Through year of travel, global sights most memorable

Usually, when I look back over 12 months of travels, it’s the people who stand out most clearly. They are, of course, the stars of any good journey.

But this year they came up against some stiff competition. Heavenly sights kept trying to upstage human beings.

They started early one morning in February when I looked out the window of my plane and saw the lush green folds of Tahiti below. I flew on to the Cook Islands, swam in Aitutaki’s lagoon, returned to Papeete and sailed on a ferry to Moorea, but nothing matched that first, kingfisher’s-eye view of the South Pacific.

The moss-draped oaks of Beaufort, S.C., framing white-pillared houses, seemed on a weekend in May the ultimate in harmony between man and nature.

One month later I found myself walking down Nevsky Prospekt. It wasn’t the first time – I’d visited St. Petersburg in 2001 – but it still seemed remarkable, not just because of the daylight at 11 p.m. but the still-fresh memories of tropical isles.

In August I returned to coastal Maine and reveled in the main streets – bakeries, bookstores, unaffiliated cafes – of some of America’s loveliest towns.

And then, like that, it was fall and I was strolling in the Alps past bell-ringing cows. Before coming home, I checked Neuschwanstein (mad Ludwig’s castle) and Oktoberfest off my still lengthy to-do list.

For years people would ask me what country I hadn’t been to that I most wanted to visit, and November found me, staggered, in the answer: India. The cathedral-like train stations of Mumbai. The unearthly city of Varanasi, our boat gliding down the Ganges as the just-risen sun warmed the already-smoking ghats. The stealthy magnetism of the Taj Mahal, the only building I have ever failed, initially, to turn my back on.

Fittingly, I’m ending the year in Warsaw, Poland, the city that made me a travel writer.

The wealth of trips produced some delightful lodgings. There was the gracious Old Point Inn in Beaufort, with afternoon wine served on the front porch, and often attended by the gentle white house dog, Tatra. In Camden, Maine, my wife and I got my old room – the Jefferson Davis – at the elegant Abigail’s Inn.

I loved my attic-shaped room at the Hotel Sonne in Fussen, Germany, and the colorful environs of the Hotel am Viktualienmarkt in Munich. Amelia Island’s Elizabeth Pointe Lodge, though relatively new, had the feel of an old seaside inn, and a great back porch overlooking the beach.

The Ganges View in Varanasi was a quirky family mansion converted into an atmospheric hotel. My room, with ceiling fan and stained-glass windows, gave onto a rooftop patio overlooking the river. Every evening in the garden of Jaipur’s Alsasir Haveli a man with a flute played Rajasthani folk songs.

Even the getting from one place to another was occasionally (pleasantly) memorable.

Air New Zealand carried me halfway across the Pacific with grace and style. Returning from New England, on a plane still labeled Song, I was thrilled to watch all through the landing, on my personal screen, the live broadcast of a baseball game.

And at Dallas-Fort Worth, on my way back from Denver, I discovered the rich culinary offerings of Terminal D. The tortilla soup at Cantina Laredo – brought to your table in a tureen and poured into your bowl – is worth changing planes for.