Weekend Perspective: Faith, Football and...

Basilica di Santa Cecilia, Trastevere, Rome.

(Click photo to enlarge.)

Thinking about #Argentina and

#CAR 

#SouthSudan

#Gaza #Palestine 

#Israel 

#Syria #Iraq 

#Ukraine 

#notjustfootball

Weekend Perspective: Faith and Football

In cultures around the world, soccer (football for everyone else) has long been as much a part of daily life as religion. Often during my travels, I never lack for occasions to observe both remarkable religious structures and young people playing the game. Morocco is no exception, and although the country has not qualified for the World Cup since 1998, the passion for this universal sport is always front and center.

(Click for larger photos and slideshow.)

The former Synagogue in El Jadida, 

whose Jewish community was once so sizable

it boasted 12 Jewish temples.

Whether in a tiny, colorful medina alleyway, or on a desolate street whose modern decay contrasts to what is just inside the old city walls, soccer pitches both improvised and planned are as common here as churches are in Italian cities. Snapshots of the Moroccan urban landscape reveal a continuous hodge-podge of shops, houses and playing "fields," with the mosques, former synagogues, and rare church acting as its hinges. 

See more photos and read about my visit to Morocco in Back to the Maghreb

Casablanca's Grand Mosque Hassan II.

A mother and her children pass below one of the arcades that compose the Hassan II complex.

Weekend Perspective: The Promise of Summer

Summer starts tomorrow... Break up the workday with a five-minute escape to the castles, grottoes and mini faraglioni of Monte Argentario, Tuscany! 

(Click to enlarge and see slideshow.)

An Aragonese castle, one of several on this promontory that was once a Spanish conquest. Today, Americans and other foreign nationals have done a little conquering of their own by making second homes out of the strongholds.

These tiny seastacks remind me of their larger counterparts off the coasts of Sicily and the Campanian island of Capri.

Getting to know Argentario's thousands of unique nooks, crannies and formations is, to me, akin to a hard-core version of cloud-watching.

You can't see it so very well in this photo, but in the upper left is a natural arch that in person resembles a couple mid-kiss!

View Monte Argentario from afar here.

Weekend Perspective: Italy, Rain or Shine

Storm's a-brewin' in soul-stirring Syracuse.

The Island of Ortygia along Porto di Siracusa, Sicily.

(Click photo to enlarge.)

Late morning: Brightly-colored fishing nets 
match the lively pastels of the houses 
and palazzi lining Giglio Harbor. 

(More on the island of Giglio.)

Weekend Perspective: The Last Beach

Sun sets behind Monte Argentario, seen here from L'ultima Spiaggia.

L'ultima Spiaggia is the "Last Beach" in Tuscany before it meets the region of Lazio.