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.

Montjuïc to Montserrat -- Exploring Outwards and Upwards in Barcelona

On the morning of our second day in Barcelona we decided to explore outwards and upwards. 

Stretching between the port and city center, La Rambla is a broad, tree-lined avenue with a central walking arcade. La Rambla takes you into the heart of the city, but its southern terminus also spills you out to the port. La Rambla was easily accessed from our accommodation in the Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter), and we strolled past many flower shops, cafes and souvenir vendors that were just opening around 8am on a Friday. We had several hours ahead of us before an afternoon excursion to Montserrat.

La Rambla

First stop was the statue of Columbus, on a pedestal towering above a roundabout at the southern terminus of La Rambla. True to form for a man who thought he'd found a shorter route to Asia, Cristoforo is pointing in the wrong direction, south. Perhaps he's showing all the new immigrants to Spain the way back? There are sculptures on the base, with historical scenes depicting newly reverent indigenous Americans gratefully welcoming their benevolent colonizers.

Gargoyles to Gaudi – Walking in Barcelona

Eight or more sleepless hours in a cramped plane and jet lag looming, my proven solution to getting "on time" while on holiday is to get out and walk, letting sunshine fool my constitution into believing I haven't travelled. If you have more than a day to explore, a city orientation walk is also a good chance to get the lay of the land before deciding what you really want to see, and pay for, when you're better acclimated. When we escaped confinement on Air Canada Rouge and shambolic customs queues at Barcelona's El Prat airport at 11:30am on a Thursday morning, my body screamed that it was only half past 4. After checking into our hotel, we hit the pavement immediately lest we be lured by the ever deadly post-flight nap.

From our base at the Hotel Catedral de Barcelona, the obvious choice for a day 1 walking tour was to roam the central Gothic quarter of the old city and explore outwards in search for classic works of the famous Catalan Modernist architect Antoni Gaudi, trusty Tom's Port Guide in hand.

What Remains: Life and Death in Palermo

By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground from which you were taken; For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

                                                                                                                                                                                Genesis 3:19

We had only a morning to spend in Palermo, capital of Sicily. Most of what I know about this place relates to the Mafia or the last world war, and I was eager to look beyond that. We chose a short tour of the city's catacombs and two 18th-century oratories, book-ended by motor-coach rides past the main monuments of the old city.

From the late 16th century through the early 1920s, Capuchin monks and the richest families of Palermo had their dead embalmed, then displayed in lifelike poses in the city's catacombs, which were perhaps intended as a place of solace for bereaved relatives. Friends confer, families pose together, stern friars clasp ropes of penance and stare down through darkened eye sockets--these are the nearly-walking dead. The macabre display of 8,000 corpses is a lesson in anatomy--before the last century few people topped more than 5 feet tall, and oral hygiene has come a long way since.

Warning, there are photos of mouldering corpses beyond this point that readers may find disturbing.

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?

Hawai'i's Akaka Falls - Beautiful and Accessible

The 422-foot (129 meter) tall Akaka Falls on Hawaii's Big Island may be the State's most iconic, a single spectacular drop into a steep, bowl-shaped gorge, in steaming jungle that lushly evokes primeval paradise.

A Day in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park

Volcanoes. For a geologist they are the driving reason to visit Hawai'i. Along with dinosaurs (paleontology), volcanoes are one of the specialized fields of study where my profession intersects with coolness. My 8-year-old son prepared for our visit by watching an episode of the Magic School Bus, which raised me in his professional esteem. While my wife did most of the planning for our Hawai'i vacation, for Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park I possessively set the itinerary. 

Our first stop was logically at the Kīlauea Visitor Center, about an hour's climbing drive (45 km) from Hilo. It's an important first stop where rangers convey current park conditions. It is also a good place to purchase a jacket or hooded sweatshirt. Cold-weather apparel isn't on the priority packing list for most vacationers in tropical paradise, but moist air rising from the sea can make even the moderate elevations around Kīlauea (4000 ft or 1220 m) bone-chillingly damp. The visitor center gift shop does brisk business in rain gear and warm clothes, at prices that would make an exclusive vendor of water in the desert blush.

Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park - still a place of refuge

We were in Hawai'i for volcanoes, sun and sand. An historic site we'd never heard of was a bit of an afterthought. Wasn't the indigenous stone-age culture, after all, largely pre-historic, even if recent by global standards? What records of the old ways could be left but for a few petroglyphs and the oral tradition? Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park wiped away my preconceptions and was one of the most educational and enjoyable excursions of our Hawai'i vacation.

Located on the southern shore of Honaunau Bay and sprawled over 420 acres, Pu'uhonua o Honaunau is a journey back into Hawaiian antiquity. The site was at once a royal grounds and a place of refuge for losers in war, civilians during wartime and breakers of kapu, or sacred laws (think "taboo"). Breaking kapu was an almost certain death sentence. The perpetrator's only chance was to evade pursuers hot on his heels and make it to the safety of a pu'uhonua (sacred place of refuge) by sea or land. Once there the penitent law-breaker was free to rejoin civil society after a ceremony of absolution performed by the kahuna pule (priest). The visiting Catholic will have a good appreciation of the place.

A First Day on O'ahu

Renting a car and exploring at your own pace is the best way to see any of the main islands in Hawai'i. The aloha spirit isn't the polished clockwork of a German village. Behind the tourist facade, many countryside residences are rustic and a little bit weatherbeaten, much like the islands' ancient volcanoes themselves. This is a place where people actually live and pay taxes, not just play in a Disneyfied paradise. And, scheduled excursions are the antithesis of island life. Still, a little planning can maximize your adventure and comfort. 

Honolulu on O'ahu is sprawling, and traffic can be congested. There are a lot of one-way streets, so a GPS or your mobile phone map app will be invaluable. I'll swear the freeway lanes are narrower than I'm used to on the mainland. I was constantly running over the lane-side (warning) rumble strips, which at least kept my wife alert. One good thing, when you leave the city to explore in the morning and return in the afternoon, you will be going against the flow of rush hour traffic.

Maybe this is your first full day in Hawai'i, and you find yourself bright-eyed and ready to go in the darkness of 5:00 am? This was our condition on our first morning. An early morning climb in the crater of Diamond Head was the perfect way to offset the effects of jet lag.

Going Nuts for Macadamias on Hawaii

Macadamia Nuts are native to Australia, but the first large-scale commercial plantations were Hawaiian. Now the nut is nearly synonymous with The Aloha State. Sure, other search engines may have started up before Google, but no-one ever says they need to "yahoo" something. Such is the cultural association of the macadamia nut with Hawaii. Australia was left kind of like that guy who gives away an old painting from his attic that later turns out to be the lost work of a master. 

And if the nut is now identified with Hawaii, so too Hawaiian macadamias are identified with Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corporation. There are other plantations to be sure; actress Roseanne Barr owns one near Kona, and I had very good samples from Hamakua, but I wasn't in Hawaii to experience Rosie's nuts. I wanted to see where that product came from when I first discovered macadamia nuts as a kid.

Travelon Waterproof Phone Pouch - a review

How many times in the not-too-distant past have I bought those disposable underwater cameras, only to be disappointed after snapping a roll of film at some tropical dive paradise? It used to be my annual donation to Kodak. All 24 exposures would be a uniform shade of watered-down teal, with some shadowy objects that might have been fish. I had better results photographing the radar-like display of my father's fish finder. 

Now that I have a smartphone and there are commercially-reasonable protective accessories for under water, technology caught up enough for me to try simple point-and-shoot underwater photography again. Prior to our recent trip to Hawaii, Santa gave me the Travelon waterproof phone pouch, which conveniently retails for USD$10 at Eddie Bauer for those on the naughty list. I'll qualify the review below by stating I have no relationship with the manufacturer, and I expect they'd only reach out to a blog that garners 30 views per day (on average) in an act of desperation.

Minnesota School Bus Shelters

It's easy for a traveller to miss the little things that truly define a place. Sometimes it takes living somewhere to really discover what is culturally self-evident. I've spent nearly five years in northern Minnesota, and some things that I pass every day it's taken that long to actually see.

Such are the small huts scattered throughout rural Minnesota's north country laneways. Used to shelter children from the bitter cold while waiting for the school bus at the end of a long country drive, it's Minnesota parents' way of ensuring their genetic investment keeps all its extremities through to adulthood. Though natural selection takes care of those who can't make it between their front door and the shelter, the huts are an effective means of escaping bitter temperatures that can reach as low as -50F (-45.5C)...without a wind chill. 

The Silver Lining to a Cold Land

You may have read a dire-sounding warning in The Old Farmer's Almanac, "Beware the pogonip!" It shows up nearly every year in December. The expression "pogonip" is an anglification of the Shoshone word for cloud (payinappih). It names the atmospheric condition and effects of freezing winter fog, commonly formed in mountain valleys of the western United States, particularly Nevada. Apparently, the myth still persists that icy particles in the fog can be injurious to the lungs; this ironically in a state with a relatively high proportion of smokers.

Visiting a Minnesota Christmas Tree Farm

Charlie Brown and the passing of the 70s depressed the soulless market for artificial Christmas trees, so the annual tradition of picking a live--or rather, only recently dead--spruce, fir or pine tree is still the preferred way for the majority of American households to bring a little domestic nature home and cover it with Chinese-made plastic.

Most trees are purchased at impromptu lots adjacent to box stores and gas stations. It's not only food that comes from the supermarket. Where do they store them all year? My wife always feels there is nothing lonelier than an unpicked lot tree, destined for the wood chipper and garden mulch. So this time, we opted to get a little closer to the true source, and we visited a cut-your-own tree farm about a 30-minutes drive west of Duluth, Minnesota. It's a less wasteful American family tradition in places where the jungle isn't made of concrete.

A Visitor's Guide to Holiday Meals in America

We travel to see the world, but whether in spirit or in person, we also export our own stamp upon those people we visit. It's easy to forget that our hosts in different places may be just as interested in us as we are in them. Perhaps the best window into the soul of a community is through its food, and festive occasions bring out the best in a national cuisine (or the worst). And what I know best is the American standard. The five-week holiday season--Thanksgiving, Christmas or Hanukkah through to New Year's day--is a triumvirate of opportunity for large family gatherings. So may this serve as an introduction to traditional American holiday fare for those five or seven people who haven't yet been overexposed to U.S. culture outside of North Korea, who probably don't have the internet or satellite television and won't read this anyway.

Photo Essay - Champagne Pool, New Zealand

Taupo volcanic zone, New Zealand, where fresh air smells like passed wind. The Waiotapu geothermal field, near Rotorua is both a beautiful natural landmark of the North Island and a malodorous laboratory for economic geologists who want to see a mineral deposit in the making. And, it is a well-studied location for the biology of extremophile (microbial) organisms.

Algae aren't quite extremophiles, but they evince the primordial soup, where such things were the pinnacle of life on earth for billions of years.

Some baths are a little too hot for comfort. Frequently depicted in guidebooks, Champagne Pool is perhaps the most striking geothermal feature of Wai-o-tapu thermal wonderland. Alkaline springs within its explosive crater are framed by a brilliant orange, silica sinter rim that is colored by arsenic- and antimony-bearing sulfide minerals being deposited today. No wonder this area of the park is named "The Artist's Palette." But with waters hovering above 70 degrees Celsius, a quick dip in the pool would be your last.

Ironically, if the park were an industrial area, heavy metal concentrations in the water would be high enough to attract environmental protests and lawyers. People want to come here. It was possibly the place that hit the most notes for the most people on our trip to New Zealand.

This same view is essentially the cover of Fodor's New Zealand (2006).

Sweeping through Broome

Baobab at Town Beach, Broome.

On those bitterly cold, winter school holidays Down Under, when temperatures in Aussie cities can plummet to a frigid 10˚c, the Lucky Country's population migrates en masse to warmer climes. In Western Australia, Bali is a popular destination, but the domestic option is Broome, on the Kimberley coast.

A three bedroom deluxe family bungalow at Cocos Beach Bungalows was our home base in Broome for one week in June, 2010. At that time we paid about AUD$390/night for a six night stay at what's considered a moderately priced resort. Our pleasant accommodation featured 3 bedrooms (1 queen bed with an en suite and three single beds) and second bathroom with separate toilet. I can't vouch for the television, which remained untested throughout the week. The location is superb, about a 300 meter (5 minute) walk from Cable Beach.

Pasties on the Range

In 2003 my family made its first foray into the upper Great Lakes region of Northeast Minnesota and Michigan's Upper Peninsula (UP), beginning our long, continuing affair with the shorelines of the greatest lakes. Possibly the first sign welcoming us to the area hinted at "pasties ahead, 1 mile." Soon the byways were peppered with an assortment of sometimes shambolic roadhouses, neon "open" signs beckoning us to "Get your pasties here." My first thought was of tassels and cheap burlesque. But reality was in truth as tawdry as a senior's night checkers game at a nudist colony. We had stumbled upon a heritage dish, mining's contribution to the world's palate, the pasty (PASS-tee).

The pasty is perhaps the main raison d'être for an otherwise disrespected vegetable, the rutabaga. Other principal components of the standard pasty are beef, potato, onion and spices wrapped in a crimped pastry to form a semicircular pocket sandwich that is then baked to a golden brown. In the Upper Midwest, "spices" refers exclusively to salt and pepper. The pasty is right at home there. Its most scandalous aspect regionally is mild disagreement over the spelling of the singular item, some vendors preferring "pastie."

Variations on the standard pasty for the adventurous crowd might skip the beef altogether or include extra potato, and ketchup is an almost shameful side transaction not discussed between merchant and customer. Hoping no one will see, I've furtively grabbed a few courtesy packs of the condiment like a nervous youth in the prophylactic section of a drugstore. Gravy is a damnable abomination reserved for tourists.