Driving through the Breadbasket

 

 

Finally journaling last summer's Italian road trip...

 http://viewsfromaprovincialperch.blogspot.com/2023/12/driving-through-breadbasket.html

 

On the turntable: The Beatles, "The Beatles 1967 - 1970"

 

Autumn Sketches

The day before going to Yonago, I watched the 1960 film ‘Akitsu Onsen.’ As the filming location of Okutsu Onsen was on the way home, I thought I’d drop by to walk the Okutsu gorge, atop fallen leaves slick with the night’s rain. 

The old Otsuri Inn featured in the film has long since gone, but the adjacent riverside bath of Hannyaji still exists, so I enjoyed a nice soak as the autumn foliage danced around me, falling quietly from above.

I later made a quick stop at Tsuyama castle, which is also briefly featured, though without the current structure built in 2005, nor the 300 yen entrance fee to pay for this folly.


On the turntable:  Grateful Dead, Dick's Picks Vol. 15"

Ramen Headers

In the case of fortuitous timing, I read an article about the Tottori used car dealership Hot Air getting Michelin recognition for its Ramen. As I was heading up to Yonago for the weekend, I thought I would drop by. To a raucous symphony of slurping, I dove in. 

(And the inevitable film crew turned up, giving me a chance to star once again in my by-now-familiar role of Token White Guy.)

http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2018/11/26/hot-air-ramen-tottori-michelin/?fbclid=IwAR25f8F1fqTRfXU9exJm3cjSzaRofWpGV7HJrFZ8RjPgSmvfVWwMr7S96ws


On the turntable: Grateful Dead, "Dick's Picks Vol. 12"

Island at the Top of the World V: The South

After our own slumber in Kirkjubæjarklaustur (if sleep had been a problem, I would have counted the letters in the town's name), we climbed a path that paralleled the Systrafoss waterfall, fed by Systravatn, a lake of modest size where supposedly the nuns from the nearby convent bathe on occasion.  The views on this clear morning were stunning, our eyes moving along the jagged glacial edge of Vatnajokull which we'd edged yesterday, then taking in the massive moss field which carpeted everything to the west. 

While the lava that defined this landscape was most often in its usual craggy form, they'd taken on a more uniform geometric pattern at Kirkjugólf, to resemble ornate tilework. Legend has it that this was the floor of an ancient church, but geologists would rebut and tell you that it is merely basalt columns that have eroded over time. Sheer perfection either way, as sheep grazed the shorn hillsides above.

A travel video that LYL had watched on the flight over mentioned that tourists loved to lay on the ubiquitous moss, though over a week of driving I'd not seen a single person doing so.  But the time was right to give it a try ourselves. Leaving the car at a pullout, we walked across the green expanse, to a nice patch ringed by a bedframe of black lava.  I closed my eyes awhile, laying atop a soft sponging surface surprisingly deep.  Had we been a little further from the road, I'd have allowed myself a good long snooze.

Although the day's journey was short, the road called.  A large number of cars were parked at a lot in the middle of nowhere, and along a dirt path leading across the volcanic wasteland, figures somnambulically headed toward the black beach at Sólheimasandur beyond.  I figured that this must be the near intact wreckage of an old US military plane that had crashed here in 1973.  I was tempted to go out there myself, but was dissuaded by the 90 minute walk out and back, not to mention that all these cars had been driven by somebody, and that all these somebodies would be clamoring all over the place.  A look at Google later provided a better, and more artistic, look.    

 
We did stop outside Vik, and strolled the black beach there to get a look at the almost pipe organ formations rising from the sand.  In a pleasant surprise, we also got a puffin colony, the little beasties flapping madly toward the sea and back, agitated by a tourist who had climbed a little too close in order to take photographs.  As we zoomed in with our own lenses, a rogue wave rushed from behind, and LYL impressed me (yet again) by racing up the beach without a glance when I calmly said "run."  Others hadn't been so lucky, as one Chinese tourist had been swept away the previous year, and another served as a unwitting model in a photographic warning that these waves are a common occurrence here.  Still, a group of cosplayers wandered the sands in their medieval gear, walking as a timeless vision framed by the island of Heimaey just offshore.  

A pair of waterfalls rounded out the morning: first the steep climb up beside Skógafoss, itself nestled within its own bowl;  then Seljalandsfoss, where a path leads you to the back of the waterfall, the waters spilling like a rainbow-laden curtain before you. Above us, Eyjafjallajökull rested, was thankfully quiet after its 2010 activity had wrought havoc with not only international flights but also newscasters worldwide who stumbled over her name.  

Eyjafjallajökull shares a body with the neighboring volcano of Katla, which historically had proven more temperamental.  We kept her on our right as we left the Ring Road to follow some smaller, unsurfaced routes north.  A nice patch of meadow with a view provided a quiet picnic spot, where nearby sheep lapped at the remnants of oil leaked from passing cars.  What followed was lovely drive through a rough landscape formed from one of yet another volcano's tantrums, that of Hekla, one of Iceland's most active,with another eruption expected any day .  We returned to tarmac eventually, but one section of paved road had suddenly and without warning fallen away due to a works project.  I hit the far edge dead-on and at speed, and within seconds, I sensed that our 4x4 was pulling slightly right.  One of the best things about BMWs is their integrated computer systems, and my fears were confirmed when a warning message came on to tell me that we did indeed have a leak.  

But thankfully a slow-one.  The 4x4 drive system did its work in moderating the pressure in the damaged tire, while letting the other three take up the slack.  I assessed this over the following 30 minutes, and felt confident in committing to the day's final detour, out a somewhat bad road to Stöng, a Viking era longhouse that is so well-preserved that it has become a Rosetta stone for Viking research.  Nearby was Gjáin, a remote an scenic stretch of river that has also been a location for Game of Thrones.  We admired both from afar, as concerns about the tire returned us quickly to the car, which did an admirable job in returning us to remote Hótel Lækur, where a quiet night awaited, with a hot tub and ample dinner enjoyed while nestled amongst the expanses outside.    

Our tire was dead flat in the morning, but the friendly hotel owner had a pump, which enabled us to get to the fun named town of Hella, and an auto shop.  These shops must do quite well in this nation of bad roads, and during the 30-minute patch job, two other vehicles turned up, including one with a horse trailer.  

Icelandic weather seems to promise rain every other day, a strong factor I suppose in creating that fantastic hue of green.  The forecast hinted that the morning would be dry, so we moved quickly through the Golden Circuit, a name I imagine was created by the tourist industry.  While the highlights were worth the effort, they paled somewhat after a week out in the truly remote parts of the country. For those with limited time, they were an easy day trip from Reykjavík, and a nice sampler of the beauty of Iceland's natural scenery.  

First up was Gullfoss, a unique double waterfall that proved impressive in how it dominated an otherwise empty landscape.  Geysir was not far away, an eponymous burst of thermal water from a broad fumerole (and of course providing the English language with the word geyser). The eruption occurs every ten minutes of so, and we were lucky to get two spouts in that time, the second catching the photographers unaware, forcing them to actually observe the thing with the naked eye for a change.  

The sights were certainly more spread out at Thingvellir National Park, wrapped as it is along the large lake Þingvallavatn.  Upon approach, one of the first things we noticed were the dry-suited divers about to undergo a very cold exploration.  We opted for a walk over shrinkage, through a valley extending along the base of a long stretch of basalt cliffs (which were CG enhanced and used as The Wall in Game of Thrones).  A stream babbled through the valley, with a picturesque church on one side, and a stele on the other, which commemorated Thingvellir's importance in history as the site where 48 Viking chiefs had assembled as one of the world's first courts of law.  

But as ever, nature would overrule man, no matter his decisions.  Rain began to fall, as we returned to our car, built into a tempestuous squall within minutes.  No matter, as were reluctantly leaving all the beauty behind, to return for a closer look at Iceland's capital city.

On the turntable:  Jeff Beck & Eric Clapton, "Exhaust Note"
On the nighttable:  Alice Albinia, "Empires of the Indus"         

Island at the Top of the World IV: The East

The morning was clear, and the full extent of the Seydisfjordur's beautiful surroundings quickly became evident.  We strolled along the fjord's edge toward breakfast, the mountains around us rising upward like cupped hands, a dozen waterfalls spilling through their fingers.  Later, during the walk back, we noted that the weekly ferry from Norway had pulled in, and thankfully, only a few dozen figures ambled along the streets, a slight bend in their sea legs. 

The drive over the hills to Egilsstaðir is supposed to be one of Iceland's best, one we'd missed in the fog on the drive in.  As the car switchbacked upward, each curve brought a new perspective upon the beauty of the cozy little fjord, and at the top was a delightful alpine lake, which in the mists of last night we'd mistaken for the sea.  A larger lake on the other side came with its own monster legend, but we turned east again before further research could be attempted.

Back out by the sea the weather was truly horrible, and I fretted internally over what we might be missing. This was easily squelched with a cappuccino at Café Sumarlína in Fáskrúðsfjörður, a drink introduced no doubt by the French fishermen who settled the place in 1880.  There were few traces of French culture left here, merely the name of a few hotels and the trois couleurs which drooped listlessly in the rain.  Today the town sells itself as a good place to view the northern lights, a fine idea as in looking upward, you'd hardly notice that it is one of the least attractive towns in the country.

The mists carried on through the morning.  Planned stops in Breiðdalsvík and Djúpivogur were kept brief, as both villages were beautiful due to their surroundings, yet today well obscured.  A longer visit was planned for Stokksnes, and miraculously, we exited the tunnel above the town to clouds lifting their shroud to the abracadabra of blue.  

Though not terribly interested in haikyo,  I am a sucker for visiting the ruins of old film sets, but this one was unique in that the film never actually got made.  It was wonderful to stretch our legs after hours in the car, toward an old Viking village that looked like was about to be engulfed by the clouds breaking over the peaks above like a massive wave.  The village looked authentic and was well detailed, though in the previous nine years was beginning to crumble and fall into decay, which made it easy to believe that it actually was authentic.        

The easy to pronounce Höfn was just across the bay, famed for its langoustines.  I attacked a large pile on my plate, fortified by local craft beer.  It was leisurely drive from there, a multitude of glaciers beginning to appear to our right.  They all seem to interconnect higher up, making it easy to believe that the entire Vatnajökull National Park is one massive icecap.   

A neighboring table at lunch was raving about the ice flows at Jökulsárlón, and even before stopping the car I immediately concurred.  Icebergs had calved from the far off glacial wall, little dignified mountains drifting silently toward the seas beyond.  The landscape was awash with a pale blue, broken by the dark grey heads of a pair of seals bobbing between fish and photographs. I longed to join the kayakers getting a closer look at the glacier itself, gliding through water that must be unbelievably cold.

The scenery was repeated not far off at Fjallsárlón, though on a smaller, more intimate scale.  You could walk nearly up to the glacier itself, and there were few people around, just one man who was pushing an iceberg around in a little skiff.

I rewarded myself with a little walk toward evening, up a steep forest trail to the famous Svartifoss waterfall in the Skaftafell National Park.  I had the trail to myself, up through low scrub and pines that would be at home on the Alaskan panhandle.  After Dettifoss raised the bar for me, this particular one fell a little short, but there was a magnificence in the striated stone pillars that framed it from behind.  LYL chose to stay below so I didn't linger, arriving back at the car just as the rain began once again to fall.  

But there was one last stop.  I walked the short distance from the car to the Svínafellsjökull Glacier with my hood up as the rain beat down.  I moved past a gate and scrambled a little higher up the mountainside, taking good care of my footing as I went.   A sign midway commemorated a pair of hikers who'd gone missing here a decade or so ago.  At the visitor center in Skaftafell earlier I'd seen the remnants of the gear of two researchers who had gone missing in 1953, a collection of battered items that had turned up again after glacial recession.  This set the mood here as one of awe, as I faced a simply colossal form.  Back in university, a friend and I had once pondered whether fire was alive, since we describe it in terms we also use while discussing animate objects.  And now I thought that we do this too with water, and by extension, must consider it to be a living form.  And this mass before me seemed alive somehow, its movements so slow that they were just shy of slumber.  


On the turntable:  Johnny Winter, "Second Winter"
On the nighttable:  Norman Lewis, "A Goddess in the Stones"

Island at the Top of the World III: The North

Through the fog of sleep, I heard the horn.  It was a cruise ship coming in, navigating the narrow fjord toward the docks of Akureyri.

Breakfast was a beautiful affair, spread upon a multi-level table, and in the soft light, resembled a still life.  We were happy to enjoy it by ourselves for a while, before a handful of Chinese tourists filled the space with their noise, followed by a French tour group who filled it with their bodies.  Their guide tried to get the Chinese to all sit together so that he could consolidate his own group, but the latter ignored him, munching away as they eyeballed their smartphones.

We drove out of the fog as the road rose with us.  It climbed into some high alpen lakes that reminded me of Tibet, before leveling out on a high plateau that was more Hokkaido. Our first stop on the day was at Goðafoss Waterfall, and approaching its carpark I gasped at the number of tour buses.  I'd forgotten that cruise ship passengers not only fill their port towns, but they also radiate outward on excursions.  
Iceland, with a population of 300,000, hosted 2 million tourists last year.  And they were all trying to get into my photographs.  A solution was found in walking further toward the falls than they did, and with the masses at my back, and the roar of the waters filling my ears, I had the illusion that the place was all mine.

We detoured north to Húsavík.  Iceland shares with Japan the infamy of its whaling culture, but at least here they seemed to be shifting toward admiring the whales from a distance greater than a lunch plate. The fjord here is supposed to be a veritable aquarium of the great beasts, so it was with some wishful thinking that LYL and I sat with cups of take-away coffee atop a cliff, watching for any breaks in the blue spreading before us.  (I actually had seen a whale spout from the car while driving along one of the fjords of the previous day, a burst of white that dispersed in the gusts of the day.)        
 
A lonely unsurfaced road led us south again, to the visually rich Mývatn area, and we spent the rest of the day playing connect the dots with the highlights.  Skútustaðagígar came up first, but there were just a few too many people up on the hills, so we drove on, admiring the same scenery of small islets, though from below.  Here and there, turnouts provided different points of view.  

Further on, Dimmuborgir was a maze of paths through the crusted formations of an old lava flow, which brought to memory similar places in New Mexico, where renegade tribes used to play peek-a-boo with the US Cavalry.  Here too it served a similar purpose, including a cave for the Yule Lads, who appear at Christmas and act a bit like naughty Santa Clauses. (David Sedaris has a hilarious bit about the Dutch equivalent.) 

As we walked, Hverfjall maintained a steady presence in the distance.  It seemed the logical next choice, so we bounced along a very rough road to get to her feet.  There were a surprising number of cars in the carpark, most notable being the camper vans.  A trail ran diagonally up the side of the volcano, reminding me again of Hokkaido and the path up Mt Tarumae.  Though much lower, the summit was much like Fuji's, a near perfect crater with a rollercoaster-like path around the rim. I chose instead to admire things from where I was, gazing out over the lake and the far off peaks, until the growing gusts encouraged me down.  

After a quick detour to Grjótagjá Cave (featured prominently in Game of Thrones), we broke the journey for a dip in the blue-water of the Mývatn Nature Baths. An idyllic choice, with the lake spread out before us, and the hot water rejuvenating after the cold wind. We returned to those winds all too soon, to stroll the labyrinth of mud pits and hissing fumaroles at Hverir, then a more massive steam flow at the bigger Mt. Krafla not far away.   


While Krafla is a newer volcano, older eruptions had defined the landscape of the whole area.  A road had been laid upon them, cutting through formations that were pastry-like, shaping cookies, or brownies.  Black had returned to the landscape, and the sky again grew dark.  Where the road ended we began a short hike out toward Dettifoss, over and around a jumble of stones that recalled the cover of 'Houses of the Holy.'  Over the next rise, I was confronted with one of the most awesome sights I've ever seen, of millions of gallons of water spilling over the abyss.  The grey of water matched that of the stone banks, which made it look as if what was flowing was in fact earth, a feeling that was horrific in its own way, making me feel how insignificant I am as a human being on a powerful planet undergoing near constant change. 

The next stop made for a more peaceful respite.   Modhrudalurr was a peaceful little farm hamlet consisting of a church and a mere handful of buildings, including little turf cottages to rent.  It would have been the perfect place to stay, but we had already arranged something further on.  Instead, we huddled over cups of coffee, and the sky grew darker and darker outside.  

The map showed that this unsurfaced spur road would rejoin the main Ring Road further on, so I continued south.  The rain that had been threatening finally began, making me hope we'd rejoin asphalt before too long.  A nagging thought rang in my brain, worried whether this was indeed the right way.  Accustomed to the uncertainties of similar roads in New Mexico, I hated the idea of our driving directly into the hills with a storm coming on.  Luckily, wheels grabbed tarmac once again.       

But conditions continued to deteriorate.  The low long valleys had much fewer traffic as we moved further and further east, and the skies lowered even more.  Our road out to Borgarfjörður Eystri rose until we were in those clouds themselves, and visibility was simply gone.  I couldn't tell whether the drops at the side were sheer, and construction machines loomed up suddenly like dragons.  The weather too washed out any chance of seeing the colony of puffins out at Hafnarhólmi, though a few did burst away from the hillside, wings frantically as they flew (poorly) toward the water, and dinner. 

Through the fog over the mountains again, then later, once again.  The road finally ended at Seydisfjordur and the Hotel Aldan, a converted bank this time.  A late dinner was had a short walk away at the center of town, as the candles did their job, burning away the darkness now growing just beyond the glass. 


On the turntable:  Jimi Hendrix, "Axis: Bold as Love" 

Island at the Top of the World II: The West

The lighthouse atop Súgandisey Island was squat, like an old Victorian era postbox.  The previous evening it had kept constant company with the silhouettes of those taking selfies, but this morning we had it to ourselves.  The sky had cleared, and so apparently had my fever, and I felt myself for the first time in days.  The coastline we'd traced the previous day was revealed in the clear light, and the sea below washed the rocks below us in undulating blue.

Another short hike was to follow, up nearby Helgafell, Iceland's most sacred peak.  At one time it had been remote and quiet, but the tourist boom has caused the family living on this private land to install a small ticket office, funded with new admission fees.  The hands of the wife of the family only left her knitting to accept our "user fees," as her small daughter played at the desk beside her.  It was lovely scene of pastoral Iceland, with the sleepy dog at the door, and one of the country's famous lopapeysa sweaters coming slowly into being. 

The hike up was short, the day pleasantly cool. Legend says that if you make a wish and ascend in silence, that wish will come true.  The views from the top were magnificent with the weather, and the marshlands to the north fragmenting to become small islands spilling out into the bay.  There was a small set of ruins at the top, once a prayer chapel dating to not long after Iceland adopted Christianity in the year 1000.  A newer church at the base sweetened the view, and in the churchyard was a burial stone for Guðrún Ósvífursdóttir, who appears in the Laxdæla Saga.  The landscape here probably looked little different than it did in the year written on the stone, 1008.

We headed due east along a set of unsealed but good roads, across a highland that had little but sheep and wildflowers.  Now and then a small pond would appear, the water impossibly clear.  I stopped at one, to feel the icy chill upon my fingers, my face.  I could have spent the entire day here, amongst the sheep, and the clouds above that mimicked them, their fluffy shapes drifting silently away.

Lunch beckoned eventually, and we stopped at Hvammstangi, enjoying lunch over the water and keeping a lookout for the resident seals.  We were beginning to note that most meals consisted of lamb or fish of some kind, and we quickly developed a system where we'd share one of each.  This led to copious amounts of food of course, which we walked off this day with a stroll among the turf houses of Glaumbær.  Houses like these were once ubiquitous in older times, and this one now quite the tourist draw, to judge from the coaches in the carpark.  Angling yourself away from the other tourists brought the illusion of how things must have been, quaint and probably quite cozy in the winter.  A theory I don't personally plan to test. 

Our accommodation for the night was not far off in Sauðárkróksvöllur, which we called Sauerkraut.  (LYL and I are pretty good at languages, but got nowhere with Icelandic.) We surprised to find that we were staying in what had once been the town post office.  In hindsight, we should have utilized the kitchen, for dinner up the street was pretty uninspired after such a fine lunch, and we merely pushed our food around awhile until asking for terms of surrender.

It was quiet evening, the light lingering long in the sky.  I'd been reading a digital version of the old Icelandic Sagas, and was pleased to find a print version in our room.  I read out on the porch until the growing chill suggested I move inside to the sofa. Looking up from time to time, I noticed a trail cutting diagonally to a bluff at the back of town.  In the morning I climbed up, to find a bench overlooking the fjord below.  In front of the bench was a pair of footprints cut from metal, one for an adult, another a small child.  A story developed in my mind, of a boy who often walked up here with his grandfather, enjoying the view, and listening to sagas of a more recent vintage.  The grandfather has passed, the boy now a man, and he decides to honor those memories with this bench, this pair of feet.  And as I sat I was awash in sadness, as my work out on the road eroded away these kind of moments with my own daughter, and the ticking of the clock taking away even more as I faced the possibility of her moving halfway across the world.  This bench was a reminder that in most cases, it is better just to sit, and look, and love. 

On the far side of the fjord was Hofsós.  There was a well-known heated swimming pool here, built right up to the side of the cliffs.  I was tempted, but the day was overcast again, the hour a little too early.  Up the road LYL and I bought a couple of lopapeysa, then continued to trace the shoreline. There were a couple of tunnels that were little more than single lane holes bore out of rock.  These were a little nerve-wracking at first, until I noticed that escape lanes had been cut every fifty meters or so, allowing traffic to pull aside and let those with right of way pass.   But who exactly had right of way? 

One long tunnel led out to a broad bay and valley, giving the illusion of completely isolation.  We pulled into its heart, Siglufjörður, a picturesque town where people milled around, or drank at sidewalk cafes.  It was near lunchtime, so we settled in awhile at Sigló Hótel, in a a cozy little nook with the quiet harbor just out the open windows.  We lingered a long while over books and coffee, but the solitude here, the beauty of the towering mountains dropping down directly into the deep waters of fjord made me long to stay for days.  It was a pleasant afternoon, watching the fishermen bring in their catch, or gazing at even older fishing boats from the side of the foot bath out front.  

Inertia eventually overcome, we moved south again, passing through Akureyri at the base of the fjord, then up the other side for a quick visit to a small collection of turf houses at Laufás.  We had the place nearly to ourselves, but the gathering clouds and accompanying cold drive us back to town.  Akureyi is Iceland's second city, though a small one of only 18,000 residents.  As such, downtown is  just a handful of streets, like an American college town.  We disposed of these after an hour, so went to an early dinner at Rub 23, which is quickly becoming well known for its unique approach to Japanese cuisine.  I rarely eat Japanese food while away from home, but this meal was truly special, with ingredients pulled from the cold waters not far from our feet. 
I suppose all island nations share certain commonalities, and although I couldn't get my tongue around the language, the food culture was a warmly familiar lexicon.


On the turntable:  John Coltrane:  "Both Directions at Once”
On the nighttable:  Robyn , "Desert Places" 
 

Island at the Top of the World: The Peninsula

The landscape outside the car window was as beautiful as I'd ever seen, but somehow all was tinted with a touch of the forlorn.  A terrain of black and green, the green the darkest hue I could imagine.  The blacks too were dull and unaccentuated, long ridges of rock that bisected the grassy plains in jagged cuts.  Above all was dull grey, the clouds low and near omnipresent.  I recalled as I drove beneath them that most of the photos I'd seen of Iceland seemed to share a similar grey.  What one didn't get from these 2D images was just how low the sky hung, as if threatening to press you down into that rich green soil.

It is little wonder that Jules Verne opened his Journey to the Center of the Earth here, where a foreboding rocky portal serves as the entrance for that journey.  In fact I was driving to that very feature, Mount Snæfellsjökull, at the end of the long peninsula which bears the same name.  I recalled the film version of Verne's book well, recognized the bleak and harsh landscape from childhood memory.  It also reminded me of another film I'd seen when I was young, "Island at the Top of the World,"  which Iceland most certainly was.

Part of my dark mood was the fact that I'd had had a low-grade rumbling fever for the past few days.  The previous night hadn't gone so well.  Being the height of the summer tourist season, it was tough to simply drop into a restaurant for dinner, and in the end we'd settled on a somewhat renowned hamburger place, a nice bit of irony considering beef was one thing that had been hard to find on any Icelandic menu, prior to the current tourist boom that is.  The meat had the usual effect on me, raising my already high body temperature as I attempted to sleep.  This being Iceland, the room had no air-con, and sleep was very hard to find.

Heat was the theme of the summer, with Kyoto having flirted with record highs day after miserable day.  Even the UK where I'd spent the previous week was well above the norm.  What a delight then to land earlier that day in temps in the mid-teens.  As if under the influence of Stockholm Syndrome, my thoughts immediately turned to heat, the Blue Lagoon in particular.  I read on the flight that being one of Iceland's top tourist attractions, reservations were an absolute must.  So while I dealt with the luggage and rental car, LYL used her phone to make a booking.  Or so we thought.  Apparently it never went through, and despite my turning on the charm, I was unable to talk the manager into just squeezing into just two more.  I found some consolation in the fact that the pools were only heated to 38 degrees C, tepid for me, as I tend to set my own bath to 45. (The admission price on the other hand was set far too high.)  Before we drove up to Reykjavik, I went out to look at all those bodies bobbing outside, in water tinted like antifreeze.  Still, it was the only color on the landscape, a blue so vivid it looked supernatural.    

 On the way to Snæfellsjökull, we had stopped at The Settlement Center in Bogarnes.  My fever had sapped my enthusiasm, so we merely climbed the hill to the sculpture dedicated to Egil, the Viking/poet who was star of Iceland's best loved saga. I missed his father's rune-covered gravestone, but found another set of runes in the quiet churchyard of Borg á Mýrum nearby, the handful of graves facing out toward the marsh and the sea beyond, waters which had led some of these early residents from the lands where they'd been born.

The sea was a constant presence to our left, its color betraying waters dark and cold.  The mountains and hills on our right strained upward as if to get a better glimpse.  The clouds forced their heads down in places, though here and there bizarre features could still be seen.  The most spectacular of course was the basalt cliffs at Gerðuberg, like a fistful of pencils rammed in the ground by an irate hero from the Sagas.  

I've mention how I love the approach to geographic extremes, the rest of the world steadily dropping away like a pencil being shaved down to its nub.  Mt.Snæfellsjökull and the entrance to Verne's underworld hovered just above us, out of sight due to the clouds.  We rounded its flank and in doing so turned back upon ourselves, moving along the northern edge of the peninsula, the land building up once again.  Beyond the sea out my window was little but a world of ice -- Greenland, and the North Pole.  I imagined that if I squinted my eyes I could almost see the dotted line of the Arctic Circle.

The land here was jagged rock, covered in moss.  It's beauty was hypnotic, though here and there highlights appeared.  The 412 meter Hellissandur longwave radio mast, Europe's highest, was tethered by cables that spread nearly its height again.   Not far beyond was the fishing village of Rif whose name was somehow un-Islandic.  Berserkjahraun corrected that, its jagged lavascape as wild as the legends behind it.  And of course the majestic Kirkjufell Mountain, it shape almost a towering pastry against the sea.   

Maybe be it was the fever, maybe it was the weather, but I was somehow uninspired to stop and take photos. (Near sacrilege in this era of the selfie.)   On the other hand, it could have been the consistency of the beauty around me.  Each and every kilometer was simply breathtaking, so how to choose?  Far more preferable to just roll through and be lost in it.  I've been attempting a change in how I engage place, in not arriving at a destination and immediately blotting it out by placing the lens to my eye. Better to engage it first, before trying to subdue it.

And ironically as we were pulling into Stykkishólmur, the sky began to clear and all that beauty became even more vivid.  By then little but my hotel bed interested me, and I allowed myself a few hours sleep before setting out again for dinner.  Our hotel Franciskus (which unknown to us multitasked as a  Franciscan nunnery, the chapel and resident sisters still in evidence) had booked a table for us at Sjávarpakkhúsið, a hundred year old bait shop converted into a restaurant (which I'd see again on the flight home, as a central location in 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty').  Being Saturday night, the place was busy, the service slow.  But the clientele helped pass the time.  I eavesdropped at the older couple at an adjacent table, straining to place their accent.  From Scando-wherever, the husband had an interesting habit of toasting his wife after every third or fourth sentence.  And as the summer light faded, he began more and more resemble Max Von Sydow, and in my fevered mind, I began to find myself an extra in a Bergman film.       


On the turntable: Josh Rouse, "The Smooth Sounds"
On the nighttable:  Alan Booth, "A Journey through Japan"
 

Poipourri of Strolls

I have a busy day ahead,  a series of hikes and walks splayed across Nara prefecture, which now appears bigger on maps than it had before.  I'd only be able to cover that distance by car, so I rise with the sun and drive into its fresh rays not long afterward.  This early start ensures that I beat Kyoto rush hour traffic, but I hadn't counted Nara city proper, so with a crawl I move in the long shadows of its ancient relics.

I am nearing my first destination when a sign welled up, for something called the Ancient Tang Burial Mound.  Intrigued by the name and the low tower silhouetted against the hills, I pull into the car park.  The tower is built into one corner of a man-made pond, punctuated by wooden planks used as a seat for fishing, and ringed with sakura just coming into bud. The park that surrounds it had been built in 1994, but there seems to be a bit of expansion going on, and I wondered if it were connected to the recent influx of Chinese tourism, and whether those tour groups found their way out here.  Upon approach, I find the tower was off-limits to climbing, but it makes for a pleasant excuse to stretch my legs and bladder. There is a basic information sign telling me that the tomb had been discovered in 1901, but not when it had been built.  There are photos of a few broken relics, now housed in a nearby museum, but I can't budget time to investigate further.  I am intrigued by this long dead Chinese, of a status that warranted him a sizeable tomb.   This area is rich in Korean influence, reflected both in its place names and its artistic traditions, though the Tang had come a bit later and their touch lingers to this day.   

My actual first destination is the alleged burial mound of the legendary Himiko, a shaman-queen who appears in the archives of that Tang Dynasty.  Japanese records are non-existent, so the location of her tomb is in dispute, if she had existed at all.  I had already visited one of her 'tombs' on Kyushu's Kunisaki peninsula, and a month ago I learned of this Hashinaka site.   A flotilla of ducks floats across the placid surface of the pond that bordered this reasonably sized tomb, though the lack of infrastructure gave hint of few human visitors.  There is a small rock garden and a cafe, and how pleasant it would be to sit at the waters edge and ponder what may have been.  Instead I park my car near a kindergarten on the opposite side, the laughter of the children dissolving into that of crows, feisty and active in the forested tomb above.  I circumambulate around the tomb, to the accompaniment of the usual sounds of morning, of the excitable voices of old woman greeting one another in the street, of the bangs of construction somewhere out of sight, of the canned music of a kerosene truck circling slowly and optimistically.

A short drive away is Omiwa Jinja, where I park and walk up to the adjacent Hibara Shrine. Here I am given a sash, a blessing, and a somewhat stern reminder of the rules.    I must appear impatient as I am eager to set off before the group of perhaps 60 old timers kitted out in hiking gear.  I move up quickly and steadily, legs taken aback at the steep pitch of the trail.  I overtake a few people, a family, a middle-aged woman and her less than enthused teenage son, a number of women walking alone.  The forests are wild, untouched, far more beautiful than the straight rows of cedar beyond the fences.  There are a number of features along the way, a waterfall, a spring, an ancient and majestic cypress, towering, towering.  I make good time, nearly half that as predicted by the maps, and before I know it I am standing before a large circle of stones.  This is one of Japan's oldest holy sites, and even today the mountain itself is seen as a god.  In a remote corner of the peak a woman is doing full prostrations to the god, her devotion obviously far deeper than that of the usual 'power-spot' groupie.  I descend just after her, and her sureness of foot betrays the fact that she is quite regular in her veneration.  As I drop lower into the forest, I pass another young woman, with the supple and straight posture of the yogini, feet bare to absorb every bit of prana that the gods allow.  

Onward, south to Uda, an ancient village celebrated in the Manyoshu for its light.  The sky isn't the red of the poem, but a rich blue that doesn't seem to mind that the leaves and flowers have yet to return.  This next section of walk takes me forward through the centuries, from the ancient Asuka countryside, to the mountain temples of the Muromachi, to the centralized hub of Edo town.  Visiting one temple, Tokugenji, I see that the house adjacent to the main hall is littered with drums of a variety of cultures.  Curious, I call out to whomever it is I hear washing up back in the darkness.  I expect a shaved-headed older priest, but instead I am approached by a man closer to my age, with tidy beard and long scraggly hair.  Under the pretext of him clarifying a name on the temple's historical information sign, I shift to ask him about music.  So begins a half-hour conversation about life, music, and common acquaintances.  I'm not sure from his look and manner whether he is the priest here, but his life and vision is far closer to the Buddhist ideal than the more programmed ordained.   His wife, a woodblock printer, joins us, and though I could pass the afternoon here, I need to peel off at some point.  After a quick look at the Oda clan graves in the forest above, I drop down to walk the compact and well-preserved grid of narrow street that make up the town center.  It is a beautiful and quiet place, and once again my mind begins to explore the contours of a life lived in these remote reaches.     

After a long meandering drive through the hills that border Mount Yoshino, I find myself less enthused with the town of Gojo, which is spoilt and overbuilt and hides its lovely old post town look away beside the river.  This single street is the only thing of interest here, and I don't take long to trace its length up and back.  

Then, and finally, I continue to Taishi-cho in order to trace a section I'd skirted as I walked adjacent along the Takeuchi Kaidō.  At its most extreme reach is Futagozuka Tomb, tree-covered and bored out to partially reveal the entrance to the twinned tombs within.  It is rare that you are allowed to walk atop one of these tombs, and from the summit I stand and watch the sun dropping toward Kansai Airport far to the west.  As I turn again toward my car, I see two women in an adjacent field, one lightly patting the belly of the other who has apparently toppled over.  She is quiet and breathing regularly, and I sit with them until a group of men return to help.  I stand there a moment more, wondering what, if anything, to do, until I figure that there is little I can do, and that medical attention had been called.  But the image of these woman stays with me as I too head toward that setting sun, until the traffic pulls my focus back once again to the passage of the road ahead.  



On the turntable:  Art Pepper, "Lost Life"
On the nighttable:  James Kirkup, "Me All Over"

Sur la Route: Sud

I looked over the long rolling expanse of neatly trimmed grass, caring not a whit that it was now a golf course.  I was alone on the veranda of the Chateaux d'Augerville , allowing the coffee to bring heat into my body, surprised at the morning chill.  Above me, the soft light brought color into the trees.  

The sleepiness of this Sunday morning carried me along, as did the car through the open farmlands that would have been at home in the American Midwest.  I had a quick ironic smile as I passed through the village of Dimancheville, where little moved but the birds.  I imagined the Catholic inhabitants sitting idly in their homes, living the mantra of "never on Sunday."

The land stretched on, then began to rise and take on additional color.  This was Burgundy again, and the tendrils of vineyards looked ready to reclaim all before them.  (And metaphorically that might be true.)  Only the chapels and abbeys stood safe, perched as they were at the great heights of the hilltops.  We chose to take the backroads on this our return journey, bringing us into closer contact with the landscape.  At this closer range, we were charmed with the region's beauty, and began to talk excitedly of a return visit to deepen our acquaintance.  

As for tonight, we'd stay at the Chateaux d'Ige, nestled deep in a valley outside Mâcon.  Our room was atop the spiraling stone staircase in the turret of this old fortress, though the view from our window showed little to protect outside of seemingly infinite rows of that tantalizing grape.  The bells in the church tower began to chime, as if counting down toward a time when we could try out some of the region's famed Pouilly Fuisse. Most of our waking hours, we passed outdoors,  either reading out on the lawn, or dining beside a Japanese garden that was more Monet than Mirei.  

The following morning we took a brief drive through Mâcon, impressed with the line-up of buildings along its river. Within the spiderweb of narrow streets we found the famous Maison de Bois built entirely of wood, and within its roots we grabbed a take away coffee for the short drive to Lyon.

The caffeine began to rush through our systems as the traffic did just the opposite.  Moments after entering the auto-route, we came to a complete halt due an accident up ahead.  We tuned into traffic information on the radio, and at each repeat mention of the snarl, the number of kilometers blocked up was increased by three.  This was the main north-south artery in the country, and as such, France had had a stroke.  As if mocking the situation, just to our left, the Saône flowed cheerily on. 

We arrived in Lyon 90 minutes later than planned for our meeting with my old college friend roommate.   An incidental Facebook post a few days before had alerted my friend Derek to the fact that I was in Europe, and we soon realized that we'd both be in Lyon on the same day.  He didn't mind our late arrival, being both jet-lagged and aiming for a low-key day since he would be representing the U.S. in the decathlon at the World Masters Athletics competition over the next few days.  As it was, it was nice to spend a couple of hours together, strolling the lesser streets of the old city, catching up on eight years.  

It took LYL and I a little bit of time to escape Lyon's clutches, and once free, we made our way toward the Alps.  We paralleled them awhile before turning directly in after realizing that we'd chosen the wrong auto-route south.  It was a fortuitous mistake as the detour would take us through some spectacular scenery, including an incredible descent down a series of serpentine turns that dropped us a thousand meters down the mountain face.  The valleys which followed brought further delight, and it was easy to imagine that Napoleon too had been equally impressed by the Vercours landscape during his return from exile along these same roads.  Though the man may have had other things on his mind at the time. 

Bicycling the old Napoleon road seemed to be a popular summer pastime, and I too could see myself strolling these 300+ kilometers, as the River Durance brought me within nodding distance of a series of picturesque towns lined up between Sisteron and Digne.   It was due to the combination of such beauty and my growing fatigue that we decided to stop over for the night and enjoy the drive for another day.  We found an old silkworm farm to put us up, grabbing the last room at short notice though sadly on a day when its famous chef had a night off.  A meal had a short drive away proved to be sufficient, and before long we drifted to well-deserved sleep beneath a bizarre choice of wallpaper that depicted a 1940s Manhattan skyline.

I awoke to the last efforts of a morning rainfall, which ceased the moment we entered Provence, as befitting the season.  The heat never led up as we climbed and climbed, twisting and winding through the Gorges of Verdon.  A village in the middle was perfectly placed for lunch, then we were back into the hills again, through villages and town of no known fame, yet each one absolutely perfect.   They were sleepy in the midday, making even a coffee stop a formidable task. And at 4 p.m. they awoke again, and at 4:05, freshly caffeinated, so did I.   

The roads grew smaller and smaller, until we were alone on the road, shaded by the increasing olive and fruit groves.   The asphalt dropped away with the centuries to eventually become a dirt path, until it too thinned to enter a familiar gate that drew us in.  


On the turntable: "Groovy Instrumentals"
On the nighttable:  Francoise Sagan,  "Bonjour Tristesse"

Sur la Route: Nord

They've fenced in Antoine St. Exupery's airfield.  I came past on a summer's evening last year, on the way to a memorable meal at Auberge La Môle (Though in Provence, all meals are memorable).  The new stone wall would not have contained the wandering spirit of St. Ex, which often took flight from the dirt strip beyond, a spirit eventually lost to the waters just south of here.  As for my own wandering spirit, it would have to find satisfisfaction in keeping between the lines of a road stretching itself east along the Côte d'Azur.

The twisting road unwound itself at the old Greek trading post of Hyéres, the olive trees falling away as the auto-route took me through a landscape reminiscent of the work of Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keeffe, rocky arid mounts rising toward the flawless blue sky of July, though here ancient fortified villages have replaced the stone spires.  Cezanne found great delight in this earth, in Montagne Ste-Victoire in particular, at whose foot lies the grave of Picasso, a man greatly inspired by his predecessor. 

Amidst this dry landscape there were fountains, drawing from the same spring that the Romans had used to soothe their battle-wounds.  The picturesque city/town of Aix-en-Provence has grown up around them, water gushing from each square, interconnected by narrow lanes choked today with the pressing bodies of tourists.  They meandered and dawdled, their steps taking them in unpredictable arcs, bisected by the lightning-fast straight courses traced by instrument-laden buskers moving as if late for work.  We escaped them and the heat for a meal in a small bistro, cooling our heels upon the colored tile.  Afterwards, LYL led me around the twisting maze of the city where she once attended university.   All roads lead to the Cours Mirabeau, where we sat for a coffee in the Deux Garçons, myself imaging what native sons Cezanne and Zola would have talked about when they took their positions beneath large, intricately framed mirrors.  Probably commenting on the passersby, as did we.    

The location of our hotel above the Cours Mirabelle ensured a poor night's sleep, mostly by the street cleaning crews at work in the soft light of daybreak.  But it also created a pleasant opportunity for a tourist-free retracing of steps through the city at dawn.  Afterwards,  we drove into the greener and more fertile rolling of hills that is the Rhône Valley.  It was the dreaded first weekend of the month-long summer holiday, and it seemed like all of France was on the move.  Or not, as the snail-pace of the auto-route allowed us a bit too much time to ponder the ugly architecture of the up-and-coming Confluence, where the Rhône and the Saône joined together after caressing the contours of Lyon.  It was refreshing to walk these streets at a pace slightly quicker than which we had driven, in a proper French city, along broad boulevards framed by tall 17th and 18th Century facades whose glassy street level floors were devoted to 21st Century capitalism.

Lyon is both famous and infamous for the deliciousness of its food, and our steps seemed to take us from table to table.  In between we wandered gingerly over the cobblestones of the old town, where the tourists were protected by machine-gun toting soldiers whose armored bodies looked as if they have arrived from a century all their own.  We left all of them when we crossed over to an affordable-looking artistic quarter marked by a series of murals standing above the river.  Beyond the photogenic Robert Bresson primary school to Place de la Comedie, marked by a grand fountain designed by Bartholdi, looking nearly as grand as the Statue of Liberty that he had designed a decade earlier.    As we were admiring her waters, we were politely asked to step back so that a film crew could shoot what might go on to be the latest hit in Bollywood. 

That evening we ate in a culinary school set up by renowned chef Paul Bocuse, housed conveniently on the ground floor of our hotel facing the Place Bellecour.  As I sat at my window-side table, I noticed that I was drawing a fair bit of attention from passersby, who would either stare, or give me a thumbs up.  This would be repeated throughout our travels over the next few days, making me begin to wonder what French celebrity they were mistaking me for.  

Another early start, from one wine producing region to another.  But Burgundy would wait for another day, and before long its vineyard studded hills would flatten out as we drew closer to Paris.  We would stop fifty kilometers short, at Fontainebleau, to stretch our legs amongst the Chateau's 1900 rooms.  Napoleon and Louis XIV had slept here, in one or two of them, built over a series of centuries.  Whomever the Emperor, he must have had a hard time sleeping beneath the busy patterns of wood, and stone, and tapestry.  After two decades amongst the Zen aesthetic of Japan, I found it all headache inducing after awhile.  So the chateau's vast open grounds were a relief and a delight, a series of simple demarcated right angles looking quite...Zen.    

We ourselves slept at another Chateau that night, preempted by a stop at the midway point between them for a party which had served as the catalyst for the entire road trip.  LYL's friend was holding the party for her daughter's 40th birthday, and as the light was softening from the day, we found ourselves on the lawn of an old longére French house which stretched across what would be a full city block.  We sipped from glasses of vin blanc while listening to a guitar driven chamber orchestra playing through their repertoire of 1950s light jazz.  A quintet of Moroccans served up an assembly line couscous, as a lamb spun lazily over an open fire behind.  As our host had once been an Ambassador, we were in a rather colorful and diverse crowd of expats from whatever their country of origin.  No one was where they had once belonged, as if a jigsaw puzzle had been spilled across the grass.  I had the best of conversations, I had the worst of conversations, and after one too many of the latter,  LYL discreetly pulled me away in the direction of the car. 

Not long afterward we pulled up before our chateau, our shadows elongating toward its well-lit facade.  I half imagined that it truly was ours, with the staff waiting inside to bid us goodnight and to count down the hours until the first coffee of dawn.    

On the turntable:  "Colors of the World"
On the nighttable:  Colette, "Break of Day"