Nepali flat

After being turned back from our initial destination of the A.B.C. (Annapurna Base Camp) due to five feet of snow, I was feeling a little disappointment, but perhaps bit more frustration; it was a little hard to believe that snow was the reason, given we hadn't seen so much as a snowflake in our four days of trekking and during the day we were sweating and walking along in short-sleeves. But I suppose that means I was asking for it, because during our stay in Gandruk, we were plastered by a mighty hailstorm. So mighty, in fact, that the cold front blanketed most of the country, and for the first time in 63 years, a thin layer of snow covered the streets of Kathmandu.

We didn't see that, of course, as we were dozens of kilometres away in the northern mountains, but word spread like wildfire about the freak weather in the city. Conversations abounded and the weather was on everyone's tongues. In fact, it was so extraordinary that people stopped talking about politics for at least a day.

I'm certainly no expert about the political situation in Nepal, but in the days to follow we would come to learn much about the current state of affairs in the country, and just how frustrating it must be for the people that live in Nepal. By way of setting the stage, Nepal is home to some sixty-three separate ethnic groups, each with their own language, culture, and specific interests. The government in Nepal is viewed with unified distrust and contempt, owing to the high level of corruption and scandal. There is a royal family in Nepal, but a couple of years ago the prince took a machine-gun and slaughtered them, in a Hamlet-style bloodbath that rocked the country to its core. The line of succession was maintained, with a relative of the king assuming the throne, but given the high popularity of the former monarch, he's got very big shoes to fill.

Nepal occupies a piece of shaky terrain between two world powers: India and China. The only thing separating these two countries is the Himalaya mountain range. It's very difficult to ship goods in from China over the mountains (there are only a few mountain passes for road traffic, and they're subject to weather) so the majority of trade is done with India, to the south. However, Nepal is on the short end of the trading stick, having to import the large majority of its consumer goods from India, including its main import, petrol. There are no oil wells in Nepal, at least not yet, so if Nepal wants its gas, it has to come calling to India. And when India wants something from Nepal, it only has to hold its export contracts hostage.

And right now, one of the things that India (an officially all-Hindu country) wants, is some autonomy for citizens in the southern Nepal region known as the Tarai. These folks emigrated northwards from India, intermingled with the Nepali locals, and brought much of the local economy with them (ie., buying or building factories to make goods that are shipped back to India, all at a lower cost because the Nepali rupee has a much lower value than the Indian rupee). They have never been considered Nepali citizens, which is obviously a bit disconcerting for them, and they've been tending to riots lately to force the issue. They've also set up roadblocks on the small number of arterial roads leading to Kathmandu, blocking the flow of petrol from India. This tends to get their voices heard. Citizenship has now been made available to a wide variety of traditionally non-Nepali ethnic groups, in addition to the Tarai (one of the interesting things we would see during our trek was large picnics organized by small communities to help people fill out the paperwork). Even with this major concession by the government, riots, rotating strikes and roadblocks still continued while we were there, not just by one group but by many. People have figured out that the government is pretty much powerless to do anything but give in, and so many different groups are vying for local power, or at least, the appearance of doing something for their communities so they can gain support for the upcoming election.

The government is caught in a very difficult position; while it seems they'd love to send in the troops to restore law and order, dozens of human rights groups, and more importantly, international donors, are looking over their shoulder to make sure they treat everyone in a humane fashion. In a previous riot, force was used, and some Tarai citizens were injured and killed; the government was forced to pay large sums to their families.

So, the election, then. This is another hot-button issue that was on everyone's lips while we were there. If you read or watched anything about Nepal in the last couple of years, it was about the civil unrest brought about in the country by a political group inspired by Chairman Mao of China (hence, the Maoists). These folks have figured out that their government isn't really doing much for them, so why not have a revolution, Les Miserables style. Their guerilla fighters essentially hung out in the mountains and made life miserable for the government, gaining local support. They made life a bit miserable for trekking tourists as well, setting up "checkpoints" on popular trekking routes and asking tourists for "donations." The donations even came with a tax receipt, but one might consider a certain level of duress on the donations, as they were being asked for by men carrying assault rifles. So, after a lot of unrest, a truce of sorts has been reached between the Maoists and the government, with the government conceding a place for the Maoists in the political system. In the ensuing national election, the Maoists won a referendum, to the considerable chagrin of the then-ruling government. There were challenges; the king tried to get involved; there was much strife. In the end, the high court has decreed that a new election should be conducted, and everyone is still hammering out the rules for how this will happen.

Thus, it's a bit complicated. And by no mean should you consider the preceding to be an authoritative representation of how things actually came to be in Nepal: I've cobbled this together from many a discussion held in varying levels of English with Bhakta and several other people we met during our trek.

So how does this have anything to do with us, tourist trekkers in Nepal? Well the Maoists do still put up checkpoints, but they're more rare these days; they've officially stated that they now welcome tourists to Nepal, recognizing that tourism is a major source of cash for the country. But perhaps the biggest change for tourism in Nepal is the development of the road.

Recognizing the trade imbalance with India, Nepal has stretched its international relations as far as they will go and taken their development dollars to invest in a road that will link Kathmandu with China. The road, unfortunately, will be built over existing trekking routes, which makes sense as the trekking routes are pretty much the most direct points between A and B. So in five years, the trek we're currently doing will be gone, replaced by a road. Local economies - the trekking lodges - will fold up.

But, I digress. Hail in Gandruk, that's where I was starting this dispatch.

There wasn't a sunrise for our first morning in Gandruk; it was overcast. Since we'd scheduled in a rest day, we went back to bed. Luxury! When we did finally get up and have some breakfast, Bhakta took us for a walk through the town of 270 inhabitants. Gandruk, the original home of the Gurung peoples, is a Buddhist town; Bhakta as well, is Buddhist. However, people have moved away to the east of Kathmandu to practice a different, less-expensive religion. As religions go, Buddhism (at least, the type practised in Gandruk) is apparently quite expensive: by way of example, Bhakta mentioned that if a family member dies, the family is expected to hold a large ceremony complete with meals for the entire community. And I'll bet it's the same with weddings and births, as well.

The actual town of Gandruk has no real structure or organization to it: there are no street signs. The majority of the buildings are single-family, single-level dwellings, made from stone and mud with thatched rooves. When you're looking at a building with multiple levels, you're looking at a trekking lodge. You have this constant feeling of walking through someone's back yard as you ascend small stone staircases, head down back alleys, and walk alongside farming paddocks. Without a guide, we would have been lost.

When we came back, we had enough time to do some laundry before the heavens opened up and nickel-sized ice pellets started landing. It lasted for quite some time. Not quite conducive for laundry drying. It was very much an indoors day. For dinner, we discovered momos - kind of a dumpling-styled steamed spring roll - and why these haven't caught on internationally, I don't know. They're heavenly.

The next day, the hail has melted away and the weather has returned to normal; we head a little bit back the way we came to go towards Ghorepani, where we will link up with the most popular trek in Nepal, the Jomsom trek, so-named because it links Pokhara with Jomsom. It's actually the western circuit of the larger "Annapurna circuit" trek, which carves a circle around the entire Annapurna Sanctuary range and takes between sixteen and twenty-one days to complete, depending on how you do it. It's hallmarked by the legendary Throng La Pass, the highest walking pass in the world, routinely covered by snow drifts and usually quite difficult to cross. We wouldn't be going that way, owing to our less-than-winter proof clothing and gear.

As we walk towards Ghorepani, we do a fair amount of uralo-janni and ucalo-janni - climbing down, and climbing up. I'm struck by the farming terraces cut into the mountains. Essentially, if it's arable land, the Nepali people have cut terraces into it and cultivated it. They don't grow it all at once, rather, they use quite a smart system of rotating crops, allowing some terraces to go fallow while other bear produce. As the climate changes dramatically the further you ascend, one mountain side can produce an incredible variety of produce.

One of many Nepali children we passed on the route.

The trekking routes themselves range from stone pathways, created from huge eight-foot by two-foot blocks of stone, to muddy paths. The more impressive examples of road, we learn, are built and maintained by local community groups. In some places, you have to do some careful sidestepping, between waterlogged muck and animal droppings. There are some places you really want to have good balance, because a slip would be either dangerous or particularly disgusting.

As we progress along the trail, we encounter another small trekking party, Willem and Jolanda from the Netherlands, and their guide. We find ourselves walking the same direction, so we take turns passing each other during breaks, walking alongside having conversations, and dining and sleeping at the same lodges. We teach each other some card games and have a generally great time. We break up our trek to Ghorepani at Bhantanti, a very small (ie., five or six houses) trekking junction set in the base of a gorge, but tomorrow, it's a lot of climbing to the peak of a tall hill, then some downhill to Ghorepani.

The big attraction at Ghorepani is Poon Hill, where a five-o'clock ascent up the hill brings you to the highest point in the area, at 3210m and you are (hopefully) treated to a spectacular panoramic sunrise vista. If you didn't start the trek from Phedi, but Naya Pul, then this is the destination after two days of trekking, and you don't even see the mountains until Ghorepani. We met some other trekkers for whom this was the case: in addition, they had terrible weather (they trekked through the hail). So by the time they got to Ghorepani, they were very much looking forward to something to make all their travails worthwhile.

The trekking route to Ghorepani takes us through a fair amount of very packy snow, the kind that's perfect for building snow men. To provide some humour to our small band of trekkers I elect to slip no less than three times on the packed snow, as if to prove the point that my shoes aren't going to be taking me over the Throng La Pass. But we do arrive at Ghorepani, where the small (thirty buildings) town is in the midst of nice sunny thaw, and there is a fair amount of dancing as we have to jump from stone to stone to avoid the pools of water and slushy snow.

Despite the fact that everyone that has settled into the Mountain View Lodge knows that they're going to be getting up at five o'clock the next morning, the night actually goes quite late. We met a large group of Norwegians, who let their hair down and dance with the Nepalis; an Israeli girl named Tamar (whose name is surprisingly difficult to pronounce) who's just out of her military service and travelling on her own; and several Brits. Some have already seen Poon Hill and are on their way out, but for most of us, we're here for the sunrise, and it's not until quite late that everyone turns in. I should note that Padam is one hell of a musician, singer and dancer; his skills as a porter are clearly secondary to his other abilities. In short, he's fun at parties and I really wish I could speak more Nepali. He's generally just fun to have around, too; while we walk, he often sings some Nepali dirges (at least, that's what they sound like to me), and is able to make loud, high-pitched notes by blow a leaf held tightly in-between his thumbs, where he plays the same song.

The next morning, we're up by five-thirty for the walk up the hill: it's tricky in the darkness but there are no injuries, and we arrive to a dusty grey pre-dawn sky. There's an observation tower on top of the hill, giving one a spectacular vista view, and it is pretty good, except there is some cloud cover. In forty-five minutes the show is over as the sun makes its appearance over the mountain range, and eventually everyone trickles away. It's back down the hill for breakfast, and afterwards everyone goes their separate ways.

We head north towards the Jomsom trek and stop in Shike, on the way to the hot springs of Tatopani. The sky has been threatening rain all day and it does rain just after we arrive, fortunately for us. Germans at the hotel have been ruminating whether to go on to Tatopani, but as the rains come and go intermittently they decide to stick around and drink instead. Thirteen bottles later and I'm not sure what effect has been had on them. Amy and I play cards with Bhakta and Padam, losing fantastically at Dal Mara, but I think we're getting the hang of it.

We head on to Tatopani the next morning: it's a big descent almost all the way and there are some big suspension bridges to cross. Today we're not lucky enough to escape the rain, so we pull out the rain covers. As if to prove my theory about wards, it doesn't get any more rainy than a constant spitting. After a descent down knee-jarring stone steps that feels like a thousand metres, we come to the next suspension bridge only to find out it's been put off limits due to the road construction. This is why having a guide is so handy, as Bhakta just turns around and takes us down to the river to walk beside it for some time. It's a different kind of trekking, as there's little to no difference in elevation, and I find it's actually a bit more tiring as you can keep a constant pace that's perhaps faster than normal. As we walk, we pass fantastic vegetation: contrary to what our guidebooks have mentioned, Rhododendrums are still in bloom, a brilliant scarlet red flower that puffs over deep green foliage. They're definitely hitting the end of their season, but they're still pretty impressive. Bamboo trees the size of small office buildings loom on either side of the trekking paths, their shoots careening into the sky and bending in graceful rainbow arcs. Bhakta tells us that these plants grow extremely quickly, benefiting from annual harvesting.

We pass an odd stream on the way to Tatopani: there's a silvery sludge on the sides that I hope is sand, but it's really sludge. Ick. However there's a girl nearby selling oranges for a ridiculously low price, and they're absolutely fantastic. The recent snows have felled some orange trees, so there's a glut on the market. Good for the consumer.

A hedge plant in Tatopani. Prickly.

We finally arrive in Tatopani, a larger village than we're used to and it's clearly a bit more well-off due to the tourist influx for the hot springs. These are volcanic hot springs that are naturally quite hot and they don't stink of sulfur. Our lodge, the Namaste lodge, is well-run and the staff are friendly, and it turns out to be a nice place to have a rest day. We take to the hot springs the next morning and they're lovely; we meet an Australian living in Zurich and a five-person group containing two Quebeckers that have taken the long way around, over the Throng La pass, en route to Pokhara. We hang out a bit more at the hotel, take a walk to see an archery practice in preparation for an upcoming festival, as well as a cremation funeral held at the side of the river. We manage to get back before it rains, again.

By the time we're ready to move on from Tatopani, we've met a half-dozen new friends. We meet several women travelling on their own, who have decided to travel together: Beranice, a young woman from Toulouse, France; Monica, from Poland, and Josie from Morocco. While hanging around on our second day, we also meet Fred and Jasmin, two more lovely French Swiss that we seem to instantly get along with. I'm not sure what it is exactly about French Switzerland that produces such warm and charming people, but I'm all for it; my suspicions are that once removed from a somewhat conservative environment, they're partially starved for meeting new people. Anyway, they're on their way to Vietnam and southeast Asia and also don't speak much English. I marvel on how difficult this is going to be for them (I marvelled previously about this for Julien and Stépanie), but really, I guess we had the same problem in Portugal. It is indeed an adventure and when it works, quite rewarding.

I almost moved on from writing about Tatopani without writing about the feature which gives the town its name (Tatopani means "hot water") - the hot springs. The pool itself is quite large (at least thirty feet square, or less than ten metres) and has hot water poured into it. The water is then drained out with three small openings, with which you can take a hot shower. When we arrived in the morning, a massive layer of steam was being produced from the water, giving quite an other-worldly feel as we sunk our aching joints into the hot water. It was definitely worth the forty cents' admission.

After being thoroughly relaxed in Tatopani, it's onward, heading northwards, towards Ghasa. It's a fairly leisurely stroll and from what I recall, unnoteworthy. Ghasa itself is a pit stop and the hotel we stay at is one of two so-so ones. They don't have much of what they promote on the menu - we have french fries as a snack instead of one of the Jomsom trail's famous apple pies - but in the evening, the entertainment was supplied by the Canadians. We managed to track down some extra decks of cards, and finally are able to teach Bhakta and Padam a game I hope will sweep the nation; Racing Demon comes to Nepal.

Racing Demon is something of a family tradition on my mother's side and the source of many a raucously fun moment during my childhood. When we stayed with Mary Gordon-Cumming in the French Alps, a call had to be placed back to Canada for some rules clarifications from my mum. For those who haven't played: if you've played Solitaire (a.k.a. Patience), you'd understand Racing Demon. Imagine playing it competitively, and the more players, the better: the level of chaos increases exponentially. It's slow going at first (poor Bhakta and Padam would be absolutely smashed by Mary Gordon-Cumming, who shows no mercy), but as our trek progressed, these two card sharks would prove to catch on fast.

The next early morning we're on the road again, leaving Ghasa for Tukche. This time we have a recommendation for a place to stay: the Tukche Guest House. The trek between these two settlements is relatively uneventful, except for two exceptions. The first has to do with the road, and the second has to do with coffee.

The trekking route outside of Tatopani.

Where a year ago, we would have been walking on a path no wider than required for two donkeys to pass each other, now we found ourselves walking on newly-finished road sections, wide enough for two buses. These aren't finished roads; they're little more than earth and gravel, but they're buttressed on the sides with stone. More accurately, "boxes" of stone where the box is made out of heavy-gauge wire. The construction of the road is managed by the Army, and the actual work has been tendered out to local construction teams. Some teams are more efficient, or the work is more easy, in some places than in others; thus, we find ourselves walking on road here, and in other places, they're still chopping away at the mountainside.

I bring all this up because for the first time in the trek, we're sharing the road with motorcycles, which are a very new phenomenon in this area, and unlike Kathmandu and India, these drivers don't tend to use their horn every chance they get. Rather, you barely have time to bounce out of the way before it comes screaming past. The motorcyclists have started a good business in ferrying trekkers from Jomsom to Ghasa (or vice versa) either because they've been stranded, injured, or are just tired of walking.

And the second, to do with coffee: we have a tea break in a very small town called Dana, where I have perhaps the best coffee I have had since leaving Europe. On being presented with a tall glass of frothy coffee, I imagined for a moment that I was in a Spanish café; it looked very out of place, and I had to wonder if the Nepali who owned this lodge-slash-tea house had a very expensive Lily espresso machine in there. It was marvellous coffee - so marvellous I had to find out how the heck he made it. His presentation to me provided a wonderful example of how Nepalis can do so much with very little. In fact, rather than shelling out what would have been a small fortune for an expensive coffee machine, his method was to pour boiling water over instant coffee and a little sugar, seal it with another container and shake it like a martini until it was nice and frothy. Some café owners in France could learn a lot from this guy.

Arriving at the Tukche Guest House, the place indeed lives up to the recommendation, with a particularly fantastic view from the roof. The owner, Saumer and his wife are lovely and take very good care of us. We arrive a little later than we're used to, and as a result are hungrier than usual, but we're lucky that lunch was already well-started. Lunch is pretty much always Dal Bhat, the national dish of Nepal: steamed rice, and a lentil curry. Usually it's accompanied by one or two other curries, and just as you think you'd start to get sick of the same old thing again and again, you find that it's different from town to town. The dal bhat in Tukche is very nice - but then, the thing that usually makes dal bhat very popular, is that it's customary to get as much rice and dal as you like.

With regular power cuts from the grid, the people of Nepal have come to learn a lot about alternate forms of energy cultivation, and the Guest House is a good example, with a firm investment in solar panels meeting most of the energy needs of the house, as well as heating the water. As the sun sets we set ourselves up in the rooftop solarium for dinner and Racing Demon. Dinner consists of some very good momos.

Our destination the next day is Jomsom, where we'll confirm our flight back to Pokhara before heading onwards (and upwards) towards Muktinath. The walk is much more level than we've experienced so far, mostly because the path has been transformed into the road. We encounter on more than one occasion several work gangs, hacking away at the side of the road with pick axes and shovels, and work would sometimes come to a halt as the workers watched us pass.

While we've heard lovely things about Marpha, a settlement renowned for its apples, apple pies, apple cider, apple brandy (basically, all things apple), unfortunately we pass through at about seven-thirty in the morning, and only the cows and chickens are awake. We decide against hanging around for an hour and a half to have a brandy tasting at nine o'clock in the morning and choose instead to push on.

As the day winds on, we find people playing cards and generally having more fun than usual; turns out today is "Holi," a Hindu religious holiday. The highlight of this holiday is for people to walk around with bags of brightly coloured chalk and paste each other with the stuff. Apparently, in Kathmandu it's a heck of a street party, that very usually gets out of control as all forms of social barriers are removed. We meet some kids that very kindly offer to smear holi on us, which we graciously allow. We're celebrities. Bhakta isn't too keen on the idea (he's Buddhist, so he doesn't really follow the celebration) but I give him a good pasting.

Our new colouring has the effect of driving the kids (and to some extent, the adults) we pass on the trekking route, absolutely wild with giddiness. I'm reminded of my sooty christening in Rishikesh. When someone invites you to be a part of the local culture, I've found it's an honour.

On the other side of Marpha the landscape changes dramatically as craggy hills turn into small mountains, and we climb up the side of one to leave the Myagdi district we've been walking through, and enter into the Lower Mustang district. At the border we encounter the home of a family selling music in their shop, and as usual, the kids go nuts that we've been pasted with holi. We have some great fun chasing them around to spread the joy.

Since we've long since run out of things to talk about, Bhakta has been teaching us Nepali, and it's coming along: we can count to twenty, comment on the food, know some very essential words and the difference between up and down. We're still working on telling the time.

We walk alongside a winding trail en route to Jomsom, heading at times up and down, until eventually the path empties into a wide, desolate, empty river basin, flanked on both sides by towering mountains. The basin is filled with stone, and two small creeks of water that meander from side to side. Outside of monsoon season, the channels of water are spartan, and apparently they change their course capriciously. One season the rivers follow the left side of the basin, another year, they follow the right. Donkey trains are quite regular as we walk along, a monotonous, hypnotic trek as we walk along the straight and level, keeping our eyes on the path to avoid stepping on big knobby, ankle-destroying stones. But we look very small in contrast to the mountains that line the sides of the canyon, piercing the ground and heading straight up to vast heights.

Jomsom emerges from around an upward corner as we depart the basin. The flights are done for the day (they're done by nine in the morning as the weather picks up dramatically). The town is essentially built around the airport: an army outpost, an army mountain warfare school, a district police headquarters, and district court. It makes sense as it's a travel depot. We stay at the Anka Marco Polo hotel, which has clearly done quite well for itself as it is actually comprised of two hotels, one behind the other, the better one being out back where we decide to stay (attached bath, but the beds don't move, so we have to sleep a single). We confirm our flight, but unfortunately we have to leave a day early as the day we'd originally booked, the plane isn't available.

Amy and I stroll along the main drag, having conversations with army soldiers anxious to practice their English, and interestingly, French; one of the soldiers had a United Nations peacekeeping placement in Senegal, and learned some of the language there. They're all really friendly, and tell us how they spend their spare time on various projects: the latest one is the building of a small shrine across the road.

The night is filled with Racing Demon, beer, and momos; in short, a pretty great way to wind down after about five hours of walking. Bhakta and Padam are getting better, and as we play, we get a small crowd of people, interested in the game. I'm convinced there's going to be a Racing Demon revolution before long. It's got a lot of things the Nepalis like about card games, including:

• The ability to slap cards down on the table in an aggressive and meaningful way
• A healthy amount of competition
• A fast pace
• Infinitely debatable rules

Jomson as a town isn't much to write home about: the weather and wind pick up a lot in the afternoon, bringing a stinging wind through the main drag. We didn't have long to get used to it, as the next day we were heading further up into the mountains towards our destination: Muktinath.

France and Spain and Portugal, oh my

Happy Boxing day! I hope the Canadians reading this have many boxes to plow through this Christmas, and are enjoying the unseasonal weather in Canada. For the non-Canadians, I hope you are enjoying or tolerating whatever weather you are either lucky or unlucky enough to receive. There's a rather longish missive following, as I struggle to recap our last few weeks.

After toiling in the soil for two weeks, Amy and I had decided to pass through the south of France before crossing the Pyrenees towards Spain. We considered a few places we'd read or been told about: Carcassone, a medieval city and Nice and Cannes, higher-end beach cities, to name but three. In the end we figured we'd visited quite a few medieval cities, and after spending a few weeks in the rustic Ardeche, we decided to visit Montpellier, a vibrant city with a big student population.

Montpellier has made great strides in becoming very pedestrian-friendly. The first of which are large blue trams which run along the major streets, connecting the vast majority of the city. In fact, most of the downtown core is open only to pedestrian traffic. The feeling towards cars seems to be very strict; even at stop lights, the city has gone one step further than just relying on the driver to halt at the command of the light: solid steel pylons with flashing red lights raise up out of the street to form an obstacle, and descend when the light is green.

The highlight of our brief visit to Montpellier was a wine tour of the city. Given that we were well outside the height of the tourist season, the local vintners have opted for a different approach to wine tours: instead of hoping people will come to your vineyard where grapes aren't growing, bring your wine to the city. In coordination with the tourist office, a group of about twenty of us walked to three different historical sites in the city and sampled wines from three different winemakers. Our arrival also happened during the release of the new Beaujolais for the year, so these were the wines to be tasted. Our three historical sites were the city's opera house, an ancient apothecary, and a subterranean church. At each stop, a rep from the vineyard was there to describe his or her vineyard's style and offerings, and answer any questions about the wine we were tasting. I didn't retain much from the wine tasting other than they were good, the company was very nice, and being able to taste the wines in a triplet of unique settings was a neat experience. Beaujolais isn't a wine to be cellared, apparently, which seemed to be just fine for Montpellier, where huge street parties were underway to celebrate the release of the stuff. Of the wines we've drunk, I'd say that Beaujolais is one that your average wine-drinker would associate as being the most "winey" - that is, if you were to conjure up a mental image of what red wine tastes like, ie., fruity, jammy, with berries and currant - you'd probably be hitting a Beaujolais.

We were fairly noteworthy in the wine tasting party as being Canadian, and we got questions from several people in the group about Canada. Mostly, did we get certain wines from France? Had we tasted them? They were more than a little surprised to here us defend Canadian wines, and the fact that we have a thriving industry of our own. The only thing Canada seems to be known for abroad are a few things: Dessert wines, Canadian Club whiskey, and Labatt Blue.

I guess we didn't get enough of a taste of wine, so we hopped a train to Bordeaux. I found Bordeaux to be like a smaller and more easily tackled version of Paris: big boulevards, monuments in roundabouts, and most annoyingly, bakers that bake fantastic bread but don't serve coffee. I know it's a French thing, that they do things differently there, but I just don't get it: you bake up mouth-watering croissants, and expect people to buy them to take away. Where? To a cafe, where they brew some coffee to eat them with. And then you have to hope that they don't serve croissants of their own, or else you might feel guilty for having brought food into the joint... it's all very complicated.

It was in Bordeaux that I found it: a boulangerie which actually served coffee. And had tables to sit at. I figure it can only be attributed to the higher-than-normal student population, but for whatever reason, it was a nice way to end our trip through France. The food was good, the coffee was nice (it isn't always the case in France) and the prices were very reasonable. So if you're going to Bordeaux any time soon, check them out: Les Pains d'Alfredo, 14bis rue Duffour-Dubergier, where the street ends at Cours Pasteur. Also a plus: non-smoking interior, with a patio for anyone who wishes to puff away happily.

The other nice find for us in Bordeaux was concerning, of course, wine. It seems that if you're a wine producer and you produce wines in the Bordeaux region, and more importantly if you want to be able to label your wine as an official "Bordeaux" wine, you have to send a sample of your wine to the Bordeaux Institute in, well, Bordeaux, for analysis and qualification. The building for this institute was right down the street from the hotel where we stayed, and had recently decided to remodel their downstairs from an office space to a presentation space, where they would host events and more importantly, offer tastings of twenty different wines from the region on a rotating basis. Le Bar au Vins was not officially open in its grand capacity, but they had dipped their toes into the water by opening the corner bar while the rest of the joint was having its renovations finished. We did get an informal tour of the redone interior, with its hardwood floors, luxuriously comfortable couches and tables, tasteful statuary and high ceilings. I can only imagine the receptions and parties that will be held here, and unfortunately, we wouldn't be able to stay for the grand opening just a week away.

For a few euros per generous glass, we sampled over our two visits a dozen wines; deep, ruby reds, sparkling whites, and a rosé that tasted like a red. Essentially, wines that we would only dream would cross the Atlantic. Some do, but most don't. We were served by the knowledgeable Martin, who answered all of our questions and went into the extremely technical end of winemaking when we asked questions which demanded more complicated answers. I suppose if there are people that really know wine, they probably work in Bordeaux.

I was intrigued by one of his comments, concerning how different wine producers approach the creation of wines. It echoed a theory I have about producers, in that there are essentially two kinds: those who produce a wine to have a specific flavour that is generally accepted by the public as the way a wine is supposed to taste, and those who produce a wine in such a way as to let whatever taste it is meant to have to come through on its own. I think I prefer the second to the first, and Martin was quick to mention that he's had to taste some undrinkable wines because they taste of nothing but the oak barrels they have been aged in. These wines don't get the nod of certification, but they still get sold somewhere. In that case, if the taste of oak is a mark of quality, than I guess there are some that are drowning in it.

While we were at the Bar au Vins, we met an astounding number of non-French people (Maybe it's a tourist thing: we're more on the lookout for interesting places to go in a city than the people that live there. It was the same when we lived in Toronto). One couple we met lived in London, but had come to Bordeaux for the weekend. Airlines like Ryanair are really revolutionizing the way people in Europe live in that continent; if you book far enough in advance (far enough being about two to three weeks), you can get a flight for one penny plus the gate taxes to just about anywhere you can think of. And living in London, it must have made sense for them: a cost for a weekend away in England is much more expensive than it is in France, plus, it's a bit more exotic to be in an entirely different country. While it's revolutionizing leisure travel, if the economic model continues to operate like this, it could even revolutionize a work model. Imagine working five days a week in one country, and then flying home for the weekend. Or flying to Portugal to do your clothes shopping because it's half the price there. The only thing you'd have to put up with, of course, is the actual drudgery of flying.

One last thing about Bordeaux: we saw a movie there. Babel, with Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt. It was alright, if being a bit vague about why it had earned its title. The real highlight there was the theatre we saw the movie in, a converted cathedral named Utopia. A cafe downstairs and five theatres, it's a cinema-buff's delight, as evidenced by the packed theatre we saw our movie in. Our theatre was actually on the top floor of the building, and was decorated with frescoes and statues of Greek gods. Quite the environment.

We'd toyed with a few different Spanish destinations to start our trek into Spain and Portugal. Really, we had only a few weeks to occupy before connecting with our next WWOOF visit in the north of Portugal, and the weather had been souring in Bordeaux by the time we were preparing to leave. So we did what any sane person does when it starts to rain, head for the beaches. We decided to go to San Sebastian, in the Spanish Basque region on the other side of the Pyrenees mountain range.

The more Europe seems to be the same, the more I find myself looking for differences. The first thing I was hoping to find was that the electrical plugs would be different in each country, owing to the fact that I shelled out a few bucks for an extraordinarily nifty adapter which converts any plug to North American. With the exception of Ireland and Italy, this has not been the case. I don't know which country came up with the same plug that every other one seems to be using, but the end result is my fancy adapter has not been getting much of a workout. The differences aren't as extreme as I was looking forward to, other than the language: coffee is appreciated as a religion the further south and west you go it seems, but apart from that, the urbanites are all crazy about cell phones and dress like they just stepped off of a movie set.

However, Spain and Portugal have one noteable difference: their trains run on a track that is a different gauge from France, the only nation sharing a border. Thus, at some point in your journey, you have to switch trains. When we had enquired about trains to Spain in Montpellier, the guy at the counter told us that we'd have to switch at a border town called Irun. But when I ended up buying the tickets in Bordeaux, the lady scoffed at my Irun suggestion and told me that we'd be switching trains in Hendaye. I have to tell you it was a bit unnerving, having one's travel assumptions casually discarded by another official from the same company. Our conversation when something like this:

SNCF woman: Où voulez-vous voyager monsieur?

Me: San Sebastian en Espagne. Je comprend qu'il y a un train à onze heures, avec un changement en Irun?

SNCF woman: No... you switch in Hendaye. I will find it for you.

This happens more often than I'd like: they speak French, I speak French, they switch to English. I don't know whether it's because they want to practice their English, or they want to make me feel comfortable by speaking my (obviously) native language, or whether they want me to please for God's sake stop the massacre of their language with that accent of mine.

Me: (Not giving in) Hendaye? Mais un autre employé de la SNCF m'a dit que c'était Irun ou nous changeions. Aussi, j'ai vue la même au site-web SNCF.

SNCF woman: No, you go to Hendaye. The cost is eleven euros. How did you wish to pay?

Me: (Giving in) Do you take VISA?

As it turns out, you can switch in Irun or Hendaye, and it's actually more efficient to make the change in Hendaye, which is on the same run and twelve minutes earlier. I get now that she was being efficient at finding us the best route and best price, but at the time, I couldn't help feeling that somehow, somewhere, this woman's decision-making was going to haunt us. But it did work out, and we switched trains with plenty of time to spare.

The area around San Sebastian (or Donostia-San Sebastian, as it's now called) is the Basque region of Spain, which I am given to understand has had its own share of separatist sentiment. There is even a resistance movement which occasionally surfaces to blow things up and remind people there are those who wish there to be a thick black line separating the Basque region from that of Spain on the map. The bombings on the Madrid subways on March 11 were attributed by the government of the time to the Basque resistance movement, but it was largely seen as an Al Quaeda attack in response to Spain's involvement in the continued occupation of Iraq. On this issue the following election changed the government, and the Spanish military came home.

Meanwhile, in Basque Spain, there has been a dramatic campaign to reinforce the distinctive identity of the region. All street and roadsigns are now in both Basque and Spanish, and services are offered in both languages (as well as English, French, and a host of other languages; it still amazes me how many languages most people of Europe are able to speak). The result for me was that the first train ride into Spain was very other-worldly: normally we'd have seen signs that we could translate from French; now we had signs in Spanish and Basque, both of which meant very little in those first few hours. The Basque, especially. Apparently it's a very old language to which linguists are still having a problem trying to identify the origin.

We found quite quickly that things run a bit differently in Spain. For one thing, English is not very common, less common than French (which makes sense, given the proximity of that country as a neighbour across the mountains); in contrast to Portugal, where television and movies are subtitled, everything is dubbed in Spanish. The next difference is that people running pensions (boarding houses) don't necessarily sit around at home all day waiting for people to call; our first attempt at finding a place to stay was met with us ringing a doorbell and not getting any response. However we stopped in at a nearby internet café, and the proprietor, a woman named Cristina, not only answered many of our questions about San Sebastian, but even called up a friend of hers who ran a pension just down the street.

Eating in Spain tends to be a bit differently structured in Spain, as well. While most of Europe subscribes to the theory of having a mid-afternoon break, the generally hotter Spain spreads its schedule out a bit later in both directions. In a conversation with David, a local we'd chance to meet during our visit to San Sebastian, the meal schedule tends to work out like this:

Time	Event
7 AM	Breakfast; coffee and a bun
10-11 AM	Morning snack; a light sandwich
1-2 PM	Lunch; generally a two-hour affair with several course, wine and coffee. The major meal of the day, preceded or followed by a nap
5-7 PM	Evening snack, sometimes
10-11 PM	Dinner; similar to lunch, but a bit smaller, often earlier in winter due to the shorter day

In short, David boggled at the North American (and perhaps British) standard of three meals per day, the last at six o'clock at night. As well, the fact that we didn't take a siesta and had only an hour for lunch (or less) was very disconcerting to him.

It's even a bit different in San Sebastian, owing to the Basque heritage. There are certainly formal meals available, but most folks head to the bars, where dozens of different bite-sized (or two-bite sized, in some cases) portions of food are spread out for easy consumption. We did this a couple of times with varying degrees of success: some places made sure the food was fresh, while others I suspect let it linger a little longer than it should. As a result, I came down with my very first travel illness.

But before I go there, I'll mention a few things about San Sebastian that I enjoyed. San Sebastian is situated on the Bay of Biscay, and its own bay is subject to two tides per day. As a result it gets some pretty fantastic waves and is a major surfing hub. Our first walk out along the beach was the night we first arrived, while the tide was out. It was virtually deserted, windy, and loud with the sound of waves; in short, pretty magical. People had written messages in the sand that they knew would be soon washed over by the rising tide; pools of sand morphed into formations across the rocks, creating an other-worldly patchwork of art.

We spent longer than we'd originally intended in San Sebastian, mostly because it rained the second day and we wanted to give it a bit more of a chance, and gambled that it would clear up the next day. In the meantime, while it rained, we visited a wine and food convention that featured vendors from a great variety of food-related concerns. Mostly, meat and wine, but also chocolate producers, kitchen utensils and equipment, and coffee. A few observations:

Blue Mountain coffee is some of the most expensive coffee in the world, coming in at around fifty dollars (USD) per kilogram, harvested from Jamaica. I did get a chance to try a cup, and I can testify it has a very rich, robust flavour, but I don't know if I'd pay eight dollars for a demi-tasse cup. Apparently it is meticulously inspected for quality, so that only good beans are shipped. But the real reason for its high price is that over eight percent of the crop is purchased by Japanese middlemen, who keep the price artificially high. I suppose it doesn't help that this particular variety of coffee doesn't grow anywhere else.

Kyocera makes a series of knives out of ceramic instead of traditional metals, interesting in their design in that their blades are pure white. The advantage is that when cutting vegetables, the part that's just been sliced doesn't oxidize; they're also really, really sharp. And they're pretty reasonably priced.

In the end, the samples of food were small, while in comparison the samples of wine were large, so we wobbled out of there in search of a restaurant. We met up later with John, a Barcelonian baker who we'd met at the convention, and had some more Basque finger foods. At the same table we met Natalie and Lewis, who would end up leading us to the pension where I'd end up spending the weekend in bed as a feverish sick person.

But before I could look forward to that, we visited the nearby city of Bilbao, with its fancy Guggenheim museum (I know there is a Guggenheim museum in Venice, so the Guggenheims must get around), designed by noneother than Frank Gehry. It is an amazing space, with curving hallways that look down into other parts of the museum, cavernous spaces to host exhibitions, and what seems to be a permanent installation of immensely large shaped steel formations. Picture taking long sections of sheet metal and putting them into curves, circules, and waves; the sheets are easily fourteen feet high, so these are installations you walk through.

And then I lost a few days to being sick; not much to speak of there. Just a cold and flu, so those of you with overactive imaginations don't need to be recoiling in horror. While it was unfortunate to be sick in a nice place, it was a good location to be sick in; we had access to a kitchen and the room was inexpensive, so at least we weren't paying a fortune for me to be sick.

Eventually, I got better and we moved on to Madrid. Apart from visiting the city, there were really only two reasons for us to be there: to secure our tourist visas in order to visit India, and to catch a cheap Ryanair flight over to Portugal. We took a bus, which was actually faster and less expensive than a train; it also gave us an idea of just how big Madrid turned out to be. As far as cities go, it's got Toronto beat by a mile; the backup of traffic began an hour outside the city and we inched forward for most of it. Thankfully, the bus company must have built this delay into the schedule, as we arrived almost exactly on time.

Our visit to the Indian embassy will stand out in my memory as an example of how I would not organize an embassy's consular section for the purpose of acquiring a visa. To visit India, citizens of Canada require a visa of some sort: business, tourist, student (and probably a few others). All of these are pretty expensive: a tourist visa is fifty euros, plus (for us) a fee of twenty-two euros to fax our applications back to Canada to make sure we're not terrorists. Amy had diligently done some advance calling to see what would be required, and if we would need to leave our passports there. We were assured we would not. So we showed up to the embassy in the morning (applications are only processed in the morning) to find a room the size of a kitchen, packed with people. Two wickets were open, with an LED display above each showing a number. The numbers were not in sequence, so there was clearly a delineation of service of some time, but there was absolutely no indication of what it was. I decided to take a number for each line and wait.

And wait we did - almost two hours as the numbers inched by. Our mood wasn't improved by meeting an American who had applied for a working visa two weeks ago, only to be told that it would take two to three months to be processed. I could well understand his impatience. However in the intervening time we were able to get English forms for our application (none were available - nor did there have to be, I admit, after all we were in Spain - Amy had to bud in the line to make a quick plea for two) and get them filled out before our first number was called. The wrong number, as it turned out - that line was only for Indian citizens. So we waited some more, and were called. A few keystrokes later, we handed over our money and our passports, and were told that our visas (and passports) would be ready in two weeks. Not good news for us, as we were to take a plane to Portugal the following day. Again, we'd been assured that we wouldn't have to surrender our passports. So much for absolute information.

I'll admit I was ready to lose it; I was on the verge of telling them to stick their country, their tourist cash-grab and their backwards bureaucracy somewhere inappropriate, but Amy was much more politic than I. With a smile and a word, she was able to convince the desk staff of our plight, and they managed what I can only imagine they viewed was an exception for us - they photocopied our passports, and returned the originals to us. To their credit, they did explain that the visa itself must be sealed into the passport, so I understand that they needed to have it for that, but at the time, I wasn't seeing much logic. In the end we've left it that we are to return to Madrid with our (hopefully) approved application waiting for us, and then hand them our passports for two to three days for the consular staff to finish them off.

The rest of our stay in Madrid was essentially a waiting game for our flight to Portugal. It's a lovely city but we expect to spend more time in it on our return from our next WWOOF visit. While we were there, we ate well, walked around the drizzly city and generally tried to get a very small feeling of this immense place. Like most cities, it's broken down into neighbourhoods, and the one we were in seemed to be filled with import/export companies that all showed the same cheaply made blouses and pants. These are the kinds of places (it would seem) that you buy by the hundred. We'll give it more of a chance on our return.

Flying with Ryanair (a budget airline in Europe) has been quite simple to organize - you book and buy your seats online - but the actual doing of it has had its ups and downs. Our trip from Madrid to Porto was no exception. We arrived in plenty of time, checked our bags, and waltzed through security to gate 42. We waited there right up until the takeoff time with no hint from the staff of a delay. It was only when the sign changed from the Ryanair flight details to a flight with Air France details that the crowd went up in arms and wrung some information out of the staff: the plane was delayed. Gradually, new details surfaced: our flight would be departing from gate 46. So a hundred travellers and their carry-on luggage meandered down the hallway to gate 46, to set up a new vigil there. We would wait for fifteen more minutes before someone revealed we would be in fact departing from gate 47: another shuffling of a hundred passengers. We waited a good fifteen minutes there, only to be transferred back to gate 46; we barely had time to put our bags down when we were directed back to gate 47. But by this time they were taking our tickets, so I suppose someone had decided somewhere that this was really going to be the gate, and we all wandered past the gate and down the departure hall, where we waited for another ten minutes.

When they finally advanced the queue of people again, we were let out onto the tarmac where a but awaited us. I can only imagine what was going on with the bus while we the passengers were shuffling around in the airport: the bus going to gate 47 while we were going to gate 46. I'm sure there was a lot of fists waving in the air. At any rate, we finally got to the plane, but not without dozens of people making the joke that in all likelihood we would end up in Barcelona, not Porto.

But we did arrive in Porto, even if it was two hours later than scheduled. Apparently this is not uncommon in Spain. Porto is, as the name suggests, a port town, both in function and in product: historically, it was a great hub for shipping goods in and out of the country, but today it is better known for the producers of port wine. At least a dozen producers have large factories here, and all of them offer tours and tastings. We would tour only one - we happened to arrive on a national holiday - the Croft distillery.

So here's what I learned about port wine: the port that's fortified with brandy tends to be sold after three years (the "tawny" style) and the red port is just extra fermented and is sold after ten, twenty or thirty years. There's also a white port, drunk more as an aperatif. We sampled the red and the white, and while I'm not terribly partial to the stuff I could definitely see having the white port before dinner. My memories of port, from those who described its proper usage to me, were that it was supposed to "burn a hole through the food in your stomach" to allow you to eat more. Not a great introduction to it, I suppose, but if you drink enough of it, it does feel like its proper usage.

Porto also features a grand bridge of two levels, that allows the local metro to pass on the top and car traffic to pass on the bottom. The elevation difference between the two levels is at least three hundred feet, and it was designed by the same Eiffel who produced something special in Paris, so it does catch the eye. Not in the same way as the tower does, mind you, but it is pretty spectacular.

While we'd thought to stay in Porto and other places in the north for a few days, running into a fellow Canadian, an exchange student named Luke, convinced us that it would be worth taking a quick trip down to Lisbon to see the sights there; we'd also met a Portuguese fellow named José during our circus-act flight to Porto who gave us a few suggestions on what to see during our stay. So we embarked on a quick dip down south and back north again, stopping in Lisbon and Coimbra, before taking a final train up north towards our second WWOOF visit with Norman and Noeme in Valenca.

Like Madrid, Lisbon is a night-owl's paradise, but it is equally majestic with its share of huge buildings, monuments, promenades and parks. While we were there the city was in full swing to Christmas celebrations and you didn't see anyone walking through the shopping districts without at least two or three parcels or bags slung over their wrists.

Lisbon has a pretty simple subway system, but effective: one thing I haven't yet gotten used to are the difference between European subways and the Toronto subway. In Madrid and Lisbon (I've forgotten about Paris's, if we took it at all) the trains arrive from the right: in Toronto, it's from the left. Lisbon has about six routes while Madrid has twelve (it's a big spaghetti mess of lines). But the trains are nice, efficient, and relatively unpacked when we choose to board them. In Madrid the trains are blessedly free of advertising: I'm sure this will not last. Lisbon has the most comfortable seats I've ever sat in.

Two visits stand out for me during our brief visit to Lisbon: a day-trip to Sintra, a small town about an hour's train ride away, noteworthy for the palaces and castles that are situated there. We devoted our time to one, the Quinto de Regaleria, an estate formerly owned by royalty, bought in the early twenties by a doctor when I guess the monarchy was hard-up for cash. It's a sprawling estate property, that the doctor completely renovated with the help of an Italian theatre designer he'd hired; with a flair for the dramatic and overtones of mythology and Dante's books, there are at least twenty areas on the property all connected by walking paths: a huge subterranean well, encircled by a spiralling staircase; a gothic chapel; a waterfall, complete with stepping stones across the water; charming grottos with statuary; and, of course, the estate itself which has been set up as a museum that documents the overhaul of the property. By the time we had finished touring around the property, we had little time left before the other castles would be closing, so we decided not to try and pack too much into the day and returned to Lisbon.

The other visit was to the Belem area of Lisbon, a suburb to the west, famous for its Pasteleria de Belem, where they serve up a type of pastry they're famous for. Neither Amy or I are great fans of custard, but that's essentially what they are, and they're delicious. The bakery is constantly pumping out dozens of the things, waiters bringing out table-sized trays of piping hot Pastels de Belem where they are bought up by patrons either to eat at tables or to take to go.

From Lisbon we hopped on another bus to Coimbra, a student town, with a long-reaching history of academic tradition that continues to this day. You will still see students dressed in traditional ensembles of black suits and cowls with a white collar; apparently (according to José) there is a strict social system and rivalry between the different academic years. Whole gangs of students get together at the gates of the old city at night, on the prowl for younger-year students that are out after midnight curfew. If they find them, the older ones can cut the hair of the younger; as well, an older-year student can "save" a younger-year. It seems like it'd be a fun place to go to school...

Coimbra was also an exceedingly cheap place to eat, probably given the student population. There are at least two cafeterias that served up huge portions for a pittance: given that I was recovering from a cold at the time, the addage of feeding a cold was well-served. The food was simple, but well-cooked; a welcome relief from some restaurants that feel you have to douse your food in oil, butter and salt to overcome any problems with taste.

We stayed at another pension in Coimbra, where another José tended to us over the four days we stayed there. As we were the only guests during the week, it wasn't that complex for him; he's a short, older guy with snow-white hair and stubby fingers. Any time we saw him, he was dressed in a dark blue wool overcoat and looked very much like he'd just walked up from the docks. He was a really neat guy from which to get the low-down of the city, but the most memorable moment for us was our discussion of what to do with the room key he'd given us. As we were planning to stay for the week, we hadn't figured this would be an issue, but he began by assuring us that when we went out in the morning, we could just leave the key in the door, which we were obviously less comfortable with than just taking the key with us. I will never forget him exclaiming in a heavily-accented English, "It's not hard - when you go out, you just to leave the key, in the door. It is no problem."

We were trying to figure it out after we hesitantly agreed to do so and he left, when he came back a few moments later and explained that he'd been a bit confused and then remembered we were staying for a few days. What he'd described was the procedure for when we were going to leave Coimbra. He would also forget the next day that we'd paid him for the previous night, which lead to a lot of fretting for us whether or not we would be paying again. But in the end he managed to find our money.

It rained a lot while we were in Coimbra: buckets of rain at times, but we really can't complain as we've had such good weather up until now. And as it happened, we brought sun to Norman and Noeme, but I'll save that for the next dispatch. Happy Christmas to all!

The left side of Italy

If you recall from my last posting about how walled stone cities seem to be built in Italy, if not the rest of Europe, you'll find when visiting Montepulciano that it's no exception to the rule. Find a hill, build a fortress on the top of it, surround it with buildings, build a wall. Cover every piece of soil with slabs of stone. Several hundred years later, install tourist information offices.

Let's not hide it - we came to Montepulciano for the wine. It's a wine town, and the surrounding countryside is planted full with grapevines. When we pulled into the bus station in Montepulciano, our prospects did not look very good: arriving on the weekend, and the place we had in mind turned out to be a bed breakfast on the outskirts of town to which only regional buses would reach, seven kilometers away. A quick check of the math involved in bus tickets showed us that the money we'd save on accommodation would be eaten up by transit to and from the city, and, we'd have to be out of the city by seven thirty at night if we didn't want a seven-klick hike in the dark, without sidewalks, being passed by Italian race car drivers.

So we did what most travellers do - we explored other options. A sign posted in the bus station offered rooms at a reasonable price, and our guidebook for Italy also promised a budget option in the heart of the city. So with two options, we struck up our two-person Italian phone call routine. Amy connected with the woman on the other phone, got the sense that if we went right now, we'd have a room, so that's just what we did.

It turned out as we got there, that the number at the bus station would have led us to the same place. The Il Cittino, a hostel-style hotel and restaurant, is located pretty much in the exact centre of Montepulciano, which involves much climbing of gradual hills and winding through switchback streets. Montepulciano isn't that big - you could cross from one side to the other in half of an hour - but when you're lugging packs around, every step up a hill feels like a trudge up a mountain.

Il Cittino is run by one woman - Marcella - a lovely woman who is a reserved dynamo of energy. She'd have to be: in addition to running a hotel that can cater to probably twenty people in a dozen separate rooms, she does all the cooking for a twelve-table restaurant. Lately she's been doing it single-handedly as her one permanent employee is recovering from an illness; however, she does have a weekend helper, a student from the nearby university of Siena.

We also met Henrik, one of the most interesting people I've yet to meet during our travels. Henrik isn't his real name; he's pretty secretive, and I've no wish to offend him by announcing to the world of his presence in Montepulciano. Henrik's story is pretty romantic: he came to Montepulciano seven years ago, just passing through, and his vehicle broke down. As the fog lifted, he saw the steeple of the nearby cathedral San Biagio, and it must have been a pretty spectacular vista, as he decided to make Montepulciano a permanent residence (as well, his vehicle decided not to start again, despite three days of repair, so I guess it was meant to be).

Henrik offered up to us his favourite impressions of Montepulciano: where we should and shouldn't go, what were the best deals, where was the best wine. It is fascinating to hear him speak, his English couched in a Italian accent that also betrays his northern European heritage. He is clearly a knowledgeable man, well-versed in many topics, but to describe any of them to you would be to give away points of his identity. I'll just say that it was great to spend time talking to him, and we hope to see him again during a return visit to Montepulciano.

We ate out for an early dinner at a local cafe-restaurant, Al Gambo di Gatto, where we had a light meal and some pretty great local wine. The owner, Emmanuel, and his wife Laura, were a great team with an obviously well-practiced routine: she would discuss the menu with the guests, translating where necessary, and take the orders; he would discuss the wines, profferring three for a taste and one for a selection. In Montepulciano there are two basic types of bottles, the first being the younger, cheaper selections that are aged for six to eight months and come from a variety of local grapes: fruity, lively wines. The second selection are the wines made from the local Montepulciano Nobili grapes, and aged for two to three years (or more) in oak. They're more robust, very tannic, and great cutting for through meat and game dishes. We went for a Nobili.

The presentation of the meal, and the warmth with which it was served, impressed us both, and moved me to the point of wanting to come back and do an interview for a story devoted just to the two of them and their history: why did they come to Montepulciano? What's their philosophy behind running a restaurant? So I discussed this with a very enthusiastic Laura, who suggested I return the next day when the restaurant opened.

In the meantime, we toured around Montepulciano, soaking in the flavour of yet another step-back-in-time city. That night we decided to attend what can only be described as an artistic event: "The Shop of Wilde Dreams", a combination of live jazz, video and painting. While I still am a bit unclear as to the actual order of things, my feeling is that the artists were all supposed to work off of each other when producing their art: the jazz players would play some music, the painter would react to that when painting, the video artist would project different video, and so on. But in hindsight I think the jazz artists had a few well-rehearsed numbers, and the video guy clearly had only so much material to draw upon. Only the painter could be truly improvised, and even then, there's no way of knowing whether or not he'd done his piece before. In the end it was worth seeing, and the painting was clearly inspired, but the jazz left me a bit hollow. The players - a saxophonist, keyboardist, bass player and drummer - were clearly experts, though it only became clear during their more formal numbers. In what I am going to assume was an attempt to inspire the painter, they did their best to produce a disorganized cacophany of noise, which you get the point of in a few minutes, and (at least, for me) get tired of after a few more minutes. I would have loved to stay for a few more minutes at the end to inspect the painting a bit more closely, but when they started up for their encore set of cat-strangling and screaming amidst syncopated drumming and bass-string screeching, we found it too much and evacuated the premises.

The next day I set out to do my interview, armed with my questions. When I got their, Emmanuel had no clue who I was. Absolute blank, despite my attempts to inspire some recollection as to why I'd returned. We hit a wall of miscommunication: him with little English, me with little Italian, and after a quick cup of coffee, I left. A bit crestfallen, I'll admit. I rebounded though, with a photographic tour of Montepulciano: Amy and I had separated for the morning while I was going to do the interview, and I did get some photos I liked.

We spent much of the rest of our visit walking through the city, talking to Henrik, and tasting wine. In short, a great visit. But as the weekend drew to a close we made plans to visit our next Italian city, Siena.

A short bus ride from Montepulciano delivered us into Sienna, and after looking around at some of the expensive hotel options, we realized a visit to this city had the potential to be very expensive. So we cut our costs by staying at one of the city's three youth hostels, ours located relatively inconveniently about two kilometers north of the train station, the train station being one kilometer north of the city. Not having a map which actually included enough of the city to show us where the hostel actually was, we waited at the station for bus service to resume, having asked enough people to get a reasonably certain idea of which one we should actually take.

A side comment: when travelling, asking people for directions is a good idea. However, you should ask multiple people, and at various stages of your journey. Just because the person you talk to sounds absolutely certain about the turns, distances and landmarks, doesn't mean you've actually understood it correctly, or that they really know what they're talking about.

The bus dropped us off at the hostel, a former university residence building. We spoke to Giuseppe, an older, wiry Italian man with a pleasant demeanor but no-nonsense attitude when it came to business. We could certainly have a private room, breakfast was one euro and ninety four euro cents per day, all payable in advance. And in cash. Of course, we didn't have enough so I'd have to walk down to the nearest cash machine, to which he gave me directions... you can guess the rest. I did eventually find it, and spent a few moments cursing when the door wouldn't open. I tugged on it for a few moments before deciding to try pushing the door; another curious feature of European design is that it can be the exact opposite of North American design. Light switches are pushed down to activate instead of up; some doors open out instead of in. For whatever reason, I'd been conditioned that the door should be pulled open, and this one didn't work that way.

Breakfast is worth commenting about, to the extent that the lesson learned there was don't buy three days' worth of breakfast chits if you don't know what you're going to get. Or generally, none at all if you're staying at a hostel. They are universally cheap and terrible. The coffee was, from hell.

We decided to forego the bus and walk into Sienna's old city. It turned out to be a relatively easy walk, with the exception of a few stretches where there were no sidewalks and the traffic whizzed by on the left. We walked single file, which was only complicated by the appearance of walkers coming the other way. But it only took us about a half an hour to get to the city on foot.

Sienna: another timeless, walled fortress city. I hate to think that we were getting overexposed to midieval cities, but it could possibly be. It was impressive to look at. Its streets were overflowing with character. But after a while, you just wished that you wouldn't get so lost all the time.

It was in Sienna that we would meet Lisa, the proprietor of Sienna's sole English book store. We were hoping to find the next in the series of a book that we'd been lent and had both enjoyed, and a quick search on google had turned up Lisa's store in Siena as a possible place where it might be found.

Lisa is an American transplant to Italy, having moved to Sienna some ten years ago from New York; three years ago she opened her store. A very knowledgeable and likeable person, we found the hours ticking away as we talked, finally getting around to the actual reason we'd come by - the next in the series of books we were reading. It wasn't in her stock, but she did sell us two other books that we have both since enjoyed. So if you find yourself in Sienna with a need for books in English, make your way to the Book Shop, Galleria S. Pietro 19, Sienna (+39 0577 226594).

It's at this point that I must confess some time has passed since we were actually in Siena - things have gotten busy - so the details are starting to get sketchy on what we saw and did while in the city. But I'll try to cover the big points.

We visited the Medici fortress, a huge structure on the west side of the old city (at least, it looked like the west side to me. You'll know it when you see it). Essentially, it's a big tall rectangular castle with around six diamond-shaped structures extending out from the points. The building has been reclaimed for other non-fortress uses, such as housing a musical conservatory, a high-end restaurant, and a wine museum that stocks over 1,600 different bottles from all of Italy. You would have thought that we would have visited this mecca of wine, but in the end the timing didn't work out, and we didn't make our way back there.

We also took in a visit to a museum that, in its previous life, had been a hospital dedicated to the care and well-being of the city's less fortunate. St. Maria de la Scala is undergoing constant renovation, and it is expected to continue into the long range future, so there was a fair amount of background noise to our visit. However, the main entry hall was worth the price of admission just by itself. Easily two hundred feet long and fifty feet wide, the walls and ceiling were covered in frescos that depicted historic scenes including characters from the hospital's history. As we toured the hospital it became clear just how huge the structure actually is: section after section of sculpture, paintings, a small chapel, an underground section devoted to an entire collection of Egyptian artifacts, even a special exhibition of canes and walking sticks. I think we spent most of the afternoon there and left with a ravenous appetite.

At night we had the idea of perhaps seeing a movie - something we hadn't done for weeks. We'd passed a poster for the latest Woody Allen movie and thought that perhaps it was subtitled, so we tracked down the theatre. Only to find out that it was in fact dubbed, and during our conversation with Carolina, the theatre's ticket agent, she suggested that unless we really understood Italian, we weren't going to enjoy it. That didn't stop her from having a good long conversation with us, in which we talked about all sorts of things both Canadian and Italian. Speaking with Carolina was interesting: she had moved to Siena from Naples, where in the south of Italy unemployment has become a real problem. This is especially the case since the formation of the European Union and inflation that came with the adoption of the Euro. She spoke of the cost of housing (both renting an apartment and the dream of owning a house - well outside of her means) and the cost of living, both of which had risen dramatically over the past seven years. All the while I couldn't help but wonder how it was then, with this increase in prices, that the cost of transit is so cheap. Our bus tickets that took us across Italy were a pittance, as were the cost of our train tickets from place to place.

Finding a place to connect the laptop to the internet has been a bit of an ongoing challenge - wi-fi connections seem to turn up where you least expect them - and this was even more the case in Sienna. As I'd written previously, outside a banco privato we happened to see a horde of people sitting on the marble steps with their laptops. There was nothing organized, just a conglomeration of people - probably it is locally known that it's a good place to find a wi-fi signal, but for everyone else, it's just a bit of a deduction to figure out that if someone's got a laptop, they probably have wi-fi. At any rate I've already extolled just how much of a contrast it was - modern laptops in front of an ancient building, but it also summed up Italy in many ways. The people are innovative, but also thrifty. Free wi-fi is relatively rare in Italy, if not Europe, so when you find it, you take advantage of it.

I have to digress a moment to talk about the coffee in Italy. It's been a bit of a bum ride for Amy, who is a devoted tea drinker, to visit France and Italy where a cup of tea can be almost twice as expensive as a cup of coffee (and this is for a poorly-made cup of tea with a cheap tea bag). The coffee in Italy (outside of the hostels) was universally superb. The Italians have got it down pat, as opposed to the French, who produce a coffee which is from time to time just "okay". Avoid the "cafe americano" - it's not worth it and most places don't really know how to make it anyway. You just get used to drinking the smaller espresso coffee, which contains exactly the same caffeine hit, just in a more compact package.

We left Sienna to head to the Cinque Terra for the weekend. The Cinque Terra is a loosely-knit community of five picturesque fishing villages, linked by road, rail and walking paths. All five of the villages are perched on the edge of the Mediterranean sea, which makes for some pretty spectacular panoramic views along the walking paths. We opted to rent an apartment for the weekend so we could make our own meals (something we had been missing for a while) in the southern-most of the five villages, Rio Miaggiore. We'd called ahead, as you never know how busy a popular tourist desination will be - but when we arrived, it was clear that we could have found anything. We were greeted by at least two people looking to see if we were interested in renting an apartment, and an older Italian lady - Mama Rosa, it turned out - held out a sign offering rooms from a paltry fifteen euros. While Amy looked around for the usual array of tourist information (maps, guides, etc.) Mama Rosa's husband (Papa Rosa?) listed to me all the places he'd been while serving as the engineer of an oil tanker. It got to the point where he could have tried to list places he hadn't been. At any rate, we'd already had a place reserved, and later on we encountered a sign that indicated we shouldn't accept offers from places that appear to be amazing deals - as they tend to just pack people in and the conditions can be less than appealing. Good enough, then.

The towns are so small they don't have maps to provide to tourists: they are the definition of one-street towns. In the case of Rio Maggiore, the street ascends upwards towards the mountains, at a forty-five degree angle, with shops, hotel booking agents and speciality stores flanking you on either side. There wasn't a McDonald's to be seen but there were no less than three CORA outlets, disguised in small shops. I suppose you have to stock the villages somehow.

Our meals throughout the weekend were different pasta dishes, accompanied by local Cinque Terra wines. The bottom must have fallen out of the fishing industry, as we didn't see a lot of it going on - but tourism is unquestionably the larger source of revenue now, for better or worse, as well as a thriving wine industry. The arable land available in Cinque Terra is a series of terraces that ascends the mountains, thus, everything has to be done by hand. As far as the quality of the wines, well, they didn't knock our socks off, but they were certainly very pleasant.

And now, the walking trails. We'd very efficiently planned to do our walks over the weekend: however, a signficant rainstorm had forced the regulatory body that oversees the trails to close the trail between Rio Maggiore and Corniglio (villages 3 and 5, basically) for safety concerns. The tourist office underscored that while the path between Monterossa and X was still open, the quality of the trail wasn't going to be very good, and it wasn't recommended that we walk it. We decided that rather than wait for our next visit to Cinque Terra, we'd risk the conditions. So we hopped a train to Monterossa and started our walk along the trails back to Corniglio, where we'd hop on a train back to Rio Maggiore.

The trails themselves between Corniglio and Monterossa are not for the faint of heart, the first leg taking over two hours to traverse and making a path up and down the terraces. You find yourself doing a lot of climbing, only to follow a path around the mountain and then descend back down into a valley. To top it off there are no guard rails, so coupled with some slippery, muddy paths it can make for some pretty slow going. I think we chose the right direction as it meant we could pause in Vernazza, have a look around and something to eat, and then hit the second and (slightly) less difficult path. Having just described how difficult the paths could be, the views were worth it, and the paths themselves showed off the diversity of the Cinque Terra region. It made me wonder at how difficult it would have been to cut into the mountainside and build the stair-stepping terraces on which so much is grown.

At the base of Rio Maggiore, a small marina boasts a few cafes and, further down the seaside path, a rocky beach. I remember this kind of beach from my previous visit to Nice. The ferocity of the waves means that thousands of stones get rolled up onto the beach, slowly getting chipped and eroded until they become small pebbles. The sound of the waves crashing onto the rocks is incredible to listen to, as it gives you an indication of just how strong the waves are. Occasionally there is also a moment, a pause in the waves crashing onto the stoney shore, where you can hear the water receding and carrying away the thousands of smaller stones that aren't heavy enough to remain on the shoreline. It's quite hypnotic and we spent a few hours there.

While we were there they never did take the path between Rio Maggiore and Corniglio, as the conditions actually deteriorated on the paths during our stay (they even closed the paths between the other villages). We did do another hike (again, alot of climbing up through the terraced mountain sides) that took us to the western end of the five villages, where we encountered a nature reserve that gave us a panoramic view of the Mediterranean sea. In short: Cinque Terra is well worth the visit, but I don't think you need to spend a lot of time there to appreciate it.

We had figured out already that our next stop was going to be to visit my cousin Mary, who I hadn't seen for over twenty years, who lives on the other side of the Alps in France. We'd already booked our train tickets from Torino, but it meant spending the night there. So we took the train to Torino and spent a very few hours there. My impressions of the city are scattered, but essentially, they cleaned it up for the Olympics a few years ago and it shows. A new train station was added to allow access to the Olympic facilities, and the tourist office has a wealth of information at their fingertips. They armed us with a list of the hotels in Torino, a map of the city, and we set off to find ourselves a reasonably inexpensive place to spend the night.

Our first stop, the Albergo Romana, did not impress. For fifty euros we would have the pleasure of a dingy guest room, washroom down the hall. I haven't haggled much this trip, but I really couldn't believe the room was worth it. In addition, while I'm not an expert on tourism, I felt that we weren't in the prime tourist season and that it shouldn't be so expensive. The hotel guide even went so far as to list high- and low-season prices. So I suggested it was perhaps more expensive than we'd like, and offered forty euros, but despite us being the only people in the place, she didn't budge. So we did, and left - no hard feelings.

Our next stop, just down the street, was completely different. Granted, by this point we had been walking around a bit with our packs, but the people were nice, the room was excellent with its own toilet and shower, and internet access, for five euros more than the last place. I guess with the success of the Olympics, the whole city has inflated its prices, but at the very least, the consumer should feel like they are getting something for the money.

The train from Torino to Chambery, France was a ride of having one's face pressed up against the glass. For us, mountains are pretty amazing - yes, Canada has the Rockies but we haven't seen them yet - so crossing the Alps was stunning. There are even more impressions to be conveyed about the alps, but I'll save them for the next installment.