The Romans introduced grapevines to the Netherlands in 968. Today about one million bottles of Dutch wine are produced annually from 170 small vineyards located throughout the country. Fortunately, there’s no need to buy a ticket to Amsterdam to taste Dutch wines when you can make a trip to Bainbridge Island instead. There, the Washington […]
Ann Randall
A well-traveled international election observer and independent traveler, Ann Randall spends at least two months annually venturing to out-of-the-way locales, from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe. She has recently taken up travel sketching as a way to savor the journey in an attempt to see if pictures really do speak a thousand words. A former educator, she observes international elections and does NGO volunteer work in India. Her articles have appeared in online and print publications and she maintains two blogs. PeregrineWoman.com is about her adventures as she travels the world from festivals in Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico to German Christmas markets in Canada and Easter in New Orleans. ExplorationKitsap.com covers her wanderings and wonderings about her home turf, the beautiful Kitsap Peninsula.
Posted inPeople & Places
10 Tips for Acing Your Next International Trip
Maybe you’re planning a trip to Croatia to see the Instagram-worthy walls of Dubrovnik. Or to Portugal because everyone raves about its food and budget-destination status. Or perhaps to Peru to see Machu Pichu before limits are imposed on daily tourist visits. You’re planning the trip sans tour company. You’ve read the guidebooks. Now the […]
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Historic Waterfront Mercantiles — The Heart of Their Communities
It’s the kind of business where the same regulars hold court each morning over coffee — a place where you can drop by to pick up a carton of milk and check out the community bulletin board, and find a water bowl pit stop for neighborhood dogs. The area’s small, historical general stores were built […]
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Historic Bainbridge Schoolhouse Lives on as Museum
In the building’s 110-year existence, it has been poked and prodded, repainted, rewired, moved from one end of the island to the other, retrofitted with an annex and lifted to dig a basement to provide climate-controlled storage and more research space. Fittingly, the little red schoolhouse containing the artifacts of Bainbridge Island’s colorful history is, […]
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Elixir Fixer — Celebrating Community and Good Times
From its clever, seasonal storefront window displays (a local newspaper Readers’ Choice winner) to its vibrant wallpapered walls and curated shelves, the Manette building’s stark, white-and-black exterior belies the retail artistry and “party in a bottle” happening inside. “It has a nostalgic, speakeasy vibe with modern touches.” That’s how owner Jim Higgins described the interior […]
Posted inFood & Entertainment
The Collaborative Farm-to-Table Spirit of Mossback
Mossback. It’s a slang term for anyone who prefers the gray drizzle of the Pacific Northwest to its elusive, sunny days. And we all know what happens sans sunlight — moss grows. Except in Kingston. There, Mossback is a restaurant with an ever-changing farm-to-table menu, a supportive community of local family farmers and producers whose […]
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Artist Amy D’Apice — Connecting Places, People and Memories
Bainbridge artist Amy Williams D’Apice is a self-described gypsy. A pixie whirlwind of Jersey accent (she was born in Gloucester City, the eighth in a family of nine children), peripatetic in where she calls home and in her work as an artist and art teacher. Currently living part time in northern Thailand’s city of Chiang […]
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The Floating Art Galleries of the Washington State Ferries
It’s easy to bypass the artwork. For regular ferry riders, it can blend into the gestalt of a daily commute on the Washington State Ferries. And yet each of the 23 current ferries in the system is a floating art gallery — a curated exhibit of wooden masks, paintings, historical photographs and prints celebrating the […]
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Slippery Pig Brewery — Proud of Being Different
To row single-handedly from Poulsbo to Seattle in a small rowboat requires propelling some 16 nautical miles through a major transportation waterway teeming with ferries, Alaska-bound cruise ships, container vessels and recreational boaters. It also demands navigation of the Ballard Locks, two gates that connect fresh and salt water and even out the 20- foot […]