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We have just wrapped up the 2012 World to the Wise cultural tour. My wife Becky and I said goodbye to some perhaps travel-weary but no less satisfied people at Heathrow airport, while we prepared to take a few days in the Midlands and Lake District to decompress.
One of the most gratifying moments at each destination was seeing their faces when confronted with the wonders of human achievement. In Rome, for example, as soon as you come out of the metro (what Americans call subway), BAM! the Coliseum towers above you like a toothy-grinned giant. Nothing can prepare you for its imposing presence. In Paris, we took the metro from the right bank headed south; at a certain point, the train that is mostly underground becomes overground, and BAM! the Eiffel Tower looms larger than life over the Seine and the great city it adorns.
One's senses would have to be entirely dulled not to appreciate these wonders; many other things, however -- some more subtle -- awaited discovery and marveling. The gentle hills of Tuscany, home to countless olive groves and vineyards; the reminders from the Renaissance that changed the course of human history; or the awe-inspiring majesty of St. Peter's Basilica or Westminster Abbey drew more gapes and gasps than I could count.
The next few posts on this blog will be musings on this life-changing experience -- an experience which sharpens and cultivates what I like to call marvelability.
In just three days from this writing, a dozen curious souls will wing their way to an adventure of a lifetime. The 2012 World to the Wise Cultural Tour kicks off on Tuesday, June 5, and you're invited to come along via the photos, blog posts and vlogs we'll be posting. Follow us here on this blog or on Facebook ("like" the World to the Wise page while you're there!) -- and who knows, maybe you'll be among those who join us for the next great adventure.
We'll begin in Rome, the "Eternal City", then train to Pisa. Our Tuscan hosts, the Ammirabbile family, will then pick us up and take us to our home base for the next five days in the village of Montespertoli, a half hour outside Florence. After reveling in the Renaissance and Tuscan cuisine, we'll make a brief stop in the mythical canal city of Venice. An overnight sleeper train will take us from there to Paris, the City of Lights, where we'll take in as much as our senses can handle, followed by a five-day stay in London. We'll include a day trip to Oxford, along with some of the quintessential sights and experiences that British culture has to offer -- Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, cream tea, the Globe Theatre, and a spectacular performance of Les Misérables in the West End theatre district.
We look forward to sharing our impressions and experiences with you! To receive regular updates in your e-mail box, just sign up on this site!
If you've read my blog for any length of time, you know I am an avid proponent of overseas travel. Not so much to see how many of the world's great beaches you can enjoy, but primarily to expand your cultural horizons. I recently had the privilege of speaking at the Vanderbilt University Virtual School, a wonderful program that uses video conferencing technology to reach middle school and high school students all over the US and beyond. My assigned topic was "Travel as Cultural Education", and even though my audience in this case was middle schoolers, I gave them plenty to look forward to, encouraging them to think about how they could take advantage of opportunities to broaden their cultural landscape.
This summer my wife and I are leading a group of primarily high school students to three European countries. We take great delight in helping Americans discover new cultures, languages, and, of course, this means people. But I also like to challenge young people in another direction: spending time in the two-thirds world. What we mean by this term is the fact that two-thirds of our world still lives in conditions that almost any American would consider substandard, whether it be lack of indoor plumbing, running water, or other commodities most Westerners consider indispensable.
What does this look like? The possibilities are too numerous to mention here, but one does not have to go far to find the two-thirds world. The poorest country in the western hemisphere, Haiti, is in our back yard, a two-hour flight from Miami. You get off the plane and feel as though you're in Africa in many ways. Then there is Visiting Orphans, the organization my daughter-in-law works for that facilitates visits to orphanages in developing countries. It would be difficult to overstress the importance of getting outside one's familiar surroundings to see how "the other half" lives -- and what better time than while you're still young. Bluntly put, it is better to see how spoiled one is early on. If used properly, this experience can help shape our decisions and lifestyle for the rest of our lives.
Are you or do you have a graduating senior? Perhaps the best gift you can give them is an opportunity to see how (part of) the rest of the world lives and thinks.
All three of our sons were born in Europe, the two older sons starting school in a bilingual classroom (English/French). We spoke English in the home so the boys would be able to maintain it as their mother tongue, but we also began collecting French books and reading them to the boys from time to time. One of the earlier titles in our collection was Le Secret de la Licorne (The Secret of the Unicorn), one of the adventures of the intrepid hero Tintin.
Tintin was the brainchild of Belgian artist Georges Rémi under the name Hergé. Rémi began writing the Tintin
stories in 1930's Belgium, and the stories of the boy hero, reporter and world
traveler quickly captured the imagination of young people all over the
Francophone world. One of my favorite talk show hosts, Tom Ashbrook of
NPR's "On Point,"
interviewed his own French father-in-law on his memories of reading Tintin as a
young boy in the midst of the Nazi occupation of Paris.
Director Steven Spielberg has now
brought Tintin to the big screen -- none too soon, as the popular European
comic series has been translated into more than 50 languages and sold more than 200 millions copies
worldwide. I haven't seen the movie yet (The Adventures of Tintin) -- but
regardless of how many thumbs up the movie gets, it will bring back many fond
memories of families the world over -- including mine.
The word "passion" is quite in vogue in our time. We want to find work we are passionate about, we are passionate about our favorite causes, and we like passionate love stories. But when we consider the etymological meaning of the word, it casts itself in a different light: we get our English word from the Greek pathos, meaning "suffering". When you list your passions in terms of what you're willing to suffer for, the list tends to shrink somewhat.
On Sunday, the world lost a man who was passionate in the purest sense of the word: Vaclav Havel, best known in the West as the leader of the 1989 so-called Velvet Revolution in what was then Czechoslovakia, passed away peacefully with his wife at his side. After more than two decades of peaceful protest, often through his plays, Havel and others brought about the demise of the Communist leadership of his country without a single shot being fired. What many of us did not know is that Havel also suffered for his cause, spending four and a half years in a Czech prison for his opposition to the oppressive, Soviet-backed Communist regime of the 1960's.
Two things strike me about the man and his life. First, the fact that a nation would elect a playwright as president. Not a politician, not a businessman, not an economist, not a diplomat. A playwright. A writer. All playwrights are not the same, but good playwrights have at least one thing in common -- an understanding of human nature. Havel seemed to have a grasp on the fundamental drives, the aspirations, the strengths and weaknesses of 20th century mankind, and I find it nothing less than astonishing now, as I did then, that a nation would turn to an artist for leadership. I have long said that artists are the mouthpiece of culture, but it is rare when a people chooses to entrust its political well-being to a playwright. Unfortunately, his leadership was attenuated when his party was voted out and Czechoslovakia became two distinct nations, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The other thing of note about Havel is that he chose the high road, refusing to yield to the temptation to meet violence with violence. His commitment to the non-violent protest of injustice put him in the company of monumental figures such as Gandhi, King and Mandela, and he doggedly continued to believe and profess that it is actually possible to take the moral high ground, even in the realm of politics. For this he was often dismissed as out of touch with reality. Perhaps he was not the most astute politician, but he will and must always be remembered as a noble statesman who called his people, and indeed the rest of the world who would listen, to higher ground.
My wife and I, along with our friends Jim and Mary, just recently returned from a 10-day trip to Italy, where we were doing logistical advance work for the 2012 World to the Wise Cultural Tour. It had been 17 years since our last visit there, and Becky had never been to Rome, so there was much to see.
I could have spent a month in Rome. It had a similar effect on me as London and Paris -- the word that comes to mind is gravitas. It's difficult to overplay the presence of the city's ancient history -- I've never been in a city that has succeeded in preserving so much of its ancient reminders. But Rome is much more than Roman ruins, more even than the Vatican and the symbolic yet paradoxical shadow it casts on the local culture. And it is virtually impossible to move about the city without noticing the astonishing attention -- and priority -- given to works of art. Even Florence, in all its Renaissance splendor, can't compete with the countless piazzas adorned with elaborate Bernini fountains and statuary.
Reluctantly leaving Rome behind, we trained to Florence, where we picked up a rental car and drove to a retreat center called Poggio Ubertini, about 30 kilometers outside the city. As we climbed the suburban hills in our peppy little Opel, the view of the Tuscan countryside below brought ooh's and ah's from the wives while I forced myself to keep my eyes on the winding road. Each day in Tuscany brought its own set of adventures, from the obligatory and timeless Renaissance masterpieces in Florence to the picturesque hill towns of Siena, San Gimignano and Monteriggioni, from the magnificent Duomo to the salt-of-the-earth Ammirabile family and their wine and olive enterprise we were able to visit.
We cannot WAIT to introduce our tour participants to this magical land, where you are tempted to forget that the rest of the world exists -- and that's only one leg of next year's tour!
We are pleased to announce the 2012 World to the Wise Cultural Tour, taking place from approximately June 5-21, 2012. Those who participated in the 2010 tour will tell you it was an unforgettable experience that left an indelible mark on each one -- and the 2012 tour promises to be every bit as life-changing!
We'll begin our tour with a few days in London. While our bodies adjust to the time difference, we'll take in sights such as Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Tower of London, stroll through the Portobello Market, and hit one of the shows in the famous West End Theatre District. Then we'll hop on the Eurostar train that whisks us under the English Channel and arrive in Paris, the City of Lights.
Who can resist the sidewalk cafes, the masterpieces of the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay, the artists' square at Montmartre, strolling by the book stalls along the Seine, and of course the Eiffel Tower and possibly a day trip to Giverny, the fabled home of Impressionist master Claude Monet?
For the first time, our adventures will take us to Bella Italia, where we'll spend an entire week exploring the inexhaustible treasures of the sunny peninsula. From ancient Rome and the Vatican, to the Renaissance treasures of Florence, to the fabled hill towns and sun-drenched countryside of Tuscany, to the inimitable charm of the Venetian canals, we predict you'll be reluctant to head home!
Interested? Just e-mail us at admin@worldtothewise.net and request a registration packet or sign up at the right for periodic updates. Space is limited! All you need is a refundable $200 deposit to register for the tour, and the rest can be paid in installments. The tour is open to everyone -- adults, students and parents or grandparents (we do ask that students under 15 be accompanied by an adult).
It has been said that "the fool wanders, but the wise man travels" -- in other words, if you're going to travel, do it with a purpose. Sometimes it takes being lifted out of the confines of familiarity to gain a broader perspective of this world of ours.
We hope you'll join us!
