Tag: Italy

2013 - Italy

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Wednesday, June 12, 2013

In a moment of inspiration I’ll come to regret, I’ve decided to visit Bologna for the day.

I’ve never been there before, but I know that it’s a university town in Emilia-Romagna famous for its miles of covered walkways—known as porticos—as well as for its food. This is where that scrumptious pasta Bolognese sauce gets its name, so how could I possibly go wrong? It does occur to me that I should have researched the place a bit first, but my entire trip this year has been spontaneous, free of the burden of itineraries and expectations, and it’s worked out exceedingly well so far. I feel confident that serenditpity will guide me in Bologna, too.

I’m getting a late start again, and my train is running behind schedule, which doesn’t help matters, so I don’t get to Bologna Centrale until nearly noon. We’ve arrived at the new underground station that opened just days ago and I feel disoriented immediately. It’s cavernous inside and almost entirely barren. I had expected to find a tourist information office where I could pick up a city map, at least, but there’s nothing around and no one to ask for help. I take the escalator from one level to another, and then another, and eventually find my way out onto the street, but the neighborhood looks nothing like what I expected.

Originally, before I got sick and had to reshuffle my trip, I had reserved a hotel room in Bologna for one night at the Starthotels Excelsior directly across the street from the train station, but standing here now I can see it’s not here. Only later do I realize that I’ve emerged far on the other side of the tracks, facing north instead of south. Without any sense realistic sense of direction, I grab a taxi and tell the driver to take me somewhere in the city center. He drops me off in Piazza Maggiore, and hands me his card in case I need a ride back later. The truth is, part of me wants to turn back now.

I stumble into a branch of the tourist information office and a disinterested woman behind the counter hands me a map, and sells me a €12 ticket for a sightseeing bus that should give me a feel for the city, but really who knows? She waves me off without comment and sets back to reading her book.

By the time the City Red Bus reaches Piazza Maggiore, all of the outdoor seats on the deck are taken, which leaves me to the front of the vehicle under a plastic roof that acts like a greenhouse on a summer’s day. It’s sweltering. At each of the stops, I look back hopefully at the other passengers, praying that someone will step off somewhere to visit something so that I can take their place. The two leaning towers, the Torre Asinelli and the Torre Garisenda? No. The church of Santo Stefano, or San Domenico, or maybe San Francesco? No, no, and no. What about San Michele in Bosco, with its panoramic terrace overlooking the city? Surely, someone will disembark there to appreciate the view. No, indeed. Everyone stays resolutely on the bus, craning their necks and taking pictures. No one ever does get off.

By now, I’m drenched in sweat and in a raging mood. I reach into my purse for something to eat and find that my scarf—the one I keep on hand for covering my shoulders when visiting churches in Italy—has gotten caught in the zipper. When I can’t slide it free, emotion gets the best of me and I tug it HARD, expecting the scarf to tear away. Instead, the zipper breaks. I’ve yanked it clean apart, and I sit there staring at the crooked teeth and at the metal pull in my hand, wondering how I could have been so stupid. In vain, I try to hold the purse closed with a safety pin, knowing all the while that I’ll be an easy target for pickpockets from here on out.

When we complete the loop and arrive back at Piazza Maggiore, it’s nearly 2:00 PM. The buses are taking a long break for lunch, and so do I. I’m not feeling finicky, I just want to eat and to get out of the heat of the sun. In an alleyway just off the square, I find a place called Al Voltone and it seems reasonable enough. I order the Antica Bologna platter with fried tortellini, a foam of mortadella, polenta with fresh cheese, and a petroiana spear—at least that’s what the menu says. It’s all perfectly fine, but certainly not memorable. Nonetheless, the chance to sit and rest in the cool shade does me good.

I take some pictures in and around Piazza Maggiore, of the Palazzo del Podestà, the Palazzo D’Accursio, and the Neptune fountain, and then set off on foot through the porticos, past the leaning towers, to the basilica of Santo Stefano, which has just reopened for the afternoon. Actually, it’s a cluster of medieval churches, chapels, and cloisters, all from different periods. As I stare up at the dark brick dome in the ancient Santo Sepolcro, a polygonal temple dating from 12th century, I decide that I’ve done enough to justify the day. Perhaps my standards are low, but I’m ready to head back. Bologna hasn’t been my finest hour.

Near the Piazza Santo Stefano, I catch the City Red Bus back to the train station and walk past the clock that’s been frozen in time to honor the victims of the terrorist attack that occurred here in 1980. I buy a ticket for the next train to Florence and settle in for the ride.

I’m safe and sound back at the Hotel Davanzati in time for Happy Hour, entertaining Tommaso with the story of how I broke the zipper on my purse. He finds it quite amusing, and now that I’ve had a chance to unwind, I suppose I do, too. Still, he says I should remind him never to make me angry.

Indeed.

Perhaps it’s a good thing to be surprised by your own strength from time to time. Who knows what it may accomplish, even if it does mean sacrificing a perfectly good purse.

2013 - Italy

Thursday, June 13, 2013

by Deborah Guber1 Comment on Thursday, June 13, 2013

After a less than inspiring visit to Bologna yesterday, I’m determined to do better today. Over breakfast, I unfold a map and consider my options. The Hotel Davanzati has a sister company called I Just Drive, which offers a number of small group tours. I had hoped to go on their outing to Pienza, Montalcino, and Montepulciano, but as in Venice my timing as a solo traveler is bad. No one else has booked the trip this week, so it’s understandable that it’s been cancelled. Modena could be reached by train, but Tommaso thinks it’s too far to go for the day. Ferrara is within reach, but Fabrizio wouldn’t recommend it. I’ve already been to San Gimignano, and while it’s a stunning town with soaring medieval towers, it’s too small to consider going back so soon. And tomorrow I’m heading west to Lucca and on to Pisa, so those destinations are out as well. I consider Fiesole for a moment, or maybe Pistoia, but I decide to roll the dice and lay my bet on the surest thing I know. I’m going to revisit the classic Tuscan hill town of Siena.

I went to Siena on my first trip to Italy back in 2008, but after touring the Palazzo Pubblico to see the frescoes depicting “The Allegories of Good and Bad Government,” and climbing the Torre del Mangia, I was too weary to bother with the cathedral or the baptistery or the adjacent Museo dell’Opera del Duomo. I spent the afternoon instead wandering the hilly streets in a happy stupor induced by some truly excellent food. It was a memorable day. Only later did it occur to me that I had missed the finest view of all, which is reached from the top of an unfinished wall of the Duomo, abandoned in the 14th century when the Black Plague swept through the city. My return today is all about unfinished business.

I walk to the SITA terminal near Santa Maria Novella and board a corse rapide bus that offers little in terms of scenery, but gets to Siena via the autostrada in little more than an hour. By 11:30 AM we’ve arrived at Piazza Antonio Gramsci and just as before, I follow the crowd of day trippers along Via Banchi di Sopra toward the city center and Piazza del Campo. I stand on the sloping pavement for a few minutes, soaking in the surroundings and the grandeur of the Palazzo Pubblico. There are pigeons bathing in the Fonte Gaia, children playing tag, and people lounging with their backs upon the warm bricks. It’s such a lively and pleasant place to be on a summer’s day that I’m tempted stay and eat lunch at one of the cafés that line the campo, but the meal I had here in 2008 was so exquisite that I feel obligated to find something that competes.

I pull up some TripAdvisor reviews on my iPhone—a wonder of technology that wasn’t at my fingertips the last time I was here—and opt for a table at Dolceforte. The owner, Anna, is sunny and gregarious, and justifiably proud of her food. I order a plate of wild boar ragù, and an arugula salad with walnuts, pears, and pecorino cheese, drizzled with a homemade balsamic reduction. Everything is delicious, especially the balsamic and when I tell her so, she beams.

With fuel in my stomach and energy in my legs, I decide to tackle the most trying item on my itinerary first—the narrow, corkscrew stairway that leads to the Panorama del Facciatone. Because I am determined to do things properly this time, I invest in an all-inclusive Opa Si pass for €12, then enter the Duomo museum and start climbing. There’s a waiting line to get there, but the sight of Siena at my feet more than makes up for the bottleneck. Between the height of the unfinished nave wall and the topography of the land, I am high above the fan of Piazza del Campo, as if floating on air. It would be difficult to imagine a more sublime view.

I descend the winding stairs and explore the museum itself, which has a treasure trove of medieval art, including Pisano’s original statues from the front façade of the Duomo, and Duccio’s “Maestà,” a stunning two-sided altarpiece completed in 1311. When I see the enthroned Madonna with Child, though, I can’t help but think of Mario and his “dropery.”

Once outside again, I round the corner to get a better view of the cathedral itself. It’s a lacy confection with a round window that reflects the clouds and the blue of the sky. The pink and green marble reminds me of the basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, but the Gothic spires and the gold mosaics have me thinking of Orvieto instead, which makes sense since the architects there were Sienese as well.

Inside, the nave is lined with bold striped columns of black and white stone, and the floor is paved with intricate mosaics and inlaid marble panels. There is a Nicola Pisano pulpit depicting the life of Christ that was completed in 1265, and an adjacent library that houses a collection of illuminated manuscripts with a series of stunning wall frescoes devoted to Pius II. The entire cathedral is a deeply spiritual place, and impressively intellectual as well for its place in art history, and yet somehow I can’t stop giggling at all the tourists who have been forced to wear the “cloak of shame.”

In many ways, Italy is still a conservative country, and a devoutly Catholic one, too. While in America, someone might attend mass on a Sunday morning wearing shorts and a halter top, there are standards of modesty here—shoulders at least, and often knees, must be covered. Surely, that’s not asking too much? I carry a scarf in my purse for such occasions, although today it is a looking a bit tattered and worse for wear after that wrestling match with the zipper on my purse in Bologna. But at least I come prepared. For those who don’t, there are disposable paper capes that must be worn, and they make people look positively ridiculous, as well they should. If only they could ban flip flops, too, I would be well satisfied.

Once I visit the crypt and the cool darkness of the baptistery, I’ve completed all the sites covered by my Opa Si pass, so I’m ready to wander about. I stop for some raspberry and lemon gelato at Grom, window shop for ceramics that display the coats of arms of the seventeen contrade of Siena that compete in the Palio each year, and buy a few ricciarelli cookies from Nannini to eat later.

By half past four, my legs have given out on the hilly terrain and I decide to catch the next SITA bus back to Florence. It’s been a scorching day and the slant of the afternoon sun warms the bus dangerously. By the time we reach the entrance to the city at Porta Romana, the temperature gauge on the dashboard is reading 40° Celsius, or more than 100° Fahrenheit.

Back at the hotel, I lay down to rest for a bit in my room and once again crank up the air conditioning. A while later, I come out for one final Happy Hour. As usual, there is music playing in the background, there are candles on the tables, and a dish of crostini alongside the hotel’s own Davanzati sauce. There’s a full house tonight, so I’m sitting at a table in the lobby when Tommaso comes over and sits down to join me. He leans over and peers into my glass. “What are you drinking,” he says, half curious, half amused. “Is that Coca-Cola?” Yes, I say, burying my face in my hands. With a good-natured grin, he says: “We do offer prosecco and Chianti, you know.” Will the embarrassment never end? Am I forever destined to be either pitied or scorned as “the woman who no drink wine”?

After enduring the heat on the bus, I can’t muster enough hunger to warrant going out for dinner. I grab a sandwich from the takeaway counter of a café instead and head over the Ponte Vecchio to buy a ceramic piece I saw in a shop there the other day on my morning tramp around the Oltrarno. The sign reads Sciccherie: Artigianato d’Arte Italiano. The woman behind the counter recognizes me and she introduces herself. Her name is Tiziana. She is kind and she enjoys practicing her English, which encourages us to talk. When I pick out an occupational plaque that depicts a L’INSEGNANTE, or teacher, she asks if I am buying it for myself, and I nod. At that, she wraps it carefully, first in bubble wrap, but then in paper, and ties it with a brightly colored ribbon, treating it with the care of a special present. “It is a gift you give yourself,” she says, and I like the sentiment very much.

On the walk back to the hotel, I stop and listen as Claudio Spadi sings Venderò. Tonight, Luca Sciortino has joined him and the mood on the Ponte Vecchio is as mellow as the setting sun. As I sit on the edge of the curb, I think about Tiziana and about Giovanni Turchi and the young man in the workshop of the Scuola del Cuoio, about Claudio who sings his heart out every night, and about Tommaso and Fabrizio back at the Davanzati. They’ve all been so nice. Perhaps that’s why I’ve grown fond of Florence over the years, and why I always feel wistful when it’s time to move on. It’s a strange feeling, to be so much at home in a place so far away from home, but there you have it.

When I pass the Mercato Nuovo, I make sure to drop a coin in the mouth of Il Porcellino and to rub his well-worn snout. It’s a ritual I’ve held to each trip on my final night in Florence. I suppose that means I’m a bit superstitious after all.

I know it works, though, because I always come back.

2013 - Italy

Friday, June 14, 2013

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Friday, June 14, 2013

There’s a handsome new face at the reception desk this morning. It’s Fabrizio and Patrizia’s younger son Riccardo, fresh out of high school. He’s as friendly as everyone else in the family, and equally efficient in handling my hotel bill. We talk pleasantly for a few minutes as he runs my credit card through and prints the receipt, and when I ask for a small favor, he says he would be happy to store my luggage in the corner behind the desk to allow me a few more hours to sightsee before moving on.

There’s a special exhibit at the Palazzo Strozzi called “The Springtime of the Renaissance: Sculpture and the Arts in Florence, 1400-1460” that I want to see before I go. It’s an impressive collection that includes Filippo Brunelleschi’s original wooden model for the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore. That object is the fundamental starting point of the Early Renaissance, along with the bronze panels Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti completed for a competition to determine which would be commissioned for the doors of the Baptistery. Those panels are here, too, each depicting the “Sacrifice of Isaac” from the Old Testament. There are nine large rooms in all to digest, with major works by Donatello, Lippi, Masaccio, and Della Robbia, among others. Coming here has been an afterthought, of sorts, but a welcome one.

I return to the Hotel Davanzati and walk up the flight of stairs one last time to claim my bags. Riccardo kindly arranges for a taxi to pick me up downstairs, and before long, I’m on the 11:38 AM train to Lucca. By accident, I’ve picked one of the slower Regionale trains, which makes more stops along the way, but perhaps the extra time will do me good. I need to clear my head after an intense five days in Florence. I have another week in Italy ahead of me and I want to enjoy it.

It’s half past one when a cab driver drops me off at the door of the Hotel Palazzo Alexander on Via Santa Giustina in Lucca. It’s a quiet residential street and a pleasant place to stay, if a bit worn around the edges. I’ll be here for the next two nights, mainly to explore an antiques market that opens tomorrow morning. The rest of today is my own, and I feel no need to rush.

I’ve been here before, on my first trip to Italy in 2008. I combined it then with a day trip to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower, the cathedral, and the Camposanto. It had started out with unseasonably cool temperatures, a driving wind, and torrential rain, but by the time I arrived in Lucca in mid-afternoon, the sun was splitting the clouds and the air was warm and breezy and fresh, as it so often is after a storm. I spent the time I had wandering the streets, walking the city’s walls, enjoying a late lunch at a café in Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, and climbing the Torre Guinigi to stand under the shade of the oak trees and to see the hills of Tuscany roll out like a carpet before me. On one of the rooftops, someone had written in large, block letters: WHERE IS THE HAPPYNESS? And for me it was there, captured in a moment now five years gone. It became one of my fondest memories from that trip, and I always knew I would come back.

I meander up to Piazza dell’Anfiteatro to take some pictures, then down Via Fillungo to the square by the church of San Michele in Foro, where there are people lounging lazily on the steps eating gelato. The shops have reopened following their afternoon slumber and the town is gradually crawling back to life.

Later, I walk into Trattoria Canuleia for dinner, which is just steps away from the curved walls of the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro, and ask for un tavolo per uno—a table for one. It appears dark and nearly empty inside, but the waitress leads me out through the dining room to a shaded courtyard in back where there are a dozen or more people dining merrily under a canopy of umbrellas. There are white and aqua tablecloths and potted flowers on the tables, and there is a warm glow coming from the lamps that line the edge of the stone patio. It has the charm of a secret garden, and I’m grateful for the impulse that led me here.

There is a woman seated at the table next to mine and she’s likewise dining alone. Within minutes, she leans over to ask if she can join me. I nod readily, and she carries a glass of wine over to the seat across from mine. Her name is Diane and she’s from Melbourne, Australia on the last leg of her trip to Italy. As I work my way through a bowl of chilled zucchini soup with fresh mint and ricotta cheese, and then a dish of cabbage with buffalo mozzarella and sundried tomatoes, we talk about our travels—all the places we’ve been, and those we’d still like to see. She has a cheerful disposition and a lovely lilting accent, which reminds me of another Australian woman I once met on a train between Assisi and Arezzo.

When we part at the end of dinner, I’m sorry to see her go. Solo travel has its rewards to be sure, but it can be a hard and lonely business sometimes, which is what makes sharing an unexpected meal with a sociable stranger so comforting.

2013 - Italy

Saturday, June 15, 2013

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Saturday, June 15, 2013

Three years ago, I spent a wonderful morning wandering the streets of Arezzo during their famous Fiera Antiquaria, an antiques market that’s held in the city on the first Sunday of each month and the Saturday before. I bought a pair of Italian paintings that day that hang on the opposite sides of my living room window at home in Vermont. Hoping for more good luck, I’ve come to Lucca where there’s a similar fair this weekend.

It’s been a constant refrain on this trip, but once again I’m getting a late start. It’s ten o’clock by the time I sit down for breakfast at the Hotel Palazzo Alexander, and I feel compelled to apologize to the hotel’s manager, who smiles warmly despite the inconvenience and offers to make me a cappuccino to go along with my bacon and eggs. He’s a very nice man.

When I tell him of my plans for the day, he says that the antique dealers and their wares are spread out along a chain of piazzas, and he circles the map to get me started—Piazza Napoleone, Piazza del Giglio, Piazza San Martino, and Piazza San Giovanni. It sounds like a treasure hunt, and I’m hoping to find where X marks the spot.

It’s a perfect summer’s day as I wander through stalls crammed with books and linens and china and urns, but what I really want I spy from the start. It’s a 19th century oil painting of Florence, probably intended for tourists on the Grand Tour. It depicts a group of boaters on the Arno, with the imposing tower of the Palazzo Vecchio and the red dome of Santa Maria del Fiore dominating the city skyline in the background. It’s reasonably affordable as it is, but it’s large and the condition is only fair. I can’t imagine how I would be able to ship it home without damaging the paint surface on the canvas, and even if I could, I’m afraid of what it would cost.

I ponder this for a bit and ask for advice from a helpful Brit who owns a gallery in town. It seems I can mail the painting to myself easily enough, but that requires a skill in packaging I simply don’t have, not to mention the materials themselves. Moreover, it would be difficult to find a local shipping company before I leave for Pisa in the morning. It is the weekend, after all. There are art dealers who handle such things, of course, but that would require the formality of Italian export laws, which treat antiques as cultural assets. He says that it could both time consuming and costly to acquire approval. Inasmuch as I like the painting, I decide not to risk it in the end.

I’m disappointed, but when I don’t see anything else to tempt me, I opt to walk away empty handed, and turn my focus to other pursuits.

I go shopping in the upscale boutiques along Via Fillungo, and visit the church of San Michele in Foro and the San Martino Cathedral. I stop for some macadamia nut gelato at De’ Cotelli, and climb the Torre dell’ Orologio for the postcard views. And, of course, I walk along the city walls, alongside joggers, and bicyclists, and families with strollers. It’s too beautiful of an afternoon to be caught indoors.

By 7:00 PM, I’m back at the church of San Giovanni for a concert, at the suggestion of Diane the night before. One of the great composers of Italian opera, Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca in 1858 and has remained a favorite son ever since. The daily concerts that are offered during the Puccini e la sua Lucca festival appeal unapologetically to the tourist crowd. Lasting just an hour, they are the perfect pre-dinner recital, and the musical selections are largely arias and duets from accessible and well-known operas, including Tosca, Madame Butterfly, and Turnadot. Still, the soloists are first rate and I enjoy it immensely, with one exception.

There is a woman in the row in front of me who insists on videotaping the entire event on her cell phone, probably for bragging rights back home to impress friends and family with her cultured taste. It’s like having double vision, seeing the performers singing live in one eye, while a tiny video simulcast plays in the other. It’s beyond annoying and it would never be allowed at La Scala in Milan or at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, but here in Lucca there is a benign and relaxed tolerance for such things.

Because it seems fitting, I have dinner afterwards at Paris Bohème in Piazza Cittadella, so that I can sit facing the city’s bronze statue of Puccini. The night air has grown chilly and I wish I had thought to bring a jacket. I have a bowl of carrot soup and a satisfying plate of tortelli lucchesi in a rich ragù of Chianina beef.

On the short walk back to the hotel, I find myself humming “O Solo Mio,” the encore sung by the two dueling tenors at the concert tonight, to the rousing applause of the audience. It seems appropriate, for indeed, “what a wonderful thing a sunny day…”

Che bella cosa na jurnata ‘e sole,
n’aria serena doppo na tempesta!
Pe’ ll’aria fresca pare già na festa…
Che bella cosa na jurnata ‘e sole.
Ma n’atu sole
cchiù bello, oje ne’.
O sole mio
sta ‘nfronte a te!
O sole
O sole mio
sta ‘nfronte a te!
sta ‘nfronte a te!

2013 - Italy

Sunday, June 16, 2013

by Deborah Guber1 Comment on Sunday, June 16, 2013

I’m traveling to Pisa today and the train ride is a short one—only thirty minutes. I sit back and enjoy a relaxing breakfast at the Hotel Palazzo Alexander, knowing that there’s no need to be there just yet.

I saw the Leaning Tower and the sites in and around Piazza dei Miracoli on my first trip to Italy back in 2008, and I’m not planning to go again. I’m visiting for a very different reason this time, to see the Luminara di San Ranieri, a festival held every June 16 in honor of the city’s patron saint, a 12th century troubadour who traded in his music for a deeper commitment to God. Tonight, in a tradition that dates back more than 300 years, over 100,000 candles will be lit along the banks of the Arno. Despite the inevitable crowd, I’m looking forward to it.

With plenty of time to get there, I decide to linger on in Lucca for nearly half the day. I visit the medieval church of San Frediano, stroll through a local flea market where I donate a few Euros to an animal shelter that has a cage full of adorable kittens, buy a hand painted Christmas ornament with the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro on it as a souvenir of my stay, and walk along the walls one last time, past the lush gardens of the Palazzo Pfanner to Porta San Gervasio and back.

It’s two in the afternoon when I arrive at Pisa Centrale and phone the Hotel Bologna to arrange a ride on their free shuttle bus. By half past, I’m settling into a nice single room, with a tall ceiling and a striped bedspread in warm tones of orange, yellow, and red.

Later, when I walk out to Lungarno Gamacorti with a dish of gelato in hand, there are preparations for the night’s festivities already underway up and down the banks of the Arno. There are street vendors selling balloons and candy and roasted nuts. White wooden frames in decorative shapes and patterns (called linen) have been attached to the buildings along the riverbank, and there are workmen in a dozen or more boom lifts, stretched high like a giraffe’s neck, hoisting candles into place. There are also platforms in the river itself, from which fireworks will be launched at the end of the night.

With hours to go before dark, I decide to go shopping along Corso Italia, Pisa’s equivalent of High Street. At the insistence of an old woman behind the counter at Catherine di Rofrano Patrizio, who speaks no English but communicates exceedingly well in gestures, I buy an aqua wrap dress with a low V-neck because she thinks it brings out the color of my eyes. I also pick out a simple coral sun dress from Vuerre, since it matches the Murano glass necklace I bought in Venice. As I’m in the dressing room trying it on, Avril Lavigne’s “Wish You Were Here” is playing on the store radio, and it makes me think of someone I miss, someone who’s going to like this dress very much when he sees it.

Damn! Damn! Damn!
What I’d do to have you here, here, here
I wish you were here
Damn! Damn! Damn!
What I’d do to have you near, near, near
I wish you were here

What was it I said, that solo travel is a hard and lonely business sometimes? It is.

I follow Corso Italia all the way down to the train station and back before stopping for a casual dinner in Piazza Chiara Gambacorti. I order a caprese salad and a plate of ravioli in a walnut cream sauce, and while neither are particularly good, the lively atmosphere more than makes up for the food. There is a flag with a Pisan cross hanging from an open window, a man on stilts walking about in red and black polka dot pants, and a cluster of balloons representing an odd mix of pop culture icons—from Smurfs and Barbies and Winnie the Poohs, to Spongebob Squarepants and Tweety Bird.

I head back to the hotel for a fresh camera battery, a new storage card, and a small tripod. By the time I reach the riverbank again, the crowd has swelled and it’s growing claustrophobic. Teenagers have taken positions high on the cement embankments, so I work my way over to the Ponte Solferino, where I’m fortunate to find a prime viewing position midway across.

By 9:30 PM, the sky has deepened into a rich cobalt blue and the candles on the palazzos are twinkling like a thousand strands of Christmas lights. It’s a beautiful sight, and for a moment I am tempted to walk all the way up to Piazza dei Miracoli to see the lanterns hanging on the Leaning Tower, but the thickness of the crowd makes moving virtually impossible.

Eventually, I work my way down to the Ponte di Mezzo and across to the other side to get a closer view of the candles, but it’s an unnerving crawl in an increasingly boisterous mob. I’m grateful to be back in place on the Ponte Solferino by the time the fireworks start at half past eleven.

It’s been a unique experience being here tonight, much like visiting London during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, or standing on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris for the final laps of the Tour de France. I’ve been fortunate enough to do both, but no one throws a party quite like the Italians, with the same mix of ancient tradition and unbridled joy. It says a lot about a people to watch them celebrate.

I may have missed the infiorata in Spello this year, but I’m glad I made it to Pisa.

2013 - Italy

Monday, June 17, 2013

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Monday, June 17, 2013

There is more celebrating to do in Pisa today, but things will have to go on without me.

It’s the feast day of San Ranieri and there will be a regatta on the Arno late this afternoon in honor of the city’s patron saint. Teams of oarsmen representing each of the four neighborhoods will row against the current, down to the Palazzo Medici, and climb a rope to grab a flag at the top of a ten meter pole mounted at the finish line. I’m tempted to stay—of course, I am—but it’s too long to wait and I’m not in the mood to jockey for a position in the crowd. Besides, I’m eager to set off for Rome. This is the final leg of my journey and I’m already feeling the weight of shrinking days.

My train arrives at just past two, and soon I’m in a cab heading for the Hotel Hosianum Palace, a snug and sunny place with yellow stucco and green shutters on a tiny street near Piazza Venezia. I’ve booked a single room at a reduced rate for a four night stay, so I’m surprised when the clerk behind the desk upgrades me to a far more spacious double. I’ve stayed here twice before, and they’re grateful for my loyalty.

By now, I’m starving, but I’ve arrived too late for a proper lunch. I decide to walk down to the Jewish Ghetto—one of my very favorite neighborhoods in Rome—to grab a sandwich from a take-out counter instead.

As I head out of the hotel lobby and turn right, I’m greeted by a rabbit’s warren of ancient lanes. I continue on, through Piazza Margana and along Via dei Delfini. Within minutes, I emerge, just as I thought I would, through a small passageway between Da Giggetto and the elegant ruins of Porto d’Ottavia. I’m surprised that I haven’t gotten lost, but the happy memories I’ve made here through the years are scattered like bread crumbs and they help me find the way.

I’m walking with no particular destination in mind, other than to reacquaint myself with the city. In Italian Hours, the great novelist cum travel writer, Henry James wrote about those who “ramble irresponsibly and take things as they come.” My goal for the remains of the day is little more than that, and before long it summons to me what James had called “the smile of Rome.”

I stop and sit by the turtle fountain in Piazza Mattei, and then continue on past the charming triangular square in front of the church of Santa Barbara ai Librari to Campo de’ Fiori, which is pulsing with the energy of an amiable crowd. Along the way, I see a sign in a shop window that reads: “A man who drinks only water has a secret to hide from his fellow men.” I laugh out loud and think again about the waiter in Venice who scolded me for being a “woman who no drink wine.” I wonder what secrets I’ve been keeping from the world?

By now, it’s late afternoon and there is a blistering summer sun that slants wickedly in the sky overhead, radiating off the pavement. I move out of the open square and seek out the shade of narrow streets on a pilgrimage to the Pantheon.

George Eliot once called Rome “the city of visible history,” and so it is. It’s impossible to be here in Piazza della Rotonda and not stand in awe of the Pantheon’s massive marble columns, its pediment, and its vast, flat dome. Even centuries after its construction in the first century AD, it was such an impressive feat of engineering that Filippo Brunelleschi studied it before drafting his own plans for the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.

Nearby, I pause to watch a pair of street performers. They are cross-legged and silent, holding prayer beads. One is mysteriously levitating above the other with no means of visible support, aside from a single raised hand holding a pole. It’s a good trick and there is group of American college students clustered around them, examining the men with a careful eye. No one seems able to figure it out, and that for me merits an easy Euro tip.

I circle back, past the shop window of Ghezzi Luciano, where there are ornate monstrances and chasubles and mitres on display—a reminder that Vatican City and the Holy See are just across the Tiber. When I emerge onto Corso Vittorio Emanuele, the street is throbbing with the noise of rush hour traffic. I cross over at the light and stop at Largo di Torre Argentina to visit the feral cats who sprawl across the ruins at the sanctuary there, clearly enjoying the heat of day far more than I. By now, the air conditioning back in my room at the hotel is beckoning.

When I venture out again for dinner at eight, the air feels thick, but the sun has fallen behind the roofline and the atmosphere is more pleasant. I walk across the Ponte Palatino to Trastevere, where I settle into a table on the patio of Il Ponentino, under the shade of an umbrella. The waiter comes by and I order a bruschetta to start, and then a plate of cacio e pepe, a simple pasta dish made with cheese and pepper that I had once enjoyed in Arezzo. Tonight, however, my pronunciation reduces the man to peels of laughter, and he warns me, in English, that I should be careful how I say that. I’m not entirely sure, but I think I’ve mistakenly asked for a rather private part of the male anatomy. Tommaso, at the Hotel Davanzati in Florence, was fond of correcting my pitiful Italian. If he were here, undoubtedly he would find that very funny, indeed.

I walk along the Tiber after dinner, through the stalls of the Lungo il Tevere Roma festival, where temporary bars and restaurants have sprung up for the summer. There is live music here and there, and scores of vendors selling clothing and jewelry.

In writing about his trip to Rome, Henry James complained about a “general oppressive feeling that the city of the soul has become for the time a monstrous mixture of watering-place and curiosity-shop and that its most ardent life is that of the tourists who haggle over false intaglios and yawn through palaces and temples.“ It’s a fair enough point, I suppose, when I think about the cheap baubles at the fair and at the hordes of visitors, driven by the impulse to say I WAS HERE, who pose in front of the Pantheon with barely a glance backwards to marvel at the building itself. And yet, he said, “you are told of a happy time when these abuses begin to pass away, when Rome becomes Rome again and you may have her all to yourself.”

By the time I reach the Ponte Palatino, the bridge is quiet and there is a dusky peach sky behind the dome of St. Peter’s. I stop to take a picture, to capture a fleeting moment in time.

Rome is Rome once more, and she is mine.

2013 - Italy

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Some of my fondest memories of the Hotel Hosianum Palace are of having breakfast on the rooftop terrace, high among the church spires and the winged chariots that perch on top of the Vittorio Emanuele monument. That was on my first trip to Italy in 2008. When I returned two years later, the terrace was closed and when I inquired as to the reason, the man at the reception desk said bluntly: “Madame, it is too cold.”

In point of fact, the weather was perfect.

Alas, this morning, there is a sign yet again directing guests to the breakfast room in the basement. Surely, with temperatures soaring into the 90s, it is no longer too frigid to sit outdoors—even by sensitive Italian standards—so I ask the manager for an explanation, pointing to the envelope that holds my key card. It reads: “From May 15 till September (weather permitting), the morning American breakfast will be served on the Roof Garden of the fifth floor from 7:30 a.m. till 10:30 a.m. where besides tasting a rich breakfast, you can enjoy an incomparable view of the roofs of Rome.”

Why, exactly, is the terrace closed in the middle of June, I ask? “Madame,” I am told, “It has been too wet.”

Now, things are getting perfectly ridiculous. It’s hasn’t rained here in weeks. The last measureable precipitation Rome had was on June 4, the day I flew to Venice, and even that was just a tenth of an inch. Personally, I think the staff don’t want to be bothered hauling food up to the roof, even though there is an elevator.

I’m still annoyed later, as I walk up Via del Corso in search of a Vodaphone store. I need to top up the minutes on my SIM card. When I see a Uomo Nuovo demonstration spilling out of Piazza Colonna, it inspires me to protest an injustice of my own. Perhaps I should rally the guests back at the hotel to storm the barricades tomorrow morning, to fight for our right to dine al fresco.

I cut over toward Piazza Navona to wander about the square, with its lively mix of street performers and artists’ stalls, and I visit the Baroque church of Sant’Agnese in Agone. From there, though, I grab a taxi to the Museo Nazionale Romano at Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, near the train station. It’s another blistering day and it’s much too far to walk.

The National Museum is one I’ve long overlooked, as do many tourists, it would seem, because the halls are nearly empty. There is a fine collection of Roman sculptures, including a marble copy of the original bronze discus thrower, his torso twisted and his muscles flexed. There’s also a large numismatic section, with more than 5,000 coins demonstrating the evolution of the Roman monetary system.

For me, though, the most impressive artifacts by far are the frescoes and mosaics. There’s a large floor mosaic with muses and mythological scenes from a villa along the Via Cassia, dating from the 3rd century A.D., and another depicting the struggle between Dionysus and the Indians from the Villa Ruffinella during the first half of the 4th century A.D.

It’s hard to imagine the time involved in creating such an intricate, and ultimately utilitarian, surface. There are thousands of individually cut pieces of stone—called tesserae—most no larger than a centimeter across. And they’re carefully placed in gradations of color, as if pulled from an artist’s palate, which creates a realistic sense of shape and dimension.

There are also a number of stunning room frescoes, including one from an underground triclinium at the Villa of Livia. Discovered in 1863, but dating back to the 1st century B.C., the room has been reinstalled here and it shows a lush garden with ornamental plants and birds drawn to such an exacting level of detail that most species are identifiable today. There are quince and pomegranate and boxwood trees, as well as poppies, ferns, violets, and irises.

As I walk toward Piazza della Reppublica afterwards, the oppressive heat that has descended on the city makes me wish I had lingered longer in the painted garden inside. But there are a number of sites I am determined to see, and my map looks like a game of connect the dots, with a long zig-zag line that stops at the Spanish Steps.

Across the street, I can see the crumbling brick wall that is the entrance to the basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli. It’s a Baroque church inside, designed in part by Michelangelo, but it was built within of the ancient frigidarium of the Baths of Diocletian, which makes the space refreshingly cool. If I can find a pleasant oasis like this every hour or so, I just might be able to get through the day.

I continue on along Via Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, hoping to see Bernini’s “Ecstasy of Saint Teresa” at Santa Maria della Vittoria, but by the time I arrive, the church is closed for the afternoon. It’s scheduled to reopen soon, but I don’t want to stand in the sun and wait, so I turn down Via Barberini instead and stop for a late lunch in an air conditioned cafeteria. Then, I veer off and climb the stairs to the Capuchin Crypt on Via Venato.

On my first trip to Italy in 2008, I visited the Catacombs of San Callisto along the old Appian Way, but nothing has prepared me for this, not even the catacombs beneath the streets of Paris. There are alcoves of human bones, sectioned into parts—skulls in one, thigh bones in another, pelvises in a third, and so on—like a grandiose Halloween display. These are the remains of nearly 4,000 Capuchin monks, collected over the centuries and moved here in the early 18th century, to make room for new bodies in the friary’s small cemetery.

But the bones are not merely in neat stacks, as they are in Paris, with an occasional decorative flourish. They are woven into elaborate designs, including a skeletal grim reaper, holding scales and a scythe made of vertebrae. In The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain had called it “a spectacle for sensitive nerves,” and so it is. He had wondered then how it might feel to be a Capuchin, to know that one day you would be “taken apart like an engine or a clock or like a house whose owner is gone, and worked up into arches and pyramids and hideous frescoes.” I find myself pondering the same morbid question. I leave grateful, though, because at least it was cool inside.

By the time I reach the Trevi Fountain, it’s after four o’clock and the heat of the day suddenly feels worse because of the congested crowd. Would anyone mind if I waded in, like Sylvia in the movie La Dolce Vita? Yes, I suppose they would.

There’s a souvenir stand directly in front of the fountain today, and the vendor is selling magnets and ashtrays alongside of bobblehead dolls, snow globes, and plastic Pietàs. It’s horribly tacky stuff. In his infinite wisdom, the mayor of Rome has banned tourists from eating and drinking near public monuments, but not this monstrosity, even though it’s an assault on good taste that’s every bit as bad, if not worse.

My final stop for the day is a social one. A colleague of mine from work is in Rome for a few days attending a conference. We’ve agreed to meet at the fountain at the base of the Spanish Steps. We order drinks at Babington’s Tea Room, a cozy and very English place, and then take the elevator to the top of the hill to reach his hotel, the Intercontinental de la Ville. It has a stunning terrace overlooking the city, and he wants me to see it.

Unlike the rooftop terrace at my hotel, this one actually is open.

Yes, I’m still bitter, but a least for an hour or so, I can pretend that it’s mine.

2013 - Italy

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Wednesday, June 19, 2013

The city is still in the middle of a heat wave and I’m trying my best to survive it.

Originally, I had hoped to go to the Papal Audience in St. Peter’s Square today, but the website warns that “As Rome can get extremely hot in the Summer, particularly in June, July, and August, and the Audience is outside, it is good to come prepared. BRING HATS, SUN SCREEN AND WATER.”

Yeah, no kidding.

The website also advises visitors to arrive two hours early for a security screening and to expect the Audience itself to last at least an hour. Because I had to reschedule my trip at the last minute, I’ve already missed seeing the new Pope on Corpus Domini. I would hate to surrender my only other chance, but I can’t bear the thought of standing for three hours or more in the boiling sun. I decide to scrap Plan A.

I devise Plan B over breakfast—which is, incidentally, still in the godforsaken basement of the Hotel Hosianum Palace, and not on the rooftop terrace. I suppose if I were to ask again this morning, the answer would be: “Madame, it is too hot.”

And maybe it is.

Plan B involved securing a last minute ticket on Viator’s half-day bus tour to Hadrian’s Villa and Villa d’Este. At least that would have allowed me to escape the burning pavement of the city and retreat to a greener locale. My bad luck with bus tours has continued, however. The phone line keeps patching me through to a call center in the United States, where the difference in time zones makes it much too early to reach anyone during business hours.

Outside of hotel rooms, air conditioning is a rarity in Rome, especially in museums. Still, I’ve exhausted my options, and at least being indoors during the heat of the day is preferable to being out. Ultimately, I settle on Plan C, a return visit to the Vatican Museums. When I was first there in 2008, I was on an organized tour that careened through the galleries at breakneck speed. Today, I’ll be able to wander at will.

Determined to avoid the museum’s notoriously long queue to get in, I buy a ticket online before leaving the hotel. I have no way to print out the confirmation page, as requested, but I have an e-mail receipt on my iPhone and it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Despite the temperature, I’ve decided to brave a leisurely walk down Corso Vittorio Emanuele II and across the Tiber to the Via della Conciliazione. It’s noon by the time I approach St. Peter’s Square. Apparently, the Papal Audience has just let out and I’m in need of Moses to part the Red Sea of people flooding towards me, many of them sunburned to a crisp.

It’s still a long walk out and around the Vatican walls to the museum entrance, but there’s no line at all for pre-paid tickets, and the man at the counter inside doesn’t hesitate when I show him the confirmation number on my phone. At least something has gone according to plan today.

In their only gesture toward crowd control, the Vatican Museums are arranged into a one-way street, with large black arrows printed on the gallery map. There are minor deviations here and there that allow visitors to move more quickly to the Sistine Chapel, but mostly it’s like being on a theme park ride from which there is no escape once the rollercoaster has left the platform.

I devote the rest of the afternoon to inquisitive exploration. I visit the Pinacoteca for the first time, which the tour guide had bypassed entirely on my previous trip, and also the Padiglione delle Carrozze, which has an historic collection of cars and carriages, including the white jeep John Paul II was riding in when he was shot on May 13, 1981.

It’s been especially nice to see the Gallery of Maps again. I had missed seeing the island of Venice the first time around because I was rushing to catch up with the guide, but today I’ve been able to gape all I want.

The frescoes were commissioned in 1580 by Pope Gregory XIII and they’re rendered in such exquisite detail that many of the maps are navigable today, which says at least as much about the permanence of Italian architecture as it does about the skill of the artist himself. In Florence, the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore is clearly visible, as is the octagonal baptistery in front. And today in Venice, all a time traveler would have to do is pull up a chair in Piazza San Marco to feel perfectly at home in familiar surroundings.

It’s late afternoon when I emerge back onto the street. There are vendors selling colorful paper parasols to shade the sun, and people are buying them in droves. Combined with shorts and T-shirts, it makes the average tourist look like an out of place extra in a production of Madame Butterfly.

I have one last errand for the day, and it’s a special request. I’ve been challenged by a good friend from work to find the “tackiest” souvenir in Vatican City. I walk up and down the Via della Conciliazione before picking a shop that has a “We ♥ Papa Francesco” sign taped to the window, which looks promising. Inside, I find a combination key ring and bottle opener stamped with the Pope’s likeness that surely meets the mark, and I laugh when I imagine my friend wafting a prayer over a bottle of beer before popping the cap.

It’s time to catch a taxi and head back to the hotel, although this time—for the first time ever in Rome (surprisingly enough)—I’m ripped off by the cab driver. Despite showing him the address of the Hotel Hosianum Palace on a business card, he takes me somewhere else entirely, a Via dei Prefetti instead of Via dei Polacchi, and then insists on running the meter all the back to the proper destination. When we get there, I refuse to pay him in full and we settle on a smaller amount, but the experience still leaves me steamed.

I’m tired and not in the mood to go far for dinner, so I pick a table at Vinando in Piazza Margana and enjoy a good Margherita pizza with fresh mozzarella and cherry tomatoes. Feeling as much refreshed by the meal as by the cool descent of night, afterwards I decide to stroll down Via dei Fori Imperiali to take some pictures.

In The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain had described the Coliseum as a “band-box with a side bitten out… Weeds and flowers spring from its massy arches and its circling seats, and vines hang their fringes from its lofty walls. An impressive silence broods over the monstrous structure where such multitudes of men and women were wont to assemble in other days. The butterflies have taken the places of queens of fashion and beauty of eighteen centuries ago, and the lizards sun themselves in the sacred seat of the Emperor.”

As with so many evocative travelogues about Italy through the years, Twain’s words could have been written as easily today, which is a sign of the culture’s strength and resilience, just like the Gallery of Maps at the Vatican. And while inertia rarely serves modern Italy well in politics or business, it’s hard not to appreciate it here on a balmy summer’s night in Rome, when the sublime view you see is the very same view enjoyed by so many who have come before.

2013 - Italy

Thursday, June 20, 2013

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Thursday, June 20, 2013

When I wake up this morning and open the green shutters on my window overlooking Via dei Polacchi, I’m conscious of the fact that it’s my last day in Rome. With all of the delays and distractions that brought me to Italy nearly a week later than planned, my internal clock is off and I’m not ready to leave just yet.

After breakfast, I ramble around Campo de’ Fiori. The name means “field of flowers” and when the market is here, it really is. Clustered around the brooding statue of Giordano Bruno, a Dominican monk who was burned at the stake here in 1600, there are scores of umbrellas shading vendors from the sun. There are fruit and vegetable stands and dried pastas for sale, as well as bottles of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. And of course, there are flowers—big bunches of roses and chrysanthemums and daisies that burst with the vibrant colors of summer.

From here, I continue on to Piazza Navona, where there’s a jazz quartet playing “Somewhere over the Rainbow.” My levitating friends are back with their bright orange turbans and prayer beads, and there’s a street performer dressed like a headless man in a suit jacket and purple tie, waving to tourists as they stroll by, craning their heads in amusement.

I’m going to miss these walks. More than ever before this year, I’ve put schedules and itineraries aside. It was by necessity at first, but then—ever so gradually—by choice. It’s been nice to wake in the morning with little to do but wander as far as my feet will take me, and to embrace whatever the day, or the mood, or the moment, invites.

Originally, I had hoped to see a Brueghel exhibit titled “The Fascinating World of Flemish Art” at the Chiostro del Bramante, but it was set to close on June 2. I had scratched it from my list when the trip got postponed, so I’m surprised to see a poster this morning that’s been altered with a yellow banner reading PROROGATA, extended. Excited, I glance at my map and see that it’s just around the corner, to the west of Piazza Navona.

The Chiostro del Bramante is impressive in its own right, with graceful marble columns and porticos and arches, and the exhibition has been touted as the largest “devoted to the famous artistic dynasty ever to be held in Rome.” I buy a €12 ticket at the door and rove happily through the galleries, which include works by several members of the Brueghel family, including Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s “The Bird Trap” (1605), a sober winter scene with skaters gliding on a frozen river, and “Wedding Dance in the Open Air,” which overflows with carousing, ruddy-nosed peasants. There is also a series of intricate still lifes of butterflies, insects, and shells by Jan van Kessel, another descendent in a complex and talented family tree.

It’s one o’clock by the time I work my way back towards Piazza Venezia. Remembering the inspired view of the Roman Forum from the restaurant at the Capitoline Museum, I decide to go there for lunch, and wind up staying for much of the afternoon, exploring rooms I had somehow missed on my first visit back in 2008, including the Pinocoteca, where Caravaggio’s “The Fortune Teller” hangs, and the entirety of the Palazzo Nuovo and the Tabularium.

The sculptures I see are extraordinary. There is a naturalistic statue of a “Dying Galatian” that throbs with pain and human emotion, and another of Cupid and Psyche locked in a tender embrace. Then there are the rows of heads in the Sala degli Imperatori, or Hall of the Emperors, including the famous Fonseca Bust, with her mound of intricately carved curls piled high upon her head. There is such artistic wealth here that it’s hard to know where to look, or when to stop.

Outside on the Piazza del Campidoglio, it’s another blistering late afternoon, without a cloud in the sky to screen the sun. There are two people unloading cases of bottled water, though, and they’re handing them out for free. Whether the uniform they wear is from the city of Rome or from a corporate sponsor, I don’t know, but I’m exceedingly grateful for the refreshment.

I relax for a while in my air conditioned room at the Hotel Hosianum Palace, where my bags are already packed and stowed in the corner. Earlier in the day, I had liked the quiet streets near the Chiostro del Bramante, so later I head back to Piazza Navona and veer off onto Via di Tor Millina, to a little osteria and wine bar called Cybo for dinner. Loving as ever the languorous sound of Italian, I order the Brasato di vitella con carote glassate e purea di patate, or braised veal with glazed carrots and mashed potatoes, and while I wait for the entrée to arrive, I feel a cool vapor on my skin. I’ve seen fans on the patios of some restaurants in Rome, but here they have a complex system of hoses that work much like a mister in the vegetable aisle of a supermarket, and it feels absolutely wonderful! The veal is good, too, but it’s the gift of outdoor air conditioning on a hot summer’s night that I’ll remember best.

I walk back through the Jewish Ghetto one last time, following Via Giulia and a maze of smaller streets until I reach the Teatro Marcello, where there’s a choir singing in front of the ruins tonight. I stop to listen, and then continue on, back up the long stairs that lead to the Capitoline Hill, the lone statue of Marcus Aurelius on horseback, and the piazza designed by Michelangelo. I’ve come to watch darkness fall over the Roman Forum, and when it does it feels like a soft shroud.

It will lift in the morning, and the Gladiators will be back posing for pictures with tourists holding water bottles and paper parasols to shield their faces from the sun, but I won’t be here when it does.

It’s time to move on, and I’m excited by what comes next.

When I first came to Italy in 2008, the impulse was to pose in front of the Coliseum and the Ponte Vecchio and Piazza San Marco, and say I WAS HERE. What does it mean to have returned time and again, through sheer will and force of habit, to the same cities, the same hotels, and many of the same museums and streets? I’ve been thinking a lot about that this time around.

Nelson Mandela once said “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” Perhaps he’s right, but nothing about a place truly remains unchanged, even in Italy where it often seems as though inertia reigns. There is always more to discover, and new faces to meet.

In standing here, looking out across the vast remnants of Roman history, it occurs to me that time is more like layers of debris. Some memories we bury, but there are those we excavate purely for the joy of seeing them again, all the while building new walls and windows at the surface through which to see the world anew.

2010 - Italy

Monday, May 31, 2010

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Monday, May 31, 2010

It makes me smile to think that I can close my eyes and remember the moment exactly.

I made the decision to go back to Italy almost one year ago on a rainy afternoon in Paris, on a day that was—like so many others on that trip—unseasonably cold and damp. I was at the Musée d’Orsay, a stunning space on the banks of the Seine where 19th century art is displayed in an old railway station under a soaring ceiling of paned glass. I had been to the museum before, on a pilgrimage to see the Monets and Manets, the Van Goghs, Renoirs, and Cézannes. This time, I was drawn to a special exhibit called Voir l’Italie et Mourir, which in English means “See Italy and Die.”

At the time, that struck me as a strange motto for a country best known for its zest for life, but I was assured that the sentiment, with its “lofty hyperboles” intact, could be traced back to the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and a journal entry about the city of Naples he wrote in 1787. As I stood contemplating the round robin translation from von Goethe’s original German, to Italian, to French, and finally to English, I knew only that I understood its meaning, deeply and instinctively. I had been to Rome, Florence, and Venice the previous year and I could no more quarrel with the old adage “See Italy and Die” than the generations of other travelers who had been to the Colosseum, the Ponte Vecchio, and Piazza San Marco before me. As melodramatic as it might sound, once I had witnessed the beauty of Italy with my own eyes, and felt myself transformed by it, I knew that was possible for someone to breathe their last, happy and content in the memory of such a place.

As I wandered that day through rooms full of Italian photographs, prints, and paintings from the golden age of The Grand Tour—that venerable trek that aristocrats used to make across the European continent—I felt strangely distant from my surroundings. Here I was in Paris, one of the most wonderful cities in the world, but all the while I yearned for the sea and the sunshine of Italy. Standing before a Friedrich Nerly painting of Venice in the moonlight, the sky breaking just above the column of St. Mark, I resolved, right then and there, to return.

After a few sodden weeks in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, I came home to Vermont and settled back into the quiet routines of life. I watched the months slip by, as autumn leaves fell and were buried by blankets of soft, white snow. And in the darkest days of winter, I bought a fresh Italian guidebook, sent away for maps, finalized airline and hotel reservations, shopped for a new camera, and prayed that an Icelandic volcano with the unpronounceable name Eyjafjallajökull, wouldn’t ground my best laid plans with its plumes of drifting ash.

Thankfully, it did not.

So now, with the arrival of lilacs and spring irises, it is time to pick up where I once left off, to fulfill a promise, to have an adventure.

It’s a Monday night and I’m at the Philadelphia International Airport waiting for a U.S. Airways flight to Rome. I bide the time by recounting the plan for the next seventeen days in my head. Itineraries are complicated affairs, the endpoint of a tug of war between reality and desire. I had a long “wish list” for my return to Italy—one that included Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” in Milan and Giotto’s frescoes in Assisi and Padua, as well as a hike along the cliffs in the Cinque Terre, and a stroll through the villas and gardens that line the shores of Lake Como. Through a herculean effort at planning, I’ve managed to fit nearly everything in, including the timing of several key events—the Republic Day festivities in Rome on June 2nd, a major exhibit of paintings by Caravaggio at the Scuderie del Quirinale, a weekend antiques show in Arezzo, and the procession of the Holy Blood in Orvieto on Corpus Domini.

For all of that to happen in an order that works using public trains and buses, this particular Monday night happens to be Memorial Day. While others are grilling hamburgers at backyard picnics, I’m playing musical chairs at the airport, until flight 718 finally settles on Gate A20 and we begin to board.

I’m in seat 14A, a window seat next to a globe-trotting Sicilian grandmother named Josephine. She’s a charming woman whose conversation lives up to all that description implies. I find myself enjoying her company, and before long dinner is served and stowed, the cabin lights are dimmed, and passengers are queuing at the restrooms in preparation for bed.

I close my eyes in satisfaction, knowing that in the morning I’ll be a world away.

2010 - Italy

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Our plane touches down at Rome’s Fuimicino airport at 8:45 AM—right on time—and by 9:30 I’ve cleared passport control and baggage claim with surprising efficiency. Next, I meet up with a driver from Rome Cabs and embark on a brief and uneventful journey into the city, where I check into a small, single room at the Hotel Hosianum Palace, on a quaint side street near Piazza Venezia, shower and change clothes, and call home. All the while, my mind has been occupied by these mundane tasks, by the small necessities that come with long distance travel, and by a series of familiar associations. It is comforting to remember the airport terminal and the location of the ATM machine, and I grin when see the hotel lobby again, looking much as it did when I left two years ago.

I have been in a transitional state—somewhere between coming and going—but now, as I make my way out onto the street and down Via delle Botteghe Oscure, the stress of logistics begins to loosen, and for the first time I start to absorb my surroundings. It’s a Tuesday in late Spring, and I’m standing under a brilliant blue sky in the centro storico of Rome. As I walk in search of a cappuccino, my ears catch the strains of two musicians who are playing for loose change under a shrine to the Virgin Mary. Enticing aromas are wafting out from small cafés opening for lunch. For a moment I lean against the metal railing that surrounds Largo di Argentina and peer down to see a half dozen stray cats, each stretched lazily upon ancient steps and foundation stones, warmed by the midday sun.

It is here that the sights and sounds and smells of Rome remind me of something I read about the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. In a letter to a friend in April 1818, after an arduous trek across the Alps, he said: “No sooner had we arrived in Italy than the loveliness of the earth and the serenity of the sky made the greatest difference in my sensations. I depend on these things for life; for in the smoke of cities, and the tumult of human kind and the chilling fogs and rains in our own country I can hardly be said to live.”

For a fleeting moment, I think of Vermont and its long, grey winters, but the comparison quickly disappears. For the next 17 days, my life will be here and the very thought of it is intoxicating.

I zig zag past Piazza Colonna and its massive column of Marcus Aurelius to Via dei Condotti, where I settle comfortably into a table at Antico Caffè Greco, one of the oldest coffee houses in all of Italy. The rooms are small and charming, with plush velvet benches and walls lined to the ceiling with works of art in old, mismatched frames. Keats and Byron and Shelley—that trio of English romantic poets—were all patrons here, and it is, perhaps, for that reason, that I feel very much at home.

I wander next up to the Spanish Steps, which look grand and inviting to me, and apparently, to hoards of other tourists as well, because they are congregating here en masse. When I last visited Rome in 2008, the obelisk at the top was covered in scaffolding, like a tall metal skyscraper, blocking the view of the church of Santissima Trinità dei Monti. Today, all is well and the view is glorious. Crowded, but glorious.

At the base of the Spanish Steps is a small museum dedicated to Keats and Shelley, and for a temporary escape from the noise outside, I duck in to browse its rooms full of books, manuscripts, and artifacts, and to see the place where Keats died of consumption in 1821 at the age of 25.

I make a brief detour to the Trevi Fountain and to San Crispiano for a dish of pear and grapefruit gelato, before heading up the Quirinale hill, the highest of Rome’s seven hills. So far I’ve been merely stretching my legs and my jet lagged body for the main event of the day—a major Caravaggio exhibit at the Scuderie del Quirinale, a renovated space across from the presidential palace that was once used by the Vatican as a stable for the pope’s horses.

The year 2010 marks the 400th anniversary of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s death at the age of 39. To mark the occasion, the curators in Rome have gone to great lengths to borrow the artist’s finest works from museums around the world: “The Supper at Emmaus” from the National Gallery in London, “The Cardsharps” from Fort Worth, Texas, an amorous cupid from Berlin, and “The Taking of Christ” from Dublin, among others. As a result, newspapers have reported outrageously long lines. Ordinary timed tickets have sold out, as I found when I tried to buy one online weeks ago, so I opt for a Caravaggio Card instead. For a slightly higher cost, I gain priority admission, as well as a free pass for a sightseeing bus that travels to various churches around town where other Caravaggio paintings are on display.

The rooms inside are dimly lit, but noisy with the chatter of local school groups, who sit in crowds on the floor before one painting, then the next, listening in half attention to the commentary of their teachers. For a few Euros, I rent an English audio guide for the exhibit, but soon find myself falling into the same distracted state. The descriptions are dense and academic, as if drawn from an art history lecture, which would normally appeal to me, but here it feels entirely at odds with the drama and raw emotion captured on canvas. Halfway through the chronology, I abandon the headset entirely with no regrets.

Before coming, I read Jonathan Harr’s book, The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece, so I know something already about the artist’s violent life and the allure of his work. It has made me particularly keen to see “The Taking of Christ,” a painting long thought lost, but finally rediscovered on the wall of a Jesuit dining room in Ireland in the early 1990s. From the exquisite lighting, to the realism of the soldiers’ armor, to Caravaggio’s self-portrait holding a lantern at far right, it does not disappoint.

With my energy flagging, I leave the museum and wind my way back to the hotel for a welcome rest, and when I head out again later for dinner, the adrenaline of Rome is once again pulsing in my veins. I revisit Piazza Mattei—one of my favorite little squares—and find the sound of water in the tortoise fountain mingling with the lively tune of a nearby accordion. I continue on to Campo de’ Fiori and then Piazza Navona, where this time Bernini’s “Fountain of the Four Rivers” is blessedly free of its scaffold prison.

By the time I reach Piazza Campo Marzio, the sun has nearly set and my legs have given out at last. I crumble into an outdoor table and chair at Ristorante Boccondivino and dine well on a caprese salad and Veal Saltimbocca. Afterwards, craving sleep but not wanting the night to end, I walk to Hadrian’s Temple in Piazza di Pietra, up to the Spanish Steps, and back past the Pantheon to my hotel.

It’s well past eleven when I crawl into bed. Exhaustion will come, and soon. But as someone once told me: “Rome by night is magic.” Who wouldn’t want to prolong that?

2010 - Italy

Tuesday, June 2, 2010

by Deborah Guber1 Comment on Tuesday, June 2, 2010

“Madame, it is too cold.”

This is what the man at the front desk tells me. Standing there comfortably in a short sleeve shirt, I beg to disagree, grumpy from lack of sleep, but he is unmoved by my protestations.

I’ve made a point of returning to the Hotel Hosianum Palace in Rome, not only because of its location, but because it has a lovely rooftop terrace on which a buffet breakfast is served. This morning, however, a sign posted in the elevator has directed me to a room in the basement that is utterly devoid of natural light. I find this puzzling. When I awoke in my little room and opened the window I was greeted by a warm breeze and a bright, blue sky. And yet here I am, eating my bacon and eggs sequestered underground.

Inasmuch as I love Italy and her people, it is very clear that we each have a different notion of what constitutes inclement weather, and I have been overruled.

I don’t linger over breakfast, and it is not just because of the basement. Today is Festa della Repubblica, or Republic Day, Italy’s equivalent of the 4th of July, and a parade is about to begin just around the corner in Piazza Venezia. By the time I arrive it’s just after 9, and every man, woman, and child in the city of Rome has beat me to it. The crowd is thick and heavy, so I decide to watch and wait from Piazza di San Marco, in a copse of trees just opposite the massive white marble wedding cake known as the Vittorio Emanuele II monument.

When I stand on tip toes I can see precise lines of military men in plumed hats ascending the steps. I lift my camera and through the zoom lens catch a glimpse of Silvio Berlusconi and Giorgio Napolitano laying a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier. An Italian flag furls in the breeze high overhead. When I visited Rome in 2008, I had to catch a train to Florence on the morning of June 2nd, so the festivities were nothing more than an obstacle on the way to Termini Station. This time around, I am determined to experience it all.

There is a momentary lull that follows. I try to navigate up and around the barricades to Via dei Fori Imperiali, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Colosseum, but the weight of the crowd is making me uncomfortable, as are the lit cigarettes that people feel compelled to hold low at their sides despite close quarters.

I retreat back to Piazza di San Marco and remain there for the duration of the parade. As regiments and brigades stream past in vivid hues, I find myself among some equally colorful people. At 5’5” tall I’m struggling to see past the heads in front of me, yet to my left is a woman who is far shorter. While I’m straining forward on the balls of my feet, she jumping—literally jumping—up and down, talking incessantly all the while on her cell phone. The phone rings. “Pronto,” she says. Again, it rings. Again, “Pronto.” Over and over again.

Directly in front of me is a young couple who are doing three things that annoy me greatly. First, the man is holding an umbrella above his girlfriend’s head as if it were a parasol and she was a Southern belle with a delicate complexion in need of protection from the midday sun. Second, even though this Romeo has the manner of an Ashley Wilkes, he has the roving hands of Rhett Butler, which is, shall we say, distracting. And finally, Scarlett has the unforgiving habit of thrusting her camera out at arm’s length in every direction, blocking and very nearly whacking everyone around her, as if the parasol wasn’t bad enough. When her storage card gives out midway through, I smile in silent revenge. That is, until her free hand allows her to light a cigarette.

And finally, there is the man behind me. He taps me on the shoulder and when I turn he makes a motion with his hands like a musician playing the trombone and says, in broken English, “zoom, zoom.” I have a telephoto lens on my camera and at first I think he is irritated with me for using it. And what about Scarlett O’Hara, I think. Surely she’s blocking your view with her flailing camera arm more than I am in lifting mine up to my eye? But no. He isn’t angry with me. Not at all. He’s trying to tell me something, although neither of us have the language skills to communicate properly. When he taps my shoulder again and points toward the sky, I am just in time to catch a fly over by Italy’s Frecce Tricolori—nine jets in tight formation, releasing streams of red, white, and green smoke behind them. I follow them to the horizon with my camera and in seconds they are gone. Grinning broadly, I turn to my new friend and say “Grazie, grazie, grazie!” He nods and smiles back.

As the crowd disperses, I make my way past the Pantheon to Piazza Navona. I grab a mortadella sandwich from a small shop nearby and eat it in the square. Afterwards, I start to search for the nearest 110 Open bus stop, which is only vaguely suggested on the map I received with my Caravaggio card. The red double-decker busses are easy to spot in traffic, but following them is a chore. When I snag one at last, I climb up to the top deck, lean back, and ride for the duration, past St. Peter’s and the Vatican, and Piazza del Popolo, all the way to Termini Station.

I duck in to the station briefly to get a train ticket for tomorrow’s trip to Arezzo, which will save time in the morning, then I head to a trio of churches to finish out the afternoon: the papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore; Santa Maria sopra Minerva, the only Gothic church in Rome; and San Luigi dei Francesi, home to Caravaggio’s paintings depicting the life of St. Matthew. Somewhere I read that there are more 900 churches in Rome. I visited four on my first trip, so that even with another three under my belt, I have at least 893 to go. It’s such a shame, I suppose I’ll just have to come back.

For a celebratory end to the day, I decide to walk through the Jewish Ghetto for dinner at Da Giggetto, next to the ancient ruins of Portico d’Ottavia. I order the house specialty—a Carciofo alla Guidia, or fried artichoke “the Jewish way”—as well as a rice, mozzarella, and tomato ball to start, along with a veal roulade as my secondi piatti. There is a young man from Korea dining solo nearby and he comes over to ask for help with the menu when he sees I have a book of food translations. I chat, too, for a bit with an American family of four and enjoy overhearing snatches of their conversation. Their son and daughter are excited to be here, exploring a new culture in a foreign land, and their enthusiasm for new things is contagious. At the same time, their pleasure in each other’s company leaves me feeling a bit homesick for those I love. After dinner, I walk to the Ponte Garibaldi to call my nephew to wish him a happy 19th birthday, and to gaze one last time at the dome of St. Peter’s.

On the way back to my hotel, my eye is drawn to some stenciled graffiti on the side of a building. Graffiti is hardly a novelty in Rome. It’s everywhere, on walls, subway cars, and trash cans.

But this is reminiscent of Banksy somehow, a cut above the rest, and it captures my attention because it reads “Bella La Vita.”

Life is beautiful.

At home—back in the real world—I collect antiques and in my collection I have a set of letters written by a Harvard grad named Roger Swaim who travelled abroad on a “Grand Tour” of Europe in the mid-19th century. Memorably, in writing to a friend, he called Rome an “awful task” and said that he should appreciate it only after getting away from its “filth & discomforts.”

I am reminded of my gentle disagreement with the hotel desk clerk over this morning’s temperature, and once again I beg to disagree. Time and circumstance change, of course. When Swaim was here in 1870, the citizens of Rome had just voted to become part of a unified Italy—an historical event best remembered on Republic Day, of all days. But as with the weather, things such as “filth” and “discomfort” are largely a matter of perception.

I look again at the graffiti on the wall.

Life is beautiful.

Yes. To me, it is indeed.

2010 - Italy

Thursday, June 3, 2010

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Thursday, June 3, 2010

It’s early and my bags are packed. Over breakfast, I pull out my iPod and use its Kindle reader to flip through an essay the novelist Henry James once published in the Atlantic Monthly titled “A Chain of Italian Cities,” in which he recounts his journey through the hill towns of Assisi, Perugia, Cortona, and Arezzo. I am loath to leave Rome so soon, but I have spent time here before, and for now I am excited to retrace James’ steps, more than a century later, to some of the lesser known sites in Tuscany and Umbria.

It’s a gray morning in Rome as I head by taxi to Termini station to catch the 10:36 AM train to Arezzo, my home base for the next four days. It’s an easy ride, but by early afternoon the dreary sky has opened into a steady rain and I’m relieved that the walk to Piazza Guido Monaco and the Hotel Continentale is short.

At just 75 Euros a night, the hotel is a bargain, even if my room does resemble a 1980s college dorm room with its white furniture and floral bedspread. I open the doors to the balcony and look down the street to the right, towards the train station, which serves as a major railway hub, and then left past the piazza towards the historic center of town. Arezzo is a real city, with real Italians passing by on the sidewalks below. For the first time, I have wandered outside of the tourist corridor that connects the venerable triumvirate of Rome, Florence, and Venice. To be fair, Arezzo is hardly undiscovered—it was featured in the 1997 movie “Life is Beautiful,” which won an Academy Award for best foreign language film—but the city isn’t even mentioned in Rick Steves’ guidebook and that fact alone confers a certain air of adventure. I am striking out on my own, and as usual my stomach leads the way.

Just as I arrive at Piazza San Francesco I stumble into Gastronomia Il Cervo and walk through the door to the delight of a jovial man behind the counter. His English is poor and my Italian is worse, but the essentials of communication are achieved with a smile. He recommends a spicy pasta made from stale bread, a warm and hearty choice on a chilly day, and I enjoy a bowl of it immensely in the dining room upstairs, ending the meal with a cappuccino.

Feeling fortified, with umbrella in hand I venture back out onto the quiet streets and spend the afternoon lazily wandering from church to church. My first stop, resting on the edge of a lush green park near the ruins of a Medici fortress, is the city’s cathedral, or duomo. There is a beautiful vaulted ceiling lined with frescoes, some stunning medieval stained glass by the famed Frenchman, Guglielmo de Marcillat, and a charming, if unassuming, portrait of Mary Magdalene by Piero della Francesca.

I make my way back down the hill to the Romanesque church of Santa Maria della Pieve to see its Lorenzetti altarpiece, a luminous polyptych of the “Madonna and Child with Saints” painted in 1320. I pop a coin into the light box and stand back to appreciate the effect, watching the figures glow on a ground of gold paint high over the crypt at the end of a long spare nave, under a ceiling of thick wooden beams.

At 4:00 PM, I arrive back at Piazza San Francesco and enter the basilica there to see the Bacci chapel, famous for Piero della Francesca’s cycle of frescoes known as the “Legend of the True Cross.” The reservation I made online weeks ago hardly seems necessary, for as in the other churches in town, I am quite alone, save for a pair of young women taking tickets by the door. They direct me past a velvet rope and I savor the space, turning round and round to follow the visual story of the wood that was ultimately used to create the cross on which Christ was crucified.

My eyes search for a place to begin. By now, after several summers spent tramping across Europe, I am familiar with the form. Frescoes like this are made up of distinct scenes that can be read much like a medieval comic strip. With some help from a small book I bought in the gift shop, I follow along: In the beginning, seeds given by Michael the Archangel are planted in Adam’s mouth at the moment of his death, becoming a tree that grows upon his grave. It is later felled by King Solomon and its wood used to bridge a stream. When the Queen of Sheba attempts to traverse the bridge, she has a vision in which she sees Christ killed on a cross made from its beams. The wood is buried, but later found and it fulfills its fate. Centuries later, on orders from the Emperor Constantine, the relic is discovered among the three crosses of Cavalry and its identity restored.

It’s been a wonderful afternoon, but my mind is crammed to overflowing and I am eager to feel the cool air upon my face. As I open the door to leave the basilica, I reach for my umbrella expecting rain, but I am greeted instead by a bright blue sky. The storm has passed, and all of Arezzo is reflecting in the puddles it left behind.

When Henry James was here in the 1870s, he spent much of the day in an “uninvestigating fashion,” taking in the “general impression” of things. In walking down Corso Italia and its side streets, I now find myself doing much the same. Along the way, I stop at Cremi for a dish of artisanal gelato—a scoop of orange with lime and one of coconut. Its bright, refreshing taste suits both the change of weather and my buoyant mood. I walk further down to San Agostino in time to hear the church bells toll the top of the hour, and then I turn back to the hotel to rest before dinner.

When I head out again, I’ve already decided to end the day with a meal at La Lancia d’Oro, a restaurant that spills out under the Vasari loggia, facing Piazza Grande, Arezzo’s most famous public square. Come Saturday, the sloping pavement will be covered by rows of antiques stands for the monthly Fiera Antiquaria, but for now the view is peaceful and serene, a jigsaw of stone and stucco buildings, each decorated with colorful coats of arms.

Believing that the quality of restaurant food is usually in inverse proportion to its location, I truly don’t expect much from dinner, not here in such grand surroundings. I expect tourist fare, so I am stunned when a chain of delectable dishes make their way out of the kitchen, all delivered with warmth and grace by wait staff that treat me like family. I order a bowl of Ribollita to start. It is a Tuscan specialty I have longed to try, a soup made with bread and vegetables. But a small plate of appetizers arrives first, unbidden. For a moment, I worry that there has been some costly confusion, but the night is so warm and pleasant and my glass of the restaurant’s private label wine so enjoyable, that I throw caution to the wind and decide the experience is worth whatever the price. I order a fresh plate of asparagus ravioli, but later decline dessert, only to find a trio of pastries brought to my table anyway, followed by a cream pudding.

When the check arrives at last, I thank the waiter for what has been my best meal in Italy, ever. It is a prize hard won, given the fine lunch I had in Siena two years ago, and the beautiful plate of gnocchi I once ate in Rome. I peer at it cautiously and then wrinkle my brow. I have been charged for the Ribollita, the ravioli, and the wine, but for nothing more. The rest, it seems, was kindness.

I grab my tripod and snap a few pictures of Piazza Grande, floodlit beneath a cobalt sky, and on the walk back to the hotel, I think again about Henry James. He, too, had been seduced by “adorable Italy,” and by the charm of Tuscany in particular. By the end of his day in Arezzo, he had “seen Santa Maria della Pieve and its campanile of quaint colannades,” as well as “the stately, dusky cathedral” and a museum filled with “Etruscan vases and majolica platters.” It had been, he said, a day of “soft saturation,” spent among beautiful hills and cypresses that cast long, straight shadows in the sun. And when he travelled on, he took with him “[m]emories and images, anything and everything.”

In years to come, he would look back and write fondly of the things that populated his Italian Hours. Exhausted, I lean back into bed and close my eyes, knowing that someday I will, too.

2010 - Italy

Friday, June 4, 2010

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Friday, June 4, 2010

This morning, I’ve made a mess of things. I’m having breakfast at the Hotel Continentale, in a lovely dining room decorated in vibrant shades of blue and gold. There is a fine selection of pastries, breads, cereals, and fruit laid out on long buffet tables, and for coffee there is an imposing automated machine. Ideally, I would like a cappuccino, but I am not sure how best to achieve this. I press a button and I am comforted by a whirring sound that spits espresso into my cup, but when the steamed milk is dispensed, it comes from an entirely different spout, far to the left. By the time I realize this and shift my position, much of the milk has drained away, and the rest has slopped over the side into the saucer below. Feeling embarrassed, I decide to make the best of it and carry it back to my table.

The waitress minding the buffet has noticed my plight and she takes pity on me. She’s a cheerful, middle aged woman and she says something comforting in Italian before trotting off. A moment later she emerges from the bar holding an absolutely perfect cup of cappuccino. As she watches me, I take long sip, allowing the aroma of the coffee to fill my nostrils. When at last I pronounce it “molto bene,” and with great enthusiasm, she seems genuinely pleased. The people in Arezzo are nice. There is no other way of saying it, although it hardly seems sufficient. They are nice, and I like it here. I like it very much.

From my hotel facing Piazza Guido Monaco, it’s just a short walk to the railway station, and after a brief detour to the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre in town, I catch the 9:14 AM train to Assisi. It’s a milk run train that makes countless stops along the way, but the scenery out the window is distractingly beautiful, and for a moment I catch a glimpse of a castle high on the hill, which I later learn is Montecchio Vesponi, near Castiglion Fiorentino. The hour and a half goes by in the blink of an eye.

At the station in Assisi, I buy a ticket for a bus that will take me to the old town at the top of the hill and ride it all the way up to Piazza Matteotti. From there it’s a pleasant walk through ancient streets and along sweeping vistas, past the cathedral of San Rufino to Piazza del Comune, under the soaring tower of the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo, all the way down to the papal basilica of St. Francis.

The day is young and the town has a sleepy quality, with shopkeepers relaxing by open doorways crammed with religious souvenirs—laminated prayer cards, rosary beads, crucifixes, and rows upon rows of St. Francis statuettes dressed in identical brown tunics, cinched at the waist. Some are portly, others tall, but nearly all depict the saint’s famed attachment to animals—occasionally dogs, but more often than not birds, a menagerie of birds.

I approach the basilica from the east, along Via San Francesco, where it sits at the end of a long green lawn on which hedges form the letters PAX, the Latin word for peace. Outside the entrance to the upper church, I rent an audio guide and then walk into a bright space that is, through the conscientious efforts of the guards, surprisingly quiet, despite a steady stream of pilgrims. I can see an apse and transcept at the far end, but I am struck most by the frescoes that line the nave, long attributed to Giotto. The paintings reconstruct major events in the life of St. Francis (1181-1226)— a crucifix in the church of San Damiano speaks to Francis and summons him to God’s work, the future saint renounces his wordly goods, he preaches to the birds, and later on Mount La Verna he receives the stigmata. It is painful to recall how close all of this was to destruction after an earthquake struck in 1997, killing four people and sending chunks of the vaulted ceiling to the floor.

After circling the nave thoroughly, I make my way down to the cavernous lower church and to the tomb where St. Francis is buried. In “A Chain of Italian Cities,” Henry James wrote that “it would be hard to breathe anywhere an air more heavy with holiness,” for the basilica pushes the visitor “into the very heart of Catholicism.” As usual, I find his powers of observation to be uncanny.

After a quick sandwich at a nearby café, I spend the rest of the afternoon testing my stamina on the narrow and undulating streets of Assisi. I shop for ceramics, stop by an ancient Roman temple long ago converted to the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and visit Santa Chiara, a basilica devoted to St. Clare (1194-1253), who like Francis, founded her own monastic religious order.

At 4:00 PM, I catch the bus in Piazza Matteotti and from the train station below walk across the tracks for one last stop at the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, which inside houses the tiny Porziuncola, the 9th century chapel that Francis believed he was commanded to repair. It is crowded with tourists, most snapping flash photos despite the admonition posted outside, and I have to breathe deep to remember Francis’ words: PAX ET BONUM. Peace and goodwill. It strikes me as a sentiment that is easier to maintain when preaching to the birds.

On the train on the way back to Arezzo, a friendly Australian named Serena takes the seat next to mine. She is a lawyer on a fourteen month break who has chosen to travel the world and we chat amiably until we reach her stop at Passignano. By now, I’ve grown used to travelling solo, but I look forward to such passing acquaintances.

Back in town, on a side street near Piazza Grande, I decide to grab dinner at Trattoria Il Portale where the owner, a balding man with a surly disposition, seems not to understand my request for a table. “Un tavolo per una, per favore,” I say, and then repeat the phrase. Exasperated, he turns and loudly calls “Ma-a-a-a-r-r-r-r-r-ia!”

Maria is a sweet young girl, and she recommends the bruschetta and a tubular pasta with cheese and fresh cracked pepper called Cacio e Pepe, both worthy of Arezzo’s growing reputation for culinary excellence, at least in my eyes. I sit for a while and read from a book on Giotto I bought in Assisi. Afterwards, I revisit Cremi for a cup of nutella mousse and yogurt gelato and savor it—and the day—all the way back to the hotel in the dark.

2010 - Italy

Saturday, June 5, 2010

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Saturday, June 5, 2010

It’s a bright and beautiful morning in Arezzo and I’m standing on the rooftop terrace of the Hotel Continentale surveying the city streets. Directly below me is Piazza Guido Monaco, a small octagonal park named for the Benedictine monk who invented musical notation. Beyond, an assortment of stone towers dot the landscape, including that of Santa Maria della Pieve, but the overall effect is a mixture old and new, owing to the fact that much of Arezzo was bombed heavily in the war, especially here near the railway station.

In a newspaper account published by The Times on July 16, 1944, it was said that the “main street through the town… was a melancholy line of battered shop fronts and doorways.” And yet, “at the end of this sombre route one came to the Piazza del Duomo and it was a refreshing sight. There stood Arezzo’s fine cathedral, serene on its height above the streets of the town and remote from the damage and havoc that war had wrought below.”

Today, the city has risen from the rubble and rebuilt itself around its surviving landmarks, and when I see the cathedral perched high on the hill in the distance, the miracle of its survival makes me smile.

It’s a Saturday morning and the streets are already teeming with people, and I can see a row of white canopy tents that have appeared overnight for the Fiera Antiquaria, Arezzo’s monthly antiques fair. I’ve been told that it’s the oldest and the largest of its kind in Italy, with over five hundred booths that wind up the hill past Piazza San Francesco to the duomo, then back by the Palazzo Comunale, and under the Vasari Loggia, before spilling out into Piazza Grande. Aside from the convenience of the city’s railway hub, this is the main reason for my visit, so I rush to the elevator, eager to descend and join the crowd.

In truth, there isn’t much I can afford, or for that matter, fit into my suitcase, but I thoroughly enjoy wandering the hilly streets nevertheless. There are chairs and tables and wrought iron beds, stacks of books and prints and gilded picture frames, porcelain figurines and ceramic bowls. I fall in love with a pair of 19th century paintings of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and a beautiful landscape by Pier-Antonio Gariazzo, but in the end seize upon a small and far more affordable pair of modern paintings, each depicting people browsing an Italian antiques market, just as I have done all morning. Whether art imitates life, or life imitates art, I head back to the hotel thrilled with the purchase.

It’s nearly 1:00 PM and while I had originally thought I might head to Florence for the afternoon, I’m feeling as lazy as Henry James and want nothing more than a pretty place to explore in a thoroughly “uninvestigating fashion.” I decide to catch the bus to Cortona instead, a tiny hill town made famous by Frances Mayes in her memoir Under the Tuscan Sun, and when I arrive there at Piazza Garibaldi an hour later, and gaze out across the hills, lakes, and valleys of neighboring Umbria, I’m glad I came.

I begin to follow the narrow straight line that is Via Nazionale towards what my map tells me is the center of town—Piazza della Repubblica and the Palazzo Comunale—but I stop off along the way for a late lunch at Tuscher Caffé. I sit back and relax at a small table by the side of the street with a gorgeous plate of cured meats, bruschetta, and pecorino cheese before me, as well as a glass of chilled prosecco. Truly, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Half of the Palazzo Comunale is wrapped in scaffolding, which is a bit of a disappointment, but the town itself is not. It has a romantic, easy charm and the hours slip by gently on the mind, if not the body, for Cortona is a hill town indeed, and on either side of Via Nazionale, there are alleys and stairways that branch off into breath-robbing inclines. I shop for ceramics, eat some gelato, and peer down Etruscan wells, walk down to the church of Santa Maria Assunta, the town’s duomo, and stop into the adjacent Diocesan Museum to see works by Luca Signorelli and Fra Angelico. But mainly, I just walk, as far as my legs will take me, out along the walls for another sweeping view of Lake Trasimene and the Val di Chiana, all the way back to the shade of the Parterre gardens. Somewhere along the way, I fill the last space on the first of my camera’s 8 GB storage cards and reach into my bag for another, wondering if I will make it through the rest of my trip at this pace.

It’s just after 7:00 PM when I finally catch the bus back to Arezzo. I sink back into the seat and enjoy chatting with a young Korean student living in Florence, whose name is Yun-Mi, but who asks that I call her Stella, which she says is her English name. She is as amiable a traveling companion as I could hope for, and her facility with languages impresses me deeply, and not only because she is far more capable than I in confirming our route with the driver.

Back in Arezzo, a deep fatigue has started to set in. My legs are aching, and yet my stomach is growling like mad. From the bus stop in the piazza, I head up Via Guido Monaco to a kabob shop and order a sandwich and a can of Coca-Cola to go. I slump back to the hotel feeling guilty. After all, I should be dining on classic Tuscan fare—a steaming bowl of Acquacotta, or a juicy Chianina steak—but alas, what I crave most is sleep. Exhaustion is, perhaps, something Henry James would have understood when he wrote of “the familiar tax on the luxury of loving Italy.”

2010 - Italy

Sunday, June 6, 2010

by Deborah Guber1 Comment on Sunday, June 6, 2010

This is one of those days that I’ve looked forward to for a very long time. It’s the Sunday after Corpus Domini and I’m up early to catch an 8:14 AM regionale train to Orvieto for an annual event known as the “Procession of the Holy Corporale.”

The day itself, which honors the Eucharist, is an important one in predominantly Catholic countries such as Italy, but the celebrations here extend far beyond church services. Over the weekend, many towns hold an infiorata in which flower petals are arranged into art, creating stunning street mosaics that last mere hours. Spello, a tiny town near Assisi, has one of the most famous of these festivals, and I had wanted to go, but it conflicts with the parade in Orvieto, and in the end, I decided to attend the latter instead. And so here I am, waiting for the funicular to take me to the town at the top of the hill.

According to tradition, a religious miracle occurred here in 1264. When a priest on a pilgrimage to Rome stopped at a church in nearby Bolsena to celebrate mass, he is said to have witnessed the Host bleeding. A piece of the habit he wore that day—known as a corporale—was stained by the blood, and to this day it is kept in Orvieto’s cathedral. Once each year, the relic is taken through the streets of the city in a lengthy procession that includes hundreds of men, women, and children in medieval costume.

It’s just after 10 when I reach the top and rather than wait for a bus, I decide to hurry as best I can down Corso Cavour, navigating from a flimsy map I printed out from home, and the low rumble of drums in the distance. The parade is already under way.

I approach the cathedral from behind and slip along the barricades into a doorway along Via del Duomo, near the piazza. I barely have time to glance up at its glorious façade—which guidebooks hail as a masterpiece of the Late Middle Ages—when the first heralds arrive with their trumpets. They are followed by a swirl of sights and sounds that set my camera’s shutter into high speed. There are waves of flags, banners, and shields with various coats of arms, knights and squires dressed in richly embroidered cloth, priests releasing incense from brass thuribles, and soldiers in plumed helmets and chainmail, armed with spears, crossbows and halberds. From their breastplates to their buckles, the attention to detail is a marvel, like a legend come to life off the pages of a book, and I think of Robin Hood or the Knights of the Round Table.

When the corporale makes its appearance at last, it’s under a white canopy trimmed in gold, seated upright in an ornate reliquary, richly decorated in enamel. The people lining the streets grow quiet and bow their heads in respect, many making the Sign of the Cross. An old woman leaning out of a window overhead applauds.

Round and round they go, from Piazza del Popolo through the streets to the duomo and back. It’s a grand spectacle and one in which the citizens of Orvieto clearly take pride. In fact, I don’t think I’ve never been so grateful for the zoom lens on my camera. The experience aside—and it has been a memorable one—if I don’t walk away from this with some truly excellent pictures, it will be no one’s fault but my own.

Once the service inside of the cathedral begins, the audio is conveyed on loud speakers to the crowd outside. The Italian that is spoken is lost to me, but the music—a mixture of sung hymns and traditional organ—most definitely is not.

As the crowds disperse through the narrow streets, I settle in for a light lunch at L’Antica Pizzetta, where I order a plate of polenta with mushrooms, drizzled in olive oil, and a glass of the local white wine, known as Orvieto Classico.

Afterwards, I drop by the tourist information office in the Piazza del Duomo to purchase a carta unica, which covers admission to nearly all of the city’s monuments. The Torre del Moro is my first stop of the afternoon, for its panoramic view, that blessedly comes with an elevator.

I spend the rest of the afternoon pleasantly, again shopping for ceramics, visiting the market in Piazza della Repubblica and the rustic church of Sant’Andrea which faces it. By the time I make my way back to the duomo to examine its façade in detail—an astonishing mix of gold leaf, mosaic tile, and bas-relief sculptures—it’s open once again for visitors, and after a day of bright sunshine, I welcome the cool air and the dim light of the interior. The stone walls and massive columns that support the nave are constructed in green and white horizontal stripes and they are nearly as vibrant as the cathedral’s famous façade. Yet the highlight for me is the Chapel of St. Brizio, which features Luca Signorelli’s frescoes of the Apocalypse (1499-1502). I’ve seen imagery of this, and of the Last Judgment, before, countless times—on the wall of the Sistine Chapel, on the ceiling of the baptistery in Florence, on the St. John Altarpiece in Bruges, on a portal of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and so on—so the writhing, naked bodies come as no surprise. But there is something fantastical here, something animated, that appeals to me and creates beauty out of misery and torment.

At 4:00 PM, I arrange to meet a guide named Anita for a group tour of the Orvieto underground. The city was built on a massive mound of soft limestone rock known as tufa, through which the Etruscans dug miles of caves, the rounded edges of which remind me of the Flintstone’s. In some rooms there are rows of small recessed holes in the walls. When Anita asks us to speculate on their use and purpose, we offer a variety of guesses. Some think the niches were used to store olive oil, others as a kiln for ceramics, and even a World War II bomb shelter. They were, she said, carved to create nests for breeding pigeons.

As we make our way back up towards daylight, I have a decision to make. I’ve seen posters around town for a cavalcade at 6:30, where riders on horseback will parade in Piazza del Duomo, and there is bleacher seating being set up now. Should I stay? I would like to, but it’s been a busy day and energy is starting to flag. I decide against it, and head back towards the funicular for one last stop at St. Patrick’s Well.

The well was built in the early 16th century and it’s famous for its clever, double helix design, which allowed people and livestock to descend down one set of stairs to the water at the bottom, while directing traffic up an entirely different staircase for the ascent back to the top. When my legs make it only part way down, and I am forced to retrace my original route, apologizing to the young woman at the ticket counter when I emerge from the wrong path, I know I’ve made the right decision to head back to Arezzo now, rather than staying late for the cavalcade.

On the way back, I realize that I forgot to validate my ticket before boarding the train. I panic, remembering the stories I had read about the fines that are imposed. An old Brit onboard says, “I wouldn’t fuss about it, my dear.” And he’s right. The conductor never comes through the car to collect tickets anyway.

Tired when I arrive, but grateful for my good fortune, I return to the same kebob shop along Via Guido Monaco and order a falafel to go.

Just before I fall into bed, I remember the uncharacteristically harsh words Henry James wrote about Orvieto when he visited in the 1870s. He found it “meanly arranged and, as Italian cities go, not [a] particularly impressive little town.” It was, he thought, quite “inferior to its fame.” As I scroll through the pictures on my camera, I think that perhaps if he had visited during Corpus Domini, he would have changed his mind.

2010 - Italy

Monday, June 7, 2010

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Monday, June 7, 2010

It’s time to move on again, and in packing my bags this morning I feel a rush of excitement.

When I approach the front desk to pay my bill, I tell the clerk how much I’ve enjoyed my visit to Arezzo and the Hotel Continentale. And I mean it truly. In planning my itinerary months ago, I saw my time here as a convenient and inexpensive home base—a way of squeezing a few extra days out of the budget—but it has far exceeded my expectations.

The clerk pauses in his paperwork, looks up, and furrows his brow. “Quiet, quiet, quiet,” he says. “We get in a car and drive to Florence.”

And so it is.

I catch the 8:55 AM train to Florence and arrive at Santa Maria Novella station less than an hour later. After a short cab ride, I find myself back in the welcome arms of the Hotel Davanzati. I first visited Florence in the summer of 2008 and have the warmest possible memories of the place and of family that manages it. This morning, it’s the handsome Tommaso who greets me, and like his father Fabrizio, he is a kind and gracious host. Before long, my things are stowed away in the same charming room, and I have been briefed on the latest trends in local gelato. Grom, it seems, is very much in favor.

As I head out onto the streets and through Piazza della Signoria under a morning sun that already feels scorching hot, I am reminded of all that I love about Florence—the beautiful art and architecture, the enticing aromas wafting out from local cafés, the magnetic pull of museums, the sound of street music around every corner. There is an urban metabolism that pulses with possibility. I feel energized and find myself walking quickly, remembering that I have but a short time here.

I am devoting the day to loose ends, to a list of things I had wanted to do two years ago. There is, it seems, never enough time in Florence.

Because it closes early, my first stop is the Bargello museum, housed in the imposing Palazzo del Popolo, a former barracks and prison. The fortress is impressive in itself. There is an inner courtyard and covered staircase, and the walls are lined with heraldic shields from the 13th and 14th centuries that represent the coats of arms of various city magistrates, known as podestà. Inside, there is furniture and tapestries and some Majolica ware, but the real specialty is sculpture. The Bargello houses Donatello’s bronze statue of David. Completed in the 1440s, it was the first freestanding male nude to be cast since antiquity.

Florence, of course, is better known for a very different David—a more mature and heroic one, carved in marble by Michelangelo. Tourists line up in droves to see it at the Accademia across town, and they stand proudly by a copy of it for pictures in Piazza della Signoria. Here at the Bargello, Donatello’s David seems overlooked, in part because the museum itself is off the beaten path for weary crowds en route to other staples of Florentine history and culture. Even on a busy weekday at the height of tourist season, the museum is nearly empty.

As Mark Twain once wrote in the Innocents Abroad, I like Michelangelo very much, but I do not want him “for breakfast—for luncheon—for dinner—for tea—for supper—for between meals. I like a change occasionally.” As Twain went on to observe, in Florence, Michelangelo “painted everything, designed everything, nearly, and what he did not design he used to site on a favourite stone and look at, and they showed us the stone… Enough, enough! Say no more… I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil, so filled with a blessed peace, as I did yesterday when I learnt that Michael Angelo was dead.”

Well, if that’s the case, Donatello’s David certainly is a change. He depicts David as a youth, more accurate to the biblical tale, but the pose is jarringly effeminate, with one hand resting on a hip that bends at the knee. The addition of a jaunty hat and Goliath’s winged helmet at his feet, one wing splayed seductively up the back of David’s leg, gives the entire composition a homoerotism that reminds me of the Caravaggios I saw in Rome. I wonder what Twain would have to say about that?

Nearby, I stop in for a bite to eat at Antico Noè, a tiny sandwich shop in an arcaded alley off Piazza San Pier Maggiore. I order the numero otto—pork with pecorino cheese—and watch as a steady stream of college students crowd the doorway. Next, I take Tommaso at his word and pay homage to Grom near Piazza del Duomo, where I get a dish of raspberry and lemon gelato for dessert, and eat it on the steps of the cathedral.

I walk back to Piazza della Signoria and join the security queue to enter the Palazzo Vecchio. This is the local town hall, and its soaring bell tower is nearly as prominent a part of the city skyline as Brunelleschi’s red-tiled dome.

It’s a self-guided tour, but an excellent one given the opulent surroundings. I visit the Salone dei Cinquecento (or, Hall of Five Hundred), where some believe that a long-lost scene of “The Battle of Anghiari” by Da Vinci lies hidden beneath a later fresco by Vasari.  I wander next through a series of connected public rooms, where every square inch of the walls and ceilings are covered by Renaissance art, some of which depict scenes of Florence that are wholly recognizable today.

I have a 3:45 PM reservation to see a cycle of frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel at the church of Santa Maria del Carmine, but with some time to spare I decide to cross the Ponte Vecchio and do a little shopping along the Oltrarno, stopping at Roberta’s to buy a leather belt for my Dad. Then, I walk up along the river to the Ponte Santa Trinita to admire the statues at each end representing the Four Seasons, which were added in 1680 to celebrate the wedding of Cosimo II de’ Medici. The bridge was a beautiful one, with three graceful elliptic arches, but in the closing days of World War II, it was spitefully bombed by the Germans, along with every other bridge in Florence, save the Ponte Vecchio. The statues collapsed into the Arno, and while the remains were put back on the newly reconstructed bridge after the war, the head of Primavera was missing and long thought stolen by soldiers during the liberation. It wasn’t until 1961 that it was finally found downstream.

I am right on time for my appointment. In the end, despite the restrictions—the need for advance reservations, and a limit of just 15 minutes to view the art—my visit in the Brancacci chapel is well worth the effort, especially given the quality of the multimedia presentation beforehand. Begun by Masolino in the late 14th century, and later finished by Masaccio and Lippi, the frescoes tell the story of the temptation of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, as well as other stories from the Bible, including “The Payment of the Tribute Money” from the Gospel according to Matthew.

In the only sour note of the afternoon, a French tour group joins my time slot, and despite the usual admonitions for silence and respect, the guide talks loudly the entire time, instructing those with her to stand in the center of the small space, where they remain for the duration, crowding everyone else out. Afterwards, several of us try to talk to the guard to protest. We’ve had little chance to see the frescoes up close because of the guide’s boorish behavior, but it seems there is nothing he can do.

I decide to duck back to the hotel to change out of my sweaty clothes before dinner and to post a few pictures to Flickr for friends and family back home. When I arrive, Happy Hour is underway at the Davanzati, so I have a glass of prosecco beside me as I connect to the internet on my netbook. This is, apparently, an act of heresy in Italy and it draws a good-natured rebuke from Fabrizio, who reminds me that I am on vacation and that I shouldn’t work so hard. I’m truly not working, but it doesn’t seem worth the explanation. I simply agree and close the lid.

For dinner, I’ve reserved at table at Osteria del Cinghiale Bianco on Borgo San Japoco, where a cute Italian busboy asks if he can introduce himself. I nod and he flirts endlessly, insisting on taking my picture. Eventually, the waiter comes by, frowns, and sends him packing back to the kitchen, to my grave disappointment.

I dine well on some hearty Tuscan fare—white beans with sage, and a plate of Pappardelle al Cinghiale, or wide ribbon noodles with wild boar sauce. Sitting nearby is a couple from Florida, celebrating their 13th wedding anniversary. In eating early, and snapping pictures, and in brimming over with enthusiasm for Italy as we talk, we are—the three of us—the spitting image of the American tourist, although hopefully not as hapless and uncouth as those Twain depicted in his narrative.

The night is still young when I leave my Florida friends. The air is cooling at last, and the change in temperature makes for a pleasant stroll. A classical guitarist from Poland, named Piotr Tomaszewski, is playing on the Ponte Vecchio to an appreciative crowd. After a while, I head up Via Porta Santa Maria, past the duomo, to Piazza della Santissima Annunziata. Designed by Brunelleschi himself, this used to be an orphanage known as the “Hospital of the Innocents.” It’s a low structure with an arched colonnade and above each column is a round terracotta sculpture, or tondo, added by Andrea della Robbia around 1487. The tondi depict infants in swaddling clothes lying on a blue wheel—a wheel which actually existed until the late-19th century, allowing mothers to leave their unwanted children anonymously by rotating them into the hospital interior on the equivalent of a Lazy Susan.

By the time I make my way back to Piazza della Signoria for the third and final time, night has fallen. Floodlights have kicked on and the tower and stonework of the Palazzo Vecchio stand stark against the sapphire sky.

In the Innocents Abroad, Twain wrote that “Florence had pleased us for a while,” before becoming tedious in the effort required to appreciate it. I suppose that it’s possible to come to Florence to relax, to embrace what the Italians call l’arte di non fare niente—the sweetness of doing nothing. Fabrizio, at least, says that it is.

This is a city that wears its past proudly on its sleeve, but I’m sure there are times when the looming presence of the Renaissance imposes a burden on locals and tourists alike, for who among us will ever reach the heights of a Donatello or a Masolino, a Brunelleschi or a Michelangelo? And so we exhaust ourselves in stifling heat, trying to see it all in the time that we have.

What can I say? Florence inspires me—not to do nothing, or even something, but to do everything. If not this time, then the next. And that can be rather sweet, too.

2010 - Italy

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Blame it on Netflix.

Originally, I had planned to spend two full days in Florence—not nearly enough, of course, even for a return trip—but two nevertheless. Yet here I am making a hasty visit to the basilica of Santa Maria Novella before heading out of the city by bus to the tiny hill town of San Gimignano.

I’m always in pursuit of “Italy porn”—films of varying and largely irrelevant quality that feature beautiful Italian landscapes. Il Postino, A Room with a View, Cinema Paradiso, Life is Beautiful, My House in Umbria, and even the mediocre Under the Tuscan Sun and Letters to Juliet, have all made it to the top of my queue.

The movie that inspired this particular side trip was Tea with Mussolini. Released in 1999, it tells the story of a group of elderly English ladies living in Florence who help raise a young boy named Luca, whose experiences are based loosely on the life of director Franco Zeffirelli. After Mussolini declares war on Great Britain, the group is interned in San Gimignano for the duration, where they remain feisty in their protection of orphan children, dogs, and local art, even in the face of the menacing Nazis. It’s quite a sweet movie, and it has me yearning to see the famous towers of San Gimignano for myself.

The bus ride from Florence is cheap and easy, but it does require a change of line with a 35 minute wait in Poggibonsi, where the station is dull and nondescript. The entire journey takes nearly two hours, so by the time I disembark with a crowd of other tourists at 12:30 PM, I’m ready to stretch my legs.

I’m standing just outside of the old city walls, in front of a massive stone gate, charting my position on the map, when I realize how unnecessary it is. Like in Cortona, there seems to be just one major route in San Gimignano—down Via San Giovanni, through Piazza della Cisterna, and then along Via San Matteo to another gate at the north end of town. From here, I can see two of the city’s towers, rising high at the end of the long, narrow street in front of me, but it takes me ages to reach them given the magnetic pull of quaint little shops that line the way, and an enticing lane to the right that leads me out to a cluster of Tuscan farmhouses.

When I walk under the Arco dei Becci at last and into the triangular Piazza della Cisterna, past the Collegiata and the down to the church of San Agostino and back, I find that my neck is growing stiff from the constant looking up. My guidebook says that there were once 72 densely clustered towers in San Gimignano, built by wealthy families for protection during sieges. Given the city’s small size, its skyline must have resembled a medieval Manhattan.

When the town later fell under Florentine rule, most were ordered down. Just 14 towers survive in their original, uncropped state today. Even so, San Gimignano is widely known as La Cittá delle Belle Torri—the City of the Beautiful Towers—and it’s easy to see why. They are rustic, heavy and substantial, and admittedly less elegant and refined than the Torre del Mangia in nearby Siena, but they are undoubtedly beautiful.

In 1875, Gino Capponi, an Italian historian, wrote that: “No other town or castle in Tuscany retains more of the Middle Ages and was less invaded by the ages that followed; in those towers, and in the churches and in the houses of massive stone, is still something that cannot be covered up by the thin plastering of modern times; ancient memories keep their possession of it, the new life has hardly entered in.”

Today, given the complex realities of tourism, I doubt Capponi would still agree, but on a hot summer’s day such as this, it seems as though the pull of “ancient memories” and the push of “new life” from the daily influx of daytrippers has found a peaceful equilibrium.

I stop for lunch on the terrace of La Griglia Ristorante, where the views are as scrumptious as my warm plate of wild mushroom crostini, and my glass of Vernaccia, the local white wine. Afterwards, I tour the Civic Museum in the Palazzo del Popolo and then head up to the top of the attached Torre Grossa, which dates from 1298. At 177 feet, it is the tallest tower in San Gimignano and in every direction there are breathtaking views. I look down upon a sea of red tiled rooftops, and out across the lush green Val d’Elsa to the mountains of the Pistoia and the Apuan Alps.

Intent on capturing the moment, I snap away on my Nikon D5000, pausing only when the second of my 8 GB storage cards runs out of space. As I slip a third into the slot on the side of the camera, I think about the marvels of digital photography. The tiny plastic rectangle in my hand stores nearly a thousand pictures and video clips from Cortona, Arezzo, Orvieto, Florence, and San Gimignano. Later, at the click of a mouse, the things I did and places I saw will be magically reconstructed out of millions of brightly colored pixels. It’s a curious thing—the juxtaposition of ancient and modern. I cast my eyes over the medieval city of San Gimignano and hope that technology will help me to fix it in my memory.

Earlier, when wandering the streets, I overhead a woman talking to her companion about the Collegiata church in Piazza del Duomo—the one, she said, with the “bad frescoes.” Determined to judge for myself, I descend from my lofty perch and head next door. I pay the entrance fee and head for the chapel of Santa Fina, the one featured in the film Tea with Mussolini. Ghirlandaio’s work here is lovely, especially since it seems to soften the saint’s life story. The young Fina fell gravely ill at the age of 10 and spent the next 5 years slowly dying on an oak table, a purposeful choice to increase her suffering in the eyes of God. A brutal historical fact, yes, but it certainly isn’t bad art.

The next candidate is along the back wall—a cycle of frescoes by Taddeo di Bartolo that depict the Last Judgment in gruesome detail. Naturally. This time, instead of academically drawn nudes, many of the writhing bodies are ugly and bloated, held at knife point by an army of winged monsters. It is terrifying indeed, but once again, not exactly bad art.

Still curious, but not at all sure of what she meant, I move finally to Bartolo di Fredi’s frescoes from the Old Testament. Here, the scenes are rather misshapen and out of proportion. These, I am sure, are what she intended when she spoke of “bad frescoes.” But I do think she’s been a bit unfair. The work before me represents the mid-14th century. If she were here, I would say: Have a little patience, their world is on the verge of the Italian Renaissance. Linear perspective is coming soon.

I stroll down to the Rocca di Montestaffoli, a small park made from the ruins of a fortress overlooking the town, and then wander back up through the streets, past a row of modern paintings on display against an old stone wall. Next to a charming Tuscan landscape, there is an eye widened in fear, seen through a dark keyhole. A British woman in a lavender print dress and wide brimmed hat stares at it for moment, then turns to her friend and says: “That one makes me want to avert my eyes, it does.” I can’t help but laugh, because it’s true.

I’ve enjoyed my visit to this tiny town immensely, but when menacing clouds start to gather overhead, I know it’s time to leave. I queue for the 5:40 PM bus back to Florence, with the same connection through Poggibonsi, and am grateful for shelter from the storm, for just as I board the sky erupts into thunder and lightening and sheets of rain.

By the time I arrive back in Florence at the Hotel Davanzati, the storm has passed, but the lingering effect is a welcome one. The heat of the afternoon has given way to a cool night air.

I walk to Piazza della Signoria in search of music, and find people lazing about on the steps of the Loggia dei Lanzi listening to a British singer/songwriter named Ken Mercer. He’s good and I join the crowd for a while. I’m enjoying the moment, but truth be told I had hoped that in revisiting Florence I would see Claudio Spadi again, the street musician I met on the Ponte Vecchio during my first visit in the summer of 2008.

Disappointed, I head north toward Piazza della Repubblica, yet even at a distance the sound I hear is familiar. It seems like serendipity to find him here on my last night in Florence, guitar in hand, singing by the light of the carousal, and I can’t suppress a grin. On a break, he introduces himself and I take a picture, staying long into the night until he ends a set with a rousing version of Buona Notte, into which he inserts the names of the people he has met, including my own.

Sitting here under the stars, crossed legged on the pavement, I am experiencing what can only be described as l’arte di non fare niente. I must remember to tell Fabrizio in the morning. He will be proud.

2010 - Italy

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Wednesday, June 9, 2010

This morning, it is time to leave the rolling hills of Tuscany and Umbria and head for the sun of Liguria and the almighty sea.

It’s just after 10 in the morning and I’m on a train to Monterosso al Mare, the largest of five small fishing villages that make up a region known as the Cinque Terre, or “five lands.” It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and a national park, but it’s also a major destination for U.S. travelers. Arezzo isn’t even mentioned in Rick Steves’ guidebook, but the Cinque Terre has an entire chapter all its own, which has me a bit apprehensive about the crowds.

As I change trains at Pisa Centrale, the weather also has me worried. The villages of the Cinque Terre are connected by hiking trails that wind up and down along the cliffs, but according to some online message boards, recent downpours have forced the closure of many of the paths for sake of safety. Still, the air has been unseasonably warm these past few days, so as we speed by La Spezia and I crane my neck toward the window to catch brief glimpses of the ocean between tunnels, I am hopeful that things have dried out.

It’s nearly 1:00 PM by the time we pull into the station in Monterosso al Mare and I drag my luggage from the train along with scores of other passengers wearing shorts, sundresses, and flip flops. I stop briefly at the tourist information window to buy a three-day Cinque Terre treno card, to cover entrance to the trails and to the local trains that connect Monterosso al Mare to the towns of Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.

Emerging from the station, I turn left toward my hotel in the Old Town, but feel compelled to stop and stare at the scene before me. I’ve never spent much time at seaside resorts. I’ve never been to California or the Caribbean, and I’ve seen Florida only once, so this is new and exotic to me. There is a long stretch of sandy beach, decorated with rows of colorful umbrellas and chairs, set in a perfect arch along the shore. Palm trees strung with streamers of yellow and green line the street, and there are shops selling racks of postcards, sunglasses, tote bags, and beach balls.

I have not travelled far on this trip. The distance from Rome to Florence is just 182 miles—roughly equivalent to the drive I might take between my house in northwestern Vermont and Brattleboro, the city at its southeastern corner, near the border of Massachusetts. From Florence to the Cinque Terre, it is just 116 miles, which at home would get me only as far as White River Junction. And yet from the urban intensity of Rome, to the rustic charm of Tuscany and Umbria, and now the brilliant seas of the Cinque Terre, I am finding that the geography of Italy is astonishingly diverse.

I make my way through the pedestrian tunnel and up Via Roma until I reach the front door of the Hotel Margherita, a friendly place painted in shades of tangerine with green shutters. I check into room 101 and begin to unpack as a warm breeze through the louvered windows draws in the scent of lemon and basil from the garden below.

I feel energized when I make my way back down Via Roma toward the beach, and more so after grabbing a sandwich and a bottle of water. I climb a set of stairs by the Obertenghi Castle to the Aurora Tower, and continue up to the statue of St. Francis of Assisi. My legs are still feeling fresh on the descent, so much so that when I reach the sign at the end of the beach reading Per Vernazza, I decide, with little hesitation, to walk there for dinner, despite having just half my water left.

I had not planned on hiking any trails until tomorrow morning, especially the first leg to Vernazza, which is said to be the toughest climb, so this is either a moment of divine inspiration, or one of supreme lunacy under the heat of the afternoon sun. According to Rick Steves in his infamous guidebook, he often gets e-mails from readers “who say the trail was tougher than they expected,” but he assures us that while “it’s a bit of a challenge, it’s perfectly doable for any fit hiker… and worth the sweat.”

I spent months on a treadmill preparing for this, with the incline set to its highest point, so to believe that I am anything short of a “fit hiker” would amount to personal failure. Besides, I have already taken Assisi, Cortona, Orvieto, and San Gimignano in stride—hill towns all. Surely, this can be no worse.

Except that it is. That much is clear early on.

As the trail starts to climb, I can feel the burn in my legs. Before long, I’m stopping to catch my breath. Soon, it’s not so much a hiking trail as it is a never ending staircase.

The countryside is beautiful, to be sure. The path leads me along terraces of grapevines and olive groves, by crumbling stone walls overgrown with wildflowers, through the woods and over streams, but always uphill. Ceaselessly uphill. It’s late afternoon, the sun is scorching hot, and I don’t have nearly enough water. I start to ration it into the smallest of sips.

As a father and son approach from behind, I can overhear snatches of their conversation. They’re carrying fully inflated inner tubes. This seems like a bad idea on so many levels, although it occurs to me that if they happen to slip off the edge of the cliff—the footpath is narrow and there are, in most places, no guardrails—that it might actually break the fall.

The son is bounding forward, while the father lags behind and grumbles about wanting to turn back. I can’t say that I blame him, although as we meet others coming from the opposite direction, some wearing flip flops and others ballet flats, I am forced to question whether I am indeed a “fit hiker,” or merely a middle-aged woman in sensible shoes. As I march on, I begin to formulate a letter to Rick Steves in my head about how the trail was “tougher than I expected.”

When I cross paths with a group of friendly Australians heading from Vernazza, I dare to ask them about what lies ahead. Am I almost there, or almost to the ridgeline, at least? “Oh, dear,” the woman says. “Oh my, no.”

I’ve been on the trail for nearly two hours when, at long last, I reach a clearing high on the hill. The view from the summit takes my breadth away, although this time not from exertion, but out of sheer euphoria.

I am looking down upon the tiny village of Vernazza. I’ve arrived at the top of the hour and the bells of the lemon yellow church of Santa Margherita d’Antiochia are just beginning to chime. I can see rows of pastel houses that fold back from a snug harbor, watched over by the ancient Doria Castle, and a fleet of small boats bobbing in the teal green sea. It is a picture postcard, perfect in every way.

Perhaps I won’t send that letter to Rick Steves, after all. It was worth the sweat, just as he said.

I make the descent into town and walk for a bit through the lively streets, but decide that it would best to head back to Monterosso al Mare, after all. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished—the hike is one I will long remember—but for now I’d like nothing more than a long, cold shower and a nice lie down before dinner. I head back on the train.

It’s 7:30 when I venture back out and, mercifully, the heat of the day is beginning to lift. I stop for dinner at Ristorante al Pozzo and relax on the outdoor patio, studying the menu and chatting with folks nearby. There is a couple from Australia on my left, and a young woman from San Francisco named Amber on my right. She’s quit her job and has been travelling solo around Europe for the past five months. She reminds me of Serena, who I met on the train from Assisi, and I find myself envying them both.

Italian cuisine is regional cuisine, and like Tuscany with its ribollita and wild boar, Liguria has specialties of its own—namely, anchovies, lemons, focaccia bread, and pesto. I’ve seen a dish called trofie al pesto on restaurant chalkboards all over town, and rows of basil are growing right outside my hotel window, so trofie al pesto it is.

Trofie is a variety of pasta made with flour and water, and not with egg. It’s rolled into thin strips, cut into pieces, and then twisted like a screw, with channels into which a sauce can cling. Famished from the day’s exertion, I gobble it down in astonishing speed.

Afterwards, I take a short walk around town before crashing into bed.  And in a conscious effort to reward to myself, I don’t set the alarm clock on the nightstand.

2010 - Italy

Thursday, June 10, 2010

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Thursday, June 10, 2010

When I wake up at last, it’s 9:30 in the morning. By the time I laze around and dress and take care of a few small chores—including a batch of laundry—it’s after 11 and I’ve missed breakfast at the hotel entirely.

I drop into Ristorante da Ely for a take-away slice of foccacia bread and a della de casa walnut torte, and this time—just to be safe—two extra bottles of water, and then sit on a bench in the shade overlooking the Old Town, eating and listening to the waves and the market below.

To start the day, I head up the long sloped stairs to the Capuchin church of San Francesco, to appreciate its quiet interior and the stunning views out along Fegina beach, all the way north to the Giant statue, and then make my way to the train station for the quick hop down to Riomaggiore, the southernmost village in the Cinque Terre. Today, the plan is to start at the bottom and hike north, as far as my legs will carry me. And if I am forced to stop for the sustenance of gelato in each and every town along the way, so be it.

There is an elevator in Riomaggiore, and it takes me to highest elevation in town, which allows the luxury of exploring downhill. I visit the church of San Giovanni Battista and the tiny oratory of Santa Maria Assunta, and gaze up at the castle and clock tower, but really the attraction here—and throughout the Cinque Terre—is the town itself and its easy charm.

The stucco houses are densely packed and painted in alternate pastel colors, regulated (I am told) by a commissioner of good taste. There are shades of lemon and peach, strawberry and lime, and together they remind me of a scoop of rainbow sherbet. There are open windows with green wood shutters, and laundry hangs in the sun to dry. The whole effect might be characterized as a kind of Mediterranean “shabby chic.”

From here I follow signs to the Via dell’Amore, or Avenue of Love, which connects Riomaggiore with Manarola, its neighbor to the north. It’s a beautiful path, wide and well paved, and it clings to the edge of the cliff in reckless abandon. After World War II, it became a romantic rendezvous where couples would meet and commemorate their love in amorous graffiti, a tradition which continues today. Layers of graffiti—some of it quite skilled—are caked onto the walls of the tunnel, and in a spurt of creativity, carved deep into the leaves of cactuses. And then there are padlocks. There are padlocks everywhere, locked onto signposts and fences and marked with initials.

I wonder if Nat and Lewis are still together? Or, Ludo and Giuppi, who wrote: Sei il mio primo pensiero al mattino, e l’ultimo alla sera. Grazie di esistere. Ti amo. “You are my first thought in the morning, and my last before bed. Thanks for being there. I love you.” At least I know that Aldo and Jnge are, since they wrote their names above a heart in 2007, 2008, and again just two months ago. There are hundreds of stories here, left dangling and unfinished, and I find myself wondering about them on the path to Manarola.

The next few hours slip by pleasantly, almost unnoticed. There are more tiny Gothic churches, more pastel colored homes, more stunning views out to sea and along the cliffs, and gradually my early prediction about gelato is fulfilled.

At about 4:00, I weigh the next step of my journey, from Corniglia to Vernazza, and decide against it. My body is weary and the hike would be the longest of the day, about 90 minutes. Perhaps, I think, I’ll tackle one that tomorrow. But I know I won’t.

Corniglia rests high on a promontory of rock, the only town in the Cinque Terre without a natural harbor. To get there, I had been lucky enough to snag a free bus to the top, but when I retrace my steps to where I got off, there is a sign warning that bus service has been discontinued for the day. And so I head down the “Lardarina” to the train station, a long set of switchback stairs—377 in all—my knees groaning in protest on every one.

Back at the Hotel Margherita in Monterosso al Mare, I rest up and head out to dinner a few hours later. At l’Altamarea, I dine well on some bruschetta, followed by pansotti in a walnut cream sauce, and a plate of grilled vegetables.

By now I’ve gotten a second wind, and so rather than heading to bed, I take the train to Manarola to watch the sunset, and then set up my tripod for some night shots. I follow the footpath north to the next jut of land

and look back on the village—my favorite of the day, second only to Vernazza. The sky is falling into a deep and brilliant blue, and there is a warm breeze on my skin. I slow the camera’s shutter, and the effect creates a dreamy mist on the waves as they crash towards the shore, and turns the pulsing of the street lights into a constellation of finely pointed stars.

Veramente questa è la vita.

This truly is living.

2010 - Italy

Friday, June 11, 2010

by Deborah Guber1 Comment on Friday, June 11, 2010

It’s my last day in the Cinque Terre and I’m determined to make the most of it, if not wholly by land than by sea. I think it’s time to buy a ferry ticket.

The first boat doesn’t depart Monterosso al Mare until 10:30 AM, so I bide my time in the Old Town. I do a little shopping and visit the church of San Giovanni Battista and the oratory of the Confraternita dei Bianchi.

It’s a beautiful morning, but the sea is rolling hard and when the ferry arrives the passengers need help to board, since the wheels of the gangplank are sliding forward and backward on the dock.

The journey to Vernazza takes all of 10 minutes, and the contrast and ease of transportation makes me laugh when I think of the 2 hours I spent hiking there on Wednesday afternoon. The experience was well worth it, but now I can’t help feeling like a kid playing hooky from school.

I hop off to explore the town on fresh legs. I duck into the church of Santa Margherita d’Antiochia, and then decide to follow the footpath towards Corniglia—not all the way—but far enough to catch a scenic view of Vernazza from the south. I also climb to the top of the Doria Castle for another stunning view of the harbor and the surrounding rooftops. And then, before I go, I grab a slice of foccacia bread from Batti Batti’ for lunch, and the green of the pesto, layered on a thin coating of red tomato sauce, with a white slice of melted mozzarella cheese reminds me vaguely of the flag. Viva Italia!

I reach the harbor just in time to catch the 12:20 ferry south and for the next hour ride it pleasantly past Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore, all the way down to Portovenere. We see the ancient church of San Pietro first, and then swing around the bend toward the town and its famous “Palazzata”—a fortress of narrow houses crowned by a castle on the hill.

Portovenere faces the “Gulf of Poets,” named for those eternal friends, Byron and Shelley. Byron’s history here is rather dashing, recorded on an archway above a cave. The inscription reads: “This grotto was the inspiration of Lord Byron. It records the immortal poet who as a daring swimmer defied the waves of the sea from Portovenere to Lerici.”

As for Shelley, he penned the lines I recalled on my first day in Rome, the ones that spoke of his leaving England and of the “loveliness of the earth and the serenity of the sky” in Italy as making “the greatest difference” in his sensations. Yet in spite of that, his years here were filled with unspeakable tragedy—the deaths of three children, and the demise of his friend and fellow poet John Keats. Shelley himself perished nearby in 1822 when his boat, the Don Juan, was hit by a storm on the way from Livorno to Lerici.

On a glorious day in June such things seem unimaginable, and so as I amble out past the yachts in the harbor toward the spit of land on which the church of San Pietro rises organically from the rock, and lower myself down onto the steps, I think of the words Shelley penned about this place more than his fate, and find them fitting:

I sat and saw the vessels glide
Over the ocean bright and wide

I walk slowly back through the town with a dish of lemon and strawberry gelato, and then along a back street toward the Porto del Borgo. At the foot of the stone gate, under a 15th century fresco of the Madonna and Child with Saints Peter and Lorenzo, an old woman sits, leaning on her cane. She’s holding a handwritten sign on a square of cardboard that reads: Sono una nonna malata e povera bisogno di vostro aiuto. Grazie. It says she is a sick grandmother, and poor, and in need of help. She has a kind face and I drop a few coins into her basket, knowing I can do little but wanting to do something.

In the late afternoon, I board the ferry for the hour long journey back to Monterosso al Mare, where I retreat to my air conditioned room at the Hotel Margherita to rest before dinner and to post some of the day’s pictures online.

Since it’s my last night along the coast, I decide to take the train to Vernazza for dinner. It’s my favorite of the Cinque Terre towns, and the one I keep returning to time and again. I’m in search of a view tonight, so at 7:00 PM I ascend the long narrow steps leading up to Ristorante Al Castello, perched high above the water near the Doria Castle, under a protective row of red and black striped umbrellas. I order a green salad, some pesto lasagna, and a slice of lemon cake for dessert, and smile when a woman at the table next to mine asks the waiter if he knows they are in the Rick Steves book. He does, and says they are featured in the TV show, too!

After dinner, I walk down through the town and follow the footpath north, to the elevation from which I first saw Vernazza and its snug harbor. I set up my tripod and wait for the light to fade, all the while keeping an anxious eye on the train schedule. Lingering here is a risky move. Trains between La Spezia and Levanto run infrequently in the evenings and many skip Vernazza entirely. If I delay too long, I may miss the 9:44 and have a long wait on my hands—a not unpleasant proposition, but one that would rob me of the sleep I crave.

I lean over and look through the viewfinder. The street lights have come on, the day’s laundry has dried, and most of the swimsuits and beach towels have been pulled in by their owners. The church bells may toll at the top of the hour, but by then I’ll be well on my way, back to Monterosso al Mare, where I leave for Milan in the morning.

I must hurry and press the shutter. Night is descending, and I want nothing more than to steal the moment and take it with me.

Click.

2010 - Italy

Saturday, June 12, 2010

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Saturday, June 12, 2010

This morning I’m traveling by train to Milan. It’s a three hour journey, so there is ample time to sit back, read, and reflect. I pull out my iPod and tap on the Kindle reader. Soon, I’m back with my old friend Henry James, immersed in his Italian Hours.

When it comes to Milan, he says, “in its general aspect still lingers a northern reserve which makes the place rather perhaps the last of the prose capitals than the first of the poetic.” After spending yesterday afternoon staring across the Gulf of Poets, and finding all of the Ligurian coast perfectly disposed to lyrical verse, this has me worried. I’m reading between the lines, and Milan doesn’t sound very interesting.

I know just four things about Milan—it’s a large city, long considered the financial capital of Italy; with names such as Ferragamo, Versace, and Valentino, it has a major influence in the world of fashion; it is home to Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper”; and it has a famous cathedral. Altogether these seem like promising ingredients, worth a three night stay.

My entrance into Milan through the massive Centrale train station is not auspicious, however. It’s early afternoon and the weather has turned. The crystal blue skies I enjoyed in the Cinque Terre have been replaced by a suffocating blanket of grey.

I’m staying nearby at the Hotel Berna. It’s a nice place—quite luxurious on the inside, actually—but as in most cities the area surrounding the station feels a bit seedy. There is a Thai massage parlor next door and, according to the sign, a “Sexy Shop” across the street.

After checking in and unpacking my bag, I buy a day pass for the Metro and ride the yellow line four stops down to the Duomo. When I emerge from the subway below, the massive cathedral stands before me and at first all I can think to compare it to is a wedding cake. It is, perhaps, an overused comparison when it comes to ornate architecture. Londoners refer to the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace as the “wedding cake,” just as Romans call the Vittorio Emanuele II monument in Piazza Venezia the “wedding cake.” There is even a private home in Kennebunk, Maine that locals dub the “wedding cake.” But here I’ll allow myself some latitude. After all, Twain suggested it more than a century ago in the Innocents Abroad. He thought it was “a delusion of frostwork that might vanish with a breath!” and I find myself hard pressed to improve upon the metaphor.

Reaction to the cathedral has always been mixed. It took workmen nearly 600 years to complete it, using a jumble of architectural styles, and even then it required a direct order from Napoleon Bonaparte to finish it off in 1805. John Ruskin, that cranky arbiter of good taste, hated it. Henry James was more circumspect, declaring it a “structure not supremely interesting, not logical, not… commandingly beautiful, but grandly curious and superbly rich… If it had no other distinction it would still have that of impressive, immeasurable achievement… a supreme embodiment of vigorous effort.” It’s hardly a ringing endorsement, but as for me, I like it well enough.

The interior is a massive cavern, supported by fluted columns of grey stone that rise from the floor like giant sequoias, between which oil paintings are suspended. There is some impressive stained glass, a graphic sculpture of a flayed St. Bartholomew carrying his skin slung over his shoulder, and an interesting treasury below with jeweled goblets and reliquaries. But the real highlight lies above, way above. I make my way back outside and around the corner where I purchase a ticket for the elevator that speeds me to the roof. From here, visitors can walk among the flying buttresses, admiring the thousands of statues that stand like sentries at the top of lacy spires. A little girl nearby says in amazement to her mother: “But why did they put them all the way up here where no one can see them?”

Back on the piazza, I walk next door to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a 19th century shopping arcade named for the first king of a unified Italy. The soaring space inside is covered by a vaulted glass ceiling and it reminds me of a cathedral, although clearly it is the god of commerce that is worshipped here.

I scan the mosaic tile on the floor, looking for the coat of arms of the city of Torino. There is a bull in the center, and in my guidebook it says that if you place your right heel on the animal’s testicles and spin around, it will bring good luck. I’m not in the least superstitious, but I give it a whirl anyway, figuring it can’t hurt. It can’t hurt me, in any event. Unfortunately, a century or more of this clearly has hurt the bull, because the poor beast’s underbelly has worn away into a deep crater.

I walk around the Galleria a bit, but I’m too timid to actually enter any of the shops, which include Prada, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton. There is, however, a McDonalds, and I find the juxtaposition so intriguing that I’m tempted to grab an early dinner there. Unfortunately, I settle on the nearby Caffè Letterario instead.

Every region of Italy has its own signature dishes. In Rome it’s saltimbocca and in Milan it’s ossobuco—a classic braised veal shank, usually served with saffron risotto. This is what I have my heart set on, although in retrospect a Big Mac would have been the better culinary choice. Yes, I am eating in the stylish Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, which has its own rewards, but the food is horrible, and to add insult to injury, wildly overpriced.

Later, I stumble across a blog called The Simplistic Aphrodisiac. The author visited the same restaurant just two days before me and he says that the experience was “memorable,” but for all the wrong reasons. “After having had so many delightful meals throughout the trip, I finally hit a brick wall with this deceitfully established restaurant in downtown Milan.” And boy, does that ever hit the proverbial nail on the head!

As I walk down Via Dante toward the Castello Sforzesco, I find myself falling into a sour mood. The street itself fails to impress and just as I reach the grounds of the castle, they are pulling the gates closed for the day. On the way back to the metro and the Hotel Berna, with its “Sexy Shop” across the street, I give in and finally admit that I don’t like Milan.

I wonder if I somehow overslept on the train and slipped quietly over the border into, say, Switzerland. Henry James was right. Milan, indeed, symbolizes the “supreme embodiment of vigorous effort.” Its solid streets, banks, and shops represent “difficulties mastered, resources combined, labour, courage and patience”—all admirable qualities, to be sure, but as travelers we seldom want to visit such joyless places.

My Italy exists in poetry. When Milan speaks, I hear only prose.

2010 - Italy

Sunday, June 13, 2010

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Sunday, June 13, 2010

I wake up this morning determined to do one thing. Leave Milan. Yes, I’m holding a grudge, and it is an admittedly hasty and irrational one, but nonetheless I’ve scratched the remaining items off my to-do list. The Brera Art Gallery and the La Scala theatre museum? Nixed. I’m fleeing town to spend the afternoon on the shores of Lake Como instead.

First, though, I need to speed through breakfast, which is shame since the Hotel Berna lays out a mighty fine spread. I have a 9:30 AM reservation to see Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” at the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, and given how hard those slots are to obtain, I don’t want to take any chance of being late. I had tried to book online months ago, but every slot on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday appeared to be full. It was a tip on the TripAdvisor forums that led me to call directly, and I have to be there thirty minutes early to pick up my ticket.

I take the metro’s green line down to Cadorna and walk from there, first along Via Giosue Carducci, and then Corso Magenta. There’s some ongoing construction in the piazza in front of the church and in navigating around it, I happen by a bus stop with two large posters advertising Almo Nature, alimenti per cani e gatti, dal loro punto di vista—“food for cats and dogs, from their point of view.” The ads depict humans wearing Venetian-style animal masks, posed amorously under the tagline l’amore… love. In each, there is a woman who is topless. I know that Europeans have a more relaxed view of these things and that they consider Americans to be rather prudish when it comes to nudity—and perhaps we are—but I still think it’s strange, and not just because of its proximity to a major religious site. It’s just such an odd way to sell pet food.

I collect my ticket at the front desk and read some displays on the history of the church as I wait for my time to be called. Leonardo painted “The Last Supper” over a span of two years beginning in 1496. It’s on a wall at the far end of the refectory, which was used as the convent’s dining hall. I hadn’t known this, and it makes the subject matter surprisingly appropriate, for it is, after all, the depiction of a meal.

Rather than traditional fresco, Leonardo used an experimental technique, painting tempura directly on dry plaster, and the application caused problems from the start. By the late-19th century when Henry James visited Milan, the work was in a state of serious deterioration. He wrote that it was “an illustrious invalid whom people visit to see how he lasts, with leave-taking sighs and almost death-bed or tiptoe precautions.” For my tour group, that includes standing in a dehumidification chamber before entering the room. And photography is, of course, strictly off limits.

When we enter at last, it takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim lighting. It’s a short visit, limited to just 15 minutes, and like with the Mona Lisa in Paris and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, it feels surreal to be standing here looking at something I’ve seen a thousand times before, on T-shirts, magnets, and computer mouse pads, to say nothing of the countless parodies, including an Annie Leibowitz version starring the cast of The Sopranos.

I’m standing with an English-speaking guide and she tells us that Leonardo has captured the moment when Christ says to his disciples: “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” The movement around the table is dramatic and it tells of their reaction. All of this would be easier to appreciate if our well-meaning narrator would just stop talking. She quizzes us incessantly, and valuable minutes slip by as she prods us to play what amounts to a hidden object game. Who can spot the salt on the table? How about a knife? An orange? When no one answers, she is clearly annoyed. With so little of the original paint left, and so many different hands at work in so many restorations, it’s simply hard to tell.

The miracle, however, is that it has survived at all, and not just because of Leonardo’s poor technique. The work was once considered so inconsequential that Christ’s feet were actually cut off to make room for a doorway. During the Napoleonic war, French troops used the space as a stable. And it only survived an Allied bomb during the Second World War because of some carefully placed sandbags.

I’m glad I came, and for this, at least, I may reconsider my harsh views on Milan, but for now Lake Como beckons.

My visit to Santa Maria delle Grazie has been so short that for a moment I think I might actually make the 10:20 AM train to Varenna, and I would have had the lines for the self-service ticket machines been shorter at Centrale station. The next train is at 12:20 PM, so I use the time to grab a panino and to pre-buy some train tickets for tomorrow.

The journey to Varenna is a memorable one, with increasingly beautiful scenery out the window. In just over an hour, I’ve left the traffic and noise of Milan far behind. I walk from the train station down to the docks, and stare out across one of the oldest, deepest, and loveliest glacial lakes in Italy. There are lumpy mountains all around, made of bald rock and half covered by a carpet of vegetation. As I look north towards the Alps, I can see remnants of winter at the highest elevations, although the white of the snow is melting into low lying clouds.

Just across the lake, I spy an impossibly tiny church—the Shrine of San Martino—hugging the cliffs above the town of Griante. Twain called Lake Como a “paradise of tranquil repose” in the Innocents Abroad, and waxed poetically about the “music of the vesper bells… stealing over the water.” It may be too early in the day for that, but surely he’s captured the spirit of the place.

At a small ticket counter on the waterfront, I buy a ferry pass to Bellagio. The lake is shaped like an upside-down Y and Bellagio rests at the fork, on a peninsula of land known as the “Larian Triangle.” The area has always been a magnet for celebrities and aristocrats, and when seen from the water, their lakefront villas—like something out of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”—stir my envy.

Clouds are starting to gather overhead, so in the event of rain, I decide to stroll through the Villa Melzi Gardens first before heading into town. The estate was built in the early 19th century for Francesco Melzi d’Eril, a politician who served as Vice President of the Italian Republic during the years of Napoleonic rule.

It’s a beautiful space, built in a neo-classical style that feels more English than Italian. There are lily ponds and rock gardens, a shaded path along the lake, and an octagonal gazebo with a sky blue roof. And everywhere, it seems, there are elegant marble statues and flowers at the peak of their color. I once complained about the Boboli Gardens in Florence, and my grumbling seems even more justified now that I have a point of comparison.

When I leave I’ve already filled the third of my camera’s 8 GB storage cards. I reach into my pocket. It’s on to the fourth!

I walk back into Bellagio proper and wander its hilly lanes. I visit the 12th century Romanesque church of San Giacomo, which has an ornate golden altar and a superb apse mosaic with medieval knights in shining armor, but as in the Cinque Terre there really aren’t any major historical or cultural sites here. It’s simply a charming place to wile away the afternoon. I buy a lavender scarf made locally of raw silk, and before I go, I break for a late lunch under the awnings of Ristorante Suisse. It seems an appropriate choice being this close to the border with Switzerland, and I feast on what would seem to be a culinary compromise—a plate of fettuccine with sundried tomatoes, capers, caramelized onions, and goat cheese.

I reboard the ferry, and once back at the dock in Varenna—the self-proclaimed “jewel” of Lake Como—I walk along the lakeside promenade and into the town, which is smaller and quieter than Bellagio, more fishing village than resort. There is a small harbor where a collection of park benches face out toward the lake, and I sit there for a while, relaxing and eating a dish of chocolate and hazelnut gelato from a shop nearby.

It’s just after 6:00 PM when I head back to Milan on the train. The rain has held off and there is still light left in the sky when I arrive back at the Hotel Berna to tuck in early for the night.

2010 - Italy

Monday, June 14, 2010

by Deborah GuberLeave a Comment on Monday, June 14, 2010

This morning I’m heading to “fair Verona, where we lay our scene.”

William Shakespeare is the world’s most famous poet, and “Romeo and Juliet” arguably his most celebrated play, so I’m about to see if the city lives up to its vaulted description.

It’s 11 AM when I arrive at Porta Nuova station on a train from Milan. I pause at the tabacchi shop inside to buy a Verona Card that will cover my admission fees for the day, as well as local transport, and then grab a bus to Piazza Bra.

It’s a great expanse of space, centered around a circular park, a fountain, and a statue of the ever popular Vittorio Emanuele II. Across the street, a row of elegant buildings follows a graceful arc, most with green awnings for restaurants below, and at the far end, the city’s most notable attraction—a 1st century A.D. Roman arena—stands in proud contrast.

Outside the arena, costumed actors pose for pictures. A man dressed as a Roman soldier attracts attention by thrusting his arms high in the air, pointing an index finger on each hand. A tourist in a straw hat and polo shirt grins sheepishly as a fierce looking female warrior with bleach blond hair and low cut armor holds a dagger to his chest for dramatic effect.

I enter through an archway and climb the stairs to the top row for a better view. An elaborate stage is set and there is a work crew preparing for an upcoming performance of Puccini’s Turandot. It would be wonderful, I think, to see an opera under the stars, but when I cast my eyes across the rows of stone steps—there are very few actual seats—memories of an uncomfortable three hour play at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London come rushing back and I have second thoughts.

I walk down Via Mazzini, a lively street lined with shops, to Piazza delle Erbe, the city’s handsome market square. To get my bearings, I take an elevator, and then spiral stairs, to the top of the adjacent Torre dei Lamberti, which offers a gorgeous view across an ocean of red tiled roofs, from which church steeples rise like lighthouse beacons. I look down at my map and then out again at the city and spot the remains of a Roman theatre across the river on the hill. It seems my itinerary for the day is settled.

But first, there is a bit of tourist nonsense in which to partake. Shakespeare’s characters are fictional, but that doesn’t stop visitors from flocking to what is purported to be Juliet’s house, the Casa di Giulietta. There is a balcony, of course, and people pay to stand there for the thrill of reenacting the play’s most memorable scene:

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!

There is also a statue of Juliet in the courtyard and the lovelorn stand in line for an opportunity to take pictures and to rub Juliet’s breast for luck. Indeed, so many have done so that the bronze has been burnished to a blinding gold. And finally, there are the love notes left behind, affixed to the walls of an archway. There are layers of them, one on top the other, with graffiti underneath. Hannah & Richard. Ira & Kim. Renée & Greg. Where are they now? One note, written on red paper and cut into the shape of a heart, reads: “Wifey, Sorry 4 cheating on you. I love u way more than everyone. Happy to meet you and get married. Love of my life 4 ever and ever. Can’t wait to see u again.” I laugh out loud when I see it. There’s just got to be an interesting story there!

I retrace my steps to Piazza Bra and slip down a narrow alley to Cangrande Osteria and Enoteca for lunch, a spot recommended in my guidebook. The manager is friendly and he helps me select a glass of wine to pair with my antipasto of marinated vegetables and my plate of ravioli.

Feeling refreshed, I set off for the trio of churches I saw earlier from the top of the Lamberti tower. At Sant’ Anastasia I admire the vaulted ceiling, which is richly painted, an unusual pair of 15th century holy water stoups supported by carved hunchbacks, and Pisanello’s well-loved fresco “St. George and the Princess” above the Pellegrini Chapel.

Moving on, the city’s cathedral is a bright, airy space dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta. I especially like the whimsical details in trompe l’oeil. Above the Cartolari-Nichesola chapel, a pair of chubby cupids play music—one a flute, the other a triangle—and still higher on the wall, two pairs of soldiers with spears relax on a cornice, one with a leg slung over the ledge, bare toes pointing out. The effect is so real that it’s hard to distinguish the painted surfaces from the carved.

I cross Ponte Garabaldi to the far side of the river and follow its path past Ponte Pietra, the ancient arch bridge that was nearly destroyed by bombs during World War II, but eventually repaired. From here I climb to the ruins of the Teatro Romano high on the hill. The site is interesting in and of itself—an attractive jumble of exposed stone, topped by a row of cypress trees—but as a bonus it comes with a spectacular view of the city, framed through the remains of an ancient colonnade.

I climb down and wander further along the river under I reach Ponte Navi. The afternoon is starting to wane, so I end my serious exploration of Verona at the church of San Fermo. In the apse there is a fresco that represents each of the gospels—the lion of St. Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, and the eagle of John. But the real highlight is the coffered ceiling, which looks like the wooden hull of a boat turned upside down, and on each side of the supports there are tiny Gothic arches that frame medieval paintings of the saints. I haven’t enjoyed such an interesting array of small churches this much since Arezzo.

As I make by way back to Piazza delle Erbe, I stop for gelato, of course—this time ordering scoops of mango and lemon. As I’m eating, I watch an artist on the street. He’s showing off for the crowd, stepping back from his work thoughtfully and then touching up details here and there. I’m marginally impressed until I notice that he’s not really painting at all. The canvas is already dry and his duplicity has me wondering if it was crafted not in Verona but in some Asian sweatshop instead.

I circle back towards Piazza Bra, but this time along Corso Porta Borsari to catch a glimpse of the 1st century AD remains of the city’s original entrance gate. I arrived here by bus in the morning, but now I’m not quite sure where to board for the return trip. In the end, I decide that it would be easier to walk there, down Corso Porta Nuova, through the arches of the “new gate,” and past the city walls to the station, where there’s train at 7:32 PM heading back to Milan.

Along the way, I mull over the ancient Roman sights, and the elegant architecture, and the relaxed pace of the day, and come to the conclusion that with or without its Shakespearean fame, “fair Verona” has been fair indeed.

2010 - Italy

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

by Deborah Guber1 Comment on Tuesday, June 15, 2010

I wish I hadn’t said anything.

When I turned in last night I noticed a hole in my bed sheet. OK, so it was worse than that. There was a small and deliberate hole cut out of the middle, about one inch square, but also a huge chunk hacked out of the side. It’s worn and frayed at the edges, so it must have been laundered that way at least several times and still reused.

This morning I decide to take it downstairs to bring it to the attention of the front desk, where I know they speak English well. The clerk is appalled and he immediately calls for the head of housekeeping who, when she sees it, slaps a hand to her mouth and cries “Mamma Mia!” Soon, I’m told that the maid who serviced my room has been summoned to account for her mistake and she’s in tears.

I feel just terrible. I’m not in the least angry about the situation. I just want to make sure that the offending sheet is taken out of circulation, but the hotel insists on taking 50% off the bill for my last night’s stay, apologizing profusely. It’s a kind gesture and I leave feeling warm toward the staff at the Hotel Berna. I just hope the maid is all right.

I walk the short distance to Centrale station in Milan and wait for the 9:35 AM Eurostar train to Venice. This is the last leg of my journey; from there I’ll fly home. In truth, I’m growing weary at this point in my travels, but I’m also loath to see it end.

When I arrive at Santa Lucia station at noon, it’s pouring down rain—which after so many days of fine weather was bound to happen sooner or later. To save a few Euros for arriving mid-week, I booked a 72-hour Venice Connected transport pass online and now I have to pick it up. With my printed confirmation in hand, the instructions say to look for “the ferry embarkation point to the left of the station.” Unfortunately, I take that to mean to the left of the station as I depart down the steps. By the time I correct the error and walk back and to the right, I’m soaking wet and so is my luggage.

As I wait for the vaporetto that will take me to San Stae, I think about the contrast between this arrival in Venice and my last. On my first visit in 2008, I likened the experience to a C.S. Lewis novel. It was as if I had walked through a wardrobe and found the world of Narnia on the other side, and it made my heart leap with excitement. Today, I can’t help feeling a bit disappointed. There’s no time to stand in awe at the Grand Canal. It’s all I can do to manage my luggage and camera case and umbrella in the rain.

Still, the Hotel Al Ponte Mocenigo is as welcoming as I remembered, and like in Florence I’m ushered to the very same room I inhabited two years before. It’s comforting to mingle the fond memories I have of that trip with those I’m currently making. I change shoes and do the best I can to prepare for the weather by sliding a plastic sleeve over my camera, and then head out into the torrent.

I decide to walk toward St. Mark’s Square, and along the way stop at Cicchetteria Da Jorghe for lunch. They serve what the waiter calls a “special toast” and it’s delicious—an open faced sandwich with tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, and basil, along with a variety of less identifiable but equally savory ingredients. I feel better having something warm in my stomach.

When I reach the square, it too is a different kind of experience this time around. On my first trip, the weather was glorious for four days straight, so to see Venice in the rain is to embrace a different Venice, and it has a casual charm of its own. After all, this is a city for which flooding is not an annoyance, or even an inconvenience, but a mere fact of life, and because of that it seems more real and less like a theme park for tourists.

I take shelter under the long arcade in St. Mark’s Square and circle around window shopping. At Pauly & Co. the art glass is a thing of absolute wonder. There is large fish, a centipede, and a series of balloon animals that would surely pass for the real thing. I’d be tempted to take one home if the price tags didn’t run into thousands of Euros, but they do. And that’s just that beginning. There’s a green fedora for €7,500, and a folded shirt, complete with buttons, for €8,100. They’ve even made what would appear to be Cinderella’s glass slipper, and at nearly €11,000 I would need to marry Prince Charming to be able to afford it.

When the rain slows, I venture west toward the Accademia bridge and the art museum on the far side. It’s a steaming mass of humanity on a day like this, and I should have known better. Crowds are seeking shelter from the storm, and the air inside is thick and humid. I follow behind a woman with a blue guidebook in her hand. She has three children in tow—one a surly teenager, the other two much younger. We are standing in a room filled with Renaissance art and she spins them around searching only for the pieces Rick Steves recommends. There are so many Madonnas and Bambinos to choose from, and she insists on finding the one by Giovanni Bellini. It’s like playing a game of Where’s Waldo, only more challenging and less fun. I glance over at the kids and feel sure they’d agree. I could use a Bellini myself right about now, but the one I have in mind is more liquid in form.

Wanting fresh air, I take a short walk toward the church of Santa Maria della Salute, whose dome is, at long last, free of scaffolding. It’s nearly 6:00 PM and the rain seems to have come to a reluctant end. There is a classical guitarist playing nearby and I catch snatches of music as I wander in and out of shops in search of Murano glass jewelry.

For dinner, I already have plans in mind. A colleague from work recently returned from Venice and he’s recommended a pizzeria called Al Nono. I looked up the restaurant before leaving home and have a computer printout from Google Maps to guide me, but this is Venice, after all. There is nothing as precise as a street address because there aren’t any real streets. Instead, there is a number associated with a particular neighborhood, or sestiere. The one I’m looking for is Santa Croce 2338. Google Maps places it just to the west of Ca’ Foscari, and if I can find Campo Santa Margherita, it’s not far from there.

Finding the campo is easy enough because it’s unusually large, but Al Nono is no where to be found. A young couple sees me squinting at a map and stops to ask for help. They’ve checked into a hostel for the night, but went out exploring and now they can’t find it again. The best that I can do is to show them where we’re standing, but that basic logistical fact is of little help because they don’t know where they’re going, and quite frankly neither do I. I wish them well, they shrug with a cheerful resignation, and I continue my hunt for number 2338.

Eventually, I can feel myself getting warmer. I’m into the 2000s and then the 2300s, but that exact number simply doesn’t exist. Frustrated, I decide to give up and zigzag back to the hotel.

At the front desk of the Hotel Al Ponte Mocenigo, I ask the clerk if he’s ever, by chance, heard of a pizzeria called Al Nono. “Of course,” he says, “it’s just around the corner.” Incredulous, I ask him if he’s kidding and he says no, it’s literally three turns away. He pulls out a map and a pen and shows me. One. Two. Three.

So much for Google Maps. Go figure.

Perhaps it’s because of the damp weather, or perhaps it because of the epic quest that brought me here, but Al Nono fails to live up to expectations. It’s a cozy place with a lively clientele made up mostly of locals, but the food is middling. I order a pizza with prosciutto, pepperoni, and mushrooms, but find that the tomato sauce is bland and the mushrooms rather soggy.

When I leave the restaurant I look overhead and see that the sky is continuing to improve. The night is still young, so I wind my way back to St. Mark’s Square to hear the orchestras play. Lavena’s is midway through “Skoda Lasky” when I arrive. It’s a Polish tune that we’re more likely to recognize as the “Beer Barrel Polka,” and before long all that I have ever known and loved about Venice has come rushing back, and I find myself tapping my toe in time to the music.