The Eff-Stop

STOP SOPA

2012-01-17T21:24:00.001-08:00

Eff-Stop is being blacked out today, as are many other websites, to protest SOPA.

Belvedere (The Beautiful View)

2012-01-12T12:06:00.000-08:00

Today's Theme for Thursday is "View." As is my wont I have eschewed posting any "beautiful" or color postcardy shots, though lord knows I take them as much as anyone else. (And yes, the viewful banner is indeed of Florence, Italy.)

Raindrop-spotted view of fog from atop St. Francis's monastery at La Verna, Tuscany

This is the spot where St. Francis crouched terrified in a tiny gouge in the cliffside during a storm and received his famous stigmata. We were there on a cold and windy day, snow on the ground and rain and fog in the air. On a clear day, we understood, the view off the mountain is stunning. We pretty much stayed inside, snacking on beer and fabulous nutty-honey-jam the monks make. I have to say I had never seen a bartender at a monastery before this.

View out the window of one house at Ercolano (Herculaneum) to the neighbor's

The ancient town of Ercolano was buried for centuries under ash like Pompeii, and the large excavation is currently about 30 feet below the rest of the new town. Hence, even if the houses were not a foot apart, there would be no view. Still, the houses have windows.

Distracted from the view by bed linens, Monte Santa Maria Tiberina, Umbria

This tiny village with a huge name is perched atop a high hill at the end of a very long road. As always I was more interested in flapping laundry than sweeping views of the valley.

Weather Abstract

2012-01-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

Although this shot could be anywhere, it is in fact looking out a window of a friend in Banbury, England, summer 2009. Says a lot about English summers. I love the shapes of the raindrop remnants and their reflections of the view/shades behind them. The whole picture reminds me of a flag as well, the national flag of precipitation.

Change

2012-01-05T09:48:00.001-08:00

Welcome to another Theme Thursday.

"We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing."
- R. D. Laing

...We rounded the corner of the York Minster cathedral to find children lining up thousands of coins on the ancient cobblestone street for some charity or other. Is it my imagination that I seem to recall their punning slogan being "It's Time for a Change"?

York, 2009

And for an added visual pun, here's the original shot I "changed" to monochrome for this post.

Letters of York

2011-12-30T15:28:00.000-08:00

A vintage post-office display from the Railway Museum in York, featuring two of my favorite tropes, numbers and series of objects.

In the Future

2011-12-29T12:59:00.000-08:00

This week's somewhat mindbending theme is Future. Herewith, the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, Firenze, Italia, completed in 1360. And here we are in the future that none of the Dominicans involved in its building could have foreseen, restoring it to the condition it had in the past.

Flood Tide of Shadow

2011-12-21T16:38:00.000-08:00

A sun-dappled morning in Locke Park, Barnsley, Yorkshire. Careful, don't get your feet shady!

Capri

2011-12-20T22:00:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite spots in Italy is the island of Capri. Part of the attraction is that I'm a huge Graham Greene fan, and he spent much of his life here. But it's a lively place with many warrens of lanes across the hillside. I spent only one brief but memorable afternoon there in 2005. It's a great place to stock up on limoncello, I might add.

I love the shapes of this church in the main village.

Sweet

2011-12-14T22:15:00.000-08:00

Mister Softee meets Mister Death in Haworth, Yorkshire, 2005.

Raise from your bed of languor
Raise from your bed of dismay
Your friends will not come tomorrow
As they did not come today

You must rely on yourself, they said,
You must rely on yourself,
Oh but I find this pill so bitter said the poor man
As he took it from the shelf

Crying, O sweet Death come to me
Come to me for company,
Sweet Death it is only you I can
Constrain for company.

- Stevie Smith

Featured Novice: Piper Bentley

2011-12-13T16:21:00.000-08:00

I was going through my folders of photos and remembered how much I liked the ones taken by my daughter Piper (then barely 10) while we were in Italy in 2007. So I thought I'd share them.

Hillclimb

We spent many hours and calories trudging up and down ancient staircases throughout Tuscany and Umbria. I'm not sure where this one is.

L'ucello

Here too I'm unsure of the location, but I love Piper's eye for shape and composition. Although swallows were ubiquitous, I like to think she intentionally captured this one.

Perugia (before)

We walked along an elevated sidewalk in this town, which let us spy on a few apartments. I love the lonely washcloth on the clothesline and its shadow. These pigeons were suspiciously hanging around this window.

Perugia (after)

Soon we understood what they were waiting for.

Randy, at the Molino

The neighbor kitten was a constant companion in our villa and was inclined to try to mate with our feet whenever possible, hence his name). Here his wanton disregard for a house of cards is captured.

Arezzo flea market

A huge and fabulous market for anything old you can imagine.

Cortona

I'm pretty sure this is Cortona, but every town we visited had wonderful doors.

San Gimignano

Piper took my advice to sometimes look up from the pavement.

La strada

This is on the road somewhere. I love the serendipity of the "curve" sign's appearance.

Lucca

Piper won a school award for this one, which she took of an urban stream.

Ostia

One of the few signs of life in this town, which was essentially closed for the winter.

Ostia

Literally, the graffiti means "I and you three meters above the sky." (That is, in "seventh heaven.") It's also a book and movie title.

Event: Pasquale Processione

2011-12-07T22:24:00.000-08:00

Theme Thursday and Weekend in Black and White once again: Although I've never been in Italy for Christmas, I've been there twice for Easter. Here are some shots from a night-time Good Friday procession through the streets of Sansepolcro, Tuscany, April 2007. It went on for several hours, with virtually the entire town taking part, bundled up in the cold and slowly walking past stations of the cross staged every couple of streets, with townsfolk and children in costume as Israelites and Centurions. Monks in black peaked robes accompanied us and the parade was led by priests with candelabras; many people carried their own candles.

Looking forward

The Medieval meets the present

Young Catholics doing their best impression of young Jews

We three kings of Orient are

Pieta and fruit

Shorn Christ and an overcome Centurion

Nautilus

2011-12-02T23:59:00.000-08:00

Interior Reflexteriors

2011-11-27T20:24:00.000-08:00

Semi-abstract trompe-l'oeils done with the aid of mirrors, if not smoke.

Cafe, Sansepolcro, Tuscany 2007

Cottage, Carnlough, Northern Ireland 2004

Cafe, Durham, England 2009

"Treasure"

2011-11-16T17:25:00.000-08:00

Ever in search of economical accommodation in Italy, we opted in the Tuscan hilltown of Volterra for the Seminario Vescovile di Sant'Andrea.

We were given a rather Spartan but picturesque room with a window on the garden. Upon opening the bedside drawer we found a "treasure" of autographs from previous tenants...

But that was just a foretaste, because I soon opened a wardrobe to find a trove of ancient manuscripts.

We discovered as we pored through them that they were the bookkeeping records and related correspondence of the monks, dating back to the 18th century.
Not quite equivalent to stumbling on, say, The Voynich Manuscript, but exciting nonetheless.

For more Treasure, visit Theme Thursday!

Alchemical "Gizmotti"

2011-11-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

One of the most amazing places we visited in Tuscany was the Aboca Museum in Sansepolcro. There you can see ancient apothecary equipment, preserved herbs, poisons, and other substances (e.g., mummified crocodiles), and fabulous herbalist manuscripts. Well worth a visit! Here are a few shots of some of the rare "gizmos" we saw...

Infrastructure of Thrills

2011-10-26T10:17:00.000-07:00

This week's theme is Thrill, and let me say I'm almost as thrilled by struts and wires as by bungee jumping and rollercoasters.

London 2005

Sansepolcro, Umbria 2007

Blackpool, Yorkshire 2005

Birds Real and Unreal

2011-10-22T22:48:00.000-07:00

Assisi afternoon

Siena dusk

Figures in Black

2011-10-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

Duenna, near Monastiraki, Greece, 2005

Dubiety, near Delphi, Greece 2005

Spectre, Dorsoduro, Venice, 2004

Country

2011-07-22T21:20:00.000-07:00

I've missed a few Theme Thursdays and Black and White Weekends, but back into the fray with this rustic offering.

Carrowholly, Country Mayo, Ireland, 2009

Jervaulx Abbey, Yorkshire, 2005

Castleton, Yorkshire, 2005

Theme: Brick

2011-06-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

A sampling of Tuscan brick for Theme Thursday...

The Vatican in B&W

2011-04-11T08:51:00.000-07:00

Quasi rebroadcast of my April 2010 post, for Weekend in Black and White.

Going up! At the Vatican Museum...

And back down.

It was a rainy day. Our tour of middle- and high-school students had just missed, for better or worse, the spectacle of hordes of mourners from around the world saying goodbye to the dead Pope

The Vatican tours were still crowded but the streets seemed quite subdued. An occasional distressed Roman could be seen in out of the way places.

Athens Scenes (2005)

2011-04-03T20:38:00.000-07:00

2005 was a busy summer. Before heading to England for three weeks I accompanied my 6th-grade son on a trip to Italy and Greece with his class and some high-schoolers. As is my wont I typically took off on my own and hunted photo subjects. Athens in particular is spectacular even without the mind-blowing antiquities and architecture.

Trip

Street Backgammon

Ruins, corralled

Fashion statement

En Vacanza

2011-03-31T21:47:00.000-07:00

A few evocative corners of a place we like to stay, an 18th-century mill in the Umbrian hills.

The main room in morning light

Door to the mill room

View from the laundry room

Il Molino, with Piper in the window

Ran out of doors and windows but here's another square.

After the swim in the creek

BritRail Abstract

2011-03-25T08:15:00.000-07:00

York 2009

Urbino Interiors

2011-03-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

In February 2007 we visited the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino, Umbria. We were there in the off season, so it was fairly deserted, and the huge, silent, empty rooms were terrific studies in form and relationship. I could nearly feel the ghosts following us around.

Can't resist leaving this one in color, it's so nicely subtle.

Space

2011-03-10T20:42:00.000-08:00

Brought up on the West Coast I have always loved being at the very edge of things. There's just so much space around you when you're at the sea. Plus, can never forget that as I stare out at the horizon I am really looking out into Space - and my head is sticking out into it!

Sunset over Carrowholly, County Mayo

Between Belfast and Glasgow

Vesuvius from Sorrento

Grey Day at Bolton Abbey

2011-03-04T12:38:00.000-08:00

Ah to be a teenager again! It was a misty day in Yorkshire but the boys had no worries about getting wet.

No fears about getting stepped on by a cow, either.

Books New and Old

2011-03-03T17:10:00.000-08:00

From the collection of herbals in the Aboca museum of herbal medicine in Sansepolcro, Tuscany, 2007.

Book sale on the Thames embankment, London 2005.

Hirsute self-portrait, the room we stayed in, in the ancient seminary in Volterra, Tuscany, 2007. The closet was full of the monks' accounting books from the 18th century.

Disreputable self-portrait, Seattle Public Library, 2010.

Good Time

2011-03-03T07:42:00.000-08:00

Morning at Keel, a tiny beach town on remote Achill Island, County Mayo. It's summer, and the time for carnivals is upon us. Soon while the adults sling back Guinnesses in the IRA-friendly pub across the road, the kids will be screaming and laughing on the rides. Probably a few sheep will be milling amongst them as well, peeved that their beach grass is being taken up by humans. And up the hill on the slopes of Slievemore, the deserted ruins of a village destroyed by the Famine watch over all.

Pub

2011-03-01T08:08:00.000-08:00

I don't see enough pheasants in American bars.

Achill, Mayo, Ireland

Vanishing Points

2011-02-24T13:08:00.000-08:00

Here's a different, ahem, "perspective" on Italy.

Transaction at the weekly market, Anghiari

We sort of followed the markets on their weekly schedule around Umbrian and Tuscan towns. There was always fresh fruit and veg, cured meats and cheeses, fish, and live poultry you could have personally neck-wrung in case you wanted a really fresh dinner! These guys were dealing in textiles.

Waiting for dinner in Orvieto

Dinner starts late in Italy and we were there in the winter, so we often had to hang around in a dark vicolo (alley) waiting for the restaurant to open.

Rainy day by the canal, Lucca

I spent an afternoon on a solo recon of this lovely walled town, camera and umbrella in hand.

Twilight in San Gimignano

San Gimignano can be summed up in two words: towers and alleyways.

For different sorts of "points," see ThemeThursday.

Lunch

2011-02-13T18:01:00.000-08:00

These girls in Assisi seem to be oblivious to the gruesome carnivorous activity going on beside them.

The old woman in the background twice approached me for spare change -- perhaps all tourists look alike to her -- my Italian was pretty bad but I think it had something to do with helping her son, who by my reckoning must have been in his thirties, certainly old enough to do his own begging.

For more monochrome by a variety of photographers, visit Black and White Weekend.

Bathing of the Nymphs

2011-02-04T16:00:00.000-08:00

Breakwater at Amalfi, 2007

Dusk and the Wisteria

2011-01-31T21:00:00.000-08:00

It was March and the wind was picking up as the sun sank behind the Tuscan hills. We had meandered to the ruined castle at the top of San Gimignano and caught this glimpse of the last rays hitting the valley below. A fabulous dinner awaited us but we did not know it yet.

Cortona fog

2011-01-29T18:58:00.000-08:00

Cortona is one of those towns where time seems not to moved much since the middle ages. We were staying in a convent near here, spotless and silent. When I rose at dawn the shadowy lanes were filled with fog, and people clicked down the cobbles to work.

Stormset over Arezzo

2011-01-23T16:10:00.000-08:00

A chilly day where the rain and sun battled it out over the Tuscan foothills.

We had spent the afternoon padding around the stalls that threaded their way amongst the Arezzo lanes, selling everything from furniture, antique farm implements, and military gear to tea-towels, used clothing, coins, and African sculpture. This view is from the top of the hill near the old fort.

Salterrare

2011-01-13T20:41:00.001-08:00

In a bit of a turnabout I am moving my Theme Thursday posts to this blog as much as possible.

This week theme is "jump" -- salterrare being the infinitive in Italian. Rather a tough photographic topic, I find, but here's a scene from Umbertide, Umbria, with Nick and Piper leapfrogging over the creek (stormdrain?) that runs through the town. It was a chill winter day and Umbertide was not as spectacular as our recent visits to nearby Assisi or Perugia. On the other hand they didn't have creeks to jump.

Anyway I'm thinking that (although I typically refrain from too much 'shopping) this occasion is a good excuse for a multiple exposure.

There's also some pretty interesting grafitti which you can see better by clicking.

Monochrome Monday

2011-01-08T13:32:00.001-08:00

A serendipitous parade of kids against a whitewashed wall in Oakworth, Yorkshire, summer 2005.

Italian Stairs

2011-01-06T20:07:00.001-08:00

From our 2007 trip...

TUSCANY

Rummage sale, Arezzo

Etruscan caves, Orvieto

Nick and Piper, Cortona

UMBRIA

Monte Santa Maria Tiberina

Market, Citta di Castello

Citerna

Montone

Assisi

Perugia (just up the hill from Amanda Knox's house)

CAMPANIA

Quay, Praiano

Amalfi

Bicicletti

2010-12-09T21:50:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the long absence, I've been concentrating on newer photos, on my EffStopLocal site.

Anyway here's a collection mostly from Tuscany/Umbria 2007. Since I was seeing bicycles parked patiently everywhere, I began documenting them, especially since they were usually in spectacular locations.

Arezzo

San Giustino (Valtiberina)

Sansepolcro

Gubbio

San Giovanni (Valdarno)

Sansepolcro

Lucca

San Giustino (Valtiberina)

Sansepolcro

Florence

San Giovanni (Valdarno)

Umbertide

Sansepolcro

San Giustino (Valtiberina)

Lucca

San Giovanni (Valdarno)

Arezzo

Sansepolcro

San Giustino (Valtiberina)

A Day in Roma

2010-04-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

It was a rainy day. Our tour of middle- and high-school students had just missed, for better or worse, the spectacle of hordes of mourners from around the world saying goodbye to the dead Pope.

The Vatican tours were still crowded but the streets seemed quite subdued. An occasional distressed Roman could be seen in out of the way places.

The outpouring grief was perhaps only a slight addition to the standard despair of a few, like this beggar, prostrate on the Spanish Steps.

However, life also goes on: the baglady and dog on their rounds at the Colosseum.

York

2010-04-02T18:39:00.000-07:00

More train shots... Last summer I and my daughter visited friends in Yorkshire, England. We arrived in the Viking/Roman city of York at the Victorian train station, with its typical arcing skeletal roof.

We did a lot of sauntering around town, including along the ancient city walls and a twilight "ghost walk." Another attraction is the railway museum. Here is the view from beneath an old steam locomotive.

Another locomotive has been opened up like something from the "Bodies" exhibit to show the workings of a steam engine.

North Yorkshire Railway

2010-03-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

Haworth, England, has not changed a lot since the Brontes lived there.

But if you'd rather ignore the Bronte trail, you can just watch the steam trains.

Streetlife, Venice

2010-03-22T21:06:00.001-07:00

It's hard to take a bad picture in Venice. Here are a few glimpses of workaday Venetians from our 2004 trip.

The pigeon-chow vendor, Piazza San Marco. I love the draped muslin sunblinds, behind which is a famed cafe once frequented by revolutionaries. Meanwhile the pigeons get fat and fatter, and bolder.

The waiter, near the Doge's Palace. I think this cafe had the most expensive sandwich and sparkling water I have ever consumed. But it was worth it, what ambiance! The shade, not to mention a place to sit, was welcome after trudging miles around the hot cobblestone alleys.

Of course, streetlife in Venice also means canal life.

The deliverymen. Not such a bad job!

Gondolier on a mobilephone break. Everyone with any sense was taking a siesta.

I don't know what these guys were doing but they were up early and rattling around in a backwater canal. There's something ineffable about being a tourist in a fantastically beautiful spot while the people who live there just go about their business.

Siesta's over, and the gondoliers queue up to cart off tourists.

Venetian Blind

2010-03-21T14:59:00.001-07:00

Well, until our next trip (possibly to Germany this summer) I am stuck in the States, so figured I would just put forward a few choice scenes from previous trips, not unlike my other site, Eff-StopLocal, with a bit of blather about them.

So, this shot is from Venice, summer 2004. I have the requisite number of typical Venice shots of canals and gondoliers and pigeons. But some of the most pleasant memories (they're all pleasant actually) have to do with rising at the crack of dawn and wandering the deserted and silent alleyways (calles). Most of the windows in the blocks of flats and palaces had these heavy shutters over the windows to keep out the cold in the evening and the heat in the day.

Eventually we would find a cafe and grab a cup of espresso and a pastry, and pick up some focaccia for the kids who we'd left asleep in the flat. The smell of the canal, our sandals whacking the cobbles. The rattle of corrugated iron shopfront gates being raised.

2009-07-26T02:55:00.000-07:00

Barnsley, Yorkshire

Ireland

Achill Island

2009-07-22T02:32:00.001-07:00

Deserted famine village, Achill Island

Beach art, Keem Bay, Achill

Hut, Keem Bay, Achill

Hut, Keem Bay, Achill

County Mayo, Ireland

2009-07-20T01:20:00.000-07:00

Shop window, Knock

Boat hull, Wesport Quay

Ceiling, abandoned Westport Quay warehouse

Religious wares hut, Knock

Westport, Ireland

2009-07-18T13:10:00.000-07:00

Clew Bay, Carrowholly, Eire

House at Clew Bay

Large flotsam, Clew Bay

Westport, Eire

Cows on Clew Bay beach

Heron, Clew Bay

York

2009-07-14T07:18:00.001-07:00

Yorkshire Railway Museum

2009-07-14T07:14:00.000-07:00

Last days in York – we went to the art museum, full of paintings from the 17th to 19th century, as well as a smattering of modern pop work. We went on a “Ghost Detective” walk one evening, which was quite amusing though only minimally scary, aside from the tendency of the “detective” himself to suddenly shout some of his words (“…covered in BLOOD!!”). Someone across the stream from our house decided to start a bonfire, which left our street shrouded in odoriferous smoke, and our neighbor took the opportunity to start his own in his back yard, flames about ten feet high…fortunately the wind was low and no sparks reached our house!

On our last full day, Pi stayed home to read and rest, while the, indefatigable as ever, further explored York’s byways, wall-walks, snickelways, and street market, as well as visiting the enormous railway museum, which featured both famous engines (e.g. Mallard) from the beginnings to the present, and “rolling stock” such as postal cars, dining cars, sumptuous passenger carriages, etc., as well as a warehouse of miscellaneous railway paraphernalia (signs; switches, lights and other hardware; furniture; engine bits; etc.) and a workshop where men are refurbishing the Flying Scotsman engine.

York and Durham

2009-07-13T01:01:00.000-07:00

YORK

DURHAM
Before leaving York, Piper and I took a one-day expedition to Durham on Sunday, an hour’s train ride north through green hills towns of Darlington and Northallerton. We walked down the hill from the station on the hill above the river, crossed the old bridge to the historical part of town, and back up the other side to visit the cathedral. Also browsed around an antiques sale, wandered some tiny cobbled alleyways down to the river and the historical museum, and finished off a pizza lunch with icecream bars before returning to York.

York

2009-07-12T00:48:00.001-07:00

Maggie picked us up in her newish Toyota and we dined at her house. Yesterday was hot, and after Pi woke at noon, she and I bused to York center and spent a few hours traipsing around, from the lower Ouse bridge through massive crowds, through a street fair, towards the Minster via the Shambles, lunching at a little sandwich place and walking it off along the city wall-top. Checked out the Monks Bar museum of Richard III and then followed a unending glittering trail of small change laid end to end around the perimeter of the Minster by kids collecting for the Heart Association, to ascend 275 tightly wound steps to the roof of the Minster tower. HOLY CRAP -- exhausting! 95-mile view from the top, nicely windy to dry the rampant sweat. Back down to seek out an icecream cone, then down to the river and along it for a bit, crossing over the railway bridge and back up the other side to catch the bus to Maggie’s again. Whew.

Manchester

2009-07-12T00:40:00.001-07:00

Thursday after I had an early morning walk (Piper asleep) down the “ginnel” (moving from the grafitti-laced alleyway to a semirural path through the neighborhood, mostly of Liverpudlian decrepitude), Pi and I took the double-decker “Magic Bus” down Wilmslow Road to the center of Manchester (Piccadilly Gardens).

There we spent several hours walking around with our trusty cameras: from redbrick Victorian oldtown, along the very urban canal, across to the river, up to the circular main library and the town hall; then toured the art museum of 17^th-19^th century works including by Blake, Rosetti, Renoir, etc. as well as some contemporary folks. Quick lunch from a Subway -- of all places! – and after getting a bit lost (little or no signage when you needed it) decided to forego the Manchester “Eye” and bused back.

Friday I took another morning walk through nearby Birch Park (Piper asleep) which was a “beautiful” large, grassy, wooded acreage but ultimately boring; and then D and I walked (Piper reading) to the grocery store via Platt Fields park, more interesting, including a big pond filled with moorhens, ducks, a hundred or so Canada geese, and swans. I was able to ruffle the tailfeathers of a cygnet who was nose-down in the water (the mother was unamused). Next to the park was a large neighborhood of student housing (once terraced housing for the lower classes) – pretty desolate and wholly without gardens or decoration. And then we took the hour-and-a-half train from Piccadilly Station to York, via Huddersfield, Dewsbury, and Leeds. [At Huddersfield, at Huddersfield, there was a cow that wouldn't yield. The reason why it wouldn't yield? It didn't like its udders feeled!]

First stops in England

2009-07-12T00:09:00.001-07:00

We got out of Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 Monday afternoon relatively well-rested, with very little hassle or customs time involved, and caught a bus to Oxford almost immediately—too fast in fact to call David, which we had to do from Gloucester Green station once we’d arrived. So after then sauntering to the train station and people-watching awhile, we rode in his aged Mercedes to Banbury, where he has a 2-bdrm 5^th-floor penthouse terraced flat right downtown with a view of a couple churches etc., and distant fields.

Tuesday morning we dodged showers around the Banbury lanes; it is sort of like a nicer, older (half-timber abounds) Barnsley, with canal. We then packed up and drove north to Warwick, where we skipped the Disneyfied castle but enjoyed St.Mary’s church (12^th-century bits) and the Guild Hospital Museum, and lunched (ah, ploughmans!) beside the large manor gardens.

Alas ¾ of the way en route to Manchester David realized he’d left his Moon Grove keys in Banbury! So after much headbeating and tactical todo we had to return, and spent last night there as well, treating ourselves to a Thai dinner. (David had cooked a fab tuna casserole the previous night, which I will attempt to duplicate at the first opp.) Weather yesterday was fairly dreadful, especially on the motorway.

Wednesday we again headed north, avoiding rain and the motorway and heading into the Peaks District, first visiting Lichfield, which had an amazing cathedral that nearly rivaled Milan’s, and then continuing on winding roads (no carsickness for Pi, who mostly sat in front) through rolling green hills (no peaks!) past cows, sheep, goats, horses and limestone quarries. In Ashbourne I insisted we stop at a picturesque church I spotted (St. Oswald’s), which boasted some skullery like Sansepolcro’s, and in Buxton, a largish spa town with an opera house and college, we explored, sampled the curative waters and lunched at a quiet pub on the High Street as a funfair was being set up.

From there it was a quick “descent” into Manchester; we rested a bit (Pi hunted frogs in the lush garden), downloaded 500 photos, and picked up food at Sainsbury’s. I cooked pork chops with fresh “mange touts” peapods and mushrooms, after which we walked up the street through the Rusholme area, bustling with Middle Eastern and Indian eateries, smoking establishments (hookahs!!), etc.

On the Road

2009-04-18T21:18:00.000-07:00

Here are a few shots from my weeklong California roadtrip with my son. The first is from Ashland, Oregon, the others from the San Fernando valley.

Blogspawn

2009-02-01T10:20:00.000-08:00

Greetings armchair travelers:
Eff Why Eye: A new blog has been spawned, called Eff-Stop Local. Neighborhood travelogs and urban geometries for your delectation.

Traveling Very Close to Home

2009-01-27T21:12:00.000-08:00

We're thinking about a return to Europe later this year, but in the meantime check out a few of my photgraphs of a local derelict K-Mart from Robin's new blog, Red Apple Elegy.

Italian Flashback

2008-05-24T09:09:00.001-07:00

As promised, details of some mysteriously undocumented trips from the middle of our sojourn.

One day Robin and I, leaving wee ones at home with their books, ventured across the hills and dales to Monte Santa Maria Tiberina, a really miniscule settlement that apparently was an important Etruscan trading station some millennia past and now is reduced to a bar, some residences, and a church all clustered high atop a mountain; amazingly we can see the spire all the way from our road. There was a stirring reciprocal view from there and we were further excited by the prospect of running out of gas in the middle of nowhere.

We engaged the kids the next day on a hike, starting at the Montecasale sanctuary nearby and heading off for an hour through the woods to the top of a windy ridge. En route we came across a real Wuthering Heights ruin of a stone house, timbers fallen in and an alarming well. Lots of tracks and droppings on the trail - dispute over whether they were goat, deer, or wild boar! We all were properly tuckered out after that one. Mystery of the day was the two bathtubs that had been gotten up there somehow and rigged up to catch the running spring water (for horses?); about as far off the beaten track as one would have thought, though we were surprised by a couple of intrepid (and aged) motorists lurching over the stones and through the mud.

The next day (Weds. 21st) we recovered from the walk by spending about eight hours in the car, driving to Rome to pick up our friend T. who would be staying with us for two weeks. On the way back we stopped randomly for a picnic lunch in Stimigliano, a hill village we'd never heard of but which looked enticing from the highway. And a simple gem it proved. All the usual hilltown charms, but the high point occurred as we sat on the worn, moss-covered steps of the old church breaking out our comestibles: an old woman emerged from a door and said something to us involving "vino" - we weren't sure of the content but surmised it might be along the lines of "don't drink wine on the church steps." However, it turned out what she meant was "hang on a sec, I have some wine to go along with your lunch." It was a homebrew that tasted a bit like a cross between Retsina, cider, and airplane glue. She was very talkative, I wish we were better at Italian. We did gather that she was 82 and had relatives (?) in America - we asked where and she said, as I recall, Argentina! This would have been more suspicious if there had not been a plaque in the village proudly commemorating the battle and "reduction" of Nazi forces in a certain street in 1943. We returned home by way of Arezzo, making for a rather large triangle in all, but this was ameliorated by our passing the tempting and funky roadside truffle/fungi shop (which we'd never found to be open) in a rare period of activity! We screeched to a halt and bought some small white truffles (white once you brush off the dirt) for a very reasonable 7 euros and the necessary tempered steel truffle-shaver (15 euros!) as well as some home-made salami. I shaved my first truffle and Robin made a fantastic dinner.

We took T. to the weekly market in Citta di Castello, where amongst the copious tables of inexpensive clothing and bric-a-brac we discovered an arched passageway we'd never seen before, where the produce vendors were sequestered; here we purchased a lot of, well, produce. Robin learned that a tenth of a kilogram = 100 grams = one "etto." We devoured the goods at the Belvedere sanctuary, as sunny and lizardy as it had been the last time we'd been there. Speaking of markets, the San Giustino market this week featured a stubbled fellow with a truckload of rabbits, geese, chickens, and (oddly) guinea fowl, who let off the most godawful squawks. This noise was probably a Darwinian effect used in steering customers to the chickens instead, and several biddies went off upside down in plastic bags with their feet tied. ...Hmm, however I write that sentence I feel I must emphasize it was the birds, not the customers, who in honesty were also "old biddies," in the bags.

Big trip of the week was our rain-dodging return to Assisi, where we five spent the night; we walked the length of the town a couple of times (including of necessity ascending and descending major parts of the hill), and featuring excursions into the churches of San Rufino and Santa Chiara (St. Clare, who was born in Assisi right after St. Francis). At San Rufino I was hit up by a persistent gypsy granny with, apparently, children (dead and/or ailing?) from 2 to 20 for whom she needed money; we later saw her all over town, quite the entrepreneur (she came up to me twice afterward and I had to remind her I'd already donated). Santa Chiara we snuck into on Sunday morning (woken early by the rather Stravinskyesque chiming of church bells outside our 4th-floor hotel window - no convent, oddly) - the nave was filled with the haunting sound of nuns singing in an adjacent chapel - and we crept into the crypt for a look at the preserved St. Clare and relics of hers (including a camice (chemise) she made that looked like it would fit at least two circus fat ladies) as well of more of Francis's - including another robe, slippers, and breviary. The other highlight was driving further up the hill to the "Ermitage," a very secluded (though popular with Francesco fans) monastery in the misty national forest. The pilgrims had left little crosses everywhere along the trail, made from tied sticks or piled rocks, carved in trees and rocks, etc. If you didn't know the context you'd think it as spooky as the Blair Witch. To find Francis's chapel you had to crouch through several low narrow doorways carved in the frescoed rock, twist around and go down a few narrow stairs, scrunch down a bit more, etc., until finally you clambered out of the little subterranean cell onto a walkway high along the cliff edge. Pretty amazing.

Current show

2008-04-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

It's a small show of work from last year's Italian adventure, but it's a good excuse to patronize Edmonds Bookshop!
111 5th Ave South, Edmonds, WA 98020

Italian Afterword

2008-04-05T07:19:00.000-07:00

As I've been schlepping photos here after the fact, I realized that (aside from the missing last week of adventure) I neglected to mention our stops in the following:

Castiglione Fiorentino

Citta della Domenica zoo/amusement park

Deruta

Florence (good grief, how could I leave that out?)

A second trip to La Verna

Montagna da Ville

Monte Santa Maria Tiberina

Montecasale

Montefalco

Montone

Passignano and Tuoro

Stimigliano

So stay tuned, I will add some details about those spots.

Added some photos

2008-03-29T11:47:00.000-07:00

Adding visual interest for you lurkers. ;-)

New address for travel photos

2007-06-21T21:01:00.000-07:00

Yahoo Photos is shutting down, so I've moved my work here:

http://ssbentley.shutterfly.com/

Final Italy Dispatch

2007-04-07T03:49:00.000-07:00

Ciao all,

Well, we are due back in Bellevue in only a week, so this is probably the last update from the field, you will be relieved to know!

Last week we undertook another little expedition away from the home valley, this time as far as the seaward side of Tuscany. Highlights included:

Monte San Savino

Yet another Tuscan hilltown, this is a waypoint towards Siena that we'd heard much about. Having gotten a late start, we found it pretty much shuttered by the time we arrived hungry for lunch, and were treated to a nice one at a cafe on an old square. There was a bust of poet Giulio Salvadori, who I have not heard of. Apart from an impressive arched loggia across from a massive stone palazzo and a few cow skulls ala Death Valley Days carved into a lintel, there was not much to hold our attention, so we proceeded over the hills and through the woods, through the lovely but somewhat golf-course-like hills outside Siena to:

San Gimignano

We were delayed a bit in reaching this goal by getting mired in the goofy road "system" around Siena, but eventually wound through the countryside and up to San G., which despite the off-season weekday was packed with international tourists due to its reputation as an untouched medieval hilltown. The main street, lined with touristy shops, led to a double piazza with one of the town's ancient wells as well as most of its famous towers. Robin headed for the tourist info office and within minutes had amazingly secured the sole tenancy of a palazzo (Casa di Potenti, house of the potent) placed primely on the square, with the caveat that it was directly underneath the giant bells of the cathedral.

San Gimignano is essentially pedestrian-only except for residents, and the streets are not only extremely narrow and twisting but often dead-end or designated as one-way. Thus to unload our bags from the car meant walking back through town, circumnavigating it, and then taking a maze-like route that would have challenged Theseus, culminating in having to cross the double pizza through a herd of tourists, and then back out again to park. Anyway we spent the day exploring the various churches of course (such as San Agostino), and at dusk circumambulated the ancient fortress, on its olive-tree-covered hill-on-a-hill, for a great view of town and a magenta (!) sunset.

Dined at a restaurant (La Vecchia Mura, the old wall) pretty far off the tourist track, which was patronized by many locals, including a table of about 20 men of varying age who were having a whale of time; it was pure Italy. The old walrus-mustached owner was very nice to the point of being telepathic of our desires. We then spent an interesting night being awoken frequently by the bonging of not the one but two sets of deep church bells about 100 feet away. The first part of the following day was spent breakfasting and walking, as well as climbing up the Large Tower for a panorama of San Gimignano. Sadly we opted to forgo the Museum of Torture.

Volterra

A few miles on, past an enormous penitentiary placed weirdly in the gorgeous Tuscan hill country (to say nothing of pricey real-estate), we came here on Rick Steves' advice primarily for its Etruscan heritage. Again our first priority was to find lodging, given that it was already mid-afternoon, and, since we'd splurged a bit the previous night, decided to cut costs by sampling the local seminary's offering (also highly recommended by Steves). This was an enormous old building a 15-minute walk out of town; its long, wide, nearly unlit hallways were lined with doors over which old frescoes of the popes peered down. Our door was labeled "Spirituale"; the suite had a peaceful view of a fallow garden and despite being rather decrepit was utterly quiet and provided comfortable haven from the frigid wind which had sprung up. The wardrobe turned out to be full of ledgers dating back to 1702, noting the debits and credits of the staff of the seminary, as well as drafts of letters from the abbot and such -- a wonderful find!

We of course explored the town despite the wind, focusing on the many shops selling handcrafted alabaster items from gewgaws to furniture, sculpture, jewelry, and tableware. (Oddly this town also had a prominent Museum of Torture. And the old Medici fort is used for yet another prison, for maximum-security miscreants.) Dined in an excellent restaurant named Ombre della Sera (Shadow of the Evening) after a mysterious Etruscan sculpture of an elongated figure, and the next day visited the Etruscan Museum, which had three floors of pre-Christian items dug from the local area -- dozens of oblong carved funerary urns (many depicting tales from Homer) as well as the items they contained -- buttons, jewelry, coins, bones, oil lamps, pottery, helmets, weapons, figurines (Ombre della Sera included), etc. On the way out of town we stopped by the Roman amphitheater ruin for some photos.

Viareggio

We promised the kids more beach time so on we went to the Mediterranean, to Puccini's home town (he also shot wildfowl at the local wetland), and where Percy Shelley drowned in the sea and got a piazza named after him. After a bit of searching we found a splendid hotel, La Pace (Peace), on the busy promenade across from the wide, sandy, and syringe-free beach, to which Nick and Piper immediately headed and remained until dinner time. The weather had turned warm again, fortunately. Dined at an unavoidably tourist-filled spot on the promenade, and ordered (and almost finished) far too much food (the frenchfries were the last straw), but met a nice English couple.

The next morning we went for a walk along the promenade, which is lined with colorful art deco and art nouveau buildings from the heyday of Viareggio's infamous Carnevale mania; we admired the snowy mountains in the distance and discovered a canal along which the local small fishing boats pull up to sell their catch -- baskets full of disturbingly fresh eels, several types of shrimp and prawns, squid, rays, octopus, and shellfish, twitching beside numerous small and colorful fish I didn't recognize. Nearby we discovered an outdoor marketplace with wriggly-tin booths set up under a squad of old and drastically pollarded sycamores, where you could buy everything from clothes to food, trinkets to magazines, housewares -- well, you get the picture. We decided to stay on another night and so passed the afternoon at the beach once again -- watching brave souls wade into the surf to dredge for clams and an old B1 bomber mysteriously drone around and around -- and then after Piper and I walked to a nearby park and watched the geezers playing bocce, treated ourselves to an actual sushi dinner for the first time in three months (trying not to think about the victims at the fish market). Discovered a bookstore that actually had a GOOD selection of books in English, apart from the usual mass-market fodder and olde classics we have typically found. Next morning I took a rainy dawn walk to shoot the shut-up marketplace.

Pisa

We'd promised/threatened to show the kids the Leaning Tower and so braved the Pisa traffic and absolutely thronging tourists to do so. A good place if you're yearning to hear American accents. Or German. Alas it was raining, and although the tower has now been opened to the public it costs 15 euros a head (!) to climb it, and so all things considered we opted to limit the view to a ground perspective, and concentrated on eating lunch and then moving on. We were serenaded at lunch by a toothless fellow with a guitar and booming baritone -- restaurants seem to have no qualms about letting various types of out-and-out beggars and other entrepreneurs (flower sellers etc.) into their establishments.

Lucca

Last time we were at this town (as with Pisa) was 1991; Robin had forgotten her camera at a restaurant and miraculously was able to retrieve it via a series of friends, but only after two years! Once more we were directed by tourist info to a nice hotel, the Stipino, slightly outside the ancient wall, and once again we soon found that one night was not enough time to enjoy the town. Lucca is a wonderful place to wander, its lanes deep and shadowy but opening onto many bright piazzas accompanying ornate churches, and a goodly number of parks and even a canal running through it. The centerpiece is a Roman amphitheater which, after serving many later purposes (a prison, for example), was turned in the 19^th century into Piazza Mercato, surrounded by towering green-shuttered apartments with cafes and shops at ground level. We dined at a restaurant (Burali) recommended by our hotelier , and as we sat there it dawned on me that it was the same place where the camera had been left! Great waiter, great music (the waiter's compilation) and great food.

The following day started beautifully: we rented bikes and thrice circumnavigated the town atop its wall, enjoying gelato in the Piazza Mercato and lunch before the mosaic facade of Chiesa San Frediano (wherein lies the mummified Santa Zita who fortunately we did not see before we ate). We also climbed the medieval Giungi Tower, with its tiny "garden" at the top, consisting of a couple of ibex trees that are visible for miles around) for a good view of the town in its hill/mountain-surrounded valley. That evening Robin rested while the kids and I walked back into town for a pizza dinner, returning in the rain.

The next morning, storm abated, Robin and I went out while the kids slept, tit for tat, discovering still another church and several squares -- Lucca always seemed to surprise us; I had the best cornetto (croissant) yet. It was now Palm Sunday and folks were out selling palm and olive fronds, and there was a street market by the church where the "foreigners" sold knickknacks. Before we could check out of the hotel, we were captured in our lobby by a guy (from Spokane!) who spent about an hour detailing his past 30 years of teaching biology in Germany and the US, with lengthy detours into his theories of race relations. Yike. Maurizio, the hotelier, nicely gave us a bottle of home-made wine; we sampled it a couple of nights later -- it would have been better to wait about 20 years I think.

Collodi

We headed home to the Molino but zipped into this hillside village briefly to check out the home of Pinocchio's author. There is a highly recommended theme park -- in fact the whole town is rather like a theme park -- but it was expensive and gewgaw-filled enough for us to say phooey and move on. It did have some appealing artwork in the public spaces.

Pistoia

This area is the garden center of Italy, which is to say there are acres (or hectares, whatever those are) of nurseries along the road, featuring everything from flowers, cactus, and shrubbery (all in bloom early, given global warming) to dinosaur topiary, squat little palms, and pointy cypresses. In Pistoia itself we located the Duomo, which compared to Lucca's massive monument seemed pretty modest although it has a really manly campanile, and we had lunch outside in the hot sun beside a church reputed to have "more stripes than any other in Christendom." I did not count. Nearby a local metal band was warming up for a concert in a piazza, with homeless guys looking on. By this time we were getting eager to relax at home so onward we pressed past the traffic horror of Prato, bypassing Firenze, and were in San Giustino by dinner time, where we enjoyed a home-cooked meal for a change, thanks to Robin!

We then had one day to clean house before the arrival of our friend Maggie (our landlady!) from York along with her 11-year-old son Jai, and we are now plotting our last week of adventures.

See you soon,

Sean/Robin/Nick/Piper

Belated Italy Dispatch

2007-03-18T05:55:00.000-07:00

Ciao all,

Internet connectivity has been in short supply for the last couple of weeks, as we have been on the road. I hope y'all continue to be well stateside. Here's a summary of our multifarious activities recently:

We (including our co-traveller T.) tackled the town of Urbino in The Marches across the mountains, via the potentially nauseating if spectacular Bocca Trabaria road that rises virtually from our back yard to 1200 meters or so (spectacular at least for those who can spare a second lifting their eyes from the hairpin turns once in a while). You pass through several isolated hamlets of an almost Swiss nature and then come down gratefully onto the straighter coastal plain road only to shoot upward again to Urbino. The town's main feature is the Palazzo Ducale, housing many rooms of art from the 14^th-16^th century (including Signorelli, a name from which Marx Bros. fans may get a whiff of familiarity, and Barocci, a local painter I've never heard of who seems to foreshadow the impressionists by several hundred years). Taciturn guides slogged after us making sure we did not spraypaint the masterpieces. Urbino is a college town and several students were wearing laurel wreaths denoting (I assume) their matriculation. We did the usual wandering, lunch, and gelato sampling.

Not content with one eastward journey we ventured to ancient Ravenna, like Urbino spitting distance from the Adriatic, though we did not actually sight the sea this time either, though you could definitely sense it in the air. Now, when I say ancient, I mean it -- so far we've been lolling around in mere 11^th century territory, but here we were delving into the 6^th century -- mosaics dating to the Byzantine (rumor has them perhaps stolen from the Hagia Sophia) and looking amazingly fresh since they don't age as frescoes do. We lunched in a very crowded cafeteria upstairs in an indoor market reminiscent of Granville Island in Vancouver. Pi and I split off from the group to bike around town while they looked as mosaics in a number of churches. Alas Pi was "too young" to ride the free bikes, insurance-wise at least, so we walked for 2 hours instead, taking photos of such things as the palazzo of Lord Byron(!) and a Roman baptistery, and yes, sampling the gelato.

The day was made unconscionably long because rather than retrace our steps through a long stretch of "badlands"-like mountains (more potential car-sickness) we made the decision to go home via the A1 autostrada. Unfortunately getting to the A1 meant making a large triangle, first west to the vastness of Bologna (where we were considerably slowed by rush hour) and thence to Florence (no, seriously) before dropping down to Arezzo and zipping back along the San Sepolcro road. Florence was also in a crush made up primarily by a literally endless stream of trucks taking up a lane or two while everyone else squoze past. Anyway we finally stopped for dinner in San Giovanni Valdarno where we feasted on Tuscan dishes at a hole in the wall place off the main square. Didn't get home till about midnight, having stretched a potential two-hour drive to about six.

In between staking out new territory we introduced T. to the local pleasures such as Citta di Castello, San Sepolcro, San Giustino of course, the Arezzo antiques market, and further afield Cortona.
While she and Robin shopped for shoes in Anghiari I tore through the fields to took a peek into the nearby hill village of Citerna, whose main feature is a covered medieval walkway looking out over the plain. We also had dinner one night in a hotel restaurant in Anghiari -- apparently there were no guests at the hotel since we had the place to ourselves -- us and the giant TV. The favorite Italian shows at present are a sort of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" but the pacing is infuriatingly slow, with loooooong pauses and cutaways between the contestants looking pained and the emcees looking sly.

I treated the kids (Piper twice!) to a traveling (gypsy?) fun-fair in San Sepolcro where she was sadly unable to win a live bunny (or chipmunk, gerbil, or other critter) by a "game of skill and chance" but did manage to win a couple of stuffed toys and a ball. She also partook of a bungee ride, and she and Nick did bumper boats and a huge slide. Nick took a turn with a go-kart, making a spectacular re-entry upon realizing there was no brake. The fair was very cool at night all lit up.

T. unfortunately had to return to the U.S. after a mere two weeks of treating us to her humor and cooking, so we drove her to the Rome airport via Orvieto, where we stayed in our Palazzo Cardinale again. In addition to window shopping and dining in the fab La Palomba (Nick adventurously actually ordered the roast dove dish this time) we toured of a few of the 1200 caves beneath the town, which were used by the Etruscans to store food and make olive oil in (natural refrigeration!) and were later used by the Romans, and as bomb shelters during WWII

After dropping off T. (she made the flight despite massive traffic backups on the Rome ring road) we headed south with no plan other than wanting to return to Sorrento (to paraphrase the song), which Nick and I had only passed through on our school trip of 2004, and Mondragone (see below). Sorrento being a fur piece down the road, we decided to look for a place to stay en route. We were taking the coast road rather than the autostrada for obvious reasons, and the first place we hit was Ostia, an ancient Roman port area now reduced to an interminable strip of beach resorts in varying states of winter hibernation bordering on disrepair. The beach, which looked nice from a distance, remained at a distance since it was all fenced off, the closure of the hotels who "own" the strips of beach in front of them having no impact on any public desire to get their feet sandy.

As we commenced southward the towns got poorer and poorer (or more and more closed, let's say) until it began to look like a bad stretch of the Tijuana strip -- at length we arrived in Anzio, which you'll remember was a crucial WWI Allied beach-head in the rout of Nazis from Italy. We parked on the quay by some fishing boats and Robin and I treated ourselves to a fantastic seafood lunch at Ristorante Alceste (a stunning 10-dish antipasto as well as linguine con vongole) as we watched the kids play amongst the medical waste on the beach below. Well, we weren't aware of this little detail till after lunch. Spent the siesta mooching around town and scoping out hotels, turning down a quite dreary one right in town for a very nice one, L'Approdo, out of town a mile or so, where we got adjoining seaview rooms for a good price. I took the kids to that beach down the cliffside (ramshackle staircase to say the least) and then we dined in a nearby restaurant -- Nick ordered frutti di mare fritti which turned out not to be, say, fish and chips, but whole fish ( with heads) and prawns and octopus and squid, all battered and deep fried. Actually quite good but the legs and antenna and eyeballs were a little intimidating. Next morning I walked into town and failed to find any other beach access despite some prime parklike real estate; Anzio and environs continue to have a heavy military presence and some of the best land is given over to naval hospitals and the like. It started to rain and I negotiated a hat from a vendor for the return trip. We finished our stay with a trip to the museum, situated in a 17^th-century villa and dedicated half to the Roman finds from the area (mosaics, statuary, coins, pottery) and half to WWII memorabilia (Allied and Axis uniforms, weapons, propaganda, even an old Nazi motorcycle, some of which has been dredged from the harbor where the troop carriers beached amid shelling and has been encrusted with shellfish residue.

Made a quick stop for fruit in Nettuno (i.e., Neptune) just down the road. It was not a WWII beach-head and so was not bombed into rubble by all concerned, so still has some medieval lanes intact, though spectacularly graffitied.

Southward we continued. The kids having tasted blood, so to speak, on the beach, they wanted more ASAP and we stuck to the coastal road. On my impulse for a photo-op I stopped at a pullout beside a field filled with large picturesque cattle on the shores of a lake, across the road from a sandy strand. As we munched on our fruit, bread and cheese, a car pulled alongside and a fellow let his two English setters out of the back. He'd forgotten to set the brake and the car began to roll back into him -- he pushed it back, shouting, "Stop, car! STOP, car! Stop, dogs!" -- as the leashed dogs were tangling in his legs. At any rate, he got to talking to us and was in fact English and very entertaining, circumlocutiously recommending routes for us to take. He was there to birdwatch. As we finally departed he gave us his number in case we headed back that way. And we were to, in a week's time (stay tuned).

We were torn between wanting to make headway and stop at a nice place. First stopping for an hour at the beach to let the kids get drenched and gritty, we passed by a national park area named for Circe, and I managed to head the wrong way down a one-way street (fortunately it was a small town, San Felice) in my haste to get gelato for the kids. Robin had two. Anyway we wound up driving through some absolutely beautiful scenery, the Mediterranean on one side and subtropical hills on the other, studded with ruins of one era or another. Terracina looked nice but wasn't far enough along and frankly seemed a bit too Californian. We turned down a 5-star hotel in Formia due to expense (it was one of the few hotels we could find that were open) -- plus Formia was a claustrophobic madhouse of cars and scooters and pedestrians. Gaeta looked promising but turned out to be very industrial (fishing and shipping).

As darkness fell we lucked out in the humble resort town of Scauri at a little hotel right on the beach, called Villa Eleanora, where we got adjoining rooms -- Robin's and mine with a view of the seafront. We set the kids' wet sandy clothes to dry on the windowsill and had a nice dinner in a restaurant on the main drag, again seated right by a TV with Jim Belushi in Italian... The next morning I walked up the beach and took some shots of a derelict factory, after which we stoked up on Nutella in the hotel dining room and moved on. We almost immediately swerved off the road to visit a large Roman ruin at Minturno, with an amphitheater, baths, a market, the capitolium, etc. and a museum with statuary and other relics.

The day's goal was Mondragone, where some of Robin's forebears either lived or at least embarked for America from. Unfortunately we were not able to spend much time enjoying the town because it didn't seem to have much to enjoy. Like Formia there was far too much traffic for its tiny streets, there was no viable place to park and walk around, the seafront was inaccessible, etc etc. Quite a disappointment. We were growing desperate for lunch: first we tried the next beach village along but it was really desolate, like an African shanty town (mostly populated by blacks, it seemed); we tried an appealing "cafeteria" on the highway but it was very weird -- the owner(?) was sitting on the porch. He said there was no menu. The cafeteria had no food in the display cases. The gigantic dining room was empty. He asked us what we wanted to eat, that he could make anything for us (though he seemed stymied by the concept of panini). We said grazie, non and left.

At length we found a cafe bar in a slightly less bleak little town called Castel Volturno where we picked up some panini. As for good picnicking beaches the folks were not terribly helpful but pointed out that there were beaches all along the coast (duh), so we just kept going and turned in to a place called Pineta di Mare or something, which on one end had a huge Holiday Inn golf complex (!) and on the other a lot of small-scale resorts much like those we'd been seeing all along, i.e. very run down and closed anyway; we managed to locate some public access sand and had our picnic amongst the flotsam on a breakwater that had impressive breakers -- odd for the Mediterranean, which generally is pretty calm. Amusement provided by a gaggle of teenage boys, one of whom took his pants off for a nippy dip.

Decided to go for the gusto and reach Sorrento for the night. This necessitated passing by the madness that is Naples, and somewhere we missed the turnoff for the Sorrento coast and drove nearly all the way to Salerno before huffily whisking onto the Amalfi coast road at Vietri sul Mare, which is a gorgeous village scrambling along the cliff edge high above the sea. We knew it would be way past dark by the time we got to Sorrento so after a couple of false starts in towns along the way we landed at the San Francesco Hotel in the town of Maiori.

We were not hopeful since it was a 4-star place with porters in tuxes etc., but the owner showed us a lovely room for four with a view and balcony for a surprisingly low price, which we jumped on. The kids were also overjoyed to see a sandy beach. I'd never heard of Maiori but regular tourist buses came and went from the hotel and there were some nice shops and a lot of restaurants, one of which, funnily named Dedalo (like in San Giustino), we ate at that evening. The town apparently had a flood in the 1950s and now the stream that runs through the town is contained in a deep covered canal down the main street. The next morning we strolled around and enjoyed the now tropical foliage (palms, cactus) and very warm weather. We stayed on a second night because both the town and hotel seemed like a good base for the various towns on that coast, including:

Amalfi, about 10 klicks along the road -- and what a road, super narrow and twisty, with a sheer drop on one side and sheer wall on the other, blind corners everywhere with cars roaring around straddling the lines, not to mention buses and trucks! All along it impossible treacherous mossy stairways and the occasional nearly vertical driveway have been hacked into the rock up to houses somehow attached to the cliff side. We spent 2 hours in Amalfi prowling the picturesque alleyways that were stuffed with tourists from all over the world. We had pizza (and beer!) on the impressive steps on the church in the main square. The church domes in this neck of the woods are tiled in brilliant yellow and green. Dunno why.
Positano, another great hodgepodge of houses all down the hillside to the sea. Lots of shops with overpriced lacey clothes, but a lovely place for all that. Trudged along the beach in a gusty wind.
Ravello, billed as the aristocratic Amalfi coast town, because it has been home to E.M. Forster and Andre Gide, as well as being Wagner's inspiration for "Parsifal." It doesn't have the charm of the other villages, sitting far up on the top of the seaside hills, but then again it wasn't swamped by tourists. Of course it was dusk, and a windy cold dusk at that, when we arrived. The road up to Ravello is even sillier than the "main" road, narrower, twistier, and seemingly more full of deranged local drivers not expecting any fool in a giant Renault to be negotiating the curves.
Grotto di Smeralda -- a tourist trap, but amusing: you go down the cliff in an elevator and emerge at a large cavern (think Oregon's Sea Lion Caves without the sea lions). Here a fellow oars you around the interior, describing it in fractured English. The brilliant turquoise (not emerald) water is partly illuminated from an underwater tunnel to the open sea. The highlight, to some, is the submarine creche scene: "Looky looky Seattle, baby Gesu! Eetsa miracle! Looky looky!" Piper pointed out to us that the wavering illuminated figures below us were not in fact miraculous rock formations but pieces of sculpture fixed to the floor of the pool. Above the cave a man in a Piaggio Ape (pronounced ah-pay), the ubiquitous three-wheeled mini-truck with a top speed of 35 mph, was selling massive misshapen lemons out of the back.
Praiano, which is divided into a part along the road above the sea and the part we went to, which is a fistful of dwellings along a deep ravine opening out onto a pie-slice of beach between two headlands. Here the sea comes roaring in through the rocks and you can follow a catwalk along the cliff-edge to a couple of restaurants either perched on or actually carved into the walls.

We had a surprisingly good coffee and some freshly made sandwiches here before heading onward finally to: Sorrento! We swooped down from the hills like Assyrian wolves on the fold and again found ourselves at a remove from the desired seafront which lay at the foot of an enormous cliff and seemed to be available only as a landing stage for tourist buses coming and going from the boats to Naples or Capri. We had a typical Bentley picnic on a sunny bench in San Francesco park (oh give it a rest, there are other saints, you know) as the wind from the Mediterranean blasted us. Looking again for a swimmable beach we used tempting postcards to direct us to (a) Marina Grande to the south of the centro to (b) one of the towns (Sorrento comprises four) to the north. Of the former hotels, the most desirable seemed far too expensive so we tried the latter -- and promptly got lost in residential warrens but did take a look at Klein Wien (Little Vienna), which was fairly awful -- if indicative of Big Vienna, you can keep it, thanks. After much discussion we returned to the first hotel -- Hotel Bristol -- and bit the bullet, and here again for better or worse we opted later for a second night; it was a great room about 300 feet above Marina Grande (which is not grande at all but is picturesque nonetheless) with a sweeping view of the city and the sea, and if Vesuvius were to blow we would be among the first to notice. Dinner in the posh hotel dining room (no prices on the menu, eek). Next day the kids rested while R and I walked around town; I later took them down to the beach, which was alas unswimmable but we made up for it with, yes, GELATO. Dinner that night at L'Antica Trattoria was (Herb, take note) one of the three or four best I've had in my life, although also three times as expensive as our record so far. Highlights included my "Fantasy Vegetarian" menu (tartine of artichoke, chickpea soup, gnocchi with eggplant, salad, and local citrus sorbet), a gratis appetizer of battered zucchini flowers stuffed with cheese and anchovy, and Robin's local fish in a salt crust, which the owner warned us served two. He didn't mean it was a large fish, it meant that you buy one but PAY for two. Most of the football sized fish was the disposable salt crust, so we were a little huffy, but they gave us a bottle of apple liqueur to mollify us. Still -- 70 euros for a serving of fish!?? My Fantasy was half the price. Oh well, it was freaking delicious, all in all.

Having decimated the bank account we thought we'd better head for home. We did want to see some more ruins so we paid (accent on paid) a visit to Ercolano, known to Yanks as Herculaneum. It is essentially a suburb of Naples and features some truly insane drivers. Another picnic on the sidewalk and then a couple of hours exploring the cobbled pathways, peering into the ruined villas, taverns, baths, etc., with their wall paintings oddly architectural, the colors rust red and ochre, and pale blue. The site is nowhere as extensive as Pompeii but seems to be in better condition and has been added to, with plantings for example to make it seem friendlier. We gave a call to Nick Henson at this point and he hollered at us to come spend the night, so with some difficulty (schools of Vespas made the roundabouts particularly invigorating) we returned to the highway and traveled three hours north, cutting over the coastal range at Frosinone to the point where we'd met him a week earlier near Sabaudia.

Nick and his Australian/Italian wife Fauste and their 17-year-old daughter Flora welcomed us heartily. Flora aside, they have been living in Italy for 26 years, so we got quite a colorful history of the region and the Italian foibles regarding such things as property acquisition. Nick is perhaps the only person I've ever met who exemplifies the term "gnomic" -- in looks, humor, and temperament, as he is given to sudden loud outbursts of varying seriousness. A retired biology teacher, he is an avid birder and the following day took us to his favorite haunt where we spotted numerous waterbirds including (unbelievably) two varieties of flamingo. Flora took Piper horseback riding, and we took a short walk to the local canal and a long spell at the beach. We also had coffee at a local cafe run by "a left-wing atheist" whom they patronize for "solidarity" and here we met a certain Pasquale, who had spent 30 years living in Merseyside and returned after his childrens' deaths to the place of his birth. He loves the weather, he says, but hates the people. He also hates America but I think we made it clear that we too were not fond of the way things have been going. Pasquale had a beret like mine, and whereas I had been recently mistaken (by a Brit) for being French because of it, he said it really was a Sicilian style, and pointed his finger gun-like. This may explain some of the suspicious glances I have been getting.

Well, that pretty much brings us up to what's happenin', folks. We spent a long day in the car going overland to the A1 (lunch in a hilltown called Cori, and a stop at a gigantic PACIFICO grocery store nearby) and cutting across to our valley via Cortona, along a very mountainous road mostly in the dark. We are now taking it VERY easy for a bit before tackling any more daytripping! Still, in less than a month we will be back, it seems, so we will be filling the time with more expeditions.

Again, hope all is well with you, cats and dogs and boats.

This Week in Italy

2007-02-08T02:18:00.000-08:00

Ciao, amici,
An interesting week in our "soggiorno", crowned with an overnight trip to the scene of "Under the Tuscan Sun." Frances Mayes has probably been singlehandedly responsible for the overheated prices in Italy at this point, but Cortona is indeed a pleasant and rewarding town, and one that we decided was worth spending two days in. The highlight for all of us was our decision to stay not in a hotel (which seemed nice but was to our minds pricey given the off season) and instead spend the night in, wait for it, a convent. The kids were at first dubious to say the least but Suora Maria was a kind host, 70-ish and all in white, and our rooms and adjacent bathrooms were surgically clean, though the beds to Robin's mind a bit hard (they haven't been slept in by a zillion tourists, I figger). And it was warm, which is more than I can say for the Molino at present, though it's no problem in summer. Actually Cortona overall seemed several degrees warmer than San Giustino. I have never felt more secure -- even with no locks on the doors -- and it was quiet as, well, a convent. We had a lovely simple breakfast of toast, coffee, and Nutella (preferred food of the seraphim, I believe). We did our usual perambulations of steep (I say, STEEP) lanes and stairways, viewing paintings and frescoes dating back, oh, 500 or 600 years; Robin and I enjoyed a dawn hike up a olive-tree-lined path lined with mosaics of the stations of the cross up to the large church at the top of the city, with a view across the fogged-in valley like a white sea lapping the foothills.

Between journeys afar (albeit Cortona is only about 50 miles - map distances are deceptive) we tend to lie low for a day or so at the Molino. For example, we walked up our road and got to know a woman who was feeding her newborn lambs. A tiny woman about 65, I'd say, she was hefting a hay bale as large as herself up the hill. The kids have taken to beating the bushes in the fields beyond the house, and playing in the stream below us, even to the extent of sliding down the mossy rocks into the frigid pools. This is when they are not playing on the computer or (in Piper's case) translating an Italian encyclopedia of animals! Generally the nights are frosty and the days warm to t-shirt degree - the better to dry our clothes! Much time is spent working on the fire once the sun goes down. Nick had a scary incident when something especially flammable puffed up as he was blowing on the embers, resulting in some singed sideburns. We have also discovered a mall in San Sepolcro where one can shop for groceries, socks, and stamps, as well as eat pizza and have coffee. A breath of Bellevue in the wilds of Umbria - and its open during siesta!

We also spent some time in Umbertide, about 15 km down the road. Much of the town is new since it got badly bombed in WWII but the "centro storico" has some 15th-century buildings, castle, and so on. We met a nice English couple who have lived nearby since 1991; they rent out one of their houses here. Hmm!

From there we backtracked through Citta di Castello, with a stop at the very peaceful sanctuary of Belvedere high above it, where we lay in the grass, listened to birdsong, and watched lizards in the sun. The most interesting point in our uneventful siesta C. di C. stop was when R & I were sitting having a smoke and a prosecco at a table outside a bar, on the main square. A rather disreputable fellow roared right up to our table on a scooter, and stuck out his hand demanding a cigarette. I and Robin exchanged glances, I handed him one and lit it like the gentleman I am. :-) He muttered some imprecation ending, for some reason, in "undici" (eleven) and roared off. The policeman at the next table didn't bat an eye.

Last weekend commenced with a visit to Arezzo's monthly antiques fair, where hundreds of vendors set up their booths in and out of the town's streets and piazza. Everything you can imagine and some things you couldn't are for
sale. Everything from worthless knickknacks and old drawer pulls to real works of art new and old, as well as furniture, toys, clothes, etc. There are even Africans hawking tribal statuary. I love these fairs because the tables are all like weird still-lifes, random assortments of shapes, colors, and inherent associations.

From Arezzo we aimed toward the true goal, Siena, about an hour from there. Here we walked up and down its hills exploring the striped Duomo, the thronged campo (square), and museums, one of which included a library of illuminated 14th-century manuscripts of monks' plainsongs under a plethora of ornate and colorful frescoes. We spent the night at a "quasi-quasi hotel" (per Rick Steves) run by nuns -- since we'd been blooded, so to speak -- which afforded a fantastic view up and across to the tall campanile and the Duomo with its own square belltower, for even less money (90 euros) than the Cortona convent had wanted. Plus it was comfy, clean, and warm -- and right next door to a restaurant where I had the best wild boar/tagliatelle ever, again with that fantastic view of the towers, now lit up in the night. Also I was thrilled to find a Templar relic - "il quaddro magico":

SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS

which reads the same up, down, and backwards. No one knows its significance... I'd found it on a postcard in the museum which didn't mention its location (for example, they also sold postcards of Rome's Sistine Chapel) and the clerk said, "It's right here!" and opened a side door and pointed to the wall. Cool! Well, cool if you're into Templar stuff. The kids and I also climbed the tight enclosed stairway to the top of the campanile (384 steps, according to the kids) which, if one were so inclined (as is Robin), would satisfy the reqs for setting off both claustrophobia and acrophobia.

The Week in Italy

2007-01-28T22:37:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

We are happily back in the saddle after several days on tenterhooks: our bathroom contractor had the nerve to actually cash his check, thus depleting our bank account, which made things a bit tight until we could top off the tank, so to speak -- which we found is none too easy from abroad, especially if the SOS e-mail to your broker gets returned as spam! Anyway we did manage to get as far afield as:

Assisi, auspiciously on Sunday: En route we were distracted by the blessing of the animals (the feast of the “cult” of St. Anthony in the suburb Santa Maria degli Angeli. Throngs of people in the piazza, most accompanied by dogs, plus rabbits, birds, turtles, horses, and even a couple of camels! Also for Nick’s edification there was a car show, consisting primarily of Fiat 500s, the beloved Italian equivalent of the Beetle. Anyway once we wound up the hill to the top of Assisi we walked down the lane to the church of San Francesco (i.e., St. Francis). There were actually two churches atop each other – the upper was a proper cathedral with high ceilings (painted a deep blue with gold stars) and loads of frescoes by Giotto (well, there’s a bit of dispute over that, but Robin remains convinced). These depicted the life of Francis as wel as the traditional New Testament scenes. The lower church was similarly decorated though more grotto-like, and featured the crypt in which Francis’s remains lie along with several items from his life, including his robe, grey and white patched wool, a bloody handkerchief used to stanch his stigmata, and a reputed sample of the stigmata itself, a fairly unpleasant, yet fascinating, large swatch of skin with a hole in it. We then sauntered up the souvenir-lined street to the Piazza de Commune, where we admired the looming Roman Temple of Minerva, now of course a church, though the massive building also served as a prison at one time.

We also ventured back to San Sepolcro for the street market, picking up some fruit and cheese and a pair of sneakers for Piper. Aside from the fact that the ones she brought were in a sorry state after having served as Stella toys, she had been advised to wear some…. Well, let me back up. We had, in a precipitous experiment, gone to the local elementary school and through a series of broken Italian phrases, hand gestures, and other gyrations, gotten Pi admitted to what was essentially a 4^th grade class, to see if she liked it. (It should be stated that she was very excited by this prospect.) If she did, we were prepared, or so we thought, to enroll her for the duration of the trip. As it turned out, she was not thrilled, since of course it was rather stressful to be the only person in the room who spoke not a word of Italian. We also came to the decision that having her in class every day for at least a half day would curtail our activities too much. Anyway one of the kids urged Pi to wear sneakers upon her return. So now she has nice new shoes.

The rest of the time we spent close to home, prowling around San Giustino, sipping the odd cappuccino, buying newspapers to burn – whereby we learned of the oncoming winter storm in Umbria, which had in recent weeks roared through the rest of Europe with hurricane force and subzero temps. We were somewhat of mixed emotions yesterday when it started snowing. Beautiful – but we had yet to purchase chains for the car and would definitely need them if the roads were snowed in.

LATER

In the interim since I wrote the above we paid a visit to Arezzo, another hilltown R & I have been to a couple of times before. The boys and girls split up for a hour: I can’t speak for them but I took Nick on a very Sean-like aimless wander through the maze of lanes, remarking on odd door knockers and medieval locks, statuary, gothic archways, and the like, in various states of erosion – always with the end goal of finding a restroom fit for human habitation. Some of them, you wonder why anyone bothers to require a key, they are in such a state of desuetude. One of Arezzo’s main attractions is the piazza, which unusually sits at about a 20-degree angle, flanked by an impressive loggia where we had lunch, and ringed by antique shops. Another is an ancient church whose columns (in front) apparently all were pillaged from neighboring territories, hence are all different. The days was especially successful in that (a) the bank account was restored, (b) we bought some chains for the car, (and (c) we hunted down the elusive (seemingly illusive) “Punto Blu” and with an astonishing lack of bureaucracy got the tollbooth ticket annulled, which paid for the chains and then some.

To give the kids a break we are tending to spend roughly every other day in town, if not the Molino. The other day R & I braved the chill and walked down, passing a morning with coffee, Internet at the friendly Algerian’s place, and walkies in general. Today I broke away and drove to Pieve Santo Stefano, a riverside village that looked like it ought to be more interesting than it turned out to be; I drove another 20 klicks to Chiese de la Verna, up in the snowy mountains, which were bright with sun. The tourists were milling around La Verna itself, slightly beyond -- the retreat of S. Francesco -- so I didn’t stop, but it gave me the lay of the land.

Yesterday we spent the better part of the day in Perugia about a hour away, which is a great town for exercise up and down its hills, even given a number of escalators. Starting with the traditional snack and coffee (we’ve introduced Nick to those joys) we then prowled around, taking in stupendous views of the surrounding city and valley; then I forced everyone to find the Via Appia with me, which I at least found rewarding. It features a serpentine staircase that winds up joining up with a Roman acquadotto (aquaduct) that once was an Etruscan path and now has been turned back into an elevated walkway. From there we gradually made our way to the Temple of St. Mark, an unusual round church which, alas, was under reconstruction, so inaccessible. We returned to the city center via the famous Etruscan Arch, which was later added to by the Romans and then later generations, and I got a lesson in the history of “tipica” Italian matches, which are cutely tiny and made of some unknown waxy/plastic material due to the lack of expendable wood in Italy. They are also deucedly difficult to light. We stumbled on a street market selling the usual array of bizarre antiques as well as some bonafide crafts, such as hand-knitted ski hats, one of which Piper bought. Returning to the car we first discovered the amazing Rocca, a subterranean castle built by a vengeful pope and now housing some shops, a museum, and still more street vendors. Extremely cool – dark and and labyrinthine. We met both a very charming barista who was pleasantly correcting our Italian as we attempted to converse with him…he turned out to be a native Californian, bringing up his middleschooler in Perugia! – and then in a little bookshop -- Libreria Filosofi Bookshop -- that sold English books we found that the aged bookseller Graziela was amazingly fluent in English (having taught it) – she regaled us with her story and philosophy of life, and incidentally sold us some books for the kids, including Roethke’s Selected. 40 euros for a few remainders, but hey, we got a frequent buyer card from her.

Hope all is well with you – we all miss our friends and relations – wish you were here, as they say!

Cheers

Sean / Robin/Nick/Piper

Second Week

2007-01-20T00:36:00.000-08:00

The rip-roaring adventures continue, the high(?) point so far being locking ourselves out of the house. Fortunately this was on the same day we were scheduled to meet up with Jim the caretaker who lives in town, so we were eventually saved from having to break a window.

So far we have walked our socks off, so to speak, in:

· Neighboring San Sepolcro, where there is a useful and cheap (though somewhat seedily Spartan) Internet “café;” the town is the home and showplace of Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca, who draws perhaps the most tourists to this part of Umbria. We had the kids navigate us around town by map reading.

· Gubbio, a medieval town in the mountains about 30 km away, which we visited during a kind of bleak siesta time (the problem continues of getting kids out of bed before 10:30 – too much Italian candy late at night). Many intriguing passageways, archways, and stairs interlace among the narrow cobbled streets, and Piper’s personal goal was to sprint up and down all of them.

· Anghiari – our return yesterday on market day proved fruitful: we bought a sweater for Pi, some fish (not sure what kind, but they looked sort of like baby barracudas, some Italian candy for latenight sucking, grapes and cabbage and tomatoes and garlic; and CHEESE.

· Monterchi, a sleepy (siesta notwithstanding) hilltown featuring one of Piero’s most famous frescoes, rescued and restored – a rare picture of a pregnant Madonna. We hiked up the steep lanes to the town, the most exciting moment being when Nick aimed his camera at a watchdog atop (fortunately) a high wall, which resulted in a great action shot of snarling fury.

· Wednesday’s capper, an afternoon killing time in San Giustino waiting for Jim the caretaker. We window shopped (Nick is always looking for shoes – there are some gorgeous Italian ones of all persuasions but none are cool enough for him!) and connected with Monika and Marco, who own the corner pub and whom we met last summer. (Did I use whom correctly there?)

· Thursday we returned to Orvieto to retrieve our final missing bag, wahoo! We also stopped by Todi, again placed atop a hill with a fantastic view of the fields and orchards below. An ice rink was set up in the main piazza below the Duomo.

· Friday we spent at home and in San Giustino where it was market day (recognized some of the same vendors as in Anghiari), including scoping out the elementary school that we might place Piper in. We explored the road above the Molino, which eventually winds up in Urbino, but not before going through a spectacular series of hairpin turns up the side of a mountain. And finally we did the passegiata (evening stroll) through nearby Citta di Castello, where the kids discovered yet another playground (it’s cute that 14-year-old Nick still enjoys merry-go-rounds) and we dined well at a subterranean pizza ristorante.

Jim advocates not pampering the visiting kitten since at one time such a beast accidentally got locked in the house at season’s end. However, it is hard to resist the little raggazzo. We have beaten the challenge to get the hang of lighting the woodstove. Assuming there is a newspaper on hand (big assumption) it took the whole thing to even get the wood smoking, let alone flaming – until I found the hatchet and cut proper kindling! Jim also showed us the knack of lighting the propane heater to briefly take a “chill” off the (for example) bathroom -- warning however against the joys of monoxide poisoning. Common consent is that this is an unusually warm winter (we have at brief times been content in shirtsleeves) , but nights and mornings are particularly nippy and Jim suggests we buy some chains just in case since our remote little hillroad has steep and curvy bits. Hard to believe since yesterday was really warm and sunny.

First week in Umbria

2007-01-16T00:15:00.000-08:00

Ciao!
(I know that’s annoying.)

Anyway you’ll be happy to know (I guess) that we are more or less safely ensconced in The Molino. To just hit the main points up till now, the flight was fine as flights go – long, of course, at least four run-throughs of “The Black Dahlia” -- except that everyone but me lost most or all of their checked-in luggage somewhere between London and Rome (bets are on the Romans). The bags began trickling in the day after arrival, starting with Nick’s viola, and at this point we are only short the last of our nine (!) bags, which alas contains Robin’s jewelry. But we remain hopeful!

Arriving Wednesday AM, we were flagged down by a fellow with our name on a placard (been waiting for that moment al my life) and driven to our Renault pick-up point near Rome, which looked like a Mafia dumping ground, and we spent night one in the nearby Ibis hotel, comfortable but overlooking a bit of a wasteland. Thursday we drove to Orvieto an hour or so north, and spent a fab two nights at the Palace of the Cardinal (1548), which has been remade over the centuries into a series of charming and fairly inexpensive B&B flats on the edge of the city walls, which are built into the native tufa (kind of like pumice) cliffs. Our hostess was great and helped us make several calls to the airport. We walked all around much of the city, poking into shops and churches, lanes and wall-walks, piazzas and parks (this sentence pretty much sums up the trip so far). Had a couple of good dinners, featuring for example bruschetta with local truffles and pasta with wild boar sauce (Orvieto is decorated with a good number of stuffed boar heads; apparently they are hunted not only because they’re dark tasty but because they tend to eat the grape harvest).

The drive to the Molino was a bit fraught. Long story short, the user interface was bad – i.e., disappointing road signage and small-scale maps conspired to make it unclear where the turnoff for Todi was (by which we aimed to north go via Perugia). This unnecessarily exposed us to the autostrada toll system and a comedy(?) or errors resulting in a 44-euro traffic ticket issued by the robotic tollbooth. (For those keeping score, the euro is now worth about $1.60 I think.) I still have to see if I can get this annulled. It did give me a chance to wrangle properly with the Italian language in trying to explain our idiotic problem and get pointed to the right road.

Anyway after several detours and hours we eventually arrived in San Giustino about 5 PM Friday, in the dark and a deep fog, bought supplies and settled in to our “villa.” Had a pizza dinner at our favorite spot from last summer, and were greeted warmly by the waitress, the owner’s wife, who offered us gratis glasses of prosecco with kiwi – making up for the day’s hassles a bit. I was really needing that kiwi. The main item of interest that night was the appearance of the neighbor’s loveable but ferocious tabby kitten, which made itself right at home. The second item was failure to get the woodstove lit. Mea culpa. Plenty of wood but little or nothing in the way of kindling, and few matches, for one thing, and again questionable documentation. This made for a somewhat chilly night (Orvieto was quite warm actually but S.G. is at least 10 degrees colder).

Yesterday (Sunday) we slept in (afraid to get out of the warm covers), made brunch, and then drove to the hilltown of Anghiari, where we led the kids through the silent old labyrinths, and came out on the square to find a jumble sale going on, everything from old drawer pulls and hardware to memorabilia and crafts, plus a bookfair at which we purchased an old print from a bestiary, illustrating several types of wild pig. Nearly everywhere was closed Sunday so we were unable to buy newspapers for kindling; instead we cannibalized a kids’ coloring book, properly cleaned out the grate, and thank goodness got a roaring fire going, which brought up the ambient temp to a sweltering 58 degrees.

Have not spotted any dormice yet. However two scorpions have made an appearance.

3d Week in July, Part 3

2005-08-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

Last Day in London

Having slept in and thereby missing breakfast, I brought the package of new books (mostly poetry) which I'd cobbled together to the post office down Marchmont Street, thus freeing up considerable space and weight in my luggage. I woke the boys and we grabbed some terrible stale pastries in the enticingly named Valencia Cafeteria en route to Goodge Street; when we got off we wandered confusedly a bit but wound up where we were supposed to, at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden.

The boys quite enjoyed the collection of colorful antique buses, trams, trains, and subway cars. Then perishing from hunger we had a very satisfying if simple Chinese lunch at a place called Loon Fung, overlooking (through pigeon-proof netting) an open-air flea market where folks were selling an amazing array of junk; had a nice chat with the woman who ran the place, who'd lived in Vancouver: she much preferred London (who could blame her?) -- though I quite like BC myself.

Now it was time for some real culture; we started for St. Paul's. But the Piccadilly line (which we'd arrived on) was now closed due to security issues. Fortunately it wasn't far to walk to the Holborn station, which, as with all the others, had a great assortment of talented buskers -- guitarists, banjoists, flautists… We enjoyed the infrequent but cooling blasts of air at the tunnel junctions.

At the cathedral, after a quick look around the main floor with its gilding and statuary, the boys sped up the ancient grafitti'd spiral stairs, illuminated only by the occasional slitted window, counting as they went; halfway up the 537 at the inner "Whispering Gallery" they edged around the vast pit looking at the tiled floor below, and then up we went to the first outer observation area, the "Stone Gallery," and beyond, up increasingly narrow and spiraling steps to the "Golden Gallery," the cupola at the top of the dome. Here a number of hardy souls stood in the very limited viewing area, looking out at the hazy London morning. Ben claimed to be overcome with claustrophobia due to the crowd (rather than acrophobia), so went back inside shortly, but Nick and I hung out for several more minutes enjoying the breeze.

Finally we wound back down all the way to the refreshingly cool and dim Crypt, now occupied by a gift shop and café as well as by tombs of British luminaries from art, music, literature, the military, and politics -- Blake, Turner, Nelson, etc. It's mind-boggling to drink a beer (or eat ice cream) at roughly the spot where King Ethelred's bones once lay, before the Great Fire.

After this cultural tour de force, which went largely ignored by the kids, who were having a bit of a tiff, I spared them the Tate Modern gallery. Instead we took the tube again to Oxford Circus, transferred to the Bakerloo line, and got off at Regent's Park, which I wanted to see, partly because it figures in one of my favorite Elvis Costello songs, "London's Brilliant Parade." We wandered through the park along the water with its swans and herons, and through a Japanese garden, and then circled back toward home through an upscale residential district; it was a very long way to the nearest tube stop (not retracing our steps, which would have been too easy!) -- during which it began to rain! But at last we tubed back to Goodge Street and walked (sigh) the ten blocks or so to the hotel for a well deserved rest and cooldown before dinner, which we took at La Bargiana, just down the street from the Avalon, where the service, if slow, was friendly.

The next day we undertook the arduous trip back to SeaTac airport.

3d Week in July, Part2

2005-08-26T19:23:00.000-07:00

While the boys still hunkered snoring under their blankets, I snuck out for a walk to King's Cross Station this morning -- the third bombing site and again within just a couple of blocks of our hotel. Here too was a pile of flowers and memorabilia. I took a few photos of storefronts in the deserted and somewhat run-down streets and returned in time for breakfast in the basement of the Avalon.

Afterwards we walked to "sunny" (per Donovan Leitch) Goodge Street (it really was sunny, and already hot) -- the nearest tube stop now that the Russell Square station was closed. A small station as they go, there was a very long series of art-deco stairs spiraling deep into the ground before we hit the platform. The train was full of commuters and stifling. We got out at the river and crossed over the Jubilee Bridge so I could treat the boys to the London Eye. Even first thing in the morning (9:30 or so) there was a huge line of international tourists snaking around the base of the gigantic ferris wheel; we shuffled half an hour in the glaring sun before we set foot in the fortunately air-conditioned plexiglass egg. It rose very slowly a couple hundred feet for a pretty comprehensive view of greater London and then back down. Frankly however I like the view from the top of St. Paul's better. More on that later.

We bought some souvenirs, meandered the embankment again, watched an amusing magician, and crossed over the river again to walk to Trafalgar Square. There what had evidently been an Indian cultural fair was just breaking down; booths for food and Hindu information were still set up. We lunched at a Pret a Manger nearby and then returned via the convenient Covent Garden tube to Goodge Street. Next stop, the British Museum.

They boys attended an Egyptian 3-D show while I did a quick once-over of the exhibits, traversing the spiral stairs under the geodesic web of the ceiling and circling the huge marble rotunda; and then we all toured the Greek (Elgin Marbles etc.), Egyptian (Rosetta Stone etc.), African (masks etc.), and Anglo-Saxon exhibits (Viking and Celtic coins, swords, etc.). (Below is me reflected in the back side of the Rosetta Stone.)

We also enjoyed a huge library-like room of dark bookcases filled with an amazing miscellany of objects from the entire history of mankind. The museum was oddly hot and stuffy, and after a while we scuttled across the street to have frappucinos in the cool basement of a Starbucks.

We retreated in the heat of the afternoon to the hotel, where the boys read their books while I read e-mail and posted an entry here. Then after a cold shower (ahhhh!) I walked around the neighborhood for awhile, camera in hand as usual, returning around 7 to lead the boys to the dinner location I'd spotted, Cafe Mercato, near Russell Square. (High compliment from Nick: "This place sure beats Pizza Hut!") We sat on the cool sidewalk and chatted with a table of Yank retirees. Then, feeling slightly lightfooted after a couple of glasses of wine, I led the boys back to Goodge Street again for a nightime stroll, taking advantage of our day pass. They discovered that the railtracks were populated by tiny black mice (the color of the surrounding soot), and spotting them occupied Nick and Ben fully for the next 48 hours.

We debarked at St. Paul's, the trees blazing electric green from footlights, and crossed the aluminum bridge to the Tate Modern and back along the Thames. There was still red in the sky and the riverside pubs and the promenade were thronged by walkers and partiers, the city lights brilliant against the dark blue, St. Paul's dome illuminated. We walked as far as the Eye; the boys were then thirsty and a bit tired, and after getting them a soda in an arcade, I gave them some money and they rode bumper cars and played the slot machines. About 11 we returned via the Embankment to Goodge Street and thence home to bed (after a final bit of Potter).

3d Week in July, Part 1

2005-08-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

Bright Lights

After a morning au revoir to the elusive Mrs. Bridger, who was having some trouble restraining her spaniel, we headed south to London for our final leg. We encountered the bane of English country roads -- a slow Citroen -- and in a desperate attempt to get past it I managed to miss a turnoff and got headed in the wrong direction, back whence we'd come. There's a lesson in that, I suppose. It took 20 minutes to reach an exit where we could get off and retrace our steps.

We had a deadline to return to car to the rental agency and all was going well even with this delay -- until we hit the M25. Alas this stretch of road, known for its backups, was … backed up. It took us about three times as long to creep the final few miles as it should have, and only by aggrieved (not to say touristically pathetic) persistence at the rental agency was I able to not be charged for a full extra day. They were also not unexpectedly perturbed at the gash in the side of the car caused by Melly's gate post, but this was, as I'd hoped, covered by my prudently purchased insurance.

We took a hotel cab into town for a seemingly exorbitant rate, but it was considerably more expeditious than shuttling back to the airport, taking the speedy but not cheap Heathrow Express to Paddington Station, and then taking a taxi to our hotel. It was now after noon and the first of our few days in London was fleeting by. The taxi had to do some clever maneuvers to reach our hotel, the Avalon, as the surrounding streets, if not actually blocked off due to the recent bombings, were one-way, but we at last arrived, checked in, and had an almost nonexistent schlep into our room, which was conveniently between the front door and the concierge's desk!

As per our usual London habit we immediately bustled off down Marchmont Street (zigzagging a bit due to police blockades) to shady Russell Square for refreshments. Here we saw the first memorial -- a large quantity of bouquets laid on the grass, festooned with cards, letters, toys and other personal objects (e.g., football scarves) pertaining to the many dead and missing -- sons and brothers, mothers and nieces.... Many people were slowly making their way around it, reading the notes, many with handkerchiefs to their faces. Carrying my camera as always, I didn’t take any photos because I was too affected by the sadness of the whole spectacle. (I snapped the following two days later.)

After our lunch we walked past the British Museum to the Waterloo Bridge and across it to the southern embankment where a sort of streetfair was taking place, with musicians and other street performers (including many of the ubiquitous spray-pained silver statue-people, a new "entertainment" development I fail to understand). It was quite hot. The tide was low, which I'd never seen before, and we descended the steps to the flats. A strange feeling to be walking on the floor of the Thames through centuries of debris and silt. After thoroughly taking in the scene, we crossed back over to the Westminster side and proceeded up to Piccadilly Circus via Saint James's Park, and located the Waterson's Books, where I'd reserved via phone from Melly's a copy of Brian Aldiss's latest, not available in the US. The boys also each got a copy of the brand-new Harry Potter. By this time we were feeling a little pooped and tried to catch the tube but the Piccadilly line was closed for security reasons, so I flagged down a cab.

I phoned Melly's sister Eva -- we were to have met her for dinner tomorrow, but she begged off: one of her friends had been on the bus that got blown up in Tavistock Square. Fortunately she hadn’t been killed, but Eva was going to visit her in the hospital in the evening.

When we got peckish enough, at twilight, we walked around the crescent to the Woburn Tandoori for a very nice dinner in a Dickensian alleyway, and afterwards walked off our repast for a half hour around the area, circling in the dark past the memorial at St. Pancras (Tavistock Square) and around the University of London. As usual there were many Americans around there, which seems to partly explain why the area had been so saturated by explosives.

2d Week in July, Part 6

2005-08-11T16:15:00.000-07:00

A Morning in Diss

Our last day in Suffolk (or Norfolk, depending on where one draws the line) started with a marathon launderette stop in Diss. My first challenge (after finding a place to park!) was to find change for the washer and dryer. (The perennial problem with ATMs.) I attempted to do this by cleverly purchasing some pastries in the bakery across the road but it was so early in the morning that they had no change yet. I bought several very gooey jelly doughnuts and some cheese breadsticks anyway. The Safeway store (!) satsified me for change, but the next challenge was to acquire laundry soap -- the machine in the launderette was out of order. I didn't want to buy a whole box at Safeway. A nice woman lent me some of hers. While the clothes tumbled I took the opportunity to post a few of these blog entries and check my e-mail around the corner at the newspaper office. Afterwards I lugged the clean clothes back up the high street where, yes, another street market was taking place, with the typical produce as well as lingerie and assorted knickknacks.

Back at the Town Clerk's Cottage, Nick had filled the bathtub to the brim and was about to climb in. I pointed out that he'd better reduce the water level a tad. Finally, in a sufficient state of cleanliness, we headed east along the twisty, narrow, country roads to the coast, about 20 miles.

To the Seaside

Southport is a pleasant town, a far cry from the mega-resort of Blackpool but quite popular nonetheless. We lunched on homemade sandwiches, and Nick and Ben hired a canoe, paddling for an hour in a sort of lagoon amongst islets of weed and a good many ducks, while I wandered uptown for a look at the seafront. Bathing huts lined the promenade -- multicolored, bare, single rooms you could rent for 10 pounds a day. The beach was divided by "groynes" in various states of decay.

A regatta was taking place, many sailboats with wine-colored sails heaving past in the breeze, and crowds lined the pier with binoculars. There was even a TV newscaster there, looking snappy in a blazer. The pier was spartan but there was an arcade at its foot and a restaurant; the boys spend a few pounds on the machines, and then we strolled to the pier's end, stopping at one exhibit of arty mock vending machines, very funny, using TVs and animation (for example, a dog-walker featuring a pixillated view of Southport) , as well as very crude robotics (for example, an automatic customs agent who would frisk you).

After we spent a brief time skipping rocks on the beach, it suddenly began to rain, so we returned to the car and headed to Walberswick, just across the river by foot ferry (which I couldn't locate and someone told me wasn't operating) but a drive of several miles. By the time we got there, the sun was back out. The village was small and colorful (swinging between run-down and gussied-up). We found the foot ferry but there was now little point in taking it back to the Southport side of the river. A tiny museum pointed out that the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh had had a cottage here. And there was a bowl full of "hagstones," rocks with natural holes through them that you use for good luck. Had a nice chat with the woman at the front desk, who had a daughter living in Mercer Island, oddly enough. Dying for a cup of coffee, we were alas late again and the town was closing up at 5 PM.

Poetry

So we headed inland to the town of Halesworth a few miles away, where I'd discovered that the poet and musician Martin Newell was giving a reading. We wandered "the Thoroughfare" (the pedestrianized high street) until we found the venue, a coffee shop named The Gallery, and then grabbed a pizza dinner at the nearby White Lion pub while locals stared at us. Halesworth is not exactly on the tourist track.

There was a modest crowd at The Gallery, made up of members of the local poetry society (very reminiscent of their Washington counterparts) and presided over by a very friendly, fat, ruddy, middle-aged fellow -- a bit like Holmes's Dr. Watson. Newell and a ladyfriend were there looking sedately hip. I introduced myself and mentioned I'd come all the way from Seattle to see him, which was more or less true. He and the emcee were also impressed that the kids had come to the reading. As we sat sipping our steamed milk and lattes Newell gave a very spirited two-hour recitation from a number of his books and uncollected works. Mostly these were highly formal poems, quite regional, but witty, rather like A. E. Housman crossed with Dorothy Parker.

Halfway through there was a break and I bought a couple of books and we chatted about pop music. Nick and Ben nipped outside and did not return for the second set. I didn't worry too much, given the small size of the town, and sure enough when I went out later they were seated on a bench a few feet away, surrounded by local kids, all chatting cheerfully. Apparently the kids hadn't run into any Americans before, and were asking Nick and Ben to say things like "Dude!" and talking about the differences between the US and England.

On our way home we passed Newell and his friend biking back to their lodging (he lives in Wivenhoe, near Colchester, and does not own a car). We waved them goodbye. Thus ended our stay in Suffolk. Or Norfolk.

2d Week in July, Part 5

2005-08-11T14:46:00.000-07:00

In Search of Bentleys

As if we didn't get enough driving yesterday, we again had a road trip today, to the Bedford area, which took a couple of hours. To break up the drive I stopped to let the boys take a few turns around a go-kart course, all kitted out with blue jumpsuits and helmets. This was a big jump from racing cars on the computer, and I was pleased that Nick resisted his natural impulse to crash into things.

In Bedford, we passed through another street market in the town center in order to hit the tourist infomation office, to get directions to the County Records Hall. We lunched at Mill Yard Cafe, sequestered back in a little lane, whose owner reminded me quite a bit of my grandfather in his younger days. Realizing that the John Bunyan Museum was just a couple of blocks away, I diverted us there and I'm glad I did: Bunyan, author of "Pilgrim's Progress," was the son of Margaret Bentley, herself the daughter of William and Mary Bentley, the earliest Bentleys I have been able to trace with any surety. In the museum were a number of amazing artifacts, including the key to his house, his anvil (he was a tinker by trade), the chair he used when preaching, and the flute he carved from a broom handle when incarcerated for preaching illegally. The docents were impressed that I was related, and pulled out a biography of Bunyan that listed William's mother as being named Mary -- information I had not had to date.

We walked along the swan-filled river to the Records Hall; the boys remained outside while I nipped in to try and dig up some parish records for Elstow and Ampthill, where the Bentleys lived and died. William and Mary were so early that there was no record of their births (primarily I was trying to establish William's parents), but there was plenty of corroboration for their children's births, marriages, and so on. The young guy helping me also looked at tax records and finally at wills -- whereupon miraculously he brought me a manila folder with Mary's will (dated 1632) - written in brown ink on very fragile paper. I got a photocopy of this.

From Bedford we drove over the river to the village of Elstow, birthplace of William Bentley (1573) and John Bunyan. This small suburb still has a nimber of half-timber buildings, an ancient moot-hall, and the church where Bunyan was baptised. We wandered the churchyard looking for Bentleys and Bunyans, to no avail. It also has a creek running through it that supposedly was the inspiration for his "Slough of Despond," and it looks the part, much overgrown with weeds and overhung by trees. The boys were getting hot, tired, and hungry (translation: irritable) and so we stopped at the Swan pub, where we were treated kindly by the barmaid; we had a lovely curry in the well-flowered back garden.

Before heading home (it was now about 5 PM) we continued onward a couple of miles to Ampthill, where the Bentleys settled and whence some eventually departed for America. It contains the church (St. Andrew's) where they were buried, but again, so early that no gravestones exist -- but we prowled about it anyway. The town was pretty much shut down except for a pub or two, and was not as picturesque as Elstow, and as we were pretty tired we headed home.

It was Nick's turn in the front seat as navigator, and unfortunately he steered us several miles out of our way, through Luton, which wouldn't have been too bad except there were extensive roadworks (bane of my existence) in the middle of town, and we had to do quite a bit of circuitous (and often signless) driving to get back on the right road. At one point we went right through the Muslim section of town, past a mosque that had been featured on the news the night before with regard to the London bombings.

2d Week in July, Part 4

2005-07-28T22:25:00.000-07:00

Warplanes and Punts

I bravely or foolishly gave the Eye map another go this morning in the foggy wee hours. This time I found that one footpath simply was not there, apparently obliterated by new (post-1998) housing. I got a few suspicious glances from folks leaving for school or work, but persisted and finally located a track heading off along some parsley fields. I noticed a number of folks off in the fog in the middle of the field; they were either birders or perhaps panther stalkers. The footpath petered out after a half mile or so, or -- more precisely -- suddenly did not match the map, and rather than duplicate yesterday's wild goose chase I wisely turned around. An older gent with an aged golden retriever that resembled a polar bear were out for a walk and waylaid me for a few moments. For some odd reason (I guess I felt suspicious myself being out that early) I fibbed about where I was from and assumed what, I suspect, struck him as a weird amalgam of BBC English, Scouse, and Irish brogue, with not a small measure of American, but I escaped back to our cottage ready for the day's adventures.

After our typical cholesterol-heavy breakfast we walked up to the weekly farmers' market in the spacious, tall-ceilinged main room of the Town Hall, arriving on schedule but, according to some of the ladies there, after many of the best produce had already been snatched up by early comers. Some were selling baked goods, some greeting cards made with pressed flowers, some home-made children's clothes, and many fruits and vegetables; we bought some coffee cake, potatoes, and cards, and chatted with the ladies who of course were curious about of holiday.

We then drove an hour or so southwest, past Cambridge, to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford -- essentially was an airport. You could charter rides in vintage aircraft, but these were all reserved today by school field-trips.

So we wandered the various hangars looking at Spitfires, Mustangs, and other WWII planes from both sides of the conflict, in various states of repair, plus a number of modern aircraft, helicopters, and boats, including a small submarine. The American collection featured an entire B52 suspended from the ceiling, a Blackbird, Harrier, U2, and other impressive death machines. We skipped the tank exhibit. It was boiling hot. The cafeteria, deluged by students, was out of sandwiches and pop. It was refreshing to stand in the intense backwash of a biplane on the runway. After a quick walk through a Concorde, a rather unsatisfactory lunch at another cafe, and a spin through the gift shop, we headed back to Cambridge.

It took quite a bit of back and forth to find our way to the town center (dang ring roads and unclear signage!) but finally pulled into a parking garage just as an absolute torrential downpour unexpectedly hit.

We stood looking out at it for several minutes, watching hapless pedestrians skittering by on the sidewalk below, or huddling under the plane trees, totally drenched, but it soon had returned to a hot, dry afternoon and we walked the high street a few blocks to the river. There we were accosted by warring punting vendors, but I opted to stay on foot, making a brief circle following a map I'd copied off the Web, which led us to "the second oldest church in Cambridge" and a few pubs which frustratingly were closed for the afternoon. The boys were getting a bit tired and we plumped down at a coffee bar's damp table, beside the river; then since Nick was feeling contrary we simply returned to the car. It was mid-afternoon and I knew it would be pushing things to either take a punt or walk any further in the burning sun.

Leaving Cambridge was even more fruitless than entering it since we got caught in rush-hour traffic, but we finally crawled to a roundabout that led us home, although we'd wound up traveling in exactly the wrong direction (again, without signage) for 20 minutes (my fault, I should have been using the sun for directions!). Unfortunately we then ran into a terrible jam on the M11 due to an accident, and we couldn't get off; it was about an hour of stop-and-go creeping until I finally reached a Services and we pulled off for dinner at a Little Chef. By the time we left the traffic had thinned out. It looked like the accident had happened right at the spot where the Services slip road rejoined the motorway. We didn't get back to the cottage until about 8 PM, about two hours later than I'd planned.

2d Week in July, Part 3

2005-07-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

The Beast of Scole

I went for a morning walk while the boys slept. We were scheduled to take the train to Colchester at 10, but there seemed to be plenty of time. En route I picked up some apple sausages and pork burgers at the town butcher: it's best to get your groceries early, before they're all sold! Following the cool hand-drawn area map I'd purchased in Diss, I located the trailhead at Park Road beyond the river. My aim was to follow the footpaths on the map to yet another bridge and then loop back to town. The path was there but was simply tamped-down grass bordered with the requisite nettles. Nonetheless I proceeded. A lot of wildlife was about in the still morning: Canada geese, rabbits, and a huge number of birs (starlings?) on the telephone wires -- not counting livestock.

After awhile not only did the promised bridge not materialize but I found that the path was not following the configuration the map showed. I sort of crawled under some barbwire (still following the path, mind you) into a field of huge cows, who began slowly but determinedly approaching me. I hastened on to the next stile and found myself in a field of wheat, or something like it -- the footpath was literally just a slash through the crop; at one point two such paths met to form a cross in the middle of the vast field.

Meanwhile thoughts of the Beast of Scole crossed my mind. (One of the first things I'd read in the local newspaper, while awating our first night's Chinese take-away, was that a local woman had spotted what appeared to be a large black panther crossing a field near her home in Scole. I later checked the map: Scole was about three miles up the road! This beast seemed to have been following me -- there have been, over the years, reports of a similar creature in other places we've visited, such as Evesham and the Forest of Dean.) No one knew where I was this morning. I was glad I at least had a bag of sausage I could distract the panther with, unless I had to eat it myself first to stave off starvation.

It being the point of no return timewise, I continued on, finally finding an actual footpath marker on a fence post, and I followed more of these to a "lane " (a tractor path) which finally arrived at a paved road. Both the lane and road could be construed to be those portrayed on the map, but how I could have arrived there was suspicious. At any rate I flagged down a car. "Excuse me," I said, "I seem to following a somewhat flawed map. Could you please tell me where I am on it?"

Sure enough, I had gone far south and west from where I was trying to go or thought I was going. I was nearly to Yaxley. Fortunately it was a clear, if lengthy, way back to Eye, so I started up the road at a speed-walker's pace. It was now about 8.40 and I'd hoped to be back at the cottage by 9. This I amazingly enough managed, give or take a couple of minutes, even with my stopping for some eggs ("Help Yourself!") at a little hutch outside a farmhouse. They were so fresh they still had grass sticking to them.

Back to Boudica

We made it on time to the electric commuter train at the Diss station -- the parking lot was overflowing.

We had a picturesque hour's ride south through fields and past estuaries to the city of Colchester, where we were met by poet Estill Pollock, with whom I'd corresponded after reading a book of his and accepting several pieces for Fine Madness magazine. A tall American who's lived in England 25 years or so, he drove us through the roundabouts and to his home island on the edge of the North Sea, West Mersea, population surprisingly 7000. We walked along the road beside the seafront, past many old liveaboard boats of all sizes, on blocks in the sandflats, which at high tide you accessed via rickety wooden walkways; the tide was quite far out at the moment. The island itself, in fact, is only accessible when the tide is not high -- otherwise the causeway road itself can be under as much as a couple of feet of water and you must queue up and wait for the tide to turn in order to enter or leave. Estill always carries a tide table.

We took in the lovely old black-and-white houses and the working waterfront -- fishing boats, seafood stands, and chandlers, etc., descended the "Monkey Steps" to check out "St. Peter's Well," of ancient origin, just steps from the sea, and spent some time on the beach itself. After dropping by his house briefly, we drove to The Peldon Rose pub for a fine meal outside by a pond. Skate, tuna, cod, and Guinness! We chatted about publishing, poetry, and weirdly the recent reports of a black panther around Colchester.

Then back into the city for a tour through Colchester Castle, basically an empty shell like Clifford's Tower, only larger, which has been reconstructed inside to accommodate a quite good museum featuring items from Colchester's Roman and pre-Roman past. Especially mind-blowing were burnt plum pits dating from the destruction of the Roman temple by the forces of Boudica (Boadicea) which took place on the site of the castle two thousand years ago (30,000 Romans were killed).

After a short walk in the gardens behind the castle and through St. Botolph's, a ruined priory where the local drunks now like to spend the night, Estill returned us to the train station. We spent the whole trip standing in the breezeway between cars as the air conditioning in the carriages was not working.

2d Week in July, Part 2

2005-07-24T07:55:00.000-07:00

The Flintstones

The nights in Eye were marked by the hourly chiming of the Town Hall clock about a hundred yards up the street. Naturally the midnight chime was the most alarming but I slept fairly well till about three. Then (until I got used to it) I took hourly naps between then and six, when I dragged myself out of bed.

July 11 after the typical resuscitory sausage-egg-and-toast breakfast we motored up to Diss and took advantage of the newspaper office's Internet connection to check e-mail and post a couple of these blog entries. The boys sent a couple of messages too, but mostly wandered the town eating jam doughnuts until I emerged, at which point we set out for Thetford and the inaptly but intriguingly named Grimes' Graves.

The center of town, as with many in England, has been pedestrianized, and it was bustling, the kids having finally been released from school last Friday. We walked through town looking for a likely spot to eat, spotting several buildings that featured liberal use of flint, including a medieval church. Also spotted a statue of Thomas Paine, oddly. We finally spotted and dove into Marvella's, a humble sidestreet cafe that, as Ben remarked, was "the cheapest place we've eaten so far," which is to say the prices were within human comprehension. And it was delicious; for example, I had potato-leek soup and a BLT. By the time we'd finished, the sun was blazing. We returned to the car by way of the motorcycle dealer, which the boys had shown interest in visiting, and we spent a few minutes ogling the high-priced powerbikes and trying to interpret the thick accent of the friendly attendant, whose main gist was that the boys should really start out with a dirt bike first because it was smaller, cheaper, safer, and didn't require a license.

Getting out of Thetford was sort of like a kitten trying to get out of a sock, but we finally managed to retrace our steps and headed for the Iceni (think Boudica) flint-mine site, Grimes' Graves, which was named much later by people who didn't know the purpose of the hundreds of grassy pockmarks in a huge pasture. First off we donned hard hats (again!) and descended an iron ladder 90 feet or so into one of the mines. Basically it was a circular pit with small (I mean small) tunnels running off in several directions from the central shaft. The temperature was about 50 degrees. There were lights and you could see, if you got on hands and knees, that the tunnels led off into the distance. The whole thing (and this was just a single example) had been dug with picks made from deer antler.

After a bit we climbed back up to the sunlight and heat, and spent a short while exploring the hummocks and concavities (filled-up mine shafts) of the area, the wildflowers and shrubs, the crickets and birds.

Rich and Infamous

Jumping ahead a couple thousand years and going from the literally dirt-poor to the filthy rich, we next travelled through Bury St. Edmunds, which reportedly is a delightful town, though all we really saw of it were huge factories, to Ickford House, ancestral home of the Hervey (pronounced Harvey) family. Unfortunately we got there late enough that we only had less than an hour to tour the house, and we never made it to the gardens. We walked silently though the enormous semicircular building, being very careful not to touch any of the gorgeous furniture for fear of the ancient National Trust docents accosting us. There were a couple however who were relaxed enough to share some of the sordid Hervey history (illegitimacy, wantoness, doomed military careers etc.) with us and talk about the countless ancient books the Herveys had collected. One of the most interesting features was the fan collection of one of the ladies; the fans were pretty enough in themselves but I had not known that there was "a secret language of fans" by which a lady who was by custom not allowed to speak to male visitors could communicate by movements of the fan and the way she held it; these were documented and I unfortunately forgot to get a copy, in our rush to be gone by closing time.

We returned home and cooked dinner, and took an evening walk around town past the St. Peter and Paul Church to another portion of the Dove River, where the boys discovered a rope swing. This and the game of tossing pinecones occupied us until dark, Nick and Ben hurtling high out over the slow-moving water, over a plump bed of nettles. On the way home we gratifyingly saw a herd of rabbits in the grounds of The Old Abbey. (Forgot to mention that on our previous evening walk we'd discovered the town fen, which was a nettle-infested ferny swamp beyond the soccer field; the town seemed to be rather proud of it.)

2d Week in July, Part 1

2005-07-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

To the South

The drive from Oakworth, Yorkshire, to Eye, Suffolk, for the second installment of our hejirah, took longer than expected, but I have no one to blame but myself -- I wanted to cram in two last stops before leaving the dales: Hebden Bridge and Heptonstall.

The drive over the moors to Hebden Bridge was spectacular: we seemed to be at the top of the world, with views across the sunny moor-top and down into a series of valleys, festooned with sheep and cottages. We spiraled down into town and walked to the canal. Alas, the boats were only rentable for extended cruises; a large number of dodderers were shakily boarding one narrowboat. We stopped in at a cafe for coffee, cocoa, and pastries, and I dodged across the street to a bookstore, where I scored several good books by English poets and confirmed that indeed, Sylvia Plath's grave was in nearby Heptonstall.

It was only about a quarter mile away but getting there involved overshooting the turnoff and performing a U-turn in a specially provided lane, in order to negotiate an impossible hairpin turn, and then heading straight up a 50-degree incline to the village. We walked around the ancient churchyard to no avail, but it was lovely; also checked out another one, again fruitlessly, but glimpsed a fellow clopping along heartily in an old horse-drawn gig. I thought of asking the folks in the Heptonstall Museum, but despite the fact that the sign said Open, and it was the right time of day acording to the hours posted, and I'd seen someone just moments before, the door was locked and no one answered my knocks. So we gave it up and retraced our steps, getting stuck in Hebden Bridge rush hour -- the place being overrun by tourists, bikers, hikers, etc.

The ensuing few hours were spent on a series of boring but speedy motorways, speedy yet interesting A roads, and slow, exceptionally interesting B roads, spinning through countless roundabouts, and finally arriving about 6 PM in the burgeoning metropolis (aka 'ancient market town' -- the subtitle of every town in Suffolk) of Eye, "twinned with Pouzages, France," which I imagine must be quite a throbbing city as well.

Our home was dubbed the Town Clerk's Cottage, again a 16th century or earlier whitewashed half-timber house with nary a right angle in the place. Our landlady, who lived next door, was a Mrs. Ridger, a rather brittle old thing but friendly enough. Our house was full of watercolors and oil painting she (apparently) had done some decades back. There was a cozy (of course) sitting room, stocked with an eclectic selection of books, separated from a dining area by a see-through fireplace (electric), and a large kitchen. Upstairs were a master bedroom, a smaller bedroom, and a large bathroom, into which you typically fell at length, there being an unexpected sill at the doorway. Next door was an Indian restaurant which Mrs. Ridger said had mysteriously been closed for some time.

We explored what there was of the town (which is not only small but the streets roll up at 6 on a Saturday), settling on the New Happy House Chinese Take-Away. We should have been suspicious when it became clear that there were no Asian people anywhere for miles. Well, the boys liked it. After dinner we explored more and discovered a bridge over the River Dove (more like the Slough of Despond). (More on that later.)

Exploring Eye and Beyond

July 10, I and Ben rose pretty early so he could phone home, and then we walkied around the waking town, notably locating the 19th-century (yet ancient-looking) Eye Castle and the 15th-century (yet modern-looking) Sts. Peter and Paul Church. We noticed that the Town Hall, flag flying at half mast, was interestingly decorated with what we later discovered was flint, in geometric patterns amongst the bricks. After returning and having breakfast we brought Nick back to these locations, and also discovered another bridge over the river, this time running at a better clip and supplied with a rope swing, from which I could not pry the boys for an hour.

After lunch, we checked out Thornham Walks (Thornham Magna, not Thornham Parva -- it seems from the map that the majority of towns in East Anglia -- made up of Norfolk in the North and Suffolk in the South (get it?) -- come in pairs. I don't have the map at hand to give examples, but trust me. We walked, anyway, through blazing heat to a 'bird hide' in the woods, from which the boys watched birds (and mostly squirrels) feed from hanging feeders, and then to a Victorian walled garden and a pet cemetery belonging to the one-time estate.

After the requisite ice cream and a prowl through the shop, which featured third-world-made items (concurrent with the "G8" conference which in part probably inspired the London bombings) we then whizzed up the road to Diss for dinner (since we knew that Eye was out of the question -- only one pub (reportedly there used to be 14!) and one very expensive (though tempting) restaurant, plus the Chinese take-away and a chippie that looked pretty dicey as well.

Diss proved pretty cool, a good-sized town with a large lake in the middle, a playground to one side, and a lot of interesting shops, all of which were of course closed. We did however risk (ultimately successfully) another Chinese take-away, primarily because it was actually run by Chinese, and we dined on a bench by the lake, followed by an evening of playground shenanigans. And so to bed!

First Week in July, Part 4

2005-07-15T01:56:00.000-07:00

Terror at a Distance

Writing this a week after the fact -- Thursday July 7 as we headed north to Ingleborough Cave we heard the BBC News report of multiple bomb blasts across London, including King's Cross train station, Russell Square tube station, and a bus in Tavistock Square, all near our hotel-to-be. By now they seem to have identified the bombers: one from Luton (we drove through it yesterday due to an error in navigation by Nick) -- because of roadworks were forced to detour through the Muslim part of town, which had been featured on the news the night before; one from Leeds, near where our friends' architectural office and former home are located; and one from Dewsbury, through which we'd driven only days before en route to Haworth -- I recall seeing several Muslim women walking about veiled and black-robed. One of the bombers was a primary-school teacher with a young family. The brain reels.

Anyway, we kept on driving through the dales to what we thought was the town of Clapham, which turned out to be just a small collection of shops and a cafe or two. From there we walked an easy half a mile uphill through the woods to "England's greatest show cave." A hardhatted young woman led us diffidently down the tunnel past a colorful collection of stalactites, stalagmites, and other bizarre formations, all given names such as Queen Victoria's Bloomers, Grandpa's Teeth, The Elephant's Legs and Tail, etc., based on their appearance. We had to duckwalk in a couple of places to avoid cracking our noggins on the ceiling. All along the path there ran a stream, which reportedly contained cave shrimp, but we didn't see any; at one point the water poured down a "gill," or hole, in the floor of the cave, only to reappear somewhere down the mountain. The air temperature was about 50 degrees, the water colder, which was refreshing since the weather was pretty warm.

Upon returning topside, we walked a ways up a sheep-prowled trail to Trow Gill, through a narrow passage between the limestone cliffs. The kids blazed a trail up the hillside and thistles; from the top we got a stunning view of the hilltops and valleys, dotted with sheep and chunks of broken limestone. No sound except for baas and a few bird calls. Then we walked, thankfully downhill, to the car and a lunch at a homey cafe in town (hot rhubard 'pud' for dessert), chatted with a woman in the local wool shop, and drove home listening to BBC updates.

Not content with wearing the kids' legs off in the afternoon, I persuaded them to walk after dinner to Damems Station, across the Worth River, and up the other side of the valley, at dusk. This exposure to nature was to counter the effects of Friday's daylong excursion to decidely unnatural...

Blackpool

at which we arrived after a not-too-long drive through Lancashire. Thanks to Mrs Brunskill we had a 2-for-1 coupon for the Pleasure Beach, so a mere $60 bought a whole day's worth of rides for Nick and Bentley. I left them to it in two-hour chunks while I explored the town, from the goofy to the seedy, plus needless to say, the beachy. I lunched in a very simple little cafe with a charming gran-type for a waitress, and a view of the street, where colorful daytrippers and not any less colorful native Blackpoolers walked. At one point there was an awful racket and a large tank clattered up the road. This had nothing to do with bombings, just the army putting on a jolly show for the tourists. The promenade was lined with hotels, as were all the side streets -- an amazing amount of lodging available -- as well as fortune tellers and pubs.

There were three piers filled with arcades and kiddie rides, as well as more adult entertainment, if you know what I mean, and scarier rides such as 90-foot-tall bungree jumps. I refrained from paying 12 pounds to ascend the Blackpool Tower, but I did break down and take one very tame ride with the boys and visit the ever grimly fascinating Ripley's. We dined in a large, clean and rather Americanized fish-and-chips restaurant. Upon return to our cottage we were exhausted but packed up for our imminent departure for Suffolk.

First Week in July, Part 3

2005-07-11T03:27:00.000-07:00

Mad Swan Disease

We had the inestimable pleassure of being chased down the Leeds-Liverpool Canal by an insane swan. We were in a tiny motorboat roaring along at about 3 knots, which we hired in Skipton. At the time, Ben was at the wheel, returning us to the quay, Nick having piloted us up the canal for about half an hour. Apparently we were getting too close to the birds clutch of cygnets, but even while we were retreating at a distance of several hundred feet, the swan came running down the canal, neck outstretced, wings aflap, honking like a fire engine, and attempted to bite us. As Roy Scheider might have said, we needed a bigger boat. Adding insult to injury, the rain then suddenly poured down, which lasted until we got to shore. Nick's umbrella only served as a sail in the gusts of wind, so we all got pretty soaked.

However by the time we arrived in the town of Masham we were dry enough and enjoyed a fabulous lunch in the Suncatcher Cafe, which was every bit as Eugenean as its name implies, complete with brightly colored walls, funky glassware, and Nitin Sawhney music. In fact the ponytailed owner had been in Eugene.

The boys especially liked digging around in the antique store next door -- a treasure trove of junk and presided over by the father-in-law of the cafe owner, who explained many of the arcane items to the kids, such as a baby's gas mask from WWII, which was like a midget deep-sea diving suit you strapped the child into.

We continued through the dales to Leyburn, arriving just in time for the boys to control some toy cars and canal boats at the Beech End model village. On the way home we stopped impulsively at Jervaulx Abbey, which I'd not heard of, but it rivaled Fountains Abbey in size and coolness -- many ruined rooms and passages in a beautiful sheep meadow.

First Week in July, Part 2

2005-07-11T03:10:00.000-07:00

Lost in the Dales

July 4th was perhaps the best I've ever had, if only for the reason there were no fireworks. It was fairly rainy, but this we ignored as we headed to Skipton, about 20 miles from our cottage. First we prowled the flea market, stalls lined up along the high street, at which we bought cheese and umbrellas -- two indispensible Yorkshire amenties.

Then we toured the quite intact but bare-bones 15th-century Skipton Castle, which was laid out a bit like a maze on three floors -- Nick led us through with a map. I was especially impressed with the "grotto" constructed of coral liberally embedded with mother-of-pearl oyster shells. We stopped for lunch (with a slight detour to a shop boasting 450 types of single-malt whiskey) and then toured the small Craven Museum (Craven being the name of a local historical bigwig, but it is tempting to read it as an adjective when it is appended to nearly everything, such as Craven Insurance). A swap meet was taking place in the museum but we especially relished the archeological items on display upstairs, including msyterious ancient clay "tablets" like dice.

From Skipton we went to Bolton Abbey (the name of the town -- actually it's a priory, not an abbey).

The rain had cleared and the boys spent a long time crossing the brown river on wobbly stepping stones, watching ducklings, and pursuing cows. The priory was picturesque in its grassy glade. We took a wrong turn on the way back and wound up going north into the moors on one-track roads. Got totally lost and finally found someone to ask directions from, but now I can say we've seen the hamlet of Appletreewick.

We got back in time for the boys to fire off some party poppers in lieu of fireworks, sending paper and foil confetti over the front lawn. Mr. Brunswick looked on bemusedly and confirmed that, as in Barnsley, real fireworks have been outlawed except for holidays, since they were being used regularly by drug dealers to signal when their new shipments had arrived.

Locks and Art

We visited the 3-rise and 5-rise locks in Bingley, walking through intermittent rain along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, which permits brightly colored 'narrow boats' to move up and down the steep hills of the Pennines. The site had changed since I last saw it in 1995 -- a new motorway has been put through! We got fairly wet despite our bumbershoots but dried off in the Salts Mill art gallery/bookshop/cafe in the nearby 19th-century company town of Saltaire. An extremely expensive lunch but we (at least I) enjoyed the bookshop and the David Hockney drawings and paintings. Also saw a stunning Italian sportscar in the carpark -- a Tuscan TVR; the boys are in heaven with all the Aston-Martins, etc., plus antique MGs, Jaguars, etc. We even saw a fantastic old Alvin the other day. The boys were bushed so I left them to watch "The Mouse That Roared" on TV while I drove across the moors to Wycoller, via Stanbury. Stopped at the Ponden Mill shop and bought a much-needed rain jacket to replace my Irish one recently lost in Bellevue. However, I again got thoroughly lost in the one-track lanes, which were bordered by stone walls -- at one point I could see over them and found I was in a literal maze of walled pastures.

Upon return I fixed dinner and we watched "Ladettes to Ladies" on TV, a reality show about several rude Cockney girls at a finishing school. The winner not only managed to "improve" her posture, her accent, her clothes, her manners, and her looks, and learn to cook a really unappetizing-looking dessert, but drove off in a new red MG.

First Week of July, Part 1

2005-07-11T02:44:00.000-07:00

Bronte Country

I'm writing after a week's delay from Diss, in East Anglia. We have been without Internet access since we left Barnsley.

July 2, we drove over hill and down dale (such as Airedale and Wensleydale [Gromit!] and Calderdale) to the village of Haworth. We lunched at a shady table outside the Black Bull pub (one of many across this part of Yorkshire, but in this case the one frequented by Charlotte "Wuthering Heights" Bronte's sot of a brother, Branwell) and explored the steep main street and the park, where there were several heated lawn bowling matches taking place. The boys were attracted to a model shop, so we stopped in; I mentioned that we were to be staying in nearby Oakworth and it turned out that the proprietor knew our landlord, who had been his mailman, and pointed us to our cottage on a map.

Oakworth is only a mile away, on the other side of the Worth River (HaWORTH, OakWORTH, get it?) at the other end of a quite narow, twisty road by one of the defunct woollen mills in the area. At one point, around a hairpin blind corner, someone has spraypainted "HOOT" on the wall to let oncoming traffic know you're approaching. Our cottage, rather rudely but accurately named "Bottom Cottage," is at the end (the bottom) of a lane that starts out disappointngly with modern houses - but was built in the 1500s and had a sweeping view of the valley, with the city of Keighley (pronounced "Keithly") and the Ilkley Moor in the distance. Our landlady, Mrs. Brunskill, was pottering in the large flower/veg garden when we arrived; tubby and middle-aged, with a halo of fuzzy grey hair, she was very friendly; she lives next door -- there are three cottages together. She and her husband spent 18 months restoring the buildings and have done a great job.

The boys spent much of the next week petting Prince, the horse next door, who would stick his brown bearded head over the stone wall, and there were several cats about as well.

A Day on the Trains

We walked down the hill to the smallest working train station in England, Damems Station, and took the steam train (!) down the line past Haworth to Oxenhope, a journey of perhaps 20 minutes. There were several working-class commuters as well as a tourist or two. We were lucky enough on this Sunday to catch the annual Straw Race, for which the whole town turned out. This involved pairs of men, often in costuime (such as fully accoutered knights, and memorably a couple of grossly overweight tattooed guys naked except for undershorts, with large stuffed penises, complete with fuzzy brown hair, strapped to them [quite a roar of approval from the crowd]) running from pub to pub drinking pints while carrying a bale of hay, in their preferred method, up a nearby hill in the blazing sun. A brass band played fairly badly while sitting in an open truck trailer in the Bay Horse pub's parking lot..

How to top that? We trained back to Haworth and had lunch in the Wharenui (odd name), walked through the fields in search of another deserted mill, watched the steam trains for awhile (great hoots, puff of hissing steam, and clouds of foul coal smoke) and trained to the Oakworth station. Then we walked across the fields (black-and-white cows, tan goats, black-faced sheep) to our cottage in Goose Cote Lane. Whew!

Adventures in Yorkshire Pt. 2

2005-07-01T00:59:00.000-07:00

The boys and I each did something we wanted yesterday -- they extensively prowled the sunny streets of Barnsley in search of sweet things to eat and things that made noise -- and I got lost in the moors.

We did manage to discover an old lane in town (narrow cobbled pavement bordered by quaint shops, nicely claustrophobic) and I introduced them to "The Pinfold," where (as explained by a book of poetry I bought about the town's historical spots) stray critters from the market were rounded up -- rather like the dog pound), and we visited Cook's Gallery, which featured both contemporary art (such a pair of glasses and glasses-case labeled "The Artist's Glasses," complete with long and unbelievable justification, and a pair of dental retainers mounted to the wall like butterflies, complete with extracted molars for bodies -- which Bentley enjoyed, being the proud wearer of such a device) and a back room containing 18th/19th century works by artists I'd never heard of, with the exception of a Henry Moore drawing.

Then, rather famished, we got what might loosely be termed lunch at an off-license shop before I allowed the boys to vegetate at the house while I continued on my way to the legendary Mam Tor ("shivering peak" -- so-named because it is in a continual state of landslide). This involved wending my way across several miles of woodland, past reservoirs, until reaching the attractive town of Castleton, named for Peveril Castle, a ruined 12th century stone structure overlooking the town. It was overrun by schoolchildren and by blackfaced sheep whose redolent droppings festooned the well-chewed grass. Below the castle was an enormous cave, nestled between two sheer tree-draped cliffs populated by a circling bevy of rooks whose mewls echoed off the limestone walls. I opted not to take a tour of the cave, which is billed as "The Devil's Arse."

Rain began to set in over the peaks at this point so I headed back to try to locate the metroplis of Wigtwizzle. No, that is not a typo. It was clearly marked on the map but as a twisted and turned up and down the one-lane tracks across the moors, no such place appeared, unless it was the name of one of the small farms sprinkled among the hills. Aside from traversing these "roads" for about an hour I also had missed one crucial turn and gotten stuck in traffic for about an hour (!) heading into Sheffield. I felt like sausage meat might, being forced into its skin, but I finally was able to extricate myself.

After the crushing Wigtwizzle defeat I continued meandering in the general direction of Barnsley, stopping briefly at Bolsterstone, a refreshingly civilized, though very small, farming village atop a hill, where I got out to stretch my legs in the old cemetery with its forest of wafer-like moss-covered headstones. (I parked beside the town stocks. I kid you not.) I was chagrined to discover an actual funeral just dispersing, so I made myself scarce among the dead until the mourners had left.

I careered downhill to the steel-town of Stocksbridge, which was quite large and butt-ugly, at least what I saw of it, an assessment I rarely make about English towns, being an incurable romantic even about industrial sites. But there you have it. And I returned to home base around 6, two hours later than estimated. After dinner I took my favorite walk across the park, up the stonewalled lane, down through a fallow field (drenched in vermilion light from the 9:30 sunset), looping back up the road past horses and cows to the house.

And so to bed.

Adventures in Yorkshire Pt. 1

2005-06-29T15:21:00.000-07:00

This morning at 6 AM, the boys and I wandered down the road into Barnsley center. I'd managed to convince them (a) not to go without me and (b) wait until daylight, Yes, we're all jetlagged. All was quiet except for the odd garbage truck, reeking slightly, and a few early birds loitering about the news agent, where we stopped in to ogle the penny candy while averting our eyes from the prominently displayed girly magazines.

The boys homed in on the shopping mall, which was of course locked up, and they were fascinated by the new bingo hall. Neither knew what bingo was but the relativly snazzy architecture, at least for Barnsley, lured them. I'd pointed out a few landmarks, such as the tower of the city hall, and pointed out that should they get lost they should head for the church spire across the street from our house. However when we returned after our walk to the main roundabout, Nick was totally turned around. I'm glad I hadn't turned them loose to explore or who knows where they might have ended up.

At about 9 we drove up the rather boring but efficient motorway to York, which Nick (and I, for that matter) hadn't seen since 1995. Passed the Tadcaster Brewery. The grassy hill on which sits Clifford's Tower was covered with Canada geese and goslings. We went in -- it's just a modest site -- picked up some souvenirs (Nick happy to find spoons) and walked the battlements, from which we got a good overview of the town center and the Ouse River. I think the story of the 12th century Jews who burned down the original wooden trower with themselves inside it, rather than renounce their faith to the authorities, impressed Ben.

Then after a quick peek into the Museum of York we wandered through the narrow, lopsided, half-timbered streets of 'the Shambles' en route to York Minster cathedral. Many stalls were set up in a square, selling everything fom clothes and jewelry to ostrich burgers and fudge, the latter of which we sampled and bought. The fudge company was called Mad Cow Fudge and all the flavors were correspondingly named: Depressed Cow, Bored Cow, etc.

Fudge notwithstanding, we had a bite of lunch in a cafe (baguettes) and then toured the Minster, including the undercroft, featuring excavated Roman, Norman, and Medieval foundations and artifacts -- statuary, frescoes, chalices...and a large hunk of masonry that had fallen on a parishoner in the1300s or so and not killed him, thus becoming a Miracle immortalized in the Minster's stained glass.

We walked circuitously back to the car. The rain had set in by now so we headed back on the A19 via Selden, which has an abbey nearly as impressive as the Minster, though we stopped only long enough for me to take a photo of some derelict industrial buildings that caught my eye, and through the sadly uninteresting town of Bentley near Doncaster (which the boys missed anyway since they had fallen asleep in the back seat after playing an evidently exhausting game of Top Trumps with Nick's new jet fighter deck, which he'd picked up at Waterstones Bookstore when I nipped in looking in vain for the latest Brian Aldiss book. Thus we looped back to Barnsley, whereupon we all collapsed into bed about 3 PM. I awoke at 6.30 thinking I'd slept through the night.

Fog had set in by this time and I took a stroll around the vastness of Locke Park next to the house, before a dinner of pesto pasta. Boys woke up about 9.30 PM (still light out!) and immediately began playing PlayStation. I hope to get them into bed at a reasonable time tonight to try and get them over their jet lag.