Lee Foster (fostertravel.com)

Fior d'Italia Restaurant in San Francisco

I recently had lunch in San Francisco at the Fior d'Italia, a venerable San Francisco tradition.  I had the tortellini, with a glass of the house red, followed by a tiramisu dessert.  The food was delicious, but the tradition is even more compelling.  The Fior is said to be America's oldest Italian restaurant, serving diners since 1886.  My last lunch at Fior was at their old location, before the 2005 fire, but that is only the last chapter in Fior history.  Actually, I had the pleasure of lunching with author Francine Brevetti, an insider who has written The Fabulous Fior--Over One Hundred Years in an Italian Kitchen.  The book can be purchased at the restaurant.  She regaled me with tales of the Fior.  There was a time when it was said, "If you haven't dined at the Fior, you haven't been to San Francisco."  Happily, after the recent tragic fire, Fior relocated to an historic building that A. P. Giannini built shortly after the 1906 Quake.  This is at 2237 Mason.  So, upstairs from the Fior is The San Remo Hotel , where you can still get a room, with bath down the hall, for $85/night, and this is in North Beach.  When contemplating the Italian traditions of San Francisco, it is advisable to have a bite of tortellini from the Fior on the palate.

Doug McConnell's New Web Travel Venture

I had an opportunity recently to catch up with Doug McConnell over lunch at the Fior d’Italia restaurant in North Beach, San Francisco.  Doug is the host and energy force behind the fabulously successful TV travel series, Bay Area Backroads, well known to travel TV fans in Northern California.  The TV show is going well and is funded by Nissan for the period ahead.  Now Doug and his partner, Jim Wirth, who also joined us, are developing a new presence on the Internet that will display all the past segments of the shows.  Watch for this at www.openroad.tv.  

Doug is an engaging fellow.  He described his early years of growing up in California when his father, who owned a car dealership in the upper Central Valley, would pile the family into the car on a weekend and just take off, you never knew where to.  This instilled in Doug a sense of adventure.  Then, when Doug was in college, his dad said, “Son, I want you to know this great country.  I will give you every year for four years a new Ford Mustang and a gas credit card.”  Doug literally took off, sometimes putting on 50,000 miles over the summer on his Mustangs, traveling around America, Canada, and Mexic.  He learned of the backroads in a pre-franchised America, just as the Interstates were coming to be. He knows the Northern California territory with huge authority.

Doug also described the strategy of his TV travel show, which is one of the longest-running travel shows in U.S. TV, functioning also in a major competitive market, because the San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth ranking market in terms of audience.  It helps, Doug admits, that Northern California may be the best TV “set” in the world, since you can choose a coastline or a mountainscape at will.  But Doug also attributes his success to making his local tipsters the stars of the show.  He steps back and lets them tell their stories with their passion about their local area.  If you have watched the show, you will see this at work.

In the future all these past segments of the shows will be viewable online, 24-7-365, with a consumer able to choose a segment of their own selection and at a time of their choosing.  This is part of the ongoing revolution occurring in travel journalism, and Doug and Jim will emerge, I predict, as major players. 

Michael Shapiro on Wales

I had the pleasure this evening of reading a fine article on Wales by the talented young travel writer, Michael Shapiro.

The article appeared in National Geographic Traveler and won a British tourism award, the Bedford Pace Award.

Michael begins the article with brisk descriptions, such as:

"Entering Wales by locomotive, I marvel at the mortarless stone walls and watch recently born lambs skip briskly across spring-green fields."

He recounts in affectionate detail an arcane contest for Welsh poetry.

He elicits from writer Jan Morris, whom he went to interview, that the Welsh have a concept of hiraeth, an ineffable yearning.  "We're always looking for something," says Morris, "but we're not sure if it's an ideal past or a better future."

The substance of the article parallels a chapter in Shapiro's book, A Sense of Place, in which he interviews leading travel writers.

Keep track of Michael and his many accomplishments at his website.

Arthur Frommer's Book Re-issued

Arthur Frommer's legendary book, Europe on $5 a Day, will be re-issued by John Wiley and Sons in a limited-edition facsimile in May.

This will be a notable event.  I've had the pleasure of serving with Arthur on the faculty of the SATW Institute For Travel Writing and Photography and learned firsthand the story of the book.

Arthur was an inquisitive GI who liked to travel around Europe during his tour of duty at the end of WWII.  He made notes on good deals for his fellow soldiers.  His notes became popular.  When he returned to New York and a legal career after the war, he had no intention of becoming a travel book publisher.  But his notes were in demand.  So he had them printed up in a book and it sold out immediately.  His career in a non-legal field was launched.

Inquisitiveness and good value have always been the hallmark of Arthur's efforts.  Later in his career, after doing many destination books, he turned again to the spiritual experience of travel as his subject.  But always there was a thread of good value, not the fantasy world of highly expensive travel.  I did a little work with Arthur when he was involved in his magazine Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel.  However, the books with his name and the magazine with his name are today only tangentially associated with him.

If you ever get a chance to hear Arthur speak, do so.  He is an inspiring and charismatic man.  He seems to understand the basic yearnings behind the desire for travel.  And he will be full of good tips on value.