RIDE & RAIL IN SOUTH AND WEST ENGLAND

For the adventuresome person who is also physically fit, touring England on a bicycle can be the ultimate trip. The South and West coasts offer many thirty and forty mile rides that can be combined into two or three weeks of riding ... or you can use a small city as a base for day trips.
The area is hilly ... very hilly ... but the views are spectacular. You never feel guilty walking up a big hill because it allows you to soak up the panoramas more fully. The rides down are often quite exhilarating.
Maybe the best thing about biking England is that you never feel threatened by traffic. Whether on narrow country roads or busy inter city highways, British drivers yield to bicyclists. They slow to your speed if they can’t cross the center line to pass widely around you.
While you could just bike all day every day, you will find it more restful to hop a train between destinations. A BritRail pass makes a perfect travel companion. Trains pass even the remotest destinations at least every two hours so you never get stranded in a station awaiting a train. All trains, except the heart of London commuter trains, have a place for bikes. While you are supposed to get a reservation for bike spots before you get on the train, they usually aren’t required.

Easy riding can be found on the Tarka Trail near Barnstaple in Devon. Even beginners can handle the fifteen mile converted train right of way. The ride follows a river from the sea up to Greater Torrington where it is more like a big stream bubbling over a low water dam. Birds are abundant as are walkers and runners.
The New Forest is also fairly flat but the gravel roads are not well marked so, even with a map, a short ride can become a long one. Even with lots of other day trippers present there is a great feeling of solitude. Riding along you pass hundreds of grazing wild horses who ignore your presence.
The Isle of Wight makes a great destination because of the endless variety there. Seaside cliffs, country lanes, and stately ruins are easy day trips out from typical British coastal resort towns with their piers and carnivals. British families flock to similar coastal resorts all around England. A bed and breakfast on a farm is a quieter choice. I find the sound of bleating sheep preferable to bellowing teenagers.

The Cornwall and Devon coasts are spectacular but demanding. At the top of every hill are breathtaking coastal views. At the bottom of each sets quaint villages on beaches awash with cool ocean water.
Land’s End is the best known Cornwall destination but Cape Cornwall near St. Just is really a better place to look out over the Atlantic. Likewise I’d choose little Portreath or Perranporth over more famous St. Ives or Newquay.
In Devon, Lynton and Lynmouth with their connecting tram rail line do live up to expectations. Croyde and Saunton with its great sand beach are great places often overlooked by American tourists. Devon’s drawback for cyclists is that it’s north coast doesn’t have villages every five miles like you find along the south coast of England.
From the train station in Salisbury it is a beautiful ride up the tiny Avon River valley to Stonehenge. A walk along the Itchen River flowing through Winchester is an equally nice find.
Dartmouth and Cawsand are small South coast villages set on steep hillsides. They offer solitude from busy city life. You really don’t need a bike at either one. Boat rides up the River Dart or across the bay to Plymouth are great day trips from these towns.

With your bike and a rail pass you can open up miles of adventure or quiet rides in the country side. You choose how far to ride whether on your bike or on the train.



You can ship your own bike over for around fifty dollars each way or rent a bike there for $10-15 dollars per day. Most rental bikes don’t have the necessary racks for carrying your cloths, etc., making the hassle of shipping your bike worth the trouble.

755 words written in January, 1998, about travel in July and August, 1997, by:

Bob Hyten, Jr.
1025 Randle St.
Edwardsville,IL, 62025-1339
(618) 656-4105

ROME, Where all the nuns have gone.

I guess you could say I’ve been planning to go to Rome since 1972. My first trip to Europe included Northern Italy ... Pisa, Florence, Venice, and my grandfather’s home in Malosco in the mountains above Bolzano. As soon as my son Mark became a pilot for Delta Airlines in early 1997, I began checking the availability of flights to Rome. It was nearly three years before I found seats on a flight that corresponded to days I had available.
The last couple weeks before going I read all the travel books at the library and reviewed my history books. I knew as much as there was to know about what lay ahead ... I thought. The truth is there is no way to be prepared for what Rome has to offer. It is the most spectacular place I’ve visited in my many years of travel. The buildings are bigger, the paintings more moving, the sculptures more realistic, and the people friendlier than any city in the world. If you are only going to take one vacation in your life, make it Rome.
I began my journey by driving over to Indianapolis where Mark lives. Since it is his perk at Delta that allows me to travel so much, I thought it only appropriate that he knew my plans beforehand and would be the first to share my stories and pictures upon return. On the way over I listen to a Berlitz Italian tape twice through. That, and reviewing the phrases in my travel books, would be the extent of my knowledge of Italian. That bit of knowledge would be supplemented with my less-than-stellarability to speak Spanish which is in some ways close to Italian.
The flight down to Atlanta left Indy an hour late but it gave me a chance to meet an American-born monk, Father Michael Farrell, who was returning to his mountain-top abbey in Italy. We got to talk in Indy, Atlanta, and on the plane. We talked more about our lives than Italy because the nature of is monastic life is that of solitude, not travel.
We arrived a half hour late at Rome’s Fiumicino airport which lies along the Mediterranean twenty mile west of the city. Within 45 minutes I was through customs, had exchanged money, bought a one week Metro/bus pass, and was sitting on the train into the city.

At the airport it costs L7500 to exchange any amount of money. At L1850 per dollar that amounts to 4% on a $100 exchange. The rate around the train station in town, Termini, is 2% on traveler’s checks and 1% on cash. The problem is that you probably need lira (L) to pay for the train into the city. Actually you can pay with a credit card if the machine is working, but it wasn’t. Unless you are going directly to Termini you also need to buy a week’s Metro/bus pass (L24,000) right there at the nearby tobacco shop ... and they don’t seem to take credit cards.
There are two types of trains into the city. The express train costing L16000 goes straight to Termini station, the hub of Rome’s transportation network, in thirty minutes. If you miss the hourly train you’ll probably get there quicker on the local Metropolitana service.
The trice hourly Metropolitana into the city (L8000) can, depending on where you are going, be a bit more complicated than taking the express train. Any way you go requires some train changing unless you elect to have a taxi deliver you from the Termini express to your hotel’s doorstep. What ever way you choose, it would be a good idea to take time to stop at the Termini to change money at the best rate.

As I boarded the train I noticed that, as usual, I was going against the flow. All the other tourists were heading for the express train while I and a lot of young Italians were boarding the local. To get where I was staying in Rome required me to get off the Metropolitana at the Ostiense station which is the sixth stop. From there I walked into the adjacent Metro station, Piramide, where I took the Metro B line into Termini ... getting there at the same time the later-leaving express train did.
Before arriving at Ostiense I saw a huge dome over to the right and thought it must be my first siting of St. Peter’s. The joke was on me because upon closer view it turned out to be either a very badly designed modern church or a nuclear reactor.
At Termini I switched to the Metro A line. To get to my hotel, I had to follow signs for the Valle Aurella direction. Some signs say Valle Aurella-San Pietro. The Metro is always busy but during the day there’s a pretty good chance of finding a seat. In no time I was at the Ottaviano exit. It was a little further from my destination than the Cipro station but offered a much better introduction to the streets of Rome. The fifteen minute walk took me by every type of shop and snack bar imaginable. Being nearly noon, the streets were teaming with people most of whom were locals.
I wasn’t sure how far I would have to walk or if my map even showed all the streets. Coming out of the Metro I noticed signs pointing to St. Peter’s/San Pietro so I followed them. I was glad the signs were there because coming out of any underground station can be disorientating, especially on a cloudy day. The signs continued but weren’t very big or logically located. A couple blocks later I noticed a new sign for the Vatican Museum/Museo which I thought was across the street from my destination. After making what turned out to be my last turn, I knew I was getting close because I kept passing nuns on the street.

I was heading for the convent Paolo VI, home of the Little Sisters or Nuns of the Sacred Family/ Picccole Suore della Sacra Famiglia at 92 Via Vaticano which was to be my home in Rome. I arrived there just after noon, an hour and twenty minutes after the train left the airport.

I had read a book, Bed and Blessings, which told of the many convents offering economical rooms around Italy. It picked Paolo VI because it was near the Vatican which I knew would occupy a couple days of my time. There were a dozen in Rome for under $50 per night.

A couple weeks before I had sent them a fax requesting a room. I had received a reply saying rooms were available ... I think ... and something else that I couldn’t translate. It turns out that was a important piece of information because it requested that I return a fax confirming my intentions. I quickly realized that when the old nun who ushered me into the vestibule began conferring urgently with another nun who had an air of organization about her.

*
LITTLE SISTERS’ CONVENT

None of the nuns spoke the slightest bit of English and my attempts at substituting Spanish for Italian ... which I was counting on to help me communicate over the next few days ... didn’t raise much more recognition. There were more than a few nervous minutes while I waited. I diverted my worries by watching them sign in a man who had arrived just ahead of me. When he completed his registration they handed me a card which I took to mean that I had a room.
And what a nice room it was. The sisters live in a building at No.92 Via Vaticano and rent out rooms next door in No.94. The final steps in the renovation of that building were under way ... a new elevator.
My room was big and bright with twin beds and a desk. The floors were shining marble tiles and new fixtures illuminated the room. The bathroom was next door ... and as it turned out, a somewhat private one as the only other occupants of the floor resided in a caretaker’s suite. Flanking the entry hall was a kitchen and a TV lounge. A key was required for the front gate and another for the front door. All in all, quite a bargain for L50,000 or $28 a night.

By one o’clock I was out the door for what was to be a five hour walk ... my shortest day of the trip. I caught the Metro and went back two stations to Flamingo which, if you turn the right way, gets you to Plaza/Piazza del Popolo. By 1:30 I was sitting at the base of a column eating fresh bread (a pan rosetta) and cheese. I was also trying to drink something awful which I think was called Chino. It was a beautiful 65 degree day.
The whole time I was there it was between 55 and 65 degrees depending on how sunny it was ... and it stayed over 50˚ all through December and January. Despite the the mild temperatures the favorite article of clothing for Italians seemed to be the leather coat ... black or brown, long or short, on men and women. They had to be really hot ... particularly on the subway.
There weren't too many people in Piazza del Popolo so I mistakenly thought the tourist season to be over. There were some young German kids in their obligatory black clothes. Shopping for them must really be easy ... just get something black and cheap and save the rest for cigarettes.
Towering over one end of the plaza is Mont Pincio. Well maybe towering is a bit strong but there were a lot of steps to climb to get up there. It was a nice view in which I could see the Vatican off in the distance ... but I still wasn’t directionally orientated. Later St. Peter’s dome would be a handy reference point.
Mont Pincio isn’t part of Park/Villa Borghese but it seems like it when you are on foot. Villa Borghese is a big park without a single sign to point you toward any of its features. I wandered by the modern art museum and zoo, stopping to inquire about a road race in progress. I found the Museo Borghese but it was about to close. Then I found the finish line of the race which turned out to be a five person relay. Competition didn’t look too good. By then my injured achilles, which just days before seemed nearly healed after three months off from running, hurt so bad I could hardly walk ... and I had four days to go.
It was all down hill from there to Piazza di Spagna and the famous Spanish Steps. I came into the area at the front of Trinitá dei Monti, a church at the top of the steps. While it would be untrue to say any church I saw was less than very interesting, this one was one of the lessor of Rome’s ecclesiastic examples. The steps on the other hand which are much taller than pictures make them seem ... 144 steps I think ... were memorable ... mostly because of the mob of people occupying them. You had to carefully pick your way up or down. The street extending out from the steps, Via Condotti, was also jammed. There must have been 5000 people in the area. I thought it was the off season, but there is no way any more people could have been in the area.
I hung around till dark watching the mating rituals of young Italian men. They may be great lovers but they sure look silly as they try to maneuver themselves into position to get a chance to be lovers. One tradition that I saw that I would not attempt was drinking out of the Fountain/Fontana Barcaccia. The guide books say the water is safe but I don’t drink water that people walk through before drinking.

There is a Metro station right under the Spanish Steps ... well at least a station entrance ... it was a long walk underground to the train. Coming out of Ottaviano I passed up a lot of little stand-up eating places thinking I’d try one of the restaurants near the convent. It turns out nearly all of them were closed. I never did figure out if they only sought the day time trade generated by the nearby Vatican Museum or if they were on some kind of break before a late supper hour. Every day I was too tired and hungry to wait for a late supper.
The only place I found open was Fanzi’s Bar where I ordered tortolini from their “special” menu. At L15,000/$8+ it was about as cheap a meal as you’ll find in Rome. I suspect the tortolini had been frozen, but they were nonetheless quite good. What I don’t like is Italian salads. Their only dressing is plain olive oil which is neither tasty or comfortable to the palate.
Back at the convent I began a nightly ritual of sitting in the kitchen area writing in my diary. I usually spent an hour writing in addition to various amounts of time talking to other guests ... which is of course why I selected there to write. By 9:30 I had showered, read a bit, and was too tired to extend the day ... I don’t really sleep on the plane on trips over to Europe so I basically miss a night’s sleep.

*
ST. PETER’S BASILICA

I slept well till 5:30, then just laid there till 7:20. By 8:30 I was on my way to St. Peter’s for both Sunday mass and its tourist attractions. Waiting for nine o’clock mass I walked around the massive structure ... the world’s largest church with a capacity of 60,000 ... looking at incredible statues of long-gone popes as rays of sunlight streaked across golden mosaics and marble pontiffs. Michelangelo’s famous Pietá sits a niche differentiated only by the bullet-proof screen that protects it.
Mass for the general public was held behind the great Baldicchino covered altar at which the Pope says mass. St. Peter’s is one of those settings where sagging religious beliefs are rejuvenated. It’s just beyond belief that medieval man could have managed soaring structures such as this. I sometimes wonder if modern man could manage the technical part of it even with his computers. The majesty and beauty is something else again. The hand of God is seen at very turn ... in dark niches, sun drenched arches, and domes which reach to the sky.
After mass I climbed up the 448 foot high dome which caps St. Peter’s. L7000 allows you the privilege of climbing some 1000 plus steps up toward Heaven ... although it was Hell climbing up them. For an extra L1000 you can take an elevator to the roof of the basilica’s front elevation, but those first 300 or so steps are the easy ones.
About half way up inside the cupola you come out onto an inside balcony at the spring line of the dome. People on the floor of the church look like ants. I think I’ve flown in planes that were lower than that balcony. Then it was on up steep steel stairs to the very top of the dome. A narrow viewing area holds forty or fifty people so tightly backed that the thought of falling off never occurs to you.
It was at this point that I finished my first role of film and proceeded to break it while trying to get it out of the camera. Panoramic views and sunlight streaming into the interior, all gone. By the time I reloaded the camera, clouds had rolled in and drab retakes resulted. You’ll just have to take my word that I saw all those great sunlit scenes.
Back on the roof I discover a recent addition ... rest rooms for the weary tourist. They were no doubt necessitated by Frenchmen trying to make the gargoyles work ... there is some element of English in my makeup that causes me to continually make disparaging remarks about Frogs, I mean Frenchmen.
Back inside the basilica I was blocked from a small chapel inhabited by a multitude of elderly cardinals, the church’s leaders. I hoped they were awaiting the arrival of the Pope, but alas another cardinal arrived to officiate the mass. It’s always possible that I saw among the red vestmented clergy the next pope, but I’ll never know.
I was amazed how many different accents I heard at St. Peter’s, no one of which dominated. I also couldn’t help but again notice how many nuns were among the crowds. With what few nuns there are left in America disguised by ordinary street cloths, you seldom notice them. In Rome I would see young and old nuns; black, white and yellow nuns; nuns dressed in black, gray, blue and white; nuns in long skirts and nuns in short skirts and Nikes. I guess I should have expected to see so many since Rome, or rather the Vatican, is the seat of the Catholic Church, but I was still surprised. At times I had the feeling that all the nuns in the world were hanging out in Rome.
By eleven I was moving away from St. Peter’s, first enjoying the immense plaza in front of it, then turning back frequently as I walked down Via della Conciliazione, the broad boulevard that connects St. Peter’s and Castel Sant’ Angelo, the home of the Renaissance popes. The great crowds weren’t the only sign that I was in a world class tourist area. It cost me L6000/$3.25 to get a Coke to drink with my bread and cheese lunch.
Castel Sant’ Angelo is an impressive mass ... obviously a fortress. Situated on the Tiber River, over the ages it has been a symbol of the power of Rome ... or where Rome went to hide when the invaders came. In the end its simplicity as a fortress ... really just a massive pile of rock sheathed in brick ... makes it a less than stellar tourist attraction. I felt the L10,000 entrance fee was the only one of the many I paid that wasn’t fully worth it. Ironically the most interesting things there were the models showing what Sant’ Angelo looked like at various stages of its life. From its beginnings in 139 AD as Hadrian’s mausoleum till 1557 when the last of the ramparts were built to protect the embattled popes who resided there, it was just layer piled upon layer.

*
FROM CASTEL SANT’ ANGELO

Actually Castel Sant’ Angelo sits along side the street Via della Conciliazione. Its main approach is from across the Tiber on Bridge/Ponte Sant’ Angelo. It is a nice structure, spoiled by the presence of shoulder to shoulder vendors who only break ranks to harass tourists. On this day, as a slight rain began to fall, they all suddenly became umbrella salesmen who didn’t seem to recognize that a person such as myself who was carrying an umbrella might not be in the market for another one.
Across the bridge I began following an AT&T walking tour pamphlet. I have no idea where I got the 1989 copyrighted map but it was really a good one. Over the following days I ended up walking three of the four tours which got me past most of the hot spots. I did do the walks the hard way though because all the walks assumed you were staying at a hotel right in the middle of things, not in a convent by the Vatican. I was constantly rotating the map back and forth as I tread the routes backward. Oh well ... I guess I wouldn’t be a tourist if I weren’t twirling a map around constantly.
Via del Coronari is a very narrow lane with blocks and blocks of antique shops and art galleries. You could probably easily spend a day there ... and easily spend all your lottery winnings. I kept walking in order to avoid depression ... and overly friendly, gay sales people.

At Piazza Navona I had my first encounter with the most prominent architectural feature of 1999 Rome, scaffolding. I had been warned by a steward on the flight over that the entire city has being cleaned in preparation for Jubilee 2000, a church holy year celebration. The entire west side of the Plaza was obscured by scaffolds ... and as I would find out later, parts of practically everything else in Rome. I hadn’t noticed at first because apparently St. Peter’s has first call on all the workers and it was finished ... gleaming, bright and shiny. As the week passed I noted that it must be illegal for more than one person to occupy a scaffold ... and when two or more scaffolds are within sight of each other, only one person can actually be working at any given time. Unemployment won’t be a problem in the next few years as one man working alone with a scrub brush cleaning a ten story facade will probably be busy for some time to come.
The center piece of Piazza Navona is Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers, one of his many around Rome. It was drained and surrounded by a fence which mercifully had a few glass panels affording glimpses of the statuary. By the time I left the plaza the light rainfall had stopped and the rest of the day was cloudy but pleasant.
A couple zigs and a zag later, down narrow streets, I popped out into Piazza della Rotonda. The rotunda is that of the famous Pantheon which overshadows the smallish plaza. The Pantheon is closed on Sundays so all I could do to enjoy it this day was sit on one of its massive column bases. Each base was occupied as was every chair in the many sidewalk cafes around the plaza and yet this place didn’t seem too crowded. It was if everyone there was doing just what the creators of the space had intended.
Of course I doubt that they had intended that there be a McDonald’s on the corner. Breaking my own rule ... which is to avoid American chains overseas ... I got a Coke and ice cream cone. Even though they could, McDonald’s never gouges on prices. Besides I needed something to supplement my cheese sandwich and wash away the taste of that $3 Coke I had earlier.
I had a nice long break at the plaza ... and so did everyone else there. We all needed to rest our weary feet and consult our travel guides to locate our next destination.

For my trip I had created my own guide book by copying pages from several guide books including my favorite, Lonely Planets, as well as a bit from my architectural history books. I had with me Essential Rome and the Passport Illustrated Guide to Rome, both of which are very good. When I got home again I discovered the best ever guide book for Rome, Eyewitness Travel Guides: Millennium Edition: Rome. Its got walking routes, opening times, bus routes, Metro lines, and tourist tips ... great!
I read the backgrond history of the places I visit in order to set a time frame or historical context. I read a lot of travel books, especially the type that weaves history, culture, and people into the sites visited. Sometimes the author quotes what he considers pertinent writings to emphasize a point. In the same vane he might try to explain motivations of the creator of masterpeice in front of him.
When I stand in front of a great painting or inside a magnificent church I never find myself trying to analize the motivations of the artist or architect. I marvel at the creation and the talent of its creator but find no need to question his thought process during that creation. I am so captivated by the genius that I feel no need to question it.
It seems to me that trying to explain genius is really trying to diminish it to a level to which we can individually relate. We can’t be Michealangelo or DiVinci or Bernini. All we can do is hope to be uplifted by the results of their genius. It’s enough to know their work is a step beyond. Even if we could put ourselves in their place at the moment of creation, it would not enhance the joy of observing the result.
Whether it is the work of a master or the work of nature ... the English coast, the Costa Rican rain forest, or the birds in my back yard ... full enjoyment comes not from explaining it but from savouring it. It’s OK to say “Wow!” to yourself ... to take a deep breath and close your eyes. It’s more important to lock to vision into your heart then the “why” into your mind.

Just down the street was the Sant’ Ignazio di Loyola but it too was closed. Even though it was Sunday, the church was closed from 12:30 to 4:00, the traditional Italian lunch break.
My route crossed Via del Corso, one of the main streets of Rome, where I noticed some bus stops. My sore achilles needed more rest so I hopped on the first bus whose route seemed to be circular. Where ever I travel I use busses for rest breaks ... breaks that end up being explorations into areas that I would not otherwise seen. Sometimes I find really neat stuff, and other times just a bit of city flavor, but never disappointment. In this case we passed the big Emanuel Monument which is on every tour and then the Largo di Arentina archeological digs to which I thought I might return later.
We stopped along the Tiber River just across from the Island/Isola Tiberina. While the bus driver awaited his assigned leaving time, I walked across the Ponte Fabrico, the oldest bridge across the Tiber, built in 62 BC, to the tiny island. I didn’t stay long because I feared that it might sink under the weight of the scaffolds which enclosed the whole place.
Back on the bus, we left immediately ... as if it were my own private taxi ... to retrace our route back to Via Corso. Getting off the bus I saw the Piazza Colonna which was on a walk I didn’t intend to take. One side of the plaza is the Galleria. The former shopping arcade had been converted into a exhibition space which was featuring a Salvador Dalí art exhibit. I thought real hard before putting down L15,000 to see the works of an artist that I wasn’t really sure I even liked. In the end I decided it was a once in a lifetime chance to see works of a man historians and critics rate as genius. For the most part his work did rate as special ... especially bad, or at least weird. Dalí seemed more interested in shock value than artistic value. I did see a couple techniques that seem so simple that even I might be able to accomplish them if I were to try.
In the end one piece made it all worth while, “Hommage a Terpsichore”. It was composed of two sculptures of women about five feet tall. One was a dark cubist image. The other an unbelievably elegant figure in gleaming bronze. It was a modern answer to the sensuality of Bernini’s figures. I guess Dalí was truly an artist even if the majority of his life’s work is crap.
Along a narrow street nearby I found the store that I look for on every trip ... the one that sells knock-off soccer team jerseys. This little hole in the wall shop had them from all around the world ... and they only cost $8-10 each. While friends back home were buying their St. Louis Rams shirts, I was buying Roma, Lazio, and Fiorentina ‘fotbol’ shirts.

Around a couple more corners was the most famous fountain in all the world, Trevi ... drained and covered with scaffolding. I think this was my biggest disappointment even though I was able to discern an interesting detail ... the fountain’s sculpture “grows” out of the walls of the building behind it. There is a neat little church, Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio, overlooking the small, crowded plaza. I sat in its dark interior, reading for a few minutes.
On my way again, I heard a band somewhere off in the distance playing marches. Following my ears rather than the map, I climbed some long steep steps into Piazza del Quirinale which as it turns out was the next stop on my walking tour. The Quirinal is one of the seven hills of Rome, thus the steps. Facing the plaza is the Palace/Palazzo del Quirinale built by 16th century popes to take advantage of the healthy “mountain” air. It is now the President’s palace ... and the navy band was serenading in front of it. I just caught the end of a Sunday afternoon tradition.
While standing there I observed a most unusual phenomenon in the skies over the Vatican. Millions of blackbirds ... I assume ... were swirling around in the sky creating an ever-changing pattern. It was sort of like a light show against the darkening clouds. By the time the concert ended, the sun was setting and the temperature dropping ... it was after all, November.
Walking down the side street thinking my day was over, I noticed a small church, just casually mentioned on my walking map. Sant’ Andrea al Quirinale was my “find” of the trip. Sure, it was on the map, so I didn’t really “find” it. It’s just that I knew nothing about it. Maybe it was mentioned in one of my architectural history classes forty years ago, but I didn’t remember it.
It was designed by the multi-talented Bernini who surely must be the equal of the more famous Michelangelo. An oval, not more than 40 x 80, it is taller than it is wide. The beautiful dome has cherubs peeking out from the top ring and angels astride the lower windows. The altar piece is vintage Bernini. Its unique roseate marble leads it to being called “The Pearl of the Baroque”. Sant’ Andrea is as awe inspiring as St. Peter’s even though the whole place isn’t as big as a side altar in the grand basilica.
Set into each ot the building on the next corner are fountains ... thus the street on to Piazza Barberini is called Via Quattro Fontane/Four Fountains Street. This area is probably the heart of the tourist district ... lots of hotels and shops. Barberini was a disappointment. Maybe it was the touristy look or maybe it was the busses racing through it ... what ever, I didn’t like it. I continued on in a light rain to the top of the Spanish Steps. Rain or not, the steps were again ... or maybe still ... packed with fun seekers. I was too tired and cold to hang around.
I got on the Metro from there and went back to Ottaviano. Again I couldn’t find a satisfactory restaurant even though I walked clear up to the next Metro station, Cipro, ... which I discovered was actually closer to the convent. I ended up at a Chinese restaurant about three blocks from the convent. While it was open, there wee no customers. The staff was gathered around a table eating their own supper and playing a game of dominoes. I had a filling meal of sweet and sour pork ... slightly different in every Chinese restaurant, but nevertheless a safe choice. After finishing I sat there, rereading my guide books, planning the next day. By the time I left Rome I’ll bet I had read every page at least twice and some of the maps a couple dozen times.

By 6:30 I was at a table in the convent’s kitchen writing in my diary. I couldn’t believe it was only 6:30, but ten hours of being a tourist is hard work. As I wrote, a family, the Del Signores, came in to prepare their supper. They shared their desert of parmasian cheese slices with me. That’s an incredible taste ... one my grandpa used to share with me in my preteen years in the basement of his home while he prepared meals on “his” stove.
The mother, Tiziana, spoke about as much English as I speak Spanish, but we all managed a nice conversation. They were in Rome to have one of their two sons, Alberto, tested to find out why he still wasn’t talking at age four. Each day they filled me in on the batteries of tests he underwent ... without obvious results.
As I did each night I read a couple chapters from a book about two teenagers flying alone across America in a Piper Cub. My son Mark recommended it. Later comparing thoughts he would comment on technical flying problems encountered and I on people and places encountered. It is amazing how different the same place can be from two different perspectives. I’m sure Rome would seem entirely different to you, but I’m just as sure you would be as overwhelmed as I was.
That night I woke up at 2:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep. That never happens to me. At 3:30 I took a Tylenol PM. I heard it rain, but my room was so quiet that I never heard any traffic. When I next looked at my watch it was ten o’clock. I hadn’t slept past 8:30 in twenty years.

I had intended to go to the Vatican Museum that day but by eleven the line waiting to get in snaked around the corner and out of sight. There had to be two or three thousand people in line. Luckily my planning the night before in the Chinese restaurant had been for two days ahead , so it was off to the Forum ... by way of Santa Maria Maggiore and San Giovanni di Laterano.
Santa Maria Maggiore isn’t far from the Termini station. It’s a very city-like area ... lots of traffic, pedestrians with cell phones, and ditch diggers leaning on shovels ... and the occasional nun. There is no plaza in front of it in which to casually stroll ... just traffic. In the midst of the hubbub stands the huge church, probably bigger than any in America. The highlight has to be the golden ceiling, gilded with gold brought back from the Americas by Christopher Columbus himself if tradition is to be believed.
I began walking toward San Giovanni di Laterano but a passing bus cured me of that idea. Standing for ten minutes on the crowded bus as it crept through traffic cured me of that idea too. I got off three blocks from the church and the bus never caught up with me.
The entrance seemed to be a bit strange ... kind of in a corner. Once inside I realized it was only the side door. San Giovanni is even bigger than Santa Maria. I would have never thought a ceiling could be more spectacular than Santa Maria, but this one was ... at least the third not covered by scaffolding was incredible. It’s a shame that both these great churches were pretty much devoid of tourists.

*
ST. JOHN’S LATERANO

I caught a bus to the Baths/Terme di Caracalla ... and they were closed on Monday. I walked toward the Colosseum/Colosseo with a British couple ... one of only two long conversations I had in English when I was there. You don’t have to speak Italian to get along in Rome. Everyone that you have to deal with can at least tell you the price in English. Few places I’ve been are so tourist friendly.
It does help break the ice when you try to speak the local language. It seems to me that everyone is so surprised to hear an American even trying to speak another language that they make an extra effort to communicate with me. My limited knowledge of Spanish really did help though. Italian and Spanish are close enough to each other that using a Spanish word usually got me a nod of understanding. I would guess that virtually every sentence I spoke while in Rome contained all three languages ... and not always on purpose.
When you catch your first glance of the Colosseum/Colosseo it is quite a thrill. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because it is one of the most recognizable icons for the ancient world. I don’t think I stood any place, outside or inside, that I didn’t recognize from a picture. Still, there was this tremendous sense of awe being there ... just as there was being in many of Rome’s famous sites. I kept thinking how everything was so much better than I had pictured it being.

*
THE COLOSSEUM

As I sat eating my lunch in a little niche high up in the slave’s seats, I heard guides telling what I’m sure was the same story in at least a half dozen languages ... and even more in different English accents. The phrase “English speaking guide” should not be taken to mean that you’ll be able to understand a word your guide is saying. Among the throngs were five black nuns ... Ethiopian maybe ... whom I think were the same ones whom had been in mass Sunday.
The only thing I can say negative about the Colosseum is that it is surrounded on three sides by busy city streets with very fast moving traffic. You can’t casually observe it from a distance, nor can you just back up until the whole thing is in the frame of your picture.
While I was circling it I noticed a sign for Nero’s House/Domas Aurea up on the Esquiline hill. When I got up there I decided, based on what I had read about it, L12,000 was too expensive. I think it was the only time I didn’t just pay what ever it cost to see a place.
Next came one of the two periods of lost-tourist-syndrome that I was to suffer through during my trip. From the top of the Colosseum I had seen a back entrance up to the Roman Forum from near Constantine’s Arch. As I completed circling the Colosseum I saw what I thought was another back entrance on the corner in front of me. It turned out to be an employee entrance. Once up to it, rather than turn back, I walked on toward the main gate.

All along Via del Fori Imperiali there were continuous excavations. It seems they are finding another level of city below the Forum which itself had been unearthed beginning in the early 1700s. Where I thought the main gate was supposed to be was instead a parking lot full of construction trailers, so I walked a few blocks on around to the west end of the Forum.
Looking back from there I noticed people walking up a ramp near where had I thought the main gate should be. Dazed and confused I started doubling back. Sure enough, in behind the trailers was an opening in the fence ... no guards; no ticket takers; just a pathway into the Forum.

*
THE FORUM

Once inside the Forum/Foro Romano I wasn’t any better orientated than I had been on the outside. My maps were useless. I listened in on group guides speaking in Indian-English and Italian-English. I realized I’d never cover the whole place before sunset if I stayed with any of them, so I just set out to enjoy it as a visual experience.
Near the back gate was the entrance to the Palatine Hill where I ended up paying the entrance fee which hadn’t been collected at the front gate. With no signs and many piles of ruins, I felt a bit like a rat in a maze. You really need a guide book specifically for the Forum, especially if you want to know the history of it all ... or you could break down and hire a guide ... probably the best idea. The most interesting areas of the Palatine Hill seemed to be fenced off ... or were they only interesting because they were fenced off?
Standing here and there amongst the rubble that is the Forum, there are a few more-or-less intact pieces of the past. A gigantic section of wall from Basilica of Constantine and Maxentius, the portico of the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, and the few remaining columns of the Temple of Saturn and the Temple of Castor and Pollux are the focal point of many pictures of the Forum ... later that night the temple columns were spectacularly bathed in lights.

Via del Fori Imperiali is a six lane street that runs right through the middle of what had been the heart of Imperial Rome. On the other side of this busy thoroughfare are the Forum of Augustus, the Forum of Caesar and Trajan’s Market. By themselves in another city they would be the center of attraction but here they are but a sideshow to Foro Romano. I sat a while in the shadow of Trajan’s Column ... or a least where the shadow would have been in the morning.
The overwhelming presence there was the Victor Emmanuel II Monument. All sorts of derogatory things have been said about the massive structure honoring the first king of unified Italy ... did you know that Italy didn’t become the country that we know today until 1870? There is even talk of tearing it down. I don’t think its problem is how looks bu t rather that it overwhelms all the Imperial Roman sites nearby. In some ways it is their Lincoln Memorial and yet its museum is closed and you can’t even climb its stairs to read its inscriptions.
Behind it is the Capitoline Hill ... actually it is notched into this sacred site. On the very top of the hill are the Capitoline Museums and Santa Maria in Ara Coeli /St. Mary of the Altar of the Sky. As I stood at the foot of the Aracoeli, the 125 steps which led up to it, it seemed as though it was in the sky. I was so tired by that time that I had to stop half way up.
The outside won’t attract anyone because all its decorative marble has long ago been stripped off leaving a plain brick facade. Inside it is a very nice church, even if poorly lit. On a side altar a woman was working in the beam of a single light restoring a painting. Her face was pressed tight up to it in concentration.
Once outside, I sat at the top of the stairs watching the sun, which had been out but an hour, set over Rome. In order to get to the Capitoline Museums you have to climb down these steps and back up a another grand staircase which had been designed by Michelangelo. At this point in my day it might as well have been designed by the devil as it was hell having to climb yet another set of stairs ... but then again, Rome is the city of seven hills. I climbed up knowing it was too late to get into the Museums, only to find I was too early. They are closed till spring for renovation. Still, they are nice buildings set on a fine plaza. Walking down the hill the back way afforded a great view of the Forum glowing in its night lights.
One of my guide books said that the night lights on the Colosseum were great so, tired or not, I set out to see them. The eight or ten blocks seemed too much to walk so decided to hop a bus. The first two that came by were so full that only a few of the many waiting people squeezed on. I decided that walking was easier than waiting and jamming. When I got there I was disappointed. The lights didn’t seem to add anything to what I had seen in daylight. Imagine my surprise when I got my pictures back and saw the absolutely beautiful picture I had taken.
My observation point was from in front of the Metro station but instead of a subway train, I caught a bus in order to see a bit more of the city. I took it to the Piazza Barberini where I caught the Metro for Ottaviano. I stopped at the grocery store and bought some minestrone soup, bread, and some Italian Little Debbie-like things for supper.

The next day I got up in time to be among the first fifty in line for the Vatican Museum ... 25 minutes before the 8:45 opening time. I passed the time talking to Argentineans in line behind me. The L18,000/$10 entry fee has to be the best bargain in Rome. I love museums and this is the best I’ve ever been in ... including the Louvre. Not only were the pieces on display great, but the buildings themselves can qualify as masterpieces. No where in the world is art displayed in a more magnificent setting. Every ceiling is painted with frescoes. Every wall set with sculpture. Surely there were no starving artists while these buildings were being constructed. Maybe there would be no starving artists today if they were creating works of art rather than pieces evoking sensation and scandal.
This is another place that would be better seen with a major guide book in hand. Not knowing the layout I headed straight for the Sistine Chapel figuring correctly that it would be overrun later in the day. Even with hardly a stop, it took nearly a half hour to get there. The Chapel, which is probably 40 x 150, is covered with incredible paintings ... so many in fact that I felt it was a bit much. Everyone of them was good enough to deserve a room of its own. Being one of the first there I was able to sit quietly and take it all in at my own pace. When I came back later it was so full of people that you could hardly breath, and ushers were forcing people through to the back door.
Later, looking at pictures of the Chapel before its restoration, I couldn’t believe how much its look had changed. Centuries of candle soot had dulled into an entirely different experience.
The rest of my time in the museum was a bit of a muddle. First I back-tracked against the ever increasing flow of tourists. Then I seemed to be going through galleries for a second and third time. Reading a detailed guide later I would guess that I might have seen almost everything, albeit on the run.
I’m not sure what I liked most. The ceiling in the 200 foot long map gallery was completely covered with four to ten foot, self-framed frescoes ... and I found my ancestral home, the Val di Non, on one of the 16th Century maps on the walls. The Raphael Rooms are are named for the famous painter’s works painted on the walls. Hundreds of Roman busts lined one gallery and the Pinacoteca has some of the world’s most famous paintings. The seldom mentioned modern art section had some really great stuff by people I didn’t know but probably should.
When I got back near the entrance/exit about one o’clock, the final two galleries were closed. I don’t know if that was because of work in progress or the proximity to the one o’clock closing of the ticket window. I wonder how long you get to look around if you buy the last ticket. As it was, four and a half hours was a rushed tour for me ... though without a guide book there probably wasn’t much more I could have gotten out of it that day.

On the way to taking up one of my walking tours I had a salami sandwich made in a grocery. It turned out to be the first of three I would have. Man, is that good eating. Fresh Italian bread; great Milano hard salami ... and all for L2000/$1.10.
I went back to Piazza del Popolo and left along a different route, Via del Corso. This too is an area of nicer shops. Along the way was another nice, unnoted church, Santi Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso. The Mausoleum of Augustus and the Ara Pacis were both closed. I chose not to walk down Via Condotti towards the Spanish Steps because the steps and the street were still jammed with tourists. I went on down Via del Corso till I got to Piazza Colonna where I took some back streets to the Pantheon.
Going back there in order to get inside was certainly a wise move. The Pantheon is a powerful space. At 140 feet in diameter and the same height, you might dismiss it as just a big building until you realize it was built in 118 AD. The poured concrete dome is six feet thick and the supporting walls sixteen feet wide. It is lit by an open hole in the ceiling, an oculus. Built as a temple to all the Roman gods, it became a church in 609. While still a church, today its visitors treat it more as a public space ... and what a space it is. In telling you of my travels, I’m trying to be a writer and yet it is sometimes impossible to find the words to describe the feeling you get in places like this ... you just have to be there.

*
THE PANTHEON

I stayed there long enough to be sure that Sant’ Ignazio di Loyola would be opened after its midday siesta. Unfortunately mostly what I got to see was just scaffolding ... the entire nave was hidden. I could see its famous “dome” ... actually a dome that never got built. Over the crossing was instead a 3-D painting so good that at a casual glance you would have thought that it was in fact a dome. It is said that if you stand at the right place, which was back amongst the scaffolding, you absolutely couldn’t tell it was just a painting ... much as you often couldn’t separate the words of its resident Jesuit priests from the truth.
I popped out onto Via del Corso and caught a bus over to Largo Argentina. It turns out that you can’t see much more on foot than you can from a bus window. The ruins, maybe the oldest in Rome, are pretty much under scaffold. I never did find any reconstruction drawings of what might have been there.
Largo Argentina is the terminus of a trolley line out to the Trastevere region, although I didn’t really know that when I boarded it ... I was tired and it was just handy. During the comfortable hour-long ride on padded seats, the sun set and I rejuvenated a bit. Back at Largo Argentina I boarded a bus for Termini where I wanted to exchange money.
The bus was so crowded that I didn’t realize that the clear sky had given way to a driving rain storm. Dashing from the bus I went almost straight into a money exchange. I got a good rate and waited out the storm which was gone as quickly as it had come. I checked out Termini before descending into the Metro.
Coming out at Ottaviano I was famished. I saw a sign pointing to a McDonald’s and thought “what the heck” ... only never found it. I walked and walked, ending up by the Vatican walls where I found a Chinese restaurant. I’m glad I did because I had a great meal of fried duck with pineapple. Its pretty pathetic that my best meal in Rome was Chinese.

(The power in my office just went off erasing an hour’s writing. Save you fool, save!)

Back at the convent the head nun showed up while I was writing. Our attempts to communicate failed so she went off to find a translator. She returned with a young female medical student who was in Rome for a week’s course of study. Together we worked out how long I’d be staying and how much I owed. They wondered how I had found the place so I gave them a copy of the page from Bed and Blessings which featured the Little Sisters’ convent. I found out that members of their order are missionary sisters serving primarily in Brazil and Angola. When stationed in Rome their only duty was to manage the hotel. I suppose being close to the Pope, the head of their church, was a reward for difficult service overseas.

By eight the next morning I was on my way to Cipro where I would catch the Metro through Termini to San Giovanni. There I would catch a bus for the Old Appian Way/Via Appia Antica. Coming out of San Giovanni I made a wrong turn by 180 degrees and ended up walking all the way to the next station ... along the New Appian Way. At the time I thought no one could understand my requests for directions but I guess it was more a matter of confusing the new and old Appian Ways ... and I didn’t know there was a new one. Back at San Giovanni it was just a block over to the #218 bus. Oh well ... harbingers of things to come.
After winding around quite a bit, the bus passed through Porta San Sebastiano out onto the Old Appian Way/Via Appia Antica. Its cobblestones may not have been the originals or even those of the 16th century restoration, but there was still ambiance ... so much so that when we suddenly swung off to the right I was taken back for a minute. Frantically checking my map, I was at a loss to know where we were headed. When I saw the Catacombs of San Callisto I jumped off the bus. I knew they were closed on Wednesday, but also that they were on the route I wanted to be on. It turned out that this was the back entrance and their front entrance was on the Old Appian Way.
I chose to retrace the bus route back to Via Appia Antica ... big mistake. The road was a very busy one with no shoulder. It took twenty or so harrowing minutes to get back to the Old Appian Way. Walking along this ancient way was even more scary. Cars flew down the narrow road which not only had no shoulders but a ten foot high wall right against it. They seemed to have no clue that this was a recommended tourist foot path.
When I finally arrived at my destination, the Catacombs of San Sebastiano, my heart fell. I knew what the backpacking couple sitting there reading a map meant. Sure enough, it was closed ... for the whole month of November. Together we determined that there was a third catacomb back by the far side of San Callisto. I now was walking the third side of the triangle that surrounded the San Callisto property ... the one that was less than a half mile long. In no time we were back to where I had started ... although by now it was an hour later.
Instead of pressing on to the catacomb, we turned left for the Fosse Ardeatine, a memorial to 335 Italians killed by occupying Nazis in 1944. The site includes the caves in which they were shot and then entombed when the site was blown up. A huge slab-like structure now covers row upon row of above ground vaults of the victims.
Less than a quarter mile away was the Catacome di Domitilla, the largest in Rome. In the end it was worth all the trouble it took to get there. Five stories of hand-dug underground caverns had contained at one time over 170,000 bodies. Our truly English speaking Polish guide made it a very interesting thirty minutes.
I was soon sitting in the road ... yes, on the road ... waiting for the bus back to town. I got off at Porta San Sebastiano for the walk over to the Baths of Caracalla. That walk, which began through the Arch/Arco di Druso, which is actually a section of the old aqueduct that supplied the Baths, was also a portion of the Old Appian Way with a bit less traffic but no more room to walk.

Baths/Terme di Caracalla isn’t too spectacular unless you can visualize the grandeur that it once was. Completed in 217 AD with a capacity of over 1600, it covered over four city blocks and was the equivalent of at least five stories high. Parts of the original tile floors remain as do tall sections of walls. Just five or six blocks from the Colosseum, on this day it was practically empty.
Coming out an hour later, I noticed a running track next to it. It reminded me of how much my achilles was hurting and made me wonder when I would ever be running again. A couple blocks over I caught a tram for Sant Paolo fouri le Mura/St. Paul’s Outside the Walls ... I thought. Turns out out the tram’s destination was Piazza Sant Paolo ... but my luck had changed.

*
ST. PAUL’S OUTSIDE THE WALLS

I ended up right next to the Pyramid/Piramide di Caius Cestius which is built astride the walls of an old cemetery ... interesting if not great. Across the street was the aptly named Piramide Metro station which is adjacent to the Ostiense Metropolitana station so I stopped in to check the schedule for airport trains ... the next day being my departure day. I also found out how to get to Sant Paolo . It was two stops down the Metro.


Two blocks from the station, Sant Paolo fouri le Mura loomed up before me. It was so big that what I took to be the whole church was merely the transcept or altar area. Inside I was again awed by the scale of it ... another huge, huge church. There were still scaffolds in it, but the main parts had already been cleaned. It has great .. worth the trip. An unusual feature is a ring of base reliefs high up under the windows which depict each of the popes right up to the present.

Back on the Metro I made my second wrong turn of the day heading out of town instead of toward the center and Termini. Two stops later I got straightened out and was on my way to Piazza Barberini. On the train was the youngest nun I had very seen ... with the shortest skirt and chunkiest hiking boots ... and a black leather jacket.
I arrived there at 3:00 just in time to gain entrance into the nearby Santa Maria della Concezione, the Roman home of the Capuchin friars. Therein resides one of the world’s most bizarre displays. There, two stories above the street, are their crypts/criptos. In them the bones of 4000 of their brother monks are ‘decoratively’ stacked to the ceilings. They are in turn decorated with still more bones. There are four crypts full of this ‘bone art’ ... art in the poorest of taste. To top it off, in the final crypt was posted the following saying: “What you are we used to be. What we are you will be.” Ugh!
Back out front I caught the #53 bus for Villa Borghese, my last stop in Rome. I may have saved the best for last without knowing it ... at least the best statuary. Included among the treasures in the Museo e Galleria Borghese are four of the most famous sculptures in all the world, one by Canova and the others by Bernini. All are alive with detail. The marble looks skin-soft and sensual. The pleats and folds intricate. I went through the main floor galleries twice, enjoying it even more the second time. I didn’t mind having to rush through the galleries of paintings before the five o’clock closing.
Considering the traffic, I decided it would be quicker to walk back toward Spagna and the Spanish Steps. Along the way I was pointed down a tunnel toward Spagna. Ramps, steps, and escalators took me down and down for what may have been a half mile walk. I ended up in the Metro station so I didn’t get to find out if the Steps were still full.
I spent the last of my lira , except for my train money and souvenir notes and coins, to buy one last salami sandwich, this time with extra meat. Back at the convent I savored every bite as I ate it along with a strange can of soup. My guess is that the main ingredient was chicken skins but I’m not sure.
I had planned to go out to see how St. Peter’s looked under its night lights but an old gentleman, Paolo, told me the lights were off in the winter. I ended up talking to him for an hour. He spoke no English but we managed to communicate somehow. It just goes to show that if you try hard enough you can get along. It turned out he lived in the north on Lake Garda and had climb the mountains near Cles in the Val di Non where my grandfather came from. By 9:30 I was back in my room packing with the satisfaction of knowing that I had crammed in as much as humanly possible during my four and half days in Rome.

I woke up twenty minutes early the next day ... and it turned out to be a good thing that I did. I couldn’t find any of the Little Sisters in order to check out. Walking up to Cipro, I passed two solitary, aged nuns ... the last I would see in Rome.
I had no trouble on the two Metro lines or the Mertopolitana train. One hour and twenty minutes after I left the convent I was in line at the airport ... in line to stay for an hour and 45 minutes. I got to the gate fifteen minutes after scheduled departure but well ahead of half the passengers. It was an hour and fifty-five minutes from the beginning of boarding to our actual take off. Experienced Rome flyers said Italians have no interest in schedules ... we were lucky to get off that early. Incidentally, it was the first day that a new international terminal had been used.
The flight back was long ... long enough to read 300 pages of a biography of Andrew Jackson ... that’s long. It was ten and a half hours in the plane’s last row surrounded by Mexicans, Italians, and a fat, irate, stupid American. Landing was indeed a happy event.






























































10470 words. Based on travel Nov. 13-18, 1999. Written by:

Bob Hyten, Jr.
1025 Randle St.
Edardsville,IL, 62025-1339
(618) 656-4105
robert_hyten@ekit.com

2009 PERU: LIMA

This is one of five blogs about my recent trip to Peru. Each corresponds to an album of pictures on my Picasa Web site:
( www.picasaweb.com/hytenjr )


Landing at a foreign airport at 11:00 pm is never a good way to begin a trip. For a country to schedule five such arrivals at nearly the same time is just plain stupid. Do they think tourists will be impressed by waiting in line an hour to clear customs? ... that people will think ”Look at all the people trying to get in the country. I'm lucky to be here.“ The only good I got out of the wait was a warning not to drink the water.
My hostel had sent Christian to pick me up from the Lima airport. He was a young professional, not a cab driver. It was the first time that I ever had an English speaking person as my first contact in a Latin country. The wait at customs was soon forgotten as Christian told me about Peru... a good start after all.
When I arrive in a country in the daylight I usually take a local bus from the airport. It pretty much follows a straight line to the city center taking two or three times as long as a cab ride ... for a tenth or a hundredth the cost. When you take a cab you twist and turn so often you often wonder if you are going in circles. Probably you are just avoiding traffic. At night, with no sun as a reference point And no traffic on the streets, you are at a complete loss as to where you are going ... a much bigger worry than the crazy guy who just got on the bus.
The Kokopelli Hostel was a great find on the internet. The rooms were newly furnished and the staff was the friendliest I have ever encountered at a hostel. The actual owners seemed to be available all the time. Every night they presided over activities in the rooftop bar.
It was fairly quiet for a place just a block from a couple of Lima’s busiest streets. Those street were along side of Parque Kennedy in Miraflores which is the upbeat, tourist area of Lima. The park was a great place to be day or night. About a half mile down the street was Lima’s oceanfront parks. I spent a lot of time in those two places doing nothing ... a lot more time doing nothing than I usually do.
Lima sits high up on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It sounds like an ideal setting but it isn’t. Because the city is squeezed between the ocean and the Andes Mountains it is almost always shrouded by a thick cover of clouds. Cool winds off the cold ocean currents collide with the mountains but are unable to flow over their heights. Clear days are rare and didn’t occur while I was there. With no sun and a constant wind even 65-70 degree days are a bit uncomfortable.
The city’s seven million people are spread out for miles along the base of the mountains. Traffic was terrible even though car ownership is still low there. Over half the vehicles on the road were taxis or busses and yet the streets were jammed. No traffic laws are obeyed by anyone. Speed was of the essence. Lane changes required but a car length plus a meter. A horn honk replaced a look at blind corners. At night we never stopped for a single red light or stop sign. A young cab driver ask me if I liked the way he drove ... Sure! Yeah! Right!
The old heart of the city is referred to as Lima as opposed to Miraflores or other named neighborhoods. A busy commercial walking street joins two major plazas. On one, Plaza de Armas, stands the seat of government and the Cathedral. Nearby San Francisco church was the most interesting place I visited in Lima.
Museo de La Nacion, is located nowhere near anything ... unless the cab driver drove in circles to get there. It is one of the worst history museums I have ever been in ... and I visit every one I possibly can. It is a huge modern building of good design with practically no exhibits.
As you may have gathered by now, Lima does rank as a recommend city in my book.
Other than sitting in parks, the only real fun I had was going to a bullfight. It wasn’t fun watching a bull get tormented and killed. Nor was it fun watching 12 year old matador get knocked over five or six times by a bull and finally carried off ... he couldn’t kill the bull because he wasn’t strong enough to drive a sword in deep enough to kill it.
The fun was the drunks I sat with to watch the fights. The liked me just because I bothered to come to the fights. They loudly proclaimed me their amigo. Equally loudly they wondered why I didn’t drink wine with them from their leather pouch. ”Well if you don’t drink, do you like girls?“ ”Yes. I got my ticket from a girl I met here.“ “Way to go man.” And this cycle was repeated between each of six fights as though it had never occurred before. I tried to ask about the fight rituals but lack of my Spanish or their lack of English or their lack of sobriety interfered. Meanwhile their wives sat on their hands wishing they weren’t there.

2009 PERU: AREQUIPA AND THE COLCA CANYON

This is one of five blogs about my recent trip to Peru. Each corresponds to an album of pictures on my Picasa Web site:
www.picasaweb.com/hytenjr



I had never even heard of Colca Canyon before I arrived in Peru. On the way in from the airport my cab driver asked if I was going there. He said it was better than the Grand Canyon. Yeah! Right! I knew it couldn’t be better, but maybe it was worth seeing. When I put together my travel package I Had it included.
The trip began with a seventy minute, evening flight to Arequipa in Southern Peru. After an announcement that my limited Spanish prevented me from understanding, we were served champagne rather than Pepsi. Then we got a Subway-type sandwich ... incredible on a seventy minute flight. Then, when we touched down, the passengers broke out in applause. I thought the previous flight must have crashed and they happy to land alive. Then I saw TV cameras outside. I loudly ask what was going on after finding out my seat-mate didn’t speak English. It turns out that it was Peruvian Airlines first flight into Arequipa. All those suits on the plane were worn by company executives.
I was met at the gate, as I would be at every stop of the tour, by a guide ... this one with limited English. I did find out that Arequipa is Peru’s second largest city with over a million inhabitants. This is a city I had never heard of before. It turned out to be a very nice at least at its core where I stayed. Later Cuzco would prove more interesting, but Arequipa seemed more livable.
Even at ten at night the Central Plaza, called Plaza de Armas in most Peruvian cities, was swarming with people ... even families with kids ... even a high school student needing to interview an English speaker for her language class. It was the same questions you get ask all over Latin America ... “How do you like our country? When did you arrive? How long will you stay? Oh yeah, where are you from.”
There was no time to explore Arequipa. In the morning before I was picked up, I just had time to run over to the Plaza and take pictures of the Cathedral. It was the first church to which I had ever been whose nave ran perpendicular to the front or plaza face. It wasn’t too old ... the whole town having been flatten by earthquakes rather regularly.
As we neared the edge of town we seemed to be entering into another world. There was no longer any trees or even grass. The bare red soil swirled up in clouds of dust. A hillside showed signs of a new barrio’s beginnings The guide said that a plot of slanting land in this government approved barrio was about 100 square meters ... that’s about 32 feet by 32 feet for a house, yard, and anything else it might take to survive.
The further we got from town the more desolate it got. It apparently never rains there. As we climbed out of the city there were quick views back down into the fertile valley in which Arequipa sat ... but no one lived up there in mountain desert. In a whole day there weren’t a dozen farm houses Standing alone. After an hour or so we came onto a dead flat high plateau or alti-plano where the road seemed to run straight to the horizon.
Along the way we stopped twice to look a vicuna grazing in the sand and scrub. Vicuna are the the smaller, wild version of the animals that we think of collectively as llamas. No one owns vicuna; they roam in the wild, but are rounded up to harvest their wool.
Llamas are the largest of these types of animals. They have long faces and multicolored wool. Alpacas are slightly small and either white or brown in color. When young, their shorter faces make them look almost like sheep. While both are domesticated, they are often seen grazing unattended on the alti-plano.
By the time we stopped, a toilet break was needed by all. It would be the first time I would be confronted by a market-like setting of vendors selling wool products, silver jewelry, and carved stone llamas. If a dozen similar stalls didn’t provide enough buying choice, there were a dozen or more individuals milling around with a single product to sell ... and they all had the mornful-eye-look down pat. Also available were little kids hoping you would take a picture of them and their llama.
What I didn’t know then was how often I would see this same scene in the coming days. What I also didn’t know was that the pavement had ended in that parking lot. The road ahead might often have better described as a trail. Motion sickness pills were probably in order as we whipped from one side of road to the other in order to bang through smaller potholes. The pavement would occasionally reappear only to crumple away again. Happily when we got to the final switch back climbs and decents the road was paved ... but didn’t have railings along the edge so you could look straight down a few hundred feet.
As we had driven higher and higher in altitude our guide had extolled us on the virtues of coca leaves, even handing out samples. At the stop she urged us to drink coca tea. Coca would keep us from getting altitude sickness. Even though I wasn’t worried about that, having never suffered any more than shortness of breath at latitudes up to 14,000 feet, I chewed the leaves. It’s much like chewing dirty, foul tasting weeds or grass ... the kind in your yard not the kind in a plastic baggy.
Our guide, Maribelle, constantly told us of native cures that she had learned from her grandmother. Nature had a plant to cure everything ... and coca was a miracle full of vitamins and minerals. She also reminded those who might have sought a coca high that it takes a great deal of processing to change coca leaves into cocaine.
Just after our stop at the highest point of our trip, 15,750 feet, it hit me ... altitude sickness. I had a head ache, was slightly dizzy, and very light headed. Her cure was using rubbing alcohol as a smelling salt ... and it worked ... to a point.
When we dropped down 4000 feet into the Colca Valley and it capital city/village, Chivay, I was forced to take a nap rather than explore the village. When it was time for our group supper in a hall with a hundred or more other tourists, I seemed to be nearly recovered ... that is until the ‘native Peruvian’ band started playing. The ‘native’ music has more like cover music ampped up to the volume of a rock band. The sound was loud enough to be heard miles up the valley. I am surprised that the local people didn’t complain about their peace being disturbed. Maybe they suffered in quiet thinking the crazy tourists who provide our livelihoods must like that noise.
I didn’t sleep well that night. I had a headache. Maybe it was from the band; probably from the altitude ... and I kept looking at my watch worrying about a five o’clock wake up call. Nothing later that day would indicate that we had needed to get up that early ... although I do suspect that the residents of Colca Valley may have wanted a little of the day to themselves without having a tourist snap their pictures or peer into their front door.
After spending the day before in what was essentially a desert, the Colca Canyon was beautiful green paradise. Actually, because of the high altitude, there wasn’t much natural foliage. The green was on the thousands of terraces which lined the mountain sides. The terraces, joined by winding foot paths, reached a thousand feet up above the valley floor. The work that had gone into building them unestimatible ... and this work had been done by the Incas six hundred years ago.
Colca Canyon is not another Grand Canyon. It is a whole different place ... a unique place of it’s own. The mountains rise as much as 4000 feet above the valley floor ... maybe the deepest canyon in the world, or maybe not. Their terraces are incredible. Nature is still at work there. A 1995 earthquake had dropped sections of the road a hundred feet or so reminding us all that the Andes Mountains are an evolving force of nature.
The bus tour of Colca Canyon ends at the Cruz del Condor where watching condor soar on wind currents is the advertised feature. It was a short feature as four different condors took up less than five minutes in over an hour’s time.
Oh ... Now I remember why we had to get up so early. We not only drove back to Chivay where we ate a late lunch, but also on all the way back to Arequipa ... over six hours in a twelve passenger van. Only two of us survived the trip awake. Whether one likes the dirt roads, mountain switch backs, or desert atmosphere, it was a glimpse of another world ... one I hardly knew existed.
I squeezed in a couple miles of running before dark. Arequipa’s 7740 altitude ( the lowest point on my ten day trip ) made the up hill portions very uncomfortable ... two recovery walks were required to make it a half mile up a gentle slope. Maybe here the ”Are you Crazy?“ looks were justified.
Back in Arequipa it was Halloween and the whole town was out to celebrate. Parents tugged their little goblins and princesses thru the streets. Teenagers made themselves onto their favorite movie characters ... many of whom seemed to be teenage hookers. Thousands of orderly, happy people who were occasionally assaulted by irate drivers who apparently had no idea that driving through a throng of revelers would be so time consuming. When left at eleven he crowds had hardly diminished. That day’s five o’clock wake up was to be followed by one at six.

2009 PERU: ON TO PUNO, LAKE TITICACA, AND THEN TO CUZCO

This is one of five blogs about my recent trip to Peru. Each corresponds to an album of pictures on my Picasa Web site:
www.picasaweb.com/hytenjr



The trip from Arequipa to Puno was interesting but in a negative way. Five and a half hours in a bus isn’t something to look forward to even if they do serve you a sandwich and show you two movies along the way. Only great views can save the day. The views on this trip could only be described as depressing ... even if they were educational.
I didn’t realize that the south of Peru is mostly alti-plano, that is a high plateau. By high I mean over 12,000 feet ... so high and dry that practically nothing grows. The area around Arequipa was mountainous and dry. Here for miles and hours it was flat and lifeless ... no people; no vicuna; sometimes no plants; nothing. I knew great areas of Bolivia were like this, but I thought Peru was green like all the pictures of Machuu Picchu that I had seen.
Just as I thought it couldn’t get any worse, we entered Juliaca. The southern approach was the site of a major building boom ... and it looked like a bomb had gone boom. Reinforcing bars stuck out of the roof of every building. Red bricks sat in red dust. The red dirt and rock road had an unfinished divider whose concrete curbs were covered in red dust. There were drooping wires and piles of construction materials ... and not a tree, shrub or blade of grass anywhere. People had scarves over their faces to keep out the blowing dust. This place would make prefect set for a movie set in a time after a nuclear holocaust.
We turned a corner on to a half paved street that led to the horrible future the newer street had to look forward to. The rest of the way into Puno I sat in stunned silence.
Your first view of Puno is from a mountain top high above the city ... and the city sits at 12,600 feet. Too many switch backs later through barrios after barrios you reach the lake front bus station. Only later in your cab do you realize to whole central city is series of one lane, one way streets. It was quaint but not clean.
The trip was made better by talking to Maria a young Peruvian industrial engineer. She was the only non-office female employee working with a thousand men at mine two hours north of Juliaca. She was an incredibly happy girl who had found a few guys who treated her as a little sister in need of protection rather than a female target.
You go to Puno because it sits on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake. Puno will be remembered well because of a great dinner and evening with New Zealander Nick and Germans Mijra, and Hoglar.
The next day was spent on the lake. It was a nice day. The sun was bright and the lake calm. The floating islands ( floating on reed mats ) were interesting even though they could easily be classified as tourist traps.
Two hours further out on the water we docked at Isla Taquile, a tiny dot on the huge lake. We had to climb almost straight up 1500 feet for our lunch ... a then further up for yet another chance to buy souvenirs. Thank goodness the trip down the other side of the island was a long gradual slope ... with beautiful sea views.
On the way back I played trivia with question taken out of a Lonely Planets travel guide with three Brits. I never answered a question right but then neither did anyone else. Much as in horseshoes, close was good enough. I ended up spending the evening with them too. I saw Nick on the street. Everybody is pretty much doing the same trip, just with one of dozens of different tour companies.
The trip over to Cuzco was to take ten and a half hours. Five stops and a luxury bus or not, this surely wasn’t anything to look forward to. Turns out I was wrong. It was one of the most comfortable and interesting bus rides I have ever taken.
The first stop as at Pukara a tiny village with a large church with a dark but impressive interior. The museum next to it contained a few stone remnants of what had been major Inca city which had been swept off the earth by the conquering Spaniards.
The next stop was at the highest point of this day's trip, 14,222 feet ... not too high to discourage vendors to set up selling more of the same stuff. I do have to admit that I never tire of the colorful stacks of wool scarves. They make a beautiful commercial display of which I usually take a picture.
Along the way I sat with Elsbie and Jasper, a Dutch sister and brother who seemed to travel well together. I had both lunch and supper with them.
At Raqchi we saw the ruins of a major Inca temple and distribution center. It was there that the ticket gatekeeper was wearing a hat which said on it ’70 anos’. Do you know why I had to have it? With my limited Spanish I was able to pull off a trade for my Alaska hat. That was fun.
Our last stop was at a third small village, Andahuaylillas. It had an incredible church whose interior was covered in gold leaf and frescos. A major restoration job was underway. We got to see frescos being redone and gold leaf being applied. Unfortunately they didn’t allow picture taking which is something I don’t understand. If you saw pictures of the place I’ll bet you would want to go there.
We arrived in Cuzco just before sunset. By the time I checked into my hotel and hit the streets, it was dark ... but Cuzco is ready for tourists day or night.

2009 PERU: CUZCO

This is one of five blogs about my recent trip to Peru. Each corresponds to an album of pictures on my Picasa Web site:
www.picasaweb.com/hytenjr


Cuzco is the gateway to Machuu Picchu. Every tourist heading for Machuu Picchu spends at least a night there and most spend three. The city is tourist-ready. There are hotels with as many or as few stars as you might like. You can get a meal for $2.50 or $25.00. Street vendors, local markets, ‘official’ Peruvian artisan’s shops, and worldwide brand name shops battle to open your wallet. There is a travel agent and a money exchange ... or two or three .. on every block. And with the exception of the occasional, persistent street vendor, they treat the tourist very well.
The museums aren’t very good. They aren’t very big and they lack English translations of their information signage. I realize that Peru is a Spanish speaking country, but a fairly large percentage of the tourist are English speaking either as their first or second language. The idea of a museum is to showcase your culture and/or teach your history. The non-Spanish speakers are in museums to learn those things more so than the hordes of school children who inhabit every Latin museum.
The churches are locked immediately after 6:00 AM mass so only a few devoted old ladies get to view the incredible gold-leafed altars and wonderful statuary inside the 16th and 17th century masterpieces. Only the main Cathedral is open to the public ... for a $10 entry fee. I suppose it is worth it. It is full of paintings ... a Peruvian twist on church decoration. Practically all the walls are covered with pictures done in the “Peruvian school” fashion which is quite like that of the Renaissance masters.
All the standard tour packages include a half day city tour and a full day Sacred Valley tour. Both are well worth the time ... if you can ignore all the stops at roadside ‘markets’. I sure hope the guides are getting a huge kickback from the vendors because they lose a lot of tip money forcing the bus load of aggravated passengers look at still another stack of alpaca wool scarves and silver necklaces.
Ninety percent of the Peruvian guides speak heavily accented English made even more difficult to understand by the names of places usually being in an ancient, unpronounceable Inca dialect. I am not sure that I have identified my pictures correctly because I often just could not understand fully what was being said.
If you are only traveling to Cuzco and Machuu Picchu, the Cuzco city tour is a warm-up for what is to follow. Qorikancha in the Santo Domingo church in the city, Tambomachay, and a couple places I can’t identify are interesting. Saqsayhuaman ... or sexy human as the guides like to jokingly call it ... is a great introduction to the enormity of Inca construction projects. Probably built as a fortification near the end of the Inca era, it has a commanding view over the city of Cuzco.
The Sacred Valley trip winds through the mountains with many a spectacular view all day long. Pukapukara introduces you to agricultural terrace construction, while Ollantaytambo’s terraces were a spectacular climb up to temples dominating the valley below.
Chinchero is a nice little village which is basically in the middle of nowhere. The town and its gold-leaf and fresco-covered church are built over the ruins of an Inca city. That’s what the Spanish conquistadors did ... they used the stones of Inca cities to bury the Inca culture and build new Catholic cities. Many of the places we visited had just been found and excavated in the past century.
By the end of those two days my legs were weak, my knees collapsing, and my lungs hungering for oxygen ... and I run every day at home so I am in pretty good condition.
My new friend in Cuzco was Jung Shin, a Korean woman on her dream vacation. I met her on her first day of her two month around-the-world trip. She was on the city tour ... at least she was until the bus began to pull away from our first stop without her. I got the bus to stop and we became friends. That night we met in front of the Cathedral.
While out to dinner I ask where she was staying ... and she couldn’t remember. She hadn’t taken a card from the front desk like all travelers should do. She was pretty sure it was behind the Cathedral ... or maybe some other big church. As we set out to find the hotel she remembered that the name might be the Cuzco Plaza. A policeman said there were two of them, but he didn’t know where either was. Luckily a street vendor overheard the conversation and said he could lead us to it. In front of the hotel he put on a full court press trying to sell ‘his’ paintings which looked surprisingly similar to those of very other kid selling paintings on the street. Jung bought two at a price too high and then gave me one ... the one I had told her was the best in his portfolio.

2009 PERU: MACHUU PICCHU

This is one of five blogs about my recent trip to Peru. Each corresponds to an album of pictures on my Picasa Web site.
www.picasaweb.com/hytenjr


Machuu Picchu is the reason you go to Peru. Peruvian people are nice; Colca Canyon’s terraces are interesting: the Inca sites around Cuzco are great; but Machuu Picchu is why you go to Peru. Sometimes your destination lets you down ... it’s not what you had envisioned. Machuu Picchu, on the other hand, is all you could ever hope for. It is beautiful, complex, historical, and downright unbelievable.
The Machuu Picchu experience begins one of two ways. You can hike the Inca Trail for two or four days ... If you are very fit and like rough adventure ... or you can take the train out from Cuzco. I chose the latter. Starting in the wide and fertile Cuzco valley ... a thirty minute bus ride outside of town ... you wind through the ever narrowing canyon whose vertical side seem to tower over the narrow gauge tracks. At one point you actually back down a siding to continue on a track lower in the canyon. The three hour trip to Agua Calientes, which is just outside Machuu Picchu park, is an ever changing panorama of the Peruvian mountains.
Agua Calientes may be the world’s largest tourist trap. Actually it isn’t very big but well over 50% of the village is devoted to gathering the tourist dollar. While things may be fairly cheap by American standards, it does get any more expensive in Peru. I arrived there at 11:00 AM and found very little to do the rest of the day. The up side was that I would get maximum time ... over six hours ... at the Park the next day. The usual trip is arriving on that train and going immediately to Machuu Picchu for a three or four hour stay. I would recommend taking a later train out from Cuzco ... A couple hours more sleep in Cuzco is more of a vacation than a few hours wandering around Agua Calientes.
It takes about an hour from the time you board a bus in Agua, travel up the mountain, go thru the ticket line, and hike up to the first view of the ruins. And what a view it is. Even with clouds below obscuring some of the view, it was breathtaking. (Don’t worry about the clouds ... they come and go all day long as my picture show.)
I am really at a loss for using words to describe Machuu Picchu. It is art and beauty with almost unbelievable architecture and history. Almost every view can be composed into a great picture. As an architect, I am amazed at every aspect of the construction. Even a huge computer program attached to the most modern stone grinding machines would have difficulty matching the precision of of the stone walls of Machuu Picchu’s temples. The short history (1400-1550)of the Inca civilization makes it all that more improbable.
Our group of ten or so English speakers had a great guide for a two hour tour of the site. I then spent the next four plus ours with a really nice girl, Olivia, soaking in the whole site from higher altitudes. We climbed upwards in altitude a thousand feet or so to the Sun Gate which is the last pass on the Inca Trail prior to reaching Machuu Picchu. We sat on a ledge over a two hundred foot drop and pondered the sight and the world. What a memorable time.
People often ask me if I get lonely living by myself. I always say I am only lonely when I stand looking at a great view of the world around me and have no one to turn to and say ‘Would you look at that!’. I am thankful that on that day I had someone to share the experience with.
You have to take this trip ... the Cuzco-Machuu Picchu part. Do it while you are strong enough to survive the climbs. You will not regret a breath lost.

VANCOUVER AND ALASKA 2009

BY BICYCLE AND CRUISE SHIP: VANCOUVER AND ALASKA’S INLAND PASSAGE

By Bob Hyten, Jr. ©2009

I had wanted to cruise Alaska’s Inland Passage for years but cruise ships don’t like single passengers, i.e., people who don’t share a cabin with another person. If you travel alone they expect you to pay for both beds. They advertise “Cruise for fun and romance” but they don’t want single people. They would rather a room be empty than sell just one bed in the room. I've heard that there is a cruise line that will sell to a single person on the condition that if they find you a roommate you must except that person. That’s seems fair enough, but I can’t find which line that is.
After years of asking people to join me, my old running buddy Eric Gyaki agreed to fill that other bed ... maybe because I found a $605 rate for the seven day cruise. In the 1980s Eric was a regular member of our running team till career opportunities took him to the Washington-Baltimore area. We kept in touch when he returned to the St, Louis area to visit relatives.
We decided to meet in Vancouver three days before the ship’s departure. I wanted to see Vancouver, but I also needed a little travel leeway since I fly non-revenue, standby on Delta ... my son Mark is a Delta pilot. Eric searched the Internet for cheap flights and saved himself over $250 compared to Holland America Cruise Line’s fly-cruise rate.
Sitting just outside the Canadian customs area waiting for Eric, I saw him hand over his passport ... and then commence to have an animated conversation with the border agent. After five minutes ... or what seemed like that long ... I began to think he was talking his way into a back room holding area. Bearded Eric loves to tell stories. Customs agents don’t like to hear them. I was more worried about him than I had been that morning waiting for a standby seat on a heavily booked flight.
When he finally cleared customs, we made our way curbside to Vancouver’s Airporter bus for our 50 minute trip into the city. Again we had saved money as a round trip Airporter ticket is $22 while H-A wanted $75 for a similar service.
I like bus rides into cities as it gives you an all-round introduction to the place. Regular city busses take longer but give you even more local flavor.
The Airporter dropped us off less than five blocks for the HI Downtown Hostel our home for three nights in Vancouver. Again, it was a big savings. Holland America offered a room for $200 plus a night and HI wanted $31 per person per night. Granted it is a hostel with four beds in a rooms and the bathroom down the hall, but I find hostels to be generally clean and certainly more friendly. This one was particularly nice as it sat on a quiet corner right in the heart of downtown Vancouver.

Vancouver was a wonderful surprise. It is a clean, vibrant city which is rapidly growing. It is full of great architecture, both old and new. No other major city has a park to compare to Stanley Park. The city has miles of beaches lining its miles of shoreline. The downtown area is not much more than one and a half miles across in either direction. People were friendly and courteous, happy to share their city with tourists.
It was nearly five o’clock before we were ready to hit the streets of Vancouver. We headed straight down to the harbor waterfront at the city’s convention center ... 13 blocks from the hostel. Adjacent to the convention center is the cruise ship dock at Canadian Place. We read historical markers about the city’s history, and saw seaplanes coming and going to Victoria and Vancouver Island, cruise ships heading out to sea, ferries to North Vancouver, and a big demonstration protesting Iran’s ‘fixed’ election. It seemed that there may have been more locals than tourists enjoying the 65-70 degree, sunny evening as the year’s longest day approached.
The next morning, after a peaceful night’s sleep with no roommates, we rented bicycles for $26 a day from the hostel and set out to see the city. I can’t imagine that there is a big city anywhere in the world easier to see by bike than Vancouver. A bike trail follows the shoreline form the downtown waterfront around Stanley Park, around False Creek, a former industrial harbor, past Granville Island and along the open water out to the end of the city’s westernmost suburbs and the University of British Columbia .... over twenty miles.
There was never a time without a view of some kind. On the six miles around Stanley Park there was water on the right and a forest of giant trees on the left. False Creek is now lined by apartment buildings in all states of finish. Passing the Granville Island tourist area and under the Burrard Street Bridge you come to the Maritime Museum and then five miles of continuous beaches. At the end of the peninsula UBC sits high above the ocean ... and when I say high, I mean high. It took 20 minutes to pedal up there and 3 minutes to coast back down. The UBC Botanical Garden and the separate Rose Garden made it worth the trip. Except for the UBC visit, the whole route was virtually flat. The 33 mile, nine hour excursion was as nice an urban day on a bike as you could ever spend.

Our plans for the next day hadn’t been finalized when at the hostel’s free breakfast a guy asked for our attention and asked us to join him on a tour of the city and a hike in Lynn Valley Forrest across the harbor ... at a cost of $12. What a bargain that turned out to be. John led us through downtown telling about the city’s history and its buildings. We took a local bus across the harbor and on to the the Lynn Valley Forrest were we hiked among the trees to a ice-cold creek where we ate the lunch we each had brought. We hiked across a very, very high suspension bridge, past the park’s offices, and out of the forrest on to a North Vancouver city street where a city bus whisked us to the ferry terminal. A ferry ride with great views dropped us off near a train that took us to Chinatown. Another bus took us back to the city library and the tour’s end ... all eight hours for $12.

On our third day in Vancouver we had till three o’clock to see the city before boarding our cruise ship. Most of that time was spent on Granville Island in the middle of False Creek which you can reach by taking the littlest ferry boat you’ve every seen ... less than 15 feet long. Granville is all about the tourist experience, but it is a good one. It has a great market which locals use extensively. It was like the local markets in Central America except in price. The price points in the two market places are at the extremes.
The walk to the cruise ship that afternoon took less than an hour including stopping at a sculpture exhibit at a bank and a visit to an art gallery. The only entrance to the cruise ship embarkation hall is hidden deep below the Pan Pacific Hotel with only the smallest of signs to the right of the hotel entry doors to direct you down a ramp to the area where the cruise line buses empty their passengers.

We boarded the Holland American Line’s Voldendam around 3:00 after a quick trip through a very long line at Canadian customs. Since we had only carryon luggage we were able to settle in our room quicker than if we had let porters bring our things to our cabin.
Having managed to have purchased our cruise for the ridiculously low price of $605 including all taxes, we were shocked to find we had been upgraded three grades to a nice size room with a huge window overlooking the promenade deck. Of course being on that deck meant we had to keep our drapes pulled most of the time. Actually the window had one-way glass but you still kept the drapes pulled.
Unlike my previous cruises, this cabin had room to move around. It even had a desk, love seat, chair and table ... and a TV. The latter is actually a good thing because, in addition to a few satellite channels, it kept you up to date as to where we were, what the weather and seas were like, and what activities were available on the ship ... all handy information to occupy you while your roommate showers.
By 4:00 we were in our first buffet line ... let the eating begin. Knowing it was but four hours to our first sit-down dinner, I was able to use a little restraint. Before we could finish eating the ship was under way.
Harbor cruises are always interesting but the view from high atop a modern cruise ship is special. Sea planes buzzed right overhead. At sea the temperature dropped at least ten degrees partially because going 15-20 MPH into a 10-15 MPH breeze creates a bit of a wind chill factor out on the top deck. When we went down to eat at 8:30 the sun was still higher the sky.
We had chosen open seating’ for our evening meals. That means you can call before 4:00 and reserve a time or just show up when ever you like from 5:00 to 9:00 risking a bit of a wait. We ate late every night and waited five minutes only the first night. A nice thing about open seating is the chance to eat with different people each might. That being said, all the people we ate with would have been great company every day.
Cruise ship food is legendary. There are things you would never have at home. There are things you have at home, cooked in a way to make them completely different. Sometimes tiny helpings are placed in an elaborate display. Sometimes huge helpings fill their plates. The one constant is that by the time you eat the appetizer soup or salad, entree, and dessert, you’ve eaten way too much.
Over the week I had seafood and fruit appetizers. I had soups made of fruit and salads made out of weeds ... I think. I had entrees of duck, salmon, steak, quail, surf and turf, venison, and lamb. I had desserts of chocolate in forms unimaginable. While I can’t say every item was delicious, I can say every meal was in the end more than satisfying. Eating is the number one on-board pleasure.

Our first full day was at sea. I have to say that I am not big fan of days at sea. I’m not a gambler so the casino isn’t an attraction. I'm not shopping for art work or diamond jewelry nor do I want to attend a workshop on why I should buy these items. I don’t want to buy a picture of myself for $19.95. They had photo workshops but they were about using PC programs not Mac programs. There were cooking programs but I am not a gourmet cook.
They had a nice little library but you could not take to book out of the room. They showed movies each evening but not during the day. Now that I think about it, almost every activity was a profit center for the ship. Free activities were quite limited.
When we were close to land I spent time on deck even though it was quite windy and cool there ... but that’s were I met like-minded travelers. The other good side to that weather was that I had the top deck pretty much to myself between 6:00 and 7:00 when I wanted to run. The first night and both days at sea I ran 22 laps or about two miles around the wood-floored 9th deck. On one side the wind pushed me to a fast pace and on the other I had to work hard to maintain my momentum into the wind. Even on the rainy last day the footing on the wet deck was very good. I did try the treadmill and step machines one rainy day but I can’t get comfortable on them. I rode an excise bike instead.
After diner there were two entertainment opportunities not available during the day. There was a different stage show and different movie each night but eating late made it impossible to do both. I’m not big on stage shows other than comedians. One of the comedians, a juggler named Barnaby, was great. The other shows were a bit like watching TV on the nights when your favorite shows aren’t on ... were and there are moments of entertainment, but on the whole you are just killing time.
Another way of killing ten to fifty minutes is to put a dollar in a penny slot machine and see how long you can make it last by playing a single penny on a single line on each pull. You can usually get 15-20 minutes out of a dollar. The first dollar I played had zero winners in one hundred pulls. There were no signs around advertising ‘the loosest slots in town’ so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. To be fair, the next night I quit after forty minutes, $1 ahead.
I was only tempted to the late night buffet twice because of my late dinner times. Can you guess the body type of those who frequented it?

As the second day dawned we entered Tracey Arm. Unfortunately ice flows kept us from getting all the way in to the glaciers there. Still, the chunks of ice radiating shades of blue in the sun light were nice and the mountains lining the narrow gorge were beautiful. Southeast Alaska’s high rainfall keeps everything green.
By 2:00 we were docked in Juneau and by 2:45 we were on a bus to Mendenhall Glacier. We bought our $14 ticket right at the bottom of the gangplank saving at least 50% over the price on the boat. The twenty minute ride out to the glacier gives you a quick view of the city including their very own Wal-Mart complete with real eagles sitting on the light standards out in front.
Mendenhall is a good place to start your glacier viewing because it turns out to be about the smallest we would see. It was impressive at the time ... marred only by a steady string of helicopters heading past to set tourists down on the glacier itself. Given the very low cloud deck each day I can’t imagine that any air ride was as full an experience as could be possible. It made me wonder about how bush pilots manage to fly over cloud capped mountains to land in high valleys.
Mendenhall’s park center had exhibits showing the glacier’s advances and retreats in recent times. It’s most recent retreat began well before we started hearing about global warming ... speaking of which, the temperature did not reach sixty that sunny afternoon.
Back at the docks by 5:50, we set out on an 1800 foot climb to the Mt. Roberts tram’s upper station. Walking out of town in the only rain to mar off-boat days, we reached the lower trail head in about twenty minutes. As we started our climb the rain stopped and sweat began to dampen our shirts. The trail climbed unceasingly over rocks and roots and switch-backs.
We were told that the hike was an hour to two hours and we felt we were proceeding at the faster pace. It was nearly a half hour before we got our first glimpse done to Juneau’s waterfront and the Voldendam. Fifteen minutes later we began to worry as the ship was now well behind us, yet we knew the lower tram station was right next to the ship. The trail had no markings. Three times we had chosen paths which went higher rather than lower. We began to wonder if we might be on the way to Mt. Roberts’ peak rather than the tram station. We decided that at one hour we would probably have begin retracing our footsteps if we were to return to the boat before it cast off that evening ... back down that unmarked trail with unmarked options. And then at 59 minute, we rounded a switch back and there were people ... and the tram station ... and joy ... and relief ... and finally exhaustion.
The tram’s round trip costs $22 if you buy it off the ship but if you only need a ticket down it costs only $5 ... and if you buy $5 worth of stuff in the gift shop the ride down is free. Imagine that ... you can save $22 by hiking up 1800 feet on a steep muddy trail. All kidding aside, it was a great hike if you are fit. Only after we were done and someone wanted to kwon if we had seen any bears did we think about the possibility of meeting one in the wilderness above Juneau.

On Day Three we docked in Skagway before we ever got out of bed. Sleeping on the ship was great. In part that may have been due to the time zone changes which had us going to bed a couple hours later than usual or maybe it was the gentle rocking of the ship. Both times that we were in open sea rather than the inland passages, I worried about sea sickness, but never did the ship roll enough to feel the least bit uncomfortable.
Skagway has four streets which are about fifteen blocks long. About a quarter of those blocks are dedicated to getting your tourist dollar. Thankfully there are also four nice, small museums there. They occupied our time till the 12:45 boarding of the Skagway & White Pass Railroad’s summit tour.
For $103 on-line or at the ticket office versus $130 or so on the boat, it was a trip well worth either price. The train’s route followed the 1889 gold rush miner’s path over the summit into Canada. Finished just as the gold ran out, it remained a supply line to the interior until the construction of the Alaska highway during WW II. Now it runs on tourist gold.
There is not a moment on this trip when there isn’t a terrific vista. I stayed out on the end-of-car platform snapping picture after picture. It is a trip made for digital cameras ... much to the dismay of friends and relatives back home. I can’t imagine that anyone on that trip experienced anything but awe ... except maybe those trapped in the car with the screaming kid and his indulging parents. A call for volunteers to toss the kid over the edge would have resulted in a riot of volunteers.
Back at the ship well before our 8:00 departure time, I disembarked again for a run though town. Running end-to-end on the streets flanking the tourist shops I was able to see a little of how locals live. I think it is safe to say that not many people are getting rich there. While things there were a might better than I would see later in Ketchikan, the housing stock is small and generally rundown and unpainted. I was told that many people only summer there, heading south when the winter winds blow.
The sunny day was the warmest of the trip at around 65 degrees.

Day Four was spent slowly cruising in Glacier Bay. I have to admit seeing the day’s schedule did not inspire me but in the end I knew that is is what Alaska is about. By 10:00 we were at the deepest part of the bay looking at the Margerie Glacier. It’s face was huge and it curled back up the mountain valley as far as the eye could see. The only disappointment was not getting to see any great chunks of ice calf off in the sea. Several small ice slides sent water into the air but no major iceberg was born while we were there.
What was surprising was a very small sailboat creeping very near the ice face. I wasn’t as surprised to see kayakers treading through the ice flows having seen that on TV before. At times I envied them and at times I shivered for them.
Later that day as we exited Glacier Bay we passed an island fill of seals ... at least that was what the park ranger said those brown dots were. Actually I could see them with my super powerful binoculars, just as earlier in the day I had seen two grizzlies that no one else could see. Shortly later, when he excitedly announced a whale sighting, I was as disappointed as everyone else to see only an occasional white or black dot on the horizon. I guess we’ll have to take his word for that.
That was the day I tested the gym’s equipment as the ship rolled a bit as we entered the open ocean.

By breakfast the next morning we were off of the open sea headed for Kechikan’s harbor. While Ketchikan seemed to have more commercial docks lined with warehouses and factories, it also seemed less prosperous than Juneau or Skagway. There were four cruise ships in port that day, disembarking over 7000 people, yet the stores didn’t seem over crowded nor their clerks rushed. Maybe everyone had signed up for one last plane ride or fishing trip, by-passing the town.
After visiting the town’s three museums we had intended to rent bicycles to ride the town’s water front road to nowhere end-to-end. Apparently the bike rental businesses have all gone belly-up because none were to be found. That left us with only shops to kill our time ... and death came only after repeated, slow, torturous viewing of T-shirts, sweatshirts and stuffed animals. A couple mile run along the waterfront didn’t brighten my day either.

Our last day was all at sea under wet skies and low hanging fog. Every day could have been like that so I can’t complain too much. I spent much of the morning sitting on a bench under an overhang at the back of he boat talking to a guy from Singapore. I'm pretty good at sitting and talking to strangers so I had a good time. I met Aussies, Brits, and a surprising number of Canadians from Vancouver. Half the 1400 passengers were American but more than half my contacts were with other nationalities. That’s another nice thing about a cruise ship.
On the final morning I awoke as the ship gently bumped the dock in Vancouver. One last buffet breakfast, some final packing and off the ship by 9:00. We road the Airporter back to the airport with a British couple who were also savvy enough to skip Holland America’s expensive transfer offer.
At the airport, the longest customs line I have ever been in took us out of Canadian customs and into American customs right there on Canadian soil. Behind me in line was the Philippine Islands only winter Olympics hopeful, Serina Eden, a downhill snow boarder. Maybe she will be this winter’s Jamaican bobsled team story.
The hour in line shortened the nervous wait for my standby seat on Delta’s full Salt Lake CIty flight. A breakneck walk from one far end of the SLC airport to the other got me the last seat on the already boarding flight to St. Louis. Needless to say, I arrived home quite tired. I has in bed by 8:30 Pacific time.

If Holland America’s people ever read this I doubt they’ll ever give me an upgrade again. They make their money on selling you booze and tours and a few diamonds on the side .... I didn’t realize how important these extras were to them till I saw an CNBC program ”Cruise,Inc.“ a week after I got home. If you don’t spend any money on the ship, cruising is the greatest travel bargain out there ... and this is from a guy who backpacks and stays in hostels on most of his trips.
I can highly endorse the Alaska inland passage cruise and Holland America in particular ... and if you buy a couple land packages from them I won’t be mad and neither will they.


4115 Words written after a trip to Vancouver and Alaska, June14-24, 2009 by ...