General Update and Links

Referring back to my desire to have a singular focus when I answer questions, I can't help think of this.

As for the news about Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz using steroids, I'll give you a little excerpt from a column by boston.com's Dan Shaughnessy

What can Sox fans say in the wake of this news? It reminds me of a scene in “The Sting’’ when con man Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) gets himself into a high-stakes poker game with a raft of rich guys, including big-time gangster Doyle Lonnegan. Demonstrating masterful sleight of hand, Gondorff makes off with the pot. After the carnage, a frustrated Lonnegan tells his associate, “What was I supposed to do? Call him for cheating better than me in front of the others?’’

That’s pretty much the best argument for Sox fans now.

Our cheaters were better than your cheaters.

Had my physical exam today. I don't usually worry for these. I'm pretty healthy for the most part and I feel good at the moment. This past year, however, has been so extraordinarily difficult and exhausting that I was concerned that it may have taken some sort of physical toll beyond my just feeling lousy for the past 14 months. But all my tests were, to quote my doctor, unremarkable. That word has never sounded better to me.

Baseball

Anything can happen as the deadline approaches (Victor Martinez to the Red Sox), but it's starting to look like the Phillies are the only team to make a real impact deal, at least in the NL Yeah, I know LA got a great lefty reliever who could give the Phillies trouble in the playoffs, but really. Everyone who wanted to hold out for Halladay should be satisifed that there was nothing in the realm of reasonable that would really satisfy the Blue Jays. I, for one, am a satisfied customer.

Like using the Magic 8 Ball

I just heard a great commercial. It starts simply, "Ask Sherwin Williams," (which is of course the Sherwin Williams Paint slogan). And then this lady says, "Should I have a party this weekend?" The answer was, "Yes...(long pause)...a painting party!" At this point I was laughing to hard to listen to the rest, but the last line was something like, "Ask Sherwin Williams,... anything!" Of course, whatever you ask them, the answer will involve paint.

I really wish I could use some consistent principle like that to answer all questions.

Turn That Frown Upside Down

I may have said this before but people would be happier if they skipped more.

Back to Cycling

Fresh off (watching) the Tour de France, I've gotten back on my bike. I'd had a persistent cough since February, which is still only 99% gone, that prevented me from really exercising properly all spring, and I was nervous about getting back on my road bike with the shoes and the clipless pedals and their tendency to cause slapstick-type falls. But I did it. I got on the bike and rode 11 miles today and did nothing hilarious or cringeworthy.

Biking is good for you. Aside for the exercise part, biking keeps you humble, because if your bike gets engaged with almost anything, a car, a pedestrian, a squirrel, a stick, a crack in the pavement, you are going to take the brunt of it. So you have to be constantly alert, and you have to be humble enough to know that you can't just roll over whatever you want without inflicting pain on yourself. Both altertness and humility are useful things to have.

In Hindsight

I'm reading a memoir by Roger Angell, whose baseball writing is of the most poetic sort. I'll never forget his description of a World Series won the the clearly inferior team, where he "invented" a fictional Series where a chain of increasingly outlandish events occurred, culminating in an improbably victory. The details, of course, were exactly what had happened in the actual Series. Genius. Maybe my favorite piece of baseball writing ever.

Anyway, in this memoir, which is definitely not an autobiography, Angell's ongoing theme is how frustrating it is that all of the vivid and complex events and personalities of a liftetime are reduced to a series of anecdotes. Which I guess takes me back to why I write this stuff in the first place. I'm trying not to lose the details, specifically of this trip, but more generally of my life. If someone asked me now about my trip to Italy I'd say, "It was great," or "It was cool," or something like that, and then recount an anecdote or two. And I don't want that to be all that's left in my memory. So I'm hoping this will be more.

The book also contains a wonderful little throwaway line about writing. "He always sounded like himself, which is the whole trick." And as I exit the travelogue chapter of this blog, it's back to just sounding like myself, and since I feel more at home with myself now than I have in a long time, I'm hopeful that I can be more successful at it.

Tomorrow is kid intensive. Visitng day at camp for one kid, picking up after a month-long study trip in Spain for the other. Weird to have not seen and barely have spoken to either of my kids for a month. It's very intense with 2 teenage girls in the house most of the time, so it's been a nice break to have them gone but I miss them too.

On The Way Home

If you blog after watching Jerry Seinfeld or Ellen DeGeneris you end up writing a lot of things that start with, "Have you ever noticed...?"

The trip to the airport in Venice is different from anywhere else. The hotel porter wheels you down the street to the dock where you dump everything into a water taxi, which is a boat with a sign that says TAXI in the window. The ride was pretty cool. They don't have a meter in these taxis and you've got to trust that the guy knows where he's going, because it's not like there are any road signs pointing you to the airport.

You pull into the dock, take your bags, and find a sign with a pictogram of someone walking which reads, 7 min. It was hot and sweaty, but not really hard to get to the terminal and there are signs that say 4 min, 3 min, etc. Certainly not any worse than dealing with a rental car shuttle bus.

Once in the terminal you do the same dance you always have to do if you bought something in Europe and want your VAT refund. You check in, bring bags and boarding passes and forms to customs, get the forms stamped, recheck your bags, mail the forms (or get cash, but I didn't want Euros at this point) and you're done.

For those unfamiliar with the VAT, it's kind of like a sales tax, but it's fun to to say that in front of someone who is an advocate for VAT, because they get really indignant and huffy and start explaining the fundamental differences. You see, the don't tax the sale, so it can't be a sales tax; they tax the production where value is added to products (like making shirts from big pieces of cloth). That's why it's called Value Added Tax and it's a tax on the producers, not the buyers, except that it is always itemized and added into the final cost of the item, so the only difference for a consumer is that the tax is added before the price rather than after.

Anyway, this tax is so immense that they feel guilty charging it to foreigners, and so to ease their consciences (and improve sales to tourists) they refund part of the tax to you if you spend enough money in one store (about $200 or more). To give you an idea of how huge this tax is, just the refund part is 12.5% of the total, way more than any sales tax I've ever seen. I know they keep at least that much.

I should note that in our 3+ weeks in Italy we never encountered any mention of Marco Polo except that the Venice airport and the business class lounge are named after him. I guess he's more famous here, especially for inventing that cruel swimming pool game.

We got on the plane in routine fashion. This plane featured a balky but ultimately pleasant touch screen system and seats with 14 adjustments, which seemed too comp0licated until I saw that one of them said "RELAX," so I just pushed that one.

On the plane there was some movie on another passenger's video screen that was taking place in the future. I like the movie future in action movies because they always have these really long slides that the hero goes down unwillingly and which look like great fun.
That's all for now. Afterthoughts later.

Late in the trip kinds of thoughts

I did a good job with logistics for the most part. The hotels I picked were all very good except for one (which was fine, really) and a couple were excellent. You can read my reviews at TripAdvisor if you're interested.

I completely bungled much of the car rental operations in Florence but everything else was pretty smooth. We had a big-ass Mercedes for the Rome-Florence leg. This was a big, black, impressive-looking thing that was very hard to park but easy to find in lots because it was the one sticking out a foot further back than the other cars. The car we had for the second part was a Peugot Picasso, which I despised. It was an automatic transmission car with no Park. When you turn the engine off, the parking brake engages automatically and it also disengages automatically when you start up and put it in whatever they call Drive (A, I think, for Abominable) but not before you have a second revving and feeling like you're trying to drive with the brake on, only to surge forward a moment later. At low speeds, it drove like that all the time- surge and slow, surge and slow, with steady pressure on the pedal, very unpleasant. You're best off in Europe if you can drive a standard. I can do it, but it's not my idea of a vacation.

Today I saw the UPS guy. Can you imagine? Trying to deliver packages on a hand truck (no, they're not brown) in narrow alleyways among hoards of people who have no idea where they are walking? Now that's a job I don't want.

There is nobody walking on the streets of Venice who is not a tourist. The largest contingent are German, with lots of French too, especially teenagers. There are a decent number of Americans here, especially teens and young adults, but most of the time's that we've seen groups and assumed they're Americans we've been wrong. But think of the ramifications of having the vast majority of people in a city being visitors who don't speak the language. I've never been in a place like that before. It's a weird atmosphere.

One of the things I think what I'm most tired of is hotel rooms. These are very strange things. They are a place for you to live for a short period of time, but they are really just a bedroom and a bathroom, with some simulation of a sitting room or office. I never spend any time in my bedroom when I'm not in bed, and it's strange to be in one for hours every day. I've become a much bigger fan of renting apartments. I'm not sure how that would work for 3-4 days at a time, and there is something to be said for the pampering you get at a nice hotel, but life is much more normal in an apartment.

Everyone says the nicest way to get to the airport from Venice is by water taxi. What they don't mention is that you have to walk from the dock to the terminal. When I ask, the hotel people say, "only 7 minute walk." You know how far I can walk in 7 minutes? About half a mile. That ought to be fun with 200 pounds of luggage. They say it's flat and covered, but I didn't hear "air conditioned" mentioned anywhere, so I guess I can add to my collection of sweat-soaked shirts.

I've know I've been whining plenty about Venice, but I must say that the neighborhood the hotel is in (behind the Accademia Gallery if you know Venice) is lovely. It's busy but not at all crowded. It's maybe 300 yards from canal to canal here, and the southern waterfront (Zattare docks) is wide open and very pretty. We got pizza tonight from a little neighborhood place that looked, well, like a regular neighborhood restaurant rather than a tourist mecca. If I ever come back I'd definitely like to stay around here again.

Me in Venice with camera, hat, reading glasses and map.

Most important accessory, wallet, not visible.

On our last legs

Literally. Ronnie's feet are too sore to walk any more. I just went out to the market and getting over the one bridge between here and there was a chore. And it's hot, and ridiculously crowded, (though thankfully not where our hotel is. It's an excellent location, close to everything but in a calm neighborhood) and just not quite worth it at this point. Good thing we're coming home.

Today, and I'm ready to face the consequences for saying so, we went on the Secret Itineraries tour of the Doge's Palace. The secret part is that it was a secret area in the age of the Venetian Republic. These guys were obsessed with secrecy and checks on everyone's power. You couldn't be named Doge (head of the government) until you were old so you wouldn't rule for too long. They had boxes where you could deposit a letter accusing someone of some crime and 3 judges would look at it simultaneously (to keep someone from destroying an accusation against himself). The people who wrote copies of treaties and important documents were required to be illiterate and could only have the job for a short time so they couldn't learn to read. Very sophisticated and well thought through.

Most of the tour was of the secret administrative offices and the prison, with an emphasis on the imprisonment and eventual escape of Casanova, the famous lover who escaped from the prison and relocated to Paris. It was pretty cool. Then we looked at the rest of the palace. At some point, when the decorator said, let's wallpaper this room, someone else said no, let's paint it instead. And they did, to the point where it was, "Oh? Another Tintoretto or Veronese? My feet hurt, let's go." There were incredible, huge works of art everywhere, including (especially) the ceilings. Amazing.

We walked home and that was it. Aside from my visit to the market, which only happened because we had gelato for lunch and I got hungry, we've not moved for the last 3 1/2 hours. It's enough. Back later with some photos and additional thoughts.

Not really sure what we're doing tomorrow

The first thing on our schedule is a visit to the Doge's Palace at San Marco. I think a Doge is like a Duke and I think it's a soft g. And it's the kind of person who would have a palace. We're on a tour called the "Secret Itineraries Tour." This is ridiculous on its face. Or maybe I just shouldn't be telling you about it. In any event, I have no idea what it all means, but I'll let you know tomorrow if I'm allowed to tell.

Man on the moon

Nothing to do with Italy, but I enjoyed this.

Exploring

We've now been in Venice for almost 2 days and have neither gotten irretrievably lost nor fallen in love with the place. I can certainly understand the attraction. The water winds itself in and around in kind of cool ways, and there are all kinds of little alleyways leading into big piazzas and almost every building we've seen is pretty in some way. I keep wondering what it would have been like if we'd come here first instead of last. This is the 6th place we've been, not counting the dozens of places we've just visited rather than stayed, and I'm afraid it's starting to blur. I think that's because everything is old. I mean, in Venice, I haven't seen something that doesn't look old since the parking garage.

The other thing that I guess is an inevitable symptom of a long trip like this is I really have lost patience with trying to walk somewhere and being impeded by people suddenly veering left or right or just stopping. I can maneuver through crowds in New York as well as anyone (Bet I can beat you from Yankee Stadium to the subway turnstile after a game), but those people all (1) are actually trying to go somewhere and (2) know how to get there. Here in Venice especially it's impossible.

After a visit to the Accademia Gallery, which was good, but oh by the way the DaVinci drawings are not currently on display, come back in October and why don't you look at our five rooms of 17th century paintings by people you've never heard of instead, we went to Murano. Murano is a group of small islands where they make glass, called Murano glass. We were told by the hotel that there was a complimentary boat to take us there. I was sort of suspicious about the whole thing, but we went and on the way Ronnie remembered that a friend of hers had done the same thing and they brought her to a place where they kind of expected her to buy some expensive glass stuff. So we were ready and actually, they were very low key about it, but they didn't offer us a free ride home either. We walked around and looked at shops bought some things and generally had a pleasant time. Then we went back by waterbus.

To the uninitiated, a waterbus sounds okay. "Oh, it's a boat ride, it'll be nice." Instead, imagine a crowded, unairconditioned city bus that hits wakes instead of potholes, complete with grinding engines, belching exhaust and sudden bumps as it bangs into each stop. At least there aren't traffic jams, but the ride back took almost an hour and dropped us another 15 minutes from the hotel. Then came the aforementioned dodging of the erratically moving tourists to get back here.

Now it's time for dinner. Last night, I decided to eat something traditionally Venetian, so I ordered the cuttlefish, Venetian style. I asked what that meant and the waiter said that it was pieces, cooked in black sauce, very delicious. Click here for a beautiful picture of a cuttlefish. This is less a fish than a kind of squid, and the black sauce is its ink reduced, as they say on the cooking shows. The dish is served with polenta, so that something can absorb a bit of the thick, black, shiny viscous sauce that completely covers the pieces of cuttlefish. It reminded me slightly of Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez without the dead birds. I can't find a picture that does it justice, so here's a picture of cuttlefish ice cream instead. It didn't really taste horrible, just rich and salty, and I made enough of an attempt to eat it that the waiter didn't give me the look that they give you here if you don't finish your food.

Tonight I had seafood risotto, which was much more successful, at least from a being able to eat it point of view. Eating at restaurants has definitely lost its charm at this point, but the place we ate tonight, near the Zattare docks, had a really pretty view over the Canale della Guidecca. The lights are very nice. We haven't taken a gondola ride yet but maybe tomorrow.

More Venice and Murano

Yes, we have Venetian blinds in our Venice hotel room.

They're electric. So are the window shades. The curtains are manual. We're staying in something called a "design hotel." This means that everything is based on form rather than function. The doorknobs are a series of stacked square prisms starting with about and inch square and increasing in size as the get closer to the door, up to around doorknob size. The is very pretty, but (1) they have sharp corners which hurt if you brush by them and (2) the "Do Not Disturb" signs do not in any way fit over them, because they are very designed too with a small rectangular hole smaller than any of the squares. I looked to see if there's some special way to do this but I gave up.

Normally, this kind of thing bothers me, but in Venice, where the entire city is based on form rather than function, it seems appropriate. We spent the day walking around. I navigated this time, because the whole place is too offensive to Ronnie's sense of order for her to both navigate and enjoy the scenery. I thought the problem was going to be too many streets with no names, like in Padua. Nope. Here they have too many names, as many as 3 on some streets. You can't make a map big enough to contain the information. Fortunately, we only got lost once, and that was when we were looking for something that is such a major landmark that we were able to find signs leading there, even when we were in the wrong place.

On the other hand, it really is very pretty here. If we hadn't just come from the most beautiful city ever and had such a hard time getting here we might feel differently about it. The water sneaks in and around places in unexpected, confusing, and sometimes very attractive ways. There are some nice, wide open waterside vistas. We went to an island to watch a Peter Greenaway "vision" of a large painting that was there until Napoleon stole it and put it in the Louvre. The views across the way at the city were just wonderful and the waterbus ride home scenic. On the other hand, the Piazza San Marco was too overrun with people and pigeons to enjoy. We debated whether we would like it without all the people, but we weren't really sure.

First look at Venice

The Silliest Place on Earth

We're in Venice now. Everyone who goes on and on about how beautiful it is is right, but you really can't get to that conclusion without first asking who in their right mind would decide to build a city in the middle of the water like this? I know Manhattan is an island and all, but there aren't rivers every 6 blocks that you have to cross over bridges or take a boat to navigate. It's just plain silly. When the British built Jamestown, VA and it sunk into the swamp, they just tried somewhere else, they didn't spend centuries trying to manage the swamp. I can't explain it.

We had a very very difficult time getting to the hotel. If you're ever going to Venice, my suggestion is that you not drive, and if you do, don't bring any luggage, and if you do that too, take a water taxi, not a bus, and do not go anywhere without asking directions first from somebody official (apparently it's considered sport to fool the tourists).

We got dropped by the water bus about 100 yards from the hotel, but someone had given Ronnie bad directions and we had to lug our huge heavy bags over a big bridge that's all stairs. Just picture us with 4 rolling bags, me with the 2 big 75 pounders, and I'm going up one step at a time. Fortunately, a Belgian man offered to help and carried one of them most of the way. We got across the canal and asked a policeman where the hotel was and he pointed back across the bridge. Again I was lucky and a German guy helped me carry.

By the time we got to the hotel we were tired and sweaty and pissed off and it was around 6 already so we stayed in and ordered pizza.

We were already in a bad mood upon arriving because we'd gone to Padua to see a frescoed chapel by Giotto. We got into town and none of the streets were on our map and once we parked there were no directional signs or coherent street markings and EVERYTHING was closed on Sunday and we wandered around semi-blindly for half an hour before we finally got to the place. Then it turned out that just getting there was the easy part.

You buy a timed ticket to see the fresco and you may not enter the exhibit until 5 minutes before your time. At that point you enter what I can only describe as an airlock. You sit in a little sealed room for 15 minutes while the the previous 25 people go in the chapel. To keep you occupied while you're sitting in the airlock, you can read about why you're sitting there (Short version- preventing atmospheric pollution in the chapel). Finally they open the door to the chapel, expel the other people into a different airlock, open the other side of that airlock and release them into the wild, then they close that door and let you go from your airlock into the entry/exit airlock, close all the doors, and then open the entry side and you go into the chapel. And no, I'm not making this more complicated and frustrating than it actually was.

The chapel was small and gorgeous. A lot of the painting was almost sculptural, which I gather was pretty unusual in 1302. It was a pretty straightforward Jesus narrative on 3 levels, culminating in a scary last judgement scene at one end. The atmosphere in there seemed okay to me, but I guess that was the point. After 15 minutes a game show-type buzzer goes off and you are herded out. By this time we'd been in Padua for an hour and a half, had spent 15 minutes doing what we'd actually came for, and now had no idea where we'd parked. Through as much luck as skill we found our way back in about 10 minutes and couldn't get out of town fast enough.

The only good thing on that whole part of the trip was the one town on the way from Padua to Venice that was open, a cute little canal town called Dolo where we had lunch- a really nice kind of chef's salad. They put corn in their salads here, and its sweetness is a nice complement to the acidity of the vinegar.

Amazing Day (sorry it's such a long post but there's video and photos at the end)

This was one of those days that makes a trip like this worthwhile. We'd heard that the piazza where we'd eaten dinner last night had a market with fruits and vegetables and such, so we went to check it out this morning. There were no fruits and vegetables to be had, bit lots of t-shirts and souvenirs. But Verona is still beautiful. The sidewalks are alternating white and pinks marble slabs.

From there we headed off to Cimignano, a resort town on Lake Garda. The lake district is a place I'd like to explore at some point, but for this trip we got just a taste. Cimignano is on a 2-mile long spit sticking out into the south end of the lake. It is a town with Roman ruins and a bunch of medieval buildings, including a pretty little castle where you go across the drawbridge to enter the town. When we got there it was kind of cloudy and not terribly crowded. I commented that if it had been 90 degrees and sunny we never would have come close to the place.

The plantings and landscaping and lake views with the Alps on the other side were magical. We walked all around and saw a few places where Ronnie could take pictures, but it was too cloudy, so we stopped to have lunch and as we did, it got gradually brighter and brighter and by the time we finished it was almost sunny, so we went back and Ronnie took her pictures. A very successful trip, but by the time we left it had gotten so crowded we could hardly get out the gate.

After a nap, we got ready for our evening's activity- a trip to the Verona Opera Festival. I have to set the scene. There's most of the remains of a Roman arena here, and about 90 years ago they decided to start putting on opera there. The arena sits on the edge of one of the main square, called Piazza Bra. Make up your own joke. You can sit on the Piazza and have dinner and watch the crowd. Restaurants in Italy will let you sit at your table almost indefinitely unless you ask for the check, so it's great for checking out the outfits headed to the opera. We saw gowns and long dresses and suave Italian guys with their jackets over their shoulders. We saw lots and lots of people.

Dinner was good. I actually had some meat for once. It was a very simple grilled and sliced steak topped with shaved parmesan and greens. Just right for me. I also had tiramisu for the first time this trip. I'm not a big tiramisu fan, but this was very tasty. Then it was time to stroll across the street to the arena.

The opera we saw was Carmen. This is probably the most famous opera ever and I know the music pretty well, but nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for what we saw. I think the word "spectacle" can be overused. I never want to hear anyone else say that Justin Timberlake and a dozen dancers is a spectacle. A spectacle is a cast of 300 people with donkeys and horses (and not horses just standing there either- these horses danced with the flamenco dancers), sets designed by Franco Zefferelli covering a stage that must have been well over 100 feet square with extra area on the left and right, where there was always something else going on beyond what was happening center stage. Of course, all of this is happening in a 2000 year old theater with folding chairs on the floor (I guess where the gladiators used to fight but their folding chairs probably weren't padded) and the cheap "seats" are on stone benches. It was a clear and perfect night with a star-filled sky and a slight breeze, they were doing a brisk business in fleece blankets.

And the music? They had a 10o piece orchestra (5 harps!) with an energetic conductor with long silvery hair. They were spot on, and the singers filled a 15,000 seat arena with absolutely no amplification. All of the leads were great, but especially Carmen, who was electrifying. The production numbers you can get a taste of from the video/ I just had this huge grin on my face the whole time.

A few notes:

The opera started at 9:15. Because it's outside and it has to be dark for full effect, that when it's got to start. Everybody got that? Opera? Beginning at 9:15? How long you think that's gonna take? Plus they had these massive set changes between each of the (4!) acts, so add an hour to the performance right there. At one point, the guy sitting next to me asked if we knew when the performance was scheduled to end, I offered 7:00. He was not amused and he left after 3 acts at midnight. We stayed until the end with no regrets and left the arena at 1:10. At that point every ice cream joint and bar on the Piazza Bra had a huge influx of customers for whom they were clearly ready. Just the usual 1AM rush.

The end of each intermission was signaled by one of the costumed gypsies (I know they were gypsies because they had schmattes on their heads) with a gong. He would play a big flourish and then bang it once when there was 5 minutes to go and twice when there was a minute to go. After each time he would stand up straight, look at the audience with a smile, and bow deeply.

They made announcements in Italian, German and English, including an announcement before the last act for the people in the top tier to not fling their seat cushions down to the floor when they applauded at the end.

They had a guy on the stage crew running out during scenes to clean up the horse poop. I didn't know you could get horses and donkey to walk down steps.

As we walked back to the hotel, we saw that the main street was filled with busses with names in German and some Cyrillic language. The closest countries to Verona are Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Croatia, and I guess they all do day (or night) trips to from Zagreb to Verona. Hope it's a comfortable bus, cause it's about a 5 hour ride.

Here's video:

And here are some pictures:

Verona and the Opera

A Very Odd Day

We left Florence today. I'm not sure that I have the energy to go through the details, but it started with a 15 minute walk to the car rental office, followed by a half hour wait for the car, followed by 20 minutes of futile attempts to bring the car close to the apartment ending in parking in a lot (most of Florence center is off-limits to cars unless you either live there or park in a lot where they can get you removed from the police records of violating the ban) to walking 10 minutes home to taking a taxi with all the luggage (and Ronnie, of course) to the parking lot and FINALLY getting out of town. All told, 2 hours.

Then we drove for about 2 1/2 hours to Verona. We're staying in a nice but nondescript hotel from which we walked through the ancient wall and entered the most beautiful city I've ever seen in my life. I completely lack the words to describe it and I doubt my pictures do it justice, but the sidewalks are alternating pink and white marble, every block you glance down has some bit of eye candy, the shops are cute, every building has visual interest ranging from mere attractiveness to spectacular, the balconies overflowing with flowers, the largest square is dominated by a huge Roman amphitheater where they do opera all summer (we're seeing Carmen tomorrow) and the other main square is just drop-dead gorgeous. We walked all afternoon and I was shaking my head the entire time. Pictures later.

A Week to Go

We come home in a week. I guess that feels about right. There's always a tipping point on a trip where either you start mourning the end of the vacation or you're ready to be done with it and to go home. I'm not really feeling strongly either way this time. I'm pretty comfortable here, but it's always a little hard being foreign and it's very hot and the Italians have a different take on what air conditioned means. Americans, I think, associate it with being cool. Italians seem to interpret it as meaning a little bit less hot. I don't think I stopped sweating from noon until midnight yesterday and we were in several air conditioned places.

I think one could easily spend a year or more here though. We've only seen a fraction of what's here and it's already been a full trip. We still have a few more places to go- Verona, Padua and Venice. We leave Florence tomorrow.

Florence, when you see the pictures and the postcards, looks almost Disneyesque, which I don't consider a compliment. And all that stuff is there, but on the ground it's grey and graffitied and the streets are to0 narrow to appreciate how pretty some of the buildings are. Almost every place we pass was built between 300 and 600 years ago. It feels like an actual place, as opposed to feeling like you walked into a postcard. You can easily spend a week here and keep busy. It is loaded with tourists. Most people you see on the streets are holding maps. But even that seems okay, and if you like sculpture and gelato there are few finer places to be.

At Ronnie's brilliant suggestion, we went out and saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince last night at a beautiful old theater in the middle of Florence. As someone in the lobby said, "I think every English-speaking person in town is here." And I can vouch for that, at least among the 15-22 year olds. We were in the distinct minority in there as so-called adults. The movie was in English with Italian subtitles, which is slightly distracting but not a big bother. The movie was terrific and I didn't particularly like this book. It suffers from the same problem that the second books of trilogies have. I guess you could call it penultimatitis. It has a plot of its own, but mostly serves to set up the final book. Of course in this case the final book is in 2 movies, so who knows what that'll be like.

After the movie we walked around in the Plaza della Republica, which was lit up bright and full of people as if it were a Saturday night, though it was Wednesday. We strolled for a while, got gelato and came back to our quasi-AC apartment.

I haven't posted pictures for a while because there is no photography at all allowed in the Uffizi and the Accademia. That's why I linked to images of what we saw instead.

Here's a few more though-

Around Town in Florence

Art, schmart

OK, enough brilliance already. I saw Michelangelo's David sculpture today. You all know the image. White, naked, perfect. It's beautiful by any definition. But the only thing that really struck me about it was how BIG it is. I'd rather not look it up, but it must be 10 feet tall. That's a big marble dude. What I liked more in the Accademia Gallery was his "unfinished" prisoner sculptures and his 3rd Pieta, which he left in his Florence workshop when he moved to Rome. Not only are they powerful and brimming with emotion, but there relative roughness seemed more revealing to me. How do you see this when you're looking at a piece of rock? The sculpture seems to be emerging from the rock under its own power, but of course that's not at all what actually happened. It's miraculous.

Like Michelangelo, I (I should just stop right there, shouldn't I?) have picked up skills in Florence. My most frequently used new skill is using one of those silly little espresso pots that everyone has in their closet. They have a regular coffee maker in the apartment, but good luck finding the right kind of coffee for it. What I really like to do is on a hot afternoon (95 and humid at the moment) like this, when I need a pick-me-up, is to make a whole pot of that stuff and pour it into a glass of ice and milk and drink it with a cookie. That'll put some fuel in your tank.

The rest of the day and some random notes

We did takeout pizza for dinner tonight. I didn't feel like cooking and we're still avoiding restaurants whenever possible, not only for the expense (I don't think the 3 dinners I made in the apartment combined cost as much as one restaurant dinner) but because the whole act of going to a restaurant becomes tiresome. We've been gone 2 weeks now and the idea of sitting and looking at a menu is not attractive. Anyway, we had two wonderful little thin-crust pizzas, one with bufala mozzarella, which was delicious and very rich, and one with prosciutto and mushrooms which was as good as you'd imagine.

Italians are really nice people, warm and friendly even in difficult circumstances.

I have a favorite Italian beer, Nastro Azzurro. I'd previously thought they all tasted the same and they're all very light, but this one has a lot more flavor.

Everything I've seen so far backs up my contention that people don't really listen to each other most of the time. The usual response I get is that you can't get through the day-to-day without listening, but it's simply not true. I understand very little Italian and I am able to get through a variety of conversations with Italians who don't speak English just by virtue of context without having any idea of what they're saying. But just because listening isn't always necessary doesn't mean that it's not important.

I looked on Google Maps to see if you can drive to our hotel in Venice and it gives directions, but the last 3 miles are in the water. It took me a minute to realize it was saying there was a ferry.

The bathroom in this apartment is very peculiar. Behind the bed's headboard there's a room-length (about 15 feet) glass wall with sliding doors on both ends. To the right is the sink, in the center is the bath/shower and on the left is the toilet and of course the bidet. The only part that can be made opaque is the shower part, where there's a Venetian blind (maybe this one is actually from Venice), but the door to the toilet is clear glass. This is a bit more intimate than we're used to but we're making it work. We've had only one splat against the glass door so far. The shower has one of those inviting "rain" type showerheads, but there's almost no water pressure up here (I guess that's the downside of being so high up) and when I took a shower yesterday it was just a fast drip. I'm going to try again when it's not a peak water use time.

I'm Not Meaning This to be Profane or Disrespectful...

but we saw us a lot of Jesus today. Saw us a lot of Mary and John the Baptist too. I had been wondering when I was going to be seeing lots of Jesus on this trip. There was lots of Jesus at the Vatican, but there was a lot of Roman stuff too. Today we were at the Uffizi Gallery and there were rooms and rooms of him, mostly sitting in his mom's lap and often being adored by the Magi, who apparently adored him at many times in many different places, including several parts of Italy, which was kind of surprising. Those Magi were the most adoring people I ever saw.

Because I had been studiously avoiding any advance information about what I was going to be seeing today, I lacked some basic knowledge that might have been helpful, including who John the Baptist was, who the Magi were, and what annunciation means. I was able to figure out basically what the significance of JTB was, but I didn't realize the Magi were the same 3 people doing the adoring over and over again, and the phrasing does not make it clear whether the magi are adoring or being adored. And annunciation had to be related to announce and as an antonym to denunciation. But I have since learned that this wasn't just any old announcement; it was the announcement of Jesus to his virgin (and therefore probably pretty surprised) mother to be.

Enough heresy, maybe. The Uffizi (I think I've also spelled it Ufizzi and Uffizzi in this blog and I was so wrong) Gallery houses many great Italian works of art (Primarily Italian, they've got a few Rembrandts and some other notable Flemish and Spanish artists as well), mostly paintings. This is a place that was really built up as a kind of temple of art and it's, well, it's a museum. I'm not going to go into depth on much of it. There are some wonderful paintings there. For me, the absolute highlight was Botticelli's The Birth of Venus. This painting is almost as famous as the Mona Lisa, but unlike Mona, which is small and you can't get close to it, there's no letdown here. It is a huge and stunningly beautiful work. Even if you set aside the groundbreaking subject matter and composition, which set it totally apart from everything else I've seen here, it's wondrous. Venus herself is achingly beautiful and she has a serenity that centers your vision on her, even as the zephyr blows from the left and her hair and the water and the cloth that's destined to enwrap her flow to the right with the wind. And the shell sets her off perfectly. I don't think it's been restored, which usually means brightened, so the colors are not extremely vivid, but so what. Just incredible.

The rest of the museum was fine, a cool unfinished DaVinci (Adoration of the Magi!) and a Michelangelo, and a couple of really good Raphael's and Titian's (the links are just my favorites- there are others). But it was a bit of a letdown after Botticelli, and I have to say that the way the gallery labels their rooms is a bit deceptive. The Leonardo room has about 10 paintings, only 3 of which are Leonardo, and the Michelangelo room has about 8 paintings and 1 Michelangelo.

Our feet had had it by then, so we came home for a while. More later.

Celebrating Bipeddiness

One of the things you learn to really appreciate when you're on a vacation like this is your feet. I noticed last night that my feet are starting to look older. My feet are not ugly, which is I guess the highest compliment one pays feet, but they're starting to look well used. I guess day after day of walking tours'll do that to a foot. They really feel beat up by the end of the day, but they're always ready for more the next morning. I have large feet (size 11 and I'm 5' 8"), which I guess serves to spread the load a bit and I always carry bandaids in case of blisters. My mom taught me to keep changing which shoes you wear when you do this kind of thing. Very good advice and Ronnie and I both follow it religiously.

In The Presence of Greatness

We saw something incredible today. It wasn't a surprise or anything. It was a Michelangelo sculpture in a museum and one of the things people come to Florence for. But I wasn't ready for what a powerful experience that would be. I don't know much about art, but you don't need to do more than just pay attention to appreciate this piece of work.

The statue is in the museum of the Duomo, where they took much of the original artwork from the cathedral when it was renovated. It's a statue Michelangelo was making for his tomb. He was 80 when he did it, and frustrated with his diminished abilities and a fault he found in the marble after working on it for 8 years (bummer!), as evidenced by the missing parts where he smashed it. It's called Pieta, though it's not the other famous Pieta that's in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and also called the Deposition or Florence Pieta.

This was one of the things that Ronnie really wanted to see here, and I could see why. I lack the words to describe the power of this sculpture. It's huge, maybe 8 feet tall, and the Christ figure is beautifully finished (aside from the smashed off part) while the rest of it is rough. I cannot conceive of the skill it takes to make a piece of marble look the way Michelangelo does. It's beyond anything I've ever seen. According to the plaque at the museum, the face of Nicodermus, the hooded guy holding the body, is a self-portrait. I found that to be poignant and haunting, and I had no trouble sitting there and looking at if for a long time while Ronnie alternately soaked it in and photographed it. She said she'd seen it on slides in Art History but while seeing a painting on slides is one thing, it does little to prepare you for the dimensionality and physicality of sculpture. I knew there was a good reason I didn't take Art History (as opposed to the actual reason which can most charitably be described as a lack of curiosity that I regret but is probably not unusual for teenage boys.)

We went into the Duomo itself afterwards. There was nothing particularly interesting, but I like being in those huge spaces. In the renaissance, there seems to have been a spirit of "let's see how big we can make this sucker." In the museum we saw an exhibit of how they physically managed to build the dome, which was incredible in its own right. How do you get the curve just right so it all meets in the center? How do you get those big rocks all the way up there? And more mysteriously, how did the Romans do things like it in 200 BCE?

After that we walked around a bit and had lunch (I had grilled veggies and brie cheese on foccacia- yum!) and then Ronnie took me clothes shopping at Zegna, a designer we both like. It was really hot in there (and outside) and it was no fun putting on one shirt after another (and I'd like to think they clean them before someone else tries them on, but I kind of doubt it. Sorry I was so sweaty next man, whoever you are). But I found a few that both looked good and didn't feel uncomfortable if I reached up like I do when I write on the board. I am a practical sort, after all. Then we walked across a couple of bridges, including Ponte Vecchio, which seems more like a mall than a bridge, is not romantic in the slightest, and I think is only famous because it's old.

After we got back, I had to send a fax, so I headed off to the internet place, which was the first thing in Florence that was actually farther than it looked on the map. It was called BanglaNet and it was run by a nice couple from Bangladesh. The fax got done, I got to shop at a new supermarket on the way back, made dinner and now it's almost 11.

I'll do photos tomorrow. For tonight I just wanted to get things down before being overwhelmed by the Ufizzi Gallery tomorrow.

Beyond Cool

This apartment actually has a safe hidden behind a picture hanging on the wall.

Out and about

As I kind of noticed yesterday, Florence is really small. The map we have is the same size as the Rome map, but what looks like a ten minute walk almost invariably turns out to be 2 or 3. This caused occasional problems today, where we overshot our mark. A lot of stuff is closed on Sunday, so we went to a church which seemed likely to be open. It was the Basilica San Marco, which has a lot of Donatello sculptures, including reliefs on a couple of doors and the two central pulpits ( I know there's some official name for these things but I don't know what it is. All that church lingo- nave, transept, sacra whatever, just confuses me. I know what the crypt is but that's about it) as well as a series of reliefs around a small room off to the left (the something vecchio, which just means it's old). All incredible.

Just a short digression about Italian. I barely understand any of it, but it's wonderful to listen to. It's almost disappointing that everyone here speaks such good English. Our favorite words are prego, which means thank you, or if you please (like if you hold a door for someone), Ronnie's favorite is piccolo, which means small (most often applied to cups of gelato), and I'm partial to uscita, ("ooskita"), which means exit.

We also went to a famous parfumerie, near another major church, and bought some fragrant stuff. It's been in its current location since the 16th century and is very very beautiful inside. If you are so inclined, you can go into a special room and the herbologist will mix a special scent for you. We walked home past the Ponte Vecchio, which was incredibly busy, but we didn't walk across it today. Every block there's a building (or 2 or 3) with some kind of historical designation, either a 12th century tower or a 17th century palace or a 15th century church, all right in our neighborhood. It's cumulatively amazing.

Right now I'm up on the roof, watching our clothes flap around in a very lively breeze. There are swallows swooping around everywhere and there's a brilliant sunset between the Bargello (old prison) and the Duomo. It's supposed to get brutally hot in a couple of days, but I'm hoping that even then there will be a nice breeze up here late in the day. Someone's cooking something upwind. The city is surrounded by hills and the view is amazing. The Old Palace, next to the Bargello, has a bell tower that seems to be the tallest thing in town. I just noticed this morning that to reach the tower you have to climb a spiral staircase that wraps around one of its support columns. Someone a few blocks away is having dinner on their rooftop terrace. I can see and hear them perfectly.

Florence

One Ringy Dingy

There's no traffic noise up here, I guess because there are no cars allowed in the general vicinity. The one sound we've got is bells. We're in the general vicinity of 3 huge churches (and I mean huge like you wouldn't believe) and hearing range of a few more, so every quarter hour and especially on the hours we get a series of serenades. If you happen to be outside it's almost deafening. Inside it's pretty pleasant, but we were glad to see that all we got overnight was a simple chiming of the hours. The rest of the day it sounds like a wedding every 15 minutes.

One more little Florence note, the bus tickets here have ads for a dating service on the back.

Missing the beach, tower silliness and Florence

I'm presently cooking dinner at out apartment in Florence. It's a big change being back in a city. It's supposed to be very very hot here then next few days, a bummer after the absolutely perfect weather we had in our 3 days in Viareggio. I took a bike ride up and down the shore this morning, up through the neighboring town to the north and south to the dock. It's just a nice, mellow place, the people are very pleasant and we were sad to go. I still have an incredibly painfully sunburned ankle.

We got to our apartment late afternoon after a stop in Pisa to look at all of the silliness around the Leaning Tower. And there's an awful lot of silliness, let me tell you. Like most things in Italy, you have no idea of where to park. There are plenty of lots and street parking, but since you can't park anywhere you can actually see anything it's a wild guess. We picked some street parking and it turned out to be 3 long blocks from the plaza, which wasn't bad.

The tower itself is pretty. Lots of nice sculpture and inlay work, and it's obviously been cleaned recently. It's also really leaning. Somebody ought to do something about that. It's not nearly straight up and down. We didn't go in. I've stood on slanted surfaces before and don't need to go up into a tower to do it. I guess there's the view, but since the most interesting thing to look at is the tower itself, that seems like kind of a waste. The real show is outside, where everyone is doing their own take on photographs that look like they're either holding the tower up, pushing it over, leaning against it, and anything else you can think of. Ronnie took some great pictures of this.

Florence is about an hour away, so we set off directly from Pisa. Thank goodness we had a navigation system, because this apartment is in the middle of the historic area, where I'm not sure you're actually supposed to be driving. But we did. There's always a lot of anxiety with renting an apartment, even more than with a hotel (for me, anyway). There's way more variation and a lot more room for error in an apartment. This apartment is very vertical. The whole thing is essentially the attic of one of those European buildings with the humungous front doors. You take an elevator to the top floor and then up a bunch of steps to the apartment. The living area is on one floor, the bedroom up one flight of stairs, and then there's a deck on the roof. This particular apartment is the highest up of any in the historic area. We are literally above every other rooftop, except for things like the Duomo and the palaces. It is a 360 degree amazing view.

Of course, nothing's perfect, and this place has more than its share of oddities. It's bright bright bright during the day and the living room is pretty dark at night. They have track lighting with one light on the whole track. Why would someone do that? Just get a regular light if that's what you want. The washing machine, supposedly in the apartment, is in a teeny closet outside the apartment and down a small flight of stairs. I'll take a picture of it tomorrow. It's very odd, and since we have a LOT of laundry after 12 days away it's very inconvenient, especially since there's no dryer so we have to hang laundry and obscure our view.

Since there's no place to park near here (see above) we decided in advance to ditch the car here and then get another one when we leave the city next week. I set off for the rental return place which was described as "near the train station." Here's what I, the savvy traveler, did. I left without the actual address and without the apartment phone number and therefore any means of getting the address. It's nearly closing time, so I don't have time to go back. So I drive along saying "I am so screwed," or something to that effect, for the entire ride there. And when I get to the train station, it's awful. Construction, narrow one way streets, no signs. There was no way to make a systematic search, so I just started trying to drive everywhere within a 2 block radius. And I'm finding nothing. Finally, I see a National Rent a Car office, so I pull over and ask, "Where's Europcar?" and they tell me, around the corner to the left. Clearly, they think I'm walking, because you can only turn right at the corner. By the time I get turned around, I have no idea where I am, so after a few seconds of using the ph word loudly in the car, I just have the navigation system keep me near the train station and keep driving around. Finally, I drive by a street and out of the corner of my eye see an Avis sign. I back up, turn into the street and as I go by the garage where the Avis office is, there's a tiny Europcar sign on a post INSIDE the garage. No sign streetside at all.

I pull into the garage and park, then ask the attendant what to do with Europcar returns, and he says, just give me the ticket and the keys, so I've just either returned a rental car or given a free car to some Italian guy. I then somehow managed to get on the wrong bus, so I got off and walked back, which took all of 10 minutes (driving to the station took almost 30).

So that was my day. I'm happy to be sitting here under the lone track light and relaxing. Here

are a few pictures. I don't know why it's sideways here.

Pisa and laundry

Really Enjoying the Beach

Now that we've been in the beach town for a couple of days, we decided to actually go to the beach. The Viareggio beach is a bit more than 2 km long, ending in a port on one end and another beach town on the other. I don't think there are any beaches directly south of here.

Our hotel has an arrangement with one of the clubs across the street- there are probably about 50 of them total- who each own 100 yards or so of beach and have populated it with chairs, chaise lounges, umbrellas, a snack bar, and in the case of this one, Florindo, a swimming pool. Thanks to the hotel's arrangement it only cost us $29, instead of the $50 it would have normally cost. Oh, plus another $10 for a chaise lounge and another $10 to use the swimming pool.

If you look up and down the beach, you see a great crosshatch of color. Not only do the rows of umbrellas line up within any given club between the entrance and the beach, they also line up across the beach from club to club. Our club has solid blue umbrellas and blue chairs with orange stripes. To the north, blue and white striped umbrellas with rainbow striped chairs. To the south, orange and green umbrellas with red and yellow chairs. It's possible that this repeats at some point but I'm not sure.

I was pleased to see that the standard costume was swim shorts, not "banana hangers," as Ronnie so colorfully called them. I was not interested in banana hanging. There was also no toplessness among anyone over the age of 10 or so, but there were almost no tops for the little ones.

The beach has a graceful curve, and if you look to the north, you can see the Alps not too terribly far away. There's still a bit of snow up there in spots.

For most of the afternoon it was mostly adults on the beach and in the pool. Everyone has to wear a bathing cap, which they lent me at the office, and fretted about what was the proper way to wear it (I know, on my head!) but there were people with ears covered, uncovered, and quasicovered. When I went back to the pool around 5 it was full of little kids, and the atmosphere of the whole place was very kid-oriented for the rest of the day. THey jabber away mostly in Italian, with a smattering of other languages, but very little English and basically no American English. Most of the people in shops and restaurants speak some English, but I'm not sure to whom. There must be a contingent of Brits at some point in the summer.

Aside from the kids, the only things you hear are the sea and the various venders, hawking kites, clothing, jewelry, fake designer luggage (certainly the first thing I want to buy on the beach), fresh coconut and massages.

We did get in the sea for a few minutes. The water was a nice temperature but it was too rough to swim or even hang out easily. There are still some surfers out, even as the sun is setting at around 9PM.

We went out to dinner at around 9:30 and were surprised to see that the stores were closed. Given that it's Friday night we expected bigger crowds and more stores open, not less. We had a bit of trouble finding a place to eat because a couple of the places had "entertainment," otherwise known as middle-aged guy on a keyboard singing Sinatra songs. Actually, I can still hear it wafting up to the hotel room. We had our usual dinner here. Ronnie has seafood risotto and I have mixed grilled fish. I also had mixed bruschetta, one with mushrooms, one with eggplant and one with tomatoes and (lots of) sea salt. They were all delicious. I don't even like eggplant but I like it here. The mixed fish tonight was swordfish, two of the biggest pieces of calamari I've ever seen, a huge prawn and a langoustine. I've had this in 3 places now and it's invariably fresh, cooked simply, and delicious. The scale here says I've lost weight but I don't believe it.

As we headed back at 11:00, all the stores had reopened and were very busy. I guess they just all closed for dinner.

I really like this place. It feels good to be here. We've had amazing weather (though I'm terribly sunburned) and the air feel really great. Hopefully I'll get to rent a bike for an hour and ride up and down before we leave tomorrow.

I've also decided that I really like Italy. It took a while, but the people here are so genuinely nice that it's hard not to like it. I'm excited about going to Florence, part of the art, part because we're staying in the same place for 6 days, and part because we have an apartment there and I'll get at least a hint of what it's like living there. I've noticed that this is very important to me wherever I travel.

Viareggio

Now That's What I'm Talkin' About

For whatever reason, Ronnie and I have been quoting movies a lot the last couple of days. That line is from State And Main, a David Mamet movie about a bunch of Hollywood types shooting a movie in a very small New England town. It's got a great cast (William H. Macy, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, Sara Jessica Parker, Julia Stiles and more) and like most Mamet things, very funny with lots of quotable lines.

We left the part of Tuscany that people think of as being real Tuscany today. We spent most of the day in Siena, where I confessed to Ronnie that it just wasn't grabbing me. I could appreciate the beauty of it all, but it wasn't really doing anything for me. She said, quite cleverly (I'll explain later), that it was because nothing fun had happened in any of those places and that you only really feel connected if you're having fun. As I pondered this, we stopped for lunch at the big Piazza in Siena, San Marco or San someone else or whatever it's called (see, this is what I mean) and I sat facing this HUGE public space, with absolutely no level ground in the entire 42 hectares of it (I remain convinced that hectares is a fictitious unit of measurement and so when people in Europe want to say something is big they just choose some ridiculously large number of hectares and when they get asked how amy acres that is they just make that up too). and I really liked the way it looked. It's dominated by a huge and completely ridiculous-looking building, mostly brick with a huge marble arched entryway that looks like it was added on several centuries after the original building was finished. It has 10 symmetrically placed turrets on one side and a very tall tower on the other side. There are 3 crests in the middle of the building that have crowns suspended over them. The architect was clearly insane. And I loved it. I really thought it was cool and I even took pictures of it. So I felt better after that. Siena is a really nice place. Not too big, not too small, very pretty.

So as an aside to explain another aside, I'm reading Pride and Prejudice at the moment, and I'm beginning to talk and think like a 19th century British woman. One of the things I keep thinking is, "How fine to have a clever wife!"

After leaving Siena, we tried to visit Volterra, but were thwarted by our choice of two seemingly infinite sets of steps walking up to the town. Siena had a good 500 foot vertical drop to get to the parking lot, but they have escalators. You'll see a picture of one set of stairs below. So we looked at the Etruscan walls and the Roman theater that I guess the Romans built to entertain the Etruscans after they conquered them or maybe just to entertain themselves. So we left for the beach, passing Pisa on the way (saw the tower from the road, it's definitely leaning).

Viareggio is actually in Tuscany, but it's on the Ligurnian Sea, or something like that, whatever's between Northern Italy and France and Monaco. Everyone we've mentioned this to as a destination looks puzzled and has either never heard of it or doesn't understand why we'd want to go there. All I can say to these people is HA! Viareggio is great. It's a beach town in the classic sense. Our hotel is across the street from the beach, and we have a terrace from which we can see the entire sweep of the beach, which is mostly covered by beach chairs in neat rows, alternating colors among the beach clubs. There's a long promenade by the beach, lined with shops and restaurants, and between the street and the promenade is a bike path.

We were lucky enough to get upgraded to a suite at the hotel where we have a terrace that must be 12 hectares. That's about 500 square feet. Really. I could just stay on the terrace the entire time. But then we got hungry.

None of the guidebooks recommend restaurants here. They just say go somewhere and order fish. So we did. We sat at an outdoor table and I had mixed grilled fish. I'm not positive about everything, but there was swordfish, langoustine, calamari, some other small fish, and by far the best shrimp I have ever had in my life- sweet and moist and perfectly cooked. None of that dry shrimp cocktail kind of stuff. This was melt-in-your-mouth good. And it was accompanied by the largest beer I've ever had- a 1 liter mug. I didn't mean to get that, but I've ordered worse things by accident. While we ate we watched lots and lots of people walk by. It was probably 10:30 when we finished dinner and the stores were still open and and it was very pleasantly busy. Not sure if there are any other Americans here. It's very pan-European though. It was still very active at 11:15 when we got back to our hotel.

Siena

Wine Tour

Today we hired a guide and toured around the Chianti region. That was fun. We visited 3 kinds of wineries, small, medium and large.

Our first stop was very small. We learned a bit about Chianti Classico (the Classico is just a name for the wines of this part of Chianti, it has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the wine), the kinds of grapes that are used, and why they all have the black rooster on the label. The wines at the first place were fine- inexpensive and plain, and the guy showing us around had the charming habit of using the word "sensible" when he meant "sensitive." And he used it a lot. He also used "plethora" perfectly.

The second place wasn't really a winery. It was a tasting and sales room for one of the largest and snobbiest producers in Italy. It was very clean and bright and professional, unlike the dimly lit garage where we tasted the first wines. They had a machine where you pushed a button and it dispensed 50 grams of wine. As is often the case at these large places, the wines were too young and not really ready to drink. They don't share the good stuff and even the premium wine they dispensed for an extra charge was way too rough to really enjoy it.

After lunch in a cute medieval hill town, (food was good- homemade pasta with mixed mushrooms and roast pork loin- owner got into a bit of a spat with the French couple at the next table and later professed to us that he hated French people),we went to our final stop. This place was, as Arlo Guthrie would say, off the side of a side road, and then up about a kilometer of very bumpy dirt and rock road/driveway. It was absolutely gorgeous. You entered through a line of olive trees on one side and lavender on the other. The view was the best we've seen anywhere. It's apparently on the dividing line between Siena and Florence, so half of the winery was in each territory.

The owner was this guy with long, stringy graying hair, who was happy to first hang out with us while we took pictures of the view and then took us through the whole operation, introducing me to the winemaker, who was in back fixing a tractor. At the first winery, everything was in one big room. At the second, we have no idea where the actual winery is, though you can see pictures of it on the flat screen in the tasting room. Here, it was 3 good sized rooms. We saw his labeling machine, where he explained that the back label was the last thing to go on, because it was different for each county (bilingual for Canada, pregnancy warning for US, etc.) and the private label wine he does for a small restaurant chain in Washington DC.

Then we sat outside in the shade and tasted wine after wine, and the last one was by far the best thing we'd tasted all day. We also tried grappa (bracing!) and dessert wine and even a glass of olive oil (very buttery tasting). And then we finally left. That was a great way to end the day.

One of the things I really liked about the last place it was old and authentic and modern at the same time. For the most part, Italy seems stuck in a time warp. So much of the country's economy is focused on tourism (aside from the wine, I haven't seen a single production enterprise of any size since we've been here) that it can't change. It's too dependent on being cute and beautiful. And it really is cute and very beautiful and the people are terrific. I love walking around medieval villages (driving? not so much fun). But for me at least, it loses some of its charm when the only things in town are souvenir stores, restaurants and gelato stands.

Now we head for something that's a different kind of authentic. We're going to a beach town called Viareggio which seems to be popular with Italians more than foreigners, but at the moment it's mostly known for having had a horrific train derailment and explosion that set a neighborhood on fire, killed 22 and left another dozen critically injured. This happened last week, but they just had a big memorial service today that we saw on TV with 22 numbered coffins sitting on the grass in a park. So I e-mailed the hotel and asked if it was appropriate for visitors and they replied, yes, all the stores are open tomorrow, I guess implying that everything was shut down today.

I'm distracted now by Michael Jackson tributes on TV. These are in English, always a bonus in a place like this (our only other English option is Madonna's "Truth or Dare" with Italian subtitles). I'll check back in tomorrow with pictures.

All that Tuscan Sun

Let me tell you about the Tuscan sun. It's hot. They say it's unusually humid, but I never believe people who say things like that. Yesterday, on our way from Rome to Siena, we got caught in 2 thunderstorms. After the second time, Ronnie asked me why we didn't take our umbrellas from the car, especially given that we could here the thunder as soon as we got out. I don't know it's a mystery.

Here's the thing with driving around Tuscany. It's absolutely beautiful. Rolling hills, lots of grape vines, olive trees and sunflowers (not sure what they do with all those sunflowers. I'll have to ask). Every 20-30 kilometers or so, there's another picturesque medieval town perched on top of a hill. It's all very charming to look at, but kind of in the same way birdsongs are charming. But most of the time, birds make those sounds to say "This is MY tree. Keep away!" and of course these towns are perched on hillsides to make it hard for invaders to attack and to make it easy to rain arrows and whatever on them if they try. I can say with absolute certainty that no invaders will ever get to these towns. The access roads are so full of confusing traffic circles and you have to park down the hill and take a shuttle bus up (if you're lucky and there is a shuttle bus), if you can even get a parking place and have enough change for the meter. And if they get too close the townspeople with flatten them with tons and tons of painted pottery, cover them with gelato, get them drunk on cheap wine, and then burn them with espresso.

We've seen several of them now and though we really like visiting them, it gets just a bit repetitive after a while. Which town is this now? Oh, it's the one with all the towers and the Torture Museum (really). San SomethingstartingwithaG? Or one of those ones that start with Mont...?

Don't get me wrong. It's lovely driving around and I really do like walking through the alleyways and alcoves (Clap your hands if you've seen "In Bruges," and if you haven't, rent it). I had a nice lunch and delicious gelato (totally redundant there). And I took some really pretty pictures. And then we came back and I floated in the pool and looked up at the sky and it was a nice day.

We don't love the hotel here. It's more rustic than we were ready for, but there's a lot to like now that we're kind of used to it. The pool is great, the grounds are beautiful, and we have a sort of mini-apartment, which allows us to eat breakfast and dinner at least without having to do any kind of restaurant thing. I think if the bed was more comfortable and the AC a bit less feeble, it would be great.

Here's a few pictures. Unfortunately I can't give you the best view, which was of the sky from my back while floating in the pool.

Driving Around Tuscany

Doing the Vatican Blog

I have no background in art. I went to museums when I was a kid, but I always liked science museums better. The first art show I remember liking was the Picasso exhibit at MOMA around 1980. And I had the usual introduction to French Impressionism and liked Monet. But I never knew enough to put it in context. And I purposely didn''t look at a single art book before we went to view the Vatican art collection. So here's a know-nothing's report.

First off, I did not meet on in any way encounter the Pope. Just wanted to get that settled. Our guide was an art professor for 10 years in the US, so she both knew her stuff and knew how to explain things to people who were knowledgeable (like Ronnie) and not (like me). We had gotten an entry ticket a couple of weeks in advance and sliding past the ticket line was very satisfying. I don't really have a sense for the organization of the place, but there's a museum part and a palace part, the latter including the churches.

The place was mobbed with huge groups. Fortunately, few of them had any interest in the museum part, which was stunning. I've never liked or been interested in medieval art and it seems to be generally considered to be inferior to its renaissance counterpart. Understanding it in context, though, it all makes sense and is very beautiful and meaningful in a glorifying Jesus kind of way. Often the total religious focus irritates me, but having spent the prior day exclusively on secular (or pagan, anyway) Rome, it was fine today, and we're in the Vatican for goodness sake. Of course it's going to be religious. And some of the pieces were stunning. We saw things evolve through the different periods, though after Raphael things started to go in cycles of innovation, adoption, overuse by inferior artists (IOW, bad paintings) and then on to the next innovation.

Then we went to the palace part. They've got serious crowd control here. It's like a long one-way street. You can't double back. We started with an extraordinary collection of mostly ancient Roman copies of ancient Greek sculpture. These were displayed in a way that served only to demonstrate just how much stuff they have. Sculptures are stacked, sometimes with the label for the thing on top stuck in the middle of the thing on the bottom. At this point I am beginning to lose track of what we're doing and where we are. My brain is full and I can't take anything more in without shoving something else out the other side.

We went through what had been the residence of some of the popes, so the walls and ceilings are ornately decorated. A couple were done by Raphael and a few more by his students as he had an overload of commissions at the time. The most memorable was the map room, which is 120 meters (!) long and has wall covered with 16th century topological maps, giving a view, kind of as if you're standing on top of a nearby mountain, of Italy as it was known then. Incredible detail, with many whimsical touches. The ceiling is completely frescoed and the there are ancient sculptures between each map, but it all gets lost in the sauce.

We heard about how one pope hated his predecessor and had to make himself a whole new apartment, how the popes had themselves painted into historical works and lots of references to my favorite pope name, Sixtus the Seventh.

Then we hit the Sistine Chapel, which was at the same time dramatic and awe-inspiring, as well as a bit of a disappointment. Obviously it's hard to keep looking at stuff that's on a very high ceiling, but it was kind of dark and not at all as church-like as I'd imagined. You can tell the paintings are brilliant, but they don't jump out and grab you like I thought they would. You're supposed to be quiet and not take pictures, but people were chattering and flashing away and nobody was stopping them. Maybe it's not the real chapel. Maybe it's the stunt double.

Finally, we stopped into St. Peter's Basilica, which was huge and impressive, and the light was streaming in in a very cool and godlike way. They have the tomb of St. Peter, above bones that have been tested and are as close to being authenticated as Peter's as is possible. There are a couple of popes in glass coffins and other relics. And it's HUGE. Ronnie said to the guide, "And I bet they passed a law after they built this that no church could be built bigger." And the guide said, "Of course."

So that's it. I tried not to overuse any superlative and to give you a sense of the place as it struck an uneducated but interested observer. I'd highly recommend going and having a guide, private or small group if possible. I also feel better prepared for what I'm going to see in Florence and was glad to hear what a cranky guy Michelangelo was. Now excuse me, my brain hurts.

Here are some pictures:

July 4 Vatican

Reminding myself why

How do you cram the absurd accumulation of treasures in the Vatican art collection into a 5 hour tour? And then how do you boil that down into a not overly long blog entry?

The question brings me back to why I started doing this. I've always found that my best recollections of trips were letters that I wrote to friends along the way. On one occasion, I wrote letters to the same person every day for a post-college seven week cross country trip with the explicit expectation that I would get a look at them when I returned.

This plan was complicated by my being in love with this person and her not only not loving me back, but in fact had the hots for one of my traveling companions. So I never actually got ahold of all of them, but the ones I saw were vivid and true to the way I spoke and thought about the trip as it was happening, each focused on a single day. They were clearly superior to the general "how was the trip?" kind of bland answers.

The point was further driven home to me just a few years ago when a close friend died and one day out of the blue his sister returned to me a number of letters I sent him from my trips. They offered a level of excitement and specificity that I could never possible attain after the trip was over.

It was in this spirit that I blogged the China trip in 2006. And I really felt that it helped to make my trip more fulfilling at the same time I was keeping in touch with just my friends. So how do I sum up the vast Vatican collection, already condensed to a 5 hour tour? Especially given that I find most guidebooks on this kind of thing to be unreadable? Stay tuned.

Okay, I have a problem

I am officially on overload. There is way more stuff coming in than I can practically process and comment on in a timely fashion, so to save my sanity I'm not going to comment on our trip to the Vatican yet. But here's a quick summary of what we did Thursday, which seems and awfully long time ago right now.

Before I get going, I should say that this is the part where jet lag tends to really hit me. Not that I can't get through the day. My best attribute as a traveller is my stamina. Put me someplace interesting and I never get too tired, and though I get very uncomfortable standing in one place for a long time, I seem to be able to walk endlessly. But after getting over the exhaustion from the plane trip I often have several nights where it's very difficult to stay asleep for any extended period of time, which makes me a bit foggy during the day, even if it's hard for others to distinguish it from my general spaciness.

On Thursday we started with a trip to the Synagogue. In most European cities, there's a Jewish quarter we always like to visit. Here, the main synagogue is very close to the hotel, but as we found out there isn't really much of an area to visit.

The only way to see the synagogue is with a tour, and we were lead by this tiny old woman who spoke good but heavily accented English. The one thing she made abundantly clear on several occasions is that there have been Jews in Rome since the 2nd century BCE. This accorded them a special status, and the ghettoization that was standard in most places with a much more short-lived phenomenon in Rome. Because the Roman Jews were here pre-Diaspora, they are very proud to call themselves Roman Jews, not any other kind. There are 13,000 of them and they are Orthodox.

The main synagogue, which we visited, wasn't really anything special to look at. The old one was burned down by someone who got impatient with negotiations about whether or not it should be torn down and/or moved.

We spent the afternoon just walking around and in the evening, after a violent thunderstorm, went to a nice little restaurant near the Trevi Fountain. I had artichokes (mmm) for an appetizer and sea bass Sardinian style. It was a simple preparation, which was probably as much as the Sardines could handle, which was (with a few notable exceptions) boned tableside.

After dinner we went to the fountain, where we sat and watched a steady succession of people get photographed or photograph themselves tossing or more frequently pretending to toss a coin over their shoulder into the fountain. The fountain is huge and to my eye more ornate and impressive than romantic, but it was still quite a spectacle. Here's some pictures.

July 2- Synagogue and Trevi Fountain