To round out our Italy adventure we decided our last stop should be Lecce, all the way down into the heel of the boot, a city of about 100 thousand. There are much less tourists down this far and…
Day 924 – Matera, Italy – (Part 2) – Historic City Center, Puglian Food, and the rest.
May 27, 2022
If your only experience of Matera is from photos or travel shows it’s easy to think that the ancient part of the city, the Sassi, is all that there is to Matera, and sure that is spectacular. But the…
Day 924 – Matera, Italy – (Part 1) – Sassi di Matera – An ancient city of troglodytes
May 13, 2022
Here lies the foundations of human civilizations. A warren of hand carved underground dwellings and structures. These were the literal cave men. The mythical troglodytes of our beginnings. The first stone age human settlements on the entire Italian peninsula….
Day 919 – The Amalfi Coast, Italy – Positano, Amalfi, and Ravello
April 28, 2022
The Amalfi Coast has long been one of my travel goals and I was elated to finally get to this region of Italy. Its colorful old houses that perch impossibly on the sides of steep cliffs over the ocean…
Day 915 – Sorrento, Italy – A cute cliffside lemon town.
April 22, 2022
Directly across the Bay of Naples from Naples is the quaint cliffside town of Sorrento, about 30 miles by the coast, passing the looming Mount Vesuvius as you go, the still steaming vents a reminder that this giant is…
Day 907 – Naples, Italy – A riot of chaos, diversity, and fold up street pizza.
April 17, 2022
Naples. A jungle of antiquity and life. An endless reticulated tangling. Layer upon layer. Thin lanes dotted with shrines and gestures for one god until the next. The winding and meshing traffic flowing like blood through veins, eschewing rules…
Day 899 – Rome, Italy – (Part 2) – Old Rome
April 5, 2022
As we’ve travelled throughout Europe over the past few years, there are few places that were not touched and shaped by the ancient Roman Empire. From the UK to Turkey and far beyond. Even the width of the railroad…
Day 899 – Rome, Italy – Founded by a guy who sucked on wolf titties. (supposedly)
March 31, 2022
Rome, according to legend, was founded by Romulus, the child of a vestal virgin raped by Mars, then condemned to death along with his twin brother Remus by drowning in the Tiber River. Fortunately their executioner was not detail…
Day 890 – Winchester, England – The original capital of England
March 26, 2022
Honestly I didn’t know anything about Winchester, I didn’t even know it existed. We were waiting out our two weeks after our covid boosters and looking for a place a bit less expensive than London with access to hiking…
Day 880 – El Puerto de Santa María, Spain – The Sherry Triangle (part 3)
March 16, 2022
According to Homer’s Odyssey, after the Trojan War, Menestheus escaped through the Straits of Gibraltar to the mouth of the Guadalete River (modern day El Puerto de Santa María) where he established Menesthei Portus (Menestheus’s port). The port was…