Italy Travelogue
Copyright 2003
Jeffrey Valjean Cook
Featuring Jeff Cook,
Sylvia Aroth, and Mika Cook
20 June 2003 – 17 July 2003
This travelogue is dedicated to my mom, Patricia (Pat) Ann Lowe-Jones,
who originally intended to come with us on our trip, which would have been her
first trip outside of the American continent, and also to my oldest sister,
Debra (Debbie) Ann Cook-Cummings. Mom was unable to come because Debbie died on
9 May 2003 of brain cancer, brought on by inflammatory breast cancer contracted
three years earlier, and then my youngest sister Valerie Lynn Cook-Custer was
scheduled for abdominal surgery on 9 June 2003, and mom had to be there for
her. Last we checked, the day of
our departure, Valerie had been home from the hospital for a week and was up
and walking around and continuing to get better. We expect a successful and
complete recovery for Valerie.
Most prices mentioned in the travelogue use the symbol “€” that stands for
the new unified European currency, called the “euro.” At the time of writing,
the exchange rate was about 1.2 dollars per Euro. This makes things more expensive now for Americans, because
the exchange rate was the other way around (1.2 euros per dollar) not
more than 6 months ago.
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Mon |
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Wed |
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Fri |
Sat |
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June 20
L.A.->Italy |
June 21 |
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June 23 Entry.3 |
June 24 Entry.4 |
June 28 |
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June 29 Entry.12 |
July 1 |
July 3 Entry.17 |
July 4 Entry.18 |
July 5 Entry.19 |
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July 6 Entry.20 |
July 7 Entry.21 |
July 8 Entry.22 |
July 9 Entry.23 |
July 11 Entry.26 |
July 12 |
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July 13 Entry.27 |
July 14 Entry.28 |
July 15 Entry.29 |
July 17 Entry.32 Italy->L.A. |
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Italy
Travelogue........................................................................................................................ 1
Entry 1: Positano, 4am,
Sunday, 22 June 2003.............................................................................. 3
Entry 2: Positano,
11am, Sunday, 22 June 2003............................................................................. 4
Entry 3: Positano, 5am,
Monday, 23 June 2003............................................................................. 6
Entry 4: Positano, 7am,
Tuesday, 24 June2003.............................................................................. 9
Entry 5: Positano, 7am,
Wednesday, 25 June 2003........................................................................ 11
Entry 6: Positano,
11am, Wednesday, 25 June2003....................................................................... 12
Entry 7: Positano, 7pm,
Wednesday, 25 June2003......................................................................... 17
Entry 8: Positano, 8am,
Thursday, 26 June2003........................................................................... 19
Entry 9: Positano, 6pm,
Thursday, 26 June2003........................................................................... 19
Entry 10: Positano,
9am, Friday, 27 June 2003............................................................................ 24
Entry 11: Positano, 6pm
Friday, 27 June 2003............................................................................. 26
Entry 12: Paestum,
10am, Sunday, 29 June2003........................................................................... 26
Entry 13: Paestum, 9am,
Monday, 30 June 2003.......................................................................... 34
Entry 14: Naples, 3pm,
Monday, 30 June 2003............................................................................ 37
Entry 15: Rome, 8am,
Wednesday, 2 July 2003............................................................................ 39
Entry 16: Rome, 2pm,
Wednesday, 2 July 2003............................................................................ 41
Entry 17: Rome, 6pm,
Thursday, 3 July 2003.............................................................................. 54
Entry 18: Rome, 8am,
Friday, 4 July 2003.................................................................................. 62
Entry 19: Peschici,
3pm, Saturday, 5 July2003............................................................................. 62
Entry 20: Ravenna,
11pm, Sunday, 6 July 2003........................................................................... 66
Entry 21: Venice, 8pm,
Monday, 7 July 2003.............................................................................. 69
Entry 22: Venice, 7am,
Tuesday, 8 July 2003............................................................................... 71
Entry 23: Venice, 7am,
Wednesday, 9 July2003............................................................................ 72
Entry 24: Florence,
6pm, Thursday, 10 July2003.......................................................................... 78
Entry 25: Florence,
10pm, Thursday, 10 July2003........................................................................ 83
Entry 26: Panzano, 6pm,
Friday, 11 July 2003............................................................................. 84
Entry 27: Panzano, 5pm,
Sunday, 13 July 2003............................................................................ 91
Entry 28: Panzano, 9am,
Monday, 14 July 2003........................................................................... 95
Entry 29: Panzano, 2pm,
Tuesday, 15 July2003............................................................................ 97
Entry 30: Panzano,
11am, Wednesday, 16 July 2003...................................................................... 98
Entry 31: Panzano, 6pm,
Wednesday, 16 July2003........................................................................ 99
Entry 32: Airplane,
12pm, Thursday, 17 July 2003...................................................................... 102
Impressions.......................................................................................................................... 109
Addendum............................................................................................................................ 109
Positano Church................................................................................................................ 109
Capri Seacoast................................................................................................................... 111
Montepertuso Walk............................................................................................................ 118
Positano Apartment............................................................................................................ 124
Positano Food................................................................................................................... 134
Ravello Duomo and
Museum............................................................................................... 137
Villa Rufolo in Ravello....................................................................................................... 142
Paestum Ruins and
Museum................................................................................................ 146
Pompeii Artifacts............................................................................................................... 151
Rome Tour....................................................................................................................... 155
Florence Statues................................................................................................................. 158
Table of Photos..................................................................................................................... 162
The End............................................................................................................................... 169
Entry 1: Positano, 4am, Sunday, 22 June 2003
Woke up about 4am, jet-lagged (I thought it was morning), to the sounds of people on the streets and some drumming, which I presumed was a procession for church, an impressive example of which we saw on the beach the night before. When I got up and found out it was still dark, I determined that the sounds were coming from just a few Italian revelers from the night before, carousing around on the beach. The night was still and, because of our location on hillside overlooking the beach and bay of Positano, sound carries quite a way.
There were many boats lying at anchor in the bay. Below are two side-by-side photos I took from our apartment overlooking the bay, around 5:30am. Our apartment faces south into the Mediterranean.
Photo 1: Positano - Bay East at Dawn
Photo 2: Positano - Bay West at Dawn
Our flight for our trip left from LAX at 4:40pm on Friday, 20 June 2003. We got to the airport by 2:30, breezed through the line for business class, and had some time to kill before our flight left. We arrived in Munich, Germany at3pm local time the next day, with an uneventful flight except for three different sets of screaming kids. We had a 2-hour layover in Munich, after which we boarded a much smaller Lufthansa flight for Naples, and we arrived at approximately 5pm. We took a taxi to Positano from the airport, at a negotiated rate of €100 (down from €120). The actual price on the meter when we got there was €51, the taxi driver looked unhappy, so we ended up giving him an extra €15for a tip (he still looked unhappy at that point, but so what?). The ride from Naples to Positano was spectacular (we passed Mt. Vesuvius), with magnificent views of the Mediterranean and hilly terrain of the Amalfi coast, but it was also slightly nauseating, because of the twists and turns and starts and stops due to heavy traffic and narrow roads. Of course, Mika fell asleep.
After we arrived at the town center parking lot (our designated rendezvous place), we called the manager (Antonietta) of our local apartment and she picked up our luggage in her car, while we walked up the street (Via Cristoforo Colombo) to our apartment. We have a 2-bedroom, 2-bath apartment with living room, kitchen, and balcony and terrace overlooking the ocean. (The apartment miscalled La Conchiglia, the street address is Via Cristoforo Columbo, 38, the country address is 84017 Positano (SA) Italy, and we found it on the Internet at http://italian-itineraries.com/.)The apartment is more than adequate for our needs and will allow us to take advantage of the local produce, which is abundant.
After put our luggage inside the apartment, we decided to take a stroll down to the beach, grab a bite to eat, then come back and crash. Our apartment is approximately 200 steps above the beach, and is just up the street from the Hotel Sirenuse, but there is no direct route to the beach, and one must walk down winding streets through the center of town to get to the beach and bay. Our leisurely walk to the beach made one fact abundantly apparent - Positano is shoppers’ paradise, especially if you are interested in clothes and/or ceramics. Each side of each narrow street is covered with shops and restaurants, and the streets are filled with tourists of all nationalities, with quite a few pretty Italian girls (and boys) dressed to the max with skin-tight clothes and high heels. On the way to eat we found quite a few deli’s with fresh produce, and we bought a couple of huge ripe Mission figs with a miniature pear to snack on, for €1.50. We strolled onto the beach, stuck our feet in the water (cool, but refreshing), and then had a drink and some food at a touristy place on the beach. The food was passable for a touristy place (Campari and soda, Bellini, & bubbly water; grilled squids with mixed salad, seafood pasta, & proscuito and funghi pizza). On the way back we stopped at a bar/deli for dessert, and Mika got a double chocolate ice cream cone, Jeff a Lemon Granita (lemon ice dessert). Both were delicious, and I now realize that maintaining my weight will be a challenge.
Entry 2: Positano, 11am, Sunday, 22 June 2003
After taking a nap, here is a new view from the balcony, taken at 10:30am.
Photo 3: Positano - Bay East at Mid-Morning
Photo 4: Positano - Bay West at Mid-Morning
Photo 5: Positano - Hillside West at Mid-Morning
Entry 3: Positano, 5am, Monday, 23 June 2003
Mika woke me up at 4am claiming she had not been sleeping for 3 hours. Sylvia gave her part of a sleeping pill and we sent her back to bed. But before that, I told her that I had been sleeping fitfully, and had just had dream, concerning my 30th high-school reunion, which I am planning on attending right after I arrive home from Italy. The dream was that when we got to the high-school reunion, the place where it was to be held was shut down by the police, so we regrouped somewhere else, and Gerardo (my best friend from high school) handed me a bag of what I thought were little white ceramic plates, that I was to rinse, but which I discovered were little plates covering a bunch of frozen shrimp, that was defrosting, and we were going to have a bar-be-que to feed our classmates, but I had no idea how we were going to feed everyone with just one bag of shrimp! Then Mika woke me up!
The dream was obviously brought on by the last thing we did before returning to our apartment last night, which was to visit an Internet café, which inhabited the space inside of a disco bar right inside the entry and directly across from the bar. The price for usage was €2.5 for 15 minutes, in 15 minute increments, up to €8 for an hour –very reasonable. I checked my email, deleting at least 40 items of SPAM, then read the two remaining emails. One was from Cindy Grall, giving her new contact information and announcing her semi-retirement, and the other was from Gerardo, verifying that he would attend the reunion on Friday and Saturday.
Now, back to the regular scheduled sequence of events. After taking Photos #3-5, and since Mika was still asleep, we left her a note and walked into town to a deli we saw the night before, and bought fruits (pears, white peaches, figs, apples, yellow plums), olives, bread, brie, peach jam, and Nutella, and came back for breakfast. Mika had awakened by then, and below is a photo I took of her with her mouth full of plum, sitting in our apartment’s eating area outside our front door.
Photo 6: Positano - Mika at Breakfast Outside Apartment
While laying around after completing the journal entry above, I was thinking about the problem I had with SPAM at the Internet café the night before, and if I could come up with a technical solution to the problem. I came up with a potential solution that had a good chance of working, so I wrote up a patent idea with the intention of sharing it with someone who can do some research and work on it during my vacation – probably Jud Hogan, since I can’t use anyone from my old job, because of the conflict of interest issue.
After that, I was still grouchy, due to not enough sleep, and took a nap while Sylvia and Mika visited the tourist bureau and did some planning for the rest of our weeklong stay on the Amalfi coast.
When I woke up, we walked down to the beach and got into the water. Thebeach we visited was the one in the middle at the bottom of Photo #4, and Mika and I swam to the blue floatation barrier ringing the swimming area, and back. The water temperature was cool and delicious, and the beach was composed of black pebbles about the size of your little finger. Sylvia commented that the pebbles felt good, because they didn’t “get into things” like sand did, and then Mika pointed out to me that one of the young women asleep on a lounge chair “did not have her shirt on.” I asked her to always inform me from then on when that situation presented itself!
After our swim, we visited a bar and restaurant on the beach called Buca di Bacco, which our guidebook had indicated was good restaurant. We sat down, had a drink (Sylvia and I had an exotic lemon liqueur called a limoncello and Mika had a lemon ice) and made dinner reservations for 8pm.
Photo 7: Positano - Sylvia and Mika at Buca di Bacco
After our drink we went to the rocky beach to the right of the boat landing and derelict pier in Photos #4 & #5, and Sylvia watched while Mika and I dived off of the rocks and swam in the ocean. The photo below is an example of why it doesn’t make sense to use the zoom on the Fujifilm MX-2700 2.3 Mega Pixels digital camera given tome by Dave Balenson. It has a digital zoom and the loss of quality is significant if you use the zoom. Note the granularity of the photo below.
Photo 8: Positano - Jeff and Mika on the Rocks Near the Dock
I dared Mika to dive off a rock into shallow water for a few feet before it got deep, and after a couple of tries, she did it without a problem. We also skipped some flat broken pieces of white ceramic pottery on the water, which I seem to have also incorporated into my dream. By the time we were finished horsing around, it was time to walk back up to the apartment and get ready for dinner. But before that, I took a couple of photos from the bay, one of the hillside beneath and to the west of our apartment, and a close-up of the church dome. Our apartment is the one with a green door in a white façade, the right top of which is covered with reddish purple bougainvillea. It is in the middle vertically, and 2/3rds of the way to the right. We couldn’t have asked for a better location, and our quite pleased with accommodations that Sylvia got purely off the Internet. [JVC Note: Outline landmarks in photo below.]
Photo 9:Positano - Church, La Sirenuse, and Apartment from Bay
Photo 10:Positano - Church Dome from Beach
For more photos of the church, taken on July 25 by Sylvia, see Positano Church in the Addendum.
We had dinner at Buca di Bacco, where it was apparent that many like us had read the same guidebook, since the restaurant was full of English speaking people. For dinner I had proscuito and melon, and the antipasti buffet; Mika had fettuccini with meat and red winesauce; and Sylvia had fettuccini with Lobster. All dinners were quite good, but I am already pining forsomething simple like whole grilled fish. During dinner we started playing the game of identifying the nationalityof the people we observed. TheItalians are fairly obvious, and not just because of their olive complexions,which not all have. The Italians all seem to dress in a certain flamboyant and stylish manner that is hard toexplain. The English and American are almost boring in comparison. Some day I may just sit in one spot and take photos of various people, for a pictorial explanation of what I have just related.
To test our theory, we spotted some people who had to have been of English origin, perhaps Australian, and sent Mika to hang out near the dessert display to overhear them and determine their nationality. Unfortunately, she came back with a chocolate pudding and no idea of the nationality of our target, because when she arrived at the case, the waiter intercepted her and she had no choice (in her mind) but to order something.
After dinner, we took a walk along the hillside shown in Photo #5, and walked to the next beach around the hill. Positano at night is magical – calm and temperate, with wonderful smells and sounds, and ancient paths loping along the hillsides overlooking the sea. Ciao!
Entry 4: Positano, 7am, Tuesday, 24 June2003
My first decent night of sleep! Yippee! Today we are going to Capri! We are taking the ferry over to Capri at 9:30am, and coming back at about 7pm, for €26 apiece.
Yesterday morning, both Sylvia and Mika slept until about 10am, meanwhile, I read and had my breakfast (sausage, and egg, and apple slices with brie). After Sylvia and Mika got up, we went and took a tour of the church, and today I will bring a camera and take some photos on our way to the boat dock.
After the church, we walked back up to our room to prepare for a day at the beach. This walk up and down is getting tedious, since it is quite a ways, perhaps 1/4 mile each way, and a fairly large vertical displacement. We did it four times today, back and forth. It is a pretty walk, however, as can be seen in the photo below . This walkway leads to the courtyard of the church, and is covered with bougainvillea.
Photo 11: Positano - Mika on the Bougainvillea Walk
We spent almost the entire day on the beach today, renting some lounge chairs and umbrellas at €10 apiece.
Photo 12: Positano - Sylvia and Mika and the Beach Chairs
We went swimming a number of separate times, once again at the rocks near the boat dock where we dived off yesterday, this tine jumping and diving off a rocky platform about 7-8 feet above the water. Later in the afternoon, we were presented with the sight below, and we could not resist photographing the event!
Photo 13: Positano - Sylvia Greeted by Profile of Italian Man on the Beach
We ate dinner at Chez Black, another restaurant on the beach, right beneath the church, mentioned in our guidebook. Mika had gnocchi in tomato sauce, Sylvia had an Insalada Capricciosa, a salad that is a combo between an Italian mixed salad and a salad Nicoise, and also had grilled Mozzarella wrapped in citrus leaf. The Mozzarella around here is completely different from that in the states, both in texture and taste. There were at least four different types of Mozzarella on the menu! As our last course, we split a zuppa di pesce (fish soup), which took about 45 minutes to prepare. It had an incredibly savory and slightly spicy broth, and was packed full of shrimp, langoustine, clams, mussels, whole fish, and squid. It was also enough by itself for all three of us.
Entry 5: Positano, 7am, Wednesday, 25 June 2003
Last night, after returning from Capri, we had the best dinner so far this trip. We were intending to go to Chez Black, but Sylvia and Mika were going to do some shopping on the way (dress for Mika, hat for Sylvia), so I was just hanging around, and I happened to walk down a stairway and glance at the menu for Ristorante Max. It just happened that they had ravioli on the menu, which Mika has decided is her favorite food after eating Lobster ravioli at our little corner French restaurant “12Washington” near our house in Marine del Rey. Anyway, I found Sylvia and Mika walking down to Chez Black from Via Cristoforo Colombo, intercepted them, and casually asked them to checkout the menu for this restaurant before we continued on our way. Needless to say, we went no further. (The only complication was that I was wearing shorts and sandals, and we did not know if it was appropriate in this semi-fancy restaurant, with its own musician, but it turned out they didn’t care, as has been the case at every restaurant so far.) Mika had the lobster ravioli with sautéed plum tomatoes, which was delicious, and Sylvia and I shared grilled small squids stuffed with tomatoes, octopus carpaccio, and a green salad with cherry tomatoes, arugula, and lettuce, all of which were excellent. This restaurant is a great find. It is on the main walkway down from the road near the central parking garage to the beach. Highly recommended.
Before describing our trip to Capri, below is a photo of Mika taken just after she woke up yesterday morning.
Photo 14: Positano - Mika on Couch in Apartment
We started our walk down to the boat ramp for our trip to Capri shortly after 9am. Because I have previously mentioned the long walk, we decided to count the paces and steps on the way down. I counted paces and Mika counted steps. There are about 590 steps from our apartment to the middle of the church courtyard, and about 820 steps to the water’s edge. There are about 175 actual steps in total. So one full trip is just under 1/2 of a mile. No wonder my legs ache!
Entry 6: Positano, 11am, Wednesday, 25 June2003
We just got back from our morning walk, which will be described in the next entry. Below is a photo of Sylvia and Mika waiting to board the ferry to Capri.
Photo 15: Capri - Ferry from Positano with Sylvia and Mika
The next
photo I took from the ferry, on approach to the island of Capri.
Photo 16: Capri - Island from the Ferry
At least 45minutes elapsed between the taking of the previous photo and the taking of the one below, which is after we took the tram up the hill from the dock to the town of Capri. We had to wait inline for at least 1/2 hour to get tickets for the tram, and the dock area was swarming with tourists. I likened it to waiting for a ride at Disneyland, and commented that if I had wanted to go to Disneyland, then I would have stayed at home. The primary reason for all of the tourist activity is that we waited until Mika was out of school to go on our trip, and hence the hordes of summer travelers, including the Europeans, who typically get more vacation time than Americans.
Photo 17: Capri - Coast from Capri Town with Mika
Some more
uncomfortable time elapsed between the taking of the last photo and the taking
of the one below. There were
uncomfortably large amount of tourists running around Capri, mostly in large
groups and wearing tour buttons. Sylvia wanted to traipse around looking at the
sights, and all Mika and I wanted to do was to rent a tour boat. So Mika and I sulked, then decided to
split up and go their separate way, but Sylvia couldn’t really make up her
mind, so we sat down to have a snack, then Sylvia was sulking waiting for the
food, until she spotted the Prada shop right next door (next photo). So she did a little bit of shopping,
finding some shoes she had wanted for a long time, and that put her in a much
better mood, so we will have to remember this trick for the next time!
Photo 18: Capri - Downtown with Jeff and Mika
Photo 19: Capri - Prada with Sylvia and Mika
Photo 20: Capri - Beach Near Dock with Mika
Immediately upon stepping
off the tram down from Capri (the town), we encountered a woman who said we
could immediately rent a private 2-hour tour of the island by boat,
for€90. Or we could wait until
3pmand hire our own boat without a captain. But since we had to be back to the
ferry by 4:50pm, we decided the former was our only option. We were given a tour by a young Italian
seaman named Salvatore, who made up for in enthusiasm what he lacked in English
skills.
Photo 21: Capri - Tour Boat Captain Salvatore
We toured the entire
island, clockwise, were shown the summer palace and private baths of the Roman emperor
Tiberius, the summer gardens of the Roman emperor Augustus, many fortifications
and many natural wonders, including a few grottos dug in the sea cliffs.
Salvatore informed us that the hillsides were made of granite and chalk, and it
was the chalk that was eaten away to form the grottos, where even stalactites
formed underneath their overhangs. For most of the remaining of the photos of
the Capri Seacoast, please see the Addendum.
Photo 22: Capri - Green Grotto with Mika
The photo above deserves special mention. In what was called the green grotto above, we dived out of the boat and swam into the arch to the other side, where Salvatore picked us up. The color of the water was just amazing, and the photo does not do it justice. We swam on our backs through to opening so we could look up at the rocks above, which were only a few feet above our heads.
Then my digital camera ran out of batteries, and I was unable to take a photo of the final grotto of our trip, the Blue Grotto. Getting into the Blue Grotto required hiring a rowboat with a standing boatman, for 25, who maneuvered us through the entrance that was about 6 feet wide and 30 inches tall. There was some serious ducking involved, and my hat flew off on the way in, but the boatman caught it and plopped it back down on my head (slightly wet). Inside the grotto, the water was a translucent blue color (but apparently murky that day) due to the light coming in from the entranceway and the deep white sand bottom. At the back of the grotto was an entranceway cut into the stone, which once lead to Roman emperor Tiberius’ quarters, and he had used the grotto as his private swimming pool. After exiting the grotto and getting back on our tour boat, we powered back to the dock, had a snack -- chocolate ice cream with strawberry sauce for Mika (the chocolate in Italy is just amazing), marinated anchovies (the best yet) for Jeff, and a vegetable antipasti plate for Sylvia (fennel, eggplant, zucchini) –and then took the ferry back to Positano.
Entry 7: Positano, 7pm, Wednesday, 25 June2003
This morning our plan was to take a bus to a town 350 meters above Positano, called Montepertuso, and then hike down, which the guide book said would take about and hour. Mika and Sylvia got up at 7am, and we got to the bus station (right next to the central parking garage) at about 7:45am. We then learned from a bus driver that our bus left at 8am,so Sylvia purchased a cappuccino from the bar/deli where we first ate dessert, and then we got on the bus when it arrived. We sat next to a Norwegian couple, also on their first hiking trip to Montepertuso, and looked at their guidebook of walking trails, which was more extensive than ours. The bus drove about 6 kilometers on very narrow and winding roads up to the town. How the driver managed various turns with cars squeezing by on the left and sheer drop-offs on the right was miraculous to behold! When we got to our destination, I was going to ask the Norwegians the route to take back down, but they had already headed up in the other direction. So we walked to the church, which was at the most prominent point in the town, and just took the first stone and concrete pathway that headed down. It happened to be the right one, and we only made one bad choice where we had to backtrack. Mika befriended a small dog on the way, which was with us almost all of the way down.
Since Montepertuso is approximately 350 meters above Positano, and no step is over 1 foot in height, and the way down was mostly steps, we probably did over 1000 steps on our hike down to Positano. The two photos below are representative of our walk. Please see the Addendum for the remainder of the photos taken during our Montepertuso Walk.
Photo 23: Montepertuso Walk - Fig Tree, Mika, Sylvia, and Dog
Photo 24: Montepertuso Walk - Ocean View with Dog, Mika, and Jeff
After our walk, we just hung around the apartment, napping and reading, and below is a photo of me reading in the entryway to the apartment, then a photo of Sylvia with her new hat, standing just about where I am reading. About 4pm, we went back to the beach, I sent Jud Hogan an email about my anti-SPAM patent idea from the Internet café, and then we went swimming in the ocean. Our dinner plans are still to be decided.
Photo 25: Positano - Jeff Reading Outside Apartment
Photo 26: Positano - Sylvia with New Hat Outside Apartment
Entry 8: Positano, 8am, Thursday, 26 June2003
Last night we went to eat dinner at Bruno’s, our local Italian restaurant, just steps up Via Cristoforo Colombo from our apartment. We wanted a seat overlooking the ocean, but the earliest reservation was at 9:30pm, and we were ready to eat by 8:45pm. So we ate inside. Sylvia ordered a delicious gnocchi with mussels and clams, which Mika ended up eating, because her ravioli stuffed with ricotta and arugula was only so-so. My grilled fish, that I have been anticipating since I arrived in Italy was burnt on the outside. But our appetizer course was good -- squid in tomato sauce-- and we ordered a €18 bottle of Italian Merlot (Merlot Il Puro 2002 D.O.C. Astoria) that was fruity, smooth, and delicious.
Right before dinner we visited a shop next to Bruno’s where I purchased a pair of tan linen slacks. The proprietress, Amanda, was originally from Australia, but has lived in Italy for 20 years now, with her husband Sergio, who runs a small beachfront diner that we intend to visit later today. Amanda also gave us the names of three local restaurants we should check out, including two in Montepertuso.
After dinner we came back and played cards until midnight. We played three-handed hearts, which is my absolute favorite card game, and I won. We have been playing cards occasionally on this trip, typically Sylvia and Mika playing gin.
Entry 9: Positano, 6pm, Thursday, 26 June2003
This morning we visited the beachfront diner run by Amanda’s husband Sergio and which had also been mentioned in our guidebook. It was called Da Adolfo, and a free boat arrives at the Positano dock periodically in the morning and late afternoon, to transport people back and forth from the Positano dock. Da Adolfo They make their money by renting lounge chairs and umbrellas (€5 and€4, respectively) and by serving food from their kitchen, which was just a shack on the beach. The first thing we did was to jump into the water and swim along the shoreline to some rocks and pools. The water was clear and temperate and really fun to be in. Then we came back and read some then went and had lunch. You can see us waiting for lunch below (the eating area was almost full, and the people after us had to wait). I had a delicious plate of small mussels, and Sylvia has some excellent marinated octopus on her antipasti plate, which were the only two memorable dishes.
Photo 27: Positano - Da Adolfo -Jeff and Mika Reading Before Lunch
After lunch Mika and I were horsing around in the water, climbing up and jumping and diving off the rock in the photos below, along with some other kids. After a while, a young Italian boy asked my name and introduced himself to me as Nicolo (definitely uncharacteristic for a 9-year-old). He was playing with a soccer ball and I asked him if he wanted to play a game where I threw the ball up and he caught it while jumping off of the rock and before landing in the ocean. By the end of the game at least 9 kids had played, including Mika. Almost all of the kids spoke at least rudimentary English. A good buddy of Nicolo’s was named Marco, who spoke Italian and English with an Australian accent, and had on swim trunks with “Bondi Beach” written on the back. Bondi Beach is in Sydney, Australia, and we went there with our friends Jon and Tracy Stevenson a couple of year ago. It turns out that Marco is Amanda and Sergio’s son.
Photo 28: Positano - Da Adolfo - Rocks with Nicolo Diving and Mika Next
Photo 29: Positano - Da Adolfo - Rocks with Jeff Throwing Ball and Mika Next
When we
left the beach, I said goodbye to Nicolo and Marco, and they asked me if I was
coming back tomorrow. As Sylvia
put it, they wanted their Pied Piper back to play with!
Photo 30: Positano - Da Adolfo - Rock and Restaurant
It sure
doesn’t look like much from a distance, does it? But it had a nice black beach, with much smaller pebbles
near the ocean than ours in Positano, rocks and cliffs for exploring on both
sides, a few fish in the water that we saw using Mika’s goggles, kids for Mika
to play with, a free ride there and back, and decent food.
Photo 31: Positano - Da Adolfo - Departure
On the way
back to Positano from Da Adolfo, we spotted a magnificent hotel on the
hillside, so I took a couple of photos. It turns out it is called the San
Pietro hotel, and it has its own private bean, tennis court, and helicopter
pad.
Photo 32: Positano – Hillside Hotel East Between Da Adolfo and Positano
Photo 33: Positano - Hillside Hotel West Between Da Adolfo and Positano
The girl in the photo below (Danielle) had been attending to Nicolo on the beach at Do Adolfo, so I struck up a conversation and asked how she could possibly be his mother, since she looked so young. She replied that she was his nanny, and was going back to Austria today. She was sad to leave the family she had been with for 10 months now, who spent a month of each year at their grandparent’s house (which looks like a round castle sticking out of the hillside west of Positano).
Photo 34: Positano - Dock with Danielle, Mika, and Sylvia
On the way back to the apartment, I decided to take some photos of the inside of the church (Sylvia took them, and they are included in the Addendum under Positano Church), then took a photo of Mika stuck to a deli dessert window, then took photos of the approach to and interior of the apartment, all of which are shown below.
Photo 35: Positano - Mika and the Dessert Window
Entry 10: Positano, 9am, Friday, 27 June 2003
Last night we went out to eat at the restaurant La Sponda at the La Sirenuse hotel. The restaurant was magnificent, with huge columns surrounding a patio overlooking the ocean, excellent service, and good food. I had a superb lobster salad that contained an entire lobster, with fava beans, peas, lemon zest, and frisee. Mika had a pasta with meat sauce, that she also claimed was the best dish she had been served so far – it had wide homemade noodles and what looked like stewed meat (falling apart) in a tomato sauce. Sylvia had homemade linguini-like pasta with seafood. And our half-bottle of wine for €18, Lacryma Christi 2002Matroberardino, was also delicious. But we have to stop eating out like this! The meal cost us €210, which is approximately $250. We ordered some desserts from the dessert cart at the end, a piece of berry pie, chocolate ice cream, and a lemon puff cake, and they were €15 apiece! This is way to pricey for us to continue eating like this. We must start making our own meals. But in this small town, we haven’t found a decent size store from which to purchase a variety of food, but every small store I have been to sells fruits and produce that are delicious and inexpensive.
Sylvia wants me to note in this journal that, even though she brought some Pete’s Coffee with her, not once has she made coffee in the morning, so far. This is because the coffee at the delis here is so delicious that she is able to get her coffee fix every morning and is completely satisfied for the rest of the day! She always orders a cappuccino, and I had a taste once, and can confirm, even though I don’t drink coffee, that it was delicious.
Here is a photo of the dress that Mika wore to the restaurant last night, purchased yesterday. It is a “tipici” (typical) white skirt with matching top. (JVC Note: Create an animated GIF out of the two images of Mika and overlay them.)
Photo 36: Positano - New White Dress for Mika (Beatific)
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Below is the food we intend to eat tonight, purchased from the Enogastronomia Delikatessen (across the street from the dessert window that Mika is picture staring at above), since we have decided we need to eat in at least one out of every two nights. And since the deli and market food is completely delicious, this will not be a problem. The items in the photo below are, from left to right and top to bottom – marinated eggplant, marinated dried mushrooms, balsamic vinegar, a box of salt behind fresh bufallo mozzeralla, extra-virgin olive oil, a bottle of limoncello liqueur, marinated dried tomatoes, a nectarine, a white peach, grapes, cherries, mixed seafood salad (squid, shrimp, octopus), bread (Italian baguette), fresh small tomatoes still on the vine, ripe green figs, and fresh basil. I paid about €45 for the contents of the table, and the items in the far back are staples that cost about €15. Since there is enough food for two meals for the three of us, we can have a great meal for about €15. We make a Caprese salad using the mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, oil, vinegar, and salt; we will cut the bread into slides and eat it with the four items in plastic containers; and we will eat the fruit for snacks and dessert. Yummy!
Photo 37: Positano - Food Items from the Enogastronomia Delikatessen
Entry 11: Positano, 6pm Friday, 27 June 2003
Just after 3pm we went down to the beach with the intention of going for a short swim and then taking the 4pm boat over to Da Adolfo for an hour, then come back to eat. We walked all the way to the east part of the Positano beach, then swam out around the first point, behind which was a small deserted beach with a cave-like overhang in the hillside and a rock just offshore, which Mika and I promptly climbed and dived from. Sylvia wanted to continue on so we swan past the next point, where there was another private beach with a few people and some boats dragged onto the shore. So we swam back to the former beach. There we found a small protected cove with amazingly clear water, pottery shards mixed in with the pebbles on the bottom, a sea anemone that stung Mika when she stepped on it and hurt her owie (little-girl-speak) on her big toe (of course, Mika and I both touched it after that, to feel it grab onto our fingers – way cool), and other fun things. Then we swam back to Positano beach, walked to the boat dock, and waited for 25 minutes until 4:55pm, but the boat from Da Adolfo never arrived. So we picked up the white linen clothes for me that we had purchased earlier in the day and had been altered, and then walked back to the apartment.
And here is a photo of us eating dinner; consuming some of the foodstuff we bought earlier in the day.
Photo 38: Positano - Fresh Produce Dinner with Mika and Sylvia
Entry 12: Paestum, 10am, Sunday, 29 June2003
Yesterday we left Positano for good, on our travels down the Amalfi coast, to Amalfi, Ravello, Salerno, Paestum, then up to Pompeii and onto Rome. We have a private tour guide for Rome reserved for next Tuesday. We will miss Positano, as it was a very charming and semi-secluded town with great activities on land and sea. I cannot image that the remainder of the trip will be as peaceful as Positano, and the proper word to describe my anticipation of the rest of the trip is “trepidation.” Right now, I am sitting in a beachfront hotel called the Schuhmann Strand Hotel on the beach in Paestum, eating breakfast with Mika, and looking out at a sandy ocean beach with small waves gently rolling in. This is peaceful, but yesterday was not, as we traveled for about 8hours to get here. We took the10am ferry from Positano to Amalfi, dropped our bags off at the travel office, took a bus to a hillside town overlooking Amalfi called Ravello, took the bus back to Amalfi at 3pm, caught the 4:15pm ferry to Salerno, caught the 6:42pmtrain to Paestum, where we missed our stop by one (they only stop the train if you ring a bell before reaching the next stop), and then took a taxi to our hotel, arriving after 8pm. So we traveled from 10am to 8pm, and spent about 2 hours in Ravello. By the time we arrived in our hotel, everyone was exhausted. We showered and went down to our dinner, which is included in the price of the room (€190 per day), along with breakfast, and we were pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t too bad – the pasta with tomato sauce and fish with clams and mussels were excellent, but what we heard as “veal” turned out to be fried mozzarella (quite good also, just not what Mika was anticipating).
Before we left Positano yesterday, I took a few more photos. I took a photo of the Positano church dome and hillside, from the balcony of the Le Sirenuse hotel; the Enogastronomia Delikatessen where we bought most of our local food goods; the Internet Café and Disco bar where I checked my email (with the bartendress who I talked to every day; and Mika standing on the Positano dock underneath and to the left of the conical tower house where Nicolo stays with his grandparents every summer. These photos are shown below. I also took photos of all of the restaurants that we ate at during our stay in Positano, and these can be seen in the section on Positano Food in the Addendum.
Photo 39: Positano - Church Dome and Hillside from La Sirenuse
Photo 40: Positano - Enogastronomia Delikatessen
Photo 41: Positano - Internet Cafe and Disco Bar
Photo 42: Positano - Mika on Dock below Nicolo's Grandparents’ House
Below is a photo I took of Amalfi on approach from the ferry from Positano.
Photo 43: Amalfi - From the Positano Ferry
Next we went to Ravello, which is 350 meters above Amalfi on an extremely winding and narrow road. It is amazing how bus drivers can navigate 180-degree turns on these narrow roads successfully. They honk before every blind corner to let drivers know they are coming. Below is a photo I took of the town Maiori as seen from the bus stop at Ravello, then a photo of Mika petting a ceramic dog for sale in “pottery barn,” then three photos taken inside the Ravello Duomo (Church), which was built in the 11th century. More photos taken inside the Ravello Duomo and Museum can be found in the Addendum.
Photo 44: Ravello - View of Maiori
Photo 45: Ravello - Mika Petting Ceramic Dog
Photo 46: Ravello Duomo - Detail of Tile Inlay
Photo 47: Ravello Duomo - Detail of Interior Dome
Photo 48: Ravello Duomo - Sea Monster Shrine
After visiting the Ravello Duomo, we went to visit the Villa Rufolo, also founded in the 11th century. It is on the hillside overlooking the sea in Ravello, and was once the residence of kings and popes. All of the photos of Villa Rufolo are shown in the Addendum, and I have included only one photo below, that of two lovers being filmed in preparation for their wedding ceremony.
Photo 49: Ravello - Villa Rufolo - Lovers
While waiting for the bus from Ravello down to Amalfi, we had a snack in a Cliffside restaurant, where we took the following two photos.
Photo 50: Ravello - Mika and Jeff in Cliffside Restaurant
Photo 51: Ravello - Sylvia Gazing in Cliffside Restaurant
The final photo in this sequence was taken at the docks in Amalfi. The rocks forming the seawall were cut out in the shape of huge jacks, as in the game of jacks.
Photo 52: Amalfi - Rock Jacks Seawall
Entry 13: Paestum, 9am, Monday, 30 June 2003
We are sitting in the small train station at Paestum, waiting for the train to Salerno, where we will pick up our large bags, and then travel on to Pompeii to see the ruins, then on to Rome. It is now 9:09am and our train was scheduled to depart at 8:46am. Yesterday we visited the ruins of Paestum, called the best-preserved archeological site in the world by our tour book. It contained the ruins of an entire Greek city, with three large temples. We borrowed bicycles from our hotel and biked the 2.5 kilometers (less than 1.5 miles) to the ruins, then took a walking tour of the ruins and the museum. I have included two photos below, a photo of the ruins of the Temple of Poseidon and a photo of some interesting floating concrete steps in the museum. The remainder of the photos I took of the Paestum Ruins and Museum can be found in the Addendum.
Photo 53: Paestum - Temple of Poseidon with Mika
Photo 54: Paestum Museum - Concrete Steps Architectural Detail
This morning we got up early (7am) packed our bags, checked out of the hotel and ordered a taxi to the train station, had breakfast outside in the hotel breakfast area, and I took a few photos of the beach area as seen from Hotel Schuhmann. The first photo shows the awning over the patio area outside of the hotel entryway, whose design Sylvia liked and is considering using for the 3rd floor open-air structure on top of our beachfront house in Marina del Rey. The next three photos show the beach in front of and to the south of the hotel. This hotel is on a long white sand beach that stretches for miles in either direction. The beach gently slopes out to the ocean, the water is warm (as is the air temperature – 88degrees Fahrenheit yesterday afternoon), and the waves are gentle. Last night after dinner, at dusk around9pm, Mika and I went for a swim in the ocean and ended up bodysurfing the shore break (translation –- we caught little 6 inch waves that dumped us onto the sand at the water line).
Photo 55: Paestum - Hotel Schuhmann - White Awning and Beach
Photo 56: Paestum - Hotel Schuhmann - Beach from Entry
Photo 57: Paestum - Hotel Schuhmann - Beach from Breakfast Area
Photo 58: Paestum - Hotel Schuhmann - Beach South
Entry 14: Naples, 3pm, Monday, 30 June 2003
Sometime yesterday, Mika asked me if my dad, Valjean Gordon (VG) Cook, who is about 5’5” tall, was ever taller. Here was my response to her: “Mika, Dad was once a giant among men, and then he shrunk.” Mika has now created a short modern dance depicting my response, which she intends to show Dad at her earliest opportunity. Besides being facetious, I did have a hidden meaning, which I explained to her later, saying that most children consider their parents to be giants when they are young, but sometimes, which the children grow up, their parents turn out to just be plain ole short people.
We are now on the EuroStar express train to Roma (Rome) from Napoli (Naples). We took a train from Pompeii to Napoli and found the direct train to Rome with almost no problem, but with no time to buy a ticket. So we just got on the train, in first class, and waited for the ticket man, who charged us €105(cash only) for all three of us for our 2.5 hour trip – very reasonable.
Our tour of Pompeii did not last much more than an hour, because of the sweltering heat. One of our current train companions, from Connecticut, just told us they had been informed that this is the hottest summer season for a century. Anyway, we rented audio tour devices after buying our tickets to the ruins of Pompeii, which are quite extensive, and would take all day to cover in full. After listening to only 5 or so entries, we were already too hot and decided to focus on what Mika wanted to see – the preserved animals and humans from the fall of Pompeii. Pompeii was destroyed in79 A.D. by an eruption from Mt. Vesuvius that covered the city in ash and killed all of the inhabitants. The eruption preserved the city and archeologists later found some of the former inhabitants entombed in ash.
Shown below is a photo one of the most famous finds, that of a dog writhing in agony before death, who was apparently tied up on a leash when Vesuvius erupted. The composition of the photo is strange, since the dog was behind a glass case with glare, so I used my flash to try to eliminate some of the glare, and you can see the flash from my camera reflected in the glass, along with a number of people, with Mika the shortest person visible.
Photo 59: Pompeii - Dead Dog Twisted
Below is a close-up of one of the dead bodies that was recovered by the archeologists. Notice the facial grimace. This guy was not happy. For more photos of the Pompeii Artifacts, see the Addendum.
Photo 60: Pompeii - Dead Man Grimacing
The final two photos of Pompeii are the view north from the center of Pompeii, with Mika in the foreground, and Mt. Vesuvius shrouded by mist and clouds in the background, followed by a photo of the ruin walls of Pompeii framed by contemporary gardens.
Photo 61: Pompeii - Forum with Mika and Cloud-topped Vesuvius
Photo 62: Pompeii - Ruin Walls with Garden
Entry 15: Rome, 8am, Wednesday, 2 July 2003
The night before last we checked into our hotel in Rome, after taking a fairly short taxi ride from the train station. The hotel is called La Residenza (00187Roma – Via Emilia, 22-24, +39.06.4880789) and was listed as a “Best Buy” in our guidebook [Frommer’s Italy 2003]. We had some problems initially, however, but are now settled into a room with three beds, a nice bathroom, and a patio overlooking the street. But when we arrived, we were given two separate rooms, of which we had been informed in advance, but the double-occupancy room was the only room on the top floor, and its air conditioning was inadequate for the task considering the heat, and we decided that we could not stay in a room without proper air conditioning. We had some conflict with the hotel management after telling them we would not stay in the room (especially for the€195 price we had to pay), and at one point they suggested we leave the hotel. But, while we were consolidating our luggage into the one decent room, we got a call from the front desk and they indicated that another room had just become available, into which they could put an extra bed, and we settled on this solution, which worked out OK for one night.
Yesterday morning, our tour guide, Alan Epstein, met us at the front door at 9am after our surprisingly decent buffet breakfast, at which time we were informed that the room we thought we were transferring to was unavailable, but they happened to have yet another room, which we are now staying in and are happy with. We have decided to stay in Rome for a total of four nights. Yesterday we did a walking tour of Rome; today (Wednesday) will be reserved for shopping; and Thursday for a local museum, the Sistine Chapel, and perhaps other parts of part of the Vatican. Then we will travel to the eastern coast of Italy (Puglia) and spend some more time near the ocean.
We learned from Alan today that it has been much more than100 years since it was this hot this time of the year in Rome – the last similar heat wave on record was in the late 1700s (1781?). There has not been any rain for over 80 days, and June will most likely set a record too. It did cool off a little yesterday, and since large buildings shaded most of our tour of Rome, our walk was not too bad until later in the afternoon. Our tour lasted from 9am to 5:30pm, with a little over an hour break for lunch. We walked about three miles, starting at our hotel, and ending up at the Coliseum, where we took ataxia back to our hotel (€5.41).
Our tour guide, Alan, is a writer who has lived in Italy for22 years, after getting a Ph.D. in medieval history from the states (he is from Philadelphia). He has two boys, 14and 11, and a wife from Beverly Hills who is a psychotherapist for English-speaking residents of Rome. For a living, Alan gives tours and writes books, although I cannot imagine the latter to be lucrative, and he indicated that the former had not been going that well lately, because of the drop-off in tourism due to 911 and the Iraq war. He charged us a considerable amount for the tour, and we paid for lunch. We actually considered only doing a half day, because we know that his price was only half that last year, when he gave a tour to a school mate of Mika’s (Claire Bastis) family, who recommended him to us. But we had a great time, saw an incredible number of obelisks, fountains, and ancient sites, as will be related below, and learned much about the history of ancient Rome.
We asked Alan why he had decided to move to Italy, and he said it was because of the culture. I asked him if he was referring to contemporary culture, and he replied that, no, in his opinion, Italy had not had any real contemporary culture since the time of the famous Italian sculptor Bernini (1598-1680). Bernini designed many of the fountains that we visited on our tour.
We had heard that Rome was a dangerous city to walk around in, as pickpockets were everywhere, and one had to maintain tight control of one’s possessions. Alan dispelled this as an urban myth. He said that Rome is an extremely safe city, and it certainly felt safe to us.
Large cities in Italy have quite a few panhandlers who are identified as Gypsies – primarily women and children. We saw a child, who must have been no more than four or five, playing an accordion (quite well) on the train from Paestum to Naples, accompanied by his mother who was looking for a handout. We learned later that the proper response is either to ignore them or to forcefully reject their requests. We also learned that the Italian government has plans to eliminate the Gypsy culture of panhandling through education and improving their standard of living, but we’ll have to wait and see if it works.
Italy is a democratic socialist country, with free public schools and universities, and no private schools. Each Italian citizen is entitled to a good education and fairly good standard of living. Public transportation – trains, subway, busses – are subsidized by the state, as is evident from a typical €2.80 cost for a 30-mkinute train ride. There is free national health care and none of the homeless problem as seen in the USA. The system is financed through a 20%VAT (value added tax – sales tax) on all goods sold, plus an income tax. The disparity between rich and poor in Italy is only about five to one, whereas in the USA it is multiple thousands to one. Alan mentioned that, as a historian, it is his opinion that this one single fact could be the largest contributing factor to the eventual decline of the power of the USA. This same disparity was partially responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire in 476A.D.
The sanitation system in Rome is very efficient. We passed through one square, that had survived since medieval times, and which contains a statue dedicated to Bruno (a church scientist and gadfly who was imprisoned for heresy and then burned at the stake for refusing to recant), that is used for an open-air market every morning. In the early afternoon, it is cleaned up by city sanitation workers and street-sweepers, and the by late afternoon is full of tables and chairs and used as an open-air eating and drinking space that is occupied until early morning. We also saw, near the Coliseum, a sanitation worker picking up 8 empty beer bottles. Alan informed us that, every day, a man sat in that spot and drank 8 bottles of beer, pouring the beer repeatedly into a small cup instead of drinking out of the bottle, and then leaving the empty bottles on the grass. Each afternoon, a sanitation worker picks up the bottles and puts them in the trash!
When discussing the origin of ice cream and chocolate with Alan, after a passing reference to Swiss chocolate, he made the following comment that he said was typical of the Italians: “The Swiss have had stability for 500 years, and in this time their greatest accomplishment was the cuckoo clock. The Italians have had centuries of anarchy, and look what they have produced.” He said that such statements are not made in boast, but in humor, as the Italians do not take themselves too seriously. He also indicated that he had just recently heard that the Italians refer to Coca-Cola as “American Champagne,” which is certainly not a compliment!
Another conversation we had concerned the relationship between the invention of the Internet and the invention of the printing press. Gutenberg popularized (it had actually been invented in the Orient centuries before) the printing press in Germany in the 1450, to facilitate the printing of Bibles, which until then had all been printed by hand by monks. But his tool was soon in use by the masses, and within 100 years, there was a million books in print. This single event was probably the single-most important cause of the European Renaissance. The effect of the current Internet is another paradigm shift that will have equally far-reaching effect, because it has increased the possible level of communication by at least an order of magnitude. Now, almost anyone on earth can communicate will almost anyone else, anywhere, anytime, and the dissemination of ideas is much easier than with paper printing, as printed work permitted the easier dissemination of ideas than with spoken word.
Now I’m going to take a break, wake up Sylvia and Mika, and get them down to breakfast before I write about our tour of Rome. But first, let me show the first photo I took yesterday morning, of Mika standing next to a cute new car that we have seen all over Italy (and that I believe we first saw in the movie Just Married). It is called a Smart Car, and is a joint venture between Mercedes Benz and Swatch (yes, the watch company!).
Photo 64: Rome Tour - Mika and the Smart Car with Sylvia and Alan
Entry 16: Rome, 2pm, Wednesday, 2 July 2003
I just got back from the Internet café in the Piazza Barberini, just a few blocks from our hotel, and co-located with a Subway sandwich shop. I wanted to plug in my laptop so I could download all of my email and work on my patent idea, but even though they advertised the ability to accommodate laptops, they are unable to do so. So instead, Mika played computer games while I read email, Sylvia bought the most recent Harry Potter book for Mika, then came back and picked up Mika and took her shopping. I worked on the Internet for a couple of hours.
Photo 65: Rome - Piazza Barberini - easy Internet Cafe with Mika
Now for the tour we took yesterday. First we walked to a remnant of the ancient walls of Rome, constructed in approximately 180 AD, which still contained one of the 24 gates of Rome, and was still standing after almost two millennia. Next we walked to what are called the Spanish Steps, where we saw the first obelisk on our tour. There were many obelisks in Rome in ancient times, taken when Rome conquered Egypt, but all but the one near the Vatican were torn down by marauders after the fall of the Roman Empire. A dozen or so were later re-erected by the church, and we saw at least half of them on our tour. Of course, every one of these obelisks is topped with some sort of Catholic icon, and none stand unadorned.
Photo 66: Rome Tour - First Obelisk Near Spanish Steps
Rome is full of fountains, from simple to magnificent, most of which can be used as drinking fountains. The water in these fountains is constantly running, and is supplied from the same mountain springs that supplied the ancient aqueducts. In fact, the water runs along the same channels as the ancient aqueducts, but pipes have replaced stone channels as the delivery mechanism. The first fountain we visited (shown below) was the Boat Fountain under the Spanish steps, and we all took a drink, as Mika just finished doing below (no, she is not about to dive into the water!). The next photo is of the Spanish Steps, where the Boat Fountain can be seen on the lower left and the obelisk in the middle.
Photo 67: Rome Tour - Boat Fountain with Mika
Photo 68: Rome Tour - Boat Fountain and Spanish Steps
Next we walked to the spectacular Trevi fountain, designed by Nicolo Salvi and completed in 1762. Words cannot describe the magnificence of this fountain, so I will let the photos attempt to do so. After seeing the fountain, we took a pit stop at an ice cream parlor, where Mika had a 1/2 raspberry and 1/2 chocolate ice cream cone (did I mention that the Italian chocolate is to die for?), after which I took a photo that shows Sylvia talking to Alan and Mika concentrating on her ice cream.
Photo 69: Rome Tour - Trevi Fountain and Building
Photo 70: Rome Tour - Trevi Fountain
Photo 71: Rome Tour - Tour Group at Trevi Fountain
Next we walked to the square that contains the residence of the prime minister of Italy, but who does not currently occupy his residence because he is rich and his home residence is much better appointed. In this square was an obelisk constructed and erected by the Romans honoring Marcus Aurelius, shown below. We noticed that there were many police around the square, and then we noticed some firemen in front of the prime minister’s office, who tried to erect a fire ladder with a banner. When they tried to put it up, the police rushed them and tore off the banner, then tried to prevent them from erecting the ladder, which was held up by men holding ropes on four sides. The firemen succeeded in keeping the ladder up, and the police eventually backed off. Our supposition was that the firemen had a permit for a demonstration, but a banner was not permitted, and that is why the police intervened.
Photo 72: Rome Tour - Roman Obelisk to Marcus Aurelius
Next we walked to the Church of the Jesuits. I have included a photo of the outside of church, which isn’t that spectacular, comparatively, but the inside of the church was the most magnificent spectacle I have ever seen. One thing the Jesuits did with this church was to paint a trompe l’oeil (fake) dome on the ceiling, which looks just like a real dome, and completely fools the eye. They did the same with the interaction between the paintings on the ceiling and the arches supporting them – some of the architectural details of the arches are painted on.
Photo 73: Rome Tour - Jesuit Church
Next we saw another obelisk, half reconstructed with blank stone, whose photo I took in passing, but I do not remember the history and it is not in a magnificent setting, so I have declined to include it here. After that, we walked through an open-air market, where I bought some Concorde-type grapes and Sylvia bought some raspberries that were among the best we’ve ever tasted. We then went by and made reservations for lunch, and then walked to the Pantheon.
The Pantheon was constructed and then remodeled in the 1stand 2nd centuries B.C., and is still standing intact today. It is claimed to be the most well preserved example of European construction in existence today. Its dome is still the largest example of a poured-concrete dome in the world today – so imagine the technology the Romans used to construct it. I took a photo of the outside of the dome (with another obelisk in front), and then a sequence of three from the inside, showing the light pouring in from the hole in the top of the dome, which is reputed to be one of the reasons that it is still standing.
Photo 74: Rome Tour - Obelisk and Pantheon with Alan, Sylvia, and Mika
Photo 75: Rome Tour - Pantheon Dome Top Opening
Photo 76: Rome Tour - Pantheon Dome Middle
Photo 77: Rome Tour - Pantheon Dome Bottom
The next site was the Church erected on the site of a Temple to Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. In front of the church is an obelisk on a stand in the shape of an elephant (representing wisdom), designed by Bernini. Inside, the church is one of the few examples of Gothic architecture (pointed arches) in Italy, as most of the churches in Italy had already been built by the time of the Gothic period, and new church building did not commence until the Renaissance. The church was full of magnificent art, but one piece especially stood out – a statue of Christ by Michelangelo. The photo does not do it justice, but I have included it anyway.
Photo 78: Rome Tour - Minerva Church - Obelisk Base by Bernini
Photo 79: Rome Tour - Minerva Church - Christ by Michelangelo
Then we retraced our steps to near the open-air market and went to lunch at Il Bacaro, on Via di Spagnoli. Because a local, our tour guide, chose the place, the food was excellent. I had a goose (made like proscuito) and peach antipasti; Alan had a spinach salad with pine nuts, parmesan cheese, and beef made like proscuito; Sylvia had pasta with potatoes and arugula; Mika had gnocchi with clams, asparagus, and tomatoes; and we all shared a bottle of white wine and a plate of Italian cheeses served with fig jam, orange marmalade, and honey. The cost of the meal was €68.
Right before the end of the meal, Mika excused herself from the table to go to the restroom (toilette). When she left, Alan said to us “Your daughter is beautiful! Jeff, that’s really why you sit across from her, isn’t it?” (This was in reference to the fact that I sit across from Mika so Sylvia doesn’t have to, because Mika kicks Sylvia when she swings her legs, and I don’t care if Mika kicks me accidentally.) I responded “Yes, and she has a great personality and is smart too.” Alan’s retort was that beauty itself was enough for the Italians, without having to excuse it with other more redeeming attributes. That, to me, was an interesting observation. And it was in keeping with some other comments Alan made concerning Italians’ focus on design and style above everything else, including functionality.
Photo 80: Rome Tour - Il Bacaro with Mika and Alan
After our leisurely lunch, we visited the Piazza Navona, the former site of Rome’s ancient Stadium of Domitian, which contains two fountains and an obelisk. The first was a Fountain of Neptune, and the second, topped by an obelisk, was the Fountain of the Four Rivers, designed by Bernini. Alan considered it to be the best fountain in the city, certainly the best Baroque fountain in the city. Four photos of these fountains are included below.
Photo 81: Rome Tour - Neptune Fountain in Piazza Navona
Photo 82: Rome Tour - Four Rivers Fountain
Photo 83: Rome Tour - Four Rivers Fountain Obelisk
Photo 84: Rome Tour - Four Rivers Fountain with Mika
Next we entered the medieval plaza with the statue of Bruno, one of the only major plazas in Rome without a church.
Photo 85: Rome Tour - Statue of Bruno in Medieval Plaza
Next I have included a photo of a hanging umbrella that Sylvia liked, in consideration of using on top of the 3rd floor of our house in Marin del Rey.
Photo 86: Rome Tour - Another Awning Design for Sylvia
Next we sent up the steps to the square where Mussolini made his pronouncements during World War II, and saw the 2nd floor balcony from which he spoke. Historically, this spot is known as the Piazza del Campidoglio, on the Capitoline Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome. Michelangelo proposed a solution to the problems of the space in the Piazza del Campidoglio, which has an odd shape, and his solution for the paving of the piazza was ordered completed by Mussolini in 1940!
Photo 87: Rome Tour - Steps up to Mussolini Square (Piazza del Campidoglio)
Finally, we walked to the Coliseum, and then took a taxi back to our hotel. Below is a photo of the ruins near the Coliseum with the Coliseum in the distance, then a photo of one side of the Coliseum.
Photo 88: Rome Tour - Ruins with Coliseum in Background
Photo 89: Rome Tour - The Coliseum
For more photos taken during the Rome Tour, see the Addendum. After we got back to our hotel and cleaned up, we went to a restaurant recommended by Alan, called Otello, on Via D. Croce, near the Spanish Steps. It was a good and reasonably priced restaurant, and Mika finally got her ravioli stuffed with meat and with a meat and tomato sauce, so she was happy.
Entry 17: Rome, 6pm, Thursday, 3 July 2003
Yesterday we had a day of rest. That means that I worked on this journal and on the computer and made multiple trips to the Internet café, and that Sylvia and Mika went shopping. We got back together about 7pm, cleaned up, and went out to eat.
This morning our plan was to buy some stuff that Sylvia found while shopping yesterday, for me to find an Internet café where I could download my email (you usually have to use their computers, and I need my information on my computer), then to visit the Galleria Borghese (a museum in Villa Borghese) and the Sistine Chapel. We left Mika at the Internet café to play computer games, and then went shopping. We bought black leather jackets for Sylvia and I, found my Internet café and downloaded my email, bought some food for tonight from an outdoor produce market and a deli, tried unsuccessfully to buy some new Mephisto sandals for me, then (2 hours later) went to pick up Mika from the Internet café. She didn’t want to leave because she was still totally absorbed in her computer game. We dragged her away and walked back to our hotel, where we had lunch on our hotel balcony from the items bought earlier and new stuff we bought from a deli around the corner.
Photo 90: Rome - Lunch with Jeff and Mika at La Residenza
We then learned that the last showing of the Sistine Chapel was at 2pm, and it was already 1:30pm, so we called a taxi and rushed to what turned out to be the Vatican Museum. (Mom, if you remember the pastor’s sermon at Debbie’s funeral, he should have used the Vatican as an example instead of the Biltmore Mansion – you wouldn’t believe the opulence). Unlike most countries, the Italians permit photos to be taken in their museums, and there were only a couple of places, like the Sistine Chapel, for instance, where cameras were not permitted. We did a really quick tour of the Vatican Museum, because all we really wanted to see was the Sistine Chapel, and we must have walked a mile from start to finish, in about an hour. The four photos below show the opulence and expanse of the museum by showing the length of the Map Room, and then three photos of a room done by the Italian artist Rafael in the 1700s.
Photo 91: Rome - Vatican Museum - Room of Maps
Photo 92: Rome - Vatican Museum - Ceiling Detail in Rafael Room
Photo 93: Rome - Vatican Museum - Rafael Painting
Photo 94: Rome - Vatican Museum - Corner Detail in Rafael Room (Painting)
Finally, we arrive at the Sistine Chapel, where photos are not permitted, but I snuck into the corner, and took this photo anyway, without a flash, just to prove I was there. The Sistine Chapel is probably the most famous ceiling painting ever, as Michelangelo painted it. Unfortunately, I either jerked the camera because I was in a hurry, or the lighting was wrong, or God intervened, or something, because the image did not come out. You will have to consult a book to see the magnificence of the ceiling of the Sistine chapel.
Photo 95: Rome - Vatican Museum - Ceiling of Sistine Chapel
Next are two photos that just show some random scenes taken from the Vatican Museum, one of a ceiling in one room and the other of a really nice stained glass piece of the Madonna and child.
Photo 96: Rome - Vatican Museum - Miscellaneous Ceiling Detail
Photo 97: Rome - Vatican Museum - Madonna and Child Stained Glass
After we left the Vatican Museum, we caught a taxi back to our hotel to change shoes and get some water, and then resumed our trip to the Galleria Borghese. This museum is in the Villa Borghese, which is the ancestral home of the famous Italian Borghese family. Shown below is a photo of the front of the museum. This museum was the most magnificent small museum I have ever been in. All surfaces were covered with travertine, marble, painted marble, or mosaic, and statues and paintings covered every wall, including the domed ceilings in every room. The most magnificent statues were those by Bernini, which were absolutely unreal in their finesse and liveliness. Because we would not take photos, we bought the “Borghese Gallery” museum book. The sculptures by Bernini were so fantastic that Sylvia had tears in her eyes when viewing the last and best in the gallery (Pluto and Persephone with Cerebus).
Photo 98: Rome - Galleria Borghese with Mika Bottom Center
We took a taxi back from
the museum to the hotel, and decided to pick up our leather jackets instead and
then walk home. The sleeves to my
jacket had to be shortened by a tailor, were to be done by 4pm. We picked them up, bought some jewelry
and some clothes for Mika, and then walked back to our hotel. [Edited by Mika:
Jeff and Sylvia both bought a big free-form snaky silver ring with randomly
shaped semiprecious stones – my dad getting amethyst and my mom garnet. This is my dad’s first piece of jewelry
for as long as I have known him. My dad says he’ll show the ring to everyone
when he goes to Texas for his reunion.]
I took the photo below on our walk away from the leather store, just
because I thought it was an interesting scene. Then I took the next photo of Mika drinking out of a water
fountain, because this fountain was much more typical of the fountains
available to drink from than the Boat Fountain show earlier in this travelogue.
Photo 99: Rome - Via Sistina - Bulldog in Frame Shop
Photo 100: Rome - Mika Drinking from Water Fountain
Entry 18: Rome, 8am, Friday, 4 July 2003
Last night we went to the main square in the Trastevere area of Rome, which has a slightly different character than the rest of the Roman squares we have visited. In the square were two large open-air book stores, where I bought a book of essays by Umberto Eco, a large central fountain surrounded by steps on which groups of young people of all nationalities were sitting, four eating establishments with seating in the open air, and a stand with loudspeakers and chairs for an audience to listen to a panel discussion. There were also some performers, including a fantastic juggler duo that captivated Mika for almost the entire time during which we sat down and ate. For the first time since coming to Italy, we ate at a restaurant whose food was decidedly substandard, even the antipasti vegetable plate.
The 4th of July is not a celebrated as a Holiday in Italy, according to our tour guide Alan. This morning we are taking a taxi to the airport with our luggage to pick up an Avis rental car that we will drive for the rest of our journey. We got the car off the Internet from an electronic car rental site, and we are paying approximately€38 a day for the rental, with an extra €7 per day for insurance. We are driving to the eastern coast of Italy, first visiting the horn of the boot (Puglia), which is a big national park surrounded by ocean, then on up to Ravenna and Venice, then back down to Tuscany and Florence.
Entry 19: Peschici, 3pm, Saturday, 5 July2003
Italy is surrounded on three sides by ocean. We are now on the eastern side, on the “spur of the boot” of Italy, in a town called Peschici on the Gargano Peninsula. We started our trip to the airport after 11am, and were on the road in our rental car, an Opel station wagon, by 1:20pm. We headed for Vieste (400/240 kilometers/miles away), which had been mentioned by Alan as good ultimate beach destination, but when we got there around 7pm, it looked too touristy, so we ate at a beachfront café and then backtracked 30 kilometers to Peschici, which we thought looked good when we saw it the first time. Our road trip was too long, and from now on, we are going to try to limit ourselves to only a couple of hours at a time. Also, when we got off the main road and started traveling the hilly region near the coast, the roads become very narrow and winding, and slow going. We traveled through many different types of terrain on our way to Peschici, from the mountainous and picturesque regions of central Italy, to the eastern coast, to the rolling farmlands on entry to the Gargano Peninsula, to hilly terrain covered with olive trees (literally millions of acres), to pine forest, and then back to the hilly coastline.
On the winding coastal road from Vieste to Peschici I had an accident in the rental car. For some reason, I purchased additional insurance for the rental car, and now I’m glad I did. We were about 2/3 of the way from Vieste to Peschici, and had passed some nice coves with hotels that appeared to have semi-private beaches. We saw a sign for what we thought was another, so we went off the road to investigate. After100 yards or so we ended up on a small plateau where we could still not see the hotel, so we decided to drive down a dirt road a little ways (the hotel was looking unlikely at that point, but we still wanted to see what was there). Then we noticed a sign that said “privato” (private), and we also could see to the beach, and it basically just had a single ramshackle structure on it. Because it was just a few feet back to the plateau, I decided to back the car up, and didn’t see a tree that leaned out over the driver’s side of the car. The car hit the tree on the rear driver’s side. The tree was only slightly scuffed up, but the car was seriously dented in. The read hatchback door was damaged, as was the driver’s side rear panel, the tail light assembly was smashed, and the rear bumper was scratched. But luckily, no windows were broken, the taillight was still operational, and the hatchback door opens and closes fine, so the car is totally operational. When we get back to civilization, I will download the insurance agreement from the insurer and see what steps I need to take to have it repaired.
I’ve taken some photos to show you our hotel in Peschici, Hotel D’Amato, which is full of German tourists. We are probably the only native-English speakers here. Last night we stayed in a room (€135,including breakfast) at the bottom of the hotel, with no view, but tonight (€162, including breakfast) we are staying on a second floor balcony overlooking the pool. Shown below are three photos taken from near our room in the hotel. The first is of the corridor on approach to our room (to the left) – notice the nice framing of the view, with plants painted on the wall and window; the second is from the corridor window in the previous photo, and is a nice view of the hillside town of Peschici; and the third is a view of the pool from our balcony.
Photo 101: Peschici - Hotel D'Amato Corridor
Photo 102: Peschici - Town View from Hotel D'Amato
Photo 103: Peschici - Hotel D'Amato Swimming Pool with Mika
If you have a magnifying glass, you can see Mika reclining on the pool chair third from the left at the top. She is reading the new Harry Potter book, that we purchased in a bookstore in Rome, in English, for €29. She is now halfway through her new 900-page book, after only three days. The reason she is reading and not in the pool is that there is no swimming from 1-3pm, to permit people resting at the hotel to have some peace. Everywhere we have been, the Italians take a siesta sometime during the 1pm to 4pm time period.
Today we got plenty of exercise. We walked down to the beach and back a few times, walked to lunch at the Pizzeria (built into the hillside and has its own private grotto viewing area with a restaurant table), went swimming and body-surfing in the ocean twice, went swimming in the swimming pool twice, and Mika and I both played ping-pong and tennis. Below are a couple shots of swimming and tennis activities. In the first shot, you can see Mika center right in front of green shutters on the other side of the swimming pool, and our hotel room is on the second floor above her. In the next, you can see Mika and I attempting to play tennis with Peschici on the hilltop in the background.
Photo 104: Peschici - Hotel D'Amato Swimming Pool, Room, and Mika
Photo 105: Peschici - Hotel D'Amato Tennis with Mika and Jeff
The beach associated with the hotel is called Lido Orchidea (Orchid Beach), and they rent lounge chairs and umbrellas, and have a small place to eat and drink. On the beach we met two brothers, Max and Keyn (Cain) Martella, who spoke passable English and work there (and are the sons of the family who owns this particular beach concession), and were cute and energetic, with sun-bleached blond hair. I took the photo below of Mika standing between Keyn and Max, in front of their beach establishment. We exchanged addresses, and Max says he will come to visit sometime next year.
Photo 106: Peschici - Keyn, Mika, and Max on Lido Orchidea
Entry 20: Ravenna, 11pm, Sunday, 6 July 2003
We drove 6 hours today, from Peschici on the spur of Italy’s boot to Ravenna on the mid-boot area of the eastern coast. I did the first half of the driving and then Sylvia did the rest. Italy has a set of toll highways called the Autostrada, similar to the Autobahn in Germany, where there are no speed limits and we typically achieved a cruising speed of 140-160 kilometers per hour (84-96 miles per hour).
Ravenna is a little town that is famous for its mosaics, and achieved its cultural peak during the Byzantium Empire in the 6thand 8th centuries. We are staying at Hotel Bisenzia, for €179 for one night. Today we visited three sites – the Basilica of San Vitale, the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, and the National Museum of Ravenna. I took a number of photos of these sights, but most of them did not turn out because of problems with the light, both low light and glare.
The Basilica (a cavernous arched stone church) was amazing, with a floor covered in mosaics, walls and columns covered in marble, arches engraved and painted, a painted domed ceiling, and a sanctum at the front that was completely done in mosaics, with green and gold prominent. Below is a detail (photo-enhanced because of the low light) of one of the mosaics in the sanctum. And yes, these are mosaics and not paintings, although it is not obvious from a distance. It is followed by a photo taken the next morning, of the scene to the left of the image below, in better light.
Photo 107: Ravenna - Basilica of San Vitale Interior Sanctum Mosaics
Photo 108: Ravenna - Basilica of San Vitale Window and Mosaics
Next are two photos of the mosaic floor of the Basilica. The first has an appealing geometric pattern and the second contains what appears to be a Mallard duck (note the greenish blue head of the duck).
Photo 109: Ravenna - Basilica of San Vitale Geometric Floor Mosaic
Photo 110: Ravenna - Basilica of San Vitale Mallard Duck Floor Mosaic
Photographic flash was not permitted inside of the Mausoleum, which contained three sarcophagi and whose walls and floors were covered with mosaics, and which also contained windows made from slabs of alabaster. Perhaps this is where Cardinal Mahoney’s architect got his idea to use alabaster in the new cathedral in downtown Los Angeles? In the first photo, I really liked the pattern, and may want to duplicate it someday. The second shows an alabaster window.
Photo 111: Ravenna - Mausoleum of Galla Placidia -Mosaic Detail
Photo 112: Ravenna - Mausoleum of Galla Placidia -Alabaster Window
After the Mausoleum, we rushed through the almost-deserted museum, then went home and rested, then attended a concert by the singer Yousou N’Dour from Senegal, Africa. He was “discovered” in the 80s by Peter Gabriel, and has since achieved international fame. His voice had a superb range and his large band (four percussionists, two guitar players, two keyboardists, and two female backup singers) was very tight, and hundreds of people, mostly Africans, were dancing in front of the stage (and some being escorted off the stage by Security). We only stayed for an hour, then started walking back to our hotel, and finally got the non-English speaking proprietors of an ice cream shop to call us a taxi (the term “taxi” is almost universal). Tomorrow we go on to Venice.
Entry 21: Venice, 8pm, Monday, 7 July 2003
We got up this morning, did a small amount of sightseeing and shopping in Ravenna, then left for Venice about 12pm. Before leaving, I found the leaning tower of Ravenna, and took a photo just before we drove away (Mika is standing at the bottom of the tower), to the right of a yellow motorcycle.
Photo 113: Ravenna - Leaning Tower of Ravenna
On our way out of town, we decided to stop at a little “fast-food” shop we ate at the night before after the concert. At this shop Mika had what she considered to be one of the best things she has had to eat so far. It is called a piadina (pee-ah-dee-nah) and consists of a round ”rustic bread” that is folded in half after being stuffed with various fillings, such as mozzarella with mushrooms (her favorite), mozzarella with tomatoes, mozzarella with spinach – you get the picture. The bread is like a flour tortilla but two or three times thicker, made fresh each day, stuffed, and then heated up on a griddle just before being served. Since the piadina place we went to last night was empty when we got there at 12:30pm, we found another place, and took this photo of Mika standing in front of the place with her piadina.
Photo 114: Ravenna - Mika and the Piadina
Entry 22: Venice, 7am, Tuesday, 8 July 2003
Our trip to Venice from Ravenna took 6 hours – so much for minimizing the time on our car trips. But we did have one good serendipitous event on our trip. Sylvia was driving (because she doesn’t like my driving with a stick-shift – no big deal to me) and came upon a sign near Venice that indicated parking and ferry boat to Venice, so she took this route, which had hardly any cars on it and looked sort of deserted, whereas the main route to Venice had to be extremely crowded. Anyway, we ended up at a dock just 10 minutes before the ferry was to leave for Venice. We unpacked the car, leaving our big suitcase in the car to minimize our luggage while in Venice, Sylvia bought tickets for the boat, I parked the car, and I made it back to the boat with at least 30 seconds to spare! It turns out that not only did we get there at just the right time, since the next boat did not leave for at least an hour, but the parking was significantly cheaper than advertised in our guide book. We paid €9 for roundtrip ferry tickets (Mika paid €5), and we paid only €13 per day for parking.
We are staying at the Rialto Hotel in Venice, overlooking the Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal. We have a good room with a great view of the canal and bridge, and are paying €180 per night (3 nights total), including breakfast. (Actually, every hotel we have been to on this trip has included breakfast in the cost of the room. A hotel breakfast buffet typically has sliced ham or proscuito, sliced white cheese, sliced salami, bread with butter and a selection of jams, cereal, fruit juice, and perhaps a fruit bowl.) I took the following two photos from our hotel room last evening. Note all of the gondoliers in the canal. We will get a ride on a gondola, but probably only a short one and mainly so Mika can have the experience, because of the exorbitant price -- €80for half an hour, €100 for 45 minutes, and €120 for an hour.
Photo 115: Venice - Grand Canal from Hotel Rialto
Photo 116: Venice - Grand Canal and Rialto Bridge from Hotel Rialto
Venice is a city surrounded by and infiltrated with water. Venice is made up of a few interconnected islands that lie just off the eastern coast of mainland Italy. The only two means of transportation in Venice are walking and by boat. The streets are too narrow to permit vehicular traffic. In fact, we saw a couple of cement trucks being moved by barge to their construction site in Venice! There are different types of boats available for transport, from public ferries, to private motorboats, to gondolas, in increasing order of expense.
Entry 23: Venice, 7am, Wednesday, 9 July2003
Yesterday I had three excellent meals in a row. For breakfast, I got up early, worked on the journal, then went to the local markets, checked out the extensive fish market (more later) and bought some fruit at the local produce market. I bought small amounts of the following and we ate most of it for breakfast: raspberries, blackberries, currants, strawberries, purple figs, and a “Granny Smith”-type apple. We had lunch at Ristorante Dalla Mora on Murano Island, home of the famous Murano glass, and had the best seafood antipasti of our trip, and then we had dinner at Harry’s Bar, where we had a truly excellent meal. The seafood antipasti consisted of peeled tiny shrimp, peeled small shrimp, a single peeled flat shrimp with head still on (that Abby Tang called “Alien Shrimp” when we were in Hong Kong), a single typical shrimp still in the shell, a scallop on the half-shell, the tail of a monk fish, some conch, spider crab meat, squid roe, the tentacles of a small octopus, and two small mounds of something that was like crab dip. We accompanied this with a small salad and Sylvia decided that this was what she was going to eat for the rest of her trip (a promise to be broken by the time of the evening meal). Mika had a tomato-sauce-based spider crab gnocchi served in the empty shell of the crab.
Photo 117: Venice - Murano Island - Sylvia and Mika Eating
We took a free hotel boat over to Murano Island to check out the glass. A “tour guide” who gave us a quick tour through the glassworks factory met us. The factory has been on the island since the 1400s. We saw some glassworks in production by a couple of masters and their apprentices. Our “tour guide” then took us to the showroom for the factory, and we deduced that his purpose was not so much educational as promotional, hoping we would purchase something. The one-of-a-kind pieces were quite expensive, up to the multiple thousands of euros (and dollars). We decided to take a stroll on the island and visit some of the other shops, and never made it back to this particular factory. We were attempting to find a “museum” listed in our guide book, but were given the wrong instructions by our “tour guide,” and took a short unnecessary walk, when the “museum” turned out to be just across the canal from the factory, and, anyway, was closed. But during our walk, we did some shopping. Mika bought some beads and some glass pendants for her bedroom chandelier, some glass figurines for her friends as gifts, and Sylvia and I bought a magnificent set of eight one-of-a-king champagne flutes, that we arranged to have shipped home on the day of our departure. Then we ate lunch, as described above, and took a public waterbus (vaporetto) back to Venice. Shown below is a photo of a vaporetto just leaving the dock near our hotel, with a gondola and gondolier in the foreground.
Photo 118: Venice - Vaporetto and Gondola
The ferry took a really long time, and then we had to walk back from the ferry dock at the Piazza San Marco to our hotel, and we had already done too much walking in the hot sun, so we decided to take a nap to prepare us for the evening entertainment. Mika and I slept from 3pm to 5:30pm, and Sylvia shopped and then rested also. When Mika and I got up, we went to the local Internet café, where Mika played computer games and I hooked up my laptop. I downloaded the insurance agreement from our rental car insurer, and discovered that we were only expected to contact them in a “reasonable” amount of time and that we have90 days to file a claim. This is a relief, because now we do not have to be in a hurry and can handle everything when we get settled in a house in Tuscany. I also corresponded with Jud Hogan concerning the patent idea, the stock market, the condition of our house remodel (no response yet), etc. I also emailed Jon Stevens, whose band INXS is playing in Zurich, Switzerland on the night before we leave Europe, and we are going to try to make his concert. We also have some friends, Hans and Maggie, who live in Basel, Switzerland, quite near Zurich, and we will try to hook up with them if we make it to the INXS concert.
We had reservations at 8pm at Harry’s Bar for dinner. Harry’s Bar was made famous by Hemingway earlier in the century, because he used to hang out there and write. It is also famous for a delicious drink, called a Bellini, which consists of white peach juice and Proseco (Italian Champagne), and is one of Sylvia’s favorite drinks.
On the way to Harry’s, we walked through Piazza San Marco, and I took two photos of buildings, the first of the Cathedral, where you can see Mika standing in front, and the next of the original Campanile (bell tower), with Sylvia and Mika standing in front, in Piazza San Marco with its famous pigeons, and in front of the Cathedral.
Photo 119: Venice - Piazza San Marco - Cathedral with Mika
Photo 120: Venice - Piazza San Marco - Campanile with Sylvia and Mika
After strolling through all of those pigeons, Mika discovered a corn seed vendor for feeding the pigeons, and after she saw a young girl feeding pigeons from her hand with pigeons perched on her arm, Mika just had to do it. We were afraid that Mika was going to end up with pigeon poop all over her, but we were early for dinner, so we decided to let Mika go ahead. The photo below shows Mika’s first reaction when the pigeons flew up onto her arms – a combination of surprise and fear (they were scratchy).
Photo 121: Venice - Piazza San Marco - Mika Surprised by Pigeons
After that, Mika got into the hang of things, and I took a few more pictures. (JVC Note: Make them into an animated GIF.) Below is what I consider to be the best of the bunch.
Photo 122: Venice - Piazza San Marco - Mika Feeding Pigeons 6
We had the most expensive meal so far at Harry’s Bar (€272), but we had a truly excellent meal. Sylvia and I each had a Bellini followed by a bottle of Proseco, and Mika has two “virgin” Bellinis (peach juice and soda). I had calf’s liver with onions and polenta, for which Venice is famous, and I must say it was the best liver dish I have ever eaten. Sylvia had an excellent small salad and the fish soup, which was savory and delicious. Mika had tagliolini pasta (like linguine, but the noodles were smaller) with squid cooked in its own ink. The dish was black with squid ink, and Mika said it was the best pasta dish she had eaten so far on this trip. I took the following two photos at Harry’s Bar, one inside next to the bar and the other outside in front, next to the canal.
Photo 123: Venice - Harry's Bar Inside with Sylvia and Mika
Photo 124: Venice - Harry's Bar Outside with Sylvia and Mika
A funny incident occurred while we were eating. An American girl ordered the €32hamburger meal. When it arrived, it came in the form of a hamburger patty on a plate on top of some lettuce and perhaps a tomato slice, topped with melted cheese. There was no bun, and the waiter did not understand the type of bread they wanted with it (or, most likely, did not care to understand, as Harry’s Bar is not MacDonald’s). But the waiter brought ketchup, which the girl poured on top of her hamburger before eating it. Sylvia started laughing at the situation, and the people at the girl’s table noticed and thought we were making fun. But, right before we left, Sylvia went over and talked to them and told them why she thought it was funny – both because they thought they needed to order a hamburger in one of the best restaurants in Venice and because of the look on their faces when confronted with the predicament of a hamburger served without bun.
On our walk back to our hotel, we found two things of interest. I heard some guitar music coming from a side street, and we decided to investigate. On the way, we found a mime made up and dressed all in tan and brown, and with wings like an angel. He was very good, and right after Mika put a donation in his cup, I took the photo below.
Photo 125: Venice - Angel Mime after Mika's Donation
After the mime, we went to the source of the music, which turned out to be a Polish guitar player who played Spanish flamenco-type music, very well. His name was Piotr Tomaszewski. We know he was Polish because Sylvia struck up a conversation with his father, who was promoting his CD (which we bought and later listened to, and were happy with the music). When the father indicated they were from Poland, Sylvia started speaking Polish to him, and they had an involved conversation, to the detriment of another Polish couple that appeared and wanted to purchase the CD. The father had some strange political views, including that Poland is now half Jewish (certainly not true, since most Jews are still afraid to return because of the Holocaust), and that Arabs run Israel (poppycock!).
Entry 24: Florence, 6pm, Thursday, 10 July2003
Yesterday morning we visited the Peggy Guggenheim collection of modern art in Venice. We were completely underwhelmed. It had a few good pieces by Picasso, Dali, and Miro, but the only exceptional art, in our opinion, consisted of some pieces by Max Ernst, who we had heard of but hadn’t seen his art before. The exceptional pieces we remember were called “The Anti-Pope” and “The Attirement of the Bride.” Photos of these pieces in art books do not do them justice.
In the evening we took an expensive ride on a gondola. The minimum cost is €80 for half an hour. I guess they have a captive audience of tourists. We went around sunset, and the gondolier took us on a loop through some of the smaller canals accessible from the Grand Canal next to the Rialto Bridge (which he said was 300 year old). I didn’t take my camera, because I didn’t want it to ruin the moment. It was very romantic sitting in the gondola with Mika J. The gondolier pointed out some 500-year old churches and informed us that the buildings around us we were from 1000 to 300 years old. He could tell the difference between the 500-year old and 300-year old buildings because of the design of their facades. He also showed us the water line, which was above the bottom floor of most buildings, and said that in November, when another really high tide would hit, everyone affected would move to the second floor to get away from the consequent flood.
Shown below is a photo of two typical gondolas. In my opinion, they are decorated in a manner similar to what I imagine a pimp’s Cadillac should look like on the inside.
This morning, we got up, I took Mika to the Rialto fish and produce markets to show her where I had gone each morning to get my breakfast fruit while she was asleep, then we took a waterbus to the Academy Bridge on the Grand Canal, from where we walked with our luggage to catch our ferry to the mainland (to Fusina). This ferry turned out to be a great deal. Both the ferry and the parking were considerably cheaper than nearer to Venice, and we avoided all of the traffic that was sure to be involved in approaching Venice by road. We noticed the increase in traffic when we approached Venice from Fusina on our way to Florence.
There was an incredible variety of fish available at the open-air fish market near the Rialto Bridge. On the table below, I see (from left to right, top to bottom, in two rows) mussels, clams, spider crabs, cuttlefish roe (eggs), scallops, octopus, [bottom row] cuttlefish, sardines, mackerel, and shrimp. Then, the table perpendicular to that contains whole halibut, salmon, swordfish, tuna, and various other kinds of fish. Mika asked me if we could take some with us to Tuscany, and I said that it wouldn’t keep. So she asked me why we didn’t just put it in the freezer, to which I replied that we did not have a freezer in our car. Anyway, it sure looked good and we wish we could have taken some of it with us to our next destination.
Photo 127: Venice - Mika at the Rialto Fish Market
The produce market was just as bountiful as the fish market. Every kind of produce was available, including certain fruits and berries, which I had never encountered before.
Photo 128: Venice - Mika at the Rialto Produce Market
Shown below is a view of Venice taken from the ferry as we were leaving. It is a boring photo, but shows a view of Venice that I was unable to capture from a better perspective during my stay.
Photo 129: Leaving Venice - From the Ferry
On the roadway leaving the ferry and before we reached the Autostrada, we encountered the sign below. It obviously implies that no malcontents are permitted, right? Actually, it means you are leaving the city of Malcontenta. There is a sign like this on the road out of each small town we went through.
Photo 130: Leaving Venice - No Malcontenta
Actually, as can be seen below on the “Entering Malcontenta” sign, we do have some malcontent Malcontentas, at least with respect to harboring nuclear weapons in their little town!
Photo 131: Leaving Venice - Malcontenta
Right after the sign above, we stopped for gas (actually, diesel fuel), and Sylvia noticed the following advertisement across the road from the gas station. A bit racy, isn’t it?
Photo 132: Leaving Venice - Racy Italian Advertisement
We started out trip at 9:30am, exited the ferry and started our road trip at 11:10am, and then arrived at our hotel in Florence at3pm. It did take over five hours to get here, but we had a leisurely trip, and not much time on the road, because I drove from 85-100 mph on the way here. We are staying at the Hotel Torre Guelfa, which boasts the tallest privately owned tower in Florence. They have three tables on a balcony on top of the tower, with a panoramic view of Florence, and we just had drinks up there, and shortly intend to go out to dinner at a restaurant next to the Ponte Vecchio bridge.
Entry 25: Florence, 10pm, Thursday, 10 July2003
I am sick and tired of eating at great restaurants! Not because of the food, which is excellent, or even because of the fact that I might be gaining weight, which improbably not the case (I only eat a small amount of bread, only taste the pasta, don’t eat potatoes at all, and get plenty of exercise walking everywhere), but because it takes so long to write about it in my journal afterwards!
We went to eat at what our guidebook calls an “inexpensive” restaurant, called Buca dell’Orafo, near the Ponte Vecchio. It was a cozy little restaurant that you stepped down into from a vaulted stone arcade. For appetizers, Mika had an elegant plate of roasted potatoes with olive oil and garnish; Sylvia had a mixed salad of lettuce, radicchio, arugula, and sliced tomatoes; I had a sliced porcini mushroom salad infused with olive oil and some type of lemony citrus sauce and covered with thin slices of Parmesan cheese; and we all shared a plate of fried porcini mushrooms and zucchini flowers. For our main course, Mika had ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta in a white cream sauce; Sylvia had spaghetti-like pasta with sautéed porcini mushrooms, and I had the osso buco (ox tail) with sautéed zucchini. All dishes were excellent, and, even with a half liter of house red wine (also good) and a large bottle of Pellegrino water, the total cost of the meal was a reasonable €70.
Below are two photos I took from the hotel tower earlier this evening. Notice the scaffolding on the tower of the Vecchio Palace in the first photo. There was considerable construction going on in Florence when we were there. Many monuments had scaffolding erected one on or more sides, obviously for reconstruction and/or cleaning. In the second photo, notice the church, campanile, and dome (Duomo) in the background.
Photo 133: Florence - Hotel Torre Guelfa Tower - Mika and Palace Vecchio Tower
Photo 134: Florence - Hotel Torre Guelfa Tower - Mika and the Duomo
Entry 26: Panzano, 6pm, Friday, 11 July 2003
This morning I got up early and took another photo of the Florence skyline from the hotel tower, then took a photo of the Ponte Vecchio, then some photos of the nearby church and various of the statues.
Photo 135: Florence - Hotel Torre Guelfa Tower -Southwestern Skyline
Photo 136: Florence - Ponte Vecchio
The external architecture of the cathedral in Piazza Duomo (Dome Plaza) is simply amazing. The interior, which we only glimpsed through the doors, since the church wasn’t open yet when we were there, was pedestrian compared to some of the other churches we have visited. The exterior of the church is composed of white, pink, and light greenstone, with an incredible number of architectural embellishments. Note that you can see the church bell tower (campanile) to the right of the church and you can see the dome, shown earlier in a photo of the Florence skyline, behind the church.
Photo 137: Florence - Piazza Duomo - Cathedral, Campanile, and Duomo
Across from the church is a baptistery, with some amazing bronze doors, containing scenes taken from the life of Christ and the history of the Catholic Church.
Photo 138: Florence - Piazza Duomo - Baptistery Doors
Shown below is a photo of the entrance to the cathedral, followed by an oblique photo of Mika standing to the right of the entrance, looking up at a statue of a Pope, followed by a photo that illustrates how hard it is to photograph this monument, because of its immense size and the narrowness of most approaches.
Photo 139: Florence - Piazza Duomo - Cathedral Entrance
Photo 140: Florence - Piazza Duomo - Cathedral Entrance with Mika Looking Up
Photo 141: Florence - Piazza Duomo - Cathedral from Side Street
The only touristy thing we did this morning was go to the Galleria Academia (Academy Gallery) and see Michelangelo’s David and some other unfinished works of Michelangelo’s. All were magnificent, especially the David, which is arguably the most famous statue in the world today. Shown below is a replica of the statue of David that sits in Piazza Dell Signoria, in a cage that protects it from objects falling from the scaffolding erected around Palace Vecchio.
Photo 142: Florence - Piazza Signoria - Replica of Michelangelo’s David
The photo above is one of many photos I took of the statues in the Piazza Dell Signoria – the remainder of which can be found in the section on Florence Statues in the Addendum.
We are now sitting in the back yard of the villa we are renting near the town of Panzano in Tuscany. We have joined up with some friends of the family – Frank, Suzanne, Mara (Mika’s childhood friend), and Aidan. We are lounging around the swimming pool, which you can see in the photo below.
Photo 143: Panzano - Villa - Swimming Pool with Mika, Aidan, and Mara
Right before I took the photo above, I took some photos of the approach to our villa, shown below. You can see the rustic architecture of our accommodations. We will be based here for the remainder of our stay in Italy (6 nights). We leave Florence for the USA next Thursday morning.
Photo 144: Panzano - Villa - Through Trees
Photo 145: Panzano - Villa - From Road
Photo 146: Panzano - Villa - From Driveway
Photo 147: Panzano - Villa - Through Doorway
Entry 27: Panzano, 5pm, Sunday, 13 July 2003
The character of our vacation has changed completely. This is only the second time since I have started this journal that I have skipped a full day without writing init. And not because we are too busy, quite the opposite, because we are completely at our leisure. The first night (Friday), Frank and Suzanne cooked dinner for us and we ate it outside in the patio area overlooking the back yard, pool, and northwestern hills. We had grilled marinated chicken and rabbit and some small pork sausages; pasta with cecca (chopped tomatoes, garlic, herbs, and olive oil left out in the sun) sauce; mixed green salad; Caprese salad; and a pot of borlotti (pinto-like) beans with pancetta (smoked ham), and everything was delicious. Before this, we spent the afternoon playing in and lounging around the pool.
We are in the country and surrounded by nature. I was sitting in the kitchen late Friday night when something substantial flew in through the window, hit the wall next to me, and landed on the floor. At first I thought it was a bird or a bat, but when I looked under the table, I found a rhinoceros beetle on the floor. I put it under an upside-down drinking glass, and the first thing next morning, after the kids were up, I showed it to them and had them all hold it. We eventually put it on a tree trunk and let it climb up to a hiding place. Below is a photo of the beetle crawling up Mika’s pajama top.
Photo 148: Panzano - Villa - Rhinoceros Beetle on Mika
After eating breakfast on Saturday morning, we went to a farmer’s market in the next bigger town, Greve (pronounced greh’-veh). There we bought food for dinner and fruits and vegetables for the next few days. It was our turn to cook, so we paid for most of the food and made mussels steamed in olive oil, garlic, shallots, wine, and tomatoes; grilled squid on skewers, marinated in olive oil, salt and pepper, and juiced with lime; fresh pasta with clams in a tomato sauce (Suzanne made this); a mixed salad (Suzanne, too); and grilled tomatoes topped with olive oil, parmesan, and pine nuts. It was another delicious meal, and we didn’t get up from the table until after 10pm. The weather here at night is calm and temperate and extremely conducive to leisure. After dinner, the fireflies came out, so the kids got jars to put them in, caught quite a few, then put them next to their beds to act as natural night lights.
While at the farmer’s market, Mara and Mika bought matching tops, and modeled them for us before they went out with Sylvia and Suzanne for supplies just before dinner (and didn’t come back for almost 3 hours, but that is another story altogether, with a cast of shopaholic women).
Photo 149: Panzano - Villa - New Attire and Attitude for Mara and Mika
This morning (Sunday) we got up, had a leisurely breakfast, and then finally got around to playing a game that Mika has wanted to play since we arrived – Dictionary. This is where a player finds a word in the dictionary that nobody else knows, then all players write definitions for the word, and you get points for fooling people into guessing your incorrect definition or for people not guessing your correct definition. It is very entertaining, because the made-up definitions can be really funny. For example, consider the word “pronotum”. Which of the following definitions is correct: a) a nose-like bump on a rocky ridge, b) the hard outer shell of an insect, c) a professional writer, d) first notice, e) language before written words, for example, hieroglyphics, f) a professional basketball player, or g) the valve between the esophagus and the stomach. You decide. Here are a couple of photos taken during play in our enclosed courtyard.
Photo 150: Panzano - Villa - Dictionary Game with Cooks and McKevitts
Photo 151: Panzano - Villa - Dictionary Game via Another Angle
After another marvelous lunch (the small “cherry” tomatoes around here are so sweet they taste like dessert), I took some photos of the landscape from various vantage points. The first photo shows the southern landscape from our bedroom window (the buildings on the hillside at the top of the photo comprise the part of Panzano that is visible from our villa). The second show the western landscape from the driveway, and the third shows the northern landscape from our backyard area, which contains the outdoor patio and the pool, on the other side of which are standing Mara and Mika in their bathing suits.
Photo 152: Panzano - Villa - Southern Horizon from Bedroom
Photo 153: Panzano - Villa - Western Horizon
Photo 154: Panzano - Villa - Northern Horizon with Mara and Mika
We are going out to eat at a nearby restaurant with the McKevitts tonight, and have no specific plans for the remainder of our stay. I am considering taking an overnight round-trip from Florence to Stuttgart (Germany) on Tuesday night, to meet up with my friend Jon Stevens, who is touring in Europe with his band INXS. We cancelled our plans for meeting up with him in Zurich on Thursday, because INXS is being quartered in Stuttgart next week, and the band will be traveling both before and immediately after the concert, meaning we would not have any time to spend with Jon. However, there are two details that might prevent me from doing this – the amount of travel time required and the fact that I have to get an estimate on damages to the rental car before we arrive at the airport to return it on Thursday morning.
Entry 28: Panzano, 9am, Monday, 14 July 2003
Last night we went out to eat at a local hillside restaurant, called Lamole. It was about half an hour from our villa by car, up and down winding narrow country roads, passing through farmland, rolling hills, and even some forested areas. The view from the restaurant was spectacular, looking south over the Tuscan countryside, and we arrived just before sunset. Shown below is a photo of Mika and Mara (barely visible because back-lit by the sunset) that shows part of the vista, then a photo of the sunset I took from the road below the restaurant.
Photo 155: Panzano - Lamole - View with Mika and Mara
Photo 156: Panzano - Lamole - Sunset View
Of course the food was excellent, once again, but I no longer feel the need to talk about it here. I took a couple of more photos at the restaurant, which we did not leave until about 10:30pm, one of the entire group having an animated discussion, and another (staged) of Mika and Mara giving each other a hug.
Photo 157: Panzano - Lamole - Frank, Suzanne, Sylvia, Mika, Mara, and Aidan
Photo 158: Panzano - Lamole - Mika and Mara Hugging
Right now it is exactly 10am, and the reason I know this is that the church bells in Panzano ring on the hour during the day. This is a pleasant feature of Italian country living, hearing the church bells on the hour every hour.
Entry 29: Panzano, 2pm, Tuesday, 15 July2003
Last night we had another group feast, this time centered on beefsteak. So far, we have had meals centered on chicken and rabbit, seafood, and steak, and tonight we return to seafood, because there was a fish truck parked in the square in Panzano this morning, so we bought three large squids, one monkfish, and three small fish for grilling whole.
I will not go into the meal last night in detail, except to mention two things. Mika and Mara made a special dessert that I came up with earlier this year – raspberries into whose holes are drizzled melted dark chocolate and then the berries are refrigerated (this is an incredible and elegant dessert), and I replicated a salad that I saw our tour guide Alan eat in Rome – arugula topped with bresaola (cured beef). The salad is very tasty and quite surpsrising to look at. You put a hemispherical mound of arugula on a plate and top with 3-4overlapping thinly sliced pieces of bresaola, making something that looks like a beef skullcap with no greens showing. You then top with some Parmesan slices and toasted pine nuts, and dress with salt, pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. To eat, you cut crosswise into 6-8 pieces with a knife and fork, and eat with a fork just like any other salad.
I have an idea for making finger food out of this concoction, by dressing the arugula, adding Parmesan and pine nuts, and then wrapping a small amount of this mixture up with a single slice of the bresaola, so the result will be a beef-wrapped salad stick the size of a finger. When I try it, I will report on how it turns out, but I expect it to be good.
The meal ended last night with a flock of swallows gracefully swooping and diving over our back yard, catching insects in the dusk light and skimming across our swimming pool for a drink of water.
This morning I drove to the Florence airport to deal with the damage to my rental car. I didn’t realize how small the airport was, and am glad I dealt with the car in advance. The damage estimate was only €659, which seems cheap to me, since damage to two panels and a rear light module in any American car would cost at least $2000. This will be added to my rental car bill and then I will file a claim and recoup my losses when I get back to the States (I called my insurance carrier and verified that this is the proper procedure for filing rental car claims in foreign countries).
The smallness of the Florence airport eliminated any idea I had of going to see Jon Stevens and INXS in Stuttgart, Germany. The only close flight I could catch would be to Frankfurt, Germany, but then I would have to spend hours traveling to my eventual destination, and then hours back – not really rational for the opportunity to spend less than 12 hours with even a good friend like Jon.
I took one photo this morning on my trip (which took 3 hours total) – a sight I see every time we enter Greve from the south -- a field of sunflowers with the hills of Tuscany in the background.
Photo 159: Panzano - Sunflowers Near Greve
Entry 30: Panzano, 11am, Wednesday, 16 July 2003
Today is the last full day of our vacation, and early tomorrow morning we travel to Florence, to catch a flight to Munich, then on to Chicago, then on to L.A. Today I will spend some time taking photos of Panzano, so I can describe this small town in my journal either later today or while on the plane tomorrow.
Last night we set up our bar-be-que and dinner table next to the pool and ate our fish and squid, some antipasti, and I made the bresaola finger food items mentioned previously, which were delicious, as anticipated.
Before dinner, I took a couple of photos of a tree in our back yard that Sylvia really likes, one with Aidan hiding in the branches, and another close-up of its flowers. I have named it the “Aidan Tree” until we find out its real name.
Photo 160: Panzano - Villa - Aidan Tree
Photo 161: Panzano - Villa - Aidan Tree Flowers
Entry 31: Panzano, 6pm, Wednesday, 16 July2003
Panzano is a small town that is 5 kilometers south of Greve, which is in turn about 20 kilometers south of Florence. It has a small triangular plaza in the center of town that has as its central feature a small fountain and circular pond filled with goldfish. There is a group of old men who sit in the plaza all day, talking amongst themselves and to townspeople passing by, and yelling at the tourists when they drive their cars the wrong way around the plaza. Panzano has a church (whose bells rings on the hour during the day), a hardware store, a handmade leather and shoe store, a couple of delis, a small produce store, some wine shops (wine is a very big thing in Italy, and grapes vines grow everywhere), a couple of bars around the plaza, and various other small shops. Shown below are three different views of the plaza in Panzano, each featuring Sylvia sitting next to the pond, wearing red shorts and a wide-brimmed hat.
Photo 162: Panzano - Central Plaza - First Shot with Sylvia
Photo 163: Panzano - Central Plaza - Second Shot with Sylvia
Photo 164: Panzano - Central Plaza - Third Shot with Sylvia
One interesting thing to note is that a bar in Italy is not the same as a bar in America. They do sell liquor and always have a bar or countertop to stand up against, but they also sell coffee, espresso, and cappuccino, Italian sandwiches or pastries and desserts or any combination thereof, and they typically sell 10-20 flavors of gelato (Italian ice cream). So Italian bars are more purely social than their American counterparts, which primarily cater to the drinking crowd. Shown below is an outside and inside shot of a bar in Panzano.
Photo 165: Panzano - Typical Bar Outside
Photo 166: Panzano - Typical Bar Inside
Entry 32: Airplane, 12pm, Thursday, 17 July 2003
We are now on a Lufthansa airplane flying from Munich to Chicago, then on the Los Angeles, with a 3-hour layover that we hope to reduce by catching an earlier flight. We got up this morning around 6:30am and got to our gate about 8:55am for a 9:10amflight, which left exactly on time. We didn’t worry about getting there 2 hours in advance, because Florence has such a small airport, so we weren’t worried about any lines. We spent some time at the airport returning our rental car, arranging for 20% refunds on purchases that were eligible for a return of Italy’s Value Added Tax (VAT), and Sylvia and Mika did some last minute shopping -- of course!
Yesterday I took some photos by the pool, since I have not gotten very many pictures of the kids playing. The first photo shows Mara and Mika modeling their bathing suits (Mika was purchased near Panzano, in Siena). The next two are action shots of Mara and then Mika jumping into the pool. Jumping into and being pushed into the pool were the primary water play activities of the kids. The next photo show Aidan with his water gun, and the next two show Mika and Mara sitting in the yellow inner tube.
Photo 167: Panzano - Villa - Mara and Mika Swimsuit Competition
Photo 168: Panzano - Villa - Mika Jumping Into Pool with Mara and Aidan
Photo 169: Panzano - Villa - Mara Jumping Into Pool
Photo 170: Panzano - Villa - Aidan and the Water Gun
Photo 171: Panzano - Villa - Mika in Yellow Inner Tube
Photo 172; Panzano - Villa - Mara in Yellow Inner Tube
After the above photo session, I was reading my book by the pool, when Mika came up to me and asked me if she could have my shaving cream. I asked her why, and she said because it was “cool.” I guess she had never encountered shaving cream before. Anyway, I told her that I had to shave one more time before going home, so if she gave me a shave, then she could use the rest of my shaving cream. She got the shaving cream, my razor, and a cup of water, and proceeded to lather and shave me, successfully, without even a single nick! You can see below what they did afterwards with the shaving cream that was left.
Photo 173: Panzano - Villa - Shaving Cream on Aidan, Mara, and Mika
Last night we again ate dinner on the porch area in the backyard, and I took an action photo of dinner being put on the table, to show you our dinner environment. It was always temperate and still at night, and very pleasant, especially after the hot days, which we encountered every day we were in Italy on our vacation.
Photo 174: Panzano - Villa - Dinner with Sylvia, Mara, Frank, and Others
Because I have not yet included a decent photo of Frank and Suzanne in this journal, I took the one below for completeness sake, just before dinner. You can see Aidan watching on the left, and Sylvia preparing the salad in the background.
Photo 175: Panzano - Villa - Frank and Suzanne with Aidan and Sylvia
I also took some final group photos. The first two below have all of the kids – Mika, Mara, and Aidan – and the last one is a buddy photo of Mika and Mara – I think this is my favorite photo of the two girls.
Photo 176: Panzano - Villa - Mara, Aidan, and Mika
Photo 177: Panzano - Villa - Vertical Mara, Mika, and Aidan
Photo 178: Panzano - Villa - Mika and Mara Buddies
The last photo in the journal is of the entire Jeff Cook family, taken by Mara with my camera while Suzanne was taking Cook family photos with her camera. Mara thought she had taken four photos so we would have a choice of one to put here, but she only took one, so we will get one of Suzanne’s to put here for the final copy of the journal.
Photo 179: Panzano - Villa - Sylvia, Mika, and Jeff
Prego! Ciao!
Impressions
It was far too hot on this vacation, and we will make sure never again to come during this time of the year. The mid-day temperature was constantly in the 85-95°F range. Better to either come earlier, in spring, or later, in the fall. Sylvia has always come in May or September in the past, but this year Mika’s school schedule prevented us from leaving until June 20th.
We had no problem with our use of the English language at any time on our trip, whether at the airports in Germany or Italy, or in any of the places we visited in Italy. Most Italians, when asked if they spoke English, would respond “a little,” and then be almost completely conversant. The ones who did not, we could still communicate with, using gestures and pointing.
We learned a number of Italian words and phrases during our trip – toilette (bathroom), gracie mille (thanks a thousand), bon giorno (good day), buena sera (good afternoon/evening), prego (please/your welcome), ciao (hi/bye), arivedercci (see ya), domani (tomorrow), oliva (olive), olio (oil), pomodoro (tomato), pesce (fish), etc.
The rumors about pickpockets in Rome and rip-off taxi drivers proved totally unfounded. We saw a number of Gypsies begging, but experienced no criminal activity of any sort and did not feel ripped off by anyone. Our most expensive taxi ride was the hour-long ride from the Naples airport to Positano. Our cheapest taxi ride was under €4.
The prepared food in Italy is absolutely fabulous, as are the fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, meats, cheeses, bread, coffee, chocolate, etc. The people are nice and extremely helpful. All staff members at our hotels were especially nice and attentive to our needs.
It is good to stay in one place for a while during an extended vacation. Traveling constantly drives me crazy, and I really cannot absorb, experience, and become comfortable with a place until I’ve been there for a few days.
Some additional notes by Sylvia:
This journal is terrific and so comprehensive that there is little else to say.
I just wanted to mention how helpful our Frommer’s Italy 2003 guidebook was in suggesting hotels (which turned out to be no problem booking at the last minute), restaurants, and sights.
Additionally, I wanted to mention the neighbors (other than the McKevitts) who shared our villa in Panzano. The villa (built 300 years ago) was divided into 3 apartments. Six people from Colorado occupied the largest apartment, including an adorable little girl, named Alex, who celebrated her 10th birthday while we were there. Her dream was to have her patents win the lottery so they wouldn’t have to work, then move to Italy and be home schooled. Another member of her party was a neurologist named Jerry who went for 50-100 kilometer mountain bike rides daily on the Tuscan hills, in the 95° heat. Talk about driven! He was very bright, smoked occasional Cuban cigars, and was quite an interesting character.
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To the Table of Photos
Addendum
Positano Church
Photo 180: Positano Church - Interior Front
Photo 181: Positano Church - Organ in Back
Photo 182: Positano Church - Interior Front Close-up
Photo 183: Positano Church - Painting to Be Restored
Capri Seacoast
Photo 184: Capri - Vertical Grotto with Mika
Photo 185: Capri - Vertical Grotto
Photo 186: Capri - Coastal Arch
Photo 187: Capri - White Grotto on Approach
Photo 188: Capri - White Grotto
Photo 189: Capri - White Grotto Close-up with Jeff and Mika
Photo 190: Capri - White Grotto Detail
Photo 191: Capri - Pretty Coastline
Photo 192: Capri - Arch with Jeff, Sylvia, and Mika
Montepertuso Walk
Photo 193: Montepertuso Walk - Home Doorway with Sylvia
Photo 194: Montepertuso Walk - Mika Befriends Dog
Photo 195: Montepertuso Walk - Grape Arbor with Cat
Photo 196: Montepertuso Walk - Ocean View East
Photo 197: Montepertuso Walk - Ocean View West
Photo 198: Montepertuso Walk - View of Positano Through Trees
Photo 199: Montepertuso Walk - View of Positano Hillside West
Photo 200: Montepertuso Walk - House Courtyard
Photo 201: Montepertuso Walk - House Courtyard Entry with Mika
Photo 202: Montepertuso Walk - Those Pesky Steps
Positano Apartment
Photo 203: Positano Apartment - Street Gate with Mika
Photo 204: Positano Apartment - Steps to Interior Gate with Mika
Photo 205: Positano Apartment - Interior Gate with Mika
Photo 206: Positano Apartment - Courtyard with Mika
Photo 207: Positano Apartment - Courtyard Approaching Front Door with Mika
Photo 208: Positano Apartment - Front Door with Mika
Photo 209: Positano Apartment - Mika's Bedroom
Photo 210: Positano Apartment - Mika's Bathroom
Photo 211: Positano Apartment - Kitchen
Photo 212: Positano Apartment - Master Bedroom
Photo 213: Positano Apartment - Master Bedroom Wall Ornaments
Photo 214: Positano Apartment - Master Bedroom Closet
Photo 215: Positano Apartment - Master Bathroom
Photo 216: Positano Apartment - Master Bedroom Ceiling Painting
Photo 217: Positano Apartment - Author Jeff's Writing Table
Positano Food
Photo 218: Positano Food - Ristorante Bruno
Photo 219: Positano Food - La Sirenuse Entryway (La Sponda)
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Photo 220: Positano Food - Ristorante Max
Photo 221: Positano Food - Chez Black on the Beach
Photo 222: Positano Food - Ristorante Buca di Bacco on the Beach
Photo 223: Positano Food - Ristorante Pizzeria la Pergola on the Beach
Photo 224: Positano Food - Lido L'Incanto Snack Bar on the Beach
Ravello Duomo and Museum
Photo 225: Ravello Duomo - Marble Inlay with Mika
Photo 226: Ravello Duomo - Marble Floor Inlay
Photo 227: Ravello Duomo - Side Nook Detail
Photo 228: Ravello Duomo - Ancient Shrine Detail
Photo 229: Ravello Duomo Museum - Lamb with Cross
Photo 230: Ravello Duomo Museum - Geometric Tile Inlay
Photo 231: Ravello Duomo Museum - Tile Inlay Monster
Photo 232: Ravello Duomo Museum - Sarcophagus Lid
Photo 233: Ravello Duomo Museum - Eagle Statuary
Villa Rufolo in Ravello
Photo 234: Ravello - Villa Rufolo - Mika Reclining
Photo 235: Ravello - Villa Rufolo - Landscape
Photo 236: Ravello - Villa Rufolo - Multi-Headed Cycad
Photo 237: Ravello - Villa Rufolo - Arbor Detail with Mika
Photo 238: Ravello - Villa Rufolo - Archway
Photo 239: Ravello - Villa Rufolo - Mika with Hydrangea
Photo 240: Ravello - Villa Rufolo - Tower
Photo 241: Ravello - Villa Rufolo - Doghouse
Paestum Ruins and Museum
Photo 242: Paestum - Temple of Poseidon Close-up
Photo 243: Paestum - Athenaion
Photo 244: Paestum Museum - Diver's Tomb Plate 1
Photo 245: Paestum Museum - Diver's Tomb Plate 2
Photo 246: Paestum Museum - Diver's Tomb Plate 3
Photo 247: Paestum Museum - Diver's Tomb Plate 4
Photo 248: Paestum Museum - Diver's Tomb Plate 5
Photo 249: Paestum Museum - Shadow Friezes
Photo 250: Paestum Museum - Warrior Frieze
Photo 251: Paestum Museum - Bronze Vase
Pompeii Artifacts
Photo 252: Pompeii - Dead Man Sitting with Urns
Photo 253: Pompeii - Dean Man Reclining with Urns and Pots
Photo 255: Pompeii - Wall Paintings Plate 1
Photo 256: Pompeii - Wall Paintings Plate 2
Photo 257: Pompeii - Dead Man in Agony
Rome Tour
Photo 258: Rome Tour - Another Fountain in Bruno’s Medieval Square
Photo 259: Rome Tour - Three Columns and Mika
Photo 260: Rome Tour - Neat Gargoyle
Photo 261: Rome Tour - Ruins Near The Coliseum
Florence Statues
Photo 262: Florence - Piazza Signoria - Bronze Statue with Medusa
Photo 263: Florence - Piazza Signoria - Marble Statue with Ratto
Photo 264: Florence - Piazza Signoria - Bronze Fountain Front
Photo 265: Florence - Piazza Signoria - Bronze Fountain Back
Photo 266: Florence - Piazza Signoria - Marble Statue with Centaur
Photo 267: Florence - Piazza Signoria - Marble Statue Threesome
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Back to Addendum
Table of Photos
Photo 1: Positano - Bay East at
Dawn 3
Photo 2: Positano - Bay West at
Dawn 3
Photo 3: Positano - Bay East at
Mid-Morning 4
Photo 4: Positano - Bay West at
Mid-Morning 5
Photo 5: Positano - Hillside
West at Mid-Morning 5
Photo 6: Positano - Mika at
Breakfast Outside Apartment 6
Photo 7: Positano - Sylvia and
Mika at Buca di Bacco 7
Photo 8: Positano - Jeff and
Mika on the Rocks Near the Dock 8
Photo 9:Positano - Church, La
Sirenuse, and Apartment from Bay 8
Photo 10:Positano - Church Dome
from Beach 8
Photo 11: Positano - Mika on
the Bougainvillea Walk 9
Photo 12: Positano - Sylvia and
Mika and the Beach Chairs 10
Photo 13: Positano - Sylvia Greeted
by Profile of Italian Man on the Beach 10
Photo 14: Positano - Mika on
Couch in Apartment 11
Photo 15: Capri - Ferry from
Positano with Sylvia and Mika 12
Photo 16: Capri - Island from
the Ferry 13
Photo 17: Capri - Coast from
Capri Town with Mika 13
Photo 18: Capri - Downtown with
Jeff and Mika 14
Photo 19: Capri - Prada with
Sylvia and Mika 14
Photo 20: Capri - Beach Near
Dock with Mika 15
Photo 21: Capri - Tour Boat
Captain Salvatore 15
Photo 22: Capri - Green Grotto
with Mika 16
Photo 23: Montepertuso Walk -
Fig Tree, Mika, Sylvia, and Dog 17
Photo 24: Montepertuso Walk -
Ocean View with Dog, Mika, and Jeff 17
Photo 25: Positano - Jeff
Reading Outside Apartment 18
Photo 26: Positano - Sylvia
with New Hat Outside Apartment 18
Photo 27: Positano - Da Adolfo
-Jeff and Mika Reading Before Lunch 19
Photo 28: Positano - Da Adolfo
- Rocks with Nicolo Diving and Mika Next 20
Photo 29: Positano - Da Adolfo
- Rocks with Jeff Throwing Ball and Mika Next 20
Photo 30: Positano - Da Adolfo
- Rock and Restaurant 21
Photo 31: Positano - Da Adolfo
- Departure 21
Photo 32: Positano – Hillside
Hotel East Between Da Adolfo and Positano 22
Photo 33: Positano - Hillside
Hotel West Between Da Adolfo and Positano 22
Photo 34: Positano - Dock with
Danielle, Mika, and Sylvia 23
Photo 35: Positano - Mika and
the Dessert Window 24
Photo 36: Positano - New White
Dress for Mika (Beatific) 24
Photo 37: Positano - Food Items
from the Enogastronomia Delikatessen 25
Photo 38: Positano - Fresh
Produce Dinner with Mika and Sylvia 26
Photo 39: Positano - Church
Dome and Hillside from La Sirenuse 27
Photo 40: Positano -
Enogastronomia Delikatessen 27
Photo 41: Positano - Internet
Cafe and Disco Bar 28
Photo 42: Positano - Mika on
Dock below Nicolo's Grandparents’ House 28
Photo 43: Amalfi - From the
Positano Ferry 29
Photo 44: Ravello - View of
Maiori 30
Photo 45: Ravello - Mika
Petting Ceramic Dog 30
Photo 46: Ravello Duomo -
Detail of Tile Inlay 30
Photo 47: Ravello Duomo -
Detail of Interior Dome 31
Photo 48: Ravello Duomo - Sea
Monster Shrine 31
Photo 49: Ravello - Villa
Rufolo - Lovers 32
Photo 50: Ravello - Mika and
Jeff in Cliffside Restaurant 32
Photo 51: Ravello - Sylvia
Gazing in Cliffside Restaurant 33
Photo 52: Amalfi - Rock Jacks
Seawall 33
Photo 53: Paestum - Temple of
Poseidon with Mika 34
Photo 54: Paestum Museum -
Concrete Steps Architectural Detail 34
Photo 55: Paestum - Hotel
Schuhmann - White Awning and Beach 35
Photo 56: Paestum - Hotel
Schuhmann - Beach from Entry 36
Photo 57: Paestum - Hotel
Schuhmann - Beach from Breakfast Area 36
Photo 58: Paestum - Hotel
Schuhmann - Beach South 36
Photo 59: Pompeii - Dead Dog
Twisted 37
Photo 60: Pompeii - Dead Man
Grimacing 38
Photo 61: Pompeii - Forum with
Mika and Cloud-topped Vesuvius 38
Photo 62: Pompeii - Ruin Walls
with Garden 39
Photo 63: Rome - La Residenza 39
Photo 64: Rome Tour - Mika and
the Smart Car with Sylvia and Alan 41
Photo 65: Rome - Piazza
Barberini - easy Internet Cafe with Mika 41
Photo 66: Rome Tour - First
Obelisk Near Spanish Steps 42
Photo 67: Rome Tour - Boat
Fountain with Mika 43
Photo 68: Rome Tour - Boat
Fountain and Spanish Steps 43
Photo 69: Rome Tour - Trevi
Fountain and Building 44
Photo 70: Rome Tour - Trevi
Fountain 44
Photo 71: Rome Tour - Tour
Group at Trevi Fountain 44
Photo 72: Rome Tour - Roman
Obelisk to Marcus Aurelius 45
Photo 73: Rome Tour - Jesuit
Church 46
Photo 74: Rome Tour - Obelisk
and Pantheon with Alan, Sylvia, and Mika 46
Photo 75: Rome Tour - Pantheon
Dome Top Opening 46
Photo 76: Rome Tour - Pantheon
Dome Middle 47
Photo 77: Rome Tour - Pantheon
Dome Bottom 47
Photo 78: Rome Tour - Minerva
Church - Obelisk Base by Bernini 48
Photo 79: Rome Tour - Minerva
Church - Christ by Michelangelo 48
Photo 80: Rome Tour - Il Bacaro
with Mika and Alan 49
Photo 81: Rome Tour - Neptune
Fountain in Piazza Navona 50
Photo 82: Rome Tour - Four
Rivers Fountain 50
Photo 83: Rome Tour - Four
Rivers Fountain Obelisk 51
Photo 84: Rome Tour - Four
Rivers Fountain with Mika 51
Photo 85: Rome Tour - Statue of
Bruno in Medieval Plaza 52
Photo 86: Rome Tour - Another
Awning Design for Sylvia 52
Photo 87: Rome Tour - Steps up
to Mussolini Square 53
Photo 88: Rome Tour - Ruins
with Coliseum in Background 53
Photo 89: Rome Tour - The
Coliseum 54
Photo 90: Rome - Lunch with
Jeff and Mika at La Residenza 55
Photo 91: Rome - Vatican Museum
- Room of Maps 55
Photo 92: Rome - Vatican Museum
- Ceiling Detail in Rafael Room 56
Photo 93: Rome - Vatican Museum
- Rafael Painting 56
Photo 94: Rome - Vatican Museum
- Corner Detail in Rafael Room (Painting) 57
Photo 95: Rome - Vatican Museum
- Ceiling of Sistine Chapel 57
Photo 96: Rome - Vatican Museum
- Miscellaneous Ceiling Detail 58
Photo 97: Rome - Vatican Museum
- Madonna and Child Stained Glass 58
Photo 98: Rome - Galleria
Borghese with Mika Bottom Center 59
Photo 99: Rome - Via Sistina -
Bulldog in Frame Shop 60
Photo 100: Rome - Mika Drinking
from Water Fountain 61
Photo 101: Peschici - Hotel
D'Amato Corridor 63
Photo 102: Peschici - Town View
from Hotel D'Amato 63
Photo 103: Peschici - Hotel
D'Amato Swimming Pool with Mika 64
Photo 104: Peschici - Hotel
D'Amato Swimming Pool, Room, and Mika 64
Photo 105: Peschici - Hotel
D'Amato Tennis with Mika and Jeff 65
Photo 106: Peschici - Keyn,
Mika, and Max on Lido Orchidea 65
Photo 107: Ravenna - Basilica
of San Vitale Interior Sanctum Mosaics 66
Photo 108: Ravenna - Basilica
of San Vitale Window and Mosaics 67
Photo 109: Ravenna - Basilica
of San Vitale Geometric Floor Mosaic 67
Photo 110: Ravenna - Basi