I like to explore and tell descriptive stories about places. I also make jewelry, music and mixed-media art.
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 DomitiaWhen 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 greatsOn the last day of my tour in Belgium, my cousin planned a visit with a relative who lives in Spa. Until this trip, I thought of a spa as a high-society healing center, refined and removed from nature. Now i understand it is a town of mineral springs, acid fountains, in the Ardennes forest […]
Read More Ceci n’est pas un Spa – Spa, BelgiumAnother place in Brussels worth visiting is the Marché du Midi (zuidmarkt) by the Midi train station (midi = south like in France). It’s on Sundays from morning until 1 or 2 pm and takes up both sides of the station; the biggest in Belgium and one of the bigger street markets in Europe. Like […]
Read More Marché du Midi, the new BrusselsAn hour or so west from Brussels by road lies Ghent, important and prosperous medieval market city and now university town with historic center. There are several places here I wanted to visit, and these would consume most of a day. Being flat land and closer to the North sea, this area has a changeable, […]
Read More Ghent/Gent, Belgium – torture and trade inspire gothic artsI flew with Norwegian direct from Los Angeles to Paris on one of their 787 dream liner planes. We were really light and there was turbulence over the plains. But we flew far north as the light came and i had good dreams, when i woke it was afternoon. It felt like less than 10 […]
Read More Paris and Brussels, arrivalDates of travel – 25 July – 6 August, 2015 Date of writing – Autumn, 2017 This week i look back to those difficult 10 days i spent volunteering at a well-known reserve deep in the Peruvian rainforest, but did not want to go public about what happened there until now. While staying at the […]
Read More Beauty, Abuse, and Isolation in the Deep Forest – Tapiche Reserve
