Meeting Wolf of the Sea in Monopoli, Italy - Los Angeles Travel Photographer

How do you know you are traveling off the beaten path? I’d say when you see no one but a solo local person at a little town off of the Adriatic Sea.

Seeing that he was processing fish, probably caught on-site, we stopped. Many words tried to rush out in English. Facing the reality of language barrier, we chose silence.

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“Pesce rosso”, he said, eyes still on what his hands were working on.

”Si”. Judging from the obvious color of the fish, we replied.

Out of blue, he raise the red fish to his mouth.

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“Lupo di Mare”, he said.

Proud to know what lupo means in English, we quickly responded “Si si si si”. In hindsight, I’m not too sure who he was referring to as the lupo. What do you think?

Throughout our travels, we’ve appreciated a variety of landscapes (see my theory about People Are Landscape). It’s usually the experience with beautiful and/or interesting people that we still remember many years later.

Do you want to take a wild guess on what Monopoli means? Put your thought in the comment below.

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A Happy Dog and Her Bodyguard - Los Angeles Travel Photographer

At Bevagna, Italy, I was elated meeting knights in their armors and rubbing shoulders with ladies carrying their bows and arrows. Peering through the thick crowd and narrow streets, my eyes caught the same kind of excitement in a dog’s face.

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In fact, there were more than one dog with the big grin that stretched from one side of the face to the other.

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Interestingly, the same sentiment was not reflected on their bodyguards. I get it, it takes a lot of toughness to protect such an easy-going spirit from all the harms in the world. And that toughness can wear you down, if you do it a lot.

I turned around to confirm that theory on my bodyguard, only to see the amount of energy and love that he still had, after doing his job, for a dog that needed some tender touch.

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That’s the story of a happy dog and her bodyguard.

La fine.

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Coming a Full Circle from Bevagna, Italy - Los Angeles Travel Photographer

Sometimes, I wonder if our lives are just made of various circles. Some so big that took 10 years to complete, like the one for Niagara Falls. Fortunately, many are smaller.

In the Umbrian town of Bevagna, we met a family of four with two lovely girls. The Italian father told us that he had studied in Spain and led groups along a pilgrimage. From him, we were thrilled to learn how the word “conclave” originated in his hometown Viterbo back in the 13th century. Things like this make for the bonuses in our travel memories.

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However, in all honesty, our mind was set on experiencing the Mercato delle Gaite, during which people of Bevagna go back to the Medieval time to hold banquets, processions, and competitions between the four gaite (quarters). And, that’s the only thing we knew about this “hidden gem” in the province of Perugia.

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At the end, we concluded this a satisfying experience, being content on all things Medieval, visual, or taste, until one year later, when our travel brought us to the path way of Camino de Santiago. That’s when I remembered the gentleman’s work with Spanish Steps and the 5-star chicken coop that he built for his wife.

Isn’t life interesting in some ways?

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