Category: Travel

Kilt me now

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

I’m trying, I really am. 

I’m trying to get super excited about Scotland, much as I tried a year ago to get jazzed about Ireland. 

We know how that turned out: I bought a flight to Dublin only to exchange it a week later for a flight to Paris. It was after I studied the destination with a flea comb, burrowed into my research, only to arrive at the great existential query: What am I thinking? (I ask this frequently in my life.)

I’m sure Ireland is splendid, despite the fact that pubs, pubs and pubs are invariably named the top experience in everything I read. A friend just returned from Dublin and said it’s terrific — for two or three days. Then you run out of things to do. At that point, of course, you rent a car for the verdant countryside and … yawn, you lost me. 

I’m an urban traveler. I seek culture, cuisine, cobblestone. Art, edifices, bustling humanity and idiosyncratic neighborhoods. I also seek cool climates — I’m done sweltering in the tropics — for summer travel. Last July I went to Buenos Aires to, among many reasons, escape our heat. I slipped on my jacket each day with a big grin. 

And so, Scotland. I’m eyeing a May trip to the capital Edinburgh and Glasgow, the largest city in the country, both of which brim with museums, castles, street art, music (here is where I make peace with bagpipes), hearty food (do I dare try haggis?) and, a-ha, whisky. May weather hovers in the mid-50s and below and I’m already happily shivering.

Like Ireland, Scotland is comprised of highlands, lowlands, islands, cliffs, crags, rolling pastures and billowing grass. It’s lousy with forts and castles. It doesn’t look like I’ll get into all that, though I might be whisked away on a day trip. I probably should.

Maybe I’ll spot Nessie, the wondrous Loch Ness Monster, and hitch a ride on her mythical scaly back through the chill waters. (As a kid, I used to love Nessie, that bashful and elusive lake dinosaur. I thought she and Bigfoot should get married.)

I am a wee nervous about the language, specifically the knotty Scottish brogue, which contorts familiar English into musical pretzels and thick-tongued tootles that leave some of us wincing with incomprehension. I once worked with a native Scot named Alan Black and I couldn’t understand a damn word he said. We got along swimmingly, but I’m sure I missed 60 percent of what he was telling me. 

This worries me, the rogue brogue. I’ll be made the fool by cheery locals who will snicker at me between sips of lager and Glenfiddich, doing spit takes. I’ll be the dumb American carrying around an ear funnel, going, “What’s that, mate?”

I can do this. The more I excavate, the more Scotland attracts. I’m thinking seven days between the two cities, yet there’s more to explore. The trip could get longer, epic, out of control. It could go from a jaunt to a journey. I like that. (Cue: “Loch Lomond.”)

Am I sure about this?

Getting down with dinner, and keeping it down

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Last year in Lisbon, Portugal, I was served a 12-course meal that stuffed me so brutally, I was this close to dashing to the restaurant bathroom and purging myself. I felt like an engorged zeppelin, about to burst with the sloshing goulash bloating my belly. I was in theatrical distress. 

And the food, which was amazing, kept coming. And coming. I finally had to hold up a hand when the server brought the final course, which was a square of baklava the size of a matchbox. That hand said, “Cease. Go back wherefrom you came. Take that morsel of food with you. Be gone before disaster strikes.” 

Still, he insisted on boxing up the dessert. I conceded. All the while an argument raged between my mind and my stomach. The mind won. By the grace of god, I did not vomit. 

I was reminded of this fine-dining discomfort the other night at an eatery that’s the opposite of the gourmet Portuguese blowout: La Tapatia, a homey, festively painted Mexican restaurant/cantina in Concord, Ca., some 30 minutes east of San Francisco. 

(My brother and I are in the East Bay clearing out my late Mom’s townhouse and putting it on the market. Wading through Everests of old photos is by turns amusing, exhausting, and wildly depressing.) 

We adore La Tapatia and anticipated its decadent cuisine before we left the East Coast. It’s a destination spot dishing up fiercely old-school Mexican food: chips and salsa, margaritas, rice and refried beans, tacos, burritos, the whole enchilada. 

With a tangy margarita, I had a chicken taco and chicken enchilada. The plate was massive, flooded in a sea of beans and rice: 

It was deliriously good. But here’s the thing: I got so gorged on chips and dinner, I spontaneously puked when I got back home. It was quick and painless, and I topped it with a gin and tonic. I’m disgusting. (A girlfriend once told me I have the “constitution of a bird.” I cannot argue with this.)

To offset the stress and gloom of this seven-day trip, we’ve turned it into a foodie foray, hitting many good places — we’re eating out twice a day, every day — as well as favorite restaurants we’ve long loved in the area.

Like the scrappy, frantic joint in San Francisco’s Chinatown. From the SF airport, we went straight to our reliable haunt House of Nanking, where I had the celebrated Nanking Sesame Chicken, a dish of cosmic savoriness:

I’ve mentioned before that I own a House of Nanking t-shirt. It’s that good. I learned that scenes from “The Matrix Resurrections” were filmed there. Photos of Keanu Reeves with the beaming owner paper the windows. For some reason, I’m proud.

Yesterday we met our old friend Tony for lunch at the classy, very bougie Acre Kitchen & Bar on College Avenue in Berkeley. Though the sardines, arriving with three tiny bottles of Tabasco, were wonderful, Tony was the highlight. He’s about the nicest guy you could know, a real mensch, radiating a gentle joy that inspires faith in the world. He ate a French dip and took a selfie of us.

Sardines and Tabasco. Tony didn’t have any.

In Berkeley, where my brother went to Cal, we kicked around used book and record stores, working up an appetite for an early dinner at Alice Waters’ legendary restaurant Chez Panisse. Considering this could be our final trip to the Bay Area, we splurged on the crazy-expensive four-course dinner menu, which changes daily, and it went like this: 

California white sea bass tartare with Meyer lemon, ginger, and fried capers

Wild mushroom ravioli in brodo with Parmesan

Corvus Farm guinea hen roasted in the hearth; with potato-rutabaga purée, spring onions, and spinach

Hazelnut sherbet and chocolate ice cream meringata

Guinea hen roasted in the hearth.

Pretentious? Nuh-uh. Chez Panisse keeps it real with a humble farm-to-table ethos that’s exquisitely prepped and presented. Service is impeccable, always with a smiling expansiveness, never fussy, and often with a quip or two. The food: spectacular without being show-offy. It’s special but to the point.

I don’t think I’m overselling the experience, because we went back two nights later  (after scrambling for a coveted reservation) for the more modest à la carte menu, no less delicious and memorable. My appetizer was “sprouting broccoli roasted in the wood oven with preserved lemon and mint yogurt”; my main course was “grilled lamb leg with shoestring potatoes, glazed carrots, and red wine butter” — all of it superb, as expected.

Bonus: I didn’t throw up. 

The dog’s lifting his leg, but not for that reason

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

It always wrecks me to see an injured or afflicted animal, be it a stray dog scratching helplessly at mounds of scabby boils in Shanghai, a moped-stricken hound in Hanoi, or a baby hippo fatally gored by fighting adult hippos on the Serengeti. (I saw that one on TV in Florence last week. Thanks, Nat Geo.) 

Now Cubby the magical, mystical mutt may be ailing, and it’s distressing. The ridiculous animal is suddenly walking like Willy Wonka in the 1971 movie as the chocolatier emerges from his factory to greet the Golden Ticket holders, with a pronounced limp, one leg stiff and useless as a board.

Cubby’s back left leg is palsied and raised off the floor, bent. He’s walking around like one of those fashionable three-legged dogs that pop up in hip shows and movies. (See: Pamela Adlon’s “Better Things” or Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic.”)

I’m no vet, but I’ve gently pressed, pulled and squeezed Cubby’s leg and paw and there seems to be no pain. He’s emitted nary a whine and he looks at me like I’m some sort of touchy-feely perv-o. 

He still scampers up and down stairs, leaps onto sofas. Maybe he’s pulling a Wonka. (If you recall, Wonka was faking it, just so he could perform this tremendous somersault and show up everyone as credulous dupes. He was the best.)

I hope he’s faking it, the curly little wisenheimer (actually he’s part Schnauzer). See him in video action just last week HERE. It’s worth it. 

As you can see, Cubby’s no old man — the rescue pup is roughly seven — but he’s no Gen Z whippersnapper, either. (Though he does adore making spritely little dances on TikTok.) He’s middle-aged, with tufts of distinguished gray and the breath of a chain-smoker. 

But I fret. To watch a creature suffer causes me unshakable anguish. The sick and maimed street animals I’ve seen around the world haunt me many years later. I was even nervous when Cubby, still at the shelter, was neutered and had to wear one of those big cones on his head. He did it with tail-wagging courage and panting dignity.

And now this, the hobbling hound. We’re stumped. The dog will go to the vet if the mystery malady continues. Sometimes animals just want attention, and they can be quite wily at doing it. In the end, we just hope scruffy Cubs has been pulling our leg.

Brave cone dog

Clearing out the museum of Mom

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

Florence was a gas. I got back a few days ago and I’m still huffing the trip’s fragrant fumes and, I admit, getting a little high. It was an idyllic sojourn: the friendliest, prettiest people; piquant pizzas and pleasing piazzas; huge marble slabs of history; staggering art; so much gelato you could vomit. And dogs — a festival of dogs.

I’m leaving on a jet plane yet again in a week, but this one isn’t for vacation; it’s for vacating. My brother and I are going to the San Francisco Bay Area to clear out my late ole Mom’s condo and put it on the market. We are vacating the abode of its current renter and as much furniture and stuff as we can in a short stretch of time, about six days. It could be a herculean errand, or it might snap into place like Legos.

Mom passed in late 2019, so this isn’t really a mournful visit, though it is naturally tinged with blue-hued rue. Ghosts, memories, love and misses. We have to riffle through reams of photos — that’ll be fun and painful and snoringly tedious — and decide what things we want and what can hit the curb. My brother can’t wait to get his grubby hands on this damn metallic rabbit Mom placed next to the toilet. It’s probably spattered in urine.

Save for that weird rabbit, there’s nothing original about any of this. It’s just another life stage, a serial speed bump that most of us have to go through. My turn. Yawn. 

Yet we’re going to make the most of it, dammit, back in the Bay Area bosom we grew up in. From the San Francisco airport, we’re beelining it to our favorite restaurant in Chinatown, House of Nanking, a bustling joint we used to line-up for before they expanded a bit. I like their zesty food so much — especially the Nanking Sesame Chicken — and the surly, snappish owner, that I still wear one of their neon-bright t-shirts. 

Then it’s down to business. For a while. 

We’ve planned other sidelights to sustain our spirits and energy. Like a special dinner at chef /author Alice Waters’ legendary Chez Panisse in Berkeley. This is quintessential farm-to-table California cuisine, which Waters practically invented. I’ve eaten there before. It’s spectacular, an institution. My brother, the foodie who’s been to them all, says it’s his favorite restaurant. We’re spoiling ourselves. We’ve also slated a day and dinner in Napa. Boo-hoo for us. 

Still, getting real, the trip won’t be fun; a few good meals can’t blot out the grim reality of the situation. Fortunately, Mom left a fastidiously tidy home, decorated with utmost taste and artistic flair. (We will be plundering her artwork and art books for sure.) She had class, and we want to honor that by doing this dirty work with a soupçon of respect.

We’re dismantling a life, in a way, dislodging and dispersing things that defined a real person. And we’re a part of it. My travel photographs adorn a wall. A painting my brother made of David Bowie adorns another wall. And so on. 

I think of the place as a museum of Mom — meticulous, magnificent —  carefully curated, painstakingly, and with inexpressible love. We have our work cut out for us. 

My big birthday wish list (aren’t I worth it?)

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

My birthday’s fast approaching. Here’s what you can get me (thanks!):

1. The hefty new book “Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears” by New Yorker staffer Michael Schulman. It sounds frivolous, and a lot of it surely is, but it also promises a chunky serving of cultural history about the loved and lambasted Academy Awards, dusted with tidbits, like the similarities between two of my all-time favorite movies, “All About Eve” and “Sunset Boulevard.” Reviews say it’s compulsively readable, if you’re into that stuff, and I am. The damn thing costs $40. 

2. Monkey 47 — A deliciously complicated and original gin that’s out of my price range by a good 30 dollars. I generally wait to get this bottle as a gift. So I say to you: Go for it!

3. A pair of Black Ghost sneakers from Italian brand Oliver Cabell. They run a gulping $270 (that’s with a $68-off promotion code). But these “fashion-forward” kicks are true beauts: top-notch black leather matched with clear rubber outsoles — not white, black or gum, but clear. They’ll probably rack me with flesh-shredding blisters, but what’s searing pain in the name of unspeakable hotness?

4. Dinner for two at four-star, impossible-to-get-into restaurant Le Bernardin in New York, where you can nosh an eight-course tasting menu with caviar and langoustines for a piddling $298 per person. I promise you a doggy bag. Maybe.

5. A round-trip ticket to Istanbul in the fall. Expensive, you say? Hey, economy class is just fine. I like pretzels.

6. Any ritzy anti-aging serum that’s not hawked by Gwyneth Paltrow or Jennifer Lopez, those obscenely compensated airbrushed quacks. I’ve got a couple of crow’s feet that are absolutely mocking me. 

7. I chose seven gifts because my birthday lands on April 7. It’s a neat number, and a lucky one, too. But it’s awfully small. So how about $700 in cash, please. Cool.

Best. Birthday. Ever!

Dying for our sins, and for Italian food

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Like many Catholic countries, Italy is crawling with crucifixes, and Florence, where I’ve been for four days so far, is inescapably swept up in the cross craze. The objects, often beautiful pieces of art, are bloody, baroque, humdrum and horrific — a whole cross-section. 

Jesus died on the cross and we know that wasn’t pleasant. Naked, nailed, speared, bleeding, suffocating … you get the picture.

I do too. But what I don’t get is the exuberant, even perverse glorification of Christ’s grisly death. I sort of understand the symbolic power of it all — God willed it — yet wonder why people wear one of history’s worst torture devices around their necks. (And I wonder why so many heavy metal bands are morbidly obsessed with them. Dude!)

Speaking of bodily torment, today I stumbled on the rabidly popular sandwich stand All’Antico Vinaio — the kind of place with lines out the door — where I had been hoping to go but had no idea where it was. Pure kismet. This was after I took in a sprawling and mind-altering M.C. Escher (he sounds like a Dutch rapper) exhibit at the Museum of the Innocents, whose name has guilt written all over it. I didn’t know Pink Floyd was so into Escher, but it makes almost comical sense.

I couldn’t read the big menu board at the sandwich place — Italian and all — but I finally settled on the Firenze for seven euros, or just over seven bucks. The baseball mitt-sized meal consists of six heart attacks worth of salami, creamed parmesan and sun-dried tomatoes, stuffed between thinly sliced focaccia. It was fantastic, popping with flavor, and totally unfinishable. The pigeons had a frenzied feast.

The night’s meal is typically the highlight of the day and must be meticulously researched. For dinner I went to an old-school trattoria — defined as an “Italian restaurant serving simple food” — that ratings aggregates go gaga for. Even Michelin backs this joint. It was fine, but mostly wound up being overrated by dint of its noble, been-there-forever history. The giant glass of house wine was a plus at a meager four euros. I maybe eat one or two steaks a year and I ordered a sirloin (Florence is famous for superior steaks) and a seven-euro salad that was actually a few floppy, naked leaves worth about 15 cents. 

The steak was solid, but it dawned on me: As yummy as they are, steaks are like pancakes — they get boring about half-way through. I was glad I didn’t get a true “Florentine” steak that so many diners got and chewed on for like an hour. Those meats are the size of the cut from the opening credits of “The Flintstones,” a slab so big it tips over Fred Flintstone’s car.

As far as Florentine greatest hits, the other day I visited the awesome 17-foot-tall marble nudist David, by Michelangelo. I didn’t mention it before, but here’s a peek (it’s almost obligatory, isn’t it?):

Flitting about Florence

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

The humongous duomo (cathedral) that is the centerpiece of Florence slams you with its blunt-force beauty. Instead of describing it, which would reduce its flamboyance to a clinical chill, here’s a couple of shots that hint at its Renaissance marble glory:

Elaborate, bold, proud. And yet the cathedral’s interior is almost naked, largely stripped of art and artifice, the gaudy trimmings of Catholicism. Except for some stained glass, it is cold and gray, stubbornly spartan. 

But then you look up at Brunelleschi’s mind-boggling, logic-defying dome and soak in Vasari’s “Last Judgement,” one of the world’s largest paintings, a spectacular sprawl of doomsday religious commotion. I craned my neck and arched my back for a proper peek, stretching body parts that I’ve never used before. The painting, which gives the interior a dazzling kick, is outright sublime.

As is Florence, which at times seems to be one enormous fashion show cum gelato shop. That’s not a complaint.

Last night, I ate my first sit-down dinner here at a highly acclaimed restaurant (ristorante!), whose groovy chef/owner wears so many arm bangles he practically looks bionic, or like a distant cousin of C-3PO. He’s one of those characters who hangs photos of himself with celebrities like John Travolta all over the joint. 

Today, to see more of Tuscany, I beat it about 40 minutes outside the city to Chianti, land of fine red wine. I was with a tour group of mostly swell people for a wine tasting and damn it started early. We had to meet at 8:45 a.m. and the drinking began at 10 a.m. sharp and lasted till 1 p.m. We were all baffled. But it turned out well and I was back at my hotel by 2:30 p.m.

The guides basically left the group tipsy then thundered off in the big bus. Everyone I talked to said they were going to go take a nap, which I shamefully admit I did (for all of 20 minutes). 

At one of the wineries, three Labrador Retrievers roamed the idyllic grounds when they weren’t begging for belly rubs and general adorable attention. I liked the dogs immensely, even more than some of the wine poured so generously — and frequently. This place is vino mad, and I like it.

Getting there is half the battle, but so worth it

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

It’s a blinding blue 60-degree Monday in Florence, Italy, and I just about broke my neck slipping on a yellow glob of melting gelato on the sidewalk. Except for the fact that I almost became a paraplegic, I will not complain. 

See, this happened a block from my hotel, which — both boon and bane — is plumb in the fluttering heart of the ancient Renaissance city center: the Duomo, Medici Museum, Academia, Uffizi, and I’ll stop before this embarrassment of riches makes me flush. I say bane because it’s teeming with bodies — though, from what I gather, most are locals; they’re speaking Italian and looking stunningly chic. Locals are good, even local tourists. They almost always make a journey better. Fellow American tourists? Meh.

Yet I’ve only been here an hour, so what do I know? Maybe I’ll get mugged, or pummeled for persistently mispronouncing grazie. Big plans await this week in Tuscany, a region peppered with medieval towns and fecund vineyards and a particular tower with dismal posture. I will tour cathedrals and museums, take day trips to crumbly towns, and sip vino, nectar of the gods (next to bourbon and gin).

An angle of the Duomo, Florence

Getting abroad is always fun for me, ha. I can’t sleep on the seven- to 10-hour red-eyes, and this time I had a delightful layover in Munich, where the short flight to Florence was delayed and my fortitude, eyes and shoulders were drooping gruesomely, Quasimodo-ly. 

Finally we were herded into a standing-room-only shuttle bus and dumped at the bottom of steep stairs leading to a tiny jet. Ascending, I felt like Joe Biden, like I should turn and wave to the press scrum and his half dozen fans.

I had a bad feeling about this winged, rickety rust bucket. When it finally got off the ground, creaking and rattling, I was reminded of a bi-plane, or worse, one of those tiny-tot airplanes you put a quarter in and rock about on the curbside in front of Safeway or Target. 

But we made it, despite the bloody fingernails and crippling jet lag. More on how the hell it’s all going down later. For now, a much-needed cocktail at swooningly classy bar/restaurant/book and flower shop La Ménagère, a stone’s throw from the Duomo:

A flaneur in Florence

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

The frivolities in my life are legion, but travel isn’t one of them, despite how trivial a far-flung journey might seem — or ultimately be. (Most trips soar. Some sink.) 

In three weeks I head to Florence, Italy. Though I’ve been there twice, the last visit was in the Paleolithic Age. I wanted something mellow, somewhat familiar, distinctly European, with lots of marble, museums, manicotti, and mustaches on both men and women.

The city is a cornucopia of artistic abundance: Michelangelo’s David; Donatello’s bittier David; the Uffizi, that Renaissance eruption of Botticelli to da Vinci; Ghiberti’s bronze doors; Brunelleschi’s dome; the locals’ luxuriant facial hair.

I was last in Italy in March 2022, ferrying between Rome and Naples, the latter a bracing revelation, rough-hewn and bristling with a singular urban snap. As novelties go — serpentine side streets, graffiti, killer Neapolitan pizza — it sort of kicked Rome’s ass. In July I swanned to beautiful Buenos Aires. In October, magical Madrid.

Florence seemed like a good middle-ground — encrusted in a glorious past but not overly exotic; grand but not overwhelmingly vast. It’s not like going to jostling Taipei, say, or sunbaked Algeria, which I hear is majestic. Yet Forbes did name Florence the most beautiful city in the world in 2010.

No, this would be a week luxuriating in western art, architecture, food, drink, scenery, inhaling the rarefied air of undiluted enchantment. I imagine me a self-styled flaneur, strolling the cobblestones, gilded walking stick in one hand, tipping my top hat to passersby with the other. And then I snap out of it and pinch the bridge of my nose.

Florence is not massive. So I’m making at least one day trip to Central Tuscany, namely Siena and San Gimignano, medieval towns cluttered with Gothic architecture and honeycombed with history. The region is also a wellspring of Chianti, and tippling some of the red elixir from the source is essential.

I have made five restaurant reservations in Florence, from a traditional trattoria to a Michelin-star bistro. I will eat pasta and pizza and exist — and subsist — a bit like Stanley Tucci, without the bald pate and skinny chinos (but with the dashing scarf). I might also employ a larger vocabulary of superlatives than just, “This is so good” when I taste something delicious.

And though Tucci meets up, and hams it up, with lots of local hosts, he makes it appear he is his own man, ambling the streets of Italy, the stylish flaneur (that word again), when really, of course, he’s accompanied by a small battalion of producers and technicians taping him all the way.  

If life were only like that. I travel solo most of the time, by choice. But once in a while it might be nice to have a crew of professional sycophants at your beck and call, filming you, powdering your nose, providing the background about everyone you’re about to meet and everywhere you’re about to go so you appear super smart and amply informed. 

I do what I can. I read books, watch Tucci and Bourdain, comb the net, view movies. In the end, I’m still alone, tramping about the glittering city, whose promise is assured. I think that’s pretty cool. And I think that’s quite enough.  

No folly with Dolly

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Some years ago my brother and I took a road trip through the Deep South, a six-day vacation doubling as a brush-up on American history and twangy regionalism. Civil rights, the Civil War, Graceland, Sun Records, the Lorraine Motel — we squeezed in a lot. Much of it moved us, spiritually, morally and musically. 

But there was one stop that did its own crazy thing. It awed, confounded and regaled. There were history, banjos and biscuits. There were rollercoasters, glass-blowers and fiddlin’ fools. There were fried catfish and frilly cowboy boots. There were lots of overalls. 

We had found ourselves deep in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee in a gilded wonderland made of corn dogs and mascara. We were at … Dollywood.

That is, of course, Dolly Parton’s personal theme park, 160 acres of thrill rides, country cooking, burly craftsmen, glitzy shows, nostalgic displays, Dolly shrines, all with a pinch of Christianity and patriotism. At opening hour, the National Anthem is blared before patrons, hands on hearts, can enter.

And there’s ole Dolly, her rhinestone-studded likeness beaming around every corner — that shiny blonde bouffant, dimply red-wax smile and those famous Frankenboobs — in all its campy resplendence. Luckily she’s in on the joke or the place would be unbearable in its lack of self-awareness. It would be a cruel punchline, not a family paradise.

But for us wiseacre city boys it was something else. Like an anthropological artifact unearthed in the soft southern soil to be puzzled over. It was our duty to stifle our snickers and suss out what makes this deeply red (politically), aggressively white (racially), boot-kicking (musically) environment tick. 

Well, we never did get to the bottom of it, not surprisingly. We got too swept up in the nine rollercoasters and the luxuriantly bearded dudes doing woodwork and the beans and brisket and the dewy video presentations about Dolly’s fabulous rags-to-riches life. 

Dolly’s no dip. Self-aggrandizement is her kryptonite; she never pulls a Kardashian, despite being something of a glam ham. She’s a giver, not a taker. Indeed, she pays full college tuition for all the park’s employees. That’s on top of her other well-documented, deep-pocket altruism.

Dollywood’s no joke, either. It’s the number one theme park in the country, according to TripAdvisor (really?). Along with the nine rollercoasters (nine!) there’s a water park, wads of wholesome live shows, 25 dining spots and a trillion shops (I bought a gaudy Dollywood coffee mug with my name on it). Go when the fall leaves turn in the scenic Smokies, or now when light snow falls. I’m starting to sound like a Parton pitchman. 

Condescension is too easy, and Dollywood is too big a target. Have your fun — we did — then surrender to the facile charms of another bombastically artificial playland that at least offers a different theme than the formulaic movie characters of Disneyland and Six Flags. It’s rustic, it’s corny, it’s unassuming. (A spokesman recently told The Times that they’re working on the park’s lack of diversity. So there’s that.) 

It’s not unlike Kenny Rogers Roasters (where we actually ate in Nashville), Sammy Hagar’s Cabo Wabo (where I will never eat), Reba McEntire’s Reba’s Place or Billy Cyrus’ Car Wash and Detailing (now I’m making stuff up). Branding is hot, but Dolly — who smartly took a moment to invent a clever name for her venture — started Dollywood in the ‘80s. Ahead of the curve as always, working way more than 9 to 5. 

So there we were, part-way through our whirlwind tour of the American South. Dollywood was on our list. We made it. At first we chuckled, assuming the camp quotient would be too delicious. We weren’t Dolly diehards — I did like “Jolene,” “Here You Come Again” and “9 to 5” — but our respect for the country icon was true. 

Hokum is what we sought. But we were wrong. The craftsmen stuff was mildly interesting — whoa, he just carved out a birdhouse in like five minutes! — the Dolly stuff was tasteful if sometimes maudlin, and the overall setting was handsome and top-tier.

I spotted one of the bigger, meaner rollercoasters and we ran for it. I noticed that water sprayed up on some of the turns and curves. I hate that. I don’t like getting drenched at theme parks, not even on those splashy log-ride thingies.

We got on. It was a corker, a great, rumbling ride. I was having a blast. Until the end, the final corkscrew. The goddam thing soaked me good. The joke, at last, was on me.

I own a Dollywood mug just like this gorgeous thing.