I like to explore and tell descriptive stories about places. I also make jewelry, music and mixed-media art.
Cold Moon, December 2024 As the final full moon rises before winter solstice on a cloudy night in the North american eastern woodlands, I look back through the past solar year and then to the path that lies ahead. Earlier this year, I decided to update the name of this blog to “Arianna’s Creative Travels” […]
Read More Creative Travels: observations of a cycleTravel dates: April 24-5, 2017 Thanks to TAP Portugal airline, i have an overnight layover in Lisbon and can enjoy a bit of this awesome city on the way back to the USA. The plane from Barcelona arrives around sunset. From the airport it’s two trains on the metro to station Mãrques de Pombal and […]
Read More Lisboa in 1 day (not enough!)Dates of travel – April 18-24, 2017 The train whips through rolling fields of red flowers on the 2 hour ride south to Barcelona, gradually filling with passengers as we approach the metro area. I sit in euphoria from the experiences of the past few days, scanning the hills for more dolmen we may pass. […]
Read More Barcelona for 7 daysDates of travel- April 16-17, 2017, Easter Easter morning in Figueres….I ache as i wake and walk around the cool cloudy empty streets. Most businesses are closed. Across from the Dalí theatre, people slip into St Pere (Dalí’s church) for the 9 am service. In the cavernous chapel, voices reverberate…vague hallelujahs, a plain sermon, nothing […]
Read More Easter Roses, Cadaqués, and a friend at the Dolmen (Dalí 2)It’s cool and rainy as i arrive in Figueres, Catalunya, on Easter Saturday. There are no processions, but eggs line the roof of the pink Dalí theatre museum, and visitors stand in line out the door into the plaza that bears the artist’s name. Salvador Dalí converted this theatre of the town of his childhood, […]
Read More Dalí 1 – Figueres TheatreFrom the red isilines bus on the Via Domitia, a first view of the snow capped Pyrenees brings chills. But those peaks are not where i am going. The transit terminal of Perpignan, down on the warm plain, is the transfer point for travel to Spain and everything else, and also the main city of […]
Read More The most southern wine region in France / Entering CataloniaAfter a fun final night in Marseille with my host and fellow traveler but on three hours of sleep, I depart this beloved Mediterranean city toward Spain with no fixed plans until Figueres on Saturday. My preferred next stop is Avignon, and a ride offer comes by my fellow couchsurfer and her fiancé. They have […]
Read More Crossing the south of France – Avignon, Nîmes, Montpellier, and the Via DomitiaMy middle day in Marseille starts rough, feeling scattered and not eating enough. But olives, dates, and baguette from the street market and boulangerie will have to do, as I’m on a mission for Les Calanques by afternoon. I take my new dress and scarf with the food and head out with my host as […]
Read More Les Calanques – Ariadne and the infinite seaWhen i wake, the first light of the sun passes through a gap in the range of rolling hills. Green fields with creeks and oak groves become slowly visible. The isilines bus stops near Montelimar, at an oak-lined rest area, and the air feels cool yet dry. I had slept deeply. Around 11 am, the […]
Read More Marseille – Mediterranean gritty euphoriaParis is an awesome city, and of all its great places, nowhere was a day more well spent than cemetery Père Lachaise, la grande ville des morts. From the metro stop I accidentally walked into the Jardin Samuel de Champlain, on the cemetery’s east side, enchanted by a statue on the outside wall…a woman, arms […]
Read More Cemetery Père Lachaise – A realm beyond Paris/ a day with the greats
arianna's creative travels 