| Original Message: My Sojourn to Italy and Turkey |
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As many of you know, I made a three-week trip to Italy and Turkey, returning about six weeks ago. While I was over there, with my digital camera, I took over 1100 photographs. Since my return, I have been editing and editing.... Lots of great stuff. Some shots I'm sorry didn't turn out better. Some things tossed, and some things missed. Lots of beads, but also many other wonders and sights. Last night, I finished the first editing process—which is turning the raw images into Photoshop files. I am ready to show some of this stuff. I hope you will indulge me, when (especially at the beginning) it is not all beads. How and why did this trip come about? It was due to the meeting of two interests and friends. I'm the Co-Coordinator of the Academic Seminar (with Valerie Hector) for the International Bead and Beadwork Conference (IBBC), that will take place in Istanbul in November. And, I also lead a bead tour to the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show every February. This year, the Director of the IBBC, Asli Mutlu, wanted to come on the Tucson tour with me. And, another participant is Maggie Meister, who is one of our "mother hens" for that tour (meaning she is an indispensable great help for all sorts of things). But Maggie is also the Beadventures tour leader for all of the trips to Italy—and she is a very talented beadworker and teacher. She will be teaching in Istanbul. Anyway, back in February, Maggie and I figured out that I would be headed to Turkey at just the time she was leading a tour to Naples, Ravenna, and Venice. And, that she had plans to arrive in Italy early to scout-out a future tour to Sicily. We decided it would be great fun to meet in Rome, fly to Sicily, then drive around the island, onto the toe-of-the-boot that is mainland Italy, drive up the coast to Naples, spend some quality days there, and return to Rome—where she would begin her tour, and I would depart for Turkey. So that's what happened. I arrived in Rome and spent a day and a 1/2 there with a friend, bopping around the city, visiting lots of churches, ancient buildings, and all the usual sights. Unfortunately, do to a battery mishap, I didn't get very many photos. But I did visit the Archaeology Museum, and viewed their collection of ancient jewelry—which was nice but not spectacular. I bought the catalogue, so I have images of what I saw. The next morning, I took a cab back to Da Vinci Airport, met Maggie right away, and we commenced with our journey together. It was LOTS of fun—more than I could imagine. And I found Maggie was easy to travel with, and that we were interested in many of the same things, and even have background experiences in common—like being involved in community theater thirty years ago. (She on the East Coast; I in California.) Once we arrived in Palermo, we went to our hotel, settled in, and then took a walk around the town. (I will spare you the photos, even though the landscapes are beautiful.) We had a nice dinner, breakfast the next morning, rented a car, and headed off to Monreale to the south and west, where there is an important cathedral, famous for its mosaic art. Maggie and I are both interested in ancient mosaic work—so I was delighted for the opportunity to see all of the places we visited, beginning here. The front of the church can be seen in the first image below, followed by a view of the central garden of the old cloisters. Notice the surrounding covered walkway, that is supported by pillars. Every one of these pillars is decorated with mosaics in geometrical patterns. The elements are essentially glass and gold-glass. I'll show a few examples of this art next. Jamey All rights reserved by Bead Collector Network and its users |
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