
No way do I believe that traveling alone is the best way to go. it’s just one of the ways, but since most people travel with another person or in groups, traveling alone for an extended period of time is more than just a little different.
I make all my travel plans. Where to go, when and for how long, how to get there, where to stay, what to see, when, where to eat--everything. The bad news is that I have to do it all on my own. The good news is that I get to do it all on my own. With no one to chatter with, much of the chatter in my head stops; and with that comes silence, solitude and simplicity. The good news is that I like it for chunks of time in my life.
I took these pictures in The Rose Garden on the way to Piazza Michelangelo. Today, April 25, is Liberation Day, a national holiday in Italy. It marks the fall of Mussolini's Italian Social Republic and the end of the Nazi occupation in Italy in 1945, towards the end of the second World War. People were out in groups having a marvelous time. No solitude wanted. It reminded me that on July 4 I don’t want silence, solitude or simplicity.