Sunday, May 29, 2005
Puglia's Moment
I ENJOYED Robert Camuto's enticing description of Puglia ["Puglia's Prime," May 22], since my wife and I recently spent two weeks teaching English at a middle school in Cisternino. Indeed, few Americans visit there, but Germans and British have discovered the calm and quiet side of Italy.
For a unique experience to participate in Italian life, contact Global Volunteers ( http://www.globalvolunteers.org ) for information on teaching English in Ostuni. The teachers were supportive, the students enthusiastic and it was a grand opportunity to bring America to southern Italy. No Italian required, and expenses qualify for a charitable tax deduction. We stayed at the Hotel Incanto, with an enchanting view of the Adriatic and the white city of Ostuni.
V. Anthony Cammarota
Rockville
Mississippi Trail
YOUR ARTICLE on following the Upper Mississippi missed an exciting new travel alternative ["Lolling on the River," May 22]. The Mississippi River Trail is being developed for bicyclists to travel from the Twin Cities to the Delta. In Wisconsin, it follows much of the Great River Road route your drivers took. As any experienced bicycle tourist can tell you, bicycling inherently provides a more intimate experience with the land than driving.
Information on the Mississippi River Trail, including links to state-by-state maps, is available on http://www.mississippirivertrail.org .
John Z. Wetmore
Bethesda
I ENJOYED your article, but I was disappointed to see no mention of what some consider to be the major attraction in that stretch of the River. Effigy Mounds National Monument, just across the river from Prairie du Chien, has some of the most striking history and visual pleasures in that area of the upper Midwest. A string of "walking bears" mounds is probably the highlight, but there is much more. Check it out at http://www.nps.gov/efmo/home.htm .
Chuck Kleymeyer, Senior Fellow
Center for Native Lands
Arlington
DownEast Maine
LOVED THE piece by Marshall Berdan about the DownEast coast of Maine ["Good Morning, America," May 22]. I would like to recommend a wonderful little restaurant about 30 to 45 minutes from Ellsworth on Route 1. JudyAnn's Seafood Restaurant (formerly Perry's, Route 1, Columbia Falls, 207-483-2045) serves the best lobster rolls, french fries and blueberry pie in the state of Maine. My husband and I had an amazing lunch for less than $20. It's a wonderful stop on your way from Acadia National Park to the DownEast area.
If you're on your way to Eastport or Lubec from Ellsworth, I would also highly recommend a brief hike on the Cutler Coastal Trail. The views are stunning and serene.
Krysten Jenci
Chevy Chase
HERE'S A BAR BET question that'll win you money almost every time (albeit while also gaining you a reputation as something of a smart aleck): What are the northernmost, southernmost, easternmost and westernmost states in the United States? Sorry to dash Marshall Berdan's sense of accomplishment, but he was almost certainly not the first person in the nation to see the sun rise on his 49th birthday. That distinction belongs to some cold soul in the outermost Aleutian Islands. The 180-degree meridian is the farthest east (and also farthest west) on the globe, and the Aleutians straddle it. So the easternmost point in the United States is the first Aleutian island to the west of it, and the westernmost point is the first Aleutian island to the east of it. Which, of course, also means that the answer to the above bar bet question is Alaska, Hawaii, Alaska and Alaska.
Mr. Berdan will have to settle for being the first person in the contiguous 48 states to see the sun rise on his birthday.
M.S. Winston
Berwyn Heights, Md.
The Biggest Pencil
I WAS WRITING a piece for my blog on John Kelly's story ["Pencil In This English Museum," May 15] and went to the Guinness Web site to check his statement about the museum's exhibiting "at nearly 26 feet long and 984.05 pounds the Guinness-certified World's Longest Pencil."
I learned on the Guinness Web site that the world's longest pencil -- 64.79 feet long -- was created in 2002 and is in Malaysia.
Joseph A. Stirt
Author John F. Kelly responds:
It appears that the Malaysians built their mighty pencil after the Keswick pencil earned Guinness certification. The Pencil Museum says that theirs is still the largest "artist's" -- that is, colored -- pencil (it's yellow), the Malaysian record-holder being a graphite pencil.
Missing Umlauts
I KNOW, I know. Umlauts, who cares? Well, you may want to ask the Pennsylvania "Dutch," for one example. Just because Americans were too lazy to pronouce "Deutsch."
Gary Lee's "Along the Rhine, Old Europe's New Vibe" [May 1]makes the same mistake by referring to Koln instead of Koeln. By writing Dusseldorf, instead of Duesseldorf, he has inadvertently condemned the city of being composed of village idiots. Look it up!
For a major U.S. newspaper, with international pretensions, to ignore the correct usage of foreign place names or languages is quite incomprehensible. Shape up.
Peter W. Kriegsmann
College Park
Virgin of Guadalupe, Cont'd
THANKS FOR your great article on collecting Virgin of Guadalupe items ["Touched by the Virgin," May 8]. I thought there was no one else buying electric blinking light Virgin wall decorations (I got mine last Christmas from http://www.buymexicanfolkart.com ). I knew some but not all the details of the history of the Virgin in Mexico, so enjoyed reading more about it.
Anne Moss
Harpers Ferry, W. Va.
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