Category: Photos

Posted on

Transported back to the Renaissance

I’ve never been much of a history buff. The past already happened, irrelevant beyond memorization for exams. But Venice? Venice captivated.

We arrived by private boat, speeding through the ocean then slowing to the 5mph speed limit to grace the Grand Canal. Our hotel entrance was unabashedly grand, a contrast to our departure by foot where we were greeted by alleys so narrow you could barely see the sky. We both had a fear stricken moment wondering if all of Venice would be this claustrophobic, but then the alley opened to a street with a corner café. We eagerly got lost, taking in the beauty of a crumbling city, covered in salt from the sea. Venice felt special right from the beginning.

The next morning, we navigated the streets, leaving twice as early as Google advised, to meet Lorenza Smith. Our tour guide for the morning was a Venetian, author of Venice: Art & History, and professor in New York – overqualified for our Day in the Life in the Renaissance agenda. The general content of the tour I was sure I’d heard in Latin class long ago, but this was different. This tour brought the city to life for us, the magic we’d sensed served to us in stories of the most opulent and enduring Empire ever built.

It’s comforting to believe that history is in the past, that the terrible or foolish or inane things that happened were because people were unevolved, unsophisticated, animalistic. But in Venice, the likenesses to today were undeniable, right down to the beauty routines. Venetian women would spread their hair out on a wide-brimmed hat, mixing concoctions to lighten it in much the same way as my friends and I used to spray Sun-In into our hair in the summer in the hopes of developing blonde highlights.

Venice was spectacular. It was a living museum full of new life, bodies from around the world, just as it had been in Venice many centuries before.

Posted on

Douro adventures

With the backdrop of the Tour de France happening in a fellow European nation not too far away, we spend our first morning in the Douro cycling through the vineyards.  Moving between vines, we appreciate that not all wine regions are the same.  The terraced Douro valley is particularly steep and manual.  The only way to strip the vines of their grapes is by hand – no machine can traverse these terraces.  We learn stories of people carrying incredibly heavy baskets up and down these hills.  We first imagine a peaceful ride through the area, but we soon learn that the slopes and the loose gravel make this morning more of an adventure and less of a stroll.  Luckily, the views have us stopping often to rest and take photos.

We seek adventure; however, we don’t always appreciate how much adventure we’re getting ourselves into.  We sign up for a three-quarter day canyoning trip near the Douro.  We’re picked up from the hotel after breakfast and driven through much of the countryside of Portugal.  We arrive at the side of the river and change into our wetsuits, harnesses and helmets, which we believe is more for form than function.  However, after only a couple meters into our excursion, we jump off a small cliff into the water.  Given my healthy fear of heights, the adrenaline high begins here and doesn’t stop until we arrive back at our car four hours later.  In-between, we repel down waterfalls, climb up waterfalls, scramble around rocks, cliff jump into river pools, and use moss-covered rocks as slides.  Not for the faint of heart.

As our reward, our guide brings with him a homemade, traditional Portuguese picnic with corn bread, cheese, sausage, and homemade wine, port and grappa.  Once we relax, we realize that we are very hungry, and truly enjoy our late afternoon picnic.

Posted on

The magic and a little science of port

After learning more, we can appreciate almost any true craft, and port making is no exception.  Which grapes to use, when to stop fermentation using grappa-esque liquor, if and how to age the drink, what to age the drink in, and how long to wait before drinking.

After spending over a week in Portugal, we learn and try many kinds of Port: white, ruby, tawny, vintage, late bottle vintage, and others. One tasting that will not blur with any of the others is from a very small producer in the Douro Valley named S. Leonardo.  We climb up through the vines to the top of a hill on a very warm afternoon.  Inside a small stone building, there are large barrels carrying carefully crafted vintages of port.  Listening to the owner talk about his craft and his port, we are taken to generations past when we taste port that has been aged for 10, 20, 40, 60, and 100 years.

Port that has been aged for many many years takes on new and wonderful characteristics.  The 100 year old port had flavors of caramel, chocolate, a little coffee, cherries, woodiness, and nuts.

Posted on

Port and cheese

Portugal’s staple foods are our favorite snack at home or abroad — cheese, bread, charcuterie, and wine.  Instead of a true dinner, one night in Lisbon we indulge in only these wonders.  From two different wine bars, one in Belem and one in Lisbon, we eat and drink and snack until we’re a little too full and very satisfied.

The cheeses come in all shapes and sizes.  There’s the swimming pool of creaminess, a.k.a. Queijo da Serra da Estrela; the pool cover is removed from the top of the cheese and replaced with a spoon to lather the nearest piece of bread.  There are harder cheese wedges, softer squares, and a pumpkin marmalade to garnish. The cheese plate at the second bar was too big to even finish.

Then there are the wines and the ports.  At 2 to 5 euros a glass, they are cheaper than most beer back home.  We start with whites such as Rabigato and Bical.  Move on to some of Portugal’s famous reds like Touriga Nacional, Baga, and Castelao.  And finally make our way to the ports — white ones, ruby ones, tawny ones, vintage ones.  We learn about the port making process, with its fortification, aging, and history.  And after sufficient tasting, we learn that we love the white tawny as an aperitif, an aged tawny as a digestif, and that in-between those times, anything goes.

Saúde!

Posted on

Portugal history lesson

The first two mornings in Portugal include walking tours of the city full of history and local bites.  Although Portugal’s history could go back as far as prehistoric times, followed by the Carthaginians and Romans, we’ll being in 1143 with their independence.

They hit a true high in the 15th and 16th centuries as one of the world’s economic, political, and military powers.  During this Age of Discovery, Prince Henry the Navigator and Vasco de Gama were some of the more popular explorers with spice trade being a very lucrative career option.

All good things don’t last forever, however, and in 1755 (on my birthday), an earthquake, followed by tsunami, followed by massive fires destroyed Lisbon.  I guess candle lit wooden structures that survive earthquakes aren’t also fireproof despite the huge wave of water.

Skipping ahead to the 1900s, the Portuguese tried to establish a democratic, even if unstable, republic; however, this soon became an authoritarian regime.  Eventually, democracy returned in 1974 with the Carnation Revolution.  The 2013 movie Night Train to Lisbon, which we watch on the plane over, painted a pretty grim picture of this pre-revolution time.

After a rough financial crisis in 2008, Portugal has begun to rebound.  The almost $100B bailout in 2011 from the IMF didn’t hurt, several economic and fiscal reforms seem to be working, and a new influx of tourism might be the icing on the cake.  Portugal is among the top 20 most-visited countries in the world – 20M tourists each year!

Posted on

Lisbon starts via Vespa

Our first honeymoon adventure is a Lindsey surprise.  Without telling me where we’re headed, we venture out into Lisbon after a redeye flight, a quick bite to eat, and a short snooze.  Asking lots of questions on our way through the city’s narrow, beautifully cobblestoned streets, I can’t imagine what the surprise is going to be until we arrive in front of a Vespa rental shop.  I’d been talking about renting vespas the entire week leading up to the wedding in Santa Barbara, and now, half way around the world, we’re going to scooter up!

Aboard orange and white, Lindsey and I get our lay of the land via the humming, toy-like scooters made popular in Italy back in the 1940s.  Balancing above cobblestones and tramcar grooves, all the while dodging pedestrians, cars, and road construction, we realize how small, beautiful, and coherent is the picturesque city of Lisbon.  Meanwhile, the adrenaline that comes with doing something that could easily be considered a bit dangerous makes sure that we don’t feel any jet lag through our 4-hour tour.

Lisbon is made of seven hills and it feels like we hit all of them stopping at each of the most expansive view points.  We start with the Parque Eduardo VII, Lisbon’s landscaped central park. We stop at Miradouro das Portas do Sol and lean over the railing for a better view. And we check out the Golden Gate Bridge’s doppelgänger from Miradouro da Graça.  Although we’re just getting to know the city, as long as we keep the Sao Jorge Castle in sight, we can figure out where we are and where home is.

Posted on

Tiger’s Nest

Silence except for heavy cold breaths. Lindsey and I sit meditating cross-legged in the upper sanctuary of Tiger’s Nest in front of the great Guru Rinpoche. I focus on focusing. Feeling my breath, hearing my breath, controlling my breath. Then my mind wanders, and I return back to breathing, back to focusing on focusing. No one disturbs us. We are the first up to Tiger’s Nest in the morning and we get to savor this moment. Here we are at one of Bhutan’s most sacred sites in a country where most if not all sites are sacred in some way. The air is cold enough to freeze parts of the 50 foot waterfall we pass along the trail. The sun is still hidden behind clouds and fog. Our shoes are outside the door. Our toes freezing. Focus on focusing. The land is quiet save the occasional wind through trees and prayer flags. And the temple in which we stand is secured in a mountain face close to 1000 meters above the valley floor. It’s our last day in Bhutan. It’s magical in almost every sense of the word.

We’ve been in Bhutan for over ten days, and every day it’s been clear blue skies as far as we can see. On this particular morning, we start the day unable to see ten feet in front of us. Google Bhutan and all you see is pictures of Tiger’s Nest. It is unique, beautiful, iconic, and the single activity that’s been met with the greatest expectations. Our guide quells our anxiety after breakfast, assuring us we’d just started the day at an early hour and that surely this will clear. We hike quickly, a pack of stray dogs trailing us, then leading us all the way to the mid-point, a cafe. We sip tea and ask again for assurance that it will clear. This time, Sonam isn’t so sure.

We know we’re in the land of contentment where hope is believed to be a cause of suffering, but for Tiger’s Nest, we’re willing to wait all day if it comes to it. As we continue on the hike up to Tiger’s Nest, still led by our pack of dogs, we see a small patch of blue sky. We see the fog starting to thin in the distance. And finally, we see the outline of Tiger’s Nest hidden behind the sheet of white. Our disappointment turns to optimism and we hike on. Being able to see the Tiger’s Nest revealed behind the fog as the morning continues is a memory we will never forget. But of course, the better pictures come with blue skies, so after a Coca-Cola at the cafe, we decide to scurry back up the mountain to capture the magical monastery in the sun, one last time. Our journey is complete.

Posted on

Officially obsessed with happiness

We are.  Obsessed with happiness.  Maybe that’s the problem.  We define happiness as pleasure and triumph, and unhappiness as the lack of those things.  And it turns out, we don’t skip down the street in complete joy all the time; in fact, we don’t do that most of the time, even in the metaphorical sense.  Does that make us unhappy?  Depends who you ask.  In America, it kind of does.  In Bhutan, it doesn’t.  Bhutan’s happiness centers around a peace that comes form a state of well-being and contentment.  Few people are in poverty.  The children that are abandoned are placed in monasteries and nunneries and then elevated in social status as a result.  Few are hungry.  Education until university is free.  Healthcare is free.  Its landscape is beautiful; over 70% of the country is covered in trees.  They’re proud of their country.  Having only 700,000 people is helpful in all of this, but it really doesn’t seem too complicated.

When we ask Sonam why the country is so peaceful, he says it’s because people are content with what they have, and they do not envy each other.  (Side note: this is partly achieved by aggressively kicking out the Nepalese back in the 80’s and by trying to postpone the inevitable invasion of western culture.)  The grass might be green on the other side, but they’re also watering the grass that lives on their side.

And for one more insight on Bhutanese happiness, we turn to Eric Weiner in his book “The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World“.

“I would not have done anything differently. All of the moments in my life, everyone I have met, every trip I have taken, every success I have enjoyed, every blunder I have made, every loss I have endured has been just right. I am not saying that they were all good or that they happened for a reason…but they have been right. They have been okay. As far as revelations go it’s pretty lame, I know. Okay is not bliss or even happiness. Okay is not the basis for a new religion or self-help movement. Okay won’t get me on Oprah, but okay is a start and for that I am grateful. Can I thank Bhutan for this breakthrough? It’s hard to say … It is a strange place, peculiar in ways large and small. You lose your bearings here and when that happens a crack forms in your armor. A crack large enough, if you’re lucky, to let in a few shafts of light.”

Posted on

Flight cancelled, rough road ahead

I think we’ll sum this road trip up as an adventure in a country that is still developing its infrastructure.  It was exciting, frustrating, comical, beautiful, and eye-opening all at once.

The excitement is like driving along the highway above the Amalfi Coast.  The views from the road are incredibly beautiful and distracting as it winds it’s way hugging the mountain on one side and a cliff on the other.  Since it’s the main road, all forms of transportation are present – large construction vehicles, trucks, buses, motorbikes, walkers, and us.  All these transportation modes go at different speeds and take up different amounts of space on the road, which many times isn’t wide enough to pass let alone accommodate two-way traffic.  We try not to look down, but sometimes the temptation to know how far down really is gets the better of us.

The frustration is like driving through the Colorado Rockies only to find out that the one airplane that flies to and from Denver is out of service for the next week and the one road that took us there can at times barely be called a road.  We drive through numerous switchbacks punctuated by mountain passes.  We pass and get passed seemingly based on some system depending on size of car and comfort with the road.  The scenery continues to change, the mountains in the distance continue to tower, and the road continues to wind.  We are hoping this is going to be a one-way journey as the plan is to fly back, but alas, the flight is cancelled in the middle of Bhutan where the only way back is the way we came.

And the comedy is like riding an amusement park ride.  One of those rides where you get into a vehicle that doesn’t move but only jostles around, and there’s a screen in front of the car to simulate forward and backward movement (see: Back to the Future, the ride).  There are so many degrees of freedom as we drive along this newly expanded road, which is unpaved and has so many potholes that I think calling them potholes would be generous.  We sway left to right, front to back.  We bounce up and down.  We accelerate and break.  And often, we seem to bounce up, break and sway left all at the same time.  Great for a 60 second ride, but a little less friendly on the lower-back for a many hour car drive.

In truth though, this is part of traveling in a country with few tourists.  Bumthang maybe had a dozen tourists there.  The monasteries, temples, restaurants, and streets were full of locals but no tourists.  And we treasure this even if it means a slightly more painful journey back.