The U.S. Healthcare Debate

I am impressed with the Obama Transitions Team to engage citizens in meaningful conversations. To join in on the healthcare debate, go to: http://change.gov/newsroom/entry/join_the_discussion_daschles_healthcare_response/

Here is my two-cents:

Trying to "fix" a broken system by tweaking it will not work. It's as crazy as putting a new heart into a person whose other organs have also failed. A whole new system is required and, as many have written, based on a new set of values regarding people, not policies and profits. Fact is, we don't even have a system. We have an industry and, like the U.S. auto industry, it is cumbersome, archaic and unresponsive to the needs and wants of nearly all the people involved.

I suggest we start with our education, making tuition free for doctors, nurses, EMTs, etc. in exchange for, say, a couple of year's of community service at a base-rate of pay. That way, doctors don't graduate med school with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Liability needs to be capped.

Free preventative health care, from pre-natal to adulthood, including dentistry, (as in New Zealand), will avoid much of the adult onset of chronic disease and raise awareness. And, on the other end of the life cycle, we need to address aging and dying as a society, as our existing options are pitiful and only the very wealthy can have any peace about end-of-life care and dignity. We must create safety nets for our citizenry to overcome the fears rampant on every level in the U.S. Why are 50% of bankruptcies over medical bills?

But all this means re-prioritizing our values...for people, not profits. And too, citizens must be willing and empowered to take responsibility for their health and well-being. This is a huge issue that speaks to the core of our values as a nation, but I believe 'yes we can' make the necessary changes. Thanks for engaging us in the conversation.

Two Weeks in Madrid

It’s different when you live in a place, in contrast to visiting and being a tourist. As streets, landmarks, stores and transportation become familiar – for me, somewhere in the second week -- the place begins to lose its mystery and fascination and take on the comforting sense of familiarity.

I know how to find my flat through the maze of streets, from any direction. I know how to use the Metro to get anywhere, and smartly buy the 10-trip ticket which saves 3 euros over individual ones. I’ve visited the major tourist sites, had coffee or wine in all the famous squares and many historic tavernas. I’ve eaten my share of tortillas papas and bolillo sandwiches. I’ve shopped in small oriental-owned groceries, cheese shops, panaderias (bread stores) and druggias (where you buy shampoo). I have walked and walked, which is what you do. I have a local mobile phone with 8 people in my contact list.

I’ve been to the Prado and stood before masterpieces by Titan, El Greco, Velazques, Goya, Ribera and Bosch. I’ve even been to the movies with a local woman and her 83-year-old mother to see Woody Allen’s “Vicky, Christina, Barcelona” in Spanish, as everything is dubbed here. I will go to the Reina Sophia museum and Retiro Park (Madrid’s Central Park) before I leave.

The initial awe and luster gives way to some observations of annoyance. For example, men are not gentlemanly – no one gives up a seat on the Metro for anyone; people push past without a “perdon”. Questions are answered courteously enough, but no one offers additional or better information that, you later discover, could have saved a lot of time and aggravation.
Even the sound of the accordion, which delighted me my first night, upon hearing it from the sidewalk below, has become commonplace; along with the violin and flute and baritone singers which make music in the streets or plazas at all hours.

Madrid is a big, busy, dirty, noisy city, and the most late-night in Europe, with dinner commonly eaten after 10 p.m. Its habitants are remarkably friendly and helpful once you strike up a conversation or are introduced by a mutual acquaintance. Its old parts, where I have stayed, are full of narrow winding cobblestone streets, pedestrian streets inlaid with quotes in bronze from poets and statesmen, beautiful residential buildings with wrought-iron balconies, and impressive monumental buildings.

It is a place teeming with human activity that shuts down mid-day for the civilized tradition of a large meal and siesta. It is a city that has grown and sprawled in the post-Franco years, swelled with campesinos, immigrants and ex-pats, and now complains of the downside of being a melting pot.

I am pleased to have explored so thoroughly although, indeed, there is always much more. But, for now, I feel satisfied with my knowing Madrid and having been warmly received by a number of interesting Madrileños, mostly transplants.

The peace and quiet of Santa Fe will pose a real contrast to Madrid. No doubt, for a week or two I will experience a heightened sense of curiosity and appreciation that resides specifically in newness. I will see with fresh eyes. And then, as routine slowly erodes the edge of adventure, idealized notions of another thrilling locale will draw me toward my next escapade, where the unknown becomes known, in the inevitable cycles of Life.

The Alhambra, Granada

I sit in a courtyard created by two white-plaster walls topped with faded-red tiles, a wall of round stones embedded in adobe and a fourth wall painted burnt sienna. A thick, gnarled-trunk tree spreads its limbs and leaves from wall to wall, providing a canopy above the brick and stone-tile floor, the dozen tile-topped tables, the wicker barrel-chairs. I am in the center of Hotel America, a modest but pleasant inn, in the center of the grounds which comprise the famous Alhambra ("red fort").

Two fountains splash and sing, sparrows swoop in for a look, a discordant bell rings from one of the nearby watch towers until it tires of its own annoying clang and slows to a stop. I have eaten a typical breakfast: pan tostada (toasted roll), plain yogurt served with a piece of whole fruit (pear, banana, nectarine), a small glass of jugo de manzana (apple juice) and cafe con leche (strong coffee and hot milk). I sit alone in a place some 2 million visitors a year deem worthy of pilgrimage, surrounded by richly-patterned history.

Last night I visited the Nazaries Palace, the most famous structure on the Alhambra grounds which include a fortress, the gardens and houses of the Generalife ("heneral-leaf-ay"), numerous watch towers, the Palace of Charles V, a bathhouse, some curio shops, the most-expensive Parador in Spain, and Hotel America. The grounds are enormous and confusing. Ticket sales are at one end, entrances at another, and you must be prepared to walk up and down steep inclines and many steps to experience the Alhambra. Explanations and signs are few and far between.

With a special ticket to enter at a precise hour, allowing only 400 people at a time, the Nazaries Palace is lit inside at night by strategically-placed spotlights, but it remains quite dark to give a sense of the mystery, the serenity of the still pools surrounded by delicate arches and box hedges, the magnificence of the scale of genius of Moorish architecture, and the fact that every square inch of the walls is decorated, carved with flowing Arabic letters and an endless number of geometric designs. During the day, although admission is still controlled, the whole of the Alhambra is overrun with tourists, giving it a somewhat Disneyland feel.

This was the palace of Ibn al-Ahmar who, in 1238, became the first Nasrid sultan and the only Muslim governor in the Iberian peninsula after swearing allegiance to King Fernando III and formed the Kingdom of Granada. By this date, the Muslim empire was in decline but Ibn al-Amar found an old fortress on the hill and transformed it into the most important legacy of Muslim Spain.

There was a lot of paranoia in the Nasrid kingdom and the palace was built to baffle, with designs of twists and turns and secret passageways, not only ostensible enemies but people within their own ranks. The kingdom fell apart after 1492 and the Alhambra fell into ruin. It was "discovered" and made popular by Washington Irving, Victor Hugo, Chateaubriand and others who made up fabulous romantic stories about it, which form the basis of much of today's popularity.

There is much more that could be written, and has been, about it. But, for now, enjoy the images...

Couchsurfing, Servas & Other Remarkable Friendships

Some people thought I was nuts to join Couchsurfing, but it has proven to be an exceptional way to meet local people on my travels, and I am overwhelmed by their generosity and openness to friendship. Before I left on this trip and shortly after joining Couchsurfing, we hosted two different sets of couchsurfing travelers -- two young women from Hamilton College in upstate NY who were traveling on a grant, and a young Frenchman who has been teaching in San Francisco and was exploring the western U.S. during his summer break. All were delightful house guests.

Couchsurfing.com is an internet project started by a couple of guys just 2 years ago. It now has more than 3 million participants worldwide. Based on Servas (servas.org) --which is a 50-year-old host-traveler organization built on the premise of building world peace one friendship at a time, of which David and I have been members since 1996 -- couchsurfing provides a less-formal, internet-based, self-regulating approach (through posted recommendations by friends and fellow couchsurfers you actually meet) to people meeting. As a host, you can offer a couch or bed or simply offer to meet for coffee or a drink (what Servas calls "day hosts").

While Couchsurfing tends to attract and serve mostly the twenty-something crowd, there are older members and I used the brilliant and simple website to search via criteria for those over 40. Following are some of the experiences I've had so far:

Photos: 1. "Chiles," a Couchsurfing friend, and me in the plaza at Los Molinos, where she owns a second-home in the foothills of the Sierras, an hour from Madrid.

I wrote her an email because her profile, with a beautiful photo of her laughing, said: When women are laughing, something good is happening in the world." She responded with a phone call to my mobile and an invitation to join her that day at her weekend home for lunch and a car ride back to Madrid. I took a train to Los Molinos and was met by her at the station from which we walked a few blocks on dirt streets back to her beautiful home surrounded by high walls, fruit trees, palms and a swimming pool.

Immediately, upon meeting this energetic and fearless woman -- she is passionate about riding her bicycle around Spain on the old Roman roads and purchased a plot of land on an island in Lake Nicaragua where she is in the process of building a 16-room hotel/retreat -- we fell immediately into conversation (in Spanish) about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. After a glorious day, we met the next, enjoyed another meal together and took her 83-year-old mother to see Woody Allen's new film, "Vicky, Christina, Barcelona", in Spanish. She and her husband are off on a week-long bicycle tour and we hope to see each other again before I leave.

Photo 2: Emecee at the Bilbao Guggenheim.

I had written to Emecee (at Couchsurfing) before leaving the states to ask about staying with her in Bilbao. She honesty replied that I was welcome although her apartment in the city was not central and not really suited for guests, although she liked to offer her summer place in the Pyrenees. I thanked her and opted to stay in a centrally-located hotel in Bilbao. I checked into my room and shortly received an unexpected phone call at the hotel.

This sweet woman, who has traveled extensively in India, took the Metro 12 kms from her apartment to meet me at the hotel that afternoon. We walked along the river past the Calatravas bridge to the Guggenheim. Our conversation (in Spanish) ran to travels, art, relationships. She spent the whole afternoon with me, enriching my experience of the otherwise busy, gray-washed and industrial-feeling city (despite accounts of how much it has changed in the past decade since construction of the Guggenheim).

Photo 3: Susana and Daniel with the Alhambra in the background.

Last November, after 5 days as a visiting journalist guest of the Madrid Chamber of Commerce, I spent 2 days in Toledo, a 45-minute high-speed train ride south of Madrid. (I will post about Toledo soon, as I have another special friend from there). On my last evening, I was in a small bar drinking red wine and eating tapas -- a marvelous tradition wherein a small plate of food accompanies each drink for free -- when this couple squeezed in, fellow travelers.

I made room for them and invited them to join me at the bar. For 4 hours we spoke non-stop, in Spanish. I had to often use my dictionary to find the right word in our conversations about politics, travels, philosophy and work (she is a family practice doctor, he's a social worker), but we persevered as they speak no English. At the end of our evening, they graciously paid for my drinks and food saying it was their pleasure as I was the first American they had ever met and they were surprised at how amiable I was.

They had told me I must visit Granada and, somehow, I assumed they lived there. When planning this trip, I contacted them via email about getting together in Granada and learned they live in Murcia, 5 hours' drive east of Granada. Although I was welcome to visit them, they said Murcia wasn't worth the trip. Instead, they came to Granada for the weekend and rented a hotel to play host and guide to me for two days. We had a fabulous time, and I will forever be touched my their friendship.

Photo 4: Juan, Ines and Anouk, my Servas hosts in San Sebastian.

Juan, who works as a salesman for IBM, his wife Anouk, a self-employed pharmacist, their daughter Ines and son Daniel (not shown) welcomed me to their large apartment on the hillside overlooking the spectacular Concha Beach. Anouk lent me her mountain bike and I spent a day exploring further and more easefully than I could ever have done on foot.

This gentle, ordered and widely-traveled Basque family ensured that my time with them, and in their fair city, was one of comfort, security and interesting insights gleaned from being a part of another's family.

There are others, not pictured, like Emma and Anoud, fun and hospitable twenty-somethings in Toulouse, who invited over English-speaking friends for lunch, took me shopping and to enjoy drinks with other friends at a cafe in an ancient square, gave me use of their washing machine, a comfortable bed and prepared a marvelous regional stew for dinner. Emma had spent a year abroad in high school living with a family in Colorado Springs. She and Anoud travel widely and had recently returned from Iran. We spoke of women's rights, world politics, career choices, relationships (the ever-present topic among women) and, as my first couchsurfing hosts, I felt incredibly lucky to have been so lovingly received by them.

I highly recommend Couchsurfing and Servas as ways to enrich traveling, to bring back not only memories of place but of friendships. For me, this is the most valuable reason to travel...and, when at home to be a host.

Bilbao -- the Guggenheim, Juan Muñoz

Juan Muñoz "13 Laughing at Each Other"

You have probably seen photos of Muñoz's 100 little gray-colored oriental men, each identical and arranged in groups, but in person it is an evocative, bewildering experience. Standing around in a grand room, these "beings" appear to be laughing, each with his own expression created solely by the tilt of a head, the gesture of the body, and I wanted to join in the conversations, imagining them without effort. But, intentionally, their size (about 3/4 human) and the formality created by their uniformity, prevents this. We can be nothing but observers, and in the observation we observe our own response, our own emotions to the situation.

This is Muñoz's brilliance. He challenges at every turn with the fact that there is no reply from his creations. He considers this a form of theatre. They stand or sit alone, allowing us to witness, to be provoked. Questions of safety and vulnerability, consciousness and self-knowledge are raised in each installation.

In a darkened diorama-like stage, at the far end some 20 feet away from the observer, two small clay figures sit on a bench. A recorded conversation of two voices, reminiscent of "Waiting for Godot," plays in a loop:
What did you say?
I didn't say anything.
You never say anything.
But you keep coming back to it.
What did you say?
I didn't say anything.
You never say anything.
But you keep coming back to it.

Muñoz was born in Madrid in 1953 and died on Ibiza in 2001. I know nothing of his life beyond the scope of his work well-represented in this major show. By manipulating scale and perspective, time and space, he intentionally sought to "contaminated" the encounter between observing and observed, excluded but drawn in.

It was good that I went first to Bellas Artes because the Guggenheim answered my questions about how late-20th century art is provoking thought and conversation... through experiential art. The building is not only a fantastic space, a monument to the ingenious and innovative use of materials (e.g., the glass is infused with atomic-sized particles which provide transparent protection from the sun; the titanium covering is the thickness of a tissue), but the work of Serra and Muñoz raise questions of perspective, the experience of time and space, the ways we interact with ourselves and our environment. It's mind-bending.

Bilbao -- the Guggenheim, Richard Serra

After seeing many Guggenheim Bilbao photographs and the excellent documentary by Sydney Pollack, coming upon the massive silver-colored, fish-scale-covered sculpture of interconnecting shapes was familiar and exciting. However I did not understand the scope and the magical experience until I walked inside. In the soaring halls, every surface is curved in glass and tile, transparent in all directions, relating the city to the Nervon River, the parts of the building to one another, the individual to a sense of magnificence and intentional dynamic integration.

As the third floor was closed, between installations, admission was reduced and included an audio tour, which provided valuable insights to the architecture and exhibits.

But I didn’t need any explanations to experience Richard Serra’s freestanding giant steel sculptures that fill the enormous hangar-like gallery on the first floor. Vertiginously, each draws you in, through towering curved and variously tilted metal walls, like the alleys of an ancient city, deeper and deeper until you arrive at an open space, a center. The last one (of 7 or 8 experiential pieces) has right angles, forcing you to turn directly, in contrast to flowing into the space. At the center, the metal walls form the unexpected and sensual shape of a vagina.

In an adjoining room with scale models and photographs, Serra’s installation, titled “The Matter of Time,” is described as “based on the idea of multiple or layered temporalities. The obvious diversity of durations of time are activated and animated by the viewer’s movement.”

To further illuminate, I quote from the artist: “The torqued ellipses, spirals, spheres and toruses exist in the polarity between the downward force of gravity, their weightlessness and their upward rise in elevation which attempts to attain a condition of weightlessness.

“The sculptures are not objects separated in space but on the contrary engender the spatial continuum of their environment. They impart form to the entire space, they shape the space through axes, trajectories and passages between their solids and voids.

“Meaning occurs only through continuous movement, anticipation, observation and recollection. However, there is no prescribed view, no preferred sequence, no preferred succession of views. Each person will map the space differently. There is an unlimited range of individual experiences, but they all take place over time.
“When I talk about time I do not mean ‘real time,’ clock time. The perceptual or aesthetic, emotional or psychological time of the sculptural experience is quite different from ‘real time’. It is non-narrative, discontinuous, fragmented, de-centered, disorienting.”

It’s true. It’s amazing, mind-bending, life-altering to experience the disorienting and exhilarating sense of space and time while moving between two large sheets of rusty steel. It is incomprehensible without the experience. This, I think, is the genius of Richard Serra, and also of Juan Muñoz, who I’ll write about next...to engage us in the questions and discoveries of our world and our selves.

Bilbao, 18th September – Bellas Artes

Images from Bilbao


Everyone I’d met in the Basque country told me with great conviction that Bellas Artes, Bilbao’s “other” art museum, contains more interesting art than the Guggenheim. So I started there, in an unimpressive cubical building, a short walk from Frank Gehry’s looming and irresistible titanium ship.

What a classic museum like Bellas Artes presents is an insight into change over the centuries. I began with a special exhibit of 19th century painters and sculptors, particularly Spanish. These captured the ordinary life, and life was hard…working in fields and factories, kitchens and washrooms. The facial expressions were joyless, worn down by work. Even paintings of mothers with their children seemed sad, probably because the woman had a series of miscarriages and infant deaths. A few sculptures and paintings portrayed fabled romances, like Tristan and Isolde and Samson and Delilah -- the tragedy of passionate love. There was no happiness, that being, I’ve often been told, a “modern concept,” albeit still an elusive one in spite of – or perhaps because of – our elevated expectations.

In another temporary exhibit, of 20th art, I was enlightened to the fact that many Spanish artists created in cubist, surrealist ad abstract styles, not just the renowned like Picasso, Miro, Dali (all represented in this show), which is why such styles are considered “movements” (duh!). I saw an image of a cubist cow in a 1920’s painting that was exactly the same as Picasso’s tortured cow in “Guernika”, painted a decade later. Plagiarism, or influence, becomes apparent in such an exhibit.

As my purse had to be checked in at the reception desk, I did not have a pen and paper by which to make notes and therefore cannot recall specifics, but I was struck that in this era there were no representations, no effort to capture life as it is lived externally but, rather internally…in the abstract, the deconstructed, the provocative. But mostly, the swiggles and splashes of color seemed self-indulgent to me, without any concern for the viewer, for communication; except to express that the world is confusing and only the individual alone has significance.

I drank a café con leche on the patio, within the pleasant adjoining park, and wondered about new art: Was anyone expressing the connection between people, the possibilities of our post-modern age, the need for a message of hope and love and waking up to the crisis we’ve created on our Planet? If peace is not in our hearts, how can it be in the world?

We love those we love. We live the life we create, deciding if it’s “good” or “bad”, if we are content or not. With our thoughts we create our reality.

On to the Guggenheim…

Toledo Spain

I have tried to be sequential in this trip, but most-recent adventures tend to eclipse what happened last week, or yesterday, so I am taking the liberty to write without concern for actual dates...what difference does it make? It all happened and is now just a story anyway...a very good one.

There is an intensity in newness that must give way to familiarity and comfort in order for us to function. Such a pace as I've been on for more than 2 weeks is starting to feel exhausting. Originally, I planned to spend a week in Madrid and head out to Granada and on to Barcelona then up the Costa Brava and back to Toulouse in southern France to meet my flight back to the states on Oct. 7. But my experience in Madrid is so welcoming -- and I still haven't made it to the Prado! -- that I decided to go to Granada for the weekend as planned, and return to spend another week in Madrid. I will fly directly from here to Toulouse on Oct. 6.

TOLEDO

I enjoyed a beautiful blue-sky day in Toledo (Sunday, 22 Sept.) after a late start. It's difficult to get to sleep in a city where people begin dinner well after 10pm and normally turn in about 2 or 3 in the morning, but it's a rhythm that suits me fine. I hurried to catch a 12:20 train to Toledo but, in typical Spanish style, the vague instructions from the so-called Information booth put me in an hour-long line to buy a ticket for a 40-minute train ride. Oh well, standing in lines here is part of the culture... and now I know there are special fast lines for impending trains. In Spain, one has to discover these things for one's self.

After getting on the 1:50 train, I was met an hour later in the main plaza of Toledo by Professor Abdurrazzak Douhal, a famous nano-chemist from Morocco who I met on the train from Toledo to Madrid last November and he expedited my tightly-planned trip to the airport. He had said, "Next time you're in Toledo, I'll give you a tour of the university." I thought it a fat-chance that I'd ever be back in Toledo, but there I was again.

Toledo is an extraordinary city of tiny, steep and winding cobblestone streets; alleys actually, and its a sure bet that you will get lost in the maze, even after living there 25 years like Abdurrazzak. Actually, I think he has the worst sense of direction I've seen, and I seemed to know my way better than he after only spending 2 days there a year ago. We wandered, and in a delightful mix of Spanish and English, we talked about theoretical science and applied Life, like human nature and will and the magic of the moment when things shift; and they always shift in a moment.

We ate lunch (gaspacho and ensalada mixta) at a sidewalk cafe and visited one of the four Toledo campuses of the Universidad de La Mancha, which presents a good example of melding modern and ancient architecture; there is even an interior area of excavated Roman ruins. Because I was with a professor, we obtained a large iron key by which to visit a terrace which gives an elevated view over the river and crammed-together tile roofs (from the same era as those in Florence) under which dozens of generations have lived and died.

Every twisting street is a photo op of ancient stone and plaster buildings in a variety of colors -- yellow, pink, tan, blue -- with wrought-iron balconies and light fixtures, window boxes and shutters. We visited the huge cathedral, which I did not see last time. If you overlook the catholicism, it is pure art -- vast interior spaces with soaring columns and a plethora of compound arches between which are a myriad of paintings, bas relief sculptures (my favorite) and gold-encrusted designs that attest to Fibanacci series centuries before it was identified mathematically. The sheer size of it -- it felt at least 3 times bigger than Notre Dame in Paris -- was awesome.

There is so much more I could write about Toledo, having spent two days exploring it last November -- El Greco, the Sephardic Jewish community, the Moors, the Inquisition, the capital for a brief time of Isabel & Ferdinand's rule -- but it will have to be another time.

I took the last train back to Madrid at 20:30, the Metro three stops and then, within a block of the apartment I call home this week, I had to use my map to find Calle Relatores. The narrow street, one block long, is in the old part of Madrid, which is all angles and alleys and streets changing names at each intersection. I like it here, and plan to return for another week after this weekend in Granada. Granada! I have found, through www.craigslist.com, a room to rent at a woman writer's apartment nearby, in the old city. I will fly from Madrid to Toulouse Oct. 6, from where I'm ticketed to leave for the States on the morning of Oct. 7.

Lewallen Contemporary, at the forefront of change in Santa Fe

Our dear friends and neighbors, Ken Marvel and Bob Gardner, owners of the preeminent contemporary art gallery in Santa Fe, the Lewallen Contemporary gallery (http://www.lewallencontemporary.com/), were featured in a recent Wall Street Journal article about changes in Santa Fe. Please check it out:

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB122186392923158615-lMyQjAxMDI4MjIxMTgyNjEzWj.html

(The photo is of Bob, Ken and David on the beach at Barceloneta, a portside area of Barcelona, April 2006).

Cordes-sur-Ciel, a city in the sky (12 Sept, 2008)

Last September I made a pilgrimage, so to speak, to Mont Saint-Michel, a UNESCO World Heritage site which loomed large on my Life To-Do list. It is the most-visited abbey (3 hours west of Paris) and sits majestically on a rock, surrounded by volatile and impenetrable tides, at the border of Normandy and Brittany. David, his sister Jan, her husband Richard and I spent a night on the Mont, feeling as if we were the only people in this Medieval time warp.

Cordes-sur-Ciel, near Albi, is also a popular tourist site and evokes a similar sense of time/space discontinuum, but it is much larger, more of an actual living city and extremely well preserved. The cobblestone streets snake steeply up the hillsides, lined with luxurious 14th and 15th century homes decorated with sculptures and other architectural details. There are façades and remnants that date from the 13th century when the fortified village was founded by the Count of Toulouse in 1222 to protect the Cathars.

I did not get the "whole story" on the Cathars, but apparently they represented strong opposition to the corruption of the Catholic Church. Priests and Bishops were getting married, pilfering riches and otherwise undermining confidence of the people who decided to form a grassroots movement and demand adherence to the faith. They were, of course, condemned by the pope and sought out and destroyed in a crusade which began in 1209. There are numerous churches, ruins and museums that attest to the Cathars' resistance efforts.

Cordes-sur-Ceil was considered an alchemist's stronghold. I wish I had time to explore the remnants of them. Today it boasts a high concentration of craftspeople in glass, wood, canvas art, sculpture, fabric, ceramics and so on. The feel of the place was magical and the two hotels we previewed would be delightful to visit, overlooking the pastoral valleys and the ancient stone spires.

Albi, birthplace of Toulouse-Lautrec

Albi, on the banks of the Tarn, is famous for its two 13th-century landmarks: Sainte Cécile Cathedral and Palais de Berbie, which houses the largest public collection of works by hometown boy, Toulouse-Lautrec, born here in 1864. The cathedral, which has a very plain exterior, like a brick mill, is covered on all its interior walls by elaborate paintings, some of which -- like the geometric shapes in the photo -- seem remarkably modern. The architecturally-homogeneous historic center is full of half-timbered houses, cloisters, stone plazas and churches.

However, by Day 5 of the tour, and with our hotel being a disappointment, (3 stars and not worthy of 2), and a cold rain falling, I had hit a wall, overloaded with information and sight-seeing. The dinner, at Chateau du Vin (if memory serves), was odd by all estimations. The wine, which usually flowed freely, was meted out to us in small portions and the food, when it finally arrived, was a watery shrimp drink, salmon wrapped in nori on a stick and other inedibles. Clearly, the famous young chef was trying to impress us, and trying way too hard.

To further fuel my weariness, my favorite black jacket was lost. I could hear the houseboy in "Out of Africa" saying, "This jacket does not want to be with you." Indeed, it had tried to leave me the day before but a person from the restaurant where we lunched chased me down the street to return it. This time it had truly parted ways from me, and I hoped it found a good new home.

After another fairly sleepless night, we proceeded to the most fantastic town of Cord sur Ciel and a full-on last day in Toulouse.

Roquefort -- a Cheesy Place

Since 1863, Société has been making its smelly, moldy cheese in caves in the mountain town of Roquefort. Around that time, tunnels were discovered with a chartreuse-green mold, a form of penecillium, which is now cultivated in the caves. Mixed with goat milk, from a special local breed of ewes, the cheese "blooms" and is made into rounds by hard-working women and then placed on end, on wooden tables, and left to ripen for months under the supervision of "master ripeners."

There are seven producers in Roquefort but Société seems to be the largest, exporting about 25% of its production and making a name for itself on the tourism circuit. As the growing season is January to June, the factory was empty and in the places of thousands of rounds of cheese were plastic imitations, The dioramas and displays date from an earlier, pre-tech period and are, in a word, cheesy.

Millau - Gloves, Bridge, Friends, 10 Sept. 2008

Millau (pronounced "Me-oo") is a small city in industrial decline and yet, thanks to our extraordinary tour guide, Hubertus Richard, it was among the most interesting stops. Its only remaining manufacturing company is Causse, which makes some 25,000 pair a year of very fine and very expensive gloves, keeping alive this elegant craft (gants de peau) since 1892.

But, recently, Millau put itself on the map with the construction of a viaduct designed by Sir Norman Foster. Considered the highest suspension bridge in the world (343 meters from the base to the top), its 7 elegant harp-like posts create a stunning profile against the stark landscape and span the Gorge du Tarn, shaving several hours off a road trip from the north of France to Bizet on the Mediterranean coast.

It is a privately-funded project, with the agreement or projection of recouping its investment within 75 years. However, returns coming from a single toll now look like the project will be paid for in a mere 20 years. A good bet. It took exactly 3 years to construct.

These facts and many stories and philosophical musing were presented by an energetic Dutch character who moved to Millau 25 years ago and embraced the city as his own. With intense energy, reminescent of Italian director Roberto Benini, Hubertus joined our group for dinner and then my new friends -- Wendi from LA,, David from Louisville, KY and our amiable tour bus driver, Pascal -- and I continued a late-night walking tour of Millau's extensive and mysterious old town with Hubertus.

Among its interesting stories was the fact that Millau shared history, culture and language for 150 years with Catalunya, due to a marriage of a Catalunyan daughter to the Count of Millau in the 12th century, and the city coat of arms still bears the colors and images of Catalunya. Exploring the winding, deserted streets in the wee hours, hearing tales of people who lived here, died there, gave the sense of walking through history and feeling both the connection to and disconnection from the centuries of human experience.

Conques and powerful relics

OK, times were tough in the Middle Ages. People desperately needed something to believe in and had no choice but to believe in whatever the Roman Catholic Church was serving up...sometimes one's own head for opposing it. But whenever there is no-choice, there are people who want something different.

An opposition group to The Church sprang up and those who fought them, in the name of The Church, became martyrs. Such was the case in the story of a girl who, at 13 years old, was beheaded for her faith and became celebrated as Sainte Foy (Saint Faith, Santa Fe -- Holy Faith). The gold statue of her sitting on a throne dates back to the 9th Century and was added to over the years -- embedded rock crystal from the German empire, earrings from the 13th century, her face replaced from a previous Roman statue, her shoes remade in the 19th century. Now, with more than 1,000 years of decoration, this statue (maybe 3-feet tall), is the only one of its kind and has engendered more than 1,000 years of devotion and mythology.

It resides in a chapel in Conques, a charming village of silver-gray slate roofs, steep winding cobblestone streets and brown stone walls, nestled into the side of a hill in a remote part of Aveyron. The town is a major stop on the way to Compestela and is famous not only for the statue of the young martyr and many other bejeweled vessels that hold pieces of the cross and body bits from saints, but for its abbey church of Sainte-Foy.

This church is a landmark of Romanesque architecture -- soaring stone pillars and arches -- and an elaborate carving on the tympanum (over the front door) of the Last Judgement. Amid all the images of eternal suffering (which look like "regular living" at the time), there are some interesting and whimsical faces which are called "The Curious Ones." Perhaps the sculptor had an unusual sense of humor or incredible optimism about the after-life. Perhaps he was beheaded for heresy, these being the only light-hearted images amid the serious business of eternal life. The abbey is also famous for stained-glass windows by contemporary painter Pierre Soulages. Some half-million tourists and pilgrims visit Conque each year.

Food, Wine and More Food and Wine

This region of the Midi-Pyrenees is known for its duck. Each restaurant (lunch and dinner) serves its own versions, beginning with a foie gras appetizer and continuing on with baked, broiled, roasted and otherwise prepared cannard. Even my gourmand companions were “ducked out” after 3 days.

Not being a foodie or meat eater, the amount of meat and the sheer volume of food soon became disgusting to me (desgustion is the French word for digestion, I think, or maybe just eating). A typical lunch: red wine and bread, salad and salmon quiche, foie gras, beef, potatoes au gratin, small onions in beet sauce, fondant au chocolat, coffee.

Five hours a day (or more) were spent sitting at a dining table. Enough! This is not to say that the experiences of eating on a barge, in a cave, in ancient vaulted-arched rooms or on cobblestone sidewalks were not enjoyable. Quite the contrary, and the regional wine was always delicious. And, of course, it is important to note that the French are slender despite their obsession with and love of fine food.