My Trip to Italy Bill Dietrich ---------------- June 7 1999 Thurs 5/20 SFO -> Rome ------------------------ Loooong plane trip. Jet lag was killing me by the end of the London-Rome leg. Nice view of the countryside and Mediterranean as we landed. Navigated through the airport and train to the city pretty well, but arrived at central station at heart of rush hour. Bus area was chaos, with dozens of busses at any time, a thousand people, and a flea market in the middle of it. Took 45 minutes to get right bus. [Sort-of met my first Italians on the London-Rome leg; when I boarded, there was some guy in my seat passionately kissing his girlfriend in the next seat. They were just short of needing birth control. He tried to talk me into giving up my aisle seat for his middle seat in another row; he was not happy when I refused.] Hotter and more humid than expected; probably 75 and humid. Hotel is tiny, room bigger than expected but bathroom smaller. Shower is size of two coffins standing on end. Huge sink; they must expect most people to just wash in that. TV gets about 10 channels, which is 8 more than I expected. Pretty funny to watch "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" dubbed in German. The hotel people lied a bit to my travel agent when giving the location of the hotel; it is a mile or so further out of town than they said, and they easily could have given the correct location (1 block from Piazza Fiume). No matter; have to take busses to get anywhere in this city anyway. Found "Trattoria Candora" down a side street, sat outside, had saltimbocca (veal and ham), patate (grilled potatoes) and birra grande (VERY grande) for LIT 36,000 ($20) including tip. Fri 5/21 Vatican ------------------ Humid day; it rained a little. Bus to Metro to Saint Peter's. Twice as big as any cathedral I've seen, chock-full of huge statues. Probably most impressed by Berlini's bronze canopy over St. Peter's tomb, and "dove window" behind altar. Saw Michaelangelo's Pieta from about 200 feet away; it is all roped off. Outside, couldn't find elevator to dome, went to Vatican museums. Route inside to Sistine Chapel was confusing, and so full of rooms of art and painted ceilings that I began to fear that I'd been rushed through the chapel and not realized it. But there was no mistaking it. Incredible, especially the Last Judgement wall. Beautiful colors, since it was cleaned 5 years ago. [I find that scenes like the Last Judgement are a lot more interesting than the standard religious art of crucifixions, Mary ascending into heaven, etc. The Last Judgement has Hell in it, lots of drama as people get dragged one direction or the other, and so on. Lots more fun. Over the two weeks of this vacation, I got thoroughly tired of seeing yet another painting of Mary getting "annuciated" into heaven.] Wandered through Etruscan museum, went wrong way down gallery of maps (but it was worth seeing 3 times), retraced, finally duscked under a barrier to get out. Place is pretty confusing. Pizza for lunch outdoors, then to Piazza Del Popolo for a while. Wanted to use the Metro to hop from one Piazza to another, but then there was a major breakdown on the Metro (with lots of very upset Italians yelling at the ticket-takers), so I managed to hop onto the right bus (EXTREMELY jammed) and get home. I was pretty proud of myself for being able to navigate out of that mess successfully; it was the start of Friday evening rush hour, and I really could have been stranded. Sat 5/22 Ostia Antica ----------------------- Bus to Metro to train to Ostia Antica. Really cool town from 1st century BC, original port of Rome. Many of the buildings are in good enough shape (but without roofs) that you can really imagine living there. Some amazing mosaics (but only black and white), which really should be better protected from the elements. Some stray cats wandering around, looking for handouts. The map made it look like the Tiber river should have been running right along one edge of the ruins, but I couldn't find it. Maybe it has moved, so it's on the other side of the major highway running about a quarter-mile away ? Rained off and on in the morning as I wandered through the ruins and semi-ruins, then started pouring BUCKETS at 1:00, really pounding down for an hour or so. Took shelter in a bistro and had delicious hot ham and cheese baked in a buttery bread. A couple of groups of schoolgirls without umbrellas ran by to the train station, screaming as they got absolutely soaked to the skin. Felt pretty smug that I had remembered to bring my umbrella. That evening, sat out on a monument, reading and watching people and traffic. Sun 5/23 Colosseum / Forum / Pantheon --------------------------------------- Major tourist day. Hit the sights of the center of old Rome. The Colosseum was a mob scene. Lots of vendors of all kinds of trash, a zillion tourists, some guys in gladiator costumes posing for pictures. The building itself is fascinating; it was the Houston Astrodome of its day, complete with moveable canvas sun-shades at top. You can see where the emperor's box was, see a few of the original seats. They had elevators that would let them make wild animals or gladiators "pop up" suddenly into the arena. The arena floor was wood, probably like a modern NBA basketball floor. The stairs up to the upper decks are pretty steep and slanted downward; I can imagine people slipping and crashing down as everyone left at the same time at the end of the show. The Forum was fascinating. All the major buildings were there, between Palatine and Capitoline hills. But half of them are just chunks now; you have to imagine what they looked like. Pretty amazing to walk on the paving stones that the ancients walked on. The Pantheon was another mob scene, and not too impressive, other than being the first domed building ever. Just a big, round emptiness with a few mosaics and painted interior walls. Then a tour of fountains and piazzas, ending up with a walk along the Tiber. Then to Circus Maximus, back to Forum, and home. [My usual idiocy: I know nothing about cameras. When I started the trip, the camera read 10 or so, so I thought it had half a roll of film in it. When I went to change film in Circus Maximus today, I found that it had NO film in it. You'd think the camera would have some way of telling you that, such as the winder not working. Oh, well. I do regret losing the pictures of Ostia Antica and some of the Tiber, but the others aren't much of a loss. All of the interesting museums had "no pictures" policies anyway.] Mon 5/24 Rome -> Florence --------------------------- Took train to Florence. Only train in the station that didn't have a track number listed for it, but I managed to ask a conductor who was standing right next to the train. Getting even hotter (probably 80) and still humid. Have to plan the day to lounge in the hotel during the mid-afternoon. The interesting part of Florence is much smaller than Rome, but the traffic is just as crazy. Wandered around the Duomo, Palazzo Vecchio, various piazzas for an hour or two. Dinner of lasagne and gelato di frutta (melted in the mouth). Hotel is well-located. [I'm amazed at how fast the Italians will drive right next to pedestrians. Just one misstep could cause a really serious injury. But I didn't see an accident on the whole trip. I did see a lot of cases where motorbikes would treat major red-lights as if they were yield signs; they ignored the law and just wanted to get where they were going as fast as possible without hitting anything.] Tues 5/25 Florence -------------------- Ceiling in breakfast-room belongs in a museum. Really spectacular. Long line to get into Galleria dell' Accademia museum. Michaelangelo's David is nice but not amazing. Pretty huge: about 25 feet high. Rest of the art merely okay. Climbed halfway up Giotto's tower before chickening out. Really don't have a head for heights; I have too much imagination. Went to The Pitti Palace in afternoon. Palatine Gallery was incredible, almost as good as the Sistine Chapel museum. Really didn't expect the large amount of amazingly good art. Some museums closed for renovation. Wandered through the Boboli Gardens (behind Pitti) for 3 or 4 hours afterward; very nice. A very sculptured and highly maintained set of gardens and trails and fields, with some nice big fountains and terraces. Dinner was an antipasto that was almost all meat, a very nice fillet of sole, and a white wine that tasted like it was watered but had quite a kick to it. Wed 5/26 Sienna ----------------- Took train to Sienna, about 1:40 each way. Got off bus into huge market crowd, not in piazza that bus driver had said we would be in, very hard to get oriented. Civic center under scaffolding. Civic museum some nice big rooms with great woodwork and ceilings. Lots of scruffy backpacker types lounging in the plaza (Il Campo) all day long. Several adequate museums and cathedrals. Had an escorted tour through Pinacoteca (national picture gallery) which had some nice paintings, but the escorts managed to give the feeling that they thought we were vandals who were just itching to destroy their treasures if they let us out of their sight for an instant. Pleasant day but not thrilling. Thurs 5/27 Florence --------------------- Did the science museum in the morning. Pretty exciting to see Galileo's instruments, and many other beautiful and bizarre devices. Many of them were hard to decipher without reading the accompanying booklet and doing some detective work. The ingenuity that went into them was impressive. Line for Uffizi art gallery was 30-40 minutes, so wandered around south bank for a few hours, then into Basilica San Croce. Did the Uffizi in the evening; almost no line. Some nice paintings and great ceilings; not impressed by the Raphael's. Very high density of artwork; one of these buildings where they've stuffed portraits and stuff into every nook and cranny, all along the top of these long hallways, etc. Fri 5/28 Florence ------------------- Real "nothing" of a day. Dropped laundry off, then had to go back twice before they remembered to put it in a dryer and I could pick it up the third time. Tried to take a train to Prato, and found that there was a one-day train strike. Just bummed around a bunch of piazza's and parks all day, reading and people-watching. Pretty hot, too. Might be up to 85. Sat 5/29 Florence ------------------- Saw Baptistry and Museum San Marcos (frescoes in monks cells). More impressed with the building than the art. Nice ravioli for lunch. Felt sick (headache and kidneys) all afternoon and some of evening. Nice spaghetti alla scoglio (seafood) for dinner, with nice German couple at same table. They commented on how many American tourists there were everywhere; I had been thinking how many German tourists there were ! Saw hand-cart full of luggage on fire (really blazing away) at train station; pretty entertaining for everyone except whoever owned it. Sun 5/30 Florence -> Venice ----------------------------- Really didn't feel well today; mostly stomach. Travel went very smoothly; got right onto correct boat in Venice, only made one wrong turn near hotel. Could have been bad; streets not very easy to find here (the "street" that my hotel is on is a 5-foot-wide passageway whose entrance can't be seen until you are right next to it), and I arrived right in the middle of the 1:00 heat and crowds in Piazza San Marcos. Pretty pleased with myself. Got a sinking feeling when the hotel receptionist said "Your room is 402. The elevator doesn't go up that far; take it to floor 3 and then take the stairs." Great; I must have a room in the belfry, right next to Quasimodo ! But the room turned out to be nice, and it had a private balcony where I can sit in the cool air and enjoy peace and quiet and something of a view. Spaghetti alla pesto and disappointingly plain veal cutlet for dinner, in Piazza Arsenal. Nice view of canal going through gate of arsenal, large winged lion sculpture, etc. By the end of the meal the wind was really picking up and blowing things off people's tables. Venice is nice and quiet (relatively) compared to Rome and Florence. No car or motorbike traffic here, and the traffic was always roaring engines and blowing horns in the other cities. I think Italian traffic is noisier than American traffic. The main tourist parts of Venice are really overrun with tourists; the density is high, and things like garbage cans are always overflowing. But the back-alleys and canal-fronts are very nice. Mon 5/31 Venice ----------------- Doge's palace all morning, and it was hot but worth it. History, art, architecture; HUGE paintings, prison cells, great woodwork, most powerful place in Europe for a couple of hundred years. They have these stone heads with slots in the mouth; if you wanted to rat on someone, you could put a note about them into the mouth, and the secret police would investigate them. There were different heads for different kinds of tips, like tips about vote fraud, tips about grain-dealing, etc. Went to Accademia just before closing. Saw Leonardo's "main in circle" drawing, but it wasn't so impressive. Many large, impressive paintings from 1600-1700's were very good; the older stuff is flat and pale and lifeless and repetitive in comparison. Walked to point (Chiesa Della Salute) and took a long nap there. Lots of people just hanging out and enjoying the view of the Grand Canal and the main part of the island acorss the water. Ripped off at dinner: $45 for a meal worth about $20. The sea-bass turned out to be very expensive and very bland, and the staff was forgetful, and they seemed to think that 30 minutes to get and pay the bill was a sign of "elegance" or something. Left pretty irritated. Walked far along the sea-wall at 9:00-10:00; still hot/humid enough to get too sweaty for comfort. Tues 6/1 Venice ----------------- Went through Basilica San Marcos, standing in line for 20 minutes to get in. The main floor heaves like a roller-coaster because of all of the flooding they've had, and the high water-table. Great mosaics, many tiled areas in Eastern style. Exterior is decorated in "early ransack" style; they grabbed all this stuff from places they conquered, and pasted it onto the church. Upstairs (loggia) was best, cooler and less crowded and with great views inside and out. Wandered through the Rialto area from late morning to early afternoon. Big fish and vegetable markets, with lots of shoppers. Back streets and canals very quiet. Ran into some guy from Sausalito who was trying to see Venice in less than one day on the end of a business trip. Sat out on my room's balcony for a while; very nice. All bells go crazy at 6:30 PM for some reason. Why 6:30 ? Dueling orchestras and crowds in piazza very entertaining at 9:00-10:00, when it is cool enough to be comfortable. They played selections from operas such as Carmen, then played "New York, New York". The crowd was really getting into it. TV showing "The Flintstones Movie" dubbed in Italian. Wed 6/2 Venice -> SFO ----------------------- My birthday ! 41 years and still ticking. Another loooong trip. Up at 5:45 AM Venice time, arrived home at 7 PM Pacific time, plus about 8 time-zones. My luggage is still on vacation; they had a massive power-failure at Heathrow about 5 days ago, and I think the baggage pipeline is still about 1/2 day behind. So maybe I'll get it tomorrow. Fortunately I have replacements for everything but my razor and shaving cream; guess I'll be a bit whiskery for a while. Misc ---- My rail-pass turned out to be pretty worthless. It wasn't accepted for short trips like Sienna, which turned out to be pretty cheap anyway. And I gave up on medium trips like Assisi and Cinque Terra, because it turned out I'd have to spend about 3 hours on the train each way, because of connections and stuff. So the rail-pass only worked for Rome-Florence and Florence-Venice, and I doubt their cost would have added up to more than 1/2 that of the pass. I wish I'd spent a day less in Florence and one more in Venice. The hotel nights were 4/6/3 Rome/Florence/Venice, and probably 4/5/4 would have been better. But I really did see most of the major tourist sights in each city; I can't think of anything big that I missed. Only had one pickpocket "experience": when going into the main cathedral of Florence (I think) amid a crowd, suddenly a man shouted out. He said that a pickpocket had had his hand in a woman's purse. She was more amused than anything, and I don't think she'd lost anything. Seems that Italy is preparing for "Jubilee 2000", which I think is a Y2K celebration that also is connected to the Church somehow. So lots of stuff was under scaffolding, a few things like the Duomo museum in Florence were closed for renovations, and prices have been raised.