Epinions Recent Reviews for Urbanist

REFUGIO TINQUILCO: Rivendell, with Fuchsias

Mon, 26 Jan 2004 03:07:57 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - The road from the tourist-trap town of Pucón begins as pavement, then becomes well-maintained gravel. As I enter Parque Nacional Huerquehue, the road turns to dirt. Finally, after plunging through numerous opaque puddles of uncertain depth, I arrive at...

Santiago: The Conflicts and Hopes of a Nation, Rendered as a City

Mon, 26 Jan 2004 02:10:10 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - Our plane took off from Santiago at 11:45 PM on New Year’s Eve, 2003. Just before midnight, it banked to the right, and all around me, people gasped. There, suddenly, was all of Santiago by night. A great rectangular patch of yellow lights,...

TALCA: Chile's Unavoidable City

Tue, 20 Jan 2004 05:31:11 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - Talca. The name sounds like an acronym, and Epinions has hardly helped by rendering it in all caps. But Talca is a city, the proud capital of the Seventh Region of Chile. Perfectly located as an overnighting spot on drives north or south from...

Chile: Questions of Chile

Sat, 17 Jan 2004 22:00:15 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - Have you ever gone somewhere, come back, and found that you have no opinion of it, only a collection of sensations that just won't cohere? Two weeks after returning from Chile, that's what I have. The impressions that follow might be called "things...

Valparaíso: Find Valparaíso, Before It Finds Itself ...

Wed, 17 Dec 2003 14:06:21 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - After two hours of freeway through scrubbish, hot plains, the bus from Santiago seems almost to plunge off a cliff, dropping 600m of altitude on a steep, curvy road that finally runs down a narrow canyon to emerge, bang, in the city. I catch quick...

Delta Vancouver Suites Hotel: Canadian Cuisine Revealed?

Sun, 23 Nov 2003 20:41:48 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - Twice, Priceline has deposited me in Delta's downtown Vancouver hotel. Twice, I've been tempted to steal the room service menu. While an unremarkable building, the Delta has many features for the traveler to admire. The windows open, so you can...

Crescent City: Kitsch, Sprawl, and Promise at the Top of California

Thu, 30 Oct 2003 01:41:36 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - Crescent City, the northernmost city on the California Coast and the headquarters of Redwood National Park, has all the makings of magnificence. No city, not even San Francisco, offers a more dramatic experience of arrival. From the south, you plung...

DeLillo's The Names: Are the cultists mad, or are we mad for caring about them?

Thu, 23 Oct 2003 10:24:38 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - When I enter a bookstore, and pick up a book that might interest me, I always ignore the blurb on the inside flap. Usually, it offers only boring plot summary lanced with buzzwords, plus reviews of previous books by the same author, but rarely reviews o...

MarQueen Hotel: Award: Greatest Range of Luxury Levels in Under 500 Square Feet

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 02:26:49 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - If you pull up Downtown Seattle on Priceline, you'll see that their downtown zone extends all the...

Vancouver: The Future of Civilization May Look Like This

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 01:46:19 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - Highrises! Forests of them! And the traffic! The mountains are lovely, but how does anyone get there? And how can anyone live like this? Well, you might just ask them. Many of them love it. They know that their city sings, just as its name soar...

Seattle Center: A Theme Park Reborn as a Civic Place: Seattle Center in 2003

Sat, 28 Jun 2003 23:47:47 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - The 60s: A Science Fiction Theme Park When I was a child in the late 1960s, Seattle was th...

Fort Worth: "Three Museums in Search of a City?" Well, not quite ...

Sat, 3 May 2003 16:09:35 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - In the brand-new Museum of Modern Art of Fort Worth, a full-size, realist sculpture of an Etruscan man stands, hand outstretched in an uncertain gesture, directly in front of a mirror. The mirror is full length, perhaps three inches from his fingertips...

La Quinta Inn Moab: If you're going to be assassinated, do NOT spend your last night here.

Sat, 5 Apr 2003 21:04:09 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - On November 21, 1963, the night before his unfortunate appearance in Dallas, John F. Kennedy spent the night at what is now the Radisson Plaza in Fort Worth. Kennedy is actually a tricky piece of history for a hotel to handle. On the one hand, it's...

Circular Quay: "Rectangular Quay" Just Doesn't Have the Same Ring to It

Sat, 28 Dec 2002 18:54:57 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - Circular Quay. Such an evocative name if you fondle it. Quays are places of arrival and departure, sites of welcoming. "Circular" is a delicious word for a writer, a small orgy for the tongue. If you don't stray into its uses in bureaucracy ("The...

The Domain, Art Gallery - Botanic Gardens: Where Bats Sleep, Figs Strangle, and All of Sydney Breathes

Wed, 25 Dec 2002 18:34:25 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - Every night, for a few minutes at dusk, Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens appear to be on fire.

I first witnessed this on a lively evening on Oxford Street, Sydney’s nightlife strip. The wide sidewalks pulsated with beautiful people,...

Park Regis-Sydney: Sydney's Most Scenic Laundry Room

Sat, 9 Nov 2002 02:32:59 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist -

From the outside, Park Regis looks like quite a nice place. A 45-storey building just a block off of Hyde Park, seemingly made mostly of windows, it looks like it would be one of those serene aeries that one always longs for when lodging in a city...

Juneau: When Seattle is Just Too Sunny ...

Mon, 7 Oct 2002 02:34:00 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - Here's a refreshing thought. If you just can't stand your weather at the moment, go to any of the many online weather services (Yahoo, AOL, Excite, etc.) and type in "99801". I did it just now, and got four-of-a-kind. Four days of rain, the forecast...

Goldbelt Hotel Juneau: Freeway Mediocrity Invades Historic Town .. As If That's News

Sat, 28 Sep 2002 02:52:44 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - If you let an online travel service lead you around Juneau, you're likely to be pointed to the Goldbelt as the largest full-service mid-priced lodging. And if you're a frequent traveller, you may consider the Goldbelt just fine. Because there is...

Silverbow Inn: Juneau's Happiest Lodging: With Outdoor Dining!

Sat, 28 Sep 2002 02:21:02 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - There are plenty of reasons to be unhappy in Juneau (see separate review), but for a slice of happiness Silverbow Inn is the place. Run by a very enthusiastic couple, Silverbow is a small B&B in a historic downtown building attached to the town's most...

Tasmania: The Devil Beneath the Stones

Tue, 28 May 2002 22:26:26 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - In celebration of the new Epinions policy permitting reprints that have appeared on other sites (so long as we violate no copyrights other than our own) I'm happy to post this 1999 article ...

When I called my American business...

Sydney: Sydney: Some Assembly Required

Tue, 28 May 2002 17:03:22 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - NOTE: This was written in 1999 based on a pre-Olympic visit to Sydney. I defer to others on the city's post-Olympic feel, but I suspect that much of what's here is still current.

Sydney, as you've probably heard, is now a World Class...

Portland: The City in the Womb

Sat, 6 Apr 2002 19:49:14 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - Portland and I go way back. I lived there from 1969 (age 7) to 1980 (off to college at 18). I've lived there again since 1994, a much more complacent time. Now I sit in a cafe in San Francisco, wondering how ready I am to live in Portland again...

A memoir, a guidebook, a loving tribute to a very peculiar town

Sun, 6 Jan 2002 00:43:24 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - In this age of globalization, nothing seems more passe than "regional literature." We'll read a book that's immersed in a place only if its ideas seem to rise out of it and speak to everyone's longing for travel, or for home. Thoreau's Walden...

Muir Woods National Monument: Look DOWN!

Sat, 5 Jan 2002 23:24:00 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - Muir Woods is not the largest or tallest old-growth redwood grove remaining in the west, but it is by far the most accessible. It's an easy day trip from San Francisco by bicycle, and also serves as the standard redwood-exposure spot for busloads of...

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum: The Museum of Where You Are

Fri, 28 Dec 2001 02:44:10 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Urbanist - Just west of Tuscon, a short but stunning drive through the Tucson Mountains will bring you to the western part of Saguaro National Park. National Parks are supposed to be big deals, but this one is upstaged by its spectacular home-grown neighbor, the...