Three Weeks in Oregon

Woody was born in Newport, OR and went to grad school in Corvallis so he has been talking about Oregon for a while. I on the other hand have not spent much time in Oregon, so we decide to take the three weeks before we move back into our house to explore our state to the south.

 

We stared our Oregon trip with my sister Oriana and her family. They had rented a place in Sunriver and we went down to stay with them for the weekend.  Now you know by now that Woody and I love hot springs so when we read in our Hot springs book that there was a near by "dig your own" hot springs on the beach of Paulina lake (Newberry Crater) we decided to check them out.

It was a cold blustery day but the water that came up through the sand (as you dug your hole on the beach) was so hot you had to add cold lake water to cool it down.

That night woody and I watched the kids so Oriana and Darren could go out for a father's day dinner at the McMenamins in Bend.

The next day (Monday, June 18) we visited the lava fields, lava butte and the lava tube caves.

The Lava Tube caves were a very cool experience. Literally. It was about 40 degrees F in the cave and completely black. And even though, it was really pretty spooky, the girls did great and hardly complained at all. Woody, on the other hand, screamed so loud at the site of a spider we thought we were at risk of a cave-in.

After leaving the Dilley-Souers clan, we headed to Smith Rock, where we camped out for our first night on the road. Giovannina had never been to Smith Rock and thought it was mostly a spot for rock climbers, of which there were a plethora. But Smith also has spectacular hiking. Whether you're venturing up and over Misery Ridge - the name makes it sound worse than it is - or strolling along the banks of the Crooked River, Smith Rock amazes you at every turn. At eye-level, we watched a pair of ravens soar together 300 feet off the ground. We had lunch by the river and watched geese feed in the shallows while a kingfisher hovered overhead and deer grazed on the opposite shore. And of course, we watched crazy people attached to ropes cling to the sides of cliffs and dangle their bodies hundreds of feet in the air appearing to have a really good time (...that one's for Ryan.)

We're home.

Monday, with all of our luggage in tow, we boarded the train for Milan and spent most of the day swaying back and forth on the rails, listening to Radiolab podcasts and watching the scenery roll by.

That night we met with Giovannina's cousin, Livia, for drinks and a great dinner that included cavallo (a.k.a. horse) steak and sausage. Then we took the metro to Rachelle and Ernesto's place (more of Giovannina's cousins) where we stayed up late chatting before collapsing in bed.
 
The next morning Ernesto took us to the airport for our final flight - #18 - of our trip, the one that took us all the way back to Seattle, which is where I'm writing this blog entry from right now.

Sitting in Darren and Oriana's living room, their cat Lebowski curled up next to me, I can see the the cold, grey clouds roll across Puget Sound and watch the crows dive through the wind as it howls its way up the cliffs from the ocean below. We're not on the Mediterranean anymore. Or the Bay of Thailand. Or Great Barrier Reef. We're back in the Pacific Northwest. It's been a long trip and at times it feels like it was all just a dream, like we went to sleep for a while, woke up and nothing's changed. But I flip through the photos and look at Giovannina's suntanned face and the blonde highlights in her hair and I can see marks of the sunlight that's been shining on us for the last five months from all over the world. At some point, the wind will stop, the clouds will pass and the sun will greet us here as well. And then it will be summer here in the Pacific Northwest too, and the next leg of our adventure will begin.



 A sunny evening and a BBQ on the deck with friends.


 

Tende, France

Giovannina and I decided to spend the last weekend of our trip in France. I studied in Paris back in college and have been itching to return to the land of brie, Mitterand and frog legs ever since. I wanted to see how rusty my French really is and if I could navigate us through a foreign country without offending every waiter and hotel concierge we met.

We wanted to do some hiking and didn't want to rent a car, so we decided to take a train to the small, mountain town of Tende, France. Tende is an interesting place. Only an hour from the Mediterranean coast via train and at 1500 m (4500') in elevation, Tende is perched high up in the Maritime Alps just a stones throw from the Italian border, or at least the current Italian border. Like many countries in Europe, France and Italy have moved their borders around several times due to war, treaty or wink-wink-nudge-nudge agreements between monarchs, dictators or some other oligarchs. With the help of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy unified (mostly) as its own country in 1861. At that time, the county of Nice (where Garibaldi was born) decided to side with France, really peeving Giuseppe. However, Napolean III let friend Victor Emmanuel, (a.k.a. King of Italy) keep the Tende Valley as his own private hunting reserve. Pretty sweet. So until WWII, Tende was Italian  -it was also called "Tenda". But after WWII, the French decided that they wanted this little piece of high alpine real estate back, and so in 1947 it became french once again, and has been ever since.

The folks that live in Tende consider themselves French, but many of them speak Italian or a funny mixture of Ligurian Italian and French known as Tendasque. As the valley was important as part of the Salt Route between Nice and Milan, being multilingual has helped the locals for centuries, and was very convenient for us as Giovannina could use her Italian with about an 80% success rate. Not bad.

Tende itself has been inhabited since 690 A.D., and much of the medieval city remains. But humans have been living in the area around Tende for millenia. Stone engravings located in the valleys around Tende date back to the Bronze Age (about 2900 B.C.) The most famous locations are Vallee Merveilles and Fontanalbe, which have over 35,000 different engravings. These were popular spots to write in rock. So popular in fact, that up until 1989 people were still writing on the rocks. When you visit the carvings, you can see ancient petroglyphs of cattle and fertility figures next to "GL Hearts HV '75." What can I say? Graffiti is nothing new.

We arrived in Tende on Friday June 1 on the train from Ventimiglia carrying all of our luggage including an addition piece of luggage filled with presents for folks back home. Thankfully, Tende is a small town and our hotel was not far from the train station. We checked in at Hotel du Centre and headed out to explore the countryside. We got a great hiking map from the information office and decided to take the trail to La Brigue, another medieval town in the next valley over. We hiked up and over a mountain ridge, crossing through fields of wildflowers and herds of sheep grazing on the hillsides, the clang of their bells carrying through the thin mountain air.
 
We arrived in La Brigue in the late afternoon and explored this ancient town. At first, it seemed to be mostly deserted, but upon further inspection we realized that most of the apartments were vacation homes for the Nicoise who escape the heat of the  Mediterranean coast to the cool mountain air. We got a drink at a local pub and caught a train back to Tende for dinner with a loveable Brit named Hugh Watson, whom we met on the street earlier that day and had made plans with.

We stayed up late enjoying some wine, chevre cheese and good conversation. A great introduction to France.

Saturday we decided to go to Casterino, the gateway to Marcantour National Park. The shuttles were full so we decided to hitchhike - faire du stop in French - our way to Casterino. This proved to be very easy and we got no less than three different lifts up the mountain. Once in Casterino, we made our way up to Vallee Fontanalbe. Surrounded by high, towering peaks and boulder strewn meadows we hiked through brilliant mountain sunlight and crisp, fresh air. There were a few other hikers on the trail, but not many.

  
We saw many Ibex with their big, curved horns and long raggedy coats and even a few of the skiddish, short-horned Chamois. And many, many marmots, their plump, golden bodies draped on the rocks and their whistles echoing across the valley as we walked past them.
 
We took a dip in the ice-cold Lac Vert and sunned ourselves dry before hiking up over the pass and back down the adjacent valley. We ended up at Les Mesches dam and caught another ride back to Tende from an old fisherman, quite contented with his catch of five fat trout.
 
Back in Tende we treated ourselves to more chevre and more wine before making our way to bed.

Sunday, we got up and had a rich breakfast of apple tarts and almond pie. With full bellies, we explored the Merveille Museum and then walked the streets and alleyways of the old town. Narrow, cobble-stoned and ancient, the pathways of Tende wound through the old town, between thousand year-old buildings and under medieval stone arches.

 


That afternoon we decided to hike from town up another adjoining hillside, our legs still sore from Saturday's long hike. But up we climbed until we were looking down upon Tende and could see all the way down the valley to St Dalmas. We took an old dirt road back down the mountain and hiked along a river, stopping in a field of wildflowers for lunch. We ate our last meal of salami and chevre as we watched the flower heads bob in the gentle breeze. That night we had goat cheese pizza - actually really good - and chevre salad with salted duck and tiramisu with apples for dessert. We had more wine of course but not too much because we had to be up early the next morning to catch our train to Milan, our last stop before flying back to Seattle.

To see more photos of Tende, check out our web album.

Terre motto, Grotta e Famiglia - oh my!

As you probably already know the northern region of Italy has been repeatedly hit by earthquakes in the last few weeks. The first was a 6.0 in the early morning hours of May 20, which killed 6 people in Modena and woke all of us in Chiavari.  The apartment rattled as the building shook and the chandeliers swung from side to side but there was no damage. The  rest of that morning and for the next two days we felt aftershocks as we sat at dinner, went to the beach or strolled by the ocean.
 
 

By Wednesday the 23rd we thought the shaking was over and decided to go spelunking with friends.  The cave was the biggest we have explored in Italy - full of beautiful stalactites and an underground stream which made it very muddy. And the earth did not shake the entire time we were in cave :-)

The next day (Thursday May 24) mom, Woody and I boarded a train and made our way south to visit family.  We heard as we arrived in San Arachngelo that another quake had hit that afternoon so we called home to check in on dad who, although a bit jumpy, was doing just fine and looking forward to a visit from one of his Swiss cousins, Lorenz.


Our first stop on our family visit was San Archangelo, the home of my grandmother's sister, Carmela, who lived to be 100 years old. She passed away in January of this year and so this was our first visit without her. Still, we had a great time with my aunt and uncle Maria and Franco and their kids, Doris and Gian Franco. For our first night, Maria cooked us an Indian chicken curry dish in honor of all of our travels and our lack of time in India. It was very good and also a surprise - Italians are very proud of there food and so they are not very experimental with new flavors. I guess they feel after thousands of years of civilization they have perfected there food so why try anything new.  Anyways like I said it was good and it is the first non-Italian meal any of my family had ever cooked us so we were very honored.

On Friday we headed to San Nazzaro to see more family. There are many family connections here so I won't go into the details, but during high school, I lived in Rome with my Aunt Wanda and Uncle Pino and their daughters Oriana and Federica. The family would spend the weekends in San Nazzaro where Wanda and Pino grew up, and so it is always wonderful coming back to this small community full of family and friends.  Oriana now lives there permanently and Pino returns every weekend to the country side he loves and to work in his amazing olive orchard and garden. Last year, Pino installed a large swimming pool on his property in San Nazzaro, making the brutal Italian summers much more bearable. His latest toy is a riding lawn mower and he is very proud of it.

We stayed with Lina and Ugo (and family) in there house in San Nazzaro. Lina kept us well fed while Ugo dazzled us with his piano playing.

Woody came with me to San Nazzaro 3 years ago during our last trip to Italy and made a lasting impression with  my cousin's boyfriend, Ivan, and their friends.  They were eager to drag him away to the bar for a beer  - or three - and he was excited to be with the guys. Even though he barely understood a single word of their thick dialect, the alcohol helped in the translations.

Eating was a big part of the weekend, each meal seemed to invite more family and more amazing food. The amount of food consumed was on par with a Roman feast (come to think of it, we weren't that far from Rome.) Pasta. Steak. Salad. Wine. More pasta. Cheese. More steak. More wine. At one point Woody said, "This isn't a meal - it's a martial art. You need to be prepared for this!"

On Monday we headed back to Chiavari and were greeted by another earthquake the very next day. The quake that hit on the 29th of May hit during the day and killed 16 people in the Modena area, we were at the beach as the ground started to roll and although it was comforting to know nothing could fall on us it was eery to see the beach roll like the waves on the ocean in front of us. Again we were all fine but it shook the community and was the talk of the town.

If you want to see a cool web site that keep tracks of earth quakes around the world check out:
http://www.emsc-csem.org/#1

To see photos from our trip down south, check out our web album.