FINDING A PLACE TO RETREAT
by: Mary Bergin
Publication: The Capital Times
Email: tctlife@madison.com
Date: December 02, 2000
Finding a place to retreat may be the best gift you can give yourself.
One definition of the word “retreat” is “withdrawal to a safe or private place.”
Maybe that means your home study, a favorite hiking trail, a secluded church pew, another town where nobody knows your name.
When it means time away, a good retreat encourages self-examination, reflection or pure rest. It is not necessarily a vacation, in a modern-day sense, because it lacks commercial diversions and may prompt tough mental work.
The cell phone stays home. Your room may have a great view, but don’t expect a TV.
Last, I’ll briefly mention a nontraditional retreat and thank reader Mary Ann Ward of Madison for letting us all know about it 1 ½ years ago.
Mary Ann wrote to us about the Cooper’s Cove Bed and Breakfast, a 35-mile, curvy-road drive from Victoria, British Columbia.
Rooms have great water views, and the proprietors (Angelo Prosperi-Porta and Ina Haegemann) provide a wonderful gourmet dining experience.
Angelo was a part of Culinary Team Canada 1994. Time your visit right, as we did, and an overnight stay can include a cozy and leisurely, multi-course dinner prepared at the chef’s table.
From the good food, to a moonlit soak in a hot tub, to a morning run on the adjacent Galloping Goose Trail (a 60-kilometer former railway line), it was a heavenly way to take a break from reality.
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