Mountain Walking – Haibun – January 15, 2016

to the olive grove
ten minutes as a crow flies
fond memories

When you’re fit climbing up the side of a mountain is paradise.  The very air seems to help you up, your heart of course increases its beat and maybe your breath comes quicker and soon dopamine starts pumping through your veins. If the hike up is a real challenge finally adrenaline joins the cocktail of hormones and whatever else is making that walk fun, is it a wonder that walking can become addictive. Time flashes by as you fall into your own breath, feel your leg muscles flexing and elongating, hear the sound around you sort of muffled but very much alive.  Before you know it, you’ve reached your goal, maybe a lodge where you’ll spend the night, or a land-mark, like an abandoned village or a cross on a hill-top and you think how quickly time flies by when you’re having fun.

imagination
dishes up fond memories
back in training

© G.s.k. ‘16

Heeding Haiku With Chèvrefeuille, January 13th 2016

Haiku – January 15, 2014

Haiku
Morning

wet morning walking
black umbrella protects me
sad fenced-in raindrops

Pleiades Poem: Walking

Pleiades Poem

Walking

When poems I can’t write,
Word’s fire soon reignite…
Weary, I find respite,
Weaving dream paths by night,
Wandering too, by daylight,
Welcomes thoughts in free flight…
Walking brings me delight!

Thanks to Caddo Spumoni‘s introduction to this form, I wrote the original poem for Poet’s Corner.

What will I do over the summer? Living in Italy!

Next week will be our last conversation meeting of the old scholastic year.  As we anxiously await for the weather to put on its summer clothing, so we can too, I thought that we might do a different kind of encounter.  Instead of reading articles from a famous newspaper or an interesting post from one of the million bloggers who write over the world, I thought I’d as you my dears to write a few lines.  Tell us about you, what you would like to do this summer, what you’d like to do with the knowledge you’ve acquired.

I’ll go first and you follow me!

This summer I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to go and visit places here in Trentino that I’ve never visited.  The summer usually means a trip somewhere; Rome, Barcelona, Vienna, Puglia or why not Tenerife or the United States.  We certainly don’t lack for beach resorts in Italy, from the Adriatic to Mar Ligure across to the Islands, places to wallow under the sun and just relax are no more than a few hours drive from our wonderful mountains.  And yes, I think a week or two at the sea would be great!  But for the most part, I’d just like to stay here in our beautiful region and enjoy it.

Soon summer activities will begin in Arco and Riva.  The fairs, music festivals and sports events not to speak of firework displays are just around the corner.

We could go to Tenno or Ledro and that wonderful village of Pregasine.  Our castle, how many of you have been up there recently, looks over the whole valley and from the top most tower, one gets the impression of being able to touch the sky!  I personally love to watch the climbers scurry up the side of the wall, as I lay about at the pool taking in the sun, lazy lady that I am!

I may be lazy, but still once the sun starts shining I like to go to the lake with my bike…this year, I’ve decided to take advantage of the cities’ offer to use one of their bikes, so I needn’t come down from Bolognano, but above all I needn’t bike back up.  In fact I’m not supposed to bike up hills!  On the other hand, my crazy doctor also said it would be good for me to bike as well as swim and go Nordic Walking…mind all three!  The best I could come up with was to take advantage of one of the bikes parked around town…one only has to pay a deposit, which is reimbursed once one returns the key they give you…et voila! Problem solved!

This is the new leg that has been added to the bike path from Arco to Torbole

And of course we have Lake Garda.  Of course in the summer, it becomes as crowded as any beach does in Italy.  But, biking down, there’s no problem with parking, even less walking.  Carrying a picnic lunch and the necessary towel and beach shoes, one can combine sun bathing and a little sports. 🙂

Finally we can keep on biking or walking and go to Riva del Garda.  Here the lawns await anyone who wishes to watch the surfers, or just sunbathe.  The new bike and pedestrian paths are very useful indeed for both…no longer the problem of a cyclist running someone over!

And here we’ve just scratched the surface!  The Castles to visit, the valleys to see and the refuges to hike up to. What of our museums, a day or two in Bolzano…or to the bathes in Merano.  The medieval reenactments and pageants. Ah…and the week of the Notte di Fiaba in Riva del Garda (this year dedicated to Tom Sawyer!).  So, I may go off for a week or two…but I’m happy I have our lovely region which offers me so much!

Now, I don’t say you have to write this much…I am after all your guide and so it was my duty to write a little more than you are expected to do.  Just have fun, jot down a few notes and tell us your plans.  Don’t forget to have a great day!

 

Just to take your breath away…this I will not be doing!