November 7, 2024
by David Ryan
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Walking from Paris to Chartres Cathedral in France

Near the end of October 2024, I flew to Paris to walk along the Via Turonensis from Paris to Chartres Cathedral in France. Via Turonesis is one of the four major Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes across France that, if you follow them to the end, will eventually get you to the world-famous pilgrimage destination of the tomb of Saint James in the city of Santiago de Compostela in the far northwest corner of Spain.

My walk allowed me to knock off two birds with one stone (or to scratch two very serious itches). First and foremost was that I have always wanted to visit Chartres Cathedral but had never done it. And the second was that I wanted to do another Camino walk but didn’t have the time for a 500 to 1000-mile walk. So a nice 70-mile walk or so to Chartres Cathedral managed to do the trick.

This is just a peek of the fabulous windows of Chartres Cathedral.

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August 9, 2024
by David Ryan
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An Amazing Urban Hike in Los Angeles

Last month I wrote a blog post about the amazing discoveries Bob Inman and I made when we wandered through the incredible Arroyo Seco Corridor in the northeast Los Angeles and Pasadena area. On the very next day I did the Whitley and Hollywood Heights hike from Bob Inman’s book, Urban Hikes Southern California. The hike was fantastic, and the book should be on the bookshelf of everyone who likes to explore in Los Angeles.

Here’s a link if you want to buy a copy – Click Here!

The hike begins a little bit north of the Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue subway stop. When I got off of the subway and made it up to the street level, my first impression was that this is a very hectic place for a hike. But when I looked down at the sidewalk, I realized that I was in the middle of the famous Hollywood Star sidewalk. And when I looked across the street, I noticed a McDonald’s and walked over there for breakfast.

I couldn’t help but to notice all the stars in the sidewalk. There were even stars for people I had never heard of, but when I reached the star for Marilyn Monroe, I was right at the front door of McDonald’s.

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July 15, 2024
by David Ryan
4 Comments

Wandering Through the Amazing Arroyo Seco Corridor

Last week I had the opportunity to wander around the Arroyo Seco corridor with Bob Inman. Bob, the author of Finding Los Angeles by Foot, An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles (6th Edition), and Urban Hikes Southern California, is a (if not the) foremost expert on all things LA. The Arroyo Seco (Spanish for Dry Creek) flows (or trickles) down from the San Gabriel Mountains through Pasadena and northeast Los Angeles and joins the Los Angeles River less than two miles north of Los Angeles’ Union Station. The Arroyo Seco corridor is one of the many fantastic places to explore in Los Angeles and is an ideal place to wander.

I first visited the Arroyo Seco corridor when I went on a wonderful Bob Inman-led walk several years ago before Covid. My most distinct impression from that walk was the abundance of cobblestone structures throughout the Arroyo Seco basin. Since I’m always on the lookout for ubiquitous details that give an area distinction, I thought that the use of cobbles and boulders pried out of a dry streambed to build a wall to be very cool and couldn’t wait to come back to see if the cobbles that I noticed were a  one-off or something widely used throughout the area.

And finally, after all these years, I was able to get back Los Angeles last week to get another crack at walking around the Arroyo Seco area with Bob Inman.

As background regarding the use of cobblestones in the Arroyo Seco area, Charles Lummis pried out boulders and cobbles out of the dry streambed and built an amazing cobblestone house called El Alisal on the banks of Arroyo Seco at the base of Los Angeles’ Mount Washington neighborhood in 1895. In his time Lummis was a larger than life character who at one time was an anthropologist, journalist, activist, and you name it.

This is just a peek at El Alisal. The house is now owned by the City and only opened occasionally. I am told that the interior of the house is spectacular.

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