Two Women Wandering the World
From northern Tuscany, we took the train into the next province south, Umbria, where we had a host for three days. Those days were an orgy of art, as we visited the hill towns of Assisi, Spello, and Perugia. Old towns look different in Umbria than in Tuscany. Churches have plain facades, not ranks of … Read more
Most visitors to Tuscany focus on Florence and some famous (and crowded) towns in the central rolling hills, such as Siena. We decided to leave Florence until later in our trip, in hopes of arranging a host there. Instead, because we love quiet, out-of-the-way places, we opted to explore the mountainous northwestern corner of Tuscany. … Read more
The big grassy area around the leaning tower and other Pisan monuments is choked with tourists—even on a Monday in March, so it’s hard to conceive how crowded it must be on a summer weekend. Luckily, most of the tourists mill around the tower and the line of souvenir shops. They don’t bother going into … Read more
We hit the ground running in Italy. Two hours after landing at Pisa airport, we were exploring our first Italian town, Lucca, which was recommended by a former colleague of Melissa’s. Lucca is a walled city that grew rich in the late Middle Ages on the silk trade. From the map in our guidebook, Chris … Read more
(Written at the end of our first day in Italy) Lush and green. Rivers and canals. Higher mountains than Chris expected. Lucca wasn’t a hill town. Landscape had a pleasing familiarity. Lucca looked like how Chris expected old European towns to look. Earth-toned buildings. A surprising amount of helpfulness from tourist info/bus info people and … Read more
After spending 10 weeks in southern Spain, we felt like we had a good sense of the place, and we were eager to visit our next country, Italy. It was still cold in northern Spain (there was snow near Barcelona at Easter). So we decided to put off visiting other parts of Spain—Madrid, Barcelona, the … Read more
Our final stop in southern Spain, the town of El Rocio, turned out to be one of the strangest places we’ve ever seen. It’s sized to hold tens of thousands of people, but it has only about 600 residents. The streets are wide (think four-lane-highway wide) but made of sand. Lining them are low white … Read more
One of the most enjoyable parts of learning a language is always finding out the odd-to-foreign-ears idiomatic expressions. A few amusing idioms and words: (Spanish — literal translation — English equivalent) no necesita abuela — he doesn’t need a grandmother — someone who brags a lot salir de Guatamala y entrar en Guatapeor — leaving Guatamala … Read more
Little things we’ve noted with interest during our travels in Andalucia: Traditional meal (and restaurant) hours: breakfast between 10:30 and noon, lunch sometime after 2 p.m. (often as late as 4), and dinner at 10 p.m. or later. As a result, you can show up in a nearly empty restaurant at 9:45 and be asked … Read more
Some things are not really talked about publicly in southern Spain. Official plaques, tourist pamphlets, and the like make no mention of the Civil War, Franco’s long dictatorship, or the Spanish Inquisition. But of course such things live in the memory of townspeople. By the main plaza of Vejer de la Frontera, there is a … Read more
Semana Santa (Holy Week) is an amazing time to be in Andalucia. In every city and small town, there are nightly processions in the streets. Brass bands play doleful march tunes in minor keys. Large ornate floats (pasos), decorated with flowers and candles and sometimes silver canopies, bear statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. … Read more
During Semana Santa, Spanish hotels tend to be booked up far in advance and cost a fortune (especially in the big cities). So we were grateful that, a month or two ago, we found a Couch Surfing host for this period. She lives in Vejer de la Frontera, a white hilltop town near the coast … Read more