Ovidiu Predescu's Weblog

Visiting Rome

Rome is a beautiful city with an extremely rich history. We rented an apartment in Trastevere for 10 days and visited the numerous places and museums packed in a relatively small area. The area of the city enclosed within the old Roman walls is 23 square miles, about half the size of San Francisco. You can walk literally everywhere, you can take the highly unreliable public transportation or get a taxi to quickly go somewhere else.

One major downside in Rome is the huge number of tourists. To take the above picture of my son in San Giovanni in Laterano, the mother church of the Roman Catholics, I had to wait some 20 minutes.

Anza Borrego and Joshua Tree trip

This entry is long overdue, but here is it nevertheless. During this Christmas I traveled south to San Diego, and then visited two of the desserts east of San Diego: Anza Borrego State Park and Joshua Tree National Park.

Both are excellent places to visit during the winter. The temperature was around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, which was great for hikes. If you're hiking in Anza Borrego I highly recommend the Palms Oasis hike. Take the alternate route on the way up, the view is quite spectacular.

The occasional storms created the perfect backdrop for some great pictures. Above are two slide film shots taken on Velvia 50 in Joshua Tree. I'll put more shots in a gallery, when I have more time.

Death Valley pictures

I've put up some of the pictures I've taken in Death Valley, a really fascinating place. I definitely plan to visit the place again, there are so many things still left to be seen and explored!

American Deserts

I just came back from a short trip to Southern California and Nevada. I noticed I visited Death Valley in the same day as James Duncan Davidson, although he was four hours earlier than me. It turns out this was perhaps better for me, we had a gorgeous day, very sunny and warm.

Other places I visited were the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens. The gardens feature an incredible collection of cacti (plural form of cactus), with over 5000 species from all over the world.

We also hiked at Calico Tanks in Red Rocks State Park in Nevada, just 10 miles west of Las Vegas. My son, who's only 3 1/2 years old, did an incredible job hiking this not-so-easy trail.

Unfortunately we arrived too late in the afternoon to be able to see Valley of Fire. We'll surely return here, it is a great spectacle of nature and its elegance.

As for Las Vegas, its ligths could be seen as a glow in the sky from as far as Armagosa Valley, a small town at the entrance of Death Valley, more than 100 miles from Las Vegas! I don't like this city, it's built as a huge entertainment park for adults, with a dubious architecture and too much excess everywhere. And smoking just kills me, it is everywhere around you, even in the so-called non-smoking hotel rooms.

I'll post some pictures in the coming days, there are too many to deal with right now.