It is around 10PM and the light in Vadstena burns as though it’s 5PM. The sun seemingly is trying to set, but it appears Vättern Lake just won’t allow the ball of fire to dip below its surface. It is not time for bed just yet in this quiet Swedish town. What struck me about Vadstena was the light, bouncing through the trees to the lake or cascading across the cobbled lanes and wooden buildings. The town itself is a pilgrimage site for many. Santa Birgitta carries about town just as the light does. The Klosterkyrkan, Vadstena’s church, was built in response to the saint’s Continue Reading
The Uncommonly Known Benefits Of Being A Rolling Suitcase Traveler
For the most part, travelers I see are often those with backpacks. Articles circulate linking the backpack to different aspects of how one travels. Suddenly an item strapped to your back becomes a whole way of being. Backpackers are adventurous. Backpackers are incredibly social. Backpackers love jumping from place to place more easily. I didn’t know a means to carry clothes, computers and guidebooks could say so much. I don’t use a backpack. I think it stems from a grade school distaste for backpacks. Having to lug home every heavy textbook known to man and woman proved challenging for my Continue Reading
Matera, Italy Wishes You Were Here
Silence is hard to find in Italy. Noise of some form is bound to find a way into the most isolated stretches of the country. From their garbage trucks to Italians in general, finding peace and quiet in Italy can be a challenge. That is, until I reached Matera, a town located in the southern region of Basilicata, in between Calabria and Puglia. Matera is considered one of the oldest settlements in the world, with the first inhabited zone dating back to Paleolithic times. These settlements formed in the earth with caves, called sassi. However, Matera is not merely known for its old Continue Reading
The Poor in Coffee at the Santa Maria Novella Train Station
The day I left Florence, a man emptied his pockets. Dressed in a fine Italian suit, the smaller in stature Italian reached into his pockets and emptied them for the hand outstretched in front of him. The Florence Train Station, Santa Maria Novella, can be a place of chaos. College backpackers settle into the floors, sleeping until the next train out of town rolls into the platform. Masses of people congregate in front of the departures sign, waiting and waiting for their platform number to finally be listed. In typical Italian style, it never shows up until just before the train is set to Continue Reading
Alberobello, Italy Wishes You Were Here
In the Puglia region of southern Italy, known as the heel of the country, the town of Alberobello covers in some of Italy's most unique structures. All around Alberobello, witch hat looking homes scatter about, with some adorned in strange Christian and pagan symbols. Driving into the city around dusk, birds circle throughout the sky above as though Hitchcock is here filming his latest thriller. The sky’s color is burnt orange, with hints of deep purple. The screeching birds are not in Alberobello for dramatic effect. Some 1,500 strangely shaped homes set up in town known as trulli. The stone Continue Reading
Is Travel An Excuse?
The late night romantic comedy blares in the background with the usual plot line unfolding. A relationship falls apart. A job is lost. The lead is sick of their job, maybe even sick of their family. The woman meets her man. The list goes on and on. The main character often makes the decision to travel, to get away from the job, the man, or to go find the man out in the wilds of the world, far away from home. While in Italy this summer, I often pondered the question, “Is travel an excuse?”. Amidst a language not my own, customs I didn’t uphold and that never ending feeling of not fitting in, Continue Reading
Porto’s Leaps and Bounds
The table across from me holds three characters. A woman clad in an off the shoulder turquoise top fans herself as her face seems to glisten. The woman seated next to her reads a magazine with black-rimmed glasses on the very tip of her nose. The man at the table appears relaxed, transfixed on the woman in turquoise. Then, another colorful character enters the picture, a woman dressed in gathered leather pants. Probably well into her sixties, she dances to the “cha cha” truly as if no one is watching her. This group sits and dances to my diagonal right in a loud bar in Porto. Potentially the Continue Reading