Travelsmartplanet

Look at how insanely precise our food safety rules have become. This pinwheel ice cream sandwich from Carvel, not only has a best-before date, it has a best-before time. Will I get sick if I eat it at 4:59 pm? It’s ice cream – you couldn’t save it in the car and eat it later (3 months later) even if you tried to. Found at Modena New York State Travel Plaza Center at milepost 65 southbound on New York State Thruway.

Love the concept and the humor that New York State uses on the Adirondack Northway, Route 87. Signs tell you how far it is until you can safely pull over and do your texting. Breathe deeply and try to control yourself.

How special to be invited to a reception with The Honorable Terry McAuliffe, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the sumptuous Westmount, Quebec residence of the Consul General of the United States.Yes we met Consul General Nina Maria Fite there, too. Both were amazingly gracious and comfortable people to talk to. Virginia was showing off their Virginia wines and Virginia oysters. Quite a treat.

St Vitus Cathedral

In Prague we learned about Wenceslas I, or Svatý Václav in Czech, who was the duke of Bohemia from 921 until his assassination in 935, purportedly in a plot by his own brother, Boleslav the Cruel.

In the optional excursion of Medieval Prague, you get to see the Gothic St. Vitus Cathedral, the biggest and most important church in the Czech Republic. It’s located in Prague Castle and contains the tombs of many Bohemian kings and Holy Roman Emperors as well as the St. Wenceslas Chapel.

Due to the popularity of some books which elevated Wenceslas I to a place of heroic goodness and resulted in his being elevated to sainthood, was posthumously declared king, and then became the patron saint of the Czech state. He is that one and only “Good King Wenceslas” of the popular song which is a Saint Stephen’s Day carol written in 1853. over 900 years after he lived.

His death in September 935 (or perhaps 929) was committed by a group of nobles allied with Wenceslas’ younger brother Boleslav. Boleslav invited Wenceslas to a feast, they quarreled, and 3 of his buddies murdered Wenceslas on his way to church. Boleslav thus succeeded him as the Duke of Bohemia.

Since 2000, the feast day of Saint Wenceslas (September 28) is a public holiday in the Czech Republic, celebrated as Czech Statehood Day.

On the Cosmos optional excursion, one is wowed by the grandeur of the St. Wenceslas Chapel in St. Vitus Cathedral where his relics are kept. The room, built between 1344 and 1364, has walls encrusted with over 1,300 semi-precious stones and paintings about the Passion of Christ. The upper part of the walls have paintings about the life of St Wenceslas, and in the middle is a Gothic statue of him.

The Crown of King Wenceslas

There is a small door with seven locks in the chapel, which leads to the Crown Chamber containing the Czech Crown Jewels, which are displayed to the public only once every (circa) eight years. Seven different people have seven keys.

www.cosmos.com/Product.aspx?trip=46050

Kurt Eisner, a Socialist and a  Jew became the first Republican Premier of Bavaria. In November 1918, at the end of WWI, Eisner, a socialist journalist and statesman, organized the Socialist Revolution which overthrew the Wittelsbach monarchy in Bavaria. He declared Bavaria to be a free state and republic on November 8, 1918.

His leadership didn’t last long as he was assassinated in Munich when German nationalist Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley shot him  in the back on February 21, 1919. After his death the in-fighting amongst left wing parties led to the seeds of the National Socialist Party and the rise of Hitler.

In 1989 a memorial was placed on the sidewalk on the ground at the site of his assassination.

Members of the Wittelsbach family are still alive, still own property in the city and are honored by the people of Munich and are invited to events.

www.muenchen.de/int/en/tourism.html