GadlingTV’s Travel Talk – Vatican, Vespas & Rome’s Nightlife

by Stephen Greenwood on

GadlingTV’s Travel Talk, episode 25 – Click above to watch video after the jump

For the final installment in our series on Rome, we’ve saved the best for last & are satisfying our thirst for adventure. Watch as we tour the Vatican, rent Vespas, and check out Rome’s impromptu night life.

On the couch, we’ll dissect the differences between the Vatican & the Holy See, and show you the one place in Rome to peer through a keyhole and view 3 separate countries. Tune in to see just how crazy Roman driving actually is, what the best place public place to go after hours is, and what else the Vatican has to offer beyond the Sistine Chapel.


If you have any questions or comments about Travel Talk, you can email us at talk AT gadling DOT com.

Subscribe via iTunes:
[iTunes] Subscribe to the Show directly in iTunes (M4V).
[RSS M4V] Add the Travel Talk feed (M4V) to your RSS aggregator and have it delivered automatically.

Links
Want to find the ‘magic keyhole’ of the Piazza del Cavalieri di Malta? Look no further.
Rent your own Vespa in Rome! Check out Eco Move Rentals.
Read more about the Holy See right here.

Hosts: Aaron Murphy-Crews, Stephen Greenwood

Produced, Edited, and Directed by: Stephen Greenwood, Aaron Murphy-Crews, Drew Mylrea

From the Shores of Louisiana: Dredging

by Jon Bowermaster on

Chandeleur Islands, Louisiana — The French-born helicopter pilot zooming low over the Gulf is focused on two things: Whether he can find more fuel in Venice and whether or not the brown streaking we’re seeing north of the Chandeleur Islands is oil or just the transition of muddy Mississippi River water mixing with salt water.

It’s his first day flying out of Plaquemines Parish and, with maps piled on his lap, he admits to being a bit confused by both the landscape zipping past below at 100 mph – over solitary oil rigs, marsh and sand islands and a half-dozen shrimp boats trailing skimmers — and just how deeply the oil has penetrated up the mouth of the Mississippi.

From five hundred feet above sea level, with a mid-afternoon sun streaking in the window, it is admittedly hard to distinguish oil from muddy water. But when veteran Gulf photographer Gerald Herbert, riding shotgun, points worriedly below, it’s clear we are seeing a new stain heading inland, which we estimate to be about 12 miles long.

Everywhere you look in this area where Gulf waters meet fresh water, looking west towards the town of Grand Isle and the entry to Barataria Bay, you see oil.

My goal though is the Chandeleur Islands, about 50 miles off the coast. I want to parallel the length of the small island chain to see just how much oil has surrounded its 50-mile length. The Chandeleurs are the only bits of land standing between the still-gushing oil and landfall and for the past decade, thanks to storms and erosion, have been disappearing at a rate of about 300 feet a year. Now, thanks to the BP spill, the long-ignored islands have become a kind of secondary ground zero in the fight between locals and the federal government over how best to slow the spread of oil.

%Gallery-98231%It’s not a great leap to think that if energy had been put into building the islands up over the years to act as better barriers against big storms they’d also be better prepared to act as blockades to all this oil.

Governor Bobby Jindal, Plaquemines Parish president Billy Nunsegger and several other top Louisiana politicos have sent cranes to the islands – which are federally protected wildlife habitats – and not the kind that swoop and soar but the kind that trench and roar.

The federal government has already stopped the plan a couple times, concerned that any hasty digging, sucking and relocating of sand has the potential to do far more harm than good; the locals, led by an increasingly vociferous governor, argue that doing something – anything!! — Is better than doing nothing.

The local’s plan, to be paid for initially with state funds since neither the fed nor BP is backing it, is to suck sand off the bottom of the Gulf and pile it at the ends of the islands, extending their blocking ability. But the Interior Department, as well as several Louisiana environmentalists, contends the work is being done at overly sensitive sections of the island and that building up one end of the island will only weaken the spot where the sand is being taken.

My instinct as we fly over the islands at 2,000 feet – we’ve had to climb since this is federally protected air space – is that with evidence of oil having arrived yesterday on Lake Ponchatrain in New Orleans (80 miles up the Mississippi River) it seems that the oil has already evaded the barrier islands. Louisiana government statistics suggest that 337 miles of its coastline are now oil-inflicted. Maybe the hundreds of millions Louisiana is attempting to spend to try and block the oil could be better spent on coordinating its clean up.

But Bobby Jindal and team seem to be in a building frenzy; the fed has yesterday stymied another effort to build rock jetties or dikes in the shallow ocean in front of Grand Isle; 75 barges piled high with boulders sit parked on the Mississippi River, waiting the outcome of another squabble. The concern regarding the dike building is what will happen to them once the spill dissipates. If it ever does.

Five stunning stone circles (besides Stonehenge)

by Sean McLachlan on


Every year thousands of tourists flock to Stonehenge, the iconic stone circle on Salisbury Plain, England. While so much attention is focused on this site, especially with the recent discovery of another monument near Stonehenge, people often forget there’s more than a thousand stone circles in the British Isles and Continental Europe. Built during the Neolithic starting about 5,000 years ago, these sites are beautiful and have gathered a lot of strange folklore over the centuries, like the mistaken belief that they were built by Druids or giants. Here are five of the best.

The Ring of Brodgar, Orkney Isles, Scotland
The windswept Orkney Isles north of Scotland are covered in prehistoric remains. The Ring of Brodgar, seen above in this photo courtesy of Beth Loft, is built of thin, tall stones on a narrow isthmus between two lochs. Its architects obviously had an eye for dramatic setting. It dates to between 2500 and 2000 BC, a boom time for monumental building in the Orkneys. It’s the northernmost stone circle in the British Isles and also the third largest at 104 meters (341 ft) in diameter. Like many major circles it’s part of a network of sites, with tombs and single standing stones scattered in the area around it. Legend has it that the Vikings were so impressed with the Ring of Brodgar when they arrived in the ninth century AD that they worshiped their gods here. Some Viking Runes carved into the stones may support this theory.

Avebury, England
Bigger than Stonehenge, the site of Avebury just 17 miles north of Stonehenge consists of a massive stone circle 331.6 meters (1,088 ft) in diameter with two avenues of stones leading to a pair of smaller stone circles. Construction began around 2900 BC, roughly the same time as its neighbor. Other monuments, such as the mysterious artificial mound of Silbury Hill and the West Kennet Long barrow, an ancient tomb, are an easy walk away. During the Middle Ages the locals got religion and decided this pagan monument needed to go. They knocked over several stones until one fell over and crushed one of the vandals. Everyone thought this was just a legend until modern archaeologists dug up a fallen stone and found the skeleton of a man underneath with some 14th century coins in his pocket!

%Gallery-98480%Rollright Stones, England
This stone circle makes a fun day hike from Oxford. Most stone circles are pretty small. This one is only 33 meters (108 feet) in diameter but has some interesting details. One stone has a hole through which you can see a tall monolith called the King Stone in a nearby field. A nearby dolmen (a small roofed tomb of stone) is called the Whispering Knights. Legend says the circle and these two outlying monuments are a king and his knights who were turned to stone by a witch. Actually the circle and monolith were built by prehistoric people between 2500 to 2000 BC. The Whispering Knights date to about 3500 BC. In prehistoric times, the presence of one monument encouraged people to build more.

Drombeg Stone Circle, Ireland
Drombeg Stone Circle in County Cork is a tight little collection of stones 9 meters (30 feet) in diameter. It’s of a type known as a recumbent stone circle because the largest stone lies on its side flanked by two smaller ones. This was deliberate; the stone didn’t fall down. What this means is anyone’s guess, although the local claim that it’s a “Druid’s Altar” is fanciful because the circle dates to the Bronze Age, about 2000 BC, and the druids were priests of the Celts, who didn’t appear on the scene until around 300 BC. Radiocarbon dating on a burial found in the center of the circle yielded a date between 150 BC and 130 AD. Just like at the Ring of Brodgar, later people were attracted to the site. While Drombeg didn’t start out as a Druid’s altar, maybe it ended up as one!

The Stone Circles of Senegambia, Senegal and The Gambia
Stone circles in Africa? Yep, these monuments aren’t as grandiose as the ones in Europe but they’re equally mysterious. There are about a thousand of them in a region of central Senegal and Gambia, meaning there’s about as many stone circles here as in all of Europe. The stones are as tall as 2.5 meters (8 ft.), although some are only a foot or so high. They mark burials dating from the 3rd century BC to the 16th century AD. There’s a large concentration of them at Wassu, Gambia. Locals put small stones on top of them as a sign of respect. Not much is known about these stone circles but they are beginning to attract attention from the archaeological community. A certain Gadling blogger may be visiting them next year, so stay tuned.

GadlingTV’s Travel Talk – Ancient Rome

by Stephen Greenwood on

GadlingTV’s Travel Talk, episode 24 – Click above to watch video after the jump

Well, we got to Rome in style and now it’s time to hit the streets & explore. The city’s history spans over two and half thousand years and it seems like everywhere you go, there’s something interesting to discover.

This episode, we’ll take you on a whirlwind tour of some of Rome’s most iconic monuments & show you one of the city’s best kept secrets: the American Academy in Rome. On the couch, we’ll do an impossibly brief look at city’s history as the capital of three major eras; the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. So put on your tourist hat (we won’t tell), get your running shoes on and come check out Rome!


If you have any questions or comments about Travel Talk, you can email us at talk AT gadling DOT com.

Subscribe via iTunes:
[iTunes] Subscribe to the Show directly in iTunes (M4V).
[RSS M4V] Add the Travel Talk feed (M4V) to your RSS aggregator and have it delivered automatically.

Links
Learn more about the exclusive American Academy in Rome right here.
Did we get an exclusive sneak peek at an archeological milestone? Read up on the Lead Burrito.
Check out our fancy digs! The Regina Baglioni in Rome.
Need a tour group? Check out I.C. Bellagio – our gracious guides to Rome’s rich history.

Hosts: Aaron Murphy-Crews, Stephen Greenwood

Produced, Edited, and Directed by: Stephen Greenwood, Aaron Murphy-Crews, Drew Mylrea

Colonial Williamsburg farms for the future

by Laurel Miller on

Guilty confession: I got “D’s” in U.S. History. I just don’t get all wound up about battlefields, or ye olde anything. It may come as a surprise, then, that I recently paid a visit to Colonial Williamsburg, a registered historic landmark and living museum on the Virginia Peninsula. Why would I do such a thing, given my very unpatriotic educational record, and tendency to be freaked out by period costumes worn in public? Two reasons: love, and cows. Rare breed cows, to be exact.

I grew up on a small ranch where we raised horses, mules, goats, rabbits, and chickens. My dad is a large animal veterinarian who once observed, in all seriousness, “Laurel has a way with cows.” It’s true I was a bit of a bovine-whisperer in my youth, although I wasn’t too stoked when Dad felt it necessary years later to impart that information to my gleeful college roommates. I did, however, manage to convince my parents to let me raise a Jersey heifer for a 4-H project, so at least my talents weren’t wasted.

My love of dairy animals led to my current position as a contributing editor for a consumer cheese magazine, and I frequently write about humane livestock management. When my boyfriend moved to rural Virginia for work last year, I suddenly found myself looking for local story material to pay for my visits from Seattle. That’s how I discovered CW’s Rare Breeds program.

CW’s Coach and Livestock department started the program in 1986, as a means of “preserving and showcasing” heritage livestock and poultry breeds similar to the ones used to help establish the agricultural economy of the colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries. While authenticity is in keeping with the CW’s educational objectives, there’s a bigger reason behind the breeding program: preserving genetic diversity in livestock, and preventing the extinction of the historic breeds still in existence.

The advent of modern agriculture has led to the development of a few select breeds of livestock and poultry, designed for maximum output, in order to meet global demand for commodity products such as eggs, milk, and meat. Many heritage animals retain genetic traits such as disease resistance, tolerance to climatic extremes, mothering traits (sometimes lacking in modern breeds, who are often separated from their young at birth), and physical characteristics that make them better suited to specific geographical environments. Some of these breeds are so scarce, their estimated global population is less than 2,000. The Rare Breeds program has been so successful, the American Livestock Breed Conservancy has declared it an “outstanding historical, agricultural representation. Colonial Williamsburg is a pioneer…in conservancy and breeding.”

Richard Nicholl, director of Coach and Livestock and founder of the Rare Breeds program, has a more simple way of explaining it. “We’ve distilled our meat, poultry, and dairy industries down to just a few hybrids. If something happened to one of those breeds, it would have a serious global impact upon our food supply and food costs. Here, our job is to give life to the Historic Area, and provide education. I want children to be able to walk up to a fence, and be encouraged to pet an animal. We’re so totally disconnected as a society about the source of our food.”

Last month, Boyfriend and I spent a few days in CW, so I could talk to Nicholl, and take a tour of the state-of-the-art stables- something that’s available to the public through CW’s “Bits and Bridles” tours (book them at the main ticket office, when you purchase your visitor’s pass). Nicholl, a native of England, grew up working on various farms. While an agriculture student, he visited an uncle in Virginia who raised carriage horses. Nicholl’s fascination with the animals and heritage of horse-drawn transportation eventually led him to his present position, although he’s also the Chairman of the Driving Committee for the Federation Equestre Internationale, and a Course Designer for the sport of Combined Driving.

While Nicholl’s passion is for horses (the farm currently has two rare breed animals in residence: an American Cream Draft, and a Canadian horse used for carriages and riding), he’s equally devoted to the flock of 45 Leicester Longwool sheep- one of the only breeding herds in the U.S.-and his Devon Red cows. The farm also breeds heritage chickens such as Nankin Bantams, Silver Spangled Hamburgs, and Dorkings (I wonder why that name was lost to antiquity?).

The Rare Breeds program came about when Nicholl and his staff were trying to improve the crossbred flock of sheep they had at the time. They acquired a Leicester ram, although in 1986, finding heritage livestock was no small feat. Nicholl specifically wanted existing breeds that were also native to the region in the 18th century. He tracked down a Leicester breeder in Australia, where the animals are used for milk, wool, and meat, and had the ram shipped over. The next acquisition was a Red Devon cow, a breed that originally arrived with the Pilgrims, via Southwest England. Small, hardy, handsome cattle with russet hides, Devons were a multi-use breed, used for draft, milk, and meat. When CW’s first cow was purchased from New Hampshire, there were less than 100 Devons left in the U.S., and they were extinct in England.

Today, the program has approximately 20 cattle, which are variously used for public demonstrations on plowing and (occasionally) milking. Says Nicholl, “We’ve lost many of the dairy breeds of cattle to extinction, but the Devon is increasing in popularity-another rancher in our area is now using them for their grass-finished beef. This is a great example of the importance of the Rare Breeds program. It’s been very successful, as well as popular with visitors.” Nicholl is quick to point out that having too many animal species in the program is problematic. “It’s hard to let go; you can’t save every breed. We don’t have pigs now, but we encourage Mt. Vernon to raise them. It’s not sustainable to have too many animals.”

Some shops in the Historic Area sell wool from the sheep, and there are scheduled kitchen demonstrations of 18th-century food preparation, as part of CW’s Historic Foodways program. Some of the demos, including meat cookery and ice cream, butter, and cheesemaking, feature mutton and milk from the farm. It’s ye olde observation only, but fellow dairy dorks will enjoy The Cheese Shop, a family-owned, modern store in Merchant’s Square, adjacent to the Historic Area. There are over 200 domestic and European offerings to choose from, including Virigina farmstead cheeses from Caromont Farm, and Meadow Creek, as well as artisan bread from Richmond, a beautiful array of condiments, made-to-order-sandwiches, and other picnic fixings.

If you’d rather have a restaurant meal, skip the touristy taverns, and eat at the Fat Canary, which adjoins The Cheese Shop (and is owned by the same family). The restaurant is a pleasant, contemporary, casual-to-fine-dining spot with a patio and hopping bar. The food is mostly of the Southern American genre, with an emphasis on regional ingredients. Boyfriend and I had a very nice dinner that included a starter of housemade mozzarella with Virginia ham, roasted tomatoes, and pesto, and crispy Virginia soft-shell crab with roasted chili butter. If you’re still in need of a cheese fix, the Williamsburg Lodge offers “Wine, Wit, and Wisdom” classes, which are essentially cheese tastings punctuated by lots of wine and banter between their executive chef, wine and beverage manager, and sommelier. Not for serious oeno- or turophiles, but entertaining.

The Rare Breeds program is funded through the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; Donations can be made here. Be sure to reference the program on the form.

Go here for a Devon clotted cream recipe, a traditional English treat that really needs to be embraced Stateside, like the cows who inspired it.

My trip to Virginia was sponsored by the Virginia Tourism Corporation, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and Greater Williamsburg, but the opinions expressed in this article are 100% my own.