On shank’s mare

Living in rural Eastern Idaho, we’re used to just jumping in our car to get anywhere…. but nearly every city we know and love has some sort of public transport. It might be a monorail, buses, trams, horse-drawn carriages, a funicular running up a steep hill (often to a castle) or even one of those trains that takes tourists around. Those are all fine ways to get around, and we’ve used our share while we’re traveling. But both Peter and I prefer “shank’s mare,” plain old walking on our own two legs. 

It’s a little like hiking in our usual neck of the woods but over cobblestones rather than dirt paths; instead of majestic landscapes, the vistas are of ancient ruins, medieval arcades, and church-spires; and the sounds are not bird-song but rather multi-lingual conversations heard on busy pedestrian streets. And there are nearly always stairs, lots of stairs. 

We’re lucky. Both of us are in decent shape, and in spite of occasional sore hips or calves, our legs can take it. 

Thus, on a trip like the one we took last fall, we will average walking about 40 miles a week. That’s just day to day getting around, finding some things to sightsee, but mostly just exploring each new place. For example, in Verona, Italy, we walked from our apartment near the Roman Amphitheater over to the Adige River, past the city’s variety of bridges, many churches, to the Roman Theater on the hillside — something that locals there do every day! 

We find walking both relaxing and the best way to see things, especially in an “historico centro,” the oldest part of a city, which is what we’re drawn to the most on our travels. . 

For example — what people wear, everything from stylish outfits that look right off a designer’s runway, to t-shirts that say the most-topical things: Like “Just Do Nothing” or “Wowsome!”  Or a Europe Maraton’ shirt on a speedy runner dashing by in neon green trainers. Italian students are as likely to have on a Harvard sweatshirt as they are one from a local università. 

I love the sight of an elderly couple holding hands, a person patiently making their way with a cane, or toddlers racing about, sometimes on the littlest scooters imaginable, decorated with Spider-Man or unicorns or dinosaurs.

And you can notice many other sensual things, like the smell of sweet treats coming from the open door of a bakery. Or maybe it’s a whiff of a diner’s fresh bowl of fish soup in a sidewalk cafe. 

With my hearing issues, I particularly like to tune into sounds and the possibilities they seem to hold — enthusiastic friends greeting one another on a pedestrian street; the clink of cups of coffee or glasses of wine at an outdoors bar; the hubbub of buses or Vespas roaring by as everyone heads home. 

A favorite sound memory repeatedly heard, most notably in Philadelphia, Meteora (Italy) and Bruges (Belgium) — a drift of melody coming from the window of whatever “Academia Musica” fronted the street we were on, with a violin or piano or flute student practicing scales or repeating a single refrain over and over, followed by a patient instructor saying “one more time” in the place’s respective language.  

And above these aural bits of a fanciful walk are ancient church bells clanging the hours from one parish to another — or the call to prayer from a nearby mosque. 

You just don’t catch all of these sounds and specifics in other manner than “on shank’s mare.”

Walking in a new place is heart filling, not because it’s so different but because it clues us in to normal life going on around us. 

We have a most exciting trek planned though, one that I hope will include the highlights above plus much more — traversing the Camino Costa from Porto, Portugal to Santiago de Compestela in Spain later this spring. It’s a shorter route than the more famous one from the Pyrenees across the northern part of the Iberian peninsula — just 270 kilometers! — but we chose this Camino particularly because it is less crowded and less well known. The weather may be blustery but we’re up for it! And honestly, after this winter, I am sure looking forward to walking along the Atlantic Ocean instead of snowdrifts here in Teton Valley. 

And our upcoming trip also promises plenty of opportunities for hiking mountain-style— on the Azores, in the Picos de Europa, and in the Pyrenees — along with exploring cities I first visited nearly 50 years ago —Vigo, Oviedo, Leon, and Pamplona. 

Wherever your feet take you today, may you carry the spirit of adventure!