Rural Revolution

Update from Younger Daughter

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 16:44:00 +0000

Some readers have been wondering how Younger Daughter (our Navy daughter) has been doing in the wake of recent events. In fact, late last year she made a monumental life decision. I asked her to write an update, which is as follows.

_________________________________

Hello Mom's Blog Readers:

Mom's been asking when I can pass along a status update for you guys, so here goes – I'm separating from the Navy in a few months!

This was not an easy decision to make, as I have very much enjoyed my Naval career. I was selected for a special duty that I worked very hard to achieve, and I recently was also selected for board for advancement to E-7 (note that this is NOT the same as being promoted to Chief – just saying that I passed the first screening. I just can't pass off one last opportunity to brag about how good I am at taking tests).

However, in the past year there have been many, many military decisions that are beyond my comfort level. My beliefs may not align precisely with the demographic most likely to follow my mom's blog, and I am definitely not going to attempt to justify the specifics to anyone here, but my ethics and personal philosophy will not allow me to support acts I believe to be immoral. At the same time, as long as I stay in the Navy, I am under an oath to obey the orders of those appointed over me. Those two things don't go together.

(It's worth noting that this decision was made well in advance of the war in Iran, which consequently did not factor into my decision to cancel my reenlistment.)

Anyway, on to the good news! I was recently given a great job offer and will be moving to Washington State in July. It seems like a really interesting position and I'm extremely enthusiastic about it. I am particularly looking forward to being able to let my hair down (literally) and wear cute clothes at work.

This has been an extremely chaotic time for me and a very bittersweet one. I am sad for the circumstances that have led me to this decision, but I am excited for the new opportunities that civilian life will hold. I also haven't lived in the U.S. since I was 20 years old, and re-adjusting will be a whole new experience. I'll miss the espresso, but Italy just hasn't figured out how to make hashbrowns yet, so perhaps it will all balance out. – YD

Spring projects

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 01:48:00 +0000

Now that the weather is breaking, Don and I are sort of coming out of our winter hibernation mindset. In the spirit of taking advantage of increasingly good weather, we have a number of projects we're either working on or planning to work on. These include:

• Improving the fencing around the blueberries and peaches. As these plants have flourished, two things became apparent. One, the deer are still able to nibble leaves off the peaches, so we need to secure them in higher fencing.

And two, as the blueberries become more productive, I need a little more space around the back side to reach all the fruit. For this reason, we're going to redesign the enclosure to have upright fencing rather than angled fencing.

• We're going to hold another yard sale. Yeah yeah, I know I said "never again" after the massive sale we had three years ago. But we realize we have a lot of things we honestly don't need or use cluttering up corners of the house and barn, so why keep them around?

• We're going to finish building out the garden. Don is halfway through the process of building the last seven beds we need, after which we'll install them and fill them with soil.

• We're going to install the drip irrigation system we had pre-planned for the garden. We'll also install a drip system for the blueberries and peaches.

• Don is nearly finished building a permanent ladder for one of the lofts in the barn. The space is too narrow for a staircase (since we need to leave room for the tractor to get in and out), and up to this point we'd made do with just a regular extension ladder whenever we needed access to the loft. But about a year ago, while attempting to pull something down from the loft, the ladder I was on slipped out and crashed beneath me. Thankfully the base hit some things behind it so I didn't fall all the way to the floor, but I fell about four feet down, enough to bang up my shoulder and terrify me. This new ladder system can be folded flat against the wall until needed, and it's secure and won't ever slip.

• We're going to convert a shed room into a guest room. The shed below has two sides, and the right-hand side will become the guest room. Right now we literally have no where to put overnight guests. When Younger Daughter visited three years ago, she had to bunk on a foldout bed in Older Daughter's room, which made for cramped quarters. Younger Daughter is coming to visit us in June, so we want to outfit the shed into comfortable quarters for her stay, as well as for any future guests.

This is just a start. Doubtless we'll have more projects spring up as spring turns to summer and summer turns to fall. But for now, this is more than enough work to keep us both busy.

Surest sign of spring

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 03:51:00 +0000

Right now, spring is everywhere. The plum trees are blossoming, the birds are singing, the grass is greening up. We've even had a couple of days with temperatures above 70F! (Those won't last; we're slumping back into the 60s and 50s later in the week.)

But the surest sign of spring?

I can finally hang our flannel sheets outside to dry after washing.

Don and I use flannel sheets for all but the hottest summer months. I drape them over the drying racks indoors in winter, but it's always much nicer to hang them to dry in the fresh air and sunshine.

Yep, it must be spring.

He is risen!

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 12:58:00 +0000

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.

In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” Then they remembered his words.

If you want to listen to a fascinating discussion about the Shroud of Turin, watch the first video at this link.

A blessed Day of Resurrection to you all.

Four degrees, 150 feet in elevation

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:14:00 +0000

Since our return from Italy, Don, Older Daughter, and I – and Mr. Darcy – have been engaged in walking for exercise. We could all stand to lose a few pounds (including Mr. Darcy), and since we're walking the dog morning and evening anyway, we chose the morning routine for "power walking."

To do this, we use the road that runs along the edge of our lower property.

This road slopes down, so it's the uphill climb that we've been turning into our daily power walk. Don calculated it out. We walk this section (down and up) three times. The length of each section is about 850 feet. Multiply that by six (up and down three times) for a total of about a mile. The slope is nearly four degrees. The change in elevation is 50 feet. For the three circuits, that's a rise of 150 feet.

Since this is Mr. Darcy's morning walk to encourage him to do his "business," what we do is walk downhill at the dog's pace, letting him sniff and explore. I have the leash at this stage.

When we hit the bottom, we turn around and power walk up the hill.

Don takes the leash at this stage and keeps Darcy at a heel so he doesn't get distracted by interesting smells.

When we get to the top of the hill, we turn around and let Darcy sniff and explore on the way down until we hit the bottom of the hill. Rinse and repeat. By the time we complete all three circuits, we're shedding our outerwear.

It's working. We're tackling three circuits without a problem and will probably add a fourth next week. Coupled with some light weightlifting and watching what we eat, we're all losing pounds.

Ah, the joys of getting older.

The ultimate sandwich tool

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 01:49:00 +0000

For as long as I've known him (nearly 36 years of marriage plus two years of dating), Don has been a sandwich guy. He could eat sandwiches for every meal, and when he was baching it, he often did.

Fast forward to about ten years ago, back in the days when we had our wonderful weekly neighborhood potlucks. At one such meal, he was mentioning to some friends that, even though we raise our own beef, he's never really been able to make roast-beef sandwiches from our own meat because he didn't have a meat slicer. Hand-slicing beef only goes so far since it's hard to cut it thin enough.

These friends had a commercial-grade meat slicer, and offered it to us on loan.

Don was very excited to try it out. He cooked a beef roast to perfection, read the instructions on how to slice the meat, and set up the machine.

Well, it was awful. It sliced well enough, but it was so powerful that it literally threw meat bits all over the kitchen. Days later, I was still cleaning stuff off the walls. We cleaned up the slicer, returned it to our friends with gracious thanks, and that was the end of that.

More recently, Don has been lobbying to get a meat slicer of our own, so last summer I started researching smaller (and less powerful) home models, and purchased two which I tucked away to be given as Christmas gifts. One model was electric (the Cogace foldable meat slicer), and the other was hand-powered (the Starfrit deli slicer) (note: these are both affiliate links).

Honestly, I wasn't going to get the hand-powered one until I saw a video of it in action, and instantly realized this would be a valuable addition to our homesteading toolbox. Besides, we always opt for hand-powered options of things whenever possible. At Christmas, I wrapped these and put them under the tree.

Needless to say, Don was thrilled with these gifts and couldn't wait to try them out. He started with a beef roast, as well as a ham steak from a pig we bought a few years ago.

Following some online directions, he scored the fat side of the beef...

...then sprinkled it with Montreal Steak Seasoning.

The ham was flavored with a variety of spices.

Using a meat thermometer, he roasted the beef to perfection. This is the beef:

And this is the ham:

Once out of the oven, he let the meat sit for about an hour (it continues "cooking" as well as cooling during this time), then put it in the fridge overnight, letting it marinate in its own juices. This not only cooled the meat, but stiffened it up so it would slice more easily.

He started out trying the hand-cranked slicer:

It was easy-peasey to use...

...and created beautiful cuts.

Then he tried out the electric slicer:

Again, beautiful cuts.

Here are the ham and roast beef slices (plus some odds and ends):

Don's review: Both machines work extremely well, but are NOT as fast as commercial slicers (which is why the borrowed one was slamming meat bits against the wall). The manual cutter cuts as fast as he can turn the handle, about one slice every couple of seconds. The electric slicer is slightly faster, about one slice per second. Both produce identical-quality results (namely, excellent).

The meat doesn't have to be pressed hard against the blade; just light pressure is fine. One thing is the blades are only about six inches high, so with bigger meats (say, a huge ham), the meat would have to be cut in half so the blade can get through.

Encouraged by this success, he started with a larger roast beef weighing six pounds.

He prepped and roasted it in a similar way. Ready to go into the oven...

...and baked. (An accurate meat thermometer is vital at this step.)

Slicing using both machines:

He bagged up the slices in three-ounce bags, which gives two sandwiches per bag. These he froze.

Curious how this output compared to what was being sold in the store, I photographed packages of sliced roast beef: $15/lb.

Of course, most cuts were packaged in quantities well under a pound.

This means, conceivably, the six-pound roast he started with yielded about $90 worth of sliced roast beef.

So yes, these meat slicers were a valuable addition to our homestead repertoire of tools.

Bud season

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 23:54:00 +0000

Unsurprisingly, after the freaky-warm winter we've had, everything is budding out waaay too early. The plants are weeks ahead of schedule, but they're not listening to me when I tell them this.

Wild roses:

Blackberries:

Peaches:

Blueberries:

Apples:

Plums:

Willows:

And oak:

I just hope a late cold snap won't cause these trees and bushes to regret their decision......

The price of beef

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 19:44:00 +0000

The price of beef has been on everyone's mind lately.

According to the USDA, the average price of beef jumped from $8.40 per pound in March to $10.10 by December 2025.

A number of recent articles reflect these concerns:

• Food inflation in America

• RFK Jr. Urges U.S. Ranchers to Ramp Up Beef Production

• The cost of this grocery staple is nearing record highs — and Americans can't get enough

• U.S. Beef Cow Cycle Low Set To Deepen, Keeping Steak Prices High

• Beef Prices Surge As Drought, Aging Workforce Shrink U.S. Herds

• Drought And Costs Shrink America’s Cattle Supply: Beef Prices To Stay Elevated

• U.S. beef industry in crisis: Record prices, shrinking herds and mounting pressures on ranchers

We haven't bought beef in decades since we raise our own, so I wasn't familiar with what kinds of prices people are facing. So in late February, I stopped at the beef department of our local grocery store ... and was appalled.

Ball-tip steak, choice grade, $9.99/lb., $13.24 for the package:

Beef top sirloin, $11.99/lb., $9.83 for the package:

Rump roast, $5.99/lb., $20.73 for the package:

It is for these reasons, among many others, that we're aiming to have one animal a year in our beef pipeline.

Unlike our last homestead where we often had 15+ animals, here we don't have the room to raise more than a handful of cows at a time, preferably fewer. We have limited grazing, so we must accept the fact that we're feeding (or supplementing) our animals the majority of the year.

We butchered two animals recently: Filet in August, and her daughter Mignon in February.

Filet was an older and tougher animal (10 years old at the time of butchering), so we literally had the butchers turn her entirely into ground beef, with the exception of as many cube steaks as he could produce. This is the receipt for Filet's processing costs:

Mignon was two years old, prime butchering age, and we had the butcher give us the full range of cuts. This is the receipt for Mignon's processing costs:

As you can see, the butcher charged us about $1/lb for processing (a bit less for all cuts except cube steaks, which cost a bit more). Total costs for both butcherings came to $1255.45. Also, we paid the dispatcher (the fellow who comes to our place to dispatch the animal) $160 for each dispatch, a total of $320 for both animals. This brings the total butchering costs for two animals up to $1575.45.

Since I'm currently working on our taxes, I had the opportunity to tally up how much we spent on hay last year. It came to a total of $2500. Divided by five animals (Filet, Mignon, Romeo, Maggie, Stormy), that averages out to $500 of hay apiece. (Clearly this isn't an exact science since some animals are older and eat more, some are younger and eat less, but whatever.)

So add $1000 in hay costs for both Filet and Mignon. Now let's double that for the two years we've had Filet and Mignon, for a total of $2000 in hay costs. This brings the cost of raising the animals to $2575.45.

Let's go back even further and include the purchase price of Filet and Mignon, which was $1500 for the two of them. That brings the overall costs to $5075.45. [NOTE: I made a math error and incorrectly tallied this as $4075.45 earlier; these figures have now been corrected. Sorry about that!]

Between both animals, we got a total of 1319 lbs. of beef in various cuts. This gives us a total cost of $3.85 per pound of beef, for everything from lowly ground beef to premium steaks. Less than four bucks a pound.

When we picked up Mignon in February, we had 11 crates of meat.

This filled our spare freezer almost to the brim. (This is why we have back-up power sources for freezers.)

As we were packing this meat away, I took a couple of T-bones and prepared them for us for lunch. It was melt-in-your-mouth delicious, definitely "prime" grade. With the blessing of this much abundance, we can be generous with friends.

Romeo and Stormy are the next animals in our beef pipeline. We'll put Romeo in the freezer next year, and Stormy the year after that. The cost of raising them is even lower because we didn't have any initial purchasing costs, and both their breedings were free. That could conceivably bring the per-pound cost for them down quite a bit. Meanwhile Maggie will be producing more calves. Her upcoming calf will be a heifer, but thereafter we'll select for steers, which we'll raise for beef.

The blessings of a homestead.

The alchemy of good tea

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:19:00 +0000

Many years ago, when I flew with Older Daughter to Ohio to drop her off at nanny school, I had my first opportunity to visit Lehman's Amish Store in Kidron. It's a place I'd wanted to see for years and years and years.

Needless to say, it exceeded all my expectations and I came away deeply impressed.

On that occasion, I made a few small purchases, including a special blend of tea called Bilbo Baggins Breakfast Blend for Older Daughter.

Well, she loved it. She regularly ordered it online ever after (not from Lehman's, but from a different source). The last time she ordered multiple boxes was sometime in November of 2019. By the time she used up what she had and decided to order more, she learned that particular blend had been discontinued.

Bummer.

She was talking about this tea recently, and how much she enjoyed it. Don is always up for a research challenge, so he decided to sleuth out the ingredients of this particular blend. He found it consisted of English breakfast black tea, chai, orange peel, and red clover flowers.

So ... Older Daughter ordered these baseline ingredients and started experimenting. And eureka, she figured out the blend.

Here's the homemade version of the Bilbo Baggins Breakfast Blend tea:

• 1 teaspoon English Breakfast tea

• 1/4 teaspoon chai

• 1/4 teaspoon ("heaping" quarter-teaspoon) of orange peel

• 2 red clover heads

She puts this blend in a tea strainer for a hearty cup of tea. She also adds about half a tablespoon of powdered milk (or a splash of fresh milk) to complete the cup of comfort.

The nice thing about making up a blend like this from its component ingredients is how much cheaper it is. She used some pint canning jars to assemble the ingredients in easy form, and stored the rest of the bulk ingredients in the pantry.

Ah, the alchemy of good tea.

Planting broccoli

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 18:09:00 +0000

For three days this week, we've experienced unnaturally warm March weather, with temperatures in the mid to high 70sF.

This was nothing short of a siren call to get things done in the garden, especially since we had a block of rain and cooler temperatures moving in.

One of the advantages of having the garden fully fenced against deer (at last!) is we can plant with abandon and not worry about things getting picked off all the time.

So I spent a couple of days weeding, topping the beds with compost, raking up last year's leaves, etc. Then it came over me like a thunderclap that it's the ideal time to plant my hands-down all-time favorite vegetable, broccoli.

We really don't have room in the house to do much by way of vegetable starts, so I decided to take a chance and direct-sow them into the garden beds.

But not without a little prep. First, using some of the compost Don brought up a few weeks ago...

...I put a fresh layer on each bed.

Then I dug it in and raked it smooth.

Time to break out the seeds.

Years ago, I got these silly and inexpensive seed spoons that can pluck out tiny seeds of various sizes. I tell ya, these have proven to be worth their weight in gold.

I prepped three beds for broccoli, with plans to plant six seeds per bed in a zigzag formation. To decide on the right pattern and spacing, I stuck a few small sticks in the beds.

Planting eighteen seeds took just a few minutes.

(For those claiming that 18 broccoli plants are too many, you don't understand just how much I love broccoli. I might even plant a couple more beds as well.)

I pulled in some fresh straw for mulch.

Here are all three beds, planted and mulched.

Ah, but I'm not finished. Notice the pile of long white poles on the ground?

Last June, you might recall, I put up a blog post entitled "The Argument for Buying Ahead." Take a moment and go back to read it. Go on, I'll wait.

Now that you're back, I'll explain. Those poles are seven-foot fiberglass poles purchased back when we had money to be used for cloching garden beds. We bought enough to cloche every single bed if necessary.

Unfortunately, these poles turned out not to be the best choice. Bending them is juuuuust a bit more than the fiberglass fibers can handle, and quite often (but not always) they break. If we could do it over again, I would recommend half-inch pex tubing as a nonbreakable cloching alternative. However, since we have so many fiberglass poles, I'll continue to use them and just replace broken ones as needed.

Anyway, my plan was to cloche the broccoli beds even before the plants sprouted. Each bed takes four poles: One at either end, and two in the middle. I start by lining them up on one side of each bed.

Then it's a simple matter to bend the poles and tuck them into the other side of the bed. Since these poles are fiberglass, gloves are critical so I don't get tiny glass shards in my hands.

But what to cloche the beds with? Ah, that was another purchase we made during our "purchasing ahead days" – garden netting. I purchased a bulk amount of seven-foot-wide netting, enough to cloche every single garden bed if necessary.

This was the first time I've had the opportunity to use it. The first thing I did was measure how much each bed required.

Eight-foot beds, two-foot-high cloche hoops, and enough netting to drape generously down each end came out to fourteen feet of netting for each bed.

So I laid out the measuring tape on the porch to fourteen feet in length.

Then I measured out the netting and cut it to length, repeating this step for the three beds.

This draped beautifully over the poles and thoroughly cloched each bed.

I staked the netting down with U-stakes, yet another one of our "buy ahead" purchases a few years ago. We bought a box of 5,000 of these babies and use them all the time.

The stakes puncture through the netting easily. This also might mean it will tear holes in the netting after a while, so I'll have to be vigilant for this possibility.

This is what the broccoli beds looked like when I was finished, all cloched and staked.

Why did I cloche the broccoli at all? It's because broccoli (as well as other cruciferous crops) are highly susceptible to flea beetles and aphids, both of which can decimate plants within days. I speak from experience. It's painful to watch my favorite veggie get eaten down before I have a chance to harvest a single bit of it.

These are flea beetles, tiny jumping beetles that can turn a healthy plant into a lacy skeleton of its former self in a matter of days.

A few years ago, I was watching a gardening video by an Australian gardener who said that 90 percent of gardening pests in raised beds could be controlled or eliminated with the judicious use of net cloches. That was enough for me (in those heady days of having surplus income) to order poles and netting. This is my first opportunity to use the netting.

Last year, I planted two beds with broccoli. The flea beetles got them all. This year I planted the broccoli in different beds in hopes that my favorite vegetable will escape a similar fate.

Time will tell.

Rest in peace, Chuck Norris

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 15:03:00 +0000

Oof, I didn't see this one coming. Chuck Norris passed away yesterday at age 86.

Apparently this took everyone by surprise.

Rest in peace, Mr. Norris.

Oodles of elk

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 18:09:00 +0000

Don and I were walking Mr. Darcy the other evening when we turned around and saw an amazing site on a distant hillside: Elk. Lots of elk. Oodles of elk.

There wasn't any way to get them all in one photo, but I'm estimating there were 75 or 80 animals. Shortly after I took the above photo, something spooked them and they all started trotting downhill.

Unfortunately that put most of them behind an impenetrable barrier of trees, which hid their numbers even more.

I don't expect the elk to be around much longer. As the snow starts melting in the high country, they'll make their way further into the mountains for the summer.

We'll enjoy them while we can.

Home from Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 21:31:00 +0000

The trip home from Italy was ... long. That one word describes it all.

We had everything packed the night before. In the morning, we got up at 3:50 am (local time) and hit the road by 4 am to make it to the airport. Our flights from Naples to Rome, and then Rome to Chicago – while somewhat bewildering because of the language barrier – weren't bad overall.

Unlike our flight to Europe, the return flight was conducted in daylight, and we could see out the window. Much of the trip was cloudy so there was nothing worth photographing. But then ... we flew over Greenland.

I never realized how mountainous the interior of Greenland was. Gorgeous!

The northeast corner of Quebec was very flat and looked marshy, though of course at this altitude it was impossible to tell.

In Chicago, we arrived a few minutes late. This meant we had just a one-hour layover, during which we were required to reclaim our luggage, go through customs, re-check our bags, and then go through security once again. Everything – everything! – seemed to delay our attempts to reach the right gate in time, and of course Chicago is a famously huge airport.

Unlike what a lot of people have experienced this week, the TSA line wasn't especially long. However, Older Daughter got delayed at airport security because the airline-issued water bottle she was given ON THE PLANE was ONE OUNCE greater than permitted while going through security, so she was held back while her bag was searched. She urged me to run ahead to the gate and beg the plane not to leave without her.

So I ran for the gate and did just that, panting. Believe me, I wasn't the only one panting and arriving late. Still, by the time Older Daughter arrived (panting), we were literally the last passengers onto the plane.

We dropped into our seats and caught our breath, glad to be on our final connection at last. And then here's the thing: Apparently there were some complex calculations the pilots had to make concerning the amount of fuel necessary to combat the headwinds we would be facing for the duration of the cross-country trip. Then we had to wait to be fueled. We also had to wait to be de-iced. The delay was originally predicted to be ten minutes, and then it was lengthened and lengthened, with frequent explanations and apologies from the pilot.

Here are the wings being de-iced:

Eventually passengers were urged and encouraged to deplane for the duration of the delay to stretch our legs, or at the very least to move around the cabin. Everyone took this in good grace and started chatting with fellow passengers, and the plane hummed with conversation. Also, lots and lots of people used the lavatories (which were right behind us, so we should know). The plane was supposed to depart at 3:30 pm, but it didn't end up leaving until closer to 5:45 pm, well over a two-hour delay. At the very least, we didn't have any connections to make. I don't think a lot of people did, which is why everyone seemed to handle the delay without a problem.

After the plane was reboarded and secured, we had to wait for other airport traffic behind the plane to clear before the plane could back away from the gate. Then there was another delay of unknown origin lasting 15 or 20 minutes before we could even taxi to the runway. And of course, there was a long line of planes waiting to taxi.

The cross-country flight was smooth, with the only turbulence hitting as we were descending into Spokane. The delay in Chicago put us in Spokane around 9 pm instead of 6 pm, but oh well. We claimed our luggage and headed for the parking lot.

The moment we stepped foot outside the airport, we were slammed with wind. It was howling at about 50 mph with gusts probably at 70 mph. No wonder the pilots had to calculate for extra fuel. No wonder we hit turbulence as we descended.

At one point, pausing to zip my jacket higher, the wind caught my suitcase (on wheels) and sent it whizzing away. I had to run to catch it.

We got the car loaded up and hit the road. We still had a five-hour drive ahead of us, and we were starving. We stopped for some food and kept driving, switching places when one of us got too sleepy to drive. The wind slammed into the vehicle all the way home, sometimes pushing us onto the side of the road before we were able to correct our course.

We limped home at about 2 am, greeted our grateful husband/father and the frantically happy animals, took late-night showers, and collapsed into bed, having been up and traveling for 30 hours total. Let that sink in: 30 hours of travel to get home.

And this, by the way, is one of the reasons why we're not frequent travelers. To address a European reader's comments on an earlier post:

"It's always a small shock to realize how little you Americans travel. I have been in 10 countries on 3 continents and that is really very mediocre on European standards. I get that your own country is big and there is plenty to see, but it seems to me that most of you still never visit the states that are further away. I mean here in Europe it is very common to pop for a weekend to other country. With foreign language, foreign culture etc. People even have their weddings and anniversaries in other countries."

Aside from travel costs (and remember, Younger Daughter paid for our plane tickets) and livestock obligations, the time and effort and planning to even reach an airport from our remote location is unfathomable by most Europeans' standards. The reasons we live where we live is because we enjoy rural life and living on a homestead, but it comes at a cost; namely, the inability to "pop for a weekend to other countries." Thirty hours of travel is, by no stretch of the imagination, a "pop."

Our Navy daughter has been blessed to experience easy and inexpensive travel to various European and Asian destinations, and we're so happy she's had this opportunity. But for us, this is why we're homebodies.

My concluding thoughts from our time in Italy:

• The Italians live up to their stereotypes, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. They're loud, flamboyant, full of life, enjoy good food, and gesticulate like mad. (This spoof by a comedienne captures their mannerisms exactly.)

• Smoking is much more common. American smoking rates have been declining for decades, so it was a little bit of a culture shock to see the casual use of cigarettes in such high proportion.

• We saw very few disabled people in Italy. Not because they don't exist, but because there appears to be very little public accommodations available to help them get around. In many ways this can't be helped. It's impossible to retrofit centuries of accumulated infrastructure for wheelchair accessibility.

• Strangers seldom meet your eyes or smile at you on the street. The general attitude is just to ignore you. As an introvert, I found this rather a refreshing change from American friendliness, though it took some getting used to. That said, when directly interacting with people, Italians were uniformly kind and pleasant.

Given the opportunity, would I return to Italy? In a heartbeat. The people were lovely, the cities are stunning, the history is amazing.

Thank you, Younger Daughter, for the trip of a lifetime.

Day Six in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 20:45:00 +0000

For our final day in Italy, Younger Daughter arranged for something a bit less physically taxing but just as interesting: A ferry ride and day-trip to the island of Procida on the edge of the Gulf of Naples. This island is less well-known than Capri, but equally beautiful.

The online ticket site for booking the ferry recommended we arrive an hour before the ferry was due to leave (mid-morning), so we loaded up into the car and prepared to drive to the coast. However YD's parking spot in her little apartment complex is behind a locked gate, and since the first floor of the complex has a bakery, it's not uncommon for customers to park right in front of the gate. We were stuck until this vehicle moved out of the way.

So what does Younger Daughter do when she's blocked in like this? Why, lay on her horn, of course. "The first few times this happened, my landlord told me I was being too timid with the horn," she said (she likes her landlord very much). "He told me to honk it louder and longer."

So she laid on her horn loud and long. And do you know what? It worked! A man came out of the bakery, waved an apology, and moved his van from in front of the gate. Ah, Italy.

We made our way into Pozzuoli to the ferry terminal. YD pointed out a massive edifice on a headland and said it was Aragonese Castle, built on a small tidal island east of the island of Ischia.

Arriving at the ferry terminal an hour early was probably a bit of overkill, but at least we got to watch the extremely interesting way vehicles were loaded and offloaded from various ferries.

Many of the vehicles were large work trucks, not always with the best clearance, and had to maneuver over a steep ramp onto the dock without bottoming out.

This was our ferry.

Having qualified to steer an aircraft carrier, Younger Daughter described the technique by which the ferry is angled toward the dock ("twisting," I think it's called).

Once the ferry was docked, we had to wait for vehicles to be offloaded before passengers could load.

We watched as one ferry worker casually flipped his cigarette into the water of the bay. Ah, Naples.

This heavy truck was actually backing into the belly of the ferry and having a hard time of it because of the vehicle's low clearance. It took some delicate maneuvering on the parts of both the driver and the ferry workers to get it safely inside.

While waiting for vehicles to load, we watched birds in the shallow water on the other side of the pier. This is a great cormorant.

A little egret splashed and dashed around, snatching up small fish. It moved so fast that it was difficult to get a clear photo of it.

At last, passengers were allowed to board. We entered through the belly of the ferry...

...then climbed a steep "ladder" (very steep staircase) to the upper deck where there was seating.

The trip took about 40 minutes and it was lovely. This is a view of Pozzuoli as we steamed away.

Here's a clearer view of Aragonese Castle.

We passed an area not far offshore with what looked like debris on the water. At that distance, I couldn't quite tell what it was even when I put my camera on maximum zoom.

Are you ready for this? This is the Underwater Archaeological Park of Baia. The "debris" I saw were buoys marking underwater Roman ruins popular with divers. The boat you see to the left in the above photo takes divers through "channels" marked by the colored buoys to dive in at various spots. How cool is that???

This is Cape Miseno...

...with its lighthouse on the headland.

This cape had some intriguing sea caves at its base. Notice the buoys in front, possibly designating more underwater ruins or possibly dangerous shoals.

Just makes you want to explore, doesn't it?

This little rock outcrop at the tip of the cape had some ruins on it, though I don't know if they were Roman or Medieval.

This is the Dominican monastery Santa Margherita Nuova at the tip-top of Procida (on the left). Interestingly, it's juxtaposed right next to a former palazzo that was converted into a prison in 1830 (it closed in 1988) on the right.

Here we're approaching the island. The little town where we docked is Marina Grande.

A statue of the Virgin Mary guards the harbor...

...with an inscription stating "Salve Madre e Regina" ("Hail Mother and Queen").

We disembarked from the ferry and set about exploring. We had no plans to go crazy doing things, but Younger Daughter recommended a climb up to the monastery for the spectacular views. We decided to do this before lunch (which, as it turned out, was a wise decision).

Procida has the beautiful narrow and cobblestoned streets that typifies this part of Italy.

We were decidedly off-season tourists. This had benefits (fewer people about) and detriments (most shops and restaurants were closed).

We set off to climb.

Tucked into the walls were narrow staircases leading up to private homes.

We climbed up Via Principe Umberto. There is something about these narrow streets I find fascinating.

Equally fascinating was the transportation along these streets. Motorcycles and electric bicycles were popular options for obvious reasons, but we saw cars, buses, and trucks driving along with dazzling confidence, considering how extremely constricted the streets were. (Later, coming back down, we witnessed a bicyclist narrowly avoid getting hit by a car when the biker came barreling out of a side alley. It was entirely the bicyclist's fault, in my opinion.)

Via Principe Umberto opened up to a small plaza at the intersection with Via S Rocco and Salita Castello, giving a splendid view of the bay and breakwaters below.

Climbing further on the Salita Castello (huffing and puffing – it was steep!), we landed at the Belvedere Terra Murata and were presented with one of the most famous and sensational views in all of Italy.

Younger Daughter said the reason the houses are all painted different bright colors was so fishermen could identify their homes from the sea.

We draped ourselves over the balustrade, drinking in the view, agog at the beauty. Then we continued on the Salita Castello for the highest point on the island. At one point, the road went under an archway as some buildings bridged the street.

This was the view at the top, the Palazzo d'Avalos.

I noticed this barred window, presumably left over from its prison days.

We lingered at this top spot for about half an hour, drinking in the views, before we decided we were ready for lunch (since we hadn't eaten yet). We started down the Salita Castello. This is the archway from the other side.

Keep in mind this isn't a pedestrian walkway; it's a drivable street. Just after passing through, a tour bus cane by. We flattened ourselves in a doorway to let it pass, and let me tell you, it had to squeak through. The driver had his mirrors folded against the side of the vehicle, and he passed under the archway with – literally – a couple of inches to spare on either side. And yet he did so with confidence and decent speed (meaning, he wasn't creeping along). My hat is off to these drivers.

Later, walking down the Via Principe Umberto, I photographed this truck lumbering up. At least he had room on both sides.

The streets were not uniform in width. At one especially narrow point, I paused and looked across at the other side. "What do you think, ten feet across?" I asked the girls. "More like eight," replied Younger Daughter.

We made our way back down to the dockside and went in search of lunch. As it happened, we were too early and nothing was open, so we settled with having tea/coffee and a pastry on the Piazza Marina Grande. Once again, the pigeons were extremely assertive.

Interestingly, many of the pigeons we observed (here and elsewhere in Naples) had deformed feet. Older Daughter said it's an affliction of many urban birds in which they pick up hair or thread which wraps around their toes, which cuts circulation until the toe(s) fall off. I haven't been around enough pigeons to know if this is a universal problem, but it seems logical. One thing is certain, it didn't hinder their aggressive quest for food.

We admired this church (the parish church of Maria SS. della Pietà and S. Giovanni Battista), but unfortunately it was closed to visitors. However the bell tower had a clock which chimed the hours in a deeper tone and the quarter-hours in a higher tone, so we had no trouble telling the time even if we couldn't see the clock. It was a lovely sound.

After lunch (which made us glad we had climbed the hill before eating), we made our way to a small beach (the Spiaggia Lingua, "Beach Tongue") where we lingered and dozed on the gravelly sands for an hour or so. Older Daughter collected interesting shells, bits of tile, some obsidian, and other beach treasures. Younger Daughter scoured the shore for green sea glass with an eye toward drilling some fine holes and accenting a dress with it.

As we left the beach, some teen boys asked Older Daughter in broken English to take a photo of them with their phone, which she obligingly did.

Walking back from the beach, we admired the forest of masts from the sailboats.

The ferry didn't leave for another hour, so we stopped at the same pastry place we had stopped in before, and had another pastry. Ah, Italy.

Even though we were sitting inside this time, we still saw an adventurous pigeon.

With time left to kill before the ferry arrived, we visited one of the few tourist shops that was open. Younger Daughter said this style of pottery is made on the island, and we thought it was very handsome.

We boarded the ferry and started on the short voyage back to Pozzuoli, passing the Virgin Mary statue on the way out.

Inside the passenger lounge, I saw one of the few disabled accommodations I'd seen in Italy, a spot where a wheelchair could be strapped to the floor.

Of course, considering the steep ladder we had to climb to get to this passenger lounge, I have to assume there was some sort of elevator access for disabled passengers.

The ferry was passed by a hydrofoil going at (slightly) higher speed.

The sun was getting lower as we approached the mainland.

It burnished the city with a golden glow.

On the way home, we passed a prostitute sitting on a wall, waiting for a customer.

And that was our last day in Italy.

The next post will be our adventures coming home.

Day Five in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 22:52:00 +0000

Whew. Day Five in Italy was our most intense day yet. That's because we went to Rome. Grab yourselves a cup of tea, because this is a long post.

We wouldn't have made it to Rome without the efforts of the gentleman who replaced Younger Daughter's tires. First thing Monday morning, as soon as the tire shop opened (we could see it from YD's window), she brought her vehicle in for what she assumed would be a simple patch on one tire. It turned out that both her back tires needed replacement. She asked the mechanic if he could get it done within an hour so we had time to drive to the train station. He said he would. (By Italian standards, this is very fast.)

Now understand, women are used to having mechanics inflate car repairs with unnecessary fixes, simply because we're women (who, admittedly, often have limited mechanical skills). While YD was braced for this possibility, she agreed to having both tires replaced. And here's the thing: Her vehicle, which previously had been rattling and thumping (she thought the tires needed rotating and balancing), suddenly drove like a dream. So yeah, apparently both those tires really did need replacement.

At any rate, she wasn't about to quibble. The tire mechanic – an older man – got us on the road in time to get to the train station, which in turn allowed us to get to Rome for our precious one-day visit. Accordingly, when it came time to pick up her vehicle, I went with YD and made a stop at a pastry shop, where I purchased half a dozen goodies. These were handsomely boxed up.

After YD had paid for the tires, I presented him with the festive box of pastries and said "Grazie mille" ("thanks a million") with my limited vocabulary. He smiled and thanked me back. And here's what was funny: As Younger Daughter and I got into the car, he leaped over to close my door for me, smiling and bowing. I wonder if he thought I was flirting by giving him some pastries. I just wanted to thank him for letting us get to Rome.

We drove to the train station in Naples. On the way we saw many stone pines, native to this area.

Stone pines are known for their pine nuts, and which makes the ingredients for Italy's famous pesto (pine nuts, basil, olive oil) a lot more sense.

While caught in some brief rush-hour traffic, YD pointed out something she's known about since she moved here over three years ago: So-called "Naples kisses," otherwise known as fender-benders, scrapes, door dings, and every other kind of auto-body damage imaginable. YD has a healthy crop of Naples kisses on her own (used) vehicle, acquired both before and after she bought it. They're almost inevitable in the insane Neapolitan traffic.

The guard rails also reflected this free-wheeling attitude toward driving.

It's one of the reasons we saw very few elegant or expensive vehicles on this trip. Frankly, after watching the way motorcycles (which are given top road privileges) whiz so dangerously in and out of traffic, I am flabbergasted the roads aren't littered with bodies. YD says accidents are either minor and mostly shrugged off ("kisses") or absolutely deadly, without a lot in between.

Unlike so many other buildings we've seen in Italy, the bullet train's station in Naples was built to be sleek and modern. As YD observed, it sticks out like a sore thumb and has a lot of wasted interior space, but at least it gets the job done.

The train station had a huge parking lot (rather a novelty in Italy). This didn't prevent people from parking on sidewalks, no-parking zones, poking out into lanes, and other jaunty expressions of Italian vehicular skills.

After all the concern about getting to the train station on time, we were a bit early and didn't have to rush. Therefore we were able to observe one of the most extraordinary vending machines I've ever seen, right there in the train station: Underwear. A vending machine selling underwear.

I tell ya, it's why I took so many photos while in this crazy, wonderful country. Who would believe me otherwise?

When it came time to catch the train, we took an escalator down to the tracks. I thought this photo turned out very artistically.

The bullet train has an engine on both ends, so it can go either direction.

I hadn't been on a train in well over 40 years, and certainly never a bullet train, so this mode of transportation in itself was a novelty.

Of course, such speedy transportation meant taking photos wasn't really possible. I'd see an interesting sight, turn on my camera, try to zoom in, and the outcome was either seriously blurred or we had already passed it. Oh well.

The top speed of the train was 300 km/hour, or 186 mph.

It took only an hour to reach the venerable city of Rome, and Younger Daughter had none of the hassle of driving or navigating or parking.

The station area was well-patrolled by members of the Italian military, which YD says often act in lieu of police in providing security.

Our first major stop of the day was going to be the Pantheon, but we wanted lunch first (since we hadn't eaten yet). We meandered our way deeper into the city, and passed a bas-relief of La Lupa Capitolina ("the Capitoline Wolf") depicting Romulus and Remus, the mythical twin founders of Rome who were raised by a wolf.

Tourist shops – and believe me, there were a lot – often carried calendars depicting "The Hottest Priests of Rome." I genuinely have no idea how these priests' superiors feel about this honor.

We passed nuns and priests from every part of the world.

In one amusing incident, we passed a street vendor displaying some art work, and without missing a beat he said in excellent and almost (but not quite) American English, "Good afternoon, ladies, are you enjoying Rome?"

"And how did he know we spoke English?" I chuckled, loud enough for him to hear, as we walked by. In fact, we realized by now the Italians in general have a very distinct look, and we don't fit that physical profile. Speaking English was a good bet.

Everywhere we went – every street, every corner, every alley – had remarkable architecture.

I mean, look at this. This is carved from stone!

Rome was much cleaner than Naples. We saw very little garbage or graffiti. Don't get me wrong, I found Naples' "dirty feet" rather refreshing, but there was no question Rome's beauty was better framed by its relative neatness.

At one point I heard an unexpected bird call, and was puzzled. "That almost sounds like a parrot," I said.

We stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall establishment for lunch.

It was truly an Italian experience. We descended below street level and were seated elbow-to-elbow with other customers at tiny tables with a coziness that would never be permitted in American restaurants (due to fire codes). We loved it.

The one dish Younger Daughter encouraged us to try was carbonara, Rome's specialty.

It was outstanding, and I could see why it's famous.

Meanwhile the two men sitting at the tiny table inches away from us finished their after-lunch coffees and departed. Somehow the small coffee cups, too, were symbolic of Italian life.

We finished our meal and stepped outside the restaurant. Younger Daughter paused to get her bearings on her phone to take us in the right direction. While we waited, Older Daughter said, "Did I just feel a rain drop?"

Yes, she did. And then another. And another. And then the heavens opened up and it poured.

This wasn't altogether unexpected, and YD had tucked one umbrella in my backpack. Older Daughter and I ducked into a little tourist shop and purchased two more cheap umbrellas, and it's a good thing she did, too.

(Interesting side note: The umbrellas came wrapped in thin plastic sleeves. We couldn't find a garbage can to dispose of these sleeves for several blocks. When we finally found one, I noticed it was full of ... plastic umbrella sleeves.)

We were able to see the famous Baroque Trevi Fountain. It was glorious.

Once again, I found myself fascinated by the detailed ornate stonework.

Now that we were protected by our umbrellas, Rome in the rain was charming.

We traversed narrow streets and made our way through crowds of other people wearing rain ponchos or scarves or hats or carrying their own umbrellas.

We passed one little intersection crowded with parked motorcycles. It's impossible to underestimate how popular these vehicles are in narrow crowded streets, or how reckless the drivers can be.

Ornate and beautiful churches were everywhere.

And then something extraordinary happened. We had been navigating through a series of narrow streets without much by way of wider views. We were tucked under our umbrellas and watching our footing on the uneven cobblestones. And then ... we stepped into a plaza and saw the Pantheon. It was so vast and huge and magnificent and unexpected that we literally gasped.

The scale of this building is absolutely off the charts.

The portico columns are 40 feet high, made of stone specially shipped in from Egypt. The arched "capitals" above them are almost eight feet high.

The history of the Pantheon is lengthy and can be read here. Originally built as a temple to Roman gods, it was taken over in 609 AD as a Catholic church and renamed the Basilica of St. Mary and the Martyrs.

The doors are massive. According to the Wikipedia article, "The large bronze doors to the cella, measuring 14.6 ft. wide by 24.7 ft. high, are the oldest in Rome. These were thought to be a 15th-century replacement for the original, mainly because they were deemed by contemporary architects to be too small for the door frames. Later analysis of the fusion technique confirmed that these are the original Roman doors, a rare example of Roman monumental bronze surviving, despite cleaning and the application of Christian motifs over the centuries."

Then we stepped inside the rotunda, and gasped once again. You can't help it.

The most noticeable thing, of course, is the dome. After two thousand years, it's still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.

The oculus (hole) is 30 feet wide. In sunny weather, the oculus acts as a sort of reverse sundial in which the time can be told by the position of the sun rather than a shadow.

But of course, when we were there it was raining. And what happens when there's a 30-foot-wide uncovered hole in the roof? That's right, rain falls into the building. (That's rain falling through the oculus, if you can't otherwise tell what the photo below is showing.)

The Pantheon's builders planned for this by installing a slight incline of 12 inches toward the center of the floor, with a drain in the middle. It made for slippery footing, however. The center area had been cordoned off.

We started making our way around the room. It's worth noting that the only natural light inside this massive structure comes from the oculus and from the open front door – and during the day, it's enough.

Several famous people are buried in the Pantheon, including the Renaissance painter Raphael, Victor Emanuel II (the first king of Italy), and King Umberto I and his Queen Consort, Margherita (of pizza fame – the best-loved pizza in Naples is called the Margherita pizza in her honor). "Not everyone could earn a place in the Pantheon," notes this website. "Being buried here meant one thing, you were part of Italy’s soul."

This is Raphael's tomb:

This is the altar. Church services are held here regularly.

Needless to say, the building has undergone extensive looting, stripping, vandalism, and other changes since its construction two millennium ago. Nonetheless, "the building's consecration as a church saved it from the abandonment, destruction, and the worst of the spoliation that befell the majority of ancient Rome's buildings during the Early Middle Ages," so there's that. However even popes weren't above removing the bronze panels that used to clad the dome and melting them into war cannons.

Still, the Pantheon holds sensational art.

Because of the sheer number of tourists from all over the world who visit, the Pantheon had a number of "Bob the Bad Tourist"-type rules for the building.

In fact, we passed a young man getting his photo taken by (presumably) his father while giving two thumbs up. Both were being quiet and respectful. They were conspicuously not being "Bob the Bad Tourists."

We spent half an hour ogling the entire building before emerging into the rain. I took on last photo of the building's back before we headed off for our next destination.

Just as we left the Pantheon, Younger Daughter got a business call she had to take, so she suggested Older Daughter and I explore a church just around the corner while she talked to her coworker. This turned out to be the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, and – as with almost every other Roman building – it was stupendously, jaw-droppingly beautiful.

The ceiling was particularly noteworthy, described as "a celestial blue ceiling adorned with stars, creating a heavenly atmosphere."

Vast swaths of the front part of the church were wrapped in scaffolding, with many restorationers at work, which was nice to see.

To the right of the altar was the tomb of Saint Catherine of Siena.

To the left of the tomb – no kidding – was Michelangelo's "Christ the Redeemer" sculpture. I didn't find this out until later, and I was staggered (and bummed) to realize I missed it. It wasn't until I downloaded my photos and peered verrrrry closely that I realized the sculpture had either been removed during the renovation process, or it was hidden behind the scaffolding. In other words, I didn't "miss" it, it just wasn't visible.

This beautiful side chapel was to the left behind the altar, and it was darkened as if to discourage visitors (I lightened it up considerably in the photo). I would love to have seen it, but as a stranger in a strange land, I didn't want to trespass where I might not be welcomed.

This, apparently, is the bust of Giovanni Vigevano. According to Wikipedia, it's "a marble sculptural portrait by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The bust was produced between 1617 and 1618, and was then inserted into Vigevano's tomb after he died in 1630." If anyone can translate the Latin inscription and tell me who this dude was, I'd be grateful.

The reason this monument caught my eye is because of the real human skull embedded in it. Was this Giovanni himself? No idea.

In this beautiful gated-off side chapel...

...a Holy Land diorama was set up, consisting of the magnificent figurines we had seen in Christmas Alley.

Turning to make my way back toward the church entrance, this beautiful hanging lamp caught my eye.

By this point, Younger Daughter was finished with her phone call and came to fetch us. I fished a two-euro coin out of my pocket and dropped it into the hat of an elderly man who was begging by the church entrance, and we went on our way.

We passed through another narrow street, this one specializing in shops featuring ecclesiastical vestments, chalices, candles, and other altar adornments.

We headed in the general direction of the Colosseum, agog at the beauty we saw at every turn

We passed this enormous monument.

And when I say enormous, I mean it. Look at the size of that staircase. And the balcony on which people were observing the city.

This turned out to be a relatively new structure, the Vittoriano (or Victor Emmanuel II National Monument, "Altar of the Fatherland"), built between 1885 and 1935 to honor the first king of a unified Italy.

I wish we'd had time to explore it further, but clearly we couldn't. So much to see, so little time!

We passed the ruins of the Roman Forum (plaza). This was another spot we had to content ourselves with just passing rather than taking the walking tour.

It was amazing to see in person so many things we'd only seen in photos.

Look how beautifully these marble steps have held up after thousands of years.

This huge structure is the Basilica of Maxentius.

As we continued on our way toward the Colosseum, we heard church bells from this tower. Lovely. Church bells are less common in the U.S., which is a shame because they're beautiful to hear.

We finally approached the Colosseum. And here's the thing: Honestly, I thought I would be underwhelmed. I thought having seen and explored the Flavian Amphitheater the day before would be sufficient to satisfy my interest in this type of structure. I thought a lot of things ... and then I saw the Colosseum.

It. Was. Stupendous.

From a distance, I admired the glorious statues installed in the niches on the second level. It wasn't until we got closer that I realized they were just printed posters.

No matter. The closer we got, the more we were blown away by the sheer scale and beauty of the structure.

In some ways, it was almost a mental adjustment. This wasn't a model or a photo, it was the real deal. I mean, we were standing in front of the Colosseum. That was such a mind-boggling thing to grasp. We were standing in front of the Colosseum. We wErE sTaNdInG iN fRoNt oF tHe CoLoSsEuM!

We gaped and gaped (or at least I did) for a good long time.

There is a reason the Colosseum is one of the most famous tourist attractions in the world.

We peeled ourselves away from the building and went to view the nearby Arch of Constantine. This was also an amazing structure, though unfortunately fenced off.

We turned to make our way up a ramped road toward the Basilica di Santa Maria Nova. On the way, I passed a young man wearing a laurel wreath on his head. At first I thought it was just an amusing souvenir, but Younger Daughter said they now issue such wreaths during college graduation ceremonies in Rome (rather than graduation caps), which I thought was pretty cool.

The Basilica di Santa Maria Nova – also called the Santa Francesca Romana – was the church with the bell towers whose chiming we heard earlier.

To Rome's credit, many of its historic churches are open to visitors, and we took advantage of this one to glance inside.

The interior of the church was, predictably, stunning.

The ceiling was amazing.

Interestingly, I saw a fair bit of deterioration on some of the side walls.

It was a reminder that these magnificent treasures don't last forever unless they are maintained and/or restored on a regular basis, hence the scaffolding in the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva church we had seen earlier.

This is the Basilica of Maxentius from the other side.

We walked back down the sloped roadway. Once again I heard that same distinct bird call, and quickly looked around. Yes! It was a parrot! In Rome!

Apparently Rome has two varieties of invasive parrots (or more accurately, parakeets). What we saw was the rose-ringed parakeet. The other type is the monk (Quaker) parakeet, just like Younger Daughter's parrot Lihn. We didn't see any of these.

We tore ourselves away from all the wonders around the Colosseum...

...and back-tracked in the general direction of the train station.

After all the rain, the afternoon sun broke through and lent a beautiful glow to Rome's narrow streets.

I bought a gloriously cheesy Rome refrigerator magnet for one euro (ironically, made in China and purchased in a tourist shop run by a nice elderly Chinese couple).

The reason for this silly purchase was to complement the refrigerator magnet we have from Rome, Oregon.

At one point, as we approached an intersection, we heard a car horn (not uncommon) and then a screech of metal (highly uncommon). "That did not sound good," I said.

Sure enough, a motorcyclist had apparently become over-confident in his ability to zip between cars, and got hit. You might say this was a "Roman kiss."

At first Younger Daughter was concerned that the motorcyclist was pinned under the car, but thankfully he was able to climb to his feet. We left the scene before we were witness to any flares of temper.

We poked our head into one last church. Unfortunately I didn't catch its name.

Yawn. Just another ornate, jaw-dropping, sensational interior. Ho-hum.

We meandered our way toward the train station, taking a different route than the morning, passing more intriguing streets and buildings and hidden staircases.

I fancied I might be able to poke into a second-hand bookstore and find an old Italian Bible to take home. Younger Daughter obligingly found a used bookstore conveniently on the way back to the train station. When we finally got into the hole-in-the-wall establishment, the nice lady who worked there (and whose English was excellent) explained that even if she carried such a book, she couldn't sell it to me ... directly.

Apparently any foreigner trying to purchase a book older than 50 years is subject to an application inquiry and a delay. The bookseller can sell the book, but the buyer can't take possession of it until an inquiry is sent to a government office for investigation. If the purchase is approved (a process which takes about a month), the bookseller can ship the book to the buyer. If the purchase is denied, the bookseller refunds the buyer's money. "It's why I can sell older books online, but not in person," she concluded. This process is done to prevent "looting" of valuable tomes from Italy.

The explanation was very interesting, and in some ways it was more interesting than if I'd been able to find an older book anyway.

We continued on our way. In passing the window of a tiny shop, something nicked our gaze. It was a place giving mosaic lessons, with several people inside giving attention to their projects. Whether or not this was geared toward tourists is immaterial. I was impressed that someone wasn't letting this art form die.

We all paused to admire this corner building, and spent a moment or two debating which balcony apartment we would want to live in.

This was my choice.

We passed this magnificent church and were somewhat shocked to see a massive billboard covering one end of it.

I snatched another photo of a rose-ringed parakeet entering a nest-hole in a tree. Apparently this invasive species is elbowing out the native woodpeckers that would normally inhabit these tree holes.

And this, dear readers, concluded our exciting day in Rome. Considering our limited time, I think you'll agree we saw a lot in the six miles we walked. We rested on the train ride home, but were still fairly wiped out when we returned to Younger Daughter's apartment.

For this reason, YD planned a more relaxing trip for the following, and final, day in Italy.

Sorry for the silence!

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 17:13:00 +0000

I apologize for the silence, dear readers. Older Daughter and I crawled home at about 1:30 am this morning after thirty – THIRTY – hours of travel. We got up at 4 am Naples time to get to the airport, and it was nothing but either mad dashes (in the various airports) or solid sitting (while on the flights) or driving (home from the airport) for the next 30 hours. We're exhausted and jet-laggd and look like death warmed over, but we had a wonderful trip and I'll fill you all in within the next few days.

Day Four in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 21:30:00 +0000

Our fourth day in Italy began with a fairly early trip to a flea market held at the Ippodromo di Agnano (racetrack) in Naples. However "flea market" barely begins to describe the scope of this event. There were hundreds of booths set up, with people selling the contents of their attics and basements. Younger Daughter has purchased the bulk of her apartment furnishings through this source.

While driving to this function, we passed through the classic "rotten egg" smell of sulfur, and caught a glimpse of steamy volcanic gases escaping the ground, part of the Campi flagrei sulfur fields.

I hardly took any photos from the flea market itself. There wasn't much interesting to photograph ... but it was wildly interesting to look at everything (if that makes any sense). We stayed for three or four hours, examining every table and booth.

Unlike what you might find at American flea markets, there wasn't a lot of cheap plastic junk from overseas. There were some genuine antiques, yes, but the vast majority of it was just stuff people were selling from their attics and basements. Almost everything was inexpensive. I purchased a small backpack for 5 euro. Younger Daughter purchased a dress, also for 5 euro. I purchased a 5-euro copy of Puccini's "La Boheme" published in 1895 ... not because I can play the music, but because it was beautiful.

I got an Italian copy of "Jane Eyre" (one of my all-time favorite books) for one euro ... not because I can read the language or even because it was a handsome copy of the book, but because ... well, why not? (Actually, I can dip into the book almost anywhere and know where I am in the story, which shows you how well I know "Jane Eyre.")

The variety of merchandise was broad. Here was a miniature reel-to-reel tape recorder, doubtless popular in the 1960s or 70s.

Or how about an American Indian diorama?

I was actually rather taken with this print, but (a) I wouldn't be able to schlep it home even in my ridiculously oversized suitcase; and (b) we have no place to hang it on our walls, so I passed it by.

There was an even larger print that I liked even better, but I passed it by for the same reasons listed above.

Younger Daughter said she and her friends play a game whenever they come to this market as to who can find the ugliest or creepiest item for sale. This was a winner in my book: A nearly life-sized headless dummy of cotton wrapped in twine, lying on the ground. I mean ... why?

Normally I'm not overly taken with tea sets, but I thought this one was exceptionally lovely. I'd never use such a thing so I didn't buy it ... but isn't it pretty?

After the flea market, Younger Daughter drove us into Pozzuoli, where we planned to have lunch and then tour the Flavian Amphitheater in Pozzuoli, the third-largest Roman amphitheater in Italy and located practically in Younger Daughter's backyard. Remarkably, she found a convenient parking space not too far from the ruins and adjacent to a tiny grassy park with olive trees, and immediately slotted into it.

What we couldn't find, however, was a restaurant. We had hit that awkward interval between lunch and dinner when many establishments were closed. So we embarked on a half-mile walk up hill and down dale until we found a place that was open.

On the way, we passed this group of orange trees. They're common around here, and nearly everyone has at least one in their backyard. The fruit looks huge and ripe.

Many of the streets were either paved with large cobblestones, or paved with asphalt over cobblestones.

We had a charming (and very Italian) thing happen as we walked down a narrow street. There was a cat sitting on a sill of an open screenless window, right at our eye level. The cat was wearing a harness, and as soon as it saw us, it started meowing. Immediately all three of us stopped to coo and fuss over the friendly animal. A youngish man inside the house started chuckling at us, and came to the window. We greeted him in our amateur Italian, then turned to continue walking down the sidewalk. We heard an exclamation from the window, and turned in time to see the cat (who had jumped out the window) being reeled in by its harness in what seemed like a regular routine. (I also happened to notice the man staring after my pretty daughters. Hey, this is Italy.)

When we finally located it, the restaurant seemed far too fine a dining experience for a slob such as myself.

But the waitstaff was kindness itself – especially since, we learned, this is International Women's Day. Apparently in Italy, this holiday has supplanted Mother's Day, and women are given free access to all national museums, historical sites, etc. At this little restaurant, the girls and I were presented with charming little cards with flowers pinned to them, and offered an extended menu selection as well.

We ordered pizza (which, in Naples, is not just a fast-food selection but can be something of a gourmet experience). The "personal"-sized pizzas were so large that we could only eat half, and we kept the rest for dinner.

The restaurant, it turns out, was literally next door to the same Roman marketplace ruins (with the three high columns) we had viewed on our first evening here, but from a different direction.

As we turned to make our way back uphill toward the amphitheater, I noticed this tile rendition on the side of a building depicting life in this exact spot in the 1700s, so I snapped a photo. (Notice the Roman ruins with the three columns.)

Climbing back up to the level where the amphitheater was located meant ascending a LOT of stairs (this is only two of the three flights, and doesn't count a steep pedestrian bridge we also had to climb). Notice the wine bottle randomly left on one of the steps, because Italy.

We stopped at YD's car to put the box of leftover pizza inside, and to rest from that uphill climb for a few minutes. The olives in the trees above us were just starting to grow.

Here is one of the olive trees.

After this, we made our way to the Flavian amphitheater. (Remember, we got in for free because we're women.) This is a photo of an aerial photo of the theater taken in 1935.

And what do you know, the first thing we saw when we entered the grounds was ... cats. Had to stop to pet the kitties.

This amphitheater originally could sit upwards of 50,000 people. Its ruined appearance stems more from gradual decay and enthusiastic looting of the marble cladding (and other construction components) than from any natural disaster.

But even stripped of its glory, it was a remarkable place with its low tunnels leading into the bowels of the theater (where visitors were not permitted to go), or its high archways allowing patrons access to higher seats.

The grated spots are rectangular pits called "maneuvering shafts" which contained hoists, gears, and pullies to raise people, equipment, and animals from the underground chambers.

In numerous places around the perimeter seating, openings from stairs below (called "cavea") allowed patrons to flow into the bleachers (for lack of better term).

Here is a schematic showing the layout of the seating and cavea.

Restoration of the cavea was undertaken at various times over the years, most recently under the direction of architect E. DeFelice in 1977.

On (at least) two places on the floor of the amphitheater, Mr. DeFelice had no qualms about reminding visitors of this feat, using original bricks.

Now the only occupants of the bleachers were gulls...

...including this pair who were enthusiastically "doing what comes naturally."

In the center of the amphitheater is a pit with the below-ground chambers, tunnels, and holding pens.

We caught a glimpse of some of this intriguing infrastructure down there, but that was it. For whatever reason, visitor access to this area was restricted (we don't know if this was a temporary or a long-term closure). We saw interpretive signage and ramp access, but we couldn't go there. Pity, because it looked fascinating.

In this tunnel, you can see some slabs of the marble that once clad the entire facility, inside and out.

In its heyday, this theater must have been a dazzling sight.

Frankly, the outside of the amphitheater was just as interesting as the inside. A lot of broken bits of statuary, grave markers, columns, and other stone debris were strewn around the perimeter.

The amount of sheer labor and degree of skill on even the most modest adornment is incredible.

We assumed these were wine vessels.

In a couple of the exterior arched lintels, preservationists had installed some of the better-surviving statues.

These two are identified as Emperor Traiano and his "beloved elder sister" Ulpia Marciana.

Here's Traiano's info:

And here's Ulpia's:

We saw everything we could inside and outside the amphitheater, taking our leisurely time. Apparently the interior of the amphitheater is in conspicuously better condition than Rome's Colosseum (which we'll be visiting tomorrow), so in the interest of efficiency we may skip seeing the inside of the Colosseum and focus on its remarkable (and better preserved) exterior instead.

Besides, the advantage of viewing the Flavian Amphitheater is crucial: There was no one there. Seriously, while we didn't exactly have the place to ourselves, it was close (though the groups we did see had a suspiciously high proportion of women). My understanding of Rome is that the popular spots are overrun with tourists, so being able to explore this more local attraction without the press of too many visitors was wonderful.

We made our way back to Younger Daughter's car. We thought about taking advantage of Women's Day to investigate another historical site, but found out that one of YD's car tires was dangerously low on pressure. She'd had it pumped up earlier in the day and it was close to being flat again, so clearly it had a slow leak. (Considering the state of the roads, this isn't surprising.)

However, this development encouraged us to return to her apartment instead, where we relaxed the rest of the evening and ate leftover pizza. Early tomorrow morning, the plan is to take the car to the auto shop directly across the street from her apartment (she knows the people who work there) to get the tire patched before our day trip to Rome (via train). She borrowed a portable tire inflator from a friend just in case we can't get the tire patched in time.

And that was Day Four in Italy.

Day Three in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 21:33:00 +0000

Today's Italian adventure was extraordinary: We visited Herculaneum.

Most people are at least marginally familiar with the history of Herculaneum (if not, the Wikipedia article can summarize it for you), so I won't go into too many specifics about its background. Younger Daughter was wavering between visiting Pompeii or its lesser-known sister city, and I'm very glad she chose Herculaneum.

Here is Mount Somma on the left and Mount Vesuvius on the right, looming over what are still densely populated areas.

This is what the mountain(s) used to look like at the time of Herculaneum.

Since we got there early, we practically had the place to ourselves for the first couple of hours. And, unlike how I believe Pompeii works, we were permitted a lot more leeway to explore the ruins closer up.

Because of this relative freedom, we were vastly amused to see this public relations video playing on a loop as we were about to cross the bridge into the ruins. The video encouraged us not to be like Bob the Bad Tourist and do stoopid things to get selfies.

Armed with this advice, we set off to explore.

Contrary to popular belief, Herculaneum was not Pompeii's poor cousin. On the contrary, it was a wealthy resort community of about 5,000 people, with the usual luxury expectations of leisurely seaside living.

The violence of the pyroclastic flow that destroyed Herculaneum (as well as the subsequent two millennia of burial) had stripped much of the cladding from the walls of the town, revealing the intricate brick work that lay beneath.

In its day, however, both the inside and outside walls were covered with concrete cladding and stuccoed over to give it a creamy-smooth appearance. Frescoes were common both inside and out, in colors bright enough to be stunning.

But even stone meant to be covered by cladding was arranged with an artistic flare. There was no other reason to alternate the colors of these archway stones except for creative pride.

What has been excavated and preserved so far – and keep in mind, it's estimated that 70% of the city is still buried – reveals a surprisingly modern place with paved streets, sidewalks, addresses, drainage, ponds, kitchens, pantries, and other conveniences. The stone construction would have allowed the inhabitants to stay cool during the hot Italian summers.

Here's a drainage pipe emerging from a wall, for example.

More drainage infrastructure.

Here, modern PVC pipe meets ancient pottery tile gutters. Hey, if it ain't broke....

These are lead pipes, either for bringing water into a home or draining it out (or both). Presumably they were buried at the time the town was alive, rather than exposed.

Preservationists had planted trees in this spot, which did indeed look like it was designed for a small orchard...

...with irrigation all around the perimeter.

Everywhere we went – everywhere! – we saw stunning mosaic floors. It felt almost sacrilegious to walk on them.

Notice the swastika pattern, which of course had no evil overtones at the time.

Many of the floors – those that weren't mosaics – were marble inlaid with beautiful and colorful stones.

Intact frescoes were understandably rare. What was interesting, though, was how the sketches for the frescoes were actually etched into the walls before they were painted. We saw many of these etchings.

In one room that had an intact ceiling, we saw the remnants of frescoes there, too. (Man, job security in Herculaneum would have been a fresco artist.)

The streets were amazing. I couldn't believe we were walking on genuine Roman roads.

And there were street signs – marble street signs – that looked astoundingly modern.

Many homes had sunken water features called impluvium ("koi ponds," so to speak) in the center of the main room.

These were clearly fed by roof runoff, with drains built into the impluvium to allow overflow water to drain off without flooding the room. This roof hole was reconstructed with original "hardware," then covered to keep rain out.

Here's a detail of a roof drainage system.

In a couple of rooms, archeologists found the charred remains of bed frames, and preservationists recreated the missing parts to show what the furniture looked like.

Oh, and cats. Let's not forget the quasi-famous stray (and spayed/neutered) cats of Herculaneum. They were exceptionally friendly.

The structures were multi-story. Often we saw stairs leading up, as well as charred wood and holes in the stone walls where a second-story level used to stand.

These are some holes where upper-floor beams once fit.

And here's the charred remnant of one such beam.

This stone archway was built, presumably, merely as a support for the stairs built over it (and, as with modern homes, offering storage space below).

This, it has been speculated, was one of several restaurants. Note the smooth counters and massive pottery jugs.

This looked like it was meant to be either a public or private water feature, a cooling spot for wading and hanging out on a hot summer day.

Some of the frescoes in various rooms were visible, giving a hint as to how gorgeous and gaudy this town must once have been. In most areas, preservationists have installed pigeon guards on the tops of the remaining cladding to keep bird droppings from damaging the walls or artwork. (You can see the fine needle-like wires sticking up.)

This huge chamber was in comparatively excellent shape. Apparently it was a study hall and library for scholars and philosophers.

It was in this room (over which a modern roof had been built to protect the contents from weather) that the true beauty of the frescoes came through.

The colors were faded and the figures sometimes warped from being buried, but they were still stunning.

This marble plaque was affixed to one wall, and at first I ignored it because I genuinely thought it was as modern Italian sign. Nope. It was the original plaque outlining the room's dedication. Except for the cracked stone, it looked as if it was hung yesterday. That's how well marble holds up. (Also, is that Times New Roman font...?)

Possibly the most famous mosaics in Herculaneum can be found in House #22 (or rather, House XXII), the "House of Neptune and Amphitrite."

Look at that detail.

Above the hunting-scene mosaic were some sculptures. According to this website, these are "three theater masks: a tragic one in the center and a comic mask on both sides. Above this on the wall was a mask of Silenus, a Roman god of woods who was closely associated with wine, revelry, and Bacchus."

Another room in this house had the remnants of some bas-relief carvings, shielded under plexiglass.

Imagine seeing these in their glory days.

Some more huge clay pots – another restaurant?

And another?

Outside, we saw some salvaged statuary, including these two pieces featuring deer being taken down by dogs. The subject was bloody but the detail was amazing.

Aaaaand there was this playful statue. Hey, when it came to bodily functions, apparently the Romans had no modesty ... especially if they took the time to make a statue of some dude answering nature's call.

Some more bas-relief sculptures.

Within this impressive room (with paint still visible on the columns)...

...archeologists had found some carved stone bas-relief disks, which they suspended between the columns.

This netted-off chamber gives an idea of what archeologists have to work with to uncover a room. Essentially they're carefully removing solid rock many feet deep, no easy task.

In fact, this photo shows just how deep the town was buried – under dozens of feet of volcanic mud.

For this reason, it's understandable that steel braces and clamps are sometimes used to support crumbling infrastructure.

The thing is, Herculaneum is nowhere near fully excavated, as sample tunnels have proved. It's speculated that only 30 percent of the town has been uncovered.

However the buried parts all reside underneath the modern-day suburb of Ercolano, so a full excavation will likely never happen.

We saved the most sobering and poignant sight for last: The boat houses. These vaulted stone chambers were once at beach level and used to shelter fishing boats.

We had glimpsed them from above at the beginning of our excursion...

...and noticed something grim and disturbing inside: Skeletons. Many, many skeletons

When we descended to that boat house level, it became even more poignant, because a huge number of these bones belonged to young children. We also saw one skull belonging to a dog, doubtless a beloved pet.

Later, we saw an interpretive sign in the nearby museum that indicated these skeletons were, in fact, resin replicas (probably a good thing, lest macabre souvenir-hunters start chipping them out). The genuine skeletons were excavated and taken away for study.

But that doesn't negate the sad fate of these people. Evidently they took shelter in the stone boat houses to seek protection from the ash, but the stone couldn't protect them from the heat. Pyroclastic flows can produce temperatures anywhere from 500F to 1500F, so nothing or no one had a chance. Over 300 people of various ages were found in this beach area alone, not quite 10 percent of the population. Apparently the discovery of these remains was a huge shock to the archeologists, who up until this point had found no bodies at all.

Sobered by this last look at the town, we walked back up the pathway overlooking the city. And what do you know, we saw some yahoo behaving like "Bob the Bad Tourist" and getting selfies in front of the piles of (resin) bones. We all agreed this was jerk behavior.

We made our way to the museum where the artifacts were on display. Here was a shred of one of the frescoes in all its glorious colors.

Some of the unearthed treasures had surprisingly modern looks. Here is an iron pot and pan:

And hey, even the Romans got splinters and needed a good pair of tweezers.

What I found most interesting were a number of rings that bore a startling resemblance to my wedding ring, such as #3 below.

My ring is on the left; the Herculaneum ring is on the right.

I like to think my taste in jewelry is "classic." I guess this proves it.

We took a quick tour through the gift shop, where I wasn't altogether surprised to see colorful replicas for sale of the statue I'd photographed earlier. I guess I wasn't the only one who found it amusing.

If I had one complaint about Herculaneum, it is the lack of interpretive signage among the ruins. There are both guided tours and audio tours available, but for those who prefer just to read about something, some written explanations would have been nice.

Otherwise, this is a 10/10 on a scale of unbelievable marvels to see.

After we left Herculaneum, we were all starving, so we stopped at a small restaurant (actually, we were aggressively flagged down by a mother and her teenage son and shepherded to a balcony table at their family restaurant – such is the way of Italians) for lunch. The menu was generous, and we each choose an item. I chose "Tortellini panna prosciutto e funghi" (tortellini with cream, mushrooms, and ham), which sounded delicious.

After 20 minutes of waiting, the teenage boy came back up to the balcony and told me, "Tortellini finish. Finish." In other words, they were out of tortellini. So I chose another menu item: "Lasagna penne al pesto" ("Type of pasta with pesto"), which also sounded delicious.

We waited another 15 minutes. The teenage boy brought up both Older and Younger Daughters' meals, but informed me, "Lasagna finish. Finish." I don't know why he couldn't have told me that earlier, but whatever. I waived the opportunity to order something else only to be told half an hour later that it was "finish," and instead the girls kindly shared their meals with me.

Honestly, I wasn't even annoyed, I was amused. It was just another "slice of life" thing in Italy.

Then we got back in the car, and Younger Daughter dove into another Italian slice of life, namely the insane Neapolitan traffic. She was following GPS directions to return to the main highway, but one of the critical turns she needed to take had been blocked by road construction, so instead she got sucked into a vortex of staggeringly narrow streets, often with two-way traffic, with pedestrians casually walking down the middle of the street and displays full of merchandise for sale spilling off the sidewalks. It was mobile mayhem.

At last we emerged into wider avenues and found our way to the highway. She has nerves of steel, does Younger Daughter.

We rested for a couple of hours, and then joined about nine of YD's Navy friends for an all-you-can-eat sushi dinner (where I had other things to eat, since I hate sushi). Yes, they were eating sushi in Naples. Go figure.

And that was our third day in Italy, dear readers.

Day Two in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 22:22:00 +0000

Day Two in Italy began when I heard loud voices early in the morning, yelling about something. It took a few minutes to pinpoint the source. Two men were angrily shouting at each other directly across the street from Younger Daughter's apartment in front of a (closed) pub. One man looked positively ready to come to blows, yet probably they were merely discussing the latest soccer game or something equally innocuous.

The gesturing is what tickled me. All day, everywhere we went, people were gesturing. It really is an integral part of the Italian language. I saw a couple of "nonnas" (grandmotherly women) strolling along together, having an animated conversation while waving wildly. Many, many times I saw men talking on their phones, arms moving like crazy even though the other party clearly couldn't see them. It was great.

Younger Daughter and I took an early-morning walk to a small nearby grocery store. I noted the pasta aisle was extraordinarily well-stocked.

Aaaaand they had pizza-flavored Pringles. Well, why not?

As we went through the aisles of this tiny grocery store, the woman who was stocking the produce in the front of the store kept up a loud and animated conversation with the meat-department clerk at the back of the store, and their good-natured shouting was just part of the atmosphere.

The day's adventures involved sights in Naples. I mistakenly thought Younger Daughter lived in Naples itself, but she lives in Lago Patria, a separate city. Naples is much larger, around two million people, and when I say it had sights to see, that is engaging in the drollest understatement. It was packed with things to see.

Once again Younger Daughter provided proof of her remarkable driving skills, because let me tell you, Neapolitan traffic is something else. There are no lanes. Seriously, drivers just go any-which-way, motorcycles zip in and out between cars, and pedestrians simply dash across streets whenever they please. How people don't get killed on a routine basis is astounding ... yet they don't. "Somehow it works," Younger Daughter said, and she's right.

The cramped streets and insane traffic does explain the popularity of scooters and motorcycles, too. It's the easiest way to navigate and park in that crowded city.

The one dominant architectural feature I noticed among the buildings were tiny balconies, many with laundry draped to dry.

As we made our way toward a public parking lot (which, miraculously, had one free spot available), we saw a very polite protest of some sort in action.

In a park alongside the water, I noted a tent, presumably of a homeless person. Unlike American cities, we saw very little homelessness in Naples.

Along the waterfront, we saw the imposing "Egg Castle" (so named for a legend about a magical egg supporting its foundation), but didn't explore it.

We parked and started walking toward downtown Naples. In passing this little memorial park...

...we chuckled over the sheer amount of pigeon droppings on the heroic figure's head.

As with yesterday's excursion to Pozzuoli, we saw alleys. I don't know why they fascinated me so much, but they did. We passed dozens, and it was like they were enchanted pathways leading toward mysterious parts. So forgive me if I show probably waaaaaay more alleys than you want to see.

Oh, and I finally got my coveted shot of ... cobblestones.

While waiting at a street corner to cross, Younger Daughter pointed out a figure entwined on a lamp post. There were architectural details like this everywhere we went.

I don't think I've ever seen such a vibrant and alive city. The ground floor of every building had shops selling an enormous variety of goods, and all seemed to be profitable. There were thousands of pedestrians.

There was also graffiti everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Churches. Businesses. Apartment buildings. Stores. Light posts. If it was vertical, it had graffiti on it. Younger Daughter says Naples has been described as a "beautiful woman with dirty feet," and that's accurate.

Yet, as with the abundant trash, somehow Naples' "dirty feet" works. It's just part of the street-level life.

We made our way deeper into the downtown, gawking at the beautiful buildings. Well, *I* was gawking, and both Younger and Older Daughter kept an eye on me to make sure I didn't fall behind and get lost as I snapped photos.

We started passing street vendors selling everything from knock-off designer handbags to jewelry to street food to yard-sale stuff. These figurines on one table caught my eye, presumably representing sinners enduring the torments of hell. I'm at a loss to understand why anyone would care to display these in their home, but maybe I'm misreading the popularity of the market.

We wound our way deeper into Naples' downtown. The streets were crowded with people. No wonder all those little shops were doing so well. These (mostly) weren't tourists. These were just Neapolitan citizens going about their business.

It was interesting to note that with most of the buildings, which faced each other so closely across streets and alleys, had center courtyards where people resided, worked, parked, or otherwise lived. Many of the entrances to these courtyards has massive (as in, at least 15 feet tall) doors that could be closed off.

We were heading for something informally called Christmas Alley, where Nativity-themed goods were sold.

My parents gave me an Italian Nativity scene in the late 1980s, and it remains one of my most cherished gifts. One of my planned souvenir purchases on this trip was going to be a single figurine to add to my original collection, and Christmas Alley was the place to find it.

It was on this excursion that we made an interesting discovery. There were churches – stunning, magnificent, ornate churches – down every alley and tucked in odd corners. According to a search engine, there are at least 500 such buildings to be found in the city.

We stumbled across one such treasure in Christmas Alley, the church of San Gregorio Armeno ("St. Gregory the Armenian").

As with so many Italian churches, every inch of this historic structure was astounding.

The ceiling was nothing short of a masterpiece.

Over and over again, we stumbled across treasures like this.

We slowly made our way up Christmas Alley, poking into various shops. We noted with amusement some creative crèches built into old television sets.

Several businesses assured customers their wares were made in Naples, not China. They were right. We saw several shop owners busily hand-painting pre-cast locally made pottery figurines.

Included in the vast selection was this one figurine that was so startling and somehow so representative of Naples' earthy mindset that I couldn't resist taking a photo. (Yes, the man is doing exactly what it looks like he's doing.)

Finally I made my selection, a humble water-bearer. He is the right size to match the rest of my original Nativity, and will be a welcome addition.

We finished traversing the length of Christmas Alley and made our way to our next destination: La Neapolis Sotterrata, the Underground City.

This is a remarkable complex located, as the name implies, underneath Naples. The portion we visited were the ruins of a Roman marketplace located beneath the cloister of the San Lorenzo Maggiore Basilica. Apparently it was first discovered in Medieval times when monks – digging to install a wine cellar – punched through the walls and realized their "wine cellar" was already built, thanks to the Greeks and Romans who came before them. Over the centuries, more and more underground complexes were excavated and reinforced as needed.

Our self-guided tour started in the Basilica's cloister courtyard, with a (dry) well in the center.

The well had a stout metal grate installed over the top, and it was a good thing, too. Younger Daughter gave me a coin (worth about 10 cents) to drop into the well. It must have fallen a good 50 feet or more before we heard it hit bottom.

Next, we stepped into the Chapter Hall.

This was a remarkable chamber painted with the portraits of the monks in residence in 1608, as well as missionary friars and scholars, some of whom rose to the ranks of cardinals, popes, and saints.

We noted with amusement what looked like Scotch tape holding things together in some areas, but which Younger Daughter informed us was actually a highly specialized adhesive tape meant to maintain the paint structure until restorations could be made.

Then we made our way down a modest and unobtrusive staircase...

...into the ancient city below.

Well, it was amazing. The first thing we saw was an old Roman road. The white pavement stones were an aid to help people navigate the streets at nighttime.

This was a laundromat, so to speak.

The sign said it was "Shop where clothes were washed and cleaned."

We passed stalls for bakeries, fishmongers, and other unknown vendors. We even passed a shallow rectangular depression in the floor apparently designed for a small fishpond for wealthy homes; a koi pond, if you will.

This staircase was apparently the first place the Medieval monks punched through the walls, and the chamber was where they stored their wine.

After a leisurely exploration of this remarkable excavation, we emerged blinking into a conveniently placed gift shop featuring loads of overpriced jewelry. We thanked the helpful clerk for his interest in our wallets but declined to make any purchases.

Outside the church was an intersection of busy streets (mostly pedestrian), dominated on one side by the Basilica of San Paolo Maggiore.

We decided to see the inside of the Basilica.

But first we paused halfway up the steps to the church because it gave us a bird's eye view of the remarkable street scene below, which had something of the air of a carnival.

This was merely a Friday afternoon in March; what must it be like during the height of tourist season?

I thought this street was for pedestrians only, but I was wrong. Once in a while, a driver with nerves of steel would carefully navigate a vehicle through the crowds.

As always, the narrow streets offered a glimpse of the dense Neapolitan life.

We must have hung over the balustrade for 15 minutes, watching the scene below us, until we finally ascended the rest of the steps and made our way into the church.

It was, predictably, stunning.

We walked around in a state of reverent awe, gaping at the beauty.

To the right of the altar was an effigy of Saint Andrew Avellino, presumably with his body entombed beneath.

After this brief exploration of the basilica, we left and returned to the raucous streets.

By this point we were starving, so we settled for a pizzeria on a corner immediately adjacent to the basilica.

Tucked into an alley between the basilica and the restaurant was this unusual stonework. I believe it was the entrance to another part of the Naples Underground, especially since a group of people were standing nearby as if awaiting the beginning of a tour.

Lunch was a riot. The pizza was great, of course; but more than that, we were cheek-by-jowl with the wild craziness that apparently is just daily street life in Naples.

(By the way, those are bottles of water, not wine.)

After lunch and soaking in the atmosphere, we proceeded to our next destination, with me photographing alleyways like a compulsive idiot as we went. What can I say, I found them fascinating.

At one point we diverted into an inner courtyard which had it all: Tiny shops, itty bitty cars jammed into impossibly cramped parking, and residential quarters above.

Later we stepped into yet another courtyard (understand these are all open to the street – we weren't trespassing) and gaped upward at the narrow opening among the apartments, with a "coffin elevator" (upper left) taking residents to the higher floors.

Back on the street, Older Daughter stopped to admire some avante-garde artwork.

While the style wasn't my cup of tea, even I had to admit the artist was talented. Besides, he was painting them right there on site.

She ended up purchasing a small original painting for about 5 euros.

Shortly after, pausing at an intersection, we passed a Burger King (because of course Naples has a Burger King) with the restaurant tucked into a building and covered dining spilling out onto the sidewalk. The outdoor dining area was moderately busy; but the inside of the restaurant was packed. We heard music from what sounded like a live band playing inside. People were literally standing on chairs and dancing on table tops. It was so crowded the windows were steamy and we could only see the first layer of revelers closest to the windows. Really? In a Burger King? It wasn't until later that we speculated perhaps they were filming a commercial or something. I can't imagine any other reason to get that excited over a Burger King.

Our next destination was the venerable Galleria Umberto I. On the way, I snapped a picture of this random bit of stonework.

The Galleria Umberto is one of the world's oldest "shopping malls" (construction finished in 1890), designed "to combine businesses, shops, cafés and social life – public space – with private space in the apartments on the third floor," according to Wikipedia.

Needless to say, it was gorgeous.

We noted it had a McDonald's, because of course it did.

The center of the galleria had mosaics depicting the signs of the zodiac. Here's my sign, Virgo.

Surprisingly, after the intense bustle of street-level Naples, the galleria was calm and even half-empty. The busiest spot was where we stopped for tiny cups of ginseng tea (with little spoons that are not designed for left-handed people).

There were some seriously aggressive pigeons here. At a nearby table, one flew down, deliberately upset a platter of snacks, and began gorging right in front of the customers. Cheeky bugger (as the English might say).

Immediately across the street from the galleria was the magnificent San Carlo Opera House. Younger Daughter has attended one or two performances here, and she says it's worth going to see the interior architecture if nothing else. Sadly, we won't have that opportunity.

The last thing we saw on this remarkable excursion was the Castel Nuovo ("New Castle") near the harbor.

I don't know about you, but just having a castle in town seemed extraordinary. They're as common as can be for Europeans, I know. But for Americans? Wow. Just ... wow.

First constructed in 1279-82, a more modern "triumphal arch" was added in 1470.

This was an honest-to-goodness battle fortress, built to withstand anything Medieval warfare could throw at it.

The now-empty (except for construction equipment) moat could be filled with seawater to a depth of, I dunno, forty feet or so.

The ramparts even had arrow slits.

Younger Daughter pointed out how one section of the moat wall had been mended with recycled Roman bricks at some point. Waste not, want not.

We were told on good authority that the inside of the castle was actually less interesting than the outside, so we didn't try for a tour. Besides, by this point we were fairly wiped.

Incidentally, rumor has it that this massive splatter (visible in the center-left of the above photograph) was from a World War II munitions strike of some sort. Notably, the castle wall withstood it.

We returned to the car and entered the crazy traffic. As Younger Daughter navigated us out of the city, I saw a thick plume of black smoke some distance away.

I looked it up later, and it appears "a fire broke out in the area of the Fuorigrotta market, creating a thick column of smoke visible from various points in the city" (according to an AI-generated translation).

So that was our day in Naples.

We returned to Younger Daughter's apartment and pretty much vegged the rest of the evening, making dinner and having a modest glass of wine.

Tomorrow will be an exciting day: Herculaneum!

Day One in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 22:28:00 +0000

Greetings from Naples, dear readers!

Older Daughter and I landed in this venerable city after about 24 hours of travel. It took five hours to reach the airport (and where we hung out for about three more hours because we wanted to give ourselves leeway in case of car trouble, etc.). Then came the first leg of our trip, Spokane to Denver.

Approaching Denver.

The leg from Denver to Munich was conducted on one of the largest airplanes I've been on, with two aisles and nine seats across. Younger Daughter, bless her, had booked us near the back of the plane where there were just two seats (aisle and window), with a spacious gap between the window seat and the side of the plane where we could stash our carry-on things. Ten hours in the air was tiring, but an advantage of being short is I could also stand up straight in this small space and uncramp my limbs. (Older Daughter, who had the aisle seat, took a turn or two up and down the aisle for the same reason.)

I didn't take any photos in or from the plane itself because the windows had a weird tinting ability out of our control that didn't permit us to see outside. Presumably this was done to help passengers try to sleep overnight. The only photos I got were of the back-of-the-seat air tracking screens that allowed us to gauge our progress.

The windows untinted just as we were about to land in Munich, but the conditions were so foggy that I couldn't get any photos.

The leg from Munich to Naples was slightly better. We passed over the muscular Alps in northern Italy that must have been wildly dramatic from the ground.

Here's a glimpse of some charmingly chaotic Neapolitan suburbs, very different from the precise and orderly cookie-cutter American suburbs.

Younger Daughter met us at the airport without any issues, and as you can imagine it was wonderful to reunite with her.

She drove us from the airport toward her apartment through what could only be described as mobile hysteria. It was past rush hour (a good thing), but the road rules were some of the most casual and free-flowing I've ever seen. Honestly, Younger Daughter had nerves of steel to navigate the chaos, but navigate it she did, and successfully too. She said it took her months of white-knuckling it to get used to driving in Naples traffic.

We were all starving, so we went straight out to dinner before heading for YD's apartment. On a small deck off her kitchen, I was charmed to see a gecko emerging for a night of foraging.

After showering off the dirt of two continents (to paraphrase Bill Bryson), Older Daughter and I collapsed into bed, exhausted.

This morning we woke up and got a better view of YD's apartment. The sloped beamed ceilings "make" the place.

And look at this kitchen window!

Her apartment overlooks a small garden where she said the landlord grows fresh veggies and herbs in season.

Here I was amused to see (and hear) a population of ring-necked doves exactly as we have in vast quantities at home.

Heading out into the city, we were able to get a more accurate impression of Naples. We walked to a little cafe for coffee/tea and pastries, and Older Daughter and I were laughing at the parking habits of Italian drivers – double parking, parking on sidewalks, parking every-which-way. Honestly it was part of the fun. Naples is shabby and run down in a cheerful "who cares?" sort of way, with chipped plaster and litter everywhere. There are hundreds – thousands – of tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants tucked in the oddest corners, all apparently thriving. It's no wonder the city has an amazing culinary reputation.

After the cafe, we walked to see some Roman ruins, just casually fenced off right in town.

The fact that the brick work has held up so splendidly for thousands of years is a testimony to the skills of Roman craftsmen.

Just makes you want to explore, doesn't it?

We walked to the edge of Lago Patria, where of course I had to photograph ... a snail.

The juxtaposition of old and new fascinated me.

And hey, what's Naples without a little activist graffiti?

We swung through a surprisingly well-stocked thrift store, and I thought these little mosaic-style tea cups were splendid. (No, I didn't buy them.)

Younger Daughter says she's always been fascinated by this abandoned hotel. Apparently there are a fair number of abandoned properties in the area.

Then we took off for our first touristy adventure, heading for the city of Caserta. In this manner we were able to see just how many tiny farms were interspersed with urban infrastructure, which I thought was the coolest thing.

We passed a modest onramp and saw a not-very-young woman sitting on a lawn chair by the side of the road. "See that woman?" said Younger Daughter, pointing. "That's a prostitute."

She wasn't the only one. We saw a couple of other women similarly stationed at intersections. None of them were spring chickens. "Tough way to make a living in your golden years," I noted. It was a sad sight.

Along the way, we saw incredible amounts of trash on the sides of all the roads (ironically, the vehicle on the left in the photo was a garbage truck).

While clearly the trash was ugly, in a weird sort of way it was kinda genuine, too, if you know what I mean. This wasn't some tourist-perfect spot; this was real Italian life and somehow symbolic of the chaotic joie de vivre for which the Italians are famous.

Our destination was La Reggia di Caserta (the Royal Palace of Caserta), the biggest royal chateau in Europe outside of Versailles, and THE biggest royal grounds/park in Europe (bigger than Versailles). Here's the first glimpse of the building.

Parking, as you can imagine, was a challenge. After some searching, Younger Daughter was able to shoehorn her little car into a tight spot about a half-mile from the chateau. This was actually rather nice, because we could walk along the streets and see some of the shops and people.

The narrow streets were a nightmare to navigate (kudos to Younger Daughter's driving skills!) but enchanting to view from the passenger seat.

This section of town had marble sidewalks. Let me repeat that: It had Marble. Sidewalks.

It's worth noting that while marble sidewalks would not only be prohibitively expensive but also wildly pretentious in America, here in Italy it's just the native stone.

Caserta is a bit more upscale than Naples proper and had a beautiful European flair to it.

As we drew near to the chateau, the sheer scale of it started to make an impression. Everything – everything! – about it was oversized.

Here's some random dude for scale. This would make these entrances, what, maybe 36 feet high?

This is a photo of a photo placed on the wall inside a room of the chateau where we bought our tickets. It shows some of the extent of the palace grounds. The distant building is the palace itself.

From inside one of the arched colonnades, we could see the grounds stretching at least a mile distant, terminating in the white thingy on the hill at the very end. (The white thingy is, I believe, part of a fountain complex).

As Younger Daughter put it, it was the ostentatious nature of royal structures and grounds such as these that caused the peasants to revolt in earlier times.

Then we walked into the chateau itself, and our jaws dropped. It. Was. Stunning.

The sheer scale and degree of ornateness is hard to grasp, even when standing right within it.

We were ascending the appropriately named Royal Staircase. As far as first impressions go for dignitaries visiting the kings of Naples, it was a doozy.

The palace is frequently used for films, and I believe these stairs were featured in "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace," specifically as the interior of the Theed City Naboo Palace (according to Wikipedia).

In fact, the people you see on the stairs were workmen carrying film cameras up for yet another movie shooting.

This is the chapel. Modest little place. Oddly, they used clear acrylic chairs instead of pews. Apparently the chapel is still used for religious services as well as chamber concerts (we caught snippets of Mozart being played on distant speakers).

Several of the columns bore damage from bombing during World War II.

We walked through the palace, agog at the magnificence, until we almost got to the point of ornate overload. Room after room after room after room after room was open to the public (with various things roped off). There was just so much to see, and all of it incredible, that we almost became numb to all the glory.

I mean, look at this!

Ceiling detail.

The king's throne. As thrones go, this seemed rather modest and fairly comfortable. I should know, since I tried it out. (Just kidding!)

Take a look at this gilded beauty.

The king's bed. Or at least one of them.

Topped with a crown, of course.

We did notice the occasional royal loo, tucked discretely in dark corners.

Notice the high windows in this chamber.

They're all trompe l'oeil ("A style of painting that is intended to give a convincing illusion of reality").

There were a few rooms featuring the royal library, but I gather most of the valuable tomes were looted during World War II, so most of these are fairly ordinary (though older) volumes.

One of the most fascinating rooms was the darkened Nativity room with a marvelously painted night-time celestial ceiling and displays of biblical-themed characters (with a decided Neapolitan touch – we noticed some figurines were eating plates of spaghetti, and the Holy Family looked suspiciously Italian). Naples is famous for its "Christmas Street" where they sell astoundingly detailed Nativity sets. Based on what appeared in this palace, the tradition dates back at least two centuries.

Here are some examples of what they had on display:

Continuing on our tour, we passed two art historians involved in some restoration work. Younger Daughter, far more versed in art than we are, was able to describe something of what they were doing. She was impressed their work was open to the public.

Sated with indoor sights, we retired outside for a stroll through some of the grounds.

Here's a back view of the palace. Remember, those lower archways are something on the order of 36 feet high. This building is HUGE.

We took a side path through some forested areas...

...that led us past a children's playhouse called Castelluccia built "for the young princes of Bourbon." Naturally it had three stories, its own moat, and a turret, because of course it did.

Wandering back toward the main walkway, we saw huge statuary ensconced in shrubbery niches.

I suspect we could have spent the whole rest of the day in La Reggia di Caserta, but we'd already walked several miles by this point and were ready for some lunch, so we left the palace grounds...

...stopped at a cafe for some food, then returned to the car. Driving back to Naples, we passed this shanty town of shacks that Younger Daughter said was home to a Romani (gypsy) population. Apparently they settle in a spot for a few years until government officials come in, bulldoze the ramshackle homes, and the Romani move elsewhere and settle in a new spot. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

We retired to Younger Daughter's apartment for a couple hours' rest, then met up with a friend of hers who took us to Pozzuoli, right on the coast. Apparently this used to be the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire, a place for the elites to go for grand parties and beautiful scenery, until the volcanic unheavals of the place submerged whole towns. (Pozzuoli sits right on top of a super-volcano. No exaggeration.)

Here, too, some Roman ruins were preserved in the center of the city. See those three tall pillars in the middle? Apparently at the top are some pitted areas that puzzled archeologists because they resemble mollusk borings usually seen on underwater structures. But how would tall pillars built by the Romans accrue mollusk borings?

As it turns out, a couple thousand years in the past, the whole city submerged into the bay by subsiding ground (which put something of the kibosh on Pozzuoli as a Roman playground), then reemerged hundreds of years later as the ground rose. Ah, volcanoes.

Apparently archeologists initially thought these ruins were a temple, but they turned out to be a high-end marketplace. The structures below were part of the shops.

We decided it would be splendid to live in one of these apartments overlooking the ruins. Y'know, until another volcanic explosion happened.

We wandered the picturesque downtown as dusk transitioned into dark. The tide was out on the bay.

By the way, the bay is a deepwater bay suitable for large ships, because it's the submerged caldera. Nice.

Waiting for the dinner hour (7 pm at the earliest), we explored the vicinity. We wanted to peek into this lovely church...

...but a Mass was being held, so we didn't disturb the worshipers. It was nice to see it occupied for its intended purpose on a weekday evening. We also noticed a highlighted statue of the Virgin Mary a short distance away.

This square was closed to traffic, and many locals were out enjoying the mild evening air, many with their dogs.

We all stopped for a "piccolo" (tiny) gelato, because of course we couldn't go to Italy without trying a gelato.

Every alleyway off this square was an enchanting vista, and each alley was stuffed with tiny specialty shops selling everything from meat to clothes and apparently thriving.

There was even laundry hanging out to dry overhead, proving this is just a regular living situation for the locals rather than some chi-chi tourist trap.

As we headed back to the car, I saw this huge sign advertising, I presume, language lessons.

Before heading for the restaurant, we stopped to view the harbor.

We also made a brief stop at a higher elevation to get a broader view of the city.

And that, dear readers, was our first day in Italy. Younger Daughter was worried we were overdoing it, but both Older Daughter and I agree that since our time here is limited, we should ignore any lingering fatigue and jet lag and just cram in as many sights as we can. We can sleep later.

That said, as I write this, it's almost midnight local time, so it's time for me to toddle to bed.

Exciting trip!!

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 14:33:00 +0000

Dear readers, I have exciting news! Older Daughter and I are on our way to EUROPE!!

Younger Daughter (our Navy daughter, for those who don't know) has spent the last few years on shore duty stationed in Naples, Italy. She's been begging us to come visit for a long time. Now, just ahead of a planned change in duty stations, Older Daughter and I are actually taking her up on it. (As YD put it, it's our last opportunity to stay in Europe for free.) She is paying for the whole trip, an incredible act of generosity. We've had this trip planned since last October.

I've never traveled abroad before, much less to Europe, so this is an entirely new venture for me. I actually had to get a passport.

I had to buy a suitcase larger than the small carry-on bag I had been using when visiting my parents. I purchased it online and accidentally got one that was comically HUGE.

I mean seriously, I could fit my entire wardrobe into this thing, with room left over. Well over half of the suitcase is empty. Fortunately there's room for Older Daughter to put some of her travel things in it too. I'm seriously considering stuffing bubble wrap into the empty spots just to secure things.

We're in for a week of excitement. Younger Daughter has an itinerary all planned for us, including a visit to Herculaneum and an overnight trip to Rome. Heavens, I can't believe those exotic names are just dripping off my tongue.

We'll be in Italy for a week, plus travel days bracketing both ends. Older Daughter and I will be flying out of the Spokane Airport, then changing planes in Denver before heading for Munich, Germany, then a quick hop to Naples. After we arrive, Younger Daughter has already informed us we must stay awake until such-and-such local time before she'll let us crash into bed, to help adjust our internal clocks.

Don chose to stay home on this one. He's already been overseas during his own Navy days, and he's even more of a homebody than I am. Besides, someone has to take care of the property and animals.

You can bet I'll take you along every step of the way, dear readers, though I won't make any guarantees that I'll put up a new post each day since we're likely to be very busy. I told Younger Daughter that even cobblestones are exotic to me, so she shouldn't be embarrassed if her old mom drops to one knee to photograph those humble wonders.

Italy, here we come!

Processing spaghetti squash

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 05:03:00 +0000

Last fall, if you remember, we had a bumper crop of spaghetti squash.

With this much abundance, we were tasked with how best to store the sheer volume.

In the end, we divvied up the ripe squash from the unripe, then stored the ripe squash in the well house.

The unripe squash was stacked in crates in the library, where it slowly ripened over a period of two months or so. As it ripened, we stored it in a cool room off our porch.

Aside from handing squash out like candy to neighbors, periodically we also brought crates of the stuff to church with a "free" sign on it.

Still, we were left with dozens of squash. And now, in February, they were reaching the tail-end of their natural storage life. It was time to get them processed or we'd lose them.

So I took about three days and got everything done. I started by splitting each squash lengthwise.

After splitting, I laid them on cookie sheets. I could fit eight (sixteen halves) into the oven at once.

The best – the very best – tool I've found to scoop out the seeds and guts is a humble ice-cream scoop. It's tough, with just enough sharpness that I can rip things out cleanly. (The black spot in the center of the scoop is just a worn part of the metal.)

Lots of pulp.

Here's the first batch, all de-pulped (gutted? scooped?).

The next step is to brush all cut surfaces with oil or melted butter. I used olive oil.

Then I flipped all the squash halves cut-side down on the pans...

...and put them in the oven at 400F for about an hour.

When they were finished baking, I let them cool for about half an hour (cool enough to handle). Then out came the faithful ice-cream scoop again, and I started scraping out the strands.

For me, this is the perfect degree of "doneness." Just the slightest bit burned, which adds a sweetness to the final product. Plus everything is easy to scoop out of the rind. Not every squash came out this well, of course.

The rinds piled up in the sink (these later went onto the compost pile).

This is eight squashes' worth of "spaghetti."

My goal was to freeze the strands. Before doing this, though, an important step is to let the strands drain overnight. Not doing this step means the frozen squash strands will be mushy after they're defrosted. So I scooped them all into my largest colander, then put the colander into a bowl.

I covered the whole thing with a plastic "shower cap" and put it into the cool room for the night.

This is how much liquid drained by morning. Other batches had even more liquid.

While another batch baked in the oven, I portioned out the drained strands into two-cup increments into Ziploc bags.

Here is a processed batch (bagged up), with another bowl full of strands ready to drain overnight.

As I bagged them, I squeezed out the air and flattened the bags, then stacked them on a cookie sheet, which I then put in the freezer overnight.

I sliced, baked, scooped, drained, and bagged for three days. The very last one I processed was this Big Boy.

It was so big that it took up an entire cookie sheet by itself (another Big Boy, though slightly smaller, also required its own pan).

These big ones also had to bake for an extra 30 minutes due to their sheer size.

In the end, I had (I think) 34 bags of squash. In the photo below, everything is frozen except the newly bagged stuff stacked on the cookie sheet.

At this point I think it's understandable that I don't want to see another spaghetti squash for quite some time.

My latest book is available!

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 19:54:00 +0000

My latest book, "The Amish Baker's Redemption," is now available.

This is the sequel to "An Amish Marriage Agreement" which hit the New York Times' best-seller list in September. I've always felt "The Amish Baker's Redemption" was the better story of the two, so it's my hope readers agree.

Here's the backcover blurb:

Forgiveness is the missing ingredient for her fresh start. After spending years in the 'Englisch' world, Adele Bontrager returns to her Amish community, desperate to redeem herself and reclaim her faith. Working in an Amish bakery, she feels like her life is finally moving in the right direction…until Isaiah King arrives as the new head baker.

Single father Isaiah has his hands full trying to raise his rebellious teenage daughter and is grateful when Adele strikes up a friendship with his sullen child, despite her obvious reluctance toward him. But when he learns of the quiet baker’s troubled history, he’ll need to decide if her past is worth risking their future…

The book is available through Amazon (affiliate link) and Harlequin.

I hope you enjoy it! And let's hope it hits best-sellerdom again!

Elk in abundance

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 21:31:00 +0000

Don stepped onto the deck a couple days ago, then immediately poked his head back inside and said, "Grab your camera." Whenever he says that, I know it's something good. I grabbed my camera and this is what I saw.

Elk. Lots of elk. Elk in abundance.

They hung around that distant pasture all afternoon: Lounging, grazing, browsing, sunning.

Because they were moving in and out of sight, I couldn't get an exact head count, but there were at least 30.

By afternoon, pretty much the whole herd was laying in the wintery sunlight, chewing their cud.

Cool, eh?

It snowed!

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 20:09:00 +0000

Stop the presses! Alert the media! Yesterday we had snow!

Granted, not much, maybe four inches. But hey, with the exceptionally dry and freaky-warm winter we've had so far, we'll take what we can get.

The conditions were exceptionally calm and picturesque.

The one unfortunate thing about this snow was its timing. Up until this point, the most we've had was a light dusting of snow that soon melted away.

This melted-off dusting meant the ground and roads were wet. Temperatures were expected to plunge yesterday evening (as indeed they did), which meant the roads would be sheets of ice (as indeed they were). Anticipating this, we called our pastor and told him we weren't going to risk driving to the evening Ash Wednesday service, much as we wanted to attend. We're still gun-shy about driving in questionable conditions after our Christmas Day car accident over a year ago.

So we stayed home and enjoyed the snow. So did Mr. Darcy.

We went walking in our pasture yesterday evening, and Darcy romped in the white stuff like he'd never seen it before.

The evening sky looked lovely as the clouds cleared away.

By this morning, the temperature had dropped to 17F and the walkways and roads were dangerously icy. I had to watch my footing when I went out to milk the cow.

As an interesting side note, yesterday on our porch, the bird feeder (which is tied to the railing) had been knocked off overnight. Since our neighbor's cats are always hanging around, I blamed them. (Note the kitty paw prints below.)

But the snow revealed the real culprit: A raccoon.

Today is clear as a bell and very beautiful outside.

It's also warming up, and as I write this (noon-ish), snow on south-facing slopes is already melting. Sigh. It was nice while it lasted.