Saturday, October 25, 2003

9-21-03 Aalsmeer Netherlands            Denmark is a very beautiful country, but it’s also very expensive.  Gas was over $1.25 a liter, that’s near five dollars a gallon.  Maybe more if I was exact with the conversion from Euro to US Dollars.  The world has been voting on the American economy and the value of the dollar continues to drop.  I don’t blame Bush for that… I blame him for a lot of other things, but the economy was in the toilet before he came along.  Anyway, we knew that Northern Europe was going to be very expensive, so we planned to spend a limited time up here, while still seeing the places we wanted to visit.  Like much of Germany, Denmark looks freshly scrubbed, no trash or litter, no old cars abandoned, no untrimmed grass, or houses needing fresh paint.   And quaint, by god there is quaintness everywhere.  Thatched roofs, windmills, Disney could not compete.   Denmark is the tomato of countries, mostly water.  Modern new bridges connect islands along major routes, and the ferry system is very efficient.  We crossed several bridges on the way to Langerland, a cucumber shaped island, to Ristinge, a small village on a narrow point of land, where Claus Nielsen, my Grandfather, was born.  It seems have become a summer destination for windsurfers and beach lovers.  There were many large homes that looked fairly new, built in the old fashion style.  A thatcher was at work installing a thatched roof on a new home as we drove by.  The thatching is very thick, made up of bundles of straw woven and lashed to a wooden framing.  The fresh roof was yellow, but we could see that the thatch soon ages to a deep dark brown.  We found the small harbor where a fisherman was organizing his nets.  In a local guidebook we read that the sea trout population has been growing due to the government’s efforts.  It's great to think that somewhere in the world there are people who care what is happening to the oceans, and are actually doing something about it.  We visited the famous Ristinge beach, well, famous in the windsurfing community anyway.  A bit cold and blustery the day we were there.  I tried to image what life must have been like for a young Danish man a hundred plus years ago.  The choices seem to have been milking cows or going to sea in small boats to catch fish. ` 5:15:32 PM    comment []

Thursday, September 18, 2003

9-16-03    Copenhagen   The campground is in a town (30,000 population) called Hillerød.  Very cool, Word speaks Danish, but I don’t know what will happen on the internet to the o with a slash through it.  This morning we walked down to the train station, bought tickets good for all day on the trains and buses, and climbed on a shiny red electric train that carried us into downtown Copenhagen in about 40 minutes.  What we’ve seen of Denmark so far is very flat, lots of water, lakes and rivers.   Everything is very clean, well cared for.  Everyone we’ve met has been very friendly and they all speak excellent English.  A real treat for us.  We met so very few English speaking people once we left Greece.    We walked out of the main train station, just across the street from the famous Tivoli Gardens.  Just down the street we found our first stop, the Danish Design Center.  The primary exhibits displayed the work of Verner Panton a Danish designer who worked from 1950 to his death in 1998.  If you’d like to see his work, check out www.vernerpanton.com or www.panton.ch   .    He is considered the most international of Danish designers because he moved away from the tradition Danish Modern design we are all familiar with and experimented with materials other than teak… plastics, metals, and glass.  He was known for designing complete environments, some of his most famous work were restaurant interiors.  We spent three hours or so exploring his universe.  Rhona loved his hanging couches.  He really gave me a lot to think about in terms of color and shape.  I especially liked his light fixtures, he liked soft glowing light diffused by dangling shapes.  It felt odd to be looking at furniture on display that you can’t sit in, but the museum had a small café in the center courtyard where several of his mass produced designs could be tested… I’m sure the café people would prefer that you do that with a coffee and some of their very high priced pastries, but no one seemed to mind a few tourists sitting around testing the designs.  And they were comfortable, I have to admit.  The one piece plastic chair seemed like a bit of a gimmick to me, but it works, what can I say…   We left the Design Center and walked the Copenhagen shopping street that winds the length of the downtown area.  We visited the Marble Cathedral, a huge Lutheran church, massive and austere.  No fancy stained-glass windows here, boy.  A huge dome with paintings of bible figures around the circumference.  From the Cathedral, we walked to the Danish Decorative Arts Museum.  That’s right, a tourist’s triple play, two museums and a Cathedral!   The variety of stuff collected from all over the world was just amazing.  A temple to design of all types.  From the Harley Davidson V-Rod to Oriental cabinets to a panorama of Danish chair design through the ages, just all kinds of stuff, connected only by the quality of the design itself.  In the basement was an exhibit containing all the winners of the Danish International Design Awards.  Telephones, lots of electronics, industrial designs, even a sheetmetal electronic enclosure.  Very nice work, I had to admit.  There was a Nomex fireman’s turnout suit, kitchen appliances, medical equipment, an amazing variety.  I could spend months in the place.   We left the museum and hopped a couple busses.  Probably said it before but we’ve learned a great way to explore a city is on the buses.  If you get lost, all you have to do is get off the bus, cross to the stop on the other side of the street, and soon you are back were you started.  We went to the so called “Free City”, Christiana.  Back in the early 70s a group of artists, hippies, musicians moved in to a group of abandoned military barracks and set up a community.  The had many battles with the authorities, some violent, and at one point the city recognized the area as a social experiment, and basically tolerated its existence.  It’s become a tourist attraction, weed and hash are sold and smoked openly like in the coffee shops of Amsterdam.  Evidently they’ve had serious problems with hard drugs like heroin and speed, and the community has tried to discourage their use.  We are told that the major problem is that the authorities believe that there are gangs based there that sell drugs throughout the city.  It’s difficult to learn much about a place just walking through it like we did.  There are obviously some very creative things going on.  Around a thousand people live there.  We saw a large indoor skateboard park building, an open central plaza with picnic tables and small restaurants serving food and drinks.  I am curious about the experiment, I wonder if anything has been written about it.   Basically we got a good taste of Copenhagen.  I’m looking forward to going back for another visit in a couple days. 6:56:40 PM    comment []

9-12-03 Berlin   The drive from Prague to Berlin was a tough one.  It rained hard most of the day, and the van had electrical problems.  We also saw our first major accident of the trip.  After we arrived in Berlin I went through the wiring as best I could, removing some excess wires that had been connected at one time to the cigarette lighter and a radio, checked the fuses and replaced a couple, cleaned up the battery terminals a bit, and everything electrical is working much better than it ever has.  We left Prague with headlights on, the little refrigerator running on battery power, windshield wipers on, the defroster blowing, and in the wet, it was all too much for the system to deal with.  The alternator light would come on, the gages would shut off, and the major problem, the windshield wipers would stop working.  When the problems started, Rhona went back and shut off the refrig, I used the headlights and wipers only when absolutely necessary, and gradually things got back to normal… then the rain would pick up again, headlights and wipers on, and soon I’m looking at a glowing red light again.  Nerve wracking, but we survived.    The autobahns of Germany are fantastic highways, smooth, and made for high speed driving.  Work fine for old camper trucks tootling along at 60 mph too.  At one point we saw a nice car, a large BMW I think, parked on the side of the highway just before an underpass, two businessmen types standing by the open passenger door, obviously looking down the road for somebody.  I was looking in the rear view mirror when I saw a large truck pull off behind them.  Suddenly the truck swerved back on to the highway, but hit the side of the car.  I’m guessing the driver saw the car waiting for him, tried to pull over behind it, and realized at the last minute that there was no way he could stop the big truck, swerved back out into traffic, but didn’t clear the car…  I saw sheet metal flying as the truck sheared off the side of the car, I think the front tire on that side must have blown, the truck collided with a pillar of the overpass, bounced off, then swerved back into the fencing and finally stopped.  I had looked right at the men standing beside the car just moments before, I felt like I should do something to help, but there was no way we could do anything but drive on.  In a few minutes we saw police cars and ambulances heading down the other side to the scene of the collision…  I really wonder what happened to the people, I wonder if the two guys had a chance to jump before the truck hit their car, it happened so fast.    When we reached Berlin, for the first time on our trip, we couldn’t find the campground we had chosen as our target.  We were actually in Potsdam, just outside Berlin, in what used to be East Germany.  The area is full of lakes, rivers, and canals.  More bridges than Venice, the guidebooks say.  The map shows highways, but we find busy city streets with confusing intersections and difficult to read street signs.  Lots of construction going on.  We pretty much drove in circles until we spotted a camping sign.  Led us right in to an area of road rebuilding, wandered a bit more, and then finally found the campground, an outpost of the German Caravan Club, not shown on any of our books or maps.  A very old place with rather quaint bathrooms in the basement of the restaurant/reception building, but a nice big space, electrical connection, nearby water, things have been worse.  One day I’d like to go back to Prague and have another try at finding the campground we were looking for, think I know where it might be.   We are at the point now were we are enjoying the small towns near our campgrounds more than the big city destinations.   This time we had the small villages near the campsite that were fun to explore, and then the city of Potsdam, which has a very interesting castle, and then, of course, Berlin.  I’m sure we could have spent a month or longer in the area and not seen everything.  We had a great dinner a couple towns from the campground, with the fantastic sweet Italian wine Rhona and I like so much.  We spent a day exploring Potsdam, walking through Frederick the Great’s castle, called Sans Souci.  Oh yeah, that was the name of the campground we never found, Sans Souci. It’s also the name Jerry Garcia called his house in Marin, it means, No Worries.  Must have been a pretty cool king, old Frederick the Great.  The Castle itself is pretty modest looking, for a castle.  But the setting was amazing.  Yep, pictures on Yahoo.    There is not much left to show that Berlin was a divided city, pretty much bombed to rubble at the end of the war.  Most of the historic buildings have been rebuilt, and there are huge new modern buildings, all steel and glass near the new city center.  We walked to the major tourists sites, the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, the Reichstag.  There is so much water in and around Berlin, and it really is a beautiful city.  6:55:37 PM    comment []

Olomouc and Prague, the Czech Republic   Our driving day north from Budapest took us across the Hungarian border into Slovakia, and from Slovakia into the Czech Republic.  The Hungarian police just waved us through when they saw our American passports, the Slovaks did the same.  A little more study of the pages at the Czech Republic border, but no ink stamping required.  It was a pretty easy day of mostly good highways.  The campground outside Olomouc was a bit strange, camping Czech style.  The main thing going on there were bungalows, little cottages not much bigger than a king sized bed with a little sitting porch in front.  They had a large community kitchen and day room with a TV and couches.  The camping area was a grassy field behind the bungalows.  There was a large bathroom block with a big old solar water heater array.   Good hot water and lots of it.    The next day was Sunday, so we drove into the city of Olomouc.  We knew that most everything would be closed, but traffic would be light and parking easy to find.  We were right.  Except for a few tourists, the place seemed deserted.  We parked in a big square in the old city, and walked through the streets looking for an ATM to get some Czech money.  We came into a large plaza around the city hall, found our cash machine and were surprised to find an open tourist information office.  Loaded up on maps and brochures and went out to find a bench in the sun.  There was a big tower in the center of the plaza, like a big fountain without the water part.  The City Hall was a great old building with a large clock tower.  The clock was a very modern looking German style clock with a star map, phases of the moon, and a rotating collection of figures going in and out two doors when the clock struck the hours.  According to the literature we picked up the clock had been rebuilt several times to the tastes of whoever happened to be in control at the time.  Evidently the Soviet version was pretty ugly, the last version had been completed just a few years ago.   Another interesting bit of info I came across in the tourist brochures was the fact that there was a nearby Irish Pub.  We went off in search of it.  Things are never as simple as they should be, there’s always something to create confusion.  In this case, the address of the pub was on one street, the actual front door, with the sign and all, was on an adjacent street.  So when we walked down an alley where we expected to find the Pub…  nothing.  Took a bit of wandering, but, soon, another mystery solved.  Discovered that the Czech’s have their own version of Guinness, called Kelt…  a very good beer, recommend it highly.  The bartender told us that Guinness is just too expensive, no one will buy it.   The place was empty except for us, the bartender, and a friendly Irish guy who either owned the place or acted like he did.  We soon had a lively discussion going about travel and politics.  The Irish guy said that he had recently been home in Dublin and he swears that most of the bartenders are Oriental.  All the Irish bartenders are running pubs all over the world.  We asked them about Prague and Olomouc, they told us that once we had seen the main square we’d pretty much seen Olomouc.  But they both love Prague.  They said that Olomouc was basically a university town.  The fall session hadn’t begun yet, so the town was pretty much deserted.  Another reason the town is so empty is that the Czech people have little cottages in the country where they spend their weekends.  The pub’s kitchen was closed, but they recommended a restaurant in the main square.   Rhona was in heaven, the place was packed full of “cute” to the rafters.  The food was delicious, the Pilsner ice cold.  It was the night before our second anniversary, and it seemed like it was going to be a tough job to top this dinner.  Little did we know how hard it was going to be.  We had planned to spend another day in Olomouc, but after hearing the guys rave about Prague, I was anxious to move on.  I wasn’t that crazy about our strange little campground and the reviews of the one we were heading to outside of Prague sounded great.  Rhona really had her heart set on the special hot chocolate that’s an Olomouc specialty, but I guess that will have to be on the list for the next trip.   Next morning we packed up and drove across the Czech Republic to Prague.  The countryside was relatively flat and beautiful, it was a very easy, pleasant drive.  We found the campground in a small village in the suburbs of Prague, and it was very nice.  The nicest, cleanest, most modern bathroom facilities we’ve seen.  Everything was controlled with these chip cards, like credit cards, but no bar code or magnetic stripe.  You just waved them at a sensor and it recognized the card.  We used the card for entering the campground, using the Internet terminal, using the washing machine and dryer.  The system was smart enough to allow five liters a day of free hot water for dishwashing; use more than that an a charge was made to your account.  But Monday was our anniversary and I had promised Rhona a special day in Prague, so off we went on the bus.  The info on the campsite said it was only 5 kilometers outside Prague… well, that might be, if they are talking about some city limit running out into the countryside.  It took at least a half hour for the bus to get to the tram stop in an industrial area, then another fifteen minutes or so on the tram to get downtown.  But with the usual bit of confusion, we made the tram connection, and got off in Wenchelas (sp) Square, as in the good king of Christmas carol fame.  The square is just an open spot on a major boulevard.  Lanes of traffic divided by a wide park like island, broken up by cross streets.  On a hill at the top of the boulevard was the glittering dome of the state museum.  At the other end, after some zigs and zags, we entered a pedestrian shopping street that lead us to the main square of the old city.  I guess we are getting a bit hard to impress when it comes to ancient architecture, we’ve looked at a lot of stone buildings in the past five months, walked on a lot of cobblestone streets.  But Prague is something special.  Our guidebooks say that it’s the only European capital that wasn’t destroyed at one time or another.  One thing I thought was strange is that the main Cathedral, with its two ornate towers, had a rather ordinary shed shaped building grafted on the front of it.  Must be an explanation…  perhaps the front wall needed reinforcing, but it seemed like shops had been added to the front of the church.  Very strange.   Opposite the Cathedral was the massive city hall, with it’s ornate clock tower.  Tourists filled the square, tacky shops and stalls were everywhere.  We were told that 95 million tourists visit Prague every year, and I do believe it.  Made me wish we had spent that extra day in Olomouc.  I do have more to write about Prague, I’ll be updating this entry later. 6:54:40 PM    comment []

Budapest   We had talked to several fellow campers about Hungary, and everyone agreed, Camping Fortuna was the place to be outside Budapest.  We did have a tough time finding it, but once Rhona figured out that Highway 7 was a different road than the M-7, we solved the mystery.  We got here last night, it’s been raining off and on since.  I’m writing this Sunday evening after a long walk through our small village outside Budapest.  We found a medieval looking restaurant, the only place we could find open.  It was medieval looking… in the sense that the waitresses wore serving wench outfits, and there were suits of armor in the corners…  not a very old place, if that’s what you were thinking.  A little on the expensive side for Hungary, but we deserved a treat.  Today was an official rest day, with an intermission for a long walk in the rain.  Tomorrow it’s time to check out Budapest.    The owner of the campground spoke very good English.  He had a hand drawn map of the village for us, with instructions on where to get the bus to Budapest, and where the supermarket could be found, and lots other helpful information.  But his Budapest map was a tourist’s dream.  He had taken the Tourist Information map and noted the bus, tram and metro lines we would need to ride to see the main attractions, showing the stops and terminals.  We talked to him for quite a while before leaving for the city.  I asked him if he was optimistic about the future for Hungary in the European Union.  He was not… he could see only bad times ahead.  Hungary was a major supplier to the Soviet Union, but the factories were all geared to Soviet standards, the farms weren’t very efficient, but it didn’t matter, they had a guaranteed market.  With the Soviet Union gone as customers, the Hungarians are finding it very difficult to meet European standards… factories have closed, farmers have gone broke, it is a major problem.  In Budapest I came across a Hungarian magazine that was much more positive about the future, confident that Hungarians would find ways to compete in the free world markets.    Buda is on the hills above the Danube, it is the home of the Castle and the Fortress, the two major attractions.  There are nine bridges across the Danube to Pest, which is relatively flat.  The first day in the city we walked around a bit, found the Funicular to the Castle area, and explored the medieval city within its walls.  There were several museums in the old castle buildings. A highlight for me was dinner in an Irish Pub on a boat anchored in the Danube.  Then we walked through the shopping street in Pest, Rhona loves checking out what women in other countries have available to buy. The second day we took a little bus that wound to the top of the hilltop Fortress.  It was an outdoor museum, with exhibits behind glass, like department store windows.   The major attraction to us was the views from the top of the walls, Buda below us, Pest along the opposite side of the Danube.  A ride back down the hill on the little bus, and we jumped on a streetcar to Pest.  We’ve learned that a painless way to see a city is to ride the trams and buses.  So we rode through the streets of Pest to the Park on an island in the middle of the Danube.  Got off, and picked up the bus that took us through the park.  When the bus left the park, we got off, crossed the street, and rode it back to where we started.  We walked back through Pest, past the Parliament building, the along the waterfront to visit the old market.  The building was built by Eiffel, the tower guy, it was a very interesting building indeed.  A brick structure with a roof of riveted iron girders with lots of windows.  The bottom floor was shop after shop; butchers, vegetable stands, leather shops, embroidered linens, pastry shops, little stalls with every spice and seasoning you could imagine…  just an amazing amount of goods for sale.  There was a balcony running around the four sides of the building with more shops and small restaurants, were a thirsty man could get a beer or two while his wife prowled the aisles below.   The pretty much closed the place around us…  we decided it was time to look for dinner.  I had noticed a place by the stop where we caught the bus back to the campground, seemed to be owned by the Rolling Rock Brewing company.  The menu seemed to be American food… we ordered a plate of nachos.  I guess red beans are hard to get in Hungary, they used green peas instead.  Looked very colorful, and tasted pretty good!    There were a series of concerts during the week we were there, sponsored by the Jewish community.  I really wanted to see the Kletzmer show, I guess there are two very good Kletzmer bands in Budapest.  Kletzmer music is fun, kind of a combination of Jewish folk music, bluegrass, zydaco.  There are usually violins, an accordian, guitar, some kind of percussion, all played with a lot of energy.  But that show didn’t start until nine in the evening, I was sure we wouldn’t make the last bus back to our village.  But there was a concert by the Budapest Gypsy Orchestra in the main synagogue beginning at seven the next night, we could definitely pull that one off.  So after a campground morning, doing laundry and cleaning up, we headed back to the city.  We went right to the synagogue, bought our tickets, and then did some more exploring.  We rode the Metro to a big square, the Place of the Heroes, I think it was called.  Well, whatever it was called, it was in Hungarian, so I guess my translation is as good as anyones…  well, except Ida, of course.  Ida is Rhona’s friend from Budapest who made sure we were fully equipped with maps and brochures for our visit.  Anyway, there is this big square you see, with a monument to the seven Magyar kings who founded Hungary.  Saint Stephen was the first King of Hungary, his statue was up front.  Yes, the pictures are on Yahoo.   Did some walking around, then more Metro navigation to another Irish Pub I found out about.  I do like my Irish Pubs…  always friendly people, menus we can read…  Anyway, a nice dinner and it was time to go to the concert.  The building was spectacular.  Seems like I’m always writing words like amazing, incredible, spectacular…  but it’s true.  Just awe-inspiring.  I had to wear a little skullcap to enter, I considered it a great privilege.  The Gypsy Orchestra was fantastic…  like a mad bunch of fiddle players had taken over a symphony orchestra, just amazing classical music with a Hungarian folk music flavor.  One of the older violin players seemed to be the leader, but they rotated soloists all night, with duets and trios taking the centerstage in various combinations.  It did seem that each violinist had their own particular strength, but they played together with amazing precision.  Their timing was impeccable; at every pause in the music the silence was complete.  The audience was obviously hearing music they knew by heart, and they made their appreciation known at every difficult passage.    It was a perfect end to our visit to Budapest.  Of all the cities we have been in so far, Budapest is the one I could see myself returning to, hopefully for a much longer stay.    ` 6:53:53 PM    comment []

8-28-03    Bouncing in Bulgaria, Rocking in Romania   Okay, where was I?  Been tough to find time to write.  Oh yeah, we were in Northern Greece, staying in an almost empty campground.  Store and restaurant were both closed for the season.  Looks like when the holiday season is over in Greece they slam the doors shut.  Monday morning we went back to the nearby city, Serres, we had passed through to the way to the campground, with two goals in mind.  We needed a bottle of propane, and we hoped to get the notebook online.  Driving through town, Rhona thought she saw a guy crossing the street carrying a gas bottle.  We found a parking spot, and I went walking back… no clue, what I had thought was a camping supply store was a bookstore with some backpacks in the window.  Down a side street I saw some plastic buckets and mops in front of a store… hum, might be a hardware store.  I walked in the door; the old guy got up from behind the cash register and walked to the back.  I heard some clanging and banging, in a few minutes out he came with a lovely bottle of official Camping Gas.   He rang up the sale, pointed to the amount, and I paid him, not a word was spoken.  Back in the truck, more crazy city traffic.  We’re looking for the Internet place we had stopped at on the way through town the first time.  Okay, found the street, the store… then major miracle, a parking place.  We took the laptop in, but the guy in charge wouldn’t let me connect.  First he said there was a problem with the electricity, power surges or something.  I said I could run on the battery, no problem.  Then he said there was some new Microsoft killer virus, destroys every MS program and erases every Word and Excel file on your harddrive.  Found that very hard to believe, I think he was talking about the SoBig virus that’s been in the news, but I don’t think it does any of the nasty things he was talking about.  But, if they don’t want me to connect, there’s nothing I can say to change anyone’s mind, I’ve found that out.  Anyway, I burned a CD of the current pictures, and got them posted, called it the best we could do, and we rolled out of town heading for the Bulgarian Border.   I had some real concerns about going to Bulgaria.  Like Morocco, it’s a real border.  Cops with guns, new money to deal with, and unknown redtape.  But everything went very smoothly.  We drove through a shallow pit of chemicals and they charged us 2 Euro for “Disinfecting”.  The police checked to be sure the car wasn’t stolen and we weren’t international criminals.  The forms were in Bulgarian, they filled them out for us… the fees were less than the guidebooks said to expect, and other than the waiting in line part, wasn’t bad at all.  We had been warned that Sophia, the capital of Bulgaria, is full of thieves.  We didn’t hang around long enough to find out if the rumors are true.  It’s an ugly place, I can tell you that.  The street signs were totally unreadable.  They use the Cyrillic alphabet, no helpful Latin versions like we sometimes found in Greece.   The one thing that helped us was that our Let’s Go Europe guidebook had both the Latin and Cyrillic versions of the city names.  We got totally lost and confused, and then somehow found ourselves on the right highway out of town.  Rhona only had our Europe map to navigate with, and it was no help in the city.  We did have two possible directions in mind… due east, and kind of northeast… we ended up on the northeastern route, heading for a town we’d read about in our Let’s Go Europe book, Veliko Tarnovo.  The book said something like, “To see Bulgaria, you must see Veliko Tarnovo.”  We took them at their word.  We also had been told that there are very few campgrounds in Bulgaria, and those are mostly on the Black Sea, a long way off our route.  But the good news is that hotels and rooms are easy to find for less than the cost of camping.  About halfway from Sofia it was coming on towards evening, and I’ve made a rule (and a good one it is) to never drive at night.  The nearest town was called Botevgrad.  Never made a guidebook, never will.  We drove into the town and discovered that the entire center is closed to cars.  We did see a big building with a Hotel sign on top on the far side of the downtown mall, or plaza, whatever they call it.  Took some trial and error to find our way around through the maze of streets, but I pulled in to a square that seemed close, and parked.  I approached a couple young guys and asked where I could find a hotel, probably my dumbest question of the trip so far…  The building next door was the one with the BIG hotel sign….  It looked pretty fancy for a couple ragged campers, but we walked into the lobby and talked to a very friendly young lady who spoke very good English.  A double for the night?  Fifty Lev…  quick calculation in my mind, that’s twenty-five bucks…  a bit on the high side for a campsite, but for a hotel room, not bad at all.  Especially when I found out they had a gated, guarded parking lot to put our van in… and, my very own remote control for the TV.  So we parked the van in the lot, packed our stuff upstairs, and went walking, looking for dinner.  It was a bit late, and there didn’t seem to be very many choices.  It was pretty clear right away that if there have ever been any tourists in this town they were probably Russian.  We saw a several groups of teenagers eating pizza on the front porch of a place, that’s a good enough recommendation for us.  The waitress brought us menus.  We fumbled through the pages of the menu… figured the front page was probably the list of pizzas, two columns of prices, two sizes, large and small….  Making funny faces and gesturing, we tried to tell her that we had no idea what ingredients were, I thought maybe she’d let us go to wherever they made the pizzas and look and point, but if she understood what I was asking, she wasn’t going for it.  Finally we just picked two at random and hoped for the best.  She understood I wanted a beer…  it’s called Bere, pronounced like the Italian, but she rattled off three or four brand names, I told her to pick.  While enjoying the bottled beer she brought me, I noticed a couple guys drinking a draft.  So when it was time for my second, I asked her to bring me (hand motion, pouring a beer from a tap).  She was noticeably disappointed; she thought I didn’t like her choice.  Oh well, much to complicated to explain.  The beer she brought in a mug was a bit strange tasting… couldn’t really explain it, just different, huskier than normal is all I could say.  For my third beer I went back to her pick and she beamed, redeemed.  The next day on the highway we passed a big old tanker truck, all rusty and greasy…  You guessed it, the brand name of the draft beer I drank, proudly painted on the back… so now I know where that “husky” flavor comes from.  Anyway… three beers, a couple cokes, and two very good pizza’s (still not sure exactly what was on them, one definitely had pieces of pineapple) cost us the equivalent of about four dollars and fifty cents.  We sat on the deck and watched kids walking through the plaza, riding their bikes… no cars, no motos… very quiet and peaceful.   Next morning we walked around a bit, found a Bulgarian map in a small bookstore, and we were on our way to Veliko Tarnovo.   We found the center of town, spotted a couple hotels recommended by Let’s Go, and looked for a parking place.  There was a square with some guys running around parking cars, they waved us into a open spot, cost us 70 cents an hour, a rip off, I’m sure, but hey, we’re parked and we’re right near the hotels.  We ask one of the guys where the first one on our list is, the Hotel Comfort.  He says, “Oh no, no good, no good.  You want to go there-” and points to the second one on our list…  Okay, so we head down the street.  Suddenly there is an older woman by our side. “Are you English?”  She says.  We get that question a lot, asked usually by someone trying to hustle us, sell us something… .  It was Rosa.  And Rosa suggested that we might want to look at the room in her house that was available.  She told us that the parking guys get commissions from the hotels to send tourists, and I believe her.  We followed here down the street, and up a very narrow alley to her amazing house.  He husband is an artist, and the house is crammed full of oil paintings.  And just tons of STUFF…  She showed us the room with a terrace outside overlooking the river canyon out back.  She wanted 40 lev for the room, dinner that night and breakfast in the morning.  Twenty bucks.  Best deal since Morocco.  One big advantage was that Rosa spoke pretty good English.  She was very concerned that we park the van under a streetlight outside a neighbor’s window so he could keep an eye on it…  She had all kinds of advice for avoiding hustlers and thieves.  She fixed us a little lunch, a nice salad, and we were ready to go exploring.  The main attraction of the little town is the fortress on the hill.  What to tell you?  The top of a mountain surrounded by ancient stone walls, with square towers every fifty yards or so.  There is a natural gully that circles the fort, a long stone bridge across the gully to the town.  A genuine wooden drawbridge about half way.   Much of the original structure had been destroyed in an earthquake in the 1800s; much of what we saw had been rebuilt since WWII.  The sheer size of the place was impressive; at one time it was a good-sized village inside the walls.  We walked along the walls to the rock of execution, a big granite bolder overhanging the river valley far below.  I assume that the method of execution was a good old heave-ho.  Well, maybe they chopped heads off first, then the heave-ho.  We walked to the top where we had seen the towers of a church from below.  We are getting pretty blasé about churches and cathedrals, as you can imagine.  But this place blew us away.  No cameras allowed, so we won’t be posting any pictures.  We did buy the postcards though.  My first impression was… Salvador Dali.  The place was full of murals, done mostly in blacks and grays, gaunt, angular figures, grouped to form swooping lines.  But the images were like a crazy collage, placed against each other at odd angles.  There wasn’t the feeling of a chapel, no formal altar, or any of the icons or strange tall wooden seats we’ve come to expect to see in Orthodox churches.  The centerpiece, where the altar usually is, was a rough shaped slab of stone maybe ten feet high, four feet wide, a couple feet thick, floating, suspended by some hidden truss, with a very modern image of the Madonna and Child painted on the face.  The most affecting thing about it for me was that the entire interior of the building was of one piece…  there was not one disruptive element, it was like being inside of a surrealist work of art.  It’s called the Cathedral of the Patriarchs and it seems like from what we were able to find out the work was done in the 1980s… I’d really like to know more about it.   Still pretty much in a state of shock, we wandered out onto the front terrace to look at the incredible view of the river valley all around the fortress.  In the courtyard below, a Bulgarian artist had his wares on display.  The kind of thing we see in almost every major tourist attraction, ink drawings, water colors…  but there was something special (Rhona said, delicate) about this guy’s work.  There was no one else around, so we stopped to look.  He spoke excellent English.  He showed us a piece he had just finished, an ink drawing of the bridge, we asked how much, he said twenty lev…   not very much, but we were running low on Bulgarian money.  But we talked…  about his children and their future, about his feelings about Bulgaria…  I remember he said, “the politicians say, some day, some day, we will take care of you… but now, this for me, nothing for you….”  Rosa told us many of the same things.  No Social Security of any kind.  Old people starve to death; it’s tragic, but accepted.  We saw the black Mercedes of the rich on the highways bullying their way through traffic, zooming around the people in their horse drawn wagons.  I have an old image from some book I read in high school of the nobles in their carriages splashing mud on the serfs on the side of the road.  It’s happening today in Bulgaria, on the highways, and in the economy.   We talked for quite a while, and when some other tourists came down the stairs we left him to make his pitch to them.  We walked down the path a bit, and stopped.  I checked my wallet; looked at the coins in my pocket… we had twelve and a half lev.  I knew we’d be in Romania the next day.  We walked back up to the artist; the other tourists had left…  I told him, this is all we have, twelve and a half lev… is there something of yours you could let us have for that?  He gave us the ink drawing of the bridge…  Rhona took our picture…  I didn’t feel happy about making a “good deal”, I really wished we had more money with us to give him…  but he didn’t care, it was enough that we liked his work.   We walked back to Rosa’s and relaxed before sitting down to a simple but excellent dinner.  Later we were reading in our room when she came in all excited…  light show at the Cathedral!  Free!  We must hurry!  She told us how lucky we were, the show hadn’t happened for a few days, but tonight it’s on.  Rosa led us through the streets to the grounds of the church that sits opposite the fortress.  Far below us was the bridge across the river gorge, then the fortress against the sky.  We sat in the darkness on a stone wall waiting.  Bells on the mountain began ringing.  And the show began.  Hundreds of powerful lights were stationed all over the mountain, shining against the walls, against the Cathedral, inside the buildings and towers.  Red, greens, blues…  strobes flashing, all synchronized to classical music we could hear clearly across the gorge.  There are two huge towers, one at each end of the fortress walls.  From the two towers, and the spire of the Cathedral, at dramatic moments of the music, powerful blue laser beams crossed the sky.  The beams from the two end towers intersected on the face of the church we sat just below.  Rhona tried to get some pictures of the spectacular show, but our little camera just wasn’t up to the job.  It seems like the most memorable things happen to us on this trip when we least expect it…   The next morning I had go down and check to be sure the van was still intact, not a smoldering hulk…  no problem.  But Rosa was all upset, no electricity, she couldn’t cook us our promised breakfast.  Really not a big deal to us at all, but she was mortified.  She made us a couple sandwiches and loaded us down with tomatoes, plums, honey, don’t know what else…  A quick picture taking session, and it was time to head on down the road to Russe, the Bulgarian city at the Romanian border.  Again, the border crossing went smoothly, another mud hole to drive through and a two Euro “disinfecting” fee to be paid.  Maybe it was only one Euro this time.  Everyone was friendly, but it does take at least an hour to get through the lines to get the passports stamped, for the police to make sure we’re okay.   Okay…  I’m on record as saying the Greeks are the worst drivers in Europe.  I take it back.  The Bulgarians and the Romanians are worse.  Basically, behind the wheel of a car, they are just flat out rude.  They will pass any time, anywhere; they seem to feel they have a right to be in front of everyone else, no matter what.  I had cars coming right at me in my lane flashing their brights as they passed a line of cars like I’m supposed to what? Disappear?  I saw a guy in front of me pass a car on a narrow two lane, no shoulders to speak of, as the oncoming car zoomed by in the other lane.  For a moment, three cars across with only inches to spare.  Routine.  Coming up over an overpass, no way to see oncoming traffic?  No problem, swing out and pass.  It’s a narrow bridge?  No problem, just flash your high beams, somebody will make room.  The most amazing thing is that the roadsides are not littered with burned out hulks of wrecked cars…  but they must kill people daily, even though we didn’t see any evidence it.  I can’t figure it out.  I guess if you drive in Bulgaria and Romania you expect to see all kinds of crazy behavior… you expect it.  But the laws of physics can’t be ignored without frequent disasters.   Anyway…  we crossed the border, headed for Bucharest.  The road signs in Romania did give us Latin versions, and there were lots of signs.  Like Greece and Bulgaria the roads were a mess, either under construction or should have been.  But we navigated northwards, hoping to find a campground before dark.  Approaching Bran, home of the so called “Dracula’s Castle” (the real Dracula, a guy named Vlad Tepes, probably never visited the place, let alone sucked anyone’s blood there.)   We came around a corner and Rhona let out a whoop, she had spotted a camping sign.  We had to go down the road a ways to find a spot to turn around, but turn around we did, and pulled into the driveway of Camping Panorama.   Best campground name yet.  Owned by a young Dutchman, open for only two months, a real gem.  He hired a bulldozer to cut a flat area on the hillside, and his campground overlooks an incredible valley and the mountains beyond.  Yes, we took lots of pictures.  Cattle roaming the hillsides all around.  Locals in the fields cutting hay with scythes like they’ve done for thousands of years, pitching it up into cone shaped stacks to dry in the fields for winter feed.    In the morning we drove to Bran and checked out the castle.  It was pretty cool…  a castle in the sense that noblemen and women lived there, not actually a fortress.  Our guidebooks said that the next town down the road, Raslov, had a more impressive and less touristy castle.  But Bran was interesting, especially the park on the grounds that had a collection of old buildings brought from all over the area.  It would be a great place for one of those living museums, with people in costume, doing the jobs as they were done for centuries.  But the houses and barns were very interesting; we could peek through the windows and see the furnishings inside.  There was one example that was open for a closer look.  The Castle was interesting, Dracula or no.  Much of the original furniture was in place… it had the feel of hunting lodge about it.  Evidently troops were garrisoned there and it did serve a military function.  But my favorite was the fortress at Raslov, now that was a real castle.  Drawbridge, front door with the steel grate with the sharp points at the bottom, spouts for pouring out the boiling oil, the whole deal.  There was an interesting museum, and it did say that the castle had withstood numerous sieges.  There was a small village inside the walls, a big well it had taken two Turkish prisoners seventeen years to dig, just lots of cool stuff.  Obviously much of the place had been reconstructed, and the process continues.  Archeology seems to be a concern, but it’s clear that they are trying to give the tourists what they are looking for, a chance to see things they way they once were.  I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all, although some people feel that science is taking a back seat to the tourist dollar.   Castles in Europe served several purposes.  Of course, they were the homes of the feudal lords and ladies.  They served as refuge when invading armies or roving bands of bandits came through the area.  A castle on one hilltop would signal to its neighbors that the enemy was coming.  But they also served as tax and toll collecting stations.  If you wanted to bring goods through the area controlled by the castle, you had to pay a toll or you wouldn’t be allowed to pass.   But we spent a very pleasant day driving through wonderful scenery and touring two very different castles.  We went back to Camping Panorama for another beautiful sunset.  The next morning we were up early and back on the road.  Our host had shown us the best route to Northern Romania, and recommended another Dutch owned campsite to stop at.  It was a tough day of driving, more rough roads and crazy Romanian drivers.  We found the campsite, had dinner in their restaurant, and called it a night.  In the morning, again, early on the road.  The Romanian-Hungarian border was crowded, I guess because it was Saturday, lots of Romanians heading for Hungary for the weekend.  No hassles, just an hour or two in very slow moving lines.   Crossing the border into Hungary I felt my hands relax on the steering wheel.  Yes, there were still construction areas, and I did have to keep my eye on the rear view mirror for zooming black BMWs, but there was definitely a change.  Smiling faces on the sidewalks, machinery in the fields, a feeling of being back in the 21st Century again.   6:52:44 PM    comment []

8-24-03 Northern Greece, outside Serres We left Meteora yesterday morning, heading north towards the Bulgarian border.  We don’t have a clue where we are going once we get there.  We’ve read that there are very few campings in Bulgaria, but we only need one or two.  Sofia is the capital, and it’s not too far from the border, but we don’t want to be driving around in the dark looking for a place to stay.  That’s a nightmare we’ve avoided so far.  Just told Rhona today is our anniversary… she got a perplexed look… well, if you count the plane ride (I do) we’ve been traveling for five months now.  Almost 10,000 miles on the old van, pretty amazing, I think.  And it’s running better than ever.  Yesterday was a very nice cruise, a real variety of terrain… lots of flat driving, a couple ranges of good sized hills to cross, and a drive through a deep river gorge that was pretty impressive.  The amazing thing is, the summer season is over.  The campground in Meteora was packed Thursday night.  Friday afternoon the place was deserted.  We drove to Serres, just 40 Kilometers from the border, and decided to drop down to the coast and spend the night in a camping there.  The place is almost empty.  The store and bar/restaurant is closed, it’s just like it was in the early part of our trip in France.  Well, I sure don’t miss the crowds.  Actually I think we did real well on that score so far.  The only place that was really crowded was Pompei, and that was because there were bus loads of kids that would come in and just take over the bathrooms.  But we’ve really never had a problem finding a spot.  It got a little noisy sometimes, but nothing like what we’d been led to expect.  Of course, finding that room in Paros, that was just luck.  I just wonder if the tourist industry is really hurting this year, what with the poor economies and fears of terrorism.  Everywhere we’ve been we’ve seen shops full of merchandise and no one buying.  I guess that’s just more good luck on our part; we just picked the right year to travel.   Minor wrinkle in our bed sheet of life, we’re out of camping gas.  That means the reefer doesn’t reef… not a huge emergency, but no cold drinks today.  I’ve been looking for gas for the last week or so without any luck.  Usually the little stores in the campgrounds have it available, but in Greece it’s been pretty hit and miss.  Oh well, today is Sunday so everything is closed, no point in searching today.  Later we’ll take a walk and see if we can run into a cold drink or two…. 6:51:51 PM    comment []

8-22-03    Meteora   Every once in a while we find ourselves in a place of spectacular natural beauty.  Monkey Fingers in Morocco was such a place.  Meteora, Greece, is another.  It’s interesting that the stone is the same color, the shapes similar, but the overall effect totally different.  Monkey Fingers was overlapping walls of uplifted stone, smaller more detailed shapes.  Meteora is tall towers of stone, carved by wind and water.  Threatened by roving bandits, monks built their monasteries on the tops of the towers, like the Anasazi villages in New Mexico.  Not much chanting going on these days though, the area is totally given over to tourism.  Must have passed fifty tour busses parked along the roadsides by the monasteries.  The first and biggest is called Metamorfosis, founded by St. Athanasius in the 14th Century.  Most of the monks have escaped the influx of tourists, moved to other more isolated monasteries.  All we saw were the ticket taker, museum guard, and the gift shop clerk, definitely civilians.  No cute monk T shirts, lots of obviously mass produced handicrafts though.  We noticed two icon factories in the town at the base of the stone towers.   Tourists or no, the views are breathtaking.  The towers were formed where the range of mountains meets the open plain.  From the courtyards of the Monasteries, it was at least 500 feet down to the valley floor.   In the museum, we enjoyed looking at the displays of local native costumes, many from Metsovo, the town we visited when we were staying in the campground by the lake in Ionnina… only 130 kilometers away.  We’ve made a loop of Greece, now we are heading back northwards, towards Bulgaria.  I was interested to see photos and paintings of the Monks leading squads of Greek resistance fighters against the Germans in World War II.  Lots of exhibits of weapons and military medals of all kinds, these monks did more than pray and chant.  One of the monasteries, St. Stephens, has become a Nunnery.  We saw actual nuns taking the money at the door, clerking the gift shop, and just going about their daily business.  Rhona noticed the woman’s touch… flower gardens everywhere, neatly painted signs, a lot more “cute.”    Well, a couple monasteries, as impressive as they are, and we’re pretty much done for the day.  We’ll be packing up early tomorrow, drive to a campground on the Med, not too far from the Bulgarian border for a rest day, then figure on crossing the border relatively early Monday morning.  We’ve pretty much decided to head up through Bulgaria and Romania to Budapest, spend some time there, then to Prague, and a northern loop through Germany to Denmark and Holland, before getting to Frankfurt by late September, then of course, on to Munich.   It seems like our trip is winding down, but we’ve still got a full month at least of good traveling left.  We’ve decided to leave Turkey for the next trip, and focus on spending some time in Northern Europe before the weather turns cold.  As far as Venice, we might be able to get there after Octoberfest, it’s really not that far from Munich.  We’ll see.  As usual, we’re thinking about the possibilities, and trying to keep our options open…  worked fine so far.  Good news is the van is running better than when we got it… .  Solved an emergency brake problem, swapped some tires around, and it’s definitely a happy camper. 6:50:46 PM    comment []

8-20-03    Back in Rafina   That boat ride yesterday kicked my butt.  We took the high speed catamaran rather than the regular ferry, at least two hours less time to suffer.  But the ferry has a rail.  The catamaran is like riding in an airplane.  Well, an airplane in constant turbulence.  We were told that in rough weather the catamaran doesn’t run.  That means yesterday wasn’t rough.  Don’t even want to know what that’s like.  I suppose people die.  No, I didn’t get sick.  Iron mind control, that was one part.  But being seated facing a bulkhead, with a window I could stare out scanning the horizon for any sign of solid ground, was the main thing.   I have known and respected people who have lived on the ocean, blithely sailing from one exotic port to another.  What about that part when every wave is dark and menacing?  When the ship falls and slides, only to rear back up again?   I think you have to have that yellow slicker on, hands bravely gripping the wooden pegs of the huge wheel, jaw clenched against the constant spray, to enjoy that experience.   Trapped in a sealed cabin with a roomful of desperate gray faces, crewmembers running through the aisles with mops and buckets, that’s not the way to do it. It’s not physical, it is all psychological.  I kept repeating that to myself.  And I won.  But off the boat I decided I needed to carry the backpack to the campground to purge my mind and body.  That worked.  Definitely gave me something else to think about.  Keeping the back straight, keeping the knees pumping, up the steep streets – let’s see, about 300 yards of elevation in fifteen hundred yards of distance.  And the back isn’t whining this morning, so we’ll call it a success.  But I crawled into bed last night one whipped puppy. (I wasn’t very sleepy last night, had a long nap on the boat. That rocking motion just lulls me right to sleep.) RH   The Greek islands are famous for the “light”.  I couldn’t quite understand what that meant.  But I saw it.  The sky reflects the color of the water, and the water is brilliant blue.  The air is clear.  There’s not much vegetation, so the landscapes are clean lines drawn with a steady hand.  Villages are clusters of white houses with orange tile roofs, churches with bright blue domes topped with white crosses.  The wind is almost constant, dropping to a soothing breeze only occasionally.  The temperature on the mainland this time of year is in the middle 90s most of the time.  On the islands it was 80- 85, very comfortable.  But the light… what can I say?  You look at something in the distance and you see it, crisp and clear.    We got off the ferry in Mykonos under the impression that we could make further connections there.  The ticket agent misled us, we needed to be in Paros, the next island down.  So we explored the town, had brunch in a place called “Little Venice”, right on the water.  We watched a well dressed couple sit down at a table at the sea wall a few feet in front of us.  A couple moments later a rogue wave splashed them before they could react.  There are a few pictures in Yahoo, an unforgettable spot to be sure.  No, you won’t find the wet couple, no way to get the camera out in time.  The best shots are the ones we never took.  A couple hours later we were on the boat again.  We were a little surprised the islands seemed so barren.  I don’t think I was expecting Caribbean jungle, but it seemed downright arid.  Well, it’s August, and near the deserts of Turkey and Africa, might have been able to figure that one out.       We had intended to travel on from Paros.  We thought we might find a room for the night, spend the rest of the day walking around, make the ferry connections, then move on in the morning.  When the ferries arrive, a group of people are waiting to offer tourists rooms.  I know in some places it can be a hustle, but on the islands it’s considered the best way to find a cheap room.  We saw a guy with a sign that said, “Special Price, One Night.”  The guidebooks had led us to expect to pay 35 to 50 Euros for a double.  50 turned out to be a good deal.  Neat little studio by a pool we didn’t have time to use.  We got arranged, set off to explore.  Lovely little town.  Reminded us a bit of Sorrento in Italy.  Definitely a tourist place, but with a bit of class.  There is a definite advantage to a tourist town.  Things like used English paperback stores for example.  Menus you can read.  Ice cold beer.  English style breakfasts, stuff like that.  We found a great used book shop run by a very friendly English lady.  I asked her opinion of the island we were intending to go to, Milos.  She immediately responded, “Well, you’re on the best island now, of course.  But I really didn’t like Milos.  Too many Greeks on holiday, too many loud Greeks.”  The attraction of Milos had been that the guidebooks had said it was not often visited by tourists.  We knew what she meant by loud Greeks…  we’ve been living with them for a while now.  I know I’ve said before that Greek is very melodic.  But loud is loud.  Being, I’m sure, a proud member of the Chamber of Commerce, she casually mentioned several of the local attractions, the beautiful beaches and quaint villages.  And also, that she just happened to have a friend that has a room available.  In full defensive tourist mode, all shields up, we thanked her, and left the shop with our armload of purchases.   We’d already made our decisions… ticket for next day purchased.  Of course, they could be returned… .  A few yards further down the winding street, we agreed, this really is a very nice little town…  Soon we were back in her shop.  She called her friend, and after a bit of wandering and some helpful guidance by folks along the way, found Jane, of Jane’s Rooms.  A room with a private bath, overlooking the water, in the center of the old town.  She had a cancellation, and would rent us the room for the busiest week of the year for a discount.  We recognized it for what it was, a tourist’s miracle.   The holiday is called the Dormination of the Virgin, or something like that.  I had seen the word Annunciation, and assumed that it was the holy day when the angel showed up to tell Mary she’s pregnant….  Couldn’t see why that would be such a big deal.  But later we found out it’s the Ascension…  I think that one is the sketchiest of all Catholic holidays.  It’s the celebration of Mary’s ascending into heaven.  My scientific mind has a tough time with the logistics of that one.  Now, if there was a UFO involved….   Well, it’s a big deal to the Greeks, their biggest holiday in the summer, that’s for sure.  Fireworks, parades, parties, the whole deal.  And for the price of a room we had ringside seats.  But first, adventures.  Okay, we got there on Monday… that was the day of boat rides, seeing Mykonos, getting established.  Tuesday we moved into our little room above the harbor, found the English breakfast place with real cups of coffee.  Italians and Greeks drink these little thimbles of potent brew, not bad, really, but I need something to sip on for a while.  Remezzo had the right stuff.  With a friendly English waitress who seemed to have been everywhere, done it all.  In the afternoon we jumped on a bus and headed for the end of the line, southwards around the island.  Ended up in a place called Drios.  Walked down the beach, had to do a little exploring to find where the action was… discovered a couple restaurants and a very cool bar.  The afternoon we were there they were playing mostly Jethro Tull.  One inside wall was a mural of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”.  Album covers in frames … jazz, blues, but mostly Old Time Rock and Roll….  I imagined an old English Hippie owned the place, but we found out later, nope, he’s an old hippie all right, but he’s Greek.  Walked back out towards the bus stop and explored the town a bit more.    Saw a beautiful building, looked in, it looked like a bar, walked into the room and was greeted by a friendly young man.  Asked him if they served beer, and he quickly had a cold Amstel in my hand.  Another young man joined us, a few years older than the first, and we spent a few very pleasant hours talking about basketball, America, Canada (the older guy has a Canadian girlfriend who lives in Vancouver, and he’s planning to go there to live for six months… give the country, and the relationship a try.)  The room was something special, excellent art hanging on the walls, very modern feel, but very comfortable.  We asked them about the place and they showed us around.  The room we were in was actually the reception of a hotel, they took us out and showed us the grounds.  They said they’d love to show us a room, but the place was full.  Rooms were 200 Euros a night, but they said if we came back in late September we could have one for 200 a week…  pretty tempting, actually.  Anybody thinking about a cheap island holiday in the fall could do a lot worse than Drios.  I just love talking to these young Europeans…  for one thing, they like Americans… especially Americans that talk to them like real people and not just “the help”.  The other thing is that they are just very polite, very respectful of older people.  Not that I need that, but it sure is refreshing.  They look at me like, well, you’ve lived a bit, what do you think?  I, of course, am willing to tell them.  And I don’t waste any energy defending American stupidity, so I get past their distrust and dislike of Americans very quickly.  I think a lot of European kids really want to like Americans.  So many of them have relatives living there.  But our government, and a few stupid, insensitive tourists, make it very difficult.  I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say that when I talk to these young people their reaction is, now here’s that nice American I always wanted to meet.  That’s our mission, folks….   The young kid was pretty tall, a serious basketball fan.  I guessed the Lakers, but he wants to be like Mike.  The national Greek team is big news right now; they are headed for the European championships with a good chance to win.   When it came time to pay the bill, I couldn’t believe it… three Euros for three beers and a coke?  Special price, the kid said….   The told us about a festival at the beach the next night, a full moon party.  Well, we couldn’t miss that.  So the next day… where am I?  Wednesday, yeah, I think so….  We puttered around, did the Internet thing….  Oh yeah that’s interesting.  All our guidebooks said that Internet connections on the Islands were rare and expensive… well, that must have been last year.   We found several very nice places, good computers, very fast connections, and relatively cheap prices, all over the island.  Paros has an excellent website with lots of information,  About four in the afternoon we were back on the bus heading to Drios.  It’s a lot of fun for me to watch the driver deal with the typical Greek craziness… the people who leave their cars and motos parked in the street, the bizarre narrow streets, and he’s got this huge bus to maneuver around.  Saw his side mirror hit an oncoming truck, that was fun.  Didn’t break though… Oh well, can’t have everything.  I’m just in a constant state of amazement watching these people drive.  It was a real treat to watch the driver deal with it all.  Climbed off the bus in downtown Drios, and walked down the now familiar little road to the beach.  There was a stage built between the water and the seawall.  The area behind the wall was lined with tables and chairs, then an open walkway, then the restaurant outdoor seating area….  Except that cars and motos drove right through the middle just about anytime they felt like it.  No one seemed to be concerned, and I have to say they did drive slowly, unusual for Greece.  Well, you would think that if you are driving through a restaurant, you would keep your speed down… but I kept my eyes open, just in case one of the boys wanted to show off his hot new bike.   Dinner was great but more because of the setting and the people around, not really the food.   Rhona had their “Special”.  Turned out to be macaroni and cheese with meat… she wasn’t all that impressed.  I had pork in a lemon sauce that was pretty tasty.   We had a liter of home made wine, and that may have been the beginnings of my problems.  The guys had told us this is an all night party, a tradition on full moons in this village.  I was willing to give it our best shot.  I envisioned curling up on the beach in our sheets, listening to the music as the moon traveled across the sky.  It didn’t quite work that way.  But before I go sounding all negative, I have to say that yes, the whole village did show up, and the dancing was very fun to watch.  The music… how to describe my feelings about Greek music?  The songs seem very sad…  it’s tough to listen to sad ballads when you don’t have a clue what they are about… who did what to whom.  The fiddle playing, the guitars, that high pitched round backed Greek guitar, what’s it called, a Bouzuki?  No, I think that’s an anti-tank weapon, anyway, the music is very… interesting.  I guess I’d say, a mixture of European and Oriental sounds, with a strong beat for dancing.  “It’s got a good beat and I can dance to it, I’ll give it an 80, Dick.”   The music quit about one o’clock, and after the crowd cleared out a bit, we found a spot down the beach a bit.  Problem one was that the beach was very small, in both dimensions, only 10 or 15 feet, sea wall to water, and maybe fifty feet around the little cove, big boulders on both ends.  Problem two was the sand was liberally sprinkled with rocks the size of large potatoes.  Problem three was the bright light that illuminated the stage, and the entire beach… they never turned it off.  Rhona was uncomfortable, I was stubbornly trying to get sleep, it just wasn’t working.  She decided she’d be happier sitting in the rock and roll bar….  I already wasn’t feeling too good, so, for the first time in her young life, she walked into a bar by herself and ordered a drink.  I guess that landmark life experience justifies the whole evening, right there.  I rolled up in the covers and tried to fall asleep.  I might have, for a few moments there….  until the guy came to tell me they were washing down the sidewalks and I’d better move before the water got me…  I tried moving, but I could see my fantasy was doomed.  Not the first time that’s happened, oh well….  Pretty soon I joined Rhona at the bar, but I was feeling worse and worse.  Really don’t know what was wrong with me, had a fever, flu like symptoms as they say, but I didn’t really get that sick.  Just felt like hell for a couple days.  About five in the morning we walked back to the bus stop to wait for the first bus of the morning…  We got back to Parika and I went to bed.  So what was it Kris?  Was the homemade wine strained through dirty socks?  Rhona felt fine, so that couldn’t be it.  Was the pork the culprit?  It was overcooked if anything, tender, falling apart.  Maybe the potato rocks and the cool night air were just too much for me.  Thirty years ago I’m sure there would have been no ill effects.  All well, call it the price of a good time.   (Thursday was a sick day for Larry, I spent the day doing some shopping, reading and Jane took me to the Pharmacy to get some “Greek Drugs” for Larry. Parika is a very cute town with interesting shops; a few classy dress shops, the typical beach resort shops with lots of California Surf Stuff, an abundance of what I call old hippie shops, I got a great shirt for 3 euro, and several nice galleries selling local art. After shopping I stopped for a pita sandwich, it was great. They put French fries right in the sandwich. Almost everything you order her comes with fries even pasta and mousaka. Not very good for the diet plan but pretty tasty, oh yes, my pita dinner was 1.5 euro or about $1.75) RH   Friday evening was the big celebration.  Rhona and I climbed the spiral steel staircase to the roof, and it was very cool indeed.  For a small town on a small island, they did themselves proud.  The big star shells were exploding right over our heads, it was like the grand finale of the Fourth of July from front row seats.  A bunch of small boats driving around in the dark harbor, crewmen waving bright red flares, much bigger than the normal US highway flares.  Down the street a ways was a stage, a band similar to the one we heard in Drios playing Greek music while people danced in the street.  Before the fireworks they had a professional looking group in full traditional costumes dancing on the stage, afterwards it was all comers.   Saturday things calmed down a bit.  After our usual English breakfast we on the bus to a place called Golden Beach.   The bus dropped us off and after a bit of a walk we found two beach clubs sharing a long, beautiful sandy beach.  Windsurfing lessons were the main event at this place, lots of beginners in the water, but several experts ripping back and forth in the steady strong winds.  Rhona and I were satisfied just to kick back and watch the action.  The water was clean and clear, and invigorating.  A bit on the cool side, Rhona thought.  After an afternoon’s relaxation, reading our books, we caught the bus back to town.   We were in the mood for a special dinner.  We had noticed a big restaurant across the street from the hotel where we spent the first night, we decided to give it a try.  No tourists in sight, the place was packed with local people.  My stomach was still feeling a bit rocky, so I had this Greek baked macaroni pie… sufficiently bland.  Rhona had some rotisserie pork, crusty on the outside, but very tender and juicy on the inside.  Lots of flavor, she says.   Sunday we took the bus in the opposite direction, just to see a bit more of the island.  Found a cute little fishing village with a very small sandy beach in the harbor.  Later we walked for a while and found another, longer sandy strip of beaches.   We decided to treat ourselves to a movie, the first one of our trip.  After the bus ride back to town, we found this amazing little outdoor theater.  Rows of old fashioned patio chairs, the kind where the seats are plastic clothes line rope.  Very comfortable.  Got a coke, a beer, and some popcorn and settled back to watch the Steve Martin, Queen Latifa movie…  don’t remember the name… not an Oscar winner, but good fun.    Monday we went Naouasa.  Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s how they spell it.  Rhymes with  Yowsa.  This was the cute little Greek fishing village we’ve been looking for.  Took some pictures down at the harbor, all the little boats lined up behind the breakwater.  We noticed a lot of little churches all over the island.  I figure every time some boat captain spends the night in a storm another little chapel gets built.  Walking through town we saw a sign that said, “Pizza, Best View.”  Well, I’d seen pizza before, but maybe they are talking about a view of the town.  We walked up some winding streets and into a large, empty restaurant with a great balcony overlooking the town and the bay.  A friendly little man appeared and sat us on the deck and brought us cold drinks.  Another couple arrived, obviously friends, and the two men sat at the far end of the deck playing backgammon while their wives kibitzed.  As the sun slowly went down we watched the light grow soft and rosy.  The pictures we took do not compare with the images in our memories.   But what we came for was the 60s rock and roll show.  As usual, had no idea what to expect.  There was a children’s playground in sort of a village square.  A small stage had been built in front of an old stone building that faced the playground.  The group seemed to be local guys, we’re pretty sure the singer was the same guy we’d seen on the beach at Drios.  There was a tall skinny bass player, a guy on lead guitar who had obviously spent a long time sitting in his room playing to Santana and Beatles albums, an excellent drummer, and a keyboard player who was amazing.  He was in a wheelchair, he seemed to have MS or some other crippling condition… but you wouldn’t know it to hear him play.  Their playlist of old rock and roll wasn’t that large…  I’m pretty sure they did three different versions of “Black Magic Woman”.  About every other song was Greek, I wondered if they were songs popular in the sixties in Greece.  The singer had a great voice, he was reading lyrics off of sheets of binder paper as he sang.  Someone had obviously copied them down while listening to albums.  I wanted to hang around and tell them that the real words are all on the Internet, but it was crowded and I didn’t want to seem critical.  The guitar player really was good… he wasn’t a kid, I’d guess in his late thirties, maybe older.  But he could definitely play in a bar band in the states, maybe in a Santana tribute band.  But the highlight of the night, no question…  The Rolling Stones:  “Satisfaction.”  Ya just haven’t lived until you’ve heard, “I can’t get No…” in a heavy Greek accent…  It was good fun and a great end to a perfect day.  A short bus ride and we were back in Parika, no problems.   People have asked us along the way, “Where have you been that you’d like to go back to?”  That’s really a tough question…  the fun of traveling for Rhona and I is the new adventures.  I’ve always said I’d rather be miserable having a fresh experience than happy doing the same old thing.  Big problem in a favorite restaurant, do I order my favorite dish, or try something new?  I usually go with the something new.   But Paros just might be the place we’d go back to… of course, there are about 23 other famous Greek islands to explore…  maybe we’d stop in at Paros on the way…. 6:49:42 PM    comment []

8-10-03, Rafina   A little car talk, sorry, ladies.   The actuating arm of the emergency brake is attached to the rear brake shoe with a clevis pin.  That pin is held in place with an E shaped retaining clip.  The one on the driver’s side fell off, result, no emergency brake.  Luckily, no emergency either.  I do rely on the hand brake a lot.  Of course, parked in the campground, the E brake keeps the van a lot more stable.  We have these plastic blocks, like ramps, we drive up onto to raise whichever end or side of the van is low, and they do act like chocks… but, I miss my E brake.  First problem was getting the tire off…  lug nuts were obviously put on with an air gun, and the puny little tire iron really wasn’t up to the job of loosening them.  But I found the perfect cheater bar, a rusty old piece of pipe, under the neighbor’s caravan.  Pretty soon I had all lug nuts off, axle jacked up, tire off.  Ah, reminds me of the old backyard Redding days, hot sun, greasy hands (okay, greasy body).   I got out my English version of WD-40 and sprayed down the brake drum, and with a little banging and prying, soon had it off.  I was very happy to see that the most inexpensive part had failed.  When I pulled the hand lever and felt it go slack, I imagined the worst… broken cable, or somehow the lever mechanism had failed.  That could have been an expensive repair.  But the little E clip?  Has to be a 10 cent item.  Got the clevis pin out so I can find a clip that will fit, and made a little sketch of what I thought it might look like to show the parts store clerk. I took the opportunity to rotate the tires on the driver’s side.  The driver’s front has always been worn (yep, probably needs an alignment).  Anyway, the spare is new. So I put the worn tire in the spare rack, the spare on the back, and the moved the back to the front.  Feeling pretty good about my progress, I decided it was time to get cleaned up and crack that first beer.   Had a navigator/pilot meeting and decided a return visit to the campground restaurant would be a fitting end to the day.  Let’s see if I can do a little better job of describing the place, it really is special.   This campground sits on a bluff over this inlet of the Aegean Sea.  It may be a couple hundred feet to the beach below.  It’s been pretty windy; the view from the campground of the froth-topped waves rolling into the cove is beautiful.  The restaurant is in the back corner of the campground on piers overhanging the cliff.  The dining room is a deck around a rectangular bar that fronts the kitchen area.  The three walls facing the sea are glass panels or open doors.  The roof is solid over the kitchen, but canvas panels, like permanent awnings, stretch over the sitting area, billowing like sails in the wind.  The tables and chairs are nice, but nothing fancy.  But the view is incredible.  There is another peninsula, another finger of Greece, across the inlet.  At night we see the lights of three small villages and one larger town tucked into the dark rolling hills on the opposite coast.  The view is framed by the cypress like pine trees this outcropping of land is covered with, long needles dancing in the constant breeze.   My feeling sitting there, enjoying our Greek salad with a big chunk of seasoned Feta cheese on top, sipping my frosty ice cold half liter mug of draft Heinekein, is, yep, you guessed it… it don’t get much better than this.  The first night we went there for dinner we didn’t see a camper in the room, everyone seemed to be fairly well off local people.  This night there were several families from the campground wearing their good stuff from the bottom of the backpack.  Kris, remember that place you took me to at the Berkeley yacht harbor, wasn’t it called the Sand Piper?  Anyway our little campground restaurant has the same ambiance, just a bit more rustic.  And a whole lot less expensive.   The next morning, I decided to remove the opposite wheel, to get a look at the E ring.  Cranking on the first lugnut, the little English tire iron broke.  Seemed that the shaft into the socket was a weld joint, and it just broke loose.  So, a quick cleanup, and we set off on a walk to town, to try to find a replacement E clip, new lug wrench, and do a little food shopping.  There’s a roundabout, and we picked the “wrong” street.  Well, it was the wrong one, because it wasn’t the one we planned to take, the most direct route.  A highway runs parallel to the coast; the one that is completely tore up for at least twenty miles.  Off that highway there is a spur that runs to Rafina on the coast.  The campground is on a road that comes off that spur.  We thought we were walking back to the Rafina road, but actually we were on another country lane that led us back to the main highway.  Through some countryside we hadn’t seen before, vineyards.  They looked like old vines, no stakes and wires, just growing separately in rows.  Out on the highway we found a Greek hardware store, with a very friendly English speaking man behind the counter.  No E clip, he recommended another store down the highway a bit further.  But he had a beautiful small four way lug wrench, just the type I would have bought in the States.  He asked the usual questions about where we were from and how we were traveling….  Then said that he had a suggestion for us… oh boy, I thought, another brother-in-law rug merchant.  Seems his mother’s village in the north of Greece has a special celebration next Friday.   He told us how the villagers take their horses down the river and bathe them, braid their hair and tie colored beads in their manes.  Later, they bring their decorated horses into the church to be blessed, and then the celebration begins, dancing and drinking all night.  We just might be able to make that party.  Might have to pick up a little speed to do it, be a little careful about the island trip, but it sure sounds like something we don’t want to miss.  Anyway, it turned out we didn’t walk down the “wrong” road after all.   We stopped at another hardware store, the owner told us I was probably going to have to go to Athens on Monday to find the part… but he did send us down the highway a bit further where we recognized the road back to Rafina.  Oh, so that’s where we are.  On familiar territory now, we walked towards town to a small repair shop.  A very friendly couple were doing a brake job on a Fiat when we walked in.  He stopped what he was doing and spent maybe a half hour digging through little plastic drawers and coffee cans of parts.  A couple near misses, but no luck.  He agreed, Athens on Monday.  A bit further, we filled the backpack with groceries at the supermarket, and then walked to the town square.  We had made the fantastic discovery a few nights before - the newspaper stands in the square sell bag ice.  No, you don’t understand.  Ice in Greece, or Italy, is like gold.  We stop in at McDonalds and buy cokes just to see ice cubes.  Rhona has learned to ask the McClerks for lots of ice, but it disappears pretty quickly.  But a giant plastic bag full of ice cubes, what luxury!  That meant a cab ride back to the campground so the ice wouldn’t melt, Rhona didn’t seem disappointed.   So, it’s Sunday, relaxation day.  The wind seems to have died down a little, maybe we can spend a few hours on the beach.  We’ve got to get backpacks organized for the Greek island adventure.  The plan is to leave the van here in the camping parking lot.  Take the bus to Athens tomorrow, find the E clip, and get a ferry to an island we haven’t quite picked out yet.  We have lots of options.  The easiest islands to get to are the most crowded, of course.  Each one seems to have it’s own attractions and drawbacks.  Rhona has seen the poster of Santorini with its white houses and blue domed roofs, and has dreamed of going there for years.  It’s one of the more difficult to get to, but still most crowded islands… Rhona’s not the only one who saw the poster.  We will be out of touch of a while, we hear email is very expensive on the islands.  Another tough decision will be whether to come back in time to make the drive north for the festival with the decorated horses.  Oh, the stress….  6:48:15 PM    comment []

Thursday, August 07, 2003

Lost and Found: Thoughts   International Worst Drivers Award, goes to:  Well, Morocco was definitely a front runner, with Portugal perhaps a close second.  Upon further review, its clear that Morocco has the worst pedestrians, no contest at all in that category.  It is the custom there that if you don’t have anything better to do it is expected that you spend the day standing around in the streets, preferably while talking on your cell phone.  Moroccans rarely have anything better to do.  That custom, plus the amazing variety of modes of transport, from donkeycarts and bicycle rickshaws to huge cargo trucks in a mishmash of a swirling ballet of vehicles and people, makes driving through Moroccan towns feel like the dog fighting scenes in Star Wars.  But the winner is – Greece.  We are driving on a single lane road.  We come to a traffic signal and stop for the red light.  We immediately have a car along each side of us, to the right and to the left.  Are they turning?  Of course not.  This is simply the Greek idea of an opportunity to pass.  The light changes to green and the two cars duel for the front spot.  Could I floor the gas pedal and make the game more interesting?  Well, perhaps if we were driving a Ferrari Camping Van, not sure they make one.  Traffic coming from the other direction is doing the same thing of course.  So, we’ve got six cars in a space maybe big enough for three, horns honking, lights flashing.  Emergency flashers in Greece have much more significance than they do in the rest of the world.  Turn them on and you suddenly have permission to pass anywhere, on either side of the road.  With the flashers going, you have the right to park anywhere… double, triple, block the entire street, it doesn’t matter, you’ve got your flashers on.  I don’t know how many times I’ve come around a tight corner to find someone in my lane heading right at me, emergency flashers going.  You would think that with such behavior the roads would be littered with smashed cars, burned out hulks.  You would be right. I can only assume that if you take a driver’s training course in Greece, they teach you to drive like that.  They probably have a whole chapter in their text about the powers granted by emergency flashers.  But, before you even get to the part about being able to drive a car, you have to spend an apprenticeship as a teenage kamikaze Moto rider.  At about the age of twelve daddy turns you loose on an underpowered Vespa or Honda 50, and you work your way up (if you survive that long) to a full fledged crotch rocket, proudly wearing Mad Max leathers with the 200 KPH skid pad between the shoulder blades.  Motos have rights not even granted to cars with flashers going.  They can ride on sidewalks, the wrong way on one way streets, and at high rates of speed through pedestrian only shopping streets.  In Italy I started noticing the broken thumbs, hands and wrists, white plaster casts, and arms in slings everywhere.  Casualties of Moto crashes, I’m sure.  I have not seen the same amount of bandages here in Greece.  I think that either Greek Moto riders are more skillful… or perhaps the narrow streets here are so crowded that they can’t actually reach the velocities necessary to cause serious bodily harm.  It just feels that they are going that fast when they are heading directly at you.  Oh, it just occurred to me… maybe they are going that fast.  Maybe their injuries are much more serious.   I’ve been meaning to write something about the campgrounds, here goes.  Basically there are two general types, those that have well defined spaces, usually divided by shrubs or trees, and the free style, open field type.  I am definitely more comfortable in the ones with designated spaces.  Especially the older ones, where the trees are tall enough to give good shade.  We’ve stayed in some very nice, obviously relatively new campgrounds, where I’ve thought, yes, it would be nice to come back twenty years from now when all these little  twigs will be big enough to keep the blazing sun off our heads.  In Greece we’ve found several places with artificial shade.  Frameworks of steel pipe with bamboo on top.  When they are tall enough to clear the open roof of the van, they are very nice indeed.  But even the shorter ones provide a good shady area for our table and chairs.  In the open field type, we’ve returned from a walk to town to find someone has pitched their tent immediately alongside our van.  Using it for a windbreak, I suppose.  So far no one has actually tied tent ropes to our bumpers. There are several things that determine our feelings about a campground; how comfortable we are, therefore, how long we are likely to stay.  Perhaps one of the most important things is totally beyond the control of the owners… the wind.  Most places we’ve stayed near the coast, any coast, have been very windy.  I think we’ve gotten used to it, but it does wear on you after a while.  I don’t know if it’s the sound, that white noise sound of wind, or the dust, or the way things sometimes skitter off the table.  The people in tents are much more bothered than us.  However bad it gets our old solid van is never likely to be sent cartwheeling across the campground.  Usually the first thing we do when arriving is check out the bathrooms.  Sit down toilets are a big plus.  Sit down toilets with toilet seats are a rare luxury.  Toilet paper in the bathrooms is good.  Toilet paper in the actual stall, where you don’t have to make and advance prediction of possible usage, is in the four star category… with seats, clean dry floors, and a lock on the stall that works; we are talking five stars.  I think the only one we found in that category also had life-sized marble statues of naked Romans and fresh flowers.  Too bad we couldn’t afford to stay there longer. (Even the ones with the fewest amenities are usually very clean, the only time cleanliness has been a problem is when there are busloads of teenagers at the site. RH) Showers are another make or break item.  My favorites are the places with Solar water heaters on the roof… we see them more and more.  It is amazing how well they work; abundant water, as hot as you like, for free.  Of course, I’m very conscious that Americans are considered water wasters, so I keep my showers quite short. (not me RH) That ex-Catholic guilt thing again, I guess.  But size is important… can we actually keep our towel and clothes dry while we shower? (Kara the green backpack work great for this) Every once in a long while we come across showers with large stalls and a little bench, oh what a thrill!  But the normal is a small phone booth sized stall, a battered shower head that shoots water in unexpected directions, or worse, just dribbles.  Consistent water temperature is rare.  I’ve learned to look for the shower stall closest to where the hot water enters the building, pick the one on the end of the row and you are asking for European water torture.  Of course, sometimes there is no hot water, or you have to put a coin or token into a meter.  No solar water heater in those places, obviously.  But our all time favorite shower… Said’s place in Morocco, where we had to dump plastic buckets of cold water on our heads… that was fun. (It has been so hot that cool showers have not been the problem I would have thought. RS) I do confess, a big issue for me is the neighbors.  Call me a bigot, but when I hear loud conversation going on, it’s usually in German.  It’s not their fault, there is just something irritating about the German language… Dutch also, they are very closely related.  I’ve read that Americans are considered real loudmouths, but we’ve met so few in the campings this year… not hard to understand why.  Here in Athens, we are hearing a lot more American English being spoken in the street.  The Greek and Italian languages are very pleasant to listen to, especially the Greek.  The other night there was a loud conversation, perhaps a friendly argument, going on nearby in Greek between several people, and it was almost melodic.  Like different tones of cascading water, the words tumbling over each other, very soothing to listen to.  With, of course, no clue to what they were talking about.  We have had very good luck in campground restaurants.  There is one in this campground we haven’t had time to try out yet, but it looks very nice, a windowed deck overlooking the Med.  Maybe tonight.  We’ve had some great, and often inexpensive, meals in campgrounds.  The place in Ronda, Spain was a definite highlight, great meals, great wine.  You know you are in luck when you walk in and there are local people who’ve come for dinner.  Location is a big thing.  A few times the campground wasn’t that great, but the view was incredible.  Something about being near water, the almost mythical campground with the private beach.  The place in Ioanina, Greece, on the lake, with the rowers in their racing skulls going back and forth, was very soothing.  Convenience can make a big difference.  The campsite in Pompei for example, with the train station and the ruins just outside the gates.  Made it easier to tolerate the crowded bathrooms and blowing dust. I guess the main thing is that each place we’ve been has it’s own personality.  We’ve been very happy in places where the facilities weren’t that great (now I’m thinking of the Dutch place in northern Portugal with the animals grazing) but the spirit was so positive and uplifting.  Other places with the best landscaping and sparkling facilities, somehow just felt impersonal and barren.  We just didn’t want to hang around longer than necessary.    Another area I’ve been meaning to talk about is the people we’ve met so far.  One of the most fun things I remember from my first trip to Europe were the friends we made along the way.  Mostly young Americans we met in the campgrounds.  Of course, we were hitchhiking, and that is a great way to meet people.  I had hoped that we could return the favor and pick up a few people – but hitchhiking seems to be a thing of the past.  Actually, at inconvenient times (like walking, for example) I think we’ve seen three people, two guys hitching together, and a single (brave, or crazy) young girl with their thumbs out.  But the reality is, either because of the poor economy or fears of terrorism, there seems to be very few Americans traveling in Europe this year.  Here and there we have met the occasional exception.  The great old couple from Hermosa Beach, touring once again in their cool 70 something green Oldsmobile, they send over by container ship.  The couple Rhona met in Cinque Terra with their hammockjunkies.com email address.   At Ionina in that campground by the lake one afternoon a sudden thundershower came up.  I climbed in the van and converted from sleep mode to sitting around in the rain mode.  Just an amazing amount of water was coming out of the sky.  In a couple rainstorms in Spain we had a problem with rainwater collecting on the gazebo tent.  There’s a tube frame, with a light canvas roof, and where the roof crosses the side tubes it would belly and collect water, I’d have to push it out in the mornings.  Well, Rhona was cooking dinner, I was playing on the computer, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a corner pole of the tent go by the window.  I jumped up, out the door, and found total disaster.  A tent peg had pulled up, the canvas had huge bellies of water collected on two sides, a roof pole had collapsed, the corner pole I had seen go by was tipped into the center, a side pole was broken, and the rain was coming down like someone had a fire hose pointed at us.  I struggled to pull the tent upright, but the water on the roof was so heavy I was making no progress.  Suddenly these three big Dutch youngsters ran up, within moments we had the water pushed out, a splint gray taped to the broken roof pole, and the tent righted, repegged.  We shook hands all around and went back to waiting out the storm.   Later, Rhona made a trip to the bathroom and stopped to thank the boys who were sitting in kind of a community picnic shelter not too far from the van.  She came back to the van and told me I should go talk to them, that they worked with SolidWorks, my solid modeling software.  They were university students from Leyden, Holland, I hope I’m spelling that right.  Anyway, we talked about CAD programs and engineering, and the Dutch university system… and as such conversations do… rambled off into all kinds of directions.  I’ve got their names and emails written on a paper here, it’s a bit hard to read, I hope I’ve got it right, there was Remco, his brother Gert-Jon, and their good friend Ad.  What Rhona and I remember about them was how intelligent they were, what a bright clear vision of the world they seemed to have.  Very friendly, very interested in what we had to say.  We talked about how European engineering schools make sure the students have hands-on training.  We talked about Amsterdam and my memories of how things were there in the seventies.  I mentioned that I had heard a lot of negative comments about the city, about heavy drug use, how the charm of the city seems to have been ruined.  They strongly disagreed, and reaffirmed a lot of my cherished memories of the Dutch society…  there are now government sponsored krack houses… no, not what you are thinking.  A krack house is a building that has been broken into, usually by groups of young people.  It happens because of the strict Dutch rent control laws.  Landlords let apartments stay empty until the last occupant moves out.  Then they sell the building for a huge profit, and the new owner can set new rents based on the current market.  So all these apartments sit empty, at the same time that young people can find no where to live.  While Jaine and I were in Amsterdam we were living illegally in a small room (where Kris was born), but we had friends who took over a building where only one apartment was legally occupied.  The landlords don’t care that someone moves in, as long as rent is not paid… legally, the building is empty and can be sold.  At that time, of course, anyone living there is evicted… but it can take years for the last legal tenant to move out.  We found out that the power company had specially trained crews to check the krack houses for safety and turn the power back on.  They had been trained to deal with people who were basically trespassers and might be paranoid about dealing with authority.  We were at a party once where a crazy guy (American, as I remember) decided to entertain us with a trumpet solo.  After a little while there was a knock at the door and two smiling young Dutch policeman were in the hallway.  They were very quick to tell everyone to relax, that we were not going to be arrested or kicked out of the building; but the trumpet had to stop, the neighbors were complaining.   According to our three new Dutch friends, the Dutch government has gotten involved with the game, it’s going to be very interesting to find out what’s going on.   Rhona made a trip to the campground store and bought some beers, and we sat and talked about life.  They were very curious about my experiences in Viet Nam; we talked about international politics, the Bush family war, sex, drugs and rock and roll. (The boys paid Larry an excellent compliment that I guess he was too modest to share. One of the boys told Larry, “Talking to you has been a revelation”. I think they will remember many of the things talked about that evening as they grow from boys to men. RH)    Yesterday we met a very nice young French couple who both speak excellent English.  They are planning to visit a Greek island also, we are sharing the information as we gather it from the agencies we visit.  Today I hope to download a bunch of information off the Internet…  The problem is, there are so many islands, so many options….  They, like us, want to avoid crowds and the all night party islands we hear so much about.  They are such nice, clean cut kids, not a tattoo or a piercing between them.  Actually Rhona and I could probably handle a party island better than they would.  Anyway, what I’m saying is that part of this traveling experience is the people you meet.  We automatically have a lot in common, dealing with the same challenges, with pretty much the same goals.  Camping people really don’t have much in common with hotel or tour bus folk; they are traveling in a different world, with their own set of problems and ambitions.  We occasionally see them being herded from place to place.  Occasionally we will eavesdrop on their tour guides in museums or cathedrals….    Anyway… I do miss that tight little community feeling of a cluster of Americans in the campgrounds…. Maybe that experience is down the road a bit further.   Rhona and I were talking about the way our feelings about being tourists are changing.  It’s really not a matter of burnout, but we do notice a sense of been there, done that, sometimes.  Really do not need to see any more huge Cathedrals…  oh, maybe one more, but it better be spectacular.  Rhona is about done with ruins, and I have to admit fields of hot rocks, no matter how old they are, are losing their fascination.   We drove up to Mikines, on the way here.  Once the capital of the Mycenae civilization, the walls were built somewhere around 1400 BC.  That is seriously old.  There are supposed to be a couple headless lions carved on some huge blocks of stone, one book said the biggest monuments in Europe.  Oh well.  We got up to the parking lot, looked at the huge old walls for a while, watched the people clambering over the witheringly hot hillside, and I thought, do we really need to pay another 12 Euro admission to another pile of rocks?  I was looking forward to seeing the gold armor that was found in the Myceaen tombs, but they are all in the museum in Athens… the one that’s closed for renovations for the 2004 Olympics….  I think what’s happening to us is that we are still open to the interesting and unique, but the man made stuff is losing it’s appeal.  The natural sights, they are always interesting, the waterfalls and canyons and vistas, that never gets old.  I still enjoy visiting, especially the smaller towns, just to see how the people are living, how they make their living (hopefully not just off the tourists that come through).  I still enjoy reading about the history of an area, how it got to be what it is today.    We’ve realized that the European travelers are really the lucky ones.  Americans are doing good if they can get one trip to Europe in a lifetime, and then their time is usually very limited.  Europeans just drag the old caravan down the road for a couple days just about anytime they feel like it.  In the States we’ve got the old choices, the mountains or the beaches, but a two week tour of campgrounds doesn’t get you very far.  And the cultural experience surely isn’t near as interesting.  Well, maybe the folks that can get down into Baja or Mexico itself can have something like the European experience… but even then, there are those long empty highways that must be crossed.  Yep, the Europeans have it pretty good.  We bought the van from a guy who used it to buzz down to Portugal every so often.  Probably a two or three day trip, a whole different world from London to northern Portugal, for sure.   All in all, the bottom line is that Rhona and I know that we are incredibly fortunate to be having this experience.  Whatever the irritation of the day might be, we know it means nothing compared to the memories we are collecting.  I hope you enjoy coming along with us through our pictures and words. 8:39:14 PM    comment []

Looking back at Naples, Pompei, Sorrento, Herculeum   The area of Naples has a great tourist deal called the Art Card.  For twenty five Euros each we got a three day pass on all the trains and busses in the area, one round trip boat ride, free admission to two sites of our choice, and fifty percent off any others we visited.  It was really great to be able to jump on any train or bus that we wanted.  We spent the first day walking through the ruins of Pompei, about a hundred yards from our campsite.  We do like things to be convenient.  The train station to Naples and in the opposite direction, Sorrento, was just across the street, just outside the campground gate.  The new town of Pompei, with it’s stores, internet office, and restaurants, was a short walk farther on.   I’ve had a difficult time trying to describe what visiting Pompei feels like.  It’s really not the snapshot of Roman life that the books I read in high school lead me to believe.  You have to really use your imagination to picture the city the way it have looked almost two thousand years ago.  It was very hot, and the rugged stone streets and sidewalks were tough walking.  The most amazing thing is the sheer size of the place.  You realize, this was a city where 20,000 people lived; ate in street corner restaurants, attended plays and athletic events, worshipped their gods.  It was interesting to see that the homes of the wealthy were designed to impress their visitors, the way the entry opened into an atrium with statues and fountains, made sure that the social status of the owner was immediately clear.  People really haven’t changed much.    A day later we took the train to Naples to see the Museum.  When excavations first began, the archeologists removed wall paintings, floor mosaics, statues, and took them to Naples where they could be protected.  Museums can wear on you after a while, but we had a wonderful day.  Hopefully you can get some idea from the pictures we posted in our Yahoo Photos.  Naples itself, out on the street, was everything the guidebooks said.  Dirty, noisy, crowded….  I guess the city is surrounded by so many ruins that they don’t believe in paint and plaster.  Rhona enjoyed the people watching, maybe we should have given it the three or four days the books say is required to fall in love with Naples.  Next trip, perhaps.  The place we loved was on the opposite end of the Bay of Naples – Sorrento.   Naples is to Oakland as Sorrento is to Carmel.  Maybe not quite so high end.  The place has been a tourist destination for a least a thousand years, they’ve got it down.  Not in the least bit tacky… oh, if you must buy a T shirt, I’m sure you can find one.  I’ll always remember the empty little club we walked into just off the main square.  A series of connected cave-like rooms.  A tiny dance floor.  Friendly waiters that set us up with a bottle of the Italian bubbly Proseco, a little basket of nuts, a little basket of chocolates.  Rhona was in heaven.  The musician was a distinguished looking fellow with a bank of keyboards, a one man orchestra with a wonderful voice.  He alternated romantic American and Italian songs, and Rhona and I danced.  That song… “I couldn’t love you, any better, I love you just the way you are…”  (have no idea what the title is, was it a Chicago song?)  Anyway, it’s officially our Song now.    The next day, we visited Herculeum.  Covered by the same eruption of Vesuvius that Pompei was, but not in the same way.  Pompei was buried in ashes, all the roofs collapsed.  At Herculeum, there was a tremendous pulse of hot air that charred wooden beams, but many of the buildings are intact.  Gave a much better feel of how it must have been.  It was a much smaller town, not the big religious and political center that Pompei was, mostly houses… and the mandatory Roman baths, of course.  Later we took the train back to Sorrento and took our free boat ride down the Amalphi coast.  It was just an absolutely gorgeous day.  Picture Big Sur with villages tucked into the cliffs.    There is a whole lot of Italy collected into a small area, the Bay of Naples.  The volcano, Vesuvius, is the backdrop, life goes on unafraid that it just might erupt again.  It’s part ugly, part beautiful.   The story of what happened, what might happen again, is horrible, frightening.  The wonderful people who live there seem to love it just the way it is. 8:37:40 PM    comment []

8-7-03, Rafina, near Athens, Greece   I guess when we thought about going to Athens, we didn’t realize that the preparations for the 2004 Olympics were going to be such a problem.   It’s hard to believe that they are going to be ready in time.  The road to Athens from this area has been torn up.  Why they don’t repair one section at a time is beyond me… for at least twenty miles they are excavating, diverting traffic along a narrow barricaded path.  In Athens yesterday we discovered that the main attraction, the Archeological Museum, is closed indefinitely for remodeling.   They couldn’t do it one room at a time?  The Greek Tourist information office had a sign in the window that said “Closed Until April”.  Which April, I wondered?  We did see some kind of sports complex that looked finished, from a distance, anyway.  We went up to the Acropolis yesterday afternoon to discover that the major sites are under construction.  Scaffolding covering the Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike is gone,  taken down to be rebuilt.  But we did ride on a bright spanking new Metro, it’s ready.  Unfortunately for me, the thieves are ready also.  A team of pickpockets got my wallet.  We had met a young French couple waiting for the bus at the campground, we were following them to the (closed) tourist office.  We went down to the Metro station, got in a very jam packed car, and rode to the next station.  There was a guy alongside of me who put his forearm into my left shoulder as if to push me out of his way.  The door opened in front of me, I moved towards it, the guy continued to push, there was some old woman in front of me in my way, I was struggling to get to the door, and I realized my wallet was taken from the zippered pocket on the front of my shorts.  I turned just as the door shut behind me, it time to see the guy who had been pushing on me duck out the open door on the opposite side of the train.  There was no way I could have got to him, but I’m pretty sure that if I had, it was someone else who had actually taken the wallet, and perhaps a third person who now had it.  I’d been warned, several times.  Many times from London to here I had been aware of the danger.  I had often told myself, when something weird happens, reach down, protect the wallet.  Well… I didn’t.  The good news is that I lost very little, considering.  My California driver’s license won’t be hard to replace, I have an International permit safe in the van.  I called the credit card company to tell them my emergency card had been stolen, so that’s not a problem.  I had maybe eighty Euro in cash, I guess I’ll call that tuition.   But it did hurt my feelings.  I’ll get over it.  Rick Steves says, if you are going to travel, it’s going to happen…  but not to me, Rick, not to me….   Last night was fun.  After the day in Athens (first day, our blunder around, get our bearings day) we found our bus back to Rafina, the little town on the opposite side of this peninsula from Athens.  Signs in Greece are a definite challenge.  Two different versions of names in Greek in two different alphabets, neither one recognizable.   It’s bad enough when you can’t read the words, but when you don’t even know the letters, it’s twice as hard.  A word just won’t stick in my memory if I can’t interpret the writing.  We often find signs in English, but no such luck in Athens.  But we found our way (Rhona found our way) back to the park were the bus had dropped us off, and after asking only twice (a new record, I’m sure) we climbed on the right bus homeward.  So much nicer to be riding through the construction, letting the bus driver deal with it all.  Made me almost giddy with delight.  Pretty soon we recognize downtown Rafina, the square.  Very nice little town, Rafina is…  a port where boats to some of the Greek islands depart and arrive.  We walked down to the docks, little restaurants alternated with fish shops, all kinds of good looking fish, squid, octopi, all nicely set out on crushed ice.  Guys standing out in front of their little restaurants, chairs and tables out into the street, asking us to sit and eat.  Which to choose?  I decided I was in the mood for a cold draft beer.  Maybe several.  So that narrowed the possibilities quite a bit.  Finally we choose a tiny little spot, walked through the kitchen and climbed two flights of narrow wooden stairs to the top floor, an open balcony.  The waitress came, we asked if they had fish, and she said, nope, only meat.  Well, I was thirsty, and we had climbed those tiny stairs, so we ordered a beer and a glass of wine for Rhona.  While waiting, we read the small menu….  Chicken on a Stick in a Pie caught my eye.  1.60 Euro.  Chicken on a Stick in a Pie.  How could I pass that up?  We decided we’d come back another evening for the fresh fish dinner at one of the other places.  With my Chicken on a Stick in a Pie I had a pork Gyro, which I thought was going to be a sandwich, but turned out to be chopped pork in onions, very tasty indeed.  Rhona had the chicken version of the same.  Oh yeah, that was the funny part.  I usually just order something and take my chances.  Rhona always asks the waitress what something is…  She asked… the waitress said, “Just like his, only with chicken….”  Okay….  Rhona also had her eye on something called Fiery Meatballs something, but the waitress couldn’t explain that one, so she went with the chicken version of whatever it was I was about to eat.  And we shared a Greek salad…  which I am really developing a taste for…  big chunks of tomatoes, cucumber, sliced mild peppers, olive oil, and a big hunk of Feta cheese on top.   Ummummm…  turned out, as usual, to be more food than we could handle.  Chicken on a stick?  Well, it made sense… Shish Kebab chicken, lightly spiced, in a hunk of delicious pita… The beer was cold and Rhona liked her wine.  We watched the ferry boats come and go and the crazy Greek parking going on down below…  a little more than 20 bucks total.    Back down the stairs and back into the town square.  Lots of people sitting around, enjoying the cool evening.  We explored a few side streets, and for a few Euros took a cab back to the camping.   (GIRL STUFF…Athens really is in a mess currently, it is a fairly windy city and dust and construction debris are blowing everywhere. Many sidewalks are torn up which means you are forced to compete with the cars & mopeds for a place in the streets, it gets pretty crazy.   I am once again amazed at how much all the cities are the same. Polo, Calvin Kline, Armani are everywhere, if you are close to a beach O’Neil and Oakley are ever present along with McDonalds, always good for a bathroom and drink with ice at a reasonable price. A coke can range in price from a low of .50 euro to 4.00 euro, just depends where you are and if you want to sit down. RH)       8:36:42 PM    comment []

8-3-03    Tolos, Greece   We found what may be the best campground yet.  It is a bit noisy and crowded, but all Europe is this month.  What’s more important to us, the facilities are large enough to handle the people.  And the location… I don’t think it gets much better than this.  We have gone beyond Rick Steves.  Our last travel day was Delphi south onto the Peloponnesian Peninsula.  Our target town was Nafplio, another Rick recommendation, but our maps didn’t show any campgrounds nearby.  People tell you that things are much closer together in Europe, and of course that’s true – although there were some stretches, central Spain for example, that did feel a bit like Texas.  But Greece is all wrinkled up with mountains; you can drive twenty miles and be in a totally different place.  We had no problem getting to Nafplio, a very pleasant cruise, much of it on an inexpensive toll road.  We drove through town to the harbor and found a café on the rocks overlooking the small bay.  A Club Med ship was anchored offshore, we sipped our drinks and watched a couple rubber boat loads of tourists snorkel near the breakwater.   We did have a lead on a campground.  The place we stayed in Delphi is part of a chain, they gave us a map and brochure of their other campings, there was one in a little place called Tolo, a bit farther south.  Tolo turned out to be a beach town, the camping looked dry and dusty, on a corner of two busy roads.  We drove on, around a couple corners and we found a small camping sign pointing to a dusty parking lot next to a rough looking Taverna.  There are some kind of ruins on the other side of the lot.  But a dirt road heading back into some trees…  and a wide lawn with a row of big palm trees… a very nice reception office, more like a resort than a campground.  We’re home again.   We are three rows of tents from the more or less private beach, patches of sand and small pebbles.  The water is warm; Rhona is down checking it out at the moment. (The water was very warm, clear, few waves and no seaweed either. Kara, you would have loved it. I took several swims and read on the beach most of the day. Not a ruin in sight, unless you count the old gals in bikini’s RH) Let’s see… we drove in on Friday afternoon, got setup and had dinner, took a walk on the beach in the dark, just a sliver of moon.  I promised Rhona a break from ruins; she’s about ruined out.  I have to admit that climbing up and down steep hillsides in 100+ temps looking a piles of old rocks does lose it’s charm after a few days.  I guess it’s been weeks….  Yesterday was her fault.  She’s the one who noticed that there was a play last night in an ancient Greek theater just a few miles from the campground.  She found out from the lady in the reception office that we could still get tickets at the site.  Got out the green Michelin book.  It’s called Epidavros.  Kristina Marie, you have to check this place out.  Your whole life, summed up in one huge pile of rocks.   We decided that since we really hadn’t got into full camping mode, we might as well take the car and drive to Epidavros in the morning, see the ruins, hopefully buy tickets to the show, and then decide what to do next.  It looked like a long way on the map, from one side of this little finger of Greece to the other, but it took about twenty minutes.  Kris and Matt, this is pretty much where your profession began.    Okay, I glanced at a few books in their museum shop yesterday, and with the green book, this is the story I got.  The Mycenaeans were a group similar to the Minoans from Crete, who flourished in this part of Greece around 1500 BC to 1200 BC.  There was a spring near Epidavros where they had a temple to a god, who among other things, was believed to have the power to heal.  So sick people in the area would travel to the spring, pray to god, and hopefully, be cured. The Greek version of this story begins around 600 BC with a cult that worshipped a god named Asklepios.  Homer wrote that this was an actual guy, an early doctor, who had two sons that he trained.  The sons were doctors in the Trojan war, the first medics, I guess.  Anyway, it seems the Greeks took the Mycenaean traditional healing place, the story of Asklepios, rolled in a few stories about Zeus and Hades, and made Asklepios a god, and the center of a healing cult.  In the Greek legend Asklepios was a son of Apollo who had been taught surgery and the art of healing with plants by Cheiron, a wise Centaur.  (This all comes from the Green book.)  He became such a good doctor he was able to bring people back from the dead.  (I guess in those days that must have seemed a big deal.)  Anyway, Zeus and Hades figured he’d gone too far, bringing people back from the dead was their job…  so they nailed him with a bolt of lightning (their favorite method of medical training), and his body was buried at Epidavros.  In the legend instead of two sons, he had two daughters, named Hygieia and Panaceia.  Had to look at that a couple times myself.  The famous Greek doctors, including good old Hippocrates, all claimed to get their authority from Asklepios.  One more thing… Images of him showed an old man leaning on a staff with a pair of serpents, which later of course became the caduceus.  I believe Matt has some jewelry…. Anyway…  They built a temple around 600 BC on his supposed gravesite, brought in some sacred serpents, built some baths in the spring and went into the faith healing business.  Sick or crippled pilgrims would come, offer a sacrifice to the gods, be “purified”, and sleep on the skin of the animal they had sacrificed.  Sometimes they would be spontaneously cured in the night, or the god Asklepios might come to them in a dream.  In that case, the priests of the temple would interpret and decide treatment, which might include exercise, relaxation, baths, or, as the book says, intellectual pursuits.  Thus, the stadium and the incredible theater.  Yes, I did take a while getting to that part.  This spot began as the typical shrine, faith healing center, then became more of a spa.  Another part of the treatment was that they believed the patient should have dinner with their God.  They would prepare a special meal and serve it with a lot of mystic ritual.  So diet was also a part of their healing.  What better way to get people to change their eating habits than to tell them they were dining with God?  As the centuries went by, the families that worked there learned more and more about medicine and surgery and became very skilled at treating illness and injury.  People traveled long distances for treatment.  A huge stone building was built for the people to stay in while being treated.  The first hospital?  When the Romans came the religious element was gradually eliminated, the emphasis was placed on science.  A Christian church was built on the site in the fifth century AD, and Asklepios – and eventually Epidavros itself, was forgotten.  Until the archeologists began excavating in 1822.   But the theater, Larry, the theater.  Tourists come to see the theater because of the perfect acoustics.  They stand in the middle of the orchestra (the performance area, basically the stage, although it is not raised) and whisper, and the sound can be heard throughout the huge half bowl that seats 1700 people.  Rhona and I found a better way to test the acoustics.  We got to the site, walked around the ruins, which seem to be in the process of restoration.  Don’t know what the plans are, but it looks like they may be intending to rebuild the complex of temples and buildings.  I’ve mentioned it before, one of the big questions whether we are talking about art or archeology is, how much to restore.  Does restoration mean destroying the existing relics?  Is there a danger that historical sites like Pompei could become like Disneyland, for the entertainment of tourists?  Would that be a bad thing?  I’ll bet there are some passionate arguments going on between those who want the old sites preserved intact, and those who want to see the maximum tourist dollars extracted…  with many shades between.  I couldn’t help imagining Epidavros rebuilt as it was in 400 BC, snakes and all.  A few animatronic Greek gods?  A costumed, trained cast of doctor-priests using the latest medical techniques with a dose of faith healing thrown in for good measure?  Can I hear an AMEN?   Oh yeah, the show….  Okay, so Rhona sucked it up, spent the afternoon following me around the pile of rocks.  We bought our tickets, and then went back to the van for a picnic lunch.  By this time it was about five, it really didn’t make sense to drive back to Tolo.  We had thought that we could take the van back to the campground and take the special bus to the show (I have avoided driving at night, daylight is tough enough.)  But we took a little drive around the area, checked out a tiny beach at the end of a single lane road, and came back to the site.  Campers got priority parking right up front, that was cool.  The show was a musical done in the style of 1900 era Greek musical comedy, of an ancient Greek Comedy by Menander who lived in Athens between 341 and 291 BC.  Kris, you would have loved the singing and dancing in period costumes.  And yes, the acoustics really are fantastic.  The dialog was all Greek of course, but the program did have a summary of the plot in English, so most of the time we had some idea of what was going on.  But the music and dancing required no translation.  The main character was a chubby guy who reminded me of Zero Mostel.   We sat in a theater that was built 400 years before Christ was born and watched a play that was written maybe 80 years later.  Wonder what showing next weekend?       8:35:43 PM    comment []

7-24-03 IOANINA, GREECE   Sometimes the reality just doesn’t match the concept.  Camping on board the ferry to Greece, that sounded like a great concept.  I imagined the van parked on deck under a starry sky, stiff breeze of cool air blowing, Rhona and I snoozing peacefully on our nice comfy bed. The reality was somewhat less.  A steel parking garage, the rumble of eighteen wheelers idling, the stink of diesel fumes, and the randomly repeating bleating of nearby car alarms; that’s a more accurate description.   There were openings like big windows in the ship’s sides along the deck.  You would think that fresh sea air would be blowing through the openings, you would think.  You would be wrong.   The ferries have cabins of various levels of luxury, aircraft-like seating, and deck passage.  Oh yes, and the proudly advertised Onboard Camping, same fare as deck class.  Upstairs we saw the poor deck passengers huddled in the hallways, stretched out on carpets, and we pitied them.  By the end of the night we envied them.  We should have taken our sleeping pads and found a spot among the Turkish families for ourselves.  At least then, the van would not have been in sleeping mode.  It would have been ready to roll at 3 AM in the morning.  Also, we would have heard the announcement that the ship had completed the trip in half the time scheduled.  You would think that a quick passage across the Aegean Sea would be a good thing.  Again, you would be wrong.   We prepared for the crossing to Greece so well.  Not our fault the trip turned into a waking nightmare it took us this entire day to recover from.  When we were in Pompei we took the laptop to a friendly little Internet shop.  Download a whole bunch of webpages with fares and schedules of the Italian-Greek ferries and did the research.  Discovered the Romantic Concept of On-Board Camping!  Oh, Joy.  We did find out some critical info…  They have three seasons and rates to match, low, middle and high season.  But it’s a daily thing, without any apparent logic.  We discovered that Tuesday the 22nd is considered low season, so that became our target day to sail.  Looked at a several different options for departure and destination ports, Brindisi, Italy to Igoumenitsa, Greece was the fastest and cheapest.   Then we drove across the Italian boot to a camping just north of Brindisi.  Monday we drove into the city and found the ferry company offices at the port.  Got a price from one company, then went to another that we had looked at on the Web.  Everything was as we had thought, no unexpected problems, saved fifteen dollars from the first company to the second, $135 for the two of us and the van, all taxes, port charges included.  And, On-Board Camping!  I was feeling pretty proud of us.    When we crossed the Straits to Morocco we learned that making the arrangements at the ferry terminal the day before was a big stress reliever.  On departure day, we had tickets in our hands, knew what the game was, knew how to get to the terminal, what we were supposed to do….  Spread the stress over two days, definitely worth the effort.  What is confusing is the all the different places you can buy the tickets.  In Spain, little ticket offices were everywhere, same thing in Brindisi.  Lots of horror stories in our guidebooks, especially about the Italy-Greece ferries.  Agents selling tickets on non-existing lines, all kinds of crazy stuff.  But why so many?  How do they all stay in business?  Can one agent actually sell the same ticket for less than another?  I suppose we could have worked harder, but then you wonder, how much is our time worth?  Let’s see, if we spend a couple more hours and saved 10%, that’s $13.50/2 = 7.25/2 of us, $3.66 an hour, pretty low wages.  I figure a little effort is definitely worthwhile, in terms of self respect, if nothing else.   On sailing day the campground people were nice enough to let us hang around as long as we liked, they knew we didn’t have to be at the docks until five in the evening.  We walked across the road to the little beach and spent a few hours; the water was warm and pretty clean.  Around four we loaded up and headed for the docks, soon we were parked in the garage deck.  The best thing about the ferry ride was meeting the Dutch couple, a retired high school art history teacher and his wife.  Their van was parked just in front of us.  This trip is their 44th visit to Greece.  Boy, we can really pick people to park next to.  There is nothing more valuable than talking to fellow campers who know the area we are heading towards.  But this couple really knew Greece.  We sat down with them on deck, got out our maps and had a great time talking about Byzantine art and all kinds of stuff.  We got on the ferry without a   clue.  Now, thanks to the Dutch couple, we have highlighter spots all over our map of Greece.  Thanks to them we are sitting in this wonderful campsite, watching rowers crossing back and forth in front of us on a beautiful lake at the edge of a small town called Ioanina.  Today we will be visiting the local sights, the castle and old village, the tiny wooded island in the lake, and spending the heat of the day in the Perama Caverns, just on the other side of the lake.    I think I’ve recovered from the night from boat ride hell.  My paralysis of the brain seems to have been only temporary, the fog is lifting.  At about eleven or so in the evening found our way down to the van.  Opening the door to the garage deck we left the cool air-conditioned interior of the ship and stepped into the hot stench of diesel fumes.  Determined to keep a positive attitude, we climbed into the van and stretched out. The first car alarm went off, about twenty feet away.  Soon it was joined by a second, a different melody, more obnoxious.  Soon, they quit.  Then a third, farther back.  It would have been much more irritating if the constant rumbling sound didn’t mask the horn honking siren beeping.   I had assumed it was just ship engine noise, but as I lay there I realized the rumble was the sound of the parked diesel trucks idling like they do in truck stops.  Little snatches of sleep, broken by car alarms.  Then a rap at the window, an unfriendly Greek face, what did he say?  I have no idea, I doubt I’ve been more dazed and confused.  Rhona grabbed her watch – it’s 3 AM.  People are coming onto the deck, doors are slamming.   We struggle into our clothes.  I pack up the bed.  Get the roof down and locked.  Rhona is outside with a crewman loading our table and chairs into the van.  Headlights are on, cars are moving.  Crew guy says, “Fix outside!  Fix outside!”  Okay, but I have to be able to drive the thing.  Seats up into position, climb behind the wheel, engine fires up.  Crewman waving, I make the U turn to follow the line down the ramp, out onto the dock.  Clear of the ship we see our Dutch friends parked off the side, waiting for us.  She tells us that the ship was very fast, made the crossing ahead of schedule.  She invites us to follow them to their campsite 80 kilometers south.  In my confusion it sounds like an attractive offer, but I’ve been avoiding driving at night (the headlights are a bit dim, and daytime is hard enough), and also because of their fine advice, our first destination is not south, but eastwards.  I see a parking spot off to the right.  We thank them so much for all their advice, and say farewell.  I pull over to the curb next to a smashed RV and we sit in the cab, waiting to see if someone tells us to move.  There is a big diesel truck parked fifteen feet away, the driver is underneath, working on something.  A Port Security car comes out, slowly drives around the truck, ignoring us.  I take that as a good sign.  Rhona says she can’t sleep; she wants to sit up and read.  I fold down my seat and try to get some rest.  A couple hours later, there is a new security guard at the window telling Rhona, “No parking here, park outside.”   The sky is light gray, the sun will be up soon, more sleep is out of the question.  My brain is functioning, but barely.  We drive out into the town, Rhona does some crisis navigation and soon we are on the right highway, heading up a steep winding road, eastwards through the Greek countryside.   First impressions – it’s one thing when you can’t understand the words, when you can’t read the letters it’s a whole new ballgame.  Frat boys and Sorority girls (hi Kris!) probably have a shot.  For us most street signs are unreadable, but every so often we spot a sign in English.  Scenery is already spectacular, tall mountains, rugged steep canyons, gorgeous vistas.  In Italy the succession of bridges and tunnels cutting through the mountains was amazing.  Greece is even more rugged, but obviously they haven’t been able to afford the tunnels.  The roads wind up and around, zigzagging up the mountains.  The old van is great at this kind of travel.  Third gear most of the way, shifting down to second on the tight 180-degree switchbacks.  Downhill the engine compression makes braking almost unnecessary.  It’s a camel; it’s a mountain goat.  A couple hours driving and we reach Ioanina, our city by the lake.  We’ve got a vague idea where the campground is, too vague.  We drive up into the hills, give up, stop and ask a friendly gas station guy.  I’ll bet he’s spent some time in the States, I’d guess Philadelphia by his accent.  He sends us back into town.  Our problem is, as usual, our map shows us approximately where the campground is, we just don’t know where we are and which direction we are going.  I guess the compass should have come out, but Rhona and I are both pretty much brain dead; we just keep driving.  I prefer to think of it as preliminary sightseeing.  We’re not lost and confused, we’re exploring.  Ah… the blue camping sign, little tent with an arrow, home again at last. 8:34:37 PM    comment []

7-20-03, a bit north of Brindisi     We are staying in a big campground on the west coast of Italy about fifteen miles north of Brindisi.  It feels like we’ve moved into the middle of an Italian village.  The campground is full, everyone else is Italian, and they’re all very pleasant folks.  A group of people walked up just after we finished setting up, I thought maybe it was the Welcome Wagon, but it turned out that one of the guys owned a Bedford just like ours….  Not much English was spoken, but it was a very friendly visit.  I’ve been waiting a long time for this to happen, a few English people recognized the van, but this is the first time we’ve ran into somebody that used to own one. It was very windy yesterday and last night.  We are so happy to get out of the heat, humidity, and dust of Pompei that we’re not complaining.  There is something about a gusting wind that grates on me after a while.  I do sleep well when it’s windy… the sound is almost like water, I guess.  But today has been much nicer, the breeze is just enough to keep things cool.  The Med is just outside the campground, across the road.    As usual, our planning is a bit vague.  We know we’re getting on the ferry.  Not really sure where we will be going or what we’re going to do once we get to Greece.  As usual, I have the high school fantasy places in my head to check out… the Parthenon comes to mind.  Rich Steves says that the tourists all gather in the predictable places and that the rest of the country is relativity unvisited.  Sounds good.  But we’ll have a lot of decisions to make.  Once we’ve wandered around Greece, we have several options…  The Brindisi ferry can be round trip, then we can travel north through Italy to Venice.  Or, we can take another ferry onwards to Turkey.  That could also be round trip.  Or, we can skip Turkey, drive north out of Greece into what used to be Yugoslavia, and loop around back to Venice.  Or… we can head north from either Greece or Turkey into Bulgaria, skip Venice, and head to Budapest, Prague, and eventually into Germany from that direction.  Or perhaps some other route that hasn’t occurred to us yet.  A big consideration is that August is the month most Europeans take their vacations.  We have to figure that the campgrounds most everywhere are going to be crowded.  That hasn’t been a problem so far, it seems that a certain number of people are moving on in the mornings, leaving spots open in the most crowded places.  The weather is another issue, but we’ve been about as hot and damp as it seems possible, hard to imagine that August can be hotter and more humid.  Lots of questions to answer – should we save Venice for another trip?  It won’t be at it’s best in August, that’s for sure.  What about Albania, Macedonia, Croatia?  We hear they are peaceful now, as long as you avoid the areas where all the landmines are buried.  Good old Rick Steves raves about Turkey, and he has not lead us wrong yet.  Was it Davy Crockett who navigated by spitting in his palm and smacking the gob with a finger to see which way it flew?  Maybe we’ll try that. 8:33:31 PM    comment []

I’ve taken a couple shots at writing about Pompei and I’m not happy.  Thought I’d try something different.  Explain it to Lauryssa.  She just had her tenth birthday, and that’s pretty exciting because now she has two numbers.  She’s my first Granddaughter, I remember being there the night she was born, just like I remember her mother’s birthday.   That’s where we are, honey, Pompei.  Maybe your Mom can show you on a globe where that is.  Italy looks like a boot, Naples is right where the ankle meets the foot.  There is a big volcano, called Vesuvius, just south of Naples, and Pompei sits right between the volcano and the Mediterranean Sea.  In the year 79 the volcano exploded… actually, August 24, 79, and the eruptions went on for three days.  Let’s see, it’s 2003 now, so it happened 1,924 years ago.  Can you imagine how many people have lived and died since that year?  Hot ashes and lava covered everything for miles around, including Pompei.  Scientists think that the people had some warning.  There were about 20,000 people living in Pompeii before Vesuvius erupted, and most of them got away.  But the volcano completely buried the entire city.  Years went by, trees and bushes grew, and the city was completely forgotten.  About 250 years ago, some men were digging a hole for a well, and they discovered the stones of an ancient road.  It took a long time, but archeologists dug through the dirt and volcanic ash covering the city to find this ancient Roman town pretty much as it was the day the volcano exploded.   It is a very interesting place for several reasons.  It was an important and rich city because it sat on the coast at the mouth of a major river.   We don’t really know much about the very early years, but we know there was a village in this place before 300 BC.  There were local people who lived here, but there were many other people who came to visit and trade.  The people from the center of Italy, near Florence, where Rhona and I were last week, were called Etruscans.  They had a very old civilization, and they visited Pompei for centuries.  The people who lived in Rome, the original Romans, also became very important to the history of Pompei.  There was another group, called the Samnites, who came from the mountains northeast of here who had their own society, and they visited this area also.  All of these people had their own languages, their own religions, and often fought wars with each other.  It seems that for most of the very early history, the local people were able to get along with everyone and peacefully farm, make products like wine and bread, do business, and become very prosperous. We don’t know very much about was really going on that long ago, because not very many written records survive from those days.  We do know that in 63 AD there was a big earthquake that caused a lot of damage in the Pompei.  The people didn’t know how earthquakes happen; they thought that their Gods were angry with them.  They went to work fixing the damage and building bigger and better temples hoping to please the Gods.   When the volcano erupted there was still construction going on all over the city.  It’s still possible that the volcano could erupt again and cover everything once more.  Sometimes people just don’t understand how powerful nature really is.   Because Pompei was buried by ashes, most of the roofs collapsed.  When the archeologists began work they moved everything they could to a museum in the nearest city, Naples.  So when we walked through the streets it was hard to imagine what it must have looked like when people still lived there.  We saw little corner shops, with marble counters that had been Pompei style fast food places.  The marble countertops had round holes where they sat large clay pots.  They built small fires underneath the counter, and served hot food from the pots to their customers.  We saw big homes where the rich people lived, they had beautiful courtyards with fountains and statues.  Many of the floors where covered with mosaics, do you know what they are?  Pictures made of small pieces of colored tiles, kind of like jigsaw puzzles, that they covered floors and sometimes walls.  They painted the walls with designs and pictures, that’s called a fresco.  The best ones were removed from the buildings and taken to be displayed in the museum where they could be protected from the weather and vandals.    We also went to a smaller city called Herculeum.  It’s different from Pompei because it’s more like a suburb… not as many businesses and temples.  Also, it wasn’t buried by the volcanic ash like Pompei, so many of the roofs are still intact.  That made it easier to imagine how the city looked when people lived there.  One of the most interesting things for me in both places were the Roman baths.  I had read about them a long time ago in school.  They were places where the Romans would go, like you go to the gym.   There was an exercise area, a room like a locker room, where they would change clothes and clean themselves with cool water.  Then they would enter the warm room, where there was another large pool.  From the warm room they would enter the hot bath… like a sauna or steam room.  It was an important part of Roman life, every Roman city had several baths, where they would meet friends and discuss the business of the day.  We saw a window in a bath in Herculeum that still had some broken pieces of glass in the opening.  Can you imagine window glass almost two thousand years old?   One thing I liked was being able to walk on the streets where Roman people had walked so many years ago.  They actually traveled by chariots, pulled by horses.  In Pompei we saw deep grooves in the stone streets cut by the steel wheels of chariots.  It sure must have been noisy!  I could picture in my head the chariot drivers in their togas, holding the reins of their horse with one hand, popping the whip with the other, shouting, people scurrying on the sidewalks, the big steel wheels of the chariot squealing, the smell of food cooking on every street corner, the rumble of the mountain, the sky filling with ashes. 8:29:58 PM    comment []

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

7-13-03, Pompeii, Lauryssa Lynn’s Birthday   Two camp days in a row, and we needed it.  Got the laundry done, some good maintenance on the van, and rested our feet.  We’ve put 8,000 miles on the old Bedford, and the odometer rolled over to 000000 on the way here, so I celebrated by changing the oil, filters, and flushing out the radiator and putting in some new coolant.  I finally found out what the deal is with auto parts.  They don’t have auto parts stores like we have in the States like NAPA.  They have these stores that look like Kragen or Grand Auto, and they sell a lot of the same stuff – tires, batteries, oil, radios… but no actual replacement parts for individual cars.  Those you have to get from the dealer.  But here the dealer doesn’t necessarily sell cars.  Some just sell parts…  but the sign outside doesn’t say auto parts, it says, Ford, or Fiat, or Opel.  What I found out the other day is that Opel is the company that sells parts for Bedford trucks…  So now I’m on the lookout for the Opel dealer.  It’s so hard when you can’t make sense of the yellow pages, and the people who speak English don’t know anything about cars and the people who know about cars don’t speak English.  But I think I’m well on the way to solving the mystery.   I’ve been studying up for a full day in Pompeii tomorrow…  the ruins are just outside the campground gates.  There are three major sites in this area, Pompeii, Herculeum, and a big Roman Villa that were all buried by the same eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.  The fourth place I want to see is the museum in Naples where they put everything they could move from all three sites.  It’s kind of a shame you can’t go to Pompeii and see everything in place, but I suppose they had to protect as much as they could from vandals, thieves, and the weather… to say nothing of another eruption of the volcano. 12:24:57 PM    comment []

7-11-03, Rome   Hits and misses in Rome:   Pantheon, a hit.  Huge marble columns, incredible dome, it’s a monument, it’s a church, it’s an unruined ruin.  Built in 125 AD by Hadrian, and I guess it’s had some hard years, but it’s still looking good.  The dome once had a copper lining, when they were building St. Peter’s they removed the ceiling of the Pantheon, melted down the copper and used it in the Cathedral.  The surprising thing to me was that the Pantheon has always been a Christian Church, not as we’ve seen before in many places, a chapel added to an older structure, Muslim or pagan.   I liked it.  Cool dome, copper or no.  Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, big hit.  Overwhelming art, room after room.  They could hold an auction and feed every poor person in the world steak dinners for life.  Not that I’m suggesting that would be a good idea.  Rhona was wondering if Michelangelo knew he was doing work that would amaze people for thousands of years.  I’m betting he did.  I was surprised that the famous finger pointing figures are just one panel of several.  The organization was amazing, our book says 15-20 thousand people a day go through there, I believe it.  The Chapel was the only place it felt a little crowded, there were no long lines anywhere, everything very efficient, clean and beautiful.  For a couple thousand years, Popes have been traveling the world, and everywhere they go people give them presents.  Like huge paintings and statues.  Or, in the case of Richard Nixon, porcelain figures of birds.  All this stuff ends up in the Vatican Museum.   St. Peter’s Square, a hit.  Truly impressive.  Rhona liked the guard dudes in their cute outfits.  St. Peter’s, a miss.  Well, we missed it, that’s why.  Can’t get in wearing shorts.  Should have brought those zip on legs for my shorts, but they were back in the van.  Thought we’d get back to it, but we didn’t make it.  Oh well, maybe next trip.  If I ever see the real St. Peter I’ll be naked. Coliseum, a near miss, but a hit nonetheless.  I guess the ruins we saw outside of Seville kind of spoiled the sight of the Coliseum for me. The original is bigger, more complete… but pretty much the same deal.  Maybe the Spanish version was more beautiful because it was out in the country, very few people, and no construction happening.  The Roman Coliseum has a lot of work going on, scaffolding everywhere.  I expect they are just trying to preserve it, not restore it, that doesn’t seem possible.  But what made the price of admission worthwhile was the Nike Exhibit.  Yeah, we thought it had something to do with the shoe company too, but that’s just a coincidence.  Nike was the goddess of victory, and the exhibit displayed statues and art dealing with athletics and the Olympics, from the earliest Greek pottery to photos of modern day athletes.  Many of the statues on display were ancient Roman copies of Greek originals, like the famous discus thrower.  We took some great photos, check out the Yahoo album. The Forum, Capitalino Hill, uhmmm, disappointing, I guess.  It’s a huge area, mostly a jumble of rock and marble.  A few impressive chunks of ancient buildings, but very difficult to imagine how it must have looked in the days of the Empire.  When the Barbarians sacked Rome, they did a good job, then, over the centuries, a lot of the marble was hauled off to be used on other buildings.  We looked down on the Circus Maximus where the Chariot races were held, basically a natural bowl with a long narrow dirt oval just visible.  You can see the area where the grandstands probably were.  No, I wasn’t expecting it to look like the movies, but I was hoping to get a better feel of ancient Rome.  Well, Pompeii is still to come.  We visited a small museum that had models of the Iron Age village that was probably the first Rome, based on excavations done recently. Spanish Steps, a miss.  Lombard street in the S.F. is more interesting.   Kind of what it looks like, only marble stairs, not a street.  I guess the fact that it was where all the beautiful people used to hang out is what puts it on the “must see” list.  The fat girls playing in the big boat shaped fountain at the bottom didn’t measure up. Trevi Fountain, a hit.  Yeah, I was surprised too…  The fountain is a huge marble statue, the whole side of a big building, and was a wonderful people-watching place.  Just people goofing around, coins being thrown by the bushel.  Rome must have some kind of automatic coin sucking device at the bottom of the pool.  There were at least a couple cops on duty to keep people out of the fountain, has to be big money flying through the air every day.  Anyway, it was fun. Various Churches, several hits.  Amazing artwork, paintings, frescos.  We were just walking down the street, looking for Trevi Fountain, I think.  Or maybe that Irish Pub I spotted an hour or so earlier when I wasn’t really thirsty yet.  Anyway, walked past a medium sized church, went in….  It was in the guidebook, we discovered.  Marble statue alongside the altar was one of Michelangelo’s last works, very nice.  Frescos on the wall by Fra Fillipo Lippi.  Rome is like that. The Druid’s Rock, a kinda hit.  The Irish Pub we finally found, after discovering the one I was looking for was closed for air conditioning repairs.  The Guinness was cold and good, atmosphere was more Rome than Dublin, but what the heck.    Rome has been hot, exhausting, and very expensive.   We did a couple stupid things.  Went into a restaurant, ordered two sodas, a piece of pizza and a sandwich…  we were hungry, thirsty, and really needed a place to sit down.  We knew that the smart thing to do was to buy at the counter and carry it out on the street, but our feets were hurting…  Twenty-nine dollars.  Ouch.  I doubt anyone eats there twice, but with thousands of tourists walking by every day, why should they care? The campground is probably one of the most expensive we’ve stayed in, but that’s to be expected.  Still a lot cheaper than any other option.  Train ride into Rome was cheap and convenient, no complaints there.  We liked the bar and restaurant, met a couple California girls who came to Rome to work as waitresses, they were enjoying life.    Time to pack up the van.  Next stop, Naples and Pompeii. 12:21:48 PM    comment []

7-7-03, lakeside, Tuscany   This morning we left the campground with the incredible view of the Tuscany rolling hills, and drove into Siena.  There are a couple things about that town that interested us.  It’s supposed to be one of the best-preserved, most beautiful medieval towns in Italy.  They have a big Piazza in the middle of town where they have a crazy horse race twice a year.  We just missed the first running, on July 2nd, and we’re not going to be around for the second on August 16th, but I think it’s one of those things that reading about is probably better than actually being there.  But I did want to see where it happens.  There are sixteen neighborhoods in the town, and they are all very proud of their history, it’s like tribes.  There’s a big buildup to the race, one of the quirks of the deal is that the horses and jockeys are selected and assigned to the various neighborhoods by a drawing.  But once they are chosen, the only real rule is that a jockey cannot grab another’s reins during the race.  So… kidnapping, bribery, physical assaults, are all completely acceptable.  What was that ski race they used to have, the Chinese downhill, where it didn’t matter what happened on the course, whoever made it to the finish line first won?  That’s the idea.  But it’s in this brick and stone Piazza, surrounded by buildings.  It’s a clamshell shaped place, if it was Nascar they’d call it a tri-oval.   Anyway, according to our guidebooks, the rich sit on balconies and a couple big grandstands, while the lower classes, that includes us tourists, fill the center sloping brick infield.   Up to 10,000 people crammed into an area the size of maybe two football fields.  The book says get there early, around two in the afternoon and then fight the crowds until the race, which only lasts a few minutes, then you are stuck in the Piazza until 8:30.  Like I said, I’m ready to believe the concept is more interesting than the actual event.  I’ve been to a few concerts that were like that.   Anyway, had to see the Piazza where the race, and so much Italian history has taken place.  Siena was an independent city-state, at war with Florence for years.  The politics, the art, it’s all interesting reading.  The critical point is that it was a city of over 300,000 people, great buildings, fantastic artwork… and then the Black Death hit Italy.  Siena went from 300,000 to 90,000, and never recovered.  That’s about the population today.  But our visit was hit and run.  We are pretty much museumed out.  And we’ve got Rome ahead of us, with the Vatican waiting, Sistine Chapel and all.  So…  we walked around window shopping, checking out the cool little tucked away places, and enjoying the lack of traffic and crowds.  The downtown is pretty much pedestrian only, and except for the small crowds of ice cream eating tourists, very pleasant.  I like ice cream as much as anybody, but it really is amazing…  ice cream must be the fuel that powers the tourist industry.  Some scientist should probably do a study, figure out why.   Back to the van and we headed southwards, towards our eventual goal, probably tomorrow, Rome.  But we had a few small villages we wanted to visit first.  The first was, okay, I’ll take a shot, Pienza… built by Pope Pius II pretty much as a testament to his own personal power.  He had his home village torn down, and this new city built.  Only problem was the above mentioned Black Death eliminated the need for new housing in Italy.  He threw a party and no one came.  The Leonardo de Capria movie, Romeo and Juliet was filmed there because there’s not a whole lot going on to get in the way.  We had a very nice, though quick visit…  I don’t know, there’s just something pleasant about all that stone, and the views from the hilltops.  Maybe it’s just getting away from the crowds and traffic that makes a day like today so enjoyable.   Our next stop was the highest hill town in Tuscany.  Montesomething or other.   We parked at the bottom and walked up through the town to the Grand Piazza at the top.  Wine is the big deal here, Chianti Classico is their claim to fame.  More window shopping.  There were cranes hovering over the town, but it’s not big new hotels they are building.  They are restoring the old buildings, making the stonework look like it did just six or seven hundred years ago.  I call that a good thing… like the art restoration, digging through the centuries of dirt and uncovering, or replacing, the brilliant textures and colors of the original creation.   But today was not about the villages or shopping.  It was about the drive through the countryside.  Past vineyards, fields of corn, tomatoes, and melons, through the rolling hills.  The only way to experience a day like today is to travel the way we are doing it.  On trains and busses, you don’t have the freedom, the direct contact.  Flying, forgetaboutit, it’s not happening.  The van was in a good mood, put a new radiator cap on and topped off the oil, and we were styling all day.  But came the decision.  Six o’clock and we’re parked in a parking lot that we probably could have spent the night in.  Should we?   We’ve been paying a lot for our campsites in Italy, might be nice to grab a freebie.  It does make Rhona a bit nervous.  She’ll do it, but she’s not happy about the idea.  But I had spotted a relatively cheap campsite a couple days ago in this area, highlighted it on the map.  So we headed out to find it.  Didn’t take the most direct route, but we got there.  Rather, here.  On the shore of a good sized lake.  Checked in at the registration office, found a spot overlooking the shore, and we’re home.  I did my setting up jobs, Rhona cooked up a good tortellini dinner, and we sat and watched the evening come.  The water is a bit low, it’s probably twenty yards to the actual edge of the lake across some sand/dirt.  Smells nice, bugs aren’t too bad, and the white noise of the water is very soothing.    There’s a floodlit castle tower off to the right, a horizon of rolling hills, with a higher level of hills behind them.  It’s getting dark now, and the lights of several villages around the lake are twinkling.  Peaceful, that’s what it is.   I often think - how are we doing?  Are we missing something?  When we get home will we regret not going somewhere, not seeing something?  I totally accept the idea that we can’t possibly see and do everything.  We just have to say, well, maybe we’ll get there next trip.  But every day is a decision.  Why are we here, what are we supposed to do, what’s going to happen next?  It occurred to me that those are the same questions that we should be asking ourselves every day of our lives, whether we are traveling in Europe or living our lives at home, wherever that might be.  It’s no different.  Because we have the freedom, and therefore the immediate responsibility, for our decisions, it’s in our face, every day.  But… you know…  we all make the same decisions every day, whether we realize it or not.  I remember that old country song, “Right or Left at Oak Street”, am I the only one that heard that one?   “Right or left at Oak Street, that’s the choice I make every day, and I don’t know what takes more courage, the staying or the running away…..  Of course, this isn’t about running away, this is about running towards…  running towards a better appreciation of the world we find ourselves living in.  A clearer knowledge of the people we share this world with.  And, hopefully, in the final result, coming to know our own selves better.  I need evenings like tonight.  To sit and relax, let all the sights and experiences simmer in my mind.  To relax into some kind of understanding.  It’s almost completely dark now.  There’s only a slight purple glistening to let me know the water is there.  The floodlit tower is pretty cool looking off to the right, thanks to some tourist agency for paying that electric bill.   There are white noise tire sounds from the highway way up behind me.  Soft voices of fellow campers.    And the twinkling lights of the villages of Tuscany.  Wait a minute.  Music.  Has to be a band, I wonder how far away, I hear guitar, bass… a singer.  Shall we take a little evening stroll? 12:20:52 PM    comment []

7-5-03    somewhere in Tuscany   Florence was an intellectual experience.  To think that so much world history happened on those streets.  When we talk about the Rennaisance, we are talking about Florence.  So many of the names I learned in school… Leonardo de Vinci, Michaelanglo, Bottochelli,  the Medicis,  Maciavelli - Florence was their home town.  So many works of art were created here…  so many incredible buildings were built.  And the art is still here, and the buildings still stand.  Florence has been in the tourist business for a long, long time.    The truth is, I really don’t care much for big cities.  On the most immediate level, they are all the same.  Dirty, crowded, everyone entirely too serious, moving way too fast. Florence is no exception. (Larry is just not impressed by the great shoes, jewelry, leather jackets, antiques and hand made baby dress Florence has to offer. Speaking of great items, if I had shopping money that Champagne Bucket we took the picture of would be coming home with me. RH)  Our campground was in a small village to the south, a relatively cheap and reasonably quick bus ride to the town center.  The first day is always the most difficult.  You would think we’re getting used to the process, and we are, but it’s difficult.  The maps are always unreliable… the streets sometimes have several names, each name has several words in it, and sometimes it’s almost impossible to make sense of it all.  The times when we can look at our map, look at a street sign, and say, yes, that’s where we are, are very rare.  So the first day, we walk, blunder about, find out the main landmarks, where and when the busses run.  Every once in a while (last Thursday night was one) we find ourselves lost and bewildered, thinking there’s no way we’ll find our way back to the campground.  We’d gotten off the bus into town at the train station thinking it was the terminal, the place where we’d get the bus at the end of the day back to the campground.  At the end of our day, about 11 o’clock, we’re ready to head back.  We knew that the number of the bus changed after dark; we walked all around the train station, couldn’t find a stop with the right number on it.  At one point we saw the bus we wanted drive right through the square.  We got out on the island hoping to catch it the next time it went by.  Sure enough in a half hour or so, here it came.  There were a couple young Italian girls hoping to catch the same bus…  they ran up to it… the doors didn’t open… they banged on the glass.   Rhona and I are standing right behind them, anxious to end this little adventure.   The driver ignored us, and when the light changed, drove on, leaving us standing on the curb. The girls didn’t speak much English but they said, “Come on.”  And we followed them down the street and around the block to a rather seedy looking square.  We sat on the well worn thousand year old steps of some damn building for another half hour…  and pretty soon, up came the bus.  The doors opened…  once again, we were on the way home….    Friday morning we went back to the city to go to the Uffitzi Gallery.  Rhona knew about it from her art classes, it was on her do not miss list.  Everybody knows about the Medicis right?  They were the rich family that ruled Florence for hundreds of years, were patrons of the most famous artists, sculptors, and architects.  One of the family became Pope and he’s the guy that hired his hometown boys, Michaelangelo and Leonardo De Vinci, to decorate the Vatican.  Well, the Uffitzi was one of the Medici’s main palaces, and the place where they kept all the art they collected through the generations.  When the last of the Medici died, she left the building and the collection to the city of Florence, on the condition that nothing ever leave the city.  Room after room of paintings right out of the Art History textbooks.   Way too many religious scenes for me, I guess there was a rule at one time that if you wanted to paint a picture, it had better be a scene out of the Bible.  I do think it’s funny that when some rich dude would hire an artist to make his something to hang over the sofa, and the painter would slip family members into the scene… like the third magi from the left, for example, might look a lot like the guy who wrote the check.  But no big surprise, I did really like the more famous pieces, like the Venus on the half shell, Bottochelli, yeah, he did that one.   So many of the paintings, especially the ones by Leonardo da Vinci were incredibly realistic, almost photographic.  Okay, I’ll say it, better than photographs.  A very high percentage of the paintings on display have been restored, they look like they could have been painted yesterday.    It’s pretty clear that the tourist business is way down this year, doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why.  I guess August is supposed to be the real crazy time when everyone in Europe takes their four week vacations.  But July is supposed to be pretty busy too.   We really didn’t have to wait that long to get into the places we wanted to see, and the campgrounds still aren’t crowded.  Hopefully by August we’ll be in Eastern Europe where hopefully it won’t be that crowded anyway.   I’m writing this in a campground outside Sienna, south of Florence, sitting in a terraced campsite that overlooks miles of the rolling hills of  Tuscany.  There’s a small village in walking distance, I think tomorrow we’ll check it out, see if we can recover from the big city.  Sienna is supposed to be a cool medieval town, not sure how to get there from here, but we’ll figure it out…         12:19:50 PM    comment []

7-3-03 Florence or Firenzi, Italy   So why do we change the name of other people’s cities?  It’s very confusing to read the map, I don’t recognize any of the names.  Ah well.  We are in another peaceful, beautiful campground.  There don’t seem to be any kids here.  Actually I just figured it out… it’s too expensive.  It’s on a hilltop above Florence/Firenzi, the closest neighbor is a monastery.  Actually I’m not sure it’s still in business, the bells still ring, that I know.  Is being a monk still a popular career choice?  We do know there are still nuns making cookies.  Yesterday we drove from Deiva Marina to Piza and stopped in to see the tower.  You are smart to put off that trip for a bit.  They are cleaning and restoring it.  They’ve got a bit done at the top, and it’s going to look great when they’re done.  Looks pretty cool right now.  I wanted to have a piece of pizza in Piza, but we were running late and had to pass on the Piza pizza and I didn’t have a chance to say “Please pass a piece of Piza Pizza,” but I guess we can go back for that one.  Rhona got some good pictures, including a shot of the tourists taking pictures of themselves either holding up or pushing over the tower.   What clever people.  Had problems with the truck yesterday, I think the battery got a little low.  We’ve been running the little refrig off the battery when we’re on the road, and I had the fan on…  So far the road from France has been mostly tunnels, so the headlights had to be on.  I think it was too much for the little alternator.  I turned off the fan and frig and everything seems to be fine.  The tunnels really are amazing, mile after mile.  There was one section where we’d go through a tunnel, then across a bridge, immediately into another tunnel, across another bridge, tunnel, bridge, tunnel….  You get the idea. 12:18:50 PM    comment []

7-1-03    Deiva Marina, Italy   This is our fourth day in this campground on the northwestern coast of Italy.  Today is a recuperation day, resting and laundry.  Unfortunately we’ve had thundershowers all morning, so we’ve got soggy clothes hanging on the line, hoping for some sunshine.  On the positive side, Cinque Terra has been everything Rick Steves promised, and then some.  This campsite is a bit crowded and noisy at times, mostly Italian families with lots of little kids running around, but it’s fun watching them.  Got a pretty serious game of two-man soccer going on right now on the other side of the van.  A sixteen-year-old Italian kid playing with his seven-year-old brother.  Doubt that happens much in the States.  All the kids here seem to hang out together.  They’ve got a little kid playground, and there’s the usual teenager boy-girl stuff going on of course, but I don’t see the separation by ages thing.  Actually, that goes for the older folks too, everybody in the family goes camping together, from great granny all the way down.  We noticed Sunday evening a lot of dads headed off to work in the city, this evening there are a lot of mommy’s talking on their cell phones.     The first morning we took the free town bus down to the train station and bought a three day Cinque Terra pass, and three days of train tickets to get us there and back.  The pass gives us access to all the walking paths, and unlimited rides on the train between the towns.  Thirty-six bucks for the two of us, a real tourist bargain.   Cinque Terra means five lands…  there are five little villages tucked into coves along the coast, connected by the train, boats, and walking trails.  The entire area is a national park, protected from development… so there are no big hotels and resorts.  The most resort like town is the first in the chain, Monterosso.  That first day we took the train to Corniglia, the third one down, a cluster of houses perched on cliffs high above the Mediterranean.  From the train station we walked up to the village, on the steep winding road through the vineyards.  After a stroll around to check out the village, we set out on the trail to the fourth town, Manarola.  Steves’ book said it was an easy walk of 45 minutes.  Well, that was true, once we got down the famous Corniglia stairway.  350 steps… no, we didn’t count, I’ll take his word for it.  The brick steps were broad and long, about two good strides each, about ten steps in each flight, zigzagging down the very steep slope.  Once back down to the level of the train tracks, it was easy going on a beautiful stone path along the cliffs to Manarola.   From there to Riomaggiore, the path is called Via Amore… and they’re serious.  It’s a walkway made for lovers.  All flagstone, level and wide, benches every fifty feet or so, it winds along the rugged coast above the beautiful jade water of the Mediterranean.  Lots of artwork along the way, some might call it graffiti.  I thought about carrying a chisel and hammer and chipping out Larry loves Rhona on one of the thousands of flat stones along the way…  black marking pen seems so tacky.  I guess I’ll have to save that idea for the next trip.   Day two we walked a more difficult section, between Vernazza, town two, and Corniglia.  It was tough, very hot, a lot of up and down on a rough, rocky trail.  No fancy stone walkway here.  Lots of gorgeous views along the way.  When we got to Corniglia we found an empty table at a restaurant in the plaza, and I had my first big ice cold liter bottle of Moretti Beer.  Pat… I remember a guy, probably in Willow Glen… Mike Moretti…  wait a minute, I think he was a San Jose cop, Mark probably remembers him… big guy…  some story I vaguely remember about him…  Anyway, his family makes a damn fine beer.  We met another traveling couple and enjoyed an hour or two of chitchat, resting and relaxing.  They were about our age, University people; he is an accounting professor in Athens, Georgia.  We talked about grandbabies and travel.   That night, back at the campground, after a few more Morettis…  I had an idea.   The plan had been to walk the last section, the most difficult, between Vernazza and Monterosso on day three.  I asked Rhona if she’d like to do it, and she said she’d had enough hiking for a while.  Couldn’t blame her.  But for me, I just felt that there was something missing….  I felt I needed to push myself a bit harder.  I decided to walk the whole trail from Riomaggiore to Monterosso.  Just to make sure the job was done right, I thought I’d walk out of Riomaggiore to a scenic outlook another twenty-five minutes down the coast.  I think every once in a while it’s good to set a challenge for yourself, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.  My legs and knees had been bothering me after all the walking we did in Seville, but in the past week or so the soreness had gone away I’ve been feeling pretty good.  I’ve lost about 25 pounds or so, still have another twenty or so before anyone will be offering me any swimsuit modeling jobs, but I’m feeling pretty good.  Another Moretti confirmed that it was a damn fine idea.   Next morning I started off real strong… it was a very hot day, and the uphill climb to the viewpoint was difficult.  It was a preview of what was to come.  A long stone stairway past old stone houses climbed up the hill leading out of town.  Then I walked a hot asphalt road up and around several folds in the hillside up the highway towards La Spezzia.  Gee, that’s the name of that bar we liked so much in Seville, there’s a good omen.  I reached the gate to the overlook, and it was shut, so I continued up the road until I could see it cut into the hillside far below me…  okay, this is definitely the beginning.  Turned around and headed back down into Riomaggiore, then followed the markings (two stripes of paint, red and white, on the rock walls along the way) back to the Via Amore.  That was a very enjoyable, relaxing warm up, checking out the views along the way.  I got to Vernazza to the train station, walked up the passageway to the town, and there was Rhona sitting at a table talking to a couple of Americans.  Very interesting people… originally from Berkeley, they had owned a hotel in Guatemala, and are now living in Mexico… when they’re not traveling in Europe.  I joined them, but I’m motivated to do this walk, so pretty soon it’s time to move on down the next easy section. Okay, here comes the first bragging…  I climbed the stairs without stopping, all the way up into Corniglia. Hey, if I’m going to do this thing, I might as well do it all the way.  One two three four, one two three four, and a step on every count, two strides per step, ten steps per flight, swing and head back up the other way.  There was a flowering tree near the top… I was sure it was at the top, that was the goal, got there and discovered I had still another thirty yards to climb…  okay, up we go, one two three four….  Then the last of the stairs, but the little road continues uphill into town, no stopping now….   Okay, so not a marathon or anything like that, but I felt pretty good about doing it… . Passing all the young kids on the way up was fun too….   But the next section was much more serious, the part that Rhona and I had walked in the opposite direction the day before in about two hours.  It was definitely hot.  Arroyo Seco in July hot.  Make me dizzy hot.  I stopped for a good break about half way in a group of trees alongside the trail.  I was drinking water all day out of a half liter plastic bottle I refilled in each village.  Never did empty it.  The terrain is similar to Big Sur, steep hillsides down to the ocean, deep folds back inland, then back out to the ridges.  Over hundreds of years the land had been terraced with stone walls, planted with wine grapes and olive trees.  The trail climbs and descends the terraces, winding along the coast.  Finally I stumbled into Vernazza.  I think I accomplished my goal.  I got myself to that place where I really had to push myself.  I knew I could easily jump on the train and be waiting for Rhona at the beach in Monterosso, but that just wasn’t what the day was about.  I found a little bar for a cold beer, and endured the barmaid’s suggestions that what I really needed was a shower.  I’ll admit, I was soaking wet, pretty scraggly looking.  Hot and tired.  And the last section was waiting.   It was tough, much harder than the section before, maybe because I was walking it for the first time and didn’t have any familiar landmarks.  It was a steady and steep uphill most of the way.  I kept meeting people coming the other direction, and they’d say, you’re almost to the top…  you’re almost to the top.  The trail winds around another ridge and it’s more uphill.  It wasn’t until I finally reached the crest, where the trail began to descend into Monterosso, that I started feeling the afternoon cooling off.  And then a long section of stone stairway, down and down and down.  I hated to give up all the hard won altitude… but down and down, and finally, into the plaza at Monterosso, beneath the train tracks.  I knew the station was above, and that’s where Rhona was going to be waiting.  It was a quarter to six, we had agreed to meet at six thirty, so I had a little time.  There was a rinse off shower at the beach; I took full advantage, enjoying the cold water.  Back in the plaza I found a little sandwich place and treated myself to a bottle of Mr. Moretti’s finest.  Then I went looking for the train station.  It wasn’t there.  I was in a little cove, but not where I thought I was, the village itself was still one cove farther….  Oh man…  if it’s an uphill walk, I’ll just drown myself now and be done with it….  But wonder of wonders, there’s a tunnel right through the ridge… on the other side another cove, the town, the train station, and Rhona waiting….  I’m pretty sure it was the longest we’ve been apart since we got on that airplane. (Yes, he’s right and the shopping and people watching was a lot easier than his walk. RH)   12:17:44 PM    comment []

6-26-03    Carcassone   Yesterday we drove from the idyllic little campground into Figures to spend the morning at the Dali Theater and Museum.  This guy was an artist.  Blows the rest of them away, I say.  I’ve read he was a bit of a megalomaniac.  Looks to me that he had every right to be.   Maybe he just lived with more style than the rest of the world was ready to deal with.  I doubt we have any artists today that operate on the scale he did.  The story is that the city of Figureres asked him for a painting because they wanted to start a museum of his work.  He was so happy his hometown wanted to honor him; he gave them an entire museum.   The building had been the town theater, Dali had had his first showing there as a young man.  But there had been a fire and most of the theater had been destroyed.  He supervised the reconstruction of the building, creating a monument and a home for his art.  There are several large murals, and an incredible ceiling fresco.  It’s a museum, but the building itself is a work of art.  The brochure calls it the largest surrealist object in the world.   There was a long line waiting to get in, and once we got inside, the place was jammed full of people of all ages.  The entrance opened into a courtyard with a huge collage, built on and around a 40s black Cadillac convertible.  I was amazed at the incredible volume of his work, just room after room of the most interesting objects, paintings, and murals…  What an incredible imagination.  He experimented with double paintings viewed with mirrors to create 3d images, holograms… all kinds of stuff.  There was a whole separate museum of the jewelry he created…  I don’t think the pieces were made to be worn, but to be displayed as works of art.  Rhona, I’m sure, will have a lot to say. (Not a lot to say as Larry pretty much covered it, but the beating heart ruby pendent was amazing. I bought the post card because they wouldn’t let me have the real thing, but there is no way to capture the subtle movement of these tiny rubies. I think I really only need to add ART comments when Larry doesn’t like the art. He did a great job on Dali, the diversity and depth of his work was amazing to both of us and goes way beyond the melting watch images we are all familiar with.)   Today we had a very pleasant drive into France and across the French farmland to Carcassonne.   This place made a big impression on me when Jaine and I visited in ’70.   Oh, the old town is chock full of every tourist business you can think of, from five star hotels to the tackiest t-shirt shops, but it’s still impressive.  I think we got some pretty good pictures to show what it’s like.  It’s a village inside castle walls, with drawbridge, moat, the whole deal.  Rhona enjoyed the shops, and we walked outside around the walls.  It was just as amazing as it was thirty years ago.  I do think Carcassonne represents the tourist business at it’s best… serving the customer with everything they might desire, but respectfully preserving the past .   Today marks a new phase of our trip.  Tomorrow we’ll be heading into new territory - Italy.  I’m really excited; looking forward to visiting the places I’ve dreamed of since high school.  Our first stop is a favorite of Rick Steves, Cinque Terre, five villages along the northern west coast of Italy… we’ve got our destination campsite picked out.  We’re planning on a early morning takeoff, and we’ll see if we can’t cross southern France, the Riviera and reach Italy before dark…  If we don’t… we don’t….  I’m eager, but there’s no reason to push too hard.  Rhona and I agree that the fancy resorts on the French Rivera really don’t sound interesting… but you never know… wonder if they have nickel slots at the Casino in Monaco?  12:16:33 PM    comment []

Sometimes miracles happen.  Our destination today was Figueres, the birthplace of Salvador Dali, and the home of the Dali Theater and Museum.  It’s more or less on the way to our next stop, the walled city of Carcassone, in France, that was one of the highlights of the trip with Jaine in 70’s.  I know the place going to be more touristified, but I don’t care.  It’s about the revelation, you see.  In 1970 I was walking through the village in a castle and the thought hit me… “Yes, this is what I had in mind.”  Well, we haven’t even crossed the border back into France and I’m already feeling that way again.   We have a favorite campground guidebook.  The editor has a weakness for campgrounds with personality, mom and pop places where the owners work hard to create an unique atmosphere.  Oh, he’s got the big corporate places too, but the ones he picks are usually pretty high quality, clean and well designed.  Anyway, the nearest campsite in the book to Figueres turned out to be 28 kilometers out of town… that’s about twenty miles… 20 miles that we’ll have to drive back in the morning to see the museum… then again on the way to France.  We had a pilot/navigator meeting and agreed that no matter how good it sounded, it was stupid to drive that far…. So, long before we reached Figueres, we decided to stop at the first campground sign we came across and take our chances.  Usually we pass camping signs all day long.  This time, nothing, nada.  Well, maybe in town there will be a sign…  We got to the center of town and there was a Tourist Information sign, maybe they will still be open….  The sign was the last clue we got… no office, no more signs… definitely no camping signs.   We found the right road out and we are heading for the guidebook place…  almost to the crossroad where we know it’s ten kilometers further, and on the side of the road, there’s a tiny little campground sign - a quick 170 degree turn onto a single lane dirt road…  down through a field of bamboo, across some farm land….  A group of cars parked in front of a little restaurant…  some kids with instruments and a PA setup on the patio… I’m talking young kids, 10, 11, 12…  Inside the bright open modern bar-restaurant is the campground guy, I assume he’s the owner…  I have a glass of beer while Rhona does the paperwork… this is already looking pretty good.  We drive through an opening in a tall hedge, and it’s campground heaven….  All lawn…  about the size of a football field, but oval shaped, maybe a hundred spaces… probably about twenty people here.  The place is pretty new, lots of young trees and low bushes.  There’s a small, very stylish swimming pool.   Unisex bathroom, which makes Rhona just a touch nervous…   But just a gorgeous place…   Have to write the guidebook guy, I’m sure he’ll love it.   So far, the kids are pretty terrible, but even the Beatles had to start somewhere.  They take a break and the only sounds we hear are the birds discussing the sunset.   Yes… this is what I had in mind.  This is what all the stress was about… putting all those boxes in the attic, leaving everything and everyone we love behind…  this is the reason.   It’s the next morning.  Coffee and cookie time.  Yes, Rhona’s morning ritual of Diet Coke and a cookie or two is still intact.  Maybe that’s why she’s always so sane.  Last night was the feast of Saint Joan.  Seems to be a major holiday around here.  We tried to find out more about it but didn’t have much luck.  A lot of “movement” Rhona was told.  I tried to find out about Saint Joan, and I don’t think we are talking about Joan of Arc.  Actually, I think it’s Saint John, Joan is the Spanish spelling… anyway the saint’s day just happens to coincide with the summer solstice, which of course was and is a major pagan holiday.  The celebrations seem to involve setting off a lot of fireworks and staying up until dawn.  I think that’s about how long the kids played… until dawn.  Rhona walked over and checked it out at one point.  They seemed to have a pretty large and appreciative audience (mostly mothers and fathers) who especially liked the one song the kids seemed to know all the way through.  They had written it especially for the occasion.   Rhona will tell you how cute it was, and I’m not grumbling…  I did get some sleep, I’m pretty sure.   We probably missed some major doings in Sitges, but we really couldn’t get any information about what to expect…  My suspicion is that the whole idea is to stay up and watch the shortest night of the year however you choose to do it, preferably with as much fireworks as possible.  As we drove along the coast north of Barcelona yesterday, we passed through beach towns that were making preparations for street dances.  We’ve learned that the young Spaniard’s taste in music is very similar to young American’s.  Enough said on that subject, right?   I wonder what the next trend in popular music is going to be, and how soon it’s going to get here.  Am I getting old and grumpy?  Nah, it’s really that bad.  I really do wonder what the kids today sing in the shower.  Eminem?  Can you whistle rap?   We’ve had another meeting and the vote was unanimous…  this is going to be a campground, laundry day.  Campsite has nice clotheslines set up, these trees all look too puny to handle wet towels.  That relieves me of one of my major responsibilities.   I think this is a holiday.  I think the museum is closed.  We’re not going to take the chance, it’s pretty comfortable here.  We hit the Carrefores pretty hard yesterday so we’ve got a good stock of food and beverages, and the major luxury, cube ice.  They’ve probably got more at the bar.    I bought a glass jug of Sangria yesterday that I tried last night with a splash of rum… not bad, not bad at all.   Saw somewhere to use brandy, so that will be the next experiment, when the rum is gone. 12:15:18 PM    comment []

Monday, June 23, 2003

6-23-03    Sitges, Spain   We’ve been in this campground twenty something miles south of Barcelona for four days.  There are campgrounds closer to the city, but they are near the airport, and we’ve done that before.  Noise, or the lack of it, seems to be a major comfort issue with us.  Nice clean bathrooms are another, of course, but after Morocco, just about anything looks good.  Bugs are another big one.  Especially since that night in Portugal in this lovely little campground with a quaint, but mosquito infested stream wandering through it.  In the morning Rhona looked like Jake LaMotta (Raging Bull?)  (Boxer, got the crap beat out of him on a regular basis?)  This campground is like many Spanish one’s we’ve been in with a high percentage of weekenders.  People leave their caravans and tents set up all year, to use on weekends.  So, we’ve seen the empty campgrounds, this is the first time we’ve seen the weekend influx… this place just filled up Friday night.  Really quite a sight.  Obviously there are families that have been coming here for years, there were big gatherings, long lines of tables, lots of sausages being barbequed, little kids running everywhere.    Anyway, Barcelona was a feast for the eyes.  Rhona made a list of a half dozen museums and other sights she wanted to visit, and we hit them all.  This is the town of Picasso, Miro, and Gaudi… the architect who designed the Cathedral that looks like “someone left the cake out in the rain…”  For the most part I did enjoy the galleries, did give me a lot to think about.  I guess the guy I had the most trouble with was Tapies…  he’s still alive, so how important of an artist can he be?  He’s the son of a very wealthy family who decided to be an artist, and everyone seems to have gone along with it.  Ah well, Rhona liked him.   The galleries of Miro and Picasso had examples from their early years that showed the development of their craft, and the various directions their art took over the years.  My feeling was that both of their buildings were full of work donated by the artist and their families… in other words, this is the stuff that didn’t sell.  Most of the important, famous paintings are somewhere else, I think.  I did like Miro, very much.  Especially the huge tapestry in the entry, and I do mean huge.  I’m guessing twenty feet wide, maybe thirty feet tall, hanging in the entry, created for the space.  Primary colors of yarns, knotted and woven on a heavy burlap like background.    Pretty cool.   I guess I liked the Guell Mansion the best…  Mr. Guell was a rich industrialist who was Antonio Gaudi’s patron.  Gaudi is the guy who left the cake out in the rain and I don’t think that I can take it cause it took so long to make it…  Excuse me.  Yeah, that’s the thing about the Cathedral… they’ve been working on it since 18-something and figure that it’s going to take another fifty years to finish.   Anyway, the house was an early work and it did get done.  Just full of interesting ideas.  Many of the rooms had interior windows so that the light from the outside came through the entire house.  The ceilings were spectacular, the same kind of detail and craftsmanship that we saw in the Moorish buildings we visited.   One of Gaudi’s trademarks was his use of broken tiles to make incredibly mosaic patterns…  We went to the roof to see the chimneys – bizarre shapes, colorful swirling patterns of broken tiles.  The campground we’re at has several constructions done in the same technique… a large curved bench near the reception, and these hookup points spaced throughout the grounds, all covered with mosaic patterns of broken tiles.  How hard can it be?  A big hammer, lots of broken tiles from the reject bin of a floor tile company, just keep smashing until you’ve got pieces that fit.  I’m thinking about a combination fountain, hot tub and barbeque in the yard at Tahoe, yeah, that could happen.  Probably let Rhona handle the putting together part, I’ll take care of the smashing…   Anyway…  Two heavy tourist days in the city, art galleries mixed with visits to Irish Pubs.  Ireland must be bare of signs and furniture, and it must be impossible to find a bartender.  I’m enjoying it, though.  Menus are in English, prices are reasonable, beer is cold and served by the pint, bartenders are friendly, and they play good music… what’s not to like?  The weather has been hot, but we’ve found that it’s not that bad in the shade.  There’s generally a cool breeze off the ocean.  I think as long as we can get to the coast, any coast, every few days we’ll be fine.   Yesterday we visited our little local town, Sitges.  Walked along a series of beaches, the Mediterranean here is warm and beautiful.   They have an annual festival, and yesterday was the day.  Kind of like sidewalk chalk drawings, they make designs in the small winding streets in flowers.  Use a lot of grass clippings and sawdust for background, but the designs were really very interesting.  Some were very flat, made with flower petals; others were more three dimensional, using blossoms.  At the end of the day, the barriers were taken down and people were allowed to walk through, destroying the designs….  Yesterday was in celebration of the Catholic holiday of Corpus Cristi… not sure what that’s about, that was not one celebrated in Willow Glen.  Tonight and tomorrow is a regional holiday, Saint Joan’s day.  We’re not sure what is going on, have to turn ourselves in to the Tourist Office to be educated.  One of the interesting things about Spain is that the different regions are very separate, pretty much have their own government, their own history, their own traditions and holidays.  The area around Barcelona is Cataluna  (tilda on the n).  They speak their own dialect, and are very proud of their region’s traditions and heroes.  And this Saint Joan, we understand, is the their patron saint.  We’ve heard that in Alicante it’s a major festival, where they build large paper mache figures and burn them in the streets at night.  Yesterday, while wandering the streets looking at the flower patterns we did see large puppet-like figures in the city hall, so maybe that’s the deal.    Rhona and I are both about done with Spain.  I’m really looking forward to Italy.  We have to make a shopping expedition today, supplies are low.  We’ll either stick around here another evening to see whatever it is that’s going on, or we’ll head north to Figueres to stop in at the Salvador Dali museum.  Then it will be up into Southern France, where I want to visit Carcassonne, an amazing walled city I remember from the first trip… then across to Avignon, and on to Italy.   I’m going to hand this to Rhona and go off for a shower.  Hopefully she’ll have a more informed report on the galleries of Barcelona.    Larry is right the Picasso museum was a disappointment. It was interesting to see how his style developed but there was very little from his “famous period” in the museum.   The Miro museum was excellent and it did contain many of his major works, plus lots of information about his life and influences. The gallery also contained a contemporary exhibit by a man that was into bugs. Visually very bizarre, but interesting. Most of his work was made with dead bug bodies.   I did like the Tapies Museum very much, both the site and his work. The building was very beautiful and an excellent exhibition site for his works. There was lots of beautiful gray and taupe marble and tall columns with very high ceilings and the obligatory large white walls. I found his work interesting and innovative. I think that possibly his background gave him the opportunity to “do art” but money does not buy talent and creativity. Obviously Larry and I have agreed to disagree on this one, but he was a good sport and even sat through a video about his work. Well maybe I shouldn’t give him too much credit for that as it was air conditioned and had comfy chairs.   Also we visited Guell Park that Gaudi had designed but it will best left to pictures, the guys work is not easy to put into words. Larry also left out the Erotic Museum, the best part of it was hearing the young girls (20 somethings) shrieking “Oh my God”.  There will be no pictures from the Erotic Museum but there are a couple from a campground bathroom that had a huge marble statues of Venus. It was hard to get a good picture with without including the “happy campers” but I tried. Seems like our bathrooms just go from one extreme to the other.   My time is up Larry has the van packed and ready for travel mode.   2:11:33 PM    comment []

16-Jun-03   Got a late start out of Fuengirola today, then we made a Hypermercado stop… that’s a Supermarket with Warp Drive.  I’ve got a new science project to work on, so I was looking for ingredients.  Enough with the cardboard box mix, I’m on a quest to create my own perfect Sangria.  Barcardi White was on sale, a major score.  I’ve already got a pretty good stock of cheap red wine, but the research is going to require a lot of materials.  Don’t want to run short just when I’m on the brink of a major breakthrough.  Gave me the opportunity to set a new all time record:  .60 of a Euro per bottle.  I’m pretty sure it has a cork, too.  One of the negatives in our situation is that the dollar is dropping like a bucket down a dry well, so that bottle cost me 75 cents American, rather than the .66 cents it would have cost three months ago.  Next ingredient I’m looking for is Triple Sec, but so far I haven’t been able to find it.  Did find some citrus fruit juice mix, and some lemons… I have a couple oranges in the van, it seemed ridiculous to buy more because tomorrow we will be driving through Valencia, where oranges were invented.  Okay, since writing that I’ve learned that actually the original Valencia oranges were imported from the states.  Ah, well the first stages of any great scientific exploration are bound to be a bit crude.  I’ve got plenty of time to add ingredients and refine the process.  Hum, just occurred to me that I really don’t have any precision measuring equipment.  Well there is that old English tea cup… I could put some marks on it to keep the formula consistent.  It’s the proportions that are important, not the actual measurements… I think there is a theorem to that effect….  Newton’s Ninth Law of Cocktails, something like that.      No, I have not begun testing, why do you ask?   Our goal today was to make it half way to Granada.  Like a lot of my goals, we missed that one… by about half.  Well there was this late start… and the research and all.  Rhona got out the campground guide, this place sounded very cool… only a little bit off our route.  Its usually worth our while to drive a bit more to find an interesting place….    Its in  the hills near the ocean… well, not ocean but sea, we are on the Mediterranean now.  Actually feels a lot like Arroyo Seco, no kidding.  The site is on the hillside above a small road, very light traffic.  Very quiet and peaceful.  We haven’t met the owner yet, his wife just had a baby, so he has other priorities today.  Seem to be a  bunch of young people here, looks like most of them have been staying quite a while…  Well, that was a beach town we drove through about five miles back.    Guy in the space next to us has a newer version of our bus.  First one we’ve seen… well, Rhona saw one going the other way earlier today.  He said his is the Mark II version… I’ll have to check it out more closely.  The roof is just like ours, except black.  Across the way is a group of young Irish guys…  I want to go ask them why they’re not working in a Pub somewhere.  With all the Irish bars we’ve seen, there must be a worldwide shortage of Irish bartenders.    Okay, it’s the next morning, results from the first trials are in.  Total disaster.  Too much rum, not enough wine.  Buying the citrus juice in a carton was a huge mistake.  The label said 60% orange juice, 30% water, 5% lemon, 5% lime.  So why did it taste like grapefruit?  Got to pick up a little juicer, the cone shaped kind… go right to the source.  Got to have slices of oranges and lemons anyway, might as well get the fresh juice while I’m at it.  A juicer and some kind of calibrated measuring cup, can’t be repeating the rum fiasco of last night.  Testing will continue.    The flies here are persistent, and the mosquitoes were buzzing in my ears all night.  Always a challenge, this camping life.  I’m thinking about a unit mounted to the roof of the van, electric fan powered by the battery, some kind of insect attractor spray, maybe a fine mist of human sweat (I have an unlimited supply.)  Some kind of chopper-upper, fly and mosquito grinder whirling away, clearing a quarter mile area in nothing flat… yeah, that’s the ticket…   So I found the official Moroccan government website, they had a place to post messages, so I cut and pasted my letter to the King.  I think I’ll print a copy and just mail it… I know his Palace is in Rabat…  They must have some kind of postal code, I’ll figure that one out.  But you would thing that a letter addressed to “The King, Rabat, Morocco”  would get there…  I mean, there’s only the one guy and everyone knows him.   Well, have a little project before we hit the road in the direction of Barcelona, so I’d best get to it.      2:02:12 PM    comment []

Sunday, June 15, 2003

To Mohammed  VI, King of Morocco   My name is Larry Heer.  My wife Rhona and I are from California.  We recently spent two weeks touring your country.  We are so happy that we did not let any security concerns affect our travel plans.  We felt entirely safe and welcome everywhere we went in Morocco.  We met so many wonderful people, and had experiences we will remember for the rest of our lives.    I’m sure you must have a department of your government whose job it is to promote and develop tourism.  Perhaps this message could be forwarded to them.  In our travels in Europe we have seen a huge boom in tourism by the new, prosperous middle class, especially the Spanish.  Few of these people are coming to Morocco.  One reason is cost, it is very expensive to ship a car and caravan to Tangier.  There is a monopoly controlling the fares.  Is there something the Moroccan government can do to lower these costs, and open the doors to so many new customers?  A government subsidy program, perhaps, with appropriate cost controls?  But the biggest problem facing a tourist traveling by private car in Morocco is navigation.  So many times at crossroads the signs named only the next village… often villages so small they are not shown on our maps.  In the cities there are rarely any useful direction signs.  There were several times when we wished to see an attraction and we were simply not able to find it.  The admission money stayed in our pockets.  We saw all kinds of signs pointing to Dentist and Doctor’s offices, but nothing of use to the tourist.    I suggest that Morocco implement a national tourist route signage program.  Choose a distinctive color (perhaps a bright green?)  Use standard International symbols when appropriate, especially to point out routes to campings, beaches, and other tourist destinations.  At important crossroads, provide direction signs to the next town of a size large enough to appear on maps and tourist guides.  On major routes, show the next city likely to be a traveler’s destination.  .  It is important that the signs be easy to read in any language, and that they be consistent… the same size, shape, and color, making them easy to spot while driving in the challenging Moroccan traffic.  I cannot imagine that a program to provide clear tourist signage would be a huge investment.  I’m sure that implementing a national program would provide many jobs for your people.   We stayed at many campgrounds as we traveled throughout Morocco.  Some were quite nice, the campings at Marrakech and Essaouira, for example.  But in many places we found facilities that were primitive and filthy.  I suggest that a government bureau be established to rate and inspect campsites.  Perhaps the five star system used for Hotels could be adapted for campgrounds.  It might be practical to simply mail questionnaires to every site in the country, and award a preliminary rating based on responses.  Then, beginning in the most popular tourist areas, have a small team of inspectors travel the country verifying the ratings and awarding official government plaques with the appropriate number of stars.  The goal would be to provide incentive for campsite operators to improve and maintain their facilities, and supply tourists with the information they need to make good choices.    The tourist industry has become a powerful international economic force.  Wise management of this resource can provide many benefits for Morocco.  The rich will always have their fancy hotels and restaurants.  Too often huge developments destroy the very attractions people come to see.  The Algarve in Portugal, and the Costa del Sol in Spain are two areas where this has happened.  But when large resorts are built as they have been in Marrakech, for example, without disrupting the existing community, everyone benefits.  When the new middle class caravan tourists are welcomed and provided with the minimum facilities they require, the impact on a local economy can be sizable without the massive investment and highly trained employees required by fancy resorts.   As the ruler and spiritual leader of Morocco you have many crucial responsibilities.  It is very clear that you are working hard, making decisions that are benefiting your people in many ways.  Everywhere we went we met people who spoke proudly of their King, and his efforts to lead Morocco into a glorious future.  The Berber people we met are especially excited by the recognition their language has received, and all that implies for their future.  You clearly have the opportunity to create a place for yourself in world history on a level with such leaders as George Washington and Winston Churchill; men of immense stature who came along at the right moment to lead their countries through difficult times into a brilliant future.  As a religious and political leader, you may well have a crucial role to play in the cause of world peace.  I pray for your success in all things.  Long live Morocco… long live Mohammed VI.   Best Regards,   Larry Heer 7:42:57 PM    comment []

6-13-03    10:00 AM  Onboard the ferry Boughaz   Leaving the dock at Tangier.  A much nicer boat than the one coming over, but this thing has one incredible vibration problem.  Rhona is a bit concerned… I told her, as long as the water stays way down there, we’ve got nothing to worry about.   Okay, now, later, I realize it has maneuvering jets… like the Starship Enterprise.  It doesn’t need tugs to get out of and into dock….  There are at least three huge jets on each side.  And when they are pumping, the whole ship shakes.    I’ve gotten way behind, the last posting was written in Marrakech.  Oh yeah, that’s right, in Marrakech we hid from the afternoon heat in an Internet café, but didn’t have the notebook with us… that must have been Monday the ninth.  Tuesday we did a tourist day, hired a driver to take us around to the sights, then had a low budget but very nice Moroccan dinner.  We went to a garden owned by Ives Saint Laurent, a place that had belonged to some potentate or another, a gigantic cistern in the middle of an orchard of olive trees that looked like a muddy Fleishacker Pool, and the Government Store, where supposedly you can by all kinds of tourists goods at a fair price without having to bargain.  They really wanted us to buy rugs, but we refused to even look.  But we did get some things for the four little granddaughters, and Rhona picked up the makings of a necklace.  I cruised the huge showroom looking at leather jackets, and 30-50 K dining sets.  Picture a table, six by ten feet, plate glass top.  Below the glass the wood is terraced downwards and filled with patterns made with silver, stones, and bone….  They told me each table is made by one craftsman, it takes him over a year to complete, and he doesn’t begin another one until the last one is sold.  Matching chairs.  The salesman had a lot of time on his hands, knew that I wasn’t a “live” customer, so we just talked.  He said when he was seventeen he lived in Tangier with Richie Havens, Keith Richards, and Bob Zimmerman.  That’s how I knew he wasn’t just telling stories….  As you might know, Bob Dylan’s real name is Zimmerman.  Anyway, interesting guy. Wednesday we drove to the Cascades d’ Ouzoud….  We’ve got some nice pictures of the waterfalls; I’m not even going to try to describe them.  I’ll be posting the pictures the same time I post this. Thursday in the tiny campground at the falls was a rough day for me.  I woke up feeling sick, and soon eliminated all doubt.  Took a nap, then we walked down to the base of the falls.  Just incredible.  It was a long climb back up to the campground, and then we packed up and hit the road.  I didn’t want to spend another sleepless night there.  Our basic goal at that point was to head north… we really weren’t sure how far we’d get, or if we would spend an extra day along the way.  But driving through the mountains we came upon a large reservoir, crossed the dam, and down the road a ways, saw a camping sign.  My theory is that the camp was the place where the workers lived that built the dam.   It was a hotel, restaurant, campground, but only in the loosest definition of those words.  We were the only people in the camping area, alongside a river that reminded me of the Feather River, in the canyon.  Beautiful country, even though the facilities were primitive, to be kind.  But quiet… that was the thing.  I really expected the little campground at the Cascades to be peaceful, but it was one of the worst nights so far.  People walking by, talking,  barking dogs, cars and trucks going past, to who knows where…  And the earliest rising roosters in the world.    Yesterday morning we rolled out of the dam camp early, and headed for Rabat, just about due north on the coast on the way to Tangier.  There is a museum there we were hoping see where they have a collection of artifacts from Volubilis, the Roman ruins we visited outside Fez.  After five or six hours of normal Moroccan traffic, we reached Rabat.  Total disaster…  there are no signs… at least signs that we can read.  We got the worst kind of lost.  You know, where the farther you drive, the more desperate the neighborhood gets?  The unbelievable part was that we drove directly to the municipal campground.  But we didn’t want a campground, we wanted the damn museum.  We found a place that looked like it could be a museum, or at least, might be the Hassan II Mosque that is supposed to be near the museum… but were soon just as lost and confused as we’ve ever been.  My patience with Moroccan signage is exhausted.  I’m writing a letter to the King.  Nice guy, I’m told.  I’m sure he will read my complaints with interest.    Anyway, somehow we blundered our way northwards and out of the city, on the highway along the coast towards Tangier.  Our challenge then became to find a decent campground… because our patience with filthy Moroccan campgrounds is worn as thin, if not thinner, than my patience with the street signs.  We found a place that looked very nice.  It will probably be a great place when the construction is completed.  The showers were cold (not a big issue anymore), but obviously intended for pre-swimming pool use.  Unisex with no doors.  Rhona took her shower in her now world famous red bathing suit… I waited for dark and had a great, invigorating douche, as they call it here.  Or there… because I’m now writing from the Fuengirola Campground.  Yep, Jaine, the very same… town, not campground.  More on that later, I’m trying to get up to date here.   I have to admit that one of the problems for me about making the Moroccan trip was the prospect of coming back through Moroccan and Spanish customs.  That scene in the French Connection, when they cut the car apart?  I could see that happening.  The morning trip to the ferry went well….  We put the last of our Moroccan money in the gas tank.  Traveling in Europe with the Euro has removed the hassle of changing money at every border.  But it’s stupid to bring Moroccan money back to Spain.  So then there’s the hassle of trying to figure out how to hit the border flat broke…  The solution… play the gas gage so there’s room, and then stop before the ferry and put everything in….  gave the guy our bills and all our change, and he turned it all into Sans Plomb 95… that’s what they call regular unleaded.  Added benefit, when we got to the dock the guys that run around helping tourists through the paperwork in hopes of a nice tip were told, hey, we have no money for help….  Which brings up the major Morocco issue.  I really like the Moroccan people, especially the Berber people we met.  But too often, we felt like meat on the hook, surrounded by, what? Vultures?   I mean, you can’t really blame them.  The average Moroccan income is something like $3500 a year…  and there are a lot of wealthy Moroccans.  Children learn to beg at a very early age.  We met 18 – 19 year old well dressed young men giving us the “feed me” sign (bunched fingers to the mouth, repeated until all hope is extinguished.)  Are they really hungry, or is it force of habit?  They’re probably hungry.  Can we travel the country handing out money to every Moroccan we meet?  The hard part is when they come on as friends, just trying to help you out.  Nothing you can say will stop them… especially when the circumstances (totally lost with no official guidance) demands assistance, from somebody.  And then they expect a “tip”.  And are very unhappy with less than they deem satisfactory.  The government obviously is aware of the problem.  They have taken steps to license official tourist guides, set fair rates, and are trying to enforce their regulations….  We saw plainclothes police in the Souks…  being outrun by kids, yes, but at least we saw that Moroccan officials are aware that tourists do resent being constantly hustled.   It was a problem for us all the way along our trip… whose help to accept, what to do when they are in our faces and won’t go away… it’s very tough.  A couple examples:  We stop at a gas station, fill up.  Drive over to the air and water place, I need to check the radiator, top it off.  This little kid shows up, takes over the hose.  I tell him we have no money for him, doesn’t matter.  He’s in the damn way.  But he’s a cute little rascal.  He’s also a beggar in training.  What do I do?  I do the best I can to take care of my own business, shoo him out of the way as best and as politely as I can.  Then, just as we are about to leave, and he’s standing there with the best starving kid look in the world, I hand him an orange.  Big smile, total success.   On the other hand.  At the Cascades…  Our guidebook said, “Ignore the useless guides”.  It also said something about which way to go at the top of the falls…  I thought it said right, it could have been left…  I figured out later that the book was assuming that we were entering from a different place than we actually did….  Anyway, we came to the top of the falls, and went right.  Found ourselves on a steep hillside of terraced olive trees.  There were a couple interesting overlooks, but I realized we were on the wrong side of the canyon.   We could see a nice developed area on the far side, with stairways down the the river.   So we started back, intending to go left at the top.  We met two Moroccan guys, in their early 20s I’d say, not kids.  They said, you want to go to the Cascades?  Swimming?  That way…”  Pointing back the way we had just come from….  Rhona asked one of them, “Is there an easy path?  Can I make it down?”  “Oh yes, no problem, no problem.” So we turned around and headed back.  I saw one of the two guys cutting through the trees below us.  There was no kind of path, just the terraces and trees, springs coming out of the hillside, irrigating the olives and heading down over the brink into the river below.  At one point, when we made a turn to descend, he yelled at us, “No, not there, further on.”  Then there he was, taking Rhona’s hand, helping her down a steep section, now… guiding us.  I was trapped.  What could I say?  For all I knew, the choice I had made would have caused us to walk off a cliff.  He led Rhona, further and further down the hillside.  At the bottom, bingo, we walked right in to a clearing, into a little campground, restaurant.  What a surprise.  I threw my hands up in disgust and walked out, down to the river, where I sat by myself, enjoying the small waterfall and pool before me.  Our “friend”, led Rhona further down the river, to the next little campground, restaurant.  After a while they were back.  As I sat and thought about it, I realized that at the very first we should have said to the guy was, “We have no money for you.”  Because it was obvious that he felt that he owned us.  And he was not going away until we bought ourselves back.  I had the paper money, Rhona had some coins.  Too many coins for my liking.  But I told her, look, you want to pay him, fine, you pay him.  Wasn’t really fair to her, but I was really feeling angry and trapped.  It was clear by then that if we had gone back to the top and gone left, we would have been in a much more manageable situation (as we did the following day).  Basically the guy lied to us, conned us, if you will, and then, under the guise of helping us, was expecting payment.  A big payment.  I’m not sure how much Rhona gave him to ease her guilty feelings, and I don’t blame her a bit, but the guy was not happy, he obviously wanted more.  My feelings were not in the least bit constructive.  Braining the guy with a rock was probably not a solution.  But I did learn an important lesson.  From that moment on, whenever we came into contact with any “friendly” Moroccans, I said, “We have no money for… help, a guide, you, whatever was appropriate.  Worked just fine at the ferry today.  Once they understood that we were not “customers” they were friendly, we had conversations about how wonderful our trip had been, and… they helped us through the process.  The things about that are… it’s an official government action, immigration and customs.  No signs, not a clue as to what we are supposed to do.  These guys are running around with plastic identity badges, they take your paperwork, your passports, your ticket, your car registration, you assume they are official.   And when it’s all done, they expect payment.  For good service.  In Euros, please.  Well, today, they didn’t get it, and they were fine with it… because the next tourist will pay.   The morality of all this is tough for me to figure out.  Obviously, we can’t travel around the country handing out cash to everyone who asks for it.  I suppose there are many who do, figuring they are helping the poor Moroccans, and paying for little conveniences along the way.  We drove down these little country roads, mile after mile, passing men, women and children begging for Dirhams.  What are we suppose to do?  Carry a big bag of money, throwing out the window as we pass by?  Imagine a whole country of “homeless people”.   It’s a Third World Country, no question about it.  No lepers in the streets like I’d seen in Viet Nam, but the impact of the smells, the filth, the poverty, is almost overwhelming at times.  Everything seemed to be under construction.  The heat was oppressive, the drinks lukewarm, ice found only in the rare giant supermarket outside the largest cities.  As I’ve described, driving in the traffic is bizarre.  I gradually came to the conclusion that it’s not collective insanity, there is a method to the chaos.  They share the road in ways very difficult to comprehend.  A truck coming over the double line coming at you in your lane is not a big deal… you honk, sure.  Blink your headlights just to say hello.  But you slide over, the guy alongside slides over, and all is well.  They think nothing of double lane left turns.  I mean, the guy in the center lane is trying to make a left turn across traffic, the next guy swings around him to the right, and passes him as they both turn left.  And waves.  And makes some friendly comment about the weather as he goes by.  I know my comments sound like I’m complaining…  whining….  No, by the end of the trip I was genuinely impressed by how practical the chaos actually is.  Everyone gets where they are going at their own rate of speed, sharing the road – walking, on bikes, donkeys, horsecarts, Vespas, tiny shitbox cars, BMW and Mercedes sedans, buses, and huge diesel smoke belching trucks.  We did see one accident as we were leaving Marrakech, in front of a big fancy hotel between a big car and one of those high powered sport bikes, but that doesn’t even count.  There are two or three a day of those kind of wrecks in the Bay Area.   Rhona just read this over and she says I’m ending the Moroccan story on a negative note, and she’s right as usual.  We had our doubts about going to Morocco… only decided to after meeting a few people in Portugal and Spain who had recently returned.  Their advice was good… no danger, very pleasant people happy to see us, and incredible sights to see.  Even with all I’ve said about the insistent salespeople, the obvious poverty and mind-blowing traffic, we don’t regret going for a moment.  Meeting Said at Dades was worth the entire trip.  The beach at Tagazoute was an amazing experience, camel ride and all.  Our adventures in the Souks left us with sights, sounds and smells we will never forget.  We traveled the country for two weeks, it seems like six months.  Everywhere we turned we saw things we had never seen before.  It was challenging, but definitely worth while.   Where was I?  Sorry about the rant.  Am I up to date?  Nope… left some good stuff out, I know.  Especially about today, this afternoon.  We got off the ferry, and drove through Algeceris down the Costa del Sol…  or as the highway signs say, Costa del Golf.  To Fuengirola.  Where Jaine and I spent the winter of 1970-71.  And the idea of Kristina Marie began.  Well, actually, more than just the idea.   I knew, I had read, that the Costa del Sol has been “ruined”.  I was still shocked.  It looks more like San Diego than Spain.  Condo developments everywhere, makes the Algarve in Portugal look pristine.  Huge billboards in English, advertising everything from Gentlemen’s clubs to furniture supermarkets.  Heavy freeway traffic.  I give up, impossible to describe.  I remember Marbella, a hot spot for the jet set in the seventies.  Now, another Long Beach.  Fuengirola, the little fishing village with just a taste of tourism in the 70s…  well, there was that Chinese wall of concrete highrises along the beach, even then.  Miami Beach today.  No exaggeration.  Now, first question, what the hell’s the problem with Miami Beach?  What is lost?  Who is hurt?  Comments from Florida?  Tiff, Neil?    This afternoon Rhona and I sat in a bar called Bogies’s, across from the yacht harbor, in a building called “Old Town”.  I’m quite sure that in the 70s there was nothing but sand in front of the fishing pier, maybe a small bar… but an Old Town?  Ah well…  Great food, ice cold beer.  The streets are full of tourists of all persuasion.  We spotted five Irish bars so far.  This is really the belly of the beast.  If tourism is a bad thing, this is where the evidence is to be found.  It took us a while, but we found the campground; it’s almost full.  Looks like a lot of year round campers here… televisions glowing all over the place.  Is this really a campground, or the world’s wealthiest refugee camp?  And just what are these people refugees from?  English winters, that’s for sure…  the high European cost of living, maybe.   Tonight, we don’t care.  Hot showers.  Washing machines.  Ice in the campstore.  Sit down toilets.  And – miracle of miracles… free toilet paper!  Rhona just came back, walking in an aura of soap smell, I guess it’s my turn.  I think this is worth a day or two to check out.   7:40:18 PM    comment []

6/9/2003 – Marrakech   We did enjoy our visit to Essaouira.  The camping was small, simple, but clean; and a 45 cent cab ride to the Medina.  Yesterday on the drive to Marrakech, Rhona remarked that it seems like places that had been hippie havens still show the influence after all these years.  Cases in point:  Santa Cruz.  Mendocino town. Taos.  Essaouira.  Original local art was everywhere.  Some tourist oriented mass produced stuff of course, but in a couple galleries we were amazed by the color and variety.  There is a Berber “style” – bright primary colors, detailed figures in swirling patterns.  But so many modern variations on the theme.  We loved the Bear, a six foot tall, five inch thick profile, bordered with painted rug material.  The body of the bear is the canvas, front and back, alive with color and imaginative design.  Strange figures, animals and humans of all descriptions, an explosion of movement.  Take that back to Tahoe and put all those chainsawed bears to shame.  Shipping might be a problem.  There were large detailed canvases done with a glossy paint so that the pieces looked like enamelware, bright colored geometric patterns.  I guess the most amazing thing was that we walked into the galleries, strolled around, taking it in… and no one said, “Welcome to Morocco, where are you from, come here, spend money, special price for you today….   The book says the town is “laid back”.  That means the rug merchants don’t actually grab you and drag you into their shop.  To be honest, a couple “noes” seemed to do the job.  One persistent fellow accosted us on the street, would not leave us alone.  I said, “You’re not from Essaouira, are you?”  Bingo.  He had to take us to his shop to show us pictures of his village…  Not that far from Boumalne, I think.  He had worked with his father taking tourists on camel treks into the Sahara.  He had a picture of an Iranian boy who had ridden to Morocco… seventy-five days on a camel.  But he did accept that we were not going to buy a carpet – eventually.  He wanted to trade for my bandana, wanted to have something from the US.  I gave it to him.  Bought two more on the street in Marrakech.  Exactly like the one I gave him, made in China also.   A couple blocks over, we paused in front of a spice shop.  The owner was immediately at our elbows, describing his wares.  What looked like a small pottery teapot lid – Berber lipstick.  You wet your finger, dab the red stuff, spread it on.  Rhona was intrigued.  In very good English the owner invited us to step inside.  Well, Rhona does need some spices, salt and pepper just do not always get the job done.  Soon we were sipping mint tea and listening to his pitch.  We bought 50 gram bags of curry powder and several Moroccan blends for various dishes.  Total damage, about seven bucks.  I think he makes his money on the exotic teas and “Moroccan Viagra” on display.  But the conversation was very interesting.  His father had told him stories of the hippie days, and he was very proud of his town’s history.  Like Carmel, the people of the town have resisted development, aware that they have something precious.  But six large hotels are in the planning stages, and it’s likely that someday soon the old, gentle Essaouira will go the way of the Algarve.   After a couple attempts, we found the restaurant our favorite guidebook (Let’s Go) recommends.  The place was a bit rustic, but probably could fit in on Union street in the city.  Low tables, with cushions and pillows, very comfortable, even for inflexible me.  We were early, so there were very few people there.  By the time we were finished there were people waiting for tables.  Rhona had Tanjine, I had the cous-cous with beef.  Both were delicious.  I thought cous-cous was a grain, some kind of rice, but it’s actually pasta, cooked with special Moroccan spices.  After dinner we took a long walk down the floodlit beach watch waves roll in and guys playing soccer.  We jumped in a Petit Taxi for the short ride back to the camping.  The have two kinds of cabs here.  The Gran Taxi, which is always a large Mercedes four door sedan, and the tiny Petits.  The Gran taxies are by the seat… you make a deal with the driver as to where you want to go and how much your seat will cost.  You can buy two seats to have a bit more room if you like.  The driver sells two seats in front and four in back.  When the cab is full, off you go.  We saw them on roads all over Morocco.  The Petit Taxies do not leave the town they are based in.  In most places they have meters, but not always.   Every town’s taxies are the same color and the same make… usually little Renaults.  But they are very inexpensive, and you just jump in and go.  It cost us six dirham (6 x 9 cents = 56 cents) to get from town to the campground, probably two miles or so.  Both the Gran and Petit have one thing in common.  The drivers think they are driving Formula One race cars. 7:38:08 PM    comment []

Sunday, June 08, 2003

Fingers of the Monkey   Our plan was to leave Fez and drive south through the Gorges Du Ziz.  Which, if you are playing at home, are just north of the town of Errachidia.  It’s an amazing place, as if there was a road through the middle of Grand Canyon.  I don’t think that is an exaggeration, just miles and miles of massive cliffs and canyons. From there the highway turns west across the top edge of the Sahara to Ouarzazate, and on across to Agadir on the Atlantic coast.  Between Errachidia and Ouarzazate there are several valleys where roads run down into the Sahara.  Places where fleets of Land Rovers take tourists to Berber villages to ride camels and yes, buy rugs.  I’ve seen sand.  If I’d known that Rhona had a secret desire to ride a camel, we might have made the trip.  My feeling was that if we could coax the Bedford all the way to Agadir that would be asking quite enough of the old girl.  About a hundred kilometers from Ouarzazate (the so-called, Gateway to the Sahara) we came to the town of Boumalne Dades.  Don’t you just love these names?  There is an accent on the e in Dades, so it’s pronounced Dahdez.  Anyway, Rhona was reading the Let’s Go book (part of the duties of the Navigator, you understand.)  She said, “Hey, this sounds interesting…  There’s a place called Fingers of the Monkey, just 17 kilometers away.  There’s supposed to be a camping there.”  Timing was perfect.  I’d assumed we’d just park someplace for the night, but seventeen kilometers is only a little more than ten miles….   They had to be talking as the crow flies.  The worst excuse for a road we’ve seen so far.  Single lane, more pothole than asphalt, we bounced  and jounced are way up the winding canyon, through tiny villages.  Camping Le Dades, the book said, by a gravel turnoff.  At a certain point at times like this, we give up hope of finding our destination.  We don’t really talk about it, I think you have to stay positive.  Rhona or I might make some little comment under our breath, like “Whoa, we’re screwed now…”  But my original goal was just to park somewhere, so if the camping didn’t really exist, well, no great loss.  But there is this stubborn streak I have.  Fingers white on the steering wheel, nose near the windshield glass, I’m determined to find this place, even though the voices in the back of my head have taken a vote, and hope has lost.  We round a sharp corner, and there’s a camping sign!  A gravel pull off on the right!   But the sign doesn’t say anything about Le Dades.  Doesn’t seem to be anyone around.  I keep going.  Another mile or two, fifteen or twenty minutes, I decide that must have been the place back there… find a wide spot and turn around.  When we come around the same corner a couple guys are waving to us, we make an almost 180 degree turn up a narrow driveway and Ezzaytouni Said opens the gate of his camping/restaurant.  We pull into a courtyard.  On the road side is a low wall.  Opposite is a mud and straw building, obviously under construction.  In front of the building, pitched on a concrete pad, is a Berber tent, open to the front,  right out of the pages of National Geographic.  Ezzaytouni is his family name, he introduces himself as Said (pronounced Sayeed), shakes our hands and welcomes us to his place.  We make about three attempts, finally park the van along side the tent… there is no one there except Rhona and I – and Said.  Across the wall, on the other side of the road, is a shallow canyon, and then an incredible wall, or rather several walls, of sculptured rock.  The Fingers of the Monkey.  There is an area that actually looks quite a bit like the big baseball glove at Pac Bell.  A geologist could probably explain how the formation was created, I know I’ve never seen anything like it….  There are shelves of rock tilted back, layered upon each other.  A crazy jigsaw puzzle of rounded eroded shapes, worn in deep grooves vertically and horizontally.  A pile of oddly shaped biscuits, stacked in neat rows.  It is past sunset and the colors are warm tans and browns, almost glowing in the fading light.   Said proudly shows us the bathroom.  Very clean, freshly tiled.  Do you know about squatters?  The books call them Turkish toilets, but I think it’s the French’s fault.  A square shower stall looking thing, with two foot pads, and a hole for a target.  Get the picture?  Said’s was the first we’d seen without a water closet.  There was a hose bib coming out of the wall and a small plastic bucket.  You did your business, filled the bucket, and flushed.  Any questions?  Good.  We were thrilled.  The place was spotless, cleanest bathroom we’d seen since… well, San Jose, I guess.    Said said we could use the tent.  I asked him the price, he said 20 Dinhars a person.  A Dinhar is nine cents, so, what, $3.60 a night?  A new record.  He asked us if we wanted to walk to the canyon, but we agreed that it would be best to wait until morning.  He left us to set up camp.  We found ourselves in this magical place, alone.  Rhona and I ate our dinner sitting on cushions looking out at the night.  There was no moon.  The stars were brilliant.   In the morning, Said reappeared, bringing a loaf of Berber bread, warm from the fire.  About the size of a dinner plate, about an inch and a half thick, toasty brown in color.  The texture … well, it wasn’t breadlike.  The crust was tough, but the inside crumbly, almost like cous-cous.  Very delicious, very filling.  Said’s English is very good.  He told us that an American couple had come to his village and taught classes.  He is a tall man, very thin, but, as we were to find out, extremely strong.  How to describe his manner?  Warm, friendly… hospitable, that’s a word for Said.  Not the least bit obsequious, obviously proud of his Berber heritage, his village, and his property.    The gate needed repair, so Said worked on it while Rhona and I had breakfast.  Then he led us across the road, and down to the small river at the base of the rocks.  We walked upstream a little ways and the canyon opened up into the fields of the village.  More a series of gardens, a park….  Small rectangles of tan wheat, plots of vegetables, bordered with bright flowers, purple and pink, bright green palms, small bushy trees, perhaps olives.  Breathtaking.  Women were working in groups, hunched over, singing.  Something about the movements, the earth, perhaps the heat of the day, just being a part of a small village that makes the music.  You would hear the same melodies all over the world, I’m sure.  Sounded to my ear like American Indian traditional music, rhythmic, wailing.  Joyful.  The contrast between the colors of the fields and the surrounding tans and browns was startling.  Said suggested that we cross the stream and continue up the opposite bank into the rock formations.    Soon we were clambering up boulders, through openings in the rock, climbing up smooth grooves worn by centuries of wind and water.  At places rock had fallen in a jumble, we climbed over and around, ducked under, sometimes crawling through small openings.  It was tough going… After an hour or so of steady climbing in the intense heat, Rhona began having a difficult time.  Said would climb, reach around and grab her hands, I’d push from below, up she’d go.  Rhona had asked him how long the walk would take, wanting to know what she was getting in to.  He had told her two hours.  That evening he told us he thought we were in a hurry, and that was why he kept us moving.  Well, we stopped often, Rhona and I… this mountain goat of a man waiting for us up the trail.  At last we came to a final, almost vertical climb at the top of the gorge.  We took it very slowly, stopping to rest like climbers struggling for the summit.  And then…  the top… overlooking the string of villages, the ridges of rock piled off into the distance.    The trail down was winding and steep, but easy compared to the climb.  We entered the village, though the mud walled houses, to the well.  Said winched up the bucket, we drank our fill as Rhona watched.  Don’t care if I die, best tasting water I’ve ever drank!  Right from a bucket that looked like it was made from an old car tire.  We walked down through the small houses, watching the women at work, waving and smiling, seeing more of the beautiful fields.   We talked about a lot of things that day.  Said told us that seventy five percent of Moroccans are Berber, the rest Arab.  The last Berber war was with the Romans, they fought for 150 years.  When the Arab armies arrived, according to Said, the Romans and Berbers were exhausted by years of battle.  The Roman empire was disintegrating.  The Berber people left the flat land to the Arabs and retreated to the canyons and mountains.  And now, he said, we are coming back to the cities.  The Moroccan constitution has recently been changed, the official languages were Arabic and French, now it will be Arabic and Berber.  The Berber language will be taught in three hundred schools, once teachers can be found and trained.  It’s always been an oral language, but an alphabet has been created over the years.  I think Said said there are 36 letters and he has a friend in the village that knows them all.  Rhona had talked to a taxi driver in Fez that told her he had a Batchelor’s degree, but that in Morocco you must buy a job, so he wasn’t able to use his education.  It seems that the Arab people control the economy, positions go to relatives and friends.  Or those able to pay – bribes, let’s call it what it is.  I asked Said what he hopes for his children, he has three, two girls and a boy.  Does he want them to go to school?   He said, “In Morocco, school is not necessary.”  He told me that it’s better that they work with him.  That way they can use the time and money that education would cost to create their own business.  He said he had 20 years of education, and in Morocco, as a Berber, it means nothing.    What we didn’t talk about was the disappearance of the tourist business.  9-11 was a disaster in Morocco also, as it has been for the tourist industry all around the world.  The recent bombing in Casablanca has made things much worse.  Overnight, what American and British tourists were here, all left.  We’ve seen the effects, empty campgrounds everywhere we’ve been.   I may be too optimistic, but I think, I hope, Said will have his dreams fulfilled.  The tourists will return, his hard work will be rewarded.   When we got back to the tent, he made us some mint tea, (good for hot, he said) and agreed that he would cook us a Berber dinner that night.  He made a trip to Boumalne for supplies, while Rhona and I took showers with buckets of cool water.  He returned with a bags of groceries and a Moroccan pottery barbeque.  There are three parts, a base, like a good sized flower pot that holds the charcoal.  A heavy dish sits on the base, supported on raised fingers so that air gets to the charcoal.  And then a cover, cone shaped, like an upside down funnel, closed at the top.  We had seen them displayed at roadside pottery stands, but had no idea what they were.   The charcoal was lit with a small bundle of sticks, the platter put in position, and when the fire was going good, he poured in an inch or so of vegetable oil.   When the oil was hot, a half a chicken was placed in the sizzling oil,  and browned, as he prepared the vegetables.  Carrots, potatoes, onions,  all peeled and skinned.  When the chicken was ready, the vegetables were piled on top, sprinkled with the magic Moroccan mix of spices.  He had sliced tomatoes that were added at the end.  The cover sat down over the platter, and it was left to cook for about an hour.  It’s called Tajine, and tastes like a very flavorful stew.   Said told us that he had met friends in town and had invited them to join us for dinner.  In a while, Catherine, an English lady, arrived, with a young Moroccan friend.  He spoke only French, and we never did catch his name.  But we had a great time talking to Catherine.  She has done a lot of traveling, hitchhiked through the States.  She had been in this village for nine months.  Every three months she had to cross back over to Spain to renew her visa.  Lots of stories about the Moroccan bureaucracy. She was in the process of getting permission to be a permanent resident, she hopes to operate a guide service.  She talked a lot about the women.  She has spent a lot of time visiting their homes.  When life is so difficult, she said, the people have little time to deal with emotions– they often ignore crying children, for example, because they simply do not have the time or energy to be concerned with what seems to them, trivial matters.    We sat around the low table, eating the Tajine by dipping pieces of bread into it, scooping up chunks of chicken and vegetables, soaking up the gravy.  We brought out our last two bottles of Portuguese wine, and there was a party going on.  Conversations going on in French, Berber, English… and the food was wonderful.  Topped off with honeydew melon for desert….  Well it tasted like honeydew, looked like cantaloupe. Too soon, our guests were leaving; Rhona and I climbed into our van, tired and happy.   In the morning we packed up, getting the van back in travel mode.  It would have been easy to spend another day there, but the beaches are waiting for us.  We were just about to leave Said a note, when the gates swung open and there he was, smiling and a bit hungover.  We exchanged addresses… shook hands all around, and soon we were rolling down that terrible road again.  We came back out onto the highway at Boumalne, and turned east towards Agadir.  I heard a horn honking behind us, looked in the rear view to see a little white van with the driver waving frantically.  Our guide books have warned us about bandits flagging down tourists, but I couldn’t just ignore these guys.  I pulled over.  The passenger door opened, and out climbed Said.  He had Rhona’s address book in his hand, somehow we had left it.  I was stunned.  This was right up there with old honest Abe carrying the penny back to his customer.  He apologized for taking so long to catch up with us, it had taken him a while to find a ride.  Absolutely amazing.    It will be a long time before we forget our friend Said, the Gorges Du Dades, and the Fingers of the Monkey. 12:46:07 PM    comment []