Category Archives: History

Historical background of a location we visit.

The Vatican Museums

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This morning we were slow to get going. We were out the door at 1000. We decided to walk to the train station, about 2 miles northeast. It was a beautiful, sunny, crisp, cool autumn day, and we wanted to check out the suburb we were in. The neighborhood we are in is endless rows of brick apartment complexes, most of them 5 stories tall. Most of the streets are lined with trees and graffiti. The leaves on the trees are starting to die. We found a pasticcheria (sweets bakery) along the way and stopped for a snack. We caught the train into the heart of Rome, approximately 23 kilometers away. From there we had to catch two more connecting subways to the Vatican. This is what trains look like in Rome. Actually, graffiti is a big problem in Italy. It is everywhere.

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Vatican City is the smallest sovereign country in the world, less than 1 square kilometer in size. The Pope also has sovereignty over three more churches in Rome that are outside the Vatican borders. Vatican City has its own Continue reading →

History of Italy

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Human settlements dating back to 700,000 BC have been found around the Italian Peninsula. Several distinct people groups emerged over time, including the Latins. One of the cities the Latins formed was Rome, named after the legendary founder of the city, Romulus, a descendant of the goddess Venus, and founded in 753 BC.

Another people group was called the Continue reading →

Exploring Stromboli

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The pier at Scari is a good 6 feet above the water line. It has a lot of traffic from small passenger ferries coming and going with loads of tourists. We pulled up to a staircase, hopped out, then tied Kosmopolitan up so that she was floating under the pier, out of the way of all the ferries. The weather had cleared up nicely. The sun was out and it had turned into a beautiful afternoon.

Our first goal of the day was to find lunch. We walked along the main drag and only found one open restaurant that served real food (as opposed to snack foods). We went inside and found out that in between lunch and dinner, they only serve snack food, as well. We resigned ourselves to snack food and ordered something called arancini that Tai told us was a sticky rice ball with meat in the middle that are pretty good. What came out was a sticky rice ball with a sort of stew meat and veggies in the center, but it had been deep fried hours earlier and reheated in the microwave. It was greasy as all get out and pretty darn gross. Tai assured us that this is not how they normally are.

Once we had a little food in our tummies, the next goal was to find a tour company to take us to the volcano. We were hoping to do a sunset hike. All the tourist information places in the tiny downtown were closed for the afternoon break. We decided to take a stroll along the waterfront to look for banks and tour companies. The shoreline along the waterfront is all black sand. It looks more like an asphalt parking lot waiting for the lines to be painted than a beach. We noticed there were no cars on the road, just golf carts and tuk tuks (tiny three wheeled vehicles). Even the taxis are golf carts. The road is barely wide enough for one car. Almost all the buildings are white, and most have blue trim. It actually reminds us a lot of a small Santorini, except without churches with domed blue roofs. It looks to be mostly hotels and a few private residences. There are a lot of flowering plants in people’s gardens, which adds to the loveliness of the setting

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After walking for a while, the road narrowed. We assumed it was a pedestrian only path because there was no way a car could possibly fit on this little narrow lane. But we were wrong. The little golf carts buzzed up and down the tiny lane, with only inches of clearance on each side. There wasn’t enough room for Continue reading →

Welcome to Palermo, Sicily, Italy

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We were supposed to meet our friend, Tai, in Palermo today with Kosmos. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with our plans. It was windy and choppy on the seas. So, we rented a car, instead. We drove up to Cinisi to pick Tai up from his hotel. Cinisi is a small town near the Palermo airport, about 31 kilometers west of from the city of Palermo.

Outside the town of Trapani, the landscape is exactly what you imagine Italy to be. Gently rolling hills with acre upon acre of farmland, empty windy roads, and a farmhouse dotting the landscape here and there. It looks like a sports car ad. It is beautiful. Here there are more vineyards and less fruit orchards. There also seems to be a bigger variety of produce grown than on the other side of the island.

Cinisi is a seaside community, and even has its own little marina. The town is adorable and quaint. We found Tai and headed on to Palermo. We had no real plan for sightseeing, and we weren’t really sure where to go. We followed signs that said “city center”. When we got to where the buildings looked really old, we parked. We had no clue whatsoever where we were. We immediately saw that we had stumbled across one of the three open air markets in the city’s old center. This market was basically vendors selling assorted items from folding tables a long a series of narrow streets. There was a lot of produce, cheese, fish and meats, which made for an interesting combination of smells that Tai commented “is not always pleasant”. There were also a lot of low end miscellaneous items you’d find at a 99 cents store. It was hard to get a good look at the buildings behind the vendors, but they looked pretty run down from what we could tell. We made our way through the market and continued on, finding the train station. Ah ha! A land marker! We now knew where we were, but, unfortunately, not where we had left the car.

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We decided to head to the center of the historic district, Quattro Canti (four corners). We followed a main road northwest. What is interesting is Continue reading →

History of Tunisia

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Tunisia is located in North Africa, bounded on the west by Algeria, on the north and east by the Mediterranean Sea, and on the southeast by Libya. It is the northernmost country on the African continent. Around forty percent of the country is composed of the Sahara Desert, with much of the remainder consisting of particularly fertile soil and a 1300 km coastline. The population is approximately 10,000,000. The indigenous people are the Berber people group, who still exist today.

Like all the countries we have been to in the Mediterranean, Tunisia has a rich history. It is believed Continue reading →