Roman Baths

                                 Still Working

     The city of Bath, England exists because of water. The city developed around the only hot springs in the country. The springs come from 10,000-feet below the ground and surface in several places. The springs located near the ancient Roman Road were discovered by the Romans in the first century. They established a town they called Aguae Sulis and drained the swampland  created by 125,000 gallons of water that bubbled up out of the ground each day.

     They built a temple to the goddess Minerva  and a sophisticated network of baths making full use of the mineral springs. Romans occupied the  area for 360 years, but in 410 suddenly abandoned it. As years passed water again overtook the area.

     The legend says that a Celtic chief with leprosy was forced to leave his people. During his travels he happened upon the hot springs. After bathing in them for some period of time he was cured and eventually returned to his people. He had a difficult time convincing his people who he really was.. When he did succeed he moved his people to the springs.

     In the 900s monks established the Bath Abbey. In the 1200s the City of Bath was built over the unknown  ruins of the  ancient Roman city, and the ancient ruins were not re-discovered until the 1800s.

    The old Roman lead lined pool is 5-feet deep and still water tight!  The original Roman drains, still in use,  drain excess water and carry it to the River Avon. However, no one uses the baths today, but the well-kept ruins are quite an attraction to visitors to the city.

    The water looked a bit murky and algae could be seen around the edges of the rocks. The lovely statuary around the pool was a delight. It was awesome to visit something so old and the inner workings were interesting.  Uneven footing  in places required a bit of caution when walking, but the baths were in remarkable condition after so many centuries!

LAKE TITICACA

                                             A High Altitude City

  Puno, located on the Andean plateau is dominated by Lake Titicaca, sacred place of the Incas and home to natural and artificial islands. Titi means puma and caca means stone.   The Incas thought Lake Titicaca was shaped somewhat like a puma, but after looking at a map, I thought that took a lot of imagination. The highest navigable lake in the world is 100 miles long and covers 3200 square miles. The depth ranges from 15-20 to 900-feet deep with the northern end of the lake  the deepest. The altitude and hot sun cause a tremendous amount of evaporation.  Titicaca, located between Peru and Bolivia, is the largest lake in South America.

     Spanish founded Puno in 1668 because of its closeness to the colonial silver mine of Laykakota. The altitude is 12,565-feet above sea level and the greater  area population is 102,800. Its inhabitants are proud of their Quechua and Aymara past. Many inhabitants, especially women, daily wear colorful traditional dress

    Puno is a small port city where the main industry is tourism.  Agriculture and cattle raising are important and the area is well known for its herds of llamas and alpacas. The main crops are potato, quinoa  and other tubers, but limited access to fertilizers and seeds means low yields allowing only for subsistence farming.

    Smoke from unvented fires wafts through Puno’s streets, along with edgy waves of traffic with constant  honking horns including taxis and three-wheeled cycles that urge pedestrians to the narrow slivers of sidewalks. It is not a pedestrian friendly city.  Puno’s churches are characterized by their distinctive colonial architecture. Several plazas provide shops and restaurants.

    Rural population struggles with poverty where surviving is the main priority, illiteracy is high at 22% and higher among females than males. Health and malnutrition are related to extreme poverty, lack of clean water and sanitation infrastructure..

    The big attraction for tourists visiting Puno is the Eros people and their floating islands which were once their homes. More about them on another day

A Drunken Walk

                                   Long Suspension Bridge

     In Vancouver, Canada I could not resist walking across the longest suspension bridge in the world.  At  230-feet above the rushing Capilano River the 450-foot long bridge swayed with dizzying vigor. The wind swooped down to snare a man’s hat off his head carrying it like a floating balloon over the valley.

     The setting for this steel suspension bridge is in a temperate rain forest in British Columbia, Canada.  Many timid visitors watched as others stepped onto and walked drunkenly across the ravine. I compared it much like walking on a tightrope.

     A Scotsman by  the name of Mackay was so impressed with the beauty of the area that in 1888 he bought 6000 acres spanning both sides of the river.  The following year he suspended a hemp rope and cedar plank footbridge across the deep ravine.

    The bridge became quite an attraction and in 1903 a more secure wire bridge was built. Over the century the bridge was sold four times and the fourth and present steel cable bridge was built in 1956 with 13 tons of concrete firmly anchoring the cables in place on each end of the bridge. In 1962  hurricane Freda uprooted 82 large trees in the park with eight of them falling on the footbridge, but caused no damage!

    On the other side of the  swaying bridge I hiked several of the nature trails through the rainforest. Excellent interpretive signs, with delightful imaginative art work were informative. On successive trips to Vancouver I always make my way to Capilano to again cross the bridge.

On one trip there was a story pole carver on the premises who was happy to answer questions and explain his craft and the history of story poles.

    With no wind blowing it is  quite an easy walk. No matter what the weather, the lovely park-like forest on the far side is worth the walk, swaying and wobbly or not.

Box for What?

                                               A Bread Mailbox?

    One year I ventured off to Tahiti, meaning many islands.  Part of French Polynesia, Tahiti is both a country and an island.  Tahiti is the largest of the 118 islands and atolls that make up the Society Islands. The island is 35-miles long and shaped like an hourglass with two distinct volcanoes, one at each end,  that are connected by an isthmus. The islands are 2790 miles from Honolulu and 4000 miles from Los Angles so it is a long plane ride.

    Papeete’s streets are crowded with sport cars, motor bikes, and the island’s cheap public picturesque transport, les truck. The city is the country’s capitol, and seemed crowded, smelly and dingy  with little resemblance of the common P.R. of swaying palm trees and pristine beaches. Outside of major ‘down town’ there are some nice resort hotels. Bora Bora, Moorea and Tahiti are the major islands of the country. Each island has one road around its perimeter. There are no roads over the mountains.

    Houses were small and almost always on the mountain side of the road; they sat side by side rather than clustered.  The road follows the coastline and there is little room between the road and the water. Riding the road, small waterfalls seemed to appear around every bend in the road. Surrounded by greenery and lush vegetation, they were quite picturesque.

    The thing that fascinated me most in Papeete was the long narrow mailboxes along the side of the road. They were not mailboxes at all, but were for the delivery of freshly baked French bread which was delivered daily. They were built like little houses with slanted roofs. A stranger would never know the express purposes of the cute little bread boxes.

    Bora Bora is an incredibly beautiful island and it is a photo stop around every bend and curve of the road.

ALMOST NO LUNCH

                                       French Sidewalk Cafes                                  

     Although sidewalk cafes are popular in many places, and I have eaten in so many of them, perhaps the first place to really popularize them was Paris.

     During the lunch hour most stores in France close and tables and chairs of cafes spill out onto the sidewalk or patio, which may or may not be covered. Umbrellas are often present and the same is true for tablecloths and candle center pieces. The French tend to linger  as conversation flows over 

   After a long docent-led walk/tour of Bordeaux, France it was well along, almost after, the lunch hour when we finished. Nearly mid-afternoon my friends and I found a different picture of French lunch time. By the time we started scouting for a lunch location, many tables and chairs had been taken inside leaving the sidewalks bare and the cafes closed.

     We wandered a good distance checking various establishments along the  way and glanced down many an empty alley. When we finally spied outside tables down a cobblestone alley we hurried to the café to get there before they also took everything inside. Although they were about to close they took pity on four very tired old American ladies and allowed us to eat.

     Our gracious hosts did not rush us in any way. We thoroughly enjoyed a delicious lunch accompanied with a glass of very good wine---of course!  We indulged in  lively  conversation. We all felt regretful it had been time to surrender our bikes and we all shared particular highlights of a fabulous trip. It was a lovely warm day and we were in the country known for its sidewalk cafes.

    Leaving we all left generous tips and thanked our waiters who had been so pleasant and kind to us.

Beautiful Flowering Quarry

                                                 Beautiful  Quarry

    Who could ever imagine that a huge hole in the ground, a defunct 50-acre quarry, would ever become one of the most famous gardens in North America?

    Jenny Buchart, although happy with the income the limestone quarry and her husband’s cement plant provided, thought the big hole was a blight on the landscape in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

     In 1904, when she envisioned a garden, no one thought she she’d be successful in getting anything to grow. Tons of dirt were trucked into the quarry site while she designed the curves and hills of the gardens.

     During the Bucharts’  world travels, they bought statuary and brought home seeds and plants, obviously before the strict agriculture importation rules of today.

     Slowly the garden took shape and a century later the gardens still remain in the possession of the family. Fifty gardeners are kept busy full time, all year, to insure the gardens are always in bloom. No matter the season there is always a rainbow of color.

     In spring 60,000 tulips bloom in vibrant color everywhere. In fall the colors of many trees are spectacular. The rose garden is a mass of color when 2500 rose bushes bloom in summer.

     Many benches are situated around the gardens where one can rest or just sit and enjoy the surroundings as well as the peace and quiet of the entire area.

     Tacca, a large bronze boar, is positioned on the patio and appears to have just awakened, maybe from the sound of a hunt. His well burnished nose is  the result of all the good luck loving strokes given to it over the years as visitors and children bid farewell to the lovely gardens.  I have made several visits to  these gardens, but it was on my first visit years ago that Tacca was my first bronze to start my collection of  good luck brass rubbings.

     Cruise ships, especially to Alaska, run buses to Buchart when stopping in either Victoria or Vancouver. In such a case it’s a worthwhile side trip.