Notes to Self

I’ve been tagged. Caitlin over at Roaming Tales has nominated me to share three travel secrets under the Trip Base Blog Tag. I tend to not like the idea of highlighting obscure places, because I’d like for them to remain obscure. But for Caitlin and the travel blogging community, why not?

My whole raison d’etre for traveling is to study, see works of art, architecture, and archaeological sites outside of my art history books, to study and photograph landscape, and to eat local food. So my three best kept travel secrets have to be listed under one or more of these categories. My three best kept travel secrets also happen to sit in plain sight.

1. The Maya Ruins

Any Maya ruins. Yes, yes, Chichen-Itza is now one of the seven wonders of the world, but even still, there are many Maya archaeological sites in southern Mexico and Central America that remain almost in isolation even though they’ve been “discovered” and uncovered and are ready for visitors.  If you’ve only been to Chichen-Itza, you haven’t yet been really immersed in the ancient culture of the Maya. Or at least not in its archaeology. Beautiful, mysterious, and full of mythology, there are number of sites where you can walk alone, or almost alone, through the jungle.

2. Big Sur

In the last thirty years I have traveled often up and down Highway 1 through Big Sur and in all that time the landscape has never ceased to amaze me. It has probably never been the same landscape twice, on any one of my road trips through the area. Most people drive from one end of Big Sur to the other as fast as possible – like it’s something they don’t really want to do, but want to tick it off of their must-see list. It’s like they are seeing the multiple hairpin curves as obstacles rather than nature’s way of getting them to slow down and look. And rarely do people take the time to camp and hike in the area. For me, even though I had spent a lot of time in Big Sur because I lived at the south end for a number of years, it wasn’t until 2002 that I stayed more than one night along the coast in Big Sur. It’s not only my favorite stretch of road to drive in California, now it’s also my favorite escape when I want a couple of week’s worth of camping in the off season when no one is around. Big Sur is a landscape artist’s dream and taking the time to really spend some time in the area is a peaceful gift to oneself like no other.

3. Winged Victory

How many people in this photograph are actually looking at Winged Victory? It’s like she isn’t even there. Invisible in plain sight. The Winged Victory of Samothrace is that one piece of art in the Louvre that is constant. Throughout the years, as the museum has undergone its changes, while pieces have moved, as pyramids have been built, Winged Victory has always remained in the same spot at the entrance to the Denon wing of the museum. I always look for her on my visits to the museum. She serves as a touchstone, a centerpiece, a starting point.

I’m nominating these 5 bloggers to share their top 3 travel secrets on their blog:

Caroline Wampole at RoadMuse
Cheryn Flanagan at DestinationTBD
Christine Cantera at Miss Expatria
Angela Nickerson at The Gypsy’s Guide
Tara Bradford at Paris Parfait

The final list of Top Bloggers’ Best Kept Travel Secrets will be published in a special blog post on the Tripbase blog and shared across the internet.

These travel secrets have also been included in the Tripbase Travel Secrets e-book series.

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There are three things I always take with me when I travel, other than my laptop. These are three things that I took along with me even before digital technology became small enough to fit in a backpack. I use them to varying degrees on each journey, but they help me record my memories for later use, on those days when I am writing a story, on those days when I just want to remember.

A Sound Recorder: I used to take a cassette tape recorder along with me when I traveled. Now I have a digital recorder that I can use to download sounds and conversations directly to my laptop. I haven’t had it very long so I haven’t used it all that much. When I’m traveling I slip the recorder out of my day bag and turn it on at moments when I feel the sounds around me are defining the space or place that I am in. My recording of the Paris metro is one of my favorites. Even if I take a cab from the airport to the apartment I try to ride the metro on my first day in the city. The sound of the doors opening and closing, and the ‘om’ it makes as it is ready to depart the station are unique to Paris and make me feel like I have arrived. I also use the recorder for interviews, to talk to people, to remember.

A Sketchbook Journal: Sketchbooks and journals are an addictive habit that starts as a student in art school. It’s not really until mid-life that they got serious, but they were worth keeping throughout my travels. Used to jot down notes, sketch a moment in time, and to hold pieces of paper picked up along the way. Journals are used to record the passion of the place, the poetry of the place.

Camera/s: Where would I be without my cameras? More so than journals, my camera is my record keeper. I can make hundreds of photos a day and tell you what I was thinking at each one, where I was, why I made them. I used to travel with my heavy metal Canon Ftb and two lenses, a 50mm standard lens and a zoom. Now I travel with a Canon dSLR with a zoom lens and a smaller point and shoot that can also shoot video. I haven’t yet gotten used to the dSLR. It’s as heavy as the old metal body and feels huge to me.

These three things are my tools for observation, for recording a sense of place. They are an extension of me, my eyes, my ears, my mind. While I am making my observations I am also connecting to the place that I am in. I’m not snapping as I walk, I’m not randomly shooting and then asking myself when I get home, Where was I?. I’m sitting. I’m contemplating. I’m studying the landscape around me.

These tools help me to be in the moment on my travels.

On my first trip to France I was 29 years old. I had dreamt of going to France since the summer between the fifth and sixth grade, right after I had finished my first semester of grade school French. Even more so after I read A Tale of Two Citiesby Charles Dickens in my high school British Lit class. I wanted it to be my first trip out of the country, and it was.

It took a long time to get there, a long time to organize (ie: buy a one way ticket), and it wasn’t until my father had passed away and left me a little money that I could afford to go. And even then, it was still a few years before I got away. I had gone through art school and university and honed down my desire for visiting France to a desire of visiting the city of Paris – although that first trip was a long one and I visited many more places along the way.

I feel at home in Paris. I feel more at home in Paris than anywhere else I’ve ever lived in or traveled to. I have often wondered about this feeling, which happens to be a feeling in my heart. Like love. But more like home. I have often wondered if it was borne out of my French and Art History professors’ passion for the art, culture, and language of the place, that their passion had rubbed off onto me, or if it was, or is, something deeper within me.

Within Paris there are places that I visit often. Like the Basilica of Saint-Denis. The Winged Victory in the Louvre. And Rodin’s museum. Why? I do not really know, but I feel a connection to these places.

To this day, when I travel to Europe, I fly in and out of CDG, the international airport in Paris. If my destination is somewhere else, then I take the train from there, after spending a week or so (sometimes a month) acclimating to the time change.

Other places have called to me, either by my contemplating on where in the world to go next, or by sheer random invitation. If you believe in reincarnation, and I do, I have often thought that because of the ease of travel in this lifetime I am compelled to travel to places where I have lived and loved before. I also believe that invitations that appear to be random are not, not really, and it only takes a moment or two of contemplation to decide if they are right for me at the moment.

The next time you are thinking of making a trip or traveling to some far flung destination, sit with yourself for a moment and ask yourself where your next destination lies. You may be surprised at the answer that follows, but give it some serious consideration.

The soul always leads in the right direction.

In my mind I have been hankering for travel. But I haven’t been able to get the body to cooperate. This has been going on since April. It is now the end of December. I know where I want to go. I have personal projects to accomplish in my next destination. A revisit, to a place I’ve been to before. But my heart hasn’t been in to making the definite plans.

I was out in The Escape Pod three days ago, the day before Christmas. I had decided to store campy type things from the van in the house, so I was getting the portable kitchen items out from under the bed when I discovered my old traveling shoes.

I pulled them out from under the bed and held them in my hands. A pair of boy’s slip on Campers with a wide velcro strap. Size six or seven, I can’t remember. I remember buying them at Shoe Pavillion. The last time I had these shoes on I was flying home from Paris. It was 2005. My last long trip.

I held those shoes in my hand and thought about all of the places they had taken me. All over The Yucatan, San Francisco, Paris, Reims, Epernay, Vertus, Fontainebleau, Chartres, Beauvais, London, Berlin, Pottsdam, Prague, Dolni Bezdekov, Kutna Hora, Zurich, Aix-en-Provence, Marseilles, Arles, Tarascon, Beaucaire, back to Paris, and then home, back to the van in San Francisco. And many points in between. Airplanes, trains, boats, and buses. Subways, metros, and trams. From the boulangerie to the cemetaire, to l’eglise. Through all of those little villages in Champagne. Sitting in cafes drinking wine, pivo, or coffee. Shooting photographs. Mulling over decisions. Standing next to the graves of my ancestors. Two and a half months of being somewhere other than the place I call home.

I brought those shoes into the house, with the other stuff, and put them on. Immediately they felt, no, I felt, like I was home in some way. The memories of the places they had taken me came flooding back. I felt my psyche shift from someone who wants to talk myself into traveling to someone who has traveled, who is going to travel. Like, ok, I’m going now.

мебели

They feel so comfortable on my feet. Familiar. I’ve been wearing them for three days, even though both soles are cracked through and they need a shine.

Photos: Above is walking the 2kms between Bratonice and Dolni Bezdekov, the first home of one of my grandfathers. The bottom photo was taken in the square in Arles, opposite from Saint-Trophime.

Everyone knows about Versaille. The halls and grounds there are filled with tourists every summer, and school children during the school year. But not that many people visit the other, and older, royal chateau of France – Fontainbleau.

I spent a spring day walking, almost in solitude, the halls of this once home to Napolean and before him the Renaissance King, Francois I.

You can read a little about the history of the chateau (just enough to get you interested) here.

You will also find there a link to many of my photographs I took that day.