Walking On

How to Pack and Travel | eHow.com

noreply@blogger.com (LWPON) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:09:00 +0000

Pyrènèes Pilgrimage

noreply@blogger.com (LWPON) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:09:00 +0000

Zen and the Art of Walking France

On a pilgrimage for good food, bright skies and robust wine,

I walked across France through the Pyrènèes Mountains.
Alone.

Travel the route with me in Pyrènèes Pilgrimage, available print on demand at Amazon Books online and at my website AdventureTravelWriter.com

See you on the roof of the Iberian Peninsula. It's a rocky journey.

What's that scene in the hospital all about? You'll have to read the book to find out how French hospitals cure broken bones with wine and laughter!

Visit the blog again soon for another installment.

PyreneesWalks.com has travel info.

Walking On::Montparnasse, Paris

noreply@blogger.com (LWPON) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:35:00 +0000

Walking Around Montparnasse, Paris

The name was a bit of a joke, a sly reference to Mont Parnassas, the highest point near Delphi, mythic seat of the god Apollo and the Muses, inspiration of poetry and song. The topography south of the Seine is considerably flatter than Delphi, but the high-minded notion matched the aspirations of the writers and painters who scrambled to Paris to follow their muse.

It wasn’t until the 20th century that Montparnasse suffered the contractions and upheavals that changed parts of the right bank so radically during the 19th century. When the boulevard construction directed by Baron Haussmann churned neighborhoods on the right bank, Montparnasse was too sleepy to be included in the revamping. The hidden neighborhoods, rustic stables and factory lofts offered quarters an artist could afford well into the 1960’s. But then, the post World War II boom claimed low-rise blocks for office towers, shopping centers and transportation hubs, a process that accelerated during the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Some of the artists’ hideaways in Montparnasse still exist, despite construction of office towers, roads and apartment complexes. My friend Rosemary and I discovered an impasse off Ave. du Maine, one of those dead-end alleys lined with artists’ studios and galleries. We were in search of a photo exhibition announced in ‘Time Out Paris,’ but the show was still being hung and not yet open to the public. Instead, we prowled along the passageway, peeking into vacant studios, eyeing the one used by a floral arranging business and wondering what type of social pull it took to rent one of these historic spots. Surely, we realized, this was the same artists’ courtyard at 21, Ave. du Maine where Marie Vassilieff opened her studio as a canteen for artists in 1915. Vassilieff served soup, dinners, fellowship and a helping hand during the terrible war years.

Another remnant still standing is the curious building called La Ruche. An early artists’ collective, La Ruche, (‘the Hive’) hides in the rue de Dantzig (Metro: Convention, 15th arr.) a studio-refuge for artists and artisans. The space was inaugurated in 1902 by Alfred Boucher who had salvaged small round wooden structures made by Gustave Eiffel for the 1900 Paris Universal Exhibition. The recycled wooden buildings were remade into miniscule studios stacked on top of each other.

Art Academies and Immigrants

Montparnasse was a neighborhood for art students, dealers and shops selling pigments and other supplies for the students enrolled in nearby art academies. Henri Matisse opened an art academy in 1908 at 33 Blvd. des Invalides. Matisse was a busy teacher, impresario and artists during those years.

The Colarossi School, established in the 1870’s, took over the Academy Suisse and moved to the courtyard of 10 rue de la Grande Chaumiere. It differed from other art academies: women were admitted to the school and permitted to draw nude males in life study studio classes.
During the years of revolution, hardship and war, Paris provided the flame of salvation for Europe’s refugees. As the city of light and reason, the city drew immigrants from troubled countries to the east, people fleeting from failing monarchies, war and repressive governments.
Some left the Russia and the territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before World War I. During the war and following the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, the floodgates opened to immigrants.

An international wave of immigrants from dozens of countries arrived after the Armistice in November, 1918 bringing more artists, sculptors, writers and political poets. The international community settled in Montparnasse. A list of artists working in Montparnasse during the early decades of the 20th century reads like a museum collection: Chagall, Epstein, Rivera, Matisse, Leger, Modigliani, Marie Laurencin, Fujita and Moise Kisling. Paris was the melting pot for artist refugees and émigrés. Alice Prin, better known as Kiki of Montparnasse, posed for many of the artists and was a precursor of the performance artists of the 1960's.

Writers who lived in Paris at the time note in their memoirs that Montparnasse was different after World War I. The streets were lit up with theater and cinema marquees. The “Triangle of Gold of Montparnasse,” as it was called, was marked by three beacon-cafes: La Closerie des Lilas, La Rotonde and Le Dome.

While the big cafes attracted big spenders, the artists hung out there too. When La Coupole opened, people wandered in and out round the clock. La Rotonde attracted art dealers, writers, journalists and politicians. Modigliani frequented Le Dome café intent on selling drawings to anyone with money. Henry Miller caged meals from friends who willingly bought him dinner for his entertaining conversation.

The cafes became second homes for the artists and writers who didn’t have the space, seats or heat to accommodate clutches of friends. Exhibitions were organized in the cafes to attract customers and newspaper attention. The first exposition in a cafe was organized by Auguste Clerge, in the Cafe du Parnasse. At just about the same time, a group of artist friends organized a show in Montmarte and in a Latin Quarter cafe called la Comete. Cafe Petit Napolitain mounted a show called “Boite a Couleurs” and another show was held at Cameleon. Once these art shows in cafes proved the artists could make a little money and the cafe owners would increase traffic, other cafes followed suit.

In due time, dealers snapped up the work of the best artists. One of the most successful gallery owners, Berthe Weill steadily expanded her clientele, befriending artists and clients in the grand cafes. At first working out of her home, she moved through successive stores in rue Victor Masse, rue Taitbout and rue Lafitte. Showing women artists as well as men, she celebrated her 25th anniversary in 1926 when her artists held a huge fete for her at Bistrot Dagorno.

Zadkine Museum, 100 bis, rue d’Assas, in the 6th arrondisment, demonstrates that even as late as the 1920’s and 1930’s there were areas of Montparnasse with real gardens, stately trees and outbuildings. Cubist sculptor Ossip Zadkine constructed a folly in the backyard atelier, his sylvan corner in the middle of Montparnasse.

The neighborhood revolved around the Gare Montparnasse. Trains departing this station headed to Brittany so it’s no surprise that the artists who lived in Montparnasse turned to the Atlantic for en plein air painting during the 1880’s and afterwards. The Bretons and other western country people brought their fish and victuals to the city. Bistro de la Gare, 59 Blvd. Montparnasse dates to that time period, with Art Nouveau features that gave it a place on the historic monuments registry.

44 on 20.01.2009

noreply@blogger.com (LWPON) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 15:11:00 +0000

Walking Into History January 20, 2009 Capitol Hill, Washington DC

I'm interviewed by Agence France Presse contributor

Rural Montgomery County Maryland

noreply@blogger.com (LWPON) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:54:00 +0000

In the shadow of the Appalacian piedmont, about a half-hour north of White’s Ferry, the last vehicle ferry across the Potomac River meander a few leisurely turns along narrow country roads, ford a stream and pass through a natural tunnel formed by the branches of stately trees. Pass dairy farms and historic school houses and a one stop-light town -- Poolesville.

You’ll be roaming true country preserved through the foresight of the Montgomery Country Council, which in 1981 established an agricultural reserve in the western part of the county. Other regions across the United States followed Maryland’s lead, which authored its agricultural heritage program in 1977, the first state in the nation to do so. The country needs more of that kind of good governance.

Margaret Coleman, owner of Pleasant Springs Farm and a former member of the county’s Agricultural Advisory Board, is a peerless guide. “Agricultural preservation and historic preservation go hand in hand,” said Coleman, who owns and manages a bed and breakfast inn on her farm

The Drury-Austin house, an 18th century cabin set on a sloping meadow overlooking a pond, opened for overnight visitors in 1996. Mature trees frame the structure and sheep graze nearby, painting a storybook bucolic landscape.

The cabin was about to collapse when Coleman bought the farm in 1980. ”Rotted foundations shot full of holes, and the porch, windows and doors were gone,” said Coleman. “A family of vultures lived upstairs and there were feathers up to my hip from old mattresses.”

People told Coleman and her husband Jim, a retired scientist, to junk the cabin, but the history of the place appealed to them. Through a series of small coincidences Coleman met a grandson of the Austin family, Malcolm Walters, whose grandparents had lived in this cabin. Coleman researched Montgomery County photo records and found a photo of her cabin taken by Walters who was the county’s first official photographer. Walters gave Coleman a picture of his grandparents’ home that he’d taken around 1912 providing information for the preservation work.

The vision to turn the cabin into a bed and breakfast came midway through restoration. “I decided it would be really neat to welcome people who want to stay here. You have a different feeling in an old house.” said Coleman. Does that feeling arise when the floors creak or when you lean against the stone fireplace that radiates heat? Or is the atmosphere spun by something less tangible, the open countryside and a sense that history’s fabric is still woven tightly in this area. http://www.pleasantspringsfarm.com/

Booker Creek Walk

noreply@blogger.com (LWPON) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:47:00 +0000

Booker Creek in St. Petersburg, Florida - urban oasis on the edge of a neglected, but wooded area that attracted a small group of us back in the 1970's. Any other Booker Creek or Roser Park preservationists out there? Contribute your memories!

noreply@blogger.com (LWPON) — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 02:04:00 +0000

Hildegard's Footsteps

Grape cultivation for wine production is the principal industry in these parts. Hildegard recommends wine in many healing formulas in her Physica, so I decided any effort to pursue oenology would assist my understanding Hildegard’s era. Thus wine tasting became my avocation while in the Rheingau.

All through the Reingau, as this south-facing section of the Rhine is called where it hooks eastward between Kaub in the north and Erbach in the southeast, the hillsides on both sides of the river are striped with methodical lines of grape cultivators. This is the home of German Riesling. Is it my imagination, or are the vines more precisely aligned than in the fields of Tuscany, Cahors, Sonoma and other wine producing regions I’ve visited?

Much of the wine in this region is produced for local consumption. Throughout the summer and early fall, towns along the Rhine arrange wine festivals and vintners open their doors to visitors. Some vineyards maintain weinguts, or wine tasting cellars, in the town closest to the winery where visitors are welcome to sample wine and purchase their favorites. There might be a few tables outside for the sun-seeking tourists but more often wine enthusiasts huddle in the cool dark cellars. The larger wine producing estates and abbeys invite the public for tastings and many vineyards also have excellent restaurants. You don't need to go far for refreshment. The Abbey of St. Hildegard has its own wine cellar a cork’s pop from the road that passes behind the vineyards.

In Hildegard’s homeland, the Rheingau, the marriage of religion and cultivation of the grape has thrived. Grapes were first introduced by the conquering Romans. It would be folly to think these vineyards are direct descendants of those Roman plantings, but the farmers here have grafted and nurtured the plants until they are perfectly suited for the gravely soil. Monks guided this process and nuns too, as they still do.

Lorch, Rudesheim, Geisenheim, Assmannshausen and other villages of the Rheingau were established long ago. Lorch, founded in 1085, is a happy mix of rural agricultural life with modern conveniences. The town's origins are visible in the vaulted ceilings of Das Hilchenhaus, built during the Renaissance--hundreds of years ago-- now converted to Weingut Graf von Kanitz. The inventive gourmet restaurant was priced way beyond my pocketbook. Sabina and I nursed fragile balloons of red wine while she told me legends of the region. The picturesque gables and scrollwork hearken times long past. If it wasn't so clean and neat, the medieval pilgrim fantasy could have played larger in my mind.

This area of Germany has been on the European tourist route for more than 200 years. Dramatic cliffs, sun dappled riverbanks, fortresses and castles fuel romantic visions. During the 19th century, the Rhineland was popular with British holiday seekers including a few Victorian era Royal Princesses. This history of tourism means finding a serendipitous surprise will be difficult. Signs, accessible public transport on river and road, guidebooks, maps and tourist information offices makes the region easy to navigate, but crowded during the summer months and predictable.

Hildegard was born on the other side of the Rhine in Bermersheim, a hamlet 31 kms. south of Lorch near the confluence of the Rivers Nahe and Rhine. The town is near Alzey within the nimbus of the cathedral city of Mainz. I didn’t pay homage there, figuring that the nine hundred intervening years would erase much of the original scene. She spent her early religious life at Disibodenberg near Bingen. The first monastery she founded was on the Rupertsberg near Bingen and some years later, another one at Eibingen.

With my German friend Sabina, who has been interested in Hildegard for years, and to create an adventure, we decided to brave the hordes and make a pilgrimage to the current version of Hildegard’s abbey, a 19th century building never known to the original Hildegard. The Abbey of St. Hildegard looms high above the vineyards of Rudesheim. But this is her turf. She trod these fields, crossed the Rhine near here, knew the soil and ate of its gardens.

Sabina called and made an appointment to meet with the one sister who could speak English and German. We planned to replicate, as much as possible, transport available when Hildegard lived here in the 11th century. We walked from Grube Nortstar Sabina and Manfred’s slate mine, to the dock in Lorch. There we lounged on the wooden dock waiting in the sun for the Rhine steamer, which would take us to Rudesheim, the closest stop to the abbey.

Our route that morning took us three miles on foot, then the Rhine steamer and more walking. Hildegard probably traveled on foot, donkey or ox-cart and perhaps in a rowing punt, but rowing would have taken us too long and in the swirling soup of the Rhine, I preferred to use the modern equivalent, the river bus.

At Rudesheim-Asmanhausen, thickets of tourists hampered our progress up the hill to the fields surrounding the abbey. We scampered around the back of town, away from the cute shops and signboards advertising tourist lunches. Within a half hour we were into the vineyards, hearing bees buzzing around ripening fruit. The day was hotter than I thought a northern European country could be, even in August.

The Rheingau-Riesling hiking path bisects the vineyards, and we followed it for a while, and then ambled in the sun at the edge of the road. Sabina and I trudged up the hill to the Abbey of St. Hildegard which seemed to recede as we approached, the trick that topography deals, as distant dips in the landscape become wide crevices and the road curves in meanders like a stream. Bingen is actually on the opposite western bank of the Rhein, across from Rudesheim, but in one of the many shifts of political-religious power, the abbey's seat was moved to the eastern bank.

There's a plum cherry tree with fruit colored red, yellow and pink all on the same tree cherry size plums. Later I see a polk plant (Phytolacca americana, Phytolacca decandra) growing in a large fissure in the wall around the cloister. There is some leaf variation and wider spaces between the berry units on the cone like stalk. The polk is a weed of some tenacity; the very tender young leaves are vitamin rich and edible, although all the herbal reference books on my shelf say the plant is poisonous. Perhaps the plant grows toxic as it ages. The root is useful for stimulating the lymphatic system. The ink purple berries are good for dyes and kid’s pranks. With my sister, we once painted our youngest sister purple.

After gorging ourselves on cherries from a lone tree at the side of the path, we put on skirts over our hiking shorts for the visit to the cloister. We hesitated around the entries, unsure which door to knock on. A workman passed by, handsome enough to catch our eyes and we giggled and joked about how the nuns must invent repair tasks to be done on the neo gothic brick building.

As the abbey that St. Hildegard’s daughters run today grew large on the horizon, my thoughts turned to the founding abbesses’ travels. She managed several tours of the region during her lifetime, a considerable feat in the pre-motorized ear. Hildegard’s peregrinations bore a motive. She had abbots to persuade, popes to convince, other convents to visit.

A pale nun takes us to a library sitting room and a jolly red-cheeked ebullient nun with colloquial English talks to us. They have no garden of herbs mentioned by Hildegard, a disappointment. I asked about the polk plant, but they hadn’t heard of it or noticed the weed. I wondered if Hildegard’s medical treatise mentions the polk plant. It doesn’t.

Our pilgrimage on foot and boat continues back to Assmannhausen through the vineyards. We forage for ripe blackberries on the sunny sides of the vineyards. Following the vineyard trail marked with small signs depicting a yellow wine goblet, we pass near the Germania monument, or Niederwald Monument, raised to commemorate Germany’s earlier reunification under Bismarck in the 1880's. Nearby, we pause for a sweet snack on the terrace of Grapevine Hause restaurant -- apple cake with cream and my inevitable ice coffee.

I don't suppose Hildegard would have ever tasted coffee. The beans arrived in Europe long after she died in 1179.

Hildegard the Composer

noreply@blogger.com (LWPON) — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 01:59:00 +0000

Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th century German mystic, abbess, writer and composer, burst into popular music sales during the 1990’s with the astonishing success of the compact disc “Chant.” The global appetite for polyphonic Medieval music was surprising. Hildegard’s chants were displayed in CD racks, downloaded for MP3s and muted as background music for advertising videos.

Hildegard’s spiritual play “Ordo Virtutum” was staged in several venues including the Washington National Cathedral. Overlooked for centuries, Hildegard’s music now appears on concert hall programs and is featured on meditation recordings. The pure melodies and calming harmonics appealed to audiences in search of consoling and relaxing sound. Feminists and scholars knew about Hildegard’s achievements. That her creative message now reaches mainstream audiences is a worthy tribute to her enduring appeal.

Hildegard von Bingen lived and composed with vital creative energy. That we’re here on earth to use the time wisely, helping others, giving flower to the talents bestowed us. She believed in nature and the healing power of the green. The traditions of music, scholarship and enjoyment of life are continued at Kloster Eberbach, which is near Bingen on the Rhine.