Renaissance

            I’ve been revisiting the most recent series on this travel blog and even I find them boring. I suppose it’s partly because I’ve gravitated to guided tours and cycling trips, which can be great, but which leave little room for solo exploration. Also, chronicling bike routes and food stops is hardly relatable for most readers and could easily be done on Facebook. Why not just do that? I’ve had to ask. 

              Well, it’s because I enjoy engaging more deeply, even though we’re in an era of short-attention-spans (me included).  I’ve come to realize, however, that I haven’t been putting in the effort. It seems I’ve lost my blogging mojo and to get it back, I’ve had to re-think why I started in the first place.

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When I began traveling, it was a lot harder. The world was barely online and there were no handy web-forms for making lodging or airline reservations. You had to make arrangements using guidebooks and transatlantic landline calls. Once you got there, you’d find your way around with paper maps and the kindness of locals who would tolerate your hand gestures and desperation.

I’ve always enjoyed the puzzle-solving aspects of foreign travel: how to buy a train ticket, how to validate one, do you tip the washroom attendant, counting out foreign coins to buy a coke, logging online at an internet café. Tasks so easily managed at home feel like major triumphs when accomplished in a different world. 

Of course, seeing the architecture, terrain, and artwork in a foreign country is humbling for we non-indigenous Americans whose history goes back only a few hundred years. I’ll never forget my 2001 twilight arrival in Florence when I caught my first glimpse of the gleaming facade of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. I was stunned. I’m still stunned.

I realize now that one of my original blogging goals was to take my readers with me; to have them feel some of what I was feeling. Perhaps this was because I was traveling solo—where else to pour that bottled up wonder and awe? It was fun to take mental notes during the day of incidents and experiences the guidebooks don’t cover. Re-reading some of those older posts now, I feel like they did capture a sense of discovery and accomplishment (and sometimes, failure). 

These days, what with smart phones and debit cards, it’s far easier to maneuver so going forward, I hope to share a higher order of discovery and adventure.

I’m eager to get back to it and hope you’ll stick with me.

 [I didn't take this photo, but it reflects my memory of how I first encountered the Duomo while dragging my suitcase from the train station in search of my B&B.  This photo comes from Imaginoso.com]