In Florence for the First Three Days
Delta showed every reason why they are going belly-up. The plane seemed ancient with scattered movie screens with everyone watching the same thing. The headset audio was wretched. The people on the plane were nice and helpful, but the check-in staff in Rome coming back was horrible and we never did get any kind of explanation for our two-hour delay going over. I might fly Delta again if the travel time is under two hours, but I’m probably through with them for good.
We had a great location in Florence. We were by the river with a five minute walk to the Duomo which is the skyline landmark of the city.
(Photo Courtesy of the German couple that loved headroom.)I saw a great documentary on the Medici family a year or so ago and this was the city they owned for 300 years. They were the patrons of Leonardo and Michelangelo and Raphael and they even produced a few Pope’s, one of which hired Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel.
I was first aware of Florence when I saw the 1960s Disney film ESCAPADE IN FLORENCE. It wasn’t much of a movie, but I was a kid and they were riding motor scooters all through the city and the plot wrapped around some art thefts and it always stuck in my mind that I needed to see Florence to see these paintings. Their main Museum is the Uffizi and we could walk there in 5 minutes. All the big Renaissance artists were present as were a bunch of medieval painters, but it was a big disappointment to me.
Medieval art is not much to look at, with its flat surfaces and endless unidentified saints with their not too subtle halos overhead. But the renaissance work only seemed to add a third dimensional quality and little to the plot line. One of the few exceptions was Leonardo’s “Annunciation.” His use of lines and distance was very captivating.
Much of the rest played out like an art class where every painter of the day gave us his version of Madonna and Child with a 5 year-old midget posing as the baby Jesus. The other assignment seemed to be creating the most tortured looking Christ either on the cross or on his way to calvary. It’s not like they didn’t have enough material from the New Testament to choose from. Some of this art was literally made for headboards and given to lucky couples as a wedding gift. It would certainly spoil the mood to put it politely.
On the last day we made the obligatory trip to the Academia to see Michelangelo’s “David.” I’m not a big sculpture fan and it’s not a very big museum despite the fact that it’s priced like an all-day ticket. I’ve seen so many replicas of David that I already knew what it looked like. Mom even had a small one in the living room when I was a kid. There were two big replicas of David around town, one in the place where the original one use to stand near the Uffizi and one on a hill across the river. I’m here to say that no replica does the thing justice.
(We weren't allowed to shoot the original, but here is one of the duplicates.)The original is 12 feet tall and made of the cleanest whitest marble. You first see it at a distance and it’s beautiful. As you walk closer you start to notice details and it loses none of its magic.
The Academia also housed the “prisoners” statues that Michelangelo never finished or decided they were better undone. They really look like people trying to escape the marble. Michelangelo is a genius that lives up to the hype. It was just as evident looking at the Sistine Chapel ceiling later in Rome and comparing it to the Sistine chapel walls painted by others. His work seems to tell a story with action whereas his contemporaries were posing people for a picture.
We also toured the Medici palace that is currently used as a government building. Not worth the price or time really. We went to the church where Michelangelo, Leonardo, Dante, and Machiavelli are buried. It was like an Italian version of Westminster Abbey.
Just walking the city was fun and we shopped at a nearby market for breakfast and Trish enjoyed Buffalo Mozzarella every morning for a fraction of the U.S. cost. I bought an Italian leather hat the first morning so as not to give myself away as an American with the baseball cap. Nearly everyone made us for Americans anyway what with my non-Italian leather bomber jacket. They’d start speaking English to us from 15 feet away.
We saw “David” on a Friday during the first of two general strikes we witnessed in Italy. It has something to do with the upcoming election and it was a great example of the European love of socialism. The Galleria closed at 1:45 that day because of the strike and we would have missed “David” entirely if we had not showed up early. We happened along a demonstration in the square behind the Galleria and it was right out of some movie from the 1940s with the old fashion platform speakers and guys shaking their fists and speaking like the revolution was on its way. We saw peace flags all over the place and even red hammer and sickle flags. It was kind of disturbing to think that they could get a rally up for communism after their history of fascism. It goes to show that any segment of the population is ready to trade liberty for the iron boot promising a bowl of warm gruel.
(Standing in the cold rain beats working I suppose.)These people were so much like the fringe element that could be seen protesting on C-Span right before the Republican convention in 2004. On a positive note, the rally didn't bring a big crowd and the audience didn’t respond to any of the speakers despite the obvious pauses looking for it. I didn’t even have to know Italian to know the crowd wasn’t engaged enough to care. It seemed kind of funny that day as you can see by my mocking photo. It was less funny the second time in Rome.
I’m not sure what the Italian tax rate is to support the welfare state, but the taxes aren’t coming from alcohol sales. You can buy a decent bottle of red wine at any market for less than 3 Euros. Hard liquor was cheap too. I wasn’t surprised that the European spirits like Scotch and Vodka were cheaper, but even Kentucky Bourbon cost less than here. Only beer seemed to be about the same price.
In Rome the following Friday I saw a woman pushing a stroller and complaining to her husband that he had put the Soviet flag in the stroller instead of carrying it himself. It seemed to be in her way. Anything for the revolution, but wives must carry the instruments of protest. You’d be hard pressed to find a picture of a Soviet citizen pushing a stroller through Red Square in the 1980s, a wasteful luxury to the Bolsheviks. Just having to carry that baby would probably turn that lady into a counter-revolutionary. I might have told her so if I spoke Italian.
Next Time . . . Venice
ITALY PART II
Venice Calls
We were lucky that we decided to travel to Venice on Saturday. If we had chosen Friday we may have thwarted because of the general strike. Our train was delayed over an hour on Saturday morning and I had to wonder if it was due to the late night boozing the general strike no doubt brought about. The train trip to Venice was nice especially since it was snowing outside and it gave me an opportunity to read Raymond Chandler’s THE LITTLE SISTER. It was the last Philip Marlowe novel that I hadn’t read and I’ve been saving it for years for a special time. Chandler only wrote seven altogether and I squandered the first four in a month back in 1993. I also took along a Travis McGee and a Nero Wolfe having started the tradition of reading American detective books on the 2003 trip when I brought the Dashiell Hammet Omnibus and read RED HARVEST AND THE DAIN CURSE.
It couldn’t have been more miserable when we arrived. The snow had turned to rain meaning that we got all of the cold along with the moisture we could have done without. Venice only has 60,000 residents, I read. Everyone else commutes into the city each day. A greater number of tourists sleep each night on these small islands than do Venetians. It makes the whole thing more like a theme park and less like a community.
I wasn’t surprised by the architecture or the canals. They are well documented in movies and TV. I wasn’t prepared for the sidewalks and little squares in and around the smaller canals. It gave the city a real intimate feel. Our hotel was located in a maze of such little alleyways and the directions on the website to the hotel were incorrect. One of the hotel reviews stated that it was worth taking the 50 Euro taxi rather than the 4 Euro waterbus because the Taxi got you to a private little landing in front of the hotel. I just couldn’t see paying 40 more Euro when I would probably get lost anyway the first time we left the hotel.Their directions hinged on locating a square that was actually on the opposite side of our hotel. Luckily we had the DK Italy book with a street by street breakdown of Venice. It didn’t have our street but we were able to head in a particular direction and eventually find a landmark. It was like an old video game I use to have where you are inside the maze without benefit of the bird eye view.
Nighttime came to Italy about 5pm each evening and with our delayed train trip it was almost dark by the time we were settled into our room. The greatest thing about being in Venice is that it’s small enough that you can walk to the important places in little time. We could get to the Rialto Bridge and cross it in about 3 minutes. It took another 10-15 to get to the famed San Marco Square.From the time we crossed the Rialto Bidge the path to San Marco square became a shopping mall. Every upscale and medium scale and even cheap store was located on either side of these narrow sidewalks. Put everyone’s umbrella into the equation and you have a comic picture of “excuse me” and duckings. We were warned that Venice was flooding with all the rain and my sneakers got soaked enough that I bought the 12 Euro pair of boots before the night ended.
I was told and read many places that Italian food in Italy was different than Italian food in America. I suppose that is true, but it wasn’t to the degree that I was expecting. This may have been because I was only in the bigger cities that were more likely to cater to tourists. It may also be because many American Italian restaurants have slowly introduced more authentic Italian cuisine to the point where the difference is becoming blurred. When I was a kid Spaghetti and Meatballs were Italian. Now I can get Chicken Florentine at Carrabbas and Pasta Milano at Macaroni Grill. One dish that was new to me was Gnocchi. Tiny dumplings served with the same sauce that you’d put on pasta. I liked it enough that I vowed to make it from scratch if I could find a recipe. Trish even brought a package back from the Italian market in Rome. The punch ine was seeing two varieties for sale in Publix on Sunday morning when we returned. Sometimes the exotic is right in front of your face if you bother to look.
The Italian dinner breaks down into courses.
AntiPasto – Appetizers like Brushetta
First Course – A pasta of some kind or Gnocchi or Rissoto
Second Course – Fish, Steak or poultry
After that on the menu were sections labeled Salads, Desserts and pizzas. I would order from these and try to guess where in the meal they would show up.
We found after a while that you could skip the second course. Meat was not only the most expensive but also the most boring. The food at the restaurants was all the same quality whether you paid $10 or $30 for dinner. When we got to Rome we just started eating at the same restaurant near the hotel every night. They had a big menu and plenty of variety to keep it fresh. The couple who owned the place saw enough of us that we went from getting the formal “arrivederci” to the friendly “ciao” by the end of our trip.
Some highlights were the spaghetti and tomato sauce from the first night mixed with a hint of pepperocini powder. It wasn’t too hot and yet gave the dish a distinctive kick that I intend trying to duplicate. The bruschetta in Rome was the best I have ever had, seasoned tomatoes and uncooked mozzarella on the top of Texas-like toast. If I could figure out the seasoning it will be a great party dish.
And although I criticized the meat for being over-priced the Italians cook steak just right. They don’t ask you how you want your steak they just bring it medium rare and it tasted perfect the three times I tried it.
The pizza was hit or miss. We found a place near the hotel in Venice that spread the dough by hand and the pizzas were the best we tried. It tasted like good ole New York Pizza. Other locations seemed to buy the pizza offsite and microwave it into a rubbery mess. None of it tasted like Pizza Hut, thank the good lord. And I think that is why people say the pizza in Italy is different. I don’t like to eat that fast food pizza if I can help it, so I think I was more at home with the Italian variety.
We skipped the Venetian art Academy after our disappointment with the Uffizzi in Florence. Instead we saw the Peggy Guggenheim museum of Modern art just down the way. Modern Art has its hits and misses as much as any period, but the variety of subject matter was welcome and her museum had some very interesting pieces including a Salvador Dali and a few Picassos.
We did the Gondola ride on Sunday morning and it was touristy and overpriced, but a must none-the-less. Our boat was run by a father and son team and since most boats were solo, I surmised that the son may hang out with his dad on weekends to learn the family business.
We also saw this old Byzantine looking church on Sunday and the palace that housed the Venetian government during the years it was an independent city-state. The palace was connected to a prison that would allow tribunals to send guys right to the can after sentencing.
I often times pay the extra money to get the audio tour to different museums, but the experience is hit or miss. It worked out best at the Guggenheim, but I nearly passed out listening to the painstaking detail of how the old government of Venice worked. The dramatic voice would explain what happened in every room and constantly speak of “The Doge” who was some sort of magistrate ruler of the city. I like history and this was just plain dull.
San Marco square also had a healthy bird population that would make Hitchcock shudder.
On Sunday night Trish and walked about 25 minutes to get back to the train station area so that we could visit the casino. Located upstairs from some sort of hotel, the once casino in Venice looks like it could rolled into a hidden room if the cops came to bust the place up. The roulette tables, and slot machines were authentic, but nothing else in the rooms said casino. You could imagine the whole thing packed up and tomorrow the place was some sort of suite for visiting royalty. Trish played slots and won 40. I lost about 20 playing roulette. No poker, of course.
I took the first photo of Trish and I couldn't quite decide how I wanted to frame it. How much head room did I want versus how much of the buildings did I wants to see? Looking at the verticals gave me the idea for the second photo where Trish gets a Hitchcock cameo.
BACK TO ROME
Since Rome was ending our trip, I thought we should try a nice B&B and Trip Advisor pulled up 69 Manin Street. The good news was that all of the reviews loved it. The only drawback was that it was a few blocks from the Train station which is a faster part of town and not in the center of the activities. Since I liked the reviews and really didn’t know which part of town was best since the activities themselves are spread out I took a chance.
They had a great selection of breakfast food and an upscale coffee vending machine that offered most of what you’re use to from the Starbucks menu. The room had satellite TV and since no more than 2 channels spoke English, they had over 100 DVDs that did. The only negative was that they misunderstood our email and were late is meeting us to check in.
The place was owned by a couple our age, though we only met the female end. Her “man” as she called him had a regular job and she worked the business. She was very meticulous and although she was rated 2nd or 3rd out of 80 places on Trip Advisor (currently ranked #12 – she must be having a fit) it bothered her that someone complained that she didn’t have a breakfast area and had to eat in their own room. She told me that she was leaning toward gutting one of the guest rooms to provide a breakfast place. I tried to talk her out of it. Why give up the revenue of the extra room. I bet most people don’t care and would rather pay less than subsidize the breakfast nook.
She asked me on the second day if I like George Bush and I said yes. She said that I was the first American to stay in her place that said so since she bought the place two years prior. I have to figure that at least one other traveling American likes Bush, but they were just afraid to admit it to a European. It turned out that she actually likes Bush a great deal as well as the then current Prime Minister Berlusconi whom she predicted correctly would lose re-election. She said that most people are just ignorant about terrorism and the world was lucky to have Bush to lead the fight. She and “her man” wanted to sell the B&B in a few years and move to California. They want to be Americans.
On our first Friday in Florence we witnessed the General Strike that closed down most attractions and featured little socialists roaming the streets some with Soviet flags. It seemed like a funny thing. The second Friday in Rome was bit less so, especially when we were packed in a Roman subway station and some Bolshevik set off a firecracker. I saw a woman yelling at her husband because the commie flags and signs were littering the stroller and the wife was tired of carrying the baby. I also saw a guy parading around with one of those nude blowup dolls. I’m not sure if that was some sort of counterculture statement or just the option of quick relief in the restroom. The overall effect of seeing this really bothered me. Here’s a country that embraced the fascism of Benito and was now embracing Lenin. Also troublesome was that every newsstand had a copy of a recent Che biography and that Che shirts and signs were everywhere even in non-strike days. It seemed that the main point was an anti-American one which I expected somewhat, but I didn’t see any of this sort of thing in 2003 in Amsterdam, Belgium or Germany. I felt like a character from the movie Barcelona.
Rome was an overall disappointment, especially since I have wanted to go there my whole life. It’s dirty almost everywhere, the gypsies are a bother and the attractions were mostly underwhelming. The touristy things like the Spanish Steps, and Trevi Fountain were actually fun little places to visit if you don’t mind the sideshows.
Not far from either attraction were guys dressed up as gladiators that will pose with you for a price and Bangladeshis trying to sell you wilted roses and Polaroids.
The historical things were a mixed bag. I enjoyed the Coliseum the most. It had a good audio tour and you could really imagine the action back in the day.
Palatine Hill, The Forum, the Circus Maximus were an education but redundant. The Pantheon was mostly interesting for how old it looked. McSorely’s Old Ale House in New York City has been opened since the 1850s and has the look of a place where grime has just absorbed into every crevice. The Pantheon looked like that to the extreme. Parts of the Tower in London are 1000 years old and look fresh and new compared to the Pantheon.
Although I had always wanted to see the Sistine Chapel our earlier ventures into Italian art in Florence made me less excited when the time came. The Chapel lets in only a select amount of people and they make you wander through hall after hall of less interesting artwork to get there. When we got into the actual chapel part every seat around the perimeter was taken and my sore back felt the pressure as I listened intently to the audio tour. The Michelangelo ceiling looked as great as in the photos and the drawings on the walls from lesser art figures couldn’t live up to it. It really looked like teacher and student. Even the well-respected Raphael didn’t impress me compared to Michelangelo. And to think they guy considered him self a sculptor and had to be bribed into painting the thing. At the same time, the greatness of the work didn’t surprise me like David back in Florence. They were what I expected.
A pleasant surprise was visiting this castle after we left the Vatican. There wasn’t much of a crowd and it offered great views of the city. We stayed up there for a while drinking Italian beer and looking over the side. There were some people on the ground just enjoying the day. Some young men were kicking around a metric football and another family was playing fetch with their dog. At some point the dog returned the fetch ball to one of the footballers and he kicked it out of his way not paying attention and the dog took it as the game continued. We both laughed when we saw it happen and those on the ground stopped and looked up at us which made it funnier.
Wine is so cheap everywhere. In the grocery store some wine could be had for Coca Cola prices. They had Grappa for as much a 30 Euro and as little at 4. I bought a bottle for 6 and it tasted like turpentine. I bought some Spumante for 4 Euro and it tasted great. Cheese was a lot cheaper too and we ate it plenty. Funny thing was the Peroni beer was no cheaper there than here. When you ordered it from a bar they usually included a bowl of potato chips and a dish of olives. I bought a 3 Euro draft and I think I ate 3 Euro worth of olives.
Although I grew tired of German food in 2003, I never got tired of Italian cuisine. The best part as we learned was that it was all good and the price you paid mostly had to do with location and view. So after the first night in Rome eating by the Pantheon, we spent the next 4 nights supping in the restaurant 2 doors down from the hotel and it was the least expensive place we went in Italy and no disappointment. It was a Mom & Pop called Ristorante Santi. We tried the pasta, pizza, bruschetta, steak, risotto, and it all met the test. By the end of the week they were treating us as old friends to boot.
The most bizarre situation happened on the last day when we were sitting in the Coliseum area and a Bangladeshi approached us to buy some silver Jewelry. I didn’t have a lot of cash left and didn’t want to make another ATM stop before the plane home and kept trying to shoo him away. He began by trying to sell us 1 piece for 25 Euro and ended with 3 for 10 Euro and Trish rationalized that she could maybe give them as Christmas gifts (I don’t think she did) so I said okay and gave the guy a Ten spot.
That was no sooner done and this lady started screaming at us for buying the stuff. She had a little flea market like table setup not far away trying to peddle miniatures of the Coliseum, David and such. She was tall and looked a little gypsy-like. The man with her was short and reminded me of an Italian Bob Hoskins. She went on about how they paid for their spot and the Bangladeshis had no right to trespass, but instead of taking it out on those guys, she was yelling at us and demanded that we leave or she’d call the cops. Now while I don’t know every Italian law I surmised that no cop is going to harass a paying tourist for buying a piece of silver jewelry and I refused to move. She and the runt were yelling and screaming at us to leave and we yelled back and stayed put. It was surreal to say the least and for the hell of it I decided to snap a photo of the little guy who didn’t like it one bit as shown.
We probably sat around ten minutes longer than we wanted simply to see if they would actually call Polize which they didn’t.
Earlier in the week we had another brush with gypsies when a mother and her two preteen daughters walked up to me trancelike as I was reading a tourist map. The girls each tugged on either arm of my jacket and the mother was holding the box, I suppose for the loot, but Trish who saw this before me was the hero and yelled at them harshly to leave and they cowered away with not a penny for their troubles.
We also saw a gypsy in a grocery store paying with change and it reminded me when I broke my penny bank to buy the Star Trek action figures in 1976, the only difference was that she paid mostly with pennies.
A great thing about the trip was that it was so relaxing that I read the five books I brought before we made it to Rome and I had to find an English language bookstore to re-stock. My mind had been so cluttered for months that I was having trouble concentrating enough to read and here I was flying through pages on the trains and just before bedtime.
On the plane trip over we sat next to an Italian girl from Naples which was interesting because the plane was actually connecting in Atlanta and she was probably the only other person on the plane heading to Rome. She worked at Alfredo’s restaurant in Epcot and she told us that the original one is in Rome and it would be the only place in the country that we’d find Alfredo sauce. She said Americans all think it’s typically Italian, but that they never eat it. She was dead right. Not one place on the whole trip offered Alfredo. We did stumble upon the original restaurant heading to the Pantheon our first night, but we didn’t venture in understanding it to be overpriced and not even authentic.
One thing that I wanted to do is get Trish and I posing in front of the Mouth of Truth as seen in Roman Holiday.
I wonder if Wyler made the choice of darkening the eyes for the movie. It makes the thing come alive like a monster. It doesn't read at all in our photos
On both our European trips I have found that I am good and ready to come home by the 9th or 10th day. I don’t know how John ever lasted 6 weeks on that tour he took in 1995. The biggest mistake I made was 5 days in Rome. 3 days would have been enough. We could have spent the other 2 in Bologna, Parma and Tuscan countryside vineyards. Trish planned the prior trip and she had us moving city to city much better than me. I hope to learn from her example in the next trip. Our preliminary goal is to see Prague and I think that trip would offer an excellent chance to see Budapest too. We can’t decide if we should visit Salzberg, Vienna and Bavaria in that trip too or head north instead to Berlin and Warsaw and make it an Iron Curtain theme.
