![\"Banarian](\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2016\/01\/Banarian-inn-1.jpg\")
The globetrot started with the German flair at Frankmuth’s Bavarian Inn<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cChicken is not a German dish,\u201d admitted general manager Amy Zehnder Grossi, who represents the fourth generation of a family that\u2019s served platters of it anyway, along with buttered noodles and Deustch treats, such as spatzle, sauerbraten, and schnitzel to 20 million guests since 1888 at Bavarian Inn. The costumed fraulein waitresses, glockenspiel, cuckoo clocks and covered bridge give the charming town and its\u2019 guestrooms a Disney-Epcot feel, but Frankenmuth is authentic \u2013 Michigan\u2019s \u201clittle Bavaria\u201d was founded by pioneering German missionaries in 1845. The eight-acre campus of the iconic Bavarian Inn, with 360 guestrooms, is a beehive of activity spanning the Cass River including shopping, swimming pools and slides, live music, wine tasting, candy making, conference rooms and family fun.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2016\/01\/IMG_2720.jpg\")
A ceiling full of toys at Manhattan’s famed 21 club<\/p><\/div>\n
The next night in New York I crawled through a cellar hidden beneath the swank midtown bar and restaurant called \u201c21:\u201d a Prohibition-era \u201cspeakeasy\u201d turned \u201csee and be seen\u201d soiree. Bottles hidden below\u2026models suspended above: vintage wines in the cellar and toys suspended from the dining room ceiling \u2013 both due to the luminaries who\u2019ve haunted the halls since the days of Humphrey Bogart, Howard Hughes, Hemingway, and, hence, Harrison Ford. The pool cue Jackie Gleason used in the film \u201cThe Hustler\u201d is steps from the booth Michael Douglas, playing Gordon Gekko in the \u201cWall Street,\u201d advised Charlie Sheen\u2019s Bud Fox to order the steak tartare \u2013 a sensible suggestion, still.<\/p>\n
Back safely later in my guest cottage at Jock\u2019s walled lodge, after a dinner that included antelope of my own, I took an outdoor shower,\u00a0ducked through\u00a0the netting around my bed, and fell into the sheets after two continents and three cultures in three days.<\/p>\n Visit BavarianInn.com, 21 Club.com, and JockSafariLodge.com.<\/p>\n Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at\u00a0<\/em>InviteYourself@aol.com<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or via TravelTattler.com\u00a0His talk show can be heard weekday mornings in\u00a0Lansing\u00a0on 92.1 FM.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"IMG_2810\"](\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2016\/01\/IMG_2810.jpg\")
<\/a>JFK to Johannesburg, 16 hours non-stop via South African Airways, put me just a puddle jump from \u201cJock Safari Lodge,\u201d a luxury encampment right out of central casting in the animal kingdom\u2019s Kruger National Park. Within an hour of arrival I was in an open-air vehicle on a twilight game drive within feet of roaming giraffes, a white rhinoceros, a swimming hippopotamus, baby elephants, a honey badger, zebras, baboons, and yes, lions \u2013 which would later have their dinner of fresh antelope disturbed by screeching hyenas, which were much bigger and more menacing than I had imagined. In the pink and red light just before dark, guide Lazarus Michonto pulled the jeep over, set up a table, and served gin and tonic \u201cSundowners\u201d in copper mugs. It was a civilized moment in the wild.<\/p>\n