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In 2020 we had booked an April 2022 cruise with my brother, Gerry, and his wife Sue, that would have taken us around multiple ports in Japan. Well, we all knew what happened then. Figuring it would be a short term problem we rebooked the same cruise for 2023 which, sadly, was also canceled. When Celebrity cruise line decided not to send a ship to Japan in 2024 we bailed entirely and decided to consider a land based trip instead. Well, it has finally happened and we are headed there today for a 11 day land-based tour with Insight Luxury Gold called “Majestic Japan”. The itinerary can be seen on this web link.

https://www.luxurygold.com/en-us/tours/majestic-japan?optionId=1042

Although this will not be a new country for us as we once visited Okinawa while on a cruise, it is a fascinating country that we wanted to experience more of.

As the trip starts in Osaka we must fly from Seattle through Seoul, South Korea with a short layover before leaving on the short connecting flight to Osaka. As is our usual planning we are arriving a day early (April 1), with the formal trip beginning on April 2. One of the “perks” of the trip is there will supposedly be a driver to meet us at the airport to take us directly to our hotel in Osaka. And to occupy our free day in Osaka we scheduled another excursion we often take when visiting a new country-a walking food tour. We enjoy these as we get an exposure to the type of food we might encounter during the remainder of our time in the country.

We chose this time to visit Japan  as this is normally the peak time to experience their famous cherry blossoms (commonly known as ” Sakura”).  The current prediction is we are in luck!

We were blessed with yet another cool (45 degrees), sunny, but windy morning. The destination this morning was a visit to “Upper Canada Village”  a living history village offering a collection of forty mid 1800s buildings that portray life in 1860 Canada. Normally it would be in full operation with people dressed in period costumes living as though it was 1860. Everything is done “real” time in the village-from milling the grain, to baking bread to making clothing, brooms, etc. Think of it as a Canadian version of our Williamsburg. Sadly we were visiting when the village was shuttered for the winter but there were costumed docents available to take us through the village visiting the various buildings, and discussing life back then. All the buildings which include homes, functioning mills, trades shops and even a church are original, having been disassembled from villages lost during construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, relocated here and reassembled to create this village. It was absolutely lovely and we thoroughly enjoyed our tour. If we were ever in the area during summertime I would certainly want to see the village when it was in its “operating mode”.

Returning to the ship around 11:30 we left port and began a leisurely afternoon sailing back upriver, retracing our steps towards our moorage for the night in Gananoque, where we docked earlier in the trip.

Tonight was our last night on the ship so there was a single seating for our farewell dinner. The after dinner entertainment was a three piece band who played mostly good old rock & roll. We passed (but could hear the music from our room) as we had to pack and prepare to leave the ship the next day, some of us earlier than others, but more about that later!

I should have added these maps of the area earlier, but better late than never.

This morning it was 35 degrees, and foggy when we awoke, but the fog soon dissipated. We left our dockage at 7:45 headed to Prescott, Ontario and arriving around 9:15.

The morning activity was a guided tour of Fort Wellington, a British fort that dated back to the early 1800s. It was built in 1813 during the war of 1812. It was subsequently rebuilt during the rebellions of 1837-38. It was used by the Canadian militia until 1923. Today it is a well furnished national historic site. Because of the chilling wind Yvonne decided to stay behind but I was game and joined other adventuresome travelers to take the short bus ride to the fort where we were met by a tour docent dressed in the military uniform of that era, who spent the next two hours telling us about the fort, its occupants and history. He even included a demonstration of shooting (blanks) with his period musket. It was a fascinating, informative tour. By the time we returned to the ship the temperature was 45 degrees, the wind had died down and the sun was shining brightly.

The ship left while we had lunch, on its way to pass through the Iroquois lock on the river. After lunch the planned activity was a game of “passenger” bingo, complete with prizes. We had been given blank bingo cards the previous day and instructed to get passengers to fill a box on the card with their name. During the five games played people’s names were pulled from a bowl and we would check them off our sheet if we had it. It was a new novel twist to the game. Unfortunately neither of us won any of the games, where the prizes were souvenirs of the ship (mugs, water bottles, decks of cards, etc).

 

Dinner was a marvelous serving of turkey with all the trimmings! And the entertainment after dinner was a local very talented musician who introduced us to a variety of old time era musical instruments and played them for us. It was a lot of fun!

As usual, we spend the night in the marina.

 

As we went to bed last night we realized our cabin was near the somewhat noisy generator and we wondered if it would pose a problem for sleeping. It was not and next morning we  commented how the “white noise” from the generator really seemed a benefit. Now Yvonne wants one for our bedroom (a white noise machine, not a generator!). Breakfast was quick, hot and delightful; the freshly baked muffins were a nice addition. The menus are set (i.e. no choice) but there was a choice for tonight’s dinner and we were asked to make a selection so the kitchen would prepare the correct quantities. Oh, by the way although we all met at the same time for last night’s dinner the next few days would have us divided into an early (lunch at 12, dinner at 5:30) or late (lunch at 1:15, dinner at 7:15) seating. We chose the early seating.

We pulled away from the dock promptly at 8AM and made a short run to the town of Gananoque, Ontario (“Gan” for short), population 5,383 for a planned tour of their wooden boat museum. We were led by a local member who shared with us the history of the museum and talked about some of the boats on display there. The area is noted for its use and love for old wooden boats from bygone eras. There was a lot of nostalgia on display in the museum.

It was a bit breezy and cool that morning so once the tour was over Yvonne retreated to the warmth of our ship while I wandered into the nearly history museum for a short visit.

Our ship left the dock promptly at 11 AM and began a leisurely tour of the US side of the river. Note: the US/Canadian border basically cuts the St. Lawrence Seaway in half. A bit of clarification: technically it is the St. Lawrence River but because there are a series of canals and locks on it to ease movement it is commonly referred to as the St. Lawrence seaway. The upper deck of the ship offers a great viewing platform but because of the lateness of the season the cool weather prevented us from wanting to use it. The rear lower deck was somewhat protected and their are 8-10 nice chairs that people occasionally used to watch the world go by. Others simply sat in the main lounge/dining room and took advantage of the large windows to view the sights. There was coffee, tea and leftover muffins from breakfast available if you were still hungry. Later when lunch was served there was a lot of getting up from the table and rushing to the window to get another picture of some fabulous home. Sadly pictures cannot properly  convey the area. You need to experience it to fully appreciate. We did wonder how one manages to exist when you need a boat to go anywhere! The area must be chaotic (and exciting) during the peak summer months.

Conversations were often interrupted by a ship’s commentary of what we were seeing as we sailed through the magical area called “thousand islands”. By the way thousand islands is incorrect. There are (supposedly) really 1,864 islands that cover an area of about 50 miles downstream from Kingston. The islands range in size from 40 square miles to as little as an exposed rock (it counts as an island if it has at least one square foot of exposed land and can support two trees growing on it). The area played an important part in the War of 1812 as we will later learn. In the late 1800s and early 1900s the area became famous as the summer resort play area for the rich and famous from New York City, Chicago, Pittsburg and Cleveland. Our leisurely tour through the area showed us some of their massive homes/estates.

The two largest (i.e. massive) complexes in the area are the Boldt Castle and the Singer Castle. The Boldt Castle was started by George Boldt in 1900 as a gift for his wife. She died suddenly in 1904 and he stopped construction. The 120 room home ( 30 bathrooms and 35 fireplaces) stayed uncompleted and empty for 73 years until bought by the local government agency. It is now open as a tourist attraction. Boldt was the proprietor of the Waldorf Astoria. Some give him credit for introducing 1,000 island dressing and the Waldorf salad.

The other major nearby complex is the Singer Castle (also known as The Towers or the Dark Island Castle) , built in 1905 by the president of Singer Sewing Machine Company, Frederick Bourne. The 28 room home, costing $500,000 (13 million in today’s dollars), was patterned after an English castle. The family owned the home until it was sold to a Catholic school for $5,000!  It is currently owned by a German businessman and is open to the public. You can even stay there.

Late in the afternoon we docked in Brockville, Ontario where we boarded a school bus to go and tour the summer home of another famous resident of the area, Gorge T. Fulford, a self made man in the medicine business who made a fortune selling   “Dr. William’s Pink Pills for Pale People”. Later in life he was in local politics.The home was lavish and well furnished.

The evening entertainment was a local magician who was very entertaining as he also included humor in his act. Many of his tricks were common ones we have seen but I still am amazed that I do not see how they are done.

We are spending the night in Brockville. Tomorrow we do more exploring in the area.

We are scheduled to go to Kingston, Ontario where we will board for boat for the four day cruise on the St. Lawrence Seaway. First a bit of trivia:  Syracuse was the salt mining capital of the region and Rochester was noted for milling grain.

Brian managed to secure a ride on the Erie Canal for us on our way north. We arrived in Pittsford, NY (population 30,000) at 10:30 where we will go on the noon departure of the “Sam Patch” for a 1.5 hour tour of the Erie Canal. We had to kill the intervening time by grabbing a sandwich at a local restaurant and sitting on the shores of the canal, watching the world go by. Luckily it was another lovely sunny day.

History lesson of the day: the Erie Canal is often called the “first superhighway” Completed in 1825 it linked the Hudson River to the Great Lakes and provided a lower cost of shipping goods to the Midwest. Costs of shipping dropped 95% when it opened, plus reduced shipping time significantly. It is 351 miles long. The original canal was 40 ft. There are 35 locks on it; the original lock width was 15 feet wide but subsequent modifications took it to the present 45 foot width. It was in active use until 1994 although its peak use occurred in the 1850s. Trains and subsequently trucks brought its demise.

We had a leisure 1.5 hour ride on the “Sam Patch” river boat with active narration about the canal and its history. We even experienced passing through one of the locks (twice). We were curious about the name of the boat and learned it was named after a daredevil who made a living (albiet, a short one-he died at the age of 30 on a Friday the 13th jump) jumping off a waterfall with a pet bear cub.

While we were on the canal cruise Brian took the 8 passengers who joined us on day 1 to Rochester as they would be heading to Albany (They had taken the river cruise the previous week).  Shortly after 1:30 we were on our way to the Canadian border, heading to Kingston, Ontario where our ship was located. The border crossing was quick as they have a special lane for trucks and buses and there was no line. We did have to exit the bus to pass through immigration but we cleared in less than 20 minutes.

By 5:30 we arrived at our home for the next four days, the “Canadian Empress” where we quickly and efficiently boarded. After a quick briefing we were escorted to our rooms where our luggage was waiting. At 6:30 we joined the other travelers who had independently booked the cruise. Most were from Canada although several couples are Americans.  There was even a couple from the UK. The evening started with an introduction of the crew on the ship. Trevor, the purser and cruise director (most seemed to wear two hats) was a hoot!

Dinner tonight was scheduled for 7:30 and was a winner- prime rib and all the trimmings. Beer and wine accompanied the meal.

For interested parties there was a trivia contest held after dinner. We stayed and two other couples joined us. We competed against one other team and came out victorious because I knew what the name is for -273 degree C?  I did! Do you?

Tomorrow morning we leave port to explore the 1,000 islands region.

We awoke hoping that things would go smoothly from now on. Our agenda for the day was to drive around and explore the Finger Lakes region of New York. The Finger Lakes region consists of 11 lakes that run in a north-south orientation in this area of upper state New York.  Seneca and Cayuga Lakes are the largest of the Finger Lakes  and some of the deepest in the USA. Cayuga is 435 ft deep and Seneca is a whopping 618 ft deep! They are both 38 miles long. I was blown away when I heard that Cargill has a huge salt mine UNDER Cayuga Lake. This area was the realm of the Iroquois Indian nation back in colonial times. An old Indian  legend says that the Finger Lakes came into being when the Great Spirit placed the imprint of his hand in blessing on the Upstate Land.

Today was a day of much history. After we left Geneva we passed through the town of Waterloo where Memorial Day was first held. Our first official stop was in Seneca Falls where we toured the National Women’s Right museum there, which is also a National Park. It was here in July, 1848, 300 women (and some men) gathered and created the Declaration of Sentiments, proclaiming the equal rights of women. The leaders behind the movement were Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Frederick Douglass was also a proponent.

While in Seneca Falls we stopped to take pictures at the bridge on the Erie Canal featured in the 1946 “Its a Wonderful Life”movie.

Also nearby in the town of Auburn is the original home of Harriett Tubman, born in slavery in 1822, escaped to the north where she became an abolitionist and was active in the Underground Railroad used by escaped slaves as they worked their way north to freedom. We stopped for a short visit to tour her home which has been restored.

We then headed to the small (population 7,100) town of Skaneateles, located at the top of Skaneateles Lake for a bit of sightseeing, shopping and lunch. This was the town we were supposed to have seen yesterday, but better late than never.

Late in the afternoon we ventured south toward Ithaca where we first stopped to see one of the numerous waterfalls in the area. This one is at Buttermilk State Park. When we got there we joked that someone forgot to tell them to turn on the water as the normally large waterfall was barely a trickle. It is a beautiful sight even with the minimal water flow. Our granddaughter is a junior at nearby Cornell University. We called her as she was going to study for an exam later that evening. We would not be getting together this trip. So close, yet so far!

The last stop of the day was at one of the highest waterfalls in the area, Taughannock Falls which is  215 feet high. It was pretty spectacular even though its flow was reduced this time of the year.

We were back at the hotel by 6PM and went to a nearby restaurant for our “welcome” dinner which normally would be held the first night of the trip. No problem, we ate, drank and had a good time.

Tomorrow we will be working our way to Canada and the start of our four day cruise on the St. Lawrence Seaway. Brian was able to also arrange for a boat ride on the famous Erie Canal before we get to Canada. That was one of the things I really was interested in doing.

We are beginning to wonder if this trip is jinxed. Our bus did arrive to pick us up at 9:15 as planned. We had to detour a bit to downtown Rochester to pick up 8 additional passengers who will be joining this portion of the trip so we were now 26 total passengers on a nicely sized bus that easily held 40 so there was plenty of room to stretch out.

Before proceeding a bit of history about Rochester, a medium sized city of 211,328, founded in 1788. It is famous as being the city that George Eastman built as it was/is the headquarters of Eastman Kodak, an ionic US company that once dominated the film industry, only to ignore the advent of digital technology and eventually was forced into bankruptcy in 2012.

Our first stop for the day was Letchworth State Park to see what is known as the “Grand Canyon of the East” and view some waterfalls there. The park consists of 1,000 acres, covering a 17 mile stretch of the Genesee River that flows through it. The canyon created by the river sometimes reaches a depth of 550 ft, thus earning its title. We ended up spending close to two hours stopping at viewpoints in the park. I have to say that the fall colors were spectacular. We live where it is green year round so to see such autumn colors was a real treat.

After leaving the park people started asking when would we be seeing the sights shown in our trip itinerary which included a short train ride and a ride on a lake. We were told the itinerary had changed. Oh,oh..people were not very happy about that. This was now the second change to the itinerary and it was only day two. The joke became that this is now the “whatever” trip and now we know why the company is called “uncommon journeys”. The natives were getting restless!

Lunch became delayed until 2 PM  which further irritated people, some of whom had not had time for breakfast. Lunch was in the small town of Hammondsport, a cute little town of 583 people located on the south end of Keuka Lake, of the the finger lakes in New York.

After lunch we were joined by Bill McLoughlin, a local tour guide who will be with us the next few days to show us the local sights. As it turns out Bill is somewhat famous as he is a former air traffic controller who was involved with the miraculous landing by Captain Sully on the Hudson River in 2009. He was on duty that day and is the one who responds “which engines?” when the mayday call first came in. The actual transcript can be heard on this YouTube posting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1xBXopdKNo.

From Hammondsport we headed eastward to the next finger lake (Seneca) to the town of Watkins Glen, one of the locations for NASCAR races. All was going well until we came downhill into the town when we smelled what appeared to be burning rubber. We immediately pulled over and the driver quickly determined that our brake linings were overly hot. The question was were they damaged? We exited the bus and many of us convened in the ice cream store located next to the bus.  The driver tried pouring water on the brakes and talked to his headquarters to determine what should be done. The bad news was he was told to not drive the vehicle and another bus would be sent to replace ours. The bad news was that it would be at least two hours to make the exchange! There goes the rest of the sightseeing for the day. The good news was we were not in the middle of nowhere; we were in the lovely town of Watkins Glen with shops and restaurants. With the guidance of Bill McLoughlin and his wife we walked the short distance to the lakefront where we lounged around and many of us chose to dine at the nearby restaurants as it was now early evening.

The good news was that a new bus did arrive by 8 PM and after moving luggage and personal items to it we ultimately reached our destination for the evening, Geneva, New York, located at the north end of Seneca Lake.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day!

Well, the day did not turn out as the schedule called for. More on that later.

We flew into Albany, NY last night on our United flights through Chicago. The weather cooperated but some tarmac traffic at O’Hare resulted in a 30 minute delay arriving in Albany. By that time (10 PM) the airport was virtually empty. Luckily the hotel had a shuttle.

This morning we had a nice off-the-menu breakfast before meeting the rest of our 16 fellow travelers for our 9AM departure. We also met for the first time, our tour leader, Brian Alvarez, who we learned was from Las Vegas and had never been to this area which was a bit surprising to us. The game plan was to have our luggage shipped directly to our hotel while we rode the Maple Leaf Amtrak train to eastern New York. Surprise #1: we all thought we were going to Geneva, NY, our supposed stay for the next 3 nights. We learned that we will be going to Rochester, NY which is considerably west of Geneva. Moreover, we would be spending the night in Rochester as there was a problem with the hotel reservations, which, even our tour director was unaware of. Oh, well, everyone was an experienced traveler and we were ready to “go with the flow”.

Compared to European rail travel, Amtrak remains an embarrassment to rail transportation in the US. Surprisingly we only left 10 minutes late, and the coach seats were fairly comfortable, but the exterior of the cars and windows were dirty! Brian knew people were unhappy with the change in plans and graciously offered to buy us lunch on the four hour train ride to Rochester. Food service on Amtrak trains is not much to look forward to. Luckily because of our hearty breakfast we settled for some snacks as our lunch choice.

Surprise #2 was when we exited the train in Rochester. Our bus that would be used for touring the area was coming from Buffalo and had gotten stuck in traffic because of a football game. It would be at least 90 minutes late! Brian, to his credit, suggested we all grab Uber vehicles and make our way to our hotel for the night; he would reimburse us for our expense. With a couple of hiccups I did finally get an Uber to take us and another couple to our local hotel.

Surprise #3: Although the Country Inn & Suites was only 6 miles away it was located in an area with very limited local eating opportunities and no cocktail lounges which was desired by most of the travelers after today’s travel issues and change in the itinerary. At least our luggage (traveling by truck) had arrived safely at the hotel.

Hopefully tomorrow will find us united with our travel bus and back on schedule with no further travel issues!

Several years ago I ran cross a boutique travel company (Uncommon Journeys)  whose specialty was including train rides with their escorted tours. It turns out the owner is a train buff who wants to expose his fellow travelers to various trains in North America. Our first trip with them was spending New Years at the Grand Canyon (2021), followed by an extended trip to see the magnificent Copper Canyon in Mexico (2023). We enjoyed both trips and now that we are on their mailing list we were intrigued by the current trip we are now taking- an autumn exploration of upper state New York, a short cruise on the St Lawrence Seaway and a visit to Niagara Falls (which, surprisingly, I have never seen). And, as expected, the trip includes several train rides. The trip is called “Canadian Sunset” and it leaves from Albany, New York on October 20 and finishing in Buffalo on October 28.

The weather looks promising and the fall colors should still be in full display. Join us on our autumn journey in the northeast.