Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder at the last one of the week.

And I hate to end the week on a note of some despondency, but let me begin.

You can hear the cars in the background

I'm walking through Detroit

which is basically what I've been doing for hours and hours and hours

trying to understand the city

trying to figure out where the life is

meet the people eat the food, drink the beer. But absolutely

nowhere have I thought, oh, I'll just pop in here because it is a city whose soul has escaped, I fear.

Let me take you back.

Detroit Motor City was in the, I guess, late 1950s and 1960s,

the richest city in America.

The golden age of the motorcar of the tail fin.

I'm just looking across here actually at a beautiful skyline

and I may have to take that picture

because it is looking very, very radiant.

So even though that was a lovely, perfectly framed vision, when you get close, you don't

suddenly think, ah, right, I understand this city now in the way that I've been going

down cities, I love cities, I love the thrill of getting to a new place of making discoveries.

I mean, I was this week in beautiful Toronto.

And I just found a fantastic bar, which I will certainly go back to.

And I met lots of friendly people and from all

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