Travel Maven Blog ...... David Molyneaux posts from TheTravelMavens.com

Sailing on the Sea Cloud with the rich and famous, since the 1930s

Spiffy ship tops cruising's wish list

Sea Cloud, built in 1931, sailing in the Caribbean. The picture was taken in 2019 from a Zodiac launched from the ship for passengers. (Photos by David G. Molyneaux, TheTravelMavens.com)

By David G. Molyneaux and Fran Golden
TheTravelMavens.com

 

On a cruise aboard the famed sailing ship Sea Cloud, sometimes you may feel like an heiress, which is how the ship’s story began nearly 90 years ago.

 

Through the twists, turns, and capricious winds of history, Sea Cloud has survived glorious and stormy times to be rescued, restored, and returned to a place atop the wishlist of many a worldly traveler.

 

Today, the Sea Cloud cruises mostly in the Caribbean during winter seasons and the Mediterranean in summers, with as many as 64 passengers aboard. A crew of 59 tends to the sails that hang from four masts, cooks fine meals with an emphasis on what swims in the waters below, and caters to travelers hungry for a grandeur seldom seen at sea.

 

A hallway links the original 10 cabins on Sea Cloud

On deck, you are never far from the serious series of heavy ropes and pulleys used by the deck crew of 18 to raise and lower the sails, from the slaps of seawater against the hull, and from the winds that not only propel the vessel, but also occasionally remind passengers of how close they are living to the whims of weather.

 

At night, you may want to climb the steps above the bridge where a hidden sundeck is perfect for stargazing.

Once a busy trade route, the Upper Rhine now offers history without crowds

River cruising in Germany and France 

By David G. Molyneaux, editor, TheTravelMavens.com

Outside the walls of the fortified city of Neuf-Brisach, France, with a design of the octagon-shaped city laid out in the grass.(Photos by David G. Molyneaux, TheTravelMavens.com)

NEUF-BRISACH, France — On a pleasant morning before the summer vacation season was in full swing, the bicycle shop in the Rhine River port city of Breisach, Germany, was closed. So my wife and I walked into France. We crossed the wide river bridge and trekked about three miles of quiet country roads to Neuf-Brisach.

 

Neuf means “new” in French (except when neuf means nine), and Neuf-Brisach was new in the late 1600s. Today, it is one of the few remaining fortified towns built during the reign of Louis XIV to guard the eastern border of France.

 

The town, which is on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, is sleepy but still alive, surrounded by towering brick walls that seem impenetrable. In the Alsace, fortification was essential to surviving a seemingly endless stream of invading armies.

 

After a simple sidewalk café lunch, we visited the museum (10 euros) dedicated to Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, a French engineer who built 150 citadels and strongholds along France’s vulnerable borders. Their defensive designs are still considered masterpieces of military architecture.

Mississippi River cruising on the American Duchess

New ships, insightful port excursions update a nostalgic float

 

American Duchess, a 166-passenger modern paddle-wheeler of the American Queen Steamboat Co., is tied up at a port stop near Helena, Ark. (Photos by David G. Molyneaux and Fran Golden, TheTravelMavens.com)

By David G. Molyneaux and Fran Golden
TheTravelMavens.com

 

Natchez, Miss.

 

To many Americans, the rural south of Mississippi and nearby states remains a mystery. Travelers seldom talk with people who live here, whether visiting or not. Even guided tours of towns, monuments, and hallowed grounds tend to focus on the Civil War and a way of plantation life that ended, more or less, 150 years ago.

 

Through this countryside flows America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, which hasn’t changed much for centuries and remains relatively untamed, as recent floods attest.

 

Hard-picked cotton and Mark Twain floated this way, and so did the old paddle-wheelers no longer in service.

 

New vessels have modernized the accommodations and experiences of floating on Old Man River, so you may watch the South roll by, framed from a swath of natural beauty and peace (after the annual flooding dissipates).

 

You may visit an occasional antebellum mansion for antiques-viewing and cultural expositions that never seem fully to explain the past or present.

 

You may walk the battlefield of Vicksburg National Military Park to contemplate the “how-could-we-all-have-done-that.”

 

Today’s cruises on the Mississippi River also offer new excursions, designed for curious travelers to rummage about the river towns, and opportunities to get deeper onto the soil and closer to the soul of the South.