Micronations

Summer 2016 -- Micronations

This summer, with a couple weeks before school resumed, I took a train journey across Europe. The theme of my peregrination this time was the pursuit of micronations: small countries that, through fluke of geography or politics, played the game of European statecraft sufficiently well to run their own course into the 21st century.

I had previously visited San Marino and the Vatican. The former is composed of an impressive fortress atop a hill. The independence of San Marino was a matter of military might -- with a hefty dose of not-worth-it from opposing generals. The Vatican is independent because it, too, is built around an impregnable buttress: that of the Catholic church.

My first visits were to Guernsey and Jersey, two rainy islands nestled in the crook of Brittany's embrace, but steadfastly English (since the Norman Conquest, they claimed, paradoxically). The stench of offshore banking (technically-legal money laundering, really) is abundant in Jersey, but the islands are pervaded more by their history than the present. Fortresses, tunnels, ancient hedgerows: these are the quaint ingredients that comprise the Channel Islands.

I had expected to find that micronations in mountains would be valleys surrounded by unassailable mountain ranges. The most similar to that description was Andorra, whose population (and tobacco farms and ski resorts) fall into a few river valleys surrounded by mountains. But this was not a fiefdom that survived in isolation for centuries. Its approaches were steep, but as passable for trade as they would have been for foreign military.

Monaco, likewise, was in a mountainous area, but it was not delibeated by craggy peaks. Liechtenstein was the converse of my thesis: a short span of lush farmland on the east bank of the Rhine, lowland borders with an impossibly-high granite spine.

If the micronation is not defined by geographic inaccessibility, neither is it culturally distinctive. The Brits on the Channel Islands were welcoming and warm (the opposite of their weather, incidentally), while the residents of the wealthier enclaves of Andorra and Liechtenstein were more haughty and self-impressed. Monaco was too drunk with hedonism and money to bother comparing.

The mission of the trip was to visit small countries, but my happiest moments were in small towns: time with a friend in Brighton, the "gite d'étape" of l'Hospitalet, and confusedly medieval Ventimiglia.

The UK

Dec 2015 -- The UK

I've been bumbling around the UK a bit this week. The small towns and countryside are marvelous, of course. Some things have been on my mind, travel-related.

1. I have a theory that islands breed walls. Okay, so there are lots of reasons to put up walls, hedgerows, hedges, and whatnot. But I've been seeing a lot of them on the islands I've been visiting. The Isle of Man has lots of old stone walls and hedgerows. Malta is triangulated with ancient stone walls. Cyprus has them. So do the Canary Islands, Heligoland, and Cuba. Crete is historically famous for being home of the labyrinth, which is really just a mess of walls, when you think about it. I think Prince Edward Island has more walls than the mainland, but I'll have to ask my sister.  It's all terribly claustrophobic. Worst of all, though, is Capri. That place is like a rat's maze.

2. The shops in the UK have deliberately-confusing names. Why doesn't Boots sell footware? Why is Carphone Warehouse selling cell phones? Why can I not buy metalwork from WH Smith?

3. In the latest Bill Bryson book, there is a quip about how ghostwriters are responsible for so much of the books we read these days, followed by the claim that this very book (Road to Little Dribbling) is ghostwritten. I haven't been able to find any mention of this in the various middling reviews. So, (a) what does that say about book reviewers, that they missed such an interesting nugget? and (b) I'm pretty disappointed by that. I'm okay with celebrity books and the latest "Tom Clancy" novels being ghostwritten. But Bill Bryson is an author, and the book is purported about his latest travels around Brittain. Did he actually make the travels, but then just get someone else to type up the jokes? Why?

4. I've been thinking about how we sometimes build cities around exquisite pieces of natural geography, and how the best cities embrace that. My hometown, sort of, is Halifax, which is wrapped around, and wrapped up in, the eponymous harbour. Everything in Halifax (and Dartmouth, and Bedford, too, if you include the basin) is located relative to the harbour. Ulaanbaatar is sat between four mountains, the southern of which is sacred, special, forested, and visible from nearly everywhere in the city. Riga has the mighty Daugava river. Vancouver has two: the river, and the mountains in North Van. Naples and Havana both have their waterfronts.

But other cities either don't have such a feature, or have expanded so much they grew out (or away from) the feature. Ancient Athens had the Acropolis, but has now expanded so much that it's merely a landmark today. London, Paris, and Rome grew out of their rivers. Calgary and Seoul, too. Toronto, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles all have great shorefronts, but grew away from the shore, forsaking their wonderful locales in favour of urban sprawl.

The best I've seen so far is Douglas, the capital town of the Isle of Man. It has a superb promenade, but is also dwarfed by a hill that is populated by sheep! I felt comfortable there, as if the sheep were watching over me.

Cuba

July 2015 -- Cuba

I had a week free during my summer sojourn to North America for conference season, so I decided to see how Cuba is doing these days.

Of course, everyone is talking about the prospect of the USA dropping the decades-long embargo. Although there is no small amount of resentment, most Cubans view the "normalization of relations" to be a good thing. Although trade (and tourism) has continued with Europe and Canada since the floor fell out in 1991, there is simply a shortage of international trade in a country that is moving toward liberal market reforms.

I started my trip in the old city of Havana, where I stayed at a casa particular (similar to a bed and breakfast, typically USD 20-30 per night) for three nights. This was a great launching-off point to explore the city: el Malecon, the boardwalk roadway; the famous haunts of Hemmingway; the bustling squares; and the vibrant cafes. I especially enjoyed talking with a man who operates a century-old camera in Parque Central. Other highlights included the old (not antique) American cars, the mojitos, and the omnipresent music.

From Havana, I traveled with Viazul, a foreigner-friendly bus service to Playa Larga, a tiny town about 150 km to the south of the capital. Playa Larga is at the northern end of the famous Bay of Pigs, and was the site of a secondary invasion (the main fighting took place down the coast at Playa Giron) in 1961. The area is bordered on the west by the nearly-impenetrable Cienaga de Zapata, a large saltwater swamp, that is home to dozens of species of birds. In winter, it is a nesting ground for migratory flamingos; the spring is mating season for the world's smallest hummingbird. During the summer, however, a few species were on show, including a species of non-migratory flamingo (barely discernible in the image below).

Cuba is too hot during the summer. I loved visiting, and would love to go back. For now, it is an affordable destination, and safe enough that there is no need to barricade oneself in an all-inclusive resort. The people are friendly and kind, and will often stop you on the street just to chat (and not, as in most places, to try to make a quick buck off a tourist). Cuba is a country worth visiting, and enjoying.

Practical notes: a Visa credit card will work in the ATMs at banks in Havana, but American cards will not (and neither will MasterCard, or others). It's best to bring cash (Euros or Canadian Dollars) to exchange at good rates. There is essentially no internet connectivity available, but you can send pricy SMS text messages abroad in a pinch. There is a good app called Cuba Junky that has (offline) contact information for hundreds of Casa Particulars around the island; try to download some offline maps, too.

Belarus

May 2015 -- Belarus

I went to Belarus for a long weekend. First, and foremost: whatever you are expecting, Belarus will surprise you.

The above statue of Lenin, in front of the central government building, is a good place to start. It fronts on Independence Square, which is covered in garden plots. A sprawling shopping mall can be found underground.

Another highlight on Independence Square is the Church of Saints Simon and Helena, named after the deceased children of a wealthy Catholic Belarussian. The church survived as a movie studio during the Soviet years, and has been fully restored. Beside the church is the Belarussian KGB headquarters: the guidebooks describe the building as being larger than life -- but perhaps, that is symbolic of the role of the KGB in modern life.

Life in Minsk is pretty tranquil. The river Svislach runs through town, lined with parks and bicycle trails. While the city itself seems like a nice place to live, it is a bit dull for a tourist. There is a decent art gallery, and a few old-ish buildings (Minsk has famously burned down 18 times), but nothing like the spirit of living history you get in places like Riga or Budapest. Khrushchev, when visiting Minsk as leader of the USSR, asked to be taken to the historical center of town -- prompting a decade-long effort to rebuild some of the earliest homes on Trinity Hill.

My favourite story is about this toilet building. Apparently it was constructed as revenge on the owner of the building in the back by an unpaid architect. The two buildings are the only structures in Alexandrovsky Garden. Apparently, during a state visit, the leader of Mongolia was accidentally locked in the toilet for more than an hour by an overzealous soldier.

This kvas was pretty tasty.

So, Belarus isn't really a tourist- or backpacker-friendly place. But if you decide to go...

1. The visa takes some sort. Either get it at an embassy and take the train (cheaper) or, if that's not possible, you can get it at the Minsk airport if you pre-arrange your support documents. For the latter, you (a) book your hotel and airface, (b) arrange for visa support, either through your hotel or with an agent (I went with belvisa.com, expensive but good; make sure they forward your documents to the airport visa office a couple days before you arrive), and (c) fill out and print the visa application form, with a passport picture. When you arrive at the airport, (d) get medical insurance (a couple euros per day) on the main level, then go upstairs (there are signs) to the visa office where you (e) pay for the visa. You need to (f) fill in an entry form that you get on the airplane, but that goes to the passport control folks.

2. There is a train to the airport! It takes about an hour to travel the 40 km to the city, but is cheaper than a taxi (less then 2 euros for the train, or 25-30 euros for a taxi) and more comfortable (look at the picture above). To get on the train, look for the bus on the left as you exit from arrivals -- this bus will take you around the corner to the small train terminal, which isn't visible from the arrivals area.

3. The metro is superb. It is the real people-mover of the city. Rides are 4500 (about 30 cents). You buy a red token at the window, then drop it into the turnstile (which rings an alarm if you mess up). Trains come every 3 to 10 minutes, and run from ~6 to ~midnight. Outside of Minsk, the train is the best way to get around, although the road system seems decent, so you could probably do alright with a rented car.

4. You'll "have the country to yourself", as one person put it. This isn't true -- there are almost 10 million people living in Belarus, and almost 2 million in Minsk -- but the complicated and expensive visa keeps backpackers and casual travellers away. Most of the travellers I met were there for business or to visit family. 

Balkans

April 2015 -- The Balkans

Sometimes you feel like hitting the road and just going. I felt like that in a big way, so for Spring break, I set myself up for a whirlwind tour of the western Balkans. I wanted to try to understand how the breakup of Yukoslavia, and the subsequent wars, had defined this corner of Europe.

I started in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. It is an odd sort of place, with a still-running UN camp and a Bill Clinton statue welcoming visitors into town. A newly-rebuilt cathedral, the horrifically-ugly university library, and a broad clean boulevard mark the downtown. At the national art gallery was an exhibition of deeply-moving photographs from Albania's blood-feud reconciliations.

I spent an afternoon in Skopje's awkward downtown. It feels like a fake Paris, with huge ornate buildings towering over a river. A wonderful fort guarding the city from a nearby hill has been largely ignored. I liked the spirited old town. The most memorable part of a visit to Skopje, though, is surely the overwhelming number of statues. I mean, seriously. There were statues of hermits, textbook authors, and teachers -- while I condone the idea, it ended up being a bit much!

A memorable bus ride through the mountains into Montenegro (via Kosovo, again) was a reminder of the mountainous terrain of Europe's "Southern Alps". I spent a couple hours in a small border town, near the sea, drinking tea. Montenegro is a beautiful country.

Next, I found myself in Dubrovnik. The old city was bombed during the war, but is looking pretty good these days. The highlight was sitting on the edge of the walls, staring at the Adriatic and feeling the cool wind.

I spent two nights in the wonderful city of Mostar, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The city is famous for its bridge and war wounds (there are many derelict, bombed-out buildings that are caught in legal limbo). My goal, however, was a visit to the superb United World College in Mostar, where I was greeted with tremendous hospitality by some fellow teachers.

The road from Mostar to Sarajevo follows a beautiful series of canyons, making for a happy morning. Sarajevo was suffering from a snowstorm, and Banja Luka was a tad stale (despite the best efforts of the bus terminal regulars), so I passed through both rather quickly, and wound up in Belgrade. This huge city was the place for my mid-trip laundry. I walked around, and spent a lot of time in cafes, catching up on some hitherto-neglected work. I have great respect for a city that so demonstrably loves a physicist (Tesla, here) but I didn't see much significant influence: Tesla didn't inspire a generation of great inventors, create an institution, or even spend much of his adult life here.

Next, I took an overnight train to Budapest. The great city was kind to me: I spent two wonderfully sunny days wandering around, sipping tea at cafes, and enjoying myself. Soon, though, my time was up: a fast train to Vienna, and a slow flight back to Riga, brought me home at last.

Cyprus

February 2015 -- Cyprus

I spent my winter break on the beautiful island of Cyprus. After landing in Larnaca, I spent a day walking that city and getting a feel for Cyprian life. Next, it was a bus to the Nicosia (aka Lefkosa), the heart of the island. I crossed the border into Turkish-controlled North Cyprus and took a microbus to Kyrenia (Girne), and then a taxi to the beautiful hillside village of Bellapais, which is famous for its monastery and for the book Bitter Lemons of Cyprus, which I haven't read since I couldn't find a copy. Here is a rainbow, seen from the monastery.

There is a wonderful-looking trail that crosses North Cyprus called the Kyrenia Mountain Trail but I couldn't walk more than a few meters of it -- perhaps some time in the future. Next, it was back to the south and the touristy town of Paphos, conveniently close to the rustic Akamas penninsula and gorge, which I was able to visit by bicycle.

Scotland

April 2014 -- Scotland

I decided to spend my spring break hiking the West Highland Way in the Scottish Highlands.

The Way is a 160 kilometre (95 mile) trek that begins in the outskirts of Glasgow and drags itself wearily into the town of Fort William. A multitude of accommodation options along the way (or camping restrictions) allow the hike to be broken up a number of different ways. My guide book suggests 8 days, the website proposes 6 to 7 days, and the standard "fast" itinerary is 5 days: I did it in 4. Most people hike from the south to the north, but I passed a few people each day going the opposite direction. The popularity of the trail makes it pretty easy to follow, even without a guidebook. The route markers (below) are well-located.

Here's a brief description of the walk. You start in Milngavie, a suburb of Glasgow, and follow municipal parks for a bit, then walk through a woodlot (the first of many) en route to Conic Hill, which offers the first view of Loch Lomond (below). A significant portion of the way is spent on the east bank of that Loch, which is Scotland's largest freshwater reservoir. For the most part, this means level walking, but there are sections where scampering up and down lakeside boulders is required.

Past the lake, the trail follows a beautiful river to Crainlarich, the midpoint of the hike. From here, it's miles of farmland through Tyndrum (home of the excellent Green Welly shop) to sleepy Bridge of Orchy.

Beyond Bridge of Orchy, two things change. First, the way diverges from the railway line. Second, the terrain becomes more hilly and challenging. The result is a splendid feeling of isolation in places like the lonely valley of Coireach 'a Ba and the high pass of Lairig Mor. The valley of Glen Coe is home to the picturesque King's House Hotel and the impressive Buachaille Etive Mor.

A number of groups have made an effort to bring the Way to life by placing informative plates about the history of the region. One pond is supposed to hold the sword of Robert the Bruce, while the following valley was an important site during the conflict between the Campbell and MacDonald clans in addition to being the home of the legendary King MacBeth (whose castle was located on the tiny island in the middle of the picture).

Fortunately, the Way meets the train line again in Fort William, allowing for a speedy and comfortable ride back to Glasgow.

Greece

February 2014 -- Greece

Winter break took me to Greece. :)

I spent a total of four days in Athens. It's a busy city, with a bustle and sprawl of metropolis with a population of more than 700 000. Tourism is an important industry in Athens, even in the off-season. The highlight, of course, is the Acropolis (visible from the roof of my hostel, below) but I rather preferred strolling around the grounds of the ancient Agora. I expect the latter would be crowded during the summer, but I was often enough able to find a quiet spot and commune with the ancient founders of democracy.

The legend of the labyrinth has been a fascination of mine for years, so I made a point of visiting Knossos, the partially-reconstructed ruins of a Bronze-age site and often touted as the home of the Minotaur of Greek myth. It was, like the Agora, relatively quiet and peaceful (although wet and a tad chilly) for the morning I was there. I enjoyed distinguishing, contrasting, and enjoying the superposition of the unearthed ruins and the century-old reconstruction by Englishman Arthur Evans.

A highlight of my trip was a day-trip to Chania, a seaside town on the island of Crete. There's a convenient bus from Heraklion. Chania was endlessly charming, even in the worst of a wet, windy winter. If you go, be sure to check out the vegetarian food at To Stachi.

I went to Rhodes for a couple days, too. It was as different from Attica and Crete as those are from each other. I spent a day cycling around the island with a very nice road bicycle I rented from SD Bikes. It turns out that Rhodes is a bit hilly! I spent my evenings wandering around the old city, a walled town that feels like something from a dream.

A week in Greece wasn't enough time. I missed mainland locations like Delphi, Mt Olympus, and the hip "second city" of Thessaloniki. It's worth a return visit. :)

Benelux

November 2013 -- Belgium

For a long weekend, I nipped off to the Lowlands. I flew with RyanAir into Charleroi, which is quite far from Brussels. Brussels is a great international city and, if a little grimy, a fun place to explore. The Belgian countryside, however, is gorgeous.

I took a day-trip to Bruges, a medieval town with beautiful buildings and a surfeit of tourists. Neither is particularly my interest, but I'm happy to explore anywhere with an open plan and something to climb. The picture below is from the clock tower. You can see the town's two major churches as well as the omnipresent fog.

Before flying home, I spent a night in Luxembourg. I found the city to be relaxed and opulent in equal measure. I'm sure there is some measure of bohemian life in the micro-country, but I didn't come across any. Perhaps next time.

10 Adventures

During some of my trips, I'm run across adventures that I didn't have the time to undertake. I might never have a chance to do them, but here's a list of awesome things you might enjoy.

1. Climbing Mount Kazbegi, Georgia.
2. Cycling through the Aland Islands.
3. Cross-country skiing in Svalbard.
4. Walking the Camino de Santiago.
5. Climbing Asraalt Hairhan Uul in Mongolia.
6. Hiking in the French Alps.
7. Strolling the Kerry Way in Ireland.
8. Tackling the West Coast Trail in Canada.
9. Exploring Western Mongolia.
10. Whatever comes next!

Finland

August 2013 -- Finland

Like Copenhagen, Gothenburg, and Amsterdam, Helsinki has a healthy, energetic, progressive vibe. It's the sort of place you can find a great bookstore, lots of parks, and good food. Surprisingly, the architecture in Helsinki is varied and interesting.

However, the best part of Finland is the nature. The country is pretty flat, heavily treed, and gorgeous. If you're visiting, head north, or jump on a ferry to any of the zillion islands and kick back for a few days. I took a Tallink ferry to the Aland islands.

Mariehamn, the capital of Aland, is a great jumping-off point for exploring those beautiful islands. The weather is a bit tempermental, but it would be a superb place for a week of cycling or sailing.

Iceland

June 2013 -- Iceland

It's surprisingly easy to get to Iceland. Icelandair, with a stopover in Keflavik, flies fairly cheaply between Europe and North America, and budget airline Wow flies from European cities such as Vilnius. Iceland is probably the most expensive country I've visited, and getting around (outside the major tourist hot spots) is difficult. Nonetheless, the country of fire and ice is overwhelmingly beautiful. Here's a picture of Eyafjallajokull, the glacier-topped volcano that erupted in 2010, interrupting air traffic (but not significantly melting the ice).

The 'Golden Circle' is a popular bus day tour. It includes Thingvellir, the national park and traditional seat of Iceland's centuries-old parliament; the double waterfall Gullfoss; and the geothermal area that includes the now-inactive Geysir and the geyser (guess where the name comes from?) Strokkur. Strokkur goes off every few minutes, sending a blast of boiling water into the air.

The big event of my trip was hiking the Laugavegur trail in the south in the country. It's a pretty brilliant trip, passing alongside glaciers and canyons and lakes before winding up in Thorsmork, a splendid forest. The trail is advertised to be four solid days of hiking (and there is good accommodation at the start and end, and at three spots along the way), but you'd certainly be stretching out your trip if you took that long. I took a morning bus into Landamannlaugar, slept at the secondary camp at Hvanngil, and made it to the 2:30 bus pick-up in Thorsmork. If you're planning to do this hike, you need to be aware that there are some intense river crossings (think glacial water, at a good clip, up to a meter deep at the shallowest). This picture is looking back over the valley of Landamannlaugar.

England

June 2013 -- England

A couple days in England afforded me the chance to explore. Many of London's sights are found alongside the Thames. A particular highlight for me, as a fan of the Bard, is the recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (a pillar of the Tate Modern is on the right).

Just around the corner is the famous Millennium Bridge. Outside of London, it is probably best known from its destruction in one of the Harry Potter films. When it was first installed, it was subject to a particular side-to-side mode of oscillation that was amplified by people lurching as they tried to walk a straight path along an oscillating bridge. In other words, resonance of the dangerous kind. The bridge was reinforced, and no longer vibrates.

Westminster Abbey is the resting place of many famous Brits, including Newton, Faraday, and Darwin. There's a landmark in the background here.

I took a day trip to Cambridge, home of the famous university. Unfortunately, the town is overrun by tourists during the summer (I guess I don't get to complain, though, being a tourist myself). The river Cam is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect to find at one of the world's top schools.

It seems that few of those tourists make it to the museum at Cavendish Labs. This is probably for the best, as Cavendish is a bit far out of town (although the walk is very nice!) and you'll need to get a visitor badge from reception. There's a fantastic collection of old instruments, plenty of background information on signs, and a gallery of annual physics department photos dating back to the late 1800s. These snapshots of history are a vivid reminder of Cambridge's enormous influence over the development of modern physics, with dozen of Nobel winners to be found.

It was odd being in England. Indecipherable non-English chatter has become familiar for me, so overhearing Geordies and Scots -- who sound foreign but are not -- was strange.

Ireland

May 2013 -- Ireland

I took a RyanAir flight to Dublin for a long weekend of literature and exploring. It's a delightful city, self-aware and replete with the insubstantial but unmistakable aura of sub-dermal cultural liveliness. My first destination was Trinity College, one of the world's great institutions of higher education. Known primarily for its writers (Beckett, Stoker, Swift, Wilde, etc), it also educated a number of great physicists (Stokes, Hamilton, Werner Israel). The campus has a superb cricket pitch, and a delightful free science gallery, which was hosting an exhibition on probability.

I also took part in the Literary Pub Crawl, of which the former part is particularly well done, complete with scenes and information from the hosts, and the latter being as you'd expect. The Mecca of my visit was the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, which was established during the WWII era to host scientists fleeing Hitler and to jump-start Ireland's scientific program. The first hire, Erwin Schrödinger, called him time there the happiest of his life, and was very fond of Dublin.

I took a day trip to Belfast for a bit of a wander around that city. It feels very much a part of Britain but, although I had arrived during a sort of festival, I still found the place a bit flat and deflating. I suppose my travels have made me suppose that cities are where they are for good reason -- Vancouver has her mountains, Paris her Seine, and Naples her ports -- but Belfast's river is tiny, and the port that launched the Titanic hardly seems to be on anyone's mind these days.

I was delighted with the Irish people I met. I've visited a lot of places with advertised reputations for hospitality, but I none matched the smiles, cheer, and friendliness of the Irish people I met. Lastly, a glimpse of how I travel. This knapsack is my only luggage: spare clothes at the bottom, books at the top.

Italy

Italy -- April 2013

I flew into Bergamo on Saturday night and took a bus to Milan, where I wandered around overnight. I wasn't particularly impressed with that label-conscious, soulless city, but the Duomo was spectacular.

I took a train to the tourist-crowded city of Florence, home of another beautiful Duomo...

...at which point I decided to stop taking pictures of cathedrals. In Florence, I visited the Museo Galileo, home to the Medici collection of Renaissance-era scientific equipment. I was delighted to find a globe with the words "pars orbis incognito" across the region we today know as Antarctica.

The absolute highlight for me was to see two of Galileo's telescopes and an original copy of his Dialogues.

I next spent a rainy overnight in San Marino, a delightful hilltop nation that isn't really worth the visit. The high fortifications are impressive, but there's little else to see.

I next traveled north to Como, a city on the southern shore of the famous Lake Como, to catch the finals of the NextGen finals. The match between the youth teams of Aston Villa and Chelsea was surprisingly poorly attended, but the ambiance was quite enjoyable. There were plenty of future stars on show.

I next traveled to Rome where tourists are required to take a picture of the Colosseum.

A bit more true to my priorities, I took a walk over to Via Panisperna, the stomping-ground of Fermi, Segrè, Majorana, and others before WWII broke out. It's a persistent mystery why so many great physicists came from small research communities, but I can shed no light on the Rome school.

I next traveled to Naples, which is a delightful city. However, in the interest of maintaining ownership of my camera, I decided not to take any pictures. Naples was probably my favourite city in Italy. Finally, I took an overnight ferry to Palermo, Sicily, where I wandered around, read, and caught a flight home. I was surprised and delighted by Sicily's rocky geography.