Tunisia, Rome & the Azores

Three weeks. Four countries. One continuous routing — Boston to Rome to Tunis to Rome to Lisbon to Ponta Delgada to Boston. It started as two separate trip ideas and became one.

Tunisia was the part I knew the least about. We drove from Tunis south through Carthage, the amphitheatre at El Jem (where you can still walk across the sandy floor where gladiators fought), Sousse, Monastir, Djerba, and all the way to Douz at the edge of the Sahara. One of the stops was the actual Luke Skywalker house from the original film. Standing in it felt surreal. The Sahara at Douz was the payoff — endless dunes, golden light, absolute silence. We did an ATV tour across the desert that I will not forget.

The near-death experience happened on a Tunisian highway. I won't get into the details, but it could have been catastrophic if any one of us had panicked. We drove in silence for about twenty minutes afterward. Up at the very north, at Cape Angela near Bizerte, there's a little sculpture that marks the northernmost point in Africa. I'd flown a long way to stand on the edge of a continent.

Then back to Rome. Walking from the bleak honesty of North Africa into the polished grandeur of the Eternal City in two hours was jarring. The Vatican was the centerpiece — Sistine Chapel, Pantheon, Castel Sant'Angelo, Piazza del Popolo at golden hour. I walked through the holy door at the church where Pope Francis is buried. Nobody does swag quite like the Catholic Church. I absolved myself of all prior sin while I was there, which felt like a reasonable use of an afternoon.

Lisbon was a brief stopover on the way to the Azores — a rainy night walk through Praça Dom Pedro IV with cruise ships glowing in the harbor. Then a small plane out into the middle of the Atlantic.

The Azores are nine volcanic islands belonging to Portugal but feeling like their own world. São Miguel had crater lakes, abandoned hotels covered in graffiti, hot springs, lush valleys plunging into the ocean. We did a dolphin tour out of Vila Franca do Campo on a yellow boat. The best discovery was a sign in a small village that listed the ports with direct connections: London, Paris, New York, and Fall River. Fall River, Massachusetts. It turns out there's a massive Azorean diaspora in southeastern Massachusetts, and the connection between these islands and my home state runs deep. Every village had a little restaurant called a 'Snack Bar' that reminded me of the skating rink I grew up going to.

There was a spot with a sign that said it was dangerous and entry was forbidden. I obviously went in.