Greencaviar Travel

"September is supposed to be the best time to visit Spain", a friend from Madrid said in an email, "The heat of summer should have passed, but the air still warm." After checking the car rentals and RENFE (train/rail system in Spain) schedule, I found the tour bus to be the most cost-effective and the best way to go. Soon enough we were on a flight from Paris to Madrid to catch the bus to Southern Spain. The following day, we left our very comfortable hotel early in the morning to find the tour operator office closed. So we decided to have breakfast at the restaurant next door. One hour past the scheduled departure date, the office still has not opened. I was afraid the trip got canceled. Encouraged to see a piece of luggage by the door, I went out to check if there were other travelers around. We found the owners of the luggage, a young American couple, waiting at the other side of the doorway. As the door opened, RC and I followed the young couple inside. ...

 By Alice Odena                         His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, He sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.  The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed.    But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress [1] . A fter watching a television footage of smoke billowing from a nuclear plant after the natural disaster in Japan, I thought back to the book I read in graduate school – “The Ends of the Earth”, a travel book written by Robert Kapl...

The scent of ‘ tropical fruits, sugared oranges, lemons, and limes, redolent with lightly exotic mountain greens ’ filled the air.  No, it was not from the fresh Santa Cruz mountain air, but of the ‘Volcano’ candle I left in the car. The weather had been strange this winter – unseasonably warm, followed by rain and cold.  The sun finally came after a week of rain.  It was late February, and the Santa Cruz Mountains felt crisp.  I was driving on Highway 17 heading towards the Monterey Peninsula.  I’ve always taken this same route to take the kids to Santa Cruz boardwalk during spring break or play tour guide to relatives and friends to Monterey and Carmel.  This time, I had one purpose in mind – to get some sand from the beach in Carmel, so I could copy the candle display at the specialty shop where I bought the ‘volcano’ scented candles. Leaving the Santa Cruz Mountains and the town of Capitola behind, I passed a stretch of farmland, slightly naked...

I would not normally write about places I haven't seen or things I have yet to experience.   But I was inspired to write, and motivated to achieve my next goal by Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses.” I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone … ---  ---  ---  --- Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield . After a very difficult year,  I’m even more intent on my next journey – to run the Paris marathon, the Bay to Breakers and the walk of St. James in Galicia, Spain.  It may be overly ambitious to run the Paris marathon in April this year.  But  I’ve been spending my time and energy pre...