Trulli: A romantic place

In the small Italian town of Alberobello, located at the top of the heel of the boot, there are small white round stone homes called trulli. The trulli, while built using ancient techniques, without mortar, have only been constructed within relatively recent times, and over the years, the town has become a popular tourist destination. We arrived at dusk, and drove the crowded streets, full of well dressed Italian and Asian tourists. We had booked a night in one of the trulli, and after locating the hotel offices, two girls who spoke very good English drove us to our parked car, and then to our room. Our room had just enough space for a full sized bed and a small bathroom with a shower. The interior roof is domed to support the exterior stone slates, and had wood bean supports. Like the outside, the inside walls were of stone, painted white. Once we had settled, we ventured out into the town.

First we headed among the businesses set up among the trulli, separate from the trulli used for housing where we were staying. We found a nice looking restaurant in one, and had a very good dinner there, in a back room, where our only company was a table full of old regulars, talking over beer and wine. After we had our fill, we wandered across the street and up some steps into the newer part of town, where everything seemed to be of white marble, and one beautiful church was somewhat marred by a neon cross decoration.

We stopped into a gelateria and each got a scoop of the cheapest gelato we found in Italy. We found a bench on the plaza and listened to the cacophony of all the birds that were crammed into the few trees there, and laughed a bit over the police station, which was connected to what was essentially a donut shop.

We left early the next morning, for Matera. The small town left me with the impression of an ideal vacation retreat. It reminds me of other small towns which flourish on tourism, without being spoiled by it, like Eureka Springs in Arkansas, or Rothenburg ob de Tauber in Germany.

Castel Del Monte

The Castel del Monte is a castle of octagons. It is

visible from some distance as you approach it, as it is perched at the very top of a hill. Parking can be found downhill from the entrance that leads up the hill, in a gravel lot. There are buses that run to the site, but we were unclear as to whether these were free, or possibly for tour groups, so we walked. It is not a difficult walk, and leads gently up the slope through an open forest canopy. At the top we approached the castle on the dry and windswept hilltop which was characteristic of southern Italy. The hue of the stone almost blending into it's surrounding. The castle is an octagon, with 8 octagonal towers, and a paved octagonal courtyard. It stands at only 2 stories, but each level has very high ceilings, lending the structure an imposing height. It was build during the 1200's by Frederick II and has since been stripped of its decorations, even the marble interiors are gone. what is left is the bare stone structure. However, the original beauty of the structure can still be inferred from the beautiful stairwells, windows, and other architectural details inside the rooms.

Burgess Falls

Burgess Falls is the easiest way to experience some of the terrain that makes Tennessee so beautiful. The relatively easy, short trail follows along the river, starting from the old damn. Along the way, it passes several waterfalls, which gradually increase in size until culminating in Burgess falls, which roars with spring rain. From here there is an overlook of the falls, and a trail down to the river just above the falls. For the most adventurous, there is a trail that leads down to the base of the falls, though when the falls is flowing strongly, the way can be cold and slick. There are many classic Tennessee wildflowers along the trail in the spring, and beautiful colors on the trees in the fall. It is close enough to Fall Creek Falls to be combined with it in a busy day trip.

One of the Lower Falls

Burgess Falls

Wildlife that can be found along the river

Land of Potato

We landed late on a Friday night in August of 2006, and drove towards Hagerman, Idaho. After a narrow miss with a family of raccoons in the road, we arrived at a cute little hotel, still some way out of town. We settled down for the night, ready for the next day's adventures.

In the morning, we visited Hagerman, taking a self guided auto tour, we stopped by a marsh early in the morning, and watched ducks skim through the tall reeds. We followed a road, viewing boulders from a massive prehistoric flood, crossed a lake with White Pelicans floating on it, and slowly wound up into the hills, to find a portion of the Oregon Trail. It was apparent as a wagon wide ditch that wound its way up beside the road. We walked around on the top of one hill, with interpretive signs, and got stuck with lots of tumbleweed.

We headed back into town, to the museum, a small little building, more fitting to a state, rather than national park. They have a full skeleton of the horse which shares its name with the town and the park. They also have quite a few other fossils, and the ranger there was very friendly and informative. After that we went to eat a good ole country breakfast at a little restaurant there. Then, we went across the street and bought some munchies for the duration of our road trip, and then headed out towards our next destination: City of Rocks.

At this point, we were well ahead of schedule, so we felt obliged to stop at a few detours along the way. One being Malad Gorge, the other being Shoshone falls. Malad gorge was, you guessed it, a gorge. Pretty, deep, with a rushing river in the bottom. Shoshone Falls is a broad falls, like Niagara, but much smaller. The water was low, it being late August, but it was still beautiful, and created 2 rainbows in its mist. Finally, we headed to City of Rocks. This place blows away any of the other places we've been with similar names. These aren't boulders; these are towering spires of rock, a true rock climber's dream. This area also was along a pioneer trail west, and there is a rock near the entrance to the park, where you can still read the names of early settlers who marked the rock with axle grease. There is another, similar park, down the road that is run by the state called Castle Rocks State Park, and while I was interested, it was just starting to rain and it was getting dark, so we opted to head for the camp grounds of Craters of the Moon NP. Along the way, we enjoyed one of the many beautiful sunsets that we saw almost every day of this trip, and puzzled over the strange, disjoint sections of fence, which we finally decided must be to prevent snow from drifting too much across the road. Finally, after nightfall, we entered the park, and pulled into one of the few remaining campsites. We pulled out the blankets, laid back the seats and went to sleep.

Santa Maria Capua Vetere: Il Coliseo's little brother

Little could be found on the vast internet about this site, but between what photographs and descriptions I could find, I knew it was somewhere I wanted to visit. To begin with, it is the second largest amphitheater the Romans built, second only to the Colosseum. This structure is in considerable more disrepair, and overgrown with trees, vines, and weeds. But, what truly sets this structure apart are the  accessible lower reaches. You can go down into the underbelly of the structure, unaccompanied, and explore the passageways beneath what was once the arena floor. Provided you exercised the proper caution when you took the stairs


It was difficult to find an exact address, but Google's satellite images showed us the way, and likely parking in front. We reached the amphitheater without difficulty, and purchased tickets, asking also about the mithraeum that we understood to be part of the admission. Later, we were told. Visit the amphitheater first.

We descended down the hillside to the looming structure, and were met, and accompanied by two amicable stray dogs. They followed us into the amphitheater, around the few portions above ground that can be reached, then down the stairs beneath. The stairs that lead down are near to where one enters into the amphitheater. There was some construction going on here, which blocked our view, but we did eventually find the way down.

Beneath was like a movie set. Ancient columns of stone reached up from the stone floor and arched overhead. Green branches and vines hung down from above. In the dirt that had collected in ditches and corners grew thick brambles. A deep channel was carved into the stone, that led from the longest end to end, and out both sides, through dark passageways, that were gated off. Where these used to fill the structure with water for boat shows in the arena? Other, shallower channels led through the other halls, that curve around the exterior walls, and were lined with stalls for people and animals. Piles of carved stone lay here and there. Mysterious stairways, blocked by gates, curved up into the superstructure.

The dogs padded contentedly alongside us. When we ventured back the passageway leading out from the farther end of the amphitheatre, all the way to the gate, one of the dogs slipped under the bars and continued on, looking back, encouraging us to follow. But, though it would have been easy to pass through, we held back, never wanting to get into trouble in a country where we did not speak the language. Though it was not the sort of place you would ever want to leave, cool and dark and mystical, there came a point when we had seen all there was to see, and so we returned to the stairs up, this time accompanied by only 1 dog, as the other had never come back to us from the tunnel.

From there, we took a left, and wandered over to a small "museum" there. Just withing the entrance were life size wax sculptures of gladiators, fighting each other, and a rather questionable lion. At the push of a button, we were treated to a narrative in Italian, highlighting the various figures with colored lights, and punctuated with the sound effects of clashing metal and roaring crowds. Here there was also a model, showing the arena, half as it is today, half as it once was. In a side room was a collection of decorative pieces take from the site.

Returning to the ticket counter, we enquired about the Mithraeum. It was gesticulated that we were to follow a fellow in his car. He led us quickly into the heart of the little town, down a few winding narrow alleys, then parked and got out. We followed him to a wooden door which he unlocked, then down a dark and dank stairwell to the ancient place of worship.

From my understanding, Mithraism was a secretive, cultish religion. They venerated Mithras, a mystical bull slayer. This particular mithraeum was discovered quite by accident when some construction workers accidentally dug into it. While the constructed entrance is at the back of the temple, the point of discovery can still be seen as a roughly patched area on the right when facing the large mural of a man slaying a bull. While our guide did not speak English we did have a brief conversation of gestures and glances about how very old, sacred, and untouched this place was.

Finally, he led us to the surface, and returned to his car, leaving us to find our way to our next destination.

Short Springs

On the 30th of March, while the weather was cool

and overcast, we made our first visit to the Short Springs Natural Area. The trail is easy, and divided into several segments and loops which allows the hiker to easily to the entire trail, or gain access to just a few sections. On this occasion we hiked almost everything. Beginning the trail by heading left, we quickly reached the branching off point for the one section of the trail we did not do. Instead, we headed straight, which led us to a beautiful stream flowing through the forest. The area was cool and wet, and on some nearby rocks were were fascinated to find 5 separate types of moss growing intermingled in a small area. Moving on, we soon rejoined the main trail and beyond that reached the sudden descent of the trail at the falls.

In the perfectly flat bottomed area below was the short flower trail. As we worked our way down to that trail, we stopped to photograph some of the many flowers which were in bloom. When we finally reached the bottom we paused to identify a still blooming blood wart, when a gentleman who had been photographing introduced himself. Now, I am sorry to say I have already forgotten his name, but I have not forgotten that he told us he had worked on this wildflower book. He immediately established himself as our guide, and took us all around the trail, and off of it, to show us various trillium, Virginia blue bell, trout Lilly, blood wart, anemone, and many more. There really is a great deal of wonderful flowers to see here, even if you don't have your own personal guide.

Finally we bid our goodbyes, and we turned ourselves in the direction of the sound of falling water. Just around a bend in the creek, and across a few stones was the falls. Returning to the trail, we explored among the wild flowers some more, and discovered a tiny snail, on a stump newly gnawed by a beaver. Continuing on the trail we soon reached the point where it turned and looped back to the parking lot, but we decided to push further, along the back loop. Unfortunately, the falls at the end of this trail turned out to be completely dry despite the recent rain fall. The remainder of the walk back was less notable than the journey out, especially since the trees have not yet begun to have leaves. Remarkably, we saw no animals in the area, save some roosting vultures. All in all, it is a very nice trail, with interesting water features and flowers, all along an easy path.

CA 06: Home of a crazy woman, and the crazy homeless

We started the day in San Jose, at the Winchester house. We were there before the doors opened, and went on the first tour with a very small group. It was exactly what I expected. Tacky but fun. We only did the basic tour, not the behind the scenes part. My favorite part was the earthquake damaged part of the building. The juxtaposition of the walls with cracked or missing plaster, with still intact Tiffany glass windows was fantastic. For some reason the whole building reminded me of both the Turn of the Screw and the Haunting of Hill House.

After leaving the house, we went back up to San Francisco, and boarded a boat to Angel Island. our goal was the top of the hill, but we also wanted to take our time... the trail to the top switchbacks a million times. It wound through a forest with a floor covered in knee high plants with small blue blossoms. It was beautiful. finally the trail broke out through the trees and we thought we had a chance of reaching the summit before we had to turn back to make the return ferry. But the switchbacks deceived us yet again, and we had to turn around shy of the top. Then we had to wait 20 minutes on the ferry while they tried to find a man who had gone looking for his children, to round up for the ferry. The kids were on time.

After this we headed to the Barbary coast trail, excited at the prospect of spending the evening walking through the city. We parked at a parking garage, and headed out to find the first of the markers. Immediately upon leaving the garage, a guy came up and tried to stop me on the sidewalk. I put my eyes on my feet and dodged around him, but he caught up with Jake. "Hey Hey Hey, what's up?" he says, holding his arms out wide, palm up, non threatening, but still blocking Jake's way. Jake sidesteps and we hurry on our way. We reach a trolley, with a very long line waiting to ride, and opt to walk along beside it instead. Further up the street, a crazy man in a dress is hollering gibberish, and spinning, arms out, down the sidewalk. Another man grabs my arm to stop us, and ask for money. At this point, we are disliking more and more the idea of continuing the walk, so we stop at a booth in union square to see about a tour, but they are closed or full... we wander down an escalator at one point, and are accosted by a woman, standing directly at the bottom, holding out a jar, and preaching nonsense. we finally get back on track with the trail, and head into china town. China town has no homeless people, at least none that get right in your face, or grab onto you, and feels a lot safer, but the sun is setting, the shops seem to be closing up, and I was not relishing the thought of returning the way we'd come after dark. So, rather than continue the trail, we headed back to the car, a little dejected. Still, I liked the city, and I felt that earlier in the day, surely, there wouldn't have been as much concern. This is probably the largest U.S. city I've actually footed around, but I have never met with homeless people so brazen. People which are not just homeless, but truly beggars, offering nothing for the money they want, save one man, who was doing a very good mime atop a crate... anyway, so we didn't end on a totally bad not. We did stop in at a restaurant on the way back to the car, and had some pretty good steaks. Finally, we returned to the car, went to the hotel, and the next morning, after a fine breakfast at I-hop, we caught our plane home.

Remnants at Paestum

After were were too tired to walk any more at Pompeii, we got back to our car and headed to the city of Paestum. We arrived in the early evening at our destination, the ruined city of Paestum. Paestum began as a Greek city, and eventually came into roman hands. It was eventually abandoned, possibly due to malarial infection. The main attraction are the 3 well preserved temples, belonging to Hera, Apollo, and Athena. Amongst the temples are other excavated ruins of the city, including a small amphitheater and a roman amphitheater

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We spent some time wandering around the temples, reading what little I was able to find on the Internet of the cities history.

My own backyard of Nashville has a replica of the Parthenon in Greece, and these temples are after the same fashion. It is known as Doric, and can be distinguished from other Greek styles (Ionic and Corinthian) by the fat columns with unembellished capitols.

As the sun began to set, it was time for us to find out hotel.

Our Hotel for the night was Hotel Zi Carmela. The first problem we had was that we couldn't find the place. This was because the street name we had was not the name of the street anymore. It is, however, the only major cross street in the city. I don't wish to go into the details, but we wasted quite a bit of time trying to locate this place. Once there, we decided to eat at the hotel, which was serving a prix fix meal, rather than go out to a restaurant. A prix fix meal simply means that they will serve several pre determined courses. sometimes there is a choice between 2 or even 3 prix fix options, but often, there is only one, as was the case at this hotel. However, being that a) we didn't really speak Italian, and they really didn't speak English b) it was a sea side resort town and c) I have a hard time eating most sea food... It was a very poor decision on our part.

The first thing served was some sort of potato crab cake. These were good, and I didn't notice the seafood in it really. We were served with a bottle of dry white table wine (a type I hate) and sparkling water (which is bitter and not my favorite). Then they brought out fresh slices of tomato with slices of cheese. Jake liked this, but it wasn't for me. Then there was pasta with some sort of sea food. I picked at this and began to feel sick. Finally they brought out a plate of what I can only describe as raw fish pieces. There was definitely a tentacle in there. I gave up all pretense at this part and left the table to go back to our room, leaving Jake to finish the meal, and the bottle of wine, alone. What's more is I'm sure we made a very bad impression on them.

As a special bonus for reading all that, here's some photos I left out of my blog about Pompeii. 1 is of the colonnade at the boy's school, and the other is of the unusual amphitheater style with external steps.

Koln Cathedral

The Koln (English Cologne, Germany) Cathedral is the kind of place that could make an atheist believe in God. From the outside, the church is massive. It is built in the same Gothic style as the more familiar Notre Dame, but is considerably larger. The exterior is darkened with time and pollution, which only lends to its impressive character. During the time of our visit in July of 2005 There was some scaffolding up, masking parts of the 2 steeples at the front of the church. Don't miss the details of the buttresses and gargoyle shaped rain spouts on the exterior.

Stepping into this building literally took my breath away. The vaulted ceiling immediately draws your eyes up, and up some more. Far above, darkened arches meet the white ceiling. The interior is cool and air, and decorated with stained glass and stone. At the front of the church is the reason for all this grandeur; The relics of the 3 magi drew huge numbers of pilgrims. They are encased in a shimmering gold Sarcophagus, which itself is housed in a modern glass box with recessed lights and probably a modern security system.

The whole experience is very inspiring, even for someone who is not a catholic, nor even a proper christian. I would recommend this as one of Germany's top sights not to be missed.

CA 06: Point Reyes, Muir Woods, and the Rock

Point Reyes is a great place to explore some of California's beautiful shoreline. The first thing we did when we visited was drive to the farthest reaches, to visit McClures Beach, where we walked a narrow path down to the shore. The path wound between small hills covered in a dozen different kinds of flowers. Around a bend we finally came into view of the sea, white capped and dark blue. Once we were down on the sand beach, our only company was a family with some small children. It was very quiet and peaceful with only the sound of the ocean and a few birds. There was a small stream cutting through the sand and flowing into the ocean. I became distracted with digging trenches into the the pebbled stream bed, and well could have spent the whole day there, but Jake pulled me away, and we loaded back into the car and headed towards the light house. Along the way we spotted some of the Elk which are kept in a reserve here, with cattle inhabiting much of the rest of the point.

There's a visitor's center on the cliffs above the light house, that you have to walk a little way to get to. On the particular day we visited it was extremely windy, and it was something of a struggle to walk into it. By the time we reached the visitor's center, our cheeks were stinging. Outside the visitor's center is a whale skull on display, and I scanned the water for whales, but I fully realized I wouldn't be able to make them out with all the white caps, unless possibly if one decided to beach itself. The very nice lady inside the visitors center told us that we couldn't go down to the light house because the wind was too high, but she was more than willing to sell us the California Audubon book we'd been looking for all week, and finally found on the gift shop's shelves. It was a cold and cheek stinging walk back to the car after that. We drove a little way to the elephant seal overlook, and though it wasn't as impressive as what we had already seen on our first day, it did provide good viewing for these unique animals.

We were starved at this point, so we stopped and had some BBQ chicken pizza at an adorable little shop just outside the park. The building looked like it belonged on the New England coast, not thousands of miles away near the opposite shore. It was called Priscilla's Cafe. The website claims the food is organic, and I can attest that is was very fresh.

After our lunch, it was on to Muir Woods, a redwood forest north of San Francisco. The forest was dappled in shadow and light from the branches high over head, and we explored along long winding wooden board walks. Horsetails and sorrel grew among the thick trunks, and a small stream with trout flowed between the trees. From the gift shop, I was able to pick up gold plated redwood needles to add to my Christmas ornament leaf collection, and then it was time to head off for our evening cruise to the most infamous U.S. prison: Alcatraz.

At Fisherman's wharf, we had enough time to grab some ice cream before hopping in line for the cruise. As we arrived onto the island, the sun was surround by a pleasant glow as it began to set. There were enormous sea gulls everywhere on the island. The park rangers split us into smallish groups and escorted us up the hill to the doors of the prison, while explaining some of the history of the island and buildings. Once at the prison, were were given audio devices, and given our leisure to walk about and listen to history. after we had finished with the audio tour, we had a little time left to explore the facilities on our own. I guess one thing that surprised me was how beautiful the island is, and how beautiful the view of the city. Finally, we were herded back onto the boat, the city now lit, the sun gone, and the boat turned back towards the city's shores.

The city under the ash

Pompeii is in some ways like the city of Ostia Antica near Rome. Pompeii is a complex and complete city. There are political buildings, temples, markets, bakers, bars, restaurants, brothels, baths, laundromats, villas, an amphitheater, a school, the old port, and old graves. And there are no few tourists, filling the streets with people, probably crowding it as much as it ever was in its heyday.

But Pompeii has more power. It feels more alive. It breathes a hot and dusty breath. In Pompeii, the streets are narrow, the width of a car, and deep set, with the curb often being a foot high. The sidewalks are from 2 to 4 feet wide, depending on whether it is a major road or not. buildings form solid city blocks. Along the streets there is not a single green thing, and not shade at all. The streets and sidewalks are stone. The buildings are mostly plastered brick. While there are the remnants of many old water fountains, such as we saw at the Roman forum, we found only 2 in our wandering that were flowing. And in this hot, dry, sunny stone jungle, they were very welcome.

We arrived through the main entrance, after a short walk from our hotel, passing by the old port, and exploring the temples and political buildings withing the city gates. There are, scattered throughout the city, casts of the bodies from the excavations. Essentially, people were covered in hot ash, and their bodies decayed, leaving a hollow area inside the rock.

  When these are found, as the city is excavated, plaster is poured into the opening to fill the hollow area, creating a cast of the person who was there. The cast is then excavated from the rock, and these are the molds that you see of the people of Pompeii. Some of the molds have exceptional detail. You can see the facial expressions clearly, whether it is relaxed in sleep or mouth open in pain.

We had originally intended to brave Italy's most notorious city, Naples, to see some examples of these, but decided to avoid that area after seeing the examples on display withing the city. We were further convinced to avoid the Naples Archaeological Museum when we found that other artifacts from the excavation were also on display.

  There is a storage area which is gated off, but easily visible, filled with rows and rows of artifacts such as statues and amphorae, located off the main plaza. In the main temple to the right, after entering the city, we learned that the Romans did not always build their columns from stone. In fact, the columns were built of odd shape bricks and mortar, with an overlay of concrete or something to give them the solid stone look. In fact, we would later learn through seeing many other examples, that this was the most common method for the Romans to build their columns. As we do today, they were building faux Greek architecture on the cheap.

After getting acquainted with the main area of town, our next order of business was to take a long walk to the edge of town to see the very well preserved villa dei misterie. It lies beyond the edged of town, and so, the road leading to it passes through the many tombs that lie along the major roads into towns. The house sits lower then the rest of the city, and was therefore covered more deeply. The house now seems to sit in a pit, and the area around it has not been fully excavated. The home is a beautiful sprawling manor home, with tiled mosaic floors and detailed frescoes on the walls. What makes the house the most famous is one particular room, where the frescoes are very well protected, and depict a secret ritual.

The colors are so vivid, that I would guess they have been restored. Most other frescoes in the town, even within this building are in much more muted colors. After viewing the house it was a long walk back along the hot stone roads, which were occasionally rutted by the passing of many ancient wagon wheels.

    Somewhat common in this area are the bakeries, which are easily identifiable by their flour mills. These contraptions are a stone column atop a rounded stone base, with a lip around the edge. The column would have had wooden bars jutting out of the square holes in the sides, which would have let man or beast turn the column upon the base. Grain was poured in at the top, the as it was ground would leak out the bottom, where it could be collected on the lip. At this point we took a break to fill out water bottles and buy a sandwich from a little shop there. Sadly the food is expensive and not very good, but it is all that can be found inside the city. Here, there were quite a few of the many stray dogs which live throughout the town. From here we ventured further on, into the more narrow streets. We happened to notice that many of the buildings are marked with with phallic symbols. According to one online source, these are designed to turn away the evil eye. 

However, according to the information I had with me, a better example was to be found at one of the homes around town. We tracked down the home, and approached the gated doorway to the home. On the wall just inside the door was the figure of a man, with a large penis. As we stood at the gate, a gentleman standing near me kept looking at what I was reading. Apparently he ascertained that I spoke english, leaned over to me and pointed to the painting of the man. "Magic Penis" he said. His smile was a mile wide.

Among some of the most interesting items we saw were the baths. These are the baths for the wealthy, there are a few other, less ornate baths around town. Here there are molded plaster decorations, still faintly showing their original colors on the wall. The rooms are cool and dark compared to the outside heat, with only a small amount of sunlight filtering through the windows set high in the walls. In one of the rooms were miniature replicas of the statues which formed pillars of a massive temple of Zeus in Sicily, going around the walls.

The extent and the quality of the ruins can not be over emphasized. There is an almost endless number of interesting places to explore. There are many homes and shops you can enter, and others you can only glimpse. There are even areas where the city streets still bear ancient graffiti or advertisements. There is in fact so much, that despite the fact that we opted not to visit the museum, and spent the extra time in the city, we still were not able to enjoy it all. Add to that the fact that the city is still being actively excavated, and many other areas remain to be explored, it is a certainty that I will be revisiting this incredible place someday.