A bookstore will never lead you astray if you’re looking for something to carry you to mysterious places. Our local bookshop in Rome (actually in my office building) had a delightful name, “Food for Thought.” It also had a bin of older paperbacks toward the back where I regularly rummaged to find something inexpensive to read. And, one day, there was Holy Blood, Holy Grail at the bottom of the bin. With a blurb that said it was “explosively controversial,” I bought it.
… Read more
VIEW POST
VIEW POST
It is a hot afternoon in Santa Clara, Cuba, and perhaps that is why we are the only ones standing at the Tren Blindado park, listening to an engaging gentleman share his adoration of beloved rebel, Che Guevara. We are trying to picture the bold Guevara using a bulldozer to derail the train that ignited the Cuban Revolution.
More vivid, however, is my memory of trying to give this older gentleman, a veteran who experienced the Revolution fifty years ago, a few coins.
… Read more
VIEW POST
Whatever the weather, Dublin is a fine place to visit.
Of course it rained, but being from the Pacific Northwest, my husband and I felt right at home. The rain fell on the sad cluster of statues memorializing the Potato Famine and it fell in the city center. It stopped briefly for Molly Maguire before it began to fall on us.
We were armed with an umbrella but a vending machine would have saved us if we’d forgotten ours.
… Read more
VIEW POST
Acadia – the very name brings visions of a dream such as that painted by Nicholas Poussin in 1639.
It also brings to mind the Acadians, French settlers in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, who were driven from their homes when the British pushed them out. Many settled in Maine, although some fled to Louisiana and transformed into the Cajuns, famous for good music and good food.
But the word also reminds me of a recent trip to Mount Desert Island and a day spent in Acadia National Park, one of the nation’s smallest, established in 1919, and the first of our National Parks established East of the Mississippi.
… Read more
VIEW POST
My friends and I began our visit in the beautiful cultural center at the base of Acoma, about an hour’s drive west of Albuquerque. The ancient settlement itself is located on a mesa 365 feet above the desert floor, a broken land dotted with other rock formations. Settled around the year 1000 AD, it is one of the oldest continually-occupied areas in the country.
Where formerly there were only ladders and steps carved into the rock, a winding road now leads up the steep hill to the cluster of adobe buildings occupied by only 30 people due to the lack of water, sewerage, and electricity.
… Read more
VIEW POST
A silent young man picked us up in front of our hotel in Cape Town near a post carved with animal heads depicting four of South Africa’s big game.
… Read more 
We climbed into an SUV for a three-hour trip to a game preserve north of the city in an area called the Karoo. As we passed the sad townships, some with small houses and others with tin shacks, we were reminded of the deep poverty that envelopes so much of South Africa.
VIEW POST
A guest post from my fellow travel writer, Tori Peterson, writer and adventurer. She is currently working on a memoir about living in Mali and Rwanda. Her last travels including walking the Camino de Santiago and trekking in the high Andes.
When I left the United States for the first time, I was 30 years old. Yes, I knew that I would be seeing new sights and new cultures, but I did not stop to think how my senses would be surprised, assaulted, and challenged.
VIEW POST
I’m pleased to have a guest post from travel writer Vivian Murray, a member of EPIC Group Writers based in Edmonds, Washington.
ON HEARING FADO IN LISBON
The apartment was a short-term rental through VRBO and located on a hill in the Alfama, one of the oldest districts in Lisbon, Portugal. We were on the 3rd (or 4th depending on what country you were in) floor requiring careful negotiation of a narrow wooden stairway which seemed endless at the close of a long day.
… Read more
VIEW POST
The other day I read that the almond trees in Agrigento were in blossom and my thoughts returned to the marvelous archeological zone near the city called the Valley of the Temples. The name always struck me as odd because the famous Greek temples are high on a ridge overlooking the sea a few miles away. But there are temples galore.
The almond blossoms had fallen by the end of May last year when we were there and the trees were laden with green almonds.
… Read more The almond blossoms had fallen by the end of May last year when we were there and the trees were laden with green almonds.
VIEW POST
We returned from our travels to Sicily, not with salt of the earth but salt from the sea. But we began the visit to the far western part of the island in the, tiny walled town of Erice 2500 feet above the salty sea. The town was founded by about 1200 BC but developed by the Carthaginians around the 6th Century BC. After which its history followed that of the rest of Sicily with one culture after another taking over.
… Read more Coins in the Fountain
