Category: Travel

I’d be remiss if I failed to mention Oaxacan culture. It’s a mix of Spanish colonial and MesoAmerican like much of Mexico, but one where the latter (from the Zapotecs et al) is equally important with the former.

We were in Oaxaca city just before its largest annual fiesta: la Guelaguetza. Taken from the Nahuatl language, the fiesta translates as “the giving” and represents an old tradition of the various local cultures coming together and sharing what they have (dances, costumes, food, goods) with others.

Catholicism took deep root in Oaxaca, thanks mostly to the Dominicans. This teaching order was welcomed by the rural indigenous population, and as a result, the Catholic Church in Oaxaca avoided some of the revolutionary movements which regularly convulsed Mexico. The Templo Santo Domingo de Guzman is one of the most beautiful examples of baroque architecture in the Western Hemisphere. The Metropolitcan Cathedral is a neo-classical structure covered in soft cantera stone. Inside is the mysterious Cross of Huatulco, a legend told to the Conquistadores when then arrived in Oaxaca in 1522. Villagers in nearby Huatulco were worshipping a cross they said was brought to them by a white-robed holy man who had “come-and-gone” many years earlier. Who he was and where he came from remains unsolved.

One big draw near Oaxaca city is the village of Teotitlán, completely committed to the art of weaving. We witnessed an amazing explanation of how the locals spun thread from various sources (from alpaca to cactus) and then made an astounding palate of colors from things like prickly pear fruit (called tuna in Spanish, to great gringo confusion), the indigo plant, and small cactus-infesting insects called cochineal (which create deep reds and purples).

Oaxaca has something for everyone. It’s a big enough town to have plenty to do, with food, drink, and fiestas galore. The surrounding valley and mountains have all the historical, ethnic, and athletic activities and sites you could want. The people are friendly and although a little Spanish is very helpful, there are many tours and guides for the English-speaking traveller. It is not yet an expensive place, but the combination of inflation and increasing tourism are having an effect. The biggest drawback seems to me to be it is not an easy place to get to: you’ll be flying the uncomfortable Mexican budget airlines, on only a few daily flights, often connecting via Mexico City. In return you’ll see an authentic piece of Mexico and its MesoAmerican heritage . . . still a bargain!

The state of Oaxaca plays an outsized role in Mexico’s history. Archeologists suggest Monte Alban, which sits atop a small mountain overlooking the Oaxaca valley, was one of the first real cities in the Western Hemisphere. The Zapotec peoples built it around 500 BCE (Before the Christian Era) and it dominated the area until 750 CE (Christian Era). Monte Alban is only partially excavated, but what has been completed is stunning. It ultimately held around 30,000 Zapotecs, making it an unusually large and prosperous settlement for its time. Among it unique features are some of the earliest evidence of social stratification: the elites lived in private quarters at the top of the settlement, with secret passages to speed their travels about the town, while workers and merchants lived further down and the poor congregated around the base of the plateau.

Monte Alban had a strong governing organization which demanded tribute from the surrounding tribes and villages. Less praiseworthy, the Zapotecs practiced ritual sacrifice, so it’s always hard to separate the beauty of the structures you’re visiting when considering how many were killed at the same spot! Archeologists had once insisted on contrasting the blood-thirsty conquistadores with the peaceful MesoAmerican tribes. The Mexica (Aztecs) were often portrayed as the exception which proved the rule. Later work showed all the indigenous cultures practiced blood-letting and human sacrifice, although the Mexica took it to the extreme.

One classic example trying to portray indigenous cultures in a more positive light is los danzantes (the dancers). These residual stones (of which there were hundreds) show Olmec-style obese men “dancing.” In fact, archeologists later demonstrated the stones show the chiefs of tributary towns who had been castrated, watering the earth with their blood before being killed. Dancers, indeed!

We still don’t know what happened to the Monte Alban civilization, but it disappeared around the same time as the Mayans further to the east.

Oaxaca is also the birthplace of Mexico’s most revered leader: Benito Juárez. He rose to fame as a liberal reformer in the 1850s, served as the first (and only) fully-indigenous Presidente of Mexico, and led the fight to reclaim Mexico’s independence from Maximilian after the French installed him as Latin Emperor. His political life coincided with that of Abraham Lincoln, and each holds a similar position of special esteem in their respective country’s history. He was the first Mexican leader to view the United States as an alteraantive model for the continued development of Mexico; prior to him, Europe in general and Spain in particular were the dominant models. While Juárez was controversial in his day, his reputation has only grown with time.

On the other side of the ledger is Porfirio Díaz, another native Oaxaqueño. Díaz was a General who arose alongside Juárez, but he later led a revolt against him. After Juárez’ death, Díaz completed his successful insurrection and installed a technocratic government. Gradually he fell into autocratic ways, creating a dictatorship called el Porfiriato that lasted over thirty years. History remembers his regime for its unrelenting emphasis on economic development and pervasive repression: one of his favorite slogans was “pan o palo” literally “bread or the stick.”

Despite all this history, Oaxaca is one of Mexico’s poorest, least supported states. Travel & Leisure magazine just named Oaxaca City as the “world’s top travel hot spot,” but it clearly has not received the government attention it needs. Poverty is prevalent and development is slow. We visited such natural wonders as hierve el agua, also known as the frozen waterfalls, and el Tule, the world’s largest (in circumference) tree which is more than 2000 years old.

While the government built a toll road to speed the way over the mountains, they had done little else. In the little towns along the way to the falls, there were numerous local “stops” to “charge” tourists a few pesos to continue. It was obvious this was the only way to make money locally.

The government has not improved the infrastructure sufficiently to support the basic needs of the people, let alone the tourism which could develop. And we only visited the central valley: there are tons of beaches and mountain ranges to explore, too.

Those interested in MesoAmerican history and architecture, nature and/or adventure travel, textile arts and crafts, or extant indigenous cultures will find much to like about Oaxaca. Which is probably why it’s a rising tourist hot-spot, despite the neglect!

If you’re like me, the first time you saw the name of this Mexican state in print, you paused.

“Oh-ah-ZACA?” “ACHS-aca?” “Oh-AXA-ca?” Of course I had heard it pronounced before, but seeing the name still threw me. It’s “wah-HAH-cah” for the record.

Judy and I have been wanting to visit for some time, for the archeological sites, the churches, the textiles, and the food, especially the food. Oaxaca is home to mole (MO-lay), that incredible smoky salsa of numerous varieties that makes local cuisine so special. The term mole comes from the ancient Nahuatl language, and simply means “sauce.” You’re already familiar with one version: guaca-mole, or avocado sauce, but there are many more! There are seven major types of mole, each designed to augment or enhance a specific main course:

• Negro (black): savory-sweet with distinct chocolate undertones, for turkey and special ocasions. It’s the kind you’ll find most often in the US.
• Rojo (red): spicier, sweeter, less chocolatey, it actually comes from Puebla and is also called mole poblano. It is good for meat dishes.
• Coloradito (auburn): between negro and rojo, thicker (with plantains) and sweeter.
• Amarillo (yellow): the all-purpose mole without chocolate, for vegetables and chicken.
• Verde (green): with pumpkin, tomatillo, and cilantro (ugh!), best for chicken.
• Chichilo (from the chilhuacle chili) dark and intense, based on beef broth. It is rare and lacks sweetness, with a licorice aftertaste.
• Manchamantel (“table-cloth staining”): bright red, fruity, and rich, dangerous to white clothes!

As you look at the pictures, you might think there is a mismatch between the names of the moles and the colors: the names are as much about the ingredients as the final color!

Oaxaca is to Mexican cuisine as Lyon is to French cuisine. Both are UNESCO World Heritage sites, and we were wowed by the food in Lyon. So we were really looking forward to the encore performance in Oaxaca, and we were not disappointed. We took a food tour in Oaxaca city, to try out the quesillo (Oaxacan cheese, the inspiration for string cheese), chapulines (fried grasshopper snacks), mezcal (alcohol derived from the agave plant), tejate (a corn and cacao drink served cold) and other assorted delicacies!

If there was one lesson we took away, it was the subtlety of mole. It’s a cuisine staple that has developed over thousands of years, so asking what the mole tastes like is exactly like asking what a sauce tastes like: well, it depends upon the sauce type, the ingredients, and the chef, just for starters. While there are seven basic moles, every preparation is distinct and special. Chefs take hours-to-days preparing mole. Villages and families have special secret recipes, and the fresh ingredients also introduce differences into the final product. Like the old cliche about “never entering the same river twice”, you never eat the same mole twice. Each new mole is a unique encounter with something special to be savored.

Our last stop in Italy, a day trip back in time to the final days of the Western Christian Empire. Ravenna is a city near the Adriatic coast in the Emilia-Romagna region, north-east of Florence. As Rome became a punching bag for various barbarian tribes in the 5th century AD, the Romans moved the capital to Ravenna, which they felt was more defensible (they were misinformed) because it is surrounded by swampy lands. Ravenna was occupied by the Ostrogoth King Theodoric the Great, becoming his capital, before being liberated by armies sent by Justinian I, the Eastern Roman Emperor, in 540 AD. It was during this Byzantine period that most of Ravenna’s great monuments were completed.

What you’ll find in Ravenna is a series of brick structures dating from the 5th and 6th centuries in odd patterns: not just the traditional cruciform shape with a long nave, but also small circles and octagons. Inside, the walls are decorated with immense, colorful mosaic depictions of the early Church: saints and Bible scenes and other religious imagery. They are vivid and spring to life in indirect sunlight. Most amazing is that many of the structures and art are intact and in situ: you are seeing the art where it was meant to be seen when it was completed over fifteen hundred years ago! I found the art more than a little overwhelming. First, there was so much to see, you’ll need an appreciation of art to take it all in. Second, you need time just to digest it all. And third, I was struck by the juxtaposition of mosaic art, which I associate with Eastern Orthodoxy, in ancient Roman churches. But this art style, which is Byzantine, predates by several centuries the Great Schism between Rome and Constantinople. It is a clash of styles, not beliefs.*

The Basilica of San Vitale:

Inside the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, and the Baptistry:

Basilica de Sant’Apollonare:

From the Bishop’s palace:

Oh and some famous guy called Dante lived here. We associate him with Firenze (he was Florentine, after all), but he was in exile when he wrote the Divine Comedy and died in Ravenna. They’ve kept him ever since, much to Florence’s regret.

Ravenna is off the beaten path, so you probably must make an effort to visit. Those who enjoy great art, architecture, or church history will find it a rewarding trip!

*somewhere out there is a fellow fervent believer who would quickly point out that these churches were dedicated by schismatic followers of the Arian heresy, which for a time dominated throughout the Roman Church. But let’s not get into an argument over homoousis, shall we?

No, not the retailer, the real thing.

Our sojourn in France has ended, and we’ve made it safe and sound to our daughter and son-in-law’s place in Italy. Random thoughts:

Some places are pretty boring to fly in to. Atlanta is like that. There is a city center out there in the distance, and a lot of suburbia beneath you, and you land and . . . that’s it. Reagan National airport in DC sits on reclaimed land in the Potomac river, so you get an amazing view of DC or the Pentagon, and sometimes a bonus: a harrowing hard right turn at about 300 ft. above the river! Mexico City, like Tokyo, seems to stretch to infinity, especially landing at night. But Marco Polo airport for Venice is special:

Our daughter’s apartment is part of a former Palazzo in Vicenza (lucky her). The building is from the 16th century, but her apartment was just renovated. There are fifty-four steps just to get in, and parking is a squeeze. The doors close sometimes, the windows don’t have screens but do have shutters, the floors creak, there are odd power outlets and vents and switches, and things are almost never plumb. It’s marvellous in the way only an old European building can be.

It would be hard to top our experience eating in France, but of course Italy is up for the challenge. Judy posted pictures of our 4oth anniversary feast: fresh breads, French olive oils and tapenades, soft cheeses, salami & bresaola & proscioutto, Aperol and Lambrusco and Valpolicella. Just what we picked up at the local grocery. They do know how to live here.

Unlike France and Spain, it is still easy to find a church in Italy. Oh, there’s a church building every other block in all three countries, but in the first two, the church is now a museum, or a gallery, or a bar, or a . . . you get the picture. In Italy, while it’s just as secular, they insist on maintaining the local parishes, even if they’re only a few blocks apart. Not as many parishioners, not as many priests, not as many masses, but still some.

We took a day trip to Bassano del Grappa, home of the eponymous Italian liquor, grappa. It’s at the base of the Dolomites, what the locals call the first range of the Alps in Italy. The town has a famous old woooden bridge (Ponte Vecchio), many timber houses, a museum of the Alpini soldiers, and plenty of grappa.

I’m glad to see photographic evidence for the metal rhinocerous. After the grappa museum, I wasn’t sure whether it was just me or . . . And while studying grappa up close, I found this map of European liquors, which should answer all your questions about vodka and brandy and calvados, too:

No trip in Italy is complete without a meal, so here’s our selection from the local bruscheterria:

Ciao, for now!

As a friend, you know we travel a lot. We like to go places, and we like the places we go, and we enjoy the experiences of new lands, new foods, new adventures. But many places, while being nice to visit, just fail to live up to the hype. Which makes others stand out even more.

Mont St. Michel is in the latter category. There’ll be no Mont St. Michel replica in Vegas. It just wouldn’t work. The real thing is so amazing on so many levels: visually, historically, religiously, environmentally, that it simply stands alone.

Literally:

Bishop Aubert directed monks to start building the first abbey and church here in the 10th century. They kept building it higher and grander, first by expanding the footprint of the original site, then adding in domed and reinforced rooms to act as support for another level of larger church on top of the existing one. After many modifications and three levels, they ended up with the site as we see it today.

It sits atop a rocky island at the mouth of the Coueson river, which divides the Normandy peninsula from its Brittany counterpart. It became a national symbol of France when it withstood attacks for thirty years during the Anglo-French Hundred Years War. During the Middle Ages, it was an important center for learning and manuscript writing, but later its influence waned. During the French Revolution, it was seized (as was all Catholic church property), ransacked, and gutted. The Revolutionary government turned it into a prison for priests, a function for which it was to continue for seventy years of neglect.

During a French cultural renaissance in the late 19th century, the government began the long and difficult process of restoring the abbey. They built a causeway and tramway to the island to enable tourism, and started repairing the buildings. In 1969, Benedictine monks returned, and in 2001, sisters and brothers of the Monastic Communities of Jerusalem took over.

The aforementioned causeway had several negative effects. It greatly increased tourism, leading to a rash of tawdry shops and cafes along the single main street. The causeway changed the silting deposits of the river, threatening to turn the island into a part of the mainland. The French government spent millions determining a solution, which involved a new dam/sluice gate and a new casueway, which leave the island with its unique blend of massive sandy tidal flats at low tide.

I whined a bit about things that went wrong when we visited Chartres; here everything went right, with a nod to the French government for its well-designed and executed plan for the abbey. We bought tickets online (timed) and arrived in the parking lots (huge) on schedule. The free trolleys kept on schedule and got us to the base of the island quickly, if crowded. We managed the less traveled back road up to the abbey and got seats in the main chapel for Sunday mass. Lucky us, for a group of French Catholic Scouts had arrived, with two Bishops in tow (nary a rook or knight in sight)! Afterwards, we completed our “timed” visit to the abbey at our leisure, just before the holiday crowds jam-packed the main street.

It was an unexpected, albeit wonderful time. One caution: There is no French-with-disabilities act. The abbey was built as an agglomeration of several styles and editions, so there are literally about five hundred stairs (both up and down) within the abbey itself, after doing another five hundred or so to get to the abbey. And these are ancient stairs, with odd sizes and shapes, sometimes with added hand rails but more often none. It’s a challenge to the young and healthy, so you need to plan extra time; there is no hurrying along at the Mont!

For such a small town in an out-of-the-way place, Bayeux is at the center of so much history. Bayeux lies just inland from the English Channel in the Normandy peninsula, where great apples, great cheese, and great history collide.

First off, it was a seat for the Norman Duke William (the Bastard), before he set off in 1066 to conquer the Anglo-Saxon throne promised him by King Edward, but subsequently denied him by Edward’s brother-in-law, Harold. At the battle of Hastings, Harold got an arrow through the eye and William got the English throne, which came with a great improvement in nickname, as in William the Conqueror. Take that, Conan the Barbarian!

All of this history is captured in the Bayeux Tapestry, a real work of artistry in embroidered linen which tells the tale in seventy illustrations which make the story come alive even for an illiterate audience, as it was completed (probably) shortly after the Norman Conquest to celebrate William’s victory and substantiate his claim to the throne.

Next there’s the fact that Bayeux lies at the center of the line of beaches which gained World War II fame as the site of the Normandy invasion (great trivia question: how many US Marines landed in the largest amphibious invasion in history? None. The Marine Corps fought the Pacific campaign, while D-Day was a European Theater operation. No slight intended; just a great bar bet!).

We took a tour of all the famous American sites (sorry, only had one day, so we neglected our British and Canadian allies, let alone the Germans!). Random thoughts and photos:

Everyone has heard of the hedgerows in Normandy. They feature prominently in D-Day films and accounts of the battle. I never realized what made them so special. Nor did the Allies. Seems the simple translation for the French term bocage is “hedgerow,” something common also to England. But in England the hedges are purpose-built as fences. It seems the hedgerows in Normandy serve the same function, but they are the remnants of the original forests which covered the peninsula in antiquity. As farms and fields and roads were built, the builders simply cleared to the edge but left the forest strip at the edge: instant hedge. Except it is entirely natural, so it grows extremely dense, as in impenetrable. People can’t see through it, and have difficulty traversing it. Vehicles bounce off; even tanks are forced into an unnatural elevation which exposes their weaker belly-armor. Which made Normandy a battlefield with close-in surprise engagements. Enough of that!

You can easily see the differences between the US landing beaches. Utah has a gentle dune with less fortification. Omaha has a steep bluff with interlocking German military positions. My Omaha picture is the pathway made famous as Dog Easy Sector in Saving Private Ryan.

I was really excited about visiting St. Mere Eglise, the first town liberated in France. But it’s become some kind of Paratrooper-Disney production, complete with a paratrooper dummy hanging from the belfry! Now that really did happen the morning of June 6th, but why is the square filled with tourist kitsch, US Army Jeep rentals, and military surplus stores?

On the other hand, the American military cemetery is a treat: well-planned, manicured, with excellent monuments and art, all set on the bluffs overlooking the beaches. This is a can’t miss site, and make sure and visit for the flag lowering/taps at 5:00 pm sharp!

Normandy is famous for its apple ciders (especially Calvados) and Camembert cheese, a decidedly delicious combination! And of course seafood galore!

We thoroughly enjoyed our days in Normandy, which by chance happened just before the annual commemoration of the June 6th landings. While a few sites were closed for preparations, and the crowds were beginning to swell, the weather was excellent (helpful hint: it’s the coast, there are always tremendous winds, so the temperature usually feels 10-15 degrees colder than it reads).

You may never have heard of it. Or know why it’s famous. But it’s a story worth sharing.

Once upon a time, in the late 19th century, there was a young girl named Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin. She went by Thérèse, and grew up in the little French town of Lisieux. She decided to enter the Carmelite convent at age fifteen in 1888, following the path of her two older sisters. There she served the quiet, dedicated life of personal and collective prayer of the Carmelite order. After nine years of working, reading, and praying, she endured an eighteen-month battle with tuberculosis, from which she died. And she would have passed unnoticed into the hereafter. Except she also wrote, and her writings held great signifcance.

Thérèse had always felt a call to be holy, but as she learned more about her Catholic faith and the lives of the Saints who went before her, she felt discouraged. She was not called to lead armies like Jeanne d’Arc, or to counsel Popes like Catherine of Siena. She simply followed the rules set down by Saint Theresa when she reformed the order, and prayed, and prayed, and prayed. But she pondered her situation mightily, and wrote down those thoughts she developed. She called it her “little way” and described it thusly:

“I will seek out a means of getting to Heaven by a little way – very short and very straight little way that is wholly new. We live in an age of inventions; nowadays the rich need not trouble to climb the stairs, they have lifts instead. Well, I mean to try and find a lift by which I may be raised unto God, for I am too tiny to climb the steep stairway of perfection. […] Thine Arms, then, O Jesus, are the lift which must raise me up even unto Heaven. To get there I need not grow. On the contrary, I must remain little, I must become still less.”

St. Thérèse

She committed to doing everything she did so as to show love to others. No great deeds, no miracles, no deeply-developed theology. Just her little way. She lived by this creed, and wrote about it in a journal which was published posthumously as The Story of a Soul. Her final months were agonizing but she embraced the suffering with the same joy she embraced her life.

After her death, her “little way” became an international sensation. She was canonized (recognized as a Saint) only twenty-eight years after her death. The meaningful way she relates the call to holiness to everyday life has found welcome reception among the faithful on every continent. Then-Pope John Paul II named her a Doctor of the Church (one of the four women so honored out of thirty-three total doctors), a title given to those Saints whose development of theology or doctrine has special authority.

The little girl from Lisieux has a profound worlwide following, and a great basilica in her honor. She answered the question “what has prayer ever done?” by changing millions of lives with hers. She also proved that while being great may be good, being good is always great.

When you travel, you have many plans, with many options and even more contingencies. You try to put all the pieces together, and you work hard to make all the various components fit. Sometimes it all works perfectly. Other times, well, were today.

We got an early start from the Meuse valley and headed across Paris to visit Chartres, home of the famous 12th Century Gothic Cathedral. Not just any church, or even any Gothic Church: THE crème de la crème of Gothic Cathedrals: Notre-Dame de Chartres. We planned to arrive around noon, tour the Cathedral, eat late dinner, catch the evening illumination, and be off the next morning. This was certainly a one-and-done leg of our trip, consciously so, but it was also the only such leg.

Alas, we were using two forms of driving directions: Waze (which includes traffic) and a rental car GPS system (which doesn’t). Unfortunately, we had the latter (not the former) on for voice instructions, and the GPS took us straight into a massive traffic jam. We recognized our mistake and switched, but by then we were only one of many Parisians and tourists trying to maneuver down backroads, across parking lots, heck trying anything to get where we were going. This should have been a clue: why so much traffic around noon on a Thursday in France?

Thus we ended up arriving closer to two in the afternoon, but still with plenty of time to tour the Cathedral. We went to a little cafe across the square, obviously a favorite of locals and tourists, to get some lunch before the tour. While we were lunching, I glanced at the visiting hours for the Cathedral, which read: “Holiday: some hours may be changed or restricted.” “Holiday? What holiday?” I mused. Now as serious Catholics (Judy & I liken ourselves to Shi’ite Catholics, to borrow comedian Jim Gaffigan’s line), we knew it was Ascension Thursday, but this is secular France, for Godssake! Even back in the States most of the dioceses have conveniently moved the celebration from Thursday to the next Sunday, to avoid putting too much burden on the faithful.

But in France? It’s a national holiday! Holy day? Maybe. Holiday: Tout à fait! So there was heavy traffic headed out of Paris in all directions (especially to Chartres, which is just an hour away by autoroute). And there were crowds and tour groups all over the place. English-langauge guide books: nope. Guided tour headsets? No. Wait, what if we wait for some to be turned in? Nope, no more today (at 3:30 pm). There was free concert planned due to the holiday, so the Cathedral was closing early. Mind you, we weren’t missing out on the tour because obligatory Mass was planned on a holy day; we were missing it for a public concert on a holiday!

We were able to walk around with the crowds and get some happy snaps:

The Cathedral is as impressive as advertised. Built with flying buttresses around the sides, it enabled the ceilings to be higher and the walls to be thinner, and to include larger windows, which were filled with original stained glass. Despite its antiquity, the building is mostly “as was,” never bombed out and replaced like so much of Europe.

Even our room was unique, and had a view:

In the evening, the town illuminates twenty-one different historic structures, but of course the Cathedral is the main attraction. The illumination was about twenty minutes long and took on several different (sometimes whimsical) themes. They were all amazing, as you’ll see:

In the end, we had a good meal, got to experience the Cathedral–if not learn much about it–and witness the illumination. Worth the marginal pain and suffering!