Can I go back yet?

Family and friends have politely inquired about my trip to Italy. Just in case some of you really do want to hear and see more, this blog's for you. Feel free to browse. Obviously the posting dates won't have any remote connection to the days of the trip, but you'll figure it out. Should you feel inclined to add a comment, go for it. I would love to hear from all of you.

Our trip itinerary:
Two nights in Vernazza, Cinque Terre
Four nights in Rome
Five nights in Siena, Tuscany with day trips to Florence and around the region
One night in Venice
Two nights in Milan

Here we go!

Blurry Eyes and Happy Faces

Thirteen hours in the air to Milan, followed by 3 hours in the car. My fellow road warriors and I arrive in Vernazza a bit tousled but full of excitement. We must park outside the town and then walk in. Thank goodness we limited our luggage to one rolling carry-on each.

Cast of Road Warriors:
Front row - Marianne Bach, Me
Back row - Tom Bach, Jill Tackabery, Neal Tackabery

A note about Italian roads

Love the Superstrade (like our interstate highways) and Autostrade (major toll road) that connect major destinations.

Especially love the Autogrills on the Superstrade...but more on that later.

Never, ever travel without a map. On the roads, the signage will not help unless one already has a pretty good idea of how to get where one is going. Having a driver and a navigator helps. In our car, we did even better--we had a driver and four navigators.

The cities/towns do not have blocks but rather a willy-nilly network of vehicular and pedestrian pathways. Even with a map, we got lost. So we learned to look up. The duomo in every town and city rises above the surrounding buildings. We could site our location just like mariners do with the North Star.

Love the traffic circles, but the signage there won't help, either. We saw many traffic circles with multiple exit options for the same destination. Like taking directions from the Scarecrow in Oz.

I think the Italians like us, I really do. However, there must be a small rebel group in charge of directions. And not just on the roads. We'll get to that in Pompeii.

Vernazza

The five villages of Cinque Terre nestle into the coastal hillside along the Italian Riviera. Running from east to west, Riomaggiore, Manarollo, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso comprise the five villages.

Vernazza originated in 1000 AD. Residents built the castle overlooking the Ligurian Sea in the 1500s as protection against pirates. Around 570 families live in Vernazza today, many descendants of original families.

Our Digs

We stayed at a small private hotel owned by a gentle, quiet woman named Enrica.

The hotel sits on the main, well, the only, street in Vernazza, right next door to a gelateria and a few doors up from an enoteca (wine shop).

Can you see the clothesline in the bottom of the windows? Only rain kept the ever-present clotheslines clear. An environmentally and economically sound practice by the Italians.

Mornings

Vernazza comes to life slowly, but starts early. Bars open in the morning to serve coffee and pastries. I think the same bakery supplies them all with the delicious brioche found in each.

Women run most of the bars in Vernazza in the morning, and their friends gather to start the day off with a bit of gossip.

I loved to go out early, purchase a cappuccino and a brioche and head to the piazza. Not many tourists visit in October, but I found a few others sitting at tables, enjoying the gentle start to the day. So different from the alarm clock buzz, leap out of bed habit at home.

Caffeine Delivery Systems

I love my morning coffee. Three cups and the newspaper. I expected the same leisurely approach in Italy. After all, I'd heard so much about people gathering in piazzas and campos to talk and watch the world go by.

Not so much. Morning visitors to the caffe bar, especially in larger cities, are all about ingesting caffeine efficiently. So one bellies up to the bar, orders an expresso or cappuccino, slugs it down and leaves. In many bars, the clients pay extra for the privilege of sitting.

So, number one on my list of things I missed most about home is my morning coffee ritual. Number one on my list of things I will miss most about Italy is the yummy cappuccinos.

Up, Up, UP!

Vernazza developed up rather than out. Buildings seem stacked on top of one another. We climbed 100 stairs to the restaurant where we ate dinner our first night.




Repairs to structures continue daily. I would not want to have the job of hauling the building materials up those stairs, even with this nifty cart with "tank wheels!"

In Cinque Terre even horticulture goes up, with vineyards and olive tree groves terraced into the hillsides.

Treacherous Trail

A hillside trail connects the five villages of Cinque Terre. We decided to walk the most challenging stretch from Vernazza to Monterosso. We climbed the rocky paths which at times were no wider than 1 1/2 feet, rock wall on one side and sheer drop on the other. From where we took the picture on the top, we looked back to Vernazza, Corniglia and Manarola. Trust me--they're there but impossible to see in this picture. The picture on the bottom looks west to Monterosso.

This part of the trail offered a generously sized path, stairs and a railing. Very unusual!

Almost at our destination, the travel warriors beam and dream of the picnic lunch we'll enjoy once we reach Monterosso.

Prosciutto, Salumi and Fromaggio

Italians have a thousand ways to combine some version of ham, salami and cheese--all of them delicioso! One can find these basics at any meal of the day, including breakfast.

(Number two on my list of things about home I missed the most is dairy product as part of breakfast. Yogurt, milk, eggs...I craved them after my 5th breakfast of brioche!)

We grabbed prosciutto, sopressata, mortadella, pecorino, and a fresh loaf of bread from a shop in Vernazza. Added fresh grapes from an outdoor market and two boxes of wine from an enoteca. Check out the price. Even with the conversion rate, it beats Three Buck Chuck from Trader Joe's. We put this on our short list of favorite meals and repeated this picnic twice during our two weeks in Italy.

So, number two on my list of things I'll miss about Italy is the omnipresent selection of fresh meats, cheeses and breads. Raised in a deli family, I consider the sandwich a perfect food!

Think you hate anchovies?

Well, think again. Our second night in Vernazza we ate at Gambero Rosso, the Red Shrimp, owned by the same family as the better-known Belforte (with outside dining high up overlooking the Ligurian Sea) that the family has owned for three generations. Giordi, one of the family, was our server for the evening and absolutely delightful. At his suggestion we ordered Monterosso anchovies for our antipasto. The chef served them four ways--lemon, pepper, fried and stuffed--and Giordi brought a platter with samples of all. The fish tasted suprisingly mild, especially compared to the anchovies most of us in the US eat. We felt like such culinary adventurers and were encouraged to try many other delicacies during our trip.

Giordi also introduced us to a lovely desert wine sciacchetra.

Are you Italian?

Giordi payed me the ultimate compliment by asking if I am Italian. I spoke to him when we entered the restaurant. Couldn't have been what I said because, despite an Italian class at home, my vocabulary couldn't fill a thimble. So, I'm thinking my accent did it. He was the first of several who asked the same thing.

I surely don't look Italian. My mother's grandparents came from Italy. My grandfather's family came from Naples and my grandmother's from the Avellino region, a little inland from Naples. My brother and sister both got the dark good looks and thick, wavy hair. Not me. I try not to hate them for it.

Things that go bump in the night

Trains connect the villages of Cinque Terre with the rails passing through each. During the day we could hear the train coming and going from anywhere in the village. The last train ran at around 9:00 pm or 21:00 Italian time. So, the sound surprised me the first night. Very loud, kind of like the sound of the train but without the bumpety texture of the tracks. Our second night the same sound awakened me several times. After comparing notes the next day, we realized we were listening to the wind wooshing in from the sea through the narrow main street of Vernazza!

The day's end

At the end of the day, residents and visitors gather in the Vernazza piazza to watch the sun go down. I did both nights. First with the entire travel warrior corps and the second with Jill. Both with wine, of course!

Andiamo a Roma

From Vernazza, we took the train to La Spezia and then hopped the rapido treno to the Roma Termini.

Dorothy, we're not in Kansas anymore! We'd left behind a quiet, slow-paced village and entered a city full of people, beauty....and frightful traffic. Our first real exposure to Italian drivers. Lions and tigers and bears are not nearly as scarey.

Stars

In Vernazza, a stylized star decorated the landing of the stairs to our rooms. Marianne and I noticed because it reminded us of a Moravian star, very familiar to folks from Winston-Salem.

Then we arrived in Roma and noticed the same motif in the hotel lobby lighting. Very interesting.

Next we spied the star in our Siena bed and breakfast. Do we detect a pattern?

Another star in Vinci at the museum. Wrong pattern?

Then again in Venezia.

We asked several times about the meaning and did not receive a good answer. We did a little online research and found that the star was a symbol for several guilds, including hoteliers, so maybe our pattern was right, just not the only one.

Anyone have an idea?

The city by night

We took a tour of main sites in Roma our first night from 6:00 to 9:00. Presto Tours' Ryan provided just the right amount of information and interesting tidbits about Rome's history and current culture. Highlights included Campo di Fiori, Piazza Nuvono, Trevi Fountain, Victor Emanuel monument, the Pantheon and the Spanish Steps.

The Pantheon glowed earily and tops my list of favorites of the night. At the bottom lies Victor Emanuel, in my opinion a vainglorious hodgepodge.

I hadn't realized how "recent" the unification of Italy took place--the late 1800's. Nor that Italians do not talk about World War II. The Italians have permanently sealed the door to the balcony in Piaza Venezia that Mussolini spoke from. Noone would speak from that balcony and risk any association between themselves and Mussolini.

E-space-cially Wise

I found myself loving the Italians' conservative use of space.

Our rooms had just enough room to sleep and dress. As the single person, I often had what we fondly referred to as a "sleeping cubbie."

Shops mostly served a single-purpose--the farmacia for medications, the enotica for wine, the glove shop, the tie shop, etc.. No Walmarts or CVSs or Macy's for the Italians. Owners tightly display their goods.

Instead of feeling claustrophobic, it all felt cozy and comfortable. I value that the conservative use of space also leads to a lower accumulation of belongings, which in turn keeps a lid on the race with the Joneses, or in Italy the Rossis.

So, that's the third thing I'll miss most about Italy. Well, except when it comes to showers.

Argentinian Cats

We also visited Largo Argentina our first night, ruins discovered in 1927. They include four temples and the Theater of Pompey where Brutus assassinated Julius Caeser. Archeologists continue excavation efforts.

In keeping with the Italian's neat use of space and environmentally friendly policies, the government also created the Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary on the site as a refuge for the hundreds (thousands?) of homeless cats in the city. Cool, huh?

Unmentionables

In Rome, I had my first exposure to the 3rd thing I missed most about home. Toilet seats! Puhlease, people. Sometimes you've just gotta sit. Some places have no more than a hole in the ground that they expect women to squat over. And the toilet seats they do have are not designed for my fanny. The top is rounded and the shape is more squoval (manicurists know what that means).

Fortunately, we encountered these instruments of torture only in public toiletti.

On the positive side, Italian toilets have two flush modes. (Think about it a minute.) Another ecologically sound practice. The fourth thing I'll miss most about Italy is how they weave taking care of the enivronment into their daily lives. More examples...

We enjoyed warmer weather our two days in Milan. The first evening I turned on the air conditioning for a short while before going to bed. The second night I couldn't get the darned thing to work, so I called down to the front desk. Seems they turn off the airconditioning from October 25 through sometime in May. Cool! Well, neat-o anyway.

At our hotel in Venice, we triggered the power in our room by inserting a room key into a special slot. I suppose I could have asked for an extra key, but, again, I liked the conservation smartness of it.

Vatican City

We spent our first full day in Rome at Vatican City. We began with a tour by Michael, again from Presto Tours. Michael came to Italy as a young man, fell in love with and married an Italian woman. Since we put Michael's age at around sixty, he's lived in the country a very long time.

Michael entertained us with his knowledge of Vatican City history, the contents of the museo and his enthusiasm. Our three hour tour turned into over four hours--including a lunch break for, what else?, ham, salami and cheese panini--because we all enjoyed ourselves so much.

This was their home

I didn't take many pictures inside the museo, but bought a book instead. No picture we took would begin to do justice to the wonderous array of art and artifacts.

One of the first rooms in the museo is a hall of early Roman sculpture. While the Greeks believed in honoring human perfection, the Roman's believed in honoring the real person. As a result, the busts and sculptures in the gallery brought to life the people of ancient Rome, each with his or her own personality and quirks. I could easily imagine them in temples, at meals with family and at work.

Top of the World

We climbed over 200 steps to the top of St. Peters' dome. The stairs were oddly spaced and sized so I had to pay a lot of attention to where I was going. As we reached the top, the outside wall began to curve in on top of us leaving a narrow space for walking. I found that a little uncomfortable and was glad to finally reach the top. What a view! A breathtaking panorama of Rome (a Romarama?)spread before us.

Inside St. Peters

Michael told me that the nicest public mass at St. Peters is at 5:00 with organ music and a choir adding to the experience. I decided to stay while the others enjoyed a glass of wine and snack at a nearby trattoria. The music reverberated within the marble walls so beautifully. The priest, actually three of them, said the mass in Latin, but I remembered enough from childhood to respond appropriately most of the time.

The Bernini Cathedra Petri provides a marvelous backdrop to mass and encases the episcopal chair of St. Peter himself.

Priests manned the confessionals before mass, but I must confess that I did not. Each confessional had a language posted so that folks of every nationality could participate in the sacrament. It looked like the confessors would have to kneel on the outside, while the priest sat behind the closed door. A little strange, I thought, so I waited for someone, anyone, to come so that I could watch and see what I should do. I asked the young man standing guard at the entry, but he did not speak English. No one came and I gave up. A disappointment, although I'm sure the absolution bestowed by my parish priests will work as well as absolution received in St. Peters.

Did you know the Pope wears a tiara?

The papal tiara, a three-tiered jewelled crown. Puts what I normally think of as a tiara, diva style, to shame. Bet it's heavy as heck, though.

Pompeii

Jill and I took a day trip to Pompeii from Rome. When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be an archeologist. Ancient cultures still fascinate me and I didn't want to miss this opportunity.

We took a bus down with Fabio, an archeology student, as a guide. Really, that's his name. And, no, he didn't have bulging muscles and flowing hair, more's the pity.

He gave us some background on Pompeii as we drove down, but we were on our own in Pompeii. Based on several recommendations we bought the self-guided audio tour.

Someone, somewhere in the bowls of some governmental building, cackles every time a foreign tourist rents one. They are incredibly difficult to follow, providing loose directions to the location discussed in each segment. Then they describe what was rather than what is and I can assure you that the was and is are very different. In Pompeii, the deviants went a step further and had three different numbering systems for each landmark. One in the book that went with the audio tour, and two represented by plaques on the landmarks, none of them correlating in even a small way!

Must be the same folks in charge of auto and superstrade signs.

Temple of Jupiter

Pompeii Forum

Footprint of a Pompeii home and a dining room fresco

Pompeii Forum Baths

Pompeii Columns

I am so intrigues by the wall sections unveiled here. Even on a flat surface, the laying of the stones and different shapes used creates interesting patterns. The architects of Pompeii considered the aesthetics even in areas that were not meant to be seen.

We learned that when Vesuvius erupted, the citizens of Pompeii were still making repairs to damage from a 7.5 earthquake 17 years earlier. Did any of the 62AD residents move after the earthquake? Seems another tribute to man's neverending ability to dismiss danger. Sort of like rebuilding in the California hills after a major fire.