BY JANET STEINBERG   If you ever plan to enter a spelling bee, take note: Canada’s first incorporated city (1785) is spelled Saint John, not the abbreviated St. John as it is spelled in neighboring Newfoundland.  To add to your confusion, the proper way to spell its mighty St. John River is...

BY JANET STEINBERG The city is gray and the Danube is anything but blue.  There are no blazing boulevards, no picturesque artists’ quarters and the Spanish Riding Horses are not even Spanish. So why go to Vienna?  Quite simply, because the City of the Waltz is forever young…forever fair.  This ancient, tradition-steeped, crown jewel of Austria, long the capital...

BY JANET STEINBERG Halifax is the cosmopolitan capital city of Nova Scotia.  It is Canada’s 13th largest city and its residents, called Haligonians, make up 40% of Nova Scotia’s population.  It is a friendly city where visitors might be welcomed by the "Oyez, Oyez" of a vociferous Town Crier.    Nova Scotia, the second smallest province in Canada, is approximately half the size of Ohio.  In Halifax,...

BY: JANET STEINBERG With its lush, year-round Mediterranean climate, 100 miles of sweeping prime Pacific coastline, an annual average of 300+ days of sunshine and fresh ocean breezes, burgeoning wine country, and Santa Ynez Mountains, Santa Barbara is one of America’s best-kept secrets.. Its unique east-west coastline (the only one from Alaska to Cape Horn) Riviera provides soothing year-round southern exposure and perfect temperatures ranging...

BY: JANET STEINBERG Stress got you down?  When all else fails, head to Napa Valley.  With more than 270 wineries set amidst 38,000 acres of rolling vineyards, hundreds of divine restaurants, a myriad of championship golf courses, and a plethora of world-class accommodations, Napa Valley is the place for your own personal Urban Renewal. Napa Valley, 50 miles northeast of San Francisco, exudes...

BY: JANET STEINBERG Key West, Florida is many things to many people. This Southernmost Point in the continental United States (only 90-miles from Cuba) is a place where pirates once preyed and presidents once played.  It is a place where straight meets gay, where drunk drinks with sober.  lt is Caribbean and continental, traditional and avant garde. It is Mallory Square Pier...

BY: JANET STEINBERG I was lucky to “get out of Dodge” just in time.  Well, it wasn’t really Dodge City, Kansas, but it was Cincinnati, Ohio just before the ice and snow piled up.  I headed south, way south, for fifteen glorious sunny days which I am about to share with you. Day 1: As Silversea’s Silver Spirit set sail on the first...

BY: JANET STEINBERG “I would not eat the soup of life with a fork; I would continue to use a big ladle.”  Those words of my late friend, Holocaust survivor, and world-renowned restaurateur George Lang, have remained with me long after his death. Surviving a year of my husband’s health issues with flying colors, my handsome hunk of a husband...

Happy New Year from everyone here at The Travel Authority! BY: JANET STEINBERG Yes, it was guiltless! My recent 24-karat Silversea Caribbean cruise on the luxurious Silver Spirit was pure pleasure…pure pampering…pure rest…and pure relaxation.  Yet I felt not an ounce of guilt on this golden gilt trip.   WELCOME ABOARD SILVER SPIRIT  As our ship glided away...