Tag Archives: walking

A city of colorful layers.

June 4, 2025history, travelCassander, Galerius, Greece, Thessaloniki, walkingGretchenJoanna

After arriving by plane in Thessaloniki last Saturday, I took a taxi into the central part of the city and my hotel. As we passed between high rise buildings in thick traffic, I was a little dismayed, after the quiet pace of island life, at how much a city it is. I said to the driver, “It’s big, isn’t it? The second largest city after Athens?” He said no, it’s small actually, and he tried to communicate to me how everything is right here and close by, it’s compact.

I am so thankful that in Thessaloniki I’ve been able to keep up with all the walking that enables me to stay literally on the ground and feeling intimate with the place, more than if I had to take a bus or taxi to visit all the places I want to see, or to meet up with friends.

Monday when I didn’t have definite plans until the evening, I walked 15 minutes or so to St. Demetrios Church, and after spending a while there I took a different route back to my hotel, and came upon the Arch of Galerius, and a bit farther toward the sea the ruins of the palace of Galerius, who was the Roman emperor from 305-311 A.D.

I could see up the hill the tower that remains from the ancient wall that once surrounded Thessaloniki, the lower portions dating from before Christ. It was in the 3rd century B.C. that Cassander, the Macedonian king and contemporary of Alexander the Great, first fortified the city.

The map above (In French) shows the area of the city that lay within the old walls, with color coded monuments that have been preserved from different historical periods.

Except for the day we went out of the city to the monasteries, I’ve walked miles every day, back and forth, up slope and down, but only yesterday did I meet my guide Maria at the very top of the city, in the old town, to see one remnant of that old, old, many-layered wall. Byzantine era expansions re-used materials from the earliest structures; I could stare a long time imagining all the people through the ages who laid the bricks and stones, or who lived day to day with the walls framing their community.

From the high part of the city we descended in a leisurely fashion visiting Vlatadon Monastery and other churches on the way. I must tell you more about that later — it’s time now for more walking and exploration.

This walk required two pair of boots.

May 7, 2025beauty, nature, wildflowersBermuda Grass, bike path, creek, Cretan mallow, Greater Plantain, lemon balm, neighborhood, roses, vetch, walking, watercressGretchenJoanna

This evening I made it out for a walk, which turned into two walks, because of something new I saw on my usual route. I stopped at the bridge to look down at the seasonal creek that is getting low… and up at all the bushes and trees growing out of it. Every few years the city maintenance crew dredges out these waterways, but right now everything is growing lush and thick.

The willows are the tallest plant that grows down there, and buckeyes are numerous. What was that I saw climbing up in the tallest willow bushes? White flowers… if I only had a better camera, or even binoculars… I pointed my Seek app at the flowers and it said Lady Banks’ Rose. Even as poorly as I could make them out, that didn’t seem right.

The roses were growing in the area in the middle of the creek bed, between two creeks right where they join to become one. I thought I would try to go down closer to the water where there is a jumble of unpaved dry-season paths that some people run on with their dogs, and a few children explore. Also there is a sloping cement driveway of sorts for the maintenance vehicles, that is submerged in the winter. Two paved creekside paths also meet at the bridge. But when I got to the place where I would cross the southern stream to get to that middle area, the rocks were covered with algae, and it all seemed too muddy and messy for me to attempt while wearing my new boots.

So I came home and looked up Lady Banks Roses. They did not at all resemble what I’d seen; I guess they were too distant for Seek to make out. The bright idea occurred to me: Why not change into my old boots that I was thinking of giving away, and go back? Why not, indeed?

When I arrived at the crossing place again I had to squish through the mud and the algae, but with only a few steps I was over, and my old boots were mostly waterproofed and barely noticed.

My, what a lot of plants in that mid-creek jungle! Once before I walked down there, but it was in September when everything starts drying up. The roses today were growing in the middle of the willows, honeysuckle, horsetail grass, fennel and bedstraw.

Watercress, Greater Plantain, and Bermuda Grass

Many of the plants are naturalized from backyard escapees. The Bermuda grass for sure, and the lemon balm, and the roses. Wild blackberry brambles snagged my clothes and grabbed at my hair, but I managed to feel my way with my feet along the edge of the creek that was hidden by bullrushes, right up close to the flowers I wanted to see better.

When Seek could assess the image better it identified it as Rosa multiflora or Rosa polyantha, a native of eastern Asia. It also told me I’d observed it two years ago near my daughter Pippin’s place in the farther north part of the state. These roses were to me the prettiest thing in all that jungle.

It really made my day to make this little excursion and discover who they were, and to meet as well many of their companions in the creek. I think I’ll hold on to my old boots.

A branch of eucalyptus.

February 5, 2025nature, treescreek, eucalyptus, neighborhood, walkingGretchenJoanna

Today we had a sunny surprise of a break between storms, so that I could take a walk under blue skies. The rain has flooded the creek paths in my neighborhood where people like to run with their dogs, a few feet lower down than the paved path I was on; this is not uncommon in the winter season, and the creeks are maintained every couple of years to make sure that the heavier flows rushing down from the hills don’t encroach on the main paths.

I was admiring the giant eucalyptus trees along the way when I noticed a small branch from one blown down at the edge of the path. It was of a type with extra-slender leaves, and so freshly washed, I decided to bring it home where I could keep enjoying it for a while. Here are the trees from which it fell, that I craned my neck to see:

For years I’ve been planning to write a long and thorough article about the history of eucalyptus trees in California and the controversy around them, but I never get that much leisure time. I have mentioned them several times, though, over the years.

I heard that the city is planning to repave this path that has some serious bumps where tree roots have pushed it up, and that that is why they are planning to cut some big ones. I hope it’s not too many! They have been my friends for thirty-five years ❤

Like bread, or the sea.

October 26, 2024nature, other gardens, quotesbuckeye, clouds, Common Lionspaw, Emerson, John Durham Peters, sky, walkingGretchenJoanna

After I left my car at the mechanic’s shop for its routine service, I set off walking down the road to the bus stop. After only a few steps I stopped to admire plants along my way; I did that a few times. The California Buckeye startled me as it always does, looking like the dead of winter in early fall. The large conker peeking out redeemed the scene.

It was fun, walking for ten minutes through a sort of industrial park, where all the people arriving for work gave their energy to the atmosphere, and lots of pickup trucks lined the road, bare of sidewalks most of the way. The air was crisp but not harsh.

On a bench at the bus stop, I looked briefly across the frontage road at the seedy mobile home park whose sign was missing some letters and read “Taylo.” A mockingbird’s song came to me from somewhere, surprisingly not drowned out by the heavy traffic noise. And then my gaze rose, hungry, to the sky.

I recognized the remains of a jet stream (or chem trail?) as one element of that picture above, but there was so much else going on up there! I began to think about what Emerson said, that “The sky is the daily bread for the eyes.” I mused on how sometimes we are given all sorts of fancy bread, but at other times the sky is plain blue, or white, or gray….

After a short ride on the bus, I got off and started walking the rest of the way home, along a boulevard where I had plenty more of those big spaces to wonder at. I was struck by the realization that I was the only human on earth to whom each particular picture was given, because I was the only one at that GPS location, at that moment in the constantly changing arrangement of images.

If one lives in the big city, with skyscrapers hogging the sky, usually a little bit at least will peek through; I like to get my bearings occasionally by looking at whatever patches are available for viewing. Being in prison, though… now that would be hard. I guess they do often let at least some of the prisoners outside sometimes, but they might not feel safe and relaxed enough to feast on their daily bread in that setting.

Twice now I’ve started reading The Marvelous Clouds, and shared some quotes here. I reread some of Albert’s comments that I included in one post about the book ; he passed on some excerpts from an article about it, which is about media. One thing the author said was that “Clouds illustrate media ontology. [They] exist by disappearing.”

I gave that book away a while back. It’s very thought-provoking, to be sure, but I think if I had continued reading it I would have just been page by page arguing with the author over various things. I don’t like that he uses clouds for anything. I’d rather receive the gift of clouds as bread for my eyes. This arrangement of clouds below looked like it was pretending to be mountains in the distance:

The author of that book, John Durham Peters, also said that clouds are the original white noise. If you want to follow that thought, read the article linked in that more recent post of mine. But I think it’s more profitable for the soul to go out and look at the sky, whether there are clouds in it or not. When there are no clouds, or they have merged into a less enthralling picture, watching them might be like staring out at the ocean. It’s always moving, but it can be boring at the same time. Sometimes we need that plain bread. Feasting all the time is not good.

While my thoughts were on the clouds, my legs carried me into neighborhoods closer to mine, but I took a less familiar route and saw this beautiful plant that I found out is called a Common Lionspaw. I got distracted from the sky and started thinking about where I could fit one of those in my garden.

My cloud show seemed to go to intermission for a few minutes, with the actors going off stage — but quickly it started up again, as the sun began to break through.