This was a perfect day in Rome, Italy — assuming you like abundant amounts of sunshine and heat! I walked all over the city (at least it felt like all over), and saw many of its famous sites. A great thing about Rome is how walkable it is — so many sites are within walking distance, it’s incredible!
The Spanish Steps are one of the most famous locations in Rome. On this hot, sunny day in July, people were dangling their feet in the fountain, and umbrellas were popular items for the street vendors.
Visitors always want to sit on the famous Spanish Steps, but today, everyone was crowded together, in the one little spot on the steps. Today, nobody wanted the sunny side of the street (or the sunny side of the steps)!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I’m in Italy now, checking things out for a future version of our Italy tour for women. Rome is one of my favorite cities on earth. There’s so much history here, and so much art, and so much life… it’s fascinating, awe-inspiring, and so much fun!
All good fortune is a gift of the gods, and you don’t win the favor of the ancient gods by being good, but by being bold.”
~ Anita Brookner
Here in the land of ancient gods, this quote rings true! I’m in Rome now, and one thing is certain — those Roman emperors who ruled the ancient world were bold, and accomplished many things. Were they good guys? Not most of them. Bold? Definitely!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I’m in Italy now, scoping out a new Italy trip for women for 2009. I’ve always been fascinated with Rome, and the amazing history here. And Pompeii (the lost city, buried by a volcano) is another all-time favorite. I’ll keep you posted on what I come up with!
We walked a portion of the Dingle Way, around the end of Ireland’s spectacular Dingle peninsula, with its rugged coastline views. It was a glorious day for a walk.
We walked by and through many rock-walled fields, scattering sheep as we went. As you walk, it’s easy to see why both the rocks and the sheep make sense. The land is very marginal — mostly rocks, with patches of moss and grass. Everything was built of stone, and rock fences and buildings were advantageous by-products of trying to clear the fields. Sheep can handle this territory, able to pick their way through steep rocky hillsides, eating wherever they find some green.
One of the fascinating sights along the way is a series of stone beehive huts. The huts are reminiscent of those at Skellig Michael. Evidence shows these probably had a different purpose, though.
Unlike the huts on the Skelligs, which were part of a long-lived monastic community, the huts here were used for people in transit. This would probably have been folks who were on a pilgrimage, perhaps to Skellig Michael or one of Ireland’s other holy sites. If you were traveling to the Skelligs a thousand years ago, you might have had to hold up for a considerable period, waiting for weather and waves to moderate enough for a safe crossing to the island.
Several of these beehives were scattered along the way. While most of the huts were stand-alone, a few of them were combined into multi-unit structures — for all the world, like ancient motels.
Most of the beehives have had their roofs removed now. Like the US, Ireland has become a litigious society, and ancient roofs could prove a liability. What a shame! These mortarless huts stood for centuries, and now we purposely chop them off — destroying history for the sake of trespassers who might decide to climb on the roof.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We’re in Ireland now for our annual women’s trip to Ireland. It’s such a fascinating place, full of history and culture — both ancient and modern. Imagine living here, with a 1,000-year old beehive “motel” in your back yard!
“The deserts of the American Southwest abound with ancient literature.” Petroglyphs — images or symbols chipped into the rock — are found throughout the area, left by its prehistoric inhabitants. Their meanings are obscure, the subject of much speculation and little proof.
Even when an image seems clear, its meaning isn’t as easy. Does a glyph that looks like a deer mean this is a good hunting area, frequented by deer? Does it record a specific hunt? Perhaps it honored a deer-related god? Or was it just the idle chippings of a bored and artistic traveler — ancient graffiti?
In most cases we’ll probably never know, but one group of petroglyphs may have yielded up its secrets. A couple of amateur Arizona archaeologist say these “water glyphs” were used by the ancient Anasazi used to find scarce water sources in the desert.
The markers seem to act something like a map of motel locations. Just as a modern traveler could look at such a map and decide where he would be assured lodging for the night, one of the Anasazi well-versed in reading these symbols would have known where he could next stop for water and shelter.”
Bob Ford and Dixon Spendlove have identified and studied more than 270 examples of these symbols, across more than 2,000 square miles, throughout the ancient Anasazi homeland. Each glyph is at one water source, and points to another, enabling you to hop from water to water across the desert.
Just take a quick walk in the desert today, and imagine heading off on a lengthy trek across the forbidding (and potentially deadly) desert. You’ll wish you had a reliable water map.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Our desert hiking trips in Arizona and New Mexico come supplied with plenty of water, but you’ll quickly get an idea of how hard it must have been for earlier travelers without all our conveniences. It’s spectacular country, but not easy for the unprepared!
Today, Skellig Michael is a World Heritage Site, and an amazing place, indeed. It’s incredible to be here, high on top of the island, and try to fathom what it was like to live here, year round, in these little stone huts, on this steep rocky island. It was a beautiful day when we were there, but the monks didn’t always have it so good.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I’ll be heading back to Ireland in a few weeks for our next women’s tour of Ireland. As long as the weather and sea conditions co-operate, we’ll be sitting by one of these beehive huts soon, imagining the life of those hardy monks who built it.
I’m setting myself up for a killer schedule on my Europe trip this summer. I’ve got a long red-eye on the way to London Gatwick, arriving there about 630am. Then a long layover in London. Then another red-eye on the train/boat combination getting to Ireland.
And I couldn’t be happier about it!
This is the perfect opportunity to try out the Yotel at Gatwick. They’ve got mini-hotel rooms that you can book by the hour. Instead of curling up on a bench, artfully wrapped around your luggage, you get a small, secure private room — Real bed! Desk with free wi-fi! SHOWER!
This is something I’ve been wishing more airports had. It looks so cute, I can hardly wait! I’ll post a candid review with photos once I’ve been there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I’m heading to the Emerald Isle for our women’s tour of Ireland this summer. Yes, there are easier ways to get there, but hey — I get to take planes, trains, and boats, and try out a Yotel all on the same trip. Sounds like a travel adventure to me!
In Our Time did a great radio/podcast episode on The Greek Myths. As usual, they had a fascinating discussion with the experts. The show is British & scholarly, but not stuffy.
How to cover such a huge topic in less than an hour? They touched briefly on at least a dozen topics that left me wanting to know more. A few of the points:
Some of the mythical figures, and stories of murder, incest, and eating your young (”completely bonkers” according to one of the participants)
The different ages of Greece, and the relationship of history and myth
The evolution and purpose of myth (”distilling 2000 years of scholarship into about a minute”, as another participant said)
The great Greek tragedies competing with each other
And one thought totally new to me — Pandora as Eve?
If you’re not familiar with this show, it’s a wide-ranging show about “the history of ideas”, with recent episodes covering such diverse topics as Newton’s Laws, Kierkegaard, the Statue of Liberty, and (of course) the Greek Myths. I get it as a podcast. Check it out at In Our Time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you’re going on our Greece trip for women, you’ll find this especially interesting! You’ll be seeing some of these places in person. You might even stand in the very room at Mycenae where Clytemnestra killed her husband Agamemnon… (no-one knows for sure!)
You try to be good, and do the right thing. On a tropical vacation, you know all about applying sunscreen liberally to protect from those damaging rays. But now a new study finds that common sunscreen ingredients are killing coral reefs.
These chemicals can awaken dormant viruses in algae that live in the coral. The viruses kill the algae, which are vital for the coral to survive. Without the algae, the coral turns white and dies.
Researchers estimate that 4,000 to 6,000 metric tons of sunscreen wash off swimmers annually in oceans worldwide, and that up to 10 percent of coral reefs are threatened by sunscreen-induced bleaching.
So what’s the answer? Scientist Danovaro points out 2 simple things swimmers can can do to reduce their impact on coral: Use sunscreens with physical filters, which reflect instead of absorb ultraviolet radiation; and use eco-friendly chemical sunscreens.
Australian researchers are also working to develop a sunscreen based on a natural ultraviolet-blocking compound found in coral.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Our BVI sailing trips involve lots of sunshine and coral reefs. It’s a beautiful place, and so much fun! It’s disheartening to find that our sunscreen could be harming the coral. I’ll be researching better possibilities, and will report back later.
click for larger image
One of the fascinating sights along the way is a series of 
Several of these beehives were scattered along the way. While most of the huts were stand-alone, a few of them were combined into multi-unit structures — for all the world, like ancient motels.
These mortarless huts stood for centuries, and now we purposely chop them off — destroying history for the sake of trespassers who might decide to climb on the roof.
Even when an image seems clear, its meaning isn’t as easy. Does a glyph that looks like a deer mean this is a good hunting area, frequented by deer? Does it record a specific hunt? Perhaps it honored a deer-related god? Or was it just the idle chippings of a bored and artistic traveler — ancient graffiti?
In Our Time did a great radio/podcast episode on The Greek Myths. As usual, they had a fascinating discussion with the experts. The show is British & scholarly, but not stuffy.
So what’s the answer? Scientist Danovaro points out 2 simple things swimmers can can do to reduce their impact on coral: Use sunscreens with physical filters, which reflect instead of absorb ultraviolet radiation; and use eco-friendly chemical sunscreens.
