sticky fingers in sicily

messina

Sarah is in Messina for a conference, so I'm going down to meet her and see a bit of Sicily together. I catch an overnight train from Venice, boarding at 7:03 pm and disembarking at 11:00 am. I had an whole couchette car to myself the entire trip. The conductor and I established fairly early on that we didn't speak each other's language, so except for dropping off an overnight kit for me (paper slippers, sleep sheet, pillow, single serving of water, all delivered one by one) he leaves me alone. Until some point in the evening when he walks in, and speaking in Italian, demonstrates how to pull out the lower bunk. "Buona notte." He was rather nice, and had a snappy cap. I kinda wanted to try it on. At the port of San Giovanni, the train rolls onto a ferry, and rolls off the other end straight into the Messina Centrale station. According to the paper that is delivered to my cabin, I'm due for some torrid weather, but it doesn't seem unbearable when I get off the train. Tucson, AZ in the summer was way worse.


I have no map of the city, and no idea where my hotel is. Thankfully, tourist offices generally exist for people like me, and the tourist office in Messina is right by the train station. When I walk in there are about six people behind the desk, and after establishing that I don't speak German, they have a funny little conference to decide who gets to deal with me. Most of the Italian I know comes from listening to opera, most which doesn't do a whole lot of good when arriving in a new town, although it is how I know the word for "where", which has come in handy a few times. The woman who helps me knows plenty English, and gets me going in the right direction.

The concierge at the Jolly Hotel is clearly enamored with American pop culture. At the presentation of my passport he sings a few bars of "Born in the USA", and when I ask him about wireless, he points out the double antennae. "Like Batman." Yes, I suppose it does loosely resemble Batman. I should have asked where Robin was.

sea critters

Seafood is a main staple in Sicily, and Sarah and I do our fair share of sampling local cuisine. Normally I don't eat a lot of seafood; it's mostly in protest of the fishing industry trashing the ocean floor, scooping up marine life it doesn't want and then chucking it out of the boat (dead), and generally screwing up the marine ecosystem. But sampling local flavors is part of the whole travel experience, so this time I'm overlooking my morals and tucking in. Also, I figure seafood here has a fairly good chance of having come off a small, local boat instead of a commercial trawler.


I ate one of those tentacles. Sort of crunchy and chewy at the same time. But even better was the plate of fried olives I ordered, not really knowing exactly what a fried olive was. I got a plate of what amounted to olive fritters. If I ever see them on a menu again, I'll be ordering them. They were so damn good. Eating right when traveling and being almost constantly on the move can be hard. It's easy to keep a bag of nuts or an apple in my bag for snacking, and to keep hunger pangs at bay, but for the most part, I buy food and eat it right then. A lot of my diet until Sicily had been made up of mozzarella and tomato sandwiches (tasty, cheap), so I can do with a dose of protein.

Something else I tried here was Chino soda; spicy, bitter and not too sweet. I still haven't figured out what flavor chinotto is, but I didn't turn into any sort of cat, either cute or ferocious, after drinking one.


I didn't actually see a whole lot of Messina, since I was there for just under 24 hours. After a brief excursion to find a cappuccino and some fruit (leaving the fruitstand with four peaches. I'm pretty sure I only asked for two. My pronunciation must be truly terrible), I spent the afternoon of my arrival taking a nap, and strolled around only a little in the evening. Evening is really the time to enjoy the Mediterranean. I didn't really figure it out for a couple of weeks, since I always wanted to run out first thing to do stuff. But the evenings are cooler, and since a lot of people are heading to restaurants, walking the sidewalks can be a little more mellow. Mediterranean cities pep up at night. The map the tourist office gave me was actually quite a good one, and pointed out a lot of pretty, historical buildings that would have been worth a look if I had hung around longer. The next morning we left early by bus, to Taormina, just down the coast.

taormina

Greta Garbo and Winston Churchill both stayed in Taormina, so we figure we should stay there as well. It's one dinky town, so dinky that I managed to find our hotel simply by walking around (the tourist office was closed when we arrived). It's dominated by a major shopping/perambulating thoroughfare, which is dominated by two churches and a cathedral, which on a Saturday are dominated by couples getting married. At least four couples tied the knotty knot in Taormina that day, and provided photo ops for the hundreds of vacationers who were clogging the town. Why someone on vacation would want to take pictures of a wedding couple they don't know, I can't fathom, yet a whole bunch of them were waiting outside the church, cameras in hand, waiting for the bride to appear. The only reason we were there is because one of the churches is across the street from a library housed in a medieval building that we really wanted to check out. Unfortunately, it was closed. Maybe the librarian was getting hitched.


Indulging in midday refreshments is essential here, so we plop ourselves at a cafe. Our waiter, an older gentleman with very well-toned arms and sporting closely cut grey hair that's almost white, is a master at the art of indifference. He's moving through the tables with slow ease, wearing a little smile that suggests that he knows something you don't, taking orders with the absolute minimal amount of conversation that any waiter can manage, and afterwards has a tendency to linger next to the table for slightly too long, causing us to wonder if we've committed some potational faux-pas. He doesn't seem in any hurry to do anything, but maybe that's the way it should be. If you sit down in an Italian cafe, you shouldn't plan on being anywhere soon. That's what drinking at the bar is for.

Other fun facts about Taormina - incomplete translations, for one:



And a dog sleeping on a windowsill. I've seen lots of cats in windowsills, but this is the first dog I've seen that was crashed out on one. His name was Rocky, and he really couldn't have cared less that we were standing there, thinking he was cute:


In Taormina we ate at Il Ciclope, where I got a plate of mixed grilled fish. Included in that was the entire back half of a fish. I think the front half was in Sarah's bowl of fish soup. Also two shrimp, eyes and legs still present. The place was staffed almost entirely by cheerful old gentleman. If you go to Taormina, consider eating a meal at Il Ciclope, and get the truffle gelato for dessert.

volcana!

The craters of Mount Etna are swathed in mist and clouds, and positively chilly. Just standing there doesn't indicate that this is still an active volcano, but all you need to do is scuff up an inch or so of the top rocks with your shoe, and you can grab a handful of toasty stones to warm your hands. Something is going on down there. The forge of Hephaestus is busy. Heading up to the crater, we didn't really expect any action, but, kaboom! the earth was barfing out smoke and chunks of rock. Unfortunately, it was all shaking at a crater further away from where we were, so there was no danger of getting pegged by a hunk of lava rock and taking home a few volcanic souvenir stitches. Hoping to inspire more thrilling geologic action, we looked around for a toddler to feed into the crater we were standing at, but all the ones we spotted seemed well guarded. We should have just waited. Mount Etna erupted two days later, and we missed it. Rats!



To get to the craters, you first need to take a cable car, and then a volcanic flow-proof Mercedes Benz minibus will lurch you the rest of the way. I think I caught some air going over a bump.


We're led around one of the craters by a rugged guide wearing the latest alpine fashion. It's a monochrome world up there. The ground is black, and the smoke and mist are white. Standing on top of a volcano is pretty cool, but after a bit, there really isn't a whole lot to see. After our guide leads us around the crater, feeding us fun facts in Italian that we don't understand, we didn't linger too long at the top.

But someone has to do something with all that volcanic rock, and the the souvenir shops of Sicily are stuffed with figures fashioned from lava, and dressed up with a little glitter. And the most common figures? Jesus and Mary of course. And, Mussolini. Or, a face that is supposed to be Mussolini. None of them really look like him, but there's no doubt who it's supposed to be. I snapped this outside a shop in Taormina, and have no idea why my camera chose to focus on the Blessed Virgin instead of the Dictator. Divine intervention, I suppose. Or else she was just in the focus frame.

petty thievery

I've seen lots of Annunciation paintings in my many museum visits here, and having no religious education whatsoever, was curious why the Virgin Mary is always depicted reading a book. No better person to hit up for info than Sarah, the lapsed Catholic who holds a degree in theology. Annunciation paintings abound, but her favorite is Antonello da Messina's Annunciata. This painting features Mary alone; Gabriel presumably somewhere out of frame. Normally housed at a museum in Palermo, it was recently in Taormina for an exhibit. I ask Sarah why this painting appeals to her, and she said that Mary has a really lovely face. I think she does, too. You can judge for yourself, because we nicked a poster of the exhibit.


The exhibition was over, so really, we did a public service by removing outdated information. But it wasn't all that easy. The decision to liberate it from the display case for a second, happier life on the wall of Sarah's flat was cake, but the display case was in a really public area, pretty much the most public any area in a town can be. Our decision to pursue careers as petty criminals made in the afternoon, we cruised by after dinner one night, but there was still way to much going on. Our last chance was the next morning, on the way out. Emerging into the square shortly after 8:00am, the first thing we see are three members of the carabinieri, one branch of law enforcement, who are just standing around chatting. Hmm. Also, the display case is directly next to a taxi rank, which at that hour is totally full, and since we're carrying our rucksacks, the drivers think we want a cab. Waving them off, we wait for the carabinieri to stroll away, then get busy (a) opening the case, hoping the cabbies are too busy smoking to notice what we're doing, and (b) looking like we're busy doing other things (taking photos, sniffing an orange). It's a double-sided case, standing in the middle of a planter, so all we need to do is loosen the two bottom nuts and slide it out. Except, it's taped up inside. My Swiss Army knife finally makes itself useful, and cuts through sticky tape goo. Poster in hand, we scurry off to the bus station. I only regret that I didn't put my map of the town in its place, to help future travelers like us, who show up in town without a map when the tourist office is closed. It was kind of a thrill.

And in case you're wondering, the reason Mary is always reading is Logos. You can look it up.

pussycat horrors


Like Venice, much of Palermo are dilapidated, but you can still discern an antiquated elegance beneath the decay and dirt. But unlike Venice, it's not because of the natural elements; more because someone just forgot about part of the city. The life of Venice's crumbling exteriors is no doubt somewhat prolonged by lack of car exhaust, but Palermo is good and gritty. Except the post office, which has a totally scary (and clean) fascisty facade, although I suppose it's safe to assume your mail will be handled with ruthless efficiency.


Traffic is nuts. Everywhere in Italy the pedestrian is the lowest form of life. Step out the way for a car zooming down a narrow medieval lane, and the driver doesn't even give you so much as a glance or nod to acknowledge either your presence or your having moved out of the way. Nope, you'd be just another dent in their bumper if you hadn't moved. Although, I must say that I'm inspired to ride a scooter after visiting the Mediterranean. On the sidewalk, helmet unsecured, bag of groceries or hapless infant just sitting on the running board, wearing a string of pearls, and checking my watch instead of watching where I'm going. Since I was too busy trying to stay alive while crossing the streets I was never able to get a handle on when cars are supposed to go and stop. Sometimes they were stopped but I couldn't figure out where the traffic light that was instructing them was.

Italy is of course filled with old cars, many of them Fiats. Since I'm traveling here with Sarah, this is a good time to share the story of her paternal grandmother's navy blue Fiat 500, which met an untimely and unexpected demise on a country lane in Surrey, when a cow sat on the bonnet, crushing it beyond possibility of reignition. Sarah's father was obliged to render a drawing of the accident in order to secure insurance money. Having seen both a Fiat 500 and a standard British dairy cow, it's a wonder that Sarah's granny escaped unscathed. Physically, anyway. She never did own another automobile after that.

Palermo is my last evening with Sarah before she goes home, and I go to Greece. We arrived too late in the day to do much of anything except stroll around the streets, and we go out to dinner one more time. Sicilian cooking seems to combine tastes that perhaps at first glance don't really seem to go together. We find Casa Santandrea, serving seafood, in a tiny square behind a big square, next to an abandoned church and a sagging apartment building, and totally overrun with leggy cats and kittens topped with ears as big as their heads. They're hanging out in the square, and winding their way through tables. One of them deigns to let me give him a backscratch, but most of them are playing cold and aloof. Until our food arrives.


I've got a goat cheese basil ravioli topped with fish ragout, Sarah has a slice of sardine pie with more fish bits stacked on top, and both of us have cats at our feet, gazing up at us with inky eyes in pretty cat faces. Not doing anything, just staring. Staring and waiting. Occasionally playing with our shoes. They really are very cute, especially the kittens, who are prancing around in that gangly manner that only baby animals can do, when things are still growing into place and locomotion is still a new skill. Finally I hand down a chunk of fish, and faster than you can say meowmix, cute cat morphs into feral cat; claws out, eyes gone slightly deranged, and moving a whole lot faster than the previous languid strolls through the tables, my offering is swatted out of my fingers and disappears down a pussycat gullet. Sarah got the same treatment, plus her blood drawn. We probably both have rabies now. Thankfully lockjaw didn't set in immediately, and I was able to enjoy my dessert, a basil cream in a pastry topped with peaches. Basically, a pesto fruit tart. Sounds weird, tastes gooood.

Palermo has me in a ruminative mood. I've been in Italy for just about three weeks, and as much as I've seen and as much ground as I've covered, it really just amounts to wiping fog off a mirror. When I planned this trip I considered two approaches - stay in only one or two places and really get to know them, or keep moving and see many places. I chose the second, not because it's the right or better thing to do, but because I've barely seen anything of this great big planet, and I want to fill my eyes with new sights. I still want to do that, but it's also hard to leave things and places I've become accustomed to. I'm sad to be leaving Italy, but excited about embarking on something new. Especially if it involves learning how to read a new alphabet.

watery urbanity

My pint-sized room in Venice was so narrow that I could stand in the middle and press the first full joint of each middle finger on opposite walls. It had a little wobbly table that threatened to collapse under the weight of my laptop, and a window that looked directly onto the Grand Canal, so I could glance over and watch the boats go by while writing. Classy!



They also served breakfast in my room each morning, with a variety of things to put on bread:


Things to spread on bread that is not peanut butter is big over here. In the Roman convent, breakfast, other than a pot of coffee and a pot of hot milk, was one gigantic crusty roll, and a plate full of single servings of every sort of berry/fruit jam in existence. Given a choice, I always go for cheese and Nutella (not together), but blobs of butter and jam are nice, too.

After the brain-cramping Renaissance art and culture glut of Florence, I didn't feel a deep need to take in any museums there. Venice's charm is Venice itself. It's a grand city, full of stately buildings and palazzos which boast a distinctive style of east meets west. Sadly, its splendor is slowly rotting away, succumbing to gravity and water. It's not immediately evident if you're admiring the palaces along the Grand Canal, or caught up in the busy streets of the Rialto or St. Mark's Square, but if you take the time to walk the back streets and bridges, the decay is evident.


Entire buildings seem to be crumbling, showing layers of the facade falling off in stages, windows shuttered, first floors under water, and to all appearances abandoned. You can walk the back streets and see virtually no one, passing through squares and courtyards populated only by pigeons and water wells that are no longer used. From a few bridges away, towers lean at unnerving angles. They always seemed to straighten up when I pointed my camera at them, but I finally got one to behave.


But appearances can be deceiving, and while I was staring at the upper floors of one building through the open shutters, convinced that no one could possibly live there, I realized a family was having lunch on one of the lower floors. Just for kicks, I stopped to look at some property prices in the window of a realtor. Cheaper than the Bay Area. Hmm.

There's less traffic than the Bay Area as well, since Venice obviously has no cars, and the only bicycles I saw were being ridden by children. The back streets are a maze of winding alleys that lead to one of the hundreds of bridges that link the city together, or just dead-end into a canal. Since boats need to pass underneath the bridges, they almost always arch, and involve stairs. Everything delivered to shops must be carried or hand-carted in from the boats, and sweaty guys calling "attenzione" are wheeling handtrucks everywhere, with no patience for tourists who are standing stock still in the middle of the streets, having no clue that they are just in the way of business as usual. Everything the terra firma world has trucks for, Venice has boats for. I spied both a garbage barge and a cement mixing barge while strolling around. For everyone accustomed to the standard solid ground that the rest of the world offers, Venice's canals are both beyond-words weird, and strangely normal at the same time.


I got to Venice in the early evening via train from Florence. The first thing I did was seek out St. Mark's Square. Of course that's where the Basilica is, but I went there for another reason - I wanted to get a coffee at Florian's.


Florian's is one of the world's famous cafés, and has the prices to prove it. I paid 4 euro for a cappuccino (at the bar), and it was yummy and worth every cent. Plus I got a little chocolate covered coffee bean. Afterwards I sat in the plaza, and listening to orchestras at Florian's and Quadri's across the square trading tunes. It rained a little bit, but not enough to keep anything wet for long, and felt nice. You wouldn't know from me vacationing in Italy in August, but I love rain and cold weather. Cold weather lends itself to better fashion.

I revisited St. Mark's Square in the subsequent days during daylight hours to see the Basilica, Campanile, and however many thousands of pigeons infest the square before night falls. The Basilica is distinctly Byzantine-flavored, its squatter stature and multiple, heavily-ornamented, sort-of-oniony domes tinged with more eastern qualities than the soaring cathedral vaults I've seen so far. The ceiling is mosaicked, and any space not covered in figures or words is covered in gold tiles. Photos are not allowed inside. I initially steeled myself to stand in yet another line to enter, but doing the requested thing and checking my day bag allowed me to skip it - the guy who handed me my claim ticket told me to stay to the left and avoid the queue. Only by the grace of Saint Mark did I not get pooped on by a pigeon while criss-crossing the square. Or maybe just karmic balance, since I got nailed by one in Vancouver earlier this year.



I ascended the Campanile (via elevator this time, not steps), for a bird's eye view of Venice, but passed on the chance to call home from the multiple telephone booths on the viewing platform. I was hoping to get a view of the canals, but it isn't quite high enough to allow that. Since St. Mark's Square is one of the first areas to flood when the sea level rises, there is a sea-level gauge on the side of the Campanile. There was thankfully no flooding during my time there - I didn't bring any wellingtons - but there was one extended downpour on my final afternoon that must have raised the water level at least a half an inch. Fortunately, I was right next to a free exhibition of the Biennale contemporary art expo when the sky broke open. Shelter and art at the same time.


Venice has quite a lot of good shopping options, and the streets around St. Mark's are filled with shops with rather nice things. The main shopping district is the famous Rialto, but those shops are mostly filled with tacky things, as well as being so jammed packed with tourists that navigating the streets was somewhat slow and laborious. On my first night's perambulations, I came across a glove store that had what I can only describe as highly overpriced bicycle gloves; when else does one wear crochet-back gloves? I tried to find the shop again during daylight hours to try them on, but our paths never crossed again. They would have looked right smart with that pennyfarthing from Florence.


Since I'm traveling light out of a rucksack, I'm not really in the market for anything, but I can't help but stop to admire well-tailored shirts. Like casting a glamour, a fitted white shirt can make almost anyone look presentable. Unfortunately, they are also one of the most impractical items of clothing anyone can wear, unless you're on a strict milk or coconut snowball diet. I did come across a superb pair of shoes and had the shop been open, would have freely parted with piles of cash for a custom pair. Sadly, the shopkeep was on holiday until September. I may need to go back to Venice. I'm writing this several days later, I'm still thinking about them.



I also found this cool bookshop with a gondola inside, and a back door that opened up right into a canal. I only browsed the shelves (and gondola) the first time I visited, but when I went back the next day to get a postcard, the proprietor made a point of telling me to go see the back door.


The soundtrack of my youth was Gilbert and Sullivan, so at some point in my childhood I probably wanted to be a gondolier; likely after I wanted to be a long-haul trucker. I do like stripey shirts, and not enough people these days wear hats. Of course, I wasn't going to fork out for a gondola ride, although I would have paid good money to steer one down the Grand Canal. Obviously none of the gondoliers were going to let me do this, so I instead just spend some time studying them, since they have a number of intriguing details. They are build asymmetrically, presumably to allow them to cut a straight line while being oared only on one side. You won't notice this until you see them from above, which you can easily do by standing on any bridge close to the center of town.

All are black, but can have spruced up interiors. I also like the oarlocks; I think they have another official name, but I'm not sure what it is. Many are plain, but lots have carvings, and I found one that had the initials of its maker on it. I came across a shop that made them, and had a big block of wood with the pattern marked out in pencil, but no one was around to pepper with questions. Or else they were all in the back working. It's kind of remarkable what kind of handling the gondolas have. Many of the canals are quite narrow, with boat traffic in both directions, yet the gondoliers could angle their boats out of the way with just a few subtle oar movements. I'm not sure exactly how long a gondola is, but it's got to be close to, if not over, 30 feet.



I liked taking breaks in squares next to canals that were heavily trafficked by gondolas, since a gondola carrying an accordionist and singer would occasionally slide by, offering a few moments of free entertainment. Or, expensive entertainment that someone else was paying for. However, not wanting to miss out on experiencing the Grand Canal almost at water level, I took a couple of rides on the traghetti, which are gondola taxis that ferry people from one side of the canal to the other. It takes at the most about two minutes to cross, and costs .50 cents. Cheaper thrills are rarely found. And since I'm such a landlubber in real life, I got a few extra thrills, since even a ride that short gave me a minor case of sea legs on the opposite shore.


Venice at first pushed my navigational skills, and on my first night there I lost my bearings within a very small patch of ground, finding one restaurant twice without intending to, and walking across the same bridges multiple times. The next day I wised up, and remembering what Ling told me, started paying attention to the directional signs to the major business centers.


Knowing what to look for, getting lost in the city is actually fairly difficult, since it's too small to get very far off track. Sooner or later you'll just stumble across something familiar, and be back in familiar territory. On my second evening I took a water bus to the burb of St. Elena, and had dinner at a restaurant there because I thought I was way out of the city center. As soon as I started walking back, I realized I had come quite close the previous evening, walking down along the lagoon from St. Mark's. I had turned back because I couldn't tell if it was going to start raining harder than it had been.

The conductors on the water buses are fun to watch. At each stop, they need to moor the boat to the dock, and wear heavy gloves to handle the ropes. It happens so fast you almost don't see it.


To really get a feel for Venice, and not just see it, one would really need to spend some weeks there. I'd love to go back, and should I get the opportunity, would try to get my hands on a little rowboat to explore the canals; seemed kind of a shame to see the city with streets of water on foot. I also have a feeling that lot of the best bits and secret charm can be seen only at canal level, and in places where you can't walk without getting all wet. What I would give to have been here a few centuries ago. That would have been a truly grand time.

Today is September 11th, and I've been on the move for one month now. Happy birthday, Dad. I'm posting this from Rhodes, Greece.

humanist perspective

If you go to the Galleria Palatina in Florence's Pitti Palace, you'll notice that the many rooms along the very long building all have the doors in the same location. So if you're standing at one end, you can look down through all the doors in all the rooms to the very end. It's an apt Florentine experience, since Florence was the center of Renaissance art, and the Renaissance artists finally figured out perspective.

The seams of Florence are busting with art. I spent more money here on museums than anywhere else so far, and it was all worth it.

The Uffizi


The mothership of Renaissance art is the Uffizi - the Offices, of the Medici. Having cultivated so much greatness, maybe the Medici can be pardoned for having spawned a couple of corrupt popes. Long entrance lines are standard, and reservations are recommended. Since I spaced on making one, and fearing a repeat of my Vatican ordeal, I hoof it down there early on my first Florence morning, hoping to make an in-person reservation for later that day or two days later. And there's hardly a line at all. The gallery isn't even open yet, so I just hop in line, kill time by scribbling in my journal, and one hour later I'm in the door. My bag again goes through an x-ray machine, and this time I hand over my swiss army knife to security.

The Uffizi has been around for centuries, and much of collection has been here for centuries as well. The main hallways are lined with statues, but the true treasure trove is the rooms full of Renaissance masterpieces, including Botticelli's Primavera and The Birth of Venus (or, Venus on the Half Shell). Also Michelangelo, Titian, and Leonardo's Annunciation. One of my favorites was a painting (my notebook was in the bag check, so I couldn't write down the artist and forgot), that had evidently had its bottom section sliced off at some point - a pair of rabbit ears are clearly visible, but the rest of the bunny is missing. I spent three hours inside, which is only enough time to walk through all the rooms and give almost everything a look. But it's only about as much time as I can spend in museums like this; after some point my brain reaches peak saturation and stops absorbing any information.

Exiting the Uffizi, I get a gelato to help plan my next move. Since Italy is so hot, I usually get fruit flavors, since they seem more refreshing than the standard chocolate I would usually go for. On this day I get passion fruit. Tasty!

Pitti Palace

I decide to spend the rest of the afternoon at the enormous Pitti Palace, a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Uffizi over the Ponte Vecchio, the Old Bridge, lined with gold and jewelry shops. If you're a Medici, and need to escape Florence, you can bug out via the enclosed second level that connects to the Uffizi. Since I'm not a Medici, I take the pavement, sliding past the street vendors selling knock-off designer purses.

The Pitti Palace is so big you need to buy separate entrance tickets for its various museums and collections. Tickets in hand, and 20.50 euro lighter, I head first to the Galleria del Costume. I hit every gift shop on my way out trying to find postcards of the swanky outfits they had there, but for some reason fashion isn't deemed postcard-worthy, which is a damn shame. All Italian postcards are of works that everyone already knows about (Three Graces, et al), which is exactly not what I'm looking for. A tailored women's suit from the early 1900s is one of my favorites, but the collection includes items from the 1700s through Vivienne Westwood, an array of handbags and purses, and of course, shoes. I think a requirement of any costume/fashion exhibit is to be able to walk entirely around each piece, which this exhibit does not always allow. I still recommend it, anyway.

The Galleria Moderna has a special exhibit entitled Music on Stage, featuring designs of productions from 70 years of a Florentine music festival. There are a bunch of costumes worn by a bunch of opera legends, including Renata Tebaldi. Design sketches included Derek Jarman's The Rake's Progress, and costume by Jean-Paul Gaultier; moving in for a closer look, I manage to set off some alarm. Perhaps a bead of perspiration was threatening to plop into the case. The exhibit starts in its own room, and then is scattered throughout the Gallery, the walls of which are dripping with paintings. I study the Raphaels, but at this point my eyes are glazing over, and I'm not taking in most of what's there.

A stroll through the Medici apartments shows me how the incredibly wealthy other half lived a few centuries ago. As with the Galleria Borghese, no centimeter of space is left bare; everything is covered, draped, painted, carved, or ornamented. There are a lot of fancy tables featuring very elaborate inlay, but my favorite piece of furniture here is a table with an enormous malachite top. This piece, probably incapable of sustaining any damage from visitors' greasy fingers, was roped off several feet away, while the inlaid table were right there for the touching, if you chose to ignore the signs pleading for you to keep your paws off.

Even though Florence sort of feels like an oven on this day, I spend some time strolling the Boboli Gardens, to get fresh air if nothing else. The gardens have nice landscaping, but otherwise I find them a little on the dull side. Like the palace, they cover acres of ground, so getting around on horseback would no doubt have improved the experience; sadly, there are no steeds in sight.

Science Museum

A museum to truly tax your brain (in a good way) and stamina is the Museo di Storia della Scienza. Located just behind the Uffizi, but with a miniscule fraction of the visitors, this museum rivals the Uffizi as the best in Florence. The Uffizi is filled with beautiful things, no doubt about that. The Science Museum is filled with beautiful things that do stuff; things that measure, calculate, and reveal. The Renaissance wasn't just about art, it was a fertile time for science as well, and many of the main Renaissance men were both artists and scientists, Visionaries and inventors. Balances, astrolabes, optical instruments to see big things far away and little things up close, surgical instruments, mathematical instruments, Archimedes' screws, compasses, globes, mechanical clocks, chemistry glassware, armillary spheres, quadrants, sextants, and octants. One military compass could snap together to become a dagger - no more being unpleasantly surprised by your enemy while you plot your next strategic move. And, Galileo's middle finger, in the same room with his telescopes. Besides having contributed to the discoveries that laid the foundations of a lot of modern science, the instruments in this collections are works of art in themselves, having been fashioned in the day when craftsmen made things that not only worked well, but looked beautiful. You don't really find that so much these days; I mean, I have a Starrett ruler that I think is actually quite pretty, but some intaglioed curlicues would really dress it up.

When I finally think I can't take in anymore and head out, I find two more special exhibits - thankfully small in scale, or else my higher functions may have shut down. The first highlights the many sundials in Florence. I would never have known that this city had so many; they are hiding in plain sight for anyone who knows what to look for. And the last - bicycles from the late 1800s. Unfortunately, the only information on this was presented in Italian, but it did have the most gorgeous pennyfarthing I've ever seen that needed no words. Most of the parts looked like they were cast from patterns, and it was an exercise in elegant curves. Except for lacking a front tire, it appeared to be in good enough shape to ride. There were maybe only 15-20 bikes total in the exhibit, and I kept circling back to this one, just to stand and gaze. I may have been swaying and drooling a bit.

And again, no postcards. Darn! I had a whole list of people I thought would benefit from a postcard from this museum, and the gift shop failed me.

Inspired by the sundial exhibit, I go to seek out a couple. My mission to Santa Maria Novella is foiled by the facade being covered for restoration. I do find the one on the Ponte Vecchio, which indicates the canonical hours of prayer rather than the hours of the day.



Speaking of bikes, there are a lot of them in Florence. Many people are merrily pedaling along, but there are also racks crammed with bikes, half of which seem abandoned. I mean, when was the last time someone sat on this:


Accademia

Most people come to the Accademia to see one thing, and one thing only. David. And there he is, furrowed brow and sling, steely eyes looking to Goliath, and not at the mass of reverential tourists gathered at his feet. The information plaque tell us that the moment depicted is after Goliath has taken a stone between the eyes, but I've read elsewhere that the moment is before. Which I think explains better his focused expression, and what appears to be a stone in his right hand. More research is needed.

The statue is so well known, and most of us have seen images of it all our lives, so it's easy to be apathetic about going to view it in person; what are you going to see that you haven't seen before? You see a lot of detail, which is probably what sets David apart from most statues. My appreciation of David isn't so much in his perfect human form, it's that his perfect human form came from one piece of marble. Along the hallway leading to David are Michelangelo's Prisoners, all of which are unfinished and demonstrate work in progress. The forms are all half-emerged from the marble, and still bear marks from the chisels. As lovely as finished statues are, I find the process of making them just as fascinating. Looking at Michelangelo's half-finished work just makes you realize how talented he was to finish a piece that's the caliber of David.

I wish the Accademia had constructed some sort of second tier in order to view David at his upper half. There's a little interactive flyaround video presentation, but it doesn't capture all the detail the naked eye could see. Humanity today is destined to view David from his feet up.

The Accademia isn't as extensive as the Uffizi, but still has its fair share of Renaissance eye candy. I'm getting a little Bible-storied out, so I'm not taking in too many of the religious works (unless there's something gory going on). I always enjoy looking at musical instruments, and there are two exhibits of these. One is the permanent collection. In addition to a horde of Stradivariuses, it also has an odd pianoguitar, which looks like a mandolin with a little keyboard placed below the bridge. Apparently this was fashioned for ladies, so they wouldn't damage the beauty of their fingertips by plucking the strings. You hear that, all you lady guitar players? According to 17th century (or was it 18th? I really need to start writing stuff down) aesthetics, you're sullied. Well, at least your fingertips are. And did you know that the wife of Louis XV played a mean hurdy-gurdy? She probably got invited to all the best parties. There's also a special exhibition of remarkable instruments - guitars and harpsichords made from marble, zoomorphic instruments, elaborate painting, carving and inlay.

Duomo

As with many towns, one of the signature buildings of Florence is its cathedral, with its red dome, the Duomo. The cathedral was built before the technology and know-how existed to raise the dome, which Filippo Brunelleschi finally managed to do in the 15th century. Word is he took a chunk from the dome of Rome's Pantheon to study it, and there is indeed a chunk of the Pantheon dome missing.


The exterior of the cathedral is green and white marble. I was sort of expecting just the standard grey stone, so got a good surprise when I came across it. I like how the cathedral is sort of crammed into its location; there's a plaza in front of it, but the back end comes almost up to the street, and right across from it, it's business as usual with shops. Florence has lots of narrow streets, which makes it good for walking; one side is generally in the shade.


For a close to bird's eye view of Florence, you can climb either the Duomo or the Campanile right next to it. Advised that the Campanile lines were shorter, I chose that one. It's slightly shorter than the Duomo, but 414 steps later, you get to see the Duomo at eye level. I need a few minutes to acclimate to the height, and step slowly with a hand against the building. Why all the red rooftops? I don't know, but want to find out.




wifi. finally!

Hostel Archi Rossi can only be described as funky. The walls are covered in murals of famous paintings, and less famous scribblings from the guests that have passed through over the years. The have a webcam in the lobby, so at any time on their website, you can watch a Florentine hostel lobby and see who's passing through. And, they have wifi, which is how I finally updated this blog through Naples. Unfortunately, they also have a dearth of electrical outlets, so I'm either running down my battery in the lobby, or charging up in the mess hall. I did spend part of one evening sitting the hallway in front of my room, but since it was a major thoroughfare, was pretty much in everyone's way. I finally found a sort of solution in the laundry room; one outlet, weak wireless signal, dryer for a desk. But I could also safeguard my four pairs of underwear while they were line-drying. The hostel is full of noisy American twenty-somethings, but also has a nice garden with shade and grass. Plus you get to watch sparrows invade the mess hall in the morning, to be subsequently chased out by an old Italian lady. But they kept coming back.



Should you enjoy fine leather products, you should plan a trip to Florence. At the end of my city perambulations, I unexpectedly came across the School of Leather at the back of Santa Croce church. Not exactly where I'd expect to find a leather school, but they have a showroom, goods for sale, and you can check out their workshops. Since I was en route to the train station, I had only enough time for a cursory swing through, but got to see students stamping initials, forming bags, and sewing bag handles, all at tables strewn with tools. It was heartening to see old fashioned craftsmanship alive and well.

Florence highlights the one issue I've encountered with this extended trip of mine, and that is that I didn't have enough time to get fully informed before I started. I know it's unrealistic to know everything about a city and thousands of works of art, but I do wish I could approach all these places with a better arsenal of knowledge, to really be able to appreciate all the things I'm seeing. I hope I'll see them again some day. Referring to guidebooks only helps so much, and generally when I find an internet connection, I need to spend time plotting out my next moves, rather than researching art and history. Of the few cities I've seen so far, I want to spend more time here; I didn't get in nearly enough time to do my favorite new city activity, which is just to walk the streets without worrying about where I'm going.

On my last night in Florence I went out in the evening for a stroll and a gelato (mixed fruit with chocolate). I sat on one of the bridges, looking at the Ponte Vecchio and full moon reflected in the River Arno. It was real pretty. Too bad I didn't have my camera. You'll just have to come see it for yourself.

seatime floating

I arrive in the Cinque Terre wearing the smelliest shirt ever. Ever. I left Naples at 9:38 pm, and stumbled off the train at La Spezia at 4:14 am. I dozed off sometime in the first couple of hours, and woke up in a puddle of sweat. Thankfully the evening got cooler, and by the middle of the night it was cool and breezy enough to close the window. Nighttime train travel is a strange, twilight time. No one is really getting any decent sleep, and it's not unusual to wake up from a nap to find one of your compartment companions standing at the window just watching the world go by and getting some fresh air. Trains pull into stations during the wee hours, and people are lined up on the platform with their bags and suitcases waiting to go somewhere else. Time passes differently on a night train. It kind of floats and flickers by.

Even if I could get to the Cinque Terre at 4:30 in the morning, I'd just be sitting around there, so for the time being I choose to sit around the station at La Spezia. The station police and agents are walking around, and a few other travelers are hanging about, so it's hardly deserted. I'm walking in circles to keep myself awake and warm when one of the wedding guests from the previous weekend strolls down the platform. He's on his way back to Rome, and we kill time in the cafe, drinking tiny cups of coffee, waiting for the ticket office to open.

The Cinque Terre is five teacup-sized towns strewn along the coast within walking distance of one another (or you can hop on a train). Much of the land is terraced for agriculture, and if you're a fan of sweet white wine, you may want to indulge in a Cinque Terre vintage. I tried a taste at a wine shop and told the proprietress it was delicioso, but ugh...like Dracula, wine has never appealed to me. Give me just the grapes. The area is a national park, so you need to purchase a pass in order to do any walking in the area outside of the towns themselves. I get my pass at the train station ticket office, from a goofy agent who's either had too much caffeine or not enough sleep. He's making fun of my lack of Italian, but in a laughing with, not laughing at manner. So far, he's the happiest Italian I've met. He hands me various papers and booklets of information, one by one, and makes a show of looking for more things to give me.

I'm staying at the hostel in the second town, Manarola. When I get there, it's still early, and the hostel door is closed, so I just sit in the cafe at the beginning of town catching up in my journal. Once checked in, I need to make myself scarce, since hostels close down for at least a few hours during the day to clean. This hostel kicks people out from 10-5, which is actually a fairly long time for a lockout.


The Cinque Terre challenges me. I generally fill my waking hours with active things to do; if I'm on my own, just sitting and relaxing is sort of a foreign concept. I figure that's what sleep is for. I get twitchy if all I do is sit around for more than a couple of hours. And there isn't a whole lot to do here except relax. Each of the towns has a main street lined with shops and eateries, but unless you're extremely hungry or buying up buckets of souvenirs, it's hard to spend more than one hour ambling up and down each of these. Needing the give my legs and feet a break, I spend my first day in the area taking the train between a couple of the towns, giving them a cursory inspection. All the other holidaymakers here aren't having any problem adjusting to the lack of things to do. Vacationers everywhere are sporting hopelessly wrecked skin, doing their best to completely turn their hides into leather fit for purses, and competing for the Tiniest Swimsuit prize. The Cinque Terre also practices another concept foreign to me, that of paying to go to a beach. Despite the fact that it's on the coast, there is only a scrap of beach here, and it's taken up with ranks of beach chairs and umbrellas. Most of the rest of the coast is just big rocks that lead right into the deep cool sea, which are free to sit on or jump off of. It also poses a challenge if you have a boat; in Manarola, the boats are lowered into the water via a winch on a big I-beam that projects over the cliff.



Ignoring the pay for the beach rule, I sneak on and spend a few minutes just walking in the water. It may have been a mistake, since I get some sand in a blister on my foot. It doesn't hurt, but I want to get it flushed out anyway, so I pop into a farmacia looking for a plastic dental syringe. Italian farmacias are pretty small, and a lot of items are behind the counter. Not finding what I want on the shelves, I ask the pharmacist. He give me a syringe. A shot in the arm syringe, sterile needle and all. It'll work, but I 'm a tad concerned about using it in the shared hostel bathroom, imagining having a non-English speaking guest walk in, and trying to explain why I have a syringe stuck in my toe.

I spend my second day hiking the coast between the towns. It takes about five hours at a good ambling pace, including one stop for gelato. The path between the first and second towns is basically a paved path right on the cliff, but the hikes are harder between the last two towns. The path can be narrow and rocky, and continually rises and falls. Along the way there are a lot of stone walls that seem to be holding together only through careful placement and gravity.




Half along the way I meet Shem, also staying at the hostel, and we finish out the hike to the last town, Monterosso. He wants to work on his tan, so we sit on the free rocks, watching some local fishermen and fisherwomen catch small fish with small maggots. It doesn't take me long to start burning, so bidding Shem and his developing tan goodbye, I seek out a cooler place to rest. Monterosso has a Cappuchin monastery with a mausoleum at the top of the cliff, offering a good sea view and shade. The entire area is overrun with little green and brown lizards, who rarely stay still long enough to get a picture. Wondering amongst the tombs at the monastery I startle a little silver snake, who in turn startles me, and it slithers off into the wall as I'm fumbling to get my camera out.

Walked out for the day, I take to train back to Manarola. By now it's early evening, and the sun has lost its midday blaze. It's time to join to throng of people enjoying the sea. I definitely come in last in the ongoing Tiny Swimsuit competition, sporting my Speedo racing suit, which goes down to my knees. It's not that I race, I just don't like baring my legs. I don't even really want to swim, I just want to float around. I guess I finally found my form of relaxation. The sea is very clear here, and all along the coast, you can see the rocks at the bottom.

In contrast to Pompeii's snoozing dogs, the Cinque Terre is full of napping cats.



And that wasn't even all of them. There was also one wide awake Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy.



He was tied up to a boat and looking sad until some of us came along, and then he was happy as a clam.

I'm in the Cinque Terre for three mornings, and each time go to the same cafe for a cappuccino and a pastry. The same woman is always behind the bar, and always takes her sweet time acknowledging that I'm standing there, clearly waiting for service. Perhaps I needed to look a little more feeble and caffeine-deprived. Even flipping a coin or wafting a bill about wouldn't work, since she takes payment after goodies have been consumed. And when she does acknowledge me, she has a way of sort of looking just past me, through her designer spectacles, so I wasn't sure she was actually addressing me, or someone else. On the third morning, I was pretty sure I had exactly the same thing as on the second morning, but she charged me less. Either the price on the flaky pastries was wrong, or she cut me a break. I like to think it's the latter.