Women covered head to toe in white cotton pressed their entire bodies full-frontal into the red rock wall. They kissed it, chanted, and stood. I was trying to weave past their bodies and a cloud of more mobile worshippers. Our passage to the church was a four and a half foot tall opening in the rock and over a small rock bridge with a 3 meter drop to a passage below, and get inside the Church of St. Michael, one of the 11 churches at Lalibela.

It was the celebration of St. Michael, an annual holiday for devotees of the Orthodox Christian church, which is most of Ethiopians. The day before, I had asked if it was was possible to see a service inside one of the rock churches. Sam had come out of the tourist office with good news. It was possible and we were here on a holy day. The service would start at 2 a.m. the next day, but we could arrive at 7 a.m., towards the end of the service.

The next morning, before the sun was hot over the granite mountain, we got out of the car at the base of the hill. It was covered with figures draped in white. Sam led me through the crouching crowd. The worshippers faced towards a red and gold robed priest chanting passages from the Bible in Amharic over a loud speaker. There were the very old, brown faces wrinkled like the cotton fabric. They were attended by their families. There were the new mothers whose babies were wrapped with scarves like bandages around their bodies. Their heads, little brown orbs, poked through the white cloth.

Those who stood leaned on prayer sticks – staffs about shoulder high with a T on the top – that were specifically made for the church goers to lean on as services often lasted three to four hours. Every person had the ubiquitous yellow gallon-sized jug (formerly filled with cooking oil from Dubai) or the liter water bottle filled with water. The priests chants were blessing the water.

Standing there, I couldn’t help but move my hands in the cross formation – in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I grew up Catholic, the hand gesture was ingrained in my muscle memory from mass attendance every Sunday. I hadn’t been to church since Christmas with my family. At this service, it was like puppet strings pulling my hands into action: head, heart, and shoulders – the shape of the cross. It felt like the only appropriate thing to do.

After about 20 minutes, the service ended and Sam led me to the tunnel that would take us inside St. Michael’s Church. There was no order, just a stream of people. I made small steps forward on my healing ankle. The crowd was mostly women, we were entering the right side of the church, the women’s side. What could have been very claustrophobic was not, there was enough space for movement, if just slow.

We came to the small rock bridge to enter the church – straight out of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. On the other side of the narrow path was the church entrance, people coming in and out like ants through a crack in the wall. The only way in was to push through. I was wobbly, unsure of my stance since my fall in the Simien Mountains. Sam held my hand and we moved forward, inch by inch. I felt worshippers trying to edge past my back, making me lean a little bit too much over my equilibrium. I grabbed a hold of the wall on the other side and pulled myself through.

Inside a space of about 10 meters wide by 6 meters long were about 50 worshippers in various stages of prostration along the rim of the interior. In the center of church were four sitting priests chanting and shaking sisterns, holy rattles that clang when shook. Three deacons, teenage boys sat in the center with long, large drums – wide on the top to symbolize the entrance to hell via temptation and narrow on the bottom to symbolize the entrance to heaven. All had been there, shaking and banging away, since 2 a.m. Boom, clang, chant, boom, clang, chant. They pulsed with a syncopated pace, fatigued from five hours of the service, but still going at a regular rhythm.

After five minutes, the harmony stopped, and the instruments cleared. Three priests in red and gold robes who had been leading the service outside came into the center and started to chant from the Bible – the miracles of St. Michael. One of the priests offered me a prayer stick to lean on. The other worshippers had no respite if they did not bring their own. I could tell from the way Sam grabbed it from my hand when I was pause to take pictures that this loan from the priest was an honor.

I don’t understand Amharic and I had to look up the Miracles of St. Michael for this post (He’s the archangel of protection). I’m not religious any more, but what I can tell you is that standing in that ancient church, watching and feeling this service, seeing women kissing rocks and men folded forward in prostrations, witnessing fatigued arms beat one more pound on a drum, and the priest offering me a respite with a stick – it was witnessing pure devotion. It’s where when one says, I forsake everything else and believe. Where one empties out their heart to fill it only with that faith that there is something else, something besides themselves in that room and they are taken care of. There was God in that stone room. No one was alone.

The priests ended the celebration after about 20 minutes and believers came forward to be blessed by one of them. Sam said, “you can go and get blessed.” I didn’t hesitate and maneuvered on through. My chatty mind was off – I leaned right in, felt his palm on my face and kissed it. I was blessed.

I followed Sam back out through the entrance and to the bridge. Everyone was leaving and my footing was still unsure, but I felt several hands on me and moved with the grace and strength of the crowd across the divide.

“Get up there! Get up there! Quickly, quickly! ” my guide Samarawhit (Sam) urged in a loud whisper. “What? What?” I questioned back just as urgently. Quick was not a speed I was able to do easily at the moment. I was moving very slowly because I had sprained my ankle at the beginning of a hike in the Simien Mountains the day before. The rock floors of the House of the Holy Saviors in Lalibela, while covered in carpet, were very uneven. I couldn’t rush too fast, and, plus, I didn’t know what I was rushing too.

I limped ahead to the white robed priest holding a staff and a cross. He was near the alter area of the rock church. The only light inside was provided by sunlight coming in through the second-story cross-shaped windows and some artificial flourescent lights.

Three Ethiopian men were standing with the priest taking pictures. I thought it was a ceremony of sorts, so started to snap away. I took about three pictures and headed back to Sam. “What’s happening? What did I just take pictures of?” Usually Sam would give me a full explantation of something we were seeing on our northern Ethiopian tour and then I’d snap photos.

“The cross! It’s the cross of King Lalibela, the one I was telling you about that was bought by the Belgians and then returned. It’s the pure gold cross.”
“You mean the cross we’d just seen a picture of in the museum?”
“Yes! In my 11 years of coming to Lalibela, I have never seen this here. This is very special, we are very lucky.”

As soon as the three men were gone, Sam took matters into her own hands and went forward to the priest and spoke in Amharic. He started to bless her. He placed the cross on her forehead, on her heart, and on her shoulders. She kissed it in between touchings. The priest started to pat it all over her back and belly. Sam is six months pregnant, the priest was blessing her baby with the sacred.

“Do you want to a blessing? You just have to give him a little something after.” I did want a blessing. I was raised Catholic, but do not practice religion any more. However, I still very much believe in God and think when one is in a sacred space and one is offered a blessing by a holy man bearing a cross of an ancient king, the answer has to be yes.

He touched the cross to my forehead. I was trying to remember Sam’s prostrations. I didn’t kiss it, but he touched heart and then my shoulders, in the shape of the cross. On the third time he touched my chin and tears came to my throat and eyes. I wanted to cry. I heard a voice, my voice, in my head and it said, “Your are always taken care of.” I held back the tears, even though I wanted them to gush out and take with them any fears that didn’t believe this statement. “You are always taken care of.”

How many times in my life had I not believed this to be true? When fear had taken over my decisions and I let it keep me behind the prison door of beliefs around “that’s too much” “I don’t want to hurt anyone” and “I can’t.”? Certainly for the majority of my life, until about 2005 when I started to believe that on the other side of new and different choices on my heart’s path, I would be taken care. That everything would be OK. And it was.

And in the past year, I had believed this more and more. That when I needed help, help appeared. That when I needed a new direction, that new direction appeared. I took the initial steps, I asked for the help, I asked for the new direction. And when I felt a pull or saw an opportunity, almost in response, I worked hard and took it, walked through the doorway. I didn’t see an ending, just a direction and all the while moving forward. I believed, I would be taken care of. That everything would be OK.

Here I was in Lalibela. I had seen a picture of this ancient site when doing freelance work for GeoEx last July. I had never thought much about visiting Ethiopia or Africa. But then, around the same time, I read an article from 1994 in Conde Nast Traveler by Pico Iyer about his visit to Lalibela. He described a sacred and beautiful place. I did more research and I felt that familiar pull, the one that starts in my heart and weaves itself into a knowing. I had to go there.

The “how?” answered itself over the next 10 months as did a new career direction. I was spending so much time on this blog and Meet Plan Go that I decided that it was time to work in the travel industry, where it could be my day job. The 10 hours a week freelance for GeoEx turned into 30 and they are now my major client. I get to inspire people to live their travel dreams on a daily basis. Working for GeoEx and with the team feels so natural and easy – like Lalibela and travel, I was always meant to be there. And with the job, comes travel and this trip happened and here I am in Lalibela. I am always taken care of.

“We are so lucky to have seen that cross. So many times they tell me ‘it’s here, it’s here’ and it’s not here. Today it is. You are so lucky.” Sam went on as we exited the church, “I still feel that happy feeling, even now. We are so lucky.” Yes, we are. And we came to be here at this time, on this day to receive that blessing.

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*Full disclosure: My trip is a “familiarization trip” that I am taking on behalf of my employer GeoEx, a high-end, adventure travel company. I am on a customized tour and experiencing the country through hotels, food, and activities as our guests would. These views on the blog are my own.

There are four tenets of life in the cooperative Awra Amba village*: Religion is a choice, men and women are equal, kids go to school, and the elderly need to be taken care of in their retirement. These ideas are a part of daily life for the Western visitor, in Northern Ethiopia there is a separate village that practices them.

My guide Samarawit and I were driven 10 kilometers off the main “China Road” (named by those who built it) between Bahir Dar and Gondar in the Amhara state in northern Ethiopia. She listed these tenets and the story of the man, Dr. Zuma Nuru, now in his sixties, who had founded the 400-resident village.

My view of villages had now been formed after four days in Ethiopia. This morning, we’d passed several towns and villages after leaving the Lake Tana town of Bahir Dar. The view from the road followed the same pattern between each: vast farmland tilled by men with a hand-plow pulled by two oxen at the prompting of his whip; women carrying sacks or yellow plastic gallon containers of water on their head; young boys carrying staffs across their shoulders like yokes or whipping groups of goats and cattle; donkeys carrying eucalyptis firewood; and clusters of children moving aside at beeps from passing trucks and cars. Samarawit explained that 75% of the country’s grains come from this area, supplying the main ingredient of the Ethiopian staple injera bread.

But the Awra Ambra village is not an agricultural village, their self-sustainment was from the textile cooperative, a hotel and restaurant where visitors could stay for a sampling of village life, and a mill where they grind and sell grains from nearby farms. Every resident has a role, a job. There are no churches or mosques, but villagers are free to worship, they just have to travel for it. According to Samarawit, this has drawn the biggest criticism from religious groups, but Dr. Nuru’s reasoning is that religion doesn’t prevent poverty.

We pulled into the village, the only car around. Four boys who looked between ages 4 and 8 joined me at my open door. They were dressed in t-shirts and short pants, some barefoot, some in sandals. “Money, money,” they said meekly. My heart dropped and a thought popped into my head, how real was this cooperative? I pushed the thought aside, maybe they had gotten money once from a tourist and were hopeful that this behavior would repeat with more tourists. I reasoned this because one of the main lessons shared with village children was to not take anything that was not theirs.

Our tour guide Tringu, one of the sister’s of Mr. Nuru’s second wife, showed me the school and the library – two clean, cement buildings filled with world maps, the Amharic alphabet, shapes, colors, the human body, but no children. On the wall of the library was two identical save for the language posters: The Golden Rule spelled out in the major religions of the world: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism…A version of “do unto others as they would do unto you.” A core of the village ethos. I asked, “when do the kids come to the school?” 10 a.m. It was 9:30.

Tringu showed us a village home -three rooms: a kitchen with a stove for a fire, a burner for injera, and a chimney that also boiled water; a bedroom, and a sitting room for guests and day. Tringu sat at a small loom and demonstrated her weaving technique.

We visited the “retirement” home where seven elderly residents lived, sleeping in clean berths and resting the shade. Four women were out, one of them, in her sixties was Dr. Nuru’s first wife. A Ms. Yamrot came out into the daylight to show me her nick tattoos, which she claimed, “sparkled and shown from a distance when she was a young woman.” I took this picture. I thought she still shined.

We visited the hotel where one can stay for 40 birr a night (a little less than 3 USD) and there’s a “very clean bathroom and shower.” We were brought to the weaving cooperative, men and women at the looms. This is where the equality is seen – in all my travels to rug and fabric cooperatives or stores in Morocco, Turkey and India, I have never seen a man at the loom, just young, pulsating women whose fingers blurred with wool. Here, men pumped away at the looms same as the village women.

Samarawit explained that it was gender equality that inspired the founding of this village. According to Samarawit, Dr. Nuru had seen his father mistreat his mother, hitting her if her work was not perfect. He wondered why this was when most of the work was done by women in his village. He thought this unacceptable and decided they needed to be treated better, and it became one of the tenets of his utopia.

After the tour, Tringu took me to the shop where I bought a bedspread and pillow cases of the same pattern I had just seen woven in the cooperative factory. We headed towards the car with my purchases to leave. I looked up and saw the kids out in a yard near the school, they were hand-in-hand in a large circle starting the school day. I jogged to them.

About 20 kids were standing in pairs, front to back. I stood behind one pair and put my finger to my lips. The kids were about 4-6 years old, dressed in some form of a blue uniform with short pants and vest, some girls wore basic black or brown dresses. They half smiled when they saw me, I couldn’t tell if I was an intruder or a welcome guest. The teacher, standing in the center smiled. I watched their game – they played a version of musical chairs, having to run to a broken pair and complete it when the teacher’s singing stopped. I joined in and raced with the kids, finding single child to race to and stand behind. They and the teacher warmed up to me, the visitor witnessing for one hour their way of life.

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*Full disclosure: My trip is a “familiarization trip” that I am taking on behalf of my employer GeoEx, a high-end, adventure travel company. I am on a customized tour and experiencing the country through hotels, food, and activities as our guests would. These views on the blog are my own.

She whipped her neck in all directions, slowly at first, and then faster and faster until it looked like her afro was a separate entity, spinning in the opposite direction of her neck, taking off from her body. Slower moving, pulsating dancers flanked her on each side. She was a helicopter blade, a propulsion engine.

The crowd clapped a beat to keep up, but she was already gone. Her brown face and black curls blurred together and then BAM! One final clap and movement ceased, like she put on the brakes. She looked up with large brown eyes to the crowd, breathing heavily, but not exhausted. Ringlets stilled over her face. The performance of the Arsi Oromo tribal neck dance was over.

It was the grand finale of the evening’s show at Yod Abyssinia restaurant, a dinner theater where the emcee promised, from the start, that we would be taken on a “whistle-stop” tour of the tribes of Ethiopia through dance and song. All aboard.

My local guide Kaleb and I had just finished a filling dinner of the traditional Ethiopian injera, an airy crepe made with indigenous wheat. This floppy flatbread served as plate and fork for about twenty different types of available sauces and curries made with chickpeas, lentils, spinach, lamb, beef, and chicken. We filled up our plates with a sampling, sat down at the low, circular table called a mesob, and dug in with our hands, pinching the spongey bread with one type of sauce. We washed the spicy meal down with St. George’s beer, a cool relief to the heat of the food.

Five musicians played traditional songs that were a mix of spiritual devotion and earthly love in topic. A man played the massinko, a one stringed instrument made of wood and horse hair (the one string) that increases in volume by adding frankinsense to that singular string. Two men played versions of a bass and lead guitar. By versions, I mean there were five strings over a body, but the body was square and the fretboard was short. Percussion was on a kebero drum and melody on a flute, the washint.

The restaurant was not full when we started, but the cushioned stools that were around each mesob filled up fast with non-Ethiopians. Kaleb and I started a game of “guess the nationality.” Small group tours with cotton-clad backpackers, most likely from Europe, crowded around several tables. African, Indian, Chinese, and Arabic business men in suits sat knee to knee. A few Chinese couples took pictures on large DSLR cameras the entire night. A group of several Persian families took up with entire front row, scarved women on one side, kids in the middle, and men on the other.

Yod Abyssinia is a tourist place meant to show Ethiopian culture to foreigners, but there were Ethiopians present – mostly young. Couples wove through the crowd – fitted shirts and tight jeans on the men and cotton mini skirts and form-fitting blouses on the women. Hair had been un-kinked, stubble manicured. It was a night out. The audience was the definition of what Ethiopians called themselves – Habesha, a hybrid. A mix of African and Arabic.

I had arrived in the morning to Addis Ababa after two weeks in Tuscany, Italy and Sardinia. Italy was luxurious, always pleasing on the eye, always making sure I had enough food and wine. A caretaking aunt. Ethiopia welcomed me, but with a feeling. It started when I walked out of the airport and saw the streams of people on the sidewalk pulsing like blood through veins. I felt like I could seep right in and flow. Ethiopia was a cult leader. It said, join us, we are humanity.

That feeling was short-lived on my first day – there for the car ride from the airport to the hotel. My hotel for two nights was the Sheraton Addis Ababa, the most luxurious hotel in the city.* Like heads of state luxurious. The car left the concrete and dirt roads, the tin shops, the glass malls, the vegetable sellers, the mobile kiosks, and embassies and entered the garden of eden, a place where Empress Menelik had left her northern palace on Mount Entoto to find warmer weather and hot springs to the south.

The Sheraton is a palace, accessible through armed-guard gates and a metal detector. We were greeted at a private desk and welcomed at every turn by uniformed men and women who wanted me to have a wonderful stay. I walked through yellow marble hallways to my fruit-basketed, Hermes-toiletried room, looked out on the fountains and terraces. A quote from my recently completed book “Gone Girl” popped into my head, “This sh*t is bespoke!”

My itinerary mentioned that I would have the evening to myself, but I only needed the day to recover from my red-eye flight into Addis Ababa. I asked Kaleb if we could venture out for a “true Ethiopian evening” thinking he would take me to a local hole-in-the-wall restaurant with surly waiters, flourescent lights, plastic chairs, and the most delicious food that I could brag about later (as in I had the most amazing dinner in Addis…) Yod Abyssinia’s whistlestop tour was what he had in mind, and it was definitely more educational and entertaining.

In addition to five musicians, there were six dancers and three singers. All were dressed in different tribal costumes for each act and each act was a song and dance, or sometimes just a song. Our “tour” through the culture reflected different Oromo tribes of the south and Tana tribes of the north. The dancers pulsated to different rhythms, but always with a strong drum beat. They danced and sang to an eating and drinking crowd where waiters and hostesses wove through tables, stopping to pour mej, the traditional honey wine only found at Emperor Salessie’s banquets prior to the revolution.

The evening was an Ethiopian banquet, a hybrid dinner theater that was a tour of cultures on stage and off. Groups of visitors and locals all crowded around small tables, leaned in, and ate with their hands, knee to knee, stomping to the beat.

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*Full disclosure: My trip is a “familiarization trip” that I am taking on behalf of my employer GeoEx, a high-end, adventure travel company. I am on a customized tour and experiencing the country through hotels, food, and activities as our guests would. These views on the blog are my own.

Florence is a museum. Yes, there are many museums in the city, but the old city IS a museum. It seemed that around every cobblestone street, there was another testament to the Rennaissance and one of its patrons – the Medicis. Piazzas, pontes, castles, galleries, and museums populate the historic city center. A and I explored it over three days, arriving early afternoon via train from Milan, staying two nights, and then departing for a road trip through Tuscany. In this post, I offer up our itinerary – it blends exploring the major sites across three days, with the necessary apertivo enjoyed every late afternoon and gorgeous dinners at night.

Day 1: Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore and Ponte Vecchio

The stately marble Florence Catherdral (Doumo) is the first major site to see, we practically ran there after settling into our hotel. A had been to Florence eight years ago, but I think it still had magic for her. When we first saw it through the surrounding buildings, I felt her sigh. The catherdral is stunning and grand – Gothic architecture in the facade of rose windows, pointed arches, and carvings. The makeup is pure Florentine – three kinds of Italian marble. The Campanile (Bell Tower) stands like a guard at 376 feet high. We could not turn our heads away and ate a late lunch at one of the resaturants right in the square. A and I switched seats after the first course so we could equally share in the views.

Inside, the inlaid marble floor stretches like a field. We stopped along the way to look up and see the detail of the stained windows and the 24 hour clock by Paolo Uccello. The main attraction, however, is Brunelleschi’s dome. The gold story of the last judgement from the Bible bursts forth from the gray and green interior stone. I took pictures at every step, as each one revealed a new detail, a new scene in my point of view.

We finished our visit to the Duomo and walked towards the river Arno and the 13th Century bridge Ponte Vecchio. It is the only Florentine bridge to have survived World War II. You’ll know you’re on the right one because of the crowds. The bridge is covered inside and out with jewelry stores, which bulge over the river.

Day 2: Uffizi Gallery, Piazza della Signoria, and Climbing the Campinile

I got tickets to the Uffizi Gallery for as early as I could – both in day and time. I booked our time two months prior to coming and the earliest available reservation was 11:30 a.m. We walked from our hotel to the Piazza dell Signoria to make it there in time and as soon as we reached the square, crowds. Tons of people. Loads of people. All in the same position – heads up to the medieval castle and arms outstretched with cameras. A surmised, after seeing several people with Carnival stickers that it was cruise day – a day when the cruise ships doc in nearby Livourno and bus the interested passengers into Florence for the day. Away from one sea to this people sea.

The chaos continued past the Palazzo Vechio and the statue promenade, to the Lines of Uffizi. I will capitalize because they are a destination in themselves. There are a collective – lines for groups, lines for reservation holders, and lines for those who just showed up (note: NOT recommended). The latter line strung out from the entrance around the building and was noted with a sign stating “2 hours.” A found a spot in the line for those with reservations and I went to door number 3 to pick up our tickets at the appointed time. I joined her. There was somewhat of a system to the madness and it took us about 1/2 hour to get into the museum.

We rented audio guides, which I recommend for the 6 Euros because there are so many people reading the little placards at each piece the narrator gives the overview and story of the paintings or sculpture. The Uffizi is laid out in a U shape over two stories and the works of art are displayed in chronological order. This is helpful for non-art history types like myself who appreciate seeing each work building upon the foundation of the time prior. We started in the 13th century with depictions of Madonna and Child. These works have a flatter perspective (I learned!) and it was a big deal to “ground” Mary and Baby Jesus on a throne, making them more “earthly.”

In each room, at each painting and era, I could see the styles changing, the dimensions going from flat to full, to more human. By the time I reached the Bottecellis (Birth of Venus and Primavera), the paintings felt positively lush. And, for this visitor, a welcome break from the Biblical scenes. The audio guide helped me interpret the mythology and actually read the painting and see the stories and symbolism happening (again – not an art history major, just an appreciator). By the time I saw the Holy Family, one of Michaelangelo’s only paintings, I truly appreciated the artistic innovation brought on by his artistic forebearers. They paved the way to his sensual dimensionality and his genius showed through. The figures were bursting off the canvas in rippling shapes and movement.

At the end of the second floor “U” there is a terrace cafe that looks over the Piazza della Signoria and the tower feels very close. A got a prosecco and a snack there – a necessary break from the gallery viewing. The Ufizzi first floor covers the 16th and 17th centuries from both Italian and non-Italian artists. I continued to see the art evolution with more royal (read: Medici) portraiture and gruesome scenes out of Greek mythology. Medusa’s Mask by Carravaggio tells the story of her slaying in just one scene done, I thought, in a very creative way. (Note: A interpreted this for me, a benefit of traveling with an art history type).<BR

After being inside for several hours, I walked outside to the statues in the Logia dei Lanzi and snapped pictures of the statues of ancient Rome include the Rape of Sabine and Perseus all proud with Medusa’s head. I rested among the art, something I could not do inside the Ufizzi.

Our time at the Ufizzi definitely made us hungry so we stopped for lunch to gather strength and then headed back to the Duomo for our afternoon activity: Climbing the Campinile. We promised ourselves a drink from a nearby rooftop bar after climbing the 400+ steps. Motivated, we entered, paid the five euros, and started up. And up. And up. And up. Finally to the top and there was Duomo and Florence, terra cotta rooftops wedged into each other, towers and steeples spiking through, and, across the Arno, the green carpet of the Boboli gardens. That evening’s apertivo was enjoyed from the rooftop of la Rinascente with the sun setting and turning the Duomo golden.

Day 3: Michaelangelo’s David and the Oltrarno Neighborhood

Our appointment to see the David at the Galleria dell’ Accademia was early – 9 a.m. early, which for this girl on vacation felt like a time to wake up for work. I purposely chose as early as possible, two months ago, to avoid the crowds. And mission accomplished. There were barely any lines, the cruise ships must have departed or not yet arrived.

I wish I could have taken a picture of the first glimpse of the marble statue, but no cameras were allowed inside. It’s breathtaking, as in – I gasped or the breath was stolen or flushed of my body. Natural light from the dome above creates a spotlight on the work. It is magnificent.

Along the hallway to the David are half-carved statues from marble blocks 10-12 feet high. I looked close. They are a lesson in the detail required to represent the body in rock, in such smoothness. Large chisel marks give way to smaller and then what looked like tiny brush strokes before a perfectly arched knee or elbow or shin. Block by block, flake by flake, from stormy sea to calm waters of stone. I felt humbled by the amount of work and skill these half-finished statues took – a more natural scale of time, one born of hands and rock waiting for something to emerge versus a mechanical pounding chipping away at what exists. I was prepared to see and hopefully understand the David.

I felt pulled towards the statue with some force that also prevented me from looking away. He must be viewed and studied at every angle. Every curve of his nails, his buttocks, his legs and hands. His face carries an expression that can be seen from the right side of the display. He’s scared, determined. I wanted to follow his gaze and stand with the same grit in front of his Goliath.

To see David, is to see perfection in art, genius and mastery. But it’s still the human form. I realized in looking at him and all the people looking at him, that we carry this perfection with us each day, on ourselves, as our bodies. We have to thank Michaelangelo for capturing it so magnificiently, this divine and perfect form, our own human form.

After visiting the rest of the Galleria dell’ Accademia, I wandered past the Duomo, crossed the Arno and walked a walking tour of the Oltrarno neighborhood, famous for it’s craft shops, churches, and the Palazzo Pitti, essentially the Versailles of the Medici ruling family. It was early, so I grabbed a cappacino at one of the cafes near Santo Spirito and sat in the square before heading into the cool church. I walked towards Palazo Pitti. I couldn’t find many “traditional” craft stores open, instead I wandered down Via Maggio and Via Romano discovering three stores that were more modern craft shops: &Company, a curio shop, Guilo, a book, bag, and clothing store, and Corralina, a housewares shop.

I picked up souveniers and headed to the Palazzo Pitti. Feeling a little museum-ed out, I bought ticket number 2 and walked through the palace and up the hill into the Boboli Gardens. Where I napped. Later that evening Amanda and I met up for apertivos along the river and dinner on a rooftop, the picture window creating a frame for the lit up Duomo. The mulit-course dinner with exceptional service was a perfect end to our time in Florence. The next day, we picked up the rental car and headed out to the Tuscan countryside.

The Practicals

Hotel: We stayed at the Hotel Stella Maria. The two-star hotel had very friendly staff, clean, high-ceilinged rooms, and included breakfast and wifi. We paid 85 Euros for a double room. This was not actually the hotel we booked – the hotel we booked was closer the river, but much, much less safe and clean to what showed on the booking web site. We found Stella Maria after doing a cursory search on booking.com via A’s iphone and walking in the direction of hotels on Via Fume. I definiltely recommend the Hotel Stella Maria.
Restaurants of Note: Our last night’s dinner was at the top floor restaurant at the Grand Hotel Baglioni. White table cloths, exceptional service, delicious vino de la casa, delicious food, and THE VIEW – the Duomo lit up and framed by a large picture window. If you’re looking for more of a budget option. The hotel aslo has an apertivo hour on the rooftop terrace. Near the river, is the Ristorante il Profeta, which serves a menu in the tradition of the Medicis. In the Oltrarno neighborhood, I really enjoyed a budget lunch of pizza at Gustapizza, right near the Santo Spirito church.
Apertivs of Note: The best apertivo hour we enjoyed was at the Westin Excelsior and it’s Happy Moments menu. We did go to Harry’s bar along the Arno, but it was the view and riverside drinking that made the drink worth the price.
Tickets to the Uffizi and the David can be found on the official site.

In all my conversations about my upcoming trip to Italy, Milan was never raved about as much as our other destinations of Florence and the Tuscany countryside. In fact, a friend who had studied abroad in Italy shared that we should “skip it.” Another friend, however, had a different sentiment – it’s a working and living Italian city. And she was right, instead of walking through crowds monument to monument, we walked past residents and office buildings. This being Europe, the facades were not glass and steel and boxy like American cities, but were grey stone with wrought-iron balconies and decorative overhangs.

Milan is an excellent walking city with interesting sights and neighborhoods, and an Italian tradition that we got to know very well – the aperitivo.

Start with the big sights, or as my friend A commented, the ‘reverant’ sites before hitting the irreverant ones, which for us were mostly centered around eating and drinking.

Milan Catherdral (Duomo)

The large Piazza del Duomo is aflutter with pigeons and tons of touts, who rushed us soon as we turned the corner. Birds and men are hard to ignore and working together. (Note: the birdfeed and picture are not free). Make your way to the center of the square for “the picture.” Started in the late 14th century in the Gothic style, the cathedral looks confectionary with its marble spires peaking towards the sky.

There is no entry fee, but one can pay 2 Euros for “valuable” photo access. It was worth it to wander and capture photos of this grand buildling’s inside. There is the ability to climb to the roof of Duomo. The stair access is on the left side of the building about 1/3 block past the main entrance.

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

Immediately next to the Doumo is the Galleria Vittorio Emmaunale II. This “mall” is grand in scenery, but did not feel overrun with commerce. The walkways were wide enough that it felt like a promenade to stroll versus a runway to purchase. This massive arcade was completed in the year 1877, making it the world’s oldest mall. The stores are high-end – Prada and Louis Vuitton anchor the center, but it is worth a stroll through to look up at the wrough-iron ceiling and down at the in-laid marble floor. After a visit to the Duomo, the Galleria still felt austere and reverent because of its grandeur and beauty. We found ourselves walking through in hushed towns, just like at the cathedral.

la Rinascente

The irreverant part of the day begins here with a visit to the department store la Rinascente. It’s also right next to the Duomo. The inside has typical high-end department store wares found around the world – the Lancome beauty counter and Michael Kors fashion shoes. Take the escalator to the top to the gourmet market place. Here there are three restaurants – have a seat at il Bar to enjoy a prosecco eye level with the roof of the Doumo. Don’t feel the need to order any food, unless all the stained-glass and Bible scene viewing made you extra hungry. The drinks come apertivo style – with small sandwiches, olives, and potato chips.

Mercanti and Via Dante to Sforza Castle

It’s a short, but pleasant walk down the pedestrian street via Dante to end up at Sforza Castle.The rennaissance citadel and grounds are large and house several art and archealogical museums, including the Museum of Ancient Art, which includes one of Michaelangelo’s last sculptures. (The name makes me pause as I never really consider Michaelangelo “ancient.”) We wandered around the grounds, saving our museum visits for our next stop in Florence.

Our friend’s family owns the Paticceria Clivati,so we hopped on the metro train and got off to indulge in an afternoon cafe and sweet. This bakery is near the canals and if we had been there later for an apertivo, we would have walked and found a hoping nightlife at the Naviglio Grande.

Aperitivos

Italians take their afternoon cocktails seriously – it’s not just a happy hour with a discounted drink, it’s about staying a while, having some food, and enjoying that cocktail. At around 7, head out for a pre-dinner drink and snacks. Our favorite bar was the Bar Basso, home of the Negroni Sbagliato, a huge drink with prosecco added to the typical negroni mix. The service is friendly and there are plent of locals enjoying the same drink in a glass chalice. For the price of the drink (10 Euros), we also were served potato chips and olives, typical of this pre-dinner ritual. I found out about Bar Basso from this La Cucina Itailian magazine article- it includes an entire list of worthy apertivo stops throughout Milan.

The Particulars

Hotel: We stayed at the Hotel Monople just near the train station. The rooms were basic, but the location was very idea as we were only staying in Milan for two nights after arriving from the U.S. It was 70 Euros a night for a double with breakfast included.
Restaurant of note: We went to Trattoria de Giannino for dinner. It’s a splurge, but worth it. The food is seasonal and local – my charcuterie included meat from a small town in Tuscany. However, the food was a little secondary to the people watching. In the back of the restaurant was a member of the A.C. Milan football team getting an award.

It’s often a big tripper’s dilema – what to pack for many places on a big trip in something we carry on our backs? What goes in that pack has to accomodate a large variety of places in terms of weather, activities, and culture. Tomorrow, I’m going on my fourth big trip and today I just finished packing. However, the act of packing was the only thing that happened in a day.  I’ve been considering this dilema and my list for several weeks now as I shopped and planned my trip for two weeks in Italy and two weeks in Africa – one week for a cultural tour in Ethiopia and a week of safari in Kenya.  I really wanted all of what I was buying to fit in carry-on luggage too, which limits me to a small bag no more than 22 inches in length.

In Italy, I’m going to be in Milan and Florence – two very fashionable cities. Then, I am visiting Tuscany and staying at an working farm agriturismo and finally hitting up the beach in Sardinia. This means I need clothes that are comfortable and look a little on the chicer side. In Africa, I’m visiting the cities of Addis Abba and Nairobi, going on walks through mountains and bush, and visiting religious archeological sites.  I need rugged and durable clothing that covers the majority of my body and can be layered. The weather in both places for May range from moderate (50/60s F) to warm (70s/80s F) but not jungle-hot or monsoon-rainy. I’m also a bit of a klutz so need to bring my big bad hiking shoes, which are about half my suitcase in size.  Packing felt like quite the challenge.

The Pack

I decided on an Osprey Travel Trek Waypoint 40L pack because it’s a carry on size, is a neat line – meaning not a lot of straps all over the place, and very light (3lbs).

The Packing List

Here’s my packing list, I did a dry run with everything to make sure it fit, and used  3 Eagle Creek packing cubes to fit all in. I’m also bringing my regular purse, which is a medium-sized purse that can fit my iPad and books for the plane. I did the majority of my  shopping at Old Navy, REI, and Macy’s.

Clothing & Shoes

Two lightweight, long sleeve button down shirts – one Old Navy brand and one REI’s Larch shirt (unfortunate name, but great shirt!)

Four short sleeve shirts – mix of brands, but all cotton

2 tank tops - mix of brands, but all cotton

2 dresses that don’t wrinkle (Italy)

1 lightweight waterproof, windproof jacket with fleece lining from REI

2 pairs hiking pants – one from Northface and one from REI

1 pair cotton leggings

8 pairs of underwear, 3 bras

3 pairs of socks, mix of cotton and marino wool

1 pair Merrel hiking shoes

1 pair comfortable and stylish walking shoes (am giving these Arcopedico’s a try)

1 pair Chacos flip-flops

1 pair stylish wedges (they take up so much space, but are so cute and go with the dressses)

1 light swimsuit cover up

1 sarong and 1 swimsuit

Electronics

iPad + Logitech keyboard + case

Canon 110s Point and Shoot camer + case

iPhone to be used as iPod and only when there’s wifi

Nikon D5000 DSLR camera

Amazon Kindle- Paperwhite + cover

All chargers and two converters

1 DK Florence and Tuscany Guidebook (this is the only book!)

Accessories

Travel wallet by Sherpani

Secure wallet by Rick Steves

Headlamp

Flashlight

Bandana (with first-aid instructions compliments of my Dad)

World map and postcards of California

Toiletries (too many to list, but it’s all around daily care and then first aid). Definitely getting bug spray with deet for Africa.

Hat and sunglasses

How it will go? We shall see. I’ve traveled with more for weekend trips. The good news, I can (and do!) always buy stuff in country and I can ship souvenirs home. Either way, I’ve packed a pack full of items that will work for two types of trips in one jaunt and that I can carry and possibly run to catch a train with. We’ll see on that last one, but here’s hoping.

It started with a question in a dark bar. Over manhattans and margaritas, at a friend’s birthday happy hour, my friend A and I were talking about traveling. Her last international big trip was to Australia in 2011 with a group of friends, mine was to Peru in September. A few days before this conversation, I was trying to answer the question, “How did I want to travel?” After Peru, I knew that a group tour wasn’t for me and I’ve done the solo thing.  I had found a fun, solid group of friends in San Francisco and thought  – I’d really like to travel with my friends.

After sharing past stories, we paused and I can’t remember who brought it up, but we shared, “What do you think about going somewhere together this spring?” which led to “where do you want to go?” and then “have you ever been to Italy?” I had only been for three days in Rome in 2010 and thought – that’d be a great place to travel with friends – Europe is relatively easy and safe, not too much culture shock to wade through so we can have fun and soak in the days. A had been there before with her family and when I said, “I’d really like to go to Florence,” she squealed “I looooooooove Florence!” And so the idea was born: Florence, and Tuscany sometime in April or May. Sardinia was added to the itinerary when I realized I needed some beach time and we both had two weeks of vacation to use versus one.

This post is about the evolution of our trip: how we are planning a trip to Italy, specifically an Italian itinerary of Milan, Florence, Tuscany, and Sardinia for two weeks.

Finding Inspiration

Now that we knew where we wanted to go, what did our trip look like? What did we all want to do? As soon as we decided on our main destinations, I started to collect ideas. We knew that we wanted to see the big sites in Florence, especially the Uffizi Gallery.

I wasn’t convinced about spending too much time in Milan. I knew about the city from various Fashion Week headlines, but the city never came with the same breathiness from travelers when they talked Rome, Venice, or Florence. A call to my best friend B, who lives in Europe, resolved any worries. She considered Milan to be a city that was perfect for seeing how Italians lived – that it was very easy to get off the tourist path and frequent the same restaurants and shops that Italians went to. That’s not the easiest thing to do in tourist-soaked Rome.

I searched my own magazine library and found the National Geographic Traveler cover story on the Heart of Milan and I was convinced that we needed to see more of it than the airport.

In Tuscany, I wanted to sit on a patio with a bottle of Chianti and watch the setting sun over vineyards and olive groves. I wanted to eat under a trellis with A and fellow travelers, passing bottles of locally grown olive oil and plates of salty pasta and roast vegetables. I had heard of renting villas in Tuscany, but our budget was more farmhouses – and I was introduced to the wonderful world of the agriturismos. These are working farmhouses throughout Italy that have been converted into pensions and apartments for guests.   They have swimming pools, kitchens, and those trellised patios with high views.

And then, to get us extra excited, I started an AFAR Wanderlist on Tuscany Road Trip and a Pinterest Board to collect ideas and inspiration on what to do and where to eat.

Trip Dreaming Tips

• Talk to people who have been there
• Go online to travel communities like AFAR Media and Pinterest to start collecting desired places
• Pick up travel magazines and coffee table books to start seeing where you’re thinking of going

Deciding Where and When to Go

We went from dreaming to planning over bottomless mimosas. One might think that this is not conducive to a sound itinerary, but it is. Over brunch, we talked openly about the places and activities that could make up our trip. Then, we started to map out the trip. We referred to the maps in the Lonely Planet guidebook and Google Maps on our Smart phones to estimate distances. A train from Milan to Florence looked like the best option. Lucca was in, but then it was out because it was too far for too short of time. We settled on looking at an agriturismo near Siena and touring to the south of Florence. Then, I brought up the idea of Sardinia for the last week and A found a ferry service that would get us from Livorno to the island.

I wrote out the days roughly in my Moleskine to layout the trip. Since we didn’t know the exact dates yet, I numbered the list by days – 1,2,3…to 10 and then the place next to it. This method established our pace.  The trip took shape.

After the brunch session, A and I g-chatted about dates, checked with our bosses, and reviewed plane schedules. I had miles to use and A had a trip credit. We had to use United, but checked to see if the prices were competitive by using Kayak.com. I booked online through the rewards site and A called a very helpful customer service agent who made sure we were on the same flight.

Trip Planning Tips:

• Refer to maps and a good guidebook
• Layout the trip by days to estimate pace and duration
• Collaborate on dates and places that work for all travelers
• Check Kayak.com to compare prices, but book directly with the airline

Arranging Lodging and Transportation

It was time to start our itinerary and get to down to laying out the exact trip. I borrowed an itinerary format I had seen used on group trips before: lay out the dates and consider the transit time and keep track of lodging, confirmation numbers, and days of travel.

I set up a shared Google spreadsheet with eight columns: Day, Date, Description, Lodging, Transportation,K Money Down, A Money Down, and Confirmation Numbers. The rows go day by day and describe what we are doing, where we are staying, and how we are getting there. Once we started to get the details arranged, A set up a trip in Tripit so we can have the itinerary information on our smartphones through the app. We also kept track of any money we were each putting money down on hotels and transport that we would split up later.

We divided the tasks: A took Milan and Florence and I took Tuscany and Sardinia.

Lodging: We used booking.com, agriturismo.net, and Wimdu.com. Booking.com has reviews like Trip Advisor so we could get a sense of the place.  Agriturismo.net is a huge site of all the agriturismos in Italy. It shows pictures, reviews, activities, and extensive filtering. The site has nice feature where after I contacted one agriturismo, the site asked me if I’d like to be contacted by places that meet the criteria. I said yes and soon I was getting emails from lodge owners saying that they had space for me. Several days later, I had a confirmation.  Wimdu.com is like Airbnb.com, but in Europe. They had an extensive inventory of apartments in Sardinia and booking was simple – I found the place, inquired for the dates, and was approved.

Transportation: We had a variety of planes, trains, and automobiles to book. For Milan to Florence, we used Italiarail for train travel. A booked the car through American Express Travel because she used them through her work. If we had to book on our own, I found this very helpful article on how to rent a car in Europe. Then, I researched ferry services and found Corsica Ferries to get from Livorno to Sardinia overnight. The majority of our entire trip budget is going to the rental cars, but we are short on time and it’s the easiest way to get around.

Tips:

• If you can, use a variety of resources – ask your boss if you can use resources through your company to save money on travel.
• Never e-mail your credit card or bank details to anyone – email is unsecured. A had to fax a copy of her credit card and I sent a wire transfer via the official instructions on the booking site for only 20% of the final price.
• Europe has many budget airlines that can be cheaper than trains or rental cars.
• If a trip is going to take more than 7 hours, consider taking an overnight train or ferry to money  – it saves on hotel costs and a day of travel.

Typically,  it’s lodging and transportation that I only book in advance, but the Uffizi and the Michelangelo’s David require reservations far in advance, so I booked these tickets two months in advance

The Itinerary:

We leave in a month, have the skeleton of our trip booked, and are going to see these beautiful places in Italy.

• Day 1: Arrive in Milan and settle in, night in Milan
• Day 2: Tour Milan, specifically the Doumo and the Galleria Vittoro
• Day 3: Leave Milan via train to Florence, night in Florence
• Day 4:  First day in Florence and a visit to the Uffizi Gallery reserved in the morning
• Day 5: Visit to the David in the morning
• Day 6: Pick up rental car and head to Siena, Tuscany
• Days 6-9: We are going to ask around and find what towns to hit, but also chill around the agriturismo and do some bike riding
• Day 9: Leave Tuscany, return car to Florence, and take a train to Livorno. At night we depart for an overnight journey to Sardinia
• Day 10-13: Sardinia
• Day 14: Fly Easyjet back to Milan and then onwards!

What to do?

To help fill in the gaps of where to go and what to do while we are there, I’ll be collecting more information and tips and connecting with other travelers. Here are my starter wanderlists…

• Where to Eat in Florence
• Two Days in Milan
• Reviewing the Q&A on the must dos 

I’m also taking along my favorite series of guidebook: DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Florence and Tuscany. I love these books because  they have pictures and details explaining the major sites and neighborhoods. Their food and drink sections show an overview of local specialities (with pictures). I find it much more helpful in country than lists because I can visualize what I’m going to experience.

Overall, since that conversation in the dark bar, this trip has taken about a month in duration to plan and about 5 hours of effort for each of us. Now that the Italy trip is in view, I’m back to the dreaming phase of all we are going to see and do!

Photocredits: Photo by MojoBaron on Flickr

I was skimming The New Yorker and saw a review of the book, A Sense of Direction by Gideon Lewis-Kraus. The review mentioned that the author went on three pilgrimages: the Camino de Santiago in Spain, the Shikoku pilgrimage in Japan, and the Rebbe Nachman of Breslov pilgrimage in the Ukraine. I paused at the description and added it to “my books to read” list. Pilgrimages are a popular activity for Big Trippers and something I’ve always wanted to do myself for precisely the reasons that Lewis-Krause shares in his book: to separate myself from daily life, to create space and stillness, and to meet other pilgrims.

The book begins in Tallinn, Estonia where Lewis-Krauss meets up with his friend and future-fellow pilgrim Tom. Lewis-Kraus can’t remember it, but he agreed to hike the Camino with his friend after a night out partying. Back in Berlin and remembering the commitment, the author describes his distraction-full, but directionless-life. He moved to Berlin from San Francisco thinking “I’d been living in lovely provincial San Francisco and had moved to Berlin because I’d felt I was missing out on something exciting, and now I was on the brink of leaving lively, provisional Berlin because I was afraid of mission out on something serious.”

With Tom, who is on the verge of settling down into a relationship, he starts the Camino, his first of three pilgrimages. On the route, he meets a Japanese couple who tells him about the Shikoku pilgrimage and that it’s “very hard but maybe you try someday,” After the Camino, Lewis-Krause commits to Shikoku, Japan as his second trip, circumnavigating the island by walking to 88 temples. Finally, Lewis-Kraus embarks on the third faith-based pilgrimage to the Ukraine with his brother and father to resolve long-standing family issues. On each journey, there are characters, trials, and lessons. The pilgrimages are the stage for the author’s finding clarity, strength, and compassion for himself and his family.

Here are some quotations from the book that revealed to me the many facets of a pilgrimage. Overall,  I highly recommend this book. It’s not just the journeys that are very interesting, but Gideon-Kraus is hilarious and real. There are parts that read like a dissertation, but I took the time to dissect the complex thoughts and loved the elegant insights about life revealed through the analysis.

The Reason to Do a Pilgrimage

“The pilgrim could step outside of all roles and just be a person, someone without responsibilities or expectations or any constraint besides continuous forward movement to a distant goal.”

“[In religious life] Actions are justified because you are commanded to do them, and commanded by somebody or other who’s got a plan. Secular pilgrimage is a little vacation into that sort of plan, but the thing about that vacation it that it has very little to say about what happens next. What it can do is show you that the line between obligation and desire is rarely clear, that what we often label obligations are really desires, and that each step forward is some blurry function of choice and necessity. It can suggest that there might, in the end, not be so great a difference between saying “I felt like it” and “I had to.”

On Meeting and Walking with Other Pilgrims

“I also think it has to do with the fact that we’ve come to share this experience with all these other people – Tim and David and everybody – that I think we’re sorta happily stuck with from here on out. They might be a bunch of crackpots and buffoons, but so are we, and I feel some new sense of belonging, of responsibility.” – This is a quote from fell0w pilgrim, Tom

“We’ve all come together so effortlessly, and we all see to feel so fit and so vital, so warm with roaring blood, so similar in stride and gentle in conversation. We pause for a moment, and when we continue, we do it wordlessly.”

On Walking Alone

“The one time I’ve proposed being alone was right when Tom was criticizing me, accurately, for being unsympathetic to his needs and his pain. All along I’d had such a romantic idea of what it would mean to be alone –  how heroic it would be to do this without any diversion or any support from anybody at all – but now I see it as the desire to be able to walk away. To Buen Camino. As an evasion. As an attempt to get away from my close friend right when he’s called me out for being selfish and stubborn and uncaring. An opportunity to meet some strangers, people who won’t know that I’m selfish and stubborn and uncaring. Maybe my desire to be alone is my desire to preserve some image of myself that I know won’t stand up to Tom’s sustained attention.”

On Receiving Help From Locals

“Most accounts I’ve read talk about the osettai custom in terms of the pilgrim’s experience: This walk is equal parts hardship and exactly what JR’s referring to: the gracious, humbling acceptance of support. The one exception I’ll come across is an academic study of the pigrimage by a Manchester professor called Ian Reader, who writes, of osettai, that it’s the patent neediness of pilgrims that allows the locals to rise to the occasion, to be their best, most generous selves.

On How the Pilgrimage Makes The Pilgrim More Focused…

“I’ve noticed that I’m especially able to focus on work despite the noise and my physical exhaustion. I can spend two hours writing up my notes rom the day – in anticipation, of course, of the next email dispatch – without looking up once; I’m more productive in the two hours between four and six p.m. on the Camino than I ever was in an entire week in Berlin.”

…And Quieting the Mind

“Even when I can’t fall asleep right away, I don’t mind just lying there. There are so many things I find I don’t think about at all, like what’s going on at that moment anywhere else. All were doing is walking and then stopping, but somehow that sense of structure and organization affords me so much productivity and calm.”

On What A Pilgrimage is Really Like

A fellow pilgrim shared, “There are so many books in Germany on this [Camino], but nobody mentions the pain! Maybe it is because afterward, when you get back to your real life, you remember only the good parts.”

In response to a fellow pigrim  stating he wouldn’t get any more out of walking. “Right, but that’s precisely when it gets the hardest.  Right when you feel like it’s no longer hard, because the hard parts kept it from being truly hard, you know? That’s what so much of what this was about for me, at least in the end; continuing to walk when both the discomfort and the novelty have passed. Like, I don’t know, a long-term relationship.”

Helpful Links:

• Sense of Direction by Gideon Lewis-Kraus on Amazon or better yet, buy it at your local bookstore.
• Camino de Santiago FAQs by Sherry Ott, who walked in 2012 and blogged about the practical side of the trail.
• Lonely Planet’s Guide to the Shikoku 
• The Wikipedia entry on Rebbe Nachman
• Trek-Worthy Trips as an AFAR Wanderlist

Happy trails!

Photo credit: Photo by ramkarthikblogger on Flickr

“Settling down” is often a dirty word for travelers. We view it as giving up and giving over to a more traditional, sedentary life. I like to think of my life in San Francisco right now as “settling in.” There are some roots growing, true, but the desire and need to travel is always present. The Big Trips are out there – like my upcoming safari in May – but little adventures are necessary to keep the travel groove going while feeling at home.

Luckily, San Francisco is the stage for many possible adventures that can evoke the traveler in all of us. At a recent Waypost Travel Talk Series, I met a fellow traveler who shares the same desire to travel near and local. This past Saturday, O and I headed out to the Haight Ashbury neighborhood for a little adventure. We  both love to take pictures, so we decided to capture elements of the neighborhood in alphabetical fashion. We made a small guideline for ourself – keep moving forward to follow the alphabet. And we let the day and adventure unfold. I got to F, O got to G, so we called it a day at “F & 1/2.”

Here are my pictures from our local adventure.

A is for Ashbury Street

B is for Brussel Sprouts at the Haight Street Market

B is for Bloody Mary at Martin Mack’s

C is for Coffee at Stanza Coffee House

and these women are C for Content

D is for The Dead at Amoeba Music Store

E is for Eggs at Whole Foods Market

F is for Flowers at the Conservatory of Flowers

We challenged each other to take pictures that were more uncommon shots of flowers. Being the start of spring, we found flowers in various phases of their lives and wanted to capture the changes instead of the blooms.

This adventure made me crave more close-to-home trips and revealed details of the neighborhood that I would not catch in passing. Overall a worthy “little trip” and I can’t wait to complete the alphabet throughout the city.

Gooooo Travel!