Merger!

This post is to announce that I am merging my Kathy's Travel Tales blog back into my On Early Retirement blog.

I'm new to this blogging stuff, and last month it seemed like a good idea to have to separate blogs. The more I learn, however, the more I realize how much more work it is to maintain both. I still plan to post something with a travel topic regularly, but, after all, I am doing all this travel in retirement, so I think it fits just fine.

I really don't want to lose any readers, so if you have surbscribed to this one, please visit http://onearlyretirement.blogspot.com/ and sign up over there.

By the way, if there is a way to actually move all this content to the other blog, I don't know how to do it, so what I've already written here may just hang out at this address forever, I guess. I'll see what I can do to move it over.

Thanks so much for hanging in there with me while I get this all worked out.

Assisi, Umbria, Italy

Basilica di San Francesco - Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi

Assisi is one of my favorite towns in Italy, which is surprising considering our start there. We arrived in a pouring rainstorm, which gave us an excuse to take a taxi to our hotel. As we checked in, we re-verified that we indeed did have Internet access in our room, which was very important to us since we hadn't had it in the last hotel. Our room was actually in another building which meant that we were soaked again before we got there. 

I immediately set out to wash some clothes in our little sink while Lynda tried to get online. When I had everything washed and draped around the bathroom to dry, I went out into the room and Lynda told me that she couldn't seem to get Internet access. I got my computer out and tried it only to find that I couldn't get the Internet, either.

Lynda went back to the front desk and was told that we would have to buy a pass that allowed us to have Internet access.  She paid the fee for both of us and came back to the room. We tried again. Nothing.

This time we called. Turned out that there was no Internet access from the "other" building. They wanted us to come to the lobby to use our computers. I told them that was not acceptable and they would have to change our room. She hesitated and then said, "Well, you haven't used the bathroom, have you?" I thought of all the clothes I had draped everywhere and answered, "Well, of course we have!" I went on to explain that we had used it after we had been told that we had Internet. It wasn't our fault that they had lied to us.

I took down all my wet clothes and we moved to another room in the main building. We had Internet, but we also were surrounded by a bunch of kids on some sort of field trip. We made it work for that still-rainy night and decided move to another hotel the next morning.

The morning dawned cool but clear and we found another hotel right down the street and got moved right away. We put our stuff away and set out to explore Assisi. I don't think we had a map with us - we just wandered in whatever direction looked interesting. This is the part of travel that I love - just wandering and exploring.

OK, I am VERY frustrated here. I'm having a bunch of trouble with Google right now and I cannot get the photos I want to show you to upload here and I've been working on it for over an hour. Let's do it this way. Go to my Flickr account and then, on the right side, click on "Italy 2011" then click on "Assisi - May 2011". This will let you see all the photos I took in Assisi.

Now, the thing I love about Assisi is that we could have been walking around almost a thousand years ago and I don't think it would have been much different (except for the tourists). All of the buildings were built out of the same kind of stone. That was something we would see all over Italy, but it was a slightly different stone in each area. Everything was perfectly clean, but that may have been because of the downpour the day before. If you haven't yet checked out the photos, please go back up to the link to my Flickr page and check them out so you can see what I'm talking about.

We walked along the narrow main streets, curious about the tiny side streets we passed but not ready to turn off yet. We were still trying to get our bearings. We were heading downhill the whole time and I was beginning to dread the walk back up when we rounded a curve and saw the Basilica of San Francisco. This was just our first exploratory walk - we weren't looking for the Basilica and hadn't yet read anything about it, but we decided that we might as well go in since we were there.

In my opinion, this is the most beautiful church of all that we saw over the three weeks we traveled in Italy. Well, maybe St. Marks in Venice ties it, but it's a different kind of beauty. The Basilica of San Francisco shows the community's love for it's native son, who was born here in 1181, and the country's love for it's patron saint.

The building is huge! You can't even see that from the inside or the front - you have to see it from maybe a mile away and down the hill to realize it's enormity. The structure is fairly simple. The fanciest work I saw was the stone work around the windows at the entrances and the carved wooden choir stalls. Mostly, though, the basilica's beauty is in it's simplicity.

And the artwork... The walls inside are almost completely covered with paintings by Simone Martini (1284 - 1344), Pietro Lorenzetti (1280 - 1348), and Giotto (1266 - 1337). The paintings are beautiful and bright and colorful. Many look like they were painted last year. The whole place is a wonderful medieval art museum. Unfortunately, they don't allow photos, so here is another link so you can see what I'm talking about and learn more about the basilica.

After stumbling around in amazement for hours, we finally decided that we had seen all there was to see, stopped by the gift shop to pick up small books with the photos we had not been allowed to take, and headed back toward the center of town.

Now we took the time to explore every little alley and side street we saw. Since Assisi is a hilltop village, many of these streets were very steep. Some were really just paths and others became stairways. We headed in the general direction of our hotel, but at each fork in the road/path, we chose the one that looked the most interesting. We discovered lots of little shops - an excuse to stop and catch our breaths on the really steep parts.

Our final stop was in a delightful little deli off the main square where we bought some cheeses and a bottle of wine for the next day's train trip to Siena.

Traveling Italy by Train

Sometimes you make your own fun! My friends and I traveled around Italy together for three weeks. Neither of them had ever traveled internationally (except to Mexico, where we all have homes), so it was up to me to do the planning. Not that I minded, as you might have guessed from last Wednesday's post. They got to travel for three weeks; in my way, I was there for a year.

The photo above shows what turned out to be my favorite part of the trip - the picnics we ate on the trains as we traveled. Most hotels had a check-out time around 11am to noon and a check-in time of either one or two in the afternoon. We took advantage of that fact to plan all of our travel between towns during that time. It worked perfectly!

The night before, we went to the best deli or cheese shop we could find and bought small chunks three or four different cheeses - almost always pecorino. We loved that sheep cheese! Then we went to a wine shop and chose whatever looked good to us that day, making sure that we tried a large variety over the course of the trip. Nothing expensive, though; we usually spent less than $10US. Our last stop was a fruit stand or store where we bought apples or pears or figs and maybe some kind of crackers. We wrapped everything carefully and packed it in my daypack with plastic cups, paper napkins, my Swiss Army knife and a corkscrew. Our lunch was ready to go when we were.

If we were moving to a new town, we checked out of our hotel around 11am and walked to the train station. Sometimes I had an idea when the train would run, but if not, we just checked the schedules when we got there and bought our tickets for the next available train. We never pre-bought tickets, which would have required us to be in a certain place at a certain time.  Almost all the trains run frequently, and I think we only had one time where a train was sold out. We had to wait for about an hour for the next one.

We were usually able to find seats with a table in the middle, but not always. Whatever was there, we made it work. As soon as we got our luggage settled, I started pulling our feast out of the daypack. We always drew quite a bit of attention, but it was the good kind of attention - people remembering times they'd done the same thing or wishing that they had thought of it themselves. We couldn't share much of their language but the smiles all around were easy to understand.

We arrived at our destination relaxed from the wine, hunger satisfied, and ready to continue with our adventure.

Boquette, Panama

The mountains around the town of Boquette

A lot of Americans and Canadians are moving to the town of Boquette in western Panama, so we decided to take a trip there to see for ourselves what was attracting this migration. We flew in to Panama City and then took an overnight bus to David and then a smaller bus to Boquette.

When we arrived, clouds were clinging to the nearby volcano and a mist was settling down on the community. It wasn't enough to really get us wet, but we weren't entirely dry, either. We dropped our stuff off at our little hotel overlooking the river and set off to explore.

Boquette sits in a steep-sided bowl between mountains, so there isn't a lot of walking on level ground. Add to that the crumbling or non-existant sidewalks and we spent more time with our eyes on the ground than looking at the town.

Once we had visited the nearby botanical garden and the local expat hang-out, we weren't really sure how to keep ourselves occupied in that small town. Our hotel rented out motorbikes, so we decided to take a ride into the mountains.  The manager went over the motorbike to be sure all was well and then explained how to follow the route he suggested.

Once Terry had started the bike, I hopped on the back and we took off over the river and up the road climbing the mountainside. The scenery was beautiful and I was happy that he was driving so I could just enjoy it.

All was going well until we came around a curve to find that the road ahead was much steeper than what we had been experiencing so far. We got as much of a running start as we could, but we had barely started up that steep part when the bike began slowing noticably.  It finally came to a stop; it just couldn't carry us both up the hill. Since I didn't know how to drive a motorbike, it made sense that I was the one to get off and walk while Terry continued up the hill on the bike. He never got too far ahead of me - just went a little way and then stopped until I caught up.

The altitude wasn't too bad, but my exercise-induced asthma really had me gasping for breath. He came up with the idea of letting me sit on the bike while he walked along side balancing it and giving it just enough gas to haul me, and pull him, up the hill. It turned out that it was just too hard to control it that way, so I went back to walking. With slow and steady progress, I finally made it to the top. After resting a bit to regain my breath, we hopped on the bike and started down the other side of the hill. Oh, yeah - downhill!!!

We hadn't gone far when the brakes decided not to respond very well. It was all Terry could do to keep the bike under control. When we finally got to a spot that was a bit more level than the rest, he was barely able to get us stopped. Fortunately, we were very near one of the few homes on that road. We jumped off the bike and walked it back toward the house. The lady who lived there had seen us coming and met us at the bottom of her driveway.

She rescued us by calling the hotel and then giving us a cup of tea and some company while we waited for someone to arrive to take care of the problem. When the guy finally came, he made a few adjustments to the brakes and started to get back in his truck, saying he would meet us back at the hotel. We told him to forget that idea. He could take the damned motorbike back; we were driving down in the truck. He made it back OK, but when we saw how steep that road was, we were very happy that we weren't on that bike. No wonder the brakes were worn out!

Back at the hotel, we got a refund, went to the store and bought some wine, and celebrated our survival. We were very ready to get out of Boquette on the morning bus.

Ronda, Spain

I knew I would love Ronda before I ever got there. I fell in love with the city from reading Nick Bantock's The Forgetting Room. His protagonist is an American bookbinder who inherits a home in Ronda after the death of his artist grandfather. The grandfather has left him clues that lead him to remember how he had loved art as a boy. 

The city of Ronda is built on a high mesa with the old medieval town connected to the newer part of town over the bridge in this photo. Bantock's character becomes obsessed with drawing and painting this bridge. Who can blame him?

                






All of the buildings in Ronda are painted white and have tile roofs. The streets are paved with flat stones. This photo shows the newer part of the town and was taken from old town. Even though much of the new town was quite old, I preferred the old town much more. It was easy to imagine that I was back in the Middle Ages as I wandered around. 

 

It is easy to see from this photo that Ronda was pretty secure from attack except from the bridge and the road at the other end of the old town. Most of the edge of this cliff is park so I was able to walk along the top and enjoy the view below. I could see for miles in all directions.

There is a river that divides the two mesas that make up the town. I climbed down a scary almost vertical tunnel cut through the cliff to give access to the water of the river in case of siege. The climb down took a long time, but up was much worse, of course.

I enjoy  finding "dream homes" when I travel - places I would like to live, assuming that money was no object. I found this one just at the bottom of the cliff pictured in the photo above. A river flows by just out of sight so there should be lots of water for all my grapes. I think I could be happy in my little stone cottage with a nice pool to keep cool on those hot summer days.

Just to be sure I learned what I'd need to know for growing my grapes, I made sure to visit the Museum of Wines of Ronda and tasted all that they had to offer.

I really enjoyed my visit to Ronda and wish I had been able to spend more time there. Maybe some day I could rent a little house for a summer to really get the feel of living there. 

Planning the Trip is Part of the Adventure!

I don't have enough money to be on the road as much as I'd like. I'm happy if I can put together the money for one three-week trip to foreign country a year. But I have figured out a way to enjoy that trip for up to a year before I even leave home.

Travel Guides

The first thing I do is to buy a Lonely Planet for my next destination, usually a whole year ahead of time. Of course, there are other perfectly fine travel guides out there, but I've found that Lonely Planet works best with my style of travel. I'm not a backpacker, exactly, but I like to travel light and inexpensively.

I sit down with my travel guide and read about the history, economy, and culture of my destination. I want to learn a bit about the different areas of the country and what they offer to a traveler that is different from what I have seen somewhere else. I want to know about the people and their culture.

Language Study

If I don't speak the language of my destination, I begin to study it. Even if many of the people can speak English, I've learned that I am accepted much more readily if I can show them that I've at least made an attempt to learn the native language. Plus, I will understand what is going on around me so much better.

Now, I know that I'll never be very proficient in a year of casual study, but I'll at least learn the numbers and polite phrases. Understanding how a sentence is constructed in that language can help a lot. And a few common verbs.

My favorite source for this is Rosetta Stone, but that's partly because I found an inexpensive set of older disks and bought them up a few years ago. There are other sources, too. Libraries have many different sets of language tapes or CDs. There are also community education classes, and lots of free classes online. You can learn quite a bit if you consistently devote a half hour or so a day to studying.

Eat Food from Your Destination

Going to India? How about starting a quest to find the best Indian restaurant in your area? Or get cookbooks and cook that food at home. I love to buy those beautiful cookbooks with lots of photos that, along with recipes, tell about shopping and mealtime traditions in the country. There are also tons of ethnic recipes online. 

Before I went to Italy last year I found a gelato store near my home. I walked there for a small gelato every day. I told them I was practicing for my trip.

Find Out What Other Travelers Liked

Again, the Internet offers so much. My favorite source here is Trip Advisor. Enter your destination and read about where others have been and what they liked best. Where are their favorite hotels and restaurants? What were their favorite activities? Look at the photos they took. Use this information to help decide exactly which parts of the country you want to visit and what to avoid.

Books and Music

Find novels that take place in your country. Do a Google search to find out what's available. Listen to music, either contemporary or traditional, from your destination.

Decide Where to Stay

There are many web sites that specialize in arranging reservations. The one I like best is Venere.com. I have had very good luck with this company. Every listing that I have seen has been exactly as advertised. But there are other options that are becoming more popular all the time, such as Airbnb which can set you up in a room in some one's house, or even in a whole house. Or what about a home exchange?

What if You Can't Afford to Travel?

I know, the economy stinks right now. No one can afford to go anywhere. Consider using some of these ideas above to plan a virtual vacation. Even if you can't really go, you can have a lot of fun if you follow these ideas. And you won't even have to pay for the plane tickets or hotel rooms.

Happy traveling!

Hvar, Dalmatian Coast, Croatia

The View from Our Hotel Balcony

Relaxing in Hvar

I'd been hauling my suitcase around for three and a half weeks by the time we reached Hvar. Tamra had joined me two weeks earlier. We both decided we were ready for a couple of days of down time and our location here couldn't have been nicer. So we adjusted our schedule a bit so that we could stick around longer than we'd planned.

Hvar is a pretty little town - clean, quiet, and comfortable - with just enough to keep us occupied for a few days of kicking back and relaxing. As in most towns on the Dalmatian Coast area, the entire town is built of limestone - the roads, the walkways, and the buildings - so everything is white except the green plants and the startling blue water.

Exploring Town

Old Hvar begins at a promenade lining the small harbor and wrapping around a couple of points. From there it climbs steeply up a hillside and over the hill where our hotel was situated. We wandered the town's narrow streets - really not much more than paths - that allowed us to peek into the gardens behind the houses and get a feel for life in Hvar.

We drank great wines but were disappointed that we couldn't find the wonderful Pecorino (sheep) cheeses that we had enjoyed in Italy. We ate a fantastic beef tenderloin meal, even though they had to move us and our table when it started to sprinkle. We also had a very expensive but mediocre "Slow Food" meal one night and a really bad undercooked (hard) risotto the next. Many times we walked past a seafood restaurant near our hotel that kept many of it's offerings alive until just before dinner time. I don't know why we never ate there, but seeing the live fish made us think about fishing.

Let's Go Fishing!

One day, we noticed a tourist stand set up offering boat rides to various nearby islands. Tamra fishes with Terry and I all the time, so we both know what we are doing with a rod and reel. We hadn't seen any fish in the water, but it was so clean and beautiful, we knew they must be out there somewhere. Besides, we thought it would be fun to go home and brag that we'd been deep-sea fishing in Croatia.

The kid in the booth spoke English so we explained what we had in mind. It soon became apparent that he knew nothing about fishing, but we didn't care about that, as long as the boat captain did. It turned out that he had never arranged a fishing trip before but he told us to come back later that afternoon and he would have it all set up for us.

When we returned at five, he greeted us with a big smile and proceeded to tell us what he had arranged for us. The following morning, we would go out in a small fishing boat for four hours. During that time, we would have the opportunity to experience four different styles of fishing: cast nets, bottom fishing, jigging with a hand line, and, finally, trolling. OK... so they obviously didn't get many people wanting to go sportfishing. They had absolutely no idea what we were talking about. I was surprised to see that Tamra still seemed to be considering the trip. She asked about the price, and when he told us that it would be 500 euros - over $700US - for that four-hour joke, we looked at each other and laughed before we walked away.