Making Circles

I got back to Philly on Wednesday night and went to bed early. About a half hour later I heard some screaming up and down my street. The Phillies won the World Series! Very cool especially given the last time that happened was on my birth year, 1980.

So there was a parade in Center City today, and I decided to check it out with Tim. Rode into town and met him at his work, locked up my bike, and we walked toward the madness on Broad Street. I’ve never seen the city so happy! On my way in, a guy and a gal were dressed in chicken suits, I smiled when I passed them, and the guy gave me a huge grin with a thumbs up. I wish the Phillies won every day.

Here are a couple of pics of folks I saw around the parade. The guy in the pony suit above was also taken at this time by the way.

a little scary…

doing what they need to do to see the action

and Evil Knievel making a call outside the Curtis Building.

I spent a couple of days visiting friends in Paris before coming home Wednesday night. On my last evening there, while walking back to my friend Annick’s house, I noticed the light falling across the Seine while I was on a bridge. What a beautiful city!

Saw this yesterday morning walking into town with my cousin Stephanie. love it

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.