Heading south from Otranto, I follow the SP358, the road in Puglia that hugs the coast down to the point of no return in Italy. The howling of crickets and the sound of the breeze out the car window creates an enchanting song. I have always had images in my mind of what the very point of Italy’s boot heel would look like. Almost like my El Dorado, I have high hopes as the path to this Promised Land continues to wind. Tiny coves with beaches only further my excitement. So far removed for any Italy I have known up to this point, I continue to head south, imagining what it would be like to Continue Reading
Lessons on Achieving From Prehistoric Humans in Ireland
Reasons to travel usually boil down to wanting to see this, a need to experience that. Many travelers want to meet people different from what they know, find meaning in foreign languages, sample tastes palettes have never tickled or simply to get away, to feel displaced. Until I set foot on the Brú Na Bóinne site in Ireland, I didn’t realize I had cast aside and neglected one major reason we should all travel. Located in County Meath, Brú Na Bóinne is composed of three main prehistoric sites, Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth. On my visit, only Newgrange was open for viewing. I usually resist Continue Reading
Suzy Stumbles Over Travel: Week of August 22, 2011
In case you missed my travel announcement, I will be off to North and South Carolina in just a few weeks. In the meantime, I have been busy reading about travel as I present this week’s Suzy Stumbles Over Travel. In case you are new here, each week I ask writers and readers to submit their favorite travel posts of the week. I read each submission, comment, tweet the article on Twitter, stumble the piece using Stumbleupon and place a link to the post on my Facebook page. The following week, I select my five favorites to be featured here and the stumbling begins again into the next week. Just Continue Reading
La Tomatina in Buñol, Spain Wishes You Were Here
As I casually walk down an innocent side street in Buñol, Spain, an older man looks at me. His eyes seem to be seeing targets. He is carrying a bucket full of tomatoes. One by one, he hoists them at me. A familiar scene, like dodge ball in junior high, this is not going to end well. Just as it was in junior high, I know tomato throwing is not my sport. In the town of Buñol, Spain, just beyond Valencia, the festival of La Tomatina is put on every year, much to the amusement of backpackers the world over. Considered the world’s biggest food fight, La Tomatina supposedly began in the 1940s Continue Reading
Come September: My Travel Plans For Fall
In the film Come September, Rock Hudson plays a wealthy businessman, who every year, heads off to his villa in Italy for September. He decides he can’t wait until September and arrives early, only to find that his assistant taking care of the Italian villa has turned it into a 5 star hotel when he isn’t in the country. You can imagine the hilarity. It is a Rock Hudson movie after all. I have always loved this movie, mostly for its setting in Italy. What I didn’t realize is that old Rock was right. September is the perfect time to travel. For me, September is almost more of a January, a Continue Reading
Sardinia, Italy Wishes You Were Here
On every traveler’s lifeline, there are points where you believe you have found a place that is all yours. You don’t know this will be the result when you board that plane, train or bus. That is to be expected, the beginnings for surprise. Sardinia is my place, or at least, it was. A Catch 22 lies with calling a place your own for there is always time, season and position working against you. A second visit to Sardinia I suspect wouldn’t have the same effect as the first. The first time I fell for Sardinia probably came while watching the wind blow through cliff-hanging shrubs. The sea was Continue Reading
The Conundrum of Just Visiting
For my birthday, they hand me a big slice of lasagna and a bejeweled tiny picture frame, something I would have loved at 14 years old. Having celebrated very few birthdays away from home, in that Florence apartment, home didn’t seem so far off. Over a year later, I walk into a café in Clifden, Ireland. As the chatty owner tells me about the state of Ireland, of its troubles and triumphs, she asks me how long I am here. I say I’m “just visiting”, and with that I’m gone, out of her life and seemingly Ireland’s in a few days time. These two travel scenarios could not be more different. In Continue Reading