Even from the air, the earthquake's devastation is evident. As my plane curved low from over the sea toward Toussaint Louverture International Airport in North-Central Port-Au-Prince, I noticed collections of structures that were clearly neighborhoods but just looked wrong: their coloring, that bleached warm taupe of dusty concrete, was too uniform; the lines of both buildings and streets too random and soft. There were few crisp rooflines topped with rust-colored tin or corrugated iron, and too few trees.
My sense of discomfiture grew as we landed, and I sank into a city shaped and stamped by confusingly intermixed influences of earthquake devastation and endemic poverty. I saw the cracked edges and faded paint on the runways. A few containers and trailers lie seemingly at random on the grassy stretches between the runways: are they homes? Offices? The Air-Traffic-Control tower? No way to know. Off to the side, on an overgrown field close to the wall that encloses the airport, a scattering of 757s squat at odd angles, abandoned and dark, their parent companies presumably defunct. Depressing at best, disconcerting the more I thought about it.
We deplaned into the old airport terminal, which is no longer in use. My companions, a pair of teenagers coming home for the holidays, assured me that the other terminal was better, but I’d yet to see it and it was eerie to walk down dark hallways past dark and empty offices whose windows (some splintered or reinforced with utility tape) showed faded logos for American Airlines, Air Canada, and other companies. If I believed in omens, which of course I don’t, then wandering through a cracked ghost-airport of commercial failure would have filled me with a sense of foreboding, which of course it didn’t.
Helpfully, all signage in the new airport building is trilingual, as had been the airline safety videos and cabin announcements on the flight over: French, English, and Creole/Kreyol. As soon as I had stepped onto the plane in Florida, I had been immersed in a wash of these three languages, often spoken intertwined. Obviously the English stood out for me, but my years of language study finally paid off in my ability to navigate the French language environment with equal ease. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could also glean a lot meaning from the Creole using my French. I felt on strong linguistic ground.
My boss Shonta, who I had met in the US, greeted me at the other side of customs and immigration. I realized immediately that Shonta knows by first name everybody at the airport, from the officer who stamped my passport to the security guards who let her in to meet me in the first place to the porter whom she indicated I should let carry my bag. She moves through the airport scattering smiles, greetings, and jokes. This how she gets things done. If you know me, you’ll know why we get along: I have the same style, using charm to navigate pesky institutional structures. Very effective outside the US. When I am home, I occasionally miss being able to wield this power, so it was nice to be back in my element again.
We left the terminal, dodging and weaving through a throng of porters, touts, and chauffeurs to reach Shonta’s truck, a rare rugged, dented, much-loved workhorse of a four-wheel drive. The interior of the door can no longer remember a time when it was upholstered, there are no signs of seatbelts, and we’ll leave the rest unsaid. The thing about unsafe vehicles is that they get exponentially less safe the faster they go. Despite its quirks, the truck is mechanically sound and very sturdy: ideal for narrow, uneven, pothole- and rubble-ridden roads on which you can rarely break 15 miles per hour. We wove sluggishly through the dusty streets, arriving after 40 minutes or so at the house of Ysmaille, Shonta’s fiancé, where I stayed for the first week and a half.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Italy: Day 12: Last day, Pisa
My mother and sister wandered up into the hills above our guest house to further admire the views while I finished and submitted my grad school essays. Then we ate another scrumptious train food court meal (fresh tuna and cured meat sandwiches), hopped on another train, again admired the stunning Apennines and the piles of marble mined from them that lined the tracks, and pulled into Pisa not long after.
Pisa was not at all what I expected. Its streets were calm, well-lived-in, with more posh clothing and food shops than tourist traps. Though an incredibly ancient city, its buildings were low and spanned a wide range of ages. Its frontage along the river Arno was smooth and utilitarian and colorful, a pleasant change from Florence and the like. Its population was surprisingly diverse, with noticeable vibrant minorities of people of Asian and African descent. And most delightfully, its tower and accompanying buildings were not the tacky trollops I anticipated, but were stark and arresting in their elegance and simplicity.
The iconic leaning tower is in fact a bell-tower for the cathedral that anchors the spacious Piazza dei Miracoli. The brilliantly green grassy field holds only four buildings: the aforementioned tower and duomo, plus a baptistery and a graveyard structure. The openness of the public space is unique in Italy, where most equivalent buildings are situated crammed amongst the bustle of unrelated structures. The buildings are spare and elegant, featuring the blindingly white marble and smooth lines of their construction rather than much fuss and ornament. The architects’ and city planners’ forward thinking is all the more remarkable when you consider that they designed this space and its buildings around the year 1000. The interior of the unassuming Baptistery is particularly striking, echoing the best of Roman architecture with graceful arches reaching up to an ambitiously high dome. Perhaps most unique, the cemetery building is designed to be a church of the dead, shaped in a cathedral’s cross but with the center nave roofless and open to the heavens.
Climbing the tower was a strange experience. Remember, of course, that it is leaning. Now think about what a spiral staircase tilted at an angle would be like to walk up and down on. Now make there be no handrail, and make the steps very very worn slippery marble. It was more of a challenge than I had anticipated, but the views from the top across the roofs of the ancient city to the dramatic mountains encircling was well worth the drunken funhouse experience of the stairs.
Our accomodations in Pisa, excellently located by my sister, were in the simple but comfortable Pensione Helvetica, a large and very clean hotel that was inexpensive at 20 Euro per person per night. I was humored to find it was run by a Thai family, and enjoyed their Thai-style courtyard garden (read proliferate potted plants and decorative duckweed with random laundry and trampoline and hand-welded decorative fence). I’d highly recommend it to anyone staying briefly in Pisa.
We dined at a restaurant overlooking the leaning tower that, though catering to the tourist set, was deservedly Lisa-Approved. From their vast menu we enjoyed a sampler of Tuscan bruschettas (mystery pate, lard) that were much tastier than you’d think, as well as a rich dish of gnocchi and fresh crab meat, a serving of roast pork, and my personal favorite, a massive pile of simple sautéed chard-like greens, accompanied by the required local Chianti.
My mother and my flight back to the US left at 7 am the next morning, so we called it an early evening and awoke at a stupidly early hour to get to the airport, only to find the counters not yet open. Once we were able to check in, we were hustled through a surprisingly out-of-date airport experience, with minimal security, tiny spartan waiting accommodations, and a bus across the tarmac to the plane, which we boarded by climbing the stairs to the side. It was more like the Cambodian airports than any developed-country airports I’ve visited.
Which brings me to a concluding observation about Italy: Though it’s a fairly prosperous western European country, it remains in many ways surprisingly undeveloped. Its infrastructure, its politics, and the lifestyles of its inhabitants have remained much less changed by modern life than its neighbors. The new structures built are much like the very old structures, without many “improvements”. The electricity and potable water is haphazard, though fairly reliable. Family, food, drink, church, and public events (including sports) are the priorities, rather than maximizing profits, consumerism, materialism, individualism. In general, it reminded me more of Thailand than America. And in many ways, I felt more at home in this throwback context than my comfortable apartment in NYC.
Pisa was not at all what I expected. Its streets were calm, well-lived-in, with more posh clothing and food shops than tourist traps. Though an incredibly ancient city, its buildings were low and spanned a wide range of ages. Its frontage along the river Arno was smooth and utilitarian and colorful, a pleasant change from Florence and the like. Its population was surprisingly diverse, with noticeable vibrant minorities of people of Asian and African descent. And most delightfully, its tower and accompanying buildings were not the tacky trollops I anticipated, but were stark and arresting in their elegance and simplicity.
The iconic leaning tower is in fact a bell-tower for the cathedral that anchors the spacious Piazza dei Miracoli. The brilliantly green grassy field holds only four buildings: the aforementioned tower and duomo, plus a baptistery and a graveyard structure. The openness of the public space is unique in Italy, where most equivalent buildings are situated crammed amongst the bustle of unrelated structures. The buildings are spare and elegant, featuring the blindingly white marble and smooth lines of their construction rather than much fuss and ornament. The architects’ and city planners’ forward thinking is all the more remarkable when you consider that they designed this space and its buildings around the year 1000. The interior of the unassuming Baptistery is particularly striking, echoing the best of Roman architecture with graceful arches reaching up to an ambitiously high dome. Perhaps most unique, the cemetery building is designed to be a church of the dead, shaped in a cathedral’s cross but with the center nave roofless and open to the heavens.
Climbing the tower was a strange experience. Remember, of course, that it is leaning. Now think about what a spiral staircase tilted at an angle would be like to walk up and down on. Now make there be no handrail, and make the steps very very worn slippery marble. It was more of a challenge than I had anticipated, but the views from the top across the roofs of the ancient city to the dramatic mountains encircling was well worth the drunken funhouse experience of the stairs.
Our accomodations in Pisa, excellently located by my sister, were in the simple but comfortable Pensione Helvetica, a large and very clean hotel that was inexpensive at 20 Euro per person per night. I was humored to find it was run by a Thai family, and enjoyed their Thai-style courtyard garden (read proliferate potted plants and decorative duckweed with random laundry and trampoline and hand-welded decorative fence). I’d highly recommend it to anyone staying briefly in Pisa.
We dined at a restaurant overlooking the leaning tower that, though catering to the tourist set, was deservedly Lisa-Approved. From their vast menu we enjoyed a sampler of Tuscan bruschettas (mystery pate, lard) that were much tastier than you’d think, as well as a rich dish of gnocchi and fresh crab meat, a serving of roast pork, and my personal favorite, a massive pile of simple sautéed chard-like greens, accompanied by the required local Chianti.
My mother and my flight back to the US left at 7 am the next morning, so we called it an early evening and awoke at a stupidly early hour to get to the airport, only to find the counters not yet open. Once we were able to check in, we were hustled through a surprisingly out-of-date airport experience, with minimal security, tiny spartan waiting accommodations, and a bus across the tarmac to the plane, which we boarded by climbing the stairs to the side. It was more like the Cambodian airports than any developed-country airports I’ve visited.
Which brings me to a concluding observation about Italy: Though it’s a fairly prosperous western European country, it remains in many ways surprisingly undeveloped. Its infrastructure, its politics, and the lifestyles of its inhabitants have remained much less changed by modern life than its neighbors. The new structures built are much like the very old structures, without many “improvements”. The electricity and potable water is haphazard, though fairly reliable. Family, food, drink, church, and public events (including sports) are the priorities, rather than maximizing profits, consumerism, materialism, individualism. In general, it reminded me more of Thailand than America. And in many ways, I felt more at home in this throwback context than my comfortable apartment in NYC.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Italy: Day 10-11: Cinque Terre
New Years Day we arrived by train from Venice at Vernazza, one of the five towns that comprises the Cinque Terre (Five Earths). This tiny region along the northwestern Italian coast, about halfway between Pisa and Genova, is one of my favorite places ever, exceptional even in Italy in its loveliness and charm and antiquity. It has gained the world’s highest designation for uniquely wonderful places, being named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Even the famously-hard-to-please New York Times has called its “intense beauty, great cuisine and amazing aromas” “almost unfair”.
Steep folded hills of rugged grey rock dive into the bright azure sea. Giant aloe plants and tawny grasses tower taller than your head while scrubby pitchy trees twist and stunt in the salty wind. Unseen beneath the colorful water, rare corals bloom. The elements share in the intensity: sun coats the hillsides thickly and bleaches everything, wind tears tiles off of the roofs, and the wash of rains sweep stones down to the sea. Everything seems to cling, perched on the edge of falling into the glorious water.
In four of the steepest folds and prominences sit the tiny villages of Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and just north on a rare beach sits the slightly-larger Monterosso al Mare. A few additional clusters of buildings form even smaller villages, monasteries, and farms high up on the ridges of the mountains. The spare, blockly buildings are exactly the color of sunsets, peachy pinks, oranges, creams, and blues, all with slashes of deep green shutters.
The steepness of the terrain and sheer-cliff waterfronts have kept these villages and farms relatively inaccessible: only a few outliers can be reached by automobile, with the footpaths, the tiny ferry boats, and the relatively-new regional train that burrows through the impeding mountains still the only ways of getting to most of the area. Everything is stairs, as there’s not a piece of flat ground to be found. Instead of streets, there are stairways. Instead of trails, there are stone and earth stairs cut laboriously into the steepness. Instead of fields, the hillsides are turned into giant’s stairs of terraces.
Being so inaccessible, and until very recently having no other real alternatives for commerce, the villages and people of the Cinque Terre are generally much as they have been the thousands of years these unlikely cliffs have been inhabited. Fishermen go out in tiny wooden boats and bring in cuttlefish, octopus, sea bream. Farmers terrace the hillsides for their grape vines, olive trees, and lemons. A very few shops in each village sell staples brought in from outside, while the local eateries mainly serve up the fish and wines of their neighbors, as well as flat pan breads drenched with the delicious local oil. The boats are simple and utilitarian, and houses are very simple stone and plaster, literally built one on top of the other, perched on the few pieces of hillside that can support them.
It’s changed noticeably from my last visit, though. I felt conflicted. I was glad for the noticeable capital-D Development improving some aspects of the quality of life of the formerly-poor residents: in our previous visit, many houses and fields had been in disrepair, fresh water had been somewhat precious, electricity unreliable, and ambulance services to outside the towns a daunting challenge. These had all been vastly improved thanks to the tourist and UNESCO dollars.
But I found it saddening and ironic that the tourist and UNESCO appreciation of the antique culture and unique landscape were swiftly eroding exactly what they came to enjoy, sometimes literally. Twenty times the number of tourists prowled the streets. English was prevalent on signs. Educational displays on public walkways told of the history of the region, showing black-and-white photos of the old culture Petra and I had seen in person just seven years ago, while the townsfolk walked by in Adidas. Metal nets held together some of the more volatile hillsides while hand rails and paving smoothed large sections of the popular seaside walkway, but landslides still swept away swaths of the coast. It made me wonder how much longer what I enjoyed would remain.
The train from Venice was smooth as butter, and the one between Pisa and La Spezia had allowed us stunning views of the Apennines towering in their spikey marble and snow-covered fierceness 15,000 feet above the tracks. I stared at the tails of snow dust blown from their peaks by the high-altitude winds, the giant scars of millennia of quarrying their finest marbles, and the improbable hilltop towns and fortifications in their foothills until my eyes ached.
By the time we emerged into the Cinque Terre blinking into the sun from the regional train, which had clacked its way through the long black tunnels so laboriously bored along the coast up from La Spezia, I was absolutely ill with sunshine and shadows and the swaying of the trains, as well as dehydrated and very very hungry. In a painful vertiginous haze I managed to make it up the 101 stairs from the train station to our rooms, stomach a quick piece of focaccia from the street below, and blink stupidly for a moment at the meltingly pink sunset light on the rooftops and fields before the inevitable migraine incapacitated me.
Our tiny guest house was comfortable, really just spare bedrooms and a tacked-on toilet in the house of a resident family. As there isn’t space or foundation to build anything resembling a hotel, hosts and visitors make do with the buildings and rooms already there. Ours were clean and private, though. And unlike most, they boasted an absolutely unbeatable view (thanks to the height afforded by the aforementioned 101 steps it took to reach the door) looking over the town, down the coast, across the castle, up to the tower, and onto the terraced fields across and above. Even without the headache, my head wheeled from turning around and looking up and down, trying to take it all in.
By the next morning I felt revived, though as weak and ravenous as I always am after a migraine bout. We found breakfast at the Blue Marlin, humorously a Hemingway and hard-rock themed café that was the only place in town open at the according-to-them-ungodly-early hour of 9am. In their defense, the sun had not yet crested the steep hillside, so I could understand their late definition of “morning”. I had hot-from-the-oven chewy and sweet ricotta cake that was among the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten, and thick myrtle-berry yoghurt. Lisa had a piece of rice quiche, and my mother enjoyed a hot spinach and ricotta pastry.
Then we walked. First we were off to Riomaggiore for a quick look around, then we walked to Manarola via the Via de Amor section of the trail (it’s views are especially romantic). There’s a fairly recent Italian fad of lovers locking a padlock onto something at a romantic spot, preferably with water nearby, and throwing away the key (inspired by a scene in a 2003 movie). Resultantly, the fences on is section of the trail are smothered in padlocks, lending an unusual but whimsical visual element to the walk.
Once in Manarola, we lunched at the breakwater quay on more foccaccia-like things, all regional specialties: Farinata is a savoury and crunchy pancake made from a base of chick-pea flour, which we ate with a gooey local cheese Lisa rightly described as the love-child between brie and fresh mozzarella. Castagnaccio is a pasty chestnut flour cake with pinenuts and raisins, very filling and naturally sweet from the nut flour. And a stuffed spinach pastry too.
We had intended to walk onward from there, but landslides had taken out a chunk of the trail, so we hopped on the local train to Monterosso, the northernmost town of the five. From there we walked up a steep and crumbly path about a mile to the bluff that protects and demarks the little region, allowing us to look back along the entire coast. At the top we found the ruins of an old church, fortifications from WWII, and a bevy of paragliders, whom I envied for their ability to swoop and fly. If I ever decide to take up a recklessly expensive hobby, paragliding would definitely be a top contender. Another fascinating aspect of the view from the top of the bluff was that the clouds and sun and sea conspired to blur the horizon so that it looked as if the sky turned into the sea: very distracting, very disorienting, very lovely.
Despite that the sun was beginning to set, after consulting with some returning hikers, we decided to walk from there back to our town, a mere five valleys away along the path that was, as you’ll recall, closed because of landslides. The path was quite dodgy in parts: there was a good reason it was closed. The ground was saturated with all the recent rain, and as you’ll recall it goes along very steep terraced cliff-hills. At most parts, when it wasn’t actually stairs, it was an unprotected 10-inch-wide dirt ledge with a sheer drop to the next terrace or farther. At one point the path crumbled beneath my foot and I almost went down with the shower of pebbles, but I caught myself. Also, it was very dark, and my night vision these days is worthless.
However, the walk and views were well worth the danger, as it is among the most gorgeous sections of trail on the planet. Ancient olive groves, terraced vineyards, stone walls and embankments, tiny arched footbridges, crumbling farm sheds, giant and prolific plants, steep rushing streams, and a general sense of an ancient relationship between humans and the earth. Petra calls it her Garden of Eden, and it certainly does have a mythical, idyllic sense to it. I’d risk more than nighttime falls off of cliffs to see it again.
After returning safely to Vernazza just as it was truly becoming pitch black, I grabbed some more fresh foccaccia (delicious though it is, I’m getting a bit sick of it) and cozied up with my grad school applications and about twelve blankets (remember what I said about my opinion of Italian heating?) while Lisa and Ma had another delicious many-hours-long dinner. Then sleep.
Steep folded hills of rugged grey rock dive into the bright azure sea. Giant aloe plants and tawny grasses tower taller than your head while scrubby pitchy trees twist and stunt in the salty wind. Unseen beneath the colorful water, rare corals bloom. The elements share in the intensity: sun coats the hillsides thickly and bleaches everything, wind tears tiles off of the roofs, and the wash of rains sweep stones down to the sea. Everything seems to cling, perched on the edge of falling into the glorious water.
In four of the steepest folds and prominences sit the tiny villages of Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and just north on a rare beach sits the slightly-larger Monterosso al Mare. A few additional clusters of buildings form even smaller villages, monasteries, and farms high up on the ridges of the mountains. The spare, blockly buildings are exactly the color of sunsets, peachy pinks, oranges, creams, and blues, all with slashes of deep green shutters.
The steepness of the terrain and sheer-cliff waterfronts have kept these villages and farms relatively inaccessible: only a few outliers can be reached by automobile, with the footpaths, the tiny ferry boats, and the relatively-new regional train that burrows through the impeding mountains still the only ways of getting to most of the area. Everything is stairs, as there’s not a piece of flat ground to be found. Instead of streets, there are stairways. Instead of trails, there are stone and earth stairs cut laboriously into the steepness. Instead of fields, the hillsides are turned into giant’s stairs of terraces.
Being so inaccessible, and until very recently having no other real alternatives for commerce, the villages and people of the Cinque Terre are generally much as they have been the thousands of years these unlikely cliffs have been inhabited. Fishermen go out in tiny wooden boats and bring in cuttlefish, octopus, sea bream. Farmers terrace the hillsides for their grape vines, olive trees, and lemons. A very few shops in each village sell staples brought in from outside, while the local eateries mainly serve up the fish and wines of their neighbors, as well as flat pan breads drenched with the delicious local oil. The boats are simple and utilitarian, and houses are very simple stone and plaster, literally built one on top of the other, perched on the few pieces of hillside that can support them.
It’s changed noticeably from my last visit, though. I felt conflicted. I was glad for the noticeable capital-D Development improving some aspects of the quality of life of the formerly-poor residents: in our previous visit, many houses and fields had been in disrepair, fresh water had been somewhat precious, electricity unreliable, and ambulance services to outside the towns a daunting challenge. These had all been vastly improved thanks to the tourist and UNESCO dollars.
But I found it saddening and ironic that the tourist and UNESCO appreciation of the antique culture and unique landscape were swiftly eroding exactly what they came to enjoy, sometimes literally. Twenty times the number of tourists prowled the streets. English was prevalent on signs. Educational displays on public walkways told of the history of the region, showing black-and-white photos of the old culture Petra and I had seen in person just seven years ago, while the townsfolk walked by in Adidas. Metal nets held together some of the more volatile hillsides while hand rails and paving smoothed large sections of the popular seaside walkway, but landslides still swept away swaths of the coast. It made me wonder how much longer what I enjoyed would remain.
The train from Venice was smooth as butter, and the one between Pisa and La Spezia had allowed us stunning views of the Apennines towering in their spikey marble and snow-covered fierceness 15,000 feet above the tracks. I stared at the tails of snow dust blown from their peaks by the high-altitude winds, the giant scars of millennia of quarrying their finest marbles, and the improbable hilltop towns and fortifications in their foothills until my eyes ached.
By the time we emerged into the Cinque Terre blinking into the sun from the regional train, which had clacked its way through the long black tunnels so laboriously bored along the coast up from La Spezia, I was absolutely ill with sunshine and shadows and the swaying of the trains, as well as dehydrated and very very hungry. In a painful vertiginous haze I managed to make it up the 101 stairs from the train station to our rooms, stomach a quick piece of focaccia from the street below, and blink stupidly for a moment at the meltingly pink sunset light on the rooftops and fields before the inevitable migraine incapacitated me.
Our tiny guest house was comfortable, really just spare bedrooms and a tacked-on toilet in the house of a resident family. As there isn’t space or foundation to build anything resembling a hotel, hosts and visitors make do with the buildings and rooms already there. Ours were clean and private, though. And unlike most, they boasted an absolutely unbeatable view (thanks to the height afforded by the aforementioned 101 steps it took to reach the door) looking over the town, down the coast, across the castle, up to the tower, and onto the terraced fields across and above. Even without the headache, my head wheeled from turning around and looking up and down, trying to take it all in.
By the next morning I felt revived, though as weak and ravenous as I always am after a migraine bout. We found breakfast at the Blue Marlin, humorously a Hemingway and hard-rock themed café that was the only place in town open at the according-to-them-ungodly-early hour of 9am. In their defense, the sun had not yet crested the steep hillside, so I could understand their late definition of “morning”. I had hot-from-the-oven chewy and sweet ricotta cake that was among the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten, and thick myrtle-berry yoghurt. Lisa had a piece of rice quiche, and my mother enjoyed a hot spinach and ricotta pastry.
Then we walked. First we were off to Riomaggiore for a quick look around, then we walked to Manarola via the Via de Amor section of the trail (it’s views are especially romantic). There’s a fairly recent Italian fad of lovers locking a padlock onto something at a romantic spot, preferably with water nearby, and throwing away the key (inspired by a scene in a 2003 movie). Resultantly, the fences on is section of the trail are smothered in padlocks, lending an unusual but whimsical visual element to the walk.
Once in Manarola, we lunched at the breakwater quay on more foccaccia-like things, all regional specialties: Farinata is a savoury and crunchy pancake made from a base of chick-pea flour, which we ate with a gooey local cheese Lisa rightly described as the love-child between brie and fresh mozzarella. Castagnaccio is a pasty chestnut flour cake with pinenuts and raisins, very filling and naturally sweet from the nut flour. And a stuffed spinach pastry too.
We had intended to walk onward from there, but landslides had taken out a chunk of the trail, so we hopped on the local train to Monterosso, the northernmost town of the five. From there we walked up a steep and crumbly path about a mile to the bluff that protects and demarks the little region, allowing us to look back along the entire coast. At the top we found the ruins of an old church, fortifications from WWII, and a bevy of paragliders, whom I envied for their ability to swoop and fly. If I ever decide to take up a recklessly expensive hobby, paragliding would definitely be a top contender. Another fascinating aspect of the view from the top of the bluff was that the clouds and sun and sea conspired to blur the horizon so that it looked as if the sky turned into the sea: very distracting, very disorienting, very lovely.
Despite that the sun was beginning to set, after consulting with some returning hikers, we decided to walk from there back to our town, a mere five valleys away along the path that was, as you’ll recall, closed because of landslides. The path was quite dodgy in parts: there was a good reason it was closed. The ground was saturated with all the recent rain, and as you’ll recall it goes along very steep terraced cliff-hills. At most parts, when it wasn’t actually stairs, it was an unprotected 10-inch-wide dirt ledge with a sheer drop to the next terrace or farther. At one point the path crumbled beneath my foot and I almost went down with the shower of pebbles, but I caught myself. Also, it was very dark, and my night vision these days is worthless.
However, the walk and views were well worth the danger, as it is among the most gorgeous sections of trail on the planet. Ancient olive groves, terraced vineyards, stone walls and embankments, tiny arched footbridges, crumbling farm sheds, giant and prolific plants, steep rushing streams, and a general sense of an ancient relationship between humans and the earth. Petra calls it her Garden of Eden, and it certainly does have a mythical, idyllic sense to it. I’d risk more than nighttime falls off of cliffs to see it again.
After returning safely to Vernazza just as it was truly becoming pitch black, I grabbed some more fresh foccaccia (delicious though it is, I’m getting a bit sick of it) and cozied up with my grad school applications and about twelve blankets (remember what I said about my opinion of Italian heating?) while Lisa and Ma had another delicious many-hours-long dinner. Then sleep.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Haiti: Tout a Jesu Depot #2
I read Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees years ago, and not much of the book remains with me except a general memory of enjoyment and affection, a few plot and character points, and the fact that one character named his mechanic business “Jesus is Lord Used Tires.” I’ve always considered it a playful and creative minor plot point.
When I noticed a convenience store called “Tout a Jesu Depot #2,” I was delighted to find a real life business with (what I thought of as) a similarly quirky a name. As time went on, however, I noticed that “Everything for Jesus Depot #2,” is in fact a fairly tame name for a Port-Au-Prince business. I have no idea if Kingsolver was thinking of Haiti, but I have no doubt she would appreciate the local nomenclature.
Some of the highlights [with rough translation] include:
• Notre Dame de Perpetual Secors Dry Cleaning: Presse Immediate [Our Lady of Perpetual Help Dry Cleaning: Ironing Immediately (?)]
• Dieu qui Dirrige Pharmacie [God who Guides Pharmacy]
• Christ Capable Matériel Construction [Capable Christ Construction Supplies]
• Pere Eternal Lotto [Eternal Father Lottery]
• Chere Maitre Auto Ecole [Dear Lord Automotive School]
• Force Divine Dry Cleaning [Divine Force Dry Cleaning]
• Faveur de Dieu Boutique Bourgeoise [God’s Favor Bourgeois Boutique]
• Christe Vivant Shop Soudrire [Christ Lives General Store]
• Coeur Immaculaee Supermarchet [Immaculate Heart Supermarket]
• Puissance de Dieu Car Wash Rom.8:1.31 Auto Parts Bar Resto [Power of God Car Wash Romans.8:1.31 Auto Parts, Bar, and Restaurant]
• Le Sang de Jesu Chambre Froid et Glaces [The Blood of Jesus Refrigeration and Ice]
When I noticed a convenience store called “Tout a Jesu Depot #2,” I was delighted to find a real life business with (what I thought of as) a similarly quirky a name. As time went on, however, I noticed that “Everything for Jesus Depot #2,” is in fact a fairly tame name for a Port-Au-Prince business. I have no idea if Kingsolver was thinking of Haiti, but I have no doubt she would appreciate the local nomenclature.
Some of the highlights [with rough translation] include:
• Notre Dame de Perpetual Secors Dry Cleaning: Presse Immediate [Our Lady of Perpetual Help Dry Cleaning: Ironing Immediately (?)]
• Dieu qui Dirrige Pharmacie [God who Guides Pharmacy]
• Christ Capable Matériel Construction [Capable Christ Construction Supplies]
• Pere Eternal Lotto [Eternal Father Lottery]
• Chere Maitre Auto Ecole [Dear Lord Automotive School]
• Force Divine Dry Cleaning [Divine Force Dry Cleaning]
• Faveur de Dieu Boutique Bourgeoise [God’s Favor Bourgeois Boutique]
• Christe Vivant Shop Soudrire [Christ Lives General Store]
• Coeur Immaculaee Supermarchet [Immaculate Heart Supermarket]
• Puissance de Dieu Car Wash Rom.8:1.31 Auto Parts Bar Resto [Power of God Car Wash Romans.8:1.31 Auto Parts, Bar, and Restaurant]
• Le Sang de Jesu Chambre Froid et Glaces [The Blood of Jesus Refrigeration and Ice]
Friday, December 31, 2010
Italy Days 9-10: New Year’s Eve
In the morning, my mother and sister finally were successful in their attempt to visit the Doge's palace, greatly enjoying the original horse sculptures and the views over San Marco, and being appropriately depressed by the prisons across the bridge of sighs.
But we spent most of New Year’s Eve on Murano. As you probably know, Venice is built on islands, most of which have been built upon so much that they meld together. A few notable outliers remain, though, one of which is this famed glass-making island, historically kept apart because of the fire hazards of its industry. It was neat to be away from the main island, to get a sense of Venice being amidst a lagoon, and to see some of the fishing culture that still abounds.
After a quick boat ride over, passing the cemetery island, we stepped off onto an unassuming brick quay and into a world of glass consumerism. The wall shrines had glass Madonnas, the window boxes had glass flowers, the piazzas had glass statues, the churches had glass baptismal fonts. I’m sure most of you have seen Murano or Murano-styled glass objects before (knowingly or unknowingly), and we’d certainly been seeing them hawked around the city since arriving. While clunky glass animals, ugly girlish jewelry, and obvious Chinese rip-offs abounded even on the island itself, it was fairly easy after a bit of adjustment to start to pick out the real quality items from amidst the schlock. The colors bloomed, the twists of abstract objects intrigued with whimsy, the delicacy and exactness of the details astounded my understanding of the craft. A number of small shops had the artists worktables in a corner of the shop, allowing us a glimpse of their handiwork in action. The project that most intrigued me was watching one man hand-blow a series of hollow matched glass beads for a necklace. We also enjoyed putting the contemporary items in historical context by visiting the small but thorough museum of glass at the center of the island. We managed to return to the main islands of Venice without having bought too many trinkets.
We dined at a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet, which humorously had an “American” décor theme though thankfully a thoroughly Italian menu. The pizza was mouth-watering, chewy and moist with fresh ricotta, fresh mozzarella, and roasted zucchini. Our second course was a satisfying artichoke risotto and a tender steak sliced over arugula greens. I enjoyed watching the table of oh-so-hip young Venetians behind us tuck into their four-course meal with joy and vim: I like participating in a culture that includes no guilt or body hang-ups for women dining.
As it was New Years Eve, the day had really just begun. Venice is famously a party city, and as soon as the sun went down the celebrations began. Much to my mother’s fright, one of the main forms of public exuberance turned out to be randomly setting off extremely loud firecrackers in the middle of crowded streets. And I mean really, really really ear-ringingly loud with a big flash, dropped surreptitiously right into packed throngs, making people have to scream and run away from it as soon as its initial smoke and fizzle were noticed. It’s a wonder nobody lost an eye, and I’d hate to imagine what the experience would be like for survivors of war.
Not that it was all terrible. Lisa and I left our cowed mother at the hotel and set off for Piazza San Marco (like Venice’s Times Square for the night). In a move that would absolutely never happen in the US, the evening’s party planners, knowing how to please a crowd, were handing out free bottles of bubbly to absolutely everyone there. Though claiming our bottles meant braving a lung-compressing mob of fellow revelers in the densest part of the piazza, my sister and I both successfully snagged a Bellini Canella each, though they sadly only had the peach flavor left by the time we got up to the table. We then put our crowd-threading skills further to the test and wended our way to an absolutely prime fireworks-watching spot right on the edge of the waterfront.
The fireworks themselves were quite pretty, with a dominant theme of white and fizzley. A nice effect was achieved by mirroring each display, with two of every firework going off next to each other. The show seemed more interested in ornament than American-style bravado, lending quite a different feel to it from the fireworks to which I am accustomed. I was also unused to fireworks being set off quite so close to the crowd, and at such a low angle to the ground/water: many arched out like a fan, causing large chunks of burning matter to fizzle fiercely into the water despite many boats dotting the lagoon.
Thankfully, the finale overcame the show’s relative reserve and was appropriately overwhelming. High on the spirit of the crowd, the splash and drama of the fireworks, the moment of the new year, and those bottles of Bellini, Lisa and I decided to race home, as we knew that the tiny walkways and bridges would quickly become impassable from the dispersing throngs. As the last firework fizzled, we took off ducking and speeding through the tight maze, successfully avoiding being blown up by additional random crowd fireworks, dodging into the neighborhood northeast of the piazza, across the Rialto bridge, and successfully to our street, where we were temporarily waylaid by our succumbing to the temptation of one of the ubiquitous vim brule/mulled wine carts (Can we please, pleaes have these at home?).
We proudly brought our mother her own cup of hot spicy wine, sure that she would be sitting huddled terrified by all the explosions, but were astounded to find her sleeping like a baby despite the frequent booms of what sounded like cannons exploding right below our window. I was sure that, given the excitement and the noise, I, too, would never sleep, but apparently was out before my head even hit the pillow.
The next morning (Italy Day 10) we were disappointed to find that no water busses would be stopping at our dock given the holiday, leaving us to have to drag our bags halfway across the city via the aforementioned narrow walkways and bridges, up and down countless steps, and in the process helping a nice lost young German man find his way. Then onto another fast posh train barreling towards one of my favorite places on earth…
But we spent most of New Year’s Eve on Murano. As you probably know, Venice is built on islands, most of which have been built upon so much that they meld together. A few notable outliers remain, though, one of which is this famed glass-making island, historically kept apart because of the fire hazards of its industry. It was neat to be away from the main island, to get a sense of Venice being amidst a lagoon, and to see some of the fishing culture that still abounds.
After a quick boat ride over, passing the cemetery island, we stepped off onto an unassuming brick quay and into a world of glass consumerism. The wall shrines had glass Madonnas, the window boxes had glass flowers, the piazzas had glass statues, the churches had glass baptismal fonts. I’m sure most of you have seen Murano or Murano-styled glass objects before (knowingly or unknowingly), and we’d certainly been seeing them hawked around the city since arriving. While clunky glass animals, ugly girlish jewelry, and obvious Chinese rip-offs abounded even on the island itself, it was fairly easy after a bit of adjustment to start to pick out the real quality items from amidst the schlock. The colors bloomed, the twists of abstract objects intrigued with whimsy, the delicacy and exactness of the details astounded my understanding of the craft. A number of small shops had the artists worktables in a corner of the shop, allowing us a glimpse of their handiwork in action. The project that most intrigued me was watching one man hand-blow a series of hollow matched glass beads for a necklace. We also enjoyed putting the contemporary items in historical context by visiting the small but thorough museum of glass at the center of the island. We managed to return to the main islands of Venice without having bought too many trinkets.
We dined at a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet, which humorously had an “American” décor theme though thankfully a thoroughly Italian menu. The pizza was mouth-watering, chewy and moist with fresh ricotta, fresh mozzarella, and roasted zucchini. Our second course was a satisfying artichoke risotto and a tender steak sliced over arugula greens. I enjoyed watching the table of oh-so-hip young Venetians behind us tuck into their four-course meal with joy and vim: I like participating in a culture that includes no guilt or body hang-ups for women dining.
As it was New Years Eve, the day had really just begun. Venice is famously a party city, and as soon as the sun went down the celebrations began. Much to my mother’s fright, one of the main forms of public exuberance turned out to be randomly setting off extremely loud firecrackers in the middle of crowded streets. And I mean really, really really ear-ringingly loud with a big flash, dropped surreptitiously right into packed throngs, making people have to scream and run away from it as soon as its initial smoke and fizzle were noticed. It’s a wonder nobody lost an eye, and I’d hate to imagine what the experience would be like for survivors of war.
Not that it was all terrible. Lisa and I left our cowed mother at the hotel and set off for Piazza San Marco (like Venice’s Times Square for the night). In a move that would absolutely never happen in the US, the evening’s party planners, knowing how to please a crowd, were handing out free bottles of bubbly to absolutely everyone there. Though claiming our bottles meant braving a lung-compressing mob of fellow revelers in the densest part of the piazza, my sister and I both successfully snagged a Bellini Canella each, though they sadly only had the peach flavor left by the time we got up to the table. We then put our crowd-threading skills further to the test and wended our way to an absolutely prime fireworks-watching spot right on the edge of the waterfront.
The fireworks themselves were quite pretty, with a dominant theme of white and fizzley. A nice effect was achieved by mirroring each display, with two of every firework going off next to each other. The show seemed more interested in ornament than American-style bravado, lending quite a different feel to it from the fireworks to which I am accustomed. I was also unused to fireworks being set off quite so close to the crowd, and at such a low angle to the ground/water: many arched out like a fan, causing large chunks of burning matter to fizzle fiercely into the water despite many boats dotting the lagoon.
Thankfully, the finale overcame the show’s relative reserve and was appropriately overwhelming. High on the spirit of the crowd, the splash and drama of the fireworks, the moment of the new year, and those bottles of Bellini, Lisa and I decided to race home, as we knew that the tiny walkways and bridges would quickly become impassable from the dispersing throngs. As the last firework fizzled, we took off ducking and speeding through the tight maze, successfully avoiding being blown up by additional random crowd fireworks, dodging into the neighborhood northeast of the piazza, across the Rialto bridge, and successfully to our street, where we were temporarily waylaid by our succumbing to the temptation of one of the ubiquitous vim brule/mulled wine carts (Can we please, pleaes have these at home?).
We proudly brought our mother her own cup of hot spicy wine, sure that she would be sitting huddled terrified by all the explosions, but were astounded to find her sleeping like a baby despite the frequent booms of what sounded like cannons exploding right below our window. I was sure that, given the excitement and the noise, I, too, would never sleep, but apparently was out before my head even hit the pillow.
The next morning (Italy Day 10) we were disappointed to find that no water busses would be stopping at our dock given the holiday, leaving us to have to drag our bags halfway across the city via the aforementioned narrow walkways and bridges, up and down countless steps, and in the process helping a nice lost young German man find his way. Then onto another fast posh train barreling towards one of my favorite places on earth…
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Italy Day 8: Venice and Opera
We woke up in Venice! We could see a tiny bit of the grand canal from one of our windows in our hotel. However, it was ever so slightly smelly when we opened the window as there was a fish market outside, with lots of dying sea life, which made me sad but which Lisa and Ma enjoyed photographing. I should really be a vegetarian again.
While Ma and Lisa went off to go to old churches and palaces that I was uninterested in, I stayed in the hotel to hone my grad school application essays, with nominal success. Then I realized I was supposed to rendezvous with them in like ten minutes at a place quite a ways across the city, prompting an amazing feat of speed map-reading-while-walking. I made it just a few minutes late having gotten only slightly lost. This is really quite impressive, as Venice is quite hazardous to walk through, what with sudden drops into pits of oily water and sharp turns in the 3 ft. wide streets and walls that rise up from nowhere and forehead-bashing arches and unexpected steps and rollercoaster multitudinous bridges, plus all the tourists clogging the walkways. And have you ever seen a map of Venice? It’s like a meth-hopped ant farm got together with a fragmented early DOS maze program. Getting lost is practically a sport there.
We lunched at the Osteria Cravat on a sumptuous spread of Venetian specialties, including a platter of local seafoods, cuttlefish served in its ink over polenta, and fresh spaghetti with a sauce of mashed anchovies and caramelized onions, all with a light and lemony local white wine. Then at a café next to Il Frari (a famous church) we had amazingly delicious coffee, the best yet on the trip by far.
The afternoon was spent gazing at art in churches and the Gallerie de Academia, Venice’s main art museum. The Gallerie boasts a large collection of medieval and renaissance art, which Lisa and my mom appreciated for their art-historical significance and I appreciated for their proliferation of funny grumpy-looking dudes and skeletons and historical scenes of the city and pretty ladies and sparkly bits. Not that I’m unerudite myself, but I can appreciate the art on multiple levels, the simplistic and crass being one of them and that which is most accessible when cold and tired and speed-walking through the cavernous museum. The pieces I most appreciated on a sophisticated level were the architectural renderings of Venetian buildings in the huge paintings by one particular artist (whom Lisa will hopefully remember the name) who not only actually understood perspective but also really gave a good sense of the unique spaces made by the combination of walkways, piazzas, and canals.
As dusk faded, after fortifying ourselves with fresh strudels and pudding-like hot chocolate, we ventured on to what was one of the real highlights of the trip. Thanks to some excellent research and ticket-finding on the part of my sister, we were able to attend a concert at the opera house Teatro La Fenice, one of the most famous theaters in Europe. The current structure is a completely new reproduction of the 18th-C theater, the original having burned to the ground in 1996. The combination of modern acoustical sense with the faithfully-traditional design and décor made for a visually and aurally sumptuous, grand, and intimate performance space, perfect for the musical selections of the evening. It’s a relatively small theater, with only 900 seats, which meant that there was no need for amplification, greatly improving the experience.
Our seats were “listening-only”, i.e. we couldn’t see the stage, seated in the back of an upper box. However, as I quickly learned, despite its grandeur the theater has a very long history of casual audiences, with people standing and leaning out and chatting throughout the performance, which meant we could stand at will and peer down onto the stage.
The concert, directed by Daniel Harding and purposefully devoted to melodrama, bravely began with what is usually reserved for a finale, Dvořák’s 9th symphony in its entirety. I am deeply familiar with the piece, having not only listened to it endlessly, but having performed it more than once (I play French horn). I was prepared to be complacent and dully appreciative, having previously heard it performed by some of the world’s greatest symphonies, anticipating reserving my enthusiasm for the operatic second half. But... but it was magnificent.
A warmth crept up the back of my neck, like fear, as I heard the absolute perfection of their performance. My sister, mother, and I glanced at each other in escalating shock and glee, confirming with one another that we were really hearing the glory we felt we were hearing. The horns were particularly exquisite, and actually made me weep a little with their perfect balance of bombast and yearning and the effortlessness with which they soared the heralding phrases. The Largo section actually broke a woman’s heart (she had a heart attack, and had to be removed from the theater: we were told she was likely going to be fine). I can say without reservation that it was not only the best performance of the piece I have ever heard, it is the best performance I will EVER hear, as it would not be possible to improve upon it.
You’d think that anything following that act would be a disappointment, but of course Venice is the capital city of opera, and Teatro La Fenice its palace, and this concert the annual highlight, so the singing was as good as it gets. Many of the selections were from operas originally written specifically for performance in La Fenice, which didn’t hurt, and all three of the performers (soprano, tenor, and baritone, whose names I will have to add later) were the best of what Italy had to offer. The baritone was a natural comedian as well as a superb vocalist, while the tenor was earnest and romantic. The soprano, of course, stole the show, as she is meant to: her wide dynamic range, pure tone, and nuanced vibrato reminded me of the heights vocal training combined with extreme talent can achieve. Her rendition of O Mio Babbino Caro brought the over-played selection back to relevance, and the toast from La Traviatta had the audience twitching to dance. She was also perfectly Italian, with big hair and dark eyes, natural assets that were fittingly distracting in her strapless gown, and a stage presence that made the deep stage look small and her fellow performers insignificant. There’s a reason “diva” is so closely related to the word for a divine being.
While Ma and Lisa went off to go to old churches and palaces that I was uninterested in, I stayed in the hotel to hone my grad school application essays, with nominal success. Then I realized I was supposed to rendezvous with them in like ten minutes at a place quite a ways across the city, prompting an amazing feat of speed map-reading-while-walking. I made it just a few minutes late having gotten only slightly lost. This is really quite impressive, as Venice is quite hazardous to walk through, what with sudden drops into pits of oily water and sharp turns in the 3 ft. wide streets and walls that rise up from nowhere and forehead-bashing arches and unexpected steps and rollercoaster multitudinous bridges, plus all the tourists clogging the walkways. And have you ever seen a map of Venice? It’s like a meth-hopped ant farm got together with a fragmented early DOS maze program. Getting lost is practically a sport there.
We lunched at the Osteria Cravat on a sumptuous spread of Venetian specialties, including a platter of local seafoods, cuttlefish served in its ink over polenta, and fresh spaghetti with a sauce of mashed anchovies and caramelized onions, all with a light and lemony local white wine. Then at a café next to Il Frari (a famous church) we had amazingly delicious coffee, the best yet on the trip by far.
The afternoon was spent gazing at art in churches and the Gallerie de Academia, Venice’s main art museum. The Gallerie boasts a large collection of medieval and renaissance art, which Lisa and my mom appreciated for their art-historical significance and I appreciated for their proliferation of funny grumpy-looking dudes and skeletons and historical scenes of the city and pretty ladies and sparkly bits. Not that I’m unerudite myself, but I can appreciate the art on multiple levels, the simplistic and crass being one of them and that which is most accessible when cold and tired and speed-walking through the cavernous museum. The pieces I most appreciated on a sophisticated level were the architectural renderings of Venetian buildings in the huge paintings by one particular artist (whom Lisa will hopefully remember the name) who not only actually understood perspective but also really gave a good sense of the unique spaces made by the combination of walkways, piazzas, and canals.
As dusk faded, after fortifying ourselves with fresh strudels and pudding-like hot chocolate, we ventured on to what was one of the real highlights of the trip. Thanks to some excellent research and ticket-finding on the part of my sister, we were able to attend a concert at the opera house Teatro La Fenice, one of the most famous theaters in Europe. The current structure is a completely new reproduction of the 18th-C theater, the original having burned to the ground in 1996. The combination of modern acoustical sense with the faithfully-traditional design and décor made for a visually and aurally sumptuous, grand, and intimate performance space, perfect for the musical selections of the evening. It’s a relatively small theater, with only 900 seats, which meant that there was no need for amplification, greatly improving the experience.
Our seats were “listening-only”, i.e. we couldn’t see the stage, seated in the back of an upper box. However, as I quickly learned, despite its grandeur the theater has a very long history of casual audiences, with people standing and leaning out and chatting throughout the performance, which meant we could stand at will and peer down onto the stage.
The concert, directed by Daniel Harding and purposefully devoted to melodrama, bravely began with what is usually reserved for a finale, Dvořák’s 9th symphony in its entirety. I am deeply familiar with the piece, having not only listened to it endlessly, but having performed it more than once (I play French horn). I was prepared to be complacent and dully appreciative, having previously heard it performed by some of the world’s greatest symphonies, anticipating reserving my enthusiasm for the operatic second half. But... but it was magnificent.
A warmth crept up the back of my neck, like fear, as I heard the absolute perfection of their performance. My sister, mother, and I glanced at each other in escalating shock and glee, confirming with one another that we were really hearing the glory we felt we were hearing. The horns were particularly exquisite, and actually made me weep a little with their perfect balance of bombast and yearning and the effortlessness with which they soared the heralding phrases. The Largo section actually broke a woman’s heart (she had a heart attack, and had to be removed from the theater: we were told she was likely going to be fine). I can say without reservation that it was not only the best performance of the piece I have ever heard, it is the best performance I will EVER hear, as it would not be possible to improve upon it.
You’d think that anything following that act would be a disappointment, but of course Venice is the capital city of opera, and Teatro La Fenice its palace, and this concert the annual highlight, so the singing was as good as it gets. Many of the selections were from operas originally written specifically for performance in La Fenice, which didn’t hurt, and all three of the performers (soprano, tenor, and baritone, whose names I will have to add later) were the best of what Italy had to offer. The baritone was a natural comedian as well as a superb vocalist, while the tenor was earnest and romantic. The soprano, of course, stole the show, as she is meant to: her wide dynamic range, pure tone, and nuanced vibrato reminded me of the heights vocal training combined with extreme talent can achieve. Her rendition of O Mio Babbino Caro brought the over-played selection back to relevance, and the toast from La Traviatta had the audience twitching to dance. She was also perfectly Italian, with big hair and dark eyes, natural assets that were fittingly distracting in her strapless gown, and a stage presence that made the deep stage look small and her fellow performers insignificant. There’s a reason “diva” is so closely related to the word for a divine being.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Italy Day 7: Travel to Venice
Before we set off to Venice, we visited the weekly Wednesday market that surrounds the Medici fort in Siena. Crowded tented stalls filled with all of the cheap clothes, practical home goods, and fresh foods it is otherwise impossible to find in the posh city seemed to attract the majority of the city’s populace. Mother became overwhelmed by the press of people, but I delighted in the hubbub and the tantalizing produce and breads.
We made our way first to Florence by bus, which made us all rather seasick with its hell-bent speed and swaying, despite the stunning Tuscan countryside scenery. It’s a good thing Ma didn’t notice the two car wrecks we passed, whose drivers had gone off the edge of the narrow steep roads, or she would have been even more nervous.
While awaiting our train at the Florence station, we enjoyed the offerings of the train station food court, which in typical Italian fashion did not stint on its lavishness. Our meal (at a freaking food court, mind you) consisted of flavorful roasted pork with potatoes and garlic, a saucy beef with mushrooms, a tender and cheesy roasted vegetable lasagna, and mounds of sautéed spinach. Our meal could have been much more lavish, but we were trying to restrain ourselves. If we only had food courts like that at home, travel and shopping would be so much better.
The train to Venice was posh and fast, truly travel in the lap of luxury. In a matter of short hours we arrived in Venice across the causeway tracks, timed perfectly to be just like Katherine Hepburn in Summertime, even with the same seats.
The evening light perfect in that way unique to Venice, echoed somewhat only, in my experience, in Paris and Banares: the light seems heavy, so saturated with honeyed yellows and rosy pinks that it almost drips on the surfaces and sticks to them longer than it should, turning white marbles to glow with interior warmth and making colored painted walls almost 4-dimensional, you can almost feel the atoms buzzing.
It being her first visit to Venice, Mother was suitably stunned upon stepping out of the train station onto its plaza along the edge of the grand canal. The slosh of the waves, the background stench of seaweed and salt mud, the hurried boats and palatial architecture all put on a good show. We hustled ourselves onto a vaparetto (canal bus boat), which conveniently dropped us a block from our pensione (hotel) at the Rialto Markets.
After depositing our bags we walked to San Marco to fully situate our minds in the heart of Venice. While the piazza was disappointingly smothered in scaffolding, construction shields, and stages erected for the holiday festivities, the main buildings held their own, including the domes of the Doge’s palace and the glittery gilded excess of the interior of the basilica. I think it wins for sparkeliest church, which is saying something.
So, about our hotel, Pensione Guerrato. It was built in 1288. As a hostel for crusaders. For real. Crusaders. 1288. Commence politically-incorrect swashbuckling romantic quest daydreams. The interiors had been sadly updated in the baroque period and again in the 1950s, leaving little of the medieval décor other than the wooden beams and worn stone steps. The Murano glass chandeliers and silk/gilt headboards and antique furniture and heat!!! and American-style bathroom were all quite lovely and much appreciated, though. We enjoyed spoiling ourselves, and slept gloriously.
We made our way first to Florence by bus, which made us all rather seasick with its hell-bent speed and swaying, despite the stunning Tuscan countryside scenery. It’s a good thing Ma didn’t notice the two car wrecks we passed, whose drivers had gone off the edge of the narrow steep roads, or she would have been even more nervous.
While awaiting our train at the Florence station, we enjoyed the offerings of the train station food court, which in typical Italian fashion did not stint on its lavishness. Our meal (at a freaking food court, mind you) consisted of flavorful roasted pork with potatoes and garlic, a saucy beef with mushrooms, a tender and cheesy roasted vegetable lasagna, and mounds of sautéed spinach. Our meal could have been much more lavish, but we were trying to restrain ourselves. If we only had food courts like that at home, travel and shopping would be so much better.
The train to Venice was posh and fast, truly travel in the lap of luxury. In a matter of short hours we arrived in Venice across the causeway tracks, timed perfectly to be just like Katherine Hepburn in Summertime, even with the same seats.
The evening light perfect in that way unique to Venice, echoed somewhat only, in my experience, in Paris and Banares: the light seems heavy, so saturated with honeyed yellows and rosy pinks that it almost drips on the surfaces and sticks to them longer than it should, turning white marbles to glow with interior warmth and making colored painted walls almost 4-dimensional, you can almost feel the atoms buzzing.
It being her first visit to Venice, Mother was suitably stunned upon stepping out of the train station onto its plaza along the edge of the grand canal. The slosh of the waves, the background stench of seaweed and salt mud, the hurried boats and palatial architecture all put on a good show. We hustled ourselves onto a vaparetto (canal bus boat), which conveniently dropped us a block from our pensione (hotel) at the Rialto Markets.
After depositing our bags we walked to San Marco to fully situate our minds in the heart of Venice. While the piazza was disappointingly smothered in scaffolding, construction shields, and stages erected for the holiday festivities, the main buildings held their own, including the domes of the Doge’s palace and the glittery gilded excess of the interior of the basilica. I think it wins for sparkeliest church, which is saying something.
So, about our hotel, Pensione Guerrato. It was built in 1288. As a hostel for crusaders. For real. Crusaders. 1288. Commence politically-incorrect swashbuckling romantic quest daydreams. The interiors had been sadly updated in the baroque period and again in the 1950s, leaving little of the medieval décor other than the wooden beams and worn stone steps. The Murano glass chandeliers and silk/gilt headboards and antique furniture and heat!!! and American-style bathroom were all quite lovely and much appreciated, though. We enjoyed spoiling ourselves, and slept gloriously.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Italy Day 6: the rest of Siena
As it was our last day in Siena, Lisa brought us to the remaining must-see places on her list. Tops was visiting the interior of Palazzo Publico, the building on the edge of Il Campo square that hosts the iconic square tower of the city. Though technically just the city hall, and functioning still as such, it is gorgeously decorated with mosaics and notable frescos. It’s a veritable visual and historical feast in there, all colorful and sparkley, totally belying the plain brick exterior. I most enjoyed getting a glimpse into what life in medieval Siena looked like, as seen in the detailed and ornate frescos on good and bad government. The city looked surprisingly the same architecturally, but in ye olden days it apparently had more serfs, capes, and ladies dancing, and fewer coffee shops: about what I would have expected. Plus the sin in the “bad government” fresco was funny.
We had lunch at Lisa’s local deli, but don’t let that make you think it was simple fare. These Italians, they really really take their lunches seriously, taking 2 hours off every day for a multi-course meal, even if just at the deli. We started with five tiny bruschetta with, respectively, smoked cheese, hot pepper goo, pesto, olive oil, and stewed red cabbage; more ribolita (Tuscan bread soup); Tuscan bean soup; of course more Chianti; and a plate of grilled meats incl. a breaded chicken cutlet, a lamb? meatloaf with interesting spices, and a pork? meatloaf with tomato sauce. It was all meltingly scrumptious. And of course we finished with tiny, intense coffees.
Next on to the Panaramio, the intriguing tall arch initially built to be the front façade of the Duomo cathedral. The current cathedral is what was intended to be the transept of a much larger structure. When the plague and then the Florentines brought low the city in the mid-1300s, construction permanently halted, leaving some glorious columns and arches surrounding an open space that is now a parking lot of sorts. You can still climb up the tiny stairwell within the wall of the intended façade, though, and walk out somewhat dangerously along the top two arches for some of the best views of the city and surrounding countryside. Which we did, somewhat to my mother’s horror. And the sunlight and rooftops and bricks and hills were beautiful.
Across the plaza from the Panoramio is the imposing structure brick structure of Santa Maria Della Scala. The heart of the building was built around 850 CE and functioned as a hostel for pilgrims, an orphanage, and a hospital until the mid-1900s, expanding all the while into its current airy warren. The city is still trying to settle on a use for this huge space, which boasts not only enormous historical significance and antiquity even for Italy, gem box chapels and truly unique well-preserved frescos, and echoey plain former ward rooms, but also enormous maintenance and heating bills. It’s currently serving as a museum, holding the collections of other city art establishments. I especially enjoyed seeing the frescos of medieval medical practices in all their gory glory, and appreciating the perfect evening light coming through the ancient windows.
Dinner was another feast, this time featuring crepes filled with paste made from boiled salted codfish. Lisa had raved about it so much I was sure the real thing couldn’t stand up to her praise, especially since it sounded so icky, but indeed I wished I could have eaten six more.
We had lunch at Lisa’s local deli, but don’t let that make you think it was simple fare. These Italians, they really really take their lunches seriously, taking 2 hours off every day for a multi-course meal, even if just at the deli. We started with five tiny bruschetta with, respectively, smoked cheese, hot pepper goo, pesto, olive oil, and stewed red cabbage; more ribolita (Tuscan bread soup); Tuscan bean soup; of course more Chianti; and a plate of grilled meats incl. a breaded chicken cutlet, a lamb? meatloaf with interesting spices, and a pork? meatloaf with tomato sauce. It was all meltingly scrumptious. And of course we finished with tiny, intense coffees.
Next on to the Panaramio, the intriguing tall arch initially built to be the front façade of the Duomo cathedral. The current cathedral is what was intended to be the transept of a much larger structure. When the plague and then the Florentines brought low the city in the mid-1300s, construction permanently halted, leaving some glorious columns and arches surrounding an open space that is now a parking lot of sorts. You can still climb up the tiny stairwell within the wall of the intended façade, though, and walk out somewhat dangerously along the top two arches for some of the best views of the city and surrounding countryside. Which we did, somewhat to my mother’s horror. And the sunlight and rooftops and bricks and hills were beautiful.
Across the plaza from the Panoramio is the imposing structure brick structure of Santa Maria Della Scala. The heart of the building was built around 850 CE and functioned as a hostel for pilgrims, an orphanage, and a hospital until the mid-1900s, expanding all the while into its current airy warren. The city is still trying to settle on a use for this huge space, which boasts not only enormous historical significance and antiquity even for Italy, gem box chapels and truly unique well-preserved frescos, and echoey plain former ward rooms, but also enormous maintenance and heating bills. It’s currently serving as a museum, holding the collections of other city art establishments. I especially enjoyed seeing the frescos of medieval medical practices in all their gory glory, and appreciating the perfect evening light coming through the ancient windows.
Dinner was another feast, this time featuring crepes filled with paste made from boiled salted codfish. Lisa had raved about it so much I was sure the real thing couldn’t stand up to her praise, especially since it sounded so icky, but indeed I wished I could have eaten six more.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Italy Day 5: Day of Rest
Today was a day to recover and catch up from the previous busy days. After sleeping in, I caught up writing these blog posts, sorting through pictures, and working on my grad school application essays while Lisa went to the bank and did other such errands, and Ma tagged along with her. They also went to visit some goats.
We met up with Miriam, Lisa’s boss, at Osteria El Gato, a small restaurant near their school. We ate more delicious food, in the many-hours-long multi-course-with-wine Italian lunch tradition. Miriam is wonderful, warm and intelligent and high-spirited: I wished we could have lunched for even longer to enjoy her company more. Some of our truly lively topics of conversation over the meal included her family’s history (fascinating romantic saga), the effect of facism and WWII on Italy, goats, the insulating techniques of potato barns, and her parent’s pellet furnace. (If you know me, you can see why I liked her.)
After lunch we went with Lisa to her office, where she did some work and arranged for our onward train tickets, I did more photo editing, Ma read a book on the history of the city, and we were able to chat online with Petra in Haiti. On our way home we wandered into some of the kitschy tourist shops, featuring wares such as silk scarves with the neighborhood crests, painted ceramic plates, painted ceramic everything-under-the-sun, highly decorative paper goods, and various tacky crap. We fortified ourselves with an appetizer of pizza slices, then went grocery shopping, trudged back to the apartment for dinner (gnocchi with amazing mystery sauce and sautéed brussel sprouts with pistachio pudding for dessert), and an early night to bed.
Photos from this day are by my mother: you can see where I get some of my photographic habits from! :)
We met up with Miriam, Lisa’s boss, at Osteria El Gato, a small restaurant near their school. We ate more delicious food, in the many-hours-long multi-course-with-wine Italian lunch tradition. Miriam is wonderful, warm and intelligent and high-spirited: I wished we could have lunched for even longer to enjoy her company more. Some of our truly lively topics of conversation over the meal included her family’s history (fascinating romantic saga), the effect of facism and WWII on Italy, goats, the insulating techniques of potato barns, and her parent’s pellet furnace. (If you know me, you can see why I liked her.)
After lunch we went with Lisa to her office, where she did some work and arranged for our onward train tickets, I did more photo editing, Ma read a book on the history of the city, and we were able to chat online with Petra in Haiti. On our way home we wandered into some of the kitschy tourist shops, featuring wares such as silk scarves with the neighborhood crests, painted ceramic plates, painted ceramic everything-under-the-sun, highly decorative paper goods, and various tacky crap. We fortified ourselves with an appetizer of pizza slices, then went grocery shopping, trudged back to the apartment for dinner (gnocchi with amazing mystery sauce and sautéed brussel sprouts with pistachio pudding for dessert), and an early night to bed.
Photos from this day are by my mother: you can see where I get some of my photographic habits from! :)
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Italy Day 4: Day after Christmas
We finally awoke to sunshine! The apartment and the city out the window were practically unrecognizable from the gloom to which we had become accustomed. The golden glow beckoned us such that we wolfed down our breakfast (scrambled eggs with bursting sautéed cherry tomatoes and grated fresh parmesan cheese and whole-grain toast with local cherry jam) so we could rush outside before the clouds returned.
It was another day of mostly just wandering around the city again. The views we could catch out over the Tuscan countryside were all the more arresting, much greener greens even than before, and the stucco and terra cotta houses practically glowed in the sunshine. Our first stop of the day was the Medici fortress on the outskirts of town, built essentially as bragging rights after the final decisive victory of Florence over Siena. It is large and brick and empty and in very good repair, now essentially a walled public park with great views from the high walls back onto the old city and surrounds.
Of course it was snack time next, so off to Nanini’s coffee shop for a rice pastry, which we dutifully ate sitting in the sun in Il Campo (the main plaza) like good tourists. Our next stop, a farm in a green valley within the old city walls, was sadly closed, so no Italian mountain goats for us.
Instead we briskly strode through the Torre contrada / ghetto neighborhood toward the church of S. Clemente in S. Maria del Servi from which Lisa promised great views. Of course, as soon as we got there, the sun disappeared. So we just enjoyed the church itself, which was more effectively decorated and seemed more cozy than the other giant churches of the city. This one had a great mosaic over an exterior side door in which the skin of all the figures had turned green, probably something to do with the ancient paint’s pigments. Inside were two remarkably well-preserved mummies of 1300s saints, one of which looked disturbingly like me, and some very famous frescoes by the Lorenzetti brothers, which we ignored.
Lisa took us next to the grounds of the former city psychiatric hospital, now part of the University, and the nearby Porto Romana (Roman gate), very well-preserved with its whole gatehouse and gate tower and everything still intact. It was funny to see cars zooming through the gatehouse, since the road still enters the city there. Sitting in an arrow slit nook, we took a quick repast of Lisa’s favorite Italian beverage, a packaged iced tea with lemon and rosewater added.
Then commenced an endless nearly-futile search for open restaurant. During our search we kept our spirits up by going via the alley of potted plants of the day before, admiring the whimsical figures topping the hundreds of iron horse securing rings along the streets, and noting the dangerous toilet balconies mounted on the outside of the high walls. Unfortunately, all the swift walking from today and the past few days has brought about shinsplints in my legs, so I was miserably hobbling along the later streets.
After searching through about five neighborhoods we finally found an open restaurant, which was really quite delightful entirely in addition to it being warm, having chairs, and having food. Our table was in a very low arched brick nook that was either an old wine cellar or tunnel or oven or just a room for really small people. We ate more delicious food.
After checking email etc at Lisa’s freezing cold office, we felt justified in further indulging with intense hot chocolate, mine with milk and Lisa’s without milk, from a specialty sorbet-and-chocolate shop called Grom. My mother insanely got sorbet (it was freezing out!), a delicious Mandarin orange flavor.
Then on to the Teatro Dei Rozzi for an early-evening concert featuring the Unione Corale Senese (the Sienese Choralle), soprano Cristina Ferri and tenor Altero Mensi, and directed by Francesca Lazzeroni (who also sang a few of the soprano solos). The theater itself was interesting, small and set up in a very old mostly-circular terraced style. I’d call it over-decorated, though Ma says it was tasteful and appropriate for what it is, and Lisa says there’s no such thing as over-decorated, especially since they were singing Madame Butterfly. We got to sit in a box seat, since it was a free concert with open seating and we were near the front of the line: I felt very posh. The program was like Italian Opera’s Greatest Hits, with short selections from Verdi, Verdi, Donizetti, Verdi, Verdi, Cajkovskij, Puccini, Puccini, Puccini, (intermission), Puccini, Puccini, Puccini, Leoncavallo, Mascagni, Mascagni, and an unbilled encore sing-along. The crowd seemed to know all the pieces by heart, though only a few sounded vaguely familiar to me. The soloists were very, very, very stereotypically Italian: confident, highly dramatic, strident, loud, endearing, and quite talented. The youngish Ms. Ferri was lovely enough with her honest delight in her own performance and perfectly tailored modern gauzy dress to mostly excuse her over-use of vibrato, while Mr. Mensi was as sweet and dignified as his white hair and paunch would lead one to suspect. We walked/hobbled home singing the main melodic phrase of the last piece.
Dinner back at the apartment was leftovers of the previous meals plus more almond cookies, and more pecarino cheese with honey drizzled over it, and a Kinder egg (with purple bouncy toy). The three of us cozied up on the couch and sang all the Christmas carols we could think of, occasionally sung in the mode of monkeys and/or fish, which made me laugh so hard I had real trouble breathing. The later songs I accompanied on guitar, making my fingers ask what I was doing to them (as I haven’t played in years). Then sleep.
It was another day of mostly just wandering around the city again. The views we could catch out over the Tuscan countryside were all the more arresting, much greener greens even than before, and the stucco and terra cotta houses practically glowed in the sunshine. Our first stop of the day was the Medici fortress on the outskirts of town, built essentially as bragging rights after the final decisive victory of Florence over Siena. It is large and brick and empty and in very good repair, now essentially a walled public park with great views from the high walls back onto the old city and surrounds.
Of course it was snack time next, so off to Nanini’s coffee shop for a rice pastry, which we dutifully ate sitting in the sun in Il Campo (the main plaza) like good tourists. Our next stop, a farm in a green valley within the old city walls, was sadly closed, so no Italian mountain goats for us.
Instead we briskly strode through the Torre contrada / ghetto neighborhood toward the church of S. Clemente in S. Maria del Servi from which Lisa promised great views. Of course, as soon as we got there, the sun disappeared. So we just enjoyed the church itself, which was more effectively decorated and seemed more cozy than the other giant churches of the city. This one had a great mosaic over an exterior side door in which the skin of all the figures had turned green, probably something to do with the ancient paint’s pigments. Inside were two remarkably well-preserved mummies of 1300s saints, one of which looked disturbingly like me, and some very famous frescoes by the Lorenzetti brothers, which we ignored.
Lisa took us next to the grounds of the former city psychiatric hospital, now part of the University, and the nearby Porto Romana (Roman gate), very well-preserved with its whole gatehouse and gate tower and everything still intact. It was funny to see cars zooming through the gatehouse, since the road still enters the city there. Sitting in an arrow slit nook, we took a quick repast of Lisa’s favorite Italian beverage, a packaged iced tea with lemon and rosewater added.
Then commenced an endless nearly-futile search for open restaurant. During our search we kept our spirits up by going via the alley of potted plants of the day before, admiring the whimsical figures topping the hundreds of iron horse securing rings along the streets, and noting the dangerous toilet balconies mounted on the outside of the high walls. Unfortunately, all the swift walking from today and the past few days has brought about shinsplints in my legs, so I was miserably hobbling along the later streets.
After searching through about five neighborhoods we finally found an open restaurant, which was really quite delightful entirely in addition to it being warm, having chairs, and having food. Our table was in a very low arched brick nook that was either an old wine cellar or tunnel or oven or just a room for really small people. We ate more delicious food.
After checking email etc at Lisa’s freezing cold office, we felt justified in further indulging with intense hot chocolate, mine with milk and Lisa’s without milk, from a specialty sorbet-and-chocolate shop called Grom. My mother insanely got sorbet (it was freezing out!), a delicious Mandarin orange flavor.
Then on to the Teatro Dei Rozzi for an early-evening concert featuring the Unione Corale Senese (the Sienese Choralle), soprano Cristina Ferri and tenor Altero Mensi, and directed by Francesca Lazzeroni (who also sang a few of the soprano solos). The theater itself was interesting, small and set up in a very old mostly-circular terraced style. I’d call it over-decorated, though Ma says it was tasteful and appropriate for what it is, and Lisa says there’s no such thing as over-decorated, especially since they were singing Madame Butterfly. We got to sit in a box seat, since it was a free concert with open seating and we were near the front of the line: I felt very posh. The program was like Italian Opera’s Greatest Hits, with short selections from Verdi, Verdi, Donizetti, Verdi, Verdi, Cajkovskij, Puccini, Puccini, Puccini, (intermission), Puccini, Puccini, Puccini, Leoncavallo, Mascagni, Mascagni, and an unbilled encore sing-along. The crowd seemed to know all the pieces by heart, though only a few sounded vaguely familiar to me. The soloists were very, very, very stereotypically Italian: confident, highly dramatic, strident, loud, endearing, and quite talented. The youngish Ms. Ferri was lovely enough with her honest delight in her own performance and perfectly tailored modern gauzy dress to mostly excuse her over-use of vibrato, while Mr. Mensi was as sweet and dignified as his white hair and paunch would lead one to suspect. We walked/hobbled home singing the main melodic phrase of the last piece.
Dinner back at the apartment was leftovers of the previous meals plus more almond cookies, and more pecarino cheese with honey drizzled over it, and a Kinder egg (with purple bouncy toy). The three of us cozied up on the couch and sang all the Christmas carols we could think of, occasionally sung in the mode of monkeys and/or fish, which made me laugh so hard I had real trouble breathing. The later songs I accompanied on guitar, making my fingers ask what I was doing to them (as I haven’t played in years). Then sleep.
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