:: Travel Blog ::

:: Monday, January 01, 2007 ::

Rarely do we get misled by hotels with the frequency of the last week. First there was the Ibis hotel in Luzern that billed itself as being "near the city center" but was actually 3km into the suburbs of a different town. For this reason, Markus's GPS led us to a quaint little industrial neighborhood outside Luzern and gave up. When we eventually found the hotel, with a call to information services, and politely complained about the misrepresentation, the friendly attendant / clerk calmed us by informing us that it is only a 10 minute walk to the train station and a 5 minute train ride into town. Not a problem unless you have a pregnant wife. At least the Dunkel from the tanks at the Brauerei Rathaus was appropriately malty and clean or I might have actually been moved to care on the journey back to the hotel later that night.

The second bit of misinformation was handed out by the hotel here near Seville, or should I say, in the forgotten olive-pumping village of Montellano 65km from Seville. In Europe, 65 km is a long way. The traveller might encounter a completely different language, attitude to foreigners, or perhaps even an incompatible religion in half that distance. In Montellano we found a traditional Andalucian town unencumbered by tourist pressures, but one that is getting itself polished up for a slice of that pie and all of the eventual changes it brings. Things haven't quite taken off yet however, as the eating and drinking establishments are exclusively of the cerveceria / bodega category serving Cruzcampo beer and highly functional tapas to a clientele 99.99 percent of local constitution. Angelia and I made up that residual .01 percent in case you are wondering how I could possibly know this.

In the case of Montellano and the Hotel Posado (which translates roughly to "hotel inn") the slight exaggeration in proximity to Seville turned out to be an interesting cultural twist of fate. When we arrived at the hotel we were greeted by a lively festival in the parking lot attended by at least 4 generations of Montellanos. Frosty-haired matriarchs sat before oil drum fire pits leading unfamiliar Christmas carols while sons, daughters, grand children and great grand children danced and sang along. I wouldn't bet the farm on it, but I think I might have witnessed a burst of spontaneous Flamenco dancing, but there wasn't a guitar within earshot. A table of free sherry and anisette liqueur provided the fuel for merriment, while sweet cakes and cookies made from almond flour and lard posed as sponges for the alcohol. A second-hand nativity scene rounded out the authenticity of the event, but hold on here, isn't this the 29th of December? Why are they still celebrating Christmas 4 days later? Could the party not wait until New Years Eve? As I write this on New Years day, it seems the Spaniards are still celebrating Christmas, so I guess the holiday is taken rather more seriously here than elsewhere.

The whole evening was rather charming, that is, until I was awoken at 2 am by revellers had brought their drums and tambourines into the hotel lobby with them, and sappy drunk on sweet anisette sang the same tune for over an hour until they got it right. They finally called it quits after 3. Somehow Angelia slept through it all.

:: Kevin 1:33 PM [+] ::
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As promised the videos we took are on the web.

Crossing the Djemaa el Fnaa main square in Marrakesh

How to find a hotel in Marrakesh

:: Kevin 2:10 PM [+] ::
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Yesterday brought a bit of controlled adventure to our trip. We hired a guide to walk us around a valley in the high Atlas and through some Berber villages; It was rugged, relaxing, gorgeous and informative. If you aren't yet familiar with the Berbers, well you aren't the only one. They are the indigenous inhabitants of this part of Africa, but nobody knows for sure just HOW indegenous, their occupation goes back at least to a time when the Sahara was a forest more than 10,000 years ago. They are not Arab, and speak a language with no modern relatives, though it is part of the Afro-Asiatic family. Their name simply means Barbarian, thanks to the Romans.

As we climbed the steep-walled valley we passed numerous villages large and small scaling the precipitous slopes. It was quite a setting, with the season's first snow dusting the highest peaks at over 4000 meters, or around 12000 feet and a blazing sun lighting up the red rock and the incipient fall color. The rarified air; the clear cascades and the cool walnut forest made for a rich short hiking experience. I won't go so far as to call it a trek like the silly guide books do. It was enough to wet my appetite for a longer excursion here at some point in the future.

:: Kevin 4:13 AM [+] ::
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Morocco is a very good intro to Africa. Technically part of the continent, it allows entry into Africa's mysteries without the risks required to experience much of the rest of it. The roads are nice, the traffic is relatively sane, and the major means of transportation give even Belgium a challenge for cleanliness and efficiency, but that's not really saying much.

We were quite surprised to find the old city, or Riad, of Marrakesh quite accomodating despite its narrow, packed streets crammed with zealous merchants. A few stray kittens were the only members of the usually prominent feral class of citizens. These are kept company by a couple of beggars, no more than in Western cities, and certainly not aggressive. We've seen nothing in the way of the abject poverty and pain that one would find in much of Asia. The garbage is handled efficiently and quietly, somehow, and sewage is somewhere underground where it should be. With such impressive credentials one might expect it to be a bit boring and lacking in authentic charm, but it is certainly not. Sure, its not your hippie parents' Marrakesh, but who cares? There are still street performers, snake charmers, storytellers and vendors of all sorts of oddities. You risk your life when crossing the street (video coming soon) and if wander down the wrong alley you may never see daylight again. We have seldom ventured from the established route to and from the main square. The only time we did, looking as lost and confused as Dorothy and Toto (i'll play the dog in this one) the locals sensed it and were on us like paparrazi on royalty. Where you want to go? Where you come from? Luckily we knew the answer to the last question and backtracked to our hotel.

The hotel, by the way, is not your average accomodation. Tucked waaaay back behind alley after alley (video soon), it seemed as though we might never find our way back if we left. But behind those doors we have enjoyed homey luxury with tasteful Moroccan-African decor and super friendly service. Breakfast or drinks (usually a high quality Moroccan Cabernet - 12 bucks) is brought to you wherever you want it; either in the quiet tiled courtyard, the second story terrace with a cot and reading lounge, or the rooftop terrace with a view over the old city to the Massive Atlas mountain range to the South.

Overall the food has proven expensive and predictable, but it is very, very tasty. Meat, meat and more meat slow-cooked in a tagine (a teepee-shaped clay pot) to tender perfection. It can be a little wearying, but the coast tomorrow promises the freshest fish imaginable. So that's the wonderful city of Marrakesh. Oh and I almost forgot, the weather is perfect.

:: Kevin 3:28 AM [+] ::
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Diving off of Vela Luka on the island of Korcula was a dream. Angelia and I completed our advanced open water training with an outfit called Croatia Divers run by a British-Dutch couple with a lot of energy and more customers than they know what to do with. The word is out, Croatia has some fantastic diving. If your not exploring scores of wrecked fishing boats or a Croatian navy boat blown to bits with shells strewn about, you might be swimming through a hole 30 feet down into a cavern lit from above and covered with red, yellow and purple gorgonians and corals and sheltering octopus, giant prawns and scorpionfish. Or you might simply explore a series of steps that fall away into the deep blue that teem with life including moray eels, damselfish, wrasse of every shape and color and still more octopus. These folks at Croatia Divers (www.croatiadivers.com) have these sites all to themselves as the diving industry is just getting started and there are simply far more dive sites than there are divers or dive companies to explore them.

In this course we did a deep dive to 100 feet/30 meters, a navigation skills dive, a night dive, a wreck dive where we mapped the wrecked boats on a slate as we're doing in this photo, and a Project AWARE fish identification dive. In addition we did two more dives before the course just to get re-acquainted with the water. We basically lived at the dive center and stayed at an apartment a short walk away. The town of Vela Luka is remote so I was not able even to access Internet. It is a fishing harbor and still buzzes with boats at night, but tourism is catching hold again after the hotels in the area were taken over by the Croatian military and used as hospitals during the recent war. The island itself is rugged, quiet, rustic and traditional with stone houses and vineyards or olive groves covering all the arable land. Pine trees grow right down to the water's edge and fill even the sea air with a fresh evergreen aroma. There are few places like Korcula left in the Mediterranean.

:: Kevin 8:45 AM [+] ::
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Southern Dalmatia is a completely different place than the island-strewn tourist mecca North along the coast. After passing through a tiny strip of Bosnia & Hercegovina the apartments and hotels seem to magically diminish and life suddenly takes on a more agrarian feel. Oyster farms replace paragliders and hoarding beachgoers while ugly developments have not yet replaced the vineyards and olive groves. Slim, shapely cypress trees reach for the sky scattering the steep rocky hillsides like an impressionist painting. Ancient church towers crown every ridge and hide on tiny islands in the sea far below. It was the relief we were looking for as our last few stops had been seething masses of Eastern European humanity where the Speedo is appropriate dress at fine restaurants and tireless hours of paddle ball entertain whole families large and small.

Here in Southern Dalmatia we could relax just a little bit more, find our own quiet place to sip a beer, have a dip in the blue Adriatic, or enjoy a reasonable meal of the freshest fish in the Mediterranean while watching other fish swim in the crystal clear sea at our feet. We stayed in the old Roman harbor of Cavtat (prn. tsavtat) south of Dubrovnik and awoke every morning to this unbelievable view! The town was quiet by geared to tourists with savvy wine bars serving up Croatia's best vino by the glass. Speaking of wines BTW, we have learned the names of at least 10 new varietals that are grown only here. One, the Grk (from Greek) is believed to be a holdover from the Hellenic age and grows only on the island of Korcula where we did our diving.

From Cavtat it was a 45 minute pleasure- boat tour to the magnificent city of Dubrovnik. I don't have the time nor the space to do Dubrovnik justice here, so stay tuned for my slide show after we return. Let me just say that coming into harbor amid the intact medieval walls of this city was truly outstanding. Walking the perimeter and admiring the tightly packed town from a myriad of angles sealed the deal Dubrovnik has to be one of Europe's top 5 medieval walled treats. It is also a forward thinking, clean and artistic place gleaming with white stone from the island that I am writing this from.

We have only 3 more days here and will be working our way North to Istria tomorrow. Some have called this place the "New Tuscany". We'll see.

:: Kevin 8:22 AM [+] ::
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We spent 5 minutes in Bosnia & Hercegovina and in the grand scheme of things it was 5 minutes too long. A small finger of land reaches out from the otherwise landlocked country and gives it a sliver of rocky shore on an Adriatic coast that is almost entirely dominated by Croatia. A trip down the the Dalmation coast requires a brief interruption in order to pass through the 3 km of Bosnian land enroute to the Jewell of the Adriatic, Dubrovnik.

It was somewhat exciting at first, seeing the signs change into Cyrillic writing and picking out as many cultural chages as we could in the few minutes we had: a mosque here, a differet word for French Fries, different cop cars. And that's were the excitement ended; the cop on the side of the road whipped out his flag and pulled me over for god knows what. Learning from my parents in Romania, my first instinct was to ignore them and step on the gas, but I figured, heck, this is a modern country, what could they want? Sure, they are still recovering from the devastations of war, but Croatians are awefully friendly to tourists, maybe he just wanted to wish us well in their fledgling country and recommend a restaurant run by his brother.

The policeman struts up to the car and says coolly, "Lights. Papers Please". I pull out my Washington State drivers license and my American passport along with the Hertz documentation and he glances at them briefly. Then he says "Kevin, I speak a little English. You Pay." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It's high noon, I can't read the signs, and he wants me to pay for not driving with my lights on. No ticket was issued of course, so I says, "I'll pay next time. I will keep my lights on for the rest of your country". He thinks about it for a moment and apparently it sounded reasonable as he gave me back my papers and we were on our way. We made no further stops in Bosnia and Hercegovina.

:: Kevin 7:48 AM [+] ::
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Well I have a lot to write, but no time to write it just now as we are hoping to get back to the mainland soon after 4 unbelievable days of diving off of Vela Luka on the island of Kor?ula. Angelia and I are now both advanced divers with PADI, it was quite a thrill for us both! We will be heading up toward Split in a few minutes, so stay tuned until I have some more time to blog.

:: Kevin 2:25 AM [+] ::
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Since I have had to promise our first-born child to pay for internet access here (1 dollar for 5 minutes) this will be short. We have worked our way down just shy of Dubrovnik to the seductive beach town of Brela beneath the towering cliffs of the Dalmatian coast. The entire coast south of Split is just mind-bogglingly beautiful and is no secret to the rest of Europe. Though most tourists are of Slavic origins, the place has been a haunt of the German-speaking world for some time, but little English is heard. The occaisonal American in knee-high socks and running shoes wearing a Titleist hat passes by, but we are certainly an anomoly here. Most Croats we talk to lament about not being well-known in the USA, and they all remind us of the glory days of Croat basketball when Toni Kukoc won many rings with the Bulls. We dare not utter the name Vlade Divac...he is a Serb, of the "hateful" people just over the hills, but that is another story. We will be on our way to Dubrovnik this afternoon.

:: Kevin 3:47 AM [+] ::
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After a rough start to our travels, which included missing our flight by five minutes after waiting for over an hour for cabs that never came, we began our journey in sunny Venice. It was one of those moments where I felt I had stepped into a postcard; gondolas driven by men in straw hats and striped shirts, miles of canals criscrossing a massive medieval city packed with tourists, most of them seemingly American (or possibly Canadian :-). The experience was enough to leave me with a satisfied yet curious feeling, an open door for a less-touristy time.

From Venice it was a short but looooong drive through NW Slovenia to Bohinj Lake where we stayed for 3 nights. The moment you cross the border into Slovenia from Italy, a crossing that was every bit as open as Belgium-France for example, the terrain changed from flat, rich farmland to steep, rugged scrub and forest, and it has not changed since. Slovenia is a backwater, but a charming backwater as it has preserved a natural and cultural heritage that seems to have faded into a mass-market facsimile in the more touristed parts of Switzerland and Austria. An odd mix of Slavic, Alpine(Austrian) and Italian influences has created a culture here with hearty food, great beer, refreshing wine, and alpine scenes complete with cowbells, mountain huts and polka music.

The Slovenian mountains are known as the Julian alps and are crowned by Mt. Triglav at around 9000 feet(2800 meters). They shine a brilliant white in low light due to their karstic limestone make-up. This also produces thousands of springs and waterfalls that shoot right out of the mountainside. The water in the streams is stunningly clear and creates the most inviting blues and greens as it slides over the white freestone beds. It was in one of these rivers that Angie and I fly-fished for a day in a valley that could have been in the NW as easily as the Balkans. The Rainbow trout were splendid, plentiful, and large and the weather ideal. We released them all but had a fantastic trout meal later on as a reward. Another day saw us hiking through alpine valleys with folks cutting and stacking hay for their cows. High, rugged peaks capped every view. It was a perfect couple of days.

We are now looking forward to a drive into Croatia after spending a day and a night in the lovely Slovenian Capital of Ljubljana. The town is small, manageable and has a great assortment of baroque and medieval buildings lining a river. The town is predictably crowned by a castle on a hill. The place does not seem to bear any scars of communism and is even cleaner and more efficient than Brussels. If Croatia is any better than Slovenia, as many people claim, we are in for an even greater treat over the next few weeks. Happy fourth and thanks for reading!

:: Kevin 12:04 PM [+] ::
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If the tsunamis don't kill us, the driving just might. Fasten your seatbelts and check out this Driving Video for a cockpit view of our trip down from the mountains.

:: Kevin 8:08 PM [+] ::
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Periyar lake is a man-made lake at 3000 ft. in the lush, tropical Cardamom Hills of central Kerala. We hired a car to drive us here from the over-the-top temple town of Trichy, where the surge of humanity surrounding the fascinating markets and religious monuments drove us out early Tuesday morning.

Here at Periyar, tourism centers around the large national park and its wildlife, so we wasted no time upon arrival booking a hike through the park service. At a cost of just 13 dollars a head for 9 hours of touring including breakfast, a curry lunch, and a chance to glimpse Asian elephants, wild bison (gaur), bear and maby even tigers and leopards in their natural habitat, it sounded like a bargain.

The group hike began in a lush spice plantation amid tidy village plots. It wasn't long before we spotted our first Elephant scat, a presence that remained constant along the full 15 km of the hike. Our first stop atop a grassy knoll and about 1000 feet higher than where we began left us with grand views, but no wildlife. Further back down the hill we stopped for breakfast by a creek where an impressive array of birds and butterflies darted here and there, splashing the dense tropical foliage with yellows, blues and bright greens. The next three hours, however, were fairly uneventful save for the wild pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg and mango that lined the trail. These are all indigenous and provided a fascinating ethnobotanical element to the hike. We soon reached the lake and followed its contours under the blistering midday sun, spotting many large water birds and some raptors. Lunch of warm potato curry and chipatties gave us time to rest up for the final stretch and one last chance to see some large mammals.

At about 3:30, after coming up empty-handed at two prime habitats, our guide stiffened and gave us a signal to stay quiet and follow him slowly over a rickety log bridge. At first we were unaware what the excitement was all about, but a flapping set of ears above the tall grass clued us both in. We had stumbled upon some elephants. From a distance, it looked like a pair, a large female and a smaller male. We approached quietly on the flank hoping to get a closer view before they noticed us and fled into the forest. Then, the big beasts did something they weren't supposed to do; they began moving toward us! The guide told us to jump off the trail, which we did and watched in anxious silence as not two but three Asian elephants emerged from the brush. The third, however, only sounds good in cute baby stories, it was a calf. We spent the next (eternal) 10 minutes locked in a standoff with the bold family. A mere 10 meters and a deep ditch separated us from a growling, trumpeting, dirt-kicking tusker and his mate. When the guide motioned for us to leave, the irrated male had a fit and howled in triumph as if to say "That's what I thought, chumps!". Though this was obviously the climax of the day, but we did spot a herd of gaur and a jackal on the way out. They kept their distance, thankfully. Not bad for a day hike. See the video of the encounter ::HERE::

:: Kevin 4:06 AM [+] ::
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The tsunami hit the beach at 9:30 on a quiet Sunday morning. I was having coffee with my father when the power failed, followed shortly by an unusual amount of commotion on the street. At about 10:00 am an Indian coast guard chopper flew low over the beach, giving us pause to attempt a connection, but the air was too fresh, the sky too blue, and the coffee too aromatic to bother getting up. We thought nothing of it and continued discussing matters that now seem quite trivial. At 10:15 the guard, Edward, came in to tell us in broken English that the power had been shut off deliberately due to fears of water shorting out the grid. My father looked at me with a furled brow and a cocked head that signalled he had finally taken a hint. I fetched my shiny new Grundig mini-world SW radio, purchased for just such an occasion, and tuned in a crisp BBC World channel. The first sentence I heard seized my guts with a anxiety, "...hundreds confirmed dead and thousands feared washed out to sea at resorts and coastal villages from Thailand to Southern India and Sri Lanka." The reports first focused on Phuket Thailand, an idyllic place I visited as a boy with the hope of someday returning. Then, like a kick in the stomach, "Hundreds of bodies recovered in Chennai(Madras), India" the city in which we were having coffee that morning just 100 meters from the beach. On that morbid note, we grabbed our cameras and headed for the beach, where the reality of the tsunami finally struck. We were greeted by shattered walls, grounded boats, police units, and a writhing, restless ocean swell that threatened to break free like an enraged man held back by feebly by his chums. Now and then a wave would do just that, and wash up near our feet while children played in the surf as though it were just a game. We bailed in a hurry and returned home to a place that would have been demolished had the wave hit with the same ferocity as it did only a hundred miles further south. After 6 solid hours of BBC and CNN, with mounting casualties, and having just retured from a beach resort further south where fishing villages are stacked upon one another mere meters from high tide, I couldn't help but think that the sickening number of 3000 was just the tip of the iceberg. And now here we are 5 days later with the number of dead over 20 times that amount. It feels good to be alive.

:: Kevin 3:35 AM [+] ::
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Our first day in Chennai involved a preliminary survey of the immediate area around my parents' place in Chennai. India "happens" right outside the front door of their plush place. Cows, poverty, garbage, and throngs of people on foot seem to penetrate every corner of the cities we've seen. They live a hundred meters from the beach, which is used more by fishermen in ancient wooden rafts than by beachgoers. On Sunday afternoon Verges,the school driver who also took us around Tamil Nadu Mon-Thurs, came over with their housekeeper (Sara) with some silk Saris she had made for them. They prayed for us (both are Christian) blessed us with some garlands of sandalwood. Dinner that night at a beach resort nearby started the trend of splendid, gluttunous meals we've eaten since our arrival.

Early Monday morning we started a mind-numbing, bone-rattling journey through the Tamil Nadu countryside to Kanchipuram, a temple town and former seat of ruling power in the state. There we toured a Vaishavite (for the god Vishnu, the protector) temple with outstanding carvings and large groups of devoted pilgrims. We bagged some Kanchipuram silk (regarded as the best in India - by locals at least) and drove further southwest through fantastic scenery and agrarian scenes so romantically Indian that I barely knew where to start with my camera. Around every bend was a scene from Francis Ford Coppola's Powaqquatsi playing itself out as it has for thousands of years. Our destination for the night was Tiruvannamalai (tee roo vanna muh lie), another of the many temples towns in these parts with one of the largest and most impressive complexes in India. The allure of this temple is the fact that non-hindus are welcome into the inner sanctum of the Shivaite (for Shiva, the destroyer) temple. We made the effort to get in and were rewarded with a blessing of ash on the forehead and a witnessing of the daily anointing, dressing, garlanding, and parading of a Shiva lingam. If you don't know what that is, look it up. The other attraction is its setting at the foot of an extinct volcano on top of which priests ignite a large vat of purified butter, a representation of Shiva as god of fire. Just missed that, but the temple was worth the visit.

On the way back to the coast on Tuesday we stopped by a magnificent fort called Gingee that represents the impressive military prowess of the Pallava dynasty of the 13th century, one of the more recent of the lot. This incredible complex was virtually ours alone, with only a raucous monkey family to contend with. Not far from here, and a near completion of our circuit, we checked into a luxury resort at Mammalapuram and checked out of the chaos of India for a few days, save for a brief foray to the 7th century shore temple and murals that are the major draw here. Fifty bucks a night buys modest luxury and a private stretch of beach with all the trappings. It was a Christmas gift from my parents.

Now, Thursday, we're back in Chennai after a day of shopping downtown including Higginbotham's bookstore and the American Embassy commissary, where we picked up a few cans of refried beans. Tomorrow brings more of the same around Chennai along with with plenty of reading, and preparation for our Journey South to Kerala and Madurai.

:: Kevin 2:58 AM [+] ::
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The remainder of our Roman weekend that began with the trip to Carcassone centered around the step-child of Arles, Nîmes, a small town with its own impressive Roman coliseum in which died countless gladiators and exotic animals. Perhaps as a consequence of resting in a region with virtually no seismic activity, the structure is still remarkably intact. It has, however, had to endure endless invasions and a 300-year stint as a condominium before being restored to its present condition by Napolean III. Another pleasant surprise in the welcoming old town of Nîmes was the temple of the cult of Roman dieties, which was a place to worship Roman emperors that had become gods in their afterlife. This particular one appeared to be dedicated to the emperor Augustus an had a few interesting exhibits describing his life and times.

After tapping Nîmes, we boarded a bus for one of the most impressive extant Roman monuments, the Pont du Gard. The Romans built this amazing structure, towering above us upon 3 storys of elegant arches, over 2,000 years ago to complete the aqueduct to Nîmes. That they built it entirely without mortar is yet another brick in the wall of my incomprehension. That's about all I have to say about the Pont du Gard, and I don't know that any more descriptive words would bring anyone any closer to comprehending its power. It's something that you really should experience for yourself.

It was here that I noticed the peculiar behavior of European tourists who seem predisposed to flock together in unconcious herds while a few of the more "adventurous" types explored beyond the obvious boundaries to find a quiet spot of their own to populate. Curiously, Europeans also find it difficult to respect that desire as annoying groups trampled around us periodically to take photos of themselves against the monument. It was as if someone else had to certify the territory before it was deemed fit to visit, in the way that dogs like to go up and smell other dogs' excretions. I imagine that had we left an empty bottle of wine and a litter of spent picnic provisions, the place we occupied would soon have filled with happy gapers. Meanwhile up on the bridge beside the Pont du Gard, hundreds and hundreds of conditioned tourists congealed into a highly viscous flow of humanity crossing back and forth below the monument. This tendency has given us the confidence to "discover" our own unique perspectives of European natural and historic sites while the majority of souls consume the clichéd versions time after time. It's not easy, but it can be done with a little creativity and some help from Rick Steves whenever possible.

:: Kevin 3:28 AM [+] ::
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It has been a Roman holiday for us this past weekend. The weather hasn't cooperated with us in the least, so we chose cultural and historical destinations rather than beaches. To my surprise, the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France is a bazaar of fantastic tourist sites that challenge anything else I've seen before.

The walled marvel of Carcassone drew us into it's medievale fantasy the Saturday before Easter in blustery, finger-numbing conditions. This city brings to life all the magic of Camelot, the hubris of the Crusades, and the tenuous existence of those defending it. Europe's greatest fortified city reenacts these dramas on many different stages, within the amazingly preserved walls, moats, and houses of an indestructible fortification known throughout history simply as "La Cité."

Carcassone, was built upon the site of a much older Roman fort that took quite a beating after they left it to the Vandals, who subsequently left it to the Arabs. The wealth brought back via the Crusades helped to build, in the 12th century, what we see today. Another somewhat obscure people of historical interest are the Cathars, who were a heretical group of Christians that didn't eat meat and believed in reincarnation. These pour souls became statistics of a genocidal campaign to ease the mind of a Pope and his buddy on the throne of France. The Cathars left dramatic castles throughout the mountains of this region, and fought off intruders from this very walled city before being annhialated from this Earth by one of Christianity's more regrettable and pointless inquisitions.

The city itself is something right from the mind of Peter Jackson. Its outer defenses are separated from the much higher and quite intimidating inner wall by a space of about 25 yards. Inside the inner wall lay chaotic streets and an impressive gothic cathedral. As a final layer of defense, the nobles who lived here were cocooned within a towering, subsantial château hugging the most precipitous and inaccessible part of the mount.

In addition to the visuals, we satisfied our gastronomic curiosities with a simmering pot of pork, beans and duck popularized in Roman kitchens and spread throughout the colonies for us to enjoy as "Cassoulet". This was preceded by an ironically named Cathar salad that featured preserved duck. Maybe the Cathars included poultry in their vegetarian diets. We washed all this down with a wonderful bottle of Corbière that spoke of greatness, but like others of its name, will likely forever lay content in its humble Mediterranean niche.

Despite the gaggles of tourists, most of them Spanish, we truly enjoyed the place and are glad we visited it during the off-season. We can only imagine the pestilence wrought upon Carcassone in July and August when the rest of the world lays seige to la Cité in hopes of fulfilling a private medievale fantasy.

:: Kevin 3:28 AM [+] ::
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Though this is not about to become a wine blog, if you've read any of my previous travel blogs you'll remember that wine has been a recurring them in any of our Mediterranean journeys. It should come as no surprise then, that the wines of the Languedoc-Roussillon region have met the discerning buds of our palettes at a fairly high frequency. This region, which stretches from the Eastern Pyrenees to the border of Provence, has many different appelations (specific growing zones) too numerous to list here, but some of the more common are Corbière, Faugère, Minervois, l'Herrault, and Côtes du Languedoc. These appelations combine a number of grape varieties and, thus, can't be categorized as "varietals" like American wine drinkers are accustomed to seeing. Most French wines, in fact, do not put the varieties on their labels as they believe that the earth and microclimate the grape is grown in has more effect on a wine's flavor than the grape variety itself has. That said, most of the reds from this region are made with a blend of grenache, syrah, cinsault, and mourvedre grapes, the latter two of which are not employed outside of the region.

These wines offer a little something for everyone, depending on your budget. We have been quite happy with the "under 3 crowd" and have not always been happier with the the more expensive "reserves". Depending on your tastes, of course, these wines can be a bit challenging and disorienting. The Corbières have been our favorite so far, but tend to be on the spicy side with an aroma of oysters and flavors of pepper and cheese on top of classic blackcurrant. It has grown on us, and we would recommend this appellation to anyone who wants something very complex and just a bit different. This style tends to be very low on oak flavors and tannins. The Minervois are highly touted but have been regrettable, as they have been highly alcoholic with a harsh solventy taste, rather than a warming effect. They also tend to taste rather grapey, and this is, ironically, not a coveted trait for any wine without a thunderbird on its label. One of my favorites was a Côtes du Languedoc (Languedoc Coast) that approached the rich fruit of a good Zinfandel or a Montepulciano, yet for only 2.50 a bottle. Wine stores around here have a very large selection of this potentially spendy (10-20 Euro) appellation and, some of which we later tried and were impressed, but not enough to spend the extra money for them. We tried a few Faugeres, one of around 4 and another of 12 Euro, and noticed a similar theme. The wine was quite strong and took a while to calm down and open up after corking. The expensive one was full of wonderful fruit, while the cheap one was drinkable but noticeably less complex. It was good, but still a bit rough around the edges. Fitou is another one that I had a glass of at a nice restaurant and this one had a lot of promise, but toward the end of the glass began to get that grapey sensation.

Today after class we traveled down to the coastal resort town of Sete (prn. Set) to try some of the whites of the region. Before making our way to the winery, however, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant that had the perfect formula for luring Angelia into biting, oysters, oysters, and more oysters. Her plate looked like a lesson on marine taxonomy, with raw oysters and mussels quivering in their own juices while the sea-snails and prawns lay there happily cooked. Angelia had to ask for something, anything, to accompany the bivalves down her throat, which was offered up in the form of garlic mayonnaise, or aioli. Meanwhile I was gorging myself on spicy fish soup and cooked mussels in a beefy red sauce with pasta. OK, I did try and enjoy the fresh oysters and even a sea-snail, but I didn't do the raw mussel. I'll save it for another day.

Après dinner, we caught a bus up the coast to the winery of la Payrade, which makes nothing but white wines from muscat grapes. These were excellent, and of good value. We settled on the outstanding late harvest that tasted like the NW ice wines at a fraction of the cost. These grapes are grown on flat, reclaimed salt marshes with poor drainage, obviously, and seem to defy all notions of ideal viticulture. The muscat was as good as any we tried in the more well-known Alsace region, and at 4 Euro a bottle, came at roughly the same price. They offered both a dry and a sweet version of the same wine, and mentioned that the sweet wine must have at least 125 grams of sugar per bottle to qualify as a "sucré" (sweet) muscat under French rules. It was almost 14.5% alcohol by volume and had a powerful bouquet.

In conclusion, if you ever hear that the wines of the Languedoc are "undiscovered", its a lie. They have been discovered, but it will take a lot of marketing and time to challenge the Bordeauxs, the Burgundies, and the Côtes du Rhones that form a powerful triumviate of ruling French appelations. That said, they do represent a remarkably good value potential all the way from the top to the bottom of the spectrum, however you'll have to try quite a few of them to find one that suits your tastes. But that's the fun part, right? What is odd is that people in the U.S. can easily get these wines for less money than comparable wines from the West Coast.

P.S., if you happen to see a Cahors (prn. Ka-ore), buy one and impress yourself and your friends with a truly "undiscovered" (in the U.S. at least) red wine called the "black wine of the Dordogne." This is where the oak for French oak barrels is harvested and they make a wonderful red with it. The Dordogne, by the way, is just East of the Bordeaux region. Don't forget to mention that you heard it here first.

:: Kevin 3:28 AM [+] ::
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I am continually surprised by the amount of ground and the variety of sites one can cover while touring Europe by car. Limited even to just a weekend, one can explore medieval cities, scenic river valleys, war memorials, and hilltop castles while sampling the local produce in regions as climatically and culturally distinct as Seattle is from Mexico City. We accomplished such a feat this last weekend and I would have to say that our express tour left us with a fairly profound idea of the many ways that the many "pays" of France can challenge and stimulate both your senses and your imagination.

We picked up our car in Lille, just accross the border from Belgium in what was previously Flanders, but is now a revitalized French city. As night fell we navigated the pathetic highways south of Lille hoping to arrive in Rouen at a decent hour. We failed this endeavour and furthermore failed to gain entrance to the hotel that we had reserved for the night. So we walked the cold, windy streets of Rouen, ignoring for the moment the characteristic half-timbered Norman architecture, looking for a place to lay our heads. We found a suitable spot, sauced our brains with a glass or two of cheap wine, and hit the sack. It was on a bright, fresh morning that we tackled the streets of Rouen with a little help from Rick Steves. What a great town this is. It has seemingly everything one could ask for from a classic medieval city: A high-gothic cathedral (one of the best I've seen)surrounded by a brooding citadel, a flourishing produce market, and block after block of narrow pedestrian streets backed by inspiring half-timbred houses dating from the 15 to 18th centuries, some even earlier. A unique accompaniment to the otherwise predictable medievale tourist fare was the plague cemetary, a spooky square decorated with skulls, bones, grave-diggers' tools, and other ghoulish carvings under which lies the limed bodies of roughly half the inhabitants of plague-ridden Rouen. It is now an art school, but the the mummified corpse of a large black cat encased by the entrance to the grave site still stands arched and able to ward off evil spirits coming to damn the souls of the fallen. And crowning a perfect 3 hours in Rouen, we stood and gazed upon the very square meter in which burned the fire that martyred a one Arc, Joan of. A few feet away stood a monument to the 800-odd unfortunate nobles that involuntarily sat for an efficiency study of the newly-invented guillotine. The outcome of this study proved a signifacant decrease both in the number of mamed subjects and traumatized executioners. It was quite a success.

Leaving Rouen, we settled on France's most inhabitable valley, the Loire, as our afternoon destination. The Norman countryside continued to impress as we made our way south through rain-soaked pastureland. Centuries-old pubs and farms stood by the busy highway in self-assured neglect of the forces of modernity. We passed through many a village where an abbey, not a Wal-Mart, stood as the centerpiece, and where the pulsing vein of commerce on which we travelled passed through it like a worm-hole through time. Just before leaving lovely Normandy, to which we will surely return, I remarked that it was too bad we were not able to sample the various cider products, which are famous Norman specialties. My breath still warm with these words, we blew past a sign bearing a large ripe apple and the words "Cidre Fermier", which means of course, fermented cider. We obligingly followed the signs to a small home cidery and carried out the customary ritual of tasting a few samples before leaving wth 20 bucks worth of alcohol. It was the perfect end to a perfect 5 waking hours in Normandy.

The Loire came upon us suddenly, as did the familiar names (to wine and fruit lovers) of Vouvray, Chinon and Anjou. The most striking feature of this valley were the cliff-dwellings, not of ancient civilizations, however, but of rich French families that bought unique river view properties. The low-quality sandstone cliffs apparently allow for easy tunnelling, making it possible to build the equivalent of entire apartment blocks in the rocks. They have swallows for neighbors. After a brief moment of déja-vu, where the landscape conspired to remind us of the Willamette valley, we spotted the historic town of Amboise at a bend further up-river. Its proud château, once the residence of King François I, shocked us back into the reality of our whirlwind tour de France. Amboise is the famous location of two things: the residence of a French king, and the resting place of a one Da Vinci, Leonardo who capitulated his prolific career here under the patronage of the aformentioned Roi de France. We visited his home and marvelled at the models of his many fantastic inventions. My favorite was the hand-propelled car which applied the notions of a continuous-action lever and transmission to power a small wooden cart. I think the upper-body strength required to operate it eventually led to it's demise as a practical invention, considering the amount of relative work required to operate a horse-drawn cart. The concept, however, was not far from the piston rods of later steam-powered engines.

After bagging a few samples of good wine from the Loire valley, we jumped in our car and bagged a classic Loire château, the notorious Chenonceau of King Henry II fame. This he built for his mistress, who was later asked politely to leave by his wife, Catherine de' Medici, after he died in a jousting tournament. The grounds and châteaux have all the trappings of a medieval fantasy, wowing the visitor with precipitous moats, a 12th century tower, massive doors with a knocker high enough to reach on horseback, and original tile floors worn to the clay in the middle yet beautifully preserved at the rooms' perimiter. South of here, a castle around every bend and a winery in between begged us to stop and uncork for a picnic, but we would have nothing of it. We had to tick off the klicks and make it at least as far south as Limoges before turning in again for the evening. This we accomplished, and spent a few more waking hours conteplating the regions cattle breeds (the limousines) before bailing early in the morning for our next and possibly most profound experience of the trip.

On June 10th, 1944, a platoon of war-hardened Nazis entered the small town of Oradour-sur-glen and unceremoniously applied the horrific tactics of their Eastern front peers. They rounded up the 642 remaining residents and herded the women and children into the church, while partitioning the men into smaller, more manageable groups. The women and children met their end with via chemical warfare, machine gun spray, and a large bonfire made from their bodies and the church they were huddled in. The men, on the other hand, stared down the barrels of Nazi lugers until each one took a 9mm charge in the skull. Some of the men were hung from balconies and burned while Allied troops were closing in from the West. Somehow, 6 people lived to tell about it. Even without them, the village is itself a stirring testimony, untouched for 60 years. On this wet April day we walked down day-after streets seemingly brought to life from original footage of "A World at War" and stood awestruck by the rusting cars, sewing machines, and bicycles still sitting in their garages, resting on their sills, and hanging from the shelled walls of a town now standing as a war memorial more real and horrific than I could have ever imagined. I was moved, if not just a bit choked-up by the spectacle before me. Now, consider for a moment that about half of the village's young men were left dead or wounded fighting (and winning I might add) World War I a mere 24 years earlier. This adds up to the equivalent of a bum deal wouldn't you say? What those men and women died fighting for, we were on a pilgrimage to discover, the ineffable joi-de-vie of a people that have healed the scars of centuries of war with an appreciation for the simple pleasures of life.

Later that day, we emerged from France's maritime climate into the spectacular valley of the Dordogne with foie-gras, sunshine, and wine on our minds. Spectacular cliff-clinging castles are a dime-a-dozen in these parts, and seemed to greet us around every bend of the riverside road winding through this fertile valley. The destination was Beynac, now famous for its part in the set of the film "Chocolat". The other major contributors to the fame of this popular destination (in which we were virtually alone I might add), are the thousands of geese that meet with a fate worse, in some respects, than the residents of the war-torn village we had just left. The many donators of fattened goose liver spend their lives with an overweight French peasant straddling their backs force-feeding them grain through a funnel shoved down their throats. The result is foie-gras, a paste that looks and smells like cat food and tastes "like budda". We sampled some of this appetizing fare with a bottle of really cheap wine and a country baguette. I prefer Friskies myself, but the texture of this stuff can't be beat. As for Beynac, I can only say, briefly, wow...this town is awesome. In any other setting, the place would be just another medievale town winding up a steep hill to its crowning fortress, but here in this dramatic valley, with competing fortresses in every direction, colorful cliffs and their adorning rock formations, and the lush pastureland below, it was a little slice of heaven...with a schmear of ground-up goose liver on top.

The rest of the story isn't all that interesting, as it involved a looooong drive through wide-open countryside, slowly drying out under the glare of the Mediterranean sun. After a total of 1000 Kilometers covered in 48 hours, we arrived in Montpellier, the site of our 2-week language course, under warm, blue skies. More will come, but now I must have a drink of wine and study up on my French.

:: Kevin 3:27 AM [+] ::
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Have you ever ate a mountain of meat? Have ever wondered what a mountain of meat would look like? And if you did eat a mountain of meat, have you ever wondered what would happen to it once it entered your digestive system? The thought had never occured to me until after I saw my first meat mountain, in Strasbourg, France, a place where French creativity meets German utilitarianism. At the core of this mountain was solid cone of sauerkraut, tart and fermented well enough to simply melt in your mouth. A thick mantle of swine obscured this core with cuts from every corner of the carcass. A slice or two of tender ham, a knuckle with a thick collar of tough fat, and a healthy belly portion. The remainder of the body was surely represented by the 3 varieties of sausage forming tight ridges around the mountain. A small mound of potatos stood symbolically to the side as though it were actually needed for something.

I ordered this meat mountain because that's just what people do in Strasbourg, they eat a lot of swine. I felt that I needed to know the area in the flesh, from the perspective of a local resident who might eat this much undisguised, unadulterated pig meat on a regular basis. The dish is called "Charcroute Gourmande" or Gourmet Sauerkraut. Every restaurant from tourist trap to local hangout serves it. For the faint of heart (weaklings), they also serve a version with two types of fish that feebly represents the same idea.

As I contemplated ordering this dish, I spied another soul who had undertaken the task of consuming this mountain and I was dismayed to observe this individual eating every sqare inch of fat off the mountain. Surely, I thought this was not customary, nor expected. Surely the waiter would not tell me to "eat my fat" If I tried to say that I had finished with a small hill of fat still overshadowing the mound of potatoes. Even if I were to insult someone, I was not going to eat the fat. With a half liter of fine Alsacian amber, however, I would at least be able to wash down the meat layered in thick swatches of insulation.

I took on that mountain and conquered it, finishing everything but the most repulsive globs of fat and other unknowns. Like any great conquest, it should hurt afterward, and I must say that I paid dearly for it the next day.
Photos of Alsace

:: Kevin 7:28 AM [+] ::
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I have just posted a slide show from the Matterhorn and a show for the Cinque terre hike in the Sun Jul 20 posts. There also here is a show from the Jungfrau region that I didn't get around to Blogging about.

:: Kevin 10:15 AM [+] ::
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Last night, while putting away a few Italian hours at the wine cellar in our campground in Tuscany (yes you read that right), I had a wine moment that is still with me this evening. The wine cellar is an authentic relic retained with the old farm compound purchased by this campground in its development. From the terrace of this "bar" one can gaze over the hazy hills of Tuscany and almost hear the grapes growing. The steward approached and told us that he would be a moment, so we studied the wine menu patiently until he returned 15 minutes later for our order. We ordered a bottle of 1999 Carmigniana from the Campenzana winery, established by the Medici family (the notorious patrons of Renaissance art) North of Florence during the 15th century . We had been offered this very wine at a tasting in another enoteca and liked it, so it was an easy choice after seeing it on the menu. In astonishment the steward says "You know...that is one of the best wines I have in my entire cellar. How did you know about this wine?" He recognized the bar we cited as our source and said "He is a good man. You cannot do better than this wine." For 20 Euros, I figured that even slightly embellished, this would be worth every drop.

In a few minutes he returned with a plate of cheese, tomatoes and olives, three glasses, and this bottle which he arranged on our table as though he was preparing a shrine. The seal was carefully cut away from the bottle and he levered the cork from the bottle with surgeon's hands. He poured the first splash into the glass, rolled it around the sides, then poured this sealant of sorts into another of the glasses...repeat again. He poured a well-measured glass for each of us and demanded that we not touch it for 30 minutes! He said it would be "...like making love to a beautiful woman with a blindfold on." This was enough for me to hold off for at least fifteen minutes, but I admit I may have broken into it a bit early. After noticing that we had begun drinking it, he pulled a chair up to our table and began telling us about the wine. "This is one of the oldest farms in all of Tuscany, he says, and easily one of the best wineries in all the world. By drinking this wine now, you are only appreciating its potential for growth. This is like a beautiful child, that will mature well for 15, 20 years or more." I certainly enjoyed the wine as much as his monologue; however, I was not ready to invest in a 15 year wine project.

This guy was brilliant, brimming with passion for the "alchemy" of wine making as he called it. After we polished this bottle off I just told him what flavors I wanted in the next bottle a wine and he mulled it over for a moment then returned with another, over which he began another speech.

"In Montalcino, they make a wine that will bring you to your knees in reverence. This wine will last a hundred years if taken care of properly." he continued. "The Gentile grape only performs in that one small area, and will not grow anywhere else. We had been 15 minutes from Montalcino when we headed North instead for Siena, after spending the afternoon in Montepulciano. In Montepulciano, we had been blown away by our wine tasting experience. In our second cantina, as they call tasting rooms in that area, a nice old woman told us simply to pour whatever we wanted to taste. 5 glasses later I thought I might have tasted at least 3 of the best wines I've had in recent memory. Thus, I couldn't resist his recommendation for this wine that he claimed was one of only 2,000 bottles made. The wine was called "Bacchus", and after another ritualized presentation and tasting, I knew the salty old Greek was alive in that bottle of wine. I bought another to take to Belgium with us.

When he sat down again to talk with us I began to tell him, with a bit of wine in my belly, that I truly appreciated his understanding of the subtleties of wine because I was a brewer and that some beers are made with the same principles of wine. This he could not believe at first, but I encouraged him to hear me out. He had no concept of beer making, but listened intently to my treatise and even asked some timely questions. Before I was through I think I might have had him truly interested in tasting a 10 year old barley wine or Belgian strong ale. Maybe I'll bring him one next year.

Time for a glass of Chianti

:: Kevin 9:14 AM [+] ::
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So all of you suckers who think Europe is a difficult place for Americans, chew on this. I am a damn celebrity as one of the few Americans in these campgrounds (But there are a lot of yanks in the tourist towns).

Last night at this restaurant at the campground I was stricken up in conversation with a Danish man who had many interesting things to share about politics, despite my best interests. He said that 50% of Danish support the military action in Iraq, but most of these wish it could have been done differently. He also said that Northwest wines are all the rage and vastly overpriced in Denmark. He was quite fascinated to hear about the area. His English was perfect in spite of the fact that he had never left Europe. We talked for 4 hours about all manner of things gastronomic and socio-political and what I understood was that He hated the Dutch, English, and French (Appparently the Germans have increased their status lately as one of the more likeable nationalities in travel circles, mostly I think because they havent been travelling much lately) yet kept wanting to recite Friends episodes with me. He also felt that JFK was the worlds last great statesman.

At one point a 110 year old Englishman interrupted and wanted to talk about the second world war with me. He proceeded to tell me that he was glad the yanks "came and helped them out" (that is an authentic quote) as he didnt think they could have held out much longer against the "Jerries". I was modest in response. I thought, am I in a f§$%ing twilight zone episode here? I thought the world hated America...maybe thats not so true after all. What I get most commonly, however, is the response "Only in America" when they hear about our latest experiment with controlling human behavior. Whats next, banning screaming children in grocery stores they ask. I might actually support such a law.

:: Kevin 3:11 PM [+] ::
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These Italians never cease to amaze me with their ingenuity. This country seems (to me) to be an example of how pre-modern and modern world can get along just great.

We were wine tasting here in Tuscany the other day, because we can, sipping glasses of Chianti and thinking of Hannibal Lechter, and we ran across a novel use of the much touted smart card. You pay 5€ and get to sample wine at every bar in this town at these automatic wine dispensers. You simply insert the card and press the button of the wine you want to taste and...PREGO...theres a hefty glass of wine to start your day with. Yes, this is something that would never happen in the land of the free. So we go from enoteca (wine tasting bar) to enoteca sampling every other Chianti Under the Tuscan Sun and soon realize that they are mostly up around 13 percent in alcyhol. We start to feel it kicking in, so we do what everybody else is doing and we climb in our cars and drive to the next town while we let our livers work on all that Vino Rosso.

To get an authentic wine tasting experience however, we searched out the wineries themselves and soon found a few. Imagine you are driving down a winding ridge, lined on both sides by ancient Cypress trees and Olive orchards. Grapes spread away to the horizon, upon which lies another row of the same trees. You round a corner and there before you is a 600 year old villa with a view that would make you never want to leave. (which is why they didnt of course) A wiry old man with purple teeth is serving full glasses as tasters of any wine you want. Dusty bottles of vino dating back to the 1800s line the walls and you slowly become even more drunk. Without better judgment to serve you anymore, you purchase a 32 year old bottle of wine for 25 bucks and leave without ever communicating a single word of English with the fellow. Repeat same scenario again and again and that is a day tasting wine in Tuscany. Time will only tell how the 2 cases of wine we ended up with will hold up.

I was entirely pleased to find that you can still get an authentic Tuscan experience in this amazing little speck on earth. I am also glad that I no longer have to drive in Florence. I would sooner slit my wrists and rub them full of salt before ever wandering near that town again with a car. Ill hitchike first.

:: Kevin 2:44 PM [+] ::
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Florence is great as long as you don't have to drive. My first experience with this fine city, unfortunately was from behind a wheel. Not a good idea. When you are in a square with four "do not enter signs" staring you down and you realize that you have driven into a black hole and will never, ever escape, that is driving in Florence. Driving in Florence is like trying to open a Jew-only officers club in Nazi Germany. It just can't be positive experience.

We did visit Lucca, a great rural Tuscan town with a maze of medieval streets frequented only by locals and a few stray tourists. It was a great intro to the region.

A tip for any future Italian tourists, if you can speak with your hands..you will get along fine here.

:: Kevin 3:36 PM [+] ::
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Though I am now in the cheeziest place on earth, Pisa with it's leaning tower that must be one of the biggest jokes I've ever seen, I have to report on the last few days in Italy which have been nothing short of outstanding.

First, I have to say in all honesty that the Italian women I have seen so far all look like Alyssa Milano from behind, leave a bit for the imagination head on. This is true for the Ligurian women at least. It hasn't been all that was promised.

We stopped for a night in Genoa, despite what the guide books told us (Rick Steve's didn't even mention the place) and I vow not to return without a handful of heroin needles and crack pipes to hand out as bakshish for the locals. We had a great meal there (Pesto was given life in Genoa), but in reality Genoa is a difficult place to visit. Fascinating, yet repulsive, it has the largest medieval section of ANY city in Europe, but the streets are so narrow and dark that one truly feels as though they are staring down a 15th century portal. At one point we had a Japanese woman ask us if we had seen her address book because her purse had been ripped from her shoulder while walking in front of the restaurant we were eating at. We saw some friendly fools shooting up in a small square, and on the bus back to our campground, some dude was showing his new coke whore his array of razors that he was going use to feed her the goods. Yet it was all strangely amusing, but not enough ever to want return.

Hiking Cinque terra was great, and I have a ton of pictures to show when I get the chance. To sum up the 2 days we spent there I would have to say that 20 years ago it would have been unbelieveable, now it was hard to think of it as being anything out of the ordinary with the 2,000 other people getting suckered into a sure fire tourist frenzy.

Ciao for now

:: Kevin 3:45 PM [+] ::
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Its been a while since I've been able to rant, so my thoughts might seem a bit scattered, but that's pretty authentic in reality.

We were finally able to get out of Switzerland, as much as I loved the place, and into Italy, but not before cappin my Swiss Alp experience with a night in a mountain hut at 9,000 feet at the base of the Matterhorn. Part of the impetus for this was Zermatt itself, a disgusting tourist cliche within a cliche that made me wonder why I'de ever thought of visiting. I vowed upon the eve of our second day there to hike as far away as I could from that soul-stripping village and stay the night in a climbers hut. So I did. 7.5 miles and 3,600 feet later I was staring down upon three different glaciers converging 1,000 feet below me and 5,000 feet below the vertical North Face of the Matterhorn, and wondering why there were only 5 other people with me at this place. Hot coffee, cold beer, spaghetti Bolognese, and a whole dorm bed all to myself. Every other person there was going off to climb some other peak, but not me, I could only claim that I was there for some great photography, which didn't really pan out as I had hoped. I had a great nights sleep away from the high maintenance women and enjoyed the play of light on one of the worlds most amazing rock monuments.

Here are some photographs from the meagre digital.

:: Kevin 3:28 PM [+] ::
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My future brother-in-law took me on my first hiking adventure in Switzerland which turned out to be more of climb (aufstieg) than a hike. After a short drive through green cow pastures we arrived at a gondola station that would bring us to the main trailhead unless we wished to save the 12 Franks and hike it. When I saw the tooth known as the Grosse Myten (pronounced mitten) I must say a small chill ran down my spine as I contemplated how a trail would negotiate the sheer cliffs and sharp ridges of the mountain, but Markus assured me that only a few people every year die on the trial, and they are mostly stupid. Not too reassuring, but I figured that if I kept my wits about me I wouldn't become a statistic. But then again, I didn't have my heavy duty boots and I had partied in the street the night before, so maybe I would be one the stupid people that plummet to their death every season. Judging by the number of people going up and down, however, I figured I'd give it a go. The first few feet were fine, pretty soon after that the flanks of the hill fell away dramatically revealing the distant valley bottoms far below. It didn't get any better. Focusing on one step after another I managed to ignore how exposed I was and make it to the top with few noticeable jitters. I never did really relax, even by the cafe at the summit. it was just too plainly obvious how easy it would be to fall to ones death from any vista. Going down wasn't any easier. Of all the years I've hiked in the Northwest and beyond, never before was I confronted with such a relentless test of heights. I hope the rest of my Alps adventures aren't quite so mentally challenging.

See photos of the hike.

:: Kevin 10:50 AM [+] ::
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Switzerland is expensive. Yes, you hear this all the time in travelling circles, but you think, "well I'll just stay away from the restaurants and live cheaply while there." Forget it! It's impossible. Switzerland is freaking expensive. It's a weekend in Monaco with Tiger Woods expenisve. It's buying shoes with Imelda Marcos expensive. Everything except the famous Army knives and Swatch watches are expensive. This morning for example I went and bought a new Swiss knife since I can't seem to hold onto one for more than a year or so, and I paid about 15 bucks for a basic knife with a bottle opener, can opener, corkscrew, tweezers, toothpick, pipe cleaner and nail file...you know the basics (though the glittering beauty with the torch lighter or the one with the cigar cutter (but not both!!??) will be calling me to come back and liberate it from the shelves of that terrible store). Then, with a growling belly I went to get some food. The bratwurst without a bun set me back 5 bucks while the small bottle of water shook another 2.50 out of me. One more of those and I just bought another knife! The grocery stores are a bit less of a ream, but it still hurts. If I didn't have a nice place to stay here at my Sister's with reliable Internet access, copius amounts of wine, beer and cheese I would be ruined.

Tonight, with the ladies all at some spa in the Alps for the weekend, Markus (Sarina's fiancee) is taking my dad and I to a street party in the "questionable" part of town. He assured me that I would see things that I am not accustomed to seeing at street parties in the states. I told him that we would never have street parites in the states because somebody would have to be held responsible for the illicit things and, thus, it is simply not something we know of, unless of course you are from Louisiana or someplace like that. Nevertheless, I hope my dad's heart holds out through the evening because I'm a little rusty on my CPR. Oh, and I hate Swiss German, it is a cruel joke to those of us who struggled to reach even basic proficiency with high German. More later on France, though you bleeding nationalists might not care to read that post.:-)

:: Kevin 12:17 PM [+] ::
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Finding myself back in an urban setting after 6 days of wandering through the wilds of Spain, I realize that I have a lot to say, and not a lot of time to do it. I just read that Danny sold our Jetta, which is cool, but the house stands empty still which is a bummer. In any case, it will take more that to dampen my spirits after the journey we´ve just been through.

Anxious to Leave the depressing, heavy, dark air of Bilbao behind on Wednesday, we rented a car and took off into Spains Northern interior with a planned route through the Rioja, Navarra, Aragon to Barcelona where we would catch our boat to Menorca for our anniversary. The wine producing areas of the Rioja and Navarra challenged every pre-conception we had about this part of Spain. Hundreds of bodegas (wineries) shared the vast lands nurtured by the Ebro river, green with vines and bathed in a huge blue sky. All vistas were capped by a towering range of rock, or a picturesque walled town atop a hill here and there. The town of Laguardia was just such a place, with narrow stone streets obviating the use of any vehicle. Pamplona was impressive, but we didn´t stay long enough to get a good feel for the place, and the Fiesta of San Fermin (the running with the bulls) was more than a week away. So we headed off into an area of Spain not so well represented in the guidebooks, but presenting some interesting possibilities. We weren´t disappointed. Aragon is magnificent. The forms of the landscape and the relics of history, at times, just made us stop and look at each other in disbelief and think to ourselves "No Way!" Medieval villages, some standing as they were left after Napolean sacked them, situated in mind-bending landscapes that reminded us of many other wild places, but never tasted entirely of Spain. I will go back at some point to enjoy this place in the flesh, rather than simply via a drive-by.

:: Kevin 10:38 AM [+] ::
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23-Jun-2003
Bilbao didn't disappoint us. It came as advertised with cheap red wine, great tapas, fantastic architecture, and ETA pipe bombs. Yes a stay in Basque country without a bombing is like a weekend in gaza without a bus disintegrating. We started with a full morning of wandering around the narrow streets of medieval Bilbao and sampling the bocadillos (directly translating to small-mouth, loosely to appetizers), each one seemingly a unique way of serving anchovies. Anchovies on egg salad, anchovies with olives and peppers, anchovies on mozarella and tomatoes, anchovies with crab salad etc..etc. Following this up with a walk up to and around the Guggenheim, which was designed by the same fellow that did the EMP in Seattle, we then jumped on the metro and headed back to the suburbs to wait for my parents to get off work. Having gotten back to early, we decided to walk down to the beach to soak up some cloudy rays when we were guided away from the beach and off to a bulkhead by a policeman. A few cops and a soldier soon arrived and the street was quickly sealed off. Shortly after, just as we started to get bored with the scene, a pipe bomb ripped through a bar 400 yards down the beach, striking fear into the crowds that gathered. Firetrucks soon arrived, followed by ETA terror police, which clued us into what might be going on. Bits of conversaions heard in passing confirmed that the bar, still smoking at this poing, was a ritzy tourist cafe and that the attack was meant to hit the tourist industry to draw attention to Basque seperatist demands. Great way to start our visit to Bilbao, now its time to get the f*ck out. Too bad for my parents, whose apartment is a mere 1/2 mile from ground zero. Thanks for the good times in Bilbao Mom, Dad, but we're gonna get moving tomorrow, no hard feeling eh?

See photos of the day in Bilbao
24-June-2003

Once again the Basques did not disappoint. We saw along the rugged Basque coast exactly what we'd hoped to see, impossible cliffs plunging into deep blue seas, gaurding isolated beaches, and granting entry to working fishing villages that seem happy knowing that few tourists know they are there. This is an area of fierce Basque resistance, where all the Spanish signs have been painted over leaving only Euskadi (Basque) as the visible language. Basque flags and signs of revolution are everywhere, including the occasional reference to Che Guevara. But these are not unfriendly people; as I stood outside the tourist offic of Zumaya, cursing the institution of ciesta, especially since they took off 15 minutes early, an older Basque man came by and asked me what I was looking for. With a laughable hodgepodge of French, German and Spanish, I managed to convey that we were looking for the hiking trails along the coast and he told me to come with him, and that he would have me back in 5 minutes. 25 minutes later he had shown me all the different trailheads, his home, his Mother's home, as well as the home of somebody who himself had been to Oregon and Washington. Finally he dropped me off at the fish restaurant where Angie and my mom were enjoying a menu of the day with fresh local wine and some of the best fish I've ever had. The Basque country is like a tropical Northwest coast, hot, humid, rugged, and green, but I kept expecting to see Frodo pop out of a fairy-tale Basque home set amongst the fertile slopes. It is truly a fascinating place, far from the beaten paths of Spain that we will soon be eating dust on.

See photos of the day along the splendid Basque coast.

:: Kevin 12:49 AM [+] ::
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