The Gypsy In Me

I hope that  you have a few minutes to spare today because I would like to take you with me to those cities and places that have a special in my heart. There are events in my life that I do not want to forget and writing about them here makes me re-live them, giving me the illusion that I am back again. A trip back in time to when I

* walked up a mountain track in Sundance and bathed my feet in cool water at the foot of a water-fall.

* hiked in Arches National Park in the scorching July heat, gazing at the splendour of those natural arches and watching the sun set behind Delicate Arch.

* returned to Rome, time and again, feeling my soul come to life each time i wander through its ancient ruins.

* stood on Charles Bridge as the sun set and a man played a beautiful serenade on his violin for the price of a few pennies.

* rode the roller-coaster at the top of the Stratosphere Hotel and soaked-in the lights of the Vegas casinos.

* gazed in awe at the Colorado River from the top of the Grand Canyon and felt at once both insignificant and immensely powerful.

* fed the pigeons in St Mark’s square and rode a gondola on Gran Canal.

* climbed to the top of the Torre del Mangia and looked down at the warren of narrow, winding streets that make up Siena.

* window shopped in Paris and eaten crepes in Montmartre.

* felt dwarfed by sky-scrapers in Chicago and ran barefoot in the grass in Millennium Park.

* traipsed through advent markets in Vienna as the first snow started to fall and ate Sachertorte at Schonbrunn Palace.

* seen a queen’s jewels in London and mourned at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

* sat on the shores of the Great Salt Lake and listened to the mournful cry of the gulls.

* been awed by art in Florence.

* swum with the pelicans at Cabo San Lucas and experienced the thunderous roar of the Pacific as it crashed into the rocks known as Finisterra – Land’s End.

And after each journey I return home and stay put for a while before the gypsy blood in me urges me to take off and explore some other country beyond these shores. So who knows where my vagrant blood will take me next? New York, Morocco, Jerusalem, Machu Pichu, Cefalu`, Greece and its island, Granada, the south of France … the list goes ever on and on … I wait until the call becomes too insistent until I finally have to give in .

This post was written in no particular order so you will see different versions of me depending in which year the photo was taken. All the photos are from 2003 to the present. Unfortunately, I cannot share photos from all the places I visited because I did not own a digital camera at the time.