September 29, 2022

Towns Named Albany

By roads-rus

There are lots of towns named Albany in the world. I have been to 3 of them. They tend to be stand alone communities wherever they are. There are 12 of them in the US with significant populations that are usually listed in atlas population figures, and 7 more in the US including a big Albany in the Bay Area of California north of Oakland with 20,000 people living in it. Like other towns, people who use this name tend to add words to it. The Albany in Iowa, for example, has “New” in front of its name.

The largest Albany in the USA is a capital city. In fact, it’s the capital city of New York State with almost 100,000 living there. I have been to it and.the Albanys in Oregon and Australia. The Albany in Australia has an unforgettable attraction and a funny thing happened to me in a hotel there.

There’s even an Albany in Missouri, my home state. To my knowledge, I have not been there. It’s in the part of the state I am least familiar with, the northwest. It remains a fairly large town with a population just under 2,000 and it stands alone. It has not, in other words, been absorbed into a larger community. The reason why there are so many viable towns name Albany has to do with its derivation, not its constant use. Albany is a Gaelic word in Scotland, and there is a Duke of York and Albany in the royal family. No wonder its use has spread throughout the former empire!

There are 2 Albany’s in Canada. One is in Nova Scotia and the other is on Prince Edward Island. The Albany in Nova Scotia has a “new” in front of it too and is near the town of Albany Cross.

The Albany in Australia is a town of 34,000 and is known for its beach culture. It has a Mediterranean climate and a dog sculpture that is quite realistic and worth seeing. It began as an enormous rock. We checked into a motel there and had a mechanical problem in the room. I reported it to the staff, and an employee came to fix it. He began by asking me if I happened to have a needle nosed pliers in my suitcase. The answer was “no” since I am not in the habit of traveling that far with tools.

There is even an Albany in New Zealand. It’s a suburb of Auckland. This is a great city but not my favorite city in this country. It is, however, where Ruth visited a Maori school. I loved a town on the South Island that was later mostly destroyed by an earthquake. It was called Christchurch and has kept that name.

Hank

About roads-rus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roads-rus
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 29th, 2022 at 9:02 pm and posted in Great City. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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