Tag Archives | Nordhavn

Port Townsend, WA is a Victorian-era waterfront city with a vibrant artist and maritime community. Its Wooden Boat Festival, held annually for nearly a half-century, is the largest in the continent and last year drew 10,000 attendees. We have anchored off Port Townsend many times in the past, enjoying the view to the city’s many…

Langley is a compact, restaurant-filled town perched on the cliffs above Saratoga Passage on Whidbey Island north of Seattle. We had visited by boat many times, but not for over a decade. We returned this year for a weekend in the Inn at Langley’s spectacular Saratoga Suite, with its large deck overlooking the water (pictured…

The AmaMagna is the largest by far of the European river cruise boats, with a beam of 71 ft (21 m) and a length of 443 ft (135 m). Most other ships are limited to the European river lock maximum dimensions of 38 ft (11.5 m) wide and 410 feet (124 m). At twice the…

Even if we weren’t Formula 1 fans, it would be hard not to be carried away by the excitement when Ferrari won the Italian Grand Prix at their home track of Monza Circuit last weekend. In a contest that played out to the final laps, Ferrari driver Charles LeClerc picked up the lead when McLaren…

We had a fantastic time on our week-long Danube River cruise aboard the AmaMagna. Stops along the way included Pecs in Hungary, Vukovar in Croatia, Novi Sad and Belgrade in Serbia, Vidin and Ruse in Bulgaria, and Bucharest in Romania. As with Budapest, these cities all date back to the Middle Ages and have suffered…

The cities of Buda and Pest became one in 1849 with the construction of the famous Szechenyi Chain Bridge, the first permanent bridge across the Danube River (pictured above). Despite centuries of European conflict dating back to the Middle Ages, multiple occupations by conquering forces, and decades of Communist rule, both sides are full of…

The city of Everett, about 30 miles (48km) north of Seattle, evolved and prospered through transportation. The 1893 arrival of the Great Northern Railway transformed the small lumber town into a major lumber center that supported several large sawmills, including the self-proclaimed largest shingle mill in the world. Access to new timberland and other resources…

The Puget Sound port city of Tacoma was founded in 1872 and experienced what author Rudyard Kipling described as “a boom of the boomiest” when the following year it was selected as the Pacific Northwest terminus of the transcontinental Northern Pacific Railway. After a brief downturn during the Panic of 1893, the city bounced back…

Bainbridge Island, across the Puget Sound from Seattle, has had a robust Japanese community since immigrants first arrived there in the late 1800s. Their world was shattered following the air attack on Pearl Harbor, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order for the nation-wide internment of over 125,000 US residents of Japanese descent,…

Alderbrook Resort on Hood Canal has been a popular Pacific Northwest vacation destination since it first opened in 1913. Back then, no roads reached the resort and guests arrived by canoe. The resort has been through many owners and remodels since opening, and now is easily reachable by road on Washington State Route 106. But…