Making Circles

Yesterday morning I headed to Girona. Since I had a little time before picking up my rental car, I wandered around town a bit.
Lo and behold, more awesome architecture:

I love the mix of old and modern with these two structures!

and check out this pattern:

love the color and design of this door:

Some construction work brought some really cool color and lines to these buildings:

some children’s clothing laid out to dry on this roof:

some views from the cathedral:

and from belowl:

After I picked up my car, I drove east to a very small village called Madremanya, where we’ll be taking our guests next week, for the first 2 nights of their trip. From there, I drove our Day-3 route, which heads south-west to the next hotel in S’Agaro, a beach town on the Mediterranean. Sorry I don’t have pictures of any of this, as I was driving for the first time in the region, holding both a route guide and a map in my hands…

Today, I drove up to San Marti d’Empuries, a tiny village on the sea where our trip will begin next week. I love that this parking lot is totally integrated with some ruins:

After about 20 km, I arrived at Ullastret, where there are Iberian ruins. (The Iberians settled in the region by 800 BC.) At the Archeology museum, I found this:

All the description said was that there seemingly was some sort of cult of the skull in the Iberian culture. It had to do with their spirituality, but no more details…

What I found especially interesting was their alphabet:

Apparently these symbols represent both letters and syllables, and the Iberians wrote both left to right, and right to left. How freeing is that? Perfect for art and craft-making.

In the bathroom, I found the most ingenious hook for holding purses:
Open:

Closed!

my lunch spot among the ruins and Cypress trees:

After finishing this route, I met with one of our hotels, and then hopped on my bike to learn another route. At the same time, I threw in some training to the mix, working on VO2 Max intervals in between riding through tiny cobbled streets…

My last week of work was spent in Croatia, putting together our new Dalmatian Coast trip for 2009. I spent a day in Dubrovnik

then took a ferry to Mljet by way of Ston, a little village by the port of Prapatno.

This wall around Ston is the longest one of its kind in all of Europe.

A view from Mljet of some of the tiny islands that dot the coast.

On the island of Mljet, are two large lakes. There is a monastery on an island in one of the lakes, and it is only accessible by boat. I found this engraved symbol on one of the stones on the floor… (It was the only mark I saw on the entire floor, which is why I thought it was curious.)

Back on the mainland, I climbed the wall around town, and this was one of the first views of Ston I had. What a strange landscape with the palm tree in the foreground.

A view of the wall from above


From the top, you can clearly see the salt flats on the right.

A small street in Ston

This is Korcula town, on the island of the same name, a little after sunrise. The town’s claim to fame is being the birthplace of Marco Polo! (I don’t think they are the only ones to claim this though.)

Hvar town seen from the ferry on the way to Hvar island.

Now, I don’t usually do this, but the next few pictures are of the hotel in Hvar town we (Trek Travel) will be using for our trips next year.
Hotel Adriana- Really gorgeous rooms:

and the view from the room

We wrapped up our week of research in Split. It’s amazing to see such prominent Roman ruins right smack in the middle of town.

Sadly the first thing I thought of when I saw this writing was Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Too bad the Vestibul is one of the nicest hotels in the city…

I think what I most liked about walking around the old town was the really cool textures and color I saw everywhere.

And on our last night, we found a movie theater close to our hotel. The new Woody Allen movie, Vicky, Christina, Barcelona was playing—in English! It was awesome to be able to sit in a Woody Allen movie in Split, of all places.

I finally have a second to post some photos since I’m now visiting family in France on the last leg of my European tour this fall. Since my last posting, I spent a couple of weeks working in Puglia, Italy, and then a week doing research around the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia.

The first place we take our guests to in Puglia is the Castellana Grottos, definitely the most amazing I’ve ever seen.

I could only take pictures in the first gallery, but after a couple of kilometers walking down stalactite and stalagmite halls, there is a beautiful room called the White Grotto made almost exclusively of calcium carbonate so it is, as the name implies, completely white. Very cool.

Driving around Puglia, this is a color combination I saw a lot, and that I really like—cool greens and white—very mediterranean.

The walls of Ostuni on the Adriatic.

Diane and Christian, my coguides, took this pic of me talking to some folks on the side of a road lined with olive trees. We were writing routes, and there were little fires all over the place along the road. We stopped when we saw these people so I could ask them what they were doing. It was almost harvest time, and the trees drop a lot of detritus which has to be cleaned off the ground before the olives are shaken off. So the ground is raked in circles and grids around the trees, and the piles are then burned to finish the cleaning.
The woman told me that she’d be in paradise if she could live in a house in the midst of the all the olive trees. Before I left, they gave me a bunch of grapes so I could try some of the local produces (which is all delicious, by the way)
Notice the hand motions and the purple glasses. Yes, I’ve been working in Italy for a while now.

This is like an extreme version of a typical Puglian landscape. The smalls walls are everywhere, but there were more rocks left laying here than anywhere else—a little surreal.

The Ionian Sea on the way back to Otranto.

Yes, this is just the dashboard of our rental car. But note the ignition. That block sticking out of the dash is a rectangular “key” and the small button below it is pressed to start the car. Crazy Alfa Romeo.

The entire floor of the cathedral in Otranto is covered in mosaics. The interesting thing is, it’s a catholic church, but the mosaics represent everything from astronomy, to Greek mythology, to pagan imagery.

The original puss in boots, apparently an image taken from an old Nordic legend…

the harbor in Otranto

Just another cool door with scooters shot

These are the trulli. Typically seen in the Puglian landscape, these were traditionally built without mortar to be easily dismantled when the tax collector came by. If you didn’t own a house, you paid no taxes on it. Smart huh?

Some toy cyclists I used to decorate my awesome Trek Travel picnic lunch

On the picnic table, I also used a small trullo figurine which was given to me by Giuseppe. In a small town called Locorotundo, close to Martina Franca (easier to find on a map) there is a public WC near the park. Giuseppe is the attendant, and he keeps the cleanest and probably the most entertaining public restroom I’ve ever set foot it. There is music playing, and even a small television and magazines in the handicapped stall. When you give him a few centisemi (€ cents in Italian) he presents you with a selection of Locorotundo postcards to choose from. Since we were bringing a whole group to the park for the picnic, I gave him a few Euros tip in advance. He insisted on giving me the trullo figurine.

These are homemade orecchiete, or “little ears” pasta, the most common in the region. They are made by making a roll with dough, slicing off a piece, then running a spoon over it, make it sort of pop into this shape.

Chitara or “guitar”pasta, made by pressing the dough on a device with strings running across it, kind of like a multi-stringed cheese cutter.

Look closely toward the back of the bike… Yes, one gear. This guy’s single speedin’ it cycle touring! Core. Ran into him on the coastal road up toward Otranto.

We took our guests to the best restaurant in Otranto on the last evening of the trip. The entrée was a cuttlefish risotto with a tomato-based sauce- A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.