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ENGLAND AND THE IONIAN ISLANDS

I've started to verify and plan my trip to Europe this year which will begin September 4 when I fly to London.  From there I will go right away to Caerphilly, Wales to spend a couple of days visiting with my cousins and touring my castle.  It's a quick trip due to me having to take advantage of cheap air fares.


On Sept. 7 I'll head into London again, early, in time to take in a special exhibit at the British Museum.  I'm really excited about seeing EGYPT'S LOST WORLDS, which are artifacts found under the see, some off of Alexandria which was the city founded by Alexander the Great and occupied but the first Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt.


Early the next morning I fly to Corfu, my first stop in the Ionian Islands off the west coast of Greece. I was only there briefly back in the early '80's so I wanted to spend a few days there as Corfu has an interesting history with lots to see. I've check out the tours and will try and take one of them so I can see as many of the special sites as possible.  This will include the palace where Prince Philip was born and the home of the Durrell brothers of literary fame.



I'm staying on Corfu for 3 days then taking the quick ferry over to the tiny island of Paxis where I'll spend two days exploring. There are a couple of interesting museums and a Venetian Kastro on an islet off shore that was reputedly designed by Leonardo da Vinci. 

From Paxi I must take a ferry to the mainland and then a bus to Lefkada where I'll head south to the town of Vassiliki (the surf-boarders paradise). Not sure yet if I'll spend a night there. It depends on the ferry service onward to Kefalonia where I will visit the seaside town of Fiscardo, established and named for a famous pirate. 

From there I will head by bus to Athens, and will stop there to visit friends for a few days before heading on another island adventure,  this time to the islands of Paros and Naxos.  I decided to stay two days on Paros as it is another island that I've only visited briefly back in the '90's.

My favorite island is Naxos, so I'll stay there five days in a bed-tent at the Maragas Camping, a campsite and beach that I just love going to. I never get tired of visiting Naxos as it's a big island and lots to see besides having the most fabulous beaches!  I can hardly wait to have my dinner at one of my favorite sea-side tavernas there to watch the sunset!

From Naxos I will head south to Crete.  I haven't been to Crete since the '80's and wanted to see the Minoan site of Knossos again as well as exploring around Iraklion.  I'll be there a couple of days and hope to get up to a mountainside resort owned by a FB friend.

When all my Cretan adventures are over, I head back to Athens and that's where I'll be for the month of October, until the 20th when I head back home.  There's lots to see and do in my favorite city besides visiting with my friends.  I'll go over to Salamina island for a few days to explore with Christina and probably make a few day trips around  If finances enable it, I might even go up to Pelion for a few days as I've been wanting to explore that area for quite some time now. 


I'll be posting along the way and sharing all my adventures with on-line friends and family. So stay tuned for the next installment!

My travel writer friend Inka invited me to visit her in Spain last September. She lives in Torrvieja, a lovely seaside city on the Costa Blanca. The name of the town comes from the original ancient guard tower (Torre Vieja meaning Old Tower) which once guarded the harbour. Torrevieja was originally a salt-mining and fishing village, located between two large salt lakes, one blue/green, the other pink, caused by the pigments and algae of the salty environment. The lakes are now an official nature reserve attracting a wide variety of bird life. The main attraction are the flamingos. Up to 2000 can be seen there during breeding season. Did you know that the flamingos turn bright pink from eating the shrimp from the salty water? The salt lake at La Mata lagoon produces pyramids of salt most of which is exported abroad.

 During the 19th century, salt was shipped from Torrevieja.  Salt and fishing are the major industries.
Today Torrevieja is a popular resort for holidayers from England, France, Germany and Russia. A lot of Brits have retirement homes here.

Inka and I had fun exploring the sights. On my first day there we met up with our friend Darlene Foster, a Vancouver travel writer who lives nearby. We spent an excellent day touring the pirate's island of Tabarca, a short boat trip from Torrevieja. (see my previous blog).

The city itself has various interesting historical sites which we explored including  the two main churches  - the Hermitage (new) and the Virgin of Cenception (old).


The next day we got the bus to CARTEGENA, an old historical city famous from the Punic Wars. This is where Hannibal set off with is elephants on his journey to Rome.

Cartagena has been inhabited for over two millennia, founded in 227 BC by the Carthaginians. During the Roman Empire it was known as Carthago Nova (the New Carthage) and was one of the most important cities of the time because of its defensive port, one of the most important sea ports in the western Mediterranean.  The city is now a major destination for cruise ships.



There are a number of historical sites in the city. We visited the Roman Theatre and Punic Walls as well as Phoenician, Byzantine and Moorish remains including Casa Fortuna is a lovely old Roman villa.





There are many things to see in Cartegena including 12 museums, several noteworthy churches and monuments as well as the archaeological sites. We walked along the Calle Mayor and admired the many beautiful art deco houses then relaxed at a cafe bar.





The following day we took a bus to a small city nearby, Santa Palo.  We walked through the town to see the old church and the 16th century castle. Unfortunately all the museums were closed. I'd have liked to see the Salt Museum but I did see the salt lakes and piles of salt heaped nearby.



Our pleasant outing concluded with a nice lunch in a good restaurant (chorizo flambe in rum and potatoes with ali olli - garlic sauce).

It was a pleasant visit with my friend and I appreciated seeing all the sights of these interesting old cities.
The next day I took the bus to Murcia and from there, another relaxing bus journey to Malaga where I'll stay a few days visiting my friends Carlos and Natalia.

In 2014 Swansea, Wales will be celebrating the centenary of the birth of one of the world's most distinguished voices, Dylan Thomas. I've always wanted to visit Swansea, where he was born and Laugharne where the poet lived and wrote from his famous Boathouse. (Under Milkwood, originally titled The Town That Was Mad was set in Laugharne).  Unfortunately I was unable to find a tour that would take me to all the Dylan Thomas sites and I didn't have enough time to make the side-trip to the Boathouse.  So I settled on an afternoon in Swansea and a visit to the Dylan Thomas Centre.



 I took the train from Cardiff and found it easy enough to make my way through Swansea to the Centre which is located in Swansea's Maritime Quarter. The Centre holds a permanent collection of memorabilia on the poet and his life and hosts the Dylan Thomas Festival during October and November each year. www.dylanthomas.com




In the square outside the Centre is a sculpture of Dylan and nearby the Dylan Thomas Theatre. Had I known, and had it not been so rainy and windy, I might have taken time to wander the Swansea City Centre Trail that takes you around the city of Dylan's youth and includes landmark buildings such as the pub he frequented on Wind Street when he was a cub reporter and the fabled "Salubrious Passage". 

The Uplands Trail takes you by the house where the poet was born on the 27 October 1914, at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, and where he wrote some of his most important work. The Uplands Hotels was where he got his first taste of beer which became one of his passions. "...its live white lather, its brass-bright depths,the sudden world through the wet brown walls of the glass, the tilted rush to the lips..."

In future, I'll visit Swansea again and make sure to take in the Mumbles and the Gower Trail which were also places important in Dylan's life. But for that one day, despite the wind and rain, I enjoyed my stroll around the city and the few hours I spent immersed in the life of one of my favorite poets.

Did you know that Vancouver is reputed to be the "prostitution capital of Canada"? For more than a century there's been debates about this. From 1975 - 1985 there was a vibrant, pimp-free, racially diverse community of sex-trade workers living and working in the city's West End.  These included not only females, but transsexuals and male sex workers. On and around the Davie Street area they built networks that enabled each other to keep safe. They also contributed to the neighbourhood's economic and cultural development.



 My friend Cheryl and I joined a walking tour of sex work history in Vancouver's West End put on by the Museum of Vancouver.  Our guides were Jamie-Lee Hamilton, a Canadian politician and advocate of aboriginal people who is often referred to as the Harvey Milk of Canadian politics. She was once one of the sex trade workers herself and is a member of the LGBT community.  The other guide, Becki Ross, is a professor cross-appointed in Sociology and the institutes for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice and is the author of a book "Burlesque West: Showgirls, Sex, and Sin in Postwar Vancouver"

What I didn't know is that back in 1984 a Supreme Court edit banned all sex workers from working and living in the West End, pushing them toward the Downtown East Side where 65 sex workers have been murdered since the mid - 1980's.  And until they were kicked out of the West End where they had been relatively safe, there were no pimps, few drugs and they had their own support-system to warn each other of shady characters and dangers.


Our afternoon walks began at the Little Sister's Bookstore on Davie Street, famous for creating controversy with sexual books often banned at the US border. We walked down Hustler Row, and up to the Speakeasy Bar formerly the Columbia Inn Restaurant and Bar, the undisputed home of "hookers on Davie" where the sex workers hung out in safety and security. 


An interesting thing to note was that while the sex-trade workers were being harassed and forced out of their neighbourhood, the local churches provided sanctuary for them. This church, where today people can walk the labyrinth, was one of them.

Then on to the Pumpjack Bar, formerly the Au Petit Boo and Benjamin's Cafe also an important hangout for girls and guys.  The Numbers Cabaret, popular today was the former Tropicana Night Club. Celebrities at 1033 Davie Street used to the the old Embassy Ballroom where my friends and I went dancing on Saturday nights.




Over on Hornby Street there's a vacant lot where once the Taurus Spa was located, Vancouver's biggest and most popular bathhouse.  From there we walked down toward False Creeks where we took the Aqua Bus across to the Maritime Museum port and then walked up the the Museum of Vancouver where the two guides continued their very interesting lecture about the life and times of the sex trade workers. 

We found it to be the most educational and interesting 'field trip'.  And at the Museum there is an excellent exhibit, Sex in the City, illustrating sex toys and anything else you ever wanted to know that goes on in people's bedrooms. 

This weekend my friend invited me to an art exhibit at a new spacious gallery, The Equinox Project Space  http://equinoxgallery.com/exhibitions  This outstanding visual arts gallery is the former Finning Tractor machine shop located at the Great Northern Way Campus.

The gallery exhibit is an impressive show of photographs by Fred Herzog, well known for his candid shots of Vancouver from the 1950's on. Herzog, who was born in Stuttgart, Germany, immigrated to Canada in 1952 and moved to Vancouver in 1953.  He had taken photos nearly all his life but after moving to Canada he began a collection of memorable work which focuses primarily on ordinary people and their connect with the city around them.  He worked with slide film, mostly Kodachrome, which was limiting as far as his ability to exhibit because at that time his work was mostly in black and white.  However over the years his work has been increasingly recognized, especially in recent decades, appearing in books, and galleries, including the Vancouver Art Gallery.

What I loved about this exhibit was it brought me back to my youth, during the 1950's when I haunted many of the downtown areas he filmed.  How exciting to see all the old neon signs (some of them I recently saw on display at the Vancouver Museum) and to catch a glimpse of the back lanes and waterfront of my city as it was before all the new development took over. 

This new exhibit gallery was a perfect place for Herzog's vast collection of photos.  We spent a long time browsing, reminiscing over the various scenes (as were many of the other people visiting that day!).  One woman said "I've made it a point this year to revisit the city of my birth."  What a great way to do it!

The exhibit has been extended until the end of the month so be sure and take time to visit.  You can purchase some of Herzog's books at the gallery too.  A wonderful idea for a gift or memento to keep.

Equinox Project Space: 525 Great Northern Way Campus.  Free parking directly in front.
http://www.equinoxgallery.com/artists/portfolio/fred-herzog