right for this summer. 

Here I treated our leather the beautiful leather quality and we punched holes to make it light. And look how delicate this all works out for a leather jacket. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: So these dark spots are holes.

ALBERT KRIEMLER ON CAMERA: Yes.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: It looks like its part of the pattern.

ALBERT KRIEMLER ON CAMERA: This was the piece of the collection. It was the most photographed piece of my Fall Winter collection. And once more it’s out of St. Gallen embroidery.

You see it’s a tulle embroidery with raw wool on it and also this trapeze coat is fully reversible. It was also an archive inspired pattern. But I love it. It has so much modernity on it you know.

BURT WOLF: As part of Schnittpunkt, The St. Gallen Art Museum installed an exhibition called “Lifestyle” which is a collection of works that deal with the relationship between art and fashion. The curator is Konrad Bitterli.

WALL OF VIDEO MONITORS: "HOLIDAY…CELEBRATE…"

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: What’s this piece about?

KONRAD BITTERLI ON CAMERA: This is a video installation by the South African artist, Candice Spreitz. Showing 30 Madonna imitators, or Madonna fans, singing a whole album by the famous artist, “The Immaculate Collection.”

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: What's it mean?

KONRAD BITTERLI ON CAMERA: Madonna is kind of the role model for an identity that constantly changes from the Latina to the domina, to the material girl, so you have 30 imitators who all try to get into that identity, to imitate this role model. But a the same time, they each have their own individuality that they can’t hide. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Interesting.

How do I get out of here?

KONRAD BITTERLI ON CAMERA: Not for quite a while. You have to sing along for all 70 minutes.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: I’ll do the best I can.

Holiday! 

Celebrate!

KONRAD BITTERLI ON CAMERA: This is a piece by the Geneva-based artist Sylvie Flurry. And it shows a car in a way

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: It's a real car?

KONRAD BITTERLI ON CAMERA: It’s a real car. But in a way that you don’t drive it anymore. It’s crashed obviously and it has a color that doesn’t quite fit the colors that you usually see on streets. It is a lipstick color Givenchy 601. So what it does it kind of melts two different worlds. The world of racing, of male obsession with the world of fashion, of makeup, through the color of the Givenchy makeup and lipsticks. 

BURT WOLF: Just down the street is the St. Gallen historical museum which has an exhibition called "Dresscode". The works present the idea that a dress contains a coded message.

There is an extraordinary video by Eve Sussman. It presents an imaginary vision of the people surrounding the 17th Century Spanish painter Velasquez, while he was at work. 

A video by Hussein Chalayan presents furniture that can be turned into clothing.

Jacqueline Hassink is a photographer with a special interest in the private fitting rooms used by the great designers for their most important clients. This series presents some of those rooms.

It’s difficult to be in Switzerland and not think about Swiss watches. You get the feeling that each street has a least one store selling them and the selection is rather magnificent.

While I was in St. Gallen I noticed that many of the people involved with fashion, art and technology wore watches made by a company call IWC which stands for the International Watch Company.

The company was founded by F. A. Jones, an American engineer and watchmaker who came to Switzerland with a plan to use American engineering technology and Swiss craftsmanship to produce watch parts for the American market.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Originally he wanted to manufacture his watches in the French speaking part of Switzerland near Geneva. But the French would have none of his modern American ideas and basically told him to get lost. 

But while he was getting lost in the Swiss mountains he heard about a new hydroelectric plant in eastern Switzerland that was producing low cost energy. Just what Jones needed to power his watch making equipment and so in 1868 he set up IWC.

BURT WOLF: Technical innovation has always been an essential part of the company's operation. In 1885 they introduced the first digital watch with tiny windows for the hours and minutes.

During the 1930s they turned their attention to the needs of early aviators. Pilots needed a watch that would function precisely at extreme temperatures, could withstand pressure changes, would not be affected by magnetic fields and was easy to read.

They adapted their pocket watches and introduced the Big Pilots Watch with a long strap because the watch was worn over the pilot’s flight suit.

They still produce the most advanced watches for pilots.

In 1985 they introduced the DaVinci. It was the first wristwatch with a mechanical calendar programmed for 500 years. It proved especially popular with people who had a family history of longevity.

Then they started hanging out with the scuba pioneer Jacques Cousteau. The result was a group of watches known as the Aquatimer Chronograph Cousteau Divers.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: They even make a model that is water-resistant to a depth of 2,000 meters. Though I can’t imagine what I would be doing at that depth and if I was there why I would need to know what time it is. But you never can tell. I might have a sushi date with a mermaid, and not want to be late.

BURT WOLF: The International Watch Company has an impressive history and they have certainly developed some fantastic technology. And those are certainly major reasons for their popularity in St. Gallen.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Most important they are made here in the German speaking Eastern part of Switzerland and not in the French part, where the original founder was rejected. So there! 

BURT WOLF: And on that note it’s time to see what’s cooking in St. Gallen. Clearly, its most famous contribution to gastronomy is the St. Gallen bratwurst. Until the middle of the 1800s sausages where rather course in texture, but a technical breakthrough of awesome proportions produced a sausage with a smooth and creamy texture. And soon the St. Gallen bratwurst was born.

It’s a hot dog that even dog could love.

And when in St.Gallen, the place to get one is Gemperli’s. They have their own recipe and produce over ten thousand bratwurst per week. They have the best of the wurst. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: A St. Gallen bratwurst is made from veal, pork, bacon and a secret ingredient which will not be very secret after I tell you. Fresh milk. And it’s served with a typical Eastern Switzerland roll called a Burley.

BURT WOLF: For a coffee and a traditional sweet the place to go is the Roggwiller's Café and Tea Room.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: St. Gallen has two great sweets. One is a St. Gallen Spitzen which means embroidered and it’s actually chocolate with an embroidery pattern on it – both milk and dark. And the other one is a biber which is gingerbread, marzipan, gingerbread. It’s a marzipan sandwich.

BURT WOLF: And finally there is the Scherrer chocolate shop with its handmade specialties. An obvious test of ones will power. 

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Ok let's get started. One of those. One of those. One of those. Two of those. Getting the knack of this huh? One of those, one of those, those, one of those, those.

BURT WOLF: And clearly my will power was not a strong as I thought it was.

For Travels & Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf.

Travels & Traditions: Hamburg, Germany - #706

BURT WOLF: Hamburg, with a population of just under two million, is the second-largest city in Germany, right behind Berlin.

In the year 831, Ludwig the Pious, son of Charlemagne, realized that a little village called Hamburg, at the meeting point of three important rivers, could become a source of great wealth. Not that he was short of cash or anything like that, but even then, the rich liked getting richer.

Its seaport is the largest in the nation and has dominated northern European trade for over four hundred years.

It's a media center and publishes half the newspapers and magazines in the country.

It claims to have more millionaires per capita than any other city in Europe.

And, it is the home of the fountain pen---which makes it easier for the millionaires to sign their checks.

I got to know the city with Ulrike Schroder one of Hamburg’s top tour guides.

ULRIKE SCHRODER ON CAMERA: We have a lake here in the city. This lake is called Alster and there are two parts. We’re going to go to the outer Alster Lake, which is the larger part of the lake. We have a saying here in Hamburg. We say if you fall in the lake and drown, you’re too lazy to get up. It’s only one and a half meters deep, two and a half sometimes. And so it’s a paradise for free time. You can do sailing here, anything.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Those are the houses of the Rich?

ULRIKE SCHRODER ON CAMERA: Those are the houses of the rich. This is the most beautiful residential area here.

BURT WOLF: This is the warehouse district. I understand it was built in the late 1800s and it was where the goods that came off the boats were stored.

ULRIKE SCHRODER ON CAMERA: Hamburg has more bridges than any other city in Europe. The people of Venice don’t want to hear that. The people of Amsterdam don’t want to hear that. Their cities are quite small and they only have a few hundred. And we have more than 2,000 because we have so much water here.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: What's that?

ULRIKE SCHRODER ON CAMERA: The building in front of us?

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: The tall tower.

ULRIKE SCHRODER ON CAMERA: Yes that's our television tower as we call it and it's the tallest building in Hamburg and it has a revolving restaurant and a view platform. You can also do some bungy jumping from the television tower.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Not me!

ULRIKE SCHRODER ON CAMERA: Not you. You know there's a building straight ahead of us and I think it's a pretty building but if you knew what's inside you wouldn't like it -- this is our main tax office.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Taxes. Let's make a quick turn.

ULRIKE SCHRODER ON CAMERA: No, let's just go by it. Today they're not open I hope. And anyway you know in this building there are no stairs…you know why the people there crawl up the walls.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: (laughs)

ULRIKE SCHRODER ON CAMERA: This is our underground and our underground is partly an above ground and the reason behind is we have a very muddy ground here, it's very soft, it's not like New York. New York is built on solid rock so that's also one of the reasons why we can’t have so many skyscrapers here because the ground is not made for it and that's why at the beginning of the 20th Century when we had our first underground they built it upstairs like on stilts and I like it particularly because it goes towards the port and from there you have the most wonderful view.

BURT WOLF: In the 1100s Hamburg became a member of the Hanseatic League which was a big deal. The league was made up of about 200 cities that joined together and became exclusive trading partners. If you were going to do business in Northern Europe you had to deal with the Hanseatic League.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: By the middle of the 1300s, the league was so powerful that it attacked Denmark because the King of Denmark was not following the league's rules. It won the war and installed its own king. But by the end of the 1600s the development of powerful nations like Russia and Sweden and England put an end to the league. But Hamburg continued to grow and ended up as the third-largest seaport in the world after New York and London.

BURT WOLF: Dr. Juergen Sorgenfrei is in charge of port information.

DR. JUERGEN SORGENFREI ON CAMERA: We are now entering the container area of the port of Hamburg. You see ships are coming from all over the world. This one is CSC Shanghai. It is one of the biggest container vessels today. Handling more than 8,000 containers. This is the cargo operation which is typical for Hamburg. You see this is a spreader as we call it. It’s just going, this is a typical 20 feet box. And now he’s setting on, he’s switching the locks, and up. It takes about 40 to 70 seconds to unload one box. The complete operation and this means between 50 to 70 - 80 of these boxes we can load and unload in one hour. After, the what we call her in Germany, the Reunification between Eastern Germany and Western Germany, and we are now again in the center of the market. And since that day, since 1990, we are in a boom phase. Because the interland areas like Poland, like Czech Republic, like Russia today is served by Hamburg.

Because the big ocean vessels can come to Hamburg, but they can not go to St. Petersburg, or Rega, or the Baltic Sea area for example.

BURT WOLF: At the edge of the port is the Fish Market. Hamburg merchants have been in the fish business for hundreds of years and this market is still a primary source of supply.

The market is an active site for the sale of fish but the stalls around the fish merchants sell hundreds of other things.

At some stalls the goods are sold through an unusual auction. The auctioneer holds up a box and yells out a price. The person who buys the box gets everything in it. If no one buys the box the auctioneer keeps putting more stuff into the box until it sells.

The Fish Market also has an enclosed hall that is famous for its Sunday morning party.

Maike Grimpe is the hall’s manager.

MAIKE GRIMPE ON CAMERA: People are just celebrating after a night already been out, or just to come over here in the morning.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: So it’s a celebration after the celebration.

MAIKE GRIMPE ON CAMERA: Exactly.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: What time does it start?

MAIKE GRIMPE ON CAMERA: It starts in the morning, at five a.m. and it goes up to noon to twelve.

BURT WOLF: Live bands, music, food.

MAIKE GRIMPE: Exactly. Everything you need in the morning on a Sunday.

Upstairs we have three galleries where we serve breakfast. You pay one price and you have a buffet and you can use that from like six in the morning to twelve, until you’re not hungry anymore. And then just relax, or have a beer and champagne.

BURT WOLF: And an aspirin.

MAIKE GRIMPE: And an aspirin.

ST. MICHAEL’S CHURCH

BURT WOLF: Around the start of the 17th century a plague ravaged the city of Hamburg. The death toll was so great that a new burial ground had to be set up outside the city walls.

St. Michael’s Church was built to accommodate the mourners.

Dean Alexander Röder is the head pastor.

DEAN ALEXANDER RÖDER ON CAMERA: What we have downstairs in the so-called under church, crypt actually, is the largest Baroque-style crypt in Northern Europe. It’s a basement with more than 400 graveyards, from the 18th and early 19th century. And it is a piece of history of the democratic building of this city because you have mayors, you have people in mass graves who were members of burial societies as they were called. They paid in during their lives and then they were buried in the church.

So people could go down into the crypt, mourn their deceased ones, and still be united with them when celebrating mass up here.

This church is so important because it’s, a landmark of Hamburg, so to say. The spire of this church was the last thing the people who went out on the oceans could see and it was the first thing to see when they came back. And that’s why it became so prominent in the city and so prominent with all the people, even people who do not belong to the church.

When this church burned down in 1906 it was completely destroyed and saved these tiny little pieces that could be carried out at that time. Everything was destroyed and of course a discussion began among architects, how are we to rebuild this church? Well they decided we want this St. Michael’s back the way we had it. But they changed things. Where the centerpiece of the altar painting depicting the Resurrection of Christ they put in a little mosaic now depicting some mixture of style between art nouveau and art deco.

The old parts of the church that were saved, that is the baptismal fount. It’s beautifully done out of marble and three little angels carry this marble shell in which the water is carried. Two of them work very hard. The other one that is not to be seen by the congregation, says well, if nobody sees me, why should I work? So it stands a little bit like this, you know, just pretending to work. And it’s a wonderful, tiny, humorous piece of art here in the church.

This is probably one of the most vivid churches we have in Germany. We have a wonderful 12 noontime short organ service everyday of the year, where all three organs of this church are played from the smallest to the largest and we still have the largest organ in Hamburg with more than 6,666 pipes. We have still five services every Sunday and we have lots of concerts.

IMMORTAL IMAGES

BURT WOLF: The written word has always had an amazing impact. Messages that would have been totally disregarded if they had come by word of mouth were taken as the gospel truth because they were written.

One of the great breakthroughs in western writing came when the ancient Greeks developed the alphabet. The alphabet made it much easier for people to learn to read and write. And as those skills became more wide spread it changed everything in western society. 

Another advance, not on the scale of inventing the alphabet, but never-the-less an important step, took place when the No-Leak-Fountain-Pen was invented by the Montblanc Company.

Wolff Heinrichsdorff is the managing director of Montblanc International.

WOLFF HEINRICHSDORFF ON CAMERA: Nineteen-hundred and six three gentlemen came together and one had the idea. He traveled America and he saw in America a fountain pen which was an innovation. It had ink in a tank in the pen, rather than always dipping the nib into the ink. So it was a great idea but the quality was still lousy. You had ink spots on your shirts when you were wearing that around. So they said the idea is good, the execution is not good enough. Let’s go after top quality and start that kind of a business in Europe.

They wanted to be a little bit sophisticated. A little bit French, so they related the name of the pen to a famous book at that time. Rouge et Noir of Stendhal which means, red and black. But the Germans at that time never spoke French. So they looked at the pen and said it looks like Little Red Riding Hood. So their innovation was then to make the same pen with a white cap, staying a French name they chose Montblanc, the highest mountain of Europe. 4,810 meters high. The pen name became so well known that they decided to change the name of the company into Montblanc Fuller Pen Company and that is I think a very rare moment in the history of a company that a success of a product is giving the company’s name rather than visa versa.

So we call the balance to high-tech, high-touch. Things which are staying with you which have continuity which become a friend of yours through many, many years. So this pen for example will be one day a pen I proudly will pass down to my kids and this pen is made forever in a top quality and you see in the cap a diamond cut in the shape of Montblanc symbol the star.

The founders never would have thought this business would become a diamond business but this year we bought around about 3,500 carat in brilliance in diamonds and put them into the caps of our writing instruments, cut like the star, the symbol of Montblanc.

BURT WOLF: In 1992, they began producing an annual limited edition pen that honors a famous patron of the arts or an author. The pens are on display in the Montblanc Museum.

WOLFF HEINRICHSDORFF ON CAMERA: We want to celebrate the unsung heroes which are the patrons of the arts. They are the ones who make culture strong. They finance culture and they know that culture is the backbone of civilization and we believe in that as well.

This is financing our activities we do year by year and we sell these limited editions. And at the end of the day it allows us to do something for culture.

So I would like to show you as well in the same year like 1992 introduced to the market a author’s editions. Because authors have something to do with writing, at least most of them. And Ernest Hemmingway was writing a lot as well by hand. And this is by the way one of his letters he was writing from the Finca Vigia San Francisco De Paula Cuba.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Wow.

WOLFF HEINRICHSDORFF ON CAMERA: One of his major places where he was writing a lot. This writing instrument was a first. It is very, very famous. It is a collectors item. Hard to get. Even our friend Johnny Depp was not able to get it. Rather he received it as a present when he came to us to Geneva to our ...

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: ..from your collection.

WOLFF HEINRICHSDORFF ON CAMERA: Unfortunately now I’m missing the number five out of my own collection. But I know it’s in good hands with him.

BURT WOLF: The heart and soul of the Montblanc pen is the nib, which is the point. Producing just one nib requires 50 processes. And many carefully trained craftsmen and women. Carsten Hense is Production Manager.

CARSTEN HENSE ON CAMERA: This room is closed. Why? Because we must insure that no sound from outside will come in. Because a sound should only be coming from the nib.

They are writing with transparent ink, and only eights and lines, so that they can hear if there’s any scratches on the paper. So for that we have to rework the nib.

BURT WOLF: The history of Montblanc is, to a great extent, the history of the luxury brand business in the 20th century. In 1919, it established its own advertising department which was headed by Grete Gross. She was a master at promoting the name and made Montblanc an internationally recognized and widely respected brand. She took a group of automobiles, mounted giant fountain-pens on their roof, formed them into a cavalcade and sent them off on the roads of Europe. She also put the logo on early bi-planes and flew them from country to country.

Recently they decided it to extend their brand to other things. And it’s about time. In 1997 Montblanc purchased a beautiful old villa in the Jura mountains of Switzerland and restored it to it’s original condition. At the same time on the sloping hill behind it, they built a small almost hidden facility for making watches. The Jura has been home to the world's great watchmakers for hundreds of years. A craft that is passed on from generation to generation.

The new generation however is not only skilled in the traditional techniques, but highly trained in the use of computers and advanced technology. Computer programs are used to help design the watches and set the precise criteria for production. The actual assembly has a number of elements that are so exact that robotic machines were invented to help the watchmakers.

In business schools it’s called horizontal integration. You can use their pen to write down your appointment and their watch to see how late you are.

Today the company still has a program for displaying it’s logo in unusual places. Ingrid Roosen-Trinks is the Director of Montblanc’s Cultural Foundation.

INGRID ROOSEN-TRINKS ON CAMERA: Since the very beginning we had a close connection to literature, to writers and authors, and from this we explored our relationship with artists.

We have now almost 90 art pieces of international artists who did their work of art on the white star of Montblanc. That makes it so exciting to see the variety and the imagination regarding a logo of a brand.

I like very much the hanging art piece called Big Lunar Module, from one of my dearest friends from United States, Tom Sachs. And it’s hanging right in front of the entrance of Montblanc. And this is not a piece of the art -- it is… a toy of a Montblanc employee -- you know they are not shy to approach the artwork of Montblanc.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: They just put it there.

INGRID ROOSEN-TRINKS ON CAMERA: They just put it there whenever they go to the cantina or come back, they push the button, so they play with the artwork. Which I like.

Art Bags which are sculptures made out of aluminum which are three meters high, and two meters twenty wide, which you see outside on the lawn outside of our headquarters building. They have been traveling all over the world. They had been at the Rockefeller Center in New York for a couple of weeks. They have been on Champs d’Elise in Paris. On the waterfront in Cape Town in South Africa. They have been to Bilbao, to Barcelona, they are on tour.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: Why this is just the size shopping bag my wife always uses.

THE RAFFLES HOTEL

VIER JAHRESZEITEN

BURT WOLF: The Raffles Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten was opened in 1897 and has been a Hamburg landmark ever since. In spite of its age it has been able to maintain its original elegance. In fact, it's in perfect shape. I’d like to look this good when I'm a hundred.

Of course, a proper diet is one of the keys to staying in good shape. And part of that process is to eat as many different foods as possible---variety is essential. And in order to make that task easier for you the hotel has four different restaurants.

The Haerling is their gourmet room---a Michelin one-star offering classic French dishes with a Mediterranean accent.

MAÍTRE D’ ON CAMERA: Güten Tag.

BURT WOLF: The Grill has a roaring 20s Art Deco feel. Its menu lets you choose a grilled specialty from the list of meat, fish and poultry. Then you decide which sauce and side dishes you would like to add from a separate list.

The hotel has an Asian restaurant called Doc Cheng’s.

Cheng was born in Penang in 1882, spent the first part of his life as a playboy, then as a doctor. The restaurant is a tribute to his memory and his belief in the restorative powers of good food and drink.

During Doc’s playboy days, he traveled to Italy where he discovered his passion for pasta. When he got to Singapore he prepared a dish of wok-fried Italian noodles with shrimp, egg, lemongrass and mushrooms – east meets west.

Attached to Doc Cheng is the Indochine Bar with over 35 different beers and a selection of sake based cocktails. Doc’s favorite drink was a Singapore Sling.

Breakfasts are served in the Café Condi which is decorated in a style called Biedermeier. Biedermeier was a character in a play who became a symbol for responsible middle class behavior. The woods are usually light in color and the attention to detail is meticulous. Herr Biedermeier would have loved this place.

The floating Terrace offers light snacks, drinks and a great view of the lake.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: There was a great German philosopher Gerter who once said, “Have dessert first. Life is uncertain.”

BIRTH PLACE OF THE BEAT

BURT WOLF: During the early 60s, the music scene in Hamburg produced a new form of music that became known as “The Hamburg Sound”, a sound that was made famous by the Beatles as well as Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley and the Everly Brothers. The Hamburg Museum of history has put on an exhibition honoring that period.

It not only deals with the music but also the social background of the period and how the new music reflected and influenced the changes that took place in fashion, consumer behavior and politics.

Ulf Krüger is the curator of the exhibit.

BURT WOLF ON CAMERA: What was The Hamburg Sound?

ULF KRÜGER ON CAMERA: It was basically a mixture of skiffle, a very simply British music style, and rock ‘n roll.

Hamburg is a big seaport, and many many people came in from abroad looking for amusement. Sailors, of course, because they stayed longer in those days. Three or four days, and not just two or three hours to unload the containers.

So club owners were looking for cheap bands. And they found them in England. So the Beatles being an amateur band then, came to Hamburg, and here they learned their craftsmanship and became professionals.

When the Beatles came to Hamburg, they started in a little club called Viendra. So they were transplanted into another bigger club the Kaiserkeller. And over there we have the original doors of the Kaiserkeller. From the Kaiserkeller they went to another club, bigger club. And The Star-Club became a real success. They had Little Richard, they had Jerry Lee Lewis, they had Fats Domino, they had everybody. Even Ray Charles, who was really big then.

Over there, we’ve got a collection of Astrid Kirchherr photos, world famous shots of the Beatles in the very early days. And where Stuart Sutcliffe the fifth Beatle who used to play the bass guitar in the beginning. And he stayed in Hamburg with Astrid. And unfortunately he died in Hamburg, as well. A couple of days before the Beatles started their stint at The Star-Club.

The Beatles were just the tip of the iceberg. There were lots and lots and lots of bands, mainly coming from Liverpool, London and a couple of upcoming German bands as well, who created The Hamburg Sound together.

BURT WOLF: For Travels & Traditions, I’m Burt Wolf.