Grand Tour

In the grand style set by American ex-presidents, Mikhail S. Gorbachev rolled into town yesterday to bask in ceremonial tributes and to cash in on his past to raise millions for a pet cause. When he was not being feted by President Bush and Congress, Gorbachev, the former Soviet president, was hitting up American tolstii koshki (fat cats) for donations to the Gorbachev Foundation, a think tank dedicated to spreading his ideas in support of democracy and disarmament. As the first ex-Soviet leader allowed to remain active on the world stage, Gorbachev has enthusiastically embraced the U.S. tradition for elder statesmen, collecting large sums of money for books and speeches, and traveling the world to ensure kind treatment by history.

AFTER READING about the Royal Tartaglione family riding around in limos (John Baer column, Nov. 20), I have a thought. While Rome burns at home (Philadelphia school district, the decline of the Democratic Party) the royal family rides with Romans, escorted by the Pennsylvania State Police and the Philadelphia Highway Patrol. Of course, all of this is paid for by you and me. The senator has been invisible during the school crisis, mainly because she was on a tour of Europe.

Poised at the intersection of food and art history, an enchanting Texan beckons with her fork. Maite (My-tay) Gomez-Rejon, 39, with a graduate degree in art history from the Art Institute of Chicago and a Grande Diplome from the French Culinary Institute in New York City, worked as a museum educator and private chef until two years ago, when she started a company called ArtBites to integrate her passions. Now the Los Angeles-based chef and teacher crisscrosses the country conducting one-day adventures for folks who also find fascination in the fusion of food and art. Last week at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gomez-Rejon guided a group of seven women (and her male cousin)

Mayor Rendell described it as "fabulous, fabulous. " Andrew S. Tod, the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau's vice president for sales and marketing, said it was "sensational. " But never mind them. What did Molly Gold think? "It looks great," she said. Whew! Gold's opinion, on the nearly completed Pennsylvania Convention Center, was the important one, after all. She was one of two dozen meeting planners who toured the $523 million center yesterday.

By midafternoon on a recent spring Sunday, about 40 visitors were cascading through the stately Riverton home of Mary Louise Bianco-Smith and Ken Smith. This was a "house tour" of a most unusual sort. The Smiths had invited over several generations of Clothiers. Yes, those Clothiers - descendants of Caleb Clothier and his son Isaac, the cofounder with Justus Clayton Strawbridge of Philadelphia's Strawbridge & Clothier department stores. "We knew that most of them had never seen the home, and when I was contacted by a family member, I was happy to arrange this visit," said Mary Louise.

For years, visitors at the Philadelphia Zoo have been walking right by the funny little house known as The Solitude. It's been locked up, easy to miss, especially when the boxwood hedges were six feet tall. But no more. After decades of being used by the zoo for everything from a snake exhibit in the parlor to executive offices in the library, The Solitude is well on its way to inviting company over. Come September, after $500,000 in renovations that include substantial hedge-trimming, the house will be open for group tours.

Veterans Stadium is booked up, but not for Phillies games. Schoolchildren are visiting the stadium from now through the winter, hearing talks, watching demonstrations and looking over Phillies memorabilia. Two classes of third- grade pupils from Glassboro recently got the grand tour.

At the shiny penny of a sandwich shop in Fairmount called Rybread (the "Ry" is for Ryan), the creation myth begins with the Road Trip '09. Ryan Pollock and his girlfriend Stephanie Mertz, now 26 and 27, had been among the last hired at their suburban Washington, D.C., architectural office. So it was no mystery who'd be the first fired a couple of years ago when the recession dried up credit to finance the multifamily projects they'd been employed to design. They packed up their 2001 Hyundai Elantra, picked out stops from North Carolina's Outer Banks (a friend's wedding)

Applications arrived from far and wide, but Roman Catholic needed to look only to the immediate right of its former basketball coach to come up with a successor. Dennis Seddon, an assistant at Roman for five years, is now the Cahillites' boss. He replaces Barry Brodzinski, who resigned as coach in May. Seddon's first order of business is to enter his team in a Christmas tournament. Roman has lost its spot in the prestigious Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach, S.C. "After (the commitment was made last September)

We spent lunch hour slouched on the faded plush of J. Nathan Bazzel's carriage, clopping under the red oaks that line Independence Mall. From that vantage point, City Hall seemed a world away. City Hall is where Council has been putting the finishing touches on new rules for the carriage trade. Young Mr. Bazzel, who's studying to be an audio engineer at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, and many others in the business bridle at the sudden rush of regulation. But if you chat awhile, they concede that some of their fellows do clog traffic, some of the horses are overworked, some of the history dispensed is of sub-doctoral quality.

By midafternoon on a recent spring Sunday, about 40 visitors were cascading through the stately Riverton home of Mary Louise Bianco-Smith and Ken Smith. This was a "house tour" of a most unusual sort. The Smiths had invited over several generations of Clothiers. Yes, those Clothiers - descendants of Caleb Clothier and his son Isaac, the cofounder with Justus Clayton Strawbridge of Philadelphia's Strawbridge & Clothier department stores. "We knew that most of them had never seen the home, and when I was contacted by a family member, I was happy to arrange this visit," said Mary Louise.

For the last 40 years of his life, Mark Twain worked at the monumental task of recounting his monumental life. But he never got too far. Then, in 1904, it came to him. The perfect method: "Start it at no particular time of your life; wander at your free will all over your life. . . . It is the first time in history that the right plan has been hit upon. " No one had ever written an autobiography like that before - he proudly calls it "a complete and purposed jumble" - and he knew it. At the end of his writing life, Twain, the great self-reinventor, invented one more brand-new form: something we know today as stream-of-consciousness writing, familiar throughout the century since, in the work of James Joyce, Bob Dylan, and many in between.

For years, visitors at the Philadelphia Zoo have been walking right by the funny little house known as The Solitude. It's been locked up, easy to miss, especially when the boxwood hedges were six feet tall. But no more. After decades of being used by the zoo for everything from a snake exhibit in the parlor to executive offices in the library, The Solitude is well on its way to inviting company over. Come September, after $500,000 in renovations that include substantial hedge-trimming, the house will be open for group tours.

Poised at the intersection of food and art history, an enchanting Texan beckons with her fork. Maite (My-tay) Gomez-Rejon, 39, with a graduate degree in art history from the Art Institute of Chicago and a Grande Diplome from the French Culinary Institute in New York City, worked as a museum educator and private chef until two years ago, when she started a company called ArtBites to integrate her passions. Now the Los Angeles-based chef and teacher crisscrosses the country conducting one-day adventures for folks who also find fascination in the fusion of food and art. Last week at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gomez-Rejon guided a group of seven women (and her male cousin)

At the shiny penny of a sandwich shop in Fairmount called Rybread (the "Ry" is for Ryan), the creation myth begins with the Road Trip '09. Ryan Pollock and his girlfriend Stephanie Mertz, now 26 and 27, had been among the last hired at their suburban Washington, D.C., architectural office. So it was no mystery who'd be the first fired a couple of years ago when the recession dried up credit to finance the multifamily projects they'd been employed to design. They packed up their 2001 Hyundai Elantra, picked out stops from North Carolina's Outer Banks (a friend's wedding)

Anne Scardino waited slightly more than three years for the chance to ooh and aah at the building she'll call home in mid-January. That chance came yesterday, as she and scores of others, mostly dignitaries and developers, got the grand tour of 10 Rittenhouse Square, the long-delayed 33-story, 135-unit condo high-rise at 18th and Walnut Streets. Scardino, founder and owner of the consulting firm Belle Maison Design, signed a sales agreement for her 12th-floor condo in October 2006.

Planning is everything. My wife had selected Poland as our destination, and, after extensive research, put together a grand tour. In Krakow, our hotel was less than a block from the main square. We visited Auschwitz, the salt mines, Wawel Castle, museums and churches and took a Schindler's List tour. We were having such a great time that I didn't think much about an occasional mild ache in one of my upper molars. One night, the pain worsened and began to throb. Tossing and turning, I tried in vain to find a position that provided relief.

Steven Smith has become well acquainted with airports and hotels in the last month, having crisscrossed the country working out for nine NBA teams and participating in the NBA predraft camp in Orlando, Fla. But after the former Northeast High and La Salle star wrapped up his grand tour of the league yesterday by working out for the 76ers, the message was understated but clear: There's no place like home. "I'll fit in anywhere and do what it takes to help the team," Smith said.

Twenty-five percent of the American population lives within four hours of Burlington County, a statistic that Darlene Scocca can't resist. Scocca became the county's first tourism director last Monday. She'll spend the next six months traveling around the county and making an inventory of every enticing spot. "It's going to be a great learning process to uncover all of the jewels that exist," she said, "from actual historic sites to the Pinelands to the bird sanctuaries. " After that, Scocca will create a marketing and tourism plan to "target" various segments of the population - history buffs, sports enthusiasts, shoppers - and entice people from both inside and outside the county.

AFTER READING about the Royal Tartaglione family riding around in limos (John Baer column, Nov. 20), I have a thought. While Rome burns at home (Philadelphia school district, the decline of the Democratic Party) the royal family rides with Romans, escorted by the Pennsylvania State Police and the Philadelphia Highway Patrol. Of course, all of this is paid for by you and me. The senator has been invisible during the school crisis, mainly because she was on a tour of Europe.