July 21st, 2003 - Mid-afternoon.

I'm having lunch on Monestero Pass in the Pyrenees in northeastern Spain, not far from the French border. Having come here up the valley behind me from a mountain Refugio 12 kilometers away, I can now see ahead into a second valley that harbors my Refugio for tonight. I see the little rock building, far below in the distance, perched on a rocky ismuth between two blue and silver shimmering lakes.

I have just moments before descended from the top of Paguera Peak, which rises to my right up one side of this pass to 3000 metres, and now, before me have a sandwich, some tuna salad, an orange, a bottle of Monestero Lake water, and the remaining third of a bottle of red wine from last night's dinner. The sky is bright, and a gentle breeze pushes puffy clouds overhead.

As of today, I have been in Europe just over one month. This epic vacation of the old world began on June 20th, when I met a Missoula, Montana friend at the train station in Rome. Since then, we, along with others who have intermittently joined us, and now just I, have had an incredible time, filled with adventures of all sorts, occurring beneath the buoyant surface of the Mediterranean Sea - and even deep within the earth itself - to high in the Alps. Call it what you like: a vacation, a tour abroad, an overseas escapade, or an escape from my life in America that I have nearly forgotten - one thing remains for sure: this month has undoubtedly been one of the most fun and wonderfully memorable in my entire life.

Kevin and I met in Rome on June 20th. I from San Francisco and he from Missoula, we scheduled our flights to arrive simultaneously, but his was very late due to bad weather which forced the plane down in the Rocky Mountains, then a passenger seizer which forced a second landing in Newfoundland. Nonetheless, all worked out, as I found us a place to stay and met Kev without difficulty in the afternoon. And there we were, in Roma, Italia.

Getting straight to business, we went to a gelateria for gelato, Italy's famously creamy ice cream. It was no let down. Over the next two days, we toured Rome on foot visiting nearly every cathedral, church, museum, Roman ruin, and other site we encountered, all the while sustaining ourselves on a diet of panino sandwiches, wine, and, of course, gelato. The Coliseum, the Palladium, and the Pantheon; nociola, strachiatella, and fragalla. The Vatican, Trevis fountain, and Roman Forum; pistaccio, cocolata, and ananas. Il Piazza del Popolo, il Piazza Venezia, il Piazza de Spagna, the Borghese Village, and the Tiber River; les fruits del bosco, pesca, minta, café and crema. In three days we toured just about every site and tried almost every gelato flavor that Rome had to offer, logging a marathon of miles on cobble stone streets, granite sidewalks, and marble staircases.

Coloseum

Then we caught a train to Florence, Italy's artistic city along the Arno River: birthplace of the Renaissance, home of Michelangelo's David, the Medici family's puerto vecio, the Boboli gardens, and the massive dome atop La Santa Maria del Fiore. This magnificent cathedral rivals any structure I've seen in beauty and construction. Affectionately referred to as il Duomo, and at one time the largest in the world, its 40-metre diameter dome rises 85 metres over the cathedral floor. Begun in 1296, the architect not only had to design an inner dome merely to support the outer one, but also had to invent today's modern counterbalancing crane in order to lift the stones into place. Adding beauty to structural brilliance, nearly the entire outside and much of the inside that isn't fresco-ed is lined with countless marble tiles, creating thousands of quilt-like patterns draped throughout. And the tiles are so colorful and amazingly clean that the cathedral almost looks brand new.

We toured Firenze with the same gulping enthusiasm that we had when devouring Rome. We also watched a tremendous fireworks show that twice ignited and cindered full-sized trees in people yards, ate a new flavor, riso (rice, and it's awesome) at the famous Vivoli gelateria, and, late at night in our hotel room, switched on the TV to witness an infomercial where actors place muscle-toning electrodes upon their buttocks, causing their cheeks to flap like butterflies.

We next rode the train to La Spezia to meet up with another friend of ours from Montana. Amazingly, we had planned no means of contacting each other, but our rendezvous worked flawlessly as we met Erin at high noon on the platform of the main train station. Now three, we jumped aboard a train heading to the Mediterranean Sea.

Thirty minutes later we were in Cinque Terra - Italy's five so-called "lost" villages spaced out along a cliffy coastline with the precipitous sea in front and a steep mountain ridge behind separating us from the rest of the Italian mainland. Kev and I had never even seen the Mediterranean before today, thus we spared just enough time to find a little cottage room before scrambling down a steep path to a pebble-stone beach and into the water. After 5 days sightseeing in temperatures that could melt a candle, the refreshing Sea was like a gift from God. The water was 75, and we swam for hours in the buoyant salty water amidst soft rolling swells.

Finally we got out to walk a few kilometers along the Cinque Terra coast trail to the next village, whereupon we jumped right back into the Sea. Before swimming, though, I purchased my first Italian souvenir, an item I was determined to wear as a symbol of my unabashed approval of European culture and the Mediterranean Sea: a Speedo. Yup, and I wore it swimming for the rest of the trip.

This second town that we swam at had a small bay with sailing and fishing boats, and a short rock jetty. A man lent me his goggles, and I swam around spying on crabs clinging to the undersea rocks. After years of learning so much about this Sea, of its tales with Aneid and Odysseus, and ancient ties to Roman, Greek, Persian, Phoenician, Egyptian, and so many other cultures, it felt very personal to finally meet her myself. Aqua-blue stretching to the horizon, swells rolling gently to a shoreline ringed with civilization, she was like a smaller, gentler version of the great oceans, providing life and adventure at a scale manageable to its early inhabitants.

Cinque Terr

After our swim we sat down at a restaurant for a seafood dinner. Halfway through dinner our waiter suddenly appeared in a different shirt - this new one reading in big block letters: "Why Iraq, Why Now? Join us against the war." With our broken Italian, we were obvious Americans, and undoubtedly the only Americans at this restaurant. Yet, he could hardly speak English, thus a discussion of international politics in any language was nearly impossible. So we didn't say anything, and that guy probably still thinks we like Bush. It was a humbling experience.

After dinner and a few glasses of Chianti, we decided to walk to the next town, whereupon we could catch the train back to our original town with the cottage room. It was about 4 kilometers away, and we headed out on the trail as the clock tower struck nine. Unfortunately, despite our perceived stellar navigation skills, we accidentally took not the coast trail, but another trail that led all the way up to the mountain ridge, then traversed the ridge with the Sea far below and sometimes out of sight, before finally dropping back down to our town of destination. As darkness overcame the evening, turning around was no longer an option, and we ended up enduring this trail which we later measured to be 15 kilometres long, finishing it with a sprint to catch the 11:30 train back home. Lord, what an epic after dinner walk. Erin should get a prize for her performance that day, considering that the last time she slept was some 30 hours ago in Montana.

Waking late the next morning, we plunged into the Sea one more time, then bid arivaderce to Cinque Terra and hopped on a train for Cuneo to meet up with another Montana friend, Francesca.

Fra is an Italian friend through the University of Montana's Wildlife Biology graduate program. She was born and lives in the Alps, and, amongst other things, we came to help on her wolf research.

On our first day in the Alps Francesca showed no mercy by taking us on a tremendously long hike looking for wolf tracks and scat in an area that had yet to be surveyed. Leaving at the fashionably-Italian start time of 11 am, we hiked from a valley floor up 2000 metres and over an alpine pass into France (Kevin's first time in the country, an event he celebrated by jumping into a nearly frozen lake), then down and up another 300 metres to cross a second pass back into Italy and down this valley to its floor. Along with her german Shepard Yukon (or "Yuuu-kon" as Fra says it), we saw chamois, ibex, marmots, and many birds, including the graccia, an alpine corvid. Finally, upon meeting our pick-up vehicle at 10 pm, Fra drove us up a rough mountain road and dropped us off in the pitch dark, telling us to listen for wolf howls for two hours (Fra is ruthless). We heard no howls that night, nor saw any tracks or scat that day. Not a surprise, considering the Alpine wolves are so elusive that Francesca has only spotted them three times during her six years of research.

Erin near the Italian-French border

The next day we hiked to Girelli, a Refugio nestled halfway up the broad Valle Pesio above Francesca's home. Her whole wolf research crew met at Girelli that night to celebrate the birthday of one of her research assistants. Assembled were Luca the birthday boy, Marco from Rome, Matea who, in his spare time growls in an Italian thrasher rock band, Thelia, who speaks Italian, French, Spanish, and English fluently, Davide the park ranger and boyfriend of Fra, Fra as the crew leader, and Kevin and Erin and I. Upon rendezvousing we settled into a classic Italian meal. At 2000 metres elevation, in a Refugio accessible only by trail and powered by hydroelectricity, we were served a 5 course meal made entirely from scratch. The pasta was made from flour and egg. Additionally, we were given, and cooperatively emptied, nearly a bottle of wine each. Following that, the Refugio managers, who were the parents of Matea-the-growler and who knew the whole wolf crew, brought out grappa and genepy after-dinner liquors, filling our sipping glasses several times without asking if we wanted more or noticing when we tried to refuse. The whole evening turned raucous, with platters of food, continually loaded plates, drained bottles and tipping and sipping glasses of alcohol, and a cacophony of broken Italian and English covering the table. And, in the end, Matea's parents wouldn't even let us pay. Their hospitality was monumental. The night ended with all of us on the Refugio-style mega-bunk bed first waging a pillow fight, then a steam roller derby.

Stumbling into consciousness at 6 am, we tromped down to a lake the next morning (Matea jumped in), then split into groups to conduct wolf shit surveys along different trails. Kevin headed off with Matea for another picturesque hike along the French border, while Erin and I stuck with Fra to meet a shepherd who was going to show us how he makes cheese from scratch. Arriving at a little stone structure surrounded by hundreds of goats and two protective scruffy dogs, we met Andrea, a weathered shepherd with strong coarse-skinned hands and tattered clothes. Over the next hour, he showed us how to turn a bucket of fresh milk into a round of cheese using nothing more than a metal pot over a fire, a wooden bowl, a couple planks of wood, some rocks, and a linen cloth. His eyes were keen and blue, and he worked hard and matter of fact-ly, as if being a shepherd was neither fun nor unpleasant, but simply an existence he intended to carry out.

Upon saying good-bye to Andrea, it was about 8 in the morning and Fra convinced me that Matea and Kevin were on a spectacular hike that I must witness and that, if I ran hard, I could catch up with them. She couldn't join me because she had her own survey route to hike, and Erin announced that she was so hung-over that any running in the Alps today would likely cause her to puke, so I set out solo and cross country straight up a mountain side and over its pass, with no food and little water in my body. I ran almost the entire way and, upon reaching them two hours later on a ridge approaching the Italian/French border, I nearly passed out from exhaustion and dehydration. Once recovered, though, it was worth it. We hiked for many kilometers along the international ridge, encountering old rock shelters from World War I, incredible views of the Alps, and, haraah!, two freshly laid and smelly wolf shits filled with hair and bones. We also took a leisurely nap on the ridge, recharging ourselves by splitting amongst the three of us our only piece of food - four little squares of a chocolate bar (Kevin won rock-paper-scissors to claim the odd piece). Here, we also learned the Italian equivalent to "hang-over": "il journo dopo" - the day after. Yep, journo dopos all around. That afternoon, during our descent into a valley near the end of our transect, we found nature's paradise: A creek with a long series of carved out granite pools perfect for swimming. We jumped in sans clothes, but soon enough my shorts on the bank were blown into the pool as well, whereupon they were promptly swept to the next and then the next pool. Having no other way to quickly catch up with them, I ended up having to follow my shorts down the slippery slides until finally grabbing them.

Kevin and Matea with wolf crap (I mean feces)

Booyah

Sticking with tradition, we were not allowed to go home after this hike, but instead were each dropped off alone in the pitch dark that night to listen for wolf howls until midnight. I heard no wolves, but was delighted to detect the melodious fluting of an owl (il gufo civetta capogrosso - the European big-headed owl).

July 1st. Having put in our volunteer wolf research effort, we were next rewarded with 5 incredibly fun and relaxing days on the Mediterranean aboard Fra's University friend Diego's sailboat.

After driving through a zillion tunnels, and viewing the leaning tower of Pisa, all at 140 km/hour on the autostrada, we arrived at a little port along the west coast of Italy and were soon aboard the 40-foot La Mangrovia, sailing the great Mediterranean to the tune of Bob Marley.

Cap'n Crow

During the following four days we lived on Diego's boat, one of six he owns for his charter business, as he, and later one of his skipper's Manuel, sailed us to various remote beaches and even to Elba Island. Diego, Manuel, and Francesca are all old friends, and Fra also brought along her childhood best friend Ariana to join Davide, Kevin, Erin, and me on our sail away from reality. In summary, we did everything you would expect on such a private sailing excursion. Namely, sail the coast and to islands, swimming in the warm Sea as often as possible. We even swam during sailing, by jumping off the boat while hanging onto a long rope that was cleated to the stern. Once the rope was taut, you could steer and swirl and porpoise about while being gently pulled through the water - all with no fuel fumes or propeller to worry about. Of course, wine and cocktails accompanied most activities, and, being with Italians, we cooked 4-star meals nightly. One evening we came to port at a town on Elba to meet Fra's vacationing parents for an aperitif. After having inspected Elba personally, I must say that I have no sympathy for Napoleon.

Diego's boat

Upon returning to the mainland, we sped past the leaning tower again (this time at 200 km/hour, because Davide was driving), and back to the Alps for a few more days adventuring. There, Fra sent us out on two more survey hikes. The first took Erin, Kevin, and me through Refugio Girelli, where Matea's mother served us a 4-course lunch (with wine, of course), before sending us on our way without being able to give her a single Euro. She served us so much food that, for example, the three of us were given and unconditionally expected to eat a large bowl filled entirely with peas! It was enough by itself to feed us. Never mind the vegetable casserole, lamb chops, bread, and pie. Also on the transect, I will humbly admit, we collected several canine scat specimens (placing them in my pack!), that all turned out to be dog shit.

On the second survey day we were each sent on our own routes amidst the mountains flanking Valley Varaita - a region with the tallest peaks we'd seen yet, and also home to Fra's childhood friend Ariana. I saw no wolves or scat on my transect, but did spot several chamois, and flushed a fox from a cave a few metres in front of me, and also finally saw the Nolaice - Europe's counterpart to our North American nutcracker bird (a favorite corvid of mine). I also had a surreal experience with a herd of sheep that were grazing high up in an alpine meadow. As I passed them about a quarter of a mile away, the entire herd - about 200 total - turned toward me and ran toward me. As this stampede of sheep approached, my impression of them quickly changed from amazed to terrified. Fearing being trampled, I scrambled up on a nearby boulder for safety. Undeterred, the sheep rush up to the boulder, several rising up and putting their front hooves on it, and three of them even jumping up onto the boulder and coming right up to me. At this point, all activity pretty much stopped as we had reached an impass: they having completely surrounded me and my boulder, looking apparently disappointed that I wasn't a sheep god, and I, no longer terrified, but undoubtedly boxed in by 200 sheep with 400 eyes all staring at me as if I am supposed to lead them to sheep freedom. Needless to say, I did let out a few hardy "Baaa"'s, but that didn't seem to change anything. Eventually, I threaded my way through the herd while they stood looking at me, offering some "excuse me"'s and pats on the head, before finally getting free and out of sight behind a ridge.

These sheep have issues

Ariana works as a wildlife veterinarian in Valle Varaite, and after our transects we did not have to go listening for wolf howls, but instead joined her for a big farewell dinner. Here, tucked in amidst her little town built entirely of stone and thick slate roof tiles, we finally said good-bye to Ariana, Fra, and the majestic Alps.

I have stepped out of order a bit, because we did have one additional adventurous day in the Alps that happened between the two transect days described above. On this day, it was Davide, not Francesca, who lead us, and we went into, not on top of, the mountains. After teaching us some pertinent Italian terms, like "la maniglia", "discencore", and "pietra!" or "rock" (not Piedro, as I first thought it was to everyone's amusement), Davide took us spelunking in the Alps. We traveled deep into a cave for hours, rappelling down shafts, jummarring up chimneys, traversing catwalks, and squeezing through a bottleneck. At one point, we Tyrolean-traversed across a massive room the size of a small cathedral, with its domed ceiling a good 20 feet above us, and an underground river flowing 50 feet beneath us.

At our deepest inside the mountain, before turning around, we were honored with a most beautiful performance by Erin. Years ago, she used to be an opera singer, and we'd been trying for days to convince her to sing. Finally, she acquiesced. There, in our granite subterranean concert hall, we blew out our headlight flares and listened in total darkness to Erin sing the Latin opera song Ave Maria. Smooth and powerful, her bold soprano voice filled the cave, reverberating through the tunnels and echoing off its walls.

It was finally time to leave the Alps. Erin caught her flight for the States, but Kevin and I had more to do. It was day 20 on our trip, and we trained to Torino to stay with Fra's parents before catching a night train West. In Torino, Fra's dad Bruno showed us the shroud of Turin. Bruno also led us on a tour of St. Michael's cathedral, built high on the mountain overlooking the Turin Valley - the same valley through which passed Hannibal and is army of elephants two hundred years before Christ was even born.

Finally, leaving Italy for the first time, we boarded our train at 9:30 pm heading to Barcelona. I should input here that Kev and I though we had too much time to spare before the train left the station, so we ended up having a big dinner and getting drunk on wine and then having to run across town to barely reach the station in time. Once aboard, we shared our sleeper car with Jan Pierre from Brazil and Abdumalleh from Morrocco. Both were nice, and Jan Pierre was wonderfully conversational in Italian. As darkness crept over the tracks, we passed out and slept entirely through the French Riviera (Kev's third time in France, this time being the longest but not seeing it once). Just after sunrise, we were awoken at the Spanish border by police who promptly took Abdummellah off the train. What gives?

After a café latte in the diner car, and a half hour of practicing our Spanish, we arrived at grand central station, "Barthalona". Kevin's hometown Cincinnati friend Chris met us on the platform and took us to his and fiancé Roser's ("Rosé") flat that is both in downtown Barcelona and 100 metres from the beach. Barcelona, Spain's chic city on the Med. The beach itself is a sight: super wide and kilometers long, the soft sand is covered by hundreds of locals. Spread across the beach along downtown is a fantastic view of Barcelonan culture: multi-colored parasols perched everywhere, men in Speedos and nearly all the women topless, Spanish, local Catalan, French, English, and Italian conversations heard all about, and vendors stalking the shoreline carrying coolers and advertising in a loud up swinging tone "Coca-cola, cervesa, fresca, AGUA!!"

And the city itself, loaded with narrow curving stone streets, the wide tree-lined La Rambla pedestrian boulevard, huge produce and fish markets, and old public buildings whose architecture sometimes seems futuristic. In particular are those designed by Antonio Gaudy, including the tremendously large Temple de la Sangrada Familia, which has been under construction for 100 years and covers many city blocks, but is only one quarter complete.

Sangrada Familia

Kevin and I easily slipped into the Spanish way of life, eating homemade local dishes like La tortilla de Potatas, and Pan amb tomaquette, taking siestas during the midday heat, visiting the beach and warm Mediterranean every afternoon, beginning dinner way after dark, and mingling amidst the Barcelona night life into the witching hour.

One day we had lunch at a restaurant on a hill overlooking the city. The waiter for some reason thought we were good folks, and ended up serving our whole table free sipping shots of orujo, a digestive liquor. I for some reason got two servings because I lived in California.

Another day Chris and Roser took us to an old wooden bar with faded mirrors and dusty bottles lining the shelves. There, for my first time, I drank the smooth, narcotic, licorice-like Absinth, a liquor that you mix delicately with water that is slowly poured over a fork holding a dissolving cube of sugar. I enjoyed the drink very much, as well as its ensuing ethereal high.

The 15th of July came all too quickly, marking the official end to our planned vacation. Much to my dismay, Kevin flew out of Barcelona for Montana that morning. I too was supposed to fly home, but fortunately, plans change. During our first week in Europe (when in Rome and Florence), my family decided they also wanted to vacation in Europe and asked that I stay longer to hook up with them. No problem.

So I was to meet them in Naples on the 23rd. With Chris' help, I found a cheapo flight from Barcelona to Napoli on that day, leaving me 8 days of unscheduled exploration. The first thing I did was train a few hours down the Spanish coast to Tarragona, an old town that used to be the region's capital when ruled by the Roman Empire during the 2nd century, B.C. Amongst the ruins was an amphitheatre for gladiator shows perched right on the beach. That afternoon, the Mediterranean surf picked up tremendously for an excellent day of body surfing. There were even surfers out (but I didn't have a board - poo).

I stayed in Tarragona that night, returning to Barcelona the next day for a special concert that I had seen advertised on the city bulletin earlier in the week: all the way from Kingston, Jamaica: Toots and the Maytalls. The last time I saw Toots, in Portland, Oregon, he brought half the dance floor - over 100 people - onto the stage with him during a song. There were so many people on the small stage that you couldn't see him or any of the other band members. This night, the venue in Barcelona was even smaller, and the Spanish crowd was even more rowdy and enthusiastic. I brought Roser, getting us right up against the stage, and Toots didn't disappoint. Throughout the show about two dozen people hopped up on stage to boogie with Toots, and both Roser and I shook his hand and knocked fists with him as he paid respect to the crowd. The band was fantastic, too, and it looked liked they were pleasantly surprised by the Spanish crowd's raucous enthusiasm and ability to sing along in a motley dialect of Spanish and English reggae. I met a New Zealand girl, who was great fun to dance with, until, at the end of the show, she ditched me to work her magic on one of Toot's 7 foot tall pure black Jamaican bouncers. After the show, we visited El Bosco de les Fades, a Faries-of-the-Forest bar off La Rambla. The bar is owned by the local wax museum, and had many little rooms that were fully forested with full-sized wax people hanging about.

The next day, after a solid tour of the Picasso Museum and some swimming in the Med, I caught a bus West for 5 hours to an intersection, whereupon I hitched a ride up a dead end road from a woman who had a plastic Elvis smoking a spliff hanging from her rear view mirror. Reaching the road's end, I was in a little town tucked in the Pyrenees Mountains. I set out further West on a trail leading up and into the mountains for 16 kilometers, reaching a Refugio for the night. Although I had to pay this time, I was pleased to find that Spanish refugios also serve incredible amounts of delicious food and wine. That evening, reflecting back to my last place of residence in Montana, I thought how these are the same mountains where, described by Ernest Hemmingway, the Ingles from Missoula fell to his death under fascist fire during the Spanish Civil War.

Sleeping in, the next morning is today, the day that brought me to Monestero Pass where I began this story. I've since finished my lunch up there, climbed the peak on the left side of the pass, and headed down the other side of the pass to the Refugio perched on the rocky ismuth. Upon arriving there, I met some Majorcans who live on the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain a few hundred kilometers east of Barcelona. The olives on Majorca are so good that these men would not even eat the mainland olives served with dinner that night. Nonetheless, they were very hospitable gents, and conversational. Their dialect was so far removed from Spanish, much less the Spanish I learned in North America, though, that our conversation consisted more of gestures than words.

Pyrenees

After that last night's sleep in the mountains, I rolled down the valley to the little town and hitched back to the intersection to catch the bus. While waiting for it, I spied a little bird that hopped from rock to rock along the shore of the lake next to me. At each rock, it sprightly bounced its body up and down, while flitting its tail. I had seen this little creature in Italy too, where it is called la ballerina.

Soon enough I was back in Barcelona for a last night of revel with Chris and Roser, then on my puddle-jumper to Naples. There, I met up with family friend Mary Pillow Kirk. We head out for some Italian pizza and she updated me on our agenda for the next 10 days. It was here, while downing a slice of buffalo mozzarella, fresh tomato, and melonzane pizza, that I found out that there were a total of 12 of us meeting in Italy, and that my family had chartered a 149 foot yacht to tour us throughout the Mediterranean. That's right: a yacht, with a captain and crew.

Mary Pillow and I crashed at a hotel she found, and headed out in a taxi to the port the next morning. Napoli is a congested, noisy, dirty city. Also, it seems the epitome of Italian driving, where one honks, gestures, and swears at others just as much as they steer and press the pedals. Our taxi driver that morning may be normal for Naples, but he seemed crazy to us. Amongst other things, he consistently drove in any lane on the road, cutting toward the right side of the road only when oncoming traffic would not yield. At one point, on a street six lanes wide, he drove in the farthest left lane, beyond the lanes used for oncoming traffic, in the farthest left lane that is against the curb for parking, and then, upon us reaching an intersection with another six lane street, he floored the cab and made a right-hand turn.

We made it to the port and, true enough, there really were 12 of us and the boat really was 149 feet long. Different than I expected, though, it was not modern and sleek or gaudy at all. Instead, it was an old classic, built over seventy years ago, with a wooden walkway around its edge, and a long narrow hull lined with little glass portholes. Built on the shores of Lake Michigan in 1930, it had some history, holding a total of five names through the decades, and even serving as a mine sweeper for the U.S. Navy off the coast of Alaska during World War II.

My mom and Jim, pregnant sister Eliza and Nate, step-sister Julia and Theo, cousin Sylvia, and friends Dennis and Rusty from Illinois, Mary Pillow from Nashville, and Benoit from Paris, and I lived aboard this gracious yacht while touring the Mediterranean waters west of Italy for the next 9 days. It was over the top. We cruised the Almafi coast, then to Capri, Ischia, Ponza, and Positami Islands, spending nights in bays at each, and swimming for hours during the day, all the while amidst ensalata caprese and pesca Italian dishes, and various cocktail breaks ("mangrovia specials", a cocktail invention of mine while on Diego's sailboat, were readily endorsed).

Along the Almalfi coast we celebrated Jim's birthday with a bottle of Genepy that I brought from the Alps.

At Capri, we toured la grotta azura (the blue grotto), a huge cave on the coast with a tiny entrance through which miniature rowboats with crouching passengers can barely fit. Inside the cave, sunlight shining through the rippling water create a glistening aqua-blue glow flickering upon the cave ceiling. But the blue grotto is far from serene, because the Italian taxi driver mentality is concentrated into a mad scene of Italian mini-rowboats jockeying to squeeze tourists in and out of the tiny grotto entrance. Inside, the huge grotto pool is filled with Italian bumper-boat chaos, as each rower of his little wooden craft either tries to drown out the other rowers with bursts of Italian opera, or yells over the other's singing with directions like, "Look, you must look over there. It is the most beautiful blue you have ever seen!"

At Ischia, we swam around an island castle (Il Castillo Aragonese) that has been ruled by Romans, Greeks, and Normans. The Ischian population sought refuge on this fortress island in 1301 during Mount Empeo's last great eruption. Most recently, it was bombed by the English in 1809 to displace the French during the Napoleonic Wars.

At Ponza, we explored a 3rd century B.C Roman bathhouse built into the rock at waterline. Snorkeling, Nate also discovered an emerald grotto. It was here that I also made my deepest free dive ever, reaching our boat's anchor 12 metres below without fins. Looking up from such a depth was terrifying, as the mirrored surface of the sea was as far away as the roof of a three story building.

At this point, we decided to traverse the open seas for Sardinia Island. Our captain agreed to this plan, as the weather and sea looked good. We began in the afternoon, and all seemed smooth. I spotted a dolphin leaping with us as we ventured toward the calm open sea with the Italian mainland disappearing behind. Soon, though, the sea ceased to stay placid, but instead rose up and engulfed us in a windstorm that rolled and battered us for the next 15 hours. Ten foot waves curled over our bowhead and crashed against the wheel-house, spraying down the whole length of the boat. We plowed through and were rocked by these swells all night, with the weather and rocking becoming the most tumultuous at around 3 am. By then several folks where either sick or dosed up on motion-sickness pills. Our stuff was sliding and falling all about, doors and picture frames were slamming with the rhythm of the swells, and even the porthole above my bed was leaking water.

This storm took all of us by surprise, even the captain. It made me recognize the potential ferocity of the Mediterranean, recalling how a legendary storm had long ago overwhelmed Aneid and blown his little vessel from Greece to North Africa.

We made it to Sardinia with the sunrise, and the storm quickly abated to reveal our boat covered in salt and a huge slab of paint peeling off the hull at the bow. We spent two days at Sardinia's La Costa Smerelda, site to the James Bond film "The Spy Who Loved Me," and aqua blue waters brighter than any I had seen in the Mediterranean. With rounded bronze cliffs and boulders everywhere, dry Mediterranean vegetation, and light tan beaches stretched out along the coast, Sardinia reminded me of a Joshua Tree National Park partially submerged in a tropical ocean.

Sardinia

With only a few days left, we headed up to visit Sardinia's northern French neighbor, Corsica. There, we docked in the port of Bonafacio, an inspiring harbor that was long ago visited by Odysseus when cannibals lived there. Bonafacio was also hometown to Napoleon Bonaparte, and, most recently, defense towers, turret mounts and other military ruins from World War II still rest on the two headlands hovering over the harbor entrance. Below the cliffs at the waterline, huge iron cleats are still anchored to the rock on either side of the harbor's entrance, across which massive chains were strung to stop German submarines.

Bonafacio

Returning to Sardinia for one last day, we caught a flight the next morning to Rome and then to the States, thus ending the final leg of this epic European vacation. Totaling 44 days, I had visited Italy and Spain and their famous mountains, and experienced the Mediterranean Sea and its unforgettably rich culture. I ate some of the best food, dessert (gelato, I mean), and wine in my life. Traveling with the best company one could ask for, I also met new friends that will last for life. I read six books (amongst them, the biography of Joan of Arc, Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises (which takes place in Spain), and Il Piccolo Princeps, (The Little Prince, in Italian), and sent 26 postcards to the United States. To say the least, it was an incredible trip, vacation, tour abroad, overseas escapade, or whatever you'd like to call it. All I know is that it is the first trip I've taken where I experienced culture shock upon my return home.

M'illumino d'immenso!!