Where'd e go??

It's been awhile since I've written anything. Obviously. I really need to get back to it, to maintain some creativity in my life. Lately this has come through photography, something I've learned a bit about in the last year or so and something at which I continue to struggle. I'll post photos here, of course.

We've done a lot of traveling in the last two years. I'll try to catch you up quickly. Since January 1, 2006 we've visited: Ceske Krumlov, Paris (twice), Ljublijana (twice), Kobarid (twice), Florence, Siena, Lucca, various Tuscan hill towns, Rome, Naples, Montecassino, the Amalfi Coast, Cinque Terre, Freiburg, Berne, Murten, Bourgogne, The Alsace, Nancy, Rheims, Colmar, Budapest, Vienna, The Dolomites, Bolzano, Rovinj, Istria, Prague, Karlovy Vary, Loket, Bratislava, Velke Levare, Studienka, Barga, the Garfagnano, Castelrotto, Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, Halstatt and too many places in Bavaria to remember. I'm sure I've forgotten something, someplace (oh, yeah, a tennis camp at Lago di Garda), Amsterdam (how can I forget Amsterdam?).

Travel in Europe has occasionally approached blase, but then we plan our next trip and the excitement rushes in. Our travel has evolved, forced, primarily, by the needs of the kids. I'm generally perfectly happy, as I did last week, to amble, somewhat aimlessly, through the streets and neighborhoods of Prague with the kids. If they became tired, we rested. If they wanted to spend an hour at a playground we discovered, we did. Large green park spaces on Stadt-plans are always a draw; the kids can wander, discover, play and live without obvious structure, which is their paradigm at their ages (nearly 8, nearly 6 and 3 1/2). I feel little need to see any specific site if it doesn't fit in with the children's needs. They, frankly, won't allow it anyway, voting with their crude abilities to control impulses and emotions. Instead, they lead me and as I result I get my sense of place as well from sitting on a park bench, watching the strollers as I do from a museum. I've learned to set up artificial missions for the children, to head them in a direction with such purpose that the adjective "artificial" can be removed. "If we get to the top of that hill, you'll see where the largest statute of Stalin once stood." Who's Stalin? What happened to the statute? Why did he kill so many people? Why did they make a statue to him? Is he dead? Unfortunately, in this case, in Letna Park in Prague, the city didn't retain the statute, which would, for me have been an interesting bit if kitsch. Instead, a giant moving metronome has replaced, keeping time for I'm not sure whom. For me, it didn't work as public art. It's statement lacked relevance, but more to the point, it was piteously thin and small in a setting that required greater scale. Though the park itself, in all of it's leafy, graffitied eastern bloc neglect, worked stupendously.

This was my 4th visit to Prague, a city that once was my favorite on earth, but about which I'm now more ambivilant. This arises not from familiarity, but from abuse, if that's the right word. Prague is stupendously beautiful, urgently visited now by all. Locals are driven out of the center, the day to day businesses serving them turn over to souvenir shops of all sorts, cheap thrill attractions (though no so cheap: we intended to go to a "blacklight" performance one night, hearing good things about it, til the nearly 100 Euro price tag for the family shut it down. As Melissa summed: this ain't Broadway.), restaurants, cafes, pizzeria's, "authentic czech cuisine" joints. The town becomes a museum piece, existing for tourists. It compares then unfavorably to, for example, the equisite town of Rovinj, in Croatia. The medieval charm, narrow maze streets and seafront setting are exhilarating. Rovinj, thankfully, retains it's locals, it's cobbler shops, open markets, passagiata. You meet this people over the course of a visit, talk to them, thrill to their friendliness, their stories. Only after two days, after findng grotty Letna Park, did my appreciation for Prague begin to return.

Rovinj, Croatia at dawn

We like to travel off the grand tour tracks (Kobarid, for example, I will write about this soon in a post. It is perhaps my favorite place on earth) and out of high tourist season. I'll share our discoveries and happily give opinions and advice. Since I've figured out now how to post photos, this blog should be heavily illustrated also. I don't know who I write for: me? you? the children? posterity? Actually, I do know, it's me. But I want you to read. After nearly 2 years I'll work toward some coherence, which I know is not here yet. Enjoy and thank you for your patience.