Tuscany in a Day, the Divine Comedy

The highlight of the port of Livorno may be one of Moby Lines' ferries, garishly adorned with Looney Toons characters amidst the uniform grey of heavy industry. The ship's livery is evidence that not all European ferry disasters involve loss of life. Otherwise, I have almost no recollection of Livorno. It is the seaside gateway to the treasures of Tuscany, and most cruise tourists don't stop to look on their way to Pisa or Florence. I didn't. The Livornese may be the old-world equivalents of the overshadowed residents of New Jersey. 

Upon disembarking the Emerald Princess, we boarded a motorcoach promptly at 7 a.m. to beat the summer crowds to Pisa.

First World Problems on the Italian Riviera

Excursion queues on cruise ships are proof that, but for a scattering of genius individuals through history, the human species should not have progressed beyond the cave. Even management befitting of livestock is not enough to guarantee all of of the herd egresses from the staging area in an orderly manner. The Emerald Princess was berthed in Genoa, and we were booked for a day's tour of the Italian Riviera. Prosperity seems only by random chance when you watch so many well-to-do people struggle to navigate their way to the gangway on command. I could only think of the wreck of the Costa Concordia, rusting away within a stone's throw of our mooring like the rotting carcass of a beached whale, a tangible symbol of human absurdity.

Costa Concordia is in the process of being scrapped in the background (left). May the schooner in the foreground have a happier fate.

But the army of shepherds gets everyone to their designated bus in the end. As I waited to board the motorcoach I overheard our day's tour guide tell tell one young man, "...you need to have a ticket to get on the bus."

Burning to the Foundations of Provence

The Alpilles hills of the Bouches-du-Rhône region, where Marseille is located, are covered in pines, or at least some of them are. Scorching summer Heat and high winds attract arsonists like candles do moths. Arson is derived from the Anglo-French word arsoun, itself from the Old French arsion. Marseilles may be the birthplace of the world-wide scourge of vandalism by fire--France's contribution to the origins of crime. Though it's a wonder that the pines overlooking the sweltering Riviera don't just spontaneously combust in August. 

We were on a motorcoach outbound from Emerald Princess and Marseilles' grimy port, headed for historic treasures of southern France. We first met these piney limestone hills surrounding the city, occasionally catching brief glimpses of steep-walled calanques plunging into the sea as the bus rushed along the coastline. Later, the countryside of Provence opened up to fallow, pebbly fields giving way to distant rippling mirages in the heat, then fields laden with seed-burdened sunflowers just past their peak. There was no sign of Van Gogh's ear.

On the Road Again

Well, maybe not the road.

Other than that I'm naturally lazy, when I'm not writing it's because in my spare time I'm having too much of a good time. I'm headed for a big boat with my second son on a father-son adventure to the western Mediterranean. I won't have much in this space for a couple of weeks while I build more source material. A week on a cruise bookended by a couple days each in Barcelona and Rome should keep me going for a while. My last such trip, myself and two other men sweated on a Princess; I'm much less avant-garde these days, there are two of us this time, though my wife planned it all.

As with any vacation, I had to get myself in a relaxed mood on the first night. What could be better than Mexican food? But "best Mexican food in Duluth, Minnesota" is apparently on par with "best accomodation in a cemetery."

Will two men sweating through Southern Europe overcome an inauspicious start?

Baking in the Shadow of Vesuvius

The first thing you notice about ancient Pompeii is the buildings are in generally better condition than those of modern Naples. The second, at least for me, is the proximity to Vesuvius. I knew it was close, but visiting in person I feel I could almost throw a rock at the mountain. And Vesuvius isn't a particularly imposing peak. I don't suppose it was even particularly lofty before the historic eruption. The vegetation running up its sides gives it the appearance of pastoral approachability.

The close geography of the key elements makes it easy to picture the events of 79 AD as an observer from what is now Naples--the cloud of choking hot ash first suffocating Pompeii, then collapse of the mountainside and a superheated pyroclastic flow barreling like a freight train towards those in Herculaneum who had lingered to watch the eruption. The Earth often gives early warning, but in truth four million Neapolitans and their neighbors live in sight of a mountain that could release its pressure at any time. And if it happened today, I could be part of the next archeology exhibit. Almost tempting for a geologist.

Santorini - Austere Beauty in a Ticking Bomb

I was eager to spend a full day on Santorini, a cultured adult excursion that promised wine and good olives in a geologist's playground. It was to be a brief interlude of contemporary sophistication sandwiched between several sweaty days amongst ancient ruins, mostly brothels. But first we had to get to shore. The big boat was unable to tie to a pier or anchor--the port cannot accommodate large vessels, and the water in the caldera is too deep--so we had to take a ten minute tender to the main island of Santorini (Thera) and the port of Athinios. This time the procession to disembark the Ruby Princess was very orderly, so much so that I wondered whether body snatchers had been at work overnight. This could not be the same passenger list. I get much more fodder from standard human chaos, and this herd was just not cooperating.

Ephesus - Hot Dust of Centuries in the Footsteps of Saints

An Apostle shook the dust of Ephesus from his feet and moved on. The sea left its silt here and also departed. All her people are reduced to dust. Only the heat remains and the glare of marble, a searing memory of what was.

Today's shore excursion began with the usual assortment of people cutting in line to be the first on a bus. It's much like the sun rising in the east. The ride to Ephesus is about 30 minutes through a lusher countryside than I expected--orchards of peach, olive, fig, mulberry and pomegranate. There were good views of the port of Kusadasi (KOOSH-ah-DAH-seh), Turkey as we climbed up from the coast, the Ruby Princess gleaming white in the distance. Our guide pointed out several luxury homes, looking down on the Aegean, that are selling for less than US$100,000. I could live here.

Thrill Ride to Postcard-perfect Mykonos, Crowds and a Geometry Lesson

A nice paint job for a wreck

Generally, when I write about a travel destination, I try to write, with a theme and a hook that pulls the story together as a unified piece at the end. Our visit to Mykonos was a random meandering over a short timeframe, almost an afterthought after a full morning at the ancient religious complex and residential ruins on Delos, leaving me a series of pretty memories that can fill a sketchbook, but which lack any structure. If you are looking for a sublime treatise on travel in the Cyclades, leave now.

Following our morning excursion, my father, son and I were originally scheduled to return to the Ruby Princess, and we assumed we'd need to arrange our own transport to Mykonos for the afternoon. But heavy seas meant our return tender had to detour to the sheltered city pier, which saved us 10 € for a one-way taxi. The cruise port is only about a kilometer from Mykonos Town (Chora), but a winding road with very narrow shoulders makes for the pedestrian version of Russian roulette. Happily we had stowed the Mykonos edition of the ever-dependable Tom's Port Guide series in my camera bag and hadn't left it on the ship, so we were prepared for the unscheduled walking tour.

Ancient Delos - Wind, Cats, Beheadings and Piracy in Classical Greek Suburbia

I liked desolate, windblown Delos as much as the Acropolis of Athens but for different reasons. Ancient Athens is a place I dreamed of visiting; the island of Delos was a surprise. While the Acropolis can be overwhelming, the relatively pedestrian, expansive ruins of Delos are more approachable. The site gives a glimpse of how people lived their daily routine between the 7th and 1st centuries BC, in a working town of approximately 20,000 people. The surroundings of the Acropolis were possibly much like Delos' residential and commercial areas 25 centuries ago, but they are now buried under modern Athens. Conjoined in my recent memory, the two sites when contrasted give a fuller picture of life in antiquity.

The agora of the Italians dates from the late Hellenistic period and was used by merchants from what is now Italy. It is near the commercial harbour of Delos. Mt. Kynthos rises in the distance. There, according to the Greek myth, the Titaness Leto gave birth to Apollo. It is also the birthplace of his twin Artemis, also known by her alternate name of "Kynthia," (Cynthia today) after this place. Just as interesting to me was the well-engineered drainage trench on the floor of the agora. Ruins extend up the flanks of Mt. Kythnos, giving a sense of the scale of this site.

What is missing today from Delos is the people. Athens still has a surging humanity familiar to its monuments; workaday Delos is frozen in time, and our touristic fascination with its ancient suburbia would be alien to its ghosts. The island is now deserted but for cats and a few caretakers, and the site's breadth means large groups of visitors can disperse into scattered, intimate groupings, voices carried over the wind. Otherwise, there is the howling silence of rustling grass and blowing sand.

The Acropolis of Athens, a Bedrock Foundation under Ruins

Athens is a dichotomy, a mix of magnificent ancient ruin and modern debasement. I expected something epic, and I found that, but I also found an ordinary city. Residents eat, sleep, work and play there, living out daily life without much awe of, or reflection on, their storied surroundings. It reminds me of the difference between a summer cottage and a winterized house on a lake. One is a dream; the other is reality, with bills, chores and a daily drive to work. Some districts of Athens are visually appealing, and some can only generously be called shambolic. But ancient Athens surely had its own lowbrow districts too, probably in the same areas. How time does soften our perceptions.

I'm pondering this as I sit by the terrace pool of the Ruby Princess, overlooking the port of Piraeus and Athens. It's hot, but not quite the sweltering of recent days. In the hazy distance is the Acropolis, our main destination this morning. My son Thomas is not here, preferring to read in our suite. He hasn't put on his swimsuit except for reluctantly at Glyfada beach on Corfu. I'm starting to think I should have just got us a hotel room in New Jersey for two weeks and called it Rome. It would have saved some coin.

A floating hotel is not a bad way to skirt the coastline and islands of Greece.

Modern Athens from the port of Piraeus. The hill of the Acropolis stands far in the hazy distance (center).

 

We started early, sparing ourselves exertion and exposure in the heat of the afternoon. The bus trip to the Acropolis from Piraeus takes about 30 minutes. It takes about eighty steps from the base of the edifice to the Propylea, the monumental gate to the temple complex. A few elderly tourists dropped off in the face of that, waiting out the tour in a shady spot below¹. How many had yearned for a lifetime to come here and were finally defeated by the last sets of stairs? I wondered how they felt. Outwardly, there appeared to be stoic acceptance. Maybe with age it's easier to accept the disappointing outcome of a well-fought struggle, like a farmer who has learned not to cry over blighted crops, but has found solace in the effort.

Olympia - fleeting immortality in the sun of Ancient Greece

Near the port of Katakolon, Greece and site of the ancient Olympic games for a millennium, Olympia is a reminder that nothing made by the hand of man lasts forever.

The village of Katakolon is really nothing more than a short avenue of shops and cafes servicing the port. There are the nearby underwater ruins of ancient Pheia and the Museum of Ancient Greek Technology, but the main attraction for those who are not near-dead is Olympia. Our shore excursion did not begin until 12:15 pm. Even the sleeping habits of my fourteen-year-old son Thomas were accommodated, and our breakfast aboard the Ruby Princess was more of a brunch. Access to the archaeological site was via a 30-minute motor coach ride through olive orchards and scattered vineyards of the western Peloponnese.

Katakolon as seen from the decks of Ruby Princess

Ruins at Olympia date from circa 776 BC (the first definitively recorded games) through to Roman times until wet blanket Emperor Theodosius put a damper on the party after AD 393. Here, Thomas got his first taste of the ancient sites that so interest him since our family visit to Bath, England in 2009. Though our admission was included in Princess Cruise Line's shore excursion package, standard entry costs €6, €3 for a child; rates for both site and museum are €9/5.

Corfu - Burning on the Beach and Steaming in Church

Corfu is the second largest Ionian island, roughly shaped like an upper-case Σ (sigma), which is fitting for a Greek isle. It's hard to write anything about 'a day in Corfu' that sums the essence of such a big island. However, if you focus your visit on beaches, forts and monasteries, I think you'll have as much success as can be had. The mythical Jason and Odysseus also visited here by boat, and Hercules figures in local legend. All three tarried here with beautiful women before there were the forts or monasteries, so the island has that going for it.

A typical view of the rugged coastline from the monastery at Paleokastritsa.

Clocks were set forward an hour last night, so my son Tom was especially difficult to wake up this morning. As if on cue, once we were in the ship's theater waiting to debark, several people proved it's possible to stuff up even the simplest instructions, like lining up single file. I wonder how much of the theoretical work on chaos theory was inspired by cruise ship passenger behavior.

Simmering in Dubrovnik – some half-baked travel tips cooked in a story

If you have only one day in Dubrovnik, Croatia and you need to lose weight, plan to walk the top perimeter of the medieval city wall. Seat of the renaissance Republic of Ragusa, Dubrovnik is shaped like a huge, tilted shallow pan, south-facing to capture the maximum intensity of the sun. In summer the wall is the narrow rim of a simmering cauldron.

Our only navigation aid was Tom's Port Guide to Dubrovnik, one of a series of superb amateur guidebooks that helped us throughout our holiday. If you are looking specifically for useful advice and verifiable facts, I advise you to stop reading this immediately and go there. We entered the old town through the western, Pile gate (Vrata od Pila), one of a handful of ingresses to the city. Busking minstrels dressed for a renaissance faire put people in a medieval mood at the entrance to the old town. Happily, some other kind tourists subsidized the performance. It's a bit like public TV that way.

At the entrance to the Pile Gate. Saint Blaise is watching over us.

It was recommended we take the walk in the morning, before it became too hot. Apparently, 9 o'clock am is already afternoon in August. I was soaking wet midway through the first set of stairs. We circumnavigated the old city for almost two hours in the heat. The city circumference is unofficially 1.2 miles, but when you unzip the twisting stairs and wrinkles like a harmonica, I figure it's about 26.2, so we made time worthy of a Kenyan.

Venice - A Desert on Water

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.

Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 1797

Venice. It's hard to write a self-contained impression that's not as segmented as the city itself. But one thread is common to any experience of Venice, water. Crossing it, gliding along it, and sweating it--water is everywhere. This City of Water is a desert, where all you can think of on a hot day is drinking it.

Monday, August 5th was our last day in the City of Bridges and the first scheduled ship-to-shore excursion from our base on Ruby Princess. After a couple days getting lost on our own, we now followed the more structured agenda of a cruise tour. Following what will become the ritual of waking 14-year-old Tom up, we ate a big breakfast and made our way to the staging area in the Ruby's theater. Strategically-placed staff near the exits hustled bottled water at prices that would make a gas station owner blush just before a summer driving holiday. We brought our own reusable bottles I carried on a hip pack, temporarily filled with water from the ship's tap.

Getting Lost in Venice

After seeming months of logistical preparation by my wife Stacey, I was finally embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime cruise on the eastern Mediterranean with my father and eldest son Thomas, book-ended by visits to Venice and Rome. Stacey's reward was two stress-free weeks without me agitating over something.

We wait in Frankfurt for the flight to Venice. The terminal at Frankfurt instantly made my list of the 5 most idiotic airports, defying common sense at every turn. And there were lots of turns. Of particular interest were the glass-enclosed (but leaky) smoking areas filled with a blue haze.

Three Sweaty Men and a Princess

Ruby Princess at the port of Kuşadası, Turkey.

When our older two boys began to take interest in the world at large, my wife and I devised a plan for special travel experience with each of our sons individually. Stacey takes the boy on a special mother and son trip when he reaches age ten, and I follow with an adventure of our own when he is fourteen. The personalized itinerary is tailored to each son's specific interests at the time. We've been blessed so far to have the financial means to travel internationally, but the most important takeaway isn't the destination. It is a week or so for my wife or I to spend quality time with a son and build a lifetime of memories. Hopefully the boys learn something without suspecting we're trying to educate them.

My oldest boy Thomas spent a week on Kangaroo Island, South Australia with his mother several years ago. He has long been interested in Ancient Rome and Greece, at least as much as a fourteen-year-old can be, and for his father-son trip last August (2013) we settled on a Princess cruise of the eastern Mediterranean with bookend visits to Venice and Rome. My father became aware of our plans that spring, and Thomas was OK with a stowaway. Dad has always wanted to travel in retirement, and he was happy to oblige my prerequisite to center the trip around Thomas' interests in antiquity and need to do our own thing, so we made a natural team. Dad's only request was to dip his toes in the Adriatic.

Then we three settled back while Stacey made all the arrangements for us, knowing that if it was left to me we wouldn't get beyond my driveway. An organized wife is another blessing that I don't take for granted. We'd be travelling between points of interest in style and comfort. But it was apparent we'd see a lot of ruins, we'd do a lot of walking, and it would be very hot.

Over the next several weeks I'll sketch my perceptions of three generations of American men sweating across the Adriatic, Ionian and Aegean seas by boat between Italy, Croatia, Turkey and the Greek Islands.

One of my favorite pictures from the trip. Thomas (l), me and Joseph Orobona (r). We're on the east (back) side of the Parthenon, at the Acropolis in Athens.