Benassini-Lyons Travels

The word "Alhambra," for those, like me, who had never been there, evokes a sense of exotic romanticism and history. I was never really sure why, as I had never read much about Granada, or the Reconquista, or of the Andalusi period of Spanish history. After visiting the place, though, I had an answer. Washington Irving, the American writer, spent several months in 1829 living in the Alhambra, interviewing its inhabitants, and researching its history. At the time, he was the American ambassador to Spain, and his book, Tales of the Alhambra , brought the history of the place to life and (single-handedly?) created the "exotic romanticism" that I always felt when hearing the name. Consider this passage from his book: To  the traveller imbued with a feeling for the historical and poetical, so inseparably intertwined in the annals of romantic Spain, the Alhambra is as much an object of devotion as is the Caaba to all true Moslems. How many legends and traditions, true and...

 We rode the Metro in Madrid. It was great. The Circumvesuviana is still the worst.

 Once before I visited a country experiencing high inflation (Zimbabwe, '99) and discovered a whole series of economic lessons that are hard to understand outside of the high-inflation context. These are not the same as the 7 or 10% inflation that we see in countries with "hard" currencies; these inflation environments have much higher rates of inflation, are much more corrosive to the economy, and are much harder to control. The latest official statistics from Turkiye are showing 60% annual inflation--the real rate may be higher--and the central bank raised bank interest rates by 500bp (to 35%!) while we were in-country. There are many effects, large and small, when prices rise this rapidly. For example, prices rise so fast that restaurants can't print menus--the menus have blank prices which are written over periodically. Conventional wisdom suggests that bank rates have to exceed the inflation rate in order to bring inflation down, and at these rates one can see wh...

We hesitated to go to Istanbul, it was a bit out of our way, either by plane or bus, they have had lots of protests recently, and, really, could it be all that cool, anyway? Well, we were glad we went, even if just for three days, and it was really that cool, anyway. Blue Mosque at night. Aya Sofia at night. Katie in the Basilica Cistern, a Justinian-era underground cistern (yes, with the fancy columns). In front of the Topkapi Palace, which we did not enter because of the outrageous pricing.

We have visited many playgounds in recent years, across twelve countries in three continents, and we have finally found the BEST playground. I suppose it is hyperbole to declare it the best in the world, but it very well may be. Şehit Fethi Bey Parkı covers a couple of hectares along the beach just north of Fethiye, Turkiye. It opened in 2018 and has exercise equipment, swings, ziplines, several play structures, ponds, beaches, a skate park, and more. We visited several times during our stay in Fethiye, and will be talking about it for years to come. Satellite view of the park. Credit where credit is due. Scene over the park from the observation point. One of the many play items, with slides, swings, and ziplines in the background.

Other than a brief visit to Tunisia fifteen years ago (which itself was only briefly part of the empire), these weeks in Greece and Turkey mark our first visit to the old Ottoman empire. There is much to note and ponder. When the Ottoman empire declined through the 19th century, and eventually collapsed after World War I, the territory that it once governed was partitioned and, generally, joined the European-derived system of nation-states. So today we have Greece and Turkiye, Iraq and Syria, Israel and Jordan, Bosnia and Serbia. We have also had an uncountable number of wars, uprisings, rebellions, and protests in the century since the collapse. Katie at the 100th anniversary Republic Day celebration in Turkiye. The kids have been trying to write effective definitions that distinguish between "nation" and "country" and "empire" and "nation-state", and finding these concepts a bit difficult to understand--much less define--having come from the US...

September 29 was a looooong travel day. Luke and I drove all the way back across Italy to drop off the rental car in Pisa and then took a long but relatively easy train ride from Pisa down to Naples; the first 8 hours of the trip were a piece a cake compared to the last 30 minutes, which should have been an easy train ride from the Naples metro stop to the Ercolano stop. Ahh it was so frustrating trying to find the right system and the right platform and find the right desk (yes, desk, not a ticket machine).   Wow Naples, really really bad public transit information! Luke and I almost lost it on each other trying to figure it out. After a week working with the Naples train system, we agreed it was not our tired-travel-brains, it is just a really bad transit system. Gol-ly Naples trains, they're impossible to figure out; we got on one and asked a woman in a nice-looking work suit what its destination is and she said, "Chi lo so?" Who knows?  Ok, but, we got to our apartm...