Chios Island, Greece

Chios is one of those places that you'd probably never think of when it comes to Greek Islands. And why would you? There's Santorini of course, which everyone has to go to because every book about Greek islands will probably begin with a chapter on Santorini.  Mykonos. Naxos. Paros. Crete. All beautiful islands to be sure.
One of the reasons we chose Chios was its proximity to Turkey. Another was its simplicity. And as budget backpackers, cost.
By the time we got to Chios we were in week nine of a forty week trip. We wanted a place to relax, restore, and hang out, without breaking the bank. And when we were done, it was a half hour ferry ride to Turkey. The house on Chios was one of the few things we booked before we left on our trip at the end of July. I'm not entirely sure why I was comfortable booking some other places in Italy and Greece while on the road, and not on a Greek Island. Probably because I knew we were going to be there for two weeks, so I'd better get it right.

In the water at Limnos

Limnos Beach

At any rate, we showed up in mid-September, which turned out to be perfect timing. Apparently no Greeks or any travellers are interested in going to the beach and dipping their toes in water that for a prairie Canadian was practically at tropical temperature.
The first thing we noticed about Chios was that it looked like it never rained here. Later, we found out that that was almost true. It had been a year. The next thing we noticed was that once the sun came up, Chios looked a lot like other Greek islands: no clouds in searing blue skies, and a lot of water nearby.
So what does Chios have to offer?
Chios Town, where the ferries dock, has pretty much everything you need, from car rentals to big grocery stores, and a decent beach down at Karfas, but we didn't really do much in the way of exploring around town. Our home was on the opposite (west) side of island, about an hour's drive away. Up one side of the mountain and down the next (with lots of ups and downs in between).

Our house in the bottom right, all of the Aegean at the top.

The house was just a couple kilometres outside of Volissos, a pretty small town with maybe four hundred in habitants. In town you can get most things you need at a basic little market, and a nearby baker that is about as basic as it gets but makes the most mouthwateringly good bread. Over the course of our eighteen days here, we probably walked to town ten times just to get bread in the morning. And I didn't take even one photo, of the bread or the bakery. What a shame.
There is a demolished fort above the town that has some attractive views of the surrounding area.

Views from the hill over Volissos

Chios is a big island with a some fascinating small towns, of which we visited Mesta, Pyrgi, and Olympi.

Friendly cat at a restaurant in Mesta.

Mesta is an extraordinary place that would be worth a visit no matter what island it was on. Known for its labyrinthine alleys and numerous arches, it was a centre of mastic production, important in the early days of gum production. As in chewing gum.

Emporios Beach at the south end of Chios, after visiting Olympi.

One place we didn't go to and I'm forever kicking myself over was Anavatos, a ghost town from medieval times. This isn't the best drone video ever, but it makes me think that if I am ever back on Chios, I will not miss this again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgitUCBWXc4
The main reason for coming to Chios was to relax, and we did plenty of that on Limnos Beach, just a couple hundred metres from our house. If we weren't eating, or walking to town for some more bread, we probably spent eighty percent of our free time on this beach or in this water. We saw one other family, only twice, on this beach the whole time we were on the island. It doesn't get much more relaxing than that.

These are all from Chios, except for the far left, and the pillars. Note the blue skies.

Breakfast on our patio.

Walking to Volissos, the town in the background.

Every evening looked like this.

A Day in the Life of an Artist

A fun look at what goes on around here some days.
Usually a lot more, but I can only spend so much time trying to document what I do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqBMeyW1b7I

Chefchaouen

Chefchaouen is a city in northern Morocco, a couple hours south of Tangier.
If you are familiar with Chefchaouen, you immediately recognize any of the photos, the stunning blue that pulls you in and holds you in a firm embrace. It's an embrace you will feel long after you've left, every time you see one of those photos.

If you've thought about going to Morocco enough to do some research, you've probably seen a photo of this stairway as it is shown pretty much every time someone even whispers, "Morocco..." It's not quite this blue, but it FEELS this blue when you're in it. It is absolutely immersive, especially when you're out early, early in the morning before most people are awake (when this picture was taken). That's also the only time you'll be able to get a photo like this without having to wait in a lineup of gushing tourists who can't wait to hold hands or kiss or do something Amazing (!) while being photographed on these stairs by the person waiting in line behind them.

Thankfully there are hundreds of beautiful spots to hold hands and take your picture in Chefchaouen if that's what you go travelling for, so no need to wait in line here.

So in between taking hand-holding photos, be sure to really explore. Wander down alleys in a direction you are positive is not where you're headed. Go up this hillside for a look over the whole town. Walk up the path to the mosque on the opposite hill for another great view. 

But most importantly, walk around. And spend some time here. 

It's a true joy to walk around this town. There are lots of stairs, and you will hear a fair bit of huffing and puffing from tourists and local folks alike, but there are also the main arteries which go in a generally horizontal direction for the most part.

There are loads of shops and shopping opportunities with many things being pretty reasonably priced. There are hidden shops and outdoor shops, tiny shops and shops that are a little less tiny, classy shops and shops that could use a makeover, shops that are neatly contained and shops that kind of spill out all over. 

There are lots of great restaurant options, enough cat-petting options to keep you busy for a week, several great hikes outside the city, and be sure to add to your door photo collection, they will become prized possessions over the years.

I highly recommend getting a lift out of town to do the hike to the Akchour Waterfalls. Ask at your hotel as they will know all about it. But it's a glorious two to three hour walk in almost alpine conditions ( I think it was five hours in and out), where you'll have to cross the creek about ten times in both directions on not particularly stable footholds that are most certainly not state recommended. Some require balancing on unsteady logs and holding a rubber tube/rope to stay dry.

We reached Chefchaouen from Asilah, which required an hour long bus ride to Tetouan (which shouldn't be too arduous for most people) and then finding a share taxi at Tetouan's taxi park (a parking lot full of white Mercedes vehicles) and going for a hair-raising one-hour drive at top speed, which generally won't push you beyond 6 or 7 Gs in any of the harder turns.

There isn't a bus service that I could find to get us in or out of Chefchaouen, so for the journey to Fes we opted for a private car. Many times more expensive, but far fewer g-forces.

Some of the images above are available as prints here.

You can see a little more of our experience in Morocco in this video:

Morocco: A Northern Journey

It's a sampling of our time in Asilah, Chefchaouen, Fes, Meknes (including glorious Volubilis), Rabat, and Casablanca.

Time to Read

Hello everyone,

If you’re like many people I know, you’re going to have a lot of time on your hands over the next few weeks, perhaps months.

As my inbox flooded with emails from CEOs across the country telling me what they were doing to help me through this time, I started to feel like a bit of a laggard. I mean, here are all these folks running multimillion/billion dollar companies (boring!) with all this great info about how they will continue to stock toilet paper for when we need it most, how drive-thrus will be operational, and how I will somehow still be insured after all this is behind us. Important stuff to be sure, but what was I doing? How was I going to fill the unimportant void in your life when you aren’t making use of the drive-thru or the 200 hundred rolls toilet paper? 

What could I possibly offer that isn’t covered by these two industries? In times like these, what could anyone possibly want besides food and toilet paper?

And then it hit me.

Now, if you’re thinking, “Holey Moley, Rey’s gonna give me some free art!” you can just hold your horses right there. The kind of art I do takes a lot of time, and I’m not about to just start handing away these tiny chunks of my soul for nothing. But on the other hand, what about writing? I mean, honestly, anyone can be an author these days. That’s why I became one! You can practically write in your sleep, while your driving to work, or while you’re travelling (if you didn’t catch the typo in that sentence, put the kibosh on you becoming a writer any time soon).

So, that big idea. What could I possibly have that might be interesting to you in times like these? Where we are stuck at home for weeks on end with enough toilet paper to last three pandemics? With thoughts of travelling to interesting places completely banished from our hopes and dreams?

Aha.

To that end, I’ve made my first book, Today I Ate Cow Stomach, available online for free for anyone who wishes to click the link below. DO NOT WORRY! This is not some link to a page that will ask you to pay for my other two books, whereupon you will get my first book free….although, that’s probably not a bad idea, and reason number one as to why I’m not the CEO of my own billion-dollar empire. 

Regardless, click the link below and you will be taken directly to the site hosting my book. You do not have to pass go or have a get-out-of-jail free card (not that that makes any sense) in order to access the book. It is free. Free as in “no money required.” You simply need to have an interest in travel, perhaps a desire to look at glorious, colour-filled pages of exotic destinations only marginally cramped by my mindless bouts of chatter. Actually no, that’s not true. It’s not mindless, but there is a lot of it, but that’s the charm of being me. An opinion on everything that isn’t about fast food or toilet paper.

If you have a friend or relative or neighbour who is interested in travel, feel free to pass this link on to them. I just know they will thank you for it because you are a good person.

For those of you who don’t know, Today I Ate Cow Stomach is about my family’s travels through Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, the first 137 days of our 275-day trip around the world a number of years ago. Loads of stories, hundreds and hundreds of photos of beautiful places, and some artwork as well. So I guess in a way there is free art involved!

Please know that I am not in any way making light of the situation we now find ourselves in. This is serious business, and likely the only way we’ll get through this is if those of us who are deemed “not essential” hunker down at home for a long period of time. In order to make at least some of those weeks go by a little quicker (it’s a long book) and more enjoyably, I thought I’d offer up Today I Ate Cow Stomach.

Stay well in these interesting times, and enjoy the read.

Again, pass this on to anyone who may be interested.

https://indd.adobe.com/view/5c504087-a835-4768-9e54-78e72dd7c066

Rey

275days.com

The Thrill of Exploration

When planning the Turkey chapter of our 'big trip,' I came across a photograph of the theatre at Termessos. It wasn't really near the places we wanted to see in Turkey, so I set to work finding new things to see on a path that would get us reasonably close.
The hub for our Termessos trek turned out to be the city of Antalya, right on the Mediterranean Sea coast. It's a fine city with a fabulous (if outdated) museum, good restaurants, and the friendly Sabah Pansiyon. Also worth seeing if you're around Antalya is Chimaera, home to a hill with a few dozen fires poking their way out of the ground.
But Termessos was our focus at this point. The Sabah rented cars so that was easy enough, and the route up to Güllük Dagi National Park also pretty straight forward.
"The drive north of Antalya is simple and beautiful. We’re driving in Turkey. And I’m not sure what we’ve done to deserve yet another sky that is so blue it seems to sparkle. Not far out of town, we begin to make the upward climb into those remarkable hills, where the drive becomes very dramatic, and not just because the road crumbles away from the edge and spills down the hillside. Not the ground beside the road, but the concrete that was once a part of the road. A never-ending stream of mostly-intact hairpin turns takes us in a continuously vertical direction, into Gulluk Dagi National Park, and past the set of outer walls belonging to the ancient city of Termessos." (From an earlier post describing our day at Termessos, http://artypeg.blogspot.com/2016/08/breathless-at-termessos-turkey.html. Check it out for many more photos.)
There are many places around the world where the atmosphere just begs you to stop, settle yourself, and listen to the centuries of history that have passed since Alexander passed through, places that, with more than a little sense of quiet urgency, invite you to ponder what once was, and how it ever came to end.
I didn't plan on taking this panorama photo. In fact, I had to sift through a couple hundred pictures to find the four or five that would make up this final one, that would come to fully represent our day in that ancient city, and one of a few that would encapsulate the thrill of exploration, and the wonder of this entire trip.
I could go on and on; in fact, I just erased several sentences of superlatives so that you could spend more of your time just looking at this picture.
Turkey's time in the travel spotlight has been up and down over the past decade, and it seems as though it's experiencing a bit of an upswing again. If you plan on going, do not miss this place. Get there early, and you will likely have the city to yourself.

The Wonder of Travel

I don't know how much Gokarna, India has changed in the last twelve years, but back in 2008 it was wonderful, everything one could have asked for. From the landscape to the people to the beaches to the restaurants, it was all literally full of wonder.

We walked these headland paths between Kudle Beach and Gokarna Beach every day for two full weeks, twice a day - in the late morning sun after managing to extricate ourselves from the comfortable rooftop terrace and perfect breakfasts at Mahalakshmi Restaurant, and again hours later heading back home, as the sun began to sink into the far edge of the Arabian Sea. More often than not, we’d clean ourselves up in our room, then walk back to the centre of town for dinner at the Pai Restaurant. A truly enjoyable thing about staying in one place for an extended period of time is getting to know where you are, getting to know its people, and of course, becoming more and more acquainted with its food. Both the Pai and Mahalakshmi served exceptional dishes, and each day it seemed, we were greeted a little more warmly, a note of recognition in the eyes and smiles of the people there. Mahalakshmi’s owner was usually the one to greet us inside the front door, and I remember that first day how he guided us through his building, out the back door, and up a set of stairs to the rooftop. I was skeptical at first as to what we could possibly find out here after what we witnessed on the inside, but this view…and the food. After that day, he merely waved us on through, allowing us to find our own way up stairs, and he would follow along with the menu minutes later.

After about a week of walking the seaside path to Kudle Beach, we somehow discovered a tiny bakery hidden in the bushes, up the hill, out of sight. Cinnamon buns were added to the daily routine.

Part of the fun of travelling for long periods is meeting other travellers on more than one occasion. On an overnight trek to sleep under the stars in Jordan’s Wadi Rum, we met a British couple, Allan and Maggie. They had been to India numerous times, and as we talked of our future plans, they had some recommendations for us. “If you want to see Goa like it was twenty years ago, go to Gokarna. You won’t regret it.” A full month later, we bumped into Allan and Maggie four thousand kilometres away on Kudle Beach and spent a couple days hanging out together. 

This photograph conjures all of that and more. The endless sunshine. The warm salty water. Beautiful coastline. Green as far as the eye could see. Gokarna itself, but also the possibilities that travel represents. The opening up to new experiences. Discovering these amazing places that we’d never heard about before. Seeing life played out in a way so different from our own back home.

I think we would say that Gokarna was one of our favourite places in all the world.

After our last breakfast at Mahalakshmi, we told the owner that we would be leaving early the next day. After a few words to us, he leaned forward and looked into our kids’ eyes. “We’ll see you again someday.”

What are some of your favourite places?

The State of the World

I've been thinking for some time now that I need to revisit my favourite travel photos and talk about what makes these images powerful. Sometimes it's just a reminder of what travel means to me, others are a moment in time that is irreplaceable. It's a long list of things that can make a photo stand apart in my memory, so considering the state of the world today, not just the travel industry, I figure now is the perfect time to reflect on the wonder of exploring our planet.

Let's start at the beginning. Anticipating a trip can be almost as much fun as the trip itself. When you are in the planning stages - narrowing down where to go, looking for places to stay, things to do - the energy created is a magical thing. Opportunities are seemingly endless, and the skies are always, always sunny in these times, as no one imagines themselves on a rainy beach or taking cover in a hilltop town to escape hurricane winds. No, these imaginings are filled with brilliant skies and pleasant temperatures, error-free days and maximized potential.
Thanks to a price war involving some European airlines in the fall of 2016, we got an unbelievable price* for a two-stop jaunt to Madrid in spring 2017. Five minutes before we left for the airport, I found an email from KLM informing me that one of our KLM flights was cancelled. We were free to rebook another flight, but in the meantime, they would looking into finding us an alternative. One minute later, KLM emailed to say that they had managed to rebook us on an Air Canada flight from Montreal to Heathrow, followed (very closely (full-sprint close, as I recall)) by an Iberian Air flight to Madrid. We would arrive half an hour later than originally planned. Crisis averted.
As dawn broke the following morning, not long before landing at Heathrow, the sky blossomed into the colour of dreams and opportunity, the pinks and blues and oranges intensifying until I relented and got out the camera.
This image epitomizes that feeling of anticipation, where everything is perfect, everything how you want it to be. You know it's going to be a good day.

What is it that makes one of your travel photos stand out from the rest?

Here's a bit more from Spain:
http://artypeg.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-little-bit-of-seville.html
http://artypeg.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-spanish-window.html
And a little more detail about that KLM incident:
http://artypeg.blogspot.com/2017/07/why-is-hate-so-popular-airline-edition.html

*That unbelievable price has forever clouded my judgement when it comes to the real cost of inter-continental travel, but no mind, this is a happy post!

Designers Designing Designs for Businesses Looking for Cheap Business

Let me know if you think this adds up.

You need a logo for your business. You find a place to do it cheaply, and here's what they will do for you.
First, you fill out a "creative brief" to inform them about your business. Their project managers will "contact you by phone...get additional details and review ideas."
They will put together some ideas, and several of their designers will, from the info gathered so far, each design a logo in their own personal style. The manager will review all the logos to make sure the proposed concepts all communicate the ideas you've outlined in your brief, and then you get to check them all out, choosing the one you like best. If you want, you can choose elements from all of them and request to have those incorporated into an even more awesome logo. You can do this as many times as you like until you are completely, 100% satisfied.
If you don't like the look of those initial designs at all, they will have a new set of designers create a new set for you to look at.
When all is said and done, you get a logo that is, well, it's something.
All for the low cost of $149.
This is a direct quote from the website:
"Because we take the time to get to know you and your business, our designers understand your needs and translate that into a distinctive logo design that uniquely reflects your business identity."

Let's review.
Say that they have five graphic designers work up designs for you. They also have an administrative team that you deal with when filling out the forms and connecting with the business. There is a project manager who reviews everything and connects with you as often as it takes to get things right.
They all need to read the brief or at least be briefed about the brief, so they have a sense of what they are trying to communicate. They need to formulate some ideas, do some research, and actually create a design. A manager has to review everything and okay everything, connect with you, and ensure that you are happy. If everything goes perfectly, then they have to do it up so that they can give you all the necessary files for you to use this in all your communication. They need a support team to store all this info, back up all this info, and disseminate all this stuff to you. They need to bill you, and they need to collect, and they need to pay employees. You know, the manager, the designers, the front end staff and the back end staff. They need to do a bit of advertising, and since they are doing all this through the Costco website, they probably pay some kind of fee to Costco. They likely have someone who cleans their offices and do their books too.

How many hours might all this take?

Let's assume they are billing at $50 an hour to cover everyone's time: designers, managers, overhead, reception, computers, software, network, cleaners, etc etc. That has to be the bare minimum they can do it at if there is a team of people. So what does this mean? It means you get three hours of their time.

Total.

They are going to get to know you and your business, give you several iterations of a logo that suits your business. They are going to keep doing it until they get it right. 100% satisfaction.

So those designers and managers (six people? Seven?) are each going to have about a half hour to forty-five minutes to get to know you, understand your business, and produce a distinctive logo that uniquely reflects your business.
A logo is the face of a business to the outside world, the first point of contact with a new customer. I think it's probably worth more than forty-five minutes of someone else's time.

UPDATE: After a conversation last night, we were thinking that this may be one of those things where the designers are freelancers who are only paid if their design is chosen. Oh, what a relief. So now someone might actually be spending an hour or an hour and fifteen minutes on your design. And how much might they get paid for this? Fifty bucks? But what about all the times their design doesn't get chosen? Isn't this a bit like a casino, except, for actual wages?

The Art Crawl

On November 30th and December 1st, South Osborne neighbourhood artists will host another Art Crawl, a tradition that began in December of 2012.
An Art Crawl is a self-guided tour, in our case to ten different artist's studios. You choose when and where to start, and you decide how much stamina you have for exploring.  It's a fun event that allows you to browse a variety of styles of art, from painting and drawing to ceramics and printmaking and  a whole lot more.
My studio hosts an opportunity to explore the world through art, photography, and stories. There are abstract and representational pieces, oil, watercolour, and acrylic paintings, ink drawings, pencil drawings, photographs, prints, greeting cards, and travel books, probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. All the art is for sale of course, but first and foremost, this is a relaxed environment in which to view and talk about art without any high-pressure sales tactics. I am an artist who likes to talk about art and travel, so if you like to talk about art and/or travel, this is the place to be.
If you are just getting started in the world of art, start here.
If you are an avid collector of art, there will definitely be work to catch your eye.
And if you just love art, I can almost guarantee there will be something to capture your heart.
Want to read about travel? We have comfy couches designed for that very purpose.
And if you do find something you want to take home, we'll take your money. Or your VISA.
We'll have a screen showing a collection of videos from around the world and the process of creating some of my large drawings; another displaying loads of magical images from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. If that weren't enough, we'll also have some hot apple cider too.
Come with us for a walk around the world, November 30th and December 1st.
479 Beresford Avenue.

Celebrate - watercolour

Walking in Burano and walking in Alleppey -photograph, watercolour

Walking in Asilah, Morocco

Walking in Cambodia

Walking in Greece

Walking in Jordan

Walking in Fes, Morocco

Walking in Syria

Walking in Toledo, Spain

Walking in Turkey

Walking in Chefchaouen, Morocco

Walking in Venice

Walking in Vietnam