Solo Travel: Embracing Adventure Despite Anxiety

I have to admit that I have been having a little worry, call it anxiety, unsettled thoughts, about my upcoming trip to France.

You see, I have never really traveled by myself before. I have traveled TO places by myself, but have always met up with friends or had friends there already. But have not gone somewhere for a whole trip entirely by myself. So apropos to that, today when I woke up, I found this in my email inbox, How to Overcome the Fear of Travelling Alone, and some of it spoke to me.

I know that, for women, life is different. We know to be wary. We have to be always vigilant.

When you would like to think of yourself as an explorer, a traveler, it can be hard to admit that you can be a little afraid, a bit anxious, about your adventure.

My fears: Will I be lonely? Will I be lost? Can I make my connections? Will I be vulnerable? A target?  As a somewhat older woman by herself, perceived as helpless? Have a medical emergency?Well, on and on... I have lots of worries, and usually they are frets and worries about my children and my loved ones. But for now, the trip worries are only worries about myself. Saying it that way, puts it into perspective. If I can pause to remember that, the thought that nothing I do on the trip will hurt my kids/anyone but me, can make me calm and happy.

So, why travel alone at all? In the last year or so, I have encountered many testimonials about the benefit and the power of traveling solo.
     Here's my take on it:
   
        When you travel alone you have to connect with the people in the country you are in.
  And,
        you may be forced to interact with people in their language, rather than spend your time conversing with your travel companions in yours.
       Traveling alone can increase your confidence.
       Being alone can help your introspection. Sit, think, make entries in your travel journal.
       It is an opportunity to become immersed in the country and culture in which you are a guest.

It is so encouraging to hear and to read about other women who have set out upon journeys of their own. I was very inspired by Female Nomad, I read her book several years ago, the tale of a very brave woman who ditched everything, at a mature point in her life, okay, like my age...I mean after 50, to travel by herself to some really interesting locales, places that would be challenging for many Westerners, especially women traveling alone. Her travel memoir is an inspiring story of a woman who could always relate and find connection with others in exotic places.

Of course, Eat, Pray, Love, the book by a woman on a quest to quiet her demons and find herself , inspired many of us to set out and sail the seas of self discovery.

I understand how grief and sadness can propel us into a new expedition, a new way to be.

I am going. The adventure is waiting.

Just Go: Planning a fall trip to France

Vintage Travel Poster  Source: Wikimedia

You might notice that the image at the beginning of this post is a cool vintage poster of Paris, and not my own photograph. That is because I haven't been there yet. I studied French in high school and college, and always intended to make that trip to France, preferably sooner rather than later. But later is good too. So when a September girls' getaway trip to New York fell through, I started researching fares to places in Europe and ended up booking a flight to Paris on Icelandair, just for me.

Three weeks from right now, I'll be in the middle of my first day in Paris. Probably jet-lagged, sated with crepes, and almost definitely lost. I plan to walk as much as possible, as I like to do when visiting cities, take the metro or buses as needed, and in a pinch—heavy rain, daunting distance, or when I've just given up getting my bearings —taking a taxi or Uber back "home" to the apartment I have booked in the 11th Arrondisment near the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, through Airbnb.

After four full days in Paris, I thought I'd get away to the Normandy coast, to the picturesque town of Honfleur. I envision this as a calm interlude with walks on the beach, but as I have booked two nights there in a little apartment or guest flat, also through Airbnb, I could take a day trip to Bayeux to view the famous tapestry.

I am really excited to continue my journey into the Loire Valley, where I will stay in a family home in Amboise (yep, Airbnb) and visit the impressive early Renaissance chateaux the area is famous for.

On my list:

Chateau d"Avignon                     Source: Wikimedia

Chenonceau                             Source: Wikimedia

I'll spend two nights in Amboise, and that leaves five nights as yet unaccounted for. Where shall I go? Certainly, I want to include Provence, especially to pay homage to van Gogh, visiting Arles and going to sites of where some of his paintings were created. A nice home base in Provence, might be Avignon, home of the Palace of the Popes, where many popes lived and reigned instead of Rome, in an interesting period in the history of the Catholic Church. I love the sea, so the far southern coast is appealing, but I think I'll avoid Nice and save the busy port city of Marseilles for another time. (My options will be limited by the fact that I am not planning to rent a car this trip, so will be dependent on train and bus schedules.)

Some ideas: Martigues, known as the Venice of Provence—intriguing, and Isle sur Sorgue, also called the Venice of Provence, the culinary destination and busy city of Lyon, or the fairy tale village Beaune. I have the feeling that I will finish up this trip with even more places on my French wish list.

If you have any suggestions for me, please comment. In the meantime, I will be brushing up on my classroom French and figuring out how to pack for this trip in my backpack.

Dinner in Palermo and Thoughts about Eating

The Greek philosopher Plato said, Sicilians build things like they will live forever and eat like they will die tomorrow.

400 BC. Just think how long my family has been thinking about food. Yes, about that long.

But let's consider this quotation. Isn't it kind of the opposite of what our society has been about, for several decades anyway. Buildings that go up and down, roads, unlike the deep stone Roman roads that still abide, that buckle and pit, and are constantly being dug up and blocked and under construction. Whole neighborhoods torn down and wiped away for industrial parks and parking lots. And then the fast food, the processed food, the a million ingredients and maybe a few of them actual identifiable food, food.

And yeah, Italy has McDonald’s, and it seems some people even go to them, and Italy has Burger King, not sure about that one, but we did see one in Rome, so someone must eat there. But the markets and the traditional restaurants are full of, and limited to, fresh local produce and product. And often, the beautiful home cooking of mamas.

As I write this, I am simmering cream peas from East Texas, that we got last week at a family peach orchard, with rosemary and oregano I snipped from my front yard. Yellow summer squash, again from that orchard, has been cut up and will be sauteed with some garlic, and maybe cumin, haven't decided yet. Lest you think I am writing this to be self-righteous about what I eat, let me tell you that is not the case, but is, perhaps, a goal. As I was out today on errands, to Michaels and Hobby Lobby to scour and browse art supplies (so maybe indulgent journey as much as errand), I was very tempted to stop at the Taco Bueno for a Dr Pepper, and a little something to tide me over for the afternoon. Didn't today, have many other times. Still, I like to eat fresh seasonal food, and in Italy, you have almost no other choice.

My restaurant of choice for my birthday dinner was Ai Normanni. I guess I was attracted to it for both its name (the Norman mosaics, Norman cathedrals, ignited my imagination for years before I actually experienced Sicily), for the reviews I had read and for the menu, and the way the website related in detail about the kitchen and the cook.

Our walk through the cathedral piazza and a corner of the park led us to a pretty arch and entry way. A few cats also waited, wanting to taste the wares. Alas, we were asked if we had a reservation (we didn't) and were turned away. Mid-week, not yet the tourist season, we thought we would be okay. So we nodded and said, Okay, Grazie. I thought about pleading, something like, But it's my birthday and our first night ever in Sicily. But I kept my whining to myself.

The cats may have also been disappointed.

Our dinner, back through the square and into the beginning of the maze of streets toward our apartment, happened in the lovely small ristorante, La Galleria, that we had passed earlier. Clean and clear, open to the narrow street, where a few wooden tables with sunflowers, set unoccupied.

We were seated inside. I have to say that one important part of eating in Italy for me is the joy of dining outside, on a narrow sidewalk, or a lush and green patio or terazza. This is what I envision when I plan a trip to Italy, and what I love here in Texas, when the temperature is agreeable. But the pair of double doors were open and the view in the narrow restaurant through arched windows gave a feeling that we were all a bit on the street.

Evidently, macca means a soup, a blended up bowl of beans and vegetables.  Macca di fava was our first course, topped with a dollop of soft cheese, like a fresh ricotta. We shared it, and it was lovely.

As I look back on the ticket, il conto, I remember that that night I learned, or began to learn, that one of the first things I thought I knew how to say in Italian, was how to ask for a glass of wine, Un bicchiere di vino, per favore, might not be the right phrase here. All through Sicily, the word bicchieri, glass, wine glass, was replaced by calice, on most of the menus. Already, we knew, as we  sat in more casual cafes and the family places to eat, during previous trips to Italy, that the cups of fresh and local wine were not served in the stemmed glasses that we, as Americans, would expect. But usually in something like a squat juice glass. It seemed this glass, in Sicilia, had a name.

That word, calice. Is it not like a chalice? The wine, a libation.

After the soup, we had two shared entrees, or more correctly shared primo and secondo. The first is, of course, the pasta. Noodles, like lasagna, but narrower and thicker, more toothsome, with cauliflower. Cavolfiori, the Italian word which contains the meaning of the English: Fiori is “flowers”. The cauliflower meltingly cooked into the dish, the pasta topped with toasted breadcrumbs.

I have been a vegetarian for 20 years, and made forays into that way of eating many times, many years before. But I do eat fish and seafood, so a pescatarian I guess, primarily when we go out and fish dishes are the only enticing options on the menu. (Yes, the flesh is weak.)

I remember a trip to Italy, 15 or 16 years ago now, mainly in Tuscany...the land locked part... when finally my dear friend, a longtime vegetarian/pescatarian (who is now vegan) said she really needed to find some fish. She craved the protein. I recall ending up in a very small place on a side street, sharing a salad, a pallid salad (sorry!), with what I believe was canned tuna. This had to have been just for tourists. Would an Italian go to a restaurant and eat that? Pienza is 47 miles from the sea, a drive of a little over an hour and a half, the route dipping south to go through Grosseto, and so even though Italy is a long narrow strip of land surrounded by three seas, that distance means seafood is not local enough to get a place on the menu.

Well, Sicily is an island; almost everywhere we went was a coastal town. Fish and seafood dominate the menu. Our secondo was a perfectly (yes, believe me, I do mean perfectly) seared tuna with peppercorns, a light, unobtrusive sauce accompanied by a fresh medley of cherry, or grape, tomatoes, that perfectly, again that word, complemented the fish. (I believe we had a choice of 3 vegetable sides, this is unusual in Italy, where a contorno is usually ordered separate from the main dish, not included.) The light and fresh tomatoes were, okay, here I am kissing my fingertips, then spreading them out from my mouth...a typical Italian gesture...sorry, you'd have to see it...to indicate the greatness, deliciousness of these things together on our plate.

Birthday or not, dessert was unthinkable.

After dinner, we walked across the city to a small jazz club. It was late, but what was time to us? We were freed up from our “at home” too late to go out thinking we sometimes fall into. We wove our way in, to find a little table in a corner by the band....it wasn't that different from a very small music club here, in Dallas or Fort Worth. We sat, perused the menu of drinks, listened to the band (I had craved sax, might have pouted a little), enjoyed the music and sipped our libations. Mine had a very tiny rose bud floating on the top. A birthday gift, I said, as my sweetie, when we are at home, always brings me roses on my birthday.

When the main band was done, and no other was listed, we prepared to finish up and leave. What time was it then, what time was it in Texas and in our bodies? No idea, but we were now very tired. Then a manager or owner of the club came up, a couple of others stepped on the stage. There was a sax, a piano, drums delicately plied. Beautiful instrumental jazz ensued. We stayed and enjoyed. It was lovely. Here is a little snippet:

On our meandering walk home through the dark streets, we happened upon I Quattro Canti, formally named the Piazza Vigliena, a Baroque square built in the early 1600s.

          Wikipedia says:
          The piazza is octagonal, four sides being the streets; the remaining four sides are Baroque buildings, the near-identical facades of which contain fountains with statues of the four seasons, the four Spanish kings of Sicily, and of the patronesses of Palermo, (Christina, Ninfa, Olivia and Agata). The facades onto the interchange are curved, and rise to four floors; the fountains rise to the height of the second floor, the third and fourth floors contain the statues in niches. At the time the piazza was built, it was one of the first major examples of town planning in Europe.

Spring personified, Piazza Vigliena, Palermo

Palermo, A Little Sicilian Foodie Video

  PIZZAPIZZAPIZZAPASTAPASTAPASTA


As a preview to an upcoming food-centric blog post, I have made a little foodie video showing some of the delicious things that we ate while in Palermo, the first stage of our Sicilian journey.

:: A note about the video. I discovered today that you can make movies from photos and videos in your Google photos, right in the Google pictures app on your phone or other smart device. You can choose music and the duration each pic or video clip appears, but little else in the way of editing. I want to point out that because of this, all of this test movie is from completely unedited cell phone pictures and video. If you are interested in making this kind of video, there are lots of instructions to be found on Youtube. ::

Peace and Sadness in Palermo: We find a bit of hope, and a few rainbows, on our first evening in Sicily

After finding a place to rest our weary heads for il riposo, we discovered a wide new Palermo by turning right from our appartamento.

I knew where I wanted to have my birthday-in-Palermo dinner. As Edward will tell you, food is important to me. He says this often by way of leaving all the eating decisions when on vacation to me...and possibly every other time as well.

While I was in the throes of planning, when all the flight decisions had been made and booked, I turned my attention to places to stay. I relied chiefly on Airbnb, with a side of Booking.com and lots of cross checking on TripAdvisor.

Then, my dear friend asked me, So, where will you have your birthday dinner? !! I didn’t know! At that point, I had still not booked all of our places to stay. But I did know that this birthday dinner decision must be looked into immediately. So I did plenty of research (a more businesslike way of saying that I read lots and lots of drool worthy food reviews), and I settled on a place, Ai Normanni. Well, we never made it past the foyer there that night, but instead had to depend on a method which served us well throughout our trip: wander the streets and peer at tables and menus.

Still heading for our dinner at Ai Normanni, so we thought, we stepped from a narrow street, where we had walked past an illuminated ristorante with tables with sunflowers, and the traditional Sicilian wooden carts, painted in colorful patterns, lined up on the opposite side of the passageway, and out into a surprising space.

Here was the open, beautiful and historic Palermo. The cathedral was here, lit up in the night. Its arches and turrets, acquired melange of Gothic, Catalan, Byzantine architecture, glowing and leaking light out to the avenue and nearby park.

So many people were in the courtyard of the cathedral; nuns, priests, musicians, groups of business-dressed Sicilians. Rainbow banners of PEACE, PACE, were held there, in front of the ancient church. We took pictures and asked ourselves, What is this demonstration?

It might have been for the tragedy happening in Syria. (And indeed, it was. When Edward looked it up later at the apartment, we found some information about the gathering: On the churchyard of the Cathedral  A moment of prayer for peace in Syria and in other places in the world where wars are being waged, will be presided by the archbishop of Palermo.)

But we had just come from the US, and seeing the call for nonviolenza, my thoughts also went to the unrelenting series of school shootings happening there. To that loss, in the world's sea of loss.

It is a terrible thing to lose a child, and too, very hard to find a place (an emotional, or spiritual place, though real place in the world is also important) where you can have a moment, an experience, of being happy. Being in the moment. Without the crush of sorrow, the overwhelming guilt. Guilt of surviving, of the happy moment, of experiencing what your boy will forever not.

This burden laid heavy on our trip to Sicily. Maybe because that child was our dark and gorgeous Italian-beautiful boy. My grandmother said, about the infant Ian, He looks like one of my babies. And as every journey is also a part of the grief journey, I carried my love and my loss with me, through the streets of Palermo, the flower bedecked cemetery in Ustica and the glittering churches throughout Sicily.

But travel fills my heart and my senses in good ways, along with the sad, and Italy makes me happy. And this night in Palermo, the banners were a balm. A hope for the (collective) future. As I said to my sweetie, a little gift for my birthday.

all photos © 2018 Anita Barnard

Like Jet-lagged Phoenicians, We Arrive in Palermo

We came into Palermo, not by boat like the Phoenicians, Greeks, Arabs, Normans and Spaniards, but descending through the sky in a metal ship, complete with coffee and early morning cheese sandwiches, craning our necks to get our first views of the port that had attracted so many before us.

“Palermo was lovely. The most beautifully situated town in the world – it dreams away its life in the Conca d’Oro, the exquisite valley that lies between two seas. The lemon groves and the orange gardens were entirely perfect.”Oscar Wilde

Planning this trip was a long process, and the time between first imagining we might actually go and hitting the purchase button for the first flight, even longer. Still, I had a feeling of incredulity as we entered the land of my ancestors, my mother's family. Were we really here? I mean, who goes to Sicily?

Well, a lot of people, it turns out. Tourism is actually a main industry of Palermo. But more visitors, it seems to me, come from Europe and from within Italy. At least when we answered to Sicilians and Usticans that we were from Texas, they seemed very impressed, and often commented on how long the journey was.

Airbnb is my friend, and especially in Palermo, where the people who owned the apartment we would be staying in for 3 days, offered a pick up service at the airport. I'm not sure we would have found it, otherwise. And still we made a few passes through the Palermo traffic, all the while conversing in broken Italian and even more broken English, trying to approach the place through the narrow streets and find a place to stop the car. We arrived at a tiny piazzetta and said goodbye to our chauffeurs. The stone walls rose up with no space between the street with traffic and the entry to buildings. The owner met us and showed us up to the apartment. I have to admit that I was dismayed by the small spiral staircase we had to climb, but Paolo grabbed my suitcase and up we went.

Edward on the Scary Stairs

Today was my birthday. Coming seven hours earlier than it would in Texas, and tired as we were (I do not sleep well on planes), I was ready to go out and explore.

The apartment had been advertised as in the center, near the cathedral, but really, we had no idea where we were. We just started walking and twisting through narrow stone streets. Jet lag may have had a hand in our lack of orienting ourselves during that first outing. My own current sleep schedule is so erratic that I wonder if I actually get jet lag, but Edward said, you may not know, it just makes you less smart.

Palermo seemed close and narrow, that first afternoon...and dirty. At some street corners were overflowing bins, or just piles of garbage, some in bags, some not. Finally, I looked at Edward and said, This is the dirtiest place I have ever been to in Italy. I felt a little guilty that this was his introduction to Italy, and wanted him to know that it had not been like this in other places. Yet, the architecture was interesting, the sense of age and history that you just don't get in America. And I always love hearing people in the streets speak Italian (even in places like Boston or San Francisco).

A couple of blocks from the apartment, there was a small fruit and vegetable stand set up at an intersection, and I bought a paper cone of these fruits 

Nespoplo

from a young man...teenager...whose English was pretty good, and who picked the pieces of fruit for us, discarding the less perfect ones.

In a wider area of the streets, mostly blocked from the traffic of cars, but not necessarily from scooters, we found a street market. Palermo is famous for its street markets and street food, and I had been planning on taking a tour, but it was full the day we were able to take it. That's okay. The street food feast of Palermo is open and available to all, all the time.

I found this little street stall with arancini, panelle, and fried vegetables, fritti misti, and had a somewhat convoluted conversation with the proprietor about the composition of the food (no carne? sono vegetariana). These guys had been battered and pre-fried, and then were put into a fryer again, right there in the street, to finish. Artichoke stems, red peppers, stalks of onion (Edward ate those), eggplant, zucchini, and panelle (fritters or patties of chickpeas, just think hummus fries).

This snack of street food was our first meal in Sicily. Perfetto.

all photos © 2018 Anita Barnard

Never Too Late to Go, a New Blog

I believe it started in earnest when I was ten and my father's sister, a new high school teacher in her 20's, took off for a summer to travel across Europe. The whole family went to see her off at Love Field, where you could watch the planes take off and land, before DFW airport existed.

      Nineteen was a magical number then, and for many years. I pictured myself looking something like the governess on the TV show Dark Shadows, with my hair miraculously straight, backpacking across Europe, going from country to country, adventure to adventure. With no set schedule and nothing to accomplish but writing poetry and indulging my wanderlust.

      At 30, I had been on a plane trip exactly once, but had 3 children and a degree in English and French and certification for teaching in secondary schools. For many years I rarely went anywhere but the grocery store and the pediatrician. I didn't have the time, freedom or finances to travel. But as the children got a bit older, we often spent spring breaks and summers on road trips to small Texas towns—quaint squares, parks, small town book stores, ice cream parlors, river bottoms with dinosaur footprints. I still love driving out to explore small towns close to home.

      I went to Italy for the first time when I was in my 40's, and never even snorkeled until after my 50th birthday. But I believe that expression "better late than never" applies here, and travel engages my mind and diverts and soothes me like nothing else really does.

      So I am starting this blog to share my journeys,

      

      wonderful, mainly plant based, food,

   and travel tips, thoughts, and plans for where to go next

Today I also set up my Garden Nomad youtube channel and posted this VERY short test video: cutting a pizza into slices in Ustica, province of Palermo. 

Thanks for reading, and watching.

                                                                                                                                                   all photos © 2018 Anita Barnard