the via dell'amore (or, travels in italy)

traveling in italy is something of dreams really. so many individuals study guidebooks and watch travel shows for years, dreaming of their perfect italian vacation: anticipating tuscan vistas, good wine, to-die-for food, cheerful italian hosts, and tiny cars. italy is one of those places that is built up all of your life: everyone talks about how amazing it is, how you'll never want to leave, etc, etc.
as is so often the case with things like that, italy wasn't what i expected. i saw glimmers of that mythic italy that so many people are in raptures about, and i won't deny that it was surreal to be surrounded by landscapes that i've heard about all of my life... but italy was humble. it was just another country in reality. of course it had it's unique elements, and yes italian is a charming language to listen to, but i found myself feeling like it was a little overhyped. i won't deny that i felt a little teensy bit let down, but i will assure you that those sentiments did not ruin my time there. italy was beautiful, and i had wonderful experiences there. it was impossible to not have an amazing time there, really, given that i was traveling with erik--finally together again after months apart. i knew that no matter where we went or what we did, that this trip would be something we would always remember. and it was.

we started in venice, arriving in the foggy, freezing cold city at 6 am after taking a night train from innsbruck. we walked out of the front of the train station and were met by deserted streets and the sound of lapping water; the fog was thick enough that we could only make out the vaque outline of an enormous and enormously beautiful bridge over a canal: it was totally surreal. are we really in venice?? we dropped our bags at the hostel, and then spent the morning wandering. we found narrow alleys that clipped your elbows and alleys you had to duck down in to walk though, bridges, and churches, and lots of dead ends. the great thing about venice is that you probably will get lost, but eventually some alleyway will dump you out somewhere big... like the piazza san marcoso, which we found entirely by accident. being out before the crowds was amazing, because we got to watch this beautiful city wake up, gradually filling with the chatter of the local fish merchants and veggie stand owners, before the entire city braced itself against the tourist onslaught. it was wonderful to get a glimpse of the real venice.
other highlights of our time in venice included being accosted by a rose-seller in san marcoso after dark, our first taste of gelato from a backstreet gelateria, taking long walks on the waterfront, and repeatedly getting lost in the mazes of streets. venice was my favorite place in italy. i loved it's packed little alleys, tiny coffee bars, hidden piazzas, and of course the canals and gondolas. it is haunting in it's slightly decrepit beauty; particularly in the hours before visitors to the city lift their heads from the pillow, and the narrow lanes are full of the chatter of old friends and neighbors and not camera lenses.

foggy canal view on our first morning in venice

a nearly deserted piazza san marcoso

picturesque gondola ranks along the waterfront

piazza san marcoso with a pigeon

how bizarre and beautiful: a city built on water

florence was our next stop in italy: more of a stop-in really, as we were on our way to cinque terra for the remainder of our time in italy. but, we spent an enjoyable afternoon and evening there.
florence is in the heart of tuscany, and it was there that i saw brief glimpses of the fabled italy of the guidebooks and travel shows. the city is surrounded by rolling hills, topped with olive groves, open fields, and those tall narrow trees you see growing in windrows along roads in photos of the tuscan countryside. the city itself was overwhelming after the intimacy and car-less-ness of venice. the buildings were huge, the cars and mopeds fast and loud, the people imposing in their fashionableness. but, we enjoyed wonderful hospitality in our hostel, splurged on a traditional italian meal with all four courses, and played i-spy with a gorgeous tuscan sunset when we took a long evening walk. and then there was the cheerful man in the gelateria we paused at on said walk who dug extra long to find me a pink plastic spoon for my cone, giggling all the while. :)

cherry red moped!

this street was really steep, but lead to a pretty hilltop lane

picture of the sunset through a hole in a gate: i was too short to see it over the walls that unfortunately lined our hilltop walk

our final destination in italy was the cinque terra coast, where we had booked a hostel that was in fact a full apartment--something that erik and i were really looking forward to. we would have a chance to go to the market, and bring home our bounty to create our own meals. we would have a space to call our own for a few days, one that we could use as a platform for adventuring, and as a warm haven to spend lazy evenings whiling the time away. our time together there was full of relaxation, stormy mornings, steep stairs, wandering walks, and seaside air. it was the perfect ending to a long trip, a long period of displacement that had simultaneously torn the ties i had in england and begun strengthening the ones i felt to home.
the principle impression of cinque terra that stuck in my memory is how old it was. the town of riomaggiore, where we stayed, was full of old plastered buildings clinging to the sides of even older cliffs, over an even older sea. the steep hillsides above the town were domesticated as terraced farm fields (reminiscent of peru, or maybe china), full of oranges and grape vines. the streets were steep and their stones were rough; the boats near the little harbor were wind, salt and sea-worn but still carefully painted in bright blues. the demographic of the town was almost entirely over the age of 40. this was a place that had been there for a long time, and you had the impression that the way that life is lived there has changed little over the years. this town lived in isolation until the years just after WWII, when a footpath was built to the neighboring town of manarola. people here grew up together, married each other, and were buried in clifftop cemeteries by their children who married each other. the flavor of this little town was rich and hearty, and i felt lucky to sample it.
because of the reality of traveling in the off season, many of the wonders of the cinque terra weren't available to erik and i: we had planned to do a lot of hiking between the towns, but almost all of the trails were closed. luckily, on our second to last day the "via dell'amore" was open, and we paid our five euro to walk along this richly historied path, marveling at both the sea view and the human traces (in the form of grafitti and padlocks) that lay in layers along the way.
we left the cinque terra feeling like it is somewhere we should come back to: sometime when the air is warm and the gelaterias are open, and windows are flung open to crystal blue skies, not shut to chilly grey winds. when we can spend an entire day (not 25 minutes) climbing stairs and pausing for views along the trails linking the towns.
someday, we'll be back.

looking up at riomaggiore from the tiny harbor

looking north along the cinque terra coastline

hanging out on the tiny rocky beach just south of riomaggiore

a glimpse of the grafitti along the "via dell'amore"

it's a tradition to lock a padlock with you and your love's initials on it at some point along the via dell'amore: the result is long chains of locks all linked together. kind of beautiful really.

a view of manarola from the via dell'amore

all of the defining features of the cinque terra in one photo: blue and white boats, sherbet colored cliffside homes, and terraced fields above

the kind of views you get when you wander off the beaten/legal pathway (this is manarola)

we left the cinque terra on a sunny morning that promised far better weather than any of the past few days. too bad for us, but we were able to take advantage of the rays in pisa. we arrived at pisa's train station just before noon, and didn't need to be at the airport for a couple of hours. and what else do you do in pisa in a few hours, but visit the leaning tower? so, erik, myself, and all of our bags trekked to the other side of town for a sunny picnic under the leaning tower. we passed time laughing at tourists, eating the last of our italian salami and bread, and soaking up the warm sunny rays. a perfect end to italy: even better, given that we spent our last euros on enormous gelatos on the way back to the train station. yum. :)

we contented ourselves with taking a picture of the tourists taking the classic leaning tower picture... and i think we were the only people in a 200 meter vicinity who weren't taking this picture, minus the guy who was asleep on the steps nearby

it's a tower and it leans. wow. it's one of those anti-climactic things...

but the sunshine was wonderful :)

as was the view on the flight back to england. farewell europe!

b

christmas was different this year

our broomstick tree and small bounty of gifts

this year was the first year in my life that i haven't been home for christmas. this time around, i wouldn't spend mornings christmas shopping, days baking christmas cookies, afternoons collecting greenery and constructing wreaths, or evenings watching claymation rudolph's and frosty's. i didn't accompany my family on a snowy hunt for the christmas tree, or eat slumgulion stew on christmas night, nor did i enjoy the first white christmas at my house since i was a baby. instead, i spent christmas half a world away, and had proven to me that the richness of the season can be found anywhere.

what do you do at christmas time when there isn't family around? this is a question i found myself asking this year, because family really is the defining feature of christmas, at least in my previous experiences of it. you spend that special time of year with your parents and your siblings; it's often the only time of year you see many members of your extended family, and hear briefly about what they are making of their lives these days. the noise, laughter, stress, and joy of the holidays are all intimately tied to the presence of family. when family isn't around, christmas doesn't feel like all that big of a deal really. just a special day, arbitrarily placed in the middle of winter to fight off the duldrums, and give you a valid excuse to eat too much and make merry. and that's okay. christmas wasn't any less special this year, it was just different than it normally is.

i was blessed that my first christmas away from home wasn't a lonely one, and i think daniel and i found some small but wonderful ways to celebrate our little christmas together:
on christmas eve, we went for a walk in the woods, hiking up to the snow line, and digging through drifts together to rescue some boughs to bring a little green into the apartment. on the way home, we paused at a church in the woods for a moment of peace and reflection, lighting christmas-colored candles, and watching our own breath rise in front of our faces as we considered our lives in the context of the day. i can't speak for daniel, but i sat there and marveled at the fact that i was sitting in a tiny church surrounded by majestic mountains. i reveled in the warm tiredness in my thighs from our walk, and the chilly damp of my ankles after slogging in the snow for our boughs. there i was: young, healthy, and living a pretty amazing life... so much to be thankful for.
that night we ate simply, built a broomstick christmas tree, went out for a beer, and then attended midnight mass at the cathedral. the service was in german, and daniel told me later that it was pretty cheesy, but taking part in that ritual was a great experience. as was the moment when daniel turned to me, extending his hand for mine in a warm gesture of peace... and i then turned to the strangers beside me to wish them the same. in the services i have attended in my time in europe and the UK, this is my favorite moment, because of the generosity of spirit that i have felt in those grips: strangers with honest goodwill in their heart, so easily shared with this person they have never met.

christmas morning feast!

christmas day, we had decided, was going to be a feast day. we slept in, but when we woke up, got right to work on a delicious brunch of an enormous scramble full of vegetables and cheese and a batch of buttery homemade buscuits. we lingered over the food and our coffee, enjoying some music and each other's company. after breakfast, we opened our small collection of gifts. because each of us had primarily been shopping for only a very few people, we were each very proud of our choices. consequently, though small, our gift exchange was full of joy as we each saw our careful choices bring the hoped for joy to the other person's face. i don't know that i have ever so enjoyed gift-giving. it was small, and over in just a few moments, but was beautiful in great part because of that. that evening, we continued feasting, with a delicious dinner of roasted chicken and vegetables and a bottle of wine. the simple activity of working together on meals, the joy of shared music, food, conversation, and candlelight, came together to make a wonderful christmas. a non-traditional one, as is appropriate for it being celebrated halfway around the world from home.

b

the cream rises to the top, but it's spread in the middle

daniel and i wearing our christmas scarves :)

this title, goofy as it seems, says a lot about my time spent in innsbruck, austria. on the other side of the whole of my adventure, i know without a doubt that the time i spent in that city beneath the alps--with daniel, his friends, and later his sister katie, and then erik as well--was the best time i had in my whole month of traveling. it was my favorite place, easily the most beautiful, and the way that i spent my time there was nurturing to both my mind and my heart. it came at the middle of my journey, sandwiched between a rocky start and a gentle slide to the finish; rich, varied, full of love and laughter and homey feelings. and then of course, there was all the cream i consumed while i was there...

getting to innsbruck was itself an adventure: i departed bruges at 5:40 am, arriving in brussels at 7 to catch a 7:30 am train to zurich. that train arrived at 4:30 pm, and i had a two hour layover, departing for innsbruck at 6:30 and arriving at close to 10 pm. all in all, it was a 17 hour journey, and i did it all on my own--just me and my bags, a wonderful book (wendell berry of course) and my ipod. i didn't know how badly i needed those 17 hours alone until i was safely on the train to zurich, had stowed my bags, and was gazing out the window at a sunrise over some part of belgium. i hadn't been alone in so long, that i was shocked by how loud my thoughts were. between them, my music, and a beggar band who serenaded our train somewhere on our way through france, those hours passed without boredom or loneliness.

stepping off that train in innsbruck, and looking down the platform to find daniel waiting for me was such a joyful moment. i feel like it's been a long time since someone has been waiting on the other end, wanting to see me.
i've been lucky enough to be that person waiting several times since being here, but it is different on the other side of it: seeing the joy on daniel's face and knowing it was matched only by my own, was a wonderful feeling. i guess it had been a long time since i'd felt needed as a friend, and i had forgotten how amazing that is. i had also nearly forgotten what it was like to feel at home, and that moment brought that back to me.

if i tried to write about everything that happened in innsbruck: the adventures and emotions and conversations, this post would be days long. so i will try to pick and choose, and reconcile myself to the fact that it will take a lot more thought and writing for me to be able to do our time any sort of justice.

the most amazing thing about visiting daniel was getting to spend time with such a dear, dear friend. basically since i left home, i haven't been able to sit down with someone and just talk about things... anything... anything that was on our minds and hearts, and have it heard. that doesn't happen when you don't know people very well--you hold back, you don't make the same jokes you would normally, you don't even try to address matters of the weighty variety, and you often end up feigning interest in some surface level conversation because that is the only safe thing to do. you're afraid of being misunderstood, and that is an inevitability. you get tired of feeling the need to explain why you just did a happy dance, or laughed at something someone said (and were the only one to do so)... and so you surrender to the flow of everyone else's conversation, and are left feeling parched. we talked about everything really: living abroad and its frustrations, the joys of new discoveries, his job, my frisbee team, how much we have learned that we love america, the future, the past, other friends from home, going home again... daniel and i quenched both our thirsts for conversation, i think.
beyond that, it was wonderful to do simple things, like go grocery shopping, or for a walk, or cook, adventure to the milk-o-mat or drink a glass of wine with a meal. they were all things like that reminded me of being home, in the best way imaginable. i am slowly learning how to create home in far away places. it is harder than you may think, but doable in the end.

let's see... i think i'm going to revert to lists now, because i'm thinking of more and more things to talk about, and don't want this to go on forever. i'm sure at some point in the future i will write about a lot of them anyway, but just now that is a lot to do. so...

small adventures: haircuts, stinky cheese, planet earth watching, kitchen deep-cleaning, music exchanges, sharing books and poetry, waiting for the post, bough hunting
big adventures: skiing in the alps, sledding (and crashing) at night, the milk-o-mat, hiking, day tripping in munich, sampling delicious austrian cuisine, gluwein, streetcar rambling, wendell berry conversations

that isn't even a beginning, but oh well. hopefully the pictures below will help to capture the joy and beauty of my time in innsbruck. enjoy!
cheers,
b

the beautiful city of innsbruck, the alps, der inn, and sunny weather.

view from the streetcar.

between street cars we took a short walk, and found a poem about not littering and walking quietly in the woods. i think i love austria.

another view, this time with shadows and mittens.

our transportation mode of choice.

just one of many reasons to love austria... the gorgeous view over the little town we stopped in for coffee and delicious apple strudel (the real kind).

daniel and i sporting the awesome sleds/toboggans/(i can't remember the german word) that we went sledding on the night erik arrived. they go really fast and we rode them at night down unmarked roads and hills. the inevitable result was spectacular crashes, as my bruises the next day testified. totally worth it.

the day after erik arrived, we all went skiing on one of the mountains surrounding the city. it was my first time, and erik graciously taught me all day long, even getting me out on the baby run before the end of the day! it was a ton of fun. :)

the view from the mountain.

an alpine sunset.

and last but certainly not least: the amazing milk-o-mat. no account of my innsbruck times would be complete without it.

europe: the first 10 days

on december tenth i began my adventure through europe. i knew by the time i got to heathrow that i had packed too much. when i landed in copenhagen and found that i could no longer simply navigate by the signs that were all around me, it hit me how different this experience would be from traveling in britain. i was on my way.
and it was different: different, challenging, surprising, joyful, tiring, exhilarating, and everything in between. here's a glimpse at my first ten days adventuring through the north: copenhagen, amsterdam, and bruges.

part one: copenhagen

a typical small street in copenhagen, i loved the colors there.

tivoli gardens at night: where i learned that churros are delicious, and that europeans celebrate christmas with an amazing amount of flair.

real carnival rides--the carousel was beautiful.

tivoli black and white.

the older, quainter part of copenhagen with its canals.

a beautiful mural on one of the buildings outside christiania, copenhagen's large independent community (aka commune). the whole place was full of murals, but you aren't allowed to take pictures inside because pusher street still sells hash and some soft drugs and the dealers don't want to be documented.

this is the back side of the main gate leading into christiania: it says "you are now entering the EU." we took a tour from one of the residents when we visited christiania, and it was really interesting to hear about how it was founded in the 1970s, and how it has grown since then. they are currently in court with the danish government who wishes to demolish their homes--all of which are handbuilt and quirkily beautiful.

inside the moonfisher cafe in christiania: i stopped for coffee, and spent a long time people watching as residents of christiania came and went, and danish folk songs and christmas carols were sung by a small band. christiania was a fascinating place. a little dirty maybe, but full of artists, and other independent minds who had created a wonderful community together.

part two: amsterdam
amsterdam being beautiful in sepia. i'm sad that it was all too breifly beautiful--i was only there for two days.

this was snapped just outside the cool old cafe bar where i stopped for a frothy cappuccino and some poetry time. inside the cafe they had a cabinet of board games, all in dutch, including scrabble.

a sunny walk in amsterdam. this city is too picturesque for it's own good.

this was too cute: a tiny bike with a lock bigger than it is. the little bike's name is "stingray."

on the way to the van gogh museum, we walked through the dutch flower market. they had ever color and shape of tulip you could dream of...

baby tulips, the dutch flower market, amsterdam.

part three: bruges
welcome to bruges: a city of canals and cobblestones.

i ate a delicious and cheap lunch of soup and bread, and then played checkers over coffee, at this bar in bruges. it was established in 1515.

this is the belfry tower at the center of the city. for the steep price of 6 euro i got to climb some 300 stairs and be deafened by the bells... but the view was worth it.

the view from the top.

bruges was another city of bikes, just like copenhagen and amsterdam.

the proof.

what else does one do in a city of bicycles than rent one...

...and ride it along a canal through the countryside...

...to an adorable belgian village complete with windmill and paddle boat? i know not.

stay tuned for posts about the rest of my time in europe! coming soon: austria, the alps, friends and christmas on a small scale.

cheers,
b