Exploration

Sunny London

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #80

Last weekend Paolo and I spent 4 days in London, a trip sparked, not by the wish to witness the royal wedding close up, but by Paolo’s gift for my birthday last year: a workshop with one of my all time favorite writers, Elizabeth Gilbert. The workshop was amazing and I am still processing all the magic that happened that day… It was the best gift ever!!!

Next to that we were really lucky to explore the city under the sunshine and blue sky.  I’m amazed by how much we experienced even though we took our time.  It was so much fun to roam the streets of my university days around UCL, go hunting for Caravaggio paintings in the National Gallery, catch up with dear friends, try delicious food in trendy new spots in Kings Cross, browse lengthily in second-hand bookstores, seeing Hamlet at the Globe theater and much more.

Impressions of Orvieto

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In the first days of the new year, I was visiting my boyfriend’s family in Rome and we decided to look for an excursion a little further afield that was easily accessible by public transport.  We chose Orvieto, a fortified town on the top of a massive rock.

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Stepping off the train it was grey and misty, but as we rode up the hill in the cable car we pierced the clouds and at the top, from the walls of the fortress, we found ourselves overlooking the most beautiful sea of clouds over the valley.

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There is an amazing cathedral with incredible patterns and dizzy-making columns on the facade.  Once inside, we pretended to be part of an organised group and tagged along to listen to the explanations of their very knowledgeable guide who was pointing out the stories and details of the frescoes that made them come alive. Some of the paintings seem like they came straight out of a science-fiction scene including lasers and 3D effects.

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Orvieto is a small town and I was glad to be visiting it off-season (despite the biting cold) as I can imagine it can get swamped with hordes of tourists in the summer.  I particularly enjoyed exploring the winding streets a little outside the touristy center, looking at the details of the old stone houses overlooking the valley and imagining what must have been like to live there in the past.

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*****

How to get there by public transport: take the train from Rome to Orvieto station (approx. 1 hour), then simply cross the street where you can buy a ticket to get on the cable car that will take you right up the hill (it leaves every 10 minutes).

Recharging my batteries

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JOYFUL GRATITUDE #60

I am so glad to have taken this week off work. January does not seem like the ideal time as it is cold and the days are short, but actually for me this feels like a deeply needed re-set before the year starts in full again. Free time is so precious and it is a real pleasure to have time to switch off completely. I feel like I’m filling the well little by little and my batteries are recharging.

It’s funny how a few days feel much longer being away from our daily routine. These days have been a perfect blend of relaxing, creating new memories and laughing with friends and family,  enjoying going to the theater and being inspired by art, exploring local places by foot in the sunshine and going further afield to discover a medieval village above the clouds…

Lovely plants of Madeira

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At home we regularly tease my foodie sister about how she is into foodporn and how the majority of her travel pictures consist of new dishes she discovered along her journeys. However recently it’s been dawning on me that I’m obsessed with something similar, which I guess can be called plantporn.

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I love close up photos of gorgeous plants with their tiny leaves, colourful petals, uncanny shapes and intriguing textures…

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What made Madeira so special to me in terms of plantporn, was that succulents grow in the wild all over the place and in general there were also many unfamiliar plant species I don’t get to see every day.

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I spent a great deal of time in the holidays behind my camera attempting to take decent macros of the amazing plants that caught my eye. (Thanks to Paolo for the picture above and especially for his patience when I get mesmerised by yet another plant!)

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I took these last two pictures in the natural park of the São Lourenco peninsula – though to me these plants look like they really belong in the landscapes of Arrakis (Dune;)

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On top of the world

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On my 3rd day of walking, between Irun and San Sebastian, I followed the sign at the bottom of a very steep hill that said: “Peregrinos alpinistas”. This alternative path had been recommended by the pilgrims who hosted me on my first night in Bayonne, who said it was a bit longer but really beautiful (I’m glad they insisted it was less difficult than it sounds because I’m not sure I would have spontaneously considered myself an “Alpinist pilgrim”…).

At the top, I was totally alone, since it is not the standard route. As I walked on the path that followed the crest of the hill, surrounded by mountain peaks on one side and the sparkling blue sea on the other I felt such incredible joy!

I walked through this field, just a few steps from the horses who ignored me completely and went on with their peaceful activities in this breathtakingly beautiful place on the top of the world. Totally worth making the detour!IMG_3649

Soothing sea views

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On the Camino del Norte, the path mainly follows the coast and the sea is always just around the corner, making it one of the most beautiful Camino routes. However when you look at the route on the guide book, it’s difficult to imagine what the day’s walk will really look like.

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The element of surprise was really helpful, because so often when I felt I couldn’t go any further, or I was wondering ‘what am I doing here??’, I would come across a view like one of these and then it would all make sense again. I’d stop thinking about my feet and remember how lucky I was to get to see such unspoiled nature.

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I loved the fact that the nature looked different every day and I never knew what to expect. Stumbling on an amazing beach after a few minutes or a few hours of walking was always magical for me. Depending on the weather the colour of the water, the sky and the clouds would vary incredibly.

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Usually I was up on the top of the cliff which meant a beautiful perspective over the sea. Sometimes the path would go up and down all day with tiny coves at the bottom of the hill before going back up the hillside.

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Coming across a spectacular view point was always an excuse to take a break to eat an apple or simply sit to rest and watch the water. The snacks I ate overlooking the sea were usually really simple, but enjoying them in front of these magical views made them taste like a real feast 😉

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20160518_135451I love how you can actually see that the earth is round on this picture!!

My dream greenhouse

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On my very first day of walking, heading out of Bayonne, I stopped to see the Sand Cemetery in Anglet, which was recommended by my pilgrim hosts the night before. The cemetery was original, but what really caught my eye were 2 long buildings on either side of the entrance of the cemetery which were full of succulents!!

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The plants were really well tended to and there were all sorts of different species. I tried to get in to take a closer look but unfortunately the doors were locked… so I could only sneak a few pictures through the bars of the windows. These pictures don’t really do justice to what a beautiful sight it was:)

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‘Having a green house to grow my succulents’ is on my dream list (as ‘walking the Camino’ was for many years), so I took stumbling upon my dream greenhouse on my first day as a good omen for my trip;)

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¡Vivir es increible!

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I’ve been back from the Camino for nearly 2 months and still working through my thoughts about the experience. I can’t believe how fast the trip flew by. Once again I am back home and sucked into the routine of work and daily life…

People keep asking me how it was to walk the Camino and I find it really hard to give an answer, as there are so many things to tell, so many aspects. Though the walking was sometimes tough, even when I was tired from walking and my body ached I felt extremely free, excited and grateful to be there.

The best way I can find to explain it is: ‘Vivir es increible‘ (Being alive is incredible!). These 3 words, hand-painted on the red step in the staircase full of wise words, jumped out at me. They express so simply what I felt intensely throughout my trip.

Sometimes I feel like that amazing sensation gets drowned out in the daily rush, the noise of emails, things to do and other busy-ness.  I want to look out for it more. I’m doing my best these days to use ‘Vivir es increible’ as a mantra in day-to-day life in Amsterdam too, when I feel the routine weighing down on me or when I’m cycling to work in the rain for example.

In an attempt to process my experience, I want to share some snapshots and thoughts about walking the Camino, even if they are just a tiny piece of the whole experience. I’ll be posting them in the next days:)

I’m leaving!!

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I’m off to walk along the Camino de Santiago!

When I was 17 or so, I read a Paolo Coelho book about the Camino and since then I’ve had the desire to walk the Saint James way (as it is called in English). Since then the idea kept popping up every time I would write my dream list. Over the years, I did a bit of research about it here and there and once in a while I would browse the book my parents bought me about the Camino del Norte. Every time I heard someone saying they had walked the Camino, I would feel a little tug in my heart and say “That’s on my dream list, I want to do it too!”, but never got around to actually organising it.

So why now, 16 years later?

I’ve been wanting to take a sabbatical for a long time and this year the timing was good. I’ve been working hard for 10 years, with no more than a few weeks between jobs, so I felt like giving myself this gift of some freedom in the form of unpaid leave, which I decided to use to explore the Camino. I also feel like time is always flying by so fast, so I’m glad to take time off from day-to-day routine to take a step back and reflect.

I’ll be gone for about 5 weeks, I’m starting in Bayonne and will walk along the Northern coast of Spain. I probably will not reach Santiago de Compostela and that’s fine. Firstly because I don’t want to rush, I want to make this trip about the journey not the destination (I know… such a cliché). This means if I feel like staying longer in a place I like or want to chill on the beach for some time, I can:)  Secondly because if there is a bit of the Camino left to walk I will have the chance to come back another time to finish it:)

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I am really looking forward to walking every day. I’ve noticed that walking helps me move through problems, get fresh ideas, find solutions to issues, get creative, feel more grounded…

I have no idea what to expect, but these are some things that come to mind as I am preparing my trip:
-I crave take time out from my routine,
-I want to spend time alone,
-to finally have time to process what goes on in my busy life,
-to take time to grieve the people in my life who passed away and
-to travel slowly to enjoy discovering a part of the world I’ve never been to.

I’m trying not to have too many expectations and let the Camino surprise me. I’m really excited to see how it goes!

A stroll through Monti

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I was lucky to be in Rome for the first days of Spring and you could really feel the winter was over. Budding trees were blooming everywhere, it was warm enough not to wear a coat and I couldn’t get enough of the feeling of the southern sun on my skin after months of cold in Amsterdam.

My boyfriend took me for a stroll in one of his favorite neighbourhoods called Monti. It was fun to explore this quiet part of the city, hidden just behind the loud bustling avenues and tourist hotspots.

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As we explored paved side streets and steep alley-ways, around every corner we would come across mini gardens in the street, succulents on window sills and plants hanging (sometimes quite dangerously) from the shutters.  I love how people manage to carve themselves a corner of green no matter where they live.

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