Last night over dinner a friend and I discussed which types of travel adventure trips we would and would not do. He mentioned that he had just read about a group who did a 19-day cycling trip through northwest Laos. We both agreed that this might not be the adventure we’d choose (having limited biking experience), but it sure is fascinating to read about others who have done it. The craziest thing is that one of the four men who went on this tour with Virginia-based Far And Away Cycling only bought a bike two weeks before the trip! But all ten participants biked the 500 total miles, and seemed to have a ball while doing it. The company’s Lost in Time tour of Laos runs again in December 2005 and February 2006. Price is about $1,000, not including airfare. They also run cycling tours in Spain, Slovenia and Corsica.
Washington Irving’s Spanish Steps
Having just spent a weekend cruising around the Hudson Valley, in fact visiting the very place that Washington Irving wrote about in his story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, I was interested to find this article in the Independent about a writer who heads to Spain to trace Irving’s footsteps in that country.
I lived in Spain several years ago, in the heart of Madrid, and still reminiscent about the late, late nights drinking sangria, and the exhilarating road trips into the Spanish countryside. On several occasions I found myself in places like Cordoba and Grenada, where the influence of 700 years of (relatively peaceful) Islamic rule is apparent everywhere. Like I did, the writer of the piece discovers that the culture of that older Islam still resonates in these places, and he finds that the meshing of the two cultures – Christian and Muslim – makes a fascinating story when examined through the eyes and footsteps of one of America’s most famous writers.