Venice

For me, Venice was a fitting way to end our trip to Italy. Often, within the same hour, I would enjoy a moment of surreal beauty and endure a moment of awful tourist reality.

Perhaps the best example would come as we sat in a fashionable little piazza, enjoying our first real bellinis and watching the labels stroll by. As we pondered the possibility of a second round, one of Venice's incredible hoards of pigeons bombarded my friend, destroying the moment and sending us off to clean.

Much to our surprise, we found an inexpensive restaurant recommended in our guidebook. Surprising both that it was inexpensive and that we actually found it. I had amazing pasta with anchovies and onions, followed by a delicious lamb chop perfectly seasoned with lemon. We had a table right on the canal, no one was smoking, the house wine was great, ---the meal seemed perfect. At the end, a street musician who had been playing for all of the piazza came by with a gelato cup. Not liking our tip, he shouted something in Italian at us. After circulating the rest of the crowd, he came back and gave us back any coins less than 20 cents. Realizing that I was in a place where visitor's largess has made beggars into choosers, I have never felt so much like a tourist.

Our first night in Venice, we cruised down the Grand Canal at sunset, going the length of the vaporetto line, and watched the sun drop behind the buidings of Piazza San Marco. At one point, the setting sun fell perfectly in line with the Campanile and the whole boat sighed in delight. After the boat docked, and we began to walk back to our hotel, I found myself in a thick line of tourists simply trying to get around town. Surrounded on all sides by the shopfronts of the same famed designers that I had seen in Rome, Florence and an up-scale mall in San Jose, I felt desperate to get away.

I found my chance to flee the scene the next afternoon. For a few hours, we wandered away from the crowds, picking our path on the basis of less people and no signs for any sites. It only took a handful of turns for the tourists and designer stores to disappear. When Furla had been replaced by a Coop grocery store, we knew we had found a more real side of Venice. The first time I had my own small bridge over a tiny canal all to myself, looking under someones sheets and underwear to see the Grand Canal in the distance, I finally started to feel a hint of satisfaction.

What amazed me most in Venice was coming to understand that people really live there. Along these postcard perfect canals and streets were hair salons, appliance stores, and an art college. From the outside, the beautiful tapestry of sky blue, faded yellow and terracotta buildings seemed fit only for the cover of a travel magazine, but inside was a computer company, a law office and an insurance firm. Our last night in Italy, we didn't sip bellinis in a nice café, but from small bottles acquired at a convenience store. We sat on benches in an unfashionable, uncrowded piazza and watched toddlers play, teens skateboard, and families walk their dogs. I loved it.

Next stop: Switzerland.

Florence

Florence wasn't simply a blur to me, it was a melted puddle of goo. It peaked at 107 while we were there, in a country that doesn't believe in ice or air-conditioning. The Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, the church of San Lorenzo, and the Cappelle de Medici were all probably amazing but little could penetrate the thick haze of heat and exhaustion.

Fortunately, our first stop was the one I was most excited about: Michelangelo's David at the Galleria Accademia. Once again, we used reservations at the start of the day to sneak in before the tour groups and crowds. For about fifteen minutes, we enjoyed David with only 10 or 20 other people.

I knew that I wanted to see the statue, but there was so much more to the masterpiece than I had ever expected. To begin with, I had no idea how large it is. I expected a slightly larger than life size statue, but David stands easily 10 feet tall, and on top of an eight foot pedestal it seems even grander.

While I had seen countless images ---there had even been a dress-up David on the refrigerator of a house I shared for a while--- the real thing was still entrancing. There is a mezmerizing quality to the beauty of many things I have seen in Italy and David was no exception. I think I spent three minutes or more staring simply at David's right hand. I know nothing about sculpture, but Michelangelo's excellence was still overwhelmingly obvious. Every detail of anatomy that usually separates imitations from human reality seemed attended to in this masterpiece. Every tendon and vein was not only present, but so carefully articulated as to seem unnervingly real. Even if I struggled to appreciate the other sites, I still came away from Florence satisfied.

I would be amiss if I went further in my travelogging without mentioning the horror of youth tour groups. They were perhaps at their worst in Florence because here there is so little for tasteless, ahistorical teenagers to appreciate. There is something about being in a tour group that destroys whatever travel sensibility people have; teens have even less to begin with and thus the damage is far greater. They maraud through museums, loudly making idiotic jokes and asking moronic questions. At one point, some barabarian child pointed to a half-millenia old reclining nude and said, "Look guys, it's my girlfriend. She's waiting for me."

Churches add a whole new dimension of profanity for the touring teen. The Italians dare to require a dress code in their churches; a last, desperate effort to maintain these as sacred places, rather than simply tourist destinations. When a man or woman tries to enter with bare shoulders or knees, they are politely handed a paper poncho to wear. Some tourists look appropriately chastened by the ponchos, others see them as a chance to boost their displays of rudeness and ignorance to the next level. One young woman, angered that she would be asked not to visit one of the holiest sites in Christendom looking like a tramp, immediately ripped off her poncho when out of sight of the guards. Many more found the idea of being asked to cover up so quaint and amusing that they posed for photos. Just outside of one cathedral, I saw a mother dressing her daughter's hair in the poncho, then posing her provocatively. The champion of impropriety, however, was a young woman whose loose skirt seemed halfway off her body, exposing vast swathes of her underwear. As if this wasn't bad enough, she had adorned her belt and shoes with bells and loudly jingled her way throughout the church. I wish it were the Old Testament God who avenged the desecration of churches, a few ditzes turned into pillars of salt would put a speedy end to the issue.

I realize that I have the power to ignore the irritating strangers who impede my enjoyment of these amazing places, and often that is enough, but the ever increasing heights of obnoxiousness that they seem to attain makes it very difficult!

Next stop: Venice.

Rome

Perhaps the greatest testament to the glory of Rome's monuments is not that they have survived 2000 years of Roman history, but that their magnificence survives the 2000 degrees of Roman heat and the 2000 tourists with whom you must share every vista. Truly.

A notable exception to this rule was the Spanish Steps. When we visited them our first night in Rome, they were covered in American college kids drinking and singing the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way." No amount of beauty or magnificence could survive that.

The next morning we woke up early and went to the Colosseum just as it opened. With reservations from TckitItaly.com, we were able to by-pass the ticket lines. Getting there early allowed us to walk through the security lines as well. For a few minutes, we could enjoy the Colosseum without the masses. It was fantastic. The sun put on a shadow show for us as it rose through the arches. It is possible, with a little knowledge of history (or a DK guidebook), to mentally overlay the grandeur of the Roman Colosseum on the skeletal remains that are the site today. Instead of brick, marble making the building sparkle, instead of sun, shade from a vast tarp, instead of excavation, a sandy floor complete with gladiators and lions. It is easy to imagine what was, but difficult to feel like you are truly appreciating it. Beyond pretending to see, how do you really comprehend the age of a monument that old?

The next morning, we tried our trick again at the Vatican. We arrived early, only to find ourselves in a line around half a mile long. When we left the museum around one o'clock in the afternoon, the line was hardly ten yards. To preserve ourselves from tremendous frustration, we tried not to notice.

Enjoying the Vatican makes travel's constant challenge to stop and appreciate quite visceral. In the Vatican you are part of a tremendous migration, your path pre-determined, your expediency greatly preferred. To enjoy a piece of art, you must literally step out of the flow, fixing your feet as though against a river, and carve a place for yourself to stand, read and think a moment. Sometimes, no sooner do you elect to stop then a tour group arrives, and you are crowded back into the stream and washed onwards.

To fight against overload, we choose to linger on only piece per room. Even this pace, however, became too slow in the face of the vastness of the Vatican. Eventually, we found ourselves walking past whole wings in order to save some appreciation for the most famous pieces at the end.

The Sistine Chapel was more than I had even imagined. The density of magnificent art in this one room made all the struggles of the day instantly worthwhile. I had in my mind simply the painting of the touch of God and Adam, which turned out to be one panel among a dozen of beautifully crafted Genesis scenes. Even more fantastic, Michelangelo had set these panels in a context of saints and patriarchs that seemed almost alive. Interweaving everything was illusionary architecture that made it truly difficult to believe the ceiling was flat.

Unfortunately, transcending the academic and appreciating the Sistine Chapel as a sacred place is impossible. You enjoy the chapel with hundreds of other tourists, standing shoulder to shoulder from entrance to exit. To make it worse, the murmur of the crowd is irregularly interrupted by guards shouting "No Photos!" or "Silence!" Every five minutes, a recorded voice delivers thes same message in a handful of languages. The futility of these efforts is almost painful, no sooner do the guards shout as a new wave of touists enter the chapel and necessitate they shout again.

I know it is inherently impossible for any man-made building to truly convey the unfathomable scale and power of God but St. Peter's Basilica sems to come close. Its enormity and grandeur are fit only for the divine, no mortal cause could inspire such an edifice. Its ornamentation is dazzling and its vastness is truly breathtaking. Along the center of the nave are marked the dimension of the other major churches of Christendom. No other cathedral, not Westminster Abbey nor Notre Dame nor even St. Paul's, would so much as approach the altar of St. Peter's.

But St. Peter's is more than simply a monument, I found it animated with the life of the church. Mass seems to be celebrated continuously in the different chapels around the basilica. The sacred sounds of prayers, hymns and invocations surrounded me, even emanating up through vents from chapels below. This aspect of the basilica, beyond its monumental proportions, seemed to me the most impressive. The continuity of rituals around the basilica is clearly a symbol of the great multiplicity going on around the world.

Next Stop: Florence

Tuscany

Somehow, despite all the images I’ve seen and references I’ve heard to the beauty of Tuscany, it nonetheless managed to surprise me. There is something about the rolling hills, the Cyprus-tree skyline, and the perfectly situated villas that combine to make a perfect recipe for gorgeous.

This was plain to us from our first hours there, when we arrived at Residence L’Aia, our B&B outside of Siena. It is a traditional farm now converted into a lovely complex of apartments and rooms. Nibbling on our first meal in the midst of a grove of olive trees, we watched the sun set over the Tuscan hills, creating silhouettes of trees and villas against the horizon. Even modern apartment buildings, sheet-metal farm sheds and a construction crane, appeared lovely in the dying light.

The next morning took us to a castle at the heart of the Chianti region. We toured its fantastic walls and gardens, set on a hill overlooking endless miles of vineyards and farmland. Devoid of tourists, the perfectly landscaped grounds, colored with lavender, would have been eerie if not for their beauty. The inside of the castle was reserved for a family that has resided there for the whole of its thousand years. At one point, we could hear children playing inside and at another, we saw a mother and three kids leave and lock the door! What a place to live!

After a wine-tasting at the castle’s vineyards, we took lunch at what was advertised on the road to be “Bar Carolina.” Bars, in Italy, are supposed to be among cheapest and quickest place to get food, as you can simply stand at the bar and not pay for seated service and three-courses. When we found the restaurant, it was labelled “Osteria Carolina” on the outside. This signalled an upgrade and the expectation that we would sit down. We were hungry, though, and far from any other options. After we came inside and took our seats, the menu informed us we were dining at “Trattoria Carolina,” the restaurant had upgraded itself again before our very eyes. Fortunately, the meal was good and the view was spectacular.

Food remains much a part of our trip as any city or sight. We have learned another vital lesson about eating in Italy: yes, beyond all abstract belief or comprehension, you can eat too much prosciutto. Prosciutto is one of my favourite of all foods, and when I came to Italy and saw that deli’s had sometimes a dozen or more different kinds, I thought I was in heaven. And it was heaven ---for perhaps the first four or five meals. At this point, prosciutto and I are taking a trial separation.

Fortunately, Tuscany introduced us to a new friend: supermarkets. Unlike Lake Como and the Cinque Terre, large numbers of people live and work in Tuscany and they need real supermarkets. There was one not far from Residence L’Aia, and we found that we could buy prepared foods from their deli. All the pleasures of the ristorante’s primi platti --risotto, paella, and insalate di mare-- could be ours for a fraction of the price. Even better is the selection of cheap wine. Apparently, there is no shame in cheap wine in Italy, even in Tuscany. Our supermarket had gradations of cheap wine beyond all comparison to America. We bought a nice variety to enjoy with each meal, from Venetian Prosecco to Orvieto Classico, all for between 0.89 and 5 euros, and were never disappointed.

Beyond its rolling hills, Tuscany is also home to an array of small, medieval hill-top villages. Many have closed off their historical centers to car traffic, creating lovely pedestrian mazes in which to wander around. Though more touristy than most, San Gimignano, was our favourite. The town is remarkable for its 14 towers, climbing high above the four or five story winding streets. Symbols of wealth from the 16th century, they add a fairy tale element to the village. We came there as the sun was setting on our last day in Tuscany, and managed to climb to the top of Torre Grossa, the tallest tower, before it closed. The view was unbelievable. Close by we could peek at the tops of neighboring towers or down to the town’s main piazza, its tourist masses silenced by the distance. Far off, the Tuscan hills seemed to extend forever, interrupted by roads and hamlets, and covered in their famous patchwork of vineyards, olive groves, and wheat fields. I took pictures until I forgot which pictures I had already taken.

Though much of what I saw in Tuscany I had imagined in images and movies, one element was a surprise to me: sunflowers. Perhaps this is well-known, but Tuscany is apparently a veritable sunflower seed capitol of the world. As we took the train away from Siena, we passed fields of sunflowers more dense than I ever thought possible. The humanoid form of the plants suggested a crowd of millions, tracking the sun like a rock star or religious demigod. The fields stretched on for minute after minute out the window of the train until, like the flip of a slide, they were gone.

Next stop: Rome.

The Cinque Terre

In photography, cropping is where you cut out portions of a picture in order to better focus the image. Enjoying the Cinque Terre required a little bit of cropping.

Rick Steves warned us in his Italy 2007 guidebook that the Cinque Terre had been "discovered." We imagined that this meant there would be a significant amount of tourists joining us on our trek across the Cinque Terre trail. Rick neglected to mention exactly who had discovered the Cinque Terre. I did my best not to listen to their voices, but from what I could not help but hear, the Cinque Terre is becoming a Cancun or Daytona Beach sort of destination for trust-fund laden college kids looking for a place to party for a few weeks in summer. They were everywhere. Even on the trail, their conversations echoed as they bounced along, drunk and expecting everyone to get out of their way.

Fortunately, the towns of the Cinque Terre were gorgeous enough that cropping out the bikini-bimbos and board-short-buffoons wasn't too difficult. The towns, the cliffs, even just the ocean itself was very easy to focus on.

As a Pacific Coast native, ocean water is for me a very dark blue-green. By comparison, the Meditteranean is almost irridescent. As we hiked the Cinque Terre trail, I gorged myself on the ocean views. It was hard to keep my eyes on the path with the water so entrancing on my right. As the pink, yellow and white houses of the little towns rose up on their cliffs, it became difficult not to stop at every turn and sigh. Fortunately, the exhausting and less stairs, paired with a not nearly so lovely Mediteranean sun, was ample inspiration to push on.

The Cinque Terre trail, it should be more clearly noted, is not for the faint of heart. There is one section, the Via D'ell Amore, that connects the last two cities, that is paved and short. The other sections varied from challenging to ungodly, with sharp rocks, very steep ascents and descents, and long sun-exposed stretches right along the edge of the cliff. Each vista made the preceding hike worthwhile, however, and I'm very glad that we forced ourselves to complete it.

Cinque Terre also helped us learn to avoid the Ristorante. After one decent, but not great, meal in Lake Como cost us around $180 (for 4), it became clear that cheaper options had to be found fast. Enter the Alimentari. The Alimentari is my version of deli heaven. It is stocked with some of my favorite things in the culinary world: prosciutto, bresaola, great bread, good cheese and fine olives. At the Alimentari, we can walk out with four fine sandwiches, stufffed with fine meats and cheese, sauced with locally invented pesto, and accompanied by a bag of olives and a bottle of wine, all for well under $30. This is a rather vegetable-less meal, but we try to find ourselves a salad every other day. At the very least, there's basil in pesto, no?

We are also on a strict, very strict, gelato diet. Gelato must be consumed daily, without fail. After repeated sampling, I have thus learned how to discern what flavor to get at which gelaterias. All gelaterias want to claim to be "hand-made." Who wouldn't? But this doesn't mean all their flavors will be hand-made. However, there is a clear way to tell the artiginale (hand-made) and the not: the signs. Hand-made gelato has hand-made signs, gelato the store buys from elsewhere comes with a pre-printed sign. Always buy the hand-made. There is a fidelity to flavor in hand-made gelato that is truly incredible. If they tell you it is "fragola", strawberries, it is going to taste like someone made a creamy paste of strawberries, with only enough milk and sugar to smooth it to your tongue. My favorite, frutti di bosco, wild berry, is so truly berry that it left bits of seed in my teeth. Amazing. Gelato is not simply Italian Ice Cream, it is ice cream's more refined, better dressed, well-educated and all-around superior older brother. I don't know how I'll go back.

Next stop: Tuscany.

Lake Como

One evening, eating sushi in Japan, my host father descrubed our tuna as oiishisugiru, "overly delicious." I asked him to explain and he told me that it was so good, it was difficult to eat. No matter how slowly you eat it, he said, it seemed unappreciative.

Were he here in Italy with me, Host Dad might have described Lake Como as kireisugiru, "overly beautiful." No matter how long I look at the lake, it seems too soon to turn away. Perhaps it seems melodramatic, but I assure you, both the fish and the lake are that good.

Our first meal in Italy was spent transfixed by the lake from the terrace of Hotel Silvio, where we are staying. The patio overlooks red tile rooves and past an old church tower to a glittering field of water. On all sides, soaring Alpine foothills seem to crash into the water. Their jagged, rocky sides are speckled with hamlets and villas, like some macroscopic extrapolation of the lichen on hillsides' boulders. The dramatic contrast of the rough hills and the smooth water is surrealistic; it is difficult to accept that such geologic magnificence really exists.

Our first expedition was to the town of Veranna where we made the long climb to a castello overlooking the lake. High above the lake, its geography became clear. The lake is in the shape of an upside-down Y. The towns we we were visiting were in the center, surrounding the apex. From the castello, each branch of the lake stretched out. The far shores lost in the haze and distance, the lake seemed to run on forever. A thousand feet above the water, we could see scores of boats cut across the surface, lining the water with streaks of white.

The town of Bellagio might also be described as "overly beautiful," but with a cynical connotation. This self-proclaimed "Pearl of the Lake" is at the intersection of the lago's distinctive three arms, about thirty kilometers north of the city of Como. Obviously pre-dating the grand Las Vegas casino, the town of Bellagio seems nonetheless influenced by its namesake. It is, like the Strip, an unapologetic caricature of itself. There is no going over the top. Every street in the town center matches the tourist's vision of small-town Italy --- winding narrow lanes, interlaced with steep cobble-stoned staircases and loomed over by fresco-hued buildings. At first glance, it all seems like belissima incarnate, and then you realize that it is utterly devoid of all specter of authenticity. The paint is too fresh, the streets too clean, the shops too filled with desires of tourists, and the narrow winding lanes wholly absent of anyone actually speaking Italian. In Bellagio, you are living a postcard. Get out while you can.

Looking for a grocery store brought us in touch with a more authentic face of Italy. Our hotel is about ten minutes walk outside of Bellagio, giving us easy access to its residential streets. Following a sign to Market Bellagio, consorzio agrario, we meandered past real homes, owned by real Italians. They quickly forced us to rebuild our vision of Italian villas to include satellite dishes, bad paint choices and drying laundry. But after guidebook-perfect city-center Bellagio, such "imperfection" was a breath of fresh air.

Five minutes farther south of our hotel, one ferry stop away from Bellagio, is the hamlet of San Giovanni. Hiding itself from the road and its tourists by an aptly placed park, San Giovanni is where Bellagio sent its reality to die. The town seems partially abandoned and there is a dreamy stilness about it. We toured its streets under a cloudy sky that muted the colors of its walls and seemed to exaggerate the dilapidation of its wooden doors and shutters. After Bellagio, its authenticity is breath-taking. We peeked through an open door, only to find an older couple eating at their dining room table. The man waved at us. Our stroll down Via Pescatori landed us at the town's lakeside piazza, where we sat on benches and listened to the church bells. A group of old men sat against the wall and talked. Hours later, as we returned from another town, an old man would spring from his idleness to help our ferry dock, exchanging ropes and helping the ferrymen hoist the gangway across. He grinned impishly as he did someone else's job.

We visited only a hanfdul of the towns and hamlets on the edge of the lake. All of them had their own character and the dozen more could kep us entertained for weeks. But today, as I write this, we are moving on to the Cinque Terre, a legendary set of five cities built into the side of cliffs on the coast.

On Leave from the Trenches

I love my job, it challenges me in a tremendous variety of ways, but --secretly-- there's something else that I would call my "dream job:" travel writing. If I could make my living and serve the world by travelling to distant lands, journalling my adventures, and selling the story, I would do it in a heartbeat. Alas, from my course on the topic in college, travel writing does not seem like it would satisfy my needs for salary and service.

Fortuately, here in the off-season of teaching, I get to try my hand at my fantasy profession. For the next month, I will be travelling in Switzerland, Italy and France. Rather than let this blog go completely dark, I will try and update it with my travel adventures.

The frequency of my posting depends entirely on the availability of Wi-Fi connections. Hopefully, here in cyber-Europe, they will not be difficult to find!